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Missing Links in Textbook History: War

According to the Institute for National Strategic Studies:  “The most highly prized attribute of private contractors is that they reduce troop requirements by replacing military personnel. This reduces the military and political resources that must be dedicated to the war.”  

 By Jim Mamer , ScheerPost, 28 Mar 24

In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military- industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.

— President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s Farewell Address  (1961)

n the late 1980s I had a student in an American history class who said that the United States won the war in Vietnam. I felt dizzy. Maybe I had misunderstood. So, I asked him to explain. “My father,” he told the class, “said that we had won the war because we won most of the battles and we killed more of them than they killed of us.”

My instinct was to attempt to impose logic on the discussion. American aircraft, I said, dropped millions of tons of bombs on Vietnam – more than twice what the U.S. dropped in all of World War II. That, of course, killed a lot of people, but it did not win the war. 

That student was not convinced and I quickly realized that I would not change his mind. Not long after, I discovered that he and his father were not alone. 

Ignorance or Amnesia?

The late Gore Vidal famously referred to this country as the “United States of Amnesia.” He had a point. As a society, we don’t seem to learn much from past experiences and even what we think we remember is often blurry.

In a 2003 episode of “Democracy Now!” Vidal reported that George W. Bush had managed to have a number of presidential papers put beyond the reach of historians for a great length of time. Making historical records unavailable, he predicted, will worsen America’s amnesia: “There will be no functioning historical memory … we are creating a lobotomized nation wherein the connections between essential parts of our history are severed from what is taught.”…………………………………………………………..

Glenn Greenwald blames some of the misunderstanding on journalists. He began a recent edition of System Update by talking about how journalists report on war. “One of the most important parts of journalism, when it comes to war, is to scrutinize, and investigate and debunk propaganda that comes from every side in every war.” Unfortunately, he concludes, journalists often fail to scrutinize, investigate and debunk.

I have argued some of the blame should be put on state approved textbooks which often fail, in Vidal’s words, to make the vital connections, due to what I call “missing links.

The Often-Invisible Agenda of Corporate Media

In 2005, Norman Solomon wrote an article titled “The Military-Industrial-Media Complex,” where he describes the connections of the military-industrial complex to corporate media. 

“Firms with military ties routinely advertise in news outlets. Often, media magnates and people on the boards of large media-related corporations enjoy close links—financial and social—with the military industry and Washington’s foreign-policy establishment. Sometimes a media-owning corporation is itself a significant weapons merchant.”

Because so much of the media is now tied to corporate sponsors or serves the agenda of one political party most Americans are never exposed to real debate. Highly paid broadcasters may be fearful of offending their corporate paymasters when they report on a war involving the United States, especially when their reports have been given a veneer of credibility from “experts” drawn from the ranks of retired military officers, retired CIA personnel and former FBI officials.

As a result, there is virtually no media coverage of weapons manufacturers and the profits they make. Just imagine the impact it would make if reports from war zones that we are deeply involved with, like Gaza or Ukraine, were followed by listings of the profits made by various weapon-making conglomerates like Lockheed Martin, Mitsubishi, Boeing, General Dynamics or Raytheon?

How much do we know about American Wars?

To understand the gravity of the situation it helps to have a sense of how many American wars have been fought and how many conflicts we are currently involved with. The numbers differ according to the source largely because wars are sometimes grouped under umbrella terms like the Caribbean wars, the Cold War or the War on Terror. 

According to Wikipedia, the United States has been involved in 107 wars since its founding and 41 of these were fought against the Indigenous peoples of North America. Most of these wars are ignored by schools, textbooks and the media, but the pressure to become involved in additional conflict is ever-present and comes from a variety of sources.

When Dick Cheney was Secretary of Defense for President George Bush Sr., he contracted engineering company Kellogg, Brown & Root (then part of Halliburton) to identify traditional military jobs that could be taken over by private sector contractors. It turned out there were a lot of jobs for the private sector and ever since the use of contractors has grown in positions like conducting intelligence, training local military, handling security and assisting in drone warfare. 

At times the number of private contractors has been larger than that of enlisted troops……………………………

According to the Institute for National Strategic Studies:  “The most highly prized attribute of private contractors is that they reduce troop requirements by replacing military personnel. This reduces the military and political resources that must be dedicated to the war.”  

Public Citizen reports that “Every year, the defense industry donates millions of dollars to the campaigns of members of Congress, creating pressure on the legislative branch to fund specific weapons systems, maintain an extremely high Pentagon budget, and add ever more military spending.”

