In Libya, Protecting Profits from an Outbreak of Peace
Obama, Cameron and Sarkozy sent a message to the African Union in their jointly written April 14 op-ed: They’ll block any attempt to negotiate peace in Libya that doesn’t include Gaddafi’s ouster and the opening of Libya’s economy.
By Stephen Gowans | What Is Left |April 17, 2011
On April 14 US president Barak Obama, British prime minister David Cameron and French president Nicolas Sarkozy wrote an op-ed titled “Libya’s pathway to peace.” Appearing in the International Herald Tribune and two other newspapers, the op-ed set out US, British and French goals for Libya. One would be peace, but the pathway was to be Gaddafi’s exit, and his replacement by the Benghazi rebels.
While not presented as such, the op-ed was in fact a rejection of an African Union proposal for a negotiated settlement.
The AU had dispatched a delegation to Tripoli to meet with Gaddafi four days earlier, on April 10. The delegation proposed an immediate cease-fire, delivery of humanitarian aid, and negotiations between the Libyan government and the Benghazi rebels. Gaddafi accepted. But when the delegation arrived in Benghazi the next day, the rebels let it be known that the only peace they were interested in was one that saw Gaddafi, “his sons and his inner circle leave immediately.” (1)
US secretary of state Hilary Clinton quickly echoed the rebels’ position. Nothing could be resolved, she said, without “the departure of Gaddafi from power, and from Libya.” (2)
Peace was impossible in Libya without Gaddafi’s exit, the leaders insisted in their op-ed, because Gaddafi was the main threat to peace. It was “impossible to imagine a future for Libya with Gaddafi in power” they wrote, and added that “so long as Gaddafi is in power, NATO must maintain its operations.” Their case was based on the fiction that the conflict in Libya isn’t a civil war between rebels in the east and loyalists in the west but between the state and the people, as was true in Tunisia and Egypt and is true in Bahrain and Yemen.
As for Gaddafi being an obstacle to peace, that was belied by his acceptance of the AU peace proposal. But the armed uprising has, from the beginning, had nothing to do with peace. It has always been about regime-change.
Gaddafi is wrongly fit by the three leaders, as well as by supporters of the Western military intervention, into the mold of Bahrain’s Khalifa regime, which has used armed force to violently suppress a popular peaceful revolt. The uprising in Libya was armed, not peaceful, and while it may be popular in the east among tribalists, royalists, and radical Islamists led by neo-liberals connected to the United States, it has little popular support elsewhere in the country.
Despite casting the Gaddafi government in the role of the Khalifa regime, the leaders make no reference to the latter, which remains largely invisible in discussions of the “Arab spring” and which provides the Pentagon with a headquarters for its Fifth Fleet and runs a low-tax, no minimum-wage, foreign investment-friendly economy. If the US, British and French leaders were truly interested in protecting civilians they would have long ago imposed a no-fly zone over Bahrain and ordered the Saudi monarchy, surely the most regressive force on the planet, to withdraw its troops from Bahrain. But what they’re really interested in achieving in Libya is what was long ago achieved in Bahrain: a neo-colonial puppet regime that opens its country to Western military bases and unconditional exploitation by foreign corporations and investors.
And so Obama, Cameron, and Sarkozy used their op-ed to declare that there must be “a genuine transition” in Libya “led by a new generation of leaders” and that “in order for that transition to succeed, Gaddafi must go and go for good.” Significantly, the transition would usher in the new Western puppet. There are two indications of this.
The first is the nature of the rebel leadership. Its key members have important connections to the United States. Khalifa Heftir, a former Libyan Army colonel, has spent the last 25 years living seven miles from CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia with no obvious means of support. (3) Mahmoud Jibril “earned his PhD in 1985 from the University of Pittsburgh under the late Richard Cottam, a former US intelligence official in Iran who became a renowned political scientist specializing on the Middle East.” Jibril “spent years working with Gaddafi’s son Saif on political and economic reforms … (b)ut after hardliners in the regime stifled the reforms, Jibril quit in frustration and left Libya about a year ago.” (4) Jibril has been out of Libya since the uprising began, meeting with foreign leaders. (5) Then there is the rebel government’s finance minister, Ali Tarhouni, who has been in exile for the last 35 years. His latest job was teaching economics at the University of Washington.
The second indication is provided in the three leaders’ op-ed. Libya, they write, must “develop the institutions to underpin a prosperous and open society.” Revealingly, the three leaders tell Libyans what institutions they should develop. But what if Libyans don’t want an open society at this point in their development? What if they want what the United States, Britain and France have had through long parts of their history (and still do have): a society closed to outsiders in strategic areas?
While the institutions of an open society aren’t exclusively economic, an open society is understood to be one whose doors are open to unconditional integration into the global economy. This differs from the Gaddafi government’s strategic integration, based on linkages aimed at increasing real wages in Libya rather than maximizing returns to foreign investors. This isn’t to say that Libya hasn’t welcomed foreign investment where it makes sense for the development of the country, but it is likely that the open society Obama, Cameron and Sarkozy foresee for Libya, has little to do with what makes sense for Libya, and everything to do with what makes sense for US, British and French investors and corporations.
1. Kareem Fahim, “Truce plan for Libya is rejected by rebels”, The New York Times, April 11, 2011.
2. David E. Sanger, “Possible Libya stalemate puts stress on U.S. policy”, The New York Times, April 11, 2011.
3. “Professor: In Libya, a civil war, not uprising”, NPR, April 2, 2011. http://www.npr.org/2011/04/02/135072664/professor-in-libya-a-civil-war-not-uprising
4. Farah Stockman, “Libyan reformer new face of rebellion”, The Boston Globe, March 28, 2011.
5. Kareem Fahim, “Rebel leadership in Libya shows strain”, The New York Times, April 3, 2011.
April 18, 2011 Posted by aletho | Economics, Militarism, Timeless or most popular | Leave a comment
The Civil War: an Eerie Silence
By ROBIN BLACKBURN | CounterPunch | April 18, 2011
The news and entertainment media love anniversaries. So it is strange that the 150th anniversary of the start of the Civil War has been so low key. The BBC has a regular item each evening explaining the Secession crisis, in contrast to the shrugs of the US channels. The New York Times has been the only publication to pay some attention but on April 12 it ran a piece by Ken Burns, co-director of the celebrated PBS series, pointing out that notwithstanding its centrality in the national story the conflict does not always receive the attention it merits. He compared this phenomenon to the ‘acoustic shadow’ noticed during the Civil War itself whereby towns quite close to a battlefield were bathed in silence while quite distant locations could distinctly hear the roar of the fusillades and the canon’s bark. PBS is airing a re-run of the Civil War programmes but extensive cuts have reduced the fascinating and acute commentaries of the featured historians.
Harold Meyerson has argued in the Washington Post (14/04/11) that the issues that sparked the mighty conflict continually re-appear in new forms. In the 1860s the roots of the clash lay in rival labor systems, with Northerners fearing the expansionist longings of the ‘Slave Power’. Today, Meyerson points out, the Republicans – the then champions of an expansive ‘free labor’ regime embracing public education and the right to organize, are now the sworn foes of public expenditure and trade union rights.
While this observation is on the mark it still does not explain why so many avoid the topic. Apparently – even a century and a half later – there is no commonly-agreed narrative of the meaning of the war. What can still be called Northern opinion insists that the war was about slavery and race, something that many Southerners will not accept. Those South Carolinians who observed the anniversary of their own state’s secession last December portrayed it as a brave blow for state’s rights and minimal government.
It is easy for Northerners to see the bad faith in Southern denials that the glorious cause was no more than a wretched defense of racial bondage. The most insistent secessionists were indeed the large slave-owners, and the Confederacy’s very belated recourse to the freeing of some slaves to form a Confederate regiment cannot alter the fact that the rebellion was animated by the desire to insulate slavery from the peril of a Republican president and the persisting contempt of so many Northerners. Slavery was a delicate institution that could not be subjected to the rough and tumble of party politics.
But if Northerners can spot the beam in the eyes of the Southerners they don’t notice the mote in their own. This is the more difficult to do because it requires simultaneous attention to two considerations. Firstly, in April 1861, and for many months thereafter, slavery remained entirely lawful in the Union. Secondly, so long as both sides remained attached to slavery, the Union case against secession would remain flawed at best. Modern liberal and democratic theory allows for a right of self-determination and each of the seceding states had agreed the fateful step only after the deliberation of a representative body as determined by the prevailing authorities. Of course the slaves themselves had no say in the matter, but neither did they at most places in the North.
