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June 21, 2022 by Nukewatch Leave a Comment

Sen. Markey: ‘It’s possible they don’t know what they’re doing’

Company Plans to Dump Radioactive Water from Pilgrim Reactor Into Cape Cod Bay

Nukewatch Quarterly Summer 2022

By Linda Pentz Gunter

At the conclusion of a close to four-hour public “field hearing” held in the community of Plymouth, Massachusetts on May 6, 2022, Senator Ed Markey, D-MA, pulled no punches.

The Senate hearing invited a number of witnesses to testify on “Issues Facing Communities with Decommissioning Nuclear Plants,” with this session specifically focused on the nearby Pilgrim nuclear reactor, which closed in 2019.

As part of the decommissioning process, Holtec International, the company that purchased the Pilgrim nuclear reactor from previous owner, Entergy, is preparing to dump a million gallons of radioactive water from the site into Cape Cod Bay as part of its decommissioning activities.

As the hearing drew to a close, Markey questioned Holtec’s competency and the leniency of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), the federal regulator ostensibly tasked with protecting public health and safety.

“It’s possible these problems may be more a reflection of its inexperience, and not arrogance,” Markey said of Holtec. “That they don’t know what they are doing.”

A proposed NRC rule-making is in the works that would “update” (read “weaken”) federal decommissioning regulations for the nuclear industry.

“The commission’s proposed decommissioning rule shows it to be a captive agency,” said Markey, one that “shows no interest in engaging the public, which would provide even a semblance of accountability.”

Referring to the NRC’s failure to stop Holtec from looting its own taxpayer-funded decommissioning funds for company profit, Markey added that “without a stronger regulator, I fear that the only thing that will be emptier than the decommissioning trust fund will be the public’s trust in our government.”

Markey serves on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee and is chair of its Subcommittee on Clean Air, Climate, and Nuclear Safety.

John Lubinski, director of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s Office of Nuclear Material Safety and Safeguards, and Holtec International founder, president and CEO Kris Singh, were the key witnesses in Markey’s crosshairs at the hearing.

U.S. Representative Bill Keating, a Massachusetts Democrat whose district includes Plymouth where the Pilgrim reactor is located, joined Senator Markey in questioning the witness panel.

With the license now transferred from Entergy to Holtec, the New Jersey-based company has begun to decommission Pilgrim, dismantling and disposing of the reactor hulk and “cleaning up” the radioactive site.

The decommissioning work includes draining the “spent fuel” pool that sits atop the reactor building and that is presently filled with a million gallons of radioactive water. The water was used to cool and shield hundreds of tons of extremely hot high-level [radioactive] waste (the used irradiated fuel) for the past fifty years.

Any decision-making about the fate of a decommissioned reactor such as Pilgrim, said Markey, should include the meaningful participation of all impacted communities. Instead, he saw decision-making being left solely in the hands of Holtec, the apparent preference of the NRC and its current regulations, together with the agency’s decidedly “hands-off” oversight.

Alternatives to ocean dumping

Both Lubinski and Singh agreed during the hearing that there were alternative ways of dealing with the radioactive water that did not involve directly dumping it into Cape Cod Bay. These would include evaporating the contaminated water into the atmosphere or shipping it off-site by truck or rail to another community.

But these “solutions” are of course far from such, and involve transport risks and environmental justice issues as well.

Currently, one of the two sites being considered to take all of the country’s high-level nuclear waste indefinitely — at what are misleadingly termed Consolidated Interim Storage Sites [emphasis added] — is in New Mexico and owned by, yes, Holtec.

That is indeed where Holtec would like to send the high-level radioactive waste transferred from Pilgrim into its on-site casks. But the liquid waste water left in the fuel pool is what the company wants to dump into the Bay.

That’s because it’s clearly the fastest, cheapest, and easiest method. Indeed, Singh bragged about the rapidity of Holtec’s decommissioning activities at Pilgrim, as if speed f

ills one with confidence. Quite the reverse.

The risks around this greed for speed were already flagged by Union of Concerned Scientists physicist Ed Lyman, who told NBC Boston in January, “The danger, of course, is that in their attempt to reduce the costs and timeline for decommissioning, that they will cut corners in a way that might jeopardize public health and safety.”

When questions arose during the May 6 hearing about the safety of Holtec’s onsite radioactive waste storage casks, Singh said they were not only impermeable to missile attack or a crashing airplane but that one could later “have a barbecue” on top of a cask — a strange choice given the images of fire and nuclear waste do not make happy company.

