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Seven years after Maidan divided country, Ukraine intensifies shelling of Donbass to deafening media silence

By Eva Bartlett | RT | March 2, 2021

While much of the world is focused on Covid-related issues, Ukraine’s seven-year war on the people of Donbass continues. In recent weeks, Kiev’s shelling of civilians has intensified, met by the predictable Western media silence.

Ostensibly, following the Minsk agreements, there was a ceasefire. In reality, Donbass residents in villages bordering peace lines are incessantly subject to Ukrainian shelling.

Ukraine uses heavy weapons in violation of the agreement, including 82mm and 120mm mortar shells, routinely shelling at night when Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) observers are not patrolling the area.

But Ukrainian forces also shell during the day, and have done so a lot more of late, including allegedly with phosphorus, and shelling further behind the front lines.

Most people could be forgiven for not being aware of events in Ukraine’s breakaway Republics of Donetsk and Lugansk (DPR/LPR) in the Donbass region, with corporate media either not touching the matter or doing so with glasses tinted heavily by the Ukrainian government.

There are in fact journalists and news sites that regularly give updates, but they aren’t as widely known as they should be.

From my own September 2019 reporting from frontline villages of the DPR, I maintain contact with reporters and residents who update on the situation there.

One of these was the mayor of Gorlovka, a city northeast of Donetsk, who on his Telegram channel on February 19 detailed the nearby villages of Zaitsevo and Mine 6/7 being under heavy weapons fire (by Ukraine). On February 20, he wrote of Mine 6/7 and another village being heavily shelled since early morning, with locals saying more than one hundred hits occurred.

The same day, Alexey Karpushev, a resident of the northern city of Gorlovka, wrote, “From about five in the morning until now, there is heavy shelling of the city from the Air Force artillery.”

According to Karpushev – who is a former first secretary of Gorlovka’s committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine – in recent weeks, the number of attacks from the Ukrainian army “increased significantly.” He mentioned that a 22 year old civilian was recently seriously injured in the attacks.

I asked why the increased shelling now.

“Ukraine’s aggression intensified just when Biden came to power in the United States.” It is quite likely that President Volodymyr Zelensky feels more confident with the return of the  warmongers to the White House. Not long after Biden took power America resumed illegally bombing Syria.

We’re Not Living, We’re Surviving

In villages northwest and north of Gorlovka, passing many boarded up and destroyed homes (including one still smouldering from the shell-induced fire that gutted it), I met residents who stayed in spite of the nightly shelling and damage to their homes, because they had no other option.

One of these was a 74-year-old woman, whose home was falling apart after having been shelled on multiple occasions. “I’m afraid at night; that’s when they start shelling heavily. My husband is dead. I have nowhere to go.”

In another village I met a man who was about to walk down the lane that I had been cautioned to avoid due to the risk of being shot by Ukrainian snipers. His house was in a district largely unpopulated now because getting there meant being in the line of fire, but like others I met, he had nowhere else to go.

He consented to speak, but off camera, saying Ukraine had shelled his home directly after he did a video interview. He also said he had once been shot in the leg by a sniper and many other times had to drop to the ground when snipers started firing.

Another man in the area wasn’t worried about speaking on camera, although his house had also been damaged by Ukrainian attacks.

“Why do you support Nazis if you remember WW2? Why do you now support the Nazis? Openly Nazis… Why is Europe silent? Everyone comes here and agrees with me, but nothing changes. OSCE shouts, but when they are under fire, they are silent, they don’t say that Ukraine attacks them.”

In Zaitsevo, another frontline village, the head of administration, Irina Dikun, told me of the hell they had been living for the past six years, saying the ceasefires never reached her village.

“Here, we are not living, we’re surviving. Those who could leave, have left. Those who remain are mostly elderly.”

Ambulances couldn’t reach homes close to the front line where Ukraine was shelling, so she learned to drive and took First Aid training in order to help injured residents. In addition to detailing Ukraine’s destruction, “street by street,” of the village, she emphasized that what Western media claims about Russia invading the breakaway republics was false.

“There is no Russian invasion here. Just normal, peaceful people who wanted to live another way. In the beginning, we didn’t want to make a Republic; we just wanted to be autonomous. But we were not listened to. Ukraine moved its armed forces against the people and used their artillery against us.”

I also spoke with numerous DPR soldiers, asking them, among many things, why they had picked up weapons.

“Because of the killing of people in Odessa. That’s what made us join the military, to defend our area,” one soldier said.

Another man said he had initially joined protests against the coup in Kiev, that he “didn’t support the Nazi regime,” and eventually took up arms to defend the DPR.

In those frontline areas, 500 metres from Ukrainian forces, I wore body armour and a helmet. As I listened to various elderly people speak of the near-nightly shelling and heavy machine gun fire they were subject to, it struck me how these brave souls had nothing to protect them, no global body to prevent Ukraine from maiming and killing them, damaging or destroying their homes, year after year.

Meanwhile Ukraine has Western nations whitewashing its crimes and sending it weapons.

Western Ambassadors Get front line Disinfo Tour

On February 11, Ukraine reported that President Zelensky and a gaggle of Western ambassadors visited a front line on the Ukraine-controlled side, with Zelensky waffling on about the importance of his cohorts in disinformation seeing “with their own eyes” what is happening in Donbass.

Yeah, no. They didn’t see anything beyond the sterile visit they were allotted. They certainly would not have heard the anguished accounts I did on the other side of that front line.

They wouldn’t know of the many people, many of whom are elderly, living in shells of homes, or the basement of a school, deprived of electricity, water, cooking gas, reliant on aid for their survival. Nor that Ukraine has reportedly blocked UN and Red Cross aid from entering the DPR, including recently.

On February 24 and 25, Ukrainian forces shelled Yelenovka, south of Donetsk, a point through which humanitarian aid from the UN and Red Cross was to enter, preventing the aid delivery.

Preventing the entrance of aid, on top of continually shelling civilian areas, is the furthest from Ukraine “fulfilling its obligations to establish a ceasefire regime,” as President Zelensky claimed to Western ambassadors.

While Russian officials warn of the dire fate of 4 million people under Ukrainian shelling, Western officials either remain silent or fabricate more accusations against Russia and against Donbass’ defenders.

Western media have predictably remained silent on Ukraine’s crimes, painting defenders of Donbass as “pro-Russian separatists” with no context as to what people in Donbass actually want. From what I heard there, all they want is autonomy from the criminal government in Ukraine, and above all an end to the war.

And while Western officials and media harp on about a supposed “Russian invasion” of the republics, even the chairman of the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission recently emphasized that was untrue.

An aside: one of the soldiers asked me about the reaction of people in the West to Ukraine’s brazen display of Nazi symbols. My reply was that, thanks to Western media, most people don’t know.

Recently, the head of the DPR warned, “We need to be ready for anything” from Ukraine. Indeed, with the pro-war Biden administration, we can surely expect more Western support to Ukraine in further bombing the people of Donbass.