They also report that the pressure to spend more is constant, even though “nearly 50% of the Pentagon budget” already goes to private contractors. According to the report, in 2022 the weapons/defense industry donated $10.2 million to the 84 members of the House and Senate Armed Services Committees.

Even the language employed to report on war is structured to confuse. Invented phrases resemble Orwell’s Newspeak, from the novel 1984, meant to prevent too much thought. How else to explain the birth of misleading terms like “protective reaction strike” (an attack) “enhanced interrogation techniques” (torture), “extraordinary rendition” (kidnapping), “collateral damage” (extra dead), or “targeted killings” (usually with a lot of collateral damage).

The Art of Promoting Misunderstanding

What you do in this world is a matter of no consequence. The question is,
What can you make people believe that you have done?

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………. High school textbooks all discuss early American wars, but usually without analysis. What follows are examples of how three early wars are discussed in textbooks………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

Are we headed toward Forever Wars?

Republicans and Democrats disagree today on many issues, but they are united in their resolve that the United States must remain the world’s greatest military power. This bipartisan commitment to maintaining American supremacy has become a political signature of our times.

— Andrew J. Bacevich, American Imperium 2016

……………………………..describing our history as one damn war after another.

How else to respond to the Wikipedia list of 107 wars involving the United States since 1787. And the wars continue. In his book “The United States of War,” David Vine reports that, “In the nearly two decades since U.S. forces invaded Afghanistan and Iraq, the U.S. military has fought in at least 22 countries.” 

In his analysis of American wars Andrew Bacevich writes that “the constructed image of the past to which most Americans habitually subscribe prevents them from seeing other possibilities.” This “constructed image” is basically one of the United States as largely innocent of aggression, but forced by circumstance to defend itself. 

In order to identify the missing links in the textbook treatments of American wars, it is important to look beyond the minutiae of single events and the unique characteristics of each conflict and look for common threads in the motivations towards engaging in war.

We have a government financed and  influenced by Eisenhower’s military-industrial complex idea, and a population which seems either uninformed or uninterested. 

The combination invites a future of permanent war.

Common threads include the ever-present assertion that the United States is defending itself whenever it goes to war and that includes wars engaged in while assembling a nation that would span the continent, as the song goes, “from sea to shining sea.”

How accurate were American claims of self-defense regarding American participation in the three early wars I reviewed?

…………………………………………………… If Andrew Bacevich is correct in saying we in the U.S. have a bipartisan congressional commitment to maintaining American supremacy, then more wars are inevitable. If we are to escape a future of forever wars, all justifications for war should be questioned and debated before the killing starts.  https://scheerpost.com/2024/03/28/missing-links-in-textbook-history-war/

March 31, 2024 Posted by | Education, USA | Leave a comment

THE R.A.F’S NUCLEAR FLIGHTS OVER BRITAIN AND THE ATLANTIC

Although the chances of such an accident occurring may be low, the consequences would be high

emergency arrangements would be totally inadequate to protect members of the public.

Little-known to the public, the UK military regularly flies planes carrying highly radioactive material to the US in order to maintain its nuclear weapons system, Trident.

RICHARD NORTON-TAYLOR, 27 MARCH 2024,  https://www.declassifieduk.org/the-r-a-fs-nuclear-flights-over-britain-and-the-atlantic/

  • These flights “pose a significant risk to communities across the UK should there be an accident, says Nukewatch
  • “How can we have an independent foreign policy if the cornerstone of Britain’s security relies so heavily on another state?”, asks CND

British military aircraft regularly carry highly radioactive material across the Atlantic to one of the RAF’s largest bases on flights vital to the Trident nuclear weapons system, according to new research, Declassified UK can reveal.

The little-known flights are a lifeline sustaining the ‘special relationship’ embodied in the secretive US-UK Mutual Defence Agreement due to be renewed later this year without the need for any parliamentary scrutiny or even approval.

At least ten of the special round trips between RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire and US military bases, usually by large RAF C-17 Globemaster transport aircraft, take place every year, according to Nukewatch, which monitors traffic in nuclear weapons and their components.

In a joint report with Nukewatch, the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) told Declassified: “The UK cannot claim to have an independent nuclear weapons system when it is so reliant on the US for technical information and nuclear materials, including these special nuclear flights. 

