OMNI WAR WATCH WEDNESDAYS, #99, NOVEMBER 9, 2022.

 WAR WATCH WEDNESDAYS, #99, NOVEMBER 9, 2022.

Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J.S. Davies.  War in Ukraine: Making Sense of a Senseless Conflict.
Two from the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists on the Cuban Missile Crisis.
  Times the world came close to nuclear disaster.
  How many nuclear weapons did the US and USSR have?
Justice for the Marshall Islands. 

NUCLEAR WAR

Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J.S. Davies.  War in Ukraine: Making Sense of a Senseless Conflict.

NOV 3 The Chris Hedges Report Podcast with Medea Benjamin on her book "War in Ukraine: Making Sense of a Senseless Conflict" Listen · 34M Subscribed No one, including the most bullish supporters of Ukraine, expect the nation’s war with Russia to end soon. The fighting has been reduced to artillery duels across hundreds of miles of front lines and creeping advances and retreats. Ukraine, like Afghanistan, will bleed for a very long time. This is by design. The militarists who have waged permanent war costing trillions of dollars over the past two decades have invested heavily in controlling the public narrative. The enemy, whether Saddam Hussein or Vladimir Putin, is always the epitome of evil, the new Hitler. Those we support are always heroic defenders of liberty and democracy. Anyone who questions the righteousness of the cause is accused of being an agent of a foreign power and a traitor. The mass media cravenly disseminates these binary absurdities in 24-hour news cycles. Its news celebrities and experts, universally drawn from the intelligence community and military, rarely deviate from the approved script. Day and night, the drums of war never stop beating. Its goal: to keep billions of dollars flowing into the hands of the war industry and prevent the public from asking inconvenient questions. Medea Benjamin, who along with Nicolas J.S. Davies, authored War in Ukraine: Making Sense of a Senseless Conflict, place the war in Ukraine in its proper historical and cultural context, warning that a protracted war in Ukraine threatens open warfare between the United States and Russia and nuclear Armageddon. Joining me to discuss her book is Medea Benjamin, co-founder of Code Pink and author of Drone Warfare, Kingdom of the Unjust: Behind the U.S.-Saudi Connection, and Inside Iran.  Share

Three Articles in Retrospect

Two from the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists on the Cuban Missile Crisis, Nuclear Risk Josh Meyer, USA TODAY (Oct. 12, 2022, updated Oct. 13).   “Cuban Missile Crisis, a misplaced tape: Times the world came close to nuclear disaster.”  Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (Oct. 20, 2022). Bulletin Science and Security Board co-chair Sharon Squassoni talks with USA Today about lessons learned from the Cuban Missile Crisis, nuclear close calls throughout history, and more. Read more.

NUCLEAR RISK Hans M. Kristensen, Robert S. Norris (October 12, 2022).   “60 years later: How many nuclear weapons did the US and USSR have in the Cuban Missile Crisis?”  Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (Oct. 20, 2022). To mark the sixtieth anniversary of the start of the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Bulletin is re-printing this Nuclear Notebook entry to provide essential details about the numbers and types of US and Soviet nuclear weapons that were operational during the crisis. Read more. (Editor’s note: To mark the upcoming sixtieth anniversary of the start of the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists is re-printing this Nuclear Notebook, which was originally published on November 1, 2012.)

US NUCLEAR WEAPONS TESTING.   Union of Concerned Scientists. 
“Act Now for Nuclear Justice in the Marshall Islands.”  Union of Concerned Scientists.
Dear Dick, 10-8-22 (forwarded by Jean Gordon)
Between 1946 and 1958 the United States tested 67 nuclear weapons in the Marshall Islands. With the advances in power of the bombs over time, this averages out to the equivalent of dropping one Hiroshima-sized bomb a day for 20 years. These nuclear tests vaporized some islands completely, spread radioactive contamination across the remaining islands, and left many permanently uninhabitable. Marshallese people continue to suffer from cancers and other long-term health effects caused by radiation exposure.

Please urge your members of Congress to cosponsor a resolution supporting nuclear justice in the Marshall Islands.