MOBILIZE THE VOTE FOR NOV 22

Abortion rights supporters, opponents face off at US Supreme Court



Supporters and opponents of abortion rights gathered to demonstrate outside the US Supreme Court hours after news of the leaked opinion 

(AFP/Stefani Reynolds)


Robin LEGRAND
Tue, May 3, 2022,

Hundreds of pro-choice and anti-abortion activists gathered in front of the US Supreme Court on Monday night, hours after a stunning leak of a draft opinion that signals the institution may be set to strike down the right to abortion.

According to the draft majority opinion obtained by news outlet Politico, the top US court is poised to overturn the historic 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling that enshrined the right to abortion in the United States.

Squaring off on either side of the white marble building a stone's throw from the Capitol, the pro-choice and anti-abortion groups railed at each other.

"Roe v. Wade is going to go," anti-abortion protesters taunted, while the pro-choice crowd yelled: "My body, my choice."

The two groups chanted and waved placards in the plaza in front of the steps to the Supreme Court, with barriers and a few uniformed police officers barring access to the colonnaded building.

Abby Korb, a 23-year-old graduate student and congressional aide, said she was "in literal shock" when the news broke and quickly headed to the Supreme Court with a friend.

"I'm a woman and my rights are being taken away every single day," she told AFP.

- 'More dangerous' -

Like many others at the spontaneous demonstration, Korb, originally from Wisconsin, is now calling for legislation at the federal level to protect access to abortion.

"We need access to safe abortion because making it illegal isn't going to stop it, it's just going to make it more dangerous," she said.

The growing crowd took turns to hurl expletives at Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito, who reportedly wrote the opinion, and called on Democratic Party leaders to "do something".

Madeline Hren, a 25-year-old from North Carolina, said she was very angry.

"I called everyone I knew to be very angry," she said, holding a small sign with a drawing of a bloody coat hanger that said "We will not go back."

"I'm really upset about it... I didn't cry. I'm mostly just mad," said Hren, who works for the UN Foundation.

She now fears that an abortion ban will extend to her native North Carolina.

For opponents of the right to abortion, however, it was time to celebrate.

"You don't care if people die," they sang at the pro-choice crowd.

"I hope they overturn it," said Claire Rowan, a 55-year-old mother of seven children, some of whom accompanied her to the demonstration.

Rowan said she hopes people will now be "asking God for forgiveness so that the nation can heal."

rle/mtp/aha/oho

Ukraine war will not delay Scottish independence referendum, says Nicola Sturgeon

The war in Ukraine will not delay a second Scottish independence referendum, First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has vowed.

By Jane Bradley
Monday, 2nd May 2022, 

Ms Sturgeon said she had “not changed her position” on when a referendum would be held, despite fears the conflict in Ukraine could continue well into next year. The First Minister has insisted she still sees 2023 as a realistic date for a new vote.

“I’ve not changed my position on the timescale we won the mandate for in the election last year,” she told The Guardian.

Ms Sturgeon also reiterated her party’s stance on Nato membership, saying she would like to see an independent Scotland be a "non-nuclear member” of the alliance. The issue has been divisive in the SNP, which changed its stance in 2012, sparking the resignation of three MSPs.

First Minister of Scotland Nicola Sturgeon (left) poses for selfies during a visit to Portobello, Edinburgh, while on the local election campaign trail. 

Picture: Lesley Martin/PA Wire

In Ukraine, president Volodymyr Zelensky said the evacuation of the Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol, where more than 1,000 civilians have been sheltering, had begun. Meanwhile, the head of the military administration in Kharkiv said four districts have been re-captured from the Russians.

Questions have been raised as to how Scotland’s anti-Trident stance will be perceived in a time of conflict with nuclear power Russia.

Ms Sturgeon told Sophy Ridge’s Sky News on Sunday: "I would want to see an independent Scotland be a non-nuclear member of Nato. Remember, the vast majority of countries in the world don't have nuclear weapons and I think we're right now being reminded of the dangers posed by nuclear weapons.”

Ms Sturgeon said Scotland’s “strategically important position” in the North Atlantic would give it strength as part of the alliance.

First Minister Nicola Sturgeon during a visit to Portobello, 

Edinburgh, while on the local election campaign trail.

She said: "I would want an independent Scotland to be a constructive and participating member of Nato. And I think one of the big questions for my party – indeed, for those who support an independent Scotland – is to think in this new world order that we're living in, post the Russian invasion of Ukraine, where many of the things we've taken for granted in the post Cold War era have been turned on their head, we need to consider what would an independent Scotland bring to that Nato alliance?

“The question of Nato membership is not always the one that unifies everybody in the SNP, but I think in the world we're living in, it's very important to recognise that would be vital for the security of an independent Scotland and we would have a duty to play our part in that broader security arrangement.”

Nato’s secretary general Jens Stoltenberg has previously said Scotland would have to reapply to join the alliance if it left the UK.


Legal advice on Scottish independence referendum to be released after transparen...

A European Leadership Network paper written last year by John Gower, a rear admiral at the time of the 2014 independence referendum, warned “joining the nuclear alliance Nato on a political non-nuclear platform would be at best exceedingly difficult”.

Ms Sturgeon’s comments came as the UK Green Party said it would seek to move the UK out of Nato in the long term once the conflict in Ukraine was over.

Party co-leader Adrian Ramsay said he did not want to “change structures in the middle of a conflict”, but believed the UK should leave the military alliance in the future.

He said: “We have a long-term policy about reviewing what structures we need to have to build peace in the world and we have to remember this conflict has happened at a time when we are part of Nato, when we are still seeing nuclear weapons dominate.


“Of course we are not about changing structures in the middle of conflict and what we need to do at the moment is focus on how Ukraine can be supported in a wide variety of ways.”

Asked to confirm again the Greens want the UK to leave Nato, Mr Ramsay added: “Yes, that is our long-term policy that we would like to see far greater focus on peacekeeping institutions and institutions that support a reduction in our nuclear weapons and countries moving away from nuclear weapons.”

The UK Government has said plans for new nuclear power stations will not be "imposed" on Scotland.

Boris Johnson’s strategy includes plans to increase nuclear, wind, solar and hydrogen, with eight nuclear reactors – the equivalent of one a year – to be delivered by the end of this decade at existing sites down south.

Ms Sturgeon said last month she believed it would be “realistic” to hold a second independence referendum next year and said “the work is underway”.

Three meetings were held at the end of last year and the beginning of this year to discuss the “approach to the development and delivery” of new independence white papers. Deputy First Minister John Swinney and constitution secretary Angus Robertson also attended the meetings alongside civil servants and advisers.

Ms Sturgeon has also refused to rule out court action after Scotland’s information commissioner ordered her Government to publish its legal advice on whether it would have the requisite powers to hold a second referendum without Westminster’s consent, following a 13-month Freedom of Information battle with The Scotsman.

In a ruling, Scottish Information Commissioner Daren Fitzhenry said the Government’s decisions during the Alex Salmond inquiry and the “obvious” and “significant” public interest around a second independence referendum meant parts of the legal advice should be released.

Ms Sturgeon said: “The Commissioner’s made his ruling, there’s now a June 10 deadline, any government is going to carefully consider all aspects of that and I’m not going to pre-empt that consideration.”

She added: “The question is not whether the Scottish Government will comply with the law. We will. The question is whether political opponents and actually democrats are willing to argue their case democratically and allow the people to decide”.

KAPITALI$M IS KRI$I$

Australia Wealth Fund Posts Biggest Quarterly Loss in Two Years

Matthew Burgess, Bloomberg News

Sydney Harbour Bridge in Sydney. Photographer: Brent Lewin/Bloomberg , Bloomberg

(Bloomberg) -- Australia’s sovereign wealth fund suffered its largest quarterly loss in two years amid renewed geopolitical and monetary policy risks.

Future Fund lost 1.5% in the three months to March 31, the biggest drop since the same period in 2020, causing its main fund to shrink to A$201 billion ($141 billion) from A$204 billion, it said in statement Monday. At the same time, the fund reduced its cash holdings as allocation into Australian and developed market stocks and so-called alternative assets increased, the statement said. 

“As central banks tighten monetary policy to rein in inflation and geopolitical tensions continue to create shocks in investment markets, we have been positioning for what will be a challenging and volatile future,” Future Fund Chairman Peter Costello said in a statement. 

The Future Fund was warning of a worsening global outlook even before Russia’s aggression toward Ukraine, anticipating an increase in volatility as central banks remove stimulus and lift borrowing costs to combat rising consumer cost pressures. It trimmed its stock allocation in December, helping to cushion the impact during a turbulent quarter for global equities. 

Future Fund Chief Executive Raphael Arndt warned future returns will be harder to achieve given the ongoing fragility in global markets combined with rising inflation. That echoed Norway’s wealth fund, the world’s largest, which recorded a 4.9% quarterly loss in March. The Future Fund is hunting more unlisted assets while relying on its alternative strategies to cushion the portfolio, he said. 

Australia’s wealth fund decided on Feb. 28 to drop Russian assets in response to the country’s invasion of Ukraine, but ran into problems with implementing the decision after Russia banned foreigners from executing trades on its stock markets. The fund, which had about A$180 million of Russian assets at April 5, will wind down the holdings as market conditions allow, Costello said. 

©2022 Bloomberg L.P.

VIDEO: Kansas tornado generated 265 kmph winds as it destroyed homes
02 May 2022

A combo image shows the tornado ripping through a neighbourhood in Kansas.

Gulf Today Report

The tornado that damaged more than 1,000 homes in south-central Kansas generated winds of up to 165 mph (265 kmph) and left a path of destruction nearly 13 miles long.

The National Weather Service said the tornado caused extensive damage on Friday, mostly in suburban Wichita in Andover.

Several people were injured.

THIS IS ONE OF THE BEST TORNADO VIDEOS I HAVE SEEN

Andover Fire Chief Chad Russell said at least 300 to 400 buildings were completely destroyed by the storm out of a total of 1,074 damaged buildings.

The Weather Service said the tornado remained on the ground for 21 minutes on Friday.

Four people, including two firefighters who responded to a call in Andover, were injured in the storm, but their injuries were minor.

Russell said it would take Andover years to recover from this storm.

By Sunday, utility crews had restored power to nearly all of the more than 15,000 customers who lost power during the storm.

Officials said fewer than 1,000 people were still without power in the Wichita area as of Sunday morning.

In addition to storm damage, the Oklahoma State Patrol said three University of Oklahoma meteorology students were killed in a car accident about 85 miles north of Oklahoma City in Oklahoma on Friday night while returning from storm chasing in Kansas.

Russia: programme of ‘patriotic education’ aims to create next generation of Putin faithful


Generation ‘Z’: members of Russia’s Young Army Military Patriotic Movement 

at a rally in 2021.

 Mikhail Tereshchenko/TASS/Alamy Live News


THE CONVERSATION
Published: April 21, 2022

As Russia shifts the focus of its “special military operation” in Ukraine to the Donbas region, there seems no end in sight to the fighting. Casualties on both sides are mounting. While Ukraine is able to call on its citizens to help defend their homeland from Russian aggression, Moscow’s ability to rally and maintain support for this war among ordinary Russians will be crucial for sustaining its military effort.

The Kremlin regards children and young people as a vital part of this effort. The government has launched a series of patriotic education campaigns aimed at Russia’s youth to encourage them to regard the war in Ukraine as a continuation of the second world war and to feel a personal connection to the Russian soldiers fighting there.

Targeting propaganda at young people is not new to Russia. When the Bolsheviks took power in 1917, they introduced patriotic-military education to prepare the next generation for war. During the Brezhnev period from 1964 to 1982, the focus of attention turned to Soviet Union’s victory over the Nazis in what Russia still calls the “great patriotic war”.

There was a strong psychological dimension to Soviet patriotic-military education during the cold war. Heroic stories of self-sacrifice during the great patriotic war were used to develop children’s devotion to the motherland. Whether through activities in youth groups or in more formal educational settings, a clear message was delivered to young people: they had a responsibility to preserve the memory of the victory that their parents and grandparents had achieved.

Since the collapse of the USSR, the memory of the great patriotic war has become even more important to education in Russia. Young people have not only been charged with preserving the state’s version of history, they are also expected to be vigilant and denounce efforts by others to “falsify” and “diminish” Russia’s historical role in the world.

The memory of the great patriotic war is also central to the way that Moscow is justifying its war in Ukraine to Russian society. The baseless claim that Russia was forced to intervene to combat growing Nazi sentiment in Ukraine is now being woven into the messages targeted at Russia’s young people.

One aspect of this campaign was the launch of the “strength is in the truth” initiative. The opening ceremony in Moscow was attended by schoolchildren from regions across Russia, including members of the national Young Army Movement created in 2015. In his remarks at the ceremony, Russia’s education minister, Sergey Kravtsov, said that a situation like the one in Ukraine will never happen again, because “we have wonderful young people … because you believe in Russia, in our country, in our teachers, in our victories, and that you are right! Thank you, guys, for your position, for speaking directly about this and not distorting history.”

Every army needs new recruits: young members of the All-Russian Young Army Forum with defence minister, Sergei Shoigu, in 2021. 

Mikhail Tereshchenko/TASS/Alamy Live News

Another strand of this campaign is the use of Holocaust memory to bring Nazi atrocities to the forefront of youth consciousness and to make connections with the war in Ukraine. On April 19, the Victory Museum in Moscow opened an exhibition titled Ordinary Nazism. The exhibition highlights “the atrocities of Ukrainian nationalists during the second world war, as well as the mass crimes and terror of modern neo-Nazis against the inhabitants of Ukraine in 2014-2022”.

The same day was also marked as The Day of United Action in Russia in memory of the genocide of the Soviet people that began in Russia by the Nazis and their accomplices. The event involved concerts, exhibitions, rallies and performances in schools and universities across Russia.
Generation ‘Z’

In schools throughout Russia, teachers are trying to find age-appropriate ways of connecting children and young people with the soldiers fighting in Ukraine. The youngest children are given simple tasks, such as drawing and colouring pictures of the “Z” ribbon or standing in formations to make the shape of that letter. The (non-Cyrillic) letter “Z” has been turned into a symbol of the war and has become something of a badge for those who support it.

Older children write letters to soldiers serving in Ukraine, especially soldiers who are from their towns or regions, and make care packages to send to them. Schools are now being supplied with desks featuring [images and biographical details] of distinguished soldiers inscribed on them, providing a vivid reminder of the proud history of Russian military heroism that young people are invited to join.

These efforts to deliver carefully constructed messages about the war in Ukraine to children and young people serve several purposes. There are short-term benefits, such as encouraging a positive attitude towards military service in older teenage boys who will be eligible for conscription in the near future. Given the number of Russian soldiers reported as killed in action so far in this conflict, recruitment will remain a crucial part of the war effort.

The work of reaching young people with these messages also makes more Russian adults complicit in supporting the Kremlin’s narrative. Some teachers may genuinely support the war, but for many, this will be just another way of showing their bosses they are doing their jobs well – and perhaps showing the state that they are loyal citizens. The consequences for those who refuse can be serious: there is evidence of pupils reporting their teachers for making disloyal remarks.

In the longer term, patriotic education aims to establish a deep and enduring sense of patriotism, duty and love of country in the next generation of Russian citizens, along with a great deal of respect for the military as an institution. Key to this is Russia’s systematic presentation of its history to new youth groups, while cutting them off from opposing worldviews. The creation of future generations that can be easily moulded to believe the Kremlin’s messages and fulfil its agendas is an important feature of Putin’s toy soldiers.

Authors

Jennifer Mathers
Senior Lecturer in International Politics, Aberystwyth University 

Allyson Edwards
Teaching Fellow in History, University of Warwick 

 

China-Britain hydrogen energy cooperation enjoys huge potential, broad prospects: ambassador

(Xinhua) 11:51, May 02, 2022

MANCHESTER, Britain, May 1 (Xinhua) -- Chinese Ambassador to Britain Zheng Zeguang has praised the China-Britain joint efforts in hydrogen development and encouraged both sides to conduct more mutually beneficial cooperation in the future.

In recent years, China and Britain have carried out joint projects in hydrogen fuel cells and hydrogen industrial parks, and such mutually beneficial cooperation in hydrogen energy has huge potential and broad prospects for further growth, said Zheng.

He made the remarks on Thursday while addressing the opening ceremony of the China-UK Hydrogen Energy Cooperation Forum, which was co-hosted online from the central Chinese city of Wuhan and Britain's second largest city of Manchester.

The two sides should encourage local governments to strengthen communication, dock their policy measures, build platforms for business partnerships and create new highlights of mutually beneficial cooperation, said Zheng.

"We should promote international cooperation on hydrogen energy standards, foster a sound environment for the development of the international hydrogen energy industry, and contribute to its sustained and healthy development," said the ambassador.

Speaking to the participants of the forum, Zheng said that the forum is important for implementing the consensus between the leaders of the two countries on enhancing cooperation on green development and ecological conservation.

The two-day forum hosted discussions on current developments and opportunities of cooperation in the hydrogen energy industry among government representatives as well as hydrogen energy specialists, scientists and business leaders from both sides.

At the opening ceremony, Wuhan City and Manchester City, which became sister cities in 1986, signed a memorandum of understanding on hydrogen energy industry exchange and cooperation, and Wuhan University of Technology and Manchester Metropolitan University signed a letter of intent on hydrogen energy cooperation.

(Web editor: Zhong Wenxing, Bianji)

South Korea’s Next Defense Minister Expresses Reservations On CVX Program

HHI unveiled a stunning CVX light aircraft carrier design at MADEX 2021

Lee Jong-seop, a member of the Presidential Transition Committee's foreign and security policy team and the incoming President Yoon Suk-yeol's nominee for the Minister of National Defense, expressed reservations about the South Korean aircraft carrier or CVX program on April 25 when asked by National Defense Committee member Kang Daesik.

Juho Lee  02 May 2022

“There are diverse opinions on the CVX program. I think we need to carefully evaluate our priorities by taking into account several factors including strategic and tactical operational doctrines, military requirements, national interest, and cost efficiency,”

Lee Jong-seop, Incoming Minister of National Defense

According to several domestic observers, this statement effectively amounts to a break of policy with the current administration, which has expressed support for the program.

The CVX program has been a subject of great controversy over the past few months. Funding for the program was axed last November, only to be revived unilaterally by the ruling party the month after. The incoming President is a member of the People Power Party, the program’s harshest critic in the National Assembly. Therefore, the CVX program will likely face more hurdles in the coming years.

Lee also criticized North Korea’s latest missile test, saying that it contradicts the “spirit of the 9.19 Pyongyang Declaration.” In addition to this, he expressed support for expanding joint U.S.-South Korea military exercises, saying, “A military that doesn’t train might as well not exist. We shall review expanding the exercises to 2019 levels.”

About CVX aircraft carrier program

DSME initial proposal for ROK Navy’s CVX program.

The CVX program is the Republic of Korea Navy (ROKN)’s first aircraft carrier program. Initially CVX was conceived as being the last ship of the Landing Platform eXperimental (LPX) program which produced the largest ships operated by the ROKN currently, the Dokdo-class amphibious assault ships. Preliminary plans, dubbed LPX-II, envisioned an amphibious assault ship-like vessel that would also be capable of operating fighter aircraft.

However, in August 2020, the ROKN officially announced plans to acquire a fully-fledged aircraft carrier with the term CVX being introduced in February 2021. The ROKN hopes CVX will be ready for operations by 2033.

The CVX is expected to cost ₩2.3 trillion ($2 billion) to construct and around ₩50 billion ($45 million) per year to maintain. It will be 265 meters in length, and 43 meters in width and have a light and maximum displacement of around 30,000 tons and 40,000 tons respectively. The ship will be capable of operating 16 F-35B fighters as well as eight helicopters. It will also feature a high degree of automation and have a complement of 440 crew, excluding the air element. The carrier will have two islands, similar to the Royal Navy’s Queen Elizabeth class. Two shipbuilders are competing: Hyundai Heavy Industries and DSME.

CVX will be equipped with the AESA radar being designed by Hanwha for the “integrated mast” on the KDDX destroyer. The S-band radar will have a range of 300 km for long-range detection of aircraft, while the X band radar will be used for short-range detection. The carrier will also feature LIG Nex1’s torpedo acoustic countermeasure, Haegung (K-SAAM) surface-to-air missile system, and close-in weapon systems (CIWS) for point defense. 

SEE LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Search results for PERMANENT ARMS ECONOMY 

ANTIWAR.COM

Nuclear Weapons Cannot Be Un-Invented

by Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity Posted onMay 02, 2022

MEMORANDUM FOR: The President
FROM: Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS)
SUBJECT: Nuclear Weapons Cannot Be Un-invented, Thus …
PRECEDENCE: IMMEDIATE
REF: Our Memo of 12/20/20, "Don’t Be Suckered on Russia"

May 1, 2022

Mr. President:

Mainstream media have marinated the minds of most Americans in a witches’ brew of misleading information on Ukraine – and on the exceedingly high stakes of the war. On the chance you are not getting the kind of "untreated" intelligence President Truman hoped for by restructuring intelligence, we offer below a 12-point factsheet. Some of us were intelligence analysts during the Cuban missile crisis and see a direct parallel in Ukraine. As to VIPs’ credibility, our record since Jan. 2003 – whether on Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, or Russia – speaks for itself.

1. The growing possibility that nuclear weapons might be used, as hostilities in Ukraine continue to escalate, merits your full attention.

2. For almost 77 years, a common awareness of the awesome destructiveness of atomic/nuclear weapons created an (ironically stabilizing) balance of terror called deterrence. Nuclear-armed countries have generally avoided threatening to use nukes against other nuclear-armed countries.

3. Putin’s recent reminders of Russia’s nuclear weapons capability can easily fit into the category of deterrence. It can also be read as a warning that he is prepared to use them in extremis.

4. Extremis? Yes; Putin regards Western interference in Ukraine, particularly since the coup d’etat in Feb. 2014, as an existential threat. In our view, he is determined to rid Russia of this threat, and Ukraine is now a must-win for Putin. We cannot rule out the possibility that, backed into a corner, he might authorize a limited nuclear strike with modern missiles that fly many times the speed of sound.

5. Existential threat? Moscow sees U.S. military involvement in Ukraine as precisely the same kind of strategic threat President Kennedy saw in Khrushchev’s attempt to put nuclear missiles in Cuba in violation of the Monroe Doctrine. Putin complains that US"ABM" missile sites in Romania and Poland can be modified, by simply inserting an alternate compact disk, to launch missiles against Russia’s ICBM force.

6. As for putting missile sites in Ukraine, according to the Kremlin readout of your Dec. 30, 2021 telephone conversation with Putin, you told him the US"had no intention of deploying offensive strike weapons in Ukraine". So far as we know, there has been no objection to the accuracy of that Russian readout. Nevertheless, your reported assurance to Putin disappeared into thin air – contributing, we imagine, to Russia’s growing distrust.

7. Russia can no longer doubt that the US and NATO aim to weaken Russia (and to remove him, if possible) – and that the West also believes it can accomplish this by pouring weapons into Ukraine and urging the Ukrainians to fight on. We think these aims are delusional.

8. If Secretary Austin believes that Ukraine can "win" against Russian forces – he is mistaken. You will recall that many of Austin’s predecessors – McNamara, Rumsfeld, Gates, for example – kept assuring earlier presidents that corrupt regimes could "win" – against foes far less formidable than Russia.

9. The notion that Russia is internationally "isolated" also seems delusional. China can be counted on to do what it can to prevent Putin from "losing" in Ukraine – first and foremost because Beijing has been designated "next in line", so to speak. Surely, President Xi Jin-Ping has been briefed on the Pentagon’s "2022 National Defense Strategy" identifying China as the #1 "threat". Russia-China entente marks a tectonic shift in the world correlation of forces. It is not possible to exaggerate its significance.

10. Nazi sympathizers in Ukraine will not escape attention on May 9, as Russia celebrates the 77th anniversary of the victory by the Allies over Nazi Germany. Every Russian knows that more than 26 million Soviets died during that war (including Putin’s older brother Viktor during the merciless, 872-day blockade of Leningrad). Denazification of Ukraine is one of the key factors accounting for Putin’s approval level of above 80 percent.

11. The Ukraine conflict can be called "The Mother of All Opportunity Costs". In last year’s "Threat Assessment", National Intelligence Director Avril Haines identified climate change as a major national security and "human security" challenge that can only be met by nations working together. War in Ukraine is already diverting much needed attention from this impending threat to coming generations.

12. We note that we sent our first Memorandum of this genre to President George W. Bush on Feb. 5, 2003, critiquing Colin Powell’s unconfirmed-intelligence-stuffed speech at the UN earlier that day. We sent two follow-up Memos in March 2003 warning the president that intelligence was being "cooked" to justify war, but were ignored. We end this Memo with the same appeal we made, in vain, to George W. Bush: "You would be well served if you widened the discussion beyond the circle of those advisers clearly bent on a war for which we see no compelling reason and from which we believe the unintended consequences are likely to be catastrophic."

Lastly, we repeat the offer we made to you in December 2020 (in the VIPs Memorandum referenced above): ‘We stand ready to support you with objective, tell-it-like-it-is analysis.’ We suggest you might benefit from "outside" input from veteran intelligence officers with many decades of experience on the "inside".

FOR THE STEERING GROUP: Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity

• Fulton Armstrong, former National Intelligence Officer for Latin America & former National Security Council Director for Inter-American Affairs (ret.)
• William Binney, NSA Technical Director for World Geopolitical & Military Analysis; Co-founder of NSA’s Signals Intelligence Automation Research Center (ret.)
• Richard H. Black, Former Virginia Senator; Col. US Army (ret.); Former Chief, Criminal Law Division, Office of the Judge Advocate General, the Pentagon (associate VIPS)
• Graham E. Fuller,Vice-Chair, National Intelligence Council (ret.)
• Philip Giraldi, CIA, Operations Officer (ret.)
• Matthew Hoh, former Capt., USMC, Iraq & Foreign Service Officer, Afghanistan (associate VIPS)
• Larry Johnson, former CIA Intelligence Officer & former State Department Counter-Terrorism Official (ret.)
• Michael S. Kearns, Captain, USAF Intelligence Agency (ret.), former Master SERE Instructor
• John Kiriakou, former CIA Counterterrorism Officer and former senior investigator, Senate Foreign Relations Committee
• Edward Loomis, Cryptologic Computer Scientist, former Technical Director at NSA (ret.)
• Ray McGovern, former US Army infantry/intelligence officer & CIA analyst; CIA Presidential briefer (ret.)
• Elizabeth Murray, former Deputy National Intelligence Officer for the Near East, National Intelligence Council & CIA political analyst (ret.)
• Pedro Israel Orta, former CIA and Intelligence Community (Inspector General) officer
• Todd Pierce, MAJ, US Army Judge Advocate (ret.)
• Theodore Postol, Professor Emeritus, MIT (Physics). Former Science and Policy Adviser for Weapons Technology to the Chief of Naval Operations (associate VIPS)
• Scott Ritter, former MAJ., USMC, former UN Weapon Inspector, Iraq
• Coleen Rowley, FBI Special Agent and former Minneapolis Division Legal Counsel (ret.)
• Kirk Wiebe, former Senior Analyst, SIGINT Automation Research Center, NSA (ret.)
• Sarah G. Wilton, CDR, USNR, (Retired)/DIA, (Retired)
• Robert Wing, former Foreign Service Officer (associate VIPS)
• Ann Wright, Col., US Army (ret.); Foreign Service Officer (resigned in opposition to the war on Iraq)

Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPs) is made up of former intelligence officers, diplomats, military officers and congressional staffers. The organization, founded in 2002, was among the first critics of Washington’s justifications for launching a war against Iraq. VIPS advocates a US foreign and national security policy based on genuine national interests rather than contrived threats promoted for largely political reasons. An archive of VIPS memoranda is available at Consortiumnews.com.

BANKSY OUTLAW ART VIDEO

 

S. Korea finds descendants of 6 Hawaii-based independence fighters

By Yonhap
Published : May 2, 2022 

This file photo released by the Ministry of Patriots and Veterans Affairs on Monday, shows South Korean independence fighter Dora Moon (R) and her daughter Whila Chung. (Yonhap)


South Korea has identified descendants of six independence activists who supported the nation's fight against Japan's 1910-45 colonial rule * from Hawaii, the veterans affairs ministry said Monday.

The identification was an outcome of the project that the ministry launched in December to locate descendants of the activists, who operated in the U.S. territory, and properly honor them with state benefits, according to officials.

Among the four descendants were George Blair McCun, the grandson of George S. McCune, an American who won the Order of Merit for National Foundation in 1963 for his contribution to the Koreans' movement against Japan's colonization.

Elsa Carl, great-granddaughter of Dora Moon, was also on the list. Moon participated in the first organization of Korean women in Hawaii in 1913. Her daughter, Whila Chung, also raised funds to support the independence movements with other Korean women.

The ministry was able to find those descendants by researching old documents and newspaper articles and meeting related officials in Hawaii.

"The identification of the descendants carries significant meaning, given that it sheds new light on Hawaii-based independence fighters who financially supported their country's independence and the activities of its provisional government," a ministry official said.

South Korea has conferred merits to the activists from 1963 to 2022 but could not deliver them to the descendants as their whereabouts remained unknown.

The ministry plans to deliver the medals to the surviving family members on Liberation Day that falls on Aug. 15.

*THE JAPANESE STILL MAINTAIN THEIR RACIST VIEWS OF KOREANS WHICH IS REFLECTED IN THEIR MIGRANT WORKER AND THEIR

ANTI- MIGRANT POLICIES