Global Research

A lot of people in the Alternative Media community were taken aback by Russia and China’s decision to go along with the US-led UNSC sanctions on North Korea, especially considering that it was undertaken in the context of the US recently passing more anti-Russian sanctions and even threatening to sanction China too, which has created the perception that both countries “sold out” to the US. It just doesn’t make sense to some that these two multipolar Great Powers, who are presumably against the so-called “New World Order”, would do this. The reality, as it usually turns out to be, is a lot more complex than the simplistic arguments going around social media, and therefore deserves further elaboration so that individuals can independently make their minds up about what happened and why.

Before going any further, an important clarification needs to be made – although Russia and China are both multipolar Great Powers, they seek to gradually and stably reform the existing world order, not radically and chaotically change it like some so-called “super patriotic” pundits want to pretend. It’s the US which regularly throws global affairs into uncertainty in the hopes of destabilizing its rivals and carving out strategic inroads amidst the chaos, not Russia and China which prefer to engage in their long-term planning under conditions of global predictability. Given these strategic determinants influencing their decision makers, they’re already predisposed to disliking North Korea’s missile and nuclear tests, especially when they continue to occur in defiance of the existing UNSC sanctions that Moscow and Beijing approved of themselves.

Moreover, Russia and China won’t ever blindly support any state like North Korea just because the US is against it, nor will they ever be comfortable with such a country doing whatever it wants under these circumstances if its actions contribute to more instability. No value judgement is being expressed here, just a statement of facts about Russia and China’s state interests as gleaned from empirical evidence over the years. In the Northeast Asian context, North Korea’s missile and nuclear tests are creating the pretext to “justify” the US’ THAAD deployment to the peninsula, which Russia and China both consider as a latent threat to their nuclear second-strike capabilities with time, so from their perspective, it makes sense why they’d want to put multilateral pressure on North Korea to end these destabilizing activities.

What’s essentially occurred is that the US has succeeded in shaping the situation in such a way that Russia and China’s interests have largely converged with Washington’s own in tightening sanctions against North Korea, and that this is independent of the recent anti-Russian sanctions or the grandstanding threats to impose economic restrictions against China. The US exploited Russia and China’s strategic positions in favoring predictability and stability in convincing them to follow its lead in imposing new UNSC sanctions against North Korea, which also advances their own interests as described earlier and additionally provides a proverbial opening for them to work on the improvement of bilateral relations after falling into their current slump.

Whether one thinks that it was morally right or morally wrong, the fact remains that Russia and China approved the latest UNSC sanctions against North Korea because it corresponds to their grand strategic interests, not because they were forced to contradict them under American pressure.

The post presented is the partial transcript of the CONTEXT COUNTDOWN radio program on Sputnik News, aired on Friday Aug 11, 2017:

Andrew Korybko is an American Moscow-based political analyst specializing in the relationship between the US strategy in Afro-Eurasia, China’s One Belt One global vision of New Silk Road connectivity, and Hybrid Warfare.

Featured image is from the author.

Featured image: Location of  Romania (dark green) (Source: Wikimedia Commons)

According to the EU establishment, modern Romania is a successful example of the transformation from a formerly socialist “totalitarian” country into a “democratic: nation, complete with a real fight against corruption and active civil life. However, let’s consider whether this is the case or just another Western myth.

As we might recall, not long ago in January 2017, one of the biggest protests since the fall of Ceausescu’s regime took place in Romania. The protests were quite reminiscent of the “Maidan” protests in Kiev: light shows, media from around the world, an expensive supply of food, protesters receiving time off from work to participate, etc. The crowd was predominately young people, and they of course received the full support of the EU, the US and even wealthy bankers from the international finance sector (Raiffaisen bank, for example).

These protests coincided with pro-government rallies, but of course they remained completed unrepresented in Western media. The majority of protesters at the pro-government rallies were retirees who feared losing their benefits and pensions. Anti-government protesters had radical positions with regard to the older generation: “rebels of freedom”, for example, posted suggestions online that the government ought to deny the right of pensioners to vote in elections, and even went as far as proposing to have them killed. Retirees were presented as if they were one of the greatest threats to the country’s’ European future. This exact sentiment was expressed by young people during Maidan in 2014.

In these rallies the two most powerful Romanian parties were present, and contending for power. The Social Democrats, and the National Liberals (the party of Romanian president Iohannis). Soc-democrats have a great deal of support in the provinces and rural districts of Romania due to their socialist oriented policies. The majority of the notable anti-corruption cases in Romania are connected to the Social Democratic party. National Liberals are not only the party of Romania’s president, but also the favorite party of the EU.

There are a few reasons why Europe lends its support to the National Liberals:

1) Social policy. Among the initiatives of Social Democrats there is a bid to increase the minimum wage, pensions and impose taxes on large corporations. This of course is bad news for big business and the European Union’s goals in Romania.

2) The Social Democrats have weakly tried to work not only with the EU, but with others regions of the world, such as China and Russia.

3) Divide et impera. The EU needs to weaken Romanian society in order to dominate it. What could accomplish this goal more efficiently than exacerbating the country’s internal conflicts? The latest “anti-corruption rally” shows us that the opinion of people from the provinces means absolutely nothing, and that the only voice with the right to be heard internationally is that of the zealous supporters of the National Liberal Party. Province against Centre, young against old, white collar workers against peasants… The situation is perfect to further Brussel’s power and influence in Romania.

The EU likes to repeat ad nauseum stories about the successful fight of National Liberals against the corruption in Romania. But is this actually the case? The majority of cases, as mentioned earlier, happened with soc-democrats, though even president of Romania can’t explain the source of his immense wealth. It is clear he received his property in the historical district of Sibau using fake documents. He and his wife have received around 3 million euro from renting out this property to the aforementioned Raiffaisen bank.

The Henry Jackson Society has shown that the National Anti-Corruption Directorate works hand in hand with the Romanian special services, often relying on dubious methods such as threatening violence against the families of those who oppose their intentions. The most well known cases are the threats against Dan Adamescu’s son and against Alina Bika, both were widely discussed. Bika was actually imprisoned, but soon released due to lack of evidence. She explained that she was being punished for refusing to comply with arrests the Anti-Corruption Directorate had pushed for. Businessman Dan Adamescu was also imprisoned based on corruption allegations, but it wasn’t the end of his case. Romania then attempted to extradite his son from the UK for running a campaign in support of his father.

All of these examples should prove that Romania is hardly an example of a successful transition.

The question remains, why does the EU want us to believe it is?

The anti-corruption fight is just a form of political pressure on the forces that are seen as undesirable for the EU’s agenda in Romania. The country has been pushed and threatened into a position where it is totally unable to decide its own destiny if its decisions don’t coincide with Brussels designs; everything is decided for them in advance, from which party will rule, to the installation and operation of NATO bases within their territory.

Nadezhda Ilina lives in Russian Federation. She has an MA degree in Cultural studies. Studied Czech language and culture at Mazaryk University in Brno, Czech Republic.

Sources

1) https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=1422204357831376&id=479850982066723&__mref=message_bubble

2) http://www.riseproject.ro/investigation/the-forgery-that-made-romanias-president-rich/

3) https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jan/10/romanias-corruption-fight-is-a-smokescreen-to-weaken-its-democracy

As Special Counsel Robert Mueller impanels two grand juries to investigate Donald Trump and his associates, and former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort‘s home is searched, Trump needs to distract attention from the investigation into his alleged wrongdoing.

North Korea has provided just such a distraction — albeit a potentially catastrophic one.

On Tuesday, Trump stated,

“North Korea best not make any more threats to the United States. They will be met with fire and fury like the world has never seen.”

Friday morning, Trump warned North Korea that the US military is “locked and loaded.”

Trump has learned that bombing other countries enhances a president’s popularity. In April, with 59 Tomahawk cruise missiles, each armed with over 1,000 pounds of explosives, he went from scoundrel-in-chief to national hero virtually overnight. The corporate media, the neoconservatives and most of Congress hailed Trump as strong and presidential for lobbing the missiles into Syria, reportedly killing nine civilians, including four children.

Several hours after Trump’s recent “fire and fury” statement, Pyongyang warned it was “carefully examining” a strike that would create “an enveloping fire” around Guam, the site of an important US military base and home to more than 160,000 people.

North Korea has accused the United States of planning a “preventive war,” saying that plans to mount one would be met with an “all-out war, wiping out all the strongholds of enemies, including the US mainland.” A spokesman for the General Staff of the Korean People’s Army promised,

“the tragic end of the American empire will be hastened.”

In an attempt to tamp down fears of all-out war, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said there is not “any imminent threat” from North Korea.

But Defense Secretary James Mattis cautioned that Pyongyang “should cease any consideration of actions that would lead to the end of its regime and the destruction of its people.” And National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster said that the White House is considering all options, including “preventative war.”

Trump’s bellicose rhetoric against North Korea began shortly after the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) claimed that Pyongyang has developed a miniature nuclear warhead for its missiles. A DNI report issued in July said,

“North Korea has produced nuclear weapons for ballistic-missile delivery, to include delivery by ICBM-class missiles,” according to the Washington Post.

The DNI’s claim is questionable, however, as none of the other US intelligence agencies has ratified it. In fact, the DNI issued an identical report on North Korean nuclear capabilities in 2013.

Trump has indicated his willingness to use nuclear weapons. In August 2016 MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough reported that Trump asked a senior foreign policy adviser about nuclear weapons three times during a briefing, then queried,

“If we had them why can’t we use them?”

An Attack on North Korea Would Be Dangerous

The Intercept reports that

“even a conventional war between the US and [North Korea] could kill more than 1 million people; a nuclear exchange, therefore, might result in tens of millions of casualties.”

More than 60 House Democrats, led by Rep. John Conyers (D-Michigan), sent a letter to Tillerson expressing their “profound concern over the statements made by President Trump that dramatically increased tensions with North Korea and raised the specter of nuclear war.” The letter says,

“These statements are irresponsible and dangerous, and also senselessly provide a boon to domestic North Korean propaganda which has long sought to portray the United States as a threat to their people.”

The letter to Tillerson quoted a prior letter sent to Trump by 64 Congress members in May, which said:

Military action against North Korea was considered by the Obama, Bush and Clinton Administrations, but all ultimately determined there was no military option that would not run the unacceptable risk of a counter-reaction from Pyongyang [that] could immediately threaten the lives of as many as a third of the South Korean population, put nearly 30,000 U.S. service members and over 100,000 other U.S. citizens residing in South Korea in grave danger, and also threaten other regional allies such as Japan.

“Simply put, there is no military solution to this problem,” the August letter continued.

“We respectfully but firmly urge you to do everything in your power to ensure that President Trump and other Administration officials understand the importance of speaking and acting with the utmost caution and restraint on this delicate issue. Congress and the American public will hold President Trump responsible if a careless or ill-advised miscalculation results in conflict that endangers our service members and regional allies.”

Nevertheless, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) stated,

“If there’s going to be a war to stop [Kim Jong-un], it will be over there. If thousands die, they’re going to die over there. They’re not going to die here. And [Trump] has told me that to my face.”

Trump and Graham apparently feel that massive casualties are acceptable as long as they don’t occur on the US mainland.

A Preemptive Strike on North Korea Would Violate the UN Charter

A preemptive strike on North Korea would be illegal. It would violate the United Nations Charter, which forbids the use of military force unless conducted in self-defense or when approved by the Security Council.

“Self-defense” is a narrow exception to the Charter’s prohibition of the use of force. Countries may engage in individual or collective self-defense only in the face of an armed attack. There must exist “a necessity of self-defense, instant, overwhelming, leaving no choice of means, and no moment for deliberation,” under the well-established Caroline Case. In the case of North Korea, there has been no armed attack, and there is no imminent threat of one.

The Charter specifies that non-forceful measures, including diplomacy, must be pursued in order to maintain or restore international peace and security.

On August 5, in response to North Korea’s recent test launches of two intercontinental ballistic missiles, the UN Security Council unanimously enacted a sanctions regime that would reduce North Korea’s annual export earnings by at least one-third, an estimated $1 billion. It would affect 90 percent of North Korea’s economy. Resolution 2371 targets North Korea’s primary exports, which include iron, iron ore, coal, lead, lead ore and seafood. It is also aimed at banks and joint ventures between North Korea and foreign corporations. The resolution imposes the toughest sanctions on North Korea to date.

The resolution does not, however, authorize the United States or any other country to use military force against North Korea. It ends by stating that the Security Council “decides to remain seized of the matter.” That means that the Council, and only the Council, has the authority to approve military action.

Tillerson has called for direct talks with North Korea and offered assurances that the United States is not its enemy and does not seek regime change.

But CIA Director Mike Pompeo strongly intimated that the US is considering regime change in North Korea.

For North Korea, the past is prologue. Determined to avoid the fate of Saddam Hussein, who didn’t have nukes, as well as that of Muammar Qaddafi, who did but relinquished them, Pyongyang is developing a nuclear deterrent. Kim Jong-un has repeatedly maintained that North Korea’s nuclear capabilities are critical to its self-defense.

Indeed, Dan Coats, director of national intelligence, told the Aspen Security Forum of Kim Jong-un:

“There is some rationale backing his actions, which are survival — survival for his regime, survival for his country. And he has watched, I think, what has happened around the world relative to nations that possess nuclear capabilities and the leverage they have, and seen that having the nuclear card in your pocket results in a lot of deterrence capability.”

Sign a Peace Treaty, End the Korean War

Moreover, North Korea cannot forget the 1950-1953 Korean War, which reduced North Korea’s population of 10 million by approximately one-third. Sixty-four years ago, the United States and North Korea signed an armistice agreement, but the US never permitted the creation of a peace treaty.

On several occasions, North Korea has suggested a way to a lasting peace. Christine Hong, associate professor at the University of California, Santa Cruz, wrote in the Progressive,

“Unsurprisingly, few media outlets have reported on North Korea’s overtures to the United States, even as these, if pursued, might result in meaningful de-escalation on both sides. To be clear: peaceful alternatives are at hand. Far from being an intractable foe, North Korea has repeatedly asked the United States to sign a peace treaty that would bring the unresolved Korean War to a long-overdue end.”

A month ago, China and Russia proposed a “freeze-for-freeze” strategy, which would entail North Korea freezing its nuclear and missile testing, and in return, the US and South Korea would end their annual joint military exercises. This proposal, issued in a joint statement by the Chinese and Russian Foreign Ministries after meetings between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping, is a diplomatic solution that should be pursued. Vassily Nebenzia, Russia’s ambassador to the UN, said this plan would offer “a way out” of the present situation.

The Congress members’ letter to Tillerson cited successful efforts at direct diplomacy between Washington and Pyongyang in 1994 and 2000, later scuttled by Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security John Bolton under George W. Bush.

Bolton told Fox Business on Monday,

“I don’t think there are any further diplomatic options in terms of trying to persuade North Korea to change its behavior.”

And Vice President Mike Pence said “engaging North Korea directly” is a non-starter at the present time.

But Susan Rice, Barack Obama‘s national security adviser and US ambassador to the UN, wrote in the New York Times,

“We have long lived with successive Kims’ belligerent and colorful rhetoric…. I came to expect it whenever we passed resolutions. What is unprecedented and especially dangerous this time,” however, “is the reaction of President Trump.” His threats, Rice wrote, “risk tipping the Korean Peninsula into war, if the North’s leader, Kim Jong-un, believes them and acts precipitously.”

South Korean President Moon Jae-in told Trump in a recent telephone call,

“South Korea can never accept a war erupting again on the Korean Peninsula,” rather “the North Korean nuclear issue must be resolved in a peaceful, diplomatic manner through a close coordination between South Korea and the United States.”

In May, Trump told Bloomberg News that he would meet with Kim Jong-un:

“If it would be appropriate for me to meet with him, I would absolutely, I would be honored to do it … under the right circumstances. But I would do that.”

As we stand on the precipice of a disastrous war, these are the right circumstances for Trump to meet with Kim Jong-un. If Trump were to successfully negotiate a peace treaty with North Korea, he would receive plaudits for being a real diplomat. The unthinkable alternative is military action that would cause the deaths of untold numbers of Koreans, Japanese people and Americans.

Marjorie Cohn is professor emerita at Thomas Jefferson School of Law, former president of the National Lawyers Guild and deputy secretary general of the International Association of Democratic Lawyers. Her books include The United States and Torture: Interrogation, Incarceration, and Abuse; Cowboy Republic: Six Ways the Bush Gang Has Defied the Law and Drones and Targeted Killing: Legal, Moral, and Geopolitical Issues. Visit her website: MarjorieCohn.com. Follow her on Twitter: @MarjorieCohn.

Copyright, Truthout. Reprinted with permission.

When North Korea responded to U.S. President Donald Trump’s recent threats by “seriously considering a strategy to strike Guam,” the war sharks in Washington smelled blood in the water. The next day, headlines across both the mainstream media and some independent media outlets stated that North Korea’s threat had become a reality and that Pyongyang would complete strike plans on Guam by mid-August, less than a week away.

The urgency was greatly emphasized, as was North Korea’s plan to engulf Guam in an “enveloping fire.” However, upon reading the entire statement issued by North Korea – on which these media reports were based – it is evident that this “news” is an outright lie, one intended to justify a U.S. “preemptive” strike on North Korea in proximity to China’s border.

In reality — and in complete contradiction to the mainstream narrative, one also propagated by some conservative-leaning independent media outlets – North Korea is not threatening to strike the island of Guam. They instead are developing a plan to launch missiles that will “hit the waters 30 to 40 km away from Guam.”

What was Pyongyang’s reasoning for preparing such a plan? Its statement directly cites Trump’s threatening rhetoric, particularly his now infamous “fire and fury” comment, as proving that “sound dialogue is not possible with such a guy bereft of reason.” The judgment made by North Korea was thus that a show of “absolute force can work on [Trump]” in defusing the situation and ending U.S. threats to North Korea.

It is also worth bearing in mind that Pyongyang’s announcement came after the UN approved a new round of sanctions against North Korea over its nuclear and missile development programs. The sanctions will drastically impact the North Korean economy, the GDP of which is half that of the U.S. state of Vermont. Sanctions are often perceived as a prelude to war or U.S. invasion – as they were in Libya, for example – though some maintain that the levying of sanctions is an act of war in and of itself.

This is particularly true in the case of North Korea, which has repeatedly offered to eliminate its nuclear activities and missile development programs if the U.S. would cease conducting war games with South Korea in close proximity to North Korean borders. Despite China’s repeated proposals of such a deal as a viable diplomatic solution, two U.S. presidential administrations – Barack Obama’s and now Trump’s – have rejected it every time. Given the U.S.’ refusal to negotiate – along with the drastic sanctions, the threatening rhetoric and U.S. hints of a “preventative war” against North Korea – is it so hard to believe that the country’s leadership feels desperate enough to carry out a show of force?

Given the media’s response and recent statements made by the U.S. government, the evidence is clear that Washington wants you to believe that North Korea is in no way reasonable and that the threat it poses to U.S. national security is grave. So grave is the threat, we are told, that it necessitates putting the lives of millions of South Koreans and Japanese at risk. They, along with the unfortunate Guamanians, sadly seem to amount to little more than pawns in this whole charade.

North Korea considers firing four missiles at Guam. pic.twitter.com/2croC3u0lg

— Fox News (@FoxNews) August 10, 2017

As of Wednesday, the Pentagon announced that it had completed a plan to carry out a “preemptive strike” against North Korea, with the Air Force stating in typically gung-ho, warmongering fashion that they are “ready to fight tonight.” The most hawkish senators in the United States, John McCain and Lindsey Graham, have supported Trump’s militaristic stance, stating that war with North Korea would be “bad” but manageable – at least for the United States.

However, analyses of how an actual war would play out predict complete devastation and potentially millions of lives lost. Even Secretary of Defense James Mattis warned that any military confrontation with North Korea would mean “probably the worst kind of fighting in most people’s lifetime.” Not only that, but North Korea borders both China and Russia, so any war against that nation is sure to send refugees pouring across its northern border. There has also been speculation that China and Russia could easily become entangled in a military conflict between North Korea and the United States.

The North Korean threat is being overblown and words are being twisted, as the Washington establishment – with Trump at the helm – threatens to bring about another needless war. Indeed, it is no coincidence that the “threat” of North Korea is being hyped right now. Many economists are sounding the alarm bells, while other respected analysts have been warning for months that the coming debt ceiling fight and subsequent budget battle in Congress could be enough to crash an already jittery economy. When faced with economic catastrophe, the U.S. has historically responded by starting a war.

Not only that, but Trump’s other problems, such as shrinking poll numbers and the collusion investigation, would also likely be set aside were the commander in chief to become embroiled along with his nation in a major military conflict. If this “preventative war” takes place, it will be one intended to save the Trump presidency, not the American people.

Featured image is from Korean Central News Agency via Zoom in Korea.

Featured image: Mike Prysner and Abby Martin recovering from tear gas in Venezuela (Source: Skwawkbox)

Mike Prysner is a former US Army soldier turned documentary-maker, who produces and co-writes The Empire Files for Latin American broadcaster teleSUR English with Abby Martin. He was, until recently, in Venezuela covering the troubles there.

Mike generously gave the SKWAWKBOX his time for a lengthy interview from Los Angeles on the real situation in Venezuela from his first-hand experience. What he related is eye-opening.

And it’s very different from the line we’re being fed by the UK’s press, broadcasters, pundits and right-wing MPs – and it’s startling from the outset.

You’ve heard about attempts by the UK Establishment to weaponise Venezuela against Jeremy Corbyn?

When I heard that Jeremy Corbyn had condemned violence on both sides in Venezuela, I was angry at first – because 80% or more of the violence is being committed by anti-government protesters. Their violence has far surpassed anything committed against them – and what has been done to them has been deliberately provoked.

But then I began to recognise the skill in his statement – forcing everyone to confront the reality of what’s happening on the ground there. The reality bears little resemblance to what’s being presented to people.

You recently returned to the US from Venezuela. What were you doing down there?

I was there with a team from teleSUR, meeting government leaders, people on street, chavistas [supporters of the socialist government, after late President Hugo Chavez] and in opposition areas, seeing what’s it like in different areas.

And it’s not like we’re being told here in the UK?

The BBC is responsible for some of the most disingenuous portrayals. They’re showing violent protesters as if they’re some kind of defenders of peaceful protesters against a repressive police force, but in reality peaceful protests have been untouched by police.

What happens is that the guarimbas [violent, armed opposition groups] follow the peaceful protests and when they come near police, they insert themselves in between the two. They then push and push and push until there’s a reaction – and they have cameras and journalists on hand to record the reaction, so it looks like the police are being aggressive.

We were once filming a protest and a group of guarimbas challenged us. If we’d said we were with teleSur, at the very least they’d have beaten us and taken our equipment. But we told them we were American freelance journalists – they need Americans to film them and publicise them, so we were accepted.

But they said to us, “Don’t film what we do – just what they do to us.”

The battles with police are actually quite small, but they’re planned, co-ordinated to disrupt different area each day to maximise their impact – but in most places life is pretty normal. It’s all about the portrayal. The US media mobilise everything for guarimbas – there will be maybe 150 people but it’s made to look bigger and tactics are 100% violent– trying to provoke a response.

And the level of police restraint is remarkable – the government knows the world is watching. One evening protesters were burning buildings for around two hours, with no intervention by the police. They only react when the protesters start throwing petrol bombs at the police or military, or their bases – but as soon as they do react, the guarimbas film as if they’re victims of an unprovoked attack.

Guarimbas throwing petrol bombs – ‘Molotov cocktails’

The Supreme Court was set on fire, lots of government buildings have been destroyed – all by the supposed ‘victims’.

The targets of protesters have been the government’s low-cost city buses, beating the bus drivers; they’ve attacked food stockpiles – which is odd when they claim to be protesting about food shortages. One government food stockpile of 50 tonnes was burned. They even attacked a maternity unit, forcing the women to flee.

We saw people on the highway pulled out of vehicles and the vehicles taken to build barricades – even then the police response was extremely restrained, even minimal. I’ve seen protests far more harshly policed in the US.

Telesur English has been keeping a running tally of deaths. So far there have been well over a hundred – and 80% or more have been from opposition violence – a female national guard officer shot in the throat by snipers, people set on fire [warning: graphic video] for supporting the President, a lot shooting at the police and military, along with random shootings of civilians. There have been at least two roadside bombs targeting police convoys.

Graphic by teleSUR

Some protesters have real guns but there are home-made guns and rocket-launchers as well. Some protester deaths have been caused by their own home-made weapons blowing up on them. Lots of people have been killed at the burning traffic barricades.

There have been well over a dozen chavistas who were followed away from peaceful pro-government rallies and killed on their way home or in restaurants by guarimbas.

But the external perception is being controlled. Lopez and the others have their own media apparatus, coordinating the perception-management. There’s a wealth of evidence that lot of protesters are getting paid, people arrested and then trying to get out of charges by confessing to being paid to cause trouble.

Also bringing kids out to protest – cynical to bring kids out and put them on front line to get photos and blame govt.

So it’s safe to say that the opposition protesters are not fighting for democracy?

Democracy is absolutely not their aim. This is a small group of people led by the owners of large monopoly corporations. The opposition can’t win at the ballot box – they’ve tried but can’t reverse the left-wing gains and a huge majority of the people are behind the government. So they’re trying to bypass democracy, that’s why violence is the tactic.

The political motives are clear – they don’t like the government giving benefits to poor people and they want the huge corporate monopolies back. One man interviewed said he was protesting because he wants to be entrepreneur and make money, not have the government giving money to the poor.

There are no anti-government protests in poor areas, only in the well off areas, protesters are wearing expensive jewellery – the rich areas are also where most of the deaths have occurred.

There’s also economic violence. The opposition leaders are owners of large corporations and they are trying to tank the economy. If Maduro lines up international finance, they have intervened to prevent the loans going through.

The one loan that did go through recently – Wells Fargo, I think it was – became the subject of big PR campaign against it – the opposition is trying to make things worse for people.

They’re even creating shortages – of the nine commodities in shortest supply in Venezuela, a single company owned by an opposition leader is responsible for seven of them – and there are stockpiles, but they’re kept out of circulation to create shortages. And of course, where the government has warehoused supplies ready for distribution, those have been attacked – like those 50 tonnes of food that was burned.

Diapers and toilet paper are shown as in short supply – they are in the stores, but it’s easy to get both on the black market. There’s no shortage, it’s just being channelled elsewhere – again, by those opposition-controlled corporations.

The violence is to create the perception of a failed state to set the scene for outside powers to make ‘humanitarian’ interventions. They’re claiming a Maduro ‘dictatorship’ – but these are same people who overthrew the government in 2002, installed a dictatorship, cancelled the legal system and immediately set about reversing social gains.

The only way they can rule in Venezuela is a fascist-style dictatorship maintained by huge force and that’s what they’re aiming to create.

The two opposition leaders that were arrested at home the other day were involved in an attempted coup that resulted in 30-40 deaths in 2013/14 – and end up on house arrest, which shows the lie of the repressive regime. They’re still actively working to overthrow the government – they were on the phone day before they were re-arrested, planning to overthrow the government.

There’s a lot of evidence of foreign assistance, too. The US, of course, but also Colombia and other right-wing South American regimes. Police have found stockpiles of gas-masks, explosives, weapons. Chavez’s success inspired left-wing governments in Brazil and other countries and the right-wing governments are determined to roll back those gains. Weapons and supplies have been seized coming over the border from Colombia, they’re a key player.

The US government has given around $30 million since 2009 but funds are also channelled via NGOs.

So if the opposition protester numbers are small, what are the rest of the people doing?

The vast majority of people are solidly behind the government. For every big opposition demo there’s at least one huge pro-government, peaceful chavista demo.

The ordinary people are extremely active in combating the economic war – volunteers from poor areas producing/distributing goods that are in shortage. The people are extremely politically aware and educated and they’re absolutely committed to overcoming this attack on their society.

One side is fighting with democracy while the other side is fighting with lynchings and violence – but it’s not what is being shown outside.

People are also organising huge mass meetings about the new constituent assembly to educate, explain what it is, how it works, how to run for it – there’s a lot of effort to build democratic engagement.

The US/European media has portrayed the Constituent Assembly as an anti-democratic measure – you’re saying it’s not?

On the contrary, it’s an attempt to entrench the democratisation of Venezuela by creating a body that can amend the Constitution. The government is trying to make it harder for the right wing to roll back the democratic revolution, the concept of local communes, LGBT rights etc.

It’s exactly the democratic process that’s called for in the constitution – the big lie is saying the government has banned the opposition from taking part. On the contrary, the government has made huge efforts to get the opposition to participate but they decided to boycott it because it doesn’t suit their aims.

Maduro has even been delaying the vote to give the opposition more time to engage but they’re not interested.

All the Constituent Assembly is is just real, radical, grassroots democracy. The western media are saying Maduro will ban other parties but it’s completely untrue. They’re portraying a repressive, violent regime – but dozens of national guard and police have arrested and charged for excessive violence, even though they faced extreme provocation. This is not what it’s being made to appear.

Mike, you’ve been incredibly generous with your time. How would you like to round off your comments?

The perception outside Venezuela is completely at odds with the reality on the ground. The whole ‘failed state’ thing – it’s just issues in economy being blown up. Unemployment in Venezuela is only 6.6%, foreign debt payments are being made on time. GDP is rising.

Venezuela is not in an economic crisis, it’s in an economic war.

Of course there are problems from the fall in oil prices, but all the things being portrayed big in the media are created by the opposition – the violence, the shortages. There’s an attempt to create an opportunity for the western, mainstream media to say ‘this country is screwed’ so it can be ‘rescued’.

But it’s not the government screwing up the economy – that’s being done by big corporate monopolies. It’s not the government instigating the violence – that’s originating with the protesters, who are backed and even paid by corporations and even outside governments. And it’s all for the purpose of overthrowing democracy, not saving it.

The tragic events in Charlottesville were a microcosm of a bigger problem.

For the last two years, the media and the anti-Trump masses have mostly remained silent on the political violence coming from the [Neocon] “left”. In fact, it seems as if the institutionalized media has condoned and celebrated the violence and repeatedly have dubbed them“peaceful demonstrations”. Meanwhile, isolated events of Trump supporters engaging in political violence, primarily during the 2016 campaign was shown on a near continuous loop on all media outlets.

The video of an elderly man sucker punching an African American male, at a Trump rally in North Carolina, was played over and over.

Instantly all Trump supporters were branded, bigots, fascists, sexists, Nazis, white nationalists, xenophobes and nearly every other label the “left” choose to use at any given moment. Hillary Clinton then decided to brand a large chunk of Trump supporters as “Deplorables”. The crowd laughed and cheered with her statements.

The institutionalized media did challenge Clinton’s comments at the time, but then it was quickly dismissed as campaign rhetoric. The outcry lasted for about 12 hours. Donald Trump on the other hand, was continually lambasted by media outlets for nearly every statement he made. In full disclosure, Donald Trump is not a man of refinement. He is rude, crude, brash and often speaks without fully thinking of how his charged statements will be taken by those who oppose him.

Donald Trump was not helping his case either when he made pronouncements about punching protesters in the face.

But underneath all of the campaign rhetoric and sound bites, was the growing scourge of real political violence. These were not isolated instances. It was widespread, and the intensity of the violence seemed to grow with each passing month.

The media reveled in the coverage of these events during the 2016 campaign. It made for riveting television, and it surely brought ratings and ad dollars. As pundits and “news” anchors watched with glee, there seemed to be no one stepping up and defending the victims of this political violence. There was deafening silence from the media and Democratic leadership. Instead, the media passed it off as isolated incidents, and not representative of the country as a whole. Donald Trump’s rhetoric was determined to be the cause of all the violence.

With the stellar undercover work of James O’Keefe at Project Veritas, it was revealed that many of the people inciting violence against Trump supporters, during the campaign, were mentally ill and professionally paid agitators or “bird dogs”. They would intentionally provoke Trump’s supporters in the hopes of inciting a negative reaction from them; while hoping the altercation would be caught by the cameras. DNC Operatives Bob Creamer and Scott Foval lost their jobs as a result of these tactics being exposed. The institutionalized media turned a blind eye to this story.

Fast forward to November 10, 2016. Furious Clinton Supporters engaged in nationwide riots. Portland, OR was a particular hotbed of activity.

Again, the media was in as much disbelief over a Donald Trump presidential victory as the people rioting in the streets. These actions were largely given a pass. Portland’s mayor allowed these riots to continue until finally asking them to “stay home”

There were more demonstrations and celebrities were calling for the murder of our President. Political violence almost seemed to be normalized.

While there was a bit of a media backlash against the Kathy Griffin photo stunt, most celebrity rants and calls for violence against the President went unchallenged by the institutionalized media and Democratic leadership at large.

Flash forward to the Battle of Berkeley on February 1, 2017. Masked Antifa protesters shut down a planned speech by provocateur, Milo Yiannopoulos. The campus was left in shambles and many men and women were injured during the riots. The political violence from the “left” reached it’s apex on that chilly February night. The epicenter of the free speech movement of the 1960s was now a hotbed for political violence.

Again, many in the media labeled this riot a “Peaceful Protest”. The emotion from the recent election disaster for the ‘left” was still very raw.

After the Battle of Berkeley, things started to shift. Many on the right decided that they were not going to allow themselves to be the victims of political violence. The “moral high ground” argument no longer proved viable. The right began to engage in political violence, and they were far more prepared then the left when a second Battle of Berkeley occurred on April 15, 2017. Again, calls for the deescalation of political violence from the media and DC politicians remained scarce.

As you can see the political violence was out of control.Both sides were clearly out of control; and someone was eventually going to get killed.

After these events, tensions seemed to cool a bit, as the left realized that the right was “playing for keeps” and no longer was going to allow themselves to be attacked without defending themselves. I can’t stress it enough though, no one was calling for cooler heads to prevail. The Trump administration looked the other way, Democratic leadership looked the other way and the media looked the other way.

There was one lone voice calling for the end of political violence-author, journalist and filmmaker Mike Cernovich. On May 1, 2017 he attended the White House press briefing and asked the press corps there why they are not covering the political violence against Trump supporters. As you can see, many in the room mocked him and scoffed at him.

As political violence on the streets seemed to deescalate as spring turned to summer, tensions were heightened when Rep. Steve Scalise was shot by a deranged Bernie Sanders supporter during a baseball practice in Alexandria, VA. This seemed like another tipping point. Both Democrats and Republicans embraced each other and made shallow attempts to “tone down the rhetoric”. It lasted for about 48 hours.

That brings us to the #UniteTheRight rally that occurred this weekend. This was a gathering of alt-right fringe characters like Richard Spencer. Richard Spencer is essentially the 21st Century version of David Duke. He likes to make controversial pronouncements and he trots himself out any time he feels the need to create a controversy. He’s the poster child for the alt-right and is essentially a media creation. There were about 500 lunatics in attendance. The optics of the march on Friday night seemed like something out of a D.W. Griffith movie.

This iconography plays right into the leftist narrative that all Trump Supporters are White Nationalists. Who in their right mind would engage in this kind of messaging? It provides zero positive connotation. Most of the people engaging in this rally were most likely Deep State Operatives (FBI and CIA), ADL and SPLC infiltrators and a scattering of people who are truly fringe lunatics (I’m speculating). Sadly, the media, Antifa and BLM protestors took the bait and covered and counter protested the event.

The tragic events yesterday, were the culmination of all of the previous events covered in this article. If you didn’t understand that the political violence coming from both sides was eventually going to result in loss of life, you weren’t paying attention. The reason people are losing their minds and driving their cars into crowds of people is because the media and Washington politicians have refused to tone down their rhetoric and disavow political violence. They wanted to pretend that political violence wasn’t happening, and they are more interested in ratings and ad dollars. When people are radicalized and go underground that’s when everything goes wrong.

Sadly, I don’t think this will be the end of this chapter of political violence. In fact, I think tensions between the right and the left have been reignited and I expect more violence in the coming weeks and months. I hope I am wrong in my assessment.

All sides are to blame in this, and the political violence must end. The left and the right must come together and call for the end to political violence. The only way things are ever going to cool down is to have conversations with each other, and to try to understand and learn from each other.

I disavow political violence in all its forms. I disavow the actions of all groups involved in the events Friday night and Saturday afternoon.

Featured image is from the author.

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Amitiés à tous nos lecteurs

It would be easy to say, “to hell with India.” It is easy to say, “to hell with India.” To hell with the whole squalid scene of humanity crawling through its own sludge.

From Theni, across the southern belt with its searing heat, with its endless advertisements for cement across to Madurai and beyond. Yes, the multi-billion-rupee cement industry hellbent on continuing the ever-expanding unfinished building site of concrete sprawl and ugliness that is becoming India. Reaching out towards the dusty roadside shacks and concrete box dwellings and huts with their roofs of vegetation.

The endless (undeserved) veneration of local political leaders plastered on hoardings. The endless veneration of Hindu gods and goddesses – who are indelibly culturally rooted in the very nature that’s being destroyed – which takes place at the countless temples and shrines splashed across the countryside. The endless plantations of bananas and coconuts and wind turbines and the hundreds of roadside chai and coffee stalls selling pesticide-ridden good old traditional India food – fried anything you like or chicken gravy with rice or samba idli thrown from a vat onto a banana leaf or veg biryani – all mixed in with a biting dose of pollution from the roaring, rusting, horn-blurting parade of bad-tempered trucks and buses that blast on by.

But if you say, “to hell with India” and to hell with its 1.3 billion mass of overcrowded devastation as it destroys everything in its way, you must also say “to hell with Copenhagen”, where I arrived from – the world’s most liveable city – so they say – and to hell with Russia, the US, the UK and everywhere else.

Because this is the condition of the species. This is the type of sludge we have created, regardless of where we live or how we hide it by exporting it to the oceans, burying it in (nuclear) landfills, transforming Argentina into disease-ridden corn-field nightmares to feed Europe or turning places in Africa into barren wastelands of nature and humanity to feed our cravings for all things coltan.

All of this written while in the South India’s ‘Queen of the hills’ – Kodaikanal. That once pristine hill station of tranquility, wild boar, forest fowl and roaming bison unhindered by humans. Yes, the now ever-sprawling ‘Kodai’, slowly evolving into hell in the hills with its throngs of weekend trippers escaping the stinking pollution and chaos of Bangalore, Chennai and Madurai only to bring the stinking pollution and chaos of Bangalore, Chennai and Madurai with them.

The incessant blast of vehicle horns, the filth and squalor of paper and plastic, the city habits brought straight into the heart of the hills. The now dethroned Queen adorned in robes of garbage, with her mercury mist and mercury lake courtesy of Unilever’s former thermometer factory, and steadily suffocating courtesy of today’s city dwellers.

Call some place paradise, kiss it goodbye, The Eagles once sang. In this case, call her Queen for the day(tripper)… and you can soon kiss your love affair with her goodbye.

Modi’s deceptions about ‘make in India’ while all the time he sells it out to Washington, the World Bank and the handful of Tatas, Ambanis and India’s multi-billionaire elite.

Because to say, “to hell with it all” would let them win without even putting up a struggle.

The Australian banker is a smug species, arguably more than his international peers. Caught off guard by the financial disasters of the late 1980s and early 1990s, the Australian banking system has become an expression of a classic oligopoly, manipulating prices and squeezing customers. Such an Australian banker is perky as well, self-assured that any inappropriate, let alone illegal behaviour, might be passed off as an effort to do better, to buck trends, to be audacious.

Over the last few weeks, AUSTRAC has had little time for that audacity. The financial intelligence agency and regulator had picked up on suspicious transactions made through the Commonwealth Bank of Australia’s “intelligence deposit machines” numbering over 53,000 and exceeding the legal $10,000 limit. The machines in question were part of a CBA modernisation scheme, involving 40 new deposit ATMs that would permit the register of cash deposits in real time.[1]

The bubbly language from such individuals as chief information officer, Michael Harte, has been that of frat boy enthusiasm, the optimist without limits. “If you don’t open channels, if you don’t have rich relationship data and real-time services you cannot lead the market and you cannot change the game.”

Harte’s point has been breakneck speed, acceleration, briskness. Transactions need immediacy. Money should not be kept in transit, a state of costly languishing that renders the bank unattractive for the client. “With real-time banking at the core, we have enabled instant transfer of value between parties. We aren’t holding money for days; we know our customers don’t want this. We know banks and others are disliked for this.”

Such enthusiasm has bucked and fronted the law. Harte’s program has fallen foul of a conventional problem in this field: the mechanism, fashioned as such, is not necessarily conducive to the regulators. In all likelihood, it might hold such regulation in contempt, enabling money to be given a good rinse or bolstering the financial security of designated terrorist organisations.

Not that the CBA is indifferent to playing the card of brute cynicism: having set up a system achingly attractive for abuse, it advertises the opposite with professional panache. “At CommBank we are committed to fighting money laundering and terrorism financing.”[2] A look shot, it would seem, both ways.

True to form, the machines have been used by a range of parties not otherwise on the “approved” list. Not that the CBA were ignorant of the fact. By admission of CBA chairwoman Catherine Livingstone, the board were first alerted to the money laundering risks posed by the intelligent deposit machines in the second half of 2015.[3]

Various sumptuous morsels can be found in the weighty 583 page statement outlining AUSTRAC’s grievance against the CBA. Among them are instances of one customer placing vast sums of cash through the Intelligence Deposit Machines outside the doors of the Leichardt Marketplace branch in Sydney’s inner west.

Foiled by an unusually attentive branch manager, the person in question made his dash, and deposited the rest of his proceeds at the bank’s Mascot branch. By the end of that June day in 2015, $670,420, compromising 13,000 notes or so of mostly $50 notes, had found its way into the CBA.[4]

The daring individual behind the venture was Yeun Hong Fung, a man so enterprising he had used 29 identities to launder money derived from methamphetamine sales to Hong Kong-based accounts.[5] This was no mean feat for a man who had been deported three times yet able to return to Australia on 34 occasions using false passports.

Such feats were not a point of concern for CBA chief executive Ian Narev. Things, he suggested, happened all the time. Far from it for him or members of the board to take note, let alone inform investors, of the seriousness of such financial misconduct.

“In an organisation of this size,” he said with casual contempt, “there are individual items that come to the attention of the board and management from regulators and others all the time.”

The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) has gotten industrious on this point, promising to investigate the bank’s celebrated modern practices, notably whether it complied with the disclosure provisions outlined in the Corporations Act. The licensing requirements “to act efficiently, honestly and fairly” will be part of the remit.

“I want to inform the committee,” explained ASIC’s Greg Medcraft to a parliamentarian joint committee last week, “that ASIC has commenced inquiries into this matter and any consequences this matter has for the laws we administer.”

The teeth behind the investigation will come from AUSTRAC, which promises, should the evidence stack up, heavy fines. On Monday morning, the bank shed its first appointed casualty, announcing the very mild, obvious if delayed sacrifice of Narev.

Chairman Livingstone informed the press that the “succession” plan had been brought forward, meaning that Narev would be stepping down at the end of this year. His pay packet has also been given a decent pruning – 50 percent of it, to be precise. Short-term bonuses for all senior executives for the 2017 financial year were also shelved.

All this is small beer, given that one of Australia’s golden institutions has found itself caught in mid-flight. In an effort to achieve Harte’s dream of speed and efficiency in moving capital, it embraced that old wisdom from the Roman Emperor Vespasian about money having no smell: pecunia non olet, as it were.

Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge. He lectures at RMIT University, Melbourne. Email: [email protected]

Notes

[1] http://www.afr.com/technology/commonwealth-banks-money-laundering-woes-are-a-slip-in-a-bank-tech-race-it-is-used-to-winning-20170804-gxpfvd

[2] https://www.commbank.com.au/about-us/opportunity-initiatives/opportunity-from-good-business-practice/sustainable-business-practices/anti-money-laundering-and-counter-terrorism-financing.html

[3] http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-08-11/asic-to-investigate-cba/8796542

[4] http://www.afr.com/business/banking-and-finance/austrac-case-how-drug-syndicates-turned-commonwealth-bank-into-a-money-pump-20170810-gxtnht

[5] http://www.afr.com/business/banking-and-finance/austrac-case-meet-fung-and-his-mate-foong-20170810-gxt5f1

Featured image is from Wikimedia Commons.

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Kim vs. Trump, “Behavior” vs. “Misbehavior”, Who are the Lunatics? Bringing a Peaceful End to Conflict on the Korean Peninsula

By Kim Petersen, August 14, 2017

North Korea has an estimated 10 to 60 nukes, although there is still some doubt expressed about North Korean ICBMs being capable of reaching the continental US, of carrying a nuclear payload, or being capable of atmospheric reentry. As for the US, it has 1800 nukes, in Trump’s parlance, “locked and loaded.

Let’s Save the World – Trump Must Go!

By Peter Koenig, August 13, 2017

A new threat hangs over Venezuela. US Military invasion. The country is already invaded by US / CIA trained, funded, fed and armed proxy fighters, that regularly help disturbing peace, stirring up chaos and causing death in the streets of Caracas – death, that the Anglo-Zionist controlled press is ascribing to the Maduro Government – an outright lie.

Challenging America’s Military Madness

By Stephen Lendman, August 13, 2017

War on the peninsula risks unthinkable carnage on both sides of the DMZ. Following his May election, President Moon Jae-in urged outreach to resolve longstanding differences with Pyongyang. He suggested meeting Kim Jong-un face-to-face.

Instead, he’s become hostage to Washington’s imperial agenda, supporting illegal sanctions on the DPRK, suggesting they be strengthened.

Electoral Politics and the Crises of Governance in Africa

By Abayomi Azikiwe, August 13, 2017

From Kenya, Rwanda to Angola and South Africa, parties struggle to control state apparatuses amid continuing dominance of regional economies by western states

“Love for Israel” Senate Bill S720: Making It a Crime to Support Palestinian Human Rights

By James J. Zogby, August 13, 2017

The bill in question, S720, was introduced on March 23, 2017 by Senator Ben Cardin (D-MD). S720 opposes calls by the United Nations to boycott or “blacklist” companies that support Israeli activities in the territories occupied in the 1967 war. The bill further prohibits any US person from supporting this UN call to boycott and establishes stiff fines and/or imprisonment for Americans who violate this prohibition.

China’s Economy Shows Strong Resilience

By Lu Yanan, August 13, 2017

Global expectations on China’s economic performance are high. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) raised China’s 2017 growth forecast to 6.7 percent, its third increase this year. Bloomberg projected China’s GDP in the third and fourth quarters at 6.6 and 6.7 percent respectively, both projections 0.1 percent higher than its previous forecasts.

MOSCOW (Sputnik) — The outlet added that the North Korean ambassadors’ meetings were held almost yearly, with the last meeting taking place in July 2015.

“North Korea seems to be hosting what appears to be a meeting of foreign diplomatic missions’ chiefs after calling its ambassadors to major countries back to Pyongyang,” the source was quoted as saying by the Yonhap news agency.

According to the media outlet, the source said that North Korean Ambassador to the United Nations Ja Song-nam, Ambassador to China Ji Jae-ryong, Ambassador to Russia Kim Hyong-jun would take part in the meeting, however, it was still unclear who else would participate in the upcoming gathering.

Earlier on Friday the Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov stated Moscow, as well as China, opposed North Korea being in possession of nuclear weapons. He also added that Russia and China had “a whole range of proposals aimed at preventing the deepest conflict, a crisis with a huge number of human losses.”

Moscow and Beijing called on Pyongyang to stop nuclear tests and urged Washington and Seoul to refrain from conducting joint drills.

Russia and China called those parties involved for conducting a dialogue amid the recent escalation of tensions on the Korean Peninsula.

The tensions around North Korea have been high over recent months and escalated further after the tightening of economic sanctions against North Korea by the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) on August 5 in response to July’s launches of ballistic missiles by Pyongyang.

The move prompted harsh criticism from Pyongyang which subsequently vowed to use any means possible to retaliate against the United States after the UNSC approved the new US-drafted sanctions. US President Donald Trump in turn, warned, that North Korea’s possible actions would be met with “fire and fury” from the United States. Following the statement, Pyongyang said it considered an attack near the Pacific island of Guam where several US military bases were located.

The White House said in a statement on Saturday, that Trump had held a phone conversation with his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron, stressing that the United States was ready to apply all available measures, including the military ones, to settle the North Korean nuclear issue.

Featured image: The Genoa Conference in 1922 (Source: CADTM)

For five weeks in April and May 1922, a summit conference was held. Britain’s prime minister, Lloyd George, played a central role in it, as did Louis Barthou, the minister of the French president Raymond Poincaré.

The main aim of the meeting was to persuade Soviet Russia |1| both to acknowledge the debts it had repudiated in 1918 and to cease calling for a global revolution.

The Genoa negotiations (1922)

There were other points on the agenda of the conference attended by delegates from 34 countries, though not the United States, but none gave rise to much debate. Among them were the adoption of monetary regulations, especially regarding the Gold exchange standard system which was adopted that year. In the absence of the United States, decisions on this issue were made elsewhere.

The conference was hosted by five major powers: Great Britain (which had just been overtaken by the United States as the first world power), France (the third world power after the defeat of Germany), Belgium (which had been the fifth world power before the war, in terms of exportation), Japan (whose empire was expanding rapidly in East Asia) and Italy.

Of the five host powers, one, Japan, still had troops occupying Soviet Siberia. It only withdrew them permanently six months after the end of the conference, in October 1922. The other 12 countries which had sent troops in 1918 to overthrow the Soviet government and put an end to the revolutionary experiment had ceased occupation of Soviet territory in 1920. In fact the utterly demoralized foreign troops had been withdrawn when their governments had regretfully noted that the White Russian generals had been irrevocably defeated by the Red Army and that no amount of foreign intervention would remedy that. It then became necessary to use diplomacy and blackmail where arms had failed.

The major powers thought that the conference would bring the Soviet government round to recognizing the repudiated debts in view of the dramatic humanitarian and economic situation in Russia. Civil war had bled the country dry and from summer 1921, catastrophic harvests had caused terrible famine. The Western capitals believed the Soviet government to be on its knees and were convinced they would get what they wanted by making the new loans and investments Russia needed conditional upon the acknowledgment of previous debts and compensation for expropriated Western companies.

France remained the most aggressive power regarding both Soviet Russia and Germany |2|, with the support of the Belgian authorities. As for Great Britain, less affected by the debt repudiation, it was more open to dialogue with Moscow and had signed an Anglo-Russian trade deal in 1921 which ended the blockade and meant de facto |3| recognition of Soviet Russia.

For its part, the Soviet government was ready to repay part of the debts contracted by the Tsar on several conditions: that the other powers give Soviet Russia official (de jure) recognition; that they grant State-to-State (i.e. bilateral) loans; that they encourage private firms affected by the expropriation of their subsidiaries to accept concessions to exploit natural resources, especially in the remotest areas of Siberia, as compensation. The Soviet government thus hoped that foreign capitalists would invest fresh capital of their own money in activities that would fortify the Soviet economy. Furthermore, the government would not hear of setting up multilateral bodies to manage loans, investments or related legal disputes. Soviet government intended that Soviet Russia should remain entirely independent of foreign powers. There was no question of giving up any part of its sovereignty.

If these conditions were met, Moscow promised to resume payment of part of the Tsarist debt within a thirty year time-frame. The Soviet delegation clearly asserted several times throughout the conference that it was ready to make this concession to reach an agreement, but that they basically considered that Soviet Russia was fully within its rights to repudiate all Tsarist debt (as well as debt contracted by the provisional government between February and October 1917). Finally the conference ended in disagreement and the Soviet delegation maintained the repudiation.

Signature of the Treaty of Rapallo: Chancellor Joseph Wirth with representatives of the Soviet delegation Leonid Krassin, Georgy Chitcherin and Adolf Joffe

Consideration of the special relationship that came about between Berlin and Moscow after the Treaty of Versailles in June 1919 is crucial to understanding how the conference was organized. The government in Berlin was composed of a coalition between the Socialists (the Social Democratic Party or SPD), the Centrists (the ancestors of Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union) and the Liberals (the ancestor of the present-day Free Democratic Party), and was fundamentally pro-Western and anti-Soviet. Nevertheless, under the onus of having to pay the huge reparations imposed by the Treaty of Versailles, which meant a staggering debt, Berlin was inclined to dialogue with Moscow and come to agreement. This tendency was reinforced by the desire of big German industrial companies (including AEG and Krupp) to sell their production on the Russian market, having been their main trading partner since the 1870s, as we saw. On the way from Moscow to Genoa, the Soviet delegation had made an extended halt in Berlin to carry out negotiations and meet with the German authorities before coming face to face with the host powers in the Italian city. In the middle of the Conference of Genoa, while the host powers adopted an uncompromising attitude towards Moscow, there was a sudden coup de théâtre. The German and Soviet delegations had met in the neighbouring town of Rapallo and signed an important bilateral agreement which has gone down in history as the Treaty of Rapallo.

It is very interesting to go over how the Conference of Genoa was conducted, the negotiations that took place and the arguments used by the different sides.

The major powers who hosted it wanted to put maximum pressure on Soviet Russia by claiming that a fundamental objective of the conference was for all countries to acknowledge their public debt and for compensation to be paid. |4|

The major powers asserted in the convocation that mutual confidence could only be restored if the nations (or the governments of the nations) wishing to obtain foreign credit would freely commit themselves to acknowledging all public debts and securities that had been or would be contracted by the State, municipal authorities or other public bodies, and also to recognize their obligation to return, restore or, failing that, compensate all foreign interests for loss or damage caused by the confiscation or sequestration of their property. |5|

Immediately Georgy Chicherin, head of the Soviet delegation, retorted that the economic reconstruction of Russia and work intended to end economic chaos in Europe would be taking a wrong and dangerous direction if the most economically powerful nations were to crush Russia under demands way beyond its capabilities, as in what that country saw as its odious past, instead of creating the requisite conditions for its economic revival and facilitating its march forward to the future. |6|

In the ensuing discussion with the Soviets, who asserted that their people and their new government could not be expected to take on debts contracted by a previous despotic regime, Lloyd George replied that when a country undertook contractual obligations towards another country or towards nationals of that country for pledged securities, that contract could under no circumstances be repudiated each time a country changed government, unless that country restitute the assets received. |7|

Translated by Vicki Briault and Christine Pagnoulle (CADTM)

Eric Toussaint is a historian and political scientist who completed his Ph.D. at the universities of Paris VIII and Liège, is the spokesperson of the CADTM International, and sits on the Scientific Council of ATTAC France. He is the author of Bankocracy(2015); The Life and Crimes of an Exemplary Man (2014); Glance in the Rear View Mirror. Neoliberal Ideology From its Origins to the Present, Haymarket books, Chicago, 2012 (see here), etc. See his bibliography: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%89ric_Toussaint He co-authored World debt figures 2015 with Pierre Gottiniaux, Daniel Munevar and Antonio Sanabria (2015); and with Damien Millet Debt, the IMF, and the World Bank: Sixty Questions, Sixty Answers, Monthly Review Books, New York, 2010. Since the 4^th April 2015 he is the scientific coordinator of the Greek Truth Commission on Public Debt.

Notes

|1| When the Conference of Genoa took place, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics did not yet exist. It was founded in December 1922 and officially dissolved in December 1991. At the Conference of Genoa, the Soviet delegation officially represented the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, which we have abbreviated in the present text to “Soviet Russia”.

|2| French troops occupied Düsseldorf, one of the main towns of Rhineland, in March 1921 (see Carr, T. 3. page 345). From January 1923 to July-August 1925, French and Belgian troops occupied the Ruhr Valley and its industrial production sites in order to seize industrial products and raw materials such as coal and minerals, in lieu of payment for the reparations that Germany was slow to pay. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occup…

|3| The recognition of a new State is either definitive — in which case it is called de jure recognition (i.e. as of right) – or it is provisional, or restricted, — in which case it is called de facto (i.e. in fact, whether by right or not) recognition. Great Britain recognized Soviet Russia de facto in 1921, and de jure in 1924.

|4| Les Documents de la Conference de Genes, Rome, 1922, 336 pages, p. IX. (No English version of the Convocation found.)

|5| Op. Cit.

|6| Op. Cit.

|7| Op. Cit., p. 13.

All images in this article are from the author.

There was always a logical flaw in pushing Russia-gate as an excuse for Hillary Clinton’s defeat – besides the fact that it was based on a dubious “assessment” by a small team of “hand-picked” U.S. intelligence analysts. The flaw was that it poked the thin-skinned Donald Trump over one of his few inclinations toward diplomacy.

We’re now seeing the results play out in a very dangerous way in Trump’s bluster about North Korea, which was included in an aggressive economic sanctions bill – along with Russia and Iran – that Congress passed nearly unanimously, without a single Democratic no vote.

Democrats and Official Washington’s dominant neocons celebrated the bill as a vote of no-confidence in Trump’s presidency but it only constrained him in possible peacemaking, not war-making.

The legislation, which Trump signed under protest, escalated tensions with those three countries while limiting Trump’s power over lifting sanctions. After signing the bill into law, Trump denounced the bill as “seriously flawed – particularly because it encroaches on the executive branch’s authority to negotiate.”

As his “signing statements” made clear, Trump felt belittled by the congressional action. His response has been to ratchet up bellicose rhetoric about North Korea, bluster appearing to be his natural default position when under pressure.

Remember, in April, as the Russia-gate hysteria mounted, Trump changed the subject, briefly, by rushing to judgment on an alleged chemical-weapons incident in Khan Sheikhoun, Syria, and firing off 59 Tomahawk missiles at a Syrian military base.

He immediately won acclaim from Official Washington, although Hillary Clinton and other hawks argued that he should have gone further with a much larger U.S. invasion of Syria, i.e., establishing a “no-fly zone” even if that risked nuclear war with Russia.

President Trump delivers his brief speech to the nation explaining his decision to launch a missile strike against Syria on April 6, 2017. (Screen shot from Whitehouse.gov)

What Trump learned from that experience is that even when he is going off half-cocked, he is rewarded for taking the military option. (More careful analysis of the Khan Sheikhoun evidence later raised serious doubts that the Syrian military was responsible.)

Schoolyard Taunts

So, we now have President Trump in a bizarre exchange of schoolyard taunts with the leadership of North Korea, with Trump’s “fire and fury like the world has never seen” rhetoric possibly plunging the United States into a confrontation that could have devastating consequences for the Korean peninsula, Japan and indeed the whole world.

Given the fact that the world has already seen the U.S. nuclear destruction of two Japanese cities at the end of World War II, Trump’s loose phrasing seems to suggest that the United States is prepared to use nuclear weapons against North Korea (although he may be referring to “just” carpet-bombing with conventional ordnance).

If nuclear weapons are brought into play, it is hard to fathom what the long-term consequences might be. It’s unlikely that Trump – not known for his deep thinking – has even contemplated that future.

However, even a “limited” war with conventional weapons and confined to the Korean peninsula could kill hundreds of thousands of people and severely shake the world’s economy. If North Korea manages to deliver retaliatory damage on Japan, a human catastrophe and a financial panic could follow.

Many thoughtful people are now expressing alarm at Trump’s erratic behavior, but many of those same people cheered the promotion of Russia-gate as a way to corner Trump politically. They didn’t seem to care that the “scandal” was built on a foundation of flimsy or phony evidence and that a key argument – that “all 17 U.S. intelligence agencies” concurred in the Russian-hacking conclusion – was false.

Once that fake “consensus” claim disappeared – after President Obama’s intelligence chiefs acknowledged that the Jan. 6 “assessment” was the work of “hand-picked” analysts from only three agencies – there should have been a stepping back from the Russia-gate groupthink. There should have been demands for a reassessment of the underlying assumptions.

Marine Corps Cpl. Justin Morrall prepares for night stalking during Korea Marine Exercise Program 17-6 near Camp Mujuk, Pohang, South Korea, March 30, 2017. (Marine Corps photo by Sgt. Ally Beiswanger)

However, by then, too many Important People, including editors and executives at major news organizations, had accepted Russia’s guilt as flat fact, meaning that their reputations were at risk. To protect their estimable careers, all doubts about Russia’s guilt had to be crushed and the conventional wisdom enforced.

That self-serving defensiveness became the backdrop to the Russia-Iran-North Korean sanctions bill. Not only could no rethinking be allowed on Russia-gate but Trump’s resistance to the groupthink had to be broken by neutering him along with his presidential powers to conduct diplomacy.

Still eager to please the Democratic #Resistance which sees Russia-gate as the pathway to Trump’s impeachment, Democrats – from neocons like Sen. Ben Cardin to anti-interventionists such as Rep. Tulsi Gabbard – joined in the stampede for the sanctions bill.

In their rush, the Democrats even endangered Obama’s signature diplomatic accomplishment, the international agreement blocking an Iranian nuclear weapon. Obama had promised Iran sanctions relief, not more sanctions. Now, the prospects for the accord’s collapse are increased and the neocon dream to bomb-bomb-bomb Iran revived.

And, by tossing North Korea into the mix, the Democrats left Trump few options other than to unleash his warmongering side and plunge the world toward a potential cataclysm.

So, this is what the Russia-gate opportunism has wrought. The logical flaw in Russia-gate may turn out to be a fatal one.

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).

Featured image is from The Intercept.

Featured image: A UN armored vehicle parked near the Lebanon – Israeli border crossing. 

It came unexpectedly, rapidly and with great force: on 21 July 2016, Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Syrian army from their side, in unison, attacked positions of the malevolent terrorist group, Jabhat Fatah al-Sham (formerly known as Al-Nusra Front), in the mountainous province of Jroud Arsal in Bekaa Valley, on the border of two countries.

Simultaneously, the Lebanese Army surrounded and hermetically sealed the area around Arsal town, preventing new terrorist forces from entering the battle zone.

More than 150 militants were killed. Two dozen Hezbollah fighters lost their lives. Despite the difficult mountainous terrain, the battle was swift, heroic and well coordinated. The group was forced into accepting a ceasefire agreement, which went into effect on 27 July, and which stipulates that all of its fighters will be transferred by the army to a designated area inside Syria (Idlib).

Vanessa Beeley, Associate Editor of the 21st Century Wire, wrote this comment for my essay, literally from “the rubble of East Aleppo”:

“This is a momentous victory for the Resistance against the NATO and Gulf state terrorists. The black flags have been torn down in Arsal and the flags of Hezbollah, Lebanon and Syria are flying side by side as a symbol of the unity of anti-imperialist, anti-Zionist forces in the region. The heroes who gave their lives for this hard-won victory will always be remembered and honored by those whose lives and culture had been under threat from the malevolent forces of extremism and terrorism.”

Who are these terrorists, based for so long at both sides of the border?

The Nusra Front was al Qaeda’s official wing since the beginning of the Syrian war, but in 2016 it decided to split, at least formally, from its former mentor. It rapidly ‘reinvented’ itself. Now it is fighting as part of the Jabhat Fatah al-Sham Islamist Alliance, or more precisely, as its dominant force.

Lebanon has often been described as a time bomb, with dormant ISIS cells spread all over the country (even in the predominantly Christian areas), with al Qaeda first and Jabhat Fatah al-Sham later controlling several pockets in the north, and with the constant threat of an Israeli invasion from the south. Tiny Lebanon also has a notoriously weak government, and it is divided along religious lines. For years it has been facing perpetual refugee crises, with Palestinian refugees literally ‘stuck’ here for decades (with extremely limited rights), and with still more than one million Syrian refugees, most of them forced to flee the brutal war triggered by NATO and its allies in the Gulf.

As Hezbollah and the Syrian army were leading a decisive battle against the terrorists, the Lebanese Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri was meeting U.S. President Donald Trump in Washington D.C., discussing, among other issues, additional U.S. sanctions against Hezbollah, which most Western countries label as a “terrorist group (either entire organization, or at least its military wing).”

On 26 July, Reuters reported:

“Standing beside Hariri in the White House Rose Garden, Trump said Hezbollah is a threat to Lebanon from within. He called the powerful Shi’ite Muslim group a “menace” to the Lebanese people and to the entire region… U.S. lawmakers introduced legislation last week seeking to increase sanctions on Hezbollah by further restricting its ability to raise money and recruit and increasing pressure on banks that do business with it.”

Mr. Hariri, a sworn enemy of Syria and its government, said nothing to contradict the U.S. leader. Born in Saudi Arabia (he holds both KSA and Lebanese citizenships), Mr. Hariri stood still, as Mr. Trump unleashed derogatory rhetoric against the only group in Lebanon which is capable of providing social services to all of its citizens, and which heroically defended Lebanon during the Israeli invasion.

As Trump spoke and Hariri obediently listened, shock waves were running through political and even financial circles in Lebanon. Here, life without Hezbollah would come to a total standstill, most social services would collapse, and the country would be virtually left exposed and defenseless.

“America’s assistance can help to ensure that the Lebanese army is the only defender Lebanon needs,” Trump said at a White House news conference.

He made sure not to mention the amount of money or type of hardware the U.S. was willing to supply. No details were given. Mr. Hariri never dared to ask publicly.

Everyone in the Middle East knows clearly what all this could mean: perhaps the U.S. aid would increase the salaries of top military officers, and even buy few new fancy (US or EU made) weapons, but it would definitely not save Lebanon in case it was once again attacked by Israel, or if it were to be overrun by the huge number of NATO and Gulf-sponsored or directly supported Islamist extremists, who have already been infiltrated for years, into Syrian territory which is right across the border.

For now, however, there is much hope and plenty of reasons to celebrate, in both cities and countryside, all across Lebanon. Mr. Modar Nasr (not his real name), a leading young Syrian intellectual presently based in Beirut, explained to me:

“What happened in Arsal showed that there is actually hope for a better Lebanon. For the first time in years the forces of ‘March 14” and “March 8” stood together to fight against Nusra and other terrorist factions. The operation was not only led by Hezbollah, but also by the Lebanese army and the Syrian army. That is why we saw this sweeping victory in battle expected to last at least one month.”

*

Now the next stage of this sweeping operation is just beginning. It consists of a frontal attack against Daesh (ISIS) in an adjacent area of the border zone.

Lebanese army units in historic Baalbek.

On 28 July, the Lebanese Army was heavily engaged, using tanks, pounding positions of the Islamic State on the outskirts of Ras Baalbeck.

So far, everything has been going according to plan. That is, according to a plan created and being implemented by Hezbollah, Syria and the Lebanese Army.  

Where the U.S. and present Lebanese Prime Minister stand, is clear. It is also obvious that their designs do not coincide with the interests of the majority of the Lebanese people, and those from the entire region.

The leadership of Hezbollah reacted with civility and calm to the events in Washington. On June 26, The Daily Star in Beirut reported:

“At the start of his televised speech Wednesday, Hezbollah Secretary General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said he would not respond to comments made by U.S. President Donald Trump during his meeting with Prime Minister Saad Hariri earlier in the week, so as not to embarrass the Lebanese delegation to Washington.”

In reference to the ongoing battles, Hassan Nasrallah proclaimed:

“The objective is to have the armed groups that Nusra control exit from Lebanon to Syria… This is a righteous battle … anyone who is hesitant can ask the people [starting in Hermel] who used to have rockets rain down on them … and behind them all of Bekaa. Let them ask in the areas that suffered [the deaths of] martyrs from car bomb attacks and the areas who were on the verge of being targeted. Let him ask these questions of himself…”

“We took the decision. This is not an Iranian decision; it’s not Iran that told Hezbollah … it is not a Syrian decision, not even in Flita. We called the Syrian leadership and asked them for their help in this area because they had priorities elsewhere … this is an internal decision.”

The speech was concluded by a clear message of defiance and confidence, sent across the ocean to the United States:

“Our people today are afraid of no one … not a [Donald] Trump, or a [George] Bush or a [Barack] Obama or [Ariel] Sharon.”

The balance of power in the Middle East is rapidly changing. The West is discredited, and so are several of its allies. The involvement of Russia and to some extent China, has reassured various regional powers and movements that are fighting, directly or indirectly against both Western occupations and interventions. Countries located as far away as Afghanistan, are watching closely, with great interest.

Andre Vltchek is philosopher, novelist, filmmaker and investigative journalist. He’s a creator of Vltchek’s World in Word and Images, a writer of revolutionary novel Aurora and several other books. He writes especially for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook.”

All images in this article are from the author.

In a further sign of US preparations for war against North Korea, the Pentagon’s top general is currently in South Korea for talks with the country’s president and leading military officials before visiting Beijing and Tokyo.

“As a military leader, I have to make sure that the [US] president does have viable military options in the event that the diplomatic and economic pressurization campaign fails,” Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman General Joe Dunford told the media yesterday from Osan Air Base.

“Even as we develop those options, we are mindful of the consequences of executing these options,” Dunford added, saying this added to the sense of urgency in ensuring a diplomatic solution.

Dunford last month said that while a war with North Korea would involve “a loss of life unlike any we have experienced in our lifetimes,” it was “not unimaginable.”

The US and South Korean militaries are about to conduct another round of joint war games that will again fuel tensions on the Korean Peninsula. The annual Ulchi-Freedom Guardian drills, which will run from August 21 to August 31, have already drawn criticism from North Korea. Tens of thousands of American and South Korean troops are expected to take part in training for a war with North Korea.

Japan is also conducting joint military exercises with the US in the next few weeks. The Defence Ministry informed the media that the Japanese military was also deploying a US-supplied land-based missile interception system, known as a PAC-3, to four different locations in Japan.

Top Trump administration officials yesterday attempted to play down the danger of nuclear war with North Korea in the wake of President Trump’s stream of highly provocative and reckless remarks last week threatening to take military action against the small, impoverished nation.

CIA Director Mike Pompeo

While defending Trump’s threat to engulf North Korea in “fire and fury like the world has never seen,” CIA Director Mike Pompeo told Fox News Sunday:

“I’ve heard folks talking about that we’re on the cusp of a nuclear war. I’ve seen no intelligence that would indicate that we’re in that place today.”

As well as being completely unconvincing, the very fact that Pompeo felt compelled to downplay the prospect of an imminent nuclear war indicates that the matter is being actively discussed within high-level White House and military circles.

Moreover, advanced plans and preparations have already been made. As Trump tweeted last week:

“Military solutions are now fully in place, locked and loaded, should North Korea act unwisely. Hopefully [North Korean leader] Kim Jong-un will find another path!”

National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster took a similar tack to Pompeo, declaring that Trump’s threats were simply to remove any “ambiguity” about what to expect if Pyongyang continued to threaten the US. Speaking Sunday on ABC’s “This Week” interview program, he declared:

“I think we’re not closer to war than a week ago, but we are closer to war than we were a decade ago.”

McMaster warned that the US was prepared militarily to deal with North Korea if necessary, but added:

“We have a very high degree of readiness, so the United States military is always locked and loaded, but the purpose of capable, ready forces is to preserve peace and prevent war.”

While indicating divisions within the Trump administration, the remarks of Pompeo and McMaster are hardly reassuring. Trump’s inflammatory threats have become a factor in exacerbating tensions and the danger that even a small incident, either deliberate or accidental, could trigger a conflict that spirals out of control.

North Korea, which has been boxed into a corner, can only conclude based on Trump’s rhetoric that it confronts the danger of an imminent US attack unless it accedes to Washington’s demands. An abject capitulation, which would only lead to new American demands, would further destabilise the already unstable regime.

In response to Trump’s threats, Pyongyang has lashed out with its own warnings in a desperate bid to stall any US attack. Last week, the state media KCNA reported that the country’s military leaders were preparing a proposal to present to Kim Jong-un to fire four intermediate-range missiles into the sea off the American territory of Guam, home to key US military bases.

The instability in Pyongyang, however, is matched by that in Washington, where Trump is facing ferocious political infighting over allegations that his election campaign team colluded with Moscow. Amid a deepening economic and social crisis embroiling the US, the possibility of Trump plunging the world into war in a bid to divert internal tensions cannot be ruled out.

The Wall Street Journal yesterday cited military officials as saying that a US pre-emptive strike on North Korea “remains unlikely,” but then noted:

“Persuading Mr. Trump of a certain course of action typically requires advisers to make the argument repeatedly, officials have said. Military advisers who don’t believe in a pre-emptive strike know they will have to keep the president convinced that the US would be unwise to take that approach.”

In the final analysis, it is Trump who has the power to order an attack, including with nuclear weapons, on North Korea. Moreover, he has the backing of powerful sections of the American ruling elite that regard the removal of the Pyongyang regime as a necessary part of a broader strategy of undermining and subordinating China.

In a phone call with Trump over the weekend, Chinese President Xi Jinping again called for restraint on both sides—in Pyongyang and Washington—and declared that China was willing to work with the US to push for an “appropriate solution.” Beijing is calling for a freeze on North Korean weapons testing and also on joint US-South Korean military exercises—something Washington has repeatedly rejected.

Former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger

Commenting in the Wall Street Journal last Friday, former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger warned:

“Unilateral pre-emptive military action by the US would involve a risk of conflict with China. Beijing, even if it temporarily acquiesced, would not long abide an American strategy of determining by itself outcomes at the very edge of China’s heartland, as its intervention in the Korean War of the 1950s demonstrated.”

Even if a means is found to pull back from the brink of war, Trump’s incendiary threats have fundamentally altered the calculus of geopolitics, not only in North East Asia but internationally. He has made clear to allies and rivals alike that the US is willing, to use the phrase of Cold War nuclear strategists, to “think the unthinkable”—that is, plan for and launch a nuclear war. Every other power will now be forced to rethink its own military strategy, greatly heightening the danger of a catastrophic world war.

VISIT MY NEW WEB SITE: stephenlendman.org (Home – Stephen Lendman). Contact at [email protected].

Trump is the latest in a long line of US warrior presidents, a war party president like his predecessors, continuing America’s war on humanity – using an inordinate amount of the nation’s resources on militarism, mass slaughter and destruction.

He’s currently at war in multiple theaters, threatening more on North Korea, Iran by illegal sanctions and sabotaging the nuclear agreement, risking confrontation with Russia and China, along with a “military option” against Venezuela at his discretion.

His hawkish rhetoric ignited a firestorm in Latin America. Venezuelan Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino called his suggestion of possible military action “a crazy act, an act of supreme extremism,” adding:

“There is an extremist elite in the US government, and I really don’t know what is happening and what will happen in the world. If humanity will end. If planet Earth will end.”

Former Venezuelan Foreign Minister/current Constituent Assembly president Delcy Rodriguez called his remarks “cowardly, insolent and vile threats.”

“The anti-imperialist people of Venezuela (reject his) insults and aggressions.”

Foreign Minister Jorge Arreasa denounced Trump, saying

“Venezuela rejects (his) unfriendly and hostile statements…”

His “reckless threats…are designed to draw Latin America and the Caribbean into a conflict that will irrevocably violate stability, peace and security in our region.”

Ecuador denounced Trump’s comments, expressing solidarity with the Bolivarian Republic.

Bolivia’s Evo Morales tweeted:

“We condemn US armed intervention against Venezuela, a country that seeks peace in a Constitutional dialogue and regional election.”

Mercosur countries Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay “repudiat(ed) violence and any option that implies the use of force…”

Colombia, Chile and Peru made similar statements. Washington still thinks of Latin and Central America as its backyard. Colonial thinking never fades.

Despite overwhelming hemispheric opposition to US war on Venezuela, Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Panama, Paraguay and Peru issued a disgraceful Lima Declaration, turning truth on its head, stating “Venezuela is no longer a democracy.”

It came in response to its democratically elected Constituent Assembly – established to revise or rewrite the nation’s constitution, aiming to restore order and preserve Bolivarian social democracy.

President Maduro blasted US arrogance, its aim to dominate, to control world resources, exploit people everywhere, demand subservience from all nations.

Will Trump order military intervention to oust Venezuela’s government? Given his rage for wars, anything is possible.

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.

Trump’s threats against Venezuela escalated recently from the economic to the military: after announcing sanctions he threatened that all military options were “on the table.” Trump’s actions were perfectly timed to lend support to the U.S.-backed opposition in Venezuela, whose ongoing violent rebellion aims to topple the government of democratically elected President Nicolas Maduro.

The apex of violence was focused on stopping the recent elections to the National Constituent Assembly (ANC), convened by President Maduro to rewrite Venezuela’s constitution with the goal of resolving the current social-economic crisis.   

The ANC was tasked to become the most powerful governmental body while in session. Part of Maduro’s motivation in convening the ANC was to break the political deadlock that started when the U.S.-backed opposition gained control of the Venezuelan parliament, the National Assembly.   

The wealthy opposition promised to prevent the ANC elections from taking place, while Trump promised economic sanctions if the ANC election wasn’t cancelled. The other usual suspects of Latin American counter-revolution also condemned the ANC elections: Spain, the Vatican, and the Organization of American States (OAS) were among other governmental and western NGOs that denounced the ANC, since they recognized that the U.S.-backed opposition would be deflated if the ANC were successful.     

The western media that condemned the ANC elections has consistently failed to condemn the ongoing street violence by the U.S.-backed opposition, who used attacks on voting centers, roadblocks, economic sabotage and “general strikes” to prevent the election from taking place.

But the elections happened, and the unexpectedly high turnout rattled the nerves of the opposition, who didn’t expect the traditional base of Chavismo — the working and poor — would come out by the millions to support a broad diversity of candidates within the Chavismo Left.  

The Chavismo Base Revived, For Now

The international media covering the election took zero notice of the enthusiasm from Venezuela’s poorest neighborhoods. A U.S. labor delegation that travelled to Venezuela to witness the elections was impressed by the broad participation and long lines at various voting centers in poor neighborhoods. SEIU 1199 Executive Vice President Estela Vasquez made notice of the lack of western media attention:   

“One thing that I did think was significant is that I didn’t see any international media. No reporters from the New York Times, no cameras from CNN, no cameras from Fox Television, or any other international media… covering the poor working class neighborhoods that are the backbone of this revolutionary process in this country,”

The enthusiasm for the election that Vasquez noticed was echoed by a prominent left critic of Maduro, Stalin Perez Borges, who said:  

“July 30 [the election] was also a tsunami within the ranks of Chavismo that propelled even those who are unhappy with the government to participate and send a message to the domestic and international right that we have not yet surrendered to imperialism nor are we willing to kneel before the neoliberal plans that the politicians and economists of the [opposition] have prepared for us…the [election] result has led to a recuperation of confidence as a social force, and provided a glimpse of the possibility for Chavismo to once again be able to call itself the majority.”

Because the opposition boycotted the elections, the ANC consists overwhelmingly of representatives of the left, where there lives a diversity of revolutionary political opinion. A third of the ANC was specifically reserved for representatives of trade unions, communal councils, indigenous groups, farmers, students, and pensioners, all sectors that have been radicalized by their experience under Chavez and by the violent actions of the opposition.    

The class basis of the Constituent Assembly — the poor and working class — provides hope that this governmental body can provide real revolutionary initiative to resolve key issues that have been demoralizing the Chavismo ranks while empowering the wealthy opposition.

The ANC will not fix every problem and it will likely not usher in a socialist economy, but radical measures can precipitate a revolutionary dynamic that carries with it a logic of its own. The left in Venezuela is more dynamic than the Stalinist images accorded to it by the western media and U.S. Left.   

Ultimately, the very convening of the ANC means that Maduro has moved to the left; and it was this leftward shift that provoked enthusiasm from the Chavismo rank and file. Convening the ANC surprised everyone and carried enormous political risks, especially in the middle of an opposition uprising backed by U.S. imperialism: if the masses did not participate in the elections the government would be exposed as lacking a broad social base, and such a weakness would have been instantly exploited by the Trump-supported opposition. But Maduro proved that he has a bit of Chavez in him yet, having correctly predicted that the masses would consider the ANC as a revolutionary tool to be used against the oligarchy.

Much of the international left has either not recognized Maduro’s shift to the left or not realized its significance. Their error is rooted in a misunderstanding of the Venezuelan revolution, which has always been a contradictory movement rooted in the poorest neighborhoods of Venezuela, yet reflected through a bureaucratic prism at the top; a process that under Chavez retained, at times, a call and responsive dynamic that propelled the base to take action, which, in turn resulted in more pressure on the leadership to move left. Such a fluctuating, complicated phenomenon is difficult to pigeonhole, and requires a more nuanced analysis than the intellectually lazy “pox on both houses” approach that has long-infected the U.S. left.    

It’s true that there are powerful sections of Maduro’s bureaucracy who plan to use the ANC simply to out-maneuver the wealthy opposition and maintain their power and, if possible, to strike a deal with the opposition should the opportunity arise. Such a betrayal would, in effect, mark the end of Chavismo and prepare the ground for total victory of the opposition.    

But the victory of the bureaucrats in the ANC isn’t a foregone conclusion, as some cynics on the left would have you believe. Maduro doesn’t command Chavez’s authority; he lacks the charisma and he’s been lacking in revolutionary initiative. The divisions within Chavismo’s upper layers opens up further opportunities for the impatient ranks that can push the project forward against the will of even the more conservative sections of leadership.     

The job of the international left is to highlight the possibilities, amplify the program of the revolutionary wing and to educate people internationally about what’s at stake in order to reduce the interventionist options of Trump’s imperialism.

The majority of left analysis regarding the Venezuelan crisis fails at these basic tasks, focusing wasted energy on Maduro’s shortcomings while proposing nothing of substance to win the fight in progress. The ranks of Chavismo need concrete solutions not endless denunciations.

The central question is not whether one is pro-Maduro or pro-opposition, the question is “how do the revolutionary forces resolve the current crisis” and “what strategy should revolutionaries deploy?” Most of the left has nothing to say about these basic questions, while refusing to even discuss the relevance of the Constituent Assembly.  

The working class in Venezuela recognizes that their fate depends on the outcome of the current struggle; they are in a fight for their lives and hope to use the Constituent Assembly as a weapon. The slogan “No Volveran” remains a revolutionary demand of Chavismo that declares the oligarchy will never return to power. But unless bold action is taken to drive the revolution forward the victory of the opposition is inevitable, and such a nightmare is currently trying to kick in the front door.

False Solutions From the Left

The current intensified class fight cannot be wished away, it’s based on the material conditions embedded in the economy: the unfulfilled needs of the working poor versus the opposition’s demand to retake the state apparatus and privatize public resources. The two sides cannot “make peace” with another round of elections or negotiations, yet this is exactly what many pro-revolution analysts are promoting as “solutions” to the crisis.  

One such mistake can be found in the analysis of Carlos Carcione from Marea Socialista, a grouping who until recently was in coalition with the other socialist parties inside of the ruling United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV).

The analysis put forward by Carcione contains some important critiques of Maduro’s government, but a key error is his “solution” to the crisis, which was put forward at the end of a recent interview:

“…the only democratic road, which cannot be captured by either of the two elites [Maduro’s government and the opposition] that are instigating violence, is the struggle to renew the Constitution of 1999.”

The demand to “renew the Constitution” is a talking point taken directly from the wealthy opposition. To renew the Constitution means to disband the Constituent Assembly and carry on with the electoral process on its normal timeline, as if a life or death crisis wasn’t engulfing the nation that requires revolutionary action now. It’s as if Carcione believes that erasing the ANC would be a “pause button” to the conflict.

Such a “demand” will find zero resonance in the Chavismo rank and file; they’ve voted more in recent decades than any other population in the world, and their voting for the Constituent Assembly was itself a showcase of democracy that Carcione oddly fails to recognize as important or legitimate.    

The demand to “renew the Constitution” also fails to acknowledge that the opposition is skillfully using the elections to the National Assembly to retake power and undermine the government, by exacerbating the crisis and talking openly of overthrowing Maduro.

Elections to the National Assembly have become the path to power for the oligarchy, while a more directly democratic path has emerged with the Constituent Assembly elections, an infinitely more representative body than the National Assembly with actual capabilities of taking revolutionary action.   

Ultimately one’s attitude towards the situation in Venezuela shouldn’t be decided by legal or so called democratic norms, but by which actions promote the interests of the working class and poor and push the revolution forward.  

A similar non-solution to the crisis was put forth by Eva Gollinger, a longtime promoter of Chavismo who has been an increasingly vocal critic of Maduro. Gollinger’s critique of Maduro is often spot on, but her solution falls into the fantasy realm, where both sides realize they’re guilty of excess and thus agree to dampen the rhetoric for the good of the country:    

“Voices of moderation need to emerge without fear of being branded traitors or opportunists, as has been happening to anyone publicly criticizing the government or opposition. The opposition leadership and its international backers must immediately condemn all violence….The opposition must accept the legitimacy of President Maduro and his administration and allow him to fulfill his presidential term, which ends in 2019. In return, the parliament should be allowed to assume its full mandate without further obstacles. Fair elections overseen by an independent electoral council should be held within the timeframe stipulated by law instead of being manipulated by political parties or foreign pressure.”  

Gollinger certainly has good intentions, but her “solutions” are daydreams that ignore the material interests radicalizing both sides: the ranks of Chavismo need radical solutions to the crisis and the U.S. backed opposition will continue to take radical, right-wing action to regain state power. There hasn’t been a “reasonable middle ground” between these two extremes in decades, if ever, in Venezuela.  

Revolutions are notoriously absent of moderation. Chavez himself was accused of being an extremist every time he took action against the oligarchy, which earned him the love and respect of the broader population in Venezuela and inspired revolutionary movements across the hemisphere.   

Maduro’s moderation is precisely what has demoralized his base and empowered the U.S.-backed opposition. The working class of Venezuela does not have moderate demands, they require revolutionary action against their class enemies before the wealthy regains the state power to use against them. Moderate actions cannot attack the drastic inequality that pervades Venezuela to this day.  

The left “demand” to renew the Constitution is a return to a dead end: one of the limitations of Chavismo was the over reliance on a representative democracy, as opposed to direct democracy. The energy of the revolution was funneled into constant electioneering, and the representative system wasn’t representative enough, allowing politicians to be unaccountable to the movement that opened the door to careerism, while the slower moving legislative system allowed the demoralization to creep in.  

The Constituent Assembly is a legitimate tool of revolution that can be used or wasted. Wishing for the return of the conditions that precipitated the crisis is an odd “solution.” The opposition chose to boycott the ANC elections because they hoped for a U.S.-backed coup. Let their miscalculation be their undoing.

What actions should the Constituent Assembly take?

Instead of warning incessantly of authoritarianism the left should be advocating revolutionary solutions: ones that stem the power of both the oligarchy and Chavismo upper-bureaucrats, a “revolution within the revolution.” Divisions among Chavismo’s leadership make such a scenario possible, and it’s desperately needed.  

Agitational demands from the Chavismo base in a time of flux can move mountains. Economic solutions that incorporate more socialist policies at the expense of the oligarchy-controlled private sector are also crucial to advancing the revolution, since the capitalists have used their ownership over important economic sectors — like food production — to sabotage the economy.  

Some of the below demands have been discussed in different sectors of the Chavismo left, and may find expression in the Constituent Assembly if left groups organize effectively. Ultimately demands that empower the working class at the expense of the oligarchy have the potential to inspire the broader population to action, keeping the revolutionary flame lit:

1. Remove the economic power of the oligarchy by nationalizing the sectors of the economy that have been used in economic sabotage, especially food production, the banking sector and international trade.  

2. Strategically default on the foreign debt repayments that are bankrupting the nation, so that the money can be used for basic necessities and rebuilding the economy. The high interest debt repayments are shifting billions of dollars from the Venezuelan state into the pockets of rich foreign investors.  

3. Fully fund and expand the key victories of Chavismo: education, health care, pensions, and housing while increasing the power of localities to administer these programs. Ensure that wages are rising above inflation for all wage workers. Pay for these initiatives by drastically raising taxes on capital gains, property, inheritance, and other oligarchy-targeted measures.  

4. Jail the oligarchs who promote street violence and participate in economic sabotage. A longstanding demandamong the Chavismo ranks is to take a firmer hand with an opposition who’s grown accustomed to no consequences for violent behavior.

5.  Attack corruption of black market dollar profiteering by nationalizing foreign trade.

6. No reconciliation with the oligarchy and their patron, U.S. imperialism. Any “deal” cut by the opposition will be intended to stall the revolutionary process and require economic concessions that come at the expense of the Chavismo base. The opposition has proven that they will never accept a government they don’t directly control. With each new uprising they test the resolve of the government and its popular support, and when this support dissipates a successful coup — either militarily or legislative — is inevitable.  

7. Use the National Constituent Assembly as a weapon of the revolution by taking the above actions while expanding direct democracy, enshrining increased constitutional power of communal councils, labor unions and other social-political bodies of the Chavismo rank and file to directly exercise state power.       

If the ANC doesn’t take bold actions soon, the new constitution won’t survive the national referendum vote. And if the Chavismo rank and file don’t see a pathway to a better, more stable life with the ANC they will abstain, and the U.S.-backed opposition will have an unobstructed path to power.  

Another reason the ANC needs to take radical action immediately is the upcoming gubernatorial elections that the opposition plans to participate in. These elections can be easily won by the left if the ANC takes swift action that inspires people to the polls.    

Conclusion

Time is short. The ANC gave itself two years to fulfill its mission, but the enthusiasm generated by the election will fade quickly if revolutionary action isn’t forthcoming, or if the masses conclude that the new legislative body is content on maintaining the current balance of power instead of smashing it. Maduro’s bureaucratic/administrative maneuvers have outlived their usefulness, and projecting this strategy onto the ANC will transfer the disease of demoralization onto an otherwise healthy body.  

The several co-occurring crises in Venezuela require a shift of power to the masses at the expense of the capitalists: any action that the ANC takes that promotes this while encouraging the self-activity of the working class will help refresh the cycle of bottom-up activity that flourished under Chavez but has waned under Maduro.   

The street violence of the U.S.-backed opposition that has killed over 100 people and included two coup attempts will not subside on its own, especially when Trump has prioritized Venezuela for regime change. Successive U.S. presidents have understood the special “threat” to imperialism that Venezuela has posed, even if much of the left doesn’t. Defeating Trump requires that Venezuelans move towards socialism, while requiring that socialists in the U.S. actively support this movement.    

If the new constitution is a lifeless document it will fail the referendum vote and catapult the opposition into power. However, if the path to the constitution is full of revolutionary action the people will respond enthusiastically, and the broader hemisphere will be re-infected by the revolutionary energy that originally birthed the “pink tide.”

But the pink tide politics that eschewed western imperialism and neoliberalism has reached its ideological limits, demanding deep socialist inroads against the capitalists who’ve frustrated the project. A “red tide” can rejuvenate the revolutionary forces across the hemisphere and easily drown out the recent victories of various counter-revolutions. Venezuela remains the focal point of hemispheric revolution, to be won or lost, supported or ignored.  

Shamus Cooke is a social service worker, trade unionist, and writer for Workers Action (www.workerscompass.org). He can be reached at [email protected].

Featured image is from tux0racer | CC BY 2.0.

First published in December 2015

With the 115 year old tradition of the annual Army-Navy football classic on Saturday [December 2015], the so called “America’s game” and “rivalry for the ages” is now once again upon us. This occasion never fails to pay reverent homage to America’s so called “cream of the crop” elitist military academies and always from the president to celebrities Americans give tribute to our armed forces. At this time we hear that familiar patriotic mantra “support our troops” mindlessly repeated. So it seems appropriate now to take a cold hard look to examine what it actually means to “support our troops.”

As both a West Point graduate and critic of the American Empire, to me the “support our troops” sentiment has long outworn its propagandized welcome. US Empire has been using that contrite expression to brainwash Americans and justify its wars and violence for far too long. It sprang up during this last decade’s protracted war losses in Iraq and Afghanistan. Never was it ever heard during the Vietnam War when our combat veterans returned home feeling defeated and suffering from untreated PTSD symptoms, shunned by a nation that had bitterly turned against them and their war, particularly by their own peer group. Fast forward to four decades and three war defeats later, and our government is still sending Americans off to fight and die inAfghanistan (9800 currently) and Iraq (3500 with another 100 on the way), and now inSyria (50 just proposed with more on the way while war-hawk Bobbsy twins McCain and Graham are calling for 20,000 more troops in Syria). But this century’s wars we keep hearing red, white and blue, flag waving Americans urging us to “support our troops.”

Over the long haul, supporting our troops has resulted in the United States being the most warring, aggressive nation on earth, bar none. As we’re about to enter 2016, our ultraviolent country will be killing other human beings somewhere on this planet for 223 out of the last 240 total years the US has been in existence. That’s 93% of our time as a nation-turned-Empire we’ve been destroying human life. That’s certainly nothing to be proud of. Yet it’s “our troops” who’ve been the murdering culprit. No compassionate, rational person could possibly place blindly obedient support behind such rampantly wanton disregard and contempt for fellow human life.

Another fact that Americans can’t be proud of is knowing that the most warring nation on earth just since World War II alone has murdered up to 30 million people around the globe with an estimated 90% of them being civilians. Having initiated 201 out of the total of 240 armed conflicts from the end of WWII to 2001, it then follows that between those years the US Empire of Chaos and Destruction has murdered 27 million innocent people whose lives have tragically been cut short through no fault of their own for simply living in the wrong place at the wrong time belonging to the wrong ethnic nationality targeted by America’s full spectrum dominance and global superpower hegemony. And that was before the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

And what does it take to be targeted as a US foreign enemy? Any country whose leaders choose to support their own citizens’ well-being, independence and quality of life over US Empire’s fascist transnational corporate interests is attacked economically through sanctions and embargos, politically through propaganda lies and threats, or militarily though unnatural disasters/weather warfare, occupied invasions involving long term bloody conflict or acts of terrorism, coups and assassinations. Just ask Cuba, Venezuela, Haiti, Panama, Iran, Syria, Iraq, Libya, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, Sudan, Congo North Korea, Donbas, Palestine or Russia just to name more than a dozen.

People around the world have been victimized for well over a century by American Empire’s willful rape and pillage of their lands in the name of stolen natural resources and inhumane forced slave labor, and those are the nations whose puppet dictators willingly succumbed and acquiesced to US demands and pressures. In fact in the tradition of the British Empire, North America’s entire domestic and foreign history has been made of genocidal killing, enslaving, stealing and subjugating other darker-skinned races into death and submission. Given this context with the bigger picture perspective, “supporting our troops” is really supporting mass murder around the world. So bearing that sobering, grim reality in mind, it’s time for Americans to cease and desist with their jingoistic rah-rah that only adds insult to injury to the rest of the victimized world.

In 2008 the US spent more money every 5 seconds to wage an immoral, unlawful war in Iraq than the average working American earned all year long. 80% of America’s taxes are earmarked towards funding the annual Pentagon budget to wage war around the world. When that kind of war investment misappropriating US citizenry’s hard-earned tax dollars places such lopsided priority over the well-being of its own people, with over a decade of wearing down an overextended military forced into fighting three, four and even five consecutive combat tours on two simultaneous warfronts, it also overburdened and decimated America’s middle class. And now for the first time in nearly a half century, the US middle class is no longer a majority in the United States. A large chunk of it died when sinking into an expanding lower class of impoverished, poverty-stricken Americans barely making ends meet.

But considering the costs of war to victim nations where since 2003 the US has killed over a million people in Iraq alone, this figure released from a study earlier this year is admittedly a conservative estimate. The study concludes that up to two million in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan have been killed by America’s wars. These colossal crimes against humanity constitute supporting the US federal government as well as its military troops a moral crime. America’s complete and utter destruction of the world’s second and third largest oil producers in Iraq and Libya, turning them into failed states because their one time US allied leaders moved away from the US petrodollaris unconscionable, yet that’s the tragic outcome of blindly supporting our troops. More than any other single country, the US today is responsible for allowing ISIS to make billions in profit from stolen oil from Iraq and Syria financing the biggest terrorist group on the planet. And US partners-in-crime Turkey and Israel are the two biggest buyers of terrorist oil. So in effect supporting our troops is also supporting both crimes against humanity as well as worldwide terrorism.

Supporting our troops has contributed to the world becoming far more armed and dangerous today than at any prior time in our recorded human history. Our nation is also responsible for spearheading the biggest arms race in history where it’s not just the US Empire spending so many billions on weapons of mass destruction but due to Empire aggression it has forced Russia and China to answer by also significantly increasing their military spending. A dozen years ago the US defense budget nearly equaled the rest of the world combined. But during this century’s two protracted US wars plus smaller secret ones around the world, America’s military expenditures have soared to $682 billion in 2012 from $417.4 in 2003.

he exponential rise of American aggression likewise has pressured the unilaterally declared US enemies Russia and China to significantly increase their military spending as well. The US has gone from spending near half (46%) of the world’s military amount in 2003 to just 35% in 2014due to Russia and China dramatically expanding their military budgets. In fact following America’s lead, both the world’s annual arms sales as well as its military budgets have exponentially skyrocketed amongst dozens of countries all seemingly gearing up for “the big one.” Not surprisingly, at 31% the US is also the biggest arms dealer on the planet followed by Russia’s 27% with China accounting for 5% during the period from 2010-2014 that totaled a 16% increase from arms sold from 2005-2009.

Events and developments have escalated tensions and confrontations between the US and Russia and China in recent weeks. With the US backing NATO memberTurkey recklessly shooting down a Russian fighter jet resulting in a Russian rescue helicopter also brought down last month, in addition to the probable ISIS bomb taking down the Russian airliner killing all 224 onboard a month and a half ago, the US Navy destroyer skirting inside the twelve nautical mile range of built up Chinese islands in the South China Sea, the United States and the West appear to be baiting Putin and the East into World War III. And with nuclear powers going directly head-to-head in Syria, Ukraine and Asia, self-annihilation of the human race becomes a very real and grave risk culminating after a quarter century of US Empire belligerently operating as the sole global superpower and “global village” bully.

Out of nearly 200 countries no other nation on earth has more than a few military bases outside its own country except the United States. In contrast to the rest of the world, the US sends 1.5 million military occupiers on active duty to over a thousand military installations on every continent throughout the globe. Just this week the Pentagon announced a worldwide expansion of military bases without specifying a total number under the auspices of secrecy. West Africa, East Africa and Afghanistan are slotted for full scale bases. Meanwhile US Special Forces that covertly operate by stealth surprise often at night in guerilla-type, fast strike operations are busily secretly committing acts of terror in over 135 nations globally, that’s about 75% of the all world’s nations.

Let’s look at the way our federal government supports our troops. After sending over6800 US soldiers (along with 7000 civilian contractors) to their early graves fighting in America’s two longest running wars in the nation’s history, leaving one million wounded personnel filing VA claims ranging from life threatening physical injuries to emotionally crippling PTSD traumas and scars, the feds have betrayed our patriots serving our country by treasonously targeting all returning combat veterans as thebiggest enemy threat on American soil. Indeed veterans, gun owners and dissidents are deemed to pose a greater danger than even the feds’ own created terrorist monster ISIS that Obama’s open border policy facilitates easy access to establishing terrorist cells inside America.

Those veterans seeking help are customarily snowed under by lethal Big Pharma poison, fast becoming addicted and even more unstable. Many are haplessly waiting and dying on lists for medical services that often don’t come soon enough. Exposing forty veterans who died awaiting services on invisible lists at the Phoenix VA hospital alone triggered a major scandal last year. For several years running on averagetwenty-two veterans have been killing themselves each and every day in the United States. The overloaded Veterans Administration has been caught grossly ill-prepared to adequately deal with the sheer enormity of the problem with so many severely damaged ex-soldiers in dire need of long term assistance and care. One study predicts that up to nearly a half million veterans will end up with criminal cases in the court system.

With nearly half (44%) of Congress millionaires and so few (19%) ever serving in uniform now, the DC warmongers are ever-at-the-ready to send young men and women from America’s lower class into harm’s way fighting Obama’s dirty little secret wars in multiple combat zones around the world that the public never even hears about. Yet you’ll see next to none of their own sons or daughters fighting in some far off war. The way our own government has used, abused and not supported our troops is despicable.

And then a sizeable percentage of those Americans who are so vocal in their claims of “supporting our troops,” are too frequently disingenuous. Often hypocrites merely mouth the same banal platitudes year after year from their ivory-towered, pretend world, living so far removed and disaffected from actual war conditions or even knowing anyone who wears a military uniform. Never fathoming the tragic insanity or bloody lifelong consequences that US wars ravage on millions worldwide, permanently damaging all involved, Americans who haven’t a clue will glibly pay lip service, “We owe so much to our soldiers who fight to keep us safe and free.” What bubble, planet or century are they living on or in?

Since the inside coup of 9/11 was perpetrated, US citizens have become the murderous neocons’ war on terror victims as well, terrorized by their own international crime cabal government and militarized police state that’s effectively stolen their freedom and civil liberties while the guilty treasonously continue violating sworn oaths to uphold and protect both the Constitution and American people. Yet too many brainwashed, dumbed down and clueless in America don’t seem to get it. Maybe it’s because they’re bombarded 24/7 by MSM lies and disinformation that never expose the ugliness of war as it really is. The ruling elite controls all aspects of mass media, engaging in widespread censorship of films, television and video games whereviolence and war are only glorified. Military, CIA and FBI liaisons control every aspect of what comes out of Hollywood these days.

But over four decades of a volunteer army comprised of less than half of one percent of the total US population also contributes greatly to the widening disconnect between the 99+% civilian population and the less than 1% Americans in uniform. The atrocities and horror that the imperialistic Empire’s killing machine has inflicted on Third World nations half a world away may as well be billions of miles away on another planet or galaxy. Out of sight, out of mind goes many civilians’ insulated, tunnel version reality.

Those currently in uniform need to be reminded that they have a sworn duty to protect America from domestic and foreign enemies. As citizens who no longer live in a democratic republic but now a totalitarian police state, they need to recognize that their federal government has a diabolical agenda to enslave and eliminate fellow Americans. Instead of criminalizing dissent, the real domestic enemy has become the federal government and all Americans need to accept this tragic development. Therefore, both those already in uniform as well as those ready to sign up and allow themselves to become their crime cabal’s latest cannon fodder in the elite’s wars need to stand up and be counted as patriots loyal to their nation and fellow citizens rather than adhere to blind obedience to their psychopathic masters. It’s no longer okay to support the troops when they’re misdirected into committing treason against their own citizenry. Military personnel need to take responsibility for their actions and do what’s right by both their Constitution as well as humanity.

2015 has been a tumultuous year when by globalist design terrorism has expanded to all corners of the earth, spreading death, war and destruction in its wake. Meanwhile, feeling its economic prowess slipping away in the face of the emerging power of Eastern rivals China and Russia, the United States government has already conceded losing its war to retain the US dollar as the world’s reserve currency.

So this late in the power elite’s endgame when we’re still hearing “support the troops,” in actuality it’s time to fight for our lives in support of humanity’s struggle for survival and good ultimately triumphing over evil.

Joachim Hagopian is a West Point graduate and former US Army officer. He has written a manuscript based on his unique military experience entitled “Don’t Let The Bastards Getcha Down.” It examines and focuses on US international relations, leadership and national security issues. After the military, Joachim earned a master’s degree in Clinical Psychology and worked as a licensed therapist in the mental health field for more than a quarter century. He now concentrates on his writing and has a blog site at http://empireexposed.blogspot.co.id/.

August 14, marks the end of World War II.

This article by Dr. Jacques Pauwels was published seven years ago.

If Donald Trump decides to wage a preemptive nuclear attack against North Korea, World War III would commence with a mushroom cloud.

The threat is real: the US contemplates waging war war on North Korea.

China and Russia have borders with North Korea.

A nuclear war against North Korea would be a prelude to a third World War.

How would World War III end. Would it have an ending?

In the words of Fidel Castro, “the collateral damage” of a nuclear war in the present context would be humanity in its entirety.

Michel Chossudovsky, 14 August 2017

*     *     *

“On Monday, August 6, 1945, at 8:15 AM, the nuclear bomb ‘Little Boy” was dropped on Hiroshima by an American B-29 bomber, the Enola Gay, directly killing an estimated 80,000 people. By the end of the year, injury and radiation brought total casualties to 90,000-140,000.”[1]

“On August 9, 1945, Nagasaki was the target of the world’s second atomic bomb attack at 11:02 a.m., when the north of the city was destroyed and an estimated 40,000 people were killed by the bomb nicknamed ‘Fat Man.’ The death toll from the atomic bombing totalled 73,884, as well as another 74,909 injured, and another several hundred thousand diseased and dying due to fallout and other illness caused by radiation.”[2]

In the European Theatre, World War II ended in early May 1945 with the capitulation of Nazi Germany. The “Big Three” on the side of the victors – Great Britain, the United States, and the Soviet Union – now faced the complex problem of the postwar reorganization of Europe. The United States had entered the war rather late, in December 1941, and had only started to make a truly significant military contribution to the Allied victory over Germany with the landings in Normandy in June 1944, less than one year before the end of the hostilities. When the war against Germany ended, however, Washington sat firmly and confidently at the table of the victors, determined to achieve what might be called its “war aims.”

As the country that had made the biggest contribution and suffered by far the greatest losses in the conflict against the common Nazi enemy, the Soviet Union wanted major reparation payments from Germany and security against potential future aggression, in the form of the installation in Germany, Poland and other Eastern European countries of governments that would not be hostile to the Soviets, as had been the case before the war. Moscow also expected compensation for territorial losses suffered by the Soviet Union at the time of the Revolution and the Civil War, and finally, the Soviets expected that, with the terrible ordeal of the war behind them, they would be able to resume work on the project of constructing a socialist society. The American and British leaders knew these Soviet aims and had explicitly or implicitly recognized their legitimacy, for example at the conferences of the Big Three in Tehran and Yalta. That did not mean that Washington and London were enthusiastic about the fact that the Soviet Union was to reap these rewards for its war efforts; and there undoubtedly lurked a potential conflict with Washington’s own major objective, namely, the creation of an “open door” for US exports and investments in Western Europe, in defeated Germany, and also in Central and Eastern Europe, liberated by the Soviet Union. In any event, American political and industrial leaders – including Harry Truman, who succeeded Franklin D. Roosevelt as President in the spring of 1945 – had little understanding, and even less sympathy, for even the most basic expectations of the Soviets. These leaders abhorred the thought that the Soviet Union might receive considerable reparations from Germany, because such a bloodletting would eliminate Germany as a potentially extremely profitable market for US exports and investments. Instead, reparations would enable the Soviets to resume work, possibly successfully, on the project of a communist society, a “counter system” to the international capitalist system of which the USA had become the great champion. America’s political and economic elite was undoubtedly also keenly aware that German reparations to the Soviets implied that the German branch plants of US corporations such as Ford and GM, which had produced all sorts of weapons for the Nazis during the war (and made a lot of money in the process[3]) would have to produce for the benefit of the Soviets instead of continuing to enrich US owners and shareholders.

Negotiations among the Big Three would obviously never result in the withdrawal of the Red Army from Germany and Eastern Europe before the Soviet objectives of reparations and security would be at least partly achieved. However, on April 25, 1945, Truman learned that the US would soon dispose of a powerful new weapon, the atom bomb. Possession of this weapon opened up all sorts of previously unthinkable but extremely favorable perspectives, and it is hardly surprising that the new president and his advisors fell under the spell of what the renowned American historian William Appleman Williams has called a “vision of omnipotence.”[4] It certainly no longer appeared necessary to engage in difficult negotiations with the Soviets: thanks to the atom bomb, it would be possible to force Stalin, in spite of earlier agreements, to withdraw the Red Army from Germany and to deny him a say in the postwar affairs of that country, to install “pro-western” and even anti-Soviet regimes in Poland and elsewhere in Eastern Europe, and perhaps even to open up the Soviet Union itself to American investment capital as well as American political and economic influence, thus returning this communist heretic to the bosom of the universal capitalist church.

At the time of the German surrender in May 1945, the bomb was almost, but not quite, ready. Truman therefore stalled as long as possible before finally agreeing to attend a conference of the Big Three in Potsdam in the summer of 1945, where the fate of postwar Europe would be decided. The president had been informed that the bomb would likely be ready by then – ready, that is, to be used as “a hammer,” as he himself stated on one occasion, that he would wave “over the heads of those boys in the Kremlin.”[5]  At the Potsdam Conference, which lasted from July 17 to August 2, 1945, Truman did indeed receive the long-awaited message that the atom bomb had been tested successfully on July 16 in New Mexico. As of then, he no longer bothered to present proposals to Stalin, but instead made all sorts of demands; at the same time he rejected out of hand all proposals made by the Soviets, for example concerning German reparation payments, including reasonable proposals based on earlier inter-Allied agreements. Stalin failed to display the hoped-for willingness to capitulate, however, not even when Truman attempted to intimidate him by whispering ominously into his ear that America had acquired an incredible new weapon. The Soviet sphinx, who had certainly already been informed about the American atom bomb, listened in stony silence. Somewhat puzzled, Truman concluded that only an actual demonstration of the atomic bomb would persuade the Soviets to give way. Consequently, no general agreement could be achieved at Potsdam. In fact, little or nothing of substance was decided there. “The main result of the conference,” writes historian Gar Alperovitz, “was a series of decisions to disagree until the next meeting.”[6]

In the meantime the Japanese battled on in the Far East, even though their situation was totally hopeless. They were in fact prepared to surrender, but they insisted on a condition, namely, that Emperor Hirohito would be guaranteed immunity. This contravened the American demand for an unconditional capitulation. In spite of this it should have been possible to end the war on the basis of the Japanese proposal. In fact, the German surrender at Reims three months earlier had not been entirely unconditional. (The Americans had agreed to a German condition, namely, that the armistice would only go into effect after a delay of 45 hours, a delay that would allow as many German army units as possible to slip away from the eastern front in order to surrender to the Americans or the British; many of these units would actually be kept ready – in uniform, armed, and under the command of their own officers – for possible use against the Red Army, as Churchill was to admit after the war.)[7] In any event, Tokyo’s sole condition was far from essential. Indeed, later – after an unconditional surrender had been wrested from the Japanese – the Americans would never bother Hirohito, and it was thanks to Washington that he was to be able to remain emperor for many more decades.[8]

The Japanese believed that they could still afford the luxury of attaching a condition to their offer to surrender because the main force of their land army remained intact, in China, where it had spent most of the war. Tokyo thought that it could use this army to defend Japan itself and thus make the Americans pay a high price for their admittedly inevitable final victory, but this scheme would only work if the Soviet Union stayed out of the war in the Far East; a Soviet entry into the war, on the other hand, would inevitably pin down the Japanese forces on the Chinese mainland. Soviet neutrality, in other words, permitted Tokyo a small measure of hope; not hope for a victory, of course, but hope for American acceptance of their condition concerning the emperor. To a certain extent the war with Japan dragged on, then, because the Soviet Union was not yet involved in it. Already at the Conference of the Big Three in Tehran in 1943, Stalin had promised to declare war on Japan within three months after the capitulation of Germany, and he had reiterated this commitment as recently as July 17, 1945, in Potsdam. Consequently, Washington counted on a Soviet attack on Japan by the middle of August and thus knew only too well that the situation of the Japanese was hopeless. (“Fini Japs when that comes about,” Truman confided to his diary, referring to the expected Soviet entry into the war in the Far East.)[9] In addition, the American navy assured Washington that it was able to prevent the Japanese from transferring their army from China in order to defend the homeland against an American invasion. Since the US navy was undoubtedly able to force Japan to its knees by means of a blockade, an invasion was not even necessary. Deprived of imported necessities such as food and fuel, Japan could be expected to beg to capitulate unconditionally sooner or later.

In order to finish the war against Japan, Truman thus had a number of very attractive options. He could accept the trivial Japanese condition with regard to immunity for their emperor; he could also wait until the Red Army attacked the Japanese in China, thus forcing Tokyo into accepting an unconditional surrender after all; or he could starve Japan to death by means of a naval blockade that would have forced Tokyo to sue for peace sooner or later. Truman and his advisors, however, chose none of these options; instead, they decided to knock Japan out with the atomic bomb. This fateful decision, which was to cost the lives of hundreds of thousands of people, mostly women and children, offered the Americans considerable advantages. First, the bomb might force Tokyo to surrender before the Soviets got involved in the war in Asia, thus making it unnecessary to allow Moscow a say in the coming decisions about postwar Japan, about the territories which had been occupied by Japan (such as Korea and Manchuria), and about the Far East and the Pacific region in general. The USA would then enjoy a total hegemony over that part of the world, something which may be said to have been the true (though unspoken) war aim of Washington in the conflict with Japan. It was in light of this consideration that the strategy of simply blockading Japan into surrender was rejected, since the surrender might not have been forthcoming until after – and possibly well after – the Soviet Union’s entry into the war. (After the war, the U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey stated that “certainly prior to 31 December 1945, Japan would have surrendered, even if the atomic bombs had not been dropped.”)[10]

As far as the American leaders were concerned, a Soviet intervention in the war in the Far East threatened to achieve for the Soviets the same advantage which the Yankees’ relatively late intervention in the war in Europe had produced for the United States, namely, a place at the round table of the victors who would force their will on the defeated enemy, carve occupation zones out of his territory, change borders, determine postwar social-economic and political structures, and thereby derive for themselves enormous benefits and prestige. Washington absolutely did not want the Soviet Union to enjoy this kind of input. The Americans were on the brink of victory over Japan, their great rival in that part of the world. They did not relish the idea of being saddled with a new potential rival, one whose detested communist ideology might become dangerously influential in many Asian countries. By dropping the atomic bomb, the Americans hoped to finish Japan off instantly and go to work in the Far East as cavalier seul, that is, without their victory party being spoiled by unwanted Soviet gate-crashers. Use of the atom bomb offered Washington a second important advantage. Truman’s experience in Potsdam had persuaded him that only an actual demonstration of this new weapon would make Stalin sufficiently pliable. Nuking a “Jap” city, preferably a “virgin” city, where the damage would be especially impressive, thus loomed useful as a means to intimidate the Soviets and induce them to make concessions with respect to Germany, Poland, and the rest of Central and Eastern Europe.

The atomic bomb was ready just before the Soviets became involved in the Far East. Even so, the nuclear pulverization of Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, came too late to prevent the Soviets from entering the war against Japan. Tokyo did not throw in the towel immediately, as the Americans had hoped, and on August 8, 1945 – exactly three months after the German capitulation in Berlin – the Soviets declared war on Japan. The next day, on August 9, the Red Army attacked the Japanese troops stationed in northern China. Washington itself had long asked for Soviet intervention, but when that intervention finally came, Truman and his advisors were far from ecstatic about the fact that Stalin had kept his word. If Japan’s rulers did not respond immediately to the bombing of Hiroshima with an unconditional capitulation, it may have been because they could not ascertain immediately that only one plane and one bomb had done so much damage. (Many conventional bombing raids had produced equally catastrophic results; an attack by thousands of bombers on the Japanese capital on March 9-10, 1945, for example, had actually caused more casualties than the bombing of Hiroshima.) In any event, it took some time before an unconditional capitulation was forthcoming, and on account of this delay the USSR did get involved in the war against Japan after all. This made Washington extremely impatient: the day after the Soviet declaration of war, on August 9, 1945, a second bomb was dropped, this time on the city of Nagasaki. A former American army chaplain later stated: “I am of the opinion that this was one of the reasons why a second bomb was dropped: because there was a rush. They wanted to get the Japanese to capitulate before the Russians showed up.”[11] (The chaplain may or may not have been aware that among the 75,000 human beings who were “instantaneously incinerated, carbonized and evaporated” in Nagasaki were many Japanese Catholics as well an unknown number of inmates of a camp for allied POWs, whose presence had been reported to the air command, to no avail.)[12] It took another five days, that is, until August 14, before the Japanese could bring themselves to capitulate. In the meantime the Red Army was able to make considerable progress, to the great chagrin of Truman and his advisors.

And so the Americans were stuck with a Soviet partner in the Far East after all. Or were they? Truman made sure that they were not, ignoring the precedents set earlier with respect to cooperation among the Big Three in Europe. Already on August 15, 1945, Washington rejected Stalin’s request for a Soviet occupation zone in the defeated land of the rising sun. And when on September 2, 1945, General MacArthur officially accepted the Japanese surrender on the American battleship Missouri in the Bay of Tokyo, representatives of the Soviet Union – and of other allies in the Far East, such as Great Britain, France, Australia, and the Netherlands – were allowed to be present only as insignificant extras, as spectators. Unlike Germany, Japan was not carved up into occupation zones. America’s defeated rival was to be occupied by the Americans only, and as American “viceroy” in Tokyo, General MacArthur would ensure that, regardless of contributions made to the common victory, no other power had a say in the affairs of postwar Japan.

Sixty-five years ago, Truman did not have to use the atomic bomb in order to force Japan to its knees, but he had reasons to want to use the bomb. The atom bomb enabled the Americans to force Tokyo to surrender unconditionally, to keep the Soviets out of the Far East and – last but not least – to force Washington’s will on the Kremlin in Europe also. Hiroshima and Nagasaki were obliterated for these reasons, and many American historians realize this only too well; Sean Dennis Cashman, for example, writes:

With the passing of time, many historians have concluded that the bomb was used as much for political reasons…Vannevar Bush [the head of the American center for scientific research] stated that the bomb “was also delivered on time, so that there was no necessity for any concessions to Russia at the end of the war”. Secretary of State James F. Byrnes [Truman’s Secretary of State] never denied a statement attributed to him that the bomb had been used to demonstrate American power to the Soviet Union in order to make it more manageable in Europe.[13]

Truman himself, however, hypocritically declared at the time that the purpose of the two nuclear bombardments had been “to bring the boys home,” that is, to quickly finish the war without any further major loss of life on the American side. This explanation was uncritically broadcast in the American media and it developed into a myth eagerly propagated by the majority of historians and media in the USA and throughout the “Western” world. That myth, which, incidentally, also serves to justify potential future nuclear strikes on targets such as Iran and North Korea, is still very much alive – just check your mainstream newspaper on August 6 and 9!

Jacques R. Pauwels, author of The Myth of the Good War: America in the Second World War, James Lorimer, Toronto, 2002

Notes
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hiroshima.

[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nagasaki.

[3] Jacques R. Pauwels, The Myth of the Good War: America in the Second World War, Toronto, 2002, pp. 201-05.

[4] William Appleman Williams, The Tragedy of American Diplomacy, revised edition, New York, 1962, p. 250.

[5] Quoted in Michael Parenti, The Anti-Communist Impulse, New York, 1969, p. 126.

[6] Gar Alperovitz Atomic Diplomacy: Hiroshima and Potsdam. The Use of the Atomic Bomb and the American Confrontation with Soviet Power, new edition, Harmondsworth, Middlesex, 1985 (original edition 1965), p. 223.

[7] Pauwels, op. cit., p. 143.

[8] Alperovitz, op. cit., pp. 28, 156.

[9] Quoted in Alperovitz, op. cit., p. 24.

[10] Cited in David Horowitz, From Yalta to Vietnam: American Foreign Policy in the Cold War, Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England, 1967, p. 53.

[11] Studs Terkel, “The Good War”: An Oral History of World War Two, New York, 1984, p. 535.

[12] Gary G. Kohls, “Whitewashing Hiroshima: The Uncritical Glorification of American Militarism,” http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig5/kohls1.html.
[13] Sean Dennis Cashman, , Roosevelt, and World War II, New York and London, 1989, p. 369.

United States president Donald Trump said of North Korea: “We want to talk about a country that has misbehaved for many, many years, decades…” [emphasis added]

Misbehaved? What constitutes this misbehavior by North Korea? Has it attacked any countries since the end of the warring¹ on the Korean Peninsula?

What about the US’ behavior since 1953? It has since gone on to attack, among others, Viet Nam, Grenada, Panama, Somalia, Haiti, ex-Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, and Syria. It begs the question: which country is the demonstrable threat to peace around the world? It would be egregiously euphemistic to describe US aggression as misbehaviors. Such acts are war crimes; for example, in 1986, the International Court of Justice found the US guilty of unlawful use of force in Nicaragua. The US rejected the ruling. More recently, a compelling case has been made charging the US with genocide in Iraq.²

But North Korea is building nuclear weapons and testing ICBMs. North Korea has an estimated 10 to 60 nukes, although there is still some doubt expressed about North Korean ICBMs being capable of reaching the continental US, of carrying a nuclear payload, or being capable of atmospheric reentry. As for the US, it has 1800 nukes, in Trump’s parlance, “locked and loaded.”

But forget all the puerile huffing and puffing emanating from the United States-North Korea brinksmanship. Why? Because there will be no nuclear launch or missile launch or other military attack. Why? Because to do so would be sheer lunacy.

The North Korea leadership, unless it has a death wish, will absolutely not initiate military violence. While it may engage in back-and-forth hyperbolic rhetoric, it will not provide the excuse for a reprisal that will devastate the country and destroy the government. North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and his political counsel know that to start a war would be lunatic and suicidal. As Vox notes:

“North Korea is more rational than you think: The assumption that the country is run by a lunatic is not only incorrect — it’s dangerous.”

The rationale political figures on the US side are aware of this as well.

Donald Trump sounds lunatic, but he can’t be considered suicidal in the conventional meaning of the word, as he’ll not be in the line of fire. However, to start a nuclear conflagration that leads to massive deaths of not only North Koreans but South Koreans, Japanese, and American military personnel in the region would be suicidal for Trump’s business interests. The devastation and fall-out among allies would render the Trump brand radioactive.

So no, there will not be a military response from either side. The American side could not emerge from initiating such a asymmetric attack with any pretense of international prestige or high standing intact.

Images: Libya’s so-called freedom-fighting “moderates” literally just repainted their trucks after NATO’s 2011 intervention, becoming ISIS’ Libyan branch. The US now finds itself justifying yet another military intervention in Libya to fight the very terrorists it helped arm and put into power in 2011.

Will North Korea dismantle its nukes? Its nukes are meant as a deterrence (albeit there may well be some secondary basking in the technological achievement of having attained nuclear-power status). Without nukes, North Korea would depend on the integrity and good will of the US, which the Libyans and Iraqis now know well not to depend on.

If the playground bully carries a baseball bat to threaten other children, can one blame the other children if they start carrying a bat with them? The bully knows if he swings his bat at anyone that he’ll be ducking bats swung in retaliation. Unless one is a sado-masochist, it is not so enjoyable bruising others when one gets bruised as well. By analogy, North Korea is well aware of the effectiveness of nuclear deterrence.

The record is clear, no nuclear power has ever dared attack another nuclear power. There has been all kinds of braggadocio but never a military confrontation. Consider the current situation in the Doklam Plateau where there has been a standoff for 50-plus days between two populous nuclear powers, India and China. Neither side has yet resorted to violence.

North Korea has never attacked the US. It is only the US, when it intervened in a Korean civil war, that engaged in battle against North Korea. So what moral authority has the US to threaten North Korea? After all, when discussing military threats it is the US holding hostile military maneuvres in Korean waters (not North Korea holding military maneuvres in US waters).

The US lack of diplomacy — all stick and little or no carrot — has demonstrated to be a failure in achieving denuclearization.

Bringing a Peaceable End to Conflict

At a minimum, North Korea wants a peace treaty, an end to the US troop presence in South Korea (which many South Koreans want as well), and an end to sanctions against it. These measures might spur North Korea to end its nuclear program.

It would be a quid pro quo demand. But North Korea is leary of US assurances. After all, did the US adhere to the Agreed Framework with North Korea? And what would stop the US from orchestrating a false flag to attack a denuclearized North Korea? The examples are myriad, including the phantom missile attack in the Gulf of Tonkin, the vanishing Iraqi WMDs, the apocryphal slander of Libyan troops being supplied with Viagra to carry out a spree of rapes, and the disinformation of Syrian government forces having used chemical weapons.

Despite hard right-wing reservations in the US, such a quid pro quo would cost the US next-to-nothing, and it would be hailed worldwide for its diplomacy. Trump has called for decreasing the number of US bases overseas, so this would be a major triumph for him: the first US president to officially end the Korean War as well as bring about the peninsula’s denuclearization. Considering Brack Obama was awarded a Nobel Peace prize for absolutely nothing, bringing peace to the Korean peninsula would assuredly earn Trump, in spite of his reckless and bombastic rhetoric, his own Nobel Peace Prize.

Above all, if all sides honored such an agreement, it would be a victory for the rest of the world.

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

Notes

1. Technically the war is not ended since an armistice was signed, but no peace treaty has been signed among the parties involved.

2. See Haq al-Ani and Tarik al-Ani, Genocide in Iraq: The Case against the UN Security Council and Member States (Atlanta: Clarity Press, 2012). Review.

Featured image is from Socialist Project.

First published on August 16, 2010

August 14, 1945 in the United States people rejoice as many of them hear these words from the mainstream US media “Today the guns are silent. The sky no longer rains death.. The entire world lies quietly at peace.” But it wasn’t to last for long. This was VJ Day, Victory in Japan Day, victory over the last of the Axis powers in that war.

The next day the announcement of the Japanese government’s surrender would become international news. The dates for VJ day actually vary from this date to August 15, the next day when news of the Japanese government’s surrender became international news and people everywhere celebrated it, and September 2 the same year, the date of the official Japanese government signing of the surrender document. But the crucial question remains. Why was peace which came with this victory to be so short lived and no peace dividend for all to follow?

Hadn’t Harry Truman, the US president on that very day said: “This is a day when Fascism finally dies as we always knew it would?” Even if he had a slight reservation by adding that the goal of creating a lasting peace was still to come which was obvious to all, it still at the time wouldn’t have seemed fatal to this worthwhile goal.

How did peace fail to last with such happening and an end to the most terrible war in history over three of the worst despotisms in history, the Nazis, the Italian Fascists, and the Japanese war lords?

How did Winston Churchill’s speech on the “Iron Curtain” at Fulton Missouri in March 1946 affect this? How about the top secret actions of Allen Dulles and other cloak and dagger US Army Intelligence types in Switzerland in March and April of 1945 with hard core Nazis making sweetheart deals for them, with at least one of worst ending up later with the help of the same US military intelligence cloak and dagger types at a top level in the US intelligence apparatus? What did this “Operation Sunrise” in Switzerland really do and why is that so crucial to understanding the way the end to this war didn’t lead to any sort of lasting peace? What later was the effect of a turf battle in the US intelligence community in the time just following this war and how might that have cost humanity a lasting peace? How and why did some in prominent roles in the US intelligence community even before the war’s end get hard core Nazis including SS (the most ideologically brain washed by Nazi propaganda of all the German military), SD (the Nazi political security apparatus), and the Gestapo (Nazi secret police) into the US intelligence community and its payroll? All of these played surely significant roles in the end to a lasting peace and peace dividend for all the human race which might have been. Then how about the role of US domestic politics? Yes, it played other than an insignificant and fatal role as it turned out for a lasting peace. What about the idea of the military spending as a WPA program to keep the US economy booming? Yet again another important factor though not quite so significant until years after a lasting peace was already doomed.

This is that story with all its tragedy and lies, intrigue, propaganda, and so much more that went along with it.

By June 1945 some in the US intelligence community were actively aiding hard core Nazis in getting into the US intelligence apparatus and on its payroll. This is no minor matter, for later these same hard core Nazis would reach the top level of the US intelligence community, providing a complete distortion of information that would make its way to the president and others at the top level of the US executive. When this happened the president and others at his level wouldn’t in the least have any way to know that they were getting “information” from those with such fanatical Nazi ideology. Predictably such “information” would be that the USA and the rest of the West faced a “terrible threat” from Moscow’s “terrible Communists,” the same ones who had been such crucial allies for the Western powers fighting the Nazis. That this could take place without the president or others in the executive at his level knowing about it was due to some in the US intelligence community so thoroughly purging the records of these hard core Nazis of all even the most minimal of Nazi past. How those such fanatical Nazi ideology and seeking protect themselves from war crimes prosecution could ever be trusted to be in the least reliable for their “information” is a good question which should have come up with those US citizens in their intelligence apparatus recruiting these hard core Nazis. Naivete does seem to be the the nicest interpretation that can be put on it especially for that recruitment beginning right after the Nazi surrender or only slightly after the end of same war and the following the year. Very likely it was the rule that those US citizens in US military intelligence who recruited these Nazis after the Nazi surrender were doing out of naivete rather than approval of Nazi ideology, but it was naivete to the extreme as these Nazis had to tell the kind of atrocities they had been involved in even if they used Eichmann defense of “We were just following orders” to these US intelligence personnel, which given the level of these Nazi officers wasn’t even close to real. Officers at that level could have refused and influenced others down in the ranks to refuse, these didn’t. That says how naive and silly these US intelligence types were along with then believing that Moscow which had been such a critical ally in that war would all of a sudden become such a “great threat” to the USA and the rest of the West.

As early as autumn 1944 Richard Gehlen, the top Nazi military intelligence officer on the Eastern front, Heinrich Himmler, the top SS officer, and Karl Wolf were planning to secretly surrender to the Western Allied military. Their strategy was to offer something that would appear of value to the Western powers and in the bargain seek special treatment for themselves most especially to be protected from prosecution from taking part in genocide and other war crimes, and they would seek to provide an alibi for whatever level of participation war crimes which they had been involved in. The “something of value” would be either “crucial espionage information” or the offer of a rapid surrender of Nazi troops, though not unconditional, and it would turn would be very much conditioned on the Western response to prominent hard core Nazis’ pressure for special treatment for them, which as it occurred while the shooting war was going on against the Nazis was actually treason on the part of senior US and British military officers involved in such actions. With that being the case, this would later lead to at one of these hard core Nazis ending up later at the top level of the US intelligence community where that person with the purging of his record of all but the most minimal of his Nazi record could put out the same kind of misinformation and propaganda that he and other hard core

Nazis had put out in the early 1930s to bring the Nazis to power in Germany by telling what a great threat Moscow’s “terrible Communists” were. Among the US military intelligence personnel who played a major role at this stage was none other than Allen Dulles a top level cloak and dagger type with the US Army’s Office of Strategic Services. Gehlen who had presided over some of the most outrageous atrocities committed on the Eastern Front where it was clearly worse than on the Western Front would go on to have his own organization providing “information” to the the top level of the US executive including the Central Intelligence Agency, the Pentagon, and others. Wolf who was an SS general and a hardened Nazi war criminal would go on to be a top US intelligence asset serving under a one time top US Army intelligence officer selling “infomation” to the US State Department, the CIA, and businesses in Western Europe and the United States. All of this would lead to insane exaggeration of the “threat” from Moscow’s “terrible Communists” and the East bloc. As early as the end of the summer of 1945 Dulles, head of the Secret Intelligence Branch of the OSS and others at the top level of US Army intelligence including Walter Bedell Smith were giving the green light to backing Gehlen. By 1953 the CIA was bankrolling and protecting the top level of Adolph Eichmann’s organization. By this time Klaus Barbie and others were also getting bankrolled and protected by the US intelligence community. These were people in the SS, SD, and Gestapo at top levels with their records fully purged to keep some people from finding out about their past.

Before the victory in the turf battle in the US intelligence community, some really solid independent and impartial analysis from US Army personnel right on the scene in Eastern Europe in 1946 showed what a pack of lies and propaganda these hard core Nazis were handing out to the US intelligence types they were dealing with. In 1946 a US Army analysis of Moscow’s capability and plans coming from on the scene reports from US Army personnel in Eastern Europe from the “US strategic bombing survey research teams’ as well as other on the scene reports showed Moscow’s military was tearing up the railroad network in Germany even though the Red Army as it was known to lack the motorized strength of Western forces would be forced to rely on railroads for movement of its troops as well for logistical support– not the kind of action a power bent on aggression toward Western Europe would take. The same year an official US Army report from Eastern Europe concluded that the odds were heavily against Moscow being capable of launching any assault on Western Europe for at least 10 years. But such analyses wouldn’t see the light of day among those at the top level of US foreign policy formulation after the turf battle in the intelligence community in the USA led to the victory by the hard core Nazis and those aligned with them over those who wanted to provide completely independent and impartial analysis to the policy makers including the president.

Thus playing a major role as well was the turf battle in the US intelligence community which would lead to the purging of independent and impartial voices in that community and the victory of those Moscow bashing types who were hell bent to prove Moscow’s great threat. This turf battle was primarily between the Research & Analysis Branch of the OSS under Colonel Alfred McCormack and the Military Intelligence Service or MIS, a secret espionage agency in the War Department in and a bit after the Second World War, with R&A being a branch of the OSS which was an impartial and independent outfit persistently providing cold reasoned analysis of Moscow and what it was doing, and the MIS hell bent on “proving” that the Moscow was a “great threat” to the USA and the rest of the West. The deciding factor ended up being one member of R&A who had likely become a member of the Communist Party in the early 1930s and failed to to report this when applying for government employment. That this proved crucial and especially with GOP congress members and the media was proof positive that the hard core Nazis that those so determined to carry out a grand crusade against Moscow must have completely purged the records of these same Nazis or completely kept all about them quiet otherwise, as such revelations in this case would easily have given rise to questions about the party affiliations of these people. The reason for this is that the R&A had charged that the MIS was pro Nazi and the MIS had charged that R&A was pro Communist. With this being the case, then the side which could best hide any concerns about even the most of minimal party affiliations with either the Communists or the Nazis would be in the best position to prevail and did, no matter the actually facts of the case. Congress would side with the MIS and move to break up R&A, and this would serve as a warning to those who didn’t want to toe the line put out by the hard core and concealed hard core Nazis and their allies that they would have to protect their careers in the intelligence community by doing so or at least appearing to.

Opening the way to the hard core Nazis getting into the US intelligence apparatus and eventually reaching a top level would come easier with “Operation Sunrise,” a very clandestine operation by Allen W Dulles and others in talks with hard core Nazis in Switzerland in March and April of 1945 with the fighting with the Nazis going full blast and these same hard core Nazis offering a quick surrender of the Nazi command in Italy if they got special treatment and actually would keep them from facing the bar of justice for their involvement in horrendous war crimes. Such action by Dulles and others clearly constituted treason as defined in the US Constitution as “giving aid and comfort to the enemies of the United States,” which it definitely did by giving a most kind of special treatment, as these were the most fanatical enemies the United States or any other country had ever faced in history.

Add to this in March 1946 Churchill’s “Iron Curtain” talk at Fulton MO and any hope for a lasting peace following the Second World War grow even dimmer especially with the heavy US media coverage awarded to this speech much of which has never been at all ever supported by any independent analysis and conveniently ignored the Iron Curtain the British empire imposed on its colonies which the sun never set on and would easily have covered twice or three times the body of land as all Eastern Europe.

The military industrial complex would come into the picture but not right after the Second World War, as Truman had demobilized the US military right after that war and wouldn’t remobilize it all out until the Korean War broke out in 1950 with the Cold War turning hot. Nevertheless when it did get going, it became a factor as it could be used a WPA program as I F Stone put it to provide huge amounts of money for the economy and keep for more people in employment with such an economic factor later proving very important in keeping this complex and actually the Cold War going.

Domestic politics also played a role, with the GOP starting in 1946 to use it as a club to smash the Democrats over the head with and use as a trump card in stacking the deck in same domestic politics in that party’s own favor. This would put the Democrats on the defensive to not appear “soft on Communism” further pushing the political debate to the right. With Joseph McCarthy’s Wheeling WV speech about “205 Communists in the state department,” things would only get worse with regard to this. It would take a GOP president in the 1950s to cut down on some of this madness with his “Spirit of Geneva” in 1955, his attempt at the same in 1960, and other moves such as the Austrian State Treaty providing for an independent and neutral Austria.

There’s something very strange and disturbing about the hype around the White House and US media’s latest obsession with North Korea. It’s not just the usual war-mongering and hot air though. We’ve seen all that before. This goes beyond sabre-rattling. There’s something uncomfortably bipartisan about this new appetite for war.

Watching CNN this week, you got the impression we’ve entered a new comic book phase in the American experiment, driven by an 24 hour media environment where facts and analysis seem like a distant nostalgic hallucination. I asked myself, is it real? Where does the show finally end, and the war begin?

We’re told that North Korea has now defied recent threats of “fire and fury” from US President Donald Trump, and that the regime has announced its plan to launch missiles at the nearest US territory, the island of Guam in the Pacific. So that’s it. It’s war then, right?

Trump’s generals wasted no time throwing petrol on the fire, led by Defense Secretary Gen. James ‘Mad Dog’ Mattis who warned Kim Jung-Un that the US military “possess the most precise, rehearsed and robust defensive and offensive capabilities on Earth.”

Whatever your views might be of Trump, North Korea, US foreign policy, or ‘global security,’ at this point we’d all do well to hit the breaks.

When one considers that North Korea has been making noises about the American devil and its puppet state South Korea, for the last 18 years – having done absolutely nothing about it during that time, then it’s logical, at least for now, to conclude that Pyongyang either doesn’t want to do anything about it, or more likely, simply cannot do anything about it. Unless of course, you buy into the US mythology about unstable rogue regimes and the constant reincarnation of the Hitler avatar. Saddam should have taught us that lesson already, but apparently not.

Is North Korea a threat to the United States and its allies? This is not the conclusion to which many sober foreign policy analysts have come.

Unfortunately, sober analysis is in short supply in Washington DC, but also in London and Down Under too. Emboldened by a media that is desperate for ad-generating eye balls (and the best way to generate ratings is by broadcasting a crisis, or fear-based narrative) you then see wild statements like the one made by the Australian PM Malcolm Turnbull this week assuring the US that he would invoke the ‘longstanding  military alliance’ with America in the event the North Korean regime attacked the US.

What’s most dangerous about all of this is that no one is asking any questions.

The first question that needs to be answered in any intelligence briefing is: what is the nature of the threat?

Missile Threat?

Conveniently ignored by the entire US media and swamp alpha dogs, is the fact that there is no evidence to date that North Korea has an actual operational military ballistic missile program. No evidence suggests their test modules are capable of medium range strikes, let alone any intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) capability. In terms of ICBM capability – the ability to launch a missile into the outer atmosphere with a 10,000 km range – there exists no real indication that North Korea will have this ability in the near future. A series of recent botched tests (celebrated as ground-breaking by DPRK state media) of relatively short-range Hwasong-12 rockets (glorified Scud missiles) means North Korea cannot yet pose a physical threat to the US, unless of course, you are going by the colorful war graphics plastered all over Wolf Blitzer’s ridiculous Situation Room, airing daily on the military industrial promotional network CNN.

Vice-Admiral-James-Syring (Source: U.S. Department of Defense)

Still, US military officials are lining-up to confirm that the Kim regime can deliver on his threats, issuing a series of Orwellian statements along the way. Vice-Admiral James Syring, head of the U.S. Missile Defense Agency, primed the media pump back in May, stating,

“It is incumbent on us to assume that North Korea today can range the United States with an ICBM carrying a nuclear warhead.”

In other words, if the threat is not yet there, we need to make sure you think it is.

In typical dramatic style, Pyongyang claimed on July 4th (US Independence Day, no less) that it had conducted its first ICBM test, and that the test had been a resounding success. The missile was capable of reaching “anywhere in the world”, they said on state TV. The amazing thing is that the US media willingly bought it. To borrow a turn from Donald Trump, the media were suddenly “locked and loaded.”

Now for an example of just how mindless (or controlled) western journalism has become, rather than challenge the wild propaganda claim, The Guardian’s man in Osaka, Justin McCurry, axiomatically validated it:

“The claim was verified by the US secretary of state, Rex Tillerson, who described the test as “a new escalation of the threat to the United States, our allies and partners, the region and the world”.

At this point, anyone who has not dismissed the credibility of the comic book media outfit in Pyongyang cannot rightly call themselves a journalist, nor an ‘expert’ on the DPRK. This seems to be the new formula applied by the west: Pyongyang releases another bombastic, wishful statement, which is then elevated to credulity by an US official, before finally being codified by a western news desk as “official.” It’s enough to make heads spin at Stalin’s Izvestia. Back then, the average Soviet citizen knew Izvestia was pure tripe. Not so in today’s Anglo-American empire.

Again, another in a long list of examples of why the western mainstream media is no longer fit for purpose.

When this latest round of North Korea hype first broke out in June, all the focus was on the ICBM threat which “could hit San Diego.” Because of this glaring technical reality gap in the narrative, the international mainstream media machine has quickly compensated by simultaneously downgrading the threat to the continental USA and blowing-up the talking point that Kim will instead be attacking the US military stronghold of Guam instead. Their source? Well, it’s North Korea’s state-run propaganda bureau. Credible you say? After 18 years of nonstop nonsense from the Kim Dynasty, the answer should really be no, only for the western media, North Korea’s state-run KCNA is as good as gold (ratings gold). Again, we can confidently say that the mainstream corporate media is guilty of laundering DPRK propaganda, before spinning it into millions in advertising revenue at home, not to mention a nice little nudge for US military industrial share prices whose directors also sit on the boards of those same mainstream media outlets. Another little useful equation.

If you haven’t had an epiphany by this point, then you should consider moving to the DPRK.

There’s more. Pyongyang ‘confirms’:

“The Hwasong-12 rockets to be launched by the KPA will cross the sky above Shimane, Hiroshima and Koichi Prefectures of Japan.”

General Kim Rak Gyom, the head of the country’s strategic forces, took to the airwaves to assure his comrades that The Korean People’s Army (KPA) will complete its plans in mid-August, ready for the final order from The Dear Leader.

They also claim that although the missiles will head towards Guam, they actually ditch into the sea about 18 to 25 miles before the island.

Guam is still 2,100 miles away from North Korea. If believed, North Korea’s own Academy of Defence Science boasted that their best ‘test’ so far has only reached an altitude of 1,741 miles (2,802km), and flew a merger 580 miles – calling it their most ‘successful missile test’ to date. While this report could rightly be classed as DPRK propaganda, The Guardian still reinforced Pyongyang’s claim, spinning it in spectacular fashion:

“The US initially described it as an intermediate-range missile but later conceded it was an ICBM.”

Dazzling spin. If you didn’t know better, you’d think that The Guardian’s Osaka desk was wired into the Pentagon’s communications department.  Interestingly, buried at the bottom of their missile section of the report, you find this contradictory admission:

“John Schilling, a missile expert at the 38 North thinktank in Washington, estimates it will take until at least 2020 for North Korea to be able to develop an ICBM capable of reaching the US mainland, and another 25 years before it will be able to build one powered by solid fuel.”

Not good for the narrative (it’s worth noting that it took India more than 13 years to create an ICBM powered by solid fuel).

If you are brave enough to venture off the western media reservation, you will quickly learn from a number of different sources that these North Korean missile tests most likely did not have any guidance systems on board. Why not? Maybe because they haven’t managed to develop any yet.

“Nobody really knows if they’ve managed to miniaturize the weapons to put on top of the missiles,” said Robert Kelly, Associate Professor at Pusan National University in South Korea, telling Quartz:

“It depends on miniaturization and guidance. The communist countries have traditionally not been good at guidance. That’s why the Soviets built gigantic missiles, because they didn’t know where they were going to land… My guess is that the North Koreans are not good at guidance. My guess is that when they start launching, a lot of them are just going to fall in the water.”

What’s worse than Pyongyang’s state-generated bluster propaganda, is how the White House and the western media react to this as if it were a genuine news release. This fact alone should cause western electorates to seriously question the sanity of our media-driven narratives. But we see this familiar pattern time and time again – the US leadership and the western media mindlessly reacting to made-for-purpose propaganda, whether it’s coming from Pyongyang, or from ISIS’s Amaq news agency‘s press releases.

A Nuclear Threat?

Way back when, the topic of nuclear conflagration used to be treated with seriousness, but in today’s America it’s become something of a geopolitical sideshow. One reason for this could be for the US and Israel’s determination to deflect away from any serious discussion about nuclear disarmament, a concept which had achieved some political status in the 1980’s but has steadily waned ever since Francis Fukuyama declared The End of History and the Last Man in 1992.

On top of the fact that North Korea appears to have no operational (their series of failed, underwhelming ‘tests’ do not count as operational) medium range ballistic missile arsenal, and no proven long-range ICBM capability, there is also no discernible nuclear weapons capability.

Estimates vary on North Korea’s nuclear weapons program. To date, the US has no hard intelligence on any operational nukes. Reports on their supposed nuclear detonation tests are equally as sketchy. So it seems near impossible at the present juncture to accurately verify just how far along North Korea is with their alleged WMD program. Most estimates are generated by Washington-based think tanks, and are based on how much fissile material they might have, which is based on how much highly enriched uranium it may have produced over the last decade.

The Washington Post even questioned the status of their nuclear arsenal back in 2013. When a former senior Obama administration official was asked if he had seen any actual evidence of any such weapons, his reply was strikingly vague, stating,

“We’re worried about it, but we haven’t seen it.”

Logic would dictate that we should only worry about the DPRK’s nuclear weapons until such a time when we have some verifiable intelligence to suggest they have the means to build them. At the moment, a sane argument can be made that they do not.

Despite all this, The Guardian continues to stoke the public fear by proffering the following:

“Can anything be done to rein in North Korea’s nuclear ambitions? At this point, the obvious response is no.”

One thing that should be crystal clear to anyone by now is that a major component of the Kim regime’s domestic legitimacy requires the state to remind its citizens that they are under constant threat from the US and neighboring allies, South Korea and Japan. Again, what Donald Trump and the US media are doing by amplifying the “fire and fury” rhetoric is tapping directly into the Kim propaganda mill. You could make the argument that there’s a symbiosis between Washington and Pyongyang, a predictable tango of mutually assured public relations outcomes. How many times have we heard the old national security trope, “America takes these threats seriously. We’re putting the enemy on notice.” When this happens, it feeds directly into the DPRK newspeak machine, and so you see a predictable chain of events occur, all of which is turbo-charged by mainstream media spin.

‘Being There’

Putting aside the issue of how China would react to an US strike near its border, there are a number of good reasons to pause and consider the consequences of any such action.

Here is where we shift gears, from TEAM America, to Chauncey Gardiner. Not to make light of such a serious situation, but I still find myself asking whether there’s not a man or woman around him who has either the clout or the stones to tap the President on the shoulder and calmly say, “Your excellency, a quick word if that’s ok. Maybe ratcheting up the war rhetoric and threatening a preemptive strike in Asia may not be the best way to go about it this.”

The impression one gets is that no such person exists in the President’s inner circle, and if they did, he is not paying them any notice. Maybe he is genuinely still feeling insecure about how to communicate publicly on matters of state. After all, this is a unique experiment in itself – the country’s first non-politician sitting in the chief executive’s chair. This leads us back to one of Trump potential handicaps; he had signaled very early on in his campaign that he would be relying on “the generals” to make all of his important military decisions. At the time, this might have seemed like a prudent move back in 2016 when he was juxtaposed with the bevy of 16 ‘national security’ savants standing to his right and his left on an overcrowded Republican debate stage. As the only one on the stage with no experience in public service or politics, it seemed like a tactical move for Trump; if you can’t compete with the swamp purely on swamp credentials, then just dismiss that section of the résumé by deferring to the military brass, and thus bypassing faux hawks like Lindsey Graham who are constantly grandstanding, whilst pretending to know which war to start and when, or Little Marco shrieking on about going to war with everyone and Cuba, a dizzy Ben Carson, or Jeb Bush trying to defend his brother’s epic failures in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the others – each competing for the crown of who’s toughest on terror, ISIS and Russia. At the same time, Trump alluded to a clear shift away from a contiguous Clinton-Bush-Obama R2P policy, and towards a non-interventionist foreign policy. This was especially necessary early on in the campaign in order to knock out Jeb Bush, and distance oneself from the Dubya neocon stigma. However, by adopting a more Paulish, paleoconservative stance, Trump had indirectly declared war on the neoconservative Republican establishment and the deep state and their intelligence agency shadow steering committee, a faction which still remains at war with the President today. Come election time though, that didn’t matter because Trump struck a chord with America’s silent majority who were still embarrassed by the disastrous George W. Bush era, and even more disappointed by the Obama’s continuance of it. That crowd responded with positive feedback for Trump which translated into votes and his eventual GOP nomination (something which perennial presidential losers like John McCain and Lindsey Graham may never fully understand). This was the making of Trump. Moving into the general election, he simply refashioned this same platform to exhibit contrast with a hopelessly hawkish Hillary Clinton. Again, that strategy worked for Trump, but he still never addressed what might be his fundamental flaw, namely, a lack of knowledge in international diplomacy and geopolitics. Instead, he did what any good business man does – he delegated, and doubled-down on the generals.

Gen. McMaster and Pres. Trump

The problem with all of the generals is that they are also career stakeholders in the previous military failures of the Clinton-Bush-Obama gestalt. With not a whistleblower among them (save for Gen. James Cartwright, skillfully indicted and ultimately excommunicated by Obama for whistleblowing on STUXNET), men like Gen. James Mattis, and Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster, having presided over a series of illegal and disastrous wars in American history, suddenly find themselves in even higher decision-making positions than before. We can only pray they’ve all had a come to Jesus moment and hopefully developed some empathic qualities that may help avert further wars. So far, that doesn’t appear to be the case. Given that Trump respects the generals, you’d expect that if the generals were telling him to calm down (and stop making an ass out of himself) then he wouldn’t be popping-off like he has been. So it looks like the generals may not be telling Trump to hold it down. Maybe they are encouraging him to play the role of war hawk and all-round tough guy. Either way, it looks like it’s back to square one for Trump – back to competing against sad individuals like Graham and McCain for the title of Most Flippant.

The Pro-War Left

On the other side of the aisle, we have something altogether more dangerous, a new fifth column in the United States. The new anti-antiwar left that has been carefully groomed during eight years of the Obama Odyssey, nudged into their current position by the ungodly neolib-neocon chimera led by Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State, and flanked by Susan Rice, Samantha Power, wholly endorsed by John McCain, and backed-up by the terrible tandem of Victoria Nuland and Robert Kagan, and so on. These are the people leading the call for what seems like an endless list of military interventions. What should worry concerned citizens is that this unholy alliance is now completely bipartisan.

Robert Parry from Consortium News illustrates the level of political gymnastics involved in this ideological inversion:

“Since the neocons’ emergence as big-time foreign policy players in the Reagan administration, they also have demonstrated extraordinary resilience, receiving a steady flow of money often through U.S. government-funded grants from organizations such as the National Endowment for Democracy and through donations from military contractors to hawkish neocon think tanks.”

“But neocons’ most astonishing success over the past year may have been how they have pulled liberals and even some progressives into the neocon strategies for war and more war, largely by exploiting the Left’s disgust with President Trump.”

Their victory over the old antiwar left was achieved through the construct of the Arab Spring and by a relentless media disinformation campaign which suffocated any logical and non-orientalist discourse around interventions in Libya and Syria, and also around Afghanistan which turned out to be NATO’s first unofficial feminist war (where arguably, women and children are worse off in 2017 than before the US invasion on 2002).

So well-trained the new anti-antiwar left has become, that when Donald Trump launched his errant cruise missile attack on Syria, it was met with cheers and congratulations by Trump’s liberal critics and the robotic pundits at CNN and in US mainstream media. Hence, Trump’s lesson: aggressive war action equals a bounce in the polls. There was a method to their madness however. In their infinitely myopic geopolitical view, American progressives worked out a rudimentary equation in their heads: because the Syria government is closely allied with Russia, then anything which was bad for Damascus was also bad for Putin and Moscow. Granted, that might sound a bit like Simple Jack foreign policy, but that’s the intelligence level which most Democrats and ‘progressives’ are working on at the moment.

Another consequence of Trump being there, is that the political left in America have lost their minds and are still relying on the elaborate Russiagate conspiracy theory for their resurrection. Just ask Adam Schiff. If the left truly opposed Trump, it  would have been a good opportunity to pin him down on the fact that the US had no evidence of a chemical attack in Khan Sheikhun, Idlib, but instead they passed on it.

Similarly, you would think that Democrats would have learned their lesson in Syria (a 7 year proxy war which the US has now lost), and use Trump’s bellicose outbursts over North Korea as a real opportunity to at least pose as genuine opposition, but again, no such luck. Parry explains how the border of this left-right maze is constructed:

“People who would normally favor international cooperation toward peaceful resolution of conflicts have joined the neocons in ratcheting up global tensions and making progress toward peace far more difficult.

The provocative “Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act,” which imposes sanctions on Russia, Iran and North Korea while tying President Trump’s hands in removing those penalties, passed the Congress without a single Democrat voting no.

The only dissenting votes came from three Republican House members – Justin Amash of Michigan, Jimmy Duncan of Tennessee, and Thomas Massie of Kentucky – and from Republican Rand Paul of Kentucky and Independent Bernie Sanders of Vermont in the Senate.

In other words, every Democrat present for the vote adopted the neocon position of escalating tensions with Russia and Iran. The new sanctions appear to close off hopes for a détente with Russia and may torpedo the nuclear agreement with Iran, which would put the bomb-bomb-bomb option back on the table just where the neocons want it.”

If you are hoping that this new bipartisan war consensus will change any time soon, don’t hold your breath. Unless the American ‘left’ or progressives actually wake up and realize how far out to sea they’ve drifted on the issue of war, then Washington will be locked into a new normal for the foreseeable future.

The danger of this current North Korean war plan is the level of political inertia pushing it. Like in 1914, when no one thought it could happen, and when it began, no one knew how to stop it.

The good news (well, sort of) is that Rex Tillerson seems to be prone to making intermittent statements which resemble sanity. When the war volume was reaching fever pitch on August 2nd, the Secretary of State weighed in saying,

“We do not seek a regime change; we do not seek the collapse of the regime; we do not seek an accelerated reunification of the peninsula; we do not seek an excuse to send our military north of the 38th parallel.”

If the rest of the Administration could adopt this tone now and again, it would go a long way towards reducing public anxiety.

Perhaps Trump’s hawkishness will reawaken the moral core of American antiwar movement.

All of these outcomes could end up being the unintended consequences of Trump.

As for the US media, so far we can see there are no Tillerson-types around.

By now, we should all have learned the lesson: mainstream media, not politics, is the true engine of war.

Watch Patrick Henningsen’s recent lecture for ‘Media on Trial’ in the UK:

Patrick Henningsen is an American-born writer and global affairs analyst and founder of independent news and analysis site 21st Century Wire and host of the SUNDAY WIRE weekly radio show broadcast globally over the Alternate Current Radio Network (ACR).

Featured image is from the author.

For the last few days, the megalo-psychopath, Donald Trump, doubling as President of the United States of America, with a happy finger on the red-nuclear bottom – has been lambasting and shouting threats of “fire and fury” at North Korea, for her purely self-defensive ICBM tests, carried out under constant threats by US air and naval forces. According to the latest “fake news”, DPRK’s Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles are capable of bearing “miniaturized nuclear bombs”. – Most scientists call this false propaganda which is again so proper to the empire of doom. Fortunately, the mainstream presstitute’s credibility is rapidly fading, in fact is almost dead. There is an up-swell of people waking up. See also 

http://thesaker.is/north-korea-killer-sanctions-imposed-by-the-foremost-institution-of-peace-and-justice-the-un-security-council/ 

This morning, the same almost Inhuman Being has not only doubled-up on his threats of fire and fury to the Pyongyang Government, but had the audacity to also menace Venezuela with military intervention – to save lives. He, who – along with his predecessors – have killed tens of millions of people around the world in illegal wars and conflicts, now wants to invade the hydrocarbon-rich neighbor, Venezuela; incidentally almost the only true democracy left in the Americas, and arguably on the globe.

President Trump today refused a phone call from Venezuela’s President Maduro, who probably wanted to explain what the people of Venezuela intended to achieve with this newly voted National Constituent Assembly, the ultimate step towards a true people’s democracy. He did so, perhaps in the hope, a clever man would understand.

To no avail. One of Trump’s aides told Mr. Maduro, his boss would talk to him, once he, President Maduro, reinstated democracy in Venezuela. Imagine! – That coming from the man who is reigning over the biggest, oppressive police state on this globe, using deception and falsehood to brainwash the western world into a heard of sheep; and playing world dictator slaughtering people throughout the planet, only because they want to keep their sovereignty and are not willing to be subjugated by this ridiculous, preposterous caricature of an emperor.

A new threat hangs over Venezuela. US Military invasion. The country is already invaded by US / CIA trained, funded, fed and armed proxy fighters, that regularly help disturbing peace, stirring up chaos and causing death in the streets of Caracas – death, that the Anglo-Zionist controlled press is ascribing to the Maduro Government – an outright lie. The west largely believes it, as the lie is hammered in throughout the globe. The West is losing its marbles for licking Trump’s blood-stained casino boots.

This madman occupant of the White House pulls along his close entourage, foremost his Minister of War, “Mad-Dog”, General James Mattis, and his oil-magnate Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson, plus certainly a number of Pentagon and Congress hawks. – But, do they follow him because of conviction or fear? – Fear cannot be excluded, as the little common sense they may still have left tells them what their unpredictable psychopath-in-chief may be capable of doing. Fortunately, some reasonable generals in the Pentagon and representatives of Congress are aware of the real danger in leaving the ultimate responsibility for triggering a pre-emptive nuclear war with Trump. They quietly distance themselves – and in Congress there is an initiative under way to curb Trumps power as Commander-in-Chief of pushing the red bottom. Will they succeed — before it is too late?

This madman has to go to save humanity and the planet.

There are already talks – and well-founded talks – that after the DPRK will be Iran. Never mind the Nuclear Agreements reached with Iran after years of negotiations on 14 July 2015 in Vienna, the so-called Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), between the five permanent members of the UN Security Council – China, France, Russia, United Kingdom, United States – plus German, and the European Union, under which all sanctions would be lifted on Iran, so that this country rich in resources, history and science, a nation that has never done any harm to her neighbors, may become integrated again in the chorus of world societies.

Trump and his Mad-Dog warrior simply and without any substance pretend Iran does not adhere to the deal and therefore must be punished – new economic sanctions, of course, which by now are almost useless, since Iran applies a strict regime of Resistance Economy, largely moving away from the western dollar-hegemony and towards the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) into an alternative economic system. Better even than ‘sanctions’, giving the sick killer-duo’s thought process, would be a few preventive surgical nuclear strikes aiming at Iran’s atomic energy facilities.

They would certainly please Israel’s Master Zionist and the Trump family’s close buddy, Bibi Netanyahu, now under a cloud of serious corruption charges. The common saying goes – the chicken are coming home to roost – and roost they may, rather sooner than later, also in The Donald’s backyard.

Is there any diplomatic peaceful way to stop this megalomaniac from annihilating Mother Earth, and life as we know it?

How about for once a true UN Security Council Resolution, true and factual in the sense that it is introduced on behalf of the world community and for the security of the globe. To save species, to save the environment, to save life as we know it. Not some fake ‘security’ serving only the purpose of enlarging Washington’s grandeur.

How about China and Russia taking such an initiative, calling upon the entire United Nations to stop the Empire of Horror, the United States of America, as it were, from her ever-increasing killing spree around the globe, from her masterminding mass murder, oppression, human exploitation, abrogation and violation of human rights and invasions, infringements on peoples’ and their nations sovereignty – a UNSC Resolution that would wake up the world and have the192 members stop and dismantle the one empire of fear and destruction that risks to devastate human lives and livelihoods?

That should be possible. – Russia and China have nothing to fear. They are way above equal powers with the self-styled hegemon. Acting fast, before it is too late is of the order. The madman has his finger on the trigger. Whether he is bluffing or not, we can’t say. And there is no room to gamble.

The League of Nations, today’s United Nations, may it become solidary again – has nothing to fear. The tides are turning. Russia, China and the SCO alliance are offering a new perspective, a new economic paradigm, one of peace and equality, instead of the fraudulent dollar-hegemony. The tide is rapidly turning away from the enslavement of hydrocarbons dominated and monopolized by the bogus dollar economy. The tide is turning towards alternative energy sources. The tide is gradually turning its back to the fake, worthless fiat money that has no backing other than the hypocritical freemasonry slogan “In God We Trust”. – What God, for heaven’s sake? It’s their god of money. Their god of usury, their god of the stranglehold by debt.  The tide is turning – and turning fast.

People of this planet, the only one we have and know, wake up, lift your courage upon your shoulders and step out of the blue pill-managed matrix into a new world offered by a legally steadfast UN Resolution – your Resolution, Resolution 101, the only one to freedom; dear People,192 nations united against an atrocious vicious despot. There is no way of losing.

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.

VISIT MY NEW WEB SITE: stephenlendman.org (Home – Stephen Lendman). Contact at [email protected].

Candidate Trump argued against interventionism. He criticized wasting trillions of dollars on warmaking, creating a mess in multiple theaters, depriving the country of vitally needed revenue for homeland needs.

President Trump proved he’s the latest in a long line of warrior presidents – escalating Obama’s wars, planning new ones if he dares launch them, saber-rattling recklessly against North Korea, Iran and Venezuela.

Trade war may loom with China. US warships intruding near its waters and air space risk possible confrontation.

Relations with Russia are worse than any time during the Cold War years. Trump should have stood tall by rejecting illegal sanctions on all nations Washington targeted.

Instead, he’s hostage to America’s deep state, a front man for its imperial recklessness like his predecessors. He’s aiding, not combating, terrorists groups.

He’s responsible for massacring civilians in Iraq, Syria, and other US war theaters. As military commander-in-chief, he could stop the carnage. Instead, it continues, things heading from bad to worse.

Chinese President Xi Jinping urged restraint and diplomatic outreach, discussing North Korea with Trump by phone on Saturday.

Hours before they spoke, Trump tweeted:

“Military solutions are now fully in place, locked and loaded, should North Korea act unwisely.”

The problem lies squarely in Washington, not Pyongyang.

It’s time for China, Russia, South Korea, Japan and other world community nations to challenge America’s imperial recklessness.

The risk of possible nuclear war is too great to stay silent. Failure to act could let the unthinkable happen. South Korea especially is threatened.

War on the peninsula risks unthinkable carnage on both sides of the DMZ. Following his May election, President Moon Jae-in urged outreach to resolve longstanding differences with Pyongyang. He suggested meeting Kim Jong-un face-to-face.

Instead, he’s become hostage to Washington’s imperial agenda, supporting illegal sanctions on the DPRK, suggesting they be strengthened.

At the same time, he called for a “complete and thorough overhaul” of Seoul’s already formidable military. He’s more amenable to provocative US THAAD missile systems on South Korean territory, menacing the region.

Over 70 years since WW II ended, South Korea and Japan remain occupied by US forces, provoking North Korea, China and Russia, affording America’s allies the illusion of protection.

A unified Chinese, Russian, South Korean and Japanese front against America’s imperial recklessness, along with hostile rhetoric toward Pyongyang, risking possible nuclear war on the peninsula, is the best way to stop it.

Washington is a thuggish bully, taking full advantage of the world community’s failure to confront it responsibly – smashing weaker countries like tenpins.

Sino/Russian unity match America militarily, more so if allied with South Korea and Japan, together able to challenge US imperialism responsibly.

It’s the best way, maybe the only way, to save East Asia and humanity from the risk of devastating nuclear war – affecting all regional countries if launched.

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.

President Uhuru Kenyatta was declared victorious in his bid for a second term as leader of the largest economy in East Africa. The Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) Chairman Wafula Chebukati made the announcement after presenting the tallied votes to the public on August 11 in Nairobi.

Kenyatta, 55, the son of the former British colony’s founding President Jomo Kenyatta, repositioned himself politically during 2016 when he formed the Jubilee Party. His campaign was run on emphasizing the need to restructure the Kenyan political system by turning over more authority to people within the counties and elected members of parliament.

The incumbent leader championed the annual five percent rate of growth in Kenya and held out the promise of sustainable development through the vast discoveries of oil and prospects for natural gas exploitation. Within a regional framework, Tanzania, Uganda, Mozambique as well as Kenya have been the source of substantial investments in the energy sector.

With specific reference to petroleum resources in Kenya, the Oxford Business Group reported in 2013 that:

“Tullow and Africa Oil, which are joint partners in the exploration of the East Africa Rift Basin, announced in late September that drilling revealed oil in the Auwerwer and Upper Lokone sandstone reservoirs, bringing their total discoveries in Kenya to an estimated 300m barrels. The companies had previously announced a major discovery in Turkana after beginning exploration in late 2012. Tullow and Africa Oil have exploration licenses for 12 blocks and have identified 10 additional leads and prospects. They plan to drill 12 wells over the next year.” (oxfordbusinessgroup.com, Nov. 4, 2013)

This same article went on to say:

“The Turkana discovery has led to major international interest in Kenya’s remaining oil exploration licenses, including from France’s Total, China National Offshore Oil Corporation, ExxonMobil and Chevron, though no other companies have yet announced commercially viable discoveries. Kenya has 46 blocks, of which 44 are licensed to 23 exploration companies. The government plans to create and offer seven new blocks in the near future.”

Despite these much lauded advances in economic potential, the Kenyan political scene is sharply divided between supporters of the president and his archrival Raila Odinga. Following the lead of Kenyatta, Odinga formed the National Super Alliance (NASA) coalition bringing together several parties into an umbrella with the Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) which the politician leads.

Raila, the son of another prominent independence-era political figure and vice-president in the First Republic formed in 1964 by Jomo Kenyatta, Jaramogi Oginga Odinga, often projects an air of entitlement to the presidency of Kenya. President Kenyatta and Vice-President Odinga split in 1966 after disagreements over Kenya’s relationship with the United States. At this time in the 1960s, Odinga was considered to the left of Kenyatta favoring a closer alliance with the socialist countries of the Soviet Union and the People’s Republic of China.

In 2007, a contested election sparked violent reprisals leaving over 1,000 people dead and hundreds of thousands dislocated. Mediation efforts by the African Union (AU) and other state entities on the continent brought about the formation of a unity government in 2008 with Mwai Kibaki as president and Odinga taking the position of prime minister.

Later in 2013, Odinga attempted once again to win the presidency by claiming that he would improve relations with the West. This time Kenyatta ran a formidable race coming out on top in defiance of the wishes of the U.S. and Britain. Odinga rejected the election outcome in 2013 taking his claims of massive voter fraud to the Kenyan Supreme Court where it failed to overturn the popular vote.

Washington and London warned of grave consequences if Kenyans voted for Kenyatta four years ago. Both the president and Vice-President William Ruto were under investigation by the International Criminal Court (ICC) in the Netherlands for ostensibly playing a role in the internecine conflict during 2007-2008. The deadly clashes pitting supporters of Kibaki against Odinga voters appeared to reveal an inter-nationality oppositional character since each candidate was associated with the Kikiyu (Kenyatta) and Luo (Odinga) groups.

The ICC pursuit of both Kenyatta and Ruto were dropped under the weight of the absurdity of the charges brought against these sitting leaders. This desire to detain, prosecute and imprison Kenyatta and Ruto further alienated many African leaders from the ICC which has demonstrated their pre-occupation with the continent. During the 50th anniversary summit of the AU held in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia in 2013, discussions began over whether member-states would unilaterally withdraw from the Rome Statue which established the ICC. These plans have not materialized due to the political and economic pressures exerted by the western imperialist states and their allies in Africa.

One glaring progressive trend which emerged from the Kenyan elections was the victories of 22 women members of parliament along with 3 female governors, the first in the country’s history.

An article published in the Daily Nation on August 11, noted:

“A record 22 women had by Thursday (August 10) decisively won constituency seats in Tuesday’s (August 8) General Election, an increase from the 2013 number. And in some areas, a woman as being elected to a seat that has been the domain of men. But although the women set for the 12th Parliament are still few, they increased by six from the 16 elected in the last elections. The Jubilee Party has the majority of the women MPs-elect with 13, followed by Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) with five and one each from Kanu, Party of Reforms and Democracy, as well as Wiper Democratic Movement and an independent candidate.”

As it relates to the county governors, the Evening Standard emphasized on August 10 that: “It is history in the making for Kenya as we are set for our first female governors. Previously, all the 47 governors were male. The three strong women fought tooth and nail to secure the county’s top job. This is also good news for gender equality. Kenya is set to have its first female county bosses. It indeed is a milestone for equality considering we had no female governor(s) in the last government.”

Rwanda: The Ruling Party Wins in a Landslide

President Paul Kagame of the Rwanda Patriotic Front (RPF) won over 98 percent of the vote in the August 4 national elections. The only party certified to challenge the president who has ruled the Central and East African state since it seized power in 1994 after the genocidal war, was the Democratic Greens led by Frank Habineza coming in a far distant second.

An estimated 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus were slaughtered over a period of three months as the-then Rwandan military backed by a militia known as the Interahamwe sought to eliminate their opponents. The RPF began as an armed movement with close ties to neighboring Uganda in 1987. Kagame served in the Ugandan National Resistance Movement led by the current President Yoweri Museveni who has been in power for more than three decades. The Rwandan leader received training in U.S. military colleges and maintained close ties to the Pentagon serving as an ally in Washington’s foreign policy imperatives in East and Central Africa.

Rwanda is known for having the largest participation of women internationally within its parliamentary structure, some 61 percent. In addition, 50 percent of the Supreme Court justices are women as well as a significant number of cabinet ministers.

Nonetheless, the legacy of collaboration with the U.S. hampers its ability to exercise genuine sovereignty and an independent foreign policy. However, in recent years, Kigali’s relationships with nations it was previously at war against in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) during its occupation in partnership with Uganda between 1998-2003, seems to have improved. In 1998, the Southern African Development Community (SADC) military commission headed then by the Republic of Zimbabwe authorized the deployment of troops from Harare, Angola and Namibia in defense of the government of the late former DRC President Laurent Kabila halting this Washington-backed attempt to seize control of the enormous mineral-rich central African state.

RPF rule has stabilized the country to the extent that the United Nations recently announced that Rwandan nationals living in other African states should return home. Zimbabwe, which played a central role in halting the takeover of the DRC nearly two decades ago, recently requested that Rwandans living in this Southern African nation return to their country.

Angolan President to Step Down Amid Oil Glut

The former Portuguese colony of Angola will elect a new head-of-state after President Jose Eduardo dos Santos leaves office. President Dos Santos inherited the position when the founder of modern-day Angola, Dr. Agostino Neto, died in office during 1979. Neto was a co-founder of the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA), which won and consolidated independence for the country with the assistance of fraternal African governments along with hundreds of thousands of volunteers from the Republic of Cuba during 1975-1989.

Angolan independence was achieved through a protracted armed struggle from 1961 to 1975 when the U.S. and the-then racist apartheid regime in South Africa funded and coordinated two counter-revolutionary organizations in a failed attempt to create a neo-colonial outpost in this oil-rich state, one of the leading producers of petroleum on the continent. Since 2014, the U.S.-engineered overproduction of oil has created burgeoning economic crises in Angola as well as many other states around Africa and the world.

Angolan Defense Minister Joao Lourenco is designated to run for the presidency on behalf of the MPLA on August 23. The MPLA dominates the legislative body inside the country with 175 seats far outstripping its closest competitor UNITA which occupies only 32. UNITA, supported by the U.S. and the apartheid regime, waged a decades-long civil war against the MPLA government.

In 2002, UNITA leader Jonas Savimbi was killed by the Angolan military effectively ending the war leaving the opposition party with its only option of returning to electoral politics.

The challenges facing Angola are symptomatic of Africa as a whole. Continuing dependency on the viability and accessibility of western capitalist markets for the distribution of its most lucrative resources comes with an automatic degree of vulnerability. Africa’s only real option for sustainability is the development of an intra-continental trade policy which will not be realized absent of economic and political integration.

South Africa and the Obstructionist Opposition Fuels Economic Uncertainty

Since the fall of the settler-colonial regime of the National Party from power in the first multi-party non-racial democratic elections of April 1994, the African National Congress (ANC) has dominated South African politics. As the most industrialized state on the continent, the Republic of South Africa is undergoing a severe economic recession.

The situation in South Africa must be viewed within the broader political and economic context of the plight of the emerging nation-states across the region and globally. Rising unemployment, the persistence of poverty and the failure to redistribute national wealth provides the opposition forces with a mechanism to destabilize the government.

Jacob Zuma

President Jacob Zuma, the outgoing leader of the ANC who is winding down his tenure as head-of-state, has been subjected to numerous attempts aimed at removing him from office. Another no-confidence vote against Zuma did not succeed on August 8 as the overwhelming majority of ANC MPs rejected the obvious regime-change scheme.

In December, the ANC will hold its 54th National Conference to choose a new leader to both head the party and the ticket for the presidency and national assembly seats in 2019. However, not satisfied with its failure to remove the president, the two largest opposition parties, the right-wing Democratic Alliance (DA) and the putative ultra-left Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) are now seeking to introduce a legislative motion to dissolve parliament and hold snap elections.

What is striking about these efforts is that neither of these two parties advances any real alternative policy orientation to the rule of the ANC. Although the EFF claims to advocate the nationalization of land and mineral resources, its principal objective is the bringing down of the ANC government making it a natural ally of the pro-colonial DA.

Perhaps the gravest danger to the National Democratic Revolution (NDR) is the worsening divisions within the ANC and the strained relations between the leadership of the South African Communist Party (SACP) and the ruling party. Complicating the situation even further are differences inside the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) over its posture towards Zuma and his staunch supporters inside the ruling party. Memberships in all three of these entities overlap which does not facilitate the efficient operations of any of them.

At the recently-held SACP 14th National Congress in July, the party decided to remain as a key component of the Tripartite Alliance, being the ANC, COSATU, the South African National Civic Organizations (SANCO) and the Communist Party. Although pressure from provincial structures of the SACP to run candidates in their own name in 2019, it is not clear how much success would be achieved in light of the still vast majority support for the ANC throughout the country.

Conclusion: Multi-party Politics and the Need for African Unification

These four states discussed in this essay: Kenya, Rwanda, Angola and South Africa, typify the crises of governance and political economy within AU member-states. As long as internal divisions plague African governments and political parties, the overall struggle against imperialist domination will be thwarted.

The social aspirations of African workers, farmers and youth cannot be fully achieved absent of the merging of states, political parties, trade unions, peasant and mass organizations. Although there has been significant economic growth in Africa since the beginning of the present century, the recent period marked by the decline in commodity prices, the drop in currency values and the reemergence of the debt crisis which enhanced dependency on the world capitalist system during the post-independence period, could easily overwhelm the continent stifling the capacity to realize genuine development and regional sovereignty.

As thousands of Africans flee their countries every month seeking refuge as migrants in the European Union (EU) states, along with the inability to halt internecine conflict in nations such as South Sudan, the DRC, Egypt, Nigeria and Somalia, provides avenues for intervention by the Pentagon, various western intelligence agencies and NATO. The presence of untold numbers of troops from the U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) across the continent under such conditions of social instability, economic uncertainty and political divisions, will only serve to maintain neo-colonialism.

African leaders both within and outside of state structures should place continental unity and socialist economic planning at the top of their agendas. The broader deployment of U.S. troops can only further reverse the historical movement towards Pan-Africanism and Socialism in the 21st century.

In 1869, the Russian chemist Dmitri Mendeleev published the first widely recognized periodic table of elements. The periodic table indicates the elements in order of atomic number (the number of protons).

The green conscience received a setback last week with revelations that the Australian recycling industry is not what it seems. The middle class sensibility here is simple and dismissive: bin it and forget about it. Place the sorted items in the appropriate set place and let others do the rest.

Such an attitude means that the Australian recycler can been caught unaware. A glance at the general talking points of Australia’s recycling prowess shows confidence, even smugness. Planet Ark, for instance, notes that the recycling rate of 51 percent of household waste is “relatively on par with recycling rates in northern European countries and exceeding the mean recycling rate of all 28 countries in the EU of 42 percent.”[1]

The pat on the back follows. “This is quite an achievement for Australia considering the unique landscape and dispersed population that our waste services need to navigate.” (This self-congratulatory tone also works in reverse: a justification, for instance, as to why Australia’s internet rates are some of the slowest in the developed world.)

Where Australia lacks punch is the recycling of electronic waste, limping and lagging behind European states. In terms of battery recycling, for many years mandatory in Europe, the program remains in tight swaddling clothes.

The sense, then, of the conscientious recycler, is a strong one, alert and aware about doing one’s duty in environmental conservation, or, at the very least, avoiding environmental ruination. But the challenges as to how effective such behaviour has been are pronounced and problematic.

Some of this can be gathered from an ABC program which has made it an ongoing project to wage a “War on Waste” fronted by satirist and mocker-in-chief Craig Reucassel. While it has an instructional, even at points hectoring tone, the production makes valid points that burst the euphoric bubble of the recycling clan.

For one thing, the proportion of what is appropriately placed in bins for kerbside collections needs challenging. Audits suggest that upwards of 10 percent of material placed for recycling – in terms of volume – should find another destination.

As Trevor Thornton explains,

“The most common ‘contamination’ items include plastic bags (both full and empty), textiles, green waste, polystyrene (Styrofoam) and general rubbish.”[2]

The first item on this ticket list – plastic – is particularly noxious, finding its way into the reject pile that is duly buried in a long, slow-decaying exile in landfill.

And, suggests Thornton in a myth-debunking tone, there is little need rinsing and cleaning the assortment of cans and containers for the recyclers, as “today’s recycling systems can easily cope with the levels of food often found in or on these containers.” Such industriousness wasted!

Then come specific items that may only be partially recyclable, with the grandest culprit being the ubiquitous takeaway coffee cup. Here, the messages vary. Place them in co-mingled and mixed paper bins, and all is dandy. Not so, claim the War on Waste fraternity, which notes that only part of the cup would qualify.

Nor is the concept of re-use necessarily high priest gospel. Be wary, for instance, of the wisdom behind reusing your ceramic cup. Paper disposable cups and Styrofoam come out ahead of the re-use facility here. According to a Canadian study by Martin B. Hocking, one ceramic cup would have to be put through the paces 39 times to make it more viable than the former, and 1,006 times when compared with the latter.[3] It all has to do with energy consumption in washing reusable cups, “a less important factor in cub fabrication.”

Even more deflating was the report by the investigative Four Corners outfit that was aired in its usual Monday segment to Australian audiences thinking that they had gotten on top of the issue of what to do with glass.

They had good reason to. Again, Planet Ark, in a glowing overview of the state of recycling in Australia, asserts that glass bottles in Australia “have generally 40 – 70 percent recycled content, which means that your bottles and jars go directly into the manufacture of new bottles and jars at an energy saving.”[4]

There’s a snag in all of this. Hundreds of thousands of tonnes of glass, rather than finding their way to the appropriate recycling points, reach stockpiles and disappear in landfill. One particular fallen angel in the business, recycling company Polytrade, decided to go public with the view that the recycling market in Australia had run its course of sustainability.

According to Polytrade Rydalmere manager Nathan Ung,

“We are back in the dark age and we don’t know what to do.”

The reason for being plunged into such darkness was one of quantity and viability, a product that had gotten ahead of itself.

“The predicament at the moment is there’s no viable market anymore, there’s nowhere for the glass to go.”[5]

The stresses are manifold. Recycling companies are feeling the pinch of falls in commodity prices. Flexibility with local councils is nigh impossible, with long-term contracts between the companies and local government lasting for as long as 10 years.

Stockpiling limits are enforced by the Environmental Protection Agencies across the country, though this, according to the Four Corners report, is a premise that must be challenged. Certainly, when it came to New South Wales, companies engaged in the task of recycling were being somewhat flexible in their reading of the regulations, behaviour inspired by a good degree of desperation. In rural and regional Australia, landfilling has become de rigueur.

A dark story, then. Behind every environmental claim to fame and cocky advance in greening the earth is a qualification, a half-step back that risks, at times, becoming a reverse canter. Well it may be that Australians are generally more aware of the need to recycle, placing their green consciousness into hyperdrive. But this is a country of vastness, insufficient regulation and scattered responses across such industries vulnerable to price changes. It remains to the participants to assure those still keen to sort out their weekly waste whether it’s all worth it.

Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge. He lectures at RMIT University, Melbourne. Email: [email protected]

Notes

[1] http://recyclingweek.planetark.org/recycling-info/theworld.cfm

[2] http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-05-29/rinsing-your-recycling-is-almost-certainly-a-waste-of-time/8563828

[3]http://www.design4x.com/misc/bus183/handouts/Hocking.SpringerVerlag.Energy%20Use%20of%205%20Different%20Cups.pdf

[4] http://recyclingweek.planetark.org/documents/doc-184-glass-factsheet.pdf

[5] http://thenewdaily.com.au/news/national/2017/08/07/recycling-tonnes-glass-cheap-imports/

Featured image is from zerowaste.sa.gov.au.

The green conscience received a setback last week with revelations that the Australian recycling industry is not what it seems. The middle class sensibility here is simple and dismissive: bin it and forget about it. Place the sorted items in the appropriate set place and let others do the rest.

Such an attitude means that the Australian recycler can been caught unaware. A glance at the general talking points of Australia’s recycling prowess shows confidence, even smugness. Planet Ark, for instance, notes that the recycling rate of 51 percent of household waste is “relatively on par with recycling rates in northern European countries and exceeding the mean recycling rate of all 28 countries in the EU of 42 percent.”[1]

The pat on the back follows. “This is quite an achievement for Australia considering the unique landscape and dispersed population that our waste services need to navigate.” (This self-congratulatory tone also works in reverse: a justification, for instance, as to why Australia’s internet rates are some of the slowest in the developed world.)

Where Australia lacks punch is the recycling of electronic waste, limping and lagging behind European states. In terms of battery recycling, for many years mandatory in Europe, the program remains in tight swaddling clothes.

The sense, then, of the conscientious recycler, is a strong one, alert and aware about doing one’s duty in environmental conservation, or, at the very least, avoiding environmental ruination. But the challenges as to how effective such behaviour has been are pronounced and problematic.

Some of this can be gathered from an ABC program which has made it an ongoing project to wage a “War on Waste” fronted by satirist and mocker-in-chief Craig Reucassel. While it has an instructional, even at points hectoring tone, the production makes valid points that burst the euphoric bubble of the recycling clan.

For one thing, the proportion of what is appropriately placed in bins for kerbside collections needs challenging. Audits suggest that upwards of 10 percent of material placed for recycling – in terms of volume – should find another destination.

As Trevor Thornton explains,

“The most common ‘contamination’ items include plastic bags (both full and empty), textiles, green waste, polystyrene (Styrofoam) and general rubbish.”[2]

The first item on this ticket list – plastic – is particularly noxious, finding its way into the reject pile that is duly buried in a long, slow-decaying exile in landfill.

And, suggests Thornton in a myth-debunking tone, there is little need rinsing and cleaning the assortment of cans and containers for the recyclers, as “today’s recycling systems can easily cope with the levels of food often found in or on these containers.” Such industriousness wasted!

Then come specific items that may only be partially recyclable, with the grandest culprit being the ubiquitous takeaway coffee cup. Here, the messages vary. Place them in co-mingled and mixed paper bins, and all is dandy. Not so, claim the War on Waste fraternity, which notes that only part of the cup would qualify.

Nor is the concept of re-use necessarily high priest gospel. Be wary, for instance, of the wisdom behind reusing your ceramic cup. Paper disposable cups and Styrofoam come out ahead of the re-use facility here. According to a Canadian study by Martin B. Hocking, one ceramic cup would have to be put through the paces 39 times to make it more viable than the former, and 1,006 times when compared with the latter.[3] It all has to do with energy consumption in washing reusable cups, “a less important factor in cub fabrication.”

Even more deflating was the report by the investigative Four Corners outfit that was aired in its usual Monday segment to Australian audiences thinking that they had gotten on top of the issue of what to do with glass.

They had good reason to. Again, Planet Ark, in a glowing overview of the state of recycling in Australia, asserts that glass bottles in Australia “have generally 40 – 70 percent recycled content, which means that your bottles and jars go directly into the manufacture of new bottles and jars at an energy saving.”[4]

There’s a snag in all of this. Hundreds of thousands of tonnes of glass, rather than finding their way to the appropriate recycling points, reach stockpiles and disappear in landfill. One particular fallen angel in the business, recycling company Polytrade, decided to go public with the view that the recycling market in Australia had run its course of sustainability.

According to Polytrade Rydalmere manager Nathan Ung,

“We are back in the dark age and we don’t know what to do.”

The reason for being plunged into such darkness was one of quantity and viability, a product that had gotten ahead of itself.

“The predicament at the moment is there’s no viable market anymore, there’s nowhere for the glass to go.”[5]

The stresses are manifold. Recycling companies are feeling the pinch of falls in commodity prices. Flexibility with local councils is nigh impossible, with long-term contracts between the companies and local government lasting for as long as 10 years.

Stockpiling limits are enforced by the Environmental Protection Agencies across the country, though this, according to the Four Corners report, is a premise that must be challenged. Certainly, when it came to New South Wales, companies engaged in the task of recycling were being somewhat flexible in their reading of the regulations, behaviour inspired by a good degree of desperation. In rural and regional Australia, landfilling has become de rigueur.

A dark story, then. Behind every environmental claim to fame and cocky advance in greening the earth is a qualification, a half-step back that risks, at times, becoming a reverse canter. Well it may be that Australians are generally more aware of the need to recycle, placing their green consciousness into hyperdrive. But this is a country of vastness, insufficient regulation and scattered responses across such industries vulnerable to price changes. It remains to the participants to assure those still keen to sort out their weekly waste whether it’s all worth it.

Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge. He lectures at RMIT University, Melbourne. Email: [email protected]

Notes

[1] http://recyclingweek.planetark.org/recycling-info/theworld.cfm

[2] http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-05-29/rinsing-your-recycling-is-almost-certainly-a-waste-of-time/8563828

[3]http://www.design4x.com/misc/bus183/handouts/Hocking.SpringerVerlag.Energy%20Use%20of%205%20Different%20Cups.pdf

[4] http://recyclingweek.planetark.org/documents/doc-184-glass-factsheet.pdf

[5] http://thenewdaily.com.au/news/national/2017/08/07/recycling-tonnes-glass-cheap-imports/

Featured image is from zerowaste.sa.gov.au.

It is fascinating to watch some US senators tripping over themselves as they attempt to defend their support for or opposition to proposed legislation that would make it a federal crime to support the international campaign to Boycott, Divest, or Sanction (BDS) Israel for its continued occupation of Palestinian lands. What ties these officials up in knots are their efforts to square the circle of their “love of Israel”, their opposition to BDS, their support for a “two-state solution”, and their commitment to free speech.   

The bill in question, S720, was introduced on March 23, 2017 by Senator Ben Cardin (D-MD). S720 opposes calls by the United Nations to boycott or “blacklist” companies that support Israeli activities in the territories occupied in the 1967 war. The bill further prohibits any US person from supporting this UN call to boycott and establishes stiff fines and/or imprisonment for Americans who violate this prohibition.

There are a number of problems with the legislation. In the first place, supporters of S720 grossly mischaracterize the intent of the UN approach as “anti-Israel”. In fact, as S720, itself, acknowledges, the UN Human Rights Council specifically targets only businesses that engage in activities in “territories occupied [by Israel] since 1967”. The UN target is not Israel, but Israeli actions that serve to consolidate its hold over the occupied territories.

Then there is the concern that by making illegal either the act of boycotting Israel, or advocating for such a boycott, S720 is criminalizing free speech and stifling legitimate peaceful protest.

Finally, the legislation continues to build on earlier Congressional legislation using slight of hand language in an attempt to erase the distinction in US law between Israel and illegal Israeli settlements in occupied territories. While earlier legislation accomplished this by referring to “Israel and areas under Israel’s control”, S720 notes that its boycott prohibition applies to “commercial relations…with citizens or residents of Israel, entities organized under the laws of Israel, or the Government of Israel”.

Since S720 quickly gained 48 co-sponsors (35 Republicans and 13 Democrats) and has been supported by AIPAC and the Anti-Defamation League, one might have expected it to sail effortlessly through the Congress and be put on the President’s desk for his signature. That, however, has not been the case due to the efforts of many, including the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and other progressive organizations led by MoveOn.

While the ACLU has based its opposition on the concern that the legislation violates the free speech rights of American citizens, MoveOn has taken a more expansive approach addressing both the concern with free speech and the fact that S720 “erases the distinction in US law between Israel and Israeli settlements”.

Given the capacity of both organizations to influence and organize liberal opinion, some Democratic senators have felt compelled to either justify their support for the bill or to distance themselves from it. In too many instances, these efforts have been awkward.

Two sponsors, Senators Ben Cardin (D-MD) and Ron Wyden (D-OR) have gone to great, but unconvincing, lengths to explain that S720 does not violate an individual’s right to free speech. They argue that the bill is only directed at businesses or individuals who boycott Israel in response to international entities (like the UN or the European Union). But what they cannot explain is how punishing an American citizen who advocates for a UN boycott would not violate that citizen’s right to free speech.

Cardin, Wyden, and other Democrats who support S720 also go to great lengths to pledge their support for a “two-state solution”. But their pledges are hollow since they fail to acknowledge that the provision of S720 that protects Israel’s settlement enterprise (“entities organized under the laws of Israel”) makes realization of a “two-state solution” impossible—given the location, size, and continued expansion of these illegal settlements.

Even those who have come out against S720 have had some difficulty explaining themselves. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand​ (D-NY), for example, was one of the bill’s early endorsers. She courageously removed her name as a sponsor after learning of the free speech concerns of constitutional lawyers, saying

“…I cannot support the bill in its current form if it can be interpreted as stifling or chilling free speech…So I took my name off the bill”.

Gillibrand, nevertheless, felt the need to balance her free speech concern with her support for Israel and her opposition to BDS adding

​“I cannot state this more clearly: I vehemently oppose the BDS movement”.

It’s this last point that requires closer examination. While Israel and its supporters make a brave show of shrugging off the threat of BDS, they clearly feel threatened—otherwise why the hyper-activity to punish BDS. S720 isn’t the first such effort in the Congress and nearly one-half of the 50 states have been pressed to pass their own versions of anti-BDS resolutions.

In order to build support for their effort, advocates for Israel have tried to portray BDS in the harshest of terms. They have made Israel the victim and while portraying advocates of BDS as “virulently anti-Semetic” aggressors. All of this has been done to obfuscate the reality that BDS is nothing more than a “strategic Palestinian-led form of nonviolent resistance to the occupation and denial of human rights”.

After 50 years of occupation, Palestinians have taken it upon themselves to challenge the world community to act. They have had enough of seeing their homes demolished and lands confiscated to make way for Jewish-only roads and settlement colonies in their midst. They want an end to the daily humiliation of being a captive people denied basic freedoms and justice. Instead of submitting to the occupier, they have decided to boycott and have urged those who support their human rights to join them in their call for an end to the occupation. Their action is as legitimate as was the call of African Americans in the Deep South in the 50’s, and that of Nelson Mandela in South Africa in the 80’s.

For the Senate to oppose or to punish those who support this Palestinian call to individuals, businesses, and governments to boycott, divest, or sanction Israel for its oppressive occupation would put the Senate in the position of saying that: they support Israeli practices; they don’t want Palestinians to use non-violent means to protest their treatment; and/or they simply don’t believe that Palestinians are equal humans who deserve to have their rights protected.

And so the messages we should send to senators are clear. To those who support S720: “Shame on you”. To those who oppose S720: “Thank you for your opposition, but think again about whether the problem is BDS or the occupation that gave birth to it”. And to all senators: “Stop hiding behind your hollow profession of support for ‘two states’. If you are serious about peace, justice, and equality, stop enabling the occupation that makes the realization of those goals impossible”.

Dr. James Zogby is founder and president of the Arab American Institute, a Washington, DC-based organisation that serves as the political and policy research arm of the Arab American community. In 1984 and 1988, he served as deputy campaign manager and senior adviser to the Jesse Jackson presidential campaign. In 1993, he was asked by Vice President Al Gore to lead Builders for Peace, a private sector committee to promote US business investment in the West Bank and Gaza. Since 2001, he has served on the executive committee of the Democratic National Committee. He writes a weekly column about US politics for major newspapers in the Arab world, and is the author of Arab Voices (2010).

China’s better-than-expected economic performance in the first half of this year was applauded by overseas organizations who believe that China will continue to be a stabilizer of the global economy. Analysts pointed out that China’s satisfactory answer sheet on the economy is closely related to its strong resilience.

In the first half of the year, China posted a forecast-beating GDP increase of 6.9 percent, higher than the global average.

Global expectations on China’s economic performance are high. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) raised China’s 2017 growth forecast to 6.7 percent, its third increase this year. Bloomberg projected China’s GDP in the third and fourth quarters at 6.6 and 6.7 percent respectively, both projections 0.1 percent higher than its previous forecasts.

The Standard Chartered Bank revised China’s growth this year from 6.6 percent up to 6.8 percent, saying China will achieve an accelerated annual growth for the first time since 2010.

The more resilient economy results from an optimized structure bolstered by further expansion of the consumer market and the services sector. According to a report by the Boston Consulting Group (BCG), China’s consumer market is growing by 10 percent a year on average, faster than in any other country.

In the first half year, final consumption expenditures contributed 63.4 percent and the services industry contributed 59.1 percent to economic growth. The continuation of consumption’s fundamental role and the service industry’s role as a main engine of growth is vital to China’s economic resilience.

Bob Carr, director of the Australia-China Relations Institute, thinks consumption is relatively sticky and stable. Final consumption, as the largest contributor to GDP growth, has further stabilized China’s economic growth, he said.

China has a burgeoning middle class and it is estimated an additional 850 million people will join in the middle class by 2030, Carr said. By then, China’s spending will reach $14.3 trillion, accounting for 22 percent of the global total, higher than that of the US at 7 percent, he continued.

The emergence of new impetus produces economic resilience as well. The implementation of the strategy of innovation-driven development since the beginning of this year has fostered new technologies, new industries and new forms of business. The rise of new impetus represented by strategic new industries and sharing economy has become new growth drivers.

European think tank Bruegel holds that China is now speeding up to surpass many developed countries in terms of scientific innovation.

According to a recent study by Bruegel, China has already spent more on research and development, as a percentage of GDP, than the European Union, and it now produces as many scientific publications as the US and more PhDs in natural sciences and engineering.

Bruegel believes China is fully capable of becoming a leader in scientific innovation and pushing forward a multi-polarized global scientific research pattern by 2050.

China’s economic resilience cannot be achieved without sound fundamentals. As the largest developing country and the second-largest economy in the world, China is in the process of new-type industrialization, informatization, urbanization and agricultural modernization.

The country’s solid material foundation, abundant human resources and vast market potential will continue to provide a sound basis and condition for sustained economic growth.

Supply-side structural reform facilitates economic resilience as well. The reform has promoted economic transformation, stimulated vitality, defused risks and boosted confidence.

In the first half of 2017, about 16,000 new businesses were registered every day on average, more than two times before China’s business system reform, strongly driving innovation and entrepreneurship.

In the second quarter, the prosperity index among small and micro enterprises reached 96.5 percent, the highest in the past two years. A 6.9 percent increase in above-scale industrial added value was registered, the best performance since 2015, indicating that policies to support the development of the real economy have begun to yield results and the quality of development has been improved.

Deloitte said in a report that the Chinese government is proactively taking measures to meet the challenges brought by urbanization and aging of population, forging “one-hour economic circles” to strengthen transportation and trade links between rural and urban areas.

The country is also accelerating development of pension and medical services and exploring development opportunities as the population ages rapidly. In addition, it is also devoted to automation and artificial intelligence as a way to pursue the transformation from a labor-intensive goods exporter to a high value manufacturing country.

As the Forbes pointed out, “The China miracle isn’t over –It has entered its second phase.”

Translated from Chinese

China’s better-than-expected economic performance in the first half of this year was applauded by overseas organizations who believe that China will continue to be a stabilizer of the global economy. Analysts pointed out that China’s satisfactory answer sheet on the economy is closely related to its strong resilience.

In the first half of the year, China posted a forecast-beating GDP increase of 6.9 percent, higher than the global average.

Global expectations on China’s economic performance are high. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) raised China’s 2017 growth forecast to 6.7 percent, its third increase this year. Bloomberg projected China’s GDP in the third and fourth quarters at 6.6 and 6.7 percent respectively, both projections 0.1 percent higher than its previous forecasts.

The Standard Chartered Bank revised China’s growth this year from 6.6 percent up to 6.8 percent, saying China will achieve an accelerated annual growth for the first time since 2010.

The more resilient economy results from an optimized structure bolstered by further expansion of the consumer market and the services sector. According to a report by the Boston Consulting Group (BCG), China’s consumer market is growing by 10 percent a year on average, faster than in any other country.

In the first half year, final consumption expenditures contributed 63.4 percent and the services industry contributed 59.1 percent to economic growth. The continuation of consumption’s fundamental role and the service industry’s role as a main engine of growth is vital to China’s economic resilience.

Bob Carr, director of the Australia-China Relations Institute, thinks consumption is relatively sticky and stable. Final consumption, as the largest contributor to GDP growth, has further stabilized China’s economic growth, he said.

China has a burgeoning middle class and it is estimated an additional 850 million people will join in the middle class by 2030, Carr said. By then, China’s spending will reach $14.3 trillion, accounting for 22 percent of the global total, higher than that of the US at 7 percent, he continued.

The emergence of new impetus produces economic resilience as well. The implementation of the strategy of innovation-driven development since the beginning of this year has fostered new technologies, new industries and new forms of business. The rise of new impetus represented by strategic new industries and sharing economy has become new growth drivers.

European think tank Bruegel holds that China is now speeding up to surpass many developed countries in terms of scientific innovation.

According to a recent study by Bruegel, China has already spent more on research and development, as a percentage of GDP, than the European Union, and it now produces as many scientific publications as the US and more PhDs in natural sciences and engineering.

Bruegel believes China is fully capable of becoming a leader in scientific innovation and pushing forward a multi-polarized global scientific research pattern by 2050.

China’s economic resilience cannot be achieved without sound fundamentals. As the largest developing country and the second-largest economy in the world, China is in the process of new-type industrialization, informatization, urbanization and agricultural modernization.

The country’s solid material foundation, abundant human resources and vast market potential will continue to provide a sound basis and condition for sustained economic growth.

Supply-side structural reform facilitates economic resilience as well. The reform has promoted economic transformation, stimulated vitality, defused risks and boosted confidence.

In the first half of 2017, about 16,000 new businesses were registered every day on average, more than two times before China’s business system reform, strongly driving innovation and entrepreneurship.

In the second quarter, the prosperity index among small and micro enterprises reached 96.5 percent, the highest in the past two years. A 6.9 percent increase in above-scale industrial added value was registered, the best performance since 2015, indicating that policies to support the development of the real economy have begun to yield results and the quality of development has been improved.

Deloitte said in a report that the Chinese government is proactively taking measures to meet the challenges brought by urbanization and aging of population, forging “one-hour economic circles” to strengthen transportation and trade links between rural and urban areas.

The country is also accelerating development of pension and medical services and exploring development opportunities as the population ages rapidly. In addition, it is also devoted to automation and artificial intelligence as a way to pursue the transformation from a labor-intensive goods exporter to a high value manufacturing country.

As the Forbes pointed out, “The China miracle isn’t over –It has entered its second phase.”

Translated from Chinese

The United States has issued a provocative threat to North Korea of “fire and fury.” Following it up, the Guardian would report in its article, “Trump on North Korea: maybe ‘fire and fury’ wasn’t tough enough threat,” further threats being made:

Donald Trump has issued another provocative warning to North Korea, suggesting that his threat to unleash “fire and fury” on the country was not “tough enough”. 

The US president told reporters that North Korea “better get their act together or they’re going to be in trouble like few nations ever have been in trouble in this world”.

The Guardian never explores precisely what “trouble” was being referred to or the other “few nations” the US was hinting at.

However, the threats come amidst a barrage of familiar talking points, fearmongering, and fabrications that have proceeded all of America’s military aggression worldwide – most notably Iraq in which “intelligence” was intentionally fabricated to bait Americans and the world into a devastating war with that cost over 1 million lives, trillions of dollars, and the effects of which are still being felt both in Iraq and throughout the Middle East today.

The Conflict with Korea Didn’t Start Under Trump 

The Guardian and others across the Western media fail to place these most recent threats by the US against North Korea into a larger context regarding US-Korean relations, which stretch back to post-World War II and the Korean War which – officially – is only observing a sometimes fragile armistice yet to be fully resolved.

The South Korean government, as noted by The Week’s article, “It’s time for the U.S. military to leave South Korea,” takes full advantage of America’s military presence, using its resources to influence Asia regionally instead of tending to its own defense against threats – real or imagined – from its northern neighbor.

More likely, this arrangement is preferred by the US who uses the client regime occupying Seoul as a vector and proxy for US influence and policy throughout Asia, much in the same way it manipulates and interferes in the Middle East through proxies like Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Israel, and Turkey.

In order to justify and perpetuate America’s presence not only on the Korean Peninsula, but in Asia itself, the US and its South Korean partners have repeatedly and intentionally encircled and provoked North Korea – not only in terms of rhetoric and in the form of military drills – but through active attempts to infiltrate and overthrow the government.

Ongoing Attempts at Destabilization and Regime Change

The US State Department through fronts posing as charities and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) have attempted to flood North Korea with media aimed at undermining political stability in the country.

Under a program called “Flashdrives for Freedom,” the government and corporate-funded Human Rights Foundation along with Forum280 – a front headed by former members of the US State Department – smuggled 20,000 USB drives into North Korea.

As noted by the Guardian in its article, “Flashdrives for freedom? 20,000 USBs to be smuggled into North Korea,” it was not the first program of its kind undertaken by the US government through various fronts.

While mere allegations of nations like Russia or China attempting to influence the political landscape in the US have been labeled as clear and present threats to US national security, the US openly carries out similar operations, worldwide, including against North Korea.

When these nations react, the US cites it as an unprovoked act of aggression – further fueling its subversive actives abroad.  As subversion expands to crippling economic sanctions, the resulting humanitarian crisis is likewise blamed on the targeted nation, opening up new “pretexts” for US intervention abroad.

Activities targeting North Korea have been ongoing for years – predating the Trump administration.

US aspirations to undermine and overthrow North Korea’s political order can be cited in a 2009 policy paper published by the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), a US-based policy think tank representing the collective interests of some of the most powerful corporate-financier interests on Earth.

The 2009 paper titled, “Preparing for Sudden Change in North Korea,” would explore the possibility of invading and occupying North Korea if sufficient chaos could be created amid the nation’s military and civilian leadership. It would go as far as proposing a 460,000-strong troop deployment and an ambitious socioeconomic and political program to integrate North Korea with the US-dominated client regime in neighboring South Korea.

It is a program that represents a windfall of opportunities not only for South Korean firms, but for Wall Street – who funds the CFR’s policymaking activities – as well. It would represent an opportunity to transform North Korea into another strong Asian economy, but one in which trade barriers between Koreans and US firms would be deterred by an immense and permanent US military occupation – not unlike attempts the US made in the wake of the 2003 invasion and occupation of Iraq under the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA).

For US President Donald Trump, his rhetoric is not the result of an independent conclusion he and his cabinet have drawn regarding legitimate national security threats to the United States, but instead a continuation of long-established objectives preceding his administration and determined by unelected special interests pursuing regime change in North Korea for decades.

Continuity of Agenda

It is clear that since post-World War II, the United States has sought to reestablish its presence and influence throughout Asia, and even expand it.

The Vietnam War fought between the 1950’s and 1970’s was not only an attempt to maintain Western hegemony over Indochina, but admittedly an attempt to ultimately encircle and contain China. Within the so-called “Pentagon Papers” released in 1969, it was revealed that the conflict was one part of a greater strategy aimed at containing and controlling China.

Three important quotes from these papers reveal this strategy. It states first that:

…the February decision to bomb North Vietnam and the July approval of Phase I deployments make sense only if they are in support of a long-run United States policy to contain China.

It also claims:

China—like Germany in 1917, like Germany in the West and Japan in the East in the late 30′s, and like the USSR in 1947—looms as a major power threatening to undercut our importance and effectiveness in the world and, more remotely but more menacingly, to organize all of Asia against us.

Finally, it outlines the immense regional theater the US was engaged in against China at the time by stating:

…there are three fronts to a long-run effort to contain China (realizing that the USSR “contains” China on the north and northwest): (a) the Japan-Korea front; (b) the India-Pakistan front; and (c) the Southeast Asia front.

The Pentagon Papers in fact provide for us today the context with which to properly view current tensions in Asia Pacific.

The US is still currently and deeply engaged in each and every front described in the Pentagon Papers.

It has military forces occupying Afghanistan, bordering China to the west, is occupying and provoking conflict to China’s east along the Japan-Korea front, and is deeply involved in attempts to overthrow and replace political orders across Southeast Asia to create a united front against Beijing.

In Southeast Asia alone, US efforts are most notable in Myanmar where US proxy Aung San Suu Kyi has already assumed power, in Thailand where the US is involved in attempts to overthrow and replace the nation’s entire political order with a client regime, and in the Philippines where US-Saudi sponsored terrorists are creating a security crisis exploited by the US to expand its military footprint across the island nation.

Collectively, the US has attempted to manipulate Southeast Asia – first through the South China Sea crisis it has manufactured and attempted to perpetrate – and second through the importation of militants from Syria aimed at threatening and coercing the region as a whole in a similar manner to how the Philippines is being threatened and coerced now.

The Western media attempts to frame the current crisis the US is creating with North Korea as a battle of egos between US President Donald Trump and North Korean President Kim Jong-un. In reality, the crisis has been brewing for decades – driven not by US presidents but by unelected special interests sponsoring policy think-tanks which in turn generate policy for legislators and talking points for the media.

Understanding this allows observers and activists on all sides to see past politicians and expose the very interests driving the policy they peddle to the public.

Exposing these interests allows people to make more conscientious decisions about how to confront them, including how to divert their money away from these large corporate-financier enterprises and toward local alternatives, taking the power and influence used by Wall Street and Washington to drive Americans to destructive and costly war abroad, and reinvesting it into stronger and more resilient communities back home.

Tony Cartalucci, Bangkok-based geopolitical researcher and writer, especially for the online magazine“New Eastern Outlook”.  

Featured image is from the author.

The peace accords signed in November 2016 by the government of Juan Manuel Santos and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC, Colombia’s largest guerrilla army) ended a half-century-long conflict that killed 260,000 people and displaced another six million. Under the terms of the deal, the FARC was supposed to hand over its weapons by June 20. Despite its accusations that the government was violating the deal, FARC met this deadline on June 16.

Still, factors are threatening to delay demobilization. One of them is the important issue of land reform. Though the main cause of the conflict was the concentration of land ownership in the hands of the Colombian elite, President Santos has pushed that conversation into the future. A resolution may not even be possible as long as the Colombian government remains committed to an extractivist economic model benefitting the private mining and energy sectors. For Santos, a key benefit of peace is to get the FARC out of the way of multinational corporations that want to exploit Colombia’s natural resources in the countryside.

FARC guerrillas marching in formation during the Caguan peace talks (1998–2002) (Source: Wikimedia Commons)

Meanwhile, the violence continues. Most of the killings during the civil war were carried out not by the FARC but by paramilitaries linked to the state. Human Rights Watch called these public-private militias “the sixth division” of the Colombian army. The peace accords do not disband the paramilitaries, who killed 156 human rights activists between January 2016 and March 2017, according to Colombia’s ombudsman Carlos Alfonso Negret. In April, two FARC members were murdered by paramilitaries within 10 days, even as the guerrilla army was in the process of laying down its arms—an ominous reminder of the right-wing massacre of 3,000 former FARC members after their successful 1985 election showing under the Patriotic Union party.

“Unfortunately, I believe that these accords will not bring peace because they were not made to resolve the root of the social conflict that brought FARC into existence,” says Olimpo Cárdenas, spokesperson for the Social Roundtable for Peace, a coalition of unions, social movements, political organizations and NGOs that promotes the participation of civil society in the Colombian peace process. “The worst thing is the lack of political will on the part of the government to open politics to the FARC or to any other political view.

“Violence is a structural element of the Colombian regime,” he adds. “Historically every peace agreement has led to the mass assassination of the opposition. The establishment is playing good cop and bad cop, but together they have actually managed to disarm the most powerful guerrilla army of the continent, basically for nothing in return.”

Cárdenas is not entirely negative about the accords. Despite the bleak present situation, he says the FARC “is going to open a space” in the political landscape. “It might not be a success in the first year but they should be an important political and social actor in the future.” The Colombian peace accords also include an “ethnic chapter” that provides specific safeguards for the rights of Indigenous and Afro-Colombians, both of whom have been disproportionately affected by the armed conflict.

Cárdenas’s concerns are shared by Luis Fernando Arias, Indigenous leader of the Kankuamo people and general counsel of the National Indigenous Organization of Colombia (ONIC), which represents 47 Indigenous organizations.

“This process of paramilitarization of the countryside in Colombia has led to the murders of 27 social, Indigenous and peasant leaders between January and March,” he tells me. “This paramilitary offensive obeys an economic logic because following it, the large corporations arrive, especially extractive industries.”

According to Fernando Arias, Indigenous people in Colombia have legal rights to 33 million hectares of land, about 27% of the national territory. Furthermore, 87% of Indigenous lands are legally protected as conservation areas, yet 95% of Indigenous territory has been conceded to extractive industries without consultation with Indigenous people.

“Essentially what the government has managed to do is get the FARC out of the way so that extractive industries can come into Indigenous lands and elsewhere,” he says. “So while it is good that they resolved the armed conflict, on the other hand it will create deeper social, environmental and economic conflicts for us, especially with private companies.”

Fernando Arias emphasizes that Indigenous peoples are the most directly affected by the government’s conflict with the FARC. His grandfather and uncle were both killed, in 2001 and 2004, along with 386 Indigenous leaders from his community. But he says these recent killings cannot be separated from “a process of historical genocide and this genocide has a master which is capitalism.” Then, as now, the objective is “to take our riches, our natural resources such as gold. The European invasion of South America, started by Columbus, is now being carried on by corporations and their big extractive projects.”

A report published in May by the National Security Archive in Washington, D.C., based on declassified documents, found that Chiquita Brands paid armed groups in Colombia, including paramilitaries, to protect its operations. In 2015, murder charges were laid in Colombia against an executive of Drummond Coal, a mining company based in Arizona. Charo Minas Rojas wonders how Colombians can talk about a lasting peace under such a brutal extractivist economic model.

“As Afro-Colombians who have endured the armed conflict in flesh and blood, we demand a peace process that confronts and addresses the racism, inequality and violence directed against us,” says the Afro-Colombian human rights defender, and member of the Black Communities Process in Colombia, who helped write the ethnic chapter of the Colombian peace accords. “When we look for the source of the conflict, we find that we are not really victims of the armed conflict, we are victims of capitalism—this is what is killing us. This is what is massacring us and committing genocide against us.”

One-third of the six million people who have been displaced by armed conflict in Colombia are Afro-Colombians. In May, over 150,000 Afro-Colombians from Buenaventura declared a general strike that shut down the country’s important port city. Traffic was stopped by roadblocks, halting all economic activity. The strikers demanded basic rights from the government, including increased health care coverage, clean drinking water, more education spending, basic sanitation (there is no sewage system) and adequate employment.

Source: teleSUR

Buenaventura has the highest poverty rate in Colombia (close to 66%) and its people have been subjected to years of armed conflict and paramilitary violence. In response to the strike, on May 19 the Santos government sent in the military and police, and the city has been placed under curfew. Strikers have been teargassed, pepper-sprayed and attacked with rubber bullets; 80 people have been arrested and more than a dozen injured.

Sheila Gruner, a professor at Algoma University who has been following the work of the Black Communities Process in Colombia for many years, tells me Buenaventura can be considered “a test case for ‘post accord’ Colombia.” She says the state repression of the peaceful mobilizations in the city “raises questions about the peace accord in relation to political participation and the right to peaceful dissent.”

Gruner says the peace process is very important for Buenaventura.

“If the issues are not addressed as raised during this strike, if Black leaders who have been working on these issues for decades are not allowed to lead efforts for peace in their jurisdictions, as they have every right to do in the implementation phase of the peace process, if the issue of increased paramilitary activity in Buenaventura is not addressed, then there will be even more fertile ground for the continuation of war, displacement and violence against Black communities.”

Even if the deadline for demobilization is met in June, Fernando Arias, like Cárdenas, says the Union Patriotica massacres of the 1980s could easily be repeated.

“How can there be peace when killings on such a large scale are continuing? We want the whole world to know that Colombia is not a paradise where peace has been achieved. Paramilitarism is strong in Colombia and as long as it is not dismantled, we cannot have peace in the country.”

Asad Ismi is the CCPA Monitor‘s international affairs correspondent and author of the anthology The Latin American Revolution (2016) which can be ordered from the CCPA. He is also author of the radio documentary with the same title (2010) which has been aired on 40 radio stations in Canada, the U.S. and Europe reaching 30 million people. For his publications visit www.asadismi.info.

The harsh rhetoric from Washington and Pyongyang during recent months has exacerbated an already confrontational relationship between our countries, and has probably eliminated any chance of good faith peace talks between the United States and North Korea. In addition to restraining the warlike rhetoric, our leaders need to encourage talks between North Korea and other countries, especially China and Russia. The recent UN Security Council unanimous vote for new sanctions suggests that these countries could help. In all cases, a nuclear exchange must be avoided. All parties must assure North Koreans they we will forego any military action against them if North Korea remains peaceful.

I have visited North Korea three times, and have spent more than 20 hours in discussions with their political leaders regarding important issues that affect U.S.-DPRK relations.

In June 1994, I met with Kim Il Sung in a time of crisis, when he agreed to put all their nuclear programs under strict supervision of the International Atomic Energy Agency and to seek mutual agreement with the United States on a permanent peace treaty, to have summit talks with the president of South Korea, to expedite the recovery of the remains of American service personnel buried in his country, and to take other steps to ease tension on the peninsula. Kim Il Sung died shortly after my visit, and his successor, Kim Jong Il, notified me and leaders in Washington that he would honor the promises made by his father. These obligations were later confirmed officially in negotiations in Geneva by Robert Gallucci and other representatives of the Clinton administration.

I returned to Pyongyang in August 2010, at the invitation of North Korean leaders, to bring home Aijalon Gomes, an American who had been detained there. My last visit to North Korea was in May 2011 when I led a delegation of Elders (former presidents of Ireland and Finland and former prime minister of Norway) to assure the delivery of donated food directly to needy people.

During all these visits, the North Koreans emphasized that they wanted peaceful relations with the United States and their neighbors, but were convinced that we planned a preemptive military strike against their country. They wanted a peace treaty (especially with America) to replace the ceasefire agreement that had existed since the end of the Korean War in 1953, and to end the economic sanctions that had been very damaging to them during that long interim period. They have made it clear to me and others that their first priority is to assure that their military capability is capable of destroying a large part of Seoul and of responding strongly in other ways to any American attack. The influence of China in Pyongyang seems to be greatly reduced since Kim Jong Un became the North Korean leader in December 2011.

A commitment to peace by the United States and North Korea is crucial. When this confrontational crisis is ended, the United States should be prepared to consummate a permanent treaty to replace the ceasefire of 1953. The United States should make this clear, to North Koreans and to our allies.

To be sure, the whole of Western culture is complicit, but what astounds is the complicity of what defines itself as left.  Notably, the complicity of those among the left’s comfortable and intellectual “tendencies,” usually called “liberals.” But in general, a whole language has vanished from the Western left’s vocabulary: class struggle, international solidarity, peace among peoples, social justice, exploitation, poverty. They are so illiterate in left theory and experience that the call the ruling class’s booth on their faces, “the deep state.” This today in the West is an amalgam (rather than a conscious political program) of a loose and dangerous left. It dreams, if it dreams at all, of a revolution without struggle. The answer to that pietism is force. Whole nations wiped off the face of the earth.

We now, on this loose left, trade in our critical faculties at the theatre of propaganda. In return, the propaganda pounds, batters, and sequesters our emotions so that we end up identifying with the narrative of power. The narrative insists that the West has the Holy Grail. It insists that it has a messianic mission to improve the world by sharing the Grail’s liberal values. The old conceit of liberal humanism, thus, returns to occupy our psyche, and it’s the same liberal humanism that in the 19^th century enslaved the “lesser breeds” of the planet. Once again, we pick up the “white man’s burden” and his “civilizing mission” to lift up darkling “junior Brothers” from “savagery” and “barbarism” into our magnificent, magnanimous, culturally superior self-image. Massacres, famines, epidemics, and genocides follow.

Who galvanizes the left today against imperialism as Fidel Castro did with his uncompromising demand at the United Nations General Assembly in 1966 that “the exploitation of poor countries by rich countries must stop”?

“We hear a lot of talk about human rights,” he said in the 1970s, as Jimmy Carter’s White House launched the rhetoric of human rights, “but we have to talk about the rights of humanity.”

“The rights of humanity,” who remembers them? Chief among them the right to sovereignty, perhaps? The right to foreign non-interference? To living free of threats, sanctions, partition, dismemberment, balkanization, invasion, and occupation? To solving one’s own problems in one’s own country? To choosing one’s economic system? To refusing to become a protectorate of the Big Bully on the Potomac?

What happens when the “rights of humanity” are trampled? Since 1999, with Bill Clinton’s unauthorized war for secession of Kosovo from Yugoslavia (reduced to Serbia and Montenegro by then), unopposed and even cheered by progressive segments of the loose left,

“Like a cyclone, imperialism spins across the globe; militarism crushes people and sucks the blood like a vampire.”

Karl Liebnecht (Source: Wikimedia Commons)

These are not the words of a contemporary leftist. These are the words of German socialist Karl Liebnecht, co-founder with Rosa Luxemburg of the Spartacus League and the Communist Party of Germany, both murdered by the German social democrat state in 1919. He was referring to WW I, which, alone among the social democrats in the parliament of 1914, he stood up to oppose.

We now, on the loose left, rally to the call of “human rights,” which are invariably being abused outside our national borders. You’d think we lived in the Promised Land, so convinced are we of the responsibility to protect “less fortunate” human beings abroad, who together with the injury of our sanctions and bombs have to endure the insult of our condescension.

We now, on the loose left, cannot see beyond the imbecility of our arrogance that we lack most of the rights said to be “human” by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights right here at home. A report from Human Rights Watch (HRW) summarizes the inability of our society to protect its most vulnerable members, which measure alone judges the vibrancy of a democracy:

“Many US laws and practices, particularly in the areas of criminal and juvenile justice, immigration, and national security, violate internationally recognized human rights. Often, those least able to defend their rights in court or through the political process—members of racial and ethnic minorities, immigrants, children, the poor, and prisoners—are the people most likely to suffer abuses.”

Our masters, who incarcerate at home 2.37 million people, the largest prison population in the world, “caused in part by mandatory minimum sentencing and excessively long sentences” (HRW) and detain twelve million people per year in county jails, raise our moral indignation against cherry-picked crusades for human rights abroad. They use this manufactured indignation as a license to attack and terrorize whole nations.

In Afghanistan, in 2001, we bombed to liberate women; we are still there, but we hear no more of the sorrow and the pity of women’s plight. In Iraq, in 2003, we invaded to liberate Iraqis from the “dictator” Saddam Hussein, and one to two million Iraqis were liberated from their lives, millions more from their home and their country. Fallujah alone accuses—left more chemically poisoned than Hiroshima. In Syria, we claim to fight “to democratize” the country and at the same time the Isis cutthroats, but it took the legitimate Russian intervention to prevent a caliphate of cutthroats from ruling in Damascus.

In Yemen,

“In March [2015], a Saudi-led coalition of Arab states began a military campaign against the Houthis in Yemen. The US provided intelligence, logistical support, and personnel to the Saudi Arabian center planning airstrikes and coordinating activities, making US forces potentially jointly responsible for laws-of-war violations by coalition forces.” (HRW)

Most on the loose left ignored Obama’s crimes, among which the war in Yemen may rank as the most cynical, heartless, and inhuman. It even classifies as biological warfare, because bombing water treatment plants then leaving people to die of cholera epidemics cannot be called anything else. Meningitis cases are breaking out. Two UN aid flights to Sanaa are authorized to leave from Saudi Arabia every day for famine relief. Saudi Arabia is refusing fuel. No reason given, reports The Independent on 5 August. Saudi Arabia blockades the Yemen’s airspace. Yemen’s agony continues. No stirrings on the left.

So, too, they ignored Obama’s drone attacks on Yemen, Pakistan, and Somalia. So, too, they ignored this:

“The US restored full military assistance to Egypt in April [2015], despite a worsening human rights environment, lifting restrictions in place since the military takeover by President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi in 2013. Egypt resumed its position as the second-largest recipient of US military assistance, worth $1.3 billion annually, after Israel. In June, the US lifted its hold on military assistance to the Bahraini military despite an absence of meaningful reform, which was the original requirement for resuming the aid.” (HRW)

And this:

“In September [2015], Obama waived provisions of the Child Soldiers Prevention Act to allow four countries—the Democratic Republic of Congo, Nigeria, Somalia, and South Sudan—to continue to receive US military assistance, despite their continued use of child soldiers.” (HRW)

And this:

“Hundreds of thousands of children work on US farms. US law exempts child farmworkers from the minimum age and maximum hour requirements that protect other working children. Child farmworkers often work long hours and risk pesticide exposure, heat illness, and injuries. In 2015, the Environmental Protection Agency banned children under 18 from handling pesticides. Children who work on tobacco farms frequently suffer vomiting, headaches, and other symptoms consistent with acute nicotine poisoning.” (HRW)

The loose left now calls that grotesque excrescence in the White House a fascist, as if Trump had replaced an administration of enlightened humanitarians. They are calling for virtual presidenticide so that the rule of that enlightened international “vampire,” the Democratic Party, can be restored. But let me tell you: he’s only the last of the “fascists” in a long line since 1945. The loose left just hasn’t noticed because the loose left has no concept of class struggle. It has, therefore, no critical equipment to include imperialism—the war of the class of international imperialist on the class of colonial or semi-colonial peoples—in the catalogue of the crimes of fascism.

Our planners are not stupid. They know how to maintain their minority’s primacy by waging class war. They not only exercise it on the “proletariat” at home but also across the map of the world. In 1948, George Kennan, the architect of the policy of containment, which launched the Cold War, recommended inequality in international relations—that’s war by the imperialist class at the center against whole national peoples at the peripheries. Imperialism, therefore, is just another form of class war.

“We have about 50% of the world’s wealth but only 6.3% of its population. This disparity is particularly great as between ourselves and the peoples of Asia. In this situation, we cannot fail to be the object of envy and resentment. Our real task in the coming period is to devise a pattern of relationships which will permit us to maintain this position of disparity without positive detriment to our national security. To do so, we will have to dispense with all sentimentality and daydreaming; and our attention will have to be concentrated everywhere on our immediate national objectives. We need not deceive ourselves that we can afford today the luxury of altruism and world benefaction.” (Memo by George Kennan, Head of the US State Department Policy Planning Staff. Written February 28, 1948, Declassified June 17, 1974)

By “we,” Kennan does not mean the 99% of Americans. He means the 1%. The foreign policy he recommends is class-vested and is kept secret, for practical reasons, from the rest of us for two decades. That’s because the resources to support this policy protecting the elite has to be extracted from the rest of us, and counted in losses to social welfare and progress. Class is a relation of power, in which one class determines the direction of the whole of society. This is one example.

Fascism has many faces, but the most constant is that of the supremacist delusion that the West is the carrier of “universal values” and that, as exclusive interpreter and custodian of these values, the West is obligated to act as watchdog of democracy and human rights throughout the globe. In his inaugural address of January 1997, Bill Clinton assumed for the United States the planetary leadership of this humanitarian imperative:

“America stands alone as the world’s indispensable nation. . . . May God strengthen our hands for the good work ahead, and always, always bless our America.”

This is not universalism; this is ethnocentric hubris. This is the terrifying message of one nation “uber alles.” This is totalitarian dogma. This is a profession of democratic faith without the slightest credibility because it does not aim at democratizing international relations but at subjecting them to the discipline and image of the “indispensible nation.” This, in one word, is imperialism–fascism in action. Karl Liebnecht saw it clearly, one-hundred years ago:

“In capitalist history, invasion and class struggle are not opposites, as the official legend would have us believe, but one is the means and the expression of the other.”

Why can the loose left today not see it that way? Why does it abstract the concept of imperialism from the conduct of the Western political order, thus mutilating the totality of reality, especially the reality reserved to the peoples of colonial origins now being reinvaded, partitioned, looted, left to chaos? Why do they see a defense of “human rights” where others, especially the victims, see subjugation, neocolonialism, and imperialism? What blinds the moral vision of the left to the point of reserving the fascist brand to the crude jester, Trump, but denying it to the slick charmer Obama of the Drone-Kill-List, destroyer of Libya and Syria, architect of regime change in Ukraine, advocate of war with Russia, harasser of China, enabler of Israel in its assault on Gaza, global spymaster, deporter-in-chief, most successful weapons salesman since 1945, including to that obscene abuser of human rights, autocratic Saudi Arabia? This uneven distribution of the fascist brand insures that the next president will be another “fascist,” but more polished, “educated,” grinning confidently with sharp teeth from a shark’s mouth. Trump’s mouth pouts; the image does not inspire confidence.

Source: Land Destroyer Report

It’s not that the evidence of the devastation by the “cyclone” or the “vampire sucking the blood” is lacking. Since Clinton assigned to the United States an “indispensable” role in the world, it has bloated its defense budget, embarked with allies and vassals on a war against a tactic (“terrorism”), covering up the war of re-colonization (Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Yemen, Somalia, Sudan, Mali, Chad), organized and led coups (Haiti, Honduras, Ukraine, Egypt, Venezuela), mounted “color revolutions” in the former republics of Eastern Europe, dispatched NATO to encircle Russia with aggressive missiles, threatened on a systematic basis North Korea, China, Russia, and Iran in violation of the UN Charter, bloodied the planet with countless uncounted corpses and blighted it with hordes of desperate refugees, blockaded and sanctioned whole countries at will, and virtually scrapped the edifice of  international law–which it had itself erected as a monument to liberal democracy after WW II– while claiming to be acting in defense of universal values. The country that imposed the strictest protectionist policies in the world in the 19^th century now recognizes no borders, no national sovereignty, no limits to its expansion.

What is to be done?

End imperialism. As long as imperialism and imperialist centers exist, so long there will be wars. The politics of indignation; the campaigns for human rights do not oppose imperialism; they facilitate it. One has to be either stupid or complicit if he cannot see that the US supports two states with the most egregious records of violations of human rights—Saudi Arabia and Israel—while demonizing the socially progressive government of Venezuela as a “dictatorship.” One has to be either stupid or complicit to call for the removal of President Assad from Syria for being undemocratic, while installing a neo-fascist regime in Ukraine. One has to be either stupid or complicit to believe Iran is the sponsor of terror when all indications point to Saudi Arabia. And then there is Russia. There we risk thermonuclear war—the loss not just of human rights but the loss of life on the planet. We shall become death. That’s what we’re playing with when we consent to distributing human rights across the world to the sound of the crescendo of exploding bombs.

To begin the opposition to war and imperialism, we must start, at a minimum, with a demand to return to the cardinal principle in the Charter of the United Nations for the prevention of aggressive war by respecting the sovereignty of nations. No nation should claim “Responsibility to Protect” (R2P) if all nations are equal before international law. That responsibility rests with the UN Security Council, in the interest of peace among nations, which alone has the monopoly on authorizing war. We must, therefore, refuse to empower Western state terrorism through the melodrama and emotionalism of moral indignation. We must remember that Hitler invaded countries on the pretext of defense of “human rights” of German minorities. We must remember, too, that the Charter’s defense of sovereignty was written in response to Hitler’s violation of “human rights” in the name of “human rights.” That his policy broke the peace among nations and set the world on fire. That the whole trauma ended with two mushroom clouds in the sky.

To begin a serious opposition to imperialism and war, we must re-create a sound left—a principled left– and denounce those agents of the fake left who contribute to the escalation of Western military aggression under the banner of “human rights” or any other liberal claptrap such as identity politics, which pleads for “respect” from the state instead of claiming class power, or the power to contrast the state’s foreign and domestic policies:

“These pseudo-left figures and organizations function as what amount to specialized NGOs, acting, much like the National Endowment for Democracy and its constituent elements, as political fronts and facilitators for the CIA and US imperialism.”

A sound left must re-discover, behind the lies and distortions written by its enemies, the theories, the practices, the language, the history, the science, and the errors (most important) of the left’s once living cultures and societies—a left that changed the world. This left must extend the hand of friendship to systems of states that continue to survive in a hostile capitalist world with a socialist perspective. We live in an age of counter-revolutionary reaction in the West. Soon, we’ll forget that we are human and that we can make our own history. Shouldn’t we re-educate ourselves to a conscious, informed, organized, purposeful left or shall we let Hitler have the last word and a posthumous victory?

“The problem of how the future . . . can be secured,” he wrote in Mein Kampf about Germany,  “is the problem of how Marxism can be exterminated.”

Luciana Bohne is co-founder of Film Criticism, a journal of cinema studies, and teaches at Edinboro University in Pennsylvania. She can be reached at: [email protected]

Featured image is from the author.

Featured image: Iranian asylum seeker Hamed Shamshiripour was found dead on Manus Island on 7 August, 2017. (Source: Stuff.co.nz)

“The only responsible and humane thing for our government to do is immediately evacuate every single man on Manus, every single family and child on Nauru to safety on Australia.” – Daniel Webb, Human Rights Law Centre, Aug 7, 2017

Murder comes in various forms. It can be directly inflicted. It can be willed and directed from afar. It can also be the consequence of conditions planned, fostered, enacted. This sequential logic results in one dark conclusion: Australian refugee policy, spearheaded by the dreary, monotone immigration minister, Peter Dutton, is murderous. At the very least, it suggests complicity in manslaughter.

The gulag recipe for treating refugees and asylum seekers was always going to be an exercise in carceral brutality, a democratic state’s totalitarian alternative. Anyone familiar with the basic texts of criminology would have had a nodding acquaintance with the effects of incarceration, notably on those who did not, in fact, commit any crime. And here, the populations on Manus Island and Nauru face the sense of being punished for crimes they did not commit.

In the case of Manus, another dimension has come into play. The imminent closure of the rogue Australian outpost, funded by the Australian tax payer and deemed illegal by the Papua New Guinea Supreme Court, has sent various asylum seekers into a state.

A situation of disturbance has been compounded, heaped upon by diplomatic machinations. The US-Australia refugee deal, mocked and derided by US president Donald Trump, haunts detainees. As does the prospect of resettlement in another country, most likely one hostile and ill-suited.

One of these broken figures was the late Hamed Shamshiripour, who on Monday was found dead in the vicinity of East Lorengau refugee transit centre on Manus Island after having gone missing on Saturday.

In the aftermath, police were already clear: the death was occasioned by suicide. But Inspector David Yapu initially confirmed that a crime scene had been declared, a point at odds with Papua New Guinea police commissioner Gary Baki. The body sported wounds, though news outlets seemed short on detail. Another outlet, news.com.au, noted that he had been “found hanging from a tree”.[1] Shamshiripour’s family, sensing another hand in this, have demanded an autopsy followed by an inquest into the cause, timing and circumstances of his demise.[2]

His state had caught the eye of those working on Manus, not to mention a few detainees themselves. The eloquent Behrouz Boochani, an Iranian refugee and journalist held in the improvised prison since 2013, emitted on Twitter that a letter had been sent to authorities “stating [Shamshiripour] needs medical treatment.” The authorities, Boochani was clear, “did not care.”

Professor George Newhouse of the National Justice Project, an entity acting for the Shamshiripour family, explained that his ailing condition “had been monitored by Border Force and was known to Comcover”. This knowledge “implicated” Australia’s leaders in the death.

Human rights advocates had been busy on the warning circuit for months, using virtually every medium imaginable in attempting to convince the Immigration Department that the late Shamshiripour was “at risk”, being in an “unstable state” and showing “erratic and unpredictable behaviour”.[3]

Case managers and guards also mucked in, observing his “erratic switching between crying, laughing, and declarations such as announcing himself as ‘King of Iran’ and then playing so in character.”[4] The tireless Dr Barri Phatarfod from Doctors for Refugees similarly reiterated that a year of warnings had passed in an effort to have Shamshiripour moved to the Australian mainland, furnishing the Australian network, SBS, with a letter of concern from August 6, 2016.[5]

Dr John Brayley, chief medical officer of that outfit of sinister import, the Australian Border Force, was privy to the steep decline in Shamshiripour’s health over a year ago.

“Thank you for your recent email correspondence indicating your concern in relation to Mr Shamshiripour’s mental health management,” wrote Brayley to an unspecified inquirer in August 2016. “We had received advice about his current health care but recent events have overtaken this.”

The matter was given a bureaucratic, rather than mental appraisal.

“Our office is seeking a copy of his file, in particular to review his mental health records.”

This is the Australian camp apparatus in glorious operation, one unswervingly dedicated to cruelty above compassion and dispensation. When caught in a fix, bury the matter. When confronted with an awful truth, review it interminably till it, hopefully, vanishes. True to form, Brayley has refused to accept interviews while the Department of Immigration and Border Protection remains stonily mute.

Left with few devices other than grief and channelled indignation, Shamshiripour’s family held a vigil in Gachsaran for their lost one. But their determination to sniff out a paper trail on accountability is clear. In Newhouse’s words,

“the family want justice and they want those responsible to be held accountable even if that goes all the way to the prime minister and the minister for immigration.”[6]

The self-proclaimed King of Iran will be avenged.

Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge. He lectures at RMIT University, Melbourne. Email: [email protected]

Notes

Featured image: Iranian asylum seeker Hamed Shamshiripour was found dead on Manus Island on 7 August, 2017. (Source: Stuff.co.nz)

“The only responsible and humane thing for our government to do is immediately evacuate every single man on Manus, every single family and child on Nauru to safety on Australia.” – Daniel Webb, Human Rights Law Centre, Aug 7, 2017

Murder comes in various forms. It can be directly inflicted. It can be willed and directed from afar. It can also be the consequence of conditions planned, fostered, enacted. This sequential logic results in one dark conclusion: Australian refugee policy, spearheaded by the dreary, monotone immigration minister, Peter Dutton, is murderous. At the very least, it suggests complicity in manslaughter.

The gulag recipe for treating refugees and asylum seekers was always going to be an exercise in carceral brutality, a democratic state’s totalitarian alternative. Anyone familiar with the basic texts of criminology would have had a nodding acquaintance with the effects of incarceration, notably on those who did not, in fact, commit any crime. And here, the populations on Manus Island and Nauru face the sense of being punished for crimes they did not commit.

In the case of Manus, another dimension has come into play. The imminent closure of the rogue Australian outpost, funded by the Australian tax payer and deemed illegal by the Papua New Guinea Supreme Court, has sent various asylum seekers into a state.

A situation of disturbance has been compounded, heaped upon by diplomatic machinations. The US-Australia refugee deal, mocked and derided by US president Donald Trump, haunts detainees. As does the prospect of resettlement in another country, most likely one hostile and ill-suited.

One of these broken figures was the late Hamed Shamshiripour, who on Monday was found dead in the vicinity of East Lorengau refugee transit centre on Manus Island after having gone missing on Saturday.

In the aftermath, police were already clear: the death was occasioned by suicide. But Inspector David Yapu initially confirmed that a crime scene had been declared, a point at odds with Papua New Guinea police commissioner Gary Baki. The body sported wounds, though news outlets seemed short on detail. Another outlet, news.com.au, noted that he had been “found hanging from a tree”.[1] Shamshiripour’s family, sensing another hand in this, have demanded an autopsy followed by an inquest into the cause, timing and circumstances of his demise.[2]

His state had caught the eye of those working on Manus, not to mention a few detainees themselves. The eloquent Behrouz Boochani, an Iranian refugee and journalist held in the improvised prison since 2013, emitted on Twitter that a letter had been sent to authorities “stating [Shamshiripour] needs medical treatment.” The authorities, Boochani was clear, “did not care.”

Professor George Newhouse of the National Justice Project, an entity acting for the Shamshiripour family, explained that his ailing condition “had been monitored by Border Force and was known to Comcover”. This knowledge “implicated” Australia’s leaders in the death.

Human rights advocates had been busy on the warning circuit for months, using virtually every medium imaginable in attempting to convince the Immigration Department that the late Shamshiripour was “at risk”, being in an “unstable state” and showing “erratic and unpredictable behaviour”.[3]

Case managers and guards also mucked in, observing his “erratic switching between crying, laughing, and declarations such as announcing himself as ‘King of Iran’ and then playing so in character.”[4] The tireless Dr Barri Phatarfod from Doctors for Refugees similarly reiterated that a year of warnings had passed in an effort to have Shamshiripour moved to the Australian mainland, furnishing the Australian network, SBS, with a letter of concern from August 6, 2016.[5]

Dr John Brayley, chief medical officer of that outfit of sinister import, the Australian Border Force, was privy to the steep decline in Shamshiripour’s health over a year ago.

“Thank you for your recent email correspondence indicating your concern in relation to Mr Shamshiripour’s mental health management,” wrote Brayley to an unspecified inquirer in August 2016. “We had received advice about his current health care but recent events have overtaken this.”

The matter was given a bureaucratic, rather than mental appraisal.

“Our office is seeking a copy of his file, in particular to review his mental health records.”

This is the Australian camp apparatus in glorious operation, one unswervingly dedicated to cruelty above compassion and dispensation. When caught in a fix, bury the matter. When confronted with an awful truth, review it interminably till it, hopefully, vanishes. True to form, Brayley has refused to accept interviews while the Department of Immigration and Border Protection remains stonily mute.

Left with few devices other than grief and channelled indignation, Shamshiripour’s family held a vigil in Gachsaran for their lost one. But their determination to sniff out a paper trail on accountability is clear. In Newhouse’s words,

“the family want justice and they want those responsible to be held accountable even if that goes all the way to the prime minister and the minister for immigration.”[6]

The self-proclaimed King of Iran will be avenged.

Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge. He lectures at RMIT University, Melbourne. Email: [email protected]

Notes

Featured image: Amadou Sanogo

Winning! It’s the White House watchword when it comes to the U.S. armed forces. “We will give our military the tools you need to prevent war and, if required, to fight war and only do one thing — you know what that is? Win! Win!” President Donald Trump exclaimed earlier this year while standing aboard the new aircraft carrier U.S.S. Gerald R. Ford.

Since World War II, however, neither preventing nor winning wars have been among America’s strong suits. The nation has instead been embroiled in serial conflicts and interventions in which victories have been remarkably scarce, a trend that has only accelerated in the post-9/11 era. From Afghanistan to Iraq, Somalia to the Philippines, Libya to Yemen, military investments — in lives and tax dollars — have been costly and enduring victories essentially nonexistent.

But Amadou Sanogo is something of a rare all-American military success story, even if he isn’t American and his success was fleeting. Sanogo learned English in Texas, received instruction from U.S. Marines in Virginia, took his intelligence training in Arizona, and underwent Army infantry officer basic training in Georgia.  Back home in his native Mali, the young army officer was reportedly much admired for his sojourn, studies, and training in the United States.

In March 2012, Sanogo put his popularity and skills to use when he led a coup that overthrew Mali’s elected government.

“America is [a] great country with a fantastic army. I tried to put all the things I learned there into practice here,” he told Der Spiegel during his tenure as Mali’s military strongman. (He eventually lost his grip on power, was arrested, and in 2016 went on trial for “complicity in kidnapping and assassination.”)

Since 9/11, the United States has spent more than $250 billion training foreign military and police personnel like Sanogo.  Year after year, a sprawling network of U.S. programs provides 200,000 of these soldiers and security officers with assistance and support.  In 2015, almost 80,000 of them, hailing from 154 countries, received what’s formally known as Foreign Military Training (FMT).

The stated goals of two key FMT programs — International Military Education and Training (IMET) and the Combating Terrorism Fellowship Program (CTFP) — include promoting “international peace and security” and increasing the awareness among foreign military personnel of “internationally recognized human rights.”  In reality, these programs focus on strengthening U.S. partner and proxy forces globally, though there’s scant evidence that they actually succeed in that goal. A study published in July, analyzing data from 1970 to 2009, finds that FMT programs are, however, effective at imparting skills integral to at least one specific type of armed undertaking. “We find a robust relationship between U.S. training of foreign militaries and military-backed coup attempts,” wrote Jonathan Caverley of the U.S. Naval War College and Jesse Savage of Trinity College Dublin in the Journal of Peace Research.

Bad Actors

Through nearly 200 separate programs, the State Department and the Department of Defense (DoD) engage in what’s called “security cooperation,” “building partner capacity,” and other assistance to foreign forces.  In 2001, the DoD administered about 17% of security assistance funding. By 2015, that figure had jumped to approximately 60%. The Combating Terrorism Fellowship Program, a post-9/11 creation indicative of this growth, is mostly run through the DoD and focuses on training mid- and senior-level defense officials from allied militaries in the tenets of counterterrorism. The State Department, by contrast, is the driving force behind the older and larger IMET program, though the Defense Department implements the training.

Under IMET, foreign personnel — like Sanogo — travel to the U.S. to take classes and undergo instruction at military schools and bases.

“IMET is designed to help foreign militaries bolster their relationships with the United States, learn about U.S. military equipment, improve military professionalism, and instill democratic values in their members,” wrote Joshua Kurlantzick in a 2016 Council on Foreign Relations memorandum aimed at reforming the program.

However, in an investigation published earlier this year, Lauren Chadwick of the Center for Public Integrity found that, according to official U.S. government documents, at least 17 high-ranking foreigners — including five generals — trained through IMET between 1985 and 2010 were later accused and in some cases convicted of criminal and human rights abuses. An open-source study by the non-profit Center for International Policy found another 33 U.S.-trained foreign military officers who later committed human rights abuses. And experts suggest that the total number of criminal U.S. trainees is likely to be far higher, since IMET is the only one of a sprawling collection of security assistance programs that requires official reports on human rights abusers.

In their Journal of Peace Research study, Caverley and Savage kept the spotlight on IMET because the program “explicitly focuses on promoting norms of civilian control” of the military. Indeed, it’s a truism of U.S. military assistance programs that they instill democratic values and respect for international norms. Yet the list of U.S.-trained coup-makers — from Isaac Zida of Burkina Faso, Haiti’s Philippe Biamby, and Yahya Jammeh of The Gambia to Egypt’s Abdel-Fattah el-Sisi, Mohammad Zia-ul-Haq of Pakistan, and the IMET-educated leaders of the 2009 coup in Honduras, not to mention Mali’s Amadou Sanogo — suggests an embrace of something other than democratic values and good governance.

“We didn’t spend, probably, the requisite time focusing on values, ethics, and military ethos,” then chief of U.S. Africa Command, Carter Ham, said of Sanogo following his coup. “I believe that we focused exclusively on tactical and technical [training].”

In 2014, two generations of U.S.-educated officers faced off in The Gambia as a group of American-trained would-be coup-makers attempted (but failed) to overthrow the U.S.-trained coup-maker Yahya Jammeh who had seized power back in 1994. The unsuccessful rebellion claimed the life of Lamin Sanneh, the purported ringleader, who had earned a master’s degree at National Defense University (NDU) in Washington, D.C. (Two other coup plotters had apparently even served in the U.S. military.)

“I can’t shake the feeling that his education in the United States somehow influenced his actions,” wrote Sanneh’s former NDU mentor Jeffrey Meiser. “I can’t help but wonder if simply imprinting our foreign students with the ‘American program’ is counterproductive and unethical.”

Caverly warns that Washington should also be cautious about exporting its own foreign and domestic policy imperatives, given that recent administrations have left the Defense Department flush with funding and the State Department’s coffers so bare that generals are forced to beg on its behalf.

“Put more succinctly,” he explained, “you need to build up multiple groups within civil society to complement and sometimes counterbalance an empowered military.”

Caverley and Savage identified 275 military-backed coups that occurred worldwide between 1970 and 2009.  In 165 of them, members of that country’s armed forces had received some IMET or CTFP training the year before the coup. If you add up all the years of such instruction for all those countries, it tops out at 3,274 “country years.” In 165 instances, a takeover attempt was carried out the next year. “That’s 5%, which is very high, since coups happen rarely,” Caverley told TomDispatch. “The ratio for country-years with no U.S. training is 110 out of 4101, or 2.7%.”

While U.S. training didn’t carry the day in The Gambia in 2014 (as it had in 1994 when U.S. military-police-training alumnus Yahya Jammeh seized power), it is nonetheless linked with victorious juntas.

“Successful coups are strongly associated with IMET training and spending,” Caverley and Savage noted.

According to their findings, American trainees succeeded in overthrowing their governments in 72 of the 165 coup attempts.

Train Wreck

There is significant evidence that the sprawling patchwork of America’s military training programs for foreign forces is hopelessly broken.  In 2013, a State Department advisory board found that American security aid had no coherent means of evaluation and no cohesive strategy. It compared the “baffling” array of programs to “a philanthropic grant-making process by an assemblage of different foundations with different agendas.”

A 2014 RAND analysis of U.S. security cooperation (SC) found “no statistically significant correlation between SC and change in countries’ fragility in Africa or the Middle East.” A 2015 report from U.S. Special Operations Command’s Joint Special Operations University noted that efforts at building partner capacity have “in the past consumed vast resources for little return.” That same year, an analysis by the Congressional Research Service concluded that “despite the increasing emphasis on, and centrality of, [building partner capacity] in national security strategy and military operations, the assumption that building foreign security forces will have tangible U.S. national security benefits remains a relatively untested proposition.”

“There are no standard guidelines for determining the goals of [counter-terrorism] security assistance programs, particularly partner capacity-building training programs, or for assessing how these programs fit into broader U.S. foreign policy objectives,” reads a 2016 Center for a New American Security report. “And there are few metrics for measuring the effectiveness of these programs once they are being implemented.” And in his 2016 report on IMET for the Council on Foreign Relations, Kurlantzick noted that the effort is deeply in need of reform. “The program,” he wrote, “contains no system for tracking which foreign military officers attended IMET… [a]dditionally, the program is not effectively promoting democracy and respect for civilian command of armed forces.”

Studies aside, the failures of U.S. training efforts across the Greater Middle East have been obvious for years. From the collapse of the U.S.-built Iraqi army in the face of small numbers of Islamic State militants to a stillborn effort to create a new armed force for Libya, a $500 million failed effort to train and equip Syrian rebels, and an often incompetent, ghost-soldier-filled, desertion-prone army in Afghanistan, large-scale American initiatives to build and bolster foreign forces have crashed and burned repeatedly.

One thing stateside U.S. training does seem to do, according to Caverley and Savage, is increase “human capital” — that is, foreign trainees’ professional skills like small unit tactics and strategic planning as well as intangibles like increased prestige in their home countries. And unlike other forms of American aid that allow regimes to shuttle state resources toward insulating the government from coups by doing anything from bribing potential rivals to fostering parallel security forces (like presidential guards), FMT affords no such outlet.

“If you give assets to a group with guns and a strong corporate identity within a country lacking well-developed institutions and norms, you create the potential for political imbalance,” Caverley told TomDispatch. “

An extreme example of that imbalance is an attempt to take over the entire government.”

Strength and Numbers

The United States has a troubled past when it comes to working with foreign militaries. From Latin America to Southeast Asia, Washington has a long history of protecting, backing, and fostering forces implicated in atrocities. Within the last several months alone, reports have surfaced about U.S.-trained or -aided forces from the United Arab Emirates, Syria, Cameroon, and Iraq torturing or executing prisoners.

Some U.S.-trained figures like Isaac Zida in Burkina Faso and Amadou Sanogo in Mali have experienced only short-term successes in overthrowing their country’s governments. Others like The Gambia’s Yahya Jammeh (who went into exile in January after 22 years in power) and Egypt’s president — and former U.S. Army War College student — Abdel Fattah el-Sisi have had far more lasting tenures as strongmen in their homelands.

Any foreign military training provided by the U.S., write Caverley and Savage, “corresponds to a doubling of the probability of a military-backed coup attempt in the recipient country.” And the more money the U.S. spends or the more soldiers it trains via IMET, the higher the risk of a coup d’état.

The leaders of four al Qaeda groups have united under a common banner. (Source: FDD’s Long War Journal)

In 2014, the U.S. resumed IMET support for Mali — it had been suspended for a year following the insurrection — and even increased that funding by a modest $30,000. That West African nation has, however, never recovered from the coup crisis of 2012 and, half a decade later, remains wracked by an insurgency that Sanogo, his successors, and a French- and U.S.-backed military campaign have been unable to defeat. As the militant groups in Mali have grown and metastasized, the U.S. has continued to pour money into training local military personnel. In 2012, the year Amadou Sanogo seized power, the U.S. spent $69,000 in IMET funds on training Malian officers in the United States.  Last year, the figure reached $738,000.

For the better part of two decades from Afghanistan to Iraq, Yemen to Pakistan, Somalia to Syria, U.S. drone strikes, commando raids, large-scale occupations and other military interventions have led to small-scale tactical triumphs and long-term stalemates (not to mention death and destruction). Training efforts in and military aid to those and other nations — from Mali to South Sudan, Libya to the Philippines — have been plagued by setbacks, fiascos, and failures.

President Trump has promised the military “tools” necessary to “prevent” and “win” wars. By that he means “resources, personnel training and equipment… the finest equipment in the world.” Caverley and Savage’s research suggests that the Pentagon could benefit far more from analytical tools to shed light on programs that cost hundreds of billions of dollars and deliver counterproductive results — programs, that is, where the only “wins” are achieved by the likes of Yahya Jammeh of The Gambia and Egypt’s Abdel-Fattah el-Sisi.

“Warfighters focus on training other warfighters. Full stop. Any second order effects, like coups, are not the primary consideration for the training,” Caverley explains. “That’s why security cooperation work by the U.S. military, like its more violent operations, needs to be put in a strategic context that is largely lacking in this current administration, but was not much in evidence in other administrations either.”

Nick Turse is the managing editor of TomDispatch, a fellow at the Nation Institute, and a contributing writer for the Intercept. He recently covered ethnic cleansing by government forces in South Sudan for Harper’s Magazine and torture and killing by government forces in Cameroon for the Intercept.His latest book is Next Time They’ll Come to Count the Dead: War and Survival in South Sudan. His website is NickTurse.com.

The world is daily and hourly edging closer to the brink of nuclear war, as US President Donald Trump maintains a constant stream of extraordinarily inflammatory and reckless threats against North Korea. Such bellicose language coming from the man in charge of the most powerful military force on the planet is generating increasing shock and fear that war with nuclear weapons could break out at any moment.

Having tweeted yesterday morning that the military option is now “locked and loaded should North Korea act unwisely,” Trump followed up with images of B-1 strategic bombers and a message from US Pacific Command that these warplanes were ready to fulfill their “Fight Tonight” mission in Korea.

Just hours later, Trump rebuked German Chancellor Angela Merkel for criticising the “escalation of rhetoric,” declaring, “I hope they understand the gravity of the situation of what I said, and what I said is what I mean.” The US president again menaced North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, warning that if he utters one more overt threat, “he will truly regret it.”

With the danger of war looming with ever greater menace over the world’s population, it is natural to think, or at least hope, that what is involved is just a war of words, and that somehow a means will be found to pull back from the precipice. It is necessary, however, to look reality in the face.

Comparisons are being made to the Cuban missile crisis of 1962—the closest the world has come to nuclear war. But that tense and precarious confrontation was finally resolved and nuclear arsenals stood down because neither the American nor the Russian leader wanted to unleash a nuclear exchange.

The same cannot be said today. At least one side, the Trump administration, is primed and prepared to engulf the other side in “fire and fury like the world has never seen.” Moreover, whether intentionally or not, Trump is recklessly goading North Korea into making a desperate military move.

Trump has said absolutely nothing to reassure North Korean leader Kim that the US wants a negotiated settlement or anything short of complete and abject capitulation. And as the prospect of conflict increasingly seems inevitable, military logic increasingly takes over. If the highly unstable Pyongyang regime believes that a massive US attack is imminent, it could decide to launch its own pre-emptive strike rather than have its capacity to retaliate completely destroyed.

In its recklessness, the Trump administration is proceeding with indifference and disregard for what would be unleashed by a war against North Korea. Unlike the Korean War of 1950–53, which cost the lives of millions on both sides of north-south border, a new conflict would be unlikely to be confined to the Korean Peninsula.

The threat of nuclear war is not simply the product of a fascistic madman in the White House, but arises out of immense geo-political tensions fueled by the deep economic crisis of American and global capitalism. Trump has the backing of powerful sections of the military and political elites in Washington who have been pressing for the US to challenge and if necessary go to war with China, regarded as the chief obstacle to American global dominance.

The present crisis is the outcome of the political climate prepared by a quarter-century of continuous wars by US imperialism in the Middle East, North Africa and Central Asia, as Washington sought to use its military might to overcome its historic economic decline. It has become a virtual article of faith in American ruling circles that all of their problems on the international arena can be resolved through military action.

The ground was prepared for war against North Korea by the Obama administration, which, as part of its “pivot to Asia” against China, authorised a huge military build-up throughout the Indo-Pacific. The US military has now stationed its most advanced weaponry in Asia, along with 60 percent of its air and naval forces, and secured new basing agreements throughout the region.

The Pentagon could immediately call on more than 28,000 Air Force, naval, Marine and Special Operations personnel based in South Korea as well as many more forces from its bases in Japan and Guam. Moreover, in the event of a war with North Korea, the US would assume operational control of the South Korean military, with its 625,000 personnel and 3,100,000 reservists.

Any war on the Korean Peninsula poses great dangers not only for China, but also for Russia, as both countries share borders with North Korea. The criminal irresponsibility of the Trump administration is underscored by the fact that it is prepared to initiate a war in what has been a dangerous flashpoint throughout the past century.

It cannot be assumed that China or Russia will simply sit by while the US starts a firestorm in their backyard that will grossly undermine their own security. Having just voted in the UN Security Council for harsh new sanctions on North Korea, Beijing and Moscow can only regard Trump’s warmongering this week as a betrayal.

China intervened in the first Korean War as American troops approached its border, and it could do so again. An editorial in the state-owned Global Times, reflecting the more militarist sections of the Chinese regime, insisted that Beijing had to “respond with a firm hand” to defend its interests. While urging that China remain neutral if North Korea launches a first strike, it warned:

“If the US and South Korea carry out strikes and try to overthrow the North Korean regime… China will prevent them from doing so.”

It cannot be ruled out that a way will be devised to defuse the immediate crisis on the Korean Peninsula, at least temporarily. However, the Rubicon has been crossed. The US has made clear that it is no longer constrained by previous understandings on the use of nuclear weapons and is willing to wage nuclear war—in this case against an impoverished, backward and poorly armed enemy. Around the world, rivals and allies alike will be compelled to alter their strategic and military planning accordingly to ensure they can defend their vital interests.

The greatest danger in this situation is the lack of political understanding and preparation on the part of the working class in the US, Asia and internationally for the crisis that now confronts humanity. While the monstrous threats emanating from Trump have evoked a great deal of anxiety, fear and hostility, workers lack their own political strategy and party to end the danger of war. What is required now is the building of an international anti-war movement of the working class based on socialist principles and the International Committee of the Fourth International and its sections as the mass revolutionary parties needed to lead it.

“In this pact, we hope to create a shield against aggression and the fear of aggression–a bulwark which will permit us to get on with the real business of government and society, the business of achieving a fuller and happier life for all our citizens.”

– Address by US President Harry S. Truman, on the occasion of the signing of the North Atlantic Treaty (April 4, 1949) [1]

.

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The establishment of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in April of 1949 was defended, at least in public discourse, as a necessary bulwark against threats to peace posed by the Soviet Union.

Composed of 12 member states at the time, NATO was conceived as a collective defense among countries in the North Atlantic area (including Canada and the United States) all united in common cause to “safeguard the freedom, common heritage and civilization of their peoples, founded on the principles of democracy, individual liberty and the rule of law.” [2]

Today, nearly 3 decades after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the alliance remains active, with 17 additional members, including former members of the Warsaw Pact and constituent nations of the former Yugoslavia. Defense spending has shifted to the Middle East & North Africa and East Asia & Pacific regions. [3]

The post Cold War ‘peace dividend’ was not realized, at least not for very long, as theatres of battle were waged progressively in the Gulf (1991), the former Yugoslavia (1995-1999), Afghanistan (2001), Iraq (2003), Libya (2011), and on the Russian frontier.

Peace has not been realized in the post Cold War era, and remarkably, a nuclear conflict between major powers is once again a very real prospect.

In April 2017, a symposium was held at the University of Manitoba probing the post Cold War military and parallel economic order. Three prominent thinkers were on hand to provide some background on NATO’s actual as opposed to official role, the economic context of its various maneuvres, and the prospects and prescription for peace as social and ecological disruption continues to grip the globe.

The lectures were sponsored by the University of Manitoba based Geopolitical Economy Research Group, in association with Peace Alliance Winnipeg, the Manitoba Chair for Global Governance Studies in the Department of Political Studies at the University of Winnipeg, and the University of Manitoba Institute for the Humanities in the Department of Political Studies at the University of Manitoba. Audio and complete video were provided by Paul S Graham.

Radhika Desai is professor of Political Studies at the University of Manitoba and director of the Geopolitical Economy Research Group, based at that university. She functioned as the moderator and convener for the April 3rd conference, and introduced the three main speakers.

Dr. Paul Kellogg is an Associate Professor in the Centre for Interdisciplinary Studies at Athabasca University. He writes extensively about Canada and international political economy, Marxist theory and social movements. His most recent book is Escape from the Staple Trap: Canadian Political Economy after Left Nationalism (2015).

Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya is a sociologist, geopolitical analyst, Research Associate with the Centre for Research on Globalization, and the award-winning author of The Globalization of NATO. He is  a contributor at the Strategic Culture Foundation (SCF), Moscow, and a member of the Scientific Committee of Geopolitica, Italy.

Roger Annis is a long time sociologist and retired aerospace worker. He writes on issues around war and peace and social justice. He is co-founder and editor of The New Cold War: Ukraine and Beyond.

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Notes:

1. https://www.trumanlibrary.org/publicpapers/index.php?pid=1062
2. http://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/official_texts_17120.htm
3. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1758-5899.12328/full

VISIT MY NEW WEB SITE: stephenlendman.org (Home – Stephen Lendman). Contact at [email protected].

Inflammatory rhetoric by Trump and Mattis risks turning a war of words into something much more serious. Miscalculations on both sides could lead to catastrophic war.

On Wednesday, Defense Secretary Mattis issued an ultimatum to North Korea, saying “cease any consideration of actions that would lead to the end of its regime and destruction of its people.”

His warning came in response to Pyongyang suggesting plans to fire ballistic missiles to within 30 – 40 km from Guam by mid-August.

On Thursday, Trump said his “fire and fury” warning perhaps wasn’t “tough enough.” The DPRK should “get (its) act together (or it’ll) be in trouble like few nations have ever been.” Its leadership should be “very, very nervous” if it does anything harmful to America or its allies.

Kim Jong-un “disrespected our country greatly. He’s not getting away with it.”

On Friday, China warned Washington, saying if it tries to forcefully topple North Korea’s government, it’ll intervene to stop it.

It repeated calls for calm and diplomatic outreach – easing tensions, not escalating them further. China’s People’s Daily said

“(a) way out of the nuclear issue on the Korean Peninsula cannot be found in the latest exchange of tough words between Washington and Pyongyang.”

“(T)he bottom line on the nuclear issue on the Korean Peninsula is that there must not be any armed conflict there. There is no room for any related party to play with fire on the issue.”

China’s Global Times (GT) said

“when…actions jeopardize (Beijing’s) interests, (it’ll) respond with a firm hand.”

GT repeated the warning issued in the People’s Daily, saying

“(i)f the US and South Korea carry out strikes and try to overthrow the North Korean regime and change the political pattern of the Korean Peninsula, China will prevent them from doing so.”

Beijing firmly opposes war on the Korean peninsula, threatening its national security. Its warning against the possibility is the strongest issued so far, a clear message telling Washington to back off.

Beijing won’t tolerate US East Asia aggression. It’s committed to regional peace and stability and will do whatever it takes to achieve these objectives – America’s meddling in a part of the world not its own the main obstacle.

Martin Schulz (Source: Wikimedia Commons)

German SPD head Martin Schulz, a candidate for chancellor in September federal elections, blasted Trump’s inflammatory rhetoric on North Korea, saying

“(w)e are in a situation when we need to tell the US government clearly that verbal saber rattling leads to the exacerbation of the conflict.”

“We need to use all channels to achieve de-escalation, to get the message across to the US president that his rhetoric is dangerous.”

Separately, China’s Defense Ministry warned Washington “to immediately correct its wrongdoing and stop provocations under the pretext of so-called ‘freedom of navigation,’ “ in response to a US guided-missile destroyer entering waters near China’s Nansha Islands without permission, adding:

“(S)uch provocative actions of the United States significantly hinder bilateral strategic trust, and also create difficulties and obstacles for enhancing relations between the armed forces of the two countries” – exacerbated by Beijing’s frustration over Washington’s tough talk on North Korea, risking war on the peninsula.

Regional conditions remain tense. Unthinkable nuclear war could follow by accident or design.

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.

Featured image: Khirbet Tana Tea 

Representatives from the Land Defense Coalition spent the afternoon of July 5th driving through the winding hills of the surrounding Nablus Governorate area, and standing under trees to escape the ceaseless heat as we visited Khirbet Tana, a herding and agriculturally based community of families that reside in the some forty plus caves dotting the sloping hills.

The Land Defense Coalition members were visiting the local popular committee that organises the daily resistance and steadfastness of the community.

The most recent internationally released report Khirbet Tana was in January of 2017, when the village made news for being one of the first demolitions of the new year. The Israeli occupation forces demolished 49 structures during this encounter. In 2016, Khirbet Tana was demolished over four times.

Similar efforts of displacement are ongoing in other regions of the West Bank: the Israeli project to develop settlements in the E1 corridor of Jerusalem threatening the Bedouin community of Khan al-Ahmar is only one other example. In the South Hebron Hills people are in daily struggle for their survival on their land.

These communities also face settler violence. For example in 2011, there was an incident where settlers beat a Tana shepherd and slaughtered 15 of his animals.

A historic village struggling for their future

The Ottoman-era mosque built in the 1850s is material evidence of the longevity of the Khirbet Tana community, where families have lived and farmed on the land since before 1948, before the territory was declared a ‘firing zone’. With the crest of the hills towering over, and the valley dipping and curving alongside the road to the caves, the Animal

Husbandry Cooperative members pointed out how the features of the hills are defined by intimidation and violence from the Israeli military and the nearby settlements of Itamar and Mikhora.

Before 1967, the community was in control of 18,000 dunams of land of which 14,000 were seized by the Israeli military. This has left only 4,000 dunams of crucial shepherding and grazing area for this farming dependent community. The Israeli state’s confiscation and occupation of this land physically and symbolically disconnects Tana residents from an extensive swath of land that holds ancestral significance and necessary resources for their livelihood.

Despite recorded history of the Khirbet Tana community in the Nablus Governorate area, Khirbet Tana has been declared by Israeli Courts an unauthorized village because of its proximity to a closed military training zone (Firing Zone 904A).

According to POICA, the total area of the West Bank classified as firing zone amounts to 998,185 dunums and constitutes 17.6 % of the West Bank total area. A ramification of this “firing zone” decree is that any type of building, which could range from a rudimentary tent or full cement buildings, is restricted, building permits are denied and there exists quasi-juridical justification that holds up in Israeli courts for random demolitions.

The entirety of the community therefore lives in caves. In order to expand any community shelters, be it another room for a family to sleep in or another place to house the animals, another cave must be dug out and cleaned.

Another challenge the community faces is access to electricity. There are no water or sewage lines and no electricity grid that reaches the families in the caves. The Israeli authorities refuse to connect the village to the extensive electricity and water grids they readily offer to nearby settlements. The residents use solar panels to generate rudimentary electricity, “only enough for one light bulb”, as quoted by the Animal Husbandry Collective.

In an extreme show of violence and disregard for international intervention, the Israeli army’s Civil administration has confiscated solar panels in other Bedouin communities, despite being donated through international aid. The community school now rests close to the Mosque and is a two room white structure donated by international aid. It has been demolished over 5 times since 2005, in a clear violation of international law, such as Article 48 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, prohibiting an occupying power from destroying or confiscating the private property of the civilian population and the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child where children’s right to education and play are protected.

Sumud – steadfastness in the face of injustice

The families continue despite the obstacles and violence cited. During this visit the families were absent because they have escaped the unencumbered heat in the hills by posting temporary tent to complete the seasonal wheat farming in another area of Beit Furik.

The caves feel ghost-like and the delegation is reminded of the danger the unrenovated caves can pose. While some of the Israeli military’s violence can be dramatic and highly visible such as the demolitions, the darkness of the caves serve as a reminder that other perpendicular forms of Israeli violence, such as restricting access to electricity, are disruptive to daily living.

There are signs of life: be it the school, children’s art projects hung up decorating the caves, or the simple existence of a bread oven, signs of the families strength and courage persist.

The Land Defense Coalitions project and goal is to give the community a living situation deserving of their endurance and perseverance, to make the cave-living sustainable through renovations and investment in an expanded electricity system of solar panels.

The hope is that these projects will be complete before the families return after the harvest season and the beginning of the school year.

All images in this article are from the author.

On February 2014, a United States-sponsored coup was initiated in the Ukraine in which President Viktor Yanukovych was illegally ousted from power. (1) Over three years later, the putsch has done nothing but plunge the Ukraine, a tortured country plundered throughout modern history (by the West), into another abyss. In a 2015 interview with CNN, then US president Barack Obama openly confessed that “we had brokered a deal to transition power in Ukraine”.

Around 10,000 people have been killed in the time since, with the conflict generating 2.5 million refugees who relocated to Russia. The putsch led to Crimea’s annexation a month after the coup, with a 96% vote in favour of joining the Russian Federation – the majority of Crimeans already considered themselves ethnic Russians. (2)

The new Western-backed government, led by billionaire Petro Poroshenko, has been riddled with corruption and sees meagre support from the Ukrainian people. (3) Just 1.9% fully trust Poroshenko personally, according to an unreported survey conducted in June. (4) Poroshenko’s dismal backing is hardly surprising considering the disastrous economic conditions millions are enduring in the country. What’s more, the 2014 coup has led to an unseemly rise in far-right groups.

In contrast, the Russian president Vladimir Putin has an 87% approval rating according to a poll also in June. (5) This makes Putin “one of the most popular leaders in the world”, with even mainstream networks like CNN reporting on his consistently high approval ratings.

Thinking objectively one can quickly identify the enormous pretense at work here. Picture the Western reaction had Russia performed a key role in, say, toppling governments on the US border, in Canada or Mexico. What would the superpower’s reaction be? To adopt CIA lingo, any efforts to install pro-Russian governments on the US frontiers would be “terminated with extreme prejudice”.

Examining Mexico’s case, it’s worth remembering that the US is illegally sitting on half of its territory. (6) After the Mexican-American war in 1848, the US stripped of Mexico lands that later became known as California, Arizona, New Mexico, etc. This is already taking into account the annexation of Texas from Mexico in 1845. Such huge land-grabs have been wiped from memory, except from the minds of Mexicans that is.

The West has acted with seeming abhorrence on what they deem as Russian interference in eastern Ukraine, the majority of whose people view Russia positively. One of the West’s principal goals in initiating the 2014 putsch, was to integrate the Ukraine into NATO – a hostile, expansionist foreign entity receiving three-quarters of its funding from Washington. George Kennan, former US Ambassador to the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia, described NATO enlargement as “a tragic mistake”. (7) Kennan later joined other American statesman in penning an open letter to the White House condemning NATO expansionism as “a policy error of historic proportions”. To no avail.

NATO is simply one arm of American imperialism. Since 1945 the CIA, with US government and military support, has toppled numerous foreign regimes and installed military dictatorships. (8) Around the world, the US has violated international law at will. Right now, for example, the US is conducting aggressive military exercises to intimidate an isolated and threatened North Korea. There are almost 30,000 American troops in South Korea, and another 50,000 in another client state slightly further east, Japan. On top of this is a significant American air and naval presence in south-east Asia.

It seems reasonable to query the presence of tens of thousands of US soldiers situated 11,000 km from Washington. It can be safely called imperialism. With this state of thinking, US military personnel have no qualms about telling China how to behave in the South China Sea, or the East China Sea. (9) The problem being that China is thousands of years old and difficult to intimidate. The West might have reacted differently if, for example, Russia was rebuking Japan for conducting exercises in the Sea of Japan.

US policy towards North Korea can be put under the grill too. What right does the US have to bully a poor, deprived country, and in doing so provoke inevitable responses? North Korea has a duty to protect itself, seeing as it was utterly levelled by the US Air Force during the seldom-mentioned Korean War. This past aggression can largely explain why the North developed nuclear weapons to begin with: as a deterrent against further invasion. Under current circumstances, it seems certain Kim Jong-un and company are glad they have their small nuclear arsenal. After all, the US have never invaded a nuclear-armed country, just weak, vulnerable ones like Vietnam, Iraq or Libya.

It sends a dangerous message to the world: arm yourself with nuclear warheads if you want security from US aggression. Yet, in the Western mainstream, it is North Korea who are continuously portrayed as the villains in all this. The main reason the US are maintaining a presence in south-east Asia, is that it’s one of the richest energy producing areas on earth. (10) To stall their long-declining power, and thwart a rising China, the US wants desperately to retain a presence in this region.

Switching 14,000 km westwards, the US is again inciting conflict in Venezuela, a country with a long troubled history. As the superpower has lost much influence in South America this century, the Trump administration are supporting right-wing groups with the aim of removing president, Nicolas Maduro. The US have imposed various sanctions on a country rich in oil reserves, hence the superpower’s interest. The corporate media are portraying the “dictator” Maduro as the antagonist, much as they did with Cuban revolutionary leader Fidel Castro. US military figures like General H. R. McMaster have voiced concern that democracy is being lost in Venezuela (and reported seriously it appears). (11) As history portrays, American concern for democracy goes down as one of the more grotesque myths mankind has ever conjured.

Shane Quinn is an honor graduate with journalism degree. She is interested in writing primarily on foreign affairs.

Featured image: Nepal Limbu worker

Aama disappears into the darkened house to light the fire. Flames ignite from hot coals stirred out of the ash and Aama eases a pot of kodo onto the rock grill. Neither an announcement nor a spoken invitation is needed. We rise from our workplaces and move inside, seating ourselves around the hearth. Danamaya takes a ladle, stirs the brew, and pours a spoon of the steaming liquor in each brass bowl set on the ground in front of us.

Mylie follows laying small leaf plates on the ground near our bowls, then places on each plate a back, spicy sauce. I recognize this, a sharp lemony pickle– a typical popular Limbu achar that accompanies every Nepali’s meal whether we’re eating rice or vegetables or drinking liquor. Some of the workers prefer kodo; others choose raxsi, also warmed to taste.

‘I’m surprised”, I remark. “My friend Monamaya isn’t with us. She promised to help with my naugiri.”

“Monamaya will arrive soon”, murmurs Danamaya, adding “when the raxsi is warmed.”

Just then Monamaya struts into the room and seats herself beside me, gleefully accepting an immodest portion of raxsi from Aama and turning to me says, “Ah, Didi; so you’ll have your very own Limbu jewels; eh eh.” She leans closer, lifts my cigarette from my hand and holds its glowing tip to light her own.

“What a day! A sheep got loose so sisters and I spent the whole morning searching for it,” complains this unapologetic latecomer. Everyone takes a sip of their drink without comment.

Limbu Danamaya

In my presence people withhold their opinion of Monamaya. They know she and I have become friends since my arrival here and they seem to respect our closeness. Monamaya is the only unmarried woman her age that I know in Kobek. She’s the most audaciously raucous and bold, even by Limbu standards. I recognize that she’s a social oddity. She doesn’t like to work in the fields, behavior which in this rural community is interpreted as irresponsible. Like me, she doesn’t feel the need for a companion when traveling through the hills. If she needs to go to town, she fearlessly sets out alone on the three-hour walk. I was never able to discover the reason for my friend’s unpopularity and I was left to enjoy her companionship as I pleased.

After everyone has consumed at least three bowls of kodo, we return to the veranda where we’ll stay until our task is complete, now joined by Monamaya. The alcohol seems not to have reduced anyone’s capacity for the delicate work.

“Kodo and raxsi are nourishment for us,” explains my friend. “Without it we can’t work at all; drinking this we don’t need any other food.”

Our workforce is augmented by two newcomers, elderly women from Salaka lineage, thus clanswomen of my host. Buddhamaya is a tall, dry-witted lady with aristocratic features set in a heavily wrinkled face. We adjust our seating to make space for Buddhamaya on the mat; Danamaya hands her a nylon thread to which she replies, “Who is this for?”

“White Didi here,” explains my host.

“Why do you want this?” the old woman demands of me. “This is for poor farmers. You should have solid gold pieces– here, here, here,” she shouts, stroking me to indicate just where gold might encase my head and arms–like some Limbu-Aztec warrior princess. (Ugh, the thought is itself an encumbrance.)

Monamaya comes to my defense.

“No, no. white Didi is going to wear this to the Chatrapati feast next week; then she’ll take it with her to America. Everyone there will admire it. And Didi will tell Americans all about our poor land.”

I remain silent. I have already passed hours fruitlessly arguing with my hosts about my devotion to their lifestyles. I’ve had no success explaining how this necklace is an example of their art, or their beauty. They insist that my interest is only curiosity, and this naugiri will be presented outside as a curio, and will stimulate discussion of Nepal’s economy, an economy they expect to be viewed as poverty.

It’s probably true that I’m interested in the naugiri for what it might (or might not) represent about the economy here. I’ve never understood how an average hill farmer affords jewelry like the naugiri and the gold earrings, items which seem extravagant to me, yet which, while essential, are not a sign of wealth. A naugiri is the price of a valued plowing bullock. While every woman wears a naugiri, fewer than ten percent of households possess a pair of oxen.

Certainly one can’t equate the cost of this necklace to the price of an ox. A naugiri is not in the same class as animals or land. Land is highly valued and people work hard to save to buy land and prepare new paddy fields. A naugiri is hard to put a cash price on. It’s an obligatory expense for a family, like a wedding or funerary feast—an integral part of family social and economic obligations.

A Limbu naugiri embodies a whole set of sentiments which I cannot possibly untangle, identify and comprehend. It’s not a dowry. It does not in itself mark one’s marital status. My naugiri it does not reflect a personal indulgence in ornamentation. I myself wear no bangles, bracelets or earrings. (My neighbors had already noted this, with some dismay.) Nevertheless these Limbu companions really want me to take this piece of jewelry with me when I depart. Curio or art, it is a gift to me wrapped in their memories. It symbolizes our bond and the cooperative spirit of our months together.

My Limbu naugiri

As for myself? Why am I determined to have a naugiri? Well, from when I first set eyes on one, it symbolized the vigor or Limbu womanhood. I like its combination of a coarse, chunky, undazzling weightiness, and its dull gold luster. It may not be refined, but it’s nevertheless beautiful, somehow more precious because every woman owns one. It’s not for special occasions but an everyday thing she carries on her chest– as she suckles her baby, stirs pots of kodo and rice, cleans the hearth and sweeps the yard, and plants potato or millet. It’s a well made object requiring intense labor and constructed to last a lifetime.

Where is my naugiri today? Well, it seemed so precious that I made it a wedding gift to the young woman who married my son. Sadly, they divorced after only two years and I’ve lost track of both her and the necklace. I wonder what Danamaya or even Monamaya would think of its fate.

Originally published on Heresies, A Feminist Publication on Art and Politics, Jan/Feb, 1978.

All images in this article are from the author.

Featured image: Nepal Limbu worker

Aama disappears into the darkened house to light the fire. Flames ignite from hot coals stirred out of the ash and Aama eases a pot of kodo onto the rock grill. Neither an announcement nor a spoken invitation is needed. We rise from our workplaces and move inside, seating ourselves around the hearth. Danamaya takes a ladle, stirs the brew, and pours a spoon of the steaming liquor in each brass bowl set on the ground in front of us.

Mylie follows laying small leaf plates on the ground near our bowls, then places on each plate a back, spicy sauce. I recognize this, a sharp lemony pickle– a typical popular Limbu achar that accompanies every Nepali’s meal whether we’re eating rice or vegetables or drinking liquor. Some of the workers prefer kodo; others choose raxsi, also warmed to taste.

‘I’m surprised”, I remark. “My friend Monamaya isn’t with us. She promised to help with my naugiri.”

“Monamaya will arrive soon”, murmurs Danamaya, adding “when the raxsi is warmed.”

Just then Monamaya struts into the room and seats herself beside me, gleefully accepting an immodest portion of raxsi from Aama and turning to me says, “Ah, Didi; so you’ll have your very own Limbu jewels; eh eh.” She leans closer, lifts my cigarette from my hand and holds its glowing tip to light her own.

“What a day! A sheep got loose so sisters and I spent the whole morning searching for it,” complains this unapologetic latecomer. Everyone takes a sip of their drink without comment.

Limbu Danamaya

In my presence people withhold their opinion of Monamaya. They know she and I have become friends since my arrival here and they seem to respect our closeness. Monamaya is the only unmarried woman her age that I know in Kobek. She’s the most audaciously raucous and bold, even by Limbu standards. I recognize that she’s a social oddity. She doesn’t like to work in the fields, behavior which in this rural community is interpreted as irresponsible. Like me, she doesn’t feel the need for a companion when traveling through the hills. If she needs to go to town, she fearlessly sets out alone on the three-hour walk. I was never able to discover the reason for my friend’s unpopularity and I was left to enjoy her companionship as I pleased.

After everyone has consumed at least three bowls of kodo, we return to the veranda where we’ll stay until our task is complete, now joined by Monamaya. The alcohol seems not to have reduced anyone’s capacity for the delicate work.

“Kodo and raxsi are nourishment for us,” explains my friend. “Without it we can’t work at all; drinking this we don’t need any other food.”

Our workforce is augmented by two newcomers, elderly women from Salaka lineage, thus clanswomen of my host. Buddhamaya is a tall, dry-witted lady with aristocratic features set in a heavily wrinkled face. We adjust our seating to make space for Buddhamaya on the mat; Danamaya hands her a nylon thread to which she replies, “Who is this for?”

“White Didi here,” explains my host.

“Why do you want this?” the old woman demands of me. “This is for poor farmers. You should have solid gold pieces– here, here, here,” she shouts, stroking me to indicate just where gold might encase my head and arms–like some Limbu-Aztec warrior princess. (Ugh, the thought is itself an encumbrance.)

Monamaya comes to my defense.

“No, no. white Didi is going to wear this to the Chatrapati feast next week; then she’ll take it with her to America. Everyone there will admire it. And Didi will tell Americans all about our poor land.”

I remain silent. I have already passed hours fruitlessly arguing with my hosts about my devotion to their lifestyles. I’ve had no success explaining how this necklace is an example of their art, or their beauty. They insist that my interest is only curiosity, and this naugiri will be presented outside as a curio, and will stimulate discussion of Nepal’s economy, an economy they expect to be viewed as poverty.

It’s probably true that I’m interested in the naugiri for what it might (or might not) represent about the economy here. I’ve never understood how an average hill farmer affords jewelry like the naugiri and the gold earrings, items which seem extravagant to me, yet which, while essential, are not a sign of wealth. A naugiri is the price of a valued plowing bullock. While every woman wears a naugiri, fewer than ten percent of households possess a pair of oxen.

Certainly one can’t equate the cost of this necklace to the price of an ox. A naugiri is not in the same class as animals or land. Land is highly valued and people work hard to save to buy land and prepare new paddy fields. A naugiri is hard to put a cash price on. It’s an obligatory expense for a family, like a wedding or funerary feast—an integral part of family social and economic obligations.

A Limbu naugiri embodies a whole set of sentiments which I cannot possibly untangle, identify and comprehend. It’s not a dowry. It does not in itself mark one’s marital status. My naugiri it does not reflect a personal indulgence in ornamentation. I myself wear no bangles, bracelets or earrings. (My neighbors had already noted this, with some dismay.) Nevertheless these Limbu companions really want me to take this piece of jewelry with me when I depart. Curio or art, it is a gift to me wrapped in their memories. It symbolizes our bond and the cooperative spirit of our months together.

My Limbu naugiri

As for myself? Why am I determined to have a naugiri? Well, from when I first set eyes on one, it symbolized the vigor or Limbu womanhood. I like its combination of a coarse, chunky, undazzling weightiness, and its dull gold luster. It may not be refined, but it’s nevertheless beautiful, somehow more precious because every woman owns one. It’s not for special occasions but an everyday thing she carries on her chest– as she suckles her baby, stirs pots of kodo and rice, cleans the hearth and sweeps the yard, and plants potato or millet. It’s a well made object requiring intense labor and constructed to last a lifetime.

Where is my naugiri today? Well, it seemed so precious that I made it a wedding gift to the young woman who married my son. Sadly, they divorced after only two years and I’ve lost track of both her and the necklace. I wonder what Danamaya or even Monamaya would think of its fate.

Originally published on Heresies, A Feminist Publication on Art and Politics, Jan/Feb, 1978.

All images in this article are from the author.

Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and his family are currently being investigated on various, serious corruption charges. They are:

1. Netanyahu is accused of entering into corrupt arrangements with various billionaires by taking expensive gifts and bribes, in return for taking action on their behalf. Gifts alleged to include hotel accommodation, air flights and champagne etc. from film producers and powerful, rich casino operators.

2. Netanyahu is accused of conspiring with newspaper owners to advance legislation that would work against their competitors. Recordings of the alleged conspiracy are apparently available.

Screenshot: ABC News Australia

3. This is an extraordinarily serious charge that the delivery of German submarines to the Israeli navy by Chancellor Angela Merkel involved corruption by Netanyahu’s personal lawyer who negotiated the military deal with the German government (and which subsequently altered the balance of power in Europe and the Middle East when the fleet of underwater military vessels were modified by the Israeli state to carry nuclear-armed Cruise missiles).

4. The Israeli Director General of Communications, who is a Minister in the Netanyahu government, is accused of illicit share dealings.

5. Sarah Netanyahu, the wife, is accused of the misuse of public funds in the improper payment for family events and also building works at their private residence.

6. Yair Netanyahu, the eldest son, is being sued for libel by an NGO Israeli think tank.

As yet, no indictments regarding the Netanyahu family have been issued by the Attorney General, who is presently awaiting the recommendations of the investigating police.

Screenshot Haaretz

There is, of course, a precedent for high level corruption scandals in Israel. A previous Prime Minister Ehud Olmert was sentenced to a prison term in 2015.

Featured image is from Al-Shabaka.

Writer, journalist and filmmaker Andre Vltchek granted an interview to Investig’Action to talk about his latest project: a documentary about Borneo (or Kalimantan in Indonesian), a giant island shared by three countries. After witnessing the catastrophic environmental destruction brought upon by plundering (neo)colonialist powers and conniving local elites, Vltchek is determined to spread the truth and expose the deadly consequences of savage capitalism. His work, which is very inconvenient for the elites, can be supported through this GoGetFunding campaign.

Q1: You are preparing a new documentary film about a big island, Borneo, which is shared by three Asian countries. Which was the triggering factor for making this film now?

AV: The triggering factor was a simple shock. I’m not what you’d call an environmentalist. Of course I care about our planet, about our wonderful creatures, plants, oceans, rivers and deserts. I don’t want them to suffer, to disappear. I wrote an entire book about the plight of South Pacific island nations, called “Oceania”, but that was all – I never made one single film about the environmental destruction.

But after visiting Borneo earlier this year (2017), something changed inside me. The island used to be one of the most beautiful places on earth, covered by impenetrable tropical forests, high mountains, and mighty rivers. Its many kingdoms and cultures were self-sufficient and thoroughly unique. Thousands of animal species were coexisting in harmony, sharing the living space with other creatures like birds, butterflies and rare plants, trees and flowers. It was a magic, gentle and pure world…

And it was all not so long ago. Many things are even documented by stunning old photographs…

Then, Western colonialism changed, basically ruined everything; as it had ruined everything almost everything, all over the world.

Dutch and British invaders, showing no respect and no interest in local people and their habitat, began doing here what they have been doing everywhere for centuries: plundering, stealing, cutting down trees, extracting riches from under the earth, enslaving the locals.

Later on, after semi-independence, the West corrupted local elites and introduced savage capitalism onto basically the entire island of Borneo. In Indonesia, the situation has been the most brutal, since 1965, when the pro-Western treasonous military overthrew the progressive anti-imperialist President Sukarno, putting on the throne a beast, a nitwit and a shameless collaborator, General Suharto. His barefaced money-hungry clique, together with Saudi-type religious bigots, has been running the country until this very moment.

Result: there is almost nothing left of the native forest. Indonesia has the fastest rate of tropical deforestation of any other nation on Earth. Rivers are polluted, often toxic. Hundreds of species are gone forever. Unbridled coal mining is scarring the land. Horrid palm oil plantations are replacing everything. As more and more riches are being found underground, the greater is the destruction. Indonesia is one of the most corrupt nations in the world, partially because of the shameful culture of collaboration of its ‘elites’ with the West, and with extreme capitalism.

What I saw in Borneo simply shocked me. From now on I’ll refuse to shut up. If Indonesians themselves are too scared or too programmed to address the situation, I’ll try to do it myself.

Mt. Kimabalu in Borneo, Malaysia

Q2: It seems that amnesia about the massive suffering of enslaved people, provoked by foreign imperialist administrations, is not the main concern of the traditional colonial powers like France, Britain or the US. For 75 years Borneo was a British ‘protectorate’. After its political independence, did UK put into practice a neo-colonial approach, aiming at keeping control of the island’s resources? If yes, what means have been used?

AV: Yes of course. Brits and Dutch, as well as others did it.

There were many well-established neo-colonial strategies implemented in Borneo.

First of all, the elites in all three countries (Indonesia, Malaysia and Brunei) are almost totally under control of the West. What is often called ‘corruption’ here is in fact nothing else other than ‘collaboration’ with the foreign powers. Colonialism never died here – in fact it is alive and well in Borneo, and almost everywhere in Southeast Asia. The local ‘elites’ are serving the interests of both European and North American powers. They are willing to rob, to impoverish their own people, so they can maintain their own profits and privileges, and fill their own coffers, as well as those of the neo-colonialists.

Education and ‘culture’ are also playing their terrible roles. Education in countries like Indonesia and Malaysia is almost fully controlled by the Western demagogues, and it is ‘sprinkled’ generously with the extreme and intolerant religious currents, predominantly imported from the Gulf and from the West. Those few writers, filmmakers and film producers who could still be found here, are producing mainly absolute rubbish, and not addressing anything rebellious, socialist or revolutionary here. Almost all of them are well remunerated from the West and expected to shut up. I described it in great details in my latest novel “Aurora”.

The situation in education is even worse: professors are chasing diplomas and PhD’s instead of fighting for their island. They are ‘pacified’, bought by the privileges and by pathetic ‘feel good’ rewards, like those fully paid trips to Europe or the United States. They are paid to travel to the lands of their former colonial masters like UK or Holland, and ‘learn’, instead of spitting into the faces of those who have been robbing them for long and horrendous centuries. After getting indoctrinated at home and abroad, teachers and professors return home and continue their destructive work, brainwashing and indoctrinating both children and youth.

The young generation is taught how to get well-paid professions, how to make money and how to serve Western imperialism and savage capitalism, instead of fighting for, or defending their country or their almost destroyed islands, like Borneo. It is thoroughly shameful! The people who are ruling Southeast Asia would be executed for treason in places like Cuba, China or Russia!

Q3: Back in 2012, Barack Obama announced a “pivot to Asia”. Is Southeast Asia already turning into the next Middle East because of the US imperialist ambitions?

AV: Good question, but it came a little bit too late. Southeast Asia and the Middle East are not all that different, anymore.

Look, in both parts of the world, the West used the most extreme religious streams, in order to enslave, brainwash and ‘pacify’ the local population. And it is not only Islam that has been used and abused by Washington, London and Paris. Every imaginable and unimaginable fundamentalist religious torrent was injected into this part of the world.

Result: this enormous part of the world does not have one single great scientist, philosopher, writer or a film director! Not one, just imagine!

The more destroyed, damaged and brainwashed this part of the world becomes, the more it is hailed by the Western mass media as ‘successful’, ‘tolerant’ and ‘democratic’. It is all just one highway robbery, a terrible, cynical joke, but it is being accepted ‘at home and abroad’, as most of the lies that are being spread by the Western indoctrinators are tolerated and embraced, as they are always well paid for.

New landscape of Kalimantan

Q4: How are you planning to produce your documentary film? Are you being funded by some organization?

AV: I have no idea… I’m not funded by anyone.

This is how I always work: I recycle what I make from my books and films into my new work, into my revolutionary struggle for survival of our planet. I often run myself into the ground; periodically I collapse. But then I collect myself, get up somehow, and try to continue my struggle, my journey.

This time I actually asked my readers for support. Borneo is a tremendous story and it may need two films: one short and one feature one. I used the fundraising system: GoGetFunding. I asked for US$20,000, which would hardly cover a half of basic expenses. So far I collected US$60. That would not pay even for a couple of memory cards. But I never give up.

As the great Chilean President Salvador Allende used to say: “Adelante Camaradas, venceremosnuevamente!”

As an internationalist, I feel that it is simply my duty to fight for Borneo, as it is my duty to fight for Afghanistan or for Venezuela.

If someone is ready to support my work and my struggle, I’ll be grateful. If no one will, I’ll do it on my own, somehow! Attempts to destroy our planet do not wait. Why should I?

Andre Vltchek is a philosopher, novelist, filmmaker and investigative journalist. He has covered wars and conflicts in dozens of countries. Three of his latest books are revolutionary novel “Aurora” and two bestselling works of political non-fiction: “Exposing Lies Of The Empire” and  “Fighting Against Western Imperialism”. View his other books here. Andre is making films for teleSUR and Al-Mayadeen. Watch Rwanda Gambit, his groundbreaking documentary about Rwanda and DRCongo. After having lived in Latin America, Africa and Oceania, Vltchek presently resides in East Asia and the Middle East, and continues to work around the world. He can be reached through his website and his Twitter.

All images in this article are from Countercurrents where this article was first published.

Writer, journalist and filmmaker Andre Vltchek granted an interview to Investig’Action to talk about his latest project: a documentary about Borneo (or Kalimantan in Indonesian), a giant island shared by three countries. After witnessing the catastrophic environmental destruction brought upon by plundering (neo)colonialist powers and conniving local elites, Vltchek is determined to spread the truth and expose the deadly consequences of savage capitalism. His work, which is very inconvenient for the elites, can be supported through this GoGetFunding campaign.

Q1: You are preparing a new documentary film about a big island, Borneo, which is shared by three Asian countries. Which was the triggering factor for making this film now?

AV: The triggering factor was a simple shock. I’m not what you’d call an environmentalist. Of course I care about our planet, about our wonderful creatures, plants, oceans, rivers and deserts. I don’t want them to suffer, to disappear. I wrote an entire book about the plight of South Pacific island nations, called “Oceania”, but that was all – I never made one single film about the environmental destruction.

But after visiting Borneo earlier this year (2017), something changed inside me. The island used to be one of the most beautiful places on earth, covered by impenetrable tropical forests, high mountains, and mighty rivers. Its many kingdoms and cultures were self-sufficient and thoroughly unique. Thousands of animal species were coexisting in harmony, sharing the living space with other creatures like birds, butterflies and rare plants, trees and flowers. It was a magic, gentle and pure world…

And it was all not so long ago. Many things are even documented by stunning old photographs…

Then, Western colonialism changed, basically ruined everything; as it had ruined everything almost everything, all over the world.

Dutch and British invaders, showing no respect and no interest in local people and their habitat, began doing here what they have been doing everywhere for centuries: plundering, stealing, cutting down trees, extracting riches from under the earth, enslaving the locals.

Later on, after semi-independence, the West corrupted local elites and introduced savage capitalism onto basically the entire island of Borneo. In Indonesia, the situation has been the most brutal, since 1965, when the pro-Western treasonous military overthrew the progressive anti-imperialist President Sukarno, putting on the throne a beast, a nitwit and a shameless collaborator, General Suharto. His barefaced money-hungry clique, together with Saudi-type religious bigots, has been running the country until this very moment.

Result: there is almost nothing left of the native forest. Indonesia has the fastest rate of tropical deforestation of any other nation on Earth. Rivers are polluted, often toxic. Hundreds of species are gone forever. Unbridled coal mining is scarring the land. Horrid palm oil plantations are replacing everything. As more and more riches are being found underground, the greater is the destruction. Indonesia is one of the most corrupt nations in the world, partially because of the shameful culture of collaboration of its ‘elites’ with the West, and with extreme capitalism.

What I saw in Borneo simply shocked me. From now on I’ll refuse to shut up. If Indonesians themselves are too scared or too programmed to address the situation, I’ll try to do it myself.

Mt. Kimabalu in Borneo, Malaysia

Q2: It seems that amnesia about the massive suffering of enslaved people, provoked by foreign imperialist administrations, is not the main concern of the traditional colonial powers like France, Britain or the US. For 75 years Borneo was a British ‘protectorate’. After its political independence, did UK put into practice a neo-colonial approach, aiming at keeping control of the island’s resources? If yes, what means have been used?

AV: Yes of course. Brits and Dutch, as well as others did it.

There were many well-established neo-colonial strategies implemented in Borneo.

First of all, the elites in all three countries (Indonesia, Malaysia and Brunei) are almost totally under control of the West. What is often called ‘corruption’ here is in fact nothing else other than ‘collaboration’ with the foreign powers. Colonialism never died here – in fact it is alive and well in Borneo, and almost everywhere in Southeast Asia. The local ‘elites’ are serving the interests of both European and North American powers. They are willing to rob, to impoverish their own people, so they can maintain their own profits and privileges, and fill their own coffers, as well as those of the neo-colonialists.

Education and ‘culture’ are also playing their terrible roles. Education in countries like Indonesia and Malaysia is almost fully controlled by the Western demagogues, and it is ‘sprinkled’ generously with the extreme and intolerant religious currents, predominantly imported from the Gulf and from the West. Those few writers, filmmakers and film producers who could still be found here, are producing mainly absolute rubbish, and not addressing anything rebellious, socialist or revolutionary here. Almost all of them are well remunerated from the West and expected to shut up. I described it in great details in my latest novel “Aurora”.

The situation in education is even worse: professors are chasing diplomas and PhD’s instead of fighting for their island. They are ‘pacified’, bought by the privileges and by pathetic ‘feel good’ rewards, like those fully paid trips to Europe or the United States. They are paid to travel to the lands of their former colonial masters like UK or Holland, and ‘learn’, instead of spitting into the faces of those who have been robbing them for long and horrendous centuries. After getting indoctrinated at home and abroad, teachers and professors return home and continue their destructive work, brainwashing and indoctrinating both children and youth.

The young generation is taught how to get well-paid professions, how to make money and how to serve Western imperialism and savage capitalism, instead of fighting for, or defending their country or their almost destroyed islands, like Borneo. It is thoroughly shameful! The people who are ruling Southeast Asia would be executed for treason in places like Cuba, China or Russia!

Q3: Back in 2012, Barack Obama announced a “pivot to Asia”. Is Southeast Asia already turning into the next Middle East because of the US imperialist ambitions?

AV: Good question, but it came a little bit too late. Southeast Asia and the Middle East are not all that different, anymore.

Look, in both parts of the world, the West used the most extreme religious streams, in order to enslave, brainwash and ‘pacify’ the local population. And it is not only Islam that has been used and abused by Washington, London and Paris. Every imaginable and unimaginable fundamentalist religious torrent was injected into this part of the world.

Result: this enormous part of the world does not have one single great scientist, philosopher, writer or a film director! Not one, just imagine!

The more destroyed, damaged and brainwashed this part of the world becomes, the more it is hailed by the Western mass media as ‘successful’, ‘tolerant’ and ‘democratic’. It is all just one highway robbery, a terrible, cynical joke, but it is being accepted ‘at home and abroad’, as most of the lies that are being spread by the Western indoctrinators are tolerated and embraced, as they are always well paid for.

New landscape of Kalimantan

Q4: How are you planning to produce your documentary film? Are you being funded by some organization?

AV: I have no idea… I’m not funded by anyone.

This is how I always work: I recycle what I make from my books and films into my new work, into my revolutionary struggle for survival of our planet. I often run myself into the ground; periodically I collapse. But then I collect myself, get up somehow, and try to continue my struggle, my journey.

This time I actually asked my readers for support. Borneo is a tremendous story and it may need two films: one short and one feature one. I used the fundraising system: GoGetFunding. I asked for US$20,000, which would hardly cover a half of basic expenses. So far I collected US$60. That would not pay even for a couple of memory cards. But I never give up.

As the great Chilean President Salvador Allende used to say: “Adelante Camaradas, venceremosnuevamente!”

As an internationalist, I feel that it is simply my duty to fight for Borneo, as it is my duty to fight for Afghanistan or for Venezuela.

If someone is ready to support my work and my struggle, I’ll be grateful. If no one will, I’ll do it on my own, somehow! Attempts to destroy our planet do not wait. Why should I?

Andre Vltchek is a philosopher, novelist, filmmaker and investigative journalist. He has covered wars and conflicts in dozens of countries. Three of his latest books are revolutionary novel “Aurora” and two bestselling works of political non-fiction: “Exposing Lies Of The Empire” and  “Fighting Against Western Imperialism”. View his other books here. Andre is making films for teleSUR and Al-Mayadeen. Watch Rwanda Gambit, his groundbreaking documentary about Rwanda and DRCongo. After having lived in Latin America, Africa and Oceania, Vltchek presently resides in East Asia and the Middle East, and continues to work around the world. He can be reached through his website and his Twitter.

All images in this article are from Countercurrents where this article was first published.

Most of you know that Russian President Putin has Russia saying “not yet” to GMOs and asserting their national focus on establishing themselves as the world’s largest exporter of organic food, as well as providing their people with healthy non-GMO food.

This wasn’t just a spare of the moment decision either. It came about following years of analyzing the downside to using GMO foods and their overall effects on its consumers. Since there are no biotech industries that thrive there, Russia had no real dog in the fight, so to speak.

Part of Russia’s agricultural system includes small private rural “gardens” that provide produce to the country’s overall welfare. It is estimated that around 40 percent of all vegetable and fruit crops come from that sector alone

As part of Russia’s drive to provide nothing but organic food for itself, as well as other nations in Europe, the Middle East, and Asia, it is reported that the Kremlin has been awarding land free of charge to farmers or gardeners who pledge to produce only organic fruits and veggies.

This was found in an article by Baxter Dmtry on Yournewswire.com.

‘A report prepared by the Security Council (SCRF) circulating in the Kremlin today [Janurary 9, 2016] states that President Putin has issued orders that his people must be protected from GMO “food” and Western pharmaceuticals “at all costs.”

Dmtry’s article has Putin concerned about the westernized business model of poisoning its people with GMOs, junk fast foods, and vaccines, all for personal gains.

According to Dmtry’s article, the Kremlin report includes this statement from Putin:

“We as a species have the choice to continue to develop our bodies and brains in a healthy upward trajectory, or we can follow the Western example of recent decades and intentionally poison our population with genetically altered food, pharmaceuticals, vaccinations, and fast food that should be classified as a dangerous, addictive drug.”

It continues,

“We must fight this. A physically and intellectually disabled population is not in our interests.”

According to Dimrty’s recent article on the Kremlin report, Putin or someone involved with the report got fairly creative with this depiction of the average American as an “intensively vaccinated borderline autistic fat man slumped in front of a screen battling a high-fructose corn syrup comedown.”

The report states further that such tactics used by governments to subjugate their citizens are not only “dark/evil” but “counter-productive in the medium to long term.” Of course, these tactics suit the depopulation agenda, culling the herd’s “useless eaters” by controlling food and vaccinating everyone.

Most Americans would prefer to think that Putin is just an off-key communist tyrant. It’s easier to accept mainstream media infotainment, whilst maintaining their comforting illusions.

And this seems to be the comfort zone of the populous: ignoring their own government’s extreme corruption with its puppet at the head of internal corruption.

A prior example of this is when Venezuela’s Health Minister, under Hugo Chavez, removed Coca-Cola’s Zero sugar soda from its market. Instead of understanding the health issues of drinking diet drinks which contain aspartame, among other toxic ingredients, the socialism vs capitalism card was played and that move was considered an attack against “free enterprise”.

There is still a minority that understands that Putin is a dedicated nationalist and a man of his word, and not necessarily communist or capitalist man he is made out to be. His concerns are certainly more elevated than his puppet counterparts, which are owned by the major corporations of the western world. The Russian Bear has been awakened and it wants to remain clean, green and healthy.

Featured image is from the author.

According to Inside Syria Media Center military correspondence on the ground, Aleppo, the largest Syrian city is beginning to come back to peaceful life. Just in December a number of districts of the city were held by terrorists, who were destroying urban infrastructure and keeping entire region in fear.

However after eight month of the city complete liberation, rehabilitation works are boiling in the streets right now.

The locals and the representatives of the authorities are taking part in them. At the same time, Aleppo governor Hussain Diab personally supervises repair works at key infrastructure facilities.

Satellite view of Sheikh-Najjar area

The repair works are currently concentrated in the Sheikh-Najjar district, where are a lot of factories, plants and power plants. The water and electricity supply of the whole Aleppo depends on the smooth functioning of the region. Moreover, the economic well-being of the city also depends on the working capacity of the Sheikh-Najjar, as the cotton production facilities are concentrated there.

 Hussain Diab inspects water pumping station

Last week, Diab along with local entrepreneurs inspected the assessment of this area and drew up a plan of further restoration works. Also during this visit, the governor was shown a newly launched water pumping station and treatment facilities that provide the city with drinking water.

Despite the fact that the two-thirds of the railway tracks in Syria are destroyed due to hostilities, their restoration is also in full play. According to Najib Fares, head of Syrian railways, almost after a five-year break, the railway communication between Aleppo, Homs and Latakia provinces is restored.

Notably, since the beginning of 2017 more than 280 thousand Syrians have used rail transport.

Restoration of railway communication

It also should be mentioned that, the pharmaceutical factory, which supplies Syrian medicines in more than 100 newly opened pharmacies in the city is reopened in Aleppo. Before the war, there were about 30 similar enterprises in the city.

Newly opened pharmacy in Aleppo

Most of restorations works take place in extremely difficult conditions, since Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham militants (ex Jabhat Al-Nusra) commit terrorist acts. Earlier this week, on August 7, a large explosion occurred inside the Tariq Bin Ziad base in Masaken Sabil area, 4 people were badly wounded.

Undoubtedly, the process of post-military restoration of Aleppo and the country as a whole will take place against the background of the international economic sanctions, which have been imposed by the U.S. and several European states.

Unfortunately, many European leaders do not understand that the imposed restrictions affect just ordinary people.

Only by lifting the sanctions, having developed and accepting a joint post-war plan for the restoration of Syria, the Western countries can assist the Syrians, in rebuilding their destroyed homeland.

Sophie Mangal is a special investigative correspondent and co-editor at Inside Syria Media Center.

All images in this article are from the author.

The Syrian Arab Army (SAA), the National Defense Forces (NDF), the Syrian Social Nationalist Party (SSNP) military wing and other pro-government factions have liberated from US-backed militant groups 1300 km2 in southeastern Syria, including 30 km of the border with Jordan. The recently liberated area includes Tal al-Tabaqah, Tal al-Riahi, Tal Asda, Tal al-Ezami, Bir al-Sout and the Abu Sharshouh crossing other posts and points near the border.

US-backed militants withdrew to the al-Rushd refugee camp where they could hide from government forces attacks and airstrikes. According to pro-government sources, the Russian Aerospace Forces participated the SAA-led advance. This confirms that Moscow supports the Damascus willingness to regain control over its borders and to drive US-led coalition troops out from the occupied garrisons near At Tanf.

The control over the border will also decrease significantly arms and goods trafficking in which so-called US partner forces are deeply involved.

ISIS has been evacuating its members from the key town of Maadan in the southern Raqqah countryside, according to pro-government sources. Earlier this week, the SAA Tiger Forces and tribal forces allies reached Maadan and seized a number of villages near it threatening to encircle the ISIS-held town. This situation allegedly became a main reason behind the reported ISIS decision.

In the eastern Hama countryside, the SAA recaptured Khara’eb al-Katna area, Mount Doyleb and Tal al-Mazrou from ISIS.

In the area of Sukhna, government forces are dismantling IEDs set up by ISIS in the town amid continued clashes with terrorists. ISIS and its suicide bombers still pose a notable threat to the SAA there but it seems that the terrorist group will not be able to take Sukhna back.

The ISIS-linked News Agency Amaq published an infographic showing alleged losses of the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) during the 2 months of the battle for Raqqah. According to ISIS, 1040 SDF members were killed, 207 of them because of sniper fire, 40 SDF vehicles and a bulldozer were destroyed and a UAV was downed. ISIS also damaged 3 BMP vehicles and 6 other vehicles. In total, the terrorist group conducted 54 raids against the SDF, including 36 suicide vehicle borne improvised explosive device attacks.

On Thursday, the Pentagon announced that a US Special Operation Forces vehicle came under sniper fire near Manbij city in the northeastern Aleppo countryside. No casualties were inflicted. Army Col. Ryan Dillon said that the US-led coalition do not know who is behind the attack. According to local sources, ISIS was likely behind it.

The tensions between the Kurdish-dominated SDF and the Arab population as well as the indiscriminate bombing of civilian areas by the US-led coalition create a situation when a notable number of long-standing ISIS supporters remain and new supporters appear in the areas formally liberated from the terrorist group. Following the formal defeat of ISIS, the US-led coalition will likely face an ISIS-led insurgency campaign in Syria and Iraq. The same problem that the US forces faced following the invasion in Iraq.

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Syrian fighters trained, armed and salaried by the Pentagon have indeed defected to the Syrian army. Last week there were reports of two separate groups of “Commandos of the Revolution” fighters, who share the al-Tanf base with the US military in southern Syria, crossing over and joining the loyalist camp. What I hadn’t realized however, is that there was also an official confirmation to that effect from US military spokesmen.

The US military confirmed “a handful of isolated defections” of defections, and also said the defectors were now trying to convince the remaining Revolutionary Commandos to switch sides:

US Army Col. Ryan Dillon, a coalition spokesman, told CNN that one of the defectors was actively attempting to recruit his former comrades and convince them to join the regime but added that those efforts were having no measurable success to date. Dillon would not say whether Russia or the regime were directly behind the recruiting effort.

The official told CNN that the leader of the recruitment effort is a former rebel sub-commander who has criticized the US forces at At Tanf and has promised would-be recruits positions in the regime’s armed forces as they clear their homelands in the Middle Euphrates River Valley. This has has prompted the US military to be concerned about more defections in the future given that the regime has blocked the coalition and its allies from advancing on that same area.

The reason why crossing over to the Syrian army is so tempting is easy to see. Many of these men are from ISIS-held Deir ez-Zor province but the US and rebel forces at al-Tanf are penned in. Since the lightning-fast Syrian advance to the Iraqi border on June 9th they no longer share a border with ISIS-held territory. Thus the fastest, and most realistic way for these men to return to their homes in eastern Syria is now with the Syrian army, rather than the Americans.

The Pentagon for its part fears further defections would undermine its already exceedingly shaky rationale for its unlawful presence in southern Syria:

He added the regime’s recruitment effort was assessed to have two objectives, building a force of local fighters and driving the coalition out of key real-estate in southern Syria.

The second objective involves an attempt to weaken the coalition’s rationale for occupying At Tanf, allowing Moscow, Damascus and Tehran to pressure the US and its allies to leave the strategically valuable area.

By poaching leaders of the rebel group, the regime and its Russian and Iranian allies would be able to better pressure the US and coalition troops to vacate the strategic tri-border area near At Tanf, a US official familiar with the development told CNN.

For the record: unlike what the US official the CNN spoke to claims, there is nothing “strategic” about the part of southern Syria the US holds. Except for one refugee camp on the Jordanian border, it is uninhabited, and is separated from ISIS-held territory the US once planned to advance into by more than 150 kilometers of Syria held by its government.

Featured image is from the author.

The showtrial of a somewhat arbitrarily selected group of 21 surviving Nazis at Nuremberg during 1945-46 was US Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson’s show. Jackson was the chief prosecutor. As a long-time admirer of Jackson, I always assumed that he did a good job.

My admiration for Jackson stems from his defense of law as a shield of the people rather than a weapon in the hands of government, and from his defense of the legal principle known as mens rea, that is, that crime requires intent. I often cite Jackson for his defense of these legal principles that are the very foundation of liberty. Indeed, I cited Jackson in my recent July 31 column. His defense of law as a check on government power plays a central role in the book that I wrote with Lawrence Stratton, The Tyranny of Good Intentions.

In 1940 Jackson was US Attorney General. He addressed federal prosecutors and warned them against “picking the man and then putting investigators to work, to pin some offense on him. It is in this realm—in which the prosecutor picks some person whom he dislikes or desires to embarrass, or selects some group of unpopular persons and then looks for an offense—that the greatest danger of abuse of prosecuting power lies. It is here that law enforcement becomes personal, and the real crime becomes that of being unpopular with the predominant or governing group, being attached to the wrong political views or being personally obnoxious to, or in the way of, the prosecutor himself.”

Later as a Supreme Court justice Jackson overturned a lower court conviction of a person who had no idea, or any reason to believe, that he had committed a crime.

Having just finished reading David Irving’s book Nuremberg (1996), I am devastated to learn that in his pursuit of another principle, at Nuremberg Jackson violated all of the legal principles for which I have so long admired him. To be clear, at Nuremberg Jackson was in pursuit of Nazis, but their conviction was the means to his end—the establishment of the international legal principle that the initiation of war, the commitment of military aggression, was a crime.

Justice Robert Jackson (Source: Wikimedia Commons)

The problem, of course, was that at Nuremberg people were tried on the basis of ex post facto law—law that did not exist at the time of their actions for which they were convicted.

Moreover, the sentence—death by hanging—was decided prior to the trial and prior to the selection of defendants.

Moreover, the defendants were chosen and then a case was made against them.

Exculpatory evidence was withheld. Charges on which defendants were convicted turned out to be untrue.

The trials were so loaded in favor of the prosecution that defense was pro forma.

The defendants were abused and some were tortured.

The defendants were encouraged to give false witness against one another, which for the most part the defendants refused to do, with Albert Speer being the willing one. His reward was a prison sentence rather than death.

The defendants’ wives and children were arrested and imprisoned. To Jackson’s credit, this infuriated him.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt, General Eisenhower, and Winston Churchill thought that surviving Nazis should be shot without trial. Roosevelt laughed about liquidating 50,000 German military officers. Eisenhower told Lord Halifax that Nazi leaders should be shot while trying to escape, the common euphemism for murder. Russians spoke of castrating German men and breeding German women to annihilate the German race. US Treasury Secretary Henry Morgenthau wanted to reduce Germany to an agrarian society and send able-bodied Germans to Africa as slaves to work on “some big TVA project.”

Robert Jackson saw in these intentions not only rank criminality among the allied leadership but also a missed opportunity to create the legal principle that would criminalize war, thus removing the disaster of war from future history. Jackson’s end was admirable, but the means required bypassing Anglo-American legal principles.

Jackson got his chance, perhaps because Joseph Stalin vetoed execution without trial. First a showtrial, Stalin said, to demonstrate their guilt so that we do not make martyrs out of Nazis.

Whom to select for the list of 21-22 persons to be charged? Well, whom did the allies have in custody? Not all those they desired. They had Reichsmarschall Herman Göring who headed the air force. Whatever the valid charges against Göring, they were not considered to be mitigated by the fact that under Göring the German air force was mainly used against enemy formations on the battleground and not, like the US and British air forces in situation terror bombing of civilian cities, such as Dresden, Tokyo, Hiroshima, and Nagasaki, or by the fact that in Hitler’s final days Hitler removed Göring from all his positions, expelled him from the party, and ordered his arrest.

The Nuremberg trials are paradoxical in that the law Jackson intended to establish applied to every country, not to Germany alone. The ex post facto law under which Germans were sentenced to death and to prison also criminalized the terror bombing of German and Japanese cities by the British and US air forces. Yet, the law was only applied to the Germans in the dock. In his book, Apocalypse 1945: The Destruction of Dresden (1995), Irving quotes US General George C. McDonald’s dissent from the directive to bomb civilian cities such as Dresden. Gen. McDonald characterized the directive as the “extermination of populations and the razing of cities,” war crimes under the Nuremberg standard.

They had foreign minister Ribbentrop. They had field marshalls Keitel and Jodl and the grand-admirals Raeder and Dönitz. They had a German banker, who was saved from sentencing by the intervention of the Bank of England. They had a journalist. They had Rudolf Hess who had been in a British prison since 1941 when he went to Britain on a peace mission to end the war. They wanted an industrialist, but Krupp was too old and ill. He was devoid of the persona of a foreboding evil. You can read the list in Irving’s book.

Göring knew from the beginning that the trial was a hoax and that his death sentence had already been decided. He had the means (a poison capsule) throughout his imprisonment to commit suicide, thus depriving his captors of their planned humiliation of him. Instead, he held the Germans together, and they stood their ground. Possessed of a high IQ, time and again he made fools of his captors. He made such a fool of Robert Jackson during his trial that the entire court burst out in laughter. Jackson never lived down being bested in the courtroom by Göring.

Defendants in the dock at the Nuremberg trials. The main target of the prosecution was Hermann Göring (at the left edge on the first row of benches), considered to be the most important surviving official in the Third Reich after Hitler’s death. (Source: Wikimedia Commons)

And Göring wasn’t through with making his captors look foolish and incompetent. He, the field marshalls and grand admiral requested that they be given a military execution by firing squad, but the pettiness of the Tribunal wanted them hung like dogs. Göring told his captors that he would allow them to shoot him, but not hang him, and a few minutes before he was to be marched to the gallows before the assembled press and cameras he took the poison capsule, throwing the execution propaganda show into chaos. To this injury he added insult leaving the prison commandant, US Col. Andrus a note telling him that he had had 3 capsules. One he had left for the Americans to find, thus causing them to think his means of escaping them had been removed. One he had taken minutes prior to his show execution, and he described where to find the third. He had easily defeated the continuous and thorough inspections inflicted upon him from fear that he would commit suicide and escape their intended propaganda use of his execution.

There was a time in Anglo-American law when the improprieties of the Nuremberg trials would have resulted in the cases being thrown out of court and the defendants freed. Even under the ex post facto law and extra-judicial, extra-legal terms under which the defendants were tried, at least two of the condemned deserved to be cleared.

It is not clear why Admiral Donitz was sentenced to 10 years in prison. The chief American judge of the Tribunal, Francis Biddle, said:

“It is, in my opinion, offensive to our concept of justice to punish a man for doing exactly what one has done himself.” “The Germans,” Biddle said, “fought a much cleaner war at sea than we did.“

Jodl, who countermanded many Nazi orders, was sentenced to death. The injustice of the sentence was made clear by a German court in 1953 which cleared Jodl of all Nuremberg charges and rehabilitated him posthumously. The French justice at the Nuremberg Tribunal said at the time that Jodl’s conviction was without merit and was a miscarriage of justice.

The entire Nuremberg proceeding stinks to high heaven. Defendants were charged with aggression for the German invasion of Norway. The fact was kept out of the trial that the British were about to invade Norway themselves and that the Germans, being more efficient, learned of it and managed to invade first.

Defendants were accused of using slave labor, paradoxical in view of the Soviets own practice. Moreover, while the trials were in process the Soviets were apparently gathering up able-bodied Germans to serve as slave labor to rebuild their war-torn economy.

Defendants were accused of mass executions despite the fact that the Russians, who were part of the prosecution and judgment of the defendants, had executed 15,000 or 20,000 Polish officers and buried them in a mass grave. Indeed, the Russians insisted on blaming the Germans on trial for the Katyn Forest Massacre.

Defendants were accused of aggression against Poland, and Ribbentrop was not permitted to mention in his defense the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact that divided Poland between Germany and the Soviet Union, without which Germany could not have attacked Poland. The fact that the Soviets, who were sitting at Nuremberg in judgment on the Germans, had themselves invaded Poland was kept out of the proceedings.

Moreover, without the gratuitous British “guarantee” to Poland, the Polish military dictatorship would likely have agreed to return territories stripped from Germany by the Versailles Treaty and the invasion would have been avoided.

The greatest hypocrisy was the charge of aggression against Germany when the fact of the matter is that World War 2 began when the British and French declared war on Germany. Germany conquered France and drove the British from the European Continent after the British and French started the war with a declaration of war against Germany.

Irving’s book is, of course, politically incorrect. However, he lists in the introduction the voluminous files on which the book is based: Robert Jackson’s official papers and Oral History, Francis Biddle’s private papers and diaries, Col. Andrus’ papers, Adm. Raeder’s prison diary, Rudolf Hess’ prison diary, interrogations of the prisoners, interviews with defense counsel, prosecutors, interrogators, and letters from the prisoners to their wives. All of this and more Irving has made available on microfilms for researchers. He compared magnetic tape copies of the original wire-recordings of the trial with the mimeographed and published transcripts to insure that spoken and published words were the same.

What Irving does in his book is to report the story that the documents tell. This story differs from the patriotic propaganda written by court historians with which we are all imbued. The question arises: Is Irving pro-truth or pro-Nazi. The National Socialist government of Germany is the most demonized government in history. Any lessening of the demonization is unacceptable, so Irving is vulnerable to demonization by those determined to protect their cherished beliefs.

Zionists have branded Irving a “holocause denier,” and he was convicted of something like that by an Austrian court and spent 14 months in prison before the conviction was thrown out by a higher court.

In Nuremberg, Irving removes various propaganda legends from the holocaust story and reports authoritative findings that many of the concentration camp deaths were from typhus and starvation, especially in the final days of the war when food and medicine were disappearing from Germany, but nowhere in the book does he deny, indeed he reports, that vast numbers of Jews perished. As I understand the term, a simple truthful modification of some element of the official holocaust story is sufficient to brand a person a holocaust denier.

My interest in the book is Robert Jackson. He had a noble cause—to outlaw war—but in pursuit of this purpose he established precedents for American prosecutors to make law a weapon in their pursuit of their noble causes just as it was used against Nazis—organized crime convictions, child abuse convictions, drug convictions, terror convictions. Jackson’s pursuit of Nazis at Nuremberg undermined the strictures he put on US attorneys such that today Americans have no more protection of law than the defendants had at Nuremberg.

Donald Trump’s presidential election campaign promised to apply sound traditional conservative values of non-interventionism once he got into office. This included getting the United States out of Afghanistan where the American military have engaged in that nation’s longest war. However, rather than dis-engagement, the Pentagon and the State Department have in recent months recommended an increase in troops in a country where the Taliban presently controls more territory than at any point since the invasion.

Additionally, the ISIS franchise has established control over a stretch of land along the Afghan border with Pakistan. Trump has reneged on a great many campaign promises but it is worth reminding why the United States would be best served by withdrawing from this quagmire, a legacy of its post-Cold War drift towards militarism.

1. The $800 billion cost of ‘nation-building’ which has not contained global Islamic terror or defeated the Afghan Islamist belligerents: the Taliban and Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant – Khorasan Province.

2. As of October 2016, 2,386 American military personnel have been killed, 20,046 American service personnel have been wounded in action and 1,173 American civilian contractors have lost their lives.

3. Thousands of Afghans -over 91,000 civilians, soldiers, militiamen- have been killed in a cycle of violence since the U.S. invasion in what was supposed to have been a ‘police action’ against Osama Bin Laden who was never indicted for the 9/11 atrocity. Nor was he formally put on the F.B.I.’s wanted list. In fact it was Libya’s Colonel Muammar Gaddafi who was responsible for the issuance of the first Interpol warrant.

4. Millions of Americans have become addicted to heroin since the U.S. invasion, the aftermath of which has seen an increase in poppy production. The irony is that the Taliban had virtually wiped out the harvest and trade of opium but changed policy in order to use the tax it imposes on farmers to finance its insurgency.

5. Afghanistan arguably serves as a corporate welfare program for both the defence and chemical industries. The former benefit from Cold Wars with Russia and China as well as in counter-insurgency adventures such as Afghanistan. The latter are keen to benefit from the exploitation of Afghanistan’s rare-earth minerals.

The untapped deposits were estimated in 2010 to be potentially worth up to one trillion dollars. That figure was disputed at the time and would be much less given the general fall in the value of commodities. Nonetheless, this has been utilised as a recent ‘selling point’ by Michael Silver, the CEO of American Elements.

It is a well known fact that American officials had drawn up plans to invade Afghanistan before the attacks of 9/11. Threats of military intervention had emanated from Washington during the summer of 2001. The underlying reason involved the United States setting up a base close to the oil-rich lands of Central Asia. That rationale and the one being proffered by Michael Silver only serve to reinforce the thesis propounded by Major General Smedley Butler that war is a racket.

Unfortunately for the American people, the Afghan racket, along with other unjust wars, has only served to enrich the nation’s oligarchs while they suffer the consequences of a chronic national debt.

Adeyinka Makinde is a London-based writer. He can be followed on Twitter @AdeyinkaMakinde

Featured image is from the author.

The following text was published in The Hill of which we provide an excerpt. Click link below to read complete article.

CNN counterterrorism analyst Phil Mudd warned that President Trump is agitating the government, saying during a Thursday afternoon interview with CNN anchor Jake Tapper that the U.S. government “is going to kill this guy.”

Mudd, who served as deputy director to former FBI Director Robert Mueller, said Trump’s defense of Russian President Vladimir Putin has compelled federal employees “at Langley, Foggy Bottom, CIA and State” to try to take Trump down.

“Let me give you one bottom line as a former government official. Government is going to kill this guy,” Mudd, a staunch critic of Trump, said on “The Lead.”

“He defends Vladimir Putin. There are State Department and CIA officers coming home, and at Langley and Foggy Bottom, CIA and State, they’re saying, ‘This is how you defend us?’ ” he continued.

Read complete article.

An international war crimes prosecutor has resigned from her position on the U.N.’s Investigative Panel into human rights abuses in Syria over her frustration regarding the perceived impotence of the commission and the lack of ability to prosecute war criminals. Essentially, Carla Del Ponte is resigning because she and her panel have not been able to overcome Russian objections to framing Bashar al-Assad for crimes committed by America’s terrorists.

While admitting that Western-backed terrorists are made up “mostly” of extremists and that they have been guilty of war crimes, Del Ponte also peddled the disproven narrative that the Syrian government has used chemical weapons and that it is engaged in “terrible crimes against humanity.”

In her remarks announcing her resignation, Del Ponte, who is 70 years old, also admitted her own bias against the Syrian government since the beginning of the crisis. She stated that, when she was first appointed to the Independent Commission of Inquiry On Syria in 2012, “the opposition (members) were the good ones; the government were the bad ones.” Apparently, the woman so concerned with “crimes against humanity” was fine with “opposition members” randomly shooting civilians, raping women, slaughtering whole families and villages, and committing unspeakable acts against Syrian military soldiers and Syrian civilians. After all, she considered them the “good ones.” Only when the Syrian military began fighting back in earnest did “war crimes” become a concern.

“The Assad government is committing terrible crimes against humanity and using chemical weapons. And the opposition, that is made up only of extremists and terrorists anymore,” she said.

Del Ponte claims that the Security Council should have appointed a court similar to the ones for Rwanda and Yugoslavia but the decision to do so was vetoed by Russia.

Del Ponte is clearly frustrated at the fact that the Russians have prevented the U.N. from condemning and prosecuting Assad for crimes he did not commit. Thus, she will be leaving her post in September, leaving only two members left on the commission.

Brandon Turbeville – article archive here – is the author of seven books, Codex Alimentarius — The End of Health Freedom, 7 Real Conspiracies, Five Sense Solutions and Dispatches From a Dissident, volume 1 and volume 2, The Road to Damascus: The Anglo-American Assault on Syria, The Difference it Makes: 36 Reasons Why Hillary Clinton Should Never Be President, and Resisting The Empire: The Plan To Destroy Syria And How The Future Of The World Depends On The Outcome. Turbeville has published over 1000 articles on a wide variety of subjects including health, economics, government corruption, and civil liberties. Brandon Turbeville’s radio show Truth on The Tracks can be found every Monday night 9 pm EST at UCYTV. His website is BrandonTurbeville.com He is available for radio and TV interviews. Please contact activistpost (at) gmail.com.

Featured image is from Ya Libnan.