“By having such a direct involvement in Britain’s nuclear weapons technology, the US exercises significant leverage over the UK’s foreign and defence policy”, it added.

The RAF planes fly from Brize Norton either over the Cotswolds and the Bristol and Cardiff areas before crossing the Atlantic, or over Gloucestershire and the South Wales valleys, heading out to sea over Swansea and the Gower peninsular.

Their destinations include Kirtland Air Force Base in Albuquerque, a convenient location for access to US nuclear laboratories and manufacturing plants in New Mexico and northern Texas, and McGhee Tyson Airport, Knoxville, close to nuclear sites in Tennessee.

Radioactive

Although the MoD does not reveal the exact nature of the cargoes, Nukewatch says it can conclude on the basis of its investigations that material in RAF aircraft returning to Britain includes tritium, a radioactive isotope of hydrogen which is used in nuclear warheads. 

Tritium has a relatively short half-life of twelve years, and thus requires constant replacement. Britain does not have facilities to produce tritium and needs to replenish supplies from the US.

The RAF cargo also includes highly enriched uranium (HEU) used for nuclear submarine reactor fuel and warhead components. Uranium fuel is burnt up in submarine reactors and cannot be reused. 

Britain does not have facilities to enrich uranium to the high levels used in submarine reactor fuel and so either HEU must be purchased from the US, or low enriched uranium must be sent to the US for further enrichment.

Plutonium for warhead components has been exchanged with the US in past decades, according to Nukewatch. The cargo is also likely to include security-classified non-nuclear warhead components such as arming, fusing and firing systems as well as radioactive materials and equipment used in nuclear security exercises.  

Refusing details

The US and Britain cooperate closely on security programmes and exercises designed to combat nuclear terrorism.

Some RAF cargoes are loaded on to convoys that transport radioactive and other nuclear weapon-related material loads to and from the Atomic Weapons Establishment (AWE) in Aldermaston, Berkshire, and other sites involved in Britain’s nuclear weapons programme.

Ministers have refused to give details of the types and quantities of radioactive materials transported in special flights on national security grounds.  

Read more: THE R.A.F’S NUCLEAR FLIGHTS OVER BRITAIN AND THE ATLANTIC

The MoD says the transport of DNM (defence nuclear materials) is carried out in accordance with stringent safety regulations. In more than 50 years transporting DNM in Britain, there has never been an incident that has posed a radiation hazard to the public or to the environment, says Nukewatch quoting the MoD.

The MoD adds that the RAF Immediate Response Force, equipped and trained to identify radiological hazards, are “at a state of readiness” when the aircraft enter British airspace. Brize Norton has a nuclear accident response team equipped to monitor radiation in the event of an aircraft accident.

However, Nukewatch and CND argue that an objective assessment of the level of risk to people living under the flight path cannot be made in the absence of official information on the type of radioactive material the flights are carrying and tests. 

Such tests would determine how to respond to the impact of a high altitude or high velocity crash and any subsequent fire that would be likely to scatter radioactivity over a wide area.

‘Astral Bend’

Although the chances of such an accident occurring may be low, the consequences would be high, the report says. Plutonium and uranium are flammable metals which burn easily if exposed to heat, creating a plume of radioactive smoke that is easily ingested.  

Tritium is a radioactive gas which is also flammable and can easily be incorporated in water and organic compounds, in which form it may be ingested. All three materials are carcinogenic.

The MoD undertakes annual exercises, code-named ‘Astral Bend’, to test the emergency response to an accident involving an RAF aircraft transporting special nuclear materials. Emergency responses would be tightly controlled by the MoD, with the police in charge of civilian emergency services.

Separate assessment reports of Astral Bend exercises have been released under the Freedom of Information Act. They show that despite their preparations, the authorities are not always able to respond well because of the complex and hazardous nature of any such accident.

Following a 2006 exercise, a temporary ban was imposed on highly enriched uranium flights at Brize Norton. Shortfalls in radiation field monitoring, radiation safety procedures, and medical treatment of casualties were identified by the MoD’s internal nuclear watchdog, the Defence Nuclear Safety Regulator (DNSR), as areas requiring improvement.

Risk of contamination

An Astral Bend exercise in 2010 rehearsed the response to an accident involving a US Air Force plane which had crashed and caught fire, damaging nuclear weapons on board and spreading radioactive contamination around the crash site. 

