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Concerned Citizens for Nuclear Safety Urges State Legislature to Protect the Española Aquifer from LANL Pollutants.

August 24th, 2023  http://nuclearactive.org/

Did you know that in 2008 the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) designated the 3,000 square mile Española Basin System as a Sole Source Drinking Water Aquifer?  https://www.epa.gov/dwssa   One ongoing concern is that Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) sits on its western edge, near the Valles Caldera.  And a recent dispute between the New Mexico Environment Department and the Department of Energy about the LANL hexavalent chromium plume, which is being pushed deeper into the regional drinking water aquifer, highlights the need for state agencies to have the resources to protect it.  See Powerpoint presentations titled “DOE-Los Alamos Field Office (1)” and “NMED Hex Chrome Plume” under Item 1.   

On Monday, August 21st CCNS requested that a New Mexico Legislative Committee provide funding to key state agencies to protect this aquifer from LANL pollutants, which are migrating through the aquifer to the Rio Grande and beyond.  The request to the New Mexico Radioactive and Hazardous Materials Committee was for line items for the budgets of the Office of the State Engineer and New Mexico Environment Department.  See CCNS presentation “Concerned Citizens for Nuclear Safety” under Item 1.     https://www.nmlegis.gov/committee/Handouts_List?CommitteeCode=RHMC&Date=8/21/2023

An important history:  In 2006, La Cienega Valley Citizens for Environmental Safeguards and geo-hydrologist Zane Spiegel submitted a petition to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to designate the area as a sole source aquifer.   They argued that the aquifer supplies at least 50 percent of the drinking water for its service area and there are no reasonably available alternative drinking water sources should the aquifer become contaminated.  The aquifer encompasses the area between the Jemez and Sangre de Cristo Mountains, from Tres Piedras to the north almost to Galisteo to the south.

Then, in 2008, after EPA determined that 85% of the drinking water in the area covered by the petition comes from wells in the aquifer, EPA approved the application and designated the aquifer as a sole source drinking water aquifer.  http://www.nuclearactive.org/news/011808.html

Nevertheless, LANL has been investigating the hexavalent chromium contamination for nearly 20 years.  http://www.nuclearactive.org/audio/092706.mp3 and http://www.nuclearactive.org/news/122206.html

More recently, NMED became concerned that the hexavalent chromium was being pushed further and further into the regional drinking water and ordered that the injection process be stopped.  See NMED Hex Chrome Plume Powerpoint under “Item 1” at https://www.nmlegis.gov/committee/Handouts_List?CommitteeCode=RHMC&Date=8/21/2023 

The threat posed to the Española Basin Sole Source Aquifer by the hexavalent chromium contamination encouraged CCNS to ask for legislative oversight by providing funding to the Office of State Engineer and New Mexico Environment Department.

It is important to note that three of the Los Alamos County drinking water wells are located close to the known perimeter of the hexavalent chromium plume.

A full recording of the August 21, 2023 meeting of the Radioactive and Hazardous Materials Committee meeting is available here:  https://sg001-harmony.sliq.net/00293/Harmony/en/PowerBrowser/PowerBrowserV2/20230824/-1/73647   The presentation by Joni Arends, Executive Director of CCNS begins at 10:06 AM.

August 27, 2023 Posted by | environment, USA | Leave a comment

Senate extends nuclear liability-limiting law without public scrutiny. Here’s why we should care.

The chief problem with the Price-Anderson Act is the difference in how the law affects the public and the nuclear firms. In view of federal preemption of nuclear licensing, the public has essentially no say in the siting of a nuclear power plant and so must accept the associated accident risk. Nuclear vendors, however, are freed from all liability for offsite consequences of a nuclear accident, and so have nothing to worry about, either financially or legally.

Bulletin, By Victor Gilinsky | August 22, 2023

By Victor Gilinsky | August 22, 202

On the night of July 27, the US Senate passed the National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year 2024. The Senate-approved bill included a 20-year extension of the Price-Anderson Nuclear Industries Indemnity Act, which provides that if there are any offsite lives and property lost in a severe reactor accident, nuclear industry manufacturers and builders cannot be held liable. The extension of the act also includes another controversial provision—the adequacy of funds provided by the act for compensating victims of a nuclear accident.

The approval last month of this extension came without any public hearings and was introduced in Congress in a rather troubling manner. The extension’s backers, knowing it would face rough sledding in an open hearing, first attached it to the Accelerating Deployment of Versatile, Advanced Nuclear for Clean Energy (ADVANCE) Act of 2023, which was then placed on the Senate legislative calendar on July 10 and added to the “must-pass” National Defense Authorization Act. While it has yet to pass the House, the act bears powerfully on the country’s commitment to nuclear energy, and especially on safety standards for nuclear power plants and therefore should not escape public scrutiny.

The Price-Anderson Act was first approved in 1957, soon after the Atomic Energy Act of 1954 permitted private nuclear energy activity. Firms like General Electric and Westinghouse, among others, told Congress they would not build commercial nuclear power plants—a technology with which there was essentially no experience—if they faced vast liability for possible accidents. To promote rapid investment in nuclear power plants, the government gave the builders and vendors freedom from liability for offsite accidents. It added provisions for public compensation after a catastrophic accident. But both provisions need updating in view of what we have learned in the last 60-odd years.

The act currently provides about $13 billion for post-accident public compensation, with the funds coming over time from a self-insurance scheme funded by the owners of nuclear power plants. But the estimated cost of the 2011 Fukushima accident—several hundred billion dollars—dwarfs the Price-Anderson amount. Yet, there is more. If an accident was to lead to widespread and long-term nuclear plant shutdowns, as occurred in Japan, it isn’t clear the owners would be able to meet their financial obligations. What’s clear is that after a severe nuclear accident, the issue of compensation would land in the lap of Congress.

At a 2014 Nuclear Regulatory Commission hearing on a safety upgrade for the 19 US plants essentially identical to the ones at Fukushima, the staff of the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) told the commissioners that a fire in only one of the pools in which nuclear plants store highly radioactive used fuel could release much more radioactivity, conceivably 20 times more, than in the 2011 Fukushima accident. The commissioners at the time dismissed the concern on grounds that such an event was so improbable it failed the NRC’s cost-benefit analysis. But, however remote, the possibility remains.

The chief problem with the Price-Anderson Act is the difference in how the law affects the public and the nuclear firms. In view of federal preemption of nuclear licensing, the public has essentially no say in the siting of a nuclear power plant and so must accept the associated accident risk. Nuclear vendors, however, are freed from all liability for offsite consequences of a nuclear accident, and so have nothing to worry about, either financially or legally.

According to the NRC, calculations using “probabilistic risk assessment” serve as proof that the probability of severe nuclear accidents at US nuclear plants is extremely remote. But large nuclear vendors like General Electric and Westinghouse evidently don’t believe these numbers; otherwise, they would accept liability and would not fear risking their stockholders’ investment. If reactor builders won’t accept paying for the consequences of a possible nuclear accident, why then should members of the public, whose health and communities would be affected?……………………………………………………….

