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  • 21st-Century US Foreign Policy Is Shaped by Fears of China’s Rise, Chomsky Says

    Is the increasing influence of China in international affairs a threat to world order? The United States thinks so, and so does Britain, its closest ally. Indeed, the U.S.-China rivalry is likely to dominate world affairs in the 21st century. In this geostrategic game, certain states outside the western security community, such as India, are expected to play a key role in the new stage of imperialism under way. The U.S. is a declining power and can no longer dictate unilaterally; however, as Noam Chomsky underscores in this exclusive interview for Truthout, the decline of the U.S. is “mostly from internal blows.” As an imperial power, the U.S. poses a threat to world peace as well as to its own citizens. There is even a radical plan to dismantle whatever is left of U.S. democracy in the event that Trump returns to the White House in 2024. Other Republican winnable dictators could also enforce the plan. What’s next for U.S. imperial power, and its impact on the world stage?

    Chomsky is institute professor emeritus in the department of linguistics and philosophy at MIT and laureate professor of linguistics and Agnese Nelms Haury Chair in the Program in Environment and Social Justice at the University of Arizona. One of the world’s most-cited scholars and a public intellectual regarded by millions of people as a national and international treasure, Chomsky has published more than 150 books in linguistics, political and social thought, political economy, media studies, U.S. foreign policy and world affairs. His latest books are The Secrets of Words (with Andrea Moro; MIT Press, 2022); The Withdrawal: Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan, and the Fragility of U.S. Power (with Vijay Prashad; The New Press, 2022); and The Precipice: Neoliberalism, the Pandemic and the Urgent Need for Social Change (with C.J. Polychroniou; Haymarket Books, 2021).

    C.J. Polychroniou: Noam, western powers are responding to China’s rise as a dominant economic and military power with ever-increasing calls in favor of bellicose diplomacy. U.S. General Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said during a recent trip to the Indo-Pacific that China has become more aggressive in the region and the Biden administration has described it as a “pacing threat.” Rishi Sunak, currently the leading candidate to replace outgoing prime minister Boris Johnson, said China is the U.K.’s “biggest threat.” Sunak has promised to ban Confucius Institutes, learning centers funded and run by an organization affiliated with the Chinese government, from the U.K. if he becomes the next prime minister. Why is the west so frightened of a prospering China and what does it say about imperialism in the 21st century?

    Noam Chomsky: It may be useful to take a brief but broader look, first at the record of the fears, then at the geostrategic circumstances of their current manifestations. We are speaking here of the West in a narrow sense, specifically the Anglo-American “special relationship,” which since 1945 has been the United States with Britain a junior partner, sometimes reluctant, sometimes eager to serve the master, strikingly in the Blair years.

    The fears are far-reaching. In the case of Russia, they go back to 1917. Secretary of State Robert Lansing warned President Wilson that the Bolsheviks were appealing “to the proletariat of all countries, to the ignorant and mentally deficient, who by their numbers are urged to become masters… a very real danger in view of the present social unrest throughout the world.”

    Lansing’s concerns were reiterated in different circumstances by Secretary of State John Foster Dulles 40 years later, when he lamented that the U.S. is “hopelessly far behind the Soviets in developing controls over the minds and emotions of unsophisticated peoples.” The basic problem, he elaborated, is the Communist “ability to get control of mass movements . . . something we have no capacity to duplicate…. The poor people are the ones they appeal to and they have always wanted to plunder the rich.”

    These are recurrent fears of the privileged, in one form or another, throughout history.

    Scholarship substantially agrees with Lansing’s concerns. The acknowledged dean of Cold War scholarship, John Lewis Gaddis, traces the Cold War back to 1917, with the Bolshevik challenge “to the very survival of the capitalist order… a profound and potentially far-reaching intervention by the new Soviet government in the internal affairs, not just of the West, but of virtually every country in the world.” The Bolshevik intervention was what Lansing recognized: working people around the world might take note and react, the feared domino effect, a dominant theme in planning. Gaddis goes on to argue that the Western (including U.S.) invasion of Russia was a justified act of self-defense against this intolerable challenge to what is right and just, what is now termed “the rule-based international order” (in which the U.S. sets the rules).

    Gaddis was appealing to a concept that the U.S. War Department in 1945 called “logical illogicality,” referring to the postwar plans for the U.S. to take control of most of the world and surround Russia with military force, while denying the adversary any comparable rights. The superficial observer might regard that as illogical, but it has a deeper logic, the War Department recognized — a logic called “imperialism” by the unkind.

    The same doctrines of logical illogicality reign today as the U.S. defends itself from Eurasian threats. At the Western border of Eurasia, the U.S. defends itself by expanding to the Russian border the aggressive military alliance it runs, NATO. At the Eastern border, the U.S. defends itself by establishing a ring of “sentinel states” to “encircle” China, armed with high precision weapons aimed at China, backed with huge naval military exercises (RIMPAC) aimed not very subtly at China. All of this is part of the more extensive efforts at encirclements, jointly with “subimperialist” Australia, which we have discussed earlier, borrowing Clinton Fernandes’s term and analysis. One effect might be to increase the incentive for China to attack Taiwan in order to break out of the encirclement and have open access to the oceans.

    Needless to say, there are no reciprocal rights. Logical illogicality.

    Always the actions are in “self-defense.” If there was a violent power in history that wasn’t acting in “self-defense,” it would be helpful to be reminded of it.

    Fear of China is more visceral, drawing from the deep racist currents that have poisoned American society since its origins. In the 19th century, Chinese people were kidnapped and brought to work as virtual slaves to build railroads as the nation expanded to its “natural borders”; the slur that was applied to them (“coolie”) was an import from Britain, where Chinese workers also served as virtual slave laborers generating Britain’s wealth. Chinese people who tried to settle were subjected to vicious racist attacks. Chinese laborers were banned entry for 10 years in the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act, and Chinese were banned entirely in the racist 1924 immigration act, aimed primarily at Italians and Jews (sending many to gas chambers when entry to the U.S. was denied).

    Yellow Peril hysteria was reawakened in the 1950s, after China’s stunning defeat of MacArthur’s army in Korea. The fears resonate often, ranging widely in nature. At one level, Lyndon Johnson warned that without superior air power, unless we stop “them” in Vietnam, “they” will sweep over us and take all “we” have. At another level, when Congress breaks its GOP-imposed logjam to pass legislation to reconstruct collapsing infrastructure and the crucial chip industry, not because the U.S. needs them but to overcome the challenge of China’s development.

    There are others who pose imminent threats to our survival. Right now, Russia. The Chair of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, Adam Schiff, draws on deeply rooted cultural maladies when he warns that unless we stop them in Ukraine, they’ll be attacking our shores.

    There is never a dearth of terrifying enemies, but the “heathen Chinese” have always conjured up special fears.

    Let’s turn from understandable paranoia about the poor who want to plunder the rich to the second topic: world order and imperialism in the 21st century, and the intense U.S.-U.K. geopolitical concerns about an emergent China.

    It’s useful to recall the experience of our predecessor in global dominance. An island off the coast of Europe, Britain’s primary concern was to prevent unification of Europe into a force beyond its control. Similarly, though magnified far beyond, the U.S. and its western hemisphere domains can be regarded as an “island” off the coast of the Eurasian land mass — which is the basis for world control according to the “heartland theory” of Halford Mackinder, a founder of modern geopolitics, whose thoughts are now being revived by global strategists.

    Extending the logic of imperial Britain, then, we would expect the U.S. to be seeking to prevent unification of the “heartland” as an independent force, not subject to U.S. domination. The self-defense operations at the western and eastern ends of the heartland also fall into place.

    Conflict over heartland unification has been a significant theme in post-WWII history. During the Cold War years, there were some European initiatives to construct a unified Europe incorporating Russia that would be an independent force in world affairs. Such ideas were advanced most prominently by Charles de Gaulle, with echoes in Germany. They were beaten back in favor of the Atlanticist system, NATO-based, largely run from Washington.

    Heartland unification took on new prominence with the collapse of the Soviet Union. The idea of a “common European home” from Lisbon to Vladivostok was advanced by Mikhail Gorbachev, who looked forward to transition to social democracy in Russia and its former domains, and to a coequal partnership with the U.S. in creating a world order based on cooperation rather than conflict. These are topics of substantial scholarship, explored in unusual depth by historian Richard Sakwa.

    Predictably, the U.S. — the island off the coast of Eurasia — strongly opposed these initiatives. Throughout the Cold War, they were not much of a problem given power relations and prevailing doctrine about the Kremlin conspiracy to conquer the world. The task took new forms with the collapse of the Soviet Union. With some wavering at the margins, the U.S. quickly adopted the policy of “enlargement” of the Atlantic power system, with Russia participating only on subordinate terms. Coequal partnership proposals continued to be put forth during the Putin years, until quite recently. They were “anathema to those who believe in enduring hegemony of the Atlanticist power system,” Sakwa observes.

    Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, after dismissing tentative French and German efforts to avert the tragic crime, have settled the issue, at least for now. For now, Europe has succumbed to the Atlanticist doctrine, even adopting the formal U.S. goal of “weakening Russia” severely, whatever the cost to Ukraine and well beyond.

    For now. Without integration, German-based Europe and Russia will very likely decline. Russia, with its enormous natural resources, is likely to continue to drift into the massive China-based Eurasian development project, the Belt-and-Road Initiative (BRI), now expanding to Africa and even Latin America.

    The temptation for Europe to join the BRI system, already strong, will likely intensify. The German-based integrated production system in Europe, stretching from the Netherlands to Russia’s former Eastern European satellites, has become the most successful economic system in the world. It relies heavily on the huge export market and investment opportunities in China, and on Russia’s rich natural resources, even including metals needed for transition to renewable energy. Abandoning all of that, along with access to the expanding global BRI system, will be quite a price to pay for hanging on to Washington’s coattails. Such considerations will not be absent as the world system takes shape in the wake of the COVID crisis and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

    The question of Eurasian integration in a common European home falls within a more general framework, which cannot be forgotten for a moment. Either the great powers will cooperate to face ominous global crises or they will march to oblivion together.

    With the bitter antagonisms of today, it may seem impossible to imagine such cooperation. But it need not be an unattainable idea. In 1945 it seemed no less impossible to imagine that France, Germany, England, and smaller European powers could cooperate in a Western Europe without borders and with some common institutions. They are not without internal problems, and Britain has recently pulled out, dooming itself to becoming a probably fading U.S. satellite. Nonetheless, it is a stunning reversal of centuries of savage mutual destruction, peaking in the 20th century.

    Taking note of that, Sakwa writes, “What for one generation is a sad delusion, for another becomes a realistic and necessary project.” A project that is essential if a livable world is to emerge from today’s chaos and violence.

    China-Russia ties have deepened after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, though there are probably limits to the partnership. In any case, is there something else in this strategic relationship between two autocratic nations besides the concern for limiting U.S. power and influence? And to what extent could the U.S. take advantage of potential strains and divisions in the Sino-Russian relationship as it did during the Cold War era?

    The record during the Cold War is instructive. Even when Russia and China were close to war, the U.S. kept insisting on the immense threat posed by the imagined “Sino-Soviet alliance.” Something similar was true of North Vietnam. Its leaders recognized that their real enemy was China: the U.S. could devastate Vietnam with its incomparable means of violence, but it would go away. China would always be there, a permanent threat. U.S. planners refused to hear.

    Kissinger’s diplomacy belatedly recognized the facts and exploited China-Russia conflicts. I don’t think that carries lessons for today. Circumstances are very different.

    Putin and associates appear to have visions of a Russian sphere occupying an independent place between the Atlanticist and China-based global systems. That does not seem very likely to transpire. More likely China will accept Russia as a subordinate, providing raw materials, advanced weapons, scientific talent, maybe more.

    The Atlanticist powers along with their Asian subimperial associates are becoming isolated in the world scene. The Global South is mostly standing aloof, not joining in sanctions against Russia or breaking commercial and other relations. Though it has serious internal problems, China keeps moving ahead with its vast development, investment, loan programs abroad and technological progress at home. It is far in the lead in the fast-growing sustainable energy sector and has just surprised the world by creating a super-advanced chip, still probably years short of production but a central part of the modern advanced economy.

    There are many uncertainties, but it seems a fair guess that these tendencies will persist. If there is a break, it may be unwillingness of German-based Europe to continue to suffer the effects of subordination in the Atlanticist system. The advantages of a common European home may well become increasingly tempting, with major consequences for world order.

    India is being wooed by China, Russia and the U.S. Does India have anything to worry about in a strong Sino-Russian partnership? Can the Quad rely on India for full cooperation in connection with its mission and objectives in the Indo-Pacific region?

    Before discussing India’s foreign policy concerns, let’s not forget some stark facts. South Asia is facing major catastrophe. Summer heat is already at a level that is barely survivable for the vast poor majority, and much worse is coming. India and Pakistan must cooperate on this and related crises, like management of dwindling water resources. Instead, each is devoting scarce resources to unwinnable wars, for Pakistan an intolerable burden.

    Both states have severe internal problems. In India, PM Modi has been leading an effort to destroy India’s secular democracy, which, with all its flaws, is still one of the great achievements of the post-colonial era. His program is aimed at creating a racist Hindu ethnocracy. He is a natural associate in the growing alliance of states with similar characteristics: Hungary along with Israel and its Abraham Accord partners, closely linked with the core sectors of the GOP. That’s aside from the brutal repression of Kashmir, reportedly the most militarized territory in the world and the scene of harsh repression. The occupation of foreign territory again qualifies him for association with the Abraham accords, which bring together the other two cases of criminal annexation and occupation, Israel and Morocco.

    All of that is part of the background for addressing the serious questions of India’s international relations.

    India is engaged in a difficult balancing act. Russia remains by far its major source of arms. It is engaged in a long and worsening border dispute with China. It therefore must eye with concern a deepening Russia-China alliance. The U.S.-run Quad (U.S.-Japan-Australia-India) is intended to be a core part of the encirclement of China, but India is a reluctant partner, unwilling to fully adopt the subimperial role. Unlike the other members of the Quad, it joins the rest of the Global South in refusing to become embroiled in what they see as a U.S.-Russia proxy war in Ukraine. India cannot however move too far in alienating the U.S., which is also a natural ally, particularly so in the framework of the emerging GOP-centered alliance of reactionary states.

    Altogether, a complex situation, even overlooking the enormous internal problems facing South Asia.

    The U.S. is a country in political and social turmoil and possibly in the midst of a historic transition. Its influence in the world has been weakening in recent years and its institutions are under severe attack from dark and reactionary forces. Indeed, with U.S. democracy in sharp decline, there is even talk of a radical plan for the restructuring of the federal government in the event that Donald Trump returns to power in 2024. To what extent has imperial overstretch contributed to the decline of the domestic society, and to what degree can domestic politics have an effect on foreign policy decision-making? In either case, is a declining U.S. less or more likely to represent a threat to global peace and security?

    There has been much talk of U.S. decline for decades. There is some truth to it. The peak of U.S. power, with no historical parallel, was in 1945. That obviously couldn’t last and has been declining since, though by some measures U.S. power remains about as it was then, as Sean Kenji Starrs shows in his important studies of control of wealth by transnationals.

    There is a great deal to say about this general topic, discussed elsewhere. But keeping to the narrower question raised, recent U.S. decline is mostly from internal blows. And it is severe. One crucial measure is mortality. The headline of one recent study reads: “America Was in an Early-Death Crisis Long Before COVID.” The study goes on to show that “Even before the pandemic began, more people here were dying at younger ages than in comparably wealthy nations.” The data are startling, going well beyond even the “deaths of despair” phenomenon among working-age white Americans that has led to increasing mortality, something unheard of apart from war and pestilence. That is only one striking indication of how the country has been falling apart socioeconomically and politically since the neoliberal assault took shape with Reagan-Bush, Clinton, and their successors.

    The “radical plan” to undermine the remnants of American democracy was announced a few days before the November election, and quickly forgotten in the ensuing turmoil. It was revealed only recently in an Axios investigation. The basic idea is to reverse the programs since the 19th century to create an apolitical civil service, an essential foundation for a functioning democracy. Trump issued an executive order giving the president (intended to be him, or maybe more accurately Him) the authority to fill the top ranks of the civil service with loyalists, a step towards the fascist ideal of a powerful party with a Maximal Leader that controls the society. Biden reversed the order. Congressional Democrats are seeking to pass legislation to bar such a direct attack on democracy, but Republicans are unlikely to go along, anticipating that their many current initiatives to establish their permanent rule as a minority party will bear fruit. The reactionary Roberts Court might well approve.

    More may be in store. The Court decided to take up an outlandish case, Moore v. Harper, which, if the Court approves, would permit state legislatures, mostly Republican because of well-known GOP structural advantages, to pick electors who reject the popular vote and keep to party loyalty. This “independent state legislature theory” does have some constitutional basis but has been considered so outrageous that it has been dismissed — until now, as the GOP hurtles forward in its campaign to hold on to power no matter what the irrelevant population wants.

    It doesn’t seem to me that the GOP campaign to undermine democracy results from imperial overstretch. There’s a good deal of valuable scholarship about its nature and roots, which seem to lie elsewhere, primarily in search for power.

    It’s not clear what the impact would be on foreign policy. Trump himself is a loose cannon, with no clear idea in his head apart from ME! He also has a penchant for wrecking whatever anyone else has helped construct — while always adhering very closely to the primary principle: Enrich the super-rich and corporate power, at least that part that doesn’t veer to some criticism of his august majesty. His GOP competitors are in such awe and fear of his power over the mass voting base that they say very little.

    The general implications for global peace and security seem clear enough. Trump’s triumphs in this domain were to greatly enhance the two major threats to survival of organized human society: environmental destruction and nuclear war. Neither were spared his wrecking ball. He pulled out of the Paris agreements on impending climate catastrophe, and did what he could to eliminate regulations that somewhat mitigate the effects on Americans. He carried forward the GOP program (started by G.W. Bush) to dismantle the arms control regime that has been laboriously constructed to reduce the threat of terminal nuclear war. He also wrecked the Joint Agreement with Iran on nuclear policy (JCPOA), violating the UN Security Council endorsement of the Agreement, again enhancing global threats.

    What he might do on particular issues is anyone’s guess. Perhaps what he had just heard on Fox News.

    The idea that the future of the world might soon again be in such hands almost surpasses belief.

    There’s no shortage of vital tasks ahead.

  • Ukraine: a Potemkin Village Kind of War

    In his 2004 book on the 1914-18 European apocalypse, Cataclysm: the First World War as Political Tragedy, British historian David Stevenson states the war was “a cataclysm of a special kind, a man-made catastrophe produced by political acts” (from the “Introduction,” first paragraph).  Indeed, that is Stevenson’s thesis, that the Great War was a political tragedy of the first order of magnitude.  While Stevenson’s analysis perhaps over-emphasizes the role of the European political class, certainly terrible decision-making played a major part in both launching and then needlessly prolonging a war that wasted an estimated 10 million soldiering lives.  In the context of the current clash in Ukraine, Stevenson’s argument remains relevant.

    Today, whether it’s Biden, Boris Johnson, Macron, Trudeau, or the EU’s Ursula von der “Crazy” (peripatetic Cypriot commentator Alex Christoforou’s coinage for von der Leyen), the Collective West’s reaction to Putin’s “Special Military Operation” has been a spectacular failure.  This really is a gang that can’t shoot straight unless, of course, they are shooting themselves in their Collective foot.  “Sanctions and Arms!” “Sanctions and Arms!” they all shouted with self-righteous indignation when Putin finally struck, as if “Sanctions and Arms!” would bring the Russian Bear to its knees, exposing Putin’s folly and crushing his regime…

    Well, 3+ months into this horrific conflict, it appears that the TransAtlanticans’ policy of “Sanctions and Arms!” has proven ineffective, not to mention entirely delusional.  On the “Sanctions” front, this economic weapon has completely back-fired, with soaring fuel prices and open talk of looming food shortages — in the West!  Counter-intuitively, it seems as if Western leaders have declared war on their own citizens as much as the Russians.  Who could have foreseen that “Gas-for-Rubles” would become a catchphrase in 2022?

    With reference to the massive “Arms!” transfers to AmericaNATOstan’s Ukrainian proxy forces:  How many more dead or surrendered Ukrainians will it take to show incontrovertibly both the cruelty and imbecility of this “More Weapons!” policy?  The mid-May mass surrender of the cornered Ukrainian troops in the Azovstal Steel Works — AzovStalingrad? — in Mariupol provides one clue; the current Russian rolling-up of the Donbass will be the next.  In other words:  if NATO wants to fight Russia in Ukraine, they are going to have to do it themselves.

    The good news so far on this possible development is that the Death Star, or Pentagon, has no appetite for going “toe-to-toe with the Rooskie!” (Quote, if I recall it correctly, from General Buck “Bucky” Turdgeson in Stanley Kubrick’s 1964 film Dr Strangelove, although George C. Scott’s excitably nihilist character is actually advocating for fighting directly with “the Rooskie!” in the movie). In fact, the Pentagon has been far more sober in its assessments than either the US State Department or the American Congress (not to mention our rabid Blue-and-Yellow Press), which mindlessly voted $40 billion more for the “Ukrainian” war.

    So, the Ukraine Flag imogee crowd continues to maintain its “Stand by Ukraine!” Potemkin Village idiot mentality.  Of course, the Western Corporate Press is still leading the daily Cheers and “Rahs!” for Ukraine, painting a false narrative of constant Ukrainian victory — but only if we can get Zelensly a few more howitzers, tanks, planes, drones, Javelins, Harpoons (NATO boots-on-the-ground, perchance?), and bullets.  Oh, and maybe we can donate a Ouija board to President Comedian so he can summon back the “Ghost of Kyiv”?  That would truly clear the Ukrainian skies of the Russian invader this time, right?

    The Potemkin Village: a Historical Snap Shot

    “Potemkin spared no effort or expense in showcasing Russia’s power and resources.  He even surprised the Empress with a battalion of ‘Amazons’–100 Greek women dressed in crimson skirts and gold-trimmed jackets (spencers) topped by gold-spangled turbans with ostrich feathers.” 1

    Many things are meant, or possibly indicated, by the phrase “Potemkin Village,” which is generally understood as a kind of decorative front overlaid upon a particularly squalid or sordid reality so as to deceive the viewer as to the true state of affairs.  Today, we might call it a form of “disinformation,” whereas in times past the term “deception” would have adequately described this phenomenon.

    Roundabout 1775, Russian Empress Catherine the Second (aka “the Great,” who ruled Russia from 1762 to 1796, or rather a long run…) appointed her “flamboyant favorite,” courtier Grigory Potemkin, to the office of Governor-General over most of what is now known as “Ukraine.”  At that time, the newly acquired Russian imperial lands were known as “Novorossiya,” or “New Russia,” in accordance with a “new”-naming fad popular amongst the prevailing European imperial powers.  In 1787, to commemorate her 25th year upon the Muscovite throne, Catherine embarked upon a 6 month journey through Novorossiya to Crimea, an extravagant political vacation with Lots of FireWorks!

    Legend has it that Potemkin conspired to erect fake villages staffed by Walt Disney Peasants in order to impress the Empress with touristic delight during her voyage down the Dnieper.  This story is generally considered to be a wild exaggeration, although obviously World leaders, even today, are typically not treated to the most derelict of places they visit; quite the contrary.  U2, or the half of U2 that recently played a dolled-up underground subway stop in Kiev (or Kyiv, and I have to ask the math-musical question here:  Does one half of U2=”U1″?) certainly got the “Catherine 2,” or “Potemkin,” treatment in the Ukrainian capital.

    However, there is a wholly other layer of irony to the “Potemkin Village” myth, namely:  Potemkin quite literally founded several villages that would go on to become key cities in what is now — at least for the moment — known as Ukraine, including Nikolayev, Dnipro, and Kherson.  Kherson, of course, was the first large city that Russia captured, way back in March, to little fanfare.  The Zelensky-fawning Western Blue-and-Yellow Press was strictly printing stories of heroic Ukrainian resistance then, so Russia taking a major Black Sea Ukrainian littoral town didn’t make the cut, and especially didn’t fit the “Potemkin” Narrative of plucky little neo-Nazi infested Ukraine beating the Big Bad Bear.  But:  “What about Snake Island?”  What about, indeed?  Potemkin Island would be a good title for any documentary about this conflict, or even The Ghost of Potemkin Island…

    If the “Mainstream” were anywhere near the Reality Stream, many a red — and not merely “false” — flag should have been raised over the issue of “something rotten in the state of” — Ukraine.  A “Democracy” run by oligarchs with a President whose chief qualification for the job was having played the “President of Ukraine” in a comedy TV skit might have topped the list, especially after the “Trumpman Show” in the US.  Then there’s the bit about Trump’s successor, Joe “Bidenopolous” and Son’s wanton corruption in Ukraine during Obama’s reign:  What to make of that?  What to make of the Western-styled “Potemkin Village” of Democracy that is Ukraine?  How about some more “Sanctions!”, and surely more “Weapons!”

    Truly, the propaganda scaffolding around this “Potemkin Village” Ukraine has been so preposterously poor that one wonders if the Covid-19 phenomenon had not only cooked, but then also eaten, the brains of the Western Elite Establishment?  Blinken blinks, absently; Nuland “Coup”-lands, hesitantly, as she describes Bio-Research Labs in Ukraine connected to the U$ under oath in a Senate hearing; and Jake Sullivan evokes an even paler shade of Jared Kushner every time he appears, which sometimes includes an MbS tantrum (although apparently pale Sullivan took Mohammed “Bone-saw” Salman’s tongue-lashing like a good boy…).

