Australia might be better off to cancel the nuclear submarine plan’
How many nuclear-powered submarines for Australia?
The Strategist, 12 Oct 2023|Peter Briggs
“………………………………………………………………………………..It takes three to four submarines to guarantee having one available for deployment. The ‘rule of three’ was validated by the Coles review, but that doesn’t include any spare capacity to cope with unexpected defects…………………………………………
Australia is planning on a three-year interval between delivery of submarines, driven by the time it will take to generate a crew from our small submarine personnel base and limited sea training capacity in operational Collins-class and US and UK submarines.
Construction time doesn’t determine the drumbeat for delivery; rather, construction starts in sufficient time to achieve the delivery drumbeat.
Three years is a slow drumbeat industrially. Shorter would be more efficient but is currently not feasible because of personnel limitations. The personnel training limitation should ease once Australia has at least six SSNs at sea. The drumbeat could then be shortened. A slow drumbeat is more expensive due to idle production but is also likely to contribute to a loss of skilled workers; witness the UK’s experience at Barrow in Furness because of the slow Astute drumbeat.
A construction program building eight submarines at a three-year drumbeat would take 21 years. Submarines typically have a hull life of 25–30 years. Thus, this production line would have nothing to build for four to nine years, and would then be then back into stop–start shipbuilding.
A force of 10 SSNs at a three-year drumbeat with a planned 27-year life is the minimum to provide a continuous-build program, avoiding the stop–start situation. A force of 12 could achieve a shorter drumbeat in the later stages when the personnel restrictions are not so severe.
Decisions on the final size of the force must be made now, at the program’s inception. They drive industrial issues such as the size of facilities, production-line technology, the supply chains supporting the force and the ordering of long lead items such as the reactor. The decision cannot responsibly be left for a future government.
My study of British, French and US submarine-crewing policies, summarised in my 2018 ASPI report, concluded that a force of 10 SSNs with 10 crews was essential to generate the minimum critical mass of experienced personnel. A smaller force will not generate sufficient highly experienced personnel to oversee the safe technical and operational aspects of the program. That calculation assumed one base and one submarine squadron. Two-ocean basing with an additional 200 highly experienced squadron staff, a key link in the operational and safety chain, would require at least 12 SSNs.
Britain’s Royal Navy has six or seven SSNs and four SSBNs operating from one base in a single squadron. Its personnel situation is dire. High wastage rates and shortfalls in many critical categories have reportedly necessitated drafting non-volunteers to submarine training and cannibalising parts and crew to get even one submarine to sea. At times, the RN is unable to achieve even one. Is that where Australia is heading?
The issues are undoubtedly more complex than simply the size of the force, but it reinforces the point that a force of eight SSNs requiring six to seven crews is below critical mass, vulnerable to personnel shortfalls, will struggle to sustain two SSNs deployed, and won’t be able to sustain two-ocean basing.
Even more problematic is whether Australia can achieve an operational, sustainable and deployable SSN capability from eight boats made up of a mix of Virginia and AUKUS designs. The mix of classes adds to the complexity, cost and risk because it entails two supply chains and differing major onboard equipment, spares, and training systems and simulators.
Australia requires at least 12 SSNs to sustain two-ocean basing with two deployable on each coast in the good times. A force of 18—nine on each coast—would be more resilient, reliably providing two deployable SSNs, with three available in the good times.
Eight is plainly insufficient on all counts.
Leaving the decision for a later government will mean greater expense and increase the risk that the program doesn’t produce the needed strategic capability, while stripping funds from other key defence capabilities. A lack of decision, along with Australia’s failure to join the AUKUS SSN initial design effort, indicates inadequate commitment.
A ‘damn the torpedoes’ transition to SSNs could leave us with no submarine capability.
If Australia is not prepared to, or cannot, invest the resources to achieve a viable SSN force, we are better off not continuing down this path.
