Brazil Court Deals Blow to Massive Amazon Gold Mine Project

One prosecutor called the ruling "another victory for the Indigenous and riverine people of Volta Grande do Xingu," who "know that a mining project can have devastating impacts on the region."

An Indigenous Brazilian man holds a sign reading "Take mining out of the forest urgently" during the March 9, 2022 #AtoPelaTerra (Stand Up for Earth) protest in Brasília, Brazil. 

(Photo: Sergio Lima/AFP via Getty Images)

BRETT WILKINS

April 26, 2022

Environmental and Indigenous rights defenders on Tuesday welcomed a Brazilian court ruling that will continue to block a Canadian company from building what would be the South American nation's largest open-pit gold mine in the Amazon rainforest.

"Belo Monte already has had a major impact on the Xingu. A second project could mean the death of the local peoples."

In a 3-0 decision, the Federal Regional Court of Brasília on Monday upheld the suspension of an environmental license for Belo Sun Mining Corp., affirming a 2017 ruling that found the company failed to adequately consult with Indigenous peoples on the social and environmental impacts of an $800 million project located in the Volta Grande do Xingu region in the state of Pará.

"My community wasn't consulted about the Belo Sun project," Lorena Curuaia, a leader from Iawa village, told the Associated Press.

Referring to the world's third-largest hydroelectric dam—located just 12 miles from the proposed mine site—Curuaia added: "Belo Monte already has had a major impact on the Xingu. A second project could mean the death of the local peoples."



Federal prosecutor Felício de Araújo Pontes Jr. called the ruling "another victory for the Indigenous and riverine people of Volta Grande do Xingu," who "know that a mining project can have devastating impacts on the region."

"The judgment shows the resilience of this population," he told the AP.

Advocacy groups warn that Indigenous peoples—including Juruna, Arara, Kuruaya, Xipaia, and others—would suffer serious direct impacts from the Volta Grande project.

As the Interamerican Association for Environmental Defense (AIDA) detailed:

According to experts, the Belo Sun mining project in Volta Grande do Xingu has serious structural flaws which were not clearly presented to the impacted communities during the consultation process. Environmental impact studies carried out by the mining company disregard both the potential seismic impacts on the tailings dam that needs to be built and the cumulative impacts it would cause along with the dam of the Belo Monte plant.

The dam designed for the mine would be similar in size to the Vale dam that collapsed in Mariana in 2015, causing Brazil's biggest environmental disaster. A report by an expert in geology and mining, Dr. Steven H. Emerman, claims that at least nine million cubic meters of toxic mining waste could reach the Xingu River and travel more than 40 kilometers in two hours, causing irreversible damage. These tailings could contain highly toxic metals, such as cyanide, arsenic, and mercury, which could lead to ecocide of the Xingu River.

"Other studies point to impacts such as changes in the reproductive cycle of fauna, deforestation and/or burning, pollution of water resources, and soil contamination," AIDA added.

The court ruling came as a series of bills backed by Jair Bolsonaro, Brazil's right-wing president and self-described "Captain Chainsaw," advance through the National Congress. If passed, critics say the so-called "package of destruction" would allow mining on Indigenous lands, relax restrictions on the use of pesticides, and encourage illegal logging and land seizures.

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House Dems Back Marijuana Industry Workers in Unionizing Push

"Workers need economic security and fair treatment in the workplace, and cannabis workers are no different," said one union representative recently.


A customer makes a purchase at Sunnyside Cannabis Dispensary on January 1, 2020 in Chicago, Illinois. (Photo: Kamil Krzaczynsi/AFP via Getty Images)


JULIA CONLEY

April 26, 2022

Workers in the marijuana industry joined union representatives and Democratic lawmakers Tuesday for a round table discussion about a growing push to organize workplaces in the sector and about federal legislation to protect workers' rights in all industries.

Reps. Mark Pocan (D-Wis.) and Donald Norcross (D-N.J.). met with employees from marijuana businesses in New Jersey, where legal sales for recreational use began last week.

Recreational use of marijuana has now been legalized in at least 18 states, with the pace of decriminalization picking up in recent years.

At the same time, workers at Amazon, Starbucks, John Deere, and other workplaces have garnered national attention for forming labor unions and staging strikes to demand fair pay, stronger safety protections, and a say in decision-making.

"I think that one of the things we look at is the cannabis industry really is prime for organizing right now—just like you're seeing with Starbucks, just like you're seeing with Amazon," Pocan told Marijuana Moment ahead of the round table.

Hourly workers in cultivation and retail in the industry earn $15 per hour on average, according to a 2021 survey.

"We're here to basically talk from the perspectives of those workers, budtenders... who are trying to make a career out of it, trying to earn a livable wage, get earned time off that coincides with the amount of time that they spend at the facility, " said one worker named Emilio who attended the round table discussion.

"The cannabis industry really is prime for organizing right now—just like you're seeing with Starbucks, just like you're seeing with Amazon."

Cannabis workers in St. Louis and Manistee, Michigan have voted this month to join the United Food & Commercial Workers, becoming the first dispensary employees in each state to unionize.

At Root 66 in St. Louis, the eight budtenders who voted to unionize had concerns about a lack of consistent company policies and policy changes, no paid time off for sick leave or vacation, and low wages.

"Cannabis workers across the country are voting to join a union because they know it's the best way to secure good wages and benefits on the job," said UFCW Local 655 President Dave Cook after the vote in St. Louis on April 4. "Workers need economic security and fair treatment in the workplace, and cannabis workers are no different."

Pocan and Norcross, both union members themselves, have advocated for passage of the PRO Act, which the U.S. House passed in 2020 but which has been held up in the Senate due to right-wing opposition and the legislative filibuster.

The legislation "will help all sectors and make it easier for people who want to have an election actually be able to get an election and be able to form a union,” Pocan told Marijuana Moment.

"I think you have potential to see that with the cannabis industry, and that's a good thing," he said. "When people are organized, depending on the position, it's like $3,000 to $8,000 more they can make simply by being a member of a unionized business in cannabis."

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Jared Kushner Sold Out to Saudis for $2 Billion and Nobody Seems to Care

Have we all been witnessing a young con-man walk away with billions after selling out Yemen, Khashoggi, and the U.S.? 

With virtually no questions from Congress or the mainstream media?


Jared Kushner listens as then-President Donald Trump visits his campaign headquarters in Arlington, Virginia, November 3, 2020. (Photo: Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images)


THOM HARTMANN

April 26, 2022

After President John F. Kennedy appointed his brother as Attorney General, Republicans freaked out and passed an anti-nepotism law against presidents hiring family members.

After Kushner met in secret with MBS, America's ally and the ruler of Saudi Arabia MBN was arrested and thrown into prison where he remains to this day.

When Donald Trump put Jared Kushner into the White House (even after he failed a security clearance), his Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel ruled, essentially, that Trump could ignore the law.

Saudi Arabia was then run by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Nayef (MBN), the grandson of the nation's founder, King Abdulaziz; MBN's father, Nayef bin Abdulaziz, had run the country before him.

Like his father and grandfather, MBN was tight with US intelligence agencies and committed to a stable long-term relationship with the United States and Europe.

When Trump came into office in 2017, MBN's cousin, Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) was merely one of many Saudi princes jockeying for position and power in the kingdom.

At the time Trump appointed Kushner in 2017, US intelligence and the State Department were concerned that if MBS were to overthrow MBN the consequences could be unpredictable for the United States. Kushner, with his new security clearance in hand, would have had access to that information.

Things were getting wild in the kingdom.

MBS wanted to overthrow MBN, and, according to some extraordinary reporting from Vicki Ward (who's Substack newsletter is worth subscribing to), Jared saw an opportunity to go around US interests and help MBS overthrow and imprison his cousin so MBS could seize control of the Kingdom and its more than $700 billion:

"Four well-placed sources," she reports, "say that the primary reason Kushner has now received $2 billion is that he helped MBS depose MBN, knowing that this went directly against what U.S. intelligence wanted or thought was good for national security. (Kushner has always said he did not give U.S. intelligence to the Saudis.)"

Suddenly, the news was full of stories about members of the Saudi royal family who were being held by security forces in fancy hotels, some being tortured and a few even "vanished."

After Kushner met in secret with MBS, America's ally and the ruler of Saudi Arabia MBN was arrested and thrown into prison where he remains to this day.

As a result, Jared's buddy MBS now runs the kingdom and controls its money.

David Ignatius of the Washington Post noted a few weeks after MBS began arresting his royal political foes, apparently using information from inside US intelligence agencies:


"It was probably no accident that last month, Jared Kushner, Trump's senior adviser and son-in-law, made a personal visit to Riyadh. The two princes are said to have stayed up until nearly 4 a.m. several nights, swapping stories and planning strategy."

Did Jared sell out American interests for $2 billion?

It was with MBS that President Trump negotiated a 2.2 million-barrels-a-day production cut in 2020, when the pandemic had crashed demand for oil.

It was MBS who reportedly said he had Jared "in his pocket."

It was MBS who reportedly had Washington Post writer Jamal Khashoggi murdered and dismembered by an assassination squad when visiting a Saudi embassy to get a visa to marry his fiancé.

And, the New York Times notes, it was Jared who was there for MBS when he needed a friend on the inside: "As the killing set off a firestorm around the world and American intelligence agencies concluded that it was ordered by Prince Mohammed [MBS], Mr. Kushner became the prince's most important defender inside the White House…"

It's MBS who The Wall Street Journal reports is now moving his country "closer" to Russia and China to "punish" President Joe Biden.

It's also MBS who's today refusing to take President Biden's calls about restoring that oil production, which would reduce oil prices and relieve much of the political pressure now on Biden and Democrats as we head toward the 2022 and 2024 elections.

Have we all been witnessing a young con-man walk away with billions after selling out Yemen, Khashoggi, and the United States? With virtually no questions from the mainstream media or Congress?

The son of a professional grifter (Charles Kushner, who was pardoned by Trump) and a minor slumlord, Jared is said to have gotten advice from a PR professional when his father went to prison. Ben Walsh noted for Huffington Post that Jared's dad tells the story that his PR friend advised Jared:

"Step one: Buy a New York newspaper. Don't be too particular…. Any newspaper will do. Step two: Buy a big Manhattan building. Any building will do. Step three: Marry the daughter of a rich New York family. Anyone will do."

Jared, the story goes, then purchased the New York Observer newspaper, overpaid for the 666 Fifth Avenue office building just down the street from Trump Tower, and, now impressively credentialed as a Serious Guy, hooked up with Donald Trump's daughter, Ivanka.

From there it was a straight shot to the White House and then cashing in with $2 billion from Saudi Arabia, authorized by MBS, who had to override his investment advisors to hand the cash to Jared.

Which is a crime.

Our Constitution contains two emoluments clauses, both forbidding officials from taking gifts from foreign governments. The most well-known one (in Article II) forbids presidents from taking what could be bribes; the second, from Article I of the Constitution, forbids such behavior by anybody working in the federal government without the explicit permission of Congress:

"[N]o Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under [the United States], shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State."

As the Congressional Research Service (CRS) notes:

"The purpose of the Foreign Emoluments Clause is to prevent corruption and limit foreign influence on federal officers. The Clause grew out of the Framers' experience with the European custom of gift-giving to foreign diplomats, which the Articles of Confederation prohibited. Following that precedent, the Foreign Emoluments Clause prohibits federal officers from accepting foreign emoluments without congressional consent."

History will tell us if Jared Kushner sold out his country and damaged prospects for peace in the world by helping MBS rise to power and then push Saudi Arabia toward Russia, just to get his hands on a few billion dollars.

But that history is being written today, and if there was ever a scandal more worthy of a DOJ and congressional investigation than Benghazi or Hillary's emails, this is it.

This article first appeared at the Hartmann Report and appears here with permission.

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THOM HARTMANN

Thom Hartmann is a talk-show host and the author of "The Hidden History of Monopolies: How Big Business Destroyed the American Dream" (2020); "The Hidden History of the Supreme Court and the Betrayal of America" (2019); and more than 25 other books in print.

NATO NATION BUILDING; LIBYA
Casualties of America's Never-Ending Global War on Terror

The civilian deaths you haven't heard about.