Indeed in February 1861 the Congress had endorsed a Thirteenth Amendment – never subsequently ratified by the states and very different from the later one — which would have renounced any right or ability to challenge slavery and reserved to the slave states themselves the entire responsibility for regulating slavery. Lincoln gave his support. Many urged that the Constitution itself already entailed such a concession but it remained unfortunate nevertheless. Lincoln wished to re-assure loyal slaveholders that they had nothing to fear from his administration.
Until president and Congress could agree initiatives to suppress slavery they could not offer abolitionism as the justification for making war against the rebels. Of course the Union had the right to condemn and deplore Secession, and even to refuse to recognise it, and to devise peaceful ways of dissuading them. But Lincoln himself in his first speech to the House of Representatives had insisted in the most emphatic terms that all peoples have a right of revolution and that this extended to communities that were in a minority nationally so long at they had a local majority.
In fact nineteenth-century democrats generally supported national secessions where this received local support, as it did when Belgium seceded from the Netherlands in 1830 or Norway from Sweden in 1905. However Lincoln was to specify an exception to this rule in his speech in Peoria in 1854. In that speech he says that slaveholders cannot claim this right as against a free community. In the US case acquiescence in secession would have allowed the North and the West to become a large and progressive state, a sort of vast and diversified Canada, hospitable to free labor, social protection and gun control. The Confederacy meanwhile, would have become a republican version of the ramshackle Brazilian Empire, a major slave society that eventually managed to shed slavery in a largely peaceful manner.
So the Emancipation Proclamation and the Thirteenth Amendment had a bearing on the legitimacy of the war against the secession, clearly putting the Union in the right. The virtuous measures taken in 1863 and after lent a quite new purpose to the struggle, rescuing it from its deficiency deficit. Karl Marx went further, since he was confident that the slavery issue could not be kept out of the conflict and the North would be driven to attack slavery since it was the very basis of the Confederate regime.
The coming months and years are going to furnish a succession of thorny topics for the commemoration industry – dating from Reconstruction as well as the War – and it will be fascinating to see how they are navigated. The terrible destructiveness of the war and its very unsatisfactory ultimate outcome for African Americans are issues that will have to be addressed.
But however the later sequence of events is addressed it remains highly unsatisfactory to allow the war’s inception to be enveloped by the ‘acoustic shadow’. We live in a world where the US and other Western governments believe themselves entitled to resort to military intervention almost at will, though the more scrupulous crave the rubber stamp of the UN Security Council, notwithstanding that the stamp of approval is issued from a supine position.
In this context a willingness on the part of the United States to admit the possibility that the war was not the best response to Secession would be a healthy sign. (Recent books by Drew Gilpin Faust, — This Republic of Suffering — and Louis Menand, The Metaphysical Club is encouraging auguries.) A willingness to grant this, even if combined with the severest stricture on slavery and Jim Crow, could help the US to find a post-imperial vocation and to defeat threats to free and thriving labor. It would also help to clarify how Washington would react to any future wish of a state to withdraw from the Union. If that wish was reached by clear majorities, after democratic debate, is it really conceivable that anyone would wish the matter to be settled by tanks and aerial bombardment.
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Robin Blackburn teaches at the University of Essex in the UK and is the author of An Unfinished Revolution: Karl Marx and Abraham Lincoln, and The American Crucible, both Verso 2011. He can be reached at robinblackburn68@hotmail.com
Related articles
- You Have the Right To Secede (lewrockwell.com)
- 10 facts about secession from U.S. (politico.com)
April 18, 2011 Posted by aletho | Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Militarism, Timeless or most popular | American Civil War, Civil War, Confederate States of America, Emancipation Proclamation, Lincoln, Secession, United States | Leave a comment
Gadhafi’s Cluster Bombs–and Uncle Sam’s
By Jim Naureckas – 04/16/2011
“Gadhafi Troops Fire Cluster Bombs Into Civilian Areas,” declares a New York Times headline (4/15/11). The lead of the story makes clear that these weapons are considered in many countries to be illegal:
Military forces loyal to Col. Moammar el-Gadhafi have been firing into residential neighborhoods in this embattled city with heavy weapons, including cluster bombs that have been banned by much of the world.
The story, by C.J. Chivers, goes on to explain why these weapons have been banned:
These so-called indiscriminate weapons, which strike large areas with a dense succession of high-explosive munitions, by their nature cannot be fired precisely. When fired into populated areas, they place civilians at grave risk.
Then it gives a graphic description of the human toll of these weapons:
The dangers were evident beside one of the impact craters on Friday, where eight people had been killed while standing in a bread line. Where a crowd had assembled for food, bits of human flesh had been blasted against a cinder-block wall.
And it strongly suggests that the use of cluster bombs deserves to have serious international consequences:
The use of such weapons in these ways could add urgency to the arguments by Britain and France that the alliance needs to step up attacks on the Gadhafi forces, to better fulfill the United Nations mandate to protect civilians.
After all this, the story gets out of the way an awkward fact that complicates this presentation of the use of cluster bombs as proof that Moammar Gadhafi is an international outlaw whose bloodthirstiness must be countered by an intensified military campaign by the civilized world:
At the same time, the United States has used cluster munitions itself, in battlefield situations in Afghanistan and Iraq, and in a strike on suspected militants in Yemen in 2009.
Oh–so these “indiscriminate weapons” that “place civilians at grave risk” have been used by the United States as well? But only in “battlefield situations,” far from civilians, right? Well, not exactly. The U.S. was criticized by Human Rights Watch for using cluster bombs in populated areas in Afghanistan, killing and injuring scores of civilians (Washington Post, 12/18/02). Amnesty International (4/2/03) called the U.S.’s use of cluster bombs in civilian areas of Iraq “a grave violation of international humanitarian law.” (See FAIR Action Alert, 5/6/03.) NATO employed cluster bombs in its bombing of Serbia during the Kosovo War, with one attack killing 15 civilians in the town of Nis (BBC, 5/7/99); more than 2,000 unexploded munitions from cluster bombs are estimated to remain on Serbian territory, continuing to endanger civilians (AFP, 3/10/09).
The “suspected militants” attacked by a cluster bomb in Yemen in 2009 turned out to be “21 children and 20 innocent women and men” (NewYorkTimes.com, 12/9/10)–all killed in the U.S. attack.
You can be sure that none of these examples of U.S. use of cluster bombs in civilian areas prompted the New York Times to suggest that they justified military attacks on the United States in order to protect civilians. And you’d be hard-pressed to find any descriptions in the Times of the “bits of human flesh” resulting from any U.S. military action.
As for cluster bombs being “banned in much of the world,” that includes Britain. But as WikiLeaks revealed, the U.S. colluded with the British government to circumvent the ban and allow U.S. cluster bombs to remain on British soil. WikiLeaks also disclosed that the U.S. has been lobbying for countries to keep cluster bombs legal, arguing that they are “legitimate weapons that provide a vital military capability” (Guardian, 12/1/10).
April 17, 2011 Posted by aletho | Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | Leave a comment
Israel thanks US for taxpayer dollars
Press TV – April 16, 2011
The Israeli Prime Minister has thanked Washington for approving new military aid to Tel Aviv at a time when Americans are protesting at the US government’s military spending.
Benjamin Netanyahu said on Saturday that the move is further evidence of the close friendship between Israel and the US.
Congress passed a budget bill authorizing military aid to Israel this week, AFP reported.
The stipulation gives an additional USD 205 million in aid to Israel for the acquisition of four new batteries of the Iron Dome missile system.
Two batteries, each holding twenty missiles, were deployed last week during Israel’s assault on the Gaza Strip.
Last week, thousands of peace, labor and community activists took to the streets of New York to voice concerns over the funding of wars abroad. They expressed their concern over the struggling US economy and reduction in social programs.
Since 2007 Washington has been giving Tel Aviv USD three-billion in aid every year. The money is spent almost entirely on purchasing American weapons as part of a ten-year agreement.
The US Congress Office for Technology Assessment says Israel, the largest recipient of US aid since World War II, has undeclared chemical weapons and an offensive biological warfare program.
Tel-Aviv’s nuclear program is described as an open secret. Israel is believed to be the only possessor of nuclear weapons in the Middle East with an arsenal bigger than that of Britain or France.
April 17, 2011 Posted by aletho | Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel | Leave a comment
Lobby, lobbification and the lobbified: the corruption of the USA’s elected representatives
By Lawrence Davidson | Redress | 18 April 2011
Lobbification is a word I have just coined for the corruptive process that bends politicians to the will of special interests, that is, to the will of lobbies. The result of lobbification can be seen in the stilted and fawning behaviour of the lobbified political brain. Politicians with lobbified brains become the obedient instruments of the lobbies which have captured their political souls. Below are a few examples of the results of lobbification.
An example from the House of Representatives
The majority of the politicians who sit on the US House Foreign Affairs Committee are victims of lobbification. Among the major lobbies that have, over the decades, carried out this corrupting process are the Zionist organizations in their various Jewish and Christian manifestations. In their present state, the lobbified minds of these committee members, so influential in the foreign policy formulation process of our country, are utterly incapable of questioning, much less defying, the hypnotic power of either American Zionists or the Israelis. Here is just one illustration of the resulting mental paralysis.
On Tuesday 5 April 2011 three Israelis appeared before the US House Foreign Affairs Committee. Two were retired Israeli armed forces generals and one was Dore Gold, the president of the Jerusalem Centre for Public Affairs. Gold is one of those transplanted Americans who have chosen careers as Israeli spokesmen. (As an aside, he is also an Inspector Clouseau look alike.) He served as Israeli ambassador to the United Nations and political advisor to former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. Among other dubious accomplishments, it was Gold who convinced the Clinton administration not to press Israel on the issue of the Golan Heights. The Saudi ambassador to the US, Prince Bandar bin Sultan, once described him as “simply hatred’s scribe”. Here is some of what Gold and his fellow Israelis told the Foreign Affairs Committee:
1. Israel is confronting a new diplomatic assault that could well strip it of territorial defences in the West Bank that have provided for its security for over 40 years…”
2. “The 1993 Oslo agreements envisioned a negotiated solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, with borders to be decided by the parties themselves and not imposed by international coalitions or by unilateral acts.”
3. “Traditional US policy recognized that Israel is not expected to withdrew from all territories it captured in the 1967 Six Day War. This was enshrined in UN Security Council Resolution 242…”
4. “…the entire Middle East is engulfed in flames. Just as Israel faces complete strategic uncertainty … it is being asked to acquiesce to unprecedented concessions that could put its very future at risk.” Therefore, “…to agree to a full withdrawal from the West Bank and to acquiesce to the loss of defensible borders pose an unacceptable risk for the Jewish state.”
During this lament our Congressional Representatives sat there, in their collective lobbified frame of mind, and swallowed it all in as if it were gospel. This was completely predictable. The Foreign Affairs Committee is chaired by Florida Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, an ardent anti-Castro Cuban American who has spent her political life doing two things: first, distorting our foreign policy toward Cuba so that no vestige of national interest can be found therein, and second, promoting a tactical alliance between reactionary Cuban American groups and the Zionists. Ros-Lehtinen has recently confirmed her lobbified status by demanding that Congress “make it US policy to demand that the UN General Assembly revoke and repudiate the Goldstone Report“. She did this despite the fact that three of the four signatories of the report have avowed its accuracy and continued relevance. The senior Democratic Party member on the committee is Howard Berman who has never been able to figure out who he should represent more diligently, his California district constituents or Israel.
Both these leading committee members clearly suffer from lobbification and most of the other standing members also display this condition to one extent or another. As a result, when it came to the discussion that followed the Israelis’ presentation, all the possible probing questions remained unasked. Here are some of them, figuratively addressed to Ambassador Dore, and others:
1. What do you mean by “diplomatic assault”, “imposed by international coalitions”, and “unilateral acts”? Do you mean the rather feeble US and European suggestion that your country negotiate in good faith and cease its own series of illegal unilateral acts such as the ethnic cleansing of East Jerusalem?
2. And how is it that you are now telling us that, for the last 40 years, your “territorial defences” have made you secure? For the past 40 years you have been telling us how insecure you are! Are we to understand that your constant claim of insecurity was a gross exaggeration? Perhaps nothing more than an addictive frame of mind? Or has it been just a facade behind which you carry on expansion in violation of international law?
3. Why do you bring up the Oslo accords? For the last few decades you have been telling us that they are dead letters, irrelevant to current circumstances. You seem to trot them out when they serve your purposes and cast them into oblivion when they do not. Also, are you not aware that in the past your country has violated these accords at will?
4. Is Israel’s determined refusal to negotiate rational concessions really a function of the assertion that the “entire Middle East” is allegedly “engulfed in flames”? If we simply go back to a period when there was no “complete strategic uncertainty” we find that Israel’s position on compromise was exactly the same as it is today. So isn’t this new concern really a contrived excuse to justify your country’s refusal to come to just and fair settlement with the Palestinians?
5. Why are you bringing up the possibility of “full withdrawal” from the West Bank as if it was a spectre gazing over your shoulder? When is the last time the US government or the European Union demanded this of you? Is not the present understanding of the final character of borders based upon the 1967 Green Line one that includes mutually agreed upon and equitable land swaps? Is not this the recognized contemporary understanding of UN Resolution 242?
6. And what is this business of “defensible borders”? When was the last time your country’s borders proved indefensible to conventional military attack? Isn’t it true that, even without the West Bank, your borders have never been seriously crossed by such forces? Your vulnerability lies in your inability to counter guerrilla and terrorist attacks, and to prevent missile penetration. Ultimate security against these threats does not rest in a policy of colonial expansion but rather in an equitable peace agreement.
What a memorable and actually useful committee meeting it would have been if these or similar questions had been posed. But alas, the lobbified brain functions something like Israel’s apartheid wall. Meaningful questions about Israel and doubts about the real consequences of Zionism cannot easily get over or around the nine-metre-high conditioning that is lobbification.
An example from the US Senate
The on-line magazine Politico tells us that “even as they push for huge cuts, 11 freshman GOP [Grand Old Party – the US Republican Party] senators say the US must continue to provide foreign aid to its strongest ally in the Middle East: Israel”.
In a letter to Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) the security conscious 11 stated, “as we work to reduce wasteful government spending … we must continue to prioritize the safety of our nation and the security of our allies, including Israel”.
Only the thoroughly lobbified brain can advocate cutting 500 million dollars from federal programmes for health and nutrition for women, infants and children and simultaneously insist on continuing to give Israel 3 billion dollars a year – and, do so in the name of “prioritizing the safety of our nation”!
The senator who organized the letter to McConnell is Marco Rubio of Florida (a male version of Ros-Lehtinen) and he sits on what committee? The Senate Foreign Relations Committee, of course. His lobbified state apparently makes it impossible for him to see the connection between our open-ended support of Israel, Israel’s ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians and our nation’s insecurity. It should come as no surprise that Senator Rubio has said that the US must “stand with Israel without equivocation or hesitation” and cease pressuring Israel over its settlement policies.
Conclusion
As the approximately 206.8 million adult Americans go about their daily lives most probably do not realize that they, or at least the approximately 57 per cent who bother to vote in federal elections, have placed into positions of power individuals who have been corrupted by lobby power. This is due to the fact that most Americans do not understand and/or pay attention to how their own political system works. Few and far between are the school “civics” courses that, in theory, explain its intricacies. And, once the Republicans get done gutting the education budgets, those remaining courses will most likely disappear.
Ignorance is not bliss. It is often the prelude to sudden destruction. It is not bliss to be ignorant of the corruption that is undermining your government . Lobbification is synonymous with just that – a dangerous form of political corruption. Our political system is riddled with it. It has been so for a long time and the situation is not improving.
This condition has recently manifested itself in Wisconsin, Michigan, Maine, Ohio and a host of other states in the form of feverish acts of self-destruction. And, as we have seen, Congress has no immunity. Yet the citizenry goes blissfully about its business.
To quote the immortal Samuel Johnson, “Must helpless man, in ignorance sedate, roll darkling down the torrent of his fate? (Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, 2001, p. 411, No. 19).
Perhaps it is so.
April 17, 2011 Posted by aletho | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel | Leave a comment
A Simple Alternative to Ethanol
By Yves Engler / Dissident Voice / April 16th, 2011
“Surging food prices fuel ethanol critics,” noted a recent AFP headline. With the commodity food price index (a combined figure of various foodstuffs) up 40% over the past year the danger of feeding cars food has shot back onto the media/political radar.