The current exuberance over “advanced” reactors” has some of the same boosterish markings as the earlier AEC episode, with the advocates so sure they are right that they think cutting corners is okay—like dispensing with public hearings on Price-Anderson Act extension.

The Price-Anderson Act extension is part of a larger program that would pull out the stops on granting generous subsidies to private nuclear firms, speeding approvals of nuclear license applications and promoting nuclear reactor exports—all supposedly in the interest of “reestablishing America’s preeminence as the global leader in nuclear energy in the 21st century.”

We need to stop and think as a society before it’s too late. Rather than a hastily and quietly passed 20-year extension, we need first a thorough public examination of the Price-Anderson Act’s fundamental provisions and their effect on nuclear reactor safety and licensing standards.  https://thebulletin.org/2023/08/senate-extends-nuclear-liability-limiting-law-without-public-scrutiny-heres-why-we-should-care/?utm_source=Newsletter&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=ThursdayNewsletter08242023&utm_content=NuclearRisk_NuclearLiabilityLimiting_08222023

August 26, 2023 Posted by | Legal, politics, USA | Leave a comment

Neocon Dark Money Front Launches Desperate Ad Blitz, as Support for Ukraine Forever War Craters

By Alexander Rubinstein / The Grayzone 23 Aug 23

Defending Democracy Together, a neoconservative outfit led by career chickenhawk scribe Bill Kristol, has launched a new initiative called “Republicans for Ukraine” to transform the 2024 presidential election into a referendum on US funding for the NATO proxy war. 

Urging Republicans in Congress to support more funding for  Ukraine in the upcoming appropriations bill is also a key item on the agenda…………………………………………………….

Now, as the Ukrainian counteroffensive fails and a majority of Americans declare opposition for the first time to sending more military aid to Ukraine, Kristol is launching a multimillion dollar ad blitz to keep the tanks slogging through the Donbas mud and the dark money flowing into his bank accounts. https://scheerpost.com/2023/08/23/neocon-dark-money-front-launches-desperate-ad-blitz-as-support-for-ukraine-forever-war-craters/

August 25, 2023 Posted by | politics, USA | Leave a comment

Most ‘experts’ pushing for endless conflict in Ukraine share a common benefactor.

the top 50 think tanks received over a billion dollars from the US government and its defense contractors and manufacturers, including some of the biggest beneficiaries of weapons production today ‘for Ukraine’. The top recipients of this funding include the Atlantic Council, German Marshall Fund of the United States, Brookings Institution, Heritage Foundation, Center for Strategic and International Studies, New America Foundation, RAND Corporation, Center for a New American Security, Council on Foreign Relations, and the Stimson Center.

A whopping 85% of media quotes on US military involvement come from someone paid by the defense industry

Rachel Marsden is a columnist, political strategist, and host of independently produced talk-shows in French and English.

rachelmarsden.com 20 Aug 23

Experts with important-sounding titles linked to academic-sounding entities have been shaping hearts and minds in the press, both at home and abroad, in favor of endless conflict in Ukraine. Guess what deep-pocketed benefactor lurks beneath the surface? 

During the Iraq War, the Pentagon backed retired generals to make the rounds of TV and radio shows as ‘military analysts’ to promote the Bush administration’s agenda in the Persian Gulf. It was like inviting Ronald McDonald on a program to debate and discuss the merit of Big Macs. You could almost see the strings attached to the puppets, linked to the military-industrial complex that benefited from war without an off-ramp.

Fast forward 20 years, and the sales tactics have drastically changed. The generals have been replaced by various experts with academic credentials, typically linked to one or more ‘think tanks’. Far from the neutral academic centers of intellectual integrity that the names suggest, these entities are little more than laundromats for discreet special interests. I should know – I used to be a director of one.

Every Wednesday, some of the highest-ranking figures of the Bush administration would come to our Washington, DC office to deliver their main agenda points for the week, requesting assistance in placing and promoting them to both grassroots activists sympathetic to the cause and to the general public. The experts within the think tank were hired based on political litmus tests, no doubt to ensure that their views aligned with the organization’s. When they no longer do, you’re either fired or you leave.

The donors, many of whom were well-known millionaires and billionaires driven by a passion for certain issues, would come straight out and ask for bang for their buck in exchange for the opening of their wallets. In some cases, an entire project or department would be mounted at the think tank with the understanding that it would be fully funded by a single donor. These rich, influential folks typically had business or investment interests that benefited from shaping the establishment narrative in their favor, and they wanted to do so without leaving any footprints. What better way than to have it all fronted by a shiny veneer of expert credibility?

So while the generals of the Iraq War era had all the subtlety of a sledgehammer in representing the interests of the military-industrial complex, the new salesmen of endless armed conflict in Ukraine have overwhelmingly adopted the more subtle model. A study published in 2020 found that the top 50 think tanks received over a billion dollars from the US government and its defense contractors and manufacturers, including some of the biggest beneficiaries of weapons production today ‘for Ukraine’. The top recipients of this funding include the Atlantic Council, German Marshall Fund of the United States, Brookings Institution, Heritage Foundation, Center for Strategic and International Studies, New America Foundation, RAND Corporation, Center for a New American Security, Council on Foreign Relations, and the Stimson Center.

Some of these black boxes are more ideologically-driven than others. The Heritage Foundation, for example, leans overwhelmingly neoconservative and interventionist. Others, like the Atlantic Council and German Marshall Fund, are effectively force multipliers for NATO talking points. But the RAND Corporation also houses systems analysts and scientists specializing in space and computing. The fact that not all of these entities – or even the people who work within some of them – can be tossed into the same basket and labeled mere parrots for the special interests of their organization’s benefactors helps to muddy the waters.

In an analysis published in June of media coverage related to US military involvement in Ukraine, the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft found that, when a think tank is cited regarding the issue, 85% of the time it’s a think tank with “financial backing from the defense industry.” Taken at face value, this risks being interpreted by the general public as expert ‘consensus’ on the need for US taxpayers to continue flooding Ukraine with weapons, unaware that it’s really just a bunch of Pentagon-backed actors agreeing with each other about the need to pursue the most profitable course of action on behalf of their War Inc. sugar daddies. Just like when climate scientists, who have parlayed climate change into endless funding and a perpetual justification for their existence, aren’t going to kill their cash cow by arguing that the climate can’t be controlled by man and that throwing cash at the issue – or at them – is futile.

Many of the Ukraine think tank experts are quick to attack analysis and information published on platforms they don’t like – such as RT – as ‘Russian-backed’. You’d have to be living under a rock these days to not know that RT is linked to Russia. No transparency issues there.

But there is far less transparency around their own organizations’ financing. Where is their insistence on being above board about the use of defense industry cash to influence not just the general public but the course of the conflict itself? Around a third of top foreign policy think tanks don’t disclose this Pentagon funding, according to the Quincy Institute. Nor is it unheard of for these experts to springboard from these establishment-friendly platforms and the public notoriety they provide, right into public office – where they can translate the same agenda that they promoted into actionable policy. Isn’t it important for voters to consider the powerful hidden hand who helped to get them there?

