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Category: Militarism

  • Jeremy Corbyn is out on tour this December. Here’s where he’s at.

    Jeremy Corbyn is taking part in two promotional events in Manchester and Rochdale on Saturday 14 December in support of the Peace and Justice Project’s new book, Monstrous Anger of the Guns: How The Global Arms Trade Is Ruining The World & What We Can Do About It.

    Monstrous Anger of the Guns: a new release and a tour

    We are seeing injustices caused by war and occupation unfold in real-time via social media, and we are speaking out in our millions against these horrors. Yet, from Gaza to Ukraine, the bombs continue to fall. We must understand why this is happening if we are to end it.

    Monstrous Anger of the Guns lays bare the dark and deceitful world of the global arms trade, which, often funded in our name, is a business that counts its profits in billions and its losses in human lives.

    Leading activists and campaigners connect the dots, showing how notions of citizenship, democracy and trust in governments are misguided, and how we can fight back by building mass movements, using direct action and legal justice to end the flow of weapons and the environmental and human devastation they bring.

    Economist Yanis Varoufakis said the book “equips readers with the information they need to resist the lies that feed humanity’s urge to commit suicide”. He urged people to “read it”.

    Journalist Peter Oborne said it contains “devastating testimony. Faultless research. It’s impossible to exaggerate the timeliness of this powerfully written book”.

    So, to coincide with the release of Monstrous Anger of the Guns, Corbyn will be making two appearances on 14 December.

    The first of these events takes place at the Mechanics Institute in Manchester at 1pm, where Jeremy will be joined by Dr Paul Rogers for an in discussion event on the global arms trade.

    The second event will take place at the Rochdale Royale at 6pm and also features Dr Yvonne Ridley, Rabbi Elhanan Beck, and Al Jazeera journalist Youmna El Sayed, as well as many others campaigning for an end to the genocide in Gaza and lasting peace:

    Monstrous Anger of the Guns

    Featured image supplied

    By The Canary

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • U.S. Imperialism and Ukraine

    In mid-November, the Biden administration (given his diminished mental capacity, whoever is now in charge) authorized the Kyiv regime to launch Lockheed Martin produced Army Tactical Missile Systems or ATACMS to hit targets 190 miles inside Russia. In response, an ICBM was fired in wartime for the first time when the Oreshnik (“Hazelnut Tree), an intermdiate range, nuclear capable missile, took only 5 minutes to hit Dinipro, Ukraine. The Kremlin gave Washington a 30 minute warning before the launch. Putin called the U.S./NATO bluff and he promised that future retaliation could target “decision making centers” in Kyiv.

    This new Russian weapon can reach Warsaw in 1 minute 1 second; Berlin, 2 minutes 55 seconds; and London 6 minutes 56 seconds. Europe has no defence system that can intercept it. Putin said recently that when several Oreshniks are used simutaneously, “the resulting impact is comparable in power to that of a nuclear weapon.” Despite Russian warnings about escalating the conflict, the U.S. continues to blow past all red lines and on November 23 and 25, the Kiev regime fired a dozen more ATACMS into Russian territory.

    Here it’s imperative to briefly recall how the US imperialist strategy toward Russia got us into this dire situation. Contrary to the official narrative, the war in Ukraine did not begin with an “unprovoked” Russian invasion of Ukraine on February 27, 2022. Rather, as Jeffrey Sachs of Columbia University wrote, “In fact the war was provoked by the United States in ways that leading U.S. diplomats had anticipated for decades leading up to the war, which means that the war could have been avoided and should be stopped through negotiations.” (Common Dreams, 5/23/23). VIrtually all policy experts and Russian leaders warned that NATO expansion was, in the words of CIA Director William Burns, the “brightest of all red lines for the Russian elites (not just Putin) of whom would see it as a direct challenge to Russian interests.” George Kennan, architect of U.S. containment policy, called it “a tragic mistake.”

    In spite of these warnings, at the June 2008 Bucharest Summit, NATO leaders pronounced that “Ukraine will become a NATO member” and at the Brussels meeting on June 14, 2021, NATO reiterated that “Ukraine will be a member of NATO.” Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov countered, “The key to everything is that NATO will not expand eastward.” In truth, given all the U.S./NATO arms and military training flowing to the Kyiv regime it’s apparent that Ukraine was already a de facto NATO member.

    Anyone with a scintllla of working brain matter understood that no government in Moscow would tolerate the decision to bring Ukraine into NATO. Russia viewed NATO expansion on its border as an existential threat and legitimately feared that the US, under the giuise of NATO, would place missiles 317 miles or 5 minutes flying time from decapitating the Kremlin. What would Washington’s response be if Russia or China struck a “defensive” alliance with Canada or Mexico and began placing missiles on the U.S. border? Or, think of the Monroe Doctrine.

    In short, the war hawk neocons who prevail in Washington were fully aware of the above but wanted to provoke a proxy war to be fought to the last Ukrainian. They expected the conflict would depower Russia — and perhaps even precipitate a regime change — so the US could move along to the Strait of Taiwan and a likely confrontation with China, the primary peer challenger to US global domination.

    Since 2002, the U.S. has squandered $174 billion of aid and military assistance on Ukraine, money that’s desperately needed for addressing the cost of living, health care, housing, education and health care for the working class here at home. Further, there have been more than half a million Ukrainian and Russians killed on the battlefield in a war that that could have been avoided had the U.S. given up the idea of Ukraine joining NATO.

    According to the AP (11/29/2024), as many 200,000 soldiers may have deserted from the Ukrainian army. In response, Blinken is pressuring Ukraine to lower the conscription age to 18 which could add 350,000 in meat for the grinder. My sense is that Blinken & Co. are attempting to prolong the war as long as possible so that when the inevitable defeat does occur, we will hear the refrain, “Trump lost Ukraine.”

    In spite of all the official disinformation and propaganda on behalf of the war, a majority of Ukrainians no longer support it (Gallup,19 November 2024) and Americans now oppose more military aid for Ukraine. In our recent presidential election voters registered a strong mandate to end the “endless wars.” Here in Pennsylvania, a majority believe the US is “too involved” in foreign affairs. (CATO/YouGov/9/9/24).Over the past three years, Trump has promised to end the war in Ukraine and during his debate with Kamala Harris, he said “I want this war to stop.” In his November 5 victory speech, Trump declared “I’m not going to start wars, I’m going to end them.” We’ll soon see if the unpredictable and erratic Trump adheres to his promise. Given Deep State opposition and some of Trump’s appointees, I’m not optimistic.

    In the meantime, no sane person can wish the current situation to unfold into a global thermonuclear exchange and the annihilation of the earth’s people. I’m old enough to recall how the U.S. responded when Russia attempted to put missiles in Cuba and I suspect we are now closer to World War III than we were during those 13 fateful days in October 1962.

    The post U.S. Imperialism and Ukraine first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • These Billionaires Subsidize the Israeli Military Through a US Nonprofit

    Israel’s war on Gaza — marked by extensive war crimes, and widely seen as an ongoing genocide — has been backed by the U.S. government, which has provided Israel with billions of dollars in weapons to be used against Palestinians. On the ground and from the air, the genocidal siege has been carried out by Israel’s military, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), whose soldiers regularly post videos and…

    Source

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • The Battle for Democracy in the US Must Take On the Military-Industrial Complex

    For years, President-elect Donald Trump has portrayed himself as the central victim of the “deep state” — a phrase that now conjures up right-wing paranoia and anti-government fearmongering. But well before Trump held power, the term was used by leftists — and its meaning has played a critical role in its analysis of power. In Who Owns Democracy?: The Real Deep State and the Struggle Over…

    Source

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • Hypocritical UK just signed the biggest ever arms deal with human rights-abusing Egypt

    The UK has recently signed the largest single arms licence on record to Egypt, as a British-Egyptian political prisoner remains arbitrarily detained. The news comes amid growing concern over Egypt’s human rights abuses.

    The UK: selling arms to human rights-abusing Egypt

    Campaign Against Arms Trade calls on the UK government to halt the issuing of arms licences to Egypt until British national, pro-democracy activist and writer Alaa Abd el-Fattah is released by the Egyptian authorities. He was due to be released in September, but has not been freed, and should never have been imprisoned. He was convicted of ‘spreading false news’ for sharing a Facebook post about torture in Egypt.

    In December 2023, while Alaa remained detained, the largest single arms licence on record from the UK to Egypt was issued for military radars worth £79,347,022. Military radars can be used for purposes including surveillance, targeting and weapon guidance.

    According to the Cairo Institute for Human Rights many human rights defenders and critics of the government spend years on end in pretrial detention, ordered and renewed by terrorism courts and military courts through a process of dropping and then renewing legal cases against them, usually on the basis of national security or terrorism charges. In Alaa’s case the Egyptian authorities are refusing to acknowledge the years he has spent in pretrial detention.

    The UK is the largest single foreign investor in Egypt, and the annual trade between the two countries is around £4.5 billion. However Egypt remains one of the UK’s 32 human rights priority countries according to the UK’s most recent report on global human rights.

    As well as trade the UK has a strong military relationship with Egypt. In 2018 Egypt and the UK signed an agreement to conduct joint military training exercises which took place in 2019, along with bilateral ministerial meetings to “discuss enhancing UK-Egypt defence cooperation”.

    Huge licences

    Since September 2019 when Alaa was most recently detained by the Egyptian authorities, the UK has licensed at least £237 million worth of arms to Egypt.

    These arms licenses include:

    • £196 million worth of ML5 licences (target acquisition, weapon control and countermeasure systems);
    • £13 million worth of ML10 licences (components for aircraft, helicopters, drones);
    • £7.6 million worth of ML9 licences (components for warships);
    • £6.5 million worth of ML4 licences (grenades, bombs, missiles, countermeasures).

    This is a conservative total that does not include arms sold using the secretive and opaque Open Licence system. This allows weapons to be transferred without a total value being published. However, CAAT’s data browsers show that 34 unlimited-value “open” licences were issued during this period.

    Continuing to arm Egypt

    Katie Fallon, Advocacy Manager at Campaign Against Arms Trade said:

    Every day that passes is precious time stolen from Alaa and his loved ones by the Egyptian authorities. Successive British governments have signalled that there will be no meaningful consequences to the arbitrary detention of a dual British-Egyptian national, and instead the largest single arms licence to Egypt on record was signed last year.

    Our government continues to arm Egypt despite the regime’s widespread use of torture, enforced disappearances and arbitrary detention. We call on the UK to immediately halt the issuing of arms licences to Egypt until Alaa is released and leverage any partnership with Egypt for systemic reform of human rights in the country.

    Featured image via the Canary

    By The Canary

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Is Trump “the only hope we have”?

    RT ran a headline: “Putin must be ‘adult in the room’ on Ukraine conflict.” This is according to left-leaning comedian and political commentator Jimmy Dore.

    “Joe Biden and the neo-cons in his administration have been constantly escalating war… What they’re trying to do is start a war that Donald Trump can’t stop,” warns Dore about a potential WWIII.

    “The only hope we have is that Putin shows restraint, that he is the only adult in the room and that he can hold off somehow until Donald Trump becomes president,” Dore opined in an interview with Going Underground host Afshin Rattansi.

    Is that the only hope? One can certainly come up with many other hopes. For example, a mass mobilization by US citizenry in Washington, DC. A general strike carried out by Americans, Canadians, and Europeans repulsed by their neocon-affiliated politicians. Or that Pentagon generals speak out vociferously and publicly against such dangerous provocations against Russia. Or that people charged with inputting the coordinates for missiles targeting Russia refuse to do so.

    Far-fetched? Maybe so, but isn’t that what a hope is — something far outside of the realm of a certainty?

    Or is Trump the only feasible hope? And can Trump be trusted? How many promises did he fail to come through on during his first term as president?

    Dore asserts that “Trump is not a warmonger” and that he “got elected on ending our foreign regime-change interventionist wars.”

    Trump may very well have been elected on the basis of ending foreign interventions by the US. However, that does not excuse him from being a warmonger.

    Early in the first Trump presidency, he sent in US fighters who killed dozens of Yemeni civilians, including children. Trump was now a war criminal.

    Did Trump end the US war on Afghanistan? No, he sent more American troops to Afghanistan.

    Did Trump end the US war on Syria? No. In fact, Trump said the troops would remain because “We’re keeping the [Syrian] oil.”

    Did Trump seek peaceful relations with Iran? No. In fact, Trump pulled the US out of the JCPOA which was designed to halt Iran’s potential for becoming a nuclear-armed state. Trump’s strategy has set the stage for further nuclear proliferation. And if that was not enough, Trump ordered the assassination of Iranian general Qasem Soleimani.

    However woeful the Biden presidency has been, one ought not to forget the first Trump presidency. Trump has a track record. It seems prudent to remove the rose-colored glasses and take into consideration that track record.

    But Trump was pressured by those around him. Trump had mistakenly saddled himself with warmongering neocons in his previous administration like Nikki Haley, John Bolton, Mike Pompeo, etc. But is he different now?

    Trump’s new for Director of national security policy in the White House, Sebastian Gorka, exhibited his diplomatic decorum by referring to Russian president Vladimir Putin as a “murderous former KGB colonel, that thug.” According to Gorka, Trump is going to threaten Putin by telling him: “You will negotiate now or the aid that we have given to Ukraine thus far will look like peanuts.” Which serious-minded observers believe that Putin is now shaking in his pants?

    Does this inspire hope in Trump?

    Finally, does anyone have an iota of hope that Trump will do right in the Middle East when it comes to Israel?

    The post Is Trump “the only hope we have”? first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • Trump, AUKUS, and Australia’s Dim Servitors

    There is something enormously satisfying about seeing those in the war racket worry that their assumptions on conflict have been upended.  There they were, happily funding, planning and preparing to battle against threats imagined or otherwise, and there comes Donald Trump, malice and petulance combined, to pull the rug from under them again.

    What is fascinating about the return of Trump to the White House is that critics think his next round of potentially rowdy occupancy is going to encourage, rather than discourage war.  Conflict may be the inadvertent consequence of any number of unilateral policies Trump might pursue, but they do not tally with his anti-war platform.  Whatever can be said about his adolescent demagogic tendencies, a love of war is curiously absent from the complement.  A tendency to predictable unpredictability, however, is.

