AUKUS Submarine Revelations Compel a Rethink
16 NOV 2023, By Dr Alan J. Kuperman, https://www.internationalaffairs.org.au/australianoutlook/aukus-submarine-revelations-compel-a-rethink/?fbclid=IwAR0aqbbEXcIh3HpPpmlRKMD9gIJfXmHWKZL6hbNYuq7jT1HhiEBwLsHZ95Q
US Congressional report argues that Australia’s acquisition of nuclear submarines would actually undercut deterrence of China by depleting the US submarine fleet. With the promise of nuclear submarines becoming ever distant, it may be time to reconsider other options.
Recent surprising disclosures have revealed that nuclear-powered submarines, which Australia plans to acquire under the trilateral AUKUS partnership, cannot achieve three of the government’s main stated objectives for the program. The Australian purchase would degrade, not enhance, deterrence against China. It could provide only a miniscule and inconsistent presence at sea even after two decades. And it would undermine rather than sustain the global non-proliferation regime. Thankfully, only a tiny fraction of the program’s total estimated cost of up to AUD $368bn has been spent to date, so it is not too late for Australians to consider better ways to ensure national security.
On the first objective, Australia’s former prime minister, Scott Morrison, who negotiated the AUKUS submarine deal, claimed it was necessary to achieve a “credible deterrent” against China, and his successor Anthony Albanese soon agreed. Last month, however, the US Congressional Budget Office (CBO) belied that assertion. It reported that, because the United States would sell Australia three to five existing nuclear attack submarines (SSNs) from the US fleet before the US industrial base could expand to replace them, “the sale of SSNs to Australia would reduce the number of attack submarines available to the [US] Navy.”
The CBO then posed a crucial question: “Would China be less deterred if the United States reduced the number of its attack submarines to help Australia develop its submarine force?” The answer appeared obvious because “Australia would control its own submarines, and their participation in any particular conflict would not be guaranteed. In fact, in March 2020, the Australian defence minister stated that his country did not promise to support the United States in the event of a conflict involving Taiwan and the People’s Republic of China.” Thus, the report indicated that Australia’s acquisition of nuclear submarines would undercut deterrence of China – exactly opposite to the claims of Australia’s leaders.
Second, Morrison declared in 2021 that AUKUS’s “first major initiative” would be to provide Australia a nuclear-powered submarine fleet. This year, however, Albanese conceded that the still-under-design SSN-AUKUS would not begin delivery to Australia until the 2040s at least. In the meantime, according to RAN Vice Admiral Jonathan Mead’s Senate Estimates testimony in May, Australia expects to receive from the United States by the late 2030s two partially used nuclear submarines and one new one. That may sound like three submarines, but it is illusory. Recent reports reveal that only 63 percent of the US Navy’s submarines are operable in any year, and those that can operate spend only 39 percent of the year at sea. Thus, on average, each US attack submarine is on duty for just 25 percent of the year, or three months. This means that even if Australia received its promised three US vessels by the late 2030s, on average the RAN would be able to deploy less than one nuclear submarine at a time. Is that really the “fleet” that Aussies expect for their billions of tax dollars?
Third, Albanese promised at the 2023 AUKUS summit that “Australia’s proud record of leadership in the international nuclear non-proliferation regime will of course continue.” However, the SSN-AUKUS would violate a fundamental tenet of that regime by needlessly using weapons-grade, highly enriched uranium (HEU) fuel – sufficient for hundreds of nuclear bombs.
Since the 1970s, the non-proliferation regime has banned HEU fuel in the new reactors of countries like Australia that have pledged under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty to eschew nuclear weapons. The regime went so far as to convert 71 old reactors from HEU fuel to low-enriched uranium (LEU) fuel, to eliminate the proliferation risk. Indeed, HEU minimisation is deemed so vital for non-proliferation that it has been applied even to tiny reactors containing only one kilogram of weapons-grade uranium. Now Australia intends to eviscerate that non-proliferation norm by fuelling each SSN-AUKUS with hundreds of kilos of such bomb-grade uranium.
