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Microsoft Is Using a Hell of a Lot of Water to Flood the World With AI

Angely Mercado, September 12, 2023 https://gizmodo.com.au/2023/09/microsoft-is-using-a-hell-of-a-lot-of-water-to-flood-the-world-with-ai/
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As artificial intelligence is increasingly developing and data centres are erected to further this tech, it’s becoming clear that AI has a water usage problem.

Microsoft’s latest sustainability report revealed that the software giant’s water usage saw a tremendous spike between 2021 and 2022. In 2021, the company used up 4,772,890 cubic meters of water. In 2022 that went up to 6,399,415—which is around a 30 percent increase from one year to the next. That’s almost 1.7 billion gallons of water in just one year, which is enough to fill more than 2,000 Olympic-sized swimming pools.

Why did Microsoft draw so much freaking water? Data centres that run AI supercomputers are hot. Equipment heats up, and if a centre overheats, those computers can shut down. The increase in water use is directly tied to the company’s investment and development of AI. Microsoft has backed OpenAI, which has a data centre in Des Moines, Iowa. During the summer months, the centre has to use a ton of water to keep equipment cool, especially as Iowa experiences rising temperatures due to climate change.

The water is drawn from nearby watersheds including the Des Moines and Raccoon rivers to cool the supercomputer that develops AI systems, the Associated Press reported. However, local waterways also provide drinking water for nearby communities. The volume used by the data centres has become a concern for the local utility company, West Des Moines Water Works.

A document from the utility dated April 2022 outlined that officials and the utility will only “consider future data centre projects beyond Microsoft Data Center Project Ginger East and West” unless the new projects can significantly lower their water usage. “This approach to resource conservation will help preserve the water supply for current and future commercial and residential needs of West Des Moines,” the document read.

Google, another tech giant that has heavily invested in AI products, has also seen a spike in water usage. An environmental report released this July outlined that the company’s water usage increased about 20% from 2021 to 2022. “We’re working to address the impact of our water consumption through our climate-conscious data centre cooling approach and water stewardship strategy,” a spokesperson told Gizmodo in an email this July.

As the planet becomes warmer, it may become harder for large tech companies to cool facilities. Many data centres are in cooler locations like the Pacific Northwest and states like Iowa in the upper Midwest, but neither location has been spared from heat waves.

Other tech companies have experienced challenges with keeping their centres online during especially hot weather. Last September, equipment at then Twitter’s data centre in Sacramento shut down during a heat wave. Increased instances of heat waves due to the climate crisis have also plagued data centres overseas. Last July, Google and Oracle’s London-based data centres went offline as England baked through sky-high temperatures of over 40 degrees Celsius.

September 29, 2023 Posted by Christina Macpherson | technology, USA, water | Leave a comment

Is World War III About to Start? Part II: Are the Military-Industrial Complex and Deep State Driving Us to War?

given the vast exiting of civilian U.S. factories and jobs over the last half-century to cheap-labor countries abroad, the Military Industrial Complex is probably the principal economic engine of the U.S. as a whole.

By Richard C. Cook / Original to ScheerPost.

Why is the U.S. refusing to call a halt to the Ukraine madness? Why can’t an era of “Peaceful Coexistence” in Europe and the world be declared or at least sought? How about détente with Russia? With Russia and China? What is wrong with that?

We’ll start peeling the onion by looking at the U.S. military-industrial complex. Of course, President Eisenhower warned us against the MIC over 60 years ago in his “Farewell Address” of January 20, 1961. Among other remarks he said:

“In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.”

Today about 2.1 million people are employed by the defense industry. According to Acara Solutions, a major MIC recruiting firm, their average annual salary is $106,700, 40 percent higher than the national average. The companies they work for produced revenues in 2022 of $741 billion. How much of their production is high-priced junk, no one knows. The performance of U.S.-produced armaments in the Ukraine conflict does not seem impressive. No modern U.S. weapons have ever been tested in an industrial-type war against an equal adversary.

The MIC also includes active-duty uniformed personnel of 1.37 million and reserves of 849,000. There are 750 U.S. military bases in more than 80 countries outside of the U.S. More than 100,000 U.S. military personnel are stationed in Europe. Annual salary and benefits of the military are currently $146 billion per year, escalating with COLAs compounded at two to three percent annually, sometimes more. Some former U.S. military personnel are assumed to be fighting in Ukraine as mercenaries or helping direct the fighting from safe locations like Kiev or Lvov.

Then there are the civilian employees. According to the DoD, it employs more than 700,000 civilians “in an array of critical positions worldwide,” with compensation totaling about $70 billion. According to the Government Accountability Office, we may also add 560,000 contractor employees, whose compensation is typically higher than the career workforce.

We can also add hundreds of thousands of executives, managers, employees and contractors of the three-letter Deep State agencies, such as the CIA, NSA, DEA, FBI, and now DHS, etc., who interface with the MIC day in and day out and are part of the same fabric of state-sanctioned force and enemy identification and interdiction.