Assessors concluded that, had there been a real emergency, civilian personnel would have been at risk from explosions and radioactive contamination. This was because the MoD nuclear accident response organisation team “did not emphasise the hazards adequately” and gave “insufficient priority” to liaison with emergency services. 

Difficulties experienced with two subsequent exercises, in 2011 and 2012, were so severe that the MoD was forced to carry out “an overarching, fundamental review” of arrangements for handling nuclear weapons accidents. 

During an exercise at the Caerwent military training area in South Wales mistakes made by emergency services would have led to “avoidable deaths” in a real-life situation, according to exercise assessments.  

The fire service was heavily criticised by the DNSR for refusing to allow ambulance teams to take away seriously injured people until they had been decontaminated. 

The confusion and delays observed during Astral Bend exercises raise questions about whether the MoD’s nuclear safety arrangements are capable of keeping the public, emergency responders, and MoD personnel safe, the report says. 

Experience suggests that emergency arrangements would be totally inadequate to protect members of the public.

Maintaining Trident

The MoD has told Nukewatch in response to a Freedom of Information Act request that releasing the report on the most recent Astral Bend exercise would allow potential adversaries to gain a greater operational understanding of air transport involving defence nuclear materials and emergency response measures.

The release of operational details would make future air transport operations “vulnerable to the potential interception by hostile actors”, which would endanger the safety of the wider public, the MoD argued.

Significantly, it added that providing the information would prejudice its ability to maintain the UK’s Continuous At Sea Deterrence (CASD) – a reference to patrols by Britain’s Trident submarines. 

“There is no wider public interest in reducing the effectiveness of the nuclear deterrent which is the ultimate guarantee of our national security”, the MoD told Nukewatch.

Nigel Day of Nukewatch said: “Ministry of Defence nuclear flights pose a significant risk to communities across the UK should there be an accident. Far from keeping us safe, as the government claims, nuclear weapons actually make things far more dangerous for all of us.” 

Kate Hudson, general secretary of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND), told Declassified: “Special nuclear flights are an underreported but critical aspect in maintaining Britain’s nuclear power status. How can we truly have an independent foreign and defence policy if what is vaunted as the cornerstone of our supposed security relies so heavily on another state? 

“It’s time to move away from the current wasteful and dangerous addiction to nuclear arms and to move towards a real defence policy which secures peace rather than deploying weapons of mass destruction.”

Hudson added: “We are also extremely concerned about the safety risks posed by these flights and the poor performance during exercises to prepare authorities for a nuclear accident. Of course, instead of acknowledging these risks and moving towards disarmament, the British government cuts down on transparency by blocking the release of reports on its most recent training exercises.”

March 31, 2024 Posted by | safety, UK | 1 Comment

Biden Is Quietly Funding Nuclear Weapons Upgrades That Could Imperil the Planet

The continued funding of nuclear weapons development is a pork barrel of herculean proportions.

By Jonathan King & Richard Krushnic , TRUTHOUT, March 29, 2024,  https://truthout.org/articles/biden-is-quietly-funding-nuclear-weapons-upgrades-that-could-imperil-the-planet/

President Joe Biden’s State of the Union speech failed to discuss a critical matter — the administration’s funding for the upgrading of all three legs of the nuclear weapons triad: Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs), submarines and bomber aircraft. The upgrades, new weapons systems and production of new nuclear warheads are estimated to cost taxpayers over $2 trillion dollars over the next 20 years.

Biden spent some time during the SOTU addressing the deficit and correctly attributed part of it to the Trump tax cuts. But a significant piece of the deficit is due to the extraordinary $886 billion in military spending, more than half of the U.S. government’s discretionary budget. An increasing piece of the bloated military budget is for the nuclear weapons upgrade. The projected cost of the replacement of the 480 land-based missiles with the new “Sentinel” missiles has already risen above $756 billion over the next decade. Building new weapons can only increase the chance of nuclear war — which few of us would survive. Even if those weapons are never used, the enormous cost defers funding for housing, health care, biomedical research, food and nutrition, Veteran’s Affairs and education.

Biden could have included in his “predecessor” critique the desertion of the Iran treaty, withdrawal from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces and Open Skies treaties. But he didn’t. He could have referred to the passage of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, and the fact that the START Treaty is still in force as offering hope for increased security. But he didn’t.

Perhaps Biden, despite his saber-rattling toward Putin in the opening of the SOTU, is not planning on garnering support for these programs by traditional Cold War drumbeating — as did Reagan with his attacks on the Soviet “Evil Empire.” Instead, his administration appears to be following a stealth strategy of keeping Americans from learning how their tax dollars are being misspent.

What’s more likely is that Biden is concerned these expenditures will be recognized as the giant pork barrel that they are. Consider the replacement of the Minuteman ICBMs with the new Sentinels. There is no military justification for this project. The ICBMs are totally vulnerable since their fixed locations are known with precision; in addition, once launched they can’t be recalled or retargeted. If launched, that will lead to the counter launching of missiles targeted at U.S. cities, resulting in the deaths of tens of millions of Americans.

Clearly, the biggest contribution of the ICBM force to U.S. national security would be their retirement. However the combined influence of the ICBM caucus of senators from the missile site states, the Air Force, together with major contractor Northrop Grumman, and the other contractors who receive these cost-plus contracts, is driving the funding of replacements. According to analyst William Hartung, “The top 11 contractors working on the new ICBM spent more than $119 million on lobbying in 2019 and 2020 and employed 380 lobbyists.”

Arguments that retiring the ICBMs would weaken the U.S. nuclear deterrent are baseless. The remaining nuclear weapons forces would still represent mind-boggling nuclear overkill.

Because of secrecy, assessing the precise number of U.S. nuclear weapons deployed and in storage using U.S. government sources is difficult. However, a reliable lower limit is provided by the Nuclear Notebook, a publication of the Nuclear Information Project (NIP) of the Federation of American Scientists. These NIP sources are for 2023. The report concludes that there were approximately 5,550 warheads in the U.S. arsenal. This is almost certainly too low, since battlefield weapons like nuclear-armed artillery shells, are probably not included. We estimate that deployed nuclear weapons for the submarine-based and airborne legs of the triad include 2,140 warheads, all of which are many times more powerful than the bombs dropped on Japan.

The deployed weapons include 700 W76-1 warheads on Trident missile submarines of 90 kiloton yield; 200 W-80-1 warheads on Trident missile submarine of 475 kiloton yield; 170 Bomber bombs with W-80-1 warheads of five and 15-170 kilotons; and 120 Bomber bombs with B61-7 warheads of 10-340 kilotons.

Weapons in reserve include 330 W-80-1 Trident Missile Submarine warheads of 475 kiloton yield; 800 W-76-1 Trident missile submarine warheads of 90 kilotons; 168 B-61-7 bombs for long range bombers of 10-340 kilotons. We estimate 2224 in this category.

The destructive capacity of these thousands of weapons is almost beyond comprehension: Just one of the 14 Ohio-class submarines, with multiple missiles and multiple independently targeted warheads on each missile, can obliterate all the major cities of any nation in the world.

In fact, the continued funding of nuclear weapons development is a pork barrel of herculean proportions, funneling tax dollars from all Americans into the pockets of the nuclear weapons industry. We suspect that the Biden administration’s silence represents their decision to keep this boondoggle out of public view.

Jonathan King and Richard Krushnic are members of the Nuclear Disarmament Working Group of Mass Peace Action, and write frequently on the costs of nuclear weapons production and deployment

A third category includes 1536 “stockpiled” nuclear weapons.

March 31, 2024 Posted by | USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Nuclear waste clean-up company to be prosecuted over alleged cyber blunders

Sellafield Ltd accused of lax IT security at Europe’s largest nuclear facility

Jonathan Leake, 28 March 2024 ,  https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2024/03/28/sellafield-nuclear-waste-prosecuted-cybersecurity/

A state-owned company responsible for cleaning up decades of nuclear waste at the Sellafield site in Cumbria is being prosecuted over alleged cybersecurity blunders.

It follows an investigation prompted by fears that the business’s digital defences were breached by hackers acting for hostile states such as Russia and China.

Sellafield is Europe’s largest nuclear facility, serving as a testing ground and waste dump since 1947. It houses a massive range of highly radioactive wastes, including 140 tonnes of plutonium – a key ingredient for nuclear weapons.

The Office for Nuclear Regulation (ONR) has told Sellafield Ltd, the business tasked with clean-up, that it will be prosecuted under the Nuclear Industries Security Regulations 2003.

The charges relate to alleged information technology security offences during a four-year period between 2019 and early 2023.

The announcement coincides with reports today that Richard Meal, who is chief information security officer at the Cumbrian site, is to leave later this year.

It follows the departure of Mark Neate, the director responsible for safety and security, who announced in January that he intended to quit in a move that had been planned for some time.

Sellafield has denied claims the site had suffered serious security breaches and the ONR has supported this. The new charges are thought to relate to alleged failures in compliance – meaning they are more about lax security than actual breaches.

An ONR spokesman said there was no suggestion that public safety had been compromised. Details of the first court hearing will be announced when available.

Sellafield Ltd is owned by the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority, a quango overseen by the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero, which is tasked with cleaning 17 decaying nuclear sites across the UK. Sellafield is the most expensive, costing taxpayers £2.5bn last year.

Some government estimates suggest the total cost of the clean-up will reach £263bn, with Sellafield accounting for the largest portion. The site employs 11,000 people and comprises more than 1,000 buildings, many not designed to house the radioactive material now stored in them.

Sellafield is so expensive that the Office for Budget Responsibility, which monitors threats to the UK Government’s finances, has warned that it and other legacy sites pose a “material source of fiscal risk” to the country.

The ONR investigation is in addition to another by the National Audit Office, Britain’s public spending watchdog, which is probing risks and costs at Sellafield and is due to report this autumn.

A Sellafield spokesman said: “The ONR’s Civil Nuclear Security and Safeguards (CNSS) has notified us of its intention to prosecute the company relating to alleged past nuclear industry security regulations compliance. As the issue is now the subject of active court proceedings, we are unable to comment further.”

It follows separate reports by Radioactive Waste Management Ltd (RWM), another government-owned company, that hackers unsuccessfully attempted to breach its defences using LinkedIn.

RWM, now part of Nuclear Waste Services, is the company tasked with designing the long-awaited Geological Disposal Facility (GDF) project,  a vast underground nuclear waste store which would become the final destination for toxic waste now stored at Sellafield.

Nuclear Waste Services is currently seeking a site that would be geologically stable for the millions of years the waste would need to become safe – and which would be acceptable to the local communities hosting it.

Two sites remain in the running, one off the coast of Cumbria and the other off the coast of Lincolnshire, with the choice of site still surrounded in secrecy.

The development is expected to cost taxpayers up to £53bn.

A report filed at Companies House by Nuclear Waste Services said the attempted hacks had failed.

March 31, 2024 Posted by | legal, safety, UK, wastes | Leave a comment

The First Annual Plutonium Trail Caravan is on Saturday April 6th – Join Us!

March 29th, 2024,  https://nuclearactive.org/

Did you know that the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) was supposed to complete its 25-year waste disposal mission and begin closing on Tuesday, March 26th?  You may know about it because WIPP officials had a party.  https://www.rdrnews.com/news/state/new-mexico-regulators-worry-about-us-plans-to-ship-radioactive-waste-back-from-texas/article_00e04fb6-ed72-5ec6-aabb-cc35a01d12f0.html  

But for those living downwind and downstream of Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) and along the WIPP transportation routes, the risk of the federal Department of Energy (DOE) operations at both facilities will continue to threaten us, and if DOE has its way, for decades to come.

DOE, which owns both facilities, is not planning to close either site.  LANL is to continue to generate plutonium-contaminated wastes by fabricating the triggers, or pits, for new nuclear weapons.  DOE hopes to leave some of that waste at LANL forever. Some waste would be shipped to WIPP, a journey of 315 miles, for disposal.

Rather than closing WIPP, DOE has no plans for any other repository, so the world’s only operating deep underground facility would also operate forever.

But many New Mexicans oppose “Forever WIPP.”  https://stopforeverwipp.org/

On Saturday, April 6th, the first annual Plutonium Trail Caravan will travel along the WIPP transportation route.  It will begin at Camel Rock and end with a press conference at the Lamy Train Station.  The purpose is to highlight some of the dangers of WIPP and waste transportation and encourage people to join in the effort to Stop Forever WIPP.

The caravan will have literature about WIPP and items for sale. The participants can answer questions about present and future activities. More information is available at https://stopforeverwipp.org/

The caravan will gather at 9:30 am at the Camel Rock geologic formation on the frontage road to U.S. 84/285 in Tesuque for a blessing, a safety briefing, and a group photo.

There will be four stops along the WIPP waste transportation route– in the Tesuque Village, the Solano Shopping Center in Santa Fe, the intersection of Airport Road and the 599 By-pass around Santa Fe, and the Agora Shopping Center in El Dorado.