    Clearly, there is a crisis of political leadership in the West, to the tune of:  These people are not fit to rule.  Instead of “isolating” Putin’s Russia as a harsh consequence for “Operation Z,” as they have all so imperiously claimed, these incompetent Western overlords have only managed to further isolate themselves from the rest of the World which everyone knows that they, the AmericaNATOstanis, view with absolute contempt.  Indeed, a mere modicum of respect for Russia and the Minsk Accords could have averted this catastrophic war that is destroying Ukraine.  In a very real-world sense, then, the Ukrainian war is certainly a “political tragedy.”

    1. Catherine the Great: Life and Legend, John T. Alexander, 1989, p. 260.
    The post Ukraine: a Potemkin Village Kind of War first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • Bill of Impeachment Against President Biden to Stop War with Russia!

    117th Congress H.Res. XX
    1st Session
    Impeaching Joseph Robinette Biden Jr., President of the United States
    For high crimes and misdemeanors

    _____________________________________________________________________________
    IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
    July 28, 2020
    Mr./Ms. Y submitted the following resolution, which was referred to the Committee on Judiciary.

    A RESOLUTION

    Impeaching Joseph Robinette Biden Jr., President of the United States, for high crimes and misdemeanors.

    Resolved. That Joseph Robinette Biden Jr., President of the United States, be impeached for high crimes and misdemeanors, and that the following articles of impeachment be exhibited to the Senate:

    Articles of Impeachment exhibited by the House of Representatives of the United States of America, against Joseph Robinette Biden Jr., President of the United States of America, in maintenance and support of its impeachment against him for high crimes and misdemeanors.

    ARTICLE I

    In the conduct of the office of President of the United States, Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. in violation of his constitutional oath faithfully to execute the office of the President of the United States, and to the best of his ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States, and in violation of his constitutional duty, to take care that the laws be faithfully executed, has engaged in a campaign of non-neutral acts and belligerent acts and acts of war against the Russian Federation without the express authorization of the United States Congress in violation of the War Powers Clause of the United States Constitution set forth in Article 1, Section 8 thereof and in violation of Congress’s own War Powers Resolution of 1973 set forth in 50 U.S.C. Sections 1541 to 1548. In all of this Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. has acted in a manner contrary to his trust as President and subversive of constitutional government, to the great prejudice of the cause of law and justice and to the manifest injury of the people of the United States.

    Wherefore Joseph Robinette Biden Jr., by such conduct, warrants impeachment and trial, and removal from office.

    ARTICLE II

    In the conduct of the office of President of the United States, Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. in violation of his constitutional oath faithfully to execute the office of the President of the United States, and to the best of his ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States, and in violation of his constitutional duty, to take care that the laws be faithfully executed, has engaged in a campaign of non-neutral acts and belligerent acts and acts of war against the Russian Federation in violation of the United States Neutrality Legislation set forth in 18 U.S.C. Section 960, which is a crime. To wit:

    §960. Expedition against friendly nation. Whoever, within the United States, knowingly begins or sets on foot or provides or prepares a means for or furnishes the money for, or takes part in, any military or naval expedition or enterprise to be carried on from thence against the territory or dominion of any foreign prince or state, or of any colony, district, or people with whom the United States is at peace, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three years, or both. (June 25, 1948, ch. 645, 62 Stat. 745; Pub. L. 103–322, title XXXIII, §330016(1)(J), Sept. 13, 1994, 108 Stat. 2147 (emphasis added).

    The United States Congress has not declared war against the Russian Federation and therefore constitutionally and legally the United States of America still “is at peace” with the Russian Federation. In all of this Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. has acted in a manner contrary to his trust as President and subversive of constitutional government, to the great prejudice of the cause of law and justice and to the manifest injury of the people of the United States.

    Wherefore Joseph Robinette Biden Jr., by such conduct, warrants impeachment and trial, and removal from office.

    ARTICLE III

    In the conduct of the office of President of the United States, Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. in violation of his constitutional oath faithfully to execute the office of the President of the United States, and to the best of his ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States, and in violation of his constitutional duty, to take care that the laws be faithfully executed, has engaged in a campaign of non-neutral acts and belligerent acts and acts of war against the Russian Federation in violation of the 1907 Hague Convention Respecting the Rights and Duties of Neutral Powers and Persons in Case of War on Land, 36 Stat. 2310, and in violation of the 1907 Hague Convention Concerning the Rights and Duties of Neutral Powers in Naval War, 36 Stat. 2415. Both of these Hague Neutrality Conventions are treaties to which the United States of America is a contracting party and thus “the supreme Law of the Land” under Article VI of the United States Constitution. Both the Russian Federation and Ukraine are also contracting parties to these two Hague Neutrality Conventions. In all of this Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. has acted in a manner contrary to his trust as President and subversive of constitutional government, to the great prejudice of the cause of law and justice and to the manifest injury of the people of the United States.

    Wherefore Joseph Robinette Biden Jr., by such conduct, warrants impeachment and trial, and removal from office.

    The post Bill of Impeachment Against President Biden to Stop War with Russia! first appeared on Dissident Voice.

  • All That I Ask Is That You Fight for Peace Today

    Fuyuko Matsui (Japan), Becoming Friends with All the Children of the World, 2004.

    The fragility of Europe’s energy supply has once again been on display in recent months. Gas shipments through the Nord Stream 1 pipeline, which runs from Russia to Germany, were reduced to 40% of capacity in June, a cut that Moscow said was due to delays in the servicing of a turbine by the German firm Siemens. Shortly thereafter, on 11 July, the pipeline was taken offline for ten days for annual routine maintenance. Despite receiving assurances from Moscow that the supply would resume as scheduled, European leaders expressed fear that the shutdown would continue indefinitely in retaliation for sanctions imposed on Russia following the invasion of Ukraine. On 21 July, the flow of Russian gas into Europe resumed. Klaus Müller, the head Germany’s energy regulator, said that gas flows through Nord Stream 1 were below pre-maintenance levels during the first few hours of resumption, though they have now returned to 40% capacity.

    European anxieties related to energy supply are linked to fears amongst the region’s governments of further instability in the Eurozone. On the same day that Nord Stream 1 resumed operations, Italy’s Mario Draghi resigned as prime minister, the latest in a dramatic series of resignations by heads of government in Bulgaria, Estonia, and the United Kingdom. Resistance from Europe to a peace agreement with Russia comes alongside recognition that trade with Russia is inevitable.

    At No Cold War, an international platform seeking to bring sanity to international relations, we have been closely observing the shifting tenor of the war in Ukraine and the US-driven pressure campaign against China. We have published three previous briefings from this platform in our newsletters; below, you will find briefing no. 4, The World Does Not Want a Global NATO, which details the emerging clarity in the Global South regarding the US-European attempt to drive a belligerent agenda around the world. This new clarity relates not only to the militarisation of the planet, but also to the deepening conflicts in trade and development, as evidenced by the G7’s new initiative, the Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Development, which clearly targets China’s Belt and Road Initiative.

    In June, member states of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) gathered in Madrid, Spain for their annual summit. At the meeting, NATO adopted a new Strategic Concept, which had last been updated in 2010. In it, NATO names Russia as its ‘most significant and direct threat’ and singled out China as a ‘challenge [to] our interests’. In the words of NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, this guiding document represents a ‘fundamental shift’ for the military alliance, its ‘biggest overhaul… since the Cold War’.

    A Monroe Doctrine for the 21st Century?

    Although NATO purports to be a ‘defensive’ alliance, this claim is contradicted by its destructive legacy – such as in Serbia (1999), Afghanistan (2001), and Libya (2011) – and its ever-expanding global footprint. At the summit, NATO made it clear that it intends to continue its global expansion to confront Russia and China. Seemingly oblivious to the immense human suffering produced by the war in Ukraine, NATO declared that its ‘enlargement has been a historic success… and contributed to peace and stability in the Euro-Atlantic area’, and extended official membership invitations to Finland and Sweden.

    However, NATO’s sights extend far beyond the ‘Euro-Atlantic’ to the Global South. Seeking to gain a foothold in Asia, NATO welcomed Japan, South Korea, Australia, and New Zealand as summit participants for the first time and stated that ‘the Indo-Pacific is important for NATO’. On top of this, echoing the Monroe Doctrine (1823) of two hundred years ago, the Strategic Concept named ‘Africa and the Middle East’ as ‘NATO’s southern neighbourhood’, and Stoltenberg made an ominous reference to ‘Russia and China’s increasing influence in [the Alliance’s] southern neighbourhood’ as presenting a ‘challenge’.

    Pavel Pepperstein (Russia), Grandfather and Grandmother Are Long Gone, 2013.

    85% of the World Seeks Peace

    Although NATO’s member states may believe that they possess global authority, the overwhelming majority of the world does not. The international response to the war in Ukraine indicates that a stark divide exists between the United States and its closest allies on the one hand and the Global South on the other.

    Governments representing 6.7 billion people – 85% of the world’s population – have refused to follow sanctions imposed by the US and its allies against Russia, while countries representing only 15% of the world’s population have followed these measures. According to Reuters, the only non-Western governments to have enacted sanctions on Russia are Japan, South Korea, the Bahamas, and Taiwan – all of which host US military bases or personnel.

    There is even less support for the push to close airspace to Russian planes spearheaded by the US and European Union. Governments representing only 12% of the world’s population have adopted this policy, while 88% have not.

    US-led efforts to politically isolate Russia on the international stage have been unsuccessful. In March, the UN General Assembly voted on a nonbinding resolution to condemn Russia’s invasion of Ukraine: 141 countries voted in favour, 5 countries voted against, 35 countries abstained, and 12 countries were absent. However, this tally does not tell the full story. The countries which either voted against the resolution, abstained, or were absent represent 59% of the world’s population. Following this, the Biden administration’s call for Russia to be excluded from the G20 summit in Indonesia was ignored.

    Tadesse Mesfin (Ethiopia), Pillars of Life: Harmony, 2018.

    Meanwhile, despite intense backing from NATO, efforts to win support for Ukraine in the Global South have been a complete failure. On 20 June, after several requests, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky addressed the African Union; only two heads of state of the continental organisation’s 55 members attended the meeting. Shortly thereafter, Zelensky’s request to address the Latin American trade bloc, Mercosur, was rejected.

    It is clear that NATO’s claim to be ‘a bulwark of the rules-based international order’ is not a view which is shared by most of the world. Support for the military alliance’s policies is almost entirely confined to its member countries and a handful of allies which together constitute a small minority of the world’s population. Most of the world’s population rejects NATO’s policies and global aspirations and does not wish to divide the international community into outdated Cold War blocs.

    Bahadır Gökay (Turkey) Evvel (‘Before’), 2013.

    In 1955, ten years after the US dropped an atom bomb on Hiroshima (Japan), the Turkish poet Nâzim Hikmet wrote a poem in the voice of a seven-year-old girl who died in that terrible act. The poem was later translated into Japanese by Nobuyuki Nakamoto as ‘Shinda Onnanoko’ (‘Dead Girl’) and frequently sung in commemorations of that atrocity. Given the harshness of war and the escalation of conflict, it is worthwhile to reflect once more on Hikmet’s beautiful, haunting lyrics:

    I come and stand at every door
    But no one hears my silent tread.
    I knock and yet remain unseen
    For I am dead, for I am dead.

    I’m only seven, although I died
    In Hiroshima long ago.
    I’m seven now as I was then.
    When children die, they do not grow.

    My hair was scorched by swirling flame.
    My eyes grew dim; my eyes grew blind.
    Death came and turned my bones to dust
    And that was scattered by the wind.

    I need no fruit, I need no rice.
    I need no sweets, nor even bread.
    I ask for nothing for myself
    For I am dead, for I am dead.

    All that I ask is that for peace
    You fight today, you fight today
    So that the children of the world
    May live and grow and laugh and play.

    The post All That I Ask Is That You Fight for Peace Today first appeared on Dissident Voice.

  • Putin’s Repression Is Driving Many Antiwar Russians Abroad

    We look at how the Russian war in Ukraine is impacting the Russian people, with many Russian dissidents who oppose the invasion choosing to flee abroad after facing violent crackdowns at home. Ilya Budraitskis is a Russian historian and political writer who left his home in Moscow after the war in Ukraine began, and recently launched the media outlet Posle. Meanwhile, Putin’s Russia looks like an extremely “conformist” society, where “some 200 kilometers from your home you have a full-scale war with the army of your country that started this war, and you pretend not to follow the news, not to disturb your normal way of life with this terrifying information,” says Budraitskis.

    TRANSCRIPT

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

    AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman, with Nermeen Shaikh.

    As we continue to look at the war in Ukraine, now in its sixth month, we’re joined now by Ilya Budraitskis. He is a Russian historian, political writer, author of the award-winning book Dissidents Among Dissidents: Ideology, Politics and the Left in Post-Soviet Russia. We first spoke to Ilya from Moscow in February, three weeks prior to the invasion. He’s since left Russia amidst President Vladmir Putin’s crackdown on Russian civil society.

    Ilya Budraitskis, if you can talk about why you left? And what do you think will end this war? And specifically, as we talked to Oksana about Ukrainian and Russian society response, your understanding of what Russians are feeling now?

    ILYA BUDRAITSKIS: So, hello. Thank you for having me here.

    I left Russia in the week after the start of the war. And, in fact, this week was — it was a terrible week. It was the moment when in the biggest cities, the small or not so big, not so important antiwar demonstrations were brutally smashed by the police. It was the week when all the independent media, which still existed in the country for that moment, were banned. And it was the moment of the high — of the lack of any predictability. Yes, so, there were expectations that some general mobilization for the army will be possible, that the borders will close, and so on.

    So, in fact, during two months after the war, the government implemented the huge wave of repressions with the aim to destroy any possible resistance, any possible antiwar public statements and sentiments in the Russian society. So, for now, the situation is quite strange, because most of the people in Russia, they were scared. They understand that any expression of their disagreement with the war and the regime will put them at risk. And in the same time, they pretend that the situation somehow come back to normal, because there was not such a huge decrease of the Russian economy, as it was predicted in the beginning — in the beginning of the war, and also because it is just very kind of conformist way of life that is very general for the modern societies, but taken extreme forms in Putin’s Russia, where, you know, in some few hundred kilometers from your home you have a full-scale war with the army of your country that started this war, and you pretend not to follow the news, not to disturb your normal way of life with this terrifying information.

    NERMEEN SHAIKH: Ilya, could you explain — I mean, you’ve said in a recent interview that, effectively, now there is no possibility of an opposition in Russia, because its structures have been destroyed. So, if you could elaborate on that, and then the question of sanctions, the impact that sanctions have had on Russia? You’ve just said that the economy has not been as weakened as anticipated.

    ILYA BUDRAITSKIS: Yeah. So, to the first question, in fact, the recent two years were used by Putin to prepare the society for this situation of silence, of conformism, of depoliticization, of a lack of any resistance, because, if you remember, in the beginning of 2020, the amendments to the Russian Constitution were implemented, and according to these amendments, Putin got a right to stay in power for some — you know, for some decade or even more. And, in fact, that was important, decisive moment that was kind of the hidden coup d’état, which in fact was realized from the top of the Russian state. And then, in 2021, the main structure of nonparliamentary opposition, the movement of Alexei Navalny, was totally destroyed. Alexei Navalny personally was jailed. Many of his followers were arrested or forced to leave the country. So, in this way, you can see that to the beginning of the war, the main elements of the dictatorship were already there.

    As for the sanctions, well, in the recent report by IMF, International Monetary Fund, the expectation of the fall of the Russian economy to the beginning — to the end of this year would be some 6%, which is less than it was predicted in the beginning of the war. So, in fact, Russian economy, of course, will lose a lot. A lot of workplaces will disappear. A lot of people will lose their incomes because of the inflation and so on. But, in fact, the main elements of the stability of the Russian economy, they are still in the place. That’s the export of gas and oil. And we know that the gas prices now are — you know, jumped, and they’re as high as never before in the recent decades. So, in this sense, Russia probably will not be shaken politically only because of the impact of the sanctions.

    I will say that probably the human cost, the cost of human lives, the cost of the huge losses among the Russian soldiers during this war, could be even more important reason for some protest feelings in Russian society.

    NERMEEN SHAIKH: Ilya, finally, now we see Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has been in Africa meeting heads of state, trying to establish that Russia has not been entirely globally isolated. Now, you’ve drawn a distinction between the Soviet Union of the Cold War period and Russia today, saying, quote, “During the Cold War it could at least be said that the Soviet bloc, for all its obvious faults, was a bearer of ideas of social liberation and anti-colonial struggle. Today we see the choice between the reactionary NATO bloc and the even more reactionary potential Russia-China bloc.” So, could you talk about that specifically with respect to this visit of Lavrov in which he is invoking this old Soviet tendency or reputation for supporting anti-colonial struggles in the countries where he is now, where he’s been visiting?

    ILYA BUDRAITSKIS: Yeah, you’re very true that — you’re very right that Putin, Lavrov and the Russian regime, in general, are trying to promote this kind of anti-colonial rhetorics for now. So, even before Putin made the speech where he said that you have a so-called golden billion which rule the Earth and which provide some kind of unjust, unequal relations between the developing countries and the West, and the aim of Russian military operation in Ukraine is to change this domination of the West. So, you have totally the same message behind Lavrov’s visit to the African states.

    But the main problem is what kind of alternative Russia is trying to propose by all this — all these relations. So, definitely, Russia itself not looks as the kind of role model, some alternative model to the Western — to the Western domination. And the way in which Russia is trying to gain some African countries, for example, for its side is very cynical, is a pure commercial and neoliberal. So, they are just proposing some — I don’t know — discounts for oil or some discounts for the weapons coming from Russia and things like this. There is nothing about the economic development. There is nothing about any real social and political alternative to the current order of things.

    AMY GOODMAN: Ilya Budraitskis, we want to thank you for being with us, Russian historian and political writer, author of Dissidents Among Dissidents: Ideology, Politics and the Left in Post-Soviet Russia. We’re not saying where he is. He left Russia after Putin invaded Ukraine.

  • Behind Johnson’s security breach lies a story that’s all about power and exploitation

    Boris Johnson has admitted that on 28 April 2018 he met with former KGB (Russian spy agency) officer Alexander Lebedev. It was at an Italian villa owned by Alexander’s son Evgeny Lebedev. Johnson was foreign secretary at the time. Controversially, he “dumped” his Met police protection officers prior to flying out to the meeting. Similar was the case with another meeting there in 2016.

    Johnson reportedly met several times with Lebedev senior when mayor of London. Those meetings have been known about for some three years, as revealed by OpenDemocracy and the Guardian.

    The political context to the meetings saw the lead up to the June 2016 EU referendum and the aftermath when Brexit policy was formulated. The catastrophic consequences of the referendum result are still being realised today.

    Johnson “compromised”

    With regard to Johnson’s April 2018 meeting with the Lebedevs, according to investigative journalist John Sweeney it and other meetings were nothing less than sex parties:

    At his palazzo, there’s a fancy-dress box and guests have to pick what they are going to wear blind which is why one of very famous party-goer ended up a gimp in a gimp suit. A butt-plug with a Vladimir Putin face on it has been spotted. Beautiful men and women are at hand, at beck and call. Katie Price, Jim Cusick reported, hit the champagne a little too heavily and got her tits out for then Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson. There is, of course, no suggestion that Johnson wore the gimp suit or, indeed, the Vladimir Putin butt-plug and no suggestion whatsoever that he wore both at the same time.

    A “former MI6 officer” – probably Christopher Steele, going by his previous statements – told Sweeney:

    If Boris goes to the Lebedevs’ palazzo in Italy and shags someone, there’s got to be a sporting chance that someone’s filming it… Imagine if Putin was knocking off a woman in a place in Moscow owned by a British businessman, then, in my old job, I would be on to that immediately, I would be all over it like a bad rash.

    Adding:

    Boris Johnson is compromised. No one believes he went to the palazzo just to sip orange juice.

    Calls for inquiry

    Following Johnson’s admission to meetings with Alexander Lebedev, the matter was raised in parliament.

    Labour MP Yvette Cooper stated that Johnson went straight to the April 2018 party in Italy from a NATO meeting on Russia. She added how in May 2022 the Canadian government had sanctioned Lebedev senior for having “directly enabled Vladimir Putin’s senseless war in Ukraine and bear responsibility for the pain and suffering of the people of Ukraine”.

    Labour MP Holly Lynch asked questions about Johnson’s meetings with Alexander Lebedev, but was “fobbed off”:

    Russian interference

    It doesn’t stop at Johnson either. Because there are a number of examples of Russia-linked oligarchs’ possible influence on Tory politicians.

    In December 2020, The Canary published details of leaked testimony provided in 2016 to the Home Affairs Select Committee. It showed that members of parliament and the upper chamber hired firms to advise oligarchs on how to avoid scrutiny for alleged money laundering.

    Similar testimony was provided to the Intelligence & Security Committee (ISC) in 2018. The ISC’s Russia Report remained unpublished until July 2020 on orders from Johnson. But it was noticeable for what it left out. For example, it only briefly mentioned the money laundering or the donations from oligarchs to UK politicians.

    Meanwhile, SNP MP and ISC member Stewart Hosie claims the Conservative government has “actively avoided looking for evidence” that Russia interfered in the EU referendum:

    More Tories compromised

    So it’s not just Johnson who’s compromised via connections with Russia-linked oligarchs.

    In October 2020, The Canary referred to leaked files that showed Russian oligarch and Putin ally Suleyman Kerimov had donated millions of pounds to major Tory donor Lubov Chernukhin’s husband. Chernukhin is a banker and the wife of Putin’s former deputy finance minister.

    The Canary further reported that Alexander Temerko, the former chief of a Russian arms company, made 69 donations to Tory MPs and Conservative Party central office. The total he donated from February 2012 to March 2019 came to nearly £700k. Temerko was also linked to a 2018 ‘coup’ within the Tory party that sought to oust then-prime minister Theresa May. The attempt was reportedly led by members of the European Research Group, which promoted a hard, no-deal Brexit.

    Moreover, Alexander Knaster, a former CEO of Russia’s Alfa Bank, made eight donations mostly to Conservative Party central office, totalling £455k. And Lev Mikheev, who allegedly “made his money managing the funds of wealthy Putin allies”, made 15 donations to the Conservative Party totalling £212k.

    Poverty and chaos

    The relationship between Johnson and the Lebedevs has been described as far worse a scandal than the “sex, lies and spies” of the Profumo affair. That eventually saw the collapse of the Macmillan-led Conservative government.

    Johnson’s resignation was ostensibly caused by inaction regarding the sexual misconduct of a Tory MP. In reality, he was brought down by a power struggle – the results of which will be of nil benefit to the British people apart from maybe the well off.

    Meanwhile, Johnson and his cronies have succeeded in ensuring the UK is left rife with poverty and facing an ever-increasing Brexit-related chaos.

    Featured image via Wikimedia Commons cropped 770×403 pixels

    By Tom Coburg

    This post was originally published on The Canary.

  • The War “Diplomat”: How Borrell, the West Lost the “Global Battle of Narratives”

    In a blog entry, reflecting on the G20 Foreign Ministers’ meeting in Bali, Indonesia on July 7-8, the High Representative of the European Union, Josep Borrell, seems to have accepted the painful truth that the West is losing what he termed “the global battle of narratives”.

    “The global battle of narratives is in full swing and, for now, we are not winning,” Borrell admitted. The solution: “As the EU, we have to engage further to refute Russian lies and war propaganda,” the EU’s top diplomat added.

    Borrell’s piece is a testimony to the very erroneous logic that led to the so-called ‘battle of narratives’ to be lost in the first place.

    Borrell starts by reassuring his readers that, despite the fact that many countries in the Global South refuse to join the West’s sanctions on Russia, “everybody agrees”, though in “abstract terms”, on the “need for multilateralism and defending principles such as territorial sovereignty”.

    The immediate impression that such a statement gives is that the West is the global vanguard of multilateralism and territorial sovereignty. The opposite is true. The US-western military interventions in Iraq, Bosnia, Afghanistan, Syria, Libya and many other regions around the world have largely taken place without international consent and without any regard for the sovereignty of nations. In the case of the NATO war on Libya, a massively destructive military campaign was initiated based on the intentional misinterpretation of United Nations Security Council resolution 1973, which called for the use of “all means necessary to protect civilians”.

    Borrell, like other western diplomats, conveniently omits the West’s repeated – and ongoing – interventions in the affairs of other nations, while painting the Russian-Ukraine war as the starkest example of “blatant violations of international law, contravening the basic tenets of the UN Charter and endangering the global economic recovery” .

    Would Borrell employ such strong language to depict the numerous ongoing war crimes in parts of the world involving European countries or their allies? For example, France’s despicable war record in Mali? Or, even more obvious, the 75-year-old Israeli occupation of Palestine?

    When addressing “food and energy security”, Borrell lamented that many in the G20 have bought into the “propaganda and lies coming from the Kremlin” regarding the actual cause of the food crisis. He concluded that it is not the EU but “Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine that is dramatically aggravating the food crisis.”

    Again, Borrell was selective with his logic. While naturally, a war between two countries that contribute a large share of the world’s basic food supplies will detrimentally impact food security, Borrell made no mention that the thousands of sanctions imposed by the West on Moscow have disrupted the supply chain of many critical products, raw material and basic food items.

