Category Archives: New Cold Wars

Nagasaki: AP News: Nagasaki marks 78th anniversary of atomic bombing with mayor urging world to abolish nuclear weapons

[Almost no one is paying attention. Voices crying in the wilderness. Luke 19: 39 Then some of the Pharisees in the crowd spoke to Jesus. “Teacher,” they said, “command your disciples to be quiet!”

40 Jesus answered, “I tell you that if they keep quiet, the stones themselves will start shouting.”]

TOKYO (AP) — Nagasaki marked the 78th anniversary of the U.S. atomic bombing of the city Wednesday with the mayor urging world powers to abolish nuclear weapons, saying nuclear deterrence also increases risks of nuclear war.

Shiro Suzuki made the remark after the Group of Seven industrial powers adopted a separate document on nuclear disarmament in May that called for using nuclear weapons as deterrence.

“Now is the time to show courage and make the decision to break free from dependence on nuclear deterrence,” Nagasaki Mayor Shiro Suzuki said in his peace declaration Wednesday, “As long as states are dependent on nuclear deterrence, we cannot realize a world without nuclear weapons.”

Continue reading Nagasaki: AP News: Nagasaki marks 78th anniversary of atomic bombing with mayor urging world to abolish nuclear weapons

James Risen

The Intercept:

PRIGOZHIN TOLD THE TRUTH ABOUT PUTIN’S WAR IN UKRAINE

Yevgeny Prigozhin is a disinformation artist whose failed rebellion was marked by a burst of radical honesty.

ONE OF THE most subversive things that Wagner Group leader Yevgeny Prigozhin did during his brief rebellion last weekend was to tell the truth.

Prigozhin is a pathological liar, a professional disinformation artist who was indicted in the United States in connection with the internet troll farm he ran, which was at the forefront of Russian efforts to intervene in the 2016 U.S. presidential election to help Donald Trump win.

But as the mercenary boss began his mutiny in late June, he experienced a brief and surprising bout of honesty when he launched into an online tirade against what he said were the lies used by Moscow to justify the brutal Russian invasion of Ukraine. His comments were so candid and off-message for a Russian leader that it seemed as if someone had mistakenly handed him a speech meant for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
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Alfred McCoy on the Rise of China

[NOTE: In 2008, Al McCoy was a main speaker at a conference on U. S. torture that I helped organize. Both his talk and his academic record marked him as a scholar to reckon with on matters of foreign policy and empire. This record drew me to this new analysis of the rapid shifts of power and empire, especially in the context of the Ukraine war.]

The Rise of China (and the Fall of the U.S.?)

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By Alfred McCoy, a historian and educator. He is the Fred Harvey Harrington Professor of History at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and author of To Govern the Globe: World Orders and Catastrophic Change. O published at TomDispatch.

From the ashes of a world war that killed 80 million people and reduced great cities to smoking rubble, America rose like a Titan of Greek legend, unharmed and armed with extraordinary military and economic power, to govern the globe.

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Gwynne Dyer: Ukraine — The West vs. The Rest

 

Gwynne Dyer — April 27, 2033

There is a deep and growing rift between “the West” and “the Rest” about the need to resist and defeat the Russian invasion of Ukraine. This is because it is really a war in defence of sovereignty, which ought to be something every sovereign country can buy into — but Western governments publicly insist that it is a war in defence of democracy Continue reading Gwynne Dyer: Ukraine — The West vs. The Rest

Ukraine, Year Two: A Pair of Particularly Pointed Perspectives — Liz Sly & Gwynne Dyer: Escalation

Washington Post — February 22, 2023

By Liz Sly

Year of war
: A global divide on the Ukraine war is deepening
Russia capitalizes on disillusionment with the United States to win sympathy in the Global South.

JOHANNESBURG — Clement Manyathela, who hosts a popular and influential talk show on South Africa’s Radio 702, remembers the outrage he felt when Russian troops first surged into Ukraine. He had believed Russia’s insistence that it wasn’t planning to attack and felt cheated when war broke out.
“We were lied to,” he said.
 Continue reading Ukraine, Year Two: A Pair of Particularly Pointed Perspectives — Liz Sly & Gwynne Dyer: Escalation