Added to the above are members of Congress who vote on military budgets and make the laws that protect the MIC from accountability, lobbyists who pressure those members to cast votes favorable to their MIC clients, private sector financial service employees who handle the retirement accounts of the MIC multitude, foreigners who are employed at overseas bases, and various scoundrels and hangers-on. I would include in the latter category the multitude of MIC cheerleaders from Hollywood who produce trashy spectacles like Top Gun.

On top of everything else, there are millions of retirees drawing annuities in excess of what most working-class Americans earn, many of these retirees double- or triple-dipping with lucrative jobs in business or government.

Each of the above individuals supports multiple family members, workers, and vendors within the civilian economy who, with the ripple effect and velocity of money, keep entire towns, cities, states, regions, and industries afloat. An example is building the F-35 that has workers assembling it in 350 congressional districts. It is probably no exaggeration to say that given the vast exiting of civilian U.S. factories and jobs over the last half-century to cheap-labor countries abroad, the MIC is probably the principal economic engine of the U.S. as a whole.

So are we going to tell what adds up to tens of millions of people, sorry, your services are no longer needed? Good luck with that. And isn’t it obvious that all these people, especially the higher echelons, are going to do everything within their power to persuade us that their jobs are so essential that without them we will shortly be overwhelmed and eaten alive by every “enemy” on the planet?

If you doubt what I am saying, ask any retired colonel or general who has hired himself out as a talking head to CNN or MSNBC. It’s also why DoD has formally declared Russia and China our two “adversaries,” because, after all, you have to point the finger at someone and blame them for your own dysfunctional society.

But as I witnessed personally in my NASA days, many MIC personnel never do a lick of honest work, or are mainly occupied with paper shuffling or other busywork, especially with work-at-home now the vogue, with many spending their days surfing the internet, or worse, while drawing a level of pay that puts most civilian workers in the shade.

Not to mention stay-at-home mothers, teachers and caregivers, first responders, law enforcement personnel, food service employees, or the unemployed, underemployed, or homeless. Yet many of these people, while working hard for low pay, if any, have a sense of fulfillment and self-worth that surpasses the swarms of MIC bureaucrats who can’t help but feel degraded in their superfluous and often pointless vocational stagnation.

Is all this enough to create an imperative for World War III? You tell me. It certainly has to be a contributing factor. Plus it saps the nation’s natural strength. We could even say that the U.S. war machine is a cancerous tumor that has metastasized throughout the entirety of American society, polluting and corrupting every aspect of life, including the body politic, the environment, the entertainment industry, the mass media, education, scientific research, etc. ……………………………………………… https://scheerpost.com/2023/09/26/is-world-war-iii-about-to-start-part-ii-are-the-military-industrial-complex-and-deep-state-driving-us-to-war/

September 28, 2023 Posted by Christina Macpherson | USA, weapons and war | 1 Comment

‘The World Is at Stake’: Defuse Nuclear War Kicks Off Nationwide Week of Action

SHEERPOST September 26, 2023 By Brett Wilkins / Common Dreams https://scheerpost.com/2023/09/26/the-world-is-at-stake-defuse-nuclear-war-kicks-off-nationwide-week-of-action/

“The need for action to curtail the possibility of nuclear conflict could not be more urgent,” said the campaign’s organizer.

Activists from the Defuse Nuclear War coalition on Sunday launched a week of action to demand the U.S. government take steps to reduce the existential threat of thermonuclear annihilation, including by reinstating arms control treaties, shutting down hair-trigger missiles, and engaging in “genuine diplomatic efforts to end the war in Ukraine.”

Defuse Nuclear War is organizing around 40 events across the United States. Demonstrations are planned in Baltimore, Boston, Philadelphia, Tucson, Fresno, and Salt Lake City, pickets are scheduled across Washington state, vigils are set to take place in Hawaii and California, activists plan to unfurl a banner at a Lockheed Martin facility in Pennsylvania, and an interfaith gathering will be held outside United Nations headquarters in New York.

“Our coalition of activists is demanding that the Biden administration seriously consider the consequences of their inaction in addressing this threat.”

“The U.S. has allowed far too many weapons treaties to lapse in recent years, and the Ukraine War threatens daily to plunge the world into nuclear war,” Defuse Nuclear War national campaign organizer Ryan Black said in a statement. “Our coalition of activists is demanding that the Biden administration seriously consider the consequences of their inaction in addressing this threat.”

Chris Nelson of the California group Chico Peace Alliance—which is planning a Monday march through the Chico State University campus and the city’s downtown—said:

The annual obscene “Defense” Authorization Act maintains and grows constant war infrastructure that can only be curtailed by the action of civilians. The revolving door in Congress for the arms contractors now makes representative government ineffective for arms control. Nuclear weapons are illegal under the International Treaty for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. It is up to us to make that normative and create effective pressure to get interim treaties reestablished.

The landmark treaty—which was signed in 2017 and went into effect in 2021—has been signed by 97 nations.

Sean Arent of Physicians for Social Responsibility and Washington Against Nuclear Weapons—which is holding 12 demonstrations around the Evergreen State later this month—said that “Washington state is at the center of the atomic world, with more deployed nuclear weapons than anywhere else in the United States based out of the Kitsap-Bangor Trident nuclear submarine base.”

