Pentagon’s “small” giant military footprint in Africa
The Pentagon’s War on Accountability: Slush Funds, Smoke and Mirrors, and Funny Money Equal Weapons Systems Galore By William D. Hartung, Tom Dispatch, Reader Supported News, 24 May 16 Colonel Mark Cheadle, a spokesman for U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM), recently made a startling disclosure to Voice of America (VOA). AFRICOM, he said, is currently mulling over 11 possible locations for its second base on the continent. If, however, there was a frontrunner among them Cheadle wasn’t about to disclose it. All he would say was that Nigeria isn’t one of the countries in contention.
Writing for VOA, Carla Babb filled in the rest of the picture in terms of U.S. military activities in Africa. “The United States currently has one military base in the east African nation of Djibouti,” she observed. “U.S. forces are also on the ground in Somalia to assist the regional fight against al-Shabab and in Cameroon to help with the multinational effort against Nigeria-based Boko Haram.”
A day later, Babb’s story disappeared. Instead, there was a new article in which she noted that “Cheadle had initially said the U.S. was looking at 11 locations for a second base, but later told VOA he misunderstood the question.” Babb reiterated that the U.S. had only the lone military base in Djibouti and stated that “[o]ne of the possible new cooperative security locations is in Cameroon, but Cheadle did not identify other locations due to ‘host nation sensitivities.’”
U.S. troops have, indeed, been based at Camp Lemonnier in Djibouti since 2002. In that time, the base has grown from 88 acres to about 600 acres and has seen more than $600 million in construction and upgrades already awarded or allocated. It’s also true that U.S. troops, as Babb notes, are operating in Somalia — from at least two bases — and the U.S. has indeed set up a base in Cameroon. As such, the “second” U.S. base in Africa, wherever it’s eventually located, will actually be more like the fifth U.S. base on the continent. That is, of course, if you don’t count Chabelley Airfield, a hush-hush drone base the U.S. operates elsewhere in Djibouti, or the U.S. staging areas, cooperative security locations, forward operating locations, and other outposts in Burkina Faso, Central African Republic, Chad,Ethiopia, Gabon, Ghana, Kenya, Mali, Niger, Senegal, the Seychelles, Somalia, South Sudan, and Uganda, among other locales. When I counted late last year, in fact, I came up with 60 such sites in 34 countries. And just recently, Missy Ryan of the Washington Post added to that number when she disclosed that “American Special Operations troops have been stationed at two outposts in eastern and western Libya since late 2015.”
To be fair, the U.S. doesn’t call any of these bases “bases” — except when officials forget to keep up the fiction. For example, the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2016 included a $50 million request for the construction of an “airfield and base camp at Agadez, Niger.” But give Cheadle credit for pushing a fiction that persists despite ample evidence to the contrary.
It isn’t hard, of course, to understand why U.S. Africa Command has set up a sprawling network of off-the-books bases or why it peddles misinformation about its gigantic “small” footprint in Africa. It’s undoubtedly for the same reason that they stonewall me on even basic information about their operations. The Department of Defense, from tooth to tail, likes to operate in the dark.
Today, TomDispatch regular Bill Hartung reveals another kind of Pentagon effort to obscure and obfuscate involving another kind of highly creative accounting: think slush funds, secret programs, dodgy bookkeeping, and the type of financial malfeasance that could only be carried out by an institution that is, by its very nature, too big to fail (inside the Beltway if not on the battlefield).
Rejecting both accurate accounting and actual accountability — from the halls of the Pentagon to austere camps in Africa — the Defense Department has demonstrated a longstanding commitment to keeping Americans in the dark about the activities being carried out with their dollars and in their name. Luckily, Hartung is willing to shine a bright light on the Pentagon’s shady practices……..-Nick Turse, TomDispatch http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/37052-the-pentagons-war-on-accountability-slush-funds-smoke-and-mirrors-and-funny-money-equal-weapons-systems-galore
USA’s Nuclear Weapons System Technology is Outdated
Report: U.S. Nuclear System Relies On Outdated Technology Such As Floppy Disks NPR, May 26, 2016 MERRIT KENNEDY The U.S. nuclear weapons system still runs on a 1970s-era computing system that uses 8-inch floppy disks, according to a newly released report from the Government Accountability Office.
That’s right. It relies on memory storage that hasn’t been commonly used since the 1980s and a computing system that looks like this: [photo] Beyond the nuclear program, much of the technology used by the federal government is woefully outmoded, the report says. About 75 percent of the government’s information technology budget goes toward operations and maintenance, rather than development, modernization and enhancement.
“Clearly, there are billions wasted,” GAO information technology expert David Powner said at a congressional hearing Wednesday, The Associated Press reports.
