An open letter to Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu
Dear Prime Minister Netanyahu:
I write to thank you for your efforts to educate the world regarding the nuclear threat posed by Iran and to assure you that not all Americans have lost their minds. Many Americans stand with you and the people of Israel. I hope I can speak for and with such Americans here. Note that you and I met briefly once, when I was working with the IDF in a neighboring country, and it was an honor for me.
I believe with you that Iran's threat and desire to destroy Israel could, frankly, be the tripwire that launches our generation into World War III. To protect Israel – and, in turn, the rest of the world – we must engage and then educate Americans, and do it fast. We are on a financial, moral and geopolitical trajectory that puts the United States and Western democracies at risk of war, not only because of the Shiite threat you have illuminated, and the ongoing financial malfeasance here in the United States (outlined in "The Deadman's Curve"), but also because the West has been outmaneuvered by its historical enemies, the Communists – a group and ideology long thought to have been vanquished. The reality is that while the Communist threat disappeared from our headlines, the Communists themselves did not disappear; they merely changed their methods of operation and morphed into a hybrid Communist-Marxist-Totalitarian threat that has not yet been accurately labeled or fully defined. They still thirst for power and for the subjugation of the world and the human spirit. For purposes of this letter, we will call them Communists. These Communists are now poised to take advantage of (or initiate) destabilizing world events as steppingstones toward global dominance.
Unlike Israelis, most Americans alive today have never felt threatened by war in their own homeland. They are complacent and often ignorant of the real and growing threats Israel and all Western democracies face. Whether emanating from the Russians, the Chinese, or one of their many surrogates, the threats are real. Yet Americans, if they ponder the question at all, tend to believe the pacifying propaganda that the media so often purposely, or mistakenly, proffer as news.
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American gullibility is legendary. Americans believed President George H. W. Bush's campaign promise of no new taxes; they trusted House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's statement that they must pass the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) "to find out what is in it" ; and they were assured by President Obama's infamous representation that, under Obamacare, "if you like your health insurance plan, you can keep it." All hogwash, of course. But it should come as no surprise that a recent State Department assertion that "the Iranian nuclear threat has been mitigated through an historic agreement" settles the matter for the majority of Americans, who cannot easily be coaxed into thinking for themselves. They want to believe it (and sleep better), just like they want to believe that the dissolution of the Soviet Union neutralized the Russian threat and that the effective transfer of our industrial base (and related technology) to China hasn't crippled us economically, militarily, or otherwise.
Reality check: Potential triggers for war abound. For example, an isolated Israel undefended by the West might have no choice but to defend its citizens using its nuclear arsenal. Who is thinking this through? America's debt structure and the need for global financial reset is another potential trigger. The United States and most Western democracies are so far in debt that mathematically there is no way for their debts to ever be repaid – which precipitates the question: Who is going to be held accountable for the loss of capital when their perceived safe "national" debt instruments are reneged on? Wars have been fought over much smaller matters. Even a Black Swan event disrupting the supply chain that supports modern societies could precipitate war.
China's thirst for hegemony poses a threat: The population of China has grown to roughly 1.4 billion; there is growing tension among various ethnic groups; and much of the nation has been irretrievably polluted and is no longer habitable. It is just a question of time before the Chinese move to expand their borders, and a logical expansion would be to the west and then south, toward the sparsely populated continent of Australia and the neighboring islands of New Zealand. The process has already started in the Spratly Islands and other contested land masses in and around the South China Sea. On more than one occasion, Chinese generals have threatened to nuke the United States.
Warning signs are manifesting in Russia, as well. Mr. Putin and his Communist allies are rapidly positioning themselves to reassemble the old Soviet Union under the Russian flag, as demonstrated by recent aggression toward Crimea and Ukraine. Within the last month, Mr. Putin put his rocket forces on nuclear alert, and a Russian analyst advocated for the detonation of nuclear weapons off the U.S. coasts to create huge tsunamis to destroy our coastal population centers. The 15 new military bases the Russians built in the Arctic (read: North Pole) during the last 12 months are likely NOT an outreach to Eskimos. And as you well know, Mr. Putin just lifted the ban on the sale of sophisticated S-300 anti-aircraft missile systems to the Iranians. Are these preparations for war?
I fear, along with you, that hundreds of millions of lives hang in the balance as we rapidly approach the threshold of the next world war. Steeped in indifference or ignorance, and in contrast to Israel's citizens, Americans will deny the possibility of a threat to their insulated lives until the first unfortunate city is erased from the map. That might be Tel Aviv, but it could also be New York or some other U.S. enclave. Most Americans won't see it coming. Having failed to study history, they appear doomed to repeat it. History is a witness that every empire fails, every currency is debased, and the affected populace is typically unprepared for the seismic societal and cultural shifts that follow. Even 20th century experience is ignored. The 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica, for example, listed 152 sovereign nations. Ten decades later, only six of those nations remain untouched by civil war, revolution, dismemberment, or occupation. (The six are the United States, Switzerland, Sweden, New Zealand, Canada and Australia. Two of these face China's ambitions, and two Russia's, while Canada may share in the U.S.' fate.)