Eva Bartlett is a Canadian independent journalist and activist. She has spent years on the ground covering conflict zones in the Middle East, especially in Syria and Palestine (where she lived for nearly four years). Follow her on Twitter @EvaKBartlett

March 2, 2021 Posted by | Militarism, War Crimes | , | Leave a comment

Biden Digs Up the Hatchet

By Vladimir Danilov – New Eastern Outlook – 02.03.2021

Just one month has passed since the newly elected, 46th US President started his tenure in the White House, and he has clearly shown that his foreign policy strategy for the next four years is by no means dovish. Demonstratively renouncing the “era of the previous Republican president”, which was, incidentally, marked by the fact that Donald Trump was the only US president over the past thirty years who did not start any new wars, Joe Biden decided from his very first days to plunge the US – and the entire world – into the cold world of armed confrontation, something that was a trademark for the 44th US president, Democrat Barack Obama.

It is worth recalling how right when Barack Obama was about to leave office The American Conservative gave an objective assessment for this president (with whom Joe Biden had worked on the same team) who had undeservedly won the Nobel Peace Prize, emphasizing his particular love for the use of brute military force abroad: “Obama [is] … the only president to spend his entire tenure presiding over foreign wars… [T]he US has bombed at least half a dozen countries on his watch, and his administration has assisted other governments in laying waste to one of the poorest countries on earth.” According to Airwars data for that period, during 2014-2016 alone the United States carried out more than 9,600 air raids in Iraq, and about 5,000 in Syria, with dozens of thousands of civilians killed. And in the United States itself, many people died because of Obama’s policies, and therefore it was with good reason that WorldNetDaily back then emphasized that “Obama has been blithely watching coffins float by his entire presidency”.

Having understood from the example set by the 44th President of the United States that the Nobel Peace Prize can be won for efforts that are anything but peaceful, Joe Biden, using a specially chosen slogan: “America is Back”, in his very first days in office started to “intimidate” Russia and China, trying to show everyone “who is in charge in the world.”

Long-suffering Syria (primarily at the hands of the United States itself!) was chosen as the starting point of the “Biden-style” war saga, where the United States launched an airstrike on February 25 on a facility that may have belonged to the Iranian military. According to the American side, the airstrike was a response to a series of attacks that were carried out on US targets in Iraq.

As Assistant to the Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs John Kirby said, the United States executed precision strikes against targets run by pro-Iranian forces in Syria located along the border zone with Iraq. According to US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, the US military allowed the Iraqi side to “develop intelligence” for the operation, and encouraged them to do so. At the same time, Austin stressed that cooperation on the part of the Iraqi side greatly helped to clarify their goals. F-15 fighter jets were involved in executing the US strikes. In its report on Washington’s operation, Reuters emphasized that the order to launch the airstrike was personally given by the head of the White House, Joe Biden.

According to the monitoring group The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), at least three trucks with weapons and ammunition were destroyed in a strike by the US air force in eastern Syria, and at least 17 militants were killed. The militants themselves announced that one person was killed, and that several others suffered minor injuries. The Washington Post also reported on the deaths of people as a result of this airstrike, stressing that before this occurred no US representatives had spoken about eliminating terrorists, or that civilians could have died because of this airstrike.

This strike in Syria by the US Air Force is being fiercely debated in international circles. What was highlighted in particular was that, clearly guided by the “pieces of silver” from the US military-industrial complex that brought Biden to power, the new master in the White House used this attack on Iranian [backed] militias on Syrian territory in an obvious attempt to placate Israel and the Gulf countries, which are afraid of the new American administration sliding towards a pro-Iranian position.

There was emphasis placed on how the consequences of these actions by Washington could be an escalation of military confrontation across the region. Among other risks, what also stands out is the failure of the process charted out to normalize relations between Washington and Tehran on the nuclear deal.

In the telephone conversations between Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif and his Syrian counterpart Faisal Mekdad that took place immediately after the US airstrike on the Syrian-Iraqi border, the ministers pointed out the need for the West to adhere to the UN Security Council resolution on Syria, respect the sovereignty and independence of the Arab republic, and not to lend support to terrorist groups. In addition, they stressed their commitment to the process of settling the situation in Syria as agreed upon during the talks in Astana. The airstrikes that the US Air Force carried out in Syrian territory near the border with Iraq are a manifestation of “American aggression”, the state-run TV channel Al-Ikhbariyah Syria emphasizes. The Syrian government-run TV channel Al-Surya stressed that “the United States took aggressive action against Syria, attacking ground targets in the eastern Deir ez-Zor Governorate”.

As the chair of the Russian Federation Council Foreign Affairs Committee Konstantin Kosachev pointed out, despite the fact that four states are involved in the situation – the United States, Iraq, Iran, and Syria – the United States is the only one overtly using military force, in violation of international law. According to him, the American authorities are again assigning themselves the right to “conduct an investigation, pass sentence, and execute it out of court.”

Discussing the airstrike on Syria carried out by the United States under the leadership of Democrat Joe Biden, even American observers (in particular, the conservative FOX News channel) highlight that his predecessor, Donald Trump, was criticized for taking the same actions by Jen Psaki, the current White House press secretary. For example, users pointed to Psaki’s Twitter post after the 2017 airstrikes, where she questioned the legitimacy of the attacks and stressed that Syria is a sovereign state, even if President Bashar al-Assad is a “brutal dictator.”

After the most recent airstrike, Psaki’s remarks were cited by both social media users and politicians in the United States. For example, Muslim House Representative Ilhan Omar posted a short response to an old Psaki tweet: “Good question.”

March 2, 2021 Posted by | Militarism, War Crimes, Wars for Israel | , , | Leave a comment

US Foreign Policy: War Is Peace

By Stephen Lendman | March 1, 2021

A permanent state of war on invented enemies is longstanding US policy.

It’s been this way throughout most of the post-WW II period.

Terror-bombing Syria last Thursday was one of many examples — escalating US aggression against the nation and people by Biden.

The Syrian Arab Republic threatens no one. President Assad is supported by most Syrians.

Yet Obama/Biden launched preemptive war on the country in March 2011.

US forces illegally occupy northern and southern areas.

The Pentagon and CIA use ISIS and likeminded jihadists as proxy forces to advance US imperial aims in Syria and elsewhere.

Washington under both right wings of its war party intends permanent occupation of the country.

Sergey Lavrov noted the diabolical scheme, saying:

Washington is “making the decision to never leave Syria, even to the point of destroying this country” — more than already he should have added.

Lavrov also stressed the US forces occupy “Syrian territory illegally, in violation of all norms of international law, including Security Council Resolutions on reconciliation in the Syrian Arab Republic.”

“They continue to play the separatism card.”

“They continue to block, using their levers of pressure on other states, any supply even of humanitarian aid, not to mention equipment and materials necessary to restoring the economy in the territories controlled by the government, and in every way possible force their allies to invest in territories outside Damascus’s control.”

“At the same time, they illegally exploit Syria’s hydrocarbon resources” by stealing them.

Longstanding US plans call for partitioning Syria and other regional countries for easier control.

According to former Global Policy Forum director James Paul, partitioning Syria “is the Israeli solution,” adding:

The Jewish state’s “overarching goal is to weaken every Arab state by bringing religion and ethnicity into the equation.”