A boy stands before ruins in Benghazi's old city on February 4, 2019 in Libya.

 (Photo: Giles Clarke/UNOCHA via Getty Images)

NICK TURSE

April 26, 2022 

by TomDispatch

Madogaz Musa Abdullah still remembers the phone call. But what came next was a blur. He drove for hours, deep into the Libyan desert, speeding toward the border with Algeria. His mind buckled, his thoughts reeled, and more than three years later, he's still not certain how he made that six-hour journey.

"What I saw was so terrible," he told me, his voice rising, ragged, and loaded with pain. "I can't even describe it."

The call was about his younger brother, Nasser, who, as he told me, was more than a sibling to him. He was also a close friend. Nasser was polite and caring. He loved music, sang, and played the guitar. Jimi Hendrix, Carlos Santana, and Bob Marley were his favorites.

Abdullah finally found Nasser near the village of Al Awaynat. Or, rather, he found all that remained of him. Nasser and 10 others from their village of Ubari had been riding in three SUVs that were now burnt-out hunks of metal. The 11 men had been incinerated. Abdullah knew one of those charred corpses was his brother, but he was at a loss to identify which one.

If these bodies had recently been found strewn about in the village of Staryi Bykiv, in the streets of Bucha, outside a train station in Kramatorsk, or elsewhere in Ukraine where Russian forces have regularly killed civilians, the images would have been splashed across the Internet, earning worldwide attention and prompting fierce—and justified—outrage. Instead, the day after the attack, November 29, 2018, U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) issued a press release that was met with almost universal silence.

"In coordination with the Libyan Government of National Accord (GNA), U.S. Africa Command conducted a precision airstrike near Al Awaynat, Libya, November 29, 2018, killing eleven (11) al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) terrorists and destroying three (3) vehicles," it read. "At this time, we assess no civilians were injured or killed in this strike." Photos of the aftermath of the attack, posted on Twitter that same day, have been retweeted less than 30 times in the last three and a half years.

Ever since then, Abdullah and his Tuareg community in Ubari have been insisting to anyone who would listen that Nasser and the others riding in those vehicles were civilians. And not just civilians, but GNA veterans who had fought terrorist groups like al-Qaeda and even, alongside the United States two years earlier, the Islamic State in the city of Sirte. For more than three years now, despite public protests and pleas to the Libyan government for an impartial investigation, the inhabitants of Ubari have been ignored. "Before the strike, we trusted AFRICOM. We believed that they worked for the Libyan people," Abdullah told me. "Now, they have no credibility. Now, we know that they kill innocent people."

Hellfire in Libya

Earlier this month, Abdullah, along with a spokesperson for his ethnic Tuareg community and representatives of three nongovernmental organizations—the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights, Italy's Rete Italiana Pace e Disarmo, and Reprieve, a human rights advocacy group—filed a criminal complaint against Colonel Gianluca Chiriatti, the former Italian commander at the U.S. air base in Sigonella, Italy, from which that American drone took off. They were seeking accountability for his role in the killing of Nasser and those other 10 men. The complainants requested that the public prosecutor's office in Siracusa, where the base is located, prosecute Colonel Chiriatti and other Italian officials involved in that air strike for the crime of murder.

"The drone attack of 29 November 2018 where 11 innocent people lost their lives in Libya is part of the broader U.S. program of extrajudicial killings. This program is based on a notion of pre-emptive self-defense that does not meet the canons of international law, as the use of lethal attacks of this nature is only legitimate where the state is acting to defend itself against an imminent threat to life. In this circumstance, the victims posed no threat," reads the criminal complaint. "In light of this premise, the drone attack on Al Awaynat on 29 November 2018 stands in frontal contrast to the discipline, Italian and international, regarding the use of lethal force in the context of law enforcement operations."

For the last two decades, the United States has been conducting an undeclared war across much of the globe, employing proxy forces from Africa to Asia, deploying commandos from the Philippines to the West African nation of Burkina Faso, and conducting air strikes not only in Libya, but in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Somalia, Syria, and Yemen. Over those years, the U.S. military has taken pains to normalize the use of drone warfare outside established war zones while relying on allies around the world (as at that Italian base in Siracusa) to help conduct its global war.

"Clearly, a drone operation employing lethal force is not routine," said Chantal Meloni, legal advisor at the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights. "While AFRICOM is directly responsible, the Italian commander must have known about and approved the operation and can therefore be criminally responsible as an accomplice for having allowed the unlawful lethal attack."

That November 2018 drone attack in Libya was anything but a one-off strike. During just six months in 2011, alone, U.S. MQ-1 Predator drones flying from Sigonella conducted 241 air strikes in Libya during Operation Unified Protector—the NATO air campaign against then-Libyan autocrat Muammar Gaddafi—according to retired Lt. Col. Gary Peppers, the former commander of the 324th Expeditionary Reconnaissance Squadron. The unit was responsible, he told The Intercept in 2018, for "over 20 percent of the total of all Hellfire [missiles] expended in the 14 years of the system's deployment."

The U.S. air war in Libya accelerated in 2016 with Operation Odyssey Lightning. That summer, the Libyan Government of National Accord requested American help in dislodging Islamic State fighters from Sirte. The Obama administration designated the city an "area of active hostilities," loosening guidelines designed to prevent civilian casualties. Between August and December of that year, according to an AFRICOM press release, the U.S. carried out in Sirte alone "495 precision airstrikes against Vehicle Borne Improvised Explosive Devices, heavy guns, tanks, command and control centers, and fighting positions."

The Shores of Tripoli

Those military strikes were nothing new. The United States has been conducting attacks in Libya since before there even was a Libya—and almost a United States. In his first address to Congress in 1801, President Thomas Jefferson spoke of coastal kingdoms in North Africa, including the "least considerable of the Barbary States," Tripoli (now, the capital of modern Libya). His refusal to pay additional tribute to the rulers of those kingdoms in order to stop their state-sponsored privateers from seizing American sailors and cargo kicked off the Barbary Wars. In 1804, Lieutenant Stephen Decatur led a daring nighttime mission, boarding a captured U.S. ship, killing its Tripolitan defenders, and destroying it. And an attack the next year by nine Marines and a host of allied mercenaries on the North African city of Derna ensured that "the shores of Tripoli" would have prime placement in the Marine Corps hymn.

