The US grip on Australia keeps tightening. Can we break free and avoid war?
By Bevan RamsdenAug 9, 2023 https://johnmenadue.com/for-independence-and-peace-the-us-grip-on-australia-must-be-broken/—
AUSMIN 2023 has further surrendered sovereignty and tightened the US military grip on Australia. The integration of the ADF with the US military, insertion of US intelligence staff in our defence intelligence organisation and the increased military presence of the US including command facilities in Australia has locked us into any war plans of the United States and made us a launching pad for their wars. The US grip on Australia must be broken to give us independence and a peaceful future.
The AUSMIN 2023 talks between the Australian Defence and Foreign Affairs ministers, Richard Marles and Penny Wong and their US counterparts Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin, have further tightened the US military grip on Australia.
Australia has become the US southern Indo-Pacific base from which it will launch military operations. Under the US Force Posture Agreement the US has established, or is in the process of establishing, huge fuel, munitions, spare parts, maintenance and equipment storage facilities on our continent. It has also been given unimpeded access to our airports, seaports, RAAF, RAN and Army bases for its military aircraft, warships and nuclear submarines. Sovereignty has been cravenly sacrificed on the altar of the US-Australia military alliance.
These Australian facilities are being massively upgraded largely at Australian taxpayers expense to support these US military operations.
The ADF trains extensively with, and is under the command of, the US military in war exercises such as Talisman Sabre. The ADF is now so integrated with the US military and our foreign policy so tied to that of the US that Australia will be swept into the next US war without a whimper from our political leaders and indeed with their enthusiastic support. That the next US war will be against China, Australia’s major trading partner and that such a war will have a catastrophic impact on every aspect of the Australian people’s lives and those of the people in our region and the world, with the dreadful possibility of a nuclear exchange, apparently has not registered with our leaders.
By agreeing to the outcomes of the AUSMIN 2023 talks, Richard Marles and Penny Wong have shown that they are no more than flunkeys, willing to place the interests of the US above those of the Australian people. Some might even regard them as traitors whose actions border on treason. Either way they have accepted measures which effectively increase the US grip on Australia and infringe our national sovereignty in a most fundamental way, by denying us the ability to decide if, when and against whom we go to war.
Let’s review the decisions reached at AUSMIN 2023.
AUSMIN 2023 re-affirmed a joint commitment to operationalise the Alliance including through enhanced Force Posture Cooperation across land, maritime and air domains as well as through the Combined Logistics, Sustainment and Maritime Enterprise. They declared Enhanced Space Cooperation as a new Force Posture Initiative to enable closer cooperation on this critical operational domain.
There will be a fresh expansion of the deployment of U.S. forces to Australia including amphibious troops and maritime reconnaissance planes.
American intelligence analysts will be embedded within the Defence’s spy agency in Canberra establishing a Combined Intelligence Centre- Australia within Australia’s Defence Intelligence Organisation by 2024.
In addition to upgrading RAAF Tindal and Darwin there will be expansion and “hardening” against attacks of two other RAAF bases in the north, RAAF Scherger near Weipa in Qld and RAAF Curtin near Derby in WA.
Lightning, Super Hornet fighters and C-17 cargo planes. On November 1st 2022 the ABC ‘Four Corners’ program revealed that RAAF Tindal will be upgraded to accommodate up to six nuclear-capable B52 bombers, and on August 4th 2023 it disclosed that a search of US budget filings had revealed plans to build a US Air Force Mission Planning and Operations Centre in Darwin, plans which have never been fully disclosed by the Australian Government. Through Enhanced Maritime Cooperation there will be more and longer visits of US nuclear submarines to HMAS Stirling in WA from 2023. These visits are in preparation for Submarine Rotational Force-West involving UK and US nuclear submarines being berthed and serviced under the AUKUS Agreement.
The Americans will now conduct a “regular rotation” of U.S. army watercraft as well as deploying a US Navy spy plane to conduct surveillance flights.
