insane new dangers from US nuclear & space weaponization, US and France

(I offer the following without comment, as I’m not sure that I have another gasket to blow, at least without self-injury. Although thought crimes are a whole ‘nother matter…)

 ‘Weaponizing Space Is the New Bad Idea Coming From Washington D.C.’, Federico Pieraccini, July 29, 2019, strategic-culture.org

When considering the possibility of great-power conflict in the near future, it is difficult to bypass space as one of the main areas of strategic focus for the major powers. The United States, Russia and China all have cutting-edge programs for the militarization of space, though with a big difference.

Donald Trump’s announcement of a “Space Force” is by no means a new idea. During the Reagan presidency, a similar idea was proposed in the form of the famous “Star Wars“ program, formally known as the Strategic Defense Initiative. It aimed to do away with the concept of mutually assured destruction (MAD) by positioning anti-ballistic-missile (ABM) interceptors in low-Earth orbit in order for them to be able to easily intercept ballistic missiles during their entry into orbit and before their re-entry phase. The costs and technology at the time proved prohibitive for the program, but military planners retained the dream of negating the concept of MAD in Washington’s favor, especially with the dawning of the unipolar era following the collapse of the Soviet Union.

The decisions taken in the years since, such as the US withdrawal from the ABM Treaty in 2002 during Bush’s presidency and from the INF Treaty during Trump’s, follows Reagan in trying to invalidate MAD, a balance of terror that has served to maintain a strategic stability.

This hope of doing away with MAD so that the unthinkable may become thinkable has guided the missile developments of Russia and China, which through the development of hypersonic missiles aim to nullify the US’s ABM systems and thereby make the thought of an unreciprocated nuclear first strike MAD again. With Russia’s recent successes in testing hypersonic technologies, and the fast-tracking of other new strategic weapons announced by Putin less than 12 months ago, strategic stability seems to have been restored through Russia’s strengthened deterrence posture.” [snip]

Neither China nor Russia has been sitting idly by waiting to be struck undefended. Russia’s development of its S-500 system has been quite timely. The S-500 system is often considered an upgrade to the better-known S-400 system, but these are in reality different systems with different aims and objectives. The main task of the S-500 is to engage long-distance targets in low-Earth orbit. We are therefore talking about the ability to take out military or any future ABM satellites as those originally conceived with Reagan’s “Star Wars” program.

Unlike Washington, Moscow and Beijing do not appear to be developing space-based weaponry; they are certainly not going to increase their military budgets to create a space force. On the contrary, both countries have been working for more than a decade on a proposed Prevention of an Arms Race in Outer Space (PAROS) treaty that seeks to ban the weaponization of space.”

The rest, including the summary of the PAROS treaty, is here.)

Preparing for great-power war, France creates space command’, Will Morrow, 31 July 2019, wsws.org

“French President Emmanuel Macron’s administration announced this month the creation of a military space command and detailed plans to place anti-satellite weapons systems in orbit. The announcement is the latest step in a military build-up by France and the EU imperialist powers, and part of preparations to wage “great power” wars, including between nuclear-armed states.

The new military branch, whose creation was signaled by Macron on July 13, will be merged into the Air Force, which will henceforth be called the Air and Space Force. Defense Minister Florence Parly outlined the details of the new division in a speech to over 100 air force military brass at the Air Base 942 in Lyon on July 25.

“Space is a new front to defend, and we must be ready,” Parly declared. “Seeking to one day become a space general will no longer be a fantasy, it will be a credible ambition.” [snip]

“This first stage of the command’s operations will involve the deployment of a new generation of Syracuse satellites equipped with visual cameras to identify other nearby satellites. In the second stage, so-called nano-satellites that are more difficult to shoot down, and satellites equipped with submachine guns and lasers capable of destroying or incapacitating rival satellites, will be deployed.

