Nuclear dangers

Introduction by Jan Oberg October 14, 2021 This South China Morning Post article by Mark. J. Valencia is very informative about the larger perspective surrounding the US “Connecticut” submarine that hit and was damaged by something “unidentified” in the South China Sea on October 2, 2021 – a story that the US Navy cared about to tell the world only five days later. You should read also this article and this one. This incident – whatever it really was – is an integral part of the ongoing China Cold War Agenda of the US that TFF has issued a large report about – Behind The Smokescreen. Perhaps naturally, our media – as well as virtually everybody else – focus on conflicts and wars on land. It is systematically forgotten that conflicts and, to some extent, wars are permanently fought in the world’s oceans, the main weapons being submarines, including nuclear...

Gareth PorterTFF Associate June 1, 2021 A previously censored account of the 1958 Taiwan Strait crisis that was sponsored by the Pentagon has been published in full by the leaker of the Pentagon Papers, Daniel Ellsberg. The report provides a hair-raising portrait of a reckless US military leadership relentlessly pressing President Dwight Eisenhower for the authority to carry out nuclear attacks on communist China. After holding the still-classified version of the account in his possession for fifty years, Ellsberg said he decided to release it because of the growing threat of US war with China over Taiwan, and the danger that such a conflict could escalate into a nuclear exchange. A May 22 New York Times report on the account offered only general details of the role the US Joint Chiefs of Staff played in the run-up to the 1958 Taiwan crisis. However, it is now clear from the original highly classified documents as...

The famed source of the Pentagon Papers, Daniel Ellsberg, has made another unauthorized disclosure — and wants to be prosecuted for it. By Charlie SavagePublished May 22, 2021 • Updated May 23, 2021 • 阅读简体中文版閱讀繁體中文版 WASHINGTON — When Communist Chinese forces began shelling islands controlled by Taiwan in 1958, the United States rushed to back up its ally with military force — including drawing up plans to carry out nuclear strikes on mainland China, according to an apparently still-classified document that sheds new light on how dangerous that crisis was. American military leaders pushed for a first-use nuclear strike on China, accepting the risk that the Soviet Union would retaliate in kind on behalf of its ally and millions of people would die, dozens of pages from a classified 1966 study of the confrontation show. The government censored those pages when it declassified the study for public release. The document...

Image by Stock File Madison Tang and Jodie Evans May 23, 2021 U.S. President Joe Biden’s budget proposal for the next fiscal year was recently announced, and it requests $715 billion for his first Pentagon budget, 1.6 percent more than the $704 billion enacted under Trump’s administration. The outline states that the primary justification for this increase in military spending is to counter the threat of China, and identifies China as the U.S.’s “top challenge.” Within the proposal is an endorsement of U.S. Indo-Pacific Command head Admiral Philip Davidson’s request for $4.7 billion for the “Pacific Deterrence Initiative,” which will increase U.S. military capabilities in Guam and the surrounding region. The Indo-Pacific Command is also requesting $27 billion in additional spending between 2022 and 2027 to build a network of precision-strike missiles along the islands surrounding Beijing. This article was originally published at Pressenza The U.S.’s unilateral aggression toward China—in...

NEW Jan Oberg March 1, 2021 On February 23, I was asked by Iran’s PressTV to comment on Ayatollah Khamenei’s statement about the JCPOA and European leaders. I did that together with political commentator Shabbir Razvi in London. Just click on this link and you’ll be able to watch it. It is on a video platform called Urmedium. It is Iranian because Google-owned YouTube some time ago decided to prevent PressTV – a sort of BBC of Iran – from showing its program and interviews there. Nothing should surprise us anymore…

(Photo credit: iai.tv) By Tom Engelhardt February 1, 2021 We’re now living in an age of opacity, as Rudy Giuliani pointed out in a courtroom recently. Here was the exchange: “‘In the plaintiffs’ counties, they were denied the opportunity to have an unobstructed observation and ensure opacity,’ Giuliani said. ‘I’m not quite sure I know what opacity means. It probably means you can see, right?’ “‘It means you can’t,’ said U.S. District Judge Matthew Brann. “‘Big words, your honor,’ Giuliani said.” Big words indeed! And he couldn’t have been more on the mark, whether he knew it or not. Thanks in part to him and to the president he’s represented so avidly, even as hair dye or mascara dripped down his face, we find ourselves in an era in which, to steal a biblical phrase from Swedish film director Ingmar Bergman, all of us see as if “through a glass darkly.” Originally published...

