Russiagate, Nazis, and the CIA

Rob Urie

The political success of Russiagate lies in the vanishing of American history in favor of a façade of liberal virtue. Posed as a response to the election of Donald Trump, a straight line can be drawn from efforts to undermine the decommissioning of the American war economy in 1946 to the CIA’s alliance with Ukrainian fascists in 2014. In 1945 the NSC (National Security Council) issued a series of directives that gave logic and direction to the CIA’s actions during the Cold War. That these persist despite the ‘fall of communism’ suggests that it was always just a placeholder in the pursuit of other objectives.

The first Cold War was an imperial business enterprise to keep the Generals, bureaucrats, and war materiel suppliers in power and their bank accounts flush after WWII. Likewise, the American side of the nuclear arms race left former Gestapo and SS officers employed by the CIA to put their paranoid fantasies forward as assessments of Russian military capabilities. Why, of all people, would former Nazi officers be put in charge military intelligence if accurate assessments were the goal? The Nazis hated the Soviets more than the Americans did.

The ideological binaries of Russiagate— for or against Donald Trump, for or against neoliberal, petrostate Russia, define the boundaries of acceptable discourse to the benefit of deeply nefarious interests. The U.S. has spent a century or more trying to install a U.S.-friendly government in Moscow. Following the dissolution of the USSR in 1991, the U.S. sent neoliberal economists to loot the country as the Clinton administration, and later the Obama administration, placed NATO troops and armaments on the Russian border after a negotiated agreement not to do so. Subsequent claims of realpolitik are cover for a reckless disregard for geopolitical consequences.

The paradox of American liberalism, articulated when feminist icon and CIA asset Gloria Steinem described the CIA as ‘liberal, nonviolent and honorable,’ is that educated, well-dressed, bourgeois functionaries have used the (largely manufactured) threat of foreign subversion to install right-wing nationalists subservient to American business interests at every opportunity. Furthermore, Steinem’s aggressive ignorance of the actual history of the CIA illustrates the liberal propensity to conflate bourgeois dress and attitude with an imagined gentility. To the point made by Christopher Simpson, the CIA could have achieved better results had it not employed former Nazi officers, begging the question of why it chose to do so?

On the American left, Russiagate is treated as a case of bad reporting, of official outlets for government propaganda serially reporting facts and events that were subsequently disproved. However, some fair portion of the American bourgeois, the PMC that acts in supporting roles for capital, believes every word of it. Russiagate is the nationalist party line in the American fight against communism, without the communism. Charges of treason have been lodged every time that military budgets have come under attack since 1945. In 1958 the senior leadership of the Air Force was charging the other branches of the military with treason for doubting its utterly fantastical (and later disproven) estimate of Soviet ICBMs. Treason is good for business.

Shortly after WWII ended, the CIA employed hundreds of former Nazi military officers, including former Gestapo and SS officers responsible for murdering tens and hundreds of thousands of human beings, to run a spy operation known as the Gehlen Organization from Berlin, Germany. Given its central role in assessing the military intentions and capabilities of the Soviet Union, the Gehlen Organization was more likely than not responsible for the CIA’s overstatement of Soviet nuclear capabilities in the 1950s used to support the U.S. nuclear weapons program. Former Nazis were also integrated into CIA efforts to install right wing governments around the world.

By the time that (Senator) John F. Kennedy claimed a U.S. ‘missile gap’ with the Soviets in 1958, the CIA was providing estimates of Soviet ICBMs (Inter-continental Ballistic Missiles), that were wildly inflated— most likely provided to it by the Gehlen Organization. Once satellite and U2 reconnaissance estimates became available, the CIA lowered its own to 120 Soviet ICBMs when the actual number was four. On the one hand, the Soviets really did have a nuclear weapons program. On the other, it was a tiny fraction of what was being claimed. Bad reporting, unerringly on the side of larger military budgets, appears to be the constant.

Under the Nazi War Crimes Disclosure Act passed by Congress in 1998, the CIA was made to partially disclose its affiliation with, and employment of, former Nazis. In contrast to the ‘Operation Paperclip’ thesis that it was Nazi scientists who were brought to the U.S. to labor as scientists, the Gehlen Organization and CIC employed known war criminals in political roles. Klaus Barbie, the ‘Butcher of Lyon,’ was employed by the CIC, and claims to have played a role in the murder of Che Guevara. Wernher von Braun, one of the Operation Paperclip ‘scientists,’ worked in a Nazi concentration camp as tens of thousands of human beings were murdered.

The historical sequence in the U.S. was WWI, the Great Depression, WWII, to an economy that was heavily dependent on war production. The threatened decommissioning of the war economy in 1946 was first met with an honest assessment of Soviet intentions— the Soviets were moving infrastructure back into Soviet territory as quickly as was practicable, then to the military budget-friendly claim that they were putting resources in place to invade Europe. The result of the shift was that the American Generals kept their power and the war industry kept producing materiel and weapons. By 1948 these weapons had come to include atomic bombs.

To understand the political space that military production came to occupy, from 1948 onward the U.S. military became a well-funded bureaucracy where charges of treason were regularly traded between the branches. Internecine battles for funding and strategic dominance were (and are) regularly fought. The tactic that this bureaucracy— the ‘military industrial complex,’ adopted was to exaggerate foreign threats in a contest for bureaucratic dominance. The nuclear arms race was made a self-fulfilling prophecy. As the U.S. produced world-ending weapons non-stop for decades on end, the Soviets responded in kind.

What ties the Gehlen Organization to CIA estimates of Soviet nuclear weapons from 1948 – 1958 is 1) the Gehlen Organization was central to the CIA’s intelligence operations vis-à-vis the Soviets, 2) the CIA had limited alternatives to gather information on the Soviets outside of the Gehlen Organization and 3) the senior leadership of the U.S. military had long demonstrated that it approved of exaggerating foreign threats when doing so enhanced their power and added to their budgets. Long story short, the CIA employed hundreds of former Nazi officers who had the ideological predisposition and economic incentive to mis-perceive Soviet intentions and misstate Soviet capabilities to fuel the Cold War.

