435 Campaign: September 2019

Friday, September 27, 2019

Sept. 26, UN International Day for the Total Elimination of Nuclear Weapons

Wasted time! Wasted energy! Never going to happen without an enforceable world government. And even then, it would be unwise if one nation resisted (see effort to rid Iraq, N. Korea, Libya, India, and Pakistan of nuclear weapons) or for galactic reasons (see second paragraph). And even if they were eliminated, humanity would be no more secure from other forms of WMD that are cheaper, easier to make and deliver, and just as deadly to human beings. Our capacity for genetic engineering and eventually the evolution of AI puts the survival of humanity at an even greater risk of global mass murder.

In “the long view” no single planet species will survive. While nuclear weapons are certainly a threat to millions, they could also be useful in saving billions of people -- from planet killing asteroids, to global warming, to the extremely remote possibility of an alien invasion that building border walls can’t stop.

The best we can hope for, and work for, and afford - without a war is to create a world where the desire to use nuclear weapons (or any form of WMD) by a government is dramatically reduced, and the capacity for any individual or extremist group to make or buy one is prohibitively risky and expensive.

The only possibility that I’m aware of the make this happen is the 2nd coming of Jesus after Armageddon or the 17 Sustainable Development Goals by the year 2030.

Banning nuclear weapons will be as successful as Alcohol prohibition or Prostitution.

********

Nuclear weapons are not being eliminated any time soon: Sisters mark Sept. 26, UN International Day for the Total Elimination of Nuclear Weapons by Chris Herlinger

Published on Global Sisters Report (https://www.globalsistersreport.org) Sep 23, 2019. Modified on 9/26/2019: https://www.globalsistersreport.org/news/world/nuclear-weapons-are-not-being-eliminated-any-time-soon

New York — It is something of a yearly ritual.

The United Nations' annual International Day for the Total Elimination of Nuclear Weapons [2] falls on Sept. 26 and comes as world leaders and members of the world body convene for the annual September meeting of the U.N.'s General Assembly.

It's a nod to an important issue and one that always prompts calls for urgent action.

"The only sure way to eliminate the threat posed by nuclear weapons is to eliminate the weapons themselves," U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres said in a U.N. backgrounder [2] on the topic.

But in a world caught up in the noise of other issues — trade, political squabbles, the constant blur of social media — and with the United Nations itself conceding that its members are frustrated by the slow pace of nuclear disarmament, does the issue of nuclear disbarment have any traction?

Sr. Stacy Hanrahan, who represents the ‎Congregation of Notre Dame at the United Nations and consistently follows and champions the issue, believes it does. But it requires a long view, she says.

At 72 and eyeing retirement from her U.N. duties later this year, Hanrahan carries with her memories of growing up during the Cold War and of the public outcry over nuclear weapons during the early years of the Reagan administration nearly four decades ago.

"I'm part of that cohort," she said following a Sept. 11 event at the Church Center for the United Nations Center sponsored by the Maryknoll Sisters focused on developing a culture of peace.

Hanrahan said she believes others are now taking up the issue and sees more young people attending U.N. briefings on nuclear disbarment.

"They are interested, and that impresses me," she said.

Of particular note is the connection more people make between disarmament and wider environmental issues, especially climate change, she said.

The links between nuclear weapons and climate change may not be obvious at first, she added. But if you dig deeper, it is possible to find the connections, which include the harm to the Earth of producing nuclear weapons and that the funds allocated for such weaponry could be used to protect the environment.

"I don't think we're grasping how harmful these weapons are even without using them — the money involved, resources that could be spent protecting the Earth," Hanrahan said.

One international campaign, Move the Nuclear Weapons Money [4], notes: "One trillion dollars is being spent to modernize the nuclear arsenals of nine countries over the next 10 years." This money, it argues, "could instead be used to help end poverty, protect the climate, build global peace and achieve the sustainable development goals."

The Ploughshares Fund, a peace advocacy group, names [5] the nine countries: United States, Russia, France, China, the United Kingdom, Pakistan, India, Israel and North Korea, noting they have a total of 13,860 weapons between them. While that number has been reduced since the height of the Cold War, it still represents a threat, the organization argues.

