The United States emerged from World War II as a nuclear power—the sole nuclear power.  The American political and military establishment wanted the U.S. to remain the only power with nuclear weapons at their disposal.  As such, the U.S. would dominate the world, not just the Western Hemisphere. They would have had the capacity, derived from nuclear blackmail, to run over every nation in the world, the way they treat the countries of Latin America.  They would be thereby not just a  regional bully but a global bully.  They would have been for the past six decades the sole rogue superpower, and behaved in the Middle East then the way the U.S. and Israel are behaving today, since the collapse of the Soviet Union.  Today the Palestinian, Syrian, Iraqi, and other Muslim and Arab states in Middle Asia are at the mercy of U.S. whims. 

This is why the U.S. political and military establishment today are so upset at the prospect of an Iran, Iraq or Syria having nuclear deterrents.

But the U.S. did not for long last the world's sole nuclear power.  The Soviet Union soon followed, with both nuclear capacity and rocket technology to match those of the United States.  China soon had nuclear capability as well.  The U.S. was held in checkmate, unable to use nuclear forces against its "communist enemies" in Europe, or Asia.  The Soviet Red Army was able to enter Hungary in 1956, and the Korean attack on the U.S. backed South Korean government was politically and militarily supported by the Soviet Union, and Chinese troops intervened to check the American military advances.

Because, today, the North Koreans have nuclear weapons, the United States is dealing differently with North Korea in comparison to Afghanistan and Iraq.  This shows that U.S. imperialism is not just a rogue superpower, but a coward ass bully one at that! On the battlefield in the 1950s, the Koreans were able to give the U.S. military a bloody nose, ultimately with the support of China and the Soviet Union providing a nuclear umbrella.

During the Second World War—fought out in Europe, North Africa and South and East Asia—the United States entered the European conventional theatre against German Nazi occupations in north Africa and southern Europe.  This entry came, however, after the Soviet Red Army had already broken the Nazi arrogance and confidence, forcing the Nazi army to retreat from Soviet territory, and Eastern Europe.  This enabled the British and American forces to win some important victories in the northern African and southern European theatres.

In Asia, in the war against Japanese imperialism, the United States in military defense of British imperialism in the war against Japan inadvertently joined with the Chinese resistance.  However, the Chinese, Vietnamese, and Korean resistance to Japanese imperialism, which had displaced the British and the French, were in each case a communist-led national liberation movement. The Chinese People's Liberation Army was fighting to rid their country of Japanese military occupation. 

On the other hand, the United States was fighting against Japanese imperialism in the Pacific to displace Japanese imperialism by U.S. imperialism.  The American military forces took an ass whipping early on in that war—not just its military-naval forces at Pearl Harbor in U.S. occupation of the Asian island nation, Hawaii, but also were run out of the Asian Philippines.  This is when General MacArthur cut tail and ran, abandoned his troops with the famous line: "I will return!"

The United States and British forces were defeated by Japanese forces in China (Hong Kong), the Philippines, Malaya, Guam, Wake Island, and so on, proving the "White Man's Army" was not "invincible," and that the defeat by Japan of the Russians in 1905 was not a fluke.  When the United States did defeat the Japanese, forcing unconditional surrender, it was by cowardly exploding nuclear devices on the Japanese civilian populations of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

The United States wars in Asia were imperialist wars, and had nothing to do with "liberating" any indigenous people from foreign domination by military occupation.  The French imperialists, that were chased from Viet Nam, Cambodia and Laos—so-called French Indo-China—returned to "French Indo-China," particularly Vietnam, with the support of U.S. imperialism.  The British returned to Hong Kong, and the U.S. to the Philippines, Wake Island, Guam, and established occupation bases in South Korea, Japan and logistical troops in the south of Vietnam.

