Buried Nuclear Waste From the Cold War Could Resurface as Ice Sheets Melt
Decades after the U.S. buried nuclear waste abroad, climate change could unearth it.
By Anita Hofschneider, Grist, https://gizmodo.com/buried-nuclear-waste-from-the-cold-war-could-resurface-1851286777
Ariana Tibon was in college at the University of Hawaiʻi in 2017 when she saw the photo online: a black-and-white picture of a man holding a baby. The caption said: “Nelson Anjain getting his baby monitored on March 2, 1954, by an AEC RadSafe team member on Rongelap two days after ʻBravo.ʻ”
Tibon had never seen the man before. But she recognized the name as her great-grandfatherʻs. At the time, he was living on Rongelap in the Marshall Islands when the U.S. conducted Castle Bravo, the largest of 67 nuclear weapon tests there during the Cold War. The tests displaced and sickened Indigenous people, poisoned fish, upended traditional food practices, and wrought cancers and other negative health repercussions that continue to reverberate today.
A federal report by the Government Accountability Office published last month examines what’s left of that nuclear contamination, not only in the Pacific but also in Greenland and Spain. The authors conclude that climate change could disturb nuclear waste left in Greenland and the Marshall Islands. “Rising sea levels could spread contamination in RMI, and conflicting risk assessments cause residents to distrust radiological information from the U.S. Department of Energy,” the report says.
In Greenland, chemical pollution and radioactive liquid are frozen in ice sheets, left over from a nuclear power plant on a U.S. military research base where scientists studied the potential to install nuclear missiles. The report didn’t specify how or where nuclear contamination could migrate in the Pacific or Greenland, or what if any health risks that might pose to people living nearby. However, the authors did note that in Greenland, frozen waste could be exposed by 2100.
“The possibility to influence the environment is there, which could further affect the food chain and further affect the people living in the area as well,” said Hjalmar Dahl, president of Inuit Circumpolar Council Greenland. The country is about 90 percent Inuit. “I think it is important that the Greenland and U.S. governments have to communicate on this worrying issue and prepare what to do about it.”
The authors of the GAO study wrote that Greenland and Denmark haven’t proposed any cleanup plans, but also cited studies that say much of the nuclear waste has already decayed and will be diluted by melting ice. However, those studies do note that chemical waste such as polychlorinated biphenyls, man-made chemicals better known as PCBs that are carcinogenic, “may be the most consequential waste at Camp Century.”
The report summarizes disagreements between Marshall Islands officials and the U.S. Department of Energy regarding the risks posed by U.S. nuclear waste. The GAO recommends that the agency adopt a communications strategy for conveying information about the potential for pollution to the Marshallese people.
Nathan Anderson, a director at the Government Accountability Office, said that the United States’ responsibilities in the Marshall Islands “are defined by specific federal statutes and international agreements.” He noted that the government of the Marshall Islands previously agreed to settle claims related to damages from U.S. nuclear testing.
“It is the long-standing position of the U.S. government that, pursuant to that agreement, the Republic of the Marshall Islands bears full responsibility for its lands, including those used for the nuclear testing program.”
To Tibon, who is back home in the Marshall Islands and is currently chair of the National Nuclear Commission, the fact that the report’s only recommendation is a new communications strategy is mystifying. She’s not sure how that would help the Marshallese people.
“What we need now is action and implementation on environmental remediation. We don’t need a communication strategy,” she said. “If they know that it’s contaminated, why wasn’t the recommendation for next steps on environmental remediation, or what’s possible to return these lands to safe and habitable conditions for these communities?”
The Biden administration recently agreed to fund a new museum to commemorate those affected by nuclear testing as well as climate change initiatives in the Marshall Islands, but the initiatives have repeatedly failed to garner support from Congress, even though they’re part of an ongoing treaty with the Marshall Islands and a broader national security effort to shore up goodwill in the Pacific to counter China.
Fatal Flaws Undermine America’s Defense Industrial Base
Many elements of the traditional DIB have yet to adopt advanced manufacturing technologies, as they struggle to develop business cases for needed capital investment.
In other words, while adopting advanced manufacturing technologies would fulfill the purpose of the US Department of Defense, it is not profitable for private industry to do so.
Despite virtually all the problems the report identifies stemming from private industry’s disproportionate influence over the US DIB, the report never identifies private industry itself as a problem.
If private industry and its prioritization of profits is the central problem inhibiting the DIB from fulfilling its purpose, the obvious solution is nationalizing the DIB by replacing private industry with state-owned enterprises. This allows the government to prioritize purpose over profits. Yet in the United States and across Europe, the so-called “military industrial complex” has grown to such proportions that it is no longer subordinated to the government and national interests, but rather the government and national interests are subordinated to it.
US defense industrial strategy built on a flawed premise
Beyond private industry’s hold on the US DIB, the very premise the NDIS is built on is fundamentally flawed, deeply rooted in private industry’s profit-driven prioritization.
The report claims:
The purpose of this National Defense Industrial Strategy is to drive development of an industrial ecosystem that provides a sustained competitive advantage to the United States over its adversaries.
The notion of the United States perpetually expanding its wealth and power across the globe, unrivaled by its so-called “adversaries” is unrealistic.
China alone has a population 4-5 times greater than the US. China’s population is, in fact, larger than that of the G7 combined. China has a larger industrial base, economy, and education system than the US. China’s education system not only produces millions more graduates each year in essential fields like science, technology, and engineering than the US, the proportion of such graduates is higher in China than in the US.
China alone possesses the means to maintain a competitive advantage over the United States now and well into the foreseeable future. The US, attempting to draw up a strategy to maintain an advantage over China (not to mention over the rest of the world) regardless of these realities, borders on delusion.
Yet for 60 pages, US policymakers attempt to lay out a strategy to do just that.
Not just China, but also Russia
While China is repeatedly mentioned as America’s “pacing challenge,” the ongoing conflict in Ukraine is perhaps the most acute example of a shifting balance of global power.
Despite a combined population, GDP, and military budget many times greater than Russia’s, the collective West is incapable of matching Russian production of even relatively simple munitions like artillery shells, let alone more complex systems like tanks, aircraft, and precision-guided missiles.
While the US and its allies appear to have every conceivable advantage over Russia on paper, the collective West has organized itself as a profit-driven rather than purpose-driven society.
In Russia, the defense industry exists to serve national security. While one might believe this goes without saying, across the collective West, the defense industry, like all other industries in the West, exists solely to maximize profits.
To best serve national security, the defense industry is required to maintain substantial surge capacity – meaning additional, unused factory space, machines, and labor on standby if and when large surges in production are required in relatively short periods of time. Across the West, in order to maximize profits, surge capacity has been ruthlessly slashed, deemed economically inefficient. Only rare exceptions exist, such as US 155 mm artillery shell production.
While the West’s defense industry remains the most profitable on Earth, its ability to actually churn out arms and ammunition in the quantities and quality required for large-scale conflict is clearly compromised by its maximization of profits.
The result is evident today as the West struggles to expand production of arms and ammunition for its Ukrainian proxies.
The NDIS report would note:
Prior to the invasion, weapon procurements for some of the in-demand systems were driven by annual training requirements and ongoing combat operations. This modest demand, along with recent market dynamics, drove companies to divest excess capacity due to cost. This meant that any increased production requirements would require an increase in workforce hours in existing facilities—commonly referred to as “surge” capacity. These, in turn, were limited further by similar down-stream considerations of workforce, facility, and supply chain limitations.
Costs are most certainly a consideration across any defense industry, but costs cannot be the primary consideration.
A central element of Russia’s defense industry is Rostec, a massive state-owned enterprise under which hundreds of companies related to national industrial needs including defense are organized. Rostec is profitable. However, the industrial concerns organized under Rostec serve purposes related to Russia’s national interests first and foremost, be it national health, infrastructure or security.
Because Russia’s defense industry is purpose-driven, it produced military equipment because it was necessary, not because it was profitable. As a result, Russia possessed huge stockpiles of ammunition and equipment ahead of the Special Military Operation (SMO) in February 2022. In addition to this, Russia maintained large amounts of surge capacity enabling production rates of everything from artillery shells to armored vehicles to expand quickly over the past 2 years.
Only relatively recently have Western analysts acknowledged this.
Continue reading
“military industrial complex” has grown to such proportions that it is no longer subordinated to the government and national interests, but rather the government and national interests are subordinated to it.
the collective West has organized itself as a profit-driven rather than purpose-driven society………………………………across the collective West, the defense industry, like all other industries in the West, exists solely to maximize profits.
By Brian Berletic, Orinoco Tribune. February 24, 2024 https://popularresistance.org/fatal-flaws-undermine-americas-defense-industrial-base/
The first-ever US Department of Defense National Defense Industrial Strategy (NDIS) confirms what many analysts have concluded in regard to the unsustainable nature of Washington’s global-spanning foreign policy objectives and its defense industrial base’s (DIB) inability to achieve them.
The report lays out a multitude of problems plaguing the US DIB including a lack of surge capacity, inadequate workforce, off-shore downstream suppliers, as well as insufficient “demand signals” to motivate private industry partners to produce what’s needed, in the quantities needed, when it is needed.
In fact, the majority of the problems identified by the report involved private industry and its unwillingness to meet national security requirements because they were not profitable.
For example, the report attempts to explain why many companies across the US DIB lack advanced manufacturing capabilities, claiming:
Many elements of the traditional DIB have yet to adopt advanced manufacturing technologies, as they struggle to develop business cases for needed capital investment.
In other words, while adopting advanced manufacturing technologies would fulfill the purpose of the US Department of Defense, it is not profitable for private industry to do so.
Despite virtually all the problems the report identifies stemming from private industry’s disproportionate influence over the US DIB, the report never identifies private industry itself as a problem.
