nuclear-news

  Jill Stein’s Ominous Warning on Growing Threat of Nuclear War

NewsWeek, Nov 19, 2023, By Jason Lemon

Green Party presidential hopeful Jill Stein warned that President Joe Biden and U.S. leaders are “absolutely” risking the possibility of nuclear war by their actions in support of Israel.

Stein, who previously ran for president in 2012 and 2016, announced on November 9 that she is once again throwing her hat in the ring for the 2024 cycle. The long-shot candidate blasted Biden, Democrats and Republicans for their response to the Israel-Gaza War in an exclusive interview with Newsweek on Thursday, warning that the response could be pushing the world to a point of no return………………………………..

The U.S. government, which classifies Hamas as a terrorist group, has reiterated its support and solidarity with Israel. Fourteen U.S. Navy ships have been positioned in the Mediterranean to assist Israel with intelligence gathering and to deter other regional actors from getting involved in the conflict. Additionally, an Ohio-class nuclear-powered submarine has been sent to the region, according to a November 5 CENTCOM statement.

“I would just note that the U.S. has sent a nuclear submarine there now aside from two battleship or two missiles groups,” she said. “In a nuclear submarine, you have enormous firepower as a rule that’s equivalent to about four or 5,000 Hiroshima bombs packed into one nuclear submarine.”

“The world won’t survive this,” she warned. “And yes, we’re not at nuclear war now, but could a nuclear war be triggered? Absolutely. And we’re seeing this become more dangerous every day.”

The Times of Israel reported on November 6 that it’s unclear whether the nuclear-powered submarine in the Mediterranean is carrying nuclear warheads. The aquatic military vessel is, however, capable of carrying such warheads. The submarine can carry 154 Tomahawk cruise missiles.

Stein, who is Jewish, described Israel’s actions towards Gaza as “genocide.” She also accused Israel of being an “apartheid” state.

“Israel doesn’t have a future if this violence is allowed to continue. I don’t mean just violence from Hamas. There will be violent resistance to apartheid and occupation so you can wipe out Hamas, and then you’ll have the next generation of Hamas, which is going to be even more vicious and brutal,” she said.

Israel rejects claims that it’s committing “genocide” and that it’s an “apartheid” state. Israeli leaders and U.S. leaders routinely describe the country as a “beacon of democracy” in a troubled region of the world. They also often dismiss such criticism as “antisemitic.”

Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have said Israel’s treatment of Palestinians amounts to “apartheid.” Pro-Palestinian activists, including some progressive anti-Zionist Jewish groups, have accused Israel of perpetuating a “genocide” in Gaza.  https://www.newsweek.com/exclusive-jill-stein-warning-nuclear-war-1844899

November 20, 2023 Posted by Christina Macpherson | politics, USA | Leave a comment

White House, Senate, House all out of sync with electorate on Gaza

Walt Zlotow, West Suburban Peace Coalition, 17 Nov 23 Glen Ellyn IL 

President Biden talks restraint and aid for besieged Palestinians, but pours in millions in weapons for Israel’s destruction and ethnic cleansing of Gaza.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Speaker Mike Johnson attended the pro Israel rally in Washington D.C. Both offered total support for Israel’s war in Gaza. Schumer told the crowd “We stand with Israel. America feels your pain. We ache with you, we stand with you, and we will not rest until you get all the assistance you need.” He offered not a word a sympathy or aid to the 2.3 million Palestinians and their housing being systematically destroyed largely by US supplied weaponry.

Johnson was even crueler, responding “We stand with that” to crowd chants of “No ceasefire, no ceasefire.”

The top 3 US officials all ignore the electorate which favors immediate ceasefire. The Action for Progress and Reuters/Ipsos polls show 66% and 68% respectively favor ceasefire. The Reuters/Ipsos poll reveals support for Israel has dropped from 41% to 32% since the war started October 7. Just 31% favor US weapons for Israel compared to 43 opposed. A plurality, 39%, want the US to be a neutral mediator to end the war.

America has become a pariah worldwide thru its endless support of Israeli Apartheid, ethnic cleansing and destruction of the open-air prison Israel maintains in Gaza. It is bound by international law to protect, not destroy, the 2.3 million Palestinians imprisoned there under Israeli control. The US public is beginning to get that. The top 3 US leaders, Biden, Schumer and Johnson apparently never will.

November 18, 2023 Posted by Christina Macpherson | politics, USA | Leave a comment

USA’s Energy Department’s nuclear commercialization ‘small nuclear’ adventures are burning holes in the taxpayers’ pockets.

“A small modular reactor’s demise calls for big change in Energy Department policy,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists

November 14, 2023  Nuclear Power Economics and Security, Op-Eds & Blogs, RESOURCE Author: Henry Sokolski

Late last week, NuScale Power Corp., which is developing America’s flagship small modular reactor (SMR), lost its only firm utility customer, the Utah Associated Municipal Power System. Once selling at nearly $15 a share, NuScale stock yesterday sold for $2.31.

Experts are now speculating on whether or not NuScale will go bankrupt. Given the Department of Energy (DoE) overrode market signals and plowed hundreds of millions of dollars into this nuclear commercialization project, though, there is much more to ponder.

As I note in the  Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists piece, “A small modular reactor’s demise calls for big change in Energy Department policy,” it isn’t just NuScale that needs attention, but DoE and its policy of pushing nuclear commercialization projects at the expense of focusing on its key missions. These include setting energy cleanliness and efficiency standards, assuring nuclear security, spotlighting energy market trends, and conducting basic energy research to validate unproven energy concepts — e.g., fusion power — rather than commercializing systems we know already work — e.g., fission reactors.

The department’s inattention to these matters seems inversely proportionate with its zeal to spend on questionable nuclear commercial ventures.

Did the Energy Department do due diligence in assessing NuScale’s financial health and integrity? Did it properly weigh independent analyses that questioned the economic and environmental viability of small modular reactors more generally?

Is it properly assessing the nuclear security issues that building these plants in war zones in Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and East Asia will surely raise? What of the nuclear weapons proliferation risks that would arise from exporting advanced small fast reactors (which are capable of producing extremely high-grade weapons plutonium)? Has the Energy Department publicly worked the emissions cost abatement models that industry and environmental communities use to determine which energy fixes to make first to curb carbon emissions at the lowest cost?

So far, the answer to each of these questions is no.

This is worrisome. Before DoE commits billions more to commercialize more small modular reactors, it needs to refocus on setting energy economic and cleanliness goals and deadlines. Instead of betting taxpayers’ dollars in advance on hunches as to who might meet them, it should consider creating rewards for those who actually do.

It also should make the most favored greenhouse gas cost abatement models that industry currently exploits publicly available for all to use and to improve upon. To give these models proper data, it also should report annually on the real costs (including subsidies) of different types of electrical generation, distribution, transmission, and storage systems.

Finally, before the United States sends any small modular reactors overseas, the Energy Department and the Pentagon should clarify what can (and can’t) be done to protect them against military assaults and what the nuclear proliferation dangers might be.

It is bad enough that the Energy Department’s nuclear commercialization adventures are burning holes in the taxpayers’ pockets. At the very least, the Department of Energy and the Pentagon should make sure these projects don’t also blow up in our faces.

November 17, 2023 Posted by Christina Macpherson | politics, USA | Leave a comment

White House Aides “Simply Cannot Stomach” Biden’s Israel Policy, Dissent Memos Leak, Revolt At State Dept

BY TYLER DURDEN, FRIDAY, NOV 10, 2023, https://www.zerohedge.com/political/white-house-aides-simply-cannot-stomach-bidens-israel-policy-dissent-memos-leak-revolt

A revolt is brewing within the Biden administration over how the White House is handling the Israel-Gaza war, as the civilian death toll and mass Palestinian displacement soars, and as Biden’s top officials continue to say “no conditions” have been placed on how Israel uses US-supplied weapons. Pressure from the press pool is also piling on, with near daily spats and antagonistic back-and-forth exchanges on display in the State Department and White House briefing rooms.

This week there have emerged reports of scathing ‘dissent memos’ criticizing White House Israel policy being circulated, collecting many hundreds of signatures chiefly from among State Department and USAID staff. A primary theme of the pushback and pressure is that President Biden must change course on the Gaza crisis.

First, on Monday Politico obtained and published portions of a memo issued by State Department personnel giving a blistering critique which according to the publication argued that “among other things, the U.S. should be willing to publicly criticize the Israelis.”

It was issued after the Biden’s Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, repeatedly made clear that the US does not back a ceasefire, but is only sheepishly calling for brief humanitarian ‘pauses’. Politico points out the memo represents a “growing loss of confidence” among Biden’s corps of diplomats: 

The message suggests a growing loss of confidence among U.S. diplomats in President Joe Biden’s approach to the Middle East crisis. It reflects the sentiments of many U.S. diplomats, especially at mid-level and lower ranks, according to conversations with several department staffers as well as other reports. If such internal disagreements intensify, it could make it harder for the Biden administration to craft policy toward the region.