“The plutonium for some of the very first bombs were made at the ongoing disaster site known as Hanford, still radioactive to this day,” Arent continued. “It is past time that our members of Congress recognize this legacy and lead our country away from nuclear weapons.”

“We’re asking our members of Congress to support justice for communities impacted by these weapons like the Marshallese, support diplomatic negotiations towards arm reductions, and to fight tooth and nail to phase out—not enhance—our nuclear weapons arsenal in the impending National Defense Authorization Act,” Arent added. “The world is at stake.”

This year, the Bulletin of Atomic Scientisits’ Doomsday Clock—which tracks the world’s proximity to a possible nuclear war—was set to 90 seconds to midnight, the closest it has been to thermonuclear armageddon since it was created in 1947.

September 28, 2023 Posted by Christina Macpherson | opposition to nuclear, USA | Leave a comment

US Flouts International Law With Pacific Military Claims

One of these military controls, “the defense veto,” enables the United States to prevent the compact states from forging international agreements that could impede U.S. military priorities. Consequently, the compact states have never joined the Treaty of Rarotonga, which established a nuclear free zone in the region.

There is no legal basis for the United States to prevent ships from other countries from peacefully traversing the compact states’ exclusive economic zones.

Officials argue that Washington has the authority to block enemy navies from an area ‘nearly as large as the continental United States’

Anti-War.com by Edward Hunt September 26, 2023

In defiance of international norms and rules, U.S. officials are laying claim to the large oceanic area in the central Pacific Ocean that is home to the compact states.

Now that they are renewing the economic provisions of the compacts of free association with Palau, the Marshall Islands, and the Federated States of Micronesia, U.S. officials are insisting that the compacts provide the United States with exclusive control over an area of the central Pacific Ocean that is comparable in size to the United States.

“We control essentially the northern half of the Pacific between Hawaii and Philippines,” U.S. special envoy Joseph Yun told Congress in July.

For decades, the United States has overseen compacts of free association with Palau, the Marshall Islands, and the Federated States of Micronesia. Under the compacts, the United States provides the three countries with economic assistance while it maintains powerful military controls over the islands and their waters.

Another U.S. military control is “the right of strategic denial” by which U.S. officials assert that they can prevent other countries from accessing the compact states’ lands, waters, and airspace.

“The compacts do give us full defense authority and responsibility in those countries and provide our ability to strategically deny third country military access,” U.S. diplomat Jane Bocklage told Congress earlier this year.

Although the compact s include language that permits the United States to foreclose access to the islands by third-party military forces, U.S. officials have broadly interpreted this language to mean that they can exclude third parties from the compact states’ exclusive economic zones (EEZs), which extend up to 200 miles around each island’s coastlines.

At a congressional hearing in July, Senator John Barrasso (R-WY) asserted that strategic denial authority “allows us to deny access to any potential adversary in an area of the Pacific comparable in size to the continental United States.” An associate presented a map that portrayed the EEZs as one contiguous area under U.S. control. “It’s nearly as large as the continental United States,” Barrasso remarked.

Defense Department official Siddharth Mohandas agreed with the senator’s interpretation. He claimed that the United States maintains unfettered and exclusive access to the area. “We have the ability to deny foreign militaries access and the ability to operate in the exclusive economic zones of the Freely Associated States,” Mohandas said, referring to the compact states.

This interpretation of strategic denial is inconsistent with international law. Under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, all countries have the rights of navigation and overflight in the exclusive economic zones of other countries, as stipulated by Articles 58 and 87.

Most countries, including the compact states, are parties to the convention. The United States has never ratified the convention, but high-level U.S. officials have expressed their support for it.

“Although not yet a party to the treaty, the U.S. nevertheless observes the UN LOSC as reflective of customary international law and practice,” the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration explains, referring to the Convention on the Law of the Sea.

When U.S. officials say that they have a right to exclude third-party actors from the compact states’ exclusive economic zones, they are making claims that are inconsistent with the UN Convention. There is no legal basis for the United States to prevent ships from other countries from peacefully traversing the compact states’ exclusive economic zones………………………………. more https://original.antiwar.com/Edward_Hunt/2023/09/25/us-flouts-international-law-with-pacific-military-claims/

September 28, 2023 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Legal, USA | Leave a comment

Democrat congressman Adam Schiff funneled millions to defense contractors after taking donations

The earmarks Adam Schiff delivered for donors

The Democratic congressman for years secured earmarks for defense companies while taking campaign donations from top corporate brass and Washington lobbyists.

Politico, By CHRISTOPHER CADELAGO, 09/25/2023

Adam Schiff is unapologetically touting his commitment to earmarks for local causes — like homelessness and drug treatment programs — as he seeks the Senate seat long held by Dianne Feinstein. The 12-term House Democrat and darling of the anti-Trump left is even calling out his closest rival in the race, Rep. Katie Porter, for her opposition to pork-barrel spending.