The plan for Syria is partitioning it into Kurdish, Alawite and Sunni states.

Balkanization of Middle East countries is also longstanding US policy.

Regional expert Mahdi Nazemroaya earlier explained that “(r)egime change and balkanization in Syria is very closely tied to the objective of dismantling the ‘resistance bloc’ formed by Iran, Syria, Hezbollah, the Palestinians, and various Iraqi groups opposed to the US and Israel.”

US/NATO/Israeli regional aggression aims to achieve this objective — what failed so far and won’t likely fare better ahead, but continues anyway.

In cahoots with Israeli interests, Obama/Biden launched preemptive war on Syria in 2011.

For hardliners in both countries, the road to Tehran runs through Damascus.

Control over the Syrian Arab Republic is seen as a way to weaken and isolate Iran and Lebanon’s Hezbollah.

According to Algerian academic Abdelkrim Dekhakhena, Bush/Cheney’s 2003 aggression against Iraq “metamorphosed into an apocalypse that swept the core nations of the region.”

“Chaos and destruction” followed with no end of it in prospect.

Washington’s notion of democracy building is suppressing its emergence everywhere and eliminating it wherever it exists.

Endless US Middle East wars created instability and human misery.

US regional aggression is aided by ISIS and other terrorist groups — created by the CIA to advance Washington’s control over regional countries, their resources and populations.

According to Biden’s doublespeak through his press secretary Psaki — paid to lie for her boss — he OK’d escalated US aggression in Syria to “protect Americans (sic),” adding:

Further aggression will aim to “deescalate tensions.”

The above doublespeak mumbo jumbo defines Washington’s war is peace policy.

Endless US wars by hot and/or other means have nothing to do with democracy building, pursuing peace, or protecting Americans.

They have everything to do with advancing Washington’s diabolical imperial agenda that prioritizes unchallenged global dominance.

Psaki also defied reality by claiming that preemptive terror-bombing of Syria on Thursday underwent a “thorough legal process (sic).”

There’s nothing remotely legal about naked aggression in Syria or anywhere else.

A decade of US war against the Syrian Arab Republic and its long-suffering people perhaps will continue in perpetuity.

The same diabolical agenda continues in Afghanistan, Yemen, and Libya, along with war by other means against numerous invented US enemies — notably China, Russia and Iran.

Washington’s rage to dominate other countries by brute force defines what the scourge of imperialism is all about.

There’s no end of it in prospect.

Biden’s longstanding support for wars on invented enemies suggests further escalation of hostilities on his watch.

Confrontation by belligerence and other means will likely be prioritized over pursuing peace and cooperative relations with other countries.

It’s the diabolical American way — addicted to warmaking, abhorring peace and stability.

March 1, 2021 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, Militarism, Wars for Israel | , , , , | Leave a comment

Biden’s Syria Attack: An Actual Impeachable Offense

By Ron Paul | March 1, 2021

Last Thursday [proclaimed] President Biden continued what has sadly become a Washington tradition: bombing Syria. The President ordered a military strike near the Iraqi-Syrian border that killed at least 22 people. The Administration claims it struck an “Iranian-backed” militia in retaliation for recent rocket attacks on US installations in Iraq.

As with Presidents Obama and Trump before him, however, Biden’s justification for the US strike and its targets is not credible. And his claim that the US attack would result in a “de-escalation” in the region is laughable. You cannot bomb your way toward de-escalation.

Biden thus joins a shameful club of US leaders whose interventions in the Middle East, and Syria specifically, have achieved nothing in the US interest but have contributed to the deaths of many thousands of civilians.

President Trump attacked Syria in 2018 in what he claimed was retaliation for the Assad government’s use of chemical weapons against its own citizens. The Trump Administration never proved its claim. Logic itself suggests how ridiculous it would have been for the Syrian president to have used chemical weapons in that situation, where they achieved no military purpose and would almost certainly guarantee further outside attacks against his government.

Trump’s 2018 attack only added to the misery of the Syrian people, who suffered under US sanctions and then suffered President Obama’s “Assad must go” intervention that trained and armed al-Qaeda affiliated groups to overthrow the government.

Trump’s airstrike on Syria did nothing to further real American interests in the region. But sending in 100 Tomahawk missiles to blow up a few empty buildings did a great deal to further the bottom line of missile-maker Raytheon.

Interestingly, Biden’s Secretary of Defense came to the Administration straight from his previous position on the board of, you guessed it, Raytheon. Libertarian educator Tom Woods once quipped that no matter who you vote for you get John McCain. Perhaps it’s also fair to say that no matter who you vote for you get to enrich Raytheon.

The Democrats wasted four years trying to remove Trump from office under the bogus “Russiagate” lie and then the equally ridiculous and discredited claim that Trump led an insurrection against the government on January 6th. Yet when Trump started raining bombs down on Syria with no Congressional declaration of war or even authorization, most Democrats stood up and cheered. Left-wing CNN talking head Fareed Zakaria swooned, “I think Donald Trump became president of the United States last night.”

In fact, initiating a war against a country that did not attack and does not threaten the United States without Congressional authority is an impeachable offense. But both parties – with a few exceptions – are war parties.

President Biden should be impeached for his attack on Syria, as should have Trump and Obama before him. But no one in Washington is going to pursue impeachment charges against a president who recklessly takes the United States to war. War greases Washington’s wheels.

Isn’t it strange how we’ve heard nothing about ISIS for the past couple of years, but suddenly the mainstream media tells us the ISIS is back and on the march? When President Biden says “America is back,” what he really means is “the war party is back.” As if they ever left.

March 1, 2021 Posted by | Militarism, War Crimes, Wars for Israel | , , | Leave a comment

This is who they are: Biden’s Syria strike is a stark reminder it’s American Empire that’s back

By Nebojsa Malic | RT | February 27, 2021

Only someone who hasn’t been paying attention could have been surprised by the US airstrike on Syria, now that an establishment committed to a globalist Empire rather than a constitutional republic is back in charge in Washington.

Democrats love proclaiming one can’t “turn back the clock,” usually to argue against even attempting to undo whatever domestic policies they’ve rammed through when in power. Yet everything about the Joe Biden administration has been about just that: erasing the past four years of Donald Trump and picking up where Barack Obama left off.

Trump also bombed Syria, mind you – launching cruise missiles on two occasions, spurred by spurious reports of “chemical attacks” – as well as the “Iranian-backed militias” in Iraq. Just over a year ago, he ordered the drone assassination of Iranian General Qassem Soleimani outside the Baghdad airport.

However, he was denounced at the time by congressional Democrats, Biden himself, and his now-spokeswoman Jen Psaki, as well as nearly all US media outlets – the same ones now praising Biden’s bombardment. It’s literally different when they do it, the narrative goes.

That may seem baffling. After all, the American Empire isn’t a partisan thing. The Obamas, Bidens and Clintons have eagerly been on board as much as the Bushes and the Cheneys. That is, until Trump came along and mocked the “endless wars,” spoke of “America first” and rejected the pompous platitudes used to sell overseas imperialism to the rapidly declining American heartland.

For that ‘crime’ he was denounced and rejected by the US establishment, which has repeatedly demonstrated it doesn’t give a damn for the little guy in “flyover country” but prefers the globalist agendas of coastal elites and the military-industrial complex.

One can’t blame Americans for not remembering that the only time Congress overrode Trump’s veto was to keep troops overseas forever, when the media they rely on for their opinions, feelings and values hardly bothered to mention that bit. Make no mistake, though, endless foreign wars is what Biden meant when he said last week that “America is back” and promised a crusade on behalf of “democracy,” whatever that may be.

Also back is the manufacturing of consent. When Trump bombed someone, he just tweeted about it. The “new” administration acts just like the ones of yore, first leaking the talking points to the media. Instead of Trump’s “cowboy” language, Biden’s people use carefully selected propaganda terms, such as “defensive precision strike” and “proportionate military response” that “aims to de-escalate” the situation. The media dutifully follow along, stenographers all.

This kind of smoke-and-mirrors perception management is how war has become normalized for Americans. Trump’s rejection of it – whatever his motivation – is one of the reasons he was so hated by the establishment. Biden was sold to the American people as a return to normal – and for the establishment, this is precisely what “normal” looks like.

This normalization of behavior that ought to be illegal, immoral and unacceptable is, frankly, quietly horrifying. Almost no one seems to care that the US has no legal right to be in Syria, or bomb Syria, or even keep troops in Iraq anymore.

Legal concerns? How quaint. The US bombing whomever, whenever and wherever has become the “dog bites man” of the old journalism joke – that’s not news, editors would say, come to me when “man bites dog.”

Instead, we have otherwise serious people dispassionately describing the strike as “solid persuasion” and noting – correctly – that it “probably doesn’t matter” who gets attacked.

There is another disturbing dimension to the “Obama restoration” the US establishment is so bent on effecting. It was the Obama-Biden administration that backed “moderate rebels” – many of whom turned out to be Al-Qaeda affiliates – in Syria in hopes of regime change in Damascus, kicking off a war there almost ten years ago.

Trump focused instead on defeating Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS) terrorists, letting the same people who lied to him about troop numbers deceive him about abandoning (but not really) the regime change agenda.

If someone with a solid predictive record who claims to have sources within the Biden-Harris administration is to be believed, they want Syrian President Bashar Assad “gone by any means necessary and have no concern for the consequences.”

After all, those consequences are almost always borne by the foreigners that get bombed and the ‘flyover’ Americans who end up in the military – including the very same “underprivileged communities” the Democrats claim to be so concerned about – and not the powerful.

This obviously leaves those Americans who hoped for $2,000 stimulus checks, universal healthcare or higher minimum wage – those who believed the “that’s not who we are” Obama-era hype about empathy and decency – holding the empty bag and scratching their heads.

Which is why perception managers will no doubt feed them another manufactured outrage as a distraction, any moment now. Because that is who they are. Always have been.

Nebojsa Malic is a Serbian-American journalist, blogger and translator, who wrote a regular column for Antiwar.com from 2000 to 2015, and is now senior writer at RT. Follow him on Telegram @TheNebulator 

February 27, 2021 Posted by | Illegal Occupation, Militarism, War Crimes | , | Leave a comment

Biden Bombs Syria: A New World Record?

By Daniel McAdams | Ron Paul Institute | February 25, 2021

According to breaking news reports, including by Reuters, [proclaimed] President Biden has ordered and the Pentagon has carried out military airstrikes on Syria, attacking a structure inside the country that the US government claims houses “Iranian-backed” militia.

US missiles struck tonight near the Syrian town of Al-Bukamal, on the Iraqi border. The strike is said to be in retaliation for recent rocket attacks against US facilities in Iraq. After another rocket attack earlier this month, the US State Department pointed the finger at Iran and threatened a US military response.

The Iraqi parliament voted in January, 2020, to expel US troops from the country after then-President Trump ordered the assassination of Iranian General Qasem Soleimani. The US government ignored the vote of the democratically-elected Iraqi parliament, however Trump later announced his decision to pull US troops out of Iraq.

President Biden wasted no time in reversing Trump’s disengagement strategy for the Middle East. After just over a month in office, President Biden is re-igniting the failed US intervention launched in 2014 against Syria under the Obama Administration.

Within 24 hours of Biden being inaugurated commander-in-chief, US military convoys began pouring into northern Syria. His Administration, from Secretary of State Tony Blinken on down, enthusiastically supported the US “regime change” policy for Syria under President Obama – a policy that only benefitted al-Qaeda and its affiliates in the region.

Earlier this month it was reported that the US was building a new military base in Syria, near the Iraq and Turkey borders. New military bases carry with them new missions, so there is plenty of reason to believe that Biden plans to return the US to the “Assad must go” policy of his former boss.

Biden coming out of the gate with bombs blazing should be of little surprise to those who have watched his early foreign policy appointments. For example, he tapped noted neocon and aggressive interventionist Dana Stroul to head his Middle East Desk at the Pentagon and no doubt this airstrike at least indirectly reflects her influence and that of many others like her who have taken up positions in the Biden Administration.

Stroul hails from the AIPAC-founded “think tank,” the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP), where, as former CIA official Phil Giradi writes, “she has been the Shelly and Michael Kassen Fellow in the Institute’s Beth and David Geduld Program on Arab Politics.” She is an extreme Iran hawk and has advocated and worked for regime change in Syria and US retention of large areas of Syrian territory.

So within a month of assuming office, President Biden looks to be on the cusp of launching a new Middle East war.

February 25, 2021 Posted by | Illegal Occupation, Militarism | , , , | Leave a comment

Biden’s Poisonous Journey Backward

By Philip Giraldi | Strategic Culture Foundation | February 25, 2021

The new White House Team has been in place for more than a month and it is perhaps time to consider where it is going with America’s fractured foreign policy. To be sure, when a new administration brings in a bunch of “old hands” who made their bones by attacking Syria and Libya while also assassinating American citizens by drone one might hope that those mistakes might have served as valuable “lessons learned.” Or maybe not, since no one in the Democratic Party ever mentions the Libya fiasco and President Joe Biden has already made it clear that Syria will continue to be targeted with sanctions as well as with American soldiers based on its soil. And no one will be leaving Afghanistan any time soon. The Biden team will only let up when Afghanistan is “secure” and there is regime change in Damascus.

A big part of the problem is that the personnel moves mean that the poison from the Barack Obama years has now been reintroduced into the tottering edifice that Donald Trump left behind. Obama’s United Nations Ambassador Susan Rice once made the case for attacking the Libyans by explaining how Libyan leader Moammar Gaddafi provided his soldiers with Viagra so they could more readily engage in mass rapes of presumably innocent civilians. Unfortunately, Sue is back with the new administration as the Director of the Domestic Policy Council where she will no doubt again wreak havoc in her own inimitable fashion. She is joined at the top level of the administration by Tony Blinken as Secretary of State, Avril Haines as Director of National Intelligence, Jake Sullivan as National Security Advisor, Samantha Power as head of USAID and retired General Lloyd J. Austin as Secretary of Defense. All of the appointees are regarded as “hawks” and have personal history working with Biden when he was in Congress and as Vice President, while most of them also served in the Obama administration.

