Chapter Seven

SURVIVAL DEPENDENT ON UNIFIED POINT OF VIEW

Nuclear proliferation is hard to say but even harder to live with. Anybody who says that nuclear proliferation does not pose a grave threat to the future of our species on this planet simply hasn't been to town lately.

The specter of every nation in the world possessing nuclear armament commands our attention because the citizens of all nations know the nation they live in has enemies--blood enemies. Nuclear proliferation potentially gives those blood enemies access to power that can light up the skies of any nation in the world. Unless something is done to stop nuclear proliferation, it is a statistical certainty that nuclear terrorism will become a fact of life on this planet. Roll enough dice enough times and any conceivable combination will come up. So too with nuclear terrorism: nuclear proliferation puts the dice on the table and hatred keeps them rolling. Unless nuclear proliferation is stopped, an explosive combination is inevitable.

World leaders know this. The present world leaders know the world is full of people-groups who have many reasons to hate, and want to see destroyed, the present world powers. World leaders look at the prospect of nuclear proliferation and suspect that, had they the means, there are several people-groups and nations in the world today like Saddam Hussein who would not hesitate to deliver a nuclear weapon. (Once the weapon is in hand, delivery methods are innumerable. Anything from missile to Federal Express would suffice.)

Many people outside the circles of power that rule this planet have already looked at the events leading up to the Gulf War and smelled something fishy. Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait looks a lot like the action of a man walking blindly into a trap.

Speculation on the nature of the trap is already forthcoming. Many articles have been written outlining a scenario where Hussein was led to think his invasion would be unopposed by the United States. But no smoking gun has been found.

Perhaps there is no smoking gun. Perhaps the leaders of the world are not yet operating at the level of conscious deliberation in their play to control nuclear proliferation. Perhaps the events developing around us are responses to deep subconscious awareness of facts we have refused to consciously consider because we know to do so would force us to see we live in a time when redefinition of foundational ideas that truly rule the world are now required.

Such times have always been dangerous times. Times of war. Nuclear proliferation has given us a time when war has never been more dangerous to the survival of our species.

Such is the nature of our present tension. Such is the nature of our present dis-ease. Anyone who wants to trace the myriad examples of dysfunctional individuals, institutions, cultures, and nations to their root must come finally to the context outlined here, a context where the specter of nuclear warfare or nuclear terrorism, like an impending meteor collision, lurks beneath the consciousness of every individual in every developed nation on earth.

Were a meteor the size of planet earth to be spotted in the heavens and tracked to be on a direct collision course with this planet, averting the collision would be a top priority on this planet's agenda. National leaders would huddle to call the play designed to stop the meteor.

A key component of the play would be secrecy. Leaders would conclude that secrecy was necessary because the specter of doom created by the image of the hurtling meteor could strike panic in the masses who perceived themselves impotent to avert total annialation.

Some things though cannot be kept secret. Having lived for forty years with nuclear arsenals controlled by a few nations who never used them, all the people on this planet now face the prospect of nuclear weapons becoming available to anybody with enough money to buy them. Beneath us, the nations move like tectonic plates grinding inexorably, tectonic plate against tectonic plate, pressure building beneath the surface. While above the earth, we look up and see the hurtling meteor of nuclear proliferation on a collision course with the earth, its trajectory clearly visible to anyone who cares to look.

World leaders have looked and they have huddled and they have brain stormed and they have acted. Since all the people on earth are involved in the play that has been called, an argument can be made that if a person can comprehend the danger without panicking, that person can exercise the same confidence and self-control being exercised by world leaders, and deserves to be involved in the brain storming leading to the next play. But in order to deal effectively, or even coherently, with our present historical context, we must insist whatever has been hidden in the subconscious recesses of the mind of man now be brought forth into the light of conscious deliberation. The present world leaders have failed to help us do this.

By 1991 very little, if anything, had been said by world leaders attempting to explain how nuclear proliferation would be brought under control. In a context where each year brought several nations closer to joining the nuclear fraternity, about all the general public got from world leaders was a rueful shrug when the subject came up.

The shrug is easy to understand: the problem of nuclear proliferation is enigmatic precisely because most people sense that the only viable solution to the problem of nuclear proliferation will require altering the world's present definition of National Sovereignty. For the leader of a World Power to candidly discuss such a subject in public creates shock waves that rock the tectonic plates upon which nations rest.

Political leaders do not discuss altering the present definition of National Sovereignty because a nation's Rights are enumerated in the present definition. Presently, every nation on earth claims the Right to do whatever it wants within its own national borders. Any power that tries to refuse the nation that Right is violating National Sovereignty.