But Schiff has offered an incomplete and potentially misleading account of his record on earmarks. A close examination of that record reveals that he secured generous earmarks for corporate beneficiaries early in his career, including at times for recipients who were also major donors to his political campaigns………………

A POLITICO review of congressional earmarks and political contributions found that in addition to the money for homelessness and drug treatment, Schiff also steered millions to for-profit companies and raised tens of thousands for his House reelection campaigns from corporate executives and people connected to them. The review was mostly limited to publicly available data from the brief three-year window when corporate earmarks were disclosed……………………………………………………………

Several of Schiff’s earmarks would be barred under reforms adopted in 2010. Among them, Schiff secured millions in funding for Smiths Detection and Phasebridge, Inc., defense companies based in his district. He steered $6 million to Smiths Detection for military warfare sensors between 2003 and 2006 and earmarked another $3 million to Phasebridge that was developing a radar frequency distribution system for the Navy in 2004………………………………………………………………………………………………more https://www.politico.com/news/2023/09/25/adam-schiff-earmarks-001177—

September 28, 2023 Posted by Christina Macpherson | politics, USA | Leave a comment

Pentagon exempts Ukraine operations from potential government shutdown

The decision means that training on American tactics and equipment can move forward uninterrupted if lawmakers don’t reach a funding deal by the end of the month.

Politico By LARA SELIGMAN, 09/21/2023

The Pentagon will exempt its Ukraine operations from a potential shutdown if lawmakers can’t agree on a deal to fund the government by the end of the month, allowing key training and other activities in support of Kyiv’s forces to move ahead uninterrupted, according to a Defense Department spokesperson.

Washington is more resigned to the looming government shutdown every day. As the Sept. 30 deadline approaches, congressional leaders showed little progress this week in moving a stopgap funding bill to avert that scenario. The House was in chaos on Thursday as a group of GOP hardliners tanked a vote that could have offered a path to fund the government.

But if lawmakers fail to reach an agreement and government appropriations lapse, DOD has decided to continue activities supporting Ukraine, DOD spokesperson Chris Sherwood told POLITICO Thursday — just hours after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy met with Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, Joint Chiefs Chair Gen. Mark Milley and other senior leaders at the Pentagon.

“Operation Atlantic Resolve is an excepted activity under a government lapse in appropriations,” Sherwood said, referring to the named operation for DOD’s activities in response to the Russian invasion.

The move means that the U.S. military’s activities related to the war, such as training of Ukrainian soldiers on American tactics and equipment, as well as shipments of weapons to Kyiv, will continue despite any potential shutdown.

As recently as Tuesday, Sherwood had said the shutdown could halt those activities, as POLITICO first reported.

It’s good news for Zelenskyy, as U.S. and European officials worry that international support for continuing to aid Ukraine could be waning. Zelenskyy also pleaded his case with lawmakers on Capitol Hill on Thursday morning before heading to the White House to meet with President Joe Biden.

The Biden administration is also expected to announce a new package of military aid for Ukraine later on Thursday, including additional air defenses and artillery.

During the White House meeting, Biden announced a new $325 million package of aid for Ukraine, including more air defenses, artillery and additional cluster munitions. He also said that the first of the U.S. Army’s M1 Abrams tanks pledged to Kyiv are expected to arrive on the battlefield next week.

Typically, when the government shuts down, all military activities stop unless they are deemed critical to national security. ……………………………………………………………………………………. more https://www.politico.com/news/2023/09/21/pentagon-exempts-ukraine-operations-from-shutdown-00117482

September 26, 2023 Posted by Christina Macpherson | politics, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

“Republicans for Ukraine”s Refreshingly Honest Ukraine War Ad

CAITLIN JOHNSTONE, SEP 25, 2023 https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/bill-kristols-refreshingly-honest?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=82124&post_id=137366801&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=1ise1&utm_medium=email

The Bill Kristol-led group “Republicans for Ukraine” has released a TV ad to help drum up GOP support for Washington’s proxy war against Russia, and it’s surprisingly honest about what this war is really about: advancing US strategic interests using Ukrainians as sacrificial pawns.

Here’s a transcript:

“When America arms Ukraine, we get a lot for a little. Putin is an enemy of America. We’ve used 5% of our defense budget to arm Ukraine, and with it, they’ve destroyed 50% of Putin’s Army. We’ve done all this by sending weapons from storage, not our troops. The more Ukraine weakens Russia, the more it also weakens Russia’s closest ally, China. America needs to stand strong against our enemies, that’s why Republicans in Congress must continue to support Ukraine.”

“Republicans for Ukraine” was launched last month by “Defending Democracy Together”, another Kristol-led narrative management operation which is funded by oligarchs like Pierre Omidyar. Kristol, who as a neoconservative thought leader played a pivotal role in pushing for the 2003 invasion of Iraq, tweeted on Saturday that the ad “will air on the Sunday shows tomorrow in DC.”

One of the dumbest things the empire asks us to believe is that this war simultaneously (A) was completely unprovoked and (B) just coincidentally happens to massively advance the strategic interests of the government accused of provoking it. From the moment Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022 westerners were aggressively hammered over and over and over again by the mass media with the uniform propaganda message that this was an “unprovoked invasion”, but ever since then we’ve also been receiving these peculiar messages from US empire managers and spinmeisters that this war is helping the United States crush its geopolitical enemies and advance its interests abroad.