The GAO report found that the Pentagon’s Strategic Automated Command and Control System — which “coordinates the operational functions of the United States’ nuclear forces, such as intercontinental ballistic missiles, nuclear bombers, and tanker support aircrafts” — runs on an IBM Series/1 Computer, first introduced in 1976.
The system’s primary function is to “send and receive emergency action messages to nuclear forces,” the report adds, but “replacement parts for the system are difficult to find because they are now obsolete.”
Pentagon spokeswoman Lt. Col. Valerie Henderson told The Two-Way via email:
“This system remains in use because, in short, it still works.
“However, to address obsolescence concerns, the floppy drives are scheduled to be replaced with Secure Digital devices by the end of 2017. Modernization across the entire Nuclear Command, Control, and Communications (NC3) enterprise remains ongoing.”
The report also found that the Treasury Department uses 1950s-era assembly language code (which it says is “a low-level computer code that is difficult to write and maintain”) on the individual master file (“the authoritative data source for individual taxpayers where accounts are updated, taxes are assessed, and refunds are generated.”) The report adds that the department has no firm plans to modernize the system……..http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/05/26/479588478/report-u-s-nuclear-system-relies-on-outdated-technology-such-as-floppy-disks
Outcome of United Nations open-ended working group on nuclear disarmament
U.N. nuclear disarmament talks , Japan Times, MAY 22, 2016 The United Nations open-ended working group on nuclear disarmament held its second session this month in Geneva, following its first gathering in February. What emerged from the latest meeting is a schism between countries seeking to create a treaty prohibiting nuclear weapons and those nations opposed to the idea, including nuclear weapons powers and those states relying on the protection of a nuclear umbrella.
While the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty recognizes five countries — the United States, Russia, Britain, France and China — as nuclear weapons states, it requires all parties to the treaty to pursue negotiations to achieve nuclear disarmament. Given the potential dangers posed by the accidental use of nuclear arms and nuclear terrorism, all states should support the effort to ban nuclear weapons.
The undercurrent of discussions in the working group’s meetings is the humanitarian impact of nuclear weapons. The consequences of a nuclear explosion would spread beyond national borders and have regional and global effects. It would indiscriminately kill or injure numerous civilians. Radioactive contamination would devastate the environment for generations, causing cancer and other deadly diseases. No nations would have the capability to adequately respond to the human suffering caused by nuclear weapons.
This aspect of nuclear weapons has raised concerns among many non-nuclear weapons states and civil society groups and led to the holding of three international conferences — in Norway in 2013 and Mexico and Austria in 2014 — to discuss the humanitarian consequences of nuclear arms. The discussions at these conferences served as the basis for the talks in the latest meeting in Geneva.
The Humanitarian Pledge, issued at the 2014 Vienna conference and endorsed by 127 states, calls for filling the “legal gap” in which nuclear arms are the only weapons of mass destruction that have not been explicitly banned by a treaty. The failure of the 2015 NPT review conference to adopt a final document also increased the concerns of non-nuclear weapons states over the lack of progress being made toward achieving nuclear disarmament. This situation has given birth to a movement to legally ban nuclear weapons on grounds of the humanitarian consequences of their use.
What is disappointing is that none of the five nuclear weapons states under the NPT and none of the four other nations that possess nuclear arms — India, Pakistan, Israel and North Korea — took part in the working group. The five nuclear weapons states maintain the position that nuclear arms play a role in the sphere of security and that parties calling for a ban on these weapons ignore that role’s significance.
Those states’ seeming indifference to the humanitarian consequences of nuclear weapons has prompted the formation of a majority opinion that discussions should be initiated on a legal framework to prohibit nuclear arms even if the nuclear weapons powers refuse to join the talks. At the Geneva meeting, 10 countries — Brazil, Mexico, Argentina, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Guatemala, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and Zambia — proposed that a conference be convened in 2017 to negotiate a legally binding instrument and that progress on the negotiations be reported to the U.N. high-level international conference on nuclear disarmament.
The nuclear weapons states need to realize that frustration and dissatisfaction are building over their unwillingness to abandon nuclear deterrence and start a process of disarmament as mandated by the NPT…….http://www.japantimes.co.jp/opinion/2016/05/22/editorials/u-n-nuclear-disarmament-talks/#.V0IhNDV97Gg
USA NOT receptive to Russia’s proposal for joint strikes on Syrian rebels
Russia urges joint strikes on Syria rebels but U.S. reacts coolly, Reuters, 20 May 16 Russia has proposed to the U.S.-led coalition that they stage joint air strikes on Syrian rebels, including militant Islamist group Nusra Front, who are not observing a ceasefire, but the United States responded coolly on Friday.
Such action would begin as of May 25 and be coordinated with the Syrian government, Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu told a Defence Ministry meeting broadcast on state television, adding Moscow reserved the right to stage strikes unilaterally.
