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Paul Merrell

Iran calls for a timetable for global nuclear disarmament - The Washington Post - 0 views

  • Iran accused the five nuclear powers Wednesday of failing to take concrete action to eliminate their stockpiles and called for negotiations on a convention to achieve nuclear disarmament by a target date. Iran’s deputy U.N. ambassador Gholam Hossein Dehghani told the U.N. Disarmament Commission that “a comprehensive, binding, irreversible, verifiable” treaty is the most effective and practical way to eliminate nuclear weapons. He accused the nuclear powers — the U.S., Russia, China, Britain and France — of promising nuclear disarmament but making no significant progress. Dehghani’s speech came days after the announcement of a framework agreement between Iran and the five nuclear powers and Germany aimed at keeping Tehran from being able to develop a nuclear weapon. It has to be finalized by June 30.
  • The commission, which includes all 193 member states, is supposed to make recommendations in the field of disarmament but has failed to make substantive proposals in the past decade. Its three-week meeting is taking place ahead of the five-year review of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT), the world’s single most important pact on nuclear arms, which begins on April 27. The NPT is credited with preventing the spread of nuclear weapons to dozens of nations since entering into force in 1970. It has done that via a grand global bargain: Nations without nuclear weapons committed not to acquire them; those with them committed to move toward their elimination; and all endorsed everyone’s right to develop peaceful nuclear energy.
  • Dehghani said that as a non-nuclear weapon state and NPT member, Iran believes it’s time to end the incremental approach toward disarmament and to start negotiations with all nuclear and non-nuclear weapon states on a convention that would set a deadline for ridding the world of nuclear weapons. He noted that a proposal in 2013 by the Nonaligned Movement, which represents over 100 developing countries, to start negotiations on a comprehensive nuclear weapons convention in the Conference on Disarmament gained wide support. Russia said President Vladimir Putin has confirmed that Moscow is ready for a serious and substantive dialogue on nuclear disarmament. But Olga Kuznetsova, a counselor in Russia’s Foreign Ministry, warned in a speech Tuesday that the U.S. deployment of a global missile defense system could lead to the resumption of a nuclear arms race.
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  • The only way to change the situation, she said, is for states that pursue anti-missile capabilities follow the “universal principle” of not trying to strengthen their security at the expense of the security of other states. Kuznetsova also warned that development of high-precision non-nuclear weapons threatened “strategic parity” between the two nuclear powers and could lead to “global destabilization of (the) international situation in general.” Chinese counselor Sun Lei urged countries to “abandon Cold War mentality” and said those with the largest nuclear arsenals should be the first to make “drastic and substantive” cuts in their nuclear weapons. Ukraine’s representative called for the urgent development of a binding agreement that would give assurances to countries without nuclear weapons that they will not be threatened by nuclear weapons. Pakistani Ambassador Maleeha Lodhi echoed that call.
  • The United States said the negotiation of a treaty that would cap available fissile material “is the next logical step on the multilateral nuclear disarmament agenda.” John Bravaco said the U.S. has not produced fissile material for nuclear weapons since 1989. North Korea’s deputy U.N. ambassador, An Myong Hun, declared that “our nuclear forces are the life and soul of our nation” and will not be given up as long as nuclear threats remain in the world.
Paul Merrell

Nunn-Lugar Revisited - 0 views

  • Washington, DC, November 22, 2013 – The final shipment of highly enriched uranium from former Soviet nuclear warheads to the U.S. on November 14, and President Obama's award of the Presidential Medal of Freedom to former Senator Richard Lugar on November 20, have brought new public attention to the underappreciated success story of the Nunn-Lugar initiative — the subject of a new research project by the National Security Archive, which organized the first "critical oral history" gathering this fall of U.S. and Russian veterans of Nunn-Lugar. The former Soviet Union in the 1990s achieved an unprecedented "proliferation in reverse" with the denuclearization of former republics and the consolidation of nuclear weapons and fissile material inside Russia. Notwithstanding the well-grounded fears of policymakers on both sides of the waning Cold War in 1990-1991, the dissolution of the Soviet Union did not result in a nuclear Yugoslavia spread over eleven time zones. Instead, the "doomsday clock" of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists marched backwards, in its largest leaps ever away from midnight. Key to this extraordinary accomplishment was the U.S.-Russian Cooperative Threat Reduction Program, colloquially known as Nunn-Lugar after its two leading sponsors in the U.S. Senate, Sam Nunn of Georgia and Richard Lugar of Indiana.
  • Unfortunately, this success did not get major publicity at the time, and remains largely unknown today outside the expert communities in both countries. This lack of appreciation culminated in 2012 with Russia's withdrawal from the program and assertion of independence from foreign aid. Yet below the radar the cooperation continued, for example with the February 2013 U.S.-Russian removal of enriched uranium from the Czech Republic, and the September 2013 agreement to work together to destroy Syrian chemical weapons — clear signals of the continuing relevance of the two-decade-long Nunn-Lugar experiment.
  • One week earlier, on November 14, the Washington Post reported from St. Petersburg, Russia: "Take a canister, fill it with down-blended uranium worth $2.5 million, secure it and 39 others to the deck of a container ship, send it off toward Baltimore, and you've just about completed a deal that provided commercial uses in the United States for the remains of 20,000 dismantled Russian nuclear bombs." The story, headlined "U.S.-Russia uranium deal sends its last shipment," by Will Englund, reported: "The program provided jobs to nuclear technicians at a time when Russia was in chaos; it sparked the development of a dilution process than enables bombs to become fuel for power plants; and it may have helped to keep poorly secured nuclear materials out of the wrong hands — at least that's what Americans say. Russians strongly deny that the materials were not secured."
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  • To ground the Musgrove discussions in the primary sources, Archive staff prepared a 450-page conference briefing book containing 70 key documents, primarily on the early Nunn-Lugar years from 1991 through 1997, but also including the March 2013 summary of Nunn-Lugar success that is featured on The Lugar Center website. The documents range from telcons of President George H. W. Bush's conversations with then-Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev about safe dismantling of nuclear warheads in 1991, to the memcons of the Bush meetings with Russian President Boris Yeltsin in 1992 on nuclear weapons withdrawal from the former Soviet republics, to the State Department cables about negotiations with Ukraine over the Soviet-era nuclear weapons located there. Sources of the documents range from Freedom of Information Act requests to the Bush Presidential Library, to donations by veterans such as Ambassador James Goodby and experts such as David Hoffman, to files at the Archives of the Russian Federation in Moscow and at the Hoover Institution at Stanford.
  • Today's posting is the first in the Nunn-Lugar series of electronic briefing books in Russian and English that will make widely available the documents from all sides. The transcripts of the "critical oral history" conferences organized by the Archive will provide the foundation for one or more books analyzing the Nunn-Lugar experience, and will guide further research both by the Archive staff and by the conference participants. Maintaining this expert dialogue about the cooperative threat reduction experience will also make a significant contribution to the ongoing challenge of U.S.-Russia engagement.
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    Nice graphic image on the linked web page breaking down accomplishments in  nuclear disarmament by former Soviet republics. The downside: all of those former Soviet warheads had their uranium diluted and exported to the U.S. for manufacturer of nuclear fuel rods, which means that the U.S. nuclear power industry was perpetuated and our legacy of radioactive wastes continues to grow, despite not even yet having a safe disposal site or method. All of those expended nuclear fuel rods still sitting on reactor sites around the nation, being water cooled, and posing the risk of Fukushima-like disasters. This is progress?  
Paul Merrell

Britain's Trident nuclear program at stake in Scottish independence vote - The Washingt... - 0 views

  • For decades, Britain’s contribution to the threat of global Armageddon has found a home on the tranquil shores of Gare Loch, where soaring green mountains plunge into murky gray waters plied by sporty kayakers, weekend yachtsmen — and nuclear-armed submarines.
  • But if Scotland votes “yes” in an independence referendum next month, the submarines could ­become nuclear-armed nomads, without a port to call home. Washington’s closest and most important ally could, in turn, be left without the ultimate deterrent, even as Europe’s borders are being rattled anew by a resurgent Russia. Former NATO secretary general George Robertson, a Scotsman, said in a speech in Washington earlier this year that a vote for independence would be “cataclysmic” for Western security, and that ejecting the nuclear submarines from Scotland would amount to “disarming the remainder of the United Kingdom.” The pro-independence campaign promptly accused Robertson of hyperbolic scaremongering. But the possibility that Britain could become the only permanent member of the U.N. Security Council without a nuclear deterrent underscores just how much is at stake far beyond these silent bays and verdant ridgelines when Scotland’s 5 million residents go to the polls Sept. 18.
  • Leaders of Scotland’s secessionist movement say their independent nation would be a nuclear-free zone within four years of breaking off from Great Britain. The vow is a popular one among the movement’s left-leaning voters, and the campaign has distributed fliers with instructions for “how to disarm a nuclear bomb” that begin and end with voting for independence. At the moment, that argument is losing out to those who advocate sticking with the United Kingdom — and with nuclear weapons. Polls show an approximate 10-point advantage for the unionist camp.
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  • But with a substantial share of voters undecided, U.K. officials remain nervous that Scotland could bolt — and that the nuclear program could be a casualty. The possibility provides an uncomfortable backdrop for the NATO summit that Britain will host in Wales on Sept. 4 and 5.
  • Building suitable bases to house the missiles and dock the subs in England would take at least a decade, experts say, and cost billions of dollars that the government doesn’t have. O’Brien said it’s likely that Britain would decide to scrap its nuclear program rather than make painful cuts elsewhere.
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    Interesting. Can't say that I'd shed any tears over British disarmament, or global disarmament for that matter.   But note that the article says UK has 255 warheads, with 160 of them deployed on Trident missiles. That makes it 95 warheads unaccounted for by the article. In storage somewhere, or deployable by aircraft?  According to Wikipedia, the Panavia Tornado fighter-bombers in the UK air force are cable of delivering air-dropped nuclear weapons. . 
Paul Merrell

America's Lead Iran Negotiator Misrepresents U.S. Policy (and International L... - 0 views

  • Last month, while testifying to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Wendy Sherman—Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs and the senior U.S. representative in the P5+1 nuclear talks with Iran—said, with reference to Iranians, “We know that deception is part of the DNA.”  This statement goes beyond orientalist stereotyping; it is, in the most literal sense, racist.  And it evidently was not a mere “slip of the tongue”:  a former Obama administration senior official told us that Sherman has used such language before about Iranians. 
  • Putting aside Sherman’s glaring display of anti-Iranian racism, there was another egregious manifestation of prejudice-cum-lie in her testimony to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that we want to explore more fully.  It came in a response to a question from Senator Marco Rubio (R-Florida) about whether states have a right to enrich under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).  Here is the relevant passage in Sherman’s reply:  “It has always been the U.S. position that Article IV of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty does not speak about the right of enrichment at all [and] doesn’t speak to enrichment, period.  It simply says that you have the right to research and development.”  Sherman goes on to acknowledge that “many countries such as Japan and Germany have taken that [uranium enrichment] to be a right.”  But, she says, “the United States does not take that position.  We take the position that we look at each one of these [cases].”  Or, as she put it at the beginning of her response to Sen. Rubio, “It has always been the U.S. position that Article IV of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty does not speak about the right of enrichment at all” (emphasis added). 
  • Two points should be made here.  First, the claim that the NPT’s Article IV does not affirm the right of non-nuclear-weapons states to pursue indigenous development of fuel-cycle capabilities, including uranium enrichment, under international safeguards is flat-out false.  Article IV makes a blanket statement that “nothing in this Treaty shall be interpreted as affecting the inalienable right of all the Parties to the Treaty to develop research, production and use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes without discrimination.”  And it’s not just “countries such as Japan and Germany”—both close U.S. allies—which affirm that this includes the right of non-weapons states to enrich uranium under safeguards.  The BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) countries and the Non-Aligned Movement (whose 120 countries represent a large majority of UN members) have all clearly affirmed the right of non-nuclear-weapons states, including the Islamic Republic of Iran, to pursue indigenous safeguarded enrichment.  In fact, just four countries in the world hold that there is no right to safeguarded enrichment under the NPT:  the United States, Britain, France, and Israel (which isn’t even a NPT signatory).  That’s it.  Moreover, the right to indigenous technological development—including nuclear fuel-cycle capabilities, should a state choose to pursue them—is a sovereign right.  It is not conferred by the NPT; the NPT’s Article IV recognizes states’ “inalienable right” in this regard, while other provisions bind non-weapons states that join the Treaty to exercise this right under international safeguards.       
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  • There have been many first-rate analyses demonstrating that the right to safeguarded enrichment under the NPT is crystal clear—from the Treaty itself, from its negotiating history, and from subsequent practice, with at least a dozen non-weapons states building fuel-cycle infrastructures potentially capable of supporting weapons programs.  Bill Beeman published a nice Op Ed in the Huffington Post on this question in response to Sherman’s Senate Foreign Relations Committee testimony, see here and, for a text including references, here.  For truly definitive legal analyses, see the work of Daniel Joyner, for example here and here.  The issue will also be dealt with in articles by Flynt Leverett and Dan Joyner in a forthcoming special issue of the Penn State Journal of Law and International Affairs, which should appear within the next few days.         From any objectively informed legal perspective, denying non-weapons states’ right of safeguarded enrichment amounts to nothing more than a shameless effort to rewrite the NPT unilaterally.  And this brings us to our second point about Sherman’s Senate Foreign Relations Committee testimony. 
  • Sherman claims that “It has always been the U.S. position that Article IV of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty does not speak about the right of enrichment at all [and] doesn’t speak to enrichment, period.”  But, in fact, the United States originally held that the right to peaceful use recognized in the NPT’s Article IV includes the indigenous development of safeguarded fuel-cycle capabilities.  In 1968, as America and the Soviet Union, the NPT’s sponsors, prepared to open it for signature, the founding Director of the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, William Foster, told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee—the same committee to which Sherman untruthfully testified last month—that the Treaty permitted non-weapons states to pursue the fuel cycle.  We quote Foster on this point:   “Neither uranium enrichment nor the stockpiling of fissionable material in connection with a peaceful program would violate Article II so long as these activities were safeguarded under Article III.”  [Note:  In Article II of the NPT, non-weapons states commit not to build or acquire nuclear weapons; in Article III, they agree to accept safeguards on the nuclear activities, “as set forth in an agreement to be negotiated and concluded with the International Atomic Energy Agency.”] 
  • Thus, it is a bald-faced lie to say that the United States has “always” held that the NPT does not recognize a right to safeguarded enrichment.  As a matter of policy, the United States held that that the NPT recognized such a right even before it was opened for signature; this continued to be the U.S. position for more than a quarter century thereafter.  It was only after the Cold War ended that the United States—along with Britain, France, and Israel—decided that the NPT should be, in effect, unilaterally rewritten (by them) to constrain the diffusion of fuel-cycle capabilities to non-Western states.  And their main motive for trying to do so has been to maximize America’s freedom of unilateral military initiative and, in the Middle East, that of Israel.  This is the agenda for which Wendy Sherman tells falsehoods to a Congress that is all too happy to accept them.    
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    What should be the reaction of Congress upon discovering that the U.S. lead negotiator with Iran in regard to its budding peaceful use of nuclear power lies to Congress about the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty's applicability to Iran's actions? 
Paul Merrell

Marshall Islands sues nuclear powers for failure on disarmament | Al Jazeera America - 0 views

  • The tiny Pacific nation of the Marshall Islands is taking on the United States and the world’s eight other nuclear-armed nations with an unprecedented lawsuit demanding that they meet their obligations toward disarmament, and accusing them of “flagrant violations” of international law. The island group, which was used for dozens of U.S. nuclear tests after World War II, filed suit Thursday against each of the nine countries, filing the action in the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague. The country is also filing a federal lawsuit against the U.S. in San Francisco, naming President Barack Obama, the departments and secretaries of defense and energy and the National Nuclear Security Administration. The Marshall Islands claims the nine countries are modernizing their nuclear arsenals instead of negotiating disarmament, and it estimates that they will spend $1 trillion on those arsenals over the next decade.
  • The Marshall Islands was the site of 67 nuclear tests by the U.S. over a 12-year period, with lasting health and environmental effects. “Our people have suffered the catastrophic and irreparable damage of these weapons, and we vow to fight so that no one else on earth will ever again experience these atrocities,” the country’s foreign minister, Tony de Brum, said in a news release announcing the lawsuits. The country is seeking action, not compensation. It wants the courts to require that the nine nuclear-armed states meet their obligations.
  • In 1996, the ICJ said unanimously that an obligation existed to bring the disarmament negotiations to a conclusion, Burroughs said. Instead, "progress toward disarmament has essentially been stalemated since then," he said.
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  • The Marshall Islands foreign minister has approached other countries about filing suit as well, Krieger said. “I think there has been some interest, but I’m not sure anybody is ready.”
Paul Merrell

Beltway Foreign Policy Groups to Congress: Stay Out of the Way on Iran! « Lob... - 0 views

  • The November 24 deadline for Iran and world powers to reach an agreement on Iran’s nuclear program is quickly approaching.
  • If there is a deal on Nov. 24, the White House indicated, in an article authored by David E. Sanger in Sunday’s New York Times, that it would not seek an immediate vote on the agreement or sanctions relief, instead asserting that the administration can, and may need to, roll back some sanctions unilaterally as part of immediate sanctions relief guarantees in a possible agreement. Hawks in Congress may want to portray their position as representing the mainstream consensus but a letter signed by thirty-seven organizations and sent to members of Congress on Thursday offers some indication that many foreign policy groups in the beltway are concerned by Congress’ latest effort to meddle in the final weeks of sensitive diplomacy before the November deadline. The signatories—which include the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation; J Street; MoveOn.org; the National Iranian American Council; Progressive Democrats of America; the United Methodist Church and VoteVets— expressed “deep concern with inaccurate and counterproductive rhetoric from a handful of Members of Congress regarding possible outcomes of the current negotiations.”
  • They continue: Particularly irresponsible are threats to oppose any comprehensive agreement limiting Iran’s nuclear program that initially suspends US sanctions on Iran through lawful executive action. Congress’ authorization of the President’s power to suspend and re-impose US sanctions on Iran is clear and unmistakable in each piece of legislation it has passed on the subject. Use of these provisions by the President to implement the initial phase of an agreement that ensures Iran does not acquire a nuclear weapon would reflect an affirmation, not a subversion, of Congress’ will. The echo chamber on Capitol Hill may give members of the House and Senate the impression that only the threat of military action or crushing sanctions are effective tools in bringing Iran to the negotiating table. (My colleague Ali Gharib and I discussed the disproportionate voice given to individuals from neoconservative organizations at congressional hearings on Iran in a July article in The Nation.)
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  • But the letter sent out on Thursday might give some congressional Democrats pause. Congress may lean hawkish but progressive groups in the beltway are throwing their weight behind the White House’s efforts to reach a diplomatic agreement on Iran’s nuclear program and are urging Congress to stay out of the way.
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    There's more behind this story than appears in its words. "Progressive" organizations have largely stood silent on the topic of war since Obama was elected because they are Obama fans and Obama has been anything but peaceful. But now they turn out because Obama needs Congress to stay out of the Iran situation until negotiations are complete and for some time afterward. The pressure on Congress to intervene is coming from the Israel Lobby. Keep in mind that it's been the consensus position of all 17 U.S. intelligence agencies for many years that Iran has no plans to create a nuclear weapon capability. Several Israeli intelligence and military leaders have said the same thing. The Iranian nukes myth is a propaganda theme of the ultra-right wing Israeli government leadership that has been used for several years in efforts to persuade the U.S. to invade Iran and bomb it back into the Stone Age. And their excuse for involving the U.S. military evaporates if the Obama Administration successfully negotiates an agreement with Iran that limits its lawful development of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes that will safeguard from any change of mind in Iran on development of nuclear weapons via, e.g., production limits and on-site inspections. The counter-argument is that such an agreement would have to be ratified by the Senate on grounds that it would be a treaty. But that argument falls short of the mark because: [i] the Executive has always had the unfettered right to negotiate and sign treaties; [ii] the U.S. government is not bound by treaties unless and until the Senate ratifies the treaty; and [iii] Congress already explicitly gave Obama authority to impose and suspend economic sanctions at his discretion. Meanwhile, part of the interim agreement with Iran so that negotiations can take place is a promise by the Obama Administration that it would veto any legislation imposing further sanctions on Iran during the period of negotiation. Because of the Israel Lobby'
Paul Merrell

Tens Of Thousands Join UK Anti-Nuke Demo Billed As Biggest In Generation - 0 views

  • In what was called “Britain’s biggest anti-nuclear weapons rally in a generation,” tens of thousands took to the streets of London on Saturday to protest the UK’s nuclear weapons system—Trident—and to call for global disarmament. According to the Guardian, “Campaigners gathered from across the world: some said they had traveled from Australia to protest against the renewal of Trident. Others had come from the west coast of Scotland where Britain’s nuclear deterrent submarines are based.”
  • Organized by the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND), the demonstration comes ahead of a parliamentary decision on whether or not to replace Trident, the UK’s nuclear weapons system, comprised of four submarines carrying up to 40 nuclear warheads apiece. Such an endeavor would cost least £41bn, UK government officials have said.
  • Other political figures, including longtime anti-war activist and Labour party leader Jeremy Corbyn, also backed the demo. Speaking to the crowd on Saturday, Corbyn said the demonstration was “an expression of many people’s public opinion.”
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    With the U.S. set to spend $1 trillion on increasing its nuclear arsenal over the next few years, one has to wonder why no protests here?
Paul Merrell

US, Israel are the only countries to oppose UN ban on weapons in outer space | The Elec... - 0 views

  • Israel and the United States were the only two countries to vote against a UN resolution calling for the prevention of an arms race in outer space. The resolution was among several dealing with international disarmament passed by the General Assembly on 2 December, including one calling on Israel to join the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and bring its rogue nuclear program under international supervision. China and India, which both have space programs, along with the member states of the European Space Agency, voted for the initiative aimed at keeping space free of weapons.
  • The US and Israel were also the only two countries to vote against a separate UN resolution calling for a prohibition on the development and manufacture of new types of weapons of mass destruction. That resolution passed with 174 countries voting in favor and a single abstention, Ukraine. Among those voting for the ban on new weapons of mass destruction were Iran and Iraq, two states subjected to devastating war or sanctions on the basis of dubious or fabricated Israeli and American claims that they intended to produce such weapons.
  • The US and Israel were only slightly less isolated when it came to a resolution on the “risk of nuclear proliferation in the Middle East.” The only votes against the resolution were Canada, Israel, the US and its colonial holdover Micronesia. The resolution calls on Israel to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) “without delay,” noting that it remains “the only State in the Middle East that has not yet” done so. Since the 1950s, Israel has been making atomic bombs with the complicity and support of its Western sponsors including France, the US and the UK.
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  • The resolution urges Israel to place “all its nuclear facilities under comprehensive International Atomic Energy Agency safeguards.”
  • Israel and the United States were the only two countries to vote against a UN resolution calling for the prevention of an arms race in outer space. The resolution was among several dealing with international disarmament passed by the General Assembly on 2 December, including one calling on Israel to join the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and bring its rogue nuclear program under international supervision. China and India, which both have space programs, along with the member states of the European Space Agency, voted for the initiative aimed at keeping space free of weapons. The US and Israel were also the only two countries to vote against a separate UN resolution calling for a prohibition on the development and manufacture of new types of weapons of mass destruction.
Paul Merrell

Nuclear Lab Whistleblower Case Moves Forward - 0 views

  • In 2013 a contract employee at the Los Alamos National Laboratory found himself stripped of his security clearance and suspended from his job shortly after he published an article arguing the benefits of getting rid of nuclear weapon stockpiles. This month he begins mediation with the lab after his second whistleblower claim was accepted by the National Nuclear Security Administration. Dr. James Doyle worked at the Los Alamos lab, one of the laboratories in the Department of Energy nuclear complex, for 17 years. Prior to submitting his article for publication, he had it reviewed by a classification analyst at the lab, met with the director of the security office to address any concerns, and made it clear in the article that he was providing his own opinion as an individual and not as an Energy Department employee. But just two days after the article was published by the International Institute for Strategic Studies, Dr. Doyle was accused of disclosing classified information. Lab officials searched his personal computer, retroactively classified the article, and suspended his security clearance. Dr. Doyle was understandably confused and filed a complaint alleging that lab officials were retaliating against him for expressing unpopular opinions in the article. After filing the complaint, Dr. Doyle was fired from his position at the lab and his whistleblower complaint was rejected. While the Department maintains that his termination was due to budget cuts, Dr. Doyle believes it was due to his push-back against the retroactive classification of his article.
  • Several nuclear watchdog groups, including the Project On Government Oversight, rallied around Dr. Doyle, sending a letter in 2014 to the Secretary of Energy and the Inspector General urging a review of his case. Dr. Doyle filed a second complaint because he was fired before his first complaint was resolved. The Nuclear Security & Deterrence Monitor reported last week in an article titled “NNSA Accepts Second Whistleblower Claim From Laid-Off Los Alamos Analyst” (behind a paywall) that this claim was accepted in late 2014 and that Dr. Doyle began mediation with the lab this month. This is a step in the right direction, and one step further than his first complaint ever got.
Paul Merrell

Russia suspends cooperation in Nuclear Energy Sectors with the USA - nsnbc internationa... - 0 views

  • The decree, published on the Russian Cabinet’s website, states that: “In connection with the imposition of restrictions on cooperation with the Russian Federation in nuclear energy by the United States of America … to suspend the agreement between the government of the Russian Federation and the government of the United States of America on cooperation in research and development in the nuclear and energy sectors of September 16, 2013″. The Russian Foreign Ministry has been instructed to send a written notification of the suspension of the agreement to the United States. An explanatory note in the decree explains that “the actions taken by the US in connection with imposing sanctions against Russia have directly affected the areas of cooperation envisaged by the agreement. … The regular extension of anti-Russian sanctions by the US, which include the suspension of the Russian-US cooperation in nuclear energy, requires countermeasures against the American side”.
  • The decree also announces the termination of an agreement between the Rosatom State Corporation and the US Department of Energy. “To accept the proposal of the Rosatom State Nuclear Energy Corporation and the Russian Foreign Ministry agreed with the Russian Defense Ministry, the Russian Federal Security Service and the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service on terminating the executive agreement between the Rosatom State Nuclear Energy Corporation and the US Department of Energy on cooperation in conducting research of the possible conversion of Russian research reactors for the use of the low enriched uranium fuel of December 7, 2010,” the decree reads. The agreement was signed on June 14, 2013. The bilateral framework on threat reduction aimed at long-standing US – Russian partnership on nonproliferation. This framework of the agreement was built on the 1992 Agreement between the United States of America and the Russian Federation Concerning the Safe and Secure Transportation, Storage and Destruction of Weapons and the Prevention of Weapons Proliferation, commonly known as the Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction (CTR) Umbrella Agreement, which expired on June 17, 2013.
  • The, now suspended, agreement also stipulates future joint nuclear security activities in the Russian Federation that will be conducted under the 2003 Framework Agreement on a Multilateral Nuclear Environmental Programme in the Russian Federation (MNEPR) and a related bilateral Protocol signed on June 14, 2013 in Washington, D.C.
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    In the U.S., we are led by psychopaths.
Paul Merrell

U.S. Ramping Up Major Renewal in Nuclear Arms - NYTimes.com - 0 views

  • A sprawling new plant here in a former soybean field makes the mechanical guts of America’s atomic warheads. Bigger than the Pentagon, full of futuristic gear and thousands of workers, the plant, dedicated last month, modernizes the aging weapons that the United States can fire from missiles, bombers and submarines.It is part of a nationwide wave of atomic revitalization that includes plans for a new generation of weapon carriers. A recent federal study put the collective price tag, over the next three decades, at up to a trillion dollars.This expansion comes under a president who campaigned for “a nuclear-free world” and made disarmament a main goal of American defense policy. The original idea was that modest rebuilding of the nation’s crumbling nuclear complex would speed arms refurbishment, raising confidence in the arsenal’s reliability and paving the way for new treaties that would significantly cut the number of warheads.
  • Instead, because of political deals and geopolitical crises, the Obama administration is engaging in extensive atomic rebuilding while getting only modest arms reductions in return.
  • Supporters of arms control, as well as some of President Obama’s closest advisers, say their hopes for the president’s vision have turned to baffled disappointment as the modernization of nuclear capabilities has become an end unto itself.
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  • “The most fundamental game changer is Putin’s invasion of Ukraine,” said Gary Samore, Mr. Obama’s top nuclear adviser in his first term and now a scholar at Harvard. “That has made any measure to reduce the stockpile unilaterally politically impossible.”That suits hawks just fine. They see the investments as putting the United States in a stronger position if a new arms race breaks out. In fact, the renovated plants that Mr. Obama has approved for a smaller force of more precise, reliable weapons could, under a different president, let the arsenal expand rapidly.
Paul Merrell

Britain offers tanks and 1,000 troops for Nato show of strength against Putin - Telegraph - 0 views

  • Britain has offered Nato an armoured battle group including up to 25 tanks to join exercises in Poland as a show of force against Vladimir Putin. The deployment would see as many as 1,000 British soldiers join Nato forces for war games across the border from Ukraine later this year. The offer was disclosed as David Cameron prepares to meet the Russian president on Thursday and wrangling over the Ukraine crisis seems certain to dominate world leaders’ visits to the D-Day anniversary events.
  • The diplomatic storm over Ukraine continued as Barack Obama condemned Moscow’s “dark tactics”, while Mr Putin hit back against American aggression. Mr Obama said Nato’s eastern members including Poland would “never stand alone," as he addressed crowds in Warsaw.
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    This is about Obama trying to convince nations bordering Russia that the U.S. still has their backs despite his unwillingness to send U.S. troops into Ukraine. It is not about a serious threat of a military strike into Russia. Russian nuclear missiles stand as a deterrent to such an action that the U.S. is not ready to overcome before its anti-ballistic missile sites are fully deployed, enabling a U.S. first strike. And Russia has responded by beginning to deploy its own missile shield, using weapons far more advanced than those used in the U.S. ABM shield. That was the entirely predictable response; escalation in weapon capability throughout history has resulted in opponents adopting the same or superior weapons. Advanced weaponry is only an advantage against those who lack the preparedness or resources to respond accordingly. So why did the U.S. waste big bucks on that first-strike capability project anyway?  More seriously, fielding a first strike capability was a major setback for nuclear disarmament efforts, which had been proceeding very well. 
Paul Merrell

Anti-Iranism in the Trump Administration « LobeLog - 0 views

  • In explaining the timing of Trump’s declarations, one always has to look at what he is trying to divert attention from, and right now the uproar over the anti-Muslim travel ban is no doubt involved.  But the supposed trigger for these tweets and for an anti-Iran blast that Trump’s national security adviser delivered in the White House press room was an Iranian test of a ballistic missile.  Missiles have long been used by Iran-bashers as a red herring.  Missiles of various ranges are so much integrated into conventional armed forces, and missile proliferation has gone so far in the Middle East, that it does not make sense to single out an Iranian missile test as something that, in the hyperbolic language of security adviser Flynn, are among Iranian actions that “undermine security, prosperity, and stability throughout and beyond the Middle East and place American lives at risk.” If rivals of Iran can’t develop their own missiles, they buy them.  Saudi Arabia has bought them from China.  The United Arab Emirates has bought them from North Korea.  Short of the negotiation of a comprehensive regional missile disarmament pact, Iran will have missiles. Former State Department intelligence officer Greg Thielmann highlights the most important points about this latest attempt to brew a tempest in the Iranian missile teapot.  A prohibition on Iranian missile activity incorporated in a United Nations Security Council resolution that was enacted during Barack Obama’s presidency was intended and used, just like other sanctions, as one more pressure point on Iran to induce it to negotiate restrictions on its nuclear program.  Accordingly, the later Security Council resolution enacted after negotiation of the nuclear agreement included only a hortatory clause “calling” on Iran to lay off the missile tests.  It is at best a stretch to call the latest test a “violation” of this resolution, and it certainly is not a violation of the nuclear agreement or any other agreement that Iran has signed.  As long as the nuclear agreement lives and Iran does not have nuclear weapons, Iranian ballistic missiles are of minor importance, and they do not pose a threat to U.S. interests (and this most recent test, by the way, was a failure). Thielmann summarizes as follows the environment that Iranian defense planners face, and the reasons Iranian missiles are a symptom rather than a cause of conflict and weapons proliferation in the Middle East: “During the eight-year war following Iraq’s invasion, Iran was more the victim of than the source of ballistic missiles raining down death and destruction. In spite of its large missile arsenal, Iran has no long-range ballistic missiles; three of its regional neighbors do. Iran has no nuclear warheads for its missiles; two of its regional neighbors do. Iran does not have a large and modern air force as an alternative means of projecting force as do Saudi Arabia and Israel.”
  • The other bit of allegedly “destabilizing behavior” by Iran on which Flynn focused concerned the civil war in Yemen and most recently an attack by Houthi rebels on a Saudi warship.  Flynn disregarded how whatever aid Iran gives to the Houthis pales in comparison to the direct military intervention by the Saudis and Emiratis, which is responsible for most of the civilian casualties and suffering in this war.  It would be surprising if the Houthis, or any force on the opposite side of this conflict from the Saudis, did not try to go after Saudi forces at sea as well as on land.  Flynn also disregarded how the Houthis are not obedient clients of Iran, how in the past the Houthis have ignored Iranian advice urging restraint in their operations, and how there is no evidence whatever, at least not among what is publicly known, that Iran had anything to do the attack on the Saudi ship, let alone of posing a similar threat to U.S. assets in the area.  Nor was anything said about how the major U.S. terrorist concern in Yemen—Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula—is on the anti-Houthi side in this war.  Nor anything about how former president and longtime U.S. counterterrorist partner Ali Abdullah Salih has been allied with the Houthis. Flynn’s statement represents a taking sides in a local rivalry for no good reason, and in which the United States does not have a critical stake.  One of several harmful consequences of this kind of needless side-taking is to embolden those who side is taken to engage in more destructive behavior without being brought to account.  James Dorsey describes this way the destructive behavior that Riyadh is encouraged to take by the United States siding so unquestioningly with the Saudis in their rivalry with Iran: “A four-decade long, $100 billion global Saudi effort to box in, if not undermine, a post-1979 revolution Iranian system of government that it sees as an existential threat to the autocratic rule of the Al Saud family by funding ultra-conservative political and religious groups has contributed to the rise of supremacism, intolerance and anti-pluralism across the Muslim world and created potential breeding grounds of extremism.”
Paul Merrell

U.S. Sends Planes Armed with Depleted Uranium to Middle East | War Is A Crime .org - 0 views

  • The U.S. Air Force says it is not halting its use of Depleted Uranium weapons, has recently sent them to the Middle East, and is prepared to use them. A type of airplane, the A-10, deployed this month to the Middle East by the U.S. Air National Guard's 122nd Fighter Wing, is responsible for more Depleted Uranium (DU) contamination than any other platform, according to the International Coalition to Ban Uranium Weapons (ICBUW). "Weight for weight and by number of rounds more 30mm PGU-14B ammo has been used than any other round," said ICBUW coordinator Doug Weir, referring to ammunition used by A-10s, as compared to DU ammunition used by tanks.
  • On Thursday, several nations, including Iraq, spoke to the United Nations First Committee, against the use of Depleted Uranium and in support of studying and mitigating the damage in already contaminated areas. A non-binding resolution is expected to be voted on by the Committee this week, urging nations that have used DU to provide information on locations targeted. A number of organizations are delivering a petition to U.S. officials this week urging them not to oppose the resolution. In 2012 a resolution on DU was supported by 155 nations and opposed by just the UK, U.S., France, and Israel. Several nations have banned DU, and in June Iraq proposed a global treaty banning it -- a step also supported by the European and Latin American Parliaments.
  • The crews will load PGU-14 depleted uranium rounds into their 30mm Gatling cannons and use them as needed, said Hubble. "If the need is to explode something -- for example a tank -- they will be used."
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  • DU is classed as a Group 1 Carcinogen by the World Health Organization, and evidence of health damage produced by its use is extensive. The damage is compounded, Jeena Shah at the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) told me, when the nation that uses DU refuses to identify locations targeted. Contamination enters soil and water. Contaminated scrap metal is used in factories or made into cooking pots or played with by children. CCR and Iraq Veterans Against the War have filed a Freedom of Information Act Request in an attempt to learn the locations targeted in Iraq during and after the 1991 and 2003 assaults. The UK and the Netherlands have revealed targeted locations, Shah pointed out, as did NATO following DU use in the Balkans. And the United States has revealed locations it targeted with cluster munitions. So why not now?
  • "For years," Shah said, "the U.S. has denied a relationship between DU and health problems in civilians and veterans. Studies of UK veterans are highly suggestive of a connection. The U.S. doesn't want studies done." In addition, the United States has used DU in civilian areas and identifying those locations could suggest violations of Geneva Conventions.
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    Splattering radioactive depleted uranium around the globe is idiocy. The trick is to shut down nuclear power plants so they don't produce any more radioactive waste. Unless society decides it wants to foot the bill to shoot depleted nuclear fuel rods into the Sun. 
Paul Merrell

Nunn Lugar 25th Anniversary - Secured 3429 Nuclear Warheads - 0 views

  • Washington D.C., December 12, 2016 – Newly declassified documents show that the risk of nuclear proliferation at the end of the Soviet Union in 1991 was even greater than publicly known at the time, with 3,429 Soviet strategic warheads scattered outside of Russia in various former Soviet republics, according to today’s posting by the National Security Archive at George Washington University. The publication marks the 25th anniversary of the day President George H.W. Bush signed the historic Nunn-Lugar legislation into law, beginning a flow of U.S. funding that helped secure the post-Soviet nuclear weapons as well as reduce chemical and biological dangers, with the hands-on cooperation of Russian, Kazakh and American military personnel and scientists.
Paul Merrell

Obama Lets N.S.A. Exploit Some Internet Flaws, Officials Say - NYTimes.com - 0 views

  • Stepping into a heated debate within the nation’s intelligence agencies, President Obama has decided that when the National Security Agency discovers major flaws in Internet security, it should — in most circumstances — reveal them to assure that they will be fixed, rather than keep mum so that the flaws can be used in espionage or cyberattacks, senior administration officials said Saturday.But Mr. Obama carved a broad exception for “a clear national security or law enforcement need,” the officials said, a loophole that is likely to allow the N.S.A. to continue to exploit security flaws both to crack encryption on the Internet and to design cyberweapons.
  • elements of the decision became evident on Friday, when the White House denied that it had any prior knowledge of the Heartbleed bug, a newly known hole in Internet security that sent Americans scrambling last week to change their online passwords. The White House statement said that when such flaws are discovered, there is now a “bias” in the government to share that knowledge with computer and software manufacturers so a remedy can be created and distributed to industry and consumers.Caitlin Hayden, the spokeswoman for the National Security Council, said the review of the recommendations was now complete, and it had resulted in a “reinvigorated” process to weigh the value of disclosure when a security flaw is discovered, against the value of keeping the discovery secret for later use by the intelligence community.“This process is biased toward responsibly disclosing such vulnerabilities,” she said.
  • The N.S.A. made use of four “zero day” vulnerabilities in its attack on Iran’s nuclear enrichment sites. That operation, code-named “Olympic Games,” managed to damage roughly 1,000 Iranian centrifuges, and by some accounts helped drive the country to the negotiating table.Not surprisingly, officials at the N.S.A. and at its military partner, the United States Cyber Command, warned that giving up the capability to exploit undisclosed vulnerabilities would amount to “unilateral disarmament” — a phrase taken from the battles over whether and how far to cut America’s nuclear arsenal.“We don’t eliminate nuclear weapons until the Russians do,” one senior intelligence official said recently. “You are not going to see the Chinese give up on ‘zero days’ just because we do.” Even a senior White House official who was sympathetic to broad reforms after the N.S.A. disclosures said last month, “I can’t imagine the president — any president — entirely giving up a technology that might enable him some day to take a covert action that could avoid a shooting war.”
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  • One recommendation urged the N.S.A. to get out of the business of weakening commercial encryption systems or trying to build in “back doors” that would make it far easier for the agency to crack the communications of America’s adversaries. Tempting as it was to create easy ways to break codes — the reason the N.S.A. was established by Harry S. Truman 62 years ago — the committee concluded that the practice would undercut trust in American software and hardware products. In recent months, Silicon Valley companies have urged the United States to abandon such practices, while Germany and Brazil, among other nations, have said they were considering shunning American-made equipment and software. Their motives were hardly pure: Foreign companies see the N.S.A. disclosures as a way to bar American competitors.Continue reading the main story Continue reading the main story AdvertisementAnother recommendation urged the government to make only the most limited, temporary use of what hackers call “zero days,” the coding flaws in software like Microsoft Windows that can give an attacker access to a computer — and to any business, government agency or network connected to it. The flaws get their name from the fact that, when identified, the computer user has “zero days” to fix them before hackers can exploit the accidental vulnerability.
  • But documents released by Edward J. Snowden, the former N.S.A. contractor, make it clear that two years before Heartbleed became known, the N.S.A. was looking at ways to accomplish exactly what the flaw did by accident. A program code-named Bullrun, apparently named for the site of two Civil War battles just outside Washington, was part of a decade-long effort to crack or circumvent encryption on the web. The documents do not make clear how well it succeeded, but it may well have been more effective than exploiting Heartbleed would be at enabling access to secret data.The government has become one of the biggest developers and purchasers of information identifying “zero days,” officials acknowledge. Those flaws are big business — Microsoft pays up to $150,000 to those who find them and bring them to the company to fix — and other countries are gathering them so avidly that something of a modern-day arms race has broken out. Chief among the nations seeking them are China and Russia, though Iran and North Korea are in the market as well.
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    Note that this is only an elastic policy, not law. Also notice that NYT is now reporting as *fact* that the NSA did the cyber attack on the Iranian enrichment centrifuges. By any legal measure, if true that was an act of war, a war of aggression.  So why wasn't the American public informed that we were at war with Iran? 
Paul Merrell

Freedom for Saif al-Islam Gaddafi! Freedom for Libya! - nsnbc international | nsnbc int... - 0 views

  • The news that Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, the son of the assassinated leader of the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya Muammar Gaddafi, has been released from captivity is one of the most significant developments in Libya in some time. For while the Western corporate media would like people to believe that the Gaddafi name is dead and buried, the fact remains that Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, and the surviving members of the Gaddafi family, are seen as heroes by many in Libya. Moreover, Saif’s release has the potential to transform the political situation in the country.
  • Although details are few and far between, what we do know is that according to his lawyer at the International Criminal Court (ICC), Saif Gaddafi “was given his liberty on April 12, 2016.” Indeed official documents (which remain unverified) seem to support the assertion that Saif has, in fact, been released. Considering the statements from his attorneys that Saif is “well and safe and in Libya,” the political ramifications of this development should not be underestimated. Not only is Saif Gaddafi the second eldest and most prominent of Col. Gaddafi’s sons, he is also the one seen as the inheritor of his father’s legacy of independent peaceful development and the maintenance of the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya. This last point is of critical importance as his release is a clear signal to many Libyans that the resistance to the NATO-imposed chaos and war is alive and well. And while there have been isolated upsurges of pro-Gaddafi sentiments at various times in the last five years, they mostly remained underground. Perhaps it might soon be time for the resistance to once again become united as it moves to drive out the terrorists and opportunists who have torn the jewel of Africa apart these last five years.
  • It is against this dizzying political backdrop that one must examine the significance of a potential return for Saif al-Islam Gaddafi. Saif remains a hero to many Libyans who see in him the inheritor of the independent spirit of his father, a man whose education and erudition, and most importantly wartime experience, make him a natural leader. It should be remembered that Saif was the main advocate of the rapprochement between Libya and the West in the early 2000s, spearheading the campaign for Libya’s disarmament of its nuclear and long-range ballistic missiles program. However, by 2011 and the US-NATO illegal war on Libya, Saif had changed his tune, regretting terribly his having taken western leaders at their word. In a now infamous interview with RT conducted in the midst of the NATO war, Saif stated: “Many countries, Iran and North Korea are among them, told us it was our mistake to give up, to have stopped developing long-range missiles and to become friendly with the West. Our example means one should never trust the West and should always be on alert – for them it is fine to change their mind overnight and start bombing Libya…One of our biggest mistakes was that we delayed buying new weapons, especially from Russia, and delayed building a strong army. We thought Europeans were our friends; our mistake was to be tolerant with our enemies.”
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  • And today, nearly five years later, Saif remains the chosen son of the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya – a man who has endured five years of confinement at the hands of his one-time enemies, who has remained defiant of the US and of its puppet institutions such as the International Criminal Court. His is the man who for so many represents the promise of a better future by symbolizing a better past. And this is why factions inside Libya, and their backers in the US and Europe, are terrified of Saif al-Islam Gaddafi; they understand perfectly what he represents. They know that Saif commands the loyalty and respect of the majority of Libyans, far more than any other single faction. They know that Saif is backed by the most influential tribes in the country, as well as what remains of the Green Resistance which has emerged at key moments in the last few years, including the brief takeover of a critical air base in the southern city of Sabha in January 2014. They know that Saif is the only individual leader left in Libya who can unite the disparate political formations into a single force prepared to finally defeat the jihadist elements backed by the US-NATO. But the fear of Saif runs even deeper than just the theoretical leadership that he represents. Rather, the powers that be fear the political force he already is. When Saif’s death sentence was handed down by a kangaroo court in Tripoli, supporters of Gaddafi (Qadafi – Qaddafi edt) ) and the Jamhiriya took to the streets in Benghazi, Sirte, Bani Walid, and a number of other cities across the country, despite ISIS and Al Qaeda terrorists in control of much of those cities. At the risk of their own lives, these Libyans carried portraits of the assassinated Col. Gaddafi and Saif al-Islam, chanting their names and calling for a restoration of the socialist government. Consider the devotion necessary for followers to risk life and limb in a show of political support. Now imagine what would happen with Saif free.
  • Sources in Libya, and among those who have fled to neighboring countries, as well as Europe, have noted that elements of the former Gaddafi government have been working closely with the Sisi government in Egypt. While it is difficult to confirm independently, such a move is entirely plausible considering the common jihadi enemy both face in Libya which shares a long, porous border with Egypt. Assuming that the collaboration is true, it presents yet another reason why the US and its proxies, to say nothing of the terror groups inside Libya, would greatly fear Saif’s freedom. With the backing of an assertive Egypt, the all-important tribal councils, and elements of the disparate factions on the ground, Saif would instantly become the single most powerful man in Libya. And for those in the West, it is incumbent on everyone to vigorously and publicly defend Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, and to redouble efforts to back him. Saif represents a chance for Libya to be rebuilt, for the country to be pulled from the morass of chaos manufactured by the US and its NATO partners. Saif is the hope of the Libyan people who have suffered unspeakable horrors these last five years. Even those who have no love lost for Gaddafi understand the importance of reconstituting a single, united Libya under a single, united government. Only Saif al-Islam Gaddafi can do that now. And that’s why freedom for Saif might one day mean freedom for Libya.
Paul Merrell

US Troops 'May' Be Needed in Iraq, Says Hagel | News | teleSUR - 0 views

  • The United States already has 4500 troops in Iraq, but outgoing defense secretary Chuck Hagel says more may be needed.
  • U.S. ground forces may again be deployed to Iraq, outgoing Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel hinted on Friday. “I think it may require a forward deployment of some of our troops,” he told CNN. Hagel stated troops wouldn't operate as frontline fighters, but instead support Iraqi government forces in spotting Islamic State group targets and gathering intelligence. He also stated he is unsure whether such a deployment is yet needed. “I would say we're not there yet. Whether we get there or not, I don't know,” he said. Despite a pledge by President Barack Obama that there would be “no boots on the ground” in the fight against the Islamic State group, around 4500 U.S. troops are already in Iraq. The administration says the troops are primarily providing training to Iraqi government forces, and will not directly face the Islamic State group.
  • However, Hagel himself has acknowledged las year, “This is a long-term effort.” “It’s difficult. There will be setbacks. There will be victories,” he said ahead of a visit to Baghdad in December. The surprise visit was the first time Hagel has been to Iraq since he became defense secretary in February, 2013.
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  • It also followed the announcement of Hagel's sudden resignation in November. Obama has tapped Ashton Carter as the next defense secretary. “Carter has been through the revolving door between industry, the military and academia — advising Goldman Sachs and other investment firms on military technology along the way,” nuclear disarmament campaigner Alice Slater said when Carter's nomination was announced. Slater warned that Carter has advocated for an expanded U.S. military presence in Asia, and was “instrumental in establishing the policy that led to the new demonization of Russia which we see today.” “Carter also advised Obama on expanding the U.S. empire to Asia in the so-called Asia pivot, which resulted in new bases in the Pacific, expanded missile shields with Japan and South Korea, and actually stationing troops in Australia,” she stated.
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    I wonder why Obama doesn't simply move the Pentagon and all military bases located in the U.S. to Iraq? 
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