2024 July 25 « nuclear-news

TODAY. Militarism: How NATO is co-opting women and young people – with a veneer of peace and fun

This isn’t new. It has long been a tactic of the nuclear lobby. What makes it easier now is the enormous influence of the military lobby everywhere, and the global spread of NATO.

Today I read professor Joan Roelofs’ article on NATO and realised that the tactic of using women and young people has moved from promoting the occasional young, and preferably female enthusiast, to creating institutions that cover up militarism, and make it look benign and peaceful.

The nuclear lobby has long been using “fun” young individuals to spread its message.

“Nuclear for Australia” was headed by 17 year-old William Shackel

The nuclear industry, wherever possible, gets its agenda into schools, often with a fun exercise about rockets

I now notice that it is pretty much obligatory for any military gathering to have at least one woman there, appropriately decked out in the right warlike gear.

While every survey comes up with figures about women liking weapons and war much less than men do, there seems to be a concerted effort to make it look as if there are women in charge at the top levels of the militaristic tree. At the recent NATO Summit lineup of 32 important people, there were 4 women. And of course, the very photogenic Ursula von der Leyen is prominent – often the only woman present at a NATO gathering.

Tragically, so many civilian jobs are linked with NATO – in areas like science, medical technology, information technology, academia, the arts, and even in progressive and human rights movements. So, through these connections the NATO message is spread, obscuring the reality that NATO is a militaristic institution, controlled by the USA, designed to make ready for war – originally against Russia, now against China, too.

The USA is controlled by corporations, especially weapons makers – it matters little whether Republicans or Democrats are in government.

NATO is now perfecting its veneer – spreading its influence through multiple nations, and multiple areas of society, an setting up its own cute little front groups, as named in the picture above.

The real decisions on NATO weapons, including nuclear, and their use, will be made by the same cabal of militaristic men, while NATO looks good, with its window-dressing of women and young people.

July 25, 2024 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Christina's notes | Leave a comment

‘Jewish Voice for Peace’ protesters arrested on Capitol Hill

The demonstrators are from Jewish Voice for Peace
Demonstrators can be seen wearing shirts saying ‘Stop Arming Israel’
Biden and Netanyahu scheduled to meet later this week

Evan Lambert, Urja Sinha, JUL 23, 2024, https://www.newsnationnow.com/world/israel-palestine/pro-palestinian-protesters-capitol-arrests/

(NewsNation) — Approximately 200 protesters have been arrested after they gathered in the Cannon Rotunda to protest the Israeli government, according to U.S. Capitol Police.

Organizers of the demonstration say they are from Jewish Voice for Peace, an American anti-Zionist Jewish advocacy organization that is “critical of Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territories,” according to its website.

Video from the protest shows dozens wearing red shirts sitting in circles in the Cannon House Office Building’s rotunda. The demonstrators wore shirts reading “Stop Arming Israel” and “Not in Our Name.”

The protest comes as President Joe Biden is expected to meet Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday, a U.S. official confirmed to NewsNation. Netanyahu will also address Congress during his U.S. visit.

Capitol Police have cleared out all the demonstrators from the rotunda, writing on X that, “We told the people, who legally entered, to stop or they would be arrested. They did not stop, so we are arresting them.”

July 25, 2024 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

NATO’s deceptive veneer – young, feminist, peaceful – “civilian”

NATO’s Civilian Bases BY JOAN ROELOFS. https://www.counterpunch.org/2024/07/24/natos-civilian-bases/

Why has NATO been so generally accepted in Europe by almost all the major political parties and especially puzzling, the social democratic ones? Its economic costs, illegal aggressive wars, environmental damage, and the risks of nuclear annihilation would seem to make it a prime platform item. Well-informed political activists are unlikely to believe that an invasion of Switzerland or Denmark is imminent. There are significant anti-NATO movements, such as No to War No to NATO, but so far they haven’t been able to turn the tide.

Some reasons are fairly obvious. The US military connections to European defense and foreign ministries began during World War II. These strong ties have continued, now with an emphasis on NATO’s newly acquired feminist face, the Women, Peace, and Security agenda.

