US preparing for nuclear war, expert warns

 

     

     By Reginald Johnson

   

    

    As the war between Russia and Ukraine grows more intense, a former UN weapons inspector and intelligence analyst is warning that military officials in the United States are now actively preparing for a nuclear war with Russia.

 Scott Ritter, a former Iraq weapons inspector and intelligence official with the US Marines, claimed that as one option the United States is considering actually starting a nuclear war with Russia by firing a preemptive strike to knock out all of Russia’s nuclear weaponry and emerge victorious, despite maintaining massive human losses.

 “It is high time for everyone from every walk of life to understand the path we are currently on,” said Ritter. “Left unchecked, events are propelling us down a highway to hell that leads to only one destination – a nuclear Armageddon that everyone agrees can’t be won, and yet the United States is at this very moment preparing to ‘win.’ “

 Ritter added, “a nuclear exchange with Russia, even if the United States were able to execute a surprise preemptive nuclear strike, would result in the destruction of dozens of American cities and more than 100 million Americans.

  “And this is if we ‘win,’ ” he said. “And we know that we can’t ‘win’ a nuclear war. And yet we are actively preparing to fight one,” he said.

  Ritter added, “This insanity must stop. Now.”

 Ritter made his comments in his Substack column “On the Brink” posted November 24.

   The former weapons inspector spoke out as the Ukraine war has taken a dangerous turn after President Biden gave approval to Ukraine to fire US-made long-range ballistic missiles at Russia. The green light reversed a previous decision by Biden in September not to allow Ukraine to use the missiles, out of concern that such attacks would lead to a confrontation with Russia, which has the largest nuclear stockpile in the world.

  With the approval granted, Ukraine on November 19 fired six US “ATACMS”  missiles at Russia, near the city of Bryansk. On November 20, Ukraine launched up to a dozen British-made Storm Shadow cruise missiles against a Russian command post in the Kursk province. Russia responded on November 21, firing a new intermediate range missile called the “Oreshnik” against Ukraine, destroying a major arms factory in Dnipropetrovsk. The facility was used by Ukraine and NATO to produce short and intermediate range missiles.

Ukraine has been fighting Russia almost three years. Now there are worries the conflict could go nuclear. (Wikimedia photo)

 Meanwhile, Russian leader Vladimir Putin announced that his country has changed its nuclear use doctrine, lowering the threshold for the use of nuclear weapons.

  The ATACMS and Storm Shadow missile attacks met the threshold for a nuclear response by Russia, Ritter said.

 “Russia has decided not to invoke its nuclear doctrine at this juncture,” said Ritter, “opting instead to eject the operational use of the Oreshnik missile as an intermediate non-nuclear deterrence measure.”

  But the question is, how long will the Russians hold off on going nuclear – if Ukrainian attacks continue?

 It’s clear the risk of a nuclear war starting is the greatest since the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, when the United States and Russia came extremely close to going to war over the placement of Russian missiles on Cuban soil.

 Ritter is a widely respected analyst and commentator on foreign-policy and military issues. He gained fame in 2003 when he called out the Bush administration’s bogus claims that Iraq was hiding weapons of mass destruction. The administration used the WMD claim to launch an invasion of Iraq, triggering a seven-years-long war, which took 1 million lives.

  Investigations after the war began confirmed what Ritter had said – there were no WMD.

 Despite the severity of the crisis in Eastern Europe – with the possibility that a nuclear war could take place – American media, including progressive media, don’t appear to be overly concerned. Most of the press attention in recent weeks has been focused on the wars in Gaza and Lebanon or Donald Trump’s cabinet picks and most recently the decision by President Biden to pardon his son Hunter. There have been few segments on TV concerning the Ukraine War and the imminent danger of a nuclear confrontation between the US and Russia.

  A few commentators in the conservative media have been sounding the alarm about a possible nuclear war. One of them is Rob Finnerty of Newsmax, who has spent several recent shows talking about the dangerous situation in Ukraine.

  “Russia has more nuclear weapons than any other country on the planet and now Ukraine is firing missiles deep into Russia, and those missiles were made in the United States,” he said.

 “Those are just the facts.  The United States is no longer in a proxy war with Russia. We are at war with Russia,” he said.

  Finnerty criticized Biden for green-lighting the Ukrainian missile attacks, which he said undermine President-elect Donald Trump’s plans for ending the Ukraine war. Trump takes office on January 20.

 “We are a lot closer to World War III then we were yesterday,” Finnerty said.

 

   (A panel discussion about the danger of a nuclear war starting in Ukraine will take place this Saturday in Washington, D.C. The event, called “No Nuclear War --- A Call to Reason” will take place at the National Press Club and run from 4 to 7 pm.  Moderated by Ritter, panel participants include Lawrence Wilkerson, Max Blumenthal, Garland Nixon, Dan Kovalik and Margaret Kimberley.  To reserve a seat, go to www.nonuclearwar.com)

The New York Times: journalism or public relations?

 

By Reginald Johnson

 

    Commentary

 

   The last few days I’ve headed over to the news stand (there are still a few left) to pick up a New York Times.

  I don’t normally do this, as I’ve grown increasingly disappointed with the quality of the Times’ reporting, both on the domestic side and the foreign policy side.

  But the Times is still considered the standard bearer for American journalism and in the interest of fairness, I wanted to be absolutely sure that the paper was in fact not covering  --- as critics charge --- one of the biggest potential corruption scandals in recent history.

   That story centers on the allegation made by an FBI informant that President Biden, when he was serving as vice president, and his son Hunter, took a total of $10 million worth of bribes from a Ukrainian businessman to get help from the US government in stopping a criminal investigation of his oil and gas firm.

   This story broke last week after the House Oversight committee, which has been investigating wrongdoing by Hunter Biden, was finally able to get the FBI to release a statement by the informant called  a “1023” which, while partially redacted, indicated that the two Bidens had received payments.

  The story exploded further on Monday when U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley, a Republican from Iowa, got up on the Senate floor and said that he had received information that the Ukrainian businessman had audiotapes of his discussions with the two Bidens about the bribes.

  “According to the 1023, the foreign national possesses 15 audio recordings of phone calls between him and Hunter Biden,” Grassley said. “According to the 1023, the foreign national possesses two audio recordings of phone calls between him and then Vice President Joe Biden,” said a report on Fox News.

  The allegations obviously are shocking and are widely deserving of coverage. Anytime a President or top official in an administration is implicated in potential bribery that is a huge story.

 Yet, except for conservative outlets like Fox News and Newsmax, the electronic media has ignored the claims. That includes CBS News NBC News, ABC News, CNN and MSNBC.

 On the print side, outlets such as the Wall Street Journal and the New York Post have given the claims strong coverage.

  I wasn’t totally sure whether all the print outlets were ignoring the story, so that’s why I went to check on the Times. Surely, I thought, the Gray Lady, which throughout the decades covered governmental corruption quite well, would give some attention to these new claims, even if they haven’t been verified yet.

                                  

The New York Times building. (Photo, Wikimedia Commons)

 I mean, we’re talking about the President of the United States. What could be more important than that? Bribery is listed as one of the reasons why a President can be impeached, so certainly if a President is implicated in taking illegal payments, it’s paramount that any allegations related to that be checked out by the proper authorities in the government. But they should also be the subject of vigorous inquiry by the press.

 When mayors and governors are implicated in bribery or corruption schemes, that kind of thing is covered avidly by local papers and TV outlets, as it should be.

 Why should a President be any different?

 I must say I was disappointed after my review of the Times. I read three days of the Times, and I found not one reference to the Biden bribery claims.  

   Obviously, the last few days have been dominated by the Trump indictment and all outlets are giving this blanket coverage --- as they should be. This is a massive story --- the first time in US history that a former president has been indicted on federal charges ( he’s already been indicted on state charges in New York) so it deserves a huge amount of coverage. I have no problem with that.

  But the Biden story is big, too. Joe Biden is the current president, not former, and he’s the person who is overseeing the conduct of domestic and foreign policy affecting hundreds of millions of people and public expenditures worth trillions of dollars. If claims about criminality are made against him, that should be the subject of a laser focus by the media, and not just shunted aside.

  The fact that the New York Times --- probably the most widely known media outlet in the world and still one of the most respected --- does not give the story about the Bidens and potential bribery even a mention or a small story in the back pages, is a complete outrage. This is NOT reporting and it is NOT journalism. The Times is shirking its duties as a member of and the leader of the media.

  The press or what is known as the Fourth Estate is supposed to play a critical function in our society. The press traditionally is supposed to act as a “watchdog” against government wrongdoing. Right now, the New York Times and many other media outlets are not acting as that watchdog. Instead, they’re acting more like a guard who’s drunk on duty.

  We don’t know whether the Biden allegations are true. Maybe the informant is not to be trusted. But the point is, this needs to be checked out. The FBI has sat on this story for several years and it took a lot of cajoling and threats of a contempt citation by the House Oversight committee to finally get FBI Director Christopher Ray to release the document prepared by the informant. Then parts of it, apparently those dealing with the audiotapes, were redacted.

  So there’s been some prevarications by the FBI in terms of investigating this issue and that’s also part of the wider story. It’s not just about whether the President and his son took bribes but also whether the agency that is supposed to be ferreting out information about possible criminal misconduct is doing its job. Right now, it doesn’t look like they are.

  The New York Times and much of the rest of the media have to get back on track and report on the basics of news. When officeholders are involved in possible corruption that’s one of those basics and they must report on it. They cannot put something aside simply because somebody is a favored political person and covering that particular person in a negative way might hurt their electoral chances. I hope the Times has not been thinking like this but it kind of looks like they have been.

  If you’re a reporter or journalist with a daily news operation, you MUST cover corruption. If you’re not, you’re not a reporter and you’re not a journalist. It’s really that simple.

  The New York Times has to decide whether they’re still in the news business or whether they’re in public relations. Shame on them if it’s the latter.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Joe Biden the divider

   

By Reginald Johnson

Commentary

   Prior to last Thursday night’s speech by President Biden at Independence Hall in Philadelphia, entitled “A Battle for the Soul of America,”  administration officials promised that the address would be high-minded and non-political.

 Well, it was anything but that. In fact, Joe Biden delivered one of the most divisive and irresponsible speeches ever given by a President during an official address.

 Speaking in dark lighting with two Marines standing guard in the background, Biden lashed into Donald Trump and his supporters --- that’s about 75 million people ---and effectively called them enemies of the state.

“Too much of what’s happening in our country today is not normal,” Biden said. “Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans represent in extremism that threatens the very foundation of our republic.”

 Since most of the Republican Party are Trump supporters, Biden was calling Republicans traitors.

 Joe McCarthy couldn’t have done it better.

 Remember, this is the same Joe Biden who urged Americans during his Inaugural Address on Jan. 20, 2021 to “lower the temperature” and work with him to “unite” the country. What hypocrisy.

Instead of bringing the country together, Biden’s speech --- together with other recent comments where he called Trump supporters “semi-fascists” ----  deepens the polarization in our land, already severe.

For someone who voted for Biden, this is a deep disappointment.

It appears that Biden and the Democrats --- looking at low poll numbers heading into the 2022 congressional elections and probably weak prospects in terms of retaining the presidency in 2024 --- have decided to go all out with a vitriolic campaign demonizing the Republicans and the likely 2024 GOP nominee,  Donald Trump.

As pollster and political analyst Tom Bevan of Real Clear Politics said on Thursday night, the Democrats are going “scorched-earth.”

This approach is in no way uplifting and will not help to move our country forward.

Biden condemned the January 6, 2021 Capitol riots perpetrated by Trump supporters which caused a great amount of damage, a lot of injuries and clearly interrupted the electoral process from going forward as provided for in the Constitution. On this one, Biden is right.  The violent behavior of Trump supporters at that incident was a disgrace and the prosecution of people who were involved in that is entirely proper and I certainly favor a continuing and objective investigation of what happened that day.

 But the implication that since some Trump backers were involved in that sorry chapter and Republicans in general hold objectionable views, means all Trump supporters and Republicans represent a “unique threat” to American democracy is flat-out dishonest.

President Joe Biden (Wikimedia commons)

 The fact of the matter is that some Democrats and their allies in the administrative state have also worked in recent years to subvert  the democratic process. As facts now amply demonstrate, the charge made in 2016 and 2017 that Trump was somehow colluding with Russia and that Russia was aiding him in getting elected was based on lies and fabrications made up in large part by operatives in the Hillary Clinton campaign.

  Democratic allies in the Federal Bureau of Investigation then aided and abetted this phony campaign first by trying to thwart Trump’s election chances and then trying to undermine his presidency after the New York businessman beat Clinton in the 2016 election. This was a coup attempt.

  As we all know, the Mueller investigation, after spending some $40 million and turning over every rock, found out that the claims about Trump Russia collusion were baseless.

  A Department of Justice Inspector General’s report and other investigations showed that many FBI and DOJ officials acted illegally during this period, lying to investigators and signing false affidavits, among other things.

  We also now know from whistleblowers stepping forward that FBI operatives worked behind the scenes to downplay the seriousness of the Hunter Biden corruption investigation in 2020 and tried to make sure that the media would not publicize any information about Hunter Biden’s alleged wrongdoing prior to the 2020 election.

 Playing the Russia card again, FBI officials along with other intelligence leaders, spread the false claim that what was in the Hunter Biden laptop was “Russian disinformation.” According to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, FBI officials told Facebook officials that the negative information coming out of Biden’s laptop was likely from Russia and could not be trusted. As a result, Facebook and other media censored stories alleging illegal activity by Hunter Biden in his business dealings overseas --- and Joe Biden’s possible links to that corruption.

  The FBI suppression tactics clearly benefited Joe Biden in his presidential bid. Recent polls have shown that many Americans who voted for Biden now say that if they had known about the Hunter Biden laptop and what was in it prior to the election, they wouldn’t have voted for Joe Biden.

So this was clearly election interference and an attack on American democracy, perpetrated by Democrats and their allies in the intelligence community and media.

In in another case, Democrats and abortion rights activists launched an irresponsible campaign against a sacred institution in our government when they engaged in illegal protests outside the homes of Supreme Court justices prior to the decision on overturning Roe v. Wade. The protests, combined with the arrest of a man bent on killing Justice Kavanaugh, were intimidating and represented an attack on the work of the court.

The upshot of all this is that Democrats as well as Republicans have engaged in or condoned improper and undemocratic activities in the past. Neither side is pure.

As a friend of mine in Bridgeport would say, ‘there’s been shit on both sides.’

What we need in this country are leaders who can rise above the fray, not pander to their bases and not engage in the politics of demonization. It would be helpful as well, if the media would do the same.

It’s going to take all of us, or at least a good majority of us --- and that includes Republicans --- to really move this country forward. The nation is plagued by a number of serious crises related to the economy and how we spend our budget dollars. On that last point alone, do we want to spend billions and billions of dollars on pointless and destructive wars overseas, or spend them on addressing critical needs at home? I think there’s common ground there.

 But it’s going to take real leaders to find those areas of agreement, to nurture them and move forward.

Joe Biden, instead of sounding like a demagogue villifying an opposition group, would do well to follow the words he spoke at his Inauguration: “We can see each other not as adversaries but as neighbors. We can treat each other with dignity and respect. We can join forces, stop the shouting and lower the temperature. For without unity there is no peace, only bitterness and fury. No progress, only exhausting outrage. No nation, only a state of chaos… We must end this uncivil war that pits red against blue, rural versus urban, conservative versus liberal. We can do this if we open our souls instead of hardening our hearts. If we show a little tolerance and humility.”

 Amen.

 

 

 

 

 

Risking World War III

 

     By Reginald Johnson

     Commentary

  A United States senator has said something that should send chills down everyone’s spine.

    Senator Chris Coons, a Democrat from Delaware, said America may have to send troops to Ukraine, a step that would almost certainly start World War III.

  Speaking on the “Face the Nation” show, Coons said  “If Vladimir Putin, who has shown us how brutal he can be, is allowed to just continue to massacre civilians, to commit war crimes throughout Ukraine without NATO, without the West coming more forcefully to his aid, I great- I deeply worry that what's going to happen next is that we will see Ukraine turn into Syria.”

  He then said, “The American people cannot turn away from this tragedy in Ukraine. I think the history of the 21st century turns on how fiercely we defend freedom in Ukraine and that Putin will only stop when we stop him. “

 Coons’ remarks followed comments he made days earlier at the University of Michigan where he stressed the need for Congress and the administration to come to a “common position” where they agree “about when we are willing to go the next step and to send not just arms but troops to aid in the defense of Ukraine.”

  In an astounding lapse, the host of “Face the Nation” Margaret Brennan failed to follow up and ask Coons just what are the implications of introducing troops to Ukraine.

  The implications are mind-boggling. If troops are sent to Ukraine, this will certainly be seen by Russia as a declaration of war by the US and NATO. Then all bets are off.

  There are some deluded people out there who think we could fight a ground war with Russia and keep it limited to conventional weapons. This is fantasy. A major war in Europe between US/NATO and Russia --- both sides armed to the teeth with nuclear weapons --- would inevitably escalate to nuclear war. After that, it’s a serious question as to whether the world and humanity would survive.

  During an exchange of nuclear missiles, tens of millions of people would be killed instantly or within a few hours. Whole cities would be wiped out. For those who survived the initial blasts or lived far away from the explosions, they would not be lucky. Due to the massive amount of radiation fallout from the blasts, they would slowly but surely die from radiation sickness.

Nuclear bomb explosion. A nuclear exchange between the US and Russia would kill tens of millions of people. (Wikimedia Commons)

  This is obviously in an apocalyptic scenario, but it is not out of the realm of possibility.

   It is true that Biden administration officials distanced themselves from Coons’ remarks and reiterated that President Biden has no plans to send troops to Ukraine. Officials said the US will keep sending lethal aid to help Ukraine.  But you wonder if Biden's position might change, if the Ukraine War --- already ugly --- gets uglier.

   With each new report of an alleged Russian massacre or war crime, the calls will grow to “do something!” and “stop the slaughter!” More and more members of Congress and the media will likely say we have to bite the bullet and send troops, and that in turn could pressure Biden to support direct intervention.

  Already in Congress there is some support for acting a lot more aggressively toward Russia. Representative Adam Kinzinger, a Republican from Illinois also said that he would back sending troops to Ukraine. Two Republican senators, Roger Wicker of Mississippi and James Inhofe of Oklahoma, are on record as favoring sending troops and ---- incredibly --- saying the US should not rule out a first strike nuclear attack on Russia.

  It should be noted that while people in the political world generally said they didn’t agree with Coons’s comments about sending troops, you didn’t hear any harsh public denunciation of his suggestion, despite the grave implications of directly intervening in Ukraine.

  You have to wonder whether Coons wasn't floating the idea of sending troops on behalf of the administration, just to test public reaction. Coons is good friends with Biden.

  Public opinion will be key in terms of how far the administration is willing to go in helping Ukraine. A national poll in February found that a majority of Americans were not in favor of sending troops to Ukraine. But again, public attitudes could change as the media keeps uncritically reporting allegations of Russian atrocities, such as mass killings and indiscriminate bombing attacks.

 ( It should be noted that there has been no conclusive evidence offered to back up the sweeping claims of Russian atrocities such as the Bucha massacre, the missile strike on the Kramatorsk train station and the alleged Russian bombing of the maternity hospital in Mariupol. The US and Western media have failed to adequately check out these charges and instead have shamelessly accepted the claims of Russian responsibility as flat fact.)

   One public figure who has called out Senator Coons is former member of  Congress Tulsi Gabbard, a Democrat from Hawaii. Gabbard, a member of the Army Reserve and an Iraq War veteran, said on the Laura Ingraham show on FOX that Coons’ comments were irresponsible and served to “undermine national security.”

   She added, “I think of my brothers and sisters in uniform who would be the ones whose lives that are put on the line in what would essentially kick off World War III and be a direct challenge to nuclear-armed Russia.

  “Risking nuclear war --- that’s exactly what he’s proposing and everyone should be very clear eyed as they hear this kind of rhetoric coming from Washington.”