Perhaps Newt is right {Barf Alert]

The Guardian ^ | 7/21/06 | Andrew Murray

[Oshkalaboomboom]

If the third world war has begun, its cause is Washington's ambition for undivided world hegemony.

The third world war has begun. Newt Gingrich says so, and in a more measured and rational way, Timothy Garton Ash points in the same direction.

For, Garton Ash the mayhem he sees all around him is rooted in a US weakness, which has allowed the effective creation of a "multipolar world". He looks to a future in which we may all be "nostalgic for the bad old days of American supremacy".

Gingrich is still a unipolar guy down to his bouffant roots. These are the "good old days" and he is not going to let American supremacy go without a fight - literally, even if the wholly-owned Israeli subsidiary has to do the fighting at present.

It would be easy to ridicule as fatuous a figure as Gingrich, and even Garton Ash's arguments could be picked away at.

But perhaps they are right and the third world war is now breaking upon us.

Which side are you on? Not as easy as it appears, even for Gingrich. Rhetoric and reality are in collision.

Gingrich is, apparently, on the side of the Lebanese government, a government that US pressure did a great deal to secure the installation of last year. Yet this same government is insistently pleading for a ceasefire and has denounced the "Israeli aggression" which is, inter alia, attacking Lebanese army installations.

On the same side as the Lebanese government is the US-sponsored government in Iraq, which has been surprisingly forthright in denouncing the Israeli onslaught. Understandably, Beirut and Baghdad have focussed on Israeli iniquity rather than the far larger crimes of which their sponsoring power, Gingrich and all, is the author. But the empire is nevertheless unravelling.

[Oshkalaboomboom]

Andrew Murray has been national chair of the Stop the War Coalition since its foundation in 2001 so naturally all war and evil in the world is a result of the USA's agressive pursuit of their own selfish interests. I wonder if he blames the US for WWII also?

[Coldwater Creek]

Heck! I have been saying that we are in WW3 ever since 9/11, and I am a complete nobody. didn't take a Rhodes scholar to figure that one out!!!!

[samtheman]

I started to read this but about halfway through I had to stop. This truly is barf. Thanks for the barf alert.

Anti-semitic, anti-American, pro-terrorist. This guy obviously thinks that mouthing this tripe will keep his head attached to his neck once the terrorists triumph. Of course, it won't. They'll severe his idiot barf-filled skull once they don't need him anymore.

[BadAndy]

"Andrew Murray has been national chair of the Stop the War Coalition since its foundation in 2001"

Idiots like Mr Murray will be among tha first to get their heads cut off and the last to understand why.

[DustyMoment]

If the third world war has begun, its cause is Washington's ambition for undivided world hegemony.

I stopped reading there. I SHOULD have stopped with "Guardian".

Move along, nothing to see here.

[Mikey_1962]

If we describe World Wars as those wars where all the major powers in the world in various alliances, and those alliances at war with each other at the same time, then there have been 7 World Wars: The Spanish Wars of Succession, The 100 years War, The 7 years war, the Napoleonic Wars, The Franco Prussian War & the other Continental wars that were concurrent, and WWI & WWII.

By that definition we are in the pre-World War III stage where the combatants are known but alliances not yet formed or battle ready.

But if you look at the time line of World Wars, they seem to occur every 50 years: Just enough time for the last peace to be meaningless.

[theBuckwheat]

Dear "Guardian" (guardian of what?):

You wrote: "If the third world war has begun, its cause is Washington's ambition for undivided world hegemony."

Let us pretend that your wildest dream has just come true- the US has withdrawn from the world stage, lock, stock and barrel (if you will pardon my use of a firearm figure of speech).

Who will very quickly step in to fill the power vacuum? And as these powers wrestle and pound out the new status quo, what would the world be like?

Yes, indeed, will the Chinese bring peace and respect for human rights as they move as quickly as possible to extend their sphere of control beyond Taiwan and to the shores of Australia? Will the Japanese rush to develop nuclear weapons and delivery systems to hang on to their sovereignty? Will the new sunni-shia war bring "stability" to a "war-torn region"?

And when Europe draws itself up to defend its form of civilization, where will little England find itself with all its barbarians living in Londonistan?

Who will tamp down and discourage all the little despots from taking their chance at grabbing on to power in their little domains? What will stop South American from being like Central Africa? Will the UN Commission on Human Rights hold hearings? Will the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, of which Iran and Algeria are members hold candle light vigils for the millions who die after being swept up in the chaos?

No, there cannot be chaos. When liberal visions of utopia come true, chaos is forbidden, misery is prohibited, suffering is only alleviated.