Promotion long and wide has been carried out by overtly pro-NATO lobbies such as the Atlantic Council and national think tanks, for example, the Council on Foreign Relations (US), the British Royal Institute of International Affairs, and their counterparts in many nations. There is also a Youth Atlantic Treaty Association, a network of national organizations of young professionals, university students and researchers.

The secretive Bilderberg group harnesses the political, economic, academic and journalism elites of NATO nations. Operation Gladio, Operation Paperclip and others have sustained firm links with military and intelligence agencies. There has also been covert and overt interventions in political parties and nongovernmental organizations, such as the CIA funding of Christian Democratic party in 1948 to defeat the Communist Party and meddling in the British Labour Party to minimize the influence of the Committee on Nuclear Disarmament. These have also cleared the path for NATO. Eastern Europe was even more easily penetrated by NATO, after the devastation of its economic, cultural, and scientific institutions.

There have been constant protests against NATO bases, yet their less vocal sympathizers appreciate the economic benefit. At first, in war-torn Europe both the liberated and the occupied nations saw little economic activity. Now the European economy is increasingly militarized, having outsourced much of its civilian industry and facing declines in its tourist industry due to pandemics, protests by local residents, and environmental costs. According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) Fact Sheet of 2024, weapons production has greatly accelerated in many European countries, even though NATO and national militaries also equip themselves royally with US products. Sales to the Middle East and other violence inflicted areas are good business.

Now workers, many unionized and some even socialists and communists, have secure jobs in war industries and in the burgeoning military-civilian industries. As the Erikssons have documented:

The defence industry is undergoing rapid change, particularly regarding the development of dual-use technology and transfer of technology between military and civilian domains. . . The blurring of the military-civilian divide is particularly noticeable with the rapid development of Artificial Intelligence (AI), digitalization, satellite technology, integrated quantum, photonics, high-capacity wireless communications, and “big data” networking through 5 G – developments which have been referred to as “the fourth industrial revolution. . .”

Just as its military bases need everything, NATO institutes, operations, conferences, war games, and its supersized headquarters in Brussels equip and maintain from every kind of business. Much information is available on the NATO website; it also has a presence on YouTube, LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram and X (Twitter). The NATO Support and Procurement Agency contracts database for 2023 lists only orders valued above €80,000. It includes “consumables” from a firm in Luxembourg, transport of tents and conference center equipment from Belgium, winter clothing from France, “civil and mechanical” from Albania, medical equipment from Sweden, waterproof bags from Great Britain, and spare parts from vendors in many countries.

Undoubtedly, even smaller businesses supply a wide range, and, as in the US, provide economic survival for owners, workers, and communities (see The Trillion Dollar Silencer). A listing of bids above €800,000 includes medical treatment structures from a firm in Italy, training services (Netherlands and Spain), and military cots and mosquito nets (Italy and Turkey). Although the largest in both lists are expenditures for weapons, firms that are often the economic lifeblood—rather the deathblood—of their communities, the smaller (but not piddling) purchases can influence many citizens and their elected representatives.

NATO training and research operations involve civilian universities, which increasingly have military departments, as well as national military academies. There are even public high school training programs, e.g., in Sweden, Germany, and France (Defence Cadets). In addition, the US Department of Defense has direct contracts with universities and scientific institutes worldwide, especially for weapons development, nanotechnology, and biotechnology.

NATO also has several layers of its own training entities. One is the Partnership Training and Education Centres, in 34 member and partner (i.e., not full member) countries. Some examples are Switzerland, Geneva Centre for Security Policy; Israel, IDF Military Medical Academy; Serbia, Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear Training Centre; Mongolia, Peace Support Operations Centre; Colombia, International Demining Centre; Italy, The International Institute of Humanitarian Law; and United Kingdom, United Kingdom Defence Academy.

