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US removes its nuclear arms from Britain
Julian Borger, diplomatic editor
The Guardian, Thursday June 26, 2008

The US has removed its nuclear weapons from Britain, ending a contentious presence spanning more than half a century, a report will say today. According to the study by the Federation of American Scientists, the last 110 American nuclear weapons on UK soil were withdrawn from RAF Lakenheath in Suffolk on the orders of President George Bush.

The report’s author, Hans Kristensen, one of the leading experts on Washington’s nuclear arsenal, said the move had happened in the past few years, but had only come to light yesterday.

He described the withdrawal of the B-61 “freefall”, or “gravity”, bombs as part of a general strategic shift since the end of the cold war.

“The northern front is not very relevant any more for these deployments. The US nuclear posture is almost entirely focused on the southern region, in Incirlik [in Turkey] and Aviano [in Italy].”

Movements of the US arsenal are shrouded in secrecy. Kristensen said the first signs the bombs had left Lakenheath emerged in a US airforce document dated January 2007 on nuclear inspections.

The document lists inspections of US nuclear sites, but above an annexe listing emergency drills carried out at the sites, it notes “not applicable to Lakenheath”.

Kristensen’s report is posted today at fas.org/blog/ssp.

He says the removal of bombs from Lakenheath follows the withdrawal of nuclear weapons from Greece in 2001, and that removal of such weapons from two Nato countries in less than a decade undercuts the argument for continuing deployment in other European countries.The removal from Britain would reduce the US arsenal in Europe to about 250.

Once officially declared, it could defuse current tensions with Moscow and possibly trigger matching cuts in the Russian stockpile.

Kristensen said last night: “It’s so puzzling why Nato goes about the reduction in total secrecy. Keeping this secret completely undercuts our foreign policy interests.”

The FAS was founded in 1945 by former scientists on the Manhattan Project, which produced the first atomic bomb, as a means of spreading information about the dangers posed by the new weapons.

Paul Ingram, the executive director of the British American Security Information Council, said last night: “This is a win-win situation for Nato and disarmament, and for rapprochement with Russia. Nato’s future and the transatlantic alliance is tied up with operations in Afghanistan far more than with ageing freefall bombs that have no military relevance.”

Greg Mello, the head of a nuclear watchdog the Los Alamos Study Group said: “The nuclear weapons themselves don’t serve any military purpose. They are mostly about cementing a political bond that ties Europe interests to US interests.”

The FAS study is being published a few days after Kristensen published a leaked US air force internal report saying that most European bases where US nuclear weapons were stored had inadequate security. The report, which was ordered after the US air force lost track of six nuclear cruise missiles last August, found that “support buildings, fencing, lighting and security systems” were in need of repair.

In some cases, conscripts with less than nine months’ experience were being used to guard the nuclear weapons. Elsewhere private security guards were used.

The report recommends that the US nuclear arsenal in Europe be consolidated to “reduce vulnerabilities”. That would involve the withdrawal of significant numbers of US nuclear weapons.

Laisser passer ou faire ! Non ! c’est bien dépassée cette idée.

Pour le 9:11 c’est pas sur le “laisser faire” (LIHOP) sur lequel pointe tous les travaux sérieux Mais c’est sur le “faire” c’est à dire : Organiser quasi complètement ou MIHOP “Faites le arriver”

Si c’est une plaisanterie elle aurait intérêt à être courte,7 ans après c’est long comme plaisanterie de continuer ajouter foi à la fable Bushienne

Il aurait été interessant que l’auteur développe ce qu’il entend par “comprendre l’Amérique”. S’agit-il de la référence à l’impossibilité de s’entendre avec un Etat, une société, un ensemble humain, parcequ’il prétend incarner un mythe (l’Amérique”) et non simplement ce qu’il est (un Etat, une société particulière, un ensemble humain). On ne discute pas avec un mythe: est-ce cela ? Emmanuelle Todd considère que les Etats-Unis sont une construction artificielle, un “laboratoire” selon son expression. Un reflet appauvri de l’Europe, appauvri car il lui manque 2000 ans de cette histoire qui ont fait l’humus de la Belle Europe, (avec ses horreurs et ses splendeurs), un artefact qui devra bien finir par accepter de se remettre en cause. Grosse douleur à prévoir: il est moins douloureux de se remettre en question périodiquement que de le faire pour la première fois aprés un peu plus de 200 ans d’histoire (on ne peut pas assimiler le New Deal à une remise en question du mythe étasunien). Aprés la chute de l’URSS, la chute de l’“Amérique” ?

Voila que DeDefensa fait l’ingenue. On decouvre, 7 ans apres, que les Republicains font un usage politique de 911. J’espere que cet article est une plaisanterie.

Excellent et très drôle.

Cela me rappelle certains arguments de vente en immobilier (achetez, vous ne pouvez pas perdre, car les prix sont censés monter pour l’Éternité).

Les extrémistes vocifèrent déjà depuis longtemps en faveur d’une nouvelle attaque ce qui devrait quand même faire réfléchir quand à la nature du véritable 9/11 :

http://www.agoravox.fr/article.php3?id_article=27875

Russia joins the war in Afghanistan

By M K Bhadrakumar

Moscow is staging an extraordinary comeback on the Afghan chessboard after a gap of two decades following the Soviet Union’s nine-year adventure that ended in the withdrawal of its last troops from Afghanistan 1989. In a curious reversal of history, this is possible only with the acquiescence of the United States. Moscow is taking advantage of the deterioration of the war in Afghanistan and the implications for regional security could be far-reaching.

A joint statement issued in Moscow over the weekend following the meeting of the United States-Russia Working Group on Counterterrorism (CTWG) revealed that the two sides had reached “agreement in principle over the supply of Russian weaponry to the Afghanistan National Army” in its fight against the Taliban insurgency. The 16th session of the CTWG held in Moscow on June 19-20 was co-chaired by Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Kislyak and US Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs William Burns.

Talking to reporters alongside Burns, Kislayak said, “We [Russia] in the past have already provided military equipment to Afghanistan and we feel there is now a demand by the Afghan population for the ability of Afghanistan to take its security in its own hands.” He added it was “possible” that Russia might increase the delivery of arms to Afghanistan, though “I wouldn’t be eager to put a number on it”.

Washington has consistently rebuffed Russian attempts to become a protagonist in the Afghan war - except in intelligence-sharing. As recently as March, public demonstrations erupted in Afghanistan against alleged “deployment of Russian troops” reported in a Polish newspaper, which had all the hallmarks of a sting operation by Western intelligence. The Kremlin’s then-first deputy press secretary, Dmitry Peskov, had to clarify that rumors of Russia sending troops to Afghanistan were “absolutely untrue”.
Russian analysts felt that the Polish report was deliberately intended to create “an image of an external threat to the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Afghanistan in order to give a more plausible explanation for NATO’s [North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s] military presence in the country”.

Clearly, the weekend’s announcement in Moscow underscores a change in the US stance. The deterioration of the war is undoubtedly a factor behind the shift. (Incidentally, in a similar shift, Washington recently approached China and India also for the dispatch of troops to Afghanistan.) Britain’s Telegraph newspaper reported last week on a growing “despair” in Washington over the NATO allies’ perceived failings in Afghanistan. The gung-ho attitude - “have-gun-will-travel” - is no more there.

A top Pentagon advisor told the Telegraph, “There’s frustration, there’s irritation. The mood veers between acceptance and despair that nothing is changing. We ask for more troops and they’re not forthcoming in the numbers we need. The mistake was handing it over to NATO in the first place. For many countries, being in Afghanistan seems to be about keeping up appearances, rather than actually fighting a war that needs to be won. Was that necessary diplomatically? Probably. Is it desirable militarily? I don’t think so nor do most others who are involved with Afghanistan.”

A German NATO general said on Sunday that 6,000 additional troops are urgently needed in Afghanistan to complement the 60,000 foreign troops already in the country, most of them part of the NATO-led International Security and Assistance Force.

The Russians are all too aware of the pitfalls of another intervention in Afghanistan. Zamir Kabulov, Moscow’s veteran diplomat who served in the Soviet Embassy in Kabul all through the 1980s when the Soviets occupied the country, is the present Russian ambassador to Afghanistan. Kabulov recently dissected the tragedy of the Soviet intervention in an interview with the US-government owned National Public Radio. He said: “We underestimated the allergy of the Afghan nation to foreign invaders because we didn’t believe ourselves to be invaders at that time ... We neglected traditions and their culture and the religion of Afghans.”

With such profound hindsight, how could Moscow be once again wading into Afghanistan? There is no question of Russia ever sending troops to Afghanistan. But what prompts the Russian involvement is the belief that “You can double and triple the number of your contingent and you still will lose this war because it’s not a matter of numbers, it’s a matter of the quality of the Afghan national army and police”, to quote Kabulov.

That is to say, there has always been this belief within the Russian security establishment that the tragedy of Afghanistan could have been averted if only president Mikhail Gorbachev hadn’t pulled the plug off the life-supporting system of Soviet supplies for Mohammad Najibullah’s regime. They believe that Najibullah, who became president in 1986, could have held on even after the Soviet troop withdrawal if only he had been provided with the necessary material wherewithal.

Questions remain over the Russian enterprise to enhance the quality of the Afghan army. Will Russia also assume the responsibility for training the Afghan army in addition to equipping it? Indeed, that would seem logical. The next best thing would be to involve the erstwhile cadres of Najibullah’s armed forces who were trained in the Soviet military academies and intelligence schools. But that might be too much for Washington to stomach.

One thing is clear. Moscow acted with foresight in initiating the proposal at the beginning of the year that NATO could use Russian territory for the dispatch of its supplies to Afghanistan. The agreement formalized at NATO’s Bucharest summit meeting on April 2-4 served Moscow’s purpose in different ways. Moscow signaled that despite Washington’s hostile mode, it is prepared to help out in Afghanistan, which only shows that the Russian-NATO relationship can be based on mutuality of interests and concerns.

As expected, NATO’s European members were receptive to such a signal. At the Russia-NATO council meeting on the sidelines of the Bucharest summit, for the first time perhaps, the format worked in the fashion in which it was intended to work when the Bill Clinton administration proposed it to a distraught Boris Yeltsin anxious about NATO’s expansion plans in the mid-1990s - that the format would have the alliance members participate as national entities rather than as bloc members.

Russia has a problem with NATO expansion. As Prime Minister Vladimir Putin told Le Monde newspaper recently during his visit to Paris, “There’s no Soviet Union anymore. There’s no threat. But the organization remains. The question is: ‘Against whom are you allied? What is it all for?’ And expanding the bloc is only creating new borders in Europe. New Berlin walls. This time invisible, but not less dangerous ... And we can see that military infrastructure is heading towards our borders. What for? No one is posing a threat.”

Therefore, Moscow has put NATO on the defensive by stretching a helping hand to Afghanistan. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov pointed out at a speech in Moscow on May 28: “Russia does not claim any veto rights. But I think we have the right to expect reciprocity if our partners expect us to consider their interests. Indeed, without such reciprocity, it is hard to see how the Bucharest summit could have produced an agreement on ground transit to Afghanistan. It would, after all, have been easy for us to let NATO carry out its international mission in Afghanistan on its own. But we did not do this ... Russia will continue to be involved to such an extent as meets our interests and principles of equal cooperation.”

The directions in which Western “reciprocity” manifests will be absorbing to watch on the Eurasian political landscape. To be sure, there is an overall mellowing toward Russia in the European approach. The George W Bush administration has failed to initiate the deployment plan for anti-ballistic missile systems in Poland and the Czech Republic. The forthcoming Russia-European Union strategic negotiations on a new partnership agreement promise a new start. These are positive tidings.

But equally, NATO’s expansion plan with regard to Ukraine, Georgia and Azerbaijan still remains on the agenda. Russia-NATO tensions have appeared over Georgia and Kosovo. Therefore, Russia won’t take chances, either.

Parallel to the growing involvement in Afghanistan, Moscow is also stepping up its military presence in Central Asia. Arguably, the deteriorating situation in Afghanistan has prompted Moscow to beef up the security of the Central Asian region. But a distinctive feature is that Russia’s move is also in response to the wishes of the Central Asian states. Uzbekistan President Islam Karimov recently proposed that the Moscow-led Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) and the Eurasian Economic Community must merge into a single body so as to create a “powerful union capable of becoming a counterbalance to NATO and the EU”.

From the Central Asian perspective, Russia’s capacity to play a bigger role in regional security looks more credible today than at any time in the post-Soviet era. As influential Moscow commentator Vyacheslav Nikonov, president of the Politika Foundation, wrote in Izvestia newspaper recently, “The strengthening of ties with Russia today appears much more logical and natural than it did in the 1990s when, on the contrary, the Western economies were growing, while ours was steadily declining. The growing energy crisis also works in favor of integration.”

Russia as a status quo power also holds attraction for local governments in Central Asia. Most important, there is profound disquiet in Central Asian capitals regarding the Afghan crisis - the US strategy in Afghanistan and NATO’s grit to win the war.

Until last year, Russia and the Central Asian states counted on the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) playing a role in stabilizing the Afghan situation. But then they began sensing that China was following a complex policy within the SCO by exploiting it to develop its bilateral links with Central Asian countries and for penetrating deep into the energy sector, but all the while applying the brakes on Russian attempts to augment the grouping’s profile as a security organization. (The SCO comprises China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.)

China has virtually put its foot down on a Russian proposal regarding close CSTO-SCO ties. China disfavors SCO-CSTO military exercises. In sum, Beijing seems anxious not to create misgivings in Washington. (The CSTO consists of of Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.)

This is not to say that China is indifferent to the stability of Afghanistan. Far from it. China’s preference is to keep its options open rather than be tied down by the SCO or overtly identifying with Russian interests. After all, China has huge stakes in Afghanistan. Beijing perceives advantages in directly cooperating with the US (and NATO) rather than from within the SCO. Conceivably, Beijing might not be altogether averse to the idea of sending peacekeeping troops to Afghanistan at a later stage, provided a suitable United Nations mission could be structured.

That is to say, an important phase of the SCO’s evolution as a security organization lies ahead when Russia assumes its chairmanship in 2008-2009, following the SCO summit meeting scheduled to be held at Dushanbe (Tajikistan) in August. From all appearances, there has been some serious rethink in Moscow as well during recent months regarding the SCO’s potential to play an influential role in Afghanistan, given China’s manifestly lukewarm attitude. The Russian thinking also seems to have veered around to abandoning hopes of working within the framework of CSTO or SCO but instead to concentrate on a bilateral Russian-Afghan track.

Afghanistan also does not want to cooperate with either the CSTO or the SCO. During his visit to Moscow on May 25-26, Afghan Foreign Minister Dadfar Spanta made it clear that Afghanistan would not be seeking observer status with the SCO. He let it be known in no uncertain terms that Russia is a low priority for Kabul in its foreign policy - as compared to, say, China. All in all, therefore, Moscow would realize that a long journey lies ahead in cultivating influence in Kabul, which it must undertake all by itself.
Moscow appreciates that the present regime in Kabul of President Hamid Karzai is unabashedly pro-American and is a participant in the US’s regional strategy that passes as “Great Central Asia Partnership for Afghanistan and Neighboring Countries”, which actually aims at undercutting Russian influence in Central Asia.

Thus, the weekend’s announcement in Moscow far from heralds a joint US-Russian effort to stabilize the Afghan situation. In fact, there is hardly any scope for a common US-Russian regional agenda. As Nikonov put it, “We [Russia] and the Western countries have diametrically opposite definitions of success in our policy toward the CIS [Commonwealth of Independent States] countries. For Russia, success lies in strengthening of integration ties, rapprochement with its neighbors and a strengthening of cooperation. For the West, on the contrary, success means a distancing of these countries from Russia, a reorientation to external centers of power aimed at preventing ‘a rebirth of the Russian empire’. When political goals are so diametrically opposed, it is impossible to speak of a common agenda.”

M K Bhadrakumar served as a career diplomat in the Indian Foreign Service for over 29 years, with postings including India’s ambassador to Uzbekistan (1995-1998) and to Turkey (1998-2001).

(Copyright 2008 Asia Times Online (Holdings) Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact us about sales, syndication and republishing.)

“As president, he will have to do what FDR did, and challenge the financial oligarchy with new government regulatory agencies staffed with real regulators, not deregulators as under the Bush-Clinton-Bush regime.”

Comme Président il devra faire ce que fit FDR et… résumons : RÉGULER,  là ou l’oligarchie depuis 25 ans “dérégule” à tour de bras

La question capitale est donc : Cette oligarchie se laissera-t-elle faire et défier ?

Elle vaut cette conjecture aussi bien avant l’élection qu’après
Et on peut sur cette question voir le point de vue original de Lyndon Larouche

Plusieurs pays de L’Union européenne accompagnent servilement les USA dans ses aventures militaires en Irak et en Afghanistan, comme ils l’ont fait en Yougoslavie.
Nous n’avons pas entendu beaucoup de députés européens s’élever contre ces guerres menées par leur pays dont le mien, la Belgique (quelle honte pour moi).
Votre discours les a mis devant leurs responsabilités. Qu’en ont-ils pensé ?

Lisez cela:
http://therealnews.com/t/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=1760&updaterx=2008-06-23+11%3A47%3A14

C’est un acte criminel venant des speculateurs occidentaux, et il faut que l’on arrete de pointer les doigts sur des pays.

C’est là où nous ne pensons pas par confor(misme)t, peur ou aveuglement que le mal, s’il s’y loge, fait naître les catastrophes humaines.

C’est vrai que notre époque moderne, à mille lieues d’une réelle liberté (“liberté” tant vantée comme vertu par ailleurs), se refuse à penser le mal (déstructuration, destruction) qu’elle engendre.

C’est à ce titre que le travail “révélant” de Dedefensa.org est, à mon sens, précieux. Bonne continuation.

Effectivement, lapsus, et révélateur de rien. Faute corrigée, merci.

DeDefensa: “Vous savez aussi que nous n’avons pas de propriétaires-protecteurs pour nous couvrir d’argent et que nous ne marchons pas droit, que nous avons donc besoin d’un soutien qui ne peut venir de nos lecteurs.”

Un lapsus..? “qui ne peut venir de nos lecteurs.”

:-)

Voyez votre texte ‘‘L’Europe et la logique de l’histoire’’ mis en ligne sur le Forum du Faits & Commentaires du 19 juin

.

Rassurez-vous, nous n’avons pas comme politique de retirer un texte du Forum, ou de n’importe quelle autre rubrique, parce qu’il ne plaît pas à certains de nos lecteurs.

Selon Michael Hudson, la démocratie US et les USA eux-mêmes sont fichus si les politiques économiques en oeuvre depuis les années 80 (càd le néolibéralisme) ne sont pas remises en cause ... Vous avez dit retour du protectionnisme et de la régulation ...

http://www.counterpunch.org/whitney06212008.html

En attendant sur Public Sénat samedi soir, les adorateurs de l’américanisme se livraient à une orgie absolument édifiante ...

“France on the move/La France qui bouge”