Saturday 30th of November 2024
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under the glorious sydney morning sun, preparing to help decrepit america to attack china......

San Diego: Australians are being urged to accept hard decisions to fund a decades-long plan to build nuclear-powered submarines after the potential $368 billion cost sparked a political furore over whether the nation could afford the mammoth outlay on a stronger defence force.

The federal government said the investment was essential to shield the country from security threats by purchasing an interim fleet of nuclear-powered submarines from the United States in the 2030s before building a future fleet in Adelaide that would enter service in the 2040s.

But the Greens said the increase in defence spending would require future cuts to health and education and warned they would not help in parliament to make any savings, while the Coalition warned against ‘‘cannibalising’’ other defence programs to pay for the submarines.

China, which possesses its own fleet of nuclear-powered submarines, railed against the plan, accusing the AUKUS partners of undermining nuclear nonproliferation and fuelling an arms race in the region.

The dispute over the cost sets up a long political fight over the impact on the federal coffers when Labor is committed to the stage three tax cuts worth $254 billion over a decade and expects the nation’s finances to remain in deficit when the budget is handed down on May 9.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese announced the new steps alongside US President Joe Biden and Britain’s Prime Minister Rishi Sunak at the US Navy’s Point Loma base in San Diego yesterday morning (AEDT) which revealed the most significant decisions made since the three nations struck the AUKUS agreement in September 2021.

The government has launched a diplomatic blitz to calm concerns in the Indo-Pacific, including from nations such as Indonesia and Malaysia, and counter what it regards as a campaign of misinformation by China.

Senior ministers including Foreign Affairs Minister Penny Wong have made more than 60 calls to regional leaders to assure them Australia will fulfil its nonproliferation obligations.

Indonesia is yet to decide if AUKUS submarines would be permitted to travel in its maritime territory, but Tubagus Hasanuddin, a senior member of the ruling Democratic Party of Struggle, warned the future fleet would not be welcome if it provoked China. He said the country’s sea lanes should not be used by Australia’s nuclearpropelled submarines because “AUKUS was created for fighting”.

China’s Foreign Ministry accused Australia, the United States and United Kingdom of sending the world down the path of danger.

“The latest joint statement from the US, UK and Australia demonstrates that the three countries, for the sake of their own geopolitical interests, completely disregard the concerns of the international communities and are walking further and further down the path of error and danger,’’ said foreign ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin.

The Australian government has launched a search for an appropriate waste dump on defence property in remote areas to dispose of used nuclear material from decommissioned future submarines.

In a strong sign of concern at China’s military build-up, the federal government will bring forward the delivery of the first nuclearpowered submarines to the Royal Australian Navy by almost a decade by purchasing at least three vessels from the US from the early 2030s.

Albanese said the new AUKUS plan would ensure sovereign nations would be ‘‘free from coercion’’ and Biden named stability in the South China Sea and the Indian Ocean as key objectives of the pact, while Sunak named the ‘‘growing assertiveness’’ of China as a key danger.

The government expects the full cost of the program, from construction to maintenance and service of the interim and final fleets, will range from $268 billion to $368 billion up to 2055.

With debate flaring over the cost, Deputy Prime Minister and Defence Minister Richard Marles said Australia had to deal with the intense pressure on the international rulesbased order in the Indo-Pacific.

‘‘We are witnessing the biggest conventional military build-up that we have seen since the end of the Second World War and it’s happening within our region and it is not Australia which is doing that,’’ he said, without naming China.

‘‘We need to respond to this. A failure to do so would see us be condemned by history.’’

Opposition Leader Peter Dutton backed the AUKUS plan but warned against taking money from other defence programs to pay for the submarines. Instead he flagged the National Disability Insurance Scheme as a program that needed to become more sustainable.

‘‘We can’t allow Labor to go back to a circumstance where they’re going to cannibalise army or navy or air force to pay for this,’’ he said. ‘‘There’s no magic pudding. There’s no way in which you can sugar-coat it. There is extra money that needs to be spent in defence.’’

Peter Dean, the director of foreign policy and defence at the University of Sydney’s United States Studies Centre, said the government had outlined a ‘‘really good pathway and solution’’ to acquiring nuclear-powered submarines but warned the plan was ‘‘high risk and high reward’’. ‘‘There are still a lot of unknowns,’’ said Dean, the lead author of the government’s soon-to-bereleased defence strategic review.