Where this gets interesting is that American whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg was working for the Rand Corporation in the late 1950s and early 1960s when estimates of Soviet ICBMs were being put forward. JFK had run (in 1960) on a platform that included closing the Soviet – U.S. ‘missile gap.’ The USAF (U.S. Air Force), charged with delivering nuclear missiles to their targets, was estimating that the Soviets had 1,000 ICBMs. Mr. Ellsberg, who had limited security clearance through his employment at Rand, was leaked the known number of Soviet ICBMs. The Air Force was saying 1,000 Soviet ICBMs when the number confirmed by reconnaissance satellites was four.

By 1962, the year of the Cuban Missile Crisis, the CIA had shifted nominal control of the Gehlen Organization to the BND, for whom Gehlen continued to work. Based on ongoing satellite reconnaissance data, the CIA was busy lowering its estimates of Soviet nuclear capabilities. Benjamin Schwarz, writing for The Atlantic in 2013, provided an account, apparently informed by the CIA’s lowered estimates, where he placed the whole of the Soviet nuclear weapons program (in 1962) at roughly one-ninth the size of the U.S. effort. However, given Ellsberg’s known count of four Soviet ICBMs at the time of the missile crisis, even Schwarz’s ratio of 1:9 seems to overstate Soviet capabilities.

Further per Schwarz’s reporting, the Jupiter nuclear missiles that the U.S. had placed in Italy prior to the Cuban Missile Crisis only made sense as first-strike weapons. This interpretation is corroborated by Daniel Ellsberg, who argues that the American plan was always to initiate the use of nuclear weapons (first strike). This made JFK’s posture of equally matched contestants in a geopolitical game of nuclear chicken utterly unhinged. Should this be less than clear, because the U.S. had indicated its intention to use nuclear weapons in a first strike— and had demonstrated the intention by placing Jupiter missiles in Italy, nothing that the U.S. offered during the Missile Crisis could be taken in good faith.

The dissolution of the USSR in 1991 was met with a promised reduction in U.S. military spending and an end to the Cold War, neither of which ultimately materialized. Following the election of Bill Clinton in 1992, the Cold War entered a new phase. Cold War logic was repurposed to support the oxymoronic ‘humanitarian wars’— liberating people by bombing them. In 1995 ‘Russian meddling’ meant the Clinton administration rigging the election of Boris Yeltsin in the Russian presidential election. Mr. Clinton then unilaterally reneged on the American agreement to keep NATO from Russia’s border when former Baltic states were brought under NATO’s control.

The Obama administration’s 2014 incitement in Ukraine, by way of fostering and supporting the Maidan uprising and the ousting of Ukraine’s democratically elected President, Viktor Yanukovych, ties to the U.S. strategy of containing and overthrowing the Soviet (Russian) government that was first codified by the National Security Council (NSC) in 1945. The NSC’s directives can be found here and here. The economic and military annexation of Ukraine by the U.S. (NATO didn’t exist in 1945) comes under NSC10/2. The alliance between the CIA and Ukrainian fascists ties to directive NSC20, the plan to sponsor Ukrainian-affiliated former Nazis in order to install them in the Kremlin to replace the Soviet government. This was part of the CIA’s rationale for putting Ukrainian-affiliated former Nazis on its payroll in 1948.

That Russiagate is the continuation of a scheme launched in 1945 by the National Security Council, to be engineered by the CIA with help from former Nazi officers in its employ, speaks volumes about the Cold War frame from which it emerges. Its near instantaneous adoption by bourgeois liberals demonstrates the class basis of the right-wing nationalism it supports. That liberals appear to perceive themselves as defenders ‘democracy’ within a trajectory laid out by unelected military leaders more than seven decades earlier is testament to the power of historical ignorance tied to nationalist fervor. Were the former Gestapo and SS officers employed by the CIA ‘our Nazis?’

The Nazi War Crimes Disclosure Act came about in part because Nazi hunters kept coming across Nazi war criminals living in the U.S. who told them they had been brought here and given employment by the CIA, CIC, or some other division of the Federal government. If the people in these agencies thought that doing so was justified, why the secrecy? And if it wasn’t justified, why was it done? Furthermore, are liberals really comfortable bringing fascists with direct historical ties to the Third Reich to power in Ukraine? And while there are no good choices in the upcoming U.S. election, the guy who liberals want to bring to power is lead architect of this move. Cue the Sex Pistols.

Iran And Israel Spar Over Cyber Warfare

Haider Abbas

There is a whole lot of churning going on in Iran, which has been at loggerheads with US, for around more than five-decades, as it traces its modern tussle with US to the way Muhammed Musaddiq government was over thrown by US in 1953, which later was followed by setting of a new nationalist government after US sponsored Shah of Iran was removed in what is known as Iranian revolution in 1979, paving way for a guided-democracy in Iran, and in its wake, inviting the severest backlash from the monarchies of the Gulf region.  The oil kingdoms, ruled by their respective oligarchs feared that democracy would upset their applecart and hence pummeled their resources to anyhow nib the Iranian revolution and the entire turmoil in the last forty years in the whole of Middle-East is what the story is all about. ‘Death to America’ and ‘Death to Israel’ has been the raison d’être of the Iranian revolution and which continues to be the life-line of the State of Iran.

The last two-decades and the events unfolding in Middle-East has been much to chaos as millions of people have been misplaced, millions turned to refugees, and millions have died in the wake of US invasion of Iraq, after Afghanistan was invaded, and later on when its fires reached Egypt, Syria, Yemen, Bahrain, Lebanon, with the exception, that as the Muslim nations went down on their kneels Israel strode to insurmountable  power, aided, abetted, supported and sponsored by US, so much so that Israel today strikes inside  Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Palestine and also at Iranian assets as a sports-macho, so much so that it challenges even Russia for its support to Syria  which is also supported by Iran. Russia, which had entered into the embroiled waters of Middle-East, by its support to Syria has helped Assad regime to sustain, much to the disliking of US and Israel, and in a way has also halted the US grandiose plans to invade Iran too or for that matter engineer a regime-change in Iran by sponsored public protests.  Remember US president George Bush had once called, on Jan 29, 2002, around 18 years back, ‘Iran, Iraq and North Korea as Axis of Evil’. Iraq has been reduced to a rubble and Iran and North Korea as still a constant pain in the neck.

