Soil has the capacity to bind large quantities of carbon in the long term. An international team of researchers, including from the University of Bonn, is now advocating effective use of this potential.
Experts estimate that this could reduce the increase of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide in the atmosphere by a third. At the same time, agricultural yields in many regions would also increase significantly.
In a recent publication they present a strategy to achieve these goals. The study is published in the journal Nature Communications. (W. Amelung, D. Bossio, W. de Vries, I. Kögel-Knabner, J. Lehmann, R. Amundson, R. Bol, C. Collins, R. Lal, J. Leifeld, B. Minasny, G. Pan, K. Paustian, C. Rumpel, J. Sanderman, J. W. van Groenigen, S. Mooney, B. van Wesemael, M. Wander, A. Chabbi, “Towards a global-scale soil climate mitigation strategy”, Nature Communications, 2020; 11 (1) DOI: 10.1038/s41467-020-18887-7 )
The climate summit in Paris in 2015 was also the birth of the so-called “4 per 1,000” initiative. Its name stands for a link that has not received enough attention in climate research and politics for a long time: Every year the amount of carbon in the atmosphere increases by more than four billion tons due to the human-made greenhouse gas CO2. If these four billion tons were sequestered in the earth’s soils (thus completely halting the greenhouse effect), the amount of carbon contained in the soil would grow by only 0.4 per cent annually (i.e. 4 out of 1,000). In other words: Soils are already a gigantic carbon store. So why not simply dump the excess CO2 in it as an additional minuscule amount?
Experts are indeed confident today that this strategy could significantly slow down climate change. “0.4 percent additional carbon input is somewhat too optimistic,” explains Prof. Wulf Amelung, who heads the Division of Soil Science at the University of Bonn. “However, a third of this is probably achievable.”
Nevertheless, little has changed since 2015. Together with colleagues from Europe, the USA, Australia and China, Amelung and colleagues therefore want to put the issue back on the agenda.
In the current issue of the journal Nature Communications, they outline a strategy to effectively use the potential of soils in the fight against climate change. Amelung, together with his French colleague Prof. Abad Chabbi, is in charge of the initiative; in Germany, the TU Munich and Forschungszentrum Jülich were also involved.
There are a number of simple measures to increase the amount of carbon in the soil, such as mulching (i.e. covering the soil with crop residues) or adding plant-based coal. The most important method, however, is to increase plant growth (and thus crop yields): by liming acidic soils, by fertilizing as needed, by using smart irrigation. “The more grows on the soil, the better is it rooted,” explains Amelung. “And roots with their widely branching networks of organic material store lots of carbon.” Conversely, the organic matter contains essential nutrients for plant growth and thus promotes crop yield. “Our strategy therefore ultimately addresses two important goals: climate protection and food security.”
Measures must be adapted locally
However, the global implementation of this ambitious plan is not quite so simple: The quality and characteristics of soils in different locations are too different, and the available management technologies are too dissimilar. “Increasing the carbon input therefore requires locally adapted measures; we need completely different strategies in the rice-growing regions of Asia than, for example, on a cereal field in northern Germany,” Amelung emphasizes.
In addition, many carbon sequestration measures are particularly effective when soils are partially degraded by long-term overuse and have lost a lot of carbon. “From a cost-benefit perspective, it certainly makes the most sense to start on such areas, not least because the yield increases are likely to be greatest there,” explains the soil expert.
Unfortunately, knowledge about the condition of soil is very patchy. The researchers therefore recommend the establishment of databases that record the condition of land around the globe on a very small scale, as well as an equally small-scale modeling of possible yield gains and the necessary use of fertilizers. It must furthermore be ensured that there is no mere redistribution of carbon inputs: for example, organic material is moved from one farm to another at great expense and is now missing at its place of origin.
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According to the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), La Niña, linked to cooler sea temperatures, is back in the central and eastern equatorial Pacific Ocean, after nearly a decade’s absence.
This is expected to result in sea surface temperatures between two and three degrees Celsius cooler than average, said Dr. Maxx Dilley, Deputy Director in charge of Climate Services Department at WMO.
“These coolings of these large ocean areas have a significant effect on the circulation of the atmosphere that’s flowing over them. And the changes in the atmosphere in turn affect precipitation patterns around the world.”
Uneven effects
The likely results of La Niña vary around the globe, but indications are that the Horn of Africa will see below average rainfall, as will Central Asia.
Elsewhere, WMO’s weather models forecast above-average rainfall for Southeast Asia, some Pacific Islands and the northern region of South America.
The UN agency also warned that East Africa is forecast to see drier than usual conditions, which together with the existing impacts of the desert locust invasion, may add to regional food insecurity.
WMO says that there is a 90 per cent chance of tropical Pacific sea surface temperatures remaining at La Niña levels for the remainder of the year, and a 55 per cent chance that this will continue through March next year.
This is important because La Niña contributes to temperatures, rainfall and storm patterns in many parts of the world.
Alarm bells
What’s more, everyone from governments to farmers uses the announcement of a La Niña event to protect activities that are sensitive to changes in the weather, including agriculture, health, water resources and disaster management.
The WMO is now stepping up its support and advice for international humanitarian agencies to try to reduce the impacts among the most vulnerable at a time when coping capacities are stretched by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Heat is here to stay
Although La Niña typically has a cooling effect on global temperatures, there is little chance that 2020 will buck the trend of increasingly warm years, however.
That is because of all the heat trapped in our atmosphere by greenhouse gases, said WMO head Petteri Taalas.
He warned, “2020 remains on track to be one of the warmest years on record and 2016-2020 is expected to be the warmest five-year period on record.”
Even that title strikes an odd note. It should not. The Fourth Estate, historically reputed as the chamber of journalists and publishers keeping an eye on elected officials, received a blast of oxygen with the arrival of WikiLeaks. This was daring, rich stuff: scientific journalism in the trenches, news gathering par excellence. But what Julian Assange and WikiLeaks did was something unpardonable to many who pursue the journalist’s craft: sidestepping the newspaper censors, permitting unadulterated access to original sources.
People could finally scrutinise raw documents – cables, memoranda, briefing notes, diplomatic traffic – without the secondary and tertiary forms of self-censorship that characterise the newspaper imperium. Editorially imposed measures could be outflanked; the biases and prejudices of newspaper moguls could be ignored.
This has meant that media outlets in the drought affected mainstream can only ever make quiet acknowledgments about the seriousness of the US case against Assange. It is why certain outlets fail, and have failed to cover the extradition proceedings against the publisher with any degree of serious alarm or considered fear. When they do, irrelevant and inconsequential details feature like tabloid tat: the irate Assange, shouting from his caged stand; the kooky Assange, somewhat unhinged.
A central contention of the prosecution case against Assange is that he is no publisher or journalist being gradually asphyxiated by the apparatus of power for exposing it, but a cold, calculating purloiner of state secrets indifferent to the welfare of informants. Thieves cannot avail themselves of press freedoms nor summon the solid protections of the US First Amendment, even if they did expose torture, war crimes and illegal renditions. It is a narrative that has been fed shamelessly by certain members of the media fraternity, rendering them indifferent and, at times, even hostile to the efforts of WikiLeaks. David Leigh and Luke Harding of The Guardian added kindling to his idea by publishing the full passphrase to the file of un-redacted US State Department cables in their 2011 book. It was foolish and clumsy, and did not shine a good light on the parties involved.
A train was set in motion: the German weekly Der Freitag ran a piece in August that same year pointing an indirect finger to the password revealed by Leigh and Harding; Assange, alarmed, had contacted the editor Jakob Augstein beforehand, telling him he “feared for the safety of informants”. WikiLeaks then reached out to the US State Department warning that publication of the un-redacted trove was imminent. This would have given time to US officials to take necessary measures to protect any protected sources. Cryptome scrambled to publish the documents on September 1, 2011; WikiLeaks followed the next day. The myth of Assange the indiscreet, incautious figure hostile to concealed identities was born.
