Det danske Fredsakademi
Kronologi over fredssagen og international politik 19. november 2012 / Timeline November 19, 2012
Version 3.518. November 2012, 20. November 2012
11/19/2012
To military prison, instead of Gaza
Israeli Conscientious Objector Natan Blanc To be imprisoned this
morning
Today, Monday November 19th, Natan Blanc, a 19 years old Israeli
from old Haifa, will show up at the recruitment bureau, inform
officers there of his refusal to serve in the IDF, and will likely
be sent immediately to the military prison. His act of
conscientious refusal is directly connected to the current
situation and the army's acts in Gaza. He took this decision even
before hearing the terrible news of five women and four children
being killed today by a single Israeli Air Force bomb:
I began thinking about refusing to join the Israeli Army during the
'Cast Lead' operation in 2008. The wave of aggressive militarism
that swept the country then, the expressions of mutual hatred, and
the vacuous talk about stamping out terror and creating a deterrent
effect were the primary trigger for my refusal.
Today, after four years full of terror, without a political process
[towards peace negotiations], and without quiet in Gaza and Sderot,
it is clear that the Netanyahu Government, like that of his
predecessor Olmert, is not interested in finding a solution to the
existing situation, but rather in preserving it. From their point
of view, there is nothing wrong with our initiating a 'Cast Lead 2'
operation every three or four years (and then 3, 4,5 and 6): we
will talk of deterrence, we will kill some terrorist, we will lose
some civilians on both sides, and we will prepare the ground for a
new generation full of hatred on both sides.
As representatives of the people, members of the cabinet have no
duty to present their vision for the futures of the country, and
they can continue with this bloody cycle, with no end in sight. But
we, as citizens and human beings, have a moral duty to refuse to
participate in this cynical game. That is why I have decided to
refuse to be inducted into the Israeli Army on the date of my
call-up order, November 19, 2012.
Natan Blanc
Natan can be contacted by email: nathanbl@walla.com
For assistance: info@gush-shalom.org
11/19/2012
Declassified Pentagon History Provides Hair-Raising Scenarios of
U.S. Vulnerabilities to Nuclear Attack through 1970s
Study Specifically Addresses U.S. Strategic
Command-Control-and-Communications [C3] Systems
President Could Try to Survive Attack by Escaping or Try to Command
U.S. Forces - But Not Both, According to One Report
Reagan Spent Billions on C3 Upgrades But Kept Secret Its Top
Priority
National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 403. / :
Edited by William Burr
Washington, D.C., November 19, 2012 -- For decades, U.S.
command-control-and-communications (C3) systems were deeply
vulnerable to nuclear attack, according to a recently declassified
Pentagon study. The document, a top secret internal history of the
highly complex procedures that connected the White House and senior
civilian and military leaders with local commanders awaiting orders
to launch bombers and missiles, details sometimes harrowing reports
about systemic weaknesses that could have jeopardized U.S.
readiness to respond to a nuclear attack.
According to the report, A Historical Study of Strategic
Connectivity 1950-1981, prepared by the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Historical Division, earlier top-secret analyses had concluded that
despite the presence of counter-measures installed over the years,
high altitude bursts and electromagnetic pulses could still
paralyze communications links and cut warning time of an attack to
as little as seven minutes. Furthermore, nuclear detonations could
destroy presidential helicopters along with the vital National
Emergency Airborne Command Post (NEACP), putting in question
whether the U.S. would be capable of delivering a nuclear response
- the essence of deterrence.
A 1978 Defense Science Board report cited by the JCS history found
that the "provisions for National Command Authority survival were
critically deficient." If the President happened to be in
Washington, D.C. at the time of a nuclear attack, "it would be
possible ... for the President either to command the forces until
the attack hit Washington and he was killed or to try to escape and
survive, but not both."
The National Security Archive obtained this JCS historical study
through a Freedom of Information Act appeal to the Defense
Department. The Pentagon had previously released the document but
in massively excised form. This briefing book is one of a series of
occasional postings aimed at disseminating new documentation on a
variety of nuclear issues as it becomes available through U.S.
government declassification processes.
Read today's posting at the National Security Archive's Nuclear
Vault - http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/nukevault/ebb403/
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