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How Corporate News Has Tried To Numb Americans To The Horrors In Gaza

“a consistent bias against Palestinians.” Those highly influential news outlets “disproportionately emphasized Israeli deaths in the conflict” and “used emotive language to describe the killings of Israelis, but not Palestinians.”

eurasia review    By Norman Solomon

As the Gaza war enters its 12th month with no end in sight, the ongoing horrors continue to be normalized in U.S. media and politics. The process has become so routine that we might not recognize how omission and distortion have constantly shaped views of events since the war began in October.

During the first five months of the war, the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Washington Post applied the word “brutal” or its variants far more often to actions by Palestinians (77 percent) than to Israelis (23 percent). The findings, in a study by Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting (FAIR), pointed to an imbalance that occurred “even though Israeli violence was responsible for more than 20 times as much loss of life.” News articles and opinion pieces were remarkably in the same groove; “the lopsided rate at which ‘brutal’ was used in op-eds to characterize Palestinians over Israelis was exactly the same as the supposedly straight news stories.”

Despite exceptional coverage at times, what was most profoundly important about the war in Gaza—what it was like to be terrorized, massacred, maimed, and traumatized—remained almost entirely out of view. Gradually, surface accounts reaching the American public came to seem repetitious and normal. As death numbers kept rising and months went by, the Gaza war diminished as a news topic, while most interview shows seldom discussed it.

Gaps widened between the standard reporting in media terms and the situation worsening in human terms. “Gazans now make up 80 percent of all people facing famine or catastrophic hunger worldwide, marking an unparalleled humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip amid Israel’s continued bombardment and siege,” the United Nations reported in mid-January 2024. The UN statement quoted experts who said: “Currently every single person in Gaza is hungry, a quarter of the population are starving and struggling to find food and drinkable water, and famine is imminent.”

President Biden dramatized the disconnect between the Gaza war zone and the U.S. political zone in late February when he spoke to reporters about prospects for a “ceasefire” (which did not take place) while holding a vanilla ice-cream cone in his right hand. “My national security adviser tells me that we’re close, we’re close, we’re not done yet,”……………………………………………………… more https://www.eurasiareview.com/10092024-how-corporate-news-has-tried-to-numb-americans-to-the-horrors-in-gaza-oped/

The Gaza war received a vast amount of U.S. media attention, but how much the media actually communicated about the human realities was a whole other matter. Easy assumptions held that the news enabled media consumers to see what was really going on. But the words and images reaching listeners, readers, and viewers were a far cry from experiences of being in the war zone. The belief or unconscious notion that news media were conveying of the war’s realities ended up obscuring those realities all the more. And journalism’s inherent limitations were compounded by media biases.

In-depth content analysis by the Intercept found that coverage of the war’s first six weeks by the New York Times, Washington Post, and Los Angeles Times “showed a consistent bias against Palestinians.” Those highly influential news outlets “disproportionately emphasized Israeli deaths in the conflict” and “used emotive language to describe the killings of Israelis, but not Palestinians.” For example: “The term ‘slaughter’ was used by editors and reporters to describe the killing of Israelis versus Palestinians 60 to 1, and ‘massacre’ was used to describe the killing of Israelis versus Palestinians 125 to 2. ‘Horrific’ was used to describe the killing of Israelis versus Palestinians 36 to 4.”

September 16, 2024 Posted by | Gaza, media, USA | Leave a comment

Federal Conflict Rules Would Have Barred New Brunswick, Ontario Cabinet Ministers from New Corporate Posts, Expert Says

The ENERGY MIX, Mitchell Beer September 12, 2024

Two former provincial cabinet ministers would have been barred by conflict of interest legislation from the senior positions they’ve taken with engineering services and nuclear energy giant AtkinsRéalis if they’d been in federal politics, an expert in government and corporate ethics has concluded.

Former New Brunswick natural resources minister Mike Holland and Ontario energy minister Todd Smith both left their positions over the summer and signed on with Montreal-based AtkinsRéalis within a couple of weeks of quitting politics. Holland resigned from cabinet in late June and was appointed as Atkins’ director of business development for North America in early July. Smith quit in mid-August and was hired as vice-president, marketing and business development for Atkins subsidiary Candu Energy two weeks later……………………………………………………

Holland’s and Smith’s career moves are permitted by New Brunswick’s and Ontario’s conflict of interest rules, respectively. Both provinces set 12-month bans on activities like direct lobbying after a former official leaves office, but do not bar other employment with a company that does business with the official’s former government.

……………………………………………… Democracy Watch co-founder Duff Conacher said neither official would have been allowed to make the move if they’d been serving in the federal cabinet. And Smith would have been barred by Ontario rules if he had been working as minister’s staff, rather than as minister.

A Preceding Transaction

“At the federal level you wouldn’t be allowed to do what they did,” Conacher told The Energy Mix.

“There’s a preceding transaction, a negotiation they provided advice on. They were both quoted in AtkinsRéalis’ news release.”

That was a reference to an April 13, 2022 release in which Candu Energy and Saint John, New Brunswick-based Moltex Energy announced a “strategic partnership to advance the development and deployment of next-generation Small Modular Reactor (SMR) nuclear technology in Canada,” including a “first of a kind” installation in New Brunswick. In that release, Holland and Smith both showed up as early boosters for the partnership.

“New Brunswick welcomes investment in clean energy, especially as it builds on the province’s established core of expertise in nuclear technology,” Holland said. “This agreement contributes not only to the growth of long-term, high-quality jobs in New Brunswick’s energy sector; it also recognizes the leadership role of both Moltex and the province in advancing the next generation of nuclear technology.”

“I’m thrilled to welcome this new partnership between Moltex and SNC-Lavalin that builds our provincial energy industry, one renowned for its talented work force and strong nuclear supply chain,” Smith added. “This partnership enhances our clean energy advantage and reputation as a global hub for SMR expertise, making Ontario an even more attractive place to do business and create jobs.”

The release cited Candu Energy as a subsidiary of SNC-Lavalin, the politically connected but often deeply troubled global firm that eventually rebranded as AtkinsRéalis in September, 2023. But not before it set up Candu Energy by acquiring key commercial nuclear contracts, intellectual property, and personnel from federally-owned Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd. in 2011.

‘You’re Never Allowed’

Neither Holland nor Smith would have been allowed to join AtkinsRéalis if they were bound by the federal Conflict of Interest Act, Conacher told The Mix.

“You’re never allowed to act on behalf of any person or organization connected with something you were involved with in government. It’s not 12 months. It’s never. You’re never allowed,” Conacher said.

“And then secondly, you’re not allowed to give advice to anyone using confidential information,” he added. That amounts to a blanket restriction because “they learn things every day that are not disclosed,” which means all the advice a former cabinet official gives is based on confidential information.

“How do you unknow what you know and then give advice pretending you don’t know what you know? It’s impossible.”

That concern doesn’t apply in New Brunswick or Ontario, and Conacher said New Brunswick’s conflict of interest rules are the weaker of the two. In mid-August, Holland was listed in the federal lobbying registry as an AtkinsRéalis senior officer whose lobbying activities represented more than 20% of his duties.

Other Ways to Be Useful

But direct lobbying isn’t the only way, or even the most useful way, a former cabinet minister can help out a new corporate employer.

