Aug. 6, the anniversary of Hiroshima, should be a day of somber reflection, not only on the terrible events of that day in 1945, but also on what they revealed: that humans, in their dedicated quest to extend their capacities for destruction, had finally found a way to approach the ultimate limit.

This year's Aug. 6 memorials have special significance. They take place shortly before the 50th anniversary of "the most dangerous moment in human history," in the words of the historian and John F. Kennedy adviser Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr., referring to the Cuban missile crisis.

Graham Allison writes in the current issue of Foreign Affairs that Kennedy "ordered actions that he knew would increase the risk not only of conventional war but also nuclear war," with a likelihood of perhaps 50 percent, he believed, an estimate that Allison regards as realistic.

Kennedy declared a high-level nuclear alert that authorized "NATO aircraft with Turkish pilots ... (or others) ... to take off, fly to Moscow, and drop a bomb."

None were more shocked by the discovery of missiles in Cuba than the men in charge of the similar missiles that the U.S. had secretly deployed in Okinawa six months earlier, surely aimed at China, at a moment of elevated regional tensions.

Kennedy took Chairman Nikita Khrushchev "right to the brink of nuclear war and he looked over the edge and had no stomach for it," according to Gen. David Burchinal, then a high-ranking official in the Pentagon planning staff. One can hardly count on such sanity forever.

Khrushchev accepted a formula that Kennedy devised, ending the crisis just short of war. The formula's boldest element, Allison writes, was "a secret sweetener that promised the withdrawal of U.S. missiles from Turkey within six months after the crisis was resolved." These were obsolete missiles that were being replaced by far more lethal, and invulnerable, Polaris submarines.

Most news sources are funded by corporations and investors. Their goal is to drive people to advertisers while pushing the corporate agenda.

In brief, even at high risk of war of unimaginable destruction, it was felt necessary to reinforce the principle that U.S. has the unilateral right to deploy nuclear missiles anywhere, some aimed at China or at the borders of Russia, which had previously placed no missiles outside the USSR. Justifications of course have been offered, but I do not think they withstand analysis.

An accompanying principle is that Cuba had no right to have missiles for defense against what appeared to be an imminent U.S. invasion. The plans for Kennedy's terrorist programs, Operation Mongoose, called for "open revolt and overthrow of the Communist regime" in October 1962, the month of the missile crisis, recognizing that "final success will require decisive U.S. military intervention."

The terrorist operations against Cuba are commonly dismissed by U.S. commentators as insignificant CIA shenanigans. The victims, not surprisingly, see matters rather differently. We can at last hear their voices in Keith Bolender's "Voices from the Other Side: An Oral History of Terrorism Against Cuba." The events of October 1962 are widely hailed as Kennedy's finest hour. Allison offers them as "a guide for how to defuse conflicts, manage great-power relationships, and make sound decisions about foreign policy in general." In particular, today's conflicts with Iran and China.

Disaster was perilously close in 1962, and there has been no shortage of dangerous moments since. In 1973, in the last days of the Arab-Israeli war, Henry Kissinger called a high-level nuclear alert. India and Pakistan have come close to nuclear war. There have been innumerable cases when human intervention aborted nuclear attack only moments before launch after false reports by automated systems. There is much to think about on Aug. 6.

Allison joins many others in regarding Iran's nuclear programs as the most severe current crisis, "an even more complex challenge for American policymakers than the Cuban missile crisis" because of the threat of Israeli bombing.

The war against Iran is already well underway, including assassination of scientists and economic pressures that have reached the level of "undeclared war," in the judgment of the Iran specialist Gary Sick.

Great pride is taken in the sophisticated cyberwar directed against Iran. The Pentagon regards cyberwar as "an act of war" that authorizes the target "to respond using traditional military force," The Wall Street Journal reports. With the usual exception: not when the U.S. or an ally is the perpetrator.

The Iran threat has recently been outlined by Gen. Giora Eiland, one of Israel's top military planners, described as "one of the most ingenious and prolific thinkers the (Israeli military) has ever produced."