Richard Dunley, a naval expert at UNSW, said the plan ‘‘looks about as good as you can imagine and better than a lot of us expected’’. He added: ‘‘The idea of this being delivered on time and on budget seems highly improbable.’’

Hugh White, emeritus professor of strategic studies at the Australian National University, said he was even more dubious about the merits of acquiring nuclear-powered submarines. ‘‘The more moving parts in any defence program, the more likely it is to fall over,’’ he said.

White said the submarine program made it virtually inevitable Australia would become involved in a potential war between the US and China over Taiwan, a conflict he said Australia should avoid.

Over the decade to 2033, the cost estimate ranges from $50 billion to $58 billion, at least twice that of the $24 billion claimed for the contract cancelled with French shipbuilder Naval Group in September 2021.

with Chris Barrett

 

https://todayspaper.smedia.com.au/smh/default.aspx

 

 

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US-drone drowning....

The Russian Defense Ministry on Tuesday denied claims by the US military that a Russian interceptor came into contact with the American MQ-9 drone over the Black Sea, causing it to crash. 

The UAV was flying towards the Russian border without an active transponder, in clear violation of the restricted area established for the conduct of the special military operation, the ministry said. Two interceptors were dispatched to investigate. 

“As a result of sharp maneuvers around 9:30am Moscow time, the MQ-9 unmanned aerial vehicle went into uncontrolled flight, lost altitude, and collided with the water surface. The Russian fighters did not use weapons, did not come into contact with the UAV, and returned safely to their home base,” the defense ministry said in a statement.

Moscow’s comment came after the US European Command (EUCOM) accused the Russian jets of “an unsafe and unprofessional intercept” of the drone. The Americans claimed their spy drone was operating in international airspace when a pair of Su-27 jets appeared, sprayed it with fuel, and “struck the propeller” of the UAV, which caused it to crash into the sea. EUCOM waited almost 12 hours after the incident to comment on it.

The US has admitted to providing Ukraine with intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance information in the conflict against Russia, while insisting it is not a party to the hostilities. US and NATO spy aircraft frequently fly over the Black Sea and approach Crimea, sometimes just before Ukrainian forces launch attacks on the Russian peninsula.

Last week, a US strategic bomber flew a practice run for a missile attack on St. Petersburg, while staying in international, and NATO, airspace.

The Pentagon routinely uses the phrase “unsafe and unprofessional” to describe incidents in which Russian interceptors chase off US drones, spy planes or fighters that come too close to the border.

 

READ MORE:

https://www.rt.com/russia/572980-russia-us-drone-down/

 

READ FROM TOP.

 

 

ONE COULD SUSPECT THAT THE GPS OF THE AMERICAN DRONE WAS JAMMED BY RUSSIAN INTERCEPTOR ELECTRONIC INTERFERENCE AND THE US BIZO BECAME DISORIENTED, NOT KNOWING WHICH WAS UP AND WHICH WAS DOWN.... NO NEED TO TOUCH IT....

 

 

FREE JULIAN ASSANGE NOW....

discussing history.....

UNFORTUNATELY, I GET INTO (VERY) HEATED ARGUMENTS THESE DAYS ABOUT WHAT'S WHAT AND THE GEOPOLITICS OF WHAT, ESPECIALLY PUTIN AND UKRAINE. I AM A GRUMPY OLD KOOK.... I COULD LOSE A FEW FRIENDS, AND AT THIS LEVEL THIS WOULD HURT, BUT WHAT IS MORE IMPORTANT: "AGREEING TO DISAGREE" WHY PEOPLE (THAT WE DON'T KNOW) GET KILLED — OR RETAIN A FRIEND?

FOR THE PEOPLE WHO DIE, THIS COULD BE IMPORTANT AS WE COULD BE HELPING THE KILLERS — BY IGNORANCE OR CARELESSNESS... IT CAN UNFORTUNATELY COME TO THIS.... PUTIN IS A MURDERER — BUT OBAMA, BILL CLINTON, BUSH SENIOR AND JUNIOR ARE NOT.... ARE YOU KIDDING ME?

I END UP BEING ABUSED BY SAID FRIENDS AND RESPOND IN KIND.... THIS IS NOT THE WAY TO CONDUCT A DISCUSSION SO I CALM DOWN AND PROPOSE A TIME FOR ME TO EXPOSE MY ARGUMENTS, AFTER HAVING HEARD THEIRS.

