Americans oppose Obama’s plans for fighting ISIL: Poll
Press TV – November 5, 2015
Most Americans disapprove of US President Barack Obama’s approach in fighting the Daesh (ISIL) terrorist group, a new poll has found.
More than 6 in 10 people in the US reject Obama’s handling of the threat posed by the ISIL in Syria and Iraq, an Associated Press-GfK poll released on Thursday finds.
Support for his approach has dropped since Washington formed a military coalition against ISIL in late 2014. Last year, Americans were approximately even, but disapproval has risen 8 percent since January.
This is while two-thirds of the people surveyed in the poll described the threat posed by Daesh as a “very or extremely important issue.”
The poll also found that only 40 percent of Americans still approve of the president’s management of foreign policy.
Obama announced last week that 50 US special operations troops will head to northern Syria, marking the first time the US is openly sending forces into that war-torn country.
‘Afghanistan, a historic failure’
Concerns about Obama’s strategy overseas become more apparent when it comes to Afghanistan, where he has dropped his plan to pull US forces by the end of 2016. The new plan means that when he leaves office, the US will have at least 5,500 troops in Afghanistan.
The poll found that 71 percent of Americans believe history will judge the Afghanistan war as more of a failure than a success.
Roughly a third of Americans said they approve of Obama’s revamped plan in the country, while one-third opposed it.
‘No armed combatants, no fighting’: MSF issues Afghan hospital bombing report
RT | November 5, 2015
A Médecins Sans Frontières investigation into the Afghan hospital bombing by US forces has found that there were no armed combatants or weapons within the compound, and no fighting in the direct vicinity of the hospital at the time of the airstrikes.
In its report released on Thursday, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF/Doctors Without Borders) addressed the “relentless and brutal aerial attack by US forces” which took place in Kunduz on October 3 and killed at least 30 people, including MSF staff.
“The MSF rules in the hospital were implemented and respected, including the ‘no weapon’ policy and MSF was in full control of the hospital at the time of the airstrikes,” the organization stated.
The document also said there were “no armed combatants within the hospital compound and there was no fighting from or in the direct vicinity” of the trauma center at the time of the strikes.
The hospital was “fully functioning” at the time of the airstrikes, with 105 patients admitted and surgeries taking place, according to the findings of the investigation.
In addition, MSF said the “agreement to respect the neutrality of our medical facility based on the applicable sections of International Humanitarian Law was fully in place and agreed with all parties to the conflict prior to the attack.”
Despite that neutrality, the hospital was still the target of a US airstrike, leading MSF to ask how such an attack was allowed to happen.
“The question remains as to whether our hospital lost its protected status in the eyes of the military forces engaged in this attack – and if so, why,” MSF said in its statement.
Presenting the report, MSF general director Christopher Stokes said: “From what we are seeing now, this action is illegal in the laws of war. There are still many unanswered questions, including who took the final decision, who gave the targeting instructions for the hospital.”
The MSF statement described the tragic situation at the hospital.
“Patients burned in their beds, medical staff were decapitated and lost limbs, and others were shot by the circling AC-130 gunship while fleeing the burning building. At least 30 MSF staff and patients were killed,” it states.
MSF says its demand is simple: “A functioning hospital caring for patients, such as the one in Kunduz, cannot simply lose its protection and be attacked; wounded combatants are patients and must be free from attack and treated without discrimination; medical staff should never be punished or attacked for providing treatment to wounded combatants.”
Following the aerial attack, the Pentagon initially attempted to shift responsibility onto Afghan security forces, claiming they had requested the airstrikes.
However, the commander of the US and NATO forces in Afghanistan, Gen. John Campbell, later admitted the attack was a “US decision made within the US chain of command.” He went on to say that Washington would “never intentionally target a protected medical facility.”
Read more:
US tank enters MSF hospital in Afghanistan’s Kunduz, ‘destroys potential evidence’ – reports
Israel seeks 60 percent increase in US military aid: US officials
Press TV – November 5, 2015
Israel is seeking a large increase in annual military assistance from the United States and has held preliminary talks with the Obama administration on a 10-year financial package that would provide up to $50 billion, American congressional sources say.
