Suggested Discussion Outline

[johnkarls]

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TO WAR OR NOT TO WAR (AND AGAINST WHOM) – THOSE ARE THE QUESTIONS


A. Any non-War-And-Peace matters in Leon Panetta’s Memoir that anyone would like to discuss


B. To war or not to war (and against whom???)???

B-1. President Obama’s Authorization-For-Military-Force Request currently pending before Congress
B-2. The current discussion in the national media whether Iran is a greater threat than The Islamic State in Iraq (which is the object of President Obama’s AUMF Request)


C. Nuclear Non-Proliferation – America’s lessons to third-world countries in general (and Iran in particular) NOT to give up their nukes

C-1. Ukraine’s solemn guarantee signed in 1994 by President Bill Clinton, Russian Federation President Boris Yeltsin and U.K. Prime Minister John Major that Ukraine’s independence and territorial integrity would be guaranteed if they surrendered their 1900 multiple-warhead nuclear missiles that they had following the implosion of the old Soviet Union (this guarantee was re-affirmed by President Obama in 2009)

C-2. Libya’s Muammar el Qaddafi who claimed to have panicked after the American invasion of Iraq in 2003 and, as a result, gave up a nuclear weapons program that the CIA did not even know he had -- and whom the U.S. then felt free to depose in 2011 because he had been stupid enough to give up his nukes

C-3. North Korea being smart enough not to give up its nuclear-weapons program, as a result of which it is now treated “with kid gloves”


D. The Consequences of Nuclear Proliferation in The Persian Gulf

D-1. The Gulf State Six (Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, The United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain and Oman) as well as Turkey and Egypt have each announced their intention to go nuclear immediately if Iran goes nuclear

D-2. Virtually all of the world’s agricultural fertilizers come from petrochemicals

D-3. According to http://www.cia.gov, approximately 50% of the world’s oil & gas comes from the Persian Gulf or downwind from the Persian Gulf, so a nuclear holocaust there would make approximately 50% of the world’s 7 billion population unsustainable overnight


E. Osama bin Laden’s Fatwā to nuke 10 million Americans

E-1. The Founding Dean of Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, Graham Allison, wrote a famous book about how to deal with this fatwā

E-2. Dean Allison’s prescription for all of the world’s nuclear powers to “lock down” every iota of fissile material and to prevent any non-nuclear powers, such as Iran, from enriching fissile material, was widely criticized as impractical and, in any event, has not been implemented

E-3. The list of Cassandras includes Tim Russert who interviewed on 5/29/2005 Meet the Press former U.S. Senator Sam Nunn (D-GA and Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman 1987-1995), U.S. Senator Richard Lugar (R-IN and then-current Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman) and Messrs. Thomas Kean and Lee Hamilton (Chair and Co-Chair of The 9/11 Commission) -- during which they essentially recommended following Dean Graham Allison’s prescription which, as previously noted, has NOT been done

E-3. The list of Cassandras also includes Tom Brokaw who participated in Last Best Chance, a 45-minute Docu-Drama produced in 2005 by now-retired-Senator Sam Nunn’s Nuclear Threat Initiative Foundation illustrating the threat of nuclear terrorism with former U.S. Senator Fred Thompson (of TV’s Law and Order fame as Manhattan D.A. Arthur Branch) playing the part of fictitious U.S. President Charles Ross -- and, playing themselves, Tom Brokaw, Sam Nunn and Richard Lugar

E-4. Osama bin Laden’s fatwā can NOT be revoked now that he is dead

[A principle that was on prominent display when the Brits negotiated to restore diplomatic relations with Iran following the death in 1989 of Iranian Supreme Leader Ruhollah Khomeini who had issued a famous fatwā to assassinate Salmon Rushdie in the wake of his fourth novel, The Satanic Verses -- the Brits were told by new Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei that the fatwā could NOT be revoked because Ayatollah Khomeini was dead]

E-5. Presumably Al Qaeda and all of its affiliates feel obligated to carry out Osama’s fatwā to nuke 10 million Americans

[Especially since Pew Research polls before 9/11 showed that America was universally hated throughout the Arab World and most of the Islamic World -- and that following 9/11 until his death, Osama bin Laden was universally loved and worshipped for his opposition to America which continued to be hated]

E-6. 132 suitcase-sized nuclear bombs (among other nuclear weapons) went missing from the old Soviet Union following its 1989 implosion and 84 of the 132 suitcase nukes have never been located -- so even if the bombs themselves are no longer operational, their fissile material will always be operational until used or diluted which is why it would only take one terrorist with a nuclear blueprint or the ability to reverse-engineer a suitcase bomb to nuke an American city


F. Other considerations??? Anyone???


G. Possible Six-Degrees-Of-Separation E-mail Campaigns

G-1. To Pew Research to implore them to conduct polls in Islamic countries and polls of members of Al Qaeda and its affiliates regarding the extent to which Osama bin Laden is still worshipped (while America is still hated) and the extent to which his followers feel an obligation to execute Osama’s fatwā to nuke 10 million Americans

G-2. To Pew Research to implore them to conduct polls to determine the impact on public opinion in Islamic countries of the U.S. Drone Program -- especially now that it no longer appears true as Leon Panetta once reported to the National Security Council (p. 288) that “Al Qaeda’s leadership was being removed faster than it could be replaced”

G-3. Any others??? Anyone???

[Reading Liberally Editorial Note: According to the Pew Research Center’s official website (http://www.pewforum.org), it does NOT appear that there have been any Pew Research polls on Osama bin Laden’s fatwā to nuke 10 million Americans or any Pew Research polls on the U.S. Drone Program even though, for example, the official website has reports of 41 polls over the last 10 years classified under Muslim-Western Relations and 87 polls over the last 10 years classified under Muslims and Islam.]