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Category: United States

  • NATO in the Amazon: Petro Plays with Fire

    US Army Gen. Laura Richardson, the commander of U.S. Southern Command, met with President Petro on a visit to Colombia, September 5-9, 2022.

    NATO recently expanded to Sweden and Finland, has been de facto incorporated in Ukraine, and may extend to Georgia. Now, NATO’s entry into the Amazon is in the works under the aegis of newly elected President Gustavo Petro of Colombia.

    NATO is a primary instrument of US imperial dominion. It is Washington’s praetorian guard projected on a global scale.

    Earlier this month, President Petro invited US and NATO military forces into the Amazon on the pretext that the imperial war machine could be repurposed as “police” aimed at protecting the environment instead of the old ruse of the war on drugs. He proposed deployment of US Black Hawk helicopters to put out fires. Previous to the environmental alibi, the pretext for militarization of the jungle was narcotics interdiction.

    Petro described his “conversation with NATO” as “strange,” but hastened to add “that’s where we are.” He legitimized the US military occupation of Colombia –a reported nine bases – as “more of a police unit than a military unit.” Incredulously, he claimed that the continued occupation was a “complete change in what US military aid has always been.”

    NATO in Colombia

    Colombia has been the poster child for the Monroe Doctrine – an assertion of US hegemony over the hemisphere dating back to 1823 – and the leading client state of the US in the Americas. The South American nation was touted by both Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden in their US presidential campaigns as a model for the rest of Latin America.

    In 2017, Colombia became one of NATO’s Global Partners and its first in Latin American. In February, Colombia conducted a provocative joint naval drill with NATO near Venezuela, which included a nuclear submarine.

    Then on March 10, Colombia became a “Major Non-NATO Ally” of the US, giving Colombia special access to military programs. Biden explained: “This is a recognition of the unique and close relationship between our countries.”

    From August 26 to September 11, US and Colombian militaries conducted joint NATO exercises. During this period, US Army General Laura Richardson, commander of the US Southern Command, made a five-day visit to meet with the newly elected president. The general gushed about “our number one security partner in the region,” describing Colombia as the “linchpin to the whole southern hemisphere.”

    The South-Com commander also met with Colombian Vice President Francia Márquez to discuss implementation of the hemispheric “Women, Peace, and Security” initiative. Richardson concluded that the “Western Hemisphere is largely free and secure because of Colombia’s stabilizing efforts.”

    When Petro first came into office, he differed from the US/NATO stance on the US proxy war against Russia in Ukraine, advocating a neutral negotiated peace on September 21. Two weeks later he switched, joining the US-led resolution in the Organization of American States strongly condemning Russia’s “unprovoked invasion” and unilaterally demanding Russian withdrawal.

    Green-washing of NATO in the Amazon

    Legitimizing foreign military intervention into the Amazon region under the guise of environmentalism is not a new idea. Little concerned about the niceties of national sovereignty, Al Gore told the US Senate in 1989: “The Amazon is not their property. It belongs to all of us.”

    More recently in 2019 and in response to fires in the Brazilian Amazon, French President Emmanuel Macron imperiously urged the G7 nations to intervene: “It is an international crisis.” UN Secretary General António Guterres echoed Macron’s sentiment, as did political leaders of other former colonial powers such as Germany.

    Quora rhetorically asked: “Why doesn’t NATO invade Brazil in order to save the Amazon?” Touting “foreign action,” the NATO Association of Canada argued: “Environmental security threats such as the fires in the Amazon rainforest affect the global environment, and therefore require a system of collective security to address them.”

    Combatting forest fires and other climate-driven disasters have been incorporated into NATO’s ever expanding scope. The militarists are not so much concerned about the environment as they are about perturbances that can upset the existing world order.

    Because NATO is an accessory of the US empire, these new ecological tasks are best understood not as non-military functions but as the militarization of environmentalism. Their environmentally “woke” missions operate under such cover as the NATO Science for Peace and Security Programme and even the UN Environmental Programme, which cooperates with NATO.

    Accordingly, Foreign Policy favorably considered the “militarization of the Amazon” on environmental grounds. A subsequent FP article on who will invade the Amazon predicted: “It’s only a matter of time until major powers try to stop climate change by any means necessary.”

    Colombia – no longer an automatic US proxy

    Notwithstanding his opening the door for US/NATO into the Amazon, Colombian President Petro has other non-military climate-change solutions in mind. In his UN address, Petro warned, “wars have served as an excuse for not ending the climate crisis.”

    While oil producing nations such as the US, UK, and Norway are increasing extraction, Petro is going in the opposite direction. His proposed oil and coal tax to reduce production and fund social projects, ban on fracking, and especially the politically provocative unwinding of fuel subsidies could, however, cause further devaluation of the peso and public discontent.

    Petro asked a recent US congressional delegation to Colombia to intervene with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to forgive some of Colombia’s debt in exchange for investment in decarbonized economies. That would compensate, he explained, for the disruption of the world economy caused with US unilateral coercive measures (i.e., sanctions). Petro elaborated in a recent speech: “The US is practically ruining all the economies of the world.”

    Petro also requested that the US congressional delegation consider footing the bill for deeding three million hectares of land to campesinos as part of his administration’s land-reform effort. The alternative, Petro adroitly suggested, would be to engage the US’s geopolitical rival China more fully in his energy transition initiatives.

    Bloomberg reports that China has already concluded a number of significant renewable energy infra-structure deals with Colombia. Indicative of the shifting balance of trade, Colombia imported $14.8 billion from China compared to $14.1 billion from the US in 2021.

    Former Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos had boasted in 2013 in reference to Colombia’s regional role as a US client state: “If somebody called my country the Israel of Latin America, I would be very proud. I admire the Israelis, and I would consider that as a compliment.” A decidedly new message is coming from President Petro, who is on record saying the US “does not love us.”

    Indeed, Petro has made international headlines criticizing the US war-on-drugs policy, noting that while Colombia may have historically been the supplier of illicit narcotics, the US bears responsibility for being the biggest consumer. Further, from being Washington’s stand-in for destabilizing Venezuela, Colombia has flipped to making amends with its immediate neighbor and reestablishing amiable diplomatic relations.

    Petro’s problematic association with George Soros

    The right-wing accuses Petro of being a protégé of and financed by billionaire George Soros, whose Open Society Foundation has long been active in Colombia. Petro is portrayed by those elements “as manifesting that ideological trajectory of which George Soros is often seen as the patriarch.” Although reviled by the right, the obsessively anti-communist “puppet master of humanitarian imperialism” is no friend of left.

    Even though Petro tried to distance himself from Soros in a tweet calling him a “speculative capitalist,” the new president met with Soros’s son and vice president of the foundation shortly after assuming the presidency to discuss joint ventures in the Amazon.

    Petro’s predicament – a small country in the shadow of the US hegemon

    Now that the right-wing associated with former President Álvaro Uribe has been discredited and electorally defeated, US imperialism needs a new face in Colombia. Petro’s ambiguous positions are best understood in historical context. For the first time in two centuries, putative leftists have run and lived to assume the presidency of Colombia, a country which has not only been a client state of the US but its lead proxy.

    Their win is an essential step in the long struggle to free their troubled country from its erstwhile subjugation to the colossus to the north. But it must be emphasized that it is naïve to believe that Washington is about to allow such a seismic shift to the left to endure uncontested.

    Given the domination of Colombia by its US-backed military, Petro was concerned not only about winning the election but surviving afterward. Both Petro and his running mate Márquez survived assassination attempts on the campaign trail. Even the Voice of America warned about the “specter of assassination.”

    The new president of Colombia is a former leftist guerilla, who has shifted toward the center politically. But in comparison to the far-right rule of Uribe and his successors in Colombia, the election of Petro and his vice president Márquez constitutes a sea change in the progressive direction.

    The regional movement towards integration and independence poses a challenge to the US drive to impose its hegemony in the Americas. The change in the executive of Colombia further advances this movement. But Petro has inherited major institutional constraints and is subject to enormous pressures.

    Paradoxically, the very conditions that Petro campaigned against, which swept him into office, have now become his puzzles to solve. Strong inflationary winds are buffeting society, generated by global economies with which small countries like Colombia must integrate but over which they have minimal control. As the cost of living goes up, Petro’s popular support at home suffers erosion.

    Petro’s predicament is being caught between the popular demand for progressive change and the legacy of US imperial domination. Colombia will need to find the means to resist the further projection of US military command in the form of NATO.  The Amazon doesn’t need arsonists to put out its fires.

    The post NATO in the Amazon: Petro Plays with Fire first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • Western Media Smear President Xi’s “Aggressive China” As CIA Front Holds Secessionist Summit in Taiwan

    President Xi Jinping’s re-election for a record-breaking third term as China’s leader was promptly ambushed by Western media smears.

    Xi becomes the first Chinese leader since Chairman Mao to hold three terms in office after he was re-elected by delegates at the 20th Congress of the Chinese Communist Party in Beijing last weekend.

    Western media rushed to predict that China would become more autocratic and repressive, without providing any substantiation for its lurid claims, and while ignoring the phenomenal economic and developmental successes of the People’s Republic under Xi during the past decade.

    The U.S.-based Council on Foreign Relations cited the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace which predicted that China would become “more assertive and aggressive” in its foreign relations over the next five years.

    The BBC ran a particularly scurrilous hit piece by its veteran anti-China apparatchik, Rupert Wingfield-Hayes, which alleged that President Xi’s policies are “creating the hostile world that he claims he is defending against”.

    Quoting Susan Shirk, a “China expert” dredged up from the Bill Clinton administration in the 1990s, the BBC accused China of “self-encirclement”, “picking fights” with neighboring countries, “ramping up tensions with Taiwan” and “taking on America and trying to run it out of Asia”.

    “It is a kind of self-encirclement that Chinese foreign policy has produced,” the so-called China expert obligingly commented for the BBC.

    The negative focus on China’s government sounds absurdly misplaced coming from U.S. and British media whose own nations are assailed with political crises over governance. Polls show unprecedented numbers of American citizens losing faith in their political parties and election system. In Britain, the country is reeling from the sacking of a third prime minister in as many years.

    But what’s asinine about the smears against Xi purportedly turning China into a more aggressive power is that they turn reality on its head.

    This week sees the U.S.-based National Endowment for Democracy (NED) holding a summit for “world democracy” in Taiwan. The event is being attended by over 300 activists and policymakers from some 70 nations to “promote freedom” and other virtue-signaling causes.

    The NED describes itself as a “non-governmental organization” even though it is bankrolled by the U.S. government and works closely with the Central Intelligence Agency. As American author, the late William Blum pointed out, the NED took over the CIA’s covert roles in the 1980s because it was more politically palatable given the agency’s notoriety for fomenting deadly coups and assassinations.

    Taiwan is officially recognized under international law as an integral part of China, albeit having an estranged relationship since the founding of the People’s Republic in 1949. The One China Policy is recognized legally by the United Nations and by most governments including the United States since the late 1970s.

    Washington nevertheless maintains a policy of “strategic ambiguity” whereby it proclaims to support Taiwan’s defense from China’s ambitions to incorporate the island territory under Beijing’s sovereign authority.

    President Joe Biden has stretched this duplicity to breaking point by declaring on four occasions since he took office in January 2021 that the US would intervene militarily to defend Taiwan in the event of an invasion from the Chinese mainland. Despite subsequent White House denials, Biden’s utterances are a flagrant violation of the One China Policy and a brazen attack on Chinese sovereignty.

    Since the strategic Pivot to Asia in 2011 taken by the Barack Obama administration, Washington has ramped up arms sales to Taiwan. The flow of arms and covert stationing of U.S. military trainers to Taiwan continued under Trump and now Biden.

    The calculated signals from Washington are promoting a more secessionist political climate in Taiwan, which feels emboldened that it has America’s backing to declare independence from China. Beijing has repeatedly warned against U.S. incitement in its backyard.

    When Democrat House of Representatives Leader Nancy Pelosi visited Taiwan in August, the incident infuriated Beijing to mount massive military exercises in the Taiwan Strait. For a few days, it looked as if an invasion could take place.

    Since President Xi was first elected in 2013, he has strongly asserted China’s historic right to rule over Taiwan, preferably by peaceful means but also through force of arms if necessary. He repeated that aim during a keynote address to the 20th Congress.

    Any reasonable observer can see that Beijing’s resolve is being cynically provoked by Washington’s interference in China’s internal affairs with regard to Taiwan’s sovereign status. Arming the island to the teeth with American missiles and thumbing noses at Beijing with pro-separatist political delegations would be not tolerated in the slightest if the shoe were on the other foot. Indeed, the U.S. would have gone to war against China already in a reverse scenario.

    For the Western media to make out that Xi is taking China in a more aggressive direction is a ludicrous distortion that conceals who is the real aggressor – the United States and its NATO partners who relentlessly accuse Beijing of expansionism. The only “expansionism” China is engaging in is building mutual trade and commerce with other nations through its global Belt and Road Initiative.

    The National Endowment for Democracy [read “Destabilization”], the CIA’s very own Trojan horse, is this week calling on “activists” in Taiwan to overthrow autocracy. It is a veritable call to arms by the CIA conducted on Chinese sovereign territory.

    Not only that, the NED summit declares that Taiwan and Ukraine are “two major frontlines of the struggle for democracy”.

    NED was a major driver of the coup d’état in Ukraine in 2014 which ushered in a fascist anti-Russia regime in Kiev and which led to the current war with Russia. The Americans are blatantly using the same playbook for Taiwan.

    And yet China and President Xi are being smeared as the aggressors!

    Beijing might be better taking Taiwan now – once and for all – before it festers anymore under American influence.

    As Russia is finding out, to its cost, delaying the disease can lead to more fatal conditions.

    The post Western Media Smear President Xi’s “Aggressive China” As CIA Front Holds Secessionist Summit in Taiwan first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • Venezuelan migrants expelled after Biden expands Title 42 expulsions

    The United States expelled hundreds of Venezuelans to Mexico over October 15–16, reports José Luis Granados Ceja.

    This post was originally published on Green Left.

  • United States: Detroit cops respond to mental health emergency and kill — again

    The family of Porter Burks, a young Black man from Detroit, Michigan, who was shot dead by cops, is demanding justice, reports Malik Miah.

    This post was originally published on Green Left.

  • Solution to Foreign Control Mess in Haiti is Not More Colonialism

    “The only way to save Haiti is to put it under UN control,” noted a recent Globe and Mail headline. Robert Rotberg, founding director of the Harvard Kennedy School’s Program on Intrastate Conflict, demonstrates a scarcity of imagination and knowledge in making his colonialist appeal.

    Highlighting an openly colonial streak in Canadian politics, prominent voices have repeatedly promoted “protectorate” status for Haiti. In 2014 right-wing Quebec City radio host, Sylvain Bouchard, told listeners, “I would transform Haiti into a colony. The UN must colonize Haiti.” During the 2003 “Ottawa initiative on Haiti” conference to plan the ouster of elected President Jean-Bertrand Aristide US, French and Canadian officials discussed putting the country under UN trusteeship while a 2005 Canadian Military Journal article was titled “The case for international trusteeship in Haiti”.

    In a Canadianized variation of the protectorate theme, constitutional law professor Richard Albert penned a 2017 Boston Globe opinion titled “Haiti should relinquish its sovereignty”. The Boston College professor wrote, “the new Haitian Constitution should do something virtually unprecedented: renounce the power of self-governance and assign it for a term of years, say 50, to a country that can be trusted to act in Haiti’s long-term interests.” According to the Canadian law professor his native land, which Albert called “one of Haiti’s most loyal friends”, should administer the Caribbean island nation.

    In a similar vein, L’Actualité editor-in-chief, Carole Beaulieu, suggested Haiti become the eleventh Canadian province. In an article just after the 2004 coup titled “Et si on annexait Haïti?”, she wrote “Canada should annex Haiti to make it a little tropical paradise.”

    At the less sophisticated conservative end of the political spectrum André Arthur, a former member of Parliament, labeled Haiti a “hopeless” and “sexually deviant” country populated by thieves and prostitutes that should be taken over by France as in the “heyday of colonial Haiti” (“belle époque de l’Haïti colonial”). “There is no hope in Haiti until the country is placed under trusteeship”, bellowed the Quebec City radio host in 2016. “We will never dare to do it, political correctness, it would be racism to say: So you say to France: … ‘For the next thirty years, you are the owner of Haiti, put it right. Kick the asses that need to be kicked.”

    In his Globe commentary Rotberg displays a startling level of ignorance about Haitian affairs. While writing that “Haiti needs to become a ward of the United Nations”, Rotberg fails to recognize that the UN and foreign powers have dominated Haiti over the past 18 years. Haitians widely view the head of the United Nations Integrated Office in Haiti (BINUH), Helen LaLime, a US diplomat, as colonial overseer. In 2019 BINUH replaced the United Nations Mission for Justice Support in Haiti (MINUJUSTH), which replaced La Mission des Nations Unies pour la stabilisation en Haïti (MINUSTAH) in 2017.

    MINUSTAH was responsible for countless abuses during its 13-year occupation, which consisted of 8,000 foreign troops and 2,000 police. After helping oust thousands of elected officials in 2004, 500 Canadian soldiers were incorporated into MINUSTAH as it backed up a coup government’s violent crackdown against pro-democracy protesters between March 2004 and May 2006. The UN force also killed dozens of civilians directly when it pacified Cité Soleil, a bastion of support for Aristide. The UN force was responsible for innumerable sexual abuses. The foreign forces had sex with minors, sodomized boys, raped young girls and left many single mothers to struggle with stigma and poverty after departing the country.

    Aside from sexual abuse and political repression, the UN’s disregard for Haitian life caused a major cholera outbreak, which left over 10,000 dead and one million sick.

    The 2004 coup and UN occupation introduced a form of multilateral colonial oversight to Haiti. The April 2004 Security Council resolution that replaced the two-month-old US, France and Canada Multinational Interim Force with MINUSTAH established the Core Group. (Unofficially, the Core Group traces its roots to the 2003 “Ottawa Initiative on Haiti” meeting where US, French, OAS and Canadian officials discussed overthrowing Haiti’s elected government and putting the country under UN trusteeship.) The Core Group, which includes representatives of the US, Canada, France, Spain, Brazil, OAS, EU and UN, periodically releases collective statements on Haitian affairs and meet among themselves and with Haitian officials. It’s a flagrantly colonial alliance. After President Jovenel Moise was killed 15 months ago, for instance, the Core Group effectively appointed Ariel Henry prime minister through a press release. Implicated in Moise’s assassination, Henry has overseen the country’s descent in chaos.

    Those calling for foreign control of Haiti ignore its loss of sovereignty since the 2004 coup. By what standards was the usurpation of Haitian sovereignty successful? By basically any metric, 18 years of US/Canada, UN, Core Group influence in Haiti has been a disaster. But imperialists don’t simply ignore the damaging impact of foreign intervention. In a stark demonstration of how power affects ideology, the more Haitian sovereignty is undercut the more forthright the calls to usurp Haitian sovereignty.

    As has been said, “insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.”

    The post Solution to Foreign Control Mess in Haiti is Not More Colonialism first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • A Crimean “Bridge too Far”?

    This is a war between Russia and the United States.
    — Jeffrey Sachs, talking with The Grayzone, October 9, 2022

    We’re now 8 months (or 8 years and 8 months) into the Ukrainian conflict, and the “dogs of war” are still barking it up, and their bark has become increasingly “nuclear” in tone.  Take Joe Biden’s recent “Armageddon” reference at a fundraiser, where he compared the current situation to the nuclear-tipped danger of the 1962 Cuban missile crisis.  Well, what a bizarre comparison, since Russia would be in the position of the “United States” in the analogy, but maybe Biden’s really that “strategically confused.”  Nevertheless, Biden’s “gaffe” did serve to raise anxiety levels, and Lord Fauci knows we all need some more of that, ever since the Covid kind of receded into the background noise we always knew it was.  Of course, “Apocalypse” Joe may have really been suggesting that we should be sending more Bibles than Bombs to Ukraine, but no available evidence, unfortunately, supports this theory.

    By weird coincidence, perhaps, a few days after Biden’s Biblical end-of-times invocation, Russia made Sergei Surovikin commander of their Ukraine operation.  Surovikin’s nickname:  “General Armageddon.”  At the very least, then, we can say that “Armageddon’s” trending this October and — Just in time for Halloween!

    Of course, the threat of nuclear war has been baked into the blue-and-yellow cake of this entirely avoidable conflict from the beginning, and, even immediately prior to Russia launching its “Special Military Operation” on February 24; indeed, Ukrainian comedian president Zelensky had made some smelly nuclear noises at the Munich Security conference some days before that may have triggered the invasion.  Chernobyl quickly became a symbol of the conflict in its opening phase, with western corporate media insisting that Putin was trying to cause “Chernobyl 2: the Sequel.”

    Somehow, the “Chernobyl story” has gone quiet since Russian forces decided that Kiev (or Kyiv) would not fall in 3 days.  Nevertheless, the Zaporozhia nuclear power plant has risen in the South of “We-don’t-know-what-country!” to take Chernobyl’s place, and to keep the idea of a radiological catastrophe in — or at least hovering around — the news cycle.  Russian forces have had control of the plant, apparently Europe’s largest, for months.  By many accounts, the Zaporozhia nuclear plant has been subjected to frequent shelling, often attributed in the western press to the very same Russians who are in possession of it. Well, one supposes that, by the same illogic, the Russians also scuttled their Nord Stream pipelines in NATO-side Baltic Sea waters just to spite — themselves.  One does not have to be a Scuba Team Sabotage Specialist to see the absurdity of this accusation.

    Which brings us to the Kerch Bridge sabotage event of October 8, which was instantly celebrated in Kiev (or Kyiv), with a blown-up (pun not necessarily unintended) postage stamp of the blown-up section of the burning bridge as a downtown sidewalk billboard with folks taking smiling selfies in front of it.  One suspects that these selfie-takers were not taking selfies in front of the blown-up SBU building in downtown Kiev (or Kyiv) two days later.  SBU is the Ukrainian equivalent of the CIA or MI6, both of which Intel agencies no doubt had offices inside.  No word, predictably, upon the extent of the destruction of this Ukrainian intel HQ building. Instead, western media pretended that Russia’s missile barrage was primarily aimed at children’s playgrounds all over Ukraine.  Even Democracy Now! pushed this Russophobic narrative by showcasing a 5-year old Ukrainian boy to explain the initial wave of Russian missile strikes, as if that “progressive” news outfit couldn’t find an adult correspondent:  Talk about child exploitation!

    Of course, central to the AmericaNATOstani’s Ukraine script is the talking point that “Villaindimir” Putin is threatening the use of nuclear weapons, and his provocative speech of September 30 is cited, quite hysterically, as “Exhibit A!”  In that speech, “Mad Vlad” was recognizing the validity of the referenda in the 4 breakaway regions of southern and eastern Ukraine, which all voted to join Russia.  In fact, Putin never mentioned nuclear weapons, but he did refer to the collective West as being “anti-democratic, totalitarian, and satanic.”  He also declared, in no uncertain terms, that 4 centuries of Western global hegemony are over (paraphrase).  Pretty bold statement there, Mr Putin!  The non-TransAtlantican World may not approve of Russia’s military operation in Ukraine, but certainly are not too upset by it.  Clearly, there is a new world system emerging, and the traditional arbiters of Power, the Imperial West, will have to get used to watching the Show, which they used to direct, from the “cheap seats.”

    Ironically, perhaps, Putin is a “westerner,” even though western media, at the behest of western intel agencies, of which they are merely speaking tube apparatuses, wants everyone to believe that he’s the latest incarnation of the “brutal dictator” we’ve been taking down all of these Made-for-TV episodes, or decades:  the “Villain with the Thousand Faces.”  But, truth be told, all slips of slithery tongues aside:  It’s the crazy Bidenite Regime pushing the “Armageddon” button, the Apocalypse envelope — not Putin.

    To that end (The End?), it was widely reported this morning, the 10th “22” of 2022, that the U.$. Army’s 101st Airborne Division has been conducting “live fire exercises” in Romania, next door to Ukraine.  The 101st, or “Screaming Eagles” as they are colloquially known, have not been deployed to Europe since World War 2.  One wonders:  What’s up with that?  Operation “Save the Day”?  Another “Charge of the Light Brigade”?  Yet the Sun is inexorably setting on Western power, hegemony, call it what you will.  The West is like a long spoiled child that the rest of the World is sending back to its room; unfortunately, this spoiled child has many nuclear “toys” at its disposal as it tries to tantrum its way out of the inevitable.

    Interestingly enough, Armageddon is mentioned only once in the Bible’s last “official” book, the Book of Revelation, 16:16.  Perhaps “Smoke-Signaler-in-Chief” Biden was merely blowing some slippery smoke by invoking “Armageddon,” like:  “It’ll be Armageddon, folks, if you don’t donate, and donate like you mean it!  Hey Fat, you know…the Thing!”  There’s a midterm election coming up.  Some say it’ll be a “game changer,” if only because people like to repeat the talking point phrase “game changer.”  With any luck, it will be an Armageddon Stopper…”Strategic confusion, folks, nothing but strategic confusion!”

    The post A Crimean “Bridge too Far”? first appeared on Dissident Voice.

  • Columbus is Buff and Ready for Genocide

    Below the elevated platform at the Astoria Boulevard/Hoyt Avenue N train station, my neighborhood plays host to Columbus Square — which is actually shaped like a warped triangle. Let Manhattan have its mundane Columbus Circle, we in Queens are far more geometrically sophisticated. It’s a square triangle for us.

    Naturally, a statue of Christopher Columbus adorns this triangular square. As you can see from the photo above, the city has given the bare minimum effort to protect this particular monument from being, um… canceled.

    Anyway, if one were to believe sculptor Angelo Racioppi’s rendition, Chris spent plenty of time in the Santa Maria Tennis and Fitness Club. This statue is pumped. He’s got biceps to die for and a set of pecs that are practically bursting out of his manly shirt.

    Yep, Columbus is buff and ready for genocide.

    I ponder this statue as we mark yet another Columbus Day — 24 hours set aside to revere Chris “The Continent Cleanser” Columbus.

