The West’s blueprint for goading China was laid out in Ukraine
After Ukraine, Taiwan, we are told, must be the locus of the West’s all-consuming security interest.
Europe fears losing access to Chinese markets, plunging it deeper into a cost-of-living crisis. But it fears Washington’s wrath more
JONATHAN COOKSEP 8, 2023, Middle East Eye
The West is writing a script about its relations with China as stuffed full of misdirection as an Agatha Christie novel.
In recent months, US and European officials have scurried to Beijing for so-called talks, as if the year were 1972 and Richard Nixon were in the White House.
But there will be no dramatic, era-defining US-China pact this time. If relations are to change, it will be decisively for the worse.
The West’s two-faced policy towards China was starkly illustrated last week by the visit to Beijing of Britain’s foreign secretary, James Cleverly – the first by a senior UK official for five years.
While Cleverly talked vaguely afterwards about the importance of not “disengaging” from China and avoiding “mistrust and errors”, the British parliament did its best to undermine his message.
The foreign affairs committee issued a report on UK policy in the Indo-Pacific that provocatively described the Chinese leadership as “a threat to the UK and its interests”.
In terminology that broke with past diplomacy, the committee referred to Taiwan – a breakaway island that Beijing insists must one day be “reunified” with China – as an “independent country”. Only 13 states recognise Taiwan’s independence.
The committee urged the British government to pressure its Nato allies into imposing sanctions on China.
Upping the stakes
The UK parliament is meddling recklessly in a far-off zone of confrontation with the potential for incendiary escalation against a nuclear power, a situation unrivalled outside of Ukraine.
But Britain is far from alone. Last year, for the first time, Nato moved well out of its supposed sphere of influence – the North Atlantic – to declare Beijing a challenge to its “interests, security and values”.
There can be little doubt that Washington is the moving force behind this escalation against China, a state posing no obvious military threat to the West.
t has upped the stakes significantly by making its military presence felt ever more firmly in and around the Straits of Taiwan – the 100-mile wide waterway separating China from Taiwan that Beijing views as its doorstep.
Senior US officials have been making noisy visits to Taiwan – not least, Nancy Pelosi last summer, when she was house speaker.
Meanwhile, the Biden administration is showering Taiwan with weapon systems.
If this weren’t enough to inflame China, Washington is drawing Beijing’s neighbours deeper into military alliances – such as Aukus and the Quad – to isolate China and leave it feeling threatened. The Chinese president, Xi Jinping, describes this as a policy of “comprehensive containment, encirclement and suppression against us”.
Last month, President Biden hosted Japan and South Korea at Camp David, forging a trilateral security arrangement directed at what they called China’s “dangerous and aggressive behavior”.
Meanwhile, the Pentagon’s “Pacific Defence Initiative” budget – chiefly intended to contain and encircle China – just keeps rising.
In the latest move, revealed last week, the US is in talks with Manila to build a naval port in the northernmost Philippine islands, 125 miles from Taiwan, boosting “American access to strategically located islands facing Taiwan”.
That will become the ninth Philippine base used by the US military, part of a network of some 450 operating in the South Pacific.
Dirty double game
So what’s going on? Is Britain – along with its Nato allies – interested in building greater trust with Beijing, as Cleverly argues, or backing Washington’s escalatory manoeuvres against a nuclear-armed China over a small territory on the other side of the globe, as the British parliament indicates?
Inadvertently, the foreign affairs committee’s chair, Alicia Kearns, got to the heart of the matter. She accused the British government of having a “confidential, elusive China strategy”, one “buried deep in Whitehall, kept hidden even from senior ministers”.
And not by accident.
European leaders are torn. They fear losing access to Chinese goods and markets, plunging their economies deeper into recession after a cost-of-living crisis precipitated by the Ukraine war. But most are even more afraid of angering Washington, which is determined to isolate and contain China.
That divide was highlighted by French President Emmanuel Macron following a visit to China in April,……………………………………………………………………………………….
After Ukraine, Taiwan, we are told, must be the locus of the West’s all-consuming security interest…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..
Economic chokehold
As with Ukraine, the cover story concealing the West’s provocations towards China has been carefully directed from Washington.
Europeans like Cleverly are parading around Beijing to make it look like the West desires peaceful engagement. But the only real engagement is the crafting of a military noose around China’s neck, just as a noose was crafted earlier for Russia. …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..
The US isn’t likely to go down without a fight. Which is why Ukrainians and Russians are currently dying on the battlefield. And why China and the rest of us have good reason to fear who may be next. https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/china-west-blueprint-goading-ukraine-laid-out
Russia says US supplying depleted-uranium shells to Ukraine could lead to war between nuclear powers
The US will have to answer for the ‘very sad consequences’ of its decision to provide depleted uranium munitions to Ukraine, the Kremlin said
i news, By Jessie Williams, Foreign news reporter, September 7, 2023
Russia has condemned a US decision to send controversial depleted uranium tank shells to Ukraine as “a criminal act”, that would increase the chance of “direct armed conflict between nuclear powers”.
The Kremlin said on Thursday that the US would have to answer for the “very sad consequences” of its decision to provide depleted uranium munitions to Ukraine.
The controversial weapons – included in a $175m (£140m) package of military equipment for Ukraine announced by the US on Wednesday – have armour-piercing capabilities, which mean they could help to destroy Russian tanks.
The shells are intended for 31 American M1 Abrams tanks due to be delivered to Ukraine later this year.
Sergei Ryabkov, Russia’s deputy foreign minister, accused the US of a “criminal act” beyond reasonable escalation. “Now this pressure is dangerously balancing on the brink of direct armed conflict between nuclear powers,” he said.
“It is a reflection of Washington’s outrageous disregard for the environmental consequences of using this kind of ammunition in a combat zone. This is, in fact, a criminal act, I cannot give any other assessment.”
In March, Putin warned that Moscow would “respond accordingly, given that the collective West is starting to use weapons with a ‘nuclear component.’” Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov called the move “a step toward accelerating escalation”.
Depleted uranium is a byproduct of the uranium enrichment process needed to create nuclear weapons. The rounds retain some radioactive properties, but they cannot generate a nuclear reaction as a nuclear weapon would, Edward Geist, a nuclear expert and policy researcher at the US-based Rand non-profit research institution, told The Associated Press.
The shells sharpen on impact, which further increases their ability to tear through tank armour. “It’s so dense and it’s got so much momentum that it just keeps going through the armour – and it heats it up so much that it catches fire,” he added.
“The administration’s decision to supply weapons with depleted uranium is an indicator of inhumanity,” Russia’s embassy in Washington said on Telegram. “Clearly, with its idea of inflicting a ‘strategic defeat’, Washington is prepared to fight not only to the last Ukrainian but also to do away with entire generations.”
on Friday the Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Nato’s heavy use of such ammunition in the bombing of Yugoslavia in 1999 had caused a jump in cases of cancer and other diseases.
