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Category: Antony Blinken

  • US Double Standards On World Press Freedom Day

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    For the United States government, World Press Freedom Day is an opportunity to further project an image of the U.S. as a supposed champion of journalism and human rights. But that projection is muddied greatly by the prosecution against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.

    An event was hosted by the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) at the UN headquarters in New York. It marked the 30th anniversary of World Press Freedom Day.

    Dr. Agnès Callamard, the secretary general for Amnesty International, called attention to the double standard of so-called democratic countries while discussing challenges to protecting press freedom.

    “It is not just what is happening in Iran or in Russia that should worry us, although it should worry us a lot. It is also what is happening here [in the U.S.],” Callamard said. “Who is imprisoning Julian Assange? Who is creating more laws to curtail the freedom to protest? All of those indicators and trends are occurring within the so-called democracies of the world.”

    Callamard added, “Sadly, the playbook of autocracy, of control over conscience, of control over speech, has been well-learned by our so-called democratic leaders.”

    President Joe Biden, Attorney General Merrick Garland, and Secretary of State Antony Blinken have wielded the playbook of autocracy through deliberate acts of omission—by consistently dodging any attempts by reporters or civil society leaders to hold them accountable for pursuing the Assange case.

    At the White House Correspondents Dinner on April 29, Biden highlighted Russia’s detention of Evan Gershkovich and the abduction of Austin Tice in Syria over a decade ago.

    Then Biden proclaimed, “Tonight, our message is this: Journalism is not a crime.”

    However, that message seems fraudulent as the U.S. government remains committed to prosecuting Assange and keeps him in jail.

    Assange has been a target of surveillance and subject to some form of arbitrary detention for more than a decade. The journalism he oversaw as WikiLeaks editor-in-chief, which involved publishing classified documents from the U.S. government, effectively made him a target.

    Last year, Blinken uttered the following on World Press Freedom Day:

    When individual journalists are threatened, when they’re attacked, when they’re imprisoned, the chilling effects reach far beyond their targets. Some in the media start to self-censor. Others flee. Some stop reporting altogether. And when repressive governments come after journalists, human rights defenders, labor leaders, others in civil society are usually not far behind.

    A similar statement about the climate of fear fueled by prosecuting Assange has been made by Rebecca Vincent, the director of operations and international campaigns for Reporters Without Borders (RSF).

    “If the U.S. government is successful in securing Assange’s extradition and prosecuting him for his contributions to public interest reporting, the same precedent could be applied to any journalist anywhere,” Vincent contended. “The possible implications of this case simply cannot be understated; it is the very future of journalism and press freedom that is at stake.”

    This year, Blinken will participate in a “moderated conversation on the state of press freedom worldwide” with Washington Post columnist David Ignatius.

    After Assange’s arrest on April 11, 2019, Ignatius argued the U.S. Justice Department had “drawn its indictment carefully enough that the issue [was] theft of secrets, rather than their publication.” The Washington Post Editorial Board has maintained that WikiLeaks “differs from journalism.” So Blinken will likely be permitted to advance a litany of double standards without being called on it.

    The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) marked World Press Freedom Day by promoting “Reporters Shield.” Under the new program, certain journalists and media organizations can apply to become “members” that are eligible to receive funds to help combat legal threats aimed at silencing them  (Note: USAID has in the past been used by the CIA as a front for operations.)

    According to USAID Director Samantha Power, who spoke at the UNESCO meeting, independent journalists around the world increasingly face lawfare from “corrupt leaders,” who are intent to drive them out of business.

    “Repressive or corrupt elites have tried to silence opposition by killing journalists. Now they are trying to kill journalism,” Power stated.

    Power was thinking of journalists countries like Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea, but the reality is that Assange and WikiLeaks might benefit from such a program.

    The CIA mounted a disruption campaign against WikiLeaks to make it difficult for the media organization to function. Officials reportedly discussed kidnapping or poisoning Assange while he was living under political asylum in the Ecuador embassy, and Mike Pompeo, when he was secretary of state, pressured Ecuador to toss Assange out of the embassy so the US could get their hands on him.

    Later in the meeting, Committee to Protect Journalists Jodie Ginsberg pointed out that if we really want to keep journalism safe then all governments must cease lawfare that involves targeting journalists with a “wide variety of spurious charges.”

    “One thing that the United States could concretely do is drop the charges against Julian Assange,” Ginsberg declared. She noted if Assange was brought to trial it would “effectively criminalize journalists everywhere.”

    Hitting Assange with Espionage Act charges and jailing him for the past four years has forced WikiLeaks to focus on freeing their founder. The organization has little to no funds to support the publication of new leaks, not to mention their reputation has been tarnished by smear campaigns engaged in by current and former U.S. intelligence officials. And it has also become harder to maintain the invaluable archive of documents on the WikiLeaks website.

    U.S. officials could abandon this case on World Press Freedom Day, but they will not because officials have entrenched themselves in the spiteful position that Assange is not a journalist. They see no conflict between their calls to free imprisoned journalists and their own autocratic conduct.

    The post US Double Standards On World Press Freedom Day appeared first on Shadowproof.

    This post was originally published on Shadowproof.

  • Why We Must Stop a New Cold War Before It’s Too Late



    Relations between the United States and China are spiraling dangerously downward, and neither side seems able to reverse the trend. Yet it is imperative that the world’s two biggest economies find a modus vivendi if the peace of the planet is to be preserved.

    Consider the recent contretemps between the U.S. and China over a Chinese balloon that drifted over the United States. The rift caused acrimonious accusations by both sides and a cancellation of the Secretary of State’s visit to China, which had been designed to tamp down tensions.

    China’s first reaction was a public regret, only later to be followed by more belligerent language. Wouldn’t it have been better if President Biden had taken China’s expression of regret and ignored the later, harsher responses? Wouldn’t it have been better if the secretary of state’s visits had gone forward?

    That’s what President Kennedy did during the Cuban Missile Crisis six decades ago when the Soviet Union’s Nikita Khrushchev sent an emotional message suggesting that, rather than “doom the world to the catastrophe of thermonuclear war…let us not only relax the forces pulling on the ends of the rope, let’s take measures to untie the knot.” The very next day, Russia upped the ante with a much harsher message demanding that American missiles in Turkey be removed.

    Kennedy ignored the second message and replied to the first. In due course, the Soviet missiles were removed from Cuba and the American missiles from Turkey, although the latter was not officially part of the deal.

    How much better it would have been if the Secretary of State Blinken had gone ahead with his mission, met with his counterpart in China, and made an effort to reduce the tensions between China and the United States instead of accelerating them.

    When I looked up the purpose of the new House of Representatives’ Select Committee on the Strategic Competition between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party, I found the following:

    The Select Committee “is committed to working on a bipartisan basis to build a consensus on the threat posed by the Chinese Communist Party and develop a plan of action to defend the American people, our economy and our values.”

    No one is denying that there is serious competition between the United States and China, but does it justify such a defensive crouch? Wouldn’t it have been better to form a committee that would also develop a plan of action so that the two major competing powers can avoid conflict?

    Although the growing antagonism between the United States and China has not grown to the level of the Cuban Missile Crisis, nevertheless it presents the greatest danger to the world today. Much has been written about the “Thucydides Trap,” Graham Allison’s warning that all too often in history the tension between a rising power and an established power results in war, as it did between Sparta and Athens in 431 BC, and German and Great Britain in the early 21th Century.

    It is imperative that cooler heads in China and the United States work to defuse tensions. The prospect of nuclear war that so terrified the world in the fifties and sixties has lost some of its emotional punch. The historian Christopher Clark writes that Europe’s leaders in 1914 knew that a general European war would be massively destructive, but did they really feel it? He posits that in the 1950s and 60s decision makers and the general public not only understood the dangers of nuclear war, but viscerally felt it. Today that visceral fear has fallen away among younger generations.

    China is not without blame for the growing confrontation between the United States and China. Under President Xi Jinping, the Communist Party has reasserted its dominant role over the economy and returned China to a more Maoist centralized state with aggressive and at times bullying diplomacy and military actions in the South China Sea and in the Himalayas. But that said, a drumbeat of anti-Chinese rhetoric from the Western powers only enables China’s hardliners and handicaps those in China who would seek a less belligerent accommodation with the West.

    After all, China does not seek to overthrow our system of government. The Chinese Communist Party does not seek to export revolution as did the old Soviet Union. It is hard to imagine Cambridge University students becoming traitors as did Kim Philby, Guy Burgess, and Donald Maclean in the 1930s for the sake of the Chinese Communist Party.

    As Singapore’s Bilahari Kausikan has pointed out: “Competition within a system cannot by definition be existential because the survival of the system is not at stake. China is the principal beneficiary of the existing system and has no strong incentive to kick over the table and change it in any fundamental way because its own economy rests on the foundation of that system.”

    Americans have always suffered under the delusion that China should become more like the United States. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, American missionaries fanned out across China in an effort to convert the Chinese to Christianity. President Woodrow Wilson was delighted when he discovered that Sun Yat-sen, the father of modern China, had become a Christian. More recently, when Deng Xiaoping abandoned Maoism for a market economy, Americans concluded that a political liberalization was sure to follow, that China would become more like the United States. It didn’t happen, but is China responsible for this miscalculation and disappointment, or are we?

    It is one thing to deny China technology that could be used militarily, but the bipartisan inflammatory language emanating from the United States is counter- productive to America’s interests and the preservation of peace. China and the United States are drifting, like sleepwalkers, toward confrontation much as Europe did in 1914 which of course resulted in a devastating war nobody wanted.

    This post was originally published on Common Dreams.

  • China Denounces US TikTok Ban Threat as “xenophobic witch hunt,” Firmly Opposes Possible Forced Sale

    WASHINGTON, DC – MARCH 23: TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew prepares to testify before the House Energy and Commerce Committee in the Rayburn House Office Building on Capitol Hill on March 23, 2023 in Washington, DC. The hearing was a rare opportunity for lawmakers to question the leader of the short-form social media video app about the company’s relationship with its Chinese owner, ByteDance, and how they handle users’ sensitive personal data. Some local, state and federal government agencies have been banning use of TikTok by employees, citing concerns about national security (Photo by Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images)

    The US’ TikTok hearing is politically manipulated to cover its real purpose of robbing the profitable firm from China, which reflects the US’ mounting hegemony and bullying against firms with Chinese background, experts said on Friday, noting the US witch-hunting against TikTok portends US’ technological innovation is going downhill and the political farce against a tiny app has seriously shattered the US values of fair competition and its credibility.

    The US House Energy and Commerce Committee held a hearing on Thursday (US time) titled, “TikTok: How Congress can safeguard American data privacy and protect children from online harms.”

    While US lawmakers acted like they are pursuing a solution on how to ensure data security, the hearing turned out to be a political show that was designed to smear an international firm that has Chinese background and cover up its real purpose of stealing the firm from its Chinese parent, experts said.

    Whether it ends up “killing” TikTok or forcibly taking the child out of its parent ByteDance’s arms, it is one of the ugliest scenes of the 21st century in high-tech competition, they said. “Your platform should be banned,” House Energy and Commerce Committee Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers said as she started the hearing, claiming that the app has ties with Chinese government.

    During the roughly five-hour  hearing, CEO Shou Zi Chew’s attempts to illustrate TikTok’s business operations were frequently interrupted. His requests to elaborate on concerns of members of US Congress were also blocked.

    Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning denounced the US’ move on Friday, saying the US is adopting the presumption of guilt and engaging in an unreasonable crackdown against TikTok without any proof.

    “We noted that some US lawmaker has said that to seek a TikTok ban is a ‘xenophobic witch hunt’,” she said, urging the US to respect the market economy and fair competition rules, stop the unreasonable crackdown on foreign firms and provide an open, fair and non-discriminatory environment for other countries’ firms in the US.

    The Chinese government places high importance on protecting data privacy and security according to laws. China has never and will never ask firms or individuals to violate local laws to collect or provide data and information stored within other countries’ borders, Mao stressed.

    The latest hearing followed reports that the Biden administration has threatened to ban TikTok if its China-based parent company ByteDance doesn’t divest its stakes in the popular video app.

    It is another dark scene in Washington’s struggle for US supremacy, the US’ barbaric act only underscores that US values of fair competition, freedom of speech and inclusiveness are gradually disappearing and instead xenophobia is rising, experts said, noting that the US government lacks confidence in competing with China.

    Even more ironic is that rather than finding a solution to problems brought about by the negative impact of US social problems on children such as suicide, self-harm and drug abuse, US lawmakers are instead faulting the company, Li Yong, deputy chairman of the Expert Committee of the China Association of International Trade, told the Global Times on Friday.

    “The hearing was hegemonic and bullying against a private firm,” Li said, noting that it’s common for American politicians to put unwarranted labels on entities with Chinese background by fabricating excuses.

    “While the US has always paraded itself as a rules-based market economy, they don’t really have any objective rules. All the rules are selected and serve American political elites’ interests and US hegemony,” Li said.

    The US’ forced sale of TikTok is shameless robbery of a profitable firm from China, he said, noting that the US is increasingly politicizing an innovative app that has enriched the digital life of American people and benefited a lot of micro businesses in the US.

    “TikTok itself is not available in the Chinese mainland, we’re headquartered in Los Angeles and Singapore, and we have 7,000 employees in the US today,” Chew said in his opening remarks.

    Dismissing Chew’s testimony, US officials have stepped up their fight against TikTok. Speaking at a separate House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Thursday TikTok should be “ended one way or another,” adding that he did not know if it would be sufficient for TikTok to be divested from its Chinese parent company, CNN reported.

    The high-profile hearing also attracted wide attention from netizens who called US Congress members arrogant, ridiculous and ignorant.

    “Not a single one of them has made an argument that makes a lick of sense,” an American net user posted on Twitter. “By his logic every other social media app should be banned,” posted another netizen.

    The topic “TikTok CEO attending US hearing” became trending on China’s Twitter-like social media Sina Weibo, generating nearly 5 million views.

    “I feel sorry for what Chew endured at the hearing. American politicians weren’t so arrogant and aggressive at Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook hearing. It seems all the lawmakers are bullying Chew,” a Chinese netizen posted on Sina Weibo.

    While Chew was grilled in Washington, Apple CEO Tim Cook was met with cheers and applause at an Apple store in Beijing on Friday, prompting Chinese netizens to compare the “so-called free market” in the US and “real free market” in China.

    The Biden administration’s so-called “national security” narrative has also caused widespread speculation among TikTok users, scholars and researchers.

    A TikTok sale would be “completely irrelevant to any of the alleged ‘national security’ threats” and go against “every free market principle and norm” of the state department’s internet freedom principles, the Guardian reported, citing Karim Farhat, a researcher with the Internet Governance Project at Georgia Tech.

    NBC News reported on Thursday that a 19-year-old Harvard freshman named Aidan Kohn-Murphy, who used TikTok to rally support for Biden in 2020, is now trying to use the app to stop Biden from killing the platform.

    “If they went ahead with banning TikTok, it would feel like a slap in the face to a lot of young Americans,” he said. “Democrats don’t understand the political consequences this would have.”

    Illustration: Liu Rui/GT

    Sinister move doomed

    By forcing the sale of TikTok, the Biden administration is aiming to repeat its takeover of French power company Alstom and its torment on Japanese chip firm Toshiba, but the US’ sinister move is doomed to meet challenges, given similar roadblocks faced by Trump three years ago, experts said.

    “The Biden administration will find it hard to completely ban TikTok, as the app has a large user base of more than 150 million in the US,” Xiang Ligang, director-general of the Beijing-based Information Consumption Alliance, told the Global Times.

    It’s an even more complicated issue for the US to take over TikTok, as a possible deal should also be in compliance with Chinese laws, he said. Experts said the Chinese government may step in to block the sale of TikTok.

    “The Chinese side is firmly opposed to the forced sale or divestiture of TikTok,” Chinese Commerce Ministry spokesperson Shu Jueting said on Thursday.

    Exports of Chinese technology must be subject to administrative licensing procedures in accordance with Chinese laws, and the Chinese government is legally bound to make a decision, she reiterated.

    In August 2020, China’s Ministry of Commerce revised its restrictions on technology exports, including personalized content recommendations based on data analysis and a number of other technologies such as AI algorithms, which is widely considered as China’s countermeasures against US’ forced sale of TikTok then.

    Back in 2020, then president Donald Trump and his administration sought to remove TikTok from app stores and force ByteDance to sell off its US assets. US courts blocked the order, concluding that banning the app would likely restrict the “personal communications” and sharing of “informational materials” by TikTok users.

    In addition, the Washington Post reportedly worked with a privacy researcher to look under the hood at TikTok in 2020, concluding that the app does not appear to collect any more data than typical mainstream social network platforms in the US.

    “From the US’ groundless crackdown on Huawei to targeting TikTok citing the so-called ‘national security,’ American politicians have not had a comprehensive ‘blueprint’ for their moves, it’s all politically motivated,” Xiang said, referring to reports saying Biden is seeking a second presidential term.

    On Thursday, the US put an additional 14 Chinese companies to a red flag list, forcing US exporters to conduct greater due diligence before shipping goods to them, mainly technology and solar firms.

    Xiang said the US’ unabated crackdowns on international firms including those from China violate international rules, disrupt global industrial and supply chains and harm both sides’ interests and the global economy as a whole.

    Ghost of McCarthyism haunts TikTok Hearing. Cartoon: Carlos Latuff

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • The Not-So-Winding Road from Iraq to Ukraine


    U.S. soldiers breaking into a home in Baquba, Iraq, in 2008   Photo: Reuters
     
    March 19 marks the 20th anniversary of the U.S. and British invasion of Iraq. This seminal event in the short history of the 21st century not only continues to plague Iraqi society to this day, but it also looms large over the current crisis in Ukraine, making it impossible for most of the Global South to see the war in Ukraine through the same prism as U.S. and Western politicians.
     
    While the U.S. was able to strong-arm 49 countries, including many in the Global South, to join its “coalition of the willing” to support invading the sovereign nation of Iraq, only the U.K., Australia, Denmark and Poland actually contributed troops to the invasion force, and the past 20 years of disastrous interventions have taught many nations not to hitch their wagons to the faltering U.S. empire.
     
    Today, nations in the Global South have overwhelmingly refused U.S. entreaties to send weapons to Ukraine and are reluctant to comply with Western sanctions on Russia. Instead, they are urgently calling for diplomacy to end the war before it escalates into a full-scale conflict between Russia and the United States, with the existential danger of a world-ending nuclear war.
     
    The architects of the U.S. invasion of Iraq were the neoconservative founders of the Project for a New American Century (PNAC), who believed that the United States could use the unchallenged military superiority that it achieved at the end of the Cold War to perpetuate American global power into the 21st century.
     
    The invasion of Iraq would demonstrate U.S. “full spectrum dominance” to the world, based on what the late Senator Edward Kennedy condemned as “a call for 21st century American imperialism that no other country can or should accept.”
     
    Kennedy was right, and the neocons were utterly wrong. U.S. military aggression succeeded in overthrowing Saddam Hussein, but it failed to impose a stable new order, leaving only chaos, death and violence in its wake. The same was true of U.S. interventions in Afghanistan, Libya and other countries.
     
    For the rest of the world, the peaceful economic rise of China and the Global South has created an alternative path for economic development that is replacing the U.S. neocolonial model. While the United States has squandered its unipolar moment on trillion-dollar military spending, illegal wars and militarism, other countries are quietly building a more peaceful, multipolar world.
     
    And yet, ironically, there is one country where the neocons’ “regime-change” strategy succeeded, and where they doggedly cling to power: the United States itself. Even as most of the world recoiled in horror at the results of U.S. aggression, the neocons consolidated their control over U.S. foreign policy, infecting and poisoning Democratic and Republican administrations alike with their exceptionalist snake oil.
     
    Corporate politicians and media like to airbrush out the neocons’ takeover and continuing domination of U.S. foreign policy, but the neocons are hidden in plain sight in the upper echelons of the U.S. State Department, the National Security Council, the White House, Congress and influential corporate-funded think tanks.
     
    PNAC co-founder Robert Kagan is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and was a key supporter of Hillary Clinton. President Biden appointed Kagan’s wife, Victoria Nuland, a former foreign policy adviser to Dick Cheney, as his Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs, the fourth most senior position in the State Department. That was after she played the lead U.S. role in the 2014 coup in Ukraine, which caused its national disintegration, the return of Crimea to Russia and a civil war in Donbas that killed at least 14,000 people.
     
    Nuland’s nominal boss, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, was the staff director of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in 2002, during its debates over the impending U.S. assault on Iraq. Blinken helped the committee chairman, Senator Joe Biden, choreograph hearings that guaranteed the committee’s support for the war, excluding any witnesses who did not fully support the neocons’ war plan.
     
    It is not clear who is really calling the foreign policy shots in Biden’s administration as it barrels toward World War III with Russia and provokes conflict with China, riding roughshod over Biden’s campaign promise to “elevate diplomacy as the primary tool of our global engagement.” Nuland appears to have influence far beyond her rank in the shaping of U.S. (and thus Ukrainian) war policy.
     
    What is clear is that most of the world has seen through the lies and hypocrisy of U.S. foreign policy, and that the United States is finally reaping the result of its actions in the refusal of the Global South to keep dancing to the tune of the American pied piper.
     
    At the UN General Assembly in September 2022, the leaders of 66 countries, representing a majority of the world’s population, pleaded for diplomacy and peace in Ukraine. And yet Western leaders still ignore their pleas, claiming a monopoly on moral leadership that they decisively lost on March 19, 2003, when the United States and the United Kingdom tore up the UN Charter and invaded Iraq.
     
    In a panel discussion on “Defending the UN Charter and the Rules-Based International Order” at the recent Munich Security Conference, three of the panelists–from Brazil, Colombia and Namibia–explicitly rejected Western demands for their countries to break off relations with Russia, and instead spoke out for peace in Ukraine.
     
    Brazilian Foreign Minister Mauro Vieira called on all the warring parties to “build the possibility of a solution. We cannot keep on talking only of war.” Vice President Francia Márquez of Colombia elaborated, “We don’t want to go on discussing who will be the winner or the loser of a war. We are all losers and, in the end, it is humankind that loses everything.”
     
    Prime Minister Saara Kuugongelwa-Amadhila of Namibia summed up the views of Global South leaders and their people: “Our focus is on solving the problem…not on shifting blame,” she said. “We are promoting a peaceful resolution of that conflict, so that the entire world and all the resources of the world can be focused on improving the conditions of people around the world instead of being spent on acquiring weapons, killing people, and actually creating hostilities.”
     