    When the West imposed those sanctions, it only thought of its national interests, erroneously centered around defeating Russia. Neither the people of Sri Lanka, Somalia, Lebanon, nor, frankly, Ukraine were relevant factors in the West’s decision.

    Borrell, whose job as a diplomat suggests that he should be investing in diplomacy to resolve conflicts, has repeatedly called for widening the scope of war on Russia, insisting that the war can only be “won on the battlefield”. Such statements were made with western interests in mind, despite the obvious devastating consequences that Borrell’s battlefield would have on the rest of the world.

    Still, Borrell had the audacity to chastise G20 members for behaving in ways that seemed, to him, focused solely on their national interests. “The hard truth is that national interests often outweigh general commitments to bigger ideals,” he wrote. If defeating Russia is central to Borrell’s and the EU’s “bigger ideals”, why should the rest of the world, especially in the Global South, embrace the West’s self-serving priorities?

    Borrell also needs to be reminded that the West’s “global battle of narratives” had been lost well before February 24. Much of the Global South rightly sees the West’s interests at odds with its own. This seemingly cynical view is an outcome of decades – in fact, hundreds of years – of real experiences, starting with colonialism and ending, presently, with the routine military and political interventions.

    Borrell speaks of ‘bigger ideals’, as if the West is the only morally mature entity that is capable of thinking about rights and wrongs in a selfless, detached manner. In addition to there being no evidence to support Borrell’s claim, such condescending language, itself an expression of cultural arrogance, makes it impossible for non-western countries to accept, or even engage, with the West regarding the morality of its politics.

    Borrell, for example, accuses Russia of a “deliberate attempt to use food as a weapon against the most vulnerable countries in the world, especially in Africa”. Even if we accept this problematic premise as a morally driven position, how can Borrell justify the West’s sanctions that have effectively starved many people in “vulnerable countries” around the world?

    Perhaps, Afghans are the most vulnerable people in the world today, thanks to 20 years of a devastating US/NATO war which has killed and maimed tens of thousands. Though the US and its western allies were forced out of Afghanistan last August, billions of dollars of Afghan money are illegally frozen in Western bank accounts, pushing the whole country to the brink of starvation. Why can Borrell not apply his ‘bigger ideals’ in this particular scenario, demanding immediate unfreezing of Afghan money?

    In truth, Borrell, the EU, NATO and the West are not only losing the global battle of narratives, they have never won it in the first place. Winning or losing that battle never mattered to Western leaders in the past, because the Global South was hardly considered when the West made its unilateral decisions regarding war, military invasions or economic sanctions.

    The Global South matters now, simply because the West is no longer determining all political outcomes, as was often the case. Russia, China, India and others are now relevant, because they can collectively balance out the skewed global order that has been dominated by Borrell and his likes for far too long.

    The post The War “Diplomat”: How Borrell, the West Lost the “Global Battle of Narratives” first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • “Fortress Mentality” Among US Leaders Has Trapped Us in a Cycle of Militarism

    Mainstream media and politics routinely assume that the United States is a well-meaning global giant, striving to keep dangerous adversaries at bay. So, it was just another day at the imperial office on July 19 when FBI Director Christopher Wray declared: “The Russians are trying to get us to tear ourselves apart. The Chinese are trying to manage our decline, and the Iranians are trying to get us to go away.”

    Such statements harmonize with the prevailing soundscape. The standard script asserts that the United States is powerful and besieged — mighty but always menaced — the world’s leading light yet beset by hostile nations and other sinister forces aiming to undermine the USA’s rightful dominance of the globe.

    A fortress mindset feeds the U.S. government’s huge “defense” budget — which is higher than the military budgets of the next 10 countries combined — while the Pentagon maintains about 750 military bases overseas. But victimology is among Washington’s official poses, in sync with a core belief that the United States is at the center of the world’s importance and must therefore police the world to the best of its capacity.

    In recent decades, U.S. military power has faced new challenges to retain unipolar leverage over the planet in the wake of the Soviet Union’s collapse. (Heavy is Uncle Sam’s head that wears the crown.) Along with the fresh challenges came incentives to update the political lexicon for rationalizing red-white-and-blue militarism.

    Ever since Secretary of State Madeleine Albright gave the motto its bigtime national debut in February 1998 on NBC’s “Today Show”, efforts to portray the U.S. as an “indispensable nation” became familiar rhetoric — or at least a renewed conceptual frame — for U.S. interventionism. “If we have to use force,” she said, “it is because we are America; we are the indispensable nation. We stand tall and we see further than other countries into the future, and we see the danger here to all of us.”

    In 2022, such verbiage would easily fit onto teleprompters at the highest levels of the U.S. government. The appeal of such words has never waned among mass media and officials in Washington, as the United States simultaneously touts itself as the main virtuous star on the world stage and a country simply trying to protect itself from malevolence.

    Consider FBI Director Wray’s rhetoric about official enemies:

    “The Russians are trying to get us to tear ourselves apart.”

    This theme remains an establishment favorite. It dodges the grim realities of U.S. society — completely unrelated to Russia — such as longstanding and ongoing conflicts due to racism, misogyny, income inequality, corporate power, oligarchy, and other structural injustices. The right-wing menace to human decency and democracy in the United States is homegrown, as the January 6 insurrection at the Capitol made chillingly clear.

    This month, while the horrific and unjustified Russian war in Ukraine has continued, the United States has persisted with massive shipments of weapons to the Ukrainian government. Meanwhile, official interest in genuine diplomacy has been somewhere between scant and nonexistent. One of the few stirrings toward rationality from Capitol Hill came early this month when Rep. Ro Khanna told The Washington Post: “People don’t want to see a resigned attitude that this is just going to go on as long as it’s going to go on. What is the plan on the diplomatic front?” Several weeks later, the Biden administration is still indicating no interest in any such plan.

    “The Chinese are trying to manage our decline.”

    Leaders in Washington don’t want the sun to set on the U.S. empire, but China and many other nations have other ideas. This week, news of Nancy Pelosi’s intention to visit Taiwan in August was greeted with cheers from the editorial board of the Wall Street Journal, which wrote that she deserved “kudos” for planning “what would be the first trip to the island democracy by a House Speaker in 25 years.”

    At midweek, President Biden expressed concern about the planned trip, saying: “I think that the military thinks it’s not a good idea right now. But I don’t know what the status of it is.” However, his team’s overall approach is confrontational, risking a potentially catastrophic war with nuclear-armed China. Despite dire warnings from many analysts, the U.S. geopolitical stance toward China is reflexively and dangerously zero-sum.

    “The Iranians are trying to get us to go away.”

    Iran’s government adhered to the nuclear deal enacted in 2015, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). But the Trump administration pulled out of the pact. Rather than swiftly move to rejoin it, the Biden administration has dithered and thrown roadblocks.

    Two weeks ago, Secretary of State Antony Blinken disingenuously announced: “We are imposing sanctions on Iranian petroleum and petrochemical producers, transporters, and front companies. Absent a commitment from Iran to return to the JCPOA, an outcome we continue to pursue, we will keep using our authorities to target Iran’s exports of energy products.”

    In response, Quincy Institute Executive Vice President Trita Parsi tweeted: “Biden is continuing and embracing Trump’s max pressure policy, while expecting a different result. All of this could have been avoided if Biden just returned to the JCPOA via Exe order” — with an executive order, as he did to reverse President Trump’s withdrawal of the U.S. from the Paris climate accord and the World Health Organization.

    What continues — with countless instances of repetition compulsion — is the proclaimed vision of the United States of America leading the charge against the world’s badness. Beneath the veneer of goodness, however, systematic hypocrisy and opportunistic cruelty persist on a massive scale.

    A case in point is Biden’s recent journey to the Middle East: The presidential trip’s prominent features included fist-bumping with a Saudi monarch whose government has caused a quarter-million deaths and vast misery with its war on Yemen, and voicing fervent support for the Israeli government as it continues to impose apartheid on the Palestinian people.

    Leaders of the U.S. government never tire of reasserting their commitment to human rights and democracy. At the same time, they insist that an inexhaustible supply of adversaries is bent on harming the United States, which must not run away from forceful engagement with the world. But the actual U.S. agenda is to run the world.

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • Inside the Global Fight for White Power

    From Russia to Sweden and the United States, there’s a growing network of White nationalist groups that stretches around the world. The reporting team at Verified: The Next Threat investigates how these militant groups are helping each other create propaganda, recruit new members and share paramilitary skills.

    We start with a group called the Russian Imperial Movement, or RIM. Its members are taking up arms in Russia’s war against Ukraine, which they say is a battle in a much larger “holy war” for White power. Newsy senior investigative reporter Mark Greenblatt interviews a leader of the group who says RIM’s goal is to unite White nationalists around the world. The group even runs training camps where White supremacists from around the world can learn paramilitary tactics.

    Russia’s White nationalists are making connections with extremists in the United States. Greenblatt talks with a neo-Nazi named Matt Heimbach, who was a major promoter of the deadly 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. Soon after Charlottesville, Heimbach invited members of RIM to the U.S. and connected them to his network of American White power extremists.

    We end with a visit by Greenblatt to the State Department in Washington, where he interviews two top counterterrorism officials. They say they’re aware of the growing international network of White supremacists, but explain that White power groups are now forming political parties, which makes it more difficult for the agency to use its most powerful counterterrorism tools.

    This post was originally published on Reveal.

  • Donbass (2016)

    An exposé about the people of the Donbass.

    In 2016, the French journalist Anne-Laure Bonnel released a documentary following the lives of the Ukrainians separatists of the Donbass Region.

    Bonnel, a young director and mother of a French family, decided to accompany Alexandre, a father of Ukrainian origin, to the Donbass region of eastern Ukraine in a pro-Russian zone. Bonnel captures the terrible images of a deadly conflict and an unprecedented humanitarian disaster. Donbass is an immersive, gripping documentary film in a war-torn country.

    Filming war is not only filming combat. When war is treated as a spectacle, we often tend to forget what surrounds it. Off-screen, entire populations struggle to live, or rather to survive. Donbass informs about the struggle. Through her documentary, Bonnel films the conflict in its universality and presents that which we are usually not shown.

    This is not a political message for or against any side of the conflict. Viewers are strongly advised to listen to the testimonies from all sides before reaching any definitive judgment.

    The post Donbass (2016) first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • India-Russia-Iran: Eurasia’s new transportation powerhouses

    No longer just an ‘alternative route’ on a drawing board, the International North South Transportation Corridor (INSTC) is paying dividends in a time of global crisis. And Moscow, Tehran and New Delhi are now leading players in the Eurasian competition for transportation routes.

    Photo Credit: The Cradle

    Tectonic shifts continue to rage through the world system with nation-states quickly recognizing that the “great game” as it has been played since the establishment of the Bretton Woods monetary system in the wake of the second World War, is over.

    But empires never disappear without a fight, and the Anglo-American one is no exception, overplaying its hand, threatening and bluffing its way, right to the end.

    End of an order

    It seems no matter how many sanctions the west imposes on Russia, the victims most affected are western civilians. Indeed, the severity of this political blunder is such that the nations of the trans-Atlantic are heading towards the greatest self-induced food and energy crisis in history.

    While the representatives of the “liberal rules-based international order” continue on their trajectory to crush all nations that refuse to play by those rules, a much saner paradigm has come to light in recent months that promises to transform the global order entirely.

    The multipolar solution

    Here we see the alternative security-financial order which has arisen in the form of the Greater Eurasian Partnership. As recently as 30 June at the 10th St Petersburg International Legal Forum, Russian President Vladimir Putin described this emerging new multipolar order as:

    A multipolar system of international relations is now being formed. It is an irreversible process; it is happening before our eyes and is objective in nature. The position of Russia and many other countries is that this democratic, more just world order should be built on the basis of mutual respect and trust, and, of course, on the generally accepted principles of international law and the UN Charter.

    Since the inevitable cancellation of western trade with Russia after the Ukraine conflict erupted in February, Putin has increasingly made clear that the strategic re-orientation of Moscow’s economic ties from east to west had to make a dramatically new emphasis on north to south and north to east relations not only for Russia’s survival, but for the survival of all Eurasia.

    Among the top strategic focuses of this re-orientation is the long overdue International North South Transportation Corridor (INSTC).

    On this game-changing mega-project, Putin said last month during the plenary session of the 25th St Petersburg International Economic Forum:

    To help companies from other countries develop logistical and cooperation ties, we are working to improve transport corridors, increase the capacity of railways, trans-shipment capacity at ports in the Arctic, and in the eastern, southern and other parts of the country, including in the Azov-Black Sea and Caspian basins – they will become the most important section of the North-South Corridor, which will provide stable connectivity with the Middle East and Southern Asia. We expect freight traffic along this route to begin growing steadily in the near future.

    The INSTC’s Phoenix Moment

    Until recently, the primary trade route for goods passing from India to Europe has been the maritime shipping corridor passing through the Bab El-Mandeb Strait linking the Gulf of Aden to the Red Sea, via the highly bottle-necked Suez Canal, through the Mediterranean and onward to Europe via ports and rail/road corridors.

    Following this western-dominated route, average transit times take about 40 days to reach ports of Northern Europe or Russia. Geopolitical realities of the western technocratic obsession with global governance have made this NATO-controlled route more than a little unreliable.

    The International North South Transport Corridor (INSTC)

    Despite being far from complete, goods moving across the INSTC from India to Russia have already finished their journey 14 days sooner than their Suez-bound counterparts while also seeing a whopping 30 percent reduction in total shipping costs.

    These figures are expected to fall further as the project progresses. Most importantly, the INSTC would also provide a new basis for international win-win cooperation much more in harmony with the spirit of geo-economics unveiled by China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in 2013.

    Cooperation not competition

    Originally agreed upon by Russia, Iran and India in September 2000, the INSTC only began moving in earnest in 2002 – albeit much more slowly than its architects had hoped.

    This 7,200 km multimodal mega-project involves integrating several Eurasian nations directly or indirectly with rail, roads and shipping corridors into a united and tight-knit web of interdependency. Along each artery, opportunities to build energy projects, mining, and high tech special economic zones (SEZs) will abound, giving each participating nation the economic power to lift their people out of poverty, increase their stability and their national power to chart their own destinies.

    Beyond the founding three nations, the other 10 states who have signed onto this project over the years include Armenia, Georgia, Turkey, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Belarus, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Oman, Syria and even Ukraine (although this last member may not remain on board for long). In recent months, India has officially invited Afghanistan and Uzbekistan to join too.

    While western think tanks and geopolitical analysts attempt to frame the INSTC as an opponent to China’s BRI, the reality is that both systems are extremely synergistic on multiple levels.

    China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI)

    Unlike the west’s speculation-driven bubble economy, both the BRI and INSTC define economic value and self-interest around improving the productivity and living standards of the real economy. While short term thinking predominates in the myopic London-Wall Street paradigm, the BRI and INSTC investment strategies are driven by long-term thinking and mutual self-interest.

    It is no small irony that such policies once animated the best traditions of the west before the rot of unipolar thinking took over and the west lost its moral compass.

    An integrated alternative

    The INSTC’s two major bookends are the productive zone of Mumbai in India’s Southeast region of Gujarat and the northern-most Arctic port of Lavna in Russia’s Kola Peninsula of Murmansk.

    This is not only the first port constructed by Russia in decades, but when completed, will be one of the world’s largest commercial ports with an expected capacity to process 80 million tons of goods by 2030.

    The Lavna Port is an integral part of Russia’s Arctic and Far East Development vision and is a central piece to Russia’s current Comprehensive Plan for Modernization and Expansion of Main Infrastructure and its Northern Sea Route which is expected to see a five-fold increase of Arctic freight traffic over the coming years. These projects are integrally linked to China’s Polar Silk Road.

    Between these bookends, the INSTC moves freight from India into Iran’s Port of Bandar Abbas where it is loaded onto double-tracked rail to the Iranian city of Bafq and then to Tehran before coming to the Anzali Port on the southern Caspian Sea.

    ‘Be like water’

    Because the INSTC is based on a flexible design concept capable of adapting to a changing geopolitical environment (very much like the BRI), there are a multitude of connecting lines that branch off the main North-South artery before goods make it to the Caspian Sea.

    These include an eastern and western corridor branching off from the city of Bafq towards Turkey and thence Europe via the Bosporus and also eastward from Tehran to Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and thereafter into Urumqi in China.

    Railway is still relevant

    From the Anzali Port in the north of Iran, goods may travel by the Caspian Sea towards Russia’s Astrakhan Port where it is then loaded onto trains and trucks for transport to Moscow, St Petersburg and Murmansk. Inversely goods may also travel over land to Azerbaijan where the 35 km Iran Rasht-Caspian railway is currently under construction with 11 km completed as of this writing.

    Once completed, the line will connect the Port of Anzali with Azerbaijan’s Baku, offering goods a chance to either continue onwards to Russia or westward toward Europe. A Tehran-Baku rail route already exists.

    Additionally, Azerbaijan and Iran are currently collaborating on a vast $2 billion rail line connecting the 175 km Qazvin-Rasht railway which began operations in 2019 with a strategic rail line connecting Iran’s Rasht port on the Caspian to the Bandar Abbas Complex in the south (to be completed in 2025). Iran’s Minister of Roads and Urban Development Rostam Ghasemi described this project in January 2022 saying:

    Iran’s goal is to connect to the Caucasus, Russia, and European countries. For this purpose, the construction of the Rasht-Astara railway is in the spotlight. During the Iranian president’s visit to Russia, discussions were conducted in this regard, and construction of the railway line is expected to begin soon with the allocation of needed funds.

    In recent months, India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi has lobbied to incorporate the joint Iran-India built Chabahar Port into the INSTC which will likely occur since another 628 km rail line from the port to the Iranian city of Zahedan is currently under construction.

    Once completed, goods will easily move onward to the city of Bafq. While some critics have suggested that the Chabahar Port is antagonistic to Pakistan’s Gwadar Port, Iranian officials have constantly referred to it as Chabahar’s twin sister.

    Since 2014, a vast rail and transportation complex has grown around the co-signers of the Ashkabat Agreement (launched in 2011 and upgraded several times over the past decade). These rail networks include the 917.5 km Iran-Turkmenistan-Kazakhstan route launched in 2014, and Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Tajikistan rail/energy project launched in 2016 which is currently seeing extensions that could easily go into Pakistan.

    In December 2021, the 6540 km Islamabad to Istanbul rail line (via Iran) recommenced operations after a decade of inaction. This route cuts the conventional sea transit route time of 21 days by half. Discussions are already underway to extend the line from Pakistan into China’s Xinjiang Province linking the INSTC ever more closely into the BRI on yet another front.

    Islamabad to Istanbul rail line (via Iran)

    Finally, June 2022 saw the long-awaited unveiling of the 6108 km Kazakhstan-Iran-Turkey rail line which provides an alternative route to the under-developed Middle Corridor. Celebrating the inaugural 12 day voyage of cargo, Kazakhstan’s President Kasym-Jomart Tokayev stated: “Today, we welcomed the container train, which left Kazakhstan a week ago. Then it will go to Turkey. This is a significant event, given the difficult geopolitical conditions.”

    Despite the fact that the INSTC is over 20 years old, global geopolitical dynamics, regime change wars, and ongoing economic warfare against Iran, Syria and other US target states did much to harm the sort of stable geopolitical climate needed to emit large scale credit requisite for long term projects like this to succeed.

    Caspian Summit Security breakthroughs

    As proof that necessity truly is the mother of invention, the systemic meltdown of the entire post-WW2 edifice has forced reality to take precedence over the smaller-minded concerns that kept the diverse nations of Sir Halford John Mackinder’s “World Island” from cooperating. Among these points of endless conflict and stagnation which has upset great economic potential over the course of three decades, the Caspian zone stands out.

    It is in this oil and natural gas rich hub that the five Caspian littoral states (Russia, Iran, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan) have found a power to break through on multi-level security, economic and diplomatic agreements throughout the June 29-30, 2022 Sixth Caspian Summit in Ashgabat, Turkmenistan.

    This summit placed a high priority on the INSTC with the region becoming both a north-south and east-west transportation hub. Most importantly, the leaders of the five littoral states made their final communique center around the region’s security since it is obvious that divide-to-conquer tactics will be deployed using every tool in the asymmetrical warfare tool basket going forward.

    Chief among the agreed-upon principles were indivisible security, mutual cooperation, military cooperation, respect for national sovereignty, and non-interference. Most importantly, the banning of foreign military from the land and waters of the Caspian states was firmly established.

    While no final agreement was reached over the disputed ownership of resources within the base of the Caspian, the stage was set for harmonization of partner states’ security doctrines, a healthy environment was established for the second Caspian Economic Summit which will take place in Autumn of this year and which will hopefully resolve many of the disputes pertaining to Caspian resource ownership.

    Although geopolitical storms continue to intensify, it is increasingly clear that only the multipolar ship of state has demonstrated the competence to navigate the hostile seas, while the sinking unipolar ship of fools has a ruptured hull held together by little more than chewing gum and heavy doses of delusion.

    • First published in The Cradle

    The post India-Russia-Iran: Eurasia’s new transportation powerhouses first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • The West Against Russia: The Strategy is being Played Out in Ukraine

    GEOFOR:  Greetings!  Since our last conversation, the conflict between Russia and the West has only continued to gain momentum. How far do you think this proxy war in the Ukraine can go? Is there a chance that the situation will improve?

    Peter Koenig:  Thank you for having me again for an interview.

    This is a million-dollar question.  Especially when we consider that Russia, by far the world’s largest and resource-richest country, was for over hundred years in the crosshairs of the western empire, led by the US and since WWII also by NATO, to be overtaken or to become a “colony” – similar – or worse – than western Europe.  The European Union (EU), has become a colony of Washington’s and NATO’s.

    It is worth a distinction, though, between the people of Europe and the  governments of western Europe; i.e., the EU member countries and the European Commission (EC), the latter consisting of unelected members.

    The EC currently, headed by the hawkish EC President, Ursula von der Leyen (unelected), former Minister of Defense of Germany, and close ally of Klaus Schwab’s. In fact, she is a Member of the Board of Trustees of the World Economic Forum. It is unlikely that Ms. Von der Leyen would deviate from the WEF’s globalist agenda. And it looks like part of this globalist agenda is “regime change” in Russia.

    On behalf of Washington, it’s driven by NATO and the EU.

    Let me make this clear: the EU and EC are not representative of the 500-plus million people of Europe. The European Parliament that is supposed to represent the interests of the people has practically no voice. Most people, educated people, inquired about Russia, have a positive opinion about Russia. They want peaceful relations. While perhaps not agreeing with the Ukraine war, they understand what may have led up to it.

    The people of Europe want sanctions on Russia to stop. The sanctions are foremost hurting Europe, but not Russia. On the basis of these sanctions, the planned One World Order (OWO), currently represented by the World Economic Forum (WEF), is using these sanctions, or rather Russia’s reaction to the sanctions, as a justification for causing massive energy and food shortages throughout the west, and to some extent, also the Global South.

    They want to cause suffering and death. This is a gigantic western agenda of mass starvation, possibly mass death – fitting well into the Great Reset’s population reduction program. Having said this, it is difficult to imagine that the west will let go and pursue a Peace Agreement between Russia and Ukraine.

    That would, in fact, be easy.

    All Ukraine would have to do is to adhere to the Minsk II Agreement (February 2015), which was sponsored by France, President Macron, and Germany, Chancellor Angela Merkel; by the very countries which are now coming down strongest, following US sanctions on Russia.

    Let’s just for a moment look at NATO’s Madrid Summit 22-point Declaration, released on 29 June 2022. Item two is a statement of utter hypocrisy and point 3 reflects an outright hatred against Russia:

    1. We are united in our commitment to democracy, individual liberty, human rights, and the rule of law.  We adhere to international law and to the purposes and principles of the Charter of the United Nations.  We are committed to upholding the rules-based international order.
    2. We condemn Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine in the strongest possible terms.  It gravely undermines international security and stability.  It is a blatant violation of international law.  Russia’s appalling cruelty has caused immense human suffering and massive displacements, disproportionately affecting women and children.  Russia bears full responsibility for this humanitarian catastrophe.  Russia must enable safe, unhindered, and sustained humanitarian access.  Allies are working with relevant stakeholders in the international community to hold accountable all those responsible for war crimes, including conflict-related sexual violence.  Russia has also intentionally exacerbated a food and energy crisis, affecting billions of people around the world, including through its military actions.  Allies are working closely to support international efforts to enable exports of Ukrainian grain and to alleviate the global food crisis.  We will continue to counter Russia’s lies and reject its irresponsible rhetoric.  Russia must immediately stop this war and withdraw from Ukraine.  Belarus must end its complicity in this war.

    Then, point 4, starts with a love declaration for Ukraine’s President Zelensky:

    1. We warmly welcome President Zelenskyy’s participation in this Summit.  We stand in full solidarity with the government and the people of Ukraine in the heroic defense of their country……..

    That means and justifies for NATO continuing supplying billions worth of weapons to Ukraine – weapons that already now are ending up largely in the hands of dark and criminal weapons dealers. Brussels and Washington know it, but they will not stop it.

    Zelenskyy, of course, is not free at all to take any decisions on his own. His decisions are dictated by the west.

    These circumstances give a bleak outlook for Peace. But one should never lose hope.

    GEOFOR:  Can the statements of a number of Baltic politicians on the need to take Kaliningrad away from Russia lead to a new hotbed of military confrontation already in Lithuania?