By using land to feed cars, bio-fuels have unleashed a battle between automobile owners and the world’s two billion poorest people. George Monbiot explains: “the market responds to money, not need. People who own cars by definition have more money than people at risk of starvation: their demand is ‘effective’, while the groans of the starving are not. In a contest between cars and people, the cars would win.” They are already winning. Foreign investors have been buying large tracts of land in Africa to cultivate biofuels while the recent food price spike is one factor in the upheaval in northern Africa and the Middle East.
Ten days ago the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons warned that the push by Western governments to increase biofuel production could cause 200,000 deaths in poorer countries. Recently, the New York Times explained, “each year, an ever larger portion of the world’s crops — cassava and corn, sugar and palm oil — is being diverted for biofuels as developed countries pass laws mandating greater use of nonfossil fuels.” 7-8 per cent of the world’s cereal crop will be used for biofuels this year.
Growing corn to fuel an average U.S. car takes five times more land than what’s needed to feed a person. According to the Earth Policy Institute director Lester Brown, “the grain grown to produce fuel in the U.S. [in 2009] was enough to feed 330 million people for one year at average world consumption levels.”
Between 2005 and 2009 U.S. ethanol production more than tripled. About 10.6 billion gallons of bio-fuel were produced in 2009, which is expected to reach 15 billion gallons next year. By 2022 Washington wants that number to reach 36 billion and they are prepared to subsidize it. In 2010, oil refiners received upwards of $7 billion in federal subsidies for mixing ethanol into gas.
Proponents claim that the next generation of ethanol will depend on large plant matter instead of foodstuff, but there are problems with this plan. Breaking down plant cellulose into fermentable sugars currently requires more energy than it creates. Additionally, tremendous energy is needed to harvest bulky, heavy plant matter and to ship it to ethanol refineries. Over $1 billion in public money has been spent researching more efficient ways of turning plants into cellulose without much success. In October 2010 Grist noted, “for decades, boosters deemed cellulosic ethanol ‘five years way’ from commercial viability. Now its status has been upgraded to ‘within reach.’ Progress!”
Leaving aside the pressure on food prices and resulting malnutrition among the world’s poor, ethanol’s ecological benefits are far from clear. Most studies show that gasoline made from U.S. corn produces about 15 percent less carbon dioxide than conventional gas. Some studies suggest, however, that corn-based ethanol produces more CO2 than oil-based gasoline if all the energy used in the growth phase is properly accounted for. Even if carbon emissions are reduced, ethanol has a variety of drawbacks. It is shipped in energy intensive trucks or trains, takes huge amounts of water to produce and increases air pollutants as well as nitrides and pesticides.
Rather than ecology, the push for ethanol gas in the U.S. was largely driven by economic considerations. In the late 1970s, the New York Times noted that Archer Daniels Midland Co. (ADM) “tried to solve a problem with seasonal overcapacity in its corn syrup plants by producing something else from abundant corn supplies: ethanol. That set off a two-decade-long lobbying and public relations effort by the elder Mr. Andreas [ADM president] to win broader acceptance for ethanol as a fuel.” Among the world’s largest agricultural conglomerates, ADM now does billions of dollars in annual ethanol business.
For their part, U.S. automakers support ethanol because it deflects attention away from improving fuel mileage (or focusing on non-car transport). In fact, under Corporate Average Fuel Economy regulations, making vehicles that can run on ethanol permits carmakers to sell more fuel intensive cars. A vehicle that can run on petroleum gasoline or 85 percent ethanol (E85) receives “a much higher mileage rating than it really gets” even though most of these cars never fill up with E85.
Fortunately, there’s a simple alternative to ethanol. It’s called a bike.
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Yves Engler is the author of a number of books. His forthcoming (with Bianca Mugyenyi) Stop Signs: Cars and Capitalism on the road to Economic, Social and Environmental Decay will be released in April. Anyone interested in organizing a talk as part of a North America wide book tour in May and June please e-mail: yvesengler [at] hotmail.com.
April 16, 2011 Posted by aletho | Economics, Environmentalism, Timeless or most popular | Leave a comment
Livni pushes int’l code to police Arab elections and bar some parties (hint: Muslim Brotherhood)
By Philip Weiss on April 16, 2011
Simon Schama has a slavering interview with Tzipi Livni, the champion of Gaza, at the Financial Times. Says my tipster: go straight to the last paragraph, where you’ll see she “champions” a new “international standard” for elections–which would outlaw “in Muslim countries” anyone using “democratic means” to “overthrow democracies.” It is an implicit reference to Muslim Brotherhood in the previous paragraph. I suppose Israel will now define democracy for the world.
That, she explains, is the true conflict at the heart of the Middle East, one even bigger than the enmity of Jew and Arab: the genuinely irreconcilable clash between theocratic and autocratic regimes, and liberal democracies. Right now, and for a little time perhaps, an Israeli party of reason might be able to make the peace with its Palestinian counterpart. Evidently there has been something like a meeting of minds across the “security fence”. But not forever. No one knows which side – Islamic militancy or democratic secularism – will emerge from the Arab spring. But that uncertainty only makes the need for an early settlement more, not less, pressing.
Not least because Israel, too, has a domestic cultural conflict on its hands that is undoing assumptions about what kind of Jewishness the Jewish state is supposed to embody. Between the Jerusalem ultra-orthodox Haredim, for whom the only true Jewish state is one based on rigid obedience to halacha, the precepts of the religion, and those whose Israel is pluralist and secular, there is as wide a gulf as between the Muslim Brotherhood and the Tweeters of Tahrir Square. The two crises – of the outer borders of the Jewish state and its inner identity – Livni sees as organically connected. It says something about her forthrightness as well as her optimism that Livni wants a written Israeli constitution that would make a clear demarcation between synagogue and state.But then she is a great believer in the strength of principle, championing an international code of practice to govern elections in newly born democracies. Recalling that in Israel the expulsionist Kach party was disbarred from participating in elections, she wants the same principle to apply to parties in Muslim countries that use democratic means to overthrow democracy. Hitler, she remembers, came to power through the ballot box. “This would not be patronising or imperialist,” she says. “They can all do what they like. But if they want to participate in an international community they should abide by those conventions.”
April 16, 2011 Posted by aletho | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel | Leave a comment
In Libya, as in Iraq, “End of Combat” Means “More Combat”
By Michael Tennant | New American | April 14, 2011
Truth, it has been said, is the first casualty of war. The latest evidence of the veracity of this saying: The United States supposedly stopped attacking Libya on April 4, yet since that time U.S. aircraft have continued to fly over the beleaguered nation and assault its air defenses. Back on March 31, Defense Secretary Robert Gates told the House Armed Services Committee, “We will not be taking an active part in strike activities [after turning over the lead to NATO] and we believe our allies can sustain this for some period of time.” The United States, he said, was moving into a “support role,” assisting NATO with “electronic warfare, aerial refueling, lift, search and rescue and intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance support.”
Nine days after the U.S. supposedly became a mere supporting player, Reuters reported that “[11] U.S. aircraft have flown 97 sorties in Libya since April 4 and fired on air defense targets three times, the Pentagon said.”
Pentagon spokesman Col. Dave Lapan told reporters that U.S. aircraft are being used for “not just aerial refueling, not just surveillance” but also “suppression of enemy air defenses.” This would seem to contradict Gates’s description of the “support” mission as well as his department’s previous assertion that “it would not conduct strike sorties after April 4 without a specific request from” NATO, as Reuters put it.
In Washington, however, (as in Orwell’s 1984) words usually mean the opposite of their dictionary definitions. Thus, the Pentagon, says Reuters, “clarified on Wednesday that this did not apply to attacks on Gaddafi’s air defenses, which have continued.” In other words, “not conduct[ing] strike sorties” actually means “conducting strike sorties.” This explains why Pentagon Press Secretary Geoff Morrell was able to say with a straight face: “It is completely consistent with how we have described our support role ever since the transition to NATO lead.”