    So how do the American neocons and their European vassals respond to these eminently sensible and very popular leaders from the Global South? In a frightening, warlike speech, European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell told the Munich conference that the way for the West to “rebuild trust and cooperation with many in the so-called Global South” is to “debunk… this false narrative… of a double standard.”
     
    But the double standard between the West’s responses to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and decades of Western aggression is not a false narrative. In previous articles, we have documented how the United States and its allies dropped more than 337,000 bombs and missiles on other countries between 2001 and 2020. That is an average of 46 per day, day in day out, for 20 years.
     
    The U.S. record easily matches, or arguably far outstrips, the illegality and brutality of Russia’s crimes in Ukraine. Yet the U.S. never faces economic sanctions from the global community. It has never been forced to pay war reparations to its victims. It supplies weapons to the aggressors instead of to the victims of aggression in Palestine, Yemen and elsewhere. And U.S. leaders–including Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Barack Obama, Donald Trump, and Joe Biden—have never been prosecuted for the international crime of aggression, war crimes or crimes against humanity.
     
    As we mark the 20th anniversary of the devastating Iraq invasion, let us join with Global South leaders and the majority of our neighbors around the world, not only in calling for immediate peace negotiations to end the brutal Ukraine war, but also in building a genuine rules-based international order, where the same rules—and the same consequences and punishments for breaking those rules—apply to all nations, including our own.

    The post The Not-So-Winding Road from Iraq to Ukraine first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • We Can’t Just Let Blinken Give Israeli Apartheid the US Stamp of Approval

    On his recent visit to Israel, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken reaffirmed the U.S.’s “ironclad” support for the Israeli state, which recently voted in the most fascist, anti-Palestinian, far right government in its history. In a stunning display of doublespeak, Blinken said: It does seem true that the relationship between Israel and U.S. is rooted in “shared values,” as Blinken suggests…

    Source

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • Our Message to Antony Blinken on Failed US Policy on Israel and Palestine



    I was part of a small delegation of Arab Americans invited to meet with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken the day before his recent visit to Egypt, Israel, and the Palestinian Authority. Our meeting came on the heels of two tragic days in Israel/Palestine.

    On January 26th, 10 Palestinians were killed during an Israeli undercover raid into Jenin. Nightly Israeli invasions of heavily populated Palestinian communities have taken almost three dozen lives so far this year. These raids and killings coupled with a new round of mass expulsions and intensified settler violence have left Palestinians both seething in anger and despairing of any improvement in their lives.

    The next day a lone Palestinian gunman murdered eight Israelis as they walked home from their synagogue in a settlement to the east of Jerusalem.

    Both mass killings were deplorable and yet tragically predictable.

    While all of this left the region concerned that the violence would spin out of control, it appears that things may remain on a low boil. While extremist elements in the Israeli government may want to accelerate matters with more violence, Netanyahu himself intensified a series of repressive measures that included: sealing the homes of the Palestinian attackers and the arrests and/or expulsion of their family members and friends; sending more Israeli forces into the Occupied Territories; and issuing more weapons to settlers. For its part, the Palestinian Authority condemned the raids into Jenin and said it would cease security cooperation with Israel, but both the PA and Hamas appeared to have more interest in tamping things down than accelerating toward more violence.

    We met with Secretary Blinken against this tense backdrop. We expressed our concerns including: admitting Israel into the US visa waiver program without Israel guaranteeing full reciprocity and respect for the rights of Arab Americans to enter and depart without harassment; plans to build the U.S. embassy on Palestinian-owned land in Jerusalem; and the State Department’s definition of antisemitism which includes legitimate criticism of Israel.

    In my remarks, I attempted to place the recent events in the context of decades of failed US policies that have brought us to where we are today. The asymmetry of power that has existed between the Israelis and Palestinians has been amplified by the US’s asymmetrical approach to both. We have given full-throated support to Israel, while applying pressure mainly to the Palestinians.

    When Palestinians have taken actions with which the US has disagreed, we’ve called them out or taken punitive measures to sanction them. But when Israel has acted contrary to international law or our own policies, we’ve responded, when at all, timidly with private communiques or public statements of concern. Knowing that there would be no consequences to their bad behavior, the Israelis would either simply proceed, or delay until the heat was off.

    The result of having no consequences for Israel’s bad behaviors has been devastating on multiple levels. We have enabled Israel’s drift to the far right. Our enabling of hardliners and their policies has weakened Israel’s peace forces, who came to realize that they would have no backing for their opposition to human rights violations and the deepening of the occupation. At the same time, as prospects for a two-state solution became impossible to implement, we have discredited those Palestinian moderates who endorsed the Oslo Accords, while also emboldening Palestinian hardliners and advocates of violence as the only way forward. I made it clear that this was not the result of the last two years, but decades of US failed policies.

    It’s not enough for the US to express concern about Netanyahu’s efforts to run roughshod over Israel’s democracy, while falling silent in the face of his proposed responses to the recent terror attack—all of which (including home demolitions and expulsions) are clear violations of international law. And it’s not enough to continue to express support for a two-state solution and speak about “the equal worth of Israelis and Palestinians.” The two-state solution is no longer possible and US silence in the face of Israeli actions makes it clear that we will not defend Palestinian rights or respect their humanity.

    To dig our way out of this hole and begin to transform the downward spiraling dynamic, I recommended that the US reverse course. The Israeli side needs to hear that there will be consequences to policies that violate rights and international law and provoke violence. I suggested that we remove the sanctions that have been placed on the ICC, meet with and offer direct financial support to the Palestinian human rights organizations that Israel has banned, and make it clear that there will be direct consequences in aid and political support for any further movement on settlement expansion, home demolitions, and expulsions.

    Such actions won’t make immediate change, but they will send a message to the Israeli right that their decades-long impunity is over. It will strengthen those forces in Israel who support ending the occupation, give hope to Palestinians that they have US support, and open the door to new possibilities. Change will not be overnight. It’s taken us decades to dig this hole that we, Israelis, and Palestinians are in. There’s no time like the present to stop digging and reverse course. If we don’t, the violence and repression will continue, and we will have only our inaction to blame.

    ***

    Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the position of the Arab American Institute. The Arab American Institute is a non-profit, nonpartisan national leadership organization that does not endorse candidates.

    This post was originally published on Common Dreams.

  • Blinken Cancels Trip to Beijing After US Shoots Down Suspected Spy Balloon

    China has accused the United States of overreacting after President Joe Biden ordered a suspected spy balloon shot down off the coast of South Carolina on Sunday. China maintains the balloon, first spotted over U.S. airspace last week, was a civilian aircraft blown off course. The U.S. and China have been conducting surveillance on each other for years using spy satellites, hacking and other means.

    Source

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • US Military Shoots Down China’s Balloon Off South Carolina Coast



    The United States military shot down a Chinese balloon off the South Carolina coast on Saturday, according to the Associated Press.

    “An operation was underway in U.S. territorial waters to recover debris from the balloon, which had been flying at about 60,000 feet and estimated to be about the size of three school buses,” AP reported. “Before the downing, President Joe Biden had said earlier Saturday, ‘We’re going to take care of it,’ when asked by reporters about the balloon. The Federal Aviation Administration and Coast Guard worked to clear the airspace and water below.”

    Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin confirmed in a statement that “at the direction of President Biden, U.S. fighter aircraft assigned to U.S. Northern Command” successfully downed the balloon “off the coast of South Carolina in U.S. airspace.”

    The U.S. has said it believes the high-altitude balloon was a part of a surveillance operation, something China has denied.

    “The airship is from China,” a spokesperson for the country’s foreign ministry said Friday. “It is a civilian airship used for research, mainly meteorological, purposes. The Chinese side regrets the unintended entry of the airship into U.S. airspace due to force majeure. The Chinese side will continue communicating with the U.S. side and properly handle this unexpected situation.”

    The U.S. first detected the balloon over the state of Montana earlier in the week, leading Secretary of State Antony Blinken to cancel his planned trip to China as tensions between the two countries continue to rise.

    As Jake Werner of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft wrote Friday, members of Congress have “used the incident to hype fears about China,” citing House China Select Committee Chairman Mike Gallagher’s (R-Wis.) claim that the balloon posed “a threat to American sovereignty” and “a threat to the Midwest.”

    Werner stressed that “foreign surveillance of sensitive U.S. sites is not a new phenomenon,” nor is “U.S. surveillance of foreign countries.”

    “The toxic politics predominating in Washington seems to have convinced the Biden administration to further restrict communications with Beijing by calling off Blinken’s trip,” Werner added. “Letting war hawks set America’s agenda on China can only end in disaster. Conflict is not inevitable, but avoiding a disastrous U.S.-China military confrontation will require tough-minded diplomacy—not disengagement.”

    This post was originally published on Common Dreams.

  • Biden Administration Offers Weak Response to Israel’s Right Wing Shakeup

    At the beginning of November, when Israel and the United States held elections within days of each other, it seemed clear that the pull in opposite directions embodied in the disappointing showing for the American far-right and the strong showing for their Israeli counterparts portended tension in the “unshakeable” alliance between the two countries. Benjamin Netanyahu hasn’t even formed his government yet, but already we are beginning to see how that new government will make things difficult for the White House.

    And the early indications from Joe Biden’s administration indicate a continuation of the weak responses that have characterized his policy toward Israel for decades.

    The hand-wringing was frantic as the vote count in Israel was finalized and it became clear that, while Netanyahu’s Likud was once again going to be the largest party in the Knesset — as it had been in the previous six elections — the Religious Zionism bloc would be the second biggest in the incoming governing coalition. The two main parties in that coalition were led by Bezalel Smotrich, whose blatantly racist policies are reminiscent of the late radical Meir Kahane, a man so honestly racist he was banned from the Knesset; and Itamar Ben-Gvir, who openly espouses his admiration for and adherence to Kahane’s ideology.

    The first concern Washington had was Smotrich’s ambition to be the Minister of Defense. Biden administration officials immediately told Netanyahu that this wasn’t going to work for them, and Netanyahu made it clear that he wouldn’t give Smotrich that post, prompting some faux outrage from the head of Religious Zionism. But Smotrich never really had a chance at the Defense portfolio. He has much less military experience than most Israelis, which made him a highly dubious choice even for his fellow right-wingers. And Netanyahu wanted to keep Defense for Likud anyway.

    But it was a welcome opportunity to craft a performance for Washington, suggesting that Netanyahu would “listen to reason.” With that illusion cast, the provocative steps began to coalesce. Ben-Gvir got the Public Security ministry he wanted. That puts him in control of Israel’s police and border patrol, two entities that interact a great deal with Palestinians in 1948 Israel, Jerusalem, and the West Bank. It also controls firearms licenses, and Israel’s International Homeland Security Forum, meaning Ben-Gvir will have an enormous influence all over the world on such matters as cybersecurity and so-called “counter-terrorism” procedures.

    Another prominent feature that has emerged from the coalition talks is that Netanyahu has apparently conceded to Smotrich’s demand that he be given control of the so-called “Civil Administration,” which is the military regime that administers both the Palestinian areas (except for those meager powers doled out to the Palestinian Authority in the Oslo-designated Areas A and B) and Jewish settlements in the West Bank. The Religious Zionist platform calls for dismantling this administration and reverting authority to the relevant Israeli ministries and authorities, no different than in 1948 Israel.