"When you are fleeing a forest fire it is not just direction but speed that matters," it says.

Sisters whose advocacy focus at the United Nations includes the environment are similarly concerned.

"There are so many dimensions to the nuclear issue," Sr. Helen Saldanha, a member of the Missionary Sisters Servants of the Holy Spirit [6] and an executive co-director of VIVAT International [7], a U.N.-based advocacy group, told GSR after the Sept. 11 event.

One of those dimensions is the toll the development of weapons, the need for plutonium and other hazardous minerals, takes on the Earth itself.

"Nuclear weapons create an environmental destruction," she said.

Saldanha said there is a need for a "culture of peace" that respects the environment, and anti-nuclear advocacy's "strength is not there yet. But it could be" with increased grassroots efforts.

Judy Coode, who directs the Pax Christi International Catholic Nonviolence Initiative [8] and who spoke at the Sept. 11 event, said the "actual use of the weapons would be catastrophic" but noted, too, that the cumulative effect of "financial and intellectual resources to develop these weapons is a sin."

"What it fosters — the fear, the anxiety — has been a waste, and we need to recognize that," she said.

In its backgrounder [2] about the Sept. 26 commemoration, the United Nations noted the international frustration over the slow pace of nuclear disarmament is partly due to increased worries "about the catastrophic humanitarian consequences of the use of even a single nuclear weapon, let alone a regional or global nuclear war."

At a meeting earlier this year at the United Nations, Véronique Christory, the senior arms control adviser of the International Committee of the Red Cross, said in recent years, "debates about nuclear weapons have shifted beyond narrow 'security' interests to focus on the evidence of their foreseeable impacts. This shift in approach is to be welcomed."

She noted that in the seven decades following the use of nuclear weapons in Japan at the end of World War II, "Japanese Red Cross hospitals have continued each year to treat many thousands of survivors who still suffer and die from cancers and other diseases directly linked to exposure to nuclear radiation in 1945."

As a result, Christory said at a May 8 gathering, "we have an even clearer understanding of the unspeakable suffering and devastation that a nuclear weapon detonation would cause. We know that even a 'limited' nuclear exchange would have catastrophic and long-lasting consequences for human health, the environment, the climate, food production and socioeconomic development."

There are other worries, as the United Nations backgrounder on the Sept. 26 event notes.

In addition to the nearly 14,000 nuclear weapons in the world, countries possessing such weapons "have well-funded, long-term plans to modernize their nuclear arsenals. More than half of the world's population still lives in countries that either have such weapons or are members of nuclear alliances."

There are no nuclear disarmament negotiations underway, and the "international arms-control framework that contributed to international security since the Cold War [and] acted as a brake on the use of nuclear weapons and advanced nuclear disarmament has come under increasing strain."

Though 122 countries at the U.N. in 2017 voted [11] to outlaw nuclear weapons, the nations that have nuclear weapons and their allies did not. And last month, the withdrawal of the United States [12] from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty "spelled its end," the U.N. said. That treaty was the vehicle through which "the United States and the Russian Federation had previously committed to eliminating an entire class of nuclear missiles."

Hanrahan acknowledges that with those kinds of setbacks, it is easy to grow frustrated.

"There aren't a lot of encouraging signs," she said. "The times are unsteady."

A recent Princeton University study confirmed these worries, concluding that more than 90 million people would perish in a nuclear exchange between the United States and Russia. The project by Princeton's Program on Science and Global Security, which includes a video simulation [13], was "motivated by the need to highlight the potentially catastrophic consequences of current U.S. and Russian nuclear war plans," the program said. The study comes as a U.S. intelligence report concluded [14] that an explosion last month in northern Russian coastal waters stemmed from an attempt to recover a nuclear-powered missile.

However, Hanrahan said, there is still an overall feeling that nuclear deterrence will work, that the fear of "mutual assured destruction" will prevent humans from using the weapons and nations can control the systems designed to keep a nuclear war or exchange at bay.

"Will the weapons protect us? I don't think so. It won't protect us from climate change," she said.

And efforts to modernize nuclear weapons — to make them faster, smaller — may ultimately make it easier to use them.

"Those aren't encouraging signs," Hanrahan said, adding that the use of even one weapon would lead to famine, death and severe environmental changes.

The current era of nationalism and turning away from multilateral solutions is also troubling, she said.

"Is there any good faith here?" she said. "Nationalism denies the fact that many of our challenges are international."

Hanrahan said she believes the problem will not be solved at the policy tables "unless those tables open up and those at the table changes" — for example, the participation of more women.

"We need to talk about peace and how to move it. It's a strong spiritual problem, and I think we're at a point where we can converse about the need to change the [governing] ideology — that our protection, our security, does not involve nuclear weapons."

Echoing U.N. Secretary-General Guterres, Hanrahan said the only way to prevent a nuclear war, even a "limited one," is ultimately to rid the world of nuclear weapons.

"If the desire were there, we could. But the 'denial thing' is so important," she said of the inability of humanity to deal squarely with the nuclear threat.

Christory of the International Committee of the Red Cross acknowledged the dynamic of denial remains difficult to overcome, saying, "The message often doesn't get through."

The U.N, General Assembly meets at the world body's headquarters in New York in 2017. The U.N.'s annual International Day for the Total Elimination of Nuclear Weapons falls on Sept. 26 and comes as world leaders and members of the world body convene for the annual September meeting of the General Assembly. (U.N. photo)

In the end, she said in an interview the week before the Sept. 26 commemoration, the best argument against the use of nuclear weapons is still the humanitarian impact they would have if used — what she called "the unspeakable suffering" they would cause. That is at the core of the ICRC's campaign [23] against nuclear weapons.*

Hanrahan said she hopes the 75th anniversary in 2020 of the use of atomic bombs by the United States against Japan in 1945 will prompt sober reflection and renewed action.*

"It's time [for disarmament]. We have to. I believe there are people who don't want to go this way, who want to be sane," she said. Maybe, just maybe, "we'll evolve. But if we don't, we won't be here to talk about it."

*These paragraphs were updated to correct an attribution.

Chris Herlinger is GSR international correspondent. His email address is cherlinger@ncronline.org.

Thursday, September 26, 2019

Death of Demoracy a bad thing?

Catherine Rampell implies Democracy’s death is a bad thing (“The Death of Democracy: A whodunit” Washington Post Op-ed 9-24-19). But if the voters who actually show up at the polls don’t know enough about the issues or favor their clan above others, any election (by a selfish majority or a greedy minority) will never yield a more perfect union.

Majority views and voting itself is not nearly as important as codifying human laws that mirror “the Laws of Nature and Nature’s God” as our Declaration of Independence cited. Constituent education and organized meetings with elected officials between elections would be substantially more powerful and effective in making change. But only codifying fundamental principles that achieve liberty and justice for all, instead of flawed human principles (like ‘Peace through strength’ or ‘peace through disarmament’) will best ensure the vital progress needed to sustainably maximize both our freedoms and our security.

Ms. Rampell’s rightfully blamed both parties. But she failed to mention or detail the greatest progressive/liberal source of failure. We/they have never come together to advocate for a comprehensive approach that is essential to preventing and solving our greatest local, national or global problems.   Root causes and prevention must become a priority.

As Chair of the United Nations Association Council of Organizations in the late 1990s I closely witnessed the zero-sum game that each progressive movement (environment, peace, economic justice, social justice, education, health, food policy, human rights…) operated under.   They still compete against each other for limited resources (money, memberships, media attention, and access to grants or elected officials).   If foreign aid funding for global health is increased, other equally deserving efforts take a hit.

Each of these movements acknowledge that a ‘movement of movements’ is necessary. But taking such bold leadership to create one would mean putting their own movement (or organization) equal to all others. That is not what their memberships or board members favor.

Thus, it is ‘we the people’ who have failed. Not Trump. Not a political party. But we citizens who think elections and campaign financing matter more than persistently educating and demanding what’s needed from our own elected officials.   Our collective goal must be addressing root causes instead of winning the next election.