He said joint air strikes should also target convoys carrying weapons and ammunition crossing into Syria from Turkey.
“We believe the adoption of these measures will allow a transition to a peaceful process to be achieved in the entire territory of Syria,” he said. “Of course, these measures have been coordinated with the leadership of the Syrian Arab Republic.”……
Washington has consistently refused to join forces with Russia in Syria ever since Moscow launched its campaign of air strikes in September last year, accusing it of acting solely to prop up Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
The United States has called on Assad to step down.
Communication between the U.S. and Russian militaries on Syria has been limited to contacts aimed at avoiding an accidental clash as they carry out rival bombing campaigns and small numbers of U.S. forces operate on the ground.
Western officials suggested that the proposal, which the Pentagon said had not been formally presented to the U.S. Defense Department, was an attempt by President Vladimir Putin to raise Russia’s profile on the international stage.
“There is no agreement to conduct joint air strikes with the Russians in Syria,” said U.S. State Department spokesman John Kirby. He added that the United States believed that Assad’s government was responsible for most of the violations of the fitful ceasefire that began on Feb. 27.
“We look to Russia to end such (government) violations, which includes strikes that have hit civilians and civilian facilities,” he said.
While Russia supports the Assad government, the United States and its allies support rebels trying to overthrow him in a civil war that has burned for more than five years and killed at least 250,000 people.
However, both sides oppose the al Qaeda-linked Nusra Front, which was not included in a ceasefire deal which has failed to prevent widespread violence. A U.S. military strike killed Nusra Front’s leader, Abu Firas al-Suri, in April.
White House spokesman Eric Schultz said the U.S. aim remains for Russia to persuade Assad to abide by the cessation of hostilities in Syria, saying it was not the first time Russia had made such a proposal…….http://www.reuters.com/article/us-mideast-crisis-russia-usa-syria-idUSKCN0YB1HB
One of the world’s oldest nuclear plants helped build the Jewish state’s secret nuclear arsenal
A textile factory with a differenceOne of the world’s oldest nuclear plants helped build the Jewish state’s secret nuclear arsenal
WITH its cupola dully glinting in the sun across kilometres of an exclusion zone in the Negev Desert, the nuclear reactor near the Israeli town of Dimona has for decades been the subject of intense speculation. Its bland official name, the Centre for Nuclear Research, belies a martial purpose. Foreign intelligence services, atomic scientists and a former Israeli employee claim that it is the source of fissile material used to make Israel’s nuclear weapons.
The country’s atomic secrets have always been closely guarded, so little is known about the plant at Dimona. However, officials at the Israel Atomic Energy Commission (IAEC) admitted at a scientific conference last month that the reactor is showing its age. An ultrasound inspection of the aluminium core found 1,537 small defects and cracks, they said. The lifetime of such a reactor is usually around 40 years. At 53, Dimona is one of the world’s oldest operating nuclear plants.
The reactor, which was supplied by France, was switched on 15 years after the establishment of the state of Israel. The embattled country’s first prime minister, David Ben-Gurion, insisted that Israel needed a nuclear deterrent. The programme was spearheaded by his assistant, Shimon Peres, and the main components were first activated in 1963. The government claimed that Dimona was a “textile plant”.
Many of the ancillary systems in the reactor have been renewed or replaced, but the core itself cannot be swapped out. The flaws that have been detected are closely monitored and there is no serious suggestion that the reactor is unsafe. Yet in most other countries it would have been deactivated long ago. Safety concerns will only increase with time.
Israel has never used its reactors for generating electricity. Along with the United States, France, Russia and China, it is one of the few countries believed to have acquired the nuclear “triad”. It can deliver nuclear weapons as bombs dropped from an aircraft, as warheads on a land-launched missile (since the 1970s) and on missiles fired from submarines.
The third leg of the triad is thought to have been added in 1999, when Israel received the first of six planned submarines. These were built and largely paid for by Germany. If, as reported, they can launch nuclear-tipped cruise missiles, this would give Israel a “second-strike” capability, allowing it to retaliate even if an enemy were to destroy its air bases and missile silos in a nuclear “first strike”. In January Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said: “Our submarine fleet will act as a deterrent to our enemies who want to destroy us.”
Dimona’s defenders say it has both symbolic value (as a reminder that Israel will defend itself fiercely) and practical uses, too. It is a source of materials needed to maintain nuclear warheads, such as tritium (which decays, but could theoretically be produced or procured by other means). It is also the centre of a “secret kingdom” of scientists whose capabilities the government is loath to give up.
