Apocalypse Now

For an image of "Apocalypse Now" see: http://www.flickr.com/photos/gideonpolya/4289096468/ .

See Gideon Polya, “War on Terra – US Empire strikes back”, MWC News, submitted 24 February 2006 (but now updated as of February 2010).

http://sites.google.com/site/climatecrisisarticles/war-on-terra.

This article is well illustrated by my huge paintings "Terra":http://www.flickr.com/photos/gideonpolya/4289095912/ and "Apocalypse Now": http://www.flickr.com/photos/gideonpolya/4289096468/ .

War on Terra – US Empire strikes back

SCIENCE FICTIONS FANS are familiar with the Terrans who inhabit the one-moon planet Terra that orbits the medium-sized sun called Sol. A frequent theme is threat to Terra and Terrans from evil extra-terrestrial aliens as initiated by “War of the Worlds” by H.G. Wells (1898) and thence re-jigged in the famous, panic-inducing Orson Welles radio broadcast (1938), Byron Haskin’s film “The War of the Worlds” (1953) and Steven Spielberg’s recent movie “War of the Worlds” (2005).

The War on Terra has become a reality under the egregiously violent democratic imperialism (democratic tyranny, democratic Nazism) of the evil Bush Administration. Millions of Terrans are dying and Terra - the blue jewel of the Sol system and the only planet in the Galaxy or indeed in the whole Universe presently known to carry life - is terminally threatened.

Since World War 2 (WW2) the major European empires slowly retracted, albeit replacing explicit colonialism with neo-colonialism and continued First World economic domination. However as the British Empire retracted, so the US Empire has expanded. This is illustrated clearly by the following listings of countries actually occupied by the UK or the US in the post-war era.

Countries in which the UK was a major occupier in the post-WW2 era include Afghanistan, Bahamas, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Barbados, Belize, Bhutan, Botswana, Brunei, Cameroon, Cyprus; Diego Garcia, Egypt, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Fiji, Gambia, Ghana, Greece, Grenada, Guyana, Hong Kong, India, Iraq, Israel, Jamaica, Jordan, Kenya, Korea, Kuwait, Lesotho, Libya, Malawi, Malaysia, Maldives, Malta, Myanmar, Nepal, Nigeria, Occupied Palestinian Territories, Oman, Pakistan, Qatar, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent & Grenadines, Sierra Leone, Singapore, Solomon Islands, Somalia, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Swaziland, Tanzania, Tonga, Trinidad & Tobago, Uganda, United Arab Emirates, Vanuatu, Yemen, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.

The UK is currently only a major occupier of Afghanistan, Diego Garcia and Iraq.

In contrast, before WW2 the US was in partial or complete military occupation of only Cuba, Guam, the Panama Canal Zone, the Philippines, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands

However, countries in which the US was a major occupier in the post-WW2 era include Afghanistan, Cambodia, Cuba, Diego Garcia, Dominican Republic, Federated States of Micronesia, Germany, Greece, Grenada, Guam, Haiti, Iraq, Japan, North Korea, Laos, Panama, Philippines, Puerto Rico, Somalia, South Korea, US Virgin Islands, and Vietnam.

Of course the US has had other major world-wide involvements in other violence (e.g. in Angola, the Congo, the Honduras-based Contra terrorism against Nicaragua and militarism elsewhere in Central America, South America, Africa and Asia) and the US has military bases in numerous countries throughout the world.

The post-war era began with the noblest of intentions, international agreement on the United Nations, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Geneva Conventions. However these international conventions have been increasingly flouted by the US and its key military allies Israel, the UK and Australia.

The 1950s saw the independence of North African, Middle Eastern and South Asian countries but Zionist racism, militarism, colonialism and expansionism has had a catastrophic effect on the Middle East and South Asia was crippled by the legacy of 2 centuries of frankly genocidal British imperialism. The 1960s and 1970s saw the formal independence of a large number of African countries – but neo-colonial realities have made Africa a continuing nightmare. With increasing international concern over human rights abuses, the operations of the International Criminal Court came into effect in 2002 – with the notable absences of the US and Israel. With increasing international concern from scientists over global warming, the Kyoto Protocol was negotiated in Japan in 1997 and was subsequently ratified by nearly all countries of the world – with the notable exceptions of the US and its greedy lackey Australia, the world’s worst greenhouse gas producer per head of population.

The US Empire strikes back

The world currently has a population of about 6 billion and key resources are dwindling, notably arable land, forests, major ecosystems, fisheries, fresh water and oil.

The US Empire, its allies or surrogates conducted major military campaigns for world resource domination in East Asia (early 1950s), South East Asia (1950s-1975), Central Asia (1980s-present), the Middle East (1980s-present), Central America (all of the 20th century to the 1990s), South America (all of the 20th century until the 1990s via US-backed régimes), South Asia (backing of Pakistan militarization) and in Africa (since the 1960s via US-backed régimes and US-backed rebels).

The cost of Anglo-American violence and economic hegemony has been horrendous. The impact of mindless, racist Anglo-American greed can be gauged from 2 key parameters: (a) global avoidable mortality and (b) global warming.

(a) Avoidable mortality (excess mortality)

Avoidable mortality (excess mortality) is the difference between the ACTUAL deaths in a country and the deaths EXPECTED for a peaceful, well-administered country with the same demographics. Using United Nations (UN) data, avoidable mortality (technically, excess mortality) has been calculated for every country in the world since 1950. The post-1950 avoidable mortality totals 1.3 billion for the world and 1.2 billion for the non-European world, these figures being consonant with independently-calculated estimates of post-1950 under-5 infant mortality totaling 0.88 billion for the world and 0.85 billion for the non-European world (see: my book "Body Count. Global avoidable mortality since 1950", G.M. Polya, Melbourne, 2007: http://globalavoidablemortality.blogspot.com/).

In order to make comparisons, it is useful to calculate the “post-1950 avoidable mortality/2005 population” ratio for different countries and regions of the world: 2.7% (for Overseas Europe i.e. the US, Israel, Australia, New Zealand and Canada), 5.0% (Western Europe), 7.5 % (Eastern Europe), 9.4% (Latin America and the Caribbean), 10.9% (East Asia), 20.7% (Turkey, Iran and Central Asia), 23.0% (Arab North Africa and Middle East), 25.1% (South East Asia), 27.3% (the Pacific), 31.9% (South Asia) and 43.2% (non-Arab Africa).

The post-1950 avoidable mortality in countries in which the US and its key allies were MAJOR occupiers at some stage in the post-WW2 era is as follows (post-war occupations of Cuba, Germany and Japan excluded): countries occupied by Australia (2.1 million), Belgium (36.0 million), France (142.3 million), Israel (23.9 million), Netherlands (71.6 million), New Zealand (0.04 million), Portugal (23.5 million), Spain (8.6 million), Turkey (0.05 million), UK (727.4 million) and by the US (82.2 million).

The US and its major allies have been complicit in a substantial part of the horrendous, post-1950 Third World Holocaust involving a billion avoidable deaths.

(b) Global warming

Global warming is a reality for an international scientific consensus. According to NASA (2006), 2005 was the warmest year in over a century. Over the past century, the world has warmed by 0.8° C (1.44° F) – however, just over the last 30 years Terra has warmed by 0.6° C (1.08° F) (see: http://www.nasa.gov/vision/earth/environment/2005_warmest.html). The world is getting warmer with horrendous implications for a crowded planet. James Lovelock in his latest book “The Revenge of Gaia” (Penguin, London, 2006) says that fundamental planetary self-regulating mechanisms have been irreversibly damaged and that the Earth is in for a rough ride in the long term with average temperature set to rise by as much as 8° C in temperate regions and 5° C in the tropics over the next century (see: http://comment.independent.co.uk/commentators/article338830.ece).

US Empire and its allies - notably its loyal lackey Australia - bear a major responsibility for the developing disaster. Thus in 1999 the tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO₂) per capita were as follows for the following key players: Australia (27.9), Canada (22.2), US (20.7), Ireland (15.6), Netherlands (14.5), New Zealand (14.4) and Denmark (13.6) – with lesser values for Germany (11.6), UK (10.8), Japan (9.6), Italy (9.1), France (8.2), and Russia (7.6) (see: http://www.tai.org.au/WhatsNew_Files/WhatsNew/Percapita070802.pdf and http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/06/18/1087245110190.html).

The US and Australia are the world’s most profligate greenhouse gas producers but the US still refuses to sign the Kyoto Protocols for greenhouse gas control (Australia signed 10 years too late in 2007). Worse still, both the US and Australia are gagging top climate change scientists. Thus the Bush Administration attempted to gag NASA’s top climate change scientist Dr Hansen, longtime director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (see: http://www.theage.com.au/text/articles/2006/01/29/1138469606831.html). Australia is having an economic boom based significantly on coal-based electricity and huge coal exports to the burgeoning China economy. The corporate greenhouse gas producers have an extraordinary political influence in Australia as in the US. Australian authorities have been gagging public servants and indeed the very top Australian climate change scientists (see: http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/content/2006/s1566257.htm).

The War on Terra has to be won by ordinary humanity or Planet Earth is doomed. What can ordinary people do? Peace is the only way but silence kills and silence is complicity. Decent people around the world must (a) inform others to overcome the dominance of lying mainstream media and (b) behave ethically in all their personal and business dealings with the US Empire and its allies.

Just as Sanctions and Sporting Boycotts were ultimately successful against the Minority White Apartheid régime in South Africa, so these mechanisms can be applied very effectively to other SMALL – and hence vulnerable - players in the system of Anglo-American global hegemony and involved in the War on Terra. SMALL countries such as Denmark and Australia - that are major greenhouse gas polluters, are complicit in the egregious violence of US Empire in Iraq (post-invasion avoidable mortality now 0.5 million) and which violate effective free speech (by effectively blocking any media reportage of horrendous Coalition war crimes against Muslim women and children) – are good candidates for such international action.

The sine qua non of the neo-liberal US Empire is “free choice” and the “market place”. Would you buy soap made in Auschwitz? Would you deal in any avoidable way with politically correct racist countries involved in passive mass murder of Terran infants or threatening the very survival of Planet Earth through their War on Terra?