Environmentalists, particularly climate change advocates, are gaining most attention now because rational ‘fears’ driving many to get involved. But, if those same people fully understood the inevitable catastrophic consequences of the evolution of weaponry (and war) as well as the lethal injustices of poverty or democratically elected governments that fuel war and environmental degradation, they would see the vital and urgent need for a comprehensive global approach. Budget busting political reactions to each local or national crisis (as it gains headline popularity) is simply unsustainable -- and a formula for inevitable catastrophic results.

There is only one comprehensive approach that the world has agreed on it’s not the Green New Deal. In 2015 the world’s nations and NGOs came together and agreed upon 168 specific goals packed within 17 broader Sustainable Development Goals to be achieved by the year 2030.

It was the Washington Post’s article on Kleptocracy two years ago that mentioned the $32 trillion locked in offshore accounts put there by Kleptocrats, oligarchs, drug cartels, terrorist groups, and ultra-rich capitalists avoiding taxes. These mostly illicit moneys should or could be devoted to address the global injustices driving environmental degradation, wars, refugee flows, illiteracy, genocides, lethal poverty, pandemics, and other hunger or water born infectious diseases.

One piece of US legislation to freeze and then seize portions this booty for meeting the SDGs has the potential to break the zero-sum game that has the progressive movements locked in a death spiral that is taking humanity and our environment down with them.

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, FDR’s second Bill of Rights, and even the ancient ‘Gold Rule’ (the foundation of every major religion) were intended to maximize human freedoms and security. Creating heaven on earth does not require a democracy. It would require what we know is needed…and always have…but never made it a political priority.

Every US citizen has pledged before our flag “liberty and justice for all”. Our Republic and its democratic system has never yet kept that pledge. We can, but time is not on our side. And neither is any democracy that fails this call for urgent civil action.

Wednesday, September 25, 2019

SDGs only achievable with...comprehensive effort

Sustainable development goals only achievable through cross-disciplinary research

Date: September 24, 2019

Source: University of Copenhagen The Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences

Summary: It is not possible to achieve the sustainable development goals (SDG) if science does not contribute with cross-disciplinary knowledge and understanding of how systems are interconnected.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/09/190924131517.htm

Right now, the UN member states are gathered in New York to discuss how to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals. In this connection, a UN appointed panel of international researchers has published a commentary paper in the scientific journal Nature Sustainability. Here, they emphasise how science and research need to play a role in achieving the global goals.

'We argue that the sciences have to contribute collectively to a greater understanding of various systems and how they interact and are interconnected. When talking about solutions within, for example, climate and sustainability, almost everyone thinks of technological solutions. But we need to understand how those technologies interact with other systems', says Professor Katherine Richardson, one of the 15 UN appointed scientists behind the publication and professor at the University of Copenhagen.

The researchers emphasise that solutions to individual global goals may counteract the advancement of other goals. If, for example, food production is expanded in order to achieve the global goal of zero hunger, this may simultaneously work against the global goals of preventing climate change and protecting and preserving life on land. It is such interactions between systems that researchers and universities need to research in a cross-disciplinary manner, Katherine Richardson points out.

Increasing Disproportions

In 2015, the UN member states decided that the Sustainable Development Goals, which consist of 17 SDGs and 169 targets, must be met by 2030. The following year, the UN appointed an international research panel to evaluate the progress in reaching these goals and to identify ways to work with the goals towards 2030.

Last week, the researchers' report was published as a prelude to the UN SDG Global Summit in New York on 24-25 September. And one of the conclusions is that at the global level, it seems difficult to achieve many of the goals.

'Our report shows that timewise, only a handful of the 169 targets are "on track." And the goals that we will probably achieve are about improving conditions for people. When we talk about climate and biodiversity, there is a growing disparity between what we need to do and what is actually being done', says Professor Katherine Richardson.

Need for all branches of science

However, the same research team emphasises in Nature Sustainability that there are many things that can be done to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals. If one can break down the silos and the sector thinking in the world of science, scientists will to a far greater extent be able to conduct research that can make a global difference. Centrally at the University of Copenhagen they agree.

'Many people believe that it is first and foremost research within technical and health sciences that together with research within natural and life sciences will help us to achieve the global goals. But we really need social sciences, law, theology and the humanities to help us understand how systems interact globally', says Prorector Bente Stallknecht.