If a provincial ban applies only to lobbying, “you just don’t make the representation,” Conacher explained. “You give strategic advice to the company’s lobbyists on who they should be talking to, who’s the real decision-maker in cabinet, and what you should be saying to make something go through smoothly or get some extra benefit, like a subsidy or a [deadline] extension without any penalty. And that’s why they’re hired—because they have that inside knowledge.”………………………… https://www.theenergymix.com/exclusive-federal-conflict-rules-would-have-barred-new-brunswick-ontario-cabinet-ministers-from-new-corporate-posts-expert-says-old/

September 15, 2024 Posted by | Canada, secrets,lies and civil liberties | Leave a comment

Biden’s Legacy: The Decline of Arms Control and Disarmament

the mainstream media and many commentators are making the case for additional nuclear weaponry and the modernization of weapons currently in the nuclear arsenal.

Washington’s “Nuclear Employment Guidance” is based on the threat of nuclear coordination between Moscow and Beijing, but there is no evidence of such coordination

 by Melvin Goodman September 13, 2024  https://www.counterpunch.org/2024/09/13/bidens-legacy-the-decline-of-arms-control-and-disarmament-2/

Last month, I reported on the Biden administration’s new nuclear doctrine to prepare the United States for a coordinated nuclear challenge from Russia, China, and North Korea.  The Biden doctrine revives the concept of “escalation dominance,” one of the main drivers of the nuclear arms race between the United States and the Soviet Union in the 1950s and 1960s.  

President Biden’s neglect of arms control and disarmament means that the next president will inherit a nuclear landscape that is more threatening and volatile than any other since the Cuban missile crisis more than 60 years ago.  The Cuban missile crisis, however, was a wake up call for both President John F. Kennedy and General Secretary Nikita Khrushchev, leading to a series of arms control and disarmament treaties beginning with the Partial Test Ban Treaty of 1963.  

We need another wake up call.

Currently, there is little discussion of reviving arms control and disarmament.  Instead the mainstream media and many commentators are making the case for additional nuclear weaponry and the modernization of weapons currently in the nuclear arsenal.  The influential British newsweekly, The Economist, is leading the way in this campaign, arguing that the concept of deterrence demands that the United States build up and modernize its nuclear arsenal.  An oped in the New York Times this week, written by the chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, argues that credible deterrence will prevent our adversaries from “even considering a nuclear strike against America or its allies.”

Deterrence requires that nuclear weapons must be in a high state of readiness in order to address the danger of surprise attack, which increases the possibility of unintentional use of nuclear weapons.  We need a discussion of alternatives to deterrence, such as negotiations for confidence-building measures as well as arms control and disarmament.

Instead, we are getting a discussion of the need for low-yield nuclear weapons.  The Economist and others have been making the case for such weapons—20 kilotons of explosive power, roughly Hiroshima-sized—that can be delivered with “extreme precision and less collateral damage.”  U.S. think tanks, such as the Center for a New American Security (CNAS), have argued that the “line between low-yield tactical nuclear weapons and precision-guided conventional weapons in terms of their operational effects and perceived impact is blurring,” and that “nuclear arms are more efficient at destroying large-area targets.”

The current discussion is dangerously reminiscent of the nuclear discussion of the 1950s, which was dominated by false notions of a vast Soviet superiority in deployed nuclear ballistic missiles, the so-called “missile gap,” as well as the so-called “bomber gap” regarding strategic aircraft.  The conventional wisdom in the defense community was that we were facing a powerful enemy that was undertaking costly efforts to exploit the potential of nuclear weapons in order to gain unchallenged global dominance.  Is history abut to repeat itself, particularly in view of exaggerated concerns regarding greater threats from both China and North Korea as well as the possibility of Sino-Russian collusion?

Henry Kissinger, the most famous and most controversial American diplomat of the 20th century, was responsible for initiating the idea that nuclear powers could wage a war that would involve limited use of nuclear weapons.  In his “Nuclear Weapons and Foreign Policy,” Kissinger made the case for limited uses of nuclear weapons, which attracted him to Richard Nixon who made Kissinger the national security adviser in 1969.  It was fifteen years before a U.S. president—Ronald Reagan— and a Soviet leader—Mikhail Gorbachev—agreed that a “nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought,” and that the two sides must not “seek to achieve military superiority.”  The initiative for these statements originated with Gorbachev, and they received greater attention in Soviet media than in their U.S. counterparts.

Now, we are facing a disturbing situation that finds the United States modernizing its nuclear arsenal at great cost; China ending its doctrine of limited nuclear deterrence and expanding its nuclear arsenal, and Russia threatening the use of tactical nuclear weapons against Ukraine and issuing warnings of a World War III.  Russian publications are discussing the possibility of placing a nuclear weapons in space.  U.S. defense analysts project that China could have as many as 1,000 nuclear warheads over the next ten years.  

Washington’s “Nuclear Employment Guidance” is based on the threat of nuclear coordination between Moscow and Beijing, but there is no evidence of such coordination and it’s unlikely that these former adversaries are formalizing their nuclear and strategic plans.  U.S. guidance is based on worst-case analysis, but there needs to be a recognition of similar worst-case analyses in Moscow and Beijing. In view of greatly expanded U.S. defense spending over the past several years as well as the discussion of a strategic missile defense, Russia and China have much to worry about.  Even worse, the United States quietly announced in July that it will deploy conventionally armed ground-launched intermediate-range missiles in Germany on a rotational basis beginning in 2026.  This is madness.

Iran’s nuclear program is also expanding in size and sophistication, and North Korea has a nuclear arsenal that rivals three nuclear powers—Israel, India, and Pakistan—that were never part of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.  Iran’s Ayatollah has indicated a readiness to open discussions with the United States on nuclear matters, but the Biden administration has turned a deaf ear to such a possibility.  North Korea’s Kim Jong Un has similarly indicated an interest in discussing nuclear matters with the United States.

The only remaining nuclear disarmament treaty—the New START Treaty—expires in February 2026, and there is no indication that U.S. and Russian officials are planning for talks to renew the treaty.  The election year predictably finds Kamala Harris and Donald Trump boasting about maintaining and improving U.S. military prowess.  Next to nothing is known about Harris’s view of nuclear matters, and the thought of facing a new nuclear age with Trump back in the White House is positively frightening.  We are confronting this difficult situation because the Bush and Trump administrations abrogated two of the most important disarmament treaties in history: the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty and the Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty.

It’s time for the nuclear experts of the nine nuclear powers as well as the general public to read M.G. Sheftall’s “Hiroshima: The Last Witnesses.”  These first-person accounts educate and re-educate the global community on the horrors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki 80 years ago.  The accounts of gut-wrenching recollections should be enough to make any sane individual reject the notion of “modernizing” nuclear weapons or discussing “tactical” uses of nuclear weapons.  

The danger of nuclear war resulting from an accident, an unauthorized action, the danger of alert practices, or false alarms should never be far from our thinking.  Another nuclear arms race in the current international environment would be far more threatening and terrifying than any aspect of the Soviet-American rivalry in the Cold War.

