Illinois Gov. Pritzker vetoes bill that would have allowed new nuclear construction
Capitol News Illinois | By Andrew Adams August 11, 2023
Gov. JB Pritzker on Friday vetoed a bill that would have lifted a 1980s moratorium on the construction of new nuclear reactors.
The passed in May with three-fifths majorities in both legislative chambers, meaning that if all of the members that voted for it also support an override of the governor’s veto, it still could become law. Its Senate sponsor, state Sen. Sue Rezin, R-Morris, said she has already filed paperwork to bring the bill up in the legislature’s fall veto session scheduled for late October and early November.
The governor said in a message to lawmakers explaining his veto that he did it “at the request of the leadership team of the Speaker of the House and advocates.”……………
“This bill provides no regulatory protections for the health and safety of Illinois residents who would live and work around these new reactors,” Pritzker wrote. “My hope is that future legislation in Illinois regarding SMRs would address this regulation gap.”
The governor also cited an “overly broad definition of advanced reactor” in the bill that he said could “open the door to proliferation” of large-scale nuclear power plants, like the reactors at the state’s six existing generating stations.
Pritzker said these traditional reactors are “so costly to build that they will cause exorbitant ratepayer-funded bailouts.”……………………………………………………………..
Rezin’s claims about advanced nuclear reactors are contentious, particularly among some environmental advocates that have been leading voices in the push for carbon-free energy in Illinois.
On Tuesday, a pair of influential advocacy groups sent a letter to Pritzker asking him to veto the bill. The Sierra Club Illinois Chapter and the Illinois Environmental Council’s joint letter outlined several concerns, including waste disposal, costs and a lack of up-to-date regulation.
………………………………… Beyond waste, environmental advocates also say that focusing on nuclear power diverts attention and resources away from the development of wind, solar and battery storage technology.
“SB76 would have opened the door to increased risk, negative environmental impacts, and higher costs for consumers while jeopardizing our progress toward Illinois’ clean energy future,” Sierra Club Illinois Director Jack Darin said in a Friday news release……………………………. https://www.wsiu.org/state-of-illinois/2023-08-11/gov-pritzker-vetoes-bill-that-would-have-allowed-new-nuclear-construction
Oppenheimer, Japan bombings put nuclear energy in a harsh light
Utah Public Radio | By Eric Tegethoff, August 11, 2023 , https://www.upr.org/utah-news/2023-08-11/oppenheimer-japan-bombings-put-nuclear-energy-in-a-harsh-light
The power and destructiveness of nuclear energy has been in the spotlight since the film “Oppenheimer” was released in July. It is in focus again this week with the anniversaries of the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan during World War II.
Mary Miller, a member of Idaho nuclear energy watchdog Snake River Alliance, explained the movie about J. Robert Oppenheimer and the first experiment with the atomic bomb stops short of the bombs dropped on Japan. But Miller noted Oppenheimer’s ideas changed after that.
“His message was that humanity must learn humility in the face of nature and use its experience with atomic energy to prosper international peace,” she said. “The nuclear power that was unleashed on Japan was just unimaginably too big and too lethal for humankind.”
The 78th anniversary of the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima was Sunday, and the anniversary of the Nagasaki bombing is on Wednesday. It is estimated the two bombs may have killed as many as 226,000 people, most of whom were civilians.
Advocates for nuclear energy are increasingly promoting its ability to help move the country from dirty sources of fuel in the fight against climate change, but Miller said it should not be considered a clean source of energy because its negatives outweigh the good it might be able to achieve.
“Just like that power that was unleashed in the bomb, the use of nuclear energy for electricity, which is called nuclear power, cannot be safely anticipated, predicted or controlled,” she explained.
Miller pointed to a number of issues with nuclear energy, such as safe transportation and storage of its waste, which sometimes has a radioactive half life that extends thousands of years. Experiments on new types of nuclear reactors are eing conducted at the Idaho National Laboratory.
War is a Racket… U.S. and NATO Arms Industries Make Record $400 BILLION in Sales from Proxy War With Russia

Strategic Culture Foundation, 11 Aug 23
Western capitalism is at once a sponsor and an addict of war.
Western weapons manufacturers are popping champagne corks over record sales with total revenues hitting $400 billion for last year. According to media reports, this coming year-end will see that record figure exceeded by another salivating $50 billion.
Ukraine may be resembling a bloodbath, as we noted in last week’s editorial. But apparently, Western military corporations are swimming in a bonanza of profits and stock market investments.
Most of this lucrative new business stems from NATO’s proxy war with Russia in Ukraine, which is heading toward its second year. There is no sign of a diplomatic effort from the West or the Kiev regime it sponsors to end the bloodshed.

The main corporate beneficiaries making a financial killing from Ukraine are by far the American firms. They include such behemoths as Lockheed Martin, Boeing and RTX (formerly Raytheon). But also enjoying soaring profits are arms makers in other NATO countries: BAE in the United Kingdom, Airbus in France, Netherlands and Spain, Leonardo in Italy, and Germany’s Rheinmetall.