After the four stops, a press conference will be held at the Lamy Train Station at 3:15 pm.  Speakers include Hank Hughes, Santa Fe County Commission Chair; Myrriah Gómez, author of Nuclear Nuevo México; Destiny Ray, of Youth United for Climate Crisis Action, or YUCCA; and Ashley Schannauer, an activist and concerned citizen.  They will speak about their concerns and suggest ideas for working together to oppose Forever WIPP.  Please join us!

March 31, 2024 Posted by | opposition to nuclear, USA | Leave a comment

Starvation in Gaza: The World Court’s Latest Intervention

March 30, 2024, by: Dr Binoy Kampmark, https://theaimn.com/starvation-in-gaza-the-world-courts-latest-intervention/

Rarely has the International Court of Justice been so constantly exercised by one topic during a short span of time. On January 26, the World Court, considering a filing made the previous December by South Africa, accepted Pretoria’s argument that the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide was applicable to the conflict in so far as Israel was bound to observe it in its military operations against Hamas in Gaza. (The judges will determine, in due course, whether Israel’s actions in Gaza meet the genocidal threshold.) By 15-2, the judges noted that “the catastrophic humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip is at serious risk of deteriorating further before the Court renders its final judgment.”

At that point 26,000 Palestinians had perished, much of Gaza pummelled into oblivion, and 85% of its 2.3 million residents expelled from their homes. Measures were therefore required to prevent “real and imminent risk that irreparable prejudice will be caused to the rights found by the Court to be plausible, before it gives its final decision.”

Israel was duly ordered to take all possible measures to prevent the commission of acts under Article II of the Genocide Convention; prevent and punish “the direct and public incitement to genocide” against the Gaza populace; permit basic services and humanitarian assistance to the Gaza Strip; ensure the preservation of, and prevent destruction of, evidence related to acts committed against Gaza’s Palestinians within Articles II and III of the Convention; and report to the ICJ on how Israel was abiding by such provisional measures within a month. The balance sheet on that score has been uneven at best.

Since then, the slaughter has continued, with the Palestinian death toll now standing at 32,300. The Israelis have refused to open more land crossings into Gaza, and continue to hamper aid going into the strip, even as they accuse aid agencies and providers of being tardy and dishonest. Their surly defiance of the United States has seen air drops of uneven, negligible success (the use of air to deliver aid has always been a perilous exercise). When executed, these have even been lethal to the unsuspecting recipients, with reported cases of parachutes failing to open.

On March 25, the UN Security Council, after three previous failed attempts, passed Resolution 2728, thereby calling for an immediate ceasefire for the month of Ramadan “leading to a lasting sustainable” halt to hostilities, the “immediate and unconditional release of all hostages”, “ensuring humanitarian access to address their medical and other humanitarian needs” and “demands that the parties comply with their obligations under international law in relation to all persons they detain.”

Emphasis was also placed on “the urgent need to expand the flow of humanitarian assistance to and reinforce the protection of civilians in the entire Gaza Strip.” The resolution further demands that all barriers regarding the provision of humanitarian assistance, in accordance with international humanitarian law be lifted.

Since January, South Africa has been relentless in its efforts to curb Israel’s Gaza enterprise in The Hague. It called upon the ICJ on February 14, referring to “the developing circumstances in Rafah”, to urgently exercise powers under Article 75 of the Rules of Court. Israel responded on February 15. The next day, the ICJ’s Registrar transmitted to the parties the view of the Court that the “perilous situation” in the Gaza Strip, but notably in Rafah, “demands immediate and effective implementation of the provisional measures indicated by the Court in its Order of 26 January 2024.”

Throughout the following month, more legal jostling and communication took place, with Pretoria requesting on March 6 that the ICJ “indicate further provisional measures and/or to modify” those ordered on January 26.

The application was prompted by the “horrific deaths from starvation of Palestinian children, including babies, brought about by Israel’s deliberate acts and omissions … including Israel’s concerted attempts since 26 January 2024 to ensure the defunding of [the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) and Israel’s attacks on starving Palestinians seeking to access what extremely limited humanitarian assistance Israel permits into Northern Gaza, in particular.”

Israel responded on March 15 to the South African communication, rejecting the claims of starvation arising from deliberate acts and omissions 

 “in the strongest terms.” The logic of the sketchy rebuttal from Israel was that matters had not materially altered since January 26 to warrant a reconsideration: “the difficult and tragic situation in the Gaza Strip in the last weeks could not be said to materially change the considerations upon which the Court based its original decision concerning provisional measures.”

