Under the aegis of Nobel Peace laureate Obama, the predator drone president, warmongers have revived their "humanitarian intervention" narrative to augment the tattered "terror war" theme that's been employed to absolve unlawful aggression for the past decade.
Their "responsibility to protect" is propaganda to promote war under the guise of noblesse oblige. But the ploy fell apart at the UN last week, when China and Russia exercised their veto powers to defeat a Western backed resolution that could have been used to launch a Libya-style assault on Syria.
This prompted an outburst from US ambassador Susan Rice, who declared the Council had "utterly failed to address an urgent moral challenge", then stormed from the chamber. She later claimed Washington was "outraged" by opposition to the resolution, even though the US routinely vetos UN resolutions critical of Israel. In fact, the US holds the world record for vetoing UN resolutions.
Having witnessed the way the US and its NATO allies used Resolution 1973 to mercilessly pound Libya for the last seven months, Russia and China finally took a stand against the "philosophy of confrontation", as Russian ambassador Churkin put it. Perhaps they suspect the real agenda is more about enriching the West's military industrial plutocracy.
UN Resolution 1973 authorized "all necessary measures" to protect civilians, but it did not authorize unlawful aggression for the purpose of regime change, which is what it was used for. While there is still some doubt about whether Qadaffi was actually killing civilians, there is now no doubt that Western military and intelligence operatives were in Libya fomenting the conflict, arming and supporting the rebels, bombing from air and sea, destroying infrastructure and killing countless civilians.
The entire campaign was a war crime from the start. Once again the UN was used as a vehicle to further US hegemonic ambitions, with Resolution 1973 providing a thin veneer of legitimacy. Unilaterally, the US claims the right to change regimes it doesn't like, because, as Hillary Clinton proudly crowed, "We chose to lead the world".
The defeat of the UN resolution condemning Syria won't deter Washington from its quest for war nor quell its belligerence, but it might just hinder the West's reckless rush into yet another costly and unnecessary conflict.
Thursday, October 13, 2011
Sunday, July 03, 2011
Nuclear power in context
The debate over nuclear power is an asymmetric contest. On one side we have a multi-billion dollar industry backed by the full might of government. This alliance has at its disposal, vast sums of money and an awesome array of resources, including PR agents, lawyers, lobbyists and media pundits.
The opposing team consists of ordinary citizens who wield little more than common sense and thoughtful concern to counter pro-industry propaganda. The glaring difference between these opposing forces is matched by the divergence of issues concerning each side.
While the nuclear industry and their allies in government are motivated by profit, power and prestige, ordinary citizens are concerned about the near and long term health and safety aspects of radioactive pollution.
Nuclear power has never been an economically viable way to produce electricity. The initial purpose of the nuclear reactor was to produce fissile material for atomic bombs. The entire industry was subsidized by government from the beginning and it could not survive without state funding.
Promotion of the nuclear industry is a symptom of techno-utopian hubris, the reckless pursuit of power and profit based on a paradigm in which arbitrary and subjective value judgements, such as notions of "wealth", "progress" and "quality of life", are given precedence over concern for the integrity of nature's life-support systems.
Only by concealing, discounting or denying the true costs of nuclear power can proponents of the industry claim it is clean, safe and economic. The true costs include all costs associated with the nuclear fuel cycle; social, economic, environmental, from mine site to final disposal and all steps in between, such as reprocessing, storage and security.
Three hundred thousand tonnes of spent fuel, radioactive waste that will remain hazardous for a 100,000 years, is temporarily stored alongside reactors at 440 nuclear plants around the world, with still no solution to the problem of disposal, a cost and a liability that industry proponents prefer to ignore.
As the explosions at Fukushima demonstrated, this dangerous nuclear waste can escape and spread into the environment, contaminating air, sea, land and ground water. While the cost of this contamination will be borne by many for centuries to come, the corporations that profited from the plant in the past are protected from liability by government legislation.
