WAR |
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THE WAR AND THE FUTURE |
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18 November 2017, in Amsterdam the annual Nexus Conference took place with as its theme ‘The Last Revolution’, a reference to Trotsky’s belief that the Russian Revolution, a hundred years ago by this point, would be the last. For the afternoon debate on the subject ‘the world of freedom’, Aleksandr Dugin and Antony Blinken sat together at a round table, along with other speakers. Dugin, famous as Putin’s philosopher and whisperer, said the following -> |
Morality in the Atomic Age |
Author CRT Admin, August 6, 2020, Categories Commentary
Seventy-five years ago today, the American B-29 Superfortress bomber, the Enola Gay, piloted by Colonel Paul Tibbets, opened its bomb bay doors and dropped an atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima, initiating humanity to atomic warfare. President Harry Truman made the decision to drop the bomb and then a second one three days later on Nagasaki. I have been told that he chose such destruction in place of an American invasion of Japan, which was predicted to result in massive civilian casualties and damage in town after town and city after city and great losses to American ground forces. One of the founders of the Caux Round Table, Ryuzaburo Kaku, was in Nagasaki on August 9, 1945 when the second bomb was dropped. I once listened to Kaku-san at Mountain House in Caux, Switzerland describe his experience that day. He had been in a basement when the bomb detonated. On going up to the street, Kaku was amazed first at the silence – total silence, not even the sound of birds. Then he looked around – buildings destroyed – no people, not one – in sight. His response to his survivor’s guilt – why me? What am I to do with my life to deserve it? – was to be exemplary in working for a higher vision in his business career with Canon Inc. He took a Japanese concept – kyosei or symbiosis – and developed it into a global ethic of business responsibility for stakeholders. You can read his article on kyosei in the Harvard Business Review here. We live with the threat of nuclear war still today. An arms race between the U.S. and China appears to be underway. Both India and Pakistan have nuclear weapons. Israel is reliably reported to have nuclear weapons. Many worry that Iran, no friend of Israel, will develop nuclear weapons. North Korea, presumably, is very close to having a small nuclear arsenal. For those who advocate a principled commitment to the moral use of power, what might the date August 6 portend? First, that a terrible war, a nuclear war, is possible. Our moral powers of self-restraint can fail of their purpose and let a war happen. More importantly, moral purpose, devoutly pursued, can lead to war: fiat iusticia ruat caelum – “Let there be justice though Heaven falls” or alternatively, fiat iusticia et pereat mundus – ”Let there be justice though the world perish.” Morality too, taken to extremes, becomes cruel and destructive. Morality can become a heuristic figure of mind, a kind of cognitive bias, calling forth rationalizations, justifications, excuses. Ethics, perhaps, a bit more utilitarian, balancing considerations of self and other, should be placed in the scales of justice. In an age when atomic war is possible, hard thinking about conflict resolution, alternate forms of warfare, putting brakes on escalation, insistence on good governance, on a balance of interests and of coalitions of the willing to forestall the dangers of going to extremes are warranted. |
Nuclear armageddon: SAY NO! |
WE APPEAL, AS HUMAN BEINGS, TO HUMAN BEINGS: REMEMBER YOUR HUMANITY AND FORGET THE REST. IF YOU CAN DO SO, THE WAY LIES OPEN FOR A NEW PARADISE, IF YOU CANNOT, THERE LIES BEFORE YOU THE RISK OF 'UNIVERSAL DEATH'. 'IMAGINE THE CONSEQUENCES OF A NUCLEAR ARMAGEDDON. THERE IS JUST ONE ALTERNATIVE TO PREVENT UNIVERSAL DEATH': SAY NO! |
Numerous of artists carried out this thought. Short after the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs it was said; IF MAN SAY NOT NO, IF YOU SAY NOT NO, THEN THE LAST HUMAN BEING WILL WANDER WITH TEARED INTESTINES AND POISEND LUNGS, WITH NO ANSWERS AND LONELY UNDER THE POISEND BURNING HOT