'The University of Copenhagen offers a wide span of programmes and research. Thus, we have a great potential in relation to conducting cross-disciplinary research, which can be especially helpful in achieving the global goals'.

Science without spirituality is lame. Spirituality without science is blind. Solutions that are not comprehensive will fail. cw

Tuesday, September 24, 2019

Environmental movement will fail if...

"The environmental movement can only survive if it becomes a justice movement. As a pure environmental movement, it will either die, or it will survive as a corporate 'greenwash'. Anyone who's a sincere environmentalist can't stand that role" Vandana Shiva. )Vandana Shiva is an Indian scholar, environmental activist, food sovereignty advocate, and anti-globalization author. Shiva, currently based in Delhi, has authored more than twenty books.)

Today's Washington Times editorial was titled “Saving the planet, not the people: The U.N. places climate above all”

Dear Editor,

With all the attention the UN and progressives are giving Climate Change it does appear that the UN and the progressive movement is more devoted to “Saving the planet, not the people" as today’s editorial asserts.
In reality, the UN was created with only the capacity. To put the protection of national sovereignty above all else. It has no power to protect human rights or the environment other than by proclamations and a forum for diplomacy. Some of its agencies can accomplish some minor things but none have the economic or political power that nations of the Security Council has. And to these unelected sovereignty state entities their priorities rarely put human rights and environmental protection first and foremost. Costa Rica is the one practicing exception.

We forget that when the US put sovereign states rights ahead of human rights a bloody civil war between the states resulted in more American deaths on both sides than all the wars that our nation has fought in since then…combined.

It’s unfortunate that the Washington Times gave no mention of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) which are the only comprehensive approach to nearly every threat we humans, the environment, and all nations face (pandemics, terrorism, war, extinction of species, WMD proliferation, economic recessions, refugee flows, climate change, loss of species, and our antibiotic arsenal...).

Funding and achieving these 17 globally agreed upon goals for the 2030 deserve the greatest attention of every government and UN system and structure this Tuesday at the opening of the U.N. General Assembly in New York this Tuesday.

Only by putting the protection of human rights and the environment above the rights of nations to do as they please, will we be able to protect our cherished freedoms and our own national security. The SDGs comprehensive approach addresses root causes of nearly every injustice that fuels the threats we face.

With the accelerating evolution of weapons, war, environmental degradation, and repression of human rights we are running out of time. And nothing short of global 'liberty and justice for all' will save us all.

Monday, September 2, 2019

Another mass shooting…and we still don’t get it!

(This needs a serious editing but I'm hopeful your mind will grasp the basic concepts and attempt to apply them to nearly every problem 'our nation' faces.)

The sickness of our culture is endemic. And we still avoid the diagnosis that it is our worshiped individualism that has disconnected us not only from one another, and others suffering, but from virtually everything we need as humans to survive.

Our mind’s increasing tendency is to live within our head instead of the real world of profound and ubiquitous interconnections that when closely examined are essential to our individual, cultural, national, and global survival. And even vital to our true happiness and joy in this increasingly technologically complex world.

We experience life through three venues. Our 5 (or 6?) senses. Our multitude of internal bodily emotions. And finally, via our mental concepts.

In this context…it is our minds concepts that are accidently killing us, leading us to kill other people, and even kill ourselves.

We believe we can multitask then walk, bike, and drive while texting. We think stress is bad and we avoid the physical stresses that our body and mind need to develop properly – and then die from heart attacks more than any other real threat.

We believe our ethnic group, our nation, our religion, our economic policy, even our skin color is worth killing and dying for.

We believe that our individual life has no meaning or that our cultural, ethnic, societal, economic, or sexual orientation is just too difficult to accept -- and then kill ourselves, maybe even killing others as an act of revenge over real or perceived injustices.

Mindless animals my commit senseless murders out of a genetic abnormality but they don’t do it with thoughtful intention. We should hope they never reach that level of global understanding or our species will become the hunted, endangered, and eventually extinct. We need the natural world to keep in balance, protecting the many life forms that yield us food, clean water, fresh air, and other resources we need to live and sustainably thrive.

