Militarism « Aletho News

US Mulls to bolster Mideast Operations with Israeli-made Vessels

An unmanned Israeli navy vessel test fires missile off Ashkelon

Al-Manar | February 16, 2022

The US Navy is examining the possibility of bolstering its joint operations in the Middle East with Israeli-made unmanned vessels, a US official told the Reuters news agency on Tuesday.

The report did not specify who would be operating the boats, but noted that additional Israeli military involvement in the Gulf region could anger Iran.

The unnamed official said the US military was examining a number of options, including using Israeli unmanned vessels during current Gulf exercises.

The Zionist entity is a participant in a massive US-led naval exercise focusing on unmanned naval systems and the use of artificial intelligence. The International Maritime Exercise, known by its acronym IMX, kicked off last month and is set to end on Thursday.

The Israeli navy has a fleet of unmanned ships that are used to complement its manned patrol boats around the occupied Palestinian coastal waters.

The Reuters report said the US was showing interest in Israeli-made surface drones that can be deployed in tandem with air and underwater UAVs.

“The Israelis are definitely vested in leveraging this technology,” the unnamed official said, adding that a US fleet commander had made a recent trip to Haifa to examine the surface drones.

The comments by the US official were made during a trip by Prime Minister Naftali Bennett to Bahrain, the first official visit by an Israeli premier to the Gulf kingdom, Israeli media reported.

February 16, 2022 Posted by aletho | Militarism | Israel, Middle East, United States, Zionism | Leave a comment

Israel offers Arab state the opportunity to tackle Iran together

RT | February 15, 2022

Since Israel and Bahrain both view Iran as a threat, they could team up and counter Tehran together, Israeli prime minister Naftali Bennett said on his landmark visit to the Gulf monarchy.

“We will fight Iran and its followers in the region night and day. We will aid our friends in strengthening peace, security, and stability, whenever we are asked to do so,” Bennett pledged in an interview with the Bahraini state-linked Al-Ayyam outlet on Tuesday.

The PM blamed Tehran of striving to “destroy moderate states” in the Gulf region in order to replace them with “bloodthirsty terrorist groups.”

When asked about the possibility of creating an alliance to resist Iranian influence, which could include Israel, Bahrain, and some other Arab nations, he gave a positive response: “We all understand that we face the same challenges, so why not work together to tackle them?”

Bennet, who became the first Israeli prime minister ever to visit Bahrain, assured the journalists that “Israel is a strong and reliable country.”

The idea of such a block was first floated by Israeli general Tal Kelman last year. According to Kelman, who heads the IDF’s Strategy and Third Circle Directorate, “the moderate axis” of Israel, Bahrain, the UAE, Jordan, Egypt and others should resist “the radical axis” of Iran and what he called its “proxies” in Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, and Iraq.

Israel and Bahrain normalized relations in late 2020 as part of the so-called Abraham Accords, a US-backed drive to improve ties between the Jewish state and some Arab countries after decades of strife.

Bahrain is a small island nation of around 1.5 million. The majority of its population is Shia Muslims, but the country is being run by a Sunni monarchy. The rulers in Manama have been concerned by Tehran’s activities as Iran, which is located less than 800 kilometers (497 miles) away, often faces accusations from its rivals of supporting Shia groups in other countries.

February 15, 2022 Posted by aletho | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Militarism | Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Lebanon, Middle East, Sanctions against Iran, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Yemen, Zionism | Leave a comment

I was there: NATO and the origins of the Ukraine crisis

After the fall of the Soviet Union, I told the Senate that expansion would lead us to where we are today.

By Jack F. Matlock Jr. | Responsible Statecraft | February 15, 2022

Today we face an avoidable crisis between the United States and Russia that was predictable, willfully precipitated, but can easily be resolved by the application of common sense.

But how did we get to this point?

Allow me, as someone who participated in the negotiations that ended the Cold War, to bring some history to bear on the current crisis.

We are being told each day that war may be imminent in Ukraine. Russian troops, we are told, are massing at Ukraine’s borders and could attack at any time. American citizens are being advised to leave Ukraine and dependents of the American Embassy staff are being evacuated. Meanwhile, the Ukrainian president has advised against panic and made clear that he does not consider a Russian invasion imminent. Vladimir Putin has denied that he has any intention of invading Ukraine. His demand is that the process of adding new members to NATO cease and that Russia has assurance that Ukraine and Georgia will never be members.

President Biden has refused to give such assurance but made clear his willingness to continue discussing questions of strategic stability in Europe. Meanwhile, the Ukrainian government has made clear it has no intention of implementing the agreement reached in 2015 for reuniting the Donbas provinces into Ukraine with a large degree of local autonomy — an agreement with Russia, France, and Germany that the United States endorsed.

Was this crisis avoidable?

In short, yes. In 1991, when the Soviet Union collapsed, many observers wrongly believed they were witnessing the end of the Cold War when It had actually ended at least two years earlier by negotiation and was in the interest of all the parties. President George H.W. Bush hoped that Gorbachev would manage to keep most of the 12 non-Baltic republics in a voluntary federation.

Despite the prevalent belief held by both the DC foreign policy establishment and most of the Russian public, the United States did not support, much less cause the break-up of the Soviet Union. We supported the independence of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, and one of the last acts of the Soviet parliament was to legalize their claim to independence. And — despite frequently voiced fears — Vladimir Putin has never threatened to re-absorb the Baltic countries or to claim any of their territories, though he has criticized some that denied ethnic Russians the full rights of citizenship, a principle that the European Union is pledged to enforce.

Since Putin’s major demand is an assurance that NATO will take no further members, and specifically not Ukraine or Georgia, obviously there would have been no basis for the present crisis if there had been no expansion of the alliance following the end of the Cold War, or if the expansion had occurred in harmony with building a security structure in Europe that included Russia.

Was this crisis predictable?

Absolutely. NATO expansion was the most profound strategic blunder made since the end of the Cold War. In 1997, when the question of adding more NATO members arose, I was asked to testify before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. In my introductory remarks, I made the following statement:

“I consider the administration’s recommendation to take new members into NATO at this time misguided. If it should be approved by the United States Senate, it may well go down in history as the most profound strategic blunder made since the end of the Cold War. Far from improving the security of the United States, its Allies, and the nations that wish to enter the Alliance, it could well encourage a chain of events that could produce the most serious security threat to this nation since the Soviet Union collapsed.” Indeed, our nuclear arsenals were capable of ending the possibility of civilization on Earth.

But that was not the only reason I cited for including rather than excluding Russia from European security. As I explained to the SFRC: “The plan to increase the membership of NATO fails to take account of the real international situation following the end of the Cold War, and proceeds in accord with a logic that made sense only during the Cold War. The division of Europe ended before there was any thought of taking new members into NATO. No one is threatening to re-divide Europe. It is therefore absurd to claim, as some have, that it is necessary to take new members into NATO to avoid a future division of Europe; if NATO is to be the principal instrument for unifying the continent, then logically the only way it can do so is by expanding to include all European countries. But that does not appear to be the aim of the administration, and even if it is, the way to reach it is not by admitting new members piecemeal.”

The decision to expand NATO piecemeal was a reversal of American policies that produced the end of the Cold War. President George H.W. Bush had proclaimed a goal of a “Europe whole and free.” Gorbachev had spoken of “our common European home,” had welcomed representatives of East European governments who threw off their communist rulers and had ordered radical reductions in Soviet military forces by explaining that for one country to be secure, there must be security for all.

President Bush also assured Gorbachev during their meeting in Malta in December, 1989, that if the countries of Eastern Europe were allowed to choose their future orientation by democratic processes, the United States would not “take advantage” of that process. (Obviously, bringing countries into NATO that were then in the Warsaw Pact would be “taking advantage.”) The following year, Gorbachev was assured, though not in a formal treaty, that if a unified Germany was allowed to remain in NATO, there would be no movement of NATO jurisdiction to the east, “not one inch.”

These comments were made to Gorbachev before the Soviet Union broke up. Once it did, the Russian Federation had less than half the population of the Soviet Union and a military establishment demoralized and in total disarray. While there was no reason to enlarge NATO after the Soviet Union recognized and respected the independence of the East European countries, there was even less reason to fear the Russian Federation as a threat.

Was this crisis willfully precipitated?

Alas, the policies pursued by Presidents George W. Bush, Barack Obama, Donald Trump, and Joe Biden have all contributed to bringing us to this point.

Adding countries in Eastern Europe to NATO continued during the George W. Bush administration but that was not the only thing that stimulated Russian objection. At the same time, the United States began withdrawing from the arms control treaties that had tempered, for a time, an irrational and dangerous arms race and were the foundation agreements for ending the Cold War. The most significant was the decision to withdraw from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty which had been the cornerstone treaty for the series of agreements that halted for a time the nuclear arms race. After 9/11, Putin was the first foreign leader to call President Bush and offer support. He was as good as his word by facilitating the attack on the Taliban regime in Afghanistan. It was clear at that time that Putin aspired to a security partnership with the United States as the jihadist terrorists who were targeting the United States were also targeting Russia. Nevertheless, Washington continued its course of ignoring Russian (and also allied) interests by invading Iraq, an act of aggression that not only Russia opposed, but also France and Germany.

Although President Obama initially promised improved relations through his “reset” policy, the reality was that his government continued to ignore the most serious Russian concerns and redoubled earlier American efforts to detach former Soviet republics from Russian influence and, indeed, to encourage “regime change” in Russia itself. American actions in Syria and Ukraine were seen by the Russian president, and most Russians, as indirect attacks on them.

And so far as Ukraine is concerned, U.S. intrusion into its domestic politics was deep, actively supporting the 2014 revolution and overthrow of the elected Ukrainian government in 2014.

Relations soured further during President Obama’s second term after the Russian annexation of Crimea. Then things got worse during the four years of Donald Trump’s tenure. Accused of being a Russian dupe, Trump passed every anti-Russian measure that came along, while at the same time flattering Putin as a great leader.

Can the crisis be resolved by the application of common sense?

Yes, after all, what Putin is demanding is eminently reasonable. He is not demanding the exit of any NATO member and he is threatening none. By any common sense standard it is in the interest of the United States to promote peace, not conflict. To try to detach Ukraine from Russian influence — the avowed aim of those who agitated for the “color revolutions” — was a fool’s errand, and a dangerous one. Have we so soon forgotten the lesson of the Cuban Missile Crisis?

Now, to say that approving Putin’s demands is in the objective interest of the United States does not mean that it will be easy to do. The leaders of both the Democratic and Republican parties have developed such a Russo-phobic stance that it will take great political skill to navigate such treacherous political waters and achieve a rational outcome.

President Biden has made it clear that the United States will not intervene with its own troops if Russia invades Ukraine. So why move them into Eastern Europe? Just to show hawks in Congress that he is standing firm?

Maybe the subsequent negotiations between Washington and the Kremlin will find a way to allay Russian concerns and defuse the crisis. And maybe then Congress will start dealing with the growing problems we have at home instead of making them worse.

Or so one can hope.

February 15, 2022 Posted by aletho | Militarism, Russophobia, Timeless or most popular | NATO, Ukraine, United States | Leave a comment

Threat of War between Syria and Israel is getting More Real

By Vladimir Platov – New Eastern Outlook – 14.02.2022

On February 9, Israel launched yet another series of strikes on targets near Damascus, which resulted in one Syrian killed and five injured, which has aggravated the threat of war between Syria and Israel.

According to the Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA), on February 9, four Israeli F-16s, without crossing the state border of Syria, launched another guided missile attack on facilities near Al-Kiswah, a village south of Damascus. One of the anti-aircraft missiles of the Syrian army exploded over the occupied Golan Heights, after which the IDF fired from the area occupied by Israeli troops in the Syrian Golan Heights ten surface-to-surface missiles at the positions of the Syrian air defense forces. Some missiles were brought down by Syrian air defenses. Nevertheless, the attack still caused significant damage to some buildings in the city of Qudsaya, destroying dozens of houses and cars. To repel the attack, Syrian troops utilized Russian-made air defense systems, which shot down eight missiles.

According to an IDF statement, in response to an intercepted missile fired from Syria into northern Israel, Israel attacked targets in Syria, including the “Syrian radar and anti-aircraft batteries that launched missiles at Israeli Air Force aircraft.” However, it is obvious that the missile chosen by the IDF as the reason for retaliation was the anti-aircraft missile that exploded in the air and was launched by Syrian air defenses as a measure of protection against earlier Israeli missile attacks launched from Lebanon.

In the message the Syrian Foreign Ministry sent to the UN Security Council regarding the aforementioned act of aggression by Tel Aviv, the Syrian government denounces the dangerous consequences the Israeli attacks on the SAR territory may have for stability in the Middle East and the entire world. “Syria reserves the right to use all legal means to respond to the treacherous strikes carried out by Israel on the outskirts of Damascus from Lebanese airspace and from the occupied Golan Heights,” the document says. The Syrian Foreign Ministry drew attention to the fact that “the United States, which patronizes Israel, encourages it to continue attacks and paralyzes possible measures by the UN Security Council to deter the aggressor, which undermines the prestige of the international community.”

Initially, Israel planned to launch two strikes simultaneously on February 9 – one on the outskirts of Damascus, and the other on Latakia. However, after encountering two Su-35s scrambled in response, the IAF fighters flew back without attacking the Syrian port. At the same time, almost all of the missiles allegedly aimed at Iranian facilities in the Rif Dimashq Governorate were shot down by Russian-made Syrian air defense systems. The attack was carried out from Lebanese airspace, which is another gross violation of international law.

Israeli Air Force regularly strikes targets in Syria without entering the airspace of the Arab Republic, and mainly operates from the airspace of Lebanon – in violation of international norms, or from the Mediterranean Sea. Since 2013, the IDF has been carrying out hundreds of airstrikes on the territory of a neighboring country primarily targeting pro-Iranian forces in the SAR. This year, there have already been two such attacks by Israel. The first one was took place on January 31 at targets near Damascus, namely Hezbollah facilities and warehouses in the vicinity of Al-Qutayfah. In 2021, there were 55 attacks:

– 3 missile strikes in December (on December 7, 16 and 28, mainly in the area of the port of Latakia, one Syrian soldier was killed, and significant damage was caused). It is noteworthy that on December 28, not for the first time, two F-16s of the Israeli Air Force launched four guided missiles at facilities on the territory of the port of Latakia without crossing the Syrian border (from the Mediterranean Sea). The Syrian air defense forces did not engage in a battle to repel the IAF raid on the port of Latakia, since a landing Russian Air Force transport plane could be in the affected area;

– 4 missile strikes in November (on November 3, 8, 17 and 28, mainly on targets near the city of Homs, which resulted in four people killed, including two civilians, several people wounded and significant material damage);

– 4 missile strikes in October (on October 8, 13, 25 and 30, strikes were carried out on the outskirts of Damascus, the outskirts of al-Ba’ath and the village of Al-Krum in the Quneitra Governorate in southern Syria, and the city of Abu Kamal, as a result of which more than ten Hezbollah militants and a Syrian soldier were killed, and significant damage was caused);

– 3 missile strikes in September (on September 3, 14 and 27, South from the village of Mayadin in the Deir ez-Zor Governorate in Eastern Syria, near the Iraqi border, with many people being wounded);

– 2 missile strikes in August (on August 17 and 19); 3 missile attacks from May to July (on May 5, June 8 and July 19); 9 missile strikes from January to April, with dozens of people dead and wounded;

– 39 missile attacks and air raids were carried out in 2020.

Israel explains its attacks with the desire to prevent modern weapons from falling into the hands of it enemies. Enemy No. 1 in this regard is the Lebanese Hezbollah movement, which is fighting on the side of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and is controlled by Tehran. After the first Israeli airstrikes, Moscow invited all interested parties to meet and talk about disentangling their interests in order to avoid armed conflicts and civilian casualties. However, these calls of Russia have not been heeded.

Israel, despite repeated statements by official Syrian authorities to the UN, continues regular airstrikes on Syrian civilian targets, using, among other things, provocative air attacks by its fighters “under the cover” of civilian aircraft. Thus, in addition to the attack of December 28, on the night of October 13, 2021, four IAF F-16s once again entered the Syrian airspace in the area of the US-occupied Al-Tanf zone in the Homs Governorate and, under the cover of civilian aircraft flying at the same time, carried out an airstrike on a phosphate ore processing plant in the Palmyra area. It is noteworthy that this is not the first time such air attacks have been carried out from the area of the US-occupied zone in the Homs Governorate, which clearly indicates the coordinated actions of the IAF with the US military.

Such provocative tactics of the Israeli Air Force can lead to a serious aggravation of the situation, and it will by the IAF’s fault if the Syrian air defenses in their anti-missile actions shoot down a civilian aircraft of any country, under whose cover Tel Aviv carries out its airstrikes. And such an incident has already occurred in 2018 when Israeli planes bombed Syria from the air zone where the Russian reconnaissance plane was located, and the Syrian air defense shot down this plane by mistake. Russian service members were killed and a big scandal broke out, which was extinguished, and an armed conflict with Israel prevented, only thanks to complex diplomatic efforts.

The Syrian leadership has repeatedly demanded that the UN Security Council put pressure on Israel to stop attacks on the territory of the republic, since such actions violate its sovereignty and lead to increasing tensions in the region. The Syrian Foreign Ministry has previously repeatedly stated that the republic can use “all legal means” to respond to Israeli airstrikes on the Syrian territory. Therefore, by continuing such provocative attacks, Israel is openly tempting its fate, which could turn into a serious armed conflict at any time.

February 14, 2022 Posted by aletho | Militarism, War Crimes | Israel, Lebanon, Middle East, Russia, Syria | Leave a comment

The Plan to Turn You Into a Genetically Edited Human Cyborg

By Dr. Joseph Mercola | February 14, 2022

A May 2021 project report by the U.K. Ministry of Defense, created in partnership with the German Bundeswehr Office for Defense Planning, offers shocking highlights of the dystopian cybernetics future that global technocrats are pushing mankind toward.

The report, “Human Augmentation — The Dawn of a New Paradigm, a Strategic Implications Project,”¹ reviews the scientific goals of the U.K. and German defense ministries, and they are precisely what the title suggests. Human augmentation is stressed as being a key area to focus on in order to win future wars.

But human augmentation will not be restricted to the military ranks. It’s really a way to further separate classes of humans, with the rich and powerful elite being augmented “super-humans.” It’s worth noting that anything released to the public is a decade or more behind current capabilities, so everything in this report can be considered dated news, even though it reads like pure science fiction.

“… the field of human augmentation has the potential to transform society, security and defense over the next 30 years,” the report states. “We must begin to understand the implications of these changes and shape them to our advantage now, before they are thrust upon us.

Technology in warfare has traditionally centered on increasingly sophisticated platforms that people move and fight from, or artefacts that they wear or wield to fight with. Advances in the life sciences and converging developments in related fields are, however, beginning to blur the line between technology and the human …

Many technologies that have the potential to deliver strategic advantage out to 2050 already exist and further advances will undoubtedly occur … Our potential adversaries will not be governed by the same ethical and legal considerations that we are, and they are already developing human augmentation capabilities.

Our key challenge will be establishing advantage in this field without compromising the values and freedoms that underpin our way of life …

When we think of human augmentation it is easy to imagine science fiction inspired suits or wonder drugs that produce super soldiers, but we are on the cusp of realizing the benefits in a range of roles now. Human augmentation will help to understand, optimize and enhance performance leading to incremental, as well as radical, improvements.”

Changing What It Means To Be Human

As noted in the report, “Human augmentation has the potential to … change the meaning of what it means to be a human.” This is precisely what Klaus Schwab, founder and executive chairman of the World Economic Forum (WEF), has stated is the goal of The Fourth Industrial Revolution.²

WEF has been at the center of global affairs for more than 40 years, and if you take the time to dive into WEF’s Fourth Industrial Revolution material, you realize that it’s all about transhumanism. It’s about the merger of man and machine. This is a dystopian future WEF and its global allies are actively trying to implement, whether humanity at large agrees with it or not.

Schwab dreams of a world in which humans are connected to the cloud, able to access the internet through their own brains. This, of course, also means that your brain would be accessible to people who might like to tinker with your thoughts, emotions, beliefs and behavior, be they the technocratic elite themselves or random hackers. As noted by history professor Yuval Noah Harari in late 2019, “humans are now hackable animals.”³ As noted in the featured report:⁴

“Human augmentation will become increasingly relevant, partly because it can directly enhance human capability and behavior and partly because it is the binding agent between people and machines.

Future wars will be won, not by those with the most advanced technology, but by those who can most effectively integrate the unique capabilities of both people and machines. The importance of human-machine teaming is widely acknowledged but it has been viewed from a techno-centric perspective.

Human augmentation is the missing part of this puzzle. Thinking of the person as a platform and understanding our people at an individual level is fundamental to successful human augmentation.”

Key words I’d like to draw your attention to is the affirmation that human augmentation can “directly enhance behavior.” Now, if you can enhance behavior, that means you can change someone’s behavior. And if you can change a person’s behavior in a positive way, you can also control it to the person’s own detriment.

Theoretically, absolutely anyone, any random civilian with a brain-to-cloud connection and the needed biological augmentation (such as strength or speed) could be given wireless instructions to carry out an assassination, for example, and pull it off flawlessly, even without prior training.

Alternatively, their physical body could temporarily be taken over by a remote operator with the prerequisite skills. Proof of concept already exists, and is reviewed by Dr. Charles Morgan, professor in the department of national security at the University of New Haven, in the lecture below. Using the internet and brain implants, thoughts can be transferred from one person to another. The sender can also directly influence the physical movements of the receiver.

The Human Platform

On page 12 of the report, the concept of the human body as a platform is described, and how various parts of the human platform can be augmented. For example:

Physical performance such as strength, dexterity, speed and endurance can be enhanced, as well as physical senses. One example given is gene editing for enhanced sight
Psychological performance such as cognition, emotion and motivation can be influenced to activate and direct desired behavior. Examples of cognitive augmentation include improving memory, attention, alertness, creativity, understanding, decision-making, intelligence and vigilance
Social performance — “the ability to perceive oneself as part of a group and the readiness to act as part of the team” — can be influenced. Communication skills, collaboration and trust are also included here

They list several different ways to influence the physical, psychological and social performance of the “human platform,” including genetics (germ line and somatic modification), the gut microbiome, synthetic biology, invasive (internal) and noninvasive (external) brain interfaces, passive and powered exoskeletons, herbs, drugs and nano technology, neurostimulation, augmented reality technologies such as external holograms or glasses with built-in artificial intelligence, and sensory augmentation technologies such as external sensors or implants. As noted in the report:

“The senses can be extended by translating frequencies beyond the normal human range into frequencies that can been seen, heard or otherwise detected. This could allow the user to ‘see’ through walls, sense vibrations and detect airborne chemicals and changes to magnetic fields.

More invasive options to enhance existing senses have also been demonstrated, for example, coating retinal cells with nanoparticles to enable vision in the infrared spectrum.”

They also point out that, from a defense perspective, methods to de-augment an augmented opponent will be needed. Can you even imagine the battlefield of the future, where soldiers are barraged from both sides with conflicting inputs?

As for ethics, the paper stresses that “we cannot wait for the ethics of human augmentation to be decided for us.” There may even be “moral obligations” to augment people, they say, such as when it would “promote well-being” or protect a population from a “novel threat.”

Interestingly, the paper notes that “It could be argued that treatments involving novel vaccination processes and gene and cell therapies are examples of human augmentation already in the pipeline.” This appears to be a direct reference to mRNA and vector DNA COVID jabs. If so, it’s an open admission that they are a human augmentation strategy in progress.

The Challenge of Unintended Consequences

Of course, there can be any number of side effects and unintended outcomes when you start augmenting an aspect of the human body or mind. As explained in the featured report:

“The relationship between augmentation inputs and outputs is not as simple as it might appear. An augmentation might be used to enhance a person’s endurance but could unintentionally harm their ability to think clearly and decisively in a timely fashion.

In a warfighting context, an augmentation could make a commander more intelligent, but less able to lead due to their reduced ability to socially interact or because they increasingly make unethical decisions. Even a relatively uncontentious enhancement such as an exoskeleton may improve physical performance for specific tasks, but inadvertently result in a loss of balance or reduced coordination when not being worn.

The notion of enhancement is clouded further by the intricacies of the human nervous system where a modifier in one area could have an unintended effect elsewhere. Variation between people makes designing enhancements even more challenging.”

Still, none of that is cause to reconsider or slow down the march toward transhumanism, according to the authors. We just need to understand the human body better, and for that, we need to collect and analyze more data on human performance, behavior, genetics and epigenetics. As noted by the authors:

“Devices that track movement, heart rate, oxygenation levels and location are already commonplace and will become increasingly accurate and sophisticated, making it possible to gather an increasingly wide array of performance data in real time. We can also analyze data in ways that were impossible even five years ago.

Artificial intelligence can analyze massive sets of information almost instantaneously and turn it into products that can inform decision-making. This marriage of data collection and analytics is the foundation of future human augmentation.”

Lab-Grown Designer Babies

As mentioned, by the time a technological advancement is admitted publicly, the research is already a decade or more down the road. Consider, then, the February 1, 2022, article in Futurism,⁵ which announced that Chinese scientists have developed an artificial intelligence nanny robot to care for fetuses grown inside an artificial womb. According to Futurism :⁶

“The system could theoretically allow parents to grow a baby in a lab, thereby eliminating the need for a human to carry a child. The researchers go so far as to say that this system would be safer than traditional childbearing.”

As of now, the AI robot is only in charge of lab-raised animal embryos, as “experimentation on human embryos is still forbidden under international law.” However, that could change at any time. In May 2021, the International Society for Stem Cell Research went ahead and relaxed the rules⁷ on human embryonic experimentation.⁸

Up until then, the rule had been that no human embryo could be grown in a lab environment beyond 14 days. Human embryos may now be grown beyond 14 days if certain conditions are met. In some countries, laws would still need to be changed to go beyond 14 days, but regardless, there’s no doubt that as transhumanism gets underway in earnest, ethical considerations about growing babies in laboratories will be tossed out.

Combine the announcement of an AI robot nanny to care for lab-grown embryos with the 2018 announcement that Chinese scientists were creating CRISPR gene-edited babies. As reported by Technology Review, November 25, 2018,⁹ “A daring effort is underway to create the first children whose DNA has been tailored using gene editing.”

The embryos were genetically edited to disable a gene called CCR5, to make the babies “resistant to HIV, smallpox and cholera.” The embryos were then implanted into a human mother using in vitro fertilization. At the time, the lead scientist refused to answer whether the undertaking had resulted in a live birth, but shortly thereafter it was confirmed that one trial participant had indeed given birth to gene-edited twins in November 2018.¹⁰

In June 2019, Nature magazine published an article¹¹ questioning whether the CRISPR babies might inadvertently have been given a shorter life span, as research had recently discovered that people with two disabled copies of the CCR5 gene were 21% more likely to die before the age of 76 than those with one functioning copy of that gene. The babies might also be more susceptible to influenza and autoimmune conditions, thanks to this genetic tinkering.

Should We Breed Chimeras to Satisfy Need for Organs?

Ethical considerations about animal-human hybrids (chimeras) will probably also fall by the wayside once transhumanism becomes normalized. Already, human-monkey hybrid embryos have been grown by a team of Chinese and American scientists.¹²

The hybrid embryos are part of an effort to find new ways to produce organs for transplant patients. The idea is to raise monkeys with human-compatible organs that can then be harvested as needed. Here, the embryos were grown in test tubes for as long as 20 days — and this was done before the ISSCR officially agreed to relaxing the 14-day rule.

The question is, if this kind of research ends up being successful, and the creation of animals with human organs is actually feasible, at what point does the chimera become a human?

How do we know that what looks like a monkey doesn’t have a human brain, with the intelligence that goes with it? Taking it a step further, even, what’s to prevent scientists from growing human organ donors? Human clones, even? It’s a slippery slope, for sure.

Privacy in the Age of Transhumanism

Perhaps one of the greatest concerns I (and many others) have is that not only are we moving toward a merger of man and machine, but at the same time we’re also increasingly outsourcing human morality to machines. I cannot imagine the end result being anything but devastating. How did that happen? Timandra Harkness, a BBC Radio presenter and author of “Big Data: Does Size Matter?” writes:¹³

“As the recent pandemic years have shown, the desire to be free from scrutiny unless there’s a good reason to be scrutinized is widely seen as, at best, eccentric and, at worst, automatic grounds for suspicion.

We simply can’t articulate why a private life is valuable. We have no sense of ourselves as autonomous beings, persons who need a space in which to reflect, to share thoughts with a few others, before venturing into public space with words and actions that we feel ready to defend …

Part of the appeal of technologies like AI is the fantasy that a machine can take the role of wise parent, immune to the emotion and unpredictability of mere humans. But this tells us less about the real capabilities of AI, and more about our disillusionment with ourselves.

The urge to fix COVID, or other social problems, with technology springs from this lack of trust in other people. So does the cavalier disregard for privacy as an expression of moral autonomy.

Technology ethics can’t save us, any more than technology can. Even during a pandemic, how we regard one another is the fundamental question at the root of ethics. So we do need to treat technology as just a tool, after all. Otherwise we risk being made its instruments in a world without morals.”

Sources and References

^1, ⁴ Human Augmentation — The Dawn of a New Paradigm, a Strategic Implications Project May 2021
² WEF The Fourth Industrial Revolution
³ CNN November 26, 2019
^5, ⁶ Futurism February 1, 2022
⁷ ISSCR Guidelines
⁸ STAT News May 26, 2021
⁹ Technology Review November 25, 2018
¹⁰ AP News November 26, 2018
¹¹ Nature June 3, 2019
¹² Newsweek April 16, 2021
¹³ Unherd January 2022

February 14, 2022 Posted by aletho | Militarism, Timeless or most popular, Video | Human rights, WEF | Leave a comment

US nuclear submarine violates Russian waters – Defense Ministry

RT | February 12, 2022

A US Virginia-class nuclear-powered attack submarine has been detected and chased away in Russian territorial waters off the Kuril Islands, Russia’s Defense Ministry said on Saturday.

The vessel was found submerged off the small uninhabited island of Urup while Russia’s Pacific Fleet was holding exercises in the area. Russian vessels contacted the submarine, warning it was in the country’s territorial waters and ordering it to surface immediately, the military said.

The submarine, however, did not respond to the messages, and destroyer Marshal Shaposhnikov was deployed to chase it off. The Russian vessel used “appropriate means” against the US sub, the military noted without providing any further details.

Following the run-in with the destroyer, the Virginia-class submarine used an active radar decoy, sailing away from Russian waters at full speed.

The Pacific Fleet’s drills continued as scheduled after the incident, the military added.

Shortly after the incident, the Russian Defense Ministry said it has summoned a US military attaché to explain the incursion. Moscow added that the actions of the submarine constitute a major violation of international law, and create a threat to Russia’s national security. The military said it reserves the right to take any security measures in its own territorial waters.

It was not immediately clear what exact vessel was involved in the incident, with no official statement produced by the Pentagon on the incursion so far. The US has 19 active duty Virginia-class nuclear-powered submarines. The vessels are armed with cruise and anti-ship missiles, as well as massive Mark 48 torpedoes.

February 12, 2022 Posted by aletho | Militarism | Russia, United States | Leave a comment

US war hysteria over Ukraine won’t gel

BY M. K. BHADRAKUMAR | INDIAN PUNCHLINE | FEBRUARY 12, 2022

The two takeaways out of the French President Emmanuel Macron’s visit to Moscow and his six-hour long talks with President Vladimir Putin have been the assurance held out by the latter that Russian forces would not ramp up the crisis near Ukraine’s borders — “there would be no deterioration or escalation” — and second, an agreement that Russia would pull troops out of Belarus at the end of exercises taking place currently near Ukraine’s northern borders.

The very fact of the French side putting such sensitive details in the public domain suggests that Moscow sees nothing wrong in it. Moscow has simply clarified that the redeployment of troops out of Belarus is not to be construed as any “deal” with France.

The paradox is, instead of working on these crucial assurances from Moscow, Washington has since chosen to travel in the opposite direction with the White House orchestrating a war hysteria through last week. President Biden and his advisor Jake Sullivan have conjured up an apocalyptic scenario.

The White House claims it has intelligence but dodges details. All we have are some satellite imagery from Max (which works for US intelligence). The patchy details have led to Biden speculating about a world war!

Meanwhile, the Biden Administration is creating diplomatic synergy out of the war hysteria. On Friday, Secretary of State Antony Blinken made an audacious bid to hustle the US’ QUAD partners to endorse Washington’s allegations of Russia’s “aggression” — although the group has nothing to do with European security issues.

Again on Friday, Biden with a stroke of his pen effectively commandeered the foreign reserves of Afghanistan to the tune of 7 billion-plus dollars. According to the New York Times, “It is highly unusual for the United States government to commandeer a foreign country’s assets on domestic soil.”

But Biden is getting away with such high-handed behaviour that might be deemed illegal or immoral or cynical when the Beltway is caught up in a frenzy over an incoming war with Russia! To be sure, all through Friday, the White House strove to keep the headlines on “Russian aggression.” Biden held a videoconference with the European allies while Sullivan networked with the EU bureaucrats in Brussels to coordinate on “preparations to impose massive consequences and severe economic costs on Russia should it choose military escalation.”

Sullivan also gave a press briefing at the White House to highlight that “we are in the window when an invasion [by Russia] could begin at any time should Vladimir Putin decide to order it. I will not comment on the details of our intelligence information. But I do want to be clear: It could begin during the Olympics.”

So, that’s it. Sullivan’s latest version is that Russia may invade Ukraine before Feb. 20. The timeline has been tweaked, as the prognosis a week ago was that such an invasion was “imminent” — and still earlier, that it would happen no sooner than deep frost set in so that tank manoeuvring on Ukrainian terrain would become feasible!

Yet, isn’t it amazing that at such a tumultuous time in modern history when Biden visualises a potential world war, he sent away his state secretary on a 6-day tour of Asia-Pacific? In fact, at the moment, Blinken is shuttling somewhere in the tropics — between Suva (Fiji) and Honolulu (Hawaii)!

What do we make out of this charade of war hysteria? Three things can be said. First, the US feels a constant need to rally European allies who are sceptical about the Russia bogey, and the war hysteria helps. Second, Washington is overtly keen to sever Russia’s relations with European countries where energy cooperation is a template — especially, the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline.

Three, most important, the war hysteria provides the alibi to step up US deployments in Eastern Europe and the Baltics. The size of the NATO deployment on Russia’s western borders already stands at 175,000 troops! Advanced weapons have been deployed too. (Eight nuclear-capable heavy B-52 members are deployed to a forward base in the UK.) Over and above, US has established an air bridge to ferry weapons to Ukraine. As of Friday, more than 15 military flights landed in Ukraine with 1200 tonnes of materials.

Quite obviously, this war hysteria cannot be sustained indefinitely. Something has to give way. Now, the big question is: What if Russia doesn’t invade Ukraine, as Putin reportedly assured Macron as recently as Monday?

Evidently, the US predicament is two-fold: While war hysteria helps to rally the European allies, Washington also cannot afford to let the Europeans dominate the dialogue track with Moscow lest it create a dynamics of its own. Washington has a trust deficit with Macron who is a passionate advocate of European initiatives on European security issues.

Macron is on record that Europe’s security cannot be assured without Russia’s security! Equally, there is panic in the Beltway that German Chancellor Olaf Scholz is also heading for Moscow on Tuesday. And, Macron is expected to have a call with Putin today! Curiously, Biden decided that he too should have a call with Putin later today!

Above all, the UK too has entered the diplomatic fray. All indications are that Defence Secretary Ben Wallace’s talks with his Russian counterpart Sergei Shoigu in Moscow on Friday were substantive. (Interestingly, the UK Chief of Staff Admiral Sir Tony Radakin who accompanied Wallace separately met with his Russian counterpart General Valery Gerasimov.)

Wallace described his talks as “frank and constructive.” The MOD readout in London was couched in a restrained tone as if UK is impervious to Biden and Sullivan’s war hysteria. Importantly, it highlighted Shoigu’s assurance to Wallace that Russia will not invade Ukraine.

Notably, the Russian readout too sought to put the accent on “urgent measures to ensure security guarantees” to Russia. It said, “Army General S. K. Shoigu pointed out that the military and political situation in Europe had worsened considerably due to tension whipped up around Ukraine and NATO’s military presence near the Russian borders.”

How far this pantomime on the diplomatic stage continues is unclear. There is the lurking danger that extreme nationalist forces who call the shots in Kiev, egged on by Washington, may feel emboldened to create new facts on the ground in Donbass. This was precisely how the Georgian war had erupted in 2008.

Indeed, a new level of criticality has appeared lately in Donbass with large scale mobilisation by Ukrainian forces and reports of western mercenaries in the guise of military advisors. The US intentions remain unclear.

A conflict in Donbass will put the Kremlin in dilemma. If Russia intervenes in Donbass to keep at bay the rampaging radical Ukrainian nationalist forces, Washington will certainly use it as alibi to impose harsh sanctions to isolate Russia and severely damage Moscow’s ties with European countries.

On the contrary, Russia will have no option but to intervene, as hundreds of thousands of Russian passport holders live in Donbass. (Some put the figure around 700,000.) The radical neo-Nazi Ukrainian nationalists are known to be notoriously anti-Russian and all sorts of atrocities — even genocide — may take place.

The likelihood of conflict erupting in Donbass remains high. Biden may get a splendid opportunity to salvage his reputation after the debacle in Afghanistan. He has an eye, for sure, on the mid-term elections in November and the bipartisan consensus supportive of a tough line on “Putin’s Russia” also helps.

Fundamentally, the US has no intentions of giving Russia the security guarantee it needs. For, NATO’s eastward expansion and encirclement of Russia happens to be Washington’s core agenda. And, since 2014, that agenda has been so far advanced that there is no turning point now. It must be carried forward to its logical conclusion.

The Washington elites realise that the US lacks the capability to take on China and Russia simultaneously. A paradigm shift is needed. In the US calculus, forcing Putin to abdicate after a humiliating retreat over Ukraine and a severe weakening of Russian military power only can bring about the strategic rollback of Russia’s resurgence and its alliance with China.

It is, therefore, an imperative first step on the pathway to an eventual epochal confrontation with China, which poses a formidable challenge to America’s global hegemony in the 21st century.

February 12, 2022 Posted by aletho | Militarism | NATO, Ukraine, United States | Leave a comment

Hungary not willing to host NATO troops amid Ukrainian crisis

By Lucas Leiroz | February 10, 2022

Another European country appears to be taking different paths from NATO’s central plans. In a recent official statement, the Hungarian foreign minister stated that his country will not allow the arrival of more NATO troops on its territory. The case demonstrates further evidence of the crisis in the legitimacy of the anti-Russian discourse of the Western alliance, which is increasingly convincing fewer people.

Peter Szijjarto, Hungarian foreign minister, during an interview to Euronews on February 9, stated that Hungary is unwilling to receive NATO troops on its territory in the midst of the current Ukrainian crisis. For him, the Hungarian armed forces are sufficiently well prepared and equipped to deal with any threat of war in the region, so there is no need to import more foreign troops.

These were some of his words: “No, we have not agreed to that and we will not agree because we have already NATO’s troops on the territory of the country, which is the Hungarian army and the Hungarian armed forces, [they] are in the proper shape to guarantee the security of the country. So we don’t need additional troops on the territory of Hungary”. Szijjarto also commented that the current Ukrainian situation recalls the Cold War times, which were “many decades where we [the Hungarian people] suffered (…) That’s why we don’t want these times to come back. We ask, we urge the international community to do its best in order to avoid the Cold War to return, avoid even the psyche of the Cold War to return because we learned it from history, unfortunately have very clearly, that whenever there is an East-West conflict , the countries of Central Europe lose and we don’t want to be losers anymore”.

In addition to ruling out the possibility of receiving troops and taking a stance against a “new cold war”, the minister also expressed skepticism about the efficiency of the implementation of coercive measures against Moscow: “If you look at the sanctions themselves, it’s a failure. They don’t work out. They are unsuccessful. Trade between Germany and the Russian Federation has increased since the sanctions have been in place. (…) We have to invest in diplomacy, we have to invest in dialogue. That’s why we urge the Russian Federation and our Western allies, the big countries, the strong countries, not to give up hope of peaceful settlement, to the contrary, to talk to each other because once again, I want to underline that for us, rather small Central European countries, it can be extremely dangerous if violent action take place”.

Szijjarto’s speech comes as a Hungarian response to recent American pressure for all European countries to accept that new NATO troops are deployed on their territories. Earlier, US Defense Department spokesman John Kirby said Washington would send a new group of troops to Europe, including a squad of about 1,000 men to Romania, a country that borders Hungary and already has more than 900 American soldiers installed. On February 8, the first soldiers of the new American squadron for Romania arrived in Bucharest, which increased pressure during this week for Budapest to give a definitive answer on the reception of the troops, but the Hungarian government seems really willing not to follow the trends in neighboring nations.

In fact, this kind of attitude is being taken simply because Budapest no longer believes in the existence of a Russian invasion plan. And it is very likely that other European governments will soon abandon this narrative as well. This is a natural consequence of the recent events. NATO has been talking about such an invasion for a long time, but it never happened and is unlikely to happen, so there is no reason to accept that European countries are passively filled with thousands of American soldiers. There is no threat to justify this.

Furthermore, regarding the opinion against sanctions and in favor of bilateral dialogue, we can see that the Hungarian government is forming a solid pro-diplomacy stance. This position is a consequence of the friendly ties that Viktor Orban has been trying to develop in recent times – which is why he suffers so much criticism within the European Union. In early February, the prime minister visited Moscow and spoke with Putin on various strategic topics in bilateral relations, including security issues in Europe, gas trade, among others. In the West, Orban’s attitude has been seen with criticism due to the moment of tensions, but it was an opportunity to make it clear that the Hungarian position is anti-war, anti-sanctions and pro-diplomacy one. Now, Szijjarto’s words corroborate this thesis.

It is possible that it will take time, but at some point other European countries will start to take the same attitude as Hungary. There is no possibility that the narrative about “Russian invasion” will endure, considering that it is unsubstantiated and fallacious. If there is no threat of war, there will be no reason for these governments to want their territories occupied by foreign troops and this will inevitably generate a NATO retreat in Europe.

Lucas Leiroz is a researcher in Social Sciences at the Rural Federal University of Rio de Janeiro; geopolitical consultant.

February 10, 2022 Posted by aletho | Economics, Militarism | Hungary, NATO, Ukraine, United States | Leave a comment

Who exactly is the enemy that the CIA is targeting these days?

By Toby Rogers | February 9, 2022

From the 1950s through the 1980s the CIA overthrew democratically elected governments and assassinated leaders in the U.S. and around the world in the name of fighting communism.

After the fall of communism, the CIA pivoted to fighting terrorism. After 9/11 their mission expanded considerably to include a global network of black sites where they conducted torture. They also engage in covert military operations on the ground inside a wide range of countries.

More recently, the CIA has expanded their mission yet again. We have evidence of coordination between the U.S. Department of Defense, Fauci, the EcoHealth Alliance, bioweapons labs in the U.S., and the Wuhan Institute of Virology (a Chinese bioweapons lab) to conduct gain-of-function research. This has all of the hallmarks of a CIA operation.

One could make the case that the CIA is now fighting viruses/pandemics in the name of national defense. But this effort CREATED the chimera virus that has killed more Americans than all foreign wars combined. Since the chimera virus was released, governments across the developed world, Pharma, and Big Tech have all worked together to control the message, surveil and censor the population, and smash any dissent. Again this reeks of CIA involvement.

So my question is, who/what exactly is the CIA fighting these days? My hunch is that the answer is us. Not just the medical freedom movement (although we are certainly targeted) but the general public. This seems like a class war and the CIA’s new mission is not to defend the U.S. per se but rather to defend the global ruling class from the peasants who might overthrow them.

February 10, 2022 Posted by aletho | Militarism, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | CIA, Covid-19, United States | Leave a comment

Korea Heads Toward a Political Crossroads

By Gregory Elich | CounterPunch |February 8, 2022

South Koreans go to the polls on March 9 to elect a new president, who will assume office two months later. At a time when U.S.-North Korean relations are at an impasse, and the Biden administration is building an aggressive anti-China alliance, much may rest on the outcome.

The two candidates, who are currently running neck-and-neck in opinion polls, present a stark contrast. Lee Jae-myung of the ruling Democratic Party advocates South Korea taking the lead on inter-Korean relations, in contrast to President Moon Jae-in’s unwillingness to adopt any measure that would elicit Washington’s disapproval. “In succeeding the Moon Jae-in administration, the Lee Jae-myung government should act as a more independent and active mediator and problem solver,” Lee announced late last year. [1] That will come as a welcome change in direction if it comes to fruition.

Lee is also disinclined to accede to U.S. demands to join the anti-China campaign, questioning why South Korea should be forced to choose between China, its leading trading partner, and the U.S., with whom it has a military alliance. “I think the situation is coming where we can make decisions independently, putting our national interests first. Any thinking that we have to choose between the two is a very disgraceful approach,” Lee argues. [2]

If Lee is serious about changing course, he will be steering into strong headwinds. South Korea is such a politically polarized society that Lee cannot count on broad-based domestic support. Furthermore, his party will need to win a substantial majority in the National Assembly for Lee to adopt a more independent policy. In addition, the nation’s security and military establishments are hardly likely to countenance a change in the relationship with Washington. The United States, for its part, has an arsenal of economic and diplomatic weapons at its disposal to keep a wayward nation in line. Only time will tell if Lee has the inclination and determination to try and overcome such obstacles.

Lee’s conservative opponent, Yoon Seok-youl of the inaptly-named People Power Party, takes a hardline position on the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK – the official name for North Korea), including talking about the option of launching a preemptive strike. [3] Yoon also prioritizes the military alliance with the United States and favors joining Washington’s “global coalition” confronting China. [4] “The U.S. is our ally,” Yoon asserts, “while China is a partner. And a partnership is based on mutual respect. China is North Korea’s key ally. Isn’t North Korea our main enemy? We cannot make an alliance with a country that is allied with our main enemy.” [5]

It is no mystery which candidate the Biden administration would prefer to deal with. Yoon’s stated policies align perfectly with those of Washington.

President Moon Jae-in missed opportunities to improve inter-Korean relations by continually deferring to the United States. In regard to reducing U.S.-DPRK tensions, Moon advocates an end-of-war declaration. Combat in the Korean War came to a halt in 1953 with an armistice agreement, so technically speaking, a state of war still exists. Moon regards that unfinished business as a destabilizing situation that can be resolved by all parties signing an end-of-war declaration to “mark a pivotal point of departure,” which would lead to “irreversible progress in denuclearization and usher in an era of complete peace.” [6]

South Korean officials have been engaged in talks with their counterparts in the United States, China, and North Korea on the subject of a peace declaration for some time now. Moon believes “in principle” that “everybody agrees to the declaration,” although he noted that the DPRK needs to see the U.S. withdraw its hostile policy. [7] In other words, no party has explicitly rejected the proposal outright, although South Korea has yet to come to an agreement with the United States on its wording.

According to Moon, “If North Korea takes certain measures, the end-of-war declaration would be a political statement that would announce that the longstanding hostile relations between Pyongyang and Washington had ended.” [8] Note that action is required from only one side, while no change in behavior is asked of the United States.

Moon has also stated that an end-of-war declaration would be “the starting point to discuss the peace treaty.” [9]However, a peace treaty is a nonstarter in the current U.S. political environment, as it would require approval by a two-thirds majority in the Senate and ratification by President Biden.

The protracted wrangling over the declaration’s wording suggests that American officials have taken note of Yoon’s strong showing in the South Korean opinion polls and concluded that they need only drag their feet until getting a partner more to their liking. At the very least, it indicates that the Biden administration is intensely focused on wordsmithing to ensure that nothing in the final draft of a peace declaration could be misconstrued to suggest that anything should change.

Too much can be made of the claim that a technical state of war is automatically destabilizing. Failure to sign a peace treaty is not a unique historical phenomenon. In a more recent example, the Soviet Union and Japan never signed a peace treaty after World War II. However, a peace declaration was agreed to in 1956 as an interim measure. Technically, then, Russia and Japan remain in a state of war yet are hardly likely to engage in combat. Talks are currently underway regarding a peace treaty. [10]

Conversely, there is nothing inherently transformative in being officially at peace with a hostile party. Cuba and Venezuela, for example, are formally at peace with the United States yet are subjected to unrelenting sanctions, economic blockade, and destabilization campaigns aimed at regime change.

The risk in placing so much emphasis on an end-of-war declaration alone is that Moon may inadvertently be reinforcing the already entrenched U.S. view that it need not offer North Korea anything substantive in exchange for denuclearization.

It is difficult to imagine what mechanism could metamorphose a piece of paper acknowledging that combat ended in 1953 into Moon’s envisioned “era of complete peace.” Moreover, U.S. hostility toward the DPRK is driven by regional geopolitical objectives, which a peace declaration cannot alter.

As a purely symbolic measure, a peace declaration is not worthless, but it would need to be accompanied by a change in U.S. attitude to hold any value. Otherwise, a symbol at variance with action is drained of any meaning. Indeed, what significance would such a symbol have as the United States continues to wage siege warfare against North Korea in the form of sanctions designed to impose economic ruin, hardship, and hunger?

Asia specialist Tim Beal believes the number one problem with an end-of-war declaration is “that the U.S. is still waging war – sanctions, military exercises, practicing invasion, and so forth. And it gives no indication of actually wanting to stop any of these.” [11]

The sustained effort that Moon has invested in promoting a peace declaration may have been better spent on advocating real change as a path to peace. However, it must be noted how so much of the Washington elite recoils at the prospect of granting North Korea even a symbolic diplomatic crumb. There is a deeply ingrained belief that the only acceptable formula for negotiations is for the DPRK to surrender everything while getting nothing in return. Perhaps Moon’s devotion to a peace declaration is based partly on the realization that the United States is unwilling to offer North Korea anything meaningful in exchange for denuclearization, so more cannot be expected.

While South Korean officials have discussed the subject of a peace declaration with their counterparts in the north, the impetus and enthusiasm for the proposal essentially come from the former side. Indeed, Moon’s narrow focus on a peace declaration resolutely ignores what North Koreans say they need.

The DPRK is under siege, and consequently, its officials are looking for something more concrete from the United States. They certainly have not minced words on the subject. Kim Myong Gil, North Korea’s chief negotiator during talks with Trump administration officials, was quite direct: “If the U.S. believes that it can lure us to the table with secondary issues, such as an end-of-war declaration – which can instantly end up as garbage depending on the political situation – and the establishment of a liaison office, instead of presenting fundamental solutions to withdraw its hostile policy against North Korea, which interferes with our right to survival and development, there will never be any hope for a solution.” [12]

Last September, North Korean Vice Foreign Minister Ri Thae Song reiterated that position when he termed an end-of-war declaration premature. “Nothing will change as long as the political circumstances around the DPRK remain unchanged and the U.S. hostile policy is not shifted, although the termination of the war is declared hundreds of times.” Ri added, “We have already clarified our official stand that the declaration of the termination of the war is not a ‘present’ and it can become a mere scrap of paper in a moment upon changes in situations.” [13]

Biden administration officials repeatedly announce that the U.S. has no hostile intent toward the DPRK while showering that nation with invective and strangling it economically. U.S. State Department spokesperson Ned Price says that “specific proposals” have been made to North Korea. [14] Although nothing is publicly known about the nature of the proposals, the lack of response from the North Koreans would seem to reveal that the U.S. is sticking to its customary approach of offering diplomatic trinkets in exchange for demanding unilateral disarmament.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying advocates a more viable approach to resuming talks. “We believe under the current circumstances, the key to breaking the stalemate and restarting dialogue is taking seriously the DPRK’s legitimate concerns. The U.S. should avoid repeating empty slogans, but rather show its sincerity by presenting an appealing plan for dialogue. It is imperative to invoke the rollback terms of the Security Council’s DPRK-related resolutions as soon as possible and make necessary adjustments to relevant sanctions, especially those relating to provisions on the humanitarian and livelihood aspects.” [15]

In October, China and Russia submitted a draft resolution at the United Nations to drop economic sanctions that target North Korea’s population, in recognition of the nation’s continued adherence to its self-imposed moratorium on nuclear and long-range ballistic missile tests. [16] Chinese U.N. envoy Wang Qun explained, “Obviously, the crux of the deadlock in the DPRK-U.S. dialogue is that the denuclearization measures taken by the DPRK have not received due attention and the legitimate and reasonable concerns of the DPRK have not been properly addressed.” [17] Predictably, the U.S. side reacted with outrage, and U.S. Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield instead called upon U.N. member states to “ramp up the implementation of the sanctions.” [18]

Rather than signal a softer attitude, on December 10, the Biden administration piled on more sanctions, targeting several individuals and North Korea’s animation firm SEK Studio. Also sanctioned was a Chinese animation company for doing business with SEK Studio. [19] According to Go Myong-hyun, a research fellow at the Asan Institute for Policy Studies, the Biden administration “is sending a very strong message to North Korea and the rest of the world that the U.S. government is going to really not leave any stone unturned and make sure that the North Koreans don’t get even a single cent of profit by trading with the outside world.” [20]

The Biden administration followed that action by naming Philip Goldberg as ambassador to South Korea. His selection appears to indicate that Washington remains wedded to the punishment approach. During the Obama administration, Goldberg served as coordinator for implementing sanctions on North Korea. That position led him to travel abroad and meet with foreign political and banking officials to eliminate trade and financial operations with North Korea. Philosophically, he aligns well with an aggressive foreign policy. As ambassador to Bolivia, he was expelled from the country for meeting with the right-wing opposition. [21] In his nomination hearing for ambassador to Colombia at the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in 2019, Goldberg promised to support the U.S. campaign to overthrow the government of Venezuela: “If confirmed, I will work with Colombia on efforts to restore democracy to Venezuela.” He added that “the United States government has made clear that all options remain on the table while it continues to engage on all diplomatic and economic fronts to support Interim Venezuelan President Juan Guaido and the Venezuelan people’s pursuit of freedom.” [22] The new ambassador is not a man who can be expected to challenge conventional thinking regarding the DPRK.

The DPRK has evidently concluded that the United States is unwilling to abandon its hostile policy and has recently stepped up weapons testing. Its demolition of the Punggye-ri nuclear test site and a self-imposed moratorium on long-range ballistic missile testing yielded no corresponding measure from the United States, aside from a temporary reduction in the size of military exercises that rehearse the bombing and invasion of the DPRK and infiltration of commando teams to assassinate North Korean officials.

Meanwhile, the South Korean military is accelerating technological upgrades and has seen its budget increase by an average of 7.4 percent each year of the Moon administration. [23] The United States, for its part, is expanding its military presence in the Asia-Pacific, and regularly launches intercontinental ballistic missiles, most recently on two occasions last year. [24]

The North Koreans feel compelled to modernize their military capability in response to U.S. and South Korean arms advancements. As a result, an arms race is underway, in which the targeted side’s efforts are deemed illegitimate. DPRK leader Kim Jong Un emphasizes that “recourse to arms against the fellow countrymen must not be repeated on this land.” He adds, “We are not talking about a war with someone,” but “are building up war deterrent… to prevent the war itself and to safeguard the sovereignty of our state.” [25] And that is the crux of U.S. concern. A small targeted nation able to defend itself sets a bad precedent and limits options.

Western media and officials habitually characterize each North Korean missile test as a “threat” or “provocation,” uniquely so, in that other nations performing similar tests prompt no condemnation. India, like North Korea, is a non-member of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, and its launch of an intercontinental ballistic missile on October 27 last year was greeted by silence. [26] No doubt, the Times of India’s description of the launch as “a stern signal to China” came as a welcome development in Washington. [27] The two other nuclear powers that are non-NPT members are Israel and Pakistan, both of which have ballistic missile programs that are deemed of no concern by U.S. officials and media. [28]

There is a double standard at play. Only North Korea is forbidden by the United Nations from testing and is punished by economic sanctions so crushing as to amount to a war on the entire population. Even military tests that are not prohibited, such as the recent cruise missile and hypersonic missile launches, are denounced. Using inflammatory language, U.S. Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield recently described North Korea’s tests as “attacks” and promised to “continue to ramp up the pressure on the North Koreans.” [29] U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres rebuked the DPRK for its recent launch of a Hwasong-12 intermediate-range ballistic missile, charging that it not only violated U.N. sanctions but also “the DPRK’s announced moratorium.” [30] That was an outright falsehood, as North Korea’s self-imposed moratorium on testing applies only to long-range ballistic missiles.

Why is North Korea singled out for punishment? According to Thomas-Greenfield, it is because that nation is “a serious threat to our peace and security and to the globe.” [31] That language is echoed by U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who called the DPRK “a source of danger and obviously a threat to us and our partners.” [32] That American officials can make such pronouncements without being met by derision is a tribute to the efficacy of U.S. propaganda. Since the Korean War came to a halt nearly seven decades ago, the DPRK has been at peace. Yet, in the decades that followed the Second World War, the United States has bombed and invaded numerous countries, undermined and toppled foreign governments, spread its military bases across the globe to threaten other nations, and performed drone strike murders of thousands of civilians. And the U.S. is currently trying to stoke war fever against Russia. Yet, the common perception in the West turns reality on its head.

Regardless of whether or not a peaceful end to the Korean War is declared, the United States has broader plans for South Korea. The Biden administration’s central foreign policy objective is to build alliances with Asian nations to ensure U.S. domination over China.

South Korea’s geographical location places it on the frontline of the Biden administration’s fanatical anti-China project, and the Koreans are assigned the role of “force multiplier” in that effort. The South Koreans are not regarded as having a choice in the matter. Koreans are expected to support the U.S. confrontation with China and any military adventure in the Asia-Pacific that the U.S. may choose to undertake. According to an American military official, the Republic of Korea (ROK) will act as “a net provider of security not just on the peninsula but across the region.” [33]

Last May, Biden and Moon issued a joint statement, which pledged that “the U.S.-ROK alliance will play an increasingly global role” and claimed that the two nations’ relationship “extends far beyond the Korean Peninsula.” Moon also promised to align his country’s policy with “the United States’ vision for a free and open Indo-Pacific.” [34]

In December, U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin met in Seoul with his South Korean counterpart, Suh Wook. Austin announced that “we discussed ways to broaden our alliance’s focus to address issues of regional concern.” Using the familiar code words for anti-China hostility, Austin stated that “we emphasize our shared commitment to the rules-based order in the Indo-Pacific.” In addition, Austin reported that he and Suh “agreed to explore ways to expand and enhance regional security cooperation and capacity building.” [35]

If an end-of-war declaration is made the vehicle for bringing peace to the peninsula, the main roadblock, as Korea specialist Simone Chun sees it, is U.S. containment policy and the practice of “pressuring allies for U.S. strategic interests.” Under the Moon administration, “South Korea’s security policy has been subordinated to the United States” and “South Korea does not have strategic insight to properly respond to the U.S. policy of containment with respect to China.” Chun proposes supplementing an end-of-war declaration with a revival of the Sunshine Policy as offering a potentially more promising path to reducing tensions on the Korean Peninsula. [36] The Sunshine Policy, launched during the presidential term of Kim Dae-jung and continued by his successor Roh Moo-hyun, redirected inter-Korean relations from confrontation to cooperation. However, since Roh’s term ended in 2008, no subsequent South Korean president has followed suit. In Chun’s proposal, South Korea does not need to play a passive role and defer to U.S. intransigence. Instead, it can initiate its own program.

It cannot be overlooked that South Korean progressives and U.S. imperialism have divergent goals. Their class and national interests are at opposite poles. If positive change comes, it will be driven by Koreans. As Tim Beal points out, “Peace undercuts the rationale for U.S. forward position in East Asia. It undercuts the rationale for all those bases, the bases in South Korea, the bases in Japan, and so forth. And it undercuts the rationale for their utilization of [South Korean] military power.” The problem is “that peace in Korea would hamper the containment of China. That’s how they look at it.” [37]

A lot may ride on the next presidential election in South Korea. A conservative victory would automatically give the Biden administration everything it wants. Yoon has explicitly stated his intention to ally closely with U.S. militarism. A win by Lee Jae-myung offers more hope.

Lee promises to chart a more independent path than Moon. It remains to be seen if he can follow through, given the certainty of fierce opposition by Washington. Progressives in South Korea face a twofold struggle in the months ahead: pressing their government to improve inter-Korean relations and blocking being dragooned into the U.S. anti-China military machine. At the heart of both issues is resistance to U.S. encroachment upon South Korean sovereignty. It will not be an easy struggle, but it is a necessary one.

Notes

[1] Thomas Maresca, “South Korea Presidential Hopeful Seeks Closer Ties with Pyongyang,” UPI, November 25, 2021.

[2] Kang Seung-woo, “’Choosing Between US, China is Disgraceful,’ Ruling Party’s Presidential Candidate Says,” Korea Times, December 30, 2021.

[3] Jung Da-min, “Controversy Rises Over Yoon’s Preemptive Strike Remarks,” Korea Times, January 13, 2022.

[4] Lee Haye-ah, “Yoon Says Firm S. Korea-U.S. Alliance Ever More Important,” Yonhap, November 12, 2021.

[5] Lee Ji-yoon, “Yoon Seok-youl Hints at Possibility of Ditching Inter-Korean Military Agreement,” Korea Herald, November 18, 2021.

[6] https://english1.president.go.kr/BriefingSpeeches/Speeches/1068

[7] https://www.pm.gov.au/media/press-conference-canberra-act-32

[8] “South Korea’s Moon Optimistic About End to Korean War,” BBC News, October 12, 2018.

[9] Lee Ji-yoon, “Moon Holds Rare Inflight News Briefing,” Korea Herald, September 24, 2021.

[10] “Future Russia-Japan Peace Treaty Must Reflect Outlook for Cooperation – Lavrov,” TASS, January 14, 2022.

[11] “A Geopolitical Perspective of Biden’s North Korea Policy,” JNC TV, January 2, 2022.

[12] Jeong Je-hyug, “NK Kim Myong-gil, “Beigun Conveyed Wish to Meet for Talks in December. Willing to Sit with the U.S.,” Kyunghyang Shinmun, November 15, 2019.

[13] “Press Statement of Vice Foreign Minister Ri Thae Song,” KCNA, September 24, 2021.

[14] Chaewon Chung, “US Made ‘Specific Proposals’ to the DPRK in Latest Attempt to Engage Regime,” NK News, October 14, 23021.

[15] “Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Hua Chunying’s Regular Press Conference on September 30, 2021,” Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People’s Republic of China, September 30, 2021.

[16] Chad O’Carroll, “China and Russia Submit Proposal to Ease UN Sanctions on North Korea: Sources,” NK News, October 30, 2021.

Michelle Nichols, “China, Russia Revive Push to Lift U.N. Sanctions on North Korea,” Reuters, November 1, 2021.

[17] “Invoking Rollback Terms of DPRK-related Resolutions at Early Date Effective to Break Deadlock: Chinese Envoy,” Xinhua, September 25, 2021.

[18] https://usun.usmission.gov/remarks-by-ambassador-linda-thomas-greenfield%e2%80%afat-the-un-security-council-stakeout-on-the-dprk/

[19] https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/jy0526

[20] Chad O’Carroll, “US to Impose New Sanctions Against North Korea for First Time Under Biden,” NK News, December 10, 2021.

[21] “Bolivian Leader Doesn’t Regret Expelling U.S. Ambassador,” CNN, April 22, 2009.

[22] https://www.foreign.senate.gov/hearings/nominations-062019

[23] Lami Kim, “A Hawkish Dove? President Moon Jae-in and South Korea’s Military Buildup,” War on the Rocks, September 15, 2021.

Sang-Min Kim, “South Korea Boosts Military,” Arms Control Association, September 21.

Hiroshi Minegishi, “South Korea Beefs Up Military Muscle to Counter Threat from North,” Nikkei Asia, September 14, 2021.

[24] “Minuteman III Test Launch Demonstrates Safe, Reliable Deterrent,” United States Air Force (Air Force Global Strike Command Public Affairs), February 24, 2021.

“Minuteman III Test Launch Showcases Readiness of U.S. Nuclear Force’s Safe, Effective Deterrent,” United States Air Force (Air Force Global Strike Command Public Affairs), August 11, 2021.

[25] “Respected Comrade Kim Jong Un Makes Commemorative Speech at Defence Development Exhibition,” KCNA, October 12, 2021.

[26] Kelsey Davenport, “India Tests Missile Capable of Reaching China,” Arms Control Association, December 2021.

[27] Rajat Pandit, “In Stern Signal to China, India Tests 5,000-km Range Agni-V”, Times of India, October 28, 2021.

[28] https://www.iiss.org/blogs/analysis/2021/08/israel-ballistic-missile-programme

https://missilethreat.csis.org/country/pakistan/

[29] “Transcript: ‘Capehart’ with Linda Thomas-Greenfield, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations,” Washington Post Live, January 18, 2022.

[30] “DPR Korea, UN Chief Condemns Missile Launch as ‘Clear Violation,’ UN News, February 1, 2022.

[31] “Remarks by Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield at a Press Conference on the March Program of Work and the U.S. Presidency of the UN Security Council,” United States Mission to the United Nations, March 1, 2021.

[32] Hyung-jin Kim and Kim Tong-hyung, “Blinken Urges China to Convince North Korea to Denuclearize,” Associated Press, March 18, 2021.

[33] Jeff Seldin, “US, South Korea Updating War Plans for North Korea,” Voice of America, December 1, 2021.

[34] https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2021/05/21/u-s-rok-leaders-joint-statement/

[35] https://www.defense.gov/News/Transcripts/Transcript/Article/2859519/secretary-of-defense-lloyd-j-austin-iii-and-south-korean-defense-minister-suh-w/

[36] “A Geopolitical Perspective of Biden’s North Korea Policy,” JNC TV, January 2, 2022.

[37] “A Geopolitical Perspective of Biden’s North Korea Policy,” JNC TV, January 2, 2022.

Gregory Elich is a Korea Policy Institute associate and on the Board of Directors of the Jasenovac Research Institute. He is a member of the Solidarity Committee for Democracy and Peace in Korea, a columnist for Voice of the People, and one of the co-authors of Killing Democracy: CIA and Pentagon Operations in the Post-Soviet Period, published in the Russian language. He is also a member of the Task Force to Stop THAAD in Korea and Militarism in Asia and the Pacific. His website is https://gregoryelich.org

February 10, 2022 Posted by aletho | Militarism | Korea, United States | Leave a comment

Assassination Hypocrisy

By Jacob G. Hornberger | FFF | February 9, 2022

On the morning of January 25, 1993, a man named Mir Amal Kansi appeared outside CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia, where he began assassinating people who were driving their cars into the facility. He ended up killing two CIA employees and wounding three others.

Four years later, FBI agents arrested Kansi in Pakistan and brought him back to the United States.

Kansi was prosecuted in a Virginia state court for murder, where he was convicted and sentenced to die. On November 14, 2002, the state of Virginia executed him.

What I find fascinating in this episode is that under U.S national-security law, when the CIA assassinates people, it isn’t considered murder. But as Kansi’s case shows, when people assassinate CIA officials, it is considered murder.

Kansi gave the reason for his assassinations. No, he didn’t say that he hated America for its “freedom and values.” He said that the reason he was assassinating CIA officials was to retaliate for the fact that the U.S. government was killing people in Iraq and for its role in helping Israel kill Palestinians.

Under U.S. national-security law, U.S. officials can assassinate anyone they want — “communists,” “terrorists,” “bad guys,” “adversaries,” “opponents,” “rivals,” or “enemies.” When they do that, it’s to be called an “assassination” or a “targeted killing.”

Moreover, under the law, U.S. officials can kill whoever they want with economic sanctions, as they were doing with the Iraqi people at the time that Kansi was retaliating. I am reminded of U.S. Ambassador Madeleine Albright’s infamous statement that the deaths of half-a-million Iraqi children from the sanctions were “worth it.” Those killings weren’t called “murder” of course. They were called unfortunate deaths arising from the sanctions.

U.S. officials also wield the authority to kill whoever they want with invasions of Third-World countries. The people of Afghanistan and Iraq can attest to that. Again, those killings are not considered to be murder. They are considered to be casualties of war.

If, however, anyone retaliates against the national-security establishment by assassinating officials within the national-security establishment, it’s called “murder,” in which case the assassin will be put to death after being accorded a trial.

Of course, this was the law prior to the 9/11 attacks. After those attacks, the law was implicitly amended to provide that the national-security establishment had the option of taking “bad guys” like Kansi to Gitmo, where they could be tortured, held indefinitely without trial, or executed after a kangaroo trial before a military tribunal.

All this hypocrisy goes to show what the conversion from a limited-government republic to a national-security state has done to the consciences of the American people. Most everyone has come to accept the state-sponsored assassinations and deaths arising from sanctions, embargoes, invasions, occupations, and wars of aggression to just be part of the U.S. government’s “foreign policy tools.”

As I pointed out in a recent blog post, however, the Pentagon’s and the CIA’s assassinations constitute murder, just as Kansi’s assassinations do. Why, even Lyndon Johnson referred to the CIA’s assassination program as “Murder, Inc.,” which is precisely what it is. The same goes for deaths arising from sanctions, embargoes, wars of aggression, invasions, and occupations. It’s just plain murder.

Referring to Kansi, Virginia prosecutor Robert F. Horne stated, “I’ve tried an awful lot of killers in my life, and I think he’s the only one I’ve run into that is absolutely proud of what he did. You get a lot of killers who don’t feel all that bad about what they did, but he’s proud of it.”

Apparently Horne has never met any CIA assassins. Like Kansi, they feel really good about their killings and are absolutely proud of what they do. What Horne fails to realize is that even though Kansi is a “bad guy” for assassinating people, that doesn’t convert the CIA assassins into “good guys.”

It’s probably worth mentioning that after Kansi was executed, four American citizens were assassinated in Pakistan in retaliation.

What we need in America is a great awakening, one that involves a revival of individual conscience. When that day comes, Americans will put a stop to the evil within our midst by converting America back to a limited-government republic and putting an end to state-sponsored murder. It will also make Americans traveling overseas a lot safer.

February 9, 2022 Posted by aletho | Militarism, Progressive Hypocrite, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes, Wars for Israel | CIA, Human rights, Iraq, Palestine, United States | Leave a comment

US military can now use air bases in EU state bordering Ukraine

RT | February 9, 2022

Slovakia’s parliament has approved a polarizing defense treaty under which the US will use the country’s Malacky-Kuchyna and Sliac air bases for 10 years and pay Bratislava $100 million to modernize them. After a round of loud debates on Wednesday, 79 members of the 150-seat Slovakian legislature backed the agreement, while 60 voted against it.

The deal, signed by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Slovakian Defense Minister Jaroslav Nad on February 3, still has to be ratified by the Central European country’s president, Zuzana Caputova, who apparently supports it.

Several political parties have fiercely opposed the agreement, while thousands protested the deal with Washington outside the parliament building in Slovakia’s capital on Tuesday.

Thanking his colleagues for their vote, Minister Nad said: “I’m extremely proud that, despite the pressure from trolls, the fabricated pressure on social media, and organized protests, the members of the [ruling] coalition have realized what is important for the Slovak Republic and the next generations.”

The US and Slovakia are military allies through the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). The agreement with the US was signed amid the ongoing standoff between the Western military bloc and Russia over Ukraine and the bloc’s expansion in Eastern Europe.

Former Slovak prime minister Robert Fico, whose left-wing SMER-SD party opposes the agreement, promised to collect signatures in order to put the “treasonous” deal up for a referendum. “I believe the citizens of the Slovak Republic will say no to the agreement,” Fico said. “We have handed over our airspace and airports [to be] under the control of the US.”

February 9, 2022 Posted by aletho | Militarism | NATO, Slovakia, United States | Leave a comment

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The toxic legacy of nuclear weapons testing serves as a stark warning of the danger these weapons pose

By Scott Ritter | RT | March 11, 2021

Millions of people suffer and die from the effects of radiation exposure from decades of nuclear weapons testing. Their experience should give serious pause to those who continue to embrace the viability of a nuclear deterrent.

A dust storm originating in the Sahara Desert swept across parts of Spain, France, the UK, and Ireland last month. In addition to bringing a red tinge to the sky, the dust caused a slight, yet noticeable, spike in radiation in the areas it reached. This radiation spike was caused by the presence of cesium-137, a radioactive isotope produced through the nuclear fission of uranium-235 in nuclear weapons. A legacy of French nuclear weapons testing that occurred in Algeria during the 1960s, the cesium-137 contamination is a reminder that while the testing of nuclear weapons may have been halted for the time being, the consequences of these tests live on through the poisoning of the planet mankind calls home.

The Saharan radioactive dust cloud is but the most recent visible phenomenon of a plague that has infected much of the world. … continue

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