SUN AND UNDER SHAKED STARS, LONELY AMOUNG THE ENDLESS MASS GRAVES AND THE COLD IDOLS OF THE GIGANTIC BRICKS IN THE EMPTY CITIES, THE LAST HUMAN BEING, WITHERED, INSANE, ABUSING, COMPLAINING AND HIS TERRIBLE LAMENT WHY WILL UNHEARD DISAPPEAR IN THE STEPPE, BLOW THROUGH THE SHARP RUINS, TRICKLED AWAY IN THE RUINS OF THE CHURCHES, DASH AGAINST
HIGH BUNKERS, FELL IN POOLS OF BLOOD, UNHEARD, NO ANSWER, THE LAST CRY OF THE ANIMALOF THE LAST ANIMAL: MAN. |
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Russell-Einstein Manifesto
Two of the twentieth century’s most famous intellectuals, philosopher Bertrand Russell and physicist Albert Einstein (who died several months before the text was released), issued this manifesto in London on July 9, 1955 to warn the world about the dire consequences of a nuclear war. They urged peaceful resolution to international conflict to avoid “universal death.” |
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Afghanistan |
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World Wars |
In the Treaty of Versailles (1919) the winners imposed relatively hard conditions on Germany and recognized the new states (such as Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Austria, Yugoslavia, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania) created in central Europe out of the defunct German, Austro-Hungarian and Russian empires, supposedly on the basis of national self-determination. Most of those countries engaged in local wars, the largest of them being the Polish-Soviet War (1919-1921). In the following decades, fear of Communism and the economic Depression of 1929-1933 led to the rise of extreme nationalist governments - sometimes loosely grouped under the category of 'Fascism' - in Italy (1922), Germany (1933), Spain (after a civil war ending in 1939) and other countries such as Hungary. |
13 Sep 1943, Mr Churchill was mobbed by the crowd at the City Hall where he received an official welcome. Mr Roosevelt went to Ottawa where he addressed Parliament. |
After the relative peace of most of the 19th century, the rivalry between European powers exploded in 1914, when World War I started. On one side were Germany, Austria-Hungary and Turkiye (the Central Powers/Triple Alliance), while on the other side stood Serbia and the Triple Entente - the loose coalition of France, the United Kingdom and Russia, which were joined by Italy in 1915 and by the United States in 1917.
Despite the defeat of Russia in 1917 (the war was one of the major causes of the Russian Revolution, leading to the formation of the communist Soviet Union), the Entente finally prevailed in the autumn of 1918. During this period, Germany began the systematic genocide of over 11 million people, including the majority of the Jews of Europe, in the Holocaust. Even as German persecution grew, over the next year the tide was turned and the Germans started to suffer a series of defeats, for example in the siege of Stalingrad and at Kursk. |
Napoleonic wars |
Napoleon Bonaparte was France's most successful general in the Revolutionary wars, having conquered large parts of Italy and forced the Austrians to sue for peace. In 1799 he returned from Egypt and on 18 Brumaire (9 November) overthrew the government, replacing it with the Consulate, in which he was First Consul. On 2 December 1804, after a failed assassination plot he crowned himself Emperor. In 1805 Napoleon planned to invade Britain, but a renewed British alliance with Russia and Austria (Third Coalition), forced him to turn his attention towards the continent, while at the same time failure to lure the superior British fleet away from the English Channel, ending in a decisive French defeat at the Battle of Trafalgar on 21 October put an end to hopes of an invasion of Britain |
DULCE ET DECORUM EST |
Wilfred Edward Salter Owen MC (18 March 1893 – 4 November 1918) was an English poet and soldier, one of the leading poets of the First World War. His shocking, realistic war poetry on the horrors of trenches and gas warfare was heavily influenced by his friend and mentor Siegfried Sassoon, and stood in stark contrast both to the public perception of war at the time and to the confidently patriotic verse written by earlier war poets such as Rupert Brooke. Among his best-known works – most of which were published posthumously – are "Dulce et Decorum est", "Insensibility", "Anthem for Doomed Youth", "Futility" and "Strange Meeting".
DULCE ET DECORUM EST Bent double, like old beggars under sacks, If in some smothering dreams you too could pace |