Tuesday, November 1, 2022. Old man Joe Biden doesn't worry about the
future as evidenced by his ignoring the rates of COVID and his plans to
win a nuclear war, meanwhile Iraq continues to see street violence and
corporate violence.
At COMMON DREAMS, Jake Johnson notes:
Just weeks after U.S. President Joe Biden warned that Russia's assault on Ukraine has dramatically raised the risk of "Armageddon,"
his administration on Thursday released a Nuclear Posture Review that
nonproliferation advocates say does nothing to pull the world back from
the brink of global catastrophe.
While the formal statement of U.S. nuclear strategy pays lip service to the need to limit the spread and prevent the use of atomic weaponry and cancels an egregious Trump-era missile program, the document makes clear that the country will move ahead with dangerous and costly modernization plans—and leaves intact the option of a nuclear first strike.
"Allies must be confident that the United States is willing and able
to deter the range of strategic threats they face, and mitigate the
risks they will assume in a crisis or conflict," the document states.
"Modernizing U.S. nuclear forces is key to assuring allies that the
United States is committed and capable of deterring the range of threats
U.S. nuclear strategy addresses."
The leading threats, according
to the posture review, are Russia and China, which the Pentagon document
characterizes as "major and growing" nuclear dangers to the U.S. and
its allies.
The review makes clear that U.S. officials considered
and rejected "no first use" and "sole purpose" policies that would bar
the U.S. from launching a preemptive nuclear strike or using an atomic
weapon in response to a non-nuclear attack. The document claims such
policies "would result in an unacceptable level of risk."
That position conflicts with Biden's statement
during the 2020 presidential campaign that "the sole purpose of the
U.S. nuclear arsenal should be deterring—and, if necessary, retaliating
against—a nuclear attack."
Stephen Young, senior Washington representative at the Union of Concerned Scientists, said
the Biden administration's Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) is "a
terrifying document" that "not only keeps the world on a path of
increasing nuclear risk, in many ways it increases that risk."
"Citing
rising threats from Russia and China," Young noted, "it argues that the
only viable U.S. response is to rebuild the entire U.S. nuclear
arsenal, maintain an array of dangerous Cold War-era nuclear policies,
and threaten the first use of nuclear weapons in a variety of
scenarios."
"Yes, the world is becoming a more dangerous place,
but the only military threat to the survival of the United States is a
nuclear war with Russia or China," he continued. "Rather than
recognizing that threat and seeking to find ways to end it, the Biden
NPR doubles down on nuclear deterrence and the status quo approach to
security that says we all must be prepared to die in less than an hour."
A crazy old man with a foot in the grave got put in charge of the country and now we're all at risk. Oscar Grenfell (WSWS) reports:
An Australian television program yesterday revealed advanced plans
for the US to station B-52 bombers in northern Australia. The deployment
of the nuclear-capable bombers, which are crucial to US strike
capabilities, marks a significant escalation of the militarisation of
Australia, the Indo-Pacific region and the world.
The target is
clear. The representatives of pro-war think tanks who spoke on last
night’s episode of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s “Four
Corners” program, and those who have commented in the press since, have
openly stated that the bombers are being dispatched to prepare for a war
with China that would threaten a global nuclear catastrophe.
In
other words, even as the US and its allies are continuously escalating
their war with Russia over Ukraine, they are transforming the entire
Indo-Pacific into a powder keg that could erupt at any point.
For the strategists of American imperialism, the war that is already
underway against Russia is the necessary prelude to war against China,
the chief threat to US global dominance. This was spelled out in the
latest US National Security Strategy, released last month, which
proclaimed a “decisive decade” of “geopolitical conflict between the
major powers.” China, it stated, was “the only competitor with both the
intent and, increasingly, the capability to reshape the international
order,” something the US would combat with everything at its disposal.
The
stationing of the bombers points to the disastrous implications of this
program, driven by the long-term decline of American imperialism and
the deepening crisis of the entire global capitalist system.
“Four
Corners” revealed that the US is preparing to build a “squadron
operations facility” at the Tindal air force base in northern Australia.
It will include a vast hangar and logistical facilities that can equip
six B-52 bombers, which will be rotated out of the facility, likely
being based there during the tropical dry season. The US will construct
jet fuel tanks at Tindal and an ammunition base. An Australian “upgrade”
of the facility is expanding its runways and other capabilities.
Kenny Stancil (COMMON DREAMS) notes:
The Pentagon's plan represents the latest U.S. act of hostility toward China.
Relations
between the two countries have only worsened since August, when U.S.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and other members of Congress visited
Taiwan (the Republic of China, or ROC) despite opposition from Beijing,
which—along with most of the international community, including
Washington since the 1970s—considers the breakaway province to be part
of the People's Republic of China (PRC).
In a departure from more
than four decades of "One China" policy—in which the U.S. recognizes the
PRC as the sole legal government of China and maintains informal
relations with the ROC while adopting a position of "strategic
ambiguity" to obscure how far it would go to protect Taiwan—U.S.
President Joe Biden has repeatedly threatened to use military force in response to a Chinese invasion of the island.
Although Biden warned
earlier this month that Russia's assault on Ukraine has brought the
world closer to "Armagedeon" than at any point since the Cuban Missile
Crisis, his move to station B-52 bombers in Australia further increases
the global risk of nuclear war.
News of the impending deployment
comes just days after the Biden administration released a Nuclear
Posture Review (NPR) that nonproliferation advocates said makes
catastrophe more, rather than less, likely.
And if Joe Biden doesn't kill us all with a bomb, he just may kill us with COVID. Benjamin Mateus (WSWS) reports:
Over the past month, the United States has seen a steady rise in the
prevalence of the dangerous new immune-evading Omicron subvariants of
SARS-CoV-2, threatening yet another surge of COVID-19 infections,
hospitalizations and deaths in the coming weeks, and potentially
millions more cases of Long COVID.
On Friday, the Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) revealed that the highly
immune-evasive BQ.1 and BQ.1.1 subvariants increased in prevalence from
11 percent to more than 27 percent in just two weeks, or a doubling time
of 10 days. By mid-November, these two subvariants will likely be
dominant across the country.
The anticipated COVID-19 surge will take place amid a flood of
pediatric hospitalizations across the country for respiratory syncytial
virus (RSV) and an unusually harsh beginning to the influenza season.
The simultaneous surge of these three respiratory airborne pathogens
will severely impact health care systems during the winter months, under
conditions in which the industry is already on the verge of collapse
three years into the COVID-19 pandemic.
While so far the crisis in children’s hospitals
has been most acute, the elderly are particularly predisposed to
complications with RSV and flu due to declines in their immunity. Among
those 65 years and older, RSV leads to 177,000 hospitalizations and
14,000 deaths annually.
The typical flu season causes upwards of
16,000 deaths among adults. However, a severe flu season can be far
worse. In 2017-18, the US experienced 41 million flu-related illnesses,
19 million flu-related medical visits, 710,000 flu-related
hospitalizations and 52,000 deaths. Data from the CDC for the first four
weeks of October shows that outpatient medical visits for flu-like
symptoms are two to three times higher than the five-year average
baseline.
The exact magnitude of the next surge of COVID-19 is
impossible to predict, but a number of recent studies indicate that it
could potentially be the third catastrophic winter of the pandemic.
And
if that happens, how forgiving do you think the country's going to be
to Joe Biden who announced COVID was over in September? It's been a
long trail of broken promises from Joe Biden, as Sophie Squire notes at the UK's SOCIALIST WORKER:
Inflation
is at a 40-year high, with the price of housing, food and healthcare
all rising sharply. Republicans
blamed the rising prices on increased state spending and the
government’s reliance on importing fossil fuels from overseas. Of
course they don’t object to the military budget of over £700 billion or
the money funnelled to war in Ukraine.
But in a poll conducted by NBC News
in September, voters favoured the Republicans by 20 points when it came
to the economy. With the Democrats lagging behind when it comes to the
economy, they hope that making promises about abortion rights can win
them votes.
Facing the prospect of defeat, Biden
has promised that the first piece of legislation he will sign if the
Democrats increase their seats in Congress is a federal law codifying
the provisions of Roe v Wade. He launched the policy surrounded by young people and the words “Restore Roe”. But
it’s an illusion, seizing on a crucial issue and directing people’s
anger about the attack on abortion rights and directing it into the dead
end of the Democrats.
Biden could already have passed such a
law if he had been ready to sweep away the filibuster rule that allows a
minority to block legislation. But
he has not been prepared for the upheaval that would involve. And the
Democrats will still face a filibuster after the elections, unless all
the polls are hugely wrong.
Centring the defence of abortion rights on voting for the Democrats
guts the campaign on the streets. It takes away from the guerrilla
actions to defy the law and defend women. The Women’s March called for a
“Summer of Rage” after Roe v Wade was cancelled by the Supreme
Court. But
there was not a single national action called by the Women’s March. The
Women’s March did call for a weekend of action in early October, but
only to link action to voting for the Democrats.
The president’s time in power is now littered with broken promises. He has failed to reduce, let alone abolish, the US’s vast nuclear arsenals
and has presided over a massive increase in military spending. He has
left in place most of Trump’s brutal immigration policies.
The
biggest assault on abortion rights happened under his watch. He
promised trillions would be funnelled into infrastructure projects and
to fighting climate change. But the money he promised was cut in
half. All these retreats opened the door to the Republicans and will
strengthen far right forces.
To defend and improve living
standards and abortion rights requires strikes and movements on the
streets, not tailing the Democrats.
© Socialist Worker (unless otherwise stated). You may republish if you include an active link to the original.
Before becoming president, Joe Biden spent years destroying Iraq. Margaret Griffis (ANTIWAR.COM) reports this morning, "During October, at least 105 people were killed, and 239
were wounded. The number of dead fell significantly from last month. In September,
179 people were killed and 294 people were wounded." And those
are the deaths from violence -- or from some violence. Those aren't the
deaths resulting from the violence of Big Business. MEDIA LENS notes:
To its credit, in several news reports, and in an hour-long film, ‘Under Poisoned Skies’, the BBC provided news from Iraq that will have shocked many readers and viewers (in truth, it is a shock to read any UK media news on life in Iraq):
‘Communities living close to oil fields, where gas is
openly burned, are at elevated risk of leukaemia, a BBC News Arabic
investigation has revealed.’
By BBC standards, the report was absolutely damning:
‘The UN told the BBC it considers these areas, in Iraq,
to be “modern sacrifice zones” – where profit has been prioritised over
human rights.
‘Gas flaring is the “wasteful” burning of gas released in oil drilling, which produces cancer-linked pollutants.’
Some of the worst ‘modern sacrifice zones’ are found on the outskirts
of Basra, in the south-east of Iraq, ‘some of the country’s biggest oil
exploration areas’. Flared gases from these sites are dangerous because
they emit a mix of carbon dioxide, methane and black soot which is
carcinogenic.
If this sounds bad, it gets worse when we consider just who has been subordinating Iraqi human welfare to profit in this way:
‘BP and Eni are major oil companies we identified as working on these sites.’
Eni is an Italian multinational energy company. BP, of course, is one of the world’s oil and gas ‘supermajors’, and is British.
In other words, these BBC reports highlighted the rarely discussed
fact that a British oil giant is deeply involved in a country that was
illegally invaded in 2003, at the cost of one million Iraqi lives, on a
pack of bogus claims relating to ‘national security’ and ‘human rights’.
The 2003 war was, of course, waged by a coalition led by the United
States and Britain. Italy was part of the coalition.
Not only did this US-UK war crime secure substantial quantities of
Iraq’s oil for US and UK corporations, but BP has now been accused of
creating environmental mayhem in Iraq. The BBC reported:
‘A leaked Iraq Health Ministry report, seen by BBC
Arabic, blames air pollution for a 20% rise in cancer in Basra between
2015 and 2018.
‘As part of this investigation, the BBC undertook the first pollution
monitoring testing amongst the exposed communities. The results
indicated high levels of exposure to cancer-causing chemicals.
‘Using satellite data we found that the largest of Basra’s oil
fields, Rumaila, flares more gas than any other site in the world. The
Iraqi government owns this field, and BP is the lead contractor.
‘On the field is a town called North Rumaila – which locals call “the
cemetery”. Teenagers coined the phrase after they observed high levels
of leukaemia amongst their friends, which they suspect is from the
flaring.
‘Prof Shukri Al Hassan, a local environmental scientist, told us that cancer here is so rife it is “like the flu”.’
This was a truly shocking comment; no wonder the BBC initially used it as the headline for its report:
‘BP in oil field where “cancer is like the flu”’
The News Sniffer website, which tracks edits made to media articles,
found that this headline only lasted a few hours before being toned down to:
‘BP in oil field where “cancer is rife”’
Remarkably, the less dramatic headline and citation was actually fake. The relevant part of the text reads:
‘Prof Shukri Al Hassan, a local environmental scientist, told us that cancer here is so rife it is “like the flu”.’
Professor Al Hassan was not quoted as using the word ‘rife’, nor was anyone else quoted in the article. The edited headline was simply made up.
Reminder, BROS is now available in the US on streaming -- rental and purchase.
New content at THIRD:
The following sites updated:
