WAR WATCH
WEDNESDAYS, #181, June 12, 2024 
Compiled by Dick Bennett
US
Imperialism, Thule (Greenland) Air Force Base, now Pituffik Space Base, May 17,
2024 from a Greenland Base for War to a Base for Space War, and Daniel Ellsberg
Week June 10-16.
Google to find some of the already numerous and rapidly
increasing published articles on Thule/Pituffik An outstanding example follows, packed with
information, significantly observing the convergence of nuclear and climate dangers. But its excellent reportage is one-sided—USAALLTHE
WAY--without self-examination, devoid of other national perspectives, untouched
by awareness of its origins in Cold War I and Cold War II fear, bigotry, enmity,
unexamined assumptions, conflicted
language, doublespeak, and preparations for war, including of course nuclear
war, against the Soviet Union/Russia.
Natasha Maki Jessen-Petersen. “This
Arctic US Air Base Has Its Eyes on Russia. But Climate is a Bigger Threat.” Inside
Climate News (February 26, 2023).
The isolated Thule Air Base in Greenland is the
only U.S. outpost that can monitor all of Russia’s missiles, but thawing
permafrost is undermining the station.
Here’s a
passage near the end of its substantial length:
Thule is its most expensive
overseas base to operate, a drain of more than $100 million a year. That is 10
times the amount needed for the average Air Force base. Much of the expense is
associated with the remote location, given that all of Thule’s supplies must
come in by aircraft or the port open a few months a year. With the United States now making up for lost
time on the climate challenge, the cost is set to soar. While the Pentagon’s
heavily censored climate resiliency report gave no specific figure on
improvements at Thule, it notes that billions of dollars will be invested
across Arctic bases through 2025. (The other five U.S. bases in the Arctic
are in Alaska.) At an Arctic
Circle forum hosted by Greenland last August in its capital, Nuuk, Doug
Jones, deputy assistant secretary in the State Department’s Bureau of
European and Eurasian Affairs, emphasized the need for an Arctic free of
conflict. He reminded the 400 participants that NATO was an ally,
and that the U.S. was seeking to embrace nontraditional forms of security in
fighting regional threats in the Arctic, including climate change. “The
need for a strong deterrence and defense is more important now as we confront
and we see, as Russia has made it clear, it is willing to use force to
achieve its aims,” Jones said. The
United States needs to “confront the greatest threat to transatlantic security
since the Cold War.”
[The author seems unaware she is reporting from one heavily
distorted perspective, seems never to have heard of Daniel Ellsberg.]
RootsAction, Daniel Ellsberg Week, June 10-16. THIS IS DANIEL ELLSBERG WEEK. Daniel Ellsberg’s final book, The Doomsday Machine, explained
key realities of nuclear-weapons policies. “No policies in human history have
more deserved to be recognized as immoral. Or insane,” he wrote. “The story of
how this calamitous predicament came about and how and why it
has persisted for over half a century is a chronicle of human madness.’”
Now,
during Daniel Ellsberg Week,
activists are commemorating his work and spirit by calling for an end
to war and the policies that keep the world on the brink of nuclear
annihilation.
This
week, and year round, we carry on by fighting for crucial changes, like eliminating land-based nuclear weapons (ICBMs).
In a
letter to Congress five years ago, Ellsberg singled out the urgency of one
“immediate step” in particular: “to eliminate entirely our redundant,
vulnerable, and destabilizing land-based ICBM force.” Unlike air-launched and
sea-based nuclear weapons, which are not vulnerable to attack, the ICBMs are
vulnerable to a preemptive strike and so are “poised to launch” on
the basis of “ten-minute warning signals that may be — and have
been, on both sides — false alarms, which press leadership to ‘use them or lose
them.’”
While
best known as the Pentagon Papers whistleblower, Daniel Ellsberg “was
preoccupied with opposing policies that could lead to nuclear war,” RootsAction
national director Norman Solomon wrote in a new article, “The Absence
– and Presence – of Daniel Ellsberg.” To read that article, and to send quick emails to members
of Congress urging closure of ICBMs, click here.
This
week has brought the premiere of a powerful short documentary – A Common Insanity: A Conversation with Daniel Ellsberg
About Nuclear Weapons – and you
can watch it now for free by clicking here. That
new movie was directed by Judith Ehrlich, Oscar-nominated filmmaker of The
Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers.
To
learn more about how you can help avert nuclear war, visit the Defuse Nuclear
War website. This work is
only possible with your financial support. Please chip in $5 now.
This Arctic US Air
Base Has Its Eyes on Russia. But Climate ...
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