Melvin A. Goodman is a senior fellow at the Center for International Policy and a professor of government at Johns Hopkins University.  A former CIA analyst, Goodman is the author of Failure of Intelligence: The Decline and Fall of the CIA and National Insecurity: The Cost of American Militarism. and A Whistleblower at the CIA. His most recent books are “American Carnage: The Wars of Donald Trump” (Opus Publishing, 2019) and “Containing the National Security State” (Opus Publishing, 2021). Goodman is the national security columnist for counterpunch.org.

September 14, 2024 Posted by | USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

The Armageddon Agenda

Kamala Harris, Donald Trump, and the Race to Oblivion

mong the first major decisions the next president has to make in January 2025 will be what stance to take regarding the future status of New START (or its replacement). 

By Michael Klare, Tomgram, 13 Sept 24

The next president of the United States, whether Kamala Harris or Donald Trump, will face many contentious domestic issues that have long divided this country, including abortion rights, immigration, racial discord, and economic inequality. In the foreign policy realm, she or he will face vexing decisions over Ukraine, Israel/Gaza, and China/Taiwan. But one issue that few of us are even thinking about could pose a far greater quandary for the next president and even deeper peril for the rest of us: nuclear weapons policy.

Consider this: For the past three decades, we’ve been living through a period in which the risk of nuclear war has been far lower than at any time since the Nuclear Age began — so low, in fact, that the danger of such a holocaust has been largely invisible to most people. The collapse of the Soviet Union and the signing of agreements that substantially reduced the U.S. and Russian nuclear stockpiles eliminated the most extreme risk of thermonuclear conflict, allowing us to push thoughts of nuclear Armageddon aside (and focus on other worries). But those quiescent days should now be considered over. Relations among the major powers have deteriorated in recent years and progress on disarmament has stalled. The United States and Russia are, in fact, upgrading their nuclear arsenals with new and more powerful weapons, while China — previously an outlier in the nuclear threat equation — has begun a major expansion of its own arsenal.

The altered nuclear equation is also evident in the renewed talk of possible nuclear weapons use by leaders of the major nuclear-armed powers. Such public discussion largely ceased after the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, when it became evident that any thermonuclear exchange between the U.S. and the Soviet Union would result in their mutual annihilation. However, that fear has diminished in recent years and we’re again hearing talk of nuclear weapons use. Since ordering the invasion of Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly threatened to employ nuclear munitions in response to unspecified future actions of the U.S. and NATO in support of Ukrainian forces. Citing those very threats, along with China’s growing military might, Congress has authorized a program to develop more “lower-yield” nuclear munitions supposedly meant (however madly) to provide a president with further “options” in the event of a future regional conflict with Russia or China.


Thanks to those and related developments, the world is now closer to an actual nuclear conflagration than at any time since the end of the Cold War. And while popular anxiety about a nuclear exchange may have diminished, keep in mind that the explosive power of existing arsenals has not. Imagine this, for instance: even a “limited” nuclear war — involving the use of just a dozen or so of the hundreds of intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) possessed by China, Russia, and the United States — would cause enough planetary destruction to ensure civilization’s collapse and the death of billions of people.

And consider all of that as just the backdrop against which the next president will undoubtedly face fateful decisions regarding the production and possible use of such weaponry, whether in the bilateral nuclear relationship between the U.S. and Russia or the trilateral one that incorporates China.

The U.S.-Russia Nuclear Equation

The first nuclear quandary facing the next president has an actual timeline. In approximately 500 days, on February 5, 2026, the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START), the last remaining nuclear accord between the U.S. and Russia limiting the size of their arsenals, will expire. That treaty, signed in 2010, limits each side to a maximum of 1,550 deployed strategic nuclear warheads along with 700 delivery systems, whether ICBMs, submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs), or nuclear-capable heavy bombers. (That treaty only covers strategic warheads, or those intended for attacks on each other’s homeland; it does not include the potentially devastating stockpiles of “tactical” nuclear munitions possessed by the two countries that are intended for use in regional conflicts.)

At present, the treaty is on life support. On February 21, 2023, Vladimir Putin ominously announced that Russia had “suspended” its formal participation in New START, although claiming it would continue to abide by its warhead and delivery limits as long as the U.S. did so. The Biden administration then agreed that it, too, would continue to abide by the treaty limits. It has also signaled to Moscow that it’s willing to discuss the terms of a replacement treaty for New START when that agreement expires in 2026. The Russians have, however, declined to engage in such conversations as long as the U.S. continues its military support for Ukraine.

Accordingly, among the first major decisions the next president has to make in January 2025 will be what stance to take regarding the future status of New START (or its replacement). With the treaty’s extinction barely more than a year away, little time will remain for careful deliberation as a new administration chooses among several potentially fateful and contentious possibilities…………………………………………………………………………. more https://tomdispatch.com/the-armageddon-agenda/

September 14, 2024 Posted by | USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

White House finalizing plans to expand where Ukraine can hit inside Russia

The talks have been closely held among a small group of officials inside the White House.


Gunners fire at a Russian position in the Kharkiv region, on April 21, 2024, amid the Russian invasion in Ukraine. | Anatolii Stepanov/AFP via Getty Images

Politico, By Erin Banco, Joe Gould and Paul McLeary 09/11/2024 

The White House is finalizing a plan to ease some restrictions on how Ukraine can use U.S.-donated weapons and better protect itself from Russian missiles, according to a Western official and two other people familiar with the discussions.

The talks have been closely held among a small group of officials inside the White House, one of the people involved in the debate said. All were granted anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about the conversations.

The details of the plan are still coming together. But officials in Washington, London and Kyiv have in recent days discussed expanding the area inside Russia that Ukraine can hit with American and British-made weapons. They’ve also discussed how to prevent additional cross-border attacks by Russia, including the U.S. agreeing to allow Ukraine to use U.K. long-range missiles that contain American parts to strike inside Russia.

The current conversations between Washington and Kyiv mark a significant change in tenor from the ones the two countries held earlier this summer. And it signals the Biden administration may be ready to finally agree to Kyiv’s requests to enable Ukraine’s military to more forcefully defend itself and to make more aggressive moves inside Russia.

The National Security Council declined to comment.

In an interview with PBS Newshour in June, national security adviser Jake Sullivan indicated that the U.S. might be willing to expand the area it would allow Ukraine to use U.S. weapons in Russia.

“It is not about geography. It is about common sense,” he said. “If Russia is attacking or about to attack from its territory into Ukraine it only makes sense to allow Ukraine to hit back.”

When asked if the administration would lift restrictions on long-range weapons, Biden told reporters Tuesday: “We’re working that out now.”…………………………………………………………..

U.S. officials have also pointed out that since the Army no longer buys Army Tactical Missile Systems, the inventory is limited and is drawing close to where the U.S. would be concerned about its own stockpile. The maker of the missile, Lockheed Martin, is still producing several hundred a year but they are slated for sale to allies overseas. The replacement for the weapon, the Precision Strike Missile, is only beginning to be fielded and not in numbers to fully replace the missiles currently being expended.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken and his British counterpart David Lammy were in Kyiv on Wednesday to huddle with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to discuss the weapons issue, along with Ukraine’s incursion into Russia and recent Russian advances in Ukraine.