SummaryOn top of all the global problems we must solve as soon as possible comes the Corona. This statement argues that the priorities of the world are – well, perverse; everything the UN does amounts to 3% of the global military expenditures.TFF’s Board suggests that all countries reduce their military by 50% immediately. That would save about US$ 1000 billion. And that that huge sum should be re-allocated to solve the problems we had and the socio-economic consequences of the Corona pandemic. That would also – finally – be a step to prove that governments are willing to implement a policy for true disarmament and move towards human and common security for the common good.In a civilised world, this should be common sense. If you do not want to read the whole argument, just scroll down and sign this statement. “We’ve likely only seen the beginnings of the worldwide economic...

On the 7th UN Day – two days ago – the 50th UN member, Honduras, ratified the Nuclear Weapon Ban Treaty – or the Treaty On the Prohibition Of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW). It’s a milestone in the global struggle to make nuclear weapons a parenthesis in human history. We have much to thank millions of peace workers for as well as, of course, ICAN (International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons) – winner of the Nobel Peace Prize 2017. It’s well-known to most that Iran has been harassed for years – you may say for not having nuclear weapons and for having signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and votes in favour of adopting the TPNW; Israel which is a nuclear country has not signed any relevant treaty and obstructs the ongoing work of Middle Eastern UN members to secure that the region of the Middle East will become a nuclear-free zone....

20. oktober 2020 Det er nok så tænkeligt at du aldrig har hørt om Arne Nielsen Hansen – men han er en uhyre interessant og mangfoldig nordjyde på 81 år. Du kan læse mere om ham hér. Jeg vil gerne fortælle dig at Arne er en af Danmarks mest betydende mediepersonligheder – igennem flere år end de fleste – en fremstående humanist og landets eneste freds- og global-journalist (læg mærke til kombinationen). Og så sidder han på en lokal-radio – den i Frederikshavn. Han er primus motor bag den righoldige side, Flygtninge og Fred, hvor han producerer alt materiale selv. Og det handler om et bredt spektrum – udover flygtninge og fred også demokrati, klima, miljø og menneskerettigheder. Og han har gjor det i over 20 år. Sådan hér ser manden med de levende, nysgerrige øjne ud. Han er et meget beskedent menneske og ville sikkert helst have sig frabedt...

Introduction Below is a long interview from Konrad Stachnio with Richard Falk – TFF Associate – on a wide-ranging set of questions, which stretched by knowledge past its breaking point, especially in assessing where the technological innovations on the horizons will lead us.It is one of 17 conversations published by Clarity Press under the title, Civilization in Overdrive: Conversations at the Edge of the Human Future.Preface by Stachnio after interview.The book is recommended strongly.It can be ordered here Originally published on Richard Falks blog on September 12, 2020 Civilization in Overdrive, edited by Konrad Stachnio “If a digital Fukuyama tells the world that ‘the end of history’ has been reached, he should be scorned this time around.” KONRAD STACHNIO: Do you know what is the role of the so-called Black Budget in building the power of the USA as a global security state? RICHARD FALK: It is not possible for someone without access...

Jan Oberg August 6, 2020 It is natural and human to commemorate what happened in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. But these stories, films and photos from back then must never come to serve as a museum for just a historical event. It would also be fairly naive – now 75 years later – to believe that showing such images of the destruction and listening to Hibakushas (survivors) will help abolish the nukes of today. They’ve been seen too many times to make such an impact on today’s people; there is a certain psychic numbing and a mass denial of the fact that “it could happen this afternoon too.” 1) If they had such a – desirable deterrent – effect, nuclear weapons would be gone long ago. While of course Hiroshima and Nagasaki and their victims must never be forgotten, it’s extremely important that Hiroshima and Nagasaki Days are used to focus...

On March 21 this year, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (BAS) published an article headlined Coronavirus in Russia: How Putin’s disinformation efforts could backfire at home and written by Judy Twigg, professor of political science at Virginia Commonwealth University. Take a look and get a sense of its quality, balance and bias. Having read it, I submitted the following comment underneath: I’m dismayed by this article. While there is no doubt that Russia is (mis)using information, this sort of thing must be seen as a tool, or weapon, in a conflict – a conflict Russia has with the 29-member NATO alliance. It is normal praxis for such high-ranking, respected and reliable media as yours to not talk about “the other” side’s weapons but looking at armament dynamics on both (or all) sides of a conflict formation. Just pointing fingers at one and keep quiet about the other side risks to...