If private industry and its prioritization of profits is the central problem inhibiting the DIB from fulfilling its purpose, the obvious solution is nationalizing the DIB by replacing private industry with state-owned enterprises. This allows the government to prioritize purpose over profits. Yet in the United States and across Europe, the so-called “military industrial complex” has grown to such proportions that it is no longer subordinated to the government and national interests, but rather the government and national interests are subordinated to it.
US defense industrial strategy built on a flawed premise
Beyond private industry’s hold on the US DIB, the very premise the NDIS is built on is fundamentally flawed, deeply rooted in private industry’s profit-driven prioritization.
The report claims:
The purpose of this National Defense Industrial Strategy is to drive development of an industrial ecosystem that provides a sustained competitive advantage to the United States over its adversaries.
The notion of the United States perpetually expanding its wealth and power across the globe, unrivaled by its so-called “adversaries” is unrealistic.
China alone has a population 4-5 times greater than the US. China’s population is, in fact, larger than that of the G7 combined. China has a larger industrial base, economy, and education system than the US. China’s education system not only produces millions more graduates each year in essential fields like science, technology, and engineering than the US, the proportion of such graduates is higher in China than in the US.
China alone possesses the means to maintain a competitive advantage over the United States now and well into the foreseeable future. The US, attempting to draw up a strategy to maintain an advantage over China (not to mention over the rest of the world) regardless of these realities, borders on delusion.
Yet for 60 pages, US policymakers attempt to lay out a strategy to do just that.
Not just China, but also Russia
While China is repeatedly mentioned as America’s “pacing challenge,” the ongoing conflict in Ukraine is perhaps the most acute example of a shifting balance of global power.
Despite a combined population, GDP, and military budget many times greater than Russia’s, the collective West is incapable of matching Russian production of even relatively simple munitions like artillery shells, let alone more complex systems like tanks, aircraft, and precision-guided missiles.
While the US and its allies appear to have every conceivable advantage over Russia on paper, the collective West has organized itself as a profit-driven rather than purpose-driven society.
In Russia, the defense industry exists to serve national security. While one might believe this goes without saying, across the collective West, the defense industry, like all other industries in the West, exists solely to maximize profits.
To best serve national security, the defense industry is required to maintain substantial surge capacity – meaning additional, unused factory space, machines, and labor on standby if and when large surges in production are required in relatively short periods of time. Across the West, in order to maximize profits, surge capacity has been ruthlessly slashed, deemed economically inefficient. Only rare exceptions exist, such as US 155 mm artillery shell production.
While the West’s defense industry remains the most profitable on Earth, its ability to actually churn out arms and ammunition in the quantities and quality required for large-scale conflict is clearly compromised by its maximization of profits.
The result is evident today as the West struggles to expand production of arms and ammunition for its Ukrainian proxies.
The NDIS report would note:
Prior to the invasion, weapon procurements for some of the in-demand systems were driven by annual training requirements and ongoing combat operations. This modest demand, along with recent market dynamics, drove companies to divest excess capacity due to cost. This meant that any increased production requirements would require an increase in workforce hours in existing facilities—commonly referred to as “surge” capacity. These, in turn, were limited further by similar down-stream considerations of workforce, facility, and supply chain limitations.
Costs are most certainly a consideration across any defense industry, but costs cannot be the primary consideration.
A central element of Russia’s defense industry is Rostec, a massive state-owned enterprise under which hundreds of companies related to national industrial needs including defense are organized. Rostec is profitable. However, the industrial concerns organized under Rostec serve purposes related to Russia’s national interests first and foremost, be it national health, infrastructure or security.
Because Russia’s defense industry is purpose-driven, it produced military equipment because it was necessary, not because it was profitable. As a result, Russia possessed huge stockpiles of ammunition and equipment ahead of the Special Military Operation (SMO) in February 2022. In addition to this, Russia maintained large amounts of surge capacity enabling production rates of everything from artillery shells to armored vehicles to expand quickly over the past 2 years.
Only relatively recently have Western analysts acknowledged this.
Continue reading
Nuclear news – week to 26 February
A bit of good news: Success in protecting and restoring isolated island ecosystems
TOP STORIES. The Show Trial against Julian Assange. After years of avoiding extradition, Julian Assange’s appeal is likely his last chance. Here’s how it might unfold (and how we got here). Chris Hedges: Julian Assange’s Day in Court
Germany and nuclear weapons: A difficult history.
Fatal Flaws Undermine America’s Defense Industrial Base.
Environment. The Growing Environmental Footprint Of Generative AI
Climate. Antarctica sea ice reaches alarming low for third year in a row.
Nuclear. Same same – media promotion of small nuclear reactors, despite the economic realities. UK in turmoil over nuclear costs. Angst over the idea of nuclear war in space.
Noel’s notes. Alexei Navalny – the paradox of his legacy
AUSTRALIA Proponents of nuclear power are peddling hot air. Billionaire mining magnate Andrew Forrest lampoons Coalition’s nuclear push as ‘bulldust’. “Stop dividing us”: Andrew Forrest attacks pro-nuclear politicians. Nuclear Power Advocates Accused of Spreading Misinformation. The Victorian towns where Peter Dutton is considering going nuclear.
No nuclear option for $275m green-manufacturing grants. Australian defence: from self-reliance to subsidising US war with China. What comes after Rafah. Why Australia should ditch the AUKUS nuclear submarine and-pivot-to-pitstop-power (- a bit of dissent in the pro-nuclear camp) NUCLEAR ISSUES
| ECONOMICS. Utility EdF Writes Down $14B Loss on Delayed UK Nuclear Megaproject. Citizens Advice says Sizewell C costs should not be paid with energy bill hikes. Energy Costs UK : The Price Of Power-Nuclear Fandango. Private Financiers Pour Billions Into Nuclear Weapons Production. Most Japan fishing groups hit by China import ban in Fukushima row. | ENVIRONMENT. Hinkley Point C could kill 22 BILLION fish in the Severn estuary. Environment Agency and Natural England behind Hinkley Point wetland plan, says MP. HEALTH. Body Map – Nuclear Power. HISTORY. Rethinking Ukraine: Putin and the Mystery of National Identity |
John J Mearsheimer On behalf of Julian Assange. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gN_Shacd2Iw DAY ONE: Assange Timeline Exposes US Motives. Assange’s final appeal – Your man in the public gallery, part 2. Julian Assange Faces Final “Life or Death” Extradition Appeal. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XPfB2z-lotU
Japanese mafia boss conspired to traffic nuclear materials, says US. Justice Department Announces Nuclear Materials Trafficking Charges Against Japanese Yakuza Leader.
More indictments for Ohio nuclear crimes.
MEDIA. Ralph Nader: What the Mass Media Needs to Cover Re: Israel/Gaza Conflict.
OPPOSITION to NUCLEAR . Stop Sizewell C’s Response to Regulated Asset Base Licence Consultation.
POLITICS. Great British Nuclear seeks to buy EDF land for small modular reactor .
Victory: Nuclear Free Local Authorities welcome Council vote on South Holderness nuke dump plan.
House is heading toward “nuclear” war over Ukraine funding, one top House GOP leader says .
Nuclear route does Scotland no favours – Tommy Sheppard.
POLITICS INTERNATIONAL and DIPLOMACY. The odds of China using nuclear war to resolve the Taiwan issue.
SAFETY. UK lawmakers seek reassurances after nuclear missile test fails for second time. Minister urges TEPCO to ensure nuclear safety measures.
SECRETS and LIES. How British Intelligence Framed Julian Assange As Russian Agent.
SPACE. EXPLORATION, WEAPONS. U.S. Militarizes Space While Accusing Russia of Doing So. Touring South Korea to support opposition to US space warfare plans. Putin says Russia has no intention of putting nuclear weapons in space. Shock Horror! Serious risk TO INVESTORS of nuclear war in space!
SPINBUSTER. What’s fueling the commercial fusion hype?
TECHNOLOGY. Rolls-Royce will build first mini-nuclear reactor in Europe instead of UK, boss warns.
| WASTES. Decommissioning. The San Onofre Briefing: The Latest on SoCal’s Shut Down Nuclear Power Plant. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OGDwkokX1NA The War Over Burying Nuclear Waste in America’s Busiest Oil Field. Nuclear industry veterans warn some radioactive waste destined for Ontario disposal facility should not be accepted. | WAR and CONFLICT. Ukraine: how nuclear weapons continue to increase the risks, two years on. NATO says Kiev can use F-16 jets to strike targets ‘outside Ukraine‘, despite Russia’s warning. First 2 years of US proxy war against Russia finds both US and Ukraine in downward spiral. Netanyahu’s Post-War Plans for Gaza Call for Military Occupation ‘Without T |
The Show Trial against Julian Assange
If the US authorities succeed in convicting a journalist for exposing war crimes, this would have another serious consequence. In the future, it would become even more difficult and dangerous to expose the sordid reality of wars,
How US and British authorities are bending the law and undermining press freedom
FABIAN SCHEIDLER, FEB 24, 2024 ore https://fabianscheidler.substack.com/p/the-show-trial-against-julian-assange
“Those who tell the truth need a fast horse,” says an Armenian proverb. Or they need a society that protects the truth and its messengers. But this protection, which our democracies claim to offer, is in danger. As a journalist, Julian Assange has published hundreds of thousands of files documenting war crimes committed by the USA and its allies in Afghanistan, Iraq, Guantanamo and elsewhere. The authenticity of the documents is beyond question. However, none of the perpetrators have been brought to justice or convicted. In contrast, the messenger has been incarcerated in a high-security prison in London for five years with life-threatening health problems, having previously spent seven years locked up in the Ecuadorian embassy. He has been charged with no crime in the UK, in any EU country or in his home country of Australia. The only reason for his grueling deprivation of liberty is that the US government has initiated extradition proceedings accusing the journalist Assange of espionage, invoking a law dating back more than a hundred years to the First World War: the Espionage Act.