    PK:  The Kaliningrad Oblast/District, a Russian enclave between Poland and Lithuania, has also an important Baltic Sea port for Russia. Who knows what will really happen, but I do not believe that Poland and / or Lithuania will dare intervene in Kaliningrad.

    These statements or declarations may be just hot air or a new type of western-style anti-Russia propaganda. From my point of view, not to be taken seriously.

    GEOFOR:  The sanctions confrontation has, apparently, finally gone beyond reasonable explanations. Canada, following the UK, introduced them even against Patriarch Kirill… Tell us, is the bottom already reached, or should we expect new surprises?

    PK:  Another good question.  Frankly I don’t know. I think rather that the Europeans, as well as Washington, start realizing that they are the ones suffering, I mean them – particularly also the elite, not just the people, about whom they do not care.

    Therefore, it just might be that they are quietly trying to make arrangements with Russia for energy deliveries – dropping “sanctions” and accepting Russia’s ruble-billing and more.

    It has been clear from the beginning that the Global South, meaning China and associated Asian countries, like the members of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), ASEAN, the BRICS-plus Iran – as well as most of Africa and many of Latin American countries, will not adhere to sanctions.

    These are also the countries that Russia keeps supplying with energy resources and food.

    The west has clearly overreached with their sanctions, totally illegal sanctions, mind you.  Sanctions, any kind of “sanctions”, from one country to another, impacting another country’s economy and the people’s well being, are illegal under International Law.

    That’s also a reason why the east, led by China and Russia, will disassociate from the western currency and payment system (via US banks and SWIFT) and become an autonomous, sovereign politico-economic force. That may happen soon, possibly later this year or in early 2023.  A shock-wave may be expected.

    It could well be that the financial-economic decoupling of the east from the west – already ongoing – may be the “surprise”, when it reaches its final stages.

    And that in the meantime, the west is quietly back-paddling, as they realize to what extent they have been shooting themselves, unwittingly embarking on committing socioeconomic suicide.

    GEOFOR:  Autumn is coming soon, will be followed by winter. Judging by the statements of the Europeans, they will not have time to fill in the gas storage facilities, even despite the fact that many companies have agreed to pay for Russian hydrocarbons “in rubles”, and the United States supplies liquefied natural gas. What will Brussels do in such a situation?

    PK: Some of my assessment is already given above.  And, of course, supposedly NATO approves (despite 28 of the 30 NATO members being European, decisions are made in Washington), they may go back to Russia, quietly “lifting” some (or all) sanctions and trying to re-activate Nordstrom I and activate Nordstrom II.

    It is clear that the Middle East, the Saudis, for example, will not jump in to supply Europe and the US with gas and oil to replace deliveries from Russia. The results of the recent Joe Biden visit to the Saudis may be an indication.

    For the Middle East replacing Russian gas would be like “sanctioning” Russia, when they have clearly indicated that their future trading inclination is more eastwards, Russia, China and SCO and other eastern socioeconomic associations.

    The Middle East realizes that the future is in the east. The west has been digging their own grave for decades. But they apparently still cannot admit it. Instead of seeking Peace, they are confronting an impending collapse.

    GEOFOR:  And the last question. Against the backdrop of the financial and economic crisis gaining momentum, the ratings of leading Western politicians are beginning to fail. B. Johnson is no longer the leader of the Conservatives. They are increasingly talking about the upcoming political crisis in Germany, and the midterm elections to the US Congress are not far off… What are we to expect from all this?

    PK:  Yes, Boris Johnson is out. But his “outing” was most likely a planned outing. In the west, there are no decisions nor elections made by the people or Parliaments. They are all imposed or planned from the beginning with the consent of the leaders in question – by the WEF and its handlers, or commanders; i.e., the interlinked corporate financial oligarchs of this world, the amalgamation of Black Rock, Vanguard and State Street. Plus, there are other important players – like Chase, Bank of America, JPMorgan, City Group et al.

    The WEF is the executioner according to the Great Reset and following the script of UN Agenda 2030. Only people themselves, waking up, can stop this drive to total destruction. And, yes, I’m positive that LIGHT will prevail over darkness.

    It is said the “financial emperors” control close to 90% of the western corporate industrial and service world with majority shareholdings. Under these circumstances it is not difficult to decide who “presides” over what country – and when they have to go.

    Boris Johnson will be replaced by another vassal of the financial emperors, the one which best suits their current agenda.

    As to Germany’s Olaf Scholz, he has been put into the German Chancellorship just a bit over six months ago, after a long vetting process with important players like the EC, Washington and not least NATO. He had the right profile for what the west is all about.

    If one reads or listens to his history, it is amazing that he is not in jail. See this The Olaf Scholz File – His Words, his Deeds (English spoken – 3 March 2022)

    Yes, an economic crisis is coming. Even to Germany. According to many economists, Germany is de-industrializing. I agree. Self-made, by the insane “sanctions”. But even that is part of the plan.

    During and after a harsh winter 2022 / 23, there may be lots of bankruptcies, unemployment, poverty to extreme poverty, perhaps even deadly famine for the poorest.

    This is not a coincidence. There are no coincidences. This is shifting capital from the bottom and the center to the top – the financial elite, that pretends to rule the world. If they – the WEF-led globalists – have their way, there would be a One World Government. But that will not happen.

    The globalist agenda is falling apart. That was already visible at the WEF’s Davos meeting last May. People around the world are waking up to the globalist agenda. The vast majority of them has been suffering under the global everything – and now the attempt of global digitization, meaning total control of every move you make, via the financial system.

    Russia and China may lead humanity into a new future, a multipolar world. This is the hope. And the peoples will, to be expressed in solidarity and peace, may prevail.

    •  An interview with Peter Koenig on July 18, 2022.  See Russian translation here.

    • Peter Koenig is a geopolitical analyst and a former Senior Economist at the World Bank and the World Health Organization (WHO), where he worked for over 30 years around the world. He lectures at universities in the US, Europe and South America. He writes regularly for online journals and is the author of Implosion – An Economic Thriller about War, Environmental Destruction and Corporate Greed; and  co-author of Cynthia McKinney’s book “When China Sneezes: From the Coronavirus Lockdown to the Global Politico-Economic Crisis” (Clarity Press – November 1, 2020).  Peter is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG) and is also a non-resident Senior Fellow of the Chongyang Institute of Renmin University, Beijing.

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  • ‘Monumental’: Russian tennis player Daria Kasatkina praised for coming out as gay

    Activists and athletes say this is an important and symbolic moment for rights of LGBTQ+ people in Russia

    Russian human rights activists and fellow athletes have described the decision to come out as gay by the nation’s highest-ranked female tennis player, Daria Kasatkina, as a monumental and symbolic moment for the rights of LGBTQ+ people in the country.

    “When I heard the news about Kasatkina, I couldn’t believe it, I was so proud,” said Nadya Karpova, a footballer, who became the first openly gay Russian national team athlete when she came out last month. “I was ecstatic, jumping around like crazy in my flat.”

    Continue reading…

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

  • Ukrainian boy held hostage by Russia tells of cleaning up torture rooms

    Vladislav Buryak was kept for 90 days and describes people screaming and a room with bloodstains and soaked bandages

    A 16-year-old Ukrainian boy has described how he was held hostage by Russian soldiers for 90 days as he heard other prisoners being tortured in a nearby cell.

    Vladislav Buryak, who was separated from his family on 8 April at a checkpoint while attempting to flee the city of Melitopol, was released after a months-long negotiation between his father, Oleg – a local Ukrainian official – and Russian soldiers, who wanted to exchange Vladislav for an individual of interest to the Russian military.

    Continue reading…

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

  • The Russia-China Polar Silk Road Speeds Ahead

    Since China’s Arctic extension of the New Silk Road was first unveiled in a January 2018 white paper, a process of Arctic development has been unleashed which represents one of the most important and under-appreciated developments on Earth. Not only will 10 days be saved by goods moving between China and Europe via the Arctic route, but a new set of civilization building measures are now being unleashed in opposition to the anti-human degrowth program attempting to steer the world into a post-nation state system of de-growth and world government.

    While NATO’s geopolitical unipolarists obsess over global governance and militarization of the Arctic, Eurasian Arctic policy has taken a very different character with an emphasis on economic development and cooperation.

    Of course, Russia has not neglected the military component of its northern military policy, but unlike the west which has no economic vision, Russia’s Arctic military posture is definitively defensive and principally diplomatic. As Foreign Minister Lavrov said at the end of last year’s Arctic Summit in Alaska: “Russia is doing and will do a lot to make sure the Arctic develops as a territory of peace, stability and cooperation.”

    This conjunction of Russia and China’s northern policies around the Polar Silk Road should come as no surprise to anyone who has been paying attention to the close strategic friendship between both countries since the 2015 announcement of an alliance between the Russian-led Eurasian Economic Union and Belt and Road Initiative. This northern extension of the Maritime Silk Road represents a powerful force to transform the last unexplored frontier on the Earth, converting the Arctic from a geopolitical zone of conflict towards a new paradigm of mutual cooperation and development.

    Putin gave a speech at a recent BRI forum stating:

    the Great Eurasian Partnership and Belt and Road concepts are both rooted in the principles and values that everyone understands: the natural aspiration of nations to live in peace and harmony, benefit from free access to the latest scientific achievements and innovative development, while preserving their culture and unique spiritual identity. In other words, we are united by our strategic, long-term interests.

    Weeks before this speech Russia unveiled a bold plan for Arctic development during the conference Arctic: Territory of Dialogue which has since grown in leaps and bounds. This bold plan ties to the “Great Eurasian Partnership“, not only extending roads, rail and new cities into the Far East, but also extending science and civilization into a terrain long thought totally inhospitable. One of the keystone projects driving this program involves the completion of the International North-South Transportation Corridor (INSTC) launched as an Indian-Iranian-Russian program in 2002 and which has been given new life in the last several years.

    While the west has not built any new cities in several generations, Russia has announced the construction of five major Arctic cities supporting up to 1 million people each in the coming years with Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu leading the plan. Reporting on this program Atle Staalesen wrote in Arctic Today:

    Shoigu sees his masterplan for Siberia as closely connected with the markets in nearby China. But the new cities will also be important for the development of the Arctic, he argues, and makes a reference to the famous 18th Century scientist and writer Mikhail Lomonosov who wrote that “Russian power will grow with Siberia and the Arctic Ocean, […]”. According to Shoigu, Lomonosov did not coincidently connect the Arctic and Siberia. “They should be developed together and not separately,” he underlines, and adds that “the focus on the development of the Siberian region is both timely and reasonable.”

    Typically framed as an “anti-BRI” megaproject by small-minded geopoliticians, the INSTC and BRI are really two sides of the same program and should much rather be seen as a sister program for Eurasian, Southwest Asian and even African industrial growth. The INSTC currently enjoys the cooperation of 12 participating nations and has recently seen its northern extension moved from St Petersburg further north to the port of Lavna in Murmansk, Russia. China’s western “middle corridor” branch of the east-west BRI stretching through Xinjiang also features several rail and road corridors that tie directly into the INSTC not to mention the obvious Arctic far east connections.

    When fully completed, the INSTC will not only circumvent the NATO-controlled zone of the Mediterranean zone via the overly congested Suez canal but will cut approximately 10 days and 40% of the transportation costs off the current Suez route.

    In 2019 China and Russia signed the first scientific cooperation agreement together setting up the “China-Russia Arctic Research Center” as a part of the Polar Silk Road.

    The BRI’s Success So Far

    The Belt and Road Initiative has already won over much of Africa as BRI-connected rail, ports, and other infrastructure are providing a breath of fresh air to nations long held hostage by IMF/World Bank conditionalities.

    Pakistan and much of Southwest Asia are also increasingly on board the BRI through the growing China-Pakistan Economic Corridor. Twenty Arab states have signed onto the BRI and much of Latin America has also joined with hundreds of billions of dollars of infrastructure projects.

    The Eurasian Economic Union is now in the final stages of a long planned economic treaty between China and the Russian-led economic block recently outlined by Putin advisor Sergey Glazyev.

    Although both the USA and Canada have been invited to the BRI on many occasions since its 2013 inception, no positive response has been permitted by the NATO-Deep State power structures manipulating the west.

    While China’s activity in the Arctic is only manifesting now, its Arctic Strategy began many years ago.

    The importance of the Arctic Silk Road for China

    China deployed their first Arctic research expedition in 1999, followed by the establishment of their first Arctic research station in Svalbard, Norway in 2004. After years of effort, China achieved a permanent observer seat at the Arctic Council in 2011, and began building icebreakers soon thereafter surpassing Canada and nearly surpassing the USA whose two out-dated ice breakers have passed their shelf life by many years.

    As the Arctic ice caps continue to recede, the Northern Sea Route has become a major focus for China. The fact that shipping time from China’s Port of Dalian to Rotterdam would be cut by 10 days makes this alternative very attractive. Ships sailing from China to Europe must currently follow a transit through the congested Strait of Malacca and the Suez Canal which is 5000 nautical miles longer than the northern route. The opening up of Arctic resources vital for China’s long term outlook is also a major driver in this initiative.

    In preparation for resource development, China and Russia created a Russian Chinese Polar Engineering and Research Center in 2016 to develop capabilities for northern development such as building on permafrost, creating ice resistant platforms, and more durable icebreakers. New technologies needed for enhanced ports, and transportation in the frigid cold was also a focus. China additionally has a 30% stake in the Yamal LNG Project and the ‘Power of Siberia’ 3000 mile Russia-China gas pipeline has become the primary supplier of China’s oil and natural gas needs since it began operations in 2019.

    While western states race to shut down all hydrocarbon-based fuels in a suicidal race to de-carbonize, Russia and China have signed off on a 2600km Power of Siberia 2 which will not only satisfy China’s growth needs for the coming decades, but will easily compensate for the loss of gas sales to Europe as the iron curtain is erected once more. The Yamal Peninsula gas fields which supply the Power of Siberia 2 to China currently only service European needs which will soon change drastically.

    Where the Belt Goes, the Road Follows

    While the Belt and Road features two components (land and sea), the fact is that they are inextricably connected. Rails, ports and other civilization-building practices driven by a belief in scientific and technological progress have given this design a power and flexibility to adapt to every nation’s chosen developmental pathways. This is the mysterious “secret ingredient” to the BRI’s powerful adaptability which boggles the minds of closed-minded geopoliticians who can only think in zero-sum terms.

    Scientific and technological progress, when shaped by the intention to uphold the common good represent UNIVERSAL requirements for human survival and satisfy a creative yearning at the deepest core of all people. Without this commitment to the continual improvement of productive powers of society and quality of life, a society will always be divided by the localized self interest of its parts fighting for their own short term benefits. Such has been the fate of the west as it embarked upon a consumer society driven by a “post-industrial mode of existence” after the assassinations of the 1960s and floating of the US dollar in 1971.

    This concept of the common development of mankind both as a whole and in all of its parts was echoed recently by Xi Jinping who stated:

    China is ready to jointly promote the Belt and Road Initiative with international partners. We hope to create new drivers to power common development through this new platform of international cooperation; and we hope to turn it into a road of peace, prosperity, openness, green development and innovation and a road that brings together different civilizations.

    Over the past decade, the BRI has evolved from a loose, open concept in 2013 to the most ambitious endeavor in human history growing into three primary rail lines, thousands of miles of high speed rail, Arctic and space-based extensions, new industrial corridors, new modes of shaping education policy and especially new modes of executing banking activities unlike anything done in the west.

    Of course, anti-BRI slanders increase with every passing day catering to mainstream normies who are led to believe that China is using “debt-trap diplomacy” or that Russia seeks global domination as soon as it conquers Ukraine.

    Even more scrutinizing conspiracy theorists are led to believe that the Russia-China alliance is just another part of the Great Reset seeking to reduce global population to stupedified cattle status. How this insidious goal will be achieved via the construction of large scale infrastructure projects, mass-technical training, scientific breakthroughs and full spectrum industrial growth is a question which such black pilled cynics fail to think about.

    The post The Russia-China Polar Silk Road Speeds Ahead first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • Russian anti-war socialist: ‘Putin cannot tolerate an independent Ukraine’

    Federico Fuentes spoke to Ilya Matveev, Russian anti-war socialist and editorial collective member of Posle, a new anti-war website, about the background and motivations behind Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.

    This post was originally published on Green Left.

  • Family of captured Ukrainian human rights activist plead for help

    Campaign launched to highlight plight of Maksym Butkevych amid fears he is being wrongly labelled a ‘British spy’

    Family and friends of a prominent Ukrainian human rights activist who signed up to fight Russia and was captured have launched a public campaign to highlight his plight over fears he is being wrongly accused of being a “British spy” due to his ties to the UK.

    Maksym Butkevych, 45, a former BBC Ukrainian service producer who studied at Sussex University and who sits on the board of Amnesty International’s Ukraine section, is well known as a human rights defender due to his work with refugees in Ukraine.

    Continue reading…

  • The Rise of BRICS: The Economic Giant that is Taking on the West

    The G7 summit in Elmau, Germany, June 26-28, and the NATO summit in Madrid, Spain, two days later, were practically useless in terms of providing actual solutions to ongoing global crises – the war in Ukraine, the looming famines, climate change and more. But the two events were important, nonetheless, as they provide a stark example of the impotence of the West, amid the rapidly changing global dynamics.

    As was the case since the start of the Russia-Ukraine war, the West attempted to display unity, though it has become repeatedly obvious that no such unity exists. While France, Germany and Italy are paying a heavy price for the energy crisis resulting from the war, Britain’s Boris Johnson is adding fuel to the fire in the hope of making his country relevant on the global stage following the humiliation of Brexit. Meanwhile, the Biden Administration is exploiting the war to restore Washington’s credibility and leadership over NATO – especially following the disastrous term of Donald Trump, which nearly broke up the historic alliance.

    Even the fact that several African countries are becoming vulnerable to famines  – as a result of the disruption of food supplies originating from the Black Sea and the subsequent rising prices – did not seem to perturb the leaders of some of the richest countries in the world. They still insist on not interfering in the global food market, though the skyrocketing prices have already pushed tens of millions of people below the poverty line.

    Though the West had little reserve of credibility to begin with, Western leaders’ current obsession with maintaining thousands of sanctions on Russia, further NATO expansion, dumping yet more ‘lethal weapons’ in Ukraine and sustaining their global hegemony at any cost, have all pushed their credibility standing to a new low.

    From the start of the Ukraine war, the West championed the same ‘moral’ dilemma as that raised by George W. Bush at the start of his so-called ‘war on terror’. “You are either with us or with the terrorist,” he declared in October 2009. But the ongoing Russia-NATO conflict cannot be reduced to simple and self-serving cliches. One can, indeed, want an end to the war, and still oppose US-western unilateralism. The reason that American diktats worked in the past, however, is that, unlike the current geopolitical atmosphere, a few dared oppose Washington’s policies.

    Times have changed. Russia, China, India, along with many other countries in Asia, the Middle East, Africa and South America are navigating all available spaces to counter the suffocating western dominance. These countries have made it clear that they will not take part in isolating Russia in the service of NATO’s expansionist agenda. To the contrary, they have taken many steps to develop alternatives to the west-dominated global economy, and particularly to the US dollar which, for five decades, has served the role of a commodity, not a currency, per se. The latter has been Washington’s most effective weapon, associated with many US-orchestrated crises, sanctions and, as in the case of Iraq and Venezuela, among others, mass hunger.

    China and others understand that the current conflict is not about Ukraine vs Russia, but about something far more consequential. If Washington and Europe emerge victorious, and if Moscow is pushed back behind the proverbial ‘iron curtain’, Beijing would have no other options but to make painful concessions to the re-emerging west. This, in turn, would place a cap on China’s global economic growth, and would weaken its case regarding the One China policy.

    China is not wrong. Almost immediately following NATO’s limitless military support of Ukraine and the subsequent economic war on Russia, Washington and its allies began threatening China over Taiwan. Many provocative statements, along with military maneuvers and high-level visits by US politicians to Taipei, were meant to underscore US dominance in the Pacific.

    Two main reasons drove the West to further invest in the current confrontational approach against China, at a time where, arguably, it would have been more beneficial to exercise a degree of diplomacy and compromise. First, the West’s fear that Beijing could misinterpret its action as weakness and a form of appeasement; and, second, because the West’s historic relationship with China has always been predicated on intimidation, if not outright humiliation. From the Portuguese occupation of Macau in the 16th century, to the British Opium Wars of the mid-19th century, to Trump’s trade war on China, the West has always viewed China as a subject, not a partner.

    This is precisely why Beijing did not join the chorus of western condemnations of Russia. Though the actual war in Ukraine is of no direct benefit to China, the geopolitical outcomes of the war could be critical to the future of China as a global power.

    While NATO remains insistent on expansion so as to illustrate its durability and unity, it is the alternative world order led by Russia and China that is worthy of serious attention. According to the German Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Beijing and Moscow are working to further develop the BRICS club of major emerging economies to serve as a counterweight to the G7. The German paper is correct. BRICS’ latest summit on June 23 was designed as a message to the G7 that the West is no longer in the driving seat, and that Russia, China and the Global South are preparing for a long fight against Western dominance.

    In his speech at the BRICS summit, Russian President Vladimir Putin proposed the creation of an “international reserve currency based on the basket of currencies of our countries”. The fact that the ruble alone has managed to survive, in fact flourish, under recent Western sanctions, gives hope that BRICS currencies combined can manage to eventually sideline the US dollar as the world dominant currency.

    Reportedly, it was Chinese President Xi Jinping who requested that the date of the BRICS summit be changed from July 4 to June 23, so that it would not appear to be a response to the G7 summit in Germany. This further underscores how the BRICS are beginning to see themselves as a direct competitor to the G7. The fact that Argentina and Iran are applying for BRICS membership also illustrates that the economic alliance is morphing into a political, in fact geopolitical, entity.

    The global fight ahead is perhaps the most consequential since World War II. While NATO will continue to fight for relevance, Russia, China, and others will invest in various economic, political and even military infrastructures, in the hope of creating a permanent and sustainable counterbalance to Western dominance. The outcome of this conflict is likely to shape the future of humanity.

    The post The Rise of BRICS: The Economic Giant that is Taking on the West first appeared on Dissident Voice.

  • A Ukrainian-Led School Emerges in Germany to Teach Refugee Children

    Julia C. stands in front of her 24 10th-grade pupils at The Ukrainian School — a school in Dresden, Germany, staffed by teachers from Ukraine who are working with the sudden influx of school-aged refugees. The school’s curriculum covers nearly all the standard school subjects while also helping Ukrainian students learn German and adjust to their new lives.

    The Ukrainian School program was created in April 2022, following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the subsequent influx of Ukrainian refugees and their children. The director of the newly reopened school is simultaneously the director of Dresden’s more standard German-language High School Number 116.

    As of July 14, more than 5.8 million Ukrainian refugees fled to Europe, according to data from the UN Refugee Agency. Educating around 400 pupils from grades 5 to 10, eight teachers, who all escaped from Ukraine in 2022, work in the high school.

    After instructing her students in German, Julia, who asked to be identified only by her first name due to fear of getting into trouble for expressing political critiques, teaches her Ukrainian colleagues the German language as well. The young woman herself arrived in Germany from Ukraine in 2009.

    “Life was hard. First, I wanted to go as far away as possible, across the ocean, to the U.S.,” Julia tells Truthout. “Then I decided to stay in the area, so I can still see my family.” Before immigrating to Germany, Julia completed a bachelor’s degree in German language instruction. She also went on to study German philology at the University of Dresden.

    Sofia, a teenage student of Julia’s, fled Ukraine with her mother on March 8. “In Kharkiv, we had to pass several military controls and I heard bombs,” Sofia tells Truthout. “And from Charkiw to Lviv, we were constantly controlled by military.”

    Olesa, another one of Julia’s students, is from Odessa. She also escaped Ukraine, along with her parents and baby sisters. “We did not travel ad hoc; on February 24, we packed our bags, then we thought about leaving or not,” Olesa tells Truthout. “Then, on the night of March 8, we left.”

    Yuliia D. is another German language teacher at the school, having arrived in Germany from Ukraine in April. Her big blue eyes seem to lose color when she talks about her experiences back home. “We got information that the war could start. Some were prepared; I wasn’t. I didn’t want to believe it,” she tells Truthout. Once the war began, she had hoped that it would end soon. “I saw rockets flying to Kyiv, over the roof of my house.” After that, she, her family and her neighbors were hiding for 16 days in their cellar, without electricity, heating or water. “The government said, ‘Stay in the cellars and just leave when there is an official OK,’ so we waited and started to believe that it was impossible to get away, and just wanted to die.”

    She and her 15-year-old-daughter tried to escape once, but the Russian military did not let them proceed. The following day, they succeeded in fleeing with a little suitcase containing a folder with their most important documents and some sweaters. “I passed burning cars. [I] didn’t see deaths, but my family and friends know people who were killed,” Yuliia says. She and her daughter left from Kyiv to Lviv by train, taking a car to the border, and crossing into Poland by foot, then catching a bus to Warsaw, then a train to Berlin and then finally to Dresden.

    “For me, it was impossible to stay in the country; I was mentally totally cracked,” Yuliia says. Other family members decided to stay, including her husband. “Men have to protect the country; if they escape, they will be criminally prosecuted,” she added. Three days after she escaped, her neighbors’ house was bombed with two rockets.

    Before the war, Yuliia had been in Germany many times through school exchanges and as a child. Before the dissolution of the Soviet Union, she lived in Germany for four years, where she finished 9th grade. She also lived many years in Russia.

