the start of World War III?

[Pearl]

http://www.nydailynews.com/front/story/433715p-365242c.html

It's WWIII, and U.S. is out of ideas


Last week's headlines prove the point: North Korea fires missiles, Iran talks of nukes again, Iraq carnage continues, Israel invades Gaza, England observes one-year anniversary of subway bombing. And, oh, yes, the feds stop a plot to blow up tunnels under the Hudson River.
World War III has begun.

It's not perfectly clear when it started. Perhaps it was after the Berlin Wall fell and the Cold War ended. Perhaps it was the first bombing of the World Trade Center, in 1993.

What is clear is that this war has a long fuse and, while we are not in the full-scale combat phase that marked World Wars I and II, we seem to be heading there. The expanding hostilities mean it's time to give this conflict a name, one that focuses the mind and clarifies the big picture.

The war on terror, or the war of terror, has tentacles that reach much of the globe. It is a world war.

While it is often a war of loose or no affiliation, and sometimes just amateur copycats, the similar goals of destruction add up to a threat against modern society. Even the hapless wanna-bes busted in Miami ordered guns and military equipment from a man they thought was from Al Qaeda. Islamic fascists are the driving force, but anti-American hatred is a global membership card for any and all who have a grievance and a gun.

The feeling that the wheels are coming off the world has only one recent comparison, the time when America's head-butt with communism sprouted hot spots from Cuba to Vietnam. Yet ultimately the policy of mutual assured destruction worked because American and Soviet leaders didn't want their countries hit by nuclear bombs.

Such rational thinking is quaint next to the ravings of North Korean nut Kim Jong Il and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. They both seem to be dying to die - and set the world on fire.

And don't forget Osama Bin Laden's declaration that it is the duty of every Muslim to acquire a "Muslim bomb." Is there any doubt he would use it if he had it?

I sound pessimistic because I am. Even worse than the problems is the fact that our political system is failing us. Democratic Party leaders want to pretend we can declare peace and everything will be fine, while President Bush is out of ideas. Witness Bush now counseling patience and diplomacy on North Korea. This from a man who scorned both for five years.

But what choice does he have now that the pillars of his post-9/11 foreign policy are crumbling? As Harvard Prof. Joseph Nye argues in Foreign Affairs magazine, Bush's strategy of "reducing Washington's reliance on permanent alliances and international institutions, expanding the traditional right of preemption into a new doctrine of preventive war and advocating coercive democratization as a solution to Middle Eastern terrorism" amounted to a bid for a "legacy of transformation."

The first two ideas have been repealed. The third brought Hamas into power and has so far failed to take root in Iraq or anywhere else.

I believed Iraq was the key, that if we prevailed there, momentum would shift in our favor. Now I'm not sure. We still must prevail there, but Iraq could mean nothing if Iran or Bin Laden get the bomb or North Korea uses one.

Meanwhile, I'm definitely not using any tunnels.

It does make you wonder what this is building up to. And the recent events make you stop and think.

 

[vaz02]

3rd world war will be thought between the huge companies such as nike and coca cola .....

 

[melon]

This is hardly WWIII. This is more on-par with the Barbary pirates of the 18th and 19th centuries. The first world wars were clashes between the global superpowers of their days. This time around, it's nuisances from third-world countries looking for attention, and rogue dissidents from these failed states.

This article lacks historical perspective, that's for sure.

Melon

 

[trevster2k]

There have been other people who suggest that we are in the beginnings of the Third World War too. They speculate that due to diminished resources and the rise of countries such as China and India, countries will have to position themselves to have the best access to water, oil, minerals, farmland, etc

 

[verte76]

This article lacks historical perspective, that's for sure.

Melon

Gosh, does it ever.

 

[Kieran McConville]

If this is 'world war III' it's not because of Iran or North Korea. Just like Melon said, let's think about it for a moment. North Korea is a scary place, but it is not the expansionist Japanese Empire of 1935-45, not by a million miles. If they want to pick examples of bad leaders as evidence of a 'global war', why not throw every mad and bad African dictator in the mix as well. Robert Mugabe?

