Antinuclear

Atoms for Peace was never the plan

And while all four groups considered dual-purpose reactors to be technically feasible, they all agreed that: “no reactor could be constructed in the very near future which would be economic on the basis of power generation alone.” 

Uneconomic, then, and still today.

Early reactors were primarily intended as producers of plutonium

By Linda Pentz Gunter, https://beyondnuclearinternational.org/2023/10/29/atoms-for-peace-was-never-the-plan/—

Atoms for Peace had a nice ring to it. But it was a fantasy at best, at worst, a lie. Atoms for Peace was never the intention. Atoms for war, as it turned out, was brewing in the background even before Dwight Eisenhower became president of the United States.

After summarily tossing aside the Paley Commission report delivered to his predecessor, President Truman, and which advocated the US choose the solar pathway for energy expansion, Eisenhower embraced a very different report. In 1953, the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) delivered a series of studies on Nuclear Power Reactor Technology from four groups of private industry companies

On the cover of the report is a familiar rogues’ gallery of corporations, including Dow, Monsanto, and Bechtel.

These reports, an initiative of the companies themselves, were designed to find a way to bring private industry into the nuclear power sector. Hitherto, the nuclear sector — almost entirely focused on weapons of course — was firmly under the control of government and the military.

Whose idea was it? Says the AEC:

“Accordingly, when Dr. Charles A. Thomas, of Monsanto Chemical Co., in the summer of 1950 proposed that industry might with its own capital design, construct and operate nuclear reactors for production of plutonium and power, the AEC gave the suggestion interested consideration.”

Plutonium and power. Note which came first.

Before long there were four groups all vying to come up with the best proposal for a dual-purpose reactor — and that’s what they called them — that would make plutonium for the nuclear weapons sector, and oh yes, as a by-product, also generate electricity.

This was a stated pre-requisite, directly from the AEC. Even if Dow and Monsanto and others had wanted just to explore using nuclear power for electricity generation, the AEC required that the designs it would consider were: “not necessarily those which would have been selected had the studies been directed toward power-only reactors with the plutonium produced having but fuel value.”

They had to be dual-purpose.

And while all four groups considered dual-purpose reactors to be technically feasible, they all agreed that: “no reactor could be constructed in the very near future which would be economic on the basis of power generation alone.” 

Uneconomic, then, and still today.

The four groups of companies had completed their reports in the summer of 1952. So even as the Truman government commissioned and submitted the Paley Commission to Congress — which had flagged nuclear power as having limited utility — behind the scenes, the AEC and this private industry cabal was already trying to cement in place a scheme that would legitimize nuclear power by giving it a dual-purpose, the more important one being its role in further building up the US nuclear weapons arsenal.

This determination, to tie civil and military nuclear reactor technology together; to say that reactor technology should serve primarily to produce plutonium; effectively gave nuclear power an immovable seat at the energy table.

And all of this eclipsed and supplanted renewable energy development, despite what the Paley Commission had recommended, because of course renewable energy had no utility to the military sector.

None of the reactors presented by the four groups in the AEC report was ever built. In fact, no commercial, civilian-owned reactors were ever built in the United States that adopted the dual power production and plutonium production concept.

Instead, the US was already opening the way for private industry to develop, own and operate commercial nuclear power plants for the purpose of generating electricity. This effectively obviated the need to pursue the dual-purpose reactor path.

If the Paley Commission path had been taken, and the US had decided to lead the world in solar energy, we might not have had climate change at all.

Instead, we got Atoms for Peace and nuclear power retained its seat at the nuclear weapons table. Not because it was the most economical, most abundant and most sustainable choice for energy production. It was none of these. But because of that special caché —it’s connection to nuclear weapons.

Despite the national pride at the time about Atoms for Peace, it was a fatal step in the wrong direction, miring the country in vast costs and an enormous inventory of radioactive waste.

The connection between nuclear power and nuclear weapons remains unbroken, cemented in place by the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), specifically, by Article IV which reads:

“Nothing in this Treaty shall be interpreted as affecting the inalienable right of all the Parties to the Treaty to develop research, production and use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes.” 

Unfortunately, these words were lifted verbatim and inserted into the otherwise excellent Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. 

Article IV of the NPT even encourages the development of nuclear power in “non-nuclear-weapon States Party to the Treaty, with due consideration for the needs of the developing areas of the world.”

So, when a non-nuclear weapons country signs the Treaty, thereby declaring it will not develop nuclear weapons, its reward is not only permission, but encouragement to develop nuclear power, regardless of that country’s energy needs, climate, demographics, topography or political volatility.

Thus, you have a country like Saudi Arabia — along with others in the now ever more volatile Middle Eastern region — eager to develop nuclear power. Saudi Arabia’s argument is that this will allow it to export more oil rather than burn it, thus reducing its carbon emissions. All good for climate change, it says.

But if Saudi Arabia really needs a home-grown energy source, why would it embark on a long, slow and expensive program of building nuclear power plants? Surely a sunny and windy place like Saudi Arabia would be developing solar and wind power if this was really about electricity needs?

