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Why the Glut of ‘Wonder Weapons’ to Ukraine Won’t Make a Difference

 The primary purpose of American and Western militarism is to make profits for private corporations, the military-industrial complex.

Typically, the weapons are vastly overpriced, overhyped and designed for perpetual consumption.

They are not for winning a war. They’re for being used up, so you have to replace them now, with yet new buying.”

Finian Cunningham, August 15, 2023,  https://strategic-culture.org/news/2023/08/15/us-capitalism-and-why-glut-of-wonder-weapons-ukraine-wont-make-difference/

It is slowly and reluctantly dawning on Western officials and their servile media that the Ukraine counteroffensive is failing. Not only the two-month-old counteroffensive but indeed the entire conflict. Ukraine hasn’t a chance of prevailing against Russia’s superior forces.

Still, the violence and killing go on. No diplomacy, peace, or sanity. Why?

Only a couple of months ago, the Western media were full of bravado claims that the United States’ and NATO’s weapons and training would turn the tide for a “stunning victory” against Russia. Today, those same media are meekly reporting on a “grinding counteroffensive” (Washington Post, New York Times, CNN) and “failed expectations” (London Times).

How to explain the glaring conundrum? The United States and its European NATO allies have supplied the Kiev regime with up to $100 billion worth of weaponry over the past year, ranging from battlefield tanks to Patriot missiles. And the military gifts keep coming, with the Biden administration requesting another $12 billion for Ukraine last week. In the coming months, the U.S. and its allies are planning to supply F-16 fighter jets.

And yet all this mind-boggling largesse won’t make a difference to the outcome of an eventual Russian victory. Tens of thousands more Ukrainian soldiers will be killed of course and a wider all-out nuclear war with Russia is a reprehensible risk. But why does the insanity continue? Why are Western politicians and media not exploring diplomatic alternatives to the endless slaughter?

A fundamental reason for this debacle and ultimate scandal is the inherent vice of U.S. militarism. American militarism and that of other Western capitalist states is not about the conventional understanding of “military” or “defense” for the purpose of defending nations, or indeed for actually winning wars. The primary purpose of American and Western militarism is to make profits for private corporations, the military-industrial complex.

Typically, the weapons are vastly overpriced, overhyped and designed for perpetual consumption. Take the U.S.-made Patriot air-defense system, or the Abrams tank, or the F-35 fighter jets. Independent military analysts will tell you these systems are overpriced junk that don’t really do the job they are supposed to do. Russian forces have been wiping out the Patriot and Western tanks with relative ease using superior hypersonic weapons.

Michael Hudson, the respected geopolitical commentator and author of the book ‘Superimperialism’, nails it when he observes that U.S. militarism is not about essentially defending that nation or its allies – it’s all about corporate profiteering. The weapons created by the U.S. military-industrial complex are not purposed for the conventional definition of military performance, that is to knock out the enemy and win battles.

“The arms are for creating huge profit for the U.S. military-industrial complex,” commented Hudson in a recent interview with Steven Grumbine.

In the case of Ukraine, he added, U.S. and NATO weapons “are for buying, and they’re for giving to the Ukrainians, to let Russia blow them up. But they’re not for fighting. They are not for winning a war. They’re for being used up, so you have to replace them now, with yet new buying.”

The conflict in Ukraine is exposing the long-held hype and charade attached to American and NATO weaponry. It’s being brutally outed as a paper tiger.

What Hudson is describing, in effect, is the utter scam and scandal of the U.S.-led proxy war in Ukraine against Russia. It’s on a level of Catch-22-style farce. It’s a racket for profiteering by U.S. and Western military industries. All paid for by taxpayers in the West and with the blood of Ukrainians blown to smithereens or maimed for life.

Fundamentally, this is what U.S. and Western capitalism is all about. The economic system for elite private profit is driven by militarism and global exports of arms. Western capitalism has long abandoned civilian industrial production and over the last few decades has become dominated by the military-industrial complex that owns politicians, media and lawmakers to do its bidding.

The war in Ukraine was instigated by NATO expansionism and strategic threat to Russia over many years. Moscow’s warnings were habitually dismissed. That was part of the showdown demanded by the U.S. executive of Western imperialism to subjugate Russia as a geopolitical rival, in the same way that China is also targeted. But in addition to that came the ultimate racket of funneling weapons to Ukraine. Not only that, but the European lackeys will now be obliged to stock up their depleted arsenals for decades to come by buying from Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, Boeing, and so on. It’s a perfectly rigged system.

By contrast, Russia’s military is designed to actually defend its nation. Russian weapons are outperforming NATO’s junk in Ukraine because the former are not manufactured for private profit and Wall Street investors but for the purpose of actually winning wars.