    “I speak Russian with my husband and my daughter — it’s my mother tongue, besides Ukrainian, and it’s no problem to speak,” she said. Yuliia explains that the Soviet Union prohibited the Ukrainian language, but still her mother attended a Ukrainian school in Kyiv. Julia is ethnically Bulgarian. (Bulgarians are one of roughly 10 main minority groups living in South Ukraine.)

    Yuliia says her mental health situation is still very complicated, as is that of her students.

    “In class, I focus on German, grammar, words, dialogues — but no politics,” she tells Truthout. “When I mention the time in the cellar, my daughter gets aggressive and says that she does not want to talk about this topic,” Yuliia says.

    She also doesn’t talk about politics with the students’ parents, who just ask how their children are doing in school.

    “When the kids started school, they were very silent, they were afraid of other people, but now we’ve also seen happy kids, who smile and laugh,” she says. “I’m grateful that we can learn without danger, and that I can work here in my profession. We would have never dreamt about this possibility.”

    In The Ukrainian School in Dresden, pupils don’t get grades, and after an assessment of their language competence, they can switch to regular schools. In order to get a report card before Ukrainian summer vacation, the kids had to learn online. “Now parents have to decide if they want to stay or return,” says Yuliia. “If they want to return, they should continue with the online classes; if not, they should focus on getting their children into the regular schools, as soon as possible.”

    Olesa and Sofia are curious about switching schools. Sofia wants to study medicine in Berlin; Olesa’s dream is to work as a psychologist somewhere in Germany. They already speak a couple of languages, including Ukrainian, Russian, a little English and a little German. They say that the differences between Latin and Cyrillic letters are not difficult for them, as they have learned either English or German since 1st grade.

    As the war goes on, more blood is shed, and more land becomes dead land. “Everything that happens is because of politics, not because of the people,” says Julia.

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • This Proxy War Has No Exit Strategy

    Listen to a reading of this article:

    ❖

    The International Committee of the Democratic Socialists of America has released a statement opposing the US government’s ongoing proxy war in Ukraine, saying the billions being funneled into the military-industrial complex “at a time when ordinary Americans are struggling to pay for housing, groceries, and fuel” is “a slap in the face for working people.” The statement advocates a negotiated settlement for peace, saying continuing to pour weapons into the country will “needlessly prolong the war, resulting in more civilian deaths” and that it “risks escalating and widening the war – up to and including nuclear war.”

    In response to this entirely reasonable and moderate position, the DSA is currently being raked over the coals with accusations of Kremlin loyalty and facilitation of murder and bloodshed by blue-checkmarked narrative managers on Twitter. This is because the only acceptable positions for anyone of significant influence to have about this war range from supporting continuing current proxy warfare operations to initiating a direct hot war between NATO and Russia.

    That’s how narrow the permissible spectrum of debate has been shrunk regarding this conflict: status quo hawkish to omnicidal hawkish. Anything outside that spectrum gets framed as radical extremism. As Noam Chomsky said: “The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum — even encourage the more critical and dissident views. That gives people the sense that there’s free thinking going on, while all the time the presuppositions of the system are being reinforced by the limits put on the range of the debate.”

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    The DSA is once again getting viciously attacked for making the extremely controversial recommendation that the US pursue a diplomatic settlement instead of endless weapons shipments. Never ceases to be amazing that this is now considered a crazed, radical, radioactive position: https://t.co/d2YKS9C7Xx

    — Michael Tracey (@mtracey) July 13, 2022

    This spectrum of debate has been shrunk on the one hand by imperial spinmeisters continually hammering home the message that any support for de-escalation and diplomatic solutions is “appeasement” and indicative of Russian sympathies, and on the other by hawkish pundits and politicians pushing for the most freakishly aggressive responses to this war possible. By forbidding the spectrum of acceptable debate to move toward peace while shoving it as hard as possible in the direction of warmongering extremism, imperial narrative managers have successfully created an Overton window wherein the only debate permitted is over how directly and forcefully Russia should be confronted, with calls for peace now falling far outside that window.

    Which is a problem, because both direct NATO hot war with Russia and continuing along the empire’s current course of action in Ukraine are stupid. Direct conflict between nuclear powers likely means a very fast and very radioactive third world war, and the status quo proxy warfare approach isn’t stopping Russia as more and more territory is taken in the east in cool defiance of western claims that Ukraine is bravely vanquishing its evil invaders. Biden administration officials have told the press that they doubt Ukraine will even be able to reclaim the territory it has lost already. Unless and until something significant changes, Ukraine has no apparent path to victory in this war anytime soon.

    In short, there is no exit strategy to this proxy war. There are no plans in place to deliver Putin a swift defeat, and the Biden administration remains steadfastly dismissive of even the slightest gestures toward diplomacy with Moscow. Boris Johnson has reportedly been buzzing around admonishing Ukraine’s President Zelensky, France’s President Macron and who knows who else not to work toward peace in Ukraine. The doors to ending this war quickly by either winning it or negotiating a peace settlement are both bolted shut, all but guaranteeing a long and bloody slog.

    Which as it turns out suits Washington just fine. Biden administration officials have stated that the goal is to use the Ukraine war to “weaken” Russia, and the US already has an established pattern of working to draw Moscow into costly military quagmires as we saw in both Afghanistan and Syria. Continuing to pour weapons and military intelligence into Ukraine while working to cut Russia off from the world stands no chance of ending the war in a timely manner, but it does stand a pretty good chance of bleeding and weakening Moscow.

    And since this is the course of action that has been taken by the empire, we can only assume that this is its desired outcome: not victory, not peace, but a long and gruelling war.

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    Confirms that Ukrainian Pravda story from a couple of months ago. Angloid political elites don't want this war to end until they're satisfied enough Russians are killed to kneecap Russia as a rival—no matter how many dead Ukrainians it takes to do so.https://t.co/alKLzwy7DF

    — Mark Ames (@MarkAmesExiled) June 27, 2022

    One of the major recurring criticisms of the Iraq invasion was that Bush rushed into it without an exit strategy, without a plan for ending the war once it had been started. This proxy war with Russia not only lacks a strategy for ending the war, it apparently only has strategies for not ending the war. No exit strategy is the strategy.

    Whenever you point out the insanity of this approach you’ll get useful idiots of the empire objecting that by criticizing US proxy warfare and supporting a negotiated settlement you are guilty of “appeasement” and exactly the same as Neville Chamberlain, because the only argument empire apologists ever have is to compare every US-targeted government to Nazi Germany.

    According to these propaganda-addled empire automatons, having the story of not compromising with Putin-Hitler and not committing the sin of “appeasement” is worth sacrificing everyone in the entire nation of Ukraine for. They will happily throw every Ukrainian life into the gears of this war while they sit safe at home eating Funyuns and tweeting, just so they can have that “we didn’t compromise with Putin” story hanging on their mental mantlepiece.

    How many more lives are such people prepared to feed into an unwinnable war which the west knowingly provoked? How many more of other people’s children are they prepared to sacrifice? How long does the bloodshed need to drag on before their “no appeasement” story loses value to them? How long until people wake up from their propaganda-induced comas and realize we’ve been manipulated into supporting a proxy war which benefits ordinary people in no real way, and in fact impoverishes us and threatens our very lives?

    There is no morally consistent argument for continuing this proxy war in the way it has been going. If you actually value life and peace, the only way out is through negotiation and compromise. I point this out not because I believe it will happen, but to hopefully help a few more people open their eyes to the fact that we are being deceived.

    _________________

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

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    Feature image via the Presidential Office of Ukraine (CC BY 4.0); formatted for size.

  • By making China the Enemy, NATO is threatening World Peace

    As the saying goes, if you only have a hammer, every problem looks like a nail. The West has the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (Nato), a self-declared “defensive” military alliance – so any country that refuses its dictates must, by definition, be an offensive military threat.

    That is part of the reason why Nato issued a new “strategic concept” document last week at its summit in Madrid, declaring for the first time that China poses a “systemic challenge” to the alliance, alongside a primary “threat” from Russia.

    Beijing views this new designation as a decisive step by Nato on the path to pronouncing it a “threat” too – echoing the alliance’s escalatory approach towards Moscow over the past decade. In its previous mission statement, issued in 2010, Nato advocated “a true strategic partnership” with Russia.

    According to a report in the New York Times, China would have found itself openly classed as a “threat” last week had it not been for Germany and France. They insisted that the more hostile terminology be watered down so as to avoid harming their trade and technology links with China.

    In response, Beijing accused Nato of “maliciously attacking and smearing” it, and warned that the alliance was “provoking confrontation”. Not unreasonably, Beijing believes Nato has strayed well out of its sphere of supposed “defensive” interest: the North Atlantic.

    Nato was founded in the wake of the Second World War expressly as a bulwark against Soviet expansion into Western Europe. The ensuing Cold War was primarily a territorial and ideological battle for the future of Europe, with the ever-present mutual threat of nuclear annihilation.

    So how, Beijing might justifiably wonder, does China – on the other side of the globe – fit into Nato’s historic “defensive” mission? How are Chinese troops or missiles now threatening Europe or the US in ways they weren’t before? How are Americans or Europeans suddenly under threat of military conquest from China?

    Creating enemies

    The current Nato logic reads something like this: Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February is proof that the Kremlin has ambitions to recreate its former Soviet empire in Europe. China is growing its military power and has similar imperial designs towards the rival, breakaway state of Taiwan, as well as western Pacific islands. And because Beijing and Moscow are strengthening their strategic ties in the face of western opposition, Nato has to presume that their shared goal is to bring western civilisation crashing down.

    Or as last week’s Nato mission statement proclaimed: “The deepening strategic partnership between the People’s Republic of China and the Russian Federation and their mutually reinforcing attempts to undercut the rules-based international order run counter to our values and interests.”

    But if anyone is subverting the “rules-based international order”, a standard the West regularly invokes but never defines, it looks to be Nato itself – or the US, as the hand that wields the Nato hammer.

    That is certainly the way it looks to Beijing. In its response, China argued: “Thirty years after the end of the Cold War, [Nato] has not yet abandoned its thinking and practice of creating ‘enemies’ … It is Nato that is creating problems around the world.”

    China has a point. A problem with bureaucracies – and Nato is the world’s largest military bureaucracy – is that they quickly develop an overriding institutional commitment to ensuring their permanent existence, if not expansion. Bureaucracies naturally become powerful lobbies for their own self-preservation, even when they have outlived their usefulness.

    If there is no threat to “defend” against, then a threat must be manufactured. That can mean one of two things: either inventing an imaginary threat, or provoking the very threat the bureaucracy was designed to avert or thwart. Signs are that Nato – now embracing 30 countries – is doing both.

    Remember that Nato should have dissolved itself after the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. But three decades later, it is bigger and more resource-hungry than ever.

    Against all advice, and in violation of its promises, Nato has refused to maintain a neutral “security buffer” between itself and Russia. Instead, it has been expanding right up to Russia’s borders, including creeping furtively into Ukraine, the gateway through which armies have historically invaded Russia.

    Offensive alliance

    Undoubtedly, Russia has proved itself a genuine threat to the territorial integrity of its neighbour Ukraine by conquering its eastern region – home to a large ethnic Russian community the Kremlin claims to be protecting. But even if we reject Russian President Vladimir Putin’s repeated assertion that Moscow has no larger ambitions, the Russian army’s substantial losses suggest it has scant hope of extending its military reach much further.

    Even if Moscow were hoping to turn its attention next to Poland or the Baltic states, or Nato’s latest recruits of Sweden and Finland, such a move would clearly risk nuclear confrontation. This is perhaps why western audiences hear so much from their politicians and media about Putin being some kind of deranged megalomaniac.

    The claim of a rampant, revived Russian imperialism appears not to be founded in any obvious reality. But it is a very effective way for Nato bureaucrats to justify enlarging their budgets and power, while the arms industries that feed off Nato and are embedded in western capitals substantially increase their profits.

    The impression that this might have been Nato’s blueprint for handling Moscow is only underscored by the way it is now treating China, with even less justification. China has not recently invaded any sovereign territories, unlike the US and its allies, while the only territory it might threaten – Taiwan – is some 12,000 kilometres from the US mainland, and a similarly long distance from most of Europe.

    The argument that the Russian army may defeat Ukraine and then turn its attention towards Poland and Finland at least accords with some kind of geographical possibility, however remote. But the idea that China may invade Taiwan and then direct its military might towards California and Italy is in the realms of preposterous delusion.

    Nato’s new posture towards Beijing brings into question its whole characterisation as a “defensive” alliance. It looks very much to be on the offensive.

    Russian red lines

    Notably, Nato invited to the summit for the first time four states from the Asia-Pacific region: Australia, Japan, New Zealand and South Korea.

    The creation of a Nato-allied “Asia-Pacific Four” is doubtless intended to suggest to Beijing parallels with Nato’s gradual recruitment of eastern European states starting in the late 1990s, culminating in its more recent flirting with Ukraine and Georgia, longstanding red lines for Russia.

    Ultimately, Nato’s courting of Russia’s neighbours led to attacks by Moscow first on Georgia and then on Ukraine, conveniently bolstering the “Russian threat” narrative. Might the intention behind similar advances to the “Asia-Pacific Four” be to provoke Beijing into a more aggressive military stance in its own region, in order to justify Nato expanding far beyond the North Atlantic, claiming the entire globe as its backyard?

    There are already clear signs of that. In May, US President Joe Biden vowed that the US – and by implication Nato – would come to Taiwan’s aid militarily if it were attacked. Beijing regards Taiwan, some 200 kilometres off its coast, as Chinese territory.

    Similarly, British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss called last week for Nato countries to ship advanced weapons to Taiwan, in the same way Nato has been arming Ukraine, to ensure the island has “the defence capability it needs”.

    This echoes Nato’s narrative about its goals in Ukraine: that it is pumping weapons into Ukraine to “defend” the rest of Europe. Now, Nato is casting itself as the guardian of the Asia-Pacific region too.

    ‘Economic coercion’

    But in truth, this is not just about competing military threats. There is an additional layer of western self-interest, concealed behind claims of a “defensive” alliance.

    Days before the Nato summit, the G7, a group of the seven leading industrialised nations that form the core of Nato, announced their intention to raise $600bn to invest in developing countries.

    This move wasn’t driven by altruism. The West has been deeply worried by Beijing’s growing influence on the world stage through its trillion-dollar Belt and Road Initiative, announced in 2013.

    China is being aggressive, but so far only in exercising soft power. In the coming decades, it plans to invest in the infrastructure of dozens of developing states. More than 140 countries have so far signed up to the initiative.

    China’s aim is to make itself the hub of a global network of new infrastructure projects – from highways and ports to advanced telecommunications – to strengthen its economic trade connections to Africa, the Middle East, Russia and Europe.

    If it succeeds, China will stamp its economic dominance on the globe – and that is what really worries the West, particularly the US and its Nato military bureaucracy. They are labelling this “economic coercion”.

    This week, the heads of the FBI and MI5 – the US and UK’s domestic intelligence services – held an unprecedented joint news conference in London to warn that China was the “biggest long-term threat to our economic and national security”. Underscoring western priorities, they added that any attack on Taiwan would “represent one of the most horrific business disruptions the world has ever seen”.

    Unilateral aggression

    Back in the Cold War era, Washington was not just, or even primarily, worried about a Soviet military invasion. The nuclear doctrine of mutually assured destruction meant neither had an interest in direct confrontation.

    Instead, each treated developing nations as pawns in an economic war over resources to be plundered and markets to be controlled. Each side tried to expand its so-called “sphere of influence” over other states and secure a larger slice of the planet’s wealth, in order to fuel its domestic economy and expand its military industries.

    The West’s rhetoric about the Cold War emphasised an ideological battle between western freedoms and Soviet authoritarianism. But whatever significance one attributes to that rhetorical fight, the more important battle for each side was proving to other states the superiority of the economic model that grew out of its ideology.

    In the early Cold War years, it should be recalled, communist parties were frontrunners to win elections in several European states – something that was starkly evident to the drafters of the Nato treaty.

    The US invested so heavily in weapons – today, its military budget exceeds the combined spending of the next nine countries – precisely to strong-arm poorer nations into its camp, and punish those that refused. That task was made easier after the fall of the Soviet Union. In a unipolar world, Washington got to define who would be treated as a friend, and on what terms, and who a foe.

    Nato chiefly served as an alibi for US aggression, adding a veneer of multilateral legitimacy to its largely unilateral militarism.

    Debt slavery

    In reality, the “rules-based international order” comprises a set of US-controlled economic institutions, such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, that dictate oppressive terms to increasingly resentful poor countries – often the West’s former colonies – in desperate need of investment. Most have ended up in permanent debt slavery.

    China is offering them an alternative, and in the process it threatens to gradually erode US economic dominance. Russia’s apparent ability to survive the West’s economic sanctions, while those sanctions rebound on western economies, underscores the tenuousness of Washington’s economic primacy.

    More generally, Washington is losing its grip on the global order. The rival BRICS group – of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa – is preparing to expand by including Iran and Argentina in its power bloc. And both Russia and China, forced into deeper alliance by Nato hostility, have been seeking to overturn the international trading system by decoupling it from the US dollar, the central pillar of Washington’s hegemonic status.

    The recently released “Nato 2030” document stresses the importance of Nato remaining “ready, strong and united for a new era of increased global competition”. Last week’s strategic vision listed China’s sins as seeking “to control key technological and industrial sectors, critical infrastructure, and strategic materials and supply chains”. It added that China “uses its economic leverage to create strategic dependencies and enhance its influence”, as though this was not exactly what the US has been doing for decades.

    Washington’s greatest fear is that, as its economic muscle atrophies, Europe’s vital trading links with China and Russia will see its economic interests – and eventually its ideological loyalties – shift eastwards, rather than stay firmly in the western camp.

    The question is: how far is the US willing to go to stop that? So far, it looks only too ready to drag Nato into a military sequel to the Cold War – and risk pushing the world to the brink of nuclear annihilation.

    • First published in Middle East Eye

    The post By making China the Enemy, NATO is threatening World Peace first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • Noam Chomsky: Humanity Faces Two Existential Threats. One Is Nearly Ignored.

    We live in dangerous and disconcerting times. Humanity is facing two existential threats that could end civilization as we know it — as well as other life on Earth. Yet, in the case of both global warming and nuclear weapons, international cooperation is sorely missing. What is even worse with regard to nuclear weapons is that since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, there is a growing trend toward normalizing the idea of nuclear war. In fact, as Noam Chomsky argues in this exclusive interview for Truthout, dismissals of the true threat of nuclear annihilation have grown to highly dangerous levels and “the means for reducing the threat of terminal war are being cast out the window.” But it doesn’t have to be that way.

    “Human agency has not ended,” Chomsky points out. “There are realistic ways to protect humanity from the existential threat that nuclear weapons pose.”

    Chomsky is institute professor emeritus in the department of linguistics and philosophy at MIT and laureate professor of linguistics and Agnese Nelms Haury Chair in the Program in Environment and Social Justice at the University of Arizona. One of the world’s most-cited scholars and a public intellectual regarded by millions of people as a national and international treasure, Chomsky has published more than 150 books in linguistics, political and social thought, political economy, media studies, U.S. foreign policy and world affairs. His latest books are The Secrets of Words (with Andrea Moro; MIT Press, 2022); The Withdrawal: Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan, and the Fragility of U.S. Power (with Vijay Prashad; The New Press, 2022); and The Precipice: Neoliberalism, the Pandemic and the Urgent Need for Social Change (with C. J. Polychroniou; Haymarket Books, 2021).

    C.J. Polychroniou: Noam, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has triggered several unexpected and unintended consequences. One of them, which is not as widely discussed as it should be, is that the use of nuclear arsenals, perhaps with lower yields, has been almost normalized. Indeed, in the course of this war, we have heard of several scenarios for how Russia might use nuclear weapons, and, in the early days of the invasion, Russian President Vladimir Putin even ordered his country’s nuclear forces on a higher alert. And, just last month, he said that Russia will use nuclear weapons to defend its sovereignty and stressed that the “era of the unipolar world” has ended. On the other hand, we have people like Francis Fukuyama saying that the possibility of a nuclear war “is not something anyone should be worrying about” because there are many stopping points before we get to that point. How did we get to a stage where people are having such a nonchalant attitude about nuclear weapons?

    Noam Chomsky: Before turning to the important issues raised, we should keep firmly in mind one overriding concern: The great powers will find a way to cooperate in addressing today’s critical problems, or the wreckage of human society will be so extreme that no one will care. All else fades alongside of recognition of that fundamental fact about the contemporary world, very possibly the last stage in human history. It cannot be reiterated too often or too strongly.

    In the Toronto Star, the veteran journalist and political analyst Linda McQuaig wrote that she had just heard “what struck me as possibly the most foolish remark ever uttered on TV. And I know that’s a high bar.”

    McQuaig was referring to “the celebrated U.S. political scientist Francis Fukuyama” and the comment of his that you just quoted. Put simply, “there’s no need to be concerned about nuclear war. Take my word for it.”

    In defense of “possibly the most foolish remark ever uttered on TV,” we might argue that it is not only commonly voiced, but in fact is implicit in official U.S. policy. Last April, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said that Washington’s goal in Ukraine is “to see Russia weakened to the degree that it can’t do the kinds of things that it has done in invading Ukraine.” He was reprimanded by the president, but “officials acknowledged that was indeed the long-term strategy, even if Mr. Biden did not want to publicly provoke Mr. Putin into escalation.”

    The long-term strategy, then, is to keep the war going in order to weaken Russia, and to a degree considerably harsher than the treatment of Germany at Versailles a century ago, which did not succeed in the proclaimed goal.

    The long-term strategy was reaffirmed clearly enough in the recent North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) summit, providing a new “Strategic Concept” based on a core principle: no diplomacy on Ukraine, only war to “weaken Russia.”

    It takes no great insight to see that this approximates what may be the most foolish remark ever uttered. The tacit assumption is that while the U.S. and its allies are proceeding to weaken Russia sufficiently, Russian leaders will stand by quietly, refraining from resorting to the advanced weapons we all know Russia has.

    Take our word for it.

    Perhaps so, but quite a gamble, not only with the fate of Ukrainians but far beyond.

    In further defense of this colossal foolishness, we might add that it is prevailing common sense. It is commonly just taken for granted that we can disregard the shocking record of the past 75 years, which demonstrates with brilliant clarity that it is a near miracle that we have escaped nuclear war — terminal war if major powers are involved.

    Illustrations are everywhere. To take one, some of the most careful and sophisticated studies of public opinion on major issues are carried out by the Yale University Program on Climate Change Communication. Though climate is the main focus of their concerns, the studies range much more broadly.

    The most recent study, just released, poses 29 major current issues and asks subjects to rank them in terms of significance for the upcoming November election. Nuclear war is not mentioned. The threat is severe and increasing, and it’s easy to construct all-too-plausible scenarios that would lead up the escalation ladder to terminal destruction. But our leaders and “celebrated political scientists” assure us, either directly or implicitly: “No need for concern, take our word for it.”

    What is omitted from the study is terrifying enough. What is included is hardly less so. “Of 29 issues we asked about,” the directors of the poll report, “registered voters overall indicated that global warming is the 24th most highly ranked voting issue.”

    It is only the most important issue that has ever arisen in human history, alongside of nuclear war.

    It gets worse on a closer look. Republicans may well take Congress in a few months. Their leadership is not concealing their intent to find ways to hold on to virtually permanent political power, independent of the popular will, and might succeed with the help of the ultra-reactionary Supreme Court. The party — to dignify it with that word — has been 100 percent denialist on global warming since it succumbed to the Koch conglomerate onslaught in 2009, and the leadership has carried along the voting base. In the Yale study, moderate Republicans ranked global warming as 28th among the 29 options offered. The rest ranked it 29th.

    The two most important issues in human history, issues of literal survival, may soon be off the agenda in the most powerful state in human history, carrying forward the grim experience of the four Trump years.

    Not completely off the agenda, of course. There are voices of sanity, some with considerable prestige and experience. A decade ago, four of them — William Perry, Henry Kissinger, George Shultz and Sam Nunn — wrote an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal calling for “reversing the world’s reliance on nuclear weapons, to prevent their proliferation into potentially dangerous hands, and ultimately ending them as a threat to the world.”

    They are not alone. Last month (June 21-23), the first meeting was convened of states-parties to the 2017 Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW). Citing “increasingly strident nuclear rhetoric,” the TPNW states-parties issued the Vienna Declaration, which condemns all threats to use nuclear weapons as violations of international law, including the UN Charter. The declaration demands “that all nuclear-armed states never use or threaten to use nuclear weapons under any circumstances.”

    The nuclear states have refused to join the treaty, but that can change under popular pressure, as we have often seen before.

    In August, the 10th review conference of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) will convene. That could offer an opportunity for an organized public to demand adherence to its provisions, which call for “good faith” efforts to remove the scourge of nuclear weapons from the Earth, and while pursuing these efforts, to sharply reduce the enormous threats they pose.

    That will not happen if the two most important issues in human history are removed from attention, one almost completely while the other barely reaches a fraction of the concern it requires if there is to be a livable world.

    We need not be passive observers, content to be mere instruments in the hands of the powerful. That is a choice, not a necessity.

    Recently, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy warned in an interview with CNN that the world should take seriously the possibility that Russia might use nuclear weapons in Ukraine. However, on various occasions, he himself has hinted at the idea of Ukraine developing nuclear weapons even though the country is a signatory to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. I don’t know if Ukraine has the capabilities to proceed with the development of a nuclear weapons program, but wouldn’t it be absolutely suicidal to do so?

