USA promises Israel that Iran will never acquire nuclear weapons
Iran will never acquire nuclear weapons, US promises Israel Antony Blnken seeks to reassure Israel and Gulf allies ahead of possible renewal of nuclear deal
Patrick Wintour Diplomatic editor, Mon 28 Mar 2022 The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, has sought to reassure Israel and its Gulf allies that Iran will never acquire atomic weapons, ahead of the possible renewal of the nuclear deal with Tehran.
“When it comes to the most important element, we see eye to eye,” Blinken said at a news conference on Sunday with Israel’s foreign minister, Yair Lapid. “We are both committed, both determined, that Iran will never acquire a nuclear weapon.”
Blinken’s comments came before a meeting with four Arab foreign ministers at an extraordinary summit hosted by Israel’s prime minister, Naftali Bennett – an event that in itself shows how the landscape of Israel’s relations with some Arab states has been transformed in the past 18 months, driven partly by fears about the imminent end of Iran’s economic isolation………………………………………
Speaking in Israel, Blinken nevertheless defended the principle of trying to revive the Iran nuclear deal, saying: “The US believes that a return to full implementation of the deal is the best way to put Iran’s nuclear programme back in the box that it was in, but has escaped from since the United States withdrew from that agreement…………………. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/mar/27/iran-will-never-acquire-nuclear-weapons-us-promises-israel
Big ‘doomsday plane’ for the Big Nobs, in the event of nuclear war, arrives in Britain
US ‘Doomsday Plane’ capable of surviving nuclear war arrives in Britain
Boeing aircraft can fly non-stop for six days with equipment designed to withstand electromagnetic blast https://www.thenationalnews.com/world/uk-news/2022/03/25/us-doomsday-plane-capable-of-surviving-nuclear-war-arrives-in-britain/ Thomas Harding. Mar 25, 2022
An aircraft known as the “Doomsday Plane” that is capable of enduring the aftermath of a nuclear detonation has landed in Britain.
The arrival of the US Nightwatch plane from Andrews Air Force Base, Washington, comes amid fears of a nuclear strike by Russia, with its invasion of Ukraine stalled.
The aircraft, call sign GRIM99, is described as the Flying Pentagon and could be used as a centre of operations during a nuclear war.
Capable of flying 150 hours non-stop with the aid of airborne refuelling, the Boeing 747 is officially known as the National Emergency Airborne Operations Centre and is one of four such planes on constant standby.
Much of the aircraft’s equipment is secret, but it is known to carry nuclear and thermal shielding and enough communications for a US defence chief to direct a war.
It is used to transport the US defence secretary during a conflict, providing a back-up to the Pentagon. Its livery paintwork is similar to the US president’s Air Force One.
The four aircraft are based in Nebraska and have been operational since 1980. Each stands six storeys high and has four powerful General Electric engines equipped with huge fuel tanks to avoid the need to land and refuel during a nuclear exchange.
The plane’s flight deck equipment is analogue, so it can withstand jamming or the electromagnetic pulse that follows a nuclear detonation.
The “radome” hump on its back contains 67 different satellite dishes and antennae, giving the defence secretary and his commanders the ability to contact warships, submarines, aircraft and landlines around the world.
A crew of 112 people has the use of three decks, with 18 bunks beds, six bathrooms, a kitchen, conference room, briefing room and an operations centre.
The interior design is basic, with few modern-day comforts and no touch screens, as digital technology would be almost completely disabled during a nuclear exchange. However, the conference centre does have two 80-inch flat screen televisions.
It has a maximum speed of 969kph, can fly at 14,000 metres and has a take-off load of 377,000kg. The aircraft will remain in service until 2039.
World’s biggest bunker where billionaires could survive in luxury for 10 years
World’s biggest nuclear bunker where billionaires could survive in luxury for 10 years
The Oppidum is the world’s largest nuclear bunker and is located in a secret location in the Czech Republic where its billionaire owners could live out nuclear armageddon By John James. , 25 MAR 2022
The World’s richest people plan to sit out a nuclear apocalypse in the world’s largest luxury bomb shelter which lies in a secret location in the Czech republic.
Since Russia invaded Ukraine last month, interest in nuclear shelters has skyrocketed spurred on in part by Vladimir Putin’s reckless rhetoric, but the elites of the world have been planning for years.
The Oppidum (which is a fantastically ominous name for a bunker in anyone’s book) is located in a quaint valley in the Czech Republic surrounded by high walls that ensure it can’t be identified by the irradiated masses.
The massive 323,000 square foot structure extends well into the ground and is kitted out with all the luxury items you’d expect including a swimming pool, wine cellar and helipad.
The whole building is fitted with a network of secret tunnels leading to the cavernous vaults beneath the above-ground building so when a bomb hits you can be safely hidden fast.
It was first built during the height of the Cold War as part of combined efforts from the governments of the Soviet Union and what was Czechoslovakia.
Its location is than two hours from both London and Moscow by private jet providing easy access for those in the world’s centre of power – even if they might not see eye to eye when they get there.
The bunker is also self-sufficient and is claimed that residents could survive there for as long as ten years.
…………… While residents stay in the shelter, they are constantly guarded by security who it is claimed have a constant link to the outside world through the Oppidum control centre.
The reality of life after nuclear fallout is that you’re going to be spending a lot of time underground starved of natural light, but the paranoid architects have even thought of this.
A state of the art subterranean garden is included in the bunker which is lit up by simulated natural light.
Biden keeping up the big spend on nuclear weapons
Biden steers away from big change to US nuclear weapons policy
Washington’s ‘posture review’ maintains deliberate ambiguity over when arms might be used, Ft.com Demetri Sevastopulo in Alice Springd\s 25 Mar 22,
President Joe Biden has decided against making a major change to US nuclear weapons policy following pressure from European and Asian allies not to undermine their security amid the nuclear threat from Russia and China.
After a months-long review that had sparked anxiety from France to Japan, Biden this week decided on a declaratory policy that the “fundamental purpose” of nuclear weapons was to deter, or respond to, a nuclear attack on the US or its allies, according to three people familiar with the decision.
US allies last year expressed concern following speculation that Biden might declare that the “sole purpose” of nuclear weapons was to prevent or respond to a nuclear attack. They said such a change — which Biden supported before becoming president — would weaken the extended deterrence that the US provides to allies around the world with its nuclear umbrella. Critics also argued the potential shift would embolden Russia.
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https://www.ft.com/content/4c72b45d-37ac-431f-838c-cf8704cad6c3
One senior US official said the allies’ views played a big role in influencing Biden. She said the president had strong views on nuclear risk reduction and might have been considering a larger change in declaratory policy but that he received a lot of input from allied capitals that resulted in the outcome, which was also influenced by the threat from Moscow and growing concerns about China’s expanding nuclear arsenal.
The outcome will be outlined in the administration’s “Nuclear Posture Review”, which is designed to determine what kind of nuclear weapons the US should have and provide guidance about scenarios for possible use.
The NPR will also say that the US would only use nuclear weapons in “extreme circumstances” — echoing language that was included in nuclear reviews conducted by both the Obama and Trump administrations. But the Trump administration arguably lowered the threshold for possible use by saying that “extreme circumstances” could include a non-nuclear attack.
…………………………………………………….US policy on the situations under which nuclear weapons would be used has been intentionally vague for decades to keep adversaries guessing. The US official said the NPR would contain a level of strategic ambiguity.
Arms control advocates wanted Biden to shift to a “no first use” policy or “sole purpose” formulation that they argued would reduce the risk of nuclear war. But critics countered that providing more clarity about when the US would use nuclear weapons would just embolden adversaries.
Jeffrey Lewis, a nuclear weapons expert at Middlebury Institute of International Studies, said Biden had largely kept existing nuclear posture intact. He said the Obama and Trump administrations had used language about the “fundamental role” of nuclear weapons in their posture reviews.
“If this is the biggest change in the Nuclear Posture Review, I want my tax money back,” Lewis said. “The phrase reflects a longstanding, bipartisan tradition of trying to have it both ways. US officials want to give the impression that our nuclear weapons are for deterrence while also holding open the option of using them first ……………………….
https://www.ft.com/content/4c72b45d-37ac-431f-838c-cf8704cad6c3
IAEA concerned that Russia is shelling Ukrainian checkpoints in the city of Slavutych, near Chernobyl
 IAEA concerened that Russia |
Ukraine informed the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) today that
Russian forces were shelling Ukrainian checkpoints in the city of Slavutych
where many people working at the nearby Chornobyl Nuclear Power Plant (NPP)
live, putting them at risk and preventing further rotation of personnel to
and from the site, Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi said.