This bizarre two-step occurs because the US-centralized empire needs to convey two self-evidently contradictory messages to the public at all times:
1. that the US is an innocent little flower who just wants to help its good friends the Ukrainians protect their democracy from the murderous Russians who invaded solely because they are evil and hate freedom, and
2. that it’s in the interest of Americans to continue this war.

The second point is required because the message that the US is merely an innocent passive witness to the violence in Ukraine necessarily causes certain political factions to ask, “Okay, so what are we doing there then? Why are we pouring all this money into something that has nothing to do with us?” So another narrative is required to explain that backing this proxy war also just so happens to be a massive boon to US strategic interests abroad while creating American jobs manufacturing weapons at home.

And of course this war advances US strategic interests. Of course it does. Only an idiot would believe the US is pouring weapons into another country because it loves the people who live there and wants them to be free, and that it is only by pure coincidence that this happens to kill a lot of Russians, bolster NATO, and advance US energy interests in Europe. It doesn’t benefit normal Americans at home, but it absolutely does serve the interests of the globe-spanning empire that’s centralized around Washington. That’s why the empire deliberately provoked it.

Empire managers were openly discussing the ways a war in Ukraine would directly benefit the US empire long before the invasion. In 2019 a Pentagon-funded Rand Corporation paper titled “Extending Russia — Competing from Advantageous Ground” detailed how the empire can use proxy warfare, economic warfare and other Cold War tactics to push its longtime geopolitical foe to the brink without costing American lives or sparking a nuclear conflict. The US Army-commissioned paper mentioned Ukraine hundreds of times, and explicitly discussed how a war there could be used to promote sanctions against Moscow and attack Russia’s energy interests in Europe.

In December of 2021 John Deni of NATO propaganda firm The Atlantic Council authored a piece for The Wall Street Journal titled “The Strategic Case for Risking War in Ukraine,” subtitled “An invasion would be a diplomatic, economic and military mistake for Putin. Let him make it if he must.” Deni argued that “there are good strategic reasons for the West to stake out a hard-line approach” against Moscow and refuse to negotiate or back down over Ukraine, because if doing so provokes Russia to invade it would “forge an even stronger anti-Russian consensus across Europe,” “result in another round of more debilitating economic sanctions that would further weaken Russia’s economy,” and “sap the strength and morale of Russia’s military while undercutting Mr. Putin’s domestic popularity and reducing Russia’s soft power globally.”

The minds on the inside of the empire were talking about how this war would benefit the US before the invasion, and they’ve been talking about how much it benefits the US ever since. As the Washington Post’s David Ignatius put it this past July: “these 18 months of war have been a strategic windfall, at relatively low cost (other than for the Ukrainians). The West’s most reckless antagonist has been rocked. NATO has grown much stronger with the additions of Sweden and Finland. Germany has weaned itself from dependence on Russian energy and, in many ways, rediscovered its sense of values. NATO squabbles make headlines, but overall, this has been a triumphal summer for the alliance.”

The managers of the empire are getting everything they want out of this war. In public they rend their garments and cry crocodile tears and call it a terrible criminal atrocity, but every now and then they look at the camera and flash it a quick Fleabag-style grin.

They knew exactly what they were doing when they provoked this war, and they know exactly what they’re doing by keeping it going.

And they’re loving every minute of it.

September 26, 2023 Posted by Christina Macpherson | politics, USA | Leave a comment

Another reason to oppose expanding nuclear power

Another reason to resist the expansion of nuclear power; the Price Anderson Act (PAA) was passed originally in 1957 to promote the nuclear industry by providing a shield from liability in the event of an accident or unforeseen disaster.

Without any public hearings, the renewal of the PAA was inappropriately buried in the National Defense Authorization Act before Congress. Nuclear power plants are so risky private insurance companies will not insure them. Corporations involved with nuclear power self-insure by contributing to a fund now estimated at $13 billion. If there is a Fukushima-like event, with damages in the hundreds of billions of dollars, either those who lose their homes and businesses would have no redress, or Congress would have to come up with a huge source of funding. The PAA provides immunization from liability for any damages above $13 billion. Taxpayers will likely foot the bill.

Contact your Congressmember to find out if they are aware of this and urge them to oppose continuation of nuclear power! There is too much at risk.

September 25, 2023 Posted by Christina Macpherson | politics, USA | Leave a comment

Antony Blinken wary on Iran, doesn’t criticise Saudi Arabia

Blinken Says Iran’s Nuclear Program ‘Profoundly Destabilizing’, Saturday, 09/23/2023 Author: Iran International Newsroom

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has refrained from criticizing the Saudi Crown Prince for suggesting his country will get nuclear weapons if Iran does so first.

Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salam speaking to Fox News this week referred to the danger of Iran producing nuclear weapons and said, “If they get one, we have to get one, for security reasons and the balance of power in the Middle East. But we don’t want to see that.”