This week the Joe Biden administration requested another $24 billion in U.S. taxpayer-funded aid to Ukraine. It’s hard to keep track of the money flowing from NATO countries to prop up the Nazi regime in Kiev. Even the NATO authorities don’t seem to know the precise figures, such is the rampant corruption that is inevitably associated with the vast doling of funds. But estimates of total U.S. and NATO aid to Ukraine range from $150 billion to $200 billion over the past year alone.
What we are seeing is an audacious racket whereby the American and European public are subsidizing the funneling of their own taxpayers’ money into the coffers of weapons firms. And there is no democratic choice in the matter. It’s a fait accompli. Or, put another way, extortion.
Of course, too, part of this huge scam is the hefty financial cuts for the inner circle of the Kiev regime, including its puppet president, Vladimir Zelensky, and the brazenly sleazy defense chief Aleksy Reznikov. It is reckoned that at least $400 million has been grafted by the top members of the regime from the arms bazaar flowing into Ukraine. Reznikov has even boasted that his country serves as a testing ground for NATO weaponry.
Nearly a century ago, former U.S. Marine Corps General Smedley D Butler popularized the phrase, “war is a racket” as the title of his classic book in which he condemned how American capitalism profits obscenely from military invasions and killing.
Butler’s critique is as relevant today, perhaps more so, as evinced by the conflict in Ukraine.
Western media reports are increasingly admitting – albeit coyly – that the war is a disaster for the Kiev regime and, by extension, the NATO powers. The death toll among Ukrainian forces may be as high as 400,000 since the conflict erupted last February. The much-anticipated Ukrainian counteroffensive launched in early June has resulted in no territorial gains despite the horrendous casualties and despite the gargantuan supply of NATO weapons, training and logistical support.
A report in the Washington Post this week shows that most Ukrainian people are despairing of the grinding war and endless casualties. They see no point in the continuation of hostilities given the failure of the NATO-backed forces to make any advance against well-fortified Russian defense lines.
Yet against this grim reality, the U.S. and European officials keep running the taps of blood.
We see NATO leaders like Polish President Andrzej Duda this week urging for more weapons to be sent to Ukraine even while he concedes the military defeat so far.
Zelensky and his cronies are, not surprisingly, also demanding more NATO arms and claiming with bravado they will never negotiate with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Some people want this conflict to keep going because of their irrational Russophobia and simply because it is too lucrative for their own personal gain.
Where does democracy come into this? It doesn’t, whatsoever. Polls show that most Americans are opposed to the continuing supply of military aid to Ukraine. There are sound reasons to believe that most European citizens are also firmly against the fueling of a bloody war in which Ukrainian corpses keep piling higher. In addition, the perpetuation of this conflict runs the outrageous risk of spiraling out of control into an all-out war between the United States and Russia, the world’s biggest nuclear powers……………………………….. more https://strategic-culture.org/news/2023/08/11/war-iracket-us-nato-arms-industries-make-record-400-billion-sales-from-proxy-war-with-russia/
TVA should focus on a better grid and renewable, not nuclear, energy
Tennessean, Ita Hardesty-Mason, 11 Aug 23
Nuclear energy is a fool’s folly and a waste of time and money. Unfortunately, the lobby around the Tennessee Valley Authority’s nuclear options is strong. It must be noted that Jeff Lyash, president and CEO of TVA, who wrote the guest column “How Tennessee Valley Authority is planning for growth and meeting future demands,” is also the chairman of the Nuclear Energy Institute. I am not so sure TVA has the best interests of its customers in mind.
Several experts and foundations have investigated this form of energy. Massive nuclear plants are costly, and a recent Fortune magazine article stated that since 2000 “at least $50 billion has been spent on a frantic effort to create a new Golden Age for nuclear energy in the U.S.” Nuclear energy will cost more per kilowatt hours than the renewable energy options like solar, wind, geothermal and hydropower.
The money wasted on these dangerous sites could be more wisely used by TVA to take the steps towards the switch to safe, sustainable forms of energy and a better energy grid.
………………. Nuclear power is not making us safe. It demands perfect conditions, and its problems can be exponentially harmful.
It must be asked if TVA, several elected representatives, and Gov. Bill Lee are being influenced by the fossil fuel and nuclear lobby.
It’s important that we all understand we must move away from fossil fuels and avoid nuclear energy.
We must see the sustainable options being deployed. Investment in and implementation of clean and safe energy is well underway. Renewable energy focus right now will satisfy our energy needs much quicker than nuclear power.
We need help understanding we can turn to solar, wind, hydropower and geothermal-generated energy and that we must make the switch to clean, sustainable energy as soon as possible.
Why in the world would TVA put us at such risk?
https://www.tennessean.com/story/opinion/contributors/2023/08/11/opinion-tva-should-focus-on-shift-to-renewable-not-nuclear-energy/70532888007/
Small nuclear Reactor (SMR) Stock Analysis Overview
Investors Observer 10 Aug 23
What this means: InvestorsObserver gives Nuscale Power Corp (SMR) an overall rank of 40, which is below average. Nuscale Power Corp is in the bottom half of stocks based on the fundamental outlook for the stock and an analysis of the stock’s chart. A rank of 40 means that 60% of stocks appear more favorable to our system………. https://www.investorsobserver.com/symbols/smr—
Biden vows to compensate New Mexico residents sickened by nuclear weapons radiation after 1945 testing
The state’s place in American history as a testing ground has gotten more attention recently with the release of “Oppenheimer,” a movie about physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer and the top-secret Manhattan Project
August 9, 2023 https://www.nbcdfw.com/news/national-international/biden-vows-to-compensate-new-mexico-residents-sickened-by-nuclear-weapons-radiation-after-1945-testing/3313610/
President Joe Biden said Wednesday that he’s open to granting assistance for people sickened by exposure to radiation during nuclear weapons testing, including in New Mexico, where the world’s first atomic bomb was tested in 1945.
Biden brought up the issue while speaking Wednesday in Belen at a factory that produces wind towers.
“I’m prepared to help in terms of making sure that those folks are taken care of,” he said.
The state’s place in American history as a testing ground has gotten more attention recently with the release of “Oppenheimer,” a movie about physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer and the top-secret Manhattan Project.
Biden watched the film last week while on vacation in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware.
Democratic Sen. Ben Ray Lujan of New Mexico spoke of how the first bomb was tested on soil just south of where the event was. The senator also discussed getting an amendment into the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act, which gives payments to people become ill from nuclear weapons tests or uranium mining during the Cold War.
“And those families did not get the help that they deserved. They were left out of the original legislation,” Lujan added. “We’re fighting with everything that we have” to keep the amendment in the National Defense Authorization Act.
Last month, the U.S. Senate voted to expand compensation. The provisions would extend health care coverage and compensation to so-called downwinders exposed to radiation during weapons testing to several new regions stretching from New Mexico to Guam.
Biden said he told Lujan that he’s “prepared to help in terms of making sure that those folks are taken care of.”
Ukraine biggest recipient of US aid since WWII – Washington Post
7 Aug, 2023 https://www.rt.com/news/580960-us-ukraine-military-aid/
Washington has contributed more than $60 billion to Kiev since the beginning of its conflict with Russia, estimates suggest
The United States has committed in excess of $60 billion in aid to Ukraine since the beginning of Moscow’s military operation last year, according to the Washington Post.
A recent analysis has shown that various US aid packages to Kiev have included $43 billion in direct military aid, making it the US’ biggest investment in a country since World War II, according to the paper.
“These are off-the-charts numbers,” Michael O’Hanlon of the think tank Brookings Institution told the WP
He added that Washington’s financial assistance to Ukraine could only be historically compared to the Marshall Plan – a US foreign aid package issued to Western Europe after the end of World War II. Adjusted for inflation, that initiative funded war recovery efforts to the tune of around $150 billion over three years.
The paper notes that Washington’s aid to Ukraine vastly surpasses the financial support issued to some of the US’ more traditional foreign partners, such as Israel, which was sent $8.6 billion in 2022 and 2023, and the $6.2 billion that was sent to Egypt and Jordan combined during the same period. It also significantly eclipses US financial support for Taiwan.
The US Department of Defense has an annual budget of $1.77 trillion, according to government data.
Some signs have shown that public support in the US for continued military assistance is weakening as the conflict enters its 18th month. Research in June found that 44% of Republicans or right-leaning independents believed that Joe Biden’s administration was spending too much on Ukraine aid.
However, O’Hanlon pointed out that the US could continue to fund Ukraine indefinitely. “We could do it forever,” he said. “It’s not economically unsustainable. But it’s probably politically unsustainable.”
Moscow has frequently cited Western support for Ukraine as a primary factor in prolonging the conflict. Anatoly Antonov, Russia’s ambassador to the US, responded to a renewed military package from the US to Ukraine last month by saying it is “beyond morality and common sense.” He claimed that while Washington seeks to portray itself as Kiev’s “selfless benefactor,” in practice it only strives for “more human suffering and deaths.”
Russian officials have repeatedly warned that shipments of heavy weapons and other military aid to Ukraine make NATO members de facto direct participants in Moscow’s conflict with Kiev. Moscow also insisted that Western support would not change the course of the outcome.
The Illusory Truth Effect And The “Unprovoked” Invasion Of Ukraine

CAITLIN JOHNSTONE, AUG 9, 2023 https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/the-illusory-truth-effect-and-the?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=82124&post_id=135829389&isFreemail=true&utm_medium=email
Illusory truth effect Repetition makes statements easier to process, relative to new, unrepeated statements, leading people to believe that the repeated conclusion is more truthful.
Arguably the single most egregious display of war propaganda in the 21st century occurred last year, when the entire western political/media class began uniformly bleating the word “unprovoked” in reference to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
On February 23 of last year, the day before the invasion began, the New York Times editorial board wrote that “an unprovoked invasion of a sovereign European state is an unprovoked declaration of war on a scale, on a continent and in a century when it was thought to be no longer possible.”
After the war began, the Biden White House released a statement titled “Remarks by President Biden on Russia’s Unprovoked and Unjustified Attack on Ukraine.” Secretary of State Antony Blinken shared Biden’s statement on Twitter with the comment “Russia’s premeditated, unprovoked, and unjustified attack on Ukraine blatantly disregards the lives of innocent men, women, and children, Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, and international law.”