The obvious implication of these announcements, ignored and covered up by the media, is that the ruling class is preparing to wage wars not only against impoverished and former colonial countries in the Middle East and Africa, targeted under the fraudulent banner of the “War on Terror”—which have no capacity to launch attacks using satellite technology or destroy French satellites—but against militarily-advanced nuclear-armed powers, like Russia, China and the United States, which rely heavily on satellite technology for their operations.”  [snip]

“The development of a French space force is part of Macron’s bid to take the leadership of a European army being spearheaded by Paris and Berlin. Their aim is to transform the European Union into a military power capable of waging war, including independently of and in opposition to the United States. Germany, in addition to having no nuclear weapons, does not have an active space program of its own, while the exit of Britain from the EU leaves France as the only EU nuclear power, in addition to possessing—for now—Europe’s largest blue-water navy.

The EU’s “Strategic Agenda for 2019–2024,” adopted at its Brussels summit last month, asserts that Europe must “reinforce its global influence,” “influence the course of world events,” and “move forward towards a genuine European Defence Union.” [snip]

“In June 2018, US President Donald Trump announced the creation of a new “Space Force,” to oversee and expand the more than 20,000 personnel already under the direction of the Air Force’s Space Command. Last March, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi delivered a blood-curdling address to the nation to announce that India had become the third nation after the US and China to shoot down a satellite, and proclaim that “We are now a space power.” China and Russia, the two principal targets of US military aggression to offset its relative economic decline through military force, are building up their own anti-satellite missile systems as well.” [see ‘with a difference’ above]

‘US to ring China with missiles in nuclear arms race’, Andre Damon, 5 August 2019, wsws.org

“Within hours of the official withdrawal by the United States on Friday from the world’s most important nuclear treaty, the Pentagon made clear that it intends to ring China with missiles amid a rapidly accelerating nuclear arms race.

“Speaking to reporters during a trip to Australia, US Defense Secretary Mark Esper said the Pentagon would deploy missiles prohibited under the treaty “sooner rather than later.”

“I would prefer months,” Esper said.

The deployment of medium-range missiles in the Pacific would turn the Chinese coast and the Pacific islands surrounding it into a nuclear battlefront, putting the lives of billions of people in China, the Koreas, Japan, Taiwan and the broader region at risk.

The INF treaty, which was signed between then President Ronald Reagan and his Soviet counterpart Mikhail Gorbachev in 1987, banned the US and Russia from developing missiles with ranges between 500 and 5,000 kilometers, meaning that most of Europe and much of the Pacific were off limits to the stationing of nuclear missiles.” [snip]

“With the potential deployment of US nuclear missiles just minutes in flight-time from the Chinese mainland, tensions will be on a hair trigger, with the huge population of the region living under the specter of nuclear annihilation.

Responding to the US withdrawal from the INF treaty, UN Secretary-General António Guterres warned that “the world will lose an invaluable brake on nuclear war.” [snip]

“In defending his decision to station missiles in a densely populated area thousands of miles away from America, Esper accused China of “weaponizing the global commons using predatory economics.”

In other words, China, by carrying out peaceful economic activities, is threatening the United States, and that should therefore be countered with the threat of military annihilation.” [snip]

“In subsequent comments, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who is accompanying Esper on his trip to Australia, declared that the United States had been “asleep at the switch” with regard to the “danger” posed by China.

He then reemphasized Esper’s declaration that China’s peaceful economic growth constituted a military threat to the United States.

“I’ll hear folks talk about trade and economic issues as separate from national security,” Pompeo said. “Let’s make no mistake about it, China’s capacity, the People’s Liberation Army’s capacity to do exactly what they’re doing is a direct result of trade relationships that they built.”

“They grew their country on the backs of a set of unfair trade rules. So they were able to grow their economy at a high rate of speed,” Pompeo said.” [snip]

“In other words, there is no dividing line between peaceful coexistence, and military conflict. Economic growth and trade are themselves seen by Washington as military threats to be countered by anything from trade conflict to military saber-rattling and full-scale war.

Pompeo’s words are in keeping with the doctrine of great-power rivalry against Russia and China embraced by the Pentagon last year, which declared that “Great power competition—not terrorism—is now the primary focus of US national security.”

@EsperDoD Aug 3 “We stand firmly against a disturbing pattern of aggressive behavior from China that destabilizes the region.”

