TODAY. Is Israel the most dangerous nation in the world?
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has insisted that the option of attacking an Iranian nuclear facility in “self-defense” must be left on the table.
“Any military attack on a nuclear facility is outlawed, is out of the normative structures that we all abide by,” – IAEA Director-General Rafael Mariano Grossi .
Netanyahu said no such prohibition could apply to Israel.
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For the nations of the world, it is wrong to attack a nuclear facility. But for Israel alone – it is OK?
There seem to be only 2 ways of looking at Israel:
There’s the deliberately ignorant anti-semitic way highlighting denial of the Holocaust. Never mind that there’s extensive evidence of the horrors perpetrated on Jews by Nazi Germany, – and of the tardy and inadequate given help to the Jewish people by the rest of the world.
Then there’s the abject, penitent, response of the Western world – “We must not add to the sufferings of the Jewish people by criticising them“.
There is a third way to look at Jewish people – i.e. Jews are human beings, like the rest of us.
It’s about time that this view prevailed. Just as with an abused child, who grows up to become an abuser himself – that is not behaviour to be tolerated, or permitted, even though we recognise the awfulness of that child’s experience. So why on Earth is it OK for Israel to attack a nuclear facility!
Why are Israel attacks on Palestinians OK. but Palestinian responses are “criminal”?
Why do they call Israel the “Jewish State”, when there are Christians and Muslims etc living there? Are the non-Jews seen as untermenschen?
Fortunately, a lot of Jews agree with me. The sooner they kick out Benjamin Netanyahu, the better
Ukraine: A war to end all wars in Europe
BY M. K. BHADRAKUMAR, Indian Punchline,
The dash for the White House in Washington on Friday by German Chancellor Olaf Scholz remains a riddle wrapped in a mystery. Scholz landed in DC, drove to the White House and was received by President Biden in Oval Office for a conversation that lasted over an hour. No aides were present. And he flew back to Berlin.
Associated Press reported cryptically, “If any agreements were reached or plans made, the White House wasn’t saying.”……………………………………………..
Scholz’s dash to the Oval Office came at a defining moment in the Ukraine conflict. Russia has seized the initiative in the Donbass campaign and its spring offensive may start in the coming weeks. Ukraine’s military took heavy battering and the country depends almost entirely on western financial handouts and military aid for survival.
Most important, Kiev’s western backers are no longer sure of its ability to reclaim all the territory under Russian control — roughly, one-fifth of erstwhile Ukraine. An inchoate belief is also gaining ground in the western mind, behind all rhetoric, that the burden of the war effort is not going to be sustainable for long if the conflict extends into an indeterminate future.
Support for Ukraine is waning in the western public opinion. …………………………………………
the display of Western unity with Ukraine that Biden claims is wearing thin against a backdrop of strains within the trans-Atlantic alliance and a growing sense of despondency that the war has no end in sight.
……………………………………. What complicates matters further is an emerging divide in Europe over how to end the war. While Old Europeans, including Scholz, are urging peace talks now, the Russophobic East European and Baltic leaderships are clamouring for Russia’s defeat and a regime change in Moscow.