The role of responsible government should include protecting citizens from the reckless excesses of industrial giants. But as recently reported in the Guardian, the UK government has secretly colluded with industry behemoths to mislead the public about the dangers associated with nuclear power.
Decades of popular protest and patient warnings about the hazards posed by the nuclear industry have had little effect on policy makers and politicians, who have traditionally been supportive of the industry.
Given that an overwhelming majority of citizens around the world are strongly opposed to nuclear power, staunch support for the industry by elected governments makes a mockery of democracy.
Belatedly, the tide is turning against the nuclear industry. In the wake of Fukushima, the governments of Germany, Switzerland and Japan have all committed to phasing out nuclear power and Italy recently reaffirmed its decision to remain nuclear free.
In the US, a hundred aging reactors are reaching their use-by date and requiring evermore maintenance at increasing cost. The New York Times has reported that cracks and leaks have been found at many US reactors and in some places ground water has been contaminated with radioactive Tritium.
The future expense of decommisioning reactors, more than a billion dollars over ten years, represents a significant cost to plant operators. Many are now seeking 20 year extensions to their operating licenses, a process that requires expensive assessment of facilities.
These aging power plants are ticking, radiological timebombs. Any one of them could become the next Fukushima.
The opposing team consists of ordinary citizens who wield little more than common sense and thoughtful concern to counter pro-industry propaganda. The glaring difference between these opposing forces is matched by the divergence of issues concerning each side.
While the nuclear industry and their allies in government are motivated by profit, power and prestige, ordinary citizens are concerned about the near and long term health and safety aspects of radioactive pollution.
Nuclear power has never been an economically viable way to produce electricity. The initial purpose of the nuclear reactor was to produce fissile material for atomic bombs. The entire industry was subsidized by government from the beginning and it could not survive without state funding.
Promotion of the nuclear industry is a symptom of techno-utopian hubris, the reckless pursuit of power and profit based on a paradigm in which arbitrary and subjective value judgements, such as notions of "wealth", "progress" and "quality of life", are given precedence over concern for the integrity of nature's life-support systems.
Only by concealing, discounting or denying the true costs of nuclear power can proponents of the industry claim it is clean, safe and economic. The true costs include all costs associated with the nuclear fuel cycle; social, economic, environmental, from mine site to final disposal and all steps in between, such as reprocessing, storage and security.
Three hundred thousand tonnes of spent fuel, radioactive waste that will remain hazardous for a 100,000 years, is temporarily stored alongside reactors at 440 nuclear plants around the world, with still no solution to the problem of disposal, a cost and a liability that industry proponents prefer to ignore.
As the explosions at Fukushima demonstrated, this dangerous nuclear waste can escape and spread into the environment, contaminating air, sea, land and ground water. While the cost of this contamination will be borne by many for centuries to come, the corporations that profited from the plant in the past are protected from liability by government legislation.
The role of responsible government should include protecting citizens from the reckless excesses of industrial giants. But as recently reported in the Guardian, the UK government has secretly colluded with industry behemoths to mislead the public about the dangers associated with nuclear power.
Decades of popular protest and patient warnings about the hazards posed by the nuclear industry have had little effect on policy makers and politicians, who have traditionally been supportive of the industry.
Given that an overwhelming majority of citizens around the world are strongly opposed to nuclear power, staunch support for the industry by elected governments makes a mockery of democracy.
Belatedly, the tide is turning against the nuclear industry. In the wake of Fukushima, the governments of Germany, Switzerland and Japan have all committed to phasing out nuclear power and Italy recently reaffirmed its decision to remain nuclear free.
In the US, a hundred aging reactors are reaching their use-by date and requiring evermore maintenance at increasing cost. The New York Times has reported that cracks and leaks have been found at many US reactors and in some places ground water has been contaminated with radioactive Tritium.
The future expense of decommisioning reactors, more than a billion dollars over ten years, represents a significant cost to plant operators. Many are now seeking 20 year extensions to their operating licenses, a process that requires expensive assessment of facilities.