That’s why Ukraine is losing this conflict, disastrously and despicably. The weapons funneled to the Kiev regime were never meant to “defend a nation from Russian aggression”. That was just the laughable public relations hype to sell expensive weapons funded by Western taxpayers. Of course, the Nazi Kiev regime has milked the cash cow with corruption, but the bigger problem is the war racket at the rotten heart of U.S. capitalism and its military-industrial complex.

The Ukrainian puppet president Vladimir Zelensky is crying for more weapons. Of course, the corrupt Kiev regime is. Biden and Western politicians are calling for more weapons. Of course, they are. Their political funding depends on lobbyists from the weapons companies. The Western media distort the obscenity as “grinding counteroffensive”. Of course, they do because they are locked into their own self-serving lies about the war in Ukraine.

The corrupt Kiev regime rounds up civilians to be sent to a slaughterhouse while U.S. corporations and Wall Street feast on profits. And Western workers and the public are bled white from austerity. This war in Ukraine is the ghoulish epitome of Western capitalism.

August 18, 2023 Posted by | business and costs, Ukraine, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Tussle in Europe as France succeeds in getting nuclear energy accepted as a ‘”transitional” technology for EU’s green taxonomy .

This article is part of our special report EU’s final stretch before June 2024.

Nuclear power is making a comeback on the EU energy scene after an eventful 2022-2023 year, which according to Paris, reflects an “excellent diplomatic record” for France in defending atomic energy. EURACTIV looks at the bigger picture.

After three years of intense negotiations, nuclear energy officially joined the list of “transitional” energies in the EU’s green taxonomy on 1 January 2023.

Following the vote confirming the European Parliament’s position on the issue in July 2022, the co-chair of the United Left group, Manon Aubry, warned that this decision is “fraught with meaning […] for future deadlines and votes on climate issues”………………….

In France and eastern EU countries in particular, nuclear power is increasingly being viewed as a viable solution for achieving carbon neutrality by 2050.

Renewables at EU level

Yet, the development of renewable energies remains the top priority at the EU level.

On 18 May 2022, three months after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the European Commission proposed raising the EU’s renewable energy target to 45% by 2030, a target later endorsed by the European Parliament in September of that year.

In the Council, France adopted a rather unusual stance, backing the 45% target but only if countries with low-carbon electricity mixes – code for nuclear – are awarded a lower target.

The idea was rejected, and the target was consequently lowered to 42.5% in a political agreement reached with the European Parliament on the third revision of the Renewable Energy Directive (RED III).

While none are particularly happy with the solution, the discussions showcased the newfound influence of pro-nuclear countries on institutional negotiations at the EU level.

Nuclear-derived hydrogen

This newfound influence of pro-nuclear countries was also reflected in discussions about low-carbon hydrogen, which took an unexpected political dimension.

Since September 2022, French Energy Minister Agnès Pannier-Runacher appeared on the offensive.

In a letter revealed by EURACTIV France, Pannier-Runacher urged the European Commission to recognise the contribution of nuclear-derived hydrogen in the targets set out in RED III. For Paris, the aim was to prevent renewable hydrogen targets from jeopardising low-carbon hydrogen production from nuclear sources.

At the end of March 2023, after months of battles between EU countries and within the European Parliament, the political agreement on RED III recognised the principle of non-cannibalisation between renewable and low-carbon hydrogen.

But while this seemed like a victory for France, the conditions imposed for nuclear-derived hydrogen to contribute to achieving the EU’s objectives were so strict that they were practically unattainable.

……………………………………. On 16 June, France finally obtained an official declaration from the European Commission recognising the role of nuclear energy in achieving the objectives of decarbonising the EU economy – fruits of an intense year of lobbying, aided by France’s setup of a pro-nuclear alliance of 14 EU countries and (possibly) counting.

The “nuclear alliance”

On the fringes of an informal EU Energy Council in Stockholm at the end of February, France rallied 10 other EU countries around a new concept: a meeting to defend the interests of nuclear power in the EU.

The same group met in Brussels at the end of March, joined by Belgium and Italy as observers.

Though the meeting triggered countries advocating against nuclear power, forming a rival group called the “Friends of Renewables”, this did not stop France’s mission – Pannier-Runacher reconvened the group in Paris in mid-May, joined by three other EU states and the UK. Together, they agreed to build “30 to 45 new large reactors” and small modular reactors known as SMRs.

EU Energy Commissioner Kadri Simson, who attended the meeting, was asked to support the development of “joint initiatives” to bring these projects to fruition.