Contra Morrell, it is completely inconsistent not only with Defense Department pronouncements but also with the words of the President himself. On March 22, Obama, referring to the post-transition role of the U.S. military, said, “When this transition takes place, it is not going to be our planes that are maintaining the no-fly zone.” Yet a military official told Reuters that the sorties and strikes that have occurred since the transition “are defensive missions that are simply to protect the aircraft flying the no-fly zone.” Furthermore, as NBC News noted, “The revelation [of the ongoing strikes] appears to contradict President Barack Obama’s claim that the combat portion of the Libyan operation would be handed over to NATO ‘within days, not weeks.’ ”
Obama’s unconstitutional war, therefore, continues apace, with no end in sight. The United States remains in a combat role, enforcing a no-fly zone (itself an act of war) against a country that did not threaten it. The air campaign “has caused rather than broken a military stalemate” in Libya, according to Reuters, leading Gen. Carter Ham, head of the U.S. African Command, to suggest that ground troops might be needed to bring a resolution to the conflict.
Diligent students of history and strict defenders of the Constitution will likely advocate that Congress exercise its constitutional authority to end this war before it turns into the proverbial quagmire.
April 15, 2011 Posted by aletho | Deception, Progressive Hypocrite, Timeless or most popular | Leave a comment
Venezuelans Celebrate Rescue of Democracy as Threats Continue
By Eva Golinger | April 14, 2011
This Wednesday, April 13, thousands of Venezuelans marched on the nation’s capital, celebrating what has come to be known as the “Day of Civil-Military Strength and Dignity”. It was nine years ago on this day that millions of Caracas residents, together with loyal armed forces and the Presidential Guard, defeated a US-backed coup d’etat that had forcefully taken power just 48 hours prior.
The coup, executed by business leaders, corrupt union officials, private media owners, power-hungry military officers, former ruling-party politicians and “civil society” organizations – all financially and politically supported by US government agencies, the State Department and the White House (see “The Chavez Code: Cracking US Intervention in Venezuela” by Eva Golinger, Olive Branch Press 2006) – succeeded briefly in ousting President Chavez and his government from power on April 11, 2002.
Utilizing images manipulated by private television station, Venevision, the coup forces justified their actions by blaming the violence and deaths that occured that day on the Venezuelan head of state. In reality, as top secret Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) documents have revealed, the coup was planned in the days and weeks prior to its execution. The objective was to use an anti-Chavez protest to provoke violence and unrest in the capital, Caracas, putting into action a detailed plot using snipers to fire on the crowds, causing deaths and injuries, which would be blamed on the government, justifying its ouster. As one top secret, now partially-declassifed CIA document from April 6, 2002 (5 days before the coup took place) outlines, after the violence was provoked by coup forces, “President Chavez and other top members in his cabinet…would be arrested” and a “transitional government” would be installed.
Chavez was detained by force on the evening of April 11, 2002, and kidnapped by dissident military officers, on the orders of the coup leaders. Meanwhile, the US ambassador in Caracas, Charles Shapiro, was coordinating the actions on the ground with media owners, metropolitan police forces involved in the sniper shootings, and of course the business and political leaders that forcefully took over the government. Documentary evidence proves that Shapiro held several meetings and conversations during the events of April 11, 2002, with the metropolitan police commissioner, Henry Vivas, as well as with Gustavo Cisneros, owner of Venevision, and Pedro Carmona, who subsequently took over the presidency and declared himself head of state.
PEOPLE’S POWER
As the coup unfolded and Carmona, then head of Venezuela’s chamber of commerce, Fedecamaras, unilaterally and illegally swore himself into office as president, the constitutional president, Hugo Chavez, was held hostage and incomunicado on a small island military base off Venezuela’s coast. The only non-private national television station, state-owned VTV, was taken off the air by then governor of the state of Miranda, Enrique Mendoza, in an effort to silence pro-Chavez forces and conceal information and events from the people. Private media – all involved in the coup – broadcast cartoons, old movies and soap operas, while print media published articles justifying and supporting the “transition government”.
Before an audience of about 400 people in the presidential palace, Miraflores, Pedro Carmona issued a decree dissolving all of the nation’s democratic institutions: the Supreme Court, the National Assembly (Congress), the Attorney General, Public Defender, Comptroller, the Executive cabinet, and even the national Constitution. Police forces, under the control of the coup regime, repressed pro-Chavez protestors in the streets, killing and injuring over 100 people during those hours.
But despite the media blackout on the real events that were taking place, millions of Venezuelans, unwilling to accept the disappearance of their constitutionally-elected president and the imposition of a dictatorship that openly dissolved their democracy, took to the streets in protest. Armed forces loyal to President Chavez began taking over military barracks and urging people to come out in the streets to express their popular will. Within hours, the presidential palace was flooded with demonstrators, demanding the return of President Chavez and the ouster of the coup government.
Meanwhile, a low-ranking soldier guarding Chavez, urged the Venezuelan chief to write a note saying he was alive and still President of Venezuela, pledging he would find a way to get the letter into the public light. He succeeded. The famous letter, written in Chavez’s unmistakable handwriting, declaring the Venezuelan president had never “renounced the legitimate power given to him by the people”, made it into the hands of military forces loyal to their Commander in Chief. A rescue mission was immediately activated and Chavez was flown back in a helicopter to the presidential palace right around midnight on April 13.
The millions that surrounded the palace, together with the loyal presidential guard, were able to force out the coup leaders, who incredibly emptied the presidential safes and stole as much as they could before escaping. As Chavez descended from the helicopter, cries and cheers were heard from the crowd. An extraordinary feeling of community power, justice and love eminated from those who had risked their lives to rescue their democracy, their constitution, their president, and most of all, their dignity.
THREATS CONTINUE
During the celebration this Wednesday, President Chavez, speaking before a volumunious crowd that marched to the presidential palace grounds, reaffirmed that “Nobody can topple our Revolution again”, warning those who continue with destabilization plans that they will be “swept away” and “never return”.
As the crowds chanted “The people united will never be defeated”, the Venezuelan President, reflected on the events 9 years ago, “They came at us with a coup backed by powerful interests, the US government and the elite, but they were met but something even more powerful: the people of Venezuela and our real soldiers”.
Nonetheless, the majority of those involved in the coup remain present in Venezuelan politics today, still aiming to oust Chavez’s government and put an end to the Bolivarian Revolution. During the 9 years since the coup, US government funding for opposition groups and parties in Venezuela has increased exponentially, reaching nearly $15 million annually from State Department agencies alone.
Several of the key members of the coup, who were given amnesty by President Chavez in 2007 in an attempt to promote national dialogue, today hold positions in regional governments (governors and mayors), and in the nation’s National Assembly. From these legitimate platforms, they continue to conspire against the Chavez administration.
Ironically, during this week’s coup anniversary, one participant in the April 2002 events, Maria Corina Machado, now a member of the National Assembly, was invited by the Department of State to dictate several conferences in the US, including one in Miami titled “600 Days to Eradicate Authoritarianism: Transforming Venezuela”. While in Miami, Machado “celebrated” with a community of self-exiled Venezuelans, many of whom played key roles in the coup. Machado is slated to be an opposition contender in Venezuela’s presidential elections in 2012.
April 15, 2011 Posted by aletho | Deception, Timeless or most popular | Leave a comment
NBC News’ Chief Foreign Correspondent: Arab uprisings worrisome because ‘Arab street is ferociously anti-Israel’
By Alex Kane | April 15, 2011
The U.S. establishment, including the corporate media, have been worried about the people’s uprisings in the Middle East and North Africa because, in part, of what it might mean for Israel, as Phil Weiss pointed out last January. Brian Williams interviewed Richard Engel, NBC News’ chief foreign correspondent, last night to talk about the Arab revolts, and it’s one more example of the Israeli filter that the establishment views the Middle East through. (Hat tip to As’ad AbuKhalil at his indispensable Angry Arab blog.)
Williams asked: “Where does this all end?” Engel’s response speaks volumes:
This whole movement in the Middle East–I’m worried about it, because while people in the region deserve more rights, and they want more rights, and they’re embracing more of the will of the Arab street, well, the will of the Arab street is also ferociously anti-Israel, against Israel. And there’s many people who believe that if you empower the Arab street, and the Arab street wants to see a war or more justice for the Palestinians, that down the road, three to five years, this could lead to a major war with Israel. It could also force a negotiated settlement. But I think over time, this thing ends in Jerusalem
April 15, 2011 Posted by aletho | Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel | Leave a comment
ISM confirms the death of Vittorio Arrigoni
International Solidarity Movement | April 15, 20121
The International Solidarity Movement is shocked and deeply saddened by the killing of our friend and colleague Vittorio Arrigoni. Vik was an inspiring activist and generous soul. Please keep his family and friends in your thoughts.