During unofficial talks in recent weeks, Israel has asked the US to increase its annual military assistance by 60 percent to an average of $5 billion a year over the 2018-2028 period, the congressional aides said on Wednesday, according to Reuters.
Under the existing agreement that was signed in 2007 and expires in 2017, annual military aid to Israel grew to about $3 billion a year. That deal was negotiated during the George W. Bush administration.
Israel says that it wants more money to counter threats that will arise as a result of the recent Iran nuclear agreement, which the Zionist regime has fiercely opposed.
US officials said that negotiations on the new aid package deal were still in the early stages and the proposal has not yet been formally presented to Congress, which must approve the funding.
“First they have to negotiate with the White House,” one senior congressional aide said of the Israeli regime.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will visit Washington next week and hold talks with President Barack Obama on the aid package. Netanyahu and Obama are expected to reach an agreement on the aid deal’s broad outlines.
President Barack Obama and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel hold a bilateral meeting in the Oval Office, Sept. 30, 2013.
Obama had reportedly agreed in principle with Netanyahu in a previous meeting to increase the aid package to between $4.2 billion and $4.5 billion.
The money is separate from the nearly $500 million in annual US funding for Israel’s missile system programs in recent years. It is also on top of the US warfighting material held in Israel, which is valued at $1.2 billion.
US annual aid to Israel has held steady despite cuts to a wide range of domestic and military programs in the United States, including reducing the size of the US Army to its lowest level since before World War Two.
The US government is pressured to serve Israel’s interests due to the influence of the powerful Zionist lobby in the United States. The pro-Israel pressure groups actively work to steer US foreign policy in favor of Israel.
Israel orders aircraft carrier as part of US military aid package
MEMO | November 4, 2015
Israel has provided the United States with a list of weapons that it would like to have available as part of the US aid package, Israel’s Yedioth Ahronoth revealed yesterday.
According to the newspaper the list included a modern aircraft carrier and a squadron of F-15 aircrafts as well as material assistance to support Israel’s anti-ballistic missile system, Arrow 3.
According to the newspaper Israeli officials have asked for these weapons during closed-door meetings with US officials attended by Defence Minister Moshe Ya’alon and US Secretary of Defence Ashton Carter in Washington.
The list of arms exceeded the maximum assistance provided by the United States each year, amounting to nearly $3 billion, therefore it has been referred to US President Barack Obama before Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s visit to the White House scheduled for next week, the paper reported.
America’s Non-representative War Government
By Sheldon Richman | Free Association | November 3, 2015
“The success of government…,” the late historian Edmund Morgan wrote, “requires the acceptance of fictions, requires the willing suspension of disbelief, requires us to believe that the emperor is clothed even though we can see that he is not.”
Representation is chief among those fictions.
“Just as the exaltation of the king could be a means of controlling him,” Morgan continued, “so the exaltation of the people can be a means of controlling them…. If the representative consented, his constituents had to make believe that they had done so.”
Questioning the authenticity of representative government may seem beyond the pale in America. But occasionally the veil slips, and we glimpse reality. If we really live under a representative government, how can a president take the country to war without even a show vote in Congress, much less a referendum? (The proposed Ludlow Amendment to the Constitution would have required a referendum on war.)
Barack Obama has announced he is sending special operations forces into Syria to help those fighting both the government of Bashar al-Assad and the Islamic State, just as last year he ordered airstrikes in Syria. He previously said he would not send ground forces, but you can forget about that now. After a Delta Force soldier was killed there while on a raid last month, Secretary of War Ash Carter acknowledged that Americans will be at risk. Deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes said, “The norm is not going out in raids. I’m obviously not going to rule anything out.”