Another NATO network is the 28 Centres of Excellence which are “international military organizations that train and educate leaders and specialists from NATO member and partner countries.” They are funded nationally and accredited by NATO. Some of these are Civil-Military Cooperation, one of two in the Netherlands; Crisis Management and Disaster Response, Bulgaria; Modelling and Simulation, one of several in Italy; Strategic Communications, Latvia; Climate Change and Security, Canada; and Maritime Security, Turkey. The latter is described as:

[P]roviding expertise both as a centre for academic research and as a (multinational) hub for practical training in the field of maritime security, along with relevant domains (maritime trade, energy security, maritime environment, maritime resources, public health, maritime transport-logistic). The Centre strives to achieve the necessary collaboration among stakeholders from government, industry, academia and the private sector.

NATO’s enormous Civil Diplomacy department works through all print and electronic media. Its Press Tours enable reporters to “sail aboard the aircraft carrier USS George H.W. Bush on the Adriatic Sea” and “mingle with counter-terrorism experts in a metro station in Rome, Italy.” The department also welcomes grant applications from think tanks, universities, NGOs, and other civil society organizations “ranging from out-of-the box, non-traditional ideas to more institutional formats. Particular focus should be placed on outreach to youth audiences, female audiences and key opinion formers, including those who have not connected with NATO before.”

As Merje Kuus notes:

In addition to NATO’s own public diplomacy division, the alliance’s message is produced and projected through a host of NGOs that collaborate with NATO but are not affiliated with it. Funded through national foreign and defense ministries, NATO’s Public Diplomacy Division, and private companies, they organize a wide range of activities designed to popularize NATO within and beyond its member states.

NATO’s less obvious influence may derive from its accelerated penetration of civilian institutions: education, entertainment, teenage “influencers,” festivals, nongovernmental organizations, even progressive and human rights movements. NATO portrays itself as simply the prime association of democratic nations, which was apparently very persuasive in Eastern European regimes trying to divest themselves of the “totalitarian” label.

A notable example is its Women, Peace and Security Agenda. Journalist Lily Lynch reports:

In January 2018, Nato secretary-general Jens Stoltenberg held an unprecedented press conference with Angelina Jolie. While InStyle reported that Jolie “was dressed in a black off-the-shoulder sheath dress, a matching capelet and classic pumps (also black)”, there was a deeper purpose to this meeting: sexual violence in war. The pair had just co-authored a piece for the Guardian entitled “Why NATO must defend women’s rights”. The timing was significant. At the height of the #MeToo movement, the most powerful military alliance in the world had become a feminist ally. “Ending gender-based violence is a vital issue of peace and security as well as of social justice,” they wrote. “NATO can be a leader in this effort.”

A study by Katharine AM Wright, exploring the legitimacy given to NATO by the surprising participation of women’s rights groups in its activities, found some activists who argued that it enabled feminists to “advise” NATO, “to get it to hear things that they don’t usually hear,” and to “speak truth to power.”

As climate change is among NATO’s catalog of serious threats to security, environmentalists speak at NATO conferences and vice versa, serve on advisory boards, and formally interact in many ways. For example, the 2020 meeting of the Brussels Dialogue on Climate Diplomacy and the Environment & Development Resource Centre was hosted by the Policy Planning Unit in the Office of the NATO Secretary-General.

In addition to the more traditional Youth Atlantic Treaty Association, NATO has more recently created youth activities that are more cuddly. Its 2022 “Protect the Future campaign” recruited:

12 young online creators [teenage “influencers”] from Germany, Hungary, Latvia, Spain, the United Kingdom and the United States. To discover more about the Alliance’s work, the creators met with the Secretary General in May; travelled to the Madrid Summit in June; visited the US aircraft carrier USS George H.W. Bush in October; and went on an AWACS training mission in November.

The outcome, NATO reported, was 300,000 social media engagements that reached more than 9 million young people.

In another wing of this campaign, “young artists from across the Alliance took part in an open competition to help create NATO’s first-ever graphic novel, ‘Protect the Future.’ Six young artists were selected to work with professionals to produce the book.” For the multitude, a Youth Summit was held that included 35,000 people from 99 countries.