In early March of last year, the New York Times editorial board wrote that western sanctions against Russia in retaliation for the invasion “have demonstrated that there are consequences for unprovoked wars of aggression.”
In April of last year the New York Times editorial board again repeated this slogan, writing that Putin had “ordered an unprovoked war to satisfy his ambitions of empire and the destruction of a neighboring nation.”
In May of last year the New York Times editorial board reiterated that “Ukraine deserves support against Russia’s unprovoked aggression.”
According to analyst Jeffrey Sachs, the New York Times used the word unprovoked “no fewer than 26 times, in five editorials, 14 opinion columns by NYT writers, and seven guest op-eds.”
But it wasn’t just the Paper of Record singing from the same hymnal as the US government on Ukraine. The Guardian editorial board wrote that “Mr Putin’s unprovoked war against a smaller, democratic neighbour has resulted in 1.7 million people fleeing their homes.” The LA Times editorial board wrote that the “most conspicuous victims of Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine are the people who will lose their lives in defending their country against a brutal (and nuclear-armed) neighbor.” The Chicago Tribune editorial board made reference to “Putin’s audacious, unprovoked invasion of Ukraine.” The Financial Times editorial board made reference to “Putin’s unprovoked assault on Russia’s neighbour.” The Washington Post editorial board made reference to “Moscow’s disastrous, unprovoked invasion” and to “Russia’s unprovoked invasion” in two separate pieces.
Everywhere you looked, that word was being uncritically regurgitated by the western press. CNN saying “Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine has devastated the country, killing hundreds of civilians, sparking a humanitarian disaster and resulting in a wave of sanctions from the West.” Time babbling about “Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24.” The New Yorker saying “Vladimir Putin ordered Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine.” NBC News saying “Russia’s unprovoked attack on Ukraine began Thursday, after weeks of buildup.” CNBC talking about “Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine.”
This is just me citing a few of the basically limitless examples I can point to of this war sloganeering throughout the mass media. The western press uphold themselves as impartial arbiters of truth, purporting to be superior to the state media propagandists of nations like Russia and China, and claiming a legitimacy that ordinary people using social media don’t have. And yet here they are uncritically parroting the talking points of the US government and taking sides against Russia.
The western media claim to report the facts, but the way they’ve fallen in line behind the “unprovoked” narrative reveals that their actual job is to frame world events in a way that serves the information interests of their government. Which would be bad enough if that narrative was just a biased framing of a contentious issue, and not the bald-faced lie that it actually is.
During an interview last year with the Useful Idiots podcast, Noam Chomsky argued that the reason we keep hearing the western press using the word “unprovoked” in reference to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is because it absolutely was provoked, and they know it.
“Right now if you’re a respectable writer and you want to write in the main journals, you talk about the Russian invasion of Ukraine, you have to call it ‘the unprovoked Russian invasion of Ukraine,” Chomsky said. “It’s a very interesting phrase; it was never used before. You look back, you look at Iraq, which was totally unprovoked, nobody ever called it ‘the unprovoked invasion of Iraq.’ In fact I don’t know if the term was ever used — if it was it was very marginal. Now you look it up on Google, and hundreds of thousands of hits. Every article that comes out has to talk about the unprovoked invasion of Ukraine.”
“Why? Because they know perfectly well it was provoked,” Chomsky said. “That doesn’t justify it, but it was massively provoked.”
Indeed, you can disagree with Russia’s invasion or believe that Putin overreacted to the situation, but what you can’t do is legitimately claim that the invasion was unprovoked. It’s just a well–documented fact that the US and its allies provoked this war in a whole host of ways, from NATO expansion to backing regime change in Kyiv to playing along with aggressions against Donbass separatists to pouring weapons into Ukraine. There’s also an abundance of evidence that the US and its allies sabotaged a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine in the early weeks of the war in order to keep this conflict going as long as possible to hurt Russian interests.
We know that western actions provoked the war in Ukraine because many western foreign policy experts spent years warning that western actions would provoke a war in Ukraine. There’s footage of John Mearsheimer back in 2015 urgently warning that “the west is leading Ukraine down the primrose path, and the end result is that Ukraine is going to get wrecked.” And that’s exactly how it played out.
The reason foreign policy “realists” like Mearsheimer were able to correctly predict the war in Ukraine is because they held at the forefront of their analysis the fact that great powers will never accept threats from other great powers on their borders. This is a key point to understanding the major conflicts of the 2020s, not just between the US and Russia but between the US and China as well — and the US is the one amassing the threats on the borders of its enemies in both instances.
The thesis of the war being unprovoked is very strategic,” foreign policy analyst Max Abrams recently tweeted in response to my commentary on this subject. “It whitewashes the role of NATO expansion, meddling in the Maidan uprisings and siding with far right extremists in the civil war. Not only does it exonerate America but it helps vilify Russia and sell the war as wholly good.”
The reason the mass media have been bleating the word “unprovoked” in unison with regard to this war is because the mass media are propaganda organs of the US empire. Their repetition of this war propaganda slogan exploits a glitch in human cognition known as the illusory truth effect, which makes it difficult for our minds to tell the difference between the experience of hearing something many times and the experience of hearing something that’s true. Just repeatedly inserting the word “unprovoked” into Ukraine war commentary across the board causes people to assume it must have been launched without provocation, because the illusory truth effect can circumvent reason and logic to insert a narrative into the collective consciousness of our civilization.