Be that as it may, Joe Biden and whoever is pulling his strings have assembled a group of establishment warmongers and aspirant social justice engineers that is second to none. Those who expected something different than the usual Democratic Party template have definitely been disappointed. Hostility towards China continues with warships being sent to the South China Sea and the president is seeking to create a new Trans-Atlantic alliance directed against both Beijing and Moscow. The Europeans are reportedly not enthusiastic about remaining under Washington’s thumb and would like some breathing room.

In a phone conversation where it would have been interesting to be a fly on the wall, Biden warned Russian President Vladimir Putin that the United States would no longer ignore his bad behavior. The official White House account of the call included the following pithy summary: “President Biden reaffirmed the United States’ firm support for Ukraine’s sovereignty. He also raised other matters of concern, including the SolarWinds hack, reports of Russia placing bounties on United States soldiers in Afghanistan, interference in the 2020 United States election, and the poisoning of Aleksey Navalny.”

And to be sure, there have already been a number of issues that Biden might have dealt with by executive order, like lifting the illegal and unjustified blockade of Cuba, that could have inspired some hope that the new administration would not be just another bit of old wine in new bottles. Alas, that has not taken place but for a series of moves to unleash another wave of illegal immigration and to “protect LGBTQ rights globally.” Biden has also retained a heavy military presence in Washington itself, possibly as part of a Constitution-wrecking plan to tackle what he is referring to as “domestic terrorism.” The domestic terrorists being targeted appear to largely consist of people who are white working and middle class and voted for Trump.

In some ways, foreign policy might have been the easiest fix if the new administration were really seeking to correct the misadventures of the past twenty years. Quite the contrary, Biden and his associates have actually reversed the sensible and long overdue policies initiated by Donald Trump to reduce troop strength in Germany and bring the soldiers home from Syria and Afghanistan. Biden has already committed to an indefinite stay in Afghanistan, America’s longest “lost” war, and has covertly sent more soldiers into Syria as well as Iraq.

As regards Latin America, the U.S. clearly is prepared to double down on regime change in Venezuela, continuing its Quixotic support of Juan Guaido as president. Meanwhile, the new Secretary of State Tony Blinken has clearly indicated that there will be no end to deference to Israeli interests in the Middle East. Under questioning by Congress, he has insisted that Israel will be “consulted” on U.S. policy to include arms sales in the region, which has been interpreted to mean that Jerusalem will have a veto, and has confirmed that his view on Iran is identical to that of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Both are apparently promoting the view that Iran will have enough enriched uranium to construct a weapon within a few weeks, though they have not addressed other technical aspects of what would actually be required to build one. Netanyahu has been making the claim about the Iranian threat since the 1980s and now it is also an element of U.S. policy.

Biden and Blinken have also moved forward slowly on a campaign commitment to attempt renegotiation of the 2015 JCPOA nuclear agreement with Iran that President Trump withdrew from in 2017. As a condition to re-start discussions, the Iranian leadership has demanded a return to the status quo ante, meaning that the punitive sanctions initiated by Trump would have to be canceled and Iran would in return cease all enrichment activities. Biden and Blinken, which admittedly sounds a bit like a vaudeville comedy duo, have reportedly agreed to withdraw the Trump sanctions but have also suggested that Iran will have to make other concessions, to include ending its ballistic missile development program and ceasing its “meddling” in the Middle East. Iran will refuse to agree to that, which means that the bid to renegotiate could turn out to be nothing more than a bit of theater involving multilateral “discussions” hosted by the European Union and the pointless hostility between Washington and Tehran will continue.

And speaking again of Israel, there have been concerns expressed by the usual suspects because Biden had not telephoned Netanyahu immediately after the inauguration. It may be true that the president was sending a somewhat less than subtle message signaling that he was in charge, but the call has now taken place and everything is hunky-dory. As a separate issue, the Jewish state has, of course, the world’s only secret nuclear arsenal, estimated to consist of at least 200 bombs, and it also has several systems available to deliver them on target. For no reasons that make any sense, the United States since the time of President Richard Nixon has never publicly confirmed the existence of the weapons, preferring to maintain “nuclear ambiguity” that allows Israel to have the weapons without any demands for inspections or constraints on their use. The most recent four presidents have, in fact, signed secret agreements with Israel not to expose the nuclear arsenal. Biden has apparently not done so yet, but appeals by international figures, including most recently South African Desmond Tutu, had produced some expectations that the new administration might break with precedent.

Giving aid to Israel is, in fact, illegal due to the Symington Amendment to the Foreign Assistance Act, which bans U.S. economic and military assistance to nuclear proliferators and countries that seek to acquire nuclear weapons. But Biden has already indicated that he would not under any circumstances cut aid to Israel, so the matter would appear to be closed. In any event the Symington Amendment includes an exemption clause that would allow the funding to continue as long as the president certifies to Congress that continued aid to the proliferator would be a vital U.S. interest. Given Israel’s power in both Congress and the White House it is not imaginable that its aid would be affected no matter what Netanyahu and his band of criminals choose to do.

So, it would seem that Biden is unprepared to either pressure or pursue any distancing from Israel and its policies, not a good sign for those of us who have encouraged some disengagement from the Middle East quagmire. And one final issue where some of us have hoped to see some movement from Biden has also been a disappointment. That is Julian Assange, who is fighting against efforts to have him extradited from England to face trial and imprisonment in the U.S. under the Espionage Act. Many observers believe that Assange is a legitimate journalist who is being set up for a show trial with only one possible outcome. The entire process is to a large extent being driven by a desire for revenge coming largely from the Democratic Party since Assange was responsible for publishing the Hillary Clinton emails as well as other party documents. Biden has already indicated that the process of extraditing Assange will continue.

So, Biden has been a major disappointment for those who expected that he might change course regarding America’s pathological involvement in overseas conflicts while also having the good sense and courage to make relations with countries like Iran and Israel responsive to actual U.S. interests. Finally, it would be a good sign if Assange were to be released from the threat of trial and prison, if only to recognize that free speech and a free press benefit everyone, but that is perhaps a bridge too far as the United States moves inexorably towards a totalitarian state intolerant of dissent.

February 25, 2021 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Militarism, Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel | , | Leave a comment

France increases hostilities against China in the South China Sea

By Paul Antonopoulos | February 25, 2021

The French Navy days ago announced that the Tonnerre amphibious assault ship and the Surcouf frigate departed from the port of Toulon on February 18 and would travel to the Pacific for a three-month mission. According to Naval News, the French warships will pass through the South China Sea twice and in May participate in joint military exercises with the U.S., Australia, India and Japan. China has strongly criticized this French move.

The fact that the French Navy sent the Surcouf and the multi-purpose landing craft Tonnere to patrol the South China Sea, which is over 10,000 kilometers away from France, proves that the disputed sea region is one of the most important geopolitical hotspots in the world. The French claim that attention is focused on ensuring navigational security as the South China Sea is a particularly important bridge between the Indian and Pacific Oceans, and has influence on geopolitics and geoeconomics, not only within Asia-Pacific and the Indo-Pacific region, but for the entire world.

