Arctic Sea Ice Loss: A World of Trouble

by Robert Hunziker / February 14th, 2024

What if Arctic sea ice melts?

All of it… during the summer!

According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), over the past three decades the oldest, thickest ice (13-20 feet thick) has declined by a stunning 95 percent and 70 percent of Arctic sea ice is now thin “seasonal ice” that quickly melts in the Arctic summer.

Based upon scientific analyses, loss of sea ice impacts the planet’s biggest thermostat, i.e., the Arctic sea ice itself, into a wacky climate monster that dims/diminishes one of the biggest reflectors of solar radiation, thereby exposing Earth to excessive solar heat quickly absorbed in dark iceless sea water that would otherwise be reflected back into space, according to NOAA >80%, by a bright icy surface , bringing in its wake unprecedented climate havoc: (1) Northern Hemispheric ultra-powerful storms (2) disrupted agricultural seasons distort crop growth (3) coastal cities at risk of flooding as the Greenland ice sheet crumbles more and more than ever before; a result of the loss of its biggest refrigerator, right next door.

Based upon several early warning signs, the stakes are enormously high. After all, Arctic sea ice has exerted positive influence, seemingly forever, by maintaining a 10,000-year Holocene Era steady climate system, earmarked by a “not-too-hot-not-too-cold spectacular Goldilocks experience” ever since people first sat around fires in caves thanks, in part, to the ever-vigilant Arctic sea ice thermostat. That gift to humanity is almost gone after 10K years of hard work. Early results of its demise are already forthcoming.

Arctic sea ice loss is arguably one of the most significant tipping points in human history. Can civilization handle it?

A study published in Nature Communications in November 2023 characterized Greenland’s northern glaciers as “in trouble” with its ice shelves rapidly weakening, destabilizing much earlier than previously thought. Loss of Arctic sea ice will accelerate this weakening, by a lot. Meantime, coastal cities of the world are not prepared for major surges.

The direct relationship between the Arctic’s inordinate warming with sea ice loss and disintegrating Greenland ice shelves has been identified for some time now: “Current research suggests that disappearing sea ice and disproportionate Arctic warming contribute to accelerated Greenland melt, which is now the single largest driver of sea-level rise.” (Source: How Are Reduced Arctic Sea ice and Increased Greenland Melting Connected? Arctic, Antarctic, and Alpine Research, Vol. 53, Issue 1, 2021.)

A proposal to revive; i.e., refreeze Arctic Sea ice, comes from a steadfast group of scientists/engineers/inventors working under the acronym PRAG. They believe they can provide the proper guidance to rescue the Arctic and welcome any support both financially and intellectually because – beware, beware – geo-engineering is a hot topic that sparks vicious dogfighting within the scientific community.

What does refreezing the Arctic entail?

A white paper authored by John Nissen, founder of Planetary Restoration Action Group (“PRAG”), claims two main methods (there are others under consideration; e.g., MEER) are needed to cool the Arctic and both should be employed in conjunction: (1) marine cloud brightening – according to cloud physicist John Latham, adding salt particles from sea water to clouds increases the reflectively of sunlight thereby increasing cooling for Arctic sea ice formation; and (2) stratospheric aerosol injection – aerosol particles, a coolant called sulfur dioxide (SO2)  sprayed into the atmosphere to reflect sunlight back into space, mimicking the eruption of Mt. Pinatubo in 1991-92 which emitted enough SO2 into the stratosphere to cause ~0.5C global cooling.

Interestingly, injecting SO2 to help cool the planet was suggested by the US National Academy of Sciences way back in 1992.

The arguments for and against solar radiation management (SRM) in the simplest of terms revolve around the perceived risks of harm.  On the opposition side, there is fear that SRM could inadvertently create a Frankenstein climate system that could do bad things such as (1) extraordinary droughts or (2) disrupt monsoons or (3) damage the precious ozone layer. There is also the fear that SRM would encourage more fossil fuel emissions, known as the moral hazard argument.

The other side in favor of SRM geo-engineering counters by claiming there is no known evidence of significant risk of harm from deliberate geo-engineering to cool the planet, whilst also acknowledging there is no such thing as riskless interference with the climate system. After all, we’ve already geoengineered a Frankenstein climate system by emitting greenhouse gases like CO2 into the atmosphere via cars, trains, planes, and industry for over 100 years. So, it’s fair to ask what’s wrong with geo-engineering to reduce temperatures and defuse the climate crisis?  Time is short, according to UN Secretary General António Guterres: “We are entering an era of global boiling.”

PRAG has no knowledge of concrete evidence that Stratospheric Aerosol Injection causes harm whereas they claim there are big potential benefits, such as restoring Arctic sea ice.  Regarding the moral hazard argument: PRAG claims “the moral hazard is ‘not to geoengineer’ when geoengineering could prevent catastrophe.” Thus, they’ve staked their position, insinuating that society has few, if any, reasonable alternatives.

For millions of years, Arctic Sea ice has been one of the most important natural regulators of the Northern Hemisphere climate system. Of utmost importance, less sea ice means more sun radiation absorbed into the dark background of sea water, which means more solar heat absorbed in the sea, melting more ice, etc. in a vicious cycle. The result could be Hot House Earth, especially if melting permafrost releases vast quantities of entrapped frozen methane clathrates (aka: methane hydrates) in shallow continental-shelf waters offshore Russia, to wit: the Barents Sea, Kara Sea, Laptev Sea, and East Siberian Sea.

As it happens, the entire Northern Hemisphere is a target of what happens in the Arctic. For example, rapid warming has altered the behavior of the all-important polar jet stream, a high-level stream of air which encircles the planet in a wavy, east-moving pattern.  This alteration has led to the jet stream drooping and getting stuck in big holding patterns, causing extremes of weather, like endless blistering heatwaves or atmospheric rivers that stay put.

Indeed, extremes of heat have already become a serious problem; e.g., according to the UN Convention to Combat Desertification, as of August 2023, seventy-five percent (75%) of Spain has been declared vulnerable to desertification because of excessive heat. That UN declaration was in 2023. On January 25, 2024 Gavarda, Spain temperature was 30.7°C (87.3°F) … in the middle of winter. As of early February 2024, Pyrenees ski resorts have closed because of snow drought.

Wake up calls of a climate in trouble are found everywhere. It’s getting serious.

Crazed, erratic polar jet streams, as a result of loss of Arctic sea ice, causes the jet stream to dip south, bringing bitter cold and powerful blizzards to America. This has always been a winter-time climate feature, but it’s gotten worse, and much worse; if the Arctic turns ice free, today’s blizzards will likely turn into something much more powerfully damaging.

PRAG has a recommended agenda to tackle the job of reconstituting Arctic sea ice. PRAG founder John Nissen has been investigating geo-engineering for over a decade, which he believes is urgently needed to save/restore Arctic sea ice. He has theorized the Gulf Stream and Arctic sea ice serve as a thermostatic control system for preventing the planet from heating above a certain temperature, approximately the global temperature of some years ago. As such, Arctic sea ice is an essential part of that control system. Global warming threatens to destroy it at a given summer’s end, possibly by 2030. Thereby, disabling the thermostatic control of the planet. This could bring on the biggest-ever disruptive climate system, to wit: (1) methane discharge from permafrost, igniting rapid global warming, as well as (2) disintegration of portions of the Greenland ice sheet, potentially flooding portions of cities like Miami Beach.

Time is of essence. James Hansen, Earth Institute/Columbia University, predicts global temperatures could reach 4C this century without cooling intervention. According to Hansen, the world’s foremost climate scientist, who supports geo-engineering, something must be done soon. He believes we’ll surpass 1.5C next decade and 2C by mid-century. These are global temperature markers above pre-industrial levels that will manifest degradation of ecosystems like the Arctic far ahead of what mainstream science expects.

Earth’s energy imbalance or “sunlight in” versus “sunlight out” is currently running at a frightful rate @ 1.36 W/m² as of the current 2020s decade. This is troubling (which is the understatement of the year). The current rate of solar radiation is double the 2005-2015 rate @ 0.71 W/m² (Source: James Hansen). Doubling solar radiation “watts per square meter” over only a decade is a surefire way to heat up the planet much faster than ever before. This one data point is extremely significant and portends bigger trouble down the line.

The Planetary Restoration Action Group welcomes help from interested parties that want to get involved in restoring the Arctic. In their view, the alternative, or doing nothing, is not an option. Meantime, the Arctic is heating up ever faster as global warming spikes upwards, as cautioned by James Hansen. Accordingly, something must be done at the highest priority of international action to halt the Arctic warming and start refreezing the Arctic. The future for every young person is at stake.

According to PRAG, there’s no reason to be downtrodden or defeated if cooling intervention, together with efforts to reduce the level of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, are activated to restore the planet to a safe, sustainable, biodiverse, and productive state, leading to a bright prospect for future generations. PRAG has a hopeful message.

But time is of essence like never before. According to NOAA, because of global warming, the Arctic’s infrastructure has radically changed for the first time in human history, losing its multi-year thick ice infrastructure. And according to NASA, 70 percent of Arctic sea ice is now “seasonal ice,” that quickly melts in the Arctic summer. Considering the massive area encompassed by the 70 percent, the remaining 30 percent is starting to resemble someone hanging onto a windowsill by fingertips.

Alas, NASA claims Arctic sea ice rarely, if ever, melted in the not-too-distant past.

To contact the Planetary Restoration Action Group:

John Nissen: moc.liamg@3002nessinnhoj

Robert Hunziker (MA, economic history, DePaul University) is a freelance writer and environmental journalist whose articles have been translated into foreign languages and appeared in over 50 journals, magazines, and sites worldwide. He can be contacted at: rlhunziker@gmail.com. Read other articles by Robert.

 

The Unexpected

by Edward Curtin / February 14th, 2024

Despite calendars and clocks and all the mental gymnastics we use to control life and time, surprises are at the heart of existence.  This may seem like a truism, but if so, it is one of those truths we often avoid in our desire for stability and the quelling of anxiety.  Our expectations, a form of knowledge based on the past, are efforts to avoid pain and the joy of the new.  They are often scarecrows to frighten away reality, as Ortega y Gassett put it.  Habits of mind meant to forget that life is an experiment yet to be tried or known; that tomorrow is always unknown country.  That death is the greatest surprise of all.

The English psychoanalyst Adam Philips writes in Side Effects:

The fact of death has made us addicted to prophecy, and to its secular equivalent, predictability; and therefore to a strange relationship to time. The fact of conception could make us more wedded to randomness and accident [I would say mystery]. Surprise could replace mourning as our preferred depth-charge.

I was thinking of this recently when I awoke to read about an outstanding professional athlete who was injured at the top of his game the night before.  A shock to be sure, disappointing and depressing, yet not unheard of in the world of sports.  He ruptured his Achilles tendon.  Now his rehabilitation will offer him a chance to embrace the challenge and meditate on the vagaries of life.  Sometimes we discover in difficult circumstances that courage and determination are central to our characters, as I think is the case with this young man who has overcome other challenges.

Sports in themselves are not important.  They are fun to play and are big business, but who wins or loses the games doesn’t matter in any significant way.  They are forgettable trifles, and as the word sport’s etymology tells us – desporter (Old French from Latin), to divert, amuse, carry away – they divert us from more serious matters.  And while they can amuse and entertain us, they can also get us to muse about the nature of play and the significance of surprises along life’s way.  How life itself is a play, in many meanings of the word.

Key to Freud’s genius, much of which he learned from the poets who understood that the free flow of words was a key to human liberation, was his invention of the therapeutic method of free association.  To freely associate is to open one’s mouth to hear yourself say the unexpected. It is to step out of the cage of convention, to exit that play to play at catching a different form of consciousness. The possibility of freedom inherent in Freud’s idea is no doubt one reason why he has come under continual attack in recent decades.  Nor is it an accident that we are living at a time when free speech is under assault by all shades of authoritarians who fear what people might say and whom they may associate with.  Freedom is dangerous.  Individuals, not just in psychotherapy but in social life, need to talk freely but are often fearful to do so.  They may surprise themselves privately and publicly, and that is why speech must be controlled by the authorities, those outside and the cop inside.

It is also why great artists are in short supply today and art is under assault, for great art threatens safety while always venturing into unknown territory.  To think that a book is brilliant because The New York Times calls it a bestseller – which seems to be the case for most new books on library shelves these days – is as naïve as to consider that newspaper of record a bastion of good journalism.

It is hard when caged in cells controlled by authoritarians to encounter the unexpected.  Formulaic writing of all sorts is widespread. It is part of a larger spell of total and instantaneous propaganda and a movement for elite social control under the guise of social improvement.  What we euphemistically call mass communication is mass seduction, and the desire to be seduced is one old truth that still holds popular appeal.

Historically it has always been the poets, essayists, and novelists who have led the way into a freer world.  While it is still true, to find their voices amid the cacophony of today’s comingling of repetitive political, show business, and advertising rants is difficult. They have been marginalized, as have journalists who counter the propaganda of the corporate mainstream media.  All has become show, the business of creating perpetual distractions from what is important.

“The modern version of hell is purposelessness,” wrote the English novelist John Fowles in a brilliant essay accompanying photographs of individual trees in an oddly titled book about trees, The Tree.  While ostensibly writing about trees, Fowles writes about the need to get lost, to literally wander through the green chaos of forests and the mental greenwood of our psyches without a planned route – purposeless.  He writes about art and the art of life as analogous to wandering through a dense woodland and stumbling in wonder upon a hidden treasure, something akin to Tolstoy’s green stick that contains the secret to happiness, no matter how brief.  He argues that it is because so much of the natural surround is useless that there is so much hostility toward it.  Everything and everyone has become commodified, and only valued for their use value.  Science, as opposed to art, seeks to categorize and control us and nature; to impose on our minds the idea that nature is outside us, separate, alien territory to enter only with a map and shield.  The wild green man or woman, open to the flow of experience, to wandering, to the serendipitous, the unexpected is a dangerous outlaw.  That the woods have long represented places of freedom to our ancestors in fact and in fiction is not just because life was more rural then but because the wild world hidden among trees corresponds to needs of the soul.  Fowles compares trees, the woods, walking planless through them, as the best analogue of prose fiction:

All novels are also, in some way, exercises in attaining freedom – even when, at an extreme, they deny the possibility of its existence. Some such process of retreat from the normal world – however much the theme and surface is to be of the normal world – is inherent in any act of artistic creation, let alone that specific kind of writing that deals in imaginary situations and characters. And a part of that retreat must always be into a ‘wild,’ or ordinarily repressed and socially hidden, self: into a place always a complexity beyond daily reality, never fully comprehensible or explicable, always more potential than realized; yet where no one will ever penetrate as far as we have. It is our passage, our mystery alone, however miserable the account that is brought out for the world to see or hear or read at second-hand.

I would say it is also the best analogue of living.  Sitting still too much is the real sin against the Holy Ghost, said Nietzsche, who was a great walker “on lonely mountains or near the sea where even the trails become thoughtful.”  And he was not alone.  Thoreau, Rimbaud, D. H. Lawrence, Rousseau, Gandhi, et al. knew that only by getting off your ass and putting it behind you might you discover something new, an unexpected treasure only available to an outsider with no expectations, no plans, having relinquished control.

Speaking of control and planning, even with the best intentions, I am reminded of a lake with a little beach opposite woods up the hill from where we live and often walk.  Since September 11, 2001 this town has been massively gentrified with mansions and upscale stores and venues. It has become a magnet for wealthy urbanites who have fled in fear from the New York/New Jersey area to this small town 130 miles north.  Now the small rustic beach with its bumpy dirt parking lot and the road along the lake are being converted into a replica of all the imitative city greenways that have sprouted up across the country.  Huge numbers of trees have been felled, an expanded asphalt parking lot is being constructed, and the road converted from cars to walkers, leading from the town’s choice neighborhood on the hill.  This construction project is symbolically creating a gated community without a fence.  Anyone having to drive to the beach will have to come from the other direction to the parking lot, directing all car traffic through that poorer neighborhood and part of town.  All this in the name of saving the lake and making life better for the locals.  But better primarily for wealthier residents, who now will have their own one way access to the area and much less traffic passing their way.

It is a good example of what Philip Slater wrote about in his 1970 book, The Pursuit of Loneliness: American Culture at the Breaking Point.  Slater was writing about the rise of totalitarian tendencies in the U.S. as the U.S savagely bombed Vietnam and Cambodia [read Iraq, Gaza, Yemen, Syria, Russia, etc.], when the fear of the poor was widespread and wealth and power idolized, consumerism reigned supreme, and privatization was being carried out under the benevolent mask of an inchoate neo-liberalism that has since become a full-fledged monster.  And he was holding a mirror up to “the grim monotony of American facial expressions [read masks] – hard, surly, and bitter – and by the aura of deprivation that informs them.”  Central to this was the fanatical acquisitiveness of his compatriots and the fading of stable local neighborhoods where different social classes could flourish together.  “It is difficult to become reaccustomed to seeing people already weighted down with possessions acting as if every object they did not own were bread withheld from a hungry mouth,” he wrote, upon returning from overseas.  Deep-rooted social problems were being avoided by being flushed away under the guise of superficial improvements – what he called “the toilet assumption”: “the notion that unwanted matter, unwanted difficulties and obstacles will disappear if they are removed from our immediate field of vision.”  In the name of social control, the country was coming apart.  As is true now, the prettification of social spaces was serving as an unintentional pursuit of loneliness where the wealthy sophisticates and the “deplorables” would occupy separate worlds and their separate symbols [read Trump and Biden] would engage them in heated pseudo-debates.

What is our Achilles’s Heel?  I suggest it is our rupture from nature symbolized in our efforts to control experience through planning.  In Goethe’s Faust this is flipped so that Goethe’s ultimate salvation and happy ending is tied to his land reclamation project from the sea – engineering – and the conquest of nature.  While such planning obviously has its place, it has become a modern paradigm that serves as a solution to so many of life’s problems [technological fixes] and a hedge against surprising discoveries.  Only when one is willing to get lost, can one stumble upon Tolstoy’s green stick of happiness and discover truths that authoritarians try to deny us.

The poet’s truth, as always.
Terra Incognito

By D. H. Lawrence

There are vast realms of consciousness still undreamed of
vast ranges of experience, like the humming of unseen harps,
we know nothing of, within us.
Oh when man has escaped from the barbed-wire entanglement
of his own ideas and his own mechanical devices
there is a marvellous rich world of contact and sheer fluid beauty
and fearless face-to-face awareness of now-naked life
and me, and you, and other men and women
and grapes, and ghouls, and ghosts and green moonlight
and ruddy-orange limbs stirring the limbo
of the unknown air, and eyes so soft
softer than the space between the stars,
and all things, and nothing, and being and not-being
alternately palpitant,
when at last we escape the barbed-wire enclosure
of Know Thyself, knowing we can never know,
we can but touch, and wonder, and ponder, and make our effort
and dangle in a last fastidious fine delight
as the fuchsia does, dangling her reckless drop
of purple after so much putting forth
and slow mounting marvel of a little tree.

 

Edward Curtin writes and his work appears widely. He is the author of Seeking Truth in a Country of Lies. Read other articles by Edward, or visit Edward's website.

THE UNCANNY BY FREUD

https://web.mit.edu/allanmc/www/freud1.pdf

US Military Projection in Latin America and the Caribbean Intensifies

by Roger D. Harris / February 15th, 2024

Upon assuming the US presidency, Joe Biden asserted in his first major foreign policy address, “America is back!” For Latin America and the Caribbean, this has meant an “aggressive expansion” of the US military in the region.

In just the last year, US Marines and special forces landed in Peru in May 2023, brought in by the unelected rightwing government to address internal unrest. In October, the US got the UN Security Council to approve the military occupation of Haiti using proxy troops from Kenya. Also in October, the rightwing government of Ecuador resorted to deploying US troops to deal with their domestic insecurities. This month, Mexico and Peru joined the annual US naval exercises in mock war against China. And that just scratches the surface of US military engagement in the region.

Militarizing diplomacy

The Pentagon, along with the National Security Council and even the CIA, have taken on an increasingly pronounced role in diplomatic relations formerly the purview of the State Department. Former CIA agent and current US ambassador to Peru Lisa Kenna, for instance, was implicated in the overthrow of the elected leftist president there a year ago.

This drift in diplomatic function to the military became more pronounced with the appointment of Laura Richardson as head of the US Southern Command in October 2021. When asked about her interest in the region, she unapologetically admitted that the US seeks hegemony over the region and possession of its rich resources.

In January 2022, General Richardson signed a bilateral agreement with Honduras. She met with Brazilian and Colombian military brass last May. Previously, she had visited Argentina, Chile, Guyana, and Surinam. From August to September 2022, US and Colombian militaries conducted joint NATO exercises, while Richardson made a five-day visit to meet with the newly elected Colombian president. This week, she is meeting with the president of Ecuador, who declared his country is under a state of “internal armed conflict.”

Status of US military forces in the region

Washington is by far the largest source of military aid, supplies, and training in the region. The US has twelve military bases each in Panama and Puerto Rico, nine in Colombia, eight in Peru, three in Honduras, and two in Paraguay, along with military installations in Aruba, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Cuba (Guantanamo), and Peru.

In total, the US has 76 bases in the region as of 2018, plus numerous “unconfirmed operational bases.” All function as military centers as well as cyberwarfare posts. Among the problems associated with these bases are displacement of resources that otherwise would be used for social programs. These installations are notorious for their lack of transparency and accountability. In addition, they cause ecological damage with little or no provisions for environmental cleanup.

The US also has, in addition to bases, major military operations in Argentina, Ecuador, Uruguay, Guatemala, Bolivia, and Mexico. Colombia is a “global NATO partner” and Brazil is an “extra-NATO preferential ally.” The State Partnership Program of the US National Guard joins eighteen states, Puerto Rico, and the District of Columbia in active partnerships with militaries in 24 regional countries.

Evolving US military mission

The post World War II mission of the US military has evolved: first, the fight against communism ending around 1991; then the “drug wars” continuing to the present; followed by the “war on terror” and combatting transnational criminal networks of the early 2000s; and now great power competition.

Thus, US regional military strategy has pivoted from fighting communism, terrorism, and drugs to containing China and, to a lesser extent, Russia and even Iran. China is now the leading trading partner with South America and the second largest with the region as a whole, after the US. Some 21 or 31 regional countries have joined China’s Belt and Road Initiative. The Southern Command’s budget, which had declined in the 2010s, is now ballooning as the US gears up to confront China.

The Latin American “theater” is pitched by the Southern Command as a “nearby test bed” and “prime location for experimenting with and testing new technologies” to be used particularly against China. General Richardson warns that China is “a communist country that’s spreading its tentacles across the globe so far away from its homeland.”

The Southern Command has especially targeted Venezuela, Cuba, and Nicaragua because of their friendly relations with China and Russia. Key to the command’s strategy is disrupting regional unity in the Americas.

Development of US military tactics

In the bad old days of 1898-1934, Washington simply and nakedly sent its troops to take over the Dominican Republic, Cuba, Haiti, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, and Panama. In the post-World War II years, the US still overthrew governments not to its liking the old fashioned way in Grenada in 1983 and Panama in 1989. But for the most part, the US has developed more sophisticated means of asserting its control.

Proxy armies using mercenaries were deployed against Cuba in 1961 in the Bay of Pigs invasion and in Nicaragua in the 1981-1990 contra war– both unsuccessful.

Increasingly in the last 75 years or so, covert operations have been employed. The CIA was created in 1947. By 1954, the agency helped engineer the overthrow of Guatemalan President Jacobo Arbenz in what has become known as the first of many CIA coups in the Americas.

From 1975 to 1980, the US-coordinated Operation Condor installed military dictatorships in Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Ecuador, Paraguay, Peru, and Uruguay. In the 1980s and early 1990s, the US sponsored “dirty wars” in El Salvador, Guatemala, and Nicaragua. Then in 1991 and again in 2004, Washington backed coups in Haiti, followed by coups in Honduras in 2009 and Boliva in 2019.

The US also fomented numerous unsuccessful coup attempts against Venezuela, most notably in 2002, but continuing to the present. Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro revealed that four assassination plots were made against him and other high-ranking officials in 2023; the CIA and the DEA were accused. The US has posted a $15M bounty on Maduro’s head. Nicaragua, too, has been targeted, including a major coup attempt in 2018. Cuba, as well, has noted a recent uptick of US terror attacks.

Expanding scope of military missions

Combatting forest fires and other climate-driven disasters have recently been incorporated into the expanding US military scope. The militarists are not so much concerned about the environment as they are about perturbances that can upset the existing political order.

In October 2022, Colombia invited US and NATO military forces into the Amazon on the pretext that they could be repurposed to protect the environment. These new ecological tasks are best understood not as non-military functions but as the militarization of environmentalism. These environmentally “woke” missions operate under such cover as the NATO Science for Peace and Security Program and even the UN Environmental Program, which cooperates with NATO.

So-called “humanitarian missions” have also been incorporated into the expanding military scope. Former head of the Southern Command, Admiral Craig S. Faller, described such missions as an important component in strengthening military ties with “partners” in the region. He boasted of 25 countries participating in the US military’s regional “warfighting-focused exercises” in 2021. By the next year, his successor General Richardson referenced 28 regional “like-minded democracies.”

Perhaps the prime non-traditional mission for the US military in the region is “counter-narcotics.” A US military Security Force Assistance Brigade was sent to Panama and Colombia last May to curb drug smuggling as well as migration. The US troops work with other US agencies already in the region, including the Drug Enforcement Administration and Homeland Security.

Hybrid warfare

In addition to the explicitly military exercises, described above, the US has increasingly employed “hybrid warfare” to try to maintain its dominance in an emerging multipolar geopolitical context. Unilateral coercive economic measures are now imposed on over a quarter of humanity. Also known as sanctions, these tactics can be just as deadly as bombs.

Sanctions on Venezuela – started by Obama, intensified by Trump, and seamlessly continued by Biden – have taken their toll: over 100,00 deaths, 22% of children under five stunted, and over 300,000 chronic disease patients without access to treatment. Despite the UN nearly unanimously condemning the US blockade of Cuba for its devastating effects on civilians and as a violation of the UN Charter, ever-tightening economic warfare has left the island in crisis. Washington is also escalating the hybrid war against Nicaragua.

Return to gunboat diplomacy

With the new year and with Washington’s blessings, a British warship cruised into waters contested between Venezuela and Britain’s former colony, Guyana. The disputed Essequibo territory between Venezuela and Guyana became an international flashpoint in December.

The US Southern Command announced joint air operations with Guyana. US boots are already reportedly on the ground in Guyana. What is in essence an oil company landgrab by ExxonMobil is disrupting regional unity and is a Trojan horse for US military interference.

Waters at the southern end of the continent are also troubled with US-NATO nuclear submarine exercises around the Malvinas and the Southern Ocean. The US Army is working on the Master Plan for the Navigability of the Paraguay River.

With the new presidency of devotedly pro-Yankee Javier Milei in Argentina a month ago, the US is again pushing to install new military bases in the strategic triple border region of Argentina, Paraguay, and Brazil. The Wall Street Journal reports: “Milei has maintained strong support since taking office…as Argentines so far embrace austerity measures.” [emphasis added] The WSJ is referring to the financially secure elites who are not among the 40% below the poverty line in Argentina. The trade unions mounted a general strike on January 24.

In conclusion, the enduring extra-territorial protection of Yankee military power has always been for the purpose of controlling its southern neighbors, but has become more sophisticated and pervasive. In this two-hundred-first year of the Monroe Doctrine, Simón Bolívar’s words are ever more prescient: “The United States appears to be destined by providence to plague America with misery, in the name of freedom.”

Why the US Is Reimposing Sanctions on Venezuela

by Roger D. Harris / February 15th, 2024

Even the US business magazine Forbes expressed surprise at the reimposition of US sanctions on Venezuela’s gold sales and its threat to do the same with oil. The oil sanctions especially, if reinstated, would precipitate higher gas prices and further debilitate the Venezuelan economy, forcing more people to leave the country out of economic necessity.

The Venezuelan government, for its part, has not been contrite. Vice President Delcy Rodríguez protested “the wrong step of intensifying economic aggression against Venezuela.” She warned that if Washington takes the threatened measures, Venezuela will cancel repatriation flights returning Venezuelan immigrants back from the US.

Is Biden shooting himself in the foot in an election year with major vulnerabilities from inflation and unpopular immigration? The New Times describes these weaknesses as a “major crisis” for the incumbent US president. Adding to the Democrats’ woes, many Venezuelans in the US – driven here by sanctions –support Republicans.

Barbados agreement temporarily eases sanctions

The State Department accused the Venezuelan government of actions that are “inconsistent” with Barbados agreement, negotiated last October. This accord arranged a prisoner exchange with the US and the issuance of licenses allowing Venezuela to sell some of its own oil and gold. The agreement promised temporary and partial sanctions relief for Venezuela, although major coercive economic provisions were still left in place.

Even with limited sanctions relief, Venezuela anticipated a 27% increase in revenues for its state-run oil company. Experts predicted a “moderate economic expansion” after having experienced the greatest economic contraction in peacetime of any country in the modern era. Venezuela was on the road to recovery.

Then on January 30, the US rescinded the license for gold sales and threatened to allow the oil license to expire on April 18, which could cost $1.6B in lost revenue. The ostensible reason for the flip in US policy was the failure of the Venezuelan supreme court to overturn previous prohibitions on Maria Corina Machado and some other opposition politicians from running for public office.

The Barbados agreement was predicated on “electoral guarantees.” But there was no mention of specific individuals who had been legally barred from running for office due to past offenses. In fact, these cases were well known. Venezuelan officials had repeatedly insisted that those disqualified would continue to be ineligible. According to Héctor Rodríguez, a member of the Venezuelan government’s delegation to Barbados, forgiveness for crimes was never on the negotiating agenda.

The case of opposition politician Maria Corina Machado

Machado’s treatment by the Venezuelan government has arguably erred more on the side of leniency than severity. In most other countries, a person with her rap sheet would be behind bars. In the US, for example, 467 individuals involved in the 2021 Capitol riot have been sentenced to incarceration for offenses far less egregious than Machado’s.

Back in 2002, Machado signed the Carmona Decree, establishing a coup government. Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez had been deposed in a military coup backed by the US. The constitution was suspended, the legislature dismissed, and the supreme court shuttered.

Fortunately for democracy in Venezuela, the coup lasted less than three days. The people spontaneously took to the streets and restored their elected government. Machado, who now incredulously claims she signed the coup government’s founding decree mistakenly, was afforded amnesty.

Machado was subsequently banned from running from public office after she served as the diplomatic representative for Panama in order to testify against her own country. She was also implicated in tax evasion and fraud along with coup attempts. In addition, the hard-rightist had called for a military intervention by the US and for harsh economic coercive measures.

Machado had adamantly refused to contest her electoral ineligibility before the Venezuelan supreme court. But when Washington instructed her to go before the tribunal, she obediently complied. That Machado’s appeal would be denied was “obvious” even to Luis Vicente León, president of the pro-opposition Venezuelan polling company Datanalisis. He explained: “If we are honest, the US government knew full well this was going to happen.”

The New York Times described the supreme court’s decision to uphold her ban as “a crippling blow to prospects for credible elections…in exchange for the lifting of crippling US economic sanctions.” In other words, the Venezuelans did not bow to blackmail and allow a criminal to run for public office.

Venezuelan opposition

Under-reported is how Machado became the unofficially designated opposition candidate according to the corporate press. Normally in Venezuela opposition presidential primaries are run by the national election authorities, as they are in the US. Machado, however, engineered the primary election to be run privately.

The primaries were riddled with irregularities, and other opposition leaders are livid with Machado. Not only did her political alliance (Plataforma Unitaria) omit some opposition parties from the primaries, but voting records were destroyed after the election. This prevented any accounting when some members of her own coalition claimed fraud. Further, the administration of the opposition primary involved Súmate. Machado was the founder and first president of this private non-governmental organization, a recipient of NED funds.

The opposition has lost credibility with even conservative political commentators in the US such as Ariel Cohen, associated with the Atlantic Council and the Heritage Foundation. He describes the US seizure of the Venezuelan-owned oil subsidiary Citgo as part of its “asphyxiation tactics.” Handed over to the opposition, they ran Citgo to the ground and used their country’s assets for personal gain.

Sanctions “don’t work”

Washington has a problem. Geoff Ramsey with the Atlantic Council revealingly laments: “How do you threaten a regime that’s endured years of crippling sanctions, multiple coup attempts and a failed mercenary invasion?” The unfortunate Yankee solution is more of what Forbes calls “Washington DC’s heavy-handed response” knowingly causing “enormous” human suffering.

As a recent US Congressional Research Service report admitted, the US sanctions “failed” in their implicit goal of regime change but have exacerbated an economic crisis that “has prompted 7.7 million Venezuelans to flee.” The Hill ran an opinion piece stating that “sanctions are still hurting everyday Venezuelans – and fueling migration.”

Some Congressional Democrats have called for ending US sanctions. Domestic corporations, such as Chevron, have been clamoring to reopen the Venezuelan market. The UN has roundly condemned sanctions, which they call “unilateral coercive economic measures.” Mexico insists that Biden address the root causes of migration. Other governments in Latin America and beyond are pressuring the US to lift sanctions. Meanwhile, experts in international human rights law censure Washington for illegal collective punishment.

Arguably, the US economy would benefit more by promoting commerce with some 40 sanctioned countries than from restricting trade. And the surest remedy for the immigration crisis on the country’s southern border is to end the sanctions, which are producing conditions that have compelled so many to leave their homes. Even US mainstream media has nearly universally concluded that sanctions “don’t work.”

The underlying purpose of sanctions on Venezuela

If sanctions “don’t work,” if they are economically counterproductive, and if they cause so much suffering and ill will, why impose them? The regrettable answer is that sanctions do “work” for the purposes of the US empire.

In 2015 President Obama declared a “national emergency.” Venezuela, he claimed, posed an “unusual and extraordinary threat” to the national security of the US. That was not fake news. The imperial hegemon recognizes the “threat of a good example” posed by a country such as Venezuela. As Ricardo Vaz of Venezuelanalysis observed, Venezuela is “a beacon of hope for the Global South, and Latin America in particular, an affront to US hegemony in its own ‘backyard.’”

Washington’s self-proclaimed “rules-based order” is threatened, especially with the emergence of China as a major world economic power. In the imperial worldview, it is better to have failed states like Libya and Afghanistan than the anathema of a sovereign and socialist Venezuela.

In short, sanctions are a tool to prevent states striving for socialism from succeeding. The US-imposed misery on Venezuela is used by Washington as a cautionary warning of the consequences for a sovereign socialist project in defiance of Yankee domination.

Roger D. Harris is with the human rights organization Task Force on the Americas, founded in 1985 and is on the executive committee of the US Peace Council Read other articles by Roger D..

3,600+ US Scholars Outraged Over Gaza Want 'Action, Not Expletives' From Biden

"Mr. President, with all due respect, there is simply no explanation that PM Netanyahu—or you—could offer to justify this ongoing massacre and weaponization of humanitarian aid against the people of Gaza."


U.S. President Joe Biden answers questions about Israel in the Diplomatic Reception Room of the White House in Washington, D.C., on February 8, 2024.
(Photo: Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images)

JESSICA CORBETT
Feb 14, 2024
COMMON DREAMS

More than 3,600 university and college faculty, instructors, fellows, and research associates from across the United States have signed on to a Wednesday letter urging U.S. President Joe Biden to prevent genocide in Israel's war on the Gaza Strip.

After detailing how the Israeli assault has devastated Gaza, the scholars wrote that "we therefore urge your administration to apply human rights, international humanitarian law, and U.S. pressure consistently, not only when it comes to the attacks committed by Hamas or other militants on October 7, 2023, which killed an estimated 1,200 Israelis and foreign nationals, including 36 children."

"Upholding this basic moral and legal principle demands that American officials also condemn the Israeli military's siege and bombardment of Gaza that has now killed over 27,000 Palestinians, including at least 10,000 children," the scholars asserted. "Yet, Mr. President, you have not only failed to condemn the ongoing massacre in Gaza. You have enabled it."

"Mr. President, you have not only failed to condemn the ongoing massacre in Gaza. You have enabled it."

The U.S. provides Israel with $3.8 billion in annual military aid, and in the wake of Hamas' October attack Biden sought a $14.3 billion package, which was passed by the Senate earlier this week but still needs House approval. The scholars' letter was also sent to senators.

"Given the unprecedented scale, duration, and nature of Israel's ongoing assault and multiple statements by Israeli officials conveying an intent to destroy all of Gaza under the pretext of destroying Hamas, there are substantial risks that genocide is unfolding in Gaza right now," the letter states.

"The International Court of Justice (ICJ) has found this charge plausible in its interim ruling on January 26, 2024 in South Africa v. Israel, and, more recently, a United States federal district judge has declared that 'the current treatment of the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip by the Israeli military may plausibly constitute a genocide in violation of international law,'" the letter continues. "These developments have only strengthened our resolve to speak out against atrocities taking place with U.S. support in real time."

The scholars are calling on Biden to:Demand an immediate and permanent cease-fire and an end to Israel's blockade of Gaza;
Call for the peaceful release of all hostages held in Gaza and Palestinian political prisoners through further negotiations;
Refrain from dismissing legal proceedings underway at the ICJ;
Support the authority of the ICJ and the International Criminal Court (ICC) to investigate alleged genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes;
Restore funding to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA); and
Halt the transfer of weapons, munitions, and other military equipment to any parties of the conflict.

"We are not alone in our concerns," the scholars stressed, pointing to an October warning from over 300 U.S. legal experts about supporting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's war, a November request from 26 U.S. senators for assurances about the legality and viability of Israel's military operations, and a December New York Times opinion piece in which humanitarian leaders described the nightmare conditions in Gaza and argued that "the U.S. government must act now."

"Mr. President, with all due respect, there is simply no explanation that PM Netanyahu—or you—could offer to justify this ongoing massacre and weaponization of humanitarian aid against the people of Gaza," the scholars wrote Wednesday

The also calling on Biden to "demand that care and vigilance be extended to all threatened and vulnerable communities here in the United States," and rejected "the weaponizing of antisemitism to silence legitimate criticism of Israeli state policies and those speaking up for Palestinian human rights."

Some signatories are from institutions that have been part of national debates over speecn and action on campus related to Israel's war on Gaza, including Jhumpa Lahiri of Barnard College, Eve Troutt Powell of the Universtiy of Pennsylvania, and Sarah Schulman of Northwestern University.

Other signatories include Nancy McClean of Duke University; Angela Davis of the University of California, Santa Cruz; Juan Cole of the University of Michigan; and Peter Beinart of the City University of New York, who is also editor-at-large of Jewish Currents.

"It is unconscionable that our elected officials should continue to support such horrific violence while half of U.S. voters believe Israel has gone too far," Beinart said in a statement. "Biden's pejorative comments about Netanyahu serve as a frail smoke screen as the Senate and the president push military aid to Israel without restriction. We need action, not expletives from the president."

NBC Newsreported Monday that "Biden has been venting his frustration in recent private conversations, some of them with campaign donors, over his inability to persuade Israel to change its military tactics in the Gaza Strip," with the president saying that "he is trying to get Israel to agree to a cease-fire, but Netanyahu is 'giving him hell' and is impossible to deal with."

That followed Politico reporting last week that the U.S. president—a Democrat seeking reelection in November—has privately called Netanyahu a "bad fucking guy." In both cases, Biden spokespeople claimed the two leaders have "a decadeslong relationship that is respectful in public and in private."

$95 Billion More for War, But No to $1 Billion to Feed 2 Million Families?

"In the view of the administration and a majority of members of Congress, some emergencies count more than others," wrote one policy analyst.



A bloodied Palestinian man carries his baby into Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City.
(Photo: Momen Faiz/NurPhoto via Getty Images)


JULIA CONLEY
Feb 15, 2024
COMMON DREAMS

Following the passage of a $95 billion foreign aid package that includes funding for Israel's relentless assault on Gaza, economists and policy experts this week are expressing alarm over the failure of the U.S. Congress to ensure a federal program for low-income parents and their babies is fully funded—a gap that could leave 2 million children and parents without sufficient food.

The Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) has never turned away eligible families in its 50-year history, but analysts say that with Congress deadlocked over whether to fully fund the program, states may soon be forced to place up to 2 million families on waiting lists—"jeopardizing access to this highly effective program during an important window for child development," the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities said in December.

The program, which has been linked to a decrease in infant and maternal mortality in the past five decades, is currently being funded by a short-term continuing resolution (CR) that Congress passed in January to keep the government running until early March.

While lawmakers have not agreed on funding for WIC, which is estimated to cost $6.3 billion in 2024 and faces a $1 billion shortfall, the Senate on Tuesday did pass the $95 billion foreign aid package, including $14.1 billion for Israel.

Israel's bombardment of Gaza has killed more than 28,000 people since October, including more than 12,000 children.

The Senate's 70-29 bipartisan vote in favor of the package, wrote defense analyst William Hartung of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, "lays bare the skewed priorities of the federal government."

"Despite deep divisions, it is possible to get bipartisan support for a package that mostly involves funding weapons exports," Hartung wrote at Forbes on Wednesday. "Don't expect any such emergency measure to address record levels of homelessness, or aid the 1 in 6 American children living in poverty, or accelerate investments in curbing the climate crisis. In the view of the administration and a majority of members of Congress, some emergencies count more than others."

At the Institute for Policy Studies, National Priorities Project director Lindsay Koshgarian pointed to WIC as a prime example of the kind of program the federal government should be prioritizing over military aid for Israel, which has garnered growing condemnation from U.S. allies for its indiscriminate attacks on civilians.

"There's huge discrepancies in where the resources are going," Koshgarian toldAl Jazeera on Wednesday. "It's an incredibly important program, there are many families that have depended on it. $1 billion to make up the shortfall would be easy to come up with."

Last week, Democrats on the U.S. House Education and Workforce Committee warned congressional leaders that they must ensure full funding for WIC, which "currently serves over half of all infants born in the country and continues to be a lifesaving nutrition intervention program that minimizes avoidable health and developmental issues for low-income, nutritionally at-risk women, infants, and children."

"To prevent any disruption to a program that is crucial to supporting new parents and young children, it is vital that WIC is fully funded and continues to align with projected participation and food costs," wrote the lawmakers.

The 19threported last month that state WIC agencies are currently spending money "assuming the needed funds will eventually be appropriated."

"By early March," wrote journalist Amanda Becker, "the fiscal year will already be half over, so there will be a shorter window of time to make up any budget shortfall, potentially leading to more people being waitlisted en masse than if the shortfall was spread across a full fiscal year."

At Forbes, Hartung called on the federal government to "put less emphasis on war planning and military buildups and more on reassurance and dialogue designed to set clear rules of the road and avoid a conflict."

"If peace in the Middle East is truly a goal of this administration," he wrote, "a radical shift in priorities is urgently needed."

Egypt Threatens Netanyahu with End of Camp David Peace Accords if he Invades Rafah

By Juan Cole

February 12, 2024

Source: Informed Comment

Photo courtesy of Jimmy Carter Library | Sadat, Begin, & Carter at Camp David, September 17, 1978

It is being widely reported based on press leaks that the Egyptian government of President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi has privately threatened Israel. Cairo is said to have warned that the 1978 Camp David Peace Treaty will be suspended “with immediate effect” if the government of Binyamin Netanyahu tries to take over the Philadelphi Corridor at the Gaza-Egypt Border and if it expels the Palestinians of Gaza into Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula at the Rafah border crossing as a result of an invasion of Rafah City. Israel attempted to convince an Egyptian delegation to Tel Aviv on Friday that Cairo should cooperate with the Israeli war plan, but allegedly was rebuffed.

The peace treaty has been the cornerstone of Egyptian-Israeli relations for nearly half a century.

The Egyptian government had not said much in public about these reports until yesterday. Mahmud `Abd al-Raziq of al-Khalij 35 reports reports that on Sunday, the Egyptian Foreign Ministry issued a stern warning to Israel that any operation in Rafah City would have “severe consequences.” The communique said that Egypt “continues its contacts and actions with various parties in order to arrive at an immediate ceasefire, enforce calm, and achieve an exchange of hostages and prisoners.” That is, Egypt is seeking another Israel-Hamas agreement, along with the US and Qatar.

Africanews Video: “Israel’s assault on Rafah endangers peace accords with Egypt, officials warn”






The ministry asked responsible international actors (we’re looking at you, Joe Biden) to pressure Israel not to do anything that would “complicate the situation further and cause harm to the interests of everyone without exception.”

Prominent Egyptian parliamentarian and journalist (he has a talk show!) Mustafa Bakri had openly said earlier that the Egyptian border is a “red line” and its breach would threaten the Camp David Accords.

In an interview with Sky News, the former deputy head of Egyptian military intelligence, Gen. Ahmad Ibrahim, had said that from his country’s point of view any Israeli take-over of the Philadelphi Corridor would constitute a breach of the Camp David Accords. He warned that Egypt’s military is “powerful.”

The Saudi foreign ministry also condemned the planned attack on Rafah City and any further coerced displacement of the Palestinians there. The Saudis called for an immediate ceasefire and a UN Security Council resolution against Netanyahu’s plan.

This position was echoed by the spokesman for the Gulf Cooperation Council, which rejected the Israeli plan to assault Rafah after forcibly expelling the civilian population.

Saudi Arabia, Qatar and other Arab states called Friday for immediate, concrete and irreversible steps to recognize a Palestinian state.

It seems clear that even countries that are more or less at peace with Israel, whether formally (Egypt, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates) or informally (Saudi Arabia) have their hair on fire about the proposed Rafah operation.

Although American newspapers depict Egypt as broke, desperate and easily manipulated, my own estimation is that Cairo absolutely will not accept the Palestinians of Gaza as refugees on its soil. The Sinai is already a security problem for Cairo, and 2 million radicalized Palestinians would make it ungovernable. No amount of debt forgiveness would make such a bitter pill go down.

The Struggle to Liberate Palestine is a Battle for the Future of Humanity

By Matteo Capasso, Rania Khalek 

February 14, 2024
Source: BreakThrough News

The fight against western-financed mass slaughter in Gaza isn’t just a struggle to liberate Palestine but rather a battle for the future of humanity and a battle to liberate us all.

To discuss this and more, Rania Khalek was joined by Matteo Omar Capasso, the Marie Curie Research Fellow at Columbia University and the University of Venice, Italy; author of “Everyday politics in the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya”; and editor of Middle East Critique. His work focuses on the nature and impact of U.S.-led imperialism