Never before has a journalist been charged under this law. The extradition process therefore sets a dangerous precedent. If it is successful, every journalist on Earth who exposes US war crimes would have to fear suffering the same fate as Assange. That would be the end of freedom of the press as we know it. Because it is based on the capacity to bring to light the dark sides of power without fear of punishment. Where this freedom is extinguished, it is not only the freedom of journalists that dies, but the freedom of us all: the freedom from the arbitrariness of power.
For this reason alone, this extradition process should never have been accepted by the courts in a functioning legal system. Julian Assange did not act as a spy in any way, but as a journalist and as such is subject to special protection. Incidentally, the key witness for the espionage charge was the notorious fraudster and convicted paedophile Sigurdur Ingi Thordarson, who admitted in 2021 that he had lied on behalf of the FBI and had been granted immunity from prosecution.
Let us imagine the case with reversed roles: Suppose an Australian journalist had published war crimes committed by the Russian military and intelligence services and sought protection in a Western European country. Would the courts seriously consider extradition proceedings to Moscow for espionage, especially if the key witness is a convicted criminal?
Assange is facing the absurd sentence of 175 years in the USA. It is to be feared that he will not survive the extremely harsh conditions in the notorious US prison system. For this reason, the London Magistrates’ Court initially halted his extradition in 2021. The US government then published a paper stating that Assange would not face solitary confinement. However, according to Amnesty International, this declaration is “not worth the paper it is written on”, as the non-binding diplomatic note reserves the right for the US government to change its position at any time. The Court of Appeal, however, found this paper sufficient to clear the way for extradition – a travesty of justice, as Amnesty noted.
The hearings, which took place on February 20 and 21 at the High Court in London and whose verdict is expected in March, are the last opportunity for Assange to obtain an appeal against this extradition decision. However, there is a high risk that the law will once again be turned on its head. As the investigative platform Declassified UK reports, one of the two judges, Jeremy Johnson, previously worked for the British secret service MI6, which is closely intertwined with the CIA and whose illegal activities came to public attention through the work of Julian Assange.
For Julian Assange, the trial itself has already become a punishment. Nils Melzer, the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture, concluded after detailed investigations that Assange had been subjected to systematic psychological torture for years. The fact that the US was prepared to go even further came to light in September of the same year: according to reports in the Guardian, senior intelligence officials, including the then head of the CIA and later Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, planned to kidnap and murder Assange in 2017.[v]
The background:
Wikileaks had published documents that year that became known as “Vault 7”. They show the CIA’s massive activities in the field of cyber warfare and prove how the secret service systematically and comprehensively intervenes in web browsers, IT systems in cars, smart TVs and smartphones, even when they are switched off. This was one of the most sensational revelations by Wikileaks since the leaks by Edward Snowden, who uncovered the massive illegal surveillance by the NSA. The CIA was not to forgive Assange for this coup and subsequently classified Wikileaks as a “non-state hostile intelligence service” – a momentous neologism that allowed journalists to be declared enemies of the state. After Pompeo became Secretary of State in 2018, the US government initiated the extradition proceedings. This move replaced Pompeo’s original kidnapping and killing plan, with the goal remaining the same: the destruction of an inconvenient journalist.
The revelations of whistleblowers such as Edward Snowden and Chelsea Manning and journalists such as Julian Assange have shown that in the shadow of the so-called war on terror, a vast parallel universe has emerged in recent decades that is obsessed with the illegal spying on its own citizens and the arbitrary imprisonment, torture and killing of political opponents. This world is largely beyond democratic control, indeed it is undermining the democratic order from within.
However, this development is not entirely new. In 1971, leaks revealed a secret FBI program for spying on, infiltrating and disrupting civil rights and anti-war movements, which became known as COINTELPRO. In the same year, the New York Times published the Pentagon Papers leaked by whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg, which showed that four successive US administrations had systematically lied to their citizens about the extent and motives of the Vietnam War and the massive war crimes committed by the US military. In 1974, Seymour Hersh revealed the CIA’s secret programs to assassinate foreign heads of state and the covert operation to spy on hundreds of thousands of opponents of the war, which ran under the code name “Operation CHAOS”. Driven by these reports, the US Congress convened in 1975 the Church Committee, which carried out a comprehensive review of the secret operations and led to greater parliamentary control of the services.
Julian Assange is part of this venerable journalistic tradition and has made a decisive contribution to its renewed flourishing. However, there is one important difference to the 1970s: Today, the most important investigative journalist of his generation is openly persecuted, criminalized and deprived of his freedom. When states declare the investigation of crimes to be a crime itself, society enters a dangerous downward spiral, at the end of which new forms of totalitarian rule can emerge. As early as 2012, Assange remarked, at the time with regard to the increasingly comprehensive surveillance technologies: “We have all the ingredients for a turnkey totalitarian state”.
If the US authorities succeed in convicting a journalist for exposing war crimes, this would have another serious consequence. In the future, it would become even more difficult and dangerous to expose the sordid reality of wars, especially those wars that Western governments like to sell as civilizing missions with the help of embedded journalists. If we do not learn the truth about these wars, it becomes much easier to wage them. Truth is the most important instrument of peace.
Julian Assange has not yet been extradited and sentenced. Over the years, a remarkable international movement has formed for his release and the defense of press freedom. Many parliamentarians around the world are also raising their voices. The Australian parliament, for example, supported by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, passed a resolution by a large majority calling for Assange’s release. A group of over 80 members of the German parliament have joined in. However, the German government is still refusing to exert any serious pressure on Joe Biden’s government, which continues to persecute Assange. German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock, who as the Green Party’s candidate for chancellor had spoken out in favor of freeing Assange, has persistently avoided questions on the subject since joining the government. Her ministry has left questions from MPs about the case unanswered for months, only to then make elusive rhetorical excuses. The leading politicians of the governing German coalition, who like to loudly present themselves as the guardians of democracy and the rule of law, must finally take action in this case of political justice and unequivocally demand the release of Julian Assange before it is too late. However, this would require overcoming the cowering attitude towards the godfather in Washington and actually standing up for the much-vaunted values of democracy.
Billionaire mining magnate Andrew Forrest lampoons Coalition’s nuclear push as ‘bulldust’
A push by the Coalition to develop nuclear energy generation in Australia has been slammed by mining magnate Andrew “Twiggy” Forrest.
Jack Quail, February 26, 2024 – https://www.news.com.au/technology/environment/climate-change/billionaire-mining-magnate-andrew-forrest-lampoons-coalitions-nuclear-push-as-bulldust/news-story/048f9a45dbb31091a4ed313479922288
Billionaire mining magnate Andrew “Twiggy” Forrest has rubbished a push to develop a local nuclear energy industry, even as fresh polling showed growing voter support for the proposal.
Dr Forrest took a veiled swipe at the opposition over its soon-to-be-unveiled nuclear energy policy, saying its push was “misinformed”, would act to sustain coal and gas powered generation for another two decades, and ultimately would lead to higher power prices.
“If we swallow this new lie that we should stop the rollout of green energy and that nuclear energy will be our fairy godmother, we will be worse off again,” the chair of mining and green energy firm Fortescue told the National Press Club on Monday.
“These misinformed, unscientific, uneconomic, plucked-out-of-thin-air, bulldust nuclear policies of politicians – masquerading as leaders – help no one.”
Dr Forrest, who in 2023 ranked as Australia’s third richest person, made his billions mining iron ore but in more recent years has aggressively pursued investments in renewable energy technologies and fuel, particularly green hydrogen.
Claiming he was “agnostic” on nuclear energy, Dr Forrest said the economics of such a proposal did not stack up when compared with renewable generation.
“Who is going to pay their nuclear electricity bill when it is 4-5 times more expensive than the renewables next door, even ignoring the decade plus it takes to develop nuclear?” Dr Forrest asked.
“With wind and solar, you’re up and running, lowering electricity costs and eliminating pollution within one to three years.”
The Coalition is yet to release a costed nuclear energy policy but has committed to do so ahead of the next federal election, due by May 2025 at the latest.
A Newspoll released by The Australian on Monday revealed 55 per cent of Australians support the replacement of coal-fired power plants with small modular nuclear reactors.
However, such technology is still in development, is yet to prove commercially viable, and would not be deliverable until the mid-2030s at the earliest.
The Albanese government has similarly disparaged the Coalition’s nuclear push, and has retained a ban on nuclear power and banking.
In his address, Dr Forrest also advocated for a “renewable energy-led economy”, recommending the government establish a “climate trigger” to assess the impact of carbon pollution in granting environmental approvals, rapidly expand firmed renewable energy, and introduce a levy on carbon emissions extracted from mining or imported into Australia.
“If we make the right decisions today, it will deliver the most profound and enduring economic growth opportunities ever seen, particularly in regional Australia,” he said.
Calling out the diesel fuel rebate, which costs the federal budget billions annually, Dr Forrest said the subsidy towards mining and fossil fuel companies should be scrapped.
“Massive taxpayer-funded financial support for huge mining companies, including Fortescue, to use imported diesel is indefensible,” Dr Forrest said.
Last week, Fortescue – of which Dr Forrest and his family own a 33 per cent stake – reported a 41 per cent increase in its first-half profit, beating analysts’ estimates and bucking a growing trend of sliding profitability among other major mining firms.
Antarctica sea ice reaches alarming low for third year in a row
The extent of ice floating around the continent has contracted to below 2m sq km for three years in a row, indicating an ‘abrupt critical transition’
Graham Readfearn, 25 Feb 24 https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/feb/24/antarctica-sea-ice-reaches-alarming-low-for-third-year-in-a-row
For the third year in a row, sea ice coverage around Antarctica has dropped below 2m sq km – a threshold which before 2022 had not been breached since satellite measurements started in 1979.