At the [2023] NATO Gaming Tournament in Warsaw, Poland, thousands of gamers from across the Alliance and around the world gathered to play online games and chat with experts from NATO Headquarters. The vibe in the room is casual and relaxed. Young gamers from Warsaw mingle with artists, soldiers and NATO experts. In one corner, troops from NATO’s multinational battlegroup in Poland play vintage console games, including Street Fighter and Super Mario. In another area, gamers mash buttons on old arcade games like Pac-Man.

The arts are not neglected. NATO sponsors exhibits, murals, and competitions:

Are you an artist under 35? Do you have a creative mind and want your artwork to be displayed at a permanent location in Washington D.C. where NATO will mark the 75th anniversary of the Alliance? Submit your work to the NATO mural competition – an opportunity to showcase your talent and artistic vision of the future. The winner will get to work with a local street artist to feature their mural permanently on a wall in the city.

The NATO mural competition will give young talents a chance to produce a signature image for NATO’s anniversary as part of its “Protect the Future” campaign.

In our era of network governance it is not surprising that NATO has close connections with the European Union (including its Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe and European Defense Agency), the United Nations, the Council of Europe, and many other intergovernmental organizations. These in turn are interwoven with international (e.g., World Economic Forum, Amnesty International) and thousands of national nongovernmental organizations (e.g., Council on Foreign Relations), foundations, and business corporations. Zbigniew Brzezinski noted in The Grand Chessboard:

As the imitation of American ways gradually pervades the world, it creates a more congenial setting for the exercise of the indirect and seemingly consensual American hegemony. And as in the case of the domestic American system, that hegemony involves a complex structure of interlocking institutions and procedures, designed to generate consensus and obscure asymmetries in power and influence. (p.27)

The staffs of intergovernmental organizations are required to be politically neutral. However, there is also pressure on progressive or left wing nongovernmental organizations to avoid confrontation or strong dissent with conference participants or any member of the “partnership.”

The very size of this monumental hive of associations, including representatives, staffs, task forces of university and other experts, NGOs, and contractors may in itself affect the complexion of European political parties. Although I have found no evidence so far, perhaps there has been a “brain drain” of progressive activists into the more promising, interesting, and often paid work of these institutions, compared with the scant rewards of local political parties. It could be yet another factor in the passive or active support for NATO in Europe. Might there be scholars, journalists, or activists exploring this possibility?

Unless otherwise indicated, all quotations are from the NATO website.

Joan Roelofs is Professor Emerita of Political Science, Keene State College, New Hampshire. She has been an anti-war activist since she protested the Korean War. She is the author of The Trillion Dollar Silencer: Why There Is So Little Anti-War Protest in the United States (Clarity Press, 2022), Foundations and Public Policy: The Mask of Pluralism (SUNY Press, 2003), and Greening Cities (Rowman and Littlefield, 1996). She is the translator of Victor Considerant’s Principles of Socialism (Maisonneuve Press, 2006), and with Shawn P. Wilbur, of Charles Fourier’s anti-war fantasy, The World War of Small Pastries (Autonomedia, 2015). Web site: www.joanroelofs.wordpress.com

July 25, 2024 Posted by Christina Macpherson | politics, spinbuster | Leave a comment

Labour’s big manifesto (nuclear) deception about Great British Energy

It seems the Labour manifesto was blatantly misleading about the real purpose of GB Energy

DAVID TOKE, JUL 23, 2024, https://davidtoke.substack.com/p/labours-big-manifesto-nuclear-deception—

Reading through Labour’s manifesto section about GB Energy, the proposed new publically owned Energy generation company, you would be forgiven for thinking this was all about supporting renewable energy. Because that was what the section on GB Energy appeared to say. There was no mention of it supporting nuclear energy.

But now it seems that support for nuclear energy will be GB Energy’s prime initial (and maybe always main financial) purpose. Its main purpose is likely to be to support a technology called ‘small modular reactors’ (SMRs) that independent say analysts does not exist, has failed so far to come into commercial existence and, (if it does) will end up being even more expensive than conventional large scale nuclear power projects.

