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In July 2017, by a vote of 122 to 1, with one abstention, nations from around the world attending a United Nations-sponsored conference in New York City voted to approve a treaty to ban nuclear weapons. Although this Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons received little coverage in the mass media, its passage was a momentous event, capping decades of international nuclear arms control and disarmament agreements that, together, have reduced the world’s nuclear weapons arsenals by approximately 80 percent and have limited the danger of a catastrophic nuclear war. The treaty prohibited all ratifying countries from developing, testing, producing, acquiring, possessing, stockpiling, using, or threatening to use nuclear weapons.

Curiously, though, despite official support for the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons by almost two-thirds of the world’s nations, the Trump administration?like its counterparts in other nuclear-armed countries?regarded this historic measure as if it were being signed in a parallel, hostile universe. As a result, the United States and the eight other nuclear powers boycotted the treaty negotiations, as well as the final vote. Moreover, after the treaty was approved amid the tears, cheers, and applause of the UN delegates and observers, a joint statement issued by the UN ambassadors of the United States, Britain, and France declared that their countries would never become party to the international agreement.

Continue reading “Lurching Toward Catastrophe: The Trump Administration and Nuclear Weapons”

What kind of justice system do we have in the US when publishers of the truth that government does not want you to know are threatened with imprisonment and even the death penalty? Ron Paul and Lew Rockwell discuss the terrible and shameful treatment of publisher, journalist, and truth-teller Julian Assange:

Reprinted from The Ron Paul Institute for Peace & Prosperity.

Originally appeared on The American Conservative.

Iranians’ access to medicine is being choked off by the Trump administration’s illegitimate reimposition of sanctions:

The number of European and Iranian banks conducting such transactions has dwindled, observers say. The refusal to process payments has alarmed Iranian importers. Some say they fear transactions with outside banks could cease altogether, prompting shortages of vital goods, including medicine.

“You just don’t know when other parties are going to be added or targeted. What was true yesterday may not be true this afternoon,” said Alan Enslen, an international trade lawyer at Baker Donelson in Washington, explaining how companies are weighing the risks.

When even reputable private banks such as Parsian Bank have been designated by the Trump administration, there is tremendous uncertainty about whether doing any business in Iran will be safe for European and other foreign companies. Most firms are going to avoid the risk, and that inevitably means that ordinary Iranians will lose access to vital imported goods or those goods will become prohibitively expensive for the vast majority of people that need them. The sanctions not only affect transactions for bringing in imported medicine, but they can also prevent the import of raw materials that Iran’s own pharmaceuticals need to make medicine. The result is that a great many sick people who were previously able to get the medicine they needed will be cut off from their treatment. The administration hides behind its formal exemption of humanitarian goods while implementing a policy that deprives people of those same goods. Iran hawks want to inflict pain on the population, but they don’t want to be held responsible for causing that pain.

Continue reading “The Victims of Iran Sanctions”

In this same week the New York Times asserted North Korea is engaged in a “great deception” over its nuclear forces, South Korean unification minister Cho Myoung Gyon is visiting the United States with plans to meet Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, a Member of Congress, and to address several forums.

Will he speak of diplomatic failings and deceptions? Or will he talk about how to make progress as the two allies seek a balance between economic rewards and North Korean denuclearization?

It’s likely the latter. Cho may compare the situation to one year ago, when the Council of Foreign Relations put the chances of nuclear war at 50%. Since then: the Olympics attended by North and South, the Trump-Kim-Moon summit, multiple intra-Korea summits, and positive steps economically and symbolically. The reality is we are watching complex diplomacy unfold in real time, meaning things can appear to move slowly. But with the Americans, the minister is likely share a perspective that with the movie played at double-speed a different picture emerges.

Continue reading “Progress or Failure in North Korea?”

One has to admire the Canadian government’s manipulation of the media regarding its relationship with Saudi Arabia. Despite being partners with the Kingdom’s international crimes, the Liberals have managed to convince some gullible folks they are challenging Riyadh’s rights abuses.

By downplaying Ottawa’s support for violence in Yemen while amplifying Saudi reaction to an innocuous tweet the dominant media has wildly distorted the Trudeau government’s relationship to the monarchy.

In a story headlined "Trudeau says Canada has heard Turkish tape of Khashoggi murder", Guardian diplomatic editor Patrick Wintour affirmed that "Canada has taken a tough line on Saudi Arabia’s human rights record for months." Hogwash. Justin Trudeau’s government has okayed massive arms sales to the monarchy and largely ignored the Saudi’s devastating war in Yemen, which has left up to 80,000 dead, millions hungry and sparked a terrible cholera epidemic.

Continue reading “Saudi Arabia and the Canadian Arms Lobby”

Originally appeared on The American Conservative.

The fighting in Yemen has killed at least 57,000 people, and the real death toll is likely much higher:

The database gives an indication of the scope of the disaster wreaked in Yemen by nearly four years of civil war. At least 57,538 people – civilians and combatants – have been killed since the beginning of 2016, according to the data assembled by the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project, or ACLED.

That doesn’t include the first nine months of the war, in 2015, which the group is still analyzing. Those data are likely to raise the figure to 70,000 or 80,000 [bold mine-DL], ACLED’s Yemen researcher Andrea Carboni told The Associated Press. The organization’s count is considered by many international agencies to be one of the most credible, although all caution it is likely an underestimate because of the difficulties in tracking deaths.

Continue reading “Counting the Real Costs of the War on Yemen”