(cross-posted from Café Babylon)

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Roy Blakeley's picture

Fairly effective anti-ballistic missiles were developed in the 1960s when we could still send men to the moon. However, it became apparent that it was much more expensive to build an effective anti-ballistic missile (with associated radar systems, etc.) than to build another ballistic missile. So why would any sane country want to persist with this. If we built and deployed 100 ABMs Russia would just build and deploy 200 ballistic missiles for a lot less. So the US and the USSR, both of which displayed a rudimentary form of sanity in those days, decided that there was no reason to go through this pointless escalation and this resulted in the ABN treaty. Reagan tried to get around the treaty with his wasteful and pointless star wars program. The US withdrew from the treaty in 2002. What has changed, I believe, is that the military industrial security complex now has complete control over government so that manifestly stupid policies are pursued even though they are not beneficial to the US because they are beneficial to profits of the military industries and their lackeys.

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wendy davis's picture

@Roy Blakeley

(war is a racket), i'm not quite so sure in the case of the current administration. but just in, here's what putin apparently has to say:

Putin: US quitting INF created ‘fundamental’ risks for all, paved way to ‘unrestrained’ arms race’, 5 Aug, 2019, RT.com

“Russia won’t be the first to deploy INF-banned munitions and will act only in response to potential US actions, President Vladimir Putin has said, warning that the US decision to withdraw risks an “unrestricted” arms race.

“The unilateral withdrawal from the INF treaty by the US, destruction of one of the basic documents on arms control, based on an imaginary pretext, has seriously complicated the situation in the world, [and] created fundamental risks for everyone,” Putin cautioned on Monday.

The decision to ditch the landmark 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty will hark back to other accords on strategic nuclear weaponry and non-proliferation, he added. If the system crumbles, it will give way to an arms race and world-wide “chaos without any rules, restrictions, and laws.” [snip]

“Moscow will not rush to develop land-based, intermediate-range missiles after the demise of the treaty and will only act if the US proceeds with actually designing this weaponry, according to Putin. Potential deployment of any such missiles will only happen in response to Washington’s actions.

Washington suspended the INF deal in February, citing alleged violations of the agreement by Russia, and ultimately withdrew from the deal on August 2. The blame “for the treaty’s demise” was squarely placed on Moscow by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. The Pentagon immediately vowed to develop ‘conventional’ ground-based missiles that were previously outlawed under the agreement.

Moscow insisted that Washington did not back up any of its claims with hard facts, saying that getting rid of the INF was the desired goal for the US."

a Q if i may: is my memory even more full of holes than usual in thinking that it was bibi netanyahu who'd convinced pompeo/trump to pull out of the INF?

thanks for the historical musings, roy blakely.

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k9disc's picture

This completely hurt:

“Speaking to reporters during a trip to Australia, US Defense Secretary Mark Esper said the Pentagon would deploy missiles prohibited under the treaty “sooner rather than later.”

“I would prefer months,” Esper said.

The rest of it made me shudder.

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“Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.” ~ Sun Tzu

wendy davis's picture

@k9disc

i'd almost bolded “I would prefer months,” Esper said." i was alternately enraged and ready to throw up.

i kept looking at esper's photo on his twit account, and imagined i was able to see the madness in his eyes behind his glasses. one sliver of good news is that germany says it won't join the US flotillas in both the south china seas and the straits of hormuz, iirc, 'at least for now'.

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wendy davis's picture

genocidaire narendra modi's ramping it up again:

kinda goes with his other delusions of superpower grandeur: "Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi delivered a blood-curdling address to the nation to announce that India had become the third nation after the US and China to shoot down a satellite, and proclaim that “We are now a space power.”

what he's done to the economy with his 2016 'demonetization' scheme...he's running a government for the elite and by the elite. i wish china and russia would have nothing to do with him, but apparently...bidness is bidness.

sorry, my rage for Mr. Namaste is longstanding and virulent. he wasn't even allowed into the US for a long time until recently. "oh, but what a market those one and a half billion in India would be for silicon valley bidnesses!"

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Deja's picture

@wendy davis
I'd be interested in hearing her opinion on it.

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wendy davis's picture

@Deja

i could care less. it was she who'd taken genocidaire narendra modi on two tours across amerkia, both ending up in silicon valley, as i remember it. in 2014 she'd also voted against House Resolution 417 which chided India to protect “the rights and freedoms of religious minorities” and recommended that Modi should continue to be denied a U.S. Visa. she'd apparently tried to downplay his part in the genocide.

but when one is running for president (or any elective office), one can signal anything one believes will please audiences. but that's just me, Deja. if someone asks her on twitter, i'd think she'd signal: "shocking!" but who can say?

but i do have a Q: what's your avatar?

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Deja's picture

@wendy davis
I asked about her close relationship with him on a Reddit sub and my comment was downvoted to oblivion, but it wasn't actually her, just a subreddit championing her.

People who adore her don't much care I guess. Ssdd!

My avatar is a hen wearing photoshopped sunglasses.

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wendy davis's picture

@Deja

some of the terms you've used, but noting your conclusion, i'd have to say 'small wonder'. it's the one true thing i notice about presidential politics: hope>belief>quasi-religious fervor, facts be damned.

thanks for the 411 on your avatar!

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Deja's picture

@wendy davis

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wendy davis's picture

@Deja

but thank you for ssdd in agreement, at least..methinks. ; )

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Deja's picture

@wendy davis
Reddit has pages like here but not as easy to read as here, that users post to, and people are able to comment and reply to comments.

There are different areas, based on subject, like politics, funny, animals being jerks, unsolved mysteries, games, and so many more I'd never be able to even find, much less list them all. Those are called subreddits or subs.

They're listed (and often referred to online) like this:
/politics
/funny
/animalsbeingjerks

No bad feelings from me. We're good, I hope. Smile

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wendy davis's picture

@Deja

; ) g'night, deja.

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wendy davis's picture

@Deja

A: to fetch her sunglasses.

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wendy davis's picture

madman esper, including the fact that acting sec-def shanahan was boeing, esper's raytheon, even though the big implements of war manufacturers are coalescing like monsanto and bayer, but:

Readiness for full spectrum of conflict’: Trump’s pick to lead military is staunch anti-Chinese’, june 26, RT.com

"Trump’s latest warhawk, who appears all set to enter the fray which has to be one of the most cursed administrations of all time, is Mark Esper, currently the Army’s civilian chief. Esper is Trump’s favorite to lead the US military, following the resignation of James ‘Mad Dog’ Mattis some time ago. Apparently, no one is “mad dog” enough to keep up with Donald Trump.

Esper has had a specific focus on China for decades (or so he says). According to Reuters, Esper said he saw China as a personal priority as far back as the 1990s, dating back to when he worked as an aide on Capitol Hill after serving over ten years in the army.

“The issue of China, competition with China, China’s capabilities, is not a new one to me ... That is both the foundation and the shaping of my views on these various issues, because I’ve watched this evolution for 20 years now,” Esper said, further noting he was a Pacific war planner on the Army staff, in the mid-1990s.

So, what would a US military run by Esper look like in the near future?

Last year, at a Foreign Policy event at Brookings, Esper explained his vision for the future of the US military moving forward. After explaining that his personal mantra is “the only way human beings can win a war is to prevent it … the best way to prevent a war is to be prepared to win it,” Esper went on to explain how – in order to counter Russia and China – the US military would have to grow the regular army above 500,000 soldiers, among a host of other things.
..................
"“One of the most dangerous places is high-intensity conflict. That's where we could [have] a major war, and it would have a very significant impact on the United States,” Esper also recently told the Washington Examiner. “So we have to build an army, a military, if you will, that's capable of dealing with, again, Russia or China, because we know that over the last 18 years as we focused on Iraq and Afghanistan, the Russians and Chinese focused on modernizing their force and trying to close the gap with the United States. That's what has our attention right now.”

this is of course on the heels of obomba's 'pivot to asia'.

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k9disc's picture

Probably should be deux, as it's a stupid plan.

This guy sounds like a real true believer. The douchebag on the existential apocalypse film who plays petty politics at the expense of humanity. Fuck these people.

@wendy davis

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“Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.” ~ Sun Tzu

wendy davis's picture

@k9disc

i did a quick bingle but am none the wiser, esp. as anyone can create and/or alter their own wiki pages.

this shit is even more terrifying in that this adminstration's hawks can conflate tariff wars, alleged currency manipulation as casus belli for nuclear war. but as many say, this is how dying empires behave in their death throes: any perceived challenge to power is an enemy, if an empire has no friends left, they fabricate them by way of carrots and sticks (see nato, africom, the IMF).

ah shite, it's so depressing. i will say i got some sleep last night, and had a zillion dreams, one long sequence in which there seriously was some cosmic shift of consciousness afoot, but not all were invited. swimming a few miles was required, but i did meet a lovely zebra who came out of the water, and that was nice. ; ) (sure, put me in a padded cell, what do i care?)

and three fawns are racing around the yard, having their mock battles already, vases of gorgeous garden flowers on every table...

p.s. on edit: i so regretted i wasn't able to come back to your colonized minds post, as it had pinged so many other things in that category. but i'd meant to ask you as well about your apparent disdain for jimmy dore, as i'm not a fan, and it's almost akin to sacrilege here. ; )

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k9disc's picture

for normies. He's preaching to the choir with me, and I don't really need the refrain any longer.

Watched him a bit recently. He's been solid on Tulsi getting screwed and pounding the corporate automatons.

Thomas P Barnett worked for Cantor Fitzgerald. In the early 00s he gave a powerpoint presentation to everyone in WA for the "transforming" DoD. Laying out the perpetual warfare and full spectrum dominance concepts from Joint Vision 2020 and Rebuilding America's Defenses.

I watched his presentation. It's where I got the idea that we were exporting security to finance our debt - freaked me out - markets are grow or die, and we're in war markets; it's our last strategic economic advantage.

Ironically enough, in a cosmically coincidental manner, Cantor-Fitzgerald, the company that put out the practical rationalization for Neocon perpetual warfare and century of American Peace, was the Ground Zero of Ground Zero on 911. The first plane, IIRC, hit Cantor-Fitzgerald's offices on the 91st floor.

And now here we go again for Round 2: China.

@wendy davis

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“Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.” ~ Sun Tzu

wendy davis's picture

@k9disc

thank you for the info, as i couldn't want to study too very much about him. but he seems to have predated this current total command and control, full-spectrum dominance, but then a hella lot of think tank documents have done the same; kinda wish i'd kept a list of them.

yes, war and the implements of war are what amerika does best in profiteering, but that's also the reason that MSM 'Fear of the Other Side' works wonders and sells like hotcakes! small wonder there's a whole new raft of urban commando mass slaughters in the US this summer. i admit i haven't clicked into any of the stories with the likely predictable stuff they print.

okey-dokey on on dore, then, even if i'm not quite getting it about tulsi (i'm not a fan of hers, either). i just can't even stand to watch him, his stupid hounds-tooth hat, and his smirky-smarmy facial expressions. plus? he laughs at shit that's simply not funny to me. VZ? ah, i forget, but i've not watched any lately even when folks bring him to my threads.
am i a Dore Bigot? likely so.

peace to you as well, k9disc, when you're able to manage it.

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k9disc's picture

https://www.c-span.org/video/?182105-1/the-pentagons-map-powerpoint-pres...
TP Barnett's intro and talk Starts at 5:00 - intro is somewhat important.

I think this might be the presentation I saw originally on CSPAN. It disappeared for a long time. He completely fesses up to creating war markets to finance our debt and claims that he could "simply defend America" with $100B budget - TOMORROW - his emphasis. But that's the not the job of the Pentagon. The Pentagon's job is to dream up the future of warfare and build the army to win it. That's why it takes nearly $1T / year to finance it... because it's financing our debt.

It's insane, and I think it's seeing the sunlight again, and I'm really hoping it's the one I viewed back in the day, as those are quotes from memory - they're seared in my mind. I want to hear it again.

@wendy davis

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“Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.” ~ Sun Tzu

k9disc's picture

56:10 - Pretty amazing outlook on the world, eh?

BTW, this guy is and always has been a registered Democrat. Speech/presentation was given to EVERYBODY who was anybody.

Still can't tell if this is the video I saw though. I remember it being more pedestrian and less glitzy. Like it took place in a university lecture hall rather than a sound stage.

Still the same kind of bonkers though.

