• February 14, 2022

  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.

• February 12, 2022

  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.

  This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

• February 11, 2022

  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.

  This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

• February 2, 2022

  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

  The post The Onus on Those Who Accuse Others of Mis/Disinformation first appeared on Dissident Voice.

  This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

• January 26, 2022

  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.

  The post The Imperialists’ and Proxies’ War against Syria first appeared on Dissident Voice.

  This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

• January 21, 2022

  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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  This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

• January 16, 2022

  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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• January 14, 2022

  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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• January 5, 2022

  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.”

  The post What Does the Statement of the Five Nuclear-Weapon States on Preventing Nuclear War Tell Us? first appeared on Dissident Voice.

  This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

• January 4, 2022

  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.

  The post Canada’s Head-of-State Honors a War Criminal first appeared on Dissident Voice.

  This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

• December 21, 2021

  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.

  The post Gullibility and Poor Sportsmanship first appeared on Dissident Voice.

  This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

• December 17, 2021

  What Does It Mean for the Dispossessor to “Compensate” the Dispossessed?

  

  Settlers enjoyed a seeming free permission: to dispossess natives at will of all the best land, turn them out of traditional fishing locations, disrespect elders, women, children and religion, leave whole communities without political representation and punish men for breaking laws which they could have no means of knowing existed. It was inconceivable that all this change could happen overnight without violence. Instead, there was the greatest imaginable violence: genocide.

  — Tom Swanky, The Great Darkening, 2012

  Somehow, even “genocide” seems an inadequate description for what happened, yet rather than viewing it with horror, most Americans have conceived of it as their country’s manifest destiny.

  — Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, An Indigenous People’s History of the United States, 2015

  Imagine, if you can, that someone would take almost everything from you — your home, your culture, your language, your spirituality, your connection to the past, your children, your elders — and render you spiritually, emotionally, and economically destitute. In subsequent years, the thief uses the purloined land and resources to amass enormous material wealth. While others around you have suffered injury and death, you are among those still breathing — a survivor? Sometimes the word survivor seems so inappropriate. Isn’t it possible to breathe the air and still feel as if you have not survived?

  Canada exists because it conducted a genocide. Canada prefers that the genocide have an adjective attached: cultural. A cultural genocide sounds like there were no bodies, that only some traditions were ripped away. But that is a lie. Many Indigenous children taken from their families did not return. Indigenous children with contagious tuberculosis were intentionally kept in dorms with otherwise healthy children. Smallpox is also known to have been deliberately passed on to First Nations. The purposeful propagation of lethal diseases is, first and foremost, biological not cultural. Land is a lot easier for the taking when there are no people on it.

  But history sometimes has a seemingly morality-attuned quirk for re-emerging and biting the backs of those, or their progeny, who reaped unjust fruits.

  Canadian society and its government have been dominated by European settler-colonialists. Many of the settlers denigrated Indigenous peoples, viewing them as savages, lazy, uncouth, and inferior. So the Indigenes were removed to postage-stamp sized reserves far from White society’s sensibilities. In the meantime, the plan to disappear Indigenous peoples, by way of assimilation, was being carried out by the church and state.

  The long-buried crimes would eventually resurface and set off a paroxysm of consternation in sensible society.

  One powder keg, was the launching of a national class-action lawsuit by Indigenous peoples concerning a long-standing human rights complaint over the underfunding of First Nations child welfare. The Canadian government fought it, but sometimes a form of justice prevails. Canada was found culpable for racially discriminating against First Nations kids living on reserves. Canada was ordered to pay the statutory maximum of C$40,000 to victims of discrimination and some family members.

  Canada’s Aboriginal Peoples Television Network (APTN) reported: “The federal government is pledging up to $40 billion [approximately US$30 billion] to compensate First Nations kids and reform the child-welfare system.”

  What is a pledge from the Canadian government worth? After all, prime minister Justin Trudeau promised to lift all long-term drinking-water advisories by March 2021. Progress was made, but as of 9 December 2021 there are still 42 long-term drinking-water advisories in 33 communities.

  The Truth and Reconciliation Commission — whose raison d’être was to come to grips with the tattered legacy of forced assimilation and abuse in the residential school system — issued a report in July 2015 with 94 Calls to Action. As of 8 October 2021, 13 calls were completed, 29 had projects under way, 32 had projects proposed, and 20 calls had no action started. More than 6 years later, Canada has completed almost 14% of the actions. What does that indicate about fidelity to reconciliation?

  Then there is the question unexplored: from where did the Canadian government derive the money to “compensate” First Nations kids? Is the Canadian state not filling its coffers with resources extracted from First Nations, Michif, and Inuit land? Land, much of which is unceded or obtained through fraudulent treaty negotiations.

  Consider what reconciliation and compensation looks like to the Wet’suwet’en people who are facing militarized Canadian gendarmes helping force a pipeline route through unceded Wet’suwet’en territory.

  What should be done?

  If someone (especially someone of means) steals something precious from you, don’t you want it returned? If someone unlawfully tosses you out of your home and off your property, don’t you want it back? There is an Indigenous-led movement calling for Land Back. If land was stolen should it not be returned to the original users? Users because many First Nations do not believe in ownership of the land, meaning that it cannot be bought or sold.

  The post What Does It Mean for the Dispossessor to “Compensate” the Dispossessed? first appeared on Dissident Voice.

  This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

• December 8, 2021

  Will the WTA Cancel Tennis Tournaments in the USA?

  Currently, the West and its monopoly media are inordinately fixated on an allegation of a crime against an individual in another country, a country that is denigrated as a threat. The alleged crime serves as a pretext to punish that individual’s country, as if the country were the perpetrator or an accomplice in the alleged crime, or involved in a cover-up of the alleged crime.

  The New York Times headlined a piece, “The Tennis Chief Taking on China Over Peng Shuai.” The Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) chief Steve Simon has suspended tournaments in China over “the treatment” of Chinese player Peng Shuai. It reads as if China, the country, has mistreated Peng.

  A WTA standard has been established: an entire country may be penalized based on an allegation (even an allegation purportedly denied by the purported alligator) of sexual misconduct against a compatriot — this despite no charge having been filed, tried, or judged to have occurred.

  When allegations of a crime arise, those interested in justice being served must guard against jumping to conclusions, as due process demands investigating and weighing the facts. Given the timing (just before the Beijing Winter Olympics slated for February 2022), geo-political posturing might be a motivation behind this demonization of China.

  This is exemplified by a statement issued on behalf of president Joe Biden by White House press secretary Jen Psaki: “We join in the calls for PRC (People’s Republic of China) authorities to provide independent and verifiable proof of her whereabouts and that she is safe.”

  It starts with an allegation of sexual assault in a post attributed to Peng Shuai that appeared and was deleted from Weibo, a Chinese social media site.

  An excerpt from a purported screenshot of Peng’s post, from what China expert Wei Ling Chua calls “a notoriously anti-CCP platform,” revealed:

  那天下午我很怕，根本没想到会是这样，一个人在外帮守着，因为谁都不可能相信老婆会愿意。七年前我们发生过一次性关系，然后你升常委去北京就再没联系过我。原本埋藏了一切在心里，既然你根本不打算负责，为何还要回来找我，带我去你家逼我和你发生关系？是我没有证据，也根本不可能留下证据。

  The part in bold translates to Peng saying “she was taken to the house [of the retired Communist Party official Zhang Gaoli] and forced to have sex.” The Chinese text is included because it is a basis for a translation by others. At least one translation, without the original Chinese text, appears elsewhere claiming there was no allegation of a sexual assault.

  Since the post appeared, the situation has transmogrified from a “missing” Peng to a no longer missing Peng. Her subsequent public appearance did not satisfy the WTA. They want to hear Peng speak. Peng did speak to the International Olympic Commission and satisfied them that she was, despite the hullabaloo, more-or-less fine. The WTA was not satisfied. What does the WTA want? Peng wrote an email to the WTA:

  Regarding the recent news released on the official website of the WTA, the content has not been confirmed or verified by myself and it was released without my consent. The news in that release, including the allegation of sexual assault, is not true. I’m not missing, nor I am unsafe. I’ve just been resting at home and everything is fine.

  If the WTA publishes any more news about me please verify it with me, and release it with my consent.

  Simon was still unsatisfied. He said, “Peng’s sexual assault claim must be investigated with ‘full transparency’ and she should be allowed to speak ‘without coercion or intimidation’.” There is innuendo in what Simon purports: a “sexual assault claim” — a claim denied in the Peng email — and that Peng is being coerced and intimidated without presenting any evidence to support this insinuation.

  Peng is the person who can speak to what really happened. But must Peng leave her motherland to explain her personal affairs to the WTA? Peng asked that her privacy be respected. The WTA claims skepticism to the email and, thereby, refuses to respect the request for privacy. What should Peng do? If the social media post was an inaccurate venting by Peng, then to force her to come forward could be construed as the WTA humiliating Peng. But what about the demonization of China?

  Ultimately, if Peng comes to the US and continues to maintain that “the allegation of sexual assault, is not true,” it is egg on the face of the WTA and its chief Steve Simon. It would also be an embarrassment for the others that have piled on China: the US, the EU, and the UN. However, western governments will all too often continue to unashamedly repeat ad nauseam their discredited lies, such as the genocide in Xinjiang or the Tiananmen Square massacre.

  In the US, as in China, jurisprudence confers a presumption of innocence until one is proven guilty of a crime. What Simon and the WTA have done is to punish a third party, a party not charged with committing, colluding, or having been found guilty of any offense. Nonetheless, the WTA in its wisdom took the step of suspending WTA tournaments in China. In effect, the WTA has pronounced Chinese tennis and, by extension, the nation of China as being guilty of, presumably, laxity or indifference to the crime of sexual assault.

  The WTA has now assumed the role of judge and jury for what it identifies as a crime against one of its players.

  If a crime was committed against Peng, then she needs to file a police report. Chinese police, like police most anywhere, do not investigate cases that have not been reported or made known to them.

  Wired has used the alleged incident to accuse China of censorship. Wired writes that the initial post from Weibo was scrubbed in half an hour and Peng and Zhang’s names were unsearchable thereafter. One can be forgiven if at first blink one suspects censorship. Do we know who deleted Peng’s post? Might censorship even be justifiable? It is too easy to complain of censorship, but what also needs to be considered is libel. If an allegation is untrue, then a libel has been committed. Sometimes an allegation may be true, but it is not provable in a court of law.

  So what does Wired suggest: that someone who might turn out to be innocent of an alleged crime have had his/her name dragged through the mud — mud that tends to leave an indelible impression? Is this justice? Or should names and accusations be kept under wraps within the justice system until a determination can be reached?

  Peng’s allegation, as she herself stated in the Weibo post, is unverifiable. (See above: 是我没有证据，也根本不可能留下证据。Translated: “I have no evidence, and it is impossible to leave evidence at all.”) If Peng does an about face and says she was forced to have sex with the former vice premier Zhang, it amounts to hearsay. The WTA is responding to hearsay.

  Now to avoid hypocrisy. There is a corroborated complaint that according to the standard set by the WTA that calls for action. In the United States sits a president who is alleged to have committed a sexual assault against a former senate staffer Tara Reade. Unlike Peng, Reade came forward and filed a complaint with a congressional personnel office and much later filed a police report.

  Reade is not a professional tennis player, but many WTA tournaments are played in the US, and since the WTA claims concern for the safety of its players, does it not behoove the WTA to suspend all its tournaments in the US?

  And why stop there? It took decades for Larry Nassar, the former team doctor for the US gymnastic team, to be brought to justice. Nassar was accused and found guilty of over 260 sexual assaults on US gymnasts. Should all gymnastic events in the US be suspended henceforth by its governing body?

  *****The alleged allegation in the Weibo post is serious, and it must be handled in a serious manner. If the allegation can be confirmed, then the wheels of justice must proceed, and if guilt is determined for a perpetrator, then whatever punishment is merited must be meted out.

  But the inordinate global magnification of the allegation is obviously not about a concern for justice. It is not about concern for the safety of a tennis player. This is about the capitalist West and its capitalist allies reacting to a socialist country soaring past them economically, eliminating poverty, and pulling off great technological marvels. At its core, it smacks of envy.

  The post Will the WTA Cancel Tennis Tournaments in the USA? first appeared on Dissident Voice.

  This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

• December 2, 2021

  Have British Politicians No Shame?

  

  Members of the Devon Regiment round up local people in a search for Mau Mau fighters in Kenya in 1954. Photograph: Popperfoto/Popperfoto/Getty Images

  The UK government is considering boycotting China’s winter Olympic Games to be held in Beijing. The British foreign office cites “international efforts to hold China to account for its human rights violations in Xinjiang.”

  “It is the longstanding policy of the government that the determination of whether genocide has taken place should be made by a competent court with the jurisdiction to try such cases, rather than by the government or a non-judicial body.”

  Setting aside the pathetic allegation of “human rights violations” (vastly downgraded from the absurd allegation of a genocide) in Xinjiang, Britain ought to look in the mirror and submit its own human rights abuses and genocides to the International Criminal Court or International Court of Justice. It will take many years because there are so many abuses and genocides to be tried.

  How does one think that the Indigenous populations were subdued in the colonies of Australia, Aotearoa (New Zealand), Canada, the United States, the Caribbean, Africa, and Asia? Did the Indigenous peoples roll over and say please depopulate us, so you can take the land?

  Did the Nepalese, Bhutanese, the peoples of the Indian subcontinent, and Sri Lanka (Ceylon) say please subdue us and rule over us?

  No need to be mired too far in the past for British aggression and war crimes. There have been plenty in the 20th and 21st centuries.

  In 1912, Britain carried out the Jallianwala Bagh Massacre in Amritsar, Punjab. In 1948, Britain ended the Palestine Mandate and facilitated the Jewish ethnic cleansing of Palestinians. Near the end of 1946, British troops of the Scots Guards murdered 24 Malays in the Batang Kali Massacre. In 1952, Britain carried out the Mau Mau Massacre in Kenya.

  Recently, the Guardian published an article, “Slaughter in Indonesia: Britain’s secret propaganda war,” that described Britain’s role in, according to the CIA, “one of the worst mass murders of the 20th century.”

  Didn’t British Prime Minister Tony Blair conspire with George W Bush to fix the facts and intelligence around a policy that led to a staggering estimate that “2.4 million Iraqis have been killed since 2003 as a result of our country’s illegal invasion, with a minimum of 1.5 million and a maximum of 3.4 million” posited on the lie of Iraq having weapons-of-mass-destruction (which Britain actually has)?

  Were the Brits not also found guilty of war crimes in Afghanistan? Were the Brits not involved in the destruction of Libya and the carnage in Syria?

  It leads anyone with a slight insight into history to ask upon what moral basis do Brits claim a right to denounce other countries for alleged crimes?

  Yes, there was a violent skirmish between China and India in 2020, but China has not been at war for over 40 years — a 3 weeks and 6 day war with Viet Nam in 1979. And one must not overlook the war crimes Britain committed against China. After all, Britain fought the Opium Wars to force China to open its market to opium in the mid-19th century. The Qing dynasty was weak and China lost. As penance, China had to cede Hong Kong and Kowloon to Britain and pay reparations.

  Has Britain ever repaid the ill-gotten reparations along with rent for the colonization of Hong Kong?

  What should one conclude about the British politicians who denounce China without irrefutable evidence? Are they dishonest charlatans or are they intellectually inept as far as their own history? George Monbiot wrote, “Deny the British empire’s crimes? No, we ignore them.”

  Any human rights abuses or war crimes that China or any nation might commit must be judged, not by bombast but with solid evidence. Such evidence must be presented to a neutral tribunal, not by the scofflaws, but by reputable countries as untarnished and unbiased as possible by great crimes.

  The post Have British Politicians No Shame? first appeared on Dissident Voice.

  This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

• November 29, 2021

  Banging War Drums Down Under on the China Threat

  Right away, the Australian 60 Minutes Youtube video titled “Prepare for Armageddon: China’s warning to the world” signals a polemic against China. The video’s opening backdrop features chairman Xi Jinping with a slightly raised fist flanked by a jet, tank, and a battery of missiles.

  The program is rife with ad hominem, propaganda, disinformation, and lies of omission.

  At the start, host Tom Steinfort says, “The message coming out of China is getting louder by the day, it doesn’t like other countries, especially Australia, ganging up and meddling in its affairs.”

  Which country likes others ganging up and meddling in its domestic affairs? Does Australia like it if others meddle in Australian affairs? Yet Australia is notorious for meddling, or rather warring, in other countries. Among the wars that Australians have fought in are the war on Korea, the war on Viet Nam, the war on Afghanistan, the war on Iraq, and the war on Syria. The horrific Australian war crimes in Afghanistan were decried by Chinese government spokesman Lijian Zhao.

  Steinfort complains that Beijing is doing its best to punish Australia. But he did not directly answer the question of whether China initiated negative actions against Australia?

  The host goes on to cavil about Xi’s ratcheting up the rhetoric about the perils of a new cold war? In other words, said the host: “If we don’t stop poking the panda, we’ll face serious consequences.”

  The host’s comment points to Australia being the initiator that caused China to respond to the “poking.” Australia is asked to stop meddling and poking the panda. Moreover, the substitution of the beloved roly-poly panda for the revered, sleek and imposing dragon could, in itself, be interpreted as a not-so-subtle poke at China.

  To a critical viewer, the instigator is obviously the American cat’s paw, Australia. China has not been at war with any country for over 40 years and pledges itself to peace. China is not launching missiles into Afghanistan; it is not occupying Syria and stealing its oil; it is not trying to cripple the economies in Cuba, Iran, and the Democratic Republic of Korea; it is not trying to topple elected governments as the US has done in Haiti and Honduras and is now doing in Venezuela and Nicaragua; it is not siding against legitimate Palestinian resistance to Jewish war crimes; it is not aligned with a Saudi genocide in Yemen; it did not destroy Libya. No, this “meddling” in the affairs of other countries is by the United States — supported by its ally, Australia.

  The host continues, “It is worth taking that [Chinese] threat seriously.” As per usual among the Anglo-Saxon alliance, China — which is neither attacking nor oppressing any country and has only one military base abroad — is declared a threat for becoming socially, technologically, and economically preeminent.

  60 Minutes goes to the crux of the matter: “the looming war with China,” the “unthinkable” Armageddon — the final battle between the forces of good and evil.

  Richard Spencer, the former US secretary of the navy appears saying, “It’s gonna be waged on the economic front; it’s gonna be waged on the social affairs front. They’re gonna come at us in all ways.” Presumably “all ways” includes the military front.

  Thus 60 Minutes asks, “How prepared are we?”

  In 1946, the pacifist physicist Albert Einstein wrote a response to such a query in a letter to US congressman Robert Hale: “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.”

  60 Minutes proceeds to demonize China as a belligerent poised to militarily invade Taiwan. The program interviews a Taiwanese tech entrepreneur, Xin Qing Xiao, who fears Chinese rule because of “losing all your freedoms…. It is just unimaginable that, you know, that we would be reunified with a authoritarian regime and then surrender such freedoms.”

  It would be very easy to go into any country and find a person to speak out against whatever government is demeaned as a “authoritarian regime.” Notable throughout the program is that contrasting views will not be presented except for one exception (while acknowledging the former diplomat Victor Gao as an expert, 60 Minutes rudely described their guest as an “unofficial mouthpiece”).

  As for losing all freedoms in China, Frans Vandenbosch, who has been living in China since 2002, writes:

  I moved to China for my private and professional FREEDOM

  After some years, I returned to my home country in Europe, lived in Germany for 3 years. And went back to China.

  For the FREEDOM. In China, there’s real freedom, in Western Europe it’s just a show.

  Having lived and worked in several EU countries (Germany, Belgium, UK, ..) I moved to China because of the professional and private FREEDOM in China.

  To the question “2 million Taiwanese work and live in China. How do they feel about living in mainland China, the ‘enemy’ of Taiwan?,” Kan Lui replied:

  As a Taiwanese working in China, I fall into this category.

  Based on what I see, people in the cities are happy and enjoy a high degree of freedom, and are reasonably informed…. Life is good and there is almost no street crime. As an ordinary person I am treated like everyone else by the government, who can be seen everywhere but doesn’t really intrude into my daily life, and most people don’t really care where you are from.

  When I go back to Taiwan, I can see Taiwanese politicians sacrificing Taiwan’s economy for political leverage, and the Taiwanese media being surprisingly homogenous and highly biased on their coverage on China, which are primarily targeted at and gleefully consumed by those with almost no first hand knowledge of China.

  I, too, from personal experience, having lived over seven years in China did not feel any loss of freedom while there.

  Although 60 Minutes calls Taiwan “a renegade province,” it ought to point out that Australia and the US both acknowledge that there is one China and that Taiwan is a part of China. This fact is also affirmed by the United Nations General Assembly Resolution 2758.

  It is important to bear in mind that criticism by the US and Australia is criticism from countries constituted through genocide and the dispossession of the Indigenous peoples. To wit, previously I asked, “What if China promoted Hawaiian independence?”

  From Taiwan, 60 Minutes turned to Hong Kong saying, “The crackdown on democracy in nearby Hong Kong is be a warning of what may be to come.” Again a one-sided, unsubstantiated, and hypocritical depiction of what the rioting was about in Hong Kong and who was behind it. Not mentioned was that Hong Kong was wrested from China in the Opium Wars and that under British colonial rule Hong Kong enjoyed no democracy.

  The disingenuity of 60 Minutes becomes patently transparent when it selectively and incorrectly quotes “the hardline” of chairman Xi on the 100th anniversary of the Communist Party of China: “Anyone who dares to try and do that will have their heads bashed bloody against the great wall of steel forged by our 1.4 billion Chinese people.”

  Dares to try what? Why did 60 Minutes not mention this? Could it be that in proper context another clearer meaning emerges? Why is it that in a 5170-word speech that so many in the western monopoly media only cherrypick a few words — and still get it wrong?

  So what did Xi say?:

  We Chinese are a people who uphold justice and are not intimidated by threats of force. As a nation, we have a strong sense of pride and confidence. We have never bullied, oppressed, or subjugated the people of any other country, and we never will. By the same token, we will never allow any foreign force to bully, oppress, or subjugate us. Anyone who would attempt to do so will find themselves on a collision course with a great wall of steel forged by over 1.4 billion Chinese people.

  Now that provides context. Xi very saliently states, “We have never bullied, oppressed, or subjugated the people of any other country, and we never will. By the same token, we will never allow any foreign force to bully, oppress, or subjugate us.” The history of the Century of Humiliation by Europeans and Japan will not be forgotten by the Chinese.

  Besides, walls are defensive structures. To run into a wall is foolhardy.

  Militarism

  60 Minutes objects to Chinese military jets breaching Taiwanese airspace.

  First, a look at Taiwan’s claimed air defense identification zone reveals that it includes a sizeable chunk of mainland China.

  Second, the fact that Taiwan is a province of China undermines any such objection to Chinese flights.

  Third, under the 1992 Consensus both Taiwan and China have agreed that there is only one China, subject to different interpretations by both sides.

  Responding to Steinfort’s presenting China as a threat, Gao asks him, “Do you really want to fear a panda?”

  Enter erstwhile Australian major general Jim Molan: “I believe that the Chinese Communist Party’s aim is to be dominant in this region and perhaps dominant in the world.” The Council on Foreign Relations agrees with Molan’s assessment that China is seeking to become the “dominant force” in the Asia-Pacific region.

  What does “dominant” mean? Most important, powerful, or influential? Molan says China must remove America from the Western Pacific to be dominant in the region. He envisions a Chinese military expansion.

  60 Minutes, however, suggests that China’s military could be stymied by swarming miniature drones.

  The Global Times reports that China has a defense for this with the YLC-48, the “terminator of drones,” so small that it can be carried by a single soldier — China’s first portable phased array radar that “can effectively detect and track incoming targets from any angle.”

  A new wrinkle has been added in the calculation toward the down-under country following Australia’s joining the UK and US (AUKUS) to become equipped with nuclear-powered submarines. Argued Gao, “The safe approach is to target Australia as a nuclear-armed country.”

  Steinfort says “senior figures in China” have stated that Australia is indeed a target for nuclear weapons. To be a target is one thing, but to be fired upon is another. China is on record as pledging no first use of nukes.

  What does the future hold?

  There is a dichotomy in tactics emphasized between Spencer and Molan on intervening in a hypothesized war between Taiwan and China. The American is cautious and pragmatic. “You have to think about what the results are and at what cost.”

  This echoes the Chinese military genius, Sunzi:

  Now the general who wins a battle makes many calculations in his temple ere the battle is fought. The general who loses a battle makes but few calculations beforehand. Thus do many calculations lead to victory, and few calculations to defeat: how much more no calculation at all! It is by attention to this point that I can foresee who is likely to win or lose.

  Molan channels the domino theory asking where will it all end if China is allowed to retake Taiwan. However, what seemingly eludes Molan is that China would simply be taking back into the fold what is internationally recognized as already being a part of China. Nonetheless, Molan finds, “This situation now is an existential threat to Australia as a liberal democracy.”

  Steinfort narrates, “It’s China’s move now.”

  Gao taps the spirit of Chinese people when he says, “China prefers peace rather than war. That’s the key.” In his speech on the centenary of the Communist Party of China, Xi said:

  We must continue working to promote the building of a human community with a shared future. Peace, concord, and harmony are ideas the Chinese nation has pursued and carried forward for more than 5,000 years. The Chinese nation does not carry aggressive or hegemonic traits in its genes. The Party cares about the future of humanity, and wishes to move forward in tandem with all progressive forces around the world. China has always worked to safeguard world peace, contribute to global development, and preserve international order.

  On the journey ahead, we will remain committed to promoting peace, development, cooperation, and mutual benefit, to an independent foreign policy of peace, and to the path of peaceful development.

  Unfortunately, one is unlikely to hear such peaceful overtures from the current Australian or American governments.

  The post Banging War Drums Down Under on the China Threat first appeared on Dissident Voice.

  This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

• November 22, 2021

  What Do an Apology, Reconciliation, and a Sacred Obligation to Constitutionally Guaranteed Rights of First Nations Look Like in Canada?

  They send a hundred RCMP to go protect a pipeline and not protect people’s lives so we need to push back. They put industry, they put fracking, they put gas and oil over everyone’s lives.

  — Eve Saint, a Wet’suwet’en land defender

  In the nineteenth century, Gilbert Malcolm Sproat, a colonial official, wrote an account — The Nootka: Scenes and Studies of Savage Life — of his time among the Nuu Chah Nulth people on the west coast of Vancouver Island. He noted that the Nuu Chah Nulth (mistakenly first called Nootka by captain Cook) have “known every inch of the west coast for thousands of years.” In his account, Sproat recorded a conversation that he had had with a Tseshaht chief.

  Chief: “Ah, but we don’t care to do as the white men wish.”

  Sproat: “Whether or not, … The white men will come. All your people know that they are your superiors…”

  Chief: “We do not want the white man. He will steal what we have. We wish to live as we are.”

  The brunt of Sproat’s message: the white man would decide, and the Indigenous peoples had only to obey.

  It took many years, but indigenous rights would later become codified. On 21 June 2021, the federal government of Canada overcame its initial objections and gave royal assent to the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP).

  The annex to UNDRIP calls for:

  Encouraging States to comply with and effectively implement all their obligations as they apply to indigenous peoples under international instruments, in particular those related to human rights, in consultation and cooperation with the peoples concerned,

  There are several Articles within UNDRIP that would militate against Canada’s invasion of the unceded territory of the Wet’suwet’en First Nation — done to push through a corporate pipeline. However, Article 26 should suffice to demonstrate that Canada is in violation of UNDRIP:

  1. Indigenous peoples have the right to the lands, territories and resources which they have traditionally owned, occupied or otherwise used or acquired.

  2. Indigenous peoples have the right to own, use, develop and control the lands, territories and resources that they possess by reason of traditional ownership or other traditional occupation or use, as well as those which they have otherwise acquired.

  3. States shall give legal recognition and protection to these lands, territories and resources. Such recognition shall be conducted with due respect to the customs, traditions and land tenure systems of the indigenous peoples concerned.

  The Wet’suwet’en First Nation, who have been indefatigable in defense of their land, issued a statement through the Unist’ot’en Solidarity Brigade after the RCMP invaded their territory:

  Militarized RCMP raided Coyote Camp today, arresting 14 people including Sleydo’, Chief Woos’s daughter, and three accredited journalists.

  They came in with assault rifles and dogs, and without a warrant, used axes to break down the door of the cabin Sleydo’ and Chief Woos’s daughter were in, and violently removed them from their territory.

  Of the people arrested yesterday, most were released this afternoon. Five people refused to sign conditions of release that barred return to the territory and are being brought to jail in Prince Rupert where they face court on Monday.

  Solidarity actions continued across the country, with rallies, marches, rail blockades, and road closures.

  Is this how past violations are patched up?

  The Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) was convened in January 2008 to gather testimonies of the survivors, families, communities, and others about the Indian Residential Schools under the aegis of the federal government and churches. (Kevin Annett has spoken for years of the unmarked graves of residential school children in Canada. Despite much denigration in the mass media, he remained firm in his conviction; therefore, he has gravitas into the crimes of state. In the preamble of his book Murder by Decree, he writes that it was “prompted by the enormous miscarriage of justice engineered by the government and churches” and “written as a corrective response to [the TRC’s] unlawful and deceptive efforts to conceal the extent and nature of deliberate Genocide in Canada by church and state over nearly two centuries.) An amendment to Canada’s racist Indian Act paved the way for the Indian Residential Schools. The purpose of the residential schools was to disappear the Indian. The deputy superintendent general of Indian Affairs, Duncan Campbell Scott, made this crystal clear in his testimony before a Special Committee of the House of Commons in 1920:

  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, and no Indian Department, that is the whole object of this Bill.

  On 11 June 2008, prime minister Stephen Harper apologized for the Indian Residential Schools. Not everyone was impressed by the apology. As Indigenous activist Mike Krebs noted, “If there is one thing that Mr. Harper’s ‘apology’ provided that could be considered groundbreaking or new, it’s the idea that there can be crimes without criminals.” At its conclusion, the TRC issued a six volume report in 2015 that included 96 Calls to Action for the federal government to bring about reconciliation.

  What do the steps toward reconciliation look like in Canada?

  Do the RCMP in militarized gear displaying weapons point the way to reconciliation? Can this be what reconciliation looks like?

  APTN National News has been underwhelmed by federal action on the Calls for Action. In an opinion piece on APTN titled “An inquiry is not enough for international crimes against Indigenous children at the Indian residential schools,” Cheryl Matthew, the Executive Director of the Protect Our Indigenous Sisters Society, wrote:

  There was an apology, but for what use is an apology when there is little change in the actions that led to it?

  …

  Haven’t we suffered enough from pre-contact times to the genocide of the Indian residential schools and colonial policy where we lost our lands, languages, children, cultures and our families? At what point will the federal government of Canada stop its war against Indigenous people?

  It is said that the best predictor of the future is the past. Based on reconciliation efforts—which up until today have been little more than lip service—it is clear that Canada will not stop its war against Indigenous people. We had the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples in 1996, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in 2015, the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women in 2019, and nothing has changed.

  The Wet’suwet’en are also skeptical of Canada’s true intentions for reconciliation.

  “I do not see any reconciliation in this. For our brothers and sisters of all Indigenous organizations, let this be a sign that reconciliation in their eyes is really the white paper in disguise.” -Dinϊ Ze’ Woos #WetsuwetenStrong #AllOutForWedzinKwa #ShutDownCanada #FreeSleydo pic.twitter.com/He7HajlfEW

  — Gidimt’en Checkpoint (@Gidimten) November 20, 2021

  It may be that some of the police were discomfited about trespassing on Wet’suwet’en territory in violent garb, but the fact that they obeyed orders instead of following their conscience speaks to integrity.

  Do the RCMP’s actions reflect a “a renewed, nation-to-nation relationship with First Nations peoples” that Canada’s prime minister Justin Trudeau called for?:

  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.

  Whose territory?

  Just how is it that the Canadian government claims jurisdiction over unceded Wet’suwet’en territory? The Indigenous Peoples have been living on their land for at least 14,000 years, while so-called British Columbia was a colony formed in 1858, which confederated with Canada in 1871.

  Call to Action 47 stipulates:

  We call upon federal, provincial, territorial, and municipal governments to repudiate concepts used to justify European sovereignty over Indigenous peoples and lands, such as the Doctrine of Discovery and terra nullius, and to reform those laws, government policies, and litigation strategies that continue to rely on such concepts.

  Whose law?

  

  (Coastal GasLink Pipeline Map. Photo: APTN File)

  How is it that the government of the settler-colonial newcomers can legitimately or morally impose settler law over the law of the people who have inhabited the land for millennia?

  If the territory is unceded by the Wet’suwet’en, then application of settler law must be null and void.

  The Supreme Court of Canada Delgamuukw v British Columbia decision in 1997 held that the Wet’suwet’en People still possessed their land rights and titles to 22,000 square kilometers of land in northern BC. The ruling also recognized the rights invested in the hereditary chiefs.

  Consequently, Canadian law has recognized that Wet’suwet’en territory is unceded. Delgamuukw was further upheld by the 2014 Canadian Supreme Court ruling in Tsilhqot’in Nation v British Columbia.

  Moreover, British king George III’s Royal Proclamation of 1763 stipulated that the territory east of Quebec was the Hunting Grounds of the Indigenous peoples where they “should not be molested or disturbed in the Possession of such Parts…”

  Thus, both colonial law and Canadian law uphold Indigenous title. But should that even matter? Morally and legally, one would infer ipso facto that the people who have lived since time immemorial in a territory have the right of first occupation and that their law would apply in the territory.

  In the interest of reconciliation, Call to Action 50 states:

  In keeping with the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, we call upon the federal government, in collaboration with Aboriginal organizations, to fund the establishment of Indigenous law institutes for the development, use, and understanding of Indigenous laws and access to justice in accordance with the unique cultures of Aboriginal peoples in Canada.

  Also applicable is Call to Action 42:

  We call upon the federal, provincial, and territorial governments to commit to the recognition and implementation of Aboriginal justice systems in a manner consistent with the Treaty and Aboriginal rights of Aboriginal peoples, the Constitution Act, 1982, and the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, endorsed by Canada in November 2012.

  Given all the aforementioned, a question begs: What the heck is Canada’s unwelcomed armed gendarmerie doing in the territory of the Wet’suwet’en people?

  The post What Do an Apology, Reconciliation, and a Sacred Obligation to Constitutionally Guaranteed Rights of First Nations Look Like in Canada? first appeared on Dissident Voice.

  This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

• November 22, 2021

  Jumping to China-bashing Conclusions

  
  Peng Shuai, a highly successful tennis player from China is currently at the center of a western media maelstrom. This maelstrom stems from a 2 November post on the Chinese social media platform Weibo. Peng is said to have publicly accused the former Chinese vice premier Zhang Gaoli of raping her in 2018.

  The timing, of what effectively becomes a trial by western media, is most inauspicious for China. TSN points to the looming winter Olympics slated for Beijing and then adds in the ludicrous allegation of crimes against humanity.

  It is most unbecoming to whimsically write of alleged crimes against humanity without offering an iota of evidence. That China welcomes people to visit Xinjiang, that the Uyghur population increased 25 percent from 2010 to 2018, that there is no mass emigration from Xinjiang, that absolute poverty is eliminated would make China the laughingstock of inept genocidaires. Nonetheless, such extraneous allegations are obviously an attempt to cast China as a miscreant responsible for the “missing” Peng Shuai.

  Reappearance

  But now the “missing” Peng is no longer missing, as photos posted on Weibo by the China Open attest. Still China is depicted in a negative light: “The ruling party appears to be trying to defuse alarm about Peng without acknowledging her disappearance.”

  The insinuation is that the Communist Party was behind her “disappearance.” But did she “disappear”? It takes only a little brain matter to realize that few of us would like to be in the spotlight for being the victim of an alleged rape. There are other possible explanations for why Peng was supposedly not seen. But this writer will not jump to any conclusions.

  Without clarity on what has and is actually transpiring in the Peng saga, the Women’s Tennis Association and its CEO Steve Simon had threatened to pull the WTA’s events out of China. British politicians and Joe Biden talked about a diplomatic boycott of the Beijing Olympics.

  US deputy secretary-of-state Wendy Sherman had tweeted: “We are deeply concerned by reports that tennis player Peng Shuai appears to be missing, and we join the calls for the PRC to provide independent, verifiable proof of her whereabouts. Women everywhere deserve to have reports of sexual assault taken seriously and investigated.”

  It is well within the bounds of credulity that one politician in a country of 1.4 billion might commit a crime. China has had its share as evinced by chairman Xi Jinping’s corruption crackdown having purged many tens of thousands, including high-ranking officials and military officers.

  However, one cannot condemn a country or political party for the alleged unlawful acts of one person. If so, then this would be the case for virtually every country on the planet.

  If China’s Olympics should be boycotted or tennis tournaments yanked because of an unsubstantiated allegation, then this should apply equally to the United States where a sitting Supreme Court judge and a sitting president have faced allegations of sexual misconduct.

  President Joe Biden — who once said, “For a woman to come forward in the glaring light of focus, nationally, you’ve got to start off with the presumption that at least the essence of what she’s talking about is real” — was accused of sexually assaulting a former Senate aide, Tara Reade. The #MeToo movement and Democrats abandoned Reade.

  Previously, the Democrats and #MeToo had supported Christine Blasey Ford who publicly accused a Republican Supreme Court nominee, Brett Kavanaugh, of attempted rape.

  What to do

  It is hard to pronounce upon what Peng ought to do. Without all the requisite facts, one cannot know with certainty why she was “missing.” Was she dealing with trauma from a rape? Then all sympathy goes to her. If, however, the public allegation was a “mistake,” then by avoiding the media crush, she leaves an aspersion cast on the man she wrongly called out as a rapist, and she has dragged her country into the vitriol that China-bashers are now heaping on China. However painful or humiliating, if it was a “mistake,” then surely she has an obligation to clear up this situation as soon as possible.

  Peng was lucky to have her friends and colleagues in the tennis world to express concern about her safety. That is what good colleagues and friends do. It is laudable to stick up for one’s own. But I submit that a deeper morality would state that an injustice against one is an injustice against all.

  Disappointingly, I have never heard Serena Williams, Ashleigh Barty, Rafael Nadal, Roger Federer, Novak Djokovic, or any other star tennis players speaking out about the safety and human rights of the tortured political prisoner Julian Assange. Top tennis players through their on-court brilliance have garnered a large following. Is there not an onus upon them to make their voices heard for the good of fellow humans?

  The post Jumping to China-bashing Conclusions first appeared on Dissident Voice.

  This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

• November 20, 2021

  The Baghuz Massacre Underlines the Necessity for Freeing Julian Assange

  The implications of the Baghuz Massacre should deeply underscore the integrity, morality, and vital importance of WikiLeaks and its heroic publisher and political prisoner Julian Assange. The Baghuz Massacre was a failed cover-up by the United States. WikiLeaks is the journalistic enterprise that shines a spotlight on the egregious crimes of states.

  Assange is imprisoned under tortuous conditions because he exposed how the US governmental-corporate-military machine operates. WikiLeaks published the video “Collateral Murder” wherein a US Apache helicopter crew gunned dead 12 civilians walking in a New Baghdad street.

  The Baghuz massacre points to how the criminal state operates, by covering up its crimes. WikiLeaks threw light on the crimes in support of the public’s right to know what their country is up to.

  Baghuz is part of a long line of murderous military actions. It begins with several extermination campaigns against the Original Peoples of Turtle Island, among them the Gnadenhutten Massacre, to the Wounded Knee Massacre, and the Trail of Tears. The massacres spread overseas to subjugate and colonize the Philippines; at the tail end of WWII there was the Tokyo firebombing and the obliteration of Hiroshima and Nagasaki by nuclear bombs. Then it was on to the Korean peninsula which was cut in two by the US. Among the gruesome US exploits were the No Gun Ri massacre in South Korea and the Sinchon Massacre in North Korea. North Korea was devastated by a massive scorched earth campaign. Next up was the My Lai Massacre in Viet Nam. In Iraq, among the war crimes were the Amiriyah shelter bombing and Haditha massacre. In Afghanistan there have been wedding parties bombed, the infamous Bagram torture facility, the Kandahar massacre, etc. The US has continued its murderous swath through Haiti, Honduras, Libya, and on to Syria. None of these countries had attacked the US. (Even 9-11 is purportedly carried out by Saudis according to American authorities.)

  In Syria, the US intelligence has either been duped or complicit in blaming president Bashar al Assad for chemical weapon attacks to launch missile attacks, to support the ISIS terrorists, and to loot Syrian oil. Along the way, the deeply concealed Baghuz Massacre that killed dozens of Syrian civilians in a 2019 bombing has bubbled to public awareness.

  The US is not alone in the war crimes extravaganza. Much of the western world is participating in the criminal militarism or otherwise colluding with the US. Sweden stands out as a neutral country that set the trap to ensnare Assange, so that Britain might hold him for extradition to the US. It is no wonder that the western-state apparatus that conspires to bury exposure of its war crimes has carried out a merciless campaign to eliminate Assange who exposes the crimes for the public.

  The Baghuz Massacre is just another ripple in the ocean of massacres that would require a voluminous manuscript to chronicle. Assange and WikiLeaks are the exposing tonic needed to halt the war machine.

  The Baghuz Massacre adds fuel to the calls for Assange to be released forthwith so that WikiLeaks and its publisher may, if Assange is up to it after the psychological trauma he has endured, shed a spotlight on war crimes. Awareness of the crimes of state can point the way for peoples of the world to renounce forever violence and warring — leading instead to peaceful co-existence.

  The post The Baghuz Massacre Underlines the Necessity for Freeing Julian Assange first appeared on Dissident Voice.

  This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

• November 15, 2021

  Planning for a New, Better Future

  As the world prepares to depart 2021 and head into 2022, it is clear that the United States is a declining economic power and that China continues its rapid upward trajectory. While homelessness and poverty sully the debt-laden US, China has eliminated extreme poverty. What is the American response to economic disparities domestically? Institute a guaranteed minimum income? Andrew Wang who trumpeted such an income was rejected as a candidate by the Democratic Party. The Dems also pulled the rug out from under the social-democratic candidate Bernie Sanders who had promised medical care for all and to alleviate student debt. Instead the party apparatchiks anointed Joe Biden from the haggard old guard. So terrified was the business-led faction of the Dems to any progressivism seeping into the party, that they turned to a controllable candidate despite his appearing brain addled and often veering off script into rambling, incoherent speech. Biden campaigned on raising the minimum wage to $15 nationwide. He failed to follow through; but he managed to bump the minimum wage of federal contractors to $15.

  To fund a $2 trillion economic-stimulus plan, Biden had counted on an increase in the corporate tax rate, which now seems off the table. Instead an asset tax was proposed for the very richest of the billionaire class. But as the Grayzone‘s Ben Norton tweeted, it appears to have fallen through the political cracks, and it is back to the White House as the reverse Robin Hood.

  So the Biden admin will likely cut taxes on the rich, while boosting the already outrageous military budget more than the Pentagon even asked for

  There are no significant differences between Democrats and Republicans. They're two factions of the same Capitalist Imperialist Party https://t.co/SnicQ0OLxK

  — Ben Norton (@BenjaminNorton) October 27, 2021

  And while rank-and-file workers have been saddled with lockdowns and layoffs because of COVID-19, the 1%-ers have been siphoning up an ever increasing slice of the economic pie.

  

  This is how capitalism continues doggedly apace in the US. Meanwhile the economically fast-developing Socialism with Chinese Characteristics sails onwards and upwards; the envious US oligarchy, in puerile response, sails its warships through the South China Sea. Dismally so. On one passage, its nuclear submarine smacked into an underwater mountain.

  The specter of being supplanted as the number one economy has caused the top-dog capitalist to become ever more petulant and ever more roguish at being deposed from its position; and to rub salt into wound, by a communist nation.

  Capitalism is not a complete failure. It works plenty fine for the billionaire class and its coordinator class. However, capitalism is unkind to the masses.

  People of conscience know what they are against: capitalism, its warring, its racism, its inequity, and its callousness to humans outside the capitalist class. They also know what they are for — at least in general terms — a fairer economic model.

  However, an economic model that aims to achieve core values such as solidarity, diversity, equity, and self-management requires a vision and a plan for how it would work. Michael Albert, in particular, has been writing many years about a vision for such a humanistic economy. The vision is called participatory economics — parecon for short.

  Albert’s latest book on parecon is titled No Bosses: A New Economy for a Better World. The title might lead one to assume that the book would focus more on dismantling permanent, unjustifiable hierarchies that disempower the workers. While No Bosses does discuss the situation of workers under capitalism and how empowering work under parecon would be, most of the text lays out how a parecon reality would look like.

  Empowerment for workers requires their participation in decision-making. The decision-making is weighted according to how impactful a decision is individually and collectively within a workplace.

  A consensus is sought in amiable negotiations. “As much as possible economic interactions should not be antagonistic. They should not be a rat race. They should not be a zero-sum game. I should not benefit more only if you benefit less.” (p 27)

  Parecon will mean no private ownership of productive assets and no authoritarian control. Albert envisions a collective self-management which seeks, as closely as possible, to achieve balanced job complexes where …

  all able to work would have responsibility for some sensible sequence of tasks for which they would be well trained, but also such that no one would enjoy excessive elevation by the empowerment effects of their work. (p 54)

  Remuneration will be equitable — based on effort and sacrifice. Markets and central planning are replaced with “participatory planning.” This “participatory planning must include individual workers and consumers, and also workers and consumers councils and federations of councils as both self-managing conceivers and enactors of plans.” (p 115-116)

  How to allocate goods in a parecon can appear quite dry and complex. This section of No Bosses becomes quite dense with many examples and reasoned responses to possible objections, but it is necessary to get at the nitty-gritty of what is entailed in a parecon society.

  How to Achieve a Parecon?

  There is a need to have a vision of a better world, a morally based society for all peoples. But to achieve that vision, there must also be a plan for implementing such a vision. No Bosses does not go deeply into this.

  One possible solution: take immediate small possible steps and work towards serially implementing such steps until the vision is realized. Albert sees such a strategy as doomed. A wage increase obtained, for example, will lead to battle fatigue and enjoying a battle won while the war continues. (p 188)

  A second solution is to only fight for the big prize: implementation of the parecon, and accept no partial victories on the way. Albert does not foresee an overnight, outright victory. Without tangible signs of success, hope diminishes. “We build nothing lasting. We win nothing lasting,” writes Albert. (p 189)

  A third solution, the one favored by Albert, is to take whatever successes are achieved, keep up the pressure, and maintain solidarity until parecon is realized. “We build ties, connections, and means to exercise pressure that can win now. We also foreshadow, prepare for, and facilitate winning more later.” (p 189-190) Does it really differ from the first approach, besides a commitment to continue the good fight?

  Of course, a movement to establish a better economic model requires committed organizing and solidarizing. But a question lingers: once a tipping point is achieved, then how best to proceed to win a victory for the masses?

  This writer envisions a revolution in the form of a sustained general strike. To succeed, it cannot be limited to a one-day strike or a two-week strike or a one-year strike. The general strike must endure until victory is grasped. There will be immense hardships for the masses because the capitalists will not concede their power. They will dig in for the long haul, and they have their immense wealth to sustain this. Nonetheless, spread among the multitude of the masses are the skills and the means that, in totality, surpass that of the oligarchs. Solidarity requires that the masses must share and care for each other. In a parecon, everyone will be remunerated equitably, and there is no more meaningful place to begin the sharing than during a revolution. It is expected that strike-breaking Pinkertons cannot operate as ruthlessly today for their bosses, but assuredly, the oligarchs will seek to enact new laws as needed and to mobilize the police, military, and other security branches to try and crush a general strike. Therefore, the revolution calls for a steadfastness of purpose by the strikers.

  Where to start?

  Education is a must. Sadly, in societies where the monopoly media denigrates socialism, communism, and anarchism, it is difficult to bring such visions before the wider public. Also, few schools and universities entertain curricula discussing such “radical” models, often derided as “utopian,” asserting that they are unobtainable.

  Workers must also be at the forefront of promulgating a vision of betterment for workers, families, and the wider society. Unions and worker organizations need to inform and hold discussions with the workers and other interested groups.

  The parecon vision is not claimed to be perfect. And neither is that a compelling criticism since it is obvious that capitalism is far from perfect. Anyway, parecon is not set in stone; it is flexible; changes and tweaks are expected along the way and would be implemented as needed.

  People must contemplate alternative models to fetid capitalism — one of which should be the parecon vision. Albert has written several books on parecon. Read and consider No Bosses and other books such as Realizing Hope: Life Beyond Capitalism and Parecon: Life After Capitalism.

  Tomorrow’s youth deserve a better future than capitalism. Parecon is one vision that could lead to a better world. Why wait?

  The post Planning for a New, Better Future first appeared on Dissident Voice.

  This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

• November 8, 2021

  Does Repeatedly Calling China a Threat Reify It?

  Hegemony requires a coordinated mechanism to be in place for a belligerent entity to designate enemies, attack the leader(s) of the designated enemy, control the narrative (i.e., lie), launch unprovoked attacks that murder a citizenry, destroy the economic basis of the named enemy, loot its resources, topple the enemy’s leadership, and replace the leadership with one deemed acceptable to the attacking entity. Such a mechanism is multifaceted, and it requires a government, industry, military, and media that operate as a unit, along with other supporting facets. The United States is an entity that functions to support capitalism, imperialism, militarism, and situate itself as the global hegemon. The profit from the violence is funneled to the American plutocratic class.

  One supporting facet of empire is the think tanks that are called upon to produce propaganda and disseminate disinformation through its mass media. In the US, one highly influential think tank is the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR).

  In the book Wall Street’s Think Tank, author Laurence Shoup examines the CFR think tank. In its review of Shoup’s book, the socialist magazine Monthly Review wrote:

  The Council on Foreign Relations is the world’s most powerful private foreign-policy think tank and membership organization. Dominated by Wall Street, it claims among its members a high percentage of past and present top U.S. government officials as well as corporate leaders and influential figures in the fields of education, media, law, and nonprofit work… Shoup argues that the CFR now operates in an era of “Neoliberal Geopolitics,” a worldwide paradigm that its members helped to establish and that reflects the interests of the U.S. ruling capitalist class.

  If the US is going to wage serial wars, then it knows that it needs to stir up patriotic fervor to rally public support for the fighting forces. Therefore, it is critically important to control the narrative. In the case of the CFR, it has its own in-house media to assuage the message — the journal Foreign Affairs.

  In an article on 2 November, Foreign Affairs (FA) continues to demonize China, but it also cautions against the US putting all its militaristic eggs in the China basket. It calls for a balancing of US foreign policy. After all, there are plenty of other designated enemies out there.

  FA: “In view of its global economic weight, rapidly expanding military capabilities, illiberal values, and growing assertiveness, Beijing poses a formidable long-term threat to American security and freedom.”

  Analysis: From the Chinese perspective, the same could be said of the US — but magnified. The US is still the largest economy by the GNP metric. It has by far the largest military budget in the world, one that exceeds the spending of the next 11 countries. Moreover, the US has been deeply immersed in warring ever since its founding in 1776 — a founding based in the genocide of the Original Peoples. How is that for assertiveness? In contrast, China has not been at war for over 40 years, and this war lasted less than four weeks. So who poses “a formidable long-term threat” to who?

  Is the Chinese navy conducting so-called freedom-of-navigation exercises through waters off the coast of the US? Why this tendentious “freedom-of-navigation” descriptor? When has China ever stated that marine traffic was not permitted through the South China Sea? China’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said, “With the joint efforts of countries in the region including China, passage through the South China sea has been smooth and safe for a period of time, and not a single vessel has ever reported that its navigation is hindered or safety threatened in the South China Sea. The US allegation of ‘freedom of navigation’ in the South China Sea threatened is simply untenable.”

  Yet, FA says that Biden must keep challenging China on passage through the South China Sea. Obviously, there is nothing peaceful about US maneuvers in the South China Sea as Zhao noted, “[T]he US willfully sends large-scale advanced vessels and aircraft to the South China Sea for military reconnaissance and drills and illegally intruded into China’s territorial waters and space and water and air space adjacent to islands and reefs. Since the beginning of this year, the US side has conducted close-in reconnaissance for nearly 2,000 times and over 20 large-scale military drills on the sea targeting China.”

  One ought also ask whether China is encircling the US with military bases, as the US has encircled China?

  Lastly, what is launching wars if not a decidedly illiberal value. It seems that right off the bat that FA has been hoisted on its own petard.

  
  FA: “Biden has said that Chinese President Xi Jinping is ‘deadly earnest on becoming the most significant, consequential nation in the world.’”

  Analysis: What level of readership intelligence is FA targeting? Isn’t the proper response: so what? After all, which country strives to be insignificant or inconsequential? Isn’t striving for esteem bound with the essence of patriotism, love of country? Cheer for your team?

  FA: “At the Pentagon, China is said to be the ‘pacing threat,’ while Secretary of State Antony Blinken describes U.S. relations with it as ‘the biggest geopolitical test’ of the twenty-first century. Going further, the undersecretary for policy at the U.S. Defense Department has described China strategy as involving not one element of national power, or even the entirety of the U.S. government, but rather a ‘whole-of-society approach.’”

  Analysis: As for pacing threat, US Department of Defense chief Lloyd Austin defined it thus: “It means that China is the only country that can pose a systemic challenge to the United States in the sense of challenging us, economically, technologically, politically and militarily.” Do Austin and his colleagues mean that everything is hunky dory so long as China doesn’t develop too much to upset the US top dog?

  FA: “And among the primary rationales for Biden’s withdrawal from Afghanistan has been to free up resources for China instead.”

  Analysis: Should the US have continued to sacrifice the lives and well-being of its soldiers in Afghanistan? And one must not forget the threat that US occupation forces posed to the lives and livelihoods of Afghanis. Was wasting trillions of dollars to subdue goat herders with AK-47s a great strategy (with all due respect to goat herders bravely resisting foreign invaders)?

  In the aftermath of the US pullout, China sits well positioned to engage in win-win trade with Afghanistan and expand the Belt and Road Initiative.

  FA: “In view of Beijing’s ascendance, it is entirely reasonable for American policymakers to seek to devote new diplomatic, economic, and military resources to the challenge.”

  Analysis: How long do the American politicians figure they can keep a nation of 1.4 billion people down? And they can’t do this because China is rising. It has eliminated poverty. It leads in supercomputer technology. China has built the world’s fastest programmable quantum computers, said to be 10 million times faster than the world’s current fastest supercomputer. China has built the world’s first integrated quantum communication network, “combining over 700 optical fibers on the ground with two ground-to-satellite links to achieve quantum key distribution over a total distance of 4,600 kilometers for users across the country.” In AI, China claimed 35% of the global robotics patents between 2005 and 2019 (25,000), almost three times more than the 9,500 robotics patents received by the US during the same time. China has also made massive strides in space exploration. And this is just a snippet of China’s growing technological and scientific prominence. (For more see Godfree Roberts’s extremely informative China resource).

  FA: “Defending Asia against Chinese hegemony is important…”

  Analysis: In The Governance of China (Beijing: Foreign Languages Press, 2014, location 3918) chairman Xi Jinping said with crystal clarity,

  As China continues to grow, some people start to worry. Some take a dark view of China and assume that it will inevitably become a threat as it develops further. They even portray China as a terrifying Mephisto who will someday suck the soul of the world. Such absurdity couldn’t be more ridiculous, yet some people, regrettably, never tire of preaching it. This shows that prejudice is indeed hard to overcome.

  The American side, however, likes to think that if it parrots the China-hegemon mantra often enough that it must be so in the minds of others; this is despite Chinese officials on several occasions stating otherwise. Do not actions speak louder than words?

  Noam Chomsky got it right when he responded to the threat of China:

  I mean, everyone talks about the threat. When everyone says the same thing about some complex topic, what should come to your mind is, wait a minute, nothing can be that simple. Something’s wrong. That’s the immediate light that should go off in your brain when you ever hear unanimity on some complex topic. So let’s ask, what’s the Chinese threat?

  FA: “Beijing sees the United States and Europe as two power centers rather than one allied bloc and has long sought to drive wedges into the transatlantic relationship… China needs to understand that the United States and its allies are united in countering its economic and military pressure…”

  Analysis: The fact that FA merely opines that this is so (and opinion it is since no substantiation was provided for such a claim) is hardly compelling. Besides a simple comparison between China and the US reveals the inanity of the FA article: Which country resorts to initiating sanctions against other countries? Which country is engaged in warring against other countries?

  The FA article ends with a rather damning quotation: “As former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates has said, ‘In the 40 years since Vietnam, we have a perfect record in predicting where we will use military force next. We’ve never once gotten it right.’”

  If the US would ever decide to use military force against China (which it won’t because that would risk a nuclear conflagration in which there are no winners as that would end life on Earth as we know it), then it would have gotten it wrong for the last time.

  The post Does Repeatedly Calling China a Threat Reify It? first appeared on Dissident Voice.

  This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

• November 2, 2021

  Should One Stand up for Western Values?

  What are western values? One often hears a representative of a western country praising its western values. In a 2017 statement Canada’s prime minister Justin Trudeau adumbrated Canadian values as “openness, compassion, equality, and inclusion.”

  Given the psychological torture that Julian Assange has been subjected to over the years at the hands of western nations like the Britain, the United States, Sweden, and the silent host of western states and their media, one wonders where the compassion is. At the heart of the case against Assange is an antipathy to openness, as evidenced by the vituperation directed at Assange for publishing the truth; WikiLeaks has a perfect record of publication. And by promoting the right to know, Assange sought to include the public.

  Given the historical trajectory of the West, how might purportedly virtuous western values have arisen? Enlightened Europeans set sail for distant shores, claimed the inhabited lands as their own, derided the locals as savages, enslaved them, raped the women, chopped off body parts, spread disease, murdered multitudes, robbed the resources, destroyed the cultures, among a host of atrocities. Despotic monarchism, Nazism, fascism, and capitalism would be spawned by Europeans.

  Are westerners more enlightened today?

  The United Nations General Assembly 72nd session in December 2017, seems an apt barometer of current western values. The UNGA’s resolution 72/157, called for concrete action for the total elimination of racism globally.

  The resolution was resumed as 75/237, still entitled as “A global call for concrete action for the elimination of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance and the comprehensive implementation of and follow-up to the Durban Declaration and Programme of Action.” It was adopted by the General Assembly on 31 December 2020.

  Of the total votes cast, 106 were in favor, 14 were against, and there were 44 abstentions.

  The votes on Resolution 75/237 are very revealing of western values. Consider that among the 14 nay votes were a bevy of western countries:

  Australia
  Canada
  Czech Republic
  Democratic Republic of Congo
  France
  Germany
  Guyana
  Israel
  Nauru
  Marshall Islands
  Netherlands
  Slovenia
  United Kingdom
  United States

  The US explained its nay vote as being based on the “unfair and unacceptable singling out of Israel.”

  In his book, Fateful Triangle: The United States, Israel, and the Palestinians, the Jewish anarchist professor Noam Chomsky made crystal clear the Israeli racism toward Arabs: “Contempt for the Arab population is deeply rooted in Zionist thought.” Chomsky also alluded to western permissiveness toward Israeli racism: “Anti-Arab racism is … so widespread as to be unnoticeable; it is perhaps the only remaining form of racism to be regarded as legitimate.”¹

  The US is a country established through genocide and dispossession of the Indigenous peoples, and it set up an apartheid reservation system for those Indigenous peoples that survived. From this vantage point, it seems no wonder that Israel escaped criticism by the US since the US lacks a moral basis from which to castigate Israel. The same holds true for Canada, a country that still practices apartheid with its Indian Act and reserve system. It steadfastly supports Israeli apartheid.

  Several other western or western-aligned countries abstained, among them: Andorra, Austria, Belgium, Croatia, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Monaco, Aotearoa (New Zealand), Norway, Poland, Portugal, Republic of Korea (South), Romania, San Marino, Slovakia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and Ukraine. These countries refused to take a stand on the anti-racism resolution.

  What about the other countries that supported the resolution? In particular, how did the countries subjected to disinformation, persistent criticism, sanctions, and provocative military maneuvers from countries crowing and preening about their western values vote? China, Cuba, Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North), Iran, Iraq, Russia, and Syria all voted in favor of the anti-racism resolution.

  Which countries’ values best represent those embraced by people of conscience?

  Image credit: Cartoon Movement

  1. Colleague B.J. Sabri and I explored in a 12-part series what Israeli racism is: “Defining Israeli Zionist Racism,” Dissident Voice, read parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, and 12.

  The post Should One Stand up for Western Values? first appeared on Dissident Voice.

  
  This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Kim Petersen.
  

  This post was originally published on Radio Free.

• October 31, 2021

  Human Rights are for Everyone!

  Whereas disregard and contempt for human rights have resulted in barbarous acts which have outraged the conscience of mankind, and the advent of a world in which human beings shall enjoy freedom of speech and belief and freedom from fear and want has been proclaimed as the highest aspiration of the common people …

  The General Assembly,

  Proclaims this Universal Declaration of Human Rights as a common standard of achievement for all peoples …

  — preamble to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights

  A few days back, Turkey’s president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan was angered by ambassadors from ten western countries — US, Germany, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway and Sweden — who called for the release of Osman Kavala. Originally, Erdogan declared, “These 10 ambassadors must be declared persona non grata at once.” Eventually, Erdoğan would backtrack.

  Kavala, often described as a philanthropist in western media, was arrested on 1 November 2017 and charged with “attempting to overthrow the constitutional order” and “attempting to overthrow the government” in connection with the Gezi Park protests. Afterwards, Kavala was imprisoned in the maximum-security facility Silivri near Istanbul.

  He was acquitted in February 2020, but soon after charged with involvement in the 15 June 2016 coup attempt. Kavala was also cleared of this accusation, but he was kept in jail on the charge of “political or military espionage.”

  The incarceration of Kavala bears similarities with that of WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange. However, a glaring difference stands out.

  No western governments have spoken out for the human rights of Assange, including his native country, Australia.

  However, the United Nations Human Rights Commission did have something to say. Its expert on torture, Nils Melzer, said,

  The evidence is overwhelming and clear, Mr. Assange has been deliberately exposed, for a period of several years, to progressively severe forms of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, the cumulative effects of which can only be described as psychological torture.

  But western governments have been unmoved by such damning news. One might well surmise a tacit condonation among them for torture when carried out by western countries.

  Assange is a philanthropist! His sacrifice through WikiLeaks, to inform people of the machinations of their governments (and without error), has thoroughly demonstrated this. Among the files published by WikiLeaks was revealing the CIA hacking tools and extremely notoriously, for the United States and its military, the video Collateral Murder.

  The US is out to get Assange for exposing its crimes.

  
  If you don’t understand German turn on the subtitles.

  The British court, though, blocked his extradition to the US over concerns for Assange’s mental health and his risk of suicide. Nonetheless, the US appealed. Britain, for some inexplicable reason that defines logic and morality, returned a man who their judge deemed was at mental risk back to — what the UN torture expert said were conditions of “psychological torture” — the high-security Belmarsh Prison.

  *****Of course, justice and human rights must be for all. Kavala must receive justice. Assange must receive justice.

  Currently, the US is awaiting a decision from Britain’s High Court on its appeal against the denial of Assange’s extradition by a lower court. The US is pressing ahead with the appeal despite the revelation subsequent to the lower court’s decision that the CIA informer, Sigurdur Thordarson, is a clinically diagnosed sociopath with a history of criminal activity who admitted to lying against Assange.

  Human rights are for everyone. It is not just an obligation of governments to abide by their signature on the UNHDR; it is the duty of people of conscience to hold their governments to account, to do what they can to protect Julian Assange and any other wrongfully imprisoned or oppressed people.

  The post Human Rights are for Everyone! first appeared on Dissident Voice.

  
  This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Kim Petersen.
  

  This post was originally published on Radio Free.

• October 10, 2021

  CHRUNK

  The military leaders from three countries had assembled with their interpreters in Beijing’s historic Forbidden City. Chinese general Wei Fenghe hosted North Korean vice-marshal Kim Jong-gwan and the Russian army general Valery Gerasimov. Those gathered were feeling quite jovial, as they clinked glasses of champagne.

  “Fight fire with fire. Isn’t that what they say,” said vice-marshal Kim.

  They all raised their glasses again.

  Kim likened the newly formed CHRUNK (China-Russia-North Korea) to the AUKUS collaboration where the United States and United Kingdom agreed to partner and supply nuclear submarines to Australia. CHRUNK would see North Korea being provided with nuclear submarines by China and Russia.

  “Uncle Sam isn’t going to like this,” added Kim with a wry grin.

  “And what is Uncle Sam going to do about it?” said the usually dour-faced Gerasimov.

  “What can Uncle Sam do about it?” said the wispy-haired general Wei. “Nothing.”

  Kim and Gerasimov smiled at their Chinese host.

  “You can probably expect an increase of American navy ships through the South China Sea,” said Gerasimov, waving his right arm off to his side. “And they’ll probably come with a flotilla of nuclear submarines. I hope they can navigate the sea,” he added referring to the USS Connecticut‘s recent collision.

  “Let them come,” said Wei. “We each will have our own nuclear submarines now.”

  “But the Americans, and of course the Brits and Aussies — the barking pets of the Americans — will complain about us contributing to nuclear proliferation,” considered Kim.

  “Well, the Americans should have thought about that before providing nuclear submarines to Australia, and pissing Macron off in the process,” countered Gerasimov.

  “The thing is that the Aussies don’t have nuclear weapons and you do,” said Wei looking at Kim.

  “True, but we have a no-first-use policy just like China does,” demurred Kim.

  Gerasimov struck a pose with his left arm across his body, his right elbow on his left hand, and his right hand tucked under his chin like Rodin’s “The Thinker.”

  “There is nothing much more to sanction in any of us, as it is,” chuckled Gerasimov.

  “And it helps that we cooperate to overcome the sanctions. At any rate, we Koreans will maintain our juche,” said Kim.

  *****

  Back in Washington, the mood was decidedly different than in Beijing. In the Oval Office president Joe Biden was fuming. “How dare they do this,” he bellowed, thumping his clenched fist on the table.

  His inner circle sat silently. Vice-president Kamala Harris switched placement of her hands, one on top of the other on the lap of her pantsuit, à la the fashionista Hillary Clinton. National security adviser Jake Sullivan nodded his head. Secretary of defense Lloyd Austin sat stern-faced. Secretary of state Antony Blinken chimed in, “We have to do something about these communist upstarts.”

  Austin turned to his colleague and looked at him solemnly. He thought to inform the secretary of state that Russia was no longer communist, but he bit his tongue. Then he spoke, “What do you propose we do? We have sanctioned them, done our best to get our allies to not do business with them, had their tech CFO holed up with extradition proceedings. We broke our One-China undertaking, and we sent gunboats to try and scare them. Where has all that gotten us?”

  The air in the room grew heavy and tense. Aside from Biden, who now appeared to be nodding off, the others knew what the retired general Austin hinted at: the unthinkable. War. War with nuclear-armed adversaries.

  *****

  The Beijing meeting of CHRUNK concluded with a next agenda that proposed discussing freedom of navigation flotillas in the Straits of Florida, support for Puerto Rican independence, and possible CHRUNK expansion to Cuba and provisioning it with nuclear submarines.

  The post CHRUNK first appeared on Dissident Voice.

  
  This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Kim Petersen.
  

  This post was originally published on Radio Free.

• October 2, 2021

  Who is an Anti-vaxxer?

  Governments in certain countries, with the support of Big Pharma and the media, are mandating that citizens must vaccinate or be denied the right to enjoy public amenities in society, such as restaurants, cinemas, night clubs, museums, sporting events, etc. Those who wish to travel may be barred by not having documentation of being fully vaccinated. Probably worst of all, people are being fired from their jobs for refusing vaccination. These people who are fearful of the vaccines, in particular the mRNA vaccine, are being denigrated by calling them anti-vaxxers.

  First, is the mRNA vaccine even a vaccine? The World Health Organization (WHO) says,

  Vaccines train your immune system to create antibodies, just as it does when it’s exposed to a disease. However, because vaccines contain only killed or weakened forms of germs like viruses or bacteria, they do not cause the disease or put you at risk of its complications.

  The mRNA vaccines do not contain “only killed or weakened forms of germs like viruses or bacteria.” Even worse, reports of adverse reactions to the mRNA purported vaccines are on the increase, even causing death. So if the mRNA “vaccine” is not by definition a vaccine, then people opposed to being injected with the experimental mRNA “vaccine” can not truthfully be labeled anti-vaxxers.

  Second, even if mRNA “vaccines” were accepted to be vaccines, is it still proper to call vaccine skeptics anti-vaxxers? Is the ad hominem truthful? Assuredly many, if not most, of the people opposed to being jabbed with the mRNA “vaccines” and other experimental vaccines have been willingly vaccinated previously to protect against other infections, among them whooping cough, chicken pox, measles, smallpox, rubella, tetanus, mumps, and perhaps others. Having received so many vaccinations, and having agreed to their children being vaccinated, then how accurate is it to demean these people as anti-vaxxers?

  Third, are the vaccine skeptics opposed to others who of their own volition receive vaccines? Vaccine skeptics take action to protect their bodily sovereignty; they do not force others to receive or refuse vaccination. So they are not anti-vaxxers.

  Fourth, the vaccines are experimental. On 29 September, Globaldata Healthdcare reported, “Currently, there are over 2,000 COVID-19 clinical trials recruiting patients, with 16% being for vaccines and 84% for therapeutics.” One cannot ethically be mandated to take part in an experiment. Informed consent is required.

  Are some people opposed to being vaccinated by any vaccine for COVID-19? Sure, some are. Others are just opposed to having an experimental mRNA “vaccine” injected into their body. They have heard that these mRNA “vaccines” are not genuine vaccines; many would, however, accept a traditional vaccine that has been demonstrated experimentally to be safe and effective. These vaccines tend to be most prominent in China, and their usage in the West would cut into the mega-bucks that western pharmaceutical companies are currently reaping. Yet China has declared its COVID-19 vaccines a global public good and has donated its vaccines to various developing countries.

  There are many reasons to doubt the efficacy of the COVID-19 vaccines. Many vaccine skeptics are aware of several physicians and scientists cautioning against taking the vaccines.

  Dr Gérard Delépine, an oncologist, orthopedic surgeon, and statistician at the Raymond Poincaré Hospital in Paris analyzed the pre- and post-vaccine trends for 14 countries and found overwhelming evidence that COVID-19 vaccines are correlated with new infections and mortality. In other words, the vaccines appear to be killing people who are getting vaccinated, sadly ironic since people became vaccinated so they wouldn’t suffer or die.

  There are reports of vaccinations being associated with blood clots causing death, Bells palsy, central nervous system disorders, eye disorders, menstrual irregularities, etc. There are the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) reports of tens of thousands having died after receiving being vaccinated.

  Some people think the dangers of COVID-19 are overhyped. For example, when examining the data for winter-burden all-cause mortality prior to and since the appearance of COVID-19, there has been no significant difference in deaths from previous years.

  People are leery of the information surrounding vaccinations. Is there a cover up? For instance, reporting deaths or injury to VAERS after vaccination can get you fired. Corporate/state media have been criticized for censoring medical experts who question the vaccine safety, saying “the COVID jabs are causing the proliferation of toxic spike proteins throughout the vascular systems of injection recipients.”

  Given all this, is it any wonder that some people are fearful of the COVID-19 vaccines? And the fear is not limited to the mRNA “vaccines” because vaccine trials are still ongoing, although emergency use authorization had sped up the roll out of vaccines. The vector vaccine Oxford-AstraZeneca usage was stopped in several countries, especially in Europe; in Canada the National Advisory Committee on Immunization recommended provinces stop using AstraZeneca. The vector vaccine Janssen/Johnson & Johnson also received emergency use authorization and it has had its problems. In particular, a pause in its use occurred to “investigate whether the vaccine triggers a rare but serious side effect — the development of diffuse blood clots, even though the few individuals who developed the condition had low platelet levels.”

  Are the Establishment’s vaccine experts speaking ex cathedra or are they presenting the scientific evidence to support their stance? Since many of us non-experts are barraged by contradictory information surrounding COVID-19, it is incumbent upon people to do their own research to ascertain the verisimilitude of the reports. Apply open-minded skepticism. Scrutinize the credentials and expertise of the person(s) reporting, but more so the factually accuracy of their pronouncements along with the morality and logic applied thereto. Are the reports in peer-review science journals or tabloid newspapers? More important than the source, however, is the actual information. Ask is the evidence solid, are the facts accurate, is the logic coherent, and are the conclusions proffered credible? And always ask cui bono? Should anyone be profiting exorbitantly from the ill health of other people?

  The venerable professor Noam Chomsky spurns the pejorative use of the term anti. Chomsky promotes vaccination, but doesn’t call people resistant to vaccination anti-vaxxers. Nonetheless, he does depict them as people who are “willing to be a danger to the community.”

  Another means of demeaning a group is to accuse them of being deniers.

  There is a contingent of people who are skeptical that Earth is succumbing to global warming. They are disparaged as climate deniers rather than stating that they are climate skeptics. Some people have provided a serious scientific rationale for their skepticism; others are not so well versed in science but have listened to or read accounts of why people need not fret an imminent and catastrophic climate change.¹

  And there is the hot-button issue of abortion. Both sides seek to describe themselves as pro-. On the one hand, those who support the woman’s right to choose whether or not to undergo a procedure to terminate the fetus will label themselves as pro-choice (they will steer clear of describing themselves as pro-abortion). The pro-choice people will argue that it is the woman’s body, and she has sovereignty over her body. On the other hand, those who are against terminating a fetus will label themselves as pro-life (they will not describe themselves as anti-abortion). They seek to protect a nascent life form.

  If one applies the rationale of the pro-choice crowd, then they should support the right of vaccine skeptics to enjoy dominion over their body and, if the vaccine skeptics so choose, accept their unwillingness to being jabbed.

  The vaccine skeptics, however, are in the minority it seems. This is unsurprising given the government, corporate media nexus that pushes for vaccination. Nonetheless, being in the minority is sometimes the best place to be. In the 1960s, the psychologist Stanley Milgram carried out a study into obedience. The subjects were assigned the role of a teacher. They were introduced to a confederate, the learner, who they met outfitted with attached electrodes. During the experiment, the learner would be on the other side of a partition, out of sight of the teacher. The teacher’s job was to give the learner an electric shock each time a mistake was made. The shocks were increased for each mistake, eventually reaching a zone marked danger and finishing in a 450-volt zone marked XXX. An experimenter in a lab coat would prod the teachers to continue administering shocks until the end of the test despite learner hesitancy to shock the obviously distressed learner who was heard moaning, and this prodding continued even after the learner failed to respond. Roughly two-thirds of teachers obeyed the experimenter right through 450 volts. Such is the nature of human obedience — at least, for two-thirds of humans.²

  Today, people are not only being encouraged to be vaccinated, but those that resist are being coerced. Nowadays, Milgram’s experiments would encounter difficulty receiving permission from a human research ethics committee; regardless, the audacious and draconian force the Establishment employs against the unvaccinated minority poses a grave ethical scenario.

  The state actors say the science supports them, but the data they present is scarce. If the science is that strong, then there is no need to silence doctors, scientists, professors, and intellectuals who have reached different conclusions. Bring the two camps together and present the science, data, and evidence in an open and fair debate that allows people to reach an informed and fact-based conclusion. Otherwise, people who resist vaccination have a reasoned right to their skepticism, and are undeserving of ad hominem directed against them. An information war shouldn’t be mired by invective.

  Image credit: Photograph: Jordan Sigler/Alamy

  1. To be clear, this writer has noted a definite uptick in heat waves year after year, an increased incidence of storms, reports of glaciers melting, flooding and such events that point to a global warming trend.
  2. See Stanley Milgram, Obedience to Authority: An Experimental View (New York: Harper & Row, 1974).

  The post Who is an Anti-vaxxer? first appeared on Dissident Voice.

  This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

• September 29, 2021

  The Entire Korean Peninsula as an American Satrapy?

  

  Anti-imperilaism poster in Pyongyang shop

  Foreign Affairs (FA) magazine, published by the right-wing Council on Foreign Relations, has recently published some articles on taking advantage of economic challenges faced by North Korea. On 29 July, FA says, “Change is underway on the Korean Peninsula. FA posits that sanctions have worked for the US, as can be gleaned from the article’s title: “A Grand Bargain With North Korea: Pyongyang’s Economic Distress Offers a Chance for Peace.” The title is also disingenuous in the extreme since former US secretary-of-state Colin Powell made it clear: “We won’t do nonaggression pacts or treaties, things of that nature.”

  FA posits a re-prioritization in North Korean governance whereby the military will now play second fiddle to the economy. This, says FA, “sets the stage for efforts to resuscitate North Korea’s dying economy.”

  Why is North Korea’s economy in the predicament that it is? FA, presumably attributes the economic difficulties to military overspending. But FA’s analysis downplays the deleterious effects of sanctions spearheaded by the United States against North Korea. It does admit to this further down in the article, and it also points to the adversity imposed by “COVID-19 restrictions … and a relentless series of natural disasters.” However, why would anyone sanction a country beset by natural disasters and disease? And North Korea, despite whatever skepticism, does not list itself as having any COVID-19 cases.

  FA notes, “Kim’s criticisms of U.S.-South Korean joint military exercises and his country’s firing of cruise missiles and short-range ballistic missiles have also been more notable for their level of self-restraint than for escalating tensions on the peninsula.”

  However, North Korea has already demonstrated that it has a nuclear weapon and that it has long-range delivery capability. It is obvious that if any actor were to attack North Korea that the aggressor would be punished. Any reading of this exposes a hypocrisy, on the one hand North Korea is considered “notable for their level of self-restraint” and not “escalating tensions on the peninsula.” On the other hand, the US and South Korea conducted joint military exercises in late August. Is this self-restraint or is it provocation? Was not the seizure, announced by the US Justice Department in July, of a tanker that transports oil to North Korea a provocation?

  

  Cycling in a North Korean agricultural village

  FA points at food shortages in North Korea. However, it is important to remember that during US intrusion into the Korean civil war, the US wiped out the economic and agricultural basis of North Korea and killed millions of North Koreans. Following its aggression of North Korea, North Koreans have been forced to endure hardship to remain independent of their attacker. Absent this historical background, one might be fooled by FA’s attempt to create an image of American benevolence when it writes: “Kim [Jong-un] is treading carefully on the military front so as not to foreclose the opportunity for dialogue with the United States, which could serve as a guarantor of his country’s future economic security.”

  North Korea does not need an economic guarantor, it needs the US to stop sabotaging North Korea’s economic efforts.

  FA preposterously dreams:

  For U.S. President Joe Biden and South Korean President Moon Jae-in, Pyongyang’s shift represents an opportunity. They should aim to resolve North Korea’s underlying security concerns—particularly its economic security—in return for progress on denuclearization, the reduction of Pyongyang’s dependence on China, and North Korea’s eventual integration into the U.S.-led liberal international order with the close support of South Korea.

  FA posits North Korea handing over its defense and integrating into the “U.S.-led liberal international order” with the close support of South Korea while at the same time poking a stick in the eye of China. North Koreans are extremely aware of their history and how the US separated the Korean people, conducted a scorched earth campaign in the northern part of the peninsula, and they are well aware that China came to fight alongside them to defeat the US. It is risible that anyone would posit that North Korea would relinquish its independence, its juche, and ally, to be led by its aggressor.

  FA argues, “Achieving superior joint military and diplomatic power is what will enable the allies to deter Kim’s threats, allowing for a new approach to North Korea that can pave the way to a lasting peace.”

  How will the US achieve this? To threaten North Korea with “superior joint military and diplomatic power”? Peace from the barrel of a gun and deadly sanctions? North Korea succeeded in achieving nuclear capability to punish any military attack against it. In the meantime, North Korean chairman Kim Jong-un can achieve economic development by joining the Chinese-initiated BRI and further opening up to Russia.

  FA pushes increased militarization of South Korea, by having South Korea ease access to US military forces in the country. FA complains that South Korean domestic political pressure is a barrier to freer military training in the country.

  FA portrays the US-South Korean summit in May where the US committed to providing South Korea with COVID-19 vaccines as sending “a powerful signal to South Koreans that the United States is placing a high priority on the relationship.”

  The Diplomat asked, “Why isn’t South Korea Buying Chinese Vaccines?” It noted, “Like many Asian countries, Seoul is having troubling sourcing vaccines. But unlike its neighbors, South Korea has so far refused to turn to a ready supplier: China.” The article states, “Part of the problem is that the South Korean government is still eagerly and persistently seeking vaccine supplies from the United States.” China’s Global Times reported, “After the World Health Organization (WHO) officially approved two Chinese-made COVID-19 vaccines, South Korea became the first country to fully exempt travelers vaccinated with shots of Sinopharm and Sinovac from its original mandatory two-week quarantine” on 1 July. It seems a prudent move to maintain good relations with South Korea’s largest trading partner, China.

  FA has further scorn for China. It accused China of “bullying” South Korea over its apoplexy regarding the deployment of the US Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) missile defense system in 2016 — a system which can be used against China.

  The US places military armaments a continent away from US shores — a hop, skip, and jump from China — and FA accuses China of bullying? How would the US feel if such a missile-interceptor system were placed in Cuba by China?

  FA promoted an end-of-war declaration that “would not be linked in any way to a peace treaty.” Other steps are demanded before consideration of a peace treaty between the parties. One is a non-starter: the verified destruction of nuclear weapons by North Korea. Of course, only by North Korea, the US will keep its nuclear weapons. As a test of the US’s word, imagine the American reaction if North Korea agreed to denuclearize, as long as the US also destroys its nuclear weapons, as is required by the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty’s article 6, which the US signed on to.

  *****

  In a September article, “The Last Chance to Stop North Korea?: U.S. Aid Could Help Revive Nuclear Diplomacy,” FA seems to have had its druthers about the late July article that envisioned coercing North Korea through “superior joint military and diplomatic power” and now supports humanitarian aid as the way to denuclearization.

  

  Kim Il Sung Square in the center of Pyongyang

  The subtitle should give pause to most informed readers. First, consider what is meant by “nuclear diplomacy” in this context. It means that a country (especially the northern half of a country) that was devastated by an American scorched earth campaign, one that used bioweapons and chemical weapons — and even threatened attack with nuclear weapons, should disarm itself of a deterrent while the aggressor maintains its nuclear arsenal. Furthermore, just what is US aid? The Democratic Republic of Korea does not need US aid; it needs an end to US-led international sanctions against the country.

  Despite noting US participation with South Korea for military exercises, FA writes that “the Biden administration should not take comfort in the relative lack of [North Korean] provocations” recently.

  This wording seems particularly one-sided. Are the South Korean and US military maneuvers (including training previously of a decapitation unit) not provocative? Is the stationing of US troops in South Korea not provocative? Consider what the reaction would be if North Korea held military exercises off the American coast?

  FA attempts to evoke fear of the North Korean menace:

  “… these [North Korean] tests aren’t the only troubling signs. … the reprocessing of plutonium and enriched uranium for an arsenal of bombs now estimated to number between 20 and 40. … The direction is clear: North Korea wants to have a modern force that can engage in nuclear warfighting, that can threaten the United States with missiles that can carry multiple warheads and are impervious to ballistic missile defenses, and that can survive and retaliate credibly against a U.S. preemptive attack.” [italics added]

  This appears to be just a risible posturing. How is it that North Korea would threaten the United States? Through the mere development of its military capability? Such logic would apply to every country that seeks to upgrade its military. Are all these countries then threatening the US? Moreover, would it be responsible for a government to allow its defensive capability to lag behind that of a belligerent parked next door? A belligerent that eschews a peace treaty. A belligerent that refuses to adhere to a no-first use of nuclear weapons as North Korea does?

  The FA article then complains that the improved military capability “would make it more difficult for the United States to preemptively strike a missile before its launch. These are all capabilities that make North Korea’s nuclear deterrent more survivable and impervious to a U.S. first strike.” A contradiction arises; now the writer has positioned the US as a preemptive threat. So, in essence, the writer defies all logic by preposterously postulating that a country enhancing its survivability and deterrence against a preemptive external attack makes it the threat.

  But FA has a solution on “how to stop North Korea before it crosses this threshold”: “getting diplomacy back on track through humanitarian assistance that includes American COVID-19 vaccines and food aid, both of which the country needs.”

  Providing US aid would serve American hegemonic aims in that it “would reduce Chinese influence in Pyongyang.” Seems to be rather self-serving aid. Sanction a nation, intercept North Korean shipping at sea, then take advantage of any economic deterioration to pose as a generous benefactor by proffering aid.

  To its credit, the September FA article does not suggest a militaristic or sanctions-based approach; instead it suggests a humanitarian approach, but a purportedly humanitarian approach that secures American geo-strategic aims.

  *****

  Does one dare trust the word of the United States? Look no further than what happened to Muammar Gaddafi and Libya when it abandoned its nuclear weapon program, what happened when Saddam Hussein’s Iraq allowed inspections for weapons or mass destruction, or when Syria’s Bashar al-Assad surrendered Syria’s chemical weapons.

  

  Pyongyang

  As A.B. Abrams expressed with crystal clarity in his excellent book, Immovable Object: North Korea’s 70 Years at War with American Power, that North Koreans are well aware of how American imperialism works, of its military depravity, and its proclivity for disinformation. North Korans have demonstrated resistance, resilience, and self-reliance. It has served them well since the armistice was signed on 27 July 1953. North Korea is an economically sanctioned country, yes, but it is not an economically stunted country. North Korea has achieved so much. It provides tuition-free education right through university, universal health care, preschools, and housing and jobs for all its citizens. It is a country that despite the destruction it suffered from US-led UN warring has achieved military deterrence and social development that Americans can only dream of. It is an independent country neither rich, neither poor.

  All photos by Kim Petersen, copyleft.

  The post The Entire Korean Peninsula as an American Satrapy? first appeared on Dissident Voice.

  This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

• August 14, 2021

  Justice and Politics: When Words are Betrayed by Deeds

  

  Michael Kovrig-Meng Wanzhou-Michael Spavor. Photograph: (Agencies)

  For neither man nor angel can discern hypocrisy, the only evil that walks invisible, except to God alone.

  — John Milton, Paradise Lost, Book III

  Simply put, hypocrisy is when words and actions don’t agree. It is revealing when one applies this straightforward definition to the cases involving two Canadian detainees in China, business consultant Michael Spavor and former diplomat Michael Kovrig, and the Chinese detainee in Canada, Huawei Technologies executive Meng Wanzhou.

  The United States is seeking the extradition of Meng for fraud-related charges. The two Michaels were apprehended soon after in China and charged with spying on national secrets and providing state secrets to foreign entities.

  On Wednesday 11 August, Spavor was sentenced by a Chinese court to 11 years in prison.

  Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau was dismissive of the verdict. “Today’s verdict for Mr. Spavor comes after more than two and a half years of arbitrary detention, a lack of transparency in the legal process, and a trial that did not satisfy even the minimum standards required by international law.”

  There are many parts of this statement by Trudeau that require deeper consideration.

  First, Trudeau notes the duration of the detention, more than two and a half years. It is commonly held that justice delayed is justice denied. When the wheels of justice grind too slowly, there is a danger of a gross injustice being committed. When detainees are found to be not guilty, a nonrecoverable portion of their lives has been squandered. If Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig are innocent, then a gross injustice has occurred. However, this applies equally in the case of Meng Wanzhou who has been under house arrest for over two and a half years.

  Does Trudeau’s concern for long-term detention only apply to Canadians? Has Trudeau ever uttered one word regarding the over a decade-long detention and torture of Julian Assange for revealing US war crimes, a detention for which Canada may well be complicit?

  Second, Trudeau claims the detentions are arbitrary. However, if the verdict reached was just, then the fact that Spavor was found guilty would indicate that his detention was not arbitrary.

  The Global Times argued:

  The Dandong Intermediate People’s Court handled the case of Spavor in strict accordance with the law, fully protected Spavor’s litigation rights, respected and honored the Canadian side’s consular rights such as visiting and receiving notification, and arranged for the Canadian side to attend the trial. However, Canada, disregarding the political nature of the Meng Wanzhou incident and acting as an accomplice of the US, has detained Meng, an innocent Chinese citizen who didn’t violate any Canadian law, for nearly 1,000 days. This is arbitrary detention in every sense of the term, the embassy in Canada said.

  The Chinese Embassy in the US also said Meng has never violated any Canadian law but has been detained by Canada until today. Canada chooses to be an accomplice to the US and this is a textbook example of arbitrary detention by “exercising leverage over a foreign government.”

  And as the film The Secret Trial 5 makes clear, arbitrariness is part of Canada’s so-called justice system; people can be locked away for many years in Canada without ever being charged.

  Third, Trudeau has not denied or refuted the charges against the two Michaels. His words are directed against the process.

  Fourth, as for the process, rightly or wrongly, a lack of transparency is the norm when the cases involve state secrets. The same lack of transparency holds true in Canada.¹ A lack of transparency is antithetical to protecting the rights of the accused and for seeking justice. Nonetheless, to cast stones at the actions of another while carrying out the self-same actions speaks to hypocrisy.

  Trudeau’s statement continues: “For Mr. Spavor, as well as for Michael Kovrig who has also been arbitrarily detained, our top priority remains securing their immediate release. We will continue working around the clock to bring them home as soon as possible.” In this regard, the Canadian authorities’ sentiments and actions for the Michaels are shared by Chinese authorities for Meng.

  Canadian foreign affairs minister Marc Garneau said the verdict against Kovrig is “not acceptable in terms of international rules-based law.” Such a statement falls flat in light of the recent charge that Canada is violating international law by selling arms to Saudi Arabia, arms that can be used to continue its aggression against Yemen. One needs to dig much deeper into what the rule of law means for Canada. There is no escaping the fact that the country is a colonial-settler state imposed through genocide against the Original Peoples of the landmass designated Canada by navigator Jacques Cartier. Still today, one headline makes clear that “Canada Is Waging an All-Front Legal War Against Indigenous People.” This points to the quintessence of Canada and its political class. Despite having seized political control through genocide, having committed to reconciliation, and having pledged (as Trudeau did) to a “renewed, nation-to-nation relationship with First Nations peoples … [as] a sacred obligation,” the words have exposed betrayal. Instead capitalist exploitation continues unabated while the Canadian state stonewalls reconciliation and legal redress for the Original Peoples.

  Cong Peiwu, China’s ambassador to Canada, rejected accusations that Spavor’s trial was unfair and not open. “I would like to say that the minimum standard is for other countries to respect our judicial sovereignty. So here I would like to stress that actually it’s the Canadian side which did not meet the minimum standard of the international norm.”

  What is the American Gambit?

  Foreign affairs minister Garneau seems to have faith in American president Joe Biden being able to secure the release of the Michaels by “treating them as if they were American citizens detained by China.” This is following previous president Donald Trump politicizing Meng’s proceedings: “If I think it’s good for what will be certainly the largest trade deal ever made – which is a very important thing – what’s good for national security, I would certainly intervene if I thought it was necessary.”

  It points to a double standard for extradition as a means for achieving justice. Consider the case of Anne Sacoolas, the wife of a US diplomat who the US refuses to send to Britain to stand trial for her hit-and-run accident that killed teenager Harry Dunn in 2019. Some Americans, it seems, are beyond the reach of the law.

  China is well aware of what is transpiring. China’s Huawei is the world leader in cutting-edge 5G technology. The US fears being left behind and is seeking to dissuade other states from using that technology. Thus, China’s government views Meng’s arrest as part of US efforts to hamper its technology development. Neither are the allies of the US exempt from America’s extraterritorial reach as a weapon to stymie competition. The French company Alstom experienced this as its former senior executive Frederic Pierucci was arrested and imprisoned for over 2 years in New York. Alstrom eventually had to pay a huge fine of US$772 million. Said Pierucci, “That [fine] facilitated the buyout of 70 per cent of Alstom by its main American competitor General Electric, blocking a potential merger between Alstom and Shanghai Electric Company.”

  Canada is harming its relationship with the rapidly developing economic colossus of China to appease the United States. However, it ought to bear in mind how the US swooped in to replace Australian exports to China. This was after Australia aligned itself with a belligerent US policy toward China causing China to curtail imports from Australia.

  A Possible Deal?

  Yesterday (14 August), Canada’s National Observer published an ad hominem piece calling for an exchange of detainees. It begins, “The ugly messy truth about the two Michaels is that we must get past our indignation, however justified, over China’s gross violations of all international norms.” What is the justification? What if Chinese indignation is justified? What adduces the hyperbolic “China’s gross violations of all international norms.” All?

  The National Observer grants, “Meng is charged purely for geo-political gamesmanship.” What the newsletter does not discuss is that Meng previously turned down an offer for her release in return for admitting wrongdoing.

  Doubts can be gleaned from the notes of the associate chief justice Heather Holmes who is presiding over the extradition case,

  Isn’t it unusual that one would see a fraud case with no actual harm, many years later, and one in which the alleged victim — a large institution — appears to have numerous people within the institution who had all the facts that are now said to have been misrepresented?

  The National Observer insults China by calling its government a “regime.” The Chinese “regime” is one that lifted its entire population out of absolute poverty. Elsewhere on Canadian streets, one will see too many homeless people, people whose dignity is disparaged by having to rely on food banks, begging, or dumpster diving to quell hunger.

  So which “regime” is interested in looking after the people — all its people?

  Meanwhile, Kovrig, who stood trial in March, continues to await word on a verdict. And Meng awaits a decision on the extradition outcome.

  1. Read “Kafka’s Canada at 15: The secret trials of Mohamed Harkat” and “Canada’s Supreme Court authorizes secret trials and arbitrary, indefinite detention.”

  The post Justice and Politics: When Words are Betrayed by Deeds first appeared on Dissident Voice.

  This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

• August 10, 2021

  Targeting Cuba and China: Disinformation against Communism

  I was the CIA director. We lied, we cheated, we stole.

  — Mike Pompeo, former US secretary of state on how the United States conducts its business

  One of the filters in the Propaganda Model propounded by professors Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky is stoking a fear of communism.¹ The establishment’s anti-communism has never abated in the United States. The elitists require a populace fearful of communism to protect their own misbegotten wealth accumulation. Thus,the bugaboo of communism must be opposed wherever it arises. At its worst, the US would wage war against communist countries such as North Korea, Viet Nam, Cambodia, and Yugoslavia. When not militarily attacked, communist governments will be demonized by a relentless campaign of disinformation designed to bring about the fall of the government and its replacement by a government amenable to the US establishment, as happened in the Soviet Union. That is the nature of imperialism and predatory capitalism.

  The establishment’s anti-communism is alive and kicking in The Diplomat, a current-affairs magazine for the Asia-Pacific region. This one can readily glean from its article titled “How China Helps the Cuban Regime Stay Afloat and Shut Down Protests.”²

  The in-one’s-face bias of the article’s heading and the subheading (“Chinese companies have played a key part in building Cuba’s telecommunications infrastructure, a system the regime uses to control its people, just as the CCP does within its own borders.”) immediately gives pause to the discerning reader. First, regime is a tendentious term meant to delegitimize a government. Second, the subheading asserts Chinese governmental control. While it points at the means, it does not provide any evidence that the assertion holds true.

  The leaning of the writers is apparent from their bios: Leland Lazarus is a speechwriter to US Southern Command’s admiral Craig Faller, and Dr Evan Ellis is a research professor of Latin American Studies at the US Army War College Strategic Studies Institute. They write, “July 11, thousands of people across Cuba took to the streets, fed up with the lack of food, basic products, medicine, and vaccines to combat COVID-19.”

  This flash-in-the-pan, minor protest was allegedly orchestrated by the NED and US AID. Furthermore, the monopoly media narrative has been undermined by its use of fake and doctored images.³

  The writers complain, “Protesters used social media to broadcast to the world what was happening, but the communist regime shut off the internet and telephone services, pulling the plug on their connection outside the island.”

  A question: If your government is targeted by a barrage of disinformation from outside actors, would you allow for the disinformation to continue? Disinformation is hailed by many to be a crime against humanity and a crime against peace. And the disinformation campaigns of the US are myriad. Among them are the phantom missile attack in the Gulf of Tonkin, the non-existent WMDs in Iraq, the Viagra-fueled rapes in Libya, the Syrian government chemical-weapon attacks, and the current allegation of a genocide in Xinjiang, China. Millions of people died as a result of such disinformation.

  It is clear that Lazarus and Ellis would like to knock down two communist governments that US capitalism finds antithetical, with one article. What is the crime of Cuba? The State Department Policy Planning Staff pointed to the “primary danger” the US faces, “The simple fact is that [former Cuban leader Fidel] Castro represents a successful defiance of the US…,”⁴ a slap in the face to the imperialist Monroe doctrine.

  The writers turned to the old-school Cuba policy advocacy of US senator Marco Rubio who tweeted: “Expect the regime in #Cuba to block internet & cell phone service soon to prevent videos about what is happening to get out to the world… By the way, they use a system made, sold & installed by #China to control and block access to the internet in #Cuba.’”

  Again, monopoly media undermines itself and senator Rubio: “… Fox News, however, included a small detail that went largely unnoticed. As he [Rubio] was speaking about ‘brutal oppression’ by the Cuban government and hailing the protesters, the footage shown by the cable station depicted a rally by Cuban government supporters. Fox News apparently knew exactly what it was airing, since it was careful to blur the slogans that some of the activists were carrying.”

  Lazarus and Ellis see a sinister hand: “China’s role in helping the regime cut off communications during the protests has exposed one of the many ways Beijing helps keep the Cuban communist regime afloat.”

  Meanwhile the capitalist⁵ government in the US is trying its damnedest to sink the communist government in Cuba. The US has long had an adversarial relationship with Cuba, starting with launching the Spanish-American War based on a lie concocted by US media. After the successful Cuban Revolution, the US has kept in place an economic blockade of the island. And seldom discussed is the fact that the US continues to occupy Guantánamo Bay, which Cuba has often demanded be returned to its sovereignty.

  Since the article never mentions otherwise, it is assumed to be predicated upon the US and its Occidental allies not engaging in monitoring telecommunications and digital surveillance, which Edward Snowden has revealed to be patently false. This is not whataboutism because there is no evidence of a Chinese backdoor to Huawei and the company has pledged to not insert spying devices in its products; to do otherwise would be a bad business decision.

  China’s Interests in Cuba

  Lazarus and Ellis envision nefarious Chinese stratagems underlying their trade with Cuba:

  China recognizes Cuba’s geostrategic importance. Due to its position in the Caribbean, Cuba can exert influence over the southeastern maritime approach to the United States, which contains vital sea lanes leading to ports in Miami, New Orleans, and Houston. Author George Friedman has argued that, with an increased presence in Cuba, China could potentially “block American ports without actually blocking them,” just like U.S. naval bases and installations pose a similar challenge to China around the first island chain and Straits of Malacca. Cuba’s influence in the Caribbean also makes it a useful proxy through which Beijing can pressure the four countries in the region (out of the 15 total globally) that recognize Taiwan to switch recognition.

  The entire article is speculative. It is littered with words like “possible,” “can,” and “could.” The writers do not elaborate on how China might pressure the Caribbean countries. Usually countries switch allegiance to China from Taiwan based on financial inducements and not from hegemonic pressure.

  Economic Support versus Economic Sanctions

  The Diplomat writers argue that “China helps sustain the [Cuban] regime through economic engagement.”

  What exactly do the writers intend to imply by economic engagement sustaining a regime? The logical corollary is that economic sanctions are aimed at “regime change.” Stemming from this logic, the US uses economic measures to sustain the theocratic criminality and corruption in Saudi Arabia and economic sanctions to try and change socialistic governments in, among others, Venezuela, Cuba, and China. Nonetheless, trade is what countries do to build their economies.

  Regarding the US favored method of applying pressure, American academics John Mueller and Karl Mueller wrote: “economic sanctions … may have contributed to more deaths during the post-Cold War era than all weapons of mass destruction throughout history.”

  The academics further noted,

  It is interesting that this loss of human life has failed to make a great impression in the United States….

  Some of the inattention may derive from a lack of concern about foreign lives. Although Americans are extremely sensitive to American casualties, they – like others – often seem quite insensitive to casualties suffered by those on the opposing side, whether military or civilian.

  The world views economic sanctions in a different light from the US. This was illuminated by the UN General Assembly vote demanding an end to the US economic blockade on Cuba for the 29th year in a row. Aside from two negative votes cast by the US and its Israeli ally, 184 countries voted in favor of the resolution.

  Perplexingly, the writers pointed out that “China has not, however, sold Cuba any significant weapons systems, as it has done with other states in the region such as Venezuela, Ecuador, and Bolivia.”

  To the extent that selling armaments is a legitimate business, then why shouldn’t China sell armaments? Venezuela, Ecuador, and Bolivia are not warring with other countries. Regarding the morality of selling weapons, consider that the US sells weapons to Saudi Arabia, a country committing genocide against Yemen and to Israel, a country that serially aggresses and economically strangulates Palestine. Are the writers not aware that the US pokes China in the eye by selling armaments to its renegade province, Taiwan, in contravention of the One-China policy to which the US shook hands?

  “Digital Authoritarianism”

  The writers complain about “China exporting ‘digital authoritarianism’ to illiberal regimes across the region. In Venezuela, Chinese telecommunication firm ZTE helped the Maduro regime establish the ‘fatherland ID card’ system, which it used to control not only voting, but the distribution of scarce food packages.”

  As for the ID cards, the link provided by the writers notes that the “system could lead to abuses of privacy by Venezuela’s government.” Besides, which country does not require ID in order to cast a vote?

  Why are the food packages scarce? What would one expect when the US has sanctions against Venezuela? It is quite disingenuous to criticize a government for food packages being scarce when that scarcity is caused by the writers’ own government. Moreover, the writers continue to use the word control pejoratively. Are the voting systems and economic distribution networks not a function of government implementation everywhere? If the writers want to insist that voting and the results are manipulated, then provide the evidence. Contrariwise, US observers endorsed the legitimacy of Venezuela’s May 2020 election; also, international observers were “unanimous in concluding that the elections were conducted fairly.” The link supplied by the writers is now dead, but the title reads: “For poor Venezuelans, a box of food may sway vote for Maduro.” While in Venezuela, a group of us visited the mercals — where food was being made affordable for the masses — where we were informed: “The Chavez administration does not want Venezuela’s food needs to be dependent on outside sources, so a concerted effort has been made to produce all foods locally.” Obviously that food independence is still a work in progress. Such progress is not made easier by being targeted by economic sanctions.

  The writers make clear their anti-leftist and their anti-democracy views:

  Leftist authoritarian regimes are consolidating control in Venezuela and Nicaragua. The populist left has returned to power in Bolivia in the form of the MAS party, in Argentina with the Peronists, and in Mexico with Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador and the Morena movement. In Peru, the recent election of Pedro Castillo, a teacher from Cajamarca with a radical left agenda, similarly raises alarm bells. Upcoming elections in the region raise the prospects for an even broader spread of the populist left, including the prospect of victory by Xiomara Castro in November 2021 elections in Honduras, a President Petro emerging from Colombia’s 2022 elections, or the return of Lula da Silva and his Workers’ Party in Brazil’s October 2022 elections.

  Yikes! Democracy can be such a pain in the butt. As the anarchist professor Noam Chomsky wrote, “In the real world, elite dislike of democracy is the norm.”⁶ For American elitists, “the United States supports democracy if, and only if, the outcomes accord with its strategic and economic objectives.”⁷ That the US did and would seek “regime change” in Latin America is borne out by its Operation Condor.

  Lazarus and Ellis attempt to justify the US’ machinations against Cuba and China:

  China’s continued efforts to prop up the Cuban regime matters to U.S. national security. For both good and bad, Cuba is connected to the United States through geographic proximity, historical connections, and family ties. The U.S. government has long focused on violations of the freedoms and human rights of the Cuban people.

  The language of Lazarus and Ellis is oleaginous. Having a focus on human rights violations is qualitatively different from opposing human rights violations and quantitatively different from supporting human rights violations, as the US did when it supported the Fulgencio Batista “regime” (to use the parlance of Lazarus and Ellis) in Cuba, which served American corporate and military interests while massacring his own people. How does the occupation of Guantánamo Bay, where prisoners of war languish in what Amnesty International called the “gulag of our time”; the Bay of Pigs fiasco; Operation Northwoods; and economic sanctions speak for American fidelity to human rights?

  The writers with ties to the US military accuse China of a “malign intent against the U.S. in cyberspace.” They reason that “Cuba could also be an area from which China could gather intelligence and conduct cyberattacks against the United States.”

  The writers speculate about a malign Chinese intent. Malign intent is evidenced by the Stuxnet virus that the USA and Israel inserted into the Iranian nuclear program. The authors write as if the US is not guilty of the malignity they assert that China is guilty of.

  How the United States Can Respond

  Lazarus and Ellis argue that the US “should concentrate on helping partners in the region to engage with China in the most healthy, productive ways. For example, an emphasis on transparency inhibits the ability to engage in corrupt backroom deals with the Chinese that benefit the elites signing the deals rather than the country as a whole.”

  Helping partners and advocating for transparency is great. Is this what the US does? It would be foolish to deny that the US does not engage with corrupt rulers, rulers who siphon off the loans meant for the people of the country who are then held responsible for the odious debt to the financial lenders?⁸

  Lazarus and Ellis write, “With respect to cybersecurity, the United States should similarly look to increase support to partners in protecting their citizens’ privacy and security from malign actors like China.”

  Let’s leave aside the unsupported allegation that China might be a malign actor. Instead, let’s ask what kind of actor is the US? Is it a benevolent actor? This is the actor that just recently ended a two-decade war in impoverished Afghanistan — a country where the US engaged in a cycle of war crimes. Ask yourself: is it a benevolent actor who engages in disinformation campaigns against countries like China that have eradicated absolute poverty (while in the US a 2019 measure of poverty showed a rate of 10.5%) and accuse it of the scurrilous and easily debunked allegation of committing genocide in Xinjiang? Is it an upstanding country that pursues the locking away of Julian Assange for exposing US war crimes in Iraq and elsewhere?

  The writers suggest part of the solution for escaping Chinese spying is cybersecurity training by the US.

  Is that a good idea — trusting Uncle Sam? If you get trained by the US and use US technology, then you might end up being surveilled by the US. Ask German chancellor Angela Merkel and dozens of other world leaders.

  Lazarus and Ellis persist:

  While recent events in Cuba show China’s growing influence in the region, the CCP’s emphatic support of the Cuban regime’s repressive acts also highlights that it is on the wrong side of history. The U.S. must deepen partnerships with Latin American countries and Caribbean friends.

  Was the US on the right side of history in Korea, Viet Nam, Cambodia, Laos, historical Palestine, Iraq, Iran, Haiti, Chile, Grenada, etc? How should countries like Guatemala, Honduras, Chile, Venezuela, Argentina, Bolivia and the other Latin American countries targeted by Operation Condor feel about a deepened partnership? And how would the peoples of Caribbean countries — e.g., Haiti, Grenada, Puerto Rico, etc — feel about a deepened partnership with the US?

  Lazarus and Ellis proffer the haggard imperialist platitudes of partnership based on shared values, security, prosperity, and freedom. Which populations would they like to tempt with such an offer? To the people who experienced US-supported coups in Nicaragua, Honduras, Haiti, Bolivia, Brazil, or the masses in Venezuela subjected to unceasing American-government intrigues against their country? There is a reason why Latin Americans and Caribbean countries are leftists or turning leftward.

  1. See Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky, Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media (Pantheon Books, 2002 edition).
  2. Throughout the article all emphases within quotations have been added by this writer.
  3. See here, here, and here.
  4. Cited in Noam Chomsky, Who Rules the World? Metropolitan Books, 2014: 100.
  5. Since the writers deem it important to identify the governments in China and Cuba as communist, it would seem appropriate and balanced to identify other governments by their ideology.
  6. Chomsky, 45.
  7. Chomsky, 74.
  8. See Noam Chomsky, Profit over People: Neoliberalism and Global Order (Seven Stories Press, 1999). Chomsky describes how neoliberalism and financial institutions like the IMF and its structural adjustments have plunged the masses in developing countries into despair.

  The post Targeting Cuba and China: Disinformation against Communism first appeared on Dissident Voice.

  This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

• July 29, 2021

  Trudeau Speaks to a Lack of Judgment

  The Montreal Canadiens hockey team drafted a player fined for a sex-related offence. The 17-year-old player, Logan Mailloux, surreptitiously took photos of a consensual sex act and showed them to his teammates — this without the consent of the other person.

  The draft selection was a major PR gaffe on the part of the team, especially since the player, now 18-years old, asked not to be drafted so that he could work on bettering himself as a person. The opprobrium became so heated that, finally, the owner of the team, Geoff Molson, felt compelled to write a letter that disavowed Mailloux’s actions and avowed that such actions do not reflect the team’s values.

  Even Canada’s prime minister Justin Trudeau decided to voice his displeasure with the team’s draft selection:

  As a lifelong Habs fan, I have to say I am deeply disappointed by the decision. I think it was a lack of judgment by the Canadiens organization. I think they have a lot of explaining to do, to Montrealers and to fans from right across the country.

  There are few among us who are perfect and have not shown, at one time or another, a lack of judgement. Trudeau, the son of a former long-time prime minister in Canada, has a record that speaks to his own struggles with “a lack of judgment.”

  • In his younger days Trudeau would occasionally appear in blackface/brownface. Youthful indiscretion?

  • Maclean’s magazine carried a piece on Trudeau’s “bad judgment.” When Trudeau accepted the billionaire Aga Khan’s hospitality on his private island, this raised many red flags. It was an obvious conflict-of-interest, and Canada’s ethics commissioner ruled that Trudeau was guilty of a breach of ethics. Hopefully, the PM would learn from this “bad judgement.”

  • Aga Khan was strike one. Then came strike two. The ethics commissioner Marcel Dion ruled that Trudeau had again violated ethics when he interposed himself into criminal proceedings against the disgraced company SNC-Lavalin, this to the chagrin of his justice minister Jody Wilson-Raybould who felt the pressure of the party machinery being applied to her. Wilson-Raybould, Canada’s first Indigenous justice minister, would find herself forced out of the Liberal Party, along with a supportive party colleague, Jane Philpott. In the next election, the electorate pronounced judgement by returning Wilson-Raybould to parliament — this time as an independent. Trudeau and the Liberal Party fell from a majority to a minority government.

  • Back on 8 December 2015, Trudeau made a pledge to First Nation leaders “that the constitutionally guaranteed rights of First Nations in Canada are … a sacred obligation.” So what was Trudeau thinking when he sent in the RCMP, ill-famed for such moral transgressions as carrying out the abduction of Indigenous children from their families, to deal with First Nations? When the RCMP invaded the unceded territory of the Wet’suwet’en they came with helicopters, snipers, police dogs, and tactical teams even though the Wet’suwet’en made it clear that they were unarmed and peaceful. How sacred was that?

  • But Canada is about the rule of law, isn’t it? At least, so claims Trudeau. Based upon this stipulation and acting on an extradition request from the United States, Canada intercepted and apprehended Meng Wanzhou, the chief financial officer of Chinese telecom giant Huawei, while in transit at Vancouver International airport. Meng is alleged to have misled HSBC bank about Huawei’s relationship with another company, putting the bank at risk of violating US sanctions against Iran. Recently, Meng’s legal team had documents released from HSBC through a court agreement in Hong Kong that indicate no misleading had occurred. However, the BC Supreme Court judge rejected the documents as insufficient. Meng has been awaiting a judicial determination since 1 December 2018. Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig, two Canadians detained in China, have been awaiting a judicial determination since 10 December 2018.

  Canada has long been pressured to follow US foreign policy with little leeway. Justin Trudeau’s father, Pierre Trudeau, likened Canada’s situation to a mouse sleeping next to an elephant. For instance, Canada’s international trade is so highly dominated by ties to the US that Canada can be strong-armed to even stir up confrontation with its second largest trading partner, China.

• Since the US considers Israel sacrosanct to its global hegemonic aspirations, it is unsurprising that Canada finds itself embracing the criminality and racism of the Israeli state with the Canadian mass media abetting Israeli apartheid.

• And, as was revealed the other day, Trudeau’s government has approved the sale of $74 million of explosives to Saudi Arabia. This is the Saudi government whose agents assassinated journalist Jamal Khashoggi and chopped up his body to dispose of it. This is the same government which carries out public beheadings, public floggings, and is committing genocide in Yemen.

What is Lacking?

A teenager, lacking judgement and rectitude, committed a despicable act and was punished for it. It is hoped that he can fully atone for the transgression and grow past it.

Trudeau, however, is an adult who is the leader of a country. Unfortunately, his lack of judgment appears almost inconsequential to the lack of morality.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Kim Petersen.

This post was originally published on Radio Free.