Naturally, the Cape Cod fishermen and lobster- men’s associations, along with the Massachusetts Attorney General’s office and area resident organizations, are vehemently opposed to the radioactive water dumping given the impact it could have on their livelihoods.

Bivalves — especially, oysters, clams and mussels — serve as filters for radioactive isotopes and bioaccumulate radiation.

Two bills that would endeavor to block Holtec’s plan to dump the radioactive water are making their way through the Massachusetts House and Senate.

However, according to reporting by Cape and Islands, it is not clear that a state ban would be sufficient and the radioactive water dump might still go ahead. “The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission has said repeatedly that Holtec is allowed to do so, within federal limits, and needs no further permits,” the publication reported.

— Linda Pentz Gunter is the editor and curator of BeyondNuclearInternational.org and the international specialist at Beyond Nuclear.

–CounterPunch, May 11, 2022

June 21, 2022 by Nukewatch Leave a Comment

Get in Line: Investigate U.S. Atrocities First

Nukewatch Quarterly Summer 2022

By John LaForge

The global outpouring of legitimate, agonized grief for civilian victims of Russia’s illegal war on Ukraine has brought countless calls for war crimes charges against the perpetrators. Before Russia’s criminal outrages are taken to the International Criminal Court, there are scores of alleged U.S. atrocities that must be investigated.

The U.S. military has a long record of apparently criminal conduct committed during its military assaults and unprovoked wars of aggression or occupation in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Pakistan, Yugoslavia, Somalia, and elsewhere. Like Russia in Ukraine, U.S. crimes include bombing hospitals, desecrating corpses, torturing and executing prisoners, using banned cluster bombs, and willfully attacking civilians and civilian objects.

A still from a video of smiling U.S. Marines urinating on dead Taliban fighters, from Jan. 16, 2013. Staff Sgt. Edward Deptola admitted multiple charges at a court martial, including desecrating remains. Reuters photo.

But unlike today’s wall-to-wall news coverage of Russia’s every move in Ukraine, the U.S. media mostly withdrew from and stopped reporting on U.S. military occupations as the wars dragged on, and generally chose not to present many photos or film of either U.S. war dead or alleged U.S. crimes. Like news censorship inside Russia, the U.S. media’s blind eye helped maintain public support for U.S. wars-of-choice. Generalized calls to “support our troops” overwhelmed most reports of unlawful, excessive, or criminal acts by officers or soldiers. Eddie Gallagher, the Navy SEAL platoon chief who was convicted of posing for a photo with the corpse of the 17-year-old detainee who other SEALs testified Gallagher had stabbed to death, was freed from his sentence by Donald Trump.

Some of the most notorious and well-documented U.S. war crimes have involved torturing prisoners. “It is indisputable that the United States engaged in the practice of torture,” concluded a panel of experts for the Constitution Project in 2013. The group’s 577-page report found that President George W. Bush and other administration officials bore responsibility for the crimes. (“U.S. Practiced Torture After 9/11, Nonpartisan Review Concludes,” New York Times, April 16, 2013)

Hardly less criminal, on Feb. 12, 2010, in an atrocity kept secret for a month, U.S. Special Forces in Afghanistan killed a teenage girl, a pregnant mother of 10, a pregnant mother of six, a police officer, and his brother, and were accused of trying to cover up the killings by digging bullets out of the victims’ bodies, washing the wounds with alcohol, and lying to superior officers. (“U.S. Admits Role in February Killing of Afghan Women,” New York Times, Apr. 4, 2010)

U.S. jets bombed and rocketed an allied Pakistani military base for two hours Nov. 26, 2011, killing 26 members of a force called the Frontier Corps and wounding dozens more. (“NATO Strikes Kill Pakistani Forces, Raising Tensions,” New York Times, Nov. 27, 2011.)

During the war in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, U.S. pilots deliberately bombed the Chinese embassy in Belgrade May 7, 1999, using five GPS-guided bombs. President Bill Clinton, CIA Director George Tenet, and Defense Secretary William Cohen all claimed it was a mistake. (“NATO bombed Chinese deliberately; NATO hit embassy on purpose,” Guardian Oct. 16, 1999).

