Gordon Campbell: Why Saudi Arabia shouldn’t get to buy nukes
Gordon Campbell on why this guy shouldn’t be allowed to buy nuclear weapons
Gordon Campbell on why this guy shouldn’t be allowed to buy nuclear weaponsThis week,
we’ve all been asked to ponder the world’s vital issues,
which seem to include whether John Tamihere has been the
victim of Big Labour in his frustrated quest for a Labour
Party membership card, which might, or might not, have
enabled Tamihere to contest the Auckland mayoralty under the
party banner (yawn, must stay awake) if Big Labour hadn’t
already anointed Phil Goff for the top job. This may, or may
not be, an absolute outrage – given that the constitution
of the party that Tamihere seeks to rejoin expressly forbids
its members from challenging the candidate endorsed by the
party. Meanwhile all but unnoticed, two of the world’s
nuclear powers have been preparing to go to war this week.
Military action has been ramping up between India and
Pakistan over (as usual) the disputed territory of Kashmir.
This seems like quite a big deal, even if it doesn’t
involve Donald Trump. Winston Peters has called for
calm.
The trigger point for this bout of escalation
was the February 14 suicide-bomber attack on an Indian
outpost in Kashmir, that killed 44 Indian
soldiers. Several reporters, including an Associated
Press journalist, trudged up the Kangaran Nallah hill to the
site of Tuesday’s bombing near the town of Balakot, close
to the border with Pakistan’s sector of Kashmir. They saw
several large craters, a few upended trees and villagers
wondering why they had been targeted. “There are
only mud-brick homes here. There is no madrassas. There
isn’t even a concrete house,” said 55-year-old Noor Shah
who lived about a half-kilometer (a third of a mile) from
the site… Two of the dried mud structures were damaged in
the explosions but no one was hurt, said Tahir Khan, 45, of
the same village. He added that his frightened children
refused to let him leave their side to go to work. “No one
has been killed, no one has been seriously hurt. But we want
to know, what have we done that we were attacked?” asked
Khan. In similar vein, the Pakistani media have
insisted no one was killed and nothing damaged– even
though the Dawn newspaper editorial still seemed outraged that Indian bombs
had fallen upon the precious soil of Pakistan, damage or no
damage. Then again, maybe the Pakistani claims that the
Indian attack was ineffectual were also intended for
domestic consumption, to help prevent public feeling in
Pakistan from going entirely over the top. The truth seemed
to lie somewhere between the entire JeM leadership being
annihilated and a couple of mud huts being slightly damaged.
Whatever, Pakistan leader Imran Khan appealed to Indian PM Narendra Modi “to
give peace a chance”. Since then though, there have
been credible reports (with pictures) of at least one Indian jet being shot down
over Pakistan, and India is demanding that its injured
pilot be returned. A “red alert” has been declared in
Delhi’s subway system, to galvanise the public against the threat
of a Pakistani attack. Nervously, the world now waits
to see whether the sub-continent’s two nuclear powers can
manage their way out of this latest bout of hostilities
successfully. As AP pointed out, the February 14 attack in
Kashmir was India’s worst military setback in 30 years. It
also doesn’t help the cause of peace that India has an
election due at the end of May, which will hardly encourage
Modi to turn the other cheek. Is Saudi Arabia
Going Nuclear? Talking of nuclear weapons and the
world’s attempts at keeping them in check… As everyone
knows, the very thought that Iran could (or might
conceivably) gain a nuclear capability for itself by oh,
2025 (even though it had stripped itself of the ability to
so, via the deal it signed with the US and Europe) has led
US President Donald Trump to rip up the deal, denounce the
Iranians in bloodcurdling terms and impose sanctions – not
only on them but on any other country (friend or foe) that
doesn’t feel the same way about Iran that he does.
Meanwhile though, and at the initial prompting of
Trump’s disgraced national security adviser Michael Flynn,
the US has been enabling Saudi Arabia to pursue a nuclear
capability. The Congressional report on this disturbing
development can be found here: The Saudi kingdom’s
yearning to go nuclear is – but of course –
strictly for peaceful domestic reasons. Given its massive
oil and natural gas reserves (not to mention its solar
potential) you might well be wondering why Saudi Arabia
feels such a pressing need exists for nuclear reactors.
Well, the innocent reason is that Saudi Arabia needs nuclear
reactors to help de-salinate its water supply. Reportedly,
since 90% of its water supply is de-salinated, Saudi Arabia
uses about 15% of the oil it produces daily, to meet its
domestic needs for water. If the kingdom goes nuclear, that
oil could then be saved, and sold on global markets. Oh,
but you may be feeling a bit worried about that other
prospect… Maybe Saudi Arabia isn’t the safest pair of
hands when it comes to nuclear weapons, and preventing
their proliferation. Can the House of Saud be trusted to (b)
refrain from militarizing any nuclear capacity it attains
and/or (b) to stop such expertise falling into the hands of
terrorists? Hmmm. After all, this is the same kingdom
that bankrolled ISIS and al-Qaeda, that provided fifteen of
the nineteen 9/11 terrorists, that exports its Wahhabi brand
of fundamentalism as far afield as the Philippines… and
that jails, tortures and murders its dissidents and
journalists, while massacring and starving hundreds of
thousands of people in the course of pursuing the civil war
in Yemen. Sure… why not let such a regime gain nuclear
weapons too, if a few million dollars can be made by a few
US firms out of exporting the requisite technology, at a
price? Assuming that’s OK with Israel, the Middle East’s
only other nuclear power. Because in the normal parlance,
wouldn’t Saudi Arabia going nuclear serve to disturb the
current balance of power in the Middle East? You'd think so.
Here’s how it works: As a member in good
standing of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear
Weapons, Saudi Arabia has pledged not to develop or acquire
nuclear weapons, and is entitled to engage in peaceful
nuclear trade. Such commerce could include acquiring
technology to enrich uranium or separate plutonium from
spent nuclear fuel. These systems can be used both to
produce fuel for civilian nuclear reactors and to make key
materials for nuclear weapons. This latent potential
to convert from civilian to military uses is of course,
exactly why the US rang the alarm bells so loudly about
Iran. But Saudi Arabia? No problem. Surely, they’re honest
as the day is long. Think of the peaceful uses to which it
has put the Koran. In fact, as the same link indicates,
elements in the Trump Administration may already be driving
around the federal regulations that are meant to govern this
trade. Normally, here’s how things are supposed to
proceed: The Atomic Energy Act requires countries
seeking to purchase U.S. nuclear technology to make legally
binding commitments that they will not use those materials
and equipment for nuclear weapons, and to place them under
International Atomic Energy Agency safeguards. It also mandates that the
United States must approve any uranium enrichment or
plutonium separation activities involving U.S. technologies
and materials, in order to prevent countries from diverting
them to weapons use. But not this time, it seems. For
the Saudis, the rules are not simply being bent, but swept
aside: According to the congressional report, within
days of President Trump’s inauguration, senior U.S.
officials were promoting an initiative to transfer nuclear
technology to Saudi Arabia, without either concluding a
nuclear cooperation agreement and submitting it to Congress
or involving key government agencies, such as the Department
of Energy or the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Given
the track record of the outlaw regime in Riyadh in exporting
religious fundamentalism, that’s a concern. In any sane
world, the Saudis can’t be trusted to respect any of the
existing restraints on nuclear proliferation.
Footnote One: Incredibly, the US has so
far negotiated agreements to export nuclear technology to 23
(!) other countries, and – moreover – one of those
entities (Euratom) is comprised of 28 separate European
countries. Footnote Two Not that, of
course, we can worry all that much about the dangers of
nuclear proliferation when reportedly, a 12 year kid can build a
nuclear fusion reactor in his
playroom. Footnote Three: Incredibly,
Green Book may not have been the worst film to win an
Oscar this week. The Oscar for Live Action Short Film went
to Skin, a film whose racial politics may be even more
cringe-worthy. One Oscar-nominated documentary that
you can see in its entirety at the link below (the entire
film is only seven minutes long) is A Night At The
Garden. Using archival footage, the film shows how
twenty thousand Americans packed into Madison Square
Garden in February 1939 for a rally celebrating American
isolationism, anti-Semitism and white supremacy – complete
with the crowd giving Nazi salutes under a giant picture of
George Washington. As the saying goes, this film makes the
age of Trump look like déjà vu all over again.
Finally, Toast
Toast, in three different musical forms. From
1956, when he was on RCA Victor of all labels, Shorty Long -
the future Motown star and future boating tragedy victim –
released this terrific song about the limited post breakup
consolations of coffee and toast: And from late 2018, here’s the
young Jamaican dancehall star Koffee, with her mega-hit
“Toast”…. Buss a toast to all the blessings that life
has to offer, because why not, and in addition: Me
delighted, Jah know, say mi passion ignited And finally, from the
shores of early 1990s indie rock, here’s Eric Bachman and
his great band Archers of Loaf, with a song about… sure,
she’s great and all, but what’s gone WRONG with his
GOD-DAMN toast? And because we may not
come this way again, here (as a bonus) is Archers of
Loaf’s haunting maritime epic “Chumming The Ocean…”
I love the inspired use of the weather maps in this video,
too:
In retaliation, Indian warplanes claim to have struck a training camp of the
Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) group allegedly responsible for
the bus attack, inflicting many casualties. This is either
(a) a really dangerous escalation that could go
thermonuclear at any moment and engulf 1.5 billion people or
(b) fake news, in that it could have been only a symbolic
bombing run carried out mainly for domestic consumption back
home in India. The Associated Press could find little sign of
damage
Cause di
music get me excited, come in like a potion
mmm