It has been left to other courageous reporters to right the record at the trial. As investigative journalist Stefania Maurizi recalled in her statement read at the extradition proceedings, “I went through the cables as systematically as possible. I was given an encrypted USB stick, and once I returned to Italy I was given the password that would then allow opening the file. Everything was done with utmost responsibility and attention.” She also noted how the password published by Leigh and Harding “was not the same password I myself was given at the time.”
Mature, snappy views have also featured from conservative British voices concerned by this grotesque overreach of US power. In Britain, and elsewhere, these media commenters have been few in number in registering appropriate alarm at the implications of the US Department of Justice’s indictment against Assange. Peter Oborne, writing last month, issued the call to fellow journalists to take up the case for WikiLeaks. He starts with a scenario: imagine a political dissident held at London’s Belmarsh Prison charged with espionage offences by the People’s Republic of China. The real offence? Exposing atrocities by Chinese troops. “To put it another way, that his real offence was committing the crime of journalism.”
Add to this the findings of the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture that the dissident in question showed “all the symptoms typical for prolonged exposure to psychological torture”, with Beijing pressuring UK authorities to extradite him to a place he could face 175 years in prison. “The outrage from the British press would be deafening.” Protests and vigils outside Belmarsh would be unhalting; debates would take place on “prime time news programmes, alongside a rush of questions in parliament.”
Oborne acknowledges the UK-US alliance. But that should not matter one jot “as far as the British media is concerned.” The Old Bailey trial marked “a profound moment for British journalists.” Were Britain to capitulate to the Trump administration on this score, “the right to publish leaked material in the public interest would suffer a devastating blow.” He noted the concerns of 169 lawyers and academics expressed in a letter to the UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson, Justice Secretary Robert Buckland, Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab and Home Secretary Priti Patel demanding government intervention. “We call on you to act in accordance with national and international law, human rights and the rule of law by bringing an end to the ongoing extradition proceedings and granting Mr Assange his long overdue freedom.”
The dangers to the Fourth Estate to Oborne are incalculable. On UK soil, an effort is being made by the US “to prosecute a non-US citizen, not living in the US, not publishing in the US, under US laws that deny the right to a public interest defence.” Yet a myopic British press remains more interested in Assange’s character, one attacked for breaching the Bail Act in avoiding extradition to Sweden to face sexual misconduct suspicions, and the distracting point as to whether he really is a journalist.
Peter Hitchens, brother of the late Christopher and long departed from the barricades of Trotskyite fervour, is also very much on Oborne’s page. Admirably, he starts his reflection on Assange by putting to rest notions of compromising fandom. Assange “is not my world, and his people are not my people.” But he was “wholly, furiously against the attempt by the United States government to extradite Assange from this country”.
Hitchens can seem a touch reactionary at times, his views heavily wrapped in the Union Jack. A sounding board at The Daily Mail would suggest such tendencies. But on Assange, he is sharp. He rightly picks up on the barring of extraditions for political grounds under Article 4(1) of the UK-US Extradition Treaty. He also notes the servility shown by UK officials to US power, given that the treaty permits Washington to “demand extradition of UK citizens and others for offences committed against US law. This is so even though the supposed offence may have been committed in the UK by a person living in the UK.”
In Hitchen’s mind, it was inconceivable to envisage a situation where the US would reciprocate: submitting its citizens to the UK for leaking British secret documents. But allowing Assange to face trial in the US would mean that “any British journalist who comes into possession of classified material from the US, though he has committed no crime according to our own law, faces the same danger.” The process undermined national sovereignty and threatened press freedom. No English court, he argued, “should accept this demand.” Were the courts to fail, “any self-respecting Home Secretary should overrule them.”
Fittingly, and accurately, Hitchens describes the effort mounted against Assange as “a lawless kidnap” against an individual who exposed “inconvenient” truths of US power. It would be heartening to see more journalists, notably British ones, turning their mind to this awful reality, instead of falling for yellow press, click-bait distractions.
Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge. He lectures at RMIT University, Melbourne. Email: bkampmark@gmail.com
This has been a great development and the culmination of a great effort since 1945 that notably involved my home city of Melbourne, Australia, in which the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) was founded in April 2007 . ICAN now has 570 partner organizations in over 100 countries [2, 3].
The TPNW [4, 5] is a powerful instrument of International Law because it not only prohibits nuclear weapons but also prohibits complicit and supportive actions by pro-nuclear terrorism states. Thus there are +13,400 nuclear weapons in the world held by 9 nuclear-armed states (US, Russia, China, France, UK, Pakistan, India, North Korea and Apartheid Israel) that are backed by 32 nuclear-weapon endorsing states [3].
Nuclear weapons represent an existential threat to Humanity and the Biosphere. A nuclear exchange (that could happen by accident at any time) would wipe out most of Humanity (current population about 7.6 billion), successively through the initial instantaneous destruction of cities, subsequent deaths from burns and radiation sickness from radioactive fallout, and finally through a “Nuclear Winter” decimating agriculture, photosynthesis and photosynthate-based life in general. While imposing deadly Sanctions on Iran (that has zero nuclear weapons and repeatedly states that it does not want nuclear weapons and wants a nuclear weapons-free Middle East), the US (about 6,000 nuclear weapons) is boosting its nuclear and conventional forces in Asia and Australia, and continues to pour billions of dollars of military aid into the war criminal, genocidally racist, ethnic cleansing, grossly human rights-abusing, serial war criminal, democracy by genocide and nuclear terrorist rogue state of Apartheid Israel that reportedly has about 90 nuclear weapons [6, 7].
The upper estimates of stored nuclear weapons are as follows together with the population of each country: US (5,800-6,185; 331.6 million), Russia (6,372-6,490; 145.0 million), China (300-320; 1,439.3 million), France (290; 65.3 million), UK (200-215; 68.0 million), Pakistan (160; 222.3 million), India (150; 1,384.4 million), Apartheid Israel (90; Jewish Israeli population 6.7 million), and North Korea (30-40; 25.8 million) [6].
A possible measure of the relative moral depravity of the nuclear terrorist states is the ratio of “number of nuclear weapons” to “population in millions” : Russia (44.4), US (18.1), Apartheid Israel Jewish population (13.4), France (4.4), UK (3.1), North Korea (1.4), Pakistan (0.7), China (0.2), and India (0.1).
ICAN: “The truth about nuclear weapons: catastrophic harm, existential threat. Nuclear weapons are the most inhumane and indiscriminate weapons ever created. They violate international law, cause severe environmental damage, undermine national and global security, and divert vast public resources away from meeting human needs. They must be eliminated urgently” [3].
Famed physicist Professor Stephen Hawking has succinctly summarized the existential threat from nuclear weapons and man-made climate change in addressing the question “Will we survive on Earth?”(2018): “In January 2018, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, a journal founded by some of the physicists who had worked on the Manhattan Project to produce the first atomic weapons, moved the Doomsday Clock, their measurement of the imminence of catastrophe – military or environmental – facing our planet, forward to two minutes to midnight… In 1947, the clock was set at seven minutes to midnight. It is now closer to Doomsday than at any time since then, save in the early 1950s at the start of the Cold War… We see great peril if governments and societies do not take action now to render nuclear weapons obsolete and to prevent further climate change” [8].
