SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
gulf war
Ukraine Needs Diplomacy, Not Depleted Uranium
The horror of DU is what happens after the battles are over.
Sep 07, 2023
Freedom’s just another word for... blowing up your children? Giving them cancer?
Militarism is obsolete, for God’s sake. Its technology is out of control. The latest shred of news that has left me stunned and terror-stricken is this, as reported by Reuters: “The Biden administration will for the first time send controversial armor-piercing munitions containing depleted uranium to Ukraine... It follows an earlier decision by the Biden administration to provide cluster munitions to Ukraine, despite concerns over the dangers such weapons pose to civilians.”
Russia’s war on Ukraine is a disaster at every level. Some 70,000 Ukrainians have died, according to The New York Times, and possibly another 120,000 have been wounded, with Russia’s casualty level actually far higher. The war (like all wars) has to stop, but NATO and the U.S., just like Russia itself, are looking not for peace and conflict resolution but victory. Killing the enemy is what matters, the more the better. War is humanity’s most horrific addiction. When it takes hold of a people’s soul, all environmental and human concerns vanish. And today—indeed, throughout the course of my lifetime—with the development of nuclear weapons, we’ve been at the brink of self-generated extinction. And we’re still playing with it, rather than trying to move beyond it.
DU stays in the environment, and has been linked to huge rises in cancer and birth defects in the conflict zones.
Depleted uranium—DU—is one of the playthings of war: At 1.6 times the density of lead, DU shells are the last word in penetration power: locomotives compressed to the size of bullets. The shells ignite the instant they’re fired and explode on impact.
I first started writing about depleted uranium in 2003, when I heard Doug Rokke (who died two and a half years ago) speak in Chicago. Doug, a career soldier, was involved in the first Gulf War, leading a team of soldiers whose job was to clean up the war zones in the aftermath of our bombing raids.
As I wrote then: Depleted uranium
Isn’t really depleted of anything. It’s dirty: U-238, the low-level radioactive byproduct of the uranium enrichment process. And when the ammo explodes, poof, it vaporizes into particles so fine—a single micron in diameter, small enough to fit inside red blood cells—that, well, ‘conventional gas mask filters are like a barn door...’
What’s not to love, if you’re the Pentagon? We pounded Saddam’s army with DU ammo in Gulf War 1 and destroyed it on the ground. Maybe you’ve seen pictures of what we did to it; GIs cleaning up afterward coined the term ‘crispy critters’ to describe the fried corpses they found inside Iraqi tanks and trucks.
But the horror of DU is what happens after the battles are over. DU stays in the environment, and has been linked to huge rises in cancer and birth defects in the conflict zones. As Doug Rokke said: “You can’t clean it up.”
But so what? According to Sydney Young, writing for the Harvard International Review:
In the past, leaders did not pay the necessary amount of attention to the risks of depleted uranium. Documents suggest that the United States may have known about the potential consequences of depleted uranium during conflicts in which it was used. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) published a 1991 report indicating that deploying depleted uranium in the Gulf War could have caused 500,000 cancer deaths.
However, the United States still used depleted uranium in the Middle East despite the risks, deeming that its military benefits outweighed the potential civilian impact. This calculus reflects a common trend in which Western countries justify human rights abuses under the guise of ‘national interest’ or military necessity.
Another tactic of the political militarists is to deny there’s any negative consequences to their actions. Young also notes:
Research also faces political barriers. Governments that use depleted uranium have a vested interest in preventing research that suggests it has negative effects on human health. For instance, the United States, United Kingdom, Israel, and France all opposed a 2001 United Nations resolution to document depleted uranium in war.
There’s a collective human addiction not simply to militarism and war, but to winning: to domination. A focus on winning in the moment obliterates any sense of the larger future. The creation of peace is not a simplistic game. It has no weapons to parade before the public, whose use will obliterate the enemy of the moment and make the world a better place once and for all.
Noting the horrific extent to which the Ukraine war has stalemated, Jeet Heer writes at The Nation: “The time is surely ripe for a diplomatic push. Unfortunately, the passions ignited by war always make negotiations difficult...” and, alas “a strong ‘taboo’ against public discussion of diplomacy pervades the NATO countries.”
This is understandable, he notes, considering the criminality of the Russian invasion and the horror it has inflicted on Ukraine: “But an interminable bloodbath on Ukrainian soil is also horrific.”
Humanity has to figure out how to talk to itself, not kill itself.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Biden Shows Support as Senate Advances Repeal of Iraq War Authorizations
"Repeal of these authorizations would have no impact on current U.S. military operations and would support this administration's commitment to a strong and comprehensive relationship with our Iraqi partners."