Libya has also been a long-time proving ground for new forms of air war. In November 1911—107 years to the month before that drone attack killed Nasser Musa Abdullah—Italian Lieutenant Giulio Gavotti conducted the world's first modern airstrike. "Today I have decided to try to throw bombs from the aeroplane," he wrote in a letter to his father, while deployed in Libya to fight forces loyal to the Ottoman Empire. "I take the bomb with my right hand, pull off the security tag and throw the bomb out, avoiding the wing."

Gavotti not only pioneered the idea of launching air raids on troops far from the traditional front lines of a war, but also the targeting of civilian infrastructure when he bombed an oasis that served as a social and economic center. As Thomas Hippler put it in his book Governing from the Skies, Gavotti introduced aerial attacks on "hybrid target[s]" that "indifferently mingled civilian and military objectives."

More than a century later, in 2016, Operation Odyssey Lightning again made Libya ground zero for the testing of new air-war concepts—in this case, urban combat involving multiple drones working in combination with local troops and U.S. Special Operations forces. As one of the drone pilots involved was quoted as saying in an Air Force news release: "Some of the tactics were created and some of the persistent attack capabilities that hadn't been used widely before were developed because of this operation."

According to Colonel Case Cunningham, commander of the 432nd Expeditionary Wing at Creech Air Force Base in Nevada—the headquarters of the Air Force's drone operations—about 70% of the MQ-9 Reaper drone strikes conducted during Odyssey Lightning were close-air-support missions backing up local Libyan forces engaged in street-to-street combat. The drones, he reported, often worked in tandem with one another, as well as with Marine Corps attack helicopters and jets, helping guide the airstrikes of those conventional aircraft.

"The Deaths of Thousands of Civilians"

Despite hundreds of attacks in support of the Libyan Government of National Accord, the employment of U.S. proxies in counterterrorism missions, combat by American commandos, and more than $850 million in U.S. assistance since 2011, Libya remains one of the most fragile states on earth. Earlier this year, President Biden renewed its "national emergency" status (first invoked by President Barack Obama in 2011). "Civil conflict in Libya will continue until Libyans resolve their political divisions and foreign military intervention ends," wrote Biden, failing to mention the U.S. "foreign military intervention" there, including that November 2018 airstrike. "The situation in Libya continues to pose an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States."

In early 2021, the Biden administration imposed limits on drone strikes and commando raids outside of conventional war zones, while launching a review of all such missions, and began writing a new "playbook" to govern counterterrorism operations. More than a year later, the results, or lack thereof, have yet to be made public. In January, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin directed subordinates to draw up a "Civilian Harm Mitigation and Response Plan" within 90 days. That, too, has yet to be released.

Until the Defense Department overhauls its airstrike policies, civilians will continue to die in attacks. "The U.S. military has a systemic targeting problem that will continue to cost civilians their lives," said Marc Garlasco, formerly the Pentagon's chief of high-value targeting—in charge, that is, of the effort to kill Iraqi autocrat Saddam Hussein in 2003—and now, the military adviser for PAX, a Dutch civilian protection organization. "Civilian deaths are not discrete events; they are symptoms of larger problems such as a lack of proper investigations, a faulty collateral-damage estimation methodology, overreliance on intelligence without considering open-source data, and a policy that does not recognize the presumption of civilian status."

Such "larger problems" have been revealed again and again. Last March, for example, the Yemen-based group Mwatana for Human Rights released a report examining 12 U.S. attacks in Yemen, 10 of them airstrikes, between January 2017 and January 2019. Its researchers found that at least 38 Yemeni noncombatants had been killed and seven others injured in those attacks.

A June 2021 Pentagon report on civilian casualties did acknowledge one of those incidents, the death of a civilian in al-Bayda, Yemen, on January 22, 2019. Mwatana's investigation determined that the attack killed Saleh Ahmed Mohamed al Qaisi, a 67-year-old farmer who locals said had no terrorist affiliations. The U.S. had previously acknowledged four to 12 civilian deaths in a raid by Navy SEALs on January 29, 2017, also chronicled by Mwatana (though it reported a higher death toll). As for the remaining allegations, Central Command, which oversees U.S. military operations in the Middle East, told Mwatana in an April 2021 letter that it was "confident that each airstrike hit its intended Al Qaeda targets and nothing else."

Rigorous investigative reporting by the New York Times on the last U.S. drone strike of the Afghan War in August 2021 forced an admission from the Pentagon. What General Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, had originally deemed a "righteous strike" had actually killed 10 civilians, seven of them children. A subsequent Times investigation revealed that a 2019 U.S. airstrike in Baghuz, Syria, had killed up to 64 noncombatants, a toll previously obscured through a multilayered cover-up. The Times followed that up with an investigation of 1,300 reports of civilian casualties in Iraq and Syria, demonstrating, wrote reporter Azmat Khan, that the American air war in those countries was "marked by deeply flawed intelligence, rushed and often imprecise targeting, and the deaths of thousands of civilians, many of them children, a sharp contrast to the American government's image of war waged by all-seeing drones and precision bombs."

Since the Sirte campaign ended in late 2016, U.S. attacks in Libya have slowed considerably. AFRICOM conducted seven declared airstrikes there in 2017, six in 2018, four in 2019, and none since. But the U.S. military has made little effort to reevaluate past strikes and the civilian casualties they caused, including the November 2018 attack that killed Nasser Musa Abdullah. "U.S. Africa Command followed the civilian casualty assessment process in place at the time and determined that the reports were unsubstantiated," said AFRICOM spokesperson Kelly Cahalan. Despite the criminal complaint filed on April 1st, the command is not reexamining the case. "There is nothing new or different regarding the Nov 30, 2018 airstrike," Cahalan told me by email.

Africa Command has clearly moved on, but Abdullah can't. Memories of his brother and those charred bodies are irrevocably lodged in his mind but get caught in his throat. "I was in shock," he told me when discussing the phone call that preceeded his dash across the desert. "I'm so sorry, but I can't explain in words what I felt."

Abdullah was similarly stuck when he attempted to describe the grisly scene that greeted him hours later. He was eloquent in speaking about the justice he seeks and how being branded a "terrorist" robbed his brother and their community of dignity. But of his final memory of Nasser, there is simply nothing that can be said, not by him anyway. "What I saw was so terrible," he told me, his voice rising, ragged and loaded with pain. "I can't even describe it."

© 2021 TomDispatch.com


NICK TURSE

Nick Turse is the Managing Editor of TomDispatch.com and a fellow at the Type Media Center. His latest book is "Next Time They’ll Come to Count the Dead: War and Survival in South Sudan" (2016). He is the author/editor of several other books, including: "Tomorrow's Battlefield: U.S. Proxy Wars and Secret Ops in Africa" (2015); "Kill Anything That Moves: The Real American War in Vietnam" (2013); "The Changing Face of Empire: Special Ops, Drones, Spies, Proxy Fighters, Secret Bases, and Cyber Warfare" (2012); "The Complex: How the Military Invades Our Everyday Lives" (2009); and "The Case for Withdrawal from Afghanistan" (2010). Turse was a fellow at Harvard University’s Radcliffe Institute. His website is www.Nick Turse.com.

Global Military Spending Tops $2 Trillion for First Time in History

"If global leaders actually care about charting a more secure future, then we need a massive realignment in spending priorities," said one prominent peace group.


U.S. warplanes and the aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan are seen during a deployment in the Indian Ocean on June 32, 2021. 

(Photo: U.S. Pacific Fleet/Flickr/CC BY-NC 2.0)

BRETT WILKINS

April 25, 2022

Global military expenditures surpassed $2 trillion for the first time ever last year, with the United States spending more on its war-making capacity than the next nine nations combined, according to new data published Monday.

"Spending 12 times as much on our military as Russia didn't prevent a war in Europe. It just deprived us of resources at home."

The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) reported an all-time high of $2.1 trillion in worldwide military spending for 2021, a 0.7% increase from 2020 levels and the seventh straight year of increased expenditures.

"Even amid the economic fallout of the Covid-19 pandemic, world military spending hit record levels," SIPRI senior researcher Diego Lopes da Silva said in a statement. "There was a slowdown in the rate of real-terms growth due to inflation. In nominal terms, however, military spending grew by 6.1%."

Tori Bateman, policy advocacy coordinator at the American Friends Service Committee, a Quaker group, said that "this year, we've seen how military spending fails to keep us safe. It's shameful that governments, especially the United States, continue to destabilize our world with more weapons, while failing to address climate change, public health, and other true global crises."

"It's time for the United States, and world leaders everywhere, to cut military spending and commit to solving our problems for real," she added.

With $801 billion—or 38% of total global military spending—the United States spent more in 2021 than the next nine nations combined: China ($293 billion), India ($76.6 billion), the United Kingdom ($68.4 billion), Russia ($65.9 billion), France ($56.6 billion), Germany ($56 billion), Saudi Arabia ($55.6 billion), Japan ($54.1 billion), and South Korea ($50.2 billion).

U.S. funding for military research and development increased by nearly a quarter between 2012 and 2021, while arms procurement expenditures fell by 6.4% over that same period, a trend that "suggests that the United States is focusing more on next-generation technologies," according to SIPRI researcher Alexandra Marksteiner.

"The U.S. government has repeatedly stressed the need to preserve the U.S. military's technological edge over strategic competitors," she added.

The latest SIPRI analysis comes weeks after U.S. President Joe Biden rejected progressive lawmakers' calls for Pentagon spending cuts and asked Congress to green-light more than $813 in new military spending for the next fiscal year—a $31 billion increase from current levels.

That amount includes nearly $146 billion for the procurement of new weaponry, including Lockheed Martin F-35 fighter jets, Northrup Grumman B-21 bombers, and Virginia-class nuclear-powered fast attack submarines manufactured by General Dynamics and Huntington Ingalls Industries.

The new SIPRI report also comes as some of the largest U.S. weapons makers are gearing up for what is expected to be a big earnings week as the West's response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine—providing Ukrainian forces with billions of dollars in weaponry—fuels arms industry profits.

Lindsay Koshgarian, director of the National Priorities Project at the Washington, D.C.-based Institute for Policy Studies, recently noted that "spending 12 times as much on our military as Russia didn't prevent a war in Europe. It just deprived us of resources at home."

"Even during a pandemic, supply chain crisis, and painful inflation, we'll put more resources into the military and war than public health, education, green jobs, affordable housing, scientific and medical research, child care, and every other domestic need—combined," she wrote. "This special treatment for the Pentagon recklessly squanders precious resources that could be used to strengthen our families and communities against our compounding crises at home."

Last week, an analysis by In These Times and Zain Rizvi at the consumer advocacy group Public Citizen revealed that the U.S. has spent 7.5 times more money on nuclear weapons than on global Covid-19 vaccine donations, despite Biden's pledge that "America will become the arsenal of vaccines as we were the arsenal of democracy during World War II."

"What's keeping us safe," asked Koshgarian, "Is it maintaining this huge nuclear stockpile or delivering these vaccines?"

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The Earth Day We Shut Down the Weapons Makers at Pratt & Whitney

Our rally not only emphasized the war machine production of Pratt and Whitney, but also called attention to its effect on the climate emergency.


We rallied, we paraded, and we performed a direct action. 

(Photo: Reject Raytheon AVL/Facebook)

KEN JONES

April 26, 2022

It was an Earth Day to remember. On a beautiful sunny spring day, our local citizen coalition Reject Raytheon in Asheville, NC pulled off a three-part demonstration for the protection of the earth and earthlings and against the US military-industrial complex. We rallied, we paraded, and we performed a direct action.

In the park, over 50 of us came together to call for conversion from the war economy to one that addresses the climate emergency.

The event on Friday, April 22, began at 10 am in the Bent Creek River Park, on the banks of the French Broad River. The park sits exactly next to the new bridge being built for the 1.2 million square foot Pratt and Whitney plant and in the shadow of the Blue Ridge Parkway bridge over the river. Across the river from the park is a dirt road, called Old River Road, that provides access to the many trucks coming and going from the plant every day. On this morning, it was busy, full of power and commerce.

In the park, over 50 of us came together to call for conversion from the war economy to one that addresses the climate emergency. The theme of the gathering was Windmills Not War Machines. We had a number of speakers describe the dangers of the Pratt & Whitney plant and also what a better economic development plan for the Asheville area could look like.

Pratt and Whitney is wholly owned by Raytheon Technologies, the second largest war corporation in the world. Its new plant here will be making airfoil turbines for jet engines that will be used by both military and commercial aircraft. The military engines are for notorious fighter jets like the F-35 and F-16, which are sold for wars all over the world, including in Yemen and Palestine. Sales of these weapons have soared with the onset of the war in Ukraine. This is a war profiteer coming to our community.

Our rally not only emphasized the war machine production of Pratt and Whitney, but also called attention to its effect on the climate emergency. What we don’t need in this urgent time is more fossil fuel intensive jet engines, even if they are for commercial use, and even if they are supposedly more efficient.

At the end of our rally, the Brass Your Heart social justice marching band led the group on a parade. With music, chants, banners, and signs, we moved from the park up to the Blue Ridge Parkway, where we crossed the bridge to the other side of the river. It was festive as well as pointed.

While the parade was in process, eight of us took a position on the Old River Road and blockaded the oncoming construction traffic from both directions. Five of us spanned the entire road with a 20 foot banner that said “Make Wind Turbines, Not War Machines.” Another held a smaller banner that said, “Pratt and Whitney Fans the Flames of Climate Emergency.” And two of us stood in front and behind the blockade with the stop-sign shaped message: “No War Industry.”

As our parading friends came to the end of the bridge, they stood above us waving, cheering, and singing along with the band. Construction traffic came to a halt and backed up for as far as the eye could see.

Amazingly, this stoppage lasted a full two hours. Biltmore Farms, which owns all the surrounding land and donated 100 acres to Pratt & Whitney for its plant, sent its security guards very quickly. They said we were on private property and threatened to have us arrested. Truck drivers walked up to us with a range of emotions from anger to sympathy to amusement. Soon the site was swarming with confused workers and authority figures. Eventually, the Buncombe County Sheriff’s Office (BCSO) came and asked us to leave. When we didn’t, a prolonged series of phone calls ensued.

As we found out later, there was an uncertainty about jurisdiction. We were actually on the National Park Service (NPS) easement for the Blue Ridge Parkway, not on Biltmore Farms private property. Technically, this meant that NPS was the proper authority to remove us. It apparently was decided that they would ask BCSO to take charge.

We huddled up and decided on door #2: we took citations and walked away. We are hoping for our day in court where we can tell why we did this direct action and what is at stake with this war industry plant getting built.

It was probably also the case that executives from both Biltmore Farms and Pratt & Whitney were discussing how to handle this situation in a way that would get them the least amount of negative publicity.

What this amounted to was a 2-hour shut down of business-as-usual for the corporations bringing a war industry to our county. It was just a small victory for us earth protectors, but still a moment to savor on Earth Day.

The decision the police finally made was to give us a choice. We could just walk away with no charges, we could walk away with a citation for misdemeanor trespass, or we could get arrested and taken to jail. We huddled up and decided on door #2: we took citations and walked away. We are hoping for our day in court where we can tell why we did this direct action and what is at stake with this war industry plant getting built. A trial will be a means of continuing to raise public awareness about it.

And it’s not just this one plant. What we also know is that Jack Cecil, owner of Biltmore Farms, is working with the local Chamber of Commerce to bring more businesses like Pratt & Whitney into this area. Some 1,000 acres have been set aside for an industrial park that will likely be centered on the toxic aerospace industry. The gas pipeline just put in by Dominion Energy will service not just Pratt and Whitney, but also the companies now being actively recruited to come here. The new interstate exchange on I-26 will likewise serve this future development.

Say goodbye to a lot more trees and worry about the health of the French Broad River. Pratt and Whitney is just the beginning of this Biltmore Farms project. It is like the anchor store in a mall. It is being used to attract others of the same ilk.

This is why Reject Raytheon is calling not just for conversion of this plant that is now nearing completion, but for a moratorium on any more approvals for industries that are connected to the military-industrial-fossil fuel monster that is devouring our earth and making life untenable for us and our children and grandchildren.

We who stood in the road are not the criminals here. The criminals are those who are making profits from the destruction of life on this planet. It is they who should be on trial and that is what we intend to do if we get our day in court. We, the Earth Day 8, hope you will follow us in solidarity.

We will also keep on showing up in the streets to raise the alarm. Ever since we found out in October, 2020 that the Buncombe County commissioners voted to give $27 million in tax incentives to Pratt & Whitney, we have been crying foul. But it’s even worse than that. If you take into account all the subsidies provided to this huge multinational corporation - state, local, and private - it comes to over $100 million. Think about how much we need that money for the many human needs of our community.

And don’t be deceived about the jobs being promised. Yes, there will be jobs, but there is no actual guarantee about how many nor who will get them. And we know very well that we would have many more jobs than the 800 they tout (counted cumulatively, over 10 years) if we put that same $100M into clean energy, education, health, housing - literally anything other than the military-industrial complex. Why would anyone think that a huge corporation like Raytheon cares about anything other than its own profits, notwithstanding all of its local greenwashing and public relations efforts?

It is this prioritizing of profits over people that we need to change. Visit Reject Raytheon’s website for more information.

Forward together for Mother Earth and for us, her children.

The Earth Day 8, who all live in and around Asheville, NC, are:

Rachael Bliss, 76, writer and founder of WNC4Peace
Claire Clark, 40, labor organizer and LGBTQ activist
Padma Dyvine, 72, retired nurse, healthcare and climate activist
Ken Jones, 73, retired professor of teacher education and VFP member
Steve Norris, 78, grandfather, carpenter, teacher, activist
Lyle Peterson, 73, blacksmith and founding member of VFP chapter
Gerry Werhan, 68, retired Medical Service Corps officer and VFP chapter president
Greg Yost, 55, former high school teacher and zip line guide

This Asheville action was one of 30+ events around the country carried out in a week of mobilization sponsored by the War Industry Resisters Network.

Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.

KEN JONES

Ken Jones is a retired professor of teacher education living in Swannanoa, NC.

SEE https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/search?q=PERMANENT+ARMS+ECONOMY+

Mass Delusion in the Nuclear Age

We're all a part of the general delusion of our time—that the trillions we have consented to pour into militarism will yield genuine peace.


Nuclear weapons did not deter Osama bin Laden. Nor did they deter Putin.

 (Photo: via EuroYankee)



WINSLOW MYERS

April 26, 2022

One adjective often, and correctly, used for Putin's invasion is "delusional." Even if he manages to pound Ukraine into scorched rubble, he'll still be further than when he began from anything resembling victory.

"Another obsolete paradigm clarified by the invasion of Ukraine is the usefulness of nuclear weapons as a way to prevent war. Nuclear weapons did not deter Osama bin Laden. Nor did they deter Putin."

He and his henchmen will continue to be generally despised and feared, most intensely by the defiant Ukrainians themselves. As Hemingway wrote, "Man can be destroyed but not defeated." Another aspect of Putin's delusion is projection: he rationalizes that he is destroying Nazis while behaving like a Nazi himself.

While we're quoting Nobel prizewinners, here is a snippet from Faulkner's Nobel speech: "Our tragedy today is a general and universal physical fear so long sustained by now that we can even bear it. There are no longer problems of the spirit. There is only the question: When will I be blown up?"

Putin happens to be the head of one of the nine nations who could answer Faulkner's question. But he is hardly alone in his conviction that military force backed up by nuclear weapons will yield greatness, or security, or whatever it is he hopes to gain from his colossal misjudgment. We're all a part of the general delusion of our time, that the trillions we have consented to pour into militarism will yield genuine peace. Here's one more quotation from a Nobel winner, this from T.S. Eliot: "Humankind cannot bear very much reality."

Mass delusion is indicated by our clinging to obsolete paradigms. Remember how certain that clerical authorities were that the earth was the center of the solar system? Another obsolete paradigm clarified by the invasion of Ukraine is the usefulness of nuclear weapons as a way to prevent war. Nuclear weapons did not deter Osama bin Laden. Nor did they deter Putin.

Instead, the record of near disaster over the decades of the nuclear age underlines our good fortune to find ourselves still alive and unradiated. Stanislav Petrov was on duty in a Soviet military bunker in 1983 when two signals indicated that U.S. intercontinental missiles were headed toward the U.S.S.R. He rightly decided there must be a malfunction in the Soviet early warning system and chose not to alert his superiors, risking his career. There are a number of such stories in the public domain, which would indicate that there may be even more close calls which remain classified.

What logic might be powerful enough to break the trance these weapons have induced in the governments of the world? I only know what logical common sense tells me: we cannot go on like this, building and renewing weapons and playing nuclear chicken. We can't continue forever relying on fiendishly complex computer systems that are subject to malfunction, being hacked, or coming to fatally mistaken conclusions, either on their own or in concert with the fallible humans operating them.

Imagine that aliens have swooped in from deep space to check up on our planet. As they circle the earth, they see no borders. It all looks like a single entity, menaced by rising temperatures and intensifying conflicts, both of which threaten the overall health of the living system upon which humans depend for their support. That is reality.

The aliens would say to us, "wake up from your delusion. Shake off the trance. Grow up. Learn to get along. Greater Russia is an abstraction, a fantasy, an illusion. And so are all the 'my country right or wrong' mythologies of America, China, and others. Nations and people have more in common than what separates you. You share a single planet and single life-support system, a common evolutionary history, a collective wish to leave your children a better life than your own, and an interdependent future where your survival depends upon each other. Avoiding blowing yourselves up is your ultimate common self-interest—a reality upon which to build an international security regime not based in deterrence, nuclear weapons, and war—based instead in the need for a further level of cooperation necessary to address your many sustainability challenges."

Biden and Zelensky are doing a heroic job within the existing delusional paradigm. But it is not too soon to start thinking outside the box: nuclear weapons are the problem, not the solution that establishment thinking fatalistically assumes they are. They are a solution only in the Holocaust sense of "final solution."

What might lie beyond deterrence? Putin or no Putin, creative men and women of good will can end our present drift downstream toward the waterfall ahead. This begins by admitting that we ourselves, along with Putin, are deluded by the false power of nuclear weapons.

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WINSLOW MYERS

Winslow Myers, the author of “Living Beyond War: A Citizen’s Guide,” serves on the Board of Beyond War, a non-profit educational foundation whose mission is to explore, model and promote the means for humanity to live without war. Myers writes for PeaceVoice.

Biden Tells Hispanic Caucus He's Exploring Options to Cancel Student Debt

"This is a sign that we are winning," said the Student Debt Crisis Center.

The Too Much Talent Band and local activists hold a protest outside the White House urging President Joe Biden to cancel student debt on March 15, 2022 in Washington, D.C. 

(Photo: Paul Morigi/Getty Images for We The 45 Million)

JESSICA CORBETT

April 26, 2022

Advocates and Democrats who support sweeping student debt cancellation welcomed reporting Tuesday that President Joe Biden is exploring options for loan forgiveness after extending a pandemic-related pause on payments earlier this month.

"This is what happens when you fight."

Multiple outlets, including CBS News and The Washington Post, reported that during a Monday meeting with members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, Biden repeatedly signaled he was considering canceling at least some federal student debt.

"The president is changing his message on student debt cancellation. This is a sign that we are winning," said the Student Debt Crisis Center (SDCC).

Referencing one of the reports, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) tweeted Tuesday that "today would be a great day for President Biden to #CancelStudentDebt."

Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, concurred, tweeting: "This is great news. Let's get it done!"

Debt cancellation supporters doubled down on their demands in early April when Biden extended the moratorium on student loan repayments through the end of August. Polling has consistently shown voters, particularly younger Americans, support canceling at least some educational debt.

One unnamed lawmaker who attended the Monday meeting told CBS that "they're looking at different options on what they can do. On forgiving it entirely. That was our request."

According to the Post:


Rep. Tony Cárdenas (D-Calif.) initially raised the issue with Biden during the meeting. In an interview, Cárdenas said he first asked the president to extend the moratorium past its current August 31 expiration date, and Biden responded with a smile, "Well, Tony, I've extended it every time."

