Posted on 11/21/2002 6:46:53 AM PST by Inspectorette
Activist says Bush is the real enemy
11/21/02
By RHONDA PARKS MANVILLE
NEWS-PRESS STAFF WRITER
The anti-nuclear war crusader Dr. Helen Caldicott has a message for America: It's George W. Bush and his administration you should be worried about, not Saddam Hussein.
After more than 30 years of work in the nuclear arena, Dr. Caldicott said she is doubtful that Iraq has nuclear weapons, or even chemical weapons, for that matter. But if the U.S. attacks Iraq, it could provoke a "chain reaction among nuclear nations, big and small, that may prove impossible to control."
The provocative pediatrician-turned-activist was in Santa Barbara on Wednesday to speak to the Santa Barbara Foundation's Women in Philanthropy group, and to promote her current book and research institute, both of which warn that the Bush administration is pushing the world toward nuclear conflict.
Americans have the power to save the Earth, and to do that, they must dump President Bush and his advisers, she said in an interview Wednesday.
"There is a 50-50 chance that America will use nuclear weapons" in a war with Iraq, she said, noting that their use is being talked about openly by administration officials.
"We are seeing the 'normalization' of nuclear war: what was unthinkable has now become the possible, and perhaps the inevitable, as incredible as that may seem," she said.
Her thesis on the subject is explored in detail in "The New Nuclear Danger: George W. Bush's Military Industrial Complex," a book that makes extensive use of U.S. and international government sources to paint a picture of a world on the brink of nuclear disaster.
Americans have the power to determine the fate of the Earth, she said, and they can save it by getting rid of the men who are currently in charge, namely, Vice President Dick Cheney and other "Reagan-era Cold Warriors" now advising President Bush, whom she characterizes as a know-nothing beholden to oil, big business and the radical right.>p?
She describes the thinking of the president's advisers as "pathological," a problem she attributes to "a toxic reaction to testosterone in the reptilian brain" that gives them the urge to kill: "They will do anything to justify their primitive reflexes to kill," she said.
"I am being provocative, but I am also being honest."
Although Dr. Caldicott is also critical of nuclear policy under President Bill Clinton, she is alarmed by the stance of the Bush policymakers, which is why she wrote the book and founded the Nuclear Policy Research Institute, a think tank based in Los Angeles designed to to combat "the Heritage Foundation and other right-wing organizations of its ilk" on policies in the nuclear age.
"They say Saddam Hussein wasn't democratically elected," she said, "but neither was George W. Bush."
The pediatrician, a native of Australia who has lived and worked in the United States and previously taught at Harvard Medical School, said she hopes her alarmist views will provoke a groundswell of support for regime change -- not in Iraq, but in the United States.
"You need a revolution," she said. "A peaceful, Gandhian, Christ-like revolution. ... I am on a spiritual mission, and that is to save life on Earth as we know it."
The 64-year-old activist, who founded the Nobel Peace Prize-winning Physicians for Social Responsibility, said women need to rise up in opposition to the nuclear threat, which is posed not only by weapons, but by the 103 aging nuclear power plants that dot the American landscape and which could make attractive targets for terrorists.
"We as women have been too silent and too passive for too long," she said. "Our emotions need to be aroused like a lioness protecting her cubs. We need to remove the current men from office, for the health of the planet."
Dr. Caldicott sees her views as a prescription for a potentially fatal illness.
"As a physician, I have to make correct diagnoses or I can't treat my patients, and so I am trying to analyze this push toward war," she said.
Michael
bear( takes_dump ) -- > woods
"They say Saddam Hussein wasn't democratically elected," she said, "but neither was George W. Bush."
That's actually a good point. In a pure Democracy like this wind bag wants, a tyrannical maniac can always bend the majority or even 100% to his will. That's why we're lucky to live in a Constitutional Republic.
"You need a revolution," she said. "A peaceful, Gandhian, Christ-like revolution. ... I am on a spiritual mission, and that is to save life on Earth as we know it."
Well, when you put it so humbly like that, I guess I understand.
Is it just a name for some blowhards to protest from, or does it actually have credentials? I haven't checked...Yet..., but I would tend to guess the former, but the left-wing media would use the name to imply credibility...
and sure enough - it's an activist organization without any real credentials except for the loonies with extra college and no sense...
I'm not sure if she is even a U.S. citizen - article states that she's Australian, having lived in the U.S. for many years.
Dr. Caldicott doesn't seem to think there is a real world out there, nothing beyond her fevered brain.
Isn't she a pediatrition? How is that nuclear?
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