“These consequences are also felt by subsequent generations of those who somehow came into contact or were in areas where these weapons were used,” he told reporters, saying the same would now happen in Ukraine……………………………………….
The International Coalition to Ban Uranium Weapons said there were dangerous health risks from ingesting depleted uranium dust, including cancer.
A Defence Department official told Politico the weapons are considered the most effective way of arming their Abrams tanks. The UK has already sent the same type of ammunition to Ukraine to arm its Challenger 2 tanks, but this is the first time the US is sending the rounds.
Earlier this year the Pentagon said it would not be sending the depleted uranium munitions to Ukraine, but made a U-turn in their announcement on Wednesday during the US Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s visit to Kyiv……………………………..
The decision comes after the White House announced it will be sending another controversial weapon to Ukraine -cluster munitions – which are banned by more than 100 countries. https://inews.co.uk/news/world/russia-us-supplying-depleted-uranium-shells-ukraine-war-2599291
The Bugey and Saint-Alban sites could reduce their production due to the heat.
The nuclear reactors at the Bugey (Ain) and Saint-Alban (Isère) power station could reduce their production this weekend, due to the expected high temperatures and the warming of the waters of the Rhône.
PRETENDING NUCLEAR IS NOT INTERMITTENT IS POINTLESS – REPORTS EVERY YEAR SINCE 2015 IN FRANCE 
This report highlights how nuclear energy systems are becoming more intermittent due to the planet’s warming and increasing CO2 levels.
Here’s an analysis of the key points:
- Impact of High Temperatures on Nuclear Power Production: The report discusses how nuclear power production at the Bugey and Saint-Alban sites in France may be reduced due to expected high temperatures. High temperatures can have several adverse effects on nuclear power plants, such as reducing the efficiency of cooling systems and potentially exceeding safety thresholds.
- Warming Waters of the Rhône River: The report also mentions that the warming of the Rhône River’s waters is a contributing factor. Nuclear power plants often use nearby bodies of water for cooling purposes. As the planet warms, these water sources may become warmer, making it more challenging to cool the reactors effectively. This can lead to production restrictions and reduced output.
- Environmental Constraints and Low Demand: The report mentions previous instances in July and August when the Bugey nuclear reactor had to be shut down due to a combination of “environmental constraints and low demand for electricity.” This suggests that the intermittency of nuclear energy is not solely related to climate conditions but also demand fluctuations.
- Specific Thresholds for Cooling Water: The report explains that nuclear power plants have specific temperature rise and flow thresholds for the water they use for cooling. These thresholds are in place to protect the local fauna and flora. However, exceptionally high temperatures, as expected with climate change, can bring the cooling water close to or exceed these limits, necessitating production adjustments.
- EDF’s Response to Climate Change: EDF, the company operating these nuclear power plants, has been adjusting its production to respect thermal discharge limits in response to climate change, droughts, and heat waves. This adaptation reflects the broader trend in the energy industry as it grapples with the consequences of global warming.
- Long-term Climate Trends: The report mentions that EDF has observed restrictions on production increasing by 0.3% per year for around twenty years due to climatic reasons. This illustrates the gradual and long-term impact of climate change on the operability of nuclear power plants.
source
https://c.leprogres.fr/…/chaleur-les-sites-du-bugey-et…
22 Years of Drone Warfare and No End in Sight
Twenty-two years later, drones continue to be instruments of civilian slaughter and the language deployed by successive administrations to describe such slaughter has served to sanitize that fact. Whether it’s the use of “target” or “collateral damage,” both minimize the reality that human beings are being murdered. Taken together with a larger war-on-terror narrative in which Muslims have been strikingly demonized and criminalized, the result has been the production of killable bodies whose deaths elicit neither guilt, remorse, nor accountability.
SCHEERPOST, September 7, 2023 By Maha Hilal / TomDispatch
“………………………………………………………..In 2023, this country’s drone warfare program has entered its third decade with no end in sight. Despite the fact that the 22nd anniversary of 9/11 is approaching, policymakers have demonstrated no evidence of reflecting on the failures of drone warfare and how to stop it. Instead, the focus continues to be on simply shifting drone policy in minor ways within an ongoing violent system.
The Inherent Dehumanization of Drone Warfare
In February 2013, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney justified drone strikes as a key tool of American foreign policy this way:
“We have acknowledged, the United States, that sometimes we use remotely piloted aircraft to conduct targeted strikes against specific al-Qaeda terrorists in order to prevent attacks on the United States and to save American lives. We conduct those strikes because they are necessary to mitigate ongoing actual threats, to stop plots, prevent future attacks, and, again, save American lives… The U.S. government takes great care in deciding to pursue an al-Qaeda terrorist, to ensure precision and to avoid loss of innocent life.”
More aggressively endorsing the use of such drones, Georgetown Professor Daniel Byman, who has held government positions, emphasized the necessity of such warfare to protect American lives. “Drones,” he wrote, “have done their job remarkably well… And they have done so at little financial cost, at no risk to U.S. forces, and with fewer civilian casualties than many alternative methods would have caused.”
In reality, however, Washington’s war on terror has inflicted disproportionate violence on communities across the globe, while using this form of asymmetrical warfare to further expand the space between the value placed on American lives and those of Muslims. As the rhetoric on drone warfare suggests, the value of life and the need to protect it are, as far as Washington is concerned, reserved for Americans and their allies.
Since the war on terror was launched, the London-based watchdog group Airwars has estimated that American air strikes have killed at least 22,679 civilians and possibly up to 48,308 of them. Such killings have been carried out for the most part by desensitized killers, who have been primed towards the dehumanization of the targets of those murderous machines. In the words of critic Saleh Sharief, “The detached nature of drone warfare has anonymized and dehumanized the enemy, greatly diminishing the necessary psychological barriers of killing.”
In his book On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society, retired Army Lieutenant Colonel Dave Grossman focuses on the “mechanical distancing” of modern warfare, thanks to “the sterile Nintendo-game unreality of killing through a TV screen, a thermal sight, a sniper sight, or some other kind of mechanical bugger that permits the killer to deny the humanity of his victim.” Scholar Grégoire Chamayou describes this phenomenon in even starker terms. Thanks to the distance between the drone operator and the victim, “One is never spattered by the adversary’s blood. No doubt the absence of any physical soiling corresponds to less of a sense of moral soiling… Above all, it ensures that the operator will never see his victim seeing him doing what he does to him.”
