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Open Skies no more: US pulls out of Cold War-era deal that provided global security in diplomatic row with Russia

RT | November 22, 2020

President Donald Trump’s administration has on Sunday withdrawn from an international treaty that allows countries to monitor military hardware build-ups from afar, accusing Moscow – without evidence – of breaking its terms.

The Open Skies Treaty was first considered by the US and the Soviet Union in the 1950s as a possible way to increase transparency around troop movements and the deployment of nuclear weapons. It allows signatories to conduct a limited number of mutually beneficial aerial reconnaissance missions in the countries that are party to the deal, which includes the US, Canada, Russia and most of Europe.

In May, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo pointed the finger at Moscow when he announced his country would seek to end its involvement in the treaty, claiming without evidence that Russia violated it. President Vladimir Putin’s government was presented with a set of new demands by US diplomats but refused them, calling them ultimatums.

As a result of the decision, the Americans will now no longer be able to operate unarmed spy plane flights over Russian territory, or that of the other signatory countries. They will also, in theory, be unable to benefit from intelligence gained from the program. However, there are concerns that the US will request aerial photographs of Russia taken by allies, while barring equivalent Russian flights over US military installations.

On Sunday, the Russian Foreign Ministry called that situation “unacceptable.” It added in a statement that Moscow “will seek firm guarantees that the states remaining in the treaty will fulfill their obligations, firstly, to ensure there are no barriers to observing their territory and, secondly, to ensure that the photographs from reconnaissance flights are not transferred to third countries that are not signed up to the deal.”

Open Skies is the latest international treaty that the US has pulled out of over tensions with Russia. Last year, Trump’s White House tore up the Reagan-era Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty that had banned a number of highly destructive weapons with ranges of between 500 and 5,500km. At the time, Washington also accused Russia of breaking the conditions of the pact, while Moscow strongly denied the allegations.

The presumptive winner of the disputed US presidential elections, former vice president Joe Biden, has been critical of Trump’s approach to these Cold War-era treaties in the past. He has called the move to pull out of Open Skies short-sighted, and implied he would look to re-join the deal. However, this may prove challenging as the US might be forced to sign up to any and all new provisions of the Treaty that were made in their absence.

November 22, 2020 Posted by | Militarism | , , , | Leave a comment

The fascist neo-left and the Trump Factor

By Ghassan Kadi for the Saker Blog | November 21, 2020

Nearly three weeks after the American elections, Americans and the world in general, are still none-the-wiser; not knowing who really won and if the votes have all been legitimate or otherwise.

And the man who is supposedly trying to make America respectable again, yes, Joe Biden, started his ‘tenure’ ironically by presenting his own disrespect by breaking the law and declaring himself as ‘president elect’ and establishing an illegal entity in the name of the ‘Office of President-Elect’.

There are serious accusations that allege that dead people have voted, that boxes of late illegal ballots (all voting for Biden) suddenly appeared from no-where, that the Dominion machines have been deliberately rigged in a manner that favoured Biden, that ballot observers from the Trump camp were not allowed to scrutineer, and much more.

Whilst all of the above points are considered allegations from the legal point of view, the Democrat camp should not be concerned at all if it has nothing to hide. If anything, if it is serious about restoring America’s respect in the eyes of the world, it should encourage transparency and investigations that prove without a single speck of doubt that they are all false. But that same camp that refused the legitimate results of a Trump win four years ago and then fabricated stories like Russiagate and others, is now urging the whole world to believe that the alleged Biden win is legitimate and that there was no interference.

Apart from allegations, what each of us knows for fact is that the media, especially social media, especially Facebook and Twitter have been instrumental in restricting and censoring posts and comments that favour Trump. At the same time, they implemented a blackout relating to the serious allegations of corruption about Biden and his family. If this is not interference in the election results, then what is?

Given the reach and power of social media, and given that most people are not interested in fact-finding, Facebook and Twitter have been engaged in a deliberate campaign of choosing what they allowed to be published and preventing others based on and only on their political views vis-à-vis the American elections.

Once the dust settles one way or the other, if there is any justice left in this world, social media personnel who have forged and implemented those policies must face trial.

What is most ironic about this whole new world that is everything but brave, is that the filthy rich and corrupt are cloaking themselves with the attire of the Left. There is really nothing left of the original Left in today’s Left.

Many, if not most of today’s ”Lefties” are inclined towards the current version of the political Left without really discerning that much has changed since the days of Castro and Guevara.

Today’s Left does not represent the working class.

Today’s Left is not concerned with achieving social justice.

Today’s Left is not concerned with ending capitalism and feudalism.

Today’s Neo-Left, is the consortium of globalists who own sweat shops in developing countries. They are the war-mongers, the arms dealers, the foot soldiers of thought police and they insist that your six-year-old children and grandchildren must learn about subjects like gender fluidity instead of learning history.

The devolution of the former political Left has been taking place for at least three decades, since the collapse of the USSR perhaps and the emergence of the so-called ‘New World Order’. But the 2016 Trump election has fast-tracked the process. George Soros who has an axe to grind with Communism became overnight the principle benefactor of most post-USSR Left movements. For better or for worse, it was as if he wanted to make sure that he contained the Left in a manner that deviates it from its original ideology. But he is not alone, and he is probably not doing this only because of political conviction. His ‘bigger’ partners, whether he is aware of their presence or not, have got a much bigger fish to fry; the fish of global control.

But is globalism what it appears to mean or is it a new form of hegemony? Let us not get into this herein. This will be the subject of the next article. Enough to say that what seems to surface from the actions and agendas of globalists is that they are adamant about destroying Western values; including democracy.

When my wife and I were in Russia on the 70th Anniversary of Victory over Nazi Germany, we were in total awe watching the Eternal Regiment on Nevski Prospect in St. Petersburg. Men and women proudly, silently and dignifiedly marching carrying photos of family members who perished fighting the Nazi malice. What was most amazing was seeing young boys and girls giving flowers to the elderly as a mark of respect. This is because students in Russia study history. The young generations must never take for granted the privileges they have. If they do not understand and respect the sacrifices of their forebears, they will never be able to realize what their own obligations are for today and the future. Many Americans do not know what the 4th of July stands for any more than they know how many States there are in the Union. Children growing up in the West have no idea, no idea at all, how and why they live in affluent countries with public services and government-financed welfare.

And when the million man/woman march was over many hours after it started, we could not see a single empty drink can dumped on the street, not even cigarette butts. And then we remembered that a few days earlier when we were in Moscow admiring among other things, the subway/metro stations, we did not witness any evidence of vandalism or graffiti either on the carriages or in the stations.

A far cry from what we see in the West, because to be proud of who one is has become taboo in the West; courtesy the neo-Left and their henchmen.

Personally, I used to feel concerned of what the armed Right-wing Evangelicals might do if they have it their way. But despite their heavy public display of weapons, I didn’t see any evidence to show that they have taken to the streets for the purpose destroying shops and looting. In saying this, and I am not saying that the pro-Trump militias are incapable of perpetrating organized violence, but recently thus far they haven’t. If anything, with all the BLM-associated violence and the attacks Trump supporters have recently faced, the armed conservatives have thus far displayed a huge degree of self-control and abidance by the rules of the law. They argue that their presence is to protect private and public property, and evidence seems to stack up in their favour.

On the other hand, and despite the bias of mainstream media, videos have emerged showing BLM supporters not only looting, but also terrorizing those who disagree with them and refuse to put their fist up in show of support.

Today’s Neo-Left activists are the ones using Nazi tactics; not the other way around. They are the controlled opposition and the foot soldiers of the thought-police; and these are undeniable facts. If anything, the Trump factor has enhanced their exposure.

And if you resurrect Guevara and catapult him into today’s political world without giving him a crash refresher course, he would not know which side of the political divide is which. If anything, he may think that it is the other way around.

In the event of a Biden win that Trump’s supporters may see as unfair, they may be driven to become violent, I don’t know. What I do know is that I have seen serious and concerning rowdy violent behaviour from the Left that makes me now feel that I am more fearful of organizations such as Extinction Rebellion than I am from the armed Evangelicals.

When the late and great Martin Luther King Jr. made his historic ‘I have a dream’ speech, he did not dream of a day when angry mobs would use the excuse of human rights in order to loot and pillage, gang attack supporters of their political opponents, and break the law and Constitution.

And when John Lennon sang ‘Give Peace a Chance’ and ‘Imagine’, he was hoping that one day political leaders would take heed and start putting their hearts before what they can achieve militarily.

Among other things, the thing with Trump is that he is/was not a politician. What drove him from being a profiteering tycoon to a man who wants to end American wars in the world is not something I can explain or understand. Clearly though, even if he is merely running America as a corporation, he must realize that it is not in America’s interests to be constantly engaged in expensive wars that do not have any benefit for America itself. If this is pragmatism from a profit-and-loss business perspective, then I don’t have any problems with this. I want to see American troops pulling out of conflict regions in the world. They have no business in Japan, South Korea, Afghanistan, Iraq and my beloved Syria to name a few places.

The thing about Trump is that he is not even a typical die-hard Republican. The archetypal Republicans are not a bunch of ‘nice guys’ either. How can anyone forget the legacy of the GOP? How can we forget George W Bush’s war on Iraq and his lies about the alleged Iraqi WMD’s? And what about his gang of infamous neo-cons; Perle, and Wolfowitz; not to forget Cheney, McCain, and many more from the gung-ho Republican Right that invaded both Afghanistan and Iraq, killed at least a million civilians and only ended up creating more problems than the ones they claimed they needed to resolve?

Whether Trump wins or loses the legal battle against what looks like a huge body of evidence of electoral fraud at different levels, between now and January the 20th 2021, unlike what the social media brainwashers want people to think and believe, he is not a ‘presidential candidate’, he remains to be the President of the United States of America and he remains to be the Commander in Chief.

To this effect, in as much as the POTUS is domestically building up a huge legal case against the alleged win of Biden, he equally seems to be preparing for the worst-case scenario on international matters. He is working on the contingencies of losing by seemingly making serious efforts into ending wars and the presence of American troops overseas. May he be successful doing this if he is true to his word.

But Mr. President, if you really want to clean up the slate as much as possible in case you lose the legal battle against the corrupt who serve the Deep State, you must then remember that partial withdrawals do not end wars. A drawdown is not a withdrawal. Stand by your promise and let history festoon you as the man who ended all of America’s wars overseas. For even if you leave one soldier, yes Mr. President, one single American soldier on the soil of Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, or any other place on earth where his presence is not legitimately requested by the people of that land, then you will be remembered in history as the man who faked withdrawals of American troops; and you despise fake actions Mr. President, don’t you?

Last but not least Mr. President, you must at least stop the oil theft from Syria, repeal the Caesar Act, and pardon Assange.

Assange, Mr. President, is the victim of your enemies. His ‘crime’ was to expose the dirty works of Hillary. How can you not drop all charges against him?

And Mr. President, should you win the legal battle and prove that your opponents have cheated the public, you MUST then clean up the swamp with an iron fist and a high pressure hose. Zuckerberg, the Clintons, the Bidens, CNN, as well as officials that helped fabricate stories about you. The whole gamut of filthy lying manipulators must face justice and the next four years will be a case of now or never.

The electoral issues are something for the American legal system to decide; provided that the system continues to have the power to reach a decision that is lawful and not dictated by the party machine of the Democrats, their cohorts and henchmen with Facebook, Twitter and Google being on the top of the list.

Martin Luther King Jr. would now be saying I’m having a nightmare, I am having a nightmare because in the name of social justice, in my name, protestors are attacked, shops are looted and elections are getting rigged.

The failings of the Neo-Left do not mean that the neo-Right, Trumpism, is always or even necessarily sometimes right by default. What is pertinent is that the choice between the former and traditional Right and Left has now morphed into a choice of discerning right from wrong, and it is the Neo-Left activists who are behaving like Fascists, courtesy the Trump factor.

November 21, 2020 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Corruption, Deception, Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Militarism, Progressive Hypocrite | , , , | Leave a comment

Beijing Sends Biden a Warning

By Pat Buchanan • Unz Review • November 20, 2020

Because of Donald Trump, Vice President Joe Biden thundered during the campaign, the U.S. “is more isolated in the world than we’ve ever been … America First has made America alone.”

Biden promised to repair relations with America’s allies. And he appears to have gone some distance to do so in the congratulatory phone call he received from Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga of Japan.