    As Shaqued Morag of Peace Now put it, “Smotrich sees Area C as Israeli territory and he is going to implement his vision of Jewish supremacy there, meaning he will allow settlements to take Palestinian land and do everything in his power to suppress the minority of Palestinians living in Area C, meaning the de facto annexation of the territory.”

    Yet thus far, there has been little buzz from the Biden administration over this possibility, a stark contrast with the uproar over the question of Israeli annexation of West Bank that we witnessed just a few years ago. While Israel would not make a formal declaration of annexation if Smotrich has his way — at least, not immediately — de facto annexation would be the result.

    The potential fault lines between even the meek Biden administration and Israel don’t stop with Smotrich and Ben-Gvir. Netanyahu remains under indictment, and there’s a good chance that if his trial is ever completed, he will face severe penalties, including prison time. Fortunately for him, much of Israel’s right wing, including some in the opposition, support a law that would severely curb the power of Israel’s judiciary, by allowing the government to bypass the court with a vote.

    Netanyahu has a clear personal interest in such a law, but the ramifications would be far wider. The High Court of Justice is a tool of the Israeli apartheid regime, but part of the role it plays is to offer a small modicum of democracy and the rule of law to the state. It usually sides with the Israeli military when Palestinians bring cases before it (which is very difficult for Palestinians to do, as the first judicial line for them are military courts), but sometimes they do not, creating a veneer of fairness and angering the Israeli right. If the court becomes subordinate to the government, that veneer will disappear and will weaken even further the frequent arguments in support of Israel of its being the “only democracy in the Middle East” and its having such symmetry and “shared values” with the United States.

    While these moves remain speculative — the government hasn’t been formed yet, and the potential backlash from Europe, the United Arab Emirates, and even the U.S. has yet to be measured with any certainty — there can be little doubt that they will serve to further damage the perception of Israel among liberal Americans, American Jews, and Democrats. But what will matter most will be the response of the Biden administration, particularly the reactions of Secretary of State Antony Blinken and President Biden himself.

    Their track record, of course, suggests they will bend over backwards, even beyond the breaking point, to try to maintain business as usual with Israel. Recent events give us some clues about where Biden might want to go in facing Israeli actions that are obviously contrary to the wishes of the Democrats, and those clues don’t paint a promising picture.

    The most high-profile event was the Justice Department deciding to open an investigation into the death of Shireen Abu Akleh. Both the White House and State Department were very quick to declare that the decision to have the FBI open this investigation had nothing to do with them, and that they were unaware of it. This last is almost certainly untrue. DoJ had decided several days before the announcement was made to launch this investigation. It beggars belief that they made such a potentially explosive decision and sat on it for days without telling the White House or State Department. Still, the fact that Biden and Blinken probably knew about the decision but apparently did nothing to change it, despite their obvious discomfort with it, reflects the considerable political downturn Israel’s image has taken within the Democratic party.

    They clearly did not want to be seen as interceding with DoJ on Israel’s behalf in this matter. In part, that has to do with Biden’s need for DoJ to be seen as politically independent as it pursues investigations around the corruption of his predecessor. But it also reflects the pressure that was brought by the Abu Akleh family, their supporters and advocates, and the response to that from leading Democrats in Congress, such as Senator Chris Van Hollen. Biden would have a hard time defending an intercession with DoJ to members of Congress regarding an investigation into the killing of an American citizen.

    The investigation into Shireen’s death is not likely to go anywhere as Israel refuses to cooperate and Biden and Blinken have made it clear that they are not going to press Israel on this matter. On the contrary, they are trying to figure out how to work with this far-right Israeli coalition. They have already dropped a strong hint to Netanyahu about one familiar face they’d like to see come back, and it’s none other than former Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Ron Dermer.

    That would be the same Ron Dermer who snuck past the White House of Barack Obama and engineered the infamous 2015 address by Netanyahu to a joint session of Congress that attempted to undermine Obama’s signature foreign policy achievement, the Iran nuclear deal. It’s the same Dermer who called that his “proudest moment.” It’s the same Dermer who defiantly accepted an award from the Center for Security Policy, an Islamophobic hate group and, in his defiance also stood up for extremist anti-Muslim figures including Frank Gaffney, Daniel Pipes, Maajid Nawaz, and Ayaan Hirsi Ali.

    Yet a Biden administration official told Axios, “We had our differences with Dermer, but we would be happy to work with him in the next government.”

    In other areas, the U.S. is putting genuine pressure on Israel. Bowing to pressure from Washington, the outgoing Israeli government decided to tighten government oversight of their investments. It’s a move the Biden administration has been demanding for some time, as a response to increasing Israeli cooperation with China. Israel had been reluctant to give in to this demand as it sees China as a great source of potential investment in the coming years, but finally relented under pressure from the United States.

    The decision shows that the United States is capable of moving Israel when it wants to. It simply doesn’t care enough about Palestinian rights to push Israel in that regard. Of course, the politics are very different. China is seen very negatively in the United States, and pro-Israel forces here are not eager to defend growing Israeli-Chinese cooperation anymore than they want to try to defend Israel’s relative lack of support for Ukraine. Still, if the Biden administration wanted to make an argument against Israel’s increasing legal discrimination against Palestinians or potentially annexing West Bank settlements, they could certainly do so within the bounds of political viability.

    But the dedicated Zionists Biden and Blinken seem to have no intention of doing that. Instead, they will try to buy Palestinian acquiescence by promoting their Palestinian interlocutor for all occasions, Assistant Secretary of State Hady Amr, to the post of special representative for Palestinian affairs. It’s not an ambassador-level position, but Biden and Blinken hope that this will somehow soften the blow of their unwillingness or inability to deliver on their promises to the Palestinians of reopening the PLO office in Washington and the U.S. consulate in Jerusalem.

    It won’t soften the blow. And as Israel takes bolder steps to consolidate its possession of West Bank land and dispossession of Palestinians, Palestinian anger and frustration will continue to grow, alongside increasing Israeli fascism. It’s an explosive combination into which Biden and Blinken are pouring gasoline. The coming explosion, which is entirely avoidable with the simple application of a modicum of justice, will be as tragic as it will be bloody.

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • US Officials Concern Troll About World Press Freedoms While Assaulting Them

    Listen to a reading of this article:

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    I will never get used to living in a world where our rulers will openly imprison a journalist for telling the truth and then self-righteously pontificate about the need to stop authoritarian regimes from persecuting journalists.

    Just today US State Department spokesman and CIA veteran Ned Price tweeted disapprovingly about the Kyrgyz Republic’s decision to deport investigative journalist Bolot Temirov to Russia, where press freedom groups are concerned that the Russian citizen could face conscription to fight in Ukraine.

    “Dismayed by the decision to deport journalist Bolot Temirov from the Kyrgyz Republic,” said Price. “Journalists should never be punished for doing their job. The Kyrgyz Republic has been known for its vibrant civil society — attempts to stifle freedom of expression stain that reputation.”

    This would be an entirely reasonable statement for anyone else to make. If you said it or I said it, it would be completely legitimate. But when Ned says it, it is illegitimate.

    This is after all the same government that is working to extradite an Australian journalist from the United Kingdom with the goal of imprisoning him for up to 175 years for exposing US war crimes. Price says “Journalists should never be punished for doing their job,” but that is precisely what the government he represents is doing to Julian Assange, who has already spent three and a half years in Belmarsh Prison awaiting US extradition shenanigans. This is in top of the seven years he spent fighting extradition from the Ecuadorian embassy in London under what a UN panel ruled was arbitrary detention.

    A UN special rapporteur on torture determined that Assange has been subjected to psychological torture by the allied governments which have conspired to imprison him. Scores of doctors have determined that his persecution is resulting in dangerous medical neglect. Yet he is being pulled toward the notoriously draconian prison systems of the most powerful government in the world, where he will face a rigged trial where a defense of publishing in the public interest will not be permitted.

    All to establish a legal precedent that will allow the most powerful empire that has ever existed to extradite journalists from anywhere in the world for exposing inconvenient truths about it. But sure, Ned, “Journalists should never be punished for doing their job.”

    Earlier this month US secretary of state Antony Blinken posted a tweet of his own commemorating the International Day to End Impunity for Crimes against Journalists, without the slightest trace of self-awareness.

    “No member of the press should be threatened, harassed, attacked, arrested, or killed for doing their job,” Blinken said. “On the International Day to End Impunity for Crimes Against Journalists, we vow to continue protecting and promoting the rights of a free press and the safety of journalists.”

    Two weeks later, the Biden administration shockingly granted Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman immunity from lawsuits regarding the gruesome assassination of US-based journalist Jamal Khashoggi, thereby slamming the final door on all attempts to hold the tyrannical ruler responsible for his brazen assault on the press.

    “No member of the press should be threatened, harassed, attacked, arrested, or killed for doing their job.”

    Two weeks.

    We are ruled by tyrannical, hypocritical freaks who do not care about truth and freedom; they care only about power and what they can use to obtain it. The only press they support are those whose persecution can be politically leveraged, and those who can be used to peddle propaganda like the notorious AP editor who recently said she “can’t imagine” a US intelligence official being wrong.

    Pointing out hypocrisy is important not because hypocrisy is an especially terrible thing in and of itself, but because it draws attention to the fact that the hypocrite does not really stand where they claim to stand and value what they purport to value. The rulers of the western empire care about press freedoms only exactly insofar as they can use them to concern troll foreign governments they don’t like to advance their global power agendas. And not one molecule further.

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    This post was originally published on Caitlin Johnstone.

  • Biden’s Exclusionary ‘Summit Of The Americas’ Disrupted By Journalists

    The ninth Summit of the America’s opened in Los Angeles on Monday, June 6. This is the second time that the summit has been hosted in the United States. The Biden administration chose to exclude the elected governments of Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela, inviting members of the US-backed far right ‘opposition’ instead. That decision caused the presidents of other American countries to boycott the summit, notably Mexico, Bolivia, Honduras and Guatemala. 

    In protest, social movements from the United States and Latin America organized a counter summit, The People’s Summit, which begins on June 8. Journalists involved in the People’s Summit disrupted Biden’s sham Summit, confronting US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and the head of the US-controlled Organization of American States, Luis Amalgro. 

    The post Biden’s Exclusionary ‘Summit Of The Americas’ Disrupted By Journalists appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

    This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.

  • Did Blinken Get Covid at the “Nation’s Most Distinguished Superspreader Event”?

    Secretary of State Antony Blinken has tested positive for the coronavirus. State Department spokesperson Ned Price said Wednesday Blinken would isolate at home according to CDC guidelines. Blinken met Wednesday with Swedish Foreign Minister Ann Linde shortly before his positive test result. A day earlier, he met with Mexican Foreign Secretary Marcelo Ebrard. On Saturday, he joined a crowd of 2,600 celebrities, journalists and Washington elites who packed the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner, where few in attendance wore masks. “You guys spent the last two years telling everyone the importance of wearing masks and avoiding large indoor gatherings. Then, the second someone offers you a free dinner, you all turn into Joe Rogan,” said comedian Trevor Noah in his address at the event, which has since been linked to a growing number of COVID-19 cases. Meanwhile, the World Health Organization estimates the COVID-19 pandemic has caused the deaths of nearly 15 million people around the world.