The memo has two key requests: that the U.S. support a ceasefire, and that it balance its private and public messaging toward Israel, including airing criticisms of Israeli military tactics and treatment of Palestinians that the U.S. generally prefers to keep private.

The memo, marked “sensitive but unclassified’ was sure to leak, and that was likely the point. It bluntly underscores that Biden’s policy is hurting America’s standing in the world as much of global opinion has been appalled at the Gaza death toll which this week surpassed 10,500. 

The memo sates that the gap between Biden officials’ private and public messaging “contributes to regional public perceptions that the United States is a biased and dishonest actor, which at best does not advance, and at worst harms, U.S. interests worldwide.”

“We must publicly criticize Israel’s violations of international norms such as failure to limit offensive operations to legitimate military targets,” the dissent memo continues. “When Israel supports settler violence and illegal land seizures or employs excessive use of force against Palestinians, we must communicate publicly that this goes against our American values so that Israel does not act with impunity.”

Next, hundreds of staffers at the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) have issued a letter calling for an “immediate ceasefire” while also criticizing the White House’s failure to hold Israel accountable in any way for “numerous violations of international law” and the huge numbers of Gaza civilian casualties, especially among women and children. 

The USAID staffers are also outraged that the US last month vetoed a UN Security Council resolution which sought a pause in fighting in order to allow humanitarian aid to get through to the Gaza Strip. The USAID dissent memo, which also went public by the middle of this week, includes the following: 

“We believe that further catastrophic loss of human life can only be avoided if the United States Government calls for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, the release of Israeli hostages, and the restoration of water, food, fuel, and electricity to the people of Gaza by the State of Israel,” it reads.

“In the longer term, we call on the United States Government to join the international community and human rights organizations in holding all parties, including the State of Israel, to international law, which includes ending Israel’s illegal occupation of the Palestinian territories and settlements on occupied land.”

Publicly, President Biden is coming under most pressure from a tiny handful of outspoken Progressive Democrats in Congress (the Squad), but the more significant pushback appears to be coming from within his own administration.

Increasingly, bold public statements from Israeli leaders themselves have introduced huge, obvious contradictions between the White House’s rhetoric and that of Netanyahu’s government, which is much more open about its intent in Gaza…

On Thursday, CNN issued a new investigative report quoting senior White House staffers as saying they increasingly “cannot stomach” defending Biden’s policy anymore. The report also describes “great moral anxiety” – in the words of one unnamed senior admin official, who is quoted in the following: 

Angst, unease and outrage are spreading through corners of the Biden administration as Israeli forces show no signs of letting up their relentless attacks inside Gaza and the civilian death toll in the besieged enclave – already in the thousands – continues to climb.

One month into the Israel-Hamas war, some senior officials privately say there are aspects of Israel’s military operations they simply cannot stomach defending; calls for the US to back a ceasefire are growing among government employees; and others are distraught by the incessant images of Palestinian civilians being killed by Israeli airstrikes, multiple sources told CNN.

“It has created great moral anxiety,” said one senior administration official. “But no one can say it because we all work at the pleasure of the president and he’s all in.”

More high level resignations could come as a result, which will certainly only increase the pressure on Biden’s team while headed into an election year, already has his poll numbers are at record lows.

CNN notes that a full-on revolt is underway in the State Department: “Some of the fiercest backlash has come from inside the State Department, including an official who publicly resigned from the agency last month over the Biden’s administration’s approach to the conflict,” the report says. “Elsewhere in the administration, officials are quietly fuming as the civilian death toll mounts.”

The Democratic base too, could increasingly shift to become more sympathetic to the unrelenting denunciations issued by the Squad. Progressives and protesters are calling Biden “genocide Joe” – as CNN describes further:

The internal administration dissent is becoming so visible that White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby was forced to address it in a press briefing on Tuesday. He sought, and failed, to calm anxiety by saying, “the president understands that there’s strong emotions and feelings here, all around, all across the board – and here inside the administration and the federal government, that’s certainly the case as well.”

These tensions are likely only to grow given there are no signs Israel’s military is ready to exercise any restraint, given Israeli leadership likely perceives that Washington has given it a ‘blank check’ (akin to Ukraine). Already Israel receives at least $3.8 billion in military aid annually, and Biden is now seeking some $14 billion more in assistance this year.

November 13, 2023 Posted by Christina Macpherson | politics, USA | Leave a comment