The latest data from the US National Snow and Ice Data Center confirms the past three years have been the three lowest on record for the amount of sea ice floating around the continent.
Scientists said another exceptionally low year was further evidence of a “regime shift”, with new research indicating the continent’s sea ice has undergone an “abrupt critical transition”.
Antarctica’s sea ice reaches its lowest extent at the height of the continent’s summer in February each year.
On 18 February the five-day average of sea ice cover fell to 1.99m sq km and on 21 February was at 1.98m sq km. The record low was 1.78m sq km, set in February 2023.
Whether the current level represents this year’s minimum won’t be known for another week or two.
Antarctica sea ice reaches alarming low for third year in a row
The extent of ice floating around the continent has contracted to below 2m sq km for three years in a row, indicating an ‘abrupt critical transition’
Graham Readfearn @readfearnSun 25 Feb 2024
For the third year in a row, sea ice coverage around Antarctica has dropped below 2m sq km – a threshold which before 2022 had not been breached since satellite measurements started in 1979.
The latest data from the US National Snow and Ice Data Center confirms the past three years have been the three lowest on record for the amount of sea ice floating around the continent.
Scientists said another exceptionally low year was further evidence of a “regime shift”, with new research indicating the continent’s sea ice has undergone an “abrupt critical transition”.
Antarctica’s sea ice reaches its lowest extent at the height of the continent’s summer in February each year.
On 18 February the five-day average of sea ice cover fell to 1.99m sq km and on 21 February was at 1.98m sq km. The record low was 1.78m sq km, set in February 2023.
Whether the current level represents this year’s minimum won’t be known for another week or two.
“But we’re confident the three lowest years on record will be the last three years,” said Will Hobbs, a sea ice scientist at the University of Tasmania.
Antarctica’s sea ice reaches its peak each September, but last year’s maximum extent was the lowest on record, easily beating the previous record by about 1m sq km. Scientists were shocked at how much less ice regrew last year, falling well outside anything seen before.
Coverage appeared to recover slightly in December as the refreeze progressed, but then fell away again to the current levels.
There are no reliable measurements of how thick Antarctic sea ice is, but Ariaan Purich, a climate scientist specialising in Antarctica and the Southern Ocean at Monash University, said it was possible the ice that did regrow was thinner than usual.
“It seems plausible, and thinner sea ice could melt back more quickly,” she said.
Scientists are still investigating what is causing the decline in sea ice,, but they are concerned global heating could be playing a role – in particular by warming the Southern Ocean that encircles the continent.
Sea ice reflects solar radiation, meaning less ice can lead to more ocean warming.
Walt Meier, senior research scientist at the National Snow and Ice Data Center, said that since most of the ice melts completely each summer “much of the ice is only 1-2 metres [thick]” – and even less near the ice edge.
“With the very low maximum last September, the ice was probably thinner on average in many areas, but it’s hard to say how much of an effect it has had on the rate of melt and the approaching minimum,” he said.
Antarctica’s ecosystems are tied to the sea ice, from the formation of phytoplankton that can remove carbon from the atmosphere to the breeding sites of penguins.
Purich led research last year that said the continent’s sea ice could have undergone a “regime shift” that was probably driven by warming of the subsurface ocean about 100 metres down.
Research led by Hobbs and colleagues at the Australian Antarctic Program Partnership and other institutions has added evidence to support this claim.
In a paper published this month in the Journal of Climate scientists examined changes in the extent of sea ice and where it was forming each year.
Looking at two periods – 1979 to 2006 and 2007 to 2022 – the researchers found the amount of sea ice had become much more variable, or erratic, in the later period.
This change could not be explained by changes in the atmosphere – mostly winds – which have previously dictated most of the year-to-year variability of the ice.
The study concludes an “abrupt critical transition” has occurred in Antarctica, but Hobbs said they could not say why.
“We don’t know what the driver of change is. It could be ocean warming or a change in ocean salinity,” he said. But it was also possible the change was a natural shift.
Scientists have warned the loss of sea ice is just one of several major changes being observed in Antarctica that is likely to have global consequences – in particular, its loss is exposing more of the continent to the ocean, accelerating the loss of ice on the land, which can push up global sea levels.
Scientists have been increasingly vocal in calling for governments to take the Antarctic changes more seriously and have lamented the comparative lack of data from on and around the continent.
Hobbs said: “What we need is sustained measurements of ocean temperature and salinity underneath the sea ice. We need improvements in our climate models. And we need time.”
Pentagon’s New Military Satellite Program Poses Threat to Russia
Ekaterina Blinova, 24 Feb 24 https://sputnikglobe.com/20240222/pentagons-new-military-satellite-program-poses-threat-to-russia-1116925932.html—
Washington recently raised a great fuss over the alleged “Russian threat”, citing, in particular, possible space-based nuclear deployments. Moscow shredded the speculations, suggesting that the US is using the rumors as a smokescreen for its own military programs.
Hours after the US press published groundless claims of Russia’s space-based nuclear program, the Pentagon sent “a missile-tracking system” into orbit – part of the Department of Defense’s new plan dubbed Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture that aims to fill the low-Earth orbit with myriads of small and cheap satellites.
The New York Times broke the Pentagon’s new initiative on February 15, explaining that the US military had adopted an approach similar to Elon Musk’s Starlink satellite constellation. If America’s adversaries knock down even a dozen of those small and cheap Pentagon satellites, the system would continue operating shifting to other units, according to the media outlet. As Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen H. Hicks stated last month, the Pentagon will be able to launch those small cost-effective satellites “almost weekly.”
“Now, as you all know, SPACECOM is DoD’s newest combatant command,” Hicks said at a US Space Command gathering on January 10. “Every day, SPACECOM delivers tremendous value across our Joint Force, with satellite communication, early warning radars, GPS that enable not only navigation for people, planes, trucks, and ships – but also the precision-guided munitions that have become a hallmark of how the US military fights in the modern era.”
The Pentagon’s new satellite program poses a challenge to Russia, according to Sputnik’s interlocutors, Ivan Moiseev, the head of the Russian Institute of Space Policy, and Dr. Natan Eismont, a leading researcher at the Russian Academy of Sciences’ Space Research Institute.
Starting from 2014, the Pentagon has been dramatically increasing its capabilities in space, according to Moiseev. In December 2019, then-US President Donald Trump authorized the establishment of the US Space Force (USSF), as a special military service branch of the US Armed Forces.
In addition, the Pentagon boosted cooperation with commercial firms specializing in space technologies which dramatically enhanced the DoD’s capabilities, the scientist pointed out. To illustrate his point Moiseev referred to the Pentagon’s cooperation with Musk’s SpaceX, which operates over 5,400 satellites in low Earth orbit (LEO). Commercial satellites can be used by the Pentagon as any dual-use equipment, but formally they would not be considered “military satellites”, he continued.
These satellites are controllable. And if there is a tense situation, because in order to do this, you need a very tense situation – virtually a war or at least a hybrid war – then these satellites can target any of [Russia] 160 satellites. This has never been announced, it is simply clear because such a possibility exists,” Moiseev presumed.
Presently, the United States has approximately 9,000 satellites in space with 70% of them being communication satellites to “connect the world,” as USSF Maj. Gen. Gregory Gagnon, deputy chief of Space Operations for Intelligence, outlined at the Air and Space Forces Association’s Warfare Symposium on February 13.
However, the number of US satellite constellations is rapidly growing, noted Dr. Natan Eismont.
“The composition of these [satellite] groups is growing, and literally within five years, Musk alone is expected to increase the number of these devices to more than 10,000. Does this create any additional problems? Of course it does, yes,” Eismont told Sputnik.
On the one hand, one cannot rule out collisions of various spacecraft as the low orbit would become “crowded”. On the other hand, myriads of satellites could be used for military purposes, he noted.
“That is, these are both civilian and military [satellites]. It is almost impossible to separate them. Although there were attempts to separate. And not only attempts, in general, and implementation, when these tasks were divided. But still, one cannot say that these devices are exclusively for military purposes, and those are for civilian purposes. If the device was intended for civilian purposes, then converting it for use by military structures is simple. The device will remain the same. This is something that has to be considered and taken into account,” the leading researcher continued.
Eismont agreed that in this respect, US satellite constellations pose a threat to Russia. However, he resolutely rubbished the possibility of Russia using space-based nuclear weapons, promoted by the US press: “There will be no winners here. There will only be losers,” he stressed. When it comes to space, great powers need to sit and talk; these issues should be solved solely diplomatically, Eismont concluded.
$14 Billion US Aid Package for Israel Crafted to Prepare for ‘Multi-Front War,’ Not Just Gaza
The $14 billion is included in the $95 billion foreign military aid that was recently passed by the Senateby Dave DeCamp February 22, 2024 at 1:26 pm ET CategoriesNewsTagsIsrael, Palestine
The $14 billion in additional military aid for Israel that President Biden is seeking was designed not just for operations in Gaza but also to prepare Israel for a “multi-front war,” The Times of Israel has reported.
A senior Biden administration official told The Jewish Telegraphic Agency that the $14 billion is “for Israel to defend itself in a multi-front war and to be sure it can deter a multi-front war.”
Israel has been escalating airstrikes in Lebanon against Hezbollah, though many strikes have killed civilians. The fire across the border risks a full-blown war, and there are no signs tensions will ease anytime soon. Israeli officials have been threatening to invade if Hezbollah doesn’t move back from the Israel-Lebanon border.
US officials have acknowledged to The Washington Post that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu might view war in Lebanon as key to his political survival, as polling has shown Israelis want him to step down after the current conflict.
Israel also appears to be attempting to provoke Iran as several members of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) have been killed by Israeli airstrikes in Syria since October 7. According to The New York Times, Israel was also behind a covert attack on two natural gas pipelines inside Iran.