These aging power plants are ticking, radiological timebombs. Any one of them could become the next Fukushima.
Tuesday, March 29, 2011
Al-Qa’ida is a proxy force
The conflict in Libya has shed new light on the true nature of al-Qa’ida, the shady, ubiquitous terror franchise purportedly responsible for the events of 9/11. This amorphous group had its origins in the Afghan covert war against the Soviets, where the CIA armed, trained and sponsored Islamic "freedom fighters".
Testifying before the 2002 Joint Inquiry into 9/11, DCI Tenet described the intelligence community's ongoing engagement with al-Qa'ida, which he said included the "recruitment of well-placed agents" and efforts to "infiltrate terrorist groups". A transcript of Tenet's testimony is available on the CIA's website.
In 2007, the Pentagon commissioned a study by the Combating Terrorism Center of the US Military Academy at West Point, which produced a report entitled Al-Qa’ida's Foreign Fighters in Iraq.
In that report, below a chart entitled Foreign Fighters: Country of Origin, the authors state that "Libya contributed far more fighters per capita than any other nationality". Most of the Libyan recruits came from Darnah and Benghazi and were "linked to the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group" which "had officially sworn allegiance to al-Qa’ida".
This happens to be the very same group Washington is aiding in Libya today. Abdel-Hakim al-Hasidi, the leader of Libya’s armed insurrection, is a member of the LIFG and admits his fighters have al-Qa’ida links. He was captured by US forces in Afghanistan a decade ago, spent time in Gitmo and was eventually released to Libya in 2008. Now, al-Hasidi, with US arms and Coalition air support, is our ally against Qaddafi.
A recent New York Times article describes CIA and MI6 activities in Libya, where Obama has authorised a "shadow force of Westerners", who provide arms and train militia groups to "help bleed Qaddafi’s military".
These militia groups have been deemed terrorists and insurgents to justify sustained military engagements in Afghanistan and Iraq. But now in Libya, the same motley crew are portrayed as freedom fighters and champions of democracy, deserving our support and justifying yet another military intervention in an oil-rich region.
The very obvious implication to my mind, which may seem bizarre to some, is that al-Qa’ida, in effect, is a proxy force, covertly co-opted and deployed to facilitate the hegemonic agenda of the privatised, corporatist, oil-fired, nuclear-armed military industrial plutocracy.
Testifying before the 2002 Joint Inquiry into 9/11, DCI Tenet described the intelligence community's ongoing engagement with al-Qa'ida, which he said included the "recruitment of well-placed agents" and efforts to "infiltrate terrorist groups". A transcript of Tenet's testimony is available on the CIA's website.
In 2007, the Pentagon commissioned a study by the Combating Terrorism Center of the US Military Academy at West Point, which produced a report entitled Al-Qa’ida's Foreign Fighters in Iraq.
In that report, below a chart entitled Foreign Fighters: Country of Origin, the authors state that "Libya contributed far more fighters per capita than any other nationality". Most of the Libyan recruits came from Darnah and Benghazi and were "linked to the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group" which "had officially sworn allegiance to al-Qa’ida".
This happens to be the very same group Washington is aiding in Libya today. Abdel-Hakim al-Hasidi, the leader of Libya’s armed insurrection, is a member of the LIFG and admits his fighters have al-Qa’ida links. He was captured by US forces in Afghanistan a decade ago, spent time in Gitmo and was eventually released to Libya in 2008. Now, al-Hasidi, with US arms and Coalition air support, is our ally against Qaddafi.
A recent New York Times article describes CIA and MI6 activities in Libya, where Obama has authorised a "shadow force of Westerners", who provide arms and train militia groups to "help bleed Qaddafi’s military".
These militia groups have been deemed terrorists and insurgents to justify sustained military engagements in Afghanistan and Iraq. But now in Libya, the same motley crew are portrayed as freedom fighters and champions of democracy, deserving our support and justifying yet another military intervention in an oil-rich region.
The very obvious implication to my mind, which may seem bizarre to some, is that al-Qa’ida, in effect, is a proxy force, covertly co-opted and deployed to facilitate the hegemonic agenda of the privatised, corporatist, oil-fired, nuclear-armed military industrial plutocracy.
Sunday, January 09, 2011
Science, censorship and the media
The Australian Prime Minister gave a speech before the House on Wednesday, November 17, 2010, replayed on the ABC's Science Show, in which she reflected upon the "special place science holds in the fabric of our Australian society".
She emphasised the esteem held for science that places it in company with such noble values as an independent public service and the rule of law, praising science as "one of the fundamental platforms on which we base our conception of a modern advanced society".
"The objectivity and rigour of science are basic to our existence and success as a community of reason ... Science," she said, "has freed humanity from the habits, fears and superstitions of the past."
If only it were true. For if it were true, the science of 9/11 would be admitted by politicians and the mainstream media. The empirical evidence and scientific reasoning that indisputably disprove the official 9/11 conspiracy theory would be well known and widely acknowledged.
The fact is, scientists who research 9/11 (eg. Steven Jones, Niels Harrit, Frank Legge) are censured and ridiculed while their findings are censored and ignored. This fact exposes the absurdity, hypocrisy and conceit implicit in the PM's speech, a speech that merely demonstrates the smarmy superficiality of political exposition.
Scientific analyses of the evidence from the events of 9/11 unequivocally and comprehensively disprove the governments' 9/11 conspiracy theory. Hence, the science of 9/11 is deliberately and systematically censored by government and the mainstream media.
In the absence of informed debate, based on objective and impartial assessment of empirical evidence, an accurate appraisal of the issue is impossible. This is perhaps the intention of those who seek to stifle any mention of the subject.
The censorship of 9/11 is implemented in a variety of ways. The techniques employed can be characterised as either passive or active.
Passive censorship involves simply ignoring facts, failing to report events or cover media briefings and refusing to respond to written representations or formal requests.
Active censorship entails deliberate attacks and insults directed at any who dare raise the issue in public. This form of censorship relies on scorn, ridicule, derision and intimidation to discredit and discourage open discussion of the subject.
These forms of censorship have become pervasive in the mainstream media and political establishment in relation to 9/11. Nowhere is the issue of 9/11 allowed to be raised in a mature, rational manner. Any attempt to do so meets with hysterical invective and abuse.
A typical example is Jon Feine's failed attempt to ambush Kevin Braken on ABC radio, eloquently deconstructed in this video by Anthony Lawson.
My own correspondence with the ABC, including notable media personalities Phillip Adams and Robin Williams, reveals contempt for any who raise the issue of 9/11 to be rife in the ranks of the ABC.
Similarly, the renowned dissident intellectual, Noam Chomsky, appears unable to deal with the facts surrounding the destruction of the World Trade Center on 9/11. Chomsky likes to argue that in any complex event, there'll always be a mass of unexplained phenomena - including, necessarily in the case of 9/11, magic and miracles - an argument that completely precludes the examination of evidence.
It is remarkable that individuals who evince respect for logic and reasoning, can so readily abandon the precepts of scientific rigour and reject the import of fact and evidence when discussing 9/11.
Invariably, these learned individuals attempt to twist the conversation round to make it something about conspiracy theory, which is perhaps because that's all they know about the subject.
They don't know anything about the evidence of molten metal in the rubble of the World Trade Center, they don't know about the sudden, symmetrical free fall of Building 7 or the presence of hi-tech nano-thermite in the dust ... indeed, they're clueless and incurious.
The mainstream media and their armchair intellectuals know only one thing about 9/11 ... it's a conspiracy theory. And if you dare talk about 9/11, you must be a conspiracy theorist, in other words, a kook. Very convenient ... they can dismiss the issue without ever having to address the evidence, the facts of the matter.
However, if you put them on the spot and demand they address the evidence, they very quickly become testy and defensive, and shortly thereafter, refuse to respond, thus relieving themselves of the discomfort of not having a leg to stand on.
