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Is Biden taking the Iran nuclear deal off life support?

If the JCPOA really is dead, as a top State Department appointee declared last week, that’s an own goal for the US and a huge risk for regional security

ELDAR MAMEDOV, DEC 12, 2023, Responsible Statecraft

When Joe Biden was running for U.S. president, he promised to reverse many of his predecessor’s decisions on foreign policy, generally hewing towards more restraint and diplomacy, and less bluster, militarism, and unilateralism. That included restoring the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) from which Donald Trump withdrew in 2018 — despite evidence, shared even by his own officials, that the deal was delivering on its core objective to block Iran’s pathways to a nuclear weapon. On December 7, 2023, Biden’s nominee for deputy secretary of state, the current National Security Council Coordinator for Indo-Pacific Affairs, Kurt Campbell, effectively declared the JCPOA dead………………………………..

Although the prospects for a revived JCPOA have been dim since at least 2022 — for which Iran carries a fair share of blame — officials from the Biden administration until now have largely refrained from using such threatening language against Iran. Conclusively abandoning any effort to revive the JCPOA does not serve U.S. interests and is in fact counterproductive.

Addressing students at Tehran University a few days after Campbell’s Senate testimony, Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian downplayed the relevance of the JCPOA by reportedly saying that the “more we move forward, the more JCPOA becomes pointless. We will not force ourselves to remain in the narrow tunnel of the JCPOA forever.”

So, the Biden administration finds itself in the rather awkward position of effectively agreeing with Tehran, but this was a self-inflicted problem: by refusing, for three years now, to engage with its critics and the broader public on the agreement’s benefits to the U.S. and global security, it has allowed the notion that the JCPOA was some kind of reward for Iran, rather than a deal that strictly curbed Tehran’s nuclear ambitions, to become conventional wisdom. As is evident in Abdollahian’s remarks, Iranians today certainly do see the JCPOA as a “narrow tunnel” that limits their options………………………………………….

If ever there was a mechanism that would prove effective in preventing Iran from acquiring a bomb, it was the JCPOA. In light of Abdollahian’s remarks (which clearly reflect a growing skepticism about the JCPOA in Iran), the Biden administration, by publicly disowning the deal, is in fact removing obstacles to further Iranian nuclear escalation.

Unless Biden is prepared to accept the advice of the late international relations scholar Kenneth Waltz, who, in an influential 2012 Foreign Affairs article, argued that an Iranian bomb would stabilize the Middle East, it is not clear what his administration would do in place of a revived JCPOA to check additional Iranian nuclear advances.

Campbell emphasized the “current environment” as an additional factor rendering a JCPOA revival infeasible. In fact, if he was referring to the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza, then it is precisely such a conflict that makes some sort of a direct dialogue between Washington and Tehran — on nuclear, but also regional security issues — all the more urgent if a wider war is to be avoided. Substituting such a dialogue with military threats at a moment when the U.S. is providing Israel virtually unconditional support, including the lavish replenishment of its arms stocks, the deployment of marines and two aircraft carrier task forces to the region, and the veto of a U.N. Security Council Resolution calling for a ceasefire, could do more to incentivize Iranians to seek a nuclear deterrent than anything else.

Vows to isolate Iran “internationally and diplomatically” are also unwarranted as Iran, despite its rhetorical support for Hamas, has so far demonstrated considerable restraint. While hardline ideological hostility to Israel is wired into the Islamic Republic’s identity, the actual position Tehran adopted towards the Israel-Palestine conflict is much more nuanced, more in line with the Arab and Islamic (and indeed broad international) mainstream consensus that insists on a viable two-state solution. Instead of building on these shifts, however modest and tentative, Washington seems to prefer to double down on confrontation.

The sad irony is that this explosive situation could have been avoided had Joe Biden had the courage and wisdom to deliver on his own election campaign promise to restore the nuclear agreement with Iran. ………. https://responsiblestatecraft.org/biden-iran-nuclear-deal/

December 13, 2023 Posted by | Iran, politics international, USA | Leave a comment

Nebraska team launches study of Congress and nuclear weapons policy

Carnegie Corporation-funded study apparently first comprehensive analysis in three decades

news wise, 11-Dec-2023, by University of Nebraska-Lincoln

Newswise — Nebraska researchers are launching a two-year study of Congress’s involvement in nuclear weapons policy. The study is believed to be the first comprehensive look at the topic in more than 30 years.

Carnegie Corporation of New York recently awarded a $428,000 grant to University of Nebraska–Lincoln political scientists Rupal Mehta, Geoff Lorenz and Ingrid Haas for a multi-method study of Congress and nuclear weapons policy dating back to 1973.

“We believe that this is an important, but missing, piece of the puzzle when it comes to better understanding global nuclear and international security,’” the researchers wrote in their study proposal.

Historically, the president and other executive branch officials have been at the forefront of U.S. nuclear weapons policy, with lawmakers serving a subsidiary role based upon treaty ratification and defense budget allocations. Leaders like U.S. Rep. Don Bacon, R-Neb., an Air Force veteran who serves on the House of Representatives’ Armed Services Committee and U.S. Sen. Deb Fischer, R-Neb., who serves on the Senate’s Armed Forces Committee, often play influential roles in policy decisions based upon personal expertise and constituents’ interest.

“Congress historically has been much more deferential to the president on nuclear policy than on defense policy generally,” said Lorenz, who studies federal lawmaking. “That appears to be changing and so we want to examine the specific factors at play in Congress’s involvement in nuclear arms policymaking.”