AUTHOR
Peter Briggs is a retired submarine specialist and a past president of the Submarine Institute of Australia. https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/how-many-nuclear-powered-submarines-for-australia/
Israel’s vengeance will not make for a better world
Pearls and Irritations, By Richard Hill, Oct 14, 2023
The depressing, crushing spectacle of extreme violence and mayhem unleashed across Israel and Palestine over recent days is a reminder of the depths to which humanity can sink.
To see complex historical, cultural and geopolitical questions – let alone humanity and decency – reduced to a ceaseless cycle of hatred, death and destruction is hard to stomach. We gaze at our TV screens aghast, we hear the threats, counter-threats, and the endless justifications and commentary. Meanwhile, the bloodletting goes on – and on. Western politicians, weighed down with simple binaries, take sides and in so doing obliterate any sense of context or complexity that might help us understand how this mess occurred in the first place.
Projecting the colours of the Israeli flag across the Sydney Opera House, declaring unflagging support for a state that for decades has thumbed its nose at UN resolutions and violently oppressed a besieged and impoverished population, is morally abhorrent.
The attempt to erase such concerns over recent days has been startling. At this point, to call for some acknowledgment of the origins of the conflict is to court accusations of siding with terrorists. And yet, as US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, arrives in Israel to demonstrate the US’s unwavering support, Israel is imposing an illegal blockade on Gaza (cutting of life-saving electricity and preventing passage of urgently needed medicines, food and other supplies) as bombs rein down with impunity on a narrow, congested strip of land occupied by 2.3 million people.
How can this be? Why has nuance been shed and historical memory so conveniently erased? Such abstractionism is of course continuing the egregious practice of labelling anyone who dares criticise Israel as antisemitic. This is absurd and ludicrous, and entirely misleading. In the meantime, we have the leader of the most extreme right-wing government in Israel’s history banging his fists together on TV urging extreme violence upon the people of Gaza. He urges them to flee to a checkpoint on the Egyptian border, knowing full well that it’s closed. So, in effect, the people in Gaza are trapped in a hellhole that day-by-day is being reduced to rubble. All this under the watch of the US, Britain and Australia.
Hamas’s attacks were horrific and utterly unacceptable; there’s no denying that. Many innocent people lost their lives, and the human suffering is unimaginable. But to then offer unwavering support to Israel, minus any mention of current and past wrongdoing, borders on the insane. It demonstrates a cruel, collective indifference. And Australia is complicit in this by implicitly endorsing the long-term suffering of Palestinians as Israeli government priority.
There are so many other ways western and other political leaders (including those in Israel) could have responded to a violent attack on innocent people. ……………………………………………..
It is worth remembering the words of former Norwegian Prime Minister, and new NATO Secretary General, Jens Stoltenberg who in the wake of the 2011 mass murder of 70 young people by right-wing gunman Anders Breivik said: “We are still shocked by what has happened, but will never give up our values…Our response is more democracy, more openness, and more humanity.” He vowed his country would not seek vengeance; “we will answer hatred with love”. In a later news conference, Stoltenberg added: “The message to whoever attacked us, the message from all of Norway is that you will not destroy us, you will not destroy our democracy and our ideals for a better world.” This better world does not include blind rage and vengeance, or continuing oppression and violence………………more https://johnmenadue.com/israels-vengeance-will-not-make-for-a-better-world/— #Israel
Israel Is Using Starvation as a Weapon of War Against the Palestinian People
Jewish Voice for Peace demanded “that the U.S. government immediately take steps to withdraw military funding to Israel and to hold the Israeli government accountable for its gross violations of human rights and war crimes against Palestinians.”
13 Oct 23
A full-scale ground offensive on Gaza is imminent, even as Palestinians are already suffering collective punishment.
By Marjorie Cohn / Truthout
After Hamas launched more than 2,000 missiles from Gaza and sent hundreds of fighters into Israel on October 7, killing hundreds of civilians, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared war on Hamas. But Israel’s retaliation, including massive bombing from the land, air and sea, and its collective punishment of Gazans — denying them food, water, electricity and gas — reveals that Netanyahu has actually declared war on the Palestinian people, especially those in Gaza.