It is really quite disturbing to see intellectual celebrities of this calibre, crumble in the face of a few unpleasant facts. And what does it say about the mainstream media and academia, that such intellectual shonkyness is deemed appropriate and acceptable.
She emphasised the esteem held for science that places it in company with such noble values as an independent public service and the rule of law, praising science as "one of the fundamental platforms on which we base our conception of a modern advanced society".
"The objectivity and rigour of science are basic to our existence and success as a community of reason ... Science," she said, "has freed humanity from the habits, fears and superstitions of the past."
If only it were true. For if it were true, the science of 9/11 would be admitted by politicians and the mainstream media. The empirical evidence and scientific reasoning that indisputably disprove the official 9/11 conspiracy theory would be well known and widely acknowledged.
The fact is, scientists who research 9/11 (eg. Steven Jones, Niels Harrit, Frank Legge) are censured and ridiculed while their findings are censored and ignored. This fact exposes the absurdity, hypocrisy and conceit implicit in the PM's speech, a speech that merely demonstrates the smarmy superficiality of political exposition.
Scientific analyses of the evidence from the events of 9/11 unequivocally and comprehensively disprove the governments' 9/11 conspiracy theory. Hence, the science of 9/11 is deliberately and systematically censored by government and the mainstream media.
In the absence of informed debate, based on objective and impartial assessment of empirical evidence, an accurate appraisal of the issue is impossible. This is perhaps the intention of those who seek to stifle any mention of the subject.
The censorship of 9/11 is implemented in a variety of ways. The techniques employed can be characterised as either passive or active.
Passive censorship involves simply ignoring facts, failing to report events or cover media briefings and refusing to respond to written representations or formal requests.
Active censorship entails deliberate attacks and insults directed at any who dare raise the issue in public. This form of censorship relies on scorn, ridicule, derision and intimidation to discredit and discourage open discussion of the subject.
These forms of censorship have become pervasive in the mainstream media and political establishment in relation to 9/11. Nowhere is the issue of 9/11 allowed to be raised in a mature, rational manner. Any attempt to do so meets with hysterical invective and abuse.
A typical example is Jon Feine's failed attempt to ambush Kevin Braken on ABC radio, eloquently deconstructed in this video by Anthony Lawson.
My own correspondence with the ABC, including notable media personalities Phillip Adams and Robin Williams, reveals contempt for any who raise the issue of 9/11 to be rife in the ranks of the ABC.
Similarly, the renowned dissident intellectual, Noam Chomsky, appears unable to deal with the facts surrounding the destruction of the World Trade Center on 9/11. Chomsky likes to argue that in any complex event, there'll always be a mass of unexplained phenomena - including, necessarily in the case of 9/11, magic and miracles - an argument that completely precludes the examination of evidence.
It is remarkable that individuals who evince respect for logic and reasoning, can so readily abandon the precepts of scientific rigour and reject the import of fact and evidence when discussing 9/11.
Invariably, these learned individuals attempt to twist the conversation round to make it something about conspiracy theory, which is perhaps because that's all they know about the subject.
They don't know anything about the evidence of molten metal in the rubble of the World Trade Center, they don't know about the sudden, symmetrical free fall of Building 7 or the presence of hi-tech nano-thermite in the dust ... indeed, they're clueless and incurious.
The mainstream media and their armchair intellectuals know only one thing about 9/11 ... it's a conspiracy theory. And if you dare talk about 9/11, you must be a conspiracy theorist, in other words, a kook. Very convenient ... they can dismiss the issue without ever having to address the evidence, the facts of the matter.
However, if you put them on the spot and demand they address the evidence, they very quickly become testy and defensive, and shortly thereafter, refuse to respond, thus relieving themselves of the discomfort of not having a leg to stand on.
It is really quite disturbing to see intellectual celebrities of this calibre, crumble in the face of a few unpleasant facts. And what does it say about the mainstream media and academia, that such intellectual shonkyness is deemed appropriate and acceptable.
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