(1). The United Nations Treaty on Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons crucially lists prohibited activities:
“Article 1 Prohibitions
(1). Each State Party undertakes never under any circumstances to:
(a). Develop, test, produce, manufacture, otherwise acquire, possess or stockpile nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices;
(b). Transfer to any recipient whatsoever nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices or control over such weapons or explosive devices directly or indirectly;
(c). Receive the transfer of or control over nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices directly or indirectly;
(d). Use or threaten to use nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices;
(e). Assist, encourage or induce, in any way, anyone to engage in any activity prohibited to a State Party under this Treaty;
(f). Seek or receive any assistance, in any way, from anyone to engage in any activity prohibited to a State Party under this Treaty;
(g). Allow any stationing, installation or deployment of any nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices in its territory or at any place under its jurisdiction or control” [4].
From the 22 January 2021 the 9 nuclear terrorist states and the 32 non-nuclear but nuclear terrorism-endorsing states will he grossly violating the United Nations Treaty on Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. My own country, US lackey Australia, is second only to Trump America as a supporter of nuclear terrorist Apartheid Israel, and deliberately intends to violate the Treaty on Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, specifically items (e), (f) and (g) of the Article 1 Prohibitions, as set out below.
(2). Pro-nuclear terrorism Coalition-ruled Australia intends to knowingly and deliberately violate the United Nations Treaty on Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.
The utterly reprehensible anti-TPNW position of the US lackey, nuclear terrorist Coalition Australian Government has been articulated by the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT): “What is the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT)? The major international treaty on nuclear weapons. This provides enduring benefits in curtailing the proliferation of nuclear weapons, advancing nuclear disarmament and underpinning the right of all nations to the peaceful uses of nuclear energy. Over 190 states are party to this cornerstone treaty, which has been in place for nearly half a century… What is Australia’s view of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (ban treaty)? Australia does not support the “ban treaty” which we believe would not eliminate a single nuclear weapon. Additionally, it creates parallel obligations to the NPT [Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty], has not engaged any state that possesses nuclear weapons in its negotiations, ignores the realities of the global security environment, has weaker safeguards provisions than the existing NPT framework, and it would be inconsistent with our US alliance obligations. The ban treaty has yet to enter into force” [9].
(3). Decent Australians support ratification of the United Nations Treaty on Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.
In stark contrast to the indecent Liberal Party-National Party Coalition Government’s pro-nuclear terrorism position, civilized Australians support ratification of the United Nations Treaty on Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, as exampled below.
Anthony Albanese (Labor Leader of the Opposition) (2020): “Labor welcomes the 50th nation ratifying the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons – which will mean it will now come into force. We congratulate International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) and advocates for the significant milestone. The ambition of a world free of nuclear weapons is one that Labor shares. Labor has committed to signing and ratifying the treaty after taking account the need to ensure an effective verification and enforcement architecture, interaction of the Treaty with the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, and achieving universal support” [10].
The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) (2018): “The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) applauds the Australian Labor Party for committing to sign and ratify the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons when in government. The policy commitment took place at the 2018 Labor Conference, where party members voted in favour of MP Anthony Albanese’s resolution setting out that Labor, in government, would sign and ratify the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons” [11].
Marianne Hanson (Associate Professor of International Relations at the University of Queensland) writing in “The Interpreter” of the Lowy Institute (2020): “While in the past the spotlight of shame might have been focused only on states such as North Korea and potentially Iran – so called “rogue states” – as distasteful regimes which seek to possess and even use these weapons of mass destruction, the TPNW [Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons] brands all nine nuclear weapon states (the United States, Russia, Britain, France, China, India, Pakistan, Israel and North Korea) as violators of international humanitarian law… For Australia, it is feasible to join the TPNW and still maintain ties to the US, but it will have to renounce any idea of being “protected” by US nuclear weapons. The ANZUS [Australia, New Zealand and US Treaty] alliance can continue, based on the (not inconsiderable) clout of American conventional weapons. Some allies of the US have already signed the TPNW, and people in several NATO states are calling on their governments to sign the treaty, recognising that security does not have to depend on the threat to annihilate millions of people. The issue can no longer be dodged: with the TPNW becoming international law, Australia, like all states which have not yet joined the treaty, will be faced with the choice of either committing to a rules-based order where international law, humanitarianism and respect for the UN prevail, or remaining subservient to an archaic system which threatens massive nuclear destruction” [12].
Australian Greens Peace and Nuclear Disarmament spokesperson, Senator Jordon Steele-John, called for Australian to sign the United Nation Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons on the 75th Anniversary of first atomic bombing in Hiroshima (2020): “Each year the anniversary of the devastating events that occurred in Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the end of World War II should be a time for reflection, remembrance and an acknowledgment of the role that Australian Government’s have played in the nuclear chain. It’s time for Australia to sign the United Nations Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons and commit to their elimination”[13]. The Australian Greens are 100% behind the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.ICAN reporting on the formation of a multi-party Parliamentary Friends of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (June 2020): “ Parliamentary Friends of the Treaty
ICAN reporting on the formation of a multi-party Parliamentary Friends of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (June 2020): “ Parliamentary Friends of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons was launched via video-conference today, with former US Secretary of Defense William J Perry and the Director of Policy at the Ploughshares Fund, Tom Collina. The new group is a cross-party forum for federal Australian parliamentarians to “meet and interact with nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation advocates on matters relating to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, and to discuss ways to ensure the Treaty’s success into the future…The group is co-chaired by Ged Kearney MP (Australian Labor Party), Senator Jordon Steele-John (Australian Greens) and Ken O’Dowd MP (The Nationals), and has 22 members in total from the Australian Labor Party, Australian Greens, the Liberal Party, Centre Alliance, the Nationals as well as independents. At the launch, Mr O’Dowd[Nationals] shared his experience of witnessing firsthand the devastating legacy of nuclear testing in Kazakhstan, and Senator Steele-John [Greens] stated that “the elimination of nuclear weapons is not a policy initiative to strive for but prerequisite of human life on this planet”… Eighty-eight members of the federal Parliament have pledged to work for Australia to sign and ratify the treaty, as well as hundreds of state and territory parliamentarians.
While the Australian Government remains opposed to joining the ban treaty, the federal Opposition, the Australian Labor Party, has committed to sign and ratify in government. Support for the treaty is high among the general public at 79% (Ipsos, November 2018) and local councils are joining the call with 27 endorsing the ICAN Cities Appeal” [14].
Dr Tony Bartone (president of the Australian Medical Association) (29 October 2020): “Today is International Human Rights Day, and the 70th Anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which states that ‘everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person’. It also marks one year since the Australian-led International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. In April 2018, the World Medical Association called on all countries to sign, ratify, and implement the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, based on the devastating long-term health consequences of nuclear weapons. The AMA supports this call, and strongly encourages the Government to sign the Treaty” [15].
The intention of the Australian Labor Party to ratify the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons if it gains office is somewhat problematic. After the US CIA-backed removal of the reformist Gough Whitlam Labor Government in the 11 November 1975 Coup [16], Labor pragmatically adopted a policy of “all the way with the USA”, and has slavishly adhered to this craven, despicable and US lackey policy ever since. Philip Agee’s “Inside the Company. CIA Diary” [17] was an insider’s account of US subversion of South American countries. On reading the section about the CIA “running” US “assets” in Ecuador (including leading government and opposition politicians, and trade union leaders) it was obvious who the corresponding Australian “US assets” were, the most obvious being former trade union leader and thence long-term Labor PM Bob Hawke (1983 to 1991). Back in 1982 the respected Labor Premier of Victoria, John Cain, sought to prohibit visits of possibly nuclear-armed US navy vessels to Victoria but was slapped down by the Prime Minister of Australia, Malcolm Fraser (the beneficiary of the 1975 Coup), who determined that this was a Federal not a State power [18]. In 1984 under “US asset” Labor PM Bob Hawke, Australia cravenly surrendered to US demands that visiting US warships would not have to declare whether or not they carried nuclear weapons [19].