Cárdenas said he then urged the president to issue an executive order to relieve at least $10,000 in student loan debts per person. In making his case, Cárdenas said he told Biden that Latinos in the United States who are carrying student debt still have more than 80 percent of their bill due after more than a dozen years.

Biden was "incredibly positive" about the idea, Cárdenas said.

The newspaper added that "another lawmaker in attendance, Rep. Darren Soto (D-Fla.), said Biden's response to lawmakers' requests to cancel at least some student debt was essentially that he would like to do it sooner rather than later."

Uncertainty over what Biden—who only campaigned on canceling at least $10,000 for federal borrowers—may do to address the student debt crisis comes as Democrats face a looming battle for control of Congress in this year's midterm elections.

SDCC executive director Cody Hounanian told CBS that "as far as the president going out and talking about student loan cancellation with different groups, I do think that's a very good sign."

"I think the president is starting to recognize that student debt cancellation is very popular," Hounanian added. "It's very popular with specific groups of voters that the president needs to win for this upcoming election, and the fact that he's using debt cancellation as a tool from which to talk to these communities, to me that's a little bit of a change."

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Sanders Pushes Biden to Nix Amazon's Federal Contracts Over 'Illegal Anti-Union Activity'

"Taxpayer dollars should not go to companies like Amazon and multi-billionaires like Jeff Bezos who repeatedly break the law."


Sen. Bernie Sanders rallies with Amazon workers and union organizers on April 24, 2022 in Staten Island, New York. (Photo: David Dee Delgado/Getty Images)

JAKE JOHNSON

April 27, 2022

Sen. Bernie Sanders demanded Tuesday that President Joe Biden cancel Amazon's federal contracts over the e-commerce giant's aggressive and unlawful union-busting efforts in New York, Alabama, and elsewhere, a call that came as union voting kicked off at a second Amazon facility in Staten Island.

"Since 2004, Amazon has received thousands of federal contracts worth billions of dollars."

In a letter to Biden, Sanders (I-Vt.) pointed to the president's campaign promise to "institute a multi-year federal debarment for all employers who illegally oppose unions" and "ensure federal contracts only go to employers who sign neutrality agreements committing not to run anti-union campaigns."

"The essence of your plan for strengthening union organizing was to make sure that federal dollars do not flow into the hands of unscrupulous employers who engage in union-busting, participate in wage theft, or violate labor law," the Vermont senator wrote. "In order to implement that plan, I urge you to sign an executive order preventing companies that violate federal labor laws from contracting with the federal government."

"As you may know, Amazon, one of the largest and most profitable corporations in America, is the poster child as to why this anti-union busting executive order is needed now more than ever," Sanders added.

In a floor speech Tuesday evening, the Vermont senator declared that "no government—not the federal government, not the state government, and not the city government—should be handing out corporate welfare to union busters and labor law violators."

"So today I say to President Biden: You promised to prevent union busters like Amazon from receiving lucrative contracts from the federal government," said Sanders. "Please keep that promise."

Federal agencies have fined Amazon dozens of times over the past two decades for a range of offenses related to workers' rights, including wage, hour, and workplace safety violations. A report released earlier this month estimated that the injury rate among Amazon's warehouse workers rose 20% in 2021, a year in which the company spent $4.3 million on anti-union consultants.

In recent weeks, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has sued Amazon for unlawfully retaliating against union organizers and other "flagrant unfair labor practices."

In January, ahead of the historic union victory at JFK8 that Amazon is working to overturn, the NLRB alleged in a formal complaint that the company "repeatedly broke the law by threatening, surveilling, and interrogating their Staten Island warehouse workers who are engaged in a union organizing campaign."

Despite its repeated and ongoing transgressions, the powerful company continues to benefit from federal contracts. The National Security Agency, for instance, has quietly awarded Amazon Web Services a cloud contract worth up to $10 billion.

Sanders, the chair of the Senate Budget Committee, argued in his letter to Biden that Amazon "should not receive" the federal contract as long as it continues to engage in "illegal anti-union activity." Next week, Sanders is expected to preside over a hearing examining how many federal contracts flow to companies, including Amazon, that are fighting unionization efforts.

"Since 2004, Amazon has received thousands of federal contracts worth billions of dollars," Sanders wrote Tuesday. "Mr. President: Taxpayer dollars should not go to companies like Amazon and multi-billionaires like Jeff Bezos who repeatedly break the law."

The Vermont senator's demand comes as unions and lawmakers are pushing the New York attorney general to investigate whether Amazon has invalidated its eligibility for state-level taxpayer subsidies by violating labor laws. According to Good Jobs First, Amazon has received at least $4.18 billion in state and local taxpayer subsidies since 2000.

"If we do not stop subsidizing Amazon's warehouses, New York state becomes complicit in subsidizing union-busting practices with taxpayer money," New York Assemblyman Ron Kim (D-40) told The Lever last week.

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On Sunday, the international trade union movement celebrates May Day.   LabourStart will once again be hosting a major online event and I’d like to invite you to join us there. This is your chance to see and hear your fellow trade unionists from across the world.  We’ll have leaders of global unions, rank-and-file activists and everything in between.  Come join us and meet:     • Women trade unionists from Cambodia, recently released from jail following a LabourStart campaign.     • A union leader from Lithuania speaking about the first public-sector strike in their country in decades – which is also the subject of a current LabourStart campaign.     • Students at the Global Labour University showing their support for the jailed union leaders in Belarus.     • And many more … Our broadcast will begin on Sunday, 1 May at 13:00 UTC here: https://www.labourstart.org/1may2022/ That's 06:00 in San Francisco, 09:00 in Toronto, 14:00 in London, 15:00 in Berlin, 16:00 in Kiev, 22:00 in Sydney and 01:00 in Auckland on the following day.  Check your local time here: https://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/ When the event is over, you will be able to watch a recording at your convenience. All the participants are either speaking in English, or subtitles in English will be shown. During the event be sure to post your May Day greetings to fellow workers around the world. To make this event a success, please spread the word widely in your union. See you on Sunday! Eric Lee