Needless to say, drone technology has rendered those in distant lands so much more disposable in the name of American national security. This is because such long-range techno-targeting has created a profound level of dehumanization that, ironically enough, has only made the repeated act of long-distance killing, of (not to mince words) slaughter, remarkably banal. ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..
Twenty-two years later, drones continue to be instruments of civilian slaughter and the language deployed by successive administrations to describe such slaughter has served to sanitize that fact. Whether it’s the use of “target” or “collateral damage,” both minimize the reality that human beings are being murdered. Taken together with a larger war-on-terror narrative in which Muslims have been strikingly demonized and criminalized, the result has been the production of killable bodies whose deaths elicit neither guilt, remorse, nor accountability.
Ukraine used cluster munitions against civilians – Human Rights Watch
https://www.rt.com/russia/582435-hrw-ukraine-cluster-civilians/ 8 Sept 23
Kiev targeted the population of Russian-held Izyum with the controversial projectiles.
The Ukrainian military used cluster munitions to shell the city of Izyum and caused civilian deaths, Human Rights Watch said on Tuesday. The attack happened months before the US provided Kiev with additional cluster shells, overruling the objections of many NATO members.
“We figured this out after the Russians left and our investigators went there to look into the war crimes and atrocities that were committed – and they saw remnants of cluster munitions everywhere,” HRW’s Mary Wareham told RIA Novosti. “After finding out the direction from which the fire came, they established that they had been used by Ukrainian forces.”
The 110-page Cluster Munition Monitor 2022 report, published by HRW this week, lists deployments of such weapons by both sides in the conflict. It notes that the group had first reported on the attack on Izyum in July, but that the Ukrainian Defense Ministry officially denied ever using such munitions in or around the settlement.
Wareham pointed out that HRW had detailed testimonies about civilians who were killed or wounded by cluster bombs.
A HRW report from January also included information about the Ukrainian use of cluster munitions, as well as the targeting of Izyum by ‘Butterfly’anti-personnel mines, which killed 11 civilians and wounded around 50, including five children. HRW said that the Russian military informed the civilians about the danger of the mines, citing testimonials from around 100 local residents.
Wareham pointed out that HRW had detailed testimonies about civilians who were killed or wounded by cluster bombs.
A HRW report from January also included information about the Ukrainian use of cluster munitions, as well as the targeting of Izyum by ‘Butterfly’anti-personnel mines, which killed 11 civilians and wounded around 50, including five children. HRW said that the Russian military informed the civilians about the danger of the mines, citing testimonials from around 100 local residents.
Cluster munitions are abhorrent weapons that are globally banned because they cause both immediate and long-term civilian harm and suffering,” Wareham said while announcing the annual report. “It’s unconscionable that civilians are still dying from cluster munition attacks 15 years after these weapons were outlawed.”
Over the years, the HRW has released a number of reports about the use of cluster munitions in the Ukrainian conflict, stating that both sides were using them. The organization noted, however, that its ability to gather evidence of Ukrainian attacks is hampered because it cannot safely access Russian-controlled territories.
Ukraine, Russia, and the US are not party to the Convention on Cluster Munitions (CCM), which has sought to ban this type of ordnance, citing its toll on civilians. Earlier this year, Washington rejected objections from several NATO allies who are party to the CMM and sent Kiev 155mm artillery shells loaded with dual-purpose improved conventional munitions (DPICM).
Some US outlets have reported that the Pentagon receives detailed reports from Ukraine about when and where its DPICM ordnance is used. Russia has documented multiple instances of their use against civilians in Donetsk.
US Intelligence Official: Media Misleading Americans About Ukraine’s Battlefield Success
The massive push by Ukraine resulted in nearly no territorial gains.
Still, Washington has pushed Kyiv to continue the counteroffensive. The White House acknowledges that for Ukraine to have a possibility of success, Kyiv will have to be willing to sustain high casualties.
By Kyle Anzalone / Antiwar.com 8 Sept 23
In an interview with renowned reporter Seymour Hersh, a US intelligence official scolded the media for misleading the American public about Ukraine’s battlefield failures during the Spring counteroffensive. ………..
Responding to reports in recent weeks that Ukrainian forces were gaining momentum and recapturing territory, the official remarked, “Where are the reporters getting this stuff?” he asked. “There are stories talking about drunk Russian commanders while the Ukrainians are penetrating the three lines of Russian defense and will be able to work back to Mariupol.”
He continued, “The goal of Russia’s first line of defense was not to stop the Ukrainian offense, but to slow it down so if there was a Ukrainian advance, Russian commanders could bring in reserves to fortify the line.” The official added, “There is no evidence that Ukrainian forces have gotten past the first line. The American press is doing anything but honest reporting on the failure thus far of the offense.”
Secretary of State Antony Blinken delivered a similarly optimistic message during his trip to Kyiv on Wednesday. “In the ongoing counteroffensive, progress has accelerated in the past few weeks. This new assistance will help sustain it and build further momentum,” he said at a press conference.
The official says that message is being delivered from military intelligence to the White House, while the CIA has drawn other conclusions. “This kind of reporting from the military intelligence community is going to the White House. There are other views,” he said, referring to the CIA. The official explained those views do not reach President Joe Biden.
For over three months, Kyiv has ordered its forces to advance on entrench Russian defensive lines in southern Ukraine. Russian minefields caused Ukraine to lose a significant portion of its Western-trained soldiers and equipment in the opening weeks of the offensive. The massive push by Ukraine resulted in nearly no territorial gains.
Still, Washington has pushed Kyiv to continue the counteroffensive. The White House acknowledges that for Ukraine to have a possibility of success, Kyiv will have to be willing to sustain high casualties.
The official told Hersh no matter how committed Kyiv is to the war effort, President Zelensky’s goals are unattainable. “Zelensky will never get his land back,” he said……………. https://scheerpost.com/2023/09/08/us-intelligence-official-media-misleading-americans-about-ukraines-battlefield-success/
NATO Chief Openly Admits Russia Invaded Ukraine Because Of NATO Expansion
Stoltenberg’s remarks would probably have been classified as Russian propaganda by plutocrat-funded “disinformation experts” and imperial “fact checkers” if it had been said online by someone like you or me, but because it came from the head of NATO as part of a screed against the Russian president it’s been allowed to pass through without objection.
In reality Stoltenberg is just stating a well-established fact: contrary to the official western narrative, Putin invaded Ukraine not because he is evil and hates freedom but because no great power ever allows foreign military threats to amass on its borders — including the United States.
CAITLIN JOHNSTONE, SEP 9, 2023 https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/nato-chief-openly-admits-russia-invaded?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=82124&post_id=136866482&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=1ise1&utm_medium=email
During a speech at the EU Parliament’s foreign affairs committee on Thursday, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg clearly and repeatedly acknowledged that Putin made the decision to invade Ukraine because of fears of NATO expansionism.