The $14 billion is packed into the $95 billion foreign military aid bill that passed through the Senate but has yet to be brought to the House floor for a vote as Republicans are still looking for a border deal. The legislation also includes about $60 billion for Ukraine, and $4.8 billion for Taiwan and other spending in the Asia Pacific.
The $14 billion for Israel is on top of the $3.8 billion the country receives from the US each year. According to The Times of Israel, It includes $5.2 billion to go toward Israeli missile defense, which is seen as a critical necessity for a war with Hezbollah.
Another $3.5 billion will replenish munitions Israel has used in Gaza. The US will use $4 billion US to refill its own stockpiles, including a contingency stockpile located in Israel that the Israeli military has been allowed to use for its operations in Gaza.
Since October 7, the US has been shipping bombs and other types of weapons on a near-daily basis. According to the Israeli news site Ynet, the US has shipped over 25,000 tons of military equipment to support the Israeli slaughter in Gaza, which has killed over 29,000 Palestinians.
Nuclear Power Advocates Accused of Spreading Misinformation
https://www.miragenews.com/nuclear-power-advocates-accused-of-spreading-1180602/ 24 Feb 24,
Opponents of cleaner, cheaper renewables have used a particularly spectacular contortion of logic to claim the recent catastrophic storms in Victoria and the resulting power outages as evidence of the folly of acting on climate change and boosting renewables.
Predictably, nuclear energy advocates seized on the Victorian events and temporary power outage to re-energise their campaign for Australia to start a nuclear energy industry.
Let’s be clear upfront. Nuclear is not being pushed as a genuine alternative to renewables. It’s being used as a distraction and a delaying tactic.
It’s also quite the feat to assert that had it been nuclear rather than renewables, a coal-fired electricity generator in Victoria wouldn’t have shut itself down as protection against surges from storm-damaged transmission. It’s an even greater leap essentially to assert that a grid under the LNP would involve no distribution – given the vast majority of outages were caused by extreme damage to the distribution network – including from the half a million lightning strikes in eight hours.
Will nuclear powered electricity be transmitted by osmosis? By Bluetooth? By a vibe? Whether your energy comes from coal, nuclear, gas or renewables, if poles and wires are down, electricity won’t get where it needs to go.
The pro-nuclear argument is two-pronged. That the world has realised the perils of renewables and is experiencing a nuclear renaissance, and Australia is missing out.
And that nuclear is much cheaper than renewable energy, once upgrading and expanding the grid is factored in.
Both these arguments collapse faster than a tree in a lightning strike when exposed to the facts.
Global investment in renewable energy sources constitutes three quarters of all power generation investment.
Take just solar, for example. Last year, the world installed 440GW of renewable capacity. This is more than the world’s entire existing nuclear capacity built up through decades of investment. By early 2025, renewable energy will surpass coal as the planet’s largest source of energy, while coal, gas and nuclear will all shrink their market share.
Nuclear and coal combined, however, account for only 16 per cent of new global power investment. In 2005, electricity companies in the US pledged to build more than 30 reactors. Only four ever commenced construction. Two were abandoned due to massive cost and time delays.
The alleged boom in Small Modular Reactors is also a mirage. China and Russia are the only two countries to have installed them. The US has now abandoned its “flagship” commercial-scale pilot SMR (promised back in 2008), wearing 70 per cent cost blowouts without having started construction on a single reactor.
We know the Russian SMRs have extraordinarily low load factors and that nuclear waste from the SMR process is disproportionate to their output. The Chinese data is more opaque, but given SMRs generate about 300MW (compared to a coal-fired power station at 2000MW), we have no reason to believe there is anything approaching a serious contribution to China’s energy demand from their two units.
My shadow minister predicted that last year’s Dubai COP would be remembered as the “nuclear COP”. Not so much. Twenty three countries have pledged to triple nuclear energy by 2050, while 124 countries pledged to triple renewable energy investment within the next six years, before the nuclear dream even gets started.
Then there is cost. Contrary to myth, GenCost does include the cost of transmission and storage, and the CSIRO-AEMO GenCost conclusions about the chasm between nuclear and renewables costs could not be clearer.
But if you don’t want to accept eminent and independent practitioners at those organisations, then you can have a look at the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, which estimates it will cost $US15 trillion to triple nuclear capacity. Or University College London, which recently found that “new nuclear capacity is only cost effective if ambitious cost and construction times are assumed”.
And if you don’t like University College London’s research, ask the merchant bank Lazard, which shows levelised cost of nuclear to be four times higher than utilityscale solar and wind.
Then look at how many nuclear projects are falling over because of cost and time overruns. The UK’s Hinkley C nuclear plant was promised to be “cooking Christmas turkeys by 2017”. It’s yet to warm a single drumstick, with latest costings at more than $86bn. Who in Australia does the opposition energy spokesman expect will be footing those kind of bills?
Like many things in the climate debate, the push for nuclear power has taken on a singular importance in the culture wars. It’s striking that a party that once prided itself on economic rationalism could embrace a frolic so spectacularly uneconomic. This is the triumph of culture wars over climate pragmatism in the alternative government.
The LNP has been promising to reveal the details of its long nuclear fairytales soon. It can’t come soon enough.
No plan for nuclear power in Australia will survive contact with reality. The Australian people deserve more than hot air to power their homes and businesses.
This opinion piece was first published in the Australian on Saturday, 24 February 2024.
Ralph Nader: What the Mass Media Needs to Cover Re: Israel/Gaza Conflict
By Ralph Nader, February 23, 2024
Last October 27, I suggested subjects the mainstream media needed to cover relating to the saturation bombing of Gaza and its defenseless civilian families and infrastructure. Looking at these topics now, four months later, despite massive reporting, the attention to these subjects is still thin and more deserving of reporting than ever.1. How did Hamas, with tiny Gaza surrounded by a 17-year Israeli blockade, subjected to unparalleled electronic surveillance, with spies and informants, and augmented by an overwhelming air, sea and land military presence, manage to get the weapons and associated technology for their October 7th surprise raid? Readers still do not know how and from where these weapons entered Gaza year after year.
2. What is the connection between the stunning failure of the Israeli government to protect its people on the border and the policy of P.M. Netanyahu? Recall the New York Times (October 22, 2023) article by prominent journalist, Roger Cohen, to wit: “All means were good to undo the notion of Palestinian statehood. In 2019, Mr. Netanyahu told a meeting of his center-right Likud party: ‘Those who want to thwart the possibility of a Palestinian state should support the strengthening of Hamas and the transfer of money to Hamas. This is part of our strategy.’” (Note: Israel and the U.S. fostered the rise of Islamic Hamas in 1987 to counter the secular Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO)). Readers still need more information about the context of Netanyahu’s declared support for Hamas over the years and his connection to the buildup of Hamas funding and weaponry.
3. Why is Congress preparing to appropriate over $14 billion to Israel in military and other aid without any public hearings and without any demonstrated fiscal need by Israel, a prosperous economic, technological and military superpower with a social safety net superior to that of the U.S.? USDA just reported over 44 million Americans struggled with hunger in 2022. This, in the midst of a childcare crisis. Should U.S. taxpayers be expected to pay for Netanyahu’s colossal intelligence/military collapse? As an elderly Holocaust survivor told the New York Times “It should never have happened” in the first place.
4. Why hasn’t the media reported on President Biden’s statement that the Gaza Health Ministry’s body count (now over 7000 fatalities) is exaggerated? Indications, however, are that it is a large undercount by Hamas to minimize its inability to protect its people. Israel has fired over 8,000 powerful precision munitions and bombs into Gaza so far. These have struck many thousands of inhabited buildings – homes, apartments buildings, over 120 health facilities, ambulances, crowded markets, fleeing refugees, schools, water and sewage systems, and electric networks – implementing Israeli military orders to cut off all food, water, fuel, medicine and electricity to this already impoverished densely packed area the size of Philadelphia. For those not directly slain, the deadly harm caused by no food, water, medicine, medical facilities and fuel will lead to even more deaths and serious injuries.
Note that over three-quarters of Gaza’s population consists of children and women. Soon there will be thousands of babies born to die in the rubble. Other Palestinians will perish from untreated diseases, injuries, dehydration, and from drinking contaminated water. With crumbled sanitation facilities, physicians are fearing a deadly cholera epidemic.
Israel bombed the Rafah crossing on the Gaza-Egypt border. Only a tiny trickle of trucks are now allowed there by Israel to carry food and water. Fuel for hospital generators still remains blocked.
The undercount of fatalities/injuries is far greater now. The official figure is about 30,000 lives lost, with hundreds dying every day under the rubble. There is too little media interest in more realistic estimates. Undercounting lessens the pressure on Washington officials’ co-belligerents in the White House to call for a permanent ceasefire.
5. Why can’t Biden even persuade Israel to let 600 desperate Americans out of the Gaza firestorm?
6. Why isn’t the mass media making a bigger issue out of Israel’s long-time practice of blocking journalists from entering Gaza, including European, American and Israeli journalists? The only television crews left are Gazan-residing Al Jazeera reporters. Israeli bombs have already killed 26 journalists in the Gaza Strip since October 7th. Is Israel targeting journalists’ families? The Gaza bureau chief of Al Jazeera, Wael Al-Dahdouh’s family was killed in an Israeli airstrike on Wednesday. Israeli commanders now have killed over 100 journalists in addition in some cases to their entire families and continue to block foreign journalists except for a few brief “guided tours” in Israeli armored vehicles.
7. Why isn’t the mainstream U.S. media giving adequate space and voice to groups advocating a ceasefire and humanitarian aid? The message of Israeli peace groups’ peaceful solutions are drowned out by the media’s addiction to interviews with military tacticians. Much time and space are being given to hawks pushing for a war that could flash outside of Gaza big time. Shouldn’t groups such as Jewish Voice for Peace, the Arab-American Institute, Veterans for Peace and associations of clergy have their views and activities reported? Still being underreported are the activities all over the country of the Veterans for Peace and large labor unions demanding a permanent ceasefire and humanitarian aid.
