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>> Professor Noam Chomsky: As
long as nuclear weapons exist,
the chances of survival of the
human species are quite slight.
I mean, there have been repeated
occasions over and over again
when we've come very
close to nuclear war.
In fact, we have
declassified U.S. records,
Russian systems are
obviously much worse.
So whatever is true of us
has got to be worse for them,
but there are literally dozens
of occasions when automated,
I mean, the nuclear weapons are
on automated response systems.
So if you know, automated
systems detect something going
on somewhere.
The computers calculate,
and you get an order
to fire the weapons.
There are literally dozens
of cases where it came up to
within a couple of minutes of
sending off nuclear missiles.
It was aborted by
human intervention.
OK. That's the U.S. side.
Russian side, undoubtedly,
is a lot worse
because they don't have the, the
systems are no good and so on.
Well, you know, that's
just playing with fire.
Sooner or later,
there's not going
to be a human intervention.
Furthermore, there are explicit
cases where we've come literally
within instance of, in,
instance of nuclear war.
I mean, the most extreme case,
which should really
be studied carefully,
is 1962, the missile crisis.
That's been intensively
investigated now for one reason
because the people involved
like Robert McNamera and others
who recognise how crazy it was.
Arthur Schlessinger was
in the government then,
called it the most dangerous
moment in human history.
Now there was actually
a, a moment there
when one Russian submarine
commander prevented what could
have been a nuclear war.
At one point in the
missile crisis,
Kennedy had established
an embargo of Cuba.
No ships could come
within a certain distance,
and Russian ships were
approaching that line.
There were also, it turned,
nobody knew it at the time,
but there were Russian
submarines there
which had nuclear-tipped
missiles.
They were attacked by U.S.
destroyers, death chargers,
and the commanders of the
submarines, who had authority
to fire nuclear missiles.
Same is true of U.S. systems.
They, they thought
a war had started.
There were three commanders.
Two of them decided to
send off the missiles.
OK. The third Vasili Arkhipov,
who should get 20 Nobel
Peace prizes, he [laughter],
he rejected the order,
and they had
to have all three
agreeing to fire.
I mean, if they had fired,
these are not nuclear, you know,
big huge nuclear weapons,
but if they'd fired
nuclear-tipped missiles,
the U.S. reaction we know
from the internal plans was,
you know, they do something
like that, we take out Moscow
or they take out
London, and, you know,
there it goes on from that.
You should read the studies.
We know what they were.
Came that close.
Actually there was another
moment in the missile crisis
which amazingly is described as,
as one of John F.
Kennedy's great achievements.
I mean, might be, it was one
of the worst crimes
in human history.
What happened, the facts
are known and not debated.
At, at a peak moment of the
missile crisis, you know,
just coming to its peak,
Khrushchev wrote a letter
to Kennedy in which he
offered a way to end it.
The offer was that, that Russia
would remove the missiles
from Cuba, and in return,
the United States would
remove missiles in Turkey.
Now the missiles in Turkey are
much more of a threat to Russia
than the missiles in Cuba
were to the United States,
but that's the usual asymmetry.
We were allowed to do
things that others can't do.
Now Kennedy was kind of
surprised when he got
that letter because he
had already given an order
to withdraw the missiles
from Turkey
because they were obsolete.
They were being replaced by
much more destructive Polaris
submarines in the Mediterranean.
So he had a, he pointed out
that, internal discussion,
this is going to be a
hard offer to refuse.
You know, it's not
going to sell in Peoria.
But he decided to refuse it.
Just to preserve the macho image
and to show that we run things.
So, in fact, they did
withdraw the missiles
from Turkey but secretly.
That was part of the process
of humiliating Khrushchev,
and to reach that
goal, he was willing
to face what he himself
considered a probability
about one in, in a
third of nuclear war.
I mean, these are what goes on,
these are the things that go
on in the minds of, you know,
the, the best and the brightest
as they call themselves.
Just think of the rest.
Well, Kissinger, Schultz, and
others who have been right
in the middle of this,
and they know that we're
on the verge of catastrophe.
So they're saying, look, we've
got to do something to get rid
of this destructive capacity.
This really doesn't have to
do with deterrence so much.
I mean, as far as deterrence
is concerned, there are,
interesting discussions, but one
of the most interesting is a
very important book written
by one of Israel's
leading strategic analysts,
and his name's Zeev Maoz.
It's in English.
It's, I think it's called
"Defending the Holy Land",
and he goes through, it's about,
you know, a thousand pages
of detailed analysis of Israel's
strategic objectives since 1948,
and he's very judicious because
the arguments on both sides.
It's carefully, he knows
what he's talking about,
and his basic conclusion is
that Israel's policies
have been selected in ways
in which harm its security.
Actually, that's not unusual.
That's true of the policies of
most states, including Britain
and the United States.
So if you bother to look
at the Chilcot Inquiry,
you'll have noticed
that the head
of British Intelligence
testified that when they decided
to go to war against Iraq,
it was on the assumption
that it would sharply increase
the terrorist risk to Britain,
and she points out that the
CIA had the same assumption.
OK, we already sort of knew
that from other sources,
but this is the highest
level confirmation.
And that's correct, and they
decided to go ahead anyway,
and the reason is the security
of the people of Britain
and the United States is not
a high priority for planners.
It's a low priority.
There's plenty of
evidence for that,
that other countries
are similar.
Now, well, in the case of
Israel, that's his conclusion.
When he gets to nuclear, he has
a chapter on nuclear weapons,
which is, worth reading,
and he argues I think pretty
judiciously and convincingly
that Israel's nuclear weapons
program has harmed its security.
He has a good argument, and if
security were the top concern,
I think that argument
would be taken seriously.
I mean, it's a striking fact
if you look over history
that state actions are often
taken with the understanding
that they may very
well harm security.
And you take a look at
the history of wars,
those who started the
wars very often lose them
with disastrous consequences.
And the, it's taken into account
because there are
higher priorities.
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