Of the threats he outlines, the most credible is that "any confrontation on our borders will take place under an Iranian nuclear umbrella." Israel might therefore be constrained in resorting to force. Eiland agrees with the Pentagon and U.S. intelligence, which also regard deterrence as the major threat that Iran poses.

The current escalation of the "undeclared war" against Iran increases the threat of accidental large-scale war. Some of the dangers were illustrated last month when a U.S. naval vessel, part of the huge deployment in the Gulf, fired on a small fishing boat, killing one Indian crew member and wounding at least three others. It would not take much to set off a major war.

One sensible way to avoid such dread consequences is to pursue "the goal of establishing in the Middle East a zone free from weapons of mass destruction and all missiles for their delivery and the objective of a global ban on chemical weapons" - the wording of Security Council resolution 687 of April 1991, which the U.S. and U.K. invoked in their effort to provide a thin legal cover for their invasion of Iraq 12 years later.

The goal has been an Arab-Iranian objective since 1974, regularly re-endorsed, and by now it has near-unanimous global support, at least formally. An international conference to consider ways to implement such a treaty may take place in December.

Progress is unlikely unless there is mass public support in the West. Failure to grasp the opportunity will, once again, lengthen the grim shadow that has darkened the world since that fateful Aug. 6.
(c) 2012 Noam Chomsky is emeritus professor of linguistics and philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and is co-author, with Gilbert Achcar, of Perilous Power: The Middle East & U.S. Foreign Policy: Dialogues on Terror, Democracy, War, and Justice. His most recent book is Gaza In Crisis.

TO SUM up the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games in one word: kitsch.

To sum up the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games in two words: wonderful kitsch.

HONEST DISCLOSURE: I am an Anglophile.

At the age of 15 I started working for an Oxford-educated lawyer. At the office only English was spoken. So I had to learn it, and immediately fell hopelessly in love with the English language and British culture in general.

Some may wonder at this, since at the same time I joined a terrorist organization whose aim was to fight the British and drive them out of Palestine.

Soon after my 15th birthday I faced the admission panel of the Irgun. I was asked if I hated the British. Facing the beam of a powerful projector, I answered: no. Sensing the consternation on the other side of the blinding light, I added that I wanted to liberate our country, and did not need to hate the British to do that.

Actually, I think that most Irgun fighters felt like that. The nominal Commander in Chief, Vladimir (Ze'ev) Jabotinsky, was an ardent anglophile and once wrote that the Englishman in the colonies was a brutal oppressor, but that the Englishman at home was a decent and likeable fellow. When Great Britain declared war on Nazi Germany, Jabotinsky ordered the immediate cessation of all Irgun actions. The Irgun's military commander, David Raziel, was killed by a Nazi bomb while assisting the British in Iraq.

His successor, Menachem Begin, came to Palestine with the Polish exile army, in which he served as a Polish-English interpreter. In this capacity he was often in contact with the British authorities. He once told me how he brought documents to British officers in the King David hotel, the building which he later - as Irgun commander - ordered to be bombed. Years later, the Queen graciously received him as Prime Minister of Israel.

Altogether, we had the feeling that we were lucky to be fighting the British, and not, say, a French or American (not to mention Israeli) occupation regime.

AFTER THIS confession, another one: I am not a sports enthusiast. Actually, I have no sense for sport at all.

Even as a child, I was the worst in gymnastics class. A good book always attracted me more than an exciting football game. My father treated sport as "goyim-naches" - Pleasure for Goyim. (Naches in Yiddish is derived from the Hebrew word Nakhat, pleasure or satisfaction.

BUT BACK to the Olympics. In the summer of their discontent, the British produced something unique: original, exciting, surprising, moving, humorous. I laughed when Her Majesty jumped out of the helicopter, I almost shed a tear when the handicapped children sang "God Save The Queen."

But let us go beyond the pomp and circumstance. Do the Olympic games have a deeper significance? I think they do.

Konrad Lorenz, the Austrian professor who researched the behavior of animals as a basis for understanding human behavior, asserted that sports are a substitute for war.

Nature has equipped humans with aggressive instincts. They were an instrument for survival. When resources on earth were scarce, humans, like other animals, had to fight off intruders in order to stay alive.

This aggressiveness is so deeply imbedded in our biological heritage that it is quite useless to try to eliminate it. Instead, Lorenz thought, we must find harmless outlets for it. Sport is one answer.

And indeed, looking at the various manifestations of this human pastime, one cannot but notice the similarities with war. National flags are carried around by victory-crazy crowds. The defeated feel and behave like armies after a lost battle.

In ancient times, wars were often settled by duels. Each army would send forward a champion, and mortal combat between the two would decide the issue. Such was the legendary fight between David and Goliath. In today's sports, a single champion often fights for his nation in the tennis court, the judo ring or the Olympic pool.

A national football (soccer) team certainly goes into battle for the honor of its country, borne on waves of patriotism. Each player is profoundly conscious of the huge responsibility resting on his shoulders (or in his feet). A beaten team often looks like the pitiful remnants of Napoleon's Grand Army retreating from Russia.

In Europe, where national sovereignty is gradually losing its meaning, football has taken its place. When you see a crowd marching through the streets of any European city, shouting and waving the national flag, intoxicated with national pride (and alcohol), you know that an "important" match is taking place.

The much-condemned English football hooligans (named after a riotous Irish family in London) are not so far removed from the spirit of the game. Patriotism, war and violence all grow on the same tree.

For the Israeli team, the consciousness of National Duty is most pronounced. Israel's sportsmen and sportswomen do not win for themselves, they win "for the Jewish People". Every (scarce) victory is a national victory, every (alas, so frequent) defeat is a defeat for Israel. Thus it is represented in our media, thus the winners and losers themselves see it.

IN A WAY, sport is not only a substitute for war, but also for religion.

There is a religious fervor to sports. Enough to look at the faces of the football players before the beginning of a match, devoutly singing the national anthem, in order to become conscious of the sacredness of the occasion - though a British player may come from Jamaica and a French one from Algeria.

Even in the understated British opening ceremony, the religious undertones were obvious. The Torch, the Flag, the High Priests. Onward Christian soldiers, marching as to war. Also Muslim soldiers. Also Jewish soldiers, and so on.

In Israel, Jewish sportsmen and sportswomen often invoke the Almighty in their matches. They clutch amulets blessed by Kabbalist rabbis, pray and ask for divine favor. (Which must be a headache for the Divine Referee when Jews play Jews.)

I suppose that in ancient Greece, where it all began, players invoked the various Gods and Goddesses, calling for the best God to win. In the wide-flung Byzantine Empire, two colors battled each other for generations.

Sport, as represented by the Olympic games, is now a world-wide cult, less harmful than most, without the mumbo jumbo of some, uniting rather than dividing. Altogether a good thing.

THE UNITING factor is, perhaps, the most outstanding characteristic of this event.

Hundreds of millions, perhaps a billion human beings watched it around the globe, each represented by his (or her) national champions.

That is more than a curiosity. Hopefully, it is a picture of the future.

Watching the entrance of the delegations was an uplifting experience. Almost all the nations on earth were represented, following each other in quick succession, waving their colorful flags. During the following days they competed with each other, met each other, respecting each other, all in a spirit of comradeship. Sportsmen and women from one nation admired the achievements of those from others, races mingled, prejudices evaporated.

It is interesting to compare this international meeting with another place where all the nations meet: the United Nations Organization. In the match between the two, the Olympics win hands down.

Can anyone imagine an Olympic meeting where some nations possess a formal veto and use it against another nation? Can one compare the inbuilt inactivity of the UN with the hyperactivity of the games?

For me, this is the main attraction of the event. I am a strong believer in world governance. I believe that it is an absolute necessity for the survival of the human race and the planet. Climate change, the proliferation of nuclear weapons, the global economy, world-wide communications - all make global cooperation both necessary and possible.

I am fairly sure that by the end of the 21st century, some sort of global government, based on global democracy, will be in place. The Olympic Games are a good example for such a reality. All the nations are represented, all have equal rights, and, most importantly - all abide by the same rules. In principle, each champion has the same chance of winning a gold medal as anyone else; belonging to this or that big or small nation does not matter.