His comments, initially flagged by journalist Thomas Frazi, read as follows:
The background was that President Putin declared in the autumn of 2021, and actually sent a draft treaty that they wanted NATO to sign, to promise no more NATO enlargement. That was what he sent us. And was a pre-condition for not invade Ukraine. Of course we didn’t sign that.
The opposite happened. He wanted us to sign that promise, never to enlarge NATO. He wanted us to remove our military infrastructure in all Allies that have joined NATO since 1997, meaning half of NATO, all the Central and Eastern Europe, we should remove NATO from that part of our Alliance, introducing some kind of B, or second class membership. We rejected that.
So he went to war to prevent NATO, more NATO, close to his borders.
Stoltenberg made these remarks as part of a general gloat about the fact that Putin invaded Ukraine to prevent NATO expansion and yet the invasion has resulted in Sweden and Finland applying to join the alliance, saying it “demonstrates that when President Putin invaded a European country to prevent more NATO, he’s getting the exact opposite.”
Stoltenberg’s remarks would probably have been classified as Russian propaganda by plutocrat-funded “disinformation experts” and imperial “fact checkers” if it had been said online by someone like you or me, but because it came from the head of NATO as part of a screed against the Russian president it’s been allowed to pass through without objection.
In reality Stoltenberg is just stating a well-established fact: contrary to the official western narrative, Putin invaded Ukraine not because he is evil and hates freedom but because no great power ever allows foreign military threats to amass on its borders — including the United States. That’s why so many western analysts and officials spent years warning that NATO’s actions were going to provoke a war, and yet when war broke out we were slammed with a tsunami of mass media propaganda repeating over and over and over again that this was an “unprovoked invasion”.
It would have been so very, very easy to prevent this horrific war. Off-ramp after off-ramp after off-ramp was passed to get us to where we’re at now. Chance after chance after chance to avoid all this pointless death and misery was passed up, both before 2014 and every year since. The US-centralized power structure knowingly chose this war, and it did so to advance its own interests. If people really, deeply understood this, the entire western empire would collapse.
It’s the damnedest thing how you’ll get called a Kremlin agent for saying that this war was provoked by NATO expansionism and that it serves US interests, even when NATO openly says this war was provoked by NATO expansionism and US officials keep openly saying that this war serves US interests.
The latest entry in the latter category came in the form of a Thursday tweet by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, which reads, “Standing with our allies against Russian aggression isn’t charity. In fact — it’s a direct investment in replenishing America’s arsenal with American weapons built by American workers. Expanding our defense industrial base puts America in a stronger position to out-compete China.”
When official authorized narrative-makers acknowledge these things it’s okay, but when normal human beings do it it’s Kremlin disinformation. This is because when the authorized narrative-makers do it they’re doing it to advance the information interests of the US empire — to explain to war-weary Americans how this war benefits their country, or to mock Putin’s failure to stop the enlargement of NATO — whereas when normal people do it it’s to establish what’s true and factual.
This all happens as a study sponsored by the EU with a group funded by US oligarch Pierre Omidyar is being circulated by mass media outlets like The Washington Post finding that Twitter under Elon Musk has not been doing enough to censor “Russian propaganda” on the platform. This would put Musk in violation of the European Union’s Digital Services Act, which requires platforms to restrict such materials.
As Glenn Greenwald has noted, the Digital Services Act defines “Russian propaganda” so extremely broadly that it includes “ideological alignment with the Russian state” in the category of materials that must be censored, which includes people who “parrot the Kremlin’s narratives through originally produced content or by spreading Kremlin aligned narratives to different target audiences and languages.”
Anyone who speaks out against US foreign policy relating to Russia online is always immediately accused of “parroting Kremlin narratives” by empire apologists mindlessly regurgitating what they’ve been told to believe by outlets like The Washington Post, whether they have anything to do with the Russian government or not. I myself have no affiliation or interaction with the Russian state whatsoever, yet I receive many of these accusations every single day online just for criticizing US foreign policy.
If I were the NATO Secretary General publicly gloating about how Putin’s efforts to stop the expansion of NATO have failed, it would be fine for me to acknowledge that NATO expansion provoked this war after our refusal to prevent a needless conflict. But because I am harming the information interests of the western empire instead of helping them, that makes me a Russian propagandist.
This isn’t because the definition of “Russian propaganda” is flawed, but because it is working exactly as intended. The push to marginalize and eliminate “Russian propaganda” has never had anything to do with fighting the actual materials put out by the Russian state (which have essentially zero meaningful existence in the western world); the push has always been about stomping out opposition to US foreign policy.
Like so much else in this world when examining the behavior of power, it’s ultimately all about narrative control. The powerful understand that whoever controls the dominant narrative about world events actually controls the world, because real power isn’t just controlling what happens but controlling what people think about what happens. That’s the real glue holding the US-centralized empire together, and the world will never have a chance at knowing peace until people start bringing consciousness to it.
Vinci and Bouygues among six firms fined €31m for bid rigging in nuclear work
KHI By Neil Gerrard08 September 2023
France’s competition watchdog, Autorité de la Concurrence, has fined six companies a total of €31 million for bid rigging relating to tenders for work at a nuclear site in the country.
Nuvia Process (a subsidiary of Vinci Group), ENDEL (formerly and Engie subsidiary), Bouygues Construction Expertises (BCEN), SNEF and SPIE Nucléaire are all subject to the penalties.
The Autorité granted a sixth company, ONET Group, leniency and it has received an exemption from financial penalties.
The fines come after dawn raids at the companies prompted by suspicions of anticompetitive practices when it came to tendering for work at the French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission’s (CEA) Marcoule nuclear site in the Gard region……………………………………………………………………………………………………
In a statement, the Autorité said, “These practices are among the most serious breaches of competition rules, as they aim to remove the advantages that consumers and the public entity are entitled to expect from a competitive economy, and instead benefit the perpetrators.
“Disrupting the normal course of tendering procedures by hindering the free market pricing process and misleading the public authority as to the reality and extent of competition between tenderers, is detrimental to the sector in which such practices take place, and constitutes a serious breach of economic public policy.”
Nuvia’s penalty amounted to €13.9 million, while Endel received a fine of €11 million and BCEN a fine of €6.2 million.
SNEF and SPIE Nucléaire received lesser fines of €20,000 and €10,000 respectively.