Mehta’s work focuses on international security and conflict with a specialization in nuclear nonproliferation and related issues. Haas, a resident faculty member with the university’s Center for Brain, Biology and Behavior, uses theory and methods from political psychology and cognitive neuroscience to better understand American politics and international security.

Events in Washington, D.C., and around the world — such as the partisan battle over government funding and the ouster of Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., as speaker of the House, and the wars in the Ukraine and Gaza — demonstrate the importance of understanding how Congress responds to nuclear policy questions, the researchers say………………………………………………………………………………………..

“There may be no more important time for these insights than now,” the researchers said in their proposal. “The proliferation of nuclear weapons, and nuclear security more broadly, pose a substantial threat to the security and stability of the international system.” https://www.newswise.com/articles/nebraska-team-launches-study-of-congress-and-nuclear-weapons-policy

December 13, 2023 Posted by | politics, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Ralph Nader on Israeli Government’s War Crimes – Enabled & Defended by Biden & Congress

By Ralph Nader / Nader.org, more https://scheerpost.com/2023/12/10/ralph-nader-on-israeli-governments-war-crimes-enabled-defended-by-biden-congress/

The humiliation of the U.S. government, which is actively complicit in providing the weaponry, funding, and UN vetoes backing the Israeli government’s attack on the civilian Palestinians/Arabs in tiny Gaza, is in plain view daily. All in the name of the unasked American people and taxpayers.

Earlier this week, at a House of Representatives’ hearing, Trump toady Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) repeatedly assailed three University presidents with the question of would they discipline students calling for the genocide of Jews, without any evidence that this hateful speech is prevalent on campus.

Pursuing her fulminations, Stefanik was cruelly oblivious to the real ongoing genocide in Gaza with her support of unconditional shipment of American F-16s, 155mm. missiles and other weapons of mass destruction used to kill children, women and the elderly who had nothing to do with the preventable October 7th Hamas violence.

Meanwhile, a State Department spokesman continues to say that the Israeli government does not intentionally target civilians. With U.S. drones over Gaza daily, Secretary of State Antony Blinken has visual proof that the overwhelming bombing on civilian structures is killing innocent civilians.

The evidence is in the rubble of hospitals, health clinics, ambulances, schools, libraries, places of worship, marketplaces, water mains, homes, apartment buildings, and piles of unburied corpses being eaten by stray dogs.  All this information is in the possession of bomber Biden’s regime.

The Bidenites and their bloodthirsty cohorts in Congress were forewarned when the Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Galant and other Israeli officials on October 8th shouted these chilling genocidal orders to their army: “No electricity, no food, no fuel, no water.… We are fighting human animals and will act accordingly.” (See, Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide). Add an already illegal 16-year Israeli blockade of 2.3 Palestinians suffering from dire poverty, with 40% of their children down with anemia.

Now, about half of Gaza’s population are children, 85% of the entire population is homeless, wandering helplessly into nowhere, afflicted with pending starvation, sickened by spreading infectious diseases and dirty drinking water.  There is little or no medicines for diabetics and cancer patients. No surgery, no anesthesia, no emergency transport, no shelter from cold weather, only American-made bombs and missiles blowing up Palestinians into bits with Israeli snipers everywhere.

The Palestinians cannot flee from their open-air prison.  They cannot surrender – the Israeli government wants them gone. Bear in mind, the population that is not yet blown up is sick and dying, denied needed outside humanitarian aid. Defying feeble Biden’s wishes, Netanyahu only allows a trickle of aid trucks to enter Gaza, and those that do enter can scarcely reach their destinations.

All this raises the issue of the gross undercount of casualties. The Hamas Health Authority has restricted its count to the names of the deceased and injured supplied by hospitals and morgues. These locations are now largely rubble or inoperative. Bodies under the rubble, many of them children, can’t be counted. Thousands of missing people cannot be counted. The Ministry’s suspended count is over 17,000 fatalities, plus 45,000 injuries. With the far larger carnage unable to be tabulated, the actual fatality toll may reach 100,000 soon.

Nonetheless, about two weeks ago, the New York Times reported the death undercount of children in Gaza in two months was ten times greater than the deaths of Ukrainian children in nearly two years of Russian bombings. One of its headlines – “Smoldering Gaza Becomes a Graveyard for Children.”

There are about 50,000 pregnant women in Gaza and about 5,500 of them are due to give birth. Where are they going to do that? How can they be cared for and be nurtured? These mothers are sick and starving. Add the babies to the terrorists toll.

Gaza’s area is about the size of Philadelphia. How many dead, injured, and dying people would there be if 20,000 bombs were dropped on civilians and civilian structures in Philadelphia? Philadelphians trapped without food, water, medicine or any escape route. Imagine 85% of 1.5 million residents homeless, wandering in the streets and alleys. And with virtually no humanitarian aid coming from outside the city. There wouldn’t be any fire trucks or water to extinguish spreading fires.

There are courageous Jewish groups (e.g., Jewish Voice for Peace and If Not Now) and rabbis calling for an end to the slaughter, demanding a ceasefire. There are protestors at all of Biden’s public events/trips reminding him of next November.

Veterans for Peace and other veteran groups are engaged in non-violent civil disobedience in front of the Scranton, Pennsylvania factory producing 155mm missiles for Israel. (Scranton is Biden’s hometown.) Public opinion is turning against the Biden/Israel war without limits on the Palestinians.

