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Author: Kim Petersen

  • A Choice for Musk: Principles or Profit?

    Back in April of this year, the world’s richest man, Elon Musk, stated, “Free speech is the bedrock of a functioning democracy, and Twitter is the digital town square where matters vital to the future of humanity are debated.”

    A question: can you declare that you are for freedom of speech/expression and ban, or maintain a ban, on a person from expressing himself in a purportedly public forum and preserve your integrity? Whether the new owner of Twitter, Musk, steadfastly stands on the principle of freedom of expression looks like it is about to be revealed.

    One question is whether the former president Donald Trump will be allowed back onto the Twitter platform.

    When Elon Musk met Donald Trump (Image credit: Mashable)

    Musk was critical of Twitter’s ban of Trump. He called it a “morally bad decision” and “foolish in the extreme.”

    A section of the corporate sector (obviously, the corporate sector is not a monolith, as Trump and Musk both belong to this sector) is threatening a boycott of its advertising dollar if Musk allows Trump back on Twitter. This has set the stage for what could turn out to be a showcase of corporate infighting.

    Does one section of the corpocracy predominate? Politically, the answer would seem to be no. In the United States, the Democrats and Republicans represent two wings of the corpocracy that alternate between them in forming the government, with, what many would contend, is minimal separation politically.

    USA Today, the newspaper with the largest circulation in the US, pointed the finger at Trump as the instigator behind the riot on Capitol Hill that led to him being banned from Twitter. This is an allegation — borne out by the panoply of media takes on the Capitol Hill riot and who is to blame. Allegations, however, do not carry the imprimatur of certitude.

    While supporting the principle of freedom of speech/expression is fine in the abstract, it should not be an absolute. For instance, the 2004 Halifax Symposium on Media and Disinformation participants unanimously held disinformation to be a crime against humanity and a crime against peace. In a moral world, lies that cause death and suffering must not be condoned or given a deceitful, argumentative free pass.

    So the billionaire Musk seemingly finds himself on the horns of a dilemma: losing money or losing face. Musk has a choice. He can give in to corporate blackmail and uphold the ban on Trump and preserve advertising revenue for Twitter or he can reinstate Trump and, at least on this measure, maintain his integrity.

    The post A Choice for Musk: Principles or Profit? first appeared on Dissident Voice.

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  • When Markets Cease to Control Human Economic Life

    Our most important contribution is to have demonstrated concretely how to reconcile democratic planning with worker and consumer autonomy. We believe this was the Achilles’ heel of socialism during the twentieth century, which must be resolved if there is to be a future for socialism in the twenty-first century.

    — Robin Hahnel speaking to the breakthrough that would be achieved in A Participatory Economy, 2022 (p 236-237)

    In his book, A Participatory Economy, Robin Hahnel, a professor emeritus of economics at American University, begins by clarifying the goals of a participatory economy: economic freedom, economic justice, solidarity, efficiency, environmentally sustainable, and economic variety.

    Economic justice is achieved by remunerating people based on their effort and sacrifice, how much of the burden one bears. Effort and sacrifice will be judged by colleagues in the workplace. Efficiency is the converse of wastefulness — that work performed is beneficial. Environmental sustainability means attaining intergenerational equity. Economic variety recognizes that people are different, have different tastes and wants; therefore, achieving an economy that produces a diversity of outcomes and lifestyles is sought.

    Chapter 2 looks at different political-economic models and discusses why a participatory economy (parecon) is preferable and superior to capitalism, communism, and democratic socialism.

    Hahnel shoots down the canard relentlessly propounded by adherents of capitalism that humans are motivated by greed. Hahnel writes, “The fallacy is in asserting that people will act in the same greedy and fearful ways in a system where they are given the opportunity to make their own decisions, are positively rewarded for embracing a fair distribution of the benefits and burdens of economic activity, and are rewarded, not punished, for acting in solidarity with others.” (p 32-33)

    Perhaps the most controversial feature in a parecon is that there will be no private enterprise. This is because of the belief that “… only full social ownership of all productive resources is capable of achieving economic justice and distributive justice.” (p 40)

    Markets are also eschewed for a variety of reasons, including their unfairness and subversion of democracy.

    Instead of markets determining outcomes, people will get together and plan the economy. This is not a centralized command economy. A permanent top-down hierarchy has been eliminated. All workers and consumers are equally empowered in a parecon, although workers within a job complex will have greater input into their particular job complex than others outside that job complex.

    There are many factors that go into protecting the environment (by, e.g., eliminating externalities), determining planning, creating balanced job complexes, determining effort, special needs, etc. Nonetheless, parecon and its planning are not pie-in-the-sky. Hahnel cites the promising results of computer simulations that support the feasibility and efficiency of annual planning. (see chapter 5)

    A Participatory Economy also includes a chapter on reproductive labor. Thus labor, that has traditionally been heavily skewed to women (e.g., housework, child care), is recognized for its value to not only the family unit but society. Women’s equal participation in the workplace and economic life is a given in a parecon.

    Parecon is a system in which fairness means fairness is across all ethnicities, genders, and whichever identifying features people choose for themselves. Application of the principles that underlie parecon must be accorded to all human distinctions with fairness. This is a sine qua non to be faithful to parecon’s principles.

    Subsequent chapters examine participatory investment planning and long-run development planning.

    But how does all the forgoing relate to international economic relations? Hahnel relates that a parecon rejects foreign direct investment in all forms because it is at odds with worker self-management. Private, for-profit business is not allowed in a parecon.

    Foreign trade would take into account the level of economic development in a trade partner and seek to rectify long-standing economic injustices. Hahnel details a more-than-50-percent rule to greater benefit disadvantaged economies and respect a commitment to economic justice.

    Parecon is not considered a finished product. Neither is it a process. It answers the question of what kind of economy and world do we desire once markets are supplanted and the masses of people have gained control of the resources, economy, and their futures.

    A Participatory Economy is an eminently worthwhile read for people devoted to social justice and an economically just society. Seek answers to your questions and gain a deeper understanding of the principles and details of a promising people-oriented economic model that cannot be sufficiently covered in a book review.

    The post When Markets Cease to Control Human Economic Life first appeared on Dissident Voice.

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  • China is Not Capitalist and it is Not Yet Communist

    There are many western commentators who, apparently in profound dismay that a country which holds up the banner of socialism could be so economically successful, tiresomely deny that China practises socialism and insist that it is instead capitalist.

    Author Jeff Brown wrote that China is “history’s most successful socialist and communist country.”

    This conflation of communism and socialism is common but inaccurate. It fudges that, according to Marxist thought, socialism is an earlier stage in the process of reaching the end goal of communism.

    That writer Ron Leighton asserts in his piece that “China is Capitalist” is rather simplistic. Laissez faire capitalism, neoliberalism, and exploitation of other nations are antithetical to Chinese political-economic practice.

    Dictionary Definitions

    Socialism: “a theory or system of social organization that advocates the ownership and control of the means of production and distribution, capital, land, etc., by the community as a whole, usually through a centralized government.”

    Communism: “a theory or system of social organization based on the holding of all property in common, actual ownership being ascribed to the community as a whole or to the state.”

    Capitalism: “an economic system in which investment in and ownership of the means of production, distribution, and exchange of wealth is made and maintained chiefly by private individuals or corporations, especially as contrasted to cooperatively or state-owned means of wealth.”

    Is there an extant purely capitalist society? What do hospitals, schools, the fire department, the police, military, etc represent? The fact is that capitalism, because of its proclivity to concentrate wealth in a few hands, could not survive in a society without wealth redistribution.

    The Communist Party of China prioritized pulling all its citizens out of absolute poverty and achieved this in late 2021. What “capitalist” country has achieved this? The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea — despite a scorched earth bombardment by the US, climatological disasters suffered, and continuous sanctions against it — has achieved tuition-free education for all, kindergarten through university; free preschool; universal healthcare; full employment; and universal housing. What capitalist countries have achieved this? In fact, my North Korean guide proudly opined that the DPRK was more socialist than China.

    China now strives toward becoming a xiaokang society, a moderately prosperous society — basically a society where almost everyone has attained a middle class level. This is hardly what one would expect to be prioritized under capitalism’s law of the jungle.

    Unhindered, a system of socialism should function without need for capitalism.

    Nonetheless, arguing about whether China is communist or capitalist is futile. China is neither.

    If one wants to know what political-economic system China adheres to then check in with China’s chairman Xi Jinping. He states clearly in his book On the Governance of China that China follows and applies Marxist-Leninism to the Chinese context and that China is currently in the early stage of socialism, what Chinese call Socialism with Chinese Characteristics. The “Communist” in the Communist Party of China indicates the end goal, as Xi also makes clear in his book.

    China emphasizes peace, the freedom for each nation to choose a system which best suits it, win-win commerce, and an improved life for people of all nations. It does not seek to impose a political-economic system on others, and it does not emphasize profit over people.

    Sounds quite distant from capitalism.

    The post China is Not Capitalist and it is Not Yet Communist first appeared on Dissident Voice.

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  • A Story of Russia

    Contemporary Russian politics are too often analysed without sufficient knowledge of Russian history.

    — Orlando Figes, The Story of Russia, p 268

    The conflict among nations in Ukraine and the breakaway Donbass oblasts/republics has been magnified in western monopoly media since Russia backed up its security demands. To the extent that people want to ascertain the verisimilitude of media information, people ought to become familiar with the region, its peoples, and the history. With this intention and with an open mind to a viewpoint counter to my orientation (I am decidedly of a socialist orientation, but, I trust, with allegiance to verifiable evidence), I read The Story of Russia (Metropolitan Books, 2022) by the bourgeois historian Orlando Figes.

    Thus, it did not surprise me that on page 1, Figes opines, “Vladimir Putin… managed to look bored. He seemed to want the ceremony to be done as soon as possible.” On page 2, “Putin looked uncomfortable.” In the introduction more bias is evident; Figes writes of “the Russian annexation of Ukrainian Crimea,” (p 2) “the ‘putsch’ in Kiev, as the Kremlin called the Maidan uprising,” (p 4) “history writing in Russia, since its beginning in medieval chronicles, has been intertwined in mythical ideas,” (p 5) and Putin’s “authoritarian regime.” (p 6) In contemporary understanding, regime is pejorative for a totalitarian/autocratic government.

    In the second chapter, “Origins,” Figes says that Putin asserts “the old imperial myth that the Russians, the Ukrainians and the Belarussians were historically one people.” In succeeding chapters, The Story of Russia runs through the intercourse between myriad groups of peoples, the Vikings, Finns, Mongols, Khazars, Turks, Arabs, Germans, French, etc that have intermixed knowledge, languages, cultures, religious beliefs, and commerce with Slavs. Russia has been conquered and has conquered others many times.

    Figes lays out an eminently comprehensible historical sequence that led to rule by a revered tsardom with its concomitant corruption along with an exploited and impoverished peasant class. Traditionally, tsarist Russia leaned favorably toward western Europe which did not have the same favorable inclination toward Russia. This changed with Catherine the Great who envisioned Russian greatness stemming from a southern orientation. (p 127)

    Serfdom would be identified as holding Russia back in wars and competition with the West. (p 154) The tsar would, when forced, in due course relinquish some powers, such as the establishment of zemstvos (self-government in Russian provinces), but eventually the corruption of the autocratic tsarist class would lead to a revolution that violently deposed the Romanovs. (For a dramatization of the history, see the Netflix series The Last Czars.)

    Post-revolution, the Bolsheviks (Majoritarians) emerged victorious over the Mensheviks (Minoritarians). Figes writes that the tsar continued afterwards in “Soviet cults of the Leader.” (p 191)

    Whereas Lenin, in his cult, appeared as a human god or saint, a sacred guide for the Party orphaned by his death, the cult of Stalin portrayed him as a tsar, the ‘little-father tsar’ or tsar-batiushka of folklore … (p 225)

    Unfortunately, The Story of Russia suffers from being replete with many unsubstantiated claims, rumors, and opinions. One would expect that a book written by a professor of history who specializes in Russia would source most pertinent information, especially information that is debatable. For example, Figes writes of “Nikolai Yezhov, an unscrupulous henchman, who fed Stalin’s paranoid fears.” (p 229) Maybe this is so, but what is his source for a scrupulous reader to scrutinize in order to confirm or deny this? During the Great Terror, Figes writes that in 1937, “1,500 Soviet citizens were shot on average every day…” (p 232) Elsewhere, he relates that the Gulag population reached 2 million prisoners in 1952. (p 250) There is no sourcing to evaluate this information.

    Figes is derisory of Joseph Stalin and Russian militarism during World War II:

    There was almost no limit to the number of lives that the Stalinist regime was willing to expend to achieve its military goals…. Only by this ruthless disregard for human life can we explain the shocking losses of the Red Army — around 12 million soldiers killed between 1941 and 1945…

    Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev fares no better in Figes’ estimation:

    Khrushchev’s erratic leadership, his tendency to act on intuition and then attack his critics, his meddling in affairs where he lacked expertise, and his dangerous confrontation with the USA in the Cuban Missile Crisis …

    It is written as if the confrontation was entirely provoked from the Soviet side, that the John Kennedy administration was not dangerously confronting the Soviet Union. Unmentioned is that, since 1959, the US had had nuclear missiles deployed in Turkiye which bordered the USSR.

    Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev was “a grey and mediocre functionary” (p 253) who “had more practical than intellectual capacities.” (p 254)

    The Soviet Union would collapse on President Mikhail Gorbachev’s watch. Boris Yeltsin’s ascent to the Russian presidency would coincide with the political demise of Gorbachev; however, Yeltsin would personify the Peter Principle. He was completely out-of-his-depth. Figes asks, “How can we explain the failure of democracy under Yeltsin, and the reemergence of dictatorship under Putin’s leadership?” (p 268) Figes explains that under Yeltsin, the people called the system a “shitocracy.” (p 270) Was this solely due to Russian incompetence? There is scant attribution to the role played by western nations and institutions such as the IMF that advised Yeltsin’s team to apply the shock therapy of neoliberalism (a “social disaster” says Figes, p 269) that helped precipitate the downfall of Yeltsin and pave the way for a new face and new direction.

    Figes writes that Vladimir Putin became the successor to Yeltsin by agreeing to protect Yeltsin and his family from their corruption. (p 271) Putin is also accused of corruption; Figes footnotes harsh Putin critic Masha Gessen’s book The Man without a Face: The Unlikely Rise of Vladimir Putin (2012) as substantiation. As testament to her analytical prowess, Gessen predicted in her book’s epilogue, “Putin’s bubble will burst.” Yet in July 2022, Putin still enjoys immense popularity in Russia.

    Figes likens Putin to a grand prince where Russian oligarchs are “totally dependent on his will” much as the boyar clans were reliant upon the royal court in Russia. (p 54)

    According to Figes, Putin’s Russia is a managed democracy where electoral results are determined beforehand.

    The author criticizes laws he identifies as protecting an ahistorical image of Russia; for example, a law requiring foreign-funded NGOs to register as a “Foreign Agent.” (p 278) Not mentioned is that the US has its own Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) (FIRA in Canada) and that NGOs are cited as instigators behind so-called color revolutions.

    Figes further criticizes Putin for weaponizing the memory of war against foreign powers. Here a bias of Figes stands out by referring to a non-aggression pact between the USSR and Nazi Germany (commonly referred to as the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact) as the Hitler-Stalin Pact. (p 279) Is Figes unaware that the West collaborated with Nazi Germany? In his book The Myth of the Good War, historian Jacques Pauwels told of European elitists’s support for fascism as a bulwark against Bolshevism, (p 42, 47) which was also true in the US. (p 53)

    Figes also takes issue with Putin for comparing “Ukraine’s nationalists to collaborators with the Nazis in the war.” (p 279) The evidence of Nazism in Ukraine is so prolific that one must be either ignorant or purposefully blind:

    Azov Battalion fighters with Nazi flag (WikiCommons)

    Not being a professional historian, I will focus on Figes’s rendering of contemporary history, which seems particularly disputable on factual and logical grounds.

    1. As stated, Figes pooh poohs the “Ukraine-Nazi myth” (p 298): “The Kremlin’s Russian media outlets consistently referred to the interim Ukrainian government as a ‘junta’, backed by ‘neo-Nazis’ and ‘fascists’, an obvious propaganda tactic …. They [the Kremlin] staged protests against the new authorities in Kiev…” (p 290)

    This is a one-sided presentation. According to the World Socialist Web Site:

    The background and implications of the 2014 far-right coup in Kiev, which overthrew the pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych, is critical for understanding the current Ukraine-Russia war. This coup was openly supported by US and European imperialism and implemented primarily by far-right shock troops such as the Right Sector and the neo-Nazi Svoboda Party.

    Salon wrote of US machinations:

    When Ukrainian President Yanukovych spurned a U.S.-backed trade agreement with the European Union in favor of a $15 billion bailout from Russia, the State Department threw a tantrum.

    Hell hath no fury like a superpower scorned.

    2. “the Kremlin launched a new Crimean War…. At the end of February [2014], Russian special forces occupied the peninsula, … oversaw a hurried referendum … in which 97 per cent of the people voted for reunion with Russia.” (p 290-291)

    Figes paints the expression of self-determinism in sinister language, but Figes doth protest too much, as he admits, “Even with a properly conducted plebiscite [in Crimea] the same decision would have been reached with a large majority.” (p 291) Since the Russians were so welcomed by Crimeans, this basically refutes Figes’s claim of a military occupation.

    3. “The warring parties failed to find agreement on the Minsk II Accords…” (p 291)

    From Wikipedia, the signatories are listed as:

    1. Separatist’s leaders Alexander Zakharchenko and Igor Plotnitsky
    2. Swiss diplomat and OSCE representative Heidi Tagliavini
    3. Former president of Ukraine and Ukrainian representative Leonid Kuchma
    4. Russian Ambassador to Ukraine and Russian representative Mikhail Zurabov

    4. Regarding Putin’s identification of NATO bases in Ukraine as a security threat, Figes writes, “From a western point of view this seemed mad and paranoid. NATO, after all, was a defensive alliance and had no reason to attack Russia.” (p 293)

    To paint NATO, after all, as a purely “defensive alliance” is disingenuous. Did NATO attack ex-Yugoslavia in self-defense? Guised as a European-Canada-US alliance was Libya a threat to NATO? With all due respect to the people of Afghanistan, was a country largely populated by sandal-wearing goat herders with a Kalashnikov rifle strapped over one shoulder a threat to NATO?

    Conversely, does the history of myriad western interventions not point to a potential threat for Russia?

    5. Figes claims the invasion of Ukraine has revealed that the “Russian army, it turned out, was not as good as people thought.” (p 296) “Putin, it was said, was hoping to announce a victory … on 9 May, Victory Day…” (p 297) It was said? Who said this? Figes applies his military analysis and reaches the same conclusion as another non-professional military analyst Noam Chomsky. They both equate the prowess of the Russian military to the duration of the military engagement.

    6. Figes writes of a mass-based opposition led by Alexei Navalny. (p 299) Yet this “mass-based opposition” leader, as Figes describes Navalny, is without any party members in the Russian State Duma.

    7. “The Russians carried out a number of atrocities in towns such as Bucha…” (p 296)

    Concerning the massacre in Bucha, Drago Bosnic, an independent geopolitical and military analyst, wrote:

    The Ukrainian side claims Russian troops killed at least 412 people, while so-called ‘independent’ sources state there were 50 victims. The peculiar claims were completely unsupported by any actual official investigation by any neutral side. The Kiev regime and their Western sponsors flatly refused to allow an international investigation, while any claims contrary to the official narrative were immediately suppressed.

    Why prevent an investigation that one claims should reveal war crimes perpetrated by the enemy? (Yes, US president Biden in a televised message tells Russian citizens: “You are not our enemy.” Biden expresses his scorn for the “war killer” Putin.)

    Former US Marines intelligence officer Scott Ritter — who graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in the history of the Soviet Union and departmental honors at Franklin and Marshall College in Lancaster, Pennsylvania — names the culprit behind the Bucha massacre: Ukrainian national police murdered Ukrainians.

    Without exception, without exception all of the data points to the Ukrainian national police carrying out a cleansing operation on April 1st that targeted pro-Russian collaborators and what they called saboteurs. And when we say cleansing operation, it means killing them. There is a video where a member of this national police unit asked permission to shoot people who aren’t wearing the blue armband, and he was given permission to fire.”

    The US has the satellite images of this says Ritter, who emphatically states:

    The US knows exactly what happened, but the US is not in the business of telling the truth. They are in the business of promulgating Ukrainian lies, and this lie was to create a narrative of Russia as a genocidal state trying to massacre innocent Ukrainian civilians. That is not what happened. The evidence is clear. If we took this to trial today Judge, I could guarantee you that I’d be able to make a very strong circumstantial case that this crime was committed by the Ukrainian national police and that they’d have nothing to defend with.

    Months afterward, Ritter remains firmly convinced that Ukraine was behind the massacre of its own people in Bucha (start watching video at 1:33:50):

    All the forensic data points to the absolute incontrovertible fact that Ukrainian security services carried out crimes against pro-Russian elements of the population of Bucha in late March, early April of 2022…. I will debate anybody, anytime, anywhere, on any platform, hell, I’ll travel to Ukraine to do it in front of the Ukrainian parliament if they want. I am not running away from these facts.

    Ritter has thrown down a figurative glove. Will Figes pick it up? Ritter looks at the evidence, does his research, and applies logic in reaching a conclusion. Too often, when evidence is demanded, Figes comes up wanting.

    Figes has made many claims and predictions, if the presence of Nazis breaks through the monopoly media censorship and propaganda, if Russia defeats Ukraine (and it already has according to Ritter), then what does that signify about Figes and his historical scholarship?

    Given all this, it is argued that The Story of Russia is, more accurately, A Story of Russia, a story according to Orlando Figes. As for what the history of Russia is, that is something to be discovered by curious and discerning readers and researchers.

    The post A Story of Russia first appeared on Dissident Voice.

  • Justice in the Land of the FreeTM

    I feel for American basketball player Brittney Griner. Did she break the law? Yes, she did, and she pled guilty at trial. But a sentence of nine years — to be spent in what the New York Times calls a “penal colony” — for bringing hashish into Russia for self-treatment (assuming this is true) seems overly harsh. But the law can be an ass. If humans have sovereignty over their own bodies, then it is just plain wrong to be hassled for what one chooses to consume.

    On the other hand, Griner should be accorded the same treatment from the Russian justice system as any Russian would be accorded. If this has been the case, then it can be argued that justice was meted out without favoritism in the Russian system.

    Still, if it was a packing error, then Griner is paying a high price for a mistake that on its face would cause no harm to any other person.

    US president Joe Biden called the sentence “unacceptable” and said he will do all he can to bring Griner back to the United States. When a country considers that one of its citizens is a victim of injustice abroad, then a country should agitate on behalf of its citizen.

    A prisoner swap with Russia has already been broached by the US, so Griner may be back stateside before long.

    Julian Assange: A Victim of Injustice

    There is a current case, however, that speaks to notions of justice in western countries. Biden apparently considers the American legal pursuit of Assange — an Australian citizen whose acts (i.e., journalism) were committed outside the US — as acceptable. The US claim to extraterritoriality is well known to China and Meng Wanzhou.

    WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has been languishing in some form of incarceration for over 20 years, and he now faces potential imprisonment for the rest of his life if extradited and found guilty of espionage in the US. People who are clued in realize these charges are as phony as the sexual crimes alleged and dropped against him by Sweden. Assange’s actual “crime” is exposing the crimes of the US; especially revelatory was the Collateral Murder video where US troops in an Apache helicopter gleefully gunned down Iraqi citizens on a street in Baghdad. The murderers remain scot-free. For exposing war crimes, Assange and Bradley Manning have been punished.

    Is Australia concerned about justice for its citizens? Assange has hardly received an iota of Australian government concern or assistance compared to that Griner has received from the US. Assange has also received scant support from the Australian monopoly media. In fact, Australian government leaders and media have usually criticized Assange or distanced themselves from him.

    What if China were switched with the US and found itself faced with what Assange is accused of by the US? What would be the situation then?

    Assange who has not been overly kind to China, has, nonetheless, received support from China. Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said, “All eyes are on Assange’s human rights conditions and what may become of him. Let us hope and believe that at the end of the day, fairness and justice will prevail. Hegemony and abuse of might will certainly not last forever.”

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  • Has China Been Bluffing?

    British professor Orlando Figes, who specializes in Russian history, wrote that the 2008 Russian intervention in Georgia on the side of the breakaway enclaves of Abkhazia and South Ossetia had exposed American timidity and scuppered NATO membership hopes for Georgia. (Figes, The Story of Russia, (Metropolitan Books, 2022): 285-286.) Was there a lesson learned by the West?

    In 2021-2022, Ukraine joining NATO was identified as a red line by Russia. US, Ukraine, and NATO paid scant heed to Russian security concerns and the outcome is the current fighting in Ukraine.

    Putin had issued a warning in April 2021: “But if someone mistakes our good intentions for indifference or weakness and intends to burn or even blow up these bridges, they must know that Russia’s response will be asymmetrical, swift and tough.”

    Across the Eurasian continent, China finds itself being provoked by the US’s oleaginous adherence to the One China policy to which it is a signatory. Beijing has in recent days warned of severe consequences to be borne by the US and separatists in Taiwan (there are vociferous protests in Taiwan against Pelosi’s visit) if US House speaker Nancy Pelosi were to land in Taiwan.

    Nonetheless, Pelosi is now in Taiwan, saying her visit “honors America’s unwavering commitment to supporting Taiwan’s vibrant democracy.” Even NY Times columnist Thomas Friedman said that Pelosi was being “utterly reckless, dangerous and irresponsible.”

    If the government in China ever still had any doubts (of course, they didn’t) about malicious American intentions, they have all evaporated now.

    Chinese media has described the trip to Taiwan as American hypocrisy at its best.

    Despite the trip being “utterly reckless, dangerous and irresponsible,” one has to hand it to the US that it was gutsy. The US didn’t back down. Pelosi did show up. But it required keeping her date, time, and place of arrival under wraps, and she was emboldened by the presence of accompanying US aircraft carriers. Hung Hsiu-chu, former chairwoman of the Taiwanese political opposition Kuomintang, sees some in the US tolerating Pelosi’s risky move to test Beijing’s red lines.

    Among the speculated actions that China might undertake are sending fighter planes into what Taiwan contends is its airspace and sending naval ships into waters that Taiwan lays claim to; and that “the PLA [People’s Liberation Army] will strike Taiwan military targets … and the mainland could also consider speeding up legislation for a national reunification law and even publish a timetable for reunification which will impose real pressure on the US and Taiwan authorities.”

    As to when Beijing will respond, the Global Times noted, “The Chinese mainland really knows the importance of ‘strategic patience.’”

    Joint maritime and air exercises by the PLA were announced by senior colonel Shi Yi, a spokesperson at the PLA Eastern Theater Command, that will surround Taiwan in five directions.

    It is well known that Putin does not bluff. Now the question is whether the administration of Xi Jinping bluffs. The world is about to find out what China means when it warns of “serious consequences.”

    The post Has China Been Bluffing? first appeared on Dissident Voice.

  • The US Boxes Itself in over Taiwan and Ukraine

    Nancy Pelosi, speaker of the United States House of Representatives, is reportedly scheduled to visit Taipei in August 2022. The stated purpose is supporting Asian democracy. The trip has more than irked the Chinese.

    The trip has obviously not been approved by the one recognized government of China in Beijing. Some may downplay the speaker of the US House of Representatives as being largely ceremonial, but the Speaker is second in line, after the vice-president, should the addled president be unable to fulfill his duties, a scenario wholly within the realm of possibility.

    Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian warned that Pelosi’s trip would have a “grave impact” on US-China ties:

    If the US were to insist on going down the wrong path, China will take resolute and strong measures to safeguard its sovereignty and territorial integrity. All the ensuing consequences shall be borne by the US side.

    The US paid scant heed to the red lines that president Vladimir Putin expressed about Russian security concerns, and Ukraine is paying the military consequences of this right now while European countries are reaping the economic blowback of sanctions they leveled against Russia.

    It is now widely conceded that Putin does not bluff.

    To underscore the sincerity of China about the Pelosi trip to Taiwan, another Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said, “We mean what we say.”

    Biden seems to be wavering on the Pelosi visit, saying, “I think that the military thinks it’s not a good idea right now, but I don’t know what the status of it is.”

    The US has placed itself in a no-win situation: either it backs down from the provocation of a Pelosi visit or it opens itself to “resolute and strong measures” from China.

    The intrigues against China are not new. What is different is the Chinese response. China has become decidedly more forceful in its diplomacy.

    The Biden administration carried forward the Sinophobia from the outgoing Trump administration. This was apparent in the meeting of Chinese and American heads in Anchorage, Alaska. US Secretary of state Antony Blinken spoke of:

    deep concerns with actions by China, including in Xinjiang, Hong Kong, Taiwan, cyberattacks on the United States and economic coercion toward our allies. Each of these actions threaten the rules-based order that maintains global stability. That’s why they’re not merely internal matters…

    In his remarks, Yang Jiechi, Chinese director of the Office of the Central Commission for Foreign Affairs pointed out salient differences between the US and China:

    China’s per-capita GDP is only one-fifth of that of the United States, but we have managed to end absolute poverty for all people in China….

    Our values are the same as the common values of humanity. Those are: peace, development, fairness, justice, freedom and democracy.

    What China and the international community follow or uphold is the United Nations-centered international system and the international order underpinned by international law, not what is advocated by a small number of countries of the so-called rules-based international order.

    A stage was set in Alaska; China emphatically laid out its intention to follow a peaceful, non-hegemonic world order based on international law.

    Nonetheless, the US contrary to signed state-to-state undertakings of a One China Policy has frittered away its word and corralled Europe into its deceit. Thus on 6 July, NATO secretary general Jens Stoltenberg alleged:

    China is substantially building up its military forces, including nuclear weapons, bullying its neighbors, threatening Taiwan … monitoring and controlling its own citizens through advanced technology, and spreading Russian lies and disinformation…

    Japan as American Catspaw

    A second US zone of contention is the South China Sea. In the case of Taiwan, the US and allies, such as Japan, seek to undermine the One China Policy.

    The recently assassinated former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said in late November 2021:

    Any armed invasion of Taiwan would present a serious threat to Japan. A Taiwan crisis would be a Japan crisis and therefore a crisis for the Japan-U.S. alliance.

    Japan is a former colonizer of Taiwan. Being militarily weak, the Qing dynasty was forced by the Treaty of Shimonoseki to cede Taiwan. The Potsdam Proclamation at the end of WWII saw Taiwan revert to Chinese sovereignty. However, the US 7th fleet intervened in a Chinese civil war and allowed for the Guomindang, led by Jiang Jie Shi (known in the West as Chiang Kai-shek), to escape from the mainland to Taiwan, thereby leading to two claimants to be the government of China.

    Japan paid no reparations for its occupation nor apologized for its recruitment of Chinese women into sexual slavery. WWII saw Japanese invaders kill 35 million Chinese,1 including the infamous Rape of Nanking,2 and exceedingly cruel, torturous experimentation on Chinese civilians.

    Japan abides in words to the One China Policy, but it hands are tied by its American hegemon.3

    Japan claims concern about a threat to its territorial security if Taiwan were to be formally reunited with China. But such a concern reeks of hypocrisy because territorial and defensive concerns underlie Russia control over what Japan calls its Northern Territories, the islands northeast of Hokkaido: Habomai, Shikotan, Kunashiri and Etorofu.

    China Says Blame for the Ukraine Conflict Lies with the US

    Taiwan spills over into Ukraine. When a country considers itself a unipolar power, then it will seek to compel obedience with its directives elsewhere in the world. Thus, NATO head Stoltenberg has demanded that China condemn the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

    First, what the Russians are doing in fighting Nazism in Ukraine is completely different from the responsibility to protect pretext that NATO cited for fomenting violence in ex-Yugoslavia, Libya, and Syria. Russia finally intervened after eight years of Ukraine shelling Donbass — what Putin calls a genocide. Second, China is a close and staunch ally of Russia and calls for a peaceful settlement of the conflict between Russia and Ukraine.

    Since the US controls the anti-Russia media narrative at home and supplies Ukraine with weaponry, it is argued that the fighting in Ukraine represents a proxy war against Russia.

    It is little wonder given US non-compliance with the One China Policy that China identifies the US as a belligerent in Ukraine. Nonetheless, it is China that NATO has declared a “systemic challenge.”

    Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian responded in his Regular Press Conference on 6 July:

    The history of NATO is one of creating conflicts and waging wars. From Bosnia and Herzegovina to Kosovo, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and Ukraine, the self-claimed “defensive organization” has been making advances into new areas and domains, arbitrarily launching wars and killing innocent civilians. Even to this day, there is no sign of change. Facts have proven that it is not China that poses a systemic challenge to NATO, but NATO that brings a looming “systemic challenge” to world peace and security.

    Zhao in his Regular Press Conference on 19 July said:

    As the one who started the Ukraine crisis and the biggest factor fueling it, the US needs to deeply reflect on its erroneous actions of exerting extreme pressure and fanning the flame on the Ukraine issue and stop playing up bloc confrontation and creating a new Cold War by taking advantage of the situation. The US needs to facilitate a proper settlement of the crisis in a responsible way and create the environment and conditions needed for peace talks between parties concerned.

    In deeds, China has revealed itself to be a steadfast ally. In words, China has become an assertive voice for peace based on international law and order.

    1. See Gideon Polya, US-Imposed Post-9/11 Muslim Holocaust & Muslim Genocide (2020).
    2. Visit the Memorial Hall of the Victims in Nanjing Massacre, erected on a site where many of the 300,000 victims were dumped in a mass grave. Read Iris Chang, The Rape of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust of World War II (1997).
    3. Daojiong Zha, “The Taiwan Problem in Japan-China Relations: From an Irritant to a Destroyer?” Indian Journal of Asian Affairs, 14(1/2), June & December, 2001: 15-31.

    The post The US Boxes Itself in over Taiwan and Ukraine first appeared on Dissident Voice.

  • What Constitutes Being a Dictator?

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  • Is Noam Chomsky a Qualified Military Analyst?

    Renowned progressive intellectual Noam Chomsky, author of over a 100 books, was recently interviewed by AcTVism. The entire interview is interesting, but the focus here is on the first 20 minutes where the situation in Ukraine is discussed.

    Chomsky lays out the US directive to NATO in the proxy war: “The war must continue until Russia is severely harmed.”

    The professor scoffs at Russian military might. He says that western European countries “are gloating over the fact that the Russia military has demonstrated to be a paper tiger, couldn’t even conquer a couple of cities a couple of kilometers from the border defended mostly by a citizens army, so all the talk about Russian military power was exposed as empty…”

    I grant that Chomsky is indeed a polymath, but is he an expert on military operations? Scott Ritter and Brian Berletic, on the other hand, are Americans steeped in militarism. Berletic is a former US marine and Ritter is a former intelligence officer for the US marines. Both of them explain the Russian strategy in shaping the battlefield. The reason for this is to minimize Russian casualties and Ukrainian civilian casualties. This is unlike American Shock and Awe warfare where “collateral damage” (as killing of civilians by US military is trivialized) is accepted to attain US military objectives. Moreover, since Donbass was the industrial heartland of Ukraine, as well as part of the wheat belt, it is in Russia’s interest to protect the infrastructure and agriculture, as well as protecting the, largely Russian speaking, people of Donbass. However, the perceived slowness of implementing the Russian strategy — surrounding enemy fighters in siege warfare and compelling their surrender — seems to make Russia a paper tiger in Chomsky’s estimation.

    If Russia is a paper tiger, then what does that make Ukraine? Ukraine was trained by NATO, armed by NATO, and fed intelligence by NATO, as well as outnumbering Russian fighters while fighting on home turf?

    Yet Russia has destroyed most of the Ukrainian fighters (including Ukrainian Nazi fighters), obliterated most of their weaponry, including resupplies by NATO, and has liberated Donbass and conquered other parts of Ukraine (a country on the verge of potentially becoming landlocked if it persists in fighting a losing battle).

    Chomsky characterizes western countries as “free democratic societies.” [sic] He follows this by stating, “There is no conceivable possibility that Russia will attack anyone [else]. They could barely handle this [fight with Ukraine]. They had to back off without NATO involvement.”

    The fighting was personalized by Chomsky as Putin’s “criminal aggression” and that Putin acted “very stupidly” because he “drove Europe into Washington’s pocket”: “the greatest gift he could give the United States.” Chomsky would heap more ad hominem at Putin’s “utter imbecility.”

    “The United States is utterly delighted,” states Chomsky. The military-industrial complex is “euphoric.” “Fossil fuel companies are delighted… It’s almost unbelievable the stupidity.”

    Chomsky acknowledges that Ukraine cannot defeat the paper tiger, Russia, and supposedly Russian military actions have united the western world against Russia, as if the western world were not already arrayed against Russia. Yes, Germany backed out of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline for delivery of gas to the German market. But who was hurt more by this?

    Fossil fuel prices have soared and Russia is the beneficiary. Despite sanctions, the Russian ruble is strong. While the western Europeans have remained fidel to their American masters, Africa, South America, and Asia have ignored the sanctions. China, Pakistan, India, among others, have stepped in to import Russian oil and gas.

    While Chomsky points out that the US military-industrial complex and Big Oil are overjoyed by the Russia-Ukraine warring, unmentioned is that average American citizens (and their European counterparts) are not feeling particularly gleeful at spiking gas costs and burgeoning inflation.

    Chomsky keeps his focus on the invasion. “There is no way to justify the invasion. None!” Talk of justification is “totally nonsense,” says Chomsky. He admits that there was “provocation” by the US for ignoring Russian security concerns. “But provocation does not yield justification,” he asserts. “There is nothing that can justify criminal aggression.”

    Why does Chomsky not mention the 8 years that Ukraine had been aggressing Donbass, criminally, where a reported 14,000 Donbass citizens were killed? Russia refers to a genocide perpetrated by Ukraine in Donbass. Russia justified its “special military operation” (what Chomsky calls a criminal aggression) by recognizing the sovereignty of the Lugansk and Donetsk republics and entering into a defensive pact (what NATO is supposed to be about).

    War is anathema, but when diplomacy fails and you are faced with a violent, belligerent hegemon, then sometimes war becomes a necessity. When an animal is backed into a corner, it will come out fighting for its life. The writing was on the wall when the US, a serial violator of international agreements, broke its promise to Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev that NATO would not move one inch further eastward and then expanded to the Ukrainian border, a red line for Russia. Russia was being backed into a corner. Speaking to the initiator of the war in Ukraine, a question arises: is the animal backed into a corner by a predator an aggressor for realizing that fighting was the only option?

    But no lives needed to have been lost. No territory needed to have been lost (aside from Crimea which had held a referendum in which the population overwhelmingly voted to join Russia; it is a United Nations recognized right of a people to self-determination). And to think that all of this could have been averted if Ukraine had upheld the Minsk agreements that they signed granting autonomy to Donbass, nixed seeking NATO membership, and declared themselves neutral. In other words, honor a contract and use money allotted to militarism for other ends (say, for example, education, employment, and social programs). Sounded like a no-brainer from the get-go, and this has been magnified since the special military operation. But it does not seem to be sinking in to the Russophobia-addled brains of Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy and his coterie.

    All this is missing from Chomsky’s analysis. The Nazified Ukrainian government somehow escapes criticism. The US does not escape criticism, but this is mild compared to the name calling and criticism of Russia. It may not be surprising considering that Chomsky has been criticized for a biased and inaccurate version of Soviet/Russian history.

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  • It is Not Love that Abandons Its Treaties

    The Tsilhqot’in Struggle

    On 26 March 2018, Canada’s prime minister Justin Trudeau spoke of the six Tsilhqot’in chiefs who were arrested during a sacred peace-pipe ceremony and subsequently hanged for their part in a war to prevent the spread of smallpox by colonialists: “We recognize that these six chiefs were leaders of a nation, that they acted in accordance with their laws and traditions and that they are well regarded as heroes of their people.”

    “They acted as leaders of a proud and independent nation facing the threat of another nation.”

    “As settlers came to the land in the rush for gold, no consideration was given to the rights of the Tsilhqot’in people who were there first,” Trudeau said. “No consent was sought.”

    In recent years, the Tsilhqot’in people were engaged in a long, drawn-out fight to gain sovereignty over their unceded territory, spurred by the attempts of Taseko Mines to situate an open-pit copper-and-gold mine near the trout-rich Teẑtan Biny (Fish Lake). Also proposed was “destroying Yanah Biny (Little Fish Lake) and the Tŝilhqot’in homes and graves located near that lake, to make way for a massive tailings pond.”

    The Supreme Court decision in Tsilhqot’in Nation v British Columbia, (2014), upheld Indigenous title as declared in an earlier Supreme Court decision, Delgamuukw v British Columbia, (1997).

    The Wet’suwet’in Struggle

    Sometimes the law works (even colonial law), and sometimes it doesn’t. Neither the Tsilhqot’in or Delgamuukw legal precedents have, so far, buttressed the Wet’suwet’en people’s fight against the encroachment of a pipeline corporation.

    In the unceded territory of the Wet’suwet’en First Nation, corporate Canada and the government of Canada are violently seeking to ram a pipeline through Wet’suwet’en territory despite its rejection by all five hereditary chiefs; i.e., no consent has been given for the laying of a pipeline.

    The Gidimt’en land defenders of the Wet’suwet’en turned to the international forum and made a submission to the United Nations Human Rights Council’s Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous People on the “Militarization of Wet’suwet’en Lands and Canada’s Ongoing Violations.”  The submission was co-authored by leading legal, academic, and human rights experts in Canada, and is supported by over two dozen organisations such as the Union of BC Indian Chiefs and Amnesty International-Canada.

    The submission to the UN was presented by hereditary chief Dinï ze’ Woos (Frank Alec), Gidimt’en Checkpoint spokesperson Sleydo’ (Molly Wickham), and Gidimt’en Checkpoint media coordinator Jen Wickham. It makes the case that forced industrialization by Coastal GasLink and police militarization on Wet’suwet’en land is a repudiation of Canada’s international obligations as stipulated in the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP).

    Their submission states:

    Ongoing human rights violations, militarization of Wet’suwet’en lands, forcible removal and criminalization of peaceful land defenders, and irreparable harm due to industrial destruction of Wet’suwet’en lands and cultural sites are occurring despite declarations by federal and provincial governments for reconciliation with Indigenous peoples. By deploying legal, political, and economic tactics to violate our rights, Canada and BC are contravening the spirit of reconciliation, as well as their binding obligations to Indigenous law, Canadian constitutional law, UNDRIP and international law.

    Sleydo’ relates the situation:

    We urge the United Nations to conduct a field visit to Wet’suwet’en territory because Canada and BC have not withdrawn RCMP from our territory and have not suspended Coastal GasLink’s permits, despite the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination calling on them to do so. Wet’suwet’en is an international frontline to protect the rights of Indigenous peoples and to prevent climate change. Yet we are intimidated and surveilled by armed RCMP, smeared as terrorists, and dragged through colonial courts. This is the reality of Canada.

    In the three large-scale police actions that have transpired on Wet’suwet’en territory since January 2019, several dozens of people have been arrested and detained, including legal observers and media. On 13 June 2022, the Unist’ot’en Solidarity Brigade expressed outrage that the BC Prosecution Service plans to pursue criminal contempt charges against people opposed to the trespass of Wet’suwet’en territory, including Sleydo’.

    Treaty Treatment

    The Wet’suwet’en are on their ancestral unceded lands. Would it have made a difference if they had signed a treaty with the colonial entity?

    The book We Remember the Coming of the White Man (Durville, 2021), edited by Sarah Stewart and Raymond Yakeleya, does not augur a better outcome for the First People.

    We Remember adumbrates how the treaty process operates under colonialism:

    When our Dene People signed Treaty 11 in 1921, there had been no negotiation because the Treaty translators were not able to translate the actual language used in the document. There was not enough time for our People to consult with each other. Our Dene People were given a list that had been written up by bureaucrats declaring the demands of Treaty 11. They dictated to the Dene, ‘This is what we want. You have to agree, and sign it.’ We did not know what the papers contained. (p ix)

    Treaties and contracts signed under duress are not legally binding. Forced signing of a treaty is on-its-face preposterous to most people with at least half a lobe. It is no less obvious to the Dene of the Northwest Territories:

    How can you demand something from People who cannot understand? That’s a crime. I have often said that Treaty 11 does not meet the threshold of being legal. In other words, when we make a treaty, it should be you understand, I understand, and we agree. In this case, the Dene did not understand. (p x)

    Unfortunately, the Dene trusted an untrustworthy churchman. The Dene signed on the urging of Bishop Breyant, a man of God, because they had faith in the Roman Catholic Church. (p x)

    Oil appeals to those with a lust for lucre. This greed contrasts with traditional Dene customs. Walter Blondin writes in the Foreword,

    We Dene consider our land as sacred and owned by everyone collectively as it provides life…. [T]here were laws between the families that insured harmony and sharing. No one was left behind to face hardships or starve when disasters such as forest fires devastated the lands. The Dene laws promoted sharing, and this was taken seriously as failure to follow these laws could lead to war and bloody conflict. (p 3)

    The Blondin family of Norman Wells (Tlegohli) in the Northwest Territories experienced first hand the perfidy of the White Man. The Blondins gave oil samples from their land to the Roman Catholic bishop for testing. The Dene family never received any report of the results. Later, however, a geologist, Dr Bosworth staked three claims at Bosworth Creek that were bought by Imperial Oil in 1918. (p 5-6)

    Imperial Oil told the families: “You are not welcome in your homes and your traditional lands and your hunting territory.” The Dene people were driven out. “Elders say, ‘It was the first time in living memory where the Dene became homeless on their own land.’” (p 6)

    The Blondin family homes were torn down with possessions inside and pushed over the river bank. “No apology or compensation was ever received from Imperial Oil. Imperial Oil considered Norman Wells to be ‘their town—a White Man’s town’ and the Blondin family and other Dene were not welcome.” (p 6)

    “Treaty 11 became the ‘treaty for oil ownership.’” (p 8)

    “One hundred years after the fact, the Dene can see the collusion between the British Crown, Imperial Oil [now ExxonMobil] and the Roman Catholic Church in the fraud, theft and embezzlement of Dene resources.” (p 10)

    Sarah Stewart writes, “Treaty 11 was a charade to legitimize the land grab in the Northwest Territories.” The land grab came with horrific consequences. Stewart laments that the White Man brought disease, moved onto Dene lands and decimated wildlife, and that the teaching of missionaries and missionary schools eroded native languages, cultures, and traditions. (p 14)

    Indigenous People, whose land it was, were never considered equal partners in benefiting from the resource. As Indian Agent Henry Conroy wrote to the Deputy General of Indian Affairs in January 1921, the objective was to have Indigenous people surrender their territory ‘to avoid complications in the exploitation of oil.’ (p 15)

    Filmmaker Raymond Yakeleya elucidates major differences between the colonialists and the Dene. He points to the capitalist mindset of the White Man: “‘How can we make money off this?’ Dene People are not motivated by that.” (p 24) A deep respect and reverence for all the Creator’s flora and fauna and land is another difference. “When you kill an animal, you have a conversation with it and give it thanks for sharing its body. There are special protocols and ceremonies you have to go through.” (p 28)

    While Yakeleya acknowledges that not all missionaries were bad, (p 30) he points to a dark side:

    A major confusion came to our People with the coming of the Catholic missionaries. I see the coming of the Black Robes as being a very, very dark cloud that descended over our People. All of a sudden you have people from another culture with another way of thinking imposing their laws. We see that they did it for money, control, and power. I heard an Elder say to me once that the Christians who followed the Ten Commandments were the same people who broke all of them.

    The first time we ever questioned ourselves was with the coming of the Christians and to me, I think there was something evil that came amongst our People…. The missionaries were quick to say our ways were the ways of the devil, or the ways of something not good…. Now we see they are being charged with pedophilia and other crimes. (p 29)

    As for the discovery of oil, Joe Blondin said, “The Natives found it and never got anything out of it and that’s the truth.” (p 159) As for Treaty 11, John Blondin stated emphatically, “We know that we did not sell our land.” (p 171)

    At the Mackenzie Valley Pipeline Inquiry in Fort McPherson [Teetł’it Zheh], Dene Philip Blake spoke words that resonate poignantly with the situation in Wet’suwet’en territory today:

    If your nation chooses … to continue to try and destroy our nation, then I hope you will understand why we are willing to fight so that our nation can survive. It is our world…. But we are willing to defend it for ourselves, our children, and our grandchildren. If your nation becomes so violent that it would tear up our land, destroy our society and our future, and occupy our homeland, by trying to impose this pipeline against our will, but then of course we will have no choice but to react with violence. I hope we do not have to do that. For it is not the way we would choose…. I hope you will not only look on the violence of Indian action, but also on the violence of your own nation which would force us to take such a course. We will never initiate violence. But if your nation threatens by its own violent action to destroy our nation, you will have given us no choice. Please do not force us into this position. For we would all lose too much. (p 229)

    The Nature of Colonialism and Its Treaties

    Spoken word poet Shane L. Koyczan captures the nature of colonialism in Inconvenient Skin (Theytus Books, 2019):

    150 years is not so long
    that the history can be forgot

    not so long that
    forgiveness can be bought with empty apologies
    or unkept promises

    sharpened assurances that this is now
    how it is

    take it on good faith
    and accept it

    except that
    history repeats itself
    like someone not being listened to
    like an entire people not being heard

    the word of god is hard to swallow
    when good faith becomes a barren gesture

    there were men of good faith
    robbing babies from their cradles
    like the monsters we used to tell each other about

    ripping children out of their mother’s arms
    to be imprisoned in the houses of god
    whose teachings were love

    did no one hear?
    did god mumble?

    god said love

    but the things that were done
    were not love

    our nation is built above the bones
    of a genocide

    it was not love that pried apart these families
    it is not love that abandons its treaties
    …

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  • Whose Security?


    Insanity has often been defined as trying the same thing over and over and receiving the same result.

    Case in point, Ukraine was seeking NATO membership to bolster its security. This membership would have come at the expense of Russian security, as Russian president Vladimir Putin made clear. To thwart NATO’s (i.e., the US’s) hegemonic ambitions and preserve its own security, Russia felt compelled to address its security concerns. When these Russian security concerns were treated with contempt by the US and Ukraine, Russia took action to protect itself.

    Two neutral countries, Finland and Sweden, are seriously contemplating NATO membership, as did Ukraine. Will this increase security for these two countries? There has been no warring between Russia and Finland since 1941-1944 when the Finns decided to ally with Nazi Germany during World War II and fight the Soviet Union. The last Russia-Sweden war was the Finnish War that was fought over two centuries ago (1808-1809).

    On its face, one lesson to be drawn from the war between Russia and Ukraine is that Russia sees NATO membership on its border as a threat to its security, and it will act to protect its security.

    Why then would a country that has been in relatively peaceful co-existence with Russians since the end of WWII seek a change in that status quo that may very well diminish or destroy that peaceful coexistence?

    Sweden’s Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson was circumspect about NATO membership noting that Sweden has to “think about the consequences…. We have to see what is best for Sweden’s security.”

    Finland’s Prime Minister Sanna Marin admitted, “Of course, there are many kinds of risks involved…. We have to be prepared for all kinds of actions from Russia…” Surely, Marin is aware of the risks that were posed by the stand off between John F Kennedy and Nikita Khrushchev over Soviet stationing of nukes in Cuba (and American nukes in Turkey).

    News of further NATO expansion toward Russia has triggered a response from the Kremlin. Spokesperson Dimitry Peskov said Russia was considering militarily bolstering its western flank.

    Across the pond, US State Department spokesperson Ned Price was welcoming of an enlarged NATO membership. He repeated, “… we believe NATO’s open door is an open door.”

    However, it is quite obvious that the NATO open door has been more a closed door to Russia, as Russia has never been made a full member. It does not take a deep analysis to understand why this is so. NATO proclaims its, “purpose is to guarantee the freedom and security of its members through political and military means.” However, the raison d’être for such a military alliance disappears when there is no enemy on the horizon. Thus, Russia is reified as the NATO boogeyman. The existence of NATO serves well the aims of the governmental-military-industrial complex of the US.

    Sweden and Finland are considering whether to formalize NATO membership — a key trigger in Russia’s response to Ukraine. Some questions that arise: Do Finland and Sweden not consider Russia’s security concerns valid? While the circumstances differ, why would these two Nordic countries try what failed for Ukraine and expect a benign response? Would the presence of Russian nukes and hypersonic weapons targeting their countries make the Swedes and Finns feel more secure?

    Instead of being regularly badgered to increase military expenditures as a NATO member, wouldn’t it be better to nix the insanity of spending the hard-earned cash of the citizens on guns, tanks, planes, and missiles and becoming less secure as a result? Wouldn’t the money of the Nordic citizenry be put to better use for housing, road repair, poverty reduction, hospitals, recreation centers, and schools at home?

    Image credit: Global Times

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  • What Does Standing up for Ukraine Signify When Sitting on One’s Derriere for Violence against Others?

    The leaders of a bevy of NATO-aligned countries have appeared in a collage that reads “Stand up for Ukraine.” It comes across blatantly as propaganda cooked by a corporate PR firm as part of the information war being waged against Russia.

    My question to these upstanding, er … these people standing up, is: When have you stood up for, in no particular order:

    Palestine
    Syria
    Libya
    Iraq
    Afghanistan
    Yemen
    Iran
    Democratic Republic of Congo
    Somalia
    Haiti
    Serbia
    Venezuela
    Bolivia
    Honduras
    Nicaragua

    This is, of course, an inexhaustive list. What follows is an analysis of what NATO types standing up for signifies for the first six listed countries above, along with two unlisted countries.

    Palestine

    According to the Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem, 10,165 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli security forces since the beginning of the second intifada in September 2000, and an additional 82 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli civilians. This disregard for the life of the non-Jew is ingrained in many Talmudic Jews, as Holocaust survivor and chemistry professor Israel Shahak detailed in his book Jewish History, Jewish Religion: The Weight Of Three Thousand Years. If anyone needs convincing of this Jewish discrimination and racism towards non-Jews, then peruse the statistics at the B’Tselem website on home demolitions, who can and cannot use roads in the West Bank, the water crisis, and settler crimes against Palestinians.

    On 10 April, Ghadeer Sabatin, a 45-yr-old unarmed Palestinian widow and mother of six, was shot by Israeli soldiers near Bethlehem and left to bleed out and die. Will any of the politicians standing up for Ukraine also stand up for Palestine? Image Source

    Many of these Stand up for Ukraine types have been been glued to their seats during the slow-motion genocide by Zionist Jews against Palestinians.

    Are Palestinians a lesser people than Ukrainians?

    Syria

    These Stand up for Ukraine types in their spiffy business attire have also been seated while backing Islamist terrorists in Syria. Americans later invaded and still occupy the northeastern corner of Syria, stealing the oil and wheat crops.

    The UN Human Rights chief Michelle Bachelet reported that more than 350,000 people have been killed in 10 years of warring in Syria, adding that this figure was an undercount.

    Are Syrians a lesser people than Ukrainians?

    Libya

    In February 2020, Yacoub El Hillo, the UN humanitarian coordinator for Libya, called the impact of the NATO-led war on civilians “incalculable.”

    Are Libyans a lesser people than Ukrainians?

    Iraq

    I have a vivid memory of a crowd of students gathered around a TV screen in the University of Victoria to cheer on the start of Shock and Awe in Iraq. The US-led war on Iraq was based on the pretext that Iraq had weapons-of-mass-destruction although the head UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter had found Iraq to be “fundamentally disarmed.”

    Chemistry professor professor Gideon Polya was critical of how the western monopoly media “resolutely ignore the crucial epidemiological concept of non-violent avoidable deaths (excess deaths, avoidable mortality, excess mortality, deaths that should not have happened) associated with war-imposed deprivation.” Polya cites 2.7 million Iraqi deaths from violence (1.5 million) or from violently-imposed deprivation (1.2 million).

    Abdul Haq al-Ani, PhD in international law, and Tarik al-Ani, a researcher of Arab/Islamic issues, wrote a legal tour de force, Genocide in Iraq: The Case against the UN Security Council and Member States, that makes the case for myriad US war crimes that amount to a genocide.

    Nonetheless, US troops are still stationed in Iraq despite being told to leave by the Iraqi government.

    Are Iraqis a lesser people than Ukrainians?

    Afghanistan

    The Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs at Brown University estimates 241,000 people have been killed in the Afghanistan and Pakistan war zone since 2001. The institute’s key findings are:

    • As of April 2021, more than 71,000 Afghan and Pakistani civilians are estimated to have died as a direct result of the war.
    • The United States military in 2017 relaxed its rules of engagement for airstrikes in Afghanistan, which resulted in a massive increase in civilian casualties.
    • The CIA has armed and funded Afghan militia groups who have been implicated in grave human rights abuses and killings of civilians.
    • Afghan land is contaminated with unexploded ordnance, which kills and injures tens of thousands of Afghans, especially children, as they travel and go about their daily chores.
    • The war has exacerbated the effects of poverty, malnutrition, poor sanitation, lack of access to health care, and environmental degradation on Afghans’ health.

    Are Afghans a lesser people than Ukrainians?

    Yemen

    In November 2021, the UN Development Programme published “Assessing the Impact of War in Yemen: Pathways for Recovery” (available here) in which it was estimated that by the end of 2021, there would be 377,000 deaths in Yemen. Tragically, “In 2021, a Yemeni child under the age of five dies every nine minutes because of the conflict.” (p 12)

    The Yemeni economy is being destroyed and has forced 15.6 million people into extreme immiseration along with 8.6 million people being malnourished. Worse is predicted to come: “If war in Yemen continues through 2030, we estimate that 1.3 million people will die as a result…” (p 12)

    Countries such as Canada, the US, UK, France, Spain, South Africa, China, India, and Turkey that supply arms to Saudi Arabia and the UAE are complicit in the war on the Yemeni people.

    Are Yemenis a lesser people than Ukrainians?

    One could continue on through the above list of countries “invaded” and arrive at the same conclusions. The predominantly white faces of western heads-of-government in their suits and ties or matching jackets and skirts did not stand up for the brown-skinned people killed in the countries adumbrated. Most of these countries were, in fact, directly attacked by NATO countries or by countries that were supported by NATO. What does that imply for the Standing up for Ukraine bunch?

    The Donbass Republics of Donetsk and Lugansk

    And lastly, most telling, is just how many of these people stood up for Donbass when it was being shelled by Ukraine?

    If France and Germany, guarantors for the Minsk Agreements that Ukraine signed, had not only guaranteed but also enforced Ukraine’s compliance, then, very arguably, no Russian recognition of the independence of the republics of Donetsk and Lugansk would have been forthcoming and there would have been no Russian military response. But France and Germany did not stand up for their roles as guarantors of the Minsk Agreements.

    Consequently, for all these politicians to contradict their previous insouciance and suddenly get off their posteriors and pose as virtuous anti-war types standing up for Ukraine is nigh impossible to swallow. Given that the historical evidence belies the integrity of this Stand up for Ukraine bunch, they ought better to have striven for some consistency and remained seated.

    The post What Does Standing up for Ukraine Signify When Sitting on One’s Derriere for Violence against Others? first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • A Comparison of Who the New York Times Deems Worthy and Unworthy of Propping up

    The New York Times continues to selectively promote news that fits the Establishment narrative. The NYT portrays the nine-year sentence of the Russian “opposition leader” Aleksei Navalny to a high-security prison as a travesty of justice. Was it unjust? If so, justice must be demanded. What I can comment on is a factual inaccuracy by the NYT: Navalny is not the opposition leader. His party has zero seats in the State Duma. The opposition party is the Communist Party of the Russian Federation with 57 seats. Navalny’s party, Russia of the Future, has zero seats. Russia of the Future remains unregistered as a political party. This is an unassailable point for the NYT given that democracy in the US is such that the Communist Party and Communism has been outlawed since the days of president Dwight Eisenhower.

    A clearcut travesty of justice is the case of the political prisoner Julian Assange. He is imprisoned for having carried out his job as a publisher at WikiLeaks: informing the public by publishing facts. WikiLeaks has a publication record which under normal circumstances would make the NYT green with envy: WikiLeaks is “perfect in document authentication and resistance to all censorship attempts.” But the NYT is not about accuracy in publication.

    WikiLeak’s perfect publication record includes revealing the war crimes of the United States; for this, the US Establishment placed a target on Assange’s back.

    NYT, which once collaborated with WikiLeaks to publish stories, notes that Navalny — who was tried and convicted — has been held in captivity for more than a year.

    Assange — who has been tried and convicted of breach of bail stemming from fraudulent Swedish charges; since Sweden refused to guarantee non-extradition to the US, Assange sought asylum in the Ecuadorian embassy, subsequent events have borne out Assange’s fear — has been under one form of incarceration or another since January 2011.

    In 2017, Navalny was found guilty at a retrial for embezzlement and given a five-year suspended prison sentence. He was later imprisoned for breaching the terms of his probation. In his latest trial, he was again found guilty of having embezzled people’s money. The NYT, however, paints the verdict as a move to extend Navalny’s time in prison.

    Assange has only been found guilty of the relatively minor violation of breaching bail. Nonetheless, the period of his detention began with bogus charges of rape and sexual molestation cooked up by Swedish authorities. It is not difficult to join the dots and arrive at the logical conclusion that were it not for the initial fraudulent allegations against him, Assange would never have been placed into detention in the first place, and he would not be facing extradition to the US where he could sit in prison for as much as 175 years — for doing something for which he should be saluted by humanity: exposing war crimes.

    Assange represents another nail in the coffin of the worthlessness of the Nobel Peace Prize, an award that has previously been conferred upon war criminals and other miscreants.

    NYT is not focused on the miscarriage of justice against Assange even though the abuse of justice in Assange’s case puts its own “journalists” at risk of persecution should they reveal grave crimes of state.

    Russia, the US-designated ennemi du jour, is an easy target for the NYT. Therefore, even though Navalny is a convicted criminal, he is deemed worthy of support by the NYT. Navalny is an enemy of an enemy, that plus his animus against Russian president Vladimir Putin makes him a friend for the US Establishment. Given this cozy arrangement, the NYT is free to cast aspersions on the Russian judge, Margarita Kotova, insinuating that her recent promotion is linked with the judicial finding against Navalny.

    Emma Arbuthnot, who presided over Assange’s extradition case from late 2017 until mid-2019 was accused of a conflict of interest since her husband is “a former Conservative defense minister with extensive links to the British military and intelligence community exposed by WikiLeaks.” She did not recuse herself, and the legal Establishment in Britain did not have her removed from the case. In one ruling, Arbuthnot showed her true colors by dismissing a United Nations working group’s assessment that Assange was being arbitrarily detained.

    Arbuthnot’s subordinate, judge Vanessa Baraitser, took over the Assange case and ruled that he should not be extradited for reasons of mental harm. However, she also stated that she believed Assange to be guilty, providing an opening for an American appeal, which the US won.

    Assange’s appeal of that appeal was rejected. It seems that the appellate court accepted the Biden administration’s pledge not to confine Assange under the austerest conditions reserved for high-security prisoners and, should he be convicted, to allow him to serve his sentence in his native Australia.

    Returning to Navalny, the NYT asserts there is “substantial evidence” that the Russian government was responsible for poisoning him in August 2020. And if one follows the link embedded for the “substantial evidence,” one comes to another NYT article wherein it is stated “Navalny’s revelations about his poisoning — not all of which have been independently verified.” The source of the “substantial evidence” is Navalny. In fact, there appears nothing at all that is compelling or substantial. But an investigation to determine the authenticity of Navalny’s claims would be in order.

    On the other hand, there is verifiable evidence that the assassination and kidnapping of Assange was discussed at the highest levels of the CIA.

    The NYT does not point out the discrediting of the rape allegations against Assange. The UN Special Rapporteur on Torture, Nils Melzer, destroyed the rape allegations against Assange and accused the authorities of psychological torture against the WikiLeaks publisher.

    Expressing sympathy for Navalny, the NYT rued that he might be “moved to a higher-security prison farther from Moscow, making it harder for his lawyers and family to visit him.”

    Meanwhile Assange, unaccused of any violent offense, is being held in the maximum security Belmarsh prison in England — about 15,000 km away from his birthplace in Australia.

    The NYT mentions concerns for the life of Navalny. This concern is ostensibly missing for Assange’s incarceration in Belmarsh. Given that the British judge found imprisonment a mental health danger for Assange, it is a stark contradiction to keep him in prison where his mental health would remain at risk while awaiting the justice system’s outcome. It speaks clearly to the travesty of justice Assange has endured.

    The Ripple Effect

    The NYT’s shoddy journalism emerges again and again. Only recently it had to admit it had suppressed the story of what’s on the laptop of president Joe Biden’s son, Hunter. What was initially dismissed as Russian disinformation turned out to be Russiagate disinformation.

    It shines a spotlight on who overwhelmingly provoked the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

    Grotesquely, the mother of all rogue nations, the US, led/cajoled its subservient Canadian, European, Japanese, South Korean, among other accomplices to sanction Russia (unilateral sanctions have been denounced by independent UN human rights experts who declared the right to development “an inalienable human right”) while the instigator goes unsanctioned.

    Navalny deserves justice as much as any other person on the planet. If an injustice has been meted out to Navalny, then that must be corrected. The present thesis examines who the NYT deems worthy or unworthy of propping up. NYT’s “opposition leader” in Russia is without any party members in the Russian State Duma. Navalny compares in many respects to the hapless Juan Guaidó, a wannabe president of Venezuela, who the US backs and recognizes as president of Venezuela. To bring about a government amenable to American dictates in Venezuela, president Obama declared Venezuela a national security threat and sanctioned seven Venezuelan officials in 2015. Human rights expert Alfred de Zayas, who is highly critical of NYT coverage of Venezuela, estimated that at least 100,000 Venezuelans having died because of US sanctions. Mark Weisbrot and Jeffrey Sachs contend that the US sanctions “fit the definition of collective punishment of the civilian population as described in both the Geneva and Hague international conventions, to which the US is a signatory.”

    One victim who has not been found worthy of mention in the NYT is 16-year-old Palestinian Nader Rayan who was gunned down by Israeli border police troops. Israel’s Haaretz had the gumption to publish a piece describing the corpse of Nader Rayan:

    strewn with deep, bleeding bullet wounds, his flesh is bare, his brain is spilling out, his head and face are perforated. Border Police troops shot him with pathological madness, in a rage, savagely, without restraint. His father counted 12 bullet wounds in his son’s body, all of them deep, large, oozing blood. Head, chest, stomach, back, legs and arms: There’s not a part of his son’s body without a large, gaping hole in it.

    Nothing can justify this repeated shooting of a teenager who was running for his life, certainly not once he was hit and lay wounded on the road. Not even if the initial Border Police account, which for some reason was magically altered the following week – that the youth or his friend shot at the troops – is correct. Nothing can justify such unhinged shooting at a youth.

    One can glean an understanding for NYT’s concern or lack of concern for humanity by comparing how it feted and eulogized genocidaire and former US secretary-of-state Madeleine Albright who blithely agreed with half a million Iraqi kids serving as sacrificial lambs for US policy objectives.

    Russians, according to the NYT, have responded with insouciance to Navalny’s predicament.

    Conversely, Julian Assange has garnered worldwide attention and support. Despite this, he is being subjected to a slow-motion assassination. As long as Assange draws air, there is still time for a tidal wave of humanity to drown out the injustice. It may seem unfair that one political prisoner, Julian Assange, has so much of progressivists’ attention focused on his release, but Assange is crucial in making known the crimes of state and revealing the plight of other people wrongfully imprisoned or unjustly targeted by the state.

    How to stop the extradition of Assange? For instance, shutting down any airport that would seek to fly Assange to the US. Protestors in Hong Kong managed to shut down their airport, so it can be done. If enough people would surround Belmarsh prison preventing entry or exit, such a mass movement signal would be a signal. The trucker convoy with its supporters disrupted Ottawa and borders in Canada for weeks, and it had an effect because soon afterwards many provincial governments relented on the mandates. So it can be done. The protests caused the Canadian government to resort to an extremely draconian Emergencies Act and siphon people’s bank accounts. Forcing the state to turn to repressive measures is contradictorily a victory for protestors. The battle for justice will not and must not be over until Assange and all others falsely imprisoned are released. Conscience demands it.

    The post A Comparison of Who the New York Times Deems Worthy and Unworthy of Propping up first appeared on Dissident Voice.

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  • An Ill Informed Anti-war Movement Bodes Ill

    … the claim that Russia should not have violated Ukrainian sovereignty is based on the erroneous belief that Ukraine was invaded. This assertion is based on ignorance. Quite aside from the international-law issues posed by the sovereign claims of the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics (DPR and LPR), and hence whether they could exert sovereign rights to conclude treaties and hence invite military aid, there is the long-standing original threat and active aggression of NATO in and through Ukraine’s governments. The recognition of sovereignty does not outweigh the right of self-defense.

    — T.P. Wilkinson

    Prominent anti-war activist David Swanson focused on four of Russia’s original eight demands beginning in early December 2021:

    1. Article 4: the parties shall not deploy military forces and weaponry on the territory of any of the other states in Europe in addition to any forces that were deployed as of May 27, 1997;
    1. Article 5: the parties shall not deploy land-based intermediate- and short-range missiles adjacent to the other parties;
    1. Article 6: all member States of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization commit themselves to refrain from any further enlargement of NATO, including the accession of Ukraine as well as other States;
    1. Article 7: the parties that are member States of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization shall not conduct any military activity on the territory of Ukraine as well as other States in the Eastern Europe, in the South Caucasus and in Central Asia; and

    Swanson rightfully called the original eight demands “perfectly reasonable” and that they “ought to have simply been met, or at the very least treated as serious points to be respectfully considered.”

    Swanson compares the four concrete original demands, with Russia’s “new demands”:

    1) Ukraine cease military action
    2) Ukraine change its constitution to enshrine neutrality
    3) Ukraine acknowledge Crimea as Russian territory
    4) Ukraine recognize the separatist republics of Donetsk and Lugansk as independent states

    This is according to Reuters, informs Swanson. Since Swanson selected Reuters as his source, and since he presented no other demands from other sources, one assumes Swanson concurs with Reuters. But there is a very large omission! Russian president Vladimir Putin has stated several times that demilitarization and denazification are demanded. One can speculate why Reuters may have omitted the foremost demand of denazification. Surely, it wouldn’t go over well with the western public to know their government was propping up neo-Nazis.

    Swanson writes,

    The first two of the old four demands (items 4-5 at top) have vanished. No limitations are now being demanded on piling up weapons everywhere. Weapons companies and governments that work for them should be pleased. But unless we get back to disarmament, the long-term prospects for humanity are grim.

    There appears to be some confusion here. First, the original eight Articles were meant for the United States to agree to. These “new demands” are aimed at Ukraine — not at the US. Moreover, the four “new demands,” via Reuters and Swanson, are for a different set of circumstances brought about by US insincerity that forced Russia to back up its security demands. There is nothing strange about different circumstances causing a change in demands. The original eight demands were for one set of circumstances, and the subsequent four “new demands” are for a new set of circumstances. As for disarmament, that is what Russia is carrying out right now in Ukraine. Weapons companies won’t be happy about that. However, it is time that the Kellogg-Briand Pact be adhered to.

    Swanson continues,

    Of course, NATO and everyone else have always wanted a neutral Ukraine, so this shouldn’t be such a huge hurdle.

    This is a puzzling deduction. If NATO had wanted a neutral Ukraine all along, then why did NATO say yes to future Ukraine membership, albeit without specifying a date for joining? NATO even recognized Ukraine as an “enhanced opportunity partner.” Moreover, if the breaking news becomes verified of a US-financed military biological program in Ukraine during the ongoing military operation, then it puts an emphatic kibosh to any talk of NATO having wanted a neutral Ukraine.

    Regarding the Russian demands, Swanson writes, “Of course, it is a horrible precedent to meet the demands of a warmaker.”

    Swanson reveals a bias when he identifies Russia as a “warmaker.” Question: Did Swanson ever call Ukraine a warmaker for shelling Donbass since 2014? And just who made the war in Ukraine? Why did Russia “invade” Ukraine? Was it not Ukraine’s shelling of Donbass that precipitated an exodus of ethnic Russians into Russia that caused Russia to recognize the independence of the Donetsk and Lugansk republics? Was not Ukraine making war? Was Ukraine not undermining Russian state security by seeking NATO membership and being loaded up with NATO weaponry? Ukraine is a tool of the US. In actuality, the warmaker is the US, but Swanson failed to point this out. Yet, by “invading” Ukraine, Russia is poised to very quickly become a war-ender. The timetable for the war from the Russian side is undisclosed, but it appears Russia is proceeding slowly to ensure minimal civilian casualties. Most likely, though, in a matter of weeks Russia will have ended a war that raged for eight years between Ukraine and Donbass.

    Swanson’s final paragraph reads:

    One way to negotiate peace would be for Ukraine to offer to meet all of Russia’s demands and, ideally, more, while making demands of its own for reparations and disarmament. If the war goes on and ends someday with a Ukrainian government and a human species still around, such negotiations will have to happen. Why not now?

    Fine, but what is the reasoning Swanson applies such that Russia should pay for reparations and disarmament to Ukraine? Will Swanson also demand that Ukraine pay reparations to Donbass? Will Ukraine pay reparations to Russia for dragging it into the mess it created at the behest of the US?

    If Ukraine should be demanding reparations, then it should be demanding them from NATO (= the US) that in a cowardly maneuver abandoned (and thank goodness it did) its future ally to face Russia alone.

    Nonetheless, I find it strange that the US warmonger extraordinaire and a Nazi-infiltrated Ukraine are skimmed over and blame is laid on Russia.

    Although I may dissent on the facts and logic proffered on the warring among some people in the anti-war movement, I am unequivocally in solidarity with worldwide disarmament and ending war forever. Nonetheless, it is clear that the US is the most prolific warmonger, war criminal, and genocidaire on the planet. The US is also deeply involved in the outbreak of war in Ukraine. It was the hand pushing on the back of the Ukrainian government.

    Since solidarity is crucial for a movement, a movement must not allow scapegoating, misinformation, or disinformation to taint the narrative. For the anti-war movement, it is sufficient to just oppose warring.

    The post An Ill Informed Anti-war Movement Bodes Ill first appeared on Dissident Voice.

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  • The Hypocrisy and Immorality of Sanctions

    “I friggin’ hate war,” stammered Nicole, clenching her fists.

    “Doesn’t everyone hate war?” asked Hiro.

    He meant it as a rhetorical question. But Nicole retorted, “No. Lockheed, Boeing, Raytheon and other weapon manufacturers like, er … looove war. Wall Street loves war. Blackwater, or whatever they are called now, love war. And so do the mercenaries.”

    Hiro hadn’t meant “everyone” to literally mean “everyone.” But he knew his wording was imprecise.

    “But one thing should come out of the Russia-Ukraine war… er” Nicole caught herself and reformulated her statement: “At least, one really good thing that is.”

    Hiro stroked the three-day stubble on his chin and pondered what his clever blonde friend sitting at the opposite end of the fading chesterfield had stated.

    “Hmm, okay, I give. What is the one really good thing?”

    “It is as simple as what is good for the goose is good for the gander.”

    Hiro tilted his head slightly to the right. “Not sure what you mean. If the Russians can invade another country, then everyone else can, too? But that’s not a good thing. Besides, the US already invades whichever country they want as long as that country can’t really fight back.”

    “No. That’s not it. Look, if the world, ah …, I mean the US, Europe, and Japan are going to sanction Russia for warring, then by all rights, any country that attacks another country without UN Security Council approval should also be sanctioned.”

    “Fat chance of that happening,” said Hiro. “That would mean Ukraine should have been sanctioned for shelling Donbass. The US and Turkey should be sanctioned for invading Syria. Israel would be in a permanent state of being sanctioned.”

    “Exactly,” responded Nicole. “The world, er, US, EU, UK, and Japan will expose themselves as massive hypocrites if they continue to war.”

    “But they already are hypocrites based on their actions against Russia and lack of action against other countries doing the same thing,” said Hiro, rubbing his chin again. “And the US only plays by its own rules. The ICC is for the US to ignore. The World Court is the same. The Rule of Law means law for the others, not for the US.”

    “True,” nodded Nicole, brushing back with her hand a shock of hair that had cascaded over one eye.

    “And the western media will twist the meanings and omit whatever info it so chooses,” added Hiro.

    “True again, but people are starting to clue in. More and more people know the corporate media lies. Independent media is expanding. And hardly anyone watches friggin’ CNN these days. Joe Rogan blows them all out of the water.”

    “And just see what happened to Joe,” grumbled Hiro.

    “Hiroyuki, it doesn’t matter much because people are listening to Joe and not his cancel culture critics.”

    Hiro flinched imperceptibly. He preferred the shortened form of his name. It sounded to him more heroic.

    “But isn’t this all whataboutism?”

    “Maybe so,” said Nicole. “But more so, it is about the equality of nations, and the UN says this is the foundation of the Rule of Law.”

    “Anyway, sanctions unless approved by the Security Council are illegal. So all the countries sanctioning Russia now are breaking international law,” said Hiro pushing his glasses back on his nose bridge.

    “Right again.”

    “And didn’t Madeleine Albright say it was okay to kill half-a-million Iraqi kids with sanctions?” asked Hiro.

    “Yes, she did. What a scandalous moment of truth it was.”

    “And doesn’t Foreign Affairs magazine call them sanctions-of-mass-destruction, the deadliest WMD?”

    “Yep,” agreed Nicole, “And then there is the argument that sanctions are a declaration of war. Most definitely it is economic warfare.”

    “So because the US has been sanctioning Russia since before the invasion of Ukraine, it has been at war with Russia the whole time, not to mention with China, Iran, North Korea, and so on.”

    Nicole rolled her eyes. “Don’t forget Cuba. Sixty years of friggin’ sanctions. And why doesn’t the media tell us about all that?”

    It was a rhetorical question, but Hiro answered anyway: “Because we are not part of that mainstream.”

    The post The Hypocrisy and Immorality of Sanctions first appeared on Dissident Voice.

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  • Russophobia in Western Sports Media

    Article 33: Individual responsibility, collective penalties, pillage and reprisals. “No protected person may be punished for any offense he or she has not personally committed. Collective penalties and likewise all measures of intimidation or of terrorism are prohibited.

    — Fourth Geneva Convention

    Rick Westhead of the Canadian sports network, TSN.ca, has presented the opinion of Bruce Kidd, a former Canadian Olympian, a professor emeritus at the University of Toronto and the school’s ombudsperson, advocating that the government of Canada suspend future travel visas to Russian athletes because of Russia’s military incursion into Ukraine.

    The western legacy media has been conducting its own witch hunt, calling on Russian athletes to denounce their fatherland. Hockey superstar Alexander Ovechkin decried war and was criticized afterward for “deliberately squandering an opportunity to make a real difference in this world” and for his relationship with Russian president Vladimir Putin. Russian Alexander Medvedev, the newly ascended number one male tennis player and his compatriot, Andrey Rublev, ranked number seven in the tennis world, were also called onto the media carpet where they stood for peace.

    That a sports website can be so opinionated can be shrugged off. But that its senior correspondent, Westhead, and a university professor emeritus, Kidd, would give such a poorly thought out opinion, one that is so morally repulsive, is disappointing. They have succumbed to the blatantly obvious logical fallacy of guilt by association.

    Kidd notes that Canada — ignoring that Canada is an apartheid country itself — fought apartheid by banning South African professional golfers and tennis players from competing and training in Canada in 1988. Kidd claims that banning South African athletes was an effective tool in bringing an end to apartheid. Whether or not the ban was successful is besides the point. It is morally wrong.

    Preceding the Fourth Geneva Convention, the Bible forcefully argued,

    The soul that sinneth, it shall die. The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, neither shall the father bear the iniquity of the son.

    — Ezekiel 18:20

    The Russian athletes are not politicians. They do not have a say in the day-to-day decisions of the government. Yet TSN.ca holds that Russian athletes should be banned based on the happenstance of their birth, regardless of their views on the fighting between Russia and Ukraine.

    There are several other moral quicksands in which Westhead and Kidd sink. Implicit in the argument propounded by TSN.ca and Kidd is that Canada is some paragon of morality. Far from it. That being the case, another piece of biblical wisdom is pertinent. When men, as prescribed by Mosaic law, were poised to stone a woman for adultery Jesus intoned: “He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.” (John 8:7)

    COAT (the Coalition to Oppose the Arms Trade), with an eye to Ukraine, has called upon the Canadian government since last October to cease the funding of groups that glorify Nazi collaborators.

    Canada has its own nasty history, past and current. It is a country established through genocide, a genocide that is ongoing. Witness the weaponized gendarmerie of Canada trespassing in unceded Wet’suwet’en territory to raze buildings and arrest Wet’suwet’en defenders and media members. And why? To force through a corporate pipeline despite the unanimous opposition of the hereditary chiefs.

    Do TSN.ca, Westhead, and Kidd condemn the great crimes in their backyard and call for the banning of Canadian athletes from competition?

    Did TSN.ca, Westhead, and Kidd call for the banning of Ukrainian athletes while Ukraine was shelling Donbass for the last eight years? Do they even know the history of the region?

    Do they know that the United States and NATO shrugged off Russia’s security concerns about NATO’s eastward expansion. That the eastward expansion represents a violated promise of the US secretary-of-state James Baker to USSR president Mikhail Gorbachev to not move one step further eastward? Bear in mind that former president Barack Obama absurdly declared Venezuela a national security threat to the US. Recall that president Ronald Reagan raised the alarm of a Central American threat, saying: “I’m speaking of Nicaragua, a Soviet ally on the American mainland only two hours’ flying time from our own borders.”

    Have TSN.ca, Westhead, and Kidd condemned Israeli war crimes, apartheid, the siege on Gaza, and slow-motion genocide against Palestinians? Have they denounced grave Israeli war crimes against Syrians, Iraqis, and Iranians? Have these sports pundits called for a ban on Israeli athletes?

    Canada, which occupies First Nation, Inuit, and Michif territory, is a staunch ally of the self-designated Jewish State that also occupies all of historical Palestine, the Golan Heights in Syria, and the Shebaa Farms in Lebanon?

    Does TSN.ca call for the banning of American athletes? In recent times, the US devastated Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, and Syria (with the support of Canada). The US occupies an area of Syria, an area of Cuba, Guam, Saipan, and more. Hawai’i was annexed, and there was no referendum by Hawaiians seeking such a union (unlike in Crimea). The continental US represents a colossal genocidal theft by European settlers/colonialists. The military-industrial-governmental complex of the US has been warring around the globe and breaking promises and treaties with Russia. Do TSN.ca, Westhead, and Kidd realize any of this or do they just refuse to denounce this?

    Are they aware that the Ukrainian government is a $5 billion US-leveraged coup by Neo-Nazi elements that form part of the government and military in Ukraine?

    Having recognized the independence of the People’s Republics of Donetsk and Luhansk, Russia had available the Responsibility-to-Protect doctrine used by NATO. Or do TSN.ca, Westhead, and Kidd think this doctrine only applies to western nations? In which case that would only compound the prejudice shown by the TSN.ca talking heads.

    Crimes and punishment must not be pick-and-choose affairs. All crimes must be denounced and punishment meted out must be equitable.

    Every side loses in war. But for a government to neglect the security of its territory and citizens, especially as a self-declared foe draws nearer and nearer while arming neighbors in the region, would be a severe dereliction of duty. Russia, which was twice denied NATO membership, made overtures, stated its red lines, sought mutual security guarantees and was pretty much dismissed. Russia was pushed. It is human nature, rightly or wrongly, that when one is pushed to want to push back.

    It is hoped that the Russian invasion ends soon with as few casualties as possible, that Ukraine is denazified, and that the US and western world will henceforth realize that western hegemony and bullying will no longer be tolerated in a multi-polar world. It is past time that the US return the militarily occupied Chagos archipelago to the Chagossians, stop stealing Syria’s oil and end its illegal occupation there, stop financing Israeli crimes against Palestinians, stop supporting the Saudi war against Yemen, return the Afghan people’s money to Afghanistan, and have its junior partner in crime, Great Britain, return the gold it confiscated from Venezuela. If so, then a lot of good will have come out of Putin’s steely resolve.

    The next step, the ultimate step, is to end war everywhere. The nations of the world must be verifiably disarmed. There are other urgent and important battles to be fought and won. Poverty must be eliminated. The environment must be rehabilitated and stewarded. Anthropogenic greenhouse gases, for which militaries bear a huge responsibility, must be reined in.

    Finally, until that glorious day when militaries are no more, let’s not go down the rabbit hole of witch-hunting and penalizing otherwise uninvolved athletes for the decisions of politicians.

    Image credit: The Island

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  • Putin Deftly Eludes the US-laid War Trap

    Going to war and using expensive war machinery and missiles can be enticing and perversely exhilarating, but the lethality and devastation of war must not be downplayed as a game. The latest political maneuver by Russian president Vladimir Putin was a game-changing masterstroke to avoid the American war trap. At every step in the build-up of tensions surrounding Ukraine, Russia has foiled US enticements to attack. To understand it all, one needs to start further back in time.

    9 February 1990 — US secretary-of-state James Baker promised USSR president Mikhail Gorbachev that NATO would “not [move] one inch eastward” in exchange for allowing German unification.

    1999 — Czech Republic, Hungary, and Poland join NATO and move several inches nearer the dissolved USSR.

    2004 — Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia, and Slovenia join NATO.

    2009 — Albania and Croatia join NATO.

    February 2014 — A US-backed coup in Ukraine results in a Nazi-friendly government coming to power.

    March 2014 — Crimeans vote overwhelmingly in a referendum to secede from Ukraine and become part of Russia.

    September 2014 — The Minsk I Agreement is signed by Ukraine, Russia, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) calling for an immediate ceasefire, withdrawal of heavy weapons, and prisoner exchanges.

    February 2015 — The Minsk II Agreement calls again for a ceasefire, the withdrawal of weapons, ceasefire monitoring by the OSCE, and the holding of local elections in the Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics on their future status in Ukraine. Differing interpretations have led to major disagreements over Minsk II.

    2017 — Montenegro joins NATO.

    2020 — North Macedonia joins NATO. It is apparent that there is an increasing eastward crawl, and Ukraine is also seeking membership.

    18 November 2021 — Russia reiterates its red lines.

    17 December 2021 — Russia presents its concerns about security in proposals to the US.

    16 January 2022 — Putin identifies Ukraine’s membership in NATO as a red line in Russia-NATO relations that impinge upon Russian security. US secretary-of-state Antony Blinken dismissed Russian security concerns: “I can’t be more clear — NATO’s door is open, remains open, and that is our commitment.”

    26 January 2022 — Russia received a written response from the US to its security proposals. Russia would not be pleased.

    16 February 2022 — According to national-security adviser Jake Sullivan, based on credible US intelligence, this was the date that Russia would invade Ukraine. The date came and went without any invasion.

    17 February 2022 — Russia responds to US and NATO proposals about Ukraine and European security.

    There have been many provocations leading up to the Russian recognition of the independence of the Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics. Among them are NATO expansion, not taking Russian security concerns seriously, the arming of Ukraine, and demonizing Russia via the western monopoly media. The final nail was the shelling from Ukraine into Donbass causing the evacuation of its civilians into Russia.

    It appears to be a foolhardy act by Ukraine. If Ukraine had adhered to the Minsk Agreements, Donetsk and Luhansk would still be a part of Ukraine, autonomous though they may be. Autonomy is not uncommon within countries. Guangxi, Inner Mongolia, Ningxia, Tibet, Xinjiang are autonomous provinces in China. Russia also has one autonomous region and 10 autonomous areas. Nonetheless, the lure of war and playing with fire has caused Ukraine to shrink a little bit more.

    Russia, for its part, did not take the bait and invade Ukraine. It has instead sent peacekeepers into Donbass. It would seem highly unlikely that Ukraine would attack the powerful state-of-the-art Russian military.

    So Joe Biden does not get his Russian invasion. Biden’s planners have been foiled again. Biden made the right call to withdraw the US forces from Afghanistan, but that withdrawal was badly botched, recalling memories of the tail-between-the-legs escape from rooftops in Viet Nam by US troops. Then to compound the fiasco of the withdrawal from Afghanistan, Biden had the shamelessness and heartlessness to steal the poor Afghan peoples’ monies. He follows in the footsteps of his predecessor Donald Trump who openly stole Syrian oil — a theft that continues under Biden.

    Meanwhile, the situation in and around Ukraine and the breakaway republics will continue to evolve. It is hoped that saner heads will deescalate the tensions and avoid war.

    The post Putin Deftly Eludes the US-laid War Trap first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • The Right to Protest in the Stolen Indigenous Territory Called Canada

    Canada will always stand up for the right of peaceful protest anywhere around the world and we are pleased to see moves to deescalation and dialogue.

    — Justin Trudeau

    So said Canada’s prime minister Trudeau about the farmer protests in India. One assumes that “anywhere” includes Canada. Nonetheless, Trudeau has rejected dialogue with the peaceful trucker convoy, and instead of deescalation he turned to his “final option,” the Emergencies Act that seemingly permits police violence against Canadians.

    It is time for a renewed, nation-to-nation relationship with First Nations peoples, one that understands that the constitutionally guaranteed rights of First Nations in Canada are not an inconvenience but rather a sacred obligation.

    — Justin Trudeau

    What does the sacred obligation of a nation-to-nation relationship with First Nations peoples look like for Trudeau? On 7 February 2020, the Unist’ot’en Solidarity Brigade reported a RCMP raid with helicopters, snipers, police dogs, and tactical teams.

    The invasion was carried out by heavily armed RCMP despite the Wet’suwet’en having made it clear that they are unarmed and peaceful. The Wet’suwet’en had also made it clear through the unanimity of the hereditary chiefs that they do not want a pipeline going through their unceded territory.

    Carleton University criminology professor Jeffrey Monaghan questioned police legitimacy and police violence against legitimate dissent by the Wet’suwet’en. The professor considers the RCMP unreformable and called for its dismantling.

    Police violence is Canada’s method of settling differences. This is now being witnessed against truckers and their supporters.

    This is how peaceful protest is handled by Trudeau’s government:

    And the tweet below says it all for police (at this point shouldn’t police be called for what their actions reveal them to be?: goons) tactics as they barge on horseback through crowds of people and end up trampling a woman with a walker.

    The peaceful protest was turned violent by police on Trudeau’s order.

    The below image is sure to immortalize Trudeau’s push for power.

    The trampled upon woman, identified as Roberta Paulsen, is one of the growing list of victims of Trudeau’s Emergencies Act. Rebel News reporter Alexa Lavoie was hit three times with a club by a cop who then shot a tear gas canister at her leg from point-blank range.

    This is Trudeau’s legacy: the lengths one man, backed by his party, will go to force people to surrender autonomy over their bodies and, in the case of Indigenous peoples, their land.

    The post The Right to Protest in the Stolen Indigenous Territory Called Canada first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • Will Trudeau’s Act of Desperation Succeed?

    I want to address the prime minister: No matter what you do, we will hold the line. There are no threats which will frighten us. We will hold the line.

    — Tamara Lich, convoy organizer, 14 February 2022

    Canada’s Charter of Rights

    Justin Trudeau had cornered himself by grotesquely smearing the trucker convoy and its supporters as racist, misogynist, fringe, anti-science, vandals, and otherwise holding unacceptable views. He is unable to negotiate a peaceful outcome because he has refused to speak to the pro-freedom/anti-mandate protest movement.

    Many of the truckers have insisted they aren’t leaving the capital of Ottawa. This is despite Trudeau trying his darndest to get them to leave. In addition to his invective against the truckers, he tried to have their funding cut off, he had jerry cans bringing fuel to the truckers seized, and he beefed up the police presence to cower them. All to no avail.

    Meanwhile, Trudeau’s popularity has been tanking among Canadians. Desperate, he resorted to a nuclear option from his father Pierre Trudeau’s days. In Pierre’s case, he invoked the War Measures Act during the October Crisis in 1970 to fight the FLQ (Front de libération du Québec), terrorists seeking Quebec’s separation from Canada. The FLQ had kidnapped British diplomat James Cross and Quebec labor minister Pierre Laporte, the latter being killed by the FLQ.

    The situation in Pierre’s day was decidedly different from the situation now for Justin’s invocation of, what is now called, the Emergencies Act. Justin has undertaken an extraordinary action to grab extra powers to handle the pro-freedom protests across the country. Perversely, Justin’s power grab would further diminish freedoms. One can only imagine how the truckers, who have vowed not to leave Ottawa until the mandates are removed, will react to the increased diminution of freedoms.

    One side will be crushed in this final showdown.

    “It is now clear that there are serious challenges to law enforcement’s ability to effectively enforce the law,” said Trudeau.

    Effectively enforcing constitutional law is what former Newfoundland premier Brian Peckford is seeking, citing Justin’s mandates as abrogating Canada’s Charter of Rights. These charter rights were enacted by Pierre Trudeau’s government along with nine provinces, one of which was Peckford’s.

    Justin Trudeau calls the emergency measures “reasonable and proportionate to the threats they are meant to address.”

    Is the convoy a threat? Up to now, the demonstration has been peaceful. However, the convoy poses a threat to the political viability of Justin Trudeau. And as for threats, Trudeau’s tweet sounds eerily close to a threat, even toward the kids of truckers:

    Make no mistake: The border cannot, and will not, remain closed. Every option is on the table. So, if you’re participating in these illegal blockades that are taking our neighbourhoods and our economy hostage, it’s time to go home – especially if you have your kids with you.

    The Emergencies Act also allows the government to direct banks to freeze money for the protestors.

    Cryptocurrency exchanges surely welcome such an action.

    To invoke the Emergencies Act, the government must demonstrate that a state of emergency exists, and it must be approved by the parliament within seven days.

    Errol Mendes, a professor of constitutional and international law at the University of Ottawa, opined, “If you look at what’s happened not just in Ottawa but at the Ambassador Bridge and Coutts, Alberta and in BC, essentially we have a national emergency.”

    The Canadian Civil Liberties Association (CCLA) demurs:

    The federal government has not met the threshold necessary to invoke the Emergencies Act. This law creates a high and clear standard for good reason: the Act allows government to bypass ordinary democratic processes. This standard has not been met.

    Mendes argues that asking poses a national security threat: “You have this small group basically asking the government to do whatever they want. That’s the national security problem.”

    It is true that relative to the Canadian population the truckers are a small group. However, that argument applies more so to the federal government. The members of parliament are a small group demanding, not asking, Canadians comply with mandates.

    For whatever likes on a tweet are worth, the CCLA tweet (14 February 5:36 PM) has received 52.3 K likes while Trudeau’s tweet (14 February 8:36 PM) making clear the government’s position has received 5470 likes.

    Granted, it is a ballsy move by Trudeau, but even more ballsy has been the “righteous dissidence” of the convoy of truckers in taking on the government and its gendarmes by behaving peacefully, being friendly, and keeping the streets clean. Crime has dropped during the protest.

    The lines have been drawn. One of two likely outcomes will likely prevail: either Canadians will sacrifice their freedoms and comply with the mandates or the mandates will be repealed and Trudeau will have to step down.

    The post Will Trudeau’s Act of Desperation Succeed? first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • Western Media Continues to Flog a Dead Anti-China Horse

    When it comes to the ever ascending techno-economic colossus of China, it is year-round open season in the West for monopoly media and government officials to invoke whatever opprobrium, throw it against the wall and hope it sticks, if not repeat the defamation. Evidence does not matter. It can be cooked up. And the same story can be repeated ad nauseam because if someone hears it often enough, it must be true, … right?

    The Beijing-hosted Winter Olympics are happening, and this provided an opportunity for Chinese tennis star Peng Shuai to meet with gathered western media and clarify misconceptions or doubts about her narrative. But that is not how western monopoly media operates. Still she met with two journalists, Sophie Dorgan and Marc Ventouillac, from the French sports newspaper L’Equipe.

    The Associated Press notes of the interview that Peng was “prepped and ready to talk for the first time with western media about allegations she made of forced sex with a former top-ranked Communist Party official.” It comes across as saying she would produce canned responses. Given the hullabaloo that exploded after her Weibo social-media post, many people would want to forgo such an interview. But Peng had opened a can of worms with that post, a post she soon after deleted. It was incumbent that she clear the air much more than she had done hitherto. Going into such an interview cold turkey was not in the cards. Besides, it is normal and recommended that athletes prepare for an interview.

    AP writes of a “restrictive interview arranged with Chinese Olympic officials.” Isn’t every interview/interaction restricted in some sense? So what was the purpose of the adjective “restricted”? And since it is taking place at the Olympic venue, wouldn’t arrangements best be made by Olympic officials from China? But the AP framing is pointed: behind the scenes, Chinese officials were controlling the process. Does China not have a responsibility to look out for one of its citizens, whether Peng is at fault or not through her own (mis)handling of the situation? There is nothing sinister in this.

    One of two L’Equipe journalists, Marc Ventouillac, told AP “he is still unsure if she is free to say and do what she wants.”

    “It’s impossible to say,” he said in English. “This interview don’t give proof that there is no problem with Peng Shuai.”

    In other words, Ventouillac doesn’t know. How could he know? There is nothing substantial for AP to seize on here.

    So instead AP writes,

    China’s intent, however, was clear to him [Ventouillac]: By granting the interview as Beijing is hosting the Winter Olympics, it appeared that Chinese officials hope to put the controversy to rest, so it doesn’t pollute the event.

    Really? First, how was the Chinese intent clear? Second, when AP writes “it appeared that Chinese officials hope to put the controversy to rest,” the phrasing “it appeared” does not speak to clarity or certainty. It instead appears that the AP is backing down from its stance on Ventouillac’s clarity of Chinese intent. Third, where does the phrase “Chinese officials hope” come from? Did the journalists interview Chinese officials? This was not stated anywhere. If not having spoken to Chinese officials, then how would the French journalists know what Chinese officials were hoping for? This is pure conjecture without any substantiation. Is this journalism?

    AP tries a different take:

    “It’s a part of communication, propaganda, from the Chinese Olympic Committee,” Ventouillac told The Associated Press on Tuesday, the day after L’Equipe published its exclusive.

    More questions are raised by this. What communication was that? Who communicated it? What exactly was stated in the communication? Why is this communication termed propaganda? Is there anything meaningful in this short quotation by AP? If not, then why was it not edited out of the article? It appears that the propaganda is coming from AP.

    More supposition follows:

    With “an interview to a big European newspaper, they [China] can show: ‘OK, there is no problem with Peng Shuai. See? Journalists (came), they can ask all the questions they wanted.’”

    Why not? I don’t think China cares so much about the ruckus stemming from the Weibo post. It is small potatoes compared to allegations of US presidents, current and past, involvement in sexual scandals. But, understandably, Peng would like to clear the air, and China would like to help out an athlete who has been a good ambassador on the tennis court.

    However, AP puts a different spin on this:

    “It’s important, I think, for the Chinese Olympic committee, for the Communist Party and for many people in China to try to show: ‘No, there is no Peng Shuai affair,’” Ventouillac said.

    Speaking of small potatoes, how does a social media faux pas stack up against allegations, patently false though they are, of genocide? If there is nothing more to the issue than a regrettable posting on her social media account that blew up into an international fiasco, then, of course, Peng would like to put the issue to rest.

    The Women’s Tennis Association is unconvinced, saying that the L’Equipe interview “does not alleviate any of our concerns” about the allegations she made in November. First, what concern? The AP piece makes it sound like a concern about the allegation and not about the well-being of the player. Second, what concern is an allegation of a crime committed outside the WTA’s jurisdiction to the WTA? Is the WTA an international forensics and prosecutorial agency now? Third, is it any business of the WTA, especially since Peng has stated she wanted to be left in peace?

    Simon has two demands: “As we would do with any of our players globally, we have called for a formal investigation into the allegations by the appropriate authorities and an opportunity for the WTA to meet with Peng — privately — to discuss her situation.” We would like to meet privately with Peng. Privately, so she should appear before the WTA brass alone? The WTA is not alone; Simon stated “we.” Why can Peng not bring anyone to accompany her? A lawyer would be a good start. And what if she doesn’t want to meet?

    Two other key words here are “would do.” Has the WTA ever acted in such capacity before, beyond words?

    When 19-year-old tennis star Jelena Dokic, a victim of parental abuse, asked the WTA to not issue credentials to her parents, the WTA keenly stressed that Dokic’s personal arrangements were “a private matter.”

    Nonetheless, although Peng’s matter is public now (and social media is not a medium if you want privacy), are the details of Peng’s matter not private as far as the WTA is concerned?

    What did the ATP, the men’s equivalent of the WTA, do when one of its former star players, the phenotypically Black James Blake, was assaulted by a white New York plains clothes officer James Frascatore? I never heard the then ATP president, Chris Kermode, issue any statements of concern for Blake. I am unaware of any ATP calls for a formal investigation into alleged, and subsequently confirmed, police brutality.

    Nowadays, German tennis star Alexander Zverev finds himself dogged by allegations of domestic violence made by a former girlfriend. All the ATP has done publicly in this matter is issue new domestic abuse guidelines. I have not heard of ATP concern for the player or the alleged victim.

    The WTA has come up with its own framing of the incident. WTA chief executive Steve Simon stated, “Peng took a bold step in publicly coming forth with the accusation that she was sexually assaulted by a senior Chinese government leader.”

    That is Simon’s framing. First, was the Weibo post a big step or big mistake by Peng? Second, when you put out a statement, then get it right. Simon’s statement is factually inaccurate. The “senior Government leader” has been retired for a few years. It should have read a former senior vice premier of the State Council. Is Kamala Harris ever called a leader of the United States? Simon has willfully positioned Peng’s paramour, Zhang Gaoli, in the leadership position in China. Had anyone outside of China ever heard of Zhang before Peng’s Weibo post?

    Conveniently appearing at the end of the AP piece are the following:

    1. Ventouillac said Peng “seems to be healthy.”
    2. Originally 30 minutes were allotted for the interview, but it lasted nearly an hour.
    3. Ventouillac said the journalists had asked all the questions they wanted.
    4. And, “There was no censorship in the questions.”

    Telling is what was unmentioned in the AP article: that Peng denies an assault as having happened.

    Is that clarity? I submit that there remains a question still answered: why did she write of being forced to have sex in the first place? She denies it having been the case, but she put it out there in social media. Hence, the once posted allegation is something that anti-China types can and will latch onto to besmirch the nation.

    It is not up to the WTA, ATP, IOC, AP, US, EU, NATO, IMF or whichever entity to force Peng to do anything she is uncomfortable with. She is not a criminal. At worst, she was engaged in thoughtless mischief. If she says it never happened, everyone has to accept her at her word. Peng is the only one who knows with 100 percent certainty her truth. If need be, she knows that there are plenty of people out there who would listen to her story.

    Meanwhile in Washington, there is a “leader,” a sitting president with an accusation of sexual assault against him. Tara Reade has never backed down from her allegation against Joe Biden, but the domestic US mass media has given him a pass, belying the two-faced nature of American media when it comes to the alleged malfeasance of American officials versus the allegations of wrongdoing against officials in a state-designation enemy.

    The post Western Media Continues to Flog a Dead Anti-China Horse first appeared on Dissident Voice.

  • A Damning Indictment of Monopoly Media Dishonesty

    The Canadian Broadcasting Company (CBC) sought to use podcaster Daniel Dumbrill, a long-time Canadian resident in China, for propagandistic purposes. The media savvy Dumbrill was prepared for this.

    Said Dumbrill, “Today, I’m going to indisputably and unmistakably demonstrate how mainstream media shapes your views and opinions through manipulation, dishonesty, and outright lies.”

    Influenced by the late journalist Robert Fisk, I avoid the term “mainstream media” for the simple reason that state/corporate media is not my mainstream. So I call such media what it is “state/corporate media” or “monopoly media” à la Ben Bagdikian or “mass media.” I prefer independent media or independent writers that, is my mainstream. I keep tabs on the monopoly media because it, unfortunately, has an audience and is influential. So an awareness of the content and monopoly media’s message is necessary to reveal and refute its factual inaccuracies and twisted narratives. Dumbrill is finely attuned to the realities of China and acutely aware of the geopolitical intrigues in the world. He is able to intellectually cut through disinformation without difficulty and reframe it into a honest representation.

    Steven D’Souza, a senior reporter with CBC interviewed Dumbrill on China and propagandizing. Dumbrill knew to expect dishonesty from the CBC.

    When allegations were brought up about Chinese machinations in Xinjiang, Dumbrill revealed the source, the Australian so-called think tank ASPI, as a tool of imperialist disinformation as evidenced by its funders. Despite this, D’Souza ignored what Dumbrill had informed him and used ASPI disproportionately as an information source in his program without informing viewers of ASPI’s affiliations and funding. Dumbrill’s counter-argument about ASPI was omitted.

    The biggest offense of the CBC, according to Dumbrill: “was their desperate attempt to find something they could pull out of context from a near half hour interview with me and ending up with only 3.5 seconds of usable footage to twist into their narrative.”

    D’Souza suggested that Dumbrill was participating as a paid influencer to propagandize for the Chinese state. Dumbrill firmly closed the door on that innuendo saying, “I don’t benefit financially from anything I do. As a matter-of-fact I go through through great expense, both time-wise and financially to do what I do. I’m not belonging to any kind of a state apparatus here. I can travel around freely and see everything for myself as well…”

    Nonetheless, in the program aired by CBC, a 3.5-second comment is attached to an unrelated and out-of-context narrative, positioning Dumbrill as a paid influencer of Chinese propaganda.

    Dumbrill decries the absence of journalistic integrity, calling such manipulation “unethical, dishonest, and even fraudulent behavior.”

    When questioned by Dumbrill why he had done this, D’Souza evaded the question, saying he was too busy.

    So Dumbrill gives D’Souza one more time to set the record straight publicly:

    After reflecting on our conversation and watching your final product, do you stand by that work — both in a personal and professional capacity? It will be useful if you dare say that you stand by this kind of reporting, and I don’t suspect that you could admit that you are ashamed of this piece without risking your pay check. Therefore, I think your silence, which I think you are inevitably going to go with, will at least give us enough hope that at bare minimum you are self-aware enough to recognize that you are a sell-out and everything you are pretending to look for in this report.

    By all means, watch the Dumbrill piece and reach their own conclusions.

    Because of his integrity, knowledge, and ethics, Daniel Dumbrill is one trusted source for my mainstream information.

    The post A Damning Indictment of Monopoly Media Dishonesty first appeared on Dissident Voice.

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  • Unmasking the Divisiveness of Justin Trudeau

    Canada’s prime minister Justin Trudeau has cornered himself. The right move for Trudeau to extract himself now is to end the useless jab everyone, shut down everything, everywhere prolonged mandates, for which he will inevitably lose some credibility and face. His other options seem to be to wait out the convoy, systematically disrupt the convoy (e.g., parking fines, confiscating jerry cans, continuing the demonization of the protestors), or call in police as he has already done or even the army. Those are all losing options because it signals that he has not read the pulse of the nation and became trapped by his own unpopular mandates. Trudeau has to go. Here is why:

    First of all, one expects a prime minister of a country to try and represent all citizens of the country. Yet, Trudeau smears a large chunk of the population. A commonly heard factoid is the claim that 90 percent of truck drivers are vaccinated. So what? Even if that is 100 percent accurate, it does not take into account all the vaccinated types who regretfully drank the Kool-Aid of the government and its flunkies. It does not account for those pissed off at contracting COVID-19 despite being fully vaccinated. It does not account for those who were coerced into being vaccinated. For a leader to threaten citizens with job loss for not surrendering their bodily autonomy is morally corrupt. Such actions expose Trudeau as unfit to lead. Besides, even if 90 percent of the people were fully informed and willingly accepted being vaccinated that still leaves 10 percent of the population as unwilling. Granted, the trucker convoy may well be a minority that does not represent the views of the majority of Canadians, but does Trudeau not realize that he is the leader of a minority government? And is his divide-and-rule strategy acceptable for governing a country?

    It is well known that more bees are attracted to honey than vinegar. But Trudeau has been pouring vinegar on the truckers and their many supporters. He channels George W Bush’s dismissal of millions of anti-war demonstrators as a “focus group” by calling the trucking convoy a “fringe group” holding “unacceptable views.” In saying so, he has vainly appointed himself as an arbiter of what views are acceptable and unacceptable. Obviously, in pursuing a path of splittism, Trudeau precludes presenting himself as a uniter. Trudeau again seems to channel Bush and his false dichotomy of being either with or against.

    “Over the past few days, Canadians were shocked, and frankly, disgusted by the behavior displayed by some people protesting in our nation’s capital,” Trudeau said. “I want to be very clear: we are not intimidated by those who hurl insults and abuse at small business workers and steal food from the homeless.”

    Not intimidated? So fearless was Trudeau that he tested positive for COVID-19 and went into quarantine as the truckers arrived. Sick or not, Trudeau, whose vaccine status is questioned by some, stands as an example that the vaccinations he promotes do not confer immunity to the virus. Finally, courageously or not, he has pointedly refused to speak with the truckers.

    Said Trudeau, “People of Ottawa don’t deserve to be harassed in their own neighborhoods, don’t deserve to be confronted with the inherent violence of a swastika flying on a street corner, or a confederate flag, or the insults and jeers just because they’re wearing a mask. That’s not who Canadians are.” Trudeau lambasted truckers and their supporters protesting mandates as showing “disrespect to science” and championing “hate, abuse and racism.”

    Trudeau criticizes the disruption posed to residents of Ottawa. Ottawans are not a monolith. The convoy assuredly is a nuisance to some Ottawans, but assuredly other Ottawans, perhaps again a minority, are supportive and find the convoy refreshingly and brazenly defiant, awe-inspiring, and festive. At the same time, not just Ottawans but Canadians everywhere are being disrupted by the mandates. In essence, the trucker convoy is fighting fire with fire: causing disruption to end the disruption.

    On several occasions, one could hear Trudeau urge Canadians to follow the science, but he has never, as far as I know, presented or divulged specifically what science people should follow. That is hardly persuasive for people who demand evidence, as the scrutinization of evidence is a sine qua non for science. And if Trudeau’s respect for science is so profound, then why does he try to censor doctors and scientists whose research and understanding reaches a different conclusion? Besides, the vaccines are still experimental, and the science is clear on wearing masks to protect against respiratory viruses: the masks don’t work. I haven’t seen Trudeau pointing to any scientific study that says masks work. And it wouldn’t matter if he could find one such randomized controlled study that rejects the null hypothesis (that there is no difference in the variables being studied) because of the surfeit of studies that all accept the null hypothesis. Thus, the possibility that these are all Type II errors (mistaken rejection of a false null hypothesis) is extremely unlikely. Since the null hypothesis has already been accepted, then rigorous science demands the alternative hypothesis be rejected. [See Karl Popper, The Logic of Scientific Discovery (New York: Routledge Classics, 2005) or the layman’s language of Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark (Headline Book Publishing, 1997): 34.]

    As for hate, all people of conscience must decry hate. However, one assumes that Trudeau refers to a few swastikas seen. First, truckers are not a monolith. Neither are the truckers in the trucker convoy a monolith. That one or a few truckers might be fueled by hatred does not imply that the vast number of truckers nurture hatred. Second, while a lamentable tactic, presumably the swastika is not being used by truckers against those targeted by Nazism, but it used to signal that Trudeau’s Liberal Party is fascist. Third, one should not rule out the placing of agent provocateurs with hateful signage among the convoy.

    As for racism, the same argument applies as for hate. However, it is quite galling that Trudeau — with a history of poor judgment regarding his penchant for appearing in black- and brown-face, sanctioning state violence against First Nations, and supporting Zionist Jews and their violence against Palestinians under occupation — would pose as an anti-racist.

    Moreover, Trudeau immodestly asserts that he knows the story, the protestors do not: “This is not the story of our pandemic, our country, our people. My focus is standing with [some] Canadians [the ones who comply with his mandates] and getting through this pandemic.” [bracketed comments added]

    Despicably, Trudeau stole the platform of the trucker convoy, tweeting:

    Canadians have the right to protest, to disagree with their government, and to make their voices heard. We’ll always protect that right. But let’s be clear: They don’t have the right to blockade our economy, or our democracy, or our fellow citizens’ daily lives. It has to stop.

    Let’s unpack that tweet: The truckers, says Trudeau, don’t have a right to blockade the economy. But that is what his government’s mandates are doing, stifling the economy. And the mandates are disrupting every citizen’s life. When one cannot attend school, enter a restaurant, play hockey at the rink, travel, etc is that not a disruption of daily life that so many citizens are fed up with?

    Trudeau respects the right to protest but says, “It has to stop.” It is a familiar refrain from Trudeau. Elsewhere, when the Wet’suwet’en and their supporters were protesting corporations invading their territory, Trudeau said, “… the barricades must come down.”

    There has been talk of the army being called in against its fellow Canadians. Trudeau was non-committal on calling in the military to end the trucker convoy standoff saying it is “not in the cards right now” — the Canadian equivalent of “all options are on the table.”

    Given the political lineage in his family, one would suppose that Trudeau was brought up to read the political winds. But mandates are dropping in European countries and now in two Canadian provinces. Even Canadian high school students, those lucky enough to currently have classes, are boycotting classes in opposition to the mask mandate. Yet, Trudeau seems estranged from the political Zeitgeist. And now, Brian Peckford, a political figure from the past has stepped to the fore. Former prime minister of Canada, Pierre Trudeau, the father of Justin, had envisioned a Canada united with equal rights for all Canadians. Pierre was joined in the signing of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms by former Newfoundland premier Peckford. Disturbed by the mandates, Peckford has launched a legal fight for those rights and freedoms. Apparently, Justin is not a chip off the old Trudeau block.

    Throughout all this, the state/corporate media bias has been palpable. The demand is not on how the protestors’ concerns can be fairly depicted or dealt with. No, the focus is on how the protestors can be removed.

    But pictures can speak a 1000 words (in video form):

    Justin Trudeau will likely try and hang on to power, but maybe it is time for him to take a cue from his father and go for a walk in the snow.

    The post Unmasking the Divisiveness of Justin Trudeau first appeared on Dissident Voice.

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  • The Onus on Those Who Accuse Others of Mis/Disinformation

    Musician Neil Young finds himself in the 2022 limelight. It may well generate more on-air play and music sales for the Canadian. Young wrote a letter on his website (since removed) that garnered much attention. It read:

    Please immediately inform Spotify that I am actively canceling all my music availability on Spotify as soon as possible. I am doing this because Spotify is spreading false information about vaccines — potentially causing death to those who believe the disinformation being spread by them.

    Young had a specific target in mind: “I want you to let Spotify know immediately today that I want all of my music off their platform. They can have [podcaster Joe] Rogan or Young. Not both.”

    Sounds a lot like a Neil Young’s nemesis, George W Bush: “Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists.”

    It comes on the heels of a 31 December episode from The Joe Rogan Experience in which one of Rogan’s guests was Dr. Robert Malone, whose self-bio boasts: “I am an internationally recognized scientist/physician and the original inventor of mRNA vaccination as a technology, DNA vaccination, and multiple non-viral DNA and RNA/mRNA platform delivery technologies. I hold numerous fundamental domestic and foreign patents in the fields of gene delivery, delivery formulations, and vaccines: including for fundamental DNA and RNA/mRNA vaccine technologies.” Malone is, notwithstanding, alleged to have spread COVID-19 misinformation.

    Of course Joe Rogan doesn’t get everything right. He admits “absolutely I get things wrong.” Don’t we all. Rogan’s interviews are often quite interesting, but he really blew it when he interviewed Yeonmi Park and let her off easily for transparent nonsense about North Korea. But Rogan doesn’t pretend to know all the topics deeply; he is learning, as are, hopefully, all of us.

    Does Neil Young get everything right?

    When one accuses someone else of misinformation or disinformation, he might not be claiming to know the truth, but he does claim to know what is untruthful. That may be, but this claim carries an onus. If you want to accuse someone of misinformation/disinformation, then to maintain integrity, you should specify what that mis/disinformation is, and you must demonstrate why it is mis/disinformation. If you cannot point to any instance of mis/disinformation and why it is so, then, with all due respect, just shut the f**k up. In the present Young-Rogan kerfuffle, since mis/disinformation has been alleged, if Young can’t back up his allegations, then first, an apology is in order, and second this should be followed by a retraction of the allegation.

    If one claims to know the truth from untruth, then that person must specify what she claims to be factually inaccurate. It simply does not pass muster to point out that misinformation was communicated by another person. Any lunkhead on the street can shout misinformation. (And it is salient to make clear the distinction here between misinformation and disinformation. Misinformation is when a person mistakenly communicates information that is factually inaccurate. Simply put, he was wrong. Disinformation is far more insidious because the person knows that what she is communicating is factually inaccurate. In common parlance, she lied.)

    Imagine the misinformation paradigm:

    Neil: That’s misinformation.
    Joe: What exactly is that misinformation?
    Neil: You said [and here we have to guess what was the faulty information because Neil was never challenged to specify what was faulty].
    Joe: [to which Joe could theoretically respond] Why is that information faulty?

    The onus is on the accuser to state clearly what information was wrong and prove it to be wrong.

    Imagine the disinformation paradigm:

    Neil: You lied.
    Joe: What lie did I tell?
    Neil: You lied about Covid.
    Joe: What did I say about Covid that was a lie?
    Neil: You said [and here we have to guess what was the lie because Neil was never challenged to specify what was a lie].
    Joe: [to which Joe could theoretically respond] How is that a lie?

    The onus is on the accuser to state clearly what was a lie and prove it to be a lie, and the accuser has to also prove that the accused knew that he was telling a lie.

    Young is probably well meaning, but that does not mean his motivations weren’t ill advised or even morally questionable. In 2014, Dissident Voice editor Angie Tibbs criticized Young for his:

    blatant show of support for the apartheid state, a nasty slap in the face for the occupied people of Palestine, and most specifically Gaza where the residents are now counting the bodies and burying their dead as a result of Israel’s latest bombardment.

    Who could believe that Neil Young, the long time activist, would ignore the BDS campaign, including a cultural boycott demanding that Israel recognize the Palestinian people’s inalienable right to self-determination and fully comply with the precepts of international law?

    Young has also been called out for his misinformation concerning the “Tiananmen Square massacre.” Decades after the violence that transpired outside Tiananmen Square, Young was still dedicating his hit song “Rockin’ in the Free World” “to the Chinese students who were killed during the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989,” even though the CIA-orchestrated upheaval targeted the killing of soldiers.

    As for COVID-19 and how best to treat it, for any non-expert (and, granted, maybe Neil Young has carried out much study and has become quite expert about COVID), to claim epistemological certitude should be greeted with more than a modicum of skepticism. Who can state with absolute or near absolute certainty on all the vectors involved with COVID-19? Likeliest, the virus is spread by aerosols. But who is most at risk? Probably the elderly and the infirm. What are the dangers of infection? What is the best way to combat an infection? What is the best way to gain immunity? What are the best ways to avoid an infection? What reasonable, science-backed precautions should one take: mask wearing, hand washing, social distancing, disinfection of surfaces, etc? Should one be vaccinated? What are the side-effects from the vaccines: dangerous? life threatening? short-term? long-term? Does recovery from COVID-19 provide greater protection from re-infection? If vaccination is found to provide safe and reasonable protection (obviously it does not confer immunity), then which vaccine should be prescribed? How much is known about the safety and possible side-effects given that vaccine trials are still ongoing? Can the pharmaceutical manufacturers be trusted? Why have the pharmaceutical companies’ COVID vaccines been indemnified? How should people regard the report that Thailand’s National Health Security Office paid out about 927 million baht (about 28 million USD) to 8,470 people who suffered side effects after being vaccinated against COVID-19? Is the clinical data transparent? VAERS reports reflect what percentage of the adverse events? Is the virus petering out? There is so much to be considered and knowledge is still coming to light.

    Some of the I-know-better-than-others crowd have called for censorship. Is censorship how humans arrive at the truth? Have the people who argue for censorship learned anything from when the church proscribed the teaching of heliocentrism? Wasn’t it a heresy at one time (and even still in some backwaters) to theorize human life as having evolved from simpler lifeforms?

    We are exhorted by government officials and government spokespersons to follow the science. But when do they ever bother to present the scientific evidence? Do they point to the independent peer-review science literature? Can we trust that doctors and scientists always get it right? Didn’t doctors use to be big boosters of cigarette smoking?

    Spotify has reacted to Young’s complaints and removed his music from the platform. Spotify has also promised to be vigilant against misinformation, as we all should be. But is one not promoting misinformation when one falsely accuses another of misinformation?

    Rogan supports Spotify’s plan to put a disclaimer at the start of controversial episodes.

    For his part, Young denied pushing censorship. “I support free speech. I have never been in favor of censorship. Private companies have the right to choose what they profit from, just as I can choose not to have my music support a platform that disseminates harmful information.”

    Neil, you say you support free speech, but did you not just threaten Spotify because that platform allowed Joe Rogan to exercise his free speech?

    The podcaster has taken the high road.”My pledge to you [the listener] is that I will do my best to try to balance out these more controversial viewpoints with other people’s perspectives, so we can maybe find a better point of view.”

    Rogan added, “I’m not mad at Neil Young, I’m a huge Neil Young fan.”

    Still, it would have been preferable if Rogan had respectfully put the onus on Young to point out the inaccuracies that the musician had alleged.

    Maybe Young is an expert on COVID-19, and maybe he can discern what is factually accurate and inaccurate. However, there are thousands and thousands of physicians and scientists (and plenty of Canadian truck drivers and their supporters) out there that disagree with Young.

    Top image credit: Loudwire

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  • The Imperialists’ and Proxies’ War against Syria

    On 30 August 2021, the United States’ 20-year military occupation of Afghanistan came to an end when the removal of American forces was completed. Although the withdrawal was botched, it was the correct move. The withdrawal is ignominious because it turns out that the much ballyhooed US fighting forces were, in the end, defeated by Afghan peasants. Has the US learned anything from its debacle in Afghanistan? One might gain an insight into that question by observing the debacle still ongoing in Syria.

    Author A.B. Abrams provides an in-depth analysis on the US-led war in Syria in his excellent book World War in Syria: Global Conflict on Middle Eastern Battlefields (Clarity Press, 2021). WW in Syria documents the lead up to war in Syria, the precursors, the ideologies, the tactics, who the combatants are and who is aligned with who at different stages of the war, the battles fought, the impact of sophisticated weaponry, adherence to international law, the media narratives, and the cost of winning and losing the war in Syria for the warring parties. Unequivocally, every side loses in war. People are killed on all sides, and each death is a loss. But a victor is usually declared, and Syria with its allies has been declared as having won this war, albeit at a great price. However, the finality and clarity of the victory is muddled because Turkey and the US are still occupying and pillaging northern areas of Syria where they provide protection for Islamist remnants (or recklessly guard Islamist prisoners; as I write, the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and US are fighting to defeat an Islamic State (IS) assault on a prison in northeastern Syria). In addition, apartheid Israel continues to periodically attack war-ravaged Syria.

    Abrams asks why the West and Israel were bent on “regime change” in Syria. As Abrams explains, with several examples, nations that do not put themselves in thrall to the US will be targeted for overthrow of their governments. (chapter 1) “Syria was increasingly portrayed as being under some kind of malign communist influence — the only possible explanation in the minds of the U.S. and its allies for any party to reject what the West perceived as its own benevolence.” (p 10)

    What is happening in Syria must be understood in a historical perspective. (p 55) Abrams details how imperialist information warfare brought about violent overthrows of socialistic governments in Indonesia, Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, and Libya. That tested template has now been applied to Syria. (chapter 2)

    Abrams identifies four casus belli for attacking Syria: (1) being outside the Western sphere of influence, (2) to isolate Syria from Hezbollah and Iran, which would appease Israel and the Gulf states, (3) to remove Iran and Russia as suppliers of natural gas to Europe, (4) to isolate Syria geo-politically from China, Russia, North Korea, and Iran, and (5) a new base for foisting Islamist (“Islamist” is used to refer to a political ideology rather than the faith of Muslims) groups against Western-designated enemies.

    So Syria found itself beset by a multitude of aggressive foreign actors: key NATO actors Britain, France, the US, and Turkey. Jordan, Cyprus, Turkey, and Israel were staging grounds for attacks. (p 99) The Sunni regimes of Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates were also arrayed against Syria. At first, the mass protests — given fuel by Bashar Al Assad’s neoliberalism schemes (p 35) — served as a shield for covertly supported military operations. (p 107)

    These state actors supported several Islamist entities. Abrams, who is proficient in Arabic, adroitly elucidates the complex and realigning web of Islamist proxies. Among these groups are Al Qaeda, Fatah Al Asram, Absay Al Ansar, the Free Syrian Army (FSA), and IS.

    Syria would not be completely alone as fellow Axis of Resistance members Iran and Hezbollah would come to the aid of Syria. Hezbollah directly joined in the spring of 2013 and it played an important role in the pivotal capture of Al Qusayr. (p 132) Thereafter, Iran would step up its involvement in defense of Syria. (p 134)

    What will be a surprise to most people is the solidarity shown by the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) toward its longtime partner Syria. (Albeit this is no surprise to readers of another of A.B. Abram’s excellent books, Immovable Object: North Korea’s 70 Years at War with American Power. Review.) Gains made by the invading forces would be substantially rolled back with the entry of Russia, an event deplored by some leftists. Among the reasons for a Russian entry was fear of Islamist terrorism approaching its frontier.

    With the advancing tide of the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) and its allies, Westerners reacted by pressing for the establishment of a no-fly zone in Syria. However, having learned from Western manipulation of such a United Nations Security Council resolution during the war on Libya, in which Russia and China had abstained, Russia and China would veto any such attempt this time.

    The enemies of Syria would engage in manufactured gas attacks abetted by disinformation. This pretext led the US and allied attackers to grant themselves the right to bomb Syria. Abrams responds, “It is hard to find a similar sense of self-righteousness and open willingness to commit illegal acts of aggression anywhere else in the world.” Abrams connected this extremism to “the ideology of western supremacism.” (p 174) Syria would relinquish the deterrence of its chemical weapons in a futile effort to forestall any future opposition-contrived chemical attacks attributed to it.

    Although Hezbollah, Iran, the DPRK, and Russia were invited by the government of Syria, the western nations (without UN approval) were illegally attacking Syria. Among them were Australia, Belgium, Britain, Canada, Denmark, France, and the Netherlands, and Middle Eastern actors which included Bahrain, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE. (p 197) Israel was abetting Al Nusra. (p 199) The Syrian borders with Jordan and Turkey were supply conduits for the Islamists. (p 203)

    The US planned to create safe zones in Syria with an eye to dismemberment of Syria. (p 204-207) Russia would up the ante, killing 150 CIA-backed Islamists in airstrikes, which the US criticized. (p 221) In apparent reprisal, an IS terrorist attack would down a civilian airliner over Egypt killing 219 Russian civilians. War is a dirty endeavor. Among their other crimes, Islamists used civilians as shields, poisoned water supplies, and carried out beheadings. American war crimes included using depleted uranium and white phosphorus (p 301).

    With the US and Turkey competing to occupy land from the collapsing IS, the SAA was pressured to advance as quickly as possible in its lands.

    Aside from internecine fighting among the Islamists, there were puzzling complexities described between different combatants. Turkey and the US were sometimes aligned and sometimes at loggerheads; the same complexities existed between Russia and Turkey (“a highly peculiar situation reflecting [Turkey’s] pursuit of both war and rapprochement separately but simultaneously.” p 348), and between Russia and Israel. Of course, given past and current history, any enemy-of-my-enemy alliance between Israeli Jews and Arabs against a fellow Arab country will certainly cause much head shaking.

    Despairingly, the UN was also condemned for bias and being complicit in the western attempt to overthrow the Syrian government. (p 334)

    Abrams criticized the American arrogation of the right to attack. He warned, “This had potentially highly destabilizing consequences for the global order, and by discarding the post-Second World War legal prohibition against crimes of aggression the West was returning the world to a chaotic order that resembled that of the colonial era.” (p 383)

    In toto, Abrams finds, “Even though Syria prevailed, the West was able to achieve its destruction at very little cost to itself … meaning the final outcome of the war still represents a strengthening of the Western position at Dasmascus’ expense.” (p 384)

    Israel’s War

    A book review can only cover so much, and there is much ground covered in WW in Syria. Particularly conspicuous is the annex at the end of the book entitled “Israel’s War.” (p 389-413) This annex leads one to ask why there are no annexes on America’s War, Turkey’s War, Qatar’s War, Saudi Arabia’s War, UAE’s War, NATO’s War, or even the terrorists’ War. Why does Israel stand out? Prior to the recent invasion of Syria, it was only Israel that was occupying Syrian territory: the Golan Heights, annexed following the 1967 War, and recognized as a part of Israel by president Donald Trump in 2019 (quite hypocritical given US denunciations of Crimea’s incorporation into Russia). Syria does not recognize Israel, and it has not reached a peace agreement with Israel. Of Syria’s Middle Eastern allies, Iran does not recognize Israel; Lebanon signed a peace treaty with Israel under Israeli and American pressure, but Lebanon never ratified it. Hezbollah regards Israel as an illegitimate entity. Hezbollah is noted for the first “successful armed resistance on a significant scale to the Western-led order after the Cold War’s end” in 2006. (p 39) Thus, Israel views the arc from Iran through Iraq and Syria to Lebanon as a security threat. Since Israel is regarded by some foreign policy wonks in the US as its aircraft carrier in the region, that reason among others secures US “aid” and military support. That Syria will not bend its knees to US Empire is also a source of consternation to imperialists. After Egyptian president Anwar Sadat treacherously broke Arab solidarity, (p 21-26) Syria would find itself increasingly isolated. Given the rapacious nature of imperialism, Israel and its lobby have faced no serious opposition from within the imperialist alliance, allowing the Jewish State to pursue its plan for a greater Israel to which Syria, a country that does not threaten any western nation, is an impediment. Israel, writes Abrams, will continually seek to degrade the military capabilities of countries it designates as enemies. (p 406)

    Closing

    The situation in Syria still simmers. Those who scrupulously read the dispassionate account of WW in Syria will gain a wide-ranging insight into what underlies the simmering. It will also be clear why any attempt by western imperialists and their terrorist or Islamist proxies will not succeed in a coup against the elected Syrian government. Syrians will put up a staunch defense. Hezbollah and Iran will stand in solidarity, as will the DPRK. Having Russia, a first-rate military power, presents a powerful deterrence. In addition, China, no pushover itself, stands steadfast in support of its Russian partner. Thus the western imperialists’/proxies’ main goal has been thwarted; they have been shamelessly reduced to pillagers of oil and wheat and occupiers of small pockets of a sovereign country.

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  • What Kind of Threat is China?

    @wei006119 他親口承認即使中國走上民主道路，美國也要千方百計的搞垮他。 #美國狼子野 #不願有人比美國強大 ♬ 原聲 – Sunyui Wei

    The “brutalist philosophy” of the US was made public (曝光) by Robert Daly, a former US diplomat stationed in Beijing, in 2015. Currently, he is the director of the Kissinger Institute on China and the United States. No diplomatic niceties here, Daly frankly states the policy of the US: China must never reach the level of the US.

    Paolo Urio, a professor emeritus at the University of Geneva, points out in his book, America and the China Threat: From the End of History to the End of Empire (Clarity Press, 2022), that the US has “started to understand that China’s development risked putting an end of the world that America made, the foundation of the dominant U.S. role in the world … certainly for the U.S. establishment, the major threat.” (p 5)

    The Barack Obama administration with its “pivot to Asia” sought to contain China. (p 22)

    Obama boasted in his 2016 State of the Union Address of US leadership:

    Surveys show our standing around the world is higher than when I was elected to office, and when it comes to every important international issue, people of the world do not look to Beijing or Moscow to lead–they call us. (p 27)

    One might argue that the mere fact that Obama felt the need for such bluster indicated some anxiety.

    “American reactions to China’s rise is the fear of losing the U.S. capacity to lead the world, to lose the status of sole super-power that sets the rules of the international system…” (p 232) President Joe Biden recognizes that fear to which he said “That’s not going to happen on my watch because the United States is going to grow and expand.” (p 235)

    America and the China Threat examines the validity of the the China threat and whether the US will succeed in denying China’s ascendancy. The book is divided into three chapters with a concluding section. In chapter one, Urio debunks myths about the United States and China. In chapter 2, he examines the ideological differences between the US and China throughout history. Chapter 3 is titled “The Policy and Power Divide,” which again examines the differences over time between the US and China. The book concludes by pondering the question “If America Is Back, Then What Kind of America Is It?”

    Urio begins by dismantling the myth of a free market upon which US capitalism is rooted. The Swiss author cites Adam Smith who promoted “a market free from the realization of rent (in his time, the rent from land) that is not the result of work.” (p 44) The market that exists now, writes Urio, is one massively tilted in favor of a tiny wealthy minority. (p 45)

    Next, Urio exposes the myth of democracy. Within capitalist countries, the major problem, finds Urio, are the interferences of the economy and major political organizations. (p 48) And, of course, there is the influence of money. (p 49) Concerning the protest movement in Hong Kong, Urio writes that the West depicts it as “a desperate demand for democracy due to the interferences of the Chinese dictatorship. There is certainly some truth in this…” (p 53) What was this “some truth”? Urio did not elaborate. He did state that it was not about a democratic deficit but rather the inequality in Hong Kong.

    Urio makes clear later that China is not a dictatorship. (p 86-92) The government serves the needs of the Chinese people and is supported widely by the people. (p 91)

    Urio derides what passes for democracy in western media: a merger between political and economic elitists. (p 57) The US, he says, is a non-democracy: a plutocracy. (p 341) In contrast,
    author Wei Ling Chua wrote, “The strength of China’s political system is that they need not compromise with corporate interests like in the West…”1

    Sometimes Urio makes perplexing statements. For example, on page 254, Urio writes Switzerland is the “world’s most democratic country.” He didn’t elaborate on this disputable claim that would best have been omitted from the manuscript. He also writes, “Since the beginning of the 20th century the U.S. has not won a single great war on its own.” (p 61) Two riders hang on this claim. First there is nothing great about war. But obviously, Urio refers to a large war. In the 20th century, there were only two large wars: WWI (which many call the Great War) and WWII. There were so many combatants involved in these large wars that renders “on its own” nugatory. The US has won a few wars on its own (e.g., the invasion of Panama and Grenada), but such wars against comparatively tiny opponents reveals the US to be at best a bully. A bully is a morally deficient person. That the United States is a morally flawed entity is clear from the deeply racist history of European settler-colonists having spawned the country through wars and broken treaties against the Original peoples on Turtle Island. (p 207-209) This was followed by the forced transer of Africans to provide slave labor. (p 79-83) Urio did not mention, what is usually omitted from history, that Indigenous peoples were also enslaved in America.2

    American superiority and invincibility is another myth that is deflated in America and the China Threat. The US is a warring nation, having been at war for 229 out of 239 years (93%) of its existence from 1776 to 2015. (p 66) To that number can be added the continuation of warring from 2016 to 2022. The belief in military superiority is dangerous reveals Urio, especially when applied to China: “The consequence of over-estimating present power can be … devastating if a competitor is on an ascending trajectory as far as its power resources are concerned.” (p 74)

    China’s last war was its shameful, truncated invasion of Viet Nam in 1979.

    Another myth debunked about China is the claim that it has a state-capitalist economy. Urio explains that, among other reasons, China is a socialist-market economy: land is collective property, its anti-neoliberal orientation is people first, and banking is controlled by the state.( p 94-95)

    To anyone closely observing the agricultural and technological leaps by China, the myth of China being a copycat manufacturer is balderdash. Robert Temple wrote of the myriad inventions that sprang first from the Chinese mind in The Genius of China: 3000 Years of Science, Discovery and Invention (1998), based on the research of Dr. Joseph Needham. Chinese innovations today are a continuation of its historical creativity.

    However, China’s being at the technological, innovative forefront chagrins many westerners. A prime example is the vendetta against the 5G, and 6G on the way, communications leader Huawei. This has evoked enormous jealousy and consternation among US elitists. Among the many examples of Chinese excellence is its state-of-the-art high-speed train network, including maglevs; cutting-edge AI and robotics technology; quantum computing breakthroughs; it announced plans to construct the Circular Electron–Positron Collider (CEPC), five times larger than the CERN Large Hydron Collider in Switzerland; China continues research into nuclear fusion and its “artificial sun” — Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak (EAST) — project has sustained a nuclear fusion reaction for more than 17 minutes; in space, there is humanity’s first soft landing on the far side of the moon, China is the first nation to carry out an orbiting, landing, and rovering mission on Mars successfully on its first try. The US shut China out of participation in the International Space Station, so China put the Tiangong space station into orbit, to which China invites foreign participation.

    Won’t the growing Chinese middle class demand a western style political system? The expectation that Chinese would pine for the purportedly superior western political system likeliest reflects western smugness. One ought to give the highly educated Chinese more credit. The mere fact is that China has risen so far and so fast, conquered extreme poverty, and is preparing put a nuclear-powered research station on the moon while a sizeable segment of the West still struggles with tent cities, hunger, unemployment, stagnant wages, drug addiction, etc. Why would Chinese people opt for the western political system that has wrought so much misery?

    Oria also debunks the notion of China becoming imperialist. Chairman Xi has on many occasions denounced hegemony. As Oria notes, the West seems stuck in projecting itself onto other countries. (p 114)

    American ideology is predicated on its chosenness, its exceptionalism, its having a manifest destiny, being the indispensable nation, and being the leader of the free world. (p 120-131) Being the leader, it has the right to decree what is right or wrong and to intervene at its choosing. Writes Urio, “the U.S. tendency has remained, constantly and consistently, to intervene everywhere, whenever possible, by any means, to diffuse the good news of the new world order.” (p 131)

    The Monroe Doctrine has been expanded around the world. Thus, the US breaks promises and sends military assets to the Russian frontier, to the former Soviet republic, Ukraine — what Russia has indicated is a redline. The US feels no embarrassment to tell NATO-ally Germany to not buy Russian gas. “This is another example of how the U.S. plans to lead the world and tell its allies what their interests are.” (p 145)

    The key US-designated adversary, though, is China. (p 150)

    Urio contrasts the static ideology of the US with the Chinese view of the world as perpetually changing. Thus, China remains prepared to adjust accordingly to seek harmony. The vehicle for that harmonization since 1949 has been Marxist-Leninism adapted to Chinese circumstances. Confucianism, molded to the present circumstances, holds the ruler is duty-bound to be moral and look after the people. (p 171, 187, 203) To this end, the Chinese people, writes Urio, will stand by the CPC as long as they can live comfortably. (p 186)

    Urio identifies the US as in decline because the politicians have favored the capitalists over the well-being of the country and its people. (p 243) Spending for the military-industrial complex is rampant (p 244) and has diminished spending in other social areas. (p 247) It is a priority markedly different than in China.

    Militarism is obviously out of the question to any sane analysis against a formidable, nuclear-armed China. Propagandizing is left as a tactic of choice. The US has targeted, in particular, Tibet, Xinjiang, and Hong Kong. Available facts belie western propaganda, disinformation, and incitement concerning these regions. Moreover, given that the continental US is based on the genocide and dispossession of the Original peoples, that Hawai’i was dispossessed from the Hawaiian people, that Guam, Saipan became administered territories of the US through far flung wars, it seems, moderately speaking, outrageous to criticize another country.

    Under Xi, the goal is attaining the Chinese Dream. Part of paving the way for the Chinese Dream means getting the economy right. In terms of economic growth China is faring extremely well, but as is detailed in America and the China Threat, getting the balance right between rural and urban, among the regions, and the narrowing the gap between the wealthy and struggling people (China has a high GINI coefficient) is a work in progress. Urio finds, “The overall result is that China is improving the living conditions of all strata of its society, thus realizing a satisfactory level of social cohesion, stability, unity and harmony, in spite of the persistence of disparities.” (p 287)

    One challenge for China, and other nations, is obtaining a level playing field in global commerce to break the stranglehold of the US dollar. Urio describes how this is being realized by China and other countries. China has entered several economic associations, among them the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), BRICS, and effective since 1 January 2022, the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), a “free” trade agreement among the Asia-Pacific nations of Australia, Brunei, Cambodia, China, Indonesia, Japan, South Korea, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, New Zealand, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam. Some indications point to the supremacy of the US dollar eroding.

    Near the end of the book, the lynchpin of the Chinese policy, the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is fleshed out. The BRI is daring and brilliant. With a road belt across Eurasia and a maritime road connecting Africa, the BRI encircles the globe. It is an ever-expanding project encouraging economic development, sharing possibilities among several countries, and attracting the interest of other countries. Who’d like to be left out of such a massive project? The US is opposed to the BRI since it represents leadership by China. Part of the genius of the BRI is that it skirts much of the US military encirclement of China. Says Urio, “BRI is above all a geo-strategic project that, if fully realized, will allow China to reclaim its status as a world power, thereby putting an end to the unipolar ‘world America made.’” (p 337)

    Biden and preceding administrations have not understood that it is economic not military values that will attract other countries. (p 349) China seeks win-win relationships, respects national sovereignty, and does not interfere in the domestic affairs of other nations. (p 351)

    On January 18, 2022, Vice Foreign Minister Le Yucheng spoke to a forum hosted by Renmin University:

    Let the 1.4 billion Chinese people live a good life and satisfy the people’s yearning for a better life is the goal of the Communist Party of China. You must know that there are still 1 billion people in China who have never been on a plane, and more than 200 million Chinese families do not have toilets. The proportion of Chinese people who have obtained a college degree or above is only 4%, compared with 25% in the United States. This is what we should attach great importance to and strive to change. Compared with whether GDP is super beautiful, we value our ideology, governance ability, and contribution to the world to catch up and surpass, and strive to be more advanced, more in line with people’s expectations, and more in line with the trend of the times.

    Does that sound threatening? America and the China Threat lays out the background and foreground to the dynamism between the US and China. One can comprehend the apprehension of US empire observing the unabating ascendance of China, and the US’s unwillingness to accept the rise of China. For most observers it is a fait accompli. The US can squawk about China ascendancy or work with it. Volens nolens, China will continue ascending.

    1. Wei Ling Chua, author of Democracy: What the West Can Learn from China (review: location 1692.
    2. See Andrés Reséndez, The Other Slavery: The Uncovered Story of Indian Enslavement in America (2016).
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  • Skepticism Alert: Washington and NYT Expose Russian False Flag

    On 14 January, a breaking news story from the New York Times informed its readers: “U.S. Says Russia Sent Saboteurs Into Ukraine to Create Pretext for Invasion.”

    Unsurprisingly, Washington “did not release details of the evidence it had collected.” Why did the NYT not question the withholding of evidence? Why even deign to report what so easily could be dismissed, by definition, as hearsay? Is that because the White House is a paragon of truth-telling? Did its erroneous reporting by disgraced writer Judith Miller that Iraq possessed weapons-of-mass-destruction precipitating a US-led invasion not teach NYT a lesson?

    Nevertheless, the NYT chooses to lend credence to the anti-Russia accusation. It sources Jen Psaki, the White House press secretary, who “said the Russian military planned to begin these activities several weeks before a military invasion, which could begin between mid-January and mid-February. She said Moscow was using the same playbook as it did in 2014, when Russia annexed the Crimean Peninsula, a part of Ukraine.”

    What does it say about the NYT when it unquestioningly quotes a person or entity? One might well surmise that the NYT has accorded its imprimatur that what has been said is an unquestionable fact. What about relevant background information that is omitted by the NYT?

    Since when does a referendum in which 97% of the population chose to join Russia rather than remain a part of Ukraine? Why does this expression of the democratic will constitute an annexation? The US tried to have the referendum ruled illegal in the United Nations Security Council but this was, predictably, quashed by a Russian veto. China abstained noting that Crimea is not a superficial consideration and that there is a “complex intertwinement of historical and contemporary factors.” And how could the UN go against self-determination for Crimea when that principle is enshrined in Article I of the UN Charter? UN secretary-general António Guterres said the principle of self-determination “remains both a source of pride for the Organization and a crucial pillar of its work going forward.

    Why does the NYT not mention how Crimea became a part of Ukraine in the first place? Is it not pertinent that Crimea became a part of the Ukraine as result of a transfer from Russia by the USSR in 1954? When Ukraine departed the USSR did it still merit keeping Crimea and the Sevastopol Naval Base important for Russian security?

    Is it not crucial to mention that the Crimean referendum only took place after a US-instigated coup that toppled the elected government in Ukraine and saw Neonazis assume governmental office in Kyiv?

    Is it journalism to quote a Pentagon official as saying the intelligence about the operation is “very credible”?

    The NYT relates that the refusal to reveal evidence is “for fear of alerting the Russian operatives whose movements are being tracked”? What kind of excuse is that? If indeed any of this “intelligence” is true, then the operatives must now know that they were tracked?

    Despite all the aforementioned, the NYT seems cocksure about their reporting: “The American allegations were clearly part of a strategy to try to prevent an attack by exposing it in advance.” Those clever Americans thwarting a Russian attack and saving Ukraine without having to fire a shot. Cough, cough.

    Among the Russian demands from the nugatory Brussels talks, the NYT notes, without further comment: “Russia has also demanded that the United States remove all of its nuclear weapons from Europe, and that Ukraine, Belarus and Georgia, three surrounding states that once were part of the Soviet empire, never join NATO.”

    The current editors at the NYT should know well the history of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Yet the NYT did not connect the dots to Soviet nukes in Cuba and American nukes in Europe. Why were American concerns about nukes across the pond in Cuba a grave security threat while nukes in Europe on Russia’s front porch are not a security threat to Russia?

    As a matter of principle, the US-NATO side ought best to consider the security concerns of all actors. And while all the actors are considering, a suggestion: consider declaring continental Europe a nuclear weapon-free zone. It should help anxious Europeans should sleep a bit easier.

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  • The Battle at Lake Changjin: China’s Anti-war Film

    For decades, Hollywood has produced a plethora of films extolling American military prowess in warfare. Aside from Oliver Stone films and a few others, e.g., Casualties of War, usually these Hollywood films depict the United States as a force for good defeating fascists and other evildoers. Never-ending US militarism has provided a cornucopia of potential war scripts for Hollywood. Currently designated bête noires have already featured in Hollywood war films. In 1984, Hollywood made Red Dawn about an invasion of the US by the Soviet Union. In 2012, Red Dawn was updated to the other source of US demonization, China. However, capitalism and the lust for profits caused a switcheroo. The Chinese market is very lucrative for Hollywood. Consequently, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) bogeyman was substituted in as invading the American homeland.

    The Soviet Union and Russia have produced a number of war films, albeit to little fanfare in the West. In the western world, Hollywood has been ruling the movie roost. Recently, however, Chinese film production has grown by major leaps and bounds, and blockbusters have been among the film fare. China is now the world’s largest cinema market, and it is expected to continue to grow.

    The major Chinese film of 2021 was a war epic, The Battle at Lake Changjin. It was produced at a cost of $200 million and grossed $905 million worldwide. It was commissioned by the Communist Party of China for its 100th anniversary in 2021.

    The year previously, 2020, China honored the 70th anniversary of its People’s Volunteer Army (PVA) that made the sacrifice to fight the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea. This war is encapsulated in The Battle at Lake Changjin.

    A basic outline of what preceded China’s entry into the war on the Korean peninsula is that the DPRK and the Republic of Korea (ROK) in the south were engaged in a civil war, a war precipitated by the US splitting the country in two. The DPRK had advanced throughout the ROK except for a small southern pocket when the US decided to interpose itself into the war on the side of the ROK. The US would also manage to bring the United Nations on board, bringing other countries to its side. This massively tipped the scales, and the war pushed north over the 38th parallel. China had warned the US on numerous occasions to stay away from the Yalu River that delineates the Korean border with China. (For detailed and footnoted substantiation read A.B. Abrams’ Immovable Object: North Korea’s 70 Years at War with American Power. Review.)

    Near the beginning of the movie, viewers see US planes strafing the environs of the Yalu River. China was very reluctant to enter the war, having not so long ago emerged from its own civil war. At the time China was a poor country looking to get back on its feet. But as pointed out in the film, that generation had to fight to spare a future generation from having to fight the war.

    Thus, the 9th Army of the PVA is sent across the Yalu River during the frigid winter of 1950. The PVA was ill equipped, and they were going up against the best equipped and most formidable army of that epoch. At Changjin Lake temperatures plunged to -30°C. The film depicts ferocious fighting, numerous casualties, gore, and deaths on both sides. The remnants of the fleeing UN army made it to the port in Hungnam and escaped on vessels. The UN-US military would retreat back over the 38th parallel.

    China had won that battle, but jingoism is muted.

    Despite warnings from the Chinese side, the US breached the Yalu River, and China responded. Nowadays, a scenario plays out in Europe where Russia has warned the US against further eastward expansion.

    The US ought to have drawn some lessons from the debacle of losing to “Mao Zedong’s peasant army.” But history reveals the US was forced to withdraw from Afghanistan by peasants with AK-47s; to flee from peasant fighters in Viet Nam; told to leave from war-ravaged Iraq; and it is still mired in the abject embarrassment it helped cause in Syria, reduced to being a thief of oil and wheat.

    The Battle at Lake Changjin also commits Hollywood-style theatrical excesses. However, there is no glorification of warring in the film. The sensitive viewer can only conclude that war as a means to settle differences or to impose oneself on another is barbaric and immoral. But when one side resorts to violence, the other is forced to fight back or to submit. As Mexican revolutionary Emiliano Zapata put it: a choice of dying on one’s feet or living on one’s knees.

    The film’s obvious message is that violence must be rejected by the peoples of all countries. But not only that: violence in all its forms must be rejected by humanity. The violence of oppression, brutality, inequality, poverty, racism, intolerance, etc all carry the seeds of greater violence that leads to all-out war.

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  • What Does the Statement of the Five Nuclear-Weapon States on Preventing Nuclear War Tell Us?

    The Doomsday Clock has been sitting the past year at 100 seconds to midnight, the closest it has ever been to civilization-ending apocalypse. The United States has done little to quell doomsday apprehensions by ratcheting up tensions with China over Taiwan and its warships in the South China Sea, as well as with Russia over Ukraine, further NATO expansion, and missile deployment in eastern Europe. Will the first-ever Joint Statement of the Leaders of the Five Nuclear-Weapon States on Preventing Nuclear War and Avoiding Arms Races help to put a damper on any potential conflagration?

    An analysis of the statement seems called for.

    Joint Statement: The People’s Republic of China, the French Republic, the Russian Federation, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and the United States of America consider the avoidance of war between Nuclear-Weapon States and the reduction of strategic risks as our foremost responsibilities.

    Analysis: This consideration is a delimited call for the avoidance of war; it is a call for “the avoidance of war between Nuclear-Weapon States.” It does not foreclose on the possibility of war with non-nuclear states. Since the US is the major warmonger on the planet, and since it fears getting militarily involved with a nuclear-weapon state, it only militarily engages non-nuclear states. Nonetheless, to be precise, the joint statement does not preclude the possibility of a war between nuclear states. The call is for “the avoidance of war,” not for the elimination of war. How much more hopeful the statement would have been if written: “the avoidance of war, especially between Nuclear-Weapon States.”

    Yes, the danger of nuclear war should be a foremost responsibility, but shouldn’t the total elimination of war everywhere be stated as one of the “foremost responsibilities”?

    Joint Statement: We affirm that a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought. As nuclear use would have far-reaching consequences, we also affirm that nuclear weapons—for as long as they continue to exist—should serve defensive purposes, deter aggression, and prevent war. We believe strongly that the further spread of such weapons must be prevented.

    Analysis: Since the main nuclear powers acknowledge that there are no winners in a nuclear war and that such a war should never be fought, then why hold on to weapons that must never be used?

    What logically flows from affirming “that nuclear weapons … should serve defensive purposes, deter aggression, and prevent war”? Two points stand out: (1) nukes should not be used offensively, and (2) nukes can be defensive and serve as deterrence.

    That nuclear weapons have a deterrence capability has been well understood by the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. The DPRK having a nuclear weapon arsenal strongly hinders a military action being launched against it because a nuclear retaliation would cause considerable destruction to any attacker. Arguably, the DPRK’s nukes are preventing war. It must also be noted that the DPRK has a no-first-use policy regarding nukes. The DPRK saw what happened to Iraq and Libya after they disarmed and were devastated by western aggression. Others likely reached a similar conclusion. This knowledge causes consternation among Israeli and American militarists who fear Iran developing nuclear deterrence.

    If the five nuclear powers “believe strongly that the further spread of such weapons must be prevented,” then ask yourself why? One obvious answer is the fear of a rogue, a psychologically unhinged actor initiating a nuclear attack. C’est possible. But mentally aberrant individuals are not confined to non-nuclear states. Any among us could suffer psychological symptoms during our lifetime, and when we reach an advanced age we become prone to cognitive decline. However, a rational person would hope that there are plenty of safeguards in place to prevent any unilateral access to launching nukes by one individual or group of individuals. This is wishful given the 32 acknowledged broken arrows, six of which are lost and have never been retrieved.

    The nightmarish possibility of a rogue actor is further stalemated by the deterrence factor of having nukes. Ask yourself: what if the USSR had never developed nukes or helped China develop a nuclear capacity? Would the lack of a deterrence have allowed the US to turn up the heat on a Cold War?

    Joint Statement: We reaffirm the importance of addressing nuclear threats and emphasize the importance of preserving and complying with our bilateral and multilateral non-proliferation, disarmament, and arms control agreements and commitments. We remain committed to our Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) obligations, including our Article VI obligation “to pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament, and on a treaty on general and complete disarmament under strict and effective international control.”

    Analysis: Article VI states:

    Each of the Parties to the Treaty undertakes to pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament, and on a treaty on general and complete disarmament under strict and effective international control.

    The NPT was signed in 1968 and entered into force in 1970. Although the number of nuclear-armed missiles has decreased, one might still ask whether this reflects a genuine commitment to the Article VI obligation, given the exponential increase in the explosive yield of nukes over the years? In 2020, Peter Maurer, president of the International Committee of the Red Cross, lamented: “The horror of a nuclear detonation may feel like distant history. Treaties to reduce nuclear arsenals and risks of proliferation are being abandoned, new types of nuclear weapons are being produced, and serious threats are being made.” Barack Obama who called for nuclear reduction during his presidency ended it by authorizing a $1 trillion nuclear modernization. Did that indicate a commitment to Article VI?

    Joint Statement: We each intend to maintain and further strengthen our national measures to prevent unauthorized or unintended use of nuclear weapons. We reiterate the validity of our previous statements on de-targeting, reaffirming that none of our nuclear weapons are targeted at each other or at any other State.

    We underline our desire to work with all states to create a security environment more conducive to progress on disarmament with the ultimate goal of a world without nuclear weapons with undiminished security for all. We intend to continue seeking bilateral and multilateral diplomatic approaches to avoid military confrontations, strengthen stability and predictability, increase mutual understanding and confidence, and prevent an arms race that would benefit none and endanger all. We are resolved to pursue constructive dialogue with mutual respect and acknowledgment of each other’s security interests and concerns.

    Analysis: The countries that strive for offensive military superiority ignore the wisdom and warning of the pacifist scientist Albert Einstein: “You cannot simultaneously prevent and prepare for war. The very prevention of war requires more faith, courage and resolution than are needed to prepare for war. We must all do our share, that we may be equal to the task of peace.”

    Spokesman Stéphane Dujarric made known the sentiment of UN secretary-general António Guterres to the Joint Statement: “The Secretary-General takes the opportunity to restate what he has said repeatedly: the only way to eliminate all nuclear risks is to eliminate all nuclear weapons.”

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  • Canada’s Head-of-State Honors a War Criminal

    The only place I want to hear him speak is in the dock at the Hague at the International Criminal Court facing trial for war crimes and crimes against humanity.

    — George Galloway, former British MP and the director of The Killing$ of Tony Blair

    Canada’s head of state, also the queen of Canada, has made the war criminal Tony Blair a “Sir.”

    Many will ask, “Isn’t prime minister Justin Trudeau Canada’s head-of-state?” No, he isn’t. Queen Elizabeth is Canada’s head-of-state. No, she isn’t a Canadian. So a Brit is Canada’s head-of-state. That elitist, colonial vestige remains intact in the year 2022.

    Having a foreign head-of-state has ramifications for Canada. First, under this constitutional arrangement, Canada has no say as to who its head-of-state will be. Second, the monarchy is thoroughly undemocratic. It is determined by birth order in one family. Third, atheists, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, Roman Catholics, etc need not apply. The monarch is the supreme governor of the Anglican church. That is the same church that ran so many Indian Residential Schools in Canada that sought to disappear Indigenous kids. As the Canadian civil servant in charge, Duncan Campbell Scott, stated: “I want to get rid of the Indian problem…. Our objective is to continue until there is not a single Indian in Canada that has not been absorbed into the body politic and there is no Indian question…”

    Elizabeth has never apologized for the monarchy’s role in the Anglican church-run residential schools in Canada.

    Usually a sovereign country would like its head-of-state to align with the foreign policy of the country. However, despite sharing a titular head with another country, it is unsurprising that those countries would occasionally differ on foreign policy objectives. Canada’s foreign policy does at times deviate from that of the United Kingdom. For instance, Elizabeth blessed the dispatch of British troops to wage war against Iraq, a war that Canada refused to send its troops to join, especially since Canadian citizens were much opposed to the war.

    UN secretary general Kofi Annan called the invasion illegal. Former UN secretary general Boutros Boutros-Ghali concurred on the illegality of the war. Nonetheless, Elizabeth decided to grant knighthood to the war criminal Tony Blair.

    On 1 January, Blair became a member of the Order of the Garter, England’s oldest and most senior order of chivalry. The BBC explains, “The appointments are the personal choice of the Queen, who has up to 24 ‘knight and lady companions’.”

    George Galloway was flummoxed by the queen’s decision. He pleaded with his queen: “Tonight I find myself in the unusual position of beseeching her majesty the queen to turn back from a disastrous error of judgement which she has made.”

    Canada does not even permit knighthood for Canadian citizens. Yet Canada finds itself in the position of having its head-of-state honoring a war criminal. Just how much blood is on Blair’s hands? One “catastrophic estimate” cited a figure of 2.4 million Iraqi deaths subsequent to the invasion of Iraq in 2003.

    Whether it is 2.4 million deaths, half of that, or a quarter of that, whatever the actual number is, the queen’s actions indicate that it is ostensibly a price worth bringing one of the war’s scoundrels into the queen’s inner circle.

    Is it not perversely ironic that the war criminal Blair who helped launch the invasion of Iraq that killed so many people is knighted while the man whose organization, WikiLeaks, that revealed the war crimes committed in Iraq and Britain’s role in the commission of those crimes, languishes as a political prisoner in a maximum security facility in England? Assange has been undergoing psychological torture, incarceration, defamation, and recently he suffered a stroke. He has had to endure all this punishment for the crime of publishing the commission of war crimes for which the kangaroo court in Britain agreed to extradite him to the United States, a country that had planned to murder him; instead he is being subjected to a a slow motion assassination in Elizabeth’s realm.

    The Canadian political establishment has been obsequious to empire when it comes to denying justice for Julian Assange, and the state/corporate media in Canada has been equally servile to empire.

    The time is long past to abolish Canada’s link to the British monarchy. More importantly, it is time for Canada to speak and act in the defense of publishers, journalists, and whistleblowers who expose the horrendous crimes of which any guilty country should forever be ashamed.

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  • Gullibility and Poor Sportsmanship

    Fool me once, shame on the trickster for resorting to trickery. Fool me twice, shame on me. When someone has earned the reputation of a trickster, one ought to be very skeptical of that trickster. Thus, to be fooled twice by the same trickster brings shame on the gullible person.

    The United States has been duping the gullible among its citizenry and also gullible people in the world for quite a while. Near the end of WWII, there was the lie that the US had to drop nuclear weapons on Hiroshima and Nagasaki to get Japan to surrender. There was the American deception surrounding the Gulf of Tonkin incident that served as a pretext to deepen American militarism in Viet Nam. There was the twisting of facts about Iraq’s possessing weapons of mass destruction that resulted in over a million Iraqis being killed, the country’s infrastructure being destroyed, and Iraq being occupied by US military to this day. The US lied to USSR/Russia about no eastward NATO expansion; the US lied about Syria using chemical weapons. Why would anyone continue to believe the word of a serial, unrepentant liar?

    Nowadays, the US barks that Russia is about to invade Ukraine. Then there is the allegation that China is committing genocide against Uyghurs in Xinjiang. Considering the US involvement in the oppression and killing of Palestinians, Iraqis, Libyans, Syrians, and Iranians — the notion that the US would shed a tear for Muslims is sadly risible.

    Scads of disinformation have been revealed about a purported genocide of Uyghurs.

    With the outrageous claims against China dismissed as flimsy artifices, the US seized upon an interpersonal altercation: an alleged sexual assault of a Chinese female tennis player by a retired former high-ranking Communist Party official.

    There was a deleted post on Weibo, a Chinese social media site, by the player, Peng Shuai. The post purportedly contained the allegation of sexual assault. Then she became a meme: #Where is Peng Shuai. Western media implied the Chinese state had deleted the post, scrubbed the net of references, and disappeared Peng.

    I wrote an article with the commonsense title “Jumping to China-bashing Conclusions: Due process calls demands waiting for the facts.” In any justice-based system, people must not be tried in media; they must be tried in a functioning court of law by a preponderance of the evidence. That is why one must scrutinize the information and evidence before jumping to conclusions.

    Yet, the WTA, a professional body overseeing professional women’s tennis, had already deemed China to be guilty by suspending its tournaments in that country.

    Recently, on 19 December, Peng was approached by a reporter from the Singaporean Chinese-language newspaper Lianhe Zaobao. Peng looks genuinely surprised by the encounter, like a deer in the headlights, but knowing that she has to get this over with. (See the interview here.)

    Peng emphatically states, “First, I would like to emphasize a very important point: I have never said nor written about anyone sexually assaulting me. This point must be very clearly emphasized.”

    Whether a post on social media is a personal matter or not, people can debate, but Peng maintains it is. Peng also affirmed that an earlier email to the WTA denying a sexual assault was hers.

    Unanswered in the interview was why the wording in the Weibo post seems to allege a sexual assault.

    The WTA remains unsatisfied. It issued a statement: “We remain steadfast in our call for a full, fair and transparent investigation, without censorship, into her allegation of sexual assault, which is the issue that gave rise to our initial concern.” The tennis body headquartered in the US is, in effect, demanding that a powerful country of 1.4 billion people with a 5000-year history should submit a domestic crime allegation to its dictate. This demand presented to a country that rues its century of humiliation by outside powers will curry as much influence as an ant to a hungry aardvark.

    Peng said she has no travel plans now. It seems the WTA ought to do its due diligence and visit Peng in China.

    Not too quickly though, as Sinophobes in the West see a need to keep the heat turned up to try and spoil the Beijing Winter Olympics.

    Talk about being a bad sport.

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