    According to the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs, the estimated pre-1492 human population of what is now called the United States ranges from 5 to 15 million. By the late 1800s, the number of indigenous people was down to 25,000. Such a holocaust is only possible if the long tradition of demonization is utilized as a shield of denial.

    “There is a profound historical legacy in the U.S., going back to people like George Washington, for example, describing Indians as ‘wild beasts of the forest’ and ‘savage as the wolf,’” explains Ward Churchill.

    Broken treaties (over 400 signed and every single one broken), innumerable massacres (from the deliberate genocide of Powhatans to the slaughter at Wounded Knee), forced marches (e.g. the Trail of Tears relocating the Cherokee Nation from Georgia to Oklahoma), and federally sanctioned dehumanization — the treatment of Native Americans reads like a hideous catalog of crime.

    Speaking of hideous crimes, a man by the name of Adolf Hitler took notice of how America’s indigenous people were nearly exterminated in the Home of the Brave™.

    Ward Churchill explains how der Führer “used the treatment of the native people — the policies and processes that were imposed upon them — as a model for what he articulated as being the politics of living space.”

    In essence, says Churchill, Hitler took the notion of “a drive from east to west, clearing the land as the invading population went and resettling it with Anglo-Saxon stock…as the model by which he drove from west to east into Russia — displacing, relocating, dramatically shifting or liquidating a population to clear the land and replace it with what he called superior breeding stock. He was very conscious of the fact that he was basing his policies on the prior experiences of the Anglo-American population.”

    To get a good idea of when this got started, let’s contemplate how — upon encountering the Arawak people in 1492 — the venerated Mr. Columbus noted that they “would make fine servants,” adding, “with fifty men we could subjugate them all and make them do whatever we want.”

    For that, he gets a day in his honor… and a square triangle. Even if his statue took as convoluted a trip as its hero. Here’s how Forgotten-NY explains that process:

    The cast iron statue was built just before World War II by Italians living in Astoria, but could not be erected because they didn’t have enough money for the statue’s base. The statue was dedicated on October 12, 1941, but, by the fall of 1942, was moved to a city warehouse. Fearing the scrap metal drives of WWII, it was hidden away in the basement of the Queens Borough Hall. In 1945, the statue was reinstalled in its current location.

    At Columbus Square, an engraved plate (see photo above) on the ground reads: “But not for Columbus, there would be no America.” As I stomp on those intolerable words with my dirt-infested sneakers, I envision that first interaction:

    COLUMBUS: Red man, we want your land and everything on it.

    INDIAN: But, muscular paleface, what could you possibly offer in return for all these wonders?

    COLUMBUS: Hmm, let’s see. How about venereal disease, smallpox, the destruction of your culture, genocide, Christianity, and a really bad image in a bunch of John Wayne flicks?

    The Indian starts backing away slowly before taking off in a full sprint.

    COLUMBUS: (yells after him) But I promise we’ll toss in some casinos in about 500 years! (Indian keeps running) How about I get DiCaprio to walk beside you at a big climate parade one day?

    With that conversation in mind, I ascend the stairs to the N train.

    The post Columbus is Buff and Ready for Genocide first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • Surviving the Killing Fields, a Worldwide Challenge

    Awaiting discharge from a hospital in Cairo, Adel Al Manthari, a Yemeni civilian, faces months of physical therapy and mounting medical bills following three surgeries since 2018, when a U.S. weaponized drone killed four of his cousins and left him mangled, burnt and barely alive, bedridden to this day.

    On October 7th,  President Biden announced, through Administration officials briefing the press, a new policy regulating U.S. drone attacks, purportedly intended to reduce the numbers of civilian casualties from the attacks.

    Absent from the briefings was any mention of regret or compensation for the thousands of civilians like Adel and his family whose lives have been forever altered by a drone attack. Human rights organizations like the UK- based Reprieve have sent numerous requests to the U.S. Department of Defense and the State Department, seeking compensation to assist with Adel’s medical care, but no action has been taken. Instead, Adel and his family rely on a Go Fund Me campaign which has raised sufficient funds to cover the most recent surgery and hospitalization. But, Adel’s supporters are now begging for more assistance  to pay for crucial physical therapy plus household expenses for Adel and two of his  sons, his primary caregivers during the extended stay in Egypt. The family struggles with precarious finances, yet the Pentagon budget seemingly can’t spare a dime to help them.

    Writing for the New York Review of Books, (September 22, 2022), Wyatt Mason described the Lockheed Martin Hellfire 114 R9X, nicknamed the “ninja bomb,” as an air-to-surface, drone-launched missile with a top speed of 995 miles per hour. Carrying no explosives, the R9X  purportedly avoids collateral damage. As The Guardian reported in September 2020, ‘The weapon uses a combination of the force of 100lb of dense material flying at high speed and six attached blades which deploy before impact to crush and slice its victims.’”

    Adel was attacked before the “ninja bomb” was in more common use. Indeed it is unlikely that he would  have survived had his attackers hit the car he and his cousins were traveling in with the barbaric weapon designed to slice up their broken bodies. But this would be small comfort to a man who recalls the day when he and his cousins were attacked. The five of them were traveling by car to examine a real estate proposition for the family. One of the cousins worked for the Yemeni military. Adel worked for the Yemeni government. None of them were ever linked to non-governmental terrorism. But somehow they were targeted. The impact of the missile which hit them instantly killed three of the men. Adel saw, with horror, the strewn body parts of his cousins, one of whom was decapitated. One cousin, still alive, was rushed to a hospital where he died days later.

    The Biden administration seems keen to depict a kinder, gentler form of drone attacks, avoiding collateral damage by using more precise weapons like the “ninja bomb” and assuring that President Biden himself orders any attacks waged in countries where the United States is not at war. The “new” rules actually continue policies set up by former President Obama.

    Annie Shiel, of the Center for Civilians in Conflict (CIVIC) says the new lethal force policy entrenches the previous policies. “The new lethal force policy is also secret,” she writes, “preventing public oversight and democratic accountability.”

    President Biden can confer upon himself the power to kill other human beings anywhere in the world because he has determined, as he said after he ordered the drone assassination of Ayman al-Zawahiri, “ if you are a threat to our people, the United States will find you and take you out.”

    Martin Sheen, noted for his portrayal of U.S. President Josiah Bartlet on the 1999-2006 TV series “The West Wing,” has provided the voice-over for two 15-second cable spots critical of U.S. drone warfare. The spots began running this past weekend on CNN and MSNBC channels showing in Wilmington, DE, the hometown of President Joe Biden.

    In both spots, Sheen, who has a long history of opposing war and human rights violations, notes the tragedy of civilians killed overseas by U.S. drones. As images of press reports about drone operator suicides roll, he asks: “Can you imagine the unseen effects on the men and women who operate them?”

    Humanity faces rising perils of climate catastrophe and nuclear weapon proliferation. We need fictive voices like that of Sheen’s West Wing president and the very real, albeit sidelined leadership of people like Jeremy Corbyn in the UK:

    Some say to discuss peace at a time of war is a sign of some kind of weakness,” Corbyn writes, noting “the opposite is true. It is the bravery of peace protesters around the world that stopped some governments from being involved in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Yemen, or any of the dozens of other conflicts going on.  Peace is not just the absence of war; it is real security. The security of knowing you will be able to eat, your children will be educated and cared for, and a health service will be there when you need it. For millions, that is not a reality now; the after effects of the war in Ukraine will take that away from millions more.  Meanwhile, many countries are now increasing arms spending and investing resources in more and more dangerous weapons. The United States has just approved its biggest-ever defense budget. These resources used for weapons are all resources not used for health, education, housing, or environmental protection.  This is a perilous and dangerous time. Watching the horror play out and then preparing for more conflicts in the future will not ensure that the climate crisis, poverty crisis, or food supply is addressed. It’s up to all of us to build and support movements that can chart another course for peace, security, and justice for all.

    Well said.

    The current line up of world leaders seem incapable of leveling with their people about the consequences of pouring money into military budgets which then allow “defense” corporations to profit from weapon sales, worldwide, fueling forever wars and enabling them to unleash legions of lobbyists to assure that government officials continue feeding the greedy, barbaric corporate missions of outfits like Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, Boeing and General Atomics.

    We must follow the bright lights arrayed across the world as grass roots movements campaign for environmental sanity and seek to abolish war. And we must engage in the gentle personalism which endeavors to tell Adel Al Manthari we’re sorry, we’re so very sorry for what our countries have done to him, and we earnestly wish to help.

      A screenshot from a video recorded by a local activist and lawyer shows the aftermath of the March 29, 2018 U.S. drone strike which killed four civilians and critically injured Adel Al Manthari near Al Ugla, Yemen.  Image: Mohammed Hailar via Reprieve. from The Intercept

    Adel Al Manthari, then a civil servant in the Yemeni government, is treated for severe burns, a fractured hip, and serious damage to the tendons, nerves and blood vessels in his left hand following a drone strike  in Yemen in 2018.  Photo: Reprieve

    The post Surviving the Killing Fields, a Worldwide Challenge first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • UNHRC adopts resolution to help Marshall Islands over nuclear legacy

    RNZ Pacific

    The United Nations Human Rights Council has adopted a resolution aimed at assisting the Marshall Islands to get justice in the aftermath of the United States nuclear testing.

    “We have suffered the cancer of the nuclear legacy for far too long and we need to find a way forward to a better future for our people,” says Samuel Lanwi, deputy permanent representative of the Marshall Islands to the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva.

    The Marshallese people are still struggling with the health and environmental consequences of nuclear tests, including higher cancer rates.

    Many people displaced due to the tests are still unable to return home.

    The US conducted 67 US nuclear tests from 1946-1958 and a settlement was reached in 1986 with the United States, a Compact of Free Association, which fell short of addressing the extensive environmental and health damage that resulted from the tests.

    The U.S government asserts the bilateral agreement settled “all claims, past, present and future”, including nuclear compensation.

    The new text tabled by five Pacific Island states called on the UN rights chief to submit a report in September 2024 on the challenges to the enjoyment of human rights by the Marshallese people, stemming from the nuclear legacy.

    It called on the UN rights chief to submit a report in September 2024 on the challenges to the enjoyment of human rights by the Marshallese people stemming from the nuclear legacy.

    The US as well as other nuclear weapons states such as Britain, India and Pakistan expressed concern about some aspects of the text but did not ask for a vote on the motion.

    Japan did not speak at the meeting.

    Runeit Dome, built by the US on Enewetak Atoll to hold radioactive waste from nuclear tests.
    Runeit Dome, built by the US on Enewetak Atoll to store radioactive waste from nuclear tests. Image: Tom Vance/RNZ

    Observers say some nuclear states fear the initiative for the Marshall Islands could open the door to other countries bringing similar issues to the rights body.

    A concrete dome on Runit Island containing radioactive waste is of concern, especially about rising sea levels as a result of climate change, according to the countries that drafted the resolution.

    This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ. Reporting also by Kyodo News/Pacnews.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Hidden Motives: Why Lapid is Not Serious about a Palestinian State 

    Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid threw a wrench into the works when he declared from the United Nations General Assembly podium: “An agreement with the Palestinians, based on two states for two peoples, is the right thing for Israel’s security, for Israel’s economy and for the future of our children.”

    The statement took many by surprise, including the Palestinian leadership.

    Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas has been addressing the UNGA every September, every year, recycling the same speech about how he has fulfilled his commitments to peace and that it is Israel that needs to engage in serious negotiations toward a two-state solution.

    This time, too, Abbas did his part as expected. In his latest speech, he referred to Israel’s “total impunity” and “premeditated and deliberate policies” aimed at “destroying the two-state solution”.

    Lapid, like Naftali Bennet and Benjamin Netanyahu before him, was also expected to stick to the script: accusing Palestinians of terrorism and incitement, reeling against the UN’s supposed ‘bias’, and making a case of why Israel should be more invested in its own security than in a Palestinian state.

    Lapid, however, did not go that route. True, he regurgitated much of the typical Israeli discourse, accusing Palestinians of “firing rockets and missiles at our children”, and the like.  However, he also spoke, unexpectedly, about Israel’s desire to see a Palestinian state.

    Hence, Lapid linked the theoretical Palestinian state on the condition it does not become “another terror base from which to threaten the well-being, and the very existence of Israel”.

    Conditions aside, Lapid’s reference to a Palestinian state remains interesting and politically risky. Indeed, the majority of Israelis – 58 percent, according to the Israel Democracy Institute – do not support a Palestinian state. Since Israel is embarking on yet another general election – the fifth in less than four years – swimming against Israel’s dominant political current does not, initially, seem like a winning idea.

    In fact, immediate condemnations of Lapid’s statement by Interior Minister Ayelet Shaked, indicate that Lapid’s UN comments will definitely be a contentious campaign issue in the coming weeks.

    So, why did Lapid utter these words?

    To begin with, Lapid is not serious about a Palestinian state.

    Israeli leaders have used this line since the start of the so-called peace process as a way to demonstrate their willingness to engage in a political dialogue under the auspices of Washington, but without going any further. If anything, for 30 years, Tel Aviv – and Washington – waved the Palestinian state carrot before the Palestinian leadership to win time for illegal settlement expansion and to, ultimately, cite Palestinian supposed rejection, incitement and violence as real obstacles before the establishment of such a state.

    Lapid’s language – on the Palestinian state becoming a “terror base” threatening “the very existence of Israel” – is entirely consistent with the typical Israeli discourse on this issue.

    Moreover, Lapid aimed to upset the predictable routine at the UN, where Palestinians make their case, which is usually supported by most UN members, and where Israel goes on the defensive. By alluding to a Palestinian state – a day before Abbas made his appeal for Palestinian full UN membership – Lapid wanted to regain the initiative and appear a pro-active leader with a plan.

    Though it may appear that Lapid’s statement was a bad political move within the context of the rightwing-dominated Israeli politics, this might not be the case. For years, the Left and Center in Israel have been embattled, as they appeared to have no answers to any of Israel’s external and internal problems.

    Contrastingly, the Right, along with its growing alliances within the religious and ultra-nationalist camps, seemed to have the answer to everything: their answer to Palestinian demands for freedom and sovereignty was annexation. Their answer to Palestinian protests against home demolitions in occupied East Jerusalem is more home demolitions, mass-scale destruction, and widening the circle of expulsions.

    Unable to stop the tidal wave of the Right, Israel’s nominally Left, like the Labor party, and Center, like Kahol Lavan, moved closer to the Right. After all, the latter’s ideas, though sinister and violent, are the only ones that seem to be gaining traction among Israeli voters.

    Israel’s political dichotomy, however, grew larger, as expressed in the stalemates of four previous elections, starting in April 2019. The Right failed to manage stable coalitions, and the Left failed to catch up. Lapid and his Yesh Atid party hope to change all of this by presenting a potentially stable Center-Left coalition that can offer more than mere opposition to the Right’s ideas, visions and plans of their own.

    Though a Palestinian state is hardly a popular idea among most Israelis, Lapid’s target audience is not just Israel’s Left, Center, and possibly Arab parties. Another target audience is the Biden Administration.

    US President Joe Biden and his Democratic Party, which remains, at least verbally, committed to a two-state solution, are embarking on very difficult times ahead: the Mid-term November election, which could cost them dearly in the House and Senate, and the subsequent Presidential elections in 2024. Biden is keen to present his administration as that of military strength and a vision of peace and stability. Lapid’s words about a Palestinian state were meant to entice the US administration, which will likely engage with Lapid’s party, and possible coalition government in the future, as a ‘peacemaker’.

    Finally, Lapid is aware of the impending transition in the Occupied Palestinian territories. As an armed Intifada is growing in the northern Occupied West Bank, PA leader Abbas, 87, will soon leave the scene. A potential successor, Hussein al-Sheikh, is particularly close to Israel’s security apparatus, thus completely mistrusted by most Palestinians.

    The talk of a Palestinian state is, therefore, meant to give whomever is to follow Abbas, political leverage that would allow him to stave off an armed revolt and take Palestinians into another futile hunt in search of another political mirage.

    It remains to be seen if Lapid’s strategy will pay dividends – whether it will cost him in the coming Israeli elections, or whether his words will evaporate into the dustbin of history, as did many such references by Israeli leaders in the past.

    The post Hidden Motives: Why Lapid is Not Serious about a Palestinian State  first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • “Well of Solutions” or Problems: Why Reforming the UN is Critical

    The 77th session of the United Nations General Assembly was, in many ways, similar to the 76th session and many other previous sessions: at best, a stage for rosy rhetoric that is rarely followed by tangible action or, at worse, a mere opportunity for some world leaders to score political points against their opponents.

    This should surprise no one. For many years, the UN has been relegated to the role of either a cheerleader for the policy of great powers, or a timid protester of sociopolitical, economic or gender inequalities. Alas, as the Iraq war proved nearly thirty years ago, and as the Russia-Ukraine war is proving today, the UN seems the least effective party in bringing about global peace, equality and security for all.

    As is often the case, voices like those of Antonio Guterres – who called for “achieving and sustaining peace” – were drowned by those with the big guns and financial means to turn the Ukraine war into a long-drawn battlefield for their own strategic reasons.

    Similar to Guterres, the words of the new UN General Assembly President Csaba Kőrösi seemed least practical or, sadly, even relevant.

    “Responding to humanity’s most pressing challenges demands that we work together, and that we reinvigorate inclusive, networked and effective multilateralism and focus on that which unites us”, Kőrösi said in his speech at the opening session on Tuesday, September 20.

    Kőrösi’s frame of reference to what, at least for now, seems like wishful thinking, is his understanding that the UN was created out of the “ashes of war” with the intention of being a “well of solutions”.

    In truth, the UN Charter was signed in June 1945 to reflect an emerging new power paradigm that resulted from World War II. The UN power structure simply confirmed the gains of the victors of that war and granted the victorious countries far greater influence through their permanent membership in the UN Security Council and veto power, than the rest of the world combined.

    This was not a deviation from the historical norm. After all, the League of Nations, the predecessor of the current UN, was founded in 1920 to confirm the new geopolitical realities that resulted from World War I.

    The League of Nations was scrapped as it was deemed ‘ineffective’. This, however, was not the real reason behind its dismissal. In actuality, the League’s old structure and makeup simply did not correspond to the new power formations resulting from the Second World War, where old enemies became new friends and old friends became new enemies.

    Effectiveness had little to do with the switch from the League to the UN, as the latter hardly managed to seriously address or resolve major political issues, from Palestine, to Kashmir, to Sudan, Mali, Afghanistan, and numerous other conflicts, including today’s war in Ukraine.

    Even the hype over the UN’s role in addressing the climate change crisis, arguably the most pressing for all of humankind, has petered out quickly. Thanks to the polarization and self-serving ‘diplomacy’ generated by the Ukraine crisis, many countries that led the way in the use of clean energy are now backtracking.

    Indeed, the environmental crisis has now been moved to the back burner, to the extent that US President Joe Biden has reportedly skipped the roundtable talks on climate action, which were scheduled to take place in New York on September 21. A year ago, this would have generated much discussion and even anger among US environmentalists. Now it seems a trivial and politically inconsequential issue.

    Still, despite its many contradictions, and overall failure to deliver on its promises of peace and security, the UN continues to serve a role. For the US and its western allies, it remains a stage for their political power, which they have inherited from the legacy of WWII.

    However, for smaller countries – in Africa, the Middle East and much of the Global South – the UN gives them a voice, albeit barely audible, and grants them an occasional chance at relevance. This relevance, however, is temporary and ultimately intangible. After all, all the fiery, impassioned, and articulate speeches of all the leaders of the Global South combined hardly ever influenced outcomes, discouraged neocolonialism, economic exploitations, racism, military interventions or political meddling.

    In an open letter on September 20 addressing world leaders, over 200 humanitarian organizations, including OXFAM and Save the Children, stated that one person is likely to be dying every four seconds as a result of the “spiraling global hunger crisis”.

    This crisis is more palpable in Africa than on any other continent. Though food shortages in Africa are an ongoing challenge, many signs have already indicated that an unprecedented crisis is looming, initiated by climate change, worsened by the Covid pandemic, and further accentuated by the Ukraine war and the disruption of critical supply routes.

    Despite repeated pleas by UN organizations to prioritize Africa in terms of food shipments, the opposite became true. This begs the question: If the UN does not have the means and power to provide life-saving food to starving children, isn’t it, then, time to question the very mission, structure, and mechanisms of the world’s largest organization?

    True, there has been talking about urgent and long overdue UN reforms. Some want the UN to be reformed to reflect new democratic or economic realities, while others feel deserving of being permanent members of the UNSC. The West, of course, wants to keep the convenient power distribution in place as long as possible.

    However, for a reformed UN to serve a noble mission and to live up to its lofty promises, the new power distribution should allocate places for all, regardless of military power or economic might. Till then, the UN will remain a sad expression of the world’s existing problems, not, in the words of Kőrösi, a “well of solutions”.

    The post “Well of Solutions” or Problems: Why Reforming the UN is Critical first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • Meloni’s victory in Italy spurs the far right

    The European far right are seeking to capitalise on the crises resulting from Russia’s war on Ukraine to mobilise support, argue Malik Miah and Barry Sheppard.

    This post was originally published on Green Left.

  • Only Adult Children Still Believe U.S. Propaganda

    It should now be quite clear to any reasonable person that the Biden administration is hell-bent on destroying Russia and will risk nuclear war in doing so.  It has already started World War III with its use of Ukraine to light the final match.  The problem is that reasonable people are in very short supply, and, as Ray McGovern recently wrote in “Brainwashed for War with Russia,” the Biden administration and their media lackeys

    … will have no trouble rallying Americans for the widest war in 77 years, starting in Ukraine, and maybe spreading to China …. Most Americans are just as taken in by the media as they were 20 years ago, when they were told there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. They simply took it on faith. Nor did the guilty media express remorse – or a modicum of embarrassment.

    Many good writers – all of whom are banned from mainstream media – have  made clear why the corporate media propaganda about the US/NATO war against Russia via Ukraine is false and egregiously dangerous.  The government of the U.S.A. is led by morons in the demonic grip of the “The U.S. Should Rule the World” ideology.  It is nothing new.

    I don’t wish to debate the facts, for that is a fool’s game created to suggest there is something to debate.  For the evidence is clear, except to the public in the grip of propaganda-induced ignorance or those elites who never learned from the ancient Greek goddess Nemesis that dark Furies will destroy those who in their hubris push the limits.  The Biden administration has already done that, while President Biden mutters inanities as if he were a mafia boss wandering the streets in his pajamas and slippers.  The recent sabotaging of Nord Stream 2 is another example of the treacherous road we are traveling, as Diana Johnstone makes clear in her recent article, “Omerta in the Gangster War.”

    For years, the U.S.- run NATO has moved military forces and bases into countries encircling Russia. This includes weapons that can very quickly be converted to nuclear use. This, as I’ve pointed out before, is tantamount to Russia doing the same in Mexico and Canada, and let’s add Cuba as well.  We know what the U.S. response would be, but when President Putin and his government objected and said this is a betrayal of previous agreements, he was dismissed as if he were a child making things up.

    In 2014, when the U.S. engineered a coup in Ukraine, bringing into power neo-Nazi elements, and Russia protested this coup on its western border, Washington mocked such concerns. Every time Russia has complained about such provocative moves, the U.S. has dismissed them as inconsequential.

    For years the U.S. has supported the Ukrainian killing of the Russian speaking peoples of eastern Ukraine, and finally, when Ukraine had amassed forces to invade the Donbass region, the Russian government had had enough and sent troops into the region to defend this area.  Thus the hypocritical West played at outrage that what they had created was finally backfiring.  Russia was cast as the guilty party for invading Ukraine.  And now a full-fledged U.S. war against Russia is out in the open and it will become more dangerous as it continues.  Nuclear annihilation becomes a very real possibility as the Biden administration continues to push the envelope.

    There will be no end to the war in Ukraine because the U.S. is intent on doing everything in its power to try to bring Russia to its knees.  It is madness on its face, but then insane people are in charge. In this process, everyone is expendable, friends, foes, and anyone who stands in its way, including the U.S.’s supposed European allies whose leaders seem intent on destroying their own countries.

    Perhaps ironically – but I think not, as a knowledge of history confirms – the volte-face of the American liberal class with its promotion of the new Cold War, censorship, the CIA, and FBI and the so-called progressive Democratic politicians in the U.S congress, including Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, embracing and voting for war with Russia via Ukraine, should be no great surprise. These people, and their Republican counterparts, with rare exceptions here and there, live on desolation row and flip when so ordered.  But “nobody has to think too much about Desolation Row,” in Dylan’s words, because it’s the social disease we inhabit, and like fish in water, many know nothing else.

    On a similar note, Ray McGovern has also recently reminded those who pay attention to him that The New York Times, as is its tradition, is promoting the U.S. war against Russia just as it did with the Vietnam War in the 1960s.  Little changes is his theme, no apologies are ever offered, and the readers of the most famous American newspaper and CIA conduit are asked to swallow daily doses of propaganda that are so egregiously obvious that only children would be fooled.  Sadly, the United States has become a country of children, Babes in Toyland who never realize that at the end of the plot the gun is reversed and is aimed at them.  And it’s not funny.

    A century ago in the years before World War I, American progressive intellectuals, as Stuart Ewen writes in PR: A Social History of Spin:

    … had espoused the Enlightenment dictum that people – at least middle-class people – were essentially rational, capable of evaluating information and then making intelligent decisions.  In the context of the CPI [the U.S, Committee on Public Information, a large propaganda apparatus set up in April 1917 by President Woodrow Wilson to sell the American entry into the war against Germany as necessary to ‘Make the World Safe for Democracy,’ whose members included Edward Bernays, the propagandist and so-called father of public relations] ‘public opinion’ became something to be mobilized and managed; the ‘public mind’ was now seen as an entity to be manufactured, not reasoned with.

    Faith in reason was abandoned in favor of psychological manipulation of emotion and the use of unreason – the “night mind” – which became the template for future propaganda and the application of psychological techniques, a forerunner of the CIA’s MKUltra and Operation Mockingbird.  As the crackdown on dissent increased with passage of the 1917 Espionage Act (under which Julian Assange is falsely charged today) and then the Sedition Act in 1918, many so-called progressives embraced the authoritarian imposition of state controls on dissent, just as they do today.  An important exception was Randolph Bourne, who in 1917 castigated these turncoats in his blistering essay, “War and the Intellectuals.”  “Socialists, college professors, publicists, new-republicans, [and] practitioners of literature,” he wrote, “had assumed the iniquitous task of ‘riveting the war mind on a hundred million of the world’s people.’”  Today such people debate whether they should be called liberal or progressive.  I say, call them warmongers of the lowest order.

    I remember when I was an impressionable child and television had only a few channels.  This was in the years between the Korean War and the one against Vietnam. There was a movie that was repeated on television regularly: Yankee Doodle Dandy, starring the amazing performer Jimmy Cagney as George M. Cohan, the Irish-American composer/lyricist/playwright, who, in the years before WW I was known as the man who owned Broadway and whose statue stands in Times Square in New York City.

    Child that I was, I saw the film many times and was mesmerized.  My emotions rose with every viewing.  My heart strings vibrated to the tunes of “Over There” and “You’re a Grand Old Flag.”  I marched proudly to WW I with Cagney/Cohan.  This was a movie that appeared in 1942 to promote the WW II war effort by using the lies about WW I to do it.  But, oh, what fun!  And the stirring songs – fodder for a child.  And this was before the CIA completely owned Hollywood.

    Yet I grew up.  I am no longer a child.  I have studied and seen through the propaganda of The New York Times, CNN, the Washington Post, Fox News, The Guardian, Hollywood, etc.

    Many of those I know have not.  They believe in the unbelievable. They still live in what Jim Garrison called the “Doll’s House” and accept what Harold Pinter termed “a vast tapestry of lies.”  Pinter said in his 2005 Nobel address what has not changed an iota since about the U.S.’s murderous foreign policy:

    It never happened. Nothing ever happened. Even while it was happening it wasn’t happening. It didn’t matter. It was of no interest. The crimes of the United States have been systematic, constant, vicious, remorseless, but very few people have actually talked about them. You have to hand it to America. It has exercised a quite clinical manipulation of power worldwide while masquerading as a force for universal good. It’s a brilliant, even witty, highly successful act of hypnosis.

    When I was a child, I was hypnotized by Yankee Doodle Dandy.

    I’ve grown a bit.  McGovern and Pinter are right; little has changed – Vietnam, WW I, Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, Yugoslavia, Somalia, Iran, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Libya, China, etc.  And, of course, Russia, always Russia, at whose heart the weapons are always aimed, fiendish Russia that must be destroyed to make the world safe for the predators that pose as lovers of democracy and international law.

    When President Kennedy, deeply chastened by the Cuban Missile Crisis of October 1962, spoke about real peace and democracy at American University on June 10, 1963, he was the last American leader to recognize that international relations had to undergo a radical change, especially in the nuclear age.  Demonizing other countries had to give way to dialogue and mutual respect.  He said:

    What kind of peace do I mean? What kind of peace do we seek? Not a Pax Americana enforced on the world by American weapons of war. Not the peace of the grave or the security of the slave. I am talking about genuine peace, the kind of peace that makes life on earth worth living, the kind that enables men and nations to grow and to hope and to build a better life for their children–not merely peace for Americans but peace for all men and women–not merely peace in our time but peace for all time.

    Five months later the CIA made sure his voice was stilled.  Such sentiments have been verboten ever since.

    Only children still believe the America propaganda and its war machine.

    The post Only Adult Children Still Believe U.S. Propaganda first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • Opportunistic Interests: The US-Pacific Island Declaration

    If ever there was a blatant statement of realpolitik masquerading as friendliness, the latest US-Pacific Island declaration must count as one of them.  The Biden administration has been busy of late, wooing Pacific Island states in an effort to discourage increasingly sharp tilt towards China.  It has been spurred on, in no small way, by Beijing’s failure in May to forge a trade and security pact with Pacific Island countries.

    In July, Vice President Kamala Harris was given the task of spreading the good word to those attending the Pacific Islands Forum that the US “is a proud Pacific nation and has an enduring commitment to the Pacific Islands, which is why President Joe Biden and I seek to strengthen our partnership with you.”

    Harris also acknowledged the Pacific Islands had not been in Washington’s diplomatic radar in recent years.  They had not received deserving “attention and support”.  This, she promised, would change.  As a start, embassies would be established in Tonga and Kiribati.  A United States Envoy to the Pacific Islands Forum would be appointed.  USAID would also expand its operations and re-establish a regional mission in Suva, Fiji.

    This month, the focus has been on the push for a broader declaration designed to rope in the sceptics.  President Biden, in his address to leaders at the State Department ahead of the White House dinner, extravagantly declared that, “The security of America and, quite frankly, the world, depends on your security – and the security of the Pacific Islands.”

    Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, in remarks made before a September 29 meeting with the leaders of the Republic of the Marshall Islands, Federated State of Micronesia and Republic of Palau, spoke of “the incredible breath and depth of the relationship and partnership we have.”

    The previous day, at a working lunch with US-Pacific Island Country Leaders, Blinken also spoke of “a shared history, value and enduring people-to-people ties.”  As part of a group, the United States would discuss with Pacific Island states “the challenges that we face, exchange ideas and perspectives, and chart a way forward to deliver on the issues that matter most to our people.”

    As has become customary in the Blinkenesque argot, one takes the management waffle with the occasional candid remark.  China, the obvious target in this latest push for deeper regional engagement by Washington, is not mentioned once.  The threats of climate change, the role of viruses, transnational criminal organisations, corruption and human trafficking are.

    But the shadow of Beijing is discernible in remarks that the grouping will be able to preserve “a free and open Indo-Pacific where every nation – no matter how big, no matter how small – has the right to choose its own path.”

    The declaration itself makes eleven points.  Among them is the resolve to strengthen the partnership to enable “individuals to reach their potential” and foster conditions where “the environment can thrive, and democracy will be able to flourish.”  Greater US involvement in terms of diplomatic presence and “development cooperation” is envisaged.  Other bread and butter points include responding to the climate crisis, advancing sustainable development and economic growth, and improving responses to disasters.

    The standout provision is the seventh, where the nature of US power is camouflaged behind the promise of keeping the “Blue Pacific Continent” free of war and conflict.  “We will oppose all efforts to undermine the territorial integrity and sovereignty of any country, large or small.  We condemn all wars of aggression, including Russia’s brutal war against Ukraine.”  This is very much the sentiment of a policing authority, a watchful armed guard.

    Such a sentiment also finds voice in a White House release, which explicitly states Washington’s determination to maintain a firm hand in the Pacific.  “The United States recognizes that geography links the Pacific’s future to our own: US prosperity and security depend on the Pacific region remaining free and open.”

    Some of the Pacific Island states have expressed their pleasure at the whole circus, with Samoan Prime Minister Fiame Naomi Mata’afa openly contrasting Washington’s approach with that of Beijing’s in May.  “We’ve been insisting that if partners wish to talk to us, collectively, then they need to do it through the modalities of the Pacific [Islands] Forum.”  China, in proposing something similar along the lines of the declaration, had not done so.

    While approving in her remarks about the general nature of the agreement, the Samoan leader was also explicit in what it did not promote.  Maintaining regional peace and security was an important goal but should not come at the cost of an increased US military presence.  “We wouldn’t like to encourage that in any way.”  This may prove to be wishful thinking, given Washington’s ambitions as expressed in the AUKUS security pact.

    The other good reason for the attraction among certain Pacific Island states is the cash that is predicted to follow.  An amount somewhere in the order of US$860 million in expanded aid programs is expected in addition to the US$1.5 billion provided in the last decade.

    The Solomon Islands, which has proven to be more friendly than most towards Beijing, is a case in point, and will receive additional aid to improve its tourism industry.  This is despite having shown reluctance to signing the declaration in the first place.  But if the conduct of the Sogavare government is anything to go by, the more cunning Pacific Island leaders will be happy to take whatever they can get their hands on from both Beijing and Washington. That would certainly make things open if agitating.

    The post Opportunistic Interests: The US-Pacific Island Declaration first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • The Attack on the Russian Pipelines Are Ultimately a Sign of Weakness

    Earlier this week an incident occurred that represents a new and alarming threat to peace in the world. I am referring of course to the attack upon two Russian pipelines that occurred in the Baltic Sea. The pipelines, named Nord Stream I and II were designed to bring Russian gas to the European market. Nord Stream II was currently inoperable, its German recipient having made the decision (or was it made for them?) to not accept the gas that it bought.

    There has been intense speculation online about who was responsible for what can only be described as a terrorist attack. The names of countries most frequently mentioned in this context are Russia, Poland, Ukraine and the United States. Russia can be ruled out, notwithstanding the somewhat desperate attempts of some media outlets to point the finger at them. Russia has absolutely no motive to cause the damage. If they wished to deny gas to Europe, all they had to do was turn the switch to “off” for that to be achieved.

    Ukraine can be ruled out because it lacks the means to achieve this act of sabotage.

    The operation was actually quite complex, obviously involving the use of ships in the vicinity to carry the saboteurs. It is extremely doubtful if the Ukrainians have the technical expertise to carry out the operation, much less able to put the naval vehicles in the vicinity to carry out that operation

    Poland has both the manpower and the motivation to carry out the attack.  It is extremely doubtful, however, whether they have the political will to carry out such an attack, at least on their own. That leaves the Americans and here much evidence can be mustered on behalf of their being the culprit.

    Let us examine that option in terms of the three classic elements used in determining potential culpability: means, motive and opportunity. Means is hardly an issue. The Americans have plenty of people trained specifically in this type of warfare. It would be a simple matter from their perspective to put together a team able to conduct such an operation.

    Let’s look at motive. Here there is no shortage of evidence. In February of this year the United States president, Joe Biden, issued a specific threat against Russia should they ever develop the Nord Stream 2 Pipeline and use it to supply gas to Germany. The pipeline was certainly developed and had it not been for the Germans’ capitulation to United States pressure it would have been supplying gas to Germany months ago.

    Did the United States fear that Germany would recover its nerve and agree to the pipeline becoming operational, despite the United States pressure? That was certainly a possibility. Although it has not been reported in the western media, there has, in fact, been massive protests in Germany in recent weeks. The deprivation of gas to Germany has not only seen the Germans facing the prospect of a very cold winter but more importantly there has been a large-scale closure of German businesses, and with it a loss of jobs, as firms have reacted to the rapidly diminishing supply of gas that is essential to keep the factories operating. That unrest was placing growing pressure on the German government, some resiling from their earlier reluctance to resist United States pressure was a growing possibility.

    That leaves the United States as a prime candidate for being responsible for the sabotage. It marks a wholly new level of irresponsibility by the Americans. Not only have they been prepared to see the collapse of Europe’s strongest economy, it marks a degree of carelessness and indifference to political responses not witnessed in living memory by the United States political class.

    Why have they been prepared to adopt such an extreme and risky policy? To answer that question, one has to look wider than Europe. The last several years have seen the steady rise of the Chinese to the point where they are now, in parity progression terms, the world’s strongest economy. The rise in Chinese economic power has been matched by the progressive outgunning of the Americans in a range of social and economic issues. This manifests itself in a variety of ways, including the development of a range of economic groupings that have proved enormously attractive to an ever-growing number of countries in the world. This includes the Belt and Road Initiative which now has more than 145 members, or three quarters of all countries in the world.

    The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation is another grouping which currently welcomed Iran as its eighth full member, but has also attracted membership bids from a number of other countries, including, of particular significance, Turkey, which remains for the time being at least, still a member of NATO for whom moves by the SCO remain anathema to them.

    The BRICS is a further grouping that has also shown recent signs of expanding its membership from the current five members, drawn from the world’s great continents. None of these developments have been well received by the Americans who see their previous hegemony around the world progressively declining in both power and influence.

    It is not a position the Americans accept with any equanimity. The attack upon Russian infrastructure may be interpreted as a desperate attempt to recover its initial primacy. It demonstrates, however, that it is losing the ability to influence the rest of the world.  The desperate attempt by a fading empire to regain its military relevance. The world has had enough of United States bullying and the attack on Nord Stream 1 and 2 will be interpreted in that light.  That they should choose to demonstrate that fading relevance by an attack on a major civilian target will properly be interpreted as a sign of weakness.  The attack on Nord Stream 1 and 2 may be seen by many as just enough to tip the remaining doubters from one camp to another.

    The post The Attack on the Russian Pipelines Are Ultimately a Sign of Weakness first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • US colonial policies behind Hurricane Fiona power blackout in Puerto Rico

    The blackout that engulfed Puerto Rico when Hurricane Fiona laid bare the impacts of austerity and privatisation carried under United States fiscal control, reports Barry Sheppard.

    This post was originally published on Green Left.

  • A New World Order is Emerging and Not Before Time

    The recent meeting in Samarkand of the leaders of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, both actual and prospective, received little coverage in the Western media. This was a great pity because this organisation is one of the most important groupings of nations in the world. The meeting was notable on a number of points. It clearly spelt out for example, that notwithstanding the present conflict in Ukraine, Russia remains an important force in the world and if anything, its position has strengthened in the seven months since it took action in Ukraine.

    Despite desperate attempts by the Western media that bothered to report on the conference, the relationship between Russia and China remains very strong, and is, in fact, strengthening by the day. The Americans issued the expected threats that China was risking its position by its continued relationship with Russia, but those threats were ignored by the Chinese who refuse to be intimidated by United States’ threats.

    The American position is not assisted by its frankly two-faced approach to Taiwan. On the one hand it professes to follow the one China policy which acknowledges that Taiwan is a legitimate part of China, but on the other hand by its words and actions treats Taiwan as a separate country. The Chinese do not bother to hide their frustration at this two-faced approach. By their every action, including sending fighter jets into Taiwan’s airspace, the Chinese are making it increasingly clear that their patience with double standards pursued by the Americans is wearing very thin.

    The United States, and its Australian ally, continue its provocative policy of sending their warships into the South China Sea. The ostensible reason for this is to preserve freedom of navigation although neither country can point to a single instance of civilian ships being impeded in any way at any time. The actions are clearly provocative.  Why Australia allows itself to be used in this way remains a mystery. China takes 40% of Australia’s exports and has been its largest trading partner for a number of decades. Its vital interests lie in maintaining a good relationship with China. The frankly provocative actions of successive Australian governments are not conducive to maintaining that relationship. The Chinese provided a clue as to their attitude when they froze the import of several Australian products worth billions of dollars. The new Labor government seems slow to grasp the message that has clearly been sent.

    The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation meeting also sent a number of other clear messages to the world. These included the warm reception given to the Saudi and Turkish delegations. The Turkish case is particularly interesting. Turkey has been a dialogue partner of the SCO for a number of years, but last Saturday the Turkish President Recep Erdogan announced that Turkey was planning to apply for full membership of the SCO in the immediate future.

    Membership of the SCO, while clearly of benefit to Turkey, is hardly compatible with its membership of NATO for whom the existence of the SCO represents a challenge. Quite how the Turks plan to maintain their membership of both organisations remains a mystery. Although the SCO has no military component, it is difficult to see how the Turks can maintain membership of both organisations. This is especially true given the hostility shown by NATO to Russia in particular and barely concealed dislike of China and all its activities.

    It is not just the SCO which poses a fundamental challenge to the West’s continuing position in the world. A far greater threat to the West’s role in the world is posed by the similarly Chinese inspired Belt and Road Initiative. This organisation now has more than 140 members with representation throughout the world including South America which the Americans have traditionally seen as an integral part of their sphere of influence. Indeed, the Americans have in the past not hesitated to interfere in internal South American politics in the interests of maintaining their hegemony in the region. China’s role in South America poses a fundamental threat to the United States view of “their” region.

    The United States monopoly was decisively broken by Brazil’s membership of the BRICS group of nations. Very recently both Iran and Argentina filed official applications to become members of BRICS and Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Egypt have also begun the process of joining. Those latter three countries have a combined population of around 220 million people. The Saudis were the world’s largest exporters of crude oil in 2020 and hold around 15% of the world’s oil reserves. Turkey, among other claims, is also the world’s seventh largest exporter of cotton, a critical material in a range of products.

    The five original members of BRICS have a combined population of over 3 billion people, which is just over 40% of the world’s population. They account for more than one quarter of the worlds GDP. A neat counterpoint to the BRICS was provided by Russia’s foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova when she stated, last June, that “while the White House was thinking about what else to turn off in the world, ban or spoil, Argentina and Iran applied to join the BRICS.”

    The Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi confirmed his country’s support for Argentina membership of BRICS, and his ministry stated that Argentina’s entry would “strengthen and broaden its voice in defence of the interests of the developing world.”

    What we are witnessing is a major reorientation of the world in which the BRICS, SCO and BRI represent the vanguard of change. The old western countries have lost their previous pre-eminent role to this trio of groupings that represent a new way of doing things. The United States does not like the changes that are occurring and will fight tooth and nail to try and preserve its traditional position.

    The bulk of the world’s nations have had enough of this old system in which they were ruthlessly exploited. A new world order has emerged and. frankly, is to be welcomed.

    The post A New World Order is Emerging and Not Before Time first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • Life expectancy: The United States and Cuba in the time of COVID-19

    Don Fitz explores the intertwined reasons behind why life expectancy in the United States dropped almost three years between 2019–21, while, in Cuba, it rose by 0.2 years.

    This post was originally published on Green Left.

  • Back Door Proliferation: The IAEA, AUKUS and Nuclear Submarine Technology

    In Vienna, China’s permanent mission to the United Nations has been rather exercised of late. Members of the mission have been particularly irate with the International Atomic Energy Agency and its Director General, Rafael Grossi, who addressed the IAEA’s Board of Governors on September 12.

    Grossi was building on a confidential report by the IAEA which had been circulated the previous week concerning the role of nuclear propulsion technology for submarines to be supplied to Australia under the AUKUS security pact.

    When the AUKUS announcement was made in September last year, its significance shook security establishments in the Indo-Pacific.  It was also no less remarkable, and troubling, for signalling the transfer of otherwise rationed nuclear technology to a third country.  As was rightly observed at the time by Ian Stewart, executive director of the James Martin Center in Washington, such “cooperation may be used by non-nuclear states as more ammunition in support of a narrative that the weapons states lack good faith in their commitments to disarmament.”

    Having made that sound point, Stewart, revealing his strategic bias, suggested that, as such cooperation would not involve nuclear weapons by Australia, and would be accompanied by safeguards, few had reason to worry.  This was all merely “a relatively straightforward strategic step.”

    James M. Acton, co-director of the Nuclear Policy Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, was far less sanguine.  “[T]he nonproliferation implications of the AUKUS submarine deal are both negative and serious.”  Australia’s operation of nuclear-powered submarines would make it the first non-nuclear weapon state to manipulate a loophole in the inspection system of the IAEA.

    In setting this “damaging precedent”, aspirational “proliferators could use naval reactor programs as cover for the development of nuclear weapons – with the reasonable expectation that, because of the Australia precedent, they would not face intolerable costs for doing so.”  It did not matter, in this sense, what the AUKUS members intended; a terrible example that would undermine IAEA safeguards was being set.

    A few countries in the region have been quietly riled by the march of this technology sharing triumvirate in the Indo-Pacific.  In a leaked draft of its submission to the United Nations tenth review conference of the Parties to the Treaty of the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT RevCon), Indonesia opined that the transfer of nuclear technology for military purposes was at odds with the spirit and objective of the NPT.

    In the sharp words of the draft, “Indonesia views any cooperation involving the transfer of nuclear materials and technology for military purposes from nuclear-weapon states to any non-nuclear weapon states as increasing the associated risks [of] catastrophic humanitarian and environmental consequences.”

    At the nuclear non-proliferation review conference, Indonesian diplomats pushed the line that nuclear material in submarines should be monitored with greater stringency.  The foreign ministry argued that it had achieved some success in proposing for more transparency and tighter scrutiny on the distribution of such technology, claiming to have received support from AUKUS members and China.  “After two weeks of discussion in New York, in the end all parties agreed to look at the proposal as the middle path,” announced Tri Tharyat, director-general for multilateral cooperation in Indonesia’s foreign ministry.

    While serving to upend the apple cart of security in the region, AUKUS, in Jakarta’s view, also served to foster a potential, destabilising arms race, placing countries in a position to keep pace with an ever increasingly expensive pursuit of armaments.  (Things were not pretty to start with even before AUKUS was announced, with China and the United States already eyeing each other’s military build-up in Asia.)

    The concern over an increasingly voracious pursuit of arms is a view that Beijing has encouraged, with Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian having remarked that, “the US, the UK and Australia’s cooperation in nuclear submarines severely damages regional peace and stability [and] intensifies the arms race.”

    Wang Qun, China’s Permanent Representative, told Grossi on September 13 that he should avoid drawing “chestnuts from the fire” in endorsing the nuclear proliferation exercise of Australia, the United States and the UK.  Rossi, for his part, told the IAEA Board of Governors that four “technical meetings” had been held with the AUKUS parties, which had pleased the organisation.  “I welcome the AUKUS parties’ engagement with the Agency to date and expect this to continue in order that they deliver their shared commitment to ensuring the highest non-proliferation and safeguard standards are met.”

    The IAEA report also gave a nod to Canberra’s claim that proliferation risks posed by the AUKUS deal were minimal given that it would only receive “complete, welded” nuclear power units, making the removal of nuclear material “extremely difficult.”  In any case, such material used in the units, were it to be used for nuclear weapons, needed to be chemically processed using facilities Australia did not have nor would seek.

    Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning was less than impressed.  “This report lopsidedly cited the account given by the US, the UK and Australia to explain away what they have done, but made no mention of the international community’s major concerns over the risk of nuclear proliferation that may arise from the AUKUS nuclear submarine cooperation.” It turned “a blind eye to many countries’ solemn position that the AUKUS cooperation violates the purpose and object of the NPT.”

    Beijing’s concerns are hard to dismiss as those of a paranoid, addled mind.  Despite China’s own unhelpful military build-up, attempts by the AUKUS partners to dismiss the transfer of nuclear technology to Australia as technically benign and compliant with the NPT is dangerous nonsense.  Despite strides towards some middle way advocated by Jakarta, the precedent for nuclear proliferation via the backdoor is being set.

    The post Back Door Proliferation: The IAEA, AUKUS and Nuclear Submarine Technology first appeared on Dissident Voice.

  • Life Expectancy: The US and Cuba in the Time of Covid

    Recent data shows that between 2019 and 2021, life expectancy (LE) in the US plunged almost three years while for Cuba it edged up 0.2 years.  Yet, in 1960, the year after its revolution, Cuba had a LE of  64.2 years, lower by 5.6 years than that in the US (69.8 years).  As I document in Cuban Health Care, the island quickly caught up to the US and, from 1970 through 2016, the two countries were nip and tuck, with some years Cuba and other years the US, having a longer LE. But neither country was ever as much as one year of LE ahead of the other.

    Life Expectancy (LE) in US and Cuba, 2017-2021

    Year

    LE US

    LE Cuba

    US – Cuba

    2021

    76.1*

    79.0‡

    – 2.9

    2020

    78.8†

    78.9‡

    -0.1

    2019

    79.0*

    78.8‡

    +0.2

    2018

    78.7†

    78.7‡

    0.0

    2017

    78.6†

    78.6‡

    0.0

    This continued through the beginning of Covid, which sharply changed the pattern.  LE in the US suddenly dropped behind that in Cuba.  Bernd Debusmann Jr. of BBC News wrote, LE in the US fell “to the lowest level seen since 1996.  Government data showed LE at birth now stands at 76.1 compared to 79 in 2019. That is the steepest two-year decline in a century.”  From 2019 to 2020, “LE declined in all 50 states and the District of Columbia”.

    How could a country with all the problems of Cuba, actually have LE almost three years greater than the US?  There were enormous differences between the way the countries responded to Covid.

    The Covid Contrast

    US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data confirmed that “Covid-19 was the main contributing factor [to changes in LE].  The statistics show that Covid-19 accounted for 50% of the decline between 2020 and 2021. Between 2019 and 2020, the pandemic contributed to 74% of the decline.”

    A critical divergence between the two countries is that Cuba guarantees health care to all as a human right while the US system is based on profit and political grandstanding.  When Covid hit, the US dawdled for months as Cuba mobilized for medical action.

    The Ministry of Health developed a national strategy before the island’s first victim had succumbed to the disease.  Cuban TV carried daily press conferences with detailed info on the status of new patients, results of cabinet meetings on Covid, and announcing the best way for citizens to protect themselves and others.  Social distancing, masks and contact tracing were universally accepted.

    Each day Cuban medical students knocked on doors to ask citizens how they were.  Students’ tasks included obtaining survey data from residents and making extra visits to the elderly, infants and those with respiratory problems.  Clinic staff dealt with issues that doctors were unable to cope with and sent patients they could not care for to hospitals.  Medical data was used by those in the highest decision-making positions of the country.  In this way, every Cuban citizen and every health care worker, from those at neighborhood doctor offices through those at the most esteemed research institutes, had a part in determining health policy.

    This inclusive approach resulted in Cuba’s having 87 Covid deaths by July 21, 2020, when the US had experienced 140,300.  While the US population is 30 times that of Cuba, it had 1613 times as many deaths.

    Two aspects of Cuba’s response to Covid stand out.  First, Cuba does NOT have more money to spend on health care.  It actually spends less than a tenth as much per person per year than does the US, but it spends that wisely on a holistic system.  Second, Cuba’s health care is global – it continued its practice of sending thousands of medical staff to other countries during Covid.

    Over the past six decades more than 400,000 Cuban medical professionals have worked in 164 countries and improved the lives of hundreds of millions of people.  In addition to providing Cuban doctors with experience coping with diseases and medical issues they do not see at home, this action is positive global diplomacy.  US diplomacy, on the other hand, seems to focus on threatening to harm people and/or actually harming them.

    In Addition to Covid

    News stories also mentioned other factors associated with the shorter LE in the US: drug overdoses, heart disease, chronic liver disease and cirrhosis and suicides.  The corporate press also acknowledged racial disparities.

    There had been progress in reducing LE differences between Black and white Americans.  This was reversed during 2018 – 2020 when LE went down 1.36 years for whites, 3.25 years for Hispanics, and 3.88 years for Blacks.