Fortunately, nuclear submarines do not require HEU fuel and can function perfectly well with LEU fuel, as the navies of France and China use. Despite this, Australia and its partners insist on HEU fuel for SSN-AUKUS, to enable smaller reactors without refuelling, thereby sending a message globally that HEU is required for the best submarines. As a result, we can expect other countries to declare – as Iran did immediately following the AUKUS announcement – that their navies too will use HEU, which they will enrich themselves, opening a huge back door to nuclear weapons. By contrast, LEU fuel is infinitely more proliferation resistant than HEU fuel, notwithstanding musings by uninformed AUKUS cheerleaders.
Australia’s defence minister, Richard Marles, has dismissed proliferation concerns by saying the HEU fuel would be imported in “sealed” reactors and thus inaccessible. In reality, however, Australia announced this year that it would extract the HEU fuel from all retired submarines and retain it in perpetuity, thereby savaging the non-proliferation regime even further. The supposedly “spent” fuel from each retired submarine would in fact contain an estimated 200 kilograms of still very highly enriched uranium, sufficient for a dozen or more nuclear weapons.
So, what can Australia do now? At the least, it should ask its partners to switch to LEU fuel for Australia’s SSN-AUKUS, to comport with non-proliferation norms. Fortunately, the US Congress has funded development of LEU naval fuel for the last eight years, providing a head-start to incorporate such proliferation-resistant fuel in the ongoing design of the SSN-AUKUS. If Albanese means what he says about “leadership in the international nuclear non-proliferation regime,” this step is a no-brainer.
The bigger question is whether Australia should abandon pursuit of nuclear submarines entirely. The Congressional report suggests that doing so would actually strengthen deterrence over the next few decades by not depleting the US fleet. Australia instead could reprogram the hundreds of billions earmarked for its nuclear submarines to buy defence systems that would complement rather than undermine US deterrence. That certainly sounds like a win-win.
Alan J. Kuperman is associate professor and coordinator of the Nuclear Proliferation Prevention Project at the LBJ School of Public Affairs, University of Texas at Austin.
Barngarla traditional owners win national conservation award for successful radioactive waste campaign news on radioactive waste
16 NOVEMBER 2023, https://www.acf.org.au/barngarla-rawlinson-award-win—
The Barngarla Determination Aboriginal Corporation has been awarded the 2023 Peter Rawlinson Award for a successful seven-year campaign to protect their country in South Australia from the long-term threats posed by radioactive waste.
The award, which celebrates outstanding voluntary contributions to protect the environment, was announced at the Australian Conservation Foundation’s AGM in Melbourne tonight.
“In August 2023, a David and Goliath struggle came to an end when federal Resources Minister Madeleine King announced the federal government would not advance a plan inherited from the former Coalition government to locate a national radioactive waste facility near Kimba on SA’s Eyre Peninsula,” said ACF’s nuclear free campaigner Dave Sweeney.
“The federal waste plan was deeply flawed and inconsistent with international best practice.
“The Barngarla always opposed radioactive waste on their country and repeated calls for Morrison government ministers Matt Canavan and Keith Pitt to scrap the plan were ignored.
“For seven years, against sustained pressure and propaganda, they stood firm.
“In July 2023, the Federal Court found Minister Pitt’s decision to declare the Kimba site was not valid because it was biased, rather than based on an independent and thorough process.
“Federal Labor’s subsequent decision to accept the court’s judgment was a prudent and a proper call and offers an important chance to change the government’s approach to this complex issue.
ACF thanks the Barngarla and acknowledges the sustained and successful efforts of a proud community to honour their past and protect their future. All of us are richer as a result.”
Established in 1992, the Rawlinson Award is given annually in memory of ACF Councillor Peter Rawlinson – a zoologist, lecturer in biological science and environmental campaigner.
THE COLLAPSE OF THE UAMPS small nuclear reactor DEAL RAISES THE PROSPECT OF BANKRUPTCY FOR NUSCALE
Crypto miners typically require the lowest-cost energy sources such as hydropower. Why then would Standard Power be interested in a Small Modular Reactor solution? It is way more expensive as the UAMPS fallout has demonstrated. This incongruity is already a red flag.
November 16, 2023 · by Iceberg Research
On 19 October 2023, we showed that NuScale’s key business contract with Utah Associated Municipal Power Systems (“UAMPS”) was at significant risk of termination. NuScale dismissed our report, labelling it as ‘riddled with speculative statements with no basis in fact’. Just a few days later, the company announced the termination of the UAMPS contract. Bloomberg characterised the cancellation as ‘abrupt’ but our report had already pointed out multiple signs that suggested its impending demise.
In its rebuttal, NuScale wrote that “…the CFPP being developed by Utah Associated Municipal Power Systems has its own project challenges not attributable to NuScale’s SMR technology”. The fact is UAMPS members abandoned ship because of escalating costs, which occurred even before any construction had begun. This structural problem is likely to repeat itself in future commercial relationships.
In its rebuttal, NuScale wrote that “…the CFPP being developed by Utah Associated Municipal Power Systems has its own project challenges not attributable to NuScale’s SMR technology”. The fact is UAMPS members abandoned ship because of escalating costs, which occurred even before any construction had begun. This structural problem is likely to repeat itself in future commercial relationships.
Once you are on a dead horse, you dismount quickly and move on to others,” said NuScale CEO John Hopkins when referring to the UAMPS contract on the 3Q23 earnings call. That poor horse was the cornerstone of NuScale’s business case and we are now left with the other major contract: Standard Power.
We reiterate that this contract is a pipe dream that was designed to divert attention from the loss of UAMPS. People familiar with project finance along with performance and credit risk (we are) would shake their heads. To recap, Standard Power is a small crypto dataserver company — with minimum internet footprint — to whom NuScale expects to deliver 24 units of 77 MWe modules, totalling 1,848 MWe in capacity. We estimated this contract was worth ~$37bn. NuScale questioned this number saying the company did not provide “any forecast for the expected value of the agreement with Standard Power…”. To get our number, we simply used the UAMPS price adjusted for the number of reactors. So it’s undoubtedly a massive contract.
Crypto miners typically require the lowest-cost energy sources such as hydropower. Why then would Standard Power be interested in a Small Modular Reactor solution? It is way more expensive as the UAMPS fallout has demonstrated. This incongruity is already a red flag. We also wonder: why did Standard Power not participate in the UAMPS project, since NuScale was actively seeking more subscriptions to reach the 80% target?
Still, Standard Power is touted by NuScale as a credible partner because its investors comprise “Ultra high net worth family offices and financial institutions” that have “access to capital in excess of $10bn”. Even if this is true (which we doubt because of Standard Power’s size and the lack of identification around its investors), who cares?
- Have these financiers directly committed to the project? No.
- Will these family offices invest all of their $10bn capital in a $37bn contract? This makes no sense.
- Is it realistic to expect banks to finance crypto-related projects when the banking industry has cracked down on crypto financial flows? Good luck. It’s unlikely to even pass the compliance department.
During the 3Q23 conference call, TD Cowen analyst Marc Bianchi questioned Standard Power’s credibility as a counterparty. All he got from CFO Robert Ramsey Hamady was a smoke screen (see below on original)……………………………………………..
Management confidently states that NuScale has a “solid balance sheet” with $197m of cash at the end of September, and no debt. This perspective overlooks NuScale’s rapid cash burn of $153.9m over the last 12 months and ignores the impact of the UAMPS contract termination, which adds ~$63.3m in liabilities. On this basis, we estimate that NuScale has an 11-19 month cash runway depending on whether they draw on the ATM, which will dilute existing stockholders…………………………………….
As detailed in our first report, the DOE committed substantial funding towards the project, contingent on matching private money. However, the termination of the UAMPS contract implies any further support will be re-evaluated.