Wouldn't it be great if the entire world were organized along the same lines?

FOR AN Israeli, the procession was a sobering experience.

We tend to see ourselves as the center of the world, a power well beyond our modest size. Yet here our delegation was marching, one among many, one of the smaller ones, without the glamor some of the others possess, without a single champion that all mankind recognizes.

The road ahead was clearly marked as "closed" and a "dead end," but the voice from the back seat insisted that we go forward anyway. "My phone says go straight ahead," counseled the voice, ignoring the driver's observation that the street was apparently closed. "The GPS in my phone is smarter than you are," chimed the voice, good-naturedly yet sardonically. Obviously trumped, the driver continued forward -- until we inevitably reached the advertised road closure that forced us to turn around and start over.

In itself, such a minor folly is entirely inconsequential and worthy of a little chuckle at best. Yet it's also indicative of an increasingly prevalent attitude whereby the reliance on "smart" technologies is steadily supplanting human assessments and instincts. By now, such an observation is quite nearly passe, in that we have already given so much of ourselves and our reasoning capacities over to machines in one form or another. But the advent and rapid permeation of personal technologies like so-called "smartphones" raises further concerns that have been less explored during this most recent consumer frenzy.

Earlier this year, it was reported that over half of U.S. phone users have smartphones, with the rate rising to nearly two-thirds in the 25-34 age range. CNN observed that this represented a 38 percent increase from the previous year. The data are revealing if not superfluous, as even a casual observer will confirm that people are increasingly using these devices everywhere. And it is truly a burgeoning global phenomenon, with nearly as many cell phones as people on the planet, and with smartphones now numbering over a billion and rising.

New technologies often bring rapid changes in cultural norms as well as concerns over their usage. Yet in the case of smartphones, we seem to hear less of the concerns being voiced than we might expect, especially given how much they have contributed to remaking the social landscape in so short a time. Privacy issues have been raised in some quarters, including a Wall Street Journal article titled "Your Apps Are Watching You," and the tracking and surveillance capacities enabled by these devices have been duly noted. The data compiled from smartphones is routinely mined by commercial entities, law enforcement agencies, and who knows who else -- and it is quite likely the case that most users are fully aware of this by now.

Still, by and large, users seem blissfully unconcerned, which is problematic in its own right as a form of cognitive dissonance. And the proto-sociologist in me sees other troubling signs. You walk into any space, public or private, and the majority of people have their heads down looking at their digital devices. You sit on a park bench while your kids are at the playground, and most of the parents are on their smartphones rather than talking to one another. You give a talk or presentation, and people in the room regularly stare down to check their messages and such. You ask a friend a question, and they need you to repeat it multiple times...

This is the zeitgeist, the (ring)tone of the times. But who am I to stand in the way of progress? (Or even regress, for that matter.) People are drawn to new toys; I get it. Yet it's disturbing to see some basic human qualities on the verge of being bred out if this arc continues. Is it too much to ask that community members engage with one another rather than obsessing over their handheld devices? Maybe we can open our windows to check the weather rather than pulling it up on our phones. Perhaps (as the example at the top of this piece suggests) we can use our instincts and observations to find our way rather than relying on digital directives all the time. Can we talk rather than text? Or even just look up (and around) now and again?

The problem lies in crossing that fine line between a tool that enables and a technology that ensnares. When we become utterly dependent on such technologies, not merely for sustenance but for psychological validation, they begin to rule rather than liberate us. We wind up voluntarily feeding the security apparatus everything it needs to turn us into controlled data points instead of autonomous human beings, making us the agents of our own oppression. Over time, we lose the capacity to think for ourselves or communicate with others without these devices. Consider that the "smart" electrical meter on your house likely knows more about who you really are than your friends or neighbors do. We are never offline, off the clock, or off the grid -- and our functional distraction is meant to mask our profound alienation. Solipsism is our final refuge.

Such cautionary tales are well known in the annals of speculative fiction. Whether it's The Terminator, Blade Runner, or Battlestar Galactica, the overarching theme remains the same. When machines get "smart," they come to identify us venal humans as the problem, and seek to annihilate us for our own good. In our infinite wisdom we create machines to serve our purposes and even desires, but when they "wake up" and take that injunction literally it all goes awry quickly. Things come home to roost when we recognize a kernel of truth in the machines' obsession with eliminating humankind for its hubris, destructiveness, and foolhardiness. In the end, we're left with a self-fulfilling apocalypse in which smart machines seek to supersede stupid people.

I gather that it may not be high on anyone's list to read a rant about the evils of technology. As I've noted many times before, that's not where I'm coming from: we can't put the genie back in the bottle, and the things that humans create can be beautiful and empowering at times. What I am urging here is a balance, not a rejection. Turn your smartphone off now and again, leave it at home, or ditch it altogether in favor of an old-school landline. Place limits on when you'll be available for people to reach you electronically. When in a public place, chat with nearby people rather than remote avatars. Don't text while someone is talking to you. Read, don't tweet. Go outside and watch real birds rather than playing with angry ones on your touchscreen.

I know, I know -- I'm a dinosaur, retro, so 15 minutes ago. But I'm still going to navigate by my senses rather than whatever your smartphone is telling me to do. Sorry, but I haven't seen an app for common sense yet, and I doubt that one is forthcoming. Despite the trend, I maintain that people are still more capable than their phones, but how long that will last is anyone's guess at this point. The road ahead on our present course is clearly marked "dead end," and it doesn't take a billion smartphones to realize it -- only a few smart people.
(c) 2012 Randall Amster J.D., Ph.D., teaches peace studies at Prescott College and serves as the executive director of the Peace & Justice Studies Association. Amonsg his most recent books are Anarchism Today (Praeger, 2012) and the co-edited volume "Building Cultures of Peace: Transdisciplinary Voices of Hope and Action" (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2009).

A new peace movement to end the US-sponsored drug war begins with buses rolling and feet marching from the Tijuana-San Diego border on August 12 through twenty-five US cities to Washington, DC, in September.

Named the Caravan for Peace, the trek is intended to put human faces and names on the estimated 60,000 dead, 10,000 disappeared and 160,000 displaced people in Mexico since 2006, when the US Drug Enforcement Agency, Pentagon and the CIA supported the escalation of the Mexican armed forces.

The caravan, which has staged mass marches across Mexico since 2011, is led by well-known Catholic poet Javier Sicilia, 56, whose son Juan Francisco, then 24, was killed in crossfire in Cuernavaca in March 2011. After his son's death, Sicilia, vowing not to write poetry any longer, formed a Movement for Peace with Justice and Dignity (MPJD) and penned an anguished grito, or cry, titled "Estamos Hasta La Madre!" The English equivalent might be "Fed Up!," but the Spanish slang also means that the authorities "insulted our mother protector, they've committed a sacrilege," Sicilia says.

About seventy Mexican activists, many of whom are are relatives of victims, and about thirty Americans will accompany Sicilia on the caravan along the US-Mexico border, north from New Orleans through Mississippi and Alabama, to Chicago, Cleveland, New York City, Baltimore and Washington, DC. The US-based Global Exchange is charged with coordination and logistics. More than 100 US immigrant rights and peace groups are actively involved, including the Drug Policy Alliance, the NAACP, the Washington Office on Latin America, the Center for International Policy's Americas Program, the Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, the National Latino Congreso, Presente.org and Veterans for Peace. Fifty grassroots groups are involved from California alone.

The caravan may force a response from President Obama, who at the Summit of the Americans this past April stated "it is entirely legitimate to have a conversation about whether the laws in place are ones that are doing more harm than good in certain places." At this point, the caravan has not reached a decision on whether to seek a meeting with the White House, according to caravan spokesman Daniel Robelo of the Drug Policy Alliance. But it will hold briefings on Capitol Hill and intends to reach out to administration officials, Robelo says.

After the caravan massed 100,000 in Mexico City's Zócalo (main plaza) last spring, Sicilia took part in direct dialogue with Mexican president Felipe Calderón last June in historic Chapúltepec Castle. On a large table before the president lay photos of Mexicans slain in the conflict, often depicting them as smiling, hopeful human beings before the horror that claimed their lives. Sicilia said "The powers that be were trying to tell us that all those who were dying were just criminals, just cockroaches. We had to change the mindset, and put names to the victims for a change."