Mr. Netanyahu: With the notable exception of you, political leadership in the Western world remains unwilling to acknowledge the rising storm, and no one appears ready to make hard decisions that might avert the crisis. I and others like me are looking to you to continue to make the case in the public square that geopolitical upheaval is a true possibility, just over the horizon. To that end, I offer, in the following paragraphs, the meager information and observations I have gathered, in the hope that it is of some use to you in making clear and present dangers apparent to reluctant, disengaged Americans.
A wake-up call begins with provocative facts. Geopolitical analyst and author Jeff Nyquist has explained that attempts to arouse a placated populace from its naiveté must begin with presentation of a compelling set of facts. These will stop a reader from simply "shutting down" a challenge to some widely held opinion ("conventional wisdom") previously accepted by him or her without study or analysis. As Mr. Nyquist put it, "there is a special rhetorical problem when directly challenging a widely held opinion that people have accepted without argument and without careful study. The sudden appearance of a declaration contrary to the widely held belief, without a carefully laid out factual case, effectively destroys the reader's interest and sympathy for what is written. The reader literally shuts down at the very sentence. An intriguing set of facts must prepare the way for a questioning of received opinion." [Emphasis added.]
For someone who knows where to look, locating such facts is not difficult. Following are some examples of what I have in mind:
- The Russians have the finest and most sophisticated rocket force built in the history of mankind.
- The Russian rocket force could destroy the United States five times over before even one missile could be launched in response.
- The Russians have never stopped preparing to fight a nuclear war: They steadily increase their investment in their impenetrable Yamantau mountain complex that is rumored to be over 400 square miles in size.
- A nuclear war is in fact winnable, and the concept of "MAD" – Mutually Assured Destruction – was really just a clever marketing ploy to divert the public from analyzing the global thermo-nuclear war threat.
- The Chinese are roughly 60 years into a hundred-year plan to establish global economic and military dominance (hegemony).
- The Chinese have built 3,000 miles of underground tunnels in anticipation of war with the United States.
- The United States North American Aerospace Command (NORAD) and U.S. Northern Command just implemented a program this month to shift their base of operations back into Cheyenne Mountain, which is designed to shield the command's sensitive sensors and servers from nuclear attack and a potential electromagnetic pulse (EMP).
- Adm. William Gortney, head of NORAD, indicated people are preparing to move into the Cheyenne Mountain complex, saying, "My primary concern was ... are we going to have the space inside the mountain for everybody who wants to move in there, and I'm not at liberty to discuss who's moving in there."
- Today, the United States federal government budget requires borrowing roughly 40 percent of every dollar spent, thereby endangering the U.S. government's power, influence and mission capabilities. Taxation is already running at about 20 percent of U.S. gross domestic product, thus any meaningful increase risks crushing the economy and decreasing gross tax revenue despite the higher rates. It is the opinion of this author and others that if the U.S. is forced to choose how to allocate scarce tax dollars between beans (entitlements) and bullets (defense), beans would win. In such a scenario, the majority of U.S. Navy vessels would remain in port, the Air Force's planes would not fly, the Army would not maneuver, and the Marine Corp would be beached. Our enemies would be emboldened further as there would be no country capable of standing up to the Communist threat.
- Without the United States' ability to fund a strong military, where would the world stand? Consider that America is what historians might someday refer to as An Aberration in Time. In the simplest of economic and geo-political terms, it was the post-WWII economic might of the United States that could afford to support a military capable of policing the world's oceans, making unfettered free trade possible, as traversing the world became reliably safe (in contrast to the piracy-plagued travel of the near past). As a result, all boats floated higher, providing for what economists call the hyper-specialization of labor, i.e., nations were able to better compete economically by capitalizing on their comparative advantages in labor, raw materials, geography, etc.
- It was only as recently as the 1960s that the United States was the largest creditor nation in the world, and yet today the United States has become the greatest debtor nation in recorded history.
- Economically speaking, China has conquered much of the world. For nearly a third of a century, from 1985 to 2015, the United States has exported billions of dollars worth of technology and manufacturing know-how as well as a large portion of its wealth to China in exchange for cheap goods. (The U.S.' cumulative trade imbalance with China is approximately $3.7 trillion). The Chinese have also amassed additional trillions of dollars in trade imbalances with Israel and the rest of the world. The hope that we could incentivize the Chinese to align themselves with the West has been futile. We now see the Chinese using their accumulated economic gains to build a world-class military that in certain respects already exceeds that of the United States. Yes, I repeat, a military that in some respects already exceeds America's.
- The Chinese are growing bolder and are asserting themselves throughout the Pacific, Africa and South America, where they have begun to actively and aggressively undermine U.S. foreign policy efforts. Only now, in recent months, has the West reawakened to the reality that it has been the subject of a clever Communist plan, implemented by Mao Zedong in 1955, to establish hegemon – economic and military dominance over the world. Not only has the West mistakenly aided and abetted the Communists for some 60 years, but now only 40 years remain in their 100-year plan to export their anti-democratic political system and predatory economic practices around the world.
- The leadership of China and Russia are, in essence, derivates of the Communists. However we label them, we must not lose sight of the fact that the leadership of these nations, along with their surrogates, jointly MURDERED an estimated 100 million of their countrymen and ideological enemies during the 20th century. To appreciate the magnitude of this evil worldview, consider that 100 million is approximately one-third of the documented population of the United States.
- There is a current joint Sino-Russian effort (read: coordinated and joint Communist Russian and Chinese effort) to undermine the U.S.-led world order and replace it with a Communist-dominated economic and political system.
- While not a politically correct opinion to hold, the reality is that Joseph McCarthy has been vindicated: Communism is alive and well, and its influence grows daily within the United States and throughout the world. Communists are among us, and their propaganda is winning – or at least not offending – hearts and minds. In fact, one need look no further than the current U.S. administration to find a host of communist-affiliated sympathizers and supporters (Cass Sunstein, John Holdren and Harold Koh, among others). And while some might debate the point, the reality is that their actions reflect their core beliefs, including central planning, state control of property and the means of production, the subjugation of individuals to the state and the harnessing of production efforts for the good of "all". That is the very definition of Communism. And, as history has demonstrated, Communism is terminal, except for those wielding power.
Mr. Netanyahu, the challenge I place before you is to take your case to the people. To provide Americans with some intriguing facts, some figurative "bread crumbs" that might cause them to track information, to check footnotes and read underlying sources. Provide something to stir their intellectual curiosity so they might at least consider the possibility that public opinion is incorrect or incomplete, i.e., that they have been misled and patronized.
If we cannot be shocked or shamed into standing by Israel and supporting it against its enemies during this dark time, then Israel may have no choice but to deploy its nuclear arsenal to defend itself. Many Americans do not even understand that Israel has a nuclear capability, much less that that arsenal can be and will be used to preserve its national security.
In fact, I believe most Americans would be angry to learn that their own country's current policy requires absorbing a first nuclear strike before responding. The United States' nuclear deterrent, the triad of air, land and sea nuclear response capability, is largely obsolete and mismanaged (see "The Decline of American Power, Military Decrepitude and CIA Incompetence"), and Presidential Directive PDD-60, signed by President Clinton, and left in place by every successive administration, limits America's nuclear response posture and astonishingly calls for the United States to absorb a nuclear attack before initiating a response:
"… in this PDD we direct our military forces to continue to posture themselves in such a way as to not rely on launch on warning – to be able to absorb a nuclear strike and still have enough force surviving to constitute credible deterrence. … Our policy is to confirm that we are under nuclear attack with actual detonations before retaliating."
Would Israel ever adopt this policy? Of course not. It is ludicrous and represents a death sentence for millions. It makes no tactical or strategic sense for any population to absorb a nuclear attack while political leadership decides how and when to respond. Let's play it out: NORAD detects an impending attack on the United States. Our leaders and their families scurry to one of the 100-odd classified underground facilities they have built for themselves. They ride out the attack, then deliberate over a response, possibly posturing for advantage as politicians are wont to do, while millions of regular Americans are perishing.
If, for just one moment, a person could set aside the cultural and religious importance of the Holy Land, one option that might save millions of lives would be to offer Israeli citizens the chance to emigrate to the United States. Think about it, the U.S. government is generally sympathetic to immigration and has lots of land. The addition of millions of smart, hardworking Israelis would be a boon to the U.S. and a good example for the rest of the world. Perhaps the entire IDF could take charge of U.S. border security – the borders might for once actually be secure. And, candidly, if the Mossad ran the U.S. intelligence operation, it would free up all the politicians currently employed at Langley to run for elected office – as opposed to staying put and continuing to undermine productive intelligence work. You yourself might consider running for president here in America, since no one seems too concerned about enforcing Section 1 of Article II of the Constitution (which sets forth the eligibility requirements for serving as president of the United States). Ah, but I daydream and digress.
Yours is a voice of sanity in an increasingly insane world. May God bless and keep you, and may you somehow awaken the sleeping giant of American awareness, concern and support.
Sincerely yours,
Barrett H. Moore
Authors note: Some people will mock the warnings contained in this letter, while others will nitpick the facts, or, as they say, shoot the messenger. That is OK; I have advised for years of the advantages of "Living on the Edge of the Herd." Long ago, I resigned myself to abide by the tenants of the "Preparedness Wager" – a term I coined to express the idea that if we, as a nation, experienced security and prosperity in the past, we should live as if these will cease tomorrow – comparatively speaking, we have nothing to lose and everything to gain by making basic preparations for an insecure future.