The company’s trajectory bears striking similarities to the B&W mPower project, a joint venture formed in 2010 between Babcock & Wilcox and Bechtel. Like NuScale, mPower was developing a small modular reactor and enjoyed DOE backing. Babcock & Wilcox, mPower’s 90%-shareholder, attempted but failed to sell a majority stake in the project. In a similar vein, NuScale’s largest shareholder Fluor is actively trying to sell around 30% of its equity interest in NuScale. There was eventually a significant reduction in funding for mPower. In March 2017, Bechtel withdrew from the joint venture, pointing to the challenges of securing a site and an investor for the first reactor. This led to the termination of the mPower project and Babcock & Wilcox paid Bechtel $30m as settlement.
NuScale is now staring at the likelihood of bankruptcy. It will not see any significant cash inflows with the UAMPS commercial setback. The company’s only way to stay alive, albeit for a short time, is to massively dilute its shareholders.
Wars end in defeat for everyone: A reflection on Gaza
The selection of images is at the heart of the implacable demand from both sides for uncritical solidarity, for support for the right to self-defense and legitimation of the means used against the other. In this battle for public opinion, many stand with Israel and many others with the Palestinians.
The portrayal of the other side as demonic justifies the means used to fight it. The enemy is dehumanized, commonly likened to savage animals that have lost any shadow of humanity, morality or logic, killing machines that can only be stopped by brutal and merciless war.
Violence and victory
Fed by what seems like an unquenchable thirst for revenge, both sides to the conflict propose that violence will bring victory. The belief that victory is attainable by defeating the enemy in pitiless warfare is at the heart of the rhetoric of war. This is perhaps the most venomous myth in any conflict.
America, the Jesuit Review David Neuhaus, November 16, 2023
In the early morning of Saturday, Oct. 7, 2023, for Jews not only Sabbath but also Simchat Torah, a holy day celebrating the reading of the Torah, hundreds of armed Palestinian militants from Hamas broke through the barriers between the Gaza Strip and Israel or floated above them, pouring into Israel. They were accompanied by a barrage of missiles fired into Israel. They sowed terror and wreaked havoc, killing about 1,200, wounding thousands more and kidnapping over 240 Israeli soldiers and civilians.
The planning, implementation and ferocity of the attack took Israel by surprise—not only because Israeli intelligence had not uncovered the plot beforehand but also because the army took such a long time to neutralize the threat. Israelis were left shocked and horrified, while many Palestinians watched with a certain sense of vindication and some even rejoiced. Israel immediately responded with an intensive bombardment of Gaza, calling up its military reserves and massing its troops on the border with Gaza. The pounding intensity of the Israeli response was not only a reaction to the horrors that had been committed but also an attempt to restore some sense of security in military superiority after the shameful negligence that had allowed the attacks to take place.
The next day, Sunday, Oct. 8, Pope Francis addressed the world in his Angelus address:
I am following apprehensively and sorrowfully what is happening in Israel where violence has exploded yet more ferociously, causing hundreds of deaths and injured. I express my closeness to the families of the victims. I am praying for them and for all who are living hours of terror and anguish. May the attacks and weapons stop. Please! And may it be understood that terrorism and war do not lead to any resolutions, but only to the death and suffering of many innocent people. War is a defeat! Every war is a defeat. Let us pray that there be peace in Israel and in Palestine.
The Israeli Embassy to the Holy See reacted to this statement and those that followed with unease, claiming that the Holy Father and Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Holy See’s secretary of state, were using a discourse that manifested “linguistic ambiguities and terms that allude to a false symmetry.” In insisting that Israel had a legitimate right to self-defense but should not indiscriminately bomb Gaza, the Holy See, the Israeli Embassy argued, was “suggesting parallelisms where they do not exist.”
The issue raised is a serious one. What language should one use to talk about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict? This is especially urgent at this time when the conflict takes on dimensions of violence that are unprecedented and emotions run high. How does one try to formulate a discourse that can encourage moderation, support dialogue and promote reconciliation even in the midst of battle? The issues involved are complex, but one must first recognize the morally problematic discourse that is being used by both sides in the conflict in order to dominate the narrative and garner uncritical support.
Whose side are you on?
The two sides to the decades-long conflict, Israelis and Palestinians, not only oppose each other with military arsenals but also attempt to mobilize public opinion at home and abroad in order to justify their actions. The military battle is parallel to the battle to control the images, sounds and words that are broadcast from the battlefield.
On the one hand, terrifying images of armed and masked Hamas militants pouring into Israel and wreaking destruction, killing, raping and maiming in a drunken orgy of vengeance began to appear in the media. These images capture the massacres of the Israeli men, women and children who were mowed down in the area bordering the Gaza Strip, among them hundreds of young people killed while at a music festival and dozens slaughtered, including babies in their cribs, in the taking of the small village of Kfar Aza. The scenes show bodies strewn in public places and in homes, with countless body bags displayed for all to see the enormity of the carnage. Photographs and short videos document the elderly women and young children taken hostage by Hamas, dragged back into the Gaza Strip together with dozens of others, provoking profound terror and searing rage.
On the other hand, Israel’s pummeling of the Gaza Strip with its sophisticated armory of precision weapons has provided a parallel and very different canon of images. Neighborhoods have been erased and high-rise buildings reduced to rubble in seconds, with thousands of Gazan men, women and children buried in the ruins. Hundreds of thousands of Gazans fleeing their homes provide more images of panic and desperation. On Oct. 13, the Israeli army ordered Gazans to evacuate the entire northern part of the Gaza Strip. Images of the flow of people carrying a few precious belongings added to the collection of heart-rending scenes.
The military battle is parallel to the battle to control the images, sounds and words that are broadcast from the battlefield.
This roll of images shows daily the extraction of an unending stream of bodies of men, women and children from their bombed homes, the writhing agony of the wounded carried off to overcrowded, underdeveloped and grossly overloaded hospitals, the non-stop shrieks of parents or children of the dead, their relatives and friends, gathered around the corpses of their loved ones.
The selection of images is at the heart of the implacable demand from both sides for uncritical solidarity, for support for the right to self-defense and legitimation of the means used against the other. In this battle for public opinion, many stand with Israel and many others with the Palestinians.
In the aftermath of the initial Hamas attack, President Biden declared that his country’s support for Israel was “rock solid and unwavering.” Leaders from major Western European countries followed suit. Israeli suffering was showcased to explain these unilateral manifestations of support. Israeli victims have names, faces, families and voices that cry out their pain in the media. Massive demonstrations have supported Israel, screaming out their condemnation of Hamas, some using expressions redolent of racism, anti-Arab sentiment and Islamophobia.
Palestinian suffering, although seemingly passed over by those who support Israel, is showcased in Arab, Muslim and many other countries, again galvanizing the sense that the world is unjust, that the powerful side with the powerful and the poor continue to be mercilessly exploited. Massive demonstrations of supporters of the Palestinians screamed out their condemnation of Israel, some using expressions redolent of antisemitism, and manifested a fury at what was termed the hypocrisy of mourning Jewish victims and ignoring Palestinian ones.
Who started it?
Israelis and Palestinians produce very different narratives concerning who is to blame for what is happening. In times of war, it is comforting to know who are the good and who are the bad; that way, the aggressor and the aggressed can be clearly separated from one another, one cheered on and the other excoriated.
On Oct. 7, Benjamin Netanyahu, prime minister of Israel, proclaimed: “We will take mighty vengeance,” as Israel launched its military campaign, named “Operation Swords of Iron.” For those supporting Israel, it is clear that the narrative begins on that black Saturday morning. Israeli President Isaac Herzog stated the following in his meeting with the press on October 12 : “There was no reason at all for this flaring up which ended in the worst tragedy that was ever inflicted in the history of Israel, and the highest number of Jews killed since the Holocaust, including Holocaust survivors
………………………………………………………… . The proportions of what happened on Oct. 7, however, not only raised a very acute question about the invincibility of Israel’s military and intelligence network but also raised the terrifying question about whether the state of Israel is after all a safe haven for Jews fleeing violence in a world in which they were a marginal and often persecuted minority.