………………………………………………………. The good part is that the UK, France and Germany are in this together. Yet, the road ahead is long and winding. For Putin, the bottomline will be that no NATO membership for Ukraine and the ground realities must be heeded. But, fundamentally, peace talks would vindicate the raison d’être of Russia’s special military operation, which aimed to force the West to negotiate regarding NATO expansion. ………………. https://www.indianpunchline.com/ukraine-a-war-to-end-all-wars-in-europe/
Observations on the NATO-Russia Ukrainian War, No. 2
Russian and Eurasian Politics, by GORDONHAHN, March 8, 2023
The Russian Winter Offensive: Steamroller or Blitzkreig
Russia’s late winter offensive is under way. Seemingly unnoticeable, Russia’s forces in Donbass have been gaining steam over the last month and are now moving into high gear. The lack of visibility is relative. Expectations of a Nazi-like blitzkrieg have blinded eyes to the slowly moving steamroller that is now being unleashed. One need only compare a map of the disposition of Russian forces and the front along the Donbass front to see what is happening. [Maps supplied here on original]
In this two month period, Russian forces have taken Soledar and Bakhmut, while deterring a Ukrainian offensive in the north around Kupyansk and advancing on Kupyansk themselves. They have made gains in the battle around Serebranka Forest as well. Russian forces also deterred Ukrainian offensives in the south in Zaporozhe and Kherson. In the latter, Russian forces are inflicting heavily casualties in positional artillery battles across the Dnepr River and may force the Ukrainianians to abandon Kherson city. While advancing on Vugledar (Ugledar) in the southeast, however, their storm of the city failed, and they have been forced to step back and regroup. Ukrainian forces have been successful in blocking Russian advances on the Liman front as well as in Vugledar, inflicting higher numbers of Russian casualties than is usual.
The most important of Russian successes is the encirclement and the inevitable and imminent seizure of Bakhmut/Artyomevsk. There and in the battles surrounding Serebryanka Forest and Kherson in recent weeks, Ukrainian forces have been taking unprecedented casualties and equipment losses, far outstripping those suffered by the Russians.
As the Russian steamroller muscled forward to Bakhmut – a city Russians call ‘Artyomevsk’ – the former’s power was revealed in the preemptive propaganda campaign initiated in Ukraine and parts of the West asserting that Balhmut is of no strategic importance. The campaign revealed not only the propaganda value of any Russian seizure of Bakhmut would have for Moscow, reversing false image of ‘Ukraine is winning’ created by the propaganda victories for Kiev that the Russian withdrawals from – not routs at the hands of Ukrainian forces as the West/Ukraine propaganda claimed or implied – Kharkov (Kharkiv) in the northeast and Kherson in the south. But whereas Kharkov and Kherson have not proved to be strategic victories, Bakhmut’s fall will be. ………………………………………………………………………..
…………….. it is possible that by the end of the year, Russian forces will be in a position to force the Dnepr river, probably increasing the chances of ceasefire, peace, or surrender talks. This, along with any Ukrainian offensive on Crimea or Russian offensive in Zaporozhe and/or Kherson will define the war throughout 2023.
……………………………………………………………………………….. War and Authoritarianization
The war is instigating authoritarianization around the world. In Ukraine, President Volodomyr Zelenskiy has banned all non-nationalist, non-ultranationalist, and non-neofascist opposition political parties. The government has taken over mass media, instituting a de facto censorship regime. More recently, the government has instituted an online monitoring system that will track the websites citizens visit, and should they visit banned Russian and ‘pro-Russian’ sites, they will be arrested and can face imprisonment.
Vigilante groups are allowed to roam the streets in Kiev and all cities, making citizens’ arrests of sorts for alleged crimes and tying the alleged perpetrators to telephone and street light poles and leaving them there for hours in rain and snow, sometimes beating them. Children are being recruited into the army, which is a violation of international law. Oddly, the Western press, academia, and think tank milieu ignores or whitewashes all this. …………………………………………..
This reflects just one way in which the West is further dismantling its liberal republicanism in a misguided effort to lie in order to maintain public support for Ukraine. American media has banned almost all alternative views on the war other than ‘Ukraine is winning’ and Russian and Putin are evil, incompetent losers, deliberately murdering civilians in mass and otherwise committing war crimes as a matter of routine practice and policy.
A virtual gag order has been implemented in the case of the Nord Stream pipeline terrorist attack and other issues. US intelligence is helping Ukraine target attacks on civilian areas in Donbass using American-supplied HIMARS and assisting Ukrainian and Russian anti-Russian terrorists to carry out terrorist attacks and guerrilla activity in Russia.