By sending modern warships to Asia-Pacific, France proved that they have a new approach to Vietnam, a former French colony. The recent moves by Paris marks the return of the French to Southeast Asia, not as an invader like in the previous century, but as a country willing to challenge and provoke China in its own backyard. This is something that would also appeal to Vietnam as it has centuries long enmity with China that continues to this day and is far deeper compared to the relatively short-lived French colonial era of Indochina. Another point to note is that the French energy company Total is one of the most important partners for Vietnam in the oil and gas sector. The French company is currently cooperating with Vietnam and some other countries in the region to exploit resources.

Since 2018, France has built an Indo-Pacific strategy. France is the first European country to make this move. In addition, in 2015 and 2017, French warships also passed through the South China Sea. It is likely that France will now step up its position against Beijing’s claims in the South China Sea by increasing the frequency of its activities in the region, including military exercises.

Four permanent members of the United Nations Security Council send their fleets on irregular or periodic patrols in the South China Sea, proving how important this region is for the global economy and the world’s superpowers. It should be emphasized that having a major power from outside the region deploy its modern weapons in the South China Sea is a major provocation. France, whose closest territory to the South China Sea is New Caledonia over 6,500 kilometers away, has no business in being involved in the region’s problems. But none-the-less, the French are most likely motivated to be interested in South China Sea affairs to support Total’s business plans in the area.

In the words of French Defense Minister Florence Parly, the patrol of French warships in the South China Sea is “evidence of the French navy’s ability to deploy operations in remote areas in the long run with strategic partners,” making reference to the U.S., Japan and Australia. It can be seen that France is ready to strengthen cooperation with QUAD, a coalition consisting of the U.S., India, Japan and Australia whose aim is to challenge China in the Indo-Pacific region.

France is not a member of QUAD; however, the European country can strengthen its ties with the alliance on the basis of bilateral military agreements signed with the U.S. and the other three countries. On the other hand, France is an ally of the U.S. through NATO, in which Japan and Australia are also considered Major non-NATO allies. The dispatch of two important warships to the South China Sea shows that France is ready to stand alongside the U.S., Japan, India and Australia in Indo-Pacific geostrategic, political and military issues with a focus against China.

For the U.S., the introduction of French warships to the South China Sea is an important step towards establishing an anti-China alliance on a global scale, not just at a regional level. Although China has denounced these recent provocations emanating from non-regional powers, it has not yet revealed how they may respond.

Although the French Colonial Empire is long gone, Paris is still attempting to maintain its global influence through its former colonies, not only in Southeast Asia through countries like Vietnam, but also in Africa, the South Pacific, South America and the Caribbean. However, despite France’s antagonizations, Paris does not have the capabilities to be able to challenge China unilaterally in the South China Sea, hence why it is relying on former colonial possessions like Vietnam and partners like the U.S., Australia and India. For now, there is no indication that France will successfully deter China from pursuing its interests in the South China Sea.

Paul Antonopoulos is an independent geopolitical analyst.

February 25, 2021 Posted by | Militarism | , | Leave a comment

US Navy held three FONOP in the South China Sea since Biden’s inauguration

By Lucas Leiroz | February 24, 2021

Tensions in the South China Sea are intensifying as American interference in the region increases. The so-called “freedom of navigation operations” (FONOP) have been taking place with an increasingly shorter interval between operations, demonstrating a strong interest on the part of Washington to permanently occupy the region, forcing China to retreat its maritime positions on its own zone of influence.

Recently, for the third time since Biden took office as President, a US flag warship conducted an operation in the disputed South China Sea. The ship used this time was the guided missile destroyer Arleigh Burke USS Russell, which skirted the Paracel Islands on February 17. The ship’s intention is simply to promote a FONOP, with no major military objectives publicly specified. In a statement on the case, Lieutenant Joe Keiley, spokesman for the American Navy, stated that “The United States upholds freedom of navigation as a principle. As long as some countries continue to assert maritime claims that are inconsistent with international law as reflected in the 1982 Law of the Sea Convention and that purport to restrict unlawfully the rights and freedoms guaranteed to all States, the United States will continue to defend those rights and freedoms”.

Beijing had previously said it would take the necessary steps to ensure its security and prevent further American military operations in its maritime zone, but such measures have not been announced yet. There is still a war of narratives, as Beijing claims that American ships that have passed by the Sea this year have been expelled by Chinese security forces (without any American reaction or confrontation, however), which is denied by Americans, who claim to have carried out their operations without any hindrance. Clearly, we can see that both countries desperately try to create a dominant narrative. China wants to show the world that it has its own special interests in the region, and the US says it wants more nations to feel safe to cross the Sea without the Chinese endorsement, showing that “nothing will happen”.

Washington sees Chinese territorial claims in the South Sea as a threat to freedom of navigation and therefore justifies the sending of warships to the region. According to American military thinking, this attitude does not represent a real affront to China, as Americans believe they have the right to monitor international maritime standards, acting as “global maritime police”. This type of thinking had begun to suffer some criticism from Trump, who changed the focus of confronting Chinese growth from a military confrontation path to a commercial and tariff dispute. But, with Biden and his administration, it is highly likely that Washington will not only resume the ideal of global police but will also act in a much more aggressive way in this regard, especially in the seas, where the US has historically had a hegemonic status.

The justifications used by Washington are always full of legalism. Warships are sent to the coast of a foreign power “in the name of international law”. The American armed forces, accustomed to exercising the function of global police, believe to play an important role in complying with international navigation standards. In this way, if a territorial dispute is preventing the movement of people and goods and hampering the flow of trade, Washington can simply conduct a “FONOP”. But this view of international standards is absolutely distorted. International law has its own methods for dealing with violations of international norms and for no country is given the function of a controller of the global order.

The very validity of the “FONOP” concept is absolutely questionable. There is, in fact, the principle of “freedom of navigation” (FON) in international law, but at no time do international documents provide for such a thing as a “freedom of navigation operation”, this being a narrative invented by countries interested in winning space in areas claimed by other countries. Washington is the only country that currently has an official and complex military program focused on promoting such operations in all disputed areas of the world, which is absolutely contrary to international law. Such disputes must be resolved with the means available at the UN, not through unilateral US action.

Therefore, the “legal” justification for maritime interventionism must be ignored and the case must be analyzed from a strictly political point of view. Biden on several occasions, both during the campaign and after the election, affirmed his commitment to deepen US ties with his Asian allies – which are precisely the countries that have disagreements or disputes with China. Sovereignty over the South China Sea is included in this issue, as it is one of the most controversial topics in Asian geopolitics. China has historically claimed sovereignty over the South Sea, but this has been condemned by several neighboring countries. Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei, Indonesia, Singapore, and Vietnam criticize the Chinese sovereignty in the region and claim their space, considering that they also have access to the Sea and therefore should supposedly have the right to occupy it.

