Why are US weapons transfers to Israel shrouded in secrecy — but not the weapons to Ukraine?
the purposeful lack of transparency over what weapons the U.S. is supplying to Israel ‘on a daily basis’ is tied to the larger administration policy of downplaying the extent to which Israel will use those weapons to commit war crimes and kill civilians in Gaza.”
Ken Klippenstein, The Intercept, Tue, 07 Nov 2023 https://www.sott.net/article/485820-Why-are-US-weapons-transfers-to-Israel-shrouded-in-secrecy-%E2%80%94-but-not-Ukraine
The Biden administration put out a three-page list of arms for Ukraine, but information on weapons sent to Israel could fit in one sentence.
One month since Hamas’s surprise attack, little is known about the weapons the U.S. has provided to Israel. Whereas the Biden administration released a three-page itemized list of weapons provided to Ukraine, down to the exact number of rounds, the information released about weapons sent to Israel could fit in a single sentence.
National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby acknowledged the secrecy in an October 23 press briefing, saying that while U.S. security assistance “on a near-daily basis,” he continued, “We’re being careful not to quantify or get into too much detail about what they’re getting — for their own operational security purposes, of course.”
The argument that transparency would imperil Israel’s operational security — somehow not a concern with Ukraine — is misleading, experts told The Intercept.
“The notion that it would in any way harm the Israeli military’s operational security to provide more information is a cover story for efforts to reduce information on the types of weapons being supplied to Israel and how they are being used,” William Hartung, a fellow at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft and expert on weapons sales, told The Intercept. “I think the purposeful lack of transparency over what weapons the U.S. is supplying to Israel ‘on a daily basis’ is tied to the larger administration policy of downplaying the extent to which Israel will use those weapons to commit war crimes and kill civilians in Gaza.”
A retired Marine general who worked in the region, who asked for anonymity because he was not authorized by his former employer to speak publicly, attributed the secrecy to the political sensitivity of the conflict. In particular, the retired officer said, weapons used in door-to-door urban warfare, which are likely to result in civilian casualties, are not going to be something the administration wants to publicize. (The National Security Council did not respond to a request for comment.)
In recent years, flare-ups of violence between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip have often entailed Israeli air wars with limited numbers of Israeli troops entering the besieged coastal enclave. The last time there was a large-scale ground incursion by the Israel Defense Forces into Gaza was during the Israelis’ 2014 Operation Protective Edge.
While the 2014 invasion saw Israeli troops in Gaza for less than a month, Israel’s defense minister recently told reporters the war would take at least several months. The goal of removing Hamas completely from power is widely expected to take a significant commitment to a long-term ground presence and heavy urban fighting. According to the New Yorker, Israeli officials told their American counterparts that the war could last 10 years. The Biden administration is reportedly worried that Israel’s military objectives are not achievable.
“Delicate Matter Politically”
Hamas’s attack on Israel, which took place on October 7, resulted in a cascade of arms assistance from the U.S. Though the Biden administration at first declined to identify any specific weapons systems, as details trickled out in the press, it has gradually acknowledged some. These include “precision guided munitions, small diameter bombs, artillery, ammunition, Iron Dome interceptors and other critical equipment,” as Pentagon spokesperson Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder has said.
What “other critical equipment” entails remains a mystery, as do specifics about the quantity of arms being supplied, which the administration has refused to disclose. When a reporter asked for a “ballpark” figure for the security assistance during a background press briefing on October 12, the Pentagon demurred. “I’m not going to do that today and would defer you to the government of Israel,” a senior defense official told the reporter.
“To date, U.S. government reporting on arms transfers to Israel has been sporadic and without any meaningful detail,” Stimson Center research analyst Elias Yousif recently concluded. “Updates should be compiled on a single factsheet page, as is the case for Ukraine, and include details on the authorities invoked for the provision of assistance as well as the type and quantity of arms provided with enough specificity to enable public research and assessments.”
Hartung, the Quincy fellow, noted the contrast with the administration’s openness on military aid to Ukraine.
“Transparency on arms transfers to Ukraine came in large part due to the administration’s feeling that they were engaged in a noble venture,” Hartung said. “Although Israel certainly has the right to defend itself against the kind of horrific attack carried out by Hamas, its response — bombing and blockading a whole territory of 2 million people, killing thousands of innocent people in the process — has been described by independent experts as committing war crimes.”
“So even as the Biden administration backs Israel with weapons and rhetoric,” Hartung said, “it is a delicate matter politically to give all the details on U.S. weapons supplied to the Israeli military, some of which will certainly be used in illegal attacks on civilians if the war continues to grind on.”
Beyond just the quantities, there are specific weapons the Pentagon is providing Israel which have not been publicly disclosed, the Marine general told The Intercept.
As the arms continue to flow, dozens of C-17 military transport planes likely carrying munitions have criss-crossed the Atlantic traveling between the United States and Israel, open-source flight tracking data show, with most landing at Nevatim Air Base, an IDF base in Israel’s southern Negev desert. President Joe Biden has requested $14.3 billion in aid for Israel in addition to the over $3 billion in military assistance it already provides. Most recently, the Biden administration is planning to send $320 million in precision Spice bombs to Israel, as multiple outlets informed by Congress reported on Monday.
Ken Klippenstein is a D.C.-based investigative reporter who focuses on national security. He is also an avid Freedom of Information Act requester. Prior to joining The Intercept, he was The Nation’s D.C. correspondent.
Chess, cards and catnaps in the heart of America’s nuclear weapons complex
At Los Alamos National Laboratory, workers collect full salaries for doing nothing
Across those decades, the notion of keeping secrets from adversaries has simultaneously morphed into keeping secrets from the American public — and regulators.
| by Alicia Inez Guzmán. Searchlight New Mexico, 8 Nov 23 |
| A few days after beginning a new post at Los Alamos National Laboratory, Jason Archuleta committed a subversive act: He began to keep a journal. Writing in a tiny spiral notebook, he described how he and his fellow electricians were consigned to a dimly lit break room in the heart of the weapons complex. “Did nothing all day today over 10 hrs in here,” a July 31 entry read. “This is no good for one’s mental wellbeing or physical being.” |
“I do hope to play another good game of chess,” noted another entry, the following day.
A journeyman electrician and proud member of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 611, Archuleta had been assigned to Technical Area 55 back in July. He had resisted the assignment, knowing that it was the location of “the plant,” a sealed fortress where plutonium is hewn into pits — cores no bigger than a grapefruit that set off the cascade of reactions inside a nuclear bomb. The design harks back to the world’s first atomic weapons: “Gadget,” detonated at the Trinity Test Site in New Mexico in 1945, and “Fat Man,” dropped on Nagasaki shortly afterward.
It has been almost that long since LANL produced plutonium pits at the scale currently underway as part of the federal government’s mission to modernize its aging stockpile. The lab, now amidst tremendous growth and abuzz with activity, is pursuing that mission with single-minded intensity. Construction is visible in nearly every corner of the campus, while traffic is bumper to bumper, morning and evening, as commuters shuttle up and down a treacherous road that cuts across the vast Rio Grande Valley into the remote Pajarito Plateau on the way to the famous site of the Manhattan Project.
But from the inside, Archuleta tells a different story: that of a jobsite in which productivity has come to a standstill. With few exceptions, he says, electricians are idle. They nap, study the electrical code book, play chess, dominoes and cards. On rare occasions, they work, but as four other journeymen (who all requested anonymity for fear of retaliation) confirmed, the scenario they describe is consistent. At any given time, up to two dozen electricians are cooling their heels in at least three different break rooms. LANL officials even have an expression for it: “seat time.”
The lab recognizes that the expansion at TA-55, and especially the plant, presents challenges faced by no other industrial setting in the nation. The risk of radiation exposure is constant, security clearances are needed, one-of-a-kind parts must be ordered, and construction takes place as the plant strives to meet its quota. That can mean many workers sit for days, weeks, or even, according to several sources, months at a time.
“I haven’t seen months,” said Kelly Beierschmitt, LANL’s deputy director of operations, “It might feel like months,” he added, citing the complications that certain projects pose. “If there’s not a [radiation control technician] available, I’m not gonna tell the craft to go do the job without the support, right?”
Such revelations come as red flags to independent government watchdogs, who note that the project is already billions of dollars over budget and at least four years behind schedule. They say that a workplace filled with idle workers is not merely a sign that taxpayer money is being wasted; more troublingly, it indicates that the expansion is being poorly managed.
“If you have a whistleblower claiming that a dozen electricians have been sitting around playing cards for six months on a big weapons program, that would seem to me to be a ‘where there is smoke, there is fire’ moment,” said Geoff Wilson, an expert on federal defense spending at the independent watchdog Project on Government Oversight.
Given the secrecy that surrounds LANL, it is virtually impossible to quantify anything having to do with the lab. That obsession is the subject of Alex Wellerstein’s 2021 book, “Restricted Data: The History of Nuclear Secrecy in the United States.” Wellerstein, a historian of science at Stevens Institute of Technology, traces that culture of secrecy from the earliest years of the Manhattan Project into the present. Across those decades, the notion of keeping secrets from adversaries has simultaneously morphed into keeping secrets from the American public — and regulators.