………………………. One particular trend is the mainstreaming of neofascism across the West, especially in the US and the Baltic states, with Ukraine’s Azov and other neofascist groups and individuals being given positive news coverage, national awards, and visits with the Pope.
But the most deleterious development in American republicanism is the Soviet-like politicization of the law enforcement and intelligence departments. US intelligence and the FBI colludes with High Tech social network sites, like Facebook and Twitter, to censor Americans.
……………………………. In Russia, an already authoritarian system is becoming more so, with state media monopoly, censorship, and punishments for various oppositional articulations on the Internet and society at large being intensified. There is a deepening of the militarization of Russian society, the glorification of war, and mystification of Russia’s military, the State, and national culture, and a growing number of intensely anti-Western expressions, ………………………..
……………………………………Did the US Bait Putin Into War?
It appears increasingly likely that the US baited Putin to invade after he embarked on his strategy of coercive diplomacy by massing troops not far from the Ukrainian border in 2021. Washington ignored the Minsk process, built up the Ukrainian military to NATO level, did nothing to deter the strengthening of neo-fascism in Ukraine or Kiev’s plans to undertake a counteroffensive in Ukraine and Donbass rather than focus on the Minsk process.
Then we have recent revelations over the past year that not only did the US never engage the Minsk process but als the Western parties faked their engagement and the US foiled a ceasefire plan readied by Moscow, Kiev, and Tel Aviv in the first weeks of the war. Zelensky followed similar admissions by former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, former German Chancellor Angela Merkel, and for French President Francois Hollande to this effect……………………………………………………………….. more https://gordonhahn.com/2023/03/08/observations-on-the-nato-russia-ukrainian-war-no-2/
Former top U.S. admiral cashes in on nuclear sub deal with Australia
Steele-John, the Australian senator, called Richardson and other American consultants “inherently biased” and said they were primarily representing U.S., not Australian, interests
Washington Post, By Craig Whitlock and Nate Jones, March 7, 2023
In its quest to build nuclear-powered submarines, the government of Australia recently hired a little-known, one-person consulting firm from Virginia: Briny Deep.
Briny Deep, based in Alexandria, Va., received a $210,000 part-time contract in late November to advise Australian defense officials during their negotiations to acquire top-secret nuclear submarine technology from the United States and Britain, according to Australian contracting documents. U.S. public records show the company is owned by John M. Richardson, a retired four-star U.S. admiral and career submariner who headed the U.S. Navy from 2015 to 2019.
Richardson, who declined to comment, is the latest former U.S. Navy leader to cash in on the nuclear talks by working as a high-dollar consultant for the Australian government, a pattern that was revealed in a Washington Post investigation last year. His case brings to a dozen the number of retired officers and former civilian leaders from the U.S. Navy whom Australia has employed as advisers since the nuclear talks began in September 2021, documents show.
The former U.S. Navy officials are profiting from a web of sources with sometimes divergent interests. One retired U.S. admiral charges $4,000 per day to consult for the Australian government while simultaneously advising other foreign defense clients and collecting his U.S. military pension, according to records obtained by The Post under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).
The overlapping arrangements cast doubt on whether the U.S. consultants can provide impartial advice and raise questions about whose interests they are representing, said Jordon Steele-John, a member of the Australian Senate whose Green Party opposes the nuclear talks and has been critical of the government’s dependence on American advisers. “If you’re on the payroll of a foreign government, your advice is by definition not independent,” he said.
Under federal law, retired U.S. military personnel must obtain approval from the Pentagon and the State Department before they can accept money or jobs from foreign powers that could compromise their sworn allegiance to the United States. The law applies to retirees — generally those who served at least 20 years in uniform — because they receive a U.S. pension and can be recalled to active duty……………………………………………………………..
Vice Adm. Jonathan Mead, (above) the chief of Australia’s nuclear-powered submarine task force, told an Australian parliamentary committee last month that Richardson had been hired to provide guidance “on stewardship — that is, how to safely and securely manage nuclear technology” and on the training of naval personnel. “When we have specific tasks, questions or complex problems which come our way that we don’t have the subject matter expertise for, we reach in for his assistance,” Mead said during a Feb. 15 hearing.
……………………………….. Since his retirement from active duty, Richardson also has served on the board of directors for major companies in the defense and nuclear sectors, including Boeing, Constellation Energy and BWX Technologies. In 2021, he received more than $900,000 in compensation for his services on corporate boards, records show, plus a six-figure U.S. military pension.
……… “We’ve been very careful to make sure his advice is very specific to the questions that remain within the guidelines,” Mead said.
Steele-John, the Australian senator, called Richardson and other American consultants “inherently biased” and said they were primarily representing U.S., not Australian, interests. “Our government has been paying them handsomely for their advice,” he said. But he added that the arrangement “calls into question” any collaboration between Australia and the United States on military matters.
……………………………. One of the most prominent former officers is retired Vice Adm. William Hilarides, a career submariner who commanded the U.S. Naval Sea Systems Command until 2016. Since then, he has received consulting contracts from the Australian government worth $1.3 million, according to Australian defense officials.
He charges $4,000 per day for his consulting services, according to documents that the U.S. Navy recently released in response to The Post’s FOIA lawsuits. He has also worked for Fincantieri Marine Group, a Wisconsin shipyard company that is majority owned by the government of Italy. He did not respond to an email seeking comment.
Hilarides serves on Australia’s Naval Shipbuilding Expert Advisory Panel along with another American, retired Rear Adm. Thomas Eccles, a former chief engineer for ships and submarines for the U.S. Navy. Eccles had received consulting contracts worth about $820,000 since 2016, according to Australian defense officials………………………………………… more https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/2023/03/07/former-top-us-admiral-cashes-nuclear-sub-deal-with-australia/
The Nightmare Espionage Act That is Killing Julian Assange and the First Amendment
As for Julian Assange, the urgency behind bringing attention to the case is justified. According to Shenkman, “We tried to dig through the history to see if a publisher has ever been charged for anything like Julian Assange has been accused of. And the answer is no. This is the first case in U.S. history of its kind. And it would set a precedent that would open the floodgates for prosecuting the press.”
https://scheerpost.com/2023/03/03/the-nightmare-espionage-act-that-is-killing-julian-assange-and-the-first-amendment/ by EDITOR March 3, 2023
The use of the century old Espionage Act in the Julian Assange case continues to set the chilling precedent of a bleak future in American journalism, a precedent that endangers even those outside US borders.
arey Shenkman, attorney, author, and litigator specializing in civil and human rights, joins Robert Scheer for this week’s Scheer Intelligence, where Shenkman offers a sobering analysis on one of the most chilling attacks on press freedom exhibited in the Julian Assange case. Using his recently published book, A Century of Repression: The Espionage Act and Freedom of the Press, Shenkman details the history of the Espionage Act and how civil liberties have continued to be eroded as a result of the existence of this law and the lack of revision.
Shenkman talks about the bipartisan disdain towards the Espionage Act in legal circles yet its continued use by bipartisan presidents brings the conversation to its flaws and disreputability: “Over the decades, you have folks that are coming out with law review articles saying that it’s vague, verbose, that it makes no sense, and that ambiguity in the law is being exploited now to go after Julian Assange, to go after government whistleblowers. So there have actually been serious calls for its reform and repeal in recent years.” Assange faces 175 years in a U.S. maximum security prison after being indicted with 17 charges relating to the Espionage Act.
Going back to its inception during World War I, Shenkman explains what its true purpose was and how within the law, “you get a sense that this language of promoting disloyalty, of promoting opposition to the war, was actually used to go after conscientious objectors and folks that opposed entry into World War I.”