Biden wouldn’t want to poll the American people about his $14.3 billion genocide tax, charging American taxpayers to further prosperous Israel’s war of extermination in Gaza. They’ll likely tell Biden that poor children, unaffordable health facilities and other necessities in America need that money first.

There are some 30 Democratic Senators demanding that this Biden bill contain conditions and safeguards so that the money is not used to blow up more Palestinian children and women. But what else are these funds for other than to expand Israel’s military budget? The Israeli extremist ruling coalition under Netanyahu has made no secret of wanting to take over all of remaining Palestine as part of their “Greater Israel” mission to include what they call Judea and Samaria. As Israel’s Founder, David Ben-Gurion, frankly declared referring to the Palestinians, “We have taken their country.” (As quoted in The Jewish Paradox(1978) by Nahum Goldmann.)

It is a cruel irony of history that Israeli state terrorism is producing a Palestinian Holocaust. Netanyahu’s regime has killed over 60 journalists—three of them Israelis—120 United Nations relief workers and instituted total blackouts to keep the grisly events in Gaza out of the news in real time. Netanyahu, to shield his colossal failure to defend Israel on October 7thand to keep his job, is making sure that his country joins the world community of savage, slaughtering regimes, exemplified by the Bush/Cheney unlawful criminal destruction of Iraq and Afghanistan, followed by Hillary Clinton toppling Libya into permanent violence and chaos since 2011. (Obama later called his conceding to Hillary’s demands as his worst foreign policy decision).

Capitol Hill and the White House don’t wait for any blood-guilt to be recognized. That will surely come later with the judgment of history and the nightmarish visions of innocents being vaporized because of Washington’s unconditional backing of the Israeli blitzkrieg against what the Israeli newspaper Haaretz has repeatedly called the “totally defenseless people” of Gaza.

December 12, 2023 Posted by | Israel, politics international, Reference, secrets,lies and civil liberties, weapons and war | Leave a comment

US Blocks Gaza Peace Proposal at UN for 3rd Time, Holding World Hostage

The US government has paralyzed the United Nations, voting against the rest of the world and preventing peace in Gaza by vetoing three different resolutions in the Security Council. Meanwhile, Washington continues giving weapons to Israel.

By Ben Norton / Geopolitical Economy Report

The United States has used its veto power in the United Nations Security Council three times in less than two months to kill resolutions calling for peace in Gaza.

Meanwhile, Washington is sending billions of dollars worth of weapons to Israel, directly assisting the country as it commits war crimes against Palestinian civilians.

On December 8, the Security Council voted on a resolution that called for an “immediate humanitarian ceasefire” and the unconditional release of all hostages.

The United States was the only country on the 15-member council that voted against the measure.

Close US ally the United Kingdom was the only country to abstain in the vote.

The United States helped to design the United Nations after World War II, concentrating power in the Security Council and giving permanent seats with veto power to the victors: the US, UK, France, USSR (now Russia), and China.

Many countries in the Global South have called to expand the Security Council and to eliminate the veto.

China and Russia have repeatedly expressed support for expanding the council. But Washington has adamantly opposed the initiative.

Global South leaders are particularly frustrated by the fact that the UK and France, each of which has a population of fewer than 70 million people, both have permanent seats on the Security Council, but not many of the most populous countries on Earth, such as India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Nigeria, or Brazil.

Brazil’s left-wing President Lula da Silva stressed this November that the failure of the UN to bring peace to Palestine demonstrates that the system is “broken” and has a “lack of credibility”.

“The UN needs change”, Lula said, calling to expand the Security Council and remove the veto.

“The UN of 1945 does not work in 2023”, the Brazilian leader added.

US rebukes UN secretary-general’s historic invocation of article 99

UN Secretary-General António Guterres has publicly called for a ceasefire in Gaza, but was rejected by Washington.

Guterres took the extraordinary measure of invoking article 99 of the UN Charter, for the first time in five decades.

Article 99 states, “The Secretary-General may bring to the attention of the Security Council any matter which in his opinion may threaten the maintenance of international peace and security”.

The Associated Press noted, “Article 99 is extremely rarely used. The last time it was invoked was during fighting in 1971 that led to the creation of Bangladesh and its separation from Pakistan”.

In the case of the Bangladeshi national liberation war of 1971, Pakistan’s right-wing military regime ethnically cleansed and committed genocide against Bengalis, with the support of the US government – specifically President Richard Nixon and National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger.

The genocidal situation in Palestine is strikingly similar today.

This November, top UN experts warned that “grave violations committed by Israel against Palestinians… point to a genocide in the making”.

The UN experts wrote:

[Israeli officials] illustrated evidence of increasing genocidal incitement, overt intent to “destroy the Palestinian people under occupation”, loud calls for a ‘second Nakba’ in Gaza and the rest of the occupied Palestinian territory, and the use of powerful weaponry with inherently indiscriminate impacts, resulting in a colossal death toll and destruction of life-sustaining infrastructure.

The Wall Street Journal reported on December 1 that the “U.S. has provided Israel with large bunker buster bombs, among tens of thousands of other weapons and artillery shells”.

In less than two months, Washington sent Israel approximately 15,000 bombs and 57,000 artillery shells.

In fact, Gaza is now one of the most heavily bombed areas in history, according to a report in the Financial Times.

US vetoed two other Security Council resolutions on Gaza

The United States voted against two similar resolutions in October.

On October 16, the US and its allies the UK, France, and Japan voted against a measure introduced by Russia that called for a humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza.

Two days later, the US unilaterally vetoed a resolution introduced by Brazil that urged “humanitarian pauses” in Gaza.

The UK abstained in that vote. Russia did too, but as a form of protest, arguing that the resolution was too weak, instead urging a ceasefire.

At the Security Council meeting on December 8, Russia’s UN representative, Dmitriy Polyanskiy, warned that the United States was “leaving scorched earth in its wake”.

China’s ambassador, Zhang Jun, stated, “The task required of the Council is very clear and definitive – act immediately, achieve a ceasefire, protect civilians and avoid a human catastrophe on a larger scale”.

139 of the 193 members of the United Nations recognize Palestine as a sovereign state, but it is not officially a UN member state – because the United States has prevented it from becoming one.

Palestine does however have observer status in the UN (along with the Vatican).

The representative of the observer state of Palestine, Riyad Mansour, participated in the December 8 Security Council session.

“Millions of Palestinian lives hang in the balance, every single one of them is sacred and worth saving”, he cautioned.

By failing to approve a ceasefire, the Security Council is ensuring that Israeli “war criminals are given more time to perpetrate their crimes”, Mansour added.

The Palestinian representative asked, “How can this be justified? How can anyone justify the slaughter of an entire people?”

December 12, 2023 Posted by | Israel, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

The Chris Hedges Report: The Weapons Israel Tests on Palestinians Will Be Used Against All of Us

byEDITORDecember 11, 2023

As Antony Loewenstein explains, Palestine has been a testing ground for repressive technologies exported around the world, from spy software to killer drones.

By Chris Hedges / The Real News Network

Whether it’s drone technology or the infamous Pegasus spy software, Israel has long developed and refined repressive technologies used by governments around the world by testing them on Palestinians. Antony Loewenstein, journalist and author of The Palestine Laboratory: How Israel Exports the Technology of Occupation Around the World, joins The Chris Hedges Report for a deep dive into the disturbing links between Israeli Apartheid, the arms industry, and global repression of civilian populations.

December 12, 2023 Posted by | Israel, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Israel’s genocide in Gaza has Biden’s green light

The White House’s circumvention of Congressional review is consistent with its refusal to follow US law, which bars weapons transfers to countries that commit serious human rights abuses.

The Biden administration has evaded this requirement by simply pretending that it is a helpless bystander, rather than willing accomplice.  

Ignoring US laws and its own token promises, the Biden administration protects Israel’s extermination campaign in Gaza.

AARON MATÉ, DEC 12, 2023

As Israeli warplanes resumed bombing Gaza on December 1st, putting an end to a seven-day pause, Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s motorcade “sped out of his hotel in Israel on its way to the Tel Aviv airport,” the Washington Post reported.

Before exiting Israel, Blinken claimed that he had pressed its government to prioritize “minimizing harm to innocent civilians.” But according to Axios, “Blinken didn’t ask Israel to stop the operation but… said the longer the high-intensity military campaign goes on, the more international pressure will build on both the U.S. and Israel to stop it.”

Additionally, Blinken asked Israel to “make sure that a military operation in southern Gaza doesn’t lead to an even higher amount of civilian casualties.” To Blinken, “minimizing harm” to the people of Gaza apparently means murdering slightly fewer of them.

After more than one week of relentless Israeli attacks on civilian targets, Blinken has been forced to acknowledge that even his token requests were ignored. When it comes to Israel’s assault, Blinken said Thursday, “there does remain a gap between exactly what I said when I was there — the intent to protect civilians — and the actual results that we’re seeing on the ground.”

There is not merely a gap between what Blinken and his colleagues say out loud and the reality on the ground, but an endless chasm.

One month ago, the Biden administration claimed that it was pressuring Israel to use smaller bombs against the densely populated Gaza Strip. “If the United States can get those smaller munitions to Israel, American officials hope Israel will use them to mitigate the risk to civilians,” the New York Times reported on Nov. 4th. That talking point is long forgotten. “In the first month and a half, Israel dropped more than 22,000 guided and unguided bombs on Gaza that were supplied by Washington,” according to US intelligence figures obtained by the Washington Post. During this same period, the US has given Israel at least 15,000 bombs, including 2,000-pound bunker busters. So much for “smaller bombs.”

The Wall Street Journal characterizes the current US approach as “urging its top ally in the region to consider preventing large-scale civilian casualties while supplying many of the munitions deployed.” The US position is therefore akin to an accomplice continuing to re-arm a school shooter’s assault rifle while asking him to consider slaughtering fewer students. The Biden administration is so committed to fueling the carnage in Gaza that it has even invoked rare emergency powers for transferring tank ammunition without Congressional review. “The arms shipment has been put on an expedited track, and Congress has no power to stop it,” the New York Times reports.

The White House’s circumvention of Congressional review is consistent with its refusal to follow US law, which bars weapons transfers to countries that commit serious human rights abuses. The Biden administration has evaded this requirement by simply pretending that it is a helpless bystander, rather than willing accomplice.  

As the first phase of Israel’s military campaign expanded to multiple hospitals in mid-November, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu insisted to CNN that his military “is doing an exemplary job trying to minimize civilian casualties,” and “fighting according to international law.”……………………………………………………………………….. more https://www.aaronmate.net/p/israels-genocide-in-gaza-has-bidens?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=100118&post_id=139684163&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=ln98x&utm_medium=email

December 12, 2023 Posted by | Israel, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Ukraine builds reverse wall in losing war against Russia

Walt Zlotow, West Suburban Peace Coalition, Glen Ellyn IL    11 Dec 23

Since the Russian invasion nearly 2 years ago, Ukraine has beefed up its border defenses, even building a wall in some areas. But it’s not to keep the Russkies out. It’s to keep thousands of draft dodging Ukrainian men aged 18 to 60 safely inside Ukraine so they can be flung into the slaughterhouse near the Donbas.

Besides 50 ways to leave you lover, there’s 50 ways to leave Ukraine. All the recruitment center heads have been fired for taking bribes by draft dodgers.  Truckers are selling fake driver jobs to men who then exit the trucks near or over the border. Many simply flee on foot thru mountainous areas. Some dress as women, priests or doctors. Daring ones squeeze themselves into secret vehicle compartments to be driven over the border by compatriots. 

Why so many doing this? They know the war a lost cause that should never have occurred. They understand it was totally avoidable had President Zelensky and his predecessors chosen not to join NATO and destroy the Russian culture of Ukrainians living in Donbas. Besides Zelensky, they blame US President Biden for sabotaging the peace deal Zelensky and Putin were ready to sign in the war’s first month.  

During the Vietnam War, US draft dodgers were pretty much limited to Canada for escape from a senseless war. Their Ukrainian counterparts have at least 3: Poland, Moldova and Romania.  

This week President Zelensky comes to Washington to beg for passage of the $67 billion in weapons Biden wants in his $111 billion weapons boondoggle for Israel and Taiwan besides Ukraine. Biden could give Zelensky $1 trillion in weapons and it would not snatch victory from the jaws of defeat. What Zelensky needs in more cannon fodder. If he asks for one American to fight in what is truly a US proxy war against Russia shedding only Ukrainian blood, he’ll be whisked back to Kyiv faster than you can say…’This war is OVAAAH.’  

December 12, 2023 Posted by | Ukraine, weapons and war | Leave a comment

The View from Washington: Let the Killing in Gaza Continue

As this farcical theatre of constipated morality unfolded, the Biden administration was happy to beef up the Israeli war machine by asking Congress to urgently approve the sale of 45,000 shells for the IDF’s Merkava tanks to aid its offensive in Gaza. The sale, worth around $500 million, does not form part of Biden’s $110.5 billion supplemental request that covers funding for both Ukraine and Israel.

In pursuing such a course of action, be it defending Israel’s policies in the Security Council, or via armaments, the US is effectively colluding in the perpetration of crimes against humanity.

December 10, 2023, https://theaimn.com/the-view-from-washington-let-the-killing-in-gaza-continue/ by: Dr Binoy Kampmark

Bloodletting as form; murder as fashion. The ongoing campaign in Gaza by Israel’s Defence Forces continues without stalling and restriction. But the burgeoning number of corpses is starting to become a challenge for the propaganda outlets: How to justify it? Fortunately for Israel, the United States, its unqualified defender, is happy to provide cover for murder covered in the sheath of self-defence.

Such cover also takes the form of false fairness and forced balance. “We don’t have to choose between defending Israel and aiding Palestinian civilians,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken wrote inanely in the Washington Post on October 31. “We can and must do both. That is the only way to stand firmly by one of our closest allies, protecting innocent lives, uphold the international rules of the road that ultimately benefit the American people, and preserve the sole viable path to lasting peace and security for Israelis and Palestinians: two states for two peoples.” Given that innocent lives are being taken with mechanistic ruthlessness, international laws broken with impunity, and any remnant of a Palestinian state being liquidated, Blinken seemingly inhabits a parallel universe of mind-bending cynicism.

The latest attempt to halt hostilities came in the form of an intervention by UN Secretary-General António Guterres under the auspices of Article 99 of the UN Charter. The article grants the secretary-general the liberty to “bring to the attention of the Security Council any matter which in his opinion, may threaten the maintenance of international peace and security.”

In his December 6 letter to the members of the Security Council, Guterres gives a brief account of the conflict, commencing on October 7. After noting the death of 1,200 Israelis and 250 abductions (130 are still being held in captivity in Gaza), the focus shifts to the death of over 15,000 individuals in the strip itself, “more than 40 per cent of whom were children.” Somewhere in the order of 80 per cent of the population of 2.2 million residents in Gaza had been displaced, with 1.1 million seeking refuge in UNRWA facilities across the strip “creating overcrowded, undignified, and unhygienic conditions.” The provision of viable health care had all but ceased, with 14 hospitals of 36 facilities “partially functional.” Overall, Gaza was facing “a severe risk of collapse of the humanitarian system.”

The secretary-general concludes his note by urging the Security Council members “to press to avert a humanitarian catastrophe” and seek a “humanitarian ceasefire”. But on December 8, Washington predictably sabotaged the passage of the follow up resolution, which had been proposed by the United Arab Emirates. (Thirteen countries voted for the measure; with the United Kingdom abstaining.) The resolution demanded an immediate humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza and the immediate and unconditional release of all hostages and ensuring humanitarian access.

The US deputy ambassador to the UN Robert A. Wood, claimed that he and the delegation had “engaged in good faith on the text.” But “nearly all” of Washington’s recommendations had been ignored, resulting in “an unbalanced resolution divorced from reality on the ground.” Again, a sticking point was the omission in the draft of any reference to Hamas’s attack on October 7, Israel’s right to self-defence, and reference to any permission for the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) to access and provide medical treatment to the hostages still being held by Hamas.

With the gloves off, Wood made it clear that, in solidarity with Israel, the US will not countenance the continued existence of Hamas. “The resolution retains a call for an unconditional ceasefire – this is not only unrealistic but dangerous; it will simply leave Hamas in place, able to regroup and repeat what it did on 7 October.”

While Israel’s UN ambassador, Gilad Erdan, was not present to address the Security Council, he subsequently affirmed the blood curdling, unending mission his country has embarked upon. “A ceasefire will only be possible only with the return of all the hostages and the destruction of Hamas.”

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As this farcical theatre of constipated morality unfolded, the Biden administration was happy to beef up the Israeli war machine by asking Congress to urgently approve the sale of 45,000 shells for the IDF’s Merkava tanks to aid its offensive in Gaza. The sale, worth around $500 million, does not form part of Biden’s $110.5 billion supplemental request that covers funding for both Ukraine and Israel.

In pursuing such a course of action, be it defending Israel’s policies in the Security Council, or via armaments, the US is effectively colluding in the perpetration of crimes against humanity. This was certainly the view of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who said in a statement released by his office that “the American position is aggressive and immoral, a flagrant violation of all humanitarian principles and values, and holds the United States responsible for the bloodshed of Palestinian children, women and elderly people in the Gaza Strip.”

Amnesty International’s Secretary General, Agnès Callamard also expressed the view that the US, in vetoing the resolution, had “displayed a callous disregard for civilian suffering in the face of a staggering death toll, extensive destruction and an unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe happening in the occupied Gaza Strip.” Washington had “brazenly wielded and weaponized its veto to strongarm the UN Security Council, further undermining its credibility and ability to live up to its mandate to maintain international peace and security.” Not that it had much credibility to begin with.

December 12, 2023 Posted by | Israel, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Fears of a major leak at Sellafield nuclear plant should be taken seriously

There are reports of more than 100 safety problems at the Sellafield nuclear power plant and a leak first reported four years ago has been allowed to worsen. It’s a nightmarish prospect and I hope someone is taking urgent remedial action, writes Cumbria native Chris Blackhurst

Every so often, when we were children, Father would borrow a portable
Geiger counter and take us to the beach. While we – my sister and I –
played on the sand, he would wander around with the machine. Whenever it
neared a clump of seaweed the gadget would click furiously and loudly.

He taught in a secondary school and the device was in their laboratory. We
lived at Barrow-in-Furness in Cumbria, just down the coast from Sellafield,
Europe’s largest nuclear reprocessing plant.

Back then, we would see
ships from Japan regularly dock and unload their radioactive cargo onto
special freight trains for transporting to Sellafield. Meanwhile, in the
nearby shipyard, they were building submarines powered by nuclear reactors.

By and large, we Cumbrians were grateful for the atomic business.
Employment in that part of the world does not come easily. There is the
adjacent Lake District, with its tourist trade, but otherwise, that’s
about it as far as mass numbers are concerned. Sellafield and the shipyard
are by far the biggest single employers.

Not everyone was so delighted. The
campaign group Cumbrians Opposed to a Radioactive Environment made plenty
of noise, but because of the jobs and cash that was flowing into the local
economy from things nuclear, struggled to have any impact.

We knew that the
risk of a spillage, of a major accident, was an ever-present. It was a
given, it went with the Faustian pact of relative prosperity in return for
accepting the danger. We put it from our minds, reassuring ourselves that
the powers-that-be would ensure our wellbeing and that the standards would
be maintained.

Reading of a worsening leak from a crumbling silo of
radioactive waste and fears concerning cracks in a reservoir of toxic
sludge at Sellafield sparks alarm and other memories. The authorities had
not always been so vigilant.

The dreadful thought is that none of this
comes as a major surprise. As we’ve discovered recently, successive
governments have let the nation’s infrastructure creak and wear away. If
schools are forced to close because they have asbestos in them; if other
public buildings are shut for the same reason or because they are in a
state of neglect and no longer fit for purpose; if our motorways and
railways are in a constant state of disrepair, what prospect is there of
Sellafield being any different? Equally, poor working culture has been
shown to be rife in many areas of British life.

 Independent 9th Dec 2023

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/comment/sellafield-nuclear-plant-leak-fears-b2460880.html

December 12, 2023 Posted by | PERSONAL STORIES, UK | Leave a comment

Nuclear plants and the war in Ukraine

A nightmare scenario

,ADI ROCHE,  https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/letters/2023/12/11/nuclear-plants-and-the-war-in-ukraine/

This month, two nuclear power plants in Ukraine faced the frightening consequences of war. As the illegally occupied Zaporizhiza nuclear power plant lost power for the eighth time, the Khmelnytskyi nuclear power plant in western Ukraine faced a near-miss as Russian forces bombarded the surrounding areas with deadly missiles.

This is part of a worrying trend emanating from this war, where nuclear facilities have been brought into the increasingly volatile and unpredictable combat zones. This signifies to the world that the nature of modern warfare has changed forever, and brings with it a sense of foreboding for wars of the future.

Nuclear nightmares have no end. We cannot stress enough the risk that Zaporizhzhia and now Khmelnytskyi pose. Any use of nuclear weapons, or targeting of power plants, needs to be stopped immediately.

Since the outbreak of the war, we have been urging that all nuclear facilities be deemed a “no war zone”. We must invoke the Hague Convention which defines any attack on a nuclear facility to be a war crime.

Let us call for the focus to shift to one of de-escalation, dialogue and diplomacy. The immediate dispatch of a UN Observer Core, to defuse and monitor this perilous situation, is a vital first step. – Yours, etc,

December 12, 2023 Posted by | Ukraine, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Iran Dismisses Fears Over Its Nuclear Program

Iran has dismissed global concern over its “peaceful nuclear program, claiming it poses “no threat” and does not require a new treaty deal.

Iran International 12 Dec23

Foreign ministry spokesman Nasser Kanaani spoke of Iran’s “commitment to peaceful endeavors within international frameworks” in response to rising international concern over the Islamic Republic’s nuclear activities.

He told a press briefing in Tehran: “This has been recognized and confirmed in fifteen reports by the IAEA [International Atomic Energy Agency], highlighting Iran’s missile activities as part of its deterrent capabilities. Our activities in this regard are transparent and pose no threat to anyone.”

Kanaani rejected suggestions that the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) nuclear treaty should be revived, saying: “Iran no longer considers the JCPOA necessary.”

Addressing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s “robust disapproval” over Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi’s recent unannounced visit to Moscow, Kanaani said: “We do not pay attention to the statements of specific parties in bilateral relations between Iran and friendly countries. Such statements will not affect our efforts to deepen relations with partners in various fields.”………………………. https://www.iranintl.com/en/202312114383

December 12, 2023 Posted by | Iran, politics international | Leave a comment

‘Moral Insanity’: Biden Admin Bypasses Congress to Rush Tank Shells to Israel

“Rushing deadly weapons to the far-right and openly genocidal Israeli government without congressional review robs American voters of their voice in Congress,” said one critic.

By Julia Conley / Common Dreams  https://scheerpost.com/2023/12/10/moral-insanity-biden-admin-bypasses-congress-to-rush-tank-shells-to-israel/

Hours after United States Ambassador Robert Wood on Friday acted alone to veto a United Nations Security Council resolution demanding an immediate cease-fire in Gaza, the Biden administration again illustrated its growing isolation in continuing to back Israel’s onslaught as it bypassed Congress to send more weapons to the country’s extreme right-wing government. 

The U.S. Defense Department posted a notice online Saturday saying U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken had informed Congress that a government sale of 13,000 rounds of tank ammunition was moving forward, even though Congress had not completed an informal review of the transaction. 

The State Department invoked an emergency provision of the Arms Control Export Act to bypass the review process generally required for weapons sales to foreign nations. The sale, which Congress has no power to stop now that the provision has been invoked, was valued at more than $106 million. 

“Rushing deadly weapons to the far-right and openly genocidal Israeli government without congressional review robs American voters of their voice in Congress, emboldens Netanyahu to kill more Palestinian civilians, and furthers stains our nation’s standing in the world,” saidEdward Ahmed Mitchell, national deputy director of the Council on American–Islamic Relations (CAIR).

Mitchell noted that the sale was finalized as media outlets confirmed Israeli tanks have “deliberately targeted and slaughtered journalists in Lebanon.” 

“The Biden administration’s decision is an affront to democracy and an act of moral insanity,” he said. 

The State Department notified congressional committees of the sale around 11:00 pm EST Friday, hours after a new Pew Research poll showedthat only 35% of Americans support the Biden administration’s backing of Israel’s attacks on Gaza. The Israel Defense Forces have now killed more than 17,700 Palestinians in Gaza in just over two months, while claiming they are targeting Hamas. 

Thirteen members of the U.N. Security Council on Friday voted in favor of a humanitarian cease-fire, while the U.K. abstained from voting. The U.S. vetoed the resolution in a move CAIR condemned as “unconscionable.”

“It is not clear what level of suffering by the Palestinian people would prompt our nation’s leaders to act in their defense,” said CAIR national executive director Nihad Awad. 

Also on Saturday, the global charity Save the Children warned that at least 7,685 children under age five in Gaza are now so malnourished—a result of Israel’s total blockade of the enclave that began in October and the delivery of just a small fraction of the aid that is needed—that they require “urgent medical treatment to avoid death.”

“The repeated failure of the international community to act signifies a death knell to children,” said Jason Lee, country director for Save the Children. “I’ve seen children and families roaming the streets of what hasn’t been flattened in Gaza, with no food, nowhere to go, and nothing to survive on. Even the internationally-funded humanitarian aid response—Gaza’s last lifeline—has been choked by Israeli-imposed restrictions.”

“Gaza’s children are being condemned to further bombardment, starvation, and disease,” said Lee. “We must heed the lessons from the past and must immediately prevent ‘atrocity crimes’ from unfolding.”

The intensifying opposition to Israel’s U.S.- and U.K.-backed bombardment of Gaza was made apparent by an estimated 15,000-20,000 people who marched through London on Saturday to demand a cease-fire. 

December 11, 2023 Posted by | politics, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Extended Licence given for the storage of highly radioactive waste at Chernobyl

Chernobyl gets six-year extension for work on original shelter

07 December 2023,  https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/Chernobyl-s-original-shelter-gets-six-year-extensi

An extension has been agreed for the dismantling of the parts of the original shelter facility most at risk of collapse. The structure was built in 206 days following the 1986 accident at Ukraine’s Chernobyl nuclear power plant. 

