by Stephen Lendman

Mark Twain once said history doesn’t repeat. It rhymes - more dangerously today than ever.

US-instigated events ominously resemble things preceding both world wars - with super-weapons on hair triggers able to end life on earth, and bipartisan policymakers in Washington perhaps willing to use them recklessly.

Once in motion, things have a momentum of their own, heading toward what may be unstoppable. Washington’s grand strategy calls for replacing all independent governments with Western-controlled ones - mainly Russia and China, the main obstacles to achieving its hegemonic objectives.

Middle East tinderbox conditions rage, Washington determined to achieve regional control, waging one war of aggression after another, endless ones in multiple theaters, challenging Russia recklessly.

Will WW III follow? Will the unthinkable become reality? Will nuclear war erupt for the first time ever? Nukes were used against Japan in August 1945 after Nazi Germany surrendered months earlier. and the war in the Pacific was won.

Tokyo’s high command was negotiating surrender when Hiroshima and Nagasaki were gratuitously attacked - so Pentagon commanders could test the destructive power of their new weapons in real time, while showing off for Soviet Russia what Stalin already knew, close to developing his own atomic capability.

Ongoing events should scare everyone. Washington bears full responsibility. Rogue NATO and other partners share it.

Ukraine remains the epicenter of possible European war, Syria its Middle East flashpoint counterpart.

A US/Russian showdown may be building in plain sight. Putin is waging effective war on ISIS and other terrorists in Syria - elements Washington supports, using them to achieve its imperial objectives, a policy heading recklessly toward a frightening showdown.

The possibility of global war with nuclear weapons should focus all world leaders on preventing it at all costs. The threat of ending life on earth should be countered with all-out peace efforts.

Everything comes down to a simple equation. Do we want to live in peace or perish in a mushroom-shaped cloud? There’s no in-between.

The risk of annihilation perhaps was never greater - given Washington’s rage for global dominance and its reckless permanent war agenda. No nation ever threatened humanity’s survival more, none more profoundly pure evil.

Its madness is supported by all duopoly presidential aspirants, some openly advocating use of nuclear weapons, unchallenged by media scoundrels, in lockstep with what demands condemnation.

Truman was the only world leader ever authorizing the use of nuclear weapons in combat. He later sacked Douglas MacArthur for wanting them used during Washington’s aggression on North Korea, along with urging a land war on China.

In 1961, US General Curtis Lemay believed nuclear war with Soviet Russia was inevitable. He wanted thousands of warheads launched preemptively.

He called retaliation against major US cities a small price to pay. At the same time, General Lyman Lemnitzer urged a surprise nuclear attack strategy.

Jack Kennedy stormed out of a National Security Council meeting discussing it. He wanted none of it. “And we call ourselves the human race,” he said.

Eisenhower warned against the military-industrial complex’s “acquisition of unwarranted influence. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist,” he stressed.

Clinton’s Secretary of State Madeleine Albright once asked former Joint Chiefs chairman Colin Powell “(w)hat’s the point of having this superb military you’re always talking about if we (don’t) use it?”

Mass annihilation may follow this type thinking, virulent today in Washington with bipartisan lunatics in charge.

Obama intends accelerating war in Syria and Iraq on the phony pretext of battling ISIS. He’s recklessly challenging Russia’s effective intervention, Putin committed to combatting a scourge too dangerous to tolerate.

A US-instigated belligerent clash of civilizations may follow - Washington the ally of terrorism, using its elements to advance its imperium.

Russia is its sworn enemy, most concerned about defending its homeland, battling ISIS and other terrorists in Syria, perhaps Iraq to follow if Baghdad requests help, wanting its scourge prevented from spreading - an objective all world nations should support, not Washington, its NATO partners, Israel, and other rogue regional allies.

Things are escalating toward US policymakers initiating military confrontation with Russia. The unthinkable possibility of nuclear war may become reality - the vast majority of Americans mindless about the clear and present danger they face.

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Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.

His new book as editor and contributor is titled "Flashpoint in Ukraine: How the US Drive for Hegemony Risks World War III".

http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

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