Aside from all that, I distrust writers who talk up war. There is a reason why people erred sometimes on the 'appeasement' side of the ledger in the 1930s. Britain, for one, was in very shaky shape after the devastating First World War (as were most of the big European powers, why else did they put their efforts into the League of Nations?). In the end it went to war again because its options ran out... and in due course it went bankrupt for real.

 

[Pearl]

Originally posted by melon


This article lacks historical perspective, that's for sure.

Melon

Then again it is the Daily News, not exactly high level of journalism.
But it does point out a few things that make you wonder where are we headed, if we are at all

 

[diamond]

but in previous times, technology did not exist the way it does today so we don't have an accurate historical model to compare our day with.

i do think we are on the beaches of normandy of www3.

dbs

 

[BVS]

We love to live in fear, don't we?

 

[diamond]

We love to live in fear, don't we?

No.
That I can make an observation doesn't mean I live fear based life.
I even have love for a fellow like you BVS.

dbs

 

[BVS]

No.
That I can make an observation doesn't mean I live fear based life.
I even have love for a fellow like you BVS.

dbs

I wasn't commenting on your paticular comment.

I'm speaking in general. The history of our country shows we like our fear. McCarthyism, war on drugs, terror alerts, even the Cold War to an extent...just to name a few.

 

[INDY500]

Some subscribe to the idea that the Cold War was actually WW III and that 9/11 was the start of WW IV, a global war against radical Islam. If you are looking only at the number of countries fighting under declarations of war, then no, I don't accept that nomenclature. But that being said, who says a world war must be fought between massive armies of troops?
Didn't both the U.S. and the Soviet Union support skirmishes in Europe, SE Asia, the Middle East, Central America, and elsewhere? Didn't both have enough nuclear missiles targeted around the world so as to leave few countries on the planet unscathed by a full-out attack?
And our current war. If even 10% of Muslim are sympathetic to the cause of Jihad, then countries around the world may soon be faced with the consequences of "home-grown" terrorists. Not to mention Iran possessing nuclear weapons someday.
Again, not sure I concur, but you can make a case for it.

 

[BVS]

And our current war. If even 10% of Muslim are sympathetic to the cause of Jihad, then countries around the world may soon be faced with the consequences of "home-grown" terrorists. Not to mention Iran possessing nuclear weapons someday.
Again, not sure I concur, but you can make a case for it.

Aren't you blurring a lot different and very unique issues here?

 

[silja]

Some subscribe to the idea that the Cold War was actually WW III and that 9/11 was the start of WW IV, a global war against radical Islam.

Like Superbowl XXXIV or XXXV?!? Surely the specific number is one of the least pressing problems of the world.

If you are looking only at the number of countries fighting under declarations of war, then no, I don't accept that nomenclature. But that being said, who says a world war must be fought between massive armies of troops?
Didn't both the U.S. and the Soviet Union support skirmishes in Europe, SE Asia, the Middle East, Central America, and elsewhere? Didn't both have enough nuclear missiles targeted around the world so as to leave few countries on the planet unscathed by a full-out attack?

This does not meet my definition of world war. Skirmishes around the globe and the threat of mutually assured destruction is not similar to many millions of dead within a short number of years due to full blown war and all its horrible consequences.

And our current war. If even 10% of Muslim are sympathetic to the cause of Jihad, then countries around the world may soon be faced with the consequences of "home-grown" terrorists. Not to mention Iran possessing nuclear weapons someday.

10% of the Muslim population?! Where? I don’t know where you have obtained that number but if you use the word “sympathetic” to cover those few lunatics who would willingly murder in the name of their God, you’ve just managed to describe 10% of American, British, French etc. Muslims as extremist, murderous traitors. You want to call attention to the threat of “home-grown” terrorists? Fine, I agree that the threat is real, but I have a strong aversion to sweeping statements like this.