April 15, 2011 Posted by aletho | Solidarity and Activism, Timeless or most popular, Video | Leave a comment
Cruise missiles with depleted uranium on Libya
A first assessment of environmental impact and health
By Prof. Massimo Zucchetti | Global Research | April 14, 2011
Introduction
The issues regarding depleted uranium (DU) and its toxicity have sometimes, in recent years, gone beyond the scope of science. The writer [1] has dealt with radiation protection for twenty years and depleted uranium since 1999. After an experience of publishing scientific papers in journals, conference proceedings and international conferences on DU, this article attempts to estimate the possible environmental and health impacts of the use of depleted uranium in the war of Libya (2011).
Reports of its use have appeared in the media since the beginning of the conflict[2]. In particular, Cruise missiles have been used since the first days, and we will show there is a strong suspicion that those missiles bring Depleted Uranium either as flight stabilizers in the wings, or as weight kinetic energy enhancer. In the last week of the conflict, A-10 airplanes were deployed, and those too are well known for using DU bullets.
The ICBUW (International Council for the Ban of Uranium Weapons) has thoroughly address the question [3]. Statements from US Air Force that A-10 airplanes are not using DU bullets will be taken as a starting hypothesis, however being very suspect since in all past conflicts (Balkans, Iraq, Afghanistan) A-10 airplanes have widely used DU ammunition. Also other suspected weapons bearing DU, such as the AV-8B aircraft, are pointed out here, but disregarded in the following calculations and assessments, which largely focus on Cruise missiles.
Because of its unique physical characteristics, in particular the density that makes it extremely convenient as a mass enhancer (about 19 kg/l), but also the low cost (the production cost of DU is about $ 2 per kg) and the inconvenience to treat as radioactive waste, DU has found its way use in the military field.
If properly treated, the U-Ti alloy is a very effective material for the construction of kinetic energy penetrators, thick metal bullets that can pierce armours when fired against it at high speed.
The penetration process pulverizes most of the bullet, exploding into incandescent fragments of Uranium (violent combustion of almost 5000 ° C), when it hits the perforated armor, increasing the destructive effect. This property is called “pyrophoricity”, as for example, the characteristic of sulfur in matches. So in addition to the high density of DU, pyrophoricity too makes it a material of great interest for these applications, in particular as an incendiary weapon (API: Armour Piercing Incendiary).
Finally, during the impact on the objective, the relative hardness of the DU (alloyed with titanium) provides the projectile self-sharpening ability: in other words, the projectile does not “flatten” against the armour that must break through, forming a “head flat “- as for example a projectile of lead – but it retains its shape tapering to the complete fragmentation, without thereby losing the penetrating properties.
In battle, the DU has certainly been used in the Gulf War of 1991, during the bombings NATO / UN over the Serbian Republic of Bosnia in September 1995, against Yugoslavia in spring 1999; in this century, during the attack on Afghanistan and then further in Iraq in 2003.
The use of DU devices in wars in Somalia and Bosnia-central and central-eastern Europe (especially large areas around Sarajevo) in the 90s, in Palestine and shooting ranges the responsibility of NATO military forces, is still incompletely documented. [4]
Among weapons that use DU, we also include the Tomahawk Cruise missile, whose use during the Balkan war of spring 1999, although not recognized by NATO has been confirmed by findings on site and sources of the European Union. [5]
On the other hand, in the Decalogue delivered to all the soldiers sent to Kosovo in 1999, there were recommendations to be followed to the letter, stating the presence of depleted uranium on the territory and particularly in Cruise Tomahawk missiles. The introduction reads:
“The vehicles and materials of the Serbian army in Kosovo can be a threat to the health of soldiers and civilians who were exposed to them. The vehicles and equipment found destroyed, damaged or abandoned must be inspected and handled only by qualified personnel. The dangers arising from depleted uranium as a result of damage caused by NATO bombing campaign in relation to vehicles hit directly or indirectly. In addition, the collimators containing tritium and the instruments and indicators can be treated with radioactive paint, dangerous for those who had access to the means to inspect. “Here are tips on how to avoid exposure to depleted uranium. Textually: “Avoid any medium or material suspected of being hit by munitions containing depleted uranium or Tomahawk Cruise missiles. Do not pick or collect with DU munitions found on the ground. Tell your command immediately around the area that you feel contaminated. Wherever you are demarcated the area contaminated by any material found on site. If you are in an area contaminated, at least wear a mask and gloves. Ensure good personal hygiene. Frequently wash the body and clothes. ”
The evaluations on the amount of DU used in cruise missiles differ very much. In particular, they vary in different sources, including values around 3 kg, but to go up to about 400 kilograms. In the note[6] there is a compilation of different sources available on this aspect, very important for the estimation of environmental impact.
The predictable official denial statements about the presence of uranium in these missiles collide with the above publications, as well as sources of military origin[7]
This large variability in the data can be easily explained. Some Cruise missiles are with their head weighted with depleted uranium, some are not. Even those other ones, however, even if they do not have a depleted uranium warhead, they bring it in the wings, as a stabilizer in flight.
Then we can define two cases,
WORST CASE: Cruise with uranium in the head. Assume 400 kilos of DU.
BEST CASE: Cruise without uranium in the head. Take 3 kilos of DU in the wings.
Calculation of environmental impact and health effects
In the large literature on depleted uranium by the author[8], the problem was already dealt with: a calculation of radioactive contamination from uranium due to cruise missiles, particularly those launched on Bosnia in 1995, was already performed. The study can also be found on the Internet, as well as the scientific journal “Tribuna Biologica e Medica” (Biological and Medical Forum).[9], [10].
Returning to the models used in the article mentioned above, one can deduce which is the mechanism of contamination, at the point of exposure and inhalation, with a calculation designed to determine only if – at least in a realistic case – the relevance of the doses does not allow to neglect the problem.
We consider the impact of a Tomahawk cruise missile that brings 3 kg (best case), or 400 kg (worst case) of DU.
The impact produces a cloud of debris of various sizes, after violent combustion at about 5000 ° C. The dust is, as mentioned, is composed of particle sizes in the range [0.5 – 5] micron. Between 500 and 1000 meters from the impact one can breathe clouds with a density sufficient to cause significant doses, consisting of particles having a mass of about 0.6 to about 5 nanograms. An estimate was made using the GENII[11] code for dose and dispersion calculations. We chose to neglect the effects of fire, considering only the inhalation exposure due to the simple release of the material, not considering some factors that could cause further increase the exposure.
Critical group, in this case, it is precisely those people “invested” by the cloud of dust after explosion.
After the missile hits the target, dust can ignite and disperse and be oxidized into the environment, according to the estimates that will be done in this work.
About 70% of DU, contained in the missile which is supposed to always hit the target, being an “intelligent weapon”, burns. Of this, about 50% are soluble oxides.
The size distribution of the constituent particles of DU oxide dust belongs entirely to the small-size, breathable, and ultra-fine dust. In particular, the diameter of the particles in this case is finer than the dust of uranium usually encountered in the preparation of nuclear fuel within the nuclear industry. It deals practically with dust included in the range [1-10] micron, with a significant proportion of particles with a diameter less than one micron.
As for the behaviour of DU dust in the human body, the main route of contamination is – as noted – inhalation. As mentioned, part of the dusts are soluble and some insoluble into body fluids.
Given the characteristics of DU oxides of military origin, it should be noted that they have different behaviour with respect to industrial dust of uranium. You can, however, still assume, according to ICRP[12], that about 60% of the inhaled dust is deposited in the respiratory system, the rest is re-exhaled.
It can be assumed that about 25% of the particles around 1 micron in diameter are retained for a long period in the lungs, while the rest is deposited in the upper breathing apparatus, then it passes into the digestive system and hence is eliminated, while small parts go to accumulate in the bones.
About 25% of micro-particles is held in the lungs, about half the material behaves like a class M according to ICRP, which is slowly soluble in body fluids, while the rest is insoluble.
This type of behaviour and exposure has not been studied in any previous situation of exposure to alpha emitters in the lungs, found in the civil applications. The way of exposure is very different from those under which equivalences-dose radiation damage were derived
It is therefore not entirely correct – though it is a starting reference point – to use here the ICRP risk assessments, which were derived from the radioactive dust data and the exposure of miners of uranium mines, nor of course is it correct to use the correlations derived from the epidemiological studies on the highly-irradiated Hiroshima and Nagasaki population. ICRP radiation protection standards are based on these experiences, and therefore may underestimate the risk in this case.