The concept of National Sovereignty is the idea that explains why it is wrong for one nation to invade another nation first. Without the present definition of National Sovereignty there is no way to explain why it is wrong for a big, powerful nation to subjugate a small, weak nation. At least there is no explanation that nations have committed themselves to listening to.

Once we see this, we can understand why every nation on the earth has a vested interest in defending both the concept and the actuality called National Sovereignty.

And defend it they do. Even nations like the Soviet Union that have already gobbled up smaller nations are quick to come to the defense of the concept of National Sovereignty. So too the United States and her allies throughout the world are very reluctant to do anything that violates either the concept or the actuality of National Sovereignty. We all live in a world where to do so invites war.

In fact, all wars today occur because someone has violated the present definition of National Sovereignty. Now, if we see that war is a product of a violation of the present definition of National Sovereignty, yet, at the same time understand that nuclear proliferation will never be controlled without altering our present definition of National Sovereignty, we have grasped the nature of the present dilemma that confronts this world. Paradoxically, in trying to eliminate the greatest threat to the survival of our species, nuclear proliferation, we must tinker with the trigger mechanism that causes wars to explode.

World leaders rallied around George Bush and supported United States goals in the Gulf War because all of them have glimpsed what will happen when a developed nation like France or the United States or Russia or Japan or Germany or England is struck by a nuclear weapon.

It does not take much imagination to understand that public opinion in developed nations will not tolerate nuclear weapons exploding around them. People in the developed nations are prepared to contemplate nuclear weapons exploding in distant lands, but explode a nuclear device within a developed nation and public opinion will be willing to do anything necessary to eliminate this threat to survival.

World leaders understand this fact and understand as well that the public will, quite reasonably, see the explosion as a failure of present world leadership. At a minimum, wholesale shifts in leadership will occur.

The Gulf War was fought to prevent these wholesale shifts in world leadership. The Gulf War is the first step in a plan to control nuclear proliferation, but other steps will follow, flowing logically out of the steps already taken. Since this is inevitable, insight into the reasoning behind the Gulf War will equip anyone to understand what lies ahead.

The Gulf War occurred because Saddam Hussein was perceived by world leaders to be a dangerous person. He was perceived to be dangerous because he was a cold-blooded murderer who had seized the reins of power in a nation of vast wealth, a cold-blooded murderer on the verge of developing nuclear weapons, a cold-blooded murderer with delivery systems that could catapult nuclear weapons far enough to threaten and perhaps destroy nations with resources all the nations of the earth depended upon.

World leaders were not alone in their assessment. Were the American people to candidly assess their reasons for support of the Gulf War, few people would deny that Saddam Hussein's potential nuclear capability was the decisive factor leading them to believe war was a just response to Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait. The specter of a cold-blooded Arab murderer with the Bomb chilled the blood of people in all the developed nations. And, at least subconsciously, everyone knew that under the present definition of National Sovereignty the only legal way to destroy his nuclear capability was through the instrument of war.

Without war, there was no legal justification for any nation intervening in Iraq's internal affairs and destroying Saddam Hussein's nuclear capability.

Why must the present definition of National Sovereignty be altered if nuclear terrorism is to be contained? Without the presence of a Power that can effectively prevent nations from obtaining nuclear weapons, four decades of nuclear proliferation proves that as soon as a nation possesses the resources to develop nuclear weaponry it does so. Even though the world has lived for nearly fifty years without nuclear weapons being used, most of us know enough about the laws of probability to know that unless something is done time is running out.

Saddam Hussein showed us the future. The specter of nuclear weapons in the hands of Saddam Hussein, Al Fatah, Muammar Khaddafy, IRA, the list goes on and on, convince most people that nuclear proliferation must be stopped. Yet when we look for a way to control nuclear terrorism we run into a dead end at the borders of nations.

Whether we are trying to keep renegade outlaw bands or fully recognized nations from obtaining nuclear weapons, the present definition of National Sovereignty prevents any effective deterrent. Enemies within the borders of a nation can be legally controlled by national authorities within the nation. Enemies outside the border occupy another nation and if those national authorities will not control enemies who reside within that nation, the present definition of National Sovereignty precludes other nations from controlling them except through the control mechanism called war. In other words, if a host nation does not prevent renegade groups from obtaining nuclear weapons, international control of nuclear terrorism between nations is illegal except through the instrument of war.

If international control of nuclear terrorism can hardly be controlled without war, it is presently impossible to avoid war in preventing a bona fide nation from creating nuclear weapons. Since the nations comprising the present World Powers already possess nuclear weapons, there is no logical or legal justification for denying nuclear weapons to any nation with the ability to produce them. Such is the nature of the problem facing the world today.

World problems in the magnitude of an impending meteor collision can be solved in one of two ways: (1) official world leaders huddle in secrecy and develop a scheme to avert the oncoming meteor; (2) everyone who can handle the stress get involved in consciously struggling with the potentially earth-shattering problem.

If events in the foreseeable future occur as a result of a few elite thinkers manipulating the masses into action, our civilization, if not our species, is in great danger. Our survival as individuals and as a species depends on our ability to avoid being stampeded over a cliff. If people are not trained to see what lies in front of them, but are only trained to follow their leaders, all will perish if the leaders go over the cliff. But with proper training, people can react to impending disaster with sufficient speed to actually avoid ultimate catastrophe.

There are millions of people on this planet who can comprehend the dilemma the world now faces and through that comprehension participate in finding a way out of the dilemma. The only thing that can prevent us from finding a way our of our present predicament is the refusal to do what is necessary for the masses of people to be able to consciously participate in the decisions that must be made on this planet.

People prone to panic should not and will not follow the analysis being developed here. Only people who understand themselves to have access to all the resources for survival contained on this planet will have the presence of mind and self-control to follow this analysis. In this category fall millions of people who are not officially world leaders. Those people deserve to be let in on the secret.

Look clearly at our present context. Across the globe, nationalism poises people to be ready to do anything to refuse to be subjugated. If Vietnam did not prove the power of the nationalistic idea, nothing can.

In a world where nationalism now justifies doing anything--anything--to achieve national goals, world leaders are forced to speculate about the reaction of the masses in developed nations to the reality of nuclear terrorism: nuclear weapons being exploded in their midst. Such speculation is the essence of the job description of a world leader, and upon such speculation contingency plans are inevitably formulated.

Speculation about the way people will react requires judgments concerning human nature--conclusions about what makes us tick. World leaders understand that people are ruled by a desire to live, to survive. World leaders know that if a pattern of nuclear terrorism developed, the people of the world will not sacrifice their physical survival to protect something as abstract as the concept of nationhood. Even though nationalism provides the bedrock upon which the self-image of the masses of people is now formed, were that bedrock to no longer be perceived to be an effective instrument for survival, people will shift their self-image to another instrument, another foundation. In the aftermath of a nuclear explosion in a developed nation, world public opinion will decide the present definition of National Sovereignty is no longer a viable mechanism for either individual or group survival. Since nuclear terrorism is a statistical certainty that the Present World Order can hardly prevent, world leaders are now positioning us all to participate in the formation of a New World Order.

Most people with even cursory insight into the historical events in the twentieth century will pause when encountering the last three words in the preceding sentence. The words carry heavy baggage to say the least. No sensible political leader would use them if there were other words available that could accurately convey the message being sent. The fact that President George Bush has chosen to use precisely those words is supposed to tell people with ears to hear something about the course he is subconsciously or consciously plotting for the United States of America, something about the play called by the leaders of the developed nations.

Let us have such ears. A New World Order does not involve business as usual. Throughout history, the words have been used to describe a very specific situation, a situation where the nations of the known world were in the process of being brought under the hegemony of one authority. Hitler had such an idea in mind when he used the words, Napoleon had the same idea, Charlemagne had the same idea, so too did Caesar.

Does it logically follow, then, that because George Bush uses the words he is a new Hitler? No. The English language simply does not contain other words that accurately describe what George Bush has in mind. Since he does intend to preside over a redefinition of the concept of National Sovereignty that will actually result in a New World Order, he was obliged to say so. As an astute politician, and a responsible servant of mankind, George Bush read the temper of the times and decided we are ready to glimpse where we're being led.

George Bush and his peers in the international community have known about the dangers of nuclear proliferation as long as any of us--longer. As leaders they were responsible for doing something to prevent nuclear terrorism from becoming reality. The something they're doing is the creation of a New World Order. George Bush has tried to communicate in his quaint CIA doublespeak kind of way that is what the war with Iraq was really about.

It will become clearer day after day that the leaders of the superpowers have agreed to create an international body that has the right and the power to police, to govern, the affairs of the nations on this planet. The key phrases to watch for are these: "collective security", "family of nations", "international rule of law". Anytime you hear those phrases know that you are overhearing a dialogue between world leaders who are discussing creating a new Sovereign international body that will rule this planet.