It’s quite obvious why Saudi Arabia wants nuclear power. It at least opens the option for a pathway to nuclear weapons, and it sends a message to its enemies in that region — most notably Iran — about that capacity to do so.

Allowing for the “inalienable right” to nuclear energy leaves the drawbridge to the peace castle perpetually down, an open invitation to marauders to charge in bearing the means to develop nuclear weapons. What began as a bad idea in 1953 should not be enshrined in laws meant to make the world nuclear-free.

This essay was derived from a January 31, 2021 talk given by the author at the Beyond Nuclear conference hosted by Helensburgh, Scotland Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. Linda Pentz Gunter is the international specialist at Beyond Nuclear and writes for and curates Beyond Nuclear International. #nuclear #antinuclear #NoNukes

October 31, 2023 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

There’s Only So Much Propaganda Spin You Can Put On The Murder Of Thousands Of Children

They can talk about the killings on October 7 till they’re blue in the face, but people are going to object that nothing Hamas did makes it moral or acceptable to murder children by the thousands.

CAITLIN JOHNSTONE, OCT 29, 2023,
 https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/theres-only-so-much-propaganda-spin?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=82124&post_id=138382123&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=1ise1&utm_medium=email

The thing is there’s only so much propaganda spin you can put on the murder of thousands of children.

With other imperial military actions the propagandists had an easier time spinning things. Oh no those evil communists are taking over South Vietnam, we need to stop them! Oh no Saddam’s got WMDs, we need to get him! Oh no Gaddafi’s gonna rape and kill all those Libyans, we have a responsibility to protect them!

In Gaza, Israel and its western backers are massacring children by the thousands with a shockingly vicious bombing campaign that is turning entire neighborhoods into gravel. They’re raining down military explosives on a giant concentration camp that is densely populated by children.

There’s only so much a propagandist can do with that.

They can talk about the killings on October 7 til they’re blue in the face, but people are going to object that nothing Hamas did makes it moral or acceptable to murder children by the thousands.

They can say “Israel has a right to defend itself” as much as they want, but people are going to object that murdering children by the thousands is not actually defending anything from anyone.

They can bleat the phrase “human shields” over and over again, but eventually people are going to start saying “Okay but even if they are human shields, could we please stop murdering children by the thousands? I know I wouldn’t want my children to be murdered just because they were being used as human shields.”

They can say every death is the fault of Hamas, but more and more people are going to start saying “Okay blame whoever you want, but can we please stop murdering children by the thousands right this very instant?”

They can say “Well what do you expect Israel to do?”, and people will respond “Stop murdering children by the thousands for starters, please and thank you.

Imagine you’re a mass media propagandist trying to frame all this in a positive light. How would you do it? Would you be able to make it believable?

Propagandists are used to having a lot more wiggle room to work with than this. They’re used to interfacing with a complex matrix of narrative and manipulating it to distort the public’s understanding of what’s going on. But raw video footage of a mother clutching the tattered remains of a child is not narrative. Satellite images of powdered city blocks are not narrative. It’s just reality. Right there in your face.

Western civilization is dominated by propaganda. The “freedom” and “democracy” we think we have is an illusion that has been carefully cultivated by those who manipulate the way we think, speak, act and vote by mass-scale psychological manipulation — as Chomsky says, propaganda is to a democracy what the bludgeon is to a totalitarian state. A mind-controlled dystopia is not some dark future that awaits humanity if things go terribly wrong for us; it is already presently the case.

Propagandists are able to control civilization so effectively because they understand that humans are storytelling creatures whose lives are dominated by mental narrative, so if you can control the narratives the humans are telling each other, you can control the humans. A globe-spanning empire centralized around the United States depends heavily on its ability to indoctrinate us with subtle mass media messaging from a very early age.

The Gaza massacre throws a big fat monkey wrench in all that, because the raw data coming out of it is so transparently horrifying that no amount of narrative spin can make it look acceptable. The fact that the US and its allies are helping Israel murder children by the thousands is a giant glitch in the narrative matrix.

The longer this continues, the more people are going to wake up out of the propaganda-induced coma the empire has had them in all their lives. The more people are going to realize that their government is not what it has been pretending to be and the media have not been telling them the truth about the world. As the western empire backs the slaughter of thousands of children, the discrepancies between what the propaganda tells us about our society and what our society actually is are being brightly illuminated.

By murdering thousands of children in Gaza, the empire has exposed its true face in front of everyone. And the people aren’t liking what they see. #Israel #Palestine

October 31, 2023 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

TODAY. Australia’s democracy betrayed – by its pathetic subservient-to-USA Prime Minister Anthony Albanese

Australia’s Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has once again exercised his snivelling sycophantic subservience to the USA. Albanese explained that he wouldn’t ask U.S. President Jo Biden to interfere in the justice system, in order to free Australian citizen Julian Assange.

Meanwhile Albanese is enthusiastically promising to boost the American military industries to the tune of way beyond $300Billion for (almost certainly useless) nuclear submarines, and any other bits of deadly hardware that the USA wants to flog off.

If this pathetic cringing about Assange’s persecution is not enough to convince you of how pathetic is the Australian government – what about its behaviour at the United Nations?

Australia has abstained from casting a vote in a UN resolution calling for an immediate humanitarian truce in Gaza, arguing it was “incomplete” because it did not mention Hamas as the perpetrator of the 7 October attack. In the face of the atrocity now being perpetrated in Gaza – the Albanese government is again cowardly in its subservience to USA.

The Obama administration did not pursue Julian Assange.

It was the Trump administration which indicted Julian Assange under the Espionage Act

In 2013, The Washington Post reported that the Obama administration had all but concluded it would not pursue Assange because they could not do so without also pursuing media outlets that published WikiLeaks cables, including The New York Times, the Post and Britain’s Guardian newspaper.In 2013, The Washington Post reported that the Obama administration had all but concluded it would not pursue Assange because they could not do so without also pursuing media outlets that published WikiLeaks cables, including The New York Times, the Post and Britain’s Guardian newspaper. https://www.smh.com.au/world/europe/assange-defence-questions-why-obama-didn-t-seek-to-prosecute-him-20200915-p55w09.html

October 29, 2023 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

They Let Humanitarian Aid In. Then They Bombed It So That Gaza Would Starve.

One of the bakeries that Israel bombed in Nuseirat refugee camp had just received a shipment of flour from UNRWA meant to cover the food needs of the entire camp. Israel waited to bomb it once all the flour was unloaded.

By Tareq S. Hajjaj / Mondoweiss October 27, 2023  https://scheerpost.com/2023/10/27/they-let-humanitarian-aid-in-then-they-bombed-it-so-that-gaza-would-starve/

The following report is a consolidation of voice recordings sent by Mondoweiss Gaza Correspondent Tareq Hajjaj on October 25.

The situation is more terrifying than any previous day. People have been standing in long lines outside bakeries to get a small bag of bread for hours — six hours, seven hours, every day. But in the last few days, over ten bakeries have been targeted in the south, the so-called “safe zone” where the Israeli army told us to go. But it was a trap. They wanted to cram us into one place and start bombing us again. They’re targeting bakeries, and we don’t even hear reports of Hamas members among the dead.

One of the bakeries targeted in Nuseirat refugee camp had just received a huge shipment of flour from UNRWA, which had agreed with the bakery to sell the bread from the flour at half-price for the camp residents. UNRWA had just finished unloading the shipment, which was meant to cover the needs of the entire Nuseirat area, when the bakery was bombed and completely destroyed. They aren’t only targeting people and homes. They’re letting in aid, and then they destroy it before it reaches the people who need it. It’s calculated and deliberate. It’s meant to exterminate the civilian population.

By now, we know what kinds of missiles are being used to target us. There are kinds whose sole purpose is destruction, and there are other kinds that are designed to kill and are launched at crowds — people are calling them “killing missiles” because they’re designed to kill every living thing within a wide radius. People have started congregating at barber shops and hair salons to charge their cell phones because most of those salons use solar energy to charge the batteries that provide those shops with electricity, so now those shops are also being targeted by these kinds of “killing” missiles. The Israeli army bombed two of the salons, one in Khan Younis and one in Nuseirat refugee camp. They hit the salons only, not the areas near them. It wasn’t collateral damage; it was a deliberate strike on civilians.

These missiles explode inside the salon and killed everyone inside, but the building is left standing. Those who don’t die are ripped into pieces, their wounds critical in almost every case. A person can lose half their body. The sounds of these missiles are the scariest because the missile relies on the force of the explosion itself to kill its target. The other day, I started hearing other bombs being dropped that I’ve never heard before in Gaza. The bomb would be preceded by a long pronounced whistle, but when it explodes, its sound is lower than the other bombs. Artillery strikes have also become routine in the south, coming from the eastern side of the Gaza Strip. But the most prevalent missiles are the ones that are designed to destroy wide areas and level buildings. It depends on where the targeted areas are, but you can see the evidence of their use by looking at the scale of the destruction in Gaza.

All of this means that people are afraid to leave their homes even for basic necessities. When people stand in line for bread, they’re terrified. When they move in the streets, they’re terrified. The missiles target the markets, places where there are a lot of people, and they are all killed. We never hear that a Hamas operative was killed in these strikes. It’s always women, children, random people walking through the market. People aren’t leaving their homes anymore for any reason. In the house where I’m staying, not one of us is prepared to go stand in line at a bakery because we know that, at any moment, the bakery might be targeted. It doesn’t matter if you’re a civilian or not. But I have to venture out on many days, whether it’s to get baby formula for my son, diapers, or medicine. And every moment, I keep thinking that this is the day I’m going to die.

#Israe; #Palestine

October 28, 2023 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

IAEA warning after explosions heard near Khmelnitsky nuclear power stations

International Atomic Energy Agency Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi warns that nearby explosions which shattered windows at Ukraine’s Khmelnitsky nuclear power plant “show just how close it was – and underlines the extremely precarious nuclear safety situation … which will continue as long as this tragic war goes on”.