    The fall in US life expectancy was even more pronounced among Native Americans and Alaska Natives.  Since 2019, it “dropped by 6.6 years, more than twice that of the wider US population.”

    The US has multiple groups who reject government attempts to vaccinate or wear masks.  Most loud-mouthed, of course, are the right wingers who lividly despise the very idea of public health campaigns.  While their thought processes are hallucination-based, people of color have reality-based fears of being ignored, lied to, and used for government experimentation, such as the Tuskegee Syphilis Study.  There is a strong connection between vaccination hesitation and racism.

    What They Did Not Look At

    Among factors with increasing US Covid rates ignored by corporate media in the US are poverty, an acute rise in misinformation, abortion, the embargo against Cuba and preparation for climate change.

    Poverty. The first task of the Cuban revolution was to simultaneously address poverty, food, sanitation, literacy, education, racism and housing, which the rebels saw as parts of unitary whole.  During the Covid crisis, many US corporations were determined to force low wage workers to stay at their jobs, spreading the disease.  Cuba told those with Covid to stay home.

    Misinformation.  Discussions of Covid deaths must not ignore the deadly role of science denial.  At the same time Trump was foolishly downplaying mounting dangers of Covid, Cuba was far along developing its “Novel Coronavirus Plan for Prevention and Control.”  Trump was not and is not an isolated individual – he manifests a life-threatening movement toward lunacy.  Cuba has no significant group which confronts Covid with a bottle of Clorox or expects a cure brought by Q Anon on a flying saucer.

    Abortion. Cuba also does not have a “Women’s Lives Don’t Matter!” movement seeking to eliminate abortion rights.  Those who do not want an abortion do not get one and people do not seek to impose their religious and spiritual beliefs on others.  The Supreme Court’s allowing states to criminalize abortion will cause many women to die, due both from self-attempts at abortion and lack of its availability.  LE averages are impacted more by deaths of young than elderly; so, we can expect many abortion-induced deaths in US will be among teenagers and young women, which will affect LE.

    Embargo.  The “trade sanctions” or “blockade” or “embargo” have a special relationship with LE in Cuba: one might expect it to decrease LE; but it has not done so.  When Cuba was reeling from the 1991 fall of the Soviet Union, the US passed laws intending to punish those who continued to trade with it.  This raised prices in the already impoverished country and has prevented or slowed the arrival of much life-saving medical equipment.  Yet, due to its prioritizing health care during the 1990s, Cuba’s infant mortality decreased while its LE showed a slight increase.

    International solidarity movements have stepped in to help Cuba overcome many embargo effects. Lack of essential material prevented Cuba from performing liver transplants in children.  But, during May 2022, Puentes de Amor (Bridges of Love) delivered the vital chemical compound to the William Soler Pediatric Hospital.

    Resilience.  Avoiding the use of fossil fuels and enormous hydro-, solar- and wind-projects, as Cuba does, will cut down on global destructiveness but have very little effect on reducing climate change on the island.  However, preparing for resilience in the face of climate change can hugely affect its quality of life.

    In March 2022 (p. 8) Scientific American editors wrote that most important in preparing for the next pandemic is “building new systems.” Unfortunately, this is what the US is avoiding as it becomes absorbed in making minor tweaks to outmoded, inadequate systems of environmental protection.

    Cuba has been holding Bastión (bulwark) events involving as many as four million citizens who carry out food production, disease control, sanitation and safeguarding medical supplies.  When a policy change is introduced, government representatives go to each community, including the most remote rural ones, to make sure that everyone knows the threats that climate change poses to their lives and how they can alter behaviors to minimize them.  They include such diverse actions as conservation with energy use, saving water, preventing fires and using medical products sparingly.

    Another energy positive being expanded in Cuba is farms being run entirely on agroecology principles.  Such farms can produce 12 times the energy they consume.  Biodigesters break down manure and other biomass to create biogas (very different in Cuba than the US) which is used for tractors or transportation.  Vegetable and herb production in Cuba exploded from 4000 tons in 1994 to over four million tons by 2006.  This is why Jason Hickel’s “Sustainable Development Index” rated Cuba’s ecological efficiency as the best in the world in 2019.

    Where Are We Headed?

    The connection between LE and climate change is becoming increasingly evident.  US media stories typically focus on a given disaster such as a flood and mention how aging infrastructure is being neglected.  The implication is that if infrastructure were updated to its status of 50 or 100 years ago, that would be adequate.  It would not be adequate because climate change means that storms will be more frequent, more intense and more deadly in the future.

    By 2017, Cuba had become the only country with a government-led plan (Project Life, or Tarea Vida) to combat climate change which includes a 100 year projection.  While Cuba is looking ahead and planning how to protect people from increasingly devastating storms, US politicians feverishly bury their heads in the sand in subservience to corporate interests, subjecting future generations to ever greater catastrophes.

    This causes LE in the US to plunge down while LE in Cuba climbs slowly upward.  Covid did not create the LE divide between the US and Cuba.  Covid exacerbated trends which have become increasingly intertwined for decades.  The best guess is that these trends will continue well into the future.

    The post Life Expectancy: The US and Cuba in the Time of Covid first appeared on Dissident Voice.

  • United States: White soldier discharged for lying on high security form, not for wanting to kill Black people

    Racism is so deep in the US military, that 21-year-old white supremacist and soldier Killian Ryan was arrested and discharged from the Army for lying on a form, but his threats to kill Black people were seemingly overlooked, reports Malik Miah.

  • William deBuys: ‘Our relentless effort to use the world has undermined its sustainability’

    Conservationist and author William (Bill) deBuys recently published The Trail to Kanjiroba, his book-length observational and meditative memoir of two journeys through the mountainous Upper Dolpo region of Nepal. He discusses his work with Bill Nevins.

    This post was originally published on Green Left.

  • The “Other 9/11” (and the time I gave a lecture at MIT)

    On March 10, 2003, I gave a very well-attended lecture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology — yeah, a high school grad speaking to post-doctoral students and faculty at M-I-friggin-T. (I also gave a talk at Yale later that year but that’s for another article.) Please allow me to introduce some context.

    I once had a reasonably large global audience for my writing and commentary. My articles covered a lot of ground. I didn’t like to be pigeonholed so I wrote about virtually everything — and still do.

    One of my most popular articles back then was published in 2002, around the one-year anniversary of 9/11. Themed “the other 9/11,” it broke down the details of the September 11, 1973, U.S.-sponsored coup in Chile. In particular, the article focused on the role of the notorious Henry Kissinger (one of the architects of the current Great Reset, btw).

    Let’s review some of the details of my original article and the “other” 9/11, shall we?

    Time Magazine: September 3, 1973

    Ten days after the Salvador Allende government was overthrown in a September 11, 1973, coup in Chile, U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Jack Kubisch told the House Subcommittee on Inter-American Affairs: “Gentlemen, I wish to state as flatly and as categorically as I possibly can that we did not have advance knowledge of the coup.”

    Information made available in roughly 5,000 documents declassified in 1999 told a vastly different — yet sadly predictable (for those paying even an iota of attention) — story.

    For those of you still wondering “what’s really going on” in places like Syria, Iraq, Ukraine, etc., it might help to study some history.

    Time Magazine: September 24, 1973

    Salvador Allende, a physician by trade and nominally a social democrat reformer, first gained worldwide attention when he came within 3 percent of winning Chile’s 1958 presidential election. Six years later, the United States decided to not leave such elections to chance. It was time to introduce the Chilean people to Democracy™, American-style.

    The U.S. government, mostly through the covert efforts of the Central Intelligence Agency, spent more money per capita to support Allende’s opponent, Eduardo Frei, than Lyndon Johnson and Barry Goldwater combined spent that same year in the American presidential election.

    With an estimated $20 million of U.S. taxpayer money to work with, the CIA embarked on a program of anti-communist propaganda and disinformation designed to scare Chilean citizens — specifically mothers — into believing that an Allende victory would result in direct Soviet control of their country and their lives.

    “No religious activity would be possible,” they were told. Their children, hammer, and sickle stamped on their foreheads would be shipped to the USSR to be used as slaves, the radio and newspapers direly warned.

    The scare tactics worked.

    While Allende won the male vote by a small margin, 469,000 more Chilean women chose Frei. Cleverly manipulated to fear the “blood and pain” of “godless, atheist communism,” the mothers of Chile voted against the man who promised to “redistribute income and reshape the economy” through the nationalization of some major industries (like copper mining) and the expansion of agrarian reform.

    A far cry from Leninism, Allende’s policy of “Eurocommunism” (communists linking with social democratic parties into a united front) was for the most part, as unacceptable to the Kremlin as it was to the White House. But who needs reality when there are nation-states to own?

    When the 1970 Chilean presidential election rolled around, Salvador Allende was still a major player and, despite another wave of U.S.-funded propaganda, he was elected president of South America’s longest functioning democracy on September 4, 1970.

    However, he had a new and powerful enemy: Dr. Henry Kissinger.

    The 40 Committee was formed with Kissinger as chair. The goal was not only to save Chile from its irresponsible populace but to yet again stave off the Red Tide™.

    “Chile is a fairly big place, with a lot of natural resources,” explains Noam Chomsky, “but the United States wasn’t going to collapse if Chile became independent. Why were we so concerned about it? According to Kissinger, Chile was a ‘virus’ that would ‘infect’ the region.”

    At a September 15, 1970, meeting called to halt the spread of infection, Kissinger and President Nixon told CIA Director Richard Helms it would be necessary to “make the [Chilean] economy scream.” While allocating at least $10 million to assist in sabotaging Allende’s presidency, an outright assassination was also considered a serious and welcome option.

    The respect held by the Chilean military for the democratic process led Kissinger to pick as his first assassination target, not Allende himself, but General Rene Schneider, head of the Chilean Armed Forces. Schneider, it seems, had long believed that politics and the military should remain discrete. Despite warnings from Helms that a coup might not be possible in such a stable democracy, Kissinger urged the plan to proceed.

    When the killing of Schneider only served to solidify Allende’s support, a CIA-sponsored media blitz similar to that of 1964 commenced. Citizens were faced with daily “reports” of Marxist atrocities and Soviet bases supposedly being built in Chile. U.S. threats to cut economic and military aid were also used to help cultivate a “coup climate” among those in the military. These two approaches represented the hard and soft lines outlined by Nixon and Kissinger.

    How soft was soft? Edward Korry, U.S. ambassador to Chile at the time, articulated the soft sell by declaring that the U.S. task was “to do all within our power to condemn Chile and the Chileans to utmost deprivation and poverty.” Korry warned, “not a nut or bolt [will] be allowed to reach Chile under Allende.”

    On the hard side, Dr. Henry began securing support for a possible military coup.

    “In 1970,” wrote historian Howard Zinn, “an ITT director, John McCone, who had also been head of the CIA, told Kissinger and Helms that ITT was willing to give $1 million to help the U.S. government in its plans to overthrow the Allende government.”

    “The stage was set for a clash of two experiments,” says author William Blum. Allende’s socialism was pitted against what was later called a “prototype or laboratory experiment to test the techniques of heavy financial investment in an effort to discredit and bring down a government.”

    This clash would reach its climax on September 11, 1973. The socialist experiment ended in violence on the other 9/11 and Allende himself was said to have committed suicide… with a machine gun.

    Of course, the U.S. claimed no complicity in or even knowledge of the coup at the time. However, as mentioned above, the State Department’s declassified documents told a far different story.

    For example, a CIA document from the day before the coup stated bluntly, “The coup attempt will begin Sept. 11.” Ten days later, the Agency announced, “severe repression is planned.” With thousands of opponents of the new regime gathered in soccer stadiums, a September 28 State Department document detailed a request from Chile’s new defense minister for Washington to send an expert advisor on detention centers.

    Allende was dead. In his place, the people of Chile now faced brutal repression and human rights violations, book burnings, powerful secret police, and more than 3,000 executions. Tens of thousands more were tortured and/or disappeared. Shortly after the coup, U.S. economic and military aid once again began to flow into Chile.

    The man in charge of all this was General Augusto Pinochet, a man Dr. Kissinger could really get behind. “In the United States, as you know, we are sympathetic to what you are trying to do,” Kissinger told the Chilean dictator in 1975. “We wish your government well.

    “My evaluation,” he continued to Pinochet, “is that you are the victim of all the left-wing groups around the world and that your greatest sin was that you overthrew a government that was going communist.”

    Later that same year, when facing a roomful of Chilean diplomats concerned about the effect Pinochet’s human rights violations might have on world opinion, Henry was in top form: “Well, I read the briefing paper for this meeting and it was nothing but human rights. The State Department is made up of people who have a vocation for the ministry. Because there were not enough churches for them, they went into the Department of State.”

    Was Kissinger really that concerned with the minor nationalization of industry proposed by Salvador Allende or were other forces at work here?

    Here’s how the CIA saw it three days after Allende won the election: “The U.S. has no vital national interests within Chile. The world military balance of power would not be significantly altered by an Allende government. [But] an Allende victory would represent a definite psychological advantage for the Marxist idea.”