The Autorité said it applied a mark-up to Nuvia, Endel and BCEN as they are all part of conglomerates. It also took into account the “repeated nature” of the offences committed by the Vinci and Bouygues groups. https://www.khl.com/news/vinci-and-bouygues-among-six-firms-fined-31m-for-bid-rigging-in-nuclear-work/8031517.article
Why Swiss Neutrality is essential for American national security
SCOTT RITTER, SEP 9, 2023
Thirty years ago, a gathering of like-minded teachers, social workers, and medical professionals took place in a village some 40 miles outside of the northern Swiss city of Zurich. Their goal was to create a discussion group dedicated to the idea of the courageous pursuit of ethical living—“Mut zur Ethik,” in Swiss-German.
Over the course of three days—September 1-3—this group, by this time veterans of three decades of commitment to their cause, convened their 30th meeting in a conference center in the quaint Swiss town of Sirnach. The conference featured speakers from around the world—Peru, the Congo, and Afghanistan stand out—as well as Europe and North America. The noted journalist Patrick Lawrence, together with his wonderful wife, Kara, were in attendance. I joined them as the only other American present in a crowd that numbered well over 200, with many more participating via video conference.
Numerous topics were discussed, ranging from American exceptionalism to Lithium mining, and almost everything in between. But the one that stood out to me was the issue of Swiss neutrality………………….The main takeaway for me from the Mut zur Ethik conference was the absolute necessity of Switzerland remaining viably neutral, and how important this was from the perspective of American national security………………………………………..
Switzerland continues to honor its current laws prohibiting the direct delivery of weapons to any nation engaged in war. Moreover, the re-export of Swiss-made weapons by third countries requires permission from the Swiss government. In the current conflict between Russia and Ukraine, several European governments whose military possess stocks of Swiss-made ammunition have made such requests, but to date, no permission has been granted, something that has drawn the ire of the United States.
Enter Scott Miller, the US Ambassador to Switzerland. Miller has strongly urged Switzerland to allow the re-exportation of munition, declaring that the ban “benefits the aggressor [Russia], who violates all principles of international law.”……………………………………………
Many Swiss are concerned about what they view as the blatant interference in Swiss neutrality on the part of the US and its European allies. Last year, Pro Schweiz, an association affiliated with the conservative Swiss People’s Party, launched a campaign calling for a referendum designed to protect Switzerland’s neutrality by prohibiting it from participating in future sanctions and defense alliances. This would be accomplished through changes in the Swiss Constitution that would prevent Switzerland from joining a defense alliance unless it first came under direct attack, and ban “non-military coercive measures” such as sanctions……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
There will be a critical need for a neutral party who can provide a haven for the talks and negotiations that will be essential for the preservation of world peace and security. Switzerland is ideally positioned to be that neutral party, but only if it can regain the stature it enjoyed prior to the Russia-Ukraine conflict. This can only happen if the United States stops pressuring Switzerland to give up on its neutrality in pursuit of shortsighted policies that will do little to change the outcome of the war in Ukraine. Swiss neutrality is not just good for Switzerland. It is also essential for US national security and should be supported at all costs. https://www.scottritterextra.com/p/why-swiss-neutrality-is-essential?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=6892&post_id=136867957&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=ln98x&utm_medium=email
Ukraine’s ‘Biggest Arms Supplier’ Orchestrated 2014 Maidan Massacre, Witnesses Say
As the seemingly endless supply of cash from Western taxpayers provides a bonanza for arms manufacturers such as Raytheon and Northrop Grumman, it similarly benefits war profiteers like Pashinsky.
Once denounced by Zelensky as a “criminal,” gun runner Serhiy Pashinksy has become the top private supplier of arms to Ukraine. Eyewitness testimony has fingered Pashinsky as the architect of a bloody false flag operation which propelled the 2014 Maidan coup and plunged the country into civil war.
SCHEERPOST, By Kit Klarenberg / The Grayzone, September 7, 2023
Years before emerging as Kiev’s top private weapons trafficker, ex-legislator Serhiy Pashinsky played a key role in the 2014 US-backed coup which toppled Ukraine’s democratically-elected president and set the stage for a devastating civil war. Though the notoriously corrupt former Ukrainian parliamentarian was condemned by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy as a “criminal” as recently as 2019, a lengthy exposé by the New York Times has now identified Pashinsky as the Ukrainian government’s “biggest private arms supplier.”
Perhaps predictably, the report makes no mention of evidence implicating Pashinsky in the 2014 massacre of 70 anti-government protesters in Kiev’s Maidan Square, an incident which pro-Western forces used to consummate their coup d’etat against then-President Viktor Yanukovych.
In an August 12 report on Ukraine’s new weapons-sourcing strategy, the New York Times alleged that “out of desperation,” Kiev had no option but to adopt increasingly amoral tactics. The shift, they say, has driven up prices of lethal imports at an exponential rate, “and added layer upon layer of profit-making” for the benefit of unscrupulous speculators like Pashinsky.
According to the Times, the strategy is simple: Pashinksy “buys and sells grenades, artillery shells and rockets through a trans-European network of middlemen,” then “sells them, then buys them again and sells them once more”:
“With each transaction, prices rise – as do the profits of Mr. Pashinsky’s associates – until the final buyer, Ukraine’s military, pays the most,” the Times explained, adding that while using multiple brokers may technically be legal, “it is a time-tested way to inflate profits.”
As the seemingly endless supply of cash from Western taxpayers provides a bonanza for arms manufacturers such as Raytheon and Northrop Grumman, it similarly benefits war profiteers like Pashinsky. His company, Ukrainian Armored Technology, “reported its best year ever last year, with sales totaling more than $350 million” — a whopping 12,500% increase from its $2.8 million in sales the year before the war.
Pashinsky is not the only racketeer benefitting from the elimination of anti-corruption measures in wartime Ukraine. Several suppliers previously placed on an official blacklist after they “ripped off the military” are now free to sell again, according to the Times investigation. The outlet downplayed this as an unfortunate, but ultimately necessary measure.
“In the name of rushing weapons to the front line, leaders have resurrected figures from Ukraine’s rough-and-tumble past and undone, at least temporarily, years of anticorruption [sic] policies,” the Times asserted, describing “the re-emergence of figures like Mr. Pashinsky” as “one reason the American and British governments are buying ammunition for Ukraine rather than simply handing over money”:
…………………………………………… A defining moment in the US-orchestrated overthrow of Ukraine’s elected government, the death of 70 at the hands of mysterious snipers triggered an avalanche of international outrage that led directly to the ouster of President Viktor Yanukovych. Even today, these killings officially remain unsolved.
However, firsthand testimony by individuals who claimed to have helped carry out the false flag attack suggest Kiev’s most prolific gun runner was intimately involved in the grisly affair………………………………
The documentary, “Ukraine: The Hidden Truth,” features an Italian journalist’s interviews with three Georgian fighters allegedly sent to orchestrate the coup. All described Pashinsky as a key organizer and executor of the Maidan massacre, even alleging the corrupt arms dealers provided weapons and selected specific targets…………………….