Muhammad Dayf, the supreme commander of Hamas’s military wing, named this stage of the ongoing conflict “Al-Aqsa Storm” and declared: “Enough is enough!” Hamas declared that this incursion into Israel was itself a response to an ongoing occupation and repression that have been going on for decades. More precisely, Palestinians pointed to increasing Israeli attacks and repressive policies directed against Palestinians throughout the territories Israel had occupied since the Netanyahu rightwing coalition came to power, as well as the intensifying activity of Jewish extremists in the area of Jerusalem’s Haram al-Sharif (what Jews often call the Temple Mount). For those supporting the Palestinians, the success of Hamas’s attack surprised them as much as it did Israel. Well planned, well executed and devastatingly successful in its initial aims, the attack is not seen as a beginning but as a response to a long series of Israeli acts of violence.
Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, said a few days before the present events that the Gaza Strip was “an open-air prison.”
The attack is justified by Hamas supporters as a reaction to the regime that has kept them enclosed in an overpopulated strip of land, mostly filled with sprawling refugee camps; Israel, they argue, has kept the Gaza Strip under a stranglehold siege. Refugees in Gaza constitute about 70 percent of the population, people driven out of the territories of the new state of Israel in 1948 and their descendants. The dire living conditions since then, worsened by periodic periods of confrontation with Israel since Hamas came to power in 2006, have left it battered and bruised, its population bleeding and its infrastructure regularly devastated. Furthermore, since 2006, the strip has been under a siege that deprives its residents of minimal conditions for life, prosperity and development. The newly-instituted Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, whose diocese includes Gaza, said a few days before the present events that the Gaza Strip was “an open-air prison.”
……………………………………………………………………………… The two sides are eager to show the other as demonic.
The Israeli point of view
In the media battle, supporters of Israel portray Hamas as Nazis, as ISIS, as servants of the evil empire of Islamic Iran. The use of images of some Palestinians rejoicing in the horrors visited upon Israelis solidifies the sense of horror and the contempt. Supporters of Israel point out that the people of Gaza elected Hamas and so argue that they are responsible for their own misfortune. Pointing to the long history of antisemitism and contempt for Jews in so many parts of the world, supporters of Israel present Israelis as the victims of unprovoked violence at the hands of bloodthirsty Palestinian terrorists, continuity in the suffering of the Jews throughout history.
……………………………………………………………………………………………. In the light of the fight against evil, the divisions that marked Israeli society in the past months have evaporated. Furthermore, the marked reservations that the Biden administration expressed with regard to Mr. Netanyahu and his right-wing coalition have also vanished, as Mr. Biden not only regularly calls in to express his support for Israel but also sends a steady stream of officials to manifest that support concretely, bringing assurances of diplomatic, military and economic assistance.
The Palestinian point of view
However, in the Arab and Muslim worlds and in many countries that have known colonialism, racism and exclusion, the Palestinians have succeeded in linking their struggle to a worldwide liberation struggle against colonialism, imperialism and white supremacy. Israelis are presented as colonial supremacists engaged in decades of ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from their homeland. Hamas justifies the cruelty of its militants by portraying Israelis as colonial settlers whose only interest is the oppression and eventual extinction of Palestinians. Hamas has explained that it does not target civilians, chillingly adding that the elderly, babies, children and youth are all part of the colonial Zionist project to deprive Palestinians of their rights and banish them from the stage of history.
The portrayal of the other side as demonic justifies the means used to fight it. The enemy is dehumanized, commonly likened to savage animals that have lost any shadow of humanity, morality or logic, killing machines that can only be stopped by brutal and merciless war.
Violence and victory
Fed by what seems like an unquenchable thirst for revenge, both sides to the conflict propose that violence will bring victory. The belief that victory is attainable by defeating the enemy in pitiless warfare is at the heart of the rhetoric of war. This is perhaps the most venomous myth in any conflict.
……………………………………………… . Might the intensity of the present conflict and the terrible losses on both sides take us beyond the horizon of endless war with a growing recognition that victory is illusive and continued violence is ultimately suicidal?