Note well: the U.S. Congress has not declared war on Syria (nor should it), so Obama’s moves are unconstitutional and illegal. Last year Obama asked Congress for an “authorization for the use of military force” (AUMF) — it went nowhere and is going nowhere — while insisting he did not need it. The administration (echoing George W. Bush) says any president has the inherent power under the Constitution to do what he’s doing in Syria. The administration first suggested the AUMFs of 2001 and 2002 were sufficient, but that claim was demolished. The 2001 AUMF said Bush could attack al-Qaeda and its associates. Neither Assad nor the Islamic State qualifies: al-Qaeda’s Syrian franchise, al-Nusra Front, is also trying to overthrow Assad, and the Islamic State emerged from a split in al-Qaeda. The 2002 AUMF was aimed at Iraqi president Saddam Hussein — it could hardly apply to Syria.
More fundamentally, an AUMF is not a declaration of war; it’s a blank-check, unconstitutional delegation of power from Congress to a president. Consider the 2002 AUMF. As I wrote back then:
The resolution would authorize Mr. Bush to “use the Armed Forces of the United States as he determines to be necessary and appropriate in order to 1) defend the national security interests of the United States against the continuing threat posed by Iraq and 2) to enforce all relevant United Nations Security Council resolutions regarding Iraq.” The key phrase is “as he determines to be necessary and appropriate.” It would be consistent with the resolution for Mr. Bush to decide that it was neither necessary nor appropriate to use force against Iraq at all.
In other words, the Congress is not declaring that a state of war exists between Iraq and the United States. On the contrary, the President will decide when and if a state of war exists. The resolution requires only that he “certify” that diplomatic efforts have failed before he uses force. Indeed, House Minority Leader Richard Gephardt confirmed that Congress will not be declaring war when he said, “we should deal with it [the Iraqi problem] diplomatically if we can, militarily if we must. And I think this resolution does that.”
Orwellian war-denial is nothing new for the Obama administration. Obama refused to call the 2011 regime-changing air campaign in Libya a war; thus he dismissed the War Powers Resolution as irrelevant. (That 1973 measure was Congress’s feeble attempt to rein in de facto presidential power to make war and rectify the constitutional usurpation that began with Harry Truman’s “police action” in Korea in 1950.)
Going to war is the most consequential step a government can take. If the people have nothing to say about war ex ante, the government can hardly be described as representative.
War in Syria? Where Is Speaker Ryan?
By Pat Buchanan • Unz Review • November 3, 2015
“The United States is being sucked into a new Middle East war,” says The New York Times. And the Times has it exactly right.
Despite repeated pledges not to put “boots on the ground” in Syria, President Obama is inserting 50 U.S. special ops troops into that country, with more to follow.
U.S. A-10 “warthog” attack planes have been moved into Incirlik Air Base in Turkey, close to Syria.
Hillary Clinton, who has called for arming Syrian rebels to bring down Bashar Assad, is urging Obama to establish a no-fly zone inside Syria.
Citing Clinton and Gen. David Petraeus, John McCain is calling for a no-fly zone and a safe zone in Syria, to be policed by U.S. air power.
“How many men, women and children,” McCain asks, “are we willing to watch being slaughtered by the Russians and Bashar al-Assad?”
Yet, if we put U.S. forces onto sovereign Syrian territory, against the will and resistance of that government, that is an act of war.
Would we tolerate Mexican troops in Texas to protect their citizens inside our country? Would we, in the Cold War, have tolerated Russians in Cuba telling us they were establishing a no-fly zone for all U.S. warplanes over the Florida Strait and Florida Keys?
Obama has begun an escalation into Syria’s civil war, and not only against ISIS and the al-Nusra Front, but against Syria’s armed forces.
Mission creep has begun. The tripwire is being put down. Yet, who authorized Obama to take us into this war? The Russians and Iranians are in Syria at the invitation of the government. But Obama has no authorization from Congress to put combat troops into Syria.
Neither the al-Nusra Front nor ISIS has an air force. Against whom, then, is this Clinton-McCain no fly-zone directed, if not Syrian and Russian warplanes and helicopters?