…………………………………………………………………………………. When Israeli journalists confronted Pashinsky about his role in the Maidan massacre, the arms dealer warned that they would be tracked down in their home country, where his associates would “tear them apart.” They could be forgiven for believing it was not an idle threat; there is a troubling tendency for Pashinky’s detractors to end up viciously beaten or shot dead in the street. https://scheerpost.com/2023/09/07/ukraines-biggest-arms-supplier-orchestrated-2014-maidan-massacre-witnesses-say/
The Four Billionaires Who Want to Control the Universe
SCHEERPOST, September 8, 2023
In Jonathan Taplin’s new book, “The End of Reality: How Four Billionaires are Selling a Fantasy Future of the Metaverse, Mars and Crypto,” the internet innovation expert delves into activities of the gang-of-four powerful oligarchs: Elon Musk, Peter Thiel, Mark Zuckerberg and Marc Andreesen, breaking down their increasing profits and infinite ambitions to control and influence domestic and global affairs while sending our technology innovation in a profit-driven, dystopian direction, corrupting both sides of the political aisle. Host Robert Scheer’s question: “Wait a minute, what else is new” in capitalism?”
Taplin’s distinction between the oligarchs of new and old is that the modern tech billionaires are granted immunity for content published on their platforms through Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. Taplin describes the control these oligarchs possess over the speech dictated on their platforms, “So here [Musk] controls this platform, Twitter, and what he wants pushed gets pushed, what he wants suppressed, gets suppressed. And nobody even doubts that that’s happening.”
Taplin also emphasizes that there is nowhere to turn within the party duopoly to crack down on these monopolies and thus — leaving it to us, the people “getting screwed” — to do something about it.
“If you tried to do a very powerful regulation and break up a Google or break up a Meta or break up one of these companies, there would be howls from both sides of the aisle because there’s so much money being spread around by these companies that, you know, the Democrats and the Republicans are both in the pocket of the big companies.
Video Transcript
Speaker 2………………………………………….there’s a lot the technology could do to save the planet and help reform our country and make us energy independent. But these guys are not interested in that. And so I’ll just take it one at a time and tell you what they’re thinking.
So we start with Musk. So Musk is a believer that the Earth is doomed and that we need to have another planet for our species to move to. And he’s chosen the planet of Mars. The trip to Mars, even with the latest rocketry, would take about 14 months. It would cost 10 trillion to move about 20 people up there to Mars. And then you’d have to build a kind of biosphere like Space Dome to live in because you couldn’t be outside because the radiation levels are so high that you would get cancer in 5 minutes. You would have to import all your oxygen since there’s no oxygen on Mars and you would live in an extraordinarily hostile environment as opposed to trying to use the $10 trillion to fix the problems here on Earth. Musk himself would make probably about 2 trillion on that deal because the deal he has with NASA, he makes about a 30% profit on every rocket flight he makes for them. And, you know, here’s a man who claims he’s a libertarian but is actually a crony capitalist. Certainly SpaceX has only one customer, and that’s NASA. The U.S. government and the taxpayers would be paying the 10 trillion to get to Mars. His other companies, such as his satellite company, which he is using to provide, for instance, communications to the Ukrainian army, as Ronan Farrow pointed out…………………………………………………………….
So let’s let’s go to Peter Thiel next. So Peter Thiel runs a company called Palantir. Palantir is the premier surveillance capitalism company in the world………………
Jonathan Taplin: And then then you’ve got Marc Andreessen. So Marc Andreessen is the most important venture capitalist in America. Lives in Silicon Valley and funded Facebook for, you know, funded, Instagram funded many of the early social media startups was the first really important guy into crypto. Solano is his company. Crypto.com is a company. Opensea is a company that he founded…………………………………………………………………………
the money that used to flow to the Democratic coffers from the unions was declining. And so they found two sources of new money. One was Wall Street and the other was Silicon Valley…………………………………………………the the laws, the digital laws that Bill Clinton and Al Gore, the champion of the information superhighway put through, were so beneficial to the Internet companies, early Internet companies that we have never been able to claw them back. So. Facebook and Twitter live under a regime called Safe Harbor. Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which basically says that they are not producers of content. They are simply a platform on which individuals post content and that they should have no responsibility for any speaker on their platform. So when Elon Musk decides, once he takes over Twitter to become, as he called it, a free speech absolutist, and he says no longer were the neo-Nazis be prohibited from being on my platform, then Twitter gets flooded with neo-Nazi propaganda. ……………………nobody can sue him for the hate speech that is on Twitter, on X because he has safe harbor……………………you can’t have a libel suit against Twitter. You can’t have a libel suit against Facebook.
Robert Scheer………………………….Section 230, which said that these people are basically neutral carriers. They’re not publishers, therefore they can’t be sued. That’s how Facebook and Google get this tremendous freedom……………………………. And and now Elon Musk is taking it in a different direction. He’s presenting himself as a champion of free speech and bringing other people in. But the real problem is the money. The real problem is that the money talks. Right.
……………………..And Google has, in effect, a monopoly. And, you know, and really what we’re up against is and what the solution sounds very old fashioned, but nobody brings it up is regulation. ………………………. I have no argument with you about the book. My argument with is why only these four guys? Because I just see a whole system now of massive concentration of wealth, extreme income inequality, corruption of everything. Certainly our political system. Really? Why my thieves that are called billionaires and the Democrats and Republicans are right in there complicit and enablers.
Jonathan Taplin:………………………………………………. So what these guys have done and what they promulgated with social media and I would put Facebook and Twitter at the center of that problem is they’ve created a world in which there is no shared set of facts………………………………………..You’re getting new information from social media and from a small group of friends who send them things that come from these incredibly random sources, whether it’s Q Anon or something else. And and part of this book is what is it that draws people down the rabbit holes of conspiracies? So in that sense, I believe these people are responsible for that and they are protected from anyone calling them out because of this safe harbor. …………………………………..Elon Musk is undoubtedly the most powerful voice on the right. He has 150 million followers on Twitter. ………..And the problem is that these people, especially Thiel and Musk have a very anti-democratic point of view……………………………………………………..
Robert Scheer……………………………………………………………………. I’m just asking you to put on your bipartisan cap. And I think the lesson of not that your book doesn’t call things accurately, but we live in an incredibly corrupt society. And the enemies of democracy are bipartisan. ……………………………..
Jonathan Taplin:…………………………………… So take Musk. So here he controls this platform, Twitter, and what he wants pushed gets pushed, what he wants suppressed, gets suppressed. And nobody even doubts that that’s happening. ……………………….. The problem is not just that he has that control, but he also has the sole provider of rockets to the space station. He is the sole provider with StarLink of Satellite communication capability to many armies around the world. And he personally has made decisions that says, well, these these people shouldn’t get communications in this place…………………….