The fact that all mass media outlets began doing this in unison, against all journalistic training and ethics, shows you just how united the mass media are in service of the US empire. When the need to push a narrative is particularly urgent, the facade of journalistic impartiality and independence drops away, and we see the true face of the most sophisticated propaganda machine that has ever existed.
We don’t need nuclear cruise missiles at sea
Washington Post, By the Editorial Board, August 9, 2023
When the Cold War ended more than 30 years ago — and a coolheaded realism still existed in both U.S. political parties about the dangers of expanding nuclear stockpiles — President George H.W. Bush removed cruise missiles armed with nuclear warheads from America’s ships and submarines. Bush’s move was a prudent step for nuclear stability. In 2013, President Barack Obama retired the nuclear cruise missiles permanently.
Or so we thought. This month, as House and Senate conferees begin to iron out differences between the two chambers on a nearly $900 billion Pentagon spending bill for next fiscal year, both the House and Senate armed services committees want to place a new generation of nuclear-armed sea-launched cruise missiles (known as SLCM-Ns) back on Navy vessels. That would be a mistake……………………….
putting SLCM-Ns aboard attack submarines would complicate the mission of those vessels, which are charged with hunting enemy vessels. They would take up limited launch-tube space needed for anti-submarine warfare and require the Navy to recertify crew members for nuclear operations. Carrying nuclear cruise missiles would also limit the subs’ participation in allied naval exercises as well as their ability to make port calls and maintenance stops in countries that don’t welcome nuclear platforms in their harbors. This goes for surface ships as well and helps explain why the Navy opposes the missiles’ return.
Another reason to forgo SLCM-Ns: They are destabilizing. Cruise missiles fly low, under radars, and at much higher speeds than a generation ago. That combination reduces warning times to minutes and would force our rivals in Moscow and Beijing to match the capability. Returning these weapons to our arsenal would also lead other nations — Iran comes to mind — to hurry their development.
Then there is the cost-benefit crunch. A new generation of SLCM-Ns (and their warheads) would cost roughly $10 billion over 10 years, according to the Congressional Budget Office, and perhaps much more to make them operational at sea. Conferees should weigh that price tag against the three systems the United States already has in place to deliver tactical nuclear weapons……………………………………………………..
The Pentagon is set to undergo a broad modernization of its nuclear triad that is expected to cost $756 billion, if not more, over the next 10 years. The Editorial Board has said that some of those moves make sense while others could be slowed, or even halted, without endangering our security. But bringing back shorter-range nuclear weapons, especially those removed for good reason decades ago, would prove both expensive and dangerous. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/08/09/nuclear-weapon-sea-launched-cruise-missile-slcmn/
Poll Shows Majority of Americans Oppose Further Aid in Ukraine
By Talia Mullin / ScheerPost, 9 Aug 23
On Aug. 4, 2023, CNN released a poll, conducted with Social Science Research Solutions (SSRS), which found that most Americans oppose Congress authorizing additional aid to Ukraine in their war with Russia. While previous coverage highlighted a divide between Democrats and Republicans concerning the United States’ role in Ukraine, the recent poll results reveal a split public opinion on whether the U.S. has sufficiently supported Ukraine.
The poll was conducted by SSRS, an independent research company, in July with a random national sample of 1,279 adults who completed the survey by telephone or online after being initially contacted by mail.
According to the poll, 55% of respondents say that Congress should not authorize further funding to support Ukraine, and an additional 51% believe the U.S. has already done enough to help Ukrainian forces. This contrasts a poll conducted in Feb. 2022 which found that 62% of people felt that the U.S. could have been doing more to aid Ukraine. ……………………………………….
more https://scheerpost.com/2023/08/09/poll-shows-majority-of-americans-oppose-further-aid-in-ukraine/
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Target China

The UNZ Review, MIKE WHITNEY • AUGUST 3, 2023
The Biden Administration is implementing a plan to draw Taiwan into a direct military confrontation with the People’s Republic of China. The plan bears many similarities to the strategy that was used in Ukraine where Russia was goaded into invading the country in response to emerging threats to its national security. In this case, Beijing is expected to react to mounting challenges to its territorial integrity by US proxies and their political allies operating in Taiwan. These incitements will inevitably lead to greater material support from the United States which has stealthily worked behind the scenes (and in the media) to create a crisis.
The ultimate objective of these machinations, is to arm, train and provide logistical support for Taiwanese separatists who will spearhead Washington’s proxy war on China. According to a number of independent reports, there is already growing operational collaboration between the Taiwanese Army and US Armed Forces. That collaboration will undoubtedly deepen after hostilities break out and the island is plunged into war.
The plan to confront China militarily was outlined in the 2022 National Security Strategy in which the PRC was identified as “America’s most consequential geopolitical challenge” who expressed its “intent to reshape the international order.” This NSS analysis was followed by an explicit commitment to prevail in the struggle to control the “Indo-Pacific” region which “fuels much of the world’s economic growth and will be the epicenter of 21st century geopolitics.”...(“No region will be of more significance to …everyday Americans than the Indo-Pacific.”) Biden’s NSS emphasizes the critical role the military will play in the impending confrontation with China: “We will…modernize and strengthen our military so it is equipped for the era of strategic competition with major powers”… “America will not hesitate to use force to defend our national interests”.