Moving on to another type of toxicity than the one due to ionizing radiation, is also plausible that:
– Given the component of fine and ultra-fine dust of DU for military origin,
– Given the well-known chemical toxicity of uranium,
environmental contamination by DU oxidized dusts of military origin has both chemical and radiological toxicity: it must be evaluated the synergistic effect of these two components.
In other words, radioactivity and chemical toxicity of DU could act together to create a “cocktail” effect which further increases the risk.
We must also put emphasis on the fact that the arid climate of Libya favours the dispersion in the air of particles of depleted uranium, which can be inhaled by civilians for years after the explosion. That is not the case, for instance, of the Balkans. The main mechanism of exposure at the long-term concerns the re-suspension of dust and consequent inhalation.
The methodology and assumptions for this model have already been published in other works to which the author refers[13]. We will mention here only the refinements and changes with respect to the model applied and already published, and in particular:
– The calculation of the dose commitment of 70 years and not more than 50 years, as recommended by ICRP.
– The available data are used to approximate population distribution around the points of impact, which also considers the use of the main DU weapons in relatively populated areas of Lybia.
The model results can be summarized as follows:
– CEDE (collective effective dose equivalent): 370 mSvp in 70 y, for 1 kg of DU oxidized and released into the environment.
– CEDE annual maximum in the first year (76 mSvp), followed by the second year (47 mSvp) and third (33 mSvp).
– The entire route of exposure is by inhalation of dust. The target organ is the lung (97.5% contribution to CEDE).
– Among the most responsible nuclides, 83% of the CEDE is U238, and 14% by U234.
As for the total amount of oxidized DU in the environment, we start from the data for this assessment by the international press: in the first day of the war, about 112 cruise missiles impacted on Libyan soil[14]. How many missiles will be fired before the end of the war? That is unknown, however we will do an assessment considering about 1,000 missiles fired, and in any case the values are linearly variable with the actual amount of fired missiles, by means of a simple proportion.
Given the length of the military operations, the wide variety of suspect DU-bearing weapons, we consider this statement to be on the safe side.
If all the missiles were “without” DU, it would still have a quantity of:
1000 * 3 = 3000 kilos = 3 tons of DU (best case)
If all the missiles were using DU we have an amount up to:
400,000 kilos = 400 tons of DU.
Compare these data with the 10-15 tons of DU fired in Kosovo in 1999 to assess their seriousness.
Assume that about 70% of DU burns and it is released into the environment, thus arriving at an estimate of the amount of DU dispersed oxides of about 2.1 tonnes (best case) and 280 tonnes (worst case).
This therefore allows to estimate a CEDE (collective dose) for the entire population of:
· Best case: 370 mSvp / kg * 2100 kg = 780 Svp
· Worst case: 370 mSvp / kg * 280,000 kg = 104,000 Svp
We state once again that it is not entirely correct – though it is a starting point of reference – to extrapolate the risk assessments for exposure to this type of micro-radioactive dust from the ICRP radiation protection standards, which are those adopted by the GEN II code.
However, if we apply here the coefficient of 6% Sv-1 for the risk of cancer, we get about
· Best case: about 50 cases of cancer, to be found in 70 years.
· Worst case: about 6200 cases of cancer, to be found in 70 years.
Conclusions
The risks from exposure to depleted uranium of the population of Libya due to the use of this material in the War of 2011 were evaluated with an approach as broad as possible, trying to take into account some recent results of studies in the field.
This type of exposure has not been studied in any previous situation of exposure to alpha emitters in the lungs, found in the civil applications.
However, the assessment made of the doses and the consequent risks to both situations (Cruise “without uranium” or “uranium”) allows us to draw some conclusions.
In the first case (best case), the expected number of cancers is very small and absolutely not relevant from the statistical point of view. This statistical difficulty – as is just obvious point out – has nothing to do with the acceptation of this practice, its moral acceptance, or even less with an allegation of a minor impact or even a safety of this practice.
In the second case (worst case), however, we are faced with a number of tumours of some thousands. Such an amount could easily be detected in epidemiological studies and such a number of casualties is, no doubt about that, quite a concern.
It should be useful, therefore, that the armies that are bombing Libya clarify with evidence, and not simple assertions of convenience, the presence or absence, and in what quantities, of uranium in their missiles and other weapons.
In the past, there were “official” denials of the presence of uranium in Cruise missiles, but they were coming from the military area: the author allows, at least, some caution in their flat acceptance.
Based on available data, estimates on the trend of cancer cases in the coming years in Libya as a result of this practice are absolutely unjustified and constitute a concern. The discussion about the relative impact of each of the carcinogenic substances used in a war (chemical, radioactive, etc.), seems – at a certain level – of little significance. Also, the author puts this as a final reflection, such a discussion shows little respect for the fact that the civilian casualties in Libya that will be caused by this attack will exceed by far any amount that may be defined as “a fair price to pay.”
Finally, it is important to collect data and research – and there are many – in the field of the effects of “new wars” on population and environment. We must show how modern weapons, not at all surgical and intelligent, produce unacceptable damage to population that have been subjected to the “humanitarian” wars since 1991.
Massimo Zucchetti is Professor at the Department of Energy at the Torino Polytechnic
NOTES
This paper has been originally published in Italian in many online journals and site, among which:
http://www.linkiesta.it/libia-l-uranio-impoverito-fara-piu-danni-dei-raid-aerei
A video in Italian of the author publicly denouncing the fact in Roma, April 2nd, is available here:
and an interview at the Italian RAI3 Radio on march 31st, 2011 :
Some comments in main Italian newspapers:
http://espresso.repubblica.it/dettaglio/libia-si-spara-uranio-impoverito/2147840
http://www.ilmanifesto.it/area-abbonati/in-edicola/manip2n1/20110402/manip2pg/05/manip2pz/300494/
and on the Italian TV Rainews24:
http://www.rainews24.rai.it/it/canale-tv.php?id=22708
Then the paper has been translated into French by Marie-Ange Patrizio and published here:
http://www.mondialisation.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=24015
The author has denounced the fact at Radio Algerie on March 30th
http://www.radioalgerie.dz/ar/
[1] Professor of “Nuclear Power Plants” c/o Politecnico di Torino, Italy. Chair of “Safety and Risk Analysis” and “Radiation protection”. zucchetti@polito.it
http://www.linkiesta.it/libia-l-uranio-impoverito-fara-piu-danni-dei-raid-aerei
[3] Air Force Spokeswoman claims that A-10s were not loaded with DU ammunition, but does not rule out future use in the conflict. 4 April 2011. A US Airforce Spokeswoman has told a Scottish journalist that, as of 2nd April, A-10s fighting in Libya have not been firing DU ammunition. However, she refused to give any assurances about the future use of DU, stating that she didn’t want “to speculate on what may or may not be used in the future”. ICBUW calls for the US to give a categorical assurance, similar to that given by UK Prime Minister David Cameron, that weapons containing DU have no place in this conflict. A clear statement, covering both A-10 and AV-8B aircraft should be issued at the earliest opportunity. If the US has taken a strategic decision not to equip US planes with DU ammunition in this conflict, that is a progressive step. However, in the absence of a public declaration that such a decision has been taken, concerns will remain that the door has been left open for the future use of DU in Libya. ICBUW calls for the US to take steps in a clear and transparent manner to assure the world that no US aircraft will go into the air equipped with DU ammunition, and that pilots will not be cleared to fire it. Any DU ammunition currently in theatre should be separated and left unused. As ICBUW has long maintained, DU has no place in conventional munitions. The current position of the US affirms that position: if US planes have been able to use alternatives, there is no reason why alternatives should not be found for all ammunition containing DU. We call for all current user states to remove these weapons from their arsenals. An urgent step to protect civilians in areas where DU weapons have already been used, is for user states to share targeting data with the authorities in affected states – a move endorsed by 148 states in the UN General Assembly last December, and opposed by only four, including the US, France and UK.