Israeli warplanes are conducting indiscriminate bombings throughout Gaza, targeting homes, schools, hospitals, mosques and civilian buildings. As of October 10, Israel had reportedly used 1,000 tons of explosives and targeted 500 locations, primarily in civilian residential areas.
“The quantity of injured people arriving to our hospitals is huge and will mean we will not be able to accept more patients in Gaza,” Ashraf Al-Qidra, spokesperson for the Gaza Ministry of Health, told PBS. “I send water to those who have had their houses demolished. All those who have been displaced don’t have anything. All they have is suffering, fear and horror,” Ahmed Youssef Mekhimar, a resident of Gaza, said. Shames Ouda told PBS, “This power station served all Gaza Strip, and now is turned off, Gaza without fuel, without electricity, without Internet, without food. Gaza dying. The people will pay the price of this war.”
A full-scale Israeli ground offensive on Gaza is reportedly imminent, with 360,000 Israeli Occupying Force reserve troops poised to invade. In 2014, Israeli forces bombed and invaded Gaza, killing 2,251 Palestinians, most of them civilians, in “Operation Protective Edge.”
Netanyahu warned Gazans to “leave now” as Israeli forces would “act with all force.” But the people in Gaza cannot leave. Except for one border crossing with Egypt, Israel controls all ingress and egress into the Gaza Strip. As of October 11, Israel has bombed the Egyptian border crossing twice, and Egypt has refused to allow refugees through.
More than 1,200 Israelis and 1,354 Palestinians have been reported killed and thousands wounded on both sides. Israel said that additionally 1,500 bodies of Hamas members have been found inside Israel.
In the face of the tragic deaths of Palestinian and Israeli civilians, President Joe Biden issued a statement saying the United States “unequivocally condemns this appalling assault against Israel by Hamas terrorists from Gaza,” and pledged “all appropriate means of support” to Netanyahu. He did not decry the loss of Palestinian lives.
Biden called Hamas’s attack “pure, unadulterated evil” in an October 10 news conference. But he refused to urge Israel to exercise restraint in its retaliation against the Palestinians.
U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said in a statement that U.S. Navy vessels, including an aircraft carrier and a guided missile cruiser, had been sent to the Eastern Mediterranean……………………………………….
under international law, Israel, an occupying force, does not have the right to use military force in self-defense against people under its occupation.
Targeting civilians and civilian objects constitute war crimes under the Fourth Geneva Convention and the Rome Statute for the International Criminal Court, whether committed by Israel or by the Palestinians. The presence of noncivilians within civilian populations does not deprive the population of its civilian character under Additional Protocol I to the Geneva Convention………………..
Even if some of the actions taken by the Palestinians in their resistance are illegal under international humanitarian law, there is no legal justification for Israel to claim it is acting in self-defense under the UN Charter.
Collective Punishment and Using Starvation as a Weapon Are War Crimes
Gaza is one of the most densely populated areas in the world. Often called the largest open-air prison on Earth, the Gaza Strip is home to more than 2 million Palestinians in this 365-square-kilometer area. Israel controls Gaza’s land, air and maritime borders.
Israel’s Minister for the Advancement of the Status of Women May Golan said at a meeting of the Israeli government, “All of Gaza’s infrastructures must be destroyed to its foundation and their electricity cut off immediately. The war is not against Hamas but against the state of Gaza.”
Israel has imposed a “complete siege” on the Gaza Strip. Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant declared, “No electricity, no food, no water, no gas — it’s all closed,” adding that “we are fighting animals and are acting accordingly.”
Using starvation as a weapon of war constitutes a war crime under Additional Protocol I to the Geneva Convention. Gallant’s order is a crime against humanity under the Rome Statute. It is also a call for genocide, prohibited by the Genocide Convention and the Rome Statute, since many Gazans will die as a result of the siege.
The Fourth Geneva Convention prohibits the punishment of people in an occupied territory for offenses they didn’t personally commit. Israel’s reprisals against civilians for actions they did not take constitutes collective punishment, which amounts to a war crime.
Earlier this year, the International People’s Tribunal on U.S. Imperialism, for which I served as a juror, examined 15 countries in the Global South to assess the impact of economic coercive measures on the lives of their people. In May, we heard testimony from witnesses in Gaza as Israeli bombs were dropping on their neighborhoods. The tribunal concluded that Israel’s siege in the Gaza Strip is a form of warfare used as “an integral tool of imperialist aggression designed to facilitate the theft of global south wealth and uphold racial hierarchy.” The siege on Gaza is “just as deadly” as other forms of warfare, the tribunal found.
Root Cause of Hamas Attack Was “Cruelty of a Half-Century of Abusive Occupation”
“Although the Hamas attack included war crimes against innocent civilians, its root cause was the cruelty of a half-century of abusive occupation by Israel that violated the most basic human rights of the Palestinian people, and relied on apartheid practices of governance, according to reports by the leading human rights organizations in the U.S. and Israel,” Richard Falk, former UN Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights in the Palestinian Territories Occupied Since 1967, told Truthout.
Falk attributes the timing of Hamas’s attack to “the extremism of the Netanyahu coalition government” that “provoked resistance by its complicity with settler violence and violations of the Al-Aqsa Mosque Compound, and by erasing Palestine from its official maps of the Middle East and negotiating a normalization agreement with Saudi Arabia.” Falk called the Hamas attack “a shrill reminder to Israel and the world that ‘we Palestinians are still here and will not be erased and forgotten.’”
In an October 8 statement, Palestinian human rights organizations cited “compelling evidence” that the Israeli authorities had committed war crimes and crimes against humanity against Gaza’s civilian population, including illegal indiscriminate and disproportionate attacks. They urged the international community, including the UN Security Council, to take immediate action to stop Israel’s revenge and reprisal against Gazan civilians, including the imposition of sanctions and an arms embargo on Israel. They also called on the International Criminal Court (ICC) to expedite its pending investigation into the situation in Palestine as promised in December 2022. The ICC launched an investigation in 2021 of possible war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by both Israel and the Palestinians, but the probe has stalled due to pressure from the U.S. government.
The Security Council, which has an obligation under the UN Charter to restore international peace and security, has done nothing to stop the carnage because its permanent members cannot agree on a course of action. While the U.S. demanded a blanket condemnation of Hamas’s actions, Russia and China refused to agree to the unilateral denunciation of Hamas; they favored calling for an immediate ceasefire and the beginning of a peace process that has been frozen for years.
“The bloodshed of today and the past 75 years traces back directly to U.S. complicity in the oppression and horror caused by Israel’s military occupation,” Jewish Voice for Peace said in an October 7 statement titled “The Root of Violence is Oppression.” Jewish Voice for Peace blamed the U.S. government which “consistently enables Israeli violence and bears blame for this moment. The unchecked military funding, diplomatic cover, and billions of dollars of private money flowing from the U.S. enables and empowers Israel’s apartheid regime.” Moreover, Jewish Voice for Peace noted, “Those who continue calling for ‘ironclad’ U.S. support for the Israeli military are only paving the path to more violence.”
Jewish Voice for Peace demanded “that the U.S. government immediately take steps to withdraw military funding to Israel and to hold the Israeli government accountable for its gross violations of human rights and war crimes against Palestinians.”
U.S. congressmembers Rashida Tlaib (D-Michigan) and Cori Bush (D-Missouri) have called for an end to the U.S. government’s unconditional financial support of Israel’s military occupation and apartheid government. The United States has been providing Israel with $3.8 billion a year in military assistance.
While Western countries and their media decry the loss of Israeli lives, they don’t express similar outrage at the deaths of Palestinians. This hypocrisy is racist and ignores the context of decades of settler colonialism and Israeli apartheid.
We must pressure the U.S. government to call for an immediate ceasefire and stop sending weapons to Israel. “There is no military solution here,” Phyllis Bennis, a fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies, told my cohost Heidi Boghosian and me on Law and Disorder radio.
The consequences of allowing Israel to continue and escalate its aggression against the Palestinian people are unimaginable. https://scheerpost.com/2023/10/13/israel-is-using-starvation-as-a-weapon-of-war-against-the-palestinian-people/
US weapons costs way beyond $886billion: call for nuclear weapons spending blowout -USA congressional commission.
The commission notes in its report that while it “did not conduct a cost analysis of our recommendations, it is obvious they will cost money.”
A July Congressional Budget Office report projects that nuclear modernization efforts will cost $756 billion over the next decade, and that excludes costs for the additional nuclear initiatives the commission would like the U.S. to pursue.
Congressional commission calls for more nuclear arsenal expansion
Defense News, By Bryant Harris, Oct 13, 2023
WASHINGTON ― A congressionally mandated commission on Thursday released its final report on the U.S. nuclear posture, recommending an increase in additional assets as China rapidly expands its own arsenal.
At the same time, the commission found the Pentagon and Energy Department are lagging behind their modernization goals, raising questions about the ability to develop additional nuclear assets.
Republicans seized on the report to call for more aggressive nuclear modernization, including additional investments in an industrial base that’s struggling to keep pace with the tight timelines needed to implement current strategic objectives………………………
Sen. Roger Wicker of Mississippi, the top Republican on the Armed Services Committee reiterated his calls for a defense supplemental spending package to bypass the $886 billion security funding caps laid out in the May debt ceiling agreement while growing the military budget annually beyond inflation……………………………………….
The commission notes in its report that while it “did not conduct a cost analysis of our recommendations, it is obvious they will cost money.”
A July Congressional Budget Office report projects that nuclear modernization efforts will cost $756 billion over the next decade, and that excludes costs for the additional nuclear initiatives the commission would like the U.S. to pursue.
Specifically, the commission calls for “additional U.S. theater nuclear capabilities” in Europe and the Indo-Pacific, modernizing nuclear command and control capabilities and effectively employing emerging technology including hypersonics, quantum computing, generative AI and autonomous vehicles.
It also calls for plans to “re-convert” submarine-launched ballistic missile launchers and B-52 bombers that were rendered unable to deliver nuclear payloads under the New START treaty. Russia suspended its participation in that treaty, its last remaining nuclear arms control accord with Washington, last year. Moscow has also threatened to pull out of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, though it says it will only resume testing if the U.S. does. The U.S. Senate has never ratified the test ban treaty.
Additionally, the commission calls for uploading “some or all of the” unemployed warheads in U.S. inventory, deploying additional Sentinel Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles and long-range standoff weapons, increasing the planned number of B-21 bombers and upping the planned production of the Columbia-class ballistic missile submarines………………………………………….
the commission says the Defense Department should “establish or renovate a third shipyard dedicated to production of nuclear-powered vessels, with particular emphasis on nuclear-powered submarines.”
Wicker has held up key authorizations needed to implement AUKUS, demanding the Biden administration and Congress put more money into the submarine industrial base. The two authorizations Wicker is holding up would permit the transfer of two Virginia-class submarines to Australia and allow the Defense Department to accept Canberra’s $3 billion contribution in the submarine industrial base. https://www.defensenews.com/congress/2023/10/12/congressional-commission-calls-for-more-nuclear-arsenal-expansion/ #nuclear #antinuclear #NuclearFree #NoNukes #NuclearPlants
US bails on Ukraine…but doesn’t tell Zelensky
Walt Zlotow, West Suburban Peace Coalition, Glen Ellyn IL 13 Oct 23
In an astonishing statement at a press briefing Wednesday, National Security Department spokesperson John Kirby admitted the US is running out of interest in weaponizing Ukraine for the long term. Since Ukraine is on US life support to continue fighting their lost cause to recapture Crimea, Donbas and join NATO, it’s clear ‘game over’ for Ukraine looms.
