According to Roberts, a Google search revealed that this "most alarming of all announcements" had only been reported in a single US publication -- the Times-Gazette of Ashland, Ohio. There were, Roberts reported, "no reports on US TV, and none on Canadian, Australian, European, or any other media except RT [a Russian news agency] and Internet sites."
Roberts also was alarmed to discover that no "US senator or representative or any European, Canadian, or Australian politician has raised a voice of concern that the West was now preparing for a first strike on Russia" nor, it appeared, had anyone reached out to "ask Putin how this serious situation could be defused."
(Roberts has previously written that Beijing's leaders also fear the US has detailed plans for a nuclear for strike on China. In response, China has pointedly reminded the US that its submarine fleet stands ready to destroy America's West Coast while it's ICBMs go to work obliterating the rest of the country.)
"Never in my life have I experienced the situation where two nuclear powers were convinced that the third was going to surprise them with a nuclear attack," Roberts wrote. Despite this existential threat, Roberts notes, there has been "zero awareness and no discussion" of the growing risks.
"Putin has been issuing warnings for years," Roberts writes. "Putin has said over and over, 'I issue warnings and no one hears. How do I get through to you?'"
The US Senate now has a critical role to play. The bill is currently before the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations. The committee has an opportunity to acknowledge the grave existential risks created by H.R. 1644 and make sure that no companion bill ever makes it to the Senate floor. If this precipitously ill-conceived legislation is allowed to survive, our own survival -- and the survival of hundreds of millions of others around the world -- cannot be guaranteed.
Gar Smith is a veteran of the Free Speech Movement, an anti-war organizer, a Project Censored Award-winning reporter, Editor Emeritus of Earth Island Journal , co-founder of Environmentalists Against War, a member of the board of World Beyond War, author of Nuclear Roulette and editor of the forthcoming book, The War and Environment Reader .
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
3
3
2