The US announced its intention to pre-position US Army stores and materiel at Bandiana Army base near Wodonga in Victoria as a precursor for longer term establishment of an enduring Logistics Support Area in Queensland designed to enhance interoperability and accelerate the ability to respond to alleged ‘regional crises’ which are in reality US-perceived threats to its hegemony.
The US will collaborate with Australia in the local production of multiple- launch guided missiles, planned to commence by 2025.
We are in the grip of the US military, which is ever-tightening and underpins US control of our economy. We are indebted to the historian Clinton Fernandes for his analysis showing that of Australia’s twenty largest corporations, 15 are majority US owned. This includes BHP Billiton, once called the “Big Australian” but now 73% US owned and therefore beholden to US shareholders. The four major banks, NAB, ANZ, Westpac and the CBA, once the government- owned peoples’ bank, are all majority owned by US shareholders, a form of ‘foreign influence’ that the Government doesn’t seem to have a problem with.
The huge public expenditure on “defence”, such as the $368 billion for nuclear-powered submarines, $10 billion for Hercules cargo aircraft, $10 billion for armoured vehicles, billions for runway extensions and port upgrades – the list goes on and is at the expense of addressing urgent social needs such as urgent measures to deal with climate change and address the serious crisis in public housing, health care and public education. There is no military threat to Australia. The real beneficiary is the US military-industrial complex which has its presence in Australia through Lockheed Martin, Boeing and other corporations.
If we are to have an independent and hope of a peaceful future, the US grip on our country must be broken. There can be no social or economic justice, no real solution to the ever-worsening crises in housing, public health care, public education, care of children and the aged, and no effective measures to address climate change and no peaceful future until we free ourselves from the grip of the US militarily, politically and economically.
In order to free ourselves we must unite and we can, because increasing numbers of Australians from different walks of life and political persuasions are becoming alarmed at the suicidal direction the present Australian political leadership is taking us. We are many and are powerful when we are united, while the US collaborators and those who profit from US domination are few. We need political leaders who will serve the interests of the Australian people rather than those of the US or any other foreign power. We need a new constitution, one which will respect the people who first walked this land, will forbid the presence of ALL foreign bases and foreign troops on our soil and will give emphasis to the promotion of peace and mutually beneficial relations with all countries.
Only independence can give us back our sovereignty and self-respect and the possibility of a peaceful future.
Melissa Parke to spearhead International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, as Oppenheimer thrusts issue into spotlight
ABC News, By David Weber, 11 Aug 23
As the film Oppenheimer and war in Ukraine both draw the world’s attention to the threat of nuclear weapons, Melissa Parke says there is no better time for change.
Key points:
- Melissa Parke says a nuclear weapons ban is urgently needed
- Ms Parke says the film Oppenheimer had raised public awareness around the issue
- She says the war in Ukraine had also made people more aware of the risks
The former West Australian federal politician and UN Human Rights lawyer has been announced as the new executive director of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons.
With the majority of the world’s nations supporting the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, Ms Parke said there was no better time for Australia to sign up.
“There’s never been a more urgent time with the heightened tensions and conflict around the world to take action to eliminate nuclear weapons,” she said.
The former Labor MP for Fremantle called for “honest negotiations” around disarmament.
“Nuclear weapons do not make the planet safer, they make it an infinitely more dangerous place to be,” she said.
“Australia’s had a proud history of championing nuclear disarmament.
“The Australian Labor Party has made a commitment in its national policy platform … [and] when they were in opposition in 2018, they made a commitment that when Labor was in government it, would sign the treaty.”…………………………………………… more https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-08-11/melissa-parke-to-spearhead-campaign-to-abolish-nuclear-weapons/102715862
The Coalition’s likely embrace of nuclear energy is high-risk politics
The Conversation. Michelle Grattan, 10 Aug 23
Crazy brave, or just crazy? If, as seems likely, the opposition embraces nuclear power in its 2025 election policy, it will be taking a huge political gamble.
The Coalition might argue this would be the best (or only) way to ensure we achieve net zero by 2050. But “nuclear” is a trigger word in the political debate, and the reactions it triggers are mostly negative.
Opposition Leader Peter Dutton has been open since the election about nuclear energy being on the Coalition’s agenda. It’s a “no surprises” tactic – but one that has allowed the government, especially Climate Change Minister Chris Bowen, to regularly attack and ridicule the idea.
This week opposition climate change and energy spokesman Ted O’Brien was spruiking nuclear power, writing in The Australian about the US state of Wyoming’s plans for a coal-to-nuclear transition.
……………………..O’Brien, a Queensland Liberal, has been a vociferous nuclear advocate; he chaired a parliamentary inquiry under the former government that recommended work to deepen understanding of nuclear technology and a partial lifting of the present moratorium, dating from 1998, on nuclear energy.
Nationals leader David Littleproud has also been central to the push for the Coalition to back nuclear energy.
The Nationals, by their climate scepticism and their deep attachment to coal, held back the Coalition on climate policy for more than a decade. Ahead of the 2022 election they were dragged by Scott Morrison to agree to the 2050 target with a massive financial bribe (some of which they didn’t receive because of the change of government).
Now, in opposition, some of the Nationals’ rump would like the party to ditch the 2050 commitment. The nuclear option would be one means of keeping them in the tent.
The “nuclear” the Coalition is talking about doesn’t involve old-style plants, but “new and emerging technologies” including small modular reactors.
That’s one of the problems for the policy – this is an emerging technology, not a quick fix to Australia’s challenges in transiting from fossil fuels.
That is, however, nothing compared with the challenge of public opinion. Notably, the 2019 parliamentary report was titled Nuclear Energy – Not without your approval.
A 2022 Lowy poll found Australians divided on the issue of nuclear power, although opinion appeared to be softening. Some 52% supported removing the ban, which was a five-point rise from 2021; 45% opposed this – six points down on the year before.
The government would have a ready-made “not in my backyard” campaign to launch against the Coalition’s policy. …………………… https://theconversation.com/grattan-on-friday-the-coalitions-likely-embrace-of-nuclear-energy-is-high-risk-politics-211346
Atomic Bombing of Japan Was Not Necessary to End WWII. US Gov’t Documents Admit It
US government documents admit the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was not necessary to end WWII. Japan was on the verge of surrendering. The nuclear attack was the first strike in Washington’s Cold War on the Soviet Union.
By Ben Norton / Geopolitical Economy Report August 10, 2023 https://scheerpost.com/2023/08/10/atomic-bombing-of-japan-was-not-necessary-to-end-wwii-us-govt-documents-admit-it/
It is very common for Western governments and media outlets to tell the rest of the world to be afraid of North Korea and its nuclear weapons, or to fear the possibility that Iran could one day have nukes.
But the reality is that there is only one country in human history that has used nuclear weapons against a civilian population – and not once, but twice: the United States.
On the 6th and 9th of August, 1945, the US military dropped atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Around 200,000 civilians were killed.
Today, nearly 80 years later, many US government officials, journalists, and educators still claim that Washington had no choice but to nuke Japan, to force it to surrender and thus end World War Two. Some argue that this horrifying atrocity was in fact a noble act, that it saved even more lives that would have been lost in subsequent fighting.
This narrative, although widespread, is utterly false.
US government documents have admitted that Japan was already on the verge of surrendering in 1945, before the nuclear strikes. It was simply not necessary to use the atomic bomb.
The US Department of War (which was renamed the Department of Defense later in the 1940s) conducted an investigation, known as the Strategic Bombing Survey, analyzing its air strikes in World War II.
Published in 1946, the Strategic Bombing Survey stated very clearly, “Japan would have surrendered even if the atomic bombs had not been dropped”:
… it seems clear that, even without the atomic bombing attacks, air supremacy over Japan could have exerted sufficient pressure to bring about unconditional surrender and obviate the need for invasion.