Aren't you blurring a lot different and very unique issues here?

 

[melon]

but in previous times, technology did not exist the way it does today so we don't have an accurate historical model to compare our day with.

Have you seen the kind of "technology" that Hamas uses to send rockets? They're pretty much high-powered fireworks without pretty colors. They are in really sad shape, which is why they're virtually powerless when Israel finally gets fed up with them.

North Korea is pretty much a regional threat, because their Taepodong-2 missile is a joke. Still, kind of like Hamas, you don't want your glorified fireworks to accidentally crash on Seoul or Tokyo, so it is worth pressuring them to stop.

Iran has taken notes from North Korea. If you do nuclear research, you get stuff and also get an insurance policy against invasion. But, like North Korea, they are not an immediate threat. They are yet another nuisance third-world dictatorship looking for attention and recognition.

Making this sound like WWIII is about as absurd as comparing Bush to Adolf Hitler.

Melon

 

[INDY500]

10% of the Muslim population?! Where? I don’t know where you have obtained that number but if you use the word “sympathetic” to cover those few lunatics who would willingly murder in the name of their God, you’ve just managed to describe 10% of American, British, French etc. Muslims as extremist, murderous traitors. You want to call attention to the threat of “home-grown” terrorists? Fine, I agree that the threat is real, but I have a strong aversion to sweeping statements like this.

I sorta agree, the Cold War is over, who cares what else they want to call it. But the current war does provide some unique challenges one of which is the number of people who may believe in it.

10% is a presuppose number but is it really that unlikely at least 10% of Muslims worldwide aren't sympathetic to the ideologies of either the Islam of Hamas, Saudi Wahhabism, Hizbollah, Bin Laden, Islamic Jihad, Eygypt's Muslim Brotherhood or some other regional offshoot? And by sympathetic I mean exactly that, while not necessarily directly involved; theologically & emotionally supportive, publicly or privately condoning or possibly supportive by financial means, providing safe-passage, etc. Goggle a few polls, see what number you come up with.

With roughly 1 billion people of Muslim faith around the world, 10% is 100 million people. How many Nazis were there outside of Germany? How many people believed in Japanese imperialism outside of japan?
A World War? I certainly hope not, but that doesn't make the threat of worldwide violence any less real.

 

[diamond]

Have you seen the kind of "technology" that Hamas uses to send rockets? They're pretty much high-powered fireworks without pretty colors. They are in really sad shape, which is why they're virtually powerless when Israel finally gets fed up with them.

North Korea is pretty much a regional threat, because their Taepodong-2 missile is a joke. Still, kind of like Hamas, you don't want your glorified fireworks to accidentally crash on Seoul or Tokyo, so it is worth pressuring them to stop.

Iran has taken notes from North Korea. If you do nuclear research, you get stuff and also get an insurance policy against invasion. But, like North Korea, they are not an immediate threat. They are yet another nuisance third-world dictatorship looking for attention and recognition.

Making this sound like WWIII is about as absurd as comparing Bush to Adolf Hitler.

Melon

My points were:

With the advance of technology it is only a matter of time that terrorists and rogue nations will be capable of doing serious damage to free minded nations.

Further you can't compare our history to times past because of the wild card of technology.

Lastly if this is the start of a 100 yr war against terrorists/facists (which I think it is you would have to have your head buried in the sand to think otherwise).. I stand by my statement we are "approaching the beaches of Normandy of WWIII "


dbs

 

[verte76]

Isn't this a question of semantics? Whatever we want to call any upcoming conflict it's pretty scary.

 

[diamond]

Isn't this a question of semantics? Whatever we want to call any upcoming conflict it's pretty scary.

question of semantics -apparently so.

dbs

 

[Harry Vest]

"World War III" began on one of two days...the day Bush stole the election or September 11, 2001.

 

[nbcrusader]

This thread reminded me of Melon’s thread on the end of the world. Plenty of guesses as to when it starts (or started), most of which diminish the value of the “World War” label when taken in its historical context.