"I DON'T WANT TO LISTEN TO YOU."...

THIS HITS THE CONCRETE WALL. NO-ONE, INCLUDING FRIENDS, WANTS TO KNOW ABOUT MY "PUTIN-LOVER" OPINION. "I DON'T WANT TO KNOW BECAUSE YOU'RE WRONG"... IS THE REPEATED MANTRA, IN THE SAME VEIN AS "SADDAM HAS GOT WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION"... WE KNEW THIS WAS A CONCOCTED LIE BACK IN 2001. THEY STILL BELIEVE IT WAS TRUE, OR THAT INTELLIGENCE AGENCIES "GOT IT WRONG".... SHOULD I DESPAIR?

THE SAD CASE HERE IS THAT "NO ONE WANT TO KNOW". WE-"THEY" HAVE BEEN WELL FED ON OUR OWN CIRCULAR ARGUMENTS, ESPECIALLY THOSE OF THE VERY PERSUASIVE WESTERN MEDIA (CLEVER BRAINWASHING TECHNIQUES), THAT ANYTHING ELSE HAS TO BE DISMISSED. THEY COULD BE LIES, UNLIKE THE FACT THAT "CHINA WANTS TO INVADE AUSTRALIA". HENCE WE NEED 8 NUCLEAR SUBMARINES BECAUSE CHINA HAS GOT 12... HELLO?

POPPYCOCK.

AGREED. I, AND MANY OTHER SOURCES USED IN THIS WEBSITE, COULD BE MISTAKEN, WRONG, BULLSHITTING OR BEING DEVIL'S AGENTS.

UNFORTUNATELY, I THINK I KNOW TOO MUCH ABOUT DECEIT AND THIS GETS ME IN TROUBLE — LIKE SEYMOUR HERSH... NO-ONE IN THE ENTIRE WESTERN MEDIA BELIEVES HIM. IMAGINE!!!

THEY WOULD HAVE TO GUESS HE IS CORRECT — BUT FOR THE MAIN-STREAM MEDIA THE TRUTH WOULD HURT THEIR LONG RUNNING SCANDALOUS DECEITFUL ARGUMENTS AND DAMAGE THEIR STUPID STACKS OF COMFORTABLE BELIEFS....

I'M THUS IN GOOD COMPANY... IF PEOPLE LIKE HERSH CAN'T GET THEIR ARGUMENTS ACROSS, NO-ONE CAN...

SAME WITH PAUL KEATING. HE MAKES SENSE, BUT WE DO NOT LIVE IN A SOCIETY THAT WANTS SENSE: AS I SAID BEFORE, PHILOSOPHY HAS BEEN REPLACED BY GUNS.... TO SOME EXTEND PHILOSOPHY NEVER MADE A DINT IN OUR SOCIAL BEHAVIOUR. GUNS HAVE. WE HAVE BARELY EMERGED FROM THE KINGS AND CHURCHES COOCON — TO HAIL DEMOCRACY LIKE AN OINTMENT, BUT WE STILL LIVE UNDER THE YOKE OF SERFDOM. WE ARE NOT PREPARED TO MAKE IT WORK BEYOND BEING A STRAW MAN.

IT BECOMES IMPOSSIBLE TO DISSECT PRESENT HISTORY WHEN THE ARGUMENTS ARE BEING DRAGGED BACK INTO THE STONE AGE OR TO THE TIME OF IVAN THE TERRIBLE — AND VLAD-THE-IMPALER. YES, WE ARE STUPID... I AM STUPID AND BOMBASTIC — AND I SAY... SO BE IT!!!!..... I WILL PUSH ON WITH MY VIEWS, HOPEFULLY SHARED BY A FEW INTELLIGENT PEOPLE WHO READ THIS.... WHO KNOWS....

 

MEANWHILE, WE CAN ONLY DO OUR BEST TO FIND SOME RELATIVE TRUTH VERSUS ABSOLUTE LIES..... ASSANGE HAS DONE THIS TO THE HILT — AND HE IS PRISON FOR IT. OTHERS SAY WE CAN NEVER FIND THE TRUTH, AND I DISAGREE... I'M IN TROUBLE AGAIN. SEE....

