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Arkema Texas Plant Explodes
Stephen Lendman
On August 31, two explosions rocked the plant, causing toxic chemical fires, contaminating air and water.
The company’s web site said the “threat of additional explosions remains.”
On Friday, another explosion and massive fire occurred. More could follow. Toxic black smoke filled the air, visible for miles around the plant. More explosions and fires are likely.
Trailers with chemicals at the site require refrigeration. According to Arkema official Richard Rennard, floodwaters knocked out municipal and auxiliary power. He “expect(s) the same thing to happen with those containers that we saw today.”
Residents within miles of the plant aren’t safe. Maybe no one in Harris County - home to 4.6 million people, living in harm’s way, exposed to hazardous conditions.
A North Korean H-Bomb? Another Nuclear Test?
Stephen Lendman
Pyongyang claimed it developed a hydrogen bomb miniaturized enough to fit atop a ballistic missile, according to its KCNA news agency.
Kim Jong-un was quoted saying his country has a “thermonuclear weapon with super explosive power made by our own efforts and technology. All components of the H-bomb were 100 per cent domestically made.”
KCNA said the DPRK “further upgraded its technical performance at a higher ultra-modern level on the basis of precious successes made in the first H-bomb test.”
After the January 2016 test, scientists said the six-kiloton yield was too low for a thermonuclear bomb. Its September 2016 test reportedly had a 10-kiloton yield.
The Hiroshima bomb was a 15-kiloton device. America’s first successful H-bomb test in 1952 produced a yield exceeding 10 megatons, the equivalent of 10 million tons of TNT - 500 times more powerful than the Nagasaki bomb.
It’s unknown if DPRK technology advanced this far. It likely will eventually, given its determination to develop the most powerful weapons possible - its most effective way to deter feared US aggression.
Post-WW II history shows America only attacked nations without its super-weapon capability. North Korea has A-bombs. If able to mount them atop ballistic missiles, it potentially can deliver a robust response to US aggression - against its regional forces in South Korea and Japan.
Russian TV Reports U.S. Secretly Backing ISIS in Syria
Eric Zuesse
ussian television headlined on September 1st, "Syrian rebel defector says his US-trained unit sold arms to ISIS”, and reported statements by a defector from — a man who had quit — the U.S.-backed Maghawir al-Thawra group (the remnants of America’s New Syrian Army. The CIA-organized New Syrian Army had, in turn, been the remnants of the Free Syrian Army, which the U.S. had formed in Syria in 2011, during the “Arab Spring” uprisings across Arabia. So, this defector had quit from what was actually the straggling and failing end, of America’s proxy-army of Syrians, who were fighting to overthrow Syria’s President, Bashar al-Assad. The U.S. Government had used the uprising in Syria to bring down Assad, who is allied with Russia. Ever since 1949, the U.S. Government has been trying to take over Syria. After the “Arab Spring,” the U.S. backed Al Qaeda in Syria in order to transform that Syrian uprising into that long-sought U.S. victory. What this defector said had caused him to quit, was America’s lies about what they were fighting for, and what they were fighting against. He didn’t want to be fighting for ISIS, against Assad. That’s what the Syrian war had now come down to, and so he quit.
Trump Continues Invasions that Can’t Succeed
Eric Zuesse
Do you remember the Vietnam War, which produced somewhere between 1,450,000 and 3,595,000 deaths? What good did America’s invasion do? If America had won instead of lost, would the invasion have been good? Is any invasion, by any country, ever good?
World War II was different — and not only because it was global, and not only because our side (the U.S. and UK and Soviet Union) won.
The basic principle determining whether an invasion even has a possibility to be good, is whether that invasion is truly essential in order for the invading country even to continue at all to exist — which means, its constitution to continue in force. Only such authentic national defense can ever justify an invasion.
During WW II, the continued existence of the Soviet Union, and of Britain, and of the United States (as well as of many other countries) was, indeed, seriously threatened by Adolf Hitler’s regime, and not only because it was aided by Benito Mussolini’s regime, and by Emperor Hirohito’s regime.
Biblical Level Hurricane Harvey Rain
Stephen Lendman
Though not forecast to continue for 40 days and nights, for residents of affected areas in Houston and surrounding areas, it must feel that way.
I’ve experienced two hurricanes and one earthquake years earlier, the latter scary but mild, the fury of heavy wind and rain downing trees and knocking out power worse, but nothing like Harvey.
Recovery was quick, life returning to normal, not for weeks or months for hardest hit Texas areas - a once in a lifetime event, likely the worst weather-related rainfall in US history before it ends.
On Friday evening, Harvey made landfall near Corpus Christi, its 130-mile-an-hour winds at Category 4 strength, bringing torrential rains with it, forecast to last until mid-week.
Now tropical storm Harvey, the National Weather Service said “life-threatening flooding continues over southeastern Texas.”
Rainfall through Thursday may approach or exceed 50 inches in hardest hit areas, a catastrophe of biblical proportions, many thousands affected.
Public Health Emergency in Southeastern Texas
Stephen Lendman
Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Tom Price declared a public health emergency in Texas in response to Hurricane Harvey, saying:
“HHS is taking the necessary measures and has mobilized the resources to provide immediate assistance to those affected by Hurricane Harvey.”
“We recognize the gravity of the situation in Texas, and the declaration of a public health emergency will provide additional flexibility and authority to help those who have been impacted by the storm.”
Conditions are dire following six days of heavy rain and severe flooding. Over 20 Houston area hospitals evacuated patients and/or temporarily closed, others operating under emergency conditions.
Roads to the University of Texas MD Anderson’s Medical Center remain impassable. On Monday, employees were told to stay home until further notice.
Houston and surrounding areas face a likely public health disaster because of huge amounts of toxins released into the air and water, turning the area into a dangerously polluted swamp.
Hurricane Harvey: An Epic Disaster, An Environmental Nightmare
Stephen Lendman
Natural disasters like Hurricane Harvey are greatly exacerbated by America’s neglected infrastructure nationwide - a deplorable situation unaddressed by Republicans and undemocratic Democrats alike for decades.
Poor maintenance, aging pipe networks installed up to a century ago, and lack of proper drainage facilities in flood-prone cities like Houston, New Orleans, and Chicago’s downtown Loop, along with poor communities in these and other cities left especially vulnerable, make disasters like Katrina and Harvey far worse than otherwise if proper protections were in place. They’re not nationwide. America’s neglected infrastructure bears much of the blame for Houston’s epic disaster - worsening as rain keeps falling, making landfall a second time west of Cameron, LA, heavy rain hitting the state’s coastal areas.
The National Weather Service issued a flash flood emergency, its severest flood alert. Millions of Texas and Louisiana residents vulnerable. Rainfall in Houston already exceeds 50 inches.
By Tuesday afternoon, an estimated 444 square miles were flooded, an area six times the size of Washington, DC. Shocking, and things keep worsening as rain keeps falling - lightly in Houston, not torrentially like earlier, but floodwaters are still rising.
Mixed Messages on Syria
Stephen Lendman
America intends permanent control of countries it attacked post-Soviet Russia’s dissolution - by occupation and/or installed puppet regimes.
America didn’t come to Syria to leave. It wants control over the entire country.
CENTCOM commander General Joseph Votel said US forces will remain in Syria after the battle for Raqqa is over.
So did Talal Silo, spokesman for the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), an alliance of Kurdish fighters and Arab terrorists.
Deputy Operation Inherent Resolve commander General Rupert Jones said Washington won’t let Syrian forces move north of the Euphrates River - territory US forces and their proxies control.
Nikki Haley: An Embarrassment as US UN Envoy
Stephen Lendman
It’s hard imagining why Trump chose her for the diplomatic post. The former South Carolina governor knows little about geopolitics. Her over-the-top remarks show it.
Her extremist rants are an embarrassment to the position she holds. Trump should replace her with someone qualified for the job.
She’s ideologically extremist like numerous other neocons infesting Washington. On her first day on the job, she warned US allies and adversaries alike - provocatively saying “(y)ou're going to see a change in the way we do business.”
“Our goal with the administration is to show value at the UN, and the way we'll show value is to show our strength, show our voice, have the backs of our allies and make sure our allies have our back as well.”
“For those who don’t have our back, we're taking names. We will make points to respond to that accordingly.”
Irreconcilable US/North Korea Differences
Stephen Lendman
The problem lies in Washington, not Pyongyang the way it’s been throughout the DPRK’s history.
America tolerates no sovereign independent states it doesn’t control - why it wages preemptive wars, stages color revolutions, and assassinates foreign leaders, its post-WW II agenda.
The only way to resolve contentious issues with Pyongyang is through face-to-face diplomacy.
Reported backchannel talks between US envoy for North Korea policy Joseph Yun and senior DPRK UN mission diplomat Pak Song-il in New York are better than nothing, but not good enough.
Former special envoy for earlier six-party talks with North Korea Joseph DeTrani said it’s time for formal negotiations to “get North Korea to halt all nuclear tests and missile launches and return to unconditional nuclear discussions and negotiations.”
Sanctions against Pyongyang, China and Russia are counterproductive, accomplishing nothing positive.