China, for the first time, in the last around half a century has entered into the tumultuous currents of the Middle-East, by making a deal of 400 billion USD with Iran on July 13, 2020, which surprisingly, has come when Iran is in a midst of fire from Israel, as ‘on June 30, 2020, 19  people were killed in an explosion at a medical clinic in the north of the capital Tehran, which an official said was caused by a gas leak. On June 26, 2020 an explosion occurred east of Tehran near the Parchin military and weapons development base that the authorities said was caused by a leak in a gas storage facility in an area outside the base’ . On July 2, 2020 Iran underground nuclear at Natanz was attacked which some Iranian officials said may have been a cyber sabotage ( of US and Israel combination) and warned that Tehran would retaliate against any country carrying out such attacks’. The attack obviously has now  turned the clock-back, of ongoing Iranian nuclear programme by months as has come the admission from Iran.  In fact this cyberattack was quite in the making as US has openly declared that the outgoing US president Obama has accelerated these cyberattacks, which could not hit the bull-eye then,  only months after he had assumed office and named is as an operation Olympic-Games, with the help of Israel made worm known as  stuxnet.  An elaborative article on it had come in The New York Times way back in 2012. On one hand Obama tried to secretly kill Iranian nuclear programme and on the other side forged a nuclear deal touted as a historical deal which would prevent Iran from acquiring the nuclear weapons. This is available on Obamawhitehouse.Archives which is now dysfunctional.

The latest attack now on Iran has been on its seven-ships at Bushehr Port on July 15, 2020 in which however no casualties were reported. There are many reports in US newspapers which are openly suggestive that Israeli intelligence chief Yossi Cohen had got planted a bomb inside Natanz nuclear site  where advanced nuclear centrifuges were being enriched. Skeptics had believed that when Trump terminated the US-Iran deal Iran would make nuclear weapons but what happened has been the opposite as Iran nuclear programme seem to be now at the mercy of cyberattacks from US and Israel, particularly since the abrogation of the US-Iran deal, although Israel has accused Iran of a cyberattack on its water and sewage system in April 2020, a news which remained unnoticed due to the spread of COVID1-19 pandemic. It may be known that Iran-China went ahead with the deal after India was made to bow out of it on July 14, 2020. Needless, to speculate that the deal has come much to the exasperation of US-Israel and India bloc, as US is locked with Iran in Middle- East apart from its fight for supremacy in the world with China, Israel wants to dominate Middle-East and faces a foe in the shape of Iran and India faces a belligerent China staking claim inside its territory.

The series of Israeli attacks have baffled Iran, as the way, Israeli maneuvered past into Iran without being detected is now an altogether new warfare. Israeli defense minister Benny Gantz satired , “Not every incident that transpires in Iran necessarily has something to do with us” which is amply clear that Israel is not only well-into but in fact well ahead in this new mastery i.e. cyber warfare.   The latest to add to its arsenal is to master an attack by way of control of sound-waves on sensitive-sites of adversary nations, where internet is used or not.  The experience of Israel, by its use of cyber-warfare, to its advantage in Syrian war, by targeting Iranian installations, is a clear enough proof that Israel is leading the arena. But, now with China entering into fray with investments in Iran is a signal that an attack on Iran would be construed an attack on China assets, which exactly happened when India started to air the weather-report of Gilgit-Baltistan on May 9, 2020, which are a  part of CPEC and which led to finally take India off-guarded in Ladakh- paving way for a conflict to unfold.

Here, however, what also merits an attention is that Iran too had grounded a premier US Lockheed Martin drone, on December 9, 2011 and lately had shot down a US global surveillance monster worth 220 million USD  on  June 20, 2020 owing to its machinations in cyber warfare.  This is what is to be the sixth-generation war and the world is much into it.

Gender stereotypes plaguing the pandemic response

Shobha Shukla

As per a recent news, a senior bureaucrat in Lucknow said, “The increase in female infection (of COVID-19) ratio is a clear indication that women are going out in the market and not following the precautions [for COVID-19 prevention]”. This statement is not only devoid of any scientific evidence but also reeks of a deep-rooted patriarchal mindset. It also assumes as if men are ‘following precautions’.

If we look at the data cited in the same news, 70.49% males and 29.51% females tested positive for coronavirus (perhaps in July) as compared to May 2020 when 74.6% males and 25.4% females had tested positive) in Uttar Pradesh state of India.

Well, the above data shows that, both in May and July, the number of men who got infected with the virus was more than two to three times the number of women. So, going by the bureaucrat’s conjecture, it indicates that it is the men who are not following the precautions.

And the markets are open for all genders. If there is any gender-segregated data on the number of people visiting market places, we would love to hear about it. At any given time, we find more men than women loitering on the city roads. And a far greater number of men (than women) without masks.

According to a news report published in The Hindu, there were only 7 states – Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Telangana, Karnataka, Bihar, Odisha and Jharkhand – which have reported gender-segregated data. It is good to know that now Uttar Pradesh also has gender-segregated data on COVID-19 infections. We also need to know gender-segregated data on case fatality rate in the state.

A lot of scientific discussions are taking place globally on the age and sex specific impact of the pandemic. According to one study done in India, while males share a higher burden (66%) of COVID-19 infection than females (34%), women are at greater risk of dying from it and the case fatality rate in them is higher (3.3%) as compared to that in males (2.9%). This is contrary to the global trend as many studies have shown that in most countries more men are dying from COVID-19 than women – partly because women tend to have stronger immune systems. According to the lead author of the Indian study (as told to a newspaper): “The social determinants, like access to healthcare and general health and nutrition status, which are generally worse for women in India than their male counterparts could explain these differences that defy the global trend.”

It would do the common public a lot of good if our learned bureaucrat(s) got serious about the social and health inequities plaguing the Indian women instead of pointing fingers (and dumping entire blame to bring infection to the family) at them for ‘going out in the market’, as if that is the only thing they do.

Are we forgetting that women form a sizeable part of our frontline warriors against COVID-19 in the form of nurses, doctors, other healthcare providers, police officers, vegetable sellers, other vendors, bureaucrats, politicians, and a range of other roles they are increasingly shouldering (in addition to their routine household chores) despite such archaic obstacles. Even when COVID-19 positive asymptomatic people opt for home isolation, it is often the women who are taking additional responsibilities as carers.

The fiction that ‘unpaid care work is not work’ is exposed. But are we finally going to recognize and respect the role of women and girls as primary caregivers? Or will we continue to turn a blind eye on the increased work load they have to deal with in addition to being put to heightened risks of sexual and other forms of gender-based violence during the lockdown? It is now a well known fact that violence against women has increased during the lockdown.

It is high time we got serious about building our response to the pandemic on science based analysis & interpretation of data and not on off-the-hand remarks entrenched in patriarchy.

Yes, we need more women in the workforce at every level of governance. Only then can we expect gender sensitive approaches and solidarity towards each other. That is why the only possible future is a feminist future where all genders live in solidarity with each other.

The United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres has very rightly said: “COVID-19 has exposed the lie that free markets can deliver healthcare for all, the fiction that unpaid care work isn’t work, the delusion that we live in a post-racist world. We are all floating on the same sea, but some are in super yachts and others clinging to drifting debris.”

EIA 2020: Why is it so perilous?

Bishaldeep Kakati

Amidst the corona virus pandemic, the government of India (The Union ministry of environment, forest and climate change) unveiled the Environment Impact Assessment 2020 draft to the public in March 2020 seeking to replace the 2006 version of the law. The latest draft has already created a lot of hype amongst the concerned citizens, with many environmental activists and climate change experts opposing the provisions incorporated in the draft. However before we try analyzing the provisions contained in the draft, it is important for us to develop an idea about the concept of Environment Impact Assessment.

Right after the Bhopal Gas disaster of 1986, the Indian Government realized that the Water ACT (1974) and the Air ACT (1981) were simply not enough to protect the entire environment. Hence the Indian Government came out with an umbrella legislation known as the Environment Protection ACT (1986), and under this ACT, India notified its first EIA norms in 1994. The Environment Impact Assessment (EIA) is basically a legal framework that regulates activities that utilize, access and also pollute natural resources. In fact, every development must go through the EIA process for obtaining environmental clearance. Although industries and establishments before being set up must go through the EIA process to safeguard the environment, but by offering some fake legal paper work, industries enjoy a range of de facto concessions exactly opposite to the main purpose of EIA. And these industries and establishments often enjoy de facto concessions mainly because of the faulty project reports of potential impact of an establishment upon the environment, that are often prepared by consultant agencies for a particular fee. In fact most of the times, these reports cannot be relied upon or thought to be accountable.

The 1994 EIA notification was modified in 2006 and in order to incorporate the amendments and relevant court orders since 2006, the government thus redrafted the EIA again in 2020. The primary motive behind this process of redrafting was to make the EIA process more transparent and expedient, however there are certain provisions included in this new draft, that have forced people to oppose it. Hence it’s crucial for us to understand the disastrous impact that these provisions might have upon the environment, different communities of people, etc if these somehow turns out to be legally binding.

The two significant changes that the draft tries to bring in are the post- facto clearance and the restriction on public participation. Speaking of post facto clearance, the honourable Supreme Court of India in an order stated that, “Environmental Law cannot countenance the notion of an ex post facto clearance. This would be contrary to both the precautionary principle as well as the need for sustainable development.” Further the 2020 EIA draft increases the government power and provides no remedy for the political and bureaucratic stronghold on the EIA process and thereby on industries. In fact, speaking of the second significant change that the draft tries to bring in is the notion of limiting public participation in safeguarding the environment. Generally projects based on defence and security is tagged as ‘strategic’, but the government gets to decide the ‘strategic’ tag for other projects as well. The draft 2020 says that no information ‘on such projects’ shall  be placed on public domain, which basically means a project can be deemed strategic without explaining the basic reasons behind it. The draft also provides a   long list of projects such as inland waterways, expansion of national highways which are to be exempted from public consultation and also exempts construction of industries and establishment up to 1,50,000 sq m. Shockingly, the provision to exempt construction up to 1,50,000 sq m was set aside by National Green Tribunal in December 2017. Moreover, with the provisions contained in this draft, projects that violate environment would be able to apply for clearance. And the horrifying fact is that if a developer files late application for EIA clearance, he would only have to pay penalty of Rs. 2000-10,000 per day for the period of delay and the disastrous impact of this provision can be felt only if we relate it by taking into consideration the example of an illegal coal mining activity going on for days and its subsequent impact upon the environment in comparison to the small amount of penalty that is required to be paid by the developer.

However, the impact of the provisions of this draft would be more dangerous in case of North East India as compared to PAN India. This is because in the draft, border area is defined as, “area falling within 100 kilometers aerial distance from the line of Actual Control with bordering countries of India.” And this means it would cover the much of North East India, which is often regarded as the biodiversity hotspot.

If we speak of Assam, we clearly remember how the Baghjan incident already took the lives of many, destroying both human lives and flora and fauna as well and the blowout was so dangerous that the entire area is still burning till today. In fact, the State Pollution Board of Assam had already reported that the oil plant had been operating for over 15 years without obtaining prior consent from the Board. So this is the real consequence of establishing a project or construction without proper clearance. Not only this, but also we cannot ignore the issue of illegal coal mining in Assam’s Dehing Patkai that of late raised a lot of eyebrows. So if this draft becomes a law, it would simply mean destruction of the environment without people being allowed to raise their voices. Furthermore, Oil India’s plan to drill closer to Assam’s Dibru Saikhowa National Park, which would be equally dangerous for both humans and flora and fauna might also get direct clearance if this draft somehow turns out to be a law.

Therefore, this draft not only would destroy the environment, interests of different communities of people, but it also violates article 19(1) (a) and article 21 of the Indian Constitution. And if we have to prevent incidents like Baghjan blowout or the styrene gas leak of the LG Polymer Plant in Vishakhapatnam, then we have to take stern democratic actions against like draft and carry out those activities that can protect our biodiversity and the environment as a whole.

Three missions to Mars are now under way

Don Barrett

With yesterday’s launch of NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover, the three Mars missions being attempted in this year’s “window” of efficient access to the red planet are off successfully. Perseverance joins the Chinese Tianwen-1 orbiter/lander/rover mission, launched on July 23, and the United Arab Emirates/US Hope orbiter, launched July 19.

Mars presents favorable circumstances about every 26 months for missions from the Earth. This is the same interval as between “oppositions,” where the two planets reach their closest approaches, Mars in a near line outwards from the Sun to the Earth. Launch windows occur about two months before the close approaches, with travel time about 8.5 months before spacecraft reach Mars.

It has been 60 years since the first exploited launch window, in 1960, saw a pair of Soviet spacecraft sent on their way. Around 50 missions have used the 27 subsequent launch windows until the present one. Only in the last two decades have successes overtaken failures: more than half of attempts to reach Mars to date have failed.

Artist's impression of Perseverence on Mars. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Prior to the spacecraft age, each Martian opposition was the source of intense Earth-based telescopic exploration. Even at these close approaches, however, Mars is 150 times the distance of our own Moon, and the features easily visible through a telescope on the Moon, its mountain chains and craters, were invisible from Earth-bound telescopes. As a result, much of what we now know about Mars is the product of the past 60 years of “up close” exploration with our robotic probes.

What was known within the first century after Galileo turned the telescope into an astronomer’s instrument was that Mars had bright white spots that appeared at its poles, correctly interpreted as icy polar caps (that the ice is substantially carbon dioxide would not be suspected until much later). While several wealthy amateurs in the late 19th century would begin several decades of feverish promotion of the idea that Mars had a system of “canals,” supposedly visible through the telescope and representing signs of a civilization, sober scientists deployed new technologies as they became available and, laboring largely in public obscurity, laid the groundwork for the Mars science of today.

Thus by the turn of the 20th century the astronomical spectroscope suggested a closer similarity of Mars to the Moon rather than the Earth, 1920s measurements of radiated heat showed very cold (-85C–7C) surface temperatures, and 1930s measurements showed that oxygen, if present, could not be more than one percent of Earth levels. An early 1970s measurement from a high-flying plane, above most of Earth’s atmosphere, also recorded the signature of chemically-bound water on the Martian surface, suggesting a different and wetter past.

Part of Jezero Crater with apparent ancient river delta. Perseverence landing site is within the flat area at bottom right. Imagery from Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS/JHU-APL

Only with the first successful Mars spacecraft, the July 1965 flyby of Mariner 4, was the heavily cratered surface of Mars revealed, and the entire surface was finally mapped by Mars’ first successful orbiter, Mariner 9, in 1971.

Generations of spacecraft since have derived their design from scientific questions raised by the results of prior missions, together with the immense growth of technology over the last half century.

The first missions largely carried out basic mapping, using crude television technology, and measurements of the Martian atmosphere and surface conditions over the considerable vertical relief of the planet. With the two Viking landers of 1976, the first detailed images of the Martian surface were returned, and chemical measurements of the Martian soil were made, including a crude attempt to detect a signature of possible life.

More than five launch windows passed without a mission until attempts resumed in 1988. The thrust of the following decade was to prepare far more detailed studies of the surface from orbit, and to begin testing new technology for landers on the surface, including roving capability.

In the last twenty years, both of these areas have been revolutionized, with stunning imagery from orbit suggesting a rich geological history, including wind- and water-shaped terrain, and from an increasingly sophisticated series of roving explorers on the surface, filling in the details of this picture from geological exploration of rocks and exposed cliff faces from meteoritic impacts.

Artist's impression of Tianwen-1 lander with rover about to debark.

With the geology now firmly in hand, confirming that Mars had for some sustained early part of its history a warmer surface with flowing water—conditions with parallels to those that spawned life on our own planet—more recent missions have focused on addressing the extraordinary question raised by that parallel.

Of the three missions on their way (a fourth European mission which was to have joined them has been deferred until the next launch window in 2022), the first launched is a relatively modest mission jointly undertaken by the United Arab Emirates in collaboration with three American universities, the University of California, Berkeley, the University of Colorado, Boulder and Arizona State University.

The “Hope” orbiter, launched from a Japanese H-IIA rocket in Tanegashima, Japan, has been described as Mars’ “first true weather satellite,” though it is adapted toward the very different variations displayed by the Martian atmosphere as compared to Earth’s. In particular, it carries scientific instruments which can study the process by which Mars loses atmosphere to space, a process which, thanks to Mars’ lower gravity and lack of a substantial magnetic field, is much more rapid than Earth’s loss, and also thought to be more complex.

A better understanding of this process will likely give a better understanding of the evolution of Mars’ geology and how long conditions compatible with the genesis of life were sustained.

The second mission launched, China’s Tianwen-1 (“heavenly questions”), is China’s first independent interplanetary mission. It will both build an independent Chinese orbital capability to study the surface and relay radio communications from it, as well as land a rover modeled to some extent on, but with more contemporary technology than, the twin US Mars Exploration Rovers (MER) Spirit and Opportunity of 2003.

Unlike those missions, which did not include an orbiter component, Tianwen-1 will not proceed directly to a landing, but rather enter orbit and begin studies to select from several preliminary sites, and only then will the lander separate and make its way to the surface. Like the MER rovers, this one will use a combination of atmospheric braking, a large parachute, retrorockets, and finally a set of airbags to cushion its impact on the Martian surface. A likely landing site will be near the Viking 2 landing of 1976, Utopia Planitia, a low-elevation area thought to be reshaped by mud flows in the Martian watery past, where biosignatures may still survive from possible past life.

The most ambitious mission of this group is the US “Perseverance” rover, at $2.1 billion somewhat cheaper than its predecessor Mars Science Laboratory “Curiosity,” only because its instrumentation is built upon a framework consisting of many spare parts from that former mission. Like its predecessor, it relies on nuclear power rather than solar, and will thus be immune to the dust storms and seasonal variations that played havoc with prior rover missions.

As an aside, much is being made in the American press of this second nuclear Mars mission being powered by “US-made” plutonium-238, production of which recently began again for the first time since 1988. But in fact, most of the plutonium onboard originates in the declining NASA reserve bought from Russia prior to it suspending sales in 2010, with American production still at low levels.

Past and future landing sites for Mars missions. Credit: Wikipedia

With 23 cameras and a wide suite of scientific instruments, Perseverance will be the most capable Mars rover to date in the capacity to undertake a broad study of Martian minerology, and in particular the study of organic or carbon-containing molecules that may indicate both the signature of past life and the tracers that conditions fertile to its formation were once present.

A key driver of the design of Perseverance’s instruments has been to assess the inventory and environment of life-associated elements in the geology it will explore. Like its predecessor Curiosity, it can make observations at a distance by using a laser to vaporize a bit of rock the size of a period from more than 20 feet away, studying the light emitted in the flash to determine the composition and properties of the material. But it also has, for the first time on a rover, a device called a Raman spectrometer that can analyze the minerology and organic chemistry of individual grains on a rock reachable to the rover’s robotic arm.

Perseverance will carry two other novelties: first, a small solar-powered helicopter, that can travel up to 2,000 feet per flight and image the possible driving route, and secondly, a ground-penetrating radar (a first also shared by the Tianwen-1 rover), to study what no lander yet has in detail, the depths beneath the Martian surface. Perseverance will also test from the Martian surface a technology to manufacture oxygen from the largely carbon dioxide atmosphere, a necessity for future hopes at human exploration or even for more efficient fueling of Mars return rockets from supplies generated locally, rather than brought from Earth.

And towards that end, Perseverance is also equipped to encapsulate up to 30 samples it retrieves from the surface, or cores it drills from the soil, and deposit them in caches along its route where a future mission might gather them and ship them to Earth. There, laboratories far more sophisticated than what can be packed in a Martian rover could mine them for clues. It is hoped that this may happen within a decade: the technology is not the limiting factor, as with most fundamental questions today, it’s access to funding.

Perseverance will rely on the same “sky hook” concept for landing as Curiosity, the “seven minutes of terror” necessary for landing heavier items, in which a highly choreographed sequence takes place including the use of a parachute, and ending with the deployment of a hovering rocket platform from which the rover is literally winched to the surface on a cable and freed in the final seconds. This will take place directly on the arrival of Perseverance at Mars, its landing site already selected. That site, Jezero Crater, is another area which orbital imagery suggests was once a river delta into a shallow sea, fertile grounds for microbial life or more.

While Mars is much smaller than the Earth, its surface is only a little smaller than the total area of Earth’s dry land, so only a tiny range of the diversity of the Martian surface has been reached from the ground. Both of these rovers and the European one to hopefully join them at the next launch window, together with the Chinese and Emirati orbiters, the suite of robotic explorers still at work in Martian orbit and the surface, will continue to tease out the detailed history of the red planet. From their results, and in particular from the questions raised by these, the next generations of exploration will be defined, first robotic, and eventually—human.

New Zealand suspends extradition treaty with Hong Kong

John Braddock

New Zealand’s Labour Party-led government has suspended the country’s extradition treaty with Hong Kong, saying it could no longer trust that the city’s justice system is independent of China. New Zealand will no longer deport any citizen to Hong Kong if charged with a crime.

Foreign Minister Winston Peters, who leads the right-wing nationalist NZ First Party in the governing coalition, said New Zealand would also change how it controls the trade of sensitive goods—such as technology that could have military applications—with Hong Kong.

Australia, Canada and the UK—all members of the US-led Five Eyes intelligence-gathering network along with NZ—had suspended their extradition treaties with Hong Kong earlier this month. US President Trump ended preferential economic treatment for Hong Kong and in a highly provocative move shut down China’s consulate in Houston.

Peters told Radio NZ on July 29 that he had not spoken to US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo specifically about the issue, but “he would know exactly what we think, as a country that respects New Zealand’s independent political stance and our willingness to state what our beliefs are.”

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern told media that Hong Kong’s security legislation did not “sit well with New Zealand’s principles,” which she described as the “basic freedom of association and the right to take a political view.”

All this is sheer hypocrisy. The Ardern-led government has strengthened New Zealand’s integration into US war preparations since assuming office. A 2018 defence policy statement labelled China and Russia the main “threats” to the global order, echoing the Pentagon. It has also ramped up military spending and recruitment.

Ardern meanwhile has been leading the call internationally for measures to censor the internet, purportedly to suppress “hate speech.” Nor has the Labour government raised the slightest protest over the Trump administration’s assault on basic democratic rights in Portland and other US cities, which are under virtual martial law enforced by armed federal agents dispatched to suppress protests against police violence.

China’s embassy in Wellington responded to Peters’ announcement by charging the government with a “gross interference in China’s internal affairs,” and describing the move as a “serious violation of international law and basic norms governing international relations.”

The standoff follows rising diplomatic tensions between the two countries, in line with the increasingly aggressive moves by Washington and Canberra to confront China diplomatically and militarily, including in the South China Sea.

At the annual NZ-China Business Summit in Auckland on July 20, Ardern told the 500 delegates that the bilateral relationship was in “good shape.” But she then declared that New Zealand had a “direct and resounding interest” in Hong Kong’s new security law, as well as the situation of China’s Uyghur people and Taiwan’s participation in the World Health Organisation.

This prompted a sharp response from Ambassador Wu Xi, who told the gathering: “Issues related to Taiwan, Hong Kong, Xinjiang and Tibet all touch on China’s sovereignty and security and these are all China’s internal affairs.”

New Zealand’s ruling elite is caught between the demands of Washington and its militaristic confrontation with Beijing on the one hand, and the importance of the Chinese trading relationship, NZ’s largest export market. Referring to these tensions, Wu warned “the future lies in cooperation rather than confrontation.”

Underpinning the deepening rift, a long-running anti-Chinese propaganda campaign continues to gather momentum. A July 21 car crash on a highway near the town of Tokoroa that killed two Chinese dissidents was seized upon by their supporters to raise accusations of “sabotage” against Beijing, without the slightest evidence.

The collision killed Xi Weiguo, Federation of Chinese Democracy NZ chair and Wang Lecheng, a member of the Independent Chinese PEN Centre. A third victim, Yu Hongming, is in Waikato Hospital along with two New Zealanders from another car. The three men were among a group of 10 “activists” travelling to Wellington to petition parliament over so-called “infiltration” by the Chinese Communist Party in New Zealand politics.

Police said their initial assessment indicated that a vehicle travelling in the opposite direction had crossed the centre line, glanced a second car and collided head-on with the vehicle containing the Chinese occupants.

Chen Weijian, publisher of a Chinese-language newspaper Beijing Spring, called the men “martyrs of democracy and freedom,” while Falun Gong practitioner Daisy Lee said the deaths and injuries would cause “vital damage for the Chinese democracy movement organisations in overseas China.”

Pro-US academic Anne-Marie Brady, from the University of Canterbury (UC), wasted no time upping the ante. She told parliament’s Justice Select Committee two days later that people were “very, very worried that there could have been sabotage involved in the accident” and demanded the Security Intelligence Security (SIS) investigate.

Brady’s previous allegations, heavily promoted in the media, that Chinese agents “sabotaged” her own car and broke into her office have not been substantiated by police.

Security analyst and former US State Department operative Paul Buchanan also joined in. He told Radio NZ that “independent Chinese voices in NZ regularly experienced intimidation by pro-Beijing groups”, and it was legitimate for them to suspect “more sinister causes than a mere accident.”

On July 27, Buchanan went on to target UC over its partnership with a Chinese institute that he claims has military links. In 2018, the university signed an agreement with Harbin Institute of Technology to collaborate on teaching and research on renewable energy generation, marine science, engineering and international finance and trade. In May, Washington targeted Harbin for tighter “controls” over its activities.

Brady recently published a paper attacking UC and every other New Zealand university for collaborating with Chinese institutions on research that “may have potential military applications.” The same paper notes approvingly New Zealand’s much more extensive military collaboration with NATO and the US, including its membership in the Five Eyes intelligence network.

Prior to the 2017 election, Brady branded National Party MP Jian Yang and Labour MP Raymond Huo, without any evidence, as Chinese Communist Party “agents.” Both MPs recently announced that they will retire from politics after the September 2020 election, following an intense campaign particularly against Yang by Brady, NZ First, much of the corporate media, the trade union-backed Daily Blog and the fascist group Action Zealandia.

In fact, the influence wielded by individuals such as Brady and Buchanan points to the fact that the most significant “interference” in New Zealand politics comes not from China but from the US and its allies. Ardern’s government was formed in 2017 as a coalition with NZ First following the unprecedented intervention of US Ambassador Scott Brown who publicly indicated that Washington wanted the next government to take a firmer stand against China.

Australian COVID-19 surge continues as epidemiologists urge stricter lockdown

Patrick O’Connor

Australian health authorities reported more high coronavirus figures, following yesterday’s record number of daily cases.

In Victoria, there were another 627 new cases, following the pandemic-high 723 infections yesterday. The state today surpassed 10,000 total infections. Community transmission is increasing in regional areas, where there are a total of 255 cases, with 159 of these in and around the regional city of Geelong.

Eight more deaths were reported, with half of these from aged care facilities. The protracted underfunding and neglect of Australia’s privatised aged care system has produced a disaster. There are 928 active cases in Victoria’s aged care homes, and according to the Guardian, all but five of these are in for-profit facilities.

Daily and cumulative COVID-19 cases (Credit: Australian government, Department of Health)

There is still no government plan to evacuate all residents from infected sites. Epping Gardens Aged Care Facility in Melbourne’s north is among the worst affected, with 90 infections; one of the deceased residents was photographed by the media being removed while appearing to be wrapped up in a roll of carpet. Doctors and health sources reportedly told the Australian that several residents were left dead in their beds for hours on end this week.

In New South Wales, 21 new cases were reported today, two from quarantined return overseas travellers and one person who came from Victoria. The other 18 cases were locally transmitted, six from the wealthy inner-Sydney suburb of Potts Point, some of the others from working-class suburbs Bankstown and Wetherill Park.

There was one new case announced today in Queensland, bringing the state total to 11 active cases.

The surge in infections in Victoria has overwhelmed the limited contact tracing infrastructure developed by the state Labor government. The number of cases classified as “under investigation” totals more than 3,500. During the initial wave of infections this number was never higher than 70 cases.

A sharp divergence has emerged between government policy and a growing consensus from epidemiologists and medical scientists that more stringent lockdown measures are required.

In April, the federal Liberal-National government of Prime Minister Scott Morrison and every state government, Labor and Liberal, jointly rejected a strategy aimed at eliminating coronavirus infections. Morrison bluntly acknowledged that the key consideration was to reduce the impact on businesses. In May, limited restrictions on economic activity that had been in place were lifted. As a consequence, in June and July coronavirus infections surged beyond the peak levels of the first wave.

State and federal leaders nevertheless remain adamant that there will be no imposition of measures adversely affecting corporations, such as school closures and the shutdown of non-essential industries. The Australian ruling elite has chosen to protect profits over lives.

Increasing numbers of epidemiologists and medical experts are speaking out in protest.

The Australian Medical Association (AMA) has urged more stringent lockdown measures. “Pharmacies, supermarkets, medical facilities, they clearly remain essential and it’s extremely important they remain open,” AMA President Tony Bartone said. “After that we really need to produce a very strong, clear reason why we should be having any activity in that sector. We need to move to the next level.”

Tony Blakely, head of the University of Melbourne’s Centre for Epidemiology and Biostatistics, was lead author of a report published in the Medical Journal of Australia that modelled the likely impact of different lockdown measures. He concluded that there was a 50 percent chance of eliminating coronavirus infections in Victoria within six weeks, if stringent restrictions were imposed.

The report recommendations included, “close all schools,” “tighten the definition of essential shops to remain open […] department stores, hardware stores, and such like should be closed,” and “tighten the definition of essential workers and work.”

Blakely told the ABC: “If you’ve got ‘essential’ industries open that aren’t really that essential, it’s quite likely that in two weeks’ time that may be where the virus is propagating. So I would recommend at this point in time that industries that aren’t really essential, footwear stores, that type of thing, are closed so we’re moving to a tighter definition of what is an essential worker or essential workplace. That would see the department stores that sell shoes, clothes, construction sites closed; it would only allow industries open that are essential to us. So that’s food, healthcare, pharmacists and the aged care facilities.”

The government has flatly refused such measures. Morrison has repeatedly insisted that everyone who has a job is an “essential worker.”

Victorian authorities reported earlier this month that 80 percent of all infections are occurring in workplaces. Among the worst affected are the Bertocchi Smallgoods meatworks in Thomastown (121 cases), Somerville Meats in Tottenham (106 cases), and the Woolworths warehouse in Mulgrave (30 cases).