“US asset” Hawke was also evidently complicit in secret US nuclear missile tests in which missiles landed off the Australian coast.
(4). Sanctions must be applied to TPNW-violating nuclear terrorist states and to all States that “ assist” nuclear weapons-possessing countries in their nuclear obscenity.
Well, the Nuclear Weapons Ban has now been achieved, comes into force on 22 January 2021, and from then on all nuclear terrorist states and the non-nuclear states assisting them will be called to account through prosecutions, litigations and Boycotts, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS).
(a). “Small” nuclear powers like, Apartheid Israel (Jewish Israeli population 6.7 million) and North Korea (25.8 million), France (population 65.3 million) and the UK (population 68.0 million) are the “low hanging fruit” most likely to be pressured successfully by “carrot or stick” policies, and should be particularly vulnerable to consequent sanctions e.g. Boycotts, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) that were successfully applied to neo-Nazi Apartheid Israel-backed, neo-Nazi Apartheid South Africa and which are now being applied world-wide to the world’s only remaining Apartheid state, nuclear terrorist, neo-Nazi Apartheid Israel. It is intolerable that 6.7 million fanatical and genocidal Zionists should be in possession of 90 nuclear weapons.
(b). Sanctions – such as Boycotts, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) – should also be applied against the numerous countries that (a) host US bases, (b) host US nuclear weapons, (c) host nuclear-armed warships, or (d) host nuclear terrorism-related communications facilities. NATO countries are clearly complicit in US, UK and French nuclear terrorism, as is non-NATO member but US lackey Australia. Thus when a US nuclear-armed warship is in an Australian port, Australia is effectively hosting US nuclear weapons and making Australia a nuclear target. Australia is deeply complicit in nuclear terrorism by hosting a huge US Marine base in Darwin, hosting nuclear-armed warships in general, and hosting joint US-Australian nuclear terrorism-related communications facilities such as that at Pine Gap in Central Australia (crucial for US nuclear terrorism and electronic spying from Africa to the Pacific) [20] and North West Cape, Western Australia (communications to nuclear armed submarines) [21]. Indeed the US has about 800 military bases that are located in over 70 countries, whereas the UK, France, and Russia have a collective total of only about 30 such foreign-located bases [22].
(c). Boycotts, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) should also be applied against all the pro-nuclear terrorism countries that refuse to join the present 50 nations who support the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW; Nuclear Weapons Ban).
(5). US lackey and pronuclear terrorism Australia will grossly violate the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW).
Australia under an anti-science, pro-war, pro-nuclear terrorism, US lackey, pro-Apartheid Israel and hence pro-Apartheid Coalition Government faces a big reality check on 22 January 2021 as a non-nuclear weapons state that will break International Law by continuing to “assist” nuclear weapons states in their nuclear weapons activities.
a). Australia is second only to Trump America as a supporter of nuclear terrorist Apartheid Israel. This should attract international calumny because Zionism is genocidal racism, and Nazism without gas chambers. Apartheid Israel is a nuclear terrorist, racist Zionist-run, genocidally racist, serial war criminal, grossly human rights abusing, democracy by genocide, Nazi-style rogue state. However nuclear terrorist Apartheid Israel is fervently supported by 100% of Coalition MPs (out of conviction) and perhaps 70% of Labor MPs (mostly out of cowardice rather than conviction, one hopes). Nuclear terrorist Apartheid Israel is the lowest of the low hanging nuclear terrorist fruit. The US (population 331.6 million) is a law unto itself but Apartheid Israel (Jewish Israeli population 6.7 million) is vastly more vulnerable to humane global action because of its extreme exceptionalism. If every country in the world was like Apartheid Israel and had 90/6.7million = 13.4 nuclear weapons per million of population, then there would be 102,000 nuclear weapons in the world. In the TPNW-empowered World a pro-Apartheid Australia will discover the cost of supporting a nuclear terrorist Apartheid rogue state. Thus Australia makes donations to Apartheid Israel tax deductible whereas donations to Palestinian orphanages or other charities in the Gaza Concentration Camp could possibly be punished by life imprisonment (pro-Apartheid Israel, state terrorist Australia conveniently classes popular, indigenous national liberation organizations such as Hamas and Hezbollah as “terrorists”). Australia is closely connected to nuclear terrorist Apartheid Israel through university-based military research [23, 24], and purchase of Israel weapons and control systems that the Israelis boast they have pre-tested on horribly abused Palestinians and on Arabs in general.
(b). Australia is a lavish US ally and has a key role in US nuclear terrorism. Australia plays a key role in US nuclear terrorism via its joint US-Australian electronic monitoring stations at Pine Gap (Northern Territory) and North West Cape (Western Australia).
(c). The US makes Australia a prime nuclear target in any carefully escalating nuclear war. In any tit-for-tat initial nuclear exchange between the US and another country, one supposes that a tit-for-tat nuclear attack on a US city would lead to all-out nuclear war and the end of human civilization. However the victim of a limited US first strike (accidental or on purpose) might choose to respond by destroying an Australian target rather than an American target, and the US might then decide to leave matters there.
(d ). Australia played a key role in UK nuclear terrorism with continuing radioactive pollution concerns. Australia helped the UK test nuclear weapons and develop missile delivery systems in Australia. The UK also deliberately polluted Maralinga in South Australia with deadly plutonium as revealed by Australian journalists Brian Toohey and Ian Anderson [19, 25, 26]. Despite public outcry, the McClelland Royal Commission, and consequent attempted clean-up, radioactive contamination remains as a continuing testament to continuing Australian complicity in UK nuclear terrorism in violation of the TPNW.
(e). Australia is a key member of the US Alliance that includes the nuclear terrorist states of the US, UK, France and Apartheid Israel. Continuing Australian participation in support of military and other strategic activities of any nuclear weapons states will violate International Law as set out in the TPNW. Australia continues to host nuclear-armed warships in its ports, hosts up to 3,000 US Marines in a base in Darwin, and Australia only learned via a US Congress report that the US is planning a huge military port facility in Darwin (the existing port having been long-term leased to China) [27]. Australia sold uranium to the US, UK and France that was later supplied (after refinement) to Apartheid Israel by the US.
(f). Likely border closure sanctions against Australia. The Covid-19 pandemic was largely successfully controlled in Australia, East Asia, New Zealand, and the South Pacific by closure of borders [28]. The precedent has been established and after 22 January 2021 – with the Covid-19 pandemic very likely still out of control in North America, Latin America, Africa, and South Asia – border closure with Australia for violation of the TPNW is a possible avenue of action by decent, pro-humanity countries.
(g). Australian strategists are adumbrating Australia hosting nuclear missiles and acquiring nuclear weapons. The serial war criminal US has surrounded China with a ring of steel, and is ramping up threats to China, including threats from nuclear missiles [29]. Professor Hugh White, a leading expert on strategic matters, and others have raised the matters of Australia hosting US nuclear-armed missiles targeting China, and indeed of Australia acquiring its own nuclear weapons [29-32]. For an expert and humane critique see [33].The TPNW will make such obscene regressions illegal under International Law.