British defense leaders have been in discussions with their U.S. counterparts for weeks about getting the U.S. to sign off on Ukraine using British Storm Shadow missiles to strike inside Russia. No decision has been reached, according to one person familiar with the talks, but the issue will be a part of the discussion between President Joe Biden and U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer when the two meet at the White House on Friday………………………………………..

It’s unclear if the Biden administration has decided to lift its restrictions on long-range Army Tactical Missile Systems, which the U.S. has transferred to Ukraine. It has previously told Ukraine it does not want its military using those weapons to strike deep inside Russia………………..

Biden’s earlier decision to allow Ukraine the ability to conduct limited strikes inside Russia came with several caveats, including that Kyiv could only use the weapons in and around the Kharkiv region. The U.S. eventually expanded that geographic plane largely so that Ukraine could shoot down Russian glide bombs………………………………………………………………….. more https://www.politico.com/news/2024/09/11/white-house-weapons-ukraine-00178673

September 14, 2024 Posted by | Ukraine, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

‘Its been a battle’: Neighbors worry about Palisades Nuclear Plant restarting


Fox News , By: Daren Bower, Sep 12, 2024

In May of 2022, Palisades Nuclear Power Plant shut down its reactor. Now Holtec International is in the process of restarting the facility, but neighbors are concerned that the process is being rushed and want to make sure the plant is restarted and operated safely.

Just up the beach from Tom and Jody Flynn’s house is the Palisades Nuclear Power Plant.

“Its been a battle having them as a neighbor,” said Jody Flynn.

The facility was commissioned in 1971 and stopped operating two years ago.

Now, new owner Holtec International is in the process of making Palisades the first nuclear power plant to ever be restarted in the country.

May of 2022 Palisades Nuclear Power Plant shut down it’s reactor. Holtec International is in the process of restarting the facility, but neighbors say the process is being rushed.

Holtec disagrees, saying the plant won’t be operational until December of 2025 at the earliest…………

On Sept. 9, residents filed a petition with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) arguing that Palisades is not meeting the standards for a safe start-up.

Palisades Neighborhood spokesperson Alan Blind said, “We’re not sure that anything we say could stop the NRC from approving Palisades. But please, please, please NRC, take the time to do it right.”

Blind adds, since this has never been done before, the NRC needs to have more guidelines in place for the restart to happen safely.

“It’s the NRC’S responsibility to decide what the rules are, and they haven’t done that yet,” said Blind. https://www.fox17online.com/news/local-news/its-been-a-battle-neighbors-worry-about-palisades-nuclear-plant-restarting

September 14, 2024 Posted by | safety, USA | Leave a comment

US Militarism Is a Leading Cause of the Climate Catastrophe

US military interventions are not just wars on people — they’re also wars on the climate.

By Marjorie Cohn , Truthout, September 10, 2024

This week marks 23 years since George W. Bush declared a U.S.-led “war on terror” and the people of Afghanistan and Iraq are still suffering its consequences.

After the U.S. invaded Iraq, an estimated half a million Iraqis were killed and at least 9.2 million were displaced. From 2003-2011, more than 4.7 million Iraqis suffered from moderate to severe food insecurity. Over 243,000 people have been killed in the Afghanistan/Pakistan war zone since 2001, more than 70,000 of them civilians. Between 4.5 and 4.6 million people have died in the post-9/11 wars.

The U.S.’s “war on terror” also escalated the climate catastrophe, resulting in local water shortages and extreme weather crises that are only getting worse. In 2022, Afghanistan had its worst drought in 30 years and it is facing a third consecutive year of drought. “The war has exacerbated climate change impacts,” Noor Ahmad Akhundzadah, a professor of hydrology at Kabul University, told the New York Times.

Meanwhile in the current moment, U.S. military assistance to Israel’s genocidal campaign is also intensifying the climate crisis.

As we look back across more than two decades of the “war on terror,” it is clear that many lives will be saved if we can bring a halt to U.S. military interventions throughout the world and simultaneously target the U.S. military’s catastrophic contributions to the climate crisis that threaten us all.

“The U.S. military is the single largest institutional consumer of fossil fuels in the world,” Taylor Smith-Hams, U.S. senior organizer at 350.org, a global climate justice organization, said at a workshop on the Impact of Current Wars on Climate Crisis at the Veterans For Peace (VFP) Convention on August 17. “Militarism and war are key drivers of the climate crisis,” she added, citing fighter jets, warships and the U.S.’s massive constellation of military bases throughout the world.

Climate Effects of the “War on Terror”

On September 11, 2001, 19 men committed suicide and took roughly 3,000 people with them by flying two airliners into the World Trade Center, one into the Pentagon and one into a field in Pennsylvania. None of the hijackers hailed from Afghanistan or Iraq; 15 came from Saudi Arabia. Nevertheless, the Bush administration illegally invaded Afghanistan and Iraq and overthrew their governments, then killed, injured and tortured nearly three-quarters of a million of their people.

Beyond the terrible death tolls in both countries, a lesser known consequence of the “war on terror” was the exacerbation of the climate catastrophe, both in the countries targeted by the war and globally.

Since the 1997 Kyoto Protocol excluded military emissions from the counting of national emissions figures, U.S. military emissions are significantly undercounted. Although militaries are a significant source of carbon emissions, little is understood about their carbon footprint.

Beyond the terrible death tolls … a lesser known consequence of the “war on terror” was the exacerbation of the climate catastrophe, both in the countries targeted by the war and globally.

One of the first studies to expose direct and indirect military emissions as a result of combat was conducted by Benjamin Neimark, Oliver Belcher, Kirsti Ashworth and Reuben Larbi. They examined the use of concrete “blast walls” by U.S. forces in Baghdad, Iraq, from 2003-2008, the first five years of Bush’s “Operation Iraqi Freedom,” to measure the carbon footprint of the war. Concrete walls and barriers were also used in U.S. counterinsurgency operations in Kandahar and Kabul, Afghanistan, from 2008-2012 during “Operation Enduring Freedom.” (Although these two wars did not bring freedom, their effects on the climate crisis are enduring.)

While occupying Baghdad, the U.S. military erected hundreds of miles of blast walls in order to control the urban population pursuant to its counterinsurgency strategy. “Effective weaponisation of concrete has an extraordinary carbon footprint,” Neimark, Belcher, Ashworth and Larbi wrote. “The large carbon footprint comes mainly from the amount of heat and energy in cement production, the main ingredient in concrete.”

The logistical movement of troops, convoys, weapons, supplies and equipment, as well as firepower itself, carry a direct carbon cost. Jet propulsion fuel for fighter jets is a major culprit. U.S. military fuel use is “one of the largest single institutional carbon polluters in modern history,” the researchers wrote. But the indirect emissions in blast walls that result from the concrete supply chains that furnish the U.S. military are also substantial, Neimark and his coauthors argue.

“Parts of Afghanistan have warmed twice as much as the global average” New York Times international climate reporter Somini Sengupta wrote in 2021, and the war has intensified the impact of climate change.

Afghanistan ranks in the top 10 countries undergoing extreme weather conditions, including droughts, storms and avalanches, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reported a year ago. Afghanistan ranks fourth among countries with the highest risk of a crisis and eighth on the Notre Dame Global Adaptation Index of nations most vulnerable and least prepared to deal with climate change.

The story of what happened in Afghanistan provides a chilling example of the long-term consequences of war on climate change. Decades from now, Gaza, which was already vulnerable to the climate crisis before October 7, 2023, will invariably suffer increased climate effects from Israel’s current genocidal campaign. “Climate consequences including sea level rise, drought and extreme heat were already threatening water supplies and food security in Palestine,” Nina Lakhani wrote in a January article in The Guardian. “The environmental situation in Gaza is now catastrophic.”

Emissions From U.S.-Aided Israeli Genocide Have “Immense” Effect on Climate Crisis

Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza has killed at least 41,000 Palestinian people, and likely many more. During the first two months of Israel’s genocidal campaign, emissions that warmed the planet exceeded the annual carbon footprint of over 20 of the world’s most climate-vulnerable countries, according to a study by Benjamin Neimark, Patrick Bigger, Frederick Otu-Larbi and Reuben Larbi. Roughly 281,000 metric tons of war-related carbon dioxide were emitted in the first two months of the war following October 7, 2023. More than 99 percent of these emissions resulted from Israel’s bombing campaign and ground invasion of Gaza and U.S. supply flights to Israel. The climate cost was equivalent to the burning of at least 150,000 tons of coal. Almost half of the emissions were caused by U.S. cargo planes flying military supplies to Israel. Hamas rockets fired into Israel accounted for the equivalent of 300 tons of coal, an indicator of the asymmetry of Israel’s war on Palestine.

“The role of the US in the human and environmental destruction of Gaza cannot be overstated,” said Patrick Bigger, coauthor of the study and research director at the thinktank Climate + Community Project (CCP). During the VFP workshop, Bigger called it an “environmental Nakba.”

The story of what happened in Afghanistan provides a chilling example of the long-term consequences of war on climate change.

David Boyd, UN special rapporteur for human rights and the environment, said, “This research helps us understand the immense magnitude of military emissions — from preparing for war, carrying out war and rebuilding after war. Armed conflict pushes humanity even closer to the precipice of climate catastrophe, and is an idiotic way to spend our shrinking carbon budget.”

“From an ecological perspective, there is no such thing as an ‘effective’ or ‘green’ technology or military,” Neimark, Belcher, Ashworth and Larbi, coauthors of the concrete blast wall study, found. While Israel touts itself as a global leader in climate change adaptation and mitigation, it is actually engaged in “greenwashing” — misleading marketing practices to make policies appear more environmentally friendly. Indeed, “Israel’s green technologies are fundamentally structured by the Zionist project of appropriating Palestinian lands,” Sara Salazar Hughes, Stepha Velednitsky and Amelia Arden Green argue in their 2022 article, “Greenwashing in Palestine/Israel: Settler colonialism and environmental injustice in the age of climate catastrophe.”

Israel’s systems of waste management, renewable energy and agricultural technologies (“agritech”) are actually mechanisms for appropriation and dispossession of Palestinian territory, according to Hughes, Velednitsky and Green. Although Israel promotes itself as a responsible steward of Palestinian lands, “Israeli sustainability sustains settler colonialism.”

“Climate crisis in Palestine cannot be detached from the Israeli occupation. The brutal and extensively documented apartheid regime that Israel imposes and maintains over Palestinians is fundamentally incompatible with the tenets of climate justice,” Patrick Bigger, Batul Hassan, Salma Elmallah, Seth J. Prins, J. Mijin Cha, Malini Ranganathan, Thomas M. Hanna, Daniel Aldana Cohen and Johanna Bozuwa wrote for the think tank CCP.

Bigger and his coauthors cite Israel’s settler-colonial campaign to replace native olive groves with nonnative plants that reduce biodiversity, increase susceptibility to fire and put unsustainable pressure on natural resources. Palestinians, they write, are much more vulnerable than Israelis to the effects of climate change. “While Palestinians are displaced to support Israel’s renewable energy industry, Palestinian solar projects are destroyed as ‘illegal constructions,’ having failed to secure permits from Israeli authorities.”

As the largest provider of military hardware to the Israeli regime, the U.S. government is “directly complicit” in Israel’s genocide, ethnic cleansing and apartheid. “An immediate, permanent ceasefire and the end of US funding for Israeli apartheid and occupation is needed to halt the ongoing violence and address the driving forces of climate breakdown in Palestine,” Bigger and coauthors wrote.

About 20 percent of the U.S. military’s annual operational emissions is devoted to protecting fossil fuel interests in the Gulf, which is warming twice as rapidly as the rest of the world, according to Neta Crawford, author of The Pentagon, Climate Change and War. Nevertheless, the U.S. and other NATO countries are largely concerned with climate change as a national security threat. They don’t focus on their contributions to it.

“Here in the U.S., our government continues to dump enormous amounts of money into death and destruction at home and around the world, while cutting social programs and refusing to adequately contribute to international climate finance commitments, always with the excuse that there isn’t enough money,” Smith-Hams said at the VFP workshop.

Our anti-militarism work should target the U.S. military’s devastating contributions to the climate crisis. Our future depends on it.

For more information, see the Climate Crisis & Militarism Project of Veterans For Peace.

Marjorie Cohn

Marjorie Cohn is professor emerita at Thomas Jefferson School of Law, dean of the People’s Academy of International Law and past president of the National Lawyers Guild. She sits on the national advisory boards of Assange Defense and Veterans For Peace. A member of the bureau of the International Association of Democratic Lawyers, she is the U.S. representative to the continental advisory council of the Association of American Jurists. Her books include Drones and Targeted Killing: Legal, Moral and Geopolitical Issues.

September 13, 2024 Posted by | climate change, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Sane foreign policy biggest loser in Harris/Trump debate.

Walt Zlotow, West Suburban Peace Coalition, Glen Ellyn IL, 11 Sept 24

You know that foreign policy gets short shrift in US elections when it isn’t even broached till over half way thru the lone presidential debate.

As bad as that was, it pales in comparison to the dreadful discussion of the No. 1 issue affecting all 8 billion of us: achieving peace while preventing nuclear war.

When asked how she would end Israel’s genocidal ethnic cleansing of 2,300,000 Palestinians in Gaza, Harris could have stated she’d cut off all US weapons to Israel, over 50,000 tons of which have killed tens of thousands of Palestinian moms and kids. Without them the Israeli genocide there would collapse within 3 months. Instead of an action plan she merely restated her now tired wish of achieving a ceasefire that is impossible till she pivots to ending all weapons deliveries.

At least we know where she stands…the weapons will continue flowing into Israel till all the Palestinians flow out of Gaza and the West Bank. This is Israel’s stated goal and Kamala’s support of it is “ironclad.” Trump, could have exploited Harris’ ghoulish support of genocide by calling for an immediate weapons embargo on Israel. Instead he offered the unhinged charge that Harris hates Israel and if elected, she’ll be responsible for Israel being destroyed “within 2 years.” What he didn’t reiterate is that he’s even more enamored of Israeli genocidal ethnic cleansing in Gaza than Harris. He’s never supported a ceasefire of any kind, instead trumpeting that Israel must “finish the job.”

Sane views on the US proxy war against Russia fared no better. Harris reiterated the delusional Biden position that Ukraine is the first step in Russia’s plan to go after Poland and other European countries. With Ukraine near defeat with no chance of prevailing, Harris appears ready to commit another $150 billion on a lost war of America’s making till the last Ukrainian solder is dead. But the greatest threat to peoplekind that Harris refuses to acknowledge, is that current US policy with Russia in Ukraine presents the biggest threat of nuclear war since the Cuban Missile Crisis 62 years ago. That is unconscionable.

Trump response was to boast Russia would never have invaded Ukraine under his presidency and that he could end it while still President Elect with his superior negotiating skills. But it was Trump who reinstituted the flow of weapons to Ukraine during his term that fueled the civil war in Donbas. Along with endless NATO membership overtures to Ukraine by both Trump and Biden, the Russian invasion of Ukraine became virtually inevitable.

To his credit Trump did not view the war in Ukraine as a zero sum game that America must totally win; Russia totally lose. He simply said it must end period, reflecting disdain for the US national security establishment by refusing to parrot their assertion Russia is recreating the Soviet Union starting with Ukraine. While commendable, Trump never acted on any initiative to further peace during his term by reigning in our trillion dollar national security budget. Indeed, he expanded provocative bombings such as his assassination fo Iranian general Qasem Soleimani in Baghdad that nearly triggered war with Iran in 2020.

Trump did inadvertently offer one truth that got no reaction. He said the Biden/Harris policies could provoke WWIII. While he likely only offered that to further his ‘demonize Harris’ agenda, every person in the peace community knows that is precisely the ominous path Biden/Harris policy in Ukraine have set the world on.

The Harris Trump debate did educate those of us in the peace community that peace will not be priority in either a Harris or Trump administration. Neither offered a plan to end the genocidal ethnic cleansing in Gaza nor the possibility of nuclear war with Russia over Ukraine.

But simply on Trump’s refusal to join the crowd viewing Russia as an existential threat to America or any other country including Ukraine once they renounce NATO membership and designs on Donbas, Trump is less a threat to our survival than Kamala Harris. She once again bragged the US must remain the “most lethal” country of the world’s 193. That should dishearten every person of peace to their core.

September 13, 2024 Posted by | politics, USA | Leave a comment

‘Unacceptable’: Is this Ontario nuclear waste dump a risk to Quebec’s water supply?

The Bloc Québécois is calling for work to immediately stop on an already-approved nuclear waste facility at the Chalk River research site in eastern Ontario, arguing its current placement unnecessarily risks Quebecers’ water supply — a claim that the company behind the project denies.

Sept. 10, 2024, By Alex Ballingall, Ottawa Bureau, Toronto Star

OTTAWA — The Bloc Québécois is calling for work to immediately stop on an already-approved nuclear waste facility at the Chalk River research site in eastern Ontario, arguing its current placement unnecessarily risks Quebecers’ water supply — a claim the company behind the project denies. 

Bloc Leader Yves-François Blanchet held a news conference on Parliament Hill Monday with First Nations from Ontario and Quebec who also oppose the project. Trumpeting his solidarity with the leaders, who claim the project’s approval early this year violated their rights as Indigenous Peoples, Blanchet said the waste facility is too close to the Ottawa River that separates Quebec from Ontario and flows into the St. Lawrence River. 

Speaking in French, Blanchet described the plan as a way to take the “dangerous” waste from Ontario’s nuclear industry and place it in a spot that he claimed could put the water supply of Quebecers at risk. 

“This is unacceptable to us,” Blanchet said. He added that the planned facility “should be placed elsewhere.” 

Chief Lance Haymond of the Kebaowek First Nation, who attended the news conference with Blanchet, accused the company building the facility — Canadian Nuclear Laboratories, which is contracted to run the Chalk River facility by an arms-length federal Crown corporation — of dismissing his community’s concerns, which include worries about disruption to local bears and other wildlife.

Haymond said the company is presenting a “façade of reconciliation” over its failure to seek his nation’s consent for the project, which is on unceded territory of the Algonquin Anishinaabeg near Deep River, Ont., almost 200 kilometres northwest of Ottawa.

The Kebaowek First Nation has also launched a legal process in Federal Court that seeks to overturn the January decision by Canada’s federal nuclear regulator to green-light the project. 

“We will not stand by while our rights are trampled, our lands desecrated and our future put at risk,” Haymond said. ……………………………………………………………..

The Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission approved the project in January, more than eight years after Canadian Nuclear Laboratories first raised the idea.

A spokesperson for the commission declined to comment Monday, citing the Federal Court challenge………………………………………………………………………….

According to the safety commission, most of the waste slated for disposal there will come from the company’s existing Chalk River Laboratories operation at the site, with about 10 per cent coming from other sites, including commercial sources like hospitals and universities.

The waste site is planned as an “engineered containment mound” that covers 37 hectares, alongside other facilities like a wastewater treatment plant. 

The project has been controversial for months, with several municipalities in the region and environmental groups stating their opposition alongside First Nations. Bloc MPs and Green Leader Elizabeth May have also denounced the project.  https://www.thestar.com/politics/federal/unacceptable-is-this-ontario-nuclear-waste-dump-a-risk-to-quebecs-water-supply/article_27adb27e-6ec2-11ef-985e-9345e7a9932d.html?source=newsletter&utm_source=ts_nl&utm_medium=email&utm_email=C574FBD817092BE3920DD70067C080F0&utm_campaign=frst_1906

September 13, 2024 Posted by | Canada, wastes, water | Leave a comment

Bloc Québécois backs First Nation fighting nuclear waste site.

By Natasha Bulowski , Ottawa Insider, September 10th 2024

Bloc Québécois leader Yves-François Blanchet is throwing his weight behind a First Nation fighting a nuclear waste disposal site near the Ottawa River. 
Flanked by three BQ MPs — Sébastien Lemire, Mario Simard and Monique Pauzé — Blanchet reaffirmed the BQ’s support for Kebaowek First Nation’s sustained opposition to the radioactive waste disposal site, located about 190 kilometres northwest of Ottawa at Chalk River Laboratories.

Blanchet called on the federal government to immediately suspend the project. …………………………………………………………………………………..more https://www.nationalobserver.com/2024/09/10/news/bloc-quebecois-radioactive-waste-facility

September 12, 2024 Posted by | Canada, indigenous issues | Leave a comment

The US Empire Can Exist Only In A Continuous State Of Mass Military Violence

Caitlin Johnstone, Sep 10, 2024

I shouldn’t be able to do this for a living. Criticizing the warmongering of a single power structure shouldn’t be anyone’s full-time job. No government should be murdering people so consistently and reliably that people can plan their whole lives around it.

Yet here we are. Not only are people like me able to focus on commentary about the mass military violence of the US and its satellite states as a full-time gig, but we usually find there’s too much to talk about from day to day.

Just today we’re getting reports that at least 40 people have been killed in an IDF massacre on a tented encampment in southern Gaza near Khan Younis, which Israel had previously designated as a humanitarian safe zone. There are videos of families digging frantically in the sand trying to rescue loved ones who were buried by the blast, which was reportedly so forceful that bodies are being found some thirty feet down.

Antiwar’s Dave DeCamp has taken to typing up daily updates on the documented Israeli massacres of Palestinian civilians in Gaza, often with dozens of victims added to the official death toll in a single day.

Kamala Harris has finally announced a foreign policy platform, and it contains nothing but a promise of more of the same. She promises to “ensure that the United States remains the strongest, most lethal fighting force in the world,” to “make sure that America, not China, wins the competition for the 21st century,” to “strengthen, not abdicate, our global leadership,” to “stand up for Israel’s right to defend itself,” and to “protect U.S. forces and interests from Iran and Iran-backed terrorist groups,” and boasts that she “has worked with our allies to ensure NATO is stronger than ever” in the face of “Vladimir Putin’s brutal aggression.”

In other words, more unrelenting violence and militarism to ensure that the US empire continues dominating the planet. It’s not hard to see why Harris is winning endorsements from some of the worst warmongers on the planet.

Bloodthirsty empire manager Victoria Nuland is now openly admitting that the US sabotaged a peace deal in Ukraine in the early weeks of the war, saying in an interview that Washington pushed Kyiv to reject the deal because it “included limits on the precise kinds of weapons systems that Ukraine could have” if it were agreed to.

This is something people like myself used to get called Russian propagandists for saying happened, despite all the overwhelming evidence that it had.

The horrors in Ukraine are happening because the US-centralized power alliance refused easy off-ramp after easy off-ramp. This whole war could’ve easily been avoided, and it could have easily been ended shortly after it began. But they kept pushing on, because they wanted this war………………………………………………………………………………

there are plenty of others like me. And for every person there is making a living from opposing US warmongering, there are thousands making a living from facilitating it. In the military. In the arms industry. In think tanks. In the media. In politics. In government agencies. There is much, much more money to be made from war than from peace. That’s one of the main reasons the capitalist empire we live under exists in a constant state of mass military violence. Endless violence and the threat thereof is the glue which holds the empire together.

In a healthy world, none of these jobs would exist — people working for peace or people working for war. Peace would just be the natural order of things. 

But until that healthy world has emerged, we fight on. Day after day after day after day, for however long such work is necessary.  https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/the-us-empire-can-only-exist-in-a?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=82124&post_id=148710143&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=1ise1&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email

September 11, 2024 Posted by | USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Former Palisades engineering director has misgivings about the plant’s historic restart effort

Tom Henry, The Blade, 9 Sept 24,

A former nuclear industry executive has emerged as a surprise critic of the historic effort to restart the Palisades nuclear plant in southwest Michigan.

Alan Blind, 71, who lives on a 16-acre farm in Baroda, Mich., said during a 75-minute interview with The Blade last week that Palisades, in his opinion, is “not a good selection as a role model for expanding the nuclear industry.”

Holtec International, of Jupiter, Fla., which originally was hired to decommission the plant, has instead bought it from its previous owner, New Orleans-based Entergy, and has put together an unprecedented plan to restart it.

Bringing a mothballed nuclear plant back into service has never been tried before in nuclear history.

The project has received huge government support, including a $1.52 billion commitment from the U.S. Department of Energy.

The outcome is expected to have huge ramifications for the industry worldwide, given the prohibitive cost of building new plants from scratch and continued issues over less-expensive units known as small modular reactors. 

Mr. Blind has special insight into Palisades because he served as its engineering director for nearly seven years under Entergy’s ownership, from May of 2006 through February of 2013.

Decades in industry

Palisades was the last stop in Mr. Blind’s career, which included time as a vice president at two other sites.

Mr. Blind began working in the nuclear industry in December of 1975 at a plant about 35 miles south of Palisades, the D.C. Cook nuclear plant near Bridgman, Mich.

That job came shortly after he graduated from Purdue University.

He he worked his way up to site vice president for D.C. Cook’s owner, American Electric Power.

After 21½ years at D.C. Cook, Mr. Blind went to New York to be vice president of nuclear power at the former Indian Point nuclear complex, which at the time was owned by Consolidated Edison Company of New York Inc.

He said he believed Palisades was operating on a thin safety margin while he was there, that he “saw a lot of red flags,” and never expected it to become the first test case of whether a mothballed plant can be put back in service.

“I put Palisades out of my mind and was comforted by the decision to shut it down and put it into decommissioning,” Mr. Blind said.

The plant was shut down and entered its decommissioning phase in May of 2022, a little more than two years ago……………………………………………………………

Palisades history……

Palisades began operating March 24, 1971, meaning that much of the engineering behind it occurred in the mid to late-1960s.

The NRC itself didn’t begin as a government agency until 1975, although it grew out of one called the Atomic Energy Commission, which had a much broader mission. The NRC is solely focused on safety. The AEC was created after World War II to promote and develop peaceful use of atomic science and technology. 

The “defense in depth” concept that promotes use of multiple backup safety systems, as well as the NRC’s general design criteria, were not well-developed during the era Palisades was built, Mr. Blind said.

He said it’s akin to not having an old house brought up to modern building codes.

“Overall, I was concerned about the lack of safety systems and design in depth,” Mr. Blind said.

He said he wanted to see more done as Palisades — like many other nuclear reactors — went to longer fuel cycles and higher outputs.

“They started off with very little margin because of the age of the plant,” Mr. Blind said. “Those margins were razor thin.”

His concerns have made their way into three formal petitions he filed with the NRC last month, imploring the agency to slow down and think harder about the pros and cons of restarting Palisades.

Each are undergoing a lengthy review process the NRC uses when it receives such detailed petitions. One petition challenges the rulemaking process, citing the unprecedented nature of what Holtec is trying to do. Another claims there is a lack of quality assurance, and the third petition raises questions about the existing state of steam generators.

Mr. Blind said he expects to file a fourth petition with the NRC within the next 10 days, making a technical argument for a public hearing more extensive than what’s been held to date…………………………………..  https://www.toledoblade.com/business/energy/2024/09/08/former-palisades-engineering-director-has-misgivings-about-the-plant-s-historic/stories/20240908054/?fbclid=IwY2xjawFMkQxleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHR1G0iCbJRiP0yk2X0kR5WGv88UE6xH5Fsi9ycAnPz2Oo1TQWtlbaFI6DA_aem_-0oAmUfm0HdWnMUniKDfaA

September 11, 2024 Posted by | safety, USA | Leave a comment

Victoria Nuland, former US deputy secretary of state, confirms West told Zelensky to abandon peace deal

Comment: Nuland confirms what was already known. The reason the conflict is ongoing is because the US wanted it to be so.

 https://www.rt.com/news/603708-ukraine-istanbul-us-nuland/ 9 Sept 24

Ukraine-Russia talks fell apart after Kiev asked foreign backers for advice, the former US deputy secretary of state has said.

The US, UK and other backers of Ukraine told Kiev to reject the deal reached at the 2022 Istanbul peace talks with Russia, former US under secretary of state Victoria Nuland has said.

In an interview with Russian journalist Mikhail Zygar, former editor-in-chief of the liberal news channel Dozhd, which aired on Thursday, Nuland was asked to comment on reports that the peace process between Moscow and Kiev in late March and early April 2022 collapsed after then-British Prime Minister Boris Johnson traveled to Ukraine and told Vladimir Zelensky to keep fighting.

