Global Research

Introduction

The fundamental aim of the text below is to deal with the concept and models of global security as one of the crucial topics of global politics studies. We have to keep in mind that a term and notion of security usually implies a kind of sense of protection and safety from different possible harms coming from “outside”. Therefore, it can be generally acceptable and understandable that the states want to protect their own territories by expanding great resources in making their territorial safe. Security topics are of very different kind, ranging from the causes of conflict between states to deterioration in the global climate or women’s rights in global politics. The question of Security Studies as an academic discipline within the scope of Global Politics has been the subject of much debate and one of the most prosperous ways to deal with global security is firstly to analyze different standpoints which are existing within the research discipline. The article, in one word, will try to provide the readers with a basic approaches in the academic field of Security Studies with some necessary personal remarks by the author.

The Conception of a System

The conception of international systems of states is crucial as explanatory mechanism of both global politics and global security models. However, in order to understand international systems of states firstly the very notion of a system itself has to be clarified and defined. In this context, it can be said that “a system is an assemblage of units, objects, or parts united by some form of regular interaction”.[1] Any system is necessarily constructed of different members on micro and macro levels which are interacting between themselves from horizontal and vertical perspectives. The member units of a system are of different size, capacity, potentials, wealth, might and therefore of different positions regarding the decision making procedure and especially power.

For the reason that member units of a system are constantly interacting with each other either from horizontal or vertical perspectives, it is quite naturally that in the case of a change in one unit the reactions to such change are expected by other units. The most expressed examples are arms race, seeking for balance of power, making political-military blocs with other units or even in the most drastic cases, committing aggression on the member unit. Any system with its member units has a tendency to regulate the relations between them and to try to respond by different means if those relations are changed at the expense of the hegemonic unit(s) of the system. It can exist at the same time two or more systems which are separated from each other by regulated boundaries, but different systems very often collaborate across the boundaries, for instance, in the areas of economy, knowledge or technology exchange as it was the case during the Cold War era (1949−1989). Finally, one system can break down for any reason what means that necessarily changes within the system were not achieved in order to save it (for instance, the case of the Warsaw Pact in 1990−1991). Subsequently, in stead of the old system a new system can emerged or the member units of the old system can be simply absorbed by another one as it happened, for example, with majority of the Central and South-East European states after the Cold War.

International Systems of States

It is very difficult to fix the exact date when global system of international relations (IR) and therefore global security models started to work for the very reason that the process of globalization occurred over many centuries.[2] However, the modern European system of IR can be traced back up to the time after the 1648 Westphalian Peace Treaty, while the process of globalization of international systems of inter-states relations started to work from the first half of the 19th century.

International systems of inter-states relations and global security became after the WWII investigated as academic subjects within the framework of World Systems Theory (WST) which recognizes that the states are historically playing the fundamental role in IR and they will do that in the future as well as but the systems of relations of (nation)-states have to be understood and put in the context of global unity rather than conflicts based on realizations of different national interests. What the theoreticians of WST suggest is that the most meaningful system of global security has to be based on world-system but not on nation-states system. Therefore, they believe that international cooperation and order will replace international conflicts and anarchy. However, behind WST is basically hidden a system of Capitalist World-Economy (CWE) which is advocating ideology of globalization as a new form of the Western global imperialism based on the international division of labour. Thus, according to CWE, the whole world is divided into three labour and economic zones: the core-states (the Western developed mature economies); the periphery-states(mainly ex-colonies from Africa with still underdeveloped economies); and the semi-periphery states (mainly East-European ex-socialist states and Middle-East oil-rich states with rising economies and growing infrastructure). The essence of WST/CWE is that a globalization has to function in full benefit of the core-states which are fully exploiting the periphery-states with a semi-periphery states as a buffer between core and periphery segments of the world economy which are partially exploited by the core-states (by financial and economic means). In one word, WST/CWE is trying to legitimate existence and functioning of global Western capitalism and its exploitation of the rest of the world by promulgation of globalization ideology.[3] However, the liberal ideology of globalization is advocating in reality the global process of (pervasive) American Westernization from all points of view – from cultural, economic or political to the issues of values, tradition and customs.[4]

Historically, there were three fundamental types of international systems or relations between the states as the crucial actors in global politics even today:

1. Independent;

2. Hegemonic; and

3. Imperial.[5]

The Independent State System (ISS) is composed by the states as political actors and entities which each of them claim to be independent that means both autonomous and sovereign. The fundamental feature of such state, at least from the very theoretical point of view, is that it has right and possibility to make its own foreign and domestic policies out of any influence or dependence from the outside. The ISS presupposes that the state territory and its citizens are under full control and governance by the central state authority and that the state borders are inviolable from outside. In other words, any outside actor is not eligible to interfere into domestic affairs of the state which can be governed only by one “legitimate” authority that is internationally recognized as such. An independent state has to be and autonomous that means (as it meant at the time of ancient Greeks where the term comes) that the legitimate state authorities are adopting their own law and organizing the state activities, political and other types of life of the society according to it but not according to the imposed law, rules or values from the outside. States had to be equally treated and understood in regards to their claims to independence, autonomy and sovereignty regardless to the very practical fact that not all of them are of the same power, capabilities and might.[6]

The Hegemonic State System (HSS) is based on an idea of a hegemon and hegemony imposed by a hegemon in IR what means that one or more states (or other actors in politics) dominate the system of IR or/and regional or global politics. A hegemon is fixing the standards, values and the „rules of the game“ and having direct influence on the politics of the system’s members like, for instance, the US in the NATO’s bloc.

There are three possible types of HSS in global politics:

1. Unipolar (or Single) hegemony, when a single state is dominating as it was the case with the US immediately after the WWII.
2. Bipolar (or Dual) hegemony, when two dominant states exist in global politics as it was a case during the time of the Cold War (the USA and the USSR).
3. Multipolar (or Collective) hegemony, when several or even many states dominate international relations like during the time after the Vienna Congress in 1815 (Russia, Austria, Great Britain, France and Prussia).

In practice, in any of these three HSS, lesser powerful actors may interact their powers, but they have to get a permission by the hegemon for such action. In HSS, usually domestic affairs of the states are left untouched by the hegemon, while their foreign affairs are strictly under the hegemonic control.

The third type of IR, the Imperial State System (ImSS), existed from the ancient time (Assyria, Persia, Macedonia, Rome) and has been dominant in Europe, North Africa and Asia in the Middle Ages (the Frankish, Holy Roman, Byzantine, Ottoman or Habsburg empires). The essence of empire as a system is that it is composed by separate societal, ethnic, national, linguistic or/and confessional parts which are associated by regular interaction. However, within such multi-structural imperial framework it is a regular practice that one unit dominate over others by imposing over the rest its own political supremacy. The rest of the framework units have to accept such reality either by force or by interest while a political supremacy by one (ruling) part can be accepted by the others either implicitly or explicitly.[7] However, the question arises what is a difference between the Hegemonic and the Imperial State System as these two systems seems to be very similar if not even the same? Nevertheless, the fundamental difference is that a dominant unit of an empire is much more able to manage other subjects of the state system in comparison to HSS and especially to force them to work for the central authority (tax collection, recruiting people for the imperial army, appointing local political client leaders, etc.). The empires are usually created and enlarged by military conquest, but also they can be militarily destroyed from the outside or disappear due to the inner revolutions followed by civil wars.

Security Dilemma and Global Security Models

Security dilemma is based on an idea that security is a goal for which states struggle and compete between themselves. In principle, the states have to look to their own protection especially in an “anarchical” world system in which does not exist any supranational authority (like the UNO or OEBS, for instance)[8] to be capable to impose and/or to ensure regional or global order of IR. In practice, traditionally, the states in order to achieve their security goals were striving for more and more power for the reason to escape the impact of the power and foreign policy of other states especially of the neighbours as the European history clearly shows. However, such practice in turn makes the other states or other actors in IR to feel themselves more insecure and therefore it encourages them to be prepared for the worst scenario (conflict, aggression, war). As any state cannot ever feel entirely secure, the security competition among the states is endless process that is resulting in constant power rising. In other words, security dilemma provokes a policy to firm security of a (nation)state which has a direct effect of threatening other states or actors in IR and, thereby, provoking power (usually military) counter-actions. This endless process is in fact decreasing security for all states especially if we know that in many cases offensive (imperialistic) foreign policy is justified by national arming by “defensive” weapons (the case of the US, for instance).

Global security as a concept has to be essentially founded on the idea of human (individual and group) security. However, IR in practice are based on the right to self-preservation of the states (i.e., of their political regimes and social elites in power). This idea is born by Englishman Thomas Hobbes (1588−1679) who argued that the right to self-preservation is founded on a natural law, requiring at the same time a social harmony between the citizens and state authority. Therefore, global security has to be founded primarily on the concept of (a nation)state security as the states are natural form of political associations by the people and still are the fundamental actors in IR. The idea is that, presumably, both individual and civil rights of the citizen would be effectively secured only if the individual consented to the unchecked power of the state ruling elite. Therefore, we can say that a modern philosophy of state totalitarian regimes is de facto born by Th. Hobbes.

Based on Th. Hobbes’ security philosophy, states will stress the necessity of social collectivisation for the protection of their security interests – it is how the concept of Collective Security (CS) was institutionalised as a mechanism that is used by the states in one bloc not to attack or proclaim the war to other states within the same bloc of coalition.[9] The member states of the same bloc accept the practice to use their collective armed forces and other necessary capabilities in order to help and defend a fellow member state in the case of aggression from outside. Such “defensive” collective action has to continue until the time when “aggression” is reversed. The essence of such concept, therefore, is a claim that an „unprovoked“, aggressive attack against any member of an organisation is going to be considered as an attack on all member states of that organisation. In practice, any really provoked attack of aggression can be easily claimed as „unprovoked“ as it happened, for instance, with the case of Pearl Harbour in 1941 as we know today that the US regime did everything to provoke „unprovoked“ Japanese action on December 7th. Nevertheless, while the concept of CS became the tool to count state aggression, it left very open question of how best to promote the individual or group (minority) security.[10]

It has to be clarified that the very idea of human security is not opposing concern of national (state) security – the requirement that state is in obligation to protect its own citizens from the aggression from the external world, i.e. by a foreign actor. The human security idea argues that the most important focus of security has to be put on individual not on state but the state has to protect all its citizens as the protection umbrella from the outside threat. This approach takes an individual-centred view of security that is a basis for national, regional and finally global security. In essence, protection of human (individual and group) rights is giving the main framework for the realization of the concept of human security that advocates “protection against threats to the lives and well-being of individuals in areas of basic need including freedom from violence by terrorists, criminals, or police, availability of food and water, a clean environment, energy security, and freedom from poverty and economic exploitation”.[11]

The chief purpose of collective security organization is to provide and maintain peaceful relations within the bloc which is composed by sovereign states but dominated by a hegemon. The concept of CS has declaratory as a main task to maintain peace between the key actors in IR that practically means the states, but in practice the real purpose of CS system is just to maintain peace and order among the members of the system, however not between the system and the rest of the world. The best example of CS system today is the NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) which is not of any kind of global security bloc but rather only political-military alliance that is primarily serving the US national interests (global imperialism) across the globe. Nevertheless, the practical implementation of the concept is fluctuating between two models:

1. Traditional and more realistic model of Balance of Power; and

2. A new post-Cold War and more utopian model of World Government.

The idea of CS is for sure very attractive for the academics as it seeks to bring about important benefits of a “global government” but without altering the fundamental essence of traditional states system of anarchy. The concept of CS from global perspective, therefore, means a “system of international security under which all states agree to take joint action against states that attack”.[12] Anyway, formally, the concept of CS wants to apply a set of legally established mechanisms which are designed to prevent possible aggression by any state against any other state at least without the formal permission by the UNO.[13] 

Three Possible Models of Global Security

Different theorists explain on different ways by using different arguments the benefits or disadvantages of one of three possible global security models: Unipolar, Bipolar or Multipolar. Debates are basically going around the arguments which one of these three models is the most stable and above all most peaceful in comparison to all other models.[14]

Those who advocate the Unipolar Security Model (USM) claim that this model gives the most security guarantees as in this case there is simply one power (state) to be in a position of a dominant actor in global politics having a role of a global hegemon or world policemen. It is a belief that world politics can be mostly peaceful if there is a single dominant state that is strong enough to enforce peace as a global hegemon. The hegemon is going to be so powerful that no any other global actor can challenge its superiority in world affairs and IR. This model of global security was adopted by the US administration immediately after the Cold War and mainly was advocated by Zbigniew Brzezinski who was trying to laid down academic foundations of the American hegemonic position in global politics which had primarily goal to destabilize, dismember and finally occupy Russia for the sake of free of charge exploitation of her natural resources according to the Kosovo pattern from June 1999 onward. If the US administration succeed in realization of such goal, the global geopolitical game over the Eurasian Heartland would be finally resolved in the favour of Washington.

The NATO was, is and going to be from the very beginning of its existence (est. 1949) the fundamental instrument of the US policy of global hegemony concept that is known also as Pax Americana. Up today, the NATO remains the most powerful military alliance in the world that was allegedly established “…to provide security for Western Europe, NATO became an unprecedented peacetime alliance with a permanent secretariat and a military headquarters that represents the US commitment to deter Soviet aggression”.[15] However, the very existence of the NATO after the dissolution of the Soviet Union clearly prove that the ultimate goal of its creation and functioning was not “to deter Soviet aggression” while its (only eastward) enlargement from 1999 onward indicates that in fact Russia was, is and going to be the chief object of the fundamental point of the NATO’s policy of the US expansionism and global hegemony. The 1998−1999 Kosovo War, in which the NATO’s forces became deeply engaged for the first time after its establishment in 1949, marks the beginning of the direct US policy of brutal and open gangsterism (at least) after the Cold War on the global level of IR and world politics.[16]

The USM is necessarily founded on an idea of hegemony in global politics. The word hegemonia comes from the ancient Greek language (as many other words used today by the Western academic world) with authentic means of “leadership”. In IR, a notion of a “hegemon” is used as a synonym for “leader” or “leading state” within the system (bloc) composed by at least two or several states. However, the bloc member countries have to establish and maintain certain relations between themselves what practically means that one of member states became de facto a hegemon within the whole bloc concerning decision making policy and procedure (for example, the USA in the NATO, the USSR in the Warsaw Pact or Germany in the EU). A leadership or hegemony within the system implies certain degree of order, collective organization and above all hierarchy relationships between the members of a system. However, political hegemony in IR is not existing by itself as it is a phenomenon which exists within some interstate system, that is itself the product of specific historical, political, economic, ideological or other circumstances. All hegemonic states within the system enjoy “structural power” which permits the leader to occupy a central leading position in its own created and run system. All other member states are collaborators to the leading role of the hegemon expecting to get a proper reward for their service. On the other hand, a hegemon has to mobilize its own economic, financial, technical, political, human and other resources in order to perform a role of a leader and, therefore, this is why only some (rich) states have a real potential to be hegemons (like the USA in the NATO, for instance).

The USA is today the world’s most powerful and imperialistic single state ever existed in history. Washington is after the WWII using the NATO as a justification of its global hegemonic designs and the American ability and willingness to resume a hegemonic role in the world are of the crucial importance for IR, world order and global security. In principle, majority of studies dealing with hegemony and imperialism point to the British 19^th century empire and the US empire after the WWII as two most successful hegemonic cases in world’s political history.[17] Both of these two empires formally justified their policy of global imperialism within the framework of the concept of USM.

Probably the most important disadvantage of USM is that a unipolar world with a strong global hegemon will all the time tempt either one or several powers to try to challenge the hegemon by different means. This is basically an endless game till the hegemon finally lost its position as such and the system of security became transformed into a new form based on a new security model. That is exactly what happened with the Roman Empire as one of examples of USM.

Nevertheless, in the unipolar system, a hegemon faces few constraints on its policy, determines rules of game in global politics and restricts the autonomous actions by others as it was exactly the case by the US as a “world policemen” at the time of the New World Order in 1990−2008.[18] But on the other side, such hegemonic position and policy of terrorizing the rest of the world (or system) provokes self-defence reactions by others which finally results in the change in the distribution of power among the states (or actors) that can be a cause of war on larger scale of intensity and space. For the matter of comparison, the US hegemonic, Russophobic and barbaric global policy at the time of the post-Cold War New World Order can at the end cause a new world war with Russia (and probably China) as the Peloponnesian War (431−404 BC) were caused by the hegemonic policy of the Athens which provoked the fear and self-defence reaction by Sparta.[19]

The champions of the Bipolar Security Model (BSM), however, believe that a bipolarity of global politics could bring a long-time peace and world security instead of USM. In the case of BSM, the two crucial powers in the world are monitoring each other’s behaviour on global arena and therefore removing a biggest part of the security uncertainty in world politics, international relations and foreign affairs associated with the possibility of the beginning of war between the Great Powers.

A Multipolar Security Model (MSM) looks like as the best option dealing with the prevention of war and protecting global security as a distribution of power is as much as “multi” there are lesser chances for outbreak of the war between the Great Powers. In essence, MSM can moderate hostility among the Great Powers as they are forced to create shifting alliances in which there are no permanent enemies. Nevertheless, for many researchers, MSM is in fact creating a dangerous uncertainty for the very reason as there is a bigger number of the Great Powers or other powerful actors in world politics.

Conclusion

The academic research field of Security Studies is of extreme complexity raging from the standpoint that these studies should have a narrow military focus as the fundamental security threat to the territorial integrity of states comes during times of conflict to the view that individuals are the final research object of the studies but not the states themselves. Therefore, many academics focus their research on global security basically on human emancipation which is usually understood as achieving wide scope of freedoms – both individual and group.[20] They argue that academic discipline of Security Studies should focus on them but not on the security of the state.

Finally, there are many arguments over what the research and referent object of Security Studies has to be, whether military power is fundamental for state security, who is going to be mainly responsible for providing security or what the studies as academic field have to consider as its research subject matter and focus. The fundamental aim of this article was to present the main route through the (mine)field of Security Studies as an academic research discipline.

Sources

Alvin Y. So, Social Change and Development: Modernization, Dependency, and World-System Theories, Newbury Park−London−New Delhi: Sage Publications, 1990.

Cynthia Weber, Simulating Sovereignty: Intervention, the State, and Symbolic Interchange, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1994.

Hannes Hofbauer, Experiment Kosovo: Die Rückkehr des Kolonialismus, Wien: Promedia Druck- und Verlagsges. m.b.h., 2008.

Immanuel Wallerstein, World-Systems Analysis: An Introduction, Fifth edition, Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2007.

Jeffrey Haynes, Peter Hough, Shahin Malik, Lloyd Pettiford, World Politics, New York: Routledge, 2013.

John Baylis, Steve Smith, Patricia Owens, The Globalization of World Politics: An Introduction to International Relations, Seventh edition, New York: Oxford University Press, 2017.

Joshua S. Goldstein, International Relations, Fourth edition, New York: Longman, 2001.

Karen A. Mingst, Essentials of International Relations, Third edition, New York−London: W. W. Norton & Company, 2004.

Martin Griffiths, Terry O’Callaghan, Steven C. Roach, International Relations: The Key Concepts, Second edition, London−New York: Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, 2008.

Martin Wight, Systems of States, Leicester, UK: Leicester University Press, 1977.

Paul R. Viotti, Mark V. Kauppi, International Relations and World Politics: Security, Economy, Identity, Fourth edition, Upper Saddle River, New Jersay: Pearson Prentice Hall, 2009.

Peter Hough, Understanding Global Security, 2nd Edition, London−New York: Routledge, 2008.

Richard W. Mansbach, Kirsten L. Taylor, Introduction to Global Politics, Second edition, London−New York: Routledge, 2012.

Thucydides, The Peloponnesian War, Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, Inc., 1999.

Михаил Ростовцев, Историја старога света: Грчка и Рим, Нови Сад: Матица српска, 1990.

Пјер Пеан, Косово: „Праведни“ рат за стварање мафијашке државе, Београд: Службени гласник, 2013 [translation from the French original: Pierre Pean, Sébastien Fontenelle, Kosovo: Une Guerre „Juste“ pour Créer un Etat Mafieux, Librairie Arthème Fayard, 2013].

Notes

[1] Karen A. Mingst, Essentials of International Relations, Third edition, New York−London: W. W. Norton & Company, 2004, 81.

[2] On globalization of world politics, see (John Baylis, Steve Smith, Patricia Owens, The Globalization of World Politics: An Introduction to International Relations, Seventh edition, New York: Oxford University Press, 2017).

[3] On world-system, see more in (Alvin Y. So, Social Change and Development: Modernization, Dependency, and World-System Theories, Newbury Park−London−New Delhi: Sage Publications, 1990; Immanuel Wallerstein, World-Systems Analysis: An Introduction, Fifth edition, Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2007).

[4] Jeffrey Haynes, Peter Hough, Shahin Malik, Lloyd Pettiford, World Politics, New York: Routledge, 2013, 715. In one word, WST conceptualizes global order to be structured into developed, underdeveloped and intermediary states and economic systems.

[5] Paul R. Viotti, Mark V. Kauppi, International Relations and World Politics: Security, Economy, Identity, Fourth Edition, Upper Saddle River, New Jersay: Pearson Prentice Hall, 2009, 40.

[6] Sovereignty means that one state (or political territory) has its own government (political rulling establishment) which has both full authority over its own claimed administered territory and the rights and possibility of membership of (at least some) the international political community. However, there are many examples of the so-called “quasi-sovereign states” (like Kosovo, North Cyprus, Transnistria…). On the issue of „quasi-sovereign states“, see (Cynthia Weber, Simulating Sovereignty: Intervention, the State, and Symbolic Interchange, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1994).

[7] Martin Wight, Systems of States, Leicester, UK: Leicester University Press, 1977, 6.

[8] Supranational means to be above the sovereign state or “over the nation”.

[9] However, this mechanism is not providing absolute security within the same bloc as the case of Italy and Austria-Hungary showed in 1917.

[10] According to the 1994 Human Development Report (an annual publication of the UNDP), human security is composed by the next seven elements: 1. Economic security or freedom from poverty; 2. Food security or access to food; 3. Health security or access to health care and protection from diseases; 4. Environmental security or protection from environmental pollution; 5. Personal security or physical safety from torture, war, and drug use; 6. Community security or survival of traditional cultures and ethnonational groups; and 7. Political security or protection against political oppression (Martin Griffiths, Terry O’Callaghan, Steven C. Roach, International Relations: The Key Concepts, Second edition, London−New York: Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, 2008, 147).

[11] Richard W. Mansbach, Kirsten L. Taylor, Introduction to Global Politics, Second edition, London−New York: Routledge, 2012, 578.

[12] Richard W. Mansbach, Kirsten L. Taylor, Introduction to Global Politics, Second edition, London−New York: Routledge, 2012, 574.

[13] However, this concept lost its moral ground in 1999 when the NATO made an aggression on the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia for 78 days without a resolution by the UNO launching the “illegal war” on a sovereign state (Пјер Пеан, Косово: „Праведни“ рат за стварање мафијашке државе, Београд: Службени гласник, 2013, 95−105 [translation from the French original: Pierre Pean, Sébastien Fontenelle, Kosovo: Une Guerre „Juste“ pour Créer un Etat Mafieux, Librairie Arthème Fayard, 2013]).

[14] Security Studies as an academic discipline belong to a wider subject of International Relations(IR) that is the study of total political relations between different international actors but fundamentally between the sovereign states. The main concern of Security Studies is the global securuty and its maintainance (Peter Hough, Understanding Global Security, Second edition, London−New York: Routledge, 2008, 2).

[15] Richard W. Mansbach, Kirsten L. Taylor, Introduction to Global Politics, Second edition, London−New York: Routledge, 2012, 345.

[16] As a direct result of the NATO’s aggression on Serbia and Montenegro in 1999, Kosovo became transformed into the American colony (see more on this issue in: Hannes Hofbauer, Experiment Kosovo: Die Rückkehr des Kolonialismus, Wien: Promedia Druck- und Verlagsges. m.b.h., 2008).

[17] For instance, Joshua S. Goldstein, International Relations, Fourth edition, New York: Longman, 2001, 92.

[18] A term New World Order is originally coined by the ex-US President George Bush Senior in 1991as a consequence of the First Gulf War in 1990−1991 when the US administration started its post-Cold War imperialistic policy of a global hegemon hidden behind an idea of globalization of liberal internationalism that was allegedly impossible without the US hegemonic role in world politics. Nevertheless, the concept of New World Order „…was short-hand for US policy preferences and further American imperialism“ (Jeffrey Haynes, Peter Hough, Shahin Malik, Lloyd Pettiford, World Politics, New York: Routledge, 2013, 712). Many academics and politicians have at the beginning hopes that New World Order will bring a better future in IR and global politics but very soon the idea became very criticized and, therefore, the idea lost any rational and moral background.

[19] Михаил Ростовцев, Историја старога света: Грчка и Рим, Нови Сад: Матица српска, 1990, 112−120; Thucydides, The Peloponnesian War, Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, Inc., 1999.

[20] Emancipation means, at least by the Westerners, the achievement of independence, i.e., ability to act independently. However, to be emancipated does not automatically mean that the individual is free of all obligations toward others including and those toward the state (military service, taxation…). It means only that the individual is free of those obligations which are considered to be oppresive or inhuman (slavery, serfdom…).

All images in this article are from the author unless otherwise noted.

Where we are

At the end of August Britain’s Labour Party formally announced its policy towards future relations with the European Union. The policy document explicitly “accepts the referendum result” and will “build a close new relationship with the EU”.

The British media chose to emphasize not EU employment rights or environment protections but Labour’s alleged “U-turn” on participation in the single market. The Labour commitment to remain within EU trading arrangement until formal withdrawal and perhaps beyond inspired calls for “bolder” commitments, even to reverse the decision to leave the Union. For those committed to reversing Brexit, a second referendum is the preferred option, one characterized (wishfully) as “more likely by the day” and representing the “will of the people”.

A second referendum would not necessarily be the most successful tactic as Polly Toynbee has argued. But if by whatever means the British government were to reverse the referendum decision under what conditions might re-entry occur?

Where we were

Prior to 23 June 2017 and the May government passing legislation for formal withdrawal (invoking Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty) British membership had several special conditions. While media attention focused on the Thatcher rebate, two other specific arrangements were more important, opt out from joining the euro and rejection of the so-called fiscal pact. In both cases one other government joined the British, the Danish on euro “opt-out” and the Czech in rejecting the Treaty on Stability, Coordination and Governance (TSCG).

Every non-euro country’s government except Britain and Denmark must adopt the euro after 2020. Though severe instability of the euro earlier this decade sapped much of the enthusiasm for adopting it, the requirement is embedded in EU treaties. The fiscal pact (TSCG) is inseparable from joining the euro zone because it is the vehicle for enforcing the Maastricht fiscal rules. Taken together, the rules and the TSCG enforcement procedures combine to make a reactionary and undemocratic policy regime as I argued in a previous SE article.

Assume that as a result of a second referendum and/or a vote of parliament a British government reversed Article 50 and sought to re-establish membership. Clause 5 of Article 50 allows for that possibility — if “a State which has withdrawn from the Union asks to rejoin, its request shall be subject to the procedure referred to in Article 49”.

Article 49 states that a re-applying government shall be treated as a new applicant. Thus, to re-enter the British government would lose its opt-out from the euro and have to adopt the TSCG. Both would be unwise and together would undermine progressive change in Britain.

Joining the euro zone involves adhering to convergence criteria and enacting laws that not merely limit policy flexibility but would lock the British government into dysfunctional economic policies. The best known of the dysfunctional policies are the strict limit on inflation, the 3% of GDP maximum for the overall fiscal deficit and the 60% of GDP maximum for the gross public debt.

The 3% rule would make countercyclical macroeconomic policy impossible, which is why no euro zone government practises it. It would also make it difficult for a Labour government to implement its policy of funding public expenditure by borrowing. More dysfunctional, because it uses a technically incorrect measure, is the gross debt limit of 60% (the present British figure is almost 90%).

Another serious policy consequence of joining the euro zone would be the prohibition on national governments borrowing from their central banks. The Bank of England holds almost 30% of the British public debt, much higher than for any euro zone government (see Smith & Weeks, pages 44-45). The British government’s ability to borrow from itself has two great advantages: 1) it allows the Bank of England to set the interest rate on public bonds (thus preventing speculators inflating interest rates); and 2) reduces the fiscal cost of debt service (interest on Bank of England held debt goes to the Treasury).

Were EU negotiators of a re-entry application to require signing onto the fiscal pact, this would leave the British government subject to “corrective action plans [by the European Commission] which may be imposed on countries under the excessive imbalance procedure (EIP)” (emphasis added). No direct democratic procedure limits or oversees the European Commission’s implementation of this treaty provision, which can involve rejecting a budget passed by a national legislature.

The Maastricht rules can be and are avoided, especially by governments of large countries. However, the TSCG substantially strengthened enforcement, making future non-compliance more difficult. In any case, returning with intention to bend the rules would not seem a sound basis for re-entering the EU.

An acceptable way back in?

Election of a Labour government committed to de-activating the Article 50 process offers a possible way to avoid loss of special conditions. An incoming Labour government could inform the European Commission that it intended by vote of Parliament to revoke the February 2017 legal commitment to the Article 50 procedure and return to status quo ex ante. It is unlikely that the Commission would agree. The Commission would fear that allowing the British government to “back-track” would in practice render invoking Article 50 a negotiating tactic for discontent governments.

As the next step in this hypothetical scenario the British government would appeal to the European Court of Justice. In defence of the argument for return on the same terms the Labour government could argue that the Article 50 deadline lay in the future and a democratically elected government should not be bound by the decision of a previous government. The British case would not be strengthened by the Labour government having supported the Article 50 vote while in opposition, though perhaps not fatally weakened.

Featured image: A man in an opium-yielding poppy field, Dara-i Mazor, Nurgal district, Kunar province, Afghanistan (May 2017) (Source: Franz J. Marty)

DARA-I MAZOR, NURGAL, KUNAR, AFGHANISTAN — It is only a short drive into a side valley just off the busy main road between Jalalabad and Asadabad, the capitals of Afghanistan’s eastern provinces of Nangarhar and Kunar. The narrow dusty road passes fields of golden blades of wheat that slightly sway in the light breeze. Beyond the fields and the scattered verdant trees, barren craggy hills frame the valley called Dara-i Mazor in Kunar’s district of Nurgal. Across the small river, some of the traditional mud houses resemble tiny bulky castles, hinting at the fact that Afghanistan’s violent past dates much further back than the U.S. or Soviet-led invasions.

Behind a low farm house that lies quietly in the shadows of surrounding trees, there is yet another wheat field. But next to it several patches of land are covered in other plants whose single green stems topped by golf-ball sized pods rise above the bushy leaves at their roots. It is opium-yielding poppy.

Opium has an analgesic effect and is the base for morphine, heroin, and other opioids that are used for medical purposes, but also for illegal drug consumption. Afghanistan accounts for some 70 percent of the global opium production, according to the World Drug Report 2016 of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC). Although poppy cultivation is concentrated in southern Afghanistan, it can be found throughout the country. And while opium production is more prevalent in ungoverned areas like Dara-i Mazor, it also exists in government-controlled zones, as security forces, often struggling to keep insurgents at bay, are hardly able to prevent poppy cultivation.

In Kunar, early May was the end of the short harvest season, which takes places right after the white or dark pink poppy flowers have withered and only the green capsules remain. This can be earlier or later in other regions of the country, depending on the local conditions.

The harvest itself is a labor-intensive task. Every single poppy pod has to be lanced with a tool with several tiny blades at its end. Once lanced, the opium latex immediately leaks out of the razor-thin scratches (in Dara-i Mazor the sap is a light pink, but experts say that it is usually white at first before it oxidates in the air, quickly turning to a pink and later dark brown color). The valuable latex is just liquid enough to drip out, but still gooey enough to stick to the pod and to not drop to the ground. Normally, the capsules are then left until the next day. However, given my short visit, the locals showed me right away how they skim the leaked-out opium from the pod with another tool that looks like a broad sickle.

Skimmed opium latex in a field in Dara-i Mazor (May 2017)

One farmer, a young man with a neatly trimmed beard and pitch black, greasy hair, stated that about 60 percent of his fields are poppy. And this is not an exception. Asked for his reason to plant poppy, he said that he is forced to do it because other crops would yield little profit. This was also asserted by other farmers in Nurgal and Shigal, another district of Kunar. However, they don’t claim that other crops would yield no profit, raising the question of whether they are only engaging in poppy cultivation for the higher profits that no licit crop can possibly generate.

But according to Dr. David Mansfield, a senior researcher for the London School of Economics and the Afghan Research & Evaluation Unit who has worked on opium poppy cultivation in Afghanistan for almost two decades, profit-maximization is not the driving force behind the decision. Afghan farmers would rather try to balance their livelihoods, secure a certain degree of food self-sufficiency, use their soil sustainably (which also means changing or rotating different crops), and mitigate risks of crop failures. Thus, the monetary profit is only one of many factors in the farmers’ decisions.

In any event, Mansfield asserted that – in his years of experience across Afghanistan and despite allegations to the contrary – he has never met a single farmer that was physically coerced into cultivating opium. Reports also often suggest that farmers are de facto forced to sow poppy as they are dependent on advance payments that they can obtain for the future opium harvest or have no other choice than to produce opium to repay loans. However, sources explained that the system of advance payments on future harvests has dramatically decreased in past years and also exists for other crops. And although economic pressure plays a role, according to UNODC, “having outstanding loans did not emerge as a differentiating factor for cultivating opium since the percentage of farmers under debt or with outstanding loans were similar [whether they grew poppy or not].”

Hence, the often-portrayed image that insurgents or mafia-like groups exploit the farmers’ weaknesses, forcing them to cultivate opium, does not match the reality. The decision to sow poppy is rather  – sometimes more, sometimes less – freely taken by the farmers themselves.

Man skimming opium latex from a poppy capsule, Dara-i Mazor (May 2017)

In the subsequent sale of raw opium the farmers are far from being at the mercy of a cartel. Farmers in Nurgal and Shigal stated that numerous merchants come separately to the farms to buy opium and that they would usually only buy a very few kilograms – which is, even for a small farmer, only a fraction of his whole yield (according to the UNODC Afghanistan Opium Survey, in 2016 “the average opium yield amounted to 23.8 kilograms per hectare”). This makes opium even more attractive for farmers, as – contrary to other crops – they don’t have to transport their harvest over often underdeveloped and sometimes dangerous roads to a market.

Asked about the merchants, farmers described them as independent actors that try to make a profit by reselling the narcotic for a higher price, but assert that they do not belong to any specific group or cartel. This was confirmed by an opium trafficker who asked to not be identified. It was also confirmed by two experts, who added that – while there are certain regional differences – the sale of small portions of the opium yield to several independent merchants is the norm across Afghanistan.

This does not exclude the involvement of some larger, more powerful dealers or even criminal networks. But they don’t control the market and are just some among many actors. In this regard, the opium trafficker even asserted that bigger networks would usually only play a larger role once the raw opium is processed to heroin. This is, however, further down the chain and does not affect the farmers directly.

Given the above, the fluctuating price of opium at the farm-gate is not unfairly dictated by the buyers, but set according to various conditions of a rather free market. And even though it is a fraction of heroin prices on the end markets, it is still a small fortune by Afghan standards. UNODC put the average price of one kilogram of dry opium at the farm-gate in eastern Afghanistan in 2016 at $239. Farmers in Nurgal and Shigal as well as the opium trafficker claimed to sell dry opium even for 25,000 to 35,000 Pakistani rupees (about $240 to $335) per kilogram (the indication of Pakistani rupee is not out of the ordinary, as in parts of eastern Afghanistan, Pakistani rather than Afghan currency is the norm).

Raw opium from Dara-i Mazor (May 2017)

Such prices are hard to verify though and might be flawed. Moreover, setting this into perspective is difficult. Compared to the monthly salary of an average Afghan worker in the capital Kabul, which amounts to around $200, opium sales prices appear very high. However, it has to be taken into account that those prices are qualified by significant production costs and that the farmers live in a different socioeconomic setting.

Be that as it may, farmers sometimes even hold back raw opium, which does not spoil, in order to wait for better sales prices — yet another sign of a free market.

In view of all this and contrary to common perception, the opium sale at the Afghan farm-gate is not in the iron grip of the Taliban or powerful cartels, but rather a loose open market in which numerous independent farmers and racketeers try to get their share of this profitable illicit trade.

This article has been originally published in Swedish by Blankspot.

Franz J. Marty is a freelance journalist based in Afghanistan. He writes on a broad range of topics, but focuses on security and military issues. Follow him on Twitter: @franzjmarty.

All images in this article are from the author.

On Monday, President Trump tweeted birthday wishes to the Air Force and the CIA. Both became official organizations 70 years ago on September 18, 1947, with the implementation of the National Security Act of 1947.

After spending years as a wartime intelligence agency called the Office of Strategic Services, the agency was solidified as a key player in the federal government’s operations with then-President Harry Truman’s authorization.

In the seventy years since, the CIA has committed a wide variety of misdeeds, crimes, coups, and violence. Here are seven of the worst programs they’ve carried out (that are known to the public):

1 – Toppling governments around the world — The CIA is best known for its first coup, Operation Ajax, in 1953, in which it ousted the democratically elected leader of Iran, Mohammed Mossadegh, reinstating the autocratic Shah, who favored western oil interests. That operation, which the CIA now admits to waging with British intelligence, ultimately resulted in the 1979 revolution and subsequent U.S. hostage crisis. Relations between the U.S. and Iran remain strained to this day, aptly described by the CIA-coined term “blowback.”

But the CIA has had a hand in toppling a number of other democratically elected governments, from Guatemala (1954) and the Congo (1960) to the Dominican Republic (1961), South Vietnam (1963), Brazil (1964), and Chile (1973). The CIA has aimed to install leaders who appease American interests, often empowering oppressive, violent dictators. This is only a partial list of countries where the CIA covertly attempted to exploit and manipulate sovereign nations’ governments.

2 – Operation Paperclip — In one of the more bizarre CIA plots, the agency and other government departments employed Nazi scientists both within and outside the United States to gain an advantage over the Soviets. As summarized by NPR:

The aim [of Operation Paperclip] was to find and preserve German weapons, including biological and chemical agents, but American scientific intelligence officers quickly realized the weapons themselves were not enough.

Wernher von Braun (Source: Wikimedia Commons)

They decided the United States needed to bring the Nazi scientists themselves to the U.S. Thus began a mission to recruit top Nazi doctors, physicists and chemists — including Wernher von Braun, who went on to design the rockets that took man to the moon.

They kept this plot secret, though they admitted to it upon the release of Operation Paperclip: The Secret Intelligence Program That Brought Nazi Scientists To America by Annie Jacobsen. In a book review, the CIA wrote that

“Henry Wallace, former vice president and secretary of commerce, believed the scientists’ ideas could launch new civilian industries and produce jobs.”

They praised the book’s historical accuracy, noting “that the Launch Operations Center at Cape Canaveral, Florida, was headed by Kurt Debus, an ardent Nazi.” They acknowledged that

“General Reinhard Gehlen, former head of Nazi intelligence operations against the Soviets, was hired by the US Army and later by the CIA to operate 600 ex-Nazi agents in the Soviet zone of occupied Germany.”

Remarkably, they noted that Jacobsen “understandably questions the morality of the decision to hire Nazi SS scientists,” but praise her for pointing out that it was done to fight Soviets. They also made sure to add that the Soviets hired Nazis, too, apparently justifying their own questionable actions by citing their most loathed enemy.

3 – Operation CHAOS — The FBI is widely known for its COINTELPRO schemes to undermine communist movements in the 1950s and anti-war, civil rights, and black power movements in the 1960s, but the CIA has not been implicated nearly as deeply because, technically, the CIA cannot legally engage in domestic spying. But that was of little concern to President Lyndon B. Johnson as opposition to the Vietnam war grew. According to former New York Times journalist and Pulitzer Prize-winner Tim Weiner, as documented in his extensive CIA history, Legacy of Ashes, Johnson instructed then-CIA Director Richard Helms to break the law:

Richard Helms (Source: Wikimedia Commons)

In October 1967, a handful of CIA analysts joined in the first big Washington march against the war. The president regarded protesters as enemies of the state. He was convinced that the peace movement was controlled and financed by Moscow and Beijing. He wanted proof. He ordered Richard Helms to produce it.

Helms reminded the president that the CIA was barred from spying on Americans. He says Johnson told him: ‘I’m quite aware of that. What I want for you is to pursue this matter, and to do what is necessary to track down the foreign communists who are behind this intolerable interference in our domestic affairs…’

Helms obeyed. Weiner wrote:

In a blatant violation of his powers under the law, the director of central intelligence became a part-time secret police chief. The CIA undertook a domestic surveillance operation, code-named Chaos. It went on for almost seven years… Eleven CIA officers grew long hair, learned the jargon of the New Left, and went off to infiltrate peace groups in the United States and Europe.

According to Weiner, “the agency compiled a computer index of 300,000 names of American people and organizations, and extensive files on 7,200 citizens. It began working in secret with police departments all over America.” Because they could not draw a “clear distinction” between the new far left and mainstream opposition to the war, the CIA spied on every major peace organization in the country. President Johnson also wanted them to prove a connection between foreign communists and the black power movement. “The agency tried its best,” Weiner noted, ultimately noting that “the CIA never found a shred of evidence that linked the leaders of the American left or the black-power movement to foreign governments.”

4 – Infiltrating the media — Over the years, the CIA has successfully gained influence in the news media, as well as popular media like film and television. Its influence over the news began almost immediately after the agency was formed. As Weiner explained, CIA Director Allen Dulles established firm ties with newspapers:

Dulles kept in close touch with the men who ran the New York Times, The Washington Post, and the nation’s leading weekly magazines. He could pick up the phone and edit a breaking story, make sure an irritating foreign correspondent was yanked from the field, or hire the services of men such as Time’s Berlin bureau chief and Newsweek’s man in Tokyo.

He continued:

It was second nature for Dulles to plant stories in the press. American newsrooms were dominated by veterans of the government’s wartime propaganda branch, the Office of War Information…The men who responded to the CIA’s call included Henry Luce and his editors at Time, Life, and Fortune; popular magazines such as Parade, the Saturday Review, and Reader’s Digest; and the most powerful executives at CBS News. Dulles built a public-relations and propaganda machine that came to include more than fifty news organizations, a dozen publishing houses, and personal pledges of support from men such as Axel Springer, West Germany’s most powerful press baron.

The CIA’s influence had not waned by 1977 when journalist Carl Bernstein reported on publications with CIA agents in their employ, as well as “more than 400 American journalists who in the past twenty‑five years have secretly carried out assignments for the Central Intelligence Agency.”

The CIA has also successfully advised on and influenced numerous television shows, such as Homeland and 24 and films like Zero Dark Thirty and Argo, which push narratives that ultimately favor the agency. According to Tricia Jenkins, author of The CIA in Hollywood: How the Agency Shapes Film & Television, a concerted agency effort began in the 1990s to counteract negative public perceptions of the CIA, but their influence reaches back decades. In the 1950s, filmmakers produced films for the CIA, including the 1954 film adaptation of George Orwell’s Animal Farm.

Researchers Tom Secker and Matthew Alford, whose work has been published in the American Journal of Economics and Sociology, say their recent Freedom of Information Act requests have shown that the CIA — along with the military — have influenced over 1,800 films and television shows, many of which have nothing to do with CIA or military themes.

5 – Drug-induced Mind control – In the 1950s, the CIA began experimenting with drugs to determine whether they might be useful in extracting information. As Smithsonian Magazine has noted of the MKUltra project:

The project, which continued for more than a decade, was originally intended to make sure the United States government kept up with presumed Soviet advances in mind-control technology. It ballooned in scope and its ultimate result, among other things, was illegal drug testing on thousands of Americans.

Further:

The intent of the project was to study ‘the use of biological and chemical materials in altering human behavior,’ according to the official testimony of CIA director Stansfield Turner in 1977. The project was conducted in extreme secrecy, Turner said, because of ethical and legal questions surrounding the program and the negative public response that the CIA anticipated if MKUltra should become public.

Under MKUltra, the CIA gave itself the authority to research how drugs could:’ ‘promote the intoxicating effects of alcohol;’ ‘render the induction of hypnosis easier;’ ‘enhance the ability of individuals to withstand privation, torture and coercion;’ produce amnesia, shock and confusion; and much more. Many of these questions were investigated using unwitting test subjects, like drug-addicted prisoners, marginalized sex workers and terminal cancer patients– ‘people who could not fight back,’ in the words of Sidney Gottlieb, the chemist who introduced LSD to the CIA.

Further, as Weiner noted:

Under its auspices, seven prisoners at a federal penitentiary in Kentucky were kept high on LSD for seventy-seven consecutive days. When the CIA slipped the same drug to an army civilian employee, Frank Olson, he leaped out of the window of a New York Hotel.

Weiner added that senior CIA officers destroyed “almost all of the records” of the programs, but that while the “evidence that remains is fragmentary…it strongly suggests that use of secret prisons for the forcible drug-induced questioning of suspect agents went on throughout the 1950s.”

Project MKULTRA, the CIA’s Program of Research into Behavioral Modification. Joint Hearing before the Select Committee on Intelligence and the Subcommittee on Health and Scientific Research of the Committee on Human Resources, United State Senate, Ninety-Fifth Congress, First Session (Source: Wikimedia Commons)

Years later, the CIA would be accused of distributing crack-cocaine into poor black communities, though this is currently less substantiated and supported mostly by accounts of those who claim to have been involved.

6 – Brutal torture tactics — More recently, the CIA was exposed for sponsoring abusive, disturbing terror tactics against detainees at prisons housing terror suspects. An extensive 2014 Senate report documented agents committing sexual abuse, forcing detainees to stand on broken legs, waterboarding them so severely it sometimes led to convulsions, and imposing forced rectal feeding, to name a few examples. Ultimately, the agency had very little actionable intelligence to show for their torture tactics but lied to suggest they did, according to the torture report. Their torture tactics led the International Criminal Court to suggest the CIA, along with the U.S. armed forces, could be guilty of war crimes for their abuses.

7 – Arming radicals — The CIA has a long habit of arming radical, extremist groups that view the United States as enemies. In 1979, the CIA set out to support Afghan rebels in their bid to defeat the Soviet occupation of the Middle Eastern country. As Weiner wrote, in 1979,

“Prompted by Zbigniew Brzezinski, President Carter signed a covert-action order for the CIA to provide the Afghan rebels with medical aid, money, and propaganda.”

As Weiner detailed later in his book:

The Pakistani intelligence chiefs who doled out the CIA’s guns and money favored the Afghan factions who proved themselves most capable in battle. Those factions also happened to be the most committed Islamists. No one dreamed that the holy warriors could ever turn their jihad against the United States.

Though some speculate the CIA directly armed Osama bin Laden, that is yet to be fully proven or admitted. What is clear is that western media revered him as a valuable fighter against the Soviets, that he arrived to fight in Afghanistan in1980, and that al-Qaeda emerged from the mujahideen, who were beneficiaries of the CIA’s program. Stanford University has noted that Bin Laden and Abdullah Azzam, a prominent Palestinian cleric, “established Al Qaeda from the fighters, financial resources, and training and recruiting structures left over from the anti-Soviet war.” Much of those “structures” were provided by the agency. Intentionally or not, the CIA helped fuel the rise of the terror group.

Weiner noted that as the CIA failed in other countries like Libya, by the late 1980s “Only the mujahideen, the Afghan holy warriors, were drawing blood and scenting victory. The CIA’s Afghan operation was now a $700-million-dollar-a-year-program” and represented 80% of the overseas budget of the clandestine services. “The CIA’s briefing books never answered the question of what would happen when a militant Islamic army defeated the godless invaders of Afghanistan,” though Tom Twetten, “the number two man in the clandestine service in the summer of 1988,” was tasked with figuring out what would happen with the Afghan rebels. “We don’t have any plan,” he concluded.

Apparently failing to learn their lesson, the CIA adopted nearly the exact same policy in Syria decades later, arming what they called “moderate rebels” against the Assad regime. Those groups ultimately aligned with al-Qaeda groups. One CIA-backed faction made headlines last year for beheading a child (though President Trump cut off the CIA program in June, the military continues to align with “moderate” groups).

Unsurprisingly, this list is far from complete. The CIA has engaged in a wide variety of extrajudicial practice, and there are likely countless transgressions we have yet to learn about.

As Donald Trump cheers the birthday of an agency he himself once criticized, it should be abundantly clear that the nation’s covert spy agency deserves scrutiny and skepticism — not celebration.

Featured image is from the author.

Once upon a time, the U.S. dollar was backed by the gold standard in a framework that established what was known as the Bretton-Woods agreement, made in 1944. The dollar was fixed to gold at a price of $35 an ounce, though the dollar could earn interest, marking one notable difference from gold.

The system ended up being short-lived, as President Richard Nixon announced that the U.S. would be abandoning the gold standard in 1971. Instead, the U.S. had other plans for the future of global markets.

As the Huffington Post has explained, the Nixon Administration reached a deal with Saudi Arabia:

“The essence of the deal was that the U.S. would agree to military sales and defense of Saudi Arabia in return for all oil trade being denominated in U.S. dollars.”

This system became known as the Petrodollar Recycling system because countries like Saudi Arabia would have to invest excess profits back into the U.S. It didn’t take long for every single member of OPEC to start trading oil in U.S. dollars.

A little-known economic theory, rejected by the mainstream, stipulates that Washington’s stranglehold over financial markets can be at least partially explained by the fact that all oil exports are conducted in transactions involving the U.S. dollar. This relationship between oil and currency arguably gives the dollar its value, as this paradigm requires all exporting and importing countries to maintain a certain stock of U.S. dollars, adding to the dollar’s value. As Foreign Policy – a magazine that rejects the theory – explains:

“It does matter slightly that the trade typically takes place in dollars. This means that those wishing to buy oil must acquire dollars to buy the oil, which increases the demand for dollars in world financial markets.”

The term “those wishing to buy oil” encompasses almost every single country that does not have an oil supply of its own – hardly a trivial number. An endless demand for dollars means an endless supply, and the United States can print as much paper as it wants to account for its imperial ambitions. No other country in the world can do this.

In 2000, Iraq announced it would no longer use U.S. dollars to sell oil on the global market. It adopted the euro, instead, which was no easy decision to make. However, by February 2003, the Guardian reported that Iraq had netted a “handsome profit” after making this policy change. Anyone who rejects this petrodollar theory should be able to answer the following question: if currency is not an important factor in America’s imperialist adventures, why was the U.S. so intent on invading a country (based on cold, hard lies), only to make it a priority to switch the sale of oil back to dollars? If they cared so much about Iraq and its people, as we were supposed to have believed, why not allow Iraq to continue netting a “handsome profit”?

In Libya, Muammar Gaddafi was punished for a similar proposal that would have created a unified African currency backed by gold, which would have been used to buy and sell African oil. Hillary Clinton’s leaked emails confirmed this was the main reason Gaddafi was overthrown, though commentators continue to ignore and reject the theory. Despite these denials, Clinton’s leaked emails made it clear that Gaddafi’s plan for the future of African oil exports was a priority for the U.S. and its NATO cohorts, more so than Gaddafi’s alleged human rights abuses. This is the same Hillary Clinton who openly laughed when Gaddafi was sodomized and murdered, displaying no regrets that she single-handedly plunged a very rich and prosperous nation into a complete state of chaos.

At the start of this month, Venezuela announced it would soon “free” itself from the dollar. Barely a week or so later, the Wall Street Journal reported that Venezuela had stopped accepting dollars for oil payments in response to U.S. sanctions. Venezuela sits on the world’s largest oil reserves. Donald Trump’s threats of unilateral military intervention — combined with the CIA’s admission that it will interfere in the oil-rich country — may make a lot more sense in this context.

Iran has also been using alternative currencies  — like the Chinese yuan — for some time now. It also shares a lucrative gas field with Qatar, which could be days away from ditching the dollar, as well. Qatar has reportedly already been conducting billions of dollars’ worth of transactions in the yuan. Just recently, Qatar and Iran restored full diplomatic relations in a complete snub to the U.S. and its allies. It is no surprise, then, that both countries have been vilified on the international stage, particularly under the Trump administration.

In the latest dig to the U.S. dollar and global financial hegemony, the Times of Israel reported that a Chinese state-owned investment firm has provided a $10 billion credit line to Iranian banks, which will specifically use yuan and euros to bypass U.S.-led sanctions.

Consider that in August 2015, then-Secretary of State John Kerry warned that if the U.S. walked away from the nuclear deal with Iran and forced its allies to comply with U.S.-led sanctions, it would be a “recipe, very quickly…for the American dollar to cease to be the reserve currency of the world.”

Iran, bound to Syria by a mutual-defense pact, was reportedly working to establish a natural gas pipeline that would run through Iraq and Syria with the aim of exporting gas to European markets, cutting off Washington and its allies completely. This was, of course, in 2009 — before the Syrian war began. Such a pipeline deal, now with Russia’s continued air support and military presence, could entail the emergence of a whole new market that could easily be linked to the euro, or any other currency for that matter, instead of the dollar.

According to Russian state-owned outlet RT, the Kremlin’s website announced Tuesday that Russian President Vladimir Putin has also instructed the government to approve legislation to ditch the U.S. dollar at all Russian seaports by next year.

Further, the Asia Times explains that Putin dropped an enormous “bombshell” at the recent BRICS summit in Xiamen early September, stating:

“Russia shares the BRICS countries’ concerns over the unfairness of the global financial and economic architecture, which does not give due regard to the growing weight of the emerging economies. We are ready to work together with our partners to promote international financial regulation reforms and to overcome the excessive domination of the limited number of reserve currencies.” [emphasis added]

According to the Asia Times author, the statement was code-speak for how BRICS countries will look to bypass the U.S. dollar as well as the petrodollar.

China is also on board with this proposal. Soon, China will launch a crude oil futures contract priced in Chinese yuan that will be completely convertible into gold. As reported by the Nikkei Asian Review, analysts have called this move a “game-changer” for the oil industry.

Both Russia and China have been buying up huge quantities of gold for some time now. Russia’s present gold reserves would back 27 percent of the narrow ruble money supply – far in excess of any other major country. The United States’ Federal Reserve admitted years ago that they haven’t held any gold for a very long time.

China is also implementing a monumental project, known as the Silk Road project, which is a major push to create a permanent trade route connecting China, Africa, and Europe. One must wonder much control over these transactions will the U.S. have.

These are just a few of the latest developments that have affected the dollar.

Can those continue to reject this petrodollar-related theory answer the following questions with confidence: Is it a coincidence that all of the countries listed above as moving away from the dollar are long-time adversaries of the United States, including the ones that were invaded? Is it a coincidence that Saudi Arabia gets a free pass to commit a host of criminal actions as it complies with the global financial order? Are Saudi Arabia’s concerns with Qatar really rooted in the latter’s alleged funding of terror groups even though Saudi Arabia leads the world in funding the world’s most vile terror groups?

Clearly, there is something far more sinister at play here, and whether or not it is tied solely to a deranged, psychopathic currency warfare will remain to be seen. The evidence continues to show, however, that the U.S. dollar is slowly being eroded piece by piece and ounce by ounce — and that as these adversarial countries make these developments in unison, there appears to be little the U.S. can do without risking an all-out world war.

Featured image is from the author.

Donald Trump‘s appearance before the General Assembly of the United Nations could have been a rare highlight of his chaotic young presidency. If Trump had just repeated his inauguration address, the audience would have burst out in gales of laughter. Instead, they countered his bluster not only against North Korea and Iran but also against the UN body as a whole with broad silence. Trump tried to be serious, but instead, he presented himself as the most dangerous President ever in US history.[1]  He went after the North Korean regime as the devil himself would run it. The Iranian government followed suit. In the bashing and demonization of other governments, the US has always been top. That America comes “first” and that his administration has been successful were among his nicest bravados.

Trump spoke exactly the truth about his nation.

“Rogue regimes represented in this body not only support terrorists but threaten other nations and their people with the most destructive weapons known to humanity.”

Don’t the US support terrorist regimes such as the Saudi and the Israeli ones, which threatens other nations and peoples with annihilation and spread terrorism in the region and in the Saudi case worldwide? Haven’t the US caused havoc to Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, and Yemen?

If the North Korean leader is smart, which he is, he should speed up its nuclear program to defend his country and his people’ safety against the “Rocket Man” in Washington. Kim Jong-un doesn’t threaten the US with annihilation; it’s the other way around. Indeed, Trump was right in saying that every nation should “uphold these two core sovereign duties: to respect the interests of their people and the rights of every other sovereign nation.” Sovereignty and independence from the US are what the North Korean and the Iranian governments are pursuing. In this respect, they are all with Trump. The US President repeatedly stressed sovereignty, while repudiating global government the UN symbolizes and the EU wants so desperately.

Trump’s praise of the US constitution and all the US niceties as the outmost mankind could achieve. And “a small group of rogue regimes that violate every principle on which the United Nations is based.” Trump must have forgotten how the Bush/Cheney regime disdained the UN and trampled around the values of this organization. The George W. Bush regime violated every international law. How come that a nation that out of its 241 years of existence was 220 years at war? Why do the US need 900 military basis around the world? Are they for spreading peace and democracy or conquest?

Trump used fierce language against North Korea. He castigated the regime that threatens the entire world with its nuclear weapons. In fact, the North Korean leader doesn’t threaten the world with annihilation like Trump did in his speech. The country just wants to be respected and recognized as a nuclear power such as Israel, which is a nuclear power but  the major powers don’t waste any words on it.

“The United States has high strength and patience, but if it is forced to defend itself or its allies, we will have no choice but to destroy North Korea utterly. Rocket Man is on a suicide mission for himself and his regime. The United States is ready, willing and able, but hopefully, this will not be necessary.”

Trump is the one who uses inflammatory language such as “Rocket Man” or “fire and fury” that will rain down on North Korea. Instead of threatening the Kim regime, the US together with Russia, China, Japan and South Korea should embark on diplomacy rather than saber-rattling.

The other country, Trump singled out to slander is Iran. The crazy stuff he said about this country was probably written down by Benjamin Netanyahu and his war-hawkish Ziocon friends in the US. Netanyahu has been preaching these irrational things since the 1990s. What Trump unfolded before the audience was a cartoon and had little to do with Iran’s reality.

Trump called Iran a “rogue state and a murderous regime” that uses its wealth and resources “to fund Hezbollah and other terrorists that kill innocent Muslims and attack their peaceful Arab and Israeli neighbors.” As Trump sees it, Iran apparently “shores up Bashar al-Assad‘s dictatorship, fuel Yemen’s civil war, and undermine peace throughout the entire Middle East.” Hasn’t President Obama together with the Saudi dictatorship and some other Arab states financed and trained the terrorist organizations in Syria to topple Assad? Doesn’t the Trump regime support the genocide Saudi Arabia is committing in Yemen by providing weaponry and other logistical support? What about the terror inflicted upon the Palestinian people by the Israeli occupation regime?

“The Iran Deal was one of the worst and most one-sided transactions the United States has ever entered into. Frankly, that deal is an embarrassment to the United States, and I don’t think you’ve heard the last of it – believe me.”

What Netanyahu didn’t get from Obama, President Trump will deliver. To start a war against Iran for the sake of an occupying power and a racist regime is irresponsible. Trump seems to sacrifice American soldiers for the oppressive Zionist regime.

Trump also went after what he sees as “radical Islamic terrorism.” The embodiment is supposed to be Iran. But the largest supporter of worldwide “radical Islamic terrorism” is Saudi Arabia, Qatar and other rogue states in the region. In contrast, Iran is fighting together with Russia and the Syrian government this Sunni brand of terrorism, which the US created through its wars against Muslim countries in the first place.

Trump’s bluster on North Korea seems not the greatest problem but Iran. What he insinuated was regime change, for which the Zionist regime has long been calling. Trump and his UN ambassador Nikki Haley have been undermining the nuclear deal with Iran, although the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna has been testifying that Iran is meticulously complying with every iota of the agreement. The IAEA publishes the next report mid-October. If Trump decides, or Netanyahu tells him, to walk off the deal, the reputation of the US as a reliable contracting party is gone. The word of the US government wouldn’t be worth a damn.

The “Axis of Evil”, the US, Saudi Arabia, and Israel, are working together to undermine or even attack Iran. For them, the so-called Iranian nuclear threat is more imminent because Israel wants total hegemony over the Middle East. Iran is the last obstacle on their way to dominance. That Israel with its fast nuclear arsenal is the real threat for the region is ignored. It’s government refuse any inspections of its nuclear facilities. Trump avoided the elephant in the room, instead he demonized Iran who is a stabilizing force in the region unlike Israel.

Instead of tackling the real problems, Trump embarked on a dangerous path that could lead to war.

Note

[1] https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2017/09/19/remarks-president-trump-72nd-session-united-nations-general-assembly

As Donald Trump takes to the U.N. General Assembly to demonize Iran yet again, the Trump administration is also considering a more aggressive strategy towards Iran behind closed doors, sources have told Reuters.

According to six current and former U.S. officials, the U.S. will be looking at more hostile responses to Iran’s forces, its proxy armies in Iraq and Syria, and its support for militant groups.

According to the sources, the current proposal was drafted by Defense Secretary Jim “Mad Dog” Mattis, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, national security advisor General H.R. McMaster, and several other top officials before it was presented to President Trump at a National Security Council meeting on September 9.

The proposal will ultimately be made public before the end of September, two of the sources said. The sources requested anonymity because the draft proposal had not yet been finalized.

“I would call it a broad strategy for the range of Iranian malign activities: financial materials, support for terror, destabilization in the region, especially Syria and Iraq and Yemen,” said a senior administration official, as quoted by Reuters.

Without giving specific details, sources said the current draft proposal seeks to do the following:

(1) target cyber espionage and nuclear proliferation;

(2) provide for more aggressive U.S. interceptions of Iranian arms shipments heading to places such as Yemen and Gaza (even though U.N. experts confirmed earlier this year that they could find no evidence of a large-scale Iranian weapons supply line to Yemen);

(3) react more aggressively in Bahrain (presumably, to prop up the government in the face of Shia-led unrest) as the country’s Sunni Muslim monarchy has been suppressing its majority Shia population, a move that continues to anger Iran; and most importantly

(4) allow U.S. naval forces to react more forcefully when harassed by armed speedboats operated by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).

Funnily enough, many of the encounters taking place between U.S. ships and Iranian ships are arguably within Iranian waters. Who is harassing who, exactly?

According to Reuters’ sources, this proposal will not include an escalation of U.S. military activity in Syria and Iraq. However, anyone who has been paying close attention to the current conflict in Syria and Iraq knows the U.S. will have to take concrete military action if it intends to meaningfully oppose Iranian-backed forces in the two countries. Despite this, Reuters’ sources said Mattis and McMaster have not allowed U.S. military generals on the ground to act forcefully against the Iranian-allied militia inside Syria, including Hezbollah and the IRGC.

According to Reuters, one of the officials even said Iranian-backed groups had been “very helpful” in recapturing territories from ISIS since it declared its caliphate in 2014.

In that context, does the Trump administration’s distaste for Iran make any sense, given Iran is enemy number one for ISIS and its proxies are some of the most effective fighting forces against the terror group?

Regarding the fate of the nuclear accord signed in 2015, Donald Trump recently said:

“You’ll see what I’m going to be doing very shortly in October…But I will say this, the Iran deal is one of the worst deals I’ve ever seen, certainly at a minimum, the spirit of the deal is just atrociously kept. But the Iran deal is not a fair deal to this country. It’s a deal that should have never ever been made. And you’ll see what we’re doing in a couple of weeks.”

Highlights

“The United States has great strength and patience, but if it is forced to defend itself or its allies, we will have no choice but to totally destroy North Korea,” Trump told the meeting. “Rocket Man is on a suicide mission for himself and for his regime. The United States is ready, willing and able…”

Trump asserted,

“People are hurting and angry,” he warned. “They see insecurity rising, inequality growing, conflict spreading and climate changing.” He added that “global anxieties about nuclear weapons are at the highest level since the end of the Cold War.”

And he noted,

“We do not expect diverse countries to share the same cultures, traditions, or even systems of government. But we do expect all nations to uphold these two core sovereign duties: to respect the interests of their own people and the rights of every other sovereign nation.”

Below is the full transcript of President Donald Trump’s speech to the UN General Assembly on September 19.

Mr. Secretary General, Mr. President, world leaders, and distinguished delegates, welcome to New York. It is a profound honor to stand here in my home city as a representative of the American people to address the people of the world. As millions of our citizens continue to suffer the effects of the devastating hurricanes that have struck our country, I want to express my appreciation to every leader in this room who has offered assistance and aid.

The American people are strong and resilient, and they will emerge from these hardships more determined than ever before. Fortunately, the United States has done very well since election day last November 8. The stock market is at an all-time high, a record. Unemployment is its lowest level in 16 year. And because of our regulatory and other reforms, we have more people working in the United States today than ever before. Companies are moving back, creating job growth the likes of which our country has not seen in a very long time, and it has just been announced that we will be spending almost 700 billion dollars on our military and defense. Our military will soon be the strongest it has ever been.

For more than 70 years, in times of war and peace, the leaders of nations, movements and religions have stood before this assembly. Like them, I intend to address some of the very serious threats before us today, but also the enormous potential waiting to be unleashed. We live in a time of extraordinary opportunity. Breakthroughs in science, technology and medicine are curing illnesses and solving problems that prior generations thought impossible to solve. But each day also brings news of growing dangers that threaten everything we cherish and value. Terrorists and extremists have gathered strength and spread to every region of the planet. Rogue regimes represented in this body, not only support terrorists, but threaten other nations and their own people with the most destructive weapons known to humanity.

Authority and authoritarian powers seek to collapse the values, the systems and alliances that prevented conflicted and tilted the world toward freedom since World War II. International criminal networks traffic drugs, weapons, people, force dislocation and mass migration, threaten our borders and new forms of aggression exploit technology to menace our citizens. To put it simply, we meet at a time of both immense promise and great peril.

It is entirely up to us whether we lift the world to new heights or let it fall into a valley of disrepair.

We have it in our power, should we so choice, to lift millions from poverty, to help our citizens realize their dreams and to ensure that new generations of children are raised free from violence, hatred and fear. This institution was founded in the aftermath of two world wars to help shape this better future. It was based on the vision that diverse nations could cooperate to protect their sovereignty, preserve their security and promote their prosperity. It was in the same period exactly 70 years ago that the United States developed the Marshall Plan to help restore Europe. Those three beautiful pillars: they’re pillars of peace, sovereignty, security and prosperity. The Marshall Plan was built on the noble idea that the whole world is safer when nations are strong, independent and free. As President Truman said in his message to Congress at that time, our support of European recovery is in full accord with our support of the United Nations. The success of the United Nations depends on the independent strength of its members who overcome the perils of the present, and to achieve the promise of the future, we must begin with the wisdom of the past. Our success depends on a coalition of strong and independent nations that embrace their sovereignty to promote security, prosperity and peace for themselves and for the world.

We do not expect diverse countries to share the same cultures, traditions or even systems of government, but we do expect all nations to uphold these two core sovereign duties: to respect the interests of their own people and the rights of every other sovereign nation. This is the beautiful vision of this institution. And this is the foundation for cooperation and success. Strong, sovereign nations let diverse countries with different values, different cultures and different dreams not just coexist, but work side by side on the basis of mutual respect.

Strong sovereign nations let their people take ownership of the future and control their own destiny. And strong, sovereign nations allow individuals to flourish in the fullness of the life intended by God.

In America, we do not seek to impose our way of life on anyone, but rather to let it shine as an example for everyone to watch. This week gives our country a special reason to take pride in that example. We are celebrating the 230th anniversary of our beloved constitution, the oldest constitution still in use in the world today. This timeless document has been the foundation of peace, prosperity and freedom for the Americans and for countless millions around the globe whose countries have found inspiration in its respect for human nature, human dignity and the rule of law. The greatest in the United States constitution is its first three, beautiful words. They are: “We the People.” Generations of Americans have sacrificed to maintain the promise of those words, the promise of our country and of our great history.

In America, the people govern. The people rule. And the people are sovereign. I was elected not to take power, but to give power to the American people, where it belongs. In foreign affairs, we are renewing this founding principle of sovereignty. Our government’s first duty is to its people. To our citizens. To serve their needs, to ensure their safety, to preserve their rights, and to defend their values.

As President of the United States, I will always put America first. Just like you, as the leaders of your countries, will always, and should always, put your countries first.

(Applause)

All responsible leaders have an obligation to serve their own citizens, and the nation-state remains the best vehicle for elevating the human condition. But make it a better life for our people also requires us to work together in close harmony and unity to create a more safe and peaceful future for all people. The United States will forever be a great friend to the world, and especially to its allies, but we can no longer be taken advantage of or enter into a one-sided deal where the United States gets nothing in return.

As long as I hold this office, I will defend America’s interests above all else, but in fulfilling our obligations to our own nations, we also realize that it’s in everyone’s interests to seek a future where all nations can be sovereign, prosperous and secure.

America does more than speak for the values expressed in the United Nations charter. Our citizens have paid the ultimate price to defend our freedom and the freedom of many nations represented in this great hall. America’s devotion is measured on the battlefields where our young men and women have fought and sacrificed alongside of our allies. From the beaches of Europe to the deserts of the Middle East to the jungles of Asia. It is an eternal credit to the American character that even after we and our allies emerge victorious from the bloodiest war in history, we did not seek territorial expansion or attempt to oppose and impose our way of life on others. Instead, we helped build institutions, such as this one, to defend the sovereignty, security and prosperity for all.

For the diverse nations of the world, this is our hope. We want harmony and friendship, not conflict and strife. We are guided by outcomes, not ideology. We have a policy of principled realism, rooted in shared goals, interests and values. That realism forces us to confront a question facing every leader and nation in this room: It is a question we cannot escape or avoid. We will slide down the path of complacency, numb to the challenges, threats and even wars that we face. Or, do we have enough strength and pride to confront those dangers today so that our citizens can enjoy peace and prosperity tomorrow?

If we desire to lift up our citizens, if we aspire to the approval of history, then we must fulfil our sovereign duties to the people we faithfully represent. We must protect our nations, their interests, and their futures. We must reject threats to sovereignty from the Ukraine to the South China Sea. We must uphold respect for law, respect for borders and respect for culture, and the peaceful engagement these allow.

And just as the founders of this body intended, we must work together and confront together those who threaten us with chaos, turmoil and terror.

The scourge of our planet today is a small group of rogue regimes that violate every principal on which the United Nations is based. They respect neither their own citizens nor the sovereign rights of their countries. If the righteous many do not confront the wicked few, then evil will triumph. When decent people and nations become bystanders to history, the forces of destruction only gather power and strength. No one has shown more contempt for other nations and for the well-being of their own people than the depraved regime in North Korea. It is responsible for the starvation deaths of millions of North Koreans, and for the imprisonment, torture, killing and oppression of countless more.

We were all witness to the regime’s deadly abuse when an innocent American college student, (Otto) Warmbier only to die a few days later. We saw it in the assassination of the dictator’s brother, using banned nerve agents in an international airport. We know they kidnapped a sweet 13-year-old Japanese girl from a beach in her own country to enslave her as a language tutor for North Korea’s spies.

If this is not twisted enough, now North Korea’s reckless pursuit of nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles threatens the entire world with unthinkable loss of human life. It is an outrage that some nations would not only trade with such a regime, but would arm, supply and financially support a country that imperils the world with nuclear conflict.

No nation on earth has an interest in seeing this band of criminals arm itself with nuclear weapons and missiles. The United States has great strength and patience, but if it is forced to defend itself or its allies, we will have no choice but to totally destroy North Korea.

Rocket Man is on a suicide mission for himself and for his regime. The United States is ready, willing and able, but hopefully this will not be necessary. That’s what the United Nations is all about. That’s what the United Nations is for. Let’s see how they do.

It is time for North Korea to realize that the denuclearization is its only acceptable future. The United Nations Security Council recently held two unanimous, 15 to nothing votes adopting hard-hitting resolutions against North Korea, and I want to thank China and Russia for joining the vote to impose sanctions, along with all of the other members of the Security Council. Thank you to all involved, but we must do much more.

It is time for all nations to work together to isolate the Kim regime until it ceases its hostile behavior. We face this decision not only in North Korea. It is far past time for the nations of the world to confront another reckless regime. One that speaks openly of mass murder, vowing death to America, destruction to Israel and ruin for many leaders and nations in this room. The Iranian government masks a corrupt dictatorship behind the false guise of a democracy. It has turned a wealthy country with a rich history and culture into an economically depleted rogue state whose chief exports are violence, bloodshed and chaos. The longest-suffering victims of Iran’s leaders are in fact its own people.

Rather than use its resources to improve Iranian lives, its oil profits go to fund Hezbollah and other terrorists that kill innocent Muslims and attack their peaceful Arab and Israeli neighbors. This wealth, which rightly belongs to Iran’s people, also goes to shore up Bashar al-Assad’s dictatorship, fuel Yemen’s civil war and undermine peace throughout the entire Middle East.

We cannot let a murderous regime continue these destabilizing activities while building dangerous missiles, and we cannot abide by an agreement if it provides cover for the eventual construction of a nuclear program.

(Applause)

The Iran deal was one of the worst and most one-sided transactions the United States has ever entered into. Frankly, that deal is an embarrassment to the United States, and I don’t think you’ve heard the last of it, believe me.

It is time for the entire world to join us in demanding that Iran’s government end its pursuit of death of destruction. It is time for the regime to free all Americans and citizens of other nations that they have unjustly detained, and above all, Iran’s government must stop supporting terrorists, begin serving its own people and respect the sovereign rights of its own neighbors.

The entire world understands that the good people of Iran want change, and other than the vast military power of the United States, that Iran’s people are what their leaders fear the most.

This is what causes the regime to restrict internet access, tear down satellite dishes, shoot unarmed student protesters and imprison political reformers. Oppressive regimes cannot endure forever, and the day will come when the people will face a choice. Will they continue down the path of poverty, bloodshed and terror, or will the Iranian people return to the nation’s proud roots as a center of civilization, culture and wealth where their people can be happy and prosperous once again?

The Iranian regime’s support for terror is in stark contrast to the recent commitments of many of its neighbors to fight terrorism and halt its financing. In Saudi Arabia early last year, I was greatly honored to address the leaders of more than 50 Arab and Muslim nations. We agreed that all responsible nations must work together to confront terrorists and the Islamic extremism that inspires them. We will stop radical Islamic terrorism because we cannot allow it to tear up our nation and indeed to tear up the entire world.

We must deny the terrorists safe haven, transit, funding and any form of support for their vile and sinister ideology. We must drive them out of our nations. It is time to expose and hold responsible those countries whose support and finance carry groups like Al Qaida, Hezbollah and the Taliban and others that slaughter innocent people.

The United States and our allies are working together throughout the Middle East to crush the loser terrorists and stop the re-emergence of safe havens they use to launch attacks on all of our people. Last month, I announced a new strategy for victory in the fight against this evil in Afghanistan. From now on, our security interests will dictate the length and scope of military operations, not arbitrary benchmarks and timetables set up by politicians.

I have also totally changed the rules of engagement in our fight against the Taliban and other terrorist groups.

In Syria and Iraq, we have made big gains toward lasting defeat of ISIS. In fact, our country has achieved more against ISIS in the last eight months than it has in many, many years combined. We seek the de-escalation of the Syrian conflict and a political solution that honors the will of the Syrian people. The actions of the criminal regime of Bashar al-Assad, including the use of chemical weapons against its own citizens, even innocent children, shock the conscience of every decent person.

No society can be safe if banned chemical weapons are allowed to spread. That is why the United States carried out a missile strike on the air base that launched the attack. We appreciate the efforts of the United Nations agencies that are providing vital humanitarian assistance in areas liberated from ISIS, and we especially thank Jordan, Turkey and Lebanon for their role in hosting refugees from the Syrian conflict.

The United States is a compassionate nation and has spent billions and billions of dollars in helping to support this effort. We seek an approach to refugee resettlement that is designed to help these horribly treated people and which enables their eventual return to their home countries, to be part of the rebuilding process.

For the cost of resettling one refugee in the United States, we can assist more than 10 in their home region. Out of the goodness of our hearts, we offer financial assistance to hosting countries in the region, and we support recent agreements of the G20 nations that will seek to host refugees as close to their home countries as possible.

This is the safe, responsible and humanitarian approach. For decades, the United States has dealt with migration challenges, here in the western hemisphere. We have learned that over the long term, uncontrolled migration is deeply unfair to both the sending and receiving countries. For the sending countries, it reduces domestic pressure to pursue needed political and economic reform and drains them of the human capital necessary to motivate and implement those reforms. For the receiving countries, the substantial costs of uncontrolled migration are borne overwhelmingly by low-income citizens whose concerns are often ignored by both media and government.

I want to salute the work of the United Nations in seeking to address the problems that cause people to flee from their homes. The United Nations and African Union led peacekeeping missions to have invaluable contributions in stabilizing conflicts in Africa. The United States continues to lead the world in humanitarian assistance, including famine prevention and relief in south Sudan, Somalia and northern Nigeria and Yemen. We have invested in better health opportunity all over the world through programs like PEPFAR, which funds AIDS relief, the President’s Malaria Initiative, the Global Health Security Agenda, the Global Fund to End Modern Slavery, and the Women Entrepreneurs Finance Initiative, part of our commitment to empowering women all across the globe.

We also thank the secretary-general for recognizing that the United Nations must reform if it is to be an effective partner in confronting threats to sovereignty, security and prosperity. Too often, the focus of this organization has not been on results, but on bureaucracy and process. In some cases, states that seek to subvert this institution’s noble aims have hijacked the very systems that are supposed to advance them.

For example, it is a massive source of embarrassment to the United Nations that some governments with egregious human rights records sit on the UN Human Rights Council. The United States is one out of 193 countries in the United Nations, and yet we pay 22 percent of the entire budget and more. In fact, we pay far more than anybody realizes. The United States bears an unfair cost burden, but, to be fair, if it could actually accomplish all of its stated goals, especially the goal of peace, this investment would easily be well worth it.

Major portions of the world are in conflict, and some in fact are going to hell, but the powerful people in this room, under the guidance and auspices of the United Nations, can solve many of these vicious and complex problems. The American people hope that one day soon, the United Nations can be a much more accountable and effective advocate for human dignity and freedom around the world. In the meantime, we believe that no nation should have to bear a disproportionate share of the burden, militarily or financially.

Nations of the world must take a greater role in supporting secure and prosperous societies in their own regions. That is why in the Western hemisphere, the United States has stood against the corrupt, destabilizing regime in Cuba and embraced the enduring dream of the Cuban people to live in freedom.

My administration recently announced that we will not lift sanctions on the Cuban government until it makes fundamental reforms. We have also imposed tough, calibrated sanctions on the socialist Maduro regime in Venezuela, which has brought a once thriving nation to the brink of total collapse.

The socialist dictatorship of Nicolas Maduro has inflicted terrible pain and suffering on the good people of that country. This corrupt regime destroyed a prosperous nation by imposing a failed ideology that has produced poverty and misery everywhere it has been tried. To make matters worse, Maduro has defied his own people, stealing power from their elected representatives to preserve his disastrous rule.

The Venezuelan people are starving, and their country is collapsing. Their democratic institutions are being destroyed. This situation is completely unacceptable, and we cannot stand by and watch. As a responsible neighbor and friend, we and all others have a goal. That goal is to help them regain their freedom, recover their country and restore their democracy.

I would like to thank leaders in this room for condemning the regime and providing vital support to the Venezuelan people. The United States has taken important steps to hold the regime accountable. We are prepared to take further action if the government of Venezuela persists on its path to impose authoritarian rule on the Venezuelan people. We are fortunate enough to have incredibly strong and healthy trade relationships with many of the Latin American countries gathered here today. Our economic bond forms a critical foundation for advancing peace and prosperity for all of our people and all of our neighbors.

I ask every country represented here today to be prepared to do more to address this very real crisis. We call for the full restoration of democracy and political freedoms in Venezuela.

(Applause)

The problem in Venezuela is not that socialism has been poorly implemented, but that socialism has been faithfully implemented.

(Scattered applause)

From the Soviet Union to Cuba to Venezuela, wherever true socialism or communism has been adopted, it has delivered anguish and devastation and failure. Those who preach the tenets of these discredited ideologies only contribute to the continued suffering of the people who live under these cruel systems. America stands with every person living under a brutal regime. Our respect for sovereignty is also a call for action. All people deserve a government that cares for their safety, their interests and their wellbeing, including their prosperity.

In America, we seek stronger ties of business and trade with all nations of goodwill, but this trade must be fair, and it must be reciprocal. For too long, the American people were told that mammoth, multinational trade deals, unaccountable international tribunals and powerful global bureaucracies were the best way to promote their success. But as those promises flowed, millions of jobs vanished, and thousands of factories disappeared. Others gamed the system and broke the rules. And our great middle class, once the bedrock of American prosperity, was forgotten and left behind. But they are forgotten no more, and they will never be forgotten again.

While American will pursue cooperation and commerce with other nations, we are renewing our commitment to the first duty of every government, the duty of our citizens. This bond is the source of America’s strength and that of every responsible nation represented here today.

If this organization is to have any hope of successfully confronting the challenges before us, it will depend, as President Truman said, some 70 years ago, on the independent strength of its members. If we are to embrace the opportunities of the future and overcome the present dangers, together there can be no substitute for strong, sovereign and independent nations. Nations that are rooted in their histories and invested in their destinies. Nations that seek allies to befriend, not enemies to conquer. And most important of all, nations that are home to patriots, to men and women who are willing to sacrifice for their countries, their fellow citizens and for all that is best in the human spirit. In remembering the great victory that led to this body’s founding, we must never forget that those heroes who fought against evil also fought for the nations that they loved. Patriotism led the Poles to die to save Poland, the French to fight for a free France and the Brits to stand strong for Britain. Today, if we do not invest ourselves, our hearts and our minds in our nations, if we will not build strong families, safe communities and healthy societies for ourselves, nobody can do it for us. We cannot wait for someone else, for faraway countries or far-off bureaucracies. We can’t do it. We must solve our problems to build our prosperity, to secure our future, or we will be vulnerable to decay, domination and defeat.

The true question for the United Nations today, for people all over the world who hope for better lives for themselves and their children, is a basic one: Are we still patriots? Do we love our nations enough to protect their sovereignty and to take ownership of their futures? Do we revere them enough to defend their interests, preserve their cultures and ensure a peaceful world for their citizens?

One of the greatest American patriots, John Adams, wrote that the American Revolution was affected before the war commenced. The revolution was in the minds and hearts of the people. That was the moment when America awoke, when we looked around and understood that we were a nation. We realized who we were, what we valued, and what we would give our lives to defend.

From its very first moments, the American story is the story of what is possible when people take ownership of their future. The United States of America has been among the greatest forces for good in the history of the world and the greatest defenders of sovereignty, security and prosperity for all. Now we are calling for a great reawakening of nations. For the revival of their spirits, their pride, their people and their patriotism. History is asking us whether we are up to the task. Our answer will be a renewal of will, a rediscovery of resolve, and a rebirth of devotion. We need to defeat the enemies of humanity and unlock the potential of life itself. Our hope is a word and world of proud, independent nations that embrace their duties, seek friendship, respect others and make common cause in the greatest shared interest of all. A future of dignity and peace for the people of this wonderful Earth. This is the true vision of the United Nations. The ancient wish of every people, and the deepest yearning that lives inside every sacred soul. So let this be our mission, and let this be our message to the world: We will fight together, sacrifice together and stand together for peace, for freedom, for justice, for family, for humanity and for the Almighty God who made us all. Thank you, God bless you. God bless the nations of the world, and God bless the United States of America. Thank you very much.

The official U.N. transcript of U.S. President Trump’s address to the U.N.

China is scheduled to address the UN General Assembly on the 21st of September, the same day as Russia, but prior to the speech, it already became clear that China was not about to take heed of Donald Trump’s attempts to isolate Venezuela.

China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi held a meeting with his Venezuelan counterpart Jorge Arreaza after which China declared its everlasting friendship towards Venezuela.

Wang further stated,

“China’s policy towards Venezuela will not change”.

He added,

“China has always upheld the principle of non-interference in the internal affairs of other countries, and believes Venezuela’s government and people have the ability to resolve problems via talks within a legal framework and protect national stability.

The international community should take a fair and objective stance and play a constructive role”.

China and Russia which both maintain good ties with Venezuela previously condemned Donald Trump’s threatening remarks towards Caracas, including his previous threats to invade the country.

In spite of Donald Trump’s pedigree as a businessman, it is China which has been discussing multiple economic deals behind the scenes at the UN including with countries as diverse as Russia, Singapore, Venezuela and Australia, among others.

During his criticism of Venezuela, Donald Trump remarked that Venezuela has ‘failed because of its adherence to socialist governance. China which maintains a socialist government and is set to overtake the US as the world’s largest economy, was clearly bemused by such remarks.

China’s pragmatic, business minded approach to foreign relations as well as its vocal commitment to respect the internal politics of all nations, is the real“pragmatic realism” on display at the UN. Trump may have coined the phrase “pragmatic realism” but his threats to multiple nations from the podium at the General Assembly, reveal a far more ideological and extra-legal agenda.

Featured image is from the author.

President Trump announced that the nonexistent country of “Nambia” has an increasingly self-sufficient health-care system during a United Nations lunch with African leaders on Wednesday:

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Namibia? Zambia? Well, someone's health system is increasingly self-sufficient.

— David Mack (@davidmackau) September 20, 2017

Chronicles of Nambia.

— Rich (@RICHXHELL) September 20, 2017

Ah, Nambia. A beautiful country that borders the equally enchanting Zamunda.

— Mariam Hosseini (@yogurtsoda) September 20, 2017

So far, Trump appears to have failed to impress African leaders — a photo of the Zimbabwean delegation listening to Trump’s U.N. speech on Tuesday went viral and President Robert Mugabe appeared to sleep through the whole thing.

Watch Trump completely make up the nation of Nambia below. Jeva Lange

Trump, at a lunch with African leaders, refers to the non-existent country of "Nambia." pic.twitter.com/N8megnC1Xi

— David Mack (@davidmackau) September 20, 2017

The Syrian Arab Army (SAA) and its allies recaptured all positions, including Tulaysiyah, al-Sha’thah and al-Qahira, which they had lost as a result of the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) attack in northern Hama.

HTS lost its two T-90 main battle tanks that it had seized from the SAA in 2016.  One was destroyed and another was recaptured by the SAA.

According to the Russian General Staff, airstrikes and artillery fire killed about 850 terrorists and destroyed 11 tanks, 4 infantry fighting vehicles, 46 pickup trucks, five mortars, 20 lorries, and 38 ammunition depots.  Three service members of the Russian Special Operations Forces were injured during clashes.

The SAA liberated a large chunk of territory northwest of Deir Ezzor city, including the villages of Masrab, Turayf, Buwaytiyah, and Tibni as well as the Salim Mount.  Government forces also continued advancing on the eastern bank of the Euphrates.

On September 20th, the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) announced a new operation in order to capture the area of al-Suwar, to reach the border with Iraq, and to capture the area east of Deir Ezzor.  Following the announcement, the SDF captured 12km of a highway towards al-Suwar.

Meanwhile, the SDF seized a grain storage area in the central part of Raqqah city and established a full control over the Tishreen, Rumaila, and Al Rawda neighborhoods.  According to the SDF General Command, the group is in control of 80% of the city and is now developing momentum in the 17th Division Base sector.

According to pro-opposition sources, the US-led coalition’s airpower actively supports the operation, conducting over 50 airstrikes per day.

Pro-SDF sources argue that ISIS defense collapsed in the city and it will be liberated soon.  When this is done, the SDF will be able to redeploy more forces for operations in eastern Syria.

Voiceover by Harold Hoover

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Russia has proposed that a UN “peacekeeping” force be placed in Ukraine to protect Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) representatives, who are supposed to be monitoring adherence to the Minsk agreements. But already the problems with the idea have become obvious with the United States and the Kiev regime reacting to the proposal with statements that they want to use the force to “restore Ukrainian sovereignty” and its “territorial integrity.”

The objective of the NATO alliance is clear, to use the force as a device to crush the Donbass republics. Russia sees it as a way advance the Minsk agreements, to stop the harassing criticism of the NATO powers that the Russians and Donbass impede the work of the OSCE observers and perhaps to have some control over the OSCE to make sure it is neutral and objective in its mission. For in fact the OSCE is seen by many in the Donbass Republics as a group of spies for the west, not to be trusted.

The Russians seem to think a UN force could be created that would actually be neutral between all the parties to the hostilities, give some assurance to the Donbass and create another layer or buffer between the Kiev forces besieging the Donbass and the Donbass forces resisting that siege. A logical idea it would seem if one were not aware of how UN “peacekeeping” missions actually work. The trouble with it is that unless such a force is officered by Russians, or nations allied with Russia, no UN force could be trusted. History shows that UN peacekeeping missions can turn into “regime change” missions, as happened in Rwanda and Yugoslavia.

I will focus on the Rwandan war and the role of the UN there since that is better known to me through the war crimes trials at the Rwanda War Crimes Tribunal. During those trials a lot of the evidence of the real role of the UN in Rwanda was revealed. The situation deserves remembering because the UN force sent to Rwanda in order, supposedly, to keep the peace between the invading Ugandans of the Rwanda Patriotic Front supported by the US, UK, Canada and Belgium, on one side, and and the government of Rwanda on the other, in reality acted as division of the invading forces.

The Canadian UN force commander, General Dallaire, and officers under him, actively helped the invading forces to violate weapons limit agreements, troop deployment agreements, helped them bring into the country arms and artillery for a final offensive, were complicit in the assassination of officials and politicians, were complicit in the murder of the President of Rwanda and President of Burundi, the murder of countless civilians, used their freedom of movement to gather and provide intelligence to the invading forces, and, in the fighting, along with American military forces, provided logistics and ammunition to the invaders, took part in attacks on government forces alongside the invading forces and, on the whole conspired to bring down the legitimate government and replace it with the present dictatorship of Paul Kagame.

In all this Dallaire was helped by senior members of the Department of Peace Keeping Operations, the DPKO, in New York, staffed by another Canadian general, Baril, and headed by Kofi Anan. The Rwandan UN peacekeeping mission, on which the hopes of millions rested for peace and democracy, was in fact a Trojan Horse wheeled in to spread death and destruction on a mass scale and it was a Horse controlled by Washington and London. For his loyal service to the United States in that war Anan was later made Secretary General of the UN.

This is the reality that Russia faces in proposing such a force for Ukraine. The US has already requested an amendment to the Russian proposal that requires the force to have a mandate right up to Russia’s borders. If this occurred then UN forces would be operating deep inside the Donbass Republics’ territories. It is a certainty that if NATO officers and troops control the force they will use it to their advantage against the Donbass Republics and Russia. It would be complete folly to permit it.

The only way that such a force could work if it is acceptable in the Donbass Republics. But the Donbass republics will want such forces to be composed of forces they can trust, which are at the least neutral and fair if not sympathetic, and unless Russian officers are part of the composition I cannot see how they could accept the idea with any rationality.

But the Kiev regime has already stated that it will not accept Russian or allied forces in any UN mission. In fact, the regime went so far as to state that UN mission is “irrelevant.” Poroshenko stated on September 7th that the “Russian proposal to deploy a UN mission specifically to protect the OSCE mission is strange to say the lease. However, Ukraine is ready to talk about it and we call for the deployment of a full-scale UN mission in the Donbass. Besides, the mission should meet UN principles, meaning that the aggressor state or the sides to the conflict will not take part in it.”

This slap at Russia as the “aggressor state” only backfired as it is clear that the aggressors in Ukraine are the neo-Nazi regime in Kiev and its NATO allies, the United States, Britain, Germany, France, Canada and others who have their forces there supporting the Kiev regime’s attack on the peoples of the Donbass. So, according to Poroshenko’s logic, no NATO soldiers could take part in such a mission.

So a stalemate has developed unless both sides are willing to accept neutral soldiers from neutral countries. But where are these countries to be found? They do not exist.

The fact remains that the Minsk agreements are a dead letter. The Kiev regime has never acted in accordance with them. Germany and the US and the rest put out propaganda that Russia and the Donbass are not in compliance while themselves arming the Kiev regime and supporting attacks on the Donbass peoples They have never ceased the attacks. The war simmers from month to month. The misery for the people drags on into another winter. People continue to die for no reason at all. NATO forces continue their build up and their military exercises. Russia responds with its own, along with Belarus. A political solution is needed but the goodwill and intentions necessary for one cannot be found for the NATO objective is not peace but conflict to create the circumstances the United States wants.

The regime in Kiev is now an adjunct of the NATO war alliance, a willing pawn in the bigger game. It has dragged its people into chaos and poverty and they have gained nothing except NATO chains. The United States and its allies want Russian subservience and will push until they get it or are they are stopped. In the meantime they too drag their peoples into chaos and poverty. Russia, with a deep experience, does not want another general war and so searches for light under any barrel. There is not much to find but at least Russia is making the attempt, searching for peace. Like John Lennon they just want to give peace a chance but the United States leadership doesn’t want any of it. They are only searching for domination or war and continue to deliver to Russia one insult after another even as Russia bends over backward to accommodate the US in Korea.

We have to salute President Putin for making the suggestion in an endeavour to advance towards the victory of peace in Ukraine. A political solution is necessary. But we have to caution him and the Russian leadership as they search for that victory. Beware the Trojan Horse.

Christopher Black is an international criminal lawyer based in Toronto. He is known for a number of high-profile war crimes cases and recently published his novel “Beneath the Clouds. He writes essays on international law, politics and world events, especially for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook.”

Featured image is from the author.

What a day! 

At 08:00 EST this morning, we surpassed our donation campaign goal and reached a total of $18,410 for our work to get states to sign and ratify the treaty. Wow!! 

A few moments later, Antonio Guterres, the Secretary General of the United Nations emphasised that this was a historic day and uttered those magic words,

“I declare the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons open for signature”.

50 states have already signed the Treaty on this first day. Our Treaty. And more are expected in the coming days.

Check the list of signatures and ratifications here.

This has been a really great day for the campaign and it’s all because of the hard work of committed people all around the world.

The funds raised will go towards organising meetings to convince governments to sign and ratify the treaty, producing campaign materials to be used around the world and doing outreach to parliamentarians and other decision-makers nationally. These are the kind of activities needed in order to make this treaty a success.

Today, we put nuclear weapons in the same category as other unacceptable weapons. You can read ICAN’s statement on this historic moment here.

It has been a really amazing day, and I just want to thank you all again for the outpouring of support from people.

Together, we are making this treaty work!

Beatrice

Beatrice Fihn
Executive director
International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons

The speech delivered Tuesday by Donald Trump to the opening session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York was without precedent either for the UN or the American presidency.

Speaking before a world body ostensibly created to spare humanity the “scourge of war” and founded on the principles elaborated at the Nuremberg trials of Nazi leaders, the American president openly embraced a policy of genocide, declaring that he was “ready, willing and able” to “totally destroy” North Korea and its 25 million people.

The fact that nobody in the assembly moved for Trump’s arrest as a war criminal, or even told the fascistic bully to sit down and shut up, is a measure of the bankruptcy of the UN itself.

“The United States has great strength and patience, but if it is forced to defend itself or its allies, we will have no choice but to totally destroy North Korea,” Trump told the meeting. “Rocket Man [Trump’s imbecilic nickname for North Korean leader Kim Jong-un] is on a suicide mission for himself and for his regime. The United States is ready, willing and able…”

As with his every public utterance, Trump’s megalomaniacal remarks began with the supposed revival of America’s fortunes since his election last November, which has found expression, he argued, in the Wall Street stock market bubble and the passage of a $700 billion military budget.

At the core of Trump’s speech was the promotion of his “America First” ideology. The US president presented the promotion of nationalism as the solution to all the problems of the planet.

“The nation-state remains the best vehicle for elevating the human condition,” he proclaimed in a speech in which the words “sovereign” or “sovereignty” were repeated 21 times.

While declaring his supposed support for the sovereignty of every nation, Trump made it clear that his administration is prepared to wage war against any nation that fails to bow to Washington’s diktat.

In addition to threatening to incinerate North Korea for testing ballistic missiles and nuclear weapons, he threatened to abrogate the 2015 nuclear agreement with Iran, describing it as an “embarrassment.’’ He thereby placed the US on the path to war against Iran, whose government he described as a “corrupt dictatorship,” a “rogue state” and a “murderous regime.”

He also singled out Venezuela, declaring that its internal situation “is completely unacceptable, and we cannot stand by and watch.” He added:

“The United States has taken important steps to hold the regime accountable. We are prepared to take further action if the government of Venezuela persists on its path to impose authoritarian rule on the Venezuelan people.”

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif responded in a tweet, saying that

“Trump’s ignorant hate speech belongs in medieval times—not the 21st century UN—unworthy of a reply.”

The foreign minister of Venezuela, Jorge Arreaza, charged Trump with seeking “regime change by force,” adding that he “wants to rule the world when he can’t even rule his own country.”

Trump made no attempt to explain the glaring contradiction between his invocation of universal national sovereignty and his assertion of US imperialism’s “right” to bomb, invade or carry out regime change against any nation it sees fit.

On the eve of the speech, a senior White House official told reporters that the American president had spent a great deal of time pondering the “deeply philosophical” character of his address.

What rubbish! The speech’s “philosophy,” such as it is, is drawn from the ideology of fascism. Indeed, no world leader has delivered the kind of threat uttered by Trump against the people of North Korea since Adolf Hitler took the podium at the Reichstag in 1939 and threatened the annihilation of Europe’s Jews.

The kind of nationalist doctrine put forward by Trump at the UN distinctly echoes the positions of Hitler and Mussolini in the 1930s. As Leon Trotsky wrote in his 1934 article “Nationalism and Economic Life”:

“Italian fascism has proclaimed national ‘sacred egoism’ as the sole creative factor. After reducing the history of humanity to national history, German fascism proceeded to reduce nation to race and race to blood… The enduring value of the nation, discovered by Mussolini and Hitler, is now set off against the false values of the 19th century: democracy and socialism.”

The parallels are not accidental. The text of the speech bears the visible fingerprints of Trump’s fascistic senior policy advisor and speechwriter Stephen Miller, who seems to work best with a volume of Hitler’s Mein Kampf close at hand.

Just as this promotion of reactionary nationalism in the 1930s was the ideological expression of world capitalism’s descent into world war, so it is today.

The threats against North Korea and Iran are bound up with far wider geostrategic aims of US imperialism, as Trump indicated in his oblique denunciation of China and Russia for trading with Pyongyang and his reference to the South China Sea and Ukraine. Moreover, the attacks on Iran and threats to tear up the 2015 nuclear accord are aimed not only against the government in Tehran, but also at Washington’s erstwhile allies in Western Europe, which are already seeking new sources of profit based on trade and investment deals with Iran.

The absence from the UN’s opening session of Russian President Vladimir Putin, Chinese President Xi Jinping and German Chancellor Angela Merkel was significant. No doubt they had a sense of what was coming and feared the domestic political consequences of being seen as giving legitimacy through their presence in the auditorium to Trump’s diatribe.

French President Emmanuel Macron, who spoke shortly after Trump, delivered a right-wing speech promoting the “war on terrorism,” but was forced to directly oppose the US position on North Korea, warning against military escalation and calling for dialogue. In relation to Iran, he opposed any abrogation of the nuclear treaty. The French media compared the split to the tensions that arose during the Bush administration’s drive to war against Iraq.

The threats today, however, are far greater. Trump’s speech has made it unmistakably clear to the world that the government he heads is comprised of criminals. Having drawn multiple lines in the sand, threatening war on virtually every continent, Trump’s own demagogy leads almost inexorably to escalation and military action.

The speech included a passage warning the world that the American military is no longer subordinate to civilian control.

“From now on,” Trump declared, “our security interests will dictate the length and scope of military operations, not arbitrary benchmarks and timetables set up by politicians.”

In other words, the military will decide, not elected officials—the fundamental characteristic of a military dictatorship. That this “principle” is accepted by the US Congress, which approved the $700 billion Pentagon budget while voting down an amendment calling on the legislative body to reclaim its constitutional power to declare war, is a measure of the putrefaction of American democracy.

The consolidation of such a government, with the repulsive figure of Donald Trump at its head, is the culmination of a quarter-century of economic and political degeneration, combined with unending wars and military interventions waged with the aim of reversing the erosion of American capitalism’s global hegemony.

Contradicting the vision presented in Trump’s speech of a Hitlerian springtime for nationalism, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres preceded the American president with an address to the General Assembly describing “a world in pieces.”

“People are hurting and angry,” he warned. “They see insecurity rising, inequality growing, conflict spreading and climate changing.” He added that “global anxieties about nuclear weapons are at the highest level since the end of the Cold War.”

This undeniable reality found indirect expression in Trump’s own address, with his attempt to exploit the crisis in Venezuela—a country where the dominance of finance capital is today greater than it was three decades ago—to denounce socialism.

“Wherever true socialism or communism has been adopted, it has delivered anguish and devastation and failure,” said Trump. “Those who preach the tenets of these discredited ideologies only contribute to the continued suffering of the people who live under these cruel systems.”

A quarter-century after the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the proclamation of the failure of Marxism and triumph of capitalism, the threat of socialism has become a central preoccupation of an American president delivering a reactionary and militarist diatribe before the United Nations.

Trump speaks for a US financial and corporate oligarchy that feels itself under siege. It fears growing popular anger. It has been shaken to the core by the revelation during the 2016 election that a broad social constituency within the working class and among the youth is intensely hostile to the profit system and sympathetic to socialism.

Ultimately, Trump’s belligerent threats of war and nuclear annihilation are the projection onto the world stage of the class policy pursued by the American ruling class at home, and the very advanced state of political and social tensions within the United States itself.

Featured image is from HuffPost.

The annual congress of the UK Trades Union Congress (TUC) has passed a historic composite resolution on climate change that supports the energy sector being returned to public ownership and democratic control.

The resolution – carried unanimously – calls upon the 5.7-million-member national federation to work with the Labour Party to achieve this goal, as well as to: implement a mass program for energy conservation and efficiency; lobby for the establishment of a “just transition” strategy for affected workers; and, investigate the long-term risks to pension funds from investments in fossil fuels.

The Labour Party’s 2017 election manifesto, For the Many, Not the Few, pointed to the failures of electricity privatization, energy poverty, the need to honor the UK’s climate commitments, and to put the UK on course for 60% of its energy to be met by zero carbon or renewable sources by 2030.

The Manifesto also committed to “take energy back into public ownership to deliver renewable energy, affordability for consumers, and democratic control.” It calls for the creation of “publicly owned, locally accountable energy companies and co-operatives to rival existing private energy suppliers.”

Dangerous Climate Change

Moved by Sarah Woolley, Organising Regional Secretary for the Bakers, Food and Allied Workers Union (BFAWU), the resolution refers to the “irrefutable evidence that dangerous climate change is driving unprecedented changes to our environment,” as well as the risks to meeting the climate challenge posed by Trump’s announced withdrawal from the Paris Agreement, and by the chaotic approach to both Brexit and broader policy by the current Conservative government.

The resolution affirmed that combating climate change and moving toward a low-carbon economy cannot be left to markets, but requires a strong role for the public sector in driving the transition. In supporting the resolution, several speakers referred to the devastation unleashed across the Caribbean over the previous several days by Hurricane Irma – the most powerful Atlantic Ocean storm in recorded history – and across southern Texas only days before that by Hurricane Harvey.

Cliff Holloway of the train drivers’ union ASLEF referred to the major role of transport in the UK’s greenhouse gas emissions. Rail union RMT representative Glenroy Watson emphasized the need for worker representation in developing solutions, and for greater support for the global South, which has not been adequately supported in its adaptation efforts. Speaking for UNISON, Nicky Ramanadi highlighted the issue of fuel poverty, while Ele Wade, speaking for the power sector union Prospect, noted that emissions reductions were trailing behind established targets. Iain Dalton of the retail union USDAW referred to the failures of the private sector, emphasizing that “public ownership of energy under democratic control is the crucial part of this composite resolution.”

Assistant General Secretary Chris Baugh of the Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS) also spoke in favor of the resolution. A video segment of his comments is available on Youtube.

Also supporting the resolution was the Fire Brigades Union (FBU), whose Andy Noble urged UK unions to support Trade Unions for Energy Democracy, and to join with unions around the world in the global fight for democratic control of energy.

Notably, the text of the resolution also formally recognized the important work of TUED partner, The Transnational Institute (TNI), based in Amsterdam, whose recent report, “Reclaiming Public Service: how cities and citizens are turning back privatization,” highlighted the global trend toward re-municipalization of public services, including energy.

Following the vote, Martin Mayer, UNITE’s representative to the Labour Party’s National Executive Committee, told TUED:

“Today British trade unions for the first time agreed a visionary strategy to combat climate change. That must mean taking back control of our privatised energy and a serious call for a just transition to protect jobs.”

Jenny Patient of Sheffield Climate Alliance – part of the Campaign Against Climate Change Trade Union group – added,

“We know there are good and valuable jobs in the transition to zero carbon and this resolution shows the way forward by making this integral to a cross-sector industrial strategy that can rebalance and rebuild industries and protect workers.”

Composite Resolution 4, on climate change and public ownership of energy, adopted unanimously by TUC, September 12th, 2017, Brighton, UK.

C04 Climate Change – Motion 10 and amendments

Congress notes the irrefutable evidence that dangerous climate change is driving unprecedented changes to our environment such as the devastating flooding witnessed in the UK in 2004.

Congress further notes the risk to meeting the challenge of climate change with the announcement of Donald Trump to withdraw the US from the Paris Climate Agreement. Similarly, Brexit negotiations and incoherent UK government policy risk undermining measures to achieve the UK carbon reduction targets.

Congress welcomes the report by the Transnational Institute Reclaiming Public Service: how cities and citizens are turning back privatization, which details the global trend to remunicipalise public services, including energy, and supports efforts by unions internationally to raise issues such as public ownership and democratic control as part of solutions to climate change.

Congress notes that transport is responsible for a quarter of the UK’s greenhouse gas emissions and believes that a reduction in carbon dioxide levels must be the basis of the UK’s future transport policy in addition to building public transport capacity and moving more freight from road to rail.

Congress believes that to effectively combat climate change and move towards a low carbon economy we cannot leave this to the markets and therefore need a strong role for the public sector in driving the measures needed to undertake this transition. Congress notes that pension schemes invest billions of pounds into fossil fuel corporations.

To this end, Congress calls on the TUC to:

1. work with the Labour Party and others that advocate for an end to the UK’s rigged energy system to bring it back into public ownership and democratic control
2. advocate for a mass programme of retrofit and insulation of Britain’s homes and public buildings
3. lobby to demand rights for workplace environmental reps iv. lobby for the establishment of a Just Transition strategy for those workers affected by the industrial changes necessary to develop a more environmentally sustainable future for all, and develop practical steps needed to achieve this as integral to industrial strategy
4. consult with all affiliates to seek input into the development of a cross sector industrial strategy that works towards delivering internationally agreed carbon emission reduction targets
5. investigate the long-term risks for pension funds investing in fossil fuels, promote divestment, and alternative reinvestment in the sustainable economy.

Mover: Bakers, Food and Allied Workers Union
Seconder: Communication Workers Union
Supporters: Fire Brigades Union; ASLEF; TSSA

Featured image: President Trump speaking to the United Nations General Assembly on Sept. 19, 2017. (Screenshot from Whitehouse.gov)

In discussing President Trump, there is always the soft prejudice of low expectations – people praise him for reading from a Teleprompter even if his words make little sense – but there is no getting around the reality that his maiden address to the United Nations General Assembly must rank as  one of the most embarrassing moments in America’s relations with the global community.

Trump offered a crude patchwork of propaganda and bluster, partly delivered as a campaign speech praising his own leadership – boasting about the relatively strong U.S. economy that he mostly inherited from President Obama – and partly reflecting his continued subservience to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

However, perhaps most importantly, Trump’s speech may have extinguished any flickering hope that his presidency might achieve some valuable course corrections in how the United States deals with the world, i.e., shifting away from the disastrous war/interventionist policies of his two predecessors.

Before the speech, there was at least some thinking that his visceral disdain for the neoconservatives, who mostly opposed his nomination and election, might lead him to a realization that their policies toward Iran, Iraq, Syria and elsewhere were at the core of America’s repeated and costly failures in recent decades.

Instead, apparently after a bracing lecture from Netanyahu on Monday, Trump bared himself in a kind of neocon Full Monte:

–He repeated the Israeli/neocon tripe about Iran destabilizing the Middle East when Shiite-ruled Iran actually has helped stabilize Iraq and Syria against Sunni terrorist groups and other militants supported by Saudi Arabia and – to a degree – Israel;

–He again denounced the Iranian nuclear agreement whose main flaw in the eyes of the Israelis and the neocons is that it disrupted their plans to bomb-bomb-bomb Iran, and he called for “regime change” in Iran, a long beloved dream of the Israelis and the neocons;

–He repeated the Israeli/neocon propaganda about Hezbollah as a terrorist organization when Hezbollah’s real crime was driving the Israeli military out of southern Lebanon in 2000, ending an Israeli occupation that began with Israel’s 1982 invasion;

–He praised his rush-to-judgment decision to bomb Syria last April, in line with Israeli/neocon propaganda against President Bashar al-Assad and partly out of a desire to please the same Washington establishment that is still scheming how to impeach him;

–He spoke with the crass hypocrisy that the neocons and many Israeli leaders have perfected, particularly his demand that “all nations … respect … the rights of every other sovereign nation” — when he made clear that he, like his White House predecessors, is ready to violate the sovereignty of other nations that get in Official Washington’s way.

A Litany of Wars

Just this century, the United States has invaded multiple nations without U.N. authorization, based on various “coalitions of the willing” and other subterfuges for wars of aggression, which the Nuremberg Tribunals deemed the “supreme international crime” and which the U.N. was specifically created to prevent.

Not only did President George W. Bush invade both Afghanistan and Iraq – while also sponsoring “anti-terror” operations in many other countries – but President Barack Obama acknowledged ordering military attacks in seven countries, including against the will of sovereign states, such as Libya and Syria. Obama also supported a violent coup against the elected government of Ukraine.

For his part, Trump already has shown disdain for international law by authorizing military strikes inside Yemen and Syria. In other words, if not for the fear of provoking American anger, many of the world’s diplomats might have responded with a barrage of catcalls toward Trump for his blatant hypocrisy. Without doubt, the United States is the preeminent violator of sovereignty and international law in the world today, yet Trump wagged his finger at others, including Russia (over Ukraine) and China (over the South China Sea).

He declared:

“We must reject threats to sovereignty, from the Ukraine to the South China Sea. We must uphold respect for law, respect for borders, and respect for culture, and the peaceful engagement these allow.”

Then, with a seeming blindness to how much of the world sees the United States as a law onto itself, Trump added:

“The scourge of our planet today is a small group of rogue regimes that violate every principle on which the United Nations is based.”

Of course, in the U.S. mainstream media’s commentary that followed, Trump’s hypocrisy went undetected. That’s because across the American political/media establishment, the U.S. right to act violently around the world is simply accepted as the way things are supposed to be. International law is for the other guy; not for the “indispensible nation,” not for the “sole remaining superpower.”

On Bibi’s Leash

Despite some of his “America First” rhetoric – tossed in as red meat to his “base” – Trump revealed a global outlook that differed from the Bush-Obama neoconservative/liberal-interventionist approach in words only. In substance, Trump appears to be just the latest American poodle on Bibi Netanyahu’s leash.

For instance, Trump bragged about attacking Syria over a dubious chemical-weapons claim while ignoring the role of the Saudi/Israeli tandem in assisting Al Qaeda and its Syrian affiliate; Trump threatened the international nuclear agreement with Iran while calling for regime change in Tehran, two of Netanyahu’s top priorities; and Trump warned that he would “totally destroy North Korea” over its nuclear and missile programs while making no mention of Israel’s rogue nuclear arsenal and sophisticated delivery capabilities.

Ignoring Saudi Arabia’s ties to terrorism, Trump touted his ludicrous summit in Riyadh in which he danced with swords and let King Salman and other corrupt Persian Gulf monarchs, who have long winked and nodded at ideological and logistical support going to Al Qaeda and other Islamic terror groups, pretend their governments were joining an anti-terror coalition.

Exploding the myth that he is at least a street-smart operator who can’t be easily conned, Trump added,

“In Saudi Arabia early last year, I was greatly honored to address the leaders of more than 50 Arab and Muslim nations. We agreed that all responsible nations must work together to confront terrorists and the Islamist extremism that inspires them.”

No wonder Netanyahu seemed so pleased with Trump’s speech. The Israeli prime minister could have written it himself while allowing Trump to add a few crude flourishes, like calling North Korean leader Kim Jong Un “Rocket Man … on a suicide mission”; referring to “the loser terrorists”; and declaring that many parts of the world are “going to hell.”

Trump also tossed in a plug for his “new strategy for victory” in Afghanistan and threw in some interventionist talk regarding the Western Hemisphere with more threats to Cuba and Venezuela about escalating sanctions and other activities to achieve more “regime change” solutions.

So, what Trump made clear in his U.N. address is that his “America First” and “pro-sovereignty” rhetoric is simply cover for a set of policies that are indistinguishable from those pushed by the neocons of the Bush administration or the liberal interventionists of the Obama administration. The rationalizations may change but the endless wars and “regime change” machinations continue.

Investigative reporter Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories for The Associated Press and Newsweek in the 1980s. You can buy his latest book, America’s Stolen Narrative, either in print here or as an e-book (from Amazon and barnesandnoble.com).

Among ongoing outrageous actions and in defiance of international law, Israel’s HabayitHayehudi party has just approved a plan for annexing the remaining occupied Palestinian territory “while either facilitating the exit of Palestinian residents or allowing them to remain but without voting rights.”

This is by no means a surprising outcome, nor is it simply a reflection of so-called right-wing or extremist factions in this Israeli government. It is an explicit articulation of the unconscionable Zionist supremacy ideology on which the Jewish state is founded.

Israel now is in control of all historic Palestine. It is armed to the teeth, including with nuclear weapons, because the only way it can “exist” as a Jewish state is by continuing to dispossess, oppress and discriminate against Palestinians — those who are still managing to hold on to their property, pushing them into smaller and smaller enclaves or displacing them within Israel, while keeping six million refugees and exiles out and at the same time bringing in Jewish “settlers” to “colonize” Palestine.

Public debate on Israel today is finally opening issues that go to the heart of Israel’s legitimacy, its Zionist ideology and constitution as a Jewish state and, by extension, issues that are central to Palestine’s liberation.

Additionally, there is a whole body of international law meant to check and regulate State criminal activity such as that exhibited by Israel, whose violations of such laws make for a long list.

And yet, when it comes to the Jewish state, the U.S. and its allies continue to find it impossible to hold Israel accountable on the basis of the laws they themselves have enacted.

Not many people know that enforcing international humanitarian law is enshrined in section 3.6.3.1 of the U.S. Department of Defense Law of War Manual. It is called the “golden rule” principle: Do unto others as you would have done to you. “It is not necessarily relevant who violates the law (friend or foe) or what specific provision is violated,” writes Tripp Zanetis. “Any violation undermines international adherence to the law and this directly impacts the safety and wellbeing of our military forces.”

The United Nations was formed after WWII as an inter-governmental organization to resolve international conflicts, “to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war,” “to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights,” “to practice tolerance and live together in peace with one another as good neighbors,” “to ensure, by the acceptance of principles and the institution of methods, that armed force shall not be used, save in the common interest.”

But unfortunately, under the banner of peace, the UN has had a hand in creating injustice and conflict, because essentially it is run as a political organization. A case in point is Israel:

The common representation of Israel’s birth is that the UN created Israel, that the world was in favor of this move, and that the US governmental establishment supported it. All these assumptions are demonstrably incorrect.

In reality, while the UN General Assembly recommended the creation of a Jewish state in part of Palestine, that recommendation was non-binding and never implemented by the Security Council.

Second, the General Assembly passed that recommendation only after Israel proponents threatened and bribed numerous countries in order to gain a required two-thirds of votes.

After WWII, when more and more countries were decolonized (the Jewish colonization of Palestine is the only active colonization remaining in the world today), 80 former colonies joined the UN (see The United Nations and Decolonization), reshaping it. However, the structure of power in the UN works against democratization. As permanent members of the Security Council, China, France, Russian Federation, the United Kingdom, and the United States use the veto power to maintain their foreign policy interests, either singly or collectively, and they control the international order.

Here is a brief outline of how the United States has used its veto power:

The United States did not exercise its first veto until 1970, on a resolution regarding Southern Rhodesia, which is present-day Zimbabwe.

Since then, it has used its veto 79 times, with more than 40 related to issues in the Middle East.

The majority have been resolutions that have criticised the Israeli government or failed to condemn armed Palestinian factions in the same language as that being used for Israel.

It used its last veto to block a resolution that would term Israeli settlement activity in Palestinian territory “illegal” and demand a halt to all such actions.

The five major powers were granted permanent membership in the UN Security Council after WWII because they were “major powers among victorious allies and predominant actors in international relations. They were active in the negotiations that led to the adoption of the UN Charter which established the organization.” See On what basis was Security Council permanent membership granted?). Since that time, it has been business as usual (i.e. the spoils go to the victors), despite the resounding words of the UN Charter.

These countries also significantly contribute financially to the UN system, with the US, as the only superpower, leading the way. To reform this system, you need nothing less than a revolution.

Or you can try to join it, as Japan aspires to do:

Unlike China, Japan is not a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council and has long resented paying much more for the U.N.’s upkeep than China and Russia, despite the fact China and Russia enjoy far more sway as a result of their permanent member status and accompanying veto power. (Adding to the sting for Japan is the fact that Beijing has been the single biggest opponent of a permanent Security Council seat for its regional rival.)

In the meantime, China’s proposed 2017 four-point plan on Palestine/Israel with a focus on the economic is “undermining Palestinian efforts to change the status quo….It is not clear yet, though, whether this is “a major departure along a new track that challenges US hegemony and European passivity? Or is China simply pursuing its own economic interests in the guise of peacemaker?”

It is true that what the UN and its subsidiary agencies (UNDP, UNESCO, UNICEF, UNRWA and UNSCOP, to name a few) have “resolved” and published on Israel/Palestine since the UN General Assembly Resolution on the Partition of Palestine (1947) — the Conciliation, Status of Jerusalem and Right to Return (1948), the Permanent International Regime for Jerusalem (1949), the Security Council resolutions on principles of a just and lasting peace in the Middle East (1967, 1973), etc. — fills volumes.

But these are all currently worthless, as witness the fate of the report commissioned by the Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA) that concludes Israel practices an apartheid regime that oppresses and dominates the Palestinian people as a whole. The decision by the UN Secretary General to remove this report “points to the criminalization of the United Nations.”

It is more than high time for the UN to take a leaf from the global grassroots movement of Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) of Israel and enforce these resolutions and reports through sanctions against Israel.

Rima Najjar is a Palestinian whose father’s side of the family comes from the forcibly depopulated village of Lifta on the western outskirts of Jerusalem. She is an activist, researcher and retired professor of English literature, Al-Quds University, occupied West Bank.

“The United States of America has been among the greatest forces for good in the history of the world, and the greatest defenders of sovereignty, security, and prosperity for all.” – US president Donald Trump’s speech to the United Nations General Assembly, 19 September 2017

If you are the president of the United States of America, then, as a rule, all pretense toward modesty is dispensed with. Call it American exceptionalism.

After all, the US is variously self-proclaimed as the leader of the free world, the beacon on the hill, and the indispensable nation.

Yet critical thinking demands an analysis of Trump’s words that is not provided by a cursory reading of the speech transcript, TV video coverage, or corporate media reporting. It is a given of corporatism that the US is unquestioningly not only great and good but the best of the best. Donald Trump would beg to differ, but he claims that he is making America great again.

Trump begins by stating,

“As millions of our citizens continue to suffer the effects of the devastating hurricanes that have struck our country…”

Yet this rings phony since Trump is skeptical about a connection between anthropogenic climate change and the increased incidence of catastrophic weather events.

Trump asserts,

“The American people are strong and resilient, and they will emerge from these hardships more determined than ever before.”

The prevailing trend under neoliberalism is that the American masses will continue to fall further and further behind, and the wealthy elitists will continue to make out like bandits. Trump’s tax cuts augur an intensification of this gaping trend．

Trump boasts,

“Fortunately, the United States has done very well since Election Day last November 8th.”

That is debatable. Nonetheless, there is nothing quite like self-aggrandizement… patting oneself on back in public and claiming credit for myriad allegedly positive events (as if stock market rises benefited the masses of Americans).

Moreover, says Trump,

“And it has just been announced that we will be spending almost $700 billion on our military and defense.”

Is this something to boast about? How about boasting about building hospitals, low-cost housing projects to end homelessness, poverty reduction/elimination, and environmental remediation? Of course, if a non-allied nation were to dare and inordinately hike military spending, chances are the US would castigate such a nation.

Trump proceeded to “address some of the very serious threats before us today…” Sheesh. Get real Trump. The people of the world recognize well that the USA as the number one threat to world peace.

Trump warns,

“But each day also brings news of growing dangers that threaten everything we cherish and value. Terrorists and extremists have gathered strength and spread to every region of the planet.”

This calls into question how to characterize Trump? A moderate? Or an extremist? Is building a wall on the US-Mexican border moderate or extreme? Is thwarting people from Muslim majority countries from entering the US a moderate or extreme position? Is launching military strikes against Muslim majority countries like Syria and Yemen moderate? Can resorting to violence be anything but extreme? Is allying with a terrorist-sponsoring nation like Saudi Arabia or an overtly racist nation like Israel moderate?

During his speech, Trump railed against rogue regimes, international criminal networks that traffic drugs (Trump wouldn’t be talking about the CIA, a major player in the international drug trade, would he?¹), weapons (the US is a major exporter of weapons, illicit or otherwise), and the forced dislocation and mass migration of people (and what is the US but a nation state erected on the genocide and ethnic cleansing of the Indigenous nations of Turtle Island?).

Trump avers,

“We have it in our power, should we so choose, to lift millions from poverty, to help our citizens realize their dreams, and to ensure that new generations of children are raised free from violence, hatred, and fear…”

The key words, in italics: “should we choose.” Will the US ruling classes ever choose to share the wealth fairly and equitably? Or does it require a revolution to achieve dignity and fairness? The US might well learn from the Chinese how to accomplish ending poverty. The Chinese Communist Party has pledged to eliminate poverty by 2020.

Trump notes that the United Nations was founded following two world wars to help shape a better future. The preamble to the UN Charter states that the institution is determined “to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war…” But the UN’s inability to curtail the violence of the US renders this aim nugatory.

Trump says that 70 years ago, that the United States developed “the noble idea” of the Marshall Plan to help restore Europe. The Marshall Plan, while helping war-ravaged Europe to its feet, was designed to restore markets for US products from a US that was ascendant after World War II, having profited immensely from supplying all sides in the war and having escaped the carnage on its own soil.²

Trump:

“We do not expect diverse countries to share the same cultures, traditions, or even systems of government. But we do expect all nations to uphold these two core sovereign duties: to respect the interests of their own people and the rights of every other sovereign nation.”

And who determines this? The people of sovereign nations? The UN or the US?

Trump:

“In America, we do not seek to impose our way of life on anyone, but rather to let it shine as an example for everyone to watch.”

This is so risible. So the uninvited US military in Syria is not imposing on Syrians? President Assad made clear that the US troops are viewed as “invaders.” “Way of life” aside, is the US is not imposing in Yemen? Does the US not seek to impose on (or at least dictate to) Venezuela, Iran, and North Korea?

Trump spoke to the greatest words in the United States Constitution: “We the people.” Is this spoken tongue-in-cheek or from ignorance? The constitution, derived from the Six Nation Confederacy’s Great Law of Peace, was promulgated by rich, white men. “We the people,” however, was not meant to include the Indigenous people, Blacks, women, or the toiling classes in anything approximating a meaningful sense. And contemporary US society continues to adduce this marginalization. Any gains made were by people resistingthe system and making demands on the government.

Putting on his historian’s hat, Trump puffs out his American chest:

“It is an eternal credit to the American character that even after we and our allies emerged victorious from the bloodiest war in history, we did not seek territorial expansion, or attempt to oppose and impose our way of life on others.”

Historian Jacques Pauwels wrote of the “uncontested fact that after the war [the US and Britain] would install or support dictatorial regimes in many countries…,”³ Communism/socialism was to be prevented from growing or spreading.⁴ At the end of WWII, socialism was also to be prevented in Korea, and a dictatorship was installed in the south of Korea.

Despite promising not to get bogged down in foreign conflicts during his presidential campaign, Trump states:

“We must reject threats to sovereignty, from the Ukraine to the South China Sea.”

He calls for a joint fight against “those who threaten us with chaos, turmoil, and terror”: “a small group of rogue regimes that violate every principle on which the United Nations is based.” Who are the rogue regimes? And what are the principles they violate? One assumes that it is implied that the US never violates any of these said principles.

Trump does not mince words when it comes to the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea:

“No one has shown more contempt for other nations and for the well-being of their own people than the depraved regime in North Korea.”

Does the US provide tuition-free university education, no-fee medical services, and housing for all its citizens? The DPRK does.

Trump continues his harangue:

“It is responsible for the starvation deaths of millions of North Koreans, and for the imprisonment, torture, killing, and oppression of countless more.”

First, there were many factors beyond the control of the DPRK government: from winding up with only 14 percent of the cultivatable land after division; with the collapse of the Soviet Union, loans were called back and fertilizer and fuel shortages arose; also no government anywhere can be held accountable for the vagaries of Mother Nature that resulted in severe crop devastation.⁵ Second, the DPRK government performed admirably in mitigating the effects of crop failure, as attested to by the UN Food and Agricultural programme.⁶ Third, former president Jimmy Carter criticized the US government, and its South Korean ally, for human rights abuses in withholding food aid to North Korea. One also wonders where Trump gets off criticizing any other country for torture and incarceration given the recent US history in Bagram, Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo Bay, etc. As for killing? Who kills more than the US? And which countries exactly is it that DPRK is oppressing? Certainly not Syria, Yemen, Palestine, Libya, Iran, Venezuela, etc.

Trump:

“We were all witness to the regime’s deadly abuse when an innocent American college student, Otto Warmbier, was returned to America only to die a few days later. We saw it in the assassination of the dictator’s brother using banned nerve agents in an international airport. We know it kidnapped a sweet 13-year-old Japanese girl from a beach in her own country to enslave her as a language tutor for North Korea’s spies.”

Whatever alleged crimes previous or present DRPK administrations committed, what must first play out is a credible, impartial legal determination of guilt; it is then that the guilty party deserves condemnation and justice should be meted out. However, given the sovereign equality of nations as recognized by the UN, the crimes of the US must also be subject to international law. The crimes of the US are too numerous to list in this article.⁷

Trump:

“If this is not twisted enough, now North Korea’s reckless pursuit of nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles threatens the entire world with unthinkable loss of human life.”

This is inflammatory rhetoric. Every sane thinker realizes that DPRK will not initiate a nuclear strike. It has a no-first-use policy. The US does not have such a policy. So there is no threat from North Korea. It seeks a deterrence; especially given that the US is still at work with the DPRK and that the US is the only nation ever to have used nukes on civilian populations. But the US does not like being faced with a credible deterrent.

If the US is so opposed to nuclear weapons and ICBMs, there is nothing to stop the US from denuclearizing. It seems most likely that every nuclear power would abide to concurrently denuclearize (although US ally Israel might throw a wrench in such a plan).

Trump uses the UN headquarters as a bully pulpit:

“The United States has great strength and patience, but if it is forced to defend itself or its allies, we will have no choice but to totally destroy North Korea. Rocket Man is on a suicide mission for himself and for his regime.”

Ah Trump, not the slightest pretense at diplomacy, even while speaking to world’s assembled diplomats. Yet, there is no call for the US to defend itself against vis-à-vis a nation pledged to no-first use.

Trump:

“It is time for North Korea to realize that the denuclearization is its only acceptable future.”

Denuclearization is the only sane future for all nation states. And disarmament is the future for a world dedicated to ending the scourge of war.

The next bogeyman for Trump:

“The Iranian government masks a corrupt dictatorship behind the false guise of a democracy.”

Can it be that Trump considers the dictatorship of the Shah — imposed by the US, after the CIA engineered an overthrow of the elected government of Iran — was a genuine democracy?

Trump:

“Oppressive regimes cannot endure forever, and the day will come when the Iranian people will face a choice…. In Saudi Arabia early last year, I was greatly honored to address the leaders of more than 50 Arab and Muslim nations… to confront terrorists and the Islamist extremism…”

Ergo, Saudi Arabia is not an oppressive regime? Wahhabism is not Islamic extremism?

Trump moves on to his next target for opprobrium, Syria:

“The actions of the criminal regime of Bashar al-Assad, including the use of chemical weapons against his own citizens — even innocent children — shock the conscience of every decent person. No society can be safe if banned chemical weapons are allowed to spread. That is why the United States carried out a missile strike on the airbase that launched the attack.”

That the Syrian government forces would use chemical weapons is highly dubious and has minimal credibility. Regarding chemical weapons, as Stephen Zunes wrote,

“[The US] has no leg to stand on.”

Next up for Trump:

“The socialist dictatorship of Nicolas Maduro has inflicted terrible pain and suffering on the good people of that country.”

It does not matter that Venezuela has elections open to international monitors and whose outcome is not decided by an electoral college but by the number of votes cast by citizens. Trump can bloviate about dictatorships and twist facts to corrupted forms of propaganda and disinformation. Critical thinkers will assess the veracity of the source, and the verisimilitude of the information; they will also seek independent sources of information and analyses to help form conclusions. Perhaps best of all, where possible people will travel to a country to witness for themselves the situation and glean insight by conversing with the locals.⁸

Trump is ideological:

“The problem in Venezuela is not that socialism has been poorly implemented, but that socialism has been faithfully implemented. From the Soviet Union to Cuba to Venezuela, wherever true socialism or communism has been adopted, it has delivered anguish and devastation and failure.”

I would ask Trump to identify “true” capitalism (as in capitalism that does not rely on socialism to underpin it) anywhere. Education, health care, police, roads and bridge construction, militaries that are funded by public money are all examples of socialism. And just how much do the 13.5 percent of Americans who live below the poverty line care for the ideology of capitalism, or the half-million-plus Americans who find themselves homeless on any given night? I would ask Trump to provide one example of successful capitalism. Capitalism has been a failure everywhere.⁹

Trump asks,

“The true question for the United Nations today, for people all over the world who hope for better lives for themselves and their children, is a basic one: Are we still patriots?”

Did the Indigenous peoples of Turtle Island not love where they lived? Did they love being dispossessed and swallowed by the European diaspora into the US? What about the Hawaiians? Did they not love living in their islands? Or the Puerto Ricans? Do they not love their country? Or the Chamorro people? Or how about the Chagossians who were forced from the Chagos archipelago and prevented from returning so the US could use it as a base of military operations.

Or does love of one’s country only apply to Americans?

Kim Petersen is a former co-editor of the Dissident Voice newsletter. He can be reached at: [email protected]. Twitter: @kimpetersen. 

Notes

1. See Douglas Valentine, “Chapter 2: One Thing Leads to Another: My Rare Access in Investigating the War on Drugs,” in The CIA as Organized Crime: How Illegal Operations Corrupt America and the World(Atlanta: Clarity Press, 2017). 

2. Jacques R. Pauwels, The Myth of the Good War (Toronto: Lorimer, 2015), wrote, “The famous plan did not amount to a free gift; it was not a generous present amounting to billions of dollars, but a complex system of credits and loans.” p. 261. 

3. Pauwels, p. 139-140. 

4. Pauwels, p. 270-273. 

5. See Nhial Esso, “North Korea’s famine was caused by outside forces,” in What You Don’t Know About North Korea Could Fill a Book (Intransitive Publishers International, 2013). 

6. Esso, “North Korea’s policies alleviate the effects of food shortages,” in What You Don’t Know About North Korea… 

7. See William Blum, Rogue State (Common Courage Press, 2000). 

8. See Joshua Frank, Kim Petersen, and Sunil K. Sharma, “Revolution of Hope,” Dissident Voice, 10 August 2006. 

9. “We are taught [capitalism] is a system that works; that it’s a system that has brought prosperity. We’ve heard that all our lives. Now I’m going to try and convince you otherwise, and I’m going to do it in two minutes. [laughter] It’s very simple. Almost the entire world is capitalist and almost the entire world is poor. Capitalist Indonesia is miserably poor and getting poorer; capitalist India is miserably poor and getting poorer; so with capitalist Thailand, and capitalist Nigeria, and capitalist El Salvador, and Haiti, and Mexico, and Brazil, and Argentina. And capitalist Russia, and Poland, and Bulgaria with all the privatization and deregulation and free markets coming in: poverty, poverty, increase in crime, increase in desperation, increase in misery, increase in homelessness, increase in suicides. It’s capitalism at work — moving in. Now not everyone suffers. The capitalists in these countries are doing quite well. These countries are getting poorer as the giant corporations move in and get richer. These [countries] are getting poorer as there is more and more deregulation, more and more so-called free market, which is really monopoly market. It’s a free market if you got money. It’s a market that works for those who have money.” — Michael Parenti, formerly available at workingtv.com. 

It is with trepidation that I read books published under the rubric of the social sciences or humanities finding most of them poorly written, often self-serving, and filled with the jargon of the associated field of study (i.e. political science, sociology, et al). However, the significance of the subject and a brief skim read of a random internal page encouraged the review of A Half Century of Occupation.  

As it turned out, this is a well written and important study of the subject of its title, the occupation by Israel of the Palestinian “territories”, being the land occupied by Israel during the 1967 six day war. Given its social science heredity, it is clear of jargon, well outlined, well argued with clear presentation of hypotheses and short clear summaries of each section – in essence the best of what I have read from this field and capable of scrutiny under the genres of international law and history.

The work discusses the occupation in relationship to many factors. Most importantly it deals with international law, human rights, military rule of the occupation, and the patterns and differences within the settlement patterns that started after the war. Starting with an examination of the various UN documents, the Geneva conventions, and customary international law, Shafir says.

Israel’s claim that the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Gaza are not occupied, consequently, ignores the clear trend of international law to affirm the rights of peoples and individuals with growing vigor.

Most importantly from the various readings I have made over the past decades is his summation of the ongoing violence, resistance, and offensive wars occurring within Israel/Palestine:

Under occupation, however, violence is more accurately described as occurring on a continuum that runs the gamut from coercive state action to suppression and war. The former almost invariably leads to resistance and thus is the precursor to and cause of the latter. The occupation therefore is best understood as ongoing, day-in and day-out coercion, and its injuries include material, psychological, social, and bodily harm. The coercive techniques of the institutions of occupation deployed to enforce submission produce the occasional eruptions of “military operations” and wars. Violence is omnipresent and found in all facets of the occupation; consequently, the most intense and bloody suppression of uprisings and wars cannot be considered in isolation from the occupation regime as an everyday occurrence.

I quote this at length due its overwhelming clarity and its accurate summation of the actions and effects of military occupation.

In the second essay of the book, Shafir asks why has the occupation lasted as long as it has. In general three trends are examined. First is occupation itself followed by looking at the early immigration as a settlement action working towards separation of peoples and land. This also includes the always ever present Israeli fear of the demographic balance not working in their favor. Included in this is the idea of colonial-settler patterns as based partly on the British colonial models elsewhere and in the Palestine Mandate. Continuing this trend, following the colonial settler patterns established after the 1967 war, is that of settlements being a religious calling wherein a “secular peace is not our goal.”

The third trend prolonging the occupation according to Shafir, accurately so, is the “special relationship” with the U.S., and the “security” demands of the state. Included within this topic is the idea of a “temporary occupation” which has its impact on Israeli military laws, the application of the Geneva Conventions and humanitarian laws, and the “temporariness” of the deeds provided to the settlement populations. Shafir argues that these frameworks are rooted in European origins (i.e. the nature of various intra-European ‘peace’ agreements that were constantly broken and reconfigured – temporary – without any consent of the local populations) and in the League of Nations mandatory law which allowed for ‘temporary’ actions that extended the European colonial system (Shafir does not present chronological arguments, but thematic ones that skip around in time).

Possible solutions to the occupation and its violence are presented in the third essay. The use of statistical evidence on population, land areas, and costs leads Shafir to believe that a two state solution is technically possible. However he provides contra indicators, essentially  political/religious factors, that perhaps would make a two state settlement improbable. The ideas of a bi-national and a unitary state are discussed following this, with many questions as to the actual nature of how each would be arranged, and how two people now well divided would react to a quick change to either of these states.

The final element introduced in the presentation is the boycott, divestment, sanctions (BDS) movement which he sees as being successful in creating a much larger awareness globally to the plight of the Palestinian people. BDS is criticized as being “overambitious and undertheorized, as well as self contradictory” yet also, “A reformed, more focused BDS movement with Jewish allies appears the best option for the occupation, and improving the circumstances of both the Palestinian refugees and Israel’s Palestinian Arab citizens.”

The occupation today receives minimal if any attention in the MSM, only the larger attacks by Israel, supposedly ‘retaliatory’ and for ‘security’ against ‘terrorists’, along with the few Palestinian attacks causing harm are ever presented. Israel/Palestine is not considered an important player on the MSM global scene, overshadowed by U.S. manipulations concerning Russia, North Korea, the ongoing global war on terror, and wherever else the U.S. cries out about. Yet, as Shafir reminds us,

“The Israeli-Palestinian conflict plays out, as it has since the penetration of the great powers into the Middle East in the late Ottoman years as a global conflict.”

The Israel/Palestine conflict is the kernel of cancerous radiation, unseen, but causing not only the ethnic cleansing and apartheid arrangements of Israel’s actions, but also being the underlying source of all the neo-imperialist actions of the U.S., the EU, and related allies throughout the Middle East.

A Half Century of Occupation should be a part of any academics bookshelf. It is well grounded in international law, humanitarian law, and history. It is very well written, and while it is essentially an academic book, it should be accessible to those with some knowledge of the themes under discussion.

This article was originally published by Palestine Chronicle.

***

Title: A Half Century of Occupation: Isræl, Palestine, and the World’s Most Intractable Conflict

Author: Gershon Shafir

Publisher: University of California Press (April 25, 2017)

ISBN-10: 0520293509

ISBN-13: 978-0520293502

Click here to order.

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On Monday, the Senate overwhelmingly passed its version of the FY 2018 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA).

Only four undemocratic Dems and four Republicans voted against it. The bipartisan Senate Armed Services Committee unanimously approved it earlier, authorizing $700 billion for unprecedented militarism and aggressive wars against nations threatening no one.

In July, House members overwhelming passed their version, authorizing $631.5 billion. Reconciliation between both bills will finalize the FY 2018 budgeted amount, certain to be more than Trump requested.

With all related categories included, defense spending exceeds $1.5 trillion, likely much more than anyone but select insiders know, given open-checkbook black budgets, and special appropriations during virtually all fiscal years.

Key to understand is America’s rage for endless wars on humanity at a time when its only enemies are invented ones, its contempt for rule of law principles, along with its slow-motion war on social justice and fundamental freedoms, wanting them eliminated altogether.

America’s resources are earmarked for corporate handouts, banker bailouts, along with smashing one nation after another, the toll on human lives and welfare of no consequence – at home and abroad.

Fundamental freedoms interfere with bipartisan rage for unchallenged global dominance, warmaking the nation’s favored strategy, draining America’s resources, using them for raping and destroying nations at the expense of concern for the public welfare.

A modest annual defense budget alone is needed, not an annually approved monstrosity, the FY 2018 amount larger than ever.

Imagine what benefits could be achieved for all Americans by responsibly using hundreds of billions of dollars disgracefully wasted on militarism and warmaking.

Aging infrastructure could be rebuilt nationwide. Social justice could be prioritized like never before. College education to the highest levels could become tuition-free for every qualified student.

Universal healthcare could replace today’s dysfunctional system, based on the ability to pay. Homelessness and hunger would end.

A minimum income could be guaranteed for all American workers. The Constitution’s general welfare clause could become meaningful for the first time in US history.

Best of all, world peace and stability would replace endless imperial wars, responsible for millions of casualties post-9/11 alone.

Instead of being a hated pariah state, America would be a responsible model for others to emulate.

If money was eliminated from politics, and independent parties able compete on a level playing field, along with achieving the above objectives, America could become beautiful for everyone, not just its privileged few like today.

As long as the nation’s debauched system continues unaddressed, worsening over time, not improving, none of the above is attainable.

Nuclear war becomes increasingly likely, a war to end all wars, dooming us all if launched.

On September 19, the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) and the National Defense Forces (NDF) repelled a huge attack of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (formerly Jabhat al-Nusra, the Syrian branch of al-Qaeda) on Ma’an in northern Hama. A fighting was also reported in Tulaysiyah, Tel Al-Aswad, Al-Qahira, Al-Zughbi and Al-Raya. In total, about 40 militants were killed. On September 20, the fighting continued in Tulaysiyah and Alqhirah.

Pro-Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) media blamed Russian attack helicopters and warplanes as well as a lack of support from the moderate opposition for the failure. Government sources describe the HTS advance as an attempt to assist anti-government forces in Deir Ezzor province.

On September 19, the SAA entered Khusham village north of Deir Ezzor city. On September 20, the SAA continued clashing with ISIS aiming to secure this important settlement. When this is done, government forces will be able to expand  its control in the both eastern and western directions.

The ISIS-linked news agency Amaq has claimed killing of 3 Russian soldiers near Khusham. Amaq released graphic photos aiming to confirm the claims. However, photos allow to suggest that the killed fighters were likely private military contractors (PMCs) supporting the SAA advance. According to local sources, Russia-linked PMCs are actively participating in the operation in Deir Ezzor province.

The US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) have continued attempts to reach the Euphrates from the northern direction advancing on ISIS units in Husaniyah, Jiyan, Maishiyah, according to pro-Kurdish sources. Clashes are ongoing near the settlements.

On September 19, a press office of the Kurdish People’s Protection Units [a core of the SDF] released a video with a SDF commander north of Deir Ezzor. The commander blamed Russia and Syria for alleged airstrikes on the SDF and vowed to fight Russians and Syrians if it was needed.

Meanwhile, the SDF has moved a large number of US-supplied military equipment to Deir Ezzor frontlines.  Photos of at least one military column have appeared online.

Syrian analysts say the US-led coalition and the SDF will attempt to prevent the SAA advance on the eastern bank of the Euphrates.

At the same day, spokesperson for the Russian Defense Ministry, Major-General Igor Konashenkov, said government forces have faced fierce ISIS counter-attacks from an area controlled by the US Special Operations Forces and the SDF.

“According to Syrian commanders’ reports from the front line, the Syrian Army encounters the most severe counterattacks and fire from the northern direction. That is, where SDF forces and US special operations units are located, who are allegedly administering medical aid to these militants instead of liberating Raqqa. You don’t have to possess profound military knowledge to see consistency in all these ‘coincidences’,” Konashenkov said.

Konashenkov added that water discharges from the Euphrates dams controlled by the US-backed forces hamper the government advance north of Deir Ezzor.

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1. Global Economy and BRICS

Peter Koenig: Let’s put the BRICS in perspective: The BRICS are of course Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. Together they make up for almost 50% of the world population and close to one third of the world’s economic output, or GDP.

This alone would make them fully independent from the western economy, from the western, what I call, fraudulent dollar-based monetary system. And it will happen – it will happen sooner than the world believes. However, with the current political structure of the BRICS, the relative lack of political and economic coherence, safe for Russia and China, this for the moment is just theory.

Jim O’Neill (Source: Wikimedia Commons)

If you allow me, let’s backtrack a bit in history, to where the term BRIC came from, and who coined it. At the beginning, South Africa was not yet member of the association. In 2001, shortly after the 9/11, in 2001, the chief economist of Goldman Sachs, Jim O’Neill, invented the term BRIC – as he was forecasting that these emerging economies, spread throughout the world, Brazil, Russia, India and China – would overtake the so-called western economy by 2041. The forecast was later revised several times, all the way to 2032 – and now, there is, I believe no formal forecast, but it could easily happen by 2025, or earlier, especially with the new Oil-for-yuan and gold exchange market soon to be opened in Shanghai. Many predict this to be the end of the petro-dollar, and the end of the dollar hegemony.

Then strangely and formidably the four BRIC countries realized their potential and took things in their own hands. That’s how dynamics work – often totally unpredictably. For sure, Goldman Sachs and their Chief economist had no clue that this would create the western monetary and economic system’s most daunting adversary. 

The first BRIC summit was held in Russia in June 2009. That was the formal conference to create the BRICS.  

By 2011, the five countries, Brazil, Russia, India and China – plus South Africa were the five fastest growing emerging markets, and in April 2013, South Africa was added to the BRIC group – to make it formally the BRICS.

This just as a little historic introduction – to show that the impetus for the BRIC(S) came actually form a most unlikely western source – Goldman Sachs.

In the meantime, the BRICS are struggling with another reality. For the BRICS to be an effective alternative to the western economy, or the western monetary system, they need a unified political vision, as well as a coherent and unified economic development approach, one that distances itself from the western dollar-euro based system. Unfortunately, today this is not so. But that doesn’t mean it will not happen. Personally, I believe it will. It may just take longer than the majority of the world may have liked.

Both Brazil and India are totally in the hands of Wall Street, the World Bank and the IMF. In the case of India, you will recall last fall’s deadly monetary fiasco, when PM Narendra Modi decided to cancel more than 80% of the countries circulating cash currency, and as an interim step to replace it with other bills and eventually digitalize the Indian economy.

It is not known how many poor Indians perished, those with no access to bank accounts, those who have no alternative means to pay for food. Uncountable small businesses failed – an important impact on the Indian economy. More, much more inhuman was the impact on the poor average Indians. But – Modi followed the dictate of the west, of Wall Street and the IMF –  with a program to test digitalization in a large emerging economy, implemented by USAID. – How much trust does India under Modi as a BRICS member deserve?

And Brazil under neoliberal Temer, who is under accusation of corruption; he has literally handed his country’s economy to the sharks of Wall Street, the IMF and the WB. So, when Temer and Modi stood there holding hands with the other three BRICS members in Xiamen, China on 4^th and 5^thSeptember – it looked to me like a club that was united only by name.

Yet, the theme of this 9^th BRICS Conference was “BRICS: Stronger Partnership for a Brighter Future”. – I truly hope this objective will be achieved. And it very well may – over time. It is important to approach such an event in a positive and forward-looking spirit.

Perhaps it was along the same philosophy, that ahead of the September summit in Xiamen, President Putin said something crucial, but highly political and highly diplomatic: “It is important that our group’s activities are based on the principles of equality, respect for one another’s opinions and consensus. Within BRICS, nothing is ever forced on anyone. When the approaches of its members do not coincide, we work patiently and carefully to coordinate them. This open and trust-based atmosphere is conducive to the successful implementation of our tasks.”

2. Understanding Industrialization / development and the Brics Bank

PK: Let’s start with the BRICS development bank, now called New Development Bank (NDB). It emerged as an idea from the Durban BRICS summit in March 2013 and was formally created in 2014, and signed as a Treaty in July 2015.

Source: ndt.int

Under the Agreement the BRICS Development Bank, as it was first called – now the NDB, they set up a “reserve currency pool” of US$ 100 billion. Each of the five-member countries was to allocate an equal share of the US$ 50 billion start-up capital, to be expanded later to the US$ 100 billion.

Contributions per country were, Brazil, $18 billion, Russia $18 billion, India $18 billion, China $41 billion and South Africa $5 billion. The problem is that the initial capital and the Contingency Reserve Arrangement (CRA) of US$ 100 billion was set up in US dollars.

How can they break loose from the western dollar-based monetary system, if their contribution is dollar based?

Also, South Africa and Brazil are heavily indebted – in US dollars. South Africa’s current debt is today above 50% (US$ 153 billion) of GDP which stands just below 300 billion.

To comply with their contribution to the dollar-denominated CRA, Brazil and SA may have to borrow from where? – Wall Street, or the IMF, as the CRA is a dollar reserve fund. This puts these countries even more into a dollar bondage, in the hands of the FED and the Bretton Woods Organizations – instead of freeing them from this predicament. 

As a parenthesis, South Africa’s interest on foreign debt of $153 billion was about US$ 5 billion (2016). Foreign debt is almost 52% of SA’s GDP of close to US$ 300 billion. The US$ 5 billion debt payments are higher than the country’s spending on tertiary education (about R60 billion / US$ 4.6 billion equivalent). This is also a good reason to detach from a debt-based monetary system – and, as originally was planned by the BRICS – migrate towards a BRICS own monetary and international payment system – similar to the one already introduced to the world by China – the Chinese International Payment System (CIPS).

On Industrialization – the NDB will certainly help boost industrialization within each of the BRICS countries, but also among the BRICS countries – and even outside the BRICS nations, as trade will increase.

At present the NDB has approved seven investment projects in the BRICS countries, worth around $1.5 billion. This year, the NDB is to approve a second package of investment projects worth $2.5 to $3 billion in total.

Although it is not clear what precisely these projects entail, the original idea for the NDB was to support infrastructure and energy projects within the BRICS countries. There is a big need for infrastructure and independent energy production. Of course, infrastructure and energy development, means also industrialization and trade.

3. Economic diversification

PK: A solid BRICS cooperation, as well as an own development bank, will most likely attract – and through the NDB leverage – new investments. This was one of the goals discussed during the Xiamen summit. The amount of which is difficult to predict, but Indian PM Modi has talked about an expected 40% increase over the next few years. But even if India or any BRICS country receives foreign investments, it will be difficult to discern which investments are directly related to the new BRICS strength, as so fervently expressed in Xiamen.

More important is the diversification of investments, as well as the related trade. There are currently several countries on a – what shall I call it – “wait list” – to become members of the BRICS. For example, South Korea and Mexico (both are OECD members), Indonesia, Turkey, Argentina, have been mentioned.

Trade between emerging and developing markets has already been increasing more rapidly than “globalized average trade” for which WTO imposes the rules. I could imagine that trade – and, thus, diversification – between BRICS countries, or better even, an enlarged BRICS block, could really boom. It would be a sort of ‘globalization’ with most trade barriers removed, of a peace-oriented economy, one that strives for the well-being of the people, rather than an elite – and of course, an economy that does not work for the war industry, as does the western dollar-based economy.

For that reason, it will be important that the BRICS detach themselves from the western dollar-based economy and eventually have their own currency. At the Xiamen summit, this was discussed in some ways.

The five members have agreed to “promote and develop BRICS Local Currency Bond Markets and jointly establish a BRICS Local Currency Bond Fund, as a means of contribution to the capital sustainability of financing in BRICS countries, boosting the development of BRICS domestic and regional bond markets.”

This comes pretty close to what the Euro was before it became Fiat money, i.e. it was the European Currency Unit (ECU) that then converted into the virtual Euro, before in January 2002, the Euro became paper and dollar like Fiat money.

By now we know that the US drove this European currency effort – establishing the euro as the foster child of the US dollar – totally unsustainable as a unitary currency of a group of countries that have no common political interests and goals, that have no common Constitution. Their only common denominator is NATO, their permanent drive for war. It was clear from the beginning that such a project will be doomed to fail.

Hopefully – and I trust, the BRICS will learn a lesson from this failed exercise, and only with a strong bond that includes political, economic and defense long-term goals, a common currency can flourish.

In Xiamen, the BRICS also established the Strategy for “BRICS Economic Partnership and initiatives related to its priority areas such as trade and investment, manufacturing and minerals processing, infrastructure connectivity, financial integration, science, technology and innovation, and Information and Communication Technology (ICT) cooperation, among others.” All this for sustainable, balanced and inclusive global growth.

Xi addresses Dialogue of Emerging Market and Developing Countries (Source: BRICS 2017)

This Strategy already is indicative for a different development and monetary approach than was the one that laid the cornerstone for the European Union.

4. Trade between BRICS and the dollar

PK: This will be interesting to see emerging. In the medium term, I see a full integration between the countries of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) and the BRICS. Several countries are already today members of both associations; for example, Russia and China, recently also India joined the SCO. The SCO also comprises most of central Asia, the former Soviet Republics, and also new Iran and Pakistan. The SCO has already a common long-term objective, in economic development, political vision, as well as defense strategy.

During the recent Eastern Economic Forum (EEF) in Vladivostok, President Putin and President Xi announced cementing of the fusion between the Eurasian Economic Union (EUAU) and the new ‘Silk Road’, also called “One Belt One Road” (OBOR), or for short “OBI” – the One Belt Initiative.

Since OBI is largely driven by SCO, i.e. by China, this also means that the countries of the Eurasian Economic Union are part of SCO. Imagine, the economic power of the entire group SCO, EAEU and BRICS…. Western supremacy will be a thing of the past.

This means worldwide trading – but without the dollar hegemony, without an economic and monetary systems that allows Washington to impose “sanctions” – outrageous and illegal punishments on countries that refuse to follow their dictate. Its high time that this high crime stops. And that we reinstate international law – which today is completely ‘bought’ by Washington.

Today it is clear to most progressive and forward-looking economists that the future is the east; the west has practically committed suicide with its constant wars for greed and dominance and disrespect for the very peoples that foot the western empire’s war bills.

5. BRICS Development Bank and World Bank

PK: Yes, the original idea was – and I hope still is – that the BRICS New Development Bank will be able to compete with the WB and the IMF. In other words, by applying non-neoliberal economic policies and with loans that do not impose austerity – which, as we know, is devastating for economic development – but will promote peoples’ based development – aiming at a more just income and wealth distribution.

This is not yet the case.

As mentioned before, the problem is that the BRICS bank’s initial capital and the Contingency Reserve Arrangement (CRA) of US$ 100 billion was set up in US dollars.

Also, as said before, South Africa and Brazil are heavily indebted – in US dollars, an existing bondage that is difficult to break. But not impossible!

The same is true for the Chinese Asian Infrastructure and Investment Bank (AIIB), whose capital of currently also US$ 100 billion is also dollar denominated, and of which about US$ 18 billion is paid in.

It is very likely that the NDB and the AIIB will work together in the future – and jointly break the stranglehold of the WB and the IMF.

In order to do so, they both need to totally break loose from the dollar economy – which is about to happen, perhaps soon, with the enactment of the Chinese Petrol exchange in Shanghai, where trading will NOT be in US dollars but in gold-convertible Yuan.

A possible solution is an SCO-BRICS currency basket, similar to the IMFs Special Drawing Rights (SDR) basket which currently consist of 5 currencies – the US-dollar, British Pound, Euro, Yen and since October 2016 also the Chinese Yuan. This may start out as a virtual currency for external trade, while each country preserves her own monetary system.

It looks like a brighter future is ahead.

*

Peter Koenig is an economist and geopolitical analyst. He is also a former World Bank staff and worked extensively around the world in the fields of environment and water resources. He lectures at universities in the US, Europe and South America. He writes regularly for Global Research, ICH, RT, Sputnik, PressTV, The 4th Media (China), TeleSUR, The Vineyard of The Saker Blog, and other internet sites. He is the author of Implosion – An Economic Thriller about War, Environmental Destruction and Corporate Greed – fiction based on facts and on 30 years of World Bank experience around the globe. He is also a co-author of The World Order and Revolution! – Essays from the Resistance. 

Featured image: Paul Delaroche, Napoléon à Fontainebleau, 1840. With other global powers increasingly at odds with US foreign policy under Donald Trump, the nation’s hegemony on the world stage may soon face its own crisis point. Photo: Wikimedia Commons

This was no “deeply philosophical address”. And hardly a show of  “principled realism” – as spun by the White House. President Trump at the UN was “American carnage,” to borrow a phrase previously deployed by his nativist speechwriter Stephen Miller.

One should allow the enormity of what just happened to sink in, slowly. The president of the United States, facing the bloated bureaucracy that passes for the “international community,” threatened to “wipe off the map” the whole of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (25 million people). And may however many millions of South Koreans who perish as collateral damage be damned.

Multiple attempts have been made to connect Trump’s threats to the madman theory cooked up by “Tricky Dicky” Nixon in cahoots with Henry Kissinger, according to which the USSR must always be under the impression the then-US president was crazy enough to, literally, go nuclear. But the DPRK will not be much impressed with this madman remix.

That leaves, on the table, a way more terrifying upgrade of Hiroshima and Nagasaki (Trump repeatedly invoked Truman in his speech). Frantic gaming will now be in effect in both Moscow and Beijing: Russia and China have their own stability / connectivity strategy under development to contain Pyongyang.

The Trump Doctrine has finally been enounced and a new axis of evil delineated. The winners are North Korea, Iran and Venezuela. Syria under Assad is a sort of mini-evil, and so is Cuba. Crucially, Ukraine and the South China Sea only got a fleeting mention from Trump, with no blunt accusations against Russia and China. That may reflect at least some degree of realpolitik; without “RC” – the Russia-China strategic partnership at the heart of the BRICS bloc and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) – there’s no possible solution to the Korean Peninsula stand-off.

In this epic battle of the “righteous many” against the “wicked few,” with the US described as a “compassionate nation” that wants “harmony and friendship, not conflict and strife,” it’s a bit of a stretch to have Islamic State – portrayed as being not remotely as “evil” as North Korea or Iran – get only a few paragraphs.

The art of unraveling a deal

According to the Trump Doctrine, Iran is “an economically depleted rogue state whose chief exports are violence, bloodshed and chaos,” a “murderous regime” profiting from a nuclear deal that is “an embarrassment to the United States.”

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif tweeted:

 “Trump’s ignorant hate speech belongs in medieval times – not the 21st century UN – unworthy of a reply.”

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov once again stressed full support for the nuclear deal ahead of a P5+1 ministers’ meeting scheduled for Wednesday, when Zarif was due to be seated at the same table as US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson. Under review: compliance with the deal. Tillerson is the only one who wants a renegotiation.

Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani has, in fact, developed an unassailable argument on the nuclear negotiations. He says the deal – which the P5+1 and the IAEA all agree is working – could be used as a model elsewhere. German chancellor Angela Merkel concurs. But, Rouhani says, if the US suddenly decides to unilaterally pull out, how could the North Koreans possibly be convinced it’s worth their while to sit down to negotiate anything with the Americans ?

What the Trump Doctrine is aiming at is, in fact, a favourite old neo-con play, reverting back to the dynamics of the Dick Cheney-driven Washington-Tehran Cold War years.

This script runs as follows: Iran must be isolated (by the West, only now that won’t fly with the Europeans); Iran is “destabilizing” the Middle East (Saudi Arabia, the ideological foundry of all strands of Salafi-jihadism, gets a free pass); and Iran, because it’s developing ballistic that could – allegedly – carry nuclear warheads, is the new North Korea.

That lays the groundwork for Trump to decertify the deal on October 15. Such a dangerous geopolitical outcome would then pit Washington, Tel Aviv, Riyadh and Abu Dhabi against Tehran, Moscow and Beijing, with European capitals non-aligned. That’s hardly compatible with a “compassionate nation” which wants “harmony and friendship, not conflict and strife.”

Afghanistan comes to South America

The Trump Doctrine, as enounced, privileges the absolute sovereignty of the nation-state. But then there are those pesky “rogue regimes” which must be, well, regime-changed. Enter Venezuela, now on “the brink of total collapse,” and run by a “dictator”; thus, America “cannot stand by and watch.”

No standing by, indeed. On Monday, Trump had dinner in New York with the presidents of Colombia, Peru and Brazil (the last indicted by the country’s Attorney General as the leader of a criminal organization and enjoying an inverted Kim dynasty rating of 95% unpopularity). On the menu: regime change in Venezuela.

Venezuelan “dictator” Maduro happens to be supported by Moscow and, most crucially, Beijing, which buys oil and has invested widely in infrastructure in the country with Brazilian construction giant Odebrecht crippled by the Car Wash investigation.

The stakes in Venezuela are extremely high. In early November, Brazilian and American forces will be deployed in a joint military exercise in the Amazon rainforest, at the Tri-Border between Peru, Brazil and Colombia. Call it a rehearsal for regime change in Venezuela. South America could well turn into the new Afghanistan, a consequence that flows from Trump’s assertion that “major portions of the world are in conflict and some, in fact, are going to hell.”

For all the lofty spin about “sovereignty”, the new axis of evil is all about, once again, regime change.

Russia-China aim to defuse the nuclear stand-off, then seduce North Korea into sharing in the interpenetration of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and the Eurasia Economic Union (EAEU), via a new Trans-Korea Railway and investments in DPRK ports. The name of the game is Eurasian integration.

Iran is a key node of BRI. It’s also a future full member of the SCO, it’s connected – via the North-South Transport Corridor – with India and Russia, and is a possible future supplier of natural gas to Europe. The name of the game, once again, is Eurasian integration.

Venezuela, meanwhile, holds the largest unexplored oil reserves on the planet, and is targeted by Beijing as a sort of advanced BRI node in South America.

The Trump Doctrine introduces a new set of problems for Russia-China. Putin and Xi do dream of reenacting a balance of power similar to that of the Concert of Europe, which lasted from 1815 (after Napoleon’s defeat) until the brink of World War I in 1914. That’s when Britain, Austria, Russia and Prussia decided that no European nation should be able to emulate the hegemony of France under Napoleon. In sitting as judge and executioner, Trump’s “compassionate” America certainly seems intent on echoing such hegemony.

Featured image: ussian Su-25 attack aircraft take off from the Khmeimim airbase in Syria (Source:Dmitriy Vinogradov / Sputnik)

Russian warplanes and Syrian forces have repelled an offensive by jihadists in a de-escalation zone in Idlib governorate in Syria. The forces killed some 850 militants and destroyed 11 tanks and other assets, Russia’s General Staff reported.

“I’ll never live to see 9/11 justice,” says Stephen Lendman. The 9/11 attacks have changed the course of humanity, even so for sixteen years have not been minimally clarified but turned the world in a place full of fear and hate as the United States spreads its military bases all over the world, having 737 and more than 2,500,000 U.S. personnel serving across the planet. 

Stephen Lendman, one of the world’s most respected analysts, speaks with Pravda Report on the consequences of those attacks, and President Trump’s denial of his promises during the presidential campaign to investigate the day that has killed more than one million people all over the world, and up to now bring innumerable contradictions and evident lies.

Edu Montesanti: Stephen Lendman, I’d like to thank you so very much for this interview. So what has been the consequences of the 9/11 attacks to the US and the world? 

Stephen Lendman: I call 9/11 the mother of all false flags. It was staged to let Washington wage endless wars of aggression against one sovereign independent state after another.

All nations America doesn’t control are vulnerable to wars or color revolutions for regime change. Dark forces in Washington want them all transformed into subservient puppet states, their resources looted, their people exploited.

EM: The current crisis of a nuclear war between Washington and Pyongyang is, in a large part, a consequence of 9/11 as the then-US President George Bush included North Korea in the Axis of Evil”, in his State of the Union address in 2002…

SL: The North Korea situation has been festering since the 1940’s, unconnected to 9/11 except for powers in Washington perhaps including the country among others it calls evil regimes.

America, NATO, Israel and their rogue allies are the only pure evil ones I know.

9/11 let America launch phony war on terror, waging war OF terror on humanity, supporting ISIS, al-Qaeda and other terrorists groups, using them as imperial foot soldiers.

I’ve written a great deal on North Korea. I deplore wars, nuclear and other powerful weapons, but recognize the DPRK’s right to self-defense.

Throughout its history, it never attacked another country. It genuinely fears possible US aggression, why it’s pursued powerful deterrents to save the nation and its leadership from destruction.

EM: Campainger Donald Trump said that, once elected, he would investigate 9/11, what he has not been doing as president: Why do you think he has given up?

SL: All politicians lie, Trump like all the rest. Further, he’s been co-opted by dark forces in America. He’s an impotent front man for their agenda. The same is true for congressional leadership and most congressional members, along with the courts.

Democracy in America is pure fantasy. None exists. Powerful monied interests run things. People have no say. Elections are farcical when held. Dirty business as usual wins every time.

EM: We see people not willing to face the truth, especially Americans. 9/11 has become a taboo among people. Mike Berger has said me, “I have heard many times: ‘If it is true [an inside job], I just don’t want to know’.” Every 9/11 truther I have interviewed or talked to, mention the mainstream media brainwashing, and psychological barriers as the roots of it. What can you say about it?

SL: Democracy in America is pure fantasy. None exists. Powerful monied interests run things. People have no say. Elections are farcical when held. Dirty business as usual wins every time.

The major media in America are abominable, especially the New York Times, CIA-connected Washington Post, and farcical television news.

EM: Do you still believe in justice for 9/11?

PSL: I’ll never live to see 9/11 justice.

Stephen Lendman was born in 1934 in Boston, MA. In 1956, he received a BA from Harvard University. Two years of US Army service followed, then an MBA from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania in 1960. After working seven years as a marketing research analyst, he joined the Lendman Group family business in 1967. He remained there until retiring at year end 1999. Writing on major world and national issues began in summer 2005. In early 2007, radio hosting followed. Lendman now hosts the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network three times weekly. Distinguished guests are featured. Listen live or archived. Major world and national issues are discussed. Lendman is a 2008 Project Censored winner and 2011 Mexican Journalists Club international journalism award recipient. His newest book as editor and contributor is titled “Flashpoint in Ukraine: How the US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III.” stephenlendman.org Contact at [email protected]

Edu Montesanti is an independent analyst, researcher and journalist whose work has been published by Truth Out, Pravda, Global Research, Telesur, 9/11 Truth.org, Brazilian magazine Caros Amigos, and numerous other publications across the globe. www.edumontesanti.skyrock.com Contact [email protected]

This article was originally published by PravdaReport where the featured image was sourced.

Recently, the Syrian Arab Army has achieved quite a lot in fighting against ISIS in Deir Ezzor – vast territories near the city are liberated, the Euphrates crossed, a lot of terrorists and vehicles eliminated and destroyed.

Meanwhile, an offensive towards Deir Ezzor is carried out by the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces aided by the International Coalition. The Kurds have captured a number of villages to the northeast of the city and are approaching the Euphrates.

In fact, for this purpose the SDF de facto stalled the siege of Raqqa and moved the troops to the south.

On September 15, in its article Bloomberg compared the current situation in Syria to the one at the end of WWII when the Soviet army and Allied forces were pushing to Berlin to control as many territories as possible for the post-war division of Germany.

Indeed, despite the difference of the scales, Syria witnesses similar processes, despite the official statements that the US-led coalition only aims at fighting terrorism. The Raqqa offensive, however, proves another thing: Washington seeks clearing as much areas as possible from ISIS before it’s done by the government troops.

After the Islamic State is defeated and the war ends, the areas of influence shall become one of the main factors at the negotiations on post-war Syria. Besides, a key part belongs to the media, as the first one to clear the country of ISIS will have a possibility to increase their popularity. Thus, making use of propaganda in the U.S. media, Donald Trump may declare himself “a modern crusader” and improve his extremely low rating.

The Syria war long ago transformed from an ordinary local conflict to a crisis influencing the political agenda all over the world. Europe is overcrowded with Syrian refugees, Israel fears Syria’s ally Iran and shells the SAR territory, and Turkey is up to deter the formation of an autonomous Kurdish region by the Syrian-Turkish border and is building up its presence there. All these parties are attempting to affect the Syrian conflict.

But now, the main rivalry is between Syria’s legal government and Washington, which invaded the country seeking its own interests. Damascus is in the lead and the only thing the White House can do is to chase it redeploying the Kurds from one location to another.

This article was originally published by Inside Syria Media Center.

Global Research announces the forthcoming release of  the print edition of Mark Taliano’s Book, “Voices from Syria”  which includes one additional chapter. 

Taliano talks and listens to the people of Syria. He reveals the courage and resilience of a Nation and its people in their day to day lives, after more than six years of US-NATO sponsored terrorism and three years of US “peacemaking” airstrikes.

Mark Taliano combines years of research with on-the-ground observations to present an informed and well-documented analysis that refutes  the mainstream media narratives on Syria. 

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Trump’s UN speech makes it clear that Trump’s presidency, in terms of his campaign promise to remove Washington from the “policeman of the world” role, exit the Middle East, and repair the damaged relations with Russia, is over. The CIA and the military/security complex are in full control of the US government. Trump has accepted his captivity and his assigned role as the enforcer of Washington’s hegemony over every other country. Washington uber alles is the only foreign policy that Washington pursues.

At the UN Trump actually threatened to wipe North Korea off of the face of the earth. He added to this threats against Venezuela and Iran. He demonized these countries as “rogue states,” but it is Washington that is playing that role. Washington has destroyed in whole or part eight countries in the young 21st century and has 3 to 5 more in its crosshairs.

One question is: why did not the UN audience shout Trump down, a man standing before them telling obvious lies? The answer, of course, is money. The US taxpayers pay roughly one-quarter of the UN’s annual budget, leaving the other 130+ countries a light load. Washington is succeeding in driving the world to Armageddon, because the world’s leaders prefer money to truth, to justice, to survival. The UN diplomats see in their cooperation with Washington the opportunity to make money by sharing in the West’s exploitation of their own countries.

Washington, absorbed in its effort to destroy Syria, left it to its Saudi Arabian puppet to destroy Yemen. The Saudi autocracy, a major sponsor with the US of terrorism, has done a good job, thanks to US supplying the weapons and to the US refueling the Saudi attack airplanes. This totally gratuitous war has helped to maximize the profits of the American military/security complex, a collection of evil never before present on the face of the earth. UNICEF reports that one million Yemeni children will be the victims of “American compassion” of which Trump bragged in the CIA’s UN speech.

One wonders if the Russians and Chinese are so absorbed in getting rich like America’s One Percent that they are unaware that they are on the list of countries to be eliminated for not accepting Washington’s hegemony. Really, where was the Russian government when Washington overthrew the Ukranian government? It was at a sports event. And I call Americans insouciant. Where was the Russian government? How could it have not known?

To be frank. The point is this. Unless Russia and China can take out the US, the US will take out Russia and China. The only question is who strikes first. The only way to avoid this is for Russia and China to surrender and accept Washington’s hegemony. This is the firm undeviating path on which the neoconservatives, the CIA, and the military/security complex have set the United States. The entire point of North Korea is US nuclear missiles on China’s border. The entire point of Iran is US nuclear missiles on Russia’s border.

As far as I can ascertain, hardly anyone is aware that Armageddon is just around the corner. There is no protest from the Western presstitutes, a collection of whores. In the US the only protests are against ancient “civil war” statues, which the ignorant rabble say are symbols of black slavery. There is no peace movement and no peace marches. In London the transgendered and the radical feminists are protesting one another, engaging in fist fights in Hyde Park. No one seems to have any awareness.

In US online propaganda websites such as Americans for Limited Government—funded by who? serving who?—endorse Trump’s destabilizing UN speech as a non-threat to world peace:

“President Trump has provided a cogent and inspiring defense of America and the American constitutional system of governance to the world not as imposition but an example to be followed, while at the same time respecting the sovereignty of other nations. However, the President also made it clear to those nations that threaten humanity with nuclear destruction [which Washington has done to N. Korea and Iran] that the United States will not be held hostage, and continuing down their current paths guarantees their annihilation. While many will focus on Trump’s threat to North Korea and Iran, the real focus of his speech is that it is a call to all nations to embrace their own sovereignty without threatening world peace.”

I have never in my long life read such a misrepresentation of a speech. The United States has become the complete propaganda state. No truth ever emerges.

It is only the US government, which is not a government of the people, that has ever threatened another country with total destruction as Trump did to North Korea in the CIA’s UN speech.

This is a first. It trumps Adolf Hitler. The US has become the 4th Reich. It is doubtful that the world will survive the foreign policy of the United States of America.

Libertarian U.S. Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) declared from the Senate floor last week in anticipation of the vote on the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) of 2018:

“I rise today to oppose unauthorized, undeclared and unconstitutional war…What we have today is basically unlimited war, anywhere, anytime, any place upon the globe.”

With these words, Paul became one of the few voices to oppose the obscenity that is known as U.S. war policy. But only two other senators joined him: Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Ron Wyden (D-OR). But there is a wrinkle here: Paul is not concerned with the size of the military budget. He’s pointing his finger at the continuation of the Authorization to Use Military Force Act (AUMF) of 2001, which was the “legal” basis for the U.S. global “war on terror.” He wants Congress to re-assess this legislation that has prompted endless wars abroad.

After Paul’s amendment to the NDAA was defeated, the Senate went on to approve it with a vote of 89-9 Monday in what the New York Times correctly identified as a bi-partisan effort, to authorize a military budget of $696 billion—an increase in the military budget of almost $75 billion and well over the $54 billion that Pres. Donald Trump had originally proposed.

The very next day, Trump appeared before the United Nations and threatened to destroy North Korea, subvert Venezuela, and undermine the nuclear agreement with Iran, which could lead to military conflict with that nation.

Obscuring the Bi-Partisan Defense of Empire

Nothing rehabilitates an unpopular president in capitalist “America” like war. In fact, the only sustained negative press that Barack Obama received was when he seemed reluctant to fully immerse the United States in direct efforts to cause regime change in Syria by attacking that nation and committing to significant “boots on the ground.” For the Neo-cons and liberal interventionists driving U.S. policy, allowing U.S. vassal states to take the lead in waging war in that country was an unnecessary and inefficient burden on those states.

Similarly on the war issue, the only let-up in the constant barrage of negative press that Trump experienced was when he launched an attack on Syria, demonstrating once again that a consensus exists among the oligarchy on what instrument will be used to ensure their continued global dominance.

With the escalating decline in U.S. influence from the Bush administration through Obama and now to Trump, U.S. global dominance increasingly depends on its ability to project military power. Obama’s “pivot to Asia,” the veritable rampage by the United States through West Asia and North Africa since 2003, the expansion of AFRICOM to offset Chinese influence in Africa, the commitment to a permanent military occupation of Afghanistan to facilitate blocking China’s New Silk Road and to exploit Afghan mineral wealth all attest to the importance of continued popular support for the permanent war agenda.

Therefore, the state is vulnerable because it has to generate public support for its war agenda and that provides the domestic anti-war and anti-imperialist opposition with a strategic opportunity.

The abysmal levels of popular support for Congress reflect a serious crisis of legitimacy. That erosion of confidence in Congress must be extended to a critical stance on congressional expenditures related to the Pentagon budget and the rationalization for military/security spending. An ideological opening exists for reframing military spending and the war agenda for what it is: An agenda for the protection of the interests of the 1 percent. And for disrupting the acceptance of patriotic pride in U.S. military adventures beyond the borders of the country.

The current work on the part of the United National Antiwar Coalition to encourage concentrated public educational work on Afghanistan in October, the new coalition to oppose U.S foreign military bases and CODEPINK’s military divestment campaign being launched in October are just some of the efforts being organized to take advantage of the moment.

The Black Alliance for Peace (BAP) is part of all of these efforts. As an alliance that is opposed to war, repression and imperialism, BAP believes that the current environment provides an opportunity to make the connections between opposition to the domestic military force in the form of the police and opposition to the war making regime of the U.S. state.

But we are under no illusions regarding the difficulties of the moment. The effective manipulation of public consciousness emerging from the carefully constructed War on Terror, and the domestic blowback from the cultivation and support of the very same forces that the United States pretends to be opposed to has helped to condition the public to accept state repression and violence as the rational response to threats.

Fear coupled with racism and a profound ignorance of the world and the criminal activity of the United States to advance the interests of the corporate and financial elite, has resulted in majority core support for militarism and even war. Here’s an example: As a result of the constant propaganda about North Korea, 58 percent of the public now supports bombing that country even though a majority of Americans have no knowledge of the issues that led to the Korean War.

Opposition to Trump has been framed in ways that supports the agenda of the Democratic  Party—but not the anti-war agenda. Therefore, anti-Trumpism does not include a position against war and U.S. imperialism.

When the Trump administration proposed what many saw as an obscene request for an additional $54 billion in military spending, we witnessed a momentary negative response from some liberal Democrats. The thinking was that this could be highlighted as yet another one of the supposedly demonic moves by the administration and it was added to the talking points for the Democrats. That was until 117 Democrats voted with Republicans in the House—including a majority of the Congressional Black Caucus—to not only accept the administration’s proposal, but to exceed it by $18 billion. By that point, the Democrats went silent on the issue.

The progressive community and what passes for the Left was not that much better. When those forces were not allowing their attention to be diverted into re-defining opposition to White supremacy in the form of the easy opposition to the clownish, marginal neo-Nazi forces, they were debating the violence of Antifa. And since hypocrisy has been able to reconcile itself with liberalism, they didn’t see that their concerns with the violence of Antifa was in conflict with their support for violent interventions by the U.S. state in places like Libya and Syria. So for that sector since war and violence had been normalized unless it is carried out by unauthorized forces like oppressed peoples,Antifa forces and nations in the crosshairs of U.S. imperialism—it is opposed. Why bother with the issues of war and militarism. And so the anti-war and anti-imperialist position was not included as part of anti-Trumpism!

The Democrat’s are playing games with the people by pretending they are going to block increases in military spending during the appropriation stage of the process. And their criticisms of Trump’s bellicosity and claims that he is reckless also are disingenuous because if they thought he was militarily reckless, they wouldn’t have joined Republicans in supporting increased military spending.

Both parties support militarism because both parties support the interests of the oligarchy and the oligarchy is interested in one thing—maintaining the empire.

And to maintain the empire, they are prepared to fight to the last drop of our blood. But we have a surprise for them.

Ajamu Baraka is a board member with Cooperation Jackson, the national organizer of the Black Alliance for Peace and was the 2016 candidate for vice president on the Green Party ticket. He is an editor and contributing columnist for the Black Agenda Report and contributing columnist for CounterPunch. He can be reached at www.AjamuBaraka.com

Featured image is from Xavi | CC BY 2.0.

In its latest breach of international law, the U.S. is unilaterally attempting to prevent the Syrian government from reclaiming its own territory. From Reuters:

“U.S.-backed Syrian militias will not let government forces cross the Euphrates River in their bid to recover eastern Syria, their commander said on Friday, but Russia said army units had already done so near the city of Deir al-Zor.”

He added:

“We have notified the regime and Russia that we are coming to the Euphrates riverbank, and they can see our forces advancing…We do not allow the regime or its militias to cross to the eastern riverbank.”

The “Deir ez-Zor military council” was established under the banner of the U.S.-backed SDF as recently as December 2016. This was arguably a poor attempt to legitimize Washington’s aspirations for the oil-rich region. In actuality, 4,000 fighters backed by foreign powers can hardly be a more legitimate force than the current Syrian government and its forces, but as is usually the case, the United States is not remotely concerned with the legality of this current strategy.

According to Reuters, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said the SAA had already crossed the Euphrates, making a difficult scenario for America’s ambitions in the region. Not only is the Syrian army ignoring Washington’s directions, Russia is apparently unfazed by these developments, as well.

Unsurprisingly, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov just held a phone call to discuss Syria, presumably to try to come to some agreement about the partition of the region.

Why Russia and Syria should concede Syrian territory to the U.S. and its allies has not been made clear given the land belongs to Syria in the first place. The corporate media’s longstanding anti-Assad narrative was undermined when the U.N. reported that 500,000 Syrians had begun returning home to areas liberated by the Syrian army in the first half of 2017 alone.

The U.S. media has also downplayed the fact that Russia is backing one side of this conflict and the U.S. is backing another — even though this emerging conflict puts 900 U.S. personnel directly at risk. What happens if and when the Syrian army decides it wants to defend itself from the U.S.-backed forces? Will the Russian and American air forces collide – or will the situation be successfully de-escalated?

That is a question no one seems prepared to answer — and that no one is even willing to discuss. The ‘trusted’ media outlets who do touch on the issue tend to fully support the United States’ bid to interfere further in Syria.

Global Research announces the release of  the print edition of Mark Taliano’s Book, “Voices from Syria”  which includes one additional chapter. 

Taliano talks and listens to the people of Syria. He reveals the courage and resilience of a Nation and its people in their day to day lives, after more than six years of US-NATO sponsored terrorism and three years of US “peacemaking” airstrikes.

Mark Taliano combines years of research with on-the-ground observations to present an informed and well-documented analysis that refutes  the mainstream media narratives on Syria. 

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Trump was seen as a presidential candidate who would possibly move towards a less interventionist foreign policy. That hope is gone. The insurgency that brought Trump to the top was defeated by a counter-insurgency campaign waged by the U.S. military. (Historically its first successful one). The military has taken control of the White House process and it is now taking control of its policies.

It is schooling Trump on globalism and its “indispensable” role in it. Trump was insufficiently supportive of their desires and thus had to undergo reeducation:

When briefed on the diplomatic, military and intelligence posts, the new president would often cast doubt on the need for all the resources. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson organized the July 20 session to lay out the case for maintaining far-flung outposts — and to present it, using charts and maps, in a way the businessman-turned-politician would appreciate.

Trump was hauled into a Pentagon basement ‘tank’ and indoctrinated by the glittering four-star generals he admired since he was a kid:

The session was, in effect, American Power 101 and the student was the man working the levers. It was part of the ongoing education of a president who arrived at the White House with no experience in the military or government and brought with him advisers deeply skeptical of what they labeled the “globalist” worldview. In coordinated efforts and quiet conversations, some of Trump’s aides have worked for months to counter that view, hoping the president can be persuaded to maintain — if not expand — the American footprint and influence abroad.

Trump was sold the establishment policies he originally despised. No alternative view was presented to him.

It is indisputable that the generals are now ruling in Washington DC. They came to power over decades by shaping culture through their sponsorship of Hollywood, by manipulating the media through “embedded” reporting and by forming and maintaining the countries infrastructure through the Army Corps of Engineers. The military, through the NSA as well as through its purchasing power, controls the information flow on the internet. Until recently the military establishment only ruled from behind the scene. The other parts of the power triangle, the corporation executives and the political establishment, were more visible and significant. But during the 2016 election the military bet on Trump and is now, after he unexpectedly won, collecting its price.

Trump’s success as the “Not-Hillary” candidate was based on an anti-establishment insurgency. Representatives of that insurgency, Flynn, Bannon and the MAGA voters, drove him through his first months in office. An intense media campaign was launched to counter them and the military took control of the White House. The anti-establishment insurgents were fired. Trump is now reduced to public figure head of a stratocracy – a military junta which nominally follows the rule of law.

Stephen Kinzer describes this as America’s slow-motion military coup:

Ultimate power to shape American foreign and security policy has fallen into the hands of three military men […]
…
Being ruled by generals seems preferable to the alternative. It isn’t.
…
[It] leads toward a distorted set of national priorities, with military “needs” always rated more important than domestic ones.
…
It is no great surprise that Trump has been drawn into the foreign policy mainstream; the same happened to President Obama early in his presidency. More ominous is that Trump has turned much of his power over to generals. Worst of all, many Americans find this reassuring. They are so disgusted by the corruption and shortsightedness of our political class that they turn to soldiers as an alternative. It is a dangerous temptation.

The country has fallen to that temptation even on social-economic issues:

In the wake of the deadly racial violence in Charlottesville this month, five of the Joint Chiefs of Staff were hailed as moral authorities for condemning hate in less equivocal terms than the commander in chief did.
…
On social policy, military leaders have been voices for moderation.

The junta is bigger than its three well known leaders:

Kelly, Mattis and McMaster are not the only military figures serving at high levels in the Trump administration. CIA Director Mike Pompeo, Attorney General Jeff Sessions, Energy Secretary Rick Perry and Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke each served in various branches of the military, and Trump recently tapped former Army general Mark S. Inch to lead the Federal Bureau of Prisons.
…
the National Security Council [..] counts two other generals on the senior staff.

This is no longer a Coup Waiting to Happen The coup has happened with few noticing it and ever fewer concerned about it. Everything of importance now passes through the Junta’s hands:

[Chief of staff John] Kelly initiated a new policymaking process in which just he and one other aide […] will review all documents that cross the Resolute desk.
…
The new system [..] is designed to ensure that the president won’t see any external policy documents, internal policy memos, agency reports and even news articles that haven’t been vetted.

To control Trump the junta filters his information input and eliminates any potentially alternative view:

Staff who oppose [policy xyz] no longer have unfettered access to Trump, and nor do allies on the outside [.. .] Kelly now has real control over the most important input: the flow of human and paper advice into the Oval Office. For a man as obsessed about his self image as Trump, a new flow of inputs can make the world of difference.

The Trump insurgency against the establishment was marked by a mostly informal information and decision process. That has been destroyed and replaced:

Worried that Trump would end existing US spending/policies (largely, still geared to cold war priorities), the senior military staff running the Trump administration launched a counter-insurgency against the insurgency.
…
General Kelly, Trump’s Chief of Staff, has put Trump on a establishment-only media diet.
…
In short, by controlling Trump’s information flow with social media/networks, the generals smashed the insurgency’s OODA loop (observe, orient, decide, act). Deprived of this connection, Trump is now weathervaning to cater to the needs of the establishment …

The Junta members dictate their policies to Trump by only proposing to him certain alternatives. The one that is most preferable to them will be presented as the only desirable one. “There are no alternatives,” Trump will be told again and again.

Thus we get a continuation of a failed Afghanistan policy and will soon get a militarily aggressive policy towards Iran.

Other countries noticed how the game has changed. The real decisions are made by the generals, Trump is ignoredas a mere figurehead:

Asked whether he was predicting war [with North Korea], [former defence minister of Japan, Satoshi] Morimoto said: “I think Washington has not decided … The final decision-maker is [US Defence Secretary] Mr Mattis … Not the president.“

Climate change, its local catastrophes and the infrastructure problems it creates within the U.S. will further extend the military role in shaping domestic U.S. policy.

Nationalistic indoctrination, already at abnormal heights in the U.S. society, will further increase. Military control will creep into ever extending fields of once staunchly civilian areas of policy. (Witness the increasing militarization of the police.)

It is only way to sustain the empire.

It is doubtful that Trump will be able to resist the policies imposed on him. Any flicker of resistance will be smashed. The outside insurgency which enabled his election is left without a figurehead, It will likely disperse. The system won.

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Fact Checking Benjamin Netanyahu’s General Assembly Speech

By Adam Garrie, September 20, 2017

The other country on Netanyahu’s list that has been occupied by Israel and not Iran is Lebanon. After invading Lebanon in 1982, Israel set up a permanent occupying force in southern Lebanon between 1985 and the year 2000. Israel maintained a presence in the country until 2006, when Israeli forces retreated in the face of strong Hezbollah defences.

Amidst Universal Opposition to KRG Referendum, Israel Stands by Kurds

By Sarah Abed, September 20, 2017

The Kurds are allied with Syria’s fiercest enemy – Israel – whose planned Greater Israel project coincidentally aligns almost perfectly with the Kurds’ plans for “Kurdistan.”  In the Oded Yinon plan, which is the plan for a “Greater Israel,” it states the imperative use of Kurds to help divide neighboring countries in order to aid in their plans for greater domination. Interestingly enough, Kurds brush this alliance off as being just another step in achieving their ultimate goal of creating an autonomous Kurdistan.

The UN, Trump and Netanyahu: When Did Democracy, Justice and Equality Just Disappear?

By Anthony Bellchambers, September 20, 2017

‘America First’ means just that, but to include also its creature state, Israel, which was established in 1948 thanks solely to the pressure exerted on the then newly constituted and unrepresentative, minority United Nations by the American Zionist Council, now better known as AIPAC the US Israel lobby group, which is a major [but unelected] force in shaping American foreign policy.

A New Provocation: US Establishes First Permanent Military Base Inside of Israel

By Patrick Henningsen, September 20, 2017

The US base may also be used to launch air sorties to defend Israel’s recent illegal annexation of the part of the Golan Heights, land which it has managed to take under the cover of the Syrian conflict. Recently, Israel has managed to pry away this contested land from Syria with the help of Al Nusra terrorists on the ground, after they previously chased out UNDOF Peacekeepers which had been positioned there since 1974. Amazingly, the UN still has not updated its website to express this new reality on the ground (still showing a mission photo from 2012).

The House that Bibi Built as Prime Minister of Israel

By James Zogby, September 19, 2017

This unholy alliance between US neoconservatives and Netanyahu was no accident. They had long been partners. Back in the late 1970’s, Netanyahu convened many of these same thinkers to Israel for a summit at the Jonathan Institute—an event which some have called the birth of the American neoconservative movement. Back then, their focus was hostility to the Soviet Union and the “national liberation movements” alleged to be Soviet pawns. The ideology they spawned was decidedly pro-Israel and anti-Arab, and extremely hostile to all things Palestinian.

Trump’s UN Address to Call for Action Against Nonexistent North Korean and Iranian Threats

By Stephen Lendman, September 19, 2017

Trump’s UN address will likely heighten world tensions, not ease them. War is America’s favored geopolitical strategy. Who’s next on its target list?

Yesterday, Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu spoke before the United Nations in a speech that served as a kind of appendix to Donald Trump’s controversial, bellicose declaration that was delivered hours earlier.

Both speeches predictably focused on Iran and both leaders told a great deal of untruths and half-truths about the situation. Here are some of the most glaring untruths, followed by a factual explanation of the situation.

1. Iran is “devouring nations”. 

The full quote from Netanyahu is as follows:

“Well as you know, I strongly disagreed. I warned that when the sanctions on Iran would be removed, Iran would behave like a hungry tiger unleashed, not joining the community of nations, but devouring nations, one after the other. And that’s precisely what Iran is doing today.

From the Caspian Sea to the Mediterranean, from Tehran to Tartus, an Iranian curtain is descending across the Middle East. Iran spreads this curtain of tyranny and terror over Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and elsewhere, and it pledges to extinguish the light of Israel”.

In reality, Iran occupies zero countries and has not occupied any country in its modern history. By contrast, Israel has occupied part of Syria, the Golan Heights, since 1967. This occupation is condemned by the United Nations and all five permanent members of the Security Council, including the United States.

The other country on Netanyahu’s list that has been occupied by Israel and not Iran is Lebanon. After invading Lebanon in 1982, Israel set up a permanent occupying force in southern Lebanon between 1985 and the year 2000. Israel maintained a presence in the country until 2006, when Israeli forces retreated in the face of strong Hezbollah defences.

Israel continues to occupy Palestine according to the UN and most impartial observers. It previously occupied Egypt, the Jordanian West Bank and in 1981, illegally bombed Iraq.

Iran by contrast has done no such things. The Iranian assistance provided to Syria during the conflict in the country has been done under a legal agreement with Damascus based on mutual friendship and a common cause against Salafist terrorism. Iran’s training of some Iraqi volunteers has been conducted on a similar basis.

By no logical stretch of the English language, could this been seen as “devouring nations”.

2. “We will act to prevent Iran from establishing permanent military bases in Syria for its air, sea and ground forces”

This statement while designed to sound like a defensive measure is actually an admission of a premeditated war crime. No foreign country can use the threat of force to blackmail its neighbours or anyone else when it comes to internal affairs.

If Syria invites Iran to establish some sort of permanent presence in the country, that is a matter which is strictly between Syria and Iran. To use this as a pretext for an act of war, is put simply, a war crime.

3. “Syria has barrel-bombed, starved, gassed and murdered hundreds of thousands of its own citizens and wounded millions more, while Israel has provided lifesaving medical care to thousands of Syrian victims of that very same carnage. Yet who does the World Health Organization criticize? Israel”.

This one is full of outright lies. First of all, prior to the conflict, not only were all Syrisns feed, but food prices were subsidised by the government, making nutritious foodstuffs more affordable in Syria than in most parts of the region.

Even today, Syrians are not starving, but due to western backed sanctions, food is more expensive and medicine is both more expensive and more scarce than they were prior to the conflict with Salafist terrorism. None of this has to do with the Syrian government nor its partners who continue to deliver aid.

Syria has not possessed any chemical weapons since 2013. In a joint effort by both Russia and the US, the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons certified that by early 2014, there were no chemical weapons left in the Syrian governments hands.

Syria did develop a chemical weapons program in the 1970s in response to intelligence about Israel’s secretive nuclear weapons program.

In spite of this, Syria has never used chemical weapons, not on a foreign power and not internally.

The only chemical weapons in Syria today, are those in the hands of terrorists who are fighting Syria.

In respect of the Israeli hospital program. These hospitals have not been open to ordinary Syrians, let alone to the Syrian soldiers fighting ISIS and al-Qaeda.

Instead, the hospitals have perversely been used to give medical treatment to al-Qaeda and ISIS fighters who are known as some of the most violent terrorists in the world.

4. “Two years ago, I stood here and explained why the Iranian nuclear deal not only doesn’t block Iran’s path to the bomb, Iran’s nuclear program has what’s called a sunset clause”.

Not only does the JCPOA (aka Iran nuclear deal) prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons, but Barack Obama’s administration admitted this openly. The EU and Russia continue to express their support of the deal and the US State Department, EU and UN have all agreed that Iran is in full compliance with the deal.

The only country in the Middle East to develop and maintain nuclear weapons is Israel. Furthermore, Israel obtained its nuclear weapons without international sanction and to this day, refuses to admit to having nuclear weapons. As such, Israel is not a signatory to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. Israel is one of only four nations in the world to have never signed the treaty.

Israeli historian Avner Cohen as well as the award-winning US journalist Seymour Hersh have confirmed the existence of the so-called ‘Samson Option’, wherein Israel will deploy its nuclear weapons if it feels its security is threatened.

During his speech at the UN, Netanyahu alluded to the ‘Samson Option’ in saying,

“Those who threaten us with annihilation put themselves in mortal peril. Israel will defend itself with the full force of our arms and the full power of our convictions”.

In this sense, Iran has much more to fear form Israel than Israel has to fear from Iran, yet ironically it is Israel that continually protests about its own fears.

CONCLUSION: 

While Iran hasn’t invaded another country in its modern history, nor has it occupied a single country, Israel has occupied five: Syria, Egypt, Palestine, Lebanon and Jordan. Unlike Iran, Israel has nuclear bombs, unlike every other country in the Middle East.

With this record, it becomes clear who should be afraid of whom.

Featured image is from the author.

With the September 25th scheduled Kurdish Referendum in Iraq less than a week away, nations worldwide including; the US, UK, France, UN, Iran, and Iraq have expressed their objection and dissent and are calling for its suspension.

All except for Israel, a lone supporter, and longtime friend of the Kurds.

However, this doesn’t seem to have any impact on deterring the semi-autonomous Kurdish region of northern Iraq led by Kurdish Regional Government (KRG) President Massoud Barzani from holding the referendum as planned.

In 2014, Time Magazine had this to say about the “Time Person of the Year” runnerup Mr. Barzani and “Kurdistan”. “Massoud ­Barzani, The Opportunist: When ISIS threw the Middle East jigsaw puzzle into the air, the Kurdish leader reached for a piece. What does it say that the most reliable U.S. ally in its campaign against ISIS is an imaginary country? Kurdistan—Land of the Kurds—exists only in two spheres. One is on maps sold in bazaars wherever the Kurdish language is spoken. The other is on yellow-red-and-green flags Kurds sometimes wave in the countries where they actually reside (according to maps sold everywhere else in the world). Yet in one of those countries, the Kurds have built themselves a state in all but name. Far to the north of Baghdad, where Iraq’s deserts rise into stony foothills and then into mountains, the Kurdistan Regional Government holds sway”.

The only non-Kurdish flag at rally going on now in #Erbil. Israel the sole country to support independence referendum pic.twitter.com/MMGxTsOrLN

— jane arraf (@janearraf) September 16, 2017

I wrote about the Kurdish-Israeli relationship in depth and how it has matured significantly over the years in this article.

Since at least the 1960s, Israel has provided intermittent security assistance and military training to the Kurds. This served mostly as an anti-Saddam play – keeping him distracted as Israel fought two wars against coordinated Arab neighbors – but mutual understanding of their respective predicaments also bred an Israeli-Kurdish affinity.

All signs point to this security cooperation continuing today. Israeli procurement of affordable Kurdish oil not only indicates a strengthening of economic ties, but also an Israeli lifeline to budget-starved Erbil that suggests a strategic bet on the Kurds in an evolving region.

The people closest to the Jews from a genetic point of view may be the Kurds, according to the results of a study by Hebrew University.

The Kurds are allied with Syria’s fiercest enemy – Israel – whose planned Greater Israel project coincidentally aligns almost perfectly with the Kurds’ plans for “Kurdistan.”  In the Oded Yinon plan, which is the plan for a “Greater Israel,” it states the imperative use of Kurds to help divide neighboring countries in order to aid in their plans for greater domination. Interestingly enough, Kurds brush this alliance off as being just another step in achieving their ultimate goal of creating an autonomous Kurdistan.

Every major Kurdish political group in the region has longstanding ties to Israel. It’s all linked to major ethnic violence against Arabs, Turkmens, and Assyrians. From the PKK in Turkey to the PYD and YPG in Syria, PJAK in Iran to the most notorious of them all, the Barzani-Talabani mafia regime (KRG/Peshmerga) in northern Iraq.

Thus it should come as no surprise that Erbil supplied Daesh (ISIS) with weaponry to weaken the Iraqi government in Baghdad. And when it becomes understood that Erbil is merely the front for Tel Aviv in Iraq, the scheme becomes clear.

Israel has reportedly been providing the KRG with weapons and training even prior its military encounters with Daesh. On the level of economic strategy, Israel granted critical support to the KRG by buying Kurdish oil in 2015 when no other country was willing to do so because of Baghdad’s threat to sue. KRG Minister of Natural Resources Ashti Hawrami even admitted to the arrangement, saying that Kurdish oil was often funneled through Israel to avoid detection.

In January 2012 the French newspaper Le Figaro claimed that Israeli intelligence agents were recruiting and training Iranian dissidents in clandestine bases located in Iraq’s Kurdish region. By aligning with the Kurds, Israel gains eyes and ears in Iran, Iraq, and Syria. A year later, the Washington Post disclosed that Turkey had revealed to Iranian intelligence a network of Israeli spies working in Iran, including ten people believed to be Kurds who reportedly met with Mossad members in Turkey. This precarious relationship between Israel and Turkey persists today.

According to Foreign Policy September 18th, 2017:

Iraqi President Fuad Masum who was scheduled to speak to the U.N. General Assembly this week in New York canceled his trip to the United States in order to address the upcoming Kurdish independence referendum. He stated that the impending vote “threatened the stability of Iraq”. The president decided to remain in Iraq to jump-start an initiative to resolve the crisis.

While the referendum is not necessarily legally binding, Massoud Barzani, president of the Kurdish autonomous region, hopes that a strong show of support will strengthen the Kurds’ hand in future negotiations with Baghdad.

Adding to the flurry of activity, a Kurdish delegation is expected in Baghdad on Tuesday for more talks, and British Defense Secretary Michael Fallon is set to meet with Barzani in Erbil late Monday.

“I will be in Erbil to tell Massoud Barzani that we do not support the Kurdish referendum,” Fallon said at a press conference in Baghdad before leaving for the north.

The United States, United Kingdom, and most other states involved in the American-led anti-Islamic State coalition, as well as Turkey and Iran, have come out forcefully against the referendum. Those countries are reportedly backing an as-yet-unannounced “alternative” plan for immediate negotiations between Baghdad and Erbil — in exchange the Kurdish government’s halting the referendum.

According to Bloomberg on September 13th, 2017:

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu voiced support for Kurdish statehood, offering a lone source of backing for an autonomy referendum in Iraq this month that allies oppose.

Israel “supports the legitimate efforts of the Kurdish people to achieve their own state,” Netanyahu said in a statement Tuesday night during his visit in Latin America.

His endorsement clashes with the U.S. and Turkish positions. The Turkish government is concerned that sovereignty for Iraqi Kurds would encourage its own Kurdish insurgents. The U.S. says a Kurdish vote could destabilize the region and undercut the war on extremism.

Israel, with few allies in the region, has previously spoken in support of Kurdish autonomy, but the timing of Netanyahu’s statement so close to the scheduled vote gives it added significance. Iraq’s Kurds plan to hold a referendum on Sept. 25, to be followed by another for a new parliament and president on Nov. 6.

According to BBC on September 18th, 2017:

“Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi has formally demanded the suspension of next week’s referendum on Kurdish independence.

The Supreme Court also ordered that the poll must be postponed until questions over its legality were addressed.

Despite global opposition, the Kurdistan Regional Government backed the 25 September vote on Friday”.

According to Al Masdar on September 18th, 2017:

The Secretary-General of the United Nations, Stéphane Dujarric, issued a statement on Sunday that rejected the recent Kurdish independence referendum in Iraq.

The United States of America is the world’s greatest super-state with the largest economy and global GDP. It possesses the most powerful military machine in history backed by the largest arsenal of nuclear weapons in existence.

Its ‘sidekick’ in the Middle East is the state of Israel and they work in concert to exert disproportionate influence on both the global economy and international politics through their combined position in the United Nations and through the economic and political power of the Likud-leaning, US Congress. All this is done publicly with no attempt to hide this blatant, bilateral US-Israeli agenda.

That agenda is to overtly increase the economic and political power of Washington to the exclusion and at the expense of the other 191 member states of the United Nations General Assembly that includes Britain, Germany, France, Spain and Italy [among others in Europe]. This is no secret pact but a publicly-stated aim of the current Trump presidency.

‘America First’ means just that, but to include also its creature state, Israel, which was established in 1948 thanks solely to the pressure exerted on the then newly constituted and unrepresentative, minority United Nations by the American Zionist Council, now better known as AIPAC the US Israel lobby group, which is a major [but unelected] force in shaping American foreign policy.

However, it is only now in 2017 that international affairs in general are in the hands of not only these two heads of state but also that of their extended families i.e. wives, children, sons in law and various other unelected family intimates. Currently, certain individuals within this bilateral family grouping are being officially investigated for corruption, bribery and/or fraud, by the relevant authorities. Strangely, this does not, as yet, appear to have had any impact upon the families’ global political influence.

All of which leaves us with the vitally important question:

When did Democracy, Justice, Equality and the Rule of Law, just disappear and what will be the eventual impact upon Europe and the wider world?

Featured image is from VOA News.

I listened to part of Trump’s UN speech this morning. I was so embarrassed for him and for my country that I had to turn it off.  

I wonder if whoever wrote the deplorable speech intended to embarrass Trump and inadvertently embarrassed America as well, or whether the speechwriter(s) is so imbued with the neoconservative arrogance and hubris of our time that the speechwriter was simply blind to the extraordinary contradictions that stood out like sore thumbs all through the speech.

I am not going to describe all of them, just a couple of examples.  

Trump went on at great length about how America respects the sovereignty of every country and the people’s will of every country, and how the US, despite its overwhelming military power, never tries to impose its will on any country. What was the administration thinking, or can it think? What about Yugoslavia/Serbia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Egypt, Syria, Yemen, Pakistan, Crimea, Ukraine, Venezuela, Honduras, Ecuador, Bolivia, Brazil, Argentina, just to mention countries in the 21st century that have been subjected to US military attacks, government overthrows, and removals of political leaders who did not conform to US interests?  

Is it respect for the sovereignty of countries to force them to support US sanctions against Iran, Russia, China, North Korea, Venezuela? Is it respect for the sovereignty of countries to impose sanctions on the countries? If this is not imposing Washington’s will on other countries, what is?

Is it respect for other countries to inform them that unless they do as they are told, “we will bomb you into the stone age”?

I heard Trump complain that the UN Human Rights commission had as members countries with the worst human rights records of our time, and I wondered if he was talking about the United States. Clearly, Trump, the speechwriter(s), the State Department, the National Security Council, the US Ambassador to the UN, indeed the entire administration, do not think that the endless slaughter, maiming, orphaning, widowing, and dispossessing of millions of peoples in many countries, producing waves of refugees, comprise human rights violations.

The arrogance conveyed by Trump’s speech is unprecedented.  

After assurances that America respects everyone, Trump then made demand after demand and threat after threat against the sovereignty  of Iran and North Korea, demanding that the rest of the world back him up. 

Neither country is a threat to the US. Unlike the US and Israel, Korea has not been at war since 1953. Iran’s last war was in the 1980s when Iran was attacked by Iraq. Yet both North Korea and Iran are subjected to constant threats from the US. At the UN Trump threatened North Korea with destruction, and Washington is telling more lies about Iran in order to justify military action.

Here is what former Secretary of State Colin Powell says about how carefully Washington thinks about other peoples:

“We thought we knew what would happen in Libya. We thought we knew what would happen in Egypt. We thought we knew what would happen in Iraq, and we guessed wrong. In each one of these countries the thing we have to consider is that there is some structure that’s holding the society together. And as we learned, especially in Libya, when you remover the top and the whole thing falls apart . . . you get chaos.”

That’s what Washington does. It brings chaos to tens of millions of peoples, destroying their lives and the prospects of their countries. This is the behavior that Trump described as American compassion for others. This is what Trump says is respecting others and the sovereignty of their countries. Washington dresses up its crimes against humanity as a “war on terror.” The tens of millions of slaughtered, maimed, and displaced persons are merely “collateral damage.”

This is why the US is considered the greatest threat to peace. International polls show that the world regards the US as a much greater threat to peace than North Korea and Iran. Yet Trump described the US, universally regarded as the greatest threat to the world, as the great protector of peace. Has there ever been a greater disturber of peace?

One wonders if the rest of the world, especially Russia and China, got Washington’s message. Washington’s plan for UN “reform” is a plan to turn the organization into another instrument of US foreign policy, like NATO and the EU.  The message that Trump was sent to deliver to the UN is that henceforth the UN is expected to support Washington’s foreign policy agenda. Opponents to Washington’s war policy are to be isolated and lumped together with the bad countries as defined by Washington. 

In other words Washington accepts no limits on its unilateralism. This means war for every country that does not accept Washington’s hegemony.

Featured image is from National Review.

VISIT MY NEW WEB SITE: 

stephenlendman.org (Home – Stephen Lendman). 

Contact at [email protected].

The late comedian Jerry Lewis once said old people are discarded like yesterday’s garbage.

In congressional testimony at age 92, actor Mickey Rooney explained abusive treatment he received from his stepson, saying “(y)ou can’t believe it’s happening to you.”

“You feel overwhelmed.” He urged Congress to criminalize what’s happening.

“I’m asking you to stop this elderly abuse,” he urged. “I mean stop it now. Not tomorrow. Not next month, but now.” Pass legislation saying “it’s a crime, and we will not allow it in the United States of America.”

Congress failed to act. Elder abuse is rampant. An earlier House Government Reform Committee study found nearly a third of US nursing homes cited for elder abuse – thousands of incidents nationwide over a two-year period alone.

Common problems include untreated bedsores, inadequate medical care, malnutrition, dehydration, preventable accidents, along with inadequate sanitation and hygiene – often jeopardizing the health, welfare and lives of elderly Americans, at times responsible for serious illnesses, injuries or deaths.

The avoidable deaths of eight elderly Hollywood, Florida nursing home residents during Hurricane Irma highlighted the problem – perishing needlessly in sweltering, instead of evacuating them to Memorial Regional Hospital across the street, a criminal act unlikely to be punished.

The Rehabilitation Center at Hollywood Hills nursing facility was low-rated because of unsanitary conditions and poor food – besides negligent medical care when vitally needed as now revealed.

Victims ranged from age 71 to 99, perishing after the facility lost power, its management doing little or nothing to protect its residents, either with no plan in case of emergencies or failure to implement one.

They knew the risks to their residents, failed to act responsibly, leading to eight needless deaths, criminal negligence responsible.

Elders in nursing facilities need others to care for their needs, largely or wholly dependent on staff members. Otherwise they wouldn’t be there – in end-of-life warehouses, a former US congressman once calling them “halfway houses between society and the cemetery.”

They’d become a multi-billion dollar industry, comprised of thousands of facilities nationwide, largely or inadequately regulated.

Care varies widely – from responsibly looking after residents to as little as possible, indifferent and abusive treatment, too often causing serious problems, including deaths from neglect.

Washington is largely indifferent, the Trump administration hostile to regulations. Around 70 – 80% of nursing home revenues come from Medicaid and Medicare, government with a direct stake in how they operate.

The Rehabilitation Center at Hollywood Hills has a disturbing history of healthcare fraud, abusive treatment and related violations. Yet Florida authorities let it continue operating.

The same problem exists nationwide, good facilities outnumbered by marginal and poorly operated others.

America’s elderly and infirm deserve better. Federal, state and local authorities owe them the care they deserve – late in life, on their own inside facilities, dependent on others for care they’re unable to provide for themselves.

VISIT MY NEW WEB SITE: stephenlendman.org (Home – Stephen Lendman). Contact at [email protected].

My newest book as editor and contributor is titled “Flashpoint in Ukraine: How the US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III.”

http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html

Listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network.

In terms of US and Middle East geopolitics, something extremely significant has just taken place this week, but you wouldn’t know it by looking at the Western mainstream press. This latest addition to the Pentagon’s imperial portfolio of over 800 overseas military bases is sure to fuel even more resistance to what many see as a policy of global hegemony.

On Monday, the United States formally unveiled its plan to establish a permanent military installation inside of Israel.

The new US air defense base will be located in the Negev desert – a “base within a base” sharing the new location with an existing IDF facility at Mashabim Air Base located between the towns of Dimona and Yerucham. The base will fall under the umbrella of US European Command (EUCOM) headquartered in Stuttgart, Germany.

Plans for the new US Air Force base began under former US president Barack Obama, and transitioned to formation under President Donald Trump.

Visited Israel to thank US Soldiers serving & training with Israeli troops. US/Israel relationship is deep-rooted. @USArmyEurope pic.twitter.com/DWVEw47qUl

— MG John Gronski (@MGGronski) September 18, 2017

According to the Times of Israel:

Brig. Gen. Tzvika Haimovitch, head of the IAF’s Aerial Defense Command, announced the establishment of the installation on Monday evening.

“It’s nothing short of historic,” he said. It demonstrates the “years-old alliance between the United States and the State of Israel.”

Already, we have seen Israeli PM Benjamin ‘Bibi’ Netanyahu threaten Russian President Vladimir Putin regarding Iran’s military presence in Syria, warning that ‘Israel may act to curb Iran’s clout in Syria.’  Naturally, this new facility will be viewed by regional stakeholders as a counter weight to the new Syrian situation.

The US base may also be used to launch air sorties to defend Israel’s recent illegal annexation of the part of the Golan Heights, land which it has managed to take under the cover of the Syrian conflict. Recently, Israel has managed to pry away this contested land from Syria with the help of Al Nusra terrorists on the ground, after they previously chased out UNDOF Peacekeepers which had been positioned there since 1974. Amazingly, the UN still has not updated its website to express this new reality on the ground (still showing a mission photo from 2012).

Earlier reports clearly show how Tel Aviv has been providing material assistance to Al Nusra terrorist fighters – a policy which Israel has not apologised for.

This week’s joint military announcement by the US and Israel also happens to coincide with the Jewish feast Rosh Hashanah. The Times says:

“It’s a few days before Rosh Hashanah” — the Jewish new year — “and we are undergoing a renewal and growing in our abilities that are important and necessary for the State of Israel.”

According to the Israeli spokesperson, the establishment of a US base in Israel will send a “message to the region.”

Whether that’s perceived as a positive message, or a message of US imperial expansion remains to be seen, but by most accounts, it’s likely to be the latter.

If anything, the establishment of a US base in occupied Palestine could help to reinvigorate the international pro-Palestinian activist movement, which traditionally has had an anti-Imperialist message in its mission.

Generally speaking, it’s hard to see how such a move by the US can be seen as a positive development for the region. Add to this other direct provocations by the US on behalf of Israel, and we have a recipe for potential disaster down the road. Earlier in his term, Trump also announced his desire to relocate the US Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem – seen by many as an aggressive move by Washington, which would be viewed as an affront to a long-established policy respecting the political and religious neutrality of Jerusalem. Note that the Jerusalem Embassy Act was passed into law in 1995, although successive US presidents have opted out of such a move in the interests of maintaining peace over this contentious issue.

Somewhat shockingly, Gen. Haimovitch went on to claim that this new base would somehow help to support an operation like the brutal Israel bombing of Gaza in the summer 2014, which saw the slaughter of some 1,500 Palestinian natives, many of them women and children. The Times explains:

He said that the importance of air defense was made clear during the 2014 Gaza war, when thousands of rockets were fired at Israel, as well as through “assessments of the threats we expect to face in the future.”

For decades, cohorts of US forces and technical advisors have been based in Israel, running joint exercises with the IDF, and also installing and operating military projects like the famous Iron Dome missile defense array (also run out of Stuttgart, Germany) which went online in 2011.

The Arrow 3 missile defense system that was delivered to the Israeli Air Force on January 18, 2017 (Source: Israeli Defense Ministry)

It seems that this latest deployment is not only about defense, but about projecting power in the region – with neighbors Syria and Lebanon in its immediate sights. The new project will feature a new long-range missile system, the Arrow 3, delivered by the US to Israel in January (image, left), and the medium-range “David’s Sling” missile system, and an expansion of the short-range Iron Dome missile defense system.

The nearby town of Dimona is also home to Israel’s notorious nuclear reactor, and its unaccounted for nuclear warhead arsenal.

Journalist Richard Silverstein explains the fundamental problem with Israel’s ‘undeclared’ nuclear weapons operation at Dimona:

“In 1959, Israel began construction on its reactor in Dimona. Eventually, there were thousands of workers both building the plant and, once it was constructed, working within it to build the arsenal of 200 nuclear weapons Israel is reputed to possess. An excellent short overall history of the project can be found online.”

“The secrecy of the nuclear programme, one interviewee calls it a “KGB state,” goes hand in hand with the Israel’s overall opacity around all manner of security issues. It’s not surprising that Israel has put its fate in the hands of a few nuclear bureaucrats like those who run Dimona, because it runs its overall military apparatus in the same way. No civilian oversight to speak of. The generals get what they want. All in the name of protecting the state. It’s a devil’s bargain.”

Aside from being Israel’s alleged ‘nuclear deterrent’, many also regard Dimona as a nuclear liability, and a giant ‘dirty bomb‘ contamination risk to the region.

Now Israel has a US base on its soil – another perfect Casus Belli, or target. It goes without saying that if anyone so much as grazes this sacred facility, or even threatens to do anything to it, this will undoubtedly be used by the US to step-up ‘security operations’ in the region and further inflaming an already tense situation in the Middle East.

All by design, of course.

Amid renewed talk by the Trump administration of a military option against North Korea, one salient fact goes unnoticed. The United States is already at war with the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK – the formal name for North Korea). It is doing so through non-military means, with the aim of inducing economic collapse. In a sense, the policy is a continuation of the Obama administration’s ‘strategic patience’ on steroids, in that it couples a refusal to engage in diplomacy with the piling on of sanctions that constitute collective punishment of the entire North Korean population.

We are told that UN Security Council resolution 2375, passed on September 11, was “watered down” so as to obtain Chinese and Russian agreement. In relative terms, this is true, in that the original draft as submitted by the United States called for extreme measures such as a total oil embargo. However, Western media give the impression that the resolution as passed is mild or mainly symbolic. Nothing could be further from the truth.

The resolution, in tandem with previous sanction votes and in particular resolution 2371 from August 5, is aimed squarely at inflicting economic misery. Among other things, the August sanctions prohibit North Korea from exporting coal, iron, iron ore, lead, lead ore, and seafood, all key commodities in the nation’s international trade.  The resolution also banned countries from opening new or expanding existing joint ventures with the DPRK. [1]

September’s resolution further constrains North Korea’s ability to engage in regular international trade by barring the export of textiles. It is estimated that together, the sanctions eliminate 90 percent of the DPRK’s export earnings. [2] Foreign exchange is essential for the smooth operation of any modern economy, and U.S. officials hope that by blocking North Korea’s ability to earn sufficient foreign exchange, the resolutions will deal a crippling blow to the economy. For North Korea’s estimated 100,000 to 200,000 textile workers the impact will be immediate, plunging most of them into unemployment.

“If the goal of the sanctions is to create difficulties for ordinary workers and their ability to make a livelihood, then a ban on textiles will work,” specialist Paul Tija wryly notes. [3]

With around eighty percent of its land comprising mountainous terrain, North Korea has a limited amount of arable land, and the nation typically fills its food gap through imports. Sharply reduced rainfall during the April-June planting season this year reduced the amount of water available for irrigation and hampered sowing activities. Satellite monitoring indicates that crop yields are likely to fall well below the norm. [4] To make up for the shortfall, the DPRK has significantly boosted imports. [5] How much longer it can continue to do so remains to be seen, in the face of dwindling reserves of foreign exchange. In effect, by blocking North Korea’s ability to engage in international trade, the United States has succeeded in weaponizing food by denying North Korea the means of providing an adequate supply to its people.

The September resolution also adversely impacts the livelihoods of North Korea’s overseas workers, who will not be allowed to renew their contracts once they expire. They can only look forward to being forced from their jobs and expelled from their homes. [6]

International partnership is discouraged, as the resolution bans “the opening, maintenance, and operation of all joint ventures or cooperative entities, new and existing,” which in effect permanently kills off any prospect of the reopening of the Kaesong Industrial Complex. With only two exceptions, all current operations are ordered to shut down within four months. [7]

A cap is imposed on the amount of oil North Korea is allowed to import, amounting to about a thirty percent reduction from current levels, along with a total ban on the import of natural gas and condensates. [8] Many factories and manufacturing plants could be forced to close down when they can no longer operate machinery. For the average person, hardship lies ahead as winter approaches, when many homes and offices will no longer be able to be heated.

What has any of this to do with North Korea’s nuclear program? Nothing. The sanctions are an expression of pure malevolence. Vengeance is hitting every citizen of North Korea to further the U.S. goal of geopolitical domination of the Asia-Pacific.

Like North Korea, India, Pakistan, and Israel are non-signatories to the nuclear non-proliferation treaty and have nuclear and missile arsenals. India and Pakistan launched ICBMs earlier in the year. North Korea is singled out for punishment, while the others receive U.S. aid. There is no principle at stake here. For that matter, there is something unseemly in the United States, with over one thousand nuclear tests, denouncing North Korea for its six. The U.S., having launched four ICBMs this year, condemns the DPRK for launching half that many. Is it not absurd that the United States, with its long record in recent years of bombing, invading, threatening, and overthrowing other nations, accuses North Korea, which has been at peace for several decades, of being an international threat?

North Korea observed the fate of Yugoslavia, Iraq, and Libya, and concluded that only a nuclear deterrent could stop the United States from attacking. It is the “threat” of North Korea being able to defend itself that has aroused U.S. ire on a spectacular scale.

The U.S. war on the North Korean people does not stop with UN sanctions. In a recent hearing, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee Ed Royce called for Chinese banks that do ordinary business with North Korea to be targeted:

“We can designate Chinese banks and companies unilaterally, giving them a choice between doing business with North Korea or the United States…It’s not just China. We should go after banks and companies in other countries that do business with North Korea in the same way…We should press countries to end all trade with North Korea.” [9]

At the same hearing, the Treasury Assistant Secretary Marshall Billingslea mentioned that his department had worked with the Justice Department to blacklist Russia’s Independent Petroleum Company in June, along with associated individuals and companies, for having shipped oil to North Korea. Despite the fact that there was no UN resolution at that time which forbade such trade, the U.S. seized nearly $7 million belonging to the company and its partners. [10]

Acting Assistant Secretary of State Susan Thornton was, if anything, more aggressive in her rhetoric than her colleagues, announcing that

“we continue to call for all countries to cut trade ties with Pyongyang to increase North Korea’s financial isolation and choke off revenue sources.”

She cautioned China and Russia that they must acquiesce to U.S. demands, warning them that if they “do not act, we will use the tools we have at our disposal. Just last month we rolled out new sanctions targeting Russian and Chinese individuals and entities supporting the DPRK.” [11]

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin had threats to deliver, as well, warning China that if its actions against North Korea fail to live up to U.S. expectations,

“we will put additional sanctions on them and prevent them from accessing the U.S. and international dollar system.” [12]

Since all international financial transactions process through the U.S. banking system, this threat is tantamount to shutting down Beijing’s ability to conduct trade with any nation. It was a rather extravagant threat, and undoubtedly a difficult one to pull off, but one which the Trump administration is just reckless enough to consider undertaking.

There is nothing illegal or forbidden in a nation trading with North Korea in non-prohibited commodities. Yet, a total trade blockade is what Washington is after. U.S. officials are preparing sanctions against foreign banks and companies that do business with North Korea.

“We intend to deny the regime its last remaining sources of revenue, unless and until it reverses course and denuclearizes,” Billingslea darkly warns. “Those who collaborate with them are exposing themselves to enormous jeopardy.” [13]

In essence, Washington is running an international protection racket: give us what we demand, or we will hurt you. This is gangsterism as foreign policy.

China opposed the UN sanctions that the Trump administration presented at the UN Security Council in September. However, according to U.S. and UN officials, the United States managed to extort China’s acquiescence by threatening to hit Chinese businesses with secondary sanctions. [14]

Before the August UN vote, similar threats were conveyed to Chinese diplomats at the U.S.-China Comprehensive Economic Dialogue, as U.S. officials indicated that ten businesses and individuals would be sanctioned if China did not vote in favor of sanctions. [15]

As a shot across the bow, the U.S. sanctioned the Chinese Bank of Dandong back in June, leading to Western firms severing contacts with the institution. [16]

Washington’s threats prompted China to implement steps in the financial realm that exceed what is called for by the UN Security Council resolutions. China’s largest banks have banned North Korean individuals and entities from opening new accounts, and some firms are not allowing deposits in existing accounts. [17] There is no UN prohibition on North Koreans opening accounts abroad, so the action is regarded as a proactive measure by Chinese banks to avoid becoming the target of U.S. sanctions. [18]

The demands never cease, no matter how much China gives way. U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson recently insisted that China impose a total oil embargo on North Korea. [19] China refused to go along, but it can expect be subjected to mounting pressure from the U.S. in the weeks ahead.

U.S. officials are fanning out across the globe, seeking to cajole or threaten other nations to join the anti-DPRK crusade. Since most nations stand to lose far more by displeasing the U.S. than in ending a longstanding relationship with the DPRK, the campaign is having an effect.

In April, India banned all trade with North Korea, with the exception of food and medicine. This action failed to satisfy the Trump administration, which sent officials to New Delhi to ask for the curtailing of diplomatic contacts with the DPRK and help in monitoring North Korean economic activities in the region.[20] The Philippines, for its part, responded to U.S. demands by suspending all trade activity with North Korea. [21] Mexico and Peru are among the nations that are expelling North Korean diplomats, on the arbitrary basis of responding to U.S. directives. [22] In addition to announcing that it would reduce North Korea’s diplomatic staff, Kuwait also said it would no longer issue visas to North Korean citizens. [23]

Many African nations have warm relations with the DPRK, dating back to the period of the continent’s liberation struggles. U.S. officials are focusing particular attention on Africa, and several nations are currently under investigation by the United Nations for their trade with North Korea. [24] The demand to cut relations with North Korea is not an easy sell for Washington, as Africans remember the U.S. for having backed apartheid regimes, while the DPRK had supported African liberation.

“Our world outlook was determined by who was on our side during the most crucial time of our struggle, and North Korea was there for us,” says Tuliameni Kalomoh, an official in Namibia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs. [25]

This is not the kind of language Washington likes to hear. U.S. economic power is sufficient to ruin any small nation, and with little choice in the matter, Namibia cancelled all contracts with North Korean firms. [26]

Egypt and Uganda are among the nations that have cut ties with the DPRK, and more nations are expected to follow suit, as the United States turns up the heat. Outside of the United Nations, the Trump administration is systematically erecting a total trade blockade against North Korea. Through this means, the U.S. hopes that North Korea will capitulate. That aim is premised on a serious misjudgment of the North Korean character.

The Trump administration claims that UN sanctions and its policy of maximum pressure are intended to bring North Korea to the negotiating table. But it is not the DPRK that needs to be persuaded to talk. President Trump has tweeted,

“Talking is not the answer!”

U.S. State Department spokesperson Heather Nauert laid down a stringent condition for negotiations:

“For us to engage in talks with the DPRK, they would have to denuclearize.” [27]

The demand for North Korea to give the United States everything it wants upfront, without receiving anything in return, as a precondition for talks is such an obvious nonstarter that it has to be regarded as a recipe for avoiding diplomacy.

North Korea contacted the Obama administration on several occasions and requested talks, only to be rebuffed each time and told it needed to denuclearize. This sad disconnect continues under Trump. In May, the DPRK informed the United States that it would stop nuclear testing and missile launches if the U.S. would drop its hostile policy and sanctions, as well as sign a peace treaty ending the Korean War. [28] The U.S. may not have cared for the conditions, but it could have suggested adjustments, had it been so inclined. Certainly, it was an opening that could have led to dialogue.

Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Hua Chunying (Source: fmprc.gov.cn)

It is not diplomacy that the Trump administration seeks, but to crush North Korea. If the ostensible reason for UN sanctions is to persuade a reluctant party to negotiate, then one can only conclude that the wrong nation is being sanctioned. Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying was scathing in her criticism of American and British leaders:

“They are the loudest when it comes to sanctions, but nowhere to be found when it comes to making efforts to promote peace talks. They want nothing to do with responsibility.” [29]

The months ahead look bleak. Unless China and Russia can find a way to oppose U.S. designs without becoming targets themselves, the North Korean people will stand alone and bear the burden of Trump’s malice. It says something for their character that they refuse to be cowed.

Gregory Elich is on the Board of Directors of the Jasenovac Research Institute and the Advisory Board of the Korea Policy Institute. He is a member of the Solidarity Committee for Democracy and Peace in Korea, a columnist for Voice of the People, and one of the co-authors of Killing Democracy: CIA and Pentagon Operations in the Post-Soviet Period, published in the Russian language. He is also a member of the Task Force to Stop THAAD in Korea and Militarism in Asia and the Pacific. His website is https://gregoryelich.org Follow him on Twitter at @GregoryElich

Notes

[1] SC/12945, “Security Council Toughens Sanctions Against Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Unanimously Adopting Resolution 2371 (2017), United Nations Security Council, August 5, 2017.

[2] “UN Security Council Toughens Sanctions on North Korea,” Radio Free Europe, September 12, 2017.

[3] Sue-Lin Wong, Richa Naidu, “U.N. Ban on North Korean Textiles Will Disrupt Industry and Ordinary Lives, Experts Say,” Reuters, September 12, 2017.

[4] “Prolonged Dry Weather Threatens the 2017 Main Season Food Crop Production,” Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, July 20, 2017.

[5] “North Korean Food Imports Climb in June: KITA,” NK News, August 18, 2017.

[6] “Fact Sheet: Resolution 2375 (2017) Strengthening Sanctions on North Korea,” United States Mission to the United Nations, September 11, 2017.

[7] SC/12983, “Security Council Imposes Fresh Sanctions on Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Including Bans on Natural Gas Sales, Worth Authorizations for its Nationals,” United Nations Security Council, September 11, 2017.

[8] “Fact Sheet: Resolution 2375 (2017) Strengthening Sanctions on North Korea,” United States Mission to the United Nations, September 11, 2017.

[9] Opening Statement of the Honorable Ed Royce (R-CA), “Sanctions, Diplomacy, and Information: Pressuring North Korea,” House Foreign Affairs Committee Hearing, September 12, 2017.

[10] “Testimony of Assistant Secretary Marshall S. Billingslea,” House Foreign Affairs Committee Hearing, September 12, 2017.

“Treasury Sanctions Suppliers of North Korea’s Nuclear Weapons Proliferation Programs,” U.S. Department of Treasury, June 1, 2017.

[11] “Statement of Susan Thornton, Acting Secretary of State,” House Foreign Affairs Committee Hearing, September 12, 2017.

[12] Ian Talley, “U.S. Threatens China Over North Korea Sanctions,” Wall Street Journal, September 12, 2017.

[13] Ian Talley, “U.S. Threatens China Over North Korea Sanctions,” Wall Street Journal, September 12, 2017.

[14] “Clear and Present Blackmail: US Coaxes China to Back Anti-N Korea UN Resolution,” Sputnik News, September 12, 2017.

[15] Yi Yong-in, “US Pledges to Sanction Ten More Chinese Entities if China Doesn’t Cooperate in NK UNSC Resolution,” Hankyoreh, July 22, 2017.

[16] Matthew Pennington, “US Blacklists China Bank, Revving Up Pressure Over NKorea,” Associated Press, June 30, 2017.

Joel Schectman and David Brunnstrom, “U.S. targets Chinese Bank, Company, Two Individuals Over North Korea,” Reuters, June 20, 2017.

[17] “China’s Biggest Banks Ban New North Korean Accounts,” Financial Times, September 12, 2017.

[18] Stephen McDonell, “China Banks Fear US North Korea Sanctions,” BBC News, September 12, 2017.

[19] Nick Wadhams, “China Rebuffs U.S. Demand to Cut Off Oil Exports to North Korea,” September 15, 2017.

[20] Indrani Bagchi, “Scale Back Engagement with North Korea, US Tells India,” The Times of India, July 30, 2017.

[21] “Philippines Suspends Trade with N. Korea,” Yonhap, September 9, 2017.

[22] “North Korea-U.S. Te4nsions Are Not Mexico’s Business: Diplomat,” Reuters, September 8, 2017.

“Peru Says Expelling North Korean Ambassador Over Nuclear Program,” Reuters, September 11, 2017.

[23] “Kuwait Decides to Reduce N.K. Diplomatic Staff, Stops Issuing Visas for N. Koreans,” Yonhap, September 16, 2017.

[24] Kevin J. Kelley, “UN Probes Tanzania and Uganda Deals with North Korea,” East African, September 13, 2017.

[25] Kevin Sieff, “North Korea’s Surprising, Lucrative Relationship with Africa,” Washington Post, July 10, 2017.

[26] George Hendricks, “North Korean Contracts Terminated,” The Namibian, September 15, 2017.

[27] Heather Nauert, “Department Press Briefing,” U.S. Department of State, June 15, 2017.

[28] Jeong Yong-soo, “In May, North Offered to End Testing if Washington Backs Off,” JoongAng Ilbo, September 5, 2017.

[29] “Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Hua Chunying’s Regular Press Conference on August 30, 2017,” (China) Ministry of Foreign Affairs, August 30, 2017.

Featured image is from David Stanley | CC BY 2.0.

First published by RT, crossposted on GR on May 3, 2018

Biotech giant Monsanto is being accused of hiring, through third parties, an army of Internet trolls to counter negative comments, while citing positive “ghost-written” pseudo-scientific reports which downplay the potential risks of their products.

Featured image: Senator Nick Xenophon (Source: Wikimedia Commons)

It was never spectacular, but the Australian media scape is set to become duller, more contained, and more controlled with changes to the Broadcasting Services Act.  In an environment strewn with the corpses of papers and outlets strapped for cash, calls for reforming the media market have been heard across the spectrum.

The foggy deception being perpetrated by the Turnbull government, assisted by the calculating antics of South Australian senator Nick Xenophon, is that diversity will be shored up by such measures as the $60 million “innovation” fund for small publishers while scrapping the so-called two-out-of-three rule for TV, radio and press ownership. Such dissembling language is straight out of the spin doctor’s covert manual: place innovation in the title, and you might get across the message.

As Chris Graham of New Matilda scornfully put it,

“The Turnbull government is going to spend $60 million of your taxes buying a Senator’s vote to pass bad legislation designed to advantage some of the most powerful media corporations in the world.”[1]

Paul Budde of Independent Australia was similarly excoriating.[2]

“To increase power of the incumbent players through media reforms might not necessarily have an enormous effect on the everyday media diversity, but it will allow organisations such as the Murdoch press to wield even greater power over Australian politics than is already the case.”

As the statement from Senator Xenophon’s site reads,

“Grants would be allocated, for example, to programs and initiatives such as the purchasing or upgrading of equipment and software, development of apps, business activities to drive revenue and readership, and training, all of which will assist in extending civic and regional journalism.”[3]

The communications minister Mitch Fifield went so far as to deem the fund “a shot in the arm” for media organisations, granting them “a fighting chance”. 

The aim here, claims the good senator, is to throw down the gauntlet to the revenue pinchers such as Facebook and Google while generating a decent number of recruits through journalism cadetships. Google, claimed Xenophon in August, “are hoovering up billions of dollars or revenue along with Facebook and that is killing media in this country.”[4]

Google Australia managing director Jason Pellegrino had a very different take: you only had to go no further than the consumer.

“The people to blame are you and I as news consumers, because we are choosing to change the behaviour and patterns of (how) we are consuming news.”

Xenophon’s patchwork fund hardly alleviates the consequences that will follow from scrapping of the rules on ownership. Having chanted the anti-Google line that its behaviour is distinctly anti-democratic, his agreement with the government will shine a bright green light for cash-heavy media tycoons keen on owning types of media (radio, television, papers) without limits. The line between commercial viability and canned journalism run by unelected puppet masters becomes all too real, while the truly independent outlets will be left to their social Darwinian fate.

Labor senator Sam Dastyari saw the Turnbull-Xenophon agreement has having one notable target, and not necessarily the social media giants who had punctured the media market with such effect. 

“They are doing in the Guardian. You have thrown them under the bus.”[5]

The measure is odd in a few respects, most notably because regional papers were hardly consulted on the measure. This, it seemed, was a hobby horse run by the senator through the stables of government policy. In the end, the horse made it to the finishing line.

The very idea of linking government grants to the cause of journalism constitutes a form of purchasing allegiance and backing. How this advances the cause of civic journalism, as opposed to killing it by submission, is unclear. The temptation for bias – the picking of what is deemed appropriately civic, and what is not, is all too apparent.

The package supposedly incorporates an “independence test” by which the applicant publisher can’t be affiliated with any political party, union, superannuation fund, financial institution, non-government organisation or policy lobby group. Further independence is supposedly ensured by the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA), which will administer the fund.

The decision about which organisation to fund is already implied by the scale of revenue. The cut-off point, for starters, is an annual turnover of not less than $300,000 in revenue. The other end of the scale is a ceiling of $30 million, which, for any media outlet, would be impressive.

This media non-reform package also comes on the heels of another dispiriting masquerade: an attempt to import a further layering of supposed transparency measures on the ABC and SBS, a position long championed by senator Pauline Hanson. This reactionary reflex, claimed the fuming crossbench Senator Jacqui Lambie, was “the worst lot of crap I have seen”, the sort of feculence designed to punish the public broadcaster for being “one step ahead when it comes to iView and their social media platforms.”[6]

Between the giants of Google and Facebook, and a government happy to sing before the tycoons, a small publishing outlet is best going it alone in an already cut throat environment, relying on the old fashioned, albeit ruthless good sense, of the reader. Have trust that the copy will pull you through, or perish trying to do so.

Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge.  He lectures at RMITUniversity, Melbourne.  Email: [email protected]

Notes

Featured image: Senator Nick Xenophon (Source: Wikimedia Commons)

It was never spectacular, but the Australian media scape is set to become duller, more contained, and more controlled with changes to the Broadcasting Services Act.  In an environment strewn with the corpses of papers and outlets strapped for cash, calls for reforming the media market have been heard across the spectrum.

The foggy deception being perpetrated by the Turnbull government, assisted by the calculating antics of South Australian senator Nick Xenophon, is that diversity will be shored up by such measures as the $60 million “innovation” fund for small publishers while scrapping the so-called two-out-of-three rule for TV, radio and press ownership. Such dissembling language is straight out of the spin doctor’s covert manual: place innovation in the title, and you might get across the message.

As Chris Graham of New Matilda scornfully put it,

“The Turnbull government is going to spend $60 million of your taxes buying a Senator’s vote to pass bad legislation designed to advantage some of the most powerful media corporations in the world.”[1]

Paul Budde of Independent Australia was similarly excoriating.[2]

“To increase power of the incumbent players through media reforms might not necessarily have an enormous effect on the everyday media diversity, but it will allow organisations such as the Murdoch press to wield even greater power over Australian politics than is already the case.”

As the statement from Senator Xenophon’s site reads,

“Grants would be allocated, for example, to programs and initiatives such as the purchasing or upgrading of equipment and software, development of apps, business activities to drive revenue and readership, and training, all of which will assist in extending civic and regional journalism.”[3]

The communications minister Mitch Fifield went so far as to deem the fund “a shot in the arm” for media organisations, granting them “a fighting chance”. 

The aim here, claims the good senator, is to throw down the gauntlet to the revenue pinchers such as Facebook and Google while generating a decent number of recruits through journalism cadetships. Google, claimed Xenophon in August, “are hoovering up billions of dollars or revenue along with Facebook and that is killing media in this country.”[4]

Google Australia managing director Jason Pellegrino had a very different take: you only had to go no further than the consumer.

“The people to blame are you and I as news consumers, because we are choosing to change the behaviour and patterns of (how) we are consuming news.”

Xenophon’s patchwork fund hardly alleviates the consequences that will follow from scrapping of the rules on ownership. Having chanted the anti-Google line that its behaviour is distinctly anti-democratic, his agreement with the government will shine a bright green light for cash-heavy media tycoons keen on owning types of media (radio, television, papers) without limits. The line between commercial viability and canned journalism run by unelected puppet masters becomes all too real, while the truly independent outlets will be left to their social Darwinian fate.

Labor senator Sam Dastyari saw the Turnbull-Xenophon agreement has having one notable target, and not necessarily the social media giants who had punctured the media market with such effect. 

“They are doing in the Guardian. You have thrown them under the bus.”[5]

The measure is odd in a few respects, most notably because regional papers were hardly consulted on the measure. This, it seemed, was a hobby horse run by the senator through the stables of government policy. In the end, the horse made it to the finishing line.

The very idea of linking government grants to the cause of journalism constitutes a form of purchasing allegiance and backing. How this advances the cause of civic journalism, as opposed to killing it by submission, is unclear. The temptation for bias – the picking of what is deemed appropriately civic, and what is not, is all too apparent.

The package supposedly incorporates an “independence test” by which the applicant publisher can’t be affiliated with any political party, union, superannuation fund, financial institution, non-government organisation or policy lobby group. Further independence is supposedly ensured by the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA), which will administer the fund.

The decision about which organisation to fund is already implied by the scale of revenue. The cut-off point, for starters, is an annual turnover of not less than $300,000 in revenue. The other end of the scale is a ceiling of $30 million, which, for any media outlet, would be impressive.

This media non-reform package also comes on the heels of another dispiriting masquerade: an attempt to import a further layering of supposed transparency measures on the ABC and SBS, a position long championed by senator Pauline Hanson. This reactionary reflex, claimed the fuming crossbench Senator Jacqui Lambie, was “the worst lot of crap I have seen”, the sort of feculence designed to punish the public broadcaster for being “one step ahead when it comes to iView and their social media platforms.”[6]

Between the giants of Google and Facebook, and a government happy to sing before the tycoons, a small publishing outlet is best going it alone in an already cut throat environment, relying on the old fashioned, albeit ruthless good sense, of the reader. Have trust that the copy will pull you through, or perish trying to do so.

Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge.  He lectures at RMITUniversity, Melbourne.  Email: [email protected]

Notes

A Gallup poll headlined on September 17th, “Seven in 10 Dissatisfied With Way U.S. Is Being Governed”, and reported that 71% said they were “Dissatisfied” and that 28% said they were “Satisfied,” with the U.S. Government. The question, as it had been posed, was “On the whole, would you say you are satisfied or dissatisfied with the way the nation is being governed?”

At the height of Richard Nixon’s Watergate scandal, when this question was asked during 21-24 September 1973, the until-then all-time-lowest level of satisfaction with the Government was recorded, 26% (compared with 28% who are “Satisfied” today); but, at that time, only 66% said they were outright “Dissatisfied”; so, at that time, a larger percentage than now, were on the fence, about this question. (Thus, 71% are “Dissatisfied” today, whereas only 66% were, back in 1973.) Subsequently, the figure of only 26% who were “Satisfied,” wasn’t reached again until the very end of George W. Bush’s Presidency and the peak of the 2008 economic crash, when, yet again, 26% were “Satisfied”; but, in that instance, an until-then all-time-record high 72% declared themselves “Dissatisfied” with their Government. So, that was the all-time-worst finding, up to that moment in time. But, then, things got even worse: 

After a few months of hope, immediately following Barack Obama’s election as President to replace the by-then-widely-despised Bush, even lower levels of satisfaction were soon reached: late in 2011, it was 19% “Satisfied” and a full 81% who were “Dissatisfied”; and, late in 2013, it was, yet again, 81% “Dissatisfied,” but an all-time-record-low of 18%, who were “Satisfied.” So: that’s the worst finding, up to and including, the current one. 

The period from 1985-2002 experienced a remarkably stable 55% to 59% of Americans who were “Satisfied,” and 37% to 39% who were “Dissatisfied.” But, then, the big plunge came. After exposure of the big lie, that Saddam Hussein had WMD which George W. Bush constantly repeated and consciously lied about and said necessitated invading Iraq, seeped out to have been a lie, gradually entering into the public’s consciousness from a press that was extremely reluctant to report the fact (and with assisting cover-up from a see-no-evil Congress), the lie became silently known, but only in retrospect, by Americans, to have been a lie, after all. And that 2002 level of 59% “Satisfied” thus  sank year-by-year down to reach the 26% figure in the Bush-Presidency’s final months. Americans’ extreme disappointment with the U.S. Government during Obama’s Presidency has produced a new normal, of extreme dissatisfaction, with the U.S. Government — exceptionally poor ratings that continue (though not quite as bad as Obama’s) till the present time.

Gallup’s latest report, on September 17th, attributes the current high disapproval, to Congress, mainly:

“Americans’ assessments of the job Congress is doing is significantly related to changes in their views of how the nation is being governed, as would be expected. As views of Congress have gone up or (mostly) down, so have views of the way the nation is being governed.”

However, that view could be a misrepresentation of the reality, if Americans have been becoming increasingly disillusioned with the condition of American ‘democracy’ and been starting to doubt the truthfulness of the entire American Establishment — President, Congress, newsmedia, etc. Gallup’s own data have consistently been showing this disenchantment with America’s Establishment, to have been actually occurring. 

On June 14th, I headlined “Gallup Finds Stunning Decline in Americans’ Respect for U.S. Government”, and reported that “The federal government” scored the very lowest of 15 named U.S. “Business and Industry Sector Ratings,” which covered not only “Business and Industry Sector” entities such as “Education,” “Banking,” “Accounting,” and “Farm and agriculture,” but also “The federal government,” which was scored at the very bottom, with a net approval-rating of around -30%. The entity at the far-opposite end, the very top, was the “Restaurant industry,” with a net +59% approval-rating. However, something was actually higher even than that: Gallup’s listing of “Business and Industry Sectors” excluded “Military” as being a category, even though it’s one of the biggest business and industry sectors of all. But the military was, in fact, extremely popular. If Gallup was excluding that category under the presumption that Americans would think of that sector as being subsumed within “The federal government” (the lowest-rated “sector” of all) which paid the bills for that entire military sector, then Gallup was woefully wrong, as even Gallup actually knew. On July 27th, Gallup reported: “Americans have given the military the highest confidence rating of any institution in American society for nearly two decades.” “The military” scored actually higher than any other of the listed 17 “institutions” — and here all of them were, in the order that Gallup presents them: 

“Confidence in Institutions”:

The church or organized religion, 41%

The Supreme Court, 40%

Congress 12%

Organized labor, 28%

Big business, 21%

The public schools, 36%

Newspapers, 27%

The military, 72%

The presidency, 32%

The medical system, 37%

Banks, 32%

Television news, 24%

The police, 57%

The criminal justice system, 27%

Small business, 70%

News on the internet [such as you’re now reading], 16%

Health Maintenance Organizations or HMOs, 19%

Clearly, the 72% score for “The military” dwarfs everything except the 70% score for “Small business.” (Presumably, the American public considered “Restaurant industry” to be a part of that category.)

A few months earlier, on April 26th, I had headlined “POLL: Americans Support Military-Industrial Complex Above All Else”, and reported that:

A new Morning Consult/POLITICO survey, published on 26 April, indicates that most American voters support the military-industrial complex more than they support any other recipient of U.S. federal government spending. The military-industrial complex includes almost all federal contractors, the top ten of which, in the ranking of the “Top 100 Contractors of the U.S. federal government”, are all military suppliers: 1: Lockheed Martin. 2: Boeing. 3: General Dynamics. 4: Raytheon. 5: Northrop Grumman. 6: McKesson. 7: United Technologies. 8: L-3. 9: Bechtel. 10: BAE. Those ten firms would be the likeliest main beneficiaries from today’s America’s extremely pro-military-industrial-complex public, which is clearly revealed in this poll.

2,032 American voters were asked in the poll a list of objectives that might be so important as to justify “the government must shut down.” Only one single objective was close to being supported by an absolute majority of the respondents, so that the government’s going to shut-down would, in those respondents’ view, be justified for Congress to do in order to achieve that given objective, which was stated as: “Increase funding for defense and homeland security.”

So, Americans respect America’s weapons-producers above any other “Sector” or “Institution.” Americans are, quite evidently, in love with all those recipients of federal money who are in the killing-and-being-killed “Sector” or “Institution,” but despise “The federal government” itself (which pays for them). It’s as if “The military” were viewed as being not at all a part of “The federal government.” Obviously, there’s a whole lot of lying going on, and it’s VERY effective. What should be at the very bottom, is instead at the very top.

I headlined, 16 February 2016, “How Corruption Cripples America’s Military”, and documented that the U.S. military is the world’s most wasteful (corrupt — actually extremely corrupt). But, of course, Americans clearly don’t know this. They think the opposite. The ‘news’media don’t tell them nearly as much about the military’s corruption as about the waving flags and military honors. However, William J. Astore, a non-staff contributing writer at the Democratic Party’s The Nation, headlined on 16 December 2016, “Trump’s Cabinet Is a Coup Waiting to Happen”, and he explained how, in the U.S. military, competency does not determine a general’s rise to the top ranks, but corruption does, and Astore gave as examples, the Republican Trump’s appointees such as James Mattis and John Kelly, and said:

Americans, who strongly admire their military, like to think that its most senior leaders rise on merit. This is not, however, the way the military promotion system actually works. Officers who reach the rank of general have usually been identified and sponsored at a young age, often when they are still company-grade officers in their mid-twenties. They are, in a word, groomed. Their careers are carefully “curated.” 

And, then, they retire to become board members at firms such as Lockheed Martin, whose products they had so successfully marketed while they had been in uniform.

So, this is what happens in a country where marketing has become more important than what’s marketed. It’s called soft fascism, and maybe is producing ultimately a soft coup in America.

This is a natural outcome for a country that has actually been a dictatorship since at least 1981. It’s simply becoming a bit more of that. But the American people aren’t being informed of it — they know that something’s wrong (as is clearly shown by those extremely low approval-ratings for “The federal government”), but the only ‘explanations’ they know for it are ‘illegal immigrants’, or ‘the Jews’, or ‘the Blacks’, or ‘the liberals’, or ‘the conservatives’, or  — maybe (if the military-industrial complex will have its way to the very end) — ‘the Russians’, or ‘Iran’. What’s most important for Americans to know (things such as this) is unfortunately also what’s most important for America’s ‘news’media to hide. Thus, the American people are sleepwalking into catastrophe. And we’ve been doing it for decades now. We’re going farther and farther down, and wondering “Are we going down to the top of an abyss?” Is that what’s at the end of this? Or: will we (somehow) wake up in time to prevent it from happening?

Investigative historian Eric Zuesse is the author, most recently, of  They’re Not Even Close: The Democratic vs. Republican Economic Records, 1910-2010, and of  CHRIST’S VENTRILOQUISTS: The Event that Created Christianity.

This article was originally published by Strategic Culture Foundation where the featured image was sourced.

Trump’s speech at the UN this morning is one of the best speeches I have heard aimed at an ignorant uninformed audience, essentially his Make America Great Again (MAGA) followers, and his political state handlers. Staying on script from the teleprompters, it was obvious that while many of these ideas were his, most of the writing, indeed probably all of it, was done by someone else.  

The platitudes and homilies about peace, security, and sovereignty were many, supporting his idea that MAGA includes the whole world supporting and abiding by U.S. dictation. The information provided went far beyond homilies to being outright lies, large areas of historical amnesia – especially for Iran and North Korea – replete with double standards, and not so subtle bombast and hubris.  

Introduction

The speech began with comments about how well the U.S. was doing. Trump noted that the stock market was at record highs. He did not mention that this was because of the Fed’s zero interest policy, the essentially free money corporations could borrow to buy back their own stock and artificially boost the market; nor did he mention all the interventions the Fed and corporations use to control stock and commodities prices.

He followed by bragging about the great growth in employment, without noting that most of the new jobs are part-time, on call, and generally low paid service jobs (really, how many bartenders can one country have?). The employment statistics are manipulated through the artful use of a ‘birth-death’ model (with its assumption of more businesses being created, and thus more employment, than are going out of business) and the use of ‘seasonal adjustments’ (from which very small tweaks can produce large shifts in numbers). Ironically in his closing statements of trade, he argued that the U.S. has lost large numbers of factories and workers to other countries due to the unfair trade arrangements (how many bartenders again?).

The introduction continued with wonderful platitudinous lies about the beneficence of the U.S. way of life, such that “we do not seek to impose our way of life on anyone”, and letting us “shine as an example for everyone to watch.” He repeated it very shortly afterwards, saying the U.S. “did not attempt to impose our way of life on others,” as if repetition makes it true – although it does become reality within the big lie technique of propaganda. In short, Trump has denied centuries of U.S. military/economic adventurism that imposed – well perhaps not exactly their way of life – their will, greed, avarice, and power on other people. 

“Small group of rogue regimes…”

Trump then transitioned into his main topics, the “small group of rogue regimes” who did not abide by the ‘rule of law’ and sovereign independence. It could be asked whose rule of law – U.S. military law or international humanitarian law, or the UN Charter and the Geneva Conventions on occupied territories and prisoners of war? And of course it would never occur to him that these rogue states are the ones that generally have suffered highly due to U.S. adventurism into their internal sovereign affairs.  

North Korea

North Korea was up first, the “depraved nation” that “imperils the world with nuclear destruction.” So why not the depraved nations such as the U.S. that has actually used nuclear weapons; or Israel that continually reminds friends and neighbours that it has its ‘doomsday option’; or Pakistan and India who remain outside the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty which requires nations to find means to reduce their arsenals. No, the real nuclear threat grows from the dimly lit insides of Trump’s mind, accompanied by the still existing neocon desire for a nuclear first strike – perhaps trying to use North Korea as an example of what it can do.

Unfortunately, this is a case of enormous historical amnesia. North and South Korea had regular skirmishes against each other before the actual war. South Korea was a U.S. puppet dictatorship that killed many of its own citizens and has been reported quite authoritatively to have actually attacked and captured a North Korean town before the North retaliated en masse. Eventually, with the war stalemated, the threats of nuclear bomb use eliminated, the U.S. air force destroyed all infrastructure in the North, including all components of civilian support, killing an estimated one third of the population. And you wonder why they want nuclear weapons? And you forget what happened to Hussein and Gaddafi after they gave up their nuclear ambitions?

Iran

Next came “another reckless regime”, Iran, “an economically depleted rogue state whose chief exports are violence, bloodshed, and chaos.” My, my, Trump cannot seem to remember either U.S. history or the history of Iran. It was the U.S. (along with Britain) that overthrew the democratically elected Mossadegh government of Iran in 1953 over – you guessed it – control of oil. It was the U.S. that imposed the Shah and his secret service torturers, the Savak, on the people, who unsurprisingly rebelled and began their religious revolution.

Essentially Trump blamed Iran for all the wars, terrorists, and political chaos in the Middle East. More irony, as he then goes on to talk about his speech to Saudi Arabia in which he says the group agreed to “confront terrorism and confront the Islamic extremism that inspires them….to expose and hold responsible those countries who support and finance terror groups….” One can hear the Saudis quaking in their slippers at this line, as they silently go about their financing and arming of terror both for and against the will of the U.S., while maintaining the petrodollar as the world’s reserve currency in support of the truly greatest terror country in the world. 

Trump also denounces the recent Iranian nuclear deal, saying he “cannot abide by an agreement” that could lead to a nuclear weapon and that it is “an embarrassment to the United States.” Well, no, Trump is the true embarrassment – or should be – as the other co-signatories to the agreement have so far stood by it.

Syria and segues

Of course Syria could not be left off the table, after a brief sojourn through Afghanistan (“new rules of engagement”). Trump brags that the U.S. accomplished more in eight months than in the previous three years, and thanked the UN for their assistance in liberated areas. Really? Has Trump taken out Russian citizenship? The UN is not in Syria, and it is Russian leadership that has liberated most of Syria from U.S./Saudi/Qatari supported terrorists.

This segment segues into the problem of refugees and thus, through implication, with Mexico. Arguing that the U.S. is a “compassionate nation” he indicates that the country that loses people as immigrès is worse off because those are the people who could change the defects of the country they are leaving….? But what if – what if those defects are caused by unfair trade agreements (Mexico was overwhelmed with U.S. subsidized corn that pushed many farmers off their lands into the hands of corporate landlords in the Maquiladora) and the predatory practices of businesses within the U.S.?

This segues again into another topic the UN itself with part of the argument being that “some governments with egregious [pretty big word there, Donald] human rights records sit on the United Nations Human Rights Council.” Were you perhaps referring to Saudi Arabia, the titular head of the UNHRC, you know, the country that won’t let women drive or vote or dress how they want – and supports al-Qaeda and ISIS and attacked the sovereignty of Yemen and Qatar and suppresses dissent domestically and withs its neighbour Bahrain? Yeah, those egregious guys.

Socialism is evil

Following this came his attacks on Cuba and Venezuela with his own egregious statement [yeah, pretty big word eh, Donald?] that the worst countries in the world are those where “Socialism has been faithfully implemented.” Wow, this statement involves ignorance of current affairs, of global and U.S. history – anything in short that has to do with any and all economic/military practices of the past two centuries.

So the Scandinavian countries are failures? Well, perhaps they didn’t implement socialism fully, that’s their problem. And Cuba a failure? I would argue that in spite of U.S. sanctions and embargos that Cuba has done quite well considering, with Cuban life expectancy rising, and the U.S.’ falling, Cuba has a higher literacy rate than the U.S., and their health services are free – not only domestically, but provided throughout – imagine this – hurricane battered islands of the Caribbean! 

Former President of Chile, Salvador Allende

Further, more globally, yes there have been failures within socialism. The Soviet Union is perhaps the biggest example, but they self-corrected. How’s China doing? Are they not competing with you for global economic supremacy? And what about Iran – oh yeah, you guys overthrew their social democratic government. And then Chile – oh yeah – you provided Pinochet with the power to overthrow the democratically elected Allende social government there. And Vietnam – well millions of tons of bombs later, along with chemical weapons – without forgetting the bombings in Laos and Cambodia and you almost defeated communism there. The list goes on, the reader’s best reference on this should be the writings of William Blum.  

But I forgot Venezuela. Another oil country. Another country that has seen U.S. fomented attempts at government overthrow. Another country that has had large corporate oil interests that were taken over by the state. Another country that has had sanctions placed on it. And by gosh, socialism is the reason they are failing….?

Trump claims all of Latin America as good economic partners – perhaps that is because all countries of South and Central America have at one time or another – Honduras under Hillary Clinton’s watch most recently, 2009 – undergone covert or overt U.S. intervention to bring their governments into line with U.S. corporate interests – thus good economic partners, with a distinct lack of sovereign integrity.  

Finale

What was truly significant during this anti-socialist tirade was the reaction of the audience when he announced that the implementation of socialism was the problem in all these failed countries. There was an immediate and distinct shuffle and commotion with only a few scattered bits of applause (probably from Macron, Trudeau, Merkel, always by the U.S. in spirit). Throughout the speech, the cameras also focused in on the leaders being taken to task, and all had the same disgusted, steadfast, steely look of someone who has to listen to an idiot ramble on with the usual imperial rhetoric and hubris. Well, except for Netanyahu, who was seen nodding in agreement to Trump’s rhetoric.  

The speech ended with more of that hubris and rhetoric, repetition of the platitudes and bombast from the introduction – another good sign Trump did not actually write the speech, who would probably not know this paradigm of good speech/essay writing. Claiming that the U.S. is “among the greatest forces for good in the history of the world,” he eventually signed off, much to the relief of all but his ardent followers and the U.S. deep state.

We must not sleepwalk our way into nuclear war.” – UN Secretary General António Guterres, Sep 19, 2017

Having gone soft on the United Nations in his initial remarks, US President Donald Trump returned to stupendous form with the language of annihilation in his address to the 72^nd session of the General Assembly.  Jaws dropped; heads were covered by hands; arms were resolutely folded.  It was exactly the sort of “hate speech,” snorted Iran’s foreign minister, Javad Zarif, that belonged to the medieval age, “unworthy of reply.”[1]

In one fundamental sense, Trump’s spiky language resembled that of a previous US president, one whose simplicity remained innocent to the deep greyness of international politics. George W. Bush, whose childish rendering of the world into friends and those of the “axis of evil”, would have found little to disagree with.

“Authority and authoritarian powers seek to collapse the values, the systems, and alliances that prevented conflict and titled the world toward freedom since World War II.”[2] 

Trump’s tone of menace proved particularly apocalyptic, painting a truly hideous world for member states.  “International criminal networks traffic rugs, weapons, people; force dislocation and mass migration; threaten our borders; and new forms of aggression exploit technology to menace our citizens.”

Nothing is ever to scale in such Trumpian performances. North Korea’s “depraved regime” had killed millions by means of starvation, with millions more tortured, and killed (presumably by other means), and oppressed.  Pyongyang was responsible for the looming spectre of mass death, its “reckless pursuit of nuclear weapons and missiles” threatening the globe “with unthinkable loss of human life.”

The next stage of the Korean gamble shows the public front of delusion and self-denial. Trump retains the cobwebbed view a growing number of US strategists disagree with: that denuclearisation at the moment is pure fantasy. Take it off the table, as the Kim Jong-un regime will never have a bar of it.

Not so Trump:

“No nation on earth has an interest in seeing this band of criminals arm itself with nuclear weapons and missiles.”

Indeed, Trump felt that “Rocket Man is on a suicide mission for himself and his regime.” The noble, restrained United States, with its “great strength and patience” would, if forced to defend itself or its allies, “totally destroy North Korea.” Such suitable restraint.

Iran also reserved a special spot in the Trump show of rancour.

“It is time for the entire world to join us in demanding that Iran’s government end its pursuit of death and destruction.”

Iran, supporter of terror, enemy of peaceful Israel, an impoverished rogue state which should never have received international blessing in “one of the worst and most one-sided transactions the United States has ever entered into.”

Without any glimmer of contradiction, Trump noted a visit to that great standard bearer of peace and moderation, Saudi Arabia, where he was “honoured to address the leaders of more than 50 Arab and Muslim nations.” The theme? Combating terrorism and Islamist extremism. No better place, perhaps, than Riyadh to address these niggling points.

Then came another regime to target with an expansive tongue lashing:

“The socialist dictatorship of Nicolas Maduro has inflicted terrible pain and suffering on the good people of [Venezuela].”

Across the country were instances of starvation, democratic corrosion, an “unacceptable” situation that demanded intervention, military, if necessary.

Trump’s address ticked the boxes of a very distinct nomenclature, the sort alien to the diplomatic corps and dogmatists of the liberal market credo. Swedish foreign minister Margo Wallström found his performance barely believable.

“It was the wrong speech, at the wrong time, to the wrong audience.”

In other respects, Trump foisted upon his UN audience a brand thinning with each speech and press release: the America First label, the art of the necessary deal centred on a responsibility for citizens.

“For too long, the American people were told that mammoth multinational trade deals, unaccountable international tribunals, and powerful global bureaucracies were the best way to promote their success.”

Trump preferred the necessary deal, America First as a warming vision of cosy affluence, a form of nostalgia in action, an effort to restore those vanished jobs running into the millions and confront those who “gamed the system and broke the rules.” In so doing, the middle class received a historical caning, forgotten in a bout of mass amnesia.  Never again, he intoned, would they be forgotten.

It was a speech insistent on the supremacy of sovereignty while also praising the UN as a forum where disputes and challenges could be resolved.

“If we are to embrace the opportunities of the future and overcome the present dangers together, there can be no substitute for strong, sovereign, and independent nations”. 

This is Trump pure and simple, unable to reconcile the dictates of stomping sovereign will with the notion of calm collective action, thereby undermining both. 

Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge.  He lectures at RMIT University, Melbourne.  Email: [email protected]

Notes

This month, the Robert Lehman Wing of New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art is hosting the work of Mexican baroque artist, Cristóbal Villalpando (1649 –1714). The highlight of the show is Moses and the Brazen Serpent and the Transfiguration of Jesus (1683), a staggering 28-foot tall altarpiece that until now has never left its home in Puebla Cathedral.

Two distinct scenes are unfolding within a landscape that includes at once the wilderness of Exodus, and the Holy Mounts of Calvary and Tabor. It is of such scale and scope that one is swept away by the sheer grandeur of it.

The painter has arranged the scenes vertically and hierarchically – the bottom half concerns an episode from Chapter 21 in the Book of Numbers: when “the people spoke against God and against Moses,” questioning why they were brought out of Egypt “to die in the wilderness.” God immediately answers their impatience and ingratitude by sending “seraph serpents against the people” – deadly vipers that ‘consume man by the poison of their fangs.’ For Villalpando, these are a terrifying brood of winged monsters, suggested perhaps by the flying serpents mentioned in Isaiah (14:29).

Moses intercedes on behalf of the Israelites: he prays for the people to be forgiven and ‘one from whom forgiveness is asked… should not be so cruel as not to forgive’ (Rashi). God tells Moses to “make a seraph figure and mount it on a standard. If anyone who is bitten looks at it, he shall recover.” Moses fashions a serpent of brass and displays it as an ensign for the people.

Villalpando shows us Moses, luminescent horns beaming from his head, standing beside the pole around which is coiled a mighty winged serpent. The people gather round to gaze up towards it and be healed. Aaron, Moses’ brother, stands to the right of the pole wearing the elaborately embroidered garb of the high priest, ‘vested for beauty and for glory’, atop his head a horned mitre; at his feet are the wretched victims of God’s wrath, contorted bodies and bulging eyes.

Moses and the Brazen Serpent and the Transfiguration of Jesus (Source: The Met)

In the upper half we are presented with the Transfiguration of Jesus as described in the Synoptic Gospels: three apostles gaze up at the glorified body of Jesus, overwhelmed by his divine incandescence. Beside Christ are Moses and Elijah, presumably speaking of Jesus’ imminent crucifixion – reinforced by the imposing cross perched on the edge of a gloomy promontory, Calvary.

Villalpando brings together these two episodes, from the Old and New Testaments respectively, with a quote from the Gospel of John: “And as Moses lift up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the son of man be lift up, that none that believeth in him perish” (3:14). The brazen serpent was not only a remedy for the wounded Israelites; it was later viewed as anticipating the Messiah, a sign of salvation.

Villalpando was not attempting simply to visually depict the brazen serpent – in a sense his aim was a far more ambitious one: to create or recreate as it were a brazen serpent, a work of art that is meant to heal the tortured, forsaken and forgotten. The brazen serpent healed the victims of the venomous snakes by their looking on it. Whatever power it had to heal was transmitted, in a sense, visually. This fact was obviously not lost on a painter as astute as Villalpando. Both the transfiguration and the brazen serpent ‘privilege vision as a means of comprehending the divine.’ His painting is among other things about the power of the artist to communicate the divine through painting.

Ten other works are part of the exhibit – including an extraordinary oil on copper depicting The Deluge (1689): not unlike Moses and the Brazen serpent, Noah’s building of the ark according to God’s instructions is, for Villalpando, a biblical precedent for artistic creation. The sky is streaked with lightening – scenes of mayhem and death crowd the picture’s foreground. The sight of rooftops peaking up above rising floodwaters cannot but resonate with us in the aftermath of storms like Hurricane Harvey that recently battered Texas.

The ark is presented as inaccessibly distant, but centrally fixed; its bronze hue is strikingly visible against the leaden sky and foamy sea. Size and pictorial distance do not seem to be realistically correlated in the Deluge: it is as if the painter has chosen to magnify certain scenes so as to emphasize and individualize the personal catastrophes that are unfolding amidst the general devastation.

The Brazen Serpent and Transfiguration is reason enough to make the pilgrimage to the Metropolitan Museum. Villalpando’s first true masterpiece is a visual feast: a massive tour de force. Indeed, the artist accomplished something extraordinary with this painting: a breathtaking and powerfully dramatic vision of pain and anguish, hope and healing; of redemption and transformation, a depiction of the victory of love and forgiveness over fear and despair, and a most welcome reprieve at this moment in time.

Sam Ben-Meir is a professor of philosophy and world religions at Mercy College in New York City.

For half of the past two decades Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu has served as prime minister of Israel. Whatever his ultimate fate (given the ongoing criminal investigations he is currently facing), it is clear that he has had a profound impact on Israel, the Palestinians, and the entire region.

There are those who have doubted that Netanyahu had any core beliefs, other than the desire to retain power. But even with his maneuvering and his penchant for prevarication, there are, in fact, core beliefs that have directed his career. 

Shortly after his first election as Prime Minister, and before his maiden address to the US Congress, a team of Reagan-era neoconservatives (many of whom ended up in senior positions in the George W. Bush Administration) wrote a paper for Netanyahu to guide his remarks before Congress and to US audiences. The paper, echoing many themes from Netanyahu’s own writings, was called “A Clean Break.” Since he was already aligned with these views, he repeated the paper’s themes and policy proposals during his many public appearances in Washington. “A Clean Break” can be seen as Netanyahu’s road map to relations with the US and the Middle East region.

The central themes of the paper were:

• ending the Oslo process and rejecting “land for peace” formula; reasserting Israel’s claim to the “land of Israel”; weakening the ability of the Palestinian Authority to govern; and poisoning the PA’s image in the US to damage its standing,
• securing Israel’s northern border, by confronting Iran, promoting internal conflict in Lebanon, and destabilizing Syria,
• strengthening ties with US Republicans, including proposing ending US economic aid in favor of military aid and buying into the Reagan-era idea of a “missile defense” system—a concept favored by the GOP, and
• confronting Iraq and overthrowing Saddam Hussein’s rule.

Over the past two decades, Netanyahu and his US allies, whether in or out of office, pursued these same objectives. To a great extent, they have succeeded.

This unholy alliance between US neoconservatives and Netanyahu was no accident. They had long been partners. Back in the late 1970’s, Netanyahu convened many of these same thinkers to Israel for a summit at the Jonathan Institute—an event which some have called the birth of the American neoconservative movement. Back then, their focus was hostility to the Soviet Union and the “national liberation movements” alleged to be Soviet pawns. The ideology they spawned was decidedly pro-Israel and anti-Arab, and extremely hostile to all things Palestinian.

With the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Oslo peace process, and the election of Bill Clinton, the focus of both the neocons (as they were called) and Netanyahu shifted. Seeing US Republicans as his allies in the effort to sabotage the peace process, Netanyahu’s Likud party set up a shop to provide talking points to GOP members of Congress. Their goal was to make Republicans partners in their fight with the Clinton administration/Labor Party endorsed peace process. With the GOP take-over of Congress in 1995, followed by Netanyahu’s election in 1996, the stage was set to kill the Oslo process. It was an unholy alliance of Likud and the GOP squared off against Labor and the Clinton Administration.

The goals laid out in “A Clean Break” were not so much prophetic as they were a road map in which the neocons and Netanyahu laid out their plans for a new US-Israel partnership, a destabilized Arab World, and an end to Palestinian aspirations for independence.

Whenever Netanyahu met with resistance from Clinton, he turned to the Republican-led Congress for support. He was dogged in his efforts to sabotage peace and largely succeeded. Even the one agreement Clinton finally forced him to sign with Arafat only served to lock the Palestinians into an untenable situation by consolidating Israeli control over much of the West Bank and their nightmarish presence in the heart of Hebron.

While the “break” envisioned in “A Clean Break’ was not as “clean” as the one he may have sought, the impact of Netanyahu’s first term created conditions that ultimately led to his hoped for end of the peace process.

After his return to office in 2009, he was forced to endure eight years of a Democratic administration, led by Barack Obama. Once again, he turned to his relations with a Republican-led Congress to resist pressures to make peace.

With the election of Donald Trump coupled with Republican control of Congress, Netanyahu feels more comfortable. His allies in Congress are vigorously pushing his agenda. There are bills designed to: further punish and discredit the already weakened PA; deny funding to UNWRA; outlaw the BDS movement; and recognize, through clever slight of hand language, Israel’s control over the “territories.” The Trump Administration, which began its tenure, proposing to deliver “a great deal” to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has reportedly lowered its ambitions to a proposal mirroring a long-discredited 40-year-old Likud concept of “limited Palestinian autonomy” denying Palestinians full sovereignty and any rights in Jerusalem, while releasing large areas of the West Bank to Israeli expansion.

Netanyahu, the Likud, and their neoconservative allies can rightly claim that the vision they projected for the Middle East in “A Clean Break” is being realized. But, in reality, what they have created is an unsustainable mess that includes: a weakened and dependent PA that was denied the ability to govern causing it to lose legitimacy; a fractured Palestinian polity, with Hamas in control of a humanitarian disaster in Gaza; an Iraq in shambles and in its wake, an empowered and emboldened Iran and a metastasized terrorist threat that now challenges many countries; and a hardened, though divided Israeli electorate from which it is unlikely to see any new peace-oriented leadership emerging.

So this is the “House that Bibi Built.” It is his legacy. While Israel proceeds along its merry way, each day building more settlements, demolishing more Palestinian homes, dishing out more hardships to an embittered captive people, far from being the secure and stable dream Netanyahu envisioned, it is seething cauldron waiting for the next explosion.

James J. Zogby is the president of the Arab American Institute. 

Featured image is from Wikimedia Commons.

China’s continuing shift to green sources of electric power generation is confirmed in the latest data published by the National Energy Administration (NEA) and the China Electricity Council (CEC). New capacity additions in the first half of 2017 have seen the proportion of capacity added sourced from water, wind and sun (WWS) reaching 70%, with thermal capacity added being reduced to 28% and nuclear to just 2%. Overall, the China electric power system has swung from one that was dependent on WWS sources for just 20% in 2007 to 35% in 2017 (1H) – an astonishing 15% swing in just a decade. Meanwhile actual electric energy generated in 1H 2017 remains heavily dependent on thermal sources to the extent of 75%, with WWS accounting for 21% and nuclear for 4%. The system is greening at the margin (in terms of new additions) but it still remains a large fossil-fuelled system.

China’s energy-related agencies, the National Energy Administration (NEA) and the China Electricity Council (CEC), have released data on the operation of China’s electric power system in the first half of 2017 (1H 2017), noting that renewable sources (water, wind and sun) accounted for 69.8% of new capacity added, with thermal sources (mainly coal) accounting for 28%, and nuclear just 2% (Fig. 1). These results reveal a marked shift towards green sources of electric power, when compared with the 2016 data which recorded that renewable sources (WWS) added 51.9% of new capacity, while thermal accounted for 42.9% and nuclear for 5.2%. The first half results for 2017 thus reveal that the electric power system is continuing its green shift, with WWS sources increasing their influence and thermal sources declining in proportion. The trends therefore continue those analyzed previously by Dr Hao Tan and myself – see here. The 2017 data also reveal that the absolute numbers of new capacity additions are down on 2016, with total capacity added in 1H 2017 standing at just 50.6 GW, compared with 124.6 GW capacity additions for the whole of 2016. This is consistent with a general cutback in investment levels across the economy in China in 2017. WWS sources accounted for 35.3 GW in 1H 2017 – or nearly 6 billion watts per month.

Figure 1. New electric capacity added in 1H 2017

Meanwhile the data for investments made in 2017 (1H) released by CEC reveal a continuing preponderance of investment in WWS-sourced generating plant vs thermal sourced plant. New investments made in power plants in 1H 2017 amounted to RMB 104.6 billion (US$ 15.9 million) — with RMB 55 billion (52.6%) of investment in new generating plant being sourced from WWS compared with only RMB 31.3 billion (29.9%) for thermal sources. The data also reveal that RMB 18.3 billion (17.5%) of investment in new power generation was directed to nuclear power systems

By contrast with the capacity additions in 2017 1H, the actual electrical energy generated over the first half of the year stands at just under 3000 TWh (which is comparable with the generated amount in the full year 2016 when compared over the same time scale), with WWS sources accounting for 21%, nuclear for 4% and thermal for 75%. This may be contrasted with the 2016 full-year results, which were that thermal accounted for 71.6%, WWS sources for 24.8% and nuclear for 3.6%. Thus in terms of electricity generated, the year 2017 has so far seen an increase in the proportion of thermal power generated and a corresponding decrease in WWS power, with nuclear marginally increasing its proportional contribution. This result reflects the continuing strength of fossil fuels in the total electric power system, and is also likely to be the effect of continuing curtailment of renewable sources (i.e. generating power but not contributing to the grid) – as discussed in the final section below. The system is greening at the margin (in terms of new additions) but it still remains a large fossil-fuelled system.

The situation at the close of the 1H 2017 for the three aspects of the electric power system, encompassing capacity additions, electric energy generated and new investments, over the period of the first half of the 13^th Five Year Plan (2015 – 2017 (1H)), with data for 2010 included as comparison, is shown in Table 1.¹

Table 1. China’s electric power system, 2010, 2015-2017 (1H)

When we turn to examine new capacity additions and investments in WWS sources in 2017 (1H) we see that the green shift continues to operate at a level that far exceeds what is found elsewhere in the world.

Solar

The 23.6 GW new solar PV power capacity added in 2017 (1H) is another world record for China, taking the cumulative installed capacity to 101 GW by end of June 2017 (and to 112.3 GW by July 2017– which is already above the (conservative) target of 105 GW set for 2020 by the ND&RC in its 13^th FYP for energy). Some observers like the AECEA see China’s solar PV installations as likely to top 40 GW in 2017 for the full year – see here. The AECEA projects the 2020 cumulative total for China as likely to reach 230 GW, which would dominate the global picture. Now the NEA in China in August has acted to raise the target for solar PV power in China by 2020, setting a new target of 213 GW – doubling the previous target total, which is already five times the current installed capacity in the US – see here. This means that the AECEA projected target for 2020 is in line with official Chinese targets. Greenpeace also notes that China plans by 2020 to have installed no less than 54.5 GW of large-scale solar projects, encompassing Concentrated Solar Power (CSP), solar PV and combinations of solar and food production systems – see here. Greenpeace capture the situation with solar PV as shown in Fig. 2.

Figure 2. China solar PV capacity growth and 2020 targets

Wind

The 6.0 GW new capacity added for wind in China for 2017 (1H) – or 1 GW per month (equivalent to 400 new turbines built and erected, rated at 2.5 MW each). This is a 4.7% increase on the pro rata figure for 2016, which saw wind capacity additions reaching 17.3 GW, and the cumulative total reaching 154.6 GW, easily the largest in the world. According to Greenpeace, China is on track to install 110 GW onshore wind capacity by 2020 – raising cumulative wind capacity to 259 GW, well in excess of the 210 GW target set for the end of the 13^th FYP period in 2020. The situation for wind power capacity and generation is depicted in Fig. 3.

Figure 3. Wind power China: Capacity additions and electricity generated

The total solar and wind capacity would exceed 400GW by 2020, according to the latest NEA plan, as shown in Fig. 4.

Figure 4. Solar and wind capacity in China’s 13^th FYP.

Hydro

Meanwhile hydro continues to expand at a moderate rate in China, with the 5.6 GW capacity added in 2017 (1H) representing a 28% increase on the pro rata figure for 2016 of 4.37 GW new capacity additions. The cumulative total for hydro at the end of 2017 (1H) stood at 340 GW, meaning that China has already installed hydro to the target level for 2020. This must be close to the absolute limit for China, given that there is a natural limit to the widespread damming of rivers, nearly all of which are already fully dammed.

Competing sources of electric power: WWS versus Thermal

There is a major struggle now under way in China between the interests backing renewable sources (mainly hydro, wind and solar) and those continuing to support thermal sources for power generation (mainly coal but also gas and a very small amount of oil). China’s problem is to allow the renewable sources to grow while reducing the activities of the thermal power sector in a socially responsible way.

China’s total power system has moved in a steady green direction, with the proportion accounted for by WWS sources growing from just 20% in 2007 to 35% by 2017 (1H), as shown in Fig. 5. This 15% swing in favour of WWS sources in just a decade is a truly extraordinary shift in the largest electric power system in the world. At this rate, China’s electric power system will be expected to reach 50% green capacity (WWS) within another decade, by 2027, i.e. well before 2030. Carbon emissions will be expected to fall accordingly.

Figure 5 also includes the proportion of WWS anticipated by 2015 in the 12^th FYP – already exceeded in the 2015 results.

Figure 5. China: Trends in electric generating capacity, 1990-2017(1H)

During the first half of the 13^th FYP, running from 2015, 2016 and 2017 (1H) (Table 2), new capacity of 152.4 GW based on thermal sources was added as against 169.2 GW for renewable sources (hydro, wind and sun). So over this period new WWS capacity surpassed thermal sources by 11%. The advantage in favour of WWS sources was even greater when examining investment. In fact investment in thermal sources over the first half of the 13th FYP accounted for RMB 265 billion, as against RMB 450 billion for WWS, or WWS exceeding thermal investment by 70%. Over the same period of the first half of the 13^th FYP, WWS sources accounted for 55% of the new capacity added – making it clear that the trends revealed in Fig. 5 may be expected to continue. However in terms of actual electricity generated over the first half of the 13^th FYP, thermal sources amounted to 10,696 TWh, as opposed to 6,446 TWh for WWS sources – with renewable (WWS) accounting for just 32.2% of electric energy generated from thermal sources. This underlines the fact that China’s electric power system is still a large coal-fired system.

Table 2. Thermal vs WWS sources, 13^th FYP

Source: Based on data from the CEC

Negative influences

There are some negatives to set against all these positives. Apart from the continued burning of large volumes of coal, leaving China with the world’s leading greenhouse gas emissions, if only a fraction of US emissions in per capita terms, there is the issue of curtailment, or failure to connect wind and solar power farms to the grid with the result that China is presently generating unused electric energy. Greenpeace notes that in 2017 (1H) the national wind curtailment rate stood at 13.6%, and solar curtailment in five northwest provinces at 15.5%. Curtailment refers to power generated from renewable sources that is not fed into the grid, either because the grid cannot accept fluctuating sources of power or the grid operator refuses to accept the renewable power. The NEA acknowledges the problem, and has announced steps to deal with it. First, the NEA has ruled that provinces with serious wind and solar PV curtailment problems (such as the western provinces of Gansu, Xinjiang and Ningxia) may not install any more new capacity. This would have the effect of nudging these provinces to make better use of the capacity already installed. Second, the NEA identifies seven provinces (including Beijing and Shanghai) as being released from controls and becoming free to add as much solar capacity as they wish, subject only to the constraint that they must not make the curtailment problem any worse. See here.

Acknowledgment: I would like to acknowledge the valuable contributions made by Ms Carol Huang to this article. JM

John A. Mathews is Professor of Management, MGSM, Macquarie University, Australia, and formerly Eni Chair of Competitive Dynamics and Global Strategy at LUISS Guido Carli University in Rome. His research focuses on the competitive dynamics of international business, the evolution of technologies and their strategic management, and the rise of new high technology industries.

Note

¹ It is worth noting that different definitions of ‘clean energy’ can lead to varying estimates of China’s green shift. For example reports in the China press in July that China’s ‘clean energy’ generation in 1H 2017 reached 27.2% of total power generation are at variance with the estimates given here (see for example , ‘China’s clean energy generation accelerates in first half’, China Daily, 19 July 2017). The estimates cited here are based on CEC data and a characterization of ‘clean’ as meaning energy generated from WWS sources.

The eldest son of Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has found himself an unlikely poster boy for David Duke, a former Ku Klux Klan leader, and the neo-Nazi website Daily Stormer.

Last week these cheerleaders for Jew hatred described 27-year-old Yair Netanyahu as “awesome” and “a total bro” for posting a grossly anti-semitic image on social media.

It depicts an Illuminati-like figure and a reptilian creature controlling the world through money and dark arts. Alongside them are a cabal of conspirators, their faces altered to show Netanyahu’s main opponents. They include George Soros, a Holocaust survivor who has invested billions in pro-democracy movements, and Ehud Barak, a former Israeli prime minister turned government critic.

This is not Yair’s first troubling outburst. Last month he emulated US President Donald Trump in decrying demonstrators who opposed a rally by white supremacists in Charlottesville, Virginia, that left a woman dead.

These might be dismissed as the immature rantings of a wayward son, had Yair not been groomed by his father as Israel’s “crown prince”. Netanyahu Jnr was supposedly behind an online media strategy that steered Netanyahu to electoral victory in 2015. He can be seen at his father’s side at meetings with world leaders.

The Israeli media were shocked not only by the post but Netanyahu’s determined refusal to criticise his son. An editorial in the Haaretz daily concluded that the prime minister’s silence signaled his “consent to the ongoing demonization of anyone who doesn’t get in line with the Israeli right”.

Yair’s choice of targets was revealing, particularly the image’s “Grand Jew” – George Soros.

In July, Netanyahu met his Hungarian counterpart Viktor Orban, an ultra-nationalist who has led a xenophobic campaign against immigrants. In a bid to crush opposition, the Orban government has vilified Soros, an American-Hungarian who promotes progressive causes. A billboard campaign against the billionaire unleashed a wave of anti-semitism across the country.