(h). Australia is a major uranium exporter but “military” and “peaceful” uses cannot be disentangled. Australia is a major uranium exporter but in a warehouse containing Australian yellow cake there is no difference between that for “military” and that for “peaceful” uses except for any destination label on the drum. Australian uranium exports inevitably contributed to US, UK, French and Apartheid Israeli nuclear terrorism. Thus Australian scholar Evan Jones:“ Over 75% of [French] domestic electricity consumption comes from nuclear power. This dominance is the product of a strategic move in the 1970s; the oil shock had compounded France’s long term (and continuing) dependence on oil imports. But nuclear energy is also the child of France’s force de frappe – in the context of the Cold War, how could one be a great nation without nuclear weaponry?” [34]. Indeed I recall a report of a visiting French leader inadvertently (in French) praising Australian collaboration in the development of the French force de frappe (the French nuclear weapons arsenal). The US and France were both involved in the acquisition of nuclear weapons by Apartheid Israel, and Australia is second only to America as a supporter of nuclear terrorist Apartheid Israel.
(i). Australian Government-compliant subversion of Australia by nuclear terrorist rogue states. Australian complicity in US, UK, and Apartheid Israeli nuclear terrorism is underscored by subversion of Australia by these nuclear terrorist states. This massive and dangerous subversion is aided by the extraordinary cowardice, immorality, treason and mendacity of Mainstream journalist, editor, politician, academic and commentariat presstitutes in US lackey and Zionist-subverted Australia. Numerous examples can be given. Thus the US and UK were involved in the 1975 Coup that removed the Whitlam Labor Government, with Australian involvement in US nuclear terrorism via Pine Gap being a major covert issue [16, 19]. 35 years later the popularly elected Australian Labor PM, Kevin Rudd, was removed in a US-approved, mining corporation-backed and pro-Zionist-led Coup as attested by several anti-racist Jewish Australia writers but resolutely white-washed by the Mainstream [35-37]. Australian Mainstream media are heavily dominated by the pro-nuclear terrorism Murdoch media empire that has captured 70% of the daily newspaper readership. Post-9/11, Australians have been subject to massive government surveillance and the US shares a huge volume of raw intelligence on Australians with Apartheid Israel [38]. Apartheid Israel and its traitorous Zionist agents have comprehensively perverted and subverted Australians and Australian institutions. Apartheid Israel has been involved in kidnapping, falsely imprisoning, robbing, torturing, wounding, shooting, bombing, killing, perverting, subverting, compromising, intimidating, censoring, defaming and deceiving Australians, but successive traitorous and cowardly Australian Governments (whether Labor or Coalition) mostly look the other way [39-42]. Indeed there is presently massive US-inspired Sinophobic hysteria over an asserted “threat” from China but Ali Kazak (former Palestinian Ambassador to Australia) has commented: “Forget China, no country has interfered, spied and endangered Australia’s security, sovereignty and the integrity of its national institutions more than Israel and its powerful lobbyists” [41].
(j). Australia subverts the Pacific for US, UK, French and Apartheid Israeli nuclear terrorism. The UK, US and France have used the Pacific to conduct hundreds of high-yield nuclear tests that have left an appalling legacy of nuclear contamination, morbidity and mortality. This led to massive Indigenous Pacific opposition to such tests led by New Zealand, and demands for a nuclear weapons-free Pacific. However the nuclear terrorist states variously hit back. New Zealand was punished by being expelled from the ANZUS Treaty for objecting to nuclear-armed warships in its ports, and French state terrorists sank the Greenpeace “Rainbow Warrior” ship in the port of Auckland, killing a photographer. Fiji was punished by the overthrow of the multiracial Fiji Labor Government led by Dr Timoci Bavadra in a variously US-, UK- , Australia- and Apartheid Israel-complicit Coup in 1987 [43, 44]. Indeed that Coup was followed by a further Coup in 1987, the 2000 Coup led by an Australian George Speight, and a 2006 Coup by the Fiji Army against corruption and racism of the former Coup plotters. William Blum in “Rogue State” attributes the 1987 Fiji Coup to the US [44]. US lackey Australia as US Deputy Sheriff in the South Pacific had to be involved (it crucially and coincidentally invited the exemplary Fiji Army Commander in Chief to Australia for the time during which his insubordinate and criminal subordinates took advantage of his absence and staged the Coup). Anecdotally, Apartheid Israel may have supplied weapons for the 1987 Coup smuggled into Fiji disguised as agricultural piping. In the 2000 Coup Apartheid Israel supplied weapons to the Coup plotters as revealed in a subsequent trial of a Coup plotter as reported by Radio New Zealand [45, 46]. Famed physicist Professor Stephen Hawking: “We see great peril if governments and societies do not take action now to render nuclear weapons obsolete and to prevent further climate change” [8]. Pacific Island states are existentially threated by both nuclear weapons and climate change. Pro-nuclear terrorism Australia has massively contributed to the nuclear threat, and as a leading climate criminal country threatens the Pacific Islands with Climate Genocide [47-49].
Final comments.
Writing on 11 August, 2014 in Countercurrents I stated: “Our world is acutely threatened by nuclear weapons, poverty and man climate change. A comprehensive Nuclear Weapons Ban is needed to avoid an accidental full-scale nuclear catastrophe and a consequent Nuclear Winter that will wipe out most of Humanity and the Biosphere. Every person must stand up for Humanity and the Biosphere in the One Percenter War on Terra. This week saw the 69th anniversary of the war criminal American nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on 6 August and 9 August, respectively, in 1945. The previous week saw the death at 93 of the last crew member of the US bomber Enola Gay that dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima. In America ‘s war criminal nuclear bombing of Japan up to 166,000 were killed in Hiroshima and up to 80,000 perished in Nagasaki . These utterly unjustified, war criminal attacks were militarily unnecessary, evidently simply “proof of principle”, and strategically a US warning to other nations (notably the USSR) of America’s ability, preparedness and resolve to repeatedly commit mass murder… ” [50].
Six years later that sort of moral indignation is now backed up by the authority of International Law with the 50th ratification of the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW). From 22 January 2021 all nuclear terrorist states and all non-nuclear states supporting their nuclear terrorism will be in gross violation of International Law. Affected non-nuclear states from nuclear waste contaminated Pacific Island nations such as Kiribati to nuclear holocaust-threatened Iran will be empowered to take action under International Law against nuclear terrorist states by Boycotts, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS), border closures, tariffs against nuclear terrorist states, International Criminal Court prosecutions and International Court of Justice litigations.
The atomic bombing of Japan 75 years ago involved the intentional selective mass murder of Japanese civilians (genocide [52, 53]), of women (femicide, gendercide), children (paedocide) and the elderly (gerocide) [28]. However a nuclear exchange and consequent “nuclear winter” will involve mass loss of species (speciescide), and of ecosystems (ecocide) leading to death of most life (omnicide) and death of most of the living planet (terracide). If you and your children and grandchildren magically survive the nuclear holocaust and the subsequent nuclear winter, your descendants may well ask you “What did you do in the War on Terra?” Decent people are obliged to (a) inform everyone they can , and (b) urge and apply Boycotts, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) against all nuclear terrorist countries and the non-nuclear countries supporting nuclear terrorism. Indeed such Boycotts, Divestment and Sanctions should be applied to all people, politicians, parties, countries, collectives and corporations supporting nuclear terrorism.
References.
[1]. Jennifer Knox, “A historic nuclear weapons ban treaty is set to become international law: here’s what that means”, Union of Concerned Scientists, 24 October 2020: https://allthingsnuclear.org/jknox/an-historic-nuclear-ban-treaty-is-set-to-become-international-law-heres-what-that-means?utm_source=Nature+Briefing&utm_campaign=427b6f8c3c-briefing-dy-20201027&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_c9dfd39373-427b6f8c3c-44714333 .
[2]. “International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons”, Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Campaign_to_Abolish_Nuclear_Weapons .
[3]. ICAN: https://www.icanw.org/ .
[4]. United Nations Treaty on Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, 7 July 2020: http://undocs.org/A/CONF.229/2017/8 .