On April 23, 1999, the U.S. rocketed the central state broadcasting offices in Belgrade, destroying the building, killing 16 civilian employees, and wounding 16. Human rights groups around the world said the attack was a war crime.[1]

The United States used cluster bombs widely in its wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, and the former Yugoslavia, according to reports by Human Rights Watch, The Lancet, and the UN International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia.[2] In one case, U.S.-led NATO forces attacked the main hospital complex in Nis, Serbia with cluster bombs May 7, 1999, killing three outside the hospital, three on the operating table, and nine at an adjoining market. (“Serbs Say 15 are Killed at Hospital and Market,” New York Times, May 8, 1999)

Even the pro-war editorial board of the New York Times, while boasting “This page has been supportive of the war in Afghanistan since it began,” acknowledged on Feb. 4, 2019, that, “Tens of thousands of Afghan civilians have been killed, maimed and traumatized. Millions of people are internally displaced or are refugees in Iran and Pakistan.”

“These things happen in war,” Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said casually referring to the now infamous “methodical” execution-style massacre of 24 men, women, and children in Haditha, Iraq, Nov. 19, 2006. Yes, the murder of innocents occurs in war, inevitably, every time, without exception, which is why anti-war activists are so keen to prevent it, condemn it, and to end it once it’s been started.

As the late Yale psychiatrist and author Robert Lifton has shown, all wars are “atrocity producing situations,” and the series of headlines that follows, edited for space, illustrates arguably criminal U.S. military conduct in recent wars and can provide prosecutors in The Hague a basis for launching investigations.

Headlines sketch U.S. war crime spree

“How the U.S. Hid an Airstrike That Killed Dozens of Civilians in Syria,” New York Times, Nov. 13, 2021

“Lethal U.S. Airstrike on Afghan Drug Labs is Disputed: Bombs Killed Civilian Workers, not Taliban, a UN Report Says,” New York Times, Oct. 10, 2019

“U.S. Drone Kills 30 Civilians, Afghans Say; Target Was ISIS,” New York Times, Sep. 20, 2019, p. A6

“U.S. Airstrikes and Raids Killed 120 Civilians in 2018, Pentagon Says,” New York Times, May 3, 2019

“U.S. and Afghan Forces Killed More Civilians in Early 2019 than Taliban did, U.N. Finds,” New York Times, Apr. 25, 2019

“Claiming Atrocities by Leader, SEALS Were Told to ‘Let It Go’,” New York Times, Apr. 24, 2019, p. A1

“For Afghan Civilians, 2018 Was the Deadliest in a Decade” (“Among the dead last year were 927 children”), New York Times, Feb. 25, 2019

“U.S. Airstrikes Said to Kill at Least 10 Afghan Civilians,” New York Times, Feb. 11, 2019

“U.S. Airstrikes and Raids Killed 120 Civilians in 2018,” Pentagon Says, New York Times, May 3, 2019

“American Airstrikes Kill Civilians, Including Children, Afghans Charge,” New York Times, Jan. 26, 2019

“Civilians Killed in U.S.-Afghan Operation,” New York Times, Nov. 29, 2018

“Decorated Navy SEAL Is Accused of War Crimes in Iraq,” New York Times, Nov. 15, 2018

“Report: 3,301 Civilians Killed in U.S.-led Strikes in Syria Since 2014,” Duluth NewsTribune, Sep. 24, 2018
“Study: U.S. Killed 500 Civilians,” (“Pentagon may be grossly undercounting”), Minneapolis StarTribune, June 3, 2018

“More Afghan Civilians are Victims of Targeted Attacks, U.N. Says,” New York Times, Feb. 16, 2018

“Afghan Pedophiles Get Pass from U.S. Military, Report Says,” New York Times, January 24, 2018

“American Airstrikes in Afghanistan Stir Debate Over Who Was Killed,” New York Times, Nov. 11, 2017

“U.S. Airstrikes Kill at Least 13 Civilians,” Minneapolis StarTribune, Nov. 5, 2017

“Airstrike Kills at Least 25 at Street Market in Yemen,” New York Times, Nov. 2, 2017

“Civilian Deaths From U.S.-led Strikes on ISIS Surge Under Trump Administration” (“over 3,800”), Guardian, June 6, 2017

“3 Children Among Dead in a Raid in Somalia,” New York Times, Aug. 26, 2017

“Afghans Say U.S. Strike Hit Civilians,” New York Times, Aug. 12, 2017

“Civilian Deaths a Windfall for Militants’ Propaganda,” AP/Minneapolis StarTribune, Apr. 2, 2017