Is America really prepared to order the shooting down of Russian warplanes and the killing of Russian pilots operating inside Syria with the approval of the Syrian government?
In deepening America’s involvement and risking a clash with Syrian, Russian and Iranian forces, Obama is contemptuously ignoring a Congress that has never authorized the use of military force against the Damascus regime.
Congress’ meek acquiescence in being stripped of its war powers is astonishing. Weren’t these the Republicans who were going to Washington to “stand up to Obama”?
Coming after Congress voted for “fast track,” i.e., to surrender its constitutional right to amend trade treaties, the capitulations of 2015 rank as milestones in the long decline into irrelevance of the U.S. Congress. Yet in the Constitution, Congress is still the first branch of the U.S. government.
Has anyone thought through to where this U.S. intervention can lead?
This weekend, the Justice and Development Party, or AKP, of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan regained full control of the parliament in a “khaki election” it called after renewing its war on the Kurdish PKK in southeastern Turkey and northern Iraq.
Erdogan regards the PKK as a terror group. As do we. But Erdogan also considers Syria’s Kurdish fighters, the YPG, to be terrorists. And Ankara has warned that if the YPG occupies more territory along the Syrian-Turkish border, west of the Euphrates, Turkey will attack.
Why should this concern us?
Not only do we not regard the YPG as terrorists, they are the fighting allies we assisted in the recapture of Kobani. And the U.S. hopes Syria’s Kurds will serve as the spear point of the campaign to retake Raqqa, the ISIS capital in Syria, which is only a few dozen miles south of YPG lines.
Should the YPG help to defeat ISIS and become the dominant power in northern Syria, the more dangerous they will appear to Erdogan, and the more problems that will create between the Turkish president and his NATO ally, the United States.
Not only does a Congressional debate on an authorization to use military force appear constitutionally mandated before we intervene in Syria, but the debate itself on an AUMF might induce a measure of caution before we plunge into yet another Middle East quagmire.
When Saddam fell, we got civil war, ISIS in Anbar, and a fractured and failed state with hundreds dying every week.
And, as of today, no one knows with certitude who rises if Assad falls.
The leading candidates are Jabhat al-Nusra, the front for an al-Qaida that brought down the twin towers[sic], and the butchers of ISIS, who captured another town on the Damascus road this weekend.
Monday, The Wall Street Journal wrote that Erdogan’s regrettable victory is “a reminder of what happens when America’s refusal to act to stop chaos in places like Syria frightens allies into making unpalatable choices.”
Now there’s an argument for America’s plunging into Syria: Send our troops to fight and die in multisided civil war that has cost 250,000 lives, so Turks will feel reassured enough they won’t vote for “strongmen” like Erdogan.
America needs an America First movement.
The Syrian Democratic Forces: Just an Invention by Washington to Save Face?
Sputnik – 03.11.2015
As America’s previous strategies for dealing with the Syrian crisis fell into disarray, the Pentagon scrambled to gather a ragtag band of militia groups under the banner of the Syrian Democratic Forces. But the new alliance is barely holding together, and may in fact have been dreamed up as an excuse to continue pumping weapons into the region.
Mere days after the Obama administration announced it was ending its controversial plan to train and equip so-called “moderate” Syrian rebels, a new player arrived on the scene.
“The sensitive state our country Syria is going through and rapid developments on the military and political front… require that there be a united national military force for all Syrians, joining Kurds, Arabs, Syriacs and other groups,” read a statement released by the newly formed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) last month.
The alliance consists of the Kurdish YPG militia, an Assyrian Christian group, and a number of various Arab groups collectively known as the Syrian Arab Coalition.
And according to a senior US military official speaking to the New York Times, the Syrian Arab Coalition was “an American invention.”
Washington’s new Syria strategy involves supporting this nebulous ground alliance in a fight against the self-proclaimed Islamic State terrorist group – in addition to sending between 30 and 50 US Special Forces as “advisers.”