    The whole assessment also utterly misunderstands the premise that the foolishly menacing trilateral alliance of AUKUS is, by its nature, a pact for the making of war.  This agreement between Australia, the UK and the US can hardly be dignified as some peaceful, unprovocative enterprise fashioned to preserve security.  To that end, President Joe Biden should shoulder a considerable amount of the blame for destabilising the region.  But instead, we are getting some rather streaky commentary from the security wonks in Australia.  Trump spells, in the pessimistic words of Nick Bisley from La Trobe University, “uncertainty about just what direction the US will go”.  His policies might, for instance, “badly destabilise Asia” and imperil the AUKUS, specifically on the provision of nuclear-powered submarines to the Royal Australian Navy.  On the last point, we can only hope.

    The Australians, being willing and unquestioning satellites of US power, have tried to pretend that a change of the guard in the White House will not doom the pact.  Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong expressed a “great deal of confidence” that things would not change under the new administration, seeing as AUKUS enjoyed bipartisan support.

    Australia’s ambassador to the US, Kevin Rudd, is also of the view that AUKUS will survive into the Trump administration as it “strengthens all three countries’ ability to deter threats, and it grows the defence industrial base and creates jobs in all three countries”.

    Another former ambassador to Washington, Arthur Sinodinos, who also occupies the role of AUKUS forum co-chair, has pitched the viability of the trilateral pact in such a way as to make it more appealing to Trump.  Without any trace of humour, he suggests that tech oligarch Elon Musk oversee matters if needed.  “If Musk can deliver AUKUS, we should put Musk in charge of AUKUS, and I’m not joking, if new thinking is needed to get this done,” advises the deluded Sinodinos.

    The reasoning offered on this is, to put it mildly, peculiar.  As co-head of the proposed Department of Government Efficiency, Musk, it is hoped, will apply “business principles” and “new thinking”.  If the Pentagon can “reform supply chains, logistics, procurement rules, in a way that means there’s speed to market, we get minimum viable capability sooner, rather than later”.

    These doltish assessments from Sinodinos are blatantly ignorant of the fact the defence industry is never efficient.  Nor do they detract from the key premise of the arrangements.  Certainly, if an anti-China focus is what you are focusing on – and AUKUS, centrally and evidently, is an anti-China agreement pure and simple – there would be little reason for Trump to tinker with its central tenets.  For one, he is hankering for an even deeper trade war with Beijing. Why not also harry the Chinese with a provocative instrument, daft as it is, that entails militarising Australia and garrisoning it for any future conflict that might arise?

    Whatever the case, AUKUS has always been contingent on the interests of one power.  Congress has long signalled that US defence interests come first, including whether Australia should receive any Virginian class submarines to begin with. Trump would hardly disagree here. “Trump’s decisions at each phase of AUKUS cooperation will be shaped by zero-sum balance sheets of US interest,” suggests Alice Nason of the University of Sydney’s US Studies Centre rather tritely.

    If Trump be so transactional, he has an excellent example of a country utterly willing to give everything to US security, thereby improving the deal from the side of Washington’s military-industrial complex.  If there was one lingering, pathological complaint he had about Washington’s NATO allies, it was always that they were not doing enough to ease the burdens of US defence.  They stalled on defence budgets; they quibbled on various targets on recruitment.

    This can hardly be said of Canberra.  Australia’s government has abandoned all pretence of resistance, measure or judgment, outrageously willing to underwrite the US imperium in any of its needs in countering China, raiding the treasury of taxpayer funds to the tune of a figure that will, eventually, exceed A$368 billion.  Rudd openly acknowledges that Australian money is directly “investing into the US submarine industrial base to expand the capacity of their shipyards.”  It would be silly to prevent this continuing windfall. It may well be that aspect that ends up convincing Trump that AUKUS is worth keeping.  Why get rid of willing servitors of such dim tendency when they are so willing to please you with cash and compliments?

    The post Trump, AUKUS, and Australia’s Dim Servitors first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • UK’s nationalised nuclear warhead company refuses Canary FOI over public spending

    The UK’s nuclear warhead manufacturer AWE (Atomic Weapons Establishment) has rebranded in an attempt to attract more workers. However, it has refused to disclose to the Canary how much public money it spent on the accompanying public relations (PR) exercise.

    AWE faces increased demand for its services following the Conservative Party government’s decision, under the Integrated Review 2021, to increase the UK’s stockpile of nuclear warheads from 225 to 260.

    That decision came during the context of increasing hostility from Russia after the annexation of Crimea in 2014 and the poisoning of the Skripals in 2018, but before the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. In addition, the US and Russia had withdrawn from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF Treaty) in 2019.

    AWE: rebranded to ‘attract more workers’

    Two high profile parts of AWE rebrand were changes to its logo and tagline, which were shared in materials including posters in public places like trains.

    The logo used to be teal or black letters saying AWE and a teal or black electron field detail, all on a white background. This has been replaced with black AWE letters with softened edges and the phrase ‘nuclear security technologies’ in all caps.

    AWE has two main sites at Aldermaston and Burghfield, both in Berkshire. An anti-nuclear weapons campaigner, familiar with the Aldermaston site, told the Canary they had seen “big adverts on the side of busses in Oxford and Reading” for AWE.

    In addition, the campaigner said they saw adverts on the handsets of petrol pumps at three different Sainsbury’s petrol stations in the local area encouraging people to apply for jobs at AWE Aldermaston.

    Failing to mention what it really does

    One poster spotted on a train says “There’s more to working at AWE than you think… like meaningful work protecting the nation and an impressive range of benefits” with a person dressed in personal protective equipment holding a tablet computer:

    AWE nuclear weapons

    The poster also says employees have access to benefits “including enhanced maternity/paternity pay, support for professional development & a 9-day working fortnight”.

    It goes on to list a QR code and a link to its website where readers can “find out more about a career with AWE.” At no point does the poster mention weapons, warheads, Trident, or the Continuous-at-sea-Deterrent (CASD), which is the UK government’s official wording for the submarine-based nuclear weapon system.

    The Aldermaston campaigner said they thought the rebrand had taken place because of the nationalisation of AWE.

    AWE was run by a Lockheed Martin, Serco, and Jacobs Engineering consortium from 2008 until 2021 when the Ministry of Defence (MoD) took over ownership.

    The campaigner said they “definitely” thought the rebrand was about improving recruitment at AWE, and said they thought AWE employees “seem much happier” following nationalisation of the company.

    Transparency request rejected by nuclear weapons maker

    Under the Freedom of Information (FOI) Act, AWE was asked:

    Please will you share with me information you have about the recent (2023/2024) rebrand of AWE? Information including any presentations, brand books, brand guides, and house styles.

    In addition, please will you share how much was spent on the rebrand including any breakdowns of costs where available, and the name of the organisation(s) which provided the rebrand.

    In response to the FOI request, AWE said:

    We can confirm that AWE holds all of the information you have requested, however, we are withholding the information under section 43(2) of the FOI Act.

    FOI responses where a request is refused often include a breakdown of the arguments the organisation used in favour of, and against, disclosing the information. AWE laid out its case.

    Explaining its argument in favour of disclosure, AWE said:

    The factors in favour of disclosure of the information would be to provide openness and transparency in public spending and the procurement process, the Act makes a presumption towards disclosure of information wherever possible and to insight public confidence in the integrity and fairness of AWE.

    It went on to explain, at length, arguments against disclosure. AWE said:

    Factors against disclosure of the information would be that freedom of information requests can be used as powerful tools for our adversaries to gain a better understanding of our external risk exposure.

    Disclosure could also harm the commercial interest of the suppliers by revealing sensitive information that competitors could exploit. Suppliers may also be less willing to engage with AWE in future contracts if they believe their identities and potentially sensitive information could be disclosed.

    This could have a major impact on the procurement process and disrupt operations and facilities which would in turn prevent the maintenance of Continuous at Sea Deterrent (CASD) and undermine the defence of the nation.

    AWE: transparency over public spending ‘could incite malicious activities’

    It continued:

    From a security perspective, releasing this information could also incite malicious activities beyond the control of the UK. Adversaries might use the information to impersonate AWE or its staff, leading to fraudulent or harmful actions.

    While there is a public interest in promoting openness and transparency, these must be weighed against commercial interests. The outcome of the Public Interest Test (PIT) was that the information should be withheld to prevent prejudice to commercial interest.

    AWE’s refusal to share information about its procurement of public relations services contrasts with other areas of defence procurement, such as the names of suppliers of the Trident missiles used to carry nuclear warheads – Lockheed Martin  – and the Vanguard-class submarines used to carry the missiles – BAE Systems Marine.

    In addition, Capita proudly shared information about how it provided public relations support to the British Army with its recruitment campaign ‘This is Belonging’ in 2020. It’s unclear how AWE can justify withholding information about its PR activities, while other parts of the military disclose their PR providers.

    AWE confirms rebrand designed to attract more employees

    The Canary put the points raised by the anti-nuclear weapons campaigner and Worthy to AWE.

    An AWE spokesman said:

    AWE’s brand refresh reflects the company’s growth and evolution over the past 25 years and our vision to deliver a safe and secure future for all.

    A strong, clear identity helps us to communicate the company’s direction and values to external partners at home and abroad, and to attract the UK’s diverse talent, innovation and skills.

    The decision to conduct a brand refresh rather than a wholesale change in brand allowed us to minimise costs and provide value for money.

    Was the FOI refusal a possible deterrent for future requests?

    Birkbeck College, University of London senior lecturer in politics Ben Worthy has research interests in government transparency, particularly freedom of information, political leadership and British politics.

    Worthy said the commercial confidentiality argument “makes sense partially, as you can see how logically publishing the details could disadvantage/advantage different groups in the future”:

    However, I can’t follow how this then endangers national security and the wider weapons systems. I can’t quite follow the trail there.

    It could be that this is just a cut and paste response, with this sentence left in as a logical follow to all refused requests, as a kind of heavy deterrent to future requests.

    Featured image via the Canary, additional image supplied

    By Tom Pashby

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • COP29 Ignores Militarism, Putting Meaningful Climate Deal Out of Reach

    The 2024 UN climate change conference, COP29, held in Baku, Azerbaijan, is now nearing its end and reports are that talks are deadlocked. The two biggest elephants in the room are militarism and climate financing. Wars generate more carbon emissions than many countries, while the U.S. military is the single largest institutional source of greenhouse gas emissions…

    Source

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • If you fancy blockading arms dealers’ factories – here’s a map of ALL of them

    Just as the International Criminal Court (ICC) issues arrest warrants for Benjamin Netanyahu and former Israel defence minister Yoav Gallant, Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT) has launched a new map documenting the arms dealers exporting military equipment to Israel from the UK. It once again raises questions over the UK government’s role in Israel’s genocide – and implicates Keir Starmer and his government, too.

    Arms dealers in the UK: mapped

    The map, based on Freedom of Information (FOI) requests and CAAT’s arms companies browser, gives campaigners all the information they need to find and take action against the arms dealers on their doorsteps:

    arms dealers ICC Israel Starmer

    The map expands on CAAT’s previous map that focused on the manufacturers of F35-combat aircraft components. Included in the map are companies that have previously slipped under the radar. One such company is Gooch and Housego who, with the acquisition of Phoenix Optical Technologies, are the largest recipient of arms export licenses to Israel.

    While the Labour Party government temporarily suspended a small proportion of arms exports to Israel in September, it made an exemption for the F-35 programme despite evidence that Israel is using F-35s to commit war crimes.

    The UK makes 15% of every F-35 with contracts just for the F-35 programme worth at least £360m since 2016. This makes the F-35 almost certainly the single largest and most important part of the UK arms trade with Israel. CAAT has produced a detailed briefing on the F-35 exemption and other loopholes and problems with the partial suspension.

    The ICC should be looking at the UK government’s complicity with Israel’s genocide

    The launch of the map coincides with new revelations about the UK’s role in arming Israel. These include:

    • An admission in the GLAN/Al-Haq court case against the UK government that the foreign secretary assessed that Israel is not committed to complying with international humanitarian law
    • The case also confirmed that Keir Starmer’s government accepts it is possible that Israel is using F-35s to commit war crimes, and that the exemption was made because including them would disrupt the F-35 supply chain which would “have a profound impact on international peace and security” and “would undermine US confidence in the UK and NATO at a critical juncture in our collective history and set back relations”.
    • FOI data showing that there was a large increase in the number of spare parts Israel imported for F-35s in 2023. The licence was used almost three times more than any other year on record. Between 2016-2023, the F-35 Open General Export License (OGEL) was used 34 times. In 2023, it was used 14 times. Previously, the highest figure in a year was 5.
    • FOI data that shows the value of UK arms exports to Israel is much higher than government figures suggest as they do not include incorporation licences to the US. Under these licences, equipment is exported to a country for assembly, and then re-exported to a third country. Between 2022-2023, £165m of incorporation licences were issued for export to the US where Israel was listed as one of several end users. £52m of these licences listed Israel as the only end user.

    Starmer and arms dealers should be in the ICC dock

    CAAT’s media coordinator Emily Apple said:

    Both the government and the arms industry are deeply complicit in Israel’s genocide. Arms dealers are making vast amounts of money from Israel’s horrific war crimes, with successive governments bending over backwards, and using every loophole available to prioritise shareholder profits over Palestinian lives.

    GLAN and Al-Haq’s court case is essential in holding successive governments to account for their complicity in the atrocities Israel is committing in Gaza. But it isn’t enough. Despite supposedly being fast-tracked, the court case has already run for a year, and it is still unknown when the full case will be heard.

    In the meantime, the situation for Palestinians is beyond horrific, Israel continues to kill civilians with impunity, and still refuses to allow vital humanitarian aid into Gaza. This genocide is happening now.

    Our government is not acting, and Palestinian people cannot wait for the conclusion of the court case. This is why we have released our updated interactive map to enable campaigners to take action against the genocide profiteers on their doorsteps.

    Featured image via the Canary

    By The Canary

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Defund Genocide: Activists at COP29 Link Climate Fight to Militarism, Gaza, Lebanon & Sudan


    This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Defund Genocide: Activists at COP29 Link Climate Fight to Militarism, Gaza, Lebanon & Sudan

    Seg5 peoplesplenarybanner 2

    At COP29 in Baku, Azerbaijan, civil society members held a People’s Plenary called “Pay Up, Stand Up: Finance Climate Action, Not Genocide” outside negotiation rooms in which U.N. member states attempted to hammer out a global climate finance deal. In the face of the conference’s restrictions on protest, civil society members unfurled the names of Palestinians who have been killed, reading out the names of those killed by Israel’s military aggression and calling for an end to ecocidal violence worldwide. We hear from three people who participated in the action, including Palestinian activist Jana Rashed and Sudanese activist Leena Eisa — both of whom call on nations to stop providing fuel for genocides being perpetrated against Palestinian, Lebanese and Sudanese people — and the plenary’s co-chair Lidy Nacpil, who calls the gathering a “celebration” of marginalized voices at the climate summit.


    This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • White poppies have had a bumper year at remembrance events

    White poppies are becoming an established part of a growing number of official remembrance events across the UK – and this year has seen an uptick in their representation, and that of peace over militarism and war.

    White poppies: representation growing

    In recent years, peace campaigners in several towns and cities have worked successfully with local councils, the Royal British Legion, and others to ensure that white poppies are included.

    At the weekend just passed, numerous ceremonies, vigils, and other remembrance events featuring them took place around the country to mark Remembrance Sunday. Many of these events, such as those in Edinburgh, Ipswich, and Wokingham took place separately from official commemorations and focused on the white poppy’s message of peace, opposing militarism, and remembrance for all victims of war.

    The National Alternative Remembrance Ceremony in London was attended by around two hundred people:

    It featured powerful speeches on peacebuilding and the global arms trade, as well as moving stories by two Palestinian speakers on the impacts of war in Israel and Palestine, both today and since 1948:

    Longstanding customs

    In several places around the UK there is now a longstanding custom of including white poppies in official events. In Leicester, the official city ceremony at the Arch of Remembrance has featured white poppy wreaths for several years running, laid by local representatives of the Quakers, CND, and the Community of Christ.

    In Aberystwyth, white poppies have been part of the official town ceremony for nearly a decade, with a white poppy wreath laid by the Town Council’s deputy mayor as well as by several other groups including Aberystwyth Peace and Justice Network, Women in Black, Cor Gobaith, and AberAid – a group supporting refugees.

    In Stowmarket, this was the fifteenth year that a white poppy wreath has been placed alongside red poppy wreaths at a ceremony immediately following official commemorations and attended by the Mayor and town councillors.

    White poppy wreaths have also featured alongside red poppies in events and installations in Bristol, Sale in South Manchester, Bodmin Moor, and Nuneaton

    https:/twitter.com/PPUtoday/status/1856350536817123339

    Reflecting this trend, the official ceremony for Remembrance Sunday in Haringey included white poppies for the first time this year in coordination with the local Council, the Mayor’s Office and the Deputy Lieutenant of Haringey, Peter Barker.

    PPU council member Colin Kerr, who led this new initiative, said:

    We are delighted to have the support of Haringey councillors for the inclusion of the laying of a white poppy wreath in this year’s Remembrance Sunday ceremony. Ever since the First World War civilians far outnumber soldiers and military as the victims of war. White poppies are in remembrance of all victims of war, both civilian and military.

    He added:

    Today we witness appalling industrialised destruction of people’s bodies and homes, with armaments undreamed of in previous wars. The lesson of remembrance was ‘never again’. Have we forgotten rather than remembered? Those who wear the white poppy remember and respect all those affected by war, and promote, in so far as they can, the removal of the causes of war.

    Broad commemoration

    Further white poppy ceremonies took place in Bridgwater, Bury St Edmunds, Clevedon, Holton cum Beckering, Leigh-on-Sea, Nailsworth, and Southend-on-Sea:

    https:/twitter.com/BSEQuakers/status/1856405258236207362

    At the National Alternative Remembrance Ceremony, the activist and comedian Kate Smurthwaite, who hosted the event, spoke about the wars in the Middle East, Sudan and Ukraine in her opening remarks.

    She said the purpose of the ceremony was to commemorate “all those who have died in war,” adding:

    That includes those in the military on all sides, many of whom will have been conscripts, many of whom will have not wanted to fight… It also commemorates civilians, journalists, aid workers, people caught up in the cross fire, people caught up in friendly fire, people caught up in the militarisation and arms industry in all sorts of different ways. The best thing that we can do for all these people is to end war.

    Other speakers at the National Ceremony included Jon Nott from Campaign Against Arms Trade and Roger McKenzie, CND Vice-President and international editor of the Morning Star. Palestinian researcher and curator Nadine Aranki spoke about the impact the war in Gaza is having on civilians, including her own family.

    Another speaker, British Palestinian scholar and activist Marwan Darweish, told those assembled about his work alongside Israelis who have refused to fight in the armed forces:

    Hope is a community action, is a responsibility, is people working together… With them I want to share the vision of hope and equal rights for all in Palestine.

    White poppies: planning for next year

    The PPU is encouraging white poppy wearers to think ahead to next year and to seek out opportunities to include white poppies in remembrance events near them, whether in coordination with local councils or independently. They are asking their supporters and members to get in touch if they want advice on how to hold an event or approach councils about including them.

    Featured image via the PPU

    By The Canary

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Will Trump End or Escalate Biden’s Wars?


    A boy sits in rubble in Gaza. Photo Credit: UNICEF

    When Donald Trump takes office on January 20, all his campaign promises to end the war in Ukraine in 24 hours and almost as quickly end Israel’s war on its neighbors will be put to the test. The choices he has made for his incoming administration so far, from Marco Rubio as Secretary of State to Mike Waltz as National Security Advisor, Pete Hegseth as Secretary of Defense and Elise Stefanik as UN Ambassador make for a rogues gallery of saber-rattlers.

    The only conflict where peace negotiations seem to be on the agenda is Ukraine. In April, both Vice President-elect JD Vance and Senator Marco Rubio voted against a $95 billion military aid bill that included $61 billion for Ukraine.

    Rubio recently appeared on NBC’s Today Show saying, “I think the Ukrainians have been incredibly brave and strong when standing up to Russia. But at the end of the day, what we’re funding here is a stalemate war, and it needs to be brought to a conclusion… I think there has to be some common sense here.”

    On the campaign trail, Vance made a controversial suggestion that the best way to end the war was for Ukraine to cede the land Russia has seized, for a demilitarized zone to be established, and for Ukraine to become neutral, i.e. not enter NATO. He was roundly criticized by both Republicans and Democrats who argue that backing Ukraine is vitally important to U.S. security since it weakens Russia, which is closely allied with China.

    Any attempt by Trump to stop U.S. military support for Ukraine will undoubtedly face fierce opposition from the pro-war forces in his own party, particularly in Congress, as well as perhaps the entirety of the Democratic party. Two years ago, 30 progressive Democrats in Congress wrote a letter to President Biden asking him to consider promoting negotiations. The party higher ups were so incensed by their lack of party discipline that they came down on the progressives like a ton of bricks. Within 24 hours, the group had cried uncle and rescinded the letter. They have since all voted for money for Ukraine and have not uttered another word about negotiations.

    So a Trump effort to cut funds to Ukraine could run up against a bipartisan congressional effort to keep the war going. And let’s not forget the efforts by European countries, and NATO, to keep the U.S. in the fight. Still, Trump could stand up to all these forces and push for a rational policy that would restart the talking and stop the killing.

    The Middle East, however, is a more difficult situation. In his first term, Trump showed his pro-Israel cards when he brokered the Abraham accords between several Arab countries and Israel; moved the U.S. embassy to a location in Jerusalem that is partly on occupied land outside Israel’s internationally recognized borders; and recognized the occupied Golan Heights in Syria as part of Israel. Such unprecedented signals of unconditional U.S. support for Israel’s illegal occupation and settlements helped set the stage for the current crisis.

    Trump seems as unlikely as Biden to cut U.S. weapons to Israel, despite public opinion polls favoring such a halt and a recent UN human rights report showing that 70% of the people killed by those U.S. weapons are women and children.

    Meanwhile, the wily Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu is already busy getting ready for a second Trump presidency. On the very day of the U.S. election, Netanyahu fired his defense minister, Yoav Gallant, who opposed a lasting Israeli military occupation of Gaza and had at times argued for prioritizing the lives of the Israeli hostages over killing more Palestinians.

    Israel Katz, the new defense minister and former foreign minister, is more hawkish than Gallant, and has led a campaign to falsely blame Iran for the smuggling of weapons from Jordan into the West Bank.

    Other powerful voices, national security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and finance minister Bezalel Smotrich, who is also a “minister in the Defense Ministry,” represent extreme Zionist parties that are publicly committed to territorial expansion, annexation and ethnic cleansing. They both live in illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank.

    So Netanyahu has deliberately surrounded himself with allies who back his ever-escalating war. They are surely developing a war plan to exploit Trump’s support for Israel, but will first use the unique opportunity of the U.S. transition of power to create facts on the ground that will limit Trump’s options when he takes office.

    The Israelis will doubtless redouble their efforts to drive Palestinians out of as much of Gaza as possible, confronting President Trump with a catastrophic humanitarian crisis in which Gaza’s surviving population is crammed into an impossibly small area, with next to no food, no shelter for many, disease running rampant, and no access to needed medical care for tens of thousands of horribly wounded and dying people.

    The Israelis will count on Trump to accept whatever final solution they propose, most likely to drive Palestinians out of Gaza, into the West Bank, Jordan, Egypt and farther afield.

    Israel threatened all along to do to Lebanon the same as they have done to Gaza. Israeli forces have met fierce resistance, taken heavy casualties, and have not advanced far into Lebanon. But, as in Gaza, they are using bombing and artillery to destroy villages and towns, kill or drive people north and hope to effectively annex the part of Lebanon south of the Litani river as a so-called “buffer zone.” When Trump takes office, they may ask for greater U.S. involvement to help them “finish the job.”

    The big wild card is Iran. Trump’s first term in office was marked by a policy of “maximum pressure” against Tehran. He unilaterally withdrew America from the Iran nuclear deal, imposed severe sanctions that devastated the economy, and ordered the killing of the country’s top general. Trump did not support a war on Iran in his first term, but had to be talked out of attacking Iran in his final days in office by General Mark Milley and the Pentagon.

    Colin Powell’s former chief of staff, retired Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, recently described to Chris Hedges just how catastrophic a war with Iran would be, based on U.S.military wargames he was involved in.

    Wilkerson predicts that a U.S. war on Iran could last for ten years, cost $10 trillion and still fail to conquer Iran. Airstrikes alone would not destroy all of Iran’s civilian nuclear program and ballistic missile stockpiles. So, once unleashed, the war would very likely escalate into a regime change war involving U.S. ground forces, in a country with three or four times the territory and population of Iraq, more mountainous terrain and a thousand mile long coastline bristling with missiles that can sink U.S. warships.

    But Netanyahu and his extreme Zionist allies believe that they must sooner or later fight an existential war with Iran if they are to realize their vision of a dominant Greater Israel. And they believe that the destruction they have wreaked on the Palestinians in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon, including the assassination of their senior leaders, has given them a military advantage and a favorable opportunity for a showdown with Iran.

    By November 10, Trump and Netanyahu had reportedly spoken on the phone three times since the election, and Netanyahu said that they see “eye to eye on the Iranian threat.” Trump has already hired Iran hawk Brian Hook, who helped him sabotage the JCPOA nuclear agreement with Iran in 2018, to coordinate the formation of his foreign policy team.

    So far, the team that Trump and Hook have assembled seems to offer hope for peace in Ukraine, but little to none for peace in the Middle East and a rising danger of a U.S.-Israeli war on Iran.

    Trump’s expected National Security Advisor Mike Waltz is best known as a China hawk. He has voted against military aid to Ukraine in Congress, but he recently tweeted that Israel should bomb Iran’s nuclear and oil facilities, the most certain path to a full-scale war.

    Trump’s new UN ambassador, Elise Stefanik, has led moves in Congress to equate criticism of Israel with anti-semitism, and she led the aggressive questioning of American university presidents at an anti-semitism hearing in Congress, after which the presidents of Harvard and Penn resigned.

    So, while Trump will have some advisors who support his desire to end the war in Ukraine, there will be few voices in his inner circle urging caution over Netanyahu’s genocidal ambitions in Palestine and his determination to cripple Iran.

    If he wanted to, President Biden could use his final two months in office to de-escalate the conflicts in the Middle East. He could impose an embargo on offensive weapons for Israel, push for serious ceasefire negotiations in both Gaza and Lebanon, and work through U.S. partners in the Gulf to de-escalate tensions with Iran.

    But Biden is unlikely to do any of that. When his own administration sent a letter to Israel last month, threatening a cut in military aid if Israel did not allow a surge of humanitarian aid into Gaza in the next 30 days, Israel responded by doing just the opposite–actually cutting the number of trucks allowed in. The State Department claimed Israel was taking “steps in the right direction” and Biden refused to take any action.

    We will soon see if Trump is able to make progress in moving the Ukraine war towards negotiations, potentially saving the lives of many thousands of Ukrainians and Russians. But between the catastrophe that Trump will inherit and the warhawks he is picking for his cabinet, peace in the Middle East seems more distant than ever.

    The post Will Trump End or Escalate Biden’s Wars? first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • The Military-Industrial Complex Is Fueling Climate Catastrophe

    As we write, New York City is an unsettling 70 degrees in November. Meanwhile, a cohort of war profiteers, their pockets lined by the very industries destroying our climate, are flying to COP, the annual U.N. climate summit hosted by a petrostate, no less. They’re gathering to “discuss climate solutions”—but one of the world’s biggest contributors to the climate crisis will be entirely overlooked: the U.S. military-industrial complex.

    The world’s largest institutional emitter, the U.S. military, sits beyond the reach of the metrics meant to hold countries accountable for climate pollution. Exempt from transparency requirements at the COP or within U.N. climate agreements, the military sector is, in fact, the leading institutional driver of the climate crisis. It burns through fossil fuels on a scale that surpasses entire nations while waging wars that destroy lives, communities, and the land itself. It’s a deliberate omission, one meant to hide the environmental and social costs of militarism from view.

    Leading the U.S. delegation to COP is John Podesta — a career defender of militarism, a lobbyist who has worked to fortify the very military establishment poisoning our air, water, and land. Now, he arrives in the conference halls of COP wrapped in a cloak of environmentalism. Yet, as long as he skirts around the elephant in the room, no amount of recycled paper or energy-efficient lighting at COP will address the core driver of the climate crisis. If Podesta ignores the environmental impact of U.S. militarism, he’ll be dooming us.

    For those of us directly feeling the crisis, there’s no question that the U.S. Empire’s military machine is central to our climate emergency. Appalachians living through floods and those of us in New York watching temperatures soar out of season are witnesses to the toll. And yet we watch as our leaders, claiming to care about climate, push forward with policies and budgets that only deepen our climate emergency.

    In the past year alone, the war on Gaza has been a horrifying example of militarism’s environmental toll. Entire communities were leveled under the firepower of U.S.-funded bombs. In just two months, emissions from these military activities equaled the yearly carbon output of 26 countries. This violence bleeds beyond borders. U.S. police forces train with the Israeli military, and they’ll soon bring their war tactics to Atlanta’s Cop City, where a training center is planned on sacred Indigenous land. Militarism is woven into every facet of our society — taking lives, razing homes, and desecrating land — all while stoking climate disaster.

    This crisis can’t be solved by those who are its architects. It can’t be fixed by Podesta’s well-crafted speeches or the administration’s empty pledges. The Biden administration just passed one of the largest military budgets in history, pumping more dollars — and more carbon emissions — into the climate catastrophe. Each weapon shipped, each tank deployed, is an environmental crime in the making, one funded by American tax dollars. We can’t ignore this fact as COP progresses and climate talks fall short yet again.

    It’s easy to despair in the face of such unaccountable power. But in times of crisis, clarity can become a weapon. We must expose the truth that militarism is antithetical to climate justice. True climate solutions don’t come from polite panel discussions led by those who wield the tools of destruction. They come from radical honesty and demands for accountability. They come from a commitment to ending the empire choking our planet and communities. And they come from a shared goal of mutual liberation that doesn’t ignore the plight of the many to serve the few.

    The cost of militarism is clear, and its environmental toll demands our fiercest opposition. This COP, let’s not let the elephant in the room fade into the background. It’s time for those responsible for our climate crisis—the war machines, the lobbyists, and the industries that back them—to be held accountable. For our survival and for each other, we must demand climate justice that tells the truth.

    The post The Military-Industrial Complex Is Fueling Climate Catastrophe first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • Visions of an Asian NATO

    Japan’s new prime minister, Shigeru Ishiba, is stirring the pot – notably on regional security matters.  He has proposed something that has done more than raise a few eyebrows in the foreign and defence ministries of several countries.  An Asian version of NATO, he has suggested, was an idea worth considering, notably given China’s ambitions in the region.  “The creation of an Asian version of NATO is essential to deter China by its Western allies,” he revealed to the Washington-based Hudson Institute in September.

    During his campaign for office, Ishiba had mooted changes to the deployment arrangements of the Japan Self-Defence Forces and the need to move beyond the purely bilateral approach to regional security anchored by US agreements with various countries, be it with Japan, South Korea, the Philippines and others.

    Ishiba’s suggested changes to Japan’s self-defence posture builds on a cabinet decision made during the Abe administration to reinterpret the country’s constitution to permit exercising the right of collective self-defence.  It was a problematic move, given the pacifist nature of a text that renounces the use of force in the resolution of international disputes.

    In September 2015, then Prime Minister Shinzo Abe convinced the Diet to pass a package of security bills known as the Legislation for Peace and Security, thereby allowing Japan to participate in limited forms of collective self-defence.  Opponents warned, understandably, that the legislation paved the way for Japan to attack a country in concert with another on the premise of collective self-defence, despite not itself being directly attacked.  They have every reason to be even more worried given Ishiba’s recent meditations.

    The intention to broaden the remit of how Japan’s armed forces are deployed is also a reminder to the United States that Tokyo is no longer interested in playing a subordinate role in its alliance with Washington. “The current Japan-US security treaty,” complains Ishiba, “is structured so that the US is obligated to ‘defend’ Japan, and Japan is obligated to ‘provide bases’ to the US.”  He suggests “expanding the scope of joint management of US bases in Japan”, a move that would reduce Washington’s burden, and revising the Japan-US Security Treaty and Status of Forces Agreement to permit the stationing of Japanese forces on Guam.

    What makes his suggestions disconcerting is not merely the establishment of a power bloc bound by the glue of collective self-defence – an arrangement that has much to do with defence as a growling provocation.  Ishiba is intent on being even more provocative in suggesting that any such “Asian version of NATO must also specifically consider America’s sharing of nuclear weapons or the introduction of nuclear weapons into the region.”

    Were such a move taken, it would, at least from a Japanese perspective, fly in the face of a doctrine in place since December 1967, when Prime Minister Eisaku Sato articulated the three non-nuclear principles of “not possessing, not producing and not permitting the introduction of nuclear weapons, in line with Japan’s Peace Constitution.”

    As with so many in the business of preaching about international security, false paradigms and analysis are offered from the pulpit.  The Japanese PM, much like neoconservative hawks in Washington and Canberra, prove incapable of seeing conflict in generic, transferrable terms. “Ukraine today is Asia tomorrow,” he falsely reasons. “Replacing Russia with China and Ukraine and Taiwan, the absence of a collective self-defense system like NATO in Asia means that wars are likely to break out because there is no obligation for mutual defense.” Ergo, he reasons, the need for an Asian version of NATO.

    Ishiba’s suggestions have yet to gather momentum. Daniel Kritenbrink, US assistant secretary of state for East Asia and the Pacific, told a forum on Indo-Pacific security at the Stimson Center in September that he preferred the current “latticework” approach to US regional alliances featuring, for instance, the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue involving Japan, India and Australia, and AUKUS, featuring Australia and the UK. “It’s too early to talk about collective security in that context, and [the creation of] more formal institutions.” It was far better to focus on “investing in the region’s existing formal architecture and continuing to build this network of formal and information relationships.”

    Kritenbrink’s analysis hardly gets away from the suspicion that the “latticework” theory of US security in the Indo-Pacific is but a form of NATO in embryo. As Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said with tartness in 2022, “The real goal for the [US] Indo-Pacific strategy is to establish an Indo-Pacific version of NATO. These perverse actions run counter to common aspirations of the region and are doomed to fail.”

    From New Delhi, the view towards such an alliance is not a glowing one.  On October 1, at an event held by Washington’s Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar proved dismissive of any NATO replication in Asia. “We don’t have that kind of strategic architecture in mind.” India had “a different history and different way of approaching” its security considerations.

    With the return of Donald Trump to the White House, the collective defence hawks so keen on adding kindling to conflict will have their teeth chattering.  Ishiba’s ideas may well have to be put back into cold storage – at least in the interim.  And as luck would have it, his own prime ministerial tenure already looks threatened.

    The post Visions of an Asian NATO first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • Remembrance Day must be decolonised to truly serve its purpose

    White poppy wearers are calling for the victims of colonial conflicts to be remembered alongside other victims of war on Remembrance Day – with their voices being amplified by the Peace Pledge Union.

    Remembrance Day: focusing on British military victims of war

    Mainstream remembrance events traditionally focus on British and allied military victims of war, primarily from the First and Second World Wars, rarely acknowledging colonial conflicts waged during the British Empire.

    Peace campaigners are now calling for this to change, pushing for a long-overdue reckoning with Britain’s colonial past.

    The UK’s leading pacifist organisation, the Peace Pledge Union (PPU), has launched a new initiative, ‘Decolonising Remembrance’, which aims to ensure that the victims of colonial wars receive proper recognition on Remembrance Day.

    The project also aims to challenge the legacies of colonialism today, which continue to influence who is publicly remembered and whose histories and experiences are erased.

    The PPU is encouraging those organising events for Remembrance Sunday and Remembrance Day to draw on the experiences of those affected by colonial wars, both past and present, and to listen to the voices of those who keep their memory alive.

    Wearing the white poppy

    Many white poppy wearers have already embraced this initiative, recognising the need to actively acknowledge victims of war that are systematically ignored or dehumanised. The white poppy, which has been worn for over ninety years, stands for remembrance of all victims of war, both civilian and military, of all nationalities.

    White poppy wearer and Peace Pledge Union (PPU) member Nadja Lovadinov said:

    Decolonising Remembrance is about asking ourselves, who do we remember on the eleventh of November, and who have we forgotten? Decolonisation is an active practice that unsettles and refuses to accept the nationalist, military narrative of mainstream remembrance, by platforming the victims of colonial wars.

    The call to decolonise remembrance comes in the wake of renewed controversy over the legacies of Empire, after the UK government’s decision to hand over the Chagos Islands to Mauritius, in partial recognition of the UK’s expulsion of the indigenous population in the 1960s and 1970s. The decision was immediately slammed by Conservative politicians, in spite of the fact that the US-UK military base on the island of Diego Garcia is due to remain.

    Since then, Keir Starmer has rejected the possibility of British reparations for the transatlantic slave trade, prompting further homages to the British Empire from Tory politicians, with Robert Jenrick saying former colonies owe the UK a “debt of gratitude”.

    The PPU points out that such ongoing attempts to whitewash or glorify colonialism make it all the more urgent that we challenge its legacies and remember the victims of colonial conflicts.

    Stop whitewashing colonialism

    Geoff Tibbs, the Peace Pledge Union (PPU’s) remembrance project manager, said:

    When we still see politicians openly celebrating the British Empire, it is vital that we remember the impacts that colonial wars and violence have had – and continue to have – around the globe.

    He added:

    We need to make space for the victims of colonial wars on Remembrance Day. This involves listening to the voices of those affected by that history and the ongoing impacts of colonialism, both in the UK and elsewhere. It involves actively challenging the racist legacies of colonialism that continue to influence whose lives are valued and whose are not.

    The war in the Middle East has been another factor prompting fresh examination of Britain’s colonial past, as some campaigners pushing for a ceasefire have highlighted Britain’s historical responsibility for the dispossession and oppression of the Palestinians.

    The Balfour Declaration of 1917 established British support for the Zionist movement in Palestine, laying the ground for conflict over the territory, whilst British military tactics used against the Palestinian population during the British Mandate were later adopted by the Israeli government.

    The PPU, which supports calls for an immediate ceasefire in the Middle East, argues that Remembrance Day should be a time for honest and open reflection on the human cost of wars, both past and present, including colonial conflicts.

    They point out that even the First and Second World Wars are severely distorted by ignoring their colonial context, as both conflicts had profound impacts throughout the Empires of the imperial powers, with often disastrous human consequences, such as the imposition of racist regimes across North Africa or the Bengal Famine in India.

    Decolonising Remembrance Day

    In recent years there have been some official attempts to address the inequalities in the way the victims of war are commemorated on Remembrance Day. A landmark inquiry by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission blamed ‘pervasive racism’ for the unequal commemoration of black and Asian war dead.

    The Royal British Legion has also made increasing efforts to acknowledge the role of Commonwealth troops. The Peace Pledge Union (PPU) has welcomed these efforts, but urged them to go further by remembering all those affected by colonial conflicts.

    Decolonising remembrance is an open-ended project which, the organisers hope, will benefit from the input of groups and individuals with expertise in the history and ongoing impacts of colonialism.

    The new webpage on decolonising remembrance includes an open-ended list of resources to help white poppy wearers and others engage with this issue during and after Remembrance Day.

    We can give a human face to the hidden victims of war

    Hamit Dardagan from Iraq Body Count, which is among the resources included, said:

    Colonialism is best characterised as the armed robbery of resources, land and liberty on such a grand scale that it requires the machinery of war and military occupation. Thus its cost is not only economic but includes every imaginable injury and insult to the human body and spirit, every variety of suffering and loss: physical and mental, individual and social, immediate and prolonged.

    He added:

    While accepting that we cannot erase the harm already done to the dead, their families and friends, we must do all we can to give a human face to the many nameless, hidden, often distant victims of these wars. We must not allow their names and stories to become lost or forgotten, and need to remember that their lives were as valuable as our own. The PPU’s efforts in this cause have our gratitude and full support.

    Featured image via the Peace Pledge Union

    By The Canary

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • How & Why the Washington Post‘s Former Owner Now Pushes Biden to Go Nuclear Against Russia

    Ever since the November 5 defeat of the so-called ‘Democratic’ Party and of its unanimous neoconservative obsession to defeat Russia with the help of Ukrainians (claiming all the time that doing this is necessary in order to protect Americans and America’s ‘democracy’), the Bilderburg member Donald Graham, who at the 2013 Bilderburg meeting met privately with Jeff Bezos and agreed to sell him the Washington Post, has been instead using his Foreign Policy magazine in order to increase the pressure upon President Joe Biden to escalate the U.S. Government’s proxy-war in Ukraine against Russia up to and including World War Three (WW3).

    On November 5, the magazine headlined “The Biden Administration Now Has an Expiration Date — and a To-Do List,” and reported:

    As of late October, the Biden administration still had $5.5 billion it could throw into Ukraine’s war chest. In the past, that has come in the form of air-defense batteries, battle tanks, and long-rage U.S. firepower that can help Ukraine balance the playing field against a larger neighbor with seemingly inexhaustible manpower and ample assistance from allies in Asia. …

    With no reason to worry about spiking oil and gasoline prices, the United States may be more amenable not only to Ukrainian strikes on Russian oil infrastructure, but also to the unsheathing of additional sanctions on miscreant oil producers such as Iran and Venezuela, which skated clear of sanctions all year thanks to U.S. worries about the domestic impact of an energy war.

    On November 7, it headlined “Ukraine Now Faces a Nuclear Decision: Under a new Trump administration, Ukraine’s government can’t avoid considering a nuclear weapon,” and reported:

    Last month, with little fanfare, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky made the stakes of the ongoing war in Ukraine as clear as possible…. “Either Ukraine will have nuclear weapons and that will be our protection or we should have some sort of alliance,” he said. “Apart from NATO, today we do not know any effective alliances.”

    It was the first time the Ukrainian president had revealed an outcome that has become, for the war’s observers, increasingly inescapable. In this war for Ukraine’s survival, with Kyiv facing both declining men and materiel, the only surefire way of preventing Ukraine’s ongoing destruction is NATO membership—a reality that has gained more supporters since the war’s beginning but still remains years away. Barring such an outcome, as Zelensky outlined, only one option remains: developing Ukraine’s own nuclear arsenal and returning it to the role of a nuclear power that it gave up some three decades ago. …

    Putin, after all, has only grown increasingly messianic and monomaniacal in his efforts to shatter Ukraine. Previous designs on simply toppling Kyiv have given way to outright efforts to “destroy Ukrainian statehood,” especially following Ukraine’s successful occupation in Russia’s Kursk region [“Kyiv has secured a substantial political victory in Kursk whether it stays or decides to withdraw from this territory in the coming months. It has called Putin’s bluff and made a mockery of his stated “red lines” and nuclear bluster.”], as the Moscow Times recently reported. With Ukrainian statehood — and even Ukrainian identity, given Russia’s genocidal efforts — at stake, any nation would understandably pursue any option available for survival. …

    This reality has been made blindingly clear by recent archival work from a number of scholars, poring through overlooked U.S. and Ukrainian documents. For instance, Columbia University’s George Bogden has recently published extensively on the internal debates in both the United States and Ukraine surrounding Kyiv’s post-Soviet arsenal…

    In both the George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton administrations, U.S. officials placed continued emphasis on reassuring Russia that Moscow could have regional primacy — and that the United States was not trying to take advantage of the power vacuum emerging in the Soviet rubble…

    The reason why the GHW Bush Administration agreed to this demand by Gorbachev was that during WW2, many Ukrainians in western Ukraine sided with Germany against Russia and participated eagerly not only in wiping out Jews but in assisting the Germans and Nazi-supporters such as the anti-Russian FInns to kill Russian troops. If Bush would have gone along with what Graham’s propaganda-magazine says he should have done, then Gorbachev would never have allowed the break-up of the Soviet Union, because it would quickly have meant war against Ukraine.

    Basically, Graham is propagandizing for Biden to cross all of Russia’s (or ‘Putin’s’ — as-if Putin doesn’t really represent the Russian people) national-security red lines. Graham’s basic argument is that though the U.S. and its colonies (‘allies’) have their national security to protect, Russia (China, and other countries that America’s billionaires demand to control) don’t. This gives the U.S. regime carte blanche to subterfuge, coup, sanction, and/or outright invade, wherever and whenever they want to; or like Elon Musk famously said, “We will coup whoever we want! Deal with it.”  (Britain’s Guardian featured an article on 25 November 2023, “‘We will coup whoever we want!’: the unbearable hubris of Musk and the billionaire tech bros. Challenging each other to cage fights, building apocalypse bunkers – the behaviour of today’s mega-moguls is becoming increasingly outlandish and imperial”. However, it’s not ONLY “the billionaire tech bros.” but ALL of U.S.-and-allied billionaires who control the U.S. Government and tolerate, if not outright demand, further expansion of the U.S. empire, regardless of the national-security needs of other countries.)

    On 4 June 2024, the internationally well-known geostategic analyst Pepe Escobar headlined at youtube “Putin and China Issue a GRAVE Warning: Tensions Near Breaking Point”, and he reported that WW3 is wanted by Bilderberg=NATO because the billionaires who control Western Governments want to nullify Governments’ debts (such as America’s $36 trillion); they’re now desperate, and EU/NATO breakup will likely come soon. So: these post-Kamala-Harris articles from Donald Graham’s propaganda-mill Foreign Policy are clearly in line with that scenario by Escobar on June 4th, not because they are truthful or even realistic, but because they clearly display this desperation by the billionaires, to retain control over international institutions, and even their willingness to risk destroying the world in order to achieve it.

    I don’t know whether Escobar is correct that cancellation of debts is an objective — much less a main objective — in this, but the reality of the rest of his analysis is hard to refute; and, on 18 October 2024, I headlined an article documenting this, “The Collapsing U.S. Empire.” It opened:

    The neoconservative dream, ever since neoconservatism started on 25 July 1945, has been for the U.S. Government to take over the entire world, but this 79-year-old dream for them (nightmare for everyone else) has now practically ended, because after having played nuclear chicken against Russia ever since that date, the U.S. Government has finally — as-of 9 October 2024 (Biden’s cancellation then of his planned October 12th Ukraine-war victory summit at America’s Rammstein Air Force Base in Germany) — come to the painful realization that their plan (ever since at least 2006) to win a nuclear war against Russia, is unrealistic, and would only leave this planet virtually uninhabitable, a lose-lose war for both sides, instead of to produce the neocons’ ardently hoped-for win-lose war (in which, of course — as the neocons have imagined — the U.S. regime emerges victorious) against Russia.

    The neoconservative chorus (singing to the music of America’s billionaires) are trying to persuade the U.S. public to support what is, effectively, all-out U.S.-and-‘allied’ aggression against Russia. All of this is based upon the lie that Russia started Ukraine’s war on 24 February 2022, America didn’t start it on 20 February 2014.

    On October 10, I headlined “Biden’s plan calls for WW3 to start after Election Day.” People such as Donald Graham evidently want it to turn out to be true — notwithstanding that America’s Government — NOT Russia’s, had started this war. I still have some hope that it won’t. But if it won’t, then Biden will lose his most ardent supporters, neocons (which include virtually all U.S. billionaires — even the ones who prefer Trump). They will feel that he betrayed them. And, in that case, it will have been so — he did.

    However, in either case, a deluge will come soon. Because the collapse of the American empire will not be able to go smoothly. I agree with Escobar on that.

    The post How & Why the Washington Post‘s Former Owner Now Pushes Biden to Go Nuclear Against Russia first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • We Don’t Want Our Islands to Be Used to Kill People

    Ōriwa Tahupōtiki Haddon (Ngāti Ruanui), Reconstruction of the Signing of the Treaty of Waitangi, c. 1940.

    For the past few weeks I have been on the road in Aotearoa (New Zealand) and Australia at the invitation of groups such as Te Kuaka, Red Ant, and the Communist Party of Australia. Both countries were shaped by British colonialism, marked by the violent displacement of native communities and theft of their lands. Today, as they become part of the US-led militarisation of the Pacific, their native populations have fought to defend their lands and way of life.

    On 6 February 1840, Te Tiriti o Waitangi (the Treaty of Waitangi) was signed by representatives of the British Crown and the Māori groups of Aotearoa. The treaty (which has no point of comparison in Australia) claimed that it would ‘actively protect Māori in the use of their lands, fisheries, forests, and other treasured possessions’ and ‘ensure that both parties to [the treaty] would live together peacefully and develop New Zealand together in partnership’. While I was in Aotearoa, I learned that the new coalition government seeks to ‘reinterpret’ the Treaty of Waitangi in order to roll back protections for Māori families. This includes shrinking initiatives such as the Māori Health Authority (Te Aka Whai Ora) and programmes that promote the use of the Māori language (Te Reo Maori) in public institutions. The fight against these cutbacks has galvanised not only the Māori communities, but large sections of the population who do not want to live in a society that violates its treaties. When Aboriginal Australian Senator Lidia Thorpe disrupted the British monarch Charles’s visit to the country’s parliament last month, she echoed a sentiment that spreads across the Pacific, yelling, as she was dragged out by security: ‘You committed genocide against our people. Give us our land back! Give us what you stole from us – our bones, our skulls, our babies, our people. … We want a treaty in this country. … You are not my king. You are not our king’.

    Walangkura Napanangka (Pintupi), Johnny Yungut’s Wife, Tjintjintjin, 2007.

    With or without a treaty, both Aotearoa and Australia have seen a groundswell of sentiment for increased sovereignty across the islands of the Pacific, building on a centuries-long legacy. This wave of sovereignty has now begun to turn towards the shores of the massive US military build-up in the Pacific Ocean, which has its sights set on an illusionary threat from China. US Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall, speaking at a September 2024 Air & Space Forces Association convention on China and the Indo-Pacific, represented this position well when he said ‘China is not a future threat. China is a threat today’. The evidence for this, Kendall said, is that China is building up its operational capacities to prevent the United States from projecting its power into the western Pacific Ocean region. For Kendall, the problem is not that China was a threat to other countries in East Asia and the South Pacific, but that it is preventing the US from playing a leading role in the region and surrounding waters – including those just outside of China’s territorial limits, where the US has conducted joint ‘freedom of navigation’ exercises with its allies. ‘I am not saying war in the Pacific is imminent or inevitable’, Kendall continued. ‘It is not. But I am saying that the likelihood is increasing and will continue to do so’.

    George Parata Kiwara (Ngāti Porou and Te Aitanga-a-Māhaki), Jacinda’s Plan, 2021.

    In 1951, in the midst of the Chinese Revolution (1949) and the US war on Korea (1950–1953), senior US foreign policy advisor and later Secretary of State John Foster Dulles helped formulate several key treaties, such as the 1951 Australia, New Zealand, and United States Security (ANZUS) Treaty, which brought Australia and New Zealand firmly out of British influence and into the US’s war plans, and the 1951 San Francisco Peace Treaty, which ended the formal US occupation of Japan. These deals – part of the US’s aggressive strategy in the region – came alongside the US occupation of several island nations in the Pacific where the US had already established military facilities, including ports and airfields: Hawaii (since 1898), Guam (since 1898), and Samoa (since 1900). Out of this reality, which swept from Japan to Aotearoa, Dulles developed the ‘island chain strategy’, a so-called containment strategy that would establish a military presence on three ‘island chains’ extending outward from China to act as an aggressive perimeter and prevent any power other than the US from commanding the Pacific Ocean.

    Over time, these three island chains became hardened strongholds for the projection of US power, with about four hundred bases in the region established to maintain US military assets from Alaska to southern Australia. Despite signing various treaties to demilitarise the region (such as the South Pacific Nuclear Free Treaty, also known as the Treaty of Rarotonga in 1986), the US has moved lethal military assets, including nuclear weapons, through the region for threat projection against China, North Korea, Russia, and Vietnam (at different times and with different intensity). This ‘island chain strategy’ includes military installations in French colonial outposts such as Wallis and Futuna, New Caledonia, and French Polynesia. The US also has military arrangements with the Federated States of Micronesia, the Marshall Islands, and Palau.


    Christine Napanangka Michaels (Nyirripi), Lappi Lappi Jukurrpa (Lappi Lappi Dreaming), 2019.

    While some of these Pacific Island nations are used as bases for US and French power projection against China, others have been used as nuclear test sites. Between 1946 and 1958, the US conducted sixty-seven nuclear tests in the Marshall Islands. One of them, conducted in Bikini Atoll, detonated a thermonuclear weapon a thousand times more powerful than the nuclear bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Darlene Keju Johnson, who was only three years old at the time of the Bikini Atoll detonation and was one of the first Marshallese women to speak publicly about the nuclear testing in the islands, encapsulated the sentiment of the islanders in one of her speeches: ‘We don’t want our islands to be used to kill people. The bottom line is we want to live in peace’.

    Jef Cablog (Cordillera), Stern II, 2021.

    Yet, despite the resistance of people like Keju Johnson (who went on to become a director in the Marshall Islands Ministry of Health), the US has been ramping up its military activity in the Pacific over the past fifteen years, such as by refusing to close bases, opening new ones, and expanding others to increase their military capacity. In Australia – without any real public debate – the government decided to supplement US funding to expand the runway on Tindal Air Base in Darwin so that it could house US B-52 and B-1 bombers with nuclear capacity. It also decided to expand submarine facilities from Garden Island to Rockingham and build a new high-tech radar facility for deep-space communications in Exmouth. These expansions came on the heels of the Australia-United Kingdom-United States (AUKUS) partnership in 2021, which has allowed the US and the UK to fully coordinate their strategies. The partnership also sidelined the French manufacturers that until then had supplied Australia with diesel-powered submarines and ensured that it would instead buy nuclear-powered submarines from the UK and US. Eventually, Australia will provide its own submarines for the missions the US and UK are conducting in the waters around China.

    Over the past few years, the US has also sought to draw Canada, France, and Germany into the US Pacific project through the US Pacific Partnership Strategy for the Pacific Islands (2022) and the Partnership for the Blue Pacific (2022). In 2021, at the France-Oceania Summit, there was a commitment to reengage with the Pacific, with France bringing new military assets into New Caledonia and French Polynesia. The US and France have also opened a dialogue about coordinating their military activities against China in the Pacific.

    Yvette Bouquet (Kanak), Profil art, 1996.

    Yet these partnerships are only part of the US ambitions in the region. The US is also opening new bases in the northern islands of the Philippines – the first such expansion in the country since the early 1990s – while intensifying its arm sales with Taiwan, to whom it is providing lethal military technology (including missile defence and tank systems intended to deter a Chinese military assault). Meanwhile the US has improved its coordination with Japan’s military by deciding to establish joint force headquarters, which means that the command structure for US troops in Japan and South Korea will be autonomously controlled by the US command structure in these two Asian countries (not by orders from Washington).

    However, the US-European war project is not going as smoothly as anticipated. Protest movements in the Solomon Islands (2021) and New Caledonia (2024), led by communities who are no longer willing to be subjected to neocolonialism, have come as a shock to the US and its allies. It will not be easy for them to build their island chain in the Pacific.

    The post We Don’t Want Our Islands to Be Used to Kill People first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • What the Air Force Doesn’t Want Us to Notice on Election Night

    Much significance will happen at the end of Election Day, and a countdown will begin at 11:00 p.m. PDT on November 5th. While everyone’s attention will be on who our next president will be, the U.S. The Air Force will test-launch an Intercontinental Ballistic Missile with a dummy hydrogen bomb on the tip from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. The missile will cross the Pacific Ocean and 22 minutes later crash into the Marshall Islands. The U.S. Air Force does this several times a year. The launches are always at night while Americans are sleeping.

    This is what nightmares are made of – between 1946 and 1958 the U.S. detonated 67 nuclear bombs in the Marshall Islands, and the result is that the Marshallese people have lost their pristine environment and face health problems. Our environment is threatened here as well. Not only did the indigenous Chumash people lose their sacred land to Vandenberg Air Force Base, but also America’s Heartland presently has around 400 ICBMs stored in underground silos equipped with nuclear warheads that are ready to launch at a hair trigger’s notice. Named “MinuteMen III,” after Revolutionary War soldiers who could reload and shoot a gun in less than a minute, ICBMs not only put Americans at risk of accident, but they put all life on earth in danger.

    ICBMs are not viable for national defense. They are a relic of a bygone era having been invented by Nazi Germany, and their presence only escalates the risk of nuclear accidents or conflicts.A single launch could lead to a nuclear exchange that would annihilate cities, contaminate the environment, and cause irreversible harm to our planet’s ecosystem. Once an ICBM is launched, it cannot be recalled. I don’t want a nuclear strike or accident to happen. We can change course now, and our first step is to decommission the ICBM program also because it is a staggering financial burden to maintain.

    The U.S. plans to spend over $1.2 trillion on nuclear modernization over the next 30 years, which means new, larger nuclear bombs and new, larger ICBMs called Sentinels that will need to be tested. This massive investment in outdated technology diverts critical funds away from humanitarian needs like healthcare, education, and healing climate change— issues that directly impact our quality of life, and our children’s future.

    I teach 4th and 5th graders Creative Writing. I adore children’s imaginations, but when my students were given the assignment to write about something important to them, they wrote lines that broke my heart.  This is a wake-up call for us adults to face the reality we have made for our children.

    “Such a shame, a perfectly good planet, trashed.” Claire, age 9.

    “What would you think about no nature in the world? No trees, no butterflies, no birds or bunnies at all! Most important of all, no people. There would be no technology, no schools, no history, no entertainment; everything we have worked for would be wasted. What would you think about a beautiful world that basically had nothing? I think I would absolutely hate it.,” Brynn, age 9.

    Other than destruction caused by industrial global warming and by war, which the children are all-too aware of, this child does not know what actually could turn nature and civilization to nothing in a matter of minutes; she doesn’t know about “nuclear winter” or how vulnerable we are to a nuclear accident. Most people don’t.

    The claim is that nuclear weapons are deterrents, but it is diplomacy that creates alliances and peace. Nuclear weapons only provide the terrifying threat of annihilation, either by command or by accident. Nuclear weapons and ICBMs only make the world less safe and strip us of security.

    As the warring ruling class seems to be pushing for nuclear brinkmanship, on this election night let us not be distracted.  By decommissioning ICBMs, the U.S. could lead the world in reducing the nuclear threat and encourage other nations to do the same. For the sake of our health, environment, and the safety of future generations, it’s time to scrap the ICBM program. We owe it to our children to invest in a future that prioritizes peace and sustainability over destruction.

    As it is we the people who possess the right of self-determination, we must confront the material reality of our homeland and face what it will take to protect it.  Do we have the courage to change our country for the better and ensure our futures?  Yes we do, and now is the time to take action.

    “Only we, the public, can force our representatives to reverse their abdication of the war powers that the Constitution gives exclusively to the Congress,” said Daniel Ellsberg, U.S. military analyst, economist, and author of “The Doomsday Machine.”

    May we cancel this nightmare weapons program for once and for all and give our children the security that they deserve.

    Tell Congress: Cancel Sentinel Missile Program—More Than 700 Scientists Agree.

    Learn more about the dangers of ICBMS and get involved.

    The post What the Air Force Doesn’t Want Us to Notice on Election Night first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • White poppy orders surge in schools and universities ahead of Remembrance Day

    More white poppies are being ordered for schools, universities, and other education settings in the run up to Remembrance Day this year, following increased interest from students and teachers. The news comes as the Peace Pledge Union marks its 90th anniversary. 

    White poppies: sales up this year again

    Israel’s genocide in Gaza has been cited by teachers as one reason for this trend, as more of their students recognise the importance of remembering all victims of war, including civilians and those affected by conflict today.

    The Peace Pledge Union (PPU), which distributes white poppies, has reported a year on year increase in orders of White Poppy Education Packs, with double the number already distributed this year compared to 2021. There has been a nearly 30% increase compared to this point last year.

    The greater interest from schools and universities follows the spike in demand for white poppies since Israel’s assault on Gaza began last October and drew fresh attention to the plight of civilians in conflict. The PPU has heard that an increasing number of Muslim school students, among others, have shown interest in white poppies due to Israel’s ongoing atrocities in the Middle East.

    One teacher who contacted the PPU said:

    As a school which values peace as one of its core values it is important that we live that value in our daily lives. The wearing of a white poppy symbolises a commitment to peace and acts as a reminder for all of us to do our duty in averting not only war, but to challenge the instruments of war which are so prevalent in our world today. The Peace Pledge Union is perhaps even more relevant in our modern world which is so racked by conflict and division.

    Peace Pledge Union: representing all victims of war

    A number of student unions in universities have chosen to offer white poppies for the first time this year. One university student from London said: “I really like the concept of the white poppies. Although the red poppies stand for something remarkable, the white help to be inclusive to all victims of war, from the soldiers to people who had to witness it. Especially with what’s going on in the Middle East, it’s nice to know that the victims are being represented.”

    Schools that distribute white poppies often do so alongside offering red poppies. The PPU argues that teachers should offer range of views and perspectives on Remembrance Day, war and peace, due to the political nature of these topics, allowing young people to form their own views as they grow up.

    Another teacher, who has offered white poppies in their school for several years, described this as:

    an excellent way to encourage students to participate in remembrance activities because it encourages students to think more deeply about what it means to remember and to honour those who have died.

    This is especially important as familial ties to the great 20th Century wars become more distant, because we are at risk of losing our connection to these events unless we remind ourselves of the lessons they teach, and our consequent responsibility to build a better world with those lessons.

    One sixth-form student said:

    The idea of a white poppy is really appealing as an alternative way of showing support. Previously, I’ve always bought a red poppy to show support for the millions of people who died during hugely destructive wars.

    I admire charities that help other people get their lives back together after trauma, especially people injured in the service of others. However, the red poppy’s attachment to the military has put me off.

    The alternative Remembrance

    In a further sign of interest among young people and teachers, the educational movement Woodcraft Folk has recently collaborated with the PPU on a set of new educational activities on white poppies, which have been distributed to groups of young people around the UK.

    White poppies have been worn since 1933. They stand for remembrance for all victims of war, both civilian and military, of all nationalities, as well as challenging militarism and a commitment to peace. They differ from red ones, which commemorate only British and allied armed forces personnel and show “support for the armed forces,” according to the Royal British Legion which promotes them.

    Geoff Tibbs, Remembrance project manager from the Peace Pledge Union, said:

    Around the world at the moment, we are witnessing the greatest intensity of war and violence so far this century. On Remembrance Day, we must remember all those affected by this, as well as those who have died in the past, and make an active commitment to peace.

    It is heartening that a growing number of young people are turning to the white poppy, for the light it sheds on today’s conflicts. Many are alienated by the mainstream tradition of Remembrance Day, as it fails to acknowledge civilians and people of other nationalities affected by wars today.

    On Remembrance Sunday, ceremonies featuring white poppies will take place around the UK. The National Alternative Remembrance Ceremony in London will focus on remembering all victims of war, including those being killed in wars today in Gaza, Lebanon, Ukraine, Sudan, and elsewhere, and will feature a speech by a Palestinian activist involved in nonviolent campaigning for peace.

    Featured image via the Canary

    By The Canary

  • Who Should be the Next Emperor of the Violent Global Imperium?

    As US voters go to the polls on November 5, they need to remind themselves that when the US elects its next domestic president, it is also selecting the emperor of a violent, global imperium.  Choices made over sundry domestic issues have far reaching effects, far beyond local pocketbook or civil rights issues.  They determine who lives and dies across the planet, and how much pain, harm and suffering the rest of the world will have to bear.

    In this context, it’s fair to ask, who is the lesser evil?  Trump or Harris?

    The answer, of course, is “neither”.  Like infinity, when it comes to evil, there’s not much use in finger-counting which is greater or lesser.  They are cardinal equivalents. Third party is the moral choice.

    However, between two terrible choices, President Kamala Harris–to the extent that she has institutional continuity with the Biden/CNAS administration and retains key advisors–is likely to wage more wars: in Ukraine and most certainly with China.

    This is not because Trump is less hawkish or more prudent, but because he is likely to be less effective.  These have to do with the following:

    Distraction, Obstruction, and Opprobrium

    Trump is likely to be focused on attacking/settling scores with domestic enemies, who have harassed, belittled, betrayed, tattled, audited, impeached, sued, indicted, prosecuted him, and possibly attempted his assassination.  He is also more likely to be thwarted or obstructed by institutional forces as he implements his agenda, even if it is similar to Joe Biden’s, and more likely to attract opprobrium and opposition, including if he wages war.

    Bean-counting vs Seoul force

    Trump has contempt for South Korea’s Yoon administration and wants to multiply the cost of stationing US troops in Korea nine-fold to $10 Billion/year.  That could be a deal breaker. He openly refers to South Korea as a “money machine“. This mercantile transactionalism is likely to put sand into the gears of the US war machine that is preparing Korea as the easiest and first place to start an omnicidal war with China.

    South Koreans are already furious with President Yoon Sok Yeol for subordinating South Korea’s political and economic interests to US foreign policy, and they are likely to impeach Yoon if he submits to such flagrant extortion.  On the other hand, If he doesn’t pay up, and the US administration weakens its support of Yoon, the Korean people will rise up and overthrow him as they have other US-quisling presidents like Syngman Rhee, Chun Doo Hwan, Park Geun Hye.  This will strategically diminish the prospects of the Empire. The canard of North Korean troops fighting in Ukraine is an attempt to stave off this bad end by heightening the stakes, promoting South Korea (and Yoon’s) status as a global “pivot state”, and enmeshing Korea into the Ukraine-NATO-Empire trainwreck.

    Compassionate rape indulgences

    Trump was openly contemptuous of “Shinzo” (Abe), but he has even less relationship with Japanese Prime Minister Ishida (or any future potential Japanese PM).  However, as with South Korea, his uncouth transactionalism around the omoiyari yosan (Japan’s “empathy contribution budget”) for US troops in Japan, is likely to disorient and vex the Japanese leadership, and outrage the populace who are already livid to be paying reverse indulgences for occupation and rape.  JAKUS, the Japan-Korea-US alliance is already brittle, due to the current political weakness of Japan’s ruling LDP and South Korea’s hatred for Yoon’s pro-collaborationist position. Prime Minister Ishida has lost the lower house and the LDP, which has governed Japan as a virtual one-party state, is at its weakest in decades.  Simultaneously, Yoon’s military collaboration with Japan, Korea’s former colonizer, is sending Yoon into crisis territory, as his approval rating plummets down to 17%.

    Deadly Insurance policy

    Trump has said that the Taiwan authorities need to pay the US for protection because the US is “no different from an insurance company”.  But Trump’s insurance company is a corporation that has no intention of paying out if Taiwan becomes the next Ukraine. He has also stated that Taiwan should spend 10% of its shrinking GDP on the military, a coded demand to buy more marked up US weapons systems.  Again, the ruling DPP will be bewildered and rattled by Trump’s demand—an offer they can’t refuse: being asked to pony up for an extortionary “insurance” policy that guarantees almost certain denial of services while bankrupting the country: Trump has refused to state if he will commit troops to Taiwan to support US-prompted secessionism.

    Currently Vice President Louise Hsiao, a former US citizen and deep state denizen, serves as President’s William Lai’s US minder.  A prissy preacher’s daughter from New Jersey, it’s a pretty good bet that neither Trump nor Vance will get along with the self-proclaimed “cat warrior” princess. Hsiao, for her part, has bet all her chips on Ukraine–stating that “the Ukraine war sends a powerful message to China”–the de-knickered message of a person squatting in an outhouse hit by a tornado. Trump’s potential Ukraine pullout could heighten the mortification.

    Disdain for the McCain Stain

    Certainly, Trump is hawkish and belligerent on Iran and could greenlight war. He will also support Israel in continuing to wage its horrific genocide and ethnic cleansing, just as the Biden administration ministers to, indulges, and excuses every genocidal whim and action of Israel.

    But Trump is likely to force some kind of settlement on Ukraine, because he hates losing and losers, and Ukraine is a losing war, which he can blame on Biden.

    Trump’s language is extremely belligerent and hawkish, and he is rash and impulsive, but his narcissism traps him into trying to make himself look like a winner at all times.  Like the over-validated child, who will avoid any challenge that might reveal the limits of his competence, Trump is less likely to test the outer limits of US power with peer competitors.   That means he could be less likely to start conventional wars he cannot win, and be more likely to try to get out of losing wars.  This could even be true for the genocidal war on Gaza, which despite its stream of atrocities, is Israel’s John McCain moment: a strategic and political loss for a colonizer that has been taken hostage by its own insanity.

    Catastrophic Reboot Risk

    The catastrophic geopolitical risk with Trump is he may not understand the real risks of nuclear war—he has asked “Why have nukes if they can’t be used?”—and could be recklessly tempted or prompted to use them.  This is in contradistinction to the CNAS neocons who will control Harris’ foreign policy and her nuclear threat posture: they understand the risks  and costs, and they still seek to use them deliberately.  They believe in integrating nuclear war seamlessly into conventional doctrine, exercises, signaling, and operations.

    This is true also for climate change.  Trump denies global warming and has stated that it is a Chinese conspiracy to undermine the US economy.  The Harris-Biden administration understands global warming but sees sustainable transition as unacceptable because it would boost China’s development and global status. They see doubling down on burning fossil fuels as in the core strategic interests of the US in maintaining hegemony.  They would rather burn up the planet than let China shine.

    In fact, they would rather destroy the planet than give up an ounce of privilege to the burgeoning multipolar world.  Wonk-speaking necropolitical ideologues from their first cakewalk to the final funeral march of mankind, they would rather be dead rather than be led into a better world of sovereign independence, equality, non-interference, and peace.

    If Trump is elected, the global south will pray that he never abandons his neo-mercantilist transactionalism and his petty narcissistic fraudulence. Until the dismantling of Empire and Capital, and until the West stops using wars to reboot the economy, this may be about the only thing that saves the world.

    The post Who Should be the Next Emperor of the Violent Global Imperium? first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • The Peace Pledge Union marks its 90th year in a world that needs it more than ever

    As it marks its 90th year, the Peace Pledge Union (PPU) has reiterated its commitment to strive for a world without war.

    The Peace Pledge Union: war is a crime

    Back in 1934, the Peace Pledge Union (PPU) arose out of a campaign initiated by the pacifist Dick Sheppard who issued an open letter encouraging people to pledge they would never again support another war.

    This was set against the backdrop of deteriorating relationships between European nations, bringing with it fears of another bloody and tragic conflict. Sheppard’s call elicited tens of thousands of replies within a few weeks from people whose pledge remains the basis of PPU membership to this day:

    War is a crime against humanity. I renounce war, and am therefore determined not to support any kind of war. I am also determined to work for the removal of all causes of war.

    By 1936, this movement had formally evolved into the Peace Pledge Union, open to “men and women of… divergent philosophic, religious and political opinions.” Its prominent members have included Aldous Huxley, Siegfried Sassoon, Vera Brittain, Benjamin Britten, Michael Tippett, Sybil Morrison, and Bertrand Russell.

    Today the PPU is not only Britain’s oldest secular pacifist organisation, but also a leading voice in promoting pacifism and nonviolence, and resisting militarism and the causes of war.

    The PPU is best known for distributing white poppies, which stand for remembrance of all victims of war, both civilian and military, and challenge the militarisation of Remembrance Day.

    Actively engaging

    From the time of its founding, the Peace Pledge Union (PPU) has actively engaged with issues of domestic and international importance. During the Second World War the PPU supported conscientious objectors, helped found the Famine Relief Committee, which was the precursor to Oxfam, and campaigned against the firebombing of German cities.

    Later the PPU was part of the earliest opposition to the UK’s nuclear arsenal, organising demonstrations and civil disobedience which led to the arrest of PPU members.

    Amongst many other instances of public opposition to militarism, the PPU opposed British atrocities in Kenya in the 1950s, spoke out against British involvement in the Nigerian Civil War in the 1960s, campaigned for nonviolent approaches to the conflict in Northern Ireland and led the resistance to the Falklands War in the 1980s.

    Throughout its history the PPU has supported conscientious objectors, both in the UK and internationally as part of War Resisters’ International. Following a fundraising campaign, the PPU created the Conscientious Objectors’ Commemorative Stone in Tavistock Square, London, unveiled in 1994.

    In recent years, the PPU has added its voice and pacifist perspective to calls for a ceasefire in the Middle East, condemned the British government’s complicity in the Saudi bombing of Yemen, and expanded its peace education programme.

    Building on the Peace Pledge Union legacy

    The Peace Pledge Union (PPU) is determined to build on its rich 90-year legacy while looking toward the future. To ensure the PPU’s continued relevance in today’s multifaceted unstable world, the PPU is working to highlight connections between pacifist, anti-militarist struggles and other key movements for justice, and to do so in ways that broaden its reach and deepen its impact.

    Amy Corcoran, the PPU’s operations manager, said:

    As we mark this important milestone in our history, it is important that we remain as relevant and forward-facing as ever. That’s why our new five-year strategy not only reaffirms our commitment to putting pacifism into practice, resisting war and the causes of war today, but will also see us do so in the current context of global conflict and a creeping domestic tide of militarism.

    PPU council member Sarri Bater said:

    Nonviolent approaches to conflict are becoming increasingly marginalised, which is why it is so vital that we put forward pacifism as an urgent message that addresses the need for deep-rooted, systemic change.

    You can read the PPU’s new strategy here, and find out how to support the PPU’s work here.

    Featured image via Wikimedia

    By The Canary

  • Labour just railroaded a secretive US-UK nuclear treaty renewal deal

    The Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) said it condemns the government’s outrageous railroading through parliament of the renewal of the US-UK Mutual Defence Agreement (MDA), the secretive treaty that underpins the nuclear ‘special relationship’ between London and Washington.

    The MDA: under a cloak of secrecy

    In force since 1958, the MDA allows for the transfer of key technologies, information, and nuclear materials to and from the US. Since its inception, the treaty has been amendable every ten years, also requiring parliamentary agreement on its extension.

    But the government intends to make this treaty permanent by removing the clause that requires the treaty to be extended, and enables debate and amendment, including rejection. CND said:

    In an open and democratic society, a major change like this should be given due consideration and debate in parliament. However, the government has disgracefully obstructed this by announcing its planned changes to the MDA just before parliament’s summer recess – guaranteeing six weeks of inaction.

    Upon their return, MPs spent much of September and October engaged with party conferences. This shamefully left little time for parliament to debate the proposed changes before the deadline of 23 October.

    Labour’s railroading of US nuclear co-operation: CND reacts

    CND general secretary Kate Hudson said:

    Thousands of CND supporters have contacted their MPs to raise the MDA as an issue for debate in Parliament before the 23 October deadline. Despite this outpouring of public concern, the limited time MPs have spent in Parliament since the election has left very little space for the open discussion this significant but little-known treaty deserves.

    The railroading of the MDA by the government is typical of the policy that successive governments have been pursuing when it comes to Britain’s military policies and its possession of nuclear weapons.

    This ‘special relationship’ tethers British military and foreign policy to Washington – and makes redundant the claim that Britain has an independent nuclear weapons system. Without US support, Britain would be unable to sustain its nuclear arsenal. Efforts to scrutinise this relationship are regularly deflected by the government under the guise of national security.

    SO, CND will protest not only the MDA, but also the return of US nuclear weapons to Britain – ahead of the US presidential election.

    CND protesting at Lakenheath on 2 November

    The group and its supporters will mobilise at RAF Lakenheath on Saturday 2 November, to oppose plans to station US nuclear weapons in Britain for the first time since 2008.

    This will be CND’s fourth national mobilisation at RAF Lakenheath since 2022, after US government budget documents revealed plans for upgrade works at the US-run air base for the storage of the new B61-12 guided nuclear bomb.

    With the US presidential election to take place just days later, the protest aims to highlight the significant impact of US foreign and military policy on the British public, and the increased nuclear dangers brought by deploying its nuclear weapons in Britain – by whoever wins the White House.

    Attendees will also witness an unofficial declaration of Lakenheath as a nuclear-free zone, and calls for both the UK and other nuclear weapons states to engage with the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.

    CND will be joined by Melissa Parke ,executive director of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), the organisation that won the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize. Melissa will speak about nuclear dangers in Europe.

    No US nuclear weapons on UK soil

    Details of the protest are as follows:

    • Saturday 2 November.
    • 12 noon to 3pm.
    • RAF Lakenheath Main Gate, Brandon Road, Lakenheath, Suffolk. More details on parking can be found on the CND website here.

    Hudson said:

    As we gather at RAF Lakenheath to protest the return of US nuclear weapons to Britain, we stand united in our commitment to a nuclear-free future. This demonstration is not just about local concerns; it resonates on a global scale, especially with the upcoming US presidential election.

    The decisions made in Washington have profound implications for peace and security – be they here in Britain, or elsewhere like Ukraine, the Middle East, and the Indo-Pacific. We urge everyone to join us in sending a clear message that nuclear weapons have no place in our society nor in building genuine security for all.

    Featured image via the Canary

    By The Canary

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • The Escalator Grinds to a Halt

    It is apparently not much of an exaggeration to say that Israel’s attack on Iran fizzled. Some targets were hit and at least two Iranian soldiers were killed, but the ineffectiveness of the operation was probably due to several factors:

    1. Israel just doesn’t have the weaponry. Most of its missiles don’t have the distance, and those that do, just barely so. That’s true for a lot of its drones, too, and they are too easily detected and don’t have the carrying power.
    2. The US didn’t aid, in particular with refueling manned aircraft. It’s just as well. It would have been a good way to lose both pilots and aircraft.
    3. Most of the nations geographically in between Israel and Iran would not permit overflights from either Israel or the US. Iran told these nations that they prefer to remain on good terms with them, and that they would consider it an act of war to lend their airspace to Israeli operations.
    4. Iranian antiaircraft systems were apparently quite effective.

    Other factors may have been involved. It is possible that cooler heads prevailed in the Israeli and US militaries, for example, but we may never know, or at least not soon. Nevertheless, the main reason that Israel did not cause more damage appears not to be a question of intention, but of capability. There’s no question that Israel was hoping for an escalation that would widen the war and force the US to enter on Israel’s side. That appears to have been avoided. Iran will have to respond, but unlike Israel, neither Iran nor the US wants escalation. Iran’s response will therefore be measured, and they will declare the matter settled.

    The Netanyahu government now finds itself squarely in check, though not yet checkmated. Nevertheless, the best it can do now is probably a stalemate. This is not good in the short run for Gaza and the Palestinians, nor for Lebanon, but it’s also not good for Israel, whose population is emigrating, whose economy is tanking, and which is generally a pariah throughout the world. Its decades of building its image as glamorous, progressive and a technological powerhouse is gone. It is now the redoubt of religious fanatics and criminals that even much of the international Jewish community is loathe to support. Its current mainstay is the international network of influence peddlers such as AIPAC, whose power has not dwindled in the US and other western governments, due to its ability to enrich the military industrial complex and to control the elective processes in these governments. With the loss of a wider base in the Jewish community, however, that power is likely to decline.

    The post The Escalator Grinds to a Halt first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • Pro-Palestine Activists Target Invisible Genocide Profiteer in Arms Supply Chain

    As Israel’s campaign of mass killing in Palestine enters its second year and extends to Lebanon, the collective sense of urgency felt by people around the globe has inspired a shift in organizing strategy. Activists in the U.S. have been organizing to quell the Israeli war machine by turning their attention to logistics companies that physically deliver munitions to Israel.

    Source

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • As Ukraine War Reaches Violent New Heights, US Boosts Weapons Production

    The death toll in Russia’s war on Ukraine is reaching alarming new heights. Roughly 1 million soldiers and civilians on both sides have been killed or wounded, a recent in-depth review of available data published by the Wall Street Journal found. As Russia attempts to secure key towns and cities in the Donbas region, the war of attrition along the front line has become extremely violent as the…

    Source

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • Failures of U.S. Middle East Policies

    United States foreign policies are marked by intermittent failures, often accomplishing the opposite of what is intended — Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq are examples. A difference between U.S. policies in the Middle East and State Department walkthroughs in other regions is that the Middle East policies have been consistent failures, worse than adversaries relish.

    Immediately after World War II, Cold War competition with the Soviet Union drove U.S. policies, mildly favored Israel, and tended toward achieving a balance of power between the Zionist state and Arab world. Israel’s victory in the 1967 six-day war changed the status quo. Warsaw Pact nations had supplied arms to Egypt, ostensibly for defensive purposes, and Israel’s rapid offensive angered them. The Soviet bloc severing of relations with Israel led Washington to believe the Arab world had allied with the Soviet Union and motivated Uncle Sam to elevate relations with the victorious nation. Each year, the commitment to advance Israel’s supremacy and slaughter of the Palestinian people grew. Each year, the democratic appearance and humanistic values of the American system deteriorated. Each year, the American system, established in 1789, tended toward destruction of its political and social fabrics.

    President Jimmy Carter added a Middle East foreign policy directive by claiming the Soviet Union posed a grave threat to the free movement of Middle Eastern oil through the Persian Gulf. Safeguarding the oil flow was of vital interest to the United States of America. Framed in other words, the U.S. had another mission ─ prevent Iran from threatening Arab kingdoms and disturbing the flow of oil.

    One approach to examining policies is to compare results with intentions. Dr. Michael S. Bell, professor at the National Defense University Near East South Asia Center for Strategic Studies, has given a sensible definition of the policies: 1) protection of the American homeland from terrorist attacks; 2) peace between countries in the region; 3) nonproliferation of nuclear weapons; and 4) the free flow of energy and commerce to the global economy.

    Protection of the American homeland from terrorist attacks

    Protection from terrorist attacks did not occur, not in the homeland, at American military bases, and in American embassies. The American people remain unformed why Sept 11, 2001 and other terrorist attacks occurred.

    The errors started with President Ronald Reagan allowing the CIA to shuffle funds to Pakistan intelligence, who used the funds to finance Saudi construction engineer, Osama bin Laden, to construct roads and bases in Afghanistan that eventually became training grounds for al-Qaeda militants. The road led through several nations. Along its path, al-Qaeda recruited others to form new terrorist organizations and attack American facilities in several countries. In Afghanistan, the CIA paved the road to the 9/11 terrorist attack on American soil.

    Hidden from public knowledge is that America’s support for Israel contributed to Obama bin Laden‘s arguments with the United States. The al-Qaeda leader revealed his attitude in the opening sentences of a “Letter to America.” Bin Laden’s words are unpleasant and offensive but taking notice and reading them was a prerequisite for devising a strategy that defeated terrorism and protected Americans. The letter’s opening statements.

     Why are we fighting and opposing you? The answer is very simple:

    (1) Because you attacked us and continue to attack us.

    a) You attacked us in Palestine:

    (i) Palestine, which has sunk under military occupation for more than 80 years. The British handed over Palestine, with your help and your support, to the Jews, who have occupied it for more than 50 years; years overflowing with oppression, tyranny, crimes, killing, expulsion, destruction and devastation. The creation and continuation of Israel is one of the greatest crimes, and you are the leaders of its criminals. And of course there is no need to explain and prove the degree of American support for Israel. The creation of Israel is a crime which must be erased. Each and every person whose hands have become polluted in the contribution towards this crime must pay its price, and pay for it heavily.

    (b) You attacked us in Somalia; you supported the Russian atrocities against us in Chechnya, the Indian oppression against us in Kashmir, and the Jewish aggression against us in Lebanon.

    The letter appeared in 1998, but before that date bin Laden had signaled his displeasure with America. Ignoring the reasons for his threats was a grave policy mistake and proved fatal. Policy errors manufactured additional policy errors.

    By stationing U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia during the 1991 Persian Gulf war, President George H. W. Bush aroused Radical Islamists in the Desert Kingdom to join forces with Osama bin Laden. On December 29, 1992, a bomb exploded  at the Gold Mohur hotel in Aden, Yemen, where U.S. troops had been staying while on route to Somalia.

    Intelligence and strategy failures by President Bill Clinton elevated al-Qaeda to an international enterprise. President Clinton’s aggressive policy in Somalia created a mistrust of American power among East Africans and an anarchy that eventually led to emergence of The Islamic Courts Union ( ICU), who preached Shariah as law and ruled parts of Somalia at various times. After being defeated, the ICU evolved into Al-Shabaab, an al-Qaeda look alike in East Africa.

    • On Friday, February 26, 1993, Kuwaiti Ramzi Yousef and Jordanian Eyad Ismoil parked a yellow Ryder van in the public parking garage beneath the World Trade Center. Later in the day, the van exploded, killing six people and injuring 1,042.
    • In June 1996, an enormous truck bomb detonated in the Khobar Towers residential complex for Air Force personnel in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, killing nineteen Americans and wounding 372.
    • Truck bomb explosions occurred on 7 August 1998 at U.S. embassies in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania and Nairobi, Kenya, and killed hundreds of people. The attacks were linked to local members of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad, under direction from Osama bin Laden.
    • Al-Qaeda associates bombed the U.S. Navy warship, USS Cole, in October 2000 and killed 17 sailors. Al-Qaeda in Yemen, soon to become al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, was born.

    No intelligence failures can possibly compare to those that enabled foreign terrorists to enter the United States, request one-way flying lessons, take planes up with no concern about being able to land them, book flight tickets, walk through airport inspections, seize commercial planes in mid-flight, and fly them into public buildings. No terrorist action has been as serious as those that occurred on September 11, 2001.

    Guided by a tendency to assist Radical Islam in its endeavors, the George Bush administration provided a route for al-Qaeda to mature into ISIS. The invasion of Iraq and disposal of a Saddam Hussein regime, which had prevented al-Qaeda elements from establishing themselves, exposed Iraq’s porous borders to Radical Islamic fighters. Founded in October 2004, al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) emerged from a transnational terrorist group, created and led by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. His cohorts entered through Jordan, while al-Qaeda members forced out of Waziristan in Pakistan found a safe haven in Iraq. Fighters trained in the deserts of Saudi Arabia hopped planes to Istanbul and Damascus and worked their way across Syria into Iraq. Disturbed by the U.S. invasion and military tactics, Ibrahim Awwad Ibrahim Ali Muhammad al-Badri al-Samarrai, later known as Al Baghdadi, founder of the Islamic Caliphate, transformed himself from a fun loving soccer player into a hardened militant and helped to found Jamaat Jaysh Ahl al-Sunnah wa-l-Jamaah (JJASJ) and countered the U.S. military in Iraq.

    After previous disastrous policies prepared the framework for ISIS to establish its caliphate, and spawn “look-alikes” in Yemen and throughout North Africa, President Barack Obama approached the dangerous situation with confusion. Not wanting to betray his French ally, Obama brought his country into the Libyan civil war and enabled Radical Islamists a safe haven in the new Libya

    Since the overthrow of Moammar Gadhafi, a leader who constrained al-Qaeda, militants from Libya have flowed east, through friendly Turkey into Syria and Iraq to join ISIS. Weapons captured from Gadhafi’s stockpiles have flowed west to equip al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM). Militants trained in post-Gadhafi Libya attacked tourists at beaches and museums in Tunisia; Boko Haram spreads havoc throughout northern Nigeria and parts of Chad.

    The al-Qaeda that the U.S. helped create committed the greatest single act of foreign destruction to American soil. The Afghanistan the U.S. helped establish became the Afghanistan the U.S. was  forced to combat and could not destroy. The Israel that the U.S. nourished and fortified contributed to the development of international terrorism and to the U.S. failure in containing  it, a common thread through all U.S. Middle East policy failures. The American people sat silently as its State Department and Israel brought terrorism to American shores.

    Peace between countries in the region

    Instead of bringing a pledged peace and stability to the Middle East, the U.S. has brought constant violence and mayhem. Except for Iraq’s wars against Iran and Kuwait, and some skirmishes in Yemen, the Middle East Arab nations have not attacked one another. The United States has been twice at war with Iraq and has engaged Syria, Lebanon, Iran, Afghanistan, and Yemen. Patron Israel has fought wars with Lebanon, Jordan, Syria, and Egypt and has had continuous strife with the Palestinians, which have exploded into intense battles in Gaza. The U.S. invasion of Iraq came from the bidding of the Neocons  ─ American officials allied with Israel. Deceptively portrayed as a war to defeat Saddam Hussein’s’ developments of farcical “weapons of mass destruction,” the invasion of Iraq used American forces to subdue Israel’s principal nemesis.

    Reasons for U.S. antipathy toward Hamas, Hezbollah, Syria, Yemen Houthis, and Iran are not clear. None of these nationalities have attacked the U.S. or its personnel. Their common expressions are opposition to (1) Israel’s genocide of the Palestinian people; (2) seizing Arab lands, and (3) disturbing Muslim sites in Jerusalem. Without Israel, dominating their lives, the Middle East might have rivalries but warfare is not probable. U.S. policy of bringing peace between countries in the region could not succeed. Support of an aggressive Israel meant peace in the region was impossible.

    Nonproliferation of nuclear weapons

    Nonproliferation of nuclear weapons is best accomplished by making certain that no nation fears a nuclear threat. By ignoring Israel’s development of the atomic bomb, the U.S. made sure that Middle East nations felt constantly threatened by an aggressive Israeli military machine. Egypt, Libya, Iraq, and Syria briefly sought nuclear developments and were stopped. Although denying it, Iran is presently believed to be in an advanced stage toward developing an atomic bomb. Do away with Israel’s atomic bombs and assuredly, Iran will halt its developments. Another failure of U.S. policy due to its strange relations with Israel.

    Free flow of energy and commerce to the global economy.

    OPEC determines the price of oil and the U.S. does not control OPEC. President Carter’s anxiety that closing the Strait of Hormuz will greatly disturb oil shipments to Western nations is exaggerated. The burning of oil by the U.S. fifth fleet in the Indian Ocean contributes as much to the price of oil as would the closure of the Straits of Hormuz. Well, not exactly, but it’s a point.

    In 2022, oil flow through the Straits “averaged 21 million barrels per day (b/d), or the equivalent of about 21% of global petroleum liquids consumption. Estimates are that” 82% of the crude oil and condensate that moved through the Strait of Hormuz went to Asian markets in 2022. China, India, Japan, and South Korea were the top destinations for the crude oil ….In 2022, the United States imported about 0.7 million b/d of crude oil and condensate from Persian Gulf countries through the Strait of Hormuz, accounting for about 11% of U.S. crude oil and condensate imports and 3% of U.S. petroleum liquids consumption.” China received 1/3 of the Asian market for the crude oil.

    Whose free flow of energy is the fifth fleet protecting? Very little to the Western markets; more to the Asian markets and mostly to China. The fifth fleet, which has been hanging around in the Indian ocean for thirty years waiting for Godot is principally occupied to defend Chinese (our nemesis) right to assure oil shipments.

    If the United States wants to assure Iran will not interfere with oil shipments, why not become friends with Iran? Good reason to be friends with the mullahs. Friends help friends, except when the “friend” is Israel.

    Want to receive shocks in free flow of oil, Israel is the “go to guy.” The deepest scarcity of oil and high prices occurred when oil producing Arab nations embargoed oil to the United States in retaliation for U.S. rescue mission of military shipments to Israel during the !973 Yom Kippur War, another U.S. Middle East policy of sacrificing the interests of the U.S. people to enhance Israel’s interests.

    Conclusion

    U.S. Middle East policies have been consistent failures, bringing great harm to Arab populations and to the American people. In all the policies, beginning with the ratification of the 1947 Partition Plan and arriving at military assistance to Israel in its 2023 war on Gaza, the Israel state appears and diverts the policies to catastrophes. Americans of good conscience stand aghast at Israel’s slaughter of the Palestinians and America’s participation in the genocide. They do not realize that the Palestinian genocide is a byproduct of 70 years of slaughter of the American psyche and its institutions. Too few take notice of the onslaught on American academic and press freedoms, corruption of American values, coopting of its political system, and reduction of its intellectual qualities. Assailants sink America further into an abyss and more Palestinians are murdered from the same assailants. Americans and Palestinians are “captured in a web that imprisons every faculty and sense.” Only a captured faculty can allow a genocide. No  genocide makes sense and this genocide makes all of us senseless.

    The post Failures of U.S. Middle East Policies first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • The US Sends Troops to Israel

    The dangers should be plastered on every wall in every office occupied by a military and political advisor.  Israel’s attempt to reshape the Middle East, far from giving it enduring security, will merely serve to make it more vulnerable and unstable than ever.  In that mix and mess will be its greatest sponsor and guardian, the United States, a giant of almost blind antiquity in all matters concerning the Jewish state.

    In a measure that should have garnered bold headlines, the Biden administration has announced the deployment of some 100 US soldiers to Israel who will be responsible for operating the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system.  They are being sent to a conflict that resembles a train travelling at high speed, with no risk of stopping.  As Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant promised in the aftermath of Iran’s October 1 missile assault on his country, “Our strike will be powerful, precise, and above all – surprising.”  It would be of such a nature that “They will not understand what happened and how it happened.”

    In an October 16 meeting between the Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III and Gallant, the deployment of a mobile THAAD battery was seen “as an operational example of the United States’ ironclad support to the defense of Israel.”  Largely meaningless bits of advice were offered to Gallant: that Israel “continue taking steps to address the dire humanitarian situation” and take “all necessary measures to ensure the safety and security” of UN peacekeepers operating in Lebanon’s south.

    The charade continued the next day in a conversation between Austin and Gallant discussing the killing of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar.  THAAD was again mentioned as essential for Israel’s “right to defence itself” while representing the “United States’ unwavering, enduring, and ironclad commitment to Israel’s security.”  (“Ironclad” would seem to be the word of the moment, neatly accompanying Israel’s own Iron Dome defence system.)

    A statement from the Pentagon press secretary, Maj. Gen. Patrick Ryder, was a fatuous effort in minimising the dangers of the deployment.  The battery would merely “augment Israel’s integrated air defense system,” affirm the ongoing commitment to Israel’s defence and “defend Americans in Israel, from any further ballistic missile attacks from Iran.”

    The very public presence of US troops, working alongside their Israeli counterparts in anticipation of broadening conflict, does not merely suggest Washington’s failure to contain their ally.  It entails a promise of ceaseless supply, bolstering and emboldening.  Furthermore, it will involve placing US troops in harm’s way, a quixotic invitation if ever there was one.

    As things stand, the US is already imperilling its troops by deploying them in a series of bases in Jordan, Syria and Iraq.  Iran’s armed affiliates have been making their presence felt, harrying the stationed troops with increasing regularity since the Israel-Hamas war broke out on October 7 last year. A gradual, attritive toll is registering, featuring such attacks as those on the Tower 22 base in northern Jordan in January that left three US soldiers dead.

    Writing in August for the Guardian, former US army major Harrison Mann eventually realised an awful truth about the mounting assaults on these sandy outposts of the US imperium: “there was no real plan to protect US troops beyond leaving them in their small, isolated bases while local militants, emboldened and agitated by US support for Israel’s brutal war in Gaza, used them for target practice.”  To send more aircraft and warships to the Middle East also served to encourage “reckless escalation towards a wider war,” providing insurance to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that he could be protected “from the consequences of his actions.”

    Daniel Davis, a military expert at Defense Priorities, is firmly logical on the point of enlisting US personnel in the Israeli cause. “Naturally, if Americans are killed in the execution of their duties, there will be howls from the pro-war hawks in the West ‘demanding’ the president ‘protect our troops’ by firing back on Iran.”  It was “exactly the sort of thing that gets nations sucked into war they have no interest in fighting.”

    Polling, insofar as that measure counts, suggests that enthusiasm for enrolling US troops in Israel’s defence is far from warm.  In results from a survey published by the Chicago Council on Foreign Relations in August, some four in ten polled would favour sending US troops to defend Israel if it was attacked by Iran.  Of the sample, 53% of Republicans would favour defending Israel in that context, along with four in 10 independents (42%), and a third of Democrats (34%).

    There have also been some mutterings from the Pentagon itself about Israel’s burgeoning military effort, in particular against the Lebanese Iran-backed militia, Hezbollah.  In a report from the New York Times, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr., is said to be worried about the widening US presence in the region, a fact that would hamper overall “readiness” of the US in other conflicts.  Being worried is just the start of it.

    The post The US Sends Troops to Israel first appeared on Dissident Voice.


    This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Binoy Kampmark.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Despite Lammy’s claims, evidence PROVES Labour is STILL complicit in Israel’s war crimes

    A new briefing from Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT) reveals that, despite imposing a partial arms sales suspension, the Labour Party government is still complicit in Israel’s war crimes in Gaza.

    Labour arms sales leave complicity wide open

    On 2 September, the government suspended just 30 out of about 350 export licences to Israel. The briefing provides detailed analysis of UK arms export licences, what is included in the partial embargo, and more importantly, what has been omitted and what remains unknown, with a focus on the exports of components for the F-35 combat aircraft.

    F-35 components, so long as they are not sent directly to Israel, are exempted from the suspension, despite evidence Israel is using F-35s to commit violations of International Humanitarian Law (IHL).

    On the very day Labour arms sales suspension was announced, Danish NGO Danwatch revealed that an F-35 was used in July to drop three 2000lb bombs in an attack on a so-called “safe zone” on Al-Mawasi in Khan Younis, killing 90 people. The attack almost certainly violated IHL.

    The UK makes 15% of every F-35. CAAT estimates the value of UK parts in the 39 planes delivered to Israel so far since 2016 is roughly £360 million. This is almost three times as much as the value of all the other aircraft-related licences to Israel over the same period.

    The F-35 is almost certainly the single largest and most important part of the UK arms trade with Israel. Since F-35 exports are made using an open licence that allows unlimited exports, these figures are often omitted in media reporting of UK arms sales to Israel which tend to focus on single licences as these are the only licences with a financial value attached.

    The F-35 is central to this

    This figure does not include spare parts. Freedom of Information requests by CAAT reveal that the number of uses of the Open General Export Licence (OGEL) for the F-35 to deliver parts directly to Israel nearly tripled in 2023.

    We do not know when in any year deliveries occurred, or how much was delivered each time, but this jump very likely indicates an increased demand by Israel for spare parts since 7 October. We also don’t know how often the OGEL was used to export spare parts to the US or to the global F-35 stockpile that were subsequently exported to Israel.

    Despite the government accepting that F-35 components could be used by Israel in its genocide in Gaza, and suspending direct exports, it made an exception for components going into the global stockpile that could still be exported to Israel. MP Hamish Falconer stated this was:

    to ensure international peace and security it was necessary to take the specific measure of excluding exports to the F-35 program from the scope of the suspension, but this exclusion should not in principle apply to licences for F-35 components which could be identified as going to Israel.

    CAAT argues in the briefing that the government is making up the rules as it goes, and that it is making this exception to appease both the US and the arms industry.

    The briefing also highlights other problematic exports and exposes the lack of transparency in the UK arms licensing system.

    The UK is still complicit in Israel’s war crimes

    Another key issue identified in the briefing is the failure to ban arms exports to the Israeli arms industry for use in systems intended for export to a third country. However, there are no guarantees that some of the exported components do not also go into equipment for use by the Israeli military. Moreover, by supporting Israel’s domestic arms industry, the UK government is facilitating Israel’s ability to commit war crimes in Gaza and Lebanon.

    Emily Apple, CAAT’s media coordinator stated:

    This damning briefing reveals that the Labour government is still complicit in Israel’s genocide in Gaza. It lays bare the lack of transparency in UK arms exports, and shows that Labour is making up the rules as it goes along.

    Despite the partial suspension, it is still business as usual for arms dealers to profit from the genocide of Palestinian people, and the Labour government has shown clearly that it will continue to prioritise the profits of arms dealers over Palestinian and Lebanese lives. A full two way arms embargo is needed immediately. There can be no excuses, no exceptions and no loopholes.

    Featured image via the Canary

    By The Canary

    This post was originally published on Canary.