“U.S. Strike Reportedly Killed 30 Syrians,” New York Times & Minneapolis StarTribune, March 23, 2017

“U.S. Military Says Fight with Taliban Killed 33 Civilians,” Minneapolis StarTribune, Jan. 13, 2017

“U.S.-led Strikes in Iraq, Syria Have Killed at Least 188 Civilians, Military Says,” Duluth NewsTribune, Jan. 3, 2017

“U.S. Admits its Airstrikes Likely Killed Afghan Civilians,” Minneapolis StarTribune, Nov. 6, 2016

“U.S. Drones Hit Civilians, UN Says,” New York Times, Sep. 30, 2016

“Residents Say U.S. Strike Killed Civilians,” Wall Street Journal, Sep. 29, 2016

“Pentagon: Errors Led to Hospital Strike,” (“which killed 42 people”), Minneapolis StarTribune, May 1, 2016

“Airstrike on Afghan Hospital Stirs Fury,” Minneapolis StarTribune; & “19 Die in Apparent U.S. Airstrike on Afghan Hospital,” Los Angeles Times, Oct. 4, 2015

“U.S. Practiced Torture After 9/11, Nonpartisan Review Concludes,” New York Times, Apr. 16, 2013

“U.S. Marine Pleads Guilty to Urinating on Corpse of Taliban Fighter in Afghanistan,” Guardian, Jan. 16, 2013

“U.S. Troops Posed with Body Parts of Afghan Bombers,” Los Angeles Times, Apr. 18, 2012

“Drones at Issue… Raids Disrupt Militants, but Civilian Deaths Stir Outrage,” New York Times, Mar. 18, 2012

“G.I. Kills 16 Afghans, Including 9 Children in Attacks on Homes,” New York Times, Mar. 12, 2012

“Commission Alleges U.S. Detainee Abuse,” Minneapolis StarTribune, Jan. 8, 2012

“American Soldier Is Convicted of Killing Afghan Civilians for Sport,” New York Times, Nov. 11, 2011

“G.I. Killed Afghan Journalist, NATO Says,” New York Times, Sep. 9, 2011

“Cable Implicates Americans in Deaths of Iraqi Civilians,” New York Times, Sep. 2, 2011

“Civilians Die in a Raid by Americans and Iraqis,” New York Times, Aug. 7, 2011

“Libya Effort Is Called Violation of War Act,” New York Times, May 26, 2011

“Raid on Wrong House Kills Afghan Girl, 12,” New York Times, May 12, 2011

“Photos of Atrocities Seen as Threat to Afghan Relations,” St. Paul Pioneer Press, March 22, 2011

“Missiles Kill 26 in Pakistan” (“most of them civilians”), New York Times, March 18, 2011

“Afghans Say Attack Killed 52 Civilians; NATO Differs,” New York Times, July 27, 2010

“Afghans Die in Bombing, as Toll Rises for Civilians,” New York Times, May 3, 2010

“Marines Used ‘Excessive Force’ in Afghan Civilian Deaths,” New York Times, Apr. 14, 2007

“Sergeant Tells of Plot to Kill Iraqi Detainees,” New York Times, July 28, 2006, p. A8

“U.S.-led Raid Kills Nine at House,” Omaha World Herald, June 13, 2006

“The Bombing Killed at Least 35 Civilians…” when U.S. warplanes struck the village of Tolokan, Aghanistan, New York Times, June 11, 2006

“Murtha Says Probe Has Found Marines Killed Innocent Civilians,” Omaha World Herald, May 19, 2006

***

On Sep. 16, 2004, a BBC correspondent questioned U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan about the unprovoked U.S. bombardment and invasion of Iraq asking, “It was illegal?” Annan answered, “Yes. I have indicated it is not in conformity with the U.N. Charter. From our point of view and from the Charter point of view, it was illegal.” Likewise, Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah said March 28, 2007, “In the beloved Iraq, the bloodshed is continuing under an illegal foreign occupation….”

The 1946 Nuremberg Judgment comes to mind, especially as it was drafted by U.S. Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson and enforced by U.S.-led allies: “The charges in the indictment that the defendants planned and waged aggressive wars are charges of the utmost gravity. War is essentially an evil thing. Its consequences are not confined to the belligerent states alone, but affect the whole world.”
_______________
[1] Amnesty International, “NATO/Federal Republic of Yugoslavia: ‘Collateral damage’ or Unlawful Killings? Violations of the Laws of War by NATO During Operation Allied Force,” June 6, 2000, p. 44.