    Completely suicidal. Even the first tentative efforts would lead to harsh retaliation, and then up the escalatory ladder. But in the light of the level of sanity exhibited by the leaders of the world, is it unthinkable?

    Putin has openly stated that Russia is open to dialogue on nuclear non-proliferation, but the perspective on the part of the U.S. appears to be that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has subverted the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. I’d like your comments on this issue.

    Let’s recall the overriding concern: The great powers will find a way to cooperate in addressing today’s critical problems, or the wreckage of human society will be so extreme that no one will care.

    It follows that every option for dialogue should be seriously considered, and where at all feasible, pursued. Dialogue can in fact be pursued in an international setting at the upcoming NPT review conference. Or the option can be simply dismissed as unthinkable, adopting the stance of the West at the G20 conference last week, where Russian foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, was treated “like a skunk at the tropical resort party, shunned by many, though by no means all.”

    The final qualification is of no slight significance. Those who did not join the West in shunning the skunk included the Indonesian hosts, who welcomed him, and a number of others: China, India, Brazil, Turkey, Argentina and others, along with Indonesia. That raises once again the question of just who is being isolated in the new world order that is taking shape.

    That is no idle question, and it is not ignored. There are some serious reflections about it close to the centers of power. One case is an analysis of the evolving world order by Graham Fuller, former vice chair of the National Intelligence Council at CIA with responsibility for global intelligence estimates. His analysis raises issues that merit close attention.

    Fuller has no illusions about the nature and roots of the war. Prime responsibility falls on the agents of the criminal aggression, Putin and his circle. That should be beyond controversy. But “secondary condemnation belongs to the U.S. (NATO) in deliberately provoking a war with Russia by implacably pushing its hostile military organization, despite Moscow’s repeated notifications about crossing red lines, right up to the gates of Russia. This war did not have to be if Ukrainian neutrality, á la Finland and Austria, had been accepted. Instead, Washington has called for clear Russian defeat.”

    Fuller sees the conflict not as a “Ukrainian-Russian war but an American-Russian war fought by proxy to the last Ukrainian… And most of the rest of the world — Latin America, India, the Middle East and Africa — find few national interests in this fundamentally American war against Russia.”

    Those who refused to shun Russia at the G20 conference strongly condemned the invasion but did not take too seriously the professed outrage of the U.S. and its allies. Very likely, they were asking whether the U.S. was shunned as a pariah after carrying out its many violent criminal exploits, which there is no need to review. For many, the memories are heightened by vivid and ugly direct experience. How can they be expected to pay attention to the protestations of high principles from the leading violators of these principles, always with immunity from anything more than occasional mild reprimands?

    Europe is already suffering badly, Fuller continues, and will, sooner or later, have to “return to the purchase of inexpensive Russian energy.” It has little realistic choice. “Russia lies on the doorstep and a natural economic relationship with Russia will possess overwhelming logic in the end.” Beyond that, “Europe can even less afford to blunder into confrontation with China — a ‘threat’ perceived primarily by Washington yet unconvincing to many European states and much of the world.” It will cost Europe dearly to isolate itself from China’s Belt and Road Initiative, “perhaps the most ambitious economic and geopolitical project in world history,” which runs right through Russia and “is already linking China with Europe by rail and sea… The end of the Ukraine war will bring serious reconsideration in Europe about the benefits of propping up Washington’s desperate bid to maintain its global hegemony.”

    Another consequence of this desperate bid is that,

    Russia’s geopolitical character has very likely now decisively tilted towards Eurasia… Russian elites now no longer possess an alternative to accepting that its economic future lies in the Pacific where Vladivostok lies only one or two hours away by air from the vast economies of Beijing, Tokyo, and Seoul. China and Russia have now been decisively pushed ever more closely together specifically out of common concern to block unfettered US freedom of unilateral military and economic intervention around the world. That the US can split US-induced Russian and Chinese cooperation is a fantasy. Russia has scientific brilliance, abundant energy, rich rare minerals and metals, while global warming will increase the agricultural potential of Siberia. China has the capital, the markets, and the manpower to contribute to what becomes a natural partnership across Eurasia.

    Fuller is far from alone. “The idea of Eurasia is once again the subject of geopolitics,” reads a headline in the London Economist. The report reviews the renewed attention to the principle of the founder of modern geopolitics, Halford Mackinder, that control of the central Asian heartland is key to world control. These conceptions are taking new form as the Ukraine war reshapes the global strategic landscape in ways that may turn out to be profound.

    The “utter corruption” of the media, Fuller writes, is one of the most disturbing features of the current crisis: “In the midst of a virulent anti-Russian propaganda barrage whose likes I have never seen during my Cold Warrior days, serious analysts must dig deep these days to gain some objective understanding of what is actually taking place in Ukraine.”

    That is sensible advice. There is more. The tendencies that are shaping world order are not immutable. Human agency has not ended. That crucially encompasses the agency of an organized public that demands an end to cynical posturing and a serious commitment to grasp the opportunities that exist for dialogue and accommodation. The alternatives are too grim to contemplate.

    The campaign for nuclear disarmament goes back to the late 1950s. Yet the prospects for nuclear disarmament are dim, if not nonexistent. Nuclear disarmament requires that nation-states trust each other, which is a zero-probability event in the real world, but it is also extremely doubtful that the nuclear knowledge genie can ever be put back in the bottle. So, what is to be done? What are the most realistic ways to avoid nuclear war?

    There are realistic ways to reduce the likelihood of terminal war — once again, the appropriate term for nuclear war involving great powers. The most immediate is a serious arms control regime. Elements of such a regime had been laboriously constructed since Eisenhower’s Open Skies proposals in 1955 — dismantled by Trump in May 2020 when he was wielding his wrecking ball. There were other important steps forward, among them the Reagan-Gorbachev Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF) in 1987, which significantly reduced the threat of outbreak of terminal war in Europe — and, we should not forget, was impelled by enormous popular anti-nuclear protests in Europe and the U.S. Another step was the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, which both sides recognized to be a “substantial factor in curbing the race in strategic offensive arms.”

    The Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty was dismantled by George W. Bush, the INF treaty by Trump.

    At the end of the Trump years, very little was left beyond the New START treaty, which Biden was able to rescue from demolition literally by a few days. It was due to expire shortly after his inauguration.

    There is more, such as Trump’s destruction of the joint agreement (JCPOA) on Iranian nuclear programs in violation of the UN Security Council, which had endorsed it, another contribution of the modern GOP to global destruction.

    One of the great tragedies of the Ukraine war is that these means for reducing the threat of terminal war are being cast out the window. The U.S. cannot deign to descend to agreements with the skunk at the party. The tragedy is enhanced by the impending return to full power of the party of the wreckers.

    Nonetheless, the same kinds of mass mobilization that helped bring about earlier steps toward sanity can be effective again. That means first resurrecting the tattered arms control regime, and then moving well beyond.

    Other steps could be taken right now if sufficient popular pressures were mounted. In the coming weeks in fact, at the August NPT conference. Beyond moves to advance the TPNW and the professed goals of the NPT itself, there are further possibilities. One crucial issue that is likely to be raised again at the conference is a Nuclear-Weapons-Free Zone (NWFZ) in the Middle East. That could be a significant step towards international security. Popular pressures could help bring it to realization.

    Establishment of a Middle East NWFZ has come up regularly at NPT review sessions, primarily at the initiative of the Arab states, who have even threatened to withdraw from the NPT if moves are not taken to implement it. It has almost unanimous global support, but is always blocked by Washington, most recently by Obama at the 2015 conference.

    To review the basic facts once again, the call for a Mideast NWFZ is backed by the Arab states, Iran, and the Global South, G-77, now expanded to 134 countries, the large majority of the world. Europe raises no objections. The unilateral U.S. veto is accompanied with various pieties, easily dismissed. The real reasons are well understood: the massive Israeli nuclear weapons system, the only one in the region, must not be subject to international regulation. That is off the table, as The New York Times editors made clear recently in calling for a “Nuclear-Weapons-Free Persian Gulf” — Persian Gulf, not Middle East. A Persian Gulf NWFZ, the editors say, would be “One Way Forward on Iran,” which is causing troubles once again by adhering to the unanimous consensus (minus the Master).

    The U.S. refuses to officially acknowledge Israel’s nuclear weapons facilities, presumably because to do so would call into question the legality of all U.S. aid to Israel, under U.S. law. That’s a door that both political parties have insisted on keeping tightly shut, but as public opinion on the matter has been visibly shifting, there are some breaks in rigid discipline. Congressional Rep. Betty McCollum, for one, has aroused much ire for sponsoring legislation to bar Israel from using U.S. military aid to attack Palestinian children.

    Establishment of NWFZs is an important step toward reducing the nuclear weapons threat, even apart from the symbolism of global rejection of these monstrous achievements of human ingenuity. More accurately, it would be an important step if these could be implemented. Unfortunately, they are blocked by U.S. insistence on maintaining nuclear weapons facilities within them, matters we have reviewed before.

    All of this could be on the agenda, right now, as ways of addressing the terminal threat.

    Beyond that, there is the overriding concern: To repeat again, the great powers will find a way to cooperate in addressing today’s critical problems, or nothing else will matter.

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • Vicarious Zeal: Fighting to the Last Ukrainian

    As the bloody conflict in Ukraine continues, the rhetoric from the imperial spear-holders in Washington and some allies is becoming increasingly fixated with one object: victory against Russia.  Such words should be used sparingly, especially given their binding, and blinding tendencies.  When the term “unconditional surrender” was first used by US President Franklin D. Roosevelt at the January 1943 Casablanca conference in the context of defeating Nazi Germany, not all cheered.  It meant a fight to the finish, climbing the summit and dictating terms from a blood-soaked peak.

    With such language crowning the efforts of the Allies, the Axis powers – certainly Germany and Japan – could continue fighting the war of extermination, aware that no terms they could submit would be taken seriously.  There would be no compromise in this existential confrontation.  It made the Allied advance in Western Europe slower and enabled the Soviet Union to expel German forces and duly occupy most of Eastern Europe.  It made negotiations about whether Japan would retain its emperor on surrendering nigh impossible, leaving the route open for the use of atomic weapons against Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

    The supply of weapons to Ukraine in its efforts against Russia has become a zealous mission that will supposedly achieve victory. Messianic impulses tingle and move through the Washington and London establishment, with some echo in Warsaw and the capitals of the Baltic states.  An air of unreality – be it in terms of negotiating the future of Ukrainian territory under Russian occupation – fills such corridors of power.

    On May 1, after travelling to Kyiv, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi raised the colours.  “America,” she declared with earnestness, “stands with Ukraine until victory is won.”  She made little effort to expound on what this would entail, be it the expulsion of Russian forces from all Ukrainian territory, including Crimea, or the “meat grinder” solution, leaving Kyiv and Moscow to bleed, weakening the latter and strengthening NATO security over a dead generation.

    Her remarks did enough to worry Michael T. Klare, defence correspondent for The Nation.  “Nowhere, in her comments or those of other high-ranking officials, is there any talk of a negotiated settlement in Ukraine, only of scenarios leading to Russia’s defeat, at whatever cost in human lives.”

    The vagueness of the term has led to grand, sanguinary calls to battle unenlightened Russian barbarism, with the UK and US governments repeatedly calling this a conflict that involves the whole west, even the world.  Peering more closely at the rhetoric, and another sentiment comes to the fore: the desire to bloody Russia vicariously while arms manufacturers take stock.

    For over a decade, Ukraine has been something of a plaything in branches of the US State Department, and US Deputy Secretary of State Wendy R. Sherman can be found telling the BBC’s Newshour that Russia had to “suffer a strategic failure” in Ukraine.

    The checklist for doing so, as outlined by US President Joe Biden, is lengthy.  “We will continue providing Ukraine with advanced weaponry, including Javelin anti-tank missiles, Stinger antiaircraft missiles, powerful artillery and precision rocket systems, radars, unmanned aerial vehicles, Mi-17 helicopters and ammunition.”

    On this score, the hawks are in the ascendancy.  Anyone uttering the view that a Ukrainian victory would hardly be total, let alone likely, have been reviled, as British military historian and journalist Max Hastings writes.  They are tarred and feathered as either “ultra-realists” or appeasers.

    Hard-headed peace talks, let alone anything approximating to negotiations have, as a result, also become taboo.  The early June suggestion by French President Emmanuel Macron that, “We must not humiliate Russia, so that the day the fighting stops, we can build a way out through diplomatic channels” was met with disdain and fury in Kyiv.

    The previous month, the world’s oldest Machiavellian devotee, former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, dared mention the need for the warring parties to commence talks.  Unconvicted war criminal he may be, his view that “negotiations need to begin in the next two months before it creates upheavals and tensions that will not be easily overcome” was hardly controversial.  But the Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy responded by foraging in the dustbin of history.  “It seems that Mr Kissinger’s calendar is not 2022, but 1938.”

    In Kyiv, the very idea of making a deal with Moscow is being met with revulsion.  “They have killed too many people,” opines Oleksii Movchan of the Ukrainian Parliament representing Zelenskyy’s Servant of the People Party. “They have destroyed too many cities.  They have raped too many women.  If the war stops now and the world tries to accommodate Putin, then international law will have no meaning.”

    For the moment, support from the US is taking the form of logistical and material assistance in what has already been called by Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov a proxy war against Moscow.  With each ghoulish weapons update, we can read about the types of murderous devices used, and how effective they were.  The latest featured an attack on Nova Kakhovka in the Kherson region by Ukrainian forces using US-supplied Himars missiles.  Kyiv’s line: the attack was a success, destroying a Russian ammunition depot, killing dozens of Russian military personnel.  The Russian angle: homes and warehouses storing fertiliser had been pulverised, killing five and wounding 80.

    Ukrainians have become surrogate democrats and freedom fighters (these terms are not necessarily identical) and Washington is willing to ensure, at least for the moment, that they have the weapons.  Other countries in Europe are willing to keep the borders open to Ukraine’s refugees.  But how long will this last?  Hearts can, in time, harden, leaving way for national self-interest to take hold.  At some point, the weapons will have to be put down, the war making way for the jaw.  Till then, the unofficial policy of fighting to the last Ukrainian will be in vogue.

    The post Vicarious Zeal: Fighting to the Last Ukrainian first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • Three Illuminating Quotes About The War In Ukraine

    Listen to a reading of this article:

    ❖

    Noam Chomsky, John Pilger, and Chris Hedges have lent their expertise to the subject of the war in Ukraine with some recent comments that help bring some much-needed clarity to an often confusing and always contentious issue. Here they are:

    “I’ve spent my career working in the mainstream, and I’ve covered probably seven, eight, nine shooting wars; I’ve never seen coverage so utterly consumed by a tsunami of jingoism, and of manipulative jingoism as this one.”

    ~ John Pilger

    This comment comes from a recent interview with the legendary Australian journalist by the South China Morning Post, and it says so much about the information ecosystem we now find ourselves floundering around trying to understand things in.

    From the earliest days of the invasion it was clear that the western world was being smashed with a deluge of propaganda unlike anything we’ve ever seen before. In the first full month of the conflict, American network TV stations gave more coverage to the war in Ukraine than any other war that the US has been directly involved in, including Iraq and Vietnam. Literal Iraq war architects were some of the first pundits sought out for analysis of the conflict by the mainstream press, and calls for insane escalations against Russia succeeded in pushing the Overton window of acceptable debate in the direction of warmongering extremism and away from support for diplomatic solutions.

    And this was all easily piped into mainstream consciousness because the way had been lubricated by years of Russia hysterica resulting from the mass scale psychological operation known as Russiagate. America’s most dangerous confrontation in generations just so happens to have been preceded by years of media-generated panic about that very same country, despite the Ukraine invasion having ostensibly nothing whatsoever to do with the conspiracy theory that the Kremlin had infiltrated the highest levels of the US government. Heckin’ heck of a coincidence right there, buddy boy.

    “It’s quite interesting that in American discourse, it is almost obligatory to refer to the invasion as the ‘unprovoked invasion of Ukraine’. Look it up on Google, you will find hundreds of thousands of hits. Of course, it was provoked. Otherwise they wouldn’t refer to it all the time as an unprovoked invasion.”

    ~ Noam Chomsky

    This quote, from an interview last month with Ramzy Baroud, is self-evidently true and should be pointed out more often.

    People don’t go adding the same gratuitous adjectives and modifiers to something over and over again unless they’re trying to manipulate how it’s perceived. If your neighbor always referred to his wife as “my wife who I definitely never beat,” you’d immediately become suspicious because that’s not how normal people talk about normal things. We don’t say “round Earth” or “the Holocaust that totally happened,” we just say the words, because their basic nature is not seriously in dispute and we’ve got nothing invested in manipulating or obfuscating people’s understanding about them.

    The need of the political/media class to continually bleat this phrase “unprovoked invasion” over and over again is itself a confession that they know they’re not telling the whole truth. It’s the imperial propaganda version of this classic tweet:

    Chomsky outlines many of the provocations the US/NATO power structure engaged in prior to the conflict, which many western analysts spent years warning was coming as a result of the provocative actions that were already being taken by the empire. The invasion could easily have been prevented with a little diplomacy and some low-cost, high-reward concessions ike honoring the Minsk agreements and providing assurances of neutrality for Ukraine, but they chose provocation and escalation instead. Add to that the exponentially increased shelling of the Donbas by Kyiv immediately prior to the invasion and you can understand why empire spinmeisters are working so hard to push the “unprovoked” line.

    None of this is to say that Russia is blameless in this war; if I provoke someone into punching somebody they are still morally responsible for having thrown the punch, but I am also responsible for having provoked it. Russia is responsible for its actions, and the US/NATO/Ukraine power structure is responsible for its actions. Putin is responsible for invading, the western empire is responsible for provoking that invasion. Not complicated.

    In the same interview Chomsky also says that “censorship in the United States has reached such a level beyond anything in my lifetime” regarding this war. That assessment plus Pilger’s testimony about war propaganda unlike anything he’s ever seen shows that imperial narrative management is at an all-time high, which wouldn’t be happening unless the empire had some major agendas it wanted to roll out in the coming years.

    “At no time, including the Cuban missile crisis, have we stood closer to the precipice of nuclear war.”

    ~ Chris Hedges

    Echoing the urgent warnings that Stephen Cohen was making at the end of his life, a new article by Hedges outlines the profoundly dangerous games the empire is playing with a nuclear superpower in its continually escalating proxy war against Moscow.

    The observations by Pilger and Chomsky about how much effort is going in to manipulating people’s understanding of this war make sense when you realize that the agendas the empire is trying to roll out against Russia now and then China later down the road stand not only to throw the world into poverty and starvation, but to wipe us off the face of this planet.

    It doesn’t have to be this way. There’s no good reason the world’s most powerful government needs to risk the life of everyone on earth in a bid to secure planetary domination. It is possible for all nations and peoples to simply get along and collaborate toward the common good together. All that would need to happen is for these agendas of total hegemony to be abandoned.

    Unfortunately the managers of empire don’t seem to have any plans to abandon their goal of global conquest anytime soon, so we the ordinary people of this world may end up having to force the issue with them at some point in the interests of our very survival.

    This is a hell of a time to be alive, but man they’ve been keeping it interesting.

    __________________

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    This post was originally published on Caitlin Johnstone.

  • Boris Johnson admits security lapse hours before stepping down

    On 7 July a beleaguered Boris Johnson stood outside 10 Downing Street and grudgingly offered his resignation as prime minister. However, he made it clear he would remain in post until a successor is found.

    The day before Johnson’s reluctant resignation announcement, he faced interrogation by the Commons Liaison Committee on a number of matters. Johnson was forced to admit under questioning to a possible major security lapse involving Russian oligarchs. Subsequent to that admission, a former senior MI6 Russia specialist has called for an investigation into the alleged security failure and its implications.

    Yet this security failure was first reported some three years back, including by The Canary. 

    The admission

    It was during the committee gathering that Johnson was asked if he had met with former KGB (Russian secret service) operative Alexander Lebedev – specifically on 28 April 2018.

    Johnson explained he had indeed met Lebedev on several occasions, including when he was foreign secretary. When pressed further on this, Johnson confirmed that the meeting on the date quoted had taken place in Italy without officials present:

    Security lapse

    The venue for the meeting was the Italian villa of Lebedev’s son Evgeny, whom Johnson subsequently made a peer.

    Investigative journalist John Sweeney claimed in a video that Johnson was a regular guest at the villa, both when he was mayor of London and when foreign secretary. Sweeney also claimed that the villa was regularly used as a venue for ‘bunga-bunga’ (sex) parties. Moreover, that MI6 was aware of these visits and regarded Johnson as a “security risk”. Also, on at least one of these visits Johnson left his Metropolitan police protection officers back in the UK:

    After his stay on 28 March 2018, Johnson was spotted at the San Francesco d’Assisi airport waiting in the departure lounge to board a plane back to the UK. He was apparently more dishevelled than usual.

    According to the Guardian, Johnson also attended parties at the Lebedevs’ villa in 2012, 2014, and 2016, and that:

    One person with knowledge of previous parties in Italy said Lebedev liked to invite people who would “create a spectacle by behaving in an outrageous way … There was always that bacchanalian aspect to those trips … it was all about having very important people reduced to doing very silly things.”

    Since the Commons Liaison Committee interrogation of Johnson, Labour MP Yvette Cooper raised the matter in parliament. She queried whether Johnson’s stay at the villa could have put him in a “compromising position”:

    Call for investigation

    Christopher Steele, the former head of MI6’s Russia Desk, also commented on Johnson’s admission to the committee, saying an investigation into the matter was needed:

    In a radio interview Steele called for an “investigation by the secret services” into Johnson’s private meeting with Alexander Lebedev, adding that the meeting raised “significant issues of national security”:

    But the idea that MI6 or MI5 will investigate this security failure by a still-serving prime minister – a Conservative one at that – is fanciful, to say the least. After all, their roles are to protect the established order.

    Moscow-ready Brexit

    In another tweet, posted a week before the Johnson resignation, Steele made it clear that in his view there was definite interference by Russians on the Brexit vote. Moreover, he added that this information was provided to the Intelligence & Security Committee (ISC) for its long-delayed Russia Report:

    As reported by The Canary, there were also allegations that pro-Brexit campaigns were hit by thousands of bot accounts run from a St Petersburg-based ‘troll farm’. Indeed, a study by Swansea University and the University of California, Berkeley, identified Twitter accounts in Russia that “posted 45,000 tweets about Brexit within the space of 48 hours during last year’s [2016] referendum”.

    Yet despite the intelligence Steele provided to the ISC, and reports on Russian bots and donations by oligarchs in The Canary and elsewhere, the Russia Report neglected to report any of this. In other words, as shown in detail by The Canary, there was a cover-up.

    More Russian links

    In November 2019, The Canary reported that a US House intelligence committee hearing raised questions about Johnson’s links to a “Russian agent”. Then there’s the matter of gifts of money to the Tories. In July 2020, The Canary reported on some of the many donations by Russia-linked oligarchs to the Conservative Party.

    It’s also believed that Russian Embassy senior diplomat Sergey Nalobin arranged the launch of the Conservative Friends of Russia (later renamed the Westminster Russia Forum). Nalobin, whose father also worked for the KGB, was subsequently ‘expelled‘ from the UK.

    In November 2019, The Canary reported on a claim by Reuters that a “senior Conservative Party member” alleged Ukrainian born oligarch Alexander Temerko was “very much behind the attempt to oust” Theresa May as prime minister. In short, Reuters suggested there was a coup led by “Temerko’s allies” who “are at the helm of Johnson’s campaign”. This reportedly included former defence secretary Gavin Williamson, political strategist Lynton Crosby, and “a group of East European businessmen”.

    Temerko, incidentally, reportedly made his fortune in the sale of arms to Russian Defence. He is known to be a good friend of Johnson and financed the Conservative Party by more than £1m.

    Implications

    Regarding Steele’s call for an investigation, it’s difficult to take that seriously given his links to the propaganda outfit the Integrity Initiative that, for example, ran smears against Jeremy Corbyn. Nevertheless, the implication of Johnson’s admission to the 2018 meeting with the Lebedevs and the circumstances surrounding it, is that a security lapse occurred. Nothing is known about what happened at the villa, or who else was there.

    However, this scandal is only one of many that have plagued the Johnson-led government. He has led a government of sleaze, corruption, and outright deceit. From PartyGate, to the circumstances regarding payment during Johnson’s affair with Jennifer Arcuri, to his alleged attempt to provide a lucrative job to his then girlfriend Carrie Symonds, to the PPE contracts scandal, and many more.

    Or as Led By Donkeys puts it:

    As for the recent government reshuffle, it’s a case of same shit, slightly different toilet.

    Featured image screenshot via YouTube/The Independent

    By Tom Coburg

    This post was originally published on The Canary.

  • Handling International Crises: From JFK to Biden 

    There are significant parallels between the international crises in Cuba in 1962 and Ukraine today.  Both involved intense confrontations between the USA and the Soviet Union or Russia. Both involved third party countries on the doorstep of a major power.  The Cuban Missile Crisis threatened to lead  to WW3,  just as the Ukraine crisis does today.

    Cuban  Missile crisis and  the current crisis in Ukraine 

    In 1961, the US supported an invasion of Cuba at the “Bay of Pigs”. Although it failed, Washington’s hostile rhetoric and threats against Cuba continued,  the CIA conducted many assassination attempts against Cuban leader Fidel Castro.

    Cuba, seeking to defend itself, or at least have a means of retaliating in case of another attack, sought missiles from the Soviet Union. The Soviets agreed and began secretly installing the missiles. As a sovereign nation having been attacked and under continuing threat,  Cuba had the right to obtain these missiles.

    US President JF Kennedy thought otherwise. Invoking the Monroe Doctrine, he said the missiles endangered the US and must be removed. He imposed an air and sea quarantine on Cuba and threatened to destroy a Soviet ship traveling in the high seas to Cuba. The world was on edge and there was global fear that World War 3 was about to erupt. In my homeland Canada, we went to bed seriously worried that nuclear war would break out overnight.

    Fortunately for humanity, cooler heads prevailed, and there were negotiations. The Soviets agreed to withdraw the missiles in Cuba.  In return, JFK agreed to withdraw US  missiles in Turkey aimed at the Soviet Union. The Cubans were furious, thinking they had been betrayed and lost their means of defense. But the Soviets had the bigger picture in mind, along with a US commitment to not invade Cuba.

    The situation now in Ukraine has similarities. Instead of missiles in Cuba being a threat to the US, NATO in Ukraine is seen as a threat to Russia.  NATO has steadily expanded east and installed missiles in Poland and Romania.  Since 2008, Russia has explicitly said that Ukrainian militarization by NATO was a red line for them.  Kyiv is much closer to Moscow than Havana is to Washington.  If it were justifiable for JFK to give the ultimatum regarding missiles in Cuba, is it not justifiable that Russia would object to Ukraine being a part of a hostile military alliance?

    Different Responses

    In 1962 the US and Soviet Union realized that escalating tensions and hostilities must be avoided, and they turned to negotiations.   They found a mutually acceptable compromise.

    The situation seems more dangerous today. Instead of seeking an end to the war, the US and NATO are pouring in weapons and encouraging more bloodshed.  It appears to be a proxy war with the US prepared to fight to the last Ukrainian.  There are calls to escalate the conflict.

    Ukraine Background

    Knowing the background to the current crisis is essential to understanding Putin’s actions.  Unknown to most Americans, a  crucial event came in  2014 when a violent US supported coup overthrew the democratically elected Ukraine government. US State Department official Victoria Nuland handed out cookies as Senator John McCain encouraged the anti-government protesters. In a secretly captured conversation with the US Ambassador to Ukraine,  Nuland selected who would run the government after the pending coup. In the final days, opposition snipers killed 100 people on both sides to inflame the situation and “midwife” the coup.  Oliver Stone’s video “Ukraine on Fire” describes the background and events.

    On the first day in power, the coup government  issued a decree that removed Russian as a state language.

    Within weeks Crimea organized a referendum. With 85% participation, 96% voted to leave Ukraine and  re-unite with Russia.  Why did they do this?  Because most Crimeans speak Russian as their first language and Crimea had been part of Russia since 1783.  When Soviet premier Khrushchev  transferred Crimea from the Russian republic to the Ukrainian republic in 1954, they were all within the Soviet Union.

    In Odessa,  anti-coup protesters were attacked by ultra-nationalist  thugs with 48 killed including many burned alive as they sought escape in the Trade Unions Hall. In eastern Ukraine, known as the Donbass, the majority of the population also opposed the ultra-nationalist coup government. Civil war broke out, with thousands killed.

    With the participation of France, Germany, the Kiev government, and eastern Ukraine rebels, an  agreement was reached and approved by the United Nations Security Council. It was called the Minsk Agreement. Russia has repeatedly encouraged the implementation of this agreement. Instead of negotiations and peace, the Kyiv government and NATO have done the opposite. Since 2015, there have been more weapons, more threats, more NATO training, more encouragement of ultra-nationalism plus NATO military exercises explicitly designed to threaten and antagonize Russia. This is not speculation; it is described in a 2019 Rand report about “Overextending and Unbalancing Russia”.

    Endangering the world

    The Biden administration appears to want to prolong the conflict in Ukraine. President Biden declared in a “gaffe” that Putin must be replaced.  Defense Secretary Austin has said the US goal is to “weaken Russia”. Former  Secretary of State Hillary Clinton thinks Afghanistan in the 1980’s is a “model” to follow in Ukraine by bogging Russia down in a protracted war. Republican and Democratic senators Graham and Blumenthal visited Kyiv on July 7  and called for sending even more weapons. There is evidence that the US and UK have been advising Ukrainian president Zelensky to NOT negotiate.

    The Need for Courage and Compromise

    With war and  bloodshed happening now, we need cooler heads to prevail as in 1962. We can have a LOSE – LOSE situation, endangering the whole world,  or a compromise which guarantees Ukrainian independence while providing security assurances to Russia.

    JFK had the courage and wisdom to resist the CIA and military generals who wanted to escalate the crisis.  Does Joe Biden? There is a huge difference between the two presidents. JFK knew war first hand. He was injured and his brother died in WW2. He became an advocate for peace.  It may have cost him his life, but millions of people were saved. In contrast, Joe Biden has been a proponent for every US war of the past three decades.  Not only that, he was a major player in the 2014 Ukraine coup and aftermath.

    Since Biden appointed the chief architect of the Ukraine coup, Victoria Nuland,  to be the third top official at the State Department, one cannot realistically expect a change in policy from this administration. Neo-cons are in charge.

    If we are to avoid disaster, others must speak up and demand negotiations and settlement before the situation spirals out of control.

    The post Handling International Crises: From JFK to Biden  first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • Hoisted by their own Petard: Wimbledon’s Russian Player Ban

    It was, all and all, an odd spectacle.  The Ladies’ Singles victor for Wimbledon 2022 had all the credentials that would have otherwise guaranteed her barring.  Being Russian-born, news outlets in Britain walked gingerly around The All England Club’s decision to ban Russian players yet permit Elena Rybakina to play.  Sky News noted that, “Moscow-born Elena Rybakina, who represents Kazakhstan, has won the Wimbledon women’s singles title in a year that Russians are banned from the tournament.”

    The April decision by The All England Club to ban both Russian and Belarussian players in response to the Ukraine war did not go down well with the ATP (Association of Tennis Professionals) and WTA (Women’s Tennis Association).  Their gruff response was to strip Wimbledon of ranking points. “It is with great regret and reluctance that we see no option but to remove ATP Ranking points from Wimbledon for 2022,” stated the ATP in May.  “Our rules and agreements exist in order to protect the rights of players as a whole.  Unilateral decisions of this nature, if unaddressed, set a damaging precedent for the rest of the Tour.”

    For the ATP, discrimination regarding individual tournaments was “simply not viable.”  The WTA followed in step.  “Nearly 50 years again,” declared the body’s chairman Steve Simon, “the WTA was founded on the fundamental principle that all players have an equal opportunity to compete based on merit and without discrimination.”  Individual athletes engaged in an individual sport “should not be penalised or prevented from competing solely because of their nationalities or the decisions made by the governments of their countries.”

    In solidarity, a number of tennis players also opposed the measure.  Serbia’s Novak Djokovic thought the decision “crazy”. Spain’s Rafael Nadal noted how it was not the fault of players as to “what happening in this moment with the war.”  The decision made by the Wimbledon organisers had been taken unilaterally.  “The government didn’t force them to do it.”

    Rather than taking a position of stout, unflagging independence, The All England Tennis Club revealed a craven streak in response to the UK government, which had sought to “limit Russia’s global influence”.  The decision regarding banning Russian and Belarussian players from Wimbledon was “the only viable decision” given its standing as “a globally renowned event and British institution”.  In taking such a position, the Club members had shown they could be as political, aligned and patriotically discriminatory as any other institution claiming fairness.

    The Club also claimed to be doing this for the players.  “We were not prepared to take any actions which could risk the personal safety of players, or their families.  We believe that requiring written declarations from individual players – and that would apply to all relevant players – as a condition of entry in the high-profile circumstances of Wimbledon would carry significant scrutiny and risk.”  Would it not have been better to simply avoid such a scandalous loyalty (or, in this case, disloyalty) test from the start?

    Equally implausible was the argument that the Russian regime was somehow unique in extolling the virtues of its athletes as part of its “propaganda machine”, a point that served to diminish the humanity and individual worth of the sporting figures in question.

    While we can accept the notion that high profile sportspeople are often puppets of the State in question, show ponies watered, fed and even, on occasion, drugged, the decision to specifically target Russia and Belarus could just as well have extended to many other players in many other sports.  A rotten government, in other words, would immediately disqualify the athlete from entering the tournament.  It should have cast grave doubt on Kazakhstan, a country stacked with its own oligarchs and corruption woes.  Little wonder that the entities responsible for the tennis tour were furious.

    At the tournament’s end, the merits of the ban were there for all to see.  The Duchess of Cambridge presented the winning trophy to a Russian-born player, the very thing the Club had sought to avoid.  Tennis fans responded by lighting up the social media scene with acid scorn.  In the biting assessment of tennis writer Mark Zemek, the move by the Club had been exposed “for the morally unimaginative and stupidly cruel decision it was, is, and always will be.”

    Instead of heaping ridicule on the organisers, some press outlets preferred to focus on Rybakina’s switch to Kazakhstan four years ago, something done in the spirit of receiving greater monetary reward.  (So much for the patriotic element.)  “Her win is historic because she is the first player to represent Kazakhstan to win a Grand Slam title.”

    When the press sought to sniff out any lingering Russian loyalties, Rybakina responded to the nonsense with gusto.  “What does it mean for you to feel?  I mean, I’m playing tennis, so for me, I’m enjoying my time here.”  As for how much time she continued to spend in Moscow, Rybakina suggested with mystic obliqueness that she did not “live anywhere, to be honest.”  If only that treatment had been afforded to Daniil Medvedev and his compatriots.

    The post Hoisted by their own Petard: Wimbledon’s Russian Player Ban first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • ‘They Painted a Narrative of This Coach Looking for a Quiet Corner to Pray’ – CounterSpin interview with Dave Zirin on football prayer ruling

     

    Janine Jackson interviewed Dave Zirin about the Supreme Court’s football prayer ruling for the July 1, 2022, episode of CounterSpin. This is a lightly edited transcript.

          CounterSpin220701Zirin.mp3

     

    Coach Joseph Kennedy praying after football game

    Coach Kennedy’s “private, personal prayer” (photo: Sotomayor dissent)

    Janine Jackson: While we still reel from the theft of bodily autonomy from half the population, the right wing–dominated Supreme Court has delivered other blows to principles that many believed were assured.

    In Kennedy v. Bremerton, a 6–3 ruling determined that Washington state high school assistant football coach Joseph Kennedy had a right to pray in the locker room and on the field. And why should a person be denied their right to what the Court described as a “short,” “personal,” “private” exercise of their religious beliefs?

    As our guest and others want us to understand, the court’s ruling relies on a storyline that just doesn’t match the reality, and is much less about freedom than about coercion.

    Dave Zirin is the sports editor at The Nation and host of the Edge of Sports podcast. He’s also author of numerous books about sports and their intersection with history, politics and social justice, including What’s My Name, Fool? Sports and Resistance in the United States, and, most recently, The Kaepernick Effect: Taking a Knee, Changing the World, which is out now from New Press.

    He joins us now by phone from Takoma Park. Welcome back to CounterSpin, Dave Zirin.

    Dave Zirin: Oh, it’s great to be here. Thanks so much for having me.

    Nation: A Football Coach’s Prayer Is Not About Freedom. It’s About Coercion.

    The Nation (6/27/22)

    JJ: I can feel the heat coming off your piece on this. And I think it’s because of the boldly false premise of this ruling, about the role of coach prayer generally, but in particular about Kennedy. You say that this ruling is wrong from the opening statement. So maybe let’s start there.

    DZ: Here’s the issue; it’s a cliche, but it’s true: You’re entitled to your own opinion, but you’re not entitled to your own facts. And in the decision that was written by Supreme Court Justice Gorsuch, he relied on his own facts. Let’s put it more simply: He lied in describing what took place in the case.

    And here’s the thing: Coach Kennedy was not off, as Gorsuch writes, praying on his own. He was not off quietly doing this, and he was not fired for doing it. So they painted a narrative of this coach looking for a quiet corner to pray and then this school board, with pitchforks and torches in hand, forcing Kennedy out of his job.

    None of this happened. What Kennedy did in praying in the locker room, and then particularly his prayers after the game on the field, was draw in players to surround him in prayer, asking players to do testimonials about God. All of this thing creates this kind of maelstrom of pressure on the players, that if you are down with your coach, you will pray with your coach. And if you’re not down with that, then, hey, you’re free not to pray with the coach, but anybody who’s ever played high school sports knows that if you don’t do what the coach says, particularly in an autocratic sport like football, you’re going to pay a price for that.

    You’re going to pay a price for it, whether it’s in terms of playing time or, maybe even worse for the high school level, you’re going to pay a price for it in terms of being outcast, in terms of being seen as a locker room distraction, or even worse in the parlance of sports, a locker room cancer.

    And that is what the Supreme Court basically said could now take place, is a process of bullying in high school sports to make players feel coerced into praying with their coach, and that’s unconscionable. It’s absolutely unconscionable. And I’ve gotten a lot of feedback from folks, including tons of stories about what it was like to play high school sports at private or religious institutions, and the degree of religious peer pressure that would take place, and how it would alienate, ostracize and all the rest of it.

    And I should probably add that we would be completely, completely naive if we didn’t just see this as an issue of prayer, but this is about Christian prayer. Like if the coach was Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, whatever you want, Shinto, or wanted to do a prayer of atheism beforehand, there would be a very different response from this Court than Christianity, because this Court has shown itself to be proudly in a relationship with a kind of Christofascism which is quickly overcoming the ruling structures of the United States, if not the people themselves.

    Seattle Times: The myth at the heart of the praying Bremerton coach case

    Seattle Times (6/29/22)

    JJ: And just to underscore the idea of the false narrative, Danny Westneat in the Seattle Times, very close to the issue, wrote a story in which he was saying, as you have said, that Kennedy explained himself. He said he was inspired to start these midfield prayers after he saw an evangelical Christian movie called Facing the Giants, in which a losing team finds God, Christian God, and then goes on to win the state championship.

    So the very idea that he was trying to find a personal private space to pray in private, and that he was being denied that, it’s just wholly not true.

    DZ: And can I say something else? The school district—and I say this as somebody who made phone calls, spoke to people, I’m not just saying this for the purposes of my own narrative—they made every effort to try to accommodate Coach Kennedy. They made every effort to create spaces for him to pray.

    And they did not fire him when he repeatedly and repeatedly ignored what they had to say, thumbed his nose at what they had to say. Look, my wife is a teacher, and if she thumbed her nose at the rules of the district to the degree that Coach Kennedy was doing, she would’ve found herself out of work.

    Now, Coach Kennedy, again and again thumbing his nose at what they’re saying to him, and in the end, you know what they did, they didn’t fire him. They suspended him with pay, with the opportunity to reapply back for his job, and partly because I think they realized how hot button this was.

    Dave Zirin

    Dave Zirin: “There is a political movement in this country that’s playing for keeps. They don’t care how nice you’re going to be about it.”

    They made every effort to try to look like partners in trying to figure this out. And they wanted to look like we want to collaborate with you to find a solution that actually helps and makes everybody feel validated.

    And I think what they learned, which I think a lot of us need to learn, is that there is a political movement in this country that’s playing for keeps. They don’t care how nice you’re going to be about it. They don’t care if you’re willing to meet them halfway. They’re not trying for a bigger piece of the pie. They’re trying to take over the bakery right now.

    And I think the sooner we realize that the better, because a lot of people in the ruling corridors of the Democratic Party really seem to have not gotten the memo.

    JJ: It’s important that it integrates with sports and with athletics here, which I think makes it slot into a different place in some people’s brains. This ruling, it galls, of course, for many reasons, but part of it is the ability for people who have a public platform to express political or social concerns, whether they’re athletes or musicians or artists, it’s framed so differently depending on who they are and what they’re saying.

    DZ: Exactly.

    JJ: It’s related, but if I can just transition you, you’ve written about Muhammad Ali, about Colin Kaepernick. It’s always been true that there’s been a kind of policing of what people can say, if it’s decided that they’re outside of their purview.

    DZ: Yeah. If I could say something about that, I wrote this book The Kaepernick Effect. I interviewed dozens of young people, a lot of them in high school, who took a knee, and they were invariably subject to all kinds of ostracization, pushed off the team, made to feel outcast from the team, oftentimes at the behest of the coach.

    And I think one of the things that we need to come to grips with is that this kind of aggressive Supreme Court–led Christian posturing is political. Because people say, well, that’s just religious, what the coach is doing. Taking a knee during the anthem, that’s a political act, and politics have no place in sports.

    Do you honestly think it’s not political that this coach is defying the school district time and again, is drawing in students into the prayer circle time and again, is thumbing his nose at the concerns of parents time and again, and now, and I wish I could bet money on this, is going to be on the right-wing gravy train probably for the next decade, doing speeches time and again, and maybe there’ll even be one of those Hollywood movies that only a small segment of the population sees, starring, I don’t know, Gina Carano and Kevin Sorbo, whatever, the actors who occupy that space.

    And I think we need to realize that these onward Christian soldiers, like, that’s not just a song to them. This is a movement that they’re trying to build, and trying to collaborate and figure out common solutions I think is going to be a very, very difficult task, because their eye is not on reconciliation.

    NYT: Brittney Griner’s Trial in Russia Is Starting, and Likely to End in a Conviction

    New York Times (6/30/22)

    JJ: Right, right. Thank you for that. And I’m going to let you go, but while I have you, I can’t resist. Today’s New York Times:

    More than four months after she was first detained, the WNBA star Brittney Griner is expected to appear in a Russian courtroom on Friday for the start of a trial on drug charges that legal experts said was all but certain to end in a conviction, despite the clamor in the United States for her release.

    I know I’m asking a lot in a short amount of time, but I know that for a lot of listeners who follow media closely, they’re going to say, “Wait, there was a clamor in the United States for Brittney Griner’s release? Wait, who’s Brittney Griner?” Thoughts on that?

    DZ: We need a much bigger clamor, is my first thought. Brittney Griner is a WNBA superstar. If her name was Tom Brady or Steph Curry, there would be a national day of action to try to get them freed from a Russian prison.

    I mean, Brittney Griner is a political prisoner, make no mistake about it.

    JJ: In Russia, in Russia—we care about Russia, right?

    DZ: Yeah. Facing 10 years behind bars, five years at labor behind bars. I mean, this has nothing to do with drugs. I have serious doubts in the charges in the first place. This is about Ukraine. This is about political posturing. This is about this new cold war that we’re dealing with with Putin.

    And this is about them trying to extract political prisoners out of the United States, who are Russian, in an exchange, and I think we need to apply pressure to our own State Department that bringing Brittney Griner home should be an immediate priority.

    What’s disturbing is the concern that Brittney Griner, because she’s a woman athlete, because she’s from the LGBTQ community, because she presents in a certain way, that she’s just not getting the coverage or the attention that she otherwise would get.

    And I think that’s one of the things also we need to fight against. It’s not just about injustice in Russia; it’s about standing up to injustice and prejudice here at home.

    JJ: We’ve been speaking with Dave Zirin. He’s sports editor at The Nation, and you can follow his work at EdgeOfSports.com. Dave Zirin, thank you so much for joining us this week on CounterSpin.

    DZ: Thanks for having me. I really appreciate it.

     

    The post ‘They Painted a Narrative of This Coach Looking for a Quiet Corner to Pray’ appeared first on FAIR.

    This post was originally published on FAIR.

  • Noam Chomsky: The “Historic” NATO Summit in Madrid Shored Up US Militarism

    On June 28-30, 2022, NATO leaders gathered in Madrid, Spain, to discuss the major issues and challenges facing the alliance. The summit ended with far-reaching decisions that will have a dire impact on global peace and security. Hailed as “historic,” the summit was indeed transformative: NATO produced a new Strategic Concept and identified what it says are the key threats to western security, interests, and values — none other than Russia and China.

    “The empire doesn’t rest,” quips Noam Chomsky, a public intellectual regarded by millions of people as a national and international treasure, in his assessment of NATO’s “historic” summit in the exclusive interview for Truthout that follows. Chomsky is one of the most widely cited scholars in modern history. He is institute professor emeritus at MIT and currently laureate professor of linguistics at the University of Arizona, and has published more than 150 books in linguistics, political and social thought, political economy, media studies, U.S. foreign policy and world affairs.

    C.J. Polychroniou: Noam, as was expected, the war in Ukraine dominated the recent NATO summit in Madrid and produced some extraordinary decisions which will lead to the “NATO-ization of Europe,” as Russia was declared “the most significant and direct threat” to its members’ peace and security. Turkey dropped its objections to Finland and Sweden joining the alliance after it managed to extract major concessions, NATO’s eastern flank will receive massive reinforcement, additional defense systems will be stationed in Germany, Italy, and elsewhere, and the U.S. will boost its military presence all across European soil. Given all of this, is it Russia that represents a threat to Europe, or NATO to Russia? And what does the “NATO-ization” of Europe mean for global peace and security? Is it a prelude to World War III?

    We can dismiss the obligatory boilerplate about high principles and noble goals, and the rank hypocrisy: for example, the lament about the fate of the arms control regime because of Russian-Chinese disruption, with no mention of the fact it is the U.S. that has torn it to shreds under W. Bush and particularly Trump. All of that is to be expected in “historic” pronouncements of a new Strategic Concept for NATO.

    The Ukraine war did indeed provide the backdrop for the meeting of NATO powers — with bitter irony, just after the conclusion of the first meeting of the states that signed the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW), which passed unnoticed.

    The NATO summit was expanded for the first time to include the Asian “sentinel states” that the U.S. has established and provided with advanced high-precision weapons to “encircle” China. Accordingly, the North Atlantic was officially expanded to include the newly created Indo-Pacific region, a vast area where security concerns for the Atlanticist powers of NATO are held to arise. The imperial implications should be clear enough. There’s a good deal more to say about this. I will return to it.

    U.S. policy toward Ukraine and Russia was strongly affirmed in the Strategic Concept: no negotiations, only war to “weaken Russia.”

    This has been steady policy since George W. Bush’s 2008 invitation to Ukraine to join NATO, vetoed by France and Germany, who agreed with high-level U.S. diplomats for the past 30 years that no Russian government could tolerate that, for reasons too obvious to review. The offer remained on the agenda in deference to U.S. power.

    After the Maidan uprising in 2014, the U.S. began openly to move to integrate Ukraine into the NATO military command, policies extended under Biden, accompanied by official acknowledgment after the invasion that Russian security concerns, meaning NATO membership, had not been taken into consideration. The plans have not been concealed. The goals are to ensure full compatibility of the Ukrainian military with NATO forces in order to “integrate Ukraine into NATO de facto.”

    Zelensky’s efforts to implement a diplomatic settlement were ignored, including his proposals last March to accept Austrian-style neutralization for the indefinite future. The proposals, which had indications of Russian support, were termed a “real breakthrough” by UN Secretary-General António Guterres, but never pursued.

    The official Russian stance at the time (March 2022) was that its military operations would end if Ukraine too were to “cease military action, change its constitution to enshrine neutrality, acknowledge Crimea as Russian territory, and recognize the separatist republics of Donetsk and Lugansk as independent states.”

    There was a considerable gap between the Ukrainian and Russian positions on a diplomatic settlement, but they might have been narrowed in negotiations. Even after the invasion, it appears that there may have remained some space for a way to end the horrors.

    France and Germany continued to make overtures toward diplomatic settlement. These are completely dropped in the recent Strategic Concept, which simply “reaffirms” all plans to move toward incorporating Ukraine (and Georgia) into NATO, formally dismissing Russian concerns.

    The shifts in the European stance reflect Europe’s increasing subordination to the U.S. The shift was accelerated by Putin’s choice of aggression after refusing to consider European initiatives that might have averted the crime and possibly even opened a path toward Europe-Russia accommodation that would be highly beneficial to all — and highly beneficial to the world, which may not survive great power confrontation.

    That is not a throw-away line. It is reality. The great powers will either find a way to cooperate, to work together in confronting imminent global threats, or the future will be too grim to contemplate. These elementary facts should be kept firmly in mind while discussing particular issues.

    We should also be clear about the import of the new Strategic Concept. Reaffirming the U.S. program of de facto incorporation of Ukraine within NATO is also reaffirming, unambiguously, the refusal to contemplate a diplomatic settlement. It is reaffirming the Ramstein declarations a few weeks ago that the war in Ukraine must be fought to weaken Russia, in fact to weaken it more severely than the Versailles treaty weakened Germany, if we assume that U.S. officials mean what they say — and we can expect that adversaries take them at their words.

    The Ramstein declarations were accompanied by assurances that Ukraine would drive Russia out of all Ukrainian territory. In assessing the credibility of these assurances, we may recall that they come from the sources that confidently predicted that the U.S.-created Iraqi and Afghan armies would resist ISIS [also known as Daesh] and the Taliban, instead of collapsing immediately, as they did; and that the Russian invasion would conquer Kyiv and occupy Ukraine in three days.

    The message to Russia is: You have no escape. Either surrender, or continue your slow and brutal advance, or, in the event that defeat threatens, go for broke and destroy Ukraine, as of course you can.

    The logic is quite clear. So is the import beyond Ukraine itself. Millions will face starvation, the world will continue to march toward environmental destruction, the likelihood of nuclear war will increase.

    But we must pursue this course to punish Russia severely enough so that it cannot undertake further aggression.

    We might pause for a moment to look at the crucial underlying premise: Russia is bent on further aggression, and must be stopped now, or else. Munich 1938. By now this has become a Fundamental Truth, beyond challenge or inquiry. With so much at stake, perhaps we may be forgiven for breaking the rules and raising a few questions.

    Inquiry at once faces a difficulty. There has been little effort to establish the Fundamental Truth. As good a version as any is presented by Peter Dickinson, editor of the prestigious Atlantic Council’s UkraineAlert Service. The heart of Dickinson’s argument is this:

    Putin has never made any secret of the fact that he views the territory of modern Ukraine as historically Russian land. For years, he has denied Ukraine’s right to exist while claiming that all Ukrainians are in fact Russians (“one people”). The real question is which other sovereign nations might also fit Putin’s definition. He recently set off alarm bells by commenting that the entire former Soviet Union was historically Russian territory.

    Nor is it clear if Putin’s appetite for reclaiming Russian lands is limited to the 14 non-Russian post-Soviet states. Imperial Russia once also ruled Finland and Poland, while the Soviet Empire after WWII stretched deep into Central Europe and included East Germany. One thing is clear: unless he is stopped in Ukraine, Putin’s imperial ambitions are certain to expand.

    That is clear, requiring no further argument.

    The totality of evidence is given in the linked article. But now another problem arises. In it, Putin says nothing remotely like what set off the dramatic alarm bells. More like the opposite.

    Putin says that the old Soviet Union “ceased to exist,” and he wants “to emphasise that in recent history we have always treated the processes of sovereignisation that have occurred in the post-Soviet area with respect.” As for Ukraine, “If we had had good allied relations, or at least a partnership between us, it would never have occurred to anybody [to resort to force]. And, by the way, there would have been no Crimea problem. Because if the rights of the people who live there, the Russian-speaking population, had been respected, if the Russian language and culture had been treated with respect, it would never have occurred to anybody to start all this.”

    Nothing more is quoted. That’s the totality of evidence Dickinson presents, apart from what has become the last resort of proponents of the thesis that unless “stopped in Ukraine, Putin’s imperial ambitions are certain to expand”: musings of no clear import about Peter the Great.

    This is no minor matter. On this basis, so our leaders instruct us, we must ensure that the war continues in order to weaken Russia; and beyond Ukraine itself, to drive millions to starvation while we march on triumphantly toward an unlivable earth and face increasing risk of terminal nuclear war.

    Perhaps there is some better evidence for what is so “clear” that we must assume these incredible risks. If so, it would be good to hear it.

    Putin’s cited remarks, as distinct from the fevered constructions, are consistent with the historical and diplomatic record, including the post-invasion Russian official stance just quoted, but much farther back.

    The core issue for 30 years has been Ukraine’s entry into NATO. That has always been understood by high U.S. officials, who have warned Washington against the reckless and provocative acts it has been taking. It has also been understood by Washington’s most favored Russian diplomats. Clinton’s friend Boris Yeltsin objected strenuously when Clinton began the process of NATO expansion in violation of firm promises to Gorbachev when the Soviet Union collapsed. The same is true of Gorbachev himself, who accused the West and NATO of destroying the structure of European security by expanding its alliance. “No head of the Kremlin can ignore such a thing,” he said, adding that the U.S. was unfortunately starting to establish a “mega empire,” words echoed by Putin and other Russian officials.

    I am unaware of a word in the record about plans to invade anyone outside the long-familiar red lines: Ukraine and Georgia. The only Russian threats that have been cited are that if NATO advances to its borders, Russia will strengthen its defenses in response.

    With specific regard to Ukraine, until recently Putin was calling publicly for implementation of the Minsk II agreement: neutralization of Ukraine and a federal arrangement with a degree of autonomy for the Donbass region. It is always reasonable to suspect dark motives in great power posturing, but it is the official positions that offer a basis for diplomacy if there is any interest in that course.

    On Crimea, Russia had made no moves until it was about to lose its sole warm water naval base, in the Crimean Peninsula. The background is reviewed by John Quigley, the U.S. State department representative in the OSCE [Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe] delegation that considered the problem of Ukraine after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

    Crimea, he reports, was a particular focus of attention. His intensive efforts to find a solution for the problem of Crimea faced a “dilemma.” Crimea’s population “was majority Russian and saw no reason to be part of Ukraine.” Crimea had been Russian until 1954, when, for unknown reasons, Soviet Communist Party Chair Nikita Khrushchev decided to switch Crimea from the Soviet Russian republic to the Soviet Ukrainian republic. As Quigley notes,

    Even after 1954, Crimea was effectively governed more from Moscow than from Kyiv. When the Soviet Union was dissolved, Crimea’s population suddenly found itself a minority in a foreign country. Ukraine accepted a need for a certain degree of self-rule, but Crimea declared independence as what it called the Crimean Republic. Over Ukraine’s objection, an election for president was called in the declared Crimean Republic, and a candidate was elected on a platform of merger with Russia. At the time, however, the Russian government was not prepared to back the Crimeans.

    Quigley sought a compromise that would provide autonomy for Crimea under a Ukraine-Crimea treaty, with international guarantees to protect Crimea from Ukrainian infringement. The “treaty went nowhere, however…. Ukraine cracked down on the Crimean Republic, and the conflict remained unresolved. Tension simmered until 2014, by which time Russia was prepared to act to take Crimea back. Crimea was then formally merged into the Russian Federation.”

    It’s not a simple matter of unprovoked Russian aggression, as in the received U.S. version.

    Like many others familiar with the region, Quigley now calls for a diplomatic settlement and wonders whether the current U.S. goal “is less to force Russia out of Ukraine than to fight Russia to the last Ukrainian.”

    Is there still an option for diplomacy? No one can know unless the possibility is explored. That will not happen if it is an established Fundamental Truth that Putin’s ambitions are insatiable.

    Apart from the question of Putin’s ambitions, there is a small matter of capability. While trembling in fear of the new Peter the Great, western powers are also gloating over the demonstration that their firm convictions about Russia’s enormous military power were quickly dispelled with the Russian debacle in its attack on Kyiv. U.S. intelligence had predicted victory in a few days. Instead, tenacious Ukrainian resistance revealed that Russia could not conquer cities a few miles from its border defended by a mostly citizens’ army.

    But no matter: The new Peter the Great is on the march. Lack of evidence of intention and official proposals to the contrary are as irrelevant to Fundamental Truth as lack of military capacity.

    What we are observing is nothing new. Russian devils of incomparable might aiming to conquer the world and destroy civilization have been a staple of official rhetoric, and obedient commentary, for 75 years. The rhetoric of the critical internal document NSC-68 (1950) is a striking illustration, almost unbelievable in its infantile crudity.

    At times, the method has been acknowledged. From his position as “present at the creation” of the Cold War, the distinguished statesman Dean Acheson recognized that it was necessary to be “clearer than truth” in exercises (like NSC-68) to “bludgeon the mass mind” of government into obedience with elite plans. That was in fact “NSC-68’s purpose.”

    Scholarship has also occasionally recorded the fact. Harvard Professor of Government and long-time government adviser Samuel Huntington observed that “you may have to sell [intervention or other military action] in such a way as to create the misimpression that it is the Soviet Union that you are fighting. That is what the United States has been doing ever since the Truman Doctrine,”

    Today’s formula is no innovation.

    We often tend to forget that the U.S. is a global power. Planning is global: What is happening in one part of the world is often replicated elsewhere. By focusing on one particular manifestation, we often miss the global tapestry in which it is one strand.

    When the U.S. took over global hegemony from Britain after World War II, it kept the same guiding geopolitical concepts, now greatly expanded by a far more powerful hegemon.

    Britain is an island off the coast of Europe. A primary goal of British imperial rule was to prevent a unified hostile Europe.

    The U.S.-run western hemisphere is an “island” off the coast of the Eurasian land mass, with far grander imperial objectives (or “responsibilities,” as they are politely termed). It must therefore make sure to control it from all directions, North being a new arena of conflict as global warming opens it up to exploitation and commerce. The NATO-based Atlanticist system is the Western bulwark. The Strategic Concept and its ongoing implementation places this bulwark more firmly in Washington’s hands, thanks to Putin.

    With virtually no notice, there are similar developments on the Eastern flank of the Eurasian land mass as NATO extends its reach to the Indo-Pacific region under the new Concept. NATO is deepening its relations with its island partners off the coast of China — Japan, Australia, South Korea, New Zealand — even inviting them to the NATO summit, but much more significant, enlisting them in the “encirclement” of China that is a key element of current bipartisan U.S. strategy.

    While the U.S. is firming up its control of the western flank of the Eurasian landmass at the NATO Summit, it is carrying out related exercises at the eastern flank: the Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC) programs now underway. Under the direction of the U.S. Navy, these are “the grandest of all war games,” Australian political scientist Gavan McCormack writes, “the largest air, land, and sea war manoeuvres in the world. They would assemble a staggering 238 ships, 170 aircraft, 4 submarines and 25,000 military personnel from 26 countries.… To China, scarcely surprisingly these exercises are seen as expression of an anti-China ‘Asian NATO design.’ They are war games, and they are to include various simulations engaging ‘enemy forces,’ attacking targets and conducting amphibious landings on Hawaii Island and in Hawaiian waters.”

    RIMPAC is supplemented by regular U.S. naval missions in China’s Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ). These are merely “innocent passage” in accord with the principle of “freedom of navigation;” the U.S. protests when China objects, as does India, Indonesia, and many others. The U.S. appeals to the Law of the Sea – which bars threat or use of force in these zones. Quietly, the U.S. client state Australia, of course, in coordination with Washington, is engaged in “military espionage” in the EEZ, installing highly sophisticated sensing devices “so that the U.S. can more effectively destroy Chinese vessels as quickly as possible at the start of any conflict.”

    These exercises on the Eastern Flank are accompanied by others in the Pacific Northeast region and, in part, in the Baltic region, with participation of new NATO members Finland and Sweden. Over the years, they have been slowly integrated into the NATO military system and have now taken the final step, pleading “security concerns” that are scarcely even laughable but do benefit their substantial military industries and help drive the societies to the right.

    The empire doesn’t rest. The stakes are too high.

    In official rhetoric, as always, these programs are undertaken for benign purposes: to enforce “the rules-based international order.” The term appears repeatedly in the Strategic Concept of the NATO Summit. Missing from the document is a different phrase: “UN-based international order.” That is no accidental omission: The two concepts are crucially different.

    The UN-based international order is enshrined in the UN Charter, the foundation of modern international law. Under the U.S. Constitution (Article VI), the UN Charter is also “the supreme law of the land.” But it is unacceptable to U.S. elite opinion and is violated freely, with no notice, by U.S. presidents.

    The Charter has two primary flaws. One is that it bans “the threat or use of force” in international affairs, apart from designated circumstances that almost never arise. That means that it bans U.S. foreign policy, obviously an unacceptable outcome. Consequently, the revered Constitution can be put aside. If, unimaginably, the question of observing the Constitution ever reached the Supreme Court, it would be dismissed as a “political question.”

    The rules-based international order overcomes this flaw. It permits the threat and use of force freely by the Master, and those he authorizes. Illustrations are so dramatically obvious that one might think that they would be difficult to ignore. That would be a mistake: they are routinely ignored. Take one of the major international crimes: annexation of conquered territory in violation of international law. There are two examples: Morocco’s annexation of Western Sahara in violation of the ruling of the International Court of Justice, and Israel’s annexation of the Golan Heights in Syria and Greater Jerusalem in violation of unanimous Security Council orders. All have been supported by the U.S. for many years, and were formally authorized by the Trump administration, now by Biden. One will have to search hard for expressions of concern, even notice.

    The second flaw is that the UN Security Council and other international institutions, like the World Court, set the rules. That flaw is also overcome in the rules-based international order, in which the U.S. sets the rules and others obey.

    It is, then, easy to understand Washington’s preference for the rules-based international order, now forcefully affirmed in the NATO Strategic Concept, and adopted in U.S. commentary and scholarship.

    Turning elsewhere, we do find serious commentary and analysis. Australian strategic analyst Clinton Fernandes discusses the matter in some depth in his book Sub-Imperial Power (Melbourne 2022).

    Tracing the concept to its western origins in British imperial rule, Fernandes shows that

    the rules-based order differs sharply from the United Nations–centred international system and the international order underpinned by international law. The United States sits at the apex of the system, exercising control over the sovereignty of many countries. The United Kingdom, a lieutenant with nuclear weapons and far-flung territories, supports the United States. So do subimperial powers like Australia and Israel. The rules-based international order involves control of the effective political sovereignty of other countries, a belief in imperial benevolence and the economics of comparative advantage. Since policy planners and media commentators cannot bring themselves to say ‘empire’, the ‘rules-based international order’ serves as the euphemism.

    “The economics of comparative advantage,” as Fernandes discusses, is another euphemism. Its meaning is “stay in your place,” for the benefit of all. It is often advised with the best of intentions. Surely that was the case when Adam Smith advised the American colonies to keep to their comparative advantage in agriculture and import British manufactured goods, thus “promoting the progress of their country toward real wealth and greatness.”

    Having overthrown British rule, the colonies were free to reject this kind advice and to resort to the same kinds of radical violation of orthodox free trade principles that Britain used in becoming the world’s great center of manufacturing and global power. That pattern has been replicated with impressive consistency. Those that adopted the favored principle, usually under force, became the third world. Those that violated it became the wealthy first world, including the one country of the South that resisted colonization, Japan, and thus was able to violate the rules and develop, with its former colonies in tow.

    The consistency of the record is close to axiomatic. After all, development means changing comparative advantage.

    In short, the rules-based order confers many advantages on the powerful. One can easily understand why it is viewed so favorably in their domains, while the UN-based order is dismissed except when it can be invoked to punish enemies.

    Turkey continues to resist joining sanctions against Russia and acts, in fact, as a sanctions “safe haven” for Russian oligarchs. Yet it is treated by the U.S. and the NATO alliance in general as a reliable strategic ally, and everyone ignores the fact that Erdoğan’s regime is as blatantly authoritarian and oppressive as that of Putin. In fact, following his somersault vis-a-vis Saudi Arabia, the Biden administration is now warming up to Erdoğan and wants to upgrade Turkey’s fleet of American-made F-16 fighter jets. How should we interpret this anomalous situation within the NATO alliance? Yet another instance of western hypocrisy or the dictates of Realpolitik?

    What is anomalous is that Erdoğan is playing his own game instead of just obeying orders. There’s nothing anomalous about his being “blatantly authoritarian and oppressive.” That’s not a concern [for the U.S.], as in numerous other cases. What is a concern is that he’s not entirely a “reliable strategic ally.” Turkey was actually sanctioned by the U.S. for purchasing Russian missile defense system. And even after the invasion of Ukraine, Erdoğan left open whether he would purchase Russian arms or depart from his “friendship” with Mr. Putin. In this particular regard, Turkey is acting more like the Global South than like NATO.

    Turkey has departed from strict obedience in other ways. It delayed the accession of Sweden and Finland into NATO. The reason, it seems, is Turkey’s commitment to intensify its murderous repression of its Kurdish population. Sweden had been granting asylum to Kurds fleeing Turkish state violence — “terrorists” in Turkish official lingo. There are legitimate concerns that an ugly underground bargain may have been struck when Turkey dropped its opposition to full Swedish entry into NATO.

    The background should not be overlooked. Brutal repression of the Kurds in Turkey has a long history. It reached a crescendo in the 1990s, with a state terror campaign that killed tens of thousands of Kurds, destroyed thousands of towns and villages, and drove hundreds of thousands from their homes, many to hideous slums in barely survivable corners of Istanbul. Some were offered the opportunity to return to what was left of their homes, but only if they publicly blamed Kurdish PKK guerrillas. With the amazing courage that has been the hallmark of the Kurdish struggles for justice, they refused.

    These terrible crimes, some of the worst of the decade, were strongly supported by the U.S., which poured arms into Turkey to expedite the atrocities. The flow increased under Clinton as the crimes escalated. Turkey became the leading recipient of U.S. arms (apart from Israel-Egypt, a separate category), replacing Colombia, the leading violator of human rights in the Western hemisphere. That extends a long and well-established pattern. As usual, the media cooperated by ignoring the Turkish horrors and crucial U.S. support for them.

    By 2000, the crimes were abating, and an astonishing period began in Turkey. There was remarkable progress in opening up the society, condemning state crimes, advancing freedom and justice. For me personally, it was a great privilege to be able to witness it first-hand, even to participate in limited ways. Prominent in this democratic revolution were Turkish intellectuals, who put their western counterparts to shame. They not only protested state crimes but carried out regular civil disobedience, risking and often enduring harsh punishment, and returning to the fray. One striking example was Ismail Beşikçi, who as a young historian was the first non-Kurdish academic to document the horrific repression of the Kurds. Repeatedly imprisoned, tortured, abused, he refused to stop his work, continuing to document the escalating crimes. There were many others.

    By the early 2000s it seemed that a new era was dawning. There were some thrilling moments. One unforgettable experience was at the editorial offices of Hrant Dink, the courageous journalist who was assassinated with state complicity for his defense of human rights, particularly the rights of the Armenian community that had been subjected to genocidal slaughter, still officially denied. With his widow, I was standing on the balcony of the office, observing an enormous demonstration honoring Hrant Dink and his work, and calling for an end to ongoing crimes of state, no small act of courage and dedication in the harshly repressive Turkish state.

    The hopes were soon to wane as Erdoğan instituted his increasingly brutal rule, moving to restore the nightmare from which Turkey had begun to emerge. All similar to what happened a few years later in the Arab Spring.

    Turkey is also extending its aggression in Syria, aimed at the Kurdish population who, in the midst of the horrendous chaos of the Syrian conflicts, had managed to carve out an island of flourishing democracy and rights (Rojava). The Kurds had also provided the ground troops for Washington’s war against ISIS in Syria, suffering over 10,000 casualties. In thanks for their service in this successful war, President Trump withdrew the small U.S. force that served as a deterrent to the Turkish onslaught, leaving them at its mercy.

    There is an old Kurdish proverb that the Kurds have no friends but the mountains. There is just concern that Turkish-Swedish NATO maneuverings might confirm it.

    The NATO summit reached the interesting conclusion that China represents a “security challenge” to the interests and security of its member states, but it is not to be treated as an adversary. Semantics aside, can the West really stop China from exercising an ever-increasing role in global affairs? Indeed, is a unipolar power system a safer alternative to world peace than a bipolar or multipolar system?

    The U.S. is quite openly seeking to restrict China’s role in global affairs and to impede its development. These are what constitute the “security challenge.” The challenge thus has two dimensions, roughly what is called “soft power” and “hard power.”

    The former is internal development of industry, education, science and technology. This provides the basis for the expansion of China’s arena of influence through such projects as the Belt-and-Road (BRI) initiative, a massive multidimensional project that integrates much of Eurasia within a Chinese-based economic and technological system, reaching to the Middle East and Africa, and even to U.S. Latin American domains.

    The U.S. complains, correctly, that Chinese internal development violates the rules-based international order. It does, radically. China is following the practices that the U.S. did, as did England before it and all other developed societies since. China is rejecting the policy of “kicking away the ladder”: First climb the ladder of development by any means available, including robbery of higher technology and ample violence and deceit, then impose a “rules-based order” that bars others from doing the same. That is a staple of modern economic history, now formalized in the highly protectionist investor-rights agreements that are masked under the cynical pretense of “free trade.”

    The “security challenge” also has a military dimension. This is countered by the program of “encircling” China by heavily-armed “sentinel states,” and by such projects as the massive RIMPAC exercises now underway, defending the U.S. off the coasts of China. No infringement on U.S. domination of the “Indo-Pacific” region can be tolerated, even a threat that China might set up its second overseas military base in the Pacific Solomon Islands (the first is in Djibouti).

    Digressing briefly to criminal “whataboutism,” we might mention that the U.S. has 800 bases worldwide, which, along with their very prominent role in “defense” (aka imperial domination), enable hundreds of “low-profile proxy wars” in Africa, the greater Middle East, and Asia.

    Washington, along with concurring commentary in the media and journals of opinion, are quite correct in charging China with violation of the rules-based order that the U.S. upholds, now with even more firm European support than before. They are also correct in deploring severe human rights violations in China, but that is not a concern of the rules-based order, which easily accommodates and commonly vigorously supports such violations.

    The question of how best to enhance world peace does not arise in this connection. Everyone is in favor of “peace,” even Hitler: on their own terms. For the U.S., the terms are the rules-based international order. Others have their own ideas. Most of the world is the proverbial grass on which the elephants trample.

    The climate crisis was also on the agenda at the three-day summit in Madrid. In fact, it was recognized as “a defining challenge of our time” and NATO General-Secretary Jens Stoltenberg informed the world that the organization will “set the gold standard on addressing the security implications of climate change.” Personally, I sure feel better now knowing that militarism can be added to the methods of tackling the climate crisis. How about you?

    How encouraging that NATO will address “the security implications of climate change,” where “security” has the usual meaning that excludes the security of people.

    The issues raised here are the most important of all and are the most easily summarized. The human species is advancing toward a precipice. Soon irreversible tipping points will be reached, and we will be falling over the precipice to a “hothouse earth” in which life will be intolerable for those remnants that survive.

    Military expenses make a double contribution to this impending disaster: first, in their enormous contribution to destroying the conditions for tolerable existence, and second, in the opportunity costs — what isn’t being done with the huge resources devoted to undermining any hope for the future.

    Putin’s aggression in Ukraine made the same double contribution: destruction and robbery of the resources that must be used to avert environmental destruction. All of this couldn’t have happened at a worse time. The window for constructive action is closing while humanity persists on this mad course.

    All else pales into insignificance. We will find ways to cooperate to avert disaster and create a better world, as we still can. Or we will bring the human experiment to an inglorious end.

    It’s as simple as that.

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • Putin Declares a Win in Luhansk Despite Massive Losses

    Russian forces fighting for control of eastern Ukraine are believed to be preparing for an “operational pause” after taking control of Luhansk, one of two provinces in the Donbas region that Russian President Vladimir Putin claims to be “liberating” through a devastating war of attrition that has left entire cities in ruin.

    Putin claimed a victory for Russia on Monday and gave awards to military brass for seizing the town of Lysychansk on the western border of the Luhansk Oblast. However, former Russian military commander Igor Girkin questioned the significance of the seizing the city in a “scathing” critique of Russia’s performance in the war, according to an analysis from the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), a U.S.-based non-partisan policy research organization.

    Girkin, a hardline Russian nationalist who commanded militants during the 2014 war in the contested Donbas, suggested in a blog post that Russian forces have paid too high price for limited gains in Luhansk after weeks of grinding artillery battles and urban combat with U.S.-backed Ukrainian defenders, who are determined to weaken the Russian military and blunt the scope of Putin’s invasion.

    A manpower shortage that has left beleaguered Russian soldiers at the front without replacements is badly damaging Russian morale, Girkin wrote. Putin publicly called on his troops around Lysychansk to rest and regroup, which is likely meant to signal concern for troops “in the face of periodic complaints in Russia” about the treatment of the soldiers, according to the ISW. Putin has so far avoided a mass mobilization of military conscripts at home, leaving independent critics such as Girkin frustrated by military failures and the Kremlin’s unwillingness to call up reserves and wage a wider war on Ukraine.

    It’s unclear how long the “operational pause” in the invasion would last, but ISW analysts and other experts expect Putin’s forces to continue pushing into the neighboring Donetsk Oblast with punishing artillery assaults. Taking time to replenish offensive capability runs the risk of losing ground to Ukrainian counterattacks, Girkin warned.

    Russian troops are reportedly working to establish administrative control of captured territory around Severodonetsk and Lysychansk, two cities on either side of the Donets river that suffered bloody street battles and constant artillery barrages. Russian forces could be preparing to forcibly conscript Ukrainian citizens still living there to fight on the side of Russian and its separatist allies, the ISW reports.

    After months of indiscriminate shelling by Russian forces and Ukrainian counterattacks, Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said on Monday that it will cost $750 billion to rebuild towns, cities and civilian infrastructure damaged by the war. International leaders grappled with a plan to rebuild Ukraine at a summit in Switzerland on Monday, with European nations and other Western allies pledging ongoing support.

    Beyond Lysychansk, limited Russian ground assaults are resulting in incremental territorial gains as Putin’s army seeks out strategic positions before pushing the invasion further west. Sporadic rocket strikes have terrorized civilian areas in recent weeks.

    Meanwhile, Ukrainian forces are using HIMARS missile systems imported from the United States to strike Russian ammunition depots up to 75 kilometers behind the front lines in recent days, a sign of improved military capability after months of facing off with invaders who have superior weapons.

    An apparent sabotage campaign targeting Russian-controlled railways continues in occupied Ukraine as well as inside Russia, where partisans and antiwar activists are working to disrupt the Russian army’s supply lines.

    The Ukrainian Resistance Center reported that Ukrainian partisans blew up a railway bridge between Melitopol and Tokmak in occupied southeastern Ukraine on July 3, and derailed a separate armored train carrying ammunition near Melitopol a day earlier. Previous sabotage efforts were also successful, suggesting a coordinated resistance campaign in these occupied areas, according to ISW.

    A self-described “cell” of anarchist militants took responsibility for railway sabotage near a Russian artillery depot in the Vladimir Oblast outside of Moscow. In posts on the social media platform Telegram, the militants claimed the sabotage temporarily stalled a train with military equipment and was meant to show “all the partizans [sic] how accessible such targets for sabotage are.”