August 22, 2023 Posted by | secrets,lies and civil liberties, USA | Leave a comment

Georgia’s new nuclear reactors a cautionary tale

R Street, BY MARC HYDEN, AUG 21, 2023

Regulators and industry professionals have been gushing over the launch of Georgia’s newest nuclear reactor—Plant Vogtle’s Unit 3. It’s the first such reactor built in the United States in over three decades, and it is positioned to provide around 500,000 customers with clean energy for up to 80 years, which is something to celebrate.

Electric monopoly Georgia Power—who owns a nearly 50 percent stake in it—hailed the recent Vogtle construction as an “American energy success story.” While nuclear energy is impressive and there’s reason to be awestruck by Unit 3, the Vogtle project has been an absolute mess. It’s less of an American success story and more of a subsidized boondoggle that should serve as a cautionary tale for others.

In the early planning stages, a conglomerate of electric companies came together with plans to build two new nuclear reactors—units 3 and 4—and quickly obtained some attractive deals. The U.S. Department of Energy agreed to provide $12 billion in loan guarantees for the construction, the Georgia Public Service Commission greenlit the Vogtle plan, and in 2009, the state Legislature permitted Georgia Power to raise ratepayers’ bills to begin recouping the construction costs far in advance of the units’ completion.

Since Georgia has a monopoly system for electric companies, customers have little choice but to fork out the cash, and the utilities saw little risk and heralded the plan. The construction was intended as a clean energy investment in the future. Best of all, the units would supposedly be completed quickly and for a fair price. That’s where things began to fall apart.

Plant Vogtle’s construction could be best described by the Beach Boys’ lyric, “We’ll get there fast and then we’ll take it slow” because the only thing that happened relatively quickly were the sweetheart deals. Original estimates suggested that units 3 and 4 would be operational in 2016 and 2017, respectively, and the total project would cost around $14 billion. That’s a lot of money for captive ratepayers to bankroll, but that turned out to be more like a down payment. Cost overruns and persistent delays plagued Vogtle.

Construction began in 2009, but only by this summer did Unit 3 become operational for commercial use—7 years behind schedule. Meanwhile, Unit 4 isn’t expected to serve customers until later this year or next. Further, the running price tag for the project now exceeds $35 billion—more than double the original projection—but this was easily foreseeable.

Built in the late 1980s, Vogtle’s units 1 and 2 cost many billions more than estimated, and over 20 nuclear projects have been abandoned in the South since the 1970s for various reasons. Constructing massive nuclear reactors isn’t cheap, nor is it a simple task by any means, and just as anyone who watched the HBO series Chernobyl knows, you don’t want to rush through construction and cut corners……………………………………………………

If nuclear energy is in a resurgence, then Vogtle should serve as a cautionary tale for other states. Mega projects subsidized by the government and underwritten by electric monopolies’ captive ratepayers are fraught with problems. Rather than rushing to help finance massively wealthy energy companies’ nuclear ambitions, the government should reassess whether the actual—not estimated—costs and delays are worth it.

Governments love to act rashly, and asking them to proceed with caution might be futile in a changing world, which reminds me of another song lyric: “The more things change, the more they stay the same. https://www.rstreet.org/commentary/georgias-new-nuclear-reactors-a-cautionary-tale/

August 22, 2023 Posted by | business and costs, USA | Leave a comment

Big Brave Western Proxy Warriors Keep Whining That Ukrainian Troops Are Cowards

CAITLIN JOHNSTONE, AUG 19, 2023

Amid continuous news that the Ukrainian counteroffensive which began in June is not going as hoped, The New York Times has published an article titled “Troop Deaths and Injuries in Ukraine War Near 500,000, U.S. Officials Say.” 

Reporting that Ukrainian efforts to retake Russia-occupied territory have been “bogged down in dense Russian minefields under constant fire from artillery and helicopter gunships,” The New York Times reports that Ukrainian forces have switched tactics to using “artillery and long-range missiles instead of plunging into minefields under fire.”

Then the article gets really freaky:

“American officials are worried that Ukraine’s adjustments will race through precious ammunition supplies, which could benefit President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia and disadvantage Ukraine in a war of attrition. But Ukrainian commanders decided the pivot reduced casualties and preserved their frontline fighting force.

“American officials say they fear that Ukraine has become casualty averse, one reason it has been cautious about pressing ahead with the counteroffensive. Almost any big push against dug-in Russian defenders protected by minefields would result in huge numbers of losses.”

I’m sorry, US officials “fear” that Ukraine is becoming “casualty averse”? Because safer battlefield tactics that burn through a lot of ammunition don’t chew through lives like charging through a minefield under heavy artillery fire?

What are the Ukrainians supposed to be? Casualty amenable? If Ukraine was more casualty amenable, would it be more willing to throw young bodies into the gears of this proxy war that the US empire actively provoked and killed peace deals to maintain?

Something tells me that the US officials speaking to The New York Times about their “fear” of Ukrainian casualty aversiveness do not know what real fear is. Something tells me that if you marched these US officials through Russian minefields under constant fire from artillery and helicopter gunships, then they would understand fear.

Western officials have been spending the last few weeks whining to the media that Ukraine’s inability to gain ground is due to an irrational aversion to being killed. They’ve been decrying Ukrainian cowardice to the press under cover of anonymity, from behind the safety of their office desks.

In an article published Thursday titled “U.S. intelligence says Ukraine will fail to meet offensive’s key goal,” The Washington Post cited anonymous “U.S. and Western officials” to report that the massive losses Ukraine has been suffering in this counteroffensive had been “anticipated” in war games ahead of time, but that they had “envisioned Kyiv accepting the casualties as the cost of piercing through Russia’s main defensive line.”

The same article quotes Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba telling critics of the counteroffensive to “go and join the foreign legion” if they don’t like the results so far, adding, “It’s easy to say that you want everything to be faster when you are not there.”

In an article published last month titled “U.S. Cluster Munitions Arrive in Ukraine, but Impact on Battlefield Remains Unclear,” The New York Times reported unnamed senior US officials had “privately expressed frustration” that Ukrainian commanders “fearing increased casualties among their ranks” were switching to artillery barrages, “rather than sticking with the Western tactics and pressing harder to breach the Russian defenses.”

“Why don’t they come and do it themselves?” a former Ukrainian defense minister told The New York Times in response to the American criticism.

In an article last month titled “Ukraine’s Lack of Weaponry and Training Risks Stalemate in Fight With Russia,” The Wall Street Journal reported that unnamed western military officials “knew Kyiv didn’t have all the training or weapons” needed to dislodge Russia, but that they had “hoped Ukrainian courage and resourcefulness would carry the day” anyway. 

“It didn’t,” Wall Street Journal added.

In the same article, The Wall Street Journal cited a US Army War College professor named John Nagle admitting that the US itself would never attempt the kind of counteroffensive it’s been pushing Ukrainians into attempting.

“America would never attempt to defeat a prepared defense without air superiority, but they [Ukrainians] don’t have air superiority,” Nagl said, adding, “It’s impossible to overstate how important air superiority is for fighting a ground fight at a reasonable cost in casualties.”