The referent for the words New World Order is that international body. Another name for the New Government that will rule the nations of the earth is the United Nations. The United Nations will become a One World Government.

There. They're out. All those words laden with baggage so heavy that to merely utter them gives people the ability to dissect you, catalogue you, and hang you on the wall to dry. Fact is, though, I'm neither a One World Governmenter or a John Birch Right Wing extremist. I'm caught, like you are, like George Bush is, like all of us are, on the horns of a dilemma. Whether we like it or not, whether we've read Revelation a thousand times, whether we've got posters of the UN on our bedroom window, we all know something has got to be done to control nuclear proliferation. Nuclear proliferation is a fact that will not, repeat, will not go away unless people do something to make it go away. If things continue as they have continued for the past forty years, catastrophe is inevitable. Some yahoo leader is going to start making Big Noise that will shake the earth. One World Government is the only conceivable device that can effectively eliminate the threat to survival created by nuclear proliferation.

I must qualify that last statement by pointing out there is one other conceivable way to end nuclear proliferation. Everybody could decide to turn their bombs into plowshares. That's conceivable. When Jesus Christ returns. Until then, government force is the only realistic mechanism to eliminate nuclear proliferation.

What form will the New World Order take? That is the question. Since the New World Order will occur not as a result of a closely choreographed sequence of events, but as an example of the hunt-and-peck method of history making, there is still time for everyone with the ability to comprehend the meaning of events to consciously participate in how the question is answered.

Is the threat to our species created by nuclear proliferation a valid threat? Everything pointed out so far is speculation about future events that no person can forecast with certainty. Perhaps the New World Order will not require a redefinition of National Sovereignty. Perhaps the United Nations can be used as a peace-keeping force that has the power to police nations and people-groups to prevent nuclear terrorism without a wholesale transfer of Sovereignty from nations to the United Nations. Perhaps the United States can continue to head a global alliance of Superpowers that will be able to finesse obdurant nations and cliques into giving them a legal excuse to control those nations without having to redefine the present definition of National Sovereignty.

But it seems reasonable to conclude that the nations of the world will learn from Saddam Hussein's error. In the councils of the world's discontented underclass of nations the moral of the Gulf War will be clear: if you plan to take on the Superpowers, don't do anything to give them an excuse to declare war until you have nuclear weapons. If that is the case, the United Nations will not be legally used again to justify intervention in a nation's affairs unless that intervention occurs after the United Nations has redefined the present definition of National Sovereignty. In other words, do not look for the enemies of the Superpowers to give the Superpowers a legal excuse for a declaration of war. Expect nuclear weapons to proliferate in secret until the day comes when ignored nations can command the world's attention. On that day, the world will face the need for a redefinition of National Sovereignty.

Since the thing called National Sovereignty is targeted for a new coat of paint, understanding National Sovereignty deserves to be a priority on the agenda of everyone on this planet who is interested in survival. In order to understand National Sovereignty, it would be helpful to first sand it down to bare metal: the bare metal of National Sovereignty is called government. Unless one understands government, it is impossible to understand National Sovereignty.

Government has existed during most periods of history as an aspect of reality that caused most people to shake their heads in consternation. It was out there, Government was; and it influenced every aspect of a person's life at one time or another, but the average person did not pretend to understand it. About the best most people could do was try to live with it. The understanding of it was best left to others--lawyers and the like.

Today that attitude will no longer suffice, if it ever did. It is clear to anyone with eyes to see that if our species is to be annihilated on this planet, the weapon creating that annihilation will be the weapon called government. And the question of individual Rights will be for us, as it has been throughout history, the issue that blows the cork out of the bottle.

How the New World Order defines individual Rights will determine whether we enter a new age of Despotism or whether we enter a new age of Liberty. Now, as at every other stage in history, what the people decide to be the will of god will create the government that rules the New World Order. As the government that rules the New World Order will be formed on ideas that define the will of god on earth, the ideas themselves will be formed as we, the people, decide what facts will rule us in the New World Order. For now, as always, the real god of this world is the fact.

The question before the world today is this: is it a fact that there is a Creator out there who endowed all people with inalienable rights? Everyone on this planet is going to be forced to choose sides on that question. And that choice is going to result in a definition of Truth being brought to light in this world.

The choice is inescapable because people cannot live without Truth. The conviction of Truth is a license to move, a license to act, a license to live. Without Truth, people are paralyzed, immobile, utterly powerless to do anything to ward off imminent destruction. Truth will be found because people, like rats or any other creature on the planet will do whatever they feel they have to do to stay alive as long as possible. In this, we are all alike.