8. Why is the coverage of the war overlooking the Geneva Conventions, the United Nations Charter and the many provisions of international law that all the parties, including the U.S., have been violating? (See the October 24, 2023 letter to President Biden). Under international law, Biden has made the U.S. an active “co-belligerent,” of the Israeli government’s vocal demolition of the 2.3 million inhabitants in Gaza, who are mostly descendants of Palestinian refugees driven from their homes in 1948. (See, Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide). Coverage has expanded to include the U.S. vetoes on the Security Council and to global reporting on the International Court of Justice proceedings on South Africa’s calling for the Court to address Israel’s genocide of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.
9. What about revealing human-interest stories? For example: How do Israeli F-16 pilots feel about their daily bombing of the completely defenseless Gazan civilian population and its life-sustaining infrastructures? The reporting on the military orders given to Israeli soldiers in Gaza who are slaying indiscriminately thousands of innocents of all ages and snipers attacking people and children in hospitals is inadequate. Why are no Hamas fighters taken as prisoners of war? Is there an order of “take no prisoners” even after capture? What are the courageous Israeli human rights and refuseniks thinking and doing in a climate of serious repression of their views as a result of Netanyahu’s defense collapse on October 7th? The open letter to President Biden on December 13, 2023, by 16 Israeli human rights groups appeared as a paid notice in the New York Times but received very little notice to its clarion call to stop the catastrophe in Gaza. (See the letter here).
10. Where is the media attention on the statements from Israeli military commentators, who, for years have declared high-tech US-backed, nuclear-armed Israel to be more secure than at any time in its history? Israel is reasserting its overwhelming military domination of the Middle East region, fully backed by U.S. militarism. The Israeli government is putting ads in U.S. newspapers wildly exaggerating long-subdued Hamas as an “existential” threat. Without Netanyahu strangely failing to keep the border guarded on October 7, 2023, what followed would not have happened!
Historians remind us that in a grid-locked conflict over time, it is the most powerful party’s responsibility to lead the way to peace.
Establishing a two-state solution has been supported by many Palestinians. All the Arab nations, starting with the Arab League peace proposal in 2002, support this solution as well. It is up to Israel and the U.S., assuming annexation of what is left of Palestine is not Israel’s objective. (See, the March 29, 2002 New York Times article: Mideast Turmoil; Text of the Peace Proposals Backed by the Arab League).More media attention on this subject matter is much needed.
The Rebellious CEO by Ralph Nader was published on November 14th. For more information go to: rebellious.ceo
The Growing Environmental Footprint Of Generative AI
tech companies have been reporting whatever they choose, however they choose, about their AI impact
a great deal remains unrevealed about the millions of gallons of water used to cool computers running AI…… The same is true of carbon.
Undark, BY DAVID BERREBY, 02.20.2024
AI runs on power-hungry equipment that uses millions of gallons of fresh water. Policymakers are weighing the costs.
TWO MONTHS after its release in November 2022, OpenAI’s ChatGPT had 100 million active users, and suddenly tech corporations were racing to offer the public more “generative AI.” Pundits compared the new technology’s impact to the Internet, or electrification, or the Industrial Revolution — or the discovery of fire.
Time will sort hype from reality, but one consequence of the explosion of artificial intelligence is clear: this technology’s environmental footprint is large and growing.
AI use is directly responsible for carbon emissions from non-renewable electricity and for the consumption of millions of gallons of fresh water, and it indirectly boosts impacts from building and maintaining the power-hungry equipment on which AI runs. As tech companies seek to embed high-intensity AI into everything from resume-writing to kidney transplant medicine and from choosing dog food to climate modeling, they cite many ways AI could help reduce humanity’s environmental footprint. But legislators, regulators, activists, and international organizations now want to make sure the benefits aren’t outweighed by AI’s mounting hazards.
“The development of the next generation of AI tools cannot come at the expense of the health of our planet,” Massachusetts Senator Edward Markey said in a Feb. 1 statement in Washington, after he and other senators and representatives introduced a bill that would require the federal government to assess AI’s current environmental footprint and develop a standardized system for reporting future impacts. Similarly, the European Union’s “AI Act,” approved by member states last week, will require “high-risk AI systems” (which include the powerful “foundation models” that power ChatGPT and similar AIs) to report their energy consumption, resource use, and other impacts throughout their systems’ lifecycle. The EU law takes effect next year.
Meanwhile, the International Organization for Standardization, a global network that develops standards for manufacturers, regulators, and others, said it will issue criteria for “sustainable AI” later this year. Those will include standards for measuring energy efficiency, raw material use, transportation, and water consumption, as well as practices for reducing AI impacts throughout its life cycle, from the process of mining materials and making computer components to the electricity consumed by its calculations. The ISO wants to enable AI users to make informed decisions about their AI consumption.
Right now, it’s not possible to tell how your AI request for homework help or a picture of an astronaut riding a horse will affect carbon emissions or freshwater stocks. This is why 2024’s crop of “sustainable AI” proposals describe ways to get more information about AI impacts.
In the absence of standards and regulations, tech companies have been reporting whatever they choose, however they choose, about their AI impact, said Shaolei Ren, an associate professor of electrical and computer engineering at UC Riverside, who has been studying the water costs of computation for the past decade. Working from calculations of annual use of water for cooling systems by Microsoft, Ren estimates that a person who engages in a session of questions and answers with GPT-3 (roughly 10 t0 50 responses) drives the consumption of a half-liter of fresh water. “It will vary by region, and with a bigger AI, it could be more.” But a great deal remains unrevealed about the millions of gallons of water used to cool computers running AI, he said.
“Data scientists today do not have easy or reliable access to measurements of [greenhouse gas impacts from AI], which precludes development of actionable tactics,” a group of 10 prominent researchers on AI impacts wrote in a 2022 conference paper. Since they presented their article, AI applications and users have proliferated, but the public is still in the dark about those data, said Jesse Dodge, a research scientist at the Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence in Seattle, who was one of the paper’s coauthors.
AI can run on many devices — the simple AI that autocorrects text messages will run on a smartphone. But the kind of AI people most want to use is too big for most personal devices, Dodge said. “The models that are able to write a poem for you, or draft an email, those are very large,” he said. “Size is vital for them to have those capabilities.”
Big AIs need to run immense numbers of calculations very quickly, usually on specialized Graphical Processing Units — processors originally designed for intense computation to render graphics on computer screens. Compared to other chips, GPUs are more energy-efficient for AI, and they’re most efficient when they’re run in large “cloud data centers” — specialized buildings full of computers equipped with those chips. The larger the data center, the more energy efficient it can be. Improvements in AI’s energy efficiency in recent years are partly due to the construction of more “hyperscale data centers,” which contain many more computers and can quickly scale up. Where a typical cloud data center occupies about 100,000 square feet, a hyperscale center can be 1 or even 2 million square feet.
Estimates of the number of cloud data centers worldwide range from around 9,000 to nearly 11,000. More are under construction. The International Energy Agency, or IEA, projects that data centers’ electricity consumption in 2026 will be double that of 2022 — 1,000 terawatts, roughly equivalent to Japan’s current total consumption.
However, as an illustration of one problem with the way AI impacts are measured, that IEA estimate includes all data center activity, which extends beyond AI to many aspects of modern life. Running Amazon’s store interface, serving up Apple TV’s videos, storing millions of people’s emails on Gmail, and “mining” Bitcoin are also performed by data centers. (Other IEA reports exclude crypto operations, but still lump all other data-center activity together.)
Most tech firms that run data centers don’t reveal what percentage of their energy use processes AI. The exception is Google, which says “machine learning” — the basis for humanlike AI — accounts for somewhat less than 15 percent of its data centers’ energy use…………………………………………………………………………………….
If global electricity use can feel a bit abstract, data centers’ water use is a more local and tangible issue — particularly in drought-afflicted areas. To cool delicate electronics in the clean interiors of the data centers, water has to be free of bacteria and impurities that could gunk up the works. In other words, data centers often compete “for the same water people drink, cook, and wash with,” said Ren.
In 2022, Ren said, Google’s data centers consumed about 5 billion gallons (nearly 20 billion liters) of fresh water for cooling. (“Consumptive use” does not include water that’s run through a building and then returned to its source.) According to a recent study by Ren, Google’s data centers used 20 percent more water in 2022 than they did in 2021, and Microsoft’s water use rose by 34 percent in the same period. (Google data centers host its Bard chatbot and other generative AIs; Microsoft servers host ChatGPT as well as its bigger siblings GPT-3 and GPT-4. All three are produced by OpenAI, in which Microsoft is a large investor.)
As more data centers are built or expanded, their neighbors have been troubled to find out how much water they take. For example, in The Dalles, Oregon, where Google runs three data centers and plans two more, the city government filed a lawsuit in 2022 to keep Google’s water use a secret from farmers, environmentalists, and Native American tribes who were concerned about its effects on agriculture and on the region’s animals and plants. The city withdrew its suit early last year. The records it then made public showed that Google’s three extant data centers use more than a quarter of the city’s water supply. And in Chile and Uruguay, protests have erupted over planned Google data centers that would tap into the same reservoirs that supply drinking water……………..more https://undark.org/2024/02/20/ai-environmental-footprint/?utm_source=Undark%3A+News+%26+Updates&utm_campaign=01eaa0c93b-RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_5cee408d66-185e4e09de-%5BLIST_EMAIL_ID%5D
TODAY. Alexei Navalny – the paradox of his legacy
Whatever you think of Alexei Navalny, he didn’t deserve what was done to him. I’ve written before on how the USA government prefers to kill people slowly, with finesse – as in the case of Julian Assange, (.and way way back, Wilfred Burchett.)
The czarist way is more blunt and definite, as in the case of Alexander Litvinenko – a cruel poisoning.
Now Alexei Navalny, a determined opponent of Vladimir Putin, has died suddenly at 47. We’re supposed to believe “of natural causes” – yeah, right, when you’ve been persecuted and ill-treated for years, you might die of a heart problem, anyway. But who believes the Kremlin?
Navalny fought courageously against corruption, and the rule of Putin. He has the guts to come back to Russia, and keep up the fight, even after a previous near-fatal poisoning.
There is another side to the Navalny story. He was an ultra-right racist and Russian nationalist, who railed against immigration and compared Muslims to “flies and cockroaches”. He joined in the fascist “Russian March” along with Monarchist, fascist, anti-Semitic and anti-immigrant organizations.
In earlier years he worked on the stock market, aligning himself with the liberal pro-market party “Yabloko” (The Apple), known for its long-standing relations with Washington’s State Department and the CIA. He had close links with influential bankers, and the support of a wealthy right-wing movement against Putin, which would be aimed at installing a pro-US puppet regime.
So, the traditional Czarist cruel and clumsy removal of Alexei Navalny has played right into the hands of the USA government. A very timely occasion for much propaganda for Ukraine’s irrational and doomed military fight against Russia, – and for buckets of crocodile tears.
Well, the pro Russisan propagandists will keep bleating about Navalny as a puppet of the USA.
And the “respectable” corporate English-language press will regurgitate the glorious pro – Zelensky and Ukraine stuff coming from Biden etc, (the Navalny death a boon to their story)
But the truth must be somewhere in between, and Navalny has to be remembered as a brave man, who fought for what he believed in, – but by no means as a model of a true democrat.
Australian defence: from self-reliance to subsidising US war with China
Pearls and Irritations, By Mike GilliganFeb 23, 2024
Our leaders have rendered us America’s pawn, contractually. Australia has abrogated the right to choose peace with China. Dumbly. Unnecessarily. Deceitfully. For political ends. We once had a leader who put Australia’s security before the desires of a distant, powerful protector. What is the prospect of chancing upon another of Curtinian quality?
Periodically, it is fashionable among Australia’s geostrategic glitterati to ask what to do about America, as if that’s never really been addressed. Of course, the question has dogged Australian governments and officialdom at least from the day Foreign Minister Percy Spender signed the ANZUS treaty in San Francisco in 1951. Having obtained a treaty we then wondered what it meant?
As a face-saver America agreed to a “treaty” with a non-committing clause – to “consult” should one or other party be threatened. But ever alert to political opportunity, PM Menzies acclaimed ANZUS to the Australian public as if it contained NATO’s Article 5 security for Australia. The bluster and deceit has been maintained by Australian governments and media to this day. Today most Australians believe that the US guarantees our security.
At the time even the hard-heads in Defence and Foreign Affairs were hopeful that the treaty might be interpreted generously by the Americans. But it didn’t take long for that optimism to evaporate. Repeatedly, over the first twenty years, America made it clear that it saw the treaty running in its direction. On issues with Indonesia (eg konfrontasi) Australia had unambiguous signals that we were expected to deal with regional issues independently. Meanwhile we were sending our forces into faraway situations created by the US, suffering heavy consequences viz Korea, Vietnam.
The unlikely choice of self reliance
Then in 1969 President Nixon announced the Guam doctrine – each US ally nation in Asia was considered by the US to be in charge of its own security. After two decades of Australia faffing over ANZUS, clarity emerged. The major political parties were at one that Australia should take responsibility for its own defence.
Looking back, that was an extraordinary step for Australia. We acted promptly by restructuring the defence assets – the three military arms were folded into a Defence Force with the organisation overseen jointly by a civilian and military head. Which portended a revolution in thinking.
By 1976 a comprehensive blueprint was ready. Australia’s first ever White Paper on Defence spelt out the intellectual, practical and financial basis for an Australia secured by self-reliant defences:
“A primary requirement is for increased self reliance… we no longer base our policy on expectation that Australia’s forces will be sent abroad to fight as part of some other nation’s force.
we believe that any operations are much more likely to be in our own neighbourhood than in some distant or forward theatre… we owe it to ourselves to be able to mount a national defence effort that would maximise the risks and costs of any aggression.“
For the transformation to work clarity was necessary around America’s role. Our concepts would be directed to defence of Australia. Our scarce resources would not be applied to anyone else’s priorities. It was agreed that American forces would have no operational role in our defence planning. Should America request armed assistance from us and it was judged in our interest, any contribution would be drawn from assets acquired for our own defences. But only after any competing Australian needs were met.
America fully supported this regime throughout the decades.
Australia’s defence policy unambiguously pursued self- reliance over many and varied governments. The objective was articulated in every government review and white paper – until the ascent of PM Abbott. ………………………………………………………………………………………….
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AUKUS, DEFENCE AND SECURITY, INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS, POLITICS, TOP 5
Australian defence: from self-reliance to subsidising US war with China
Our leaders have rendered us America’s pawn, contractually. Australia has abrogated the right to choose peace with China. Dumbly. Unnecessarily. Deceitfully. For political ends. We once had a leader who put Australia’s security before the desires of a distant, powerful protector. What is the prospect of chancing upon another of Curtinian quality?
Periodically, it is fashionable among Australia’s geostrategic glitterati to ask what to do about America, as if that’s never really been addressed. Of course, the question has dogged Australian governments and officialdom at least from the day Foreign Minister Percy Spender signed the ANZUS treaty in San Francisco in 1951. Having obtained a treaty we then wondered what it meant? It fell short of what we asked for, which was one just like NATO’s with Article 5, please. But what Spender obtained was most unlike NATO. ANZUS holds no assurance that America will assist with armed force if Australia is attacked. It was no oversight. America tenaciously rebuffed such commitment.
As a face-saver America agreed to a “treaty” with a non-committing clause – to “consult” should one or other party be threatened. But ever alert to political opportunity, PM Menzies acclaimed ANZUS to the Australian public as if it contained NATO’s Article 5 security for Australia. The bluster and deceit has been maintained by Australian governments and media to this day. Today most Australians believe that the US guarantees our security.
At the time even the hard-heads in Defence and Foreign Affairs were hopeful that the treaty might be interpreted generously by the Americans. But it didn’t take long for that optimism to evaporate. Repeatedly, over the first twenty years, America made it clear that it saw the treaty running in its direction. On issues with Indonesia (eg konfrontasi) Australia had unambiguous signals that we were expected to deal with regional issues independently. Meanwhile we were sending our forces into faraway situations created by the US, suffering heavy consequences viz Korea, Vietnam.
The unlikely choice of self reliance
Then in 1969 President Nixon announced the Guam doctrine – each US ally nation in Asia was considered by the US to be in charge of its own security. After two decades of Australia faffing over ANZUS, clarity emerged. The major political parties were at one that Australia should take responsibility for its own defence.
Looking back, that was an extraordinary step for Australia. We acted promptly by restructuring the defence assets – the three military arms were folded into a Defence Force with the organisation overseen jointly by a civilian and military head. Which portended a revolution in thinking.
By 1976 a comprehensive blueprint was ready. Australia’s first ever White Paper on Defence spelt out the intellectual, practical and financial basis for an Australia secured by self-reliant defences:
“A primary requirement is for increased self reliance… we no longer base our policy on expectation that Australia’s forces will be sent abroad to fight as part of some other nation’s force.
“we believe that any operations are much more likely to be in our own neighbourhood than in some distant or forward theatre… we owe it to ourselves to be able to mount a national defence effort that would maximise the risks and costs of any aggression.“
For the transformation to work clarity was necessary around America’s role. Our concepts would be directed to defence of Australia. Our scarce resources would not be applied to anyone else’s priorities. It was agreed that American forces would have no operational role in our defence planning. Should America request armed assistance from us and it was judged in our interest, any contribution would be drawn from assets acquired for our own defences. But only after any competing Australian needs were met.
America fully supported this regime throughout the decades.
Australia’s defence policy unambiguously pursued self- reliance over many and varied governments. The objective was articulated in every government review and white paper – until the ascent of PM Abbott. With bipartisan acceptance, even though it meant hard, big decisions from governments. The Hawke government scrapped Navy’s aircraft carrier, to reorient our focus to land-based defences. Large expenditures went preferentially to new equipment, infrastructure and bases across the north. Our ports were a focus for anti-mining measures. We developed a peculiar hybrid of technology which overcame the tyranny of vast maritime surrounds making them a singular strength -our over- the- horizon radar network is unique, unmatched anywhere. Our confidence in detecting air movements all across our northern approaches and beyond went from zero to 95%. Similar numbers apply to ships. A profound increment in the fundamentals of maximising risk for any aggressor, with pervasive synergies.
Three decades after embarking on the self-reliance journey Australia had created a formidable capacity to “maximise the risks and costs of any aggression”. We did it our way, overcoming seemingly insurmountable barriers. With political unity generally.
Sadly, no Defence Minister ever took the trouble to explain to Australians what had been achieved – how and why we should be confident of our security without American forces.
Receding self reliance
Things changed abruptly with the Obama presidency, and its geostrategic “tilt to Asia”. President Obama’s visit here in 2010, grasped as electorally advantageous by the waning Gillard government, put an end to pursuit of self- reliance. The principles of our hard-won independence were eroded almost overnight. Unsaid. Infused with political gratuity. Obama was applauded by our Parliament in announcing that henceforth the US would rotate marine soldiers through northern Australia in increasing numbers.
At the time it looked like a US attempt to turn Australia to joining US competition with China. Ever since it has looked more and more exactly that. We are now fourteen years on from the Gillard capitulation. That period has seen continual sly, escalating obeisance to Americas objectives against China. With no heed to the contradiction that while America identifies China as its chief strategic opponent, it is both the centre of our region and Australia’s foremost trading partner.
In 2014 Foreign Minister Julie Bishop signed a “Force Posture Agreement” (FPA) with US Secretary of State John Kerry, who dines on foreign ministers. The FPA permits US naval and air forces to be based in Australia, to mount operations into our region. At America’s discretion and sole direction, with token consultation. The obvious object being China. The stationing of B52 bombers at Tindal equipped with long stand-off nuclear tipped cruise missiles (near impossible to intercept), makes the devastation of China’s big eastern cities achievable any day, by lunchtime, with confidence, on a signal from Washington.
China must now see that Australia is a permanent threat to its existence, and we have no say in that role. Because America can attack China freely from our shores the FPA effectively means that if US operations are mounted against China, from anywhere, Australia will find itself automatically at war with China.
The Abbott government knew what it was conceding to America in the FPA. Peter Dutton later as a minister of the Morrison government observed that it would be “inconceivable” for Australia not to join a US conflict against China. Yet not a murmur was heard from our Parliament following Bishop signing away our sovereignty. Or even since, ten years on. PM Albanese recently made virtue of the acquiescence saying national security was purposely quarantined from criticism when Labor was in opposition.
A profound blunder by Abbott and Bishop, impossible to overstate. Compounded by a decade of Parliamentary ignominy.
No longer is our defence spending solely for Australia’s priorities. Increasingly since the Obama visit, funds appropriated for Australia’s defence have been directed towards subsidising US confrontation with China. Alongside American staff being internalised here.
The zenith of our conservative governments’ distorting profligacy is the nuclear submarine of AUKUS. Designed to attack China’s nuclear submarines in and around its waters, it is said that PM Morrison created the arrangement in order to “make a meaningful contribution” to US operations against China. All of this project is madness- most obviously the cost borne by us. The project could only be confected by an authentic fool. Any number of credible authorities condemn it. See Hugh White recently
The Albanese government’s Defence Strategic Review (DSR) was drafted by a US- educated academic without experience of Australia’s defence or its intellectual capital. Necessarily delivering a view built on books and American perspective; now at the United States Studies Centre at Sydney University, underwritten by our Defence outlays and US patronage.
That DSR recommended that our Army be developed for amphibious attack operations -such as is embedded in US plans for combat in the Island Chain off China with US marines. One wonders how Australia’s Army greets this role- itself deeply encultured with the primacy of the direct defence of Australia.
Minister Marles then appointed a former US admiral to further review Australia’s naval future. The criteria are withheld but it’s a sound bet that the China strategy of the Pentagon was more a factor than was Australia’s self- defence. That report is in and only just responded to by government.
One could go on. Enough has been said to demonstrate that every Australian government since Gillard’s has led Australia into an embrace of US Indo- Pacific re-posturing against China – quietly, slyly, progressively conceding sovereignty and diverting effort and scarce resources from our own hard-won and capable sovereign defence prowess. Without ever frankly saying that the days of self- reliance are over: ie that Australian defence policy is now consumed by something else, contradictory to the policy of preceding decades, which essentially we have no control over……………………………………………………………………….
Australia’s leaders have deceived us into America’s service. Dumbly. Unnecessarily. For political ends. We once had a Prime Minister who, against formidable might, put Australia’s interests before the desires of a distant, powerful protector. John Curtin knew when a new time had to come. What is the prospect of Australia finding another of Curtinian quality? Able to discern and protect Australia’s interest above all others’, against the tide. The rest would follow.
(Postscript: I had the privilege of a working career in the body created to steward the transformation of the 1976 White Paper, “Force Development and Analysis Division” in Defence.) https://johnmenadue.com/australian-defence-from-self-reliance-to-subsidising-us-war-with-china/?fbclid=IwAR0fPj_1371XgvhwCoMD5-mqO8TFydpNE6a84LWapaC94FV27vJlyBOZLTM
The United Nations Refugee Agency and its partners are providing cash assistance so people can buy food, fuel, medicine and warm clothing.
Australia for UNHCR Media Release
Australia for UNHCR is appealing for renewed support for Ukrainians as conditions worsen two years on from Russia’s full-scale invasion.
Since the war began on 24 February 2022, two million homes have been bombed, at least 70,000 people have been killed, and millions have been forced to flee.
“Fierce attacks continue, destroying homes, hospitals and energy infrastructure,” Australia for UNHCR CEO Trudi Mitchell said.
“Families are sheltering in crowded accommodation centres or badly damaged houses with no piped water, gas or electricity, while a bitter winter increases the need for life-saving aid.”
More than 14 million people need humanitarian assistance in Ukraine, a staggering 40 per cent of the population.
In frontline areas such as Donetsk and Kharkiv, constant bombardment means people are forced to spend their days in basements. Children cannot play outside, let alone attend school.
“The fighting has escalated and the humanitarian situation in the country is dramatic and urgent,” UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi said during a recent visit to the country.
“Millions have been forced to flee the war and Russian attacks, and they are in desperate need of humanitarian assistance.”
The United Nations Refugee Agency and its partners are providing cash assistance so people can buy food, fuel, medicine and warm clothing.
Teams are also providing repairs to homes, legal aid to help people obtain civil documents damaged or lost in the war, and counselling to help families deal with trauma.
“UNHCR’s dedicated teams have been on the ground since the beginning. We will stay and deliver for the people of Ukraine for as long as is needed – but we can’t do it alone,” Ms Mitchell said.
“When the war first broke out, Australia for UNHCR received record donations. I’m asking Australians once again to think of the people of Ukraine and to donate what they can.”
Donations welcome at Ukraine Crisis Appeal.
February 2024: 10th anniversary of the conflict in Ukraine
Russia preferred to maintain the Ukrainian state and did not recognize the breakaway republics of Donetsk and Lugansk. It strove to find a solution that would protect the rights of Russian speakers (language, administrative autonomy) without removing them from Ukraine. The Minsk I (September 2014) and Minsk II (February 2015) agreements were neutralized by the Western signatories who later admitted having signed them only to give themselves time to arm and train the Ukrainian forces.
Russia’s categorical refusal to the inclusion of Ukraine into NATO since this would be followed by the installation of American missiles on its southern flank.
February 24, 2022, was not the beginning of a war with Ukraine but the last stage of the war that had begun in 2014.
Used as a disposable tool by the United States and NATO against Russia, Ukraine is in ruins and its future is in jeopardy.
22.02.24 – Europe – Samir Saul – Michel Seymour https://www.pressenza.com/2024/02/february-2024-10th-anniversary-of-the-conflict-in-ukraine/
In the coming days, we will surely hear about the so-called second anniversary of the war in Ukraine. Western governments, corporate media broadcasting the official pro-US line all day long, and “experts”-propagandists of this line will deliver their pseudo-analyses. All will be based on the double premise that the conflict in Ukraine began on February 24, 2022, and that it consists of a Russo-Ukrainian war unilaterally provoked by Russia to satisfy the expansionist ambitions of “dictator” Putin.
According to the US/NATO/Kiev “narrative”, everything was peaceful and normal before February 24. On that day, without the slightest justification and warning, like lightning in a blue sky, a Russian invasion descended on innocent Ukraine. As good Samaritans, the USA and its camp rushed to the aid of the victim by becoming its source of dollars and weapons, not to mention mercenaries and NATO “advisers” to operate these weapons systems. The conflict was supposed to last at most a few weeks, which was all the time that was needed to bleed Russia, while economic “sanctions” would bludgeon it and open the way to a “popular uprising” on the model of the “colored revolutions” (i.e. a putsch sponsored by the Western camp to carry out regime change and install a new leadership which would place Russia under the control of US imperialism).
That is the official “story”, rehashed ad nauseam, by “major” media, with all analysis of what is happening shut out. Only pro-US/NATO/Kiev propaganda is permitted because it would not survive if serious analyses were also allowed. It turns out that censorship, presented as the practice solely of “authoritarian regimes” against which Western “democracies” are leading a worldwide struggle in the name of “values”, is very much at home in the West. It is endorsed, sometimes hypocritically, sometimes proudly.
In propaganda and the now culture, there is no history. Events occur as sudden appearances or random occurrences based on spontaneous impulses. The “good guys” (the US and those who are aligned with them) and the “bad guys” (those who stand up to them) are known in advance, nothing else. With this simplistic and distorting grid, a conflict only begins when the “bad guys” retaliate, and never before, when the “good guys” have taken the initiative to threaten or attack them, leading to the retaliation. These initial actions are simply erased from memory.
Choosing February 24, 2022 as the starting date of the conflict in Ukraine shows bias, myopia and ignorance. It is equivalent to becoming a sounding board for the official “narrative”, the primary aim of which is to conceal the central role of Western governments as initiators of the conflict in Ukraine. Their aim is less Ukraine itself than the utilization of Ukraine, first against the Soviet Union, then against Russia.
A conflict that dates back to 1945
The Ukrainian question went through four phases: from 1945 to 1956, it was a war of sabotage and terrorism; from 1956 to 1990, there was a lull; from 1990 to 2014, a new conflict was brewing; in 2014, the war began.
As early as 1945, well before February 24, 2022, the ancestor of the CIA recruited German Nazis and their Ukrainian collaborators. Surrendering to the Americans, Reinhard Gehlen put his network of agents in Eastern Europe at the service of the US. Ukrainian ultranationalist collaborator Stepan Bandera joined Gehlen in Germany and, with his organization, waged a bloody war against the USSR in Ukraine, a Soviet territory. The USSR won and the KGB assassinated Bandera in 1959. It was in 1954 that Khrushchev transferred the Crimean peninsula to the Republic of Ukraine, then part of the USSR.
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