@k9disc

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“Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.” ~ Sun Tzu

wendy davis's picture

@k9disc

i'll have to take your word for it, lol. naval war college dude, it seems. dunno why folks believe that Ds aren't part of the duopoly war party. that stuff i just read at FP for ggersh was sponsored by a think tank that was likely mainly Ds.

last cycle it was the Ds who gave donald trump what, 38 billion more than he's asked for because: Russia?

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k9disc's picture

I do think he's a great voice for people who still buy the duopoly and democracy. And his anger is honest and righteous, IMO. Good combo. I'd love to see him have a place amongst the corporate faces that structure reality. And Stef and Ron are pretty amazing in their own right.

Graham Elwood, the Political Vigilante is pretty solid as well, IMO. But I don't track them very well. I just catch the zeitgeist through them every once in a while - too serious for me. I like Jimmy's irreverent delivery and the panels and guests he has on.

Him and Rogan are a good look for independent media.
@wendy davis

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“Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.” ~ Sun Tzu

wendy davis's picture

@k9disc

whooosh; a reprieve! but srsly, i'd already said i don't/won't watch him, so there's that. not even for thee, amigo!

as a side note, i'm always boggled that so many folks here even have the time (and attention span) to watch videos, especially long ones. no transcript to read, scan, i don't being any of them, and sometimes TRNN has had a few that i was almost tempted to bring regardless. but...i don't, unless i do my own sorta/kinda rush transcripts.

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wendy davis's picture

(with iran as well) that's got my knickers in a serious knot, i'm going to go with post- nuclear conflagration 'wooden ships' for a closing song.

i'm hoping for some sleep tonight, it hasn't come easily lately. g' night to all.

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Q3j-i7GLr0]

I can see by your coat, my friend you're from the other side
There's just one thing I got to know
Can you tell me please who won?

Say can I have some of your purple berries?
Yes, I've been eating them
For six or seven weeks now haven't got sick once
Probably keep us both alive

Wooden ships on the water very free and easy
Easy, you know the way it's supposed to be
Silver people on the shoreline let us be
Talkin' 'bout very free and easy

Horror grips us as we watch you die
All we can do is echo your anguished cries
Stare as all human feelings die
We are leaving, you don't need us...

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k9disc's picture

Sinking Ship:

@wendy davis

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“Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.” ~ Sun Tzu

wendy davis's picture

@k9disc

how brilliant! sinking ship of fools and nuclear madmen, an the claymation artwork was such an intense labor of love and devotion to the cause (so to speak).

clay fax machines and printers? the nuke explodes, as protagonist clay man sits on the floor drinking his smoothie with a straw. why not? "when you know that all that's left is the fall...how you fall is what matters." (or close to that)

thanks for that as well, k9disc.

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k9disc's picture

honest - acceptance of the situation, and nobody seems to be able to do it.

It's an interesting piece of music too. It really fires up the dogs - they hear it and immediately go on edge, en masse. Pretty interesting, for sure.

And, yea, the video is quite epic.

Peace

@wendy davis

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“Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.” ~ Sun Tzu

wendy davis's picture

@k9disc

as well. curious musical blends/genres?, as well as the periodic and purposefully discordant
clashes. quite fitting with the overall metaphor.

i see why you love it, and that it fires up the pups (both driving rock and clashes). thanks a lot for bringing it, cake is new to me.

'acceptance of the situation, and nobody seems to be able to do it.', indeed, and a brilliant observation in soooo many directions right now.

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ggersh's picture

@wendy davis the article definitely has an ameriKan bias to it
which makes it all the much scarier as to how easy it
will be for everything to fall off the rails

https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/russian-federation/2019-08-06/re...

The 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty—which banned an entire class of destabilizing nuclear-capable missiles on European territory—has been dealt a likely fatal blow with this year’s decisions by Washington to withdraw from the treaty and by Moscow to suspend implementation of it. This followed U.S. concerns about Russian deployment of prohibited missiles and Russian allegations raised in response. The fate of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty is also in doubt, with four Republican U.S. Senators writing to President Donald Trump this past spring asking if he would consider “unsigning” the treaty. The future of the 2010 New START treaty is also unclear. Unless both sides agree to extend it—a proposition Trump and his administration have consistently refused to embrace—the treaty will expire in 2021. In short, in less than two years, the last remaining agreement to limit and monitor the deployment of U.S. and Russian strategic nuclear forces could unravel completely. If it does, any remaining transparency of both sides’ nuclear arsenals, including on-site inspections by each country, will vanish with it.