As for Julian Assange, the urgency behind bringing attention to the case is justified. According to Shenkman, “We tried to dig through the history to see if a publisher has ever been charged for anything like Julian Assange has been accused of. And the answer is no. This is the first case in U.S. history of its kind. And it would set a precedent that would open the floodgates for prosecuting the press.”
Shenkman says if Assange is extradited, it will make his case a law school case for all the wrong reasons. Despite all the concern surrounding the overreaching power of the United States, this case could also open the door to countries around the world to extradite citizens from foreign countries for exposing their wrongdoings. As Shenkman mentions, “Assange is not a U.S. government employee. He’s not even a U.S. citizen. And somehow the U.S. government says it has jurisdiction.”
Netanyahu justifies strikes on nuclear facilities
https://www.rt.com/news/572511-israel-iran-nuclear-facilities/ 6 March 23
The Israeli PM has challenged the UN watchdog’s statement that any attacks against nuclear plants are “outlawed”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has insisted that the option of attacking an Iranian nuclear facility in “self-defense” must be left on the table, arguing that the chief of the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) made an “unworthy” statement when he declared that any such strikes are banned.
“Are we forbidden to defend ourselves?” Netanyahu said on Sunday in a cabinet meeting. “Of course, we are allowed, and of course, we are doing this… Nothing will prevent us from protecting our country and preventing oppressors from destroying the Jewish state.”
Netanyahu’s remarks came a day after IAEA Director-General Rafael Mariano Grossi was asked by a reporter about US and Israeli threats to attack Iran if it doesn’t agree to curb its nuclear program.
“Any military attack on a nuclear facility is outlawed, is out of the normative structures that we all abide by,” Grossi said at a press briefing in Tehran after meeting with Iranian leaders. That principle applies to all nuclear facilities, including Europe’s biggest atomic facility in Zaporozhye.
Netanyahu said no such prohibition could apply to Israel. “Rafael Grossi is a worthy person who made an unworthy remark,” he said. “Outlawed by what law? Is Iran, which publicly calls for our extermination, allowed to protect its weapons of destruction that will slaughter us?”
Grossi’s trip to Tehran apparently paid dividends, as Iranian officials agreed to restore the UN watchdog’s access to some surveillance tools at the country’s nuclear facilities. The IAEA also was granted an increase in inspections at the Fordo nuclear site, as well as additional verification and monitoring activities.
“These are not words,” Grossi told reporters upon his return to Vienna on Saturday. “This is very concrete.”
Tehran has denied having any ambition to acquire nuclear weapons. Iran signed a deal with the US and other world powers in 2015, agreeing to impose restrictions on its nuclear industry, including uranium enrichment, to allay fears about its potential for warhead development. Washington reneged on the agreement in 2018, when then-US President Donald Trump said he would instead apply “maximum pressure” through sanctions on Iran to contain its nuclear program.
EU steps up “war economy” to rush arms to Ukraine — Anti-bellum
Defense PostMarch 8, 2023 EU Eyes ‘War Economy’ in Push to Rush Ammo to Ukraine EU defense ministers will discuss Wednesday plans to raid their stockpiles to rush one billion euros’ worth of ammunition to Ukraine and place joint orders for more to ensure supplies keep flowing. *** Ministers meeting with their Ukrainian counterpart Oleksiy […]
EU steps up “war economy” to rush arms to Ukraine — Anti-bellum
Pacific island leaders urge Japan to stop dumping nuclear waste into ocean: report
https://global.chinadaily.com.cn/a/202303/08/WS64082341a31057c47ebb314e.html SYDNEY – Leaders from multiple Pacific island countries are calling upon the Japanese government to immediately stop its plans for dumping nuclear waste into the Pacific Ocean, a news agency of the International Press Syndicate Group has reported.
Papua New Guinea’s Minister for Fisheries and Marine Resources Jelta Wong said that there is little doubt that the nuclear wastewater will find its way into ecosystems and food chains to contaminate people and harm Pacific fisheries industries, according to a report published by InDepthNews on Monday.