………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………. Jonathan Taplin: But here’s the thing. The scientists that worked on the bomb were doing it regardless of the ethical implications of their work. And it was only after the bomb was dropped that Oppenheimer had doubts. He began to think, Oh, maybe that was a screw up. And when he saw the pictures coming back from Hiroshima and he realized what he had done, I believe some of these same things are happening today in AI. In other words, I believe that the implications, you know, of this are such that they won’t really know what’s going to happen until it’s too late. And that worries me.
………………………………………….. And again, the book is The End of Reality How for Billionaires Are Selling a Fantasy Future of the Metaverse, Mars and Crypto. And that’s really the power of this book. It’s that fantasy I happen to stress. ……………………………………… https://scheerpost.com/2023/09/08/the-four-billionaires-who-want-to-control-the-universe/
Ukraine wasted $17 million on faulty drones – media
Rt.com 8 Sept 23
A company managed to supply only one airworthy drone out of a batch of 55 ordered by Kiev, investigative outlet reports
A drone-manufacturing company has failed to deliver on a lucrative contract with the country’s military, Ukrainian investigative outlet Bihus.info reported on Tuesday. Ukrainian Aviation Systems (UAS) failed to meet a deadline to provide the military with 55 HAWK reconnaissance drones in mid-August, delivering just four units, of which just one was deemed airworthy.
The HAWK drone is a small winged reconnaissance UAV capable of reaching speeds of up to 55 kilometers per hour (34mph), according to UAS. Each unit costs more than 14.5 million hryvnias (nearly $400,000), while the whole contract is worth 807 million hryvnias or almost $22 million, with at least $17.6 million paid to the company in advance, according to Bihus.info.
Reporters with the outlet attended ill-fated trials of the drones, during which only one unit managed to show decent performance and was accepted by the military. One of the drones repeatedly lost connection to ground control mid-flight, while another lost its wings and crashed. A third unit failed to take off at all, the outlet reported.
UAS is linked to Borislav Rosenblat, a former MP and close associate of former Ukrainian President Pyotr Poroshenko. Rosenblat has repeatedly been involved in various corruption scandals, ending up being stripped of his mandate in 2017 amid an investigation into illegal amber mining and trade……………………………………………………………………………….. more https://www.rt.com/russia/582430-ukraine-faulty-drones-contract/
Biden’s horse-trading on nuclear technology and fuels is an unprecedented proliferation risk
he is funding not just prudent nuclear research, but also their boondoggles to expand use of plutonium and HEU fuel. To ensure US military support for the trilateral Australia-United Kingdom-United States (AUKUS) deal, he is acquiescing to Navy insistence on using weapons-grade uranium reactor fuel, even in exported submarines. However, recent spikes in demand for nuclear weapons, among friends and foes alike, suggests this is a dangerously short-sighted approach.
Bulletin, By Alan J. Kuperman | September 6, 2023
News media in the United States rarely report on nuclear proliferation until it reaches the crisis stage—as in North Korea and Iran. By then, however, it is typically too late to stop the spread of nuclear weapons. Effective nonproliferation must begin much earlier, not only by suppressing demand for nuclear weapons but also by restricting supplies of the fissionable materials necessary to build them in the first place. Sadly, the Biden administration is bungling this latter responsibility.
To acquire the bomb, nuclear aspirants must first obtain its key ingredient: plutonium or highly enriched uranium (HEU). So, as demand for nuclear weapons grows in Asia, the Middle East, and Europe, one would expect the US government to do everything it can to clamp down on supply. Instead, President Joe Biden is actually doing just the opposite, by promoting commerce in weapon-usable nuclear materials as a bargaining chip for other issues. Unless the president reverses course, one of his greatest foreign policy legacies could wind up being global nuclear proliferation.
The spike in demand for nuclear weapons has been driven by several key events over the past two decades………………………………………………………………………………………………………….
Considering this growing demand for nuclear weapons, an essential policy to avert proliferation is to block the supply of the necessary fissionable materials. Regrettably, the Biden administration instead has taken four steps that would foster proliferation of both plutonium and weapons-grade uranium.
First, President Biden is funding US companies like Oklo that want to reprocess used reactor fuel—how plutonium is obtained in the first place, by separating it from nuclear waste—and then deploy its fuel recycling technology “on a global scale.” This would reverse nearly half a century of bipartisan US policy opposing such activity at home and abroad, which has succeeded at restricting commercial reprocessing to only two countries, France and Russia, both of which already have nuclear weapons.
Second, the Biden administration is providing a $2 billion subsidy to Bill Gates (currently the fifth richest person in the world) to develop exotic “fast” nuclear reactors, which originally were designed explicitly to increase supplies of plutonium. Gates’s nuclear energy startup Terrapower promises not to use them this way, but the reactors are so expensive that countries importing them could cite economics to justify turning them into plutonium factories.
Third, the president is pursuing construction of a civilian US research reactor using weapons-grade HEU fuel for the first time since the 1960s, thereby threatening to undermine decades of progress in delegitimizing this dangerous fuel globally.
Fourth, the White House has agreed to export tons of weapons-grade uranium—an amount sufficient for hundreds of nuclear bombs—to fuel Australia’s forthcoming SSN-AUKUS nuclear-powered submarines. This announcement already has prompted at least one other country, Iran, to suggest that it too may produce HEU for naval fuel—a well-known back door to nuclear weapons. The good news is that Australia’s submarines likely could be redesigned to use low-enriched uranium that is unsuitable for nuclear weapons. Unfortunately, the Biden administration recently canceled funding for the eight-year-old program to develop such proliferation-resistant naval fuel.
Why is President Biden doing all this? The US president seems to think he can prevent proliferation solely by quashing demand—using carrots and sticks to persuade countries not to seek the bomb—despite evidence to the contrary. So, he feels free to relax supply restrictions in political horse-trades. For example, to persuade legislators to support solar and wind power, he is funding not just prudent nuclear research, but also their boondoggles to expand use of plutonium and HEU fuel. To ensure US military support for the trilateral Australia-United Kingdom-United States (AUKUS) deal, he is acquiescing to Navy insistence on using weapons-grade uranium reactor fuel, even in exported submarines. However, recent spikes in demand for nuclear weapons, among friends and foes alike, suggests this is a dangerously short-sighted approach.
