This content originally appeared on VICE News and was authored by VICE News.
This post was originally published on Radio Free.
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It was well-encapsulated in this 10-minute compilation video from 12 March 2014, “Ukraine Crisis – What You’re Not Being Told” (also archived here and here).
That 10-minute documentary’s only error is at 22 seconds in, where its narrator said the year “two thousand thirteen” when he obviously meant to say “two thousand fourteen”; but, other than that, I have verified the authenticity and correctness of each one of its many sources and allegations, and find that it is the best (most comprehensive, brief, and accurate) single history of the 20-26 February 2014 coup in Ukraine, which has yet been done.
It shows Victoria Nuland, whom Obama had selected to plan, organize, oversee, and direct, the coup in Ukraine, instructing America’s Ambassador in Ukraine, Geoffrey Pyatt, whom to get to become appointed to take over control of Ukraine’s government after the democratically elected President of Ukraine, Viktor Yanukovych, will be overthrown. That phone call from Nuland occurred on 27 January 2014, a month before Obama’s coup there was completed, and the person whom she selected to run Obama’s government of Ukraine was the rabidly anti-Russian Arseniy Yatsenyuk, or “Yats” as she sometimes referred to him in this video — and he did get the appointment a month later.
Here is that complete phone-conversation, which is merely excerpted in the 10-minute documentary. And here is my transcript of it, along with my explanations of what she was referring to and why.
This recorded phone-conversation is the most “smoking gun” evidence that I know of for any coup that has ever taken place; and for this reason and also on the basis of all of the other evidences on this coup, I agree with what the founder and head of the Stratfor ‘private CIA’ corporate advisory firm said about the matter, that it was “the most blatant coup in history”. (But then, a year later, at the Website of a former convicted Wall-Street trader, he posted an opinion-article to which he slipped in, as-if it were an aside, mention that though on “the internet and Twitter, … you will find me saying the United States staged the most blatant coup in history,” and he went on to misrepresent what he had actually said, and he then alleged that he hadn’t said that, and then he said that “It was no coup,” it was nothing more than “a systematic campaign to saturate the internet, the Russians fed the quote back into some major Russian print publications, then back onto the internet, until it resonated and fed back on itself,” and, so, he alleged that it was just a nothingburger, which “the Russians” had cooked up. He needed to retain his mega-corporate customers.)
On 4 November 2019, I headlined “The Obama Regime’s Plan to Seize the Russian Naval Base in Crimea,” and provided my latest summary of, and links to, the evidences regarding the planning of Obama’s coup in Ukraine, and of the Obama regime’s extensive pollings of Ukrainians, and especially of Crimeans, both before the coup and after the coup, and noted the polls’ findings, which confirmed and made clear that the U.S. Government couldn’t go public with their poll-findings, because those findings were entirely consistent with the 16 March 2014 Russian-managed pebiscite in Crimea, which had found that 95.6% of Crimea’s voters had marked the option of “Join the Russia Federation as Federal subject of Russia.” Although that percentage was slightly higher than the pollings that the U.S. regime had commissioned, which were closer to 90%, any public challenging of that plebiscite on the basis of these poll-findings would have required the U.S. regime to acknowledge that both the U.S. polls and the Russian plebiscite could simultaneously be right; and, so, there was no U.S.-and-allied publicity given to those polls.Furthermore: any such allegation (challenging the Crimean plebiscite’s 95.6% figure) by the U.S. regime might also cause to become dredged up Obama’s plan, as part of the coup, for Russia’s main naval base, which since 1783 has been in Crimea, to become replaced by yet another U.S. naval base (the only part of Obama’s plan that had failed — perhaps because Crimeans overwhelmingly despised the U.S. Government, by a margin of 76.2% “negative” to 2.8% “positive,” which is 96.3% negative to 3.7% positive, in the U.S. regime’s April 2014 poll of Crimeans — so, it would have been a hopeless cause for Obama to continue with that part of his plan, and to challenge that 95.6% plebiscite).
My 4 November 2019 article also documented Obama’s (Nuland’s, Yatsenyuk’s) plan to kill enough residents in the far-eastern region of Ukraine, which had voted over 90% for Yanukovych, for the population there to become either exterminated or else terrorized by the U.S.-imposed regime, so that enough of Yanukovych’s supporters would be culled from Ukraine’s electorate (around a million of them fled to Russia), so as to virtually assure that subsequently elected national leaders of Ukraine would likewise be rabidly anti-Russian, pro-U.S. regime. This ethnic cleansing by the U.S.-imposed Ukrainian regime, was likewise documented in that article.
So: this is how the war in Ukraine actually started. It started in 2014, by Obama, not by Putin (such as the U.S. regime and its colonies allege).
Even NATO’s leader Jens Stoltenberg and Ukraine’s leader Volodmyr Zelensky deny the U.S. Government’s lie that the war in Ukraine started on 24 February 2022 when Russia invaded Ukraine, and acknowledge that it started eight years before that, in 2014; Stoltenberg said, about this, “The war didn’t start in 2022. The war started in 2014.” Zelensky said about it, “I made a point that the war in Ukraine has been lasting for eight years. It’s not just some special military operation.” So, the U.S. Government’s lie, such as U.S. ‘Defense’ (Offense) Secretary Lloyd Austin expressed it, on 1 June 2024, is rabidly false, that:
“In February of 2022, Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine shocked the world — and this region [Singapore]. And since then, Putin’s war of aggression has provided us all with a preview of a world that none of us would want. It’s a glimpse of a world where tyrants trample sovereign borders, a world where peaceful states live in fear of their neighbors, and a world where chaos and conquest replace rules and rights.
That’s a baldfaced lie, which blames Putin, not Obama, for the war in Ukraine.
Similar lies are common in U.S.-and-allied ‘news’-media, such as:
“When Russian President Vladimir Putin started the war in Ukraine, he tried to shift the blame to NATO, calling it the instigator. He argued that Russia had no choice but to defensively launch the invasion to prevent NATO from surrounding Russia from all sides. Reality, of course, was different. NATO was a defense alliance in retirement, collecting its “peace dividend” from the breakup of the Soviet Union. Most of its members maintained their defense spending below their shared commitment.” (Note that that commentator calls this “NATO … collecting its ‘peace dividend’ from the breakup of the Soviet Union” — as-if all that matters is peace for the U.S. regime, and that Russia’s authentic national-security concerns to protect Russia’s citizens against a possible U.S.-NATO invasion, should just be ignored — and that it says “NATO was a defense alliance in retirement … from the breakup of the Soviet Union,” though, in fact, that military alliance secretly continued on the American side after the USSR’s Warsaw Pact military alliance ended in 1991 — didn’t ever go into any ‘retirement’ when the Cold War on Russia’s side DID end. So: that’s not actually a “defense alliance” — it is very clearly an aggression alliance, against Russia itself.)
and,
“Putin started the war in Ukraine.”
and,
“In 2014, Putin started the war in Ukraine by annexing the Crimea.”
and,
Though the second of the two sentences in that last one is true, nothing was wrong with Putin’s having presented those demands at that time, on 17 December 2021, as his requirements for a peaceful settlement of the Ukraine issue. Ukraine is the only country whose border is a mere 317 miles — five minutes of a nuclear missile’s flying-time — away from hitting The Kremlin and so decapitating Russia’s central command. That is the reason why the U.S. regime has wanted Ukraine so much as to risk WW3 over winning it (as they did) and keeping it (as they won’t): because the U.S. regime demands to ‘win’ WW3, not to merely avoid it. If they can’t be #1 over the whole world, they don’t want anything; they don’t have any “plan B,” yet, unless it’s WW3 itself. On 29 December 2016, I headlined about “America’s Secret Planned Conquest of Russia,” tracking that plan (now called “Nuclear Primacy”) back to at least 2006 as constituting the new mainstream view in the U.S. Government; and, on 19 April 2023, I headlined “U.S. Nuclear-War Strategy”, tracking even farther back, to 1981, when Nuclear Primacy, the goal of winning WW3, first was proposed to replace the pre-existing (but still dominant in Russia and China) “Mutually Assured Destruction” or “M.A.D.” view, that nuclear weapons exist only in order to prevent a WW3, not in order to win a WW3 (via attaining and using “Nuclear Primacy”).
If Obama had not wanted the war in Ukraine, then he wouldn’t have started it. He wouldn’t have hired people such as Victoria Nuland to get it done. (Maybe he had gotten a good laugh privately when he had received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2009 before he had achieved anything in his Presidency.) He, and not Putin, started the war in Ukraine. Under international law, “the aggressor” is supposed to be the side that STARTED the war, not the side which was mortally endangered by that aggressor and needed to respond in the way it considered existentially necessary in order to respond effectively to and divert that threat, that danger, to one’s nation’s very existence.
In this case, it is clear that the U.S. regime’s #1 objective is to control the entire world, all countries, including Russia and China, and Iran, and Venezuela, and North Korea, and any other hold-outs. In Russia’s case, this demand by the U.S. regime is so extreme that it placed a requirement upon Finland for Finland to allow the U.S. to position its nuclear weapons in Finland in order for Finland to be allowed to become a NATO member. Finland isn’t as close to Moscow as Ukraine is (it’s 507 miles instead of Ukraine’s 317 miles away from the Kremlin); and, so, it demanded Finland to allow its nuclear missiles, and Finland said yes. That proves how psychopathic the U.S. regime actually is.
And one should not forget the longstanding post-1991 lies by NATO about what it is: “NATO is not a threat to Russia.” / “NATO has tried to build a partnership with Russia, developing dialogue and practical cooperation in areas of common interest. Practical cooperation has been suspended since 2014 in response to Russia’s illegal and illegitimate annexation of Crimea, Ukraine, which NATO will never recognise.” / “NATO is not at war with Russia.”
But the actual fact is, and has been since NATO’s very start in 1949: NATO has always been the post-WW2 U.S. regime’s main military alliance to conquer Russia. For it to have continued after the Soviet Union ended in 1991, is, and should be punished as, an immense international-war crime. It is simply WW3 pushing to happen. Why, then, are not the world’s other nations demanding that NATO end — demanding: End NATO Now! NATO has terrorized all decent countries. They are too afraid to condemn it publicly. (Similarly, for a different example” “Israel can get away with mass-murder because the world’s super power, USA, defends and excuses them of accountability.“)
The 14 November 2014 ARD German Government TV network broadcast interview of Putin https://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=BdlXqyZHB9k became removed by ARD when Germany’s Government decided that it wants to go to war against Russia, again (reprising Hitler’s Operation Barbarossa); and so broadcasting this interview had been a mistake. Therefore, ever since at least 12 March 2016, “This video is private.” has resulted from that URL. However, up until at least 14 September 2015, it had been public, and was therefore foertunately being archived by some of its viewers online; so, here it is, from an archived copy, of this hostile, pro-U.S. regime, anti-Russia-Government, interview of Putin, about these matters: https://web.archive.org/web/
20150914075634/https://www. youtube.com/watch?v= BdlXqyZHB9k “English: Exclusive ARD interview with Russian President Putin” | Günther Jauch | ARD. 17.Nov.2014
10:55: JAUCH: For the West, this [Russia’s annexation of Crimea] was a clear breach of international law. PUTIN: What’s the question? JAUCH: The question is, did you underestimate the reaction of the West? … PUTIN: We find this reaction absolutely disproportionate. … When we’re confronted with the accusations that Russia has violated international law, I can hardly feel anything but astonishment. What is international law? First and foremost, it’s the charter of the United Nations. … A vivid and fresh precedent was set in Kosovo. JAUCH: You mean the judgment of the International Criminal Court, with respect to Kosovo, which said that Kosovo had the right to self-determination, and that the people of Kosovo could vote on whether they wanted to have their own state or not? PUTIN: Exactly so, but there’s more to it than that. The most important thing mentioned there was that in terms of self-determination, people populating a certain area are not obliged to ask the opinion of the central authorities of the state where they are resident. There’s no need to have permission from the central governmental authorities, in order to take the necessary steps to self-determination. This is the most crucial point, and nothing that transpired in Crimea was any different from that which happened in Kosovo. I am deeply convinced that Russia has not violated any international laws. I am very open about this. It’s a fact, and we’ve never concealed it. … Besides, what is democracy? You and I know very well, what does demos mean, it means people. Democracy means the rule by the people. In our case, it’s the people’s right to be independent.
— earlier in it was:
https://web.archive.org/web/
20150914075634/https://www. youtube.com/watch?v= BdlXqyZHB9k 8:32: JAUCH: There was an agreement [between the national Government and the Maidan demonstrators, on 20 February 2014] which called for national conciliation and a national government. This agreement lasted about 24 hours and then was dead. You followed the events of the 21st of February very closely. Did you talk with President Obama or Chancellor Merkel at the time? PUTIN: Yes. Indeed, on the 21st of February, it was not only the German Minister of Foreign Affairs who came to the Ukraine, to Kiev, but also the ministers of Foreign Affairs of Poland and France. They acted as guarantors [along with the EU’s representative] for the agreement between the then President Yanukovych and the opposition. They were agreed that the process should be carried out peacefully. They signed this document, this agreement between the authorities and the opposition as guarantors, and the authorities actually thought that it would be executed accordingly. And indeed, I had a phone conversation with the President of the United States on the same evening [February 21st], and we discussed this problem in exactly this manner. However, the next day, a coup took place, despite the guarantees given by the Western powers [Obama’s Polish and French, and EU Minister of Foreign Affairs, stooges], the buildings of the Presidential Administration and the Government were taken over. In this context, I would like to stress the following: [10:00:] Either the European Minister of Foreign Affairs [Lord Catherine Ashton, recorded here in a private 26 February 2014 phone call about this matter] shouldn’t have signed the paper and guaranteed the execution of the agreement, or, having done so they should have insisted on its execution. Instead, they distanced themselves from it. Moreover, they seem to prefer not to remember the agreement, as-if it had never existed. I think it’s completely wrong; and even more so, it’s counterproductive. [10:38]
The U.S.-and-allied line on why Yanukovych was overthrown was that he had turned down the EU’s offer on 20 November 2013. But actually, that was a set-up deal, set up to be rejected in order for Nuland’s plan then to go directly into action. As I headlined on 27 March 2015, “The $160 Billion Cost: Why Ukraine’s Viktor Yanukovych Spurned EU’s Offer, on 20 Nov. 2013”. Even earlier than that, Putin had explained this to the Russian people, though without mentioning the $160 billion bottom-line price tag for Ukraine to enter the EU:
On 5 June 2014, less than a half year after Obama had grabbled Ukraine and started the war there, Putin did an interview about the Ukraine war, on Russia’s Voice of Russia channel. It was broadcast the next day, headlining “Russia never annexed Crimea, no plans to intervene in Ukraine, it’s a Western delusion – Putin”. Here are highlights:
On what happened in Ukraine:
Vladimir Putin: There was a conflict and that conflict arose because the former Ukrainian president refused to sign an association agreement with the EU. Russia had a certain stance on this issue. We believed it was indeed unreasonable to sign that agreement because it would have a grave impact on the economy, including the Russian economy. We have 390 economic agreements with Ukraine and Ukraine is a member of the free trade zone within the CIS. And we wouldn’t be able to continue this economic relationship with Ukraine as a member of the free trade zone [with the EU]. We discussed this with our European partners. Instead of continuing the debates by legitimate and diplomatic means, our European friends and our friends from the United States supported the anti-constitutional armed coup. This is what happened. We did not cause this crisis to happen. We were against this course of events.
The point is no one should be brought to power through an armed anti-constitutional coup, and this is especially true in post-Soviet space where government institutions are not fully mature. When it happened, some people accepted the regime and were happy about it, while other people, say, in eastern and southern Ukraine, just won’t accept it. And it is vital to talk with the people who didn’t accept this change of power instead of sending tanks, as you said yourself, instead of firing missiles at civilians from the air and bombing non-military targets.
On Russian troops in Ukraine:
The interviewer told the Russian President that the United States claimed they had evidence that Russia had intervened in the conflict by sending troops and weapons.
Vladimir Putin: Proof? Why don’t they show it? The entire world remembers the US Secretary of State demonstrating the evidence of Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction, waving around some test tube with washing powder in the UN Security Council. Eventually, the US troops invaded Iraq, Saddam Hussein was hanged and later it turned out there had never been any weapons of mass destruction in Iraq [ever since 1998]. You know, it’s one thing to say things and another to actually have evidence. I will tell you again: no Russian troops…
There are no armed forces, no Russian ‘instructors’ in southeastern Ukraine, and there never were any.
On whether Russia wanted to annex Ukraine and tried to destabilize the situation there:
Vladimir Putin: We never did that. The Ukrainian government must now sit down and talk with their own people instead of using weapons, tanks, planes and helicopters. …
On Crimea:
Vladimir Putin: It’s a delusion that Russian troops annexed Crimea. Russian troops did nothing of the kind.
