What Russiagate Conspiracy Theorists are Risking
The Russiagate conspiracy theorists - and yes, it is a conspiracy theory to argue Russia used cyber attacks to interfere in the 2016 election without producing clear factual evidence of said interference - have made the claim that Russia committed an act of cyberwar against the United States. They are demanding the US retaliate, beginning with economic sanctions. Unfortunately, that is not the only potential option going forward. Nukes are now on the table.
Under the new Nuclear Posture Review proposed by the Pentagon, the US would employ the first use of nuclear weapons in the event of "non-nuclear strategic attacks" by foreign countries, including "chemical, biological ... and cyber threats ..." Supposedly this would happen only in "extreme circumstances" but as US government spokespersons have stated, what constitutes an extreme circumstance justifying first use of nuclear weapons must be deliberately kept "ambiguous."
It’s been long-standing U.S. policy to maintain some ambiguity around the circumstances under which we would consider the use of nuclear weapons in response to a strategic, non-nuclear attack on the United States, and this NPR is explicit in saying, it is in our interests, it is part of reinforcing deterrence to maintain some ambiguity in those circumstances.
With respect to cyber or other forms of attack, I think the context in which an attack occurred against the United States or allies would be very important. ...
And so I think what this NPR strives to do is to say, in the context of a non-nuclear attack on the United States or our allies that was strategic in nature, that imposed substantial impacts to our infrastructure, to our people, then we would consider that context in evaluating the appropriate response, perhaps to include nuclear weapons.
In other words, what would be considered an extreme circumstance justifying the US government authorizing a nuclear response is simply not stated, but left to our, and to any "potential" adversary's, imagination. Certainly, prominent Democrats who support the Russiagate narrative have claimed that alleged Russian interference in the 2016 election constituted an act of war even to the extent of comparing the alleged cyber-attacks to Pearl Harbor and 9/11.
Let's ignore for a moment how easy it would be for anyone to spoof a Russian cyber-attack on the United States. We know the NSA has the capability to do so. We know that the Department of Homeland Security in January, 2017 designated our voting systems as critical infrastructure.
We are already engaged in a an armed conflict in Syria where our warplanes and proxy militias have killed Russian citizens. The political rhetoric in Washington over Russiagate certainly isn't helping matters. The idea that the US might employ even a limited use of nuclear weapons based on a cyber-attack attributed to Russia is no longer unthinkable. Indeed, one could imagine other foreign powers who might engineer just such an attack, make it appear to come from Russia, and hope for exactly that response.
For my purposes, I am not going to assume the worst case scenario: an all-out nuclear exchange. However, even a limited exchange of so-called "tactical" nukes would have dangerous, life-threatening consequences for the entire world. In 2008, a study entitled "Environmental Consequences of Nuclear War", published in the December edition of the American Institute of Physics, looked at the effect on our climate of an exchange of 100 Hiroshima sized nukes on the earth's climate in a conflict between Pakistan and India. For context, the Hiroshima bomb, named "Little Boy," had a yield of approximately 15 kilotons. Today it would be considered a tactical nuke in the US arsenal. The study's authors, Brian Toon (University of Colorado), Alan Robock (Rutgers), and Rich Turco (UCLA) concluded that even such a limited exchange of nukes would have devastating consequences for the earth's environment, causing a climate disaster.
The intense heat generated by the burning cities in the models' simulations lofted black smoke high into the stratosphere, where there is no rain to rain out the particles. The black smoke absorbed far more solar radiation than the brighter sulfuric acid aerosol particles emitted by volcanic eruptions. This caused the smoke to heat the surrounding stratospheric air by 30°C, resulting in stronger upward motion of the smoke particles higher into the stratosphere. As a result, the smoke stayed at significant levels for over a decade (by contrast, highly reflective volcanic aerosol particles do not absorb solar radiation and create such circulations, and only stay in the stratosphere 1-2 years). The black soot blocked sunlight, resulting in global cooling of over 1.2°C (2.2°F) at the surface for two years, and 0.5°C (0.9°F) for more than a decade (Figures 1 and 2). Precipitation fell up to 9% globally, and was reduced by 40% in the Asian monsoon regions.
This magnitude of this cooling would bring about the coldest temperatures observed on the globe in over 1000 years (Figure 1). The growing season would shorten by 10-30 days over much of the globe, resulting in widespread crop failures. The effects would be similar to what happened after the greatest volcanic eruption in historic times, the 1815 Tambora eruption in Indonesia. This cooling from this eruption triggered the infamous Year Without a Summer in 1816 in the Northern Hemisphere, when killing frosts disrupted agriculture every month of the summer in New England, creating terrible hardship. Exceptionally cold and wet weather in Europe triggered widespread harvest failures, resulting in famine and economic collapse. However, the cooling effect of this eruption only lasted about a year. Cooling from a limited nuclear exchange would create two to three consecutive "Years Without a Summer", and over a decade of significantly reduced crop yields. The authors found that the smoke in the stratosphere cause a 20% reduction in Earth's protective ozone layer, with losses of 25-45% over the mid-latitudes where the majority of Earth's population lives, and 50-70% ozone loss at northern high latitude regions such as Scandinavia, Alaska, and northern Canada. A massive increase in ultraviolet radiation at the surface would result, capable of causing widespread and severe damage to plants and animals. Thus, even a limited nuclear exchange could trigger severe global climate change capable of causing economic chaos and widespread starvation.
The implications for human societies from even this limited exchange around the globe are staggering. It's not hyperbole to suggest that food riots, economic collapse and possibly further wars would be the result of the use of even a very small proportion of the US and Russian nuclear arsenal limited to a single region of the planet, such as the Mideast or Eastern Europe. And in the current political and military climate, where US and Russian troops are actively engaged in a hot war in Syria, and deployed along the borders of Russia, it would be easy to stumble into such a confrontation, much as Europe did in 1914.
Does anyone with half an ounce of common sense think that the unproven allegations of Russiagate justifies this risk? Or the intense McCarthyist rhetoric currently employed by so many Democrats (and a few Republican neocons such as Senators McCain and Graham) who have taken it upon themselves to demonize of a country whose military capabilities, outside of its nukes, poses no real existential threat to the people of our nation? And yet the constant drumbeat of warmongering continues non-stop from our elected officials and in the corporate media.
This horrific risk to the world that our politicians are taking is based on unproven allegations, political gamesmanship by the Democratic Party, anonymous leaks by the same US Intelligence agencies that lied us into wars in Vietnam and Iraq and media hysteria.
Where are the grown-ups in the room? They are sorely needed right now.
Comments
The Russiagate strategy isn't paying off
The Porky Dems deserve this.
After spending all these years taking it in the ass for the Repigs and refusing to do anything for the people who elect them, I can't think of a more fitting end to the loyal opposition for the Capitalist Party USA.
Modern education is little more than toeing the line for the capitalist pigs.
Guerrilla Liberalism won't liberate the US or the world from the iron fist of capital.
Paying off or not for Dems
The change to our Nuclear Posture Review that now legitimizes the use of nukes in response to cyber attacks will have long term consequences.
"You can't just leave those who created the problem in charge of the solution."---Tyree Scott
Liberals turn to FBI to "save them"
this won't go well
They are quadrupling down
at this point.
"You can't just leave those who created the problem in charge of the solution."---Tyree Scott
That fact that there was such an obvious trail left behind
tells us the Russiagate indictment had nothing to do with so-called Russian sock-puppets trying to sway the election.
If the Russian FSB would have done it, they would do it just like the CIA/FBI does. They would use specially engineered sock-puppets that would be almost impossible to trace. The FSB is portrayed as having advanced cyber-warfare operations while at the same time making stupid mistakes that even a kiddie-hacker would not do. I have only one name for those pushing the Russiagate shiite - they are complete fuckwits.
Remember this from TOP back in 2013 before it went off the deep end?
@CB That's what I've
That's what I've been saying from the beginning.
"Felix Edmundovitch?" Seriously?
Yeah, and all the CIA's online personas call themselves J Edgar Hoover and Allen Dulles.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
I can see Silicone Valley
all over that guvmint contract.
Not that $300 Mil is any big deal, but that it is easy money.
the little things you can do are more valuable than the giant things you can't! - @thanatokephaloides. On Twitter @wink1radio. (-2.1) All about building progressive media.
"Our" social media programs
Jesus Tapdancing Christ.
@gjohnsit That'll be us...
That'll be us...
Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.
A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.
@gjohnsit Is the FBI going to
Is the FBI going to stop foreign nationals from donating large sums to candidates?
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
@Steven D It's paying off for the
It's paying off for the Deep State.
This is the exact reason why my first reaction when I woke up and saw that Trump, not Hillary, had been "elected" was relief. Because this is exactly the policy she was advocating on the campaign trail.
Unfortunately, what the Deep State wants, the Deep State gets.
Just so everyone knows, this doesn't mean I'm a Trump supporter. His reasons for not wanting a nuclear war with Russia are not peacenik ones, but selfish and narcissistic. However, since I'm an ordinary person living in this world, I don't really fucking care what reasons the powerful have for not starting a nuclear war, as long as they have them.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
Adam Schiff is raking in the dough because of this
His fundraising is off the charts because he is the head of the investigation. I hope that everyone who is involved in this sham investigation gets raked over the coals when the truth comes out. This should end their careers.
Damn! Those numbers are terrible.
Time to double down!
@gjohnsit Sadly, it looks like the
Sadly, it looks like the DSCC and the D-trip are doing fine.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
The scariest
part of this madness is that it looks like the American people do not understand what hydrogen bombs actually do. We appear not to understand what nuclear weapons do, or what the atomic bombs used in WWII did to the people of Japan.
This shocking ignorance may be a result of our public education for the last two generations not including this information. It may be true for people as young as Adam Schiff, born in 1960, that the impression he's working with is that hydrogen bombs just make a big explosion.
On top of not understanding the death machine that is the hydrogen bomb, there appears to be no understanding that the Russian government will launch all of their hydrogen bombs onto the United States, a couple of thousand of them, if we launch one, limited or not limited in yield. That is the principle of Mutually Assured Destruction. The Russians will not merely launch one bomb, and destroy one metropolitan area in the United States, attempting to be fair and to keep the war limited. This is not a video game.
The frightening ignorance of the American people is starting to call attention to itself. It's starting to call up the question of whether even our military leadership is basically knowledgeable about our nuclear capacity.
Here's what Putin has said about a nuclear confrontation w/ US
One - nobody will win
Two - it won't be fought on Russian soil
Not hard to figure that out.
Not hard to figure that one out, eh CB?
Well try convincing the Neocons, Hilbots and MIC about that. Just for yucks, post your comment to the Great Orange Shithole and see what responses you get.
I've been BOJO'd a year ago
Last thing I heard was that I "spoke pretty good English for being a Russki". I'm not kidding.
That shithole has gone full pro-war neocon McCarthy with neolib overtones. They now stand for everything that was NOT progressive back in my day. I figure Obomber played 11th-dimensional chess with their brains and they never recovered. Then Her Heinousness slid in and fucked them up royally.
I agree
My son when he traveled to Japan visited the Hiroshima memorial. I wish more Americans had the chance to do that and learn about the consequences of using one "tactical" nuke much less hundreds as would likely happen even in a limited exchange.
"You can't just leave those who created the problem in charge of the solution."---Tyree Scott
Remember the Joint Chiefs
of Staff, back in JFK's term, were pushing for first strike on the Soviets, and were OK with the expected 20-40% US casualties. We'd be hurt but they'd be dead.
These are the linear psychological descendants of those Chiefs we have now.
Orwell: Where's the omelette?
Hell, the joint chiefs were okay with flying planes into
buildings and blowing up naval ships. Their plan was called Operation Northwoods.
This country has always been run by sociopaths.
The US plan to
obliterate 66 Soviet cities in 1945, updated in 1956 to 1,200 SovietBloc cities.
https://www.globalresearch.ca/wipe-the-ussr-off-the-map-204-atomic-bombs...
Orwell: Where's the omelette?
@jim p
Dear FSM... horrendous enough as a planned war-crime - but they were allies when that plan was developed... psychopaths have no friends, just the potentially/currently useful and the next victims.
From your link:
I suppose because that lot of psychopaths were in with the US industrialists who selected and funded Hitler, without which there would have been no WW2, no Holocaust, no Nazis and no attempt for global dominance. And now, we deal with, if not the same individuals, the same psychopathic groups, carrying out the same aims and plan as then, only in America, and with better resources.
Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.
A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.
Ellen,
so true:
Exactly.
Most born in 1960
know. 1970, later not so much.
the little things you can do are more valuable than the giant things you can't! - @thanatokephaloides. On Twitter @wink1radio. (-2.1) All about building progressive media.
I was born in 1970.
And do not wish the unrelenting, deep-seated fear of nuclear war on any other child (which is how I remember the early- to mid-80s for me). We learned what a nuclear bomb could do by watching The Day After. I had nightmares for months.
And these fuckwits who run our country think it's amusing.
@WaterLily Yeah. I had
Yeah. I had nightmares about nuclear war all through my teens.
This is not a generational problem.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
Same here.
Was in college in the mid 80's during that insane ARMS race stuff. Remember vividly having apocalyptic nightmares with bursting red skies abruptly appearing while walking on a beach.
There was enough awareness between my drinking and music buddies on campus (even though I was apolitical then) about these sophisticated nuclear and satellite weapons we were succeeding in outracing the Russians with. Scary shit.
"If I should ever die, God forbid, let this be my epitaph:
THE ONLY PROOF HE NEEDED
FOR THE EXISTENCE OF GOD
WAS MUSIC"
- Kurt Vonnegut
@Mark from Queens Well, when the
Well, when the President jokes on mike about how he's made the phone call and the nukes are flying to Moscow as he speaks, you do get a little scared.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
Mark,
thank you for saying this. I'm relieved to hear that there is an actual awareness of the power of nuclear weapons among the generations younger than myself. Clearly, though, there are enough Americans, old, young, and in between, who either don't get the extinction part of nuclear war or don't care. As long as they've made their point to Putin, death to everyone would be a fair price to pay.
@Wink Where do y'all get this
Where do y'all get this idea?
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
@Linda Wood As someone born in 1968,
As someone born in 1968, let me assure you that I and all the people I know in my generation are under no illusions about what nuclear weapons do.
Back when we were young, we all watched "The Day After." That was when there was a consensus that nuclear war was something bad.
Anyway, the people leading the charge on this are Boomers and Silents, who should really know better. And they do. This is just more rewriting the dictionary, this time to horrific effect.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
Can't Stop...
Thank you for this response. I'm relieved to hear what you're saying and especially that the film, "The Day After," was so meaningful. I think it also had an impact on Gorbachev. I mean, I think the film was part of what led to Gorbachev proposing nuclear disarmament to Reagan, if I remember correctly. I know the Beyond War movement was said to have influenced him after some of their members went to meet with him. Maybe "The Day After" should be re-released.
@Linda Wood I doubt we could even
I doubt we could even get Amy Goodman to do that now.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
Fuckwit from CNN harasses old lady about "Russian Collusion"
The fucking media has gone berserk over Russiagate.
[video:www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=44&v=sMzAbtBzt9Y]
Yeah, he's deliberately being a dick
You can tell by his smug tone he's enjoying it.
"You can't just leave those who created the problem in charge of the solution."---Tyree Scott
The media's job is to report the news
not make it up. This dickwad wouldn't let her finish her sentence because he had a point to make. She should have told him to get the f*ck off her property.
The total absence of National self reflection in our government
is as alarming as it is stunning, particularly among loyal Democrats. You don't have to be a brilliant analyst to see the coming collapse of the preeminence of the dollar as well as our failed military driven efforts to maintain global dominance by force. Rather than recognizing our failures and reexamining our methods TPTB are doubling down on more of the same, economically, politically and militarily.
“ …and when we destroy nature, we diminish our capacity to sense the divine,and understand who God is, and what our own potential is and duties are as human beings.- RFK jr. 8/26/2024
i.e., insane
American Exceptionalism
at its finest and crassest. Makes me want to puke. Meanwhile our citizens are systematically being impoverished and neglected by the very people who were elected to be OUR representatives in Congress.
Great comment!
Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?
“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy
You say this like it's
a bad thing: "It's not hyperbole to suggest that food riots, economic collapse and possibly further wars would be the result "
Why would the insane people pushing war with, really, the whole earth, see such results as anything but an opportunity?
Orwell: Where's the omelette?
The reckless fear-mongering has deep roots.
Was just watching a speech by author Kevin Kruse, at Union Theological Seminary, about book "One Nation Under God: How Corporate America Created Christian America."
And this bit during the Q&A seemed amazingly fitting for what we find ourselves mire in right now, and what you've laid out here.
An audience member says she heard a lecture with Bob Kerry (not sure who he is), who said something like:
How much of this is the continued rotten and bloody legacy of the ruling elite needing to scapegoat any remnants of Socialism, embodied most prominently in Russia, where the only successful major Revolution happened in the world during the past century and a half?
"If I should ever die, God forbid, let this be my epitaph:
THE ONLY PROOF HE NEEDED
FOR THE EXISTENCE OF GOD
WAS MUSIC"
- Kurt Vonnegut
I've come to the conclusion some time ago
...that we are dealing with the American's ruling class capitalists and their fascist henchmen in government and the nazi mentors who author their ideology since the early 20th century.
I am a committed socialist thanks to their influence. I intend to join with like-minded communists — that social construct that brought us across a million years of survival to the present.
@Pluto's Republic They certainly have
They certainly have made me a socialist. And not a "democratic socialist," or, to use the more modern parlance, "social democrat," either.
They've proven you can't count on rich capitalists to keep their word. That kind of fucks everything up.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
Bob Kerrey
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Kerrey
@Mark from Queens Except that Russia is now
Except that Russia is now capitalist! China is more communist than Russia now.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
Yes, my own fucking family
Every single one of my siblings with a college degree and ALL of them with a 150+ IQ. Yet they're perfectly willing to nuke the world. I honestly don't understand. If I were to ask them if they're OK with the earth becoming a glowing cinder they'd say "No." But then if I ask about their willingness to have war with Russia their brains turn off and they start channeling Rachel Maddow.
A lot of wanderers in the U.S. political desert recognize that all the duopoly has to offer is a choice of mirages. Come, let us trudge towards empty expanse of sand #1, littered with the bleached bones of Deaniacs and Hope and Changers.
-- lotlizard
Brilliance is not enough to insure understanding.
The smartest among us still maintains a "lizard brain" that operates by completely different precepts. How these two brains relate, or fail to relate, goes a long way toward explaining the totally incongruent conclusions you describe with your family members. A big IQ can actually become a handicap if it is allowed to serve the reactionary fight or flight impulses of this lizard brain. Wars are started. People die. The planet groans.
A worthy challenge would be for each of us to find a way to live in balance with our disparate elements within us, or even to just to begin working in that direction. Sadly, this is not a popular pastime these days.
“ …and when we destroy nature, we diminish our capacity to sense the divine,and understand who God is, and what our own potential is and duties are as human beings.- RFK jr. 8/26/2024
@ovals49 That would require
That would require critical thinking, self-reflection, and honesty.
Commie traits, apparently.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
The difference between intellect and wisdom
is honesty.
"If I sit silently, I have sinned." - Mossadegh
LOL, I have lots of quotes about IQ
I'm one of those "stratospheric IQ" guys. One of the things I like to say is, "I'd trade 10 IQ points for 1 wisdom point any day of the week." Another thing I like to say is, "IQ is a great tool to get really wrong really fast."
In real life I think I know what's going on. They, like an awful lot of Americans, are so caught in the propaganda matrix that all nonsupporting data is filtered out of the data stream. I handed my brother a long and meticulously researched history of our involvement in Syria and he brushed the entire thing off as "just one guy's opinion". It was like water sliding off a duck's back.
A lot of wanderers in the U.S. political desert recognize that all the duopoly has to offer is a choice of mirages. Come, let us trudge towards empty expanse of sand #1, littered with the bleached bones of Deaniacs and Hope and Changers.
-- lotlizard
The Mueller 13
These poor folks are likely poorly-compensated troll farm click-bait techs, effectively the telemarketers' boilerroom slaves of the internet - scraping their way out of the low economic class. This might well be their "night job" to help make ends meet, just like many of the tired and hungry prols we're all more and more becoming. We should be helping them find a job with dignity, not blaming them for our own crumbling empire.
Mueller is a coward. He picks on them because he knows they have no means of defense, so he will never have to make his case in court. I would kick in for airfare and legal help if one of them would come here, enter their plea and call the coward's bluff.
If we're gonna take action against their home country, then let's do a thorough job on their despised contemporaries too. We can start with a few strategic cruise missiles targeting call centers in Florida, which hosts the greatest number of employed telemarketers. Then it's time to reach out with a heavy hand to the host of the most technical support scammers in the world, India. It's gonna take a lot of ordinance to cover that wide an area, so let's crank up the MIC factories. Grandma may not like giving up her SS and Medicare, but she won't have to get up and run for the phone so often anymore.
/s.....cya
"If I sit silently, I have sinned." - Mossadegh
@jorogo Unfortunately, that would
Unfortunately, that would involve targeting DC consulting firms and Langley as well.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver