Har Burma et atomvåbenprogram?

Det lader til, at Burma har et hemmeligt atomvåbenprogram. En afhopper fra militæret har lækket oplysninger om programmet, og den amerikanske atomekspert Robert Kelley har beskrevet programmets tekniske aspekter i en ny rapport: “I state this very clearly and strongly, this is a clandestine nuclear program”.

Trods Burmas forbindelser til Nordkorea og faren for spredning af atomvåben, har CIA imidlertid afvist, at der findes et sådan program i landet. Mediekendte spredningseksperter som David Albright og Olli Heinonen, der ofte råber vagt i gevær mht. eventuelle militære dimensioner i Irans erklærede program, afviser ligeledes, at der skulle eksistere et lyssky atomvåbenprogram i Burma. What gives?

I den anledning anbefaler jeg at læse atomjurist Dan Joyners træffende kommentar om inkonsistensen på Arms Control Law.

"Reading their critique of [Robert Kelley's] analysis was just like reading someone else’s critique, word for word, about their analysis of Iran... I swear these quotes literally make me laugh out loud."

"Costs of War" - ny rapport om krig fra Brown Uni

Udpluk fra researchholdets konklusioner (med mine fremhævelser):

• Our tally of all of the war’s dead — including soldiers, militants, police, contractors, journalists, humanitarian workers and civilians — shows that at least 330,000 people have died due to direct war violence.

• Indirect deaths from the wars, including those related to malnutrition, damaged health infrastructure, and environmental degradation, must also be tallied. In previous wars, these deaths have far outnumbered deaths from combat and that is likely the case here as well.

• 200,000 civilians have been killed as a result of the fighting at the hands of all parties to the conflict, and more will die in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Pakistan as the violence continues. But most observers acknowledge that the number of civilians killed has been undercounted. The true number of civilian dead may be much larger when an adequate assessment is made [check here].

• While we know how many US soldiers have died in the wars (over 6,600), what is startling is what we don’t know about the levels of injury and illness in those who have returned from the wars. New disability claims continue to pour into the VA, with over 750,000 disability claims already approved.[2] Many deaths and injuries among US contractors have not been identified. 

• Millions of people have been displaced indefinitely and are living in grossly inadequate conditions. The number of war refugees and displaced persons --7.4 million-- is equivalent to all of the people of Connecticut and Oregon fleeing their homes.

Marc Lynch: Plan B i Syrien

"Currently, military aid to the rebels flows through Gulf and regional governments and private citizens directly to local commanders and fighting forces, while humanitarian aid is channeled primarily through NGOs operating with the consent of the Syrian government. This generates a distinctive political economy of war that has distinctly pernicious effects -- encouraging the fragmentation of the opposition, deepening geographic and political divides, discouraging a coherent political strategy, and creating rent-seeking incentives for ongoing warfare. The uncoordinated, often competitive, financing of favored proxies by outside players has actively contributed to emergent warlordism, intra-rebellion clashes, and the absence of a coherent political strategy."

Here’s Your Plan B - By Marc Lynch | Foreign Policy

Economist: Afghanske flygtninge i Iran lever som andenrangsborgere

More than 1m Afghans are registered as refugees in the Islamic Republic, which is also home to another 1.5m-plus illegal Afghan migrants. But a mixture of Iran’s worsening economic malaise and its government’s policies has prompted an exodus of Afghans back home or westward... Hamid, a 43-year-old legal refugee, has been living in Iran for over a decade. “They treat us very badly,” he says, visibly upset. “We don’t have the advantages of Iranians. We can’t have mobile phones or cars and they make the paperwork more complicated and expensive every year.” Referring to illegal refugees, he says “everything is about money. The police look for their houses, steal savings and then deport them.”

Afghan refugees in Iran: Go back home | The Economist