Moreover, a highlight that makes the region the subject of major disputes is its commercial importance. The South China Sea is a key route for world maritime trade, where a cargo volume of 5.3 trillion dollars passes annually. With China controlling the region, Beijing gains an extremely advantageous position economically – which provokes interests and criticism on the part of the other countries with access to the Sea. Even more emphatically, the country that is most opposed to the Chinese presence is the Philippines, which is the reason for a historical rivalry. The dispute between Beijing and Manila has reached several peaks of tension in recent years – mainly last year, when the Philippines felt threatened by several Chinese operations in the region and the Philippine government said it would request American military support to face China. In that occasion, Trump remained silent; Biden would certainly do something.

Certainly, no tension between China and the US can be elevated to a status of war, since any confrontation between powers with such nuclear apparatus becomes impossible, but that does not prevent several conflicts from arising. Recently, Biden announced the formation of a Pentagon-led task force to deal with China and its “diverse problems” – which include issues such as the maritime dispute, alleged human rights violations, “unfair” trade rules, among others. Beijing, for its part, denied the American accusations that would justify Biden’s attitude and even made promises of greater economic openness, showing a more peaceful stance. But how long will this posture last? With three FONOPs held in less than a month with the new American government, what can Beijing expect for the near future? How far will American naval interventionism reach in the Chinese coast?

In addition to the American presence in the Sea, regional tensions will certainly increase. Encouraged by American actions, naval forces of the countries that claim the South Sea will carry out more and more operations. With emphasis on the Philippines, which have the greatest interest in the Sea and are willing to increase the confrontation with China, provided they receive international aid.

Expectations are not good and Chinese responses can be varied. If these operations become a real problem for Chinese interests, Beijing can respond severely and even a conflict could occur between the two countries.

Lucas Leiroz is a research fellow in international law at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro.

February 24, 2021 Posted by | Militarism | , | Leave a comment

US Marines “Stay Put” In Norway, Russia Responds With Bomber ‘Warning’ Flights In Arctic

By Tyler Durden | Zero Hedge | February 21, 2021

In a hugely significant move that will put Russia-Europe relations further on edge amid an ongoing build-up of NATO forces along sensitive border regions, the large contingent of Marines that arrived in Norway last month are now expected to stay for an indefinite period.

“About 1,000 Marines who arrived in Norway last month — only to have their military exercises canceled due to the pandemic — will remain in the country for arctic training,” Military.com reports based on Marine Corps statements.

They plan to stay and engage in “valuable arctic and mountain warfare training” through at least the springtime. The deployed units are mostly from the 3rd Battalion, 6th Marines but will now essentially “stay put”.

Marines have been training on a rotational basis in Norway for years, but the reality is their stays and rotations have been increasingly extended over the past years. Moscow has meanwhile condemned a ‘Cold War’ style build-up near the Arctic Circle, where it also frequently conducts military exercises.

The AFP wrote that Russia is “fuming”, citing a Russian ambassador to say:

“Nobody in the Arctic is preparing for an armed conflict. However, there are signs of mounting tension and military escalation,”  Russia’s ambassador to the Arctic Council, Nikolai Korchunov, said.

The current militarization in the region “could turn us back decades to the days of the Cold War,” he told Russia’s RIA news agency in early February.

As we described earlier this month, the US Air Force for the first time ever sent multiple B-1 Lancer bombers along with 200 airmen to Norway, which came amid greater NATO calls to “confront Russia”.

And now just days ago, Forbes detailed that in response “the Russian air force is mobilizing its own warplanes. Fighters to intercept the B-1. And bombers to strike back.”

Here’s more on Russia’s response:

After the U.S. Air Force announced the B-1 deployment, the Russian air force wasted no time sortieing its own bombers. Two of the service’s Tu-160 heavy bombers flew an epic, 12-hour sweep of Northern Europe, the Kremlin announced on Feb. 9.

The 6,000-mile round-trip took the swing-wing Tu-160s from their base at Engels in western Russia north to the Arctic Ocean then west to Svalbard, south into the Norwegian Sea, east along the Norwegian coast and finally south back to Engels.

A pair of MiG-31 interceptors flying from Rogachevo air base in northern Russian briefly escorted the bombers as they roared across the Kara Sea toward the Arctic.

And not helping this Cold War style throwback, President Biden on Friday warned a global audience of Russian “bullying” and “autocracy”.

“The trans-Atlantic alliance is back,” he said before the Munich Security Conference in words intended to restore trust from European allies in NATO.

February 21, 2021 Posted by | Militarism | , , , | Leave a comment

US must choose: new ICBMs & nightmare of nuclear deterrence OR meaningful disarmament through arms control

By Scott Ritter | RT | February 21, 2021

The US wants Russia and China to rein in their respective strategic nuclear arsenals while it modernizes its own nuclear defenses at the same time. When it comes to strategic nukes, the US can’t have its cake and eat it too.

The US Senate recently passed the 2021 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), allocating some $1.5 billion for research and development of a new generation of intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM) known as the Ground Based Strategic Deterrent (GBSD).

The funding of the GBSD occurred despite pressure to divert some or all of the current allocation to support emergency Covid-19 contingencies. One of the major factors behind the decision was a concerted effort on the part of the US Air Force and the commander of US Strategic Command to convince Congress that a failure to fund the GBSD would be tantamount to unilateral disarmament, given that the current US ICBM force, comprised of Minuteman III missiles, will begin “aging out” as the missiles reach their operational expiration dates.

The proponents of the GBSD, however, have a major policy hurdle before them – namely the desire on the part of President Joe Biden to undertake a review of the current US nuclear posture with the view of breathing new life into strategic arms control negotiations that could potentially reduce the size of the US nuclear arsenal.

Many arms control advocates believe that the logical choice for any significant reduction in the US strategic nuclear arsenal would be to do away with ICBMs altogether, eliminating the need for the GBSD. The supporters of the GBSD believe such a move would put the US in danger by increasing the risk of a nuclear attack by limiting the number of targets any potential nuclear foe would need to strike in an effort to preemptively neutralize the US nuclear deterrent.

There is an urgency in this debate driven by two hard-wired calendar dates. The first is the expiration of the recently extended New START treaty.

While the US and Russia agreed to extend this treaty by five years, the fact is this treaty will expire for good come February 2026, leaving the two nations a scant five years to negotiate a follow-on agreement. The other hard date is in 2030, when the Minuteman III ICBM force will begin aging out.

The current GBSD funding authorization envisions the deployment of a fully operational replacement missile by 2029, but this is contingent upon continued funding at ever-increasing levels in the years to come. If a commitment is made to continue fully funding the GBSD with an eye on operational deployment by 2029, it will handicap US arms control negotiators who will have zero flexibility when it comes to devising a negotiating strategy capable of convincing their Russian, and possibly Chinese, counterparts to agree to meaningful cuts in their respective nuclear arsenals.

ICBMs role as ‘warhead sponge’

Land-based ICBMs have been a critical part of the nuclear Triad that has underpinned the US nuclear deterrence posture since the 1960s (the other two components being manned bombers and submarine-launched ballistic missiles, SLBMs.)