The licence for the storage of radioactive waste within the shelter has been extended from 2023 to 2029, with a 2025 deadline for the development of a new design for the dismantling of “unstable structures with an unacceptably high probability of collapse”, and a 31 October 2029 deadline for completion of the dismantling.

The Shelter Object – also known as the ‘sarcophagus’ – still contains the molten core of the reactor and an estimated 200 tonnes of highly radioactive material. The stability of the structure has developed into one of the major risk factors at the site. A project to shore up the structure was completed in mid-2008, but at that time the maximum life of the stabilised structures was determined as the end of 2023…………………………………..

The NSC is the largest moveable land-based structure ever built – with a span of 257 metres, a length of 162 metres, a height of 108 metres and a total weight of 36,000 tonnes equipped – and with a lifetime of 100 years has been designed to allow for the eventual dismantling of the ageing makeshift shelter from 1986 and the management of radioactive waste. It has also been designed to withstand temperatures ranging from -43°C to +45°C, a class-three tornado, and an earthquake with a magnitude of 6 on the Richter scale.

Because of its vast dimensions the structure had to be built in two halves which were lifted and successfully joined together in 2015. The process of sliding the entire arched structure from its assembly point into position over unit 4 was completed on 29 November 2016. The original licence, from the State Nuclear Regulatory Inspectorate of Ukraine, for decommissioning was issued in 2019 following fitting out and more than a year of pilot operation and testing of the New Safe Confinement building.

December 11, 2023 Posted by | Belarus, wastes | Leave a comment

Israel Supporters Would Defend Literally Any Israeli Atrocity

CAITLIN JOHNSTONE, DEC 10, 2023

Israel supporters are like, “No no you don’t understand, the side that’s killing babies and incinerating families and assassinating journalists and starving civilians and bombing cultural heritage sites and carpet bombing entire neighborhoods and driving an indigenous people off their land are the GOOD guys.”

❖

There is literally nothing Israel could do that its supporters wouldn’t defend. Try to fill in the blank in “Israel could _______ and people would defend it” with something that wouldn’t be true. Most of the insanely evil things you could put in that space are already actually being done. Genocide? They’re already doing that. Murdering babies? They’re already doing that. Killing thousands of children? Already doing that. Deliberately targeting and assassinating journalists, artists and scholars? Already doing that.

Israel supporters will defend any evil — literally any evil — as long as it is being perpetrated by their favorite regime. There are zero constraints of any kind, because Israel supporters are completely uninterested in morality. If they were, they wouldn’t be supporting one of the most immoral governments on this planet even after all it has done in the last two months.

Part of the problem is the widespread consensus that October 7 means Israel is justified in doing literally anything in response, no matter how heinous. Israel could exterminate the entire population of Gaza and its supporters would still be saying “WHAT ABOUT OCTOBER 7??”

A new Israelis study found that Israel is killing civilians in Gaza at a significantly higher rate than civilians were killed in the world wars of the 20th century. Military analysts have said that the destruction in northern Gaza is comparable to the most aggressive World War II bombing campaigns in places like Dresden, Hamburg and Cologne.

US officials were reportedly shocked when Israeli officials indicated they were preparing to inflict civilian casualties in Gaza that would be reminiscent of world war horrors, and then, in typical Israeli fashion, they went and did even worse…………………………………………………………..

The US is sponsoring a relentless genocidal massacre that’s killing, crippling and tormenting innocents in the most horrific ways imaginable, and Americans are being persuaded to focus instead on a completely fictional epidemic of genocidal rhetoric against Jews at universities. ………………………………………………………… more https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/israel-supporters-would-defend-literally?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=82124&post_id=139664879&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=1ise1&utm_medium=email

December 11, 2023 Posted by | Israel, secrets,lies and civil liberties | Leave a comment

Atomic Kittens! Locals invaded by ‘radioactive’ cats after workers at UK’s most hazardous site nicknamed ‘nuclear Narnia’ feed 100 strays…but are they a myth?

  • Protestors claim Europe’s largest nuclear facility is jeopardising safety of locals
  • Sellafield facility chiefs hotly deny that the cats pose any risk to public safety

Protestors have claimed villagers living close to a giant
facility known as the UK’s ‘nuclear Narnia’ have been invaded by swarms of
‘radioactive’ cats. Strays roaming wild across the Sellafield nuclear site
on the Cumbrian coast pose a risk because they are ‘literally pooing
plutonium’, the anti-nuke campaigners say.

The colony of feral cats grew
after they were fed scraps by workers at Sellafield, which is Europe’s
largest nuclear facility, and sheltered under the warmth of giant steam
pipes for decades.

The group, called Radiation Free Lakeland (RAFL), claim
to have consulted experts and found that the cats’ faeces contain
detectable traces of plutonium and caesium. A theory firmly denied by
chiefs at Sellafield, who say the strays – nicknamed ‘atomic kittens’ by
locals – pose no risk to the public. However, MailOnline has seen documents
which prove some of Sellafield’s 11,000 employees have been threatened with
disciplinary action if they feed the cats because it encourages them to
congregate around the offices.

 Daily Mail 9th Dec 2023

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12836429/radioactive-cats-invade-hazardous-site.html

December 11, 2023 Posted by | environment, UK | Leave a comment

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