    “Even Kissinger, mad as he is, didn’t believe that Chilean armies were going to descend on Rome,” says Chomsky. “It wasn’t going to be that kind of an influence. He was worried that successful economic development, where the economy produces benefits for the general population — not just profits for private corporations — would have a contagious effect. In those comments, Kissinger revealed the basic story of U.S. foreign policy for decades.”

    Accordingly, in 1974, when the new U.S. ambassador to Chile, David Popper, complained about Chile’s human rights violations, Dr. Kissinger promptly sent these orders: “Tell Popper to cut out the political science lectures.”

    Fortunately, the political science department of MIT did not adhere to Kissinger’s edict.

    The “viral” (2002-style) nature of my Chile piece prompted them to reach out, asking me to visit the school and give a talk. They paid my way on Amtrak and put me (and my partner at the time) up for two nights in a local motel.

    When we arrived at the lecture hall, I opened the door to peek in. It was jam-packed. My partner gasped but I didn’t flinch. Alexander Cockburn once wrote, “The first duty of an intellectual is to know what’s going on and that’s a lot of work.” I live and breathe that line and even used it in my talk when I joked about how MIT degrees don’t make you an intellectual. [Cue the nervous laughter]

    Yep, I was ready and my performance proved it. The audience of faculty members and graduate students and post-doctoral types sat rapt for about an hour as this high school grad connected all the dots. They got their chance in the post-talk Q&A and grabbed it with both hands. The discussion started out, of course, being about Chile and/or Kissinger. Soon though, I was hit with rapid-fire queries on an astonishingly broad range of topics.

    Truth be told, I knocked all their questions out of the park until they gave up and applauded. Audience members rushed up to talk with me and even take photos with me. It was a goal attained, a dream come true.

    When we got back to the motel room, however, we discovered that the toilet was seriously clogged. It was late and no maintenance worker could be found. So the front desk dude lent me a plunger. Still dressed in my fancy, talk-giving outfit, this “intellectual” unclogged the motel toilet for the next 15 or 20 minutes.

    Today — almost 20 years after my MIT talk — I chuckle as I remember how I spent most of March 10, 2003, with a literal or metaphorical plunger in my hands.

    My life in 2022: same shit, different toilet.

    The post The “Other 9/11” (and the time I gave a lecture at MIT) first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • Barbara Ehrenreich never stopped trying to change the world

    Barbara Pocock pays tribute to Barbara Ehrenreich, best known for her “classic of social justice literature”, Nickel and Dimed, who died on September 1.

  • Colombia: Gustavo Petro’s victory the latest affront to US imperialism in Latin America

    Ahead of Colombian President Gustavo Petro’s inauguration last month, United States Republican Senator Ted Cruz railed about the “acute dangers to American national security” posed by leftist governments in Latin America, reports Ana Zorita.

  • US Interests and Israeli Crimes

    Many people were surprised and outraged when US President Biden recently fist bumped Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. After all, as a candidate, Biden pledged to make the Saudi kingdom a pariah since the Crown Prince had been directly linked to the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

    In contrast, consider the relative lack of outrage to Biden’s statement after the latest criminal Israeli attack on Gaza that began on August 5th. This air bombardment by Israel, a nuclear power with one of the world’s strongest militaries and the occupier of Palestinian land, was against a mostly defenseless people. During this attack, 49 Palestinians, including 17 children, were killed and 360 Palestinians including 151 children were wounded. In contrast, reports suggest that 13 Israelis had minor injuries. Biden said: “My support for Israel’s security is long-standing and unwavering – including its right to defend itself against attacks. …  I commend Prime Minister Yair Lapid and his government’s steady leadership throughout the crisis.”

    Biden’s comment ignores reality. Israel wasn’t attacked, but it had attacked Gaza. Palestinians responded to the attack by Israel. In addition, note the large number of Palestinian children who were killed or wounded. This Israeli war crime clearly did not spare Palestinian civilians. This is the leadership that Biden and many other politicians commended. Wow — this says a lot! Even worse, Biden doesn’t seem to think Palestinians have a right to defend themselves against Israel’s state terrorism.

    Besides the immeasurable human cost of the Israeli attack, the damage Israel did to Palestinian infrastructure and housing makes life in Gaza ever more difficult. Just as in numerous previous horrific and devastating Israeli attacks, there is no talk of Israel paying reparations for the widespread devastation it inflicted on Gaza. Rebuilding is difficult given that Israel has maintained, with US and Egyptian support, an illegal siege on Gaza since 2007.

    The US corporate dominated media plays a role in enabling these Israeli crimes by its biased coverage. For example, it downplays the fact that Israel is an apartheid state. The US media also fails to consistently point out that Israel is occupying Palestinian land in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem. There are well over 600,000 Israeli settlers living illegally on Palestinian land in the West Bank. The media doesn’t stress that Israel routinely violates international law, particularly the 1949 Geneva Conventions on occupation, with impunity. The media also seldom mentions that the US has cast over 40 vetoes of UN Security Council resolutions regarding problematic Israeli behavior. These vetoes or threats of vetoes by the US enable Israel to escape accountability.

    In addition, given how the US praises Ukrainians who resist the Russian military in Ukraine, it is appalling to see the US commending Israel even though it has been occupying Palestinian land for decades. Ukrainians who resist Russian forces are touted as heroes in the US corporate media whereas Palestinians who legitimately resist cruel and illegal Israeli policies are called terrorists. As this latest attack shows, Palestinians who are simply trying to live their lives are killed with impunity for the killers due to the US preventing any sanctions against Israel.

    Unfortunately, this US hypocrisy regarding Israel is of long standing. For example, before the Partition Plan for Palestine was approved by the UN General Assembly in 1947, Loy Henderson, director of the State Department’s Office of Near Eastern and African Affairs, warned: “The UNSCOP [U.N. Special Committee on Palestine] Majority Plan is not only unworkable; if adopted, it would guarantee that the Palestine problem would be permanent and still more complicated in the future.”

    Henderson added: “The proposals contained in the UNSCOP plan … are in definite contravention to various principles laid down in the [U.N.] Charter as well as to principles on which American concepts of Government are based.

    “These proposals, for instance, ignore such principles as self-determination and majority rule. They recognize the principle of a theocratic racial state and even go so far in several instances as to discriminate on grounds of religion and race against persons outside of Palestine.”

    This US hypocrisy strongly undercuts the idea that the US cares about the rule of law. For example, the courageous South African Minister of International Relations and Cooperation, Naledi Pandor, recently made this point in a press conference with the US Secretary of State. She said: “With respect to the role that multilateral bodies such as the United Nations should play, we believe that all principles that are germane to the United Nations Charter and international humanitarian law must be upheld for all countries, not just some Just as much as the people of Ukraine deserve their territory and freedom, the people of Palestine deserve their territory and freedom. And we should be equally concerned at what is happening to the people of Palestine as we are with what is happening to the people of Ukraine.”

    Blatant US hypocrisy regarding its own war crimes as well as its hypocrisy regarding Israel are complicating its relations with non-aligned nations. The US desire to remain a leader is running into problems as more non-aligned nations don’t see the militaristic, economically predatory and hypocritical US as worthy of being their leader.

    • First published in Boulder Daily Camera

    The post US Interests and Israeli Crimes first appeared on Dissident Voice.

  • With God on Our Side?

    On Sunday, August 7th — the day that Jews around the world celebrated Tisha bAv, the traditional day of mourning for the disasters that have occurred throughout Jewish history—the state of Israel brutally slaughtered at least 44 people, including 15 children in the besieged Gaza Strip. Beyond the horrible irony of this massacre, it is difficult for me not to see it as part of a much larger global Holy War.

    Not in the sense of the Crusades of history or American and European fears of Islamic Jihad. We don’t have a name yet for this Holy War but its variants stretch far beyond Gaza into the American heartland. We refuse to recognize it because it would require us to look in the mirror. It is a Holy War based on fantasies of power and “chosenness.” Most troubling of all is how these fears and fantasies are grounded in a poisonous distortion of sacred scripture and religious tradition.

    As a veteran peace activist, person of Jewish faith, and the former co-director of CODEPINK, I’ve spent most of my life working to end U.S. wars and militarism and for freedom and justice for Palestinians. As I begin my tenure as the executive director of our nation’s oldest interfaith peace and justice organization, the Fellowship of Reconciliation USA [FOR-USA], the dimensions of this Holy War are impossible to ignore.

    Closer to home, the ideological underpinnings of this conflict were on display just last week at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Dallas, TX, where Hungarian autocrat Prime Minister Victor Orban, who rails against race mixing, same-sex relationships, advocating instead for “Christian Democracy” was the opening speaker.

    After the 2020 election, right-wing pro-Trump activists planned and carried out a series of so-called “Jericho Marches” to invoke the bloody biblical story of the siege of Jericho as a call to action to keep Trump in office. As January 6 neared, Proud Boys members could be seen praying near the Washington monument, comparing the “sacrifice” they were preparing to make to the crucifixion of Christ. The next evening, they rampaged through town attacking African-American churches and other houses where Black Lives Matter signs were displayed. Tennessee pastor Greg Locke praised the Proud Boys and lauded America as “the last bastion of Christian freedom.”

    On January 6 itself, the Jericho Marchers traveled with shofars (Jewish ritual instruments, made from rams’ horns evoking freedom, holiness, and a call to be in the service of God) and American flags to Washington D.C.

    The fusing of violence with a blasphemous interpretation of Christianity in the United States has roots in the concept of Christian duty that animated the era of lynchings. Today it takes the form of simple marketing copy. Florida-based gun manufacturer, Spike’s Tactical, markets AR-15 style rifles with Psalm 144:1 — “Praise be to the LORD my Rock, who trains my hands for war, my fingers for battle.”— emblazoned on them.

    The weapon used in the mass murder of 19 children and two teachers in Uvalde, TX was manufactured by the Georgia-based Daniel Defense, whose social media that day included a picture of a toddler with a rifle in his lap and the text of Proverbs 22:6, “Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old, he will not depart from it.”

    The U.S. far-right movement trends older but U.S. neo-Nazi groups are making strong efforts to recruit youth. The Israeli ultranationalist movement, however, already contains a large number of teenagers.

    On the morning of July 20, the Israeli front of this Holy War saw thousands of largely young, Jewish extremists belonging to the Nachala settler movement flock to seven uninhabited sites in the Occupied West Bank. With religious fringes dangling from their waists, blue and white flags in their hands, and M16 rifles slung across their backs, they set up tents and makeshift kitchens and yeshivas. One outpost even included a bouncy castle and cotton candy machine.

    They were praised as “inspired,” “dedicated,” and “wonderful,” by Israel’s Justice Minister, Ayelet Shaked, and criticized by the ultra-religious Jewish-Israeli Hilltop Youth movement for not being militant enough. Israeli soldiers and police ultimately dismantled the encampments but the Nachala group has pledged to return and rebuild. That is neither surprising — they claim the Jewish people “were promised the Land of Israel in the Bible” — nor is it an idle threat given the history of horrific settler attacks.

    Regardless of your political or religious outlook or how deep the divisions among us currently are, I have to believe that all people of conscience are sickened by this perversion of sacred texts to justify a White and Christian Supremacy, or, in Israel’s case, Jewish Supremacy.

    In the spirit of those members and leaders of FOR-USA who preceded me—Martin Luther King Jr, A.J. Muste, Jane Addams, and more — it is time to engage the full moral force of our combined faith traditions in condemning these forms of supremacy and violence that co-opt and pervert religious scripture. It is time to say clearly and unequivocally that the manipulation of the divine in the service of lethal political goals and human rights abuses, whether orchestrated by Christian, Jewish, Islamic, or Hindu fundamentalists is unconscionable.

    As an interfaith peace and justice organization, FOR-USA believes that this message must be spread through houses of worship across the country.  In memory of Dr. King’s voice telling us that “It’s not the violence of the few that scares me, it’s the silence of the many,” we call on faith leaders and congregants from every faith tradition and political persuasion to break their silence on this distortion of the divine and do what communities of faith do best: preach, pray and pay attention.

    • We implore them to preach from the pulpit about the God of peace, love, justice, and mercy.
    • We ask them to pray for healing and reconciliation amidst great division and to use their institutional religious platforms and influence to call for freedom and safety; from lifting Israel’s strangling blockade of Gaza to no longer sending US police to trainings sponsored by weapons manufacturers.
    • We need them to pay attention to where the spirit is moving amongst us and to call out this obvious deformation of the sacred wherever it occurs and to respond to a world of violence in the only logical way possible, with love and nonviolence.
    The post With God on Our Side? first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • Say it loud — Justice for Breonna Taylor

    Four Kentucky police officers have been arrested and charged over the shooting death of 26-year-old Breonna Taylor, following a two-year campaign, reports Malik Miah.

  • ‘Backsliding on democracy’: Indiana governor signs extreme abortion ban bill

    Indiana has become the first state in the United States to pass extreme abortion restrictions since the Supreme Court overturned Roe vs Wade, reports Common Dreams.

    This post was originally published on Green Left.

  • United States: Kansas voters defeat anti-abortion amendment

    In an August 2 referendum, voters in Kansas resoundingly rejected a proposed amendment to remove the right to abortion from the state’s constitution, reports Jake Johnson.

    This post was originally published on Green Left.