[2] Human Rights Watch, “U.S. Using Cluster Munitions in Iraq,” Apr. 1, 2003; The Lancet, “Pressure Groups Condemn U.S. Use of Cluster Bombs in Afghanistan”, Nov. 3, 2001; UN International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, “Final Report to the Prosecutor by the Committee Established to Review the NATO Bombing Campaign Against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia,” (undated), paragraph 27.

June 21, 2022 by Nukewatch Leave a Comment

U.S. Still Buying Russian Uranium in Spite of War on Ukraine

Nukewatch Quarterly Summer 2022

By Bob Mayberry

It’s ironic to contemplate, devastating to realize, that while the U.S. has banned Russian oil, coal, and gas imports, we continue to buy uranium for our nuclear reactors from Moscow. How much are we spending on reactor fuel? Estimates differ wildly. Senator John Barrasso, R-Wyo., claims the U.S. is “underwriting Putin’s war machine” to the tune of $100 million a month. But Sen. Barrasso has reason to exaggerate since uranium mining revenues in his state might increase following a ban on Russian imports.

The Washington Post reported that International Trade Commission figures for 2016 show the U.S. spending just over $1 billion on Russian uranium, but that figure shrank to $568 million in 2020. However, even those figures aren’t certain. Post reporter Glenn Kessler located a Senate Energy Committee webpage showing sales to the U.S. from Rosatom, Russia’s state-owned nuclear power company, totaled $784 million in 2020.

Clearly the U.S. is spending between five hundred million and a billion dollars annually on Russian uranium. Interestingly, Rosatom was founded by Vladimir Putin in 2007. And, according to The Verge, it now produces 20% of the world’s reactor fuel.

According to Reuters, the U.S. relies on Russia, and its allies Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, for roughly half of the uranium used to fuel our 93 reactors. Those units are responsible for nearly 20% of U.S. electricity. The Biden administration exempted uranium from the bans on Russian imports in part to keep electricity prices low.

Meanwhile, Sen. Barrasso and others are lobbying to add uranium to the Russian import ban, while simultaneously trying to kick-start uranium mining in states like Wyoming, Utah, Texas and Arizona, where large reserves are found. Uranium mining was largely abandoned in the U.S. due to the dangers of radioactive pollution. Thousands of abandoned uranium mines on the Navajo Reservation in Arizona have led to high levels of radioactive metals in the bodies of the women living on the reservation, according to a recent report from the University of New Mexico’s Navajo Birth Cohort Study.

While Sen. Barrasso and others call for renewed uranium mining, Native Americans demand long-overdue cleanup of abandoned mines, mills, and mountains of tailings scattered across the western U.S. that continue to emit dangerous radiation and contaminate water on Indigenous lands.

Transitioning to renewable energy would avoid uranium imports and cut toxic and radioactive pollution.

—Bob Mayberry is a retired English and Theatre Professor at Cal State University-Channel Islands.

Calma, Justine, “The US Can’t Seem to Quit Russian Uranium,” The Verge, 31 March 2022; Daniel, Will, “The U.S. is Miles Away from True Energy Independence, and It’s Not Because of Oil,” Fortune, 29 March 2022; Kessler, Glenn, “Does Russia Sell Nearly $1 Billion in Uranium to the U.S. a Year?,” Washington Post, 20 April 2022; Navajo Birth Cohort Study, University of New Mexico College of Pharmacy

June 21, 2022 by Nukewatch Leave a Comment

We Need an International Antiwar Movement, and Not Cheerleaders for the Weapons Industry

Nukewatch Quarterly Summer 2022

By Ron Jacobs

A ceasefire between the warring parties, a Russian withdrawal, a halt to arms shipments, a negotiated peace, and an end to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. This is what the international left should be organizing around in regard to the Russia-Ukraine war. It shouldn’t be calling for stepped up arms shipments to Ukraine’s military or defending Moscow’s invasion. When this war is stopped, the most likely situation for the vast majority of Ukrainian working people will be one where their greatest enemy could well be the Ukrainian government. Likewise, if the war goes on long enough, the greatest enemy of the vast majority of Russian working people could well be their government. The oligarchs in both nations will still be oligarchs, while the Russian and Ukrainian people will bear the human, financial and other costs of the war.