And now we’re seeing reports in the mass media that US officials — still under cover of anonymity of course — are beginning to wonder if perhaps it might have been better to try to negotiate peace instead of launching this counteroffensive that they knew was doomed from the beginning. 

In an article titled “Milley had a point,” Politico cites multiple anonymous US officials saying that as “the realities of the counteroffensive are sinking in around Washington,” empire managers are beginning to wonder if they should have heeded outgoing Joint Chiefs chair Mark Milley’s suggestion back in November that it was a good time to consider peace talks.

“We may have missed a window to push for earlier talks,” one anonymous official says, adding, “Milley had a point.”

Oops. Oops they made a little oopsie poopsie. Oh well, it’s only Ukrainian lives.

Imagine reading through all this as a Ukrainian, especially a Ukrainian who’s lost a home or a loved one to this war. I imagine white hot tears pouring down my face. I imagine rage, and I imagine overwhelming frustration.

This whole war could have been avoided with a little diplomacy and a few mild concessions to Moscow. It could have been stopped in the early weeks of the conflict back when a tentative peace agreement had been struck. It could have been stopped back in November before this catastrophic counteroffensive.

But it wasn’t. The US had an agenda to lock Moscow into a costly military quagmire with the goal of weakening Russia, and to this day US officials openly boast about all this war is doing to advance US interests. So they’ve kept it going, using Ukrainian bodies as a giant sponge to soak up as many expensive military explosives as possible to drain Russian coffers while advancing US energy interests in Europe and keeping Moscow preoccupied while the empire orchestrates its next move against China.

Last month The Washington Post’s David Ignatius wrote an article explaining why westerners shouldn’t “feel gloomy” about how things are going in Ukraine, writing the following about how much this war is doing to benefit US interests overseas:

“Meanwhile, for the United States and its NATO allies, 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.”

Other than for the Ukrainians” he says, as a parenthetical aside.

Everyone who supported this horrifying proxy war should have that paragraph tattooed on their fucking forehead.

August 21, 2023 Posted by | Religion and ethics, Ukraine, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

New York governor blocks discharge of radioactive water into Hudson River from closed nuclear plant.

A measure to block discharges of radioactive
water into the Hudson River as part of the Indian Point nuclear plant’s
decommissioning was signed into law Friday by New York Gov. Kathy Hochul.

The bill was introduced to thwart the planned release of 1.3 million
gallons of water with traces of radioactive tritium from the retired
riverside plant 25 miles (40 kilometers) north of New York City.

The plan sparked a groundswell of opposition in the suburban communities along the
river. Many feared the discharges would depress real estate values and
drive away sailors, kayakers and swimmers after decades of progress in
cleaning up the Hudson River.

AP 18th Aug 2023

https://apnews.com/article/indian-point-hudson-river-nuclear-pollution-2c8d0f5d31acc701bbc41bdb573bfac5

August 21, 2023 Posted by | politics, USA, wastes | Leave a comment

The Pentagon Is Spending $1 Billion a Year on ‘Directed Energy Weapons’

Washington is interested in the weapons but worries they’ll end up in the ‘valley of death’ if the Pentagon isn’t careful.

By Matthew Gault, 02 June 2023, 

The Pentagon is spending $1 billion a year developing laser and microwave weapons, and Washington is worried that money will go to waste. 

According to new reports from the Government Accountability Office, the U.S. military faces serious challenges trying to get what it calls directed energy weapons out, but should consolidate efforts so that the weapons don’t fall into what it called the “valley of death.”

The U.S. Army, Navy, and Air Force have all worked to develop various kinds of direct energy weapons. The most prominent are high energy lasers (HEL) and high power microwaves (HPM) weapons……………………………………………. https://www.vice.com/en/article/pkagjk/pentagon-is-spending-dollar1-billion-a-year-on-directed-energy-weapons

August 21, 2023 Posted by | USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Assange Be Weary: The Dangers of a US Plea Deal

August 18, 2023

By Binoy Kampmark / CounterPunch, https://scheerpost.com/2023/08/18/assange-be-weary-the-dangers-of-a-us-plea-deal/

At every stage of its proceedings against Julian Assange, the US Imperium has shown little by way of tempering its vengeful impulses. The WikiLeaks publisher, in uncovering the sordid, operational details of a global military power, would always have to pay. Given the 18 charges he faces, 17 fashioned from that most repressive of instruments, the US Espionage Act of 1917, any sentence is bound to be hefty. Were he to be extradited from the United Kingdom to the US, Assange will disappear into a carceral, life-ending dystopia.

In this saga of relentless mugging and persecution, the country that has featured regularly in commentary, yet done the least, is Australia. Assange may well be an Australian national, but this has generally counted for naught. Successive governments have tended to cower before the bullying disposition of Washington’s power. With the signing of the AUKUS pact and the inexorable surrender of Canberra’s military and diplomatic functions to Washington, any exertion of independent counsel and fair advice will be treated with sneering qualification.

The Albanese government has claimed, at various stages, to be pursuing the matter with its US counterparts with firm insistence. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has even publicly expressed his frustration at the lack of progress in finding a “diplomatic solution” to Assange’s plight. But such frustrations have been tempered by an acceptance that legal processes must first run their course.

The substance of any such diplomatic solution remains vague. But on August 14, the Sydney Morning Herald, citing US Ambassador to Australia Caroline Kennedy as its chief source, reported that a “resolution” to Assange’s plight might be in the offing. “There is a way to resolve it,” the ambassador told the paper. This could involve a reduction of any charges in favour of a guilty plea, with the details sketched out by the US Department of Justice. In making her remarks, Kennedy clarified that this was more a matter for the DOJ than the State Department or any other department. “So it’s not really a diplomatic issue, but I think there absolutely could be a resolution.”

In May, Kennedy met members of the Parliamentary Friends of Julian Assange Group to hear their concerns. The previous month, 48 Australian MPs and Senators, including 13 from the governing Labor Party, wrote an open letter to the US Attorney General, Merrick Garland, warning that the prosecution “would set a dangerous precedent for all global citizens, journalists, publishers, media organizations and the freedom of the press. It would also be needlessly damaging for the US as a world leader on freedom of expression and the rule of law.”

In a discussion with The Intercept, Gabriel Shipton, Assange’s brother, had his own analysis of the latest developments. “The [Biden] administration appears to be searching for an off-ramp ahead of [Albanese’s] first state visit to DC in October.” In the event one wasn’t found, “we could see a repeat of a very public rebuff delivered by [US Secretary of State] Tony Blinken to the Australian Foreign Minister two weeks ago in Brisbane.”

That rebuff was particularly brutal, taking place on the occasion of the AUSMIN talks between the foreign and defence ministers of both Australia and the United States. On that occasion, Foreign Minister Penny Wong remarked that Australia had made its position clear to their US counterparts “that Mr Assange’s case has dragged for too long, and our desire it be brought to a conclusion, and we’ve said that publicly and you would anticipate that that reflects also the positive we articulate in private.”

In his response, Secretary of State Blinken claimed to “understand” such views and admitted that the matter had been raised with himself and various offices of the US. With such polite formalities acknowledged, Blinken proceeded to tell “our friends” what, exactly, Washington wished to do. 

 Assange had been “charged with very serious criminal conduct in the United States in connection with his alleged role in one of the largest compromises of classified information in the history of our country. The actions that he has alleged to have committed risked very serious harm to our national security, to the benefit of our adversaries, and put named sources at grave risk – grave risk – of physical harm, and grave risk of detention.”

Such an assessment, lazily assumed, repeatedly rebutted, and persistently disproved, went unchallenged by all the parties present, including the Australian ministers. Nor did any members of the press deem it appropriate to challenge the account. The unstated assumption here is that Assange is already guilty for absurd charges, a man condemned.

At this stage, such deals are the stuff of manipulation and fantasy. The espionage charges have been drafted to inflate, rather than diminish any sentence. Suggestions that the DOJ will somehow go soft must be treated with abundant scepticism. The pursuit of Assange is laced by sentiments of revenge, intended to both inflict harm upon the publisher while deterring those wishing to publish US national security information. As the Australian international law academic Don Rothwell observes, the plea deal may well take into account the four years spent in UK captivity, but is unlikely to either feature a complete scrapping of the charges, or exempt Assange from travelling to the US to admit his guilt. “It’s not possible to strike a plea deal outside the relevant jurisdiction except in the most exceptional circumstances.”

Should any plea deal be successfully reached and implemented, thereby making Assange admit guilt, the terms of his return to Australia, assuming he survives any stint on US soil, will be onerous. In effect, the US would merely be changing the prison warden while adjusting the terms of observation. In place of British prison wardens will be Australian overseers unlikely to ever take kindly to the publication of national security information.

August 19, 2023 Posted by | AUSTRALIA, legal, USA | Leave a comment

What Happened When the US Set Off Nuclear Weapons in One of the Most Geologically Active Places on Earth?

the enduring impact on the island remains as the copious radioactive elements made when we try to come up with ways to destroy us all keep seeping from their tomb underground. 

Imagine a Bond villain saying they were going to set off three nuclear bombs in one of the most volcanically and seismically active places on Earth. Now imagine that the US already did it.

Rocky Planet. By Erik Klemetti. Aug 16, 2023 

“……………. the United States set three nuclear bombs off in one of the most geologically active parts of the world … and nothing happene

These days it is hard to imagine a world with nuclear testing. However, in the 1940s to 1990s, the US and USSR (amongst others) were setting off bombs like they were going out of style. In the air, on land, under the sea and eventually underground, these “experiments” were both means to develop even bigger weapons and displays of force. The consequences of many of these tests are still being felt thanks to the copious radioactive fallout produced.

Bombs in Alaska

One set of the over 1,000 nuclear explosions run by the US was conducted on Amchitka in the Aleutian Islands. Long Shot, Milrow and Cannikin were the code names given to three blasts performed from 1965 to 1971. This included the largest underground nuclear bomb ever detonated, the 5 megaton weapon as part of Operation Grommet.

The most astonishing thing about these tests is that Amchitka Island is in the middle of the Aleutian subduction zone, where the Pacific Plate is diving underneath the North American Plate. There are six potentially active volcanoes within 100 miles of the island. On top of that, the Rat Islands region has produced numerous and gigantic earthquakes across the 20th and 21st centuries. This area is highly volatile, geologically speaking.

So, why run nuclear tests there? For one, it is remote. Very few people live anywhere near these islands. It’s remoteness also allowed Amchitka to be a proxy for the USSR so that the US could work on methods to detect underground nuclear blasts from afar. The island previously hosted a US Air Force base during World War II that had over 15,000 soldiers stationed in this desolate island. This meant that the infrastructure for tests was there after the armed forces moved out.

The first nuclear test on Amchitka was 1965’s Long Shot. It was an 80-kiloton warhead that was used to test early methods of seismic detection of distant nuclear blasts. After that, nothing happened on the island again until 1969. It was realized that the Cannikin test was way too big to do in Nevada, so off to Alaska it went.

Volcanoes and Earthquakes

Let’s set out stage: the US planned to test a massive nuclear weapon in a shaft last 1 mile (2 kilometers) deep in a location that was volcanically and seismically active. Remember those six volcanoes with 100 miles? They include Semisopochnoi (currently erupting, and prior to test, 1873), Little Sitkin (last erupted 1830), Gareloi (last erupted 1989, and prior to the test, 1952), Davidof (Holocene), Segula (1600s?) and Kiska (last erupted 1990, erupting in 1969!)

On top of that, the M8.7 Rat Islands earthquake that generated a tsunami that swept across the Alaskan coast occurred ~30 miles from Amchitka on February 4, 1965. That was less than 9 months before the Long Shot test! It is hard to imagine how a massive earthquake could happen that close to the test site … and they still went ahead and did it! Combine that with the vivid memories of the 1964 M9.2 earthquake and tsunami in Alaska, and no wonder people were edgy about bomb tests.

Just to show how strange the pre-test ban treaty world was, the US Atomic Energy Commission set off a smaller (1-1.2 megaton, or 12-15 times larger than Long Shot) earlier to calibrate their sensors for the larger blast to come. Later, it was admitted that the Pentagon had run the Milrow explosion to also test if a big blast could, just maybe, cause an earthquake or eruption.

The Big One

Although the tests were performed under the auspices of the US Atomic Energy Commission, they were really being done for the Pentagon. The Cannikin test was meant to investigate the feasibility of using a 5-megaton warhead as part of an anti-ballistic missile program (the Spartan Missile). Although there was a lot of resistance to the test (see below), President Nixon still went ahead and ordered the test to proceed (with support from the Supreme Court).

Cannikin went off on November 6, 1971. It produced a M7 earthquake from the blast. You can see in this video how the land surface jumped as much as 20 feet during the explosion as the shockwave moved across the island. Thousands of birds and otters died in the shockwave. A crater over a mile wide was produced but even with the same energy released as the 2010 earthquake in Haiti, no tsunami was generated. Supposedly, very little radiation was detected either. In the eyes of the US Atomic Energy Commission and the Pentagon, it was a great success.

……………………………………………………… Looking Back 50 Years

The one long-term impact of the tests is the groundwater of Amchitka. Although little radiation was detected directly after the blast, water percolating through the underground remains of the Cannikin blast becomes radioactive. The US Department of Energy doesn’t agree with findings that show elements like plutonium in groundwater at Amchitka, but it does seem that the island still feels the effects of those blasts even today.

The other impact is a human impact. By the late 1960s, environmentalists became increasingly enflamed by the frequency of nuclear weapon tests … and rightly so. The amount of fallout produced by these tests is clearly seen in the deep-sea sediment and ice core records. When word got out about the immense Cannikin test, a group headed out in a rented boat they dubbed “Greenpeace” to try to stop the test, both in fear of fallout and the potential for triggering another earthquake and tsunami like the M8.7 event in 1965. Stormy weather with winds over 120 miles per hour prevented the ship from reaching Amchitka for the test, but the name “Greenpeace” remained as the environmental organization we know today.

Maybe the myth that we can set off eruptions and earthquakes using nuclear weapons can be (partially) put to bed. The only earthquake caused by these explosions were, well, caused by the explosion. Little evidence exists to suggest that the blasts had any trigger effect on faults and volcanoes near Amchitka. However, the enduring impact on the island remains as the copious radioactive elements made when we try to come up with ways to destroy us all keep seeping from their tomb underground. https://www.discovermagazine.com/planet-earth/what-happened-when-the-us-set-off-nuclear-weapons-in-one-of-the-most

August 19, 2023 Posted by | ARCTIC, Reference, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Over Budget and Delayed—What’s Next for U.S. Nuclear Weapons Research and Production Projects?

August 17, 2023,  https://www.gao.gov/blog/over-budget-and-delayed-whats-next-u.s.-nuclear-weapons-research-and-production-projects [Excellent diagrams]

The United States’ nuclear weapon stockpile depends on facilities that are, on average, about 50 years old. In fact, the processing of enriched uranium used in nuclear weapons is still conducted in an Oppenheimer-era facility built in 1945. These aging facilities pose safety and operational risks and cost taxpayers almost a billion dollars to maintain each year. 

Over the next two decades, the United States plans to spend tens of billions of dollars to modernize the research and production infrastructure on which the nuclear stockpile depends. Today’s WatchBlog post looks at our new report about the status of these efforts, led by the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), and the challenges that have resulted in them being over budget and delayed.  

New infrastructure projects are important, complex, and expensive

NNSA is currently designing or constructing 23 major projects (each costing more than $100 million). Some projects will process nuclear components containing plutonium or enriched uranium, which are critical to the functioning of nuclear weapons. These projects are expensive and include three multi-billion dollar, one-of-a-kind efforts to build new or modify existing uranium and plutonium component production facilities in New Mexico, South Carolina, and Tennessee. Other projects do not involve nuclear materials and are less expensive, such as a $270 million project to build a high explosives laboratory and related facilities in Texas.

New projects will cost more and take longer to build than NNSA planned

As of March, NNSA’s projects that were in the construction phase collectively overran their cost estimates by over $2 billion and their schedules by almost 10 years. Some of the reasons for these increased costs and delays include poor management and planning, as well as COVID-19. Of the projects that are under construction, the multi-billion-dollar Uranium Processing Facility family of projects in Tennessee is responsible for a majority of the cost increases and schedule delays. These cost increases and schedule delays, as well as NNSA’s decision to refocus resources on higher-priority projects, led NNSA to propose placing two other projects (in Texas and South Carolina) currently in the design phase on hold for multiple years.

In addition, six projects in the design phase are implementing significant changes that may increase their cost and schedule beyond NNSA’s preliminary estimates. These include a project to modify existing plutonium processing facilities at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico.

We’ve made recommendations to help NNSA improve its oversight of these projects

We have previously made recommendations that would help NNSA better manage its projects as well as the programs that will operate the completed projects to achieve agency goals. For example, we recommended that the NNSA complete a lifecycle cost estimate for establishing the agency’s capability for producing plutonium pits (the central core of a nuclear weapon), as this effort involves dozens of programs, projects, and other activities, including two multi-billion dollar projects and multiple other projects that will cost hundreds of millions of dollars. However, NNSA has not taken action on some of these recommendations. We have expressed concerns about the management of nuclear projects and programs since 1990, and NNSA acquisition and program management remains on our most recent High Risk List.

Learn more about NNSA’s projects, their statuses, and challenges by checking out our new report.

August 19, 2023 Posted by | USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

US tightens export controls of nuclear power items to China

By Timothy Gardner, August 19, 2023

WASHINGTON, (Reuters) – The Biden administration has tightened controls on the export of materials and components for nuclear power plants to China, saying it would ensure the items were used only for peaceful purposes and not the proliferation of atomic weapons.

The steps are among the latest signs of strained relations between Washington and Beijing, which have clashed over spying allegations, human rights, China’s industrial policies, and U.S. export bans on advanced technologies.

The Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS), an arm of the Commerce Department, now requires exporters to get specific licenses to export certain generators, containers and software intended for use in nuclear plants in China.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), the federal agency responsible for nuclear energy safety, also requires exporters to get specific licenses to export special nuclear material and source material.

That includes different types of uranium as well as deuterium, a hydrogen isotope that, in large amounts, could be used in reactors to make tritium, a nuclear weapons component.

The Biden administration sees the action as “necessary to further the national security interests of the United States and to enhance the common defense and security” the NRC said.

A U.S. official said the changes, made on Monday, were prompted by general policy toward China…………………….

Non-proliferation analyst Edwin Lyman of the Union of Concerned Scientists non-profit group said the changes were “more symbolic than substantive” and doubted China’s nuclear weapons program would be meaningfully impacted.

…………………………….U.S. company Westinghouse has four AP1000 reactors in China. In 2018 Donald Trump’s administration issued restrictions on exports of nuclear reactor technology newer than the AP1000 due to proliferation concerns. Westinghouse did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the U.S. requirements.

Reporting by Timothy Gardner; additional reporting by Michael Martina; editing by Barbara Lewis  https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-tightens-export-controls-nuclear-power-items-china-2023-08-18/

August 19, 2023 Posted by | business and costs, China, politics international, USA | Leave a comment

Why the Glut of ‘Wonder Weapons’ to Ukraine Won’t Make a Difference

 The primary purpose of American and Western militarism is to make profits for private corporations, the military-industrial complex.

Typically, the weapons are vastly overpriced, overhyped and designed for perpetual consumption.

They are not for winning a war. They’re for being used up, so you have to replace them now, with yet new buying.”

Finian Cunningham, August 15, 2023,  https://strategic-culture.org/news/2023/08/15/us-capitalism-and-why-glut-of-wonder-weapons-ukraine-wont-make-difference/

It is slowly and reluctantly dawning on Western officials and their servile media that the Ukraine counteroffensive is failing. Not only the two-month-old counteroffensive but indeed the entire conflict. Ukraine hasn’t a chance of prevailing against Russia’s superior forces.

Still, the violence and killing go on. No diplomacy, peace, or sanity. Why?

Only a couple of months ago, the Western media were full of bravado claims that the United States’ and NATO’s weapons and training would turn the tide for a “stunning victory” against Russia. Today, those same media are meekly reporting on a “grinding counteroffensive” (Washington Post, New York Times, CNN) and “failed expectations” (London Times).

How to explain the glaring conundrum? The United States and its European NATO allies have supplied the Kiev regime with up to $100 billion worth of weaponry over the past year, ranging from battlefield tanks to Patriot missiles. And the military gifts keep coming, with the Biden administration requesting another $12 billion for Ukraine last week. In the coming months, the U.S. and its allies are planning to supply F-16 fighter jets.

And yet all this mind-boggling largesse won’t make a difference to the outcome of an eventual Russian victory. Tens of thousands more Ukrainian soldiers will be killed of course and a wider all-out nuclear war with Russia is a reprehensible risk. But why does the insanity continue? Why are Western politicians and media not exploring diplomatic alternatives to the endless slaughter?

A fundamental reason for this debacle and ultimate scandal is the inherent vice of U.S. militarism. American militarism and that of other Western capitalist states is not about the conventional understanding of “military” or “defense” for the purpose of defending nations, or indeed for actually winning wars. The primary purpose of American and Western militarism is to make profits for private corporations, the military-industrial complex.

Typically, the weapons are vastly overpriced, overhyped and designed for perpetual consumption. Take the U.S.-made Patriot air-defense system, or the Abrams tank, or the F-35 fighter jets. Independent military analysts will tell you these systems are overpriced junk that don’t really do the job they are supposed to do. Russian forces have been wiping out the Patriot and Western tanks with relative ease using superior hypersonic weapons.

Michael Hudson, the respected geopolitical commentator and author of the book ‘Superimperialism’, nails it when he observes that U.S. militarism is not about essentially defending that nation or its allies – it’s all about corporate profiteering. The weapons created by the U.S. military-industrial complex are not purposed for the conventional definition of military performance, that is to knock out the enemy and win battles.

“The arms are for creating huge profit for the U.S. military-industrial complex,” commented Hudson in a recent interview with Steven Grumbine.

In the case of Ukraine, he added, U.S. and NATO weapons “are for buying, and they’re for giving to the Ukrainians, to let Russia blow them up. But they’re not for fighting. They are not for winning a war. They’re for being used up, so you have to replace them now, with yet new buying.”

The conflict in Ukraine is exposing the long-held hype and charade attached to American and NATO weaponry. It’s being brutally outed as a paper tiger.

What Hudson is describing, in effect, is the utter scam and scandal of the U.S.-led proxy war in Ukraine against Russia. It’s on a level of Catch-22-style farce. It’s a racket for profiteering by U.S. and Western military industries. All paid for by taxpayers in the West and with the blood of Ukrainians blown to smithereens or maimed for life.

Fundamentally, this is what U.S. and Western capitalism is all about. The economic system for elite private profit is driven by militarism and global exports of arms. Western capitalism has long abandoned civilian industrial production and over the last few decades has become dominated by the military-industrial complex that owns politicians, media and lawmakers to do its bidding.

The war in Ukraine was instigated by NATO expansionism and strategic threat to Russia over many years. Moscow’s warnings were habitually dismissed. That was part of the showdown demanded by the U.S. executive of Western imperialism to subjugate Russia as a geopolitical rival, in the same way that China is also targeted. But in addition to that came the ultimate racket of funneling weapons to Ukraine. Not only that, but the European lackeys will now be obliged to stock up their depleted arsenals for decades to come by buying from Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, Boeing, and so on. It’s a perfectly rigged system.

By contrast, Russia’s military is designed to actually defend its nation. Russian weapons are outperforming NATO’s junk in Ukraine because the former are not manufactured for private profit and Wall Street investors but for the purpose of actually winning wars.

That’s why Ukraine is losing this conflict, disastrously and despicably. The weapons funneled to the Kiev regime were never meant to “defend a nation from Russian aggression”. That was just the laughable public relations hype to sell expensive weapons funded by Western taxpayers. Of course, the Nazi Kiev regime has milked the cash cow with corruption, but the bigger problem is the war racket at the rotten heart of U.S. capitalism and its military-industrial complex.

The Ukrainian puppet president Vladimir Zelensky is crying for more weapons. Of course, the corrupt Kiev regime is. Biden and Western politicians are calling for more weapons. Of course, they are. Their political funding depends on lobbyists from the weapons companies. The Western media distort the obscenity as “grinding counteroffensive”. Of course, they do because they are locked into their own self-serving lies about the war in Ukraine.

The corrupt Kiev regime rounds up civilians to be sent to a slaughterhouse while U.S. corporations and Wall Street feast on profits. And Western workers and the public are bled white from austerity. This war in Ukraine is the ghoulish epitome of Western capitalism.

August 18, 2023 Posted by | business and costs, Ukraine, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Ralph Nader: Develop an Exit Strategy for the Endless War in Ukraine

August 16, 2023, By Ralph Nader / Nader.org  https://scheerpost.com/2023/08/16/ralph-nader-develop-an-exit-strategy-for-the-endless-war-in-ukraine/

Russia’s criminal war in Ukraine intensifies as it grinds on, World War I style with heavy casualties on both sides. While President Joe Biden keeps repeating that NATO, mostly meaning the U.S., will expand military support for Ukraine “as long as it takes.” “As long as it takes,” is not a policy, it is deadly procrastination without any exit strategy.

Of course, Biden, who voted for Bush’s criminal war in Iraq as a Senator in 2003, along with hundreds of billions of dollars over the years, is experienced in “as long as it takes.” That invasion and occupation took over one million Iraqi lives, even more injuries and sicknesses and plunged Iraq into destructive chaos that persists to this day.

“As long as it takes” for a million Ukrainian lives lost and the comparable destruction of their country? For the war to escalate beyond Ukraine, into Russia and bordering countries?

Biden spends more time thinking about when he will say “Yes” to Ukrainian president Zelensky’s demand for more powerful weapons – Advanced Armored Vehicles, longer-reaching artillery, Abrams Tanks with depleted-uranium rounds. The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) warns such ammunition is “chemically and radiologically toxic heavy metal.” The Harvard International Review reports “Depleted uranium may pose a risk to both soldiers and local civilian populations. When ammunition made from depleted uranium strikes a target, the uranium turns into dust that is inhaled by soldiers near the explosion site. The wind then carries dust to surrounding areas, polluting local water and agriculture.”

Biden also supports providing Ukraine with F-16s which take many months to learn to fly and he has already sent Ukraine cluster bombs to match Russia’s cluster bombs so as to further endanger Ukrainians, including children, for years to come. The New York Times reports, “123 nations – including many of America’s allies – have agreed never to use, transfer, produce or stockpile cluster munitions.”

The Biden Administration has no diplomatic strategies, no demand for an immediate unconditional ceasefire followed by top-level peace negotiations. This war is expanding and becoming more lethal each day. Provocations are also escalating as armed Ukrainian drones appear over Moscow and more Russian missiles target Ukrainian civilians.

Congress, ignorant of history’s lessons from wars in Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and other military boomerangs of the U.S. Empire, rubber-stamp Biden’s demands without any thorough Congressional hearings to examine where this war is heading. Congressional Democrats did, however, make sure to block a proposed Inspector General’s Office to oversee the spending of tens of billions of taxpayers’ dollars in U.S. military aid, watchdog corruption and investigate diversions of military supplies.

A culpable Congress is also going along with the Biden/NATO decision to put 300,000 soldiers “at high readiness” stationed in the countries on Russia’s borders and in Europe. Already, thousands of U.S. soldiers, modern artillery and warships are in that region.

Dictator Putin doesn’t have to stretch the truth far in his propaganda to alarm the Russian people. They remember the invasions by Germany in World War I and World War II that took more than 50 million Russian lives and that caused massive devastation in Russia, their country. They see a military alliance of Western countries, (NATO) including Germany, Finland, Poland, Hungary, Czechia, Estonia, Romania and Bulgaria. They also see moves to include Ukraine.

In 1990 several Western leaders assured Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev that NATO would not expand. In 1991, when the Soviet Union started to formally dissolve and Soviet concerns about NATO increased. U.S. experts, including long-time expert George Kennan, warned of a red-line disaster. The Guardian notes that “Putin claims that [James] Baker, [former Secretary of State] in a discussion on 9 February 1990 with the Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, made the promise that NATO would not expand to the east if Russia accepted Germany’s unification.”

President Bill Clinton infuriated Russian President Boris Yeltsin by breaking with past U.S. assurances on NATO expansion.

As pointed out in a long Harper’s June 2023 article on Ukraine, “…at NATO’s Bucharest summit in April 2008, the U.S. delegation, led by President Bush, urged the alliance to put Ukraine and Georgia on the immediate path to NATO membership. German chancellor Angela Merkel understood the implications of Washington’s proposal: “I was very sure . . . that Putin was not going to just let that happen,” she recalled in 2022. “From his perspective, that would be a declaration of war.” America’s ambassador to Moscow, William J. Burns, shared Merkel’s assessment. Burns had already warned Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice that “Ukrainian entry into NATO is the brightest of all redlines for the Russian elite (not just Putin),” concluding that “Russia will respond.” (Why Are We in Ukraine? By Benjamin Schwarz, Christopher Layne).

Imagine the shoe being on the other foot, with Russia doing all this on our borders. Look how the U.S. reacted to 3000 lives lost on 9/11.

The media also hasn’t learned its history lessons. Coverage of the Ukraine War towers over its coverage of our illegal military invasions in the Middle East. Except they avoid reporting about peace advocacy by domestic and international groups.

While the New York Times’ readers are told about how domestic pets and athletes are faring in the Ukraine conflict, this newspaper of record ignores the voyage of the Golden Rule Boat, sponsored by Veterans for Peace, docking this year at ports on the west Gulf and eastern coast. The mainstream media ignored the rally by many peace groups on July 22, 2023, at Biden’s hometown in front of (Scranton, PA) the Army Ammunition Plant run by General Dynamics (See https://worldbeyondwar.org/scranton/).

Nor does the mass media probe the U.S. policy driving Germany into larger military budgets and weapons shipments to Ukraine, and ending the Nordic countries’ traditions of neutrality by bringing them into NATO. All these expansions provide huge business for the U.S. military-industrial complex, which Eisenhower warned us about. (https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/president-dwight-d-eisenhowers-farewell-address).

The expansions also scare the Russian public and increase popular support for the aggressor Putin and Russian troops. Roger Cohen’s long report in the New York Times on his trip through Russia shed some light on these feelings.

Our country should lead in peacemaking, in engaging the United Nations when its charter against offensive war is violated by any member country, and in observing our own constitutional mandates which reserve for Congress, not the Presidency, the power to declare war.

Instead, we expand a vast military budget (greater than the next ten countries combined, including China and Russia), operate military bases in over 100 countries, bristle with military threats or incursions in the backyards of many of these nations – in violation of international law, the UN charter (which we most prominently drafted in 1946) and federal statutes. All done in a bipartisan fashion, with astounding hypocrisy and self-righteousness.

Whether or not you are a veteran, I urge you to virtually attend the annual Veterans for Peace Convention on August 25 through August 27, 2023, to hear the views of people who abhor all wars in favor of stopping the slaughter and deliberately waging peace. (See, Veterans for Peace Convention Registration).

Otherwise, prepare for a war of attrition on both sides, which could last for years. Unless that is, it flares into a nuclear weapons war.

That should sober all hawks, including the consistent one in the White House.

August 17, 2023 Posted by | USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Pritzker was right to keep moratorium on new Illinois nuclear plants

The bill the governor vetoed would have opened the door to negative environmental impacts and higher costs for consumers while jeopardizing progress toward Illinois’ clean energy future.

 https://chicago.suntimes.com/2023/8/14/23829651/illinois-gov-pritzker-right-call-veto-bill-lifting-moratorium-new-nuclear-plants-jen-walling-darin

Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s veto of Senate Bill 76 on Friday solidifies his national reputation as an environmental leader. SB 76, which would have removed the ban on new nuclear power in Illinois, was moved forward without careful consideration, and signing it would have opened the door to increased risk, negative environmental impacts and higher costs for consumers, all while jeopardizing our progress toward Illinois’ clean energy future.

The original concerns about constructing new nuclear power plants that led the General Assembly to impose the current moratorium remain today and, in fact, those concerns are arguably greater now than they were in 1987.

We are no closer to a national solution for the disposal of dangerous high-level nuclear wastes. Illinois already has the most nuclear reactors in the country and bears the burden of storing this waste in our communities, including along the shores of Lake Michigan and the Mississippi River. These wastes have significant safety risks and threaten our drinking water and communities. We should not add to the growing stockpiles of hazardous waste.

Nuclear power is also extremely expensive. Efforts in other states to build new nuclear plants are plagued with high-cost overruns and extensive delays. These exorbitant costs not only dwarf those associated with readily available clean energy technologies, but they also threaten to derail the progress Illinois is now making to deploy win-win solutions like clean energy, storage and energy efficiency programs.

Illinois should continue prioritizing these investments, which support good union jobs and pathways to prosperity for our marginalized communities, rather than encourage highly speculative proposals for new nuclear energy.

Illinois does not need the massive, decades-long rate hikes it would take to attempt to site and build new nuclear power plants that wouldn’t be available for over a decade. Illinois does need action and investment now in transmission, storage, energy efficiency and demand response solutions to ensure adequate capacity and protect consumers from spikes in fossil fuel prices.

Keep the focus on clean energy

While Illinois hosts roughly 11 gigawatts of nuclear power, over 700 gigawatts of additional power are awaiting interconnection approval from regional energy markets across the country. The majority of these resources waiting in line are solar, wind and battery storage — proven technologies that are already creating good jobs and delivering consumer savings. These smart solutions should remain our focus.

The rules, regulations and oversight for all nuclear plants are not up to date. SB 76 would have removed the moratorium on nuclear power without a full study and review of whether current rules and regulations are sufficient to site, build and operate a nuclear power plant safely. In addition, the siting laws for nuclear are completely insufficient. Any plant could be built anywhere at any time, with only approval at the federal level. The issue is even worse in the case of Small Modular Nuclear Reactors — small units that have been proposed to be deployed inside shipping containers within communities. Projects could, in theory, be deployed near residences, for example.

Our community is proud of the work we did together with Pritzker and the General Assembly to enact the Climate and Equitable Jobs Act in 2021. CEJA gives Illinois a roadmap to a clean energy future that generates high-quality jobs equitably and attracts global investments in our communities. To sustain that progress, we must stay the course in implementing that vision and reject proposals that would distract our resources from this framework. The veto of SB 76 will help Illinois implement this clean energy vision, and Pritzker’s veto should be upheld by the General Assembly.

Jen Walling is the executive director of the Illinois Environmental Council. Jack Darin is director of the Illinois chapter of the Sierra Club.

August 16, 2023 Posted by | politics, USA | Leave a comment

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