Russian troops were in Crimea under an international treaty on the deployment of the Russian military base. It’s true that Russian troops helped Crimeans hold a referendum on their (a) independence and (b) desire to join the Russian Federation. No one can prevent these people from exercising a right that is stipulated in Article 1 of the UN Charter, the right of nations to self-determination.
In accordance with the expression of the will of people who live there, Crimea is part of the Russian Federation and its constituent entity.
I want everyone to understand this clearly. We conducted an exclusively diplomatic and peaceful dialogue – I want to stress this – with our partners in Europe and the United States. In response to our attempts to hold such a dialogue and to negotiate an acceptable solution, they supported the anti-constitutional state coup in Ukraine, and following that we could not be sure that Ukraine would not become part of the North Atlantic military bloc. In that situation, we could not allow a historical part of the Russian territory with a predominantly ethnic Russian population to be incorporated into an international military alliance, especially because Crimeans wanted to be part of Russia. I am sorry, but we couldn’t act differently. …
There are basically no Russian troops abroad while US troops are everywhere. There are US military bases everywhere around the world and they are always involved in the fates of other countries even though they are thousands of kilometers away from US borders. …
On the collapse of the Soviet Union:
Vladimir Putin: We will not promote Russian nationalism [patriotism yes, nationalism no], and we do not intend to revive the Russian Empire. What did I mean when I said that the Soviet Union’s collapse was one of the largest humanitarian – above all humanitarian – disasters of the 20th century? I meant that all the citizens of the Soviet Union lived in a union state irrespective of their ethnicity, and after its collapse 25 million Russians suddenly became foreign citizens. It was a huge humanitarian disaster. Not a political or ideological disaster, but a purely humanitarian upheaval. Families were divided; people lost their jobs and means of subsistence, and had no means to communicate with each other normally. This was the problem.
Practically everything that The West alleges about the war in Ukraine is false. It’s intentionally that way, not due to any mere negligence.
The Nobel Peace Prize Winner Barack Obama deserves to be tried at the International Criminal Court for the international war crime of aggression. The biggest problem in this regard is that no sensible definition of “aggression” yet exists in international law. (At the end of that article linked-to there, I proposed a new definition of the term. One of my longer articles explained the history behind that immense collective failure.) For another example of that failure: How is perpetrating an international coup — which in reality is an international war-crime; and it was that against Iran in 1953, Chile in 1973, Ukraine in 2014, and so many others — being addressed in current international law? It’s not; it is instead ignored. The International Criminal Court was designed by victor countries against victim countries. It wasn’t designed to sustain peace and prevent war. It’s a bad joke. However, historians nonetheless have an obligation to 100% truth, never to falsify. In the U.S. and its colonies (‘allies’), they shirk that obligation, because 100% truth can cripple their careers. This is the reality, no matter how much historians in some countries (the countries that have dominated the world for far too long) might publicly deny it. Academic scholarship is profoundly corrupted by this reality.
The latest version of YouGov’s “World’s Most Admired” pollings around the world is the “World’s most admired 2021” version; and it is headlined: “The Obamas remain the world’s most admired man and woman”.
The post Obama’s Guilt for Ukraine’s War first appeared on Dissident Voice.
This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Eric Zuesse.This post was originally published on Radio Free.
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NATO is utilizing artificial intelligence to track Russian aircraft and fueling stations, the US-led bloc’s Assistant Secretary General for Innovation, Hybrid and Cyber, David van Weel, has revealed.
Speaking at the NATO-Ukraine Defense Innovators Forum at AGH University of Krakow, Poland, the top official pledged to deepen cooperation with Kiev, with a new agreement on “battlefield innovation” already in sight.
“The energy for more collaboration between Ukrainian and Allied innovation ecosystems was contagious, and is exactly why Allies and Ukraine are working together on a new innovation agreement in the NATO-Ukraine Council,” van Weel stated.
As an example of the integration of various AI solutions, he said the bloc utilizes it to analyze satellite imagery in order to track and count Russian aircraft and fueling stations. The assistant secretary general said that using AI in such a manner was in accord with NATO’s principles on ethical Al use.
“It’s low-risk,” van Weel said. “Nobody gets killed if you get the number off.”
In recent months, Ukraine has reportedly ramped up its effort to strike Russian airfields, both those close to the combat zone and deep inside the country’s territory. Moscow appears to have significantly expanded its use of frontline aviation as well, primarily to launch aerial bombs fitted with UMPK (Universal Glide and Correction Module) winged guidance kits.
Various Ukrainian military sources have noted the growing use of UMPK-fitted bombs by Russia, attributing frontline setbacks to the effectiveness of the weapon.
UMPK modules, widely regarded as an analogue of US-made Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM) kits, fit most freefall bombs in Russia’s arsenal. They are frequently upgraded with thermobaric and cluster munitions, which have already been observed being used on the frontline.
The post NATO Using AI against Russia – Top Official first appeared on Dissident Voice.This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.
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This is about the U.S. Government’s lie to the naive Gorbachev, which fooled him to accept the U.S. empire’s proposal that East Germany become a part of West Germany, and that the Soviet Union and its one-Party rule end, and that its Warsaw Pact military alliance end while America’s NATO military alliance wouldn’t. In other words: it’s about how the Cold War on America’s side continued secretly (and now again brings America and Russia to the very brink of WW3), after the Cold War on Russia’s side ended in 1991 — ended on the basis of America’s lie and Russia’s trust in that lie:
On 10 September 2015, I documented this lie because so many U.S.-and-allied ‘historians’ were alleging it not to have happened but to be mere ‘Russian propaganda’ (and, after Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, some have even alleged that “European security has in fact benefited significantly from NATO’s enlargement” — a lie on top of the basic one). I also quoted there ‘historians’ who denied this basic lie, so that a reader could see not only the truth but the regime’s agents’ lies denying that it (the West’s Big Lie) had actually happened or that it was important. But then, on 12 December 2017, the U.S. National Security Archives at George Washington University released even fuller documentation of the lie that had occurred by the U.S. Government, and here are highlights from their documentation of it, so that this continuing Big Lie will be recognized by every sane person as being what it is, the Big Lie that might end up producing World War Three:
Memorandum of conversation between Mikhail Gorbachev and James Baker in Moscow.
Memcon from 2/9/90 meeting w/USSR Prem. Gorbachev & FM Shevardnaze, Moscow, USSR
Repeating what Bush said at the Malta summit in December 1989, Baker tells Gorbachev: “The President and I have made clear that we seek no unilateral advantage in this process” of inevitable German unification. Baker goes on to say, “We understand the need for assurances to the countries in the East. If we maintain a presence in a Germany that is a part of NATO, there would be no extension of NATO’s jurisdiction for forces of NATO one inch to the east.” Later in the conversation, Baker poses the same position as a question, “would you prefer a united Germany outside of NATO that is independent and has no US forces or would you prefer a united Germany with ties to NATO and assurances that there would be no extension of NATO’s current jurisdiction eastward?” The declassifiers of this memcon actually redacted Gorbachev’s response that indeed such an expansion would be “unacceptable” – but Baker’s letter to Kohl the next day, published in 1998 by the Germans, gives the quote.
Source: U.S. Department of State, FOIA 199504567 (National Security Archive Flashpoints Collection, Box 38).
***** Washington D.C., December 12, 2017 – U.S. Secretary of State James Baker’s famous “not one inch eastward” assurance about NATO expansion in his meeting with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev on February 9, 1990, was part of a cascade of assurances about Soviet security given by Western leaders to Gorbachev and other Soviet officials throughout the process of German unification in 1990 and on into 1991, according to declassified U.S., Soviet, German, British and French documents posted today by the National Security Archive at George Washington University (http://nsarchive.gwu.edu).
The documents show that multiple national leaders were considering and rejecting Central and Eastern European membership in NATO as of early 1990 and through 1991, that discussions of NATO in the context of German unification negotiations in 1990 were not at all narrowly limited to the status of East German territory, and that subsequent Soviet and Russian complaints about being misled about NATO expansion were founded in written contemporaneous memcons and telcons at the highest levels. …
The conversations before Kohl’s assurance involved explicit discussion of NATO expansion, the Central and East European countries, and how to convince the Soviets to accept unification. For example, on February 6, 1990, when Genscher met with British Foreign Minister Douglas Hurd, the British record showed Genscher saying, “The Russians must have some assurance that if, for example, the Polish Government left the Warsaw Pact one day, they would not join NATO the next.” (See Document 2)
***** In addition, there is this: On 11 August 2014, Mary Elise Sarotte headlined at the U.S. empire’s own Foreign Affairs journal, “A Broken Promise?” as-if there still had been any doubt that it was that, and so an honest title for her article would have been “A Broken Promise” or even “A Broken Promise!” Because there’s no question about it. She reported not only that it definitely was a lie, and one by the U.S. Government itself; and that U.S. President George Herbert Walker Bush told America’s stooge leaders, starting on 24 February 1990, that it was going to be a broken promise because “‘TO HELL WITH THAT! [promise]’ HE [Bush] SAID. ‘WE PREVAILED, THEY DIDN’T.’” In other words: on the night of 24 February 1990, Bush started secretly ordering his vassals to continue forward with the intention for the U.S. alliance ultimately to swallow-up not only the rest of the USSR but all of the Warsaw Pact and finally Russia itself. And this has been precisely what the U.S. regime and its colonies have been doing, up until 24 February 2022, when Russia finally put its foot down, to stop NATO’s coming within around a mere 300 miles of The Kremlin.Consequently, even if NATO served a constructive purpose during 1945-1991, it has afterward only endangered the world — including especially Europe, making Europe be again the main battlefield if another World War occurs — and thus its continuance after 1991 can reasonably be considered a massive international crime by the U.S. Government.
NATO is an extension of the will of the U.S. Government, and this is so blatant a fact so that Article 13, which is the only portion of NATO’s charter, the North Atlantic Treaty, that says anything about how a member-nation may either quit NATO or be expelled from NATO, places the U.S. Government in charge of processing a “denunciation” (voluntary withdrawal) — the Charter’s term for resigning from NATO. This term “denunciation” (instead of “withdrawal”) clearly means that if any member does quit, then that will be interpreted by NATO as constituting a hostile act, which will have consequences (the resigning member will be placed onto NATO’s unspoken list of enemies). NATO’s charter has no provision by which a member can be expelled. Moreover, it fails to include any provision by which the charter can be amended or changed in any manner. No charter or constitution that fails to include a provision by which it may be amended can reasonably be acceptable to a democracy: it is so rigid as to be 100% brittle, impossible to adapt to changing challenges. The NATO charter itself is a dictatorial never a democratic document. It takes up, for the U.S. regime after 1945, the function that the Nazi Party had held prior to that in and for Germany: after Hitler died, America took up and has held high his torch for global dictatorship. In fact, “the Government of the United States of America” is also stated in Article 10 as the entity to process applications to join NATO, and, in Article 11, as being the processor of “ratifications” of applications to join.
This Treaty is an imperial document, of the U.S. empire, none other. And, after 1991, its continuation is based only on lies, including the one that now is coming to a head in Ukraine, which is not a NATO member, though Biden said it is — he said recently of Ukraine, that “they are part of NATO.” Tyrants imagine that what they want can simply be willed into existence, and they don’t care about the essential needs of others. Such individuals are driven by their own hatreds. That is what stands at the very top of NATO.
And this is why we are now at the nuclear brink, because of an organization that ought to have ended in 1991.
The post America’s Chief Deceit Against Russia That Has Led the World to the Brink of WW3 first appeared on Dissident Voice.This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.
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Berlin, June 7, 2024—The Committee to Protect Journalists decries Russian authorities’ crackdown on independent media outlets and exiled journalists, and urges them to cease their harassment immediately.
On Wednesday, June 5, the Basmanny district court in the capital, Moscow, ordered the arrest in absentia of exiled journalist Dmitry Kolezev, saying that he distributed false information about Russian armed forces in unspecified social media posts in April 2022 about the massacre in the Ukrainian city of Bucha.
“These publications were absolutely true, as confirmed by numerous international investigations, but it doesn’t matter to the [Russian] Investigative Committee,” Kolezev, the former editor-in-chief of the independent media platform Republic and founder of the Yekaterinburg-based online outlet It’s My City, said in a Wednesday Instagram post.
Kolezev has been placed on an international wanted list and, upon extradition to Russia or being detained within the country, faces two months of detention, according to the press service of the Moscow courts. If convicted, he faces up to 10 years imprisonment under the criminal code.
“By relentlessly targeting exiled journalists, Russian authorities demonstrate their nonstop commitment to silencing independent voices,” said CPJ Program Director Carlos Martinez de la Serna, from New York. “The arrest warrant issued against journalist Dmitry Kolezev and the ongoing harassment of other exiled journalists must be halted immediately.”
Kolezev was designated a “foreign agent” and added to the federal wanted list in November 2022.
Republic, was labeled a “foreign agent” in October 2021 until the publication voluntarily relinquished its status as a media outlet registered with Russian state media regulator Roskomnadzor in September 2022.
In May 2024, Republic was once again labeled a foreign agent.
Russian authorities took the following actions against journalists, at least two of them in exile, this week:
- The Russian financial intelligence agency Rosfinmonitoring added Anna Loiko, an exiled journalist and reporter with independent news outlet SOTA, to its list of “terrorists and extremists” on May 29.
A Moscow court ordered Loiko’s arrest in absentia on charges of “justifying terrorism” and put her on the wanted list in November 2023. If convicted, she faces up to seven years in prison under the criminal code.
Loiko told CPJ the case stems from her October 2020 and January 2021 articles detailing legal proceedings against alleged members of the Lebanon-based Islamist group Hizb ut-Tahrir, which Russia deems a terrorist organization.
SOTA reported that authorities searched Anna Loiko’s flat in Moscow, although nothing was taken, and the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation (SKR) questioned her mother in October 2023.
“It was so long ago that, honestly, when I found out about the search in my apartment, I did not immediately think that it had something to do with my articles about the Hizb ut-Tahrir,” Loiko told CPJ. “I wrote them at the beginning of my career, and after such a long time, and even in emigration, I didn’t think about them at all, but it turned out that the investigators did.”
- Rosfinmonitoring included Maria Menshikova, an editor at the student-run online magazine DOXA, in the list of “terrorists and extremists” on May 29.
The prosecutor general’s office listed DOXA as an “undesirable organization” in January 2024.
- On Tuesday, the Ostankinsky district court in Moscow initiated an administrative case against Asya Zolnikova, a reporter with Latvia-based independent news site Meduza, on charges of involvement with an “undesirable” organization. If convicted, she faces a fine of up to 15,000 rubles (US$170). CPJ was unable to confirm further details about the charges.
On January 26, 2023, the Russian prosecutor general’s office declared Meduza “undesirable,” effectively banning it and stating that its activities “pose a threat to the foundations of the Russian Federation’s constitutional order and national security.”
- On Tuesday, the Basmanny district court in Moscow initiated a similar proceeding against Andrey Soldatov, the editor-in-chief of Agentura.ru, a news website covering Russian state surveillance. Soldatov told independent news outlet Mediazona that he believes the case is connected to a comment he gave Meduza. A court hearing has been scheduled for June 17.
CPJ’s emailed requests for comment to Rosfinmonitoring and Moscow’s Basmanny and Ostankinsky district courts did not receive any replies.
This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Committee to Protect Journalists.This post was originally published on Radio Free.
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Comprehensive coverage of the day’s news with a focus on war and peace; social, environmental and economic justice.
- White House announces $225 million aid package to Ukraine as Biden commemorates D-Day 80th Anniversary.
- Deadly tornadoes touch down in Eastern US.
- Federal judge orders longtime Trump ally Steve Bannon to report to prison on contempt of Congress charges.
- SF judge dismisses several charges against man who assaulted Nancy Pelosi’s husband.
- San Francisco labor rights groups announce $60,000 settlement in immigrant unpaid labor case.
- State Supreme Court OKs University of California to build student housing at People’s Park.
- State Attorney General Rob Bonta issues report on state gun violence protection orders.
The post The Pacifica Evening News, Weekdays – June 6, 2024 White House announces $225 million aid package to Ukraine as Biden commemorates D-Day 80th Anniversary. appeared first on KPFA.
This content originally appeared on KPFA – The Pacifica Evening News, Weekdays and was authored by KPFA.This post was originally published on Radio Free.
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This content originally appeared on Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and was authored by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.This post was originally published on Radio Free.
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This content originally appeared on Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and was authored by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.This post was originally published on Radio Free.
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This content originally appeared on Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and was authored by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.This post was originally published on Radio Free.