If the reader thinks the current conflict will somehow end with a different outcome, they need to revisit the history of war, especially war of the modern kind. You know, where civilian populations are bombed, conscripts are forced to kill and die in the thousands; where international bankers make loans to all sides until the battle begins. All the while generals and politicians talk nonsense about the principles being defended as if most of them had any principles that couldn’t be purchased.

It’s becoming clearer to more and more people that this war is truly a proxy war and that Ukrainians are being sacrificed by Washington and its clients (including the government in Kyiv) while Russians are being sacrificed by their government. Neither position — Ukrainian or Russian — is one to be envied. As an acquaintance and Vietnam Veteran Against the War member pointed out on Facebook, this is the perfect war for the U.S.-dominated military-industrial complex. There are no body bags coming home, no anti-war demonstrations, and virtually no pressure to negotiate. Indeed, a substantial part of what usually constitutes the U.S. antiwar movement is actually cheering on the Ukrainian military in this conflict. In short, this is a dream situation and Washington and its minions will fight to the last Ukrainian to keep the war industry’s profits rolling in.

The fears that the war will continue to escalate are genuine. Once again, the rulers of the capitalist world prove that the only thing they can really do effectively is make war. By effectively, I mean these rulers are masters at wreaking havoc, destruction and death. Furthermore, they are once again proving they can convince the bulk of their populations that this is not only a good thing, but also moral and honorable. In this narrative, it is those of us who refuse to accept their wars and their rationales for those wars who are accused of being wrong. Since my first piece published after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, emails have arrived in my mailbox stating that my antiwar stance is criminal. My response is simple — it is not criminal to oppose the crime of war. This isn’t the first war where such accusations have been hurled at those opposed to wars. I consider myself fortunate that this isn’t World War One or Two. Many U.S. opponents of those wars were locked up. Of course, given the censorship of antiwar views by public and private entities across the west and in Russia, who’s to say that won’t occur in the future? Indeed, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (an Orwellian presence already) recently announced that it was creating a new division called the Disinformation Governance Board. The head of this board will be Nina Jankowicz, who (I quote the DHS press release) “advised the Ukrainian government on strategic communications.” (https://www.hstoday.us/federal-pages/dhs/dhs-standing-up-disinformation-governance-board-led-by-information-warfare-expert/) In other words, Jankowicz advised them on how to write and spread propaganda. She is now taking her scriptwriting to the U.S. public. One assumes she will be working with various manipulators of public opinion in the broadcast, print and social media fields. One can be certain that she will maintain and intensify the stories about Kyiv, Moscow, Washington and NATO already saturating the U.S. and much of Europe. In recent days, I have been accused (along with what one so-called socialist writer dismisses as the “peace and justice” crowd) of supporting war because I am against the escalation of the conflict between Russia and Ukraine and think the politital Left should be organizing a non-aligned international antiwar movement, not joining the cheerleading squad for NATO and its arms shipments.

My response to the charge is simple. To claim that escalating the war will prevent a longer war is just nonsense. It can already be argued that the escalation has already extended it. Very few actual wars end when a war escalates. In fact, escalation usually extends the conflict and the horror that involves. It seems to me that the people who really care about the people under fire are those calling for a ceasefire and negotiations, not those cheering the arms shipments. By rejecting the call that begins this piece, one is rejecting the only internationalist response to this conflict. In rejecting this response, they are accepting a binary choice that means more war, no matter which side one chooses. That choice is one defined by the militaries doing the fighting and the rulers pulling their strings. Making that choice is not making a choice for peace or even the consideration of peace. Plain and simple, it is choosing more war.

Ron Jacobs is the author of Daydream Sunset: Sixties Counterculture in the Seventies published by CounterPunch Books. His latest offering is a pamphlet titled “Capitalism: Is the Problem.” He lives in Vermont and wrote this piece for CounterPunch.

-CounterPunch, May 3, 2022

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Company Plans to Dump Radioactive Water from Pilgrim Reactor Into Cape Cod Bay

Nukewatch Quarterly Summer 2022

By Linda Pentz Gunter

Alternatives to ocean dumping

Nukewatch Quarterly Summer 2022

By John LaForge

Headlines sketch U.S. war crime spree

Nukewatch Quarterly Summer 2022

By Bob Mayberry

Nukewatch Quarterly Summer 2022

By Ron Jacobs

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