A new cluster emerged today at a major construction site in Melbourne’s central business district. Twelve workers at the Multiplex Premier Apartments site on Spencer Street have reportedly tested positive, and the site has been temporarily closed for cleaning.

James Trauer, head of Monash University’s Epidemiological Modelling Unit, wrote a comment for policyforum.net titled, “Australia’s pandemic policy made a second wave inevitable.”

He explained: “When looking to the Melbourne-centred second wave of coronavirus infections, Australians should only really be surprised that outbreaks of the same scale haven’t occurred elsewhere in the country. Given the government’s response to the pandemic, this was equally foreseeable just a few weeks ago. The fundamental problem with Australia’s COVID-19 response has been that its stated goal was to achieve suppression, but it failed to put in place an approach that recognised the realities of this strategy.”

Bill Bowtell, University of New South Wales adjunct professor, has also condemned government policy. On Twitter today he stated: “What is happening in Victoria is the regrettably entirely foreseeable outcome of flawed strategies set down in March evidently acting on ‘expert medical advice’ at all stages. This advice is secret but clearly did not demand governments secure quarantine, strengthen aged care facilities, mandate masks coming out of first lockdown or communicate properly with the people. This advice rejected NZ elimination objective in favour of ‘living with COVID-19.’ Today’s crisis is what we created on the basis of poor decisions.”

Consol cuts 233 jobs as US coal production falls to 1973 levels

Samuel Davidson

Two hundred and thirty-three coal miners in southwestern Pennsylvania will be permanently laid off at the end of next month, joining the growing number of layoffs throughout the industry as demand for electricity and steel continue to decline.

The miners, who work at the Consol Energy Inc.’s Enlow Fork mine, had been on temporary layoff since April 15, when the company closed their mine due to the economic downturn caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Enlow Fork is one of three mines that make up Consol’s Pennsylvania Mining Complex. The company can operate as many as 11 long wall machines throughout the three mines and production is the company’s number one concern. Long wall mining is a technique in which a massive machine mines coal along the entire face of the section, often 1,500 feet long, with the coal pulled off on conveyor systems while the mountain collapses behind as the machine moves forward.

Earlier this month, Consol sent WARN (Worker Adjustment and Retaining Notification) notices to the miners, who comprise about 40 percent of the workforce, informing them that they will be permanently laid off August 31. Both federal and state law requires companies with greater than 100 employees to give 60-days notice of closings or layoffs of more than 50 people.

In announcing the layoffs at the Enlow Fork mine, Consol said in a prepared statement:

“In these unprecedented times, it is extremely difficult to predict when our production at Enlow Fork Mine will return to normal capacity, as it is always our intent to run our operations based on market conditions.”

“We all knew it was coming, coal is on the way out, but it doesn’t make it any easier,” said the wife of a miner who has worked there for nearly 20 years.

“Things are going to be real hard. He gets unemployment and of course that $600 [in weekly federal unemployment benefits] so we can get by.” However, this temporary boost to unemployment is being allowed to expire by both Democrats and Republicans in order to force people back to work. “We own our house, but with mortgage, taxes and bills it is going to be very hard. One of our kids is grown, but the other is still in High School. We don’t know if that is going to open or not.

“We don’t know what is going to happen with unemployment and health care. There are no jobs. I work in the checkout line at the Giant Eagle [grocery store], but that is not very much.

“All the politicians promise a lot, but they don’t keep their promises.”

Consol had been operating at near capacity for the last four years producing record amounts of coal in 2017, 2018 and 2019. This is in spite of falling demand caused by power companies switching to cheaper natural gas and renewable energy sources, which had already driven less profitable coal mining operations into bankruptcy. Last year, US coal production fell to the same levels as in 1978, when coal miners battled the coal operators and government in a 110-day national strike.

Many Consol miners believed that the company was only trying to get as much money out of the mine as it could before shutting it down. One coal miner at another mine at the Pennsylvania Mining Complex told the World Socialist Web Site last year that this speedup was creating the conditions for a major accident: “It is all production, production, production but they are creating the conditions where something can happen.”

Later that year, 25-year-old Tanner Lee McFarland was killed when the wall of the mine gave out and crushed him. The company only received token fines.

This year, coal production is set for a further drastic decline. April coal production plunged 30 percent from last year to its lowest levels in nearly a half-century, 19 percent less than in April of 1973.

Murray Energy, the largest underground miner in the country, with 7,000 miners, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy last year. Last month the company laid off over 1,500 coal miners in the Ohio Valley region of West Virginia for one day as the workers were transferred from one company to another. With the company still in bankruptcy, more layoffs are possible.

Tennessee-based Contura Energy, which has already laid off many of its coal miners throughout West Virginia, announced plans to sell its Cumberland mine. The southwestern Pennsylvania mine employs 700 miners, whose jobs are now threatened. The company also announced that it will no longer build a $60 million coal-refuse impoundment for the mine.

The Powder River Basin of Wyoming and Montana, the largest coal producing region in the United States, has also seen job cuts. Arch Coal has cut more than 560 jobs after posting a net loss of $49.3 million for the second quarter. Production at its Black Thunder and Coal Creek mines fell to just 10.6 million tons this quarter, down from 17.1 million last year.

Coal miners responded to the downturn last year with a growing wave of resistance. Miners at several sites blockaded shipments out of the mines to demand thousands of dollars in unpaid wages. These protests began over the summer at Blackjewel’s Cloverfield Mine in Harlan County, Kentucky, and quickly spread to other facilities throughout the region.

Last fall, 2,000 copper miners in the American Southwest launched a strike against mining company Asarco. The strike lasted for nine months before being betrayed by the United Steelworkers, who sent strikers back under an “unconditional offer” to the company to return to work.

The United Mine Workers (UMWA) has no policy to fight these layoffs and protect miners’ jobs and wellbeing. After decades in which it has deliberately isolated and betrayed one struggle after another, the union is only a shell with fewer than 8,000 active miners, functioning only as a political prop for the Democratic Party. The bankrupt Murray Energy is the last remaining large unionized coal company.

Salaries for top union officials, however, remain at historic highs. Union president Cecil Roberts made more than $200,000 in 2015.