[5]. “Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons”, Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_on_the_Prohibition_of_Nuclear_Weapons .
[6]. “Nuclear weapons ban, end poverty and reverse climate change”: https://sites.google.com/site/drgideonpolya/nuclear-weapons-ban .
[7]. List of states with nuclear weapons”, Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_states_with_nuclear_weapons .
[8]. Stephen Hawking, “Brief Answers to the Big Questions”, John Murray, 2018, Chapter 7.
[9]. Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT):, “Australia and nuclear weapons”: https://www.dfat.gov.au/international-relations/security/non-proliferation-disarmament-arms-control/nuclear-issues/Pages/australia-and-nuclear-weapons .
[10]. “50th ratification of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons”, Inbox News, 25 October 2020: https://inbox.news/newsroom/press-releases/8668/50th-ratification-of-the-treaty-on-the-prohibition-of-nuclear-weapons .
[11]. The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN, Australian Labor Party commits to joining Nuclear Ban Treaty”, December 2018: https://www.icanw.org/australian_labor_party_commits_to_joining_nuclear_ban_treaty .
[12]. Marianne Hanson, “Where will Australia stand on banning weapons of mass destruction?” The Interpreter, 27 October 2020: https://www.lowyinstitute.org/the-interpreter/where-will-australia-stand-banning-weapons-mass-destruction .
[13]. Jordon Steele-John, “75th anniversary of Hiroshima: Australia must sign UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons”, Greens, 6 August 2020: https://greensmps.org.au/articles/75th-anniversary-hiroshima-australia-must-sign-un-treaty-prohibition-nuclear-weapons .
[14]. ICAN , “Parliamentary Friends of the TPNW formed”, 30 June 2020: https://icanw.org.au/parliamentary-friends-of-the-tpnw-is-launched/ .
[15]. AMA, “Australia must sign UN Treaty on Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons”, 29 October 2020: https://ama.com.au/media/australia-must-sign-un-treaty-prohibition-nuclear-weapons .
[16]. John Pilger, “The British-American Coup that ended Australian independence”, Guardian, 23 October 2014: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/oct/23/gough-whitlam-1975-coup-ended-australian-independence .
[17]. Philip Agee, “Inside the Company. CIA Diary”, Farrar Straus & Giroux, 1975.
[18]. “PM transcripts”, 1982: https://pmtranscripts.pmc.gov.au/sites/default/files/original/00005829.pdf .
[19]. Brian Toohey, “Secrets. The making of Australia’s security state”, Melbourne University Press, 2019.
[20]. “Pine Gap”, Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pine_Gap .
[21]. “Naval Communication Station Harold E. Holt’, Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naval_Communication_Station_Harold_E._Holt .
[22]. David Vine, “Where in the world is the U.S. military?”, Politico, July/August 2015: https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/06/us-military-bases-around-the-world-119321 .
[23]. Gideon Polya, “Australian Universities Complicit With Pro-Zionist Censorship And Genocidal Israeli Militarism”, Countercurrents, 24 May 2012: https://countercurrents.org/polya240512.htm .
[24]. Vacy Vlazna, “Israeli Hawkademia in Australian Universities”, Palestinian Chronicle, 2 May 2012: https://www.palestinechronicle.com/israeli-hawkademia-in-australian-universities/ .
[25]. “Maralinga”, Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maralinga .
[26]. Ian Anderson, “Britain’s dirty deeds at Maralinga: Fresh evidence suggests that Britain knew in the 1960s that radioactivity at its former nuclear test site in Australia was worse than first thought. But it did not tell the Australians”, New Scientist, 12 June 1993: https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg13818772-700/ .
[27]. Andrew Greene, “America’s $300 million push to expand naval facilities in northern Australia”, ABC News, 29 July 2019: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-07-29/americas-push-to-expand-naval-facilities-in-northern-australia/11354926 .
[28]. Gideon Polya, “US Alliance Covid-19 Gerocide – intentional mass killing of elderly by US Alliance countries”, Countercurrents, 21 October 2020: https://countercurrents.org/2020/10/us-alliance-covid-19-gerocide-intentional-mass-killing-of-elderly-by-us-alliance-countries/ .
[29]. John Pilger, “The coming war on China”, John Pilger, 2019: http://johnpilger.com/videos/the-coming-war-on-china .
[30]. Hugh White, “US could ask Australia to host nuclear missiles”, The Strategist, 17 January 2019: https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/us-could-ask-australia-to-host-nuclear-missiles/ .
[31]. Rod Lyon, “Should Australia build its own nuclear arsenal?”, The Strategist, 24 October 2019: https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/should-australia-build-its-own-nuclear-arsenal/ .
[32]. “Nukes in an uncertain world”, ABC TV, Q&A, 7 August 2019: https://www.abc.net.au/qanda/2019-08-07/11262430 .
[33]. Mark Diesendorf and Richard Broinowski, “A covert push for nuclear weapons?”, Australian Institute of International Affairs, 26 August 2019: https://www.internationalaffairs.org.au/australianoutlook/a-covert-push-for-nuclear-weapons/
[34]. Evan Jones, “Hollande may not like it, but French nuclear is full steam ahead”, The Conversation, 18 May 2012: https://theconversation.com/hollande-may-not-like-it-but-french-nuclear-is-full-steam-ahead-7073 .
[35]. Antony Loewenstein, “Does the Zionist lobby have blood on its hands in Australia ?”: http://antonyloewenstein.com/2010/07/02/does-the-zionist-lobby-have-blood-on-its-hands-in-australia/ .
[36]. Gideon Polya, “Pro-Zionist-led Coup ousts Australian PM Rudd”, MWC News, 29 June 2010.
[37]. Gideon Polya , “Media-Ignored US, Corporate And Zionist Subversion Of Australian Democracy In Ex-PM Rudd-PM Gillard Battle”, Countercurrents, 27 February, 2012: https://countercurrents.org/polya270212.htm
[38]. Philip Dorling, “US shares raw intelligence on Australian with Israel”, Sydney Morning Herald, 12 September 2013: http://www.smh.com.au/national/us-shares-raw-intelligence-on-australians-with-israel-20130911-2tllm.htm
[39]. Gideon Polya, “Racist Zionism and Israeli State Terrorism threats to Australia and Humanity”, Palestinian Genocide: https://sites.google.com/site/palestiniangenocide/racist-zionism-and-israeli ).
[40]. “Subversion of Australia”: https://sites.google.com/site/subversionofaustralia/home .
[41]. Ali Kazak, “Why should Israel’s lobby have different standards?”, Independent Australia, 9 November 2017: https://independentaustralia.net/politics/politics-display/does-the-nation-have-a-new-white-australia-foreign-affairs-policy,10913 .
[42]. Gideon Polya, “Pro-Apartheid Israel Australian Labor Party Scraps Outstanding Anti-Israel Apartheid Candidate, Melissa Parke”, Global Research, 18 April 2019: https://www.globalresearch.ca/pro-apartheid-israel-australian-labor-party-anti-apartheid-candidate-melissa-parke/5674801 .
[43]. Gideon Polya, “Anti-Indian subversion of Fiji by Apartheid Israel, Pro-Apartheid Australia & pro-Apartheid America”, Countercurrents, 20 October 2017: http://www.countercurrents.org/2017/10/20/anti-indian-subversion-of-fiji-by-apartheid-israel-pro-apartheid-australia-pro-apartheid-america/ .
[44]. William Blum, “Rogue State: A Guide to the World’s Only Superpower” (pages 199-200).
[45]. Radio New Zealand, “Fiji treason trial hears of rebels’ weapons supplied by Israel”, 3 December 2002: http://www.radionz.co.nz/international/pacific-news/141971/fiji-treason-trial-hears-of-rebels%27-weapons-supplied-by-israel .
[46]. “Fiji Coup plotters armed by Israel”, Ummah News and Rense, 3 December 2002: http://rense.com/general32/isir.htm .
[47]. Gideon Polya, “Climate criminal Australia sabotages Pacific Islands Forum & threatens all Island Nations”, Countercurrents, 24 August 2019: https://countercurrents.org/2019/08/climate-criminal-australia-sabotages-pacific-islands-forum-threatens-all-island-nations .
[48]. “Climate genocide”: https://sites.google.com/site/climategenocide/ .
[49]. Gideon Polya, “Climate Crisis, Climate Genocide & Solutions”, Korsgaard Publishing, 2020, in preparation for publication.
[50]. Gideon Polya, “Nuclear Weapons Ban & Boycotts, Divestment & Sanctions (BDS) To Save World From Nuclear, Poverty & Climate Threats”, Countercurrents, 11 August, 2014: https://countercurrents.org/polya110814.htm .
[51]. Gideon Polya, “US-Imposed Post-9/11 Muslim Holocaust & Muslim Genocide” , 400 pages, Korsgaard Publishing, Germany, 4 June 2020: https://www.amazon.com/US-Imposed-Post-9-Muslim-Holocaust-Genocide/dp/8793987056 .
[52]. Gideon Polya, “Racist Mainstream ignores “US-Imposed Post-9/11 Muslim Holocaust & Muslim Genocide””, Countercurrents, 17 July 2020: https://countercurrents.org/2020/07/racist-mainstream-ignores-us-imposed-post-9-11-muslim-holocaust-muslim-genocide/ .
Dr Gideon Polya taught science students at La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia over 4 decades. He published some 130 works in a 5 decade scientific career, most recently a huge pharmacological reference text “Biochemical Targets of Plant Bioactive Compounds” (CRC Press/Taylor & Francis, New York & London , 2003). He has published “Body Count. Global avoidable mortality since 1950” (G.M. Polya, Melbourne, 2007: http://globalbodycount.blogspot.com/ ); see also his contributions “Australian complicity in Iraq mass mortality” in “Lies, Deep Fries & Statistics” (edited by Robyn Williams, ABC Books, Sydney, 2007: http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/ockhamsrazor/australian-complicity-in-iraq-mass-mortality/3369002#transcript ) and “Ongoing Palestinian Genocide” in “The Plight of the Palestinians (edited by William Cook, Palgrave Macmillan, London, 2010: https://countercurrents.org/polya170612.htm ). He has published a revised and updated 2008 version of his 1998 book “Jane Austen and the Black Hole of British History” (see: http://janeaustenand.blogspot.com/ ) as biofuel-, globalization- and climate-driven global food price increases threaten a greater famine catastrophe than the man-made famine in British-ruled India that killed 6-7 million Indians in the “forgotten” World War 2 Bengal Famine (see recent BBC broadcast involving Dr Polya, Economics Nobel Laureate Professor Amartya Sen and others: http://www.open.edu/openlearn/history-the-arts/history/social-economic-history/listen-the-bengal-famine ; Gideon Polya: https://sites.google.com/site/drgideonpolya/home ; Gideon Polya Writing: https://sites.google.com/site/gideonpolyawriting/ ; Gideon Polya, Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gideon_Polya ). He has recently published Gideon Polya, “US-imposed Post-9-11 Muslim Holocaust & Muslim Genocide”, Korsgaard Publishing, Germany, 2020 (for details see: https://korsgaardpublishing.com/portfolio/23945/ ).When words fail one can say it in pictures – for images of Gideon Polya’s huge paintings for the Planet, Peace, Mother and Child see: http://sites.google.com/site/artforpeaceplanetmotherchild/ and http://www.flickr.com/photos/gideonpolya/ .
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These past few months, it’s grown ever harder to recognize life in America. Thanks to Covid-19, basic day-to-day existence has changed in complicated, often confusing ways. Just putting food on the table has become a challenge for many. Getting doctors’ appointments and medical care can take months. Many schools are offering on-line only instruction and good luck trying to get a driver’s license or a passport renewed in person or setting up an interview for Social Security benefits. The backlog of appointments is daunting.
Meanwhile, where actual in-person government services are on tap, websites warn you of long lines and advise those with appointments to bring an umbrella, a chair, and something to eat and drink, as the Department of Motor Vehicles in Hudson, New York, instructed me to do over the summer. According to a September 2020 Yelp report, approximately 164,000 businesses have closed nationwide due to the pandemic, an estimated 60% of them for good. CNBC reports that 7.5 million businesses may still be at risk of closing. Meanwhile, more than 225,000 Americans have died of the coronavirus and, as a winter spike begins, it’s estimated that up to 410,000 could be dead by year’s end.
Then there are the signs of increasing poverty. Food banks have seen vast rises in demand, according to Feeding America, a network of 200 food banks and 60,000 food pantries and meal programs. According to a study done by Columbia University’s Center on Poverty and Social Policy, between February and September, the monthly poverty rate increased from 15% to 16.7%, despite cash infusions from Congress’s CARES Act. That report also concluded that the CARES program, while putting a lid on the rise in the monthly poverty rate for a time, “was not successful at preventing a rise in deep poverty.” And now, of course, Congress seems likely to offer nothing else.
The rate of unemployment is down from a high of 14% in April, but still twice what it was in January 2020 and seemingly stabilizing at a disturbing 8%. Meanwhile, schools and universities are struggling to stay viable. Thirty-four percent of universities are now online and only 4% are conducting fully in-person classes. The policy of stores limiting purchases in the spring and summer is still a fresh memory.
And what about freedom of movement? Dozens of countries, including most of the European Union, Latin America, Japan, Australia, and New Zealand, have barred entry to American tourists and travelers, given this country’s devastatingly high rate of infection. Canada and Mexico just re-upped their bans on U.S. travelers, too. In a sense, the pandemic has indeed helped build a “great, great wall” around America, one that won’t let any of us out.
In fact, Americans are not being welcomed, even by one another. Inside our borders, states are requiring those arriving from other states with high percentages of Covid-19 cases to quarantine themselves for 14 days on arrival (though enforcing such mandates is difficult indeed). New York Governor Andrew Cuomo’s list of places subject to such a travel advisory now includes 43 of the 49 other states.
And as we are reminded on a daily basis in the run-up to Election Day, early voters, especially in heavily minority districts, are being forced to wait long hours in endless lines in states where the pandemic is beginning to spike. In some places, local officials clearly set up the conditions for this as a deterrent to those they would prefer not to see at the polls. In Georgia, where a governor was intent on reducing the numbers of polling places to reduce turnout in African-American neighborhoods, the waiting time recently was up to 11 hours. Early voting lines in New York City “stretched for blocks” in multiple venues.
To top it all off, political and racial violence in the country is climbing, often thanks to uniformed law enforcement officers. From George Floyd’s death to federal officials in unmarked vehicles dragging protesters off the streets of Portland, Oregon, to federal law enforcement officers using rubber bullets and tear gas on a gathering crowd of protestors to clear a path to a local church for President Trump, such cases have made the headlines. Meanwhile, officials across the country are ominously preparing to counter violence on Election Day.
In the face of such challenges and deprivations, Americans, for the most part, are learning to adapt to the consequences of the pandemic, while just hoping that someday it will pass, that someday things will return to normal. As early as March 2020, a Pew poll had already detected a significant uptick in symptoms of anxiety nationwide. The percentage of such individuals had doubled, with young people and those experiencing financial difficulties driving the rise.
The American Psychological Association (APA) considers the pandemic not just an epidemiological but a “psychological crisis.” The website of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has a paper written by two APA authors suggesting that Covid-19 is already taking “a tremendous psychological toll” on the country.
Failing, American-Style
All in all, we find ourselves in a daunting new world, but don’t just blame it on the pandemic. This country was living in a state of denial before Covid-19 hit. The truth is that Americans have been in trouble for a surprisingly long time. The pandemic might have swept away that sense of denial and left us facing a new American reality, as that virus exposed previously ignored vulnerabilities for all to see.
So, expect one thing: that the indicators of America’s decline will far surpass the problems that can be solved by addressing the pandemic’s spread. When Covid-19 is brought under some control, the larger social system may unfortunately remain in tatters, in need of life support, posing new challenges for the country as a whole.
Several observers, witnessing such potentially long-lasting changes to the fabric of American life, have described the United States as resembling a failed state in its reaction to the pandemic. They point not just to the effects of staggering levels of inequality (on the rise for decades) or to a long-term unwillingness to invest in the kind of infrastructure that could keep what’s still the wealthiest country on our planet strong, but to entrenched poverty and the fracturing of work life. Long before the pandemic hit, the Trump administration reflected this downhill slope.
As George Packer recently wrote in the Atlantic, the reaction to the coronavirus crisis here has been more “like Pakistan or Belarus — like a country with shoddy infrastructure and a dysfunctional government whose leaders were too corrupt or stupid to head off mass suffering… Every morning in the endless month of March,” he added, “Americans woke up to find themselves citizens of a failed state,” unable to get the equipment, supplies, tests, or medical help they needed to fight the pandemic.
Looking beyond Covid-19 to the Trump administration’s irresponsible handling of climate change and nuclear weapons, TomDispatch’s Tom Engelhardt has also labeled the country a “failed state,” one that now occupies a singular category (which he called “Fourth World”) among the planet’s countries.
There is no codified definition of a failed state, but there is general agreement that such a country has become unable or unwilling to care for its citizens. Safety and sustenance are at risk and stability in multiple sectors of life has become unpredictable. In 2003, future U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice attempted to craft a workable definition of the term in a report for the Brookings Institution, calling on President George W. Bush to address the underlying causes of failed states. “Failed states,” she wrote, “are countries in which the central government does not exert effective control over, nor is it able to deliver vital services to significant parts of its own territory due to conflict, ineffective governance, or state collapse.”
From the Proud Boys to the Wolverine Watchmen, it has become strikingly clear that, in this pandemic year, the U.S. is indeed becoming an increasingly riven, disturbed land and that nothing, including the election of Joe Biden, will simply make that reality disappear without immense effort.
In the twenty-first century, in fact, the United States has visibly been inching ever closer to failed-state status. In 2006, the Fund for Peace, an organization whose mission is global conflict reduction, human security, and economic development, launched a yearly Failed States Index (FSI), changing its name in 2014 to the Fragile State Index. For the last decade, for instance, Yemen has been among the top 10 most fragile states and, for the last two years, number one. Since 2013, Finland has been at the other end of the scale, number 178, the least failed state on the planet.
What’s interesting, however, is the path the United States has travelled over that same decade, dropping a noteworthy 10 places. Until the Trump years, it consistently stood at number 158 or 159 among the 178 nations on the chart. In the 2018 report, however, it took a turn for the worse. In the 2020 report (based on pre-pandemic numbers), it had dropped to 149, reflecting in particular losses in what FSI calls “cohesion,” based on rising nationalist rhetoric among increasingly riven elites and unequal access to resources in a country where economic inequality was already at staggering levels.
Just imagine, then, what the 2021 Index will likely report next April. At present, when it comes to FSI’s rankings, the United States is in the third of five groupings of countries, behind the Scandinavian countries, most of the other nations of Europe, and Singapore. Given today’s realities, it is poised to fall even further.
The Election Moment
Elections are a crucial factor in separating successful from failing states; fair elections, that is, ones that people in a country trust. As Pauline Baker, the director of the Fund for Peace, points out, “Elections are an essential part of democratization, but they can also be conflict-inducing if they are held too soon, are blatantly manipulated, lack transparency, or are marred by violence.”
All you have to do is think about Donald Trump’s endless claims — that this year’s election will be “rigged,” that mail-in ballots will be a fraud, that he won’t necessarily leave office even if the tallies are against him, and so on — to know that a particularly heavy burden has been placed on the results of November 3rd. Add to that burden threats to the election’s viability via disinformation from foreign agents and hackers, Republican Party attempts at voter suppression, and threats of violence by so-called poll watchers.
Meanwhile, an embattled Supreme Court has been issuing decisions on matters like “faithless electors,” extended voting, and absentee ballots. The record so far has been mixed at best. On the one hand, the justices have voted to keep intact the Electoral College rule that requires electors to honor their pledges to vote according to whatever the voters have decided. They also nixed an attempt by the Republican National Committee to enforce a Rhode Island rule that mail-in voters, under pandemic conditions, must have their ballots signed by either two witnesses or a notary public. And most recently, the Court voted 4-4 to uphold Pennsylvania’s decision to extend the absentee ballot deadline.
For the most part, however, its decisions have gone the other way, upholding more restrictive voting policies in 8 out of 11 cases. In July, for example, the court ruled against a decision in Alabama that had eased restrictions on absentee ballot submissions. That same week, it refused to reinstate an order in Texas allowing all voters to cast mail-in ballots due to the pandemic. Meanwhile, it seems that Pennsylvania Republicans are again trying to narrow the time frame on absentee ballots, announcing that they have returned to the Court for a further decision on the matter in light of Justice Amy Barrett’s certain confirmation.
The point is, this election should matter, both the form it takes and its outcome. If trust in the process of voting goes by the wayside, then the image of the United States as a failing, even a failed state will be hard to dispute. And if there is violence at the polls, or after the vote takes place, then we’ll sense an even deeper failure.
While some may view the coming election as a precipitous cliff, with dangers lurking everywhere, I also see it as an opportunity, which is why the tsunami of early voting, often involving hours of waiting, is an encouraging sign. Despite the abyss that we face after four years of chaos and cruelty, this country still has a chance to prove that we are not a failing state and to reclaim our trust in our government, our protections, and one another. Only then will we be able to begin to repair the economic damage, the rank divisiveness, and the unequal allocation of resources that has fueled our disastrous pandemic response and, with it, a further erosion of trust in government.
Maybe we need to accept the challenge of proving in this election that one of the world’s longest-standing democracies can rise to the occasion and vote to uphold the foundation of its system, elections themselves. Maybe, using this very election, we can harness the civic pride that could lead to a successful restoration of our basic beliefs in constitutional principles and the rule of law. The chance to vote, no matter how long the lines and the wait, might be just the opportunity we need.
Karen J. Greenberg, a TomDispatch regular, is the director of the Center on National Security at Fordham Law, the host of the Vital Interests Podcast, the editor-in-chief of the CNS Soufan Group Morning Brief, and the author of Rogue Justice: The Making of the Security State and editor of Reimagining the National Security State: Liberalism on the Brink. Julia Tedesco helped with research for this article.
Follow TomDispatch on Twitter and join us on Facebook. Check out the newest Dispatch Books, John Feffer’s new dystopian novel (the second in the Splinterlands series) Frostlands, Beverly Gologorsky’s novel Every Body Has a Story, and Tom Engelhardt’s A Nation Unmade by War, as well as Alfred McCoy’s In the Shadows of the American Century: The Rise and Decline of U.S. Global Power and John Dower’s The Violent American Century: War and Terror Since World War II.
Originally published in TomDispatch
Copyright 2020 Karen J. Greenberg
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