WNN 27 Oct 23

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) experts stationed at the plant in western Ukraine said air raid sirens sounded at 01:26 local time on Wednesday followed by two loud explosions which they were later told were two drones being shot down 5 kilometres and 20 kilometres from the site.

Although the site was not hit or have its operations affected, the IAEA reported that “shockwaves damaged the windows of several buildings at the site, including the passageway to the reactor buildings, an integrated auxiliary building, a special equipment building, the training centre, as well as other facilities, the plant said. The seismic monitoring stations installed in the vicinity of Khmelnitsky nuclear power plant also recorded the seismic impacts of the blasts”………

Grossi said: “Next time, we may not be so fortunate. Hitting a nuclear power plant must be avoided at all costs.”

Khmelnitsky’s first reactor was connected to the grid in 1987, but work on three other reactors was halted in 1990. Work on the second reactor restarted and it was connected to the grid in 2004 but units 3 and 4 remain uncompleted.

The primary focus of safety concerns for the IAEA since the outbreak of the war has been on the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant which has been under Russian military control since early March 2022. It is located on the frontline between the forces, and although it has not been reported to have been hit by shelling in recent months, military activity nearby has continued. In its update on the situation at the weekend, the IAEA said its experts at the site “have continued to hear explosions almost every day and they have also heard occasional machine gun fire”. https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/IAEA-warning-after-explosions-heard-near-Khmelnits #nuclear #antinuclear #NoNukes #radiation

October 28, 2023 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Zionist think tank publishes blueprint for Palestinian genocide

KIT KLARENBERG·OCTOBER 24, 2023  https://thegrayzone.com/2023/10/24/zionist-think-tank-palestinian-genocide/

As Israel’s carpet bombing of Gaza entered its third week, leaving over 5000 dead and at least one million residents displaced, a Tel Aviv-based think tank published a blueprint for self-proclaimed Jewish state’s final solution.

In a white paper released over a week after the Hamas-led surprise attack on Israeli military bases and kibbutzes, The Institute for National Security and Zionist Strategy outlined “a plan for resettlement and final rehabilitation in Egypt of the entire population of Gaza,” based on the “unique and rare opportunity to evacuate the entire Gaza Strip” that Israel’s latest assault on the besieged costal enclave provided.

Published in Hebrew on the organization’s website, the paper was authored by Amir Weitman, “an investment manager and visiting researcher” at the Institute who also leads the libertarian caucus of Israel’s ruling Likud Party. The document began by noting that there are 10 million vacant housing units in neighboring Egypt that could be “immediately” filled with Palestinians. Weitman then assured readers that the “sustainable plan…aligns well with the economic and geopolitical interests of the State of Israel, Egypt, the USA and Saudi Arabia.”

Weitman’s ethnic cleansing proposal echoes forced transfer plans advanced in recent days by former Israeli officials while capitalizing on evacuation orders delivered to the entire civilian population of northern Gaza by the Israeli military.

Weitman’s sinister blueprint imagined Israel purchasing these properties at a cost of $5 – 8 billion dollars, a whopping price-tag that reflects just 1 – 1.5 percent of Israel’s GDP.

“These sums of money [required to cleanse Gaza] in relation to the Israeli economy, are minimal,” Weitman posits. “Investing individual billions of dollars to solve this difficult issue is an innovative, cheap and sustainable solution.”

Weitman acknowledged that his plan virtually amounts to Israel “buying the Gaza Strip,” arguing the move would be “a very worthwhile investment” for Zionists because it would “add a lot of value over time.” He asserted local “land conditions” in the area would provide “many” Israeli settlers a high standard of living, therefore allowing for an expansion of settlements in Gush Dan near the Egyptian border, giving “a tremendous impetus to settlement in the Negev.”

In December 2021, Tel Aviv approved plans to establish four settlements in the Negev to house 3,000 settler families.

A genocidal war to end all wars

Though Egypt has so far rejected Israeli pressure for a mass exodus of Gaza residents through the southern Rafah crossing, Weitman argued Cairo will welcome the mass exodus of Palestinian refugees  as “an immediate stimulus” that will “provide a tremendous and immediate benefit to al-Sisi’s regime.” 

Weitman claimed that Cairo’s major creditors — including France, Germany and Saudi Arabia — are likely to welcome a revitalized Egyptian economy, courtesy of “Israeli investment” in the Palestinians’ permanent removal. He surmizes that Western Europe will welcome “the transfer of the entire Gaza population to Egypt,” because it will significantly “reduce the risk of illegal immigration…a tremendous advantage.” Meanwhile, he expects Riyadh to embrace the move because the “evacuation of the Gaza Strip means the elimination of a significant ally of Iran.”

The ethnic cleansing of Gaza would mean an end to “ceaseless, repeated rounds of fighting, which inflame the fires of hatred against Israel.” Moreover, “closing the Gaza issue will ensure a stable and increased supply of Israeli gas to Egypt and its liquefaction,” from the vast reserves seized by Israel near Gaza’s shores.