The response to Sicilia's call was spontaneous and widespread. Overnight he became a revered figure in Mexico. Soon he was one of the protesters featured in Time magazine's 2011 "Person of the Year" issue.

Assuming favorable local and national coverage as the caravan crosses the United States, Sicilia's voice will soon be heard by millions of Americans.

And an unusual voice it is. Authentic: the voice of a grieving father. Nonpolitical: "I had never thought of starting a movement or being a spokesman for anything." Religious: he is a theologian trained in liberation theology, and believes "the life of the soul can be powerful too."

Sicilia's movement has not pleased everyone on the Mexican left. Though a man of the left, Sicilia did not support Andrés Manuel López Obrador, the presidential candidate of the Partido de la Revolución Democrática (PRD). In the view of some, his strategy of dialogue only made Calderón and conservative political parties seem more reasonable. In a Time interview, Sicilia denounced left-wing groups in Juárez for trying to "highjack the movement" by insisting that Calderón withdraw all Mexican troops from the streets. Sicilia's intuition was that immediate and total withdrawal of the army was an unrealistic demand that would weaken public support. "It threatened to drain the force of the movement," he said. "It showed me that a protest can't be overly ideological if it's going to be successful."

An eyewitness journalist I spoke to, however, said the Juárez dispute also concerned the centralizing of too much decision-making power in Sicilia alone. The journalist acknowledged that many differences exist about the role, if any, of troops on the streets.

Perhaps the main achievement of Sicilia's campaign so far is a change in narrative about the drug war taking place across Mexico. For years the central narrative has been about escalating prohibition and repression through a "mano dura" ("strong hand") policy by the state and security forces. Victims' voices have been enlisted to promote revenge. Questioners were marginalized as soft on crime and drugs.

While many are still enraged about traffickers and assassins, the rising narrative is about the failure of the drug war itself-including Mexican institutions like corrupt courts, law enforcement and elected bodies-and a thoroughgoing "cluelessness" that Sicilia sees among Mexico's governing elites.

Elites in the US also will be threatened by parts of the platform the MPJD is carrying north. The document was cobbled together over a mid-June weekend with input from the Center for International Policy's Americas Program, the Drug Policy Alliance, Washington Office Online America and Witness for Peace, among others. The platform attempts to re-balance the drug policy debate from the two poles of Prohibition and Legalization towards a dialogue about alternative policies to militarization. It calls for:

* "suspension of US assistance to Mexico's armed forces," and a shift from the war focus to human security and development;

* effective policies to halt arms smuggling in border regions, especially Texas and Arizona;

* an increased federal crackdown on money-laundering;

* protections of immigrants who have been "displaced by violence who are fleeing to the US seeking save haven and a better life."

If the caravan's call to "end the violence" diminishes public support for the militarized approach, it could force an open dialogue about alternatives like drug legalization, until very recently considered a fatal third rail.

Sicilia and the caravan have been careful not to call explicitly for legalization, because their starting point is the suffering caused by the failed drug war. In addition, they acknowledge that the alternatives are complex. They have an informal consensus, though not a demand, on somehow regulating marijuana more safely, and promoting research and analysis on approaches other drugs like cocaine and methamphetamine - humanizing, so to speak, instead of militarizing, the problem.

The caravan arrives at a turning point in the hemispheric drug policy debate. Obama's endorsement of a new "conversation" was forced by unprecedented criticism of US drug war policies by the presidents of Guatemala, Colombia, Costa Rica, Argentina, Brazil and Ecuador at a regional summit in February. Belize has followed suit, and Uruguay's president José Mujica on June 20 proposed that his country become the first to legalize marijuana under state management.

A recent front-page New York Times account titled "South America Sees Drug Path to Legalization" mocked Mr. Mujica as "famously rebellious," a "former guerrilla who drives a 1981 Volkswagen beetle." Mujica, the Times seemed to chuckle, would turn Uruguay into the world's first "marijuana republic."