But according to the government officials, the Syrian Arab Coalition consists of only 5,000 fighters. These are spread across various groups without any real central leadership, and approximately 20% of those forces said they had no interest in staging an offensive against IS.
If the SDF is to display any effectiveness, it will be from the 40,000-strong Kurdish militia – a fact which doesn’t exactly sit well with America’s Turkish allies. But by creating the Syrian Arab Coalition, the United States can indirectly arm the Kurds while maintaining plausible deniability.
“The YPG is a very effective fighting force, and it can do a lot. But these Arab groups are weak and just a fig leaf for the YPG,” Barak Barfi, of the New America Foundation, told the Times.
“There is no deep-rooted alliance between these groups; this is a shifting tactical alliance.”
The Syrian Arab Coalition is all but nonexistent, but even the broader SDF is in tatters. Despite the Pentagon’s dumping of 50 tons of ammunition into Syria last month, the alliance is in desperate need of heavy weapons, radios, infrastructure, leadership, and, yes, ammunition.
Visiting the frontlines in Syria, Ben Hubbard of the New York Times reported on just how ill-equipped the alliance is. Fighters wear old, worn-out boots and ragged fatigues. Security checkpoints are manned by teenagers armed with aging rifles. The only unifying factor at this time appears to be a yellow flag meant to represent the SDF, though it has no command posts to fly over.
“This is the state of our fighters: trying to fight ISIS with simple means,” one commander said, using an alternative acronym for the Islamic State.
The SDF is also in dire need of leadership. While the group is meant to be led by a six-person military council, that council currently consists of a single individual, who largely serves as little more than a spokesman.
Creating an illusory group to justify military actions in Syria isn’t exactly a new strategy for the Obama administration. When the US-led coalition first began airstrikes in Syria, Pentagon officials said they were targeting an al-Qaeda affiliate known as Khorasan.
“There are serious questions about whether the Khorasan Group even exists in any meaningful way or identifiable manner,” Glenn Greenwald and Murtaza Hussain wrote for the Intercept.
“What happened here is all-too-familiar. The Obama administration needed propagandistic and legal rationale for bombing yet another predominantly Muslim country.”
With the SDF, the administration can similarly deny arming Kurdish militias, and pretend it has an actual strategy in the region.
Reaping the Fruits of the War on Terror in Yemen
By Michael Horton | CounterPunch | November 3, 2015
Yemen was an early victim of the US led war on terror. The first targeted assassination by a US drone occurred there in November 2002. Yemen’s mountains and deserts were where the US developed and tested its flawed drone-centric counter-terrorism strategy. A combination of indifference, faulty intelligence, and incompetence has led to the deaths of hundreds of Yemeni civilians.
As tragic as these deaths are, they pale in comparison with the death and destruction unleashed by the current war in Yemen, a war that US foreign and counter-terrorism policies are partially responsible for.
As in most parts of the world where the US has waged its war on terror, the supposed targets—terrorist organizations like al-Qaeda and the Islamic State—are the primary beneficiaries.
These organizations exploit and feed off the chaotic and divisive environments that arise from short-sighted and uninformed “whack a mole” counter-terrorism strategies. Such an outcome is perfectly acceptable to the thriving military-industrial complex that drives and profits from US foreign policy.
Yemen is one of the countries where the disastrous consequences of the war on terror are most evident and potentially most consequential. Yemen’s strategic location across from the Bab al-Mandeb—a critical shipping corridor—and its long border with Saudi Arabia ensure that the chaos that has engulfed the country will not be easily contained.
The war has already spread across Saudi Arabia’s southern border where Houthi forces and elements of the Yemeni Army have repeatedly attacked military targets deep within Saudi territory. The same forces have reportedly launched anti-ship missiles—which the Yemeni Armed Forces have in their inventory—at ships belonging to the Saudi Navy.
Much of southern Yemen, which includes areas that Saudi Arabia and its allies claim to have “liberated,” is being infiltrated by al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) and the Islamic State. Parts of Aden—Yemen’s major port city—are now under the control of AQAP and allied bands of militant Salafis who are enforcing their version of Sharia law on the once cosmopolitan and relatively liberal city.