 

----------------

 

FROM CAITLIN JOHNSTONE

 

David Frum and Max Boot, two neoconservatives who helped grease the wheels for the invasion of Iraq, have some thoughts they’d like to share with us as we approach the 20th anniversary of that horrific and unforgivable war. Both of these perspectives can be read in widely esteemed mainstream publications, because everyone who was responsible for inflicting that war upon our species has enjoyed mainstream influence and esteem to this very day.

Both men concede in their own ways that the war was a mistake, while simultaneously cheerleading the US proxy war in Ukraine that has brought humanity closer to nuclear armageddon than it has been at any time since the Cuban Missile Crisis. Both men mix their Iraq War retrospectives with war apologia, historical revisionism, and outright lies. And both men should shut the fuck up. About everything. Forever.

Frum’s article is posted in The Atlantic, where he is a senior editor, and it is titled “The Iraq War Reconsidered“. Frum is credited with authoring George W Bush’s infamous “Axis of Evil” speech, which marked the beginning of an unprecedented era of US military expansionism and “humanitarian interventions” in geostrategically valuable nations after 9/11.

In just the second sentence of his article Frum opens with an absolute scorcher of a lie, saying “an arsenal of chemical-warfare shells and warheads” were discovered in Iraq to suggest that the weapons of mass destruction narrative had been proven at least somewhat true. As The Intercept’s Jon Schwartz explained back in 2015, the only chemical weapons in Iraq were either (A) munitions sealed in bunkers at an Iraqi weapons complex by UN inspectors in the nineties and left there because they were too dangerous to move, and (B) some old munitions that had been lost and forgotten after the Iran-Iraq War. In neither of these cases is it true that Saddam Hussein was hiding any weapons of mass destruction.

https://twitter.com/schwarz/status/1635788424220114944

Frum claims that “The United States went to war to build a democracy in Iraq,” which is an infantile fairy tale only idiots and children believe. Iraq was invaded because it was an oil-rich nation in a geostrategically crucial region whose leader had been insufficiently servile to US energy interests. Probably didn’t help that it was also moving toward re-normalizing relations with Iran.

Frum hilariously claims that “What the U.S. did in Iraq was not an act of unprovoked aggression,” and shows that he has learned absolutely nothing about anything by criticizing the Obama administration for not invading Syria to enforce “its own declared red lines” on chemical weapons allegations.

Frum begins the article by calling the war “a grave and costly error,” but by the end he has completely walked this back by gushing about how much better it made things for Iraqis. He says that “ISIS has been destroyed in Iraq and reduced to a tiny foothold in Syria” and “Jihadist terrorism has receded across the Arab Middle East,” and that the ensuing “stability” has had “economic benefits” for Iraqis, like greater oil exports. Frum makes the unfalsifiable fantasy claim that things would have been just as bad for Iraqis if the US hadn’t invaded, saying “Whether Iraq had an alternative future that would have been much better for the country and its people seems very doubtful to me.”

“Imperfect as Iraqi governance is, thanks to the U.S. intervention, the country has for the first time in its independent history a political system that is in some measure accountable to its people,” Frum writes.

Frum closes with a paragraph that continues The Atlantic’s long and ongoing pattern of churning out think pieces which use the war in Ukraine to rehabilitate the image of the neocons:

“The invasion of Ukraine has recalled the peoples of the Western democracies to themselves. There are times when free people must fight in self-defense. That truth must not be lost, whatever lessons we draw from the Iraq War. And perhaps the commitment to share that freedom with the people of Iraq is not yet lost either. They have gained a chance, and their story is not over.”

https://twitter.com/MaxBoot/status/1634215557191835650

 

Max Boot’s article is titled “What the Neocons Got Wrong“, and it’s published in Foreign Affairs. Boot was one of the earliest influential proponents of the Iraq invasion, penning a now-notorious essay for the neoconservative Weekly Standard titled “The Case for American Empire” a month after 9/11. Boot’s 2001 screed called for “a U.S. invasion and occupation” of Iraq, predicting a swift and easy victory and saying that “Once we have deposed Saddam, we can impose an American-led, international regency in Baghdad, to go along with the one in Kabul.”

Boot’s sentiments on Iraq today are more contrite than Frum’s, unequivocally denouncing the war and the idea of promoting democracy by military force, but there’s still a lot of warmongering bullshit in his Foreign Affairs piece.

“Both South Korea and South Vietnam were worth defending from communist aggression, but the Koreans showed greater skill and willingness to fight for their own freedom than the South Vietnamese did,” Boot proclaims out of fucking nowhere.

“I am a neocon no more,” Boot declares, before making it clear that he has simply pivoted from supporting Republican wars to supporting Democrat wars like the proxy war in Ukraine. Boot says “Ukraine easily meets the test” for justifiable US interventionism, and calls President Zelensky “a Churchillian figure worthy of the United States’ unstinting support.”

Despite his denunciation of neoconservatism, Boot has been an exceptionally hawkish supporter of the same US proxy war that all his Bush-era neocon buddies have rallied behind in the last year. In his regular opinion column for The Washington Post he has been one of the loudest voices pushing for the US to pour more powerful weapons into Ukraine, and even went on a trip with US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin to write war propaganda about the need for the US alliance to send more tanks there.

(While we’re on the subject, why does The Washington Post need to give regular opinion columns to Max Boot, John Bolton, Jennifer Rubin, and Josh Rogin? They’re all warmongering neocons. I think even neocons would agree that’s too many neocons.)

But of greater significance than the specific words that David Frum and Max Boot have published is the fact that their words are being published at all. It is absolutely insane that the people who helped unleash the horror that was the Iraq War upon the world are not only not in prison, but are actively uplifted and celebrated on the most influential platforms in the western world. These freaks shouldn’t be able to get jobs of any greater influence than working behind a cash register, and they should have a harder time getting those jobs than convicted felons. They certainly shouldn’t be given a platform to write about the very crime they helped orchestrate.

But such is the civilization we find ourselves in. The empire elevates those who serve the empire, and marginalizes those who speak out against it. David Frum and Max Boot are massively amplified celebrity pundits not in spite of their past misdeeds but exactly because of them. They have proved themselves to be reliable servants of the empire, and the empire has rewarded them accordingly.

In a remotely sane society, this would not be the case. In a remotely sane society, such creatures would be regarded with the same revulsion and rejection as child molesters. These people are worse than serial killers, because they’ve got body counts that Jeffrey Dahmer or John Wayne Gacy could only dream of.

Here’s hoping that one day we live in a society that has become so healthy that it is no longer acceptable to be a neocon.

 

_______________

 

My work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece please consider sharing it around, throwing some money into my tip jar on Patreon, Paypal, or Substack, buying an issue of my monthly zine, and following me on Facebook, Twitter, Soundcloud or YouTube. If you want to read more you can buy my books. The best way to make sure you see the stuff I publish is to subscribe to the mailing list for at my website or on Substack, which will get you an email notification for everything I publish. Everyone, racist platforms excluded, has my permission to republish, use or translate any part of this work (or anything else I’ve written) in any way they like free of charge. For more info on who I am, where I stand, and what I’m trying to do with this platform, click here. All works co-authored with my husband Tim Foley.

 

 

READ MORE:

https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2023/03/15/bush-era-neocons-should-shut-the-fuck-up-about-iraq-and-everything-else/

 

READ FROM TOP.

 

WE KNOW... BUT "THEY" DON'T WANT TO KNOW.

MY GUESS IS THAT KNOWING WOULD DENT THEIR FAKE-MORAL VALUES AND DEMAND AN ENERGY LEVEL OF KNOWLEDGE BEYOND THEIR COMFORT ZONE — WHERE THE WHITE MIDDLE-CLASS SITS IN. I KNOW.

 

WE AIR OUR VIEWS TO OUR ALREADY "CONVERTED" READERS AND GET NOWHERE WITH THE "OTHER SIDE"... THE PSYCHOS WHO RULE THE GOVERNMENTS AND THE MEDIA BANK ON THIS. THEY EVEN INVENT ILLUSIONS CALLED PROGRAMS ON TV THAT ARE SUPPOSED TO MIMICK REAL LIFE. YOU CAN LAUGH. THE SAME THING HAPPENS ON THE SOCIAL NETWORK (OF WHICH WE ARE A MINUSCULE PART OF). IT'S A MATTER OF GOVERNMENT CONTROL AND OF CONTROL OF THE NUMBERS OF PEOPLE WITH THE FEAR TO BE FREE.... REALLY FREE.  IS FREEDOM TO SAY OUR PIECE WORTH LOSING OUR FRIENDS? SOME PEOPLE LIKE ELON MUSK SHAKE THE APPLE TREE.

I HAVE TO BE TRUE TO MYSELF FOR JULIAN'S SAKE. SO BE IT.

 

FREE JULIAN ASSANGE NOW....