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I never knew that the term "Never Again" only pertained to
those born Jewish

"Antisemite used to be someone who didn't like Jews
now it's someone who Jews don't like"

Heard from Margaret Kimberley

wendy davis's picture

@ggersh

the title says it all, yes? The Return of Doomsday
The New Nuclear Arms Race—and How Washington and Moscow Can Stop It
Ernest J. Moniz and Sam Nunn August 6, 2019 (the nuclear threat initiative sam nunn?) but it's likely i'm being unfair w/ a brief scan)

i'm sorry, i've read too much, done too many chores, and am in dire need of a rest.

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wendy davis's picture

@wendy davis

in the end. what a fooking tome, someone should have edited out all the repetitive stuff. did you by chance manage to read the whole 2000 words or whatever? oh, and this is the board and 'advisors' of the NTI, okay? ted turner, jerry brown, admiral mike mullen, former head of the joint chiefs...

but let's just start with the russophobia: putin stole crimea, russia interfered with our elections, engages in cyberhacking (pot, kettle?)? which had finally been deconstructed recently)? oh, and russia shot down malyasian flight 370, right? gosh, there's no proof of that, dudes, and not even malaysia believes that.

no clear mention of why russia needs nuclear weapons, no (hello continual NATO expansion, whether official members or the other three categories), but they grandly suggest no new nuclear weapons in NEW nato nations? is russia deploying nuclear weapons in europe?

i have no idea if russia or chinese sonic glide missiles are nuclear, but in any even they're defensive, and for obvious reasons, intended to shoot (i assume) nuclear weapons before the hit. no mention of macron's new space force, either, what does that say?

oh, and the photo is sam husseini holding the Nuclear Weapon Ban Treaty...he's a good guy, imo.

at least they encourage congresscritters to step up communication with russia, but no: don't end the sanctions until The Bear fulfills their whole list of obligations. meanwhile, the nazis in ukraine are still killing citizens and military in the donbass, but that's okay. they're OUR post-maidan guys. russia 'invaded georgia'? how john mccain of them.

sorry to be so fucking cranky, but the russophobic lies are jut too much for me to bear right now. if they'd ever even seen vlad's response i'd pasted in above via RT: ‘Putin: US quitting INF created ‘fundamental’ risks for all, paved way to ‘unrestrained’ arms race’, 5 Aug, 2019, RT.com, they'd say he was lying. i'd think putin/lavrov would be the first ones to beg that the New START treaty be extended, wouldn't you?

but ya gotta love the section (i can't find it now) noting that even though russia would deny it, they'd use 'low yield nukes' over some imagined scenario or other. wish i could find it, if just for it's coyness.

but they're right: the US just upped the doomsday clock again. ping: john pilger did a whole whole documentary on 'the coming war on china':

'The Coming War on China' now available to watch free online', 26 June 2018

peace to you and all of us...when we can manage it.

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wendy davis's picture

executive coup revoking article 370 in kashmir and jammu:

India’s Hindu supremacist government abrogates Kashmir’s autonomy’, Keith Jones, 6 August 2019, wsws.org. (i'm not altogether sure he isn't too critical of imran khan's part, but that may be my bias speaking.) briefly:

"India’s Hindu supremacist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government illegally stripped Jammu and Kashmir, the country’s only Muslim-majority state, of its special constitutional status Monday, and split it into two Union Territories. One is comprised of the Jammu and Kashmir divisions of the now abolished state, and the other of the sparsely populated, but geostrategically significant, Ladakh region.

Through actions that are tantamount to a constitutional coup, the Indian state has not just abrogated the broad autonomy that Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) enjoyed—at least on paper—under articles 370 and 35 (A) of the Indian constitution. The new governments of the bifurcated state have been given a status inferior to that of the Indian Union’s remaining 28 states, enabling New Delhi to exercise wide powers over the territories’ affairs in perpetuity."
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"Fearing mass popular opposition to its actions, the BJP government has poured tens of thousands of additional troops into Jammu and Kashmir, cut off internet, cell phone and landline access across much of the region, including in Srinagar, J&K’s summer capital, and arrested prominent opposition politicians. As of midnight yesterday, several districts, including Srinagar and Jammu, have been placed under Section 144 of the Criminal Code, meaning all gatherings of more than four people are prohibited."
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Pakistan, for its part, has sought to manipulate the mass alienation from New Delhi among the Muslims of the Kashmir Valley to further its own reactionary agenda. This has included sidelining secular Kashmiri nationalists, while providing arms and other logistical support to Islamist anti-Indian Kashmiri insurgents.

In 2016, two years after Narendra Modi and his BJP came to power in New Delhi, a new wave of mass protests erupted in J&K. The BJP government’s response was twofold: to order a vicious crackdown, which left over a hundred dead and thousands of protesters, the overwhelming majority of them young people, blinded; and to ratchet up tensions with Pakistan. First in September 2016 and again this February, the Modi government ordered military strikes inside Pakistan in what it claimed was retaliation for Pakistan-supported terrorist attacks. The latter “surgical strike” resulted in a Pakistani counterattack and a dogfight over disputed Kashmir that brought South Asia’s nuclear-armed rivals the closest they have been to all-out war since 1971."
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but the bottom line for 'the west'?

“The Modi government, however, calculates that its provocative steps in Kashmir and incitement of communal reaction will occasion no more than handwringing from the Western powers—and above all US imperialism—which are assiduously promoting India as a military-strategic counterweight to China. According to news reports, New Delhi is on the verge of signing the third and final of three “foundational” documents with Washington providing the framework for joint Indo-US military operations. India has already agreed to open its military bases for use by US warplanes and battleships.”

i'd been wracking my brain for the name of this odious and evil law, and here it is in
Report details Indian security forces use of torture against Kashmiri people’, Wasantha Rupasinghe, 23 July 2019

“Titled Torture: Indian State’s Instrument of Control in Indian administered Jammu and Kashmir, the report is, in its own words, “the first ever comprehensive report on the phenomenon of torture in Jammu and Kashmir perpetrated by the Indian State from 1990 onwards.”

The 550-page document was published by the Association of Parents of Disappeared Persons (APDP) and the Jammu Kashmir Coalition of Civil Society (JKCCS). It gives a detailed account of cruelties practiced by Indian security forces in J&K, through an examination of 432 individuals who were subjected to various types of torture, including water-boarding, beatings with iron rods and leather belts, and electric shocks to the genitals.”

“For the past three decades, J&K has been under de facto military rule, with over half a million Indian Army troops and other security forces deployed in a state with a population of just 13 million people.

In 1990, the Indian armed forces were given sweeping powers to arrest civilians, and even use lethal force against “unlawful assembles,” under “The Armed Forces (Jammu and Kashmir) Special Powers Ordinance” and then, with parliament’s blessing, “The Armed Forces (Jammu and Kashmir) Special Powers Act, 1990 (AFSPA).”

“Tens of thousands of people, most of them civilians, have been killed in the Kashmir conflict. According to estimates, “more than 8,000 people have been subjected to enforced or involuntary disappearances since 1990,” notes the Torture report.”

it seems that moon of alabama has the story as well:

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wendy davis's picture

@wendy davis

on bernhard's thread are wondering aloud about miz. gabbard's will be, given her close affiliation to the thug modi. i checked her twitter feed: nothing there but fund-raisings, ceilings reached, meet n greets, etc..

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wendy davis's picture

tonight's closing song is from 1992, by the late great santee sioux AIM leader & alchemist john trudell.

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y88AaSnJwqA]

a few of the lyrics.

Rich man's war
Free man society
Raging violent insecurity
Nuclear man nuclear woman
Unclear how to act

Rich man's war
Pershings cruising Europe
America - Russia
Governmental nuclear views
Industrial allies cutting the world
As though they cannot see blood flowing

Some ones are crazy or
Maybe we take turns
Dreaming about some kind of life
We say it could have been different
But it wasn't because we weren't

Some things start good and go bad
Some things get bad and stay bad
Are we caught in between
Living a lie or not living at all

Surviving paid for in dreams
Feeling like a world alone
Serving God with the Devil to pay
Feeling like something in no place

What goes on in Hell anyway?

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