Asked during the press conference if this kind of Saudi desire is not destabilizing, Blinken replied, “I think the comments that you alluded to point to the fact that Iran’s own activities in pursuing a nuclear program are a profoundly destabilizing element and one that risks the security of countries not only in the region but well beyond it…” He went on to say, “And so the problem is very clear, and the problem is Iran. That is the destabilizing element.”

September 25, 2023 Posted by Christina Macpherson | politics international, USA | Leave a comment

US government and media lying about Ukrainian counteroffensive – Seymour Hersh

https://www.rt.com/russia/583351-ukraine-counteroffensive-failed-hersh/ 21 Sept 23

A source has told the veteran reporter that Kiev and Washington are deceiving the public about the situation on the ground

US intelligence analysts believe that Ukraine has given up on its counteroffensive against Russia and the only thing prolonging the conflict is the unwillingness of Washington and Kiev to acknowledge its failure, a source has told investigative journalist Seymour Hersh.

Writing on Substack on Thursday, the veteran reporter cited an unnamed source, who “spent the early years of his career working against Soviet aggression and spying” as rejecting the Ukrainian narrative about slow but steady progress in its counteroffensive.

“‘It’s all lies,’” the source said, according to Hersh. “‘The war is over. Russia has won. There is no Ukrainian offensive anymore, but the White House and the American media have to keep the lie going.’”

This sentiment is shared by many figures in the US intelligence community, and the CIA in particular has been skeptical of Kiev’s claims of a continued push forward, unlike the Pentagon’s Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), he explained.

Trent Maul, the director of analysis for the DIA, touted Ukraine’s success to The Economist earlier this month and claimed Kiev’s forces had a “realistic” chance to break through Russian defense lines this year. The British outlet contrasted the assessment with that of an unnamed senior US intelligence official, who said the battlefield “could look broadly similar” in five years.

The source cited by Hersh blasted the leadership in both Moscow and Washington for acting “stupid” during the crisis. Russian President Vladimir Putin got “provoked [into] violating the UN charter” with a poorly-prepared military campaign, he argued. US President Joe Biden retaliated with a proxy war and has had to rely on the vilification of Putin by the media “in order to justify our mistake.”

“The truth is if the Ukrainian army is ordered to continue the offensive, the army would mutiny. The soldiers aren’t willing to die any more, but this doesn’t fit the B.S. that is being authored by the Biden White House,” the source concluded.

Moscow has denied the US claim that the operation against Ukraine was an act of “unprovoked aggression,” insisting that the people of Donbass had the right of self-determination under the UN Charter and acted accordingly when they broke away from Ukraine after the 2014 armed coup in Kiev.

The Russian government has maintained that it acted lawfully when it recognized the independence of the Donetsk and Luganks People’s Republics in February 2022. Days later, after Kiev refused to stop attacks on Donbass and pull out its troops, Moscow launched its offensive.

September 24, 2023 Posted by Christina Macpherson | secrets,lies and civil liberties, USA | Leave a comment

Foundation for the Defense of Democracy and The Nonproliferation Policy Education Center urge Biden against helping Saudi Arabia to enrich uranium

In an effort to get Saudi Arabia to recognize Israel, the Biden
Administration is considering offering Riyadh a U.S. civilian nuclear
cooperative agreement that would allow the Kingdom to enrich uranium, a
process that could bring it within weeks or days of acquiring a nuclear
weapon.

With nuclear fuel making activities, such as uranium enrichment,
there is no way to assure timely warning of possible military diversions:
By the time there is a detection, it’s too late to prevent the last few
steps to making a bomb. This inherent safeguards gap makes any endorsement
of enrichment in the Kingdom dangerous.

Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud is
publicly on record pledging to acquire nuclear weapons if he believes Iran
is acquiring one. Some argue this risk must be taken to keep the Kingdom
from embracing ever tighter relations with China. This is mistaken The
United States is the richest nation in the world. It has other more
powerful and far less dangerous ways to influence the Saudis’ thinking.

NPEC 21st Sept 2023

Letter to Biden Demands the Gold Standard in Any US-Saudi Nuclear Deal

September 23, 2023 Posted by Christina Macpherson | politics international, Saudi Arabia, Uranium, USA | Leave a comment

Maintaining the USA nuclear arsenal, at $750 billion over the next decade

2 This is what it’s like to maintain the US nuclear arsenal

By Tara Copp, Associated Press, Sep 21, 23 C ISR NET

The U.S. will spend more than $750 billion over the next decade to revamp nearly every part of its aging nuclear defenses. Officials say they simply can’t wait any longer — some systems and parts are more than 50 years old.

For now, it’s up to young military troops and government technicians across the U.S. to maintain the existing bombs and related components. The jobs are exacting and often require a deft touch. That’s because many of the maintenance tasks must be performed by hand……………………………………

Because the U.S. no longer conducts explosive nuclear tests, scientists are not exactly sure how aging warhead plutonium cores affect detonation. For more common parts, like the plastics and metals and wiring inside each detonator, there are also questions about how the years spent in warheads might affect their integrity.