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On May 31st, Politico headlined “Biden secretly gave Ukraine permission to strike inside Russia with US weapons: It’s a major reversal that will help Ukraine to better defend its second-largest city.” It reported:
The Biden administration has quietly given Ukraine permission to strike inside Russia — solely near the area of Kharkiv — using U.S.-provided weapons, three U.S. officials and two other people familiar with the move said Thursday, a major reversal that will help Ukraine to better defend its second-largest city.
“The president recently directed his team to ensure that Ukraine is able to use U.S. weapons for counter-fire purposes in Kharkiv so Ukraine can hit back at Russian forces hitting them or preparing to hit them,” one of the U.S. officials said, adding that the policy of not allowing long-range strikes inside Russia “has not changed.”
Ukraine asked the U.S. to make this policy change only after Russia’s offensive on Kharkiv began this month, the official added. All the people were granted anonymity to discuss internal decisions that haven’t been announced. …
In effect, Ukraine can now use American-provided weapons, such as rockets and rocket launchers, to shoot down launched Russian missiles heading toward Kharkiv, at troops massing just over the Russian border near the city, or Russian bombers launching bombs toward Ukrainian territory. But the official said Ukraine cannot use those weapons to hit civilian infrastructure or launch long-range missiles, such as the Army Tactical Missile System, to hit military targets deep inside Russia.
It’s a stunning shift the administration initially said would escalate the war by more directly involving the U.S. in the fight. But worsening conditions for Ukraine on the battlefield –– namely Russia’s advances and improved position in Kharkiv –– led the president to change his mind. …
What this means is that if Volodmyr Zelensky (whose legal term of office as Ukraine’s President ended on May 20) decides that Ukraine should use American weapons and bombs to hit “military targets” that are in Russia and “near the area of Kharkiv,” then the U.S. Government will not object. The article does not say how the phrase “military targets” there is being defined, nor how “near the area of Kharkiv” is being defined.
The U.S. Government has been, to a large extent if not fully, operating or in control over the operation of those U.S.-made weapons; and, therefore, one may reasonably presume that any decision as to whether to use those weapons and bombs in any given instance will have the prior approval of both the Ukrainian and the American Governments.
One also may reasonably assume that if ever Ukraine would violate Biden’s order in this regard, then Biden would condemn Ukraine for having done so. Whether or not Russia’s Government would take that as being sincerely an expression that only Ukraine was to blame for that U.S.-and-Ukraine attack against Russia is impossible reasonably to predict in advance. Consequently, if the limitations upon what Ukraine’s government can do with America’s weapons and bombs are not yet already over the limits of what will precipitate a nuclear attack by Russia against the United States and its colonies (‘allies’), as having “crossed over Russia’s red lines” of what Russia considers to constitute an acceptable violation of Russia’s national security, then how Russia will respond in any case if Ukraine will violate Biden’s command and Biden will condemn Ukraine for that, is likewise impossible reasonably to predict in advance. However, if Russia will in such an instance unleash its estimated 5,580 nuclear weapons against the U.S. and its colonies, then there will be a debate among the immediate survivors of WW3 regarding whether the villain here was Biden or instead Putin, or both.If WW3 will happen before America’s November 5 elections, then if such elections will be held, either Donald Trump or Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will be the President starting in 2025. If WW3 will happen after such elections, then America’s voters today should know that on May 28, the Washington Post, headlined “Trump makes sweeping promises to donors on audacious fundraising tour”, and reported that at one fundraising event for billionaires and centi-millionaires (not for mere voters), “he suggested that he would have bombed Moscow and Beijing if Russia invaded Ukraine or China invaded Taiwan.” In other words: to him, regarding the current war in Ukraine, and regarding the long-sought-by-the-U.S.-
Government war in Taiwan, those two wars and to-become wars, are not merely “other people’s wars,” but these are our wars — meaning those American billionaires’ and centi-millionaires’ wars — to which he, as the U.S. President, would respond immediately by bombing, respectively, Russia and China. Though the CIA-edited and written Wikipedia (which blacklists [blocks from linking to] sites that aren’t CIA-approved) says nothing about the former President of Ukraine Volodmyr Zelenskyy being no longer legally after 20 May 2024 Ukraine’s President, and he did announce that the 20 May 2024 elections would be cancelled, he still does serve as-if he is Ukraine’s President, and is not questioned about that in U.S.-and-allied media. No polling has been done regarding whom Ukrainians would vote for if they were allowed to vote. However, on 15 February 2024, Yahoo News headlined “New poll shows Zelenskyy’s approval dips 5 points in Ukraine after departure of General Zaluzhnyi” and buried in its news-report that the poll showed that as-of February 24, the level of “trust” in leading political figures by the Ukrainian public were: Valerii Zaluzhnyi – 94%; Kyrylo Budanov – 66%; Volodymyr Zelenskyy – 64%; Serhiy Prytula – 61%; and Oleksandr Syrskyi – 40%. Zaluzhnyi was appointed Ukraine’s Ambassador to UK on 7 March 2024, after having been fired by Zelenskyy as Ukraine’s top General. Zelenskyy replaced him with Oleksandr Syrskyi.
In any case, Ukraine has been ruled by America’s President ever since February 2014, and Russians have long known that this is so.
The post U.S. President Biden Now Authorizes Ukraine to Start WW3 first appeared on Dissident Voice.This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.
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I suppose my title could have been couched in the singular form, as Hermann Hesse, the Nobel Prize winning German/Swiss author, did with his collection of anti-war essays about World War I (the war to end all wars that didn’t), If The War Goes On . . .
Or more appropriately, I might have eliminated that conditional “If” since it seems Pollyannish.
It’s a long hard road, this anti-war business. During the first Cold War and the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis in the early sixties when Kennedy and Krushchev narrowly avoided blowing the world to smithereens, Bob Dylan put it right in his fierce song, Masters of War:
(Verse 1)
Come, you masters of war
You that build the big guns
You that build the death planes
You that build all the bombs
You that hide behind walls
You that hide behind desks
I just want you to know
I can see through your masks(Verse 3)
Like Judas of old
You lie and deceive
A world war can be won
You want me to believe
But I see through your eyes
And I see through your brain
Like I see through the water
That runs down my drainIndeed there is a system of war that guarantees that the various wars go on and on ad infinitum, and they are linked. It is why the warfare state has killed our anti-war leaders, first and foremost JFK for turning against war in the last year of his presidency. Then in 1968, Martin Luther King, Jr. and Bobby Kennedy in quick succession. It is why if you dare to look around the world today, you will see that there is a series of wars happening, not only in the obvious places like Ukraine and Gaza, but in places that you may never have heard of, and if you peek a bit further into their causes, you will discover that a familiar culprit with 750 plus military bases around the world has its hand in most of them – the United States of America.
These wars have their cold and hot phases. There are days when the corporate media let them sleep and other times when the same media wake them a bit, but never enough to wake their readers up to the reality of the deadly game. That is the media’s job as stenographers for the warfare state. Wars being essentially the health of the state, as Randolph Bourne wrote long ago, they provide vast profits for the military-industrial complex/Wall St., whether they are in preparation or in operation, awake or asleep, hot or cold. Ray McGovern, the former CIA analyst with a moral conscience, has aptly named this vast interlocking propaganda apparatus the military-industrial-congressional-intelligence-media-academia-think-tank complex, MICIMATT. It is a complex that blatantly serves the interests of the masters of war who “ain’t worth the blood/that runs in [their] your veins,” in Dylan’s words.
The preparation for war is war. What is prepared must be used up, so other weapons can be prepared to be used up, so other weapons can be prepared to be used up, and on and on until one day no one is left to use anything, for the world will be used up in a nuclear conflagration. These weapons are produced in nice clean factories that pay good wages to people who take their pay and go their way, giving their souls to the killers. For the U.S. economy is built on the waging of wars so continuous that it is nearly impossible to find a break between its hot and cold phases, or what seems like decent employment and the diabolic. They are so intertwined. It is a system of capitalistic finance, a revolutionary system that builds to destroy.
The U.S spends nearly $900 billion dollars annually on “defense” spending; this is more than China, Russia, India, Saudi Arabia, the U.K., Germany, France, South Korea, and Japan combined. The U.S.A. is a warfare state; it’s as simple as that. And whether they choose to be aware of it or not, the vast majority of Americans support this killing machine by their insouciance and silence. That their country is spending up to 2 trillion dollars on modernizing its nuclear weapons disturbs them not. It is a death cult. Some – as I myself have done mistakenly – talk about the “deep state” or some other deceptive phrase that conceals the truth that the official state is the “deep state.” It stares us in the face, but many refuse to stare it back down. It is too obvious, standing, as it does, in the way of a life of illusions.
And what is equally apparent today – or should be if one is not asleep – is that because of the war policies of the U.S., the chances of another world war and the use of nuclear weapons is rising by the day. Despite all its denials to the contrary, the US/NATO is pushing for open warfare with Russia that will involve the use of nuclear weapons.
Our masters of war are pushing us toward a nuclear abyss.
In a recent perceptive article, “Russia and China Have Had Enough,” Pepe Escobar writes truths many prefer not to hear. That there is no split between Russia and China but the opposite – a rock solid Russia-China strategic partnership and a determination to oppose and defeat the U.S./UK/NATO hybrid war tactics across Eurasia and the Middle East. That the more these U.S.-led forces attempt to destroy Russia, the more the expanding alliances involved in the Shanghai Cooperative Agreement (SCO) and the expanding BRICS partnerships of emerging economies (originally just Brazil, Russia, India, and then South Africa; now also Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, United Arab Emirates, with many more countries waiting to join) will gain in power. In Escobar’s words, “. . . the Global Majority is on the move: Russia is closely cooperating, increasingly, with scores of nations in West Asia, wider Asia, Africa and Latin America.”
Despite this fact, the United States and its allies blithely continue as if their control of the world order is secure. That they can butcher and badger the world into submission. The insane are usually deluded, but when they control nuclear weapons, the people of the world need to awaken.
Ray McGovern, a Russia expert, (see raymcgovern.com) has echoed Escobar on the absurdity of the Russian China split; has emphasized how Israel’s genocide of the Palestinians has made it an isolated but desperate pariah state; and how the U.S. war against Russia in Ukraine is leading to the increased use of U.S. tactical nuclear weapons that could lead to full-scale nuclear war. He is not alone in this warning.
There are many signs that we are moving toward a nuclear war with calls for U.S./NATO to support more strikes inside Russia, crossing a very dangerous Russian red line. Russia has made it very clear they will respond. As politicians of various stripes – French President Macron, NATO Secretary General Stoltenberg, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, et al. have ecstatically been urging the Biden administration, who needs no urging, to escalate the war in Ukraine by attacking Russia proper (“The time has come for allies to consider whether they should lift some of the restrictions they have put on the use of weapons they have donated to Ukraine,” Stoltenberg told The Economist.), Mike Whitney has written about a recent such attack that should send chills down everyone’s spines – “Washington Attacks Key Elements of Russia’s Nuclear Umbrella Threatening Entire Global Security Architecture.” – but since the corporate media ignore it, most will dream away and get their barbecues ready for Fourth of July celebrations. They and the flag-dressed Dolly Parton can sing all they want about when Johnny comes marching home again, but Dolly and no one will be jolly if there are no homes to march to, no Johnnies marching anywhere but to death, no anything. Just a wasteland.
Michel Chossudovsky, Ray McGovern, Eva Bartlett, Craig Murray, Patrick Lawrence, Vanessa Beeley, Pepe Escobar, Oliver Stone, Andrew Napolitano, Craig Paul Roberts, Chris Hedges, Alastair Crooke, Caitlin Johnstone, Peter Koenig, Finian Cunningham, Diana Johnstone, Lew Rockwell, and so many other sane but marginalized writers whose names I am omitting as I write quickly, are warning us of our closeness to nuclear annihilation. Cassandras all, I fear. Marginalized prophets such as writer and antinuclear activist James W. Douglass (Lightning East to West, JFK and the Unspeakable, etc.) have been issuing such warnings for decades. It is understandable that so many turn away from such warnings, for the thought of a nuclear war induces deep anxiety hard to control. But unless the vast majority can break through such reticence and see through the official propaganda, the world will be destroyed by madmen sooner or later. The signs today all point to sooner, for we are on the edge of the abyss.
Former British diplomat Alistair Crooke, in a recent article – The brink of dissolution: Neurosis in the West as the levee breaks – writes about how the Biden administration’s policy toward Russia-China, not to say Israel-Palestine, being nothing more than more of the same, is stupid, self-defeating, and very dangerous. Rather than accepting that its proxy war against Russia in Ukraine is a disaster, the U.S. is escalating the conflict to a terrifying level. Rather than accepting the obvious deep alliance between China and Russian exemplified in the recent hug between Putin and Xi and their joint 8,000 word joint statement, Biden has said, “Russia is in a very, very difficult spot right now. They are being squeezed by China.”
It doesn’t get any stupider. But when more of the same doesn’t work and you can’t accept the reality of a changing world order, you do more of the same. Crooke writes:
The paradox is that Team Biden – wholly inadvertently – is midwifing the birth of a ‘new world’. It is doing so by dint of its crude opposition to parturition. The more the western élites push against the birthing – through ‘saving Zionism’; ‘saving European Ukraine’ and by crushing dissent – perversely they accelerate the foundering of Leviathan.
President Xi’s double farewell hug for President Putin following their 16-17 May summit nonetheless sealed the birth – even the New York Times, with customary self-absorption, termed the warm embrace by Xi as ‘defiance of the West’.
The root of the coming dissolution stems precisely from the shortcoming that the NY Times headline encapsulates in its disdainful labelling of the seismic shift as base anti-westernism.
More of the same, yes, that is Biden’s approach, inflamed regularly by the anti-Russian hatred spewed by The New York Times and its ilk. It is an obsession bordering on full-fledged madness, yet it is integral to the belief that the U.S. is an empire and will remain one while the rest of the world can go to hell. Such a mindset is behind the U.S.’s abrogating all the nuclear weapons treaties that provided a semblance of security that nuclear weapons would not be used.
Crooke ends his piece with these sobering words:
Put plainly, with the U.S. unable to exit or to moderate its determination to preserve its hegemony, Lavrov [Sergey Lavrov, Russian Foreign Minister] sees the prospect for increased western weapons provision for Ukraine. The discourse of military escalation is in fashion in Europe (of that there is no doubt); but both in the Middle East and Ukraine, western policy is in deep trouble. There must be doubts whether the West has either the political will, or the internal unity, to pursue this aggressive course. Dragging wars are not traditionally thought to be ‘voter friendly’ when campaigning reaches its peak.
Let me repeat that last understated sentence: “Dragging wars are not traditionally thought to be ‘voter friendly’ when campaigning reaches its peak.” And so? More of the same?
Ray McGovern suggest what is more likely:
Israel [is] becoming a dangerous pariah; Ukraine/US/NATO a dangerous loser. As Israel defies the UN, and as the “exceptional” geniuses around Biden ignore Kremlin warnings regarding provocations re Ukraine, the likelihood increases for US use of tactical nukes.
Desperadoes do desperate things. In Biden and Netanyahu we have two blood-thirsty nihilists at the end of their ropes. These masters of war make me think that a better title for this piece would have been:
If the World Goes On.
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This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.
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Professor Jeffrey Sachs is the President of the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network and Director of the Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia University. He is the author of many best selling books, including The End of Poverty and The Ages of Globalization. Here he is with probably the smartest and most accurate assessment of the Ukraine war, and American foreign policy more broadly, ever caught on tape.
The post The Untold History of the Cold War, CIA Coups Around the World, and COVID’s Origin first appeared on Dissident Voice.This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.
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The Son of God Goes Forth to WarIn 1812, need I say more, Reginald Heber composed the hymn of the Church Militant, the text of which bears citation in full:
The Son of God goes forth to war, a kingly crown to gain; his blood red banner streams afar: who follows in his train? Who best can drink his cup of woe, triumphant over pain, who patient bears his cross below, he follows in his train.
That martyr first, whose eagle eye could pierce beyond the grave; who saw his Master in the sky, and called on him to save. Like him, with pardon on his tongue, in midst of mortal pain, he prayed for them that did the wrong: who follows in his train?
A glorious band, the chosen few, on whom the Spirit came, twelve valiant saints, their hope they knew, and mocked the cross and flame. They met the tyrant’s brandished steel, the lion’s gory mane; they bowed their heads the death to feel: who follows in their train?
O noble army, men and boys, the matron and the maid, around the Savior’s thrown rejoice, in robes of light arrayed. They climbed the steep ascent of heaven, through peril, toil and pain; O God, to us may grace be given, to follow in their train.
