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Robert Muller Recognises an Emerging
World Superpower
Dr. Robert Muller, former asst. secretary general of the United Nations,
now Chancellor emeritus of the University of Peace in Costa Rica,
recently addressed an audience in San Francisco. At age eighty, Dr.
Muller surprised, even stunned, many in the audience with his most
positive assessment of where the world currently stands.
He said that "never before in the history of the world has there been
a global, visible, public, viable, open dialogue and conversation
about the very legitimacy of war. The whole world is now having this
critical and historic dialogue--listening to all kinds of points of
view and positions about going to war or not going to war. In a huge
global public conversation the world is asking - ‘Is war legitimate?
Is it illegitimate? Is there not enough evidence to warrant an attack?
What will be the consequences? The costs? What will happen after a
war? How will this set off other conflicts? What might be peaceful
alternatives? What kind of negotiations are we not thinking of? What
are the real intentions for declaring war?’"
Focussing not on the problem, but on the emerging solution, Dr. Muller
concluded his speech with the following words: "We are not at war.
We, the world community, are WAGING peace....The largest peace demonstrations
in the history of the world are taking place! ....So this is a miracle.
This is what ‘waging peace’ looks like....now, there are two superpowers:
the United States and the merging, surging voice of the people of
the world... All around the world, people are waging peace."
Robert Muller’s personal website is located at www.robertmuller.org.
Impassioned voice for world peace
by Dr. Helen Caldicott
Physician, humanist, advocate for nuclear disarmament, Dr. Helen Caldicott
is a true woman of peace. She is recognized in every corner of the
globe as the most visible advocate for global nuclear disarmament.
She founded and headed Physicians For Social Responsibility and Women’s
Action For Nuclear Disarmament. Her latest book is "The New Nuclear
Danger - George Bush’s Military Industrial Complex". Her site is:
http://www.noradiation.org/caldicott/
Two sinister nuclear dangers hover above the present international crisis. An attack on the cooling system or electricity supply of a nuclear reactor would produce a nuclear meltdown within minutes to hours. There are 403 large nuclear power plants worldwide; the US alone has 103 power reactors scattered across the nation.
Now that America is in retaliation mode, it is facing the possibility of a strike against one or more of its reactors. The medical ramifications are hard to imagine and impossible to prepare for. In a typical attack, over 100,000 would die within 6 weeks, hundreds of thousands would be sickened, including approximately 300,000 cancer victims.
The second and potentially more ominous threat results from America’s newly unleashed "campaign for global hegemony".
Heightened international tensions place the world in extreme danger because America currently maintains some 5,500 nuclear weapons on hair trigger alert while Russia’s nuclear arsenal of 5,200 nuclear weapons is on similar alert. With America and Russia’s early warning systems on "red alert", a nuclear war could be triggered by a trivial technological incident in the early warning system, or by human error under such fraught international circumstances.
Not to be forgotten is the ominous fact that the explosion of 1000 hydrogen bombs on 100 cities could induce nuclear winter and the end of most life on earth. The sword of Damocles hangs over our heads by the slenderest of threads, making war obsolete. Humanity has but two choices - discover the way to peace , or face the very real possibility of nuclear annihilation.
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