Palestinians in turn are expected to jump at the chance to be forcibly transferred from their homes rather than “living in poverty under the rule of Hamas.” It is therefore necessary for Israel to “create the right conditions” for them to “immigrate” from Gaza to Cairo. Weitman noted that Gaza’s two million inhabitants “constitute less than 2% of the total Egyptian population, which today already includes 9 million refugees. A drop in the ocean.”

The paper ominously concluded: “There is no doubt that in order for this plan to come to fruition, many conditions must exist at the same time. Currently, these conditions are met and it is unclear when such an opportunity will arise again, if ever. This is the time to act. Now.”

“If we want to remain alive, we will have to kill and kill and kill”

As barbarous as these proposals might seem, they reflect what many Israeli officials appear to be murmuring in private, and what at least one former government spinmeister has openly pushed as an altruistic solution to the Palestinian “problem.”

“There is a huge expanse, almost endless space in the Sinai Desert, just on the other side of Gaza,” former Deputy Foreign Minister of Israel, Danny Ayalon, echoed the genocidal Zionist logic behind Weitman’s proposal in an interview with Al Jazeera’s Marc Lamont Hill. “The idea is—and this is not the first time it will be done—for them to leave over to the open areas where we and the international community will prepare the infrastructure — you know, 10 cities with food and water — just like for the refugees of Syria.”

In 2004, Zionist demographer Arnon Sofer of Haifa University laid out detailed plans for the isolation of Gaza directly to Ariel Sharon’s government. This entailed withdrawing Israeli forces from the area entirely and constructing a stringent system of surveillance and security to ensure nothing and no one went in or out without Zionist proviso. He predicted a perpetual bloodbath:

“When 2.5 million people live in a closed-off Gaza, it’s going to be a human catastrophe. Those people will become even bigger animals than they are today…The pressure at the border will be awful. It’s going to be a terrible war. So, if we want to remain alive, we will have to kill and kill and kill. All day, every day…the only thing that concerns me is how to ensure the boys and men who are going to have to do the killing will be able to return home to their families and be normal human beings.”

The Institute has put forward a clean and easy fantasy of achieving the same goal put forward by Sofer. For it to succeed, all Palestinians have to do is put down their weapons and head toward the desert of permanent exile. #Israel #Palestine

October 28, 2023 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Ghoulish White House response to genocidal ethnic cleansing of Gaza

Walt Zlotow , West Suburban Peace Coalition,  Glen Ellyn IL  25 Oct 23

White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby advised Gazans Tuesday that their destruction and ethnic cleansing will continue relentlessly.  “This is war. It is combat. It is bloody, ugly and it’s going to be messy and innocent civilians are going to be hurt going forward.”

No spokesman Kirby, not just hurt. Innocent civilians in Gaza are dying every day, every hour, every minute under thousands of bombs but no food, no water, no medicine; not even electricity to run their overwhelmed hospitals.  

It’s no longer a war. It’s the mass destruction of 2.3 million Palestinians being systematically killed and driven from their open air prison by Israel and wholly enabled by the United States. 

It is the worst, most grotesque and inhumane policy of the United State I’ve witnessed in my 70 plus years of following American foreign affairs. 

Perpetual war in Ukraine that could go nuclear is not enough for Biden. He’s all in now for perpetual war in the Middle East that could explode into a massive regional war at any moment, if it doesn’t kill or remove all the Palestinians from Gaza first.  #Israel #USA #Palestine

October 26, 2023 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

White House Says Continued Civilian Slaughter “Is Going To Happen” In Gaza

CAITLIN JOHNSTONE, OCT 26, 2023 https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/white-house-says-continued-civilian?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=82124&post_id=138276694&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=1ise1&utm_medium=email

The information interests of Israel and its western allies have been greatly served by framing this onslaught as a “war”, when that label doesn’t actually apply here. A war is when two nations or groups are in a state of armed combat with each other; one side may be more powerful than the other, but the combat is decidedly going two ways.

That’s not what’s happening here. Israel is raining high-tech military explosives upon civilian infrastructure inside a giant concentration camp densely populated with children, and every now and then a militant in Gaza fires back a type of rocket that is essentially a glorified firework which historically hardly ever kills anyone. Israel is killing civilians by the thousands and turning entire city blocks to rubble, while Hamas and other resistance groups in Gaza are doing some light property damage in what amounts to a performative display of defiance.

That’s not a war. That’s a massacre.

By calling this something that it isn’t instead of what it is, Israel apologists are able to respond to all criticisms of its actions with a shrug and a “This is war, man. War is ugly, what can I tell ya?” They wouldn’t be able to do that if they were addressing this atrocity truthfully.

The only thing truthful about Kirby’s framing was his statement that the slaughter of civilians is going to keep happening. The death toll from airstrikes in Gaza has reportedly surpassed 6,500, with the 24-hour periods from Monday to Tuesday and Tuesday to Wednesday both exceeding 700 deaths each. As Antiwar’s Dave DeCamp notes, this large escalation in deaths coincides with claims from Benjamin Netanyahu that Israel has escalated its bombing campaign.