The group met again in Valladolid in mid-July. The meeting resulted in a new declaration, calling on the European Commission to treat nuclear and renewables equally when presenting future climate law proposals.

Net-Zero Industry Act 

However, in the meantime, two other fronts have opened up in Brussels.

The first concerns the proposal for a Net-Zero Industry Act (NZIA), which was presented by the Commission in mid-March, setting out a list of preferred technologies for developing a low-carbon industry across the bloc.

At first, nuclear was not included in the list of so-called “strategic” technologies like wind, solar, or electrolysers, that are eligible for regulatory perks under the NZIA, including a 40% for manufacturing on European soil. 

In mid-July, following lobbying by many MEPs from across the political spectrum (socialists, centrists and conservatives), the rapporteur on the NZIA regulation in the European Parliament offered nuclear power equal treatment as other technologies.

For now, the report by German conservative lawmaker Christian Ehler (EPP) has not yet been voted on, and EU countries have not yet given their opinion. Some countries may oppose Ehler’s conclusions, such as Germany, which is reluctant to accept the financing of nuclear power from EU funds.

EU electricity market reform  

The second text under negotiation concerns the reform of the EU electricity market, on which an agreement is expected before the end of the year.

With no apparent problems, the financing of future nuclear capacity could benefit from financing mechanisms currently being negotiated under the reformed electricity market rules.

But France also wants this mechanism to cover existing assets, a move resited by many other countries, including some in the “nuclear alliance”, who are opposed to the idea, saying it would infringe EU competition rules.

For the EDF management, the solution is not optimal. The leading energy and nuclear company in Europe must be able to invest in funds generated by its sales, said its CEO………….

What to expect for 2024

…………. while the current European Commission has acknowledged the contribution of nuclear to decarbonisation, the 2024 EU elections could reshuffle the cards in Brussels.

By that time, perhaps the Energy Commissioner’s tasks will no longer refer to “further nuclear decommissioning”, as is still the case.

At the same time, “some ‘nuclear-friendly’ member states have become ‘nuclear believers’. In the Netherlands, there is now a consensus on nuclear power, while Sweden, which was neutral in the first half of 2023, is openly defending the revival of nuclear power”, a French official close to the dossier has said.

This is why “the assessment for 2022-2023 is excellent”, Pannier-Runacher’s office told EURACTIV.  https://www.euractiv.com/section/energy-environment/news/is-nuclear-power-set-for-a-european-renaissance/

August 18, 2023 Posted by | EUROPE, politics international | Leave a comment

An Assange Plea Deal? For What Crime? – Good Journalism?

Caitlin’s Newsletter Notes From The Edge Of The Narrative Matrix, CAITLIN JOHNSTONE, AUG 16, 2023

Whenever I talk about the need to dismantle government secrecy I always get some know-it-all empire simp going “Without secrecy we wouldn’t be able to wage wars and coordinate against our enemies and have nukes, you idiot.” 

And it’s like, uh, yeah. That’s kind of my point. They only use secrecy to do evil things and act against the interests of normal human beings. 

The lie is that the government uses secrecy in order to counter its enemies and win wars, when in reality the government uses secrecy to make enemies and start wars. 

Julian Assange said “The overwhelming majority of information is classified to protect political security, not national security.” It doesn’t exist for our benefit, it exists for theirs. It’s so our rulers can keep doing depraved things with no accountability. That’s why they keep expanding government secrecy and increasing the punishment of those who breach it: because they want to do more depraved things and remain unaccountable.

It really is nuts how there’s now talk of Julian Assange being offered a “plea bargain” for rightly exposing US war crimes. What’s he meant to plead guilty to? Good journalism?

The last time there was a credible military threat to the United States near the US border, the US responded so aggressively that it nearly ended the world. The reason people don’t tend to get it when you compare Ukraine or Taiwan to a hypothetical scenario in which Russia or China were amassing heavily armed proxy forces on the Mexican border is because people literally can’t wrap their minds around that happening. It’s just too remote and unthinkable a proposition in today’s world. 

But that shows you just how clear it is that the US is the aggressor in those standoffs: it’s doing something so freakishly aggressive that people literally cannot imagine it happening on the US border. If you see amassing a heavily armed threat on the border of an enemy nation as normal and fine in one instance and literally unfathomable in another, that shows you your perception and expectations have been warped by propaganda…………………………………….. https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/an-assange-plea-deal-for-what-crime?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=82124&post_id=136101620&isFreemail=true&utm_medium=email

August 18, 2023 Posted by | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Japan’s controversial nuclear waste water plan could impact the UK’s decarbonisation agenda

House of Commons Science, Innovation and Technology Committee drily warned that this new nuclear power station “may not now represent good value for UK taxpayers”.