More: http://www.bandepleteduranium.org/en/a/402.html
[4] Zajic V.S., 1999. Review of radioactivity, military use and health effects of DU: http://members.tripod.com/vzajic; Liolos Th. E.(1999) , Assessing the risk from the Depleted Uranium Weapons used in Operation Allied Forces, Science and Global Security, Volume 8:2, pp.162 (1999); Bukowski, G., Lopez, D.A. and McGehee, F.M., (1993) “Uranium Battlefields Home and Abroad: Depleted Uranium Use by the U.S. Department of Defense” March 1993, pp.166, published by Citizen Alert and Rural Alliance for Military Accountability.
[5] Letter of Satu Hassi, Minister of the Environment of Finland, to all Ministers of Environment in Europe, stating that the majority of the 1500 missiles shot on Serbia in 1995 had depleted uranium, about 3 kilos each.
http://www.frontlineonnet.com/fl1803/18030580.htm
[6] Different statements about the presence of DU in Cruise Tomahawk Missiles:
http://www.nadir.org/nadir/initiativ/mrta/ipan22.htm
http://web.peacelink.it/tematiche/disarmo/u238/documenti/uranio_impoverito.html
http://www.bandepleteduranium.org/en/a/60.html
http://www.mail-archive.com/news@antic.org/msg01570.html
http://vzajic.tripod.com/3rdchapter.html
http://www.envirosagainstwar.org/know/read.php?itemid=1712
http://cseserv.engr.scu.edu/StudentWebPages/IPesic/ResearchPaper.htm
DEPLETED URANIUM – ETHICS OF THE SILVER BULLET – BY- ILIYA PESIC
Zajic, Vladimir S. “Review of Radioactivity, Military Use, and Health Effects of Depleted Uranium” [1 August, 1999]. 2/27/2002. http://vzajic.tripod.com
[7] While the US Navy claims that they have replaced the MK149-2 Phalanx round with a DU penetrator by the MK149-4 Phalanx round with a tungsten penetrator (with the DU round remaining in the inventory), new types of DU ammunition are being developed for other weapons systems, such as the M919 rounds for Bradley fighting vehicles. Depleted uranium is also placed into the tips of the Tomahawk land-attack cruise missiles (TLAM) during test flights to provide weight and stability. The TLAM missile has a range of 680 nautical miles (1,260 km) and is able to carry a conventional warhead of 1000 lb. (454 kg). Older warheads were steel encased. In order to increase the missile range to 1,000 nautical miles (1,850 km), the latest Tomahawk cruise missiles carry a lighter 700 lb. (318 kg) warhead WDU-36 developed in 1993, which is encased in titanium with a depleted uranium tip.
[8] M.Zucchetti, ‘Measurements of Radioactive Contamination in Kosovo Battlefields due to the use of Depleted Uranium Weapons By Nato Forces”, Proc. 20th Conf. of the Nuclear Societies in Israel, Dead Sea (Israel), Dec. 1999, p.282.
M.Cristaldi, A.Di Fazio, C.Pona, A.Tarozzi, M.Zucchetti “Uranio impoverito (DU). Il suo uso nei Balcani, le sue conseguenze sul territorio e la popolazione”, Giano, n.36 (sett-dic. 2000), pp. 11-31.
M.Zucchetti, ‘Caratterizzazione dell’Uranio impoverito e pericolosità per inalazione’, Giano, n.36 (sett-dic. 2000), pp. 33-44.
M.Cristaldi P.Angeloni, F.Degrassi, F.Iannuzzelli, A.Martocchia, L.Nencini, C.Pona, S.Salerno, M.Zucchetti. Conseguenze ambientali ed effetti patogeni dell’uso di Uranio Impoverito nei dispositivi bellici. Tribuna Biologica e Medica, 9 (1-2), Gennaio-Giugno 2001: 29-41.
M. Zucchetti, “Military Use of Depleted Uranium: a Model for Assessment of Atmospheric Pollution and Health Effects in the Balkans”, 11th International Symposium on “Environmental Pollution And Its Impact On Life In The Mediterranean Region”, MESAEP, Lymassol, Cyprus, October 2001, p.25.
M. Zucchetti “Some Facts On Depleted Uranium (DU), Its Use In The Balkans And Its Effects On The Health Of Soldiers And Civilian Population”, Proc. Int. Conf. NURT2001, L’Avana (Cuba), oct. 2001, p.31.
M. Zucchetti, M. Azzati “Environmental Pollution and Population Health Effects in the Quirra Area, Sardinia Island (Italy)”, 12th International Symposium on Environmental Pollution and its Impact on Life in the Mediterranean Region, Antalya (Turkey), October 2003, p. 190, ISBN 975-288-621-3.
M.Zucchetti, R. Chiarelli ‘Environmental Diffusion of DU. Application of Models and Codes for Assessment of Atmospheric Pollution and Health Effects’, Convegno ‘Uranio Impoverito. Stato delle Conoscenze e Prospettive di Ricerca’, Istituto Superiore di Sanità (Roma) Ottobre 2004.
R. Chiarelli, M.Zucchetti, ‘Effetti sanitari dell’uranio impoverito in Iraq’, Convegno ‘La Prevenzione Primaria dei Tumori di Origine Professionale ed Ambientale’, Genova, Novembre 2004. Poster reperibile al sito: http://registri.istge.it/italiano/eventi/poster%20n°25.htm
R. Chiarelli, M.Zucchetti, ‘Applicazione di modelli e codici di dose alla popolazione alla dispersione ambientale di Uranio impoverito’, Convegno ‘La Prevenzione Primaria dei Tumori di Origine Professionale ed Ambientale’, Genova, Novembre 2004. Poster reperibile al sito: http://registri.istge.it/italiano/eventi/poster%20n°26.htm
M. Zucchetti, “Environmental Pollution and Population Health Effects in the Quirra Area, Sardinia Island (Italy) and the Depleted Uranium Case”, J. Env. Prot. And Ecology 1, 7 (2006) 82-92.
M. Zucchetti, “Scenari di esposizione futura In Iraq: convivere con l’uranio impoverito” in: M.Zucchetti (a cura di) “Il male invisibile sempre più visibile”, Odradek, Roma, giugno 2005, pp. 81-98.
M. Zucchetti, “Uranio impoverito. Con elementi di radioprotezione ed utilizzo delle radiazioni ionizzanti”, CLUT, Torino, febbraio 2006. ISBN 88-7992-225-4.
M.Zucchetti “Depleted Uranium”, European Parliament, GiethoornTen Brink bv, Meppel (Holland), 2009. ISBN 978-90-9024147-0
[9] http://web.peacelink.it/tematiche/disarmo/u238/documenti/uranio_impoverito.html
[10] Cristaldi M. et al., Conseguenze ambientali ed effetti patogeni dell’uso di Uranio Impoverito nei dispositivi bellici. Tribuna Biologica e Medica, 9 (1-2), Gennaio-Giugno 2001: 29-41.
[11] It is a dispersion and dose code, developed in the USA and used worldwide: B.A.Napier et al. (1990), GENII – The Hanford Environmental Radiation Dosimetry Software System, PNL-6584, Pacific Northwest Laboratories (USA)..
[12] ICRP, 1995. Age-dependent Doses to Members of the Public from Intake of Radionuclides: Part 3 – Ingestion Dose Coefficients. Publication 69 Annals of the ICRP. 25 (no 1).
[13] M.Zucchetti, ‘Caratterizzazione dell’Uranio impoverito e pericolosità per inalazione’, Giano, n.36 (sett-dic. 2000), pp. 33-44; R.Chiarelli, M.Zucchetti, ‘Applicazione di modelli e codici di dose alla popolazione alla dispersione ambientale di Uranio impoverito’, Convegno ‘La Prevenzione Primaria dei Tumori di Origine Professionale ed Ambientale’, Genova, Nov.2004. http://registri.istge.it/italiano/eventi/poster%20n°26.htm
April 14, 2011 Posted by aletho | Militarism, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | Leave a comment
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How 1960’s French Nuclear Tests Are Still Claiming Lives in Algeria
Sputnik – 15.02.2018
On February 13, 1960, France carried out its first nuclear test in Algeria’s southern Reggane region. According to official statistics, 17 nuclear tests were carried out in total over the next 6 years. The area remains affected, and local scientists say that radioactive contamination has caused genetic mutations and irreversibly changed the region.
There are no official statistics on the number of victims. The only figures can be found in the records kept by the French representative of the local church, which lists 42,000 victims of nuclear tests. Three years ago, the French Ministry of Defense issued a statement, putting the number at 27,000 people. The victims include French soldiers as well as local Algerians who lived in the surrounding areas. … continue
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