As leader of a Jewish state professing to be the world’s only refuge against anti-Semitism, Netanyahu ought to have rushed to Soros’s defence. Instead he echoed Orban’s incitement. Soros, he said, had “undermined” and “defamed” Israel too – by funding human rights groups opposed to the occupation.

Sympathy with the European and US far-right is not restricted to the Netanyahu camp. It is moving into the Israeli mainstream. Last week the Herzliya conference – an annual jamboree for Israel’s security establishment – invited Sebastian Gorka as a keynote speaker.

Gorka, another American-Hungarian and Trump’s former terrorism adviser, is a figurehead of the alt-right, a term for US white supremacist groups. Gorka told the conference that Israel and the US were “founding members of the Judeo-Christian civilization” and would defeat their “common enemies”.

Meanwhile, another US alt-right leader, Richard Spencer, appeared on Israeli TV last month to call himself a “white Zionist”.

The affinity between Netanyahu’s Israel and the west’s far-right is understandable. Both detest a human rights discourse they have yet to crush. Both mobilise their supporters with dog-whistle Islamophobia. Both prefer militarised, fear-based societies. And both share an obsession with Jew hatred.

Israel is so esteemed by white supremacists because it offers a double whammy of anti-semitism. For decades Israel has sought to persuade the west that it faces an endless war against Arab and Muslim “terror”; while Israel also declares itself the only true home for Jews.

For an alt-right bristling with hatred for all semites, Jews and Muslims alike, this is manna from heaven. It too wants an apocalyptic battle against Islam, and it too is happy to see the west cleared of Jews by herding them into the Middle East.

At first sight, that has created an ideological inconsistency on the Israeli right that Yair Netanyahu’s meme highlights.

The Israeli prime minister has repeatedly called on all Jews to come to Israel, claiming it as the only safe haven from an immutable global anti-semitism. And yet Netanyahu is also introducing a political test before he opens the door.

Jews supporting a boycott of Israel are already barred. Now liberal Jews and critics of the occupation like Soros are increasingly not welcome either. Israel is rapidly redefining the extent of the sanctuary it offers – for Jewish supremacists only.

The paradox may turn out to be more apparent than real, however. For Netanyahu may believe he has much to gain by abandoning liberal Jews to their fate, as the alt-right asserts its power in western capitals.

The “white Zionists” are committed to making life ever harder for minorities in the west, in a bid to be rid of them. Sooner or later, on Netanyahu’s logic, liberal Jews will face a reckoning. They will have to concede that Israel’s ultra-nationalists were right all along, and that Israel is their only sanctuary.

Guided by this cynical convergence of interests, Jewish and white supremacists are counting on a revival of anti-semitism that will benefit them both.

A version of this article first appeared in the National, Abu Dhabi.

Jonathan Cook won the Martha Gellhorn Special Prize for Journalism. His latest books are “Israel and the Clash of Civilisations: Iraq, Iran and the Plan to Remake the Middle East” (Pluto Press) and “Disappearing Palestine: Israel’s Experiments in Human Despair” (Zed Books). His website is www.jkcook.net.

Since the 1928 Red Line Agreement between British and French and American oil majors to divide the oil riches of the post-World War I Middle East, petroleum or more precisely, control of petroleum has constituted the thin-red-line of modern geopolitics. During the Soviet time Russian oil exports were largely aimed at maximizing dollar hard currency income in any possible market. Today, with the ludicrous US and EU sanctions on Russia and the Washington-instigated wars in the Middle East, Russia is evolving a strategic new frame for its oil geopolitics.

Much has been said about how Russia under the Putin era has used its leading role as a natural gas supplier as a vital part of its geopolitical diplomacy. Nord Stream and soon Nord Stream II gas pipelines direct from Russia undersea, bypassing the political NATO minefields of Ukraine and of Poland, have the positive benefit of building an industry lobby in the EU. Especially in Germany, which would think twice about the more lunatic Russo-phobic provocations of Washington. Similarly Turkish Stream that gives South East Europe a secure prospect of Russian natural gas for industry and heating independent of Ukraine is positive both for the Balkans as for Russia. Now a new element is emerging in the strategy of Russian state-owned oil majors to develop a new geopolitical strategy using Russian oil and oil companies.

Matryoshka dolls, Qatar and Rosneft

On December 7, 2016 Russia’s President Vladimir Putin announced that the Russian state had sold a 19.5% share of Rosneft to a joint venture between Swiss commodity giant, Glencore and the Qatar Investment Authority for €10.2 billion. Russia retained more than 60% control by the sale. There was great mystery as to the ultimate details which were buried in what in Russian is called a matryoshka doll structure, referring to the famous Russian painted dolls which when opened, reveal a smaller doll and again, an even smaller doll and so on. It referred to the nested structure of offshore shell companies used in the Rosneft-Qatar/Glencore purchase.

Whatever the details of that December sale, which brought the Russian treasury badly needed funds amid a budget shortfall caused by the sharp decline in world oil prices, some ten months later, Russia and Rosneft have now negotiated with Qatar, Glencore and China’s CEFC China Energy Company Ltd., for CEFC to buy 14% of the 19.5% share of Rosneft.

Qatar clearly is reacting to Saudi-driven economic sanctions and the resulting cash drain on its economy by selling most of its share in Rosneft. The most significant aspect however is that Rosneft for the first time makes a share holding with a Chinese major oil company in the process. CEFC, a $34 billion annual income private Shanghai company with its subsidiaries is engaged in oil and gas agreements worth more than US$50 billion with companies in the Middle East and Central Asia. The synergies of the Rosneft-CEFC deal for the elaboration of the mammoth Eurasian Belt, Road Initiative (BRI) are obvious.

An analyst with Wood Mackenzie, Christian Boermel, commented on the significance:

“This deal intensifies the energy relationship between Russia and China. A direct stake in Rosneft will make CEFC China the main driver for the relationship of Rosneft with China, ahead of CNPC, Sinopec and Beijing Gas.”

With this deal Russian and Chinese state oil companies will cooperate on joint oil development around the world, a major cementing of a bilateral relationship that has emerged as a direct consequence of Washington stupidity in the past years, first with the 2007 ballistic missile defense stations in Poland and across the EU aimed at Russia, then the 2014 Ukraine coup d’etat by the CIA and US State Department, obviously intended to drive a wedge between Russia and the EU, a coup that has cost the EU economies an estimated $100 billion since 2014 according to a new UN report.

Like most Pentagon and neocon projects, the Ukraine coup boomeranged and turned Russia in a most significant way to an Eastern pivot towards cooperation with China and all Eurasia. Now with Russia’s Rosneft–the world’s largest publicly traded oil company–in a strategic partnership with China’s huge CEFC Energy, a significant new element is added to Russia’s potentials of energy geopolitics, as well those of China.

Russia with Turkey in Iran

In another highly significant geopolitical move, the Russian state oil company JSC Zarubezhneft announced in August that it has entered a triangular oil development agreement with the Turkish energy group, Unit International Ltd. and the Iranian Ghadir Investment Company in well drilling projects in Iran worth a reported $7 billion. The three companies will finance and develop energy projects, including development of Iran’s vast undeveloped oil resources.

Unit International earlier this year signed an agreement together with a South Korean engineering company to build five gas-fired power plants in Iran worth $4.2 billion having a generation capacity of 5,000 megawatts, making them Iran’s largest privately developed power plants. Iran is also the second largest gas supplier to Turkey after Russia. Clearly here at least the Sunni vs Shi’ite antagonisms take a back seat to pragmatic strategic energy cooperation, and that’s all to the good. Wars of religion never produce good as we see today.

The Turkish joint venture with the Russian state oil company in Iran comes at the same time Turkey announced that it has finalized purchase of the advanced Russian S-400 Triumf anti-aircraft system, said to be the world’s most advanced, over howls of protest from Washington.

Zarubezhneft is a Russian state oil company specialized in drilling projects outside Russia. They are currently active in Vietnam, Cuba, Republika Srpska, Jordan and elsewhere. The geopolitical dimension of those projects, and now the joint Russia-Turkey oil and gas development agreement in Iran, begins to suggest a geopolitical strategy. Joint energy development is serving to weave vital economic ties around Russia.

When all these developments are viewed superimposed on a map of Eurasia, it becomes clear that a new geopolitical relationship, what we might call an economic energy force field is drawing Turkey closer to Russia and to Iran, as well as China.

For its part, Qatar, a nominally Sunni country which earned the enmity of Prince and soon-to-be King, Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia, did so less for Qatar’s earlier support of the Muslim Brotherhood and more for its developing relations with not only Moscow, but also with Shi’ite Iran and with China. Qatar had been in secret negotiations with Iran for joint development of their shared Persian Gulf natural gas field.

Previously Qatar, along with the Saudis and even Turkey, financed the war against Bashar al Assad for Assad’s refusal to go with a Qatar gas pipeline via Syria to Europe. Assad instead joined with Iran and Iraq in an alternative Iran gas pipeline to Europe and the six-year-long terrorist war against Assad was launched.

At some point following Russia’s decision to aid Assad in late 2015, in a pragmatic turn that infuriated the Pentagon and Prince Salman, Qatar made a new decision along the lines “if you can’t lick ‘em, join ‘em.” Qatar entered secret talks with Iran over Syria and over a joint Qatar-Iran pipeline that would mutually develop the world’s largest known natural gas field they both share in the Persian Gulf—the South Pars/North Dome field, by far the world’s largest natural gas field according to the International Energy Agency (IEA). The battle to control Qatar in a sense is the battle to dominate world natural gas markets, today almost as economically significant as oil to the future world economy.

In response to the Trump-Kushner inspired Saudi and UAE-led economic sanctions against Qatar last June, Qatar has stepped up its relations with Iran, with Russia and with China, while refusing the impossible Saudi-UAE demands. The Chinese state bank in Doha has transacted the dollar equivalent of over $86 billion worth of transactions in Chinese Yuan since the opening of the Doha branch of China’s Industrial and Commercial Bank of China in 2015, and has signed other agreements with China that encourage further economic cooperation.

Then on August 23, Qatar announced it was restoring full diplomatic relations with Iran, not exactly what Jared Kushner’s friends in Washington and in Tel Aviv wanted to see. Since the Saudi-led sanctions to isolate and starve Qatar into submission, Iran has provided Qatar with sea shipments of fresh food and allowed Qatar planes to cross its airspace.

Moreover, Qatar relations with Russia are developing. Qatar, Iran and Russia are the main lobbyists for the creation of the so-called “Gas OPEC”, which Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and the United States vigorously oppose.

Add to this changing force field in the Gulf the fact that Erdogan’s Turkish government, previously a staunch ally of Saudi Arabia, condemned the Saudi actions against Qatar. Turkey sent food supplies to prevent embargo-related shortages in Qatar after June and passed legislation through parliament to deploy Turkish troops on Qatari soil.

A new geometry

Russia, China, Turkey, Iran, Qatar. They are weaving deeper peaceful economic

ties, walking away in the case of Qatar and Turkey from their ill-conceived US-inspired war against Syria’s Bashar al Assad, developing long-term energy cooperation and defense ties. At the heart is Russia’s emerging new oil geopolitics.

The response to this all from the sinking Titanic that used to be known as the United States of America, of its military lobby and their Wall Street bankers who actually run Washington policy via their web of think-tanks, is infantile: war, destabilizations, color revolutions, sanctions as a form of economic war, demonization, lies. That’s all rather stupid and ultimately boring.

F. William Engdahl is strategic risk consultant and lecturer, he holds a degree in politics from Princeton University and is a best-selling author on oil and geopolitics, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook.”

Featured image is from the author.

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Starve Them to Death: Wall Street Journal’s Solution to North Korea

By Mike Whitney, September 19, 2017

In an article titled “Options for Removing Kim Jong Un” the WSJ’s editorial board suggests that the US use “all of its tools to topple the North Korean regime” including, of course,  vital food imports which keep women and children from facing an agonizing death by starvation.

Donald Trump at the UN

By Dr. Binoy Kampmark, September 19, 2017

Prior to heading to the White House, Trump mined the quarries of American resentment, sharpening the America First line which entailed putting the UN last. The organisation, he asserted, was no “friend of democracy”, inimical to freedom, and even unfriendly to the United States.

Dangerous Words of Escalation: Trump Threatens to Abandon Iran’s Nuclear Deal as Israeli Officials Call for Action Against Iran

By Timothy Alexander Guzman, September 19, 2017

As the Western media’s attention has been focused on the North Korea crisis (which is also another very serious matter), another development has been taking place in Tel Aviv, as calls for action by Israeli officials against Iran’s Nuclear Program although it’s not a new development (it’s been going on for many years). Channel 2 on Israeli TV reported that Mossad chief Yossi Cohen is calling on the Israeli government to take action against the Iranian government.

US Opens First Permanent Military Base in Israel as Tensions with Iran Rise

By RT News, September 19, 2017

Even though the US has routinely deployed forces to Israel, it is only now opening an official permanent military base in the country. The move, largely seen as symbolic, is meant to send a strong message to Israel’s enemies.

Trump Again Threatens Venezuela

By Stephen Lendman, September 19, 2017

He threatened unspecified actions he intends, earlier threatening “a possible military option.” He disgracefully accused President Nicolas Maduro of “def(ing) his own people,” calling his leadership “disastrous,” suggesting further hostile US actions coming.

«A partire da questa settimana si indica il prezzo medio del petrolio in yuan cinesi»: lo ha annunciato il 15 settembre il Ministero venezuelano del petrolio.

Per la prima volta il prezzo di vendita del petrolio venezuelano non è più indicato in dollari. È la risposta di Caracas alle sanzioni emanate dall’amministrazione Trump il 25 agosto, più dure di quelle attuate nel 2014 dall’amministrazione Obama: esse impediscono al Venezuela di incassare i dollari ricavati dalla vendita di petrolio agli Stati uniti, oltre un milione di barili al giorno, dollari finora utilizzati per importare beni di consumo come prodotti alimentari e medicinali. Le sanzioni impediscono anche la compravendita di titoli emessi dalla Pdvsa, la compagnia petrolifera statale venezuelana.

Washington mira a un duplice obiettivo: accrescere in Venezuela la penuria di beni di prima necessità e quindi il malcontento popolare, su cui fa leva l’opposizione interna (foraggiata e sostenuta dagli Usa) per abbattere il governo Maduro; mandare lo Stato venezuelano in default, ossia in fallimento, impedendogli di pagare le rate del debito estero, ossia far fallire lo Stato con le maggiori riserve petrolifere del mondo, quasi dieci volte quelle statunitensi.

Caracas cerca di sottrarsi alla stretta soffocante delle sanzioni, quotando il prezzo di vendita del petrolio non più in dollari Usa ma in yuan cinesi. Lo yuan è entrato un anno fa nel paniere delle valute di riserva del Fondo monetario internazionale (insieme a dollaro, euro, yen e sterlina) e Pechino sta per lanciare contratti futures di compravendita del petrolio in yuan, convertibili in oro. «Se il nuovo future prendesse piede, erodendo anche solo in parte lo strapotere dei petrodollari, sarebbe un colpo clamoroso per l’economia americana», commenta il Sole 24 Ore.

Ad essere messo in discussione da Russia, Cina e altri paesi non è solo lo strapotere del petrodollaro (valuta di riserva ricavata dalla vendita di petrolio), ma l’egemonia stessa del dollaro. Il suo valore è determinato non dalla reale capacità economica statunitense, ma dal fatto che esso costituisce quasi i due terzi delle riserve valutarie mondiali e la moneta con cui si stabilisce il prezzo del petrolio, dell’oro e in genere delle merci. Ciò permette alla Federal Reserve, la Banca centrale (che è una banca privata), di stampare migliaia di miliardi di dollari con cui viene finanziato il colossale debito pubblico Usa – circa 23 mila miliardi di dollari – attraverso l’acquisto di obbligazioni e altri titoli emessi dal Tesoro.

In tale quadro, la decisione venezuelana di sganciare il prezzo del petrolio dal dollaro provoca una scossa sismica che, dall’epicentro sudamericano, fa tremare l’intero palazzo imperiale fondato sul dollaro. Se l’esempio del Venezuela si diffondesse, se il dollaro cessasse di essere la principale moneta del commercio e delle riserve valutarie internazionali, una immensa quantità di dollari verrebbe immessa sul mercato facendo crollare il valore della moneta statunitense.

Questo è il reale motivo per cui, nell’Ordine esecutivo del 9 marzo 2015, il presidente Obama proclamava «l’emergenza nazionale nei confronti della inusuale e straordinaria minaccia posta alla sicurezza nazionale e alla politica estera degli Stati uniti dalla situazione in Venezuela». Lo stesso motivo per cui il presidenre Trump annuncia una possibile «opzione militare» contro il Venezuela. La sta preparando lo U.S. Southern Command, nel cui emblema c’è l’Aquila imperiale che sovrasta il Centro e Sud America, pronta a piombare con i suoi artigli su chi si ribella all’impero del dollaro.

Manlio Dinucci

The editors at the Wall Street Journal have settled on a plan for ending the crisis in North Korea. Starve them to death.

I’m not kidding. In an article titled “Options for Removing Kim Jong Un” the WSJ’s editorial board suggests that the US use “all of its tools to topple the North Korean regime” including, of course,  vital food imports which keep women and children from facing an agonizing death by starvation. Here’s an excerpt from the article:

“The North is especially vulnerable to pressure this year because a severe drought from April to June reduced the early grain harvest by 30%. If the main harvest is also affected, Pyongyang may need to import more food while sanctions restrict its ability to earn foreign currency….

While the regime survived a severe famine in the 1990s, today the political consequences of a failed harvest would be severe. …. The army was once the most desirable career path; now soldiers are underpaid and underfed. North Koreans will not simply accept starvation as they did two decades ago.

Withholding food aid to bring down a government would normally be unethical, but North Korea is an exceptional case. Past aid proved to be a mistake as it perpetuated one of the most evil regimes in history. The U.N. says some 40% of the population is undernourished, even as the Kims continue to spend huge sums on weapons. Ending the North Korean state as quickly as possible is the most humane course.”

(“Options for Removing Kim Jong Un”, Wall Street Journal)

“Humane”?  The WSJ editors think that depriving people of enough food to stay alive is humane?

And look how cheery they sound about the fact that “40% of the population is (already) undernourished”, as if they’re already halfway towards their goal. Hurrah for the US embargo, still inflicting misery on innocent people some 6 decades after the war!

It’s sick!

Who are these people who grow up in our midst, attend our schools and universities, live in the same neighborhoods, and go to the same churches? Where do these monsters come from?

I’m reminded of what Harold Pinter said in his Nobel acceptance speech:

“What has happened to our moral sensibility? Did we ever have any? What do these words mean? Do they refer to a term very rarely employed these days – conscience? A conscience to do not only with our own acts but to do with our shared responsibility in the acts of others? Is all this dead?”

It’s sure as hell is dead at the WSJ, that’s for sure. Dead as a doornail.

And what is starvation supposed to achieve anyway? What’s the ultimate objective?

Why regime change, of course, isn’t that what it’s always about, installing a more compliant stooge to  follow Washington’s diktats?

Of course it is. But how’s it supposed to work, after all, depriving people of food isn’t like giving them guns and training them to topple the regime, is it?

No, it’s not, in fact, there’s not even the remotest chance that the plan will work at all. None. But it will help to punish the Korean people for the behavior of their government. It will do that.  And it will generate more suffering, unhappiness and misery. That much is certain.

Imagine if the shoe was on the other foot and North Korea had the power cut vital food supplies to people in the United States. Sure, it’s far fetched, but just think about it for a minute. How would you react? Would you gather your neighbors and friends together to concoct a plan to overthrow the government?

The idea is ridiculous, isn’t it? The editors at the WSJ know that. These are educated, intelligent men who understand how the world works and who know the impact of particular policies. They know that starvation isn’t going to lead to revolution.  That’s just not going to happen.

Then why support a policy that won’t work?

Good question, but that’s where we have to veer into a very gray area of analysis, that is, trying to understand why some people are so morally malignant that they seem to enjoy inflicting pain on others. Why is that? Why are there so many cruel people in positions of power and authority?

It’s a mystery.

Mike Whitney lives in Washington state. He is a contributor to Hopeless: Barack Obama and the Politics of Illusion (AK Press). Hopeless is also available in a Kindle edition. He can be reached at [email protected].

Featured image is from Jennifer Feuchter | CC BY 2.0

Countless concerned individuals are still searching for answers surrounding the mysterious death of the 35th president of the United States, John F. Kennedy. The official narrative, that a lone former Marine named Harvey Oswald assassinated him, is widely disputed.

All available documents from all government entities are required by the Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act of 1992 to be released on October 26th of 2017. But if history repeats itself, the Central Intelligence Agency may not release an entire volume of documents on Oswald, known as “volume 5.”

As Sputnik reports, the release in July of 3,810 CIA and FBI documents on the assassination by the Assassination Records Review Board threw up a number of revelations that JFK researchers have hungrily devoured and enthusiastically publicized. For instance, the mayor of Dallas at the time of Kennedy’s assassination, Earle Cabell, was a CIA asset in the 1950s, and his brother, Charles Cabell, a high-ranking CIA official until 1962.

The release in October has been highly anticipated by those seeking answers. However, thanks to a deliberate fudging or records, or a conveniently timed clerical error, an entire volume may never see the light of day.

Inside Langley Air Force Base’s CIA Headquarters is an office known as the Office of Security. The Office of Security maintains its own top-secret archives known as the Office of Security Archival Holdings and is a separate archive from the agency’s more frequently used facility located in Alexandria, VA known as the Agency Archival Record Center.

As late as 1977, the entire 7-volume collection of documents was intact, having been checked out by Russ Holmes in the Office of General Counsel and noted the 7-volume series was all together, not missing any volumes. But when the CIA was asked to turn over the volume of documents on Oswald, the hitman in the assassination, it seems the agency stonewalled a bit, like a shell game according to independent investigator Malcolm Blunt.

Blunt described the stonewalling:

This huge search by CIA did not surface Oswald’s security files and the Assassination Records Review Board (AARB) remained uninformed about their existence. Not until 1997 when an ARRB staffer stumbled across evidence that two previous congressional investigations had access to these files did CIA “discover” them.

The AARB eventually received the 7-volume set of documents on Oswald in 1998, but staffers quickly realized there was one volume missing—volume 5.

An agency explanation was offered that volume 5 could have been consolidated into Volume 4, or Volume 6 for example. Eventually, the agency concluded, according to Blunt, Volume 5 of Oswald’s Security file may never have existed.

So far, 2017 has been a year of anticipation for JFK conspiracy theorists as they await the release of all files surrounding the assassination of one of the country’s most beloved presidents. One group, known as the Citizens Against Political Assassinations, is chomping at the bits to get to volume 5 and others. They believe the official government narrative is full of holes and needs to be investigated.

Many of its members are lawyers, and as TFTP has reported, have desired to clear Oswald’s name of any wrongdoing if possible.

But it is attorney Lawrence Schnapf, Chair of the Environmental Law Section of the New York Bar Association, whose comments concerning the current president and his relationship with the Deep State (implied but not referred to as such) have the media ablaze with talk of yet another political assassination.

Schnapf is the co-chair of the CAPA legal committee. After a brief discussion of why JFK’s assassination is relevant today, Schnapf compared the early 1960s with 2017. He said the Warren Commission was the “original fake news” organization whose conclusions later became the official government narrative. Although the commission refused to pursue “exculpatory” information, which is now hidden behind “government secrecy,” he says he hopes will come out this year, in compliance with the JFK Assassination Records Act.

Turning attention again to the case of JFK, the group plans to use the shell casings found on the scene and 21st-century ballistics analyses to conclusively determine whether or not Oswald actually killed JFK.

He said they’re first going to conduct a mock trial in November, and later an official legal proceeding called a “Court of Inquiry,” an official court proceeding to definitely prove “Lee Oswald was not the shooter…that’s what we hope to prove.”

The group hopes to expunge Oswald’s name from the official narrative, clearing not only his, but also his daughter’s, to “expunge the stain of their father’s name from” theirs.

“Oswald was not convictable, much less indictable,” he concluded.

The reputable lawyer contends that the mainstream media often overlooks the real story —that the government is not transparent — and that the Department of Justice (which also includes the FBI) has been politicized.

Featured image is from TheFreeThoughtProject.com.

The Syrian Arab Army (SAA), Hezbollah, the Iraqi Army and the Popular Mobilization Units (PMU) are preparing for a joint advance on the ISIS border strongholds of al-Bukamal and al-Qaim.

On Saturday, the Iraqi Army and the PMU launched an anti-ISIS operation in the border area, liberated the border town Akashat, the H-3 station, Akashat factory and the Akashat housing complex, and secured a road linking it with the Damascus-Baghdad highway.

At the same day, the SAA and Hezbollah, supported by Liwa Fatemiyoun, Liwa Haydaryoun, Liwa al-Zainabyoun and the National Defense Forces (NDF), captured al-Rutimah, Ghizlaniah and the desert area north of Sharat al-Wa’ar.

On Sunday, Syrian and Iraqi forces officially met on the border near Akashat. The SAA and Hezbollah deployed several special force and armoured units right on the border line. According to the UK-based Al-Araby Al-Jadeed newspaper, the sides had agreed to establish three joint positions there.

Damascus gave Iraqi forces a permission to enter 10km deep inside the Syrian territory if needed. Iraqi sources claimed that some Syrian battle tanks and armoured vehicles of entered the Iraqi territory and joined Iraqi units.

The expected joint push towards al-Bukamal and al-Qaim will ease a battle against ISIS in the border area. Furthermore, many PMU factions particiapte in an anti-ISIS campaign of the Syrian government inside Syria. Units of these factions could cross the border and to assist the SAA in its advance towards al-Bukamal.

On Saturday, the US-led coalition officially accused Russian forces of striking a position on the eastern bank of the Euphrates near the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and coalition troops. Six SDF members were injured, according to the SDF statement. The alleged strike came after SDF representatives had repeatedly threatened to strike Syrian government forces if they attempt to cross the Euphrates in the Deir Ezzor countryside.

On Sunday, the Russian Defense Ministry rejected these claims adding that Russian forces strike only ISIS positions and the US had received a notice about this in advance. Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Major-General Igor Konashenkov added that the Russian military has not observed any fighting between ISIS and SDF in the northern countryside of Deir Ezzor over the past few days.

“Therefore, only representatives of the international coalition can answer the question as to how ‘opposition members’ or ‘military advisers of the international coalition’ managed to get to the IS-held areas in the eastern part of Deir Ezzor without striking a blow.”

The SAA and its allies have liberated Jafrah, Ayyash, the Hujeif mount, Muraieiah, Hawayej, Hawayej Abu Arab, Ain Abu Jumah and Hajj Hammoud as well as some nearby points on the both northwestern and southeastern flanks of the city.

On Monday, Syrian forces crossed the Euphrates east of Deir Ezzor. Since start of September, the SDF and pro-SDF sources have repeatedly claimed that they will not allow the SAA to cross the Euphrates. So what now?

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As I predicted, the erasing of American history will not be limited to Confederate monuments. Last week a member of the board of trustees of the Dallas, Texas, school district recommended changing the name of James Madison High School. James Madison was the father of the US Constitution, considered by Identity Politics, the political ideology of the Democratic Party and the American liberal/progressive/left, to be a “racist document.”

From a British reader comes the news that the various segments of Western society divided into victim groups by Identity Politics have divided very finely and have turned on one another. On September 13, the Trans-Exclusionary Radical Feminists (TERFs) and their bitter enemies, Trans Activists, clashed in a fist fight in London’s Hyde Park. 60-year-old Maria MacLachlen, who describes herself as a “gender critical feminist,” was knocked to the ground.

The presstitutes at the New York Times even use the crossword puzzle to spread their lies and disinformation. This morning one of the clues was “like the peninsula seized by Russia in 2014.” The NYT is refering to Crimea, for 300 years a Russian province with a Russian population that voted by a 97% majority to rejoin Russia when the US overthrew the Ukrainian government in a coup. The NYT presstitutes treat this exercise in democracy as “Russian aggression.” As the “newspaper of record,” clearly the record is falsified.

My northern acquaintances believe that the South, by definition, is racist even though the cities that were the heart of the Confederacy are ruled by black mayors. The mayor of Richmond, Virginia, the capital of the Confederacy, Levar Stoney, is black.

The mayor of Atlanta, Kasim Reed, is black.

The Mayor of Columbia, South Carolina, Stephen Benjamin, is black.

Because of Identity Politics, these black mayors cannot prevent southern history from being cast down the Memory Hole. Any black mayor who stood up for historical truth would be branded an “Uncle Tom.”

There is no greater absurdity than moving history off its factual basis and substituting a fictional basis as dictated by Identity Politics.

In the United States—indeed, in the entirely of the Western world—history has become a construction that serves not the truth but special interests. This is the reason that the Western World is doomed. Peoples whose history is destroyed are defenceless. They have no idea who they are.

There is no substitute for winning

football games and wars.

We are strong and brave,

having been taught winning

is what counts after all.

After all, after all the weeks of sweat,

practice after practice, play after play,

men of strength will win, be honored.

Losers, lacking muscle fight heart

eyes limbs guts and blood

will lose.

So will the children.

Oh the children. Be men, be strong.

Let us not now praise

a man, a man’s man,

a coach of real men,

whose religion was winning Christianity,

whose dedication to god country blood

knew no limits, surely not

the death of children

and grownup children

of families

different, foreign, unreal.

Families of losers.

Oh, Americans, let us not pay

homage to the dead man,

leader of

strong men, winning men.

Leave it to the president to praise

his fighting spirit, bishop bless

his dedication to the cause

of winning games

of warball and football.

My fellow Americans, he is

us and we are he. We stand together

in solidarity, drones the leader

of sycophantery.

Coach, you have shown us

what it means to win on fields

of war and sport for God, team

and country,

in spite of, for spite of

children shrieking out of burning bodies.

Losers, losers, yes,

the children are the losers.

Rest, coach, for you have finally

in the end

lost a big one. You are

at peace.

Your ears cannot hear

children’s tears

as they lose

their  lives.

But didn’t you say:

Winning isn’t everything;

it’s the only thing?

They had their warning,

didn’t they?

And so did we.

We didn’t listen then

and aren’t listening still.

Perhaps we never will.

Who do you think will win

the Doomsday Bowl?

Edward Curtin is a writer whose work has appeared widely.  He teaches sociology at Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts. A former college basketball player, he teaches the sociology of sports, and writes on a wide range of topics.  His website is http://edwardcurtin.com/

One year ago I was in Syria, and for my birthday on September 17 I learned that Western “Coalition” forces, who had been bombing illegally in Syria for years, had just murdered about 100 Syrian Arab Army soldiers who were stationed in the Jabal Thardeh¹ area, where they were protecting the lives of their fellow Syrians from ISIS/Daesh terrorists.

The attack was no doubt executed in collaboration with ISIS, because immediately after the massacre, ISIS was able to occupy the strategically important position.

In terms of Western military strategy, little has changed except that now Syria and its allies are very close to restoring Syria’s sovereignty and its territorial integrity, as they crush the “opposition”, all of whom are supported by the West and its allies.

The West still wants to partition Syria, and for this they are using both “Kurdish” and ISIS “assets”. Coalition forces previously bombed bridges spanning the Euphrates, and ISIS assets did the same, so that they could better occupy and terrorize the oil-rich region. Meanwhile, Kurdish assets will be used to re-occupy and “legitimize” that which is not legitimate. The Kurds, ISIS, and the Coalition are all committing war crimes in their failing efforts to destroy and plunder Syria.

Dr Bouthain Shaaban², political and media advisor to President Assad, recently remarked that US-backed SDF forces captured areas in northeastern Syria from Daesh “without any fighting,” thus demonstrating (yet again), the strategic collusion between SDF and Daesh to occupy and plunder the oil-rich areas, for the benefit of their imperial masters.

Every day, the West’s criminality becomes more transparent. Investigative reporter Dilyana Gaytandzhieva³, for example, recently uncovered primary-source documentation which demonstrates that the Pentagon falsified paperwork to covertly ship as much as $2.2 billion⁴ in weapons to terrorists in Syria.

HUGE: Pentagon caught doctoring records for $2.2 billion in weapons transfers from criminal orgs to #Syria militants https://t.co/kXvkVzb12k

— Sharmine Narwani (@snarwani) September 13, 2017

The West’s double-game of pretending to fight terrorism as it supports terrorism may soon be over in Syria. This will be cause for celebration in Syria, and it should be cause for celebration amongst Western populations as well. 

Notes

1 Leith Fadel, “US Coalition knew they were bombing the Syrian Army in Deir Ezzor.” AMN September 27, 2016. (https://www.almasdarnews.com/article/us-coalition-knew-bombing-syrian-army-deir-ezzor/) Accessed September 18, 2017

2 “ ‘Syria will be Freed Completely from any Aggressor’ ” – Dr Shaaban Challenges US Proxies.” 21st Century Wire, Setember 16, 2017. (http://21stcenturywire.com/2017/09/16/syria-will-freed-completely-aggressor-dr-shaaban-challenges-us-proxies/) Accessed September 18, 2017.

3 Dilyana Gaytandzhieva, “350 diplomatic flights carry weapons for terrorists| Azerbaijan’s Silk Way Airlines transports weapons with diplomatic clearance for Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Congo.” July 2, 2017. (https://trud.bg/350-diplomatic-flights-carry-weapons-for-terrorists/) Accessed September 18, 2017.

4 Tyler Durden, “Bombshell Report Catches Pentagon Falsifying Paperwork For Weapons Transfers To Syrian Rebels.” September 13, 2017.( http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-09-13/bombshell-report-catches-pentagon-falsifying-paperwork-weapons-transfers-linked-orga) Accessed September 18, 2017.

Global Research announces the forthcoming release of  the print edition of Mark Taliano’s Book, “Voices from Syria”  which includes two additional chapters. 

Taliano talks and listens to the people of Syria. He reveals the courage and resilience of a Nation and its people in their day to day lives, after more than six years of US-NATO sponsored terrorism and three years of US “peacemaking” airstrikes.

Mark Taliano combines years of research with on-the-ground observations to present an informed and well-documented analysis that refutes  the mainstream media narratives on Syria. 

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On September 18, the Syrian Arab Army (SAA), the Syrian Republcian Guard (SRG) officially crossed the Euphrates River and engaged ISIS terrorists on its eastern bank.

The SAA and the SRG advanced on ISIS positions in the Saqr Island and captured a major part of it. According to pro-government sources, ISIS units withdrew towards the Kanafat bridge in the northern part of the island.

Separately, government troops liberated the village of Sabha and entered the villages of Marrat and Mazlum on the eastern bank of the Euphrates.

The ISIS-linked news agency Amaq also confirmed that government forces have crossed the Euphreates following multiple airstrikes by the Russian Aerospace Forces and the Syrian Air Force.

Amaq said that ISIS members conducted 2 VBIED attacks against government troops in Marrat and Mazlum as well as a VBIED attack against the SAA in the Saqr Island. According to Amaq reports, about 40 SAA troops were killed in the clashes there.

While even Amaq has found strength to admit that the SAA is on the eastern bank of the Euphrates, a spokesman for the US-led coalition still has nothing to say about this. Howeer, he promised that the coalition “will defend itself and the SDF against threats”. Is it an attempt to blame Syrian-Iranian-Russian alliance forces?

1/2 @CJTFOIR committed to our #SDF partners in operations to #defeatDaesh in Dayr Az Zawr province; #SDF cleared >40km2 from #ISIS in Syria

— OIR Spokesman (@OIRSpox) September 18, 2017

2/2 @CJTFOIR will defend itself and #SDF against threats; continue to defeat #ISIS in Syria.

— OIR Spokesman (@OIRSpox) September 18, 2017

On the northeastern flank of Deir Ezzor city, government forces liberated Hawi, Zughayr, Hamad and Shumaytah villages and entered the nearby oil wells area.

Meanwhile, Kurdish militias that are a core of the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) released another propaganda video blaming the Syrian-Iranian-Russian alliance for combating ISIS in the area of Deir Ezzor. The video was released following the confirmation that government forces crossed the Euphrates.

"If the Russian/#Syria'n attacks continue we will use our right to legitimate defense, we will retaliate in kind." https://t.co/vdQYqiF9CX pic.twitter.com/g05KDqYMHT

— Rojava Defense Units (@DefenseUnits) September 18, 2017

Earlier on September 18, the US asked Russia for a meeting to discuss a future of Deir Ezzor, according to the Russian media. Most likely, the US-led coalitino aims to use the ongoing anti-Syrian/Russian propaganda campaign to strengthen its position during the negotiations. The only problem that this will hardly help amid the rapid advance of the SAA.

Government troops are crossing the Euphrates River:

Photos of government troops near the Euphrates:

Deir Ezzor Airport is fully operational and planes deliver supplies and ammunition to government forces in the city:

It seems to have reached a point of near exhaustion. What will the President of the United States do next? The money was on some diplomatic mayhem, a series of insults, and a trashing of various aspects of the organisation some Americans regard as a world government. But Donald Trump surprised those at the United Nations with a modest tone, and not one the current UN Secretary General disagrees with.

History provides some context on what might have been, but it proves to be a poor tool. In terms of predicting the next Trump move, betting agencies should be raking in a fortune, the odds always slanted in favour of the spontaneous and unscripted. He is a creature that abides by winds of unchecked strength and volatility, a true Aeolian spirit.

With Trump, matters with the UN, as with so much else, had been personal. He failed, for instance, in winning a contract to refurbish its New York headquarters in the early 2000s, claiming that he could do the job at a third of the price (half-a-billion as opposed to the projected cost of $1.5 billion). Given the organisation’ insatiable appetite for self-perpetuation and growth, this was a blow indeed.

Prior to heading to the White House, Trump mined the quarries of American resentment, sharpening the America First line which entailed putting the UN last. The organisation, he asserted, was no “friend of democracy”, inimical to freedom, and even unfriendly to the United States.

To show his disdain for all matters UN, he took the unilateral position to take the US out of the Paris climate agreement, only to then suggest the possibility of remaining on renegotiated terms. Trumpland lends itself to fickle refrains and adjustments, booming promises and drastic revisions.

The opening words in his UN address promised some customarily cringe worthy entertainment. For one, pronouncing the name of the Secretary General António Guterres seemed a bit beyond him, the emphasis all too strong on “Gutter” followed by “ez”.

Then there was that little matter of real estate.

“I actually saw great potential right across the street,” he explained in the context of Trump Tower’s proximity to the UN building. “[I]t was only for the reason that the United Nations was here that it turned out to be such a successful project.”[1]

Then came modest, almost banal reflection. Had the voice of moderation seeped into Trump?

“In recent years, the United Nations has not reached its full potential because of bureaucracy and mismanagement.”

Hardly a clanger, and certainly one the grand poobahs would agree with.

“We encourage the secretary general to fully use his authority to cut through the bureaucracy, reform outdated systems, and make firm decisions to advance the UN’s core mission.”

Rather than unleashing withering salvos, Trump had time to afford a few carefully chosen words of sugary praise.

“The United Nations was founded on truly noble goals.” These goals, in turn had been advanced “in so many ways: feeding the hungry, providing disaster relief, and empowering women and girls in many societies across the world.”

Trump’s accommodating tone has as much to do with necessity as anything else. While boisterous unilateralism might work on some domestic level, Washington has required the assistance of other UN member states to push such agendas as the containment of North Korea.

“The net result,” writes Richard Gowan, “is that a president who once promised a unilateralist, or outright isolationist, foreign policy, is leaning hard on the world’s main multilateral body to manage the main crisis on the agenda.”[2]

Problematic a beast as it might be, the body is providing, on some level, indispensable.

The reform agenda remains problematic, because any such agenda always has trouble sailing through the behemoth that is the UN. Where states are involved, interests will conflict. Bureaucracies will also battle cutters of the red tape. The old issues persist: the burden of dues paid by wealthier countries; the scepticism of poorer states that such efficiency policies are cover for bullying and undue influence.

Trump’s points, to that end, seem matters of aspiration rather than functional realities.

“To honour the people of our nations, we must ensure that no one and no member state shoulders a disproportionate share of the burden, and that’s militarily or financially.”

Peacekeeping missions, asserted the president, should also be seen in terms of “defined goals and metrics for evaluating success.” All to the good, till these make it to the nigh impossible task of implementation. The UN can only be as good, or as efficient, as what its members want to make it.

Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge. He lectures at RMIT University, Melbourne. Email: [email protected]

Notes