Drawing China into a Taiwan quagmire is the first phase of a broader containment strategy aimed at preserving America’s top spot in the global order while preventing China from becoming the region’s dominant economy. The plan also includes economic, cyber and informational elements that are designed to work in concert with the military component. In its entirety, the strategy represents Washington’s best effort to roll-back the clock to the heyday of the unipolar world order when America set the global agenda and the United States had no rival.

Trouble in Taiwan
Taiwan is not a country. Taiwan is an island off the coast of China much like Santa Catalina is an island off the coast of California. No one disputes that Santa Catalina is part of the United States, just as no one disputes that Taiwan is a part of China. The issue was settled long ago, and the US agrees with the results of that settlement. For all practical purposes, the issue has been resolved.
The United Nations does not recognize Taiwan’s independence nor do the 181 countries that have established diplomatic relations with China. In fact, the UN adopted a General Assembly Resolution back in 1971 acknowledging the “People’s Republic of China as the sole legal government representing the whole of China.”
The One-China policy explicitly relates to the status of Taiwan. Taiwan is part of China, that’s what the One-China policy means. Nations that want to have relations with China must agree on the status of Taiwan; it is the foundational principle upon which all relations with China are based. The issue is not debatable. One can either accept that ‘Taiwan is an inalienable part of China’s territory’ or take their business elsewhere. There is no third option.
The United States claims that it is committed to the One-China policy. In their recent visits to Beijing, all three senior-level officials from the Biden Administration (Anthony Blinken, Janet Yellen and John Kerry) publicly stated their unwavering support for the One-China policy. This is an excerpt from an article at Forbes:

Secretary of State Antony Blinken reiterated the U.S.’ position on its One China policy as he met with China’s leader Xi Jinping Monday, saying it does not support Taiwanese independence and that containing China’s economy was not an American goal….
Blinken said the U.S. held a “One China” policy and does not support Taiwanese independence, but is concerned about China’s “provocative actions” along the Taiwan Strait. Blinken Tells Xi Jinping U.S. Does Not Support Taiwanese Independence, After Meeting To Quell Tensions, Forbes
President Joe Biden has also stated his support for the One-China principle on many, many occasions, which is what you would expect since it is the official position of the United States government. Here’s a short recap on the issue from China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs:
The US made the following commitments to China regarding the one-China principle in the three China-US joint communiqués.
In the Shanghai Communiqué released in 1972, the US explicitly stated that “The United States acknowledges that all Chinese on either side of the Taiwan Strait maintain there is but one China and that Taiwan is a part of China. The United States Government does not challenge that position”.
In the Joint Communiqué on the Establishment of Diplomatic Relations released in 1978, the US clearly stated that, “The Government of the United States of America acknowledges the Chinese position that there is but one China and Taiwan is part of China”.
In the August 17 Communiqué released in 1982, the US unequivocally stated that “In the Joint Communiqué on the Establishment of Diplomatic Relations on January 1, 1979, issued by the Government of the People’s Republic of China and the Government of the United States of America, the United States of America recognized the Government of the People’s Republic of China as the sole legal Government of China, and it acknowledged the Chinese position that there is but one China and Taiwan is part of China”, and that “it has no intention of infringing on Chinese sovereignty and territorial integrity, or interfering in China’s internal affairs, or pursuing a policy of ‘two Chinas’ or ‘one China, one Taiwan’”. (China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs)
The western media would like their readers to think there is some “gray area” here and that the issue regarding China’s sovereign territory has not been settled. But—as we have shown—it has been settled. Taiwan is China. We must assume therefore that the media is being intentionally misleading in order to garner support for an “independence” movement that serves only one purpose; to legitimize the arming and training of US assets and insurgents that will be used in a bloody conflagration with China. In truth, the United States is laying the groundwork for a proxy-war on China, and Taiwan has been designated as the frontlines in that war. The independence movement is merely the cover Washington has chosen to conceal its real objectives.
This is why Taiwan has become a flashpoint in US-China relations. This is why numerous US-led delegations have visited Taiwan expressing their tacit support for Taiwan independence. This is why Congress has allocated millions of dollars to provide lethal weaponry for the Taiwanese military. This is why the US Navy has sent warships through the Taiwan Strait and conducted massive military drills on China’s perimeter. This is why Washington continues to provoke Beijing on the one issue that it is most sensitive. All of these incitements were conjured-up with one goal in mind: War with China. This is from Politico:
The Biden administration announced a $345 million weapons package for Taiwan on Friday, the first tranche in a total of $1 billion the U.S. has allotted to be transferred directly from Pentagon stockpiles to the island this year…..………………………………………………..
Repeat: “The move is sure to anger China.”
Indeed, the move was designed to anger China. That was clearly the point. But, why? Why is Washington challenging China on an issue on which there is virtually universal agreement?
- To goad China into overreacting and thus alienating itself from its allies and regional trading partners.
- To turn public opinion against China by portraying the country as a violent aggressor that poses a clear threat to its neighbors.
Here’s more from the World Socialist Web Site:

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. Preparing for war with China, US provides $345 million in arms to Taiwan,
Imagine if China sent millions of dollars of lethal weapons to a budding secessionist movement in Texas. ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………
And, ask yourself this: Haven’t we seen this drill before? Didn’t this same scenario unfold in Ukraine following the CIA-backed coup in 2014 after which the US armed and trained Ukrainian forces to dig-in and provoke hostilities with Russia?……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
Let’s summarize:
- The Indo-Pacific is now America’s top foreign policy priority because that is the area that will experience the most growth
- The US will lead with its military and with the allies who share US interests
- “We will…modernize and strengthen our military” to prevail in our “strategic competition with major powers.”
- America’s Number 1 enemy is China; “the PRC presents America’s most consequential geopolitical challenge ….The PRC is the only competitor with both the intent to reshape the international order and, increasingly, the economic, diplomatic, military, and technological power to do it…”
- “The post-Cold War era is over” but the United States is prepared to preserve the “rules-based order” whatever the cost in blood and treasure.
This is America’s foreign policy in a nutshell. US leaders and their globalist allies are fully committed to prevailing in today’s great power struggle with Russia and China. They have a clear grasp of the objectives they want to achieve and they are prepared to risk anything, including nuclear war, to achieve them. Any developments in Taiwan must be seen through the lens of Washington’s geopolitical ambitions which are clearly driving events.…. more https://www.unz.com/mwhitney/target-china/
Democracy Needs Healthy Debates About War And Peace

To top it all, the Pentagon has never passed a financial audit! It’s the only major federal agency that hasn’t passed an audit, despite getting more discretionary dollars than any other. That means that we don’t know where our tax money is going.
Who benefits from this lack of transparency? Exactly who you’d think — contractors who profit off war. Around half of the military budget goes to for-profit contractors who make excessive profits at the expense of taxpayers and peace.
by EDITOR, August 7, 2023 https://scheerpost.com/2023/08/07/democracy-needs-healthy-debates-about-war-and-peace/
Congress spent the last “military spending” debate rehashing the culture wars — not the nearly $1 trillion Pentagon budget itself.
By Jyotsna Naidu / OtherWords
If there’s one thing that should be subject to rigorous debate and the will of the people, it’s decisions about war and peace. Unfortunately, that’s not what we got with the huge military policy bill recently passed by the House and Senate.
Somehow, the annual National Defense Authorization Act, or NDAA — which can bring war or peace, and which now costs nearly $1 trillion — never sees much serious debate in Congress about those issues.
Before this year, the NDAA passed easily for 61 years straight. The process is intentionally rushed. Hundreds of amendments are filed and voted at once, leaving little room for serious discourse.
This year was a partial exception. Lawmakers did debate the bill, which passed the House only narrowly. But they debated all the wrong things.
Representatives provoked hate with countless culture war amendments. Ignoring issues of war and peace, far-right members of Congress debated cutting funding for service members’ abortions and diversity programs on military bases.
Here’s what they should have discussed.
In 2021, the Congressional Budget Office published a report detailing three ways to cut military spending by $1 trillion over 10 years without compromising national security. Instead, Congress has given the military even more money each year.
This year, Representatives Barbara Lee (D-CA) and Mark Pocan (D-WI) called to shift $100 billion of the defense budget toward urgent domestic needs. Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) introduced a similar amendment in the Senate, which would have cut the Pentagon budget by 10 percent.
An American Friends Service Committee poll released earlier this year showed 56 percent of Americans would support cutting military spending to reinvest in those funds in public programs.
And amendments efforts would have exempted troops’ pay and benefits from any cuts, targeting the bloated military contractorsinstead.
In the House, the amendment was never allowed for debate — and never got a vote. In the Senate, the Sanders amendment got just 11 votes.
To top it all, the Pentagon has never passed a financial audit! It’s the only major federal agency that hasn’t passed an audit, despite getting more discretionary dollars than any other. That means that we don’t know where our tax money is going.
Who benefits from this lack of transparency? Exactly who you’d think — contractors who profit off war. Around half of the military budget goes to for-profit contractors who make excessive profits at the expense of taxpayers and peace.
With these robber baron-like profits, contractors have funded think tanks to produce favorable research and “expert” mediacommentary supporting higher military budgets — while lobbying politicians to keep spending on contractors.
In the House, this year’s NDAA lost its usual broad bipartisan support because of Democrats’ opposition to its far-right culture war amendments, not because there was suddenly political will to address war spending. The Senate simply passed the NDAA without the controversial amendments.
Culture wars aside, we can’t let lawmakers go back to idly voting for pro-war and pro-contractor interests.
I do have hope. People are already winning when they fight. In 2016, for example, activists successfully pressured the Massachusetts company Textron to stop producing cluster munitions, which disproportionately hurt civilians.
And as the congressional opposition to those nasty amendments showed more recently, lawmakers can still respond to public pressure. The onus is now on us to demand our lawmakers have a real democratic debate on war, peace, and the military budget.
Democracy is at stake.
Carcinogens found at Montana nuclear missile sites as reports of hundreds of cancers surface

The Air Force has detected unsafe levels of a likely carcinogen in samples taken at a Montana missile base where a striking number of men and women have reported cancer diagnoses
By TARA COPP Associated Press, August 8, 2023 https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/carcinogens-found-nuclear-missile-sites-reports-hundreds-cancers-102087696
WASHINGTON — The Air Force has detected unsafe levels of a likely carcinogen at underground launch control centers at a Montana nuclear missile base where a striking number of men and women have reported cancer diagnoses.
A new cleanup effort has been ordered.
The discovery “is the first from an extensive sampling of active U.S. intercontinental ballistic missile bases to address specific cancer concerns raised by missile community members,” Air Force Global Strike Command said in a release Monday. In those samples, two launch facilities at Malmstrom Air Force Base in Montana showed PCB levels higher than the thresholds recommended by the Environmental Protection Agency.
PCBs are oily or waxy substances that have been identified as a likely carcinogen by the EPA. Non-Hodgkin lymphoma is a blood cancer that uses the body’s infection-fighting lymph system to spread.
In response, Gen. Thomas Bussiere, commander of Air Force Global Strike Command, has directed “immediate measures to begin the cleanup process for the affected facilities and mitigate exposure by our airmen and Guardians to potentially hazardous conditions.”
After a military briefing was obtained by The Associated Press in January showing that at least nine current or former missileers at Malmstrom were diagnosed with non-Hodgkin lymphoma, a rare blood cancer, the Air Force School of Aerospace Medicine launched a study to look at cancers among the entire missile community checking for the possibility of clusters of the disease.
And there could be hundreds more cancers of all types, based on new data from a grassroots group of former missile launch officers and their surviving family members.
According to the Torchlight Initiative, at least 268 troops who served at nuclear missile sites, or their surviving family members, have self-reported being diagnosed with cancer, blood diseases or other illnesses over the past several decades.
At least 217 of those reported cases are cancers, at least 33 of them non-Hodgkin lymphoma.
What’s notable about those reported numbers is that the missileer community is very small. Only a few hundred airmen serve as missileers at each of the country’s three silo-launched Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile bases any given year. There have been only about 21,000 missileers in total since the Minuteman operations began in the early 1960s, according to the Torchlight Initiative.
For some context, in the U.S. general population there are about 403 new cancer cases reported per 100,000 people each year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and non-Hodgkin lymphoma affects an estimated 19 of every 100,000 people annually, according to the American Cancer Society.
Minutemen III silo fields are based at Malmstrom, F.E. Warren Air Force Base in Wyoming and Minot Air Force Base in North Dakota.
Missileers are male and female military officers who serve in underground launch control centers where they are responsible for monitoring, and if needed, launching fields of silo-based nuclear weapons. Two missileers spend sometimes days at a time on watch in underground bunkers, ready to turn the key and fire Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missiles if ordered to do so by the president.
The Minuteman III silos and underground control centers were built more than 60 years ago. Much of the electronics and infrastructure is decades old. Missileers have raised health concerns multiple times over the years about ventilation, water quality and potential toxins they cannot avoid as they spend 24 to 48 hours on duty underground.
The Air Force discovery of PCBs occurred as part of site visits by its bioenvironmental team from June 22 to June 29 in the Air Force’s ongoing larger investigation into the number of cancers reported among the missile community. During the site visits a health assessment team collected water, soil, air and surface samples from each of the missile launch facilities.
At Malmstrom, of the 300 surface swipe samples, 21 detected PCBs. Of those, 19 were below levels set by the EPA requiring mitigation and two were above. No PCBs were detected in any of the 30 air samples. The Air Force is still waiting for test results from F.E. Warren and Minot for surface and air samples, and for all bases for the water and soil samples.
Rapid Dragon: the US military game-changer that could affect conventional and nuclear strategy and arms control negotiations
Bulletin, By George M. Moore | August 4, 2023
The United States Air Force recently announced the successful test of its Rapid Dragon system in a major Pacific exercise.[1] This followed an earlier successful test during an exercise in Norway in late 2022.[2]
………………..In standard English, Rapid Dragon converts cargo aircraft into weapons carriers that can deploy cruise missiles (and potentially other standoff or self-defense weapons) by releasing them on pallets via the planes’ rear cargo ramps. Such a system makes a cargo aircraft into the equivalent of a bomber. Potentially the cargo aircrafts’ weapons load is limited only by how many pallets will fit in the cargo bay.
………………………………………………………The potential to develop Rapid Dragon so it can deliver nuclear weapons does not seem to have received any attention. The AGM-86 Air Launched Cruise Missile (ALCM) is nuclear capable and currently deliverable by the B-52. It appears that nothing would prevent the Rapid Dragon deployment of the ALCM, turning any cargo aircraft capable of using Rapid Dragon into a nuclear delivery aircraft.
The potential to use Rapid Dragon for nuclear weapons delivery (and eventually this will occur) will create new issues when serious nuclear weapons limitation resume.
……………………………………..The potential for nuclear launch from cargo aircraft creates new tactical problems that could affect survivability and deterrence concepts. ……………………………………………………………………………………………………
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