“Relatively late in the game the Ukrainians began asking for advice on where this thing was going and it became clear to us, clear to the Brits, clear to others that [Russian President Vladimir] Putin’s main condition was buried in an annex to this document that they were working on,” she said of the deal being discussed by the Russian and Ukrainian delegations in Türkiye’s largest city.

The proposed agreement included limits on the kinds of weapons that Kiev could possess, as a result of which Ukraine “would basically be neutered as a military force,” while there were no similar constraints on Russia, the former diplomat explained.

“People inside Ukraine and people outside Ukraine started asking questions about whether this was a good deal and it was at that point that it fell apart,” Nuland said.

The veteran diplomatic hawk, who during her time in the State Department was renowned for her hostility towards Russia, quit the post of under secretary of state for political affairs in March this year. Nuland played a key role in the violent Western-backed coup in Kiev in 2014, which toppled Ukraine’s democratically elected president, Viktor Yanukovich.

During the escalation between Moscow and Kiev in February 2022, she called for deeper US involvement in the conflict and advocated for Ukraine to be armed with increasingly sophisticated weapons. However, in February, the 63-year-old essentially acknowledged the failure of her longstanding policy of containing Moscow, telling the CNN that modern Russia had turned out to be “not the Russia we wanted”

During her conversation with Zygar, Nuland confirmed that both Moscow and Kiev were eager to seek a diplomatic solution a month after the outbreak of the fighting.

“Russia had an interest at that time in at least seeing what it could get. Ukraine, obviously, had an interest if they could stop the war and get and get Russia out,” she said.

US officials “were not in the room” during the talks in Istanbul, only offering Kiev “support” in case it were needed, she claimed.

Putin said last week that the only reason the Istanbul deal failed was because of “the wish of the elites in the US and some European nations to inflict a strategic defeat on Russia,” adding that Boris Johnson served as the messenger to quash the peace process.

The negotiations in Türkiye yielded a draft agreement, which would have ended the hostilities, Putin recalled. Kiev was willing to declare military neutrality, limit its armed forces, and vow not to discriminate against ethnic Russians. In return, Moscow would have joined other leading powers in offering Ukraine security guarantees, he stressed.

According to the Russian leader, talks with Kiev are still possible, but can only happen “not on the basis of some ephemeral demands but on the basis of the documents that were agreed and actually initialized in Istanbul.”

September 10, 2024 Posted by | secrets,lies and civil liberties, Ukraine, USA | Leave a comment

Project 2025’s stance on nuclear testing: A dangerous step back

By Tom Armbruster | September 6, 2024,
https://thebulletin.org/2024/09/project-2025s-stance-on-nuclear-testing-a-dangerous-step-back/

There are few places more peaceful than a Pacific island. At 6:45 am on a March morning in 1954, that peace was shattered by the largest nuclear test in American history: Operation Bravo.

The Bravo test was a thousand times more powerful than the Hiroshima bomb. Now, 70 years later, Project 2025 is proposing a resumption of testing. That should alarm every military service member, downwinder, Pacific Islander, and taxpayer.

As US Ambassador to the Republic of the Marshall Islands, I joined in the solemn observance of “Remembrance Day,” the Marshallese national holiday that pays tribute every March 1 to those who lost their homeland, fell victim to cancer, or were otherwise affected by the Bravo shockwave and fallout.

The shorthand for the 67 nuclear tests from 1946 to 1958, including two undersea tests that wiped out rich Pacific marine life, is the “Nuclear Legacy.” It would be more accurate to call it the “Nuclear Wound.” The tests on Bikini, Enewetak, and Kwajalein wounded the land and the ocean, the people—both Marshallese and American servicemen—and the relationship between our two countries. Healing is marked in decades, if not centuries.

We’ve had the nuclear tiger by the tail for a long time. No leader of any country would want their legacy to be the use of such indiscriminate and destructive weapons. When I joined the Foreign Service from Hawaii, Ronald Reagan was President. A chance for nuclear disarmament came and went with his summit with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev in Reykjavik. Today, the Soviet Union is gone but nuclear weapons are still here. We’ve made progress, but Reagan’s vision of a nuclear-free world remains out of reach. Until we achieve that goal, maintaining a test ban is in everyone’s interest. It is part of the legacy we leave our children.

I’ve stood on the Runit Dome concrete cap that covers the nuclear scrap that was bulldozed into a pit. That is also part of the legacy. As Nuclear Affairs Officer at the US Embassy in Moscow, I also visited some of the vast Russian nuclear architecture. I joined the late Sen. Pete Domenici (R-New Mexico) on a trip to Arzamas-16, a once-secret Russian nuclear city now known as Sarov. We saw abandoned ballrooms with torn curtains and dusty grand pianos, a testament to the empty result of spending on nuclear weapons. A waste of millions of dollars, rubles, or whatever currency used by the nuclear actor.

On page 431, Project 2025 calls for the United States to “Reject ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and indicate a willingness to conduct nuclear tests in response to adversary nuclear developments if necessary. This will require that the National Nuclear Security Administration be directed to move to immediate test readiness… .”

The Project 2025 proposal is a tremendous step backwards. We should be negotiating further cuts in the world’s nuclear arsenals, a prohibition of weapons in outer space, and cleanup of the “legacy” test sites around the world. It would help if Russia were a responsible partner in denuclearization but sadly that is not the case. We could be working together to find ways to mend the planet, rather than inflict further damage that will last for thousands of years.

The planet is resilient. Even sharks have returned to Bikini, although the sons and daughters of those displaced by testing have not. Pacific Islanders would never allow a return to testing in the Pacific, but no one on Earth should ever wake up again to a test like Bravo.

September 10, 2024 Posted by | USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

White House pushes for AUKUS to move to ‘pillar two’ weapons focus

SMH, By Peter Hartcher, September 9, 2024

The US is pushing for the AUKUS partnership to launch some world-leading new military technology projects before Joe Biden’s presidency ends, amid signs of growing impatience with the initiative.

The US National Security Adviser, Jake Sullivan, revealed in an interview at the White House that he wanted to see “two or three signature projects launched and under way by the time the administration finishes” on January 20.

While he expressed satisfaction with progress on so-called pillar one of AUKUS, the submarine program, his timeline for pillar two’s cutting-edge tech scheme puts new pressure on the three countries’ military and scientific agencies to deliver in the next five months.

It is three years ago this month that the leaders of the US, UK and Australia announced the joint technology initiative. In the meantime, China has extended its advantage in critical technologies, according to a report last week by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute.

A former senior official in the Trump administration expressed frustration: “On the science and technology side, I think there are problems because we’re not moving fast enough,” said Nadia Schadlow, Deputy National Security Adviser to the former president.

“If AUKUS doesn’t perform, if it doesn’t do what it’s supposed to do and what we said it would do, we almost might be better off without it because if we can’t fulfil our objectives, we almost look weaker.”

Pillar two of AUKUS was assigned eight priority research fields: advanced cyber, artificial intelligence, quantum technologies, undersea capabilities, hypersonics, electronic warfare, innovation, and information sharing……………………

officials said privately that there were problems of co-ordination, that each of the country’s systems was different and moved at different speeds………………………….  https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/white-house-pushes-for-aukus-to-move-to-pillar-two-weapons-focus-20240908-p5k8s5.html

September 9, 2024 Posted by | USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

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