So, workers at the nation’s nuclear labs and production sites spend a lot of time stressing and testing parts to make sure they’re safe. . At the Energy Department’s Kansas City National Security Campus, where warheads are made and maintained, technicians put components through endless tests. They heat weapons parts to extreme temperatures, drop them at speeds simulating a plane crash, shoot them at high velocity out of testing guns and rattle and shake them for hours on end. The tests are meant to simulate real world scenarios — from hurtling toward a target to being carted in an Air Force truck over a long, rutty road.

Technicians at the Los Alamos National Lab conduct similar evaluations, putting plutonium under extreme stress, heat and pressure to ensure it is stable enough to blow up as intended. Just like the technicians in Kansas City, the ones in Los Alamos closely examine the tested parts and radioactive material to see if they caused any damage…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

Workers younger than the warheads

It’s not unusual to see a 50-year-old warhead guarded or maintained by someone just out of high school, and ultimate custody of a nuclear weapon can fall on the shoulders of a service member who’s just 23.

……………………………….. At the Kansas City campus, for example, just about 6% of the workforce has been there 30 years or more — and over 60% has been at the facility for five years or less.

That change has meant more women have joined the workforce, too. In the cavernous hallways between Kansas City’s secured warhead workrooms are green and white nursing pods with a greeting: “Welcome mothers.”

At Los Alamos, workers’ uniform allowance now covers sports bras. Why? Because underwire bras were not compatible with the secured facilities’ many layers of metal detection and radiation monitoring. https://www.c4isrnet.com/battlefield-tech/2023/09/20/this-is-what-its-like-to-maintain-the-us-nuclear-arsenal/

September 22, 2023 Posted by Christina Macpherson | USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

New York Time’s Incredibly Low Bar for Labeling Someone ‘Pro-Putin’

BRYCE GREENE, 20 Sept 23, https://fair.org/home/nyts-incredibly-low-bar-for-labeling-someone-pro-putin/

It doesn’t take much in our media system to be labeled a “Putin apologist” or “pro-Russia.” In this New Cold War, even suggesting that the official enemy is not Hitlerian or completely irrational could earn ridicule and attack.

After the largely stalled Ukrainian counteroffensive against the Russian occupation, conditions on the front have hardened into what many observers describe as a “stalemate.” Like virtually all wars, the Russo-Ukrainian War will end with a negotiated settlement, and the quicker it happens, the quicker the bodies will stop piling up.

Despite this, anyone who advocates actually pursuing negotiations is immediately attacked. The New York Times (8/27/23) did this in an article about former French President Nicolas Sarkozy, in an article that argued he “gives a voice to obstinate Russian sympathies.” The Times wrote:

In interviews coinciding with the publication of a memoir, Mr. Sarkozy, who was president from 2007 to 2012, said that reversing Russia’s annexation of Crimea was “illusory,” ruled out Ukraine joining the European Union or NATO because it must remain “neutral,” and insisted that Russia and France “need each other.”

“People tell me Vladimir Putin isn’t the same man that I met. I don’t find that convincing. I’ve had tens of conversations with him. He is not irrational,” he told Le Figaro. “European interests aren’t aligned with American interests this time,” he added.

To Times writer Roger Cohen, Sarkozy’s remarks “underscored the strength of the lingering pockets of pro-Putin sympathy that persist in Europe,” which persist despite Europe’s “unified stand against Russia.” Cohen didn’t challenge or rebut anything the former president said—he merely quoted the words, labeled them “pro-Putin,” and moved on.

The New Cold War mentality has encouraged a new wave of McCarthyite attacks against anyone who dissents against the establishment status quo. Merely pointing out that Putin is “not irrational” flies in the face of the accepted conventional wisdom that Putin is a Hitler-like madman hell bent on conquering Eastern Europe. That conventional wisdom is what allows calls for negotiation to be dismissed without any serious discussion, and challenging that wisdom elicits harsh reactions from establishment voices.

September 22, 2023 Posted by Christina Macpherson | media, USA | Leave a comment

The President’s Power To Launch Nuclear Weapons Highlights A Troubling Paradox In U.S. Strategy

The paradox is that although the NC3 system provides checks on the authority to use weapons at every level below the president, the president himself (or herself) has sole authority to order the launch of nuclear weapons. There are no limits on that authority, no official with the power to countermand a launch order from the chief executive.

Loren Thompson, Forbes, 30 Sept 23

The U.S. government is engaged in a comprehensive modernization of its nuclear arsenal that will replace all three types of weapon systems comprising the strategic deterrent and upgrade the command network that controls them.

The nuclear command, control and communications system, often referred to simply as NC3 in military circles, is the least visible part of the strategic posture, but also the most complex. It consists of over 200 separate programs, some of which also provide command of non-nuclear forces.

Command and control of the nuclear force is vital to the deterrence of war. As Bruce Blair, a seminal thinker on the subject, observed in a 1985 book, “If command and control fail, nothing else matters.”

A single warhead of the kind commonly found in the Russian strategic arsenal can devastate 36 square miles of an urban area such as New York, and the Russians have at least 1,550 such warheads capable of reaching targets in the U.S.

China, after many years of restraint, is now expanding its own strategic arsenal.

The U.S. government long ago abandoned efforts to blunt a major nuclear attack against its homeland. The destructive power of the Russian and Chinese arsenals seemed too fearsome to counter, and leaders worried that trying to do so would provoke an arms race.

So, U.S. survival depends instead on the threat of retaliation. The fundamental precept of deterrence strategy is that an aggressor will not attack if it knows it will suffer intolerable damage in response. That’s the phrase planners often use—”intolerable damage.”

But it isn’t enough to possess weapons capable of visiting such destruction on an adversary. There needs to be an NC3 system that can detect attacks quickly, determine their source, and deliver a nuclear response proportional to the provocation.

Speed and proportionality are critical for the threat of retaliation to be credible. If the U.S. fails to react quickly, much of its arsenal might be destroyed on the ground. If it fails to respond in a measured way, it could cause a limited attack to escalate to all-out war.

The overarching goal of U.S. nuclear strategy is to prevent nuclear war from occurring by depriving enemies of any rational reason for beginning one. The nuclear force must be able to survive and operate even in the midst of cataclysmic conflict.

At the same time, adversaries and allies must be sure that there is no chance of what Joint Chiefs Chairman Mark Milley in a 2021 memo described as “an illegal, unauthorized or accidental launch.”

Thus, the nation’s nuclear posture must be super stable, and yet able to respond deliberately and decisively in a surprise attack.

This has led to an underlying paradox in that posture as planners struggle to reconcile the need for control of weapons with the need to act fast in an emergency.

Conversely, if the president elects not to launch weapons, even in an extreme crisis, no official has the power to compel him. The president’s control of the nuclear arsenal is absolute, at least until his demise in said crisis is confirmed.

Demise in such a scenario would be highly likely. The only plausible circumstances in which a rational adversary would launch a nuclear attack is the belief that it can degrade U.S. retaliatory forces in a surprise attack.

The adversary would probably begin by destroying the nation’s capital in what is sometimes called a decapitating attack on the government, and then quickly shift to targeting U.S. nuclear forces before the chain of command can regroup.

U.S. Strategic Command trains continuously to preclude such an attack from succeeding, but there’s no way of knowing how a nuclear adversary might act in a crisis, or how they might assess their options…………………………………

In a command and control system where tens of billions of dollars have been spent to assure affirmative control of weapons of mass destruction, at the very apex of the system the ultimate decider has no constraints on his or her authority to launch.

This unfettered power exists even in the absence of any apparent emergency. If President Biden directed a nuclear launch today, the only way that could be stopped would be for subordinates to violate their oaths to follow orders. Even if the president appeared to be suffering from diminished cognitive capacity, or an emotional breakdown.

………….fears of existential conflict have made the presidency “something akin to a nuclear monarchy.”

Does the president’s power make deterrence more credible? In some circumstances it probably does. In other circumstances, it might make nuclear conflict more likely—for example, if the attacker thinks the president will be too disoriented to respond quickly, or is threatening to launch in the absence of a real provocation. https://www.forbes.com/sites/lorenthompson/2023/09/19/the-presidents-power-to-launch-nuclear-weapons-highlights-a-troubling-paradox-in-us-strategy/?sh=7d87205c13cf

September 21, 2023 Posted by Christina Macpherson | USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Biden’s Whoppers at UN on Ukraine Burger King worthy.

Walt Zlotow, West Suburban Peace Coalition, Glen Ellyn IL 20 Sept 23

Outside of NATO and a few other countries, most of the world’s attendees at President Biden’s UN speech grew hungrier as he dished up US Whoppers about Russia over Ukraine.

He began by blasting Russia for abandoning longstanding nuclear arms control agreements, citing Russia’s suspension of New Start, the last of 4 such US Russian agreements. He omitted that it was the US that abandoned the other 3 first: Anti-Ballistic Missiles System Treaty in 2002; Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces Treaty in 2019; Open Skies in 2020. Biden’s is simply “having it his way.”

On Ukraine more Whoppers. “Russia alone bears responsibility for this war. Russia alone has the power to end this war immediately. And it is Russia alone that stands in the way of peace.” But even NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg has acknowledged that Putin invaded to prevent Ukraine from joining NATO after the US and the alliance refused to provide a guarantee that Kyiv would never become a member. On Ukraine provocation, Joe’s dining at Burger King; Jens at McDonalds.

Regarding Russia having sole responsibility to end it, Biden somehow omitted the US sabotaged every effort by not only Russia, but Ukraine itself, to negotiate the war’s end early on and along the way these past 19 months.

Instead of serving up Whoppers on Ukraine ‘his way,’ Biden should understand we peace loving folks around the world ‘deserve a break today’ from US perpetual war, direct and proxy, getting millions killed injured and displaced, with nuclear confrontation more likely every day.

Biden’s perpetual war policies are a tough Whopper to swallow.

September 21, 2023 Posted by Christina Macpherson | politics international, USA | Leave a comment

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