Why have we largely been ignoring this? A scientific argument can be made that our minds evolved as a problem-solving tool. A very unique and powerful biological characteristic that is essentially no different than a giraffe’s long neck, a bee hive’s social cooperation, or the length of a male sabretooth tiger’s fangs.

Our mind’s unique evolutionary power for survival was its capacity for pattern recognition, logic, tribal connection, and creativity for making tools and weapons to ensure the survival of our clan.   But like the Sabretooth’s long fangs (a male characteristic that females selected as ‘fit’ for yielding more viable offspring) that eventually reduced the male’s capacity for catching prey and eating. Fast forward a few dozen human generations and our species cultural/social evolution reduced our need to cooperate in very large numbers. We became comfortable no knowing those who produced our food, built our homes and cities, and even protected us from waring or genocidal tribes, ethnic or national groups, or concept extremists.   Today’s ‘US’ culture has virtually lost touch with everything…including our own bodies (see obesity rate). I avoid using the word “American” culture because South, Central and even some North American nations have yet to devolve into lethal individualism. Mental concepts in the US now divides families and even friendships. And rarely do we know or closely associate with our neighbors. It’s almost as if we disagree with someone’s concept, we threaten ‘who they are’. As if their/our mind is really who we are. Instead of our mind being a tool for our common survival, happiness, and bliss.

In 2018 a Rockville, Maryland teenager (Kyle Snyder) became the very first teenage Olympic Gold Metal heavyweight wresting champion, beating both the Russia’s and Iran’s most mature and experience contenders (always considered the best in the world). Kyle’s father gave him the best coaching advice I’ve ever heard. “Be the landlord of your mind”. Kyle’s trained his own mind to punish his body as much as possible in training…so he would never have to fear any opponent. He stressed his body beyond any limit any ‘normal’ human or US citizen would ever consider. He used is mind to determine how he could train his body to perform to its maximum, when it counted.

Given the evolution of weaponry, war, and deterioration of our environment, democracy, and government capacity for addressing these changes, it is time we become the landlord of our mental concepts. And use them to maximize our freedom and our security.

Getting rid of guns won’t do it. Building walls won’t do it.   Engineering a more perfect union between all humans, the environment, and our mind/body/spirit connections is a idea whose time is very late.

Abraham Lincoln once said our Declaration of Independence is our “Apple of Gold” and our Constitution is its “Frame of Silver”. Until we codify the fundamental principles in that Declaration our nation will never be truly exceptional.

It’s been said that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again expecting a different result. In that context, the concert of ‘national sovereignty’ is literally, insane. By refusing to put the protection of human rights over the rights of nations to do as they please globally, we will only continue the chaos and injustices that is driving the killings on our streets and between nations and religions.

Our mind’s still possess our unique and powerful characteristics. But allowing it to dominate who we think we are, and what our most basic desires are, is a receipt for Armageddon.   Thomas Paine in his pamphlet “Common Sense” asserted the two most basic human desires are “freedom and security”. And, because of our collective inability to render “moral virtue” together by, we need government in the “world”.

This has never been more important as advances in technology has increased our personal and national interdependence in our technologically hyper-interconnected world’.

Every major religion is based on the concept of the Golden Rule. Knowing Lincoln’s words, this give an entire new concept in thinking about our nation’s “Apple of Gold”.

9-11: Any Lessons learned?

As the 9-11 anniversary nears it’s shocking if one considers the consequences of that event in terms of the choices the US government took after that horrific day. The costs in blood and treasure continue to be unsustainable. More on that later.

What’s most shocking however, or should be, is the fact that our government and ‘we the people’ never acknowledged what could have been done prior to 9-11 to undermine the motivations of Islamic extremists who butchered not only thousands of Americans, but the very fundamental tenant of their global religion. Peace.

Christianity’s history is pocked with similar butchery. Yet one fact remains globally indisputable. The fundamental ideal of every major religion is the Golden Rule. Not the corporate golden rule that profit is the only goal. Or the government golden rule that campaign financing can influence policy decisions. But the fundamental self-evident truth that all people are created equal and endowed with certain inalienable rights. Rights that no government, no corporation, and no extremist group should be able to take away -- without prohibitive consequences.

Our US Constitution provided us with a second Amendment for irrevocable protection against any government diminishing our rights. Unfortunately, the engineering of our constitutional federation also had fundamental flaws. From the start (and even beyond the original sin of codifying slavery) our government’s blueprint was based on a delusional concept of 'independence'.

Our government is based on the codified independence between states, federal agencies, and even between nation states. And we never question the insanity of this idealized concept regardless of its monstrously bloody and budget breaking consequences.

Our Independence (or national sovereignty) didn’t protect us on Sept. 11, 2001. It actually prevented us from detecting the conspirators organizing within our own borders, states, and training schools.

Independent state tax regulations resulted in lower cigarette taxes in Virginia than in Maryland. The al Qaida’s operatives leveraged those price differences to buy in VA and sell in MD for a bloody profit. The hijackers used states with minimal regulations for acquiring driver’s license, enabling them to easily gain legal land and air transportation between all 50 states.

Federal legal walls between the FBI and the CIA prevented intelligence sharing that may have identified Saudi Arabia passport holders taking flying lessons (not for landings…. just take offs).

The international divisions between nation state’s various intelligence agencies added yet another barrier to exchanging insightful and vital cooperation that still largely exists today… and in some cases gotten worse where competing national interests arise.

Six months before 9-11 the third and final report from the bipartisan Presidential “US Commission on National Security in the 21^st Century” was released. It proposed combining a few federal independent agencies into one, to more readily detect threats to Americans. In its final report release in March 2001 the 14 commissioners unanimously put “Terrorism” as the top threat to Americans. It warned that ‘Americans should prepare to die in large numbers on American soil’ from terrorism. The report was ignored. And it’s recommendations to combine independent agencies was rejected even after the attacks and after another commission suggested the same idea.

Finally, 14 months later Congress passed the Homeland Security Act which combined 22 independent federal agencies into one Department of Homeland Security”. And a full two years after the first Commission release of its final report -- DHS finally opened its doors to ensure “a more secure America that is better equipped to confront the range of threats we face”. But DHS remains an agency largely independent from the Department of Defense.

This is the same DoD that launched a ‘pre-emptive’ attack on Iraq just one year later. An attack that created more extremists and extremist groups than most Americans could even image. But some did. And they too were largely ignored.

Ignored by a President that was elected by a questionable Supreme Court ruling on a balloting problem in the ‘independent state of Florida. I’m not sure Al Gore would have responded any better than Bush did immediately after the horrors of 9-11, but I do believe he not have invaded Iraq and probably would have listened more to the findings of the 2001 Commission Report, and done more to ween the US from our addiction to foreign oil and our Saudi Arabia alliance, neither of which valued the protection of human rights.

Very few US citizens could tell you the three primary motivations that Osama Bin Ladin claimed was his reasons for masterminding the 9-11 attacks, or, his two specific goals to achieve with the attack.

His motivations?

1. US support for Israel at the expense of Palestinians.

2. US military presence in Saudi Arabia before and after the 1^st Gulf war.

3. The deaths of tens of thousands of innocent Iraqi men, women and children, as a result of the US sanctions on Iraq after the first Gulf War. Few Americans know that the US intentionally bombed Iraqi water and sanitation facilities prior to kicking Saddam out of Kuwait, full well knowing that this would lead to the deaths of innocent Iraqis, but hoping that Iraqi suffering would result in the overthrow of Saddam. A brutal dictator, that was our friend and ally before he turned on Kuwait. A brutal dictator that we gave chemical and biological weapon precursors to, at US tax payers expense, when he was our buddy, and willing to gas Iranians, our sworn enemies.

Note that almost immediately after 9-11, Bush did three things. He offered a two state solution to Israeli/Palestinian ordeal, he withdrew US troops from Saudi Arabia, and his administration started looking for new place to put US troops in the region so we could guard our access to Middle East oil, a critical element to our economy…thus our ‘national security’.

All as if middle east foreign policy, human rights, environmental policy, and US energy policy were each independent of one other.