Based on a detailed investigation of all the facts, and supported by the testimony of the surviving Japanese leaders involved, it is the Survey’s opinion that certainly prior to 31 December 1945, and in all probability prior to 1 November 1945, Japan would have surrendered even if the atomic bombs had not been dropped, even if Russia had not entered the war, and even if no invasion had been planned or contemplated
The nuclear strikes on Japan represented a political decision taken by the United States, aimed squarely at the Soviet Union; it was the first strike in the Cold War.
In August 1945, the USSR was preparing to invade Japan to overthrow its ruling fascist regime, which had been allied with Nazi Germany – which the Soviet Red Army had also just defeated in the European theater of the war.
Washington was concerned that, if the Soviets defeated Japanese fascism and liberated Tokyo like they had in Berlin, then Japan’s post-fascist government could become an ally of the Soviet Union and could adopt a socialist government.
The atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, therefore, were not so much aimed at the Japanese fascists as they were aimed at the Soviet communists.
This expressly political decision to use nuclear weapons against Japan was in fact opposed by several top US military officials.
As one of the most famous generals in US military history, Dwight Eisenhower led operations in the European theater of the war and oversaw the subsequent occupation of what was formerly Nazi Germany.
Eisenhower later became president of the United States, following Harry Truman, the US leader who had nuked Japan.
Eisenhower is renowned worldwide for his leadership in the fight against fascism in Europe. But what is little known is that he opposed the US nuclear attacks on Japan.
After leaving the White House, Eisenhower published a memoir titled Mandate for Change. In this 1963 book, the former top general recalled an argument he had in July 1945 with then US Secretary of War Henry Stimson.
Stimson had notified him that Washington was planning to nuke Japan, and Eisenhower criticized the decision, stating that he had “grave misgivings” and was convinced “that Japan was already defeated and that dropping the bomb was completely unnecessary”.
The incident took place in [July] 1945 when Secretary of War Stimson, visiting my headquarters in Germany, informed me that our government was preparing to drop an atomic bomb on Japan. I was one of those who felt that there were a number of cogent reasons to question the wisdom of such an act. … But the Secretary, upon giving me the news of the successful bomb test in New Mexico, and of the plan for using it, asked for my reaction, apparently expecting a vigorous assent.
During his recitation of the relevant facts, I had been conscious of a feeling of depression and so I voiced to him my grave misgivings, first on the basis of my belief that Japan was already defeated and that dropping the bomb was completely unnecessary, and secondly because I thought that our country should avoid shocking world opinion by the use of a weapon whose employment was, I thought, no longer mandatory as a measure to save American lives. It was my belief that Japan was, at that very moment, seeking some way to surrender with a minimum loss of “face”. The Secretary was deeply perturbed by my attitude, almost angrily refuting the reason I gave for my quick conclusions.
These “completely unnecessary” nuclear attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki killed some 200,000 civilians. But they had a political goal, aimed at the Soviet Union.
The political reasons behind the atomic bombing of Japan have been publicly acknowledged by the US Department of Energy’s Office of History, which runs a website with educational information about the Manhattan Project, the scientific initiative that developed the bomb.
The US government website conceded that the Truman administration’s decision to nuke Japan was politically motivated, writing:
After President Harry S. Truman received word of the success of the Trinity test, his need for the help of the Soviet Union in the war against Japan was greatly diminished. The Soviet leader, Joseph Stalin, had promised to join the war against Japan by August 15th. Truman and his advisors now were not sure they wanted this help. If use of the atomic bomb made victory possible without an invasion, then accepting Soviet help would only invite them into the discussions regarding the postwar fate of Japan.
Other historians argue that Japan would have surrendered even without the use of the atomic bomb and that in fact Truman and his advisors used the bomb only in an effort to intimidate the Soviet Union.
…
Truman hoped to avoid having to “share” the administration of Japan with the Soviet Union.
Mainstream historians have acknowledged this fact as well.
