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February 18, 2023 Bulletin 325: Understanding the Nordstream sabotage and punishing those responsible; and Important takeaways from the "Nuclear Deterrence Summit" in Washington this week. Permalink for this bulletin (please forward). Simple home page. Detailed home page.
Dear friends and colleagues -- Good afternoon to all from Washington, DC. We will be announcing a public meeting in New Mexico soon, in the late February to early March timeframe. Bear with us; this trip has consumed much of our time of late. We are eager to meet with as many of you as we can. 1. First, please send this link to our Ukraine war updates and analysis as widely as you can, via email and social media. It is an excellent, accessible resource that we update daily, distilled from dozens of sources and the recommendations of others. What we post there is enough. Our goal is not infinite learning but rather an engaged citizenry -- engaged, and outraged, because anyone who knows what is going on even to a degree, and has a beating heart, will be outraged. We observe that visits to this valuable and growing resource have increased but are still quite low. It takes an extremely small effort to forward that link with a recommendation to "check it out." Please do so! If those referrals are happening, they are not happening in an effective way. We have to put our heart and soul into it. Many people are discouraged with current events. "What can we do?", they say. Good government -- government "of the people, by the people, for the people" -- depends on you and I speaking out in protest when great crimes are being committed in our names. How will nuclear war, sooner or later, be averted if we do not? Shall we leave everything to be decided by those who profit from war, whether they be in the famous military-industrial-congressional complex or in the mainstream news media? All we have is each other. We now live in a very effectively-engineered culture of social and career cancellation, where dialog is socially constrained along lines calculated to maximally divide and rule. There is tremendous value in nonviolently breaking out of the social corrals that precede what will be the general slaughterhouse, if we fail to do so. Special responsibility especially falls on those among us whose livelihoods are not risked by speaking out. For the moment, we are all blessed with highly-effective means of communicating. When (not if) our societies face existential challenges, it will be too late. We will have allowed the reins to slip from our hands. Let's speak up now, when it's relatively easy. 2. Understanding the Nordstream sabotage, and punishing the leaders who did it and the others who allowed it, is critically important for "democracies." It goes without saying that destruction of a primary energy source for Germany and downstream countries by their so-called "allies" has enormous consequences,direct and indirect. It changes the entire future of Europe, which was of course the idea of the saboteurs. Here in the U.S., citizens are paying a lot more for natural gas as well, essentially all of which are windfall profits for the companies involved. You will find important articles about this sabotage on our Ukraine page. In addition to those, we can recommend Seymour Hersh's long interview on Consortium News (which has other relevant video clips inserted) despite not yet seeing much of it yet. All the journalism at Consortium News is generally of high quality. I hope it is clear to you that there will be no nuclear disarmament, no cutting of the military budget, and therefore no serious or sufficient attention to the environmental, social, and economic crises in this country while the present war against Russia rages, and the gang that provoked this war remains in power. Neither do we have the leisure to sit around and think about this while this same gang is committing ever more resources to this war, raising the stakes higher with each passing week. Seymour Hersh's Feb. 8 article detailing what his primary source told him about the U.S. sabotage of the Nordstream pipelines adds considerable detail, but does not materially change the overwhelming circumstantial case built by many observers from open sources immediately after the event. (See the reviews of prior evidence by Caitlin Johnstone on 2/10/23, two days after the Hersh exposè; or Moon of Alabama one day after, and of course many others.) Hersh's article does not prove the U.S. is guilty. Other evidence (at the links above) did that, including abundant incriminating forensic evidence, Biden's promise to "end" the pipeline, and what really amount to confessions by Blinken and Nuland after the fact. Hersh's article alleges important details as to specific actors, timing, and actions. These allegations must now be investigated thoroughly, with the key witnesses under oath. The truth should not be difficult to ascertain. Congress can start the process now. If that happens, it will no doubt be the Republican majority in the House which does so. This is an act of war, and a species of terrorism as well. (See Article 8 of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC), which includes at (b)(ii), "Intentionally directing attacks against civilian objects, that is, objects which are not military objectives." This is not a new definition of a war crime. It follows directly from principles of military "necessity" that have been part of international humanitarian law -- codified in treaties the U.S. has signed as well as "customary" international law -- for many decades. Confidently assuming that the U.S. orchestrated this sabotage, it also violates the U.S. military's own war rules. (Perhaps others with more time to devote to this can develop these and other legal issues further.) Domestic laws were also broken, such as the need for congressional oversight for covert actions. As renowned international legal scholar Francis Boyle pointed out to us in an email, the participation of Norway -- a signatory to the Rome Statute -- also opens Biden and other U.S. leaders to prosecution by the ICC as well as to prosecution under other countries' various domestic laws implementing the Rome Statute in those countries. Prior to the Nordstream sabotage and the by-now massive weight of evidence implicating Biden, Sullivan, Nuland, Blinken, and Austin and others in that act, there was in our view a strong constitutional case for impeachment of President Biden and others around him, assuming law means anything any more. Continual escalation of the undeclared war against Russia entails increasing poorly-understood, but existential, risks to the United States. No President, acting under the Constitution, can do that with congressional approval. The present instance is particularly fraught with danger due to the President's obvious dementia. Objectively, he is not fully in charge of himself, let alone his Administration. This raises the possibility of the other constitutional means for retiring him, namely the 25th Amendment, although this could leave other co-conspirators untouched. If investigations are opened, I expect Biden to be removed from office and every effort made to close down inquiries. The Nordstream sabotage, now accompanied by a widely-read story by a highly-decorated journalist explaining how it is alleged to have happened, raises these constitutional questions to incandescent importance. If investigation and impeachment are not pursued, what would remain of U.S. democracy? Above, we said "assuming law means anything any more." That's the point. Failure to investigate and prosecute in the House opens the door to the publicly-understood end of constitutional government. "Democracy" in the U.S. would become discredited worldwide, more than it already is. For those who don't like international terrorism, unlawful wars, rule by executive fiat, and loss of legitimacy at home and abroad, how can this constitutional process be optional, at this point? Yes, some chips would fall, but it is the process of following the law which is so important. Following the law would result in fewer chips than the alternatives. There are also European leaders witting or assisting in this sabotage who need to be removed from office, and/or go to jail. One of them is surely Chancellor Scholz, who was standing beside Biden when the latter said he would "end" the Nordstream pipeline, "you can be sure of it." What has he said about it all? Anything? Here in the U.S., we have a constitutional process to follow. Anything else would be worse. We should not overthink this. Elections are coming, and the truth of this matter badly needs airing before then. Nuland, Sullivan, Blinken and Biden were conspirators in the Maidan coup, which makes them conspirators or accessories to mass murder. Others were of course involved as well. Those four were also conspirators in the Nordstream sabotage, according to Hersh's highly-credible account. We agree with former senior CIA official Ray McGovern that it will be impossible to end the war against Russia while those people are still in office, which places the whole world in mortal peril. How does one get them out? Via impeachment and investigation. Absent that effort, these crimes (Nordstream, and the war) will be (further) normalized. After Maidan and now Nordstream, anything is possible. There will be no progress on reining in defense or nuclear spending until this rot is exposed and cleaned up. The abscess must be lanced and the wound treated. It will be ugly but the alternative is worse. 3. Important takeaways from the "Nuclear Deterrence Summit" in Washington this week. We are grateful to our colleagues at Exchange Monitor Publications for the opportunity to attend this year's Nuclear Deterrence Summit, which ran from Feb. 13 through Feb. 15 this week. Much was said, of which we can report only a little here. The overall theme could be described as, more or less, "how to increase the production of nuclear weapons." For those deeply interested in plutonium pit production, we have posted an audio recording of a panel on Feb. 14 discussing the issue, with
This was far from the only panel that addressed pit production. The entire conference never got very far from the pit production topic, which besides being NNSA's largest endeavor is also now a cause of great uncertainty. Nobody really spoke openly of how far that uncertainty goes. They didn't need to. Most speakers appeared to know. Livermore's director Kim Budil suggested to NNSA's Marvin Adams that when tough questions came up he could just say, "Did you hear that Livermore achieved fusion ignition last year?" After that, a lot of answers were of the form, "But -- ignition!" Mark Davis provided this memorable description of pit production efforts at LANL: "It is like overhauling and upgrading an airliner while flying, with people aboard." Prior to the conference, the most recent news being LANL's anticipated four-year delay in completing installation of the equipment NNSA says is necessary to reach even a "base" 30 pit-per-year (ppy) production level, with "reliable" production to follow at a later time (press release, "Installation of "Base" Capability to Produce 30 Plutonium Warhead Cores ("Pits") at Los Alamos To Be Delayed 4 Years, to 2030," Feb 3, 2023; "US takes another step toward gearing up nuclear pit factory," AP, Feb 10, 2023). Reporter Dan Leone captured some of the new information about pit production in the following articles, published yesterday: • Shifting military requirements changed design of new ICBM pit; first unit delayed, Exchange Monitor, Feb 17, 2023 There were other insights about pit production vouchsafed in addition to those above, but it is best to provide those in more detail when the time is right, instead of as a potentially-misleading, abbreviated summary today. As you might expect this conference was decidedly hawkish, although there were clear demarcations between agencies and individuals present. Overall, a virulent Russophobia reigned, much worse than anything most of us have seen in our lifetimes, even during the Cold War. Describing all this would take a long article. Instead we have posted for your delectation and analysis two contrasting approaches and indeed personal styles within the military portion of the nuclear weapons business regarding the provision of new nuclear delivery systems, one from the Navy and one from the Air Force, the former supplied by Rear Admiral Scott Pappano, the latter by Brigadier General Ty Neuman, here. The moderator is David Cherington, Managing Director of the Advanced Nuclear Weapons Alliance Deterrence Center. "Enjoy." 4. Don't forget the Ukraine rally tomorrow, here in Washington and elsewhere. Many of you have seen Chris Hedges' article, "Building a Left-Right Coalition Against War" (Consortium News, Feb 14, 2023). Others will have seen Diana Johnstone's "Demonstrate Together," (Consortium News, Feb 14, 2023), the arguments in which we hope would be (but we would do so in vain) self-evident. You can find other articles about tomorrow's marches on our Ukraine page. From that page I would like to also single out Ukraine Collapsing: Jimmy Dore & Jackson Hinkle, from Feb 10, 2023. The rally is discussed from about 9:00 to 18:00 and from 27:00 - 29:00. As noted above, and elsewhere, for the time being Republicans are leading in opposing what has become "Biden's War," and potentially in deposing those who brought and continue it. Much of the latent power of this rally, and why it is feared, lies in its cross-party nature. As noted previously, our endorsement of this event was the catalyst for the Santa Fe New Mexican article on bringing peace to Ukraine ("Anti-nuclear activist opposes helping Ukraine, encourages peace," Feb 5, 2023). Frankly, progressive Democrats are a captured force, useful to sheep-dog voters but ignorable when it comes to policy. As Jimmy Dore rightly says, those who are serious about ending the war will join with others who disagree with them on other topics to achieve that. It's a question of being serious about the objective, or not. Thank you for your attention. Stay well, educate yourselves, oppose the war boldly -- please. Greg Mello, Los Alamos Study Group |
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