Will Anything Come Out Of Nuclear Summit Except An Illusion of US “Leadership?,” War?

April 12th, 2010 - by: danny

So What Ecer Happened To The Expected Deal From Fox? Conan O’Brien will host a new late-night talk show but on TBS

NUKES SUMMIT UNDERWAY, IRAN DEMONIZED
PLANE CRASH INVESTIGATION UNDERWAY
STOCK MARKET BOOM UNDERWAY

Nuclear “security,” not disarmament is the focus of the big global bash underway at the White House even as the NY Times reported that a simmering dispute between two nuclear states in South Asia–India and Pakistan–is NOT on the agenda. Today, there’s been some news on China’s still unclear intentions:

NYT: China Pledges to Work With U.S. on Iran Sanctions

President Hu Jintao agreed to join negotiations on sanctions against Iran, but he made no specific commitment to U.S.-backed measures, officials said. China had said earlier it might join a Nuclear Disarmament conference organized by Iran next weekend.

Washington Post: Obama Uses Summit for More Iran Bashing, Pressing for “Unity.”

President Obama used an unprecedented summit on nuclear terrorism Monday to press global leaders to support further isolating Iran for its nuclear activities, and the White House said that China’s leader had agreed to cooperate with tightening U.N. sanctions on the Islamic republic.

Security Analyst Michael Brenner separates the Nuclear Wheat From The Chaff on developments in Washington;

The nuclear issues that are the subject of this week’s conclave are numerous and complex. Assessing each is complicated since the gathering is more of a photo-op cum political happening than it is a serious diplomatic conference. Such is the now recognizable style of Mr. Obama on all matters. The questions in play are nonetheless consequential so let’s temporarily set aside the implications of style to examine substance.

A. Nuclear Disarmament & The Zero Option

This is the easiest question to handle. We never will achieve a nuclear free world. Getting very close to zero is highly dangerous for obvious reasons; and modest reductions in the arsenals of the United States and Russia are strategically meaningless. Yes, it is a talking point in the proliferation context since with have a legal obligation under the NPT to lower the number of warheads in the arsenals of n-weapons states. No would-be weapons state, though, cares a fig about those numbers in making the momentous decision whether or not to go nuclear.

B. Ensuring the security of nuclear stockpiles and of highly radioactive material is, of course, of the utmost importance. In this sphere, the ideas on the table fall into three categories: the vapid; the technical; and the absurd. In the first is some kind of convention containing anodyne language declaring all parties readiness to worry about the problem and vowing earnestly to worry. In the second, there could be of some small utility to agreements on the exchange of practical information on how to reduce the risk of unauthorized access to, or activation of weapons or weapons grade material. The specifics, probably, are better worked out in bilateral or wider ad hoc cooperative projects — as the US has been doing for 50 years.

The third category refers to the headline story about terrorists and nuclear weapons. Obama made this the leitmotif of the conference in his public remarks yesterday to the effect that terrorism is the most important nuclear threat we face. That is simply untrue. An accurate statement designed to educate rather than to play on emotions would say that the seizure of nuclear materials by ‘al-Qaeda’ would create a vitally dangerous situation BUT it is not an urgent concern because the likelihood of such an eventuality coming to pass is close to zero. The old al-Qaeda is a weak, fragmented grouping able to do little more than survive physically. This is the outfit that, over the past 8 + years, has been capable of organizing nothing of great consequence. The London and Madrid bombing were essentially local operations; the Christmas bomber incident rank amateurism. Trying to blow a plane out of the sky once every several years is not a laughing matter; but to cite it to stoke fears of nuclear terrorism is rank scare-mongering with no evidential basis. Right out of the Bush-Cheney playbook. An outfit that cannot manage to get its hands on fire-retardant underwear will not be able to build or steal a nuclear warhead.

The ‘terror’ theme tells us that the Washington Conference aims for maximum publicity — not maximum effectiveness – in dealing with real problems. By associating everything nuclear with the emotive imagery of terrorism, the White House is seeking to squeeze as much political benefit from the occasion as possible. It burnishes Obama’s image as a bold leader setting ambitious goals with a strong moral tinge. The Nobel Obama. The hope is that that the intangible effects will somehow be as asset at home and abroad. Yet, a bit of sober thinking leads to the conclusion that the latter aspiration is unrealizable. The American media will fall for it hook-line-and sinker. Our sycophants elsewhere will join in the accolades. But will there be a change of thinking or action in Moscow? In Beijing? In Tehran? In Islamabad? In New Delhi? In Pyongyang? Engaging those governments returns us to the realm of the real and the serious

Jonathan Schell: Ending the Nuclear Surge!

Jonathan Schell in the April 19, 2010 edition of The Nation wrote, “Are nations in general safer when they aim nuke weapons at one another? Each nation cites the arsenal of another or others as the rational for possessing its own in multiple chains that link them together in network of threats and counter threats.”

The only way to end the nuclear surge is organizing a vocal, vibrant and visible grassroots movement that says to the Obama administration, “START, Yes and Don’t Stop There!” The UN Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference will open at the beginning of May, the START Treaty was just signed, and we must make our voices heard now!

Financial Times: Israel’s Absence from the Conference Seems To Expose A Growing Conflict With The US

The world clustered around Barack Obama yesterday – with one very notable exception. Leaders of some 40 countries, from Argentina and Armenia to China and India, gathered in Washington to attend the nuclear security summit convoked by the US president. Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, stayed away.

Israeli diplomats attribute Mr Netanyahu’s last-minute cancellation to Turkish and Egyptian plans to discuss Israel’s nuclear arsenal. But his absence from an event intended to show US allies and partners rallying around the American president’s agenda was, at the very least, deeply symbolic.

The US-Israeli alliance, for decades the cornerstone of Middle East power politics, is in rocky shape. The Obama administration is angry about Israeli settlements in occupied East Jerusalem. Mr Netanyahu’s government is recoiling at what it depicts as Mr Obama’s unreasonable demands.

The tension between the two sides has become a story of personal snubs and policy differences even as the US and Israel profess their devotion to each other. As George Mitchell, Washington’s Middle East envoy, prepares to return to the region, US officials are considering eventually issuing outlines of their own for an Israeli-Palestinian deal – a turn of events Israel is desperate to avoid.

But at root, the differences stem from the two countries’ contrasting reactions to an issue seen by both as crucial to their national interest, and, in Israel’s case, to its national survival: Iran.

Protests Against Isreali Policies Grow

Archbishop Desmond Tutu to UC Berkeley: Divesting is the Right Thing To Do

Dear Student Leaders at the University of California — Berkeley

It was with great joy that I learned of your recent 16-4 vote in support of divesting your university’s money from companies that enable and profit from the injustice of the Israeli occupation of Palestinian land and violation of Palestinian human rights. Principled stands like this, supported by a fast growing number of US civil society organizations and people of conscience, including prominent Jewish groups, are essential for a better world in the making, and it is always an inspiration when young people lead the way and speak truth to power.

I am writing to tell you that, despite what detractors may allege, you are doing the right thing. You are doing the moral thing. You are doing that which is incumbent on you as humans who believe that all people have dignity and rights, and that all those being denied their dignity and rights deserve the solidarity of their fellow human beings.

HUMAN ERROR CONSIDERED CAUSE OF CRASH (So It Wasn’t the Plane After All!)

Russian investigators suggested that human error may have been to blame in the plane crash that killed the Polish president and 95 others, saying that were no technical problems with the Soviet-made plane.

Today, AP: AP – The body of Polish First Lady Maria Kaczynska was returned from Russia on Tuesday as Parliament prepared to hold a special observance in memory of the president and numerous lawmakers killed in a plane crash.

MOSCOW JUDGE KILLED

A Moscow judge who sent neo-Nazis responsible for dozens of killings to prison was gunned down in his apartment building, amid a surge of violence against activists and officials opposed to Russian nationalists.

Asim Qureshi: The ‘Obama Doctrine’: Kill, Don’t Detain

George Bush left a big problem in the shape of GuantÃƒÂ¡namo. The solution? Don’t capture bad guys, assassinate by drone.

Hamid Karzai, R.I.P. A Prediction By Justin Raimondo

The war in Afghanistan, which George W. Bush started and Barack Obama pledged to win, is over – and we lost. No one realizes this, quite yet, but give them time – because the fruits of our defeat are already a veritable cornucopia. And the reason can be summed up rather neatly in two words: Hamid Karzai.

Key Witness in A rgentine Dirty-War Case Found Murdered Latin American Herald Tribune

BUENOS AIRES – Police in the central Argentine city of Rafaela are investigating the slaying of a woman who suffered abuse under the 1976-1983 military regime and was a key witness in several cases arising from crimes committed during the junta’s “dirty war” against the left.

Silvia Suppo, 51, was found stabbed to death Monday inside her shop, Rafaela police chief Juan Jose Mondino said.

Police are trying to establish if she was killed during a robbery or targeted because of her status as a witness in dirty war cases.

The News Dissector