For nearly six decades, Israel’s policy of “nuclear opacity” has served it well. Its Arab neighbours are convinced it is a nuclear power, but Israel clings to the ambiguous formulation that it “will not be the first to introduce nuclear weapons to the region”, neither acknowledging nor denying its capabilities. With powerful neighbours still openly advocating its destruction, the Jewish state will keep its doomsday weapons. But its ageing reactor? Perhaps not.
Undersea nuclear deterrence in the Indian Ocean is here to stay
The Indian Ocean Won’t Be a ‘Nuclear Free Zone’ Anytime Soon Undersea nuclear deterrence in the Indian Ocean is here to stay., The Diplomat, By Ankit Panda May 20, 2016 Sartaj Aziz, adviser to Pakistan’s prime minister on foreign affairs, presented an interesting proposal to the Pakistani Senate on Thursday. He said that he would consider having Pakistan introduce a resolution at the United Nations that would urge the body to declare the Indian Ocean a “nuclear free zone.” Leaving aside the fact that the United Nations isn’t in the business of declaring nuclear weapon free zones, Aziz’s comments reflect increasing anxieties in Pakistan about India’s burgeoning sea-based nuclear deterrent.
With the first of Arihant-class of domestically designed ballistic missile submarines rolling out and testing underway of Delhi’s K-4 submarine-launched ballistic missiles ongoing, Delhi is coming closer to operationalizing its sea-based deterrent. (The K-4 has been test launched from the Arihant‘s on-board silos, as I discussed last month.)
Aziz is well aware of these developments. ”Apart from this air defence system, India has also recently conducted tests of nuclear capable, submarine based K4 ballistic missiles. Simultaneously large nuclear powered submarines are being built to carry these nuclear armed missile as a part of its second strike nuclear capability,” he told the Senate, according to a report in Dawn.
Unfortunately, for Pakistan, the United Nations won’t be able to solve this problem anytime soon. Moreover, India won’t be the only country looking to operate nuclear-armed ballistic missile submarines (SSBNs) in the waters of the Indian Ocean. China started operating Song– and Shang-class submarines in the Indian Ocean in 2014, according to the U.S. Department of Defense. Ostensibly, Beijing’s upcoming first overseas military facility—in Djibouti—will play a role in support submarine logistics.
According to the U.S. Defense Department’s most recent report on China’s military, four Chinese Jin-class SSBNs—China’s first sea-based deterrent as well—are operational. These submarines currently operate out off the People’s Liberation Army-Navy’s submarine base at Hainan Island, in the South China Sea, but Beijing may look to have its SSBNs patrolling the Indian Ocean soon enough……
Unsurprisingly, amid increased Chinese sub-surface activity in the Indian Ocean, we’ve seen the United States and India deepen their anti-submarine warfare cooperation. Moreover, Delhi has started extending its maritime patrol and surveillance capabilities further southward; it sent a P-8I Neptune aircraft to the Seychelles earlier this year.
With India’s Arihant-class on the verge of commissioning and Chinese SSBNs possibly on the way to supplement the PLAN’s existing hunter-killer and nuclear attack submarines, the Indian Ocean won’t become a “nuclear free zone” anytime soon. Islamabad could look to build up its own undersea nuclear capabilities, but, as I’ve discussed before, that’ll be limited by a range of factors. http://thediplomat.com/2016/05/the-indian-ocean-wont-be-a-nuclear-free-zone-anytime-soon/
Obama shuns Open Ended Working Group on Taking Forward Multilateral Nuclear Disarmament Negotiations.
Obama goes to Hiroshima, but stiffs nuclear talks in Geneva The upcoming visit may be a first, but if Obama is serious about disarmament, he will not shut the door on discussions with non-nuclear weapon states, Open Canada.org BY: PAUL MEYER MAY 17, 2016 After some extended internal debate, the White House has announced that U.S. President Barack Obama will visit Hiroshima on May 27 after a G7 summit meeting in Japan, making him the first sitting American president to pay such a visit to the city synonymous with atomic devastation.
Although his Secretary of State John Kerry had paid such a visit in April and several U.S. ambassadors had previously attended commemorative ceremonies in Hiroshima, the political significance of a presidential visit would be of an entirely different order of magnitude. Hence the concern of his advisors as to how such a visit would play in the American political scene and their haste to proclaim that Obama will not offer any ‘apology’ for the actions of his predecessor some 70 years ago……
Far from advancing his nuclear disarmament-related goals — including the ratification of the Comprehensive (Nuclear) Test Ban Treaty, initiation of a fissile material production ban, further reduction of strategic nuclear forces, and diminishing the saliency of nuclear weapons in national strategy — Obama has committed to an unprecedented modernization of these nuclear forces that is estimated to cost more than USD$350 billion over the next decade.
He has also endorsed the perverse Cold War practice of maintaining nuclear-tipped inter-continental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) on high alert status with all the attendant risks that such a posture represents. His singular accomplishment in hosting the first and last of a series of four Nuclear Security Summits was an underwhelming lowest common denominator process that excluded from discussion the very subjects that he had raised in the Prague speech as requiring attention that would “transcend Cold War thinking.”
With all this evidence of a yawning gap between aims and achievements on the nuclear agenda, one would think that the Obama administration would be eager to find opportunities to enhance relations with non-nuclear weapon states and repair its image as an active supporter of nuclear disarmament. An opportunity to do so is currently present in Geneva in the form of the Open Ended Working Group on Taking Forward Multilateral Nuclear Disarmament Negotiations.
This group was constituted last fall by a widely supported resolution of the UN General Assembly and has just completed two weeks of deliberations after an earlier week of discussions in February. After a few more days of meetings in August the group is slated to submit a report to the 71th session of the General Assembly this fall.
As its title suggests, the objective of the group is to try and identify effective measures to make progress on nuclear disarmament issues that have been neglected for years in multilateral forums. Instead of engaging with the non-nuclear weapon states, the U.S. and the other nuclear-armed states have chosen to boycott these meetings. Given that the Open Ended Working Group was a duly constituted multilateral body operating under UN General Assembly auspices, this rejection to participate is insulting to the others attending (which include Canada, Japan and the rest of the U.S.’s allies) and to the principles of multilateral cooperation in general. Given the support freely offered by the non-nuclear weapon states to so many of the international security initiatives championed by the U.S., it is grating to see the cavalier fashion in which the U.S. and its nuclear weapon posse is stiffing the Geneva process. One can imagine the consternation in Washington if Prime Minister Justin Trudeau or the other invited leaders of the non-nuclear weapon states had said they would not attend Obama’s Nuclear Security Summit this March until such time as the U.S. agreed to participate in the Geneva proceedings.
Perhaps it is time for non-nuclear weapon states to become more insistent that their priority agenda gets some respect from the members of the nuclear weapons club…….https://www.opencanada.org/features/obama-goes-hiroshima-stiffs-nuclear-talks-geneva/
Adolf Hitler’s secret NUCLEAR BOMBS found – claims engineer
Peter Lohr, 70, says he’s found five metallic objects in Nazi tunnels
Using radar and 3D he claims he can prove two are atom bombsBy SARA MALM FOR MAILONLINE, 18 May 2016 A pensioner claims he has found Adolf Hitler’s secret atom bombs inside tunnels dug by the Nazis underneath a mountain valley in central Germany.
Peter Lohr, 70, claims to have found five large metal objects in a cave in the Jonas Valley in Thuringia state, of which at least two are ‘atomic bombs’.
Mr Lohr is certain that the objects are weapons of mass destruction manufactured by the Nazis towards the end of the Second World War.
‘The metal’s been lying there for 71 years. At some point it will decay and then we will have a second Chernobyl on our hands’ he said.
The centre of the Jonas Valley was a scene of secret military construction towards the end of the Second World War, with thousands of concentration camp prisoners forced to dig tunnels under the mountains.
It is not known what purpose the tunnels were meant to have as it was never completed.
The tunnel system stretches for miles underneath the mountain, with thousands of caves, bunkers and storerooms, and it is believed that it was intended to be the Alamo of the Third Reich leadership.
The Jonas Valley was liberated by American troops in April 1945, and US authorities have since classified all 1945 documents relating to Ohrdruf for a minimum of 100 years.
This is not the first time rumours of a Nazi nuclear bomb has surfaced.
Last year, a documentary called The Search for Hitler’s Atom Bomb,’ quotes sealed records from Russia and America said to prove the Nazis were close to creating a weapon of mass destruction.
The programme quoted interrogation reports of Nazi scientists, eyewitness account and the records left behind by researchers, many of which were shipped to America after the war.
Genetic damage in children of nuclear test veterans: an investigation begins
A total 562 Royal New Zealand Navy sailors served the British Nuclear Weapons Testing Programme in the Pacific in the 1950s. Nine times they were exposed to damaging levels of radiation.
A new study from Brunel University will undertake a chromosomal analysis of cells from UK nuclear test veterans and their children.
The best evidence New Zealand sailors have is from 2007, when a study by Massey University took samples from 50 veteran sailors from Operation Grapple. Researchers discovered they had suffered chromosome damage higher than that of clean-up workers at Chernobyl.
They linked it directly to the Pacific bomb testing, saying the result “is indicative of the veterans having incurred long term genetic damage as a consequence of performing their duties relating to Operation Grapple”.
Research gives hope for nuclear test vets families http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/79829038/research-gives-hope-for-nuclear-test-vets-families CARLY THOMAS, May 15 2016
It all started with hydrogen bombs that lit up the Pacific with radiation.
Roy Sefton remembers it like it was yesterday.
Backs turned, goggles on, they waited for the countdown..”And right on cue there was this massive light that came through mine and everybody else’s hands, through the dark glasses, through the closed eyes and what I saw was an x -ray vision of my own hands,” he said.
Now, after decades of battling, New Zealand veterans who watched the blasts from the decks of the Navy ships hope they may finally be acknowledged for the effects the radiation had on them and their families.
A total 562 Royal New Zealand Navy sailors served the British Nuclear Weapons Testing Programme in the Pacific in the 1950s.Now, after decades of battling, New Zealand veterans who watched the blasts from the decks of the Navy ships hope they may finally be acknowledged for the effects the radiation had on them and their families. Continue reading
The vicious circle of nations bumping up their nuclear weapons
US, Russia, India driving China’s nuclear modernisation: Pentagon By PTI | 14 May, 2016WASHINGTON: The defence capabilities possessed by the US , Russia and India are among the main factors driving China to modernise its nuclear force and bolster its strategic strike capabilities, the Pentagon has said. ….
Governments and individuals can prevent banks from investing in nuclear weapons
Governments are talking about divestment, and it’s something you can do too.
If you have a bank account, find out if your bank invests in nuclear weapon producing companies. You can either look at our website and see if your bank is listed, or you can ask your bank directly. We found that a few people, asking the same bank about questionable investments, was enough to get that bank to adopt a policy preventing them from having any relationship with nuclear weapon producing companies.
Nuclear Weapons Are Scary — But We Can Do Something About Them, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/susi-snyder/nuclear-weapons-are-scary_b_9947542.html The World Post, Susi Snyder Nuclear Disarmament Programme Manager for Pax in the Netherlands 05/13/2016 Nuclear weapons are scary. The risk of use by accident, intention or terror. The climate consequences. The fact that they are designed and built to vaporize thousands of people with the push of a button. Scary. Fortunately, there is something we can do.
We know that nuclear weapons are scary, but we must be much louder in defining them as unacceptable, as illegitimate. By following the money, we can cut it off, and while this isn’t the only thing necessary to make nuclear weapons extinct, it will help.
That’s why we made Don’t Bank on the Bomb. Because we want to do something about nuclear weapons. Investments are not neutral. Financing and investing are active choices, based on a clear assessment of a company and its plans. Any financial service delivered to a company by a financial institution or other investor gives a tacit approval of their activities. To make nuclear weapons, you need money. Governments pay for a lot of things, but the companies most heavily involved in producing key components for nuclear warheads need additional investment — from banks, pension funds, and insurance companies — to sustain the working capital they need to maintain and modernize nuclear bombs.
We can steer these companies in a new direction. We can influence their decision making, by making sure our own investments don’t go anywhere near nuclear weapon producing companies. Continue reading
President Obama visits Hiroshima. USA builds up its nuclear arsenal
Obama to Make Historic Visit to Hiroshima as U.S. Quietly Upgrades Nuclear Arsenal Democracy Now! | May 12, 2016 President Obama will become the first serving U.S. president to visit Hiroshima, Japan, later this month. The White House said Obama will not apologize for dropping an atomic bomb on the city toward the end of World War II. The attack on Aug. 6, 1945, caused massive and widespread destruction. Shock waves, radiation and heat rays took the lives of some 140,000 people. Three days later, the U.S. dropped a second atomic bomb on Nagasaki, killing another 74,000 people.
President Obama is expected to tour the site of the world’s first nuclear attack with Japan’s prime minister, Shinzo Abe. Obama’s Communications Adviser Ben Rhodes said that Obama’s time in Hiroshima will “reaffirm America’s longstanding commitment—and the president’s personal commitment—to pursue the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons.”
Obama’s visit comes as a report by the Alliance for Nuclear Accountability has revealed the U.S. has been quietly upgrading its nuclear arsenal to create smaller, more precise nuclear bombs as part of a massive effort that will cost up to $1 trillion over three decades. We speak with Kevin Martin, president of Peace Action…………
Kevin Martin: We’re very glad that the president is going to Hiroshima, but we don’t want it to be just another pretty speech where he talks about some day maybe having the right conditions to move towards eliminating nuclear weapons. He’s done that before. He has some accomplishments to show for his presidency, which we can talk about, but, for now, we want him to go with concrete actions. He’s got a bit of time left in his administration and he needs to take concrete action to further that goal. And we can talk about various steps.
As far as the apology is concerned, the hibakusha, the A-bomb survivors, are not asking for it. The Japanese government is not asking for it—for all kinds of reasons. The administration has ruled it out. And I think while I personally would like to see an apology, what might be more meaningful is if he meets with hibakusha and asks their forgiveness for not doing more during his term in office to move towards the elimination of nuclear weapons. But if he will take some concrete steps, then that apology—or that asking forgiveness would be unnecessary.
Amy Goodman: Can you talk about what you are demanding?
Kevin Martin: First of all, as you just mentioned, this 30-year, $1 trillion cockamamie plan—a colleague of ours called it a “trillion-dollar train wreck”—to totally upgrade all of our nuclear weapons complex, from the research laboratories to new warheads to new missiles, bombers, submarines, I can’t think of a worse misappropriation of our tax dollars. And predictably, every other nuclear-weapon state has followed suit, saying that they are going to upgrade their nuclear weapons, as well. It totally shreds any credibility that the United States has on nonproliferation. So that would be the first thing, is cancel that.
There are a lot of other steps that he could take: taking our nuclear weapons off of hair-trigger alert, separating the warheads from their delivery systems, initiating negotiations for the elimination of nuclear weapons globally, initiating talks on a Middle East zone free of weapons of mass destruction, taking unilateral executive action that doesn’t require a long treaty process—negotiations with Russia and then Senate ratification, which would be very difficult. We could cut our reserve nuclear weapons, get rid of a bunch of those. But even the current deployed nuclear weapons, we could go down to a thousand or fewer, as the Pentagon has suggested in the past and the U.S. actually wanted to do with Russia and then challenge Russia to reciprocate. Those are just some of the steps that would be meaningful and worth a trip to Hiroshima……….https://ecowatch.com/2016/05/12/obama-visit-hiroshima/
USA’s missile defense site in Romania provokes Russian anger
U.S. activates Romanian missile defense site, angering Russia, Reuters DEVESELU, ROMANIA | BY ROBIN EMMOTT , 12 May 15, The United States switched on an $800 million missile shield in Romania on Thursday that it sees as vital to defend itself and Europe from so-called rogue states but the Kremlin says is aimed at blunting its own nuclear arsenal.
To the music of military bands at the remote Deveselu air base, senior U.S. and NATO officials declared operational the ballistic missile defense site, which is capable of shooting down rockets from countries such as Iran that Washington says could one day reach major European cities……..
When complete, the defensive umbrella will stretch from Greenland to the Azores. On Friday, the United States will break ground on a final site in Poland due to be ready by late 2018, completing the defense line first proposed almost a decade ago.
The full shield also includes ships and radars across Europe. It will be handed over to NATO in July, with command and control run from a U.S. air base in Germany.
Russia is incensed at such of show of force by its Cold War rival in formerly communist-ruled eastern Europe. Moscow says the U.S.-led alliance is trying to encircle it close to the strategically important Black Sea, home to a Russian naval fleet and where NATO is also considering increasing patrols……
Joe Cirincione, an American nuclear expert who is president of Ploughshares Fund, a global security organization, told reporters in Geneva that the shield should be scrapped.
“It was designed to protect Europe from a missile from, well, the only country we were afraid of was Iran. The system was designed to protect against an Iranian nuclear missile. There is not going to be an Iranian nuclear missile for at least 20 years. There is no reason to continue with that program.”…..
Douglas Lute, the United States’ envoy to NATO, said NATO would press ahead with NATO’s biggest modernization since the Cold War. “We are deploying at sea, on the ground and in the air across the eastern flanks of the alliance … to deter any aggressor,” Lute said.
At a cost of billions of dollars, the missile defense umbrella relies on radars to detect a ballistic missile launch into space. Sensors then measure the rocket’s trajectory and destroy it in space before it re-enters the earth’s atmosphere. The interceptors can be fired from ships or ground sites.
The Romanian shield, which is modeled on the United States’ so-called Aegis ships, was first assembled in New Jersey and then transferred to the Deveselu base in containers…….http://www.reuters.com/article/us-nato-shield-idUSKCN0Y30JX
American, Russian and Chinese merchants of nuclear war and mass killing
In War We Trust, Even If It’s Nuclear? History News Network, May 12, 2016 by Murray Polner “……The US has always needed real or imaginary enemies to make its historic addiction to war more palatable. Nowadays it’s perfectly acceptable to damn Vladimir Putin as an authoritarian but he’s no more authoritarian than some of America’s closest allies. The problem is that, like the US, he commands thousands of nuclear bombs a subject about which I’ve been writing since the start of what sounds like another Cold/maybe Hot War era. The hawkish Hillary Clinton compared him to Hitler after Moscow’s annexation of Crimea. But Henry Kissinger of all people saw through the hot air emanating from Washington’s inner circles (echoed by an uncritical media) when he wrote that excoriating Putin was no substitute for shaping a sane policy, which our foreign policy elites have regularly disdained to do, especially after past and present incompetents and worse have caused the deaths of some 38,000 US military in Korea, 58,000 in Vietnam and 7,000 in Iraq, not to mention millions of innocent Asians and Middle Easterners. No VIP has ever been tried or imprisoned for these deaths.