“I think in the immediate term, right now, we can continue to support Ukraine – with the authorities in the appropriations we have. But, you know, we’re … certainly running out of runway.”
Kirby then shifted from the runway metaphor to one even starker. “The US administration had the means to support Ukraine in the near term. But you don’t want to be trying to bake in long-term support when you’re at the end of the rope,” And on the Ukraine funding, we’re coming near to the end of the rope. I mean, today we announced $200 million, and we’ll keep that aid going as long as we can, but it’s not going to be indefinite”
Is Ukraine President Zelensky listening to Kirby’s ominous warning? If he had an iota of understanding of Ukraine’s rapidly deteriorating plight, he’d immediately partner with responsible countries such as Turkey to initiate negotiations with Russia to end the war. He did that 18 months ago, Marcy 31-April 1, 2022, inking a tentative deal with Russia to end the war without losing any territory in Donbas, albeit giving Donbas regional autonomy under Ukraine sovereignty. The agreement would also have ended Ukraine’s self-destructive NATO aspirations.
To sum up: The US provoked the war by championing Ukraine NATO membership and weaponizing their civil war that killed thousands in Donbas. When Russia invaded to prevent both, the US sabotaged every effort to end the war quickly and peaceably, prolonging it with $113 billion in weapons and other aid. Result? Hundreds of thousands of dead Ukrainians with no chance of victory.
It’s not just the US that is “certainly running out of runway” and “coming near to the end of the rope.” The US is moving on to enabling and supplying the ongoing destruction of Gaza. No more runway and no more rope are much more appropriate to the former comedian staring in ‘Tragedy in Ukraine.’ #Ukraine #nuclear #antinuclear #NuclearFree #NoNukes #NuclearPlants
How To Explain U.S. Empire’s Support For Israel Right Or Wrong?
Finally, this list would be incomplete without mentioning narrative control. In our day this looks like inflammatory claims of beheading babies both quickly debunked and repeated endlessly even after debunking. After President Biden claimed to have seen the pictures (his staff says no, he didn’t see any such pictures). Similar playbook to the false claim that Iraq’s army threw babies out of incubators in Kuwait. Also, calling it Israel’s 9/11 sure sounds useful for tightening up internal security.
LISA SAVAGE, OCT 13, 2023
This morning came word that the Biden administration will next try to tie funding for Ukraine to funding for Israel, Taiwan, and more fortifications along our bipartisan wall on the Mexican border. Good luck with that grouping — Ukraine funding fatigue is so strong at the moment that it was used to oust the Speaker of the House.
I had already been mulling a blog post on the question of why every politician, elected official, and talking head in Western media seems wedded to the concept of Israel right or wrong. Especially when it’s wrong……………………..
The answers to this question are many, and what relative importance to assign each is up for debate. I’ll list them in rough order of importance as I see it, but you may have other thoughts.
Israel was created as the U.S./NATO outpost in the oily region. Despite certain knowledge of the Holocaust unfolding (known by U.S. government but not the general public), it was allowed to proceed until the Soviet Army began liberating the concentration camps. The Holocaust was then tremendously useful as it underpinned the charge of antisemitism against anyone who dared to criticize Israel.
Meanwhile, actual Nazis were whisked away to found NASA, head up NATO, and populate Canada and the U.S. midwest with staunch anticommunist immigrants.
Israel was allowed to develop nuclear weapons, which is common knowledge but has never been admitted by either Israel or its enablers. PM Golda Meir reportedly jacked up President Nixon over sending war materiel he was withholding, threatening to nuke Russia and make it look like the U.S. did it. She got the ammunition.
Meanwhile AIPAC got busy facilitating the funding of election campaigns and running free trips to Israel for newly minted congressmen and women. It lobbied hard on college campuses knowing that one’s brand loyalties are typically set in place rather early in life.
A young man told me that the Jewish community he grew up in did not agree with AIPAC, however, they felt guilty for emigrating to New York instead of Israel after WW2. And, their guilt encouraged them to never criticize Israel, buying their silence about the ethnic cleansing of the Nakba and the following decades of violent occupation and apartheid. And allowing the perception that AIPAC spoke for them.
- Young Jews in the U.S. were raised to defend Israel right or wrong. Groups like Birthright also worked the demographic angle, taking teenagers on trips to Israel to socialize with IDF soldiers. See the recent documentary ISRAELISM for more details on this.
We’ve not seen the black book of Jeffrey Epstein’s contacts which was used in his procuress Ghislaine Maxwell’s trial. As many have speculated, the federal government isn’t going to release the names in Epstein’s black book because they are the names in the book. What we have instead is some fierce investigative reporting by Whitney Webb and the artifact that is the flight log for the Lolita Express. Flying outside the U.S. on a plane used to traffic underage girls for sex is bad for a powerful man’s reputation, so why would Bill Clinton, Donald Trump, Prince Andrew, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and Bill Gates (among many others) do so? I can’t answer that but Melinda Gates had some choice things to say about her ex-husband’s participation.
Webb reported that a mansion in Manhattan heavily equipped with surveillance devices was gifted to Epstein before the island scheme came into play. It’s also known that Maxwell’s father, Robert, and other family members worked with Mossad, Israel’s intelligence agency.
- Finally, this list would be incomplete without mentioning narrative control. In our day this looks like inflammatory claims of beheading babies both quickly debunked and repeated endlessly even after debunking. After President Biden claimed to have seen the pictures (his staff says no, he didn’t see any such pictures). Similar playbook to the false claim that Iraq’s army threw babies out of incubators in Kuwait. Also, calling it Israel’s 9/11 sure sounds useful for tightening up internal security. #Israel
TODAY. The monstrous lie – that Israel’s genocide of the Palestinians is OK
With its usual snivelling sycophancy, my own country, Australia, and other Western countries go along with this basic lie – and all the other lies that accompany it. Below are just a few of these lies that spring to mind.
*As someone else , (Hamas) committed an atrocity – that makes it OK for us (Israel) to commit an even bigger atrocity.
* “ I have confirmed pictures of (Hamas) terrorists beheading children,” Biden said. (yes – he later went back on that but the damage was done)
* Israel’s massacre of Palestinians is necessary for the security of the United States of America. (Are we supposed to believe that tiny impoverished and oppressed Gaza is a military threat to America?)
* Seeing that Israel’s atrocity (sorry I mean ‘defense‘) is justified, then it’s OK for Israel to use illegal weapons – white phosphorous, and illegal methods – starvation against the Palestinian people.
* Israel is killing only Hamas members – “human animals” (most adults in Gaza must join Hamas, if only to get a good job, – and what about the children?)
* It’s OK for Israel to have nuclear weapons, and even threaten to nuke Gaza, as long as we pretend that we don’t know .
* Seeing that the Jews were victims of the holocaust, we should let Israel itself do a holocaust
* Those who criticise Israel are just being anti-semitic.
* Those who protest against the genocide in Palestine are terrorist supporters and must be arrested
* Supplying weapons to Israel (and Ukraine, and Taiwan) has nothing to do with promoting USA’s one most prosperous and successful manufacturing industry business – weapons making
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The beauty of lies and dishonest propaganda is that you can go back later, and unsay them, and beat your breast in hypocritical sadness, – once your awful purpose is happening, and can’t be stopped
President Joe Biden on Friday acknowledged the “humanitarian crisis in Gaza”
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Then there are the lies of omission:
With the death toll mounting in Gaza as Israeli jets relentlessly bomb the densely populated territory, Biden did not mention Palestinian casualties. Instead, he focused on Israeli victims of Hamas’s attack. Biden also did not address the root causes of the conflict.
“Let there be no doubt: The United States has Israel’s back. — today, tomorrow, as we always have. It’s as simple as that,” he added. #Israel #nuclear #antinuclear #NuclearFree #NoNukes #NuclearPlants
1 This month
of the week – Disrupting War & Militarism in Oceania. Active solidarity. Radical practice.
Antinuclear 