“What secrecy does is it creates context for a lack of oversight,” said Wellerstein in a recent interview. “It shrinks the number of people who might even be aware of an issue and it makes it harder — even if things do come out — to audit.”
The code of secrecy at LANL is almost palpable. The lab sits astride a forbidding mesa in northern New Mexico some 7,500 feet above sea level, protected on the city’s western flank by security checkpoints. Its cardinal site, TA-55, is ringed by layers of razor wire and a squadron of armed guards, themselves bolstered by armored vehicles with mounted turrets that patrol the perimeter day and night. No one without a federal security clearance is allowed to enter or move about without an escort — even to go to the bathroom. Getting that clearance, which requires an intensive background investigation, can take up to a year.
Sources for this story, veterans and newcomers alike, said they fear losing their livelihoods if they speak publicly about anything to do with their work. Few jobs in the region, much less the state (one of the most impoverished in the nation), can compete with the salaries offered by LANL. Here, journeyman electricians can earn as much as $150,000 a year; Archuleta makes $53 per hour, almost 70 percent more than electricians working at other union sites.
Nevertheless, in late September, Archuleta lodged a complaint with the Inspector General’s office alleging time theft. He and two other workers told Searchlight New Mexico that their timesheets – typically filled out by supervisors – have shown multiple codes for jobs they didn’t recognize or perform. To his mind, the situation is “not just bordering on fraud, waste and abuse, it’s crossing the threshold.”
………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………“By all the normal measures our society uses to evaluate cost, benefit, risk, reliability, and longevity, this latest attempt has now already failed as well,” said Greg Mello of the Los Alamos Study Group (LASG), a respected nonprofit that has been monitoring LANL for 34 years. “Federal decision makers will have to ask ‘Will the LANL product still be worth the investment,’” Mello said, referring to the plant, which will have exceeded its planned lifetime of 50 years by 2028.
The cogs of this arms race have been turning for years. In May 2018, a few months after President Donald Trump tweeted that he had a much “bigger & more powerful” nuclear button than North Korea’s Kim Jong Un, the Nuclear Weapons Council certified a recommendation to produce plutonium pits at two sites.
That recommendation was enacted into law by Congress, which in 2020 called for an annual quota of plutonium pits — 30 at LANL and 50 at the Savannah River plutonium processing facility in South Carolina — by 2030. According to the LASG, the cost per pit at LANL is greater than Savannah River. The organization estimates that each one will run to approximately $100 million.
Whether such production goals are achievable is another question: Just getting those sites capable of meeting the quota will cost close to $50 billion—and take up to two decades from the project’s start. After that, another half a century may pass before the nation’s approximately 4,000 plutonium pits are all upgraded, according to the calculations of Peter Fanta, former deputy assistant secretary of defense for nuclear matters.
…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………Plutonium is one of the most volatile and enigmatic of all the elements on the periodic table. It ages on the outside like other metals, while on the inside, “it’s constantly bombarding itself through alpha radiation,” as Siegfried Hecker, a former LANL director and plutonium metallurgist put it. The damage is akin, in his words, to “rolling a bowling ball through [the plutonium’s] crystal structure.” Most of it can be healed, but about 10 percent can’t. “And that’s where the aging comes in.”
The renewed urgency dodges the most resounding “unanswered question at the heart of the U.S.’s nuclear arsenal,” Stephen Young, the Washington representative for the Global Security program at the Union of Concerned Scientists, wrote in “Scientific American.” “What is the lifetime of a pit?” And why hasn’t the NNSA — the federal agency tasked with overseeing the health of the nuclear weapons stockpile — dedicated the resources to finding out?
“It seems entirely possible that this was not an oversight on the part of NNSA but reflects that the agency does not want to know the answer,” Young went on. With novel warhead designs on the horizon, it was entirely plausible, he posited, that the NNSA wasn’t merely seeking to replace old pits but instead wanted to populate entirely new weapons — a desire driven less by science than by politics.
Booms and blind spots
This uncertainty has worked in LANL’s favor, propelling the mission forward and all but securing the lab’s transformation. As Beierschmitt, the deputy director of operations, publicly described the lab’s goals this summer: “Keep spending and hiring.”
Meanwhile, the Government Accountability Office, which investigates federal spending and provides its findings to Congress, has pointed to a gaping blind spot in the mission. A January report detailed how the NNSA lacked a comprehensive budget and master schedule for the entire U.S. nuclear weapons complex — essential for achieving the goal of producing 80 pits per year. The agency, in other words, has thus far failed to outline what it needs to do to reach its target — or what the overall cost will be, the GAO concluded.
“How much they’ve spent is pretty poorly understood because it shows up in so many different buckets across the budget,” said Allison Bawden, the GAO’s director of natural resources and environment. “We tried to identify these buckets of money ultimately tied to supporting the pit mission. But it’s never presented that way by NNSA, so it’s very difficult to look across the entire pit enterprise and say, ‘this is how much has been spent, and this is how much is needed going forward.’” The GAO includes the DOE on its biennial list of federal agencies most vulnerable to fraud, waste and abuse — and has done so since 1990. A major reason is the Möbius strip of contractors and subcontractors working on DOE-related projects at any given time.
The DOE, for instance, oversees the NNSA, which oversees Triad National Security — a company owned by Battelle Memorial Institute, the Texas A&M University and the University of California. Triad oversees its own army of subcontractors on lab-related projects, including construction, demolition and historic preservation. And many of those subcontractors outsource their work to yet other subcontractors, creating money trails so byzantine they defy tracking.
But one thing is known: Subcontractors will rake in billions of dollars. “We expect to be executing at least $5.5 billion in construction over the next five years and $2.5 billion in subcontracting labor and materials,” Beierschmitt said at a 2019 forum.
“Most people think that for something so giant and so supposedly important to the nation, there would be some kind of well-thought through plan,” said Mello of LASG. “There is no well-thought through plan. There never has been.”
Secrets on the plateau
……………………………………………….. Over time, systems at LANL and across the U.S. weapons complex have ossified into “their own little universes,” said Wellerstein, the science historian. “And when you combine that with the kind of contractor system they use for nuclear facilities, you create the circumstances where there’s very little serious oversight and ample opportunities and incentives for everybody to pat themselves on the back for a job well done…………………………………………………….. https://searchlightnm.org/chess-cards-and-catnaps-in-the-heart-of-americas-nuclear-weapons-complex/?utm_source=Searchlight+New+Mexico&utm_campaign=77629f0906-11%2F08%2F2023+-+Chess%2C+cards+and+catnaps&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_8e05fb0467-77629f0906-395610620&mc_cid=77629f0906&mc_eid=a70296a261 #nuclear #antinuclear #nuclearfree #NoNukes #radioactive
20 years after campaign began, the fight to ban deadly depleted uranium weapons goes on
Yesterday (6 November) marked the 20th anniversary of the founding of the
International Coalition to Ban Uranium Weapons, and, with depleted uranium
(DU) weapons recently deployed to the battlefields of Ukraine, the Nuclear
Free Local Authorities want to highlight the aims of the coalition as its
important work for a global ban continues into a third decade.
NFLA 7th Nov 2023
Chris Hedges: Israel’s Endgame is ‘Destruction of the Idea of Palestine’
The arms manufacturers are thrilled. They’re making money in Ukraine, they’re making money with Israel, because remember, most of this money is going straight to Raytheon and Northrop Grumman, and that’s who’s making the money.
the Palestinians really don’t have many friends. Iran, Qatar, Hezbollah, Syria to a certain extent, but not… Am I, if I had to make an educated guess, I think Israel’s going to get away with it.
Pushing most of the Palestinians out of Gaza and turning most of Gaza into a moonscape, which is they’ve already done with the North.
I know that’s what they want to do. I mean, that is without question. The question is whether they can be stopped, but I don’t see the forces that are going to stop them.
What Netanyahu’s government aims to achieve in Gaza today is something akin to the Armenian genocide.
SCHEERPOST, 8 Nov 23
One month since the launch of Operation Al-Aqsa Flood on Oct. 7, the Israeli military has slaughtered more than 10,000 Palestinians, including over 4,000 children. International condemnation is growing, with multiple governments withdrawing their ambassadors from Israel and organizations around the world calling for Israel’s leaders to be prosecuted for war crimes. In an Oct. 28 resignation letter, Craig Mokhiber, former Director of the New York Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, noted that there is “no room for doubt or debate” that the Israeli government is intentionally perpetuating a genocide of the Palestinian people with the support of the US, EU, and other international actors. Drawing on his decades of experience as a war correspondent and years living in and reporting on Gaza, Chris Hedges joins The Marc Steiner Show to discuss Israel’s endgame: the full elimination and depopulation of Palestinians from the Gaza Strip and eventually the West Bank.
TRANSCRIPT
Chris Hedges:
Well, most of the people in the Netanyahu government, including Netanyahu himself, have been quite clear for, often decades, what the end game is, and that’s the destruction of the state or even the idea of Palestine. And that will be accomplished through acts of genocide and ethnic cleansing.