The "American Century" was that the nuclear scientists, physicists, and rocket science engineers were taken from Germany to the United States, along with chemists and biologists from Germany and elsewhere which gave the Americans an edge in military science and technology.  The Soviets got their share of scientists, also. Thus, with the "Arms Race" and the "Space Race" between the United States and Soviet Union, there emerged the doctrine of "nuclear deterrence," or "Mutually Assured Destruction," or "MAD."

The United States was therefore unable to use its nuclear forces against Soviet allies in Asia—China, Vietnam, Korea—or even Cuba in the Caribbean. The United States as a result had to engage in conventional ground wars, with heavy usage of conventional bombs, in the wars in Korea and Vietnam (once U.S. imperialism replaced the defeated French in "French Indo-China" as a result of the victorious Vietminh). The United States fought to a standstill in Korea, where it continues to occupy the South, as well as to militarily shore-up Taiwan and occupy Japan. But the American forces were defeated in Vietnam by the Vietnamese people themselves and driven from Cambodia as well.

In the U.S. aggressions against Korea and Vietnam, some 3,000,000 Koreans were killed, and 3,000,000 Vietnamese—millions of civilians in each aggression. But the U.S. was unable to use its nuclear forces, and hundreds of thousands of U.S. military personal were killed, perhaps millions maimed, wounded, and psychologically damaged: Rambo movies notwithstanding.

The lie propagated by the American right-wing to "explain the cause" of the American losses in Korea and Vietnam is that "Washington politicians wouldn't let the generals "do their job." Balderdash! The U.S. "Washington politicians" didn't allow the generals to use nuclear weapons in Korea and Vietnam, because the Russians and the Chinese as well also had nuclear weapons. The Soviets supported the Koreans, the Chinese the Vietnamese with arms—MIGs, surface to air missiles, anti-aircraft weapons and so on and the Americans could do nothing about it, short of nuclear war with the Soviet Union and "mutually assured destruction."

The confirmed nuclear powers in the world today are the powers that dominate the United Nations Security Council as its permanent members with veto power: United States, Russia, China, France, and Great Britain. Other countries in possession of nuclear weapons include Israel, India, Pakistan, and now Korea. The United States does not want India, Pakistan, and Korea to have nuclear capacity, but can't do a damn thing about it

Given the reluctance of U.S. imperialism to fuck with countries that are nuclear capable, if Iran and Libya had nuclear parity with  Israel that would certainly make the United States and Israel come to their senses and cut a peace deal with the Palestinians.

But the reality on the ground today is that the Israelis are a nuclear power—the only one in the region. Thus, in today's ArabicNews.Com we read the headlines and story: 

Physician Killed by Israel. Killed while he tries to help wounded Palestinians 

Palestine-Israel, Politics, 10/21/2003

Palestinian official calls for deployment of intervention forces in occupied territories             Palestine-Israel, Politics, 10/15/2003

Note that the countries of the so-called "Quartet," to which the poor and defenseless Palestinian Liberation Organization is forced to plea to for help, are all White nuclear powers.  These are the same countries that have done nothing to end Israel's nuclear stockpile, and were the ones that both passed resolutions against Iraq having "weapons of mass destruction," and are today snooping around Iran to make sure Iran doesn't even have the capacity to manufacture nuclear weapons!

WORLDWIDE NUCLEAR WEAPONS STOCKPILES

Now, it must be remember that the United States is the only country in the world to use nuclear weapons on innocent civilian populations.

United States and Russia maintain several thousand nuclear weapons on hair-trigger alert, or "launch-on-warning" status—for immediate launch. China has dealerted its forces, and Britain and France maintain far lower levels of alert since the NATO Warsaw Pact standoff ended with the collapse of the latter.

Russia has vowed  not to use nuclear weapons "first," but the United States refuses to "tie it's hands" by such a commitment. In the 1973 war with Egypt, Israel went on nuclear alert, and only at the last moment was talked out of its plan to make Cairo "toast."

Contact: Joe_Radical@earthlink.net

*   *   *   *   *

update 27 June 2008