According to Suga, during the brief call, Biden said Article V of the U.S.-Japan Mutual Security Treaty of 1960 covers the Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea, islands Japan controls but China claims as its own.

“President-elect Biden gave me a commitment that Article 5 of the US-Japan security treaty applies to the Senkaku Islands,” said a delighted Suga. And what does Article V commit us to?

“Each Party recognizes that an armed attack against either Party in the territories under the administration of Japan would be dangerous to its own peace and safety and declares that it would act to meet the common danger…”

Message: The U.S. will treat a Chinese attempt to take the Senkakus, tiny rocky outcroppings in the East China Sea, as an attack on the USA, and America will fight China to secure Japan’s right to keep the islands.

Biden has removed any ambiguity that may have existed and given Tokyo a U.S. war guarantee that covers the Senkakus.

The response of China’s foreign ministry was to angrily lay claim to the islands they call the Diaoyus as “inherently Chinese” and to dismiss the U.S.-Japan security treaty as a “product of the Cold War.”

This diplomatic clash comes as Henry Kissinger was warning the Bloomberg Economic Forum: “America and China are now drifting increasingly toward confrontation, and they’re conducting their diplomacy in a confrontational way. … The danger is that some crisis will occur that will go beyond rhetoric into actual military conflict.”

Kissinger continued: “Unless there is some basis for some cooperative action, the world will slide into a catastrophe comparable to World War I.”

World War I was the worst calamity in Western civilization — until the next war to which it led inexorably: World War II.

Last week, we also learned that during Chinese military exercises in August, the People’s Liberation Army fired two missiles thousands of kilometers from the mainland that struck a targeted merchant ship sailing in the South China Sea. The missiles were the DF-21D and DF-26B.

Both missiles are known as “aircraft carrier killers.”

The U.S. routinely moves its carriers through these waters to underscore our contention that neither the South China Sea nor the Paracel and Spratly Islands within belong to China as Beijing claims.

Consistent with China’s toughening policies toward its neighbors, four members of the opposition in the Hong Kong legislature were ousted last week, which led to wholesale resignations that have left Hong Kong’s governing council under the total control of pro-Beijing hardliners.

The era of “one country, two systems” for Hong Kong, dating to the transfer of sovereignty by Great Britain, appears to be over. The dissidents and demonstrators who filled the streets just months ago appear to have been routed, and the city’s future looks less like the Hong Kong of yesterday than the Beijing of tomorrow.

These actions are consistent with the hard lines Beijing has taken on its “reeducation camps” for Uighurs in Xinjiang and its border dispute with India in the Himalayas.

While Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has lately sought to round up like-minded nations to stand up to China — Japan, Australia, India — there appears to be a reluctance, rooted in uncertainty as to whether Communist China or democratic America represents the future of Asia.

Trump’s “America First” policy asked the most basic of questions:

Are all these half-century old alliances, these commitments to go to war for Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and the Philippines, as in Joe Biden’s estimation, assets to be nurtured and even expanded to cover more territories like the Senkakus? Or are they liabilities that could drag us into wars the American people do not want to fight?

While we reject China’s claim to all the reefs, rocks and islets in the South China Sea and her claim to the Senkakus in the East China Sea, should we be obligated to go to war over these tiny parcels of land, especially when their legitimate owners are unwilling to fight for them?

Biden repudiates an “America First” foreign policy that puts U.S. security, sovereignty, liberty and vital interests above the interests of any other nation.

But what is it, then, that Biden puts first?

Globalism. A New World Order. A Crusade for Global Democracy.

Been there, done that.

Sixty years ago when Richard Nixon and John F. Kennedy faced off, the foreign policy debate was over whether the U.S. should fight Mao’s China to defend the tiny offshore islands of Quemoy and Matsu.

Kennedy thought not. Kennedy won.

Copyright 2020 Creators.com.

November 20, 2020 Posted by | Militarism | , , | Leave a comment

Biden’s Deep State

By Steve Brown | Ron Paul Institute | November 18, 2020

Philosopher Hannah Arendt once wrote about the banality of evil, and there’s never been a more banal bunch than the foreign policy and security state crew Barak Obama surrounded himself with for eight years beside the possible exception of Bush’s own Neocons