The word of the church
The international community seems to have given up on trying to play a moderating role in the conflict, and those peace plans that were proposed by various international parties have gone nowhere…………………………………………………………..
In this context, the presence of the Catholic Church is particularly needed. Free of the constraints of political interests and avoiding as much as possible the games of international diplomacy, the church can be prophetic in reminding all that every human being—yes, even a Hamas militant or a Zionist settler—is created in the image and likeness of God.
………………………………………….. In a dramatic response to a question from a journalist, Cardinal Pizzaballa offered himself in exchange for the Israeli children held hostage by Hamas. In solidarity with the suffering, he would no doubt also offer himself in exchange for the Palestinian children buried under the bombs dropped in Gaza. In a letter he addressed to the faithful on Oct. 24, 2023, Cardinal Pizzaballa expressed his anguish:……………………………………………………………………………………………. more https://www.americamagazine.org/faith/2023/11/16/gaza-israel-palestine-war-narratives-246530?utm_source=piano&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=2928&pnespid=vag3FzocbKcfiuORqCylQp_J5RnxT4Jqd.rsx7th9gNmlvjlt_Lr8Z_7o_sm2symfUDQ03iQFg
What a Catholic peace studies expert thinks is the way out of war in Gaza
America, the Jesuit Review Kevin Clarke, November 17, 2023
“So how do you draw people off, to stop thinking that their only possibilities are to become martyrs, [that] it doesn’t matter if they die or they take everyone in Gaza with them? Some of their supporters have to get through to them.”
The patrons of the combatants—the United States and Germany for Israel, and Iran and Qatar for Hamas, must pressure their clients to accept a cease-fire, she said. The agony at Al-Shifa Hospital in northern Gaza, where 36 infants cling to life after the hospital lost power to run their incubators, could prove a pivotal moment when maximum leverage can be brought to bear, according to Dr. O’Connell.
Kevin Clarke, November 17, 2023
As tensions mount across the Middle East because of the continuing bloodshed in Gaza, the remnant forces of the United States in Syria and Iraq have come under fire from militant groups in sympathy with Hamas. More than 50 U.S. service members have suffered what have been described as minor injuries in the rocket attacks. On Nov. 11, U.S. aircraft conducted the third in a recent series of raids on Iran-backed militants in retaliation—this latest U.S. strike on a training facility and a safe house was perhaps the most devastating, and likely produced casualties.
Mary Ellen O’Connell, a professor of law at the University of Notre Dame and of international peace studies at the university’s Kroc Institute, believes this tit-for-tat strategy is precisely the wrong response if regional de-escalation is indeed the desire of the Biden administration. “The airstrikes in Syria and Iraq by the United States need to stop immediately,” she said, describing them as “blatant violations of international law.”
If regional containment of the conflict remains a primary objective, she said, U.S. forces should refrain from military strikes outside acknowledged armed conflict zones. And, she said, the United States needs to be clear with Israel that U.S. assistance “is premised on Israel complying with international law across the board.”
An air strike on targets in Syria is precisely the wrong response if regional de-escalation is indeed the desire of the Biden administration.
But how to restore peace in Israel and Gaza after this historic outbreak of violence and mutual suffering? Dr. O’Connell said that it will take outside pressure on both parties. Israeli leadership seems determined—at least for now—to ignore a worldwide outcry over the human suffering it is creating in response to the Hamas attack on Oct. 7. And for its part, Hamas appears to be “in suicide mode.”
“So how do you draw people off, to stop thinking that their only possibilities are to become martyrs, [that] it doesn’t matter if they die or they take everyone in Gaza with them? Some of their supporters have to get through to them.”
The patrons of the combatants—the United States and Germany for Israel, and Iran and Qatar for Hamas, must pressure their clients to accept a cease-fire, she said. The agony at Al-Shifa Hospital in northern Gaza, where 36 infants cling to life after the hospital lost power to run their incubators, could prove a pivotal moment when maximum leverage can be brought to bear, according to Dr. O’Connell.
Patients and staff have endured for days without electricity and basic medical necessities as fighting raged around the hospital compound. The spectacle provoked a surge of negotiations in Riyadh, Doha and Cairo aimed at conflict pauses and hostage exchanges. On Nov. 15, I.D.F. soldiers seized control of Al-Shifa, searching for evidence of a Hamas presence inside and beneath the facility.
What in the end puts a stop to conflict is “always a negotiation,” Dr. O’Connell said. “It’s always trusted partners who come in.”
Over the long term, however, in Gaza and other hotspots in the Middle East like northern Iraq and Syria, peace will be the outcome of processes that require time and patience. Dr. O’Connell called “good governance” the real solution to the problem of terrorism because it “builds an economy where young people have a job, [where they] have a chance for a future.”
She lays partial blame for the violations of international norms evident in the Hamas assault on southern Israel and Israeli tolerance for high numbers of noncombatant casualties in its Gaza campaign on the example set by the United States. During its prosecution of the so-called war on terror and in follow-up campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan that effort set in motion, violations of international law in “targeted killing of all kinds” by U.S. forces became routine, she charged.
The United States has created a template for such military strikes, she said, deploying dubious appeals to international law to rationalize use of force. The strategy, she said, has been demonstrably counterproductive. “If we need to carry out this kind of warfare for 22 years, it’s obviously not effective,” Dr. O’Connell said.
Not only has the approach “not suppressed terrorism,” she said, it has “helped create a metastasizing new set of virulent organized armed groups across the north of Africa, into Somalia and other places,” including “the great catastrophe in Afghanistan.”
It has also significantly weakened esteem for the international rule of law related to human rights and war-making, according to Dr. O’Connell, connecting that decline to the utter disregard for norms demonstrated by the Russian Federation in Ukraine. “People don’t even understand anymore what the provisions of the U.N. Charter are, and they don’t take them seriously anymore because of these constant attempts at justifying [use of force] using looser and looser arguments under international law.”
The best sociological research on reversing the diminishing adherence to norms like the Geneva Conventions and international humanitarian law, according to Dr. O’Connell, calls for “a leading sovereign state modeling norm compliance.” She hopes the United States may accept that role.
Specialists on peacemaking like Dr. O’Connell could be forgiven if they grow frustrated that their expertise is only sought when conflicts turn hot or when the persisting geopolitical insistence on a “realist” use of force fails yet again. But Dr. O’Connell said she remains undeterred……………………………………………………………………………….. more https://www.americamagazine.org/politics-society/2023/11/17/hamas-israel-gaza-al-shifa-hospital-246524?utm_source=piano&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=2928&pnespid=qrpnUCZIJrkL2.TZtDWsGJPRohi2WJ0tLvqmwrN0.kBmd2Cx.K9U3PLA_pRIgzMAF7MdqdfHEQ
TODAY. Nuclear lobby targets young women, in the leadup to their propaganda blitz at COP 28
Women are more concerned about global heating than men are. They also often face higher risks and greater burdens from the impacts of climate change in situations of poverty and due to existing roles, responsibilities and cultural norms.
Happily for the completely amoral nuclear lobby, this suits them very well. Already this year, they were targeting young women anyway – as part of their campaign “for the cool young people, not the fuddy duddy old nuclear sceptics“
Apart from their rather wacky publicists like Zion Lights, the nuke lobby has a few female champions to tote their toxic wares. There’s Kamala Harris, pushing nuclear to the Philippines, and the individual women being promoted to high office in nuclear industries.
The Nuclear Energy Agency’s report this year focussed on women, with its top recommendation:
“Attract women into the sector through public communications campaigns, enhancing the educational pipeline“
Of course, the nuke lobby is a huge fan of STEM education (Science Technology, Engineering and Maths) And, don’t get me wrong – girls definitely do need STEM education.
But they also need the humanities education – now downgraded in the current educational unbalanced glorification of the “hard science”
As for the “softer” sciences – biology, ecology …. the worrying thing is that for women, ionising radiation is more harmful than it is for men. A woman’s risk of cancer, especially breast cancer is a real hazard. And the risk to a pregnant woman is great, too, for damage to the foetus.
1 This month
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