Ukraine’s regulatory authority said the shelling was endangering “the homes and
families of those operational personnel that ensure the nuclear and
radiation safety” of the Chornobyl NPP, which is under the control of
Russian forces since 24 February.
Slavutych is located outside the
Exclusion Zone that was established around the NPP after the 1986 accident.
Director General Grossi expressed concern about this development, which
comes just a few days after technical staff at the Chornobyl NPP were
finally able to rotate and go to their homes in Slavutych and rest after
working for nearly four weeks without a change of shift, and he said the
IAEA would continue to closely monitor the situation. Staff now working at
the site also come from Slavutych.
IAEA 24th March 2022
With threats of nuclear war and climate disaster growing, America’s ‘bunker fantasy’ is woefully inadequate
With threats of nuclear war and climate disaster growing, America’s ‘bunker fantasy’ is woefully inadequate
The Conversation March 25, 2022 David L. Pike
Professor of Literature, American University At the end of the Academy Award-nominated film “Don’t Look Up,” with a meteor hurtling toward Earth, the movie’s three scientist-protagonists gather with family and friends for a last supper around a dinner table in central Michigan.
Having exhausted their efforts at action, they eat the food they’ve prepared and purchased, give thanks and pray before “dying neighborly” – to borrow a phrase coined by poet and writer Langston Hughes in 1965.
“Dying neighborly” was something of a common refrain in the small number of stories told by those writers and artists in the 1960s and 1980s who recognized the dangers of nuclear war but were unwilling or unable to accept the only measure recommended by the government: to buy or build your own shelter and pretend that you’d survive.
These stories didn’t get as much attention or acclaim as “Don’t Look Up.” But they continue to influence how the climate emergency or nuclear war is depicted in books and films today.
Shelter or die?
Faced with a Congress unwilling to fund large-scale sheltering measures, the Kennedy administration decided instead to encourage the private development of the individual shelter industry and to establish dedicated spaces within existing public structures.
Although in Europe and elsewhere, vast public shelters were built, the community bomb shelter was almost universally rejected in the U.S. as communistic. As a result, sheltering was available primarily to the military, government officials and those who could afford it. The practicality and the morality of private shelters were debated publicly. The morality or survivability of nuclear war itself seldom was………………………..
The opposite of dying neighborly was the mainstream debate over the right to shoot someone you didn’t want intruding into your private shelter.
| This debate was dramatized in a 1961 episode of “The Twilight Zone,” in which desperate neighbors storm the entrance to the basement shelter of the only suburban family with enough foresight to build one.Yet as musician Bob Dylan recalled of the mostly working-class region of Minnesota where he was raised, nobody was much interested in building shelters because, “It could turn neighbor against neighbor and friend against friend.”…………. Until culture finds effective ways of telling other stories than the one I call the “bunker fantasy,” it will be difficult to sustain effective action in response to the climate emergency or the persistent threat of nuclear war………………………..https://theconversation.com/with-threats-of-nuclear-war-and-climate-disaster-growing-americas-bunker-fantasy-is-woefully-inadequate-179625 |
Nagasaki survivor calls for joint resistance to nuclear threat amid Russian invasion
Nagasaki survivor calls for joint resistance to nuclear threat amid Russian invasion
March 25, 2022 (Mainichi Japan)
NAGASAKI — Under a blue sky in early March, about 400 people including atomic bombing survivors, or hibakusha, and high school students gathered in front of the Peace Statue at Nagasaki Peace Park holding signs bearing messages such as “Peace for Ukraine” and “No War.”
In the emergency rally on March 6 to protest Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, participants expressed their anger at Moscow for shunning peace and even hinting at the use of nuclear weapons. The rally was called by five organizations of A-bomb survivors in the city of Nagasaki, one of which is the Nagasaki Prefecture peace movement center’s hibakusha liaison council.
Koichi Kawano, 82, chairman of the council, asked with concern, “Can a superpower get away with doing whatever it wants? If the international community is powerless, we the people have no choice but to raise our voices.”
For more than 40 years, Kawano and other A-bomb survivors have been staging sit-ins in front of the Peace Statue in Nagasaki to call for peace and anti-nuclear actions on the ninth of every month — a tribute to Aug. 9, 1945, the day when the U.S. dropped the atomic bomb on the city. Around 100 people participate in each sit-in, but some 400 gathered for this emergency rally, largely because two anti-nuclear groups, which had taken separate paths due to policy differences, got together.
One of the groups is the Japan Congress against A- and H-Bombs (Gensuikin) which Kawano heads as co-chair. The other is the Japan Council against Atomic and Hydrogen Bombs (Gensuikyo). The former is affiliated with the now-defunct Japan Socialist Party (JSP) and the latter with the Japanese Communist Party (JCP).
…………… A-bomb survivors involved in anti-nuclear and peace movements have aged. Kawano himself is now in his 80s. Many hibakusha organizations nationwide have begun to dissolve and their membership continues to decline, and there is concern that the movement will taper off. Senji Yamaguchi, Sumiteru Taniguchi, Sunao Tsuboi, and other longtime leaders of the movement have all passed away…………………….. (Japanese original by Yuki Imano, Kyushu News Department) https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20220325/p2a/00m/0na/040000c
Residents react after huge military convoy spotted travelling through Preston, UK
| Residents react after huge military convoy spotted travelling through Preston. An unmarked military convoy was spotted passing through Preston, sparking lots of speculation about what it was for. Residents reported seeing the convoy travelling along Eastway in Fulwood at around 4.25pm on Wednesday (March 23). Footage of the convoy showed the fleet of dark green military vehicles was escorted by police and fire crews. Lancashire Post 24th March 2022 https://www.lep.co.uk/news/transport/residents-react-after-huge-military-convoy-spotted-travelling-through-preston-3625257 |
Official cover-up by 7 governments of the cancer deaths of nuclear test veterans
| Shame of 7 governments as cover-up of deaths of UK nuclear test veterans exposed. The Mirror has uncovered proof that seven governments knew Britain’s nuclear test servicemen were more likely to get cancer and die early, but did not publish the information. Evidence has emerged of an official cover-up of the true scale of death and illness among Britain’s nuclear test veterans. The Mirror has uncovered proof that SEVEN governments knew servicemen were more likely to have been exposed to radiation, get cancer, and kill themselves, for 34 years – and never published it. Daily Mirror 22nd March 2022https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/shame-7-governments-cover-up-26532426 |
Kremlin says Russia could use nuclear weapons, if its existence were threatened.
Russia could use nuclear weapons if existence threatened: Kremlin
Kremlin spokesperson says Russia has a ‘concept of domestic security’ that outlines when nuclear weapons can be used. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has said in an interview that Russia would only use nuclear weapons if its very existence were threatened.
Peskov’s comment came as CNN interviewer Christiane Amanpour pushed him on whether he was “convinced or confident” that President Vladimir Putin would not use the nuclear option in the Ukrainian context………. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/3/22/russia-only-to-use-nuclear-weapons-if-existence-threatened
USA’s production for plutonium ”pits”will fall short of the goal.
NNSA Pick To Review Plutonium Pit Plan As Goal Appears Out Of Reach, March 22, 2022 The Biden administration’s pick to lead the National Nuclear Security Administration’s (NNSA) military programs told lawmakers he would review the plan to increase production of plutonium pits at two NNSA locations, as it becomes increasingly evident the administration will likely fall short of the… (Subscribers only) https://aviationweek.com/defense-space/budget-policy-operations/nnsa-pick-review-plutonium-pit-plan-goal-appears-out-reach
Catholic bishops assert their opposition to nuclear weapons
Catholic bishops assert their opposition to nuclear weapons, THE organisation Justice & Peace Scotland have reaffirmed their opposition to nuclear weapons and have marked the 40th anniversary of the Scottish Bishops 1982 landmark statement entitled Peace and Disarmament.
A video, recorded in conjunction with Sancta Familia Media, features clergy, young people and laity reaffirming their opposition to nuclear weapons, and the reasons for their stance.
The video features Archbishop William Nolan (Glasgow), Archbishop Leo Cushley (Edinburgh), Bishop John Keenan (Diocese of Paisley), Bishop Brian McGee (Diocese of Argyll and the Isles) as well as young people from every Catholic diocese in Scotland…………. https://www.irishpost.com/news/catholic-bishops-assert-their-opposition-to-nuclear-weapons-231766
A “no-fly zone” does not becalm the skies
Would put nuclear plants at even greater risk
A “no-fly zone” does not becalm the skies — Beyond Nuclear International 20 Mar 22 , Humanitarian crisis would be worsened if nuclear plants hit
Introduction: There are many views about what the next steps should be to address the ever greater humanitarian tragedy in Ukraine, but virtual unanimity in favor of an immediate end to the war. Ukrainian President, Volodymyr Zelensky, has made frequent pleas for a “no-fly zone.” But what would this mean?
On Saturday, a State Department spokesperson told Reuters that U.S. military support helps put Ukraine “in the strongest possible negotiating position.” But at what cost? ……………
For a ceasefire agreement to be reached, it will be necessary to secure Russian strategic interests. This means confirmation that Ukraine will never be a part of NATO and will be a neutral country. It also means clear pathways — carrots as opposed to only sticks — for sanctions to be lifted. There is no time to waste.
On March 17, US Representative Ilhan Omar said, “As we support Ukraine in their fight against Russia’s brutal invasion, we must avoid the knee-jerk calls that risk nuclear war. A no-fly zone is not simply declared, it must be militarily enforced. It would mean the beginning of World War III. We must reject this completely.” As Code Pink lays out below, a no-fly zone would likely escalate the war exponentially, with the US and NATO involved directly in aerial combat with Russia. That could rain down damage on nuclear power plants indiscriminately. None of the four nuclear power plants sites in Ukraine was built to withstand protracted bombardment.
While the Code Pink article does not address the specific risks to nuclear power plants should a “no-fly zone” be declared (unlikely at this time), it lays out both a preview of such an escalation and a plea for peace, alongside a perhaps uncomfortable short history lesson about the contribution of the US and NATO to the current crisis. While the solutions offered by Code Pink are their own, neither Code Pink nor Beyond Nuclear exonerates in any way the atrocities currently being committed against civilians in a country under invasion. But the precarious situation, poised for a potential escalation — rather than cessation — of war, points up once again the extreme liabilities of nuclear power plants, whose dangers are unequalled by any other power source.
By Medea Benjamin and Code Pink
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky just addressed both chambers of Congress. He asked for a no-fly zone — a situation in which U.S. fighter jets would shoot down Russian planes — and for MiG-29 fighter jets to be transferred from Poland to Ukraine (the U.S. has so far declined to be a part of such a transfer as it would be received by Russia as U.S. combat entry into the war).
Following Zelensky’s address, President Biden approved $800 million in new aid for Ukraine, bringing the total U.S. assistance to Ukraine to $1 billion in just this past week, and will include Javelin anti-tank and Stinger anti-aircraft missiles.
Standing ovations, such as the one Zelensky just got from Congress, are great, but what Ukraine really needs is vigorous negotiations to reach a ceasefire deal. To this end, we are calling on the U.S. to enter the negotiations by outlining the agreements and compromises the U.S. should support. Add your name.
By breaking promises not to expand NATO into Eastern Europe, by placing offensive missiles in Romania and Poland that could reach Russia in minutes, by arming Ukrainian forces, by continuing to “modernize” the U.S. nuclear arsenal, and by withdrawing from key nonproliferation treaties, the U.S. exacerbated the conflict that led up to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Russia must withdraw its troops and commit to respecting the sovereignty of Ukraine, but the United States must also be clear that it supports and is ready to commit to the following:
- Continued rejection of a no-fly zone over Ukraine;
- No NATO expansion;
- Recognition of Ukraine as a neutral country;
- An off-ramp for sanctions on Russia to be lifted;
- Support for an international security agreement to protect the interests of all people on the European continent to remain free from war and occupation;
- Support for Ukrainian demilitarization to the degree that missiles would be banned;
- Supply humanitarian aid to Ukraine and support Ukrainian refugees.
Beyond increased prices at gas stations, the war in Ukraine is resulting in a silencing of critical anti-war voices inside America. While mainstream U.S. media is providing only a narrow narrative on the war, social media platforms are increasing their censorship.
Along with asking the U.S. to join the war — a move that could mean a nuclear WWIII — Zelensky has been asking the U.S. to be more involved in the Ukraine-Russia negotiations.
On Saturday, a State Department spokesperson told Reuters that U.S. military support helps put Ukraine “in the strongest possible negotiating position.” But at what cost? ……………
For a ceasefire agreement to be reached, it will be necessary to secure Russian strategic interests. This means confirmation that Ukraine will never be a part of NATO and will be a neutral country. It also means clear pathways — carrots as opposed to only sticks — for sanctions to be lifted. There is no time to waste. https://wordpress.com/read/feeds/72759838/posts/3899932178
‘Let them kill as many as possible’ The Roots of US Militarism in Russia and Around the World
“This time, is the primary goal of the paramilitary program to help Ukrainians liberate their country or to weaken Russia over the course of a long insurgency that will undoubtedly cost as many Ukrainian lives as Russian lives, if not more?”
What the people of Ukraine are suffering from Russian aggression is suffered daily by millions around the world from U.S. aggression.
Common Dreams, BRIAN TERRELL, March 4, 2022 In April 1941, four years before he was to become President and eight months before the United States entered World War II, Senator Harry Truman of Missouri reacted to the news that Germany had invaded the Soviet Union: “If we see that Germany is winning the war, we ought to help Russia; and if that Russia is winning, we ought to help Germany, and in that way let them kill as many as possible.” Truman was not called out as a cynic when he spoke these words from the floor of the Senate. On the contrary, when he died in 1972, Truman’s obituary in The New York Times cited this statement as establishing his “reputation for decisiveness and courage.”
“This basic attitude,” gushed The Times, “prepared him to adopt from the start of his Presidency, a firm policy,” an attitude that prepared him to order the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki with “no qualms.” Truman’s same basic “let them kill as many as possible” attitude also informed the postwar doctrine that bears his name, along with the establishment of NATO, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the CIA, the Central Intelligence Agency, both of which he is credited with founding.
A February 25 op-ed in The Los Angeles Times by Jeff Rogg, “The CIA has backed Ukrainian insurgents before- Let’s learn from those mistakes,” cites a CIA program to train Ukrainian nationalists as insurgents to fight the Russians that began in 2015 and compares it with a similar effort by Truman’s CIA in Ukraine that began in 1949. By 1950, one year in, “U.S. officers involved in the program knew they were fighting a losing battle…In the first U.S.-backed insurgency, according to top secret documents later declassified, American officials intended to use the Ukrainians as a proxy force to bleed the Soviet Union.” This op-ed cites John Ranelagh, a historian of the CIA, who argued that the program “demonstrated a cold ruthlessness” because the Ukrainian resistance had no hope of success, and so “America was in effect encouraging Ukrainians to go to their deaths.
The “Truman Doctrine” of arming and training insurgents as proxy forces to bleed Russia to the peril of the local populations that it was purporting to defend was used effectively in Afghanistan in the 1970s and ’80s, a program so effective, some of its authors have boasted, that it helped bring down the Soviet Union a decade later. In a 1998 interview, President Jimmy Carter’s National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski explained, “According to the official version of history, CIA aid to the Mujaheddin began during 1980, that is to say, after the Soviet army invaded Afghanistan on December 24, 1979. But the reality, closely guarded until now, is completely otherwise: Indeed, it was July 3, 1979 that President Carter signed the first directive for secret aid to the opponents of the pro-Soviet regime in Kabul. And that very day, I wrote a note to the president in which I explained to him that in my opinion this aid was going to induce a Soviet military intervention… We didn’t push the Russians to intervene, but we knowingly increased the probability that they would.”
“The day that the Soviets officially crossed the border,” Brzezinski recalled, “I wrote to President Carter, essentially: ‘We now have the opportunity of giving to the USSR its Vietnam war.’ Indeed, for almost 10 years, Moscow had to carry on a war that was unsustainable for the regime, a conflict that brought about the demoralization and finally the breakup of the Soviet empire.”
…………………….. In his LA Times op-ed, Rogg calls the 1949 CIA program in Ukraine a “mistake” and asks the question, “This time, is the primary goal of the paramilitary program to help Ukrainians liberate their country or to weaken Russia over the course of a long insurgency that will undoubtedly cost as many Ukrainian lives as Russian lives, if not more?” Viewed in light of United States foreign policy from Truman to Biden, the early cold war debacle in Ukraine might better be described as a crime than a mistake and Rogg’s question seems rhetorical.