Andrew Warren, 15 August 2023

The UK government has already broken with precedent and
contributed £870m towards Sizewell C’s development costs. Poverty
campaigners have noted that this is a near identical sum to that spent on
the government’s now-abandoned Warm Front programme, energy upgrading the
homes of low-income families. Such largesse would certainly have gone a
long way towards helping reduce the rocketing number fuel poverty numbers
in England.

The government has also been employing Barclays Bank to try to
drum up the estimated £30bn needed to build the power station from UK
pension funds.

Already, three massive pension funds – BT, NatWest, People’s
Pension – have publicly stated that they will not be getting involved. As
the People’s Pension Fund laconically acknowledged this month: “Direct
investment into nuclear power infrastructure projects is not part of The
People’s Pension investment strategy. We will not be investing directly
into Sizewell C.”

Meanwhile, a recent report from the House of Commons
Science, Innovation and Technology Committee drily warned that this new
nuclear power station “may not now represent good value for UK taxpayers”.
Such financial concerns come in addition to the apparently insoluble
problem of how to deal with the ever-growing amounts of storing, let alone
disposing of, nuclear waste. The problem of knowing what do with
contaminated cooling water off Japan is only adding to the question marks
over the wisdom of putting many further billions of pounds into the
apparently spendthrift nuclear basket.

Business Green 15th Aug 2023

https://www.businessgreen.com/opinion/4122176/japans-controversial-nuclear-waste-water-plan-impact-uks-decarbonisation-agenda

August 18, 2023 Posted by | business and costs, UK | Leave a comment

Anger as Hinkley Point C allowed to discharge sewage into Bristol Channel and drop fish protection

AN Exmoor parish council chairman is demanding
the Environment Agency explain why it has dropped a requirement for Hinkley
Point C nuclear power station to use acoustic fish deterrents (AFDs) in its
water intakes in the Bristol Channel.

Anti-nuclear campaigners fear 11 billion fish could be killed during the 60-year lifetime of the £27 billion power station if AFDs were not used. The Environment Agency has confirmed
it has agreed to applications to vary licences for NNB Generation Company
(HPC) Ltd, the vehicle through which EDF is building the power plant. But
the decision has been criticised by Katherine Attwater, who chairs
Timberscombe Parish Council, is a member of the campaign group Stop
Hinkley.

West Somerset Free Press 16th Aug 2023

https://www.wsfp.co.uk/news/anger-as-hinkley-point-c-allowed-to-discharge-sewage-into-bristol-channel-and-drop-fish-protection-632433

August 18, 2023 Posted by | environment, UK | Leave a comment

NATO Official Suggests Ukraine Could Cede Territory to Russia to Join Alliance

The comments were made by Stian Jenssen, chief of staff for NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg.

By Dave DeCamp / Antiwar.com,  https://scheerpost.com/2023/08/16/nato-official-suggests-ukraine-could-cede-territory-to-russia-to-join-alliance/

ANATO official has suggested Ukraine could cede some territory to Russia in exchange for joining the Western military alliance.

The comments were made on Tuesday by Stian Jenssen, chief of staff for NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg, and reported by the Norwegian newspaper VG. “I think that a solution could be for Ukraine to give up territory, and get NATO membership in return,” he said, adding that it should be up to Ukraine when and on what terms to negotiate.

Jenssen said the issue of Ukraine’s status after the war is being discussed within the alliance and that some countries have raised the possibility of Kyiv ceding some territory. The comments come as the Ukrainian counteroffensive is stalling, and Western officials are admitting it’s very unlikely to succeed.

The comments mark the first time that a high-level NATO official suggested Ukraine might have to cede territory to Russia. The US and NATO have backed Ukraine’s demands for peace, which include Russia withdrawing from all the territory it has captured since invading, as well as giving up Crimea, which has been Russian-controlled since 2014.

Jenssen’s suggestion drew a sharp rebuke from Ukraine. “Trading territory for a NATO umbrella? It is ridiculous,” Mykhailo Podolyak, an aide to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, wrote on X. “That means deliberately choosing the defeat of democracy, encouraging a global criminal, preserving the Russian regime, destroying international law, and passing the war on to other generations.”

Podolyak said the war could only end if Russian President Vladimir Putin is defeated. “Obviously, if Putin does not suffer a crushing defeat, the political regime in Russia does not change, and war criminals are not punished, the war will definitely return with Russia’s appetite for more,” he said.

Russia would likely not go for any post-war settlement that involves Ukraine joining NATO as long as it can keep fueling the war since one of its main motives for invading was Kyiv’s alignment with NATO.

August 18, 2023 Posted by | politics international | Leave a comment