On March 28, the Court issued a unanimous order modifying the January interim order. Combing through the ghoulish evidence, the judges noted an updated report from March 18 on food insecurity from the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification Global Initiative (IPC Global Initiative) stating that “conditions necessary to prevent Famine have not been met and the latest evidence confirms that Famine is imminent in the northern governorates and projected to occur anytime between mid-March and May 2024.” The UN Children’s Fund had also reported that 31 per cent of children under 2 years of age in the northern Gaza Strip were enduring conditions of “acute malnutrition”.

In the face of this Himalaya of devastation, the Court could only observe “that Palestinians in Gaza are no longer facing a risk of famine, as noted in the Order of 26 January 2024, but that famine is setting in, with at least 31 people, including 27 children, having already died of malnutrition and dehydration.” There were “unprecedented levels of food insecurity experienced by Palestinians in the Gaza strip over recent weeks, as well as the increasing risks of epidemics.”

Such “grave” conditions granted the Court jurisdiction to modify the January 26 order which no longer fully addressed “the consequences arising from the changes in the situation.” In view of the “worsening conditions of life faced by Palestinians in Gaza, in particular the spread of famine and starvation”, Israel should take “all necessary and effective measures to ensure, without delay, in full cooperation with the United Nations, the unhindered provision at scale by all concerned of urgently needed basic services and humanitarian assistance.”

The list of what is needed is also enumerated: food, water, electricity, fuel, shelter, clothing, hygiene, sanitation requirements, and “medical supplies and medical care to Palestinians throughout Gaza, including by increasing the capacity and number of land crossing points and maintaining them open for as long as necessary.”

A less reported aspect of the March 28 order, passed by fifteen votes to one, was that Israel’s military refrain from committing “acts which constitute a violation of any rights of the Palestinians in Gaza as a protected group” under the Genocide Convention “including by preventing, through any action, the delivery of urgently needed humanitarian assistance.”

In this, the Court points to the possible, and increasingly plausible nexus, between starvation, famine and deprivation of necessaries as state policies with the intent to injure and kill members of a protected group. It is no doubt something that will weigh heavily on the minds of the judges as they continue mulling over the nature of the war in Gaza, which South Africa continues to insist is genocidal in scope and nature.

March 31, 2024 Posted by | Atrocities, Israel, Legal, weapons and war | Leave a comment

U.S, government to give $1.52 billion loan guarantee to Holtec to resuscitate Palisades Nuclear Plant.

Biden-Harris Administration Announces $1.5 Billion Conditional Commitment to Holtec Palisades to Support Recommission of Michigan Nuclear Power Plant

ENERG.GOV, MARCH 27, 2024

COVERT TOWNSHIP, MI — As part of President Biden’s Investing in America agenda, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) through its Loan Programs Office (LPO) today announced the offer of a conditional commitment of up to $1.52 billion for a loan guarantee to Holtec Palisades to finance the restoration and resumption of service of an 800-MW electric nuclear generating station in Covert Township, Michigan. The project aims to bring back online the Palisades Nuclear Plant, which ceased operations in May 2022, and upgrade it to produce baseload clean power until at least 2051, subject to U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) licensing approvals. …………………………………………………

While this conditional commitment demonstrates the Department’s intent to finance the project, the company must satisfy certain technical, legal, environmental, and financial conditions before the Department enters into definitive financing documents and funds the loan. …………………..  https://www.energy.gov/articles/biden-harris-administration-announces-15-billion-conditional-commitment-holtec-palisades

March 31, 2024 Posted by | politics, USA | Leave a comment

 The Office for Nuclear Regulation (ONR) will prosecute Sellafield Ltd on charges of security offences

 The Office for Nuclear Regulation (ONR) has notified Sellafield Ltd that
it will be prosecuted under the Nuclear Industries Security Regulations
2003. These charges relate to alleged information technology security
offences during a four year period between 2019 and early 2023. There is no
suggestion that public safety has been compromised as a result of these
issues. The decision to begin legal proceedings follows an investigation by
ONR, the UK’s independent nuclear regulator. Details of the first court
hearing will be announced when available. Given that some matters are now
subject to legal proceedings, we are unable to comment further.

 ONR 28th March 2024

https://onr.org.uk/news/all-news/2024/03/onr-notifies-sellafield-ltd-of-intention-to-prosecute

March 31, 2024 Posted by | Legal, UK | Leave a comment