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OpEdNews Op Eds    H4'ed 10/4/21

Coleen Rowley Interview: What Are The Prospects For Peace?

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Events are unfolding at a quickening pace. Facing an alarming escalation in tensions around the world, we are looking to our most respected and renowned thought leaders for an honest assessment of both U.S. foreign and military policy to offer their most current thoughts and insights. We know they have some ideas for improving the prospects for peace.

Coleen Rowley is an attorney, peace activist and whistleblower. She's a retired FBI Special Agent and former FBI Minneapolis Division Legal Counsel. For her exposure of the FBI's pre-911 failures, she was named one of Time Magazine's "Persons of the Year" in 2002. We are extremely honored that she took the time to talk to us and share her views. Her responses below are exactly as she provided.

The questions here are not philosophical or abstract. They focus on the realities of the international power struggle unfolding in real time. They directly address the role of the U.S. in the escalating tensions and its capacity to reduce them. We also probe the role of everyday citizens in affecting the relationship the U.S. now has and will have with the rest of the world community.

Here is what Coleen Rowley had to say.

Q. The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists has recently put the hands of its Doomsday Clock to 100 seconds before midnight. Midnight means all-out war, probably nuclear holocaust. This is the closest it has ever been. Do you agree with this dire assessment?

A. This "clock" that began in 1947 was set at 100 seconds to "midnight" in January 2020 and left unchanged in January 2021. I certainly agree with the Bulletin's current dire assessment that we are closer to nuclear holocaust then ever before in history, including during the long "Cold War" with the Soviet Union when several nuclear "close calls" occurred due to tense stand-offs like the Cuban missile crisis, accidents and military misperceptions. This meant that we likely came within minutes of "accidentally" destroying the world as we know it several times. It's hard to imagine that, as a practical matter, the Bulletin can set the hands any closer at this point in an effort to make oblivious people aware of the danger. And unfortunately, many if not most US-NATO military officials and government politicians remain committed to dangerous policies such as "First Use" and "hair-trigger alert," seemingly unworried about the high risk.

Q. The U.S. always portrays itself as the greatest force on the planet for peace, justice, human rights, racial equality, etc. Polls tell us that most other nations actually regard the U.S. as the greatest threat to stability. What in your view is the truth here?

A. The U.S., often working with NATO, Israel, Saudi Arabia and other dictatorships as well as dangerous, even terrorist proxy forces, has been responsible for toppling dozens of governments -- even democratically elected ones -- killing millions of people, mostly civilians, and turning many more into refugees after having destroyed cities, farmland, bodies of water, etc, all over the world. The U.S. has even periodically stooped to using terrorist groups as its proxies and the U.S. military is one, if not the biggest, polluters and contributors to climate change. No wonder the rest of the world considers the U.S.' quest for world domination the greatest threat to peace and, in Martin Luther King Jr's words, the "greatest purveyor of violence in the world."

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John Rachel has a B.A. in Philosophy, and has written eight novels and three political non-fiction books. His political articles have appeared at OpEdNews, Russia Insider, The Greanville Post, and other alternative media outlets. Since (more...)
 

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