Mar 16, 2023
As the U.S. Senate on Thursday teed up a vote to end the congressional authorizations for the Gulf and Iraq wars, President Joe Biden formally backed the bipartisan bill.
The progress on finally repealing the 1991 and 2002 authorizations for use of military force (AUMFs) comes just ahead of the 20th anniversary of the George W. Bush administration's costly and devastating invasion of Iraq.
The bill ( S. 316/H.R. 932) was reintroduced in February by Sens. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) and Barbara Lee (D-Calif.), and has GOP co-sponsors in both chambers. On Thursday, 19 Republican senators joined with all Democrats present to advance the measure.
The legislation has not yet been approved by the House of Representatives, which is narrowly controlled by the GOP. However, if it reaches the president's desk, he supports it, according to the statement of administration policy released Thursday.
While former Presidents Barack Obama and Donald Trump used the 2002 authorization to justify strikes against Islamic State in Iraq and Syria and Iranian Gen. Qasem Soleimani, respectively, the new Biden administration document notes that "the United States conducts no ongoing military activities that rely primarily on the 2002 AUMF, and no ongoing military activities that rely on the 1991 AUMF, as a domestic legal basis."
"Repeal of these authorizations would have no impact on current U.S. military operations and would support this administration's commitment to a strong and comprehensive relationship with our Iraqi partners," that policy statement adds. "President Biden remains committed to working with the Congress to ensure that outdated authorizations for the use of military force are replaced with a narrow and specific framework more appropriate to protecting Americans from modern terrorist threats."
Demand Progress Education Fund policy adviser Cavan Kharrazian said in a statement that "we are glad President Biden is supportive of getting these outdated AUMFs off the books, and that he is committed to work with Congress on presumably replacing the 2001 AUMF with a narrower framework."
"However, any serious attempt by President Biden to work with Congress on war powers reforms requires the administration to halt unauthorized participation of U.S. armed forces in hostilities that contravene the War Powers Act," Kharrazian stressed. "This includes ending U.S. support for the Saudi-led coalition's war on Yemen, ceasing the use of U.S. forces to protect Syrian oil fields and battling Iranian-backed militias, and putting an end to legally dubious military operations in the Horn of Africa."
The campaigner continued:
Moreover, the administration must commit to full legal transparency regarding the use of military force. Both this administration and previous administrations have failed to provide Congress with timely reporting on the 2001 AUMF, as required by 50 U.S. Code § 1550. Additionally, President Biden has failed to respond to lawmakers' inquiries about the administration's legal justifications for the expansive use of the 2001 AUMF and Article 2 authorities. Without such transparency, Congress is unable to fully exercise its oversight and legislative duties over war and peace.
It's encouraging to see an administration committed to addressing outdated AUMFs. However, a genuine commitment will involve respecting congressional authority over war by proactively ending unauthorized military activities and implementing comprehensive transparency measures.
In a series of tweets, the Quaker advocacy group Friends Committee on National Legislation (FCNL) welcomed the administration's position and highlighted fresh comments from Kaine and Sen. Todd Young (R-Ind.), a co-sponsor, who gathered outside the U.S. Capitol on Thursday with members of the American Legion.
"There's no reason—none—to have a war authorization against a strategic partner, and so that's the first reason why we need to do this," Kaine said of Iraq, adding that the repeal must also occur to honor U.S. service members.
Kaine called out previous failures by Congress to end the AUMFs, and noted that leaving them in place enables abuse. While confirming he has not spoken with House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) about the bill, the senator expressed optimism that it will pass—saying of the lower chamber, "there's a wonderful bipartisan coalition there as well."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Mikhail Gorbachev, Who Presided Over End of Cold War and Soviet Empire, Dead at 91
U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres said Gorbachev "did more than any other individual to bring about the peaceful end of the Cold War."
Aug 30, 2022
Mikhail Gorbachev, the former Soviet president whose gradual opening of his country paved the way for both the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the communist empire, died Tuesday at age 91.
"We could only solve our problems by cooperating with other countries... And therefore we needed to put an end to the Iron Curtain."
Gorbachev died following a "serious and long illness," officials at Moscow Central Clinical Hospital told Russian state media.
In a statement, United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said he was "deeply saddened" to learn of Gorbachev's passing, calling the former Soviet leader "a one-of-a kind statesman who changed the course of history."
"He did more than any other individual to bring about the peaceful end of the Cold War," Guterres added. "Receiving the 1990 Nobel Peace Prize, he observed that 'peace is not unity in similarity but unity in diversity.' He put this vital insight into practice by pursuing the path of negotiation, reform, transparency, and disarmament."
\u201cMikhail Gorbachev was a one-of-a kind statesman who changed the course of history.\n\nThe world has lost a towering global leader, committed multilateralist, and tireless advocate for peace.\n\nI\u2019m deeply saddened by his passing.\u201d— Ant\u00f3nio Guterres (@Ant\u00f3nio Guterres) 1661897991
Following the deaths of three Soviet leaders in just over two years, Gorbachev took control of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) in March 1985 amid a moribund national economy and heightened Cold War tensions with the United States, then led by the ardently imperialist Reagan administration.
In an attempt to address his country's economic woes, Gorbachev implemented the policy of perestroika, or "restructuring," which sought to improve efficiency by decentralizing decision-making. He also ushered in the age of glasnost, or "openness," allowing for erstwhile unimaginable freedoms in what had for generations been a rigidly totalitarian state. Both of Gorbachev's grandfathers were imprisoned in gulags during the Stalinist repression of his youth, and he and his family also survived the 1932-33 engineered famine that killed millions in Ukraine and other parts of the Soviet Union.
Despite then-President Ronald Reagan condemning the Soviet Union as an "evil empire" and U.S. nuclear aggression epitomized by the placement of new nuclear missiles in Europe and research into the so-called "Star Wars" space-based missile defense system, Gorbachev chose to pursue a policy of rapprochement with the United States. This led to a series of bilateral summits between the two leaders that bore fruits in the form of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty signed in December 1987.
Gorbachev also presided over the pullout of Soviet forces from Afghanistan, a costly war lasting nearly a decade that ended the same way every invasion of Afghanistan over the past 200 years has ended--in defeated withdrawal.
More importantly, Gorbachev--unlike his predecessors--did not intervene militarily when Soviet satellite states in Eastern Europe began asserting their independence from Moscow, culminating in the dramatic destruction of the Berlin Wall in 1989 that effectively marked the end of the Cold War.
He later explained: "On the day I became Soviet leader, in March 1985, I had a special meeting with the leaders of the Warsaw Pact countries and told them, 'You are independent, and we are independent. You are responsible for your policies, we are responsible for ours. We will not intervene in your affairs, I promise you.'"
In the end, the rot within the Soviet Union and the forces Gorbachev unleashed by opening its society proved too much and the once-mighty empire came crashing down in 1991. Many Russians blame Gorbachev for the loss of the power and prestige that came with being one of the world's two superpowers, and some observers view Russian President Vladimir Putin's aggressive policies and actions as an effort to regain lost Soviet glory--and territory.
By the time Gorbachev stepped down as the last Soviet leader on Christmas day 1991, relations with the West had been so thoroughly transformed that the USSR--which regularly used its veto power as a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council to thwart U.S. ambitions--voted in favor of the resolution authorizing the invasion of Saddam Hussein's Iraq.
"We could only solve our problems by cooperating with other countries. It would have been paradoxical not to cooperate," Gorbachev said of his policies. "And therefore we needed to put an end to the Iron Curtain, to change the nature of international relations, to rid them of ideological confrontation, and particularly to end the arms race."
\u201cI covered Mikhail Gorbachev as a young reporter, traveling with him on his remarkable 1990 tour of the Upper Midwest, where he received a hero\u2019s welcome. He was recognized as an advocate for peace and cooperation at a point when the world desperately needed his leadership. RIP\u201d— John Nichols (@John Nichols) 1661895654
The U.S. has been accused of running roughshod over Gorbachev's goodwill gestures during the post-Soviet era, especially by expanding NATO to Russia's borders by admitting former Warsaw Pact members into the alliance.
Contrary to popular belief, Gorbachev said he never made any agreement with James Baker, Reagan's secretary of state, to end the Cold War in exchange for a promise to not expand NATO.
"The topic of 'NATO expansion' was not discussed at all, and it wasn't brought up in those years," Gorbachev said in 2014. "Another issue we brought up was discussed: making sure that NATO's military structures would not advance and that additional armed forces would not be deployed on the territory of the then-[East Germany] after German reunification."
Last December, as Putin cited NATO provocation while preparing to invade Ukraine, Gorbachev accused the United States of growing "arrogant and self-confident" following the collapse of the Soviet Union.
"How can one count on equal relations with the United States and the West in such a position?" he asked.
"Americans have a severe disease--worse than AIDS," Gorbachev said earlier. "It's called the winner's complex."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular