OCTOBER

FRIDAY OCTOBER 13th 2006

NUKE-SPEAK


Just when we might have thought global warming was the runaway number one threat to the planet nukes come back with a vengeance … well maybe?

The week started with a bang in North Korea's announcement of a successful nuclear test. If we are to believe the headlines, it is only a matter of time before Iran announces the same … but the IAEA estimates that there are 33 countries who have nuclear reactors which are believed to be capable of making the material needed for making nuclear weapons, whom we hear nothing about.

They are: Canada, Mexico, Colombia, Peru, Brazil, Chile, Argentina, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, Poland, Ukraine, Switzerland, Austria, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, Italy, Spain, Turkey, Algeria, Egypt, Democratic Republic of Congo, South Africa, Bangladesh, South Korea, Japan, Vietnam, Indonesia, Australia.

The reason we hear nothing about the would-be ambitions of these nuclear-power powers is because at present none of these (currently) pose any geo-political impediment to the free reign of US military and economic interests around the world.

Ah but what about Colombia? Well for the time being "Plan Colombia" aka the 'war on drugs' as a cover story, to route billions of dollars worth of US aid (read weapons and military training) to the Colombian elite, to ensure Colombian oil and vital routes through Colombia for South American oil, remain in safe hands. We can safely assume that if the guerillas ever did seize power there then the WMD card would be swiftly produced by the US in direct proportion to the loss of propaganda lustre held by the 'war on drugs'.

Missing from the nuclear-power power list is Saudi Arabia whose ruling family certainly have the desire to possess nuclear weapons, and have on occasion sought to by-pass the nuclear power route completely by simply buying the finished nuclear weapons. Given the amount they spend on conventional weaponry from the US and Britain they could easily stretch to nukes, and presumably would be successful in doing so if the US saw such a move as being in line with their own interests in the Middle East.

Add to these, the all new 'top ten' nuclear-weapons powers. The 'big five' nuclear-weapons powers is a terminological cold war relic. By any rational reckoning it should have been the 'big six' since the mid-eighties when whistleblower Mordechai Vannunu revealed to the world that the Israelis had had nukes since the 1960's. The ten, in order of the number of long range warheads in their possession are:
US (5,985) , Russia (4,852) , France (348) , China (282) UK (185) Israel (100-200) Pakistan (30-50) India (30-40), North Korea (0) Iran (0).

North Korea if their test is verified, have not matched their nuclear materials to the significant long range conventional weapons they do possess. And whilst this is an obvious goal, successfully melding the two technologies is no simple straightforward step. Iran has yet to refine weapons grade nuclear material.

Whilst we can assume both North Korea and Iran would dearly love to have long range nuclear weapon capability, the reason they are striving toward this, is quite reasonable (in what is for most of the rest of us the planet over, the entirely unreasonable sphere of world geo-politics). The belief that having nukes will provide North Korea and Iran with regional security (in Iran's case against the Israeli nukes that have for four decades been pointed at the Arabian and Persian major cities) and insulate them from the kind of attacks at the hands of the US, as suffered by Afghanistan and Iraq, who did not have nuclear weapons. For the North Korean and Iranian governments then, having nuclear weapons as a deterrent makes quite simple strategical sense.

The day after the North Korean claim to have conducted a successful test, the BBC 2 screened a "This World" documentary entiteld "Will Israel Bomb Iran?" The programme looked at Israeli motivation and support for whacking Iran before they get the capability to produce weapons grade nuclear materials. The long list of ex-prime ministers and ex-military and ex-intelligence heads who went on record showed an unswerving consensus that it was the utmost importance for Israel to 'go it alone' and pre-emptively target Iran's nuclear facilities (if it remained problematic for the US to do so directly themselves).

Israel have form in this department, having taken out Saddam Hussein's nuclear power facilities at Osirak in 1981 by air borne military attacks. Whilst this drew much (public) international condemnantion at the time from the Reagans and the Thatchers, in private the western powers were admiring of Israel's ability to be so bold. And of course, the neo-cons, at that time 'in-waiting', have long since held up the Osirak attack as the model text book case for pre-emptive attack.

Benjamin Netanyahu even went as far as saying, that Israel not to preserving its monopoly in the region of being the sole nuclear weapons power, would be tantamount to inviting the next holocaust on the Jewish people. Whilst the sick propaganda of President Ahmadinejad's assertion that the state of Israel 'should be wiped off the map' is much reported, it remains propaganda for his national audience. And it remains a gift to the propaganda departments of the Israeli political and military establishment.

Whilst the Israeli contributors in the programme were falling over themselves to voice the obvious — that Israel has been embroiled in wars but has never responded by using its nukes — common sense tells us that they would launch those nukes against Iran long before Ahmadinejad came anywhere near acting upon his verbal threats against Israel.

The issue for Iran is having the right to nuclear deterrence, and for Israel it is always staying two steps ahead of everyone else by retaining the monopoly on the absolute trump card in the Middle East.

The most worrying aspect of the programme was that the Israeli military-political complex have put a deadline on how long they can afford to wait, before Iran reaches the point where their nuclear installations 'have to be taken down.' That deadline was said to be the summer of 2007. With the PR campaign in full swing (attested as ever by the advance guard of ex-leaders coming forward in droves to make 'the case' in public) the conclusion, based on Israel's past penchant for pre-emptive strikes, and given the Bush Doctrine of pre-emption, is that the timetable for the strikes is before Bush leaves office in January 2009. If it still remains problematic for the US to launch the strikes against Iran themselves in 2007 or 2008, then they will give Israel the secret nod to go ahead.

Whilst such attacks potentially threaten yet another catastrophic counter-response of self-induced anti-US and anti-Israeli feeling throughout the wider region, we have to remain aware that this may well have already been calculated as a gamble worth taking by US secret planners. The next ten to twenty years are already mapped out and defined by: the onset of the era of post peak oil world; the life death struggle of the oil giants to hang on to their monopolies on the way the planet is powered in the face of global warming; and the fact that oil will remain essential to US hegemony because the whole US military space industrial economic complex runs on the stuff.

In these circumstances, even if the planners are yet considering switching from oil in the medium term, the seizing of any excuse for the US to have its military hardware and foot- soldiers in the Middle East over the next ten to twenty years is perceived a paramount necessity. Having a nuclear deterrent would enable Iran to make its oil off-limits to the covetous eyes of US futures-planners, and it may embolden Iran in impeding the transit of Middle Eastern oil destined for western markets through the 21 mile narrow Strait of Hormuz (off Iran's southern coast). In these terms acting upon any excuse to take down Iran before it has the actual nuclear deterrence capability is of supreme importance to US planners.

From the point of view of the Iranian leadership, they see themselves as remaining in the line of fire until such a time as they have the bomb. In stark contrast North Korea may have just elevated itself out of the firing line. This makes clearer the desperation of Iran to have nuclear deterrence, and the desperation of the US and Israel for them not to have it. Any increase in nuclear weaponry makes the planet a more dangerous place to be, but we cannot expect non-nuclear weapons nations to forgo the idea of having the bomb when the established nuclear weapons powers are doing nothing to reduce their stockpiles.

As ever, the British government, in order to stay in the busines lounge of top flight international politics, is doing what it has always done. Bowing to US policy makers wishes abroad, whilst by-passing the democratic process at home, to forge ahead in updating its nuclear arsenal.


DIRTY NUKE-SPEAK

On another, but related note, despite the debacle of the bogus reasoning for invading Iraq, our leaders continue to play the doom laden 'nightmare scenario' card, whereby terrorists uniting with rogue states get their hands on fissile materials and 'launch' a dirty bomb in a major city. Because of the science of the instability of nuclear materials and the difficulties in handling and transporting them, actually carrying out such an attack remains prohibitively difficult. This would remain the case even if there were an Iran or North Korea, with their whole state infrastructure behind them, undertaking it.

A more plausible, but never talked about, nightmare scenario is that when global warming really starts to bite, the nuclear weapons and nuclear power facilities and dumps in forty countries and counting , will be ever more exposed to 'environmental assault.' One only has to look at the British bent for situating its nuclear power stations directly on the coast, and the susceptibility to mundane structural damage, as a result of rising sea levels and unprecedented freak storms, increases. Add in the dynamics of a future where the ability to implement damage control and administer disaster relief becomes ever more over- stretched, and the preponderance of nuclear materials looks not only more of a long term liability, but one that is also more fraught with unprecedented dangers than ever before.



FRIDAY OCTOBER 6th 2006

MAN OF LETTERS (NOT QUITE)

I occasionally write letters to national newspapers in the UK, reacting to some specific issue in their pages, but only occasionally (a handful of times a year) because I know from experience the likelihood of them printing it is very low. I have never despite a considerable number of attempts, had a letter printed in the Guardian. My most recent effort was no exception, but rather than see my time and effort wasted, and because I believe the points raised in it are important, I re-print it below.

The context of the letter is a reply to Nick Thomas the head of Exxon Mobil public relations in the UK. Thomas himself had been responding to an article by George Monbiot http://www.monbiot.com with typical oil company greenwashing blather …

>>>>>
To: <letters@guardian.co.uk>
Date 28.09.06.
Subject: Re " We are not climate-change deniers" (Nick Thomas - Response 27.09.06.)

Actually, yes Nick Thomas, your public relations piece reeks of "sound(ing) like a company in denial?" For a start Thomas uses the preferred terminology of "climate change" throughout his article, (except when quoting George Monbiot who uses the more realistic "man made global warming.") It was the consultant Frank Luntz who back in 2003, in his infamous "Straight Talk" memo to his US Republican party clients, that advised : "Climate change is less frightening than 'global warming," when talking to voters." Or as one of his focus group participant noted, climate change "sounds like you're going from Pittsburgh to Fort Lauderdale" (or Leeds to St Tropez).

Moreover replacing the conventional light bulbs with energy saving ones, and making minor adjustments to the emissions in Exxon Mobil's own plants, at a cost of less than one day's profits, hardly compensates for a company which makes more than $1 billion a day mostly from oil sales.

Concerning Exxon Mobil's 'generosity' in part funding alternative technologies (at least half of which remain fossil fuel based), let us follow the real money. A contribution to a $225million research project (over who knows how many years) represents not even the broken peanuts left in the bottom of the bag, but the grains of salt. It is less than Exxon Mobil spends every year in advertising its oil wares, and it is far less than their contribution to the hundreds of billions of dollars, that oil companies spend every year searching for new oil or new ways to extract oil. And, of course it is nothing compared to the one billion dollars plus, that its favourite politicians are currently spending every week to be in pole position for when Iraqi oil — in the not too distant future — becomes necessary to the continued running of a well oiled planet.

For Thomas and his employers, denial was, is and will remain big business, because it is all about extending the shelf life of Exxon Mobil's licence to print money in an oil dependent world. To actually reduce, slow and stop our warming of the planet, necessarily means the end of the monopolies, held for the past ninety years by the big oil companies, regarding how the planet is powered. It means the end of Exxon Mobil, and hence the virulence of their denial strategies of the past fifteen years and counting.

We can reduce our individual carbon footprints all we like, but until we can combine this with forcing the likes of Exxon Mobil to 'cough up' — multi-billion dollar reparations for the wilful damage done to the planet to be re-channeled into non fossil fuel strategies— or we force them to 'shut up' and close their doors for good, then we are fighting a losing battle.


Danbert Nobacon
Chapeltown
Leeds 7.


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