………………… Globally, through its armed forces but even more through the CIA and the so-called National Endowment for Democracy, through NATO muscle masquerading as mutual “defense,” in Europe as in Asia, as in Africa, as in the Middle East, as in Latin America, the United States exploits and dishonors the very real aspirations of good people for peace and self-determination. At the same time, it feeds the swamp where violent extremisms like the Taliban in Afghanistan, ISIS in Syria and Iraq and neo-Nazi nationalism in Ukraine can only fester and flourish and spread. …………………………………………… https://www.commondreams.org/views/2022/03/04/let-them-kill-many-possible-roots-us-militarism-russia-and-around-world
5 USA States selected for target areas for the enemy, in a nuclear war
Despite the criticism, the U.S. appears to be committed to the idea of a nuclear sponge in those five states. The Pentagon plans to spend $264 billion on its next-generation ICBM program, which would upgrade the silos and missiles, and ensure the absorbency of the sponges.
These 5 states were designed to act as America’s ‘nuclear sponge’ https://www.fastcompany.com/90732588/5-states-nuclear-sponge-missile-silos
Since the Cold War, the U.S. has strategically kept missile silos in sparsely populated areas of the country.
BY CHRIS MORRIS, 19 Mar 22,
The ongoing saber-rattling by Vladimir Putin has raised concerns about a nuclear conflict to a level not seen since the 1980s. Nuclear strategists have tried to calm nerves, insisting that the odds of the situation escalating to one that would lead to such a disastrous scenario are remote. Still, António Guterres, secretary-general of the United Nations, acknowledged this week that “the prospect of nuclear war is now back within the realm of possibility.”
Those stark statements have caused some Americans to wonder if they’re in a high-target area. While the overall risk of nuclear war is low, and there’s no telling where Putin will strike in the unlikely scenario that he decides to attack the U.S., people in a handful of states are likely feeling a bit more uncomfortable than folks in other parts of the country.
During the Cold War between the U.S. and the former Soviet Union, government officials began to install intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) silos in the middle of the country, specifically in sparsely populated areas of northern Colorado, Wyoming, Nebraska, Montana, and North Dakota. These were designed to be the first targets in the event of an attack—a “nuclear sponge” that would draw fire away from more urban areas.
(Minuteman missile fields were also once located in South Dakota and Missouri but have since been deactivated. Those in the other states remain active.)
A term like nuclear sponge isn’t reassuring, but the thinking goes like this, as specified by retired General Jim Mattis in his 2017 confirmation hearings for secretary of defense: Because the missiles are buried so deeply in the ground in those areas, enemies would need to commit two, three, or four weapons to take each one out, thus “absorbing” much of the enemy’s arsenal.
Because the silos are located in sparsely populated areas of the Plains, proponents argue that fewer lives are put at direct risk. But the logic of designating an area as a prime attack zone in a nuclear conflict is puzzling to many—and the concept of a nuclear sponge is one that has drawn criticism for decades. In 1978, Dominic Paolucci, a retired Navy captain who served on the Strat-X team that assessed U.S. strategic options in the 1960s, railed against the strategy saying, “It is madness to use United States real estate as ‘a great sponge to absorb’ Soviet nuclear weapons. The objective of our military forces and strategy should be to reduce the weight of any potential attack on U.S. real estate rather than attracting even more.”
There are plenty of other arguments to be made today. Nukes, of course, no longer have to be delivered via ICBMs and can be launched from submarines and bombers. And Russia’s arsenal reportedly has more than 1,500 warheads deployed on strategic long-range systems and almost 3,000 in reserve. That’s more than enough to strike larger cities in addition to saturating the sponge.
Despite the criticism, the U.S. appears to be committed to the idea of a nuclear sponge in those five states. The Pentagon plans to spend $264 billion on its next-generation ICBM program, which would upgrade the silos and missiles, and ensure the absorbency of the sponge for decades to come.
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PLEASE OPPOSE HR 8255 AND S.3639 – bills would accelerate satellite deployment, with no environmental review or safeguards – https://ncstd5li.quorum.us/campaign/169331/
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