Yemen’s internationally recognized government—most of whose members remain in their villas in Saudi Arabia—has been unable to assert its authority in the liberated areas. As one of the better organized forces in the country, AQAP is filling the void. This is undoubtedly being facilitated by Saudi Arabia and its allies who view AQAP and militant Salafis as useful proxies. Just as they view groups like al-Qaeda affiliate al-Nusra Front in Syria as allies in their war against the government of Bashar al-Assad.
So how have US foreign policy and its counter-terrorism strategies contributed to the chaos that has engulfed Yemen?
In the wake of September 11th, then Yemeni President Saleh—a wily political survivor—recognized that the US’ war on terror was going to be a gift to corrupt governments like his. Saleh promised to be an ally in what he knew would be a war without end against organizations that are easily manipulated by intelligence services.
Thanks to the generosity of US tax payers, weapons and US Special Forces trainers poured into Yemen. There was little effective oversight of how the weapons and newly trained soldiers would be used. Rather than targeting al-Qaeda—an organization that the security services of Saleh’s government had already thoroughly penetrated—Saleh used his US supplied and trained special and counter-terrorism forces against his real enemies: namely the Houthis and those in south Yemen who opposed Saleh’s corrupt northerner dominated government.
In exchange for weapons and training, Saleh also agreed to let US drones hunt down and kill Yemeni citizens. It mattered little to him that the strikes strengthened AQAP. AQAP benefited from the cycles of revenge that resulted from the deaths of what were most often civilians. The drone strikes also weakened and de-legitimized tribal authority, one of the few constraints on the growth of AQAP and Saleh’s corrupt government.
US policies in Yemen—which were narrowly focused on killing the “bad guys” in the parlance of George W. Bush—altered the balance of power and helped set in motion the country’s rapid descent into chaos. With support from the US, Saleh was emboldened and rather than falling back on negotiations and patronage, which are long-established traditions in Yemen, he pursued his enemies. However, he and his forces were not powerful enough to prevail. Saleh, who is a student of Yemeni history, forgot that there are few periods when one man or a government has exercised control over the entirety of the country.
Rather than being defeated, Yemen’s Houthi rebels fought back and in the aftermath of the “Arab Spring” in Yemen, they took over a large part of northwest Yemen. In the south, southern separatists, who were routinely imprisoned and disappeared by the security services and “counter-terrorism” forces, were further radicalized. Now, in southern Yemen, the flag of a unified Yemen is nowhere to be seen. It has been replaced by the flag of the formerly independent south Yemen and the black flags of al-Qaeda.
The US has spent billions of dollars—the actual amount is unknown—on its war on terror in Yemen. It is worth contemplating what the political situation in Yemen would look like if even a fraction of that money had been spent on programs that tackled the real issues that drive instability in Yemen like water shortages, government corruption, a lack of schools and medical facilities, and food insecurity. And what if this aid had been linked to meaningful reform within government institutions?
While it is of course unlikely that Yemen would be a bastion of stability and transparent government, it is just as unlikely that the country would be mired in a brutal civil war that has drawn in Saudi Arabia and the UAE.
Unfortunately, US policy makers have learned nothing from fourteen years of trillion dollar failures in Afghanistan and Iraq and now Libya, Syria, and Yemen. Rather than rethinking its policies in Yemen and pushing for a negotiated end to hostilities, the US is aiding and enabling Saudi Arabia’s involvement in the war in Yemen. This war has killed thousands, impoverished millions, and effectively ceded control of large parts of Yemen to AQAP and other militant Salafi organizations.
The US’ war on terror in Yemen has done nothing but increase instability, embolden terrorist organizations, and ensure years—likely decades—of healthy profits for the companies that make up the military-industrial complex. These companies—not the American or Yemeni people—are reaping the fruits of a war without end.