And I fully expect things to get worse in Gaza. I mean, they’re bombing the hospitals now. There’s not enough food or water. Israel is impervious to requests from Washington because of the Israel lobby. They have, traditionally Israel, because of the power of the Israel lobby, it doesn’t really matter what any administration wants. They humiliated Biden when he was Vice President and called for a moratorium on settlements, and then the day he was in Jerusalem, announced an expansion of settlements. They bypassed the White House to go speak, by Netanyahu, to go speak before Congress to denounce the Iran deal.
They know that, in essence, the Biden administration can’t touch the military aid and has no ability to really pressure the government to halt this massive bombing campaign.
…………………the first two weeks, they damaged or destroyed 45% of the housing stock. They’ve dropped, I think, it was just in the first two weeks, 20,000 tons of bombs. I mean, this is a Stalin grad level. It’s as bad as Sarajevo was. It doesn’t come close.
Thousands of Palestinians are trapped under the rubble and they have surrounded the northern part. I mean, they will do it piecemeal. They learn that from the Americans, in Fallujah. You don’t essentially attack on a wide front. You break up your urban areas into sectors that you then dominate. So, they’ve cut off Gaza City from the South, which is Gaza’s largest city, about 700,000 people.
………. I think that it’s saturation bombing. I mean, they will keep the northern part of Gaza corded off, surrounded, but I expect them to kind of bomb their way to victory, or what they’re going to continue or call victory.
……..They don’t really want to start crawling through the rubble fighting Hamas fighters. The tunnels are an issue. We don’t know how big, but they’re big. But they need generators in order to pump down air into the tunnels.
……….I think most of the hostages are probably in the tunnels. This is also a very cynical decision on the part of the Netanyahu government. I don’t think many of those hostages are going to come back. I think they know that and they don’t care. So, they’ve cut off food. In essence, they’ve cut off water. I mean, the trucks that have come over through Rafan are, it’s negligible. It’s a very cynical kind of public relations ploy, but it doesn’t do anything to alleviate the tremendous suffering.
So, I expect that they will push what remains of the Gaza population over the border into the Sinai, into Egypt, and they will never come back. And there have been reports in the Egyptian press that the Americans have approached the CC government. The Egyptian economy is in a mess at over $160 billion in debt. And they will offer financial incentives, and probably if that doesn’t work though, use threats and to do Israel’s bidding. And in essence, Gaza as we know it, and I spent seven years covering Gaza, my office was right in the center of Gaza City, just won’t exist.
……………………………………………………………….. Marc Steiner:
So, I’m thinking about the American end in this, and I know it’s not going to happen, but it seems like the only way conceivably to stop Israel from doing what it’s doing at this moment would be the threat of a cutoff of aid. And when you see inside the Jewish world in America, in the United States, I see it all the time, is a growing body of Jews saying, ‘No, not in our name. We don’t agree,” And whether it’s marches or articles and organizations being developed. So, I mean, that seems to me the only way to stop the madness.
Chris Hedges:
Well, that would be the only way, even that might not work because Israel needs that aid to essentially replenish stockpiles. But they have a pretty robust arsenal. Well, those are the Jews that don’t count. I mean, J Street and Jewish voices for peace don’t count. I mean, for me, they count quite a bit. But I’m talking about in terms of the power structure, and it’s money. I mean, it’s APAC and these Sheldon Adelson type retrograde Jewish billionaires. By the way, they funded Netanyahu. I covered that campaign. Netanyahu was their baby. They created him and they bankrolled him against Rabin.
So, yes, I mean, I think ultimately that’s why I support the Boycott, Divestment, Sanction movement, that it is about severing aid and imposing sanctions on Israel. That’s the only weapon we have. We’re very far from achieving that. Even most of the liberal groups don’t support BDS. And the Israel lobby is just so well-funded and so powerful, and they represent a political strain of a very right wing political strain within the American population that it does not, I would guess, represent the political leanings of probably most American Jews.
…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………for them, it’s the final solution, or their version of the final solution, which is, and they won’t stop. And once they finish with Gaza, they will turn on the West Bank. And they want to create, these are their own words, a kind of religiously pure state, which means the forced exile, ethnic cleansing, whatever you want to call it, of millions of Palestinians, including Christians. I mean, there’s a significant Christian population among the Palestinians. They think they’re going to finish with this problem once and for all.
………………………… the United States is actively backing and supporting the genocide with intelligence, with military support, vetoing, the calls for the ceasefire at the UN, etc. I mean, what you will, you will certainly create blow back probably in the form of terrorism. But once these people are pushed out of their land and permanently thrust into the diaspora, which I think is the plan……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..
Well, I mean, it’s not my job to sell hope. That’s not journalism, by the way.
It’s my job to assess the situation as clearly as I can.
………………………………………………….. Israel will become a fascistic state ruled by the ultra orthodox, kind of Jewish version of Iran.
……………………………..Netanyahu’s dismantling of the judiciary is, of course, a huge step in that. But people who speak out against the Netanyahu assault against democracy or the slaughter in Gaza are attacked as traitors and silenced. And I mean, there’s been a huge campaign preceding October 7th against Israeli human rights workers at B’Tselem.
……. And that will just now accelerate. There’ll be no room for dissent
Marc Steiner:……………………………………. And what’s happening in the Palestinian world, I think people don’t really grasp the intensity, the madness, the murder that’s taking place among Palestinians now…………………..
Chris Hedges:
Well, Israel’s cut off all the internet and cell phone service because when you carry out genocide, you block the ability of the victims to reach the outside world. That’s standard.
……….. it’s about the wholesale destruction of people, and all of the mechanisms by which you can destroy a people. The denial of food, the denial of water, the denial of safety, the ability to flee, fleeing to the south. They’re bombing the south. They’re bombing the supposedly corridors that they set up to go to the south. It’s indiscriminate, dropping 2,000 pound bombs on Jabalia, on refugee camps. Jabalia, I’ve been in, spent a lot of time in Jabalia. So, Gaza is one of the most densely packed spots on the planet, but Jabalia is the most densely packed spot in Gaza, and I think they bombed it three times. Nobody knows the number of dead because-
……… … thousands are under the rubble. So, that indiscriminate, they’re bombing hospitals. I mean, they say, “Well, they’re terrorist command centers, or Hamas command centers.” They’re bombing hospitals, they’ve cut off the fuel. The babies in incubators are dying. I mean, that’s genocide.
………………………… the wild card is whether it ignites a regional conflagration. So, that would begin in Lebanon with Hezbollah, but it wouldn’t begin unless Iran green-lighted it. I don’t think that Iran or Hezbollah wants to ignite a regional conflagration, but that’s the wild card. I mean, things can just go wrong. I’ve covered enough war that once you open that Pandora’s box and let all those evil spirits out, they control you. It doesn’t control… You don’t control it.
So yeah, things could go wrong that way. The arms manufacturers are thrilled. They’re making money in Ukraine, they’re making money with Israel, because remember, most of this money is going straight to Raytheon and Northrop Grumman, and that’s who’s making the money. So, I don’t… The Palestinians have always been friendless, powerless. And the Arab states are very duplicitous about their commitment, which is largely rhetorical, and they’re quite happy to sell the Palestinian’s outing. There’s a lot of animus towards, I mean, for instance, Egypt hates Hamas because Hamas was born out of the Muslim brotherhood, and they, CC with us and Israeli backing, seized power to essentially prevent a Muslim brotherhood government from running Egypt.
So, the Palestinians really don’t have many friends. Iran, Qatar, Hezbollah, Syria to a certain extent, but not… Am I, if I had to make an educated guess, I think Israel’s going to get away with it.
Pushing most of the Palestinians out of Gaza and turning most of Gaza into a moonscape, which is they’ve already done with the North.
I know that’s what they want to do. I mean, that is without question. The question is whether they can be stopped, but I don’t see the forces that are going to stop them.
…………………..Marc Steiner:
Mainstream media is not really giving the people here [inaudible 00:25:15]…………………………………………………………………………………more https://scheerpost.com/2023/11/08/chris-hedges-israels-endgame-is-destruction-of-the-idea-of-palestine/ #Israel #Palestine
Preventing AI Nuclear Armageddon.
Nov 8, 2023,MELISSA PARKE https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/dangers-of-artificial-intelligence-ai-applications-nuclear-weapons-by-melissa-parke-2023-11
Nuclear history is rife with near-misses, with disaster averted by a human who chose to trust their own judgment, rather than blindly follow the information provided by machines. Applying artificial intelligence to nuclear weapons increases the chances that, next time, nobody will stop the launch.
GENEVA – It is no longer science fiction: the race to apply artificial intelligence to nuclear-weapons systems is underway – a development that could make nuclear war more likely. With governments worldwide acting to ensure the safe development and application of AI, there is an opportunity to mitigate this danger. But if world leaders are to seize it, they must first recognize just how serious the threat is.
In recent weeks, the G7 agreed on the Hiroshima Process International Code of Conduct for Organizations Developing Advanced AI Systems, in order to “to promote safe, secure, and trustworthy AI worldwide,” and US President Joe Biden issued an executive order establishing new standards for AI “safety and security.” The United Kingdom also hosted the first global AI Safety Summit, with the goal of ensuring that the technology is developed in a “safe and responsible” manner.
But none of these initiatives adequately addresses the risks posed by the application of AI to nuclear weapons.
Both the G7 code of conduct and Biden’s executive order refer only in passing to the need to protect populations from AI-generated chemical, biological, and nuclear threats. And UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak did not mention the acute threat posed by nuclear-weapons-related AI applications at all, even as he declared that a shared understanding of the risks posed by AI had been reached at the AI Safety Summit.
No one doubts the existential risks posed by the use of nuclear weapons, which would wreak untold devastation on humanity and the planet. Even a regional nuclear war would kill hundreds of thousands of people directly, while leading to significant indirect suffering and death. The resulting climatic changes alone would threaten billions with starvation.
Nuclear history is rife with near-misses. All too often, Armageddon was averted by a human who chose to trust their own judgment, rather than blindly follow the information provided by machines. In 1983, the Soviet officer Stanislav Petrov received an alarm from the early-warning satellite system he was monitoring: American nuclear missiles had been detected heading toward the Soviet Union. But rather than immediately alert his superiors, surely triggering nuclear “retaliation,” Petrov rightly determined that it was a false alarm.
Would Petrov have made the same call – or even had the opportunity to do so – if AI had been involved? In fact, applying machine learning to nuclear weapons will reduce human control over decisions to deploy them.
Of course, a growing number of command, control, and communications tasks have been automated since nuclear weapons were invented. But, as machine learning advances, the process whereby advanced machines make decisions is becoming increasingly opaque – what is known as AI’s “black box problem.” This makes it difficult for humans to monitor a machine’s functioning, let alone determine whether it has been compromised, is malfunctioning, or has been programmed in such a way that could lead to illegal or unintentional outcomes.
Simply ensuring that a human makes the final launch decision would not be enough to mitigate these risks. As psychologist John Hawley concluded in a 2017 study, “Humans are very poor at meeting the monitoring and intervention demands imposed by supervisory control.”
Moreover, as Princeton University’s Program on Science and Global Security showed in 2020, leaders’ decision-making processes in a nuclear crisis are already very rushed. Even if AI is merely used in sensors and targeting, rather than to make launch decisions – it will shorten the already tight timescale for deciding whether to strike. The added pressure on leaders will increase the risk of miscalculation or irrational choices.
Yet another risk arises from the use of AI in satellite and other intelligence-detection systems: this will make it more difficult to hide nuclear weapons, such as ballistic-missile submarines, that have historically been concealed. This could spur nuclear-armed countries to deploy all their nuclear weapons earlier in a conflict – before their adversaries get a chance to immobilize known nuclear systems.
So far, no initiative – from Biden’s executive order to the G7’s code of conduct – has gone beyond a voluntary commitment to ensure that humans retain control of nuclear-weapons decision-making. But, as United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres has noted, a legally binding treaty banning “lethal autonomous weapons systems” is crucial.
While such a treaty is a necessary first step, however, much more needs to be done. When it comes to nuclear weapons, trying to anticipate, mitigate, or regulate the new risks created by emerging technologies will never be enough. We must remove these weapons from the equation entirely.
This means that all governments must commit to stigmatize, prohibit, and eliminate nuclear weapons by joining the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, which offers a clear path toward a world without such arms. It also means that nuclear-armed states must immediately stop investing in modernizing and expanding their nuclear arsenals, including in the name of making them “safe” or “secure” from cyberattacks. Given the insurmountable risks posed by the mere existence of nuclear weapons, such efforts are fundamentally futile.
We know that autonomous systems may lower the threshold to engage in armed conflict. When applied to nuclear weapons, AI is adding another layer of risk to an already unacceptable level of danger. It is critical that policymakers and the public recognize this, and fight not only to avoid applying AI to nuclear weapons, but to eliminate such weapons entirely. #nuclear #antinuclear #nuclearfree #NoNukes
The moniker ‘Genocide Joe’ beginning to fit President Biden
Walt Zlotow, West Suburban Peace Coalition, Glen Ellyn I https://heartlandprogressive.blogspot.com/ 8 Nov 23
The moniker ‘Genocide Joe’ beginning to fit President Biden
The Chicago Tribune headline last nite should have been in the largest type available:
‘Civilians trapped in Gaza running out of food, fuel and hope.’
That’s not 23 or 230 or 2,300 civilians in Gaza. It’s 2,300,000.
That near genocidal ethnic cleansing by Israel is fervently supported and enabled by President Biden. It is the most ghoulish US foreign policy I’ve witnessed in my 72 years following America’s international affairs.
Biden appears to view the grotesque destruction he’s enabling of the 2.3 million folks there in purely political terms. He’s feeling the heat of tens of million nationally and likely billions worldwide, that immediate ceasefire and unlimited humanitarian relief must occur forthwith.
But Biden simply fakes empathy, calling for a ‘pause’ for humanitarian relief before the onslaught continues unabated. He sent his Secretary of State Tony Blinken to Israel to literally beg Prime Minister Netanyahu to implement such a pause. Netanyahu brushed him off like a fly on his lapel.
Biden has tremendous leverage to force both an immediate ceasefire and a commitment to work for a true two state solution to end Israel’s 75 yearlong imprisonment and destruction of the Palestinian people. He must implement his own ceasefire by cancelling America’s $3.8 billion annual giveaway to Israel forthwith. He should withdraw his request for a supplemental $14 billion in weaponry and other aid that supports genocidal ethnic cleansing. Israel needs not one dollar in US largess. Israel’s annual expenditure on defense has dropped from over 20% of GDP in ’73 to just 5% today. Why should Israel spend more when Uncle Sam helps make up the slack with borrowed US treasure?
It has by far the most powerful military in the Middle East. No other power comes close.
Many can no longer look at Joe Biden’s visage without pondering: ‘Why is the most powerful leader in the world, allowing this unrelenting humanitarian catastrophe continue?’ Without an immediate and robust pivot to peace, Biden’s legacy may not be America’s 46th president.
He’s risking more and more it simply being ‘Genocide Joe.’ #Israel #Palestine
Does Israel pose a nuclear threat to the world?
Israeli cabinet minister’s statement that an atomic bomb is an option for Gaza raises global alarm.
Israel’s nuclear programme is widely seen as one of the Middle East’s worst kept secrets.
It is believed to have originated in the 1950s. Today, Israel possesses about 90 nuclear bombs, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.
Israel has never officially acknowledged the existence of its nuclear weapons, but they’re believed to be aimed at rivals in the region such as Iran.
The country is not a signatory to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
So the statement by a cabinet minister that Israel could opt to drop an atomic bomb on Gaza is raising alarm. More so since hardliners such as National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich are part of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s cabinet.
So as Israel continues its bloodbath in Gaza, should the world be worried about its nuclear arms programme?
Presenter: James Bays
Guests:
Rabia Akhtar – director of the Centre for Security, Strategy and Policy Research at the University of Lahore
Ahmed Abofoul – international lawyer and legal researcher and advocacy officer for Al Haq, a human rights organisation
Patrick Bury – defence and security expert at the University of Bath #nuclear #antinuclear #nuclearfree #NoNukes #Israel #Palestine
US Says It’s Powerless To Stop The Genocide That It Is Directly Funding And Supplying
Of course the US can stop this. Of course it can. The US is currently pouring weapons into Israel on an almost daily basis, is pouring billions of dollars into Israel and is preparing to pour in billions more, and is currently physically assisting Israeli operations in Gaza with drones and special operations forces while US warships swarm the eastern Mediterranean. All of this can easily be pulled away if Israel refuses to stop murdering children by the thousands in an indiscriminate bombing campaign that reportedly isn’t even doing any meaningful damage to Hamas.
CAITLIN JOHNSTONE. NOV 6, 2023
In a bizarre new article titled “White House frustrated by Israel’s onslaught but sees few options,” The Washington Post reports that the Biden administration believes Israel has gone too far and is killing too many civilians in its assault on Gaza, but are powerless to do anything about it.
The Post’s Yasmeen Abutaleb writes the following, citing anonymous US officials:
“As Israel’s ground invasion of Gaza escalates, the Biden administration finds itself in a precarious position: Administration officials say Israel’s counterattack against Hamas has been too severe, too costly in civilian casualties, and lacking a coherent endgame, but they are unable to exert significant influence on America’s closest ally in the Middle East to change its course.
“U.S. efforts to get Israel to scale back its counterattack in response to the Oct. 7 killings by Hamas that left at least 1,400 Israelis dead have failed or fallen short. The Biden administration urged Israel against a ground invasion, privately asked it to consider proportionality in its attacks, advocated a higher priority on avoiding civilian deaths, and called for a humanitarian pause — only for Israeli officials to dismiss or reject all those suggestions.
“In recent days, they said, the administration has become deeply uncomfortable with some of Israel’s tactics. Last week, Israel bombed the densely packed Jabalya refugee camp two days in a row, an attack that Israel said killed a Hamas leader but that also killed dozens of civilians. On Friday, an Israeli airstrike hit near the entrance of Al Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, a strike the Israeli military said was aimed at an ambulance ‘being used by a Hamas terrorist cell.’ And Israeli authorities recently expelled thousands of Palestinians who had been in Israel for work, sending them back into Gaza even as it continues to bomb the enclave.”
All this helpless hand-wringing is exposed for the load of ridiculous bullshit that it plainly is a few paragraphs down in the very same article:
“Washington is Israel’s largest military backer, and the White House has asked Congress for an additional $14 billion in aid for Israel in the wake of the Hamas attacks. But administration officials and advisers say the levers the United States theoretically has over Israel, such as conditioning military aid on making the military campaign more targeted, are nonstarters, partly because they would be so politically unpopular in any administration and partly because, aides say, Biden himself has a personal attachment to Israel.”
So the Biden administration does in fact have tons of leverage it can use to stop the genocidal massacre in Gaza, it just doesn’t want to because it would be “politically unpopular” and because “Biden himself has a personal attachment to Israel.”
The US president does indeed have a personal attachment to Israel. Biden has proudly described himself as a Zionist, and has gone on record to say that if Israel didn’t exist the United States would have to invent an Israel to advance its interests in the middle east.
We’ve been asked to believe a lot of very stupid things since this onslaught began last month, but the idea that the Biden administration is powerless to stop a genocide that it is directly arming and supplying has got to be the absolute stupidest.
Of course the US can stop this. Of course it can. The US is currently pouring weapons into Israel on an almost daily basis, is pouring billions of dollars into Israel and is preparing to pour in billions more, and is currently physically assisting Israeli operations in Gaza with drones and special operations forces while US warships swarm the eastern Mediterranean. All of this can easily be pulled away if Israel refuses to stop murdering children by the thousands in an indiscriminate bombing campaign that reportedly isn’t even doing any meaningful damage to Hamas.
What’s that? You didn’t know this murderous bombing campaign is doing no meaningful damage to Hamas? Well let’s clear that up then.
A new report by The New York Times cites an anonymous US military official saying that Israel “has not come close” to destroying Hamas leadership or even its mid-level command.
“One senior U.S. defense official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive details, said the operations so far have not come close to destroying Hamas’s senior and middle leadership ranks,” The New York Times reports………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
I have said it before and I’ll say it again: the US is every bit as culpable for the murder of all these civilians as Israel. Don’t let the empire’s narrative managers try to tell you different. https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/us-says-its-powerless-to-stop-the?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=82124&post_id=138626181&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=1ise1&utm_medium=email
‘We’re a War Machine as a Nation’: The Truth About American Politics
“We prefer war over healthcare. We prefer war over housing. We prefer war over education. We prefer war over the economic welfare of our own citizens”
SCHEERPOST, By Chris Hedges / The Real News Network November 6, 2023
Israel’s ongoing massacre in Gaza has stirred worldwide calls for a ceasefire to stop the genocide unfolding. The United States has been no exception, which countless demonstrators taking to the streets in recent weeks. That hasn’t stopped the US government from backing Israel’s horrific campaign in Gaza to the hilt. The White House has refused to heed calls for a ceasefire and even deployed two aircraft carriers to the Mediterranean—not to defend Palestinians, but to dissuade regional powers from joining the fray to defend Palestine. As the possibility of a regional war looms with the entry of Yemen into the conflict, many wonder how the US might respond to such a scenario. Former US Congressperson Dennis Kucinich joins The Chris Hedges Report for a discussion on the US war machine—what it is, how it works, and how it might respond should the war in Palestine spiral into a wider conflagration.
TRANSCRIPT
Chris Hedges: As a member of the US Congress for 16 years, Dennis Kucinich gave over 500 speeches warning about the consequences of US wars against Afghanistan, the Balkans, Iraq, Iran, Libya, and Syria. He also spoke out for the imperative of peace in the Middle East on behalf of Israelis and Palestinians. He met with leaders of many countries who were grappling to keep their nations out of conflicts and came to understand the role some in the US government have played to intentionally catalyze war, fueling arms sales globally without regard for the consequences. Dennis warns that we, in his words, are “cartwheeling towards a massive East versus West war with religious and ethnic overtones. This seemingly inexorable march of nuclear folly may,” he writes, “pit the US militarily against China, Russia, and their allies.”
Joining me to discuss how, as he writes, the polarization of US politics, the cognitively impaired and failing executive branch, the instability of the congressional leadership, the pure blind partisanship, and the ideologically click-bait driven media has produced, a mad bloodlust for war against Iran and perhaps China and Russia, is Dennis Kucinich. You have fought the war industry with probably more consistency and courage than any US. politician. You’ve paid the price for it. But let’s lay out globally the reach of the war industry, how it functions, and why it seems to be beyond the control of either political party.
Dennis Kucinich: ………….. We are in a moment of peril and the subtext of it, or maybe the context of it, begins with the fact that the US has over 800 bases around the globe. This has been part and parcel of an attempt by America to use its military power to be able to control not only the politics of a country but the economics of a country and to stop the rise of any counterforce in the world. Of course, we know that was vainglorious. The efforts have failed, and notwithstanding the fact that we have this archipelago of bases around the world, we have slipped from a position of unipolar leadership moving to a multipolar world in which the US has less and less influence, with the exception of certain economic moves that can be made to try to hamstring the economies of various countries through sanctions.
Now, where this all begins is in the appropriations process. The military-industrial complex that Eisenhower so famously warned us about in January of 1961 has… Every district of the US, every congressional district has programs and projects in it that require funding and are put into an appropriations bill. Lobbyists confront members of Congress from their own community, saying we need this for the jobs in our community. Together you have a defense production establishment that is nationwide and it has enormous influence on individual members. Beyond that, you have when members of Congress come in and they take an oath to defend the Constitution, unfortunately, for many members of Congress, that means signing on to any military action that the administration recommends. So there’s very little deep thinking that goes on, especially where the money’s going to come from. Because the 31 trillion-plus national debt, which the US has a substantial part of, comes from the country putting wars on a credit card.
Ingrained into our system is the funding of wars and a perpetuation of conflict because if you’re making all these arms materiel, you’ve got to use them. The more that you use, the more you make. There’s a continuous loop here of money that pours in. Right now we’re close to $1 trillion in this particular fiscal year of 2023 for the Pentagon plus the various intelligence services. That then is a substantial part of discretionary spending of the US. Depending on who you’re talking to and what math, it’s anywhere from about 40%-45%. We’re spending our national treasure on war. We’re a war machine as a nation. We prefer war over healthcare. We prefer war over housing. We prefer war over education. We prefer war over the economic welfare of our own citizens. This is something that more and more people are catching onto. Unfortunately, the last ones to catch on appear to be members of the US Congress.
………………………………. Dennis Kucinich: The decisions to go to war ostensibly would be made at the administration level. However, there is a broad network of public policy groups masquerading as independent voices, think tanks, academic organizations, and people in the media who feed into any narrative that would prompt the country to start to rattle the sabers or determine, well, we need to go here in order to defend our national interest. Once that appropriation process starts, let’s keep in mind, that they have close to $1 trillion in all accounts. They’re on their own. That money’s fungible. That money’s there, which enables the US at this very moment to send two aircraft carrier units out into the area near Israel. Now you have to wonder, what’s that all about? What it’s all about is that the US right now has the money to be able to send troops anywhere they want in the world or to pay for the ones that are already stationed, and they put the country at the threshold of a war the minute they do that.
When I say “of a war,” I mean of actual combat interactions. The people who are pushing for this and we have to keep in mind that one of the things that drags us into war is an ideological mindset. Today in the US, it’s sponsored by a group famously known as neoconservatives, who see America as a force fighting against evil all over the world.
The Manichaen struggle that they invite is one that is generally of their own making, the desire to be able to create wars and to cash in. There are earnings reports coming out lately where some of the war contractors or those who hold them in a portfolio, are citing what a great thing it is for the profits that are going to come as a result of what’s happening in the Middle East right now. It’s unconscionable but we’re in this cycle where we have a war-dependent economy and the more that we spend on war materiel, the more likely we are to go to war. The more people we have at forward bases around the world, the more likely we are to go to war.
When an international crisis develops, such as has developed after, most famously signed on October 7, 2023, we then see things go into motion that will support and justify the reason why we are there, to begin with. Then from there, you go on to additional appropriations. One of the things that I want to point out, is the over $14 billion which Congress will vote on perhaps at the beginning of November, once Congress votes on that, forget declarations of war, Article One, Section Eight, the role of Congress in balancing off the executive’s desire to go to war. Forget all that. Once the money is there, we’re there. We’re stuck. It’s like gamblers, in for a dime, in for a dollar. Once we put that money down, we are at war, whether it’s declared or not.
This is the danger of the moment that we’re in right now, because the American people, unless they can convince their members of Congress, for whatever reason – Whether it’s as one member of Congress, Tom Massey from Kentucky says, we can’t afford it. That’s one way. Another way is to say don’t fuel the fire. Another way is to say, stop killing the Gazans – There are so many different reasons to avoid it but the American people have to be heard from. Immediately call their members of Congress to say don’t fund the war. If they’re so intent on spending money, spend it for diplomacy, spend it for humanitarian purposes, spend it for food, shelter, clothing, electricity, water; anything to try to relieve people from the veil of tears they’re in right now and the fears for their life.
But right now, our country, we are ready for war. It’s not about funding an effort against the people of Gaza but it’s about getting ready for war against Iran which would be catastrophic for the US and for Israel. . We’re really at a crossroads right here, Chris and the piece that I wrote in Substack outlines the contours of it because this war has both. It’s not just geographical; it is ethnic and it is religious.
Chris Hedges: You have a situation where once the money comes in, it’s not a congressional decision, it’s a unilateral decision by the White House, for instance, to send these carriers. No, Biden didn’t consult anybody except maybe Jake Sullivan who probably made the decision for Biden. But all that power, that potential to essentially trigger a war is in the hands of the presidency. Congress isn’t even part of the decision.
Dennis Kucinich: Once the money is there… This is what I’d like your viewers to understand. You have the Constitution, Article One, Section Eight, in which the Founders clearly put the power to make war in the hands of the House because they didn’t want an executive roaming the world, looking for enemies to slay, as Adams was famously warned about. But if Congress approves an appropriation that the president then wants to take to create a war, courts have held pretty consistently that Congress’s ultimate power is the power of the purse. If Congress wants to stop a war, don’t fund it. If Congress wants to start a war, fund it, but Congress cannot go back after it funds a war and say, oh, we didn’t mean that. We didn’t mean for him to escalate. Hey, once they have the money, the administration, the president as commander-in-chief under the Constitution, is able to use that war material in any way that he or in the future she would please.
Chris Hedges: And yet we see no pushback. The last budget Congress gave the Pentagon $40 billion more than they even requested. In many ways, the Democratic Party is worse.
Dennis Kucinich: Yeah, it’s become reflexive. The inability to ask questions about why. Only after the fact will you see the Inspector General’s reports come back and say, well, you misspent billions or billions there. After a while, it adds up. You go back to Major General Smedley Butler who won two medals of honor for his service to the country at the beginning of the 20th century. He concluded famously, “War is a racket.” And this is a racket. The members of Congress go along. Let’s face it, once Citizens United became the law of the land, and money equaled free speech from the corporate standpoint, this entire defense establishment was emboldened to pour money into congressional races. And they do. They do it openly through $5,000 contributions or whatever they’re allowed right now and in addition to that, Super PACs, which can make a difference in a congressional or Senate race.
We have almost a closed-loop system that guarantees that we will continue to go to war. There is no counterbalance for diplomacy or peace. That doesn’t exist. The Department of State is there to rattle the saber, as the current Secretary of State Blinken has proven. The National Security Advisor Sullivan, is there to keep fulminating. Of course, we know about the gentle lady who is a deputy secretary who has famously kept her neoconservative credentials alive since the beginning of her service to the US as somebody who promotes war. We have an entire phalanx of people at the administrative level who are promoting it every day. They’re supported by the think tanks, academics, and the media. People don’t question and so we get pulled into this maw of war. Then people wonder why.
Watch American troops, when their lives are put on the line – They’re already being out there as bait, as far as I’m concerned. Our troops are in that region as bait – If and when the troops start to die and you get reports, maybe some have already, but if and when that starts to happen in large numbers, the American people are going to be horrified. The money could go out this week unless people call and object strongly. That’s the way you stop a war. Stop funding it.
Chris Hedges: What they’re playing with, as you’ve written, is a very dangerous global conflagration. It’s like throwing and tossing lit matches toward pools of gasoline, not only in Ukraine and not only in the Middle East, but also in China. The consequences are potentially catastrophic. In the case of China and Russia, we’re dealing of course with nuclear powers. Then of course Israel has nuclear weapons. There’s nothing to stop Israel from using a tactical nuclear weapon on Iran. Talk a little bit about how this could all go bad.
Dennis Kucinich: When we have these discussions about the danger that we can sense lies ahead, we have to look at things not out of fear, but out of a cold strategic analysis. The US and Israel are seen as simultaneous in the actions in Gaza right now. That has created a furor, particularly in the Arab and the Muslim world. The head of Turkey, Erdogan, yesterday gave a speech to about a million people whom he warned about, he invoked the image of the Crescent versus the Cross. We’re talking Crusades here, folks. The idea that if the US and Israel are aimed at trying to wipe out people who are Arabs and most of whom are Muslims, what does that say to the rest of the Muslim world? Nine million people in Israel, maybe a million and a half of them Palestinians, in the larger Arab world surrounding Israel, hundreds of millions of Muslims and Arabs are watching people in Gaza being slaughtered.
………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………. There’s a game being played here that is so dangerous that could pull us all into not only a regional war but a world war. So those are some of the antecedents that we have to consider when we’re looking at an analysis of what we could be facing………………………………………………………..
Dennis Kucinich: Well, first of all, you have to look at President Biden himself. He has never really been anyone who has said, whoa, wait a minute. Let’s not do this. He’s generally been congenial to voting for the war as a senator and voting for certain defense or Pentagon appropriations. That’s where it’s at. Then who surrounds him? The neocons are his closest advisors. They’re spoiling for a war against Iran. This has been going on since Bush was president. There’s no question. I gave about 150 speeches on Iran alone, where I saw the Bush Administration was actually talking about a strike on a nuclear research lab at Bashir. …………………………………………………………………
more https://scheerpost.com/2023/11/06/were-a-war-machine-as-a-nation-the-truth-about-american-politics/
“Doomsday weapon” Israel’s worst kept secret
‘That’s one way’: Israeli cabinet minister says nuking Gaza is an option
Fears that the war against Hamas could spiral into a wider regional conflict have again raised the spectre of Israel’s “worst-kept secret”.
Frank Chung, news.com.au 6 Nov 23
A far-right minister in Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government has sparked fury after suggesting Israel could nuke Gaza.
The comments, which made headlines in Arab and Israeli media, were quickly disavowed by Mr Netanyahu, who immediately suspended Mr Eliyahu from cabinet meetings……………………………………………………………………….
Israel’s nukes
Fears that the war between Israel and Hamas could spiral into a wider regional conflict have again raised the spectre of nuclear weapons — and Israel’s own “worst kept secret”.
Israel is widely believed to have around 80 to 90 plutonium-based nuclear warheads, and enough material for more than 200, making it one of only nine nuclear-armed countries alongside Russia, the US, China, France, the UK, Pakistan, India and North Korea.
The arsenal consists of an estimated 30 gravity bombs for delivery by aircraft, with the remainder of the warheads for delivery by missiles.
The Jericho II medium-range ballistic missile and Jericho III intermediate-range ballistic missile “are believed to be based with their mobile launchers in caves at a military base east of Jerusalem”, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute says.
According to Professor Clive Williams from the ANU’s Centre for Military and Security Law and Strategic and Defence Studies Centre, the Jericho II has an estimated range of 1500 to 1800 kilometres, while the Jericho III can reach more than 4000 kilometres.
Israel also operates a fleet of around half a dozen Dolphin-class diesel-electric submarines out of the northern port city of Haifa.
A number of the German-built submarines are commonly thought to have been adapted to carry cruise missiles armed with nuclear warheads to maintain a second-strike option.
“An estimated 30-40 nuclear weapons have been allocated to the submarines, with a possible missile delivery range of up to 1500 kilometres,” Prof Williams writes.
While never openly acknowledging its capability, Israel has issued veiled threats in the past.
“Our submarine fleet is used first and foremost to deter our enemies who strive to extinguish us,” Mr Netanyahu said in 2016. “They must know that Israel is capable of hitting back hard against anyone who seeks to hurt us.”
‘Nuclear ambiguity’
Officially, Israel refuses to confirm or deny its secret nuclear weapons program, and is not party to the international Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).
The policy, known as “nuclear ambiguity” or “nuclear opacity”, dates back more than five decades to a 1969 Oval Office meeting between Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir and US President Richard Nixon, after nearly a decade of tension between the two countries over the issue.
The two leaders reached an unwritten agreement that effectively amounted to “don’t ask, don’t tell” — Israel would agree not to declare, test or threaten to use nuclear weapons, and the US would not pressure Israel to sign the NPT, which had been co-sponsored and signed by the US the previous year.
Despite this, Israel is suspected to have carried out an illegal nuclear test in 1979, roughly halfway between South Africa and Antarctica — an incident quickly swept under the rug by the Carter White House.
Israel began developing its nuclear program in the 1950s and is believed to have produced its first nuclear weapon in the late ‘60s.
The US government had first caught wind of Israel’s secret nuclear reactor — located in the Negev desert near the city of Dimona and built with the assistance of the French — in 1960.
The Americans, fearful of a Middle East arms race, for several years put pressure on the Israelis to inspect Dimona, with Israel going so far as to build a fake control centre at the plant to mask its true purpose.
“The Israelis, who are one of the few peoples whose survival is genuinely threatened, are probably more likely than almost any other country to actually use their nuclear weapons,” national security adviser Henry Kissinger told President Nixon in a declassified 1969 memo.
“This is one program on which the Israelis have persistently deceived us and may even have stolen from us.”……………………………………………………………….
Successive US presidents honoured this unwritten agreement until it was formalised into a secret letter during the Clinton administration.
According to a 2018 report in The New Yorker, the letter — first signed by President Bill Clinton and known only to a handful of senior officials — amounted to an American pledge not to pressure Israel to give up its nuclear weapons as long as it continued to face existential threats in the region.
“In the letter, according to former officials, President Bill Clinton assured the Jewish state that no future American arms-control initiative would ‘detract’ from Israel’s ‘deterrent’ capabilities, an oblique but clear reference to its nuclear arsenal,” investigative journalist Adam Entous wrote…………..
Presidents George W. Bush, Barack Obama and Donald Trump each signed updated versions of the letter.
Vanunu scandal
The existence of Israel’s nuclear program was only revealed to the general public in 1986 when UK newspaper The Sunday Times published a bombshell story featuring whistleblower Mordechai Vanunu, a former Dimona technician.
Vanunu provided the paper with details and photos of the inner workings of the nuclear plant.
“Based on his revelations, some experts estimated that Israel had built between 100 and 200 nuclear weapons of varying yields and complexity,” writes the Nuclear Threat Initiative……………………………………………………………………………..
‘Doomsday weapon’
In the wake of the October 7 terror attacks by Hamas, which left 1400 Israelis dead and more than 240 taken hostage, fears have grown that any widening of the conflict could involve nuclear weapons……………………
Mr Eliyahu is not the first Israeli politician to suggest using “doomsday” weapons against the Palestinian terror group.
“Jericho missile! Jericho missile! A strategic alert, before we consider introducing our forces. A doomsday weapon!” Revital Gotliv wrote in a post on X two days after the attacks. “This is my opinion. May God preserve all our strength.”
Ms Gotliv, a member of Mr Netanyahu’s right-wing Likud party with a history of making inflammatory comments, wrote in a follow-up post that Israel should show no mercy in battling Hamas.
“Only an explosion that shakes the Middle East will restore this country’s dignity, strength, and security! It’s time to kiss doomsday,” she said.
“Shooting powerful missiles without limit. Not flattening a neighbourhood. Crushing and flattening Gaza. Otherwise, we would have done nothing. Not with passwords, with penetrating bombs. Without mercy! Without mercy!”
The post was tagged with a disclaimer by the social media platform that its visibility had been limited as it “may violate X’s rules against Violent Speech”, Insider reported.
The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), warned last month that “Israel’s possession of nuclear weapons significantly increases the risks associated with the conflict and contributes to regional tensions”.
“Escalation is a real danger,” a spokeswoman told The South China Morning Post frank.chung@news.com.au https://www.news.com.au/technology/innovation/military/thats-one-way-israeli-cabinet-minister-says-nuking-gaza-is-an-option/news-story/7822218dceeb4c77e2204d30e1da292b #nuclear #antinuclear #nuclearfree #NoNukes #Israel #Palestine
300,000 March in Washington, D.C. for Palestine
Hundreds of thousands of people in the US marched on Saturday for the liberation of Palestine from Israeli occupation and to decry the support of their government for Israel.
By Peoples Dispatch 6 Nov 23, https://scheerpost.com/2023/11/06/300000-march-in-washington-d-c-for-palestine/—
Over 300,000 people poured into Freedom Plaza in Washington, DC, on November 4, in the largest Palestine solidarity demonstration in US history. The unprecedented demonstration comes in the wake of Israel’s ongoing genocide in the Gaza Strip. Organized by a wide range of Palestinian, Arab, and anti-imperialist groups including the Palestinian Youth Movement, the ANSWER Coalition, the Peoples Forum, Al-Adwa: The Palestine Right to Return Coalition, and National Students for Justice in Palestine, hundreds of thousands rallied and then marched to the White House, demanding an end to US funding for Israel, and an immediate ceasefire in Gaza.
Protesters yelled chants such as “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free!” and “Ceasefire now!” Some brought long lists of names of those killed in Gaza in this past month by Israel.
This 300,000 strong march occurred in the heart of Israel’s most significant backer, the United States, despite the fact that people in the country have been faced with various forms of persecution for supporting Palestine. The Virginia Attorney General just opened an investigation into American Muslims for Palestine looking into allegations against the group for “benefiting or providing support to terrorist organizations”. Students who organize in solidarity for Palestine, especially those in local Students for Justice in Palestine chapters, have been doxxed and have had job offers rescinded.
“We’re all afraid, but this fear does not compare,” said Palestinian poet Mohammed El-Kurd, speaking from the podium at Freedom Plaza. “They want us to think that we are paying personal prices, but we have our community. They want us to think that we are alone, but we have our people supporting us. If they come for you, if they take your job, if they fire you from school, if they expel you, do not think of yourself as a casualty. You are not a casualty, you are fuel for the movement, you are part of the struggle.”
“Empire does not reward silence. It will crush us anyway, it will swallow us anyway, we will not sit in the corner quietly as they kill our people.”
The US has contributed around USD 130 billion in military aid to Israeli occupation since the creation of the state in 1948. In the wake of the Israeli bombardment of Gaza, the House of Representatives passed a massive USD 14.5 billion military aid package to further support the occupation. The bombs that Israel drops are largely US-made. “It is not lost on us that the US government sends its military advisors and soldiers, it’s aircraft carriers and rockets, its weapons of mass destruction to support the genocide of our people,” said Mohammed Nabulsi of the Palestinian Youth Movement. “It is not lost on us that this same government mobilizes its repressive vehicles in the US to surveil, suppress, and criminalize our communities in the movement for Palestinian freedom.”
Brian Becker, executive director of the ANSWER Coalition, brought up how similar numbers showed up many decades ago in solidarity with the struggle against South African apartheid. Despite the US government’s support for the South African government at the time “forty years ago this month… thousands of people came together in Washington DC to say that the racist fascist apartheid regime in South Africa must fall, and we will help it fall, and within a few years, it did fall.”
“We make the change, the change comes from us, and right now sisters and brothers—we are sending a message, a very strong message to Joe Biden: if you stand with genocide we hold you guilty of genocide.”
1,500+ Israelis Urge International Criminal Court Action on ‘War Crimes and Genocide’ in Gaza
“Persistent impunity has created the conditions for the consolidation of the Israeli apartheid regime, which is intent on committing ethnic cleansing and genocide of the Indigenous Palestinian population,” says the open letter.
By Jessica Corbett / Common Dreams, 5 Nov 23, https://scheerpost.com/2023/11/05/1500-israelis-urge-icc-action-on-war-crimes-and-genocide-in-gaza/
Israelis Against Apartheid, a group representing more than 1,500 citizens, this week urged the International Criminal Court’s prosecutor “to take accelerated action against the escalating Israeli war crimes and genocide of the Palestinian people” in Gaza.
“For the safety and future in the region, all elements of international law must be enforced and war crimes should be investigated,” declares the letter to the ICC’s Karim A. A. Khan, noting his ongoing Palestine investigation and recent remarks on the war.
The letter, dated Thursday, explains that “as Israeli anti-colonial activists, we have joined our voices to the voices of Palestinians for decades warning on the dangerous course of action pursued by the Israeli state and repeatedly called for international intervention.”
“Persistent impunity has created the conditions for the consolidation of the Israeli apartheid regime, which is intent on committing ethnic cleansing and genocide of the Indigenous Palestinian population,” the letter continues. “The acute deterioration in basic conditions of life that we are now witnessing could have been avoided if Israel had not been continuously granted impunity for its ongoing crimes.”
Officials believe Palestinian militants took around 240 hostages in a Hamas-led surprise attack on Israel October 7, which sparked Israeli forces’ retaliatory air and ground assault of Gaza. Since the war began, more than 1,500 Israelis and 9,400 Palestinians in Gaza have been killed, along with at least 133 Palestinians in the West Bank, which has seen a surge in Israeli settler violence.
Over the past four weeks, as Israeli forces have killed thousands of civilians and bombed residential, medical, educational, and religious buildings, allegations of war crimes have mounted. Critics worldwide have accused Israel of committing “a textbook case of genocide,” citing not only the bloodshed but also comments from Israeli leaders including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
“We are extremely concerned by the Israeli institutional calls for genocide that are being loudly and clearly voiced in Hebrew and believe that they should be seriously taken into consideration as thousands, if not millions, of lives are at stake,” says the letter to the ICC prosecutor.
“Israeli military personnel and journalists are now openly calling for ethnic cleansing and genocide,” the letter adds. “It is evident that Israel is disregarding the lives of civilians in Gaza, ordering them to evacuate vast areas even as there is no safe place in Gaza to which people can flee.”
The letter to Khan details the remarks from Netanyahu and others calling for or justifying genocide, and urges him to:
- Issue immediate arrest warrants against Israeli political and military-security leaders who are committing war crimes and crimes against humanity;
- Accelerate your investigation into the ongoing crimes being perpetrated at this very moment by the state of Israel, its military forces, and armed Israeli citizens under military protection; and
- Be a validated and balanced platform for alleged crimes arising from the current situation, rather than making reference to unvalidated and unverified claims.