Today the US maintains a force of 450 hardened missile silos containing 400 Minuteman III ICBMs scattered across Montana, North Dakota, Colorado, Nebraska and Wyoming. This force has been designed to respond on short notice to any nuclear attack. But its most important characteristic today is its role as a warhead “sponge”. Any potential nuclear-armed foe would need to allocate at least two nuclear warheads to each silo to have any chance of destroying the Minuteman III force. The only nation capable of carrying out such an attack today is Russia, which would have to allocate 900 of its 1,600 deployed warheads to have any chance of taking out the US ICBM leg of the nuclear Triad.

Supporters of the current nuclear Triad contend that without the land-based ICBM “sponge”, any potential foe would only need to focus on attacking five targets in the US—three strategic bomber bases, and two submarine bases. These same experts note that the pressure on the most survivable and lethal component of the Triad – the SLBM – will increase as force restructuring limits the number of submarines that are on patrol at any given time, and as new possible technologies emerge that can detect submarines more easily, increasing the chances that some or all of the deployed SLBM-carrying submarines could be preemptively targeted. Only by retaining the land-based ICBM, these experts argue, can the US guarantee a high degree of certainty that any nuclear attack against the US or its allies would result in a massive retaliation that no aggressor could hope to survive.

The Minuteman III missile has been in service for more than 50 years, despite being designed to last ten. It has achieved this level of longevity through a series of service life extension programs (SLEP) which, in their aggregate, have resulted in a missile very different from the one originally deployed, possessing upgraded booster rockets, new avionics and guidance systems, and more modern nuclear warheads. But the current fleet of Minuteman III ICBMs will begin to expire beginning in 2029, when many of the upgraded rocket boosters expire, followed by the guidance systems, which will begin to expire in 2031. If nothing is done to extend the life of the Minuteman III missiles, the arsenal of operational missiles will be reduced to 350 by 2033, and less than 100 by 2037.

All-or-nothing approach

Proponents of the GBSD argue that the fifty-year lifecycle costs associated with fielding a new ICBM, estimated at $159.2 billion, are actually cheaper than the fifty-year lifecycle cost of a new Minuteman III SLEP, with a baseline cost of $160.3 billion. They also point out that the GBSD costs go beyond simply putting a new missile in the ground, but also incorporate silo refurbishment and other ground infrastructure improvements, including a new nuclear command and control system designed to survive in a modern environment where cyber attacks are a real possibility. The new GBSD also incorporates a modular design that allows for rapid-retargeting, and flexibility when it comes to the payload carried, allowing for the introduction of new, improved delivery systems.

The scenario painted by the supporters of the GBSD is based upon an all-or-nothing approach—either spend the money of a new ICBM or lose the ground-based leg of the nuclear Triad forever. This logic mitigates both against the loss of ICBMs, and for a newer, more capable missile (the GBSD.) But it also ties the hands of arms control negotiators trying to come up with a formula that would result in the reduction of Russian and Chinese nuclear arsenals. By keeping the US nuclear Triad intact, and by deploying a new, more capable ICBM in the form of the GBSD, the US would eliminate any incentive on the part of either Russia or China to reduce the size and capability of their respective nuclear arsenals. Indeed, the exact opposite would happen—Russia would continue its current nuclear modernization programs, and China would have every reason to invest in enlarging their own ICBM force.

Moreover, there is virtually no chance that the US would unilaterally disarm its ICBM force by allowing the Minuteman III ICBM to age out without a replacement. The solution to this quandary is how to best manage the US ICBM force in a manner that retains the potential for viable force retention while keeping the door open for the possibility of elimination through new arms control agreements. In this light, the GBSD is the least favorable option, as its funding cycle calls for the production of some 650 new missiles sustained over the course of fifty years. Once this production level is funded and underway, it will be virtually impossible to stop it from reaching completion.

However, the US could seek to extend the life of the existing Minuteman III ICBM force, and then use arms control negotiations as a way to leverage their continued existence as a means of getting the Russians to agree to meaningful reductions in their own arsenal—the heavy Sarmat ICBM comes to mind.

Similar trade-offs could be negotiated with the Chinese, with a reduction/elimination of the US ICBM arsenal offered up in exchange for China agreeing not to field any new generation ICBMs. These negotiations, if they are to have any chance of success, must be concluded in the next five years—a very short time frame when it comes to arms control negotiations. The flexibility afforded by a Minuteman III SLEP would enable and enhance these negotiations, while an irreversible commitment to fund and deploy the GBSD would guarantee their failure. Seen in this light, there really isn’t much of a debate. The key question is who will prevail in the future internal US debate over nuclear force posture—the advocates for a continuation of the nightmare of nuclear deterrence predicated on mutually assured destruction (a self-fulfilling prophecy if there ever was one), or the proponents of meaningful nuclear disarmament through viable and verifiable arms control agreements.

Scott Ritter is a former US Marine Corps intelligence officer and author of ‘SCORPION KING: America’s Suicidal Embrace of Nuclear Weapons from FDR to Trump.’ He served in the Soviet Union as an inspector implementing the INF Treaty, in General Schwarzkopf’s staff during the Gulf War, and from 1991-1998 as a UN weapons inspector. Follow him on Twitter @RealScottRitter

February 20, 2021 Posted by | Militarism | , | Leave a comment

Satellite images reveal Israel quietly expanding secretive Dimona nuclear site

Press TV – February 19, 2021

Newly-released satellite images have revealed that the Israeli regime — the sole possessor of nuclear arms in the Middle East — is conducting “significant” constructive activities at the highly-secretive Dimona nuclear facility in the Negev Desert.

Citing commercial satellite imagery of the facility, the International Panel on Fissile Material (IPFM), a group of independent nuclear experts from 17 countries, reported  Thursday that “significant new construction” had been underway at the Dimona complex.

The construction site sits “in the immediate vicinity of the buildings that house the nuclear reactor and the reprocessing plant,” the report said.

The IPFM’s website said the construction had “expanded and appears to be actively underway with multiple construction vehicles present,” adding, however, that the purpose was not known.

It was unclear when the construction work began, but Pavel Podvig, a researcher with the program on science and global security at Princeton University, told The Guardian that the project had apparently been launched in late 2018 and 2019.

“But that’s all we can say at this point,” he added.

Israel has tightly withheld information about its nuclear weapons program, but the regime is estimated to be keeping at least 90 nuclear warheads in its arsenal, according to the non-profit organization Federation of American Scientists (FAS).

The warheads, FAS said, had been produced from plutonium obtained at the Dimona facility’s heavy water reactor.

Dimona, which is widely believed to be key to Israel’s nuclear arms manufacturing program, was built with covert assistance from the French government and activated sometime between 1962–1964, according to reports.

Israel has acknowledged the existence of the Dimona nuclear reactor, but neither confirms nor denies the purpose of the facility, which is assumed to be widely assumed to be the manufacturing of nukes.

Meanwhile, environmentalists have warned that Dimona — one of the world’s oldest nuclear facilities —could pose enormous environmental and security threats those living in the area and to the entire Middle East, calling on the regime to shut down the complex.

Turning a deaf ear to international calls for nuclear transparency, the regime has so far refused, with the US’s invariable support, to join the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), which is aimed at preventing the spread of nuclear weapons.

February 19, 2021 Posted by | Deception, Militarism | | Leave a comment