Cameron denies scrapping vote on Syria airstrikes after warning from MPs
RT | November 3, 2015
Prime Minister David Cameron has reportedly scrapped plans to call a House of Commons vote on approving airstrikes against Islamic State (formerly ISIS/ISIL) in Syria after failing to win over enough Labour MPs to counterbalance rebellious Tories.
Whitehall sources told The Guardian and The Times that Downing Street had unofficially decided not to extend Royal Air Force (RAF) bombing campaigns from Iraq to Syria over fears Cameron would be humiliated by a second defeat on the issue.
MPs previously voted down launching airstrikes against Syria, specifically targeting forces loyal to President Bashar Assad, in 2013.
Cameron had insisted he would only call a vote when he had achieved a clear, cross-party consensus.
However, the estimated number of Labour MPs expected to vote in favor of airstrikes – between 20 and 30 – would not counteract the number of Tories planning to rebel.
One Downing Street source denied the claims, saying Cameron will still call a vote when a consensus is reached.
“The prime minister’s position hasn’t changed,” the source said.
“He’s consistently said that we would only go back to the House [of Commons] on this issue if there was clear consensus and that remains the case.”
“Meanwhile, the government continues to work to bring the conflict to an end in Syria and we are working closely with our allies to inject greater momentum into efforts to find a political solution, which we’ve always said will be the way to bring this war to an end and give Syria hope for the future.”
In a further blow to Cameron’s campaign to extend British bombing to Syria, the Foreign Affairs Select Committee released a report saying they are “not yet persuaded” by the case for Syrian airstrikes.
The report expresses concerns that Royal Air Force airstrikes would only have a “marginal effect” and could prove a “distraction” from a diplomatic solution.
MPs agreed that the humanitarian catastrophe means there is a “powerful sense that something must be done.”
But they added that military action should not be used unless there is a “coherent international strategy.”
“We believe that there should be no extension of British military action into Syria unless there is a coherent international strategy that has a realistic chance of defeating ISIL and of ending the civil war in Syria.
“In the absence of such a strategy, taking action to meet the desire to do something is still incoherent,” they added.
However, one former Labour minister threatened to quit the party after suggestions Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership team would consult the Stop the War coalition over a government proposal to begin military action.
Tom Harris MP, a former transport minister, posted on Facebook it would be “goodbye” from him if the anti-war group was consulted.
The British government has already authorized drone strikes against ISIS targets in Syria without the backing of parliament. In September, it was revealed that two British nationals fighting for extremist organizations had been killed by RAF drones.
US Secretary of State John Kerry will visit London this week to discuss international relations, including the situation in Syria. The US is already carrying out airstrikes in the country.
“While in London, [Kerry] will meet with British Foreign Secretary [Philip] Hammond to discuss a range of bilateral and global issues, including Syria,” a spokesperson for Kerry said.
Exploding Radioactive Waste Warning: Keep it Above Ground
By John Laforge | CounterPunch | November 2, 2015
Early on Sunday Oct. 25, an underground fire caused an explosion in a low-level nuclear waste site in the desert 10 miles from Beatty, Nevada, and 115 miles northwest of Las Vegas. The explosion and fire followed flash flooding that shut down Beatty’s escape routes: US 95 and State Highway 373. The 80-acre dumping ground, closed since 1992, is run by — get this — “US Ecology.” The private dump consists of 22 trenches up to 800 feet long and 50 feet deep, and its older trenches have radioactive waste within three feet of the surface, the Las Vegas Sun reported.
Certain types of radioactive material are known to catch fire when in contact with water, so the flooding that struck prior to the explosion may have been its cause. Unfortunately authorities don’t know what sorts of radioactive isotopes are buried in the trenches there. Nor does anyone know either how the fire started or how much radioactive waste burned.
Rusty Harris-Bishop, spokesman for the US EPA’s Region 9 office in San Francisco said in a prepared statement, “No gamma radiation has been detected at this time.” This nuanced remark does not indicate that gamma radiation wasn’t detected. It also artfully dodges questions about alpha and beta radiation.