Ward Wilson, a researcher at the establishment London-based think tank the British American Security Information Council, published an article in Washington’s elite Foreign Policy magazine in 2013 titled “The Bomb Didn’t Beat Japan. Stalin Did”.
“Although the bombs did force an immediate end to the war, Japan’s leaders had wanted to surrender anyway and likely would have done so before the American invasion planned for Nov. 1. Their use was, therefore, unnecessary”, he wrote.
Wilson explained:
If the Japanese were not concerned with city bombing in general or the atomic bombing of Hiroshima in particular, what were they concerned with? The answer is simple: the Soviet Union.
…
Even the most hard-line leaders in Japan’s government knew that the war could not go on. The question was not whether to continue, but how to bring the war to a close under the best terms possible.
One way to gauge whether it was the bombing of Hiroshima or the invasion and declaration of war by the Soviet Union that caused Japan’s surrender is to compare the way in which these two events affected the strategic situation. After Hiroshima was bombed on Aug. 6, both options were still alive. … Bombing Hiroshima did not foreclose either of Japan’s strategic options.
The impact of the Soviet declaration of war and invasion of Manchuria and Sakhalin Island was quite different, however. Once the Soviet Union had declared war, Stalin could no longer act as a mediator — he was now a belligerent. So the diplomatic option was wiped out by the Soviet move. The effect on the military situation was equally dramatic.
When the Russians invaded Manchuria, they sliced through what had once been an elite army and many Russian units only stopped when they ran out of gas.
…
The Soviet invasion invalidated the military’s decisive battle strategy, just as it invalidated the diplomatic strategy. At a single stroke, all of Japan’s options evaporated. The Soviet invasion was strategically decisive — it foreclosed both of Japan’s options — while the bombing of Hiroshima (which foreclosed neither) was not.
Attributing the end of the war to the atomic bomb served Japan’s interests in multiple ways. But it also served U.S. interests. If the Bomb won the war, then the perception of U.S. military power would be enhanced, U.S. diplomatic influence in Asia and around the world would increase.
…
If, on the other hand, the Soviet entry into the war was what caused Japan to surrender, then the Soviets could claim that they were able to do in four days what the United States was unable to do in four years, and the perception of Soviet military power and Soviet diplomatic influence would be enhanced. And once the Cold War was underway, asserting that the Soviet entry had been the decisive factor would have been tantamount to giving aid and comfort to the enemy.
Thus, before World War II was even over, the United States launched a Cold War against its ostensible “ally”, the Soviet Union – and against the potential spread of socialism anywhere around the world.
US spy agencies began recruiting former fascists and Nazi collaborators. US officials freed Class A Japanese war criminals from prison, some of whom went on to lead the government in Tokyo.
Many of these figures were involved in founding the right-wing Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), which has essentially run Japan as a one-party state since 1955 (excluding a mere five years of opposition rule).
A textbook example of this was Nobusuke Kishi, a notorious war criminal who ran the Japanese empire’s Manchukuo puppet regime and oversaw genocidal atrocities in collaboration with the Nazis. He was briefly imprisoned, but later pardoned by US authorities and, with Washington’s support, rose to become prime minister of Japan in the 1950s.
Kishi’s fascist-linked family still commands significant control over Japanese politics. His grandson, Shinzo Abe, was the longest-serving prime minister in the East Asian nation’s history.
Today, it remains important to correct widespread myths about this history, because they have a profound impact on popular culture.
In July 2023, Hollywood released a blockbuster film, “Oppenheimer”, by award-winning director Christopher Nolan. The movie was a huge commercial success, but was also criticized for its politics.
The film humanized the eponymous physicist who directed the Manhattan Project’s Los Alamos laboratory, J. Robert Oppenheimer, commonly known as the “father of the atomic bomb”.
Later in life, Oppenheimer came to regret the role he played in developing the weapon, and he campaigned against nuclear proliferation.
Ironically, Oppenheimer also became a victim of the US government’s McCarthyism, and was persecuted for his links to left-wing groups.