    TRANSCRIPT

    This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

    AMY GOODMAN: Secretary of State Antony Blinken has tested positive for coronavirus. State Department spokesperson Ned Price said Wednesday Blinken will isolate at home according to CDC guidelines.

    NED PRICE: The good news is that he is fully vaccinated, he is boosted. He is experiencing only mild symptoms.

    AMY GOODMAN: Blinken met Wednesday with Swedish Foreign Minister Ann Linde shortly before his positive test result. A day earlier, he met with Mexican Foreign Secretary Marcelo Ebrard. On Saturday , Secretary Blinken joined a crowd of 2,600 celebrities, journalists and Washington elites who packed the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner in Washington, D.C., where few in attendance wore masks. The event has since been linked to a growing number of COVID cases, including journalists with Voice of America, NBC News, CBS News and Politico. Also testing positive was ABC News correspondent Jonathan Karl, who was seated next to the reality TV star Kim Kardashian. Karl also interacted briefly with President Biden, who attended without wearing a mask. The comedian Trevor Noah addressed the crowd, opening with these remarks.

    TREVOR NOAH: It is my great honor to be speaking tonight at the nation’s most distinguished superspreader event. No, for real, people, what are we doing here? Let’s be honest. What are we doing? Like, did none of you learn anything from the Gridiron Dinner? Nothing, huh? Like, do any of you read your own newspapers? I mean, I expect this from Sean Hannity, but the rest of you? What are you doing here? You guys spent the last two years telling everyone the importance of wearing masks and avoiding large indoor gatherings. Then, the second someone offers you a free dinner, you all turn into Joe Rogan.

    AMY GOODMAN: The World Health Organization estimates the COVID-19 pandemic has caused the deaths of nearly 15 million people around the world.

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • Chomsky: US Is Prioritizing Its Jockeying With Russia, Not Ukrainians’ Lives

    Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine is an utter disaster for Ukraine, and the war is not going well for the Russian forces who are experiencing heavy losses and may be running low on both supplies and morale. Perhaps this is the reason why Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, also encouraged by the support that Ukraine has received from Western countries, claimed a few days ago on the Greek state-run broadcaster ERT that “the war will end when Ukraine wins.”

    In this exclusive interview, world-renowned scholar and leading dissident Noam Chomsky considers the implications of Ukraine’s heroic stance to fight the Russian invaders till the end, and why the U.S. is not eager to see an end to the conflict.

    Chomsky, who is internationally recognized as one of the most important intellectuals alive, is the author of some 150 books and the recipient of scores of highly prestigious awards, including the Sydney Peace Prize and the Kyoto Prize (Japan’s equivalent of the Nobel Prize), and of dozens of honorary doctorate degrees from the world’s most renowned universities. Chomsky is Institute Professor Emeritus at MIT and currently Laureate Professor at the University of Arizona.

    C.J. Polychroniou: After months of fighting, it’s obvious that the invasion is not going according to the Kremlin’s plans, hopes and expectations. NATO figures have claimed that Russian forces have already suffered as many deaths as they did during the entire duration of the Afghan war, and the position of the Zelenskyy government now seems to be “peace with victory.” Obviously, the West’s support for Ukraine is key to what’s happening on the ground, both militarily and in terms of diplomatic solutions. Indeed, there is no clear path to peace, and the Kremlin has stated that it is not seeking to end the war by May 9 (known as Victory Day, which marks the Soviets’ role in defeating Nazi Germany). Don’t Ukrainians have the right to fight to death before surrendering any territory to Russia, if they choose to do so?

    Noam Chomsky: To my knowledge, no one has suggested that Ukrainians don’t have that right. Islamic Jihad also has the abstract right to fight to the death before surrendering any territory to Israel. I wouldn’t recommend it, but it’s their right.

    Do Ukrainians want that? Perhaps now in the midst of a devastating war, but not in the recent past.

    President Zelenskyy was elected in 2019 with an overwhelming mandate for peace. He immediately moved to carry it out, with great courage. He had to confront violent right-wing militias who threatened to kill him if he tried to reach a peaceful settlement along the lines of the Minsk II formula. Historian of Russia Stephen Cohen points out that if Zelenskyy had been backed by the U.S., he could have persisted, perhaps solving the problem with no horrendous invasion. The U.S. refused, preferring its policy of integrating Ukraine within NATO. Washington continued to dismiss Russia’s red lines and the warnings of a host of top-level U.S. diplomats and government advisers as it has been doing since Clinton’s abrogation of Bush’s firm and unambiguous promise to Gorbachev that in return for German reunification within NATO, NATO would not expand one inch beyond Germany.

    Zelenskyy also sensibly proposed putting the very different Crimea issue on a back burner, to be addressed later, after the war ends.

    Minsk II would have meant some kind of federal arrangement, with considerable autonomy for the Donbass region, optimally in a manner to be determined by an internationally supervised referendum. Prospects have of course diminished after the Russian invasion. How much we don’t know. There is only one way to find out: to agree to facilitate diplomacy instead of undermining it, as the U.S. continues to do.

    It’s true that “the West’s support for Ukraine is key into what’s happening on the ground, both militarily and in terms of diplomatic solutions,” though I would suggest a slight rephrasing: The West’s support for Ukraine is key into what’s happening on the ground, both militarily and in terms of undermining instead of facilitating diplomatic solutions that might end the horror.

    Congress, including congressional Democrats, are acting as if they prefer the exhortation by Democratic Chair of the House Permanent Select Committee of Intelligence Adam Schiff that we have to aid Ukraine “so that we can fight Russia over there, and we don’t have to fight Russia here.”

    Schiff’s warning is nothing new. It is reminiscent of Reagan’s calling a national emergency because the Nicaraguan army is only two days marching time from Harlingen, Texas, about to overwhelm us. Or LBJ’s plaintive plea that we have to stop them in Vietnam or they will “sweep over the United States and take what we have.”

    That’s been the permanent plight of the U.S., constantly threatened with annihilation. Best to stop them over there.

    The U.S. has been a leading provider of security assistance to Ukraine since 2014. And last week, President Biden asked Congress to approve $33 billion to Ukraine, which is more than double what Washington has already committed since the start of the war. Isn’t it therefore safe to conclude that Washington has a lot riding on the way the war ends in Ukraine?

    Since the relevant facts are virtually unspeakable here, it’s worth reviewing them.

    Since the Maidan uprising in 2014, NATO (meaning basically the U.S.) has “provided significant support with equipment, with training, 10s of 1000s of Ukrainian soldiers have been trained, and then when we saw the intelligence indicating a highly likely invasion Allies stepped up last autumn and this winter,” before the invasion, according to NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg).

    I’ve already mentioned Washington’s refusal to back newly elected President Zelenskyy when his courageous effort to implement his mandate to pursue peace was blocked by right-wing militias, and the U.S. refused to back him, preferring to continue its policy of integrating Ukraine into NATO, dismissing Russia’s red lines.

    As we’ve discussed earlier, that commitment was stepped up with the official U.S. policy statement of September 2021 calling for sending more advanced military equipment to Ukraine while continuing “our robust training and exercise program in keeping with Ukraine’s status as a NATO Enhanced Opportunities Partner.” The policy was given further formal status in the November 10 U.S.-Ukraine Charter on Strategic Partnership signed by Secretary of State Antony Blinken.

    The State Department has acknowledged that “prior to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the United States made no effort to address one of Vladimir Putin’s most often stated top security concerns — the possibility of Ukraine’s membership into NATO.”

    So matters continued after Putin’s criminal aggression. Once again, what happened has been reviewed accurately by Anatol Lieven:

    A U.S. strategy of using the war in Ukraine to weaken Russia is also of course completely incompatible with the search for a ceasefire and even a provisional peace settlement. It would require Washington to oppose any such settlement and to keep the war going. And indeed, when in late March the Ukrainian government put forward a very reasonable set of peace proposals, the lack of public U.S. support for them was extremely striking.

    Apart from anything else, a Ukrainian treaty of neutrality (as proposed by President Zelensky) is an absolutely inescapable part of any settlement — but weakening Russia involves maintaining Ukraine as a de facto U.S. ally. U.S. strategy as indicated by [Defense Secretary] Lloyd Austin would risk Washington becoming involved in backing Ukrainian nationalist hardliners against President Zelensky himself.

    With this in mind, we can turn to the question. The answer seems plain: judging by U.S. actions and formal pronouncements, it is “safe to conclude that Washington has a lot riding on the way the war ends in Ukraine.” More specifically, it is fair to conclude that in order to “weaken Russia,” the U.S. is dedicated to the grotesque experiment that we have discussed earlier; avoid any way of ending the conflict through diplomacy and see whether Putin will slink away quietly in defeat or will use the capacity, which of course he has, to destroy Ukraine and set the stage for terminal war.

    We learn a lot about the reigning culture from the fact that the grotesque experiment is considered highly praiseworthy, and that any effort to question it is either relegated to the margins or bitterly castigated with an impressive flow of lies and deceit.

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • Ukraine Drives America’s Cynical Concern for Human Rights in India

    The real worry for the Biden administration is a potential Indian pivot away from Washington toward Moscow.

    This post was originally published on Real Progressives.

  • US Suddenly Pretends To Care About Rights Abuses In India

    Listen to a reading of this article:

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    The United States is suddenly very concerned about human rights violations in India, with Secretary of State Antony Blinken telling the press on Monday that “we are monitoring some recent concerning developments in India including a rise in human rights abuses by some government, police and prison officials.”

    While it is true that India’s right-wing government is guilty of human rights abuses and has been for years, it is also true that the US State Department does not actually care about human rights abuses.

    A leaked State Department memo from the early days of the Trump administration showed neoconservative empire manager Brian Hook teaching a previously uninitiated Secretary of State Rex Tillerson that for the US government, “human rights” are only a weapon to be used for keeping other nations in line. In a remarkable insight into the cynical nature of imperial narrative management, Hook told Tillerson that it is US policy to overlook human rights abuses committed by nations aligned with US interests while exploiting and weaponizing them against nations who aren’t.

    “In the case of US allies such as Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the Philippines, the Administration is fully justified in emphasizing good relations for a variety of important reasons, including counter-terrorism, and in honestly facing up to the difficult tradeoffs with regard to human rights,” Hook explained in the memo.

    “One useful guideline for a realistic and successful foreign policy is that allies should be treated differently — and better — than adversaries,” Hook wrote. “We do not look to bolster America’s adversaries overseas; we look to pressure, compete with, and outmaneuver them. For this reason, we should consider human rights as an important issue in regard to US relations with China, Russia, North Korea, and Iran. And this is not only because of moral concern for practices inside those countries. It is also because pressing those regimes on human rights is one way to impose costs, apply counter-pressure, and regain the initiative from them strategically.”

    No, the US State Department does not care about human rights abuses. Blinken’s remarks are just the latest in a series of shots across the bow that the US empire has been firing at New Delhi to warn it against moving into alignment with Moscow.

    In an article last week titled “India to Face Significant Cost If Aligned With Russia, U.S. Says,” Bloomberg reported the following:

    President Joe Biden’s top economic adviser said the administration has warned India against aligning itself with Russia, and that U.S. officials have been “disappointed” with some of New Delhi’s reaction to the Ukraine invasion.

     

    “There are certainly areas where we have been disappointed by both China and India’s decisions, in the context of the invasion,” the director of the White House National Economic Council, Brian Deese, told reporters at a breakfast Wednesday hosted by the Christian Science Monitor.

     

    The U.S. has told India that the consequences of a “more explicit strategic alignment” with Moscow would be “significant and long-term,” he said.

    https://twitter.com/RnaudBertrand/status/1511733819832819715

    This new tone is a significant shift from the jovial relations between India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the Trump administration, or even between Modi and the Biden administration as recently as last year. Just yesterday Biden made it clear in a call with Modi that it would be against India’s interests to increase its oil imports from Russia. Reuters reports that Biden “told Modi India’s position in the world would not be enhanced by relying on Russian energy sources,” according to US officials.

    “The president conveyed very clearly that it is not in their interest to increase that,” White House spokesperson Jen Psaki said when asked about India’s imports of Russian oil.

    We can expect to see more and more feigned concern about Indian human rights abuses from the US government if these increasingly unsubtle messages are disobeyed, with destructive acts of economic sabotage soon to follow.

    The US empire is correct to be concerned about a potential future Indian pivot out of Washington’s sphere of influence. While it has succeeded thus far in weaponizing New Delhi in its grand chessboard maneuverings against China, the world’s two most populous nations uniting with the Russian nuclear superpower in the emerging bloc of nations who are rejecting absorption into the US-centralized power structure would be disastrous for the empire.

    But the fact that the US sees it as its business who foreign nations choose to align with reveals its true dynamic on the world stage, and makes a mockery of the lip service this empire has been paying to the importance of respecting national sovereignty in its narrative management about Ukraine. The US is the single most tyrannical regime on earth, using whatever amount of violence, coercion and bullying are necessary in its efforts to bring the entire planet under its lasting control.

    This empire truly believes it has a right to rule the world, and that no nation has a right to refuse it. The re-emergence of a true multipolar world is crashing headlong into an imperial doctrine that demands securing unipolar domination at all cost, and it’s getting very ugly very fast.

    __________________________

    My work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece please consider sharing it around, following me on Facebook, Twitter, Soundcloud or YouTube, or throwing some money into my tip jar on Ko-fi, Patreon or Paypal. If you want to read more you can buy my books. The best way to make sure you see the stuff I publish is to subscribe to the mailing list for at my website or on Substack, which will get you an email notification for everything I publish. Everyone, racist platforms excluded, has my permission to republish, use or translate any part of this work (or anything else I’ve written) in any way they like free of charge. For more info on who I am, where I stand, and what I’m trying to do with this platform, click here. 

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    This post was originally published on Caitlin Johnstone.

  • More Evidence That The US Is Trying To Prolong This War

    Listen to a reading of this article:

    ❖

    The Washington Post has a new article out bemoaning the fact that Russian military commanders are declining calls from the Pentagon to discuss their operations in Ukraine (I dunno guys, might have something to do with the fact that the US is sharing extensive military intelligence on exactly those operations directly with the Ukrainian government). Tucked all the way down in the eighteenth paragraph of the article, we find a much more interesting revelation: that Washington’s top diplomat has made no attempt to contact his counterpart in Moscow since the war began on the 24th of February.

    “Secretary of State Antony Blinken has not attempted any conversations with his counterpart, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, since the start of the conflict, according to U.S. officials,” The Washington Post reports.

    So the US government is continuing its policy of refusing to attempt any high-level diplomatic resolutions to this war despite its public hand-wringing about the horrific violence that’s being inflicted upon the people of Ukraine. This revelation fits nicely with a recent report by Bloomberg’s Niall Ferguson that sources in the US and UK governments have told him the real goal of western powers in this conflict is not to negotiate peace or end the war quickly, but to prolong it in order “bleed Putin” and achieve regime change in Moscow.

    class=”twitter-tweet” data-width=”550″>

    The amazing part of this column is that U.S. officials are saying out loud that they want the war to last in order to "bleed Putin". They don't care a fig about Ukraine. It stands completely alone (and Zelenskiy knows it, btw). https://t.co/NBOKvmT63K

    — Leonid Bershidskiy (@Bershidsky) March 22, 2022

    Building on an earlier report from The New York Times that the Biden administration “seeks to help Ukraine lock Russia in a quagmire,” Ferguson writes that he has reached the conclusion that “the U.S. intends to keep this war going,” and says he has other sources to corroborate this:

    “The only end game now,” a senior administration official was heard to say at a private event earlier this month, “is the end of Putin regime. Until then, all the time Putin stays, [Russia] will be a pariah state that will never be welcomed back into the community of nations. China has made a huge error in thinking Putin will get away with it. Seeing Russia get cut off will not look like a good vector and they’ll have to re-evaluate the Sino-Russia axis. All this is to say that democracy and the West may well look back on this as a pivotal strengthening moment.”

     

    I gather that senior British figures are talking in similar terms. There is a belief that “the U.K.’s No. 1 option is for the conflict to be extended and thereby bleed Putin.” Again and again, I hear such language. It helps explain, among other things, the lack of any diplomatic effort by the U.S. to secure a cease-fire.  It also explains the readiness of President Joe Biden to call Putin a war criminal.

    Earlier this month when The Intercept’s Ryan Grim was able to get a word in edgewise at a White House press briefing amid the throngs of mass media reporters demanding to know why Biden still hasn’t started World War 3, Press Secretary Jen Psaki gave a very revealing answer.

    “So, aside from the request for weapons, President Zelensky has also requested that the US be more involved in negotiations toward a peaceful resolution to the war. What is the U.S. doing to push those negotiations forward?” asked Grim.

    “Well, one of the steps we’ve taken — a significant one — is to be the largest provider of military and humanitarian and economic assistance in the world, to put them in a greater position of strength as they go into these negotiations,” Psaki answered, completely dodging the question of whether the US was actually doing anything to help negotiate peace.

    class=”twitter-tweet” data-width=”550″>

    This is wild pic.twitter.com/CNZZ1wVzcz

    — Ryan Grim (@ryangrim) March 16, 2022

    As we’ve discussed previously, the US government has a well-documented history of working to draw Moscow into costly military quagmires with the goal of preoccupying its military forces and draining its coffers. Former US officials are on record publicly boasting about having done so in both Afghanistan and Syria. This is an agenda geared toward sapping the Russian government, manufacturing international consent for unprecedented acts of economic warfare designed (though perhaps ineptly) to crush the Russian economy, to foment discord and rebellion, and ultimately to effect regime change in Moscow.

    The US empire doesn’t care about Ukrainian lives, and it’s insulting that its operatives continually pretend to. The empire will happily feed every man, woman and child in the entire nation into the mouth of this war if it means unseating a disobedient leader from a nuclear-armed seat of power which has become unacceptably cozy with Beijing and intolerably comfortable with intervening against US imperial agendas. And all the Ukrainian-flag-waving propagandized westerners with their #StandWithUkraine Instagram activism and blue and yellow profile pics will cheer for it every step of the way.

    I hope this brutal proxy war ends and peace comes to Ukraine very quickly. But from what we’re seeing today there appears to be an immense globe-spanning power structure holding its foot against the door of the only exit from this horror.

    ___________________________

    My work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece please consider sharing it around, following me on Facebook, Twitter, Soundcloud or YouTube, or throwing some money into my tip jar on Ko-fi, Patreon or Paypal. If you want to read more you can buy my books. The best way to make sure you see the stuff I publish is to subscribe to the mailing list for at my website or on Substack, which will get you an email notification for everything I publish. Everyone, racist platforms excluded, has my permission to republish, use or translate any part of this work (or anything else I’ve written) in any way they like free of charge. For more info on who I am, where I stand, and what I’m trying to do with this platform, click here. 

    Bitcoin donations:1Ac7PCQXoQoLA9Sh8fhAgiU3PHA2EX5Zm2

  • US declares Myanmar army committed genocide against Rohingya

    Designation could put global pressure on military-led government, which faces accusations at international court of justice

    The US has declared Myanmar’s mass killing of the Rohingya Muslim population to be a “genocide”.

    The secretary of state, Antony Blinken, made the announcement at the Holocaust Memorial Museum.

    Continue reading…

    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • 2022 Women of Courage awards announced by USA State Department

    On Monday, 14 March, 2022 Secretary of State, Antony J. Blinken, hosted the annual International Women of Courage (IWOC) Awards in a virtual ceremony at the U.S. Department of State. The 2022 IWOC Award ceremony honours a group of twelve extraordinary women from around the world.  The First Lady of the United States, Dr. Jill Biden, delivered remarks in recognition of the courageous accomplishments of this year’s IWOC awardees. For more on this award and its laureates, see: https://www.trueheroesfilms.org/thedigest/awards/A386E593-5BB7-12E8-0528-AAF11BE46695

    Out of an abundance of caution due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and in order to practice safe social distancing, the ceremony was live streamed on www.state.gov.

    Now in its 16th year, the Secretary of State’s IWOC Award recognizes women from around the globe who have demonstrated exceptional courage, strength, and leadership in advocating for peace, justice, human rights, gender equity and equality, and the empowerment of women and girls, in all their diversity – often at great personal risk and sacrifice.  U.S. diplomatic missions overseas nominate one woman of courage from their respective host countries and finalists are selected and approved by senior Department officials.  Following the virtual IWOC ceremony, the awardees will participate in an International Visitor Leadership Program (IVLP) Virtual exchange to connect with their American counterparts and strengthen the global network of women leaders.  The 2022 awardees are:

    Rizwana Hasan – Bangladesh [see: https://www.trueheroesfilms.org/thedigest/laureates/48B5C07A-458C-4771-97F9-FAD0CA89F478]

    Simone Sibilio do Nascimento – Brazil

    Ei Thinzar Maung – Burma

    Josefina Klinger Zúñiga – Colombia

    Taif Sami Mohammed – Iraq

    Facia Boyenoh Harris – Liberia

    Najla Mangoush – Libya

    Doina Gherman – Moldova

    Bhumika Shrestha – Nepal

    Carmen Gheorghe – Romania

    Roegchanda Pascoe – South Africa

    Phạm Đoan Trang – Vietnam Vietnam’s official reaction: https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/vietnam-irked-by-unsuitable-us-prize-jailed-dissident-2022-03-17/

    See also: https://humanrightsdefenders.blog/2021/03/09/state-department-hands-out-21-international-women-of-courage-awards-2021/

    https://www.state.gov/2022-international-women-of-courage-award-recipients-announced/

    This post was originally published on Hans Thoolen on Human Rights Defenders and their awards.

  • Blinken Foreign Policy

    It must be a sure handicap to be saddled with such a name when piloting a large government department, but US Secretary of State Antony Blinken shows no sign of that bothering him.  It has, however, become a hallmark of a policy that is markedly devoid of foresight and heavily marked by stammering confusion.

    On his trip to Australia, Blinken showed us, again, how morality and forced ethics in the international scene can be the stuff of particularly bad pantomime.  He sounded, all too often, as an individual sighing about the threats to US power while inflating those of its adversaries.  Russia and China were, as they tend to be these days, at the front of the queue of paranoid agitation.

    In an interview with The Australian, Blinken was adamant that “there’s little doubt that China’s ambition over time is to be the leading military, economic, diplomatic and political power not just in the region, but in the world.”  He admitted that the US had its own version of an “international order” – but that vision was “liberal”.  Beijing’s was profoundly inappropriate.  “China wants an (international) order, but the difference is its world order would be profoundly illiberal.”

    Blinken was also pleased at what he saw on his visit to the University of Melbourne.  “My stepfather is an alumnus, so that was wonderful to reconnect, also just to talk to some remarkable young Australians who are really the future of the relationship, the partnership between us – incredibly engaged, incredibly smart, incredibly thoughtful about the present and the future.”  And, no doubt, handpicked for the occasion.

    Russia’s behaviour was also the subject of the Blinken treatment.  Australians, warned the secretary, faced a solemn choice before Moscow’s stratagems.  “Russia, right now,” he told an Australian news program on the ABC, “poses an immediate challenge, not just to Ukraine … but to some very basic principles that are relevant to the security not just to people in Europe, but throughout the world, including Australia.”  That’s considerable reach for a power with an economy that is only marginally larger than Australia’s.

    Blinken’s babble about international liberal orders and territorial integrity echoes the Truman Doctrine in the early stages of the Cold War, one that ended up bloodied and sodden in the rice fields and jungles of Indochina.  In time, variations of this same, pathetic overreading of imminent crises and threats would propel US forces into Iraq and Afghanistan, and what a supreme mess those engagements turned out to be.  All that mattered were the substitutes: in the case of Afghanistan, Islamic fundamentalism twinned with terrorism; in the case of Iraq, Weapons of Mass Destruction never found and forced links with al-Qaeda never proved.

    Blinken’s visit had also inspired the Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison to wax lyrical about the sanctity of borders, something that proved somewhat irrelevant when Australia’s defence personnel found themselves serving as auxiliaries of US military efforts.  He wanted “to send a very clear message on behalf of Australia, a liberal democracy who believes in freedom and the sovereignty of states, not just in Europe, but in our region as well – that the autocratic, unilateral actions of Russia [are considered] to be threatening, and bullying Ukraine is something that is completely and utterly unacceptable.”

    Despite such statements, little is being done to stop the trains heading towards the precipice of conflict.  Everything is being said about getting citizens of other countries out of Ukraine before the bloody resolution.  In late January, of the 129 diplomatic missions based in Ukraine, four had announced the departure of family members of personnel: the US, UK, Australia and Germany.

    US President Joe Biden has been the leading voice on this move, adding kindling in urging that, “American citizens should leave, and should leave now.”  In an interview with NBC News, he did nothing to quell concerns.  “We’re dealing with one of the largest armies in the world.  This is a very different situation and things could go crazy quickly.”

    The Australians, unimaginatively obedient, have also issued similar calls of evacuation, suggesting imminent conflict.  Canberra has become rather adept at evacuating embassy staff and shutting down operations in the face of a crisis.  “Given the deteriorating security situation caused by the build up of Russian troops on Ukraine’s border,” Australian Foreign Minister Marise Payne stated, “the Government has directed the departure of staff at the Australian embassy at Kyiv.”

    Ukrainian officials have not been too impressed by these very public sentiments of jumping ship.  Volodymyr Shalkivskyi, based at the Ukrainian embassy in Canberra, wished to “avoid panic and different kind of rumours that the invasion is inevitable.”  Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky also told reporters in southern Ukraine that, “The best friend of enemies is panic in our country.”

    The Ukrainian premier even went so far as to invite Biden to visit Kyiv to ease tensions, something he is unlikely to do, given the calls to evacuate US citizens.  “I am convinced that your arrival in Kyiv in the coming days, which are crucial for stabilising the situation, will be a powerful signal,” Zelensky is supposed to have said in a call to the US president.  He hoped that this would “help prevent the spread of panic.”

    While Zelensky’s role seems increasingly marginal, one blowed sideways by the winds of events increasingly beyond his control, Blinken’s focus, and that of the Biden administration, remains affixed to the Indo-Pacific.  Last year’s AUKUS agreement, negotiated in secret and in defiance of other alliances, including that with France, suggests that whatever Moscow’s intentions, China remains the primary, nerve racking concern.

    The post Blinken Foreign Policy first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • The United States, war on two fronts and loss of empire

    The propaganda war against China and Russia got a whole lot worse in the past week. The very real danger of war either in our region, or in Europe, was made abundantly clear, argues William Briggs.

    This post was originally published on Green Left.

  • Australia’s ‘national interest’ and anti-China propaganda

    Government spokespeople and the media have been a little coy, but now the gloves are off: China is the enemy. William Briggs argues that the Quad meeting is the latest propaganda assault.

    This post was originally published on Green Left.

  • “There Is No Military Solution” to Russia Tensions, Progressive Lawmakers Say

    Rep. Barbara Lee participates in a news conference outside the U.S. Capitol on May 20, 2021, in Washington, D.C.

    Democratic Reps. Pramila Jayapal and Barbara Lee, two top members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, implored the Biden administration on Wednesday to urgently pursue a diplomatic outcome in Ukraine, warning that “there is no military solution” to surging tensions with Russia.

    “Diplomacy needs to be the focus,” Jayapal (D-Wash.), the chair of the CPC, and Lee (D-Calif.), the head of the caucus’ Peace and Security Taskforce, said in a statement.

    While voicing support for the Biden administration’s efforts to “extend and deepen the dialogue” with Russia amid fears of a disastrous war involving two nuclear-armed nations, the two progressive lawmakers raised alarm over the flow of U.S. arms into Ukraine and the prospect of American troops being deployed to Eastern Europe.

    “We have significant concerns that new troop deployments… and a flood of hundreds of lethal weapons will only raise tensions and increase the chance of miscalculation,” Jayapal and Lee said as their party’s leadership planned to fast-track legislation authorizing $500 million in U.S. military aid to Ukraine.

    The pair also warned against imposing “sweeping and indiscriminate sanctions” on Russia, arguing such a tactic would do more harm than good.

    “In past crises, where events are moving quickly and intelligence is unclear, vigorous, delicate diplomacy is essential to de-escalation,” the lawmakers said. “We call upon our colleagues to allow the administration to find a diplomatic way out of this crisis.”

    Jayapal and Lee’s statement came shortly before the U.S. on Wednesday delivered a written response to Russia’s security demands on Ukraine and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), an alliance that Ukraine is looking to join. Russia sees the admission of Ukraine into NATO as a serious security threat.

    As the Associated Press reported, “Moscow has demanded guarantees that NATO will never admit the country and other ex-Soviet nations as members and that the alliance will roll back troop deployments in other former Soviet bloc nations.”

    “Some of these, like the membership pledge, are nonstarters for the U.S. and its allies, creating a seemingly intractable stalemate that many fear can only end in a war,” AP noted.

    While the details of the U.S. response to Russia have not been made public, Secretary of State Antony Blinken indicated Wednesday that the Biden administration did not make any concessions to Moscow’s top demands, which are laid out in a draft security pact.

    “We make clear that there are core principles that we are committed to uphold and defend, including Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, and the right of states to choose their own security arrangements and alliances,” said Blinken, who met with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in person last week.

    Lavrov, for his part, told reporters Wednesday that “if the West continues its aggressive course, Moscow will take the necessary retaliatory measures.”

    “We won’t allow our proposals to be drowned in endless discussions,” he added.

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • Coalition Demands Biden Condemn Israel’s Crackdown on Palestinian Rights Groups

    An Israeli soldier is seen aiming at Palestinian protesters, during a demonstration against Israeli settlements in the village of Beit Dajan near the West Bank city of Nablus on October 29, 2021.

    A broad coalition of nearly 300 U.S.-based social justice groups on Friday urged the Biden administration to “immediately and unequivocally” condemn the Israeli government’s recent decision to classify a half-dozen Palestinian human rights groups as “terrorist organizations.”

    “These actions by the Israeli government are a clear attack on human rights,” says the coalition in its letter to U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken. “As such, we urge you to issue a swift rejection of this unprecedented attack on Palestinian human rights organizations and the attempt by the Israeli government to shut down, delegitimize, isolate, and chill a growing human rights movement.”

    Last week, as Common Dreams reported, Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz’s punitive designation targeted six groups — Addameer, AlHaq, the Bisan Center for Research and Development, Defense for Children International – Palestine, the Union of Agricultural Work Committees, and the Union of Palestinian Women’s Committees.

    Under the apartheid regime’s Counter-Terrorism Law of 2016, “these human rights organizations now face possible mass arrest and being shut down by the Israeli government, and anyone identifying with the groups can also be subject to imprisonment,” the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), one of the groups that spearheaded Friday’s letter, warned in a statement.

    Israel’s move was quickly rebuked by progressive lawmakers, including U.S. Reps. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) and Mark Pocan (D-Wis.), and advocates from CCR, Human Rights Watch (HRW), Amnesty International, and 21 Israel-based groups.

    In their letter to Blinken, the coalition points out that “smearing the promotion and defense of human rights as ‘terrorist’ activity is a dangerous, well-worn tactic of authoritarian regimes and a shameful political maneuver to undermine the vital work of these organizations.”

    Describing the six recently criminalized groups as “trusted partners in our collective work to secure human rights for all,” the coalition notes that they “form part of the bedrock of Palestinian civil society that has been protecting and advancing Palestinian human rights for decades across the full spectrum of issues of global concern, including children’s rights, prisoners’ rights, women’s rights, socio-economic rights, the rights of farmworkers, and justice and accountability for international crimes.”

    Ahmad Abuznaid, executive director of the U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights (USCPR), said in a statement that “Israel’s authoritarian attack on these six leading Palestinian human rights organizations is designed to stop their work exposing Israel’s government for what it is: a separate-and-unequal apartheid regime engaging in ongoing settler-colonial violence against the Palestinian people.”

    The letter cites last week’s joint statement from HRW and Amnesty, which said that “for decades, Israeli authorities have systematically sought to muzzle human rights monitoring and punish those who criticize its repressive rule over Palestinians.”

    “Palestinian human rights defenders have always borne the brunt of the repression,” HRW and Amnesty noted, warning that Gantz’s “appalling and unjust” attempt to outlaw certain groups is “an alarming escalation that threatens to shut down the work of Palestine’s most prominent civil society organizations.”

    HRW and Amnesty attributed Israel’s brazen authoritarianism to “the decadeslong failure of the international community to challenge grave Israeli human rights abuses and impose meaningful consequences for them.”

    Stefanie Fox, executive director of Jewish Voice for Peace Action, concurred. Fox argued Friday that “the Israeli government is openly attacking prominent Palestinian human rights organizations and threatening human rights defenders with mass arrest… because for decades, the Israeli apartheid government has faced little to no accountability for its repressive actions.”

    Calling Israel’s “outrageous” decision to ostracize Palestinian civil society organizations “an attack… on the international human rights movement,” HRW and Amnesty stressed last week that “how the international community responds will be a true test of its resolve to protect human rights defenders.”

    The coalition, for its part, has answered by arguing that international responses to Israel’s ongoing human rights violations have been “inadequate” and “should change.”

    “A threat against the Palestinian human rights movement is a threat against movements for social justice everywhere,” the letter states, “and in order to protect human rights and human rights defenders, all states must be held accountable for taking such manifestly unjust actions.”

    “As groups committed to social justice, civil rights, and universal human rights,” the letter continues, “we have seen first hand the ways that the charge of ‘terrorist’ and the so-called ‘war on terror’ threatens not only international human rights defenders, but also social movements and marginalized communities here in the U.S.: Indigenous, Black, brown, Muslim, and Arab activists and communities have similarly faced silencing, intimidation, criminalization, and surveillance under such baseless charges.”

    Although the U.S. government “has long offered unconditional support to the Israeli government,” the letter adds, “our movements and organizations will always stand first and foremost with the rights and safety of people.”

    To that end, signatories demanded that Blinken take the following steps:

    1. Affirm that the Biden administration’s commitment to human rights has universal applicability;
    2. Issue a public statement that rejects the Israeli government’s false accusations levied against Palestinian civil society organizations;
    3. Publicly condemn and rebuke Israel for this authoritarian action, and call on Israeli authorities to immediately reverse their decision and end all efforts aimed at delegitimizing and criminalizing Palestinian human rights defenders; and
    4. Support Palestinians seeking the protection and promotion of fundamental human rights, justice, and accountability, including at the International Criminal Court.

    In addition to CCR, the letter was initiated by USCPR, Jewish Voice for Peace Action, and Adalah Justice Project. It garnered support from a wide array of groups, including CodePink, Just Foreign Policy, and Oxfam America.

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • 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.

  • Blinken says US-UK free trade deal will take ‘some time’ to agree

    Agreeing a post-Brexit free trade deal between Britain and the United States will take “some time”, US secretary of state Antony Blinken has warned.

    America first

    Blinken said president Joe Biden’s new trade negotiator Katherine Tai would be taking time to review the discussions that had taken place with the Trump administration before progressing with the talks.

    G7 Foreign and Development Ministers meeting
    Foreign secretary Dominic Raab and US secretary of state Antony Blinken at the G7 talks in London (Hannah McKay/PA)

    Blinken, who’s been in London for the meeting of G7 foreign ministers, said he believed the US and the UK were “profoundly in sync”. However he said that the US wanted to ensure any trade agreement would benefit American workers and their families. He said:

    Our trade negotiator just got on the job, so she’s taking the time to go back and review everything that was discussed and that’s going to take some time.

    We want to make sure that, whether it’s with the United Kingdom or anyone else, any agreements reached are consistent with the principles that President Biden has established to focus on making sure that these agreements really advance the wellbeing of our workers and their families. That’s our focus.

    Peace in Ireland

    In an interview with the BBC Radio 4 Today programme, Blinken stressed the importance the president placed on ensuring that the gains of the peace process in the north of Ireland were maintained.

    With continuing tensions in the north over the implementation of the Brexit “divorce” settlement, Blinken said the US was “very focussed” on ensuring the Good Friday Agreement was maintained. He said:

    We want to make sure that, whether it’s with the United Kingdom or the EU, whether it’s anything we’re doing, that we make sure that the tremendous gains from the Good Friday Agreement are sustained and that the economic as well the political wellbeing of Northern Ireland is taken fully into account

    Iran

    On Iran, Blinken said the US had shown its “seriousness and purpose” in seeking to strike a new nuclear deal after Donald Trump tore up the internationally agreed Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). However, he said Tehran had to show it was willing to comply with the terms of the agreement – intended to curb its ability to develop a nuclear weapon – amid concerns it was close to achieving a “breakout” capability. He said:

    Compliance is compliance and what we don’t know is whether Iran is prepared to make the same decision and to move forward.

    He added:

    Right now, unfortunately, Iran has itself lifted many of the constraints imposed on it by the agreement because we pulled out, and it is now getting closer and closer again to that point where its breakout time is going to be down to a few months and eventually even less.

    So there’s nothing naive about this. On the contrary, it’s a very clear way of dealing with a problem that was dealt with effectively by the JCPOA and we’ll have to see if we can do the same thing again.

    By The Canary

    This post was originally published on The Canary.

  • Next logical step: US Rescinds ICC Sanctions

    ICC permanent premises
    Permanent premises of the International Criminal Court in The Hague, the Netherlands. © 2018 Marina Riera/Human Rights Watch

    US President Joe Biden’s cancellation of punitive sanctions targeting the International Criminal Court (ICC) removes a serious obstacle to the court’s providing justice to the victims of the world’s worst crimes, Human Rights Watch said on 2 April 2, 2021. Biden revoked a June 2020 order by then-President Donald Trump authorizing asset freezes and entry bans to thwart the ICC’s work. This was expected after an appeal by many NGOs, see: https://humanrightsdefenders.blog/2021/02/19/large-group-of-ngos-call-on-biden-administration-to-repeal-icc-sanctions/

    In announcing the repeal of the executive order, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that “[t]hese decisions reflect our assessment that the measures adopted were inappropriate and ineffective.” The State Department also lifted existing visa restrictions.

    “The Trump administration’s perversely punitive sanctions against the ICC showed stark contempt for the victims of grave international crimes and the prosecutors who seek to hold those responsible to account,” said Richard Dicker, international justice director at Human Rights Watch. “In removing this unprecedented threat to the global rule of law, President Biden has begun the long process of restoring US credibility on international justice through the ICC.”

    https://www.hrw.org/news/2021/04/02/us-rescinds-icc-sanctions

    This post was originally published on Hans Thoolen on Human Rights Defenders and their awards.

  • NATO Is Increasingly Positioning Itself In Opposition To China

    During the March 23-24 meeting of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) council, Anthony Blinken, the U.S. Secretary of State, encouraged NATO members to join the U.S. in viewing China as an economic and security threat to the U.S. as well as to NATO countries, thereby expanding NATO’s areas of focus to include the Pacific. This is a dangerous move that must be challenged.

    To gain insight into what transpired at the March NATO meeting, we can look to a roadmap for NATO’s future, which was released last fall. The report, entitled “NATO 2030: United for a New Era,” is intended to be a guide for the military alliance in meeting the challenges it will face in the next decade.

    The post NATO Is Increasingly Positioning Itself In Opposition To China appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

    This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.

  • Annual State Department report 2020: complete change of tone

    On Tuesday, March 30, 2021, the 2020 edition of the Country Reports on Human Rights Practices was released by the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor. The Secretary of State is required by law to submit an annual report to the U.S. Congress on “the status of internationally recognized human rights” in all countries that are members of the United Nations. This annual report, called the Country Reports on Human Rights Practices but commonly known as the Human Rights Report (HRR), provides information that is used by Congress, the Executive Branch, and courts in making policies and/or decisions; thus accurate information on human rights conditions is critical. The HRR also informs the work at home and abroad of civil society, human rights defenders, lawmakers, scholars, immigration judges and asylum officers, multilateral institutions, and other governments.

    The country reports are prepared by U.S. diplomatic missions around the world, which collect, analyze, and synthesize information from a variety of sources, including government agencies, non-governmental organizations, and the media. The reports do not attempt to catalogue every human rights-related incident, nor are they an effort by the U.S. government to judge others. Instead, they claim to be factual in nature and focus on a one-year period, but they may include illustrative cases from previous reporting years.

    Conor Finnegan for ABC News on 30 March 2021 compared the report with those of the Trump administration:

    Blinken launched the department’s 45th annual human rights report Tuesday which The report covers 2020 and found a further deterioration for human rights in many countries, particularly as governments used the coronavirus pandemic to curb their citizens’ rights.

    The first report under the Biden administration also included changes that eliminated the conservative take of the Trump years, like ending former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s “hierarchy” of rights and re-introducing a section on women’s reproductive rights that will be published later this year.

    When human rights defenders “come under attack, they often look to the United States to speak up on their behalf. Too often in recent years, these defenders heard only silence from us,” Blinken said. “We are back for those brave advocates as well. We will not be silent.“

    In particular, Blinken “decisively” repudiated Pompeo’s “Unalienable Rights Commission,” a panel of academics that said in a report last July that freedom of religion and right to property were the most important human rights. While Pompeo touted the report and said it would lay a foundation for future administrations, critics accused it of minimizing minority rights. Blinken essentially jettisoned the report, saying Tuesday, “There is no hierarchy that makes some rights more important than others. Past unbalanced statements that suggest such a hierarchy, including those offered by a recently disbanded State Department advisory committee, do not represent a guiding document for this administration.” [see also: https://humanrightsdefenders.blog/2019/07/11/trump-marches-on-with-commission-on-unalienable-rights/]

    Human rights are increasingly under threat around the world, Blinken said, saying the trend lines “are in the wrong direction.”

    In particular, he highlighted what he called the Chinese government’s genocide of Uighurs and other Muslim ethnic minorities in Xinjiang province, attacks on civil society and political opposition in Russia, Uganda and Venezuela and on pro-democracy protesters in Belarus, war crimes in Yemen, atrocities “credibly reported” in Ethiopia’s Tigray region, and abuses by the Syria’s Bashar al-Assad’s regime.

    While the report doesn’t touch on Myanmar’s coup and the military’s bloody crackdown on protests, because they happened in 2021, Blinken took time to again condemn the events. But after weeks of steadily increasing U.S. sanctions that have not deterred the ruling junta, he had no specific answer on what else the U.S. could do to change the darkening trajectory there.

    PHOTO: U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken speaks during the release of the "2020 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices" at the State Department in Washington on March 30, 2021.
    Mandel Ngan/Pool/ReutersMandel Ngan/Pool/ReutersU.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken speaks during the release of the “2020 Country…

    Chinese officials and state-run outlets have increasingly raised U.S. race relations to say American officials are in no position to criticize Beijing — comparing Uighur slave labor in Xinjiang to Black slaves in the U.S. South.

    “We know we have work to do at home. That includes addressing profound inequities, including systemic racism. We don’t pretend these problems don’t exist. … We deal with them in the daylight with full transparency, and in fact, that’s exactly what separates our democracy and autocracies,” he said, adding that open reckoning gives the U.S. “greater legitimacy” to address other countries’ records, too.

    The Biden administration will use all tools available to impose consequences on human rights abusers and encourage better behavior, Blinken said, including the new Khashoggi policy that imposes visa restrictions on officials that target or harass their countries’ dissidents.

    “Standing up for human rights everywhere is in America’s interests, and the Biden-Harris administration will stand against human rights abuses wherever they occur, regardless of whether the perpetrators are adversaries or partners,” he said.

    https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/blinken-swipes-trump-administration-unveiling-human-rights-report/story?id=76770342

    2020 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices

    This post was originally published on Hans Thoolen on Human Rights Defenders and their awards.

  • Antony Blinken says the US will ‘stand up for human rights everywhere’

    Secretary of state takes veiled swipe at Trump administration and says change of approach is ‘in America’s interests’

    The United States will speak out about human rights everywhere including in allies and at home, secretary of state Antony Blinken has vowed, turning a page from Donald Trump as he bemoaned deteriorations around the world.

    Presenting the state department’s first human rights report under President Joe Biden, the new top US diplomat took some of his most pointed, yet still veiled, swipes at the approach of the Trump administration.

    Related: Pompeo claims private property and religious freedom are ‘foremost’ human rights

    Continue reading…

    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • US Joins ‘Rules-Based World’ on Afghanistan

    On March 18, the world was treated to the of U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken sternly lecturing senior Chinese officials about the need for China to respect a “rules-based order.” The alternative, Blinken warned, is a world in which might makes right, and “that would be a far more violent and unstable world for all of us.”

    Blinken was clearly speaking from experience. Since the United States dispensed with the UN Charter and the rule of international law to invade Kosovo, Afghanistan and Iraq, and has used military force…

    The post US Joins ‘Rules-Based World’ on Afghanistan appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

    This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.