This is all being funded and supported by the United States, who has been ramping up its military presence in the middle east in some pretty disconcerting ways. Not one but two US aircraft carrier strike groups have been deployed to the eastern Mediterranean since the killing began, and the Pentagon has told the press that it expects a “significant escalation” in attacks on US troops in the middle east in response to Israel’s relentless assault on Palestinian lives. US military advisers have been sent to Israel to help the IDF prepare for its ground invasion of Gaza, and as usual Australia is joining in the US warmongering by sending more troops to the middle east as well.

So we can expect a lot more killing in the near future, one way or the other. No meaningful pressure is being placed on Israel to stop butchering civilians, and an escalation into a broader war in the middle east is not at all outside the realm of possibility. Things could be headed in a direction that makes a genocidal massacre look like sunny days in retrospect. #Israel #USA #Palestine

October 26, 2023 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Propaganda War: Pro-Israel Trolls are Mobbing Twitter’s Community Notes

An army of pro-Israel trolls has invaded the Community Notes function on X/Twitter, attempting to influence the online debate around the ongoing crisis.

SCHEERPOST, By Alan MacLeod / MintPress News, October 25, 2023

Almost as important as its military campaign for Israel is its battle to control its public image. Even as it kills thousands of people in Gaza, the small Middle Eastern nation is spending millions of dollars on a propaganda war, purchasing ads on YouTube, Facebook, Instagram and other online apps. At the same time, an army of pro-Israel trolls has invaded the Community Notes function on X/Twitter, attempting to influence the online debate around the ongoing crisis.

Spending Millions to Whitewash Massacres

Since October 7, Israel has inundated YouTube with advertisements, with its Ministry of Foreign Affairs spending nearly $7.1 million on ads in the two weeks following Hamas’ incursion. According to journalist Sophia Smith Galer, this equates to almost one billion impressions.

With its campaign, the Israeli government overwhelmingly focused on rich Western nations, its top targets being France, Germany, the United Kingdom, Belgium and the United States. In France alone, the ministry spent $3.8 million. Other branches of the Israeli government undoubtedly also spent money on ads. The overwhelming message of the campaign was that Hamas are terrorists linked with ISIS and that Israel – a modern, secular democracy – is defending itself from foreign aggression.

Much of the content blatantly violated YouTube’s terms of service, including a number of ads featuring gory shots of dead bodies. Another ad that piqued public attention was played before videos aimed at babies. Amid a scene of pink rainbows and soothing music, text appears reading:

We know that your child cannot read this. We have an important message to tell you as parents. 40 infants were murdered in Israel by the terrorists Hamas (ISIS). Just as you would do everything for your child, we will do everything to protect ours. Now hug your baby and stand with us.”

Nearly all the Ministry of Foreign Affairs views are inorganic. Most of their YouTube uploads garner only a few hundred views. But the ones selected as advertisements have hundreds of thousands or even millions of views.

Israel’s YouTube campaign has been matched by expansive attempts to control the public debate on other social media platforms. In barely a week, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs ran 30 ads seen over 4 million times on Twitter. Like with YouTube, analytics data shows they were inordinately targeting adults in Western Europe.

One ad contained the words “ISIS” and “Hamas,” showing disturbing imagery that gradually sped up until the names of the two groups blended into one. In case the message was not clear enough, it ended with the message, “The world defeated ISIS. The world will defeat Hamas.”

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has also bought large numbers of advertisements on Facebook, Instagram, mobile games and apps such as language trainer Duolingo.

Taking Notes

The Community Notes function on Twitter is an attempt to fight false information. Contributors who sign up for the feature can leave notes on any post, adding context to potentially misleading statements. The community then votes on these notes, and if enough people consider the note useful, it is presented below the original tweet.

While it has its advantages, the system is ripe for abuse and infiltration. Since October 7, an army of pro-Israel trolls has brigaded the function and is attempting to undermine and attack as many posts as possible showing Israel in a negative light or Palestine in a positive one. This has often been done in an attempt to hide Israeli war crimes.

“If you’re not a Community Notes contributor, then you may be unaware that any tweet about Gaza that poses an inconvenience to Israeli information interests is being mobbed by Israel apologists working to manipulate the narrative, including on tweets just voicing an opinion,” wrote journalist Caitlin Johnstone.

A case in point is the attack on the Al-Ahli Hospital in Gaza. Under a tweet from journalist Dan Cohen noting that Hananya Naftali (an aide to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu) had boasted that Israel carried out the attack before deleting his message, Community Notes wrote that “Naftali has openly retracted his statement, as conclusive evidence has since shown the explosion was fired from a misfired rocket from Gaza.” The “conclusive evidence” offered was a statement from the Pentagon and a tweet from a former Israeli Air Force squad commander.

Meanwhile, a tweet from Lebanese political commentator Sara Abdallah breaking the news that Israel had just bombed the St. Porphyrius Church in Gaza was flagged by Community Notes. This meant that all users saw a note added reading, “False. Saint Porphyrius Orthodox Church in Gaza has posted they are untouched and operating as of October 9, 2023.” The problem was this was breaking news related to October 19, so any statement before that time was meaningless in assessing the news. Further undermining the community note was that Israel almost immediately accepted responsibility for the destruction.

Pro-Israel trolls have also not been above blatant smears. On a popular post from myself where I shared a picture of Joe Biden and Benjamin Netanyahu embracing with the words, “In the future, this image will be looked upon as one of the most shameful moments in history,” Community Notes added the message: “Alan MacLeod is a Senior Staff Writer at MintPress News. MintPress is renowned for publishing far-left disinformation and antisemitic conspiracy theories.” Other MintPress staff, such as Lowkey and Mnar Adley, have also been consistently targeted with smears and arguments dressed up as clarifications.

Seeing What Sticks

In the fog of war, the Middle Eastern network Al-Jazeera has been a consistent source of live reporting. The well-funded network has a large team of reporters in Palestine and the wider region and has a long history of covering the conflict.

Therefore, when Al-Jazeera released an investigation that found no evidence to support Israel’s claim that a failed Palestinian rocket launch was to blame for the damage at the Al-Ahli Hospital, the story went viral.

This was a major blow to Israel and its apologists, who did not want the blood of hundreds of innocent doctors and patients on their hands. And so, pro-Israel users attempted to get community notes plastered all over the Al-Jazeera story……………………………………………………….

Wiki Wars

This is not the first time that Israel and its supporters have attempted to hijack and manipulate public highways of information. For over a decade, well-organized and well-funded Israeli groups have infiltrated Wikipedia and attempted to rewrite the encyclopedia to defend Israeli actions and demonize voices who speak out against them.

One of the most well-known of these is the Yesha Council, which, as far back as 2010, claimed to have 12,000 active members. Yesha members painstakingly police Wikipedia, removing troublesome facts and framing articles in a manner more favorable to Israel…………………………………………………

Spies Among Us

One of the reasons that social media companies have not cracked down on disingenuous pro-Israeli activities could be that former Israeli government and military officials hold top positions at a great number of the world’s most important platforms.

Emi Palmor, for example, is one of 22 individuals who sit on Facebook’s Oversight Board. Palmor was formerly the General Director of the Israeli Ministry of Justice. In this role, she directly oversaw the stripping away of Palestinian rights. She created a so-called “Internet Referral Unit,” which would push Facebook to delete Palestinian content that the Israeli government objected to. In her new role at the Oversight Board, she effectively writes Facebook’s rules, deciding what content to promote to the platform’s 3 billion users and what to censor, delete or suppress.

Palmor is also a veteran of Unit 8200, perhaps the most controversial unit in the Israeli military. Described as “Israel’s NSA,” Unit 8200 is the centerpiece of the country’s high-tech surveillance industry. Unit 8200 spies on the Palestinian population, compiling vast dossiers on millions of people, including their medical history, sex lives, and search histories, to be used for extortion later. ………………………………………………….

A MintPress News investigation unearthed a network of hundreds of Unit 8200 veterans working in influential positions at some of the planet’s most important tech and social media companies, including Google, Amazon and Meta (Facebook).

For example, Google’s Head of Strategy and Operations for Research, Gavriel Goidel, was previously a senior officer in Unit 8200, rising to become Head of Learning. Facebook Messenger’s Head of Data Science, Eyal Klein, served for six years in Unit 8200, rising to the rank of captain. And after serving in the controversial unit, Ayelet Steinitz became Microsoft’s Head of Global Strategic Alliances…………………………………………………………. more https://scheerpost.com/2023/10/25/propaganda-war-pro-israel-trolls-are-mobbing-twitters-community-notes/ #Israel #Palestine

October 26, 2023 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

We’re oceans apart on nuclear-powered subs

By Kym Bergmann, October 26, 2023  https://www.theaustralian.com.au/special-reports/were-oceans-apart-on-nuclearpowered-subs/news-story/be5a4f72abb23e5e2a9bab18f68b1b71

Listening to the Australian government and the local media, one would be entitled to think that it’s now a simple question of when will we receive nuclear-powered submarines, not if.

However, this is not the perspective of various parties in the US, with even the basic enabling legislation stuck in the Senate since June.

Called drily the “May 2023 DOD Legislative Package Regarding Proposed Sale of Virginia-class Boats Under AUKUS Agreement”, its aim seems to have been widely misunderstood in Australia.

Assuming that it is passed at some stage, it does not guarantee that we will be sold anything – it puts in place various measures and milestones that define how the process needs to work. Ultimately, the sale will still depend on the attitude of a future secretary of the Navy, who must advise congress for final approval.

One of the first things the legislation will do is clear the way for our government to transfer $3.326bn to the Pentagon coffers, seemingly with no visibility on how the US will spend it. We know the precise amount because it appears in a small footnote in the Defence Department’s annual budget papers. A change in the law is necessary because this transfer is unprecedented in US history and there are no existing mechanisms that allow it to happen.

There is also no mechanism for the money to be returned if the sale of submarines does not happen, and everyone from Defence Minister Richard Marles downwards has been mute about why we are handing over such a huge amount of money – something apparently volunteered by Australian officials during early negotiations. The intent is supposedly to strengthen US industry so that it reaches a point where it is producing so many Virginia-class submarines that some will be available for export.

Even determining when that point will be reached is speculative – and the legislation is no help because amendments include statements such as Australia will receive two submarines within 15 years, or they will be available for export when the US is launching them at a rate of three per year. Commentators have spoken of the need to be building them at two, or 2½ a year. The current pattern is barely 1½.

Nuclear-powered submarines are one of the most complex things ever constructed by humans, with about five million discrete components in each one. An 8000-tonne Virginia-class boat – the weight of 20 A380 passenger jets – requires a massive supply chain. Trying to ramp up production is a huge undertaking, which might work – but it also might not.

According to US officials, an extra 100,000 skilled workers are going to be needed in the next decade to meet even the two-per-year target. This is because the highest priority for the US Navy is the new Columbia-class ballistic missile firing submarines under construction. In addition, the Virginia-class – the first of which was launched in 2003 – is proving to be more maintenance intensive than expected, with close to 40 per cent of the current fleet tied up because of worker and spare parts shortages.

Some of this is spelled out in a section rather ominously titled: Limitation on Transfer of Submarines to Australia pending certification on domestic production capacity.

The government has no idea what to do, only a hope that it will all work out at a point in the distant future, preferably in a galaxy far away

The legislation also requires reporting requirements that appear incompatible with how our secretive Defence Department does things, with the connivance of the government. It says that within 90 days of passage, the Secretary of Defense – currently Lloyd Austin – must report to Congress on the cost, schedule, milestones and funding requirements involved in the sale of a Virginia-class submarine. This needs to be done in a way that will not adversely affect the capabilities of the USN. Since the US has a level of transparency we can only dream of, there are numerous other reporting requirements. One of these states: “A description of progress by the Government of Australia in building a new submarine facility to support the basing and disposition of a nuclear-attack submarine on the east coast of Australia.”

As Richard Marles has ruled out making a decision on the location of the base until next decade – after all, no one wants to live adjacent to a nuclear target with a consequent fall in house prices – it seems we will be in early breach of one of the conditions.

Another is that we will need to show that plans for other Australian military acquisitions will not be distorted – in other words the US is expecting to see evidence of a major increase in Defence spending, not just a vague promise.

If not before, this is likely to come to a head when the US asks for detailed plans for how we dispose locally of the highly radioactive SG9 reactors containing bomb grade material – U235 has a half-life of 704 million years – on Australian soil. At the moment, the government has no idea what to do, only a hope that it will all work out at a point in the distant future, preferably in a galaxy far away. Why we agreed to this provision when the US already has a system in place for decommissioning their own submarines is unknown.

In related news, a team in the UK led by BAE Systems has been awarded a $7.5bn contract for early work on the future AUKUS nuclear-powered submarine, with construction starting in the late 2030s.

This does not seem to involve Australia, indicating that we will either have to take whatever the British decide to sell us, or our specific modifications – such as for US weapons – will have to be made at a later point, increasing cost and risk.

October 26, 2023 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Let’s just bust all those comfortable Panglossian lies and stupidities

I focus on the lies of the nuclear lobby – because these are the most blatant, pervasive, of the lies that are swallowed up and regurgitated by political leaders and the media.

Lies about “cheap” “clean” “safe” “nothing-to-do-with-weapons” nuclear power, – especially the (non-existent) SMRs – Small Modular Nuclear Reactors.

Dr Pangloss, (from Voltaire’s 17th Century satirical novel “Candide” ) is the essence of foolish, gullible optimism. And a model – for our age – not to be.

But there are so many other prevailing lies that need to be busted, too.

My current top favourite is “The Cloud”. Wottlehell is The Cloud anyway? Clean? Pretty? Up in the sky?.

No, The Cloud is a vast number of “farms” containing dirty great steel skyscraper-like containers, powered by huge amounts of fossil-fuel electricity, requiring great lagoons of water for cooling.

And inside them? Every bit of digital anything that happens from great important dissertations, youtubes, whatever, and everybody’s pointless little emails, tweets, emojis – the world’s ever-increasing digital rubbish.

Renewable energy – big wind and solar – are the answer?

Not really. They require huge amounts of energy to build. They use lots of rare minerals, and plastic. Putting big wind turbines into the oceans is damaging to the marine ecology.

We’re reducing greenhouse emissions. No – they’re still rising

Cop 28 UN Climate Change Conference will lead the way for real climate action. Really?

The United Arab Emirates is hosting the UN climate summit in November and the president of Cop28 is Sultan Al Jaber, who is also chief executive of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company. At least a dozen employees from the United Arab Emirate’s state-owned
oil company have apparently taken up roles with the office .

Debunking Degrowth. – We learn that reducing energy use, reducing consumption, living more simply – there has been a fair bit of propaganda about – telling the world that these methods are just not feasible. (But they might be the only answer)

Dr Pangloss would say that now “Everything is the best, in the best of all possible worlds“

Well, it’s not. I mean, apart from global overheating, biodiversity loss, diminishing resources, deforestation, water shortages, plastic pollution, climate refugees, pandemics, increasing conflicts – everything’s fine – yes?

October 26, 2023 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized | Leave a comment