Fiji’s Acting Prime Minister Manoa Kamikamica said that Fiji has been on a very high alert after Japan said it planned to discharge the Fukushima nuclear-contaminated wastewater into the Pacific Ocean.
If the water treated by the Advanced Liquid Processing System is so safe, “why not reuse it in Japan for alternative purposes, in manufacturing and agriculture for instance?” he asked.
Why are the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and the corporate media ignoring the safety problems of Holtec’s thin-walled nuclear waste canisters?
Koeberg Thin Walled Holtec Nuclear Waste Canister In S. Africa Leaked After 17 Years, More Holtec Canister Problems That Threaten Massive Radiological Releases, Explosion & Criticality Risks From Holtec Canisters, Potential Canister Problem At Diabalo Canyon After 2 Years.
Title (wordpress.com) (https://sanonofresafety.files.wordpress.com/2012/05/urgentnuclearwastecanisterproblems2016-09-16.pdf)
List of other thin walled nuclear canisters vendors who threaten life on Earth listed at https://sanonofresafety.org in addition to Holtec. Where is the media? The vaunted “free press”?
NRC ignores Holtec design problem that gouges walls of all San Onofre nuclear waste canisters | San Onofre Safety (https://sanonofresafety.org/2019/01/09/nrc-ignores-holtec-design-problem-that-gouges-walls-of-all-san-onofre-nuclear-waste-canisters/)
All Holtec nuclear waste thin-wall canisters likely damaged from inferior Holtec downloading systems | San Onofre Safety (https://sanonofresafety.org/2019/05/16/all-holtec-nuclear-waste-thin-wall-canisters-likely-damaged-from-inferior-holtec-downloading-systems/)
NUREG-2224 High Burnup Fuel Storage and Transport | San Onofre Safety (https://sanonofresafety.org/nureg-2224-high-burnup-storage-and-transport/) Explosion & Criticality Risks From Holtec Thin Walled Canisters, Potential Diabalo Canyon Nuclear waste Canisters After 2 Years
The extraordinary popularity of renewable energy university courses
The number of students on renewables-related courses in Scotland has
soared by 70% in four years, figures reveal. Scottish Renewables found that
22,000 undergraduates were studying subjects which cover the sector,
ranging from engineering to maths. The same survey in 2019 reported around
13,000 young people studying in similar areas. Scottish Renewables said it
demonstrated the attractiveness of the industry.
BBC 7th March 2023
Britain’s Public Accounts Committee reveals that UK’s nuclear reactors have been a poor investment
It’s almost a year since Boris Johnson’s announcement that a new
nuclear power station will be built at Wylfa, Ynys Môn. ‘Wylfa
Newydd’ is part of the proposed new nuclear scheme, Great British Nuclear
(GBN). But GBN, if it goes ahead, will be the third generation of nuclear
reactors in the UK.
Let’s look back at the past two generations of
nuclear power stations in the UK, and see how they’ve performed, and ask
if Wylfa Newydd is really the boon for Cymru that the Tories claim it is.
As Johnson made his Wylfa announcement in April 2022, the Public Accounts
Committee (PAC) was busy finalising a report on the economic performance of
Britain’s previous, second generation of reactors. The PAC report,
entitled ‘The Future of Advanced Gas-cooled Reactors [AGRs],’ was
released just a month after Johnson’s announcement.
It revealed: hownthese retirement-age AGR reactors have been a poor investment, not serving
Britain well economically; how the estimated cost of decommissioning them
had nearly doubled since 2004, and would likely climb further; and how
these astronomical, escalating costs of decommissioning the AGR sites (now
at £23.5 billion) is being put onto UK tax-payers.
Nation Cymru 7th March 2023 https://nation.cymru/opinion/great-english-nuclear-should-wales-be-involved/
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