According to the astute analyst Mr Mike Whitney, Mr Richard Haass (I wonder whether the name originally meant hate i.e. Hass or hare i.e. Haase), a reverend brother of the Rhodes-Rothschild congregation for the propagation of the faith, has arrived at the same conclusions of his brethren in uniform that the battlefield triumph of the legacy SS battalions and reconstituted Ukrainian military product (Kiever Velveeta) is beyond achievement. As Mr Whitney points out, not only outliers like Scott Ritter, Douglas MacGregor or Larry Wilkerson have stopped singing hymns of immanent victory over the reincarnation of Ivan and Stalin, but members of the general staff have changed their tunes.
Whereas the professionals cautiously suggest, if not request, disengagement, the real government for whom Richard Haass is a representative “influencer” complacently advises that the West in NATO assembled must and will now shift gears. If an M1 Abrams cannot manage a 15 degree incline in snow or mud, then it is just a matter of firing more rocketry. That is to the extent that overt military support is relevant.
Clearly Mr Haass also has the strategy of Brzezinski in Afghanistan in mind. Recall the latter’s offensive pronouncement that creating the pseudo-Islamic terrorist forces in Afghanistan (actually the beginning of “America’s own Ghurka regiments”) was justified as a means of destroying the Soviet Union.
Instead of faux-Muslims, Ukraine is run by crypto-Zionist terrorists who operate Ukraine just like Hamid Karzai ran Afghanistan.
Depopulating Ukraine also benefits the criminal cashflow underlying the plunder of the territory still known by that name.
As we have both argued to different degrees, this was war against Russia from the beginning.
Paul Craig Roberts has insisted from the beginning that Putin failed to see the obvious, thus prolonging the campaign to the brink. I disagree. In real politics it makes a difference what you say too. The tacit avoidance of the obvious (and here Stalin was compelled to act the same) has been necessary to prepare and force the other side to escalate in language first.
Of course this is not 1938 and Putin is not leading a state out of civil war. Germany’s role has been muted because the “Nazis” are already in the Ukraine. From current reports they are engaged in clearing the corridor for a vain but violent missile cruise to Moscow and Sevastapol. Moreover a great deal of Western war preparation was accomplished by the COVID-19 campaign, whose effects on the Western mass psychology and economy are far from dissipated (as they too are entering a new only vaguely perceivable phase).
Yet one can see that the Istanbul format was an attempt to reach something equivalent to the German-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact. That failed – showing that the West learned from its mistake in the last war against Russia.
Why is there such an obvious discrepancy between official US military assessments and those of the Establishment? Let us recall that the notorious Pentagon Papers reported the warrior’s pessimistic appraisal of US efforts in Indochina. The late Daniel Ellsberg adroitly “neglected” to include the crucial CIA chapters in his conscientious exposure. Vietnam was a CIA (corporate) war with military cover. The same applies to the Ukraine. Vladimir Putin surely knows that. However there are also rules in covert warfare. One of them is that the general public must remain confused or ignorant of the underlying business driving the visible and tangible hostilities. Mr Putin has repeated that all wars end with negotiation. Hence his refusal to table demands or assertions that could render the malicious incapable of concessions demonstrates a profound belief in diplomacy foreign not only to perfidious Albion but to its genotypes in the Anglo-American Empire.
Therefore, the professional soldiers (as opposed to paramilitary party cadres in cabinet of general staff) can honestly say what they have been educated to see while the political commissariat repeats the substance of their daily briefings.
For the US, WW2 became desperate only once it was clear that the Wehrmacht was on the retreat. The panic of 1944 that precipitated Normandy and the formal abandonment of fascist (Vichy) and occupied France was triggered by a similar adjustment. 1945 delivered Germany and Japan to US occupation where they have remained ever since. [Except for the interregnum of an East Germany state from 1949 to 1990 — DV ed] It also initiated the kind of war that international financial functionary Bernard Baruch was credited with calling “cold”.
The physical space has not changed. The strategic objectives remain more or less the same as in the Fourth Crusade (including the sack of major Near Eastern population centers). However, there has been an enormous compression of time and lethality.
The inhabitants of Western Eurasia aka Europe are supposed to be simultaneously impoverished and enlisted as Crusaders, think of the 1212 “Children‘s Crusade”. The masses of psychologically maimed since 2020 are to find their salvation in vicarious battle with the “Ivan”. The rabinnical-papal absolutism on the Tiber has long been a patron of perdition. However, there is some irony in the regnal name blessing the slaughter on the Bosporus and elsewhere East. Innocent III was anything but. However innocence and purity, like hygiene and solidarity have become the highest virtues among the quick and the dead of the dissolving Western Empire.
Salvation is just over the rainbow, as the popularity of those banners demonstrates.
In Hoc Signo…
The post In Hoc Signo Vinces first appeared on Dissident Voice.This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.
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Iri and Toshi Maruki, XV Nagasaki, 1982, from The Hiroshima Panels.For Prabir, who is now out of jail.
On the evening of 14 May, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken climbed onstage at Barman Dictat in Kyiv, Ukraine, to pick up an electric guitar and join the Ukrainian punk band 19.99. Ukrainians, he said, are ‘fighting not just for a free Ukraine, but for a free world’. Blinken and 19.99 then played the chorus of Neil Young’s ‘Rockin’ in the Free World’, entirely ignoring the implications of its lyrics – much like Donald Trump, who, to Young’s irritation, used the chorus in his 2015–2016 presidential campaign.
In February 1989, the day after Young received the news that his band’s tour in the USSR fell through, he penned the song’s lyrics, resting on his criticisms of the Reagan years and the first month of George H. W. Bush’s presidency. While it sounds patriotic on the surface, that song – like Bruce Springsteen’s ‘Born in the USA’ (1984) – is deeply critical of the hierarchies and humiliations of capitalist society.
The three verses of ‘Rockin’ in the Free World’ paint a picture of despair (‘people shufflin’ their feet/ people sleepin’ in their shoes’) defined by the drug epidemic plaguing the poor (a woman ‘puts the kid away/ and she’s gone to get a hit’), the collapse of educational opportunities (‘there’s one more kid/ that will never go to school’), and a growing population that lives on the street (‘we got a thousand points of light/ for the homeless man’). Springsteen’s song, written in the shadow of the US war on Vietnam (‘so they put a rifle in my hand/ sent me off to a foreign land/ to go and kill the yellow man’), also captured the strangulation of the working class in the US, many of whom were unable to get a job after returning from a war they did not want (‘down in the shadow of the penitentiary/ out by the gas fires of the refinery/ I’m ten years burning down the road/ nowhere to run ain’t got nowhere to go’).
These are songs of anguish, not anthems of war. To chant ‘born in the USA’ or ‘keep on rockin’ in the free world’ does not evoke a sense of pride in the Global North but a fierce criticism of its ruthless wars. ‘Keep on rockin’ in the free world’ is pickled in irony. Blinken did not get it, nor did Trump. They want the allure of rock and roll, but not the acidity of its lyrics. They do not understand that Neil Young’s 1989 song is the soundtrack of the resistance to the US wars that followed against Panama (1989–1999), Iraq (1990–1991), Yugoslavia (1999), Afghanistan (2001–2021), Iraq (2003–2011), and many more.
Iri and Toshi Maruki, XIII Death of the American Prisoners of War, 1971, from The Hiroshima Panels.Blinken went to Kiev to celebrate the passing of three bills in the US House of Representatives that appropriate $95.3 billion for the militaries of Israel, Taiwan, Ukraine, and the United States. This is in addition to the more than $1.5 trillion that the US spends on its military every year. It is obscene that the US continues to supply Israel with deadly munitions for its genocide against Palestinians in Gaza, including the $26.4 billion it promised to Israel in the new bills while feigning concern for the starvation and slaughter of Palestinians. It is ghastly that the US continues to prevent peace talks between Ukraine and Russia while funding the former’s demoralised military (including $60.8 billion for weapons in the new bills alone) as the US seeks to use the conflict to ‘see Russia weakened’.
At the other end of Eurasia, the US has, similarly, used the issue of Taiwan in its efforts to see China ‘weakened’. That is why this supplemental appropriation allots $8.1 billion for ‘Indo-Pacific security’, including $3.9 billion in armaments for Taiwan and $3.3 billion for submarine construction in the US. Taiwan is not alone as a potential frontline state in this pressure campaign against China: the newly formed Squad, made up of Australia, Japan, the Philippines, and the US, uses solvable conflicts between the Philippines and China as opportunities to weaponise dangerous manoeuvres with the hope of provoking a reaction from China that would give the US an excuse to attack it.
Iri and Toshi Maruki, XIV Crows, 1972, from The Hiroshima Panels.Our new dossier, The New Cold War is Sending Tremors Through Northeast Asia, published in collaboration with the International Strategy Centre (Seoul, South Korea) and No Cold War, argues that ‘the US-led New Cold War against China is destabilising Northeast Asia along the region’s historic fault lines as part of a broader militarisation campaign that extends from Japan and South Korea, through the Taiwan Strait and the Philippines, all the way to Australia and the Pacific Islands’. The bogeyman for this build-up in what the US calls the ‘Indo-Pacific’ (a term developed to draw India into the alliance to encircle China) is North Korea, whose nuclear and missile programmes are used to justify asymmetrical mobilisation along the Pacific edge of Asia. That South Korea’s military budget in 2023 ($47.9 billion) was more than twice North Korea’s GDP ($20.6 billion) in the same year is just one example that highlights this imbalance. This use of North Korea, the dossier argues, ‘has always been a fig leaf for US containment strategies – first against the Soviet Union and today against China’. (You can read the dossier in Korean here).
Iri and Toshi Maruki, XII Floating Lanterns, 1968, from The Hiroshima Panels.In the early years of the US development of the ‘Indo-Pacific strategy’, Chinese scholars such as Hu Bo, Chen Jimin, and Feng Zhennan argued that the term was merely conceptual, limited by the contradictions between the countries involved in the development of the Chinese containment strategy. Over the past few years, however, a new view has developed that these shifts in the Pacific pose a serious threat to China and that the Chinese must respond with bluntness to prevent any provocation. It is this situation, characterised by the US’s creation of alliances that are designed to threaten China (the Quad, AUKUS, JAKUS, and the Squad) alongside China’s refusal to bend before the hyper-imperialism of the Global North, that creates a serious threat in Asia.
The last section of the dossier, ‘A Path to Peace in Northeast Asia’, offers a window into the hopes of the people’s movements in Okinawa (Japan), the Korean peninsula, and China to find a pathway to peace. Five simple principles anchor this path: end the dangerous alliances, US-led war games in the region, and US intervention into the region, and support unity across struggles in the region as well as frontline struggles to end militarisation in Asia. The latter point is being fought on several fronts by those living near Okinawa’s Kadena Air Base and Henoko Bay as well as South Korea’s Terminal High Altitude Area Defence installation and Jeju Naval Base, to name a few.
Iri and Toshi Maruki, X Petition, 1955, from The Hiroshima Panels.Several years ago, I visited the Maruki Gallery outside Higashi-Matsuyama city in Saitama, where I saw the remarkable murals made by Ira Maruki (1901–1995) and Toshi Maruki (1912–2000) to remember the terrible violence of the nuclear bombs that the US government dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. These murals, in the traditional Japanese ink wash style sumi-e, depict the immense human toll of the ugliness of modern warfare. Thanks to the chief curator Yukinori Okamura and the international coordinator Yumi Iwasaki, we were able to include some of these murals in our dossier and in this newsletter.
In 1980, the South Korean military dictatorship arrested Kim Nam-ju (1945–1994) and thirty-five other leftists on the grounds that they were involved in the National Liberation Front Preparation Committee. Kim was a poet and a translator who brought Frantz Fanon’s Black Skin, White Masks and Ho Chi Minh’s writings into Korean. While in Gwangju Prison for eight years, Kim wrote a range of powerful poetry, which he was able to smuggle out for publication. One of those poems, ‘Things Have Really Changed’, is about the suffocation of the ambitions of the Korean people over their own peninsula.
The post Keep on Rockin’ in the Free World first appeared on Dissident Voice.Under Japanese imperialism, if Joseon people
shouted ‘Long Live Independence!’,
Japanese policemen came and took them away,
Japanese prosecutors interrogated them,
Japanese judges put them on trial.Japan withdrew and the US stepped in.
Now if Koreans
say ‘Yankee Go Home’,
Korean police come and take them away,
Korean prosecutors interrogate them,
Korean judges put them on trial.Things have really changed after liberation.
Because I shouted ‘Drive out the foreign invaders!’,
people from my own country
arrested me, interrogated me, and put me on trial.This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.
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The media outrage is nowhere to be seen. But former prime minister Boris Johnson has welcomed a delegation from Ukraine’s neo-Nazi Azov Brigade to UK parliament.
Johnson said:
My message to you is very simple. Thank you to the heroes from the Azov Brigade who have honoured us with their presence tonight
EXCLUSIVE: Active Measures has obtained footage of former UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson praising Ukraine's neo-Nazi Azov Battalion.
Johnson additionally calls for the Ukrainian government to be authorized to use Western weapons inside Russian territory. pic.twitter.com/CuK5SQjX0R
— ACTIVE MEASURES (@ActiveMeasures8) May 23, 2024
In 2015 a spokesperson for the Azov Brigade downplayed comments from an Azov drill sergeant that half the unit are Nazis. Andriy Diachenko said only 10 to 20% are in fact Nazis.
Former leader of the unit Andriy Biletsky and said in 2010 that Ukraine’s purpose was to “lead the white races of the world in a final crusade… against Semite-led Untermenschen [subhumans]”.
At the meeting in parliament Johnson was pictured holding an Azov banner that shows the neo-Nazi Wolfsangel symbol.
In November 2014, then Minister of Internal Affairs of Ukraine Arsen Avakov brought the Azov regiment into Ukraine’s National Guard. That’s part of the official armed forces.
And in 2016, the US lifted a ban on its funds being used to train Azov.
In parliament, Johnson continued:
Give the Ukrainians what they need. Give them the weapons. Give them the authorisation to use those weapons outside their own borders. It’s absolutely ludicrous that Ukrainians should be forbidden from doing what Putin is doing himself… why on earth shouldn’t Ukrainians be able to attack Russian forces mustering on their borders?
While Vladimir Putin is responsible for invading Ukraine, in February 2022 then UK prime minister Johnson scuppered a peace deal that could’ve ended the war.
Indeed, foreign secretary David Cameron said in April 2024 that the war is “extremely good value for money” because it depletes Russia.
It’s outrageous that Johnson has welcomed a neo-Nazi delegation to parliament. And it’s unclear where those commentators and groups who frequently allege antisemitism against critics of Israel are now.
Featured image via RT – screengrab
By James Wright
This post was originally published on Canary.
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Things are looking dire for the Ukrainian war effort. Promises of victory are becoming even hollower than they were last summer, when US President Joe Biden could state with breathtaking obliviousness that Russia had “already lost the war”. The worst offender in this regard remains the United States, which has been the most vocal proponent of fanciful victory over Russia, a message which reads increasingly as one of fighting to the last Ukrainian.
Such a victory is nigh fantasy, almost impossible to envisage. For one thing, domestic considerations about continued support for Kyiv have played a stalling part. In the US Congress, a large military aid package was stalled for six months. Among some Republicans, in particular, Ukraine was not a freedom loving despoiled figure needing props and crutches. “From our perspective,” opines Kentucky Republican Senator Rand Paul, “Ukraine should not and cannot be our problem to solve. It is not our place to defend them in a struggle with their longtime adversary, Russia.” The assessment, in this regard, was a matter of some clarity for Paul. “There is no national security interest for the United States.”
Despite this, the Washington foreign policy and military elite continue to make siren calls of seduction in Kyiv’s direction. On April 23, the Senate finally approved a $US95.3 billion aid package for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan, with the lion’s share – some US$61 billion – intended for Ukraine’s war effort.
On April 24, a press release from US Secretary State Antony Blinken announced a further US$1 billion package packed with “urgently needed capabilities including air defense missiles, munitions for HIMARS, artillery rounds, armored vehicles, precision aerial munitions, anti-armor weapons, and small arms, equipment, and spare parts to help Ukraine defend its territory and protect its people.”
On May 14, in his address to the Igor Sikorsky Kyiv Polytechnic Institute, Blinken described what could only be reasoned as a vast mirage. “Today, I’m here in Kyiv to speak about Ukraine’s strategic success. And to set out how, with our support, the Ukrainian people can and will achieve their vision for the near future: a free, prosperous, secure democracy – fully integrated into the Euro-Atlantic community – and fully in control of its own destiny.” This astonishingly irresponsible statement makes Washington’s security agenda clear and Kyiv’s fate bleak: Ukraine is to become a pro-US, anti-Russian bastion, with an open cheque book at the ready.
Russia’s President Vladimir Putin has made the prevention of that vision an article of faith. While Russian forces, in men and material, have suffered horrendous losses, the attritive nature of the conflict is starting to tell. While Blinken was gulling his audience, the military realities show significant Russian advances, including a threatening push towards Kharkiv, reversing Ukrainian gains made in 2022.
There are also wounding advances being made in other areas of the conflict. US and NATO artillery and drones supplied to Ukraine’s military forces have been countered by Russian electronic warfare methods. GPS receivers, for instance, have been sufficiently deceived to misdirect missiles shot from HIMARS launchers. In a number of cases, the Russian forces have also identified and destroyed the launchers.
Russian air power has been brought to bear on critical infrastructure. Radar defying glide bombs have been used with considerable effect. On the production and deployment front, Colonel Ivan Pavlenko, chief of EW and cyber warfare at Ukraine’s general staff, lamented in February that Russia’s use of drones was also “becoming a huge threat”. Depleted stocks of weaponry are being replenished, and more soldiers are being called to the front.
Despite concerns, one need not scour far to find pundits who insist that such advances and gains can be neutralised. Michael Kofman of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace admits to current Russian “material advantage” and holding “the strategic initiative,” though goes on to speculate that this “may not prove decisive”.
The gong of deceit and delusion must, however, go to Blinken. Americans, he claimed, understood “that our support for Ukraine strengthens the security of the United States and our allies.” Were Putin to win – and here, that old nag of appeasement makes an undesirable appearance – “he won’t stop with Ukraine; he’ll keep going. For when in history has an autocrat been satisfied with carving off just part, or even all, of a single country?”
Towards that end, “we do have a plan,” he coyly insisted. This entailed ensuring Ukraine had “the military that it needs to succeed on the battlefield”. Biden was encouraged by Ukrainian mobilisation efforts, skipping around the logistical delays that had marred it. Washington’s “joint task” was to “secure Ukraine’s sustained and permanent strategic advantage”, enabling it to win the current battles and “defend against future attacks. As President Biden said, we want Ukraine to win – and we’re committed to helping you do it.”
Even by the standards of US Secretaries of States, Blinken’s conduct in Kyiv proved brazen and shameless. A perfect illustration of this came with his musical effort alongside local band, 19.99, involving a rendition of Neil Young’s “Rockin’ in the Free World.”
Local indignation was quick to follow. “Six months of waiting for the decision of the American Congress” had, fumed Bohdan Yaremenko, legislator and former diplomat with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s party, “taken the lives of very, very many defenders of the free world”. What the US was performing “for the free world is not rock ’n’ roll, but some other music similar to Russian chanson.”
As for the performance itself, the crowd at Barman Dictat witnessed yet another misreading – naturally by a US politician – of an anthem intended to excoriate American failings, from homelessness to “a kinder, gentler machine gun hand”. Appropriately, the guitar, much like the performer, was out of tune.
The post Promising the Impossible: Blinken’s Out of Tune Performance in Kyiv first appeared on Dissident Voice.
This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Binoy Kampmark.This post was originally published on Radio Free.
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Rishi Sunak says Belfast judgment will not affect his plans and the Good Friday agreement should not be used to obstruct Westminster policy
Sunak starts with global security threats.
The dangers that threaten our country are real.
There’s an increasing number of authoritarian states like Russia, Iran, North Korea and China working together to undermine us and our values.
People are abusing our liberal democratic values of freedom of speech, the right to protest, to intimidate, threaten and assault others, to sing antisemitic chants on our streets and our university campuses, and to weaponize the evils of antisemitism or anti-Muslim hatred, in a divisive ideological attempt to set Britain against Britain.
And from gender activists hijacking children’s sex education, to cancel culture, vocal and aggressive fringe groups are trying to impose their views on the rest of us.
Continue reading…This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.
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Surprisingly perhaps, Ukraine has not given up trying to export defence equipment, despite its pressing needs on the home front. At DSA, the National Association of Ukrainian Defence Industries (NAUDI) is showing models of a mobile radar, light armoured vehicles, a self-propelled howitzer, a multiple launch rocket system (MLRS) and three missiles. Above the stand […]
The post Ukraine Seeks Customers, Despite War appeared first on Asian Military Review.
This post was originally published on Asian Military Review.
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[This is a transcript of my full speech for the Bristol Palestine Alliance’s March Against Media Bias at College Green, Bristol, on Saturday May 4.]
Yesterday was World Press Freedom Day, and it is fitting we mark it by highlighting two things.
First, we should honour the brave journalists of Gaza who have paid a horrifying price for making the Palestinian experience of genocide visible to western audiences over the past seven months.
Israel has killed a tenth of their number – some 100 journalists – as it tries to prevent the truth of its atrocities from getting out. Israel’s has been most deadly eruption of violence against journalists ever recorded.
Second, we must shame the western media – not least the BBC – who have so utterly betrayed their Palestinian colleagues by failing to properly report the destruction of Gaza, or name it as a genocide.
The BBC aired only the briefest coverage of South Africa’s devastating case against Israel at the International Court of Justice in January – a case so powerful the court has put Israel on trial for genocide. A fact you would barely know from the BBC’s reporting.
By contrast, the corporation cleared the schedules to present in full Israel’s hollow legal response.
The BBC’s double standards are all the more glaring if we recall how it reported Ukraine, also invaded by a hostile army – Russia’s.
Only two years ago the BBC dedicated its main news headlines to Kyiv’s citizens mass-producing molotov cocktails with which to greet Russian soldiers closing in on their city.
BBC Middle East editor Jeremy Bowen felt emboldened to post – apparently approvingly – a diagram showing weak points where the improvised explosives would do most damage to Russian tanks, and the soldiers inside.
Two years later, in its coverage of Israel’s assault on Gaza, the same BBC has performed a 180-degree turn.
It is quite impossible to imagine Bowen or any other British journalist posting instructions on how Palestinians might burn alive Israeli soldiers in their tanks – even though those soldiers, unlike Russia’s, have been occupying and stealing Palestinian lands for decades, not two years.
Israeli soldiers, unlike Russian soldiers, are now actively enforcing a genocidal policy of starvation.
But the double standards of establishment media like the BBC aren’t directed only towards the people of Gaza. They are directed at us, the public, too.
The same media that celebrated families taking in Ukrainian refugees has willingly conspired in the smearing of those whose only crime is that they wish to stop the slaughter of 15,000-plus Palestinian children in Gaza.
There is apparently nothing heroic about opposing Israel’s genocide, even if opposing Russia’s invasion is still treated as a badge of honour.
The media give politicians a free pass to vilify as an antisemite anyone outraged that UK weapons are being used to help kill, maim and orphan many, many tens of thousands of Palestinian children. That accusation assumes that every Jew supports this slaughter, and erases all those Jews standing alongside us today at this protest.
In the US, police forces are beating and arresting students who have peacefully called on their universities to stop investing in the arming of Israel’s genocide. When the police pulled back at UCLA, it was only to allow pro-Israel thugs to assault the students – again many of them Jews.
A clear war is being waged against the right to protest against a genocide. And in tandem, the media has declared a war on the English language.
The roles of aggressor and victim have been reversed. The BBC accused the students, encamped on university grounds, of “clashing” with pro-Israel groups that invaded the campus to violently attack them.
What explains these glaring inconsistencies, this gigantic failure by a media that’s supposed to act as a watchdog on the abuse of power.
Part of the answer is old-school racism. Ukrainains look like us, as some reporters let slip, and therefore deserve our solidarity. Palestinians, it seems, do not.
But there is another, more important answer. The establishment media isn’t really a watchdog on the abuse of power. It never was. It is a narrative factory, there to create stories that make those abuses of power possible.
State and billionaire-owned media achieve this goal through various sleights of hand.
First, they omit stories that might disrupt the core narrative.
The media’s script is a simple one:
What the West and its allies do is always well-meant, however horrific the outcomes.
And what the West does, however provocative or foolhardy, can never be cited as an explanation for what our “enemies” do.
No cause and no effect. They, whoever we select, are simply savage. They are evil. Theyare out to destroy civilisation. They must be stopped.
Nightly for weeks, I have watched the BBC news. If it were all I relied on, I would barely know that Israel is daily bombing the refugee camps of Rafah that are supposedly a “safe zone”.
Or that Israel continues to engineer a famine by blocking aid, and that Palestinians continue to die of hunger.
Or that the UK has actively assisted the creation of that famine by denying UNRWA funding.
Or that the protests to end the Gaza genocide – painted as terror-supporting and antisemitic – are backed by many, many Jews, some of them here today.
And of course, I would have little idea that Israel’s imprisonment and slaughter of Palestinians did not begin on October 7 with Hamas’ attack.
That’s because the BBC continues to ignore the siege of Gaza as the context for October 7 – just as it and the rest of the media largely ignored the 17-year siege throughout the years Israel was enforcing it.
If I relied on the BBC, I would not understand that what Israel is doing can be neither “retaliation”, nor a “war”. You can’t go to war, or retaliate, against a people whose territory you have been belligerently occupying and stealing for decades.
And when the media can no longer omit, it distracts – through strategies of deflection, misdirection and minimisation.
So when Gaza makes the news, as it rarely does now, it is invariably filtered through other lenses.
The focus is on interminable negotiations, on Israel’s plans for the “day after”, on the agonies of the hostages’ families, on the fears evoked by protest chants, on where to draw the line on free speech.
Anything to avoid addressing a genocide that’s been carried out in broad daylight for seven months.
In their defence, establishment journalists tell us that they have a duty to be impartial. Their critics, they say, do not understand how news operations work.
As a journalist who spent years working in major newsrooms, I can assure you this is a self-serving lie.
Just this week, an interview went viral of the Norway Broadcasting Corporation interviewing Israeli government spokesman David Mencer. Unlike on the BBC, Mencer’s lies did not pass unchallenged.
The Norwegian journalist spent 25 minutes unpicking his falsehoods and deceptions, one by one. It was revelatory to see an Israeli spokesperson’s claims stripped away, layer by layer, until he stood there naked, his lies exposed.
It can be done – if there is a will to do it.
Journalists at the BBC and the rest of the establishment media understand, however implicitly, that their job is to fail. It is to fail to investigate the genocide in Gaza. It is to fail to give voice to the powerless. It is to fail to provide context and aid understanding. It is to fail to show solidarity with their colleagues in Gaza being killed for their journalism.
Rather, the BBC’s role is to protect the political establishment from ever being held to account for their complicity in genocide.
The establishment media’s job is to create the impression of uncertainty, of doubt, of confusion – even when what is happening is crystal clear.
When one day, the World Court finally gets round to issuing a ruling on Israel’s genocide, our politicians and media will claim they could not have known, that they were misled, that they could not see clearly because events were shrouded by the “fog of war”.
Our job is to explode that lie, to deny them an alibi. It is to keep pointing out that the information was there from the start. They knew, if only because we told them.
And one day, if there is any justice, they will stand in the dock – at the Hague – their excuses stripped away.
The post Why the media have failed Gaza first appeared on Dissident Voice.This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.
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This content originally appeared on Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and was authored by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.This post was originally published on Radio Free.
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This content originally appeared on Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and was authored by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.This post was originally published on Radio Free.
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This content originally appeared on Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and was authored by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.This post was originally published on Radio Free.
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Following the U.S. approval of a Ukraine aid package in April, a misleading claim emerged on Chinese-language social media that Ukrainian-American congresswoman Victoria Spartz opposed it by proposing four amendments. It is true that Spartz voted against the bill, but she also noted that she was in favor of supporting Ukraine, and she proposed only one amendment.
Social media users also cited a clip, claiming that Spartz stated Russian President Vladimir Putin was not a dictator, unlike U.S. President Joe Biden and former President Barack Obama. A review of the clip shows that Spartz made no mention of a dictator.
The claim was shared on the popular Chinese social media platform Weibo on April 22, 2024.
“Spartz, a Ukrainian-born U.S. Congressman, voted against aid to Ukraine … She also proposed 4 amendments to humiliate Ukraine,” the claim reads.
“She says: I grew up in the Soviet Union (not recognizing Ukraine’s independence) and I know what a dictatorship is. Putin is not [a dictator]. But Obama and Biden are,” it reads further.
The claim was shared alongside a 37-second clip that shows Spartz speaking at what appears to be the U.S. Congress.
Victoria Spartz is a Ukrainian-American politician and businesswoman who is the representative for Indiana’s 5th congressional district.
Spartz, a Republican and the first and only Ukrainian-born member of Congress, emerged early on as a natural advocate for supporting her native country in its war with Russia.
The claim began to circulate online after the United States last week approved a US$61 billion military assistance package to help Ukraine in its defense against Russia, which invaded the country in 2022.
Similar claims were also shared on X and Threads.
Chinese netizens across several social media platforms spread rumors that Ukrainian-American congresswoman Victoria Spartz had proposed amendments to the newest Ukraine aid package to “humiliate” Ukraine. (Screenshots/X, Weibo & Threads) But the claims are misleading.
Spartz on the Ukraine aid bill
It is true that Spartz voted against the bill, but she noted that she was in favor of supporting Ukraine, and she proposed only one amendment.
“We have the false choice of either saying that Ukraine doesn’t matter to America or support Ukraine with no questions asked, with blank checks,” said Spartz on April 20, as cited by the official record of the congressional discussion preceding the passage of the bill.
“Both of these positions are not good in our national interests, and both of these positions are not good in the interests of the people of Ukraine. Unfortunately, this monopoly of a narrative is prevailing in our government, in our society, and in Congress,” she added.
On April 20, four lawmakers were scheduled to propose amendments to the Ukraine aid bill. Spartz was just one of the proposers, suggesting an amendment to the bill’s sections “401, 402, 403, and 407,” which was intended to change the amount of aid increase to fund Ukraine. Her proposal was rejected in the end.
Besides Spartz’s, two of the other amendments proposed by Georgia’s Marjorie Taylor Greene and Florida’s Kat Cammack were also rejected after discussion, while the third by Kevin Hern of Oklahoma was not brought up that day.
Official records of Spartz amendments and relevant comments about the bill show that she did not propose any motions “humiliating” to Ukraine. (Screenshots/Congress official website) Spartz’s video
A reverse image search on Google found the video of Spartz shared in misleading social media posts published on YouTube on March 12, more than a month before the Ukraine aid bill was passed in the House.
A review of the clip shows that she made no mention of either Biden or Obama being a dictator, although she criticized them for “emboldening tyranny” in the United States. Additionally, she made no comments suggesting that Russian President Vladimir Putin was not a dictator.
Translated by Shen Ke. Edited by Shen Ke, Taejun Kang and Malcolm Foster.
Asia Fact Check Lab (AFCL) was established to counter disinformation in today’s complex media environment. We publish fact-checks, media-watches and in-depth reports that aim to sharpen and deepen our readers’ understanding of current affairs and public issues. If you like our content, you can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram and X.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Alan Lu for Asia Fact Check Lab.This post was originally published on Radio Free.
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The post The Stupidity of It All first appeared on Dissident Voice.
House of Representatives legislation that includes “$60 billion for Kyiv, $26 billion for Israel and humanitarian aid for civilians in conflict zones, including Gaza, and $8 billion for the Indo-Pacific region,” informs the world of the stupidity of it all — from Kyiv to Taiwan, dumbness governs fate. Examine each appropriation, one at a time.
Kyiv
Forced into a political decision that makes it appear that America does not desert its allies, the appropriation accomplishes nothing except to assure that more Russians are killed. It does not save Ukrainian lives or enable Ukraine to gain a leading edge in the war.
In the short run, Ukraine is better protected, which means the war is extended. The kill and destruction rate will be lessened and the time for killing and destruction will be lengthened. The appropriation serves to slightly lessen Ukrainian misery each day and extend the misery for a longer time. The total misery will be the same and feel worse.
Ukraine cannot win the war; it can barely contain the war. Russian troops occupy 1/3 of the country and not one Ukraine soldier is on Russian soil. This is a war of attrition, and, by numbers, Russia wins that war. The deaths and sorrows solicit a solution and not a continuation. The U.S. House of Representatives proudly announces its contribution to the continuation of death and sorrow and does not realize the stupidity of it all.
Some day, at least before all Ukrainian life has been extinguished, the war will end and not satisfactorily for Ukraine. Why wait? Russia has most of what it wants — Crimea and Donbass — both of which were part of the Russian Empire since the late 18th century. If Putin wants Odessa and territory that reaches Transnistria, this may mean extensive negotiations, which is still preferred to extensive slaughter.
Israel
Tied to $17 billion in assistance to Israel’s war effort is $2 billion in humanitarian aid to Gaza. This gives Israel ample funds for acquiring supposed defensive weapons, which it would not need if it stopped offending others, and enables the Zionist kingdom to use its funds for offensive weapons and continue the genocide of the Palestinians. After contributing to infliction of more deaths and sorrows upon the Palestinians, appropriations will be available to relieve their suffering from the $17 billion worth of weapons given to Israel. I have an idea — stop Israel’s attacks on others and its genocide of the Palestinians and then no appropriations will be necessary for anyone.
Not recognizing the use of the October 7 attack as an excuse for the genocide of the Palestinian people is inexcusable. Assisting the genocide by enriching the aggressor is criminal. The United Nations(UN) Office of Expert Scholars, several nations, Craig Mokhiber, former director of the New York office of the UN’s High Commissioner for Human Rights, Francesca Albanese at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, and a large mass of humanity consider Israel’s destruction of the Palestinians as genocide. Amnesty International’s Secretary General, Agnès Callamard says, “Palestinians in Gaza are at risk of genocide, more than 32,000 people have been killed, children have been starved to death amid an imminent Israeli-engineered famine and vast swathes of the Strip have been rendered uninhabitable.” Over a hundred organizations and human rights defenders are calling for arrest warrants for Israeli officials to prevent genocide of the Palestinians.
Despite the authoritative, credible, and legal knowledge, US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and the US State Department said, “We don’t have any evidence of genocide being [committed]” by Israel in Gaza.” They have no evidence because the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and AIPAC, two of their “reliable” sources, have told them there is no evidence and the Biden administration does not want evidence that involves Americans in committing genocide. The public accepts the ugly attachment and willingly donates funds to enhance the slaughter. This is strange. The Holocaust occurred in Europe and the US has tens of Holocaust memorial museums, which have been built to give Americans a “guilt trip“and educate them on the prevention of genocide. These museums have been counterproductive, as are most US policies; instead of preventing genocides, the museums have encouraged genocide. Let’s close these wasteful museums, pay less attention to the word Holocaust, which crowds out GENOCIDE IN GAZA, and hold 24/7 education sessions for all Americans on the Gaza genocide. Include the moribund US government officials who aren’t ashamed to be in the stupidity of it all.
Indo-Pacific Region
This donation to increase tension is mostly about Taiwan. If the People’s Republic of China (PRC) attacks, military assistance to Taiwan may lessen casualties to the Taiwanese but it will lengthen the conflict and cause more casualties to the Peoples Liberation Army. No amount of military assistance to Taiwan can prevent the PRC of 1.3 billion people, an army of 2,035,000 active personnel and 510,000 reserve personnel from overcoming Taiwan’s 23.7 million population and its army of 180,000 active personnel and 1,657,000 reserve personnel. No amount of provocation will push the PRC to attack its fellow Chinese. The appropriation is a waste of taxpayer money and another stupidity of it all.
Immediately after the United States recognized the PRC and terminated diplomatic relations with Taiwan on January 1, 1979, the PRC could have walked into Taiwan and the US would have done nothing. China has had 75 years to invade and reincorporate Taiwan into the PRC and has not set the Taiwan Straits straight. Hasn’t China been patient and sensible? The Hong Kong protests, contradictory to US press assertions of China’s brutality, demonstrated China’s care and restraint — no protester died due to police action in an incident related to the demonstrations. In a protest demonstration in Iraq, which occurred at a similar time, the Associated Press reported, “at least 320 protesters have been killed in the demonstrations.”
By law, de jure, Taiwan is a province in China. Beijing designates the island as “Taiwan province.” The PRC does not recognize the Taiwanese passport and issues temporary IDs for Taiwanese who travel to China. The holders of the temporary IDs are treated as Chinese citizens in China. International agencies also give China de jure recognition of Taiwan. The World Bank sometimes calls it “Taiwan District.” The International Monetary Fund prefers the declarative “Taiwan Province of China.” The International Olympic Committee calls it “Chinese Taipei.”
China also wins Taiwan by default. The island is not recognized as a country. To be a country requires diplomatic recognition by the member states of the United Nations. Because Taiwan was removed as a member of the UN, it is classified as a territory. Only 11 countries and the Vatican, all small, recognize Taiwan — Belize, Eswatini, Guatemala, Haiti, Marshall Islands, Palau, Paraguay, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Tuvalu, and Vatican City. If Taiwan is not a country then to whom does it belong?
Everyone has a fantasy — Taiwan may say it is not part of China but it is a separate part of China, slightly in rebellion. China may say it is a province but it is an uncontrolled province, and the US may constantly accuse China of provocations and prepared to invade Taiwan but it is the US who is provocative and behaving most aggressively. The US actions, which have no purpose and do not change Taiwan’s status are the most fantastic and another stupidity of it all.
Jewish people
Dumbest are the Jewish people for maintaining faith in the Zionist mission and the Israeli government who are preparing their demise. Let us recite the facts, and there is no possible refutation to them – a state that calls itself Jewish and a preponderance of world Jewry are committing genocide of the Palestinian people and don’t expect retribution.
To offset attention to the genocide, Israel’s supporters use media control and continue to flood the ether with Holocaust stories. A latest exposé, on the CBS program Sixty Minutes, charges the British government with covering up the killing of Jewish concentration camp inmates (??? may have only been laborers who died) and others on German captured and controlled Guernsey Island during World War II. Seems the Jewish victims, who have not been well identified by cause of death and name, are added to the total of Holocaust victims. Nothing more pleasing to these Holocaust worshippers than to have more Jews killed; nothing makes them happier.
An advertisement that charges anti-Semitism and asks all to reject hate, mentions that 385 synagogues have received false alarm calls of bombs within the buildings. No bombs, no casualties, and the calls may all be from one person. Different in Gazan mosques; no calls, real bombs, thousands of casualties, and from an entire army of hate.
Do the guardians of hate in America, who don’t run ads on the magnitude more serious attacks on Muslims, Orientals, Hispanics, Blacks, and LGBT citizens, expect the world not to despise those guilty of committing genocide? Do they believe they can turn truth into anti-Semitism? Due to the carelessness of university presidents, they may be succeeding. The huge campus protests against the killing fields of genocide are given sinister motives and featured are protests by a few persons who voice complaints about bad words and slaps at a half dozen persons on the campuses who happen to be Jews. The complaints don’t merit much attention.
Only a few Jewish students have been touched and none severely injured in the campus protests. If a student does not want to be bothered, then why not stay away from the demonstrations? And beware of Zionist provocateurs, infiltrators who cause trouble and then yell trouble. In every catastrophic situation, emotions, anger, tension, and tempers are volatile and exaggerated. Taking a few instances of anger in this highly volatile situation, when people want to scream out against the most serious injustice to millions, and deceitfully making it into a contrived torrent of anti-Semitism that gains attention is… you got it… another stupidity of it all. Why isn’t this hyperbole exposed? Why is it allowed?
This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.
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This content originally appeared on Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and was authored by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.This post was originally published on Radio Free.
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Chinese President Xi Jinping meets with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, capital of China, April 26, 2024. Photo: Xinhua
A foreboding article was published on April 24. It was pointed out that China had provided a berth to a Russian ship Angara that is purportedly “tied to North Korea-Russia arms transfers.”
Reuters cited Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) – that boasts of itself to be “the world’s oldest and the UK’s leading defence and security think tank” – which claims Angara, since August 2023, has transported “thousands of containers believed to contain North Korean munitions,” [italics added] to Russian ports.
Container ships transport containers, and along the way they dock in certain harbors. Until satellite photos have X-ray capability any speculation about what is inside a container will be just that: speculation. Discerning readers will readily pick up on this.
Despite China repeatedly coming out in favor of peace, Reuters, nonetheless, plays up US concerns over perceived support by Beijing for “Moscow’s war” (what Moscow calls a “special military operation”) in Ukraine.
And right on cue, US secretary-of-state Antony Blinken shows up in Beijing echoing a list of US concerns vis-à-vis China.
Blinken had public words for China: “In my meetings with NATO Allies earlier this month and with our G7 partners just last week, I heard that same message: fueling Russia’s defense industrial base not only threatens Ukrainian security; it threatens European security. Beijing cannot achieve better relations with Europe while supporting the greatest threat to European security since the end of the Cold War. As we’ve told China for some time, ensuring transatlantic security is a core US interest. In our discussions today, I made clear that if China does not address this problem, we will.”
It would seem clear that the Taiwan Straits is a core China interest, no? Or is it only US core interests that matter?
Blinken: “I also expressed our concern about the PRC’s unfair trade practices and the potential consequences of industrial overcapacity to global and US markets, especially in a number of key industries that will drive the 21st century economy, like solar panels, electric vehicles, and the batteries that power them. China alone is producing more than 100 percent of global demand for these products, flooding markets, undermining competition, putting at risk livelihoods and businesses around the world.”
It sounds like sour grapes from the US that China’s R&D and manufacturing is out-competing the US. Take, for example, that the US sanctions Huawei while China allows Apple to sell its products unhindered in China. China has hit back at the rhetoric of “overcapacity.”
Blinken complained of “PRC’s dangerous actions in the South China Sea, including against routine Philippine maintenance operations and maritime operations near the Second Thomas Shoal. Freedom of navigation and commerce in these waterways is not only critical to the Philippines, but to the US and to every other nation in the Indo-Pacific and indeed around the world.”
Mentioning freedom of navigation implies that China is preventing such. Why is freedom of navigation in the South China Sea critical to the US? Second Thomas Shoal is a colonial designation otherwise known as Renai Jiao in China. The “routine Philippine maintenance operations and maritime operations” that Blinken speaks of are for a navy landing craft that was intentionally grounded by the Philippines in 1999. Since then, the Philippines has been intermittently resupplying its soldiers stationed there.
Blinken: “I reaffirmed the US’s ‘one China’ policy and stressed the critical importance of maintaining peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait.”
How does the US stationing US soldiers on the Chinese territory of Taiwan without approval from Beijing reaffirm the US’s commitment to a one-China policy? The Shanghai Communiqué of 1972 states “the United States acknowledges that Chinese on either side of the Taiwan Strait maintain there is but one China and that Taiwan is a part of China. The United States does not challenge that position.”
Blinken: “I also raised concerns about the erosion of Hong Kong’s autonomy and democratic institutions as well as transnational repression, ongoing human rights abuses in Xinjiang and Tibet, and a number of individual human rights cases.”
Evidence of human rights abuses in Xinjiang? This is a definitive downplay from the previous allegations of a genocide against Uyghurs. It would be embarrassing to continue to accuse China of a genocide in Xinjiang due to a paucity of bodies which is a sine qua non for such a serious allegation as a genocide; meanwhile the US-armed Israel is blowing up hospitals and schools with ten-of-thousands of confirmed Palestinian civilian bodies. Even if there are human rights abuses in Xinjiang (which should be deplored were there condemnatory evidence), the US would still be morally assailable for its selective outrage.
Blinken: “I encouraged China to use its influence to discourage Iran and its proxies from expanding the conflict in the Middle East, and to press Pyongyang to end its dangerous behavior and engage in dialogue.”
Is the US militarily backing a genocide of Palestinians a “conflict.” Are US military maneuvers in the waters near North Korea “safe behavior”?
Blinken responded to a question: “But now it is absolutely critical that the support that [China’s] providing – not in terms of weapons but components for the defense industrial base – again, things like machine tools, microelectronics, where it is overwhelmingly the number-one supplier to Russia. That’s having a material effect in Ukraine and against Ukraine, but it’s also having a material effect in creating a growing [sic] that Russia poses to countries in Europe and something that has captured their attention in a very intense way.”
Are the ATACMS, Javelins, HIMARS, Leopard tanks, drones, artillery, Patriot missile defense, etc supposed to be absolutely uncritical and have no material effect on the fighting in Ukraine? And who is posing a threat to who? European countries are funding and arming Ukraine and sanctioning Russia not vice versa? It sounds perversely Orwellian.
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From Biden to Harris to Yellen to Raimondo to Sullivan to Blinken, US officials again and again try to browbeat and put down their Chinese colleagues.
At the opening meeting on 18 March 2021 of the US-China talks in Anchorage, Alaska, the arrogance of Blinken and the US was put on notice by the rebuke of Chinese foreign affairs official Yang Jiechi: “[T]he US does not have the qualification to say it wants to speak to China from a position of strength.” It doesn’t seem to have sunk in for the American side.
The Russia-China relationship is solid. China’s economy is growing strongly. Scores of countries are clamoring to join BRICS+ and dedollarization is well underway. Yet, the US continues to try to bully the world’s largest – and still rapidly growing – economy. This strategy appears to affirm the commonly referred to aphorism about the definition of insanity: trying the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.
The post Is US Officialdom Insane? first appeared on Dissident Voice.This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.
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The US Congress authorized a $95 billion military aid package for continuing the wars in Ukraine and Gaza as well as for war preparations against China. This represents, in effect, a downpayment on World War III. US President Joe Biden, reading from a playbook that could well have been scripted by George Orwell, announced: “it’s a good day for world peace.” And in order to dispel any doubt, he added, “for real.”
Biden proclaimed: “It’s going to make the world safer.” In fact, the bipartisan authorization, passed on April 23, could nudge the doomsday clock a little closer to midnight.
Lest there be any confusion about what the head of the US empire means by making the world safer, Biden explains: “it continues America’s leadership in the world.”
US leadership is the crux of the matter. That is, at a time of increasingly challenged US hegemony, the official US strategy is still global “full spectrum dominance.” No longer does the empire justify itself as leading the crusade against communism, or even against what it considered “terrorism,” or its “war on drugs.” Today, the official national security doctrine is naked “great power competition.”
Continuing the Orwellian theme, the US president backed up his claim about US world leadership, saying, “everyone knows it.” This was not reflected in the UN General Assembly vote on an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, where the US side was trounced by an overwhelming 153 in favor. Besides the US and Israel, only eight others voted against and a mere 23 abstained. On any number of issues, the majority of the world’s population opposes the US.
Biden’s boast that “Ukraine has regained over half the territory that Russia took from them” is not particularly reflected by the Annual Threat Assessment of the US Intelligence Community, which concluded that the current deadlock “plays to Russia’s strategic military advantages and is increasingly shifting the momentum in Moscow’s favor.”
Hailing the “brave Ukrainians,” Biden overlooks that 650,000 Ukrainian men of fighting age have fled the country.
Diminishing prospects for a decisive US/NATO victory in Ukraine have precipitated a particularly dangerous response from Washington, which rejects a negotiated settlement. The current administration’s plan is not to pull for peace but to push for more war. This is spun as a strategy “to stop Putin from drawing the United States into a war.” Yet it is the US, which is doing its part feeding the conflict by giving yet more armaments to the military effort.
The expansion of NATO, contrary to earlier US assurances not to advance east, is hailed in Biden’s speech. Yet, this march of NATO toward the Russian border is the very cause that Russian President Putin gave for his country’s incursion into Ukraine. This abundantly articulated Russian “redline” should be well known in Washington.
Yet, Biden in his speech goes on to ominously raise NATO’s Article Five for mutual defense which declares “an attack on one is an attack on all.” This is plainly a taunt for a war with another nuclear power. Veterans for Peace antiwar activist and author Dee Knight calls the military aid package “an open-ended commitment to the NATO war against Russia.”
In yet another spin on reality, Biden condemns “a brutal campaign” that has “killed tens of thousands” and “bombed hospitals.” If you think he is referring to Israel’s US-enabled war on Gaza, guess again.
Biden is not about to call a halt on the genocide of the Palestinians, though he could. In 1982, for instance, Israel bombed civilians. Then US President Ronald Reagan called his counterpart in Tel Aviv and told him to stop what he explicitly called a “holocaust.”
Twenty minutes later Israel ordered cessation of its bombardment. In contrast, The New York Times reports that a member of Israel’s war cabinet predicts the current war may last “a year, a decade or a generation.”
“My commitment to Israel, I want to make clear again, is ironclad,” says the US politician who is by far the “biggest recipient in history of donations from pro-Israeli groups.”
The aid package schizophrenically commits tax-payer dollars to both lethal weapons and humanitarian aid for “the innocent people of Gaza, who are suffering badly.” No recognition is given to what is obvious – that an immediate and permanent ceasefire is the first step for relieving the suffering.
War may not be good for most of humanity, but it is bonanza for US military contractors. As Biden brags, the weapons are “made by American companies here in America…in other words, we’re helping Ukraine while at the same time investing in our own industrial base.” That is, our own merchants of death are making a killing.
Biden has over-performed in his promise to make sure the weapons shipments “start right away.” Without legal pre-authorization, the US has supplied both Ukraine and Israel with proscribed weaponry.
Most of the funds, according to economist Jack Rasmus, are for weapons that have already been delivered or from military stocks that are in the process of being shipped. “Only $13.8 billion of the $61 billion is for weapons Ukraine doesn’t already have!” In a tweet embarrassing to the US-backed war effort and subsequently deleted, CBS News suggested only about 30% of US military aid for Ukraine ever reaches the front lines, in part due to pervasive corruption.
“Everything we do,” the US president explains is, “setting the conditions for an enduring peace.” The question his proclamation raises is what does this vision of a militarily imposed pax Americana look like?
Is it Haiti, where under Yankee benevolence they do not even have a government and even the disgraced appointed prime minister just resigned? Or is it Libya, where a US-led colonial coalition overthrew a major force for African unity and replaced it with military factions allowing slaves to be openly bartered on the streets? Or is it Afghanistan, where the US engineered the overthrow of a socialist government that stood for women’s emancipation, occupied the land for two decades, and then withdrew leaving a humanitarian disaster?
In short, the Biden’s promise of “enduring peace” looks a lot like chaos and “endless war.” “History will remember this moment,” he predicts. And well it may.
The post US Congress Makes Downpayment on World War III first appeared on Dissident Voice.This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.
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Tourists visiting Spanish cities like Córdoba, Toledo and Sevilla have the option of whiling away an hour or so at a ‘Museum of the Inquisition’, sometimes known as a ‘Gallery of Torture’. For around three euros, visitors can view an exotic range of devices used to impale, immolate, strangle and dismember human beings in the name of God.
It’s tempting to reassure ourselves that these are relics of a far-distant past, horrors that could never happen now. But did the Dark Ages ever really end? Noam Chomsky commented:
‘Part of the tragedy of the Palestinians is that they have essentially no international support. For a good reason – they don’t have wealth, they don’t have power. So they don’t have rights. It’s the way the world works – your rights correspond to your power and your wealth.’
It is indeed the way the world works. It is also the way the medieval world worked. UK Foreign Secretary, Lord David Cameron (Baron Cameron of Chipping Norton), recently passed judgment on the war in Ukraine at a Washington press conference:
‘It is extremely good value for money… Almost half of Russia’s pre-war military equipment has been destroyed without the loss of a single American life. This is an investment in the United States’ security.’
According even to Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelensky, 31,000 Ukrainians have been killed in the conflict. US officials estimate 70,000 dead, while Russia claims to have killed 444,000. Are these deaths ‘good value for money’?
And what about the 50,000 Russians estimated by the BBC to have died? Do they matter? After all, European civilisation is supposed to be founded on Christ’s teaching that we should love, not just our ‘neighbour’ but our ‘enemy’. On Britain’s Channel 5, BBC stalwart Jeremy Vine offered a different view to Bill, a caller from Manchester:
‘Bill, Bill, the brutal reality is, if you put on a uniform for Putin and you go and fight his war, you probably deserve to die, don’t you?’
Elsewhere, the Most Reverend and Right Honourable Justin Welby, the Archbishop of Canterbury, commented after Iran retaliated to Israel’s bombing of an Iranian consulate in Damascus, Syria, killing 16 people, including two senior Iranian generals:
‘The attacks on Israel by Iran this weekend were wrong. They risked civilian lives and they escalated the already dangerous tensions in the region. I pray for the peace and security of Israel’s people at this time and I appeal to all parties both for restraint and to act for peace and mutual security.’ (Our emphasis)
If Christ had done political commentary, he would have declared both the Iranian and Israeli attacks wrong, and he would have prayed ‘for the peace and security’ of the peoples of Israel and Iran, and also Palestine.
Cameron responded on the same issue:
‘[It was] a reckless and dangerous thing for Iran to have done, and I think the whole world can see. All these countries that have somehow wondered, well, you know, what is the true nature of Iran? It’s there in black and white.”
He was immediately asked: ‘What would Britain do if a hostile nation flattened one of our consulates?’
Cameron’s tragicomic response:
‘Well, we would take, you know, we would take very strong action.’
Naturally, ‘we’ would do the same or worse, but it’s a grim sign of Iran’s ‘true nature’ when ‘they’ do it. The ‘Evil’ have no right even to defend themselves when attacked by the ‘Good’. Standard medieval thinking.
‘Murderous’ And ‘Brutal’ – Tilting The Language
In idle moments, we sometimes fantasise about opening our own Media Lens Chamber of Propaganda Horrors, a Hall of Media Infamy. It would be a cavernous space packed with examples of devices used to strangle and dismember Truth.
A special section would be reserved for the sage effusions of BBC security correspondent Frank Gardner, who wrote recently of Israel:
‘It responded to the murderous Hamas-led attacks of 7 October… and then spent the next six months battering the Gaza Strip.’
The Hamas attack was ‘murderous’, then, with Israel administering a mere ‘battering’ with its attack that has caused at least 30 times the loss of life. A ‘battering’ is generally bruising but not necessarily fatal. The term is certainly not synonymous with genocide. Is this biased use of language accidental, or systemic?
Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) commented on their careful study of the New York Times, the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal:
‘Looking at all attributions, 77% of the time when the word “brutal” was used to describe an actor in the conflict, it referred to Palestinians and their actions. This was 73% of the time at the Times, 78% at the Post and 87% at the Journal. Only 23% of the time was “brutal” used to describe Israel’s actions…’
The Intercept reported on a leaked memo which revealed that the New York Times had ‘instructed journalists covering Israel’s war on the Gaza Strip to restrict the use of the terms “genocide” and “ethnic cleansing” and to “avoid” using the phrase “occupied territory” when describing Palestinian land’. The Intercept added:
‘The memo also instructs reporters not to use the word Palestine “except in very rare cases” and to steer clear of the term “refugee camps” to describe areas of Gaza historically settled by displaced Palestinians expelled from other parts of Palestine during previous Israeli–Arab wars. The areas are recognized by the United Nations as refugee camps and house hundreds of thousands of registered refugees.’
The memo was written by Times standards editor Susan Wessling, international editor Philip Pan, and their deputies. A Times newsroom source, who requested anonymity ‘for fear of reprisal’, said:
‘I think it’s the kind of thing that looks professional and logical if you have no knowledge of the historical context of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. But if you do know, it will be clear how apologetic it is to Israel.’
Our Chamber of Propaganda Horrors might feature this barely believable sentence from a BBC report by Lucy Williamson, which reads like something from the film ‘Dr. Strangelove’:
‘If you wanted to map the path to a healthy, functioning Palestinian government, you probably wouldn’t start from here.’
Probably wouldn’t start from where? From the middle of a six-months genocide, with two million civilians starving, with children literally starving to death, with tens of thousands of children murdered, with Gaza in ruins? It is hard to imagine a more ethically or intellectually tone-deaf observation. The BBC’s Jeremy Bowen added to the sense of surreality:
‘The decision not to veto the Ramadan ceasefire resolution is also an attempt by the Americans to push back at accusations that they have enabled Israel’s actions.’
Is it an ‘accusation’ that the US has supplied billions of dollars of missiles and bombs without which Israel could not conduct its genocide? Is there any conceivable way the US could ever ‘push back at’ that unarguable fact? The Guardian described how the US has worked hard to avoid Congressional oversight:
‘The US is reported to have made more than 100 weapons sales to Israel, including thousands of bombs, since the start of the war in Gaza, but the deliveries escaped congressional oversight because each transaction was under the dollar amount requiring approval.
‘The Biden administration… has kept up a quiet but substantial flow of munitions to help replace the tens of thousands of bombs Israel has dropped on the tiny coastal strip, making it one of the most intense bombing campaigns in military history.’
These hidden sales are in addition to the $320m in precision bomb kits sold in November and 14,000 tank shells costing $106m and $147.5m of fuses and other components needed to make 155mm artillery shells in December.
In response to the latest news of a massive additional supply of arms to Israel, Edward Snowden posted on X:
‘ok but you’re definitely gonna hold off on sending like fifteen billion dollars’ worth of weapons to the guys that keep getting caught filling mass graves with kids until an independent international investigation is completed, right?
‘…right?’
Because we no longer live in the Dark Ages, right?
Waiting For The Hiroshima Bombing Scene
People are generally not tortured on the rack in Western societies, but are we really any less callous?
Christopher Nolan’s film ‘Oppenheimer’ has been lauded to the skies. It earned 13 nominations at the Academy Awards, winning seven Oscars, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor. It also won five Golden Globe Awards.
And yet the film is a moral disgrace. It focuses on the life of physicist Robert J. Oppenheimer, and particularly, of course, on his key role in developing the first atomic weapons. The direct results of his efforts were the dropping of nuclear fireballs on the civilian populations of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan that killed between 129,000 and 226,000 people.
These were the first acts of nuclear terrorism, by far the greatest single acts of terrorism the world has ever seen. Although the moral doubts haunting the ‘Manhattan Project’ then and since feature strongly in the film, a portrayal of the hideous impact of Oppenheimer’s invention on civilians is almost completely absent. This single, dignified comment from an elderly Japanese viewer reported by the Guardian says it all:
‘“I was waiting for the Hiroshima bombing scene to appear, but it never did,” said Mimaki, 82.’
Although the BBC sought out the opinion of cinemagoers in Hiroshima, ‘only meters away’ from where the bomb exploded, the film’s shocking moral failure was not mentioned.
On reflection, our museum might be better called, The Museum Of Media Madness. Thus, the BBC reported on the refusal of event organisers, The European Broadcasting Union (EBU), to ban Israel from the Eurovision Song Contest. The EBU opined:
‘We firmly believe that the Eurovision Song Contest is a platform that should always transcend politics, promote togetherness and bring audiences together across the world.’
The BBC claims to be obsessed with reporting ‘both sides of the story’, but it conveniently forgot to mention that Russia has been banned from the song contest since 2022 for a reason that did not ‘transcend politics’ – its invasion of Ukraine.
Martin Österdahl, EBU’s executive supervisor for Eurovision, was asked to explain the contradiction. He responded that the two situations were ‘completely different’. True enough – Israel’s crimes in Gaza are much worse even than Russia’s crimes in Ukraine. Österdahl’s casual brush off:
‘We are not the arena to solve a Middle East conflict.’
Media and political voices seeking to challenge the reigning brutality are not burned alive, but they are buried alive in high security prisons like Julian Assange, beaten up on the street like George Galloway, and forced into exile like Edward Snowden. Dissidents may not be pelted with rotten fruit and vegetables in the stocks, but they are pelted with relentless media attacks intended to discredit them.
In the Guardian, John Crace greeted the news that Galloway had returned to parliament, with a piece titled:
‘The Ego has landed: George Galloway basks in his swearing in as MP’
Crace wrote:
‘Wherever he goes, his giant ego is there before him. Like most narcissists, the only fool for whom he makes allowances – for whom he has a total blindspot – is himself.’
He added:
‘… there is a lot about Galloway to dislike. His self-importance is breathtaking. Most MPs suffer from an excess of self-regard, but George is off the scale. It has never crossed his mind that he is not right about everything.’
Before Galloway’s victory, a Guardian news piece commented:
‘“A total, total disaster”: Galloway and Danczuk line up for Rochdale push – Two former Labour MPs are back to haunt the party in what has been called “the most radioactive byelection in living memory”’
As we have discussed many times, this is the required view, not just of Galloway, but of all dissidents challenging the status quo – they (and we) are all toxic ‘narcissists’. Thus, the BBC observed of Galloway, a ‘political maverick’:
‘To his critics and opponents, he is a dangerous egotist, someone who arouses division.’
What percentage of Tory and Labour MPs under (and including) Sunak and Starmer are not dangerous egotists? Are the thousands of MPs who, decade after decade, line up to vote for US-UK resource wars of aggression of first resort, for action to exacerbate climate collapse, not dangerous egotists? Of course they are, but they are not labelled that way. The only egotism perceived as ‘dangerous’ by our state-corporate media system is one that threatens biocidal, genocidal and suicidal state-corporate narcissism.
We have to travel far from the ‘mainstream’ to read a more balanced view of Galloway. Former British ambassador Craig Murray commented:
‘I have known George Galloway my entire adult life, although we largely lost touch in the middle bit while I was off diplomating. I know George too well to mistake him for Jesus Christ, but he has been on the right side against appalling wars which the entire political class has cheer-led. His natural gifts of mellifluence and loquacity are unsurpassed, with an added talent for punchy phrase making.
‘… But outwith the public gaze George is humorous, kind and self-aware. He has been deeply involved in politics his entire life, and is a great believer in the democratic process as the ultimate way by which the working classes will ultimately take control of the means of production. He is a very old-fashioned and courteous form of socialist.’
We strongly disagree with Galloway’s views on fossil fuel production and climate change – in fact, he blocked us on X for robustly but politely challenging him on these issues. Nevertheless, it is clear to us that Murray’s view of Galloway is far more reasonable.
Neon-Lit Dark Age
In ‘Brave New World Revisited’, Aldous Huxley wrote:
‘The victim of mind-manipulation does not know that he is a victim. To him, the walls of his prison are invisible, and he believes himself to be free.’ (Huxley, ‘Brave New World Revisited’, archive.org, 1958, p.109)
This is certainly true of corporate journalists. Borrowing illiberally from authentically dissident media, a recurring Guardian appeal asks readers to support its heroic defence of Truth. The declared enemy:
‘Teams of lawyers from the rich and powerful trying to stop us publishing stories they don’t want you to see.
‘Lobby groups with opaque funding who are determined to undermine facts about the climate emergency and other established science.
‘Authoritarian states with no regard for the freedom of the press.
‘Bad actors spreading disinformation online to undermine democracy.
‘But we have something powerful on our side.
‘We’ve got you.
‘The Guardian is funded by its readers and the only person who decides what we publish is our editor.’
They have indeed ‘got you’, many of you, and not in a good way. The real threat to truth in our time, quite obviously, is the fact that profit-maximising, ad-dependent corporate media like the Guardian cannot and will not report the truth of a world dominated by giant corporations. The declared aspiration is a sham, a form of niche marketing exploiting the gullible.
The truth is that ‘mainstream’ media and politics are now captured in a way that is beyond anything we have previously seen. All around the world, political choices have been carefully fixed and filtered to ensure ordinary people are unable to challenge the endless wars, the determination to prioritise profits over climate action at any cost. The job of the corporate media system is to pretend the choices are real, to ensure the walls of the prison remain invisible.
The only hope in this neon-lit Dark Age is genuinely independent media – the blogs and websites that are now being filtered, shadow-banned, buried and marginalised like never before.
The post Chamber of Propaganda Horrors first appeared on Dissident Voice.
This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.
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This content originally appeared on The Grayzone and was authored by The Grayzone.This post was originally published on Radio Free.
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In the American political tradition, doctrines (political, economic, military, etc.) have a distinct role to play. They prepare the ground for devising policies, making decisions, and enacting laws. Still, among all doctrines that have been shaping the identity of the United States, those related to foreign policy stand out. This is due to their (a) consequences aboard, (b) ideological capacity to keep reproducing, and (c) representative value as embodiment of power. Altogether, such doctrines tell other countries that the United States has a global agenda to pursue regardless of international objections.
Invariably since foundation, foreign policy doctrines were conceived as instruments of imperialist expansions and ideological sources pointing to the worldview and political direction of the United States. Not only did they become the official banners externalizing its aims, but also blueprints for establishing operational plans for territorial conquests, interventions, and wars. The threat of using military force (or other corecitive measures) to implement those plans has consistently been the chosen method. Did the U.S. achieve anything as consequence? Yes. Its colonialistic and imperialistic accomplishments during the past two centuries are vast and impressive.1
From measuring their collective place in the practice of imperialism, foreign policy doctrines can be described as the engine that moves the global objectives of the United States. Once an administration comes up with a specific policy course, the engine is revved up for action, guidelines drafted, and the course is announced. At the same point in time, an army of doctrinaires and agents of the state go into overdrive to procure all military, budgetary, and legislative means needed for the planned enterprise.
For instance, after the breakup of the USSR, the United States relentlessly reprised its previous attempts to be the sole decision maker of world affairs. Or, said differently, to exercise total control over the world system of nations using aggressive tactics—always backed by doctrines. On occasion, adages mix with doctrines. One such adage that U.S. ruling circles have been repeating ad nauseam is the “sole remaining superpower” (1, 2, 3, 4). Interpreted correctly, it means that the United States feels it has “earned the right” to rove around the world unopposed.
Nevertheless, with or without doctrines, the U.S. project to subjugate nations still out of its control has come to a full stop consequent to three convergent events. The first is the Russian intervention in Ukraine. The second is the unstoppable rising of China as a world power. The third is the overdue defiance that the South (formerly called developing countries) has launched against the pan-imperialist American-European order.2
Since their appearance on the scene in the early 19th century, foreign policy doctrines helped build the U.S. imperialist system. For the record, from the very beginning, this system was born neither pacifist nor peaceful or open to re-thinking. George Washington and the Continental Congress’s policy ordering Original Peoples to choose either relocation or war is an irrefutable case in point.
Special Note
In 2012, Mitt Romney recycled Washington’s concept of the U.S. power using a different figure of speech. “If you don’t want America to be the strongest nation on earth, I am not your president“. In 2024, Romney replayed his arrogant refrain. He stated, “What America is as a nation, what has allowed us to be the most powerful nation on Earth, and the leader of the Earth is the character of the people who have been our leaders”. [Italics added].
Comment: Romney stated his vision for America in terms and images that leave no doubt on his hegemonic agenda. Is that surprising? No. he is a product of a system and ideology that sees the world as something to grab, own, manage, and even go to war to keep it. In other words, his vision is about imposing U.S. domination over all other nations. Pertinently though, with phrases such as “strongest nation on earth”, “most powerful nation on Earth”, and “leader of the Earth”, Romney allow his militaristic hyperimperialism to float to the surface but disguised it under the “leadership” heading.
Question: how could Romney install America as a “leader of the earth” without first unleashing global violence to accomplish that installation? More importantly, has China, Russia, Hungary, Serbia, Algeria, Cuba, Brazil, Iran, Palestine, Sri Lanka, India, Colombia, Malaysia, or Turkey, for example, ever asked for such leadership in the first place?
General Discussion
As it developed into a military and economic superpower, the United States emerged first with distinct character: (a) colonialist, racist, and supremacist to the bone, (b) imperialist-focused conduct sold as a product of “democratic” statecraft, and (c) official culture primed for violence domestically and wired for war internationally.
To summarize, as conceived, adopted, and thereafter transformed into programs of the United States, foreign policy doctrines have been occupying a central place in the thinking, policymaking, and actions of presidents, their administrations, and orbiting institutions and think tanks. Remark: doctrines are not announced as such—a president does not go the podium and say: hey, here is my doctrine. Generally, doctrines start as specific acts to serve the system, to stress its assumed prowess and power, and to uphold its declared objectives.
This is how the process works. Initially, the habitual protocol leading to the informal promulgation of doctrines is scripted and introduced to make it sound as a “reasoned” conclusion to debated matters. But debates such as these and conclusions thereof are of no value whatsoever to those affected by their outcome. First, they are not rooted in the natural laws and needs of world societies. Second, they only reflect the hegemonic thus exploitive aims of U.S. ruling circles. For instance, aside from carpet-bombing, burning Viet Nam with Napalm bombs, poisoning it with Agent Orange, and killing three million of its people to prove Robert McNamara’s Domino Theory was never a good reason for the Vietnamese people to accept the U.S. motive for destroying their country.
Successively, when an administration reaches a decision on an issue, makes an announcement against a specific country, and when that issue finds its way to the public, the system’s “pundits” proceed to extract passages from presidents’ speeches and writings, assign to them concept and purpose, and, before you know it, a doctrine is born. In the case of Ukraine, new doctrines are taking the center stage in the defense of U.S. post-USSR unipolarism and hegemonic agendas. One such ad hoc doctrine is that the United States is fighting Russian imperialism in Ukraine.
Doctrines, in the American practice of imperialism, offer a two-layer function. First, they intellectualize the bullying language of imperialism to solemnize the power of the ruling regime at enacting its “rules of engagement” with foreign nations. Second, they set the pattern, methodology, and ideological structure for the next enterprise. (Caveat: despite heavy setbacks in many parts of the world, the U.S. doctrine industry is highly adaptable, and it is not going to close its gates any time soon.)
Given that foreign policy doctrines have become a showcase for displaying the objectives of the ruling circles, as well as a repetitive ideological ritual confirming the unity and continuity of the imperialist state, is there a pattern to their mechanisms?
As it happens, when a president vacates the office for the next occupant, he leaves behind a trail of ideas and political positions highlighting the collective thinking of the system. Comparing the U.S. doctrines to those of religions may be of value. For instance, unlike the field of religions where doctrines are static and permanent (created to defend original, ancient, or old beliefs and dogmas), the U.S. doctrines are dynamic, always open to re-interpretations, and reflect three-stage process with a precise scope of work and finality—all situated in the future.
The first stage begins with deliberation on the objectives of the ruling circles in a given period. The second continues by enshrining them into a general declaration(s) of intent. The third, which is extremely important, turns that declaration into a three-tier sequential process. The first presents the system’s rationales for the decisions taken. The second deals with their implementation. The third is more complex: it turns all interrelated processes and sustaining ideologies into a legacy of some sort. That is, what has been decided by a president (and his administration) at a specific period is going to be invoked, expanded on, and continued by his successors.
For example, with its post-WWII focus on hypothetical threats from international Communism to the Middle East, Eisenhower’s doctrine is a replica of Truman’s doctrine that declared the Soviet Union a universal threat. As for John Kennedy, his doctrine, often referred to as his foreign policy, is a mixture between those of Truman and Eisenhower. To see the U.S. doctrines in a broad perspective, I’m going to briefly discuss the Monroe Doctrine (corner stone of all successive doctrines), and three other doctrines relating to Theodore Roosevelt, Jimmy Carter, and Joe Biden.
The Monroe Doctrine (1823)
When the thirteen colonies became a political state in 1776, the objective was to claim neutrality to avoid further conflict with Britain or potential ones with France and Spain. But when the thirteen states increased to eighteen under the presidency of James Monroe (1817-25), that objective became two-pronged: (1) a call for increased expansion of colonies, and (2) a declaration that United States is the sole power in charge of the entire Western hemisphere. The U.S. Naval Institute describes the Monroe Doctrine as follows:
“As a principle in which the rights and interests of the United States are involved, that the American continents, by the free and independent condition which they have assumed and maintain, are henceforth not to be considered as subjects for future colonization by any European powers. . . We owe it, therefore, to candor and to the amicable relations existing between the United States and those powers to declare that we should consider any attempt on their part to extend their system to any portion of this hemisphere as dangerous to our peace and safety. [Italics added]
Comment
- Monroe was a skillful imperialist tactician. He presented his theory (attributed to his secretary of state and future president John Quincy Adams) of colonialism and domination in clear wording. First, he prohibits European powers from colonizing the rest of the Americas; yet, he allows the heir to colonialist Britain (the United States) the exclusive privilege of further colonization. With that, Monroe instituted the infamous American dual-standard paradigm in world relations.
- The inherent fascism of the new American state under Monroe is self-explanatory. He treated Turtle Island as lands without people and civilizations. The question is how could one colonize lands without removing or killing first their original inhabitants and destroying their stewarded environment?
- As I stated, Monroe is the prototype of typical U.S. hyper-imperialist. He arrogantly considers any challenge to the new system of things as “dangerous” to peace and prosperity of the United States.
- Two centuries later, anything happens in the world that U.S. fascist rulers do not like, they deem it a threat to U.S. national security, or, “dangerous” to peace and prosperity of the United States.
- The peremptory, imperialist injunction of Monroe reaches the apex when he declares that every portion of the hemisphere is, by exclusive U.S. unilateral decisions, under the U.S. indirect control thus jurisdiction. This declaration has led countless administrations not only to claim extraterritorial jurisdiction, but also to pretend that domestic affairs and development of a country could imperil U.S. national security. (Read: US to probe if Chinese cars pose national data security risks)
Doctrines: The Reincarnation of Monroe
- The case of Theodore Roosevelt: in 1904, the Monroe Doctrine gave birth to the Roosevelt Doctrine—then named the Roosevelt Corollary. I already stated that what has been decided by a president at a specific period is going to be invoked, expanded, and continued by his successors. Theodore Roosevelt corroborates my statement. A National Archives’ article states the following:
“In his annual messages to Congress in 1904 and 1905, President Theodore Roosevelt expanded the Monroe Doctrine. The corollary stated that not only were the nations of the Western Hemisphere not open to colonization by European powers, but that the United States had the responsibility to preserve order and protect life and property in those countries.” [Italics added]. The text in Italics proves my point.
- The case of Jimmy Carter: As Henry Kissinger had Richard Nixon in the palm of his hand; Zbigniew Brzezinski had Carter in his—coincidence or lack of intellectual security? Carter who, much later, had a rude awakening to the racist nature of Zionism (re: Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid), was another example representing the hyper-imperialist model. In his Union Address in 1980, Carter declared, among many other important things, the following:
“Let our position be absolutely clear: An attempt by any outside force to gain control of the Persian Gulf region will be regarded as an assault on the vital interests of the United States of America, and such an assault will be repelled by any means necessary, including military force. [Italics added]. Who was talking—Monroe or Carter?
It is beside the point to state that while the Soviet power or its main successor Russia never intervened in the Middle East during the past 107 years (exception in Syria to stop the U.S. and Israel from dismembering it. (Read, The Debate on the Imperialist Violence in Syria series by Kim Petersen and B.J. Sabri). At present, the American power is everywhere in the Middle East. It has full political and military control—direct and indirect—of Iraq, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, United Arab Emirates, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, Sudan, and Morocco. Conclusion: an attentive study of Carter’s address will prove that the mind of Monroe has transmigrated to that of Carter.
- The case of Joe Biden: in 1986, Biden (then senator) stated, “If there were not an Israel, we’d have to invent one.” The issue I am raising here is not about this Zionist wanting to create at any cost a state for Zionist settlers on Arab Palestinian soil. It is about Joe Biden repeating Monroe. That is, the United States consistently gives itself the unearned right to shape the world according to its convenient imperialist view.
- As for Biden’s doctrine, The Hoover Institution (an imperialist academic think tank claiming liberalism) addresses the topic. One of its doctrinaires, Colin Dueck (a university professor and a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, a known nest of American Zionists) thusly defines Biden’s philosophy of imperialism, “If the Biden administration’s grand strategy could be summed up in a single phrase, it would be – progressive transformation at home and abroad”.
Could specialists in semantics and esoteric writings help us to decode what does “progressive transformation at home and abroad” mean? In the first place, what is progressive? Second, domestically, can Biden, as per Dueck, progressively transform the Zionist mobs inside his party, as well as those of Trump and his crowds? Internationally, could Sweden, Switzerland, Russia, Ukraine, Cameroon, Bolivia, Nepal, or Bolivia, etc. partake in or learn from Biden’s “progressive” doctrine? Incidentally, how would Dueck qualify America before the advent of Biden: progressive, regressive, or what?)
To settle the issue on Dueck’s bogus idea of “progressive transformation”, we need to pose a few questions. Suppose an independent country X is touched by the American wand of “progressive transformation”. Would that touch entail, among other things, invading it, installing military bases on its soil, dissolving its army, partitioning it in “federated” regions, abolishing its national currency, co-opting pro-American elements to lead it, writing constitutions for it, and building “without permit” the largest embassy in the world? It happened in Iraq.
Aside from this thematic mishap, Dueck redeemed himself by presenting articulate arguments—all anchored to the basic elements of U.S. hegemonic imperialism. Not to be overlooked, he permeated—perhaps without realizing it—his elaborations with undeclared references to the Monroe Doctrine and its successors. The following are selected passages:
- “Biden went further than either Obama or Trump in declaring that a global struggle against authoritarianism would be a strategic centerpiece of his new administration”. Remark: “authoritarianism” is a catchword to say that this or that country is antithetical to U.S. objectives, thus it is, de facto, a hostile nation.
- Dueck declares that Jack Sullivan (current National Security Advisor) and other Democrats, “Developed the concept of a “foreign policy for the middle class”. Remark: Dueck’s statement begs the question: is there a foreign policy for the upper and lower classes. It is notable though that the United States never cast its foreign policy in terms of class or class conflict. For the record, who decides on this policy is the deep American State and its Zionist elites.
- Dueck then goes to the traditional themes of U.S. foreign policy: “China, Russia, and so on” are the real threat to the United States. He then adds, “Populism, nationalism, liberalism, and authoritarianism are each assumed by the Biden administration to be pressing threats.” REMARK: This is overly trite. With regard to China, the United States has been inimical since the Long March of Mao Zedong.
- With typical American imperialist zeal, Dueck concludes, “We now face a kind of anti-American axis of hostile dictatorships, however loosely coordinated, covering most of the Eurasian continent. This is the most deadly threat in generations. By that standard, have we developed the policy tools, and specifically the military capabilities, to meet that challenge? The answer is obvious: not even close.” REMARK: with these words, Dueck has effectively announced that all ante-Biden doctrines have come together in the person of Biden and his cohorts.
Propaganda and foreign policy
- The National Museum of American Diplomacy asks an “interesting” question, “What are the key pillars of American diplomacy?” The Museum answers with stock American slogan: “Security, Prosperity, Democracy, and Development”. Then it goes on to give frivolous examples such as the one about “development in Cambodia”—the country that United States obliterated in order to fight the Vietcong and North Viet Nam. It is a fact that the United States never brought security, prosperity, democracy, and development to any country it attacked.
- The official voice of American diplomacy: the Zionist-ruled State Department is a pompous factory specialized in rhetorical garbage. It declares, “The State Department has four main foreign policy goals: Protect the United States and Americans; Advance democracy, human rights, and other global interests; Promote international understanding of American values and policies; and; Support U.S. diplomats, government officials, and all other personnel at home and abroad who make these goals a reality.”
As I am forfeiting my right to comment, I am curious to know where Monroe is hiding in the statement. Look no farther than (a) “Protect the United States and Americans”, and (b) “Other global interests”.
Preliminary Conclusion
From the end of WWII forward, the phenomenon of U.S. doctrines is what it is—a bizarre menagerie of global power themes. Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush Sr., Clinton, Bush Jr., Obama, Trump, and Biden each have their own doctrine—or, to be exact, doctrines the system prepared for them. Conceptually, all such doctrines are declarations of allegiance to the continuity of imperialism and to the path that many generations of American colonialists, expansionists, supremacists, imperialists, and hegemonists set for the United States.
Observation: none among the above presidents had any doctrine with a specific formulation before taking seats in the halls of power. But once there, the seated presidents reprise the preceding doctrines and amplify content and reach. When you closely examine them, however, you will find out that they mimic each other in essence and means—and all have for a common goal the application of U.S. imperialist power abroad.
Evaluating how doctrines prepare the ground for the solidification of anti-Russian policies can be done by looking at how candidates conduct their campaigns for political positions. During such events, they speak of this and that idea so sketchily but only to sell their electability to a complacent and uninformed audience—normally, details of foreign policy and motivations never appear on the stage. Still, despite the paucity of substantive talk, their endeavor is mainly directed to the establishment, not to the public. Ultimately, this establishment has the overwhelming ability to promote or demote candidates with ease—kneeling to it, therefore, is an electoral necessity.
In the end, when it boils down to voting, the public will have only a Hobson’s choice: candidates, with different names and faces, have identical views on the world—and a plan to rule it. They all have to sell the same merchandise: we control, we want, we oppose, we think, we decide, and so on.
Is selling the imperialist merchandise an important factor in U.S. foreign policy decision-making and actions?
In his book: A Nation of Salesmen, Earl Shorris, an attentive sociological researcher, touched on the crafty art of selling “things”. He delves into the essence of controlled persuasion by taking on advertising as a tool that subverted the American culture. Shorris, of course, did not include foreign policy as “merchandise” that has been subverting the entire American polity for decades while inflicting incalculable heavy damages on all humanity. Briefly, selling its Foreign Policy Brand—by persuasion, coercion, or aggression—has been America’s never-ending endeavor.
At this point, how is the United States merchandizing and selling its Brand and policy schemes on Ukraine and Russia?
ENDNOTES:
- To fight U.S. imperialism, we have to acknowledge its danger by looking at its accomplishment. In 1783, the newly established American Republic was 800,000 square miles. In 2024 factsheet, its area is 3,796,742 square miles. Currently and to varying degrees, the U.S. controls the entire European continent with the exception of Serbia. It controls Japan. It castrated the entire Arab states with the exception of Syria and Algeria. It controls most of South Asia. It controls many Latin American and African countries. It controls Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. And, it largely controls the UN and the UNSC—the UN’s General Assembly is of no consequence. About the territorial colonialist expansions of the United States: the professional misinformants writing at Wikipedia calls the U.S. violent, bloody colonialist conquests as “territorial evolution” as if these were in line Darwin’s theory of natural selection.
- The expression: American-European order is an umbrella term specifically denoting American, British, French, Italian, Spanish, and German imperialisms. By extension, it also includes the dangerous trio: Australia, Canada, and New Zealand. These three countries work under U.S. wings and take direct orders from Washington. Among all U.S. vassals, Japan is insidious. Although it does not appear often on the news, Japan is an advanced country, still very much militaristic, and acts according to U.S. rules and political views.
This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.