 

[wizard2c]

reply

The official acronym of the words WWIII are just, in my opinion, a mere formality.

Consider as well the hearts and minds aspect of the World today....the psychological warfare. Add to that the competitive nature of a global economy with everyone trying to find a niche and come out on the winning side of [the game] as they like to refer to it....an economic conflict at a global level.

Yes, an official war may be considered actual physical combat and invasion but war is a term which cannot be ruled out today. From the dictionary's version war can mean a struggle or competition between opposing forces or for a particular end, i.e., against disease or poverty.

We would only be fooling ourselves to believe there is not at least a global conflict at hand. So when would the official WWIII begin? Only time will determine the exact date....and, of course, Mankind.

 

[AliEnvy]

Not sure this belongs here necessarily but found it interesting nonetheless since most fears of a WWIII scenario revolve around the fallout of potential military action against Iran. Personally I think diplomatic deals like this will be made with Russia and others since the US is backed into a corner on military action at the moment. Somehow these deals will backfire in the longer term.


US offers Russia nuclear deal to support Western action against Iran

By Rupert Cornwell
10 July 2006

http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/story.jsp?story=698233

The US is offering to break a decades-old taboo and negotiate a civil nuclear deal with Russia – a move largely intended as an incentive for Moscow to throw its full weight behind Western efforts to prevent Iran obtaining nuclear weapons.

Talks are still at an early stage, officials say, and details are unlikely to be unveiled at this weekend’s G8 summit in St Petersburg, hosted by President Vladimir Putin. If completed, however, a deal could see Russia earning billions of dollars as a leading storage centre for spent nuclear fuel from US-built reactors.

The discussions, first disclosed by The Washington Post on Saturday, should help smooth ties between America and its one-time superpower rival ruffled by US accusations of a clampdown on democracy and free speech by Mr Putin, and by anger over Moscow’s unwillingness to back punitive sanctions against Iran and North Korea. But they are bound to generate controversy in the US, where some conservatives were already calling on President Bush to boycott the St Petersburg meeting as a sign of his displeasure. The environmental lobby, deeply worried about nuclear safety standards in Russia, will also protest.

Iran is likely to top the G8 agenda when the leaders gather on Saturday, amid growing impatience over Tehran’s apparent stalling over its response to the package of incentives offered by European negotiators to persuade the Islamic regime to abandon its uranium enrichment activities – which the West suspects are aimed at developing a nuclear bomb.

Russia has refused to back either sanctions, or a strong United Nations Security Council resolution that could pave the way for US military strikes. But the Bush administration believes a lucrative civilian deal will make Moscow more amenable. The latest moves could revive an earlier Russian offer to conduct uranium enrichment for Iran inside Russia – a proposal which has drawn mixed reactions from Tehran.

Yesterday, however, Iran warned the G8 not to take any decisions on its nuclear programme, arguing that this could jeopardise the current negotiations with the European Union, which are supported by the US. Any “premature and incomplete” summit decision “could harm the positive trend of negotiations”, Manouchehr Mottaki, the Iranian Foreign Minister, said.

India test-fired its nuclear-capable Agni III missile yesterday for the first time, the Defence Ministry said. The launch of India’s longest-range missile, able to fly 1,900 miles, was said to be a routine test.

 

[MrsSpringsteen]

I posted this in the other thread but I think perhaps it fits here too. Maybe war is over if we want it

I was just reading this post on huffingtonpost.com by Deepak Chopra

"In a old post on the seduction of apocalyptic thinking, my emphasis was on fundamentalist Christians and others who feel enticed by the notion that the world will soon come to an end. But the tendency reaches deeper than that. Apocalyptic thinking is motivated, in large part, by an inability to come to grips with life's challenges, and one turns to metaphysics as an escape from lurking feelings of guilt, anxiety, and despair.


Without being religious, many liberals and progressives act as if their world has come to an end. That is, they see no solutions to a world sunk into chaos, reactionary religious backlash, and overwhelming difficulties.

There is an alternative to this sort of gloom and doom. We need to reshape our expectations by holding them higher, not lower. Certain points come to mind.

--In the past, people accepted disease, poverty, political corruption, war, and even urban pollution on a vaster scale than we do now. They were still able to conquer disease and find a way out of the other problems, if not perfectly, then progressively. That same impulse is alive today.

--What blocks a solution to such things as poverty and pandemic disease in the Third World isn't lack of knowledge but lack of will. We have the money and know-how to solve almost every challenge we face. Reactionaries may stand in the way, but if one looks deeper, even the most liberal thinkers are clinging to nationalism, post-colonial values, and other outmoded ideas, such as the inevitability of a world divided into haves and have-nots.

--The way to be optimistic again is to help foster the future. The best future would be one based on globalism and peace. Hundreds of organizations already work on behalf of both. There's no need for anyone to feel that isolationism, war, and nationalism are irreversible. They may not end in our time, but there's much value in helping the future to be born at any stage.

--Since the world isn't coming to an end, the realistic alternative is a personal choice--reactionary isolation or progressive cooperation. Once each of us sees this clearly, we can make a choice. To do nothing is the same as allowing apocalyptic thinking and right-wing interests to prevail, since both are aggressively active. The good news is that one doesn't have to think in terms of success or failure. Just to align yourself with the progressive impulse in life brings its own reward. And there is huge hope of success, because the dominant trend in the world is progressive, despite how things look in the U.S. right now. Technology is capable of solving the fuel crisis and global warming, or at least these two huge challenges can be met positively. There is no need to give in to passive resignation. What we are experiencing now is far form the end of the world. It's a transition time, full of ferment and conflict but just as full of promise."

 

[melon]

Deepak Chopra really summed it up--both for religious-motivated and secular-based apocalypticism. And perhaps that's why I have no interest in apocalypticism at all. While others may see a world that is as good as it gets, I see a world that has much that it can improve upon, both from a technological/scientific basis and also from a human rights basis.

I firmly believe that we are capable of creating that futuristic society that we always dreamed about, and that we are nowhere near there yet. But this all requires both patience and vision. For example, a visionary society would look for the successor to oil, and if that successor was hydrogen fuel, they would see the fact that it requires nuclear plants to be built over the next 20 years as time and money that needs to be spent. "20 years" would not be seen as an excuse for inactivity.

Melon

 

[diamond]

Deepak Chopra really summed it up--both for religious-motivated and secular-based apocalypticism. And perhaps that's why I have no interest in apocalypticism at all. While others may see a world that is as good as it gets, I see a world that has much that it can improve upon, both from a technological/scientific basis and also from a human rights basis.

I firmly believe that we are capable of creating that futuristic society that we always dreamed about, and that we are nowhere near there yet. .

Melon

I think the world willl be good once the millenium is ushered in after wars and rumors are done away with. Deepak has the eventual right idea, but it appears some ancient prophecies are presently unfolding before our eyes.

To ignore events like this:

ACTS OF WAR
http://www.cnn.com/

is to live in a state of denial.

dbs

 

[SunBloc]

but in previous times, technology did not exist the way it does today so we don't have an accurate historical model to compare our day with.

i do think we are on the beaches of normandy of www3.

dbs

I agree. Everything HAS to be on the table for consideration. If we sit around waiting for all the markers of past world wars to classify the severity (or lack of) current world relations, we're missing the boat. Terrorism doesn't require large armies. Technology would be extremely dangerous in the wrong hands, but we've seen that a great deal of destruction and damage can be caused without a lot. Unresolved violence, over time, entrenches and propogates future world perspective.

The motivating factors behind 9/11 & recent violence in the middle east are deep-rooted and on-going. It looks like a different type of world war to me..

 

[MrsSpringsteen]

This is a whole subject unto itself but the term "crisis porn" really does apply. The media does seem so bloodthirsty, I hate to use that word. Does saying it's so contribute to making it so?

by Marty Kaplan, huffingtonpost.com

It's the start of World War III. It's a tinderbox about to explode. It's a downward-spiraling crisis. It's the tipping-point of a regional conflagration. It could trigger an oil crisis worse than the late '70s, with gas lines and rationing and $20-per-gallon fuel. It could spark worldwide inflation, recession, depression. It's the most dangerous moment since (fill in the blank).

That's what they're saying on the news. And maybe much or most of it is actually true. The world scene is indisputably scary; there really are bad people out there, determined to do terrible things; the quality of US leadership over the past five years is hardly a comforting thing to extrapolate forward from.

But I wonder what portion of what we're getting from the media right now is crisis porn, delivered to an insatiable audience, and itself a possible cause of the escalation of the crisis.

Television news has tremendous ability to control the tone of what it covers. The quantity, the music, the graphics, the word choices can all be dialed up or down. The notion that professional news judgment -- a reliable journalistic rulebook -- is what really drives the nature and kind of coverage: well, that's a sweet thought, and while it may still be true in some broadcasting precincts, mainly public ones, in practice it's pretty much a fossil.

The truth is that a missing white woman can easily be turned by the media machine into a global red-alert, and a holocaust in Africa can effortlessly be marginalized as a sidebar story. What matters most to commercial networks is not context, not perspective, but ratings. And when it comes to holding audiences' attention, the only thing better than suspense is suspense about carnage, and the only thing better than suspense about carnage is suspense about the apocalypse.

Terrorists, especially stateless terrorists, depend on the news's (and news viewers') addiction to fear and crisis. They have gamed the media system; they bank on getting their message amplified. This is not to diminish the legitimate news value of the horrors they perpetrate. But it's also true that attempts to cool things off, reduce tensions, and back off from the brink are at odds with the sexy Nielsens that accompany real-time coverage of the end of the world.

There's no doubt that what's going on in the Middle East right now is awful. But is it really Armageddon? And might saying so perhaps contribute to making it so? It's unfortunate that the arbiter we've depended on in the past to tell us what's really the case -- the news media -- is itself now a stakeholder with a vested interest in imagining the worst.

 

[A_Wanderer]

Deepak Chopra really summed it up--both for religious-motivated and secular-based apocalypticism. And perhaps that's why I have no interest in apocalypticism at all. While others may see a world that is as good as it gets, I see a world that has much that it can improve upon, both from a technological/scientific basis and also from a human rights basis.

I firmly believe that we are capable of creating that futuristic society that we always dreamed about, and that we are nowhere near there yet. But this all requires both patience and vision. For example, a visionary society would look for the successor to oil, and if that successor was hydrogen fuel, they would see the fact that it requires nuclear plants to be built over the next 20 years as time and money that needs to be spent. "20 years" would not be seen as an excuse for inactivity.

Melon

I don't think that catastrophism is any more valid than utopianism, the world will keep turning and human nature won't change - and that will lead to a good deal of evil and some good.

As far as building nuclear plants to sustain a hydrogen economy we don't have enough Uranium for it to last long term, some magic bullet energy supply like nuclear fusion would be ideal to replaces fossil fuels but I doubt that is going to happen for a few decades yet (ITER is only now just going ahead).

 

[BonosSaint]

That was an interesting post, Mrs. S. I think that so many times our perspective is skewered until we don't always know when it is being skewered and not. Crisis porn is a good term. We react immediately, without waiting a little while to see how it is playing out. We jump into the immediacy of an issue without stepping back and watching. 24 hour pundits crank it up, so we become a nation of reactors run by our emotional triggers--both sides--rather than by our reason. We become passive takers-in of information, formulate an opinion in an instant. There's so much information being thrown at us--valid and invalid--that we don't have the time or take the time to sort it out.

I agree with both Melon and Wanderer here. Human ability and human nature being what it is, we have the capability of creating a better world, but we probably won't.