The two things Osama Bin Ladin wanted to accomplish was

1. To break the US economically. He believed his anti-Soviet efforts in Afghanistan helped lead to the fall of the USSR.

2. To divide us politically. He seemed to know that our privacy was connected to our security, and that by attacking us on 9-11, the fear it would generate would divide us between those who were willing to give up their privacy (and ease of air travel) and those who would resist such government controls.

Osama didn’t seem to understand that we ultimately didn’t need any help devolving our own political climate on either of these basic fronts.

Today, few Americans understand that our Constitution’s 4^th Amendment that ‘prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures’ largely limits the detection of extremists (domestic or foreign) if it were fully enforced. Most are more than willing to sacrifice our privacy for a little more security, but in the process realize that our loss of privacy has led to an even greater loss in our increasingly cyber world of personal economic and physical security.

A recent Raytheon commercial touting its work on cyber security said “When everything is connected, security is everything”. Notice that it didn’t say, ‘When everything is interdependent, the golden rule is everything’. It should have.

Bio security (from pandemics, loss of antibiotic arsenal, bioterrorism, lack of access to affordable health care and healthy food) is a lot like cyber security. DNA or bits, everything is information, and information is power.

Here’s some information to consider if you would like to maximize your freedom and your security.

Security is an illusion. With the evolution of technology offensive capacity will always be more affordable and faster to deploy than defensive technologies. And our dependence on so many things (food, water, clean air, medicines, jobs, health care, energy, housing…) its virtually impossible to protect everything from all threats.

Independence is an illusion that is forcing is to sacrifice our freedom and our security.

Freedom is all we really have. We (and our nation) is free to do (or not do) whatever we want. But we will NEVER be free of the consequences.

At this point in history, the smartest, wisest, thing we could do is fund and achieve the 17 Sustainable Development Goals. This is the ONLY comprehensive global effort to address the fundamental drivers of most of the threats we face. We will never eliminate terrorism (a tactic used by those without aircraft carriers, nuclear weapons, or unfathomable wealth) but we can ‘do unto others’ as we would like them to do to us…and greatly reduce those who want to do us harm. And make more friends in the process. Friend who will help us when we need it. Like warning us of extremists who acquire unprecedented low tech and even high tech killing capacity for which no effective and affordable defense systems are available…unless we chose to live in very unfree and insecure world.

I assert that it is our staunchly held belief that we are independent from one another, from the environment, from the quality of life of people in other nations, from their environmental destruction, and from the suffering even in our own cities, that is killing us at far greater numbers than terrorists (home grown or foreign). That could change when (not if) they acquire biological WMD, but for now, the opioids, suicides, homelessness, loneliness, premature deaths by heart disease, diabetes, cancer, hospital infections, and drunk/distracted driving, is a far great threat to ourselves and our loved ones.

If we and our government continue to react to crisis (like 9-11, Katrina, 2008 recession, climate change, mass shootings…) instead of addressing the systemic flaws that lead to them, we are committing a crime against future generations, both here and abroad.

As Thomas Paine said in “Common Sense” pamphlet in 1775, “The cause of America is, in a great measure, the cause of all mankind. Many circumstances have, and will arise, which are not local, but universal, and through which the principles of all lovers of mankind are affected, and in the event of which, their affections are interested. The laying a country desolate with fire and sword, declaring war against the natural rights of all mankind, and extirpating the defenders thereof from the face of the earth, is the concern of every man to whom nature hath given the power of feeling; of which class, regardless of party censure…” … “Here then is the origin and rise of government; namely, a mode rendered necessary by the inability of moral virtue to govern the world; here too is the design and end of government, viz., freedom and security”.

Abrama Linclon, reaffirmed this sentiment when he wrote about our Declaration of Independence being our “Apple of Gold” and our Constitution being the “frame of Silver” around it.

‘All people’ are deserving of the inalianble rights according to the ‘self-evident’ truths inherent in the “Laws of Nature and Nature’s God.”

Our founding fathers separated them-selves from tyrannical rule of the King. But our nation will never be independent from other global factors. If we can’t correct our Constitutional dysfunction in effectively dealing with the hyperglobalization of our modern world and it’s profoundnly powerful and affordable technologies… what happened on 9-11 will be forgotten in the coming chaos.