But while the movie was celebrated for depicting Oppenheimer’s complex internal struggles, it was accused of whitewashing the brutality of the US atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
The Japanese civilians who lost their lives in these totally unnecessary attacks were eerily absent from the film.
By incessantly repeating the falsehood that nuking 200,000 people was the only way to get Japan to surrender, US officials have normalized this erasure of the civilian victims of its unnecessary, politically motivated war crimes.
…
Chinese UN mission releases working paper on Fukushima nuclear-contaminated wastewater issue, urging Japan to discharge in responsible manner
By Global TimesP Aug 09, 2023 https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202308/1295954.shtml
Chinese UN mission releases working paper on Fukushima nuclear-contaminated wastewater issue, urging Japan to discharge in responsible manner
China’s Permanent Mission to the United Nations (UN) and Other International Organizations in Vienna has submitted the working paper on the disposal of nuclear-contaminated water of Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station to the First Preparatory Committee for the Eleventh Review Conference of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT).
The disposal of nuclear-contaminated water from Fukushima concerns the global marine environment and public health. There is no precedent for artificially discharging nuclear-contaminated water into the ocean and no internationally recognized disposal standards.
The international community should attach great importance to Japan’s ocean discharge of the nuclear-contaminated water and urge Japan to dispose of the contaminated water in a responsible manner, according to the working paper released on Wednesday.
The working paper pointed out that Japan had previously discussed five ways to dispose of the contaminated water, namely injection into the ground, discharge into the ocean, vapor release, release as hydrogen gas into the atmosphere, and underground burial. However, Japan did not conduct a thorough study of all disposal options and insisted on choosing ocean dumping, which was the lowest cost option, thus transferring the risk of nuclear contamination.
If the so-called ”treated-water” is really safe and harmless, why does Japan not dispose of it within its own territory or use it for industrial and agricultural purposes? The working paper pointed out.
The paper noted that Japan fails to prove the long-term effectiveness and reliability of the purification equipment for treating the contaminated water. According to the data released by Japan, nearly 70 percent of the nuclear-contaminated water treated by Japan’s ALPS (Advanced Liquid Processing System) still fails to meet the discharge standard and needs to be purified again.
Japan has failed to prove the authenticity and accuracy of the data on contaminated water. Fukushima power plant operator TEPCO has repeatedly concealed and falsified nuclear-contaminated water related data in recent years. The IAEA conducted its review and assessment solely based on the data and information provided by Japan, and carried out inter-laboratory comparative analyses of only a small number of nuclear-contaminated water samples collected by Japanese officials, read the working paper.
According to general international law and the provisions of UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, Japan has the obligation to protect and preserve the marine environment. The Convention on the Prevention of Marine Pollution by Dumping of Wastes and Other Matter 1972 (the London Convention) prohibits the dumping of radioactive waste into the sea by means of man-made structures at sea. Japan’s discharging of nuclear-contaminated water into the sea by means of submarine pipelines is in violation of the relevant provisions of the London Convention.
Japan has failed to demonstrate the perfection of the monitoring program. Tokyo must not start discharging until the long-term monitoring mechanism is established, and must stop discharging water once anomalies are detected in the data on the discharge of nuclear contaminated water.
The Chinese UN mission stressed that Japan should not confuse the concept of nuclear-contaminated wastewater with the wastewater from the normal operation of nuclear power plants.
The working paper warned Japan of not making use of IAEA’s comprehensive assessment report on the disposal of Fukushima nuclear-contaminated water as ”shield” or ”greenlight” for the dumping plan.
In addition, the paper urged Japan to fully respond to the concerns of China and the international community, and dispose of the nuclear-contaminated water in a responsible manner in line with its obligations under international law, stop pushing through the dumping plan, fully consult with stakeholders including neighboring countries, make sure to handle the nuclear contaminated water in a science-based, safe and transparent way, and subject itself to rigorous international oversight
1 This month
of the week – Disrupting War & Militarism in Oceania. Active solidarity. Radical practice.
Antinuclear 