That is the only thing one can assume from reading the report HERE

In this report from the inewspaper, it is stated: ‘GB Energy will be headquartered in Scotland and have £8.3bn in capital to invest – and i understands that among its first commitments will be a pledge to order a cluster of nuclear plants called small modular reactors (SMRs)’

If you do not believe my description of Labour manifesto dishonesty about the real purpose of GB Energy, please see the text of the manifesto section on GB Energy HERE . Compare it to the inewspaper report.

There is no mention of nuclear reactors in the manifesto section of GB Energy. Indeed the statement about technologies clearly states: ‘Great British Energy will partner with energy companies, local authorities, and co-operatives to install thousands of clean power projects, through a combination of onshore wind, solar, and hydropower projects.’

So, one would expect Labour to be soon announcing its first tranche of support for renewable energy projects, but hardly small modular reactors.

When people look back on this Labour Government, they will usually applaud the strong (compare to the previous Government) push forward to solar farms, its ending of the ban on onshore wind and a decisive move forward for offshore wind. However, there is a very big danger this will be overshadowed by a decision to pour billions of pounds into a technology, SMRs, that has no rational basis in fact.

SMRs are so far mainly known for the spectacular failure of the NuScale project in the USA. Essentially, SMRs (almost certainly exaggerated) promise of reducing construction overruns is likely to be more than offset by the failure to capture economies of scale.

Now, a lot of people will just brush aside the opinions of people like me as the usual nuclear scepticism. But please have a read of what a former Chairman of the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission said about SMRs HERE. For some UK analysis of SMRs, see this presentation by Stephen Thomas HERE.

I do have some sorrow over this. Poor Ed Miliband is being forced to walk the plank by trade union and big energy corporation interests on nuclear power, but only to be damned by history for incepting a giant cock-up!

Maybe Ed Miliband has some cunning plan to avoid this scenario, although it does not look like it from the inewspaper report. Might he just award a few million pounds for a few projects that we all know will go nowhere? That would be a machiavellian double-time-piece of political footwork of damage limitation?

Regrettably it seems more likely to me that he will be pushed down a path of underwriting nuclear projects worth billions of pounds and taking responsibility for an expensive SMR disaster for which he will be personally blamed by future Governments. That is rather than blame the real culprits – the nuclear technology itself and people’s wishful thinking about it.

And it would be such a big shame that we had to be misled, in the Labour manifesto, by the true nature of the GB Energy idea.

July 25, 2024 Posted by Christina Macpherson | politics | Leave a comment

Progress is Slow in ASEAN’s Anti-Nuclear Pact: Indonesia

Jayanty Nada Shofa, July 25, 2024, https://jakartaglobe.id/news/progress-is-slow-in-aseans-antinuclear-pact-indonesia

Jakarta. The progress is slow in bringing nuclear-possessing countries to promise that they would keep the Southeast Asian region nuke-free, Indonesia told fellow ASEAN members.

Foreign Affairs Minister Retno Marsudi is currently in Laos to discuss the bloc’s matters with her ASEAN counterparts. The group’s Southeast Asia Nuclear Weapon-Free Zone (SEANWFZ) pact became one of the major themes in the discussions.

The treaty aims to create a peaceful Southeast Asia region that is free from nuclear weapons. The pact has legally binding protocols for the five nuclear-weapon states — China, France, Russia, the UK, and the US — to sign and ratify. By signing, these five countries would promise to not use or threaten to use nukes in the region. Although the SEANWFZ dates back to 1995, no nuclear weapon state has signed the protocol so far.

“There has not been any significant progress from the nuclear-weapon states in regards to the SEANWFZ protocol,” Retno said in a press statement on Wednesday evening.

Amidst the sluggish progress, Indonesia thinks it is about time that ASEAN should involve experts in their efforts.

“Indonesia suggests that we should appoint experts, including legal experts from every ASEAN country, to give their inputs in the next SEANWFZ Commission meeting with a clear and measurable timeline,” Retno said.

Of all five nuclear-weapon states, China appears to be the one who is the closest to signing the pact. Last year, Malaysia’s then-Foreign Affairs Minister Zambry Abdul Kadir said that China had given its word to sign the protocol “unconditionally”.

Kadir made the remarks on the sidelines of an ASEAN foreign ministerial meeting in Jakarta last July. Not long after Kadir’s statement, Secretary-General Kao Kim Hourn also dropped a similar hint that Beijing had shown a “strong desire” to sign the SEANWFZ protocol. But again, China has yet to keep its promise.

July 25, 2024 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Indonesia, opposition to nuclear | Leave a comment

Capitol Hill: Netanyahu’s Second Home

The appearance again in Congress of the Israeli prime minister makes it seem as if he is the American president and Israel and the U.S. are one country, writes Corinna Barnard,

By Corinna G. Barnard, Consortium News, 25 July 24

A man whose arrest warrant is being sought by an international court prosecutor for war crimes is making his triumphal return to Washington.

When Benjamin Netanyahu addresses a joint session of Congress on Wednesday for the fourth time, some representatives and senators will boycott the event in protest against the genocidal devastation in Gaza that the Israeli prime minister has, for months, been directing.

But the chamber where he delivers his speech is sure to be filled with ardent admiration bestowing on him the legitimacy he is rapidly losing at home.

Given the grisly crimes against humanity that Netanyahu’s armed forces are committing, and the International Court of Justice’s ruling last week about the illegality of Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territory, the Israeli prime minister’s celebrated appearance on Capitol Hill will evoke images worthy of Federico Fellini’s surrealist Satyricon.

Imagine the rousing applause, the elbow rubbing, the pomp and protocol while the devastation in Gaza grows direr by the day and hour.

Netanyahu arrives on the tailwinds of a historic vote in the Knesset, the Israeli Parliament, on July 17, in which lawmakers voted against Palestinian statehood and in the process, put the kibosh on the long-standing talk by U.S. policymakers about a two-state solution, while rebuffing White House plans for a ceasefire.

The Knesset vote represents a defiant rejection of U.S. influence over Israel’s affairs. But in the U.S. House of Representatives, it’s just the opposite; whatever Israel wants, for now and the foreseeable future, it gets.

How the American public, broadly speaking, feels about this, is hard to say. The numbers of Americans who disapprove of Israel and its conduct move around in polling data like a great unknown beneath the surface of the news.

Sometimes a majority of voters back Israel, sometimes a majority disapprove. But whatever the U.S. public thinks, it doesn’t seem to matter, as far as the election season goes.

Neither of the leading candidates offers anything to stop Israel’s barbaric slaughter. Vice President Kamala Harris, now contending for the Democratic nomination, will follow in the footsteps of President Joe Biden, “aka Genocide Joe,” who was the leading recipient of cumulative pro-Israel funding over the years and continues to arm Israel’s genocide.

The Biden-Harris administration has worked to expand the Trump administration’s so-called Abraham Accords, which were helping Israel sideline the Palestinian cause by removing it as a thorn from Israel’s relations with regional neighbors. Biden himself credited Hamas’ fear of normalized Israel-Saudi relations with motivating the Oct. 7 attacks.

Former U.S. President Donald Trump, for the Republicans, meanwhile, is awash in millions from Zionist mega donor Miriam Adelson, who is hoping to see Trump push for the Israeli annexation of the West Bank.

While in office, Trump, 78, — who has advised Biden to let Israel “finish the job” in Gaza — escalated Palestinian-Israeli tensions. In addition to helping Israel normalize relations with the U.A.E, Bahrain and Sudan, the Trump White House moved the U.S. embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to the flashpoint of Jerusalem, reportedly to please Sheldon Adelson, before his death in 2021.

Leading independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. opposes a ceasefire in Gaza, where people, Al Jazeera reports, are now drowning in sewage due to Israel’s wholesale destruction of the territory.

With support for the Israel genocide in Gaza ironclad across all three of those rivals, three third party candidates are staunchly anti-genocide, Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein, independent candidate Cornel West and Libertarian candidate Chase Oliver……………………………………………………………………….more https://consortiumnews.com/2024/07/22/capitol-hill-netanyahus-second-home/

July 25, 2024 Posted by Christina Macpherson | politics, USA | Leave a comment

Congress to world: ‘War criminals welcome here’

“Throughout US history many world leaders of varying political backgrounds and persuasions have been invited to address Congress. But Wednesday will be unique. It will be the first time a war criminal has been given that honor.”

Walt Zlotow, https://heartlandprogressive.blogspot.com/ 25 July 24

July 24, 2024 will go into history as a Day of Infamy for the US Congress.

A bipartisan claque of congresspersons will welcome Israeli war criminal Benjamin Netanyahu to address Congress and a horrified world.

Netanyahu told his government he expects the International Criminal Court may issue warrants for his arrest for the war crime of starvation even before he sullies the sacred US chambers of government.

Netanyahu’s government stands credibly accursed worldwide of breaching the UN Genocide Convention.

Netanyahu has defied for two months the order of the International Court of Justice to end his military campaign of genocidal ethnic cleansing of Gaza.

Netanyahu should be under threat of arrest for war crimes when he steps onto the tarmac in D.C. Instead he’ll be welcomed with open arms…and open pocket books, by the morally compromised congressional delegation disgracing America with Netanyahu’s presence.

But one Senator is pushing back to war criminal Netanyahu’s congressional appearance. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) told Congress yesterday:

Senator Sanders will not attend. Neither will Vice President Harris. Hopefully many more congresspersons will follow their lead and stay away. A better expression of congressional revulsion would be if all 535 Senators and Representatives showed up and turned their backs on Netanyahu when he approaches the podium.

Even better? If the ICC warrants against Netanyahu are issued before he speaks…it sure would be cool if they would collectively make a Citizens Arrest for war crimes.

July 25, 2024 Posted by Christina Macpherson | politics, USA | Leave a comment

Elon Musk attends Netanyahu’s congressional address as his guest

A day after activating Starlink internet in Gaza, Tesla CEO appears at Israeli PM’s controversial joint session

Nick Robins-Early, Thu 25 Jul 2024

Elon Musk attended Benjamin Netanyahu’s address to Congress on Wednesday as a guest of the embattled Israeli prime minister.

A day earlier, the tech billionaire announced that his Starlink internet service was now active in a Gaza hospital, with the support of Israel’s government.

Netanyahu’s congressional visit was met with thousands of protesters gathering near Capitol Hill to demonstrate against Israeli abuses during its war in Gaza. Lawmakers were divided over whether he should have been invited to speak.

Musk has a history of courting rightwing leaders in countries that have overlapping business interests with his various enterprises. He previously hosted Javier Millei, Argentina’s president, at his Tesla factory and has been a cheerleader for his policies, while also cozying up to Narendra Modi, India’s prime minister, and Jair Bolsonaro, the former Brazilian president.

Musk previously met with Netanyahu during a visit to Israel last year, as the tech leader sought to quell accusations of antisemitism after personally endorsing a post on his social network X, formerly Twitter, that claimed Jews hate white people. Far-right content on the platform has also increased.

Musk’s visit also appears to have helped pave the way for SpaceX to provide its Starlink satellite internet to Gaza, which he announced on Tuesday was now in service at a hospital. The single location, which was supported by Israel and the United Arab Emirates, also reflects the tight controls that Israel has put on communications technology in the area.

In recent weeks, Musk has also thrown his support behind Donald Trump’s election campaign and played a direct role in advising the former president to select JD Vance, Ohio senator, as his running mate.

Musk’s appearance as a guest of Netanyahu further aligns him with the Republican party line, which has thrown its support behind the Israeli leader as many Democrats condemn his actions. A number of progressive Democratic lawmakers declined to attend Netanyahu’s speech, with New York representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez denouncing him as a “war criminal.

July 25, 2024 Posted by Christina Macpherson | business and costs, USA | Leave a comment