Thanks R_P.

questions, questions, questions, 

What is Britain's policy with regards to Israeli nuclear weapons?    The USA is a big unapologetic backer of Israel's nuclear weapons arsenal and its regional monopoly on those weapons.

It is possible to get Pakistan and India to unilaterally disarm their nuclear weapons or is it 'too late'?

 
How are Britain's conventional forces doing these days?  Are they both tactically and politically capable of intervening when called upon?  I ask because politics in the USA dictate that aerial bombing with jet-fighter bombers and unmanned drones are the first line of intervention.  Putting American boots on the ground is too politically risky, too costly.   

Trident rally is Britain's biggest anti-nuclear march in a generation
Thousands of protesters including Jeremy Corbyn and other party leaders gather in London for CND march and rally

black321 wrote:



Thanks for posting black321.  Just wanted to add two comments:

1)  Overall casualties from violent conflicts have been steadily declining in the post-war period.  At the same time, the potential for catastrophic outcomes remains.  We in the West have gifted nuclear weapons to three nation states:  India, Pakistan and Israel.  

The probability of an all-out nuclear exchange is likely close to zero and thus the probability of a nuclear winter is negligible.  The probability of regional nuclear war and a 'nuclear autumn' are as good as ever.  The USA and other powers have bent over backwards to protect the Israeli regional monopoly of nuclear weapons in the Mid-East.  As it can be argued that Israel is using the nuclear arsenal for offensive purposes—the constant flow of settlers into the remaining occupied bits of territory and illegally annexed Jerusalem—this is strategically a very dangerous situation.   Some kind of blow back is highly probable.

2)   Although casualties related to violent conflict have trended down the economic cost as measured from an opportunity cost perspective has gone up.  This is due to greater global economic integration and the digital information age.  

I would guess/speculate that the current slowdown in global economic growth is in part due to a rise in security concerns and a decline in the confidence of hegemonic powers like the USA to manage violent conflict.   

how could this happen?

who in particular is responsible?

and we're forced to pay for such incompetence...

New images show the aftermath of the U.S. airstrike on the Doctors Without Borders hospital in the Afghan city of Kunduz where 22 people were killed.

The remains of a U.S. shell sits on the ground in the aftermath on Oct. 14.

Tomgram: William Astore, "Hi, I'm Uncle Sam and I'm a War-oholic"
Retired Air Force Lieutenant Colonel and TomDispatch regularWilliam Astore suggests that, were the U.S. an individual, we would immediately recognize what such behavior was — addiction — and act accordingly.

War on drugs. War on poverty. War in Afghanistan. War in Iraq. War on terror. The biggest mistake in American policy, foreign and domestic, is looking at everything as war. When a war mentality takes over, it chooses the weapons and tactics for you.  It limits the terms of debate before you even begin. It answers questions before they’re even asked.

When you define something as war, it dictates the use of the military (or militarized police forces, prisons, and other forms of coercion) as the primary instruments of policy.  Violence becomes the means of decision, total victory the goal.  Anyone who suggests otherwise is labeled a dreamer, an appeaser, or even a traitor.

War, in short, is the great simplifier — and it may even work when you’re fighting existential military threats (as in World War II).  But it doesn’t work when you define every problem as an existential one and then make war on complex societal problems (crime, poverty, drugs) or ideas and religious beliefs (radical Islam). (...)

Global conflicts 'cost 13% of world GDP'

Conflicts around the world cost $14.3tn (£9.1tn) last year, 13% of world GDP, says a survey on global peace.

That amount is equivalent to the combined economies of Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, Spain and the United Kingdom, the report by the Institute for Economics and Peace (IEP) said.

The divide between the most peaceful and the least peaceful nations was deepening, the annual report added.

Iceland is the world's most peaceful nation, whilst Syria is the least.

Libya saw the most severe deterioration over the course of 2014, according to the Australia-based IEP says.

The Middle East and North Africa now ranks as the world's most violent region, overtaking South Asia which received that ranking for 2013.

Conflict killed 180,000 people in 2014, compared with 49,000 in 2010, the report said.

Deaths caused by terrorism increased by 61% in 2013, the report said, with the loss of almost 18,000 lives - mostly in just five countries, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Nigeria and Syria.

Figures compared

If the world decreased in violence by 10%, it would generate £1.43tn, says the IEP. This amount is equivalent to:

• Six times the total value of Greece's bailout

• Ten times the total official development assistance from rich to poor countries

• Three times the total earnings of the 1.1 billion people living in extreme poverty under $1.25 a day

Source: IEP

The most surprising finding, said IEP Chief Executive Steve Killelea, was the "inequality with peace" around the world.

He said some countries in Western Europe had now reached "quite historic levels of peace", enjoying the lowest levels of murder rates and money spent on security "probably in the countries' history".

But Iraq, Syria, Nigeria, South Sudan and the Central African Republic had all become more violent in the past year, the report said.

The IEP said the total costs of conflict amounted to 13.4% of world GDP.

"Large increases in costs have occurred due to deaths from internal conflict, IDPs and refugee support, UN peacekeeping and GDP losses from conflict," the report said.

It also noted that the cost of supporting some 50 million refugees and IDPs - the largest number since WWII - had risen 267% since 2008 to $128bn.

The report also found that if global violence were to decrease by 10%, it would effectively give the world economy an additional $1.43 trillion - more than six times the amount needed to wipe out Greece's debts, and three times more than the total earnings of some 1.1bn of the world's poorest people.

Putin’s Modulated Response
Obama’s War Machine Inches Forward
by NORMAN POLLACK

The US is spoiling for war, cataclysmic consequences notwithstanding, Russia the near-target, China, if the world survives, next in line. Putin understands this, the whole world outside the West also does. He has acted circumspectly (as in his conversation with Pope Francis), refusing to descend into the labyrinth of pathological obsession with eradicating ideological and systemic differences among nations, in favor of a general tolerance predicated on security and respect for international law. Not so the US, especially with regard to Russia, having violated countless times, beginning with Woodrow Wilson and the Siberian Intervention, both elements of the latter’s identity, sovereignty, and place in the world. Beginning with the Bolshevik Revolution, as in the period 1917-19, America has solemnly committed itself to destroying all traces of communism/socialism as representing the total menace to an American-defined presumed democratic world order, itself the legitimating agency for capitalism enjoying exclusive status as morally and politically acceptable. This is not something new, then, but a carefully wrought policy-framework of increasingly military proportions and barely veiled if at all hostility. (...)

 miamizsun (via Molyneux) wrote:
Far more people profit from it. The military Keynesianism and warmongering has a trickle down effect via jobs (through pork), media coverage ($), ads ($$), stocks, and all sorts of incentives to "support the troops." (little flags, movies, sports, etc.). It becomes a cultural phenomenon: militarism (incl. absurd deference).

How many firefighters, cooks, doctors, or nurses wear their "uniform" when they go on a game show?

red dragon wrote:

Okay, I am no doubt going to lose a few friends over this but... I am sick and tired of the sufferings and exploitation of our military for propaganda. WHY are our service people still dying? WHY do we - or anyone - still require military forces in this world? Seriously!? After all these thousands of years we still find killing each other a viable means of settling disputes? Seriously - WTF? Grow the fuck up, humanity.

i doubt that you'll lose any friends

the state sells the sizzle through fear and nationalism

it also glamorizes/idolizes those who serve as heroes

call it "warnography" if you will

"war is the health of the state" - randolph bourne

from war profit and the state

How does this relate to war and the state? Very closely, in fact – but with very opposite effects!

The economics of war are, at bottom, very simple, and contain three major players: those who decide on war, those who profit from war, and those who pay for war. Those who decide on war are the politicians, those who profit from it are those who supply military materials or are paid for military skills, and those who pay for war are the taxpayers. (The first and second groups, of course, overlap.)

In other words, a corporation that profits from supplying arms to the military is paid through state taxation – and under no other circumstances could the transaction exist, since the risks associated with destruction (as outlined in the table above) are equal to or greater than any profit that could be made.

Now if those who decided on war also paid for it, there would be no such thing as war, since war follows the same economic incentives and costs outlined above. However, those who decide on war do not pay for it – that unpleasant task is relegated to the taxpayers (both current, in the form of direct taxes, and future, in the form of national debt). The risk of war is delegated to the front-line soldiers, of course, but those soldiers would not be in the line of fire if they weren't paid and armed by state taxation.

 

The Obama Arms Bazaar: Record Sales, Troubling Results


The numbers are astonishing. In President Obama’s first five years in office, new agreements under the Pentagon’s Foreign Military Sales (FMS) program—the largest channel for U.S. arms exports—totaled over $169 billion. After adjusting for inflation, the volume of major deals concluded by the Obama administration in its first five years exceeds the amount approved by the Bush administration in its full eight years in office by nearly $30 billion. That also means that the Obama administration has approved more arms sales than any U.S. administration since World War II.

(...) on Tuesday, Williams’ former boss at NBCUniversal, Bob Wright, defended Williams by pointing to his favorable coverage of the military, saying, quote, "He has been the strongest supporter of the military of any of the news players. He never comes back with negative stories, he wouldn’t question if we’re spending too much."

A well-trained (and well-paid) lap dog...

Burying Vietnam, Launching Perpetual War
How Thanking the Veteran Meant Ignoring What Happened

Why is it that the most vocal to express the heroism of our troops are the very ones that are so eager for them to prove it?

(...) Neocons may call him a ‘wimp’, but The President Who Would Rather Play Golf is exactly what the Empire has needed over the past few years. It has needed a front man who doesn’t appear to like war, but who nevertheless keeps on coming back for more. He’s someone who talks the language of peace and conflict resolution, and not interfering in other nations’ affairs, but who still works, like presidents before him, to enforce “regime change” on governments that the US elite wants toppled. Those who believed Obama would be radically different to Bush showed a breathtaking naivety regarding the power of the US military-industrial complex and the huge influence that the pro-Israel lobby, Saudi Arabia, and the Arab oil states have on US foreign policy.

Even if he had really wanted to “stop the war,” Obama would have been unable to do so as he’s no more than the pilot of an imperial juggernaut whose controls have already been set, and which purposely has no reverse gear.

As bad as he’s been from an anti-war viewpoint, the really depressing thing is that there were, and are, no better alternatives – as the system simply won’t allow it.

If you’re anti-war, would you really have preferred Mitt Romney to Obama in 2012? Criticism of Obama has been muted because of the sheer awfulness of the alternatives to him. If we didn’t get President Obama in 2008, we’d have had President McCain.And who would also want to line up with those reactionaries who attack Obama on racial grounds, or who peddle the “Barack Osama – he’s a secret Muslim” line?

There’s also the fact that the man, in spite of his foreign policy, still remains hard to dislike on a personal basis. That too helps the Empire, and it wouldn’t have applied had the obnoxious McCain or smarmy Romney got elected.

Those who think things will improve from an anti-war viewpoint post-Obama are likely to be cruelly disappointed. The face and even the gender of the president may change, but the policies will stay more or less the same.

Already the uber-hawks are rubbing their hands with glee at the prospect of President Hillary Clinton, who they’re sure will be more outwardly aggressive in foreign policy, and who will push the cause of Israel in the Middle East even more forcefully than Obama. She’ll probably face a pro-war Republican candidate in an election in which the military-industrial complex and big business simply can’t lose because both candidates will do what is required of them if they win. Anyone who might pose a challenge to the system, from either the genuine left, or the antiwar libertarian right, won’t get the required funding from Wall Street, and in any case will be portrayed as a “dangerous extremist” or “fanatic” by establishment gatekeepers.

It’s a sorry state of affairs which tells us much about the lack of genuine democracy in the US in the early 21st century. The election of a man like Gerald Ford, who took over the presidency following Nixon’s impeachment and was hailed as America’s “greatest president” by the leftist antiwar writer Alexander Cockburn, or even Jimmy Carter, is now all but impossible – such figures wouldn’t make it through the filter system that weeds out candidates who won’t do more or less exactly what the military-industrial complex and the powerful lobbies want.

So as the bombs rain down on Syria and Iraq (again), it’s worth bearing in mind that the president with the #LatteSalute is probably the least worst we can get without radical, systemic change of the entire American political system.

Whether the public persona is President Wimp or President Macho, it doesn’t really make too much difference. We get warmongering policies to keep Colonel Kilgore happy, whatever happens.

ZCommunications » “Heart of Darkness”: Obama’s Orwellian Chutzpah at the United Nations

 miamizsun wrote: 

 Red_Dragon wrote: 
surreal