With the EPA, the Nevada National Guard, Nye County officials and Energy Department all involved, highly nuanced public safety assurances are guaranteed. “Radiation wasn’t immediately detected during fly-overs of a burned trench … state and federal officials said Monday,” Oct. 26. But radiation monitoring was initiated well after the plume of smoke and debris from the blast and fire had dispersed. Then, “The Nevada Department of Public Safety said tests of the area around the fire site near Beatty returned negative readings for radiation,” KVVU TV reported. Well, sure. But were any positive readings returned?
Buried Waste Theoretically and Literally Explosive
In February 2014, at a deep underground dump in New Mexico where the Pentagon is burying plutonium-contaminated wastes, at least one barrel “burst after it arrived at the dump, releasing radioactive uranium, plutonium and americium throughout the underground facility,” according to NPR. NPR’s March 26, 2015 update concerned the Energy Department’s 277-page report about the explosion. The report said in part, “Experiments showed that various combinations of nitrate salt, Swheat Scoop® [cat litter], nitric acid, and oxalate self-heat at temperatures below 100°C.” The DOE’s term-of-art for this “self-heat” explosion was “thermal runaway.” This runaway explosion contaminated 22 workers internally, and it has shut down the operation, possibly forever.
In May 1996, a welding spark caused a waste cask explosion at Wisconsin’s Point Beach reactor on Lake Michigan. The blast of hydrogen gas was “powerful enough to up-end the three-ton lid while it was atop a storage cask filled with high-level waste.” The reactor’s owner called that accident merely a “gaseous ignition event,” but was later fined $325,000.
Only 20 miles away from the Beatty Nevada explosion is the now-cancelled Yucca Mountain high-level dump project, where such waste explosions were forecast by expert investigators 20 years ago.
In 1995, government physicists Charles Bowman and Francesco Venneri at Los Alamos National Laboratory predicted that wastes might erupt in a nuclear explosion and scatter radioactivity to the winds or into groundwater, or both. (Washington Post, Dec. 15, 1998; New York Times, Mar. 5, 1995.) Bowman and Venneri found that the explosion dangers will arise thousands of years from now — after steel waste containers dissolve and plutonium begins to disperse into surrounding rock. Former Energy Dept. geologist Jerry Szymanski said, “You’re talking about an unimaginable catastrophe. Chernobyl would be small potatoes.” (Joby Warrick, “At Nevada Nuclear Waste Site: The Issue is One of Liquidity,” Washington Post, Dec. 15, 1998)
In expert hearings held in southern Ontario in Sept. 2014, Dr. Frank Greening made identical warnings about the potential explosiveness of Canadian radioactive waste if they were to be buried next to Lake Huron under plans made by Ontario Power Generation.
October’s waste explosion and fire shows we don’t have to wait thousands of years for disaster to strike. Nevada’s “self-heating” radioactive “thermal runaway” is just the latest warning not to bury radioactive waste. Putting the deadly stuff out-of-sight and out-of-mind won’t keep us (or the water) safe. For radioactive waste, only above-ground, monitored, hardened, retrievable storage can come close to that goal. Ceasing nuclear waste production is the only path to potential sustainable solutions.
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UK Researchers: Tax Food to Reduce Climate Change
I doubt these professors have anything to fear from a food tax
By Eric Worrall | Watts Up With That? | November 19, 2016
A group of researchers in Oxford University, England have suggested that imposing a massive tax on carbon intensive foods – specifically protein rich foods like meat and dairy – could help combat climate change. […]
This proposal, from a group of people who have probably never missed a meal in their lives, is totally obscene. High income countries often have a lot of poor people who would be hard hit by increases in the price of food.
Needlessly exacerbating the risk poor people don’t get enough to eat, especially children and pregnant mothers, who are especially vulnerable to adverse health impacts from lack of protein in their diet – if this ghastly proposal is ever implemented, future generations will look upon it as a crime against humanity. – Read full article
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