Of course, the United States should continue trying to reduce demand for proliferation, including by avoiding attacking any more countries that have halted their nuclear weapons programs like Iraq and Libya. But if President Biden imagines that demand-suppression is a silver bullet that gives him license to expand civilian commerce in nuclear weapons-usable materials, he is deeply mistaken. Unless Biden changes course, his promotion of such dangerous nuclear technologies will enable supply to meet demand—in the market of mass destruction. https://thebulletin.org/2023/09/bidens-horse-trading-on-nuclear-technology-and-fuels-is-an-unprecedented-proliferation-risk/
Educating the US Imperium: Australia’s Mission for Assange
Then there is the issue of whether the delegation’s urgings will have any purchase beyond being a performing flea act. US State Department officials remain glacial in their dismissal of Canberra’s “enough is enough” concerns and defer matters to the US Department of Justice. The unimpressive ambassador Kennedy has been the perfect barometer of this sentiment: host Australian MPs for lunch, keep up appearances, listen politely and ignore their views. Such is the relationship between lord and vassal.
September 6, 2023 Dr Binoy Kampmark https://theaimn.com/educating-the-us-imperium-australias-mission-for-assange/
An odder political bunch you could not find, at least when it comes to pursuing a single goal. Given that the goal is the release of WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange makes it all the more striking. Six Australian parliamentarians of various stripes will be heading to Washington ahead of Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s October visit to test the ground of empire, maybe even plant a few seeds of doubt, about why the indictment against their countryman should be dropped.
That indictment, an outrageous, piffling shambles of a document comprising 18 charges, 17 based on that nasty, brutish statute, the Espionage Act of 1917, risks earning Assange a prison sentence in the order of 175 years. But in any instrumental sense, his incarceration remains ongoing, with the United Kingdom currently acting as prison warden and custodian.
In the politics of his homeland, the icy polarisation that came with Assange’s initial publishing exploits (former Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard was convinced Cablegate was a crime) has shifted to something almost amounting to a consensus. The cynic will say that votes are in the offing, if not at risk if nothing is done; the principled will argue that enlightenment has finally dawned.
The Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and the Opposition leader, Peter Dutton, agree on almost nothing else but the fact that Assange has suffered enough. In Parliament, the tireless work of the independent MP from Tasmania, Andrew Wilkie, has bloomed into the garrulous Bring Julian Assange Home Parliamentary Group.
The Washington mission, which will arrive in the US on September 20, comprises former deputy prime minister Barnaby Joyce, the scattergun former Nationals leader, Labor MP Tony Zappia, Greens Senators David Shoebridge and Peter Whish-Wilson, Liberal Senator Alex Antic and the competent independent member for Kooyong, Dr. Monique Ryan.
What will be said will hardly be pleasing to the ears of the Washington establishment. Senator Shoebridge, for instance, promises to make the case that Assange was merely telling the truth about US war crimes, hardly music for guardians from Freedom’s Land. Sounding like an impassioned pastor, he will tell his unsuspecting flock “the truth about this prosecution.”
Joyce, however, tried to pour some oil over troubled waters by insisting on ABC News that the delegates were not there “to pick a fight”. He did not necessarily want to give the impression that his views aligned with WikiLeaks. The principles, soundly, were that Assange had not committed any of the alleged offences as a US national, let alone in the United States itself. The material Assange had published had not been appropriated by himself. He had received it from Chelsea Manning, a US military source, “who is now walking the streets as a free person.”
To pursue the indictment to its logical conclusion would mean that Assange, or any journalist for that matter, could be extradited to the US from, say, Australia, for the activities in question. This extraterritorial eccentricity set a “very, very bad precedent”, and it was a “duty” to defend his status as an Australian citizen.
The Nationals MP also noted, rather saliently, that Beijing was currently interested in pursuing four Chinese nationals on Australian soil for a number of alleged offences that did not, necessarily, have a nexus to Chinese territory. Should Australia now extradite them as a matter of course? (The same observation has been made by an adviser to the Assange campaign, Greg Barns SC: “You’ve got China using the Assange case as a sort of moral equivalence argument.”)
Broadly speaking, the delegation is hoping to draw attention to the nature of publishing itself and the risks posed to free speech and the journalistic craft by the indictment. But there is another catch. In Shoebridge’s words, the delegates will also remind US lawmakers “that one of their closest allies sees the treatment of Julian Assange as a key indicator on the health of the bilateral relationship.”
Ryan expressed much the same view. “Australia is an excellent friend of the US and it’s not unreasonable to request to ask the US to cease this extradition attempt on Mr Assange.” The WikiLeaks founder was “a “journalist; he should not be prosecuted for crimes against journalism.”
While these efforts are laudable, they are also revealing. The first is that the clout of the Albanese government in Washington, on this point, has been minimal. Meekly, the government awaits the legal process in the UK to exhaust itself, possibly leading to a plea deal with all its attendant dangers to Assange. (The recent floating of that idea, based on remarks made by US ambassador to Australia Caroline Kennedy, was scotched by former British diplomat and Assange confidante Craig Murray in an interview with WBAI radio last week.) Best, then, to leave it to a diverse set of politicians representative of the “Australian voice” to convey the message across the pond.
Then there is the issue of whether the delegation’s urgings will have any purchase beyond being a performing flea act. US State Department officials remain glacial in their dismissal of Canberra’s “enough is enough” concerns and defer matters to the US Department of Justice. The unimpressive ambassador Kennedy has been the perfect barometer of this sentiment: host Australian MPs for lunch, keep up appearances, listen politely and ignore their views. Such is the relationship between lord and vassal.
In Washington, the perspective remains ossified, retributive and wrongheaded. Assange is myth and monster, the hacker who pilfered state secrets and compromised US national security; the man who revealed confidential sources and endangered informants; a propagandist who harmed the sweet sombre warriors of freedom by encouraging a new army of whistleblowers and transparency advocates.
Whatever the outcome from this trip, some stirring of hope is at least possible. The recent political movement down under shows that Assange is increasingly being seen less in the narrow context of personality than high principle. Forget whether you know the man, his habits, his inclinations. Remember him as the principle, or even a set of principles: the publisher who, with audacity, exposed the crimes and misdeeds of power; that, in doing so, he is now being hounded and persecuted in a way that will chill global efforts to do something similar.
1 This Month
23 April – WEBINAR – Why new nuclear reactors are the wrong tools for decarbonization Thursday, April 23 • 1 AM – 2 AM AEST
World Nuclear Power. Reactors 1951-2026, 75 Years of Nuclear Power.
Interactive Map– https://dv.worldnuclearreport.org/
Chernobyl: The Lost Tapes – A good documentary on Chernobyl on SBS available On Demand for the next 3 weeks– https://www.sbs.com.au/ondemand/tv-program/chernobyl-the-lost-tapes/2352741955560
of the week–London Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament
Tell the Ukrainian Government to Drop Prosecution of Peace Activist Yurii Sheliazhenko
To see nuclear-related stories in greater depth and intensity – go to https://nuclearinformation.wordpress.com
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