While applauding some of Khan’s statements in Egypt after his trip to the Rafah border crossing with Gaza last weekend, the letter also says that “we deeply regret that, despite the opening of an investigation, followed by the Pre-Trial Chamber I’s 2021 decision that the court may exercise its criminal jurisdiction over the situation in Palestine, you have so far failed to take concrete action to stop the tragic trajectory of events in our region by holding Israel accountable.”
Khan said that “we need the law more than ever. Not the law in abstract terms, not the law as a theory for academicians, lawyers and judges. But we need to see justice in action. People need to see that the law has an impact on their lives. And this law, this justice, must be focused on the most vulnerable. It should be almost tangible. It is something they should be able to cling on to. It is something that they should be able to embrace when they are faced with so much loss, pain, and suffering.”
The prosecutor spoke about both the Hamas-led attack on Israel, including hostage-taking, and the Israeli war on Gaza, where civilians have been cut off from essentials like food, water, electricity, and medicine. He also highlighted an online portal to which anyone can submit information on alleged war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide, and crimes of aggression.
Khan asked civil society organizations “to send us any and all evidence that underpins their reports or their communiques or their notices that they issue,” stressing that “reports by themselves are, of course, not evidence and I cannot and will not act pursuant to my oath of office without reliable evidence that we can validate that can stand up in a court of law.”
“I also want to be clear that my office is in the business of conducting credible, relevant, professional, and independent criminal investigations,” he said. “And so I don’t, I haven’t, and I won’t be giving a running commentary on social media, or anywhere else for that matter, regarding the state of investigations in this or any other situation. But the absence of commentary does not mean the absence of investigations.” #Israel #Palestine
Ukraine’s counteroffensive is finished – governor
https://www.rt.com/russia/586687-ukraine-counteroffensive-halted-zaporozhye/ 6 Nov 23
The attempt to cut Russia’s land corridor to Crimea in Zaporozhye Region has failed, Evgeny Balitsky has said
Moscow’s forces have stopped the Ukrainian counteroffensive dead in its tracks, Evgeny Balitsky, the governor of Zaporozhye Region, has said.
He further described what he called Kiev’s last-ditch attempts to breach Russian defenses as not particularly impressive. In recent months, Zaporozhye has emerged as a scene of some of the fiercest fighting.
Speaking to reporters on Monday, Balitsky stated that “the enemy has been halted, as has been its much-hyped counteroffensive.” He said that the ongoing fighting near the settlements of Rabotino and Shcherbaki and on the Vremievsky Ridge was “almost an agony for the Ukrainian regime.”
The official declared that Ukrainian forces, which have been trying to storm Russian positions for months, have “completely run out of steam.”
“Now, when the enemy launches an attack, they deploy only small forces because their companies are understrength,” he added.
According to Balitsky, the plan to reach the Sea of Azov and cut Russia’s land bridge to Crimea – widely seen as the main objective of Kiev’s summer campaign – has been thwarted. He also claimed that Ukrainian attacks are now largely unsupported by armor, as Russian forces have knocked out many vehicles.
The governor stated that the current “meat onslaught” had been organized by Kiev’s Western backers, suggesting that the latter would prefer to lose Ukrainian soldiers rather than their own expensive military equipment.
Ukraine began a large-scale offensive in early June, but has failed to make substantial progress. Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu said last week that “the Kiev regime is losing.” He has previously estimated Ukraine’s losses at more than 90,000 troops, nearly 600 tanks, and 2,000 armored vehicles since the start of the push.
Meanwhile, Ukrainian officials have admitted difficulties with the campaign, blaming a lack of progress on delays in Western support, strong Russian defenses, and extensive minefields as well as Moscow’s air superiority.
Last week, Ukraine’s commander-in-chief, Valery Zaluzhny, characterized the frontline situation as a “stalemate” due to the level of technological prowess of both sides. That assessment, however, was rejected by Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky, who insisted that while his country found itself in a “difficult” situation, it still had the initiative. #Ukraine
Operation Al-Aqsa Flood’ Day 29: Israel Hits Hospitals, Ambulances, and Schools Across Gaza
Israel targeted an ambulance convoy at al-Shifa hospital, while other schools and hospitals were targeted as Israel doubles down on lifesaving civilian infrastructure. Meanwhile, Palestinian workers from Gaza return, recounting torture.
SCHEERPOST, By Mondoweiss Palestine Bureau / Mondoweiss 5 Nov 23
CASUALTIES
- 9,448 Palestinians killed, including 3,900 children, and 24,158 wounded in Gaza
- 145 Palestinians killed in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem
KEY DEVELOPMENTS
- Israel claims attack on ambulance convoy at al-Shifa hospital, killing at least 15 people.
- Israeli forces bomb at least one other hospital and an UNRWA school where thousands had taken shelter, as UNRWA warns that UN flag “cannot even provide [Palestinians] safety.”
- Thousands of Palestinian workers who were arbitrarily detained after October 7 are deported back to Gaza, and recount violent beatings, interrogation, and imprisonment.
- ‘Alarming’ Israeli army and settler violence continues in the occupied West Bank, as at least one Palestinian teenager is killed.
- Several Arab states hold a meeting in Jordan on Saturday, set to meet with U.S. envoy.
- Honduras recalls its ambassador to Israel over its “genocide” in Gaza.
- Pro-Palestine activists prevent U.S. military ship believed to be headed to Israel from leaving Oakland, California port.
- National March on Washington, D.C. scheduled for Saturday to call for a ceasefire in Gaza
GAZA HOSPITALS, SCHOOLS, MOSQUES, AND WATER TANKS — NOWHERE IS SAFE
Israel’s brutal bombardment of Gaza somehow reached further lows nearly a month on, as the army attacked an ambulance convoy outside al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City on Friday, killing 15 people and injuring 60, the Gaza Ministry of Health said. One of those killed has been identified as journalist Haitham Hararah.
The ambulances were due to transfer a number of injured people through to the Rafah crossing to receive medical treatment in Egypt. While 28 people were due to enter Egypt on Friday, 11 of them were blocked from leaving Gaza because of the attack on al-Shifa.
Unlike some other attacks on medical facilities, the Israeli army promptly claimed responsibility for the airstrike, claiming that the ambulances were used by Hamas — an allegation that the Gaza Ministry of Health forcefully rejected, noting that at least 27 ambulances, and 105 health institutions have been targeted by Israel in the past four weeks. Some 150 health personnel have been killed, while 16 hospitals and 32 primary care centers have been put out of service by airstrikes and dire fuel shortages, it added………………………………………….
Meanwhile U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said he was “horrified”. “Now, for nearly one month, civilians in Gaza, including children and women, have been besieged, denied aid, killed, and bombed out of their homes,” Guterres said. “This must stop.”
The airstrike at al-Shifa was far from the only Israeli attack on spaces defined as “protected civilian objects” under international law in the span of 24 hours.
On Saturday, the Gaza Ministry of Health reported that another strike had hit Al-Nasr children’s hospital in Gaza City, killing at least two people……………………………………………………………………………………….. more https://scheerpost.com/2023/11/05/operation-al-aqsa-flood-day-29-israel-hits-hospitals-ambulances-and-schools-across-gaza/ #Israel #Palestine
NewsReal: Ukraine War Ends, Mid-East War Begins? Why America is Shifting Gears
Sott.net, Sun, 05 Nov 2023
Anglo-American legacy media this week “quietly” announced an “end” to the Ukraine War, informing – correctly, for the first time since February 2022 – Western audiences that Kiev doesn’t stand a chance militarily against Russia, that Zelensky is “deluded” and “messianic” about recovering the four provinces lost to Russia, and that American and European leaders have begun pushing him to enter negotiations with Moscow.
So, peace on Earth?!
Given current events in the Middle East, not least the Israeli obliteration of Gaza and the major deployment of US warships and forces in Israel and on the surrounding seas, it’s more likely that the US Empire is ‘pivoting’ from Ukraine only because it considers the job there ‘done’ and now has bigger goals in sight………. more https://www.sott.net/article/485737-NewsReal-Ukraine-War-Ends-Mid-East-War-Begins-Why-America-is-Shifting-Gears# #Ukraine #nuclear #antinuclear #nuclearfree #NoNukes #Israel #Palestine
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1 This Month
petition to oppose the rapid increase of space-military industry threatening Jeju Island and the region.
[Petition by April 19th (KST)] Stop the joint military-Hanwha Systems-Jeju Provincial Government Sea Launch!
Chernobyl: The Lost Tapes – A good documentary on Chernobyl on SBS available On Demand for the next 3 weeks– https://www.sbs.com.au/ondemand/tv-program/chernobyl-the-lost-tapes/2352741955560
of the week–London Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament
Tell the Ukrainian Government to Drop Prosecution of Peace Activist Yurii Sheliazhenko
To see nuclear-related stories in greater depth and intensity – go to https://nuclearinformation.wordpress.com
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