The US noose around Russia began in earnest when our most lethal weaponry began pouring into Russia’s erstwhile satellites adjacent to Russian borders, (great news for Merchants of Death stockholders). Continue reading
Russia’s new more powerful nuclear missiles
Russia Developing New Nuclear Missiles Capable of Penetrating US Defenses
Russia wants to modernize 70 percent of its intercontinental ballistic missile arsenal by 2018, The Diplomat, By Franz-Stefan Gady May 11, 2016 Russia is developing new intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM) specifically designed to penetrate U.S. missile defense systems, Russian Commander of Strategic Missile Forces Colonel-General Sergei Karakayev told Russian state-owned news agency TASS on Tuesday.
“This is conditioned by the fact that the United States is not stopping after what it has achieved and continues improving its missile defense system, including the deployment of its elements in Europe. That is why special attention in the development of new missile complexes is paid to the issue of overcoming the missile shield,” Karakayev said.
As I reported previously, Russia announced in January that it would conduct a total of 16 ICBM test launches in 2016 with 14 dedicated to testing new missiles and warheads (See: “Russia to Launch 16 Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles in 2016”). The Strategic Missile Forces are also holding more than 100 command and staff, tactical and special exercises throughout the year.
According to Karakayev, the Russian military is introducing new types of warheads with a difficult to predict flight path in order to overcome U.S. missile defenses. “This is achieved both through the ICBM’s shorter acceleration phase and new types of warheads with a hard-to-predict flight trajectory and new means of overcoming the missile shield,” he said.
Russia has been testing a new hypersonic glide vehicle (HGV), the YU-71, a warhead capable of accelerating to up to ten times the speed of sound descending from the atmosphere on an erratic flight path without following a predictable ballistic trajectory. (The YU-71 performs evasive maneuvers making it very difficult for conventional missile defense systems to intercept.)
By 2021, the Strategic Missile Forces (SMF) plan to have an equal number of stationary and mobile ICBM systems. “Considering the ratios of stationary and mobile groupings of the Strategic Missile Forces, it can be noted that at the turn of 2021, the quantitative indicators of these groupings will come to equal each other. However, the capabilities of the stationary grouping will continue to be higher due to the availability of heavy missiles,” Karakayev noted…….
As I noted in a previous piece (“Russia to Add 40 New ICBMs: Should the West Be Worried?”):
Russia is in the middle of modernizing its strategic and nonstrategic nuclear warheads. According to the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Moscow has currently 4,500 nuclear warheads, of which roughly 1,780 strategic warheads are deployed on missiles and at bomber bases. An additional 700 strategic warheads are kept in storage along with approximately 2,000 nonstrategic warheads. “Russia deploys an estimated 311 ICBMs that can carry approximately 1,050 warheads,” the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists further notes.
The SMF’s most powerful future weapon will be the RS-28 Sarmat, Russia’s newest super heavy liquid-propelled ICBM, currently under development with first test-launches scheduled for later in the year. “The development of the Sarmat silo-based missile system with a heavy missile is nearing completion,” Karakayev said.
“The performance of the stationary grouping of the heavy ICBM (of the Voyevoda or Sarmat class) will four times surpass that of the stationary grouping of the light-class ICBM (Topol-M, Yars) by all the RVSN grouping tactical effectiveness parameters,” he added. The Sarmat purportedly can carry ten heavy or 15 lighter warheads and is expected to become operational by 2020.
A YU-71 HGV warhead mounted on a Sarmat ICBM could be one of the deadliest nuclear weapons fielded since the end of the Cold War. Sputnik News bombastically claims that the Sarmat ICBM can wipe out an area the size of Texas or France, while “its higher speed performance will enable it to speed past every missile defense system in existence.” http://thediplomat.com/2016/05/russia-developing-new-nuclear-missiles-capable-of-penetrating-us-defenses/
1 This Month
of the week- – THE ONENESS of HUMANITY
We the Nuclear Free North
1st July – Webinar Waste of Space: The Environmental Harm of Military and Civil Space Activity st July, 7 pm
Report Launch Online: We are seeing an increasing exploitation of space for military and commercial purposes. This must change.
Protect Sazan Island from the Trump family! https://secure.avaaz.org/campaign/en/protect_sazan_island_from_the_trump_family_loc/?bqFCVab&v=174511&cl=22707147157&_checksum=5e9dde668860e8231c33699735e16a1fbf22ab2cb01da50c999fe8732b9775ef&utm_source=email&utm_medium=blast_email&utm_campaign=174511
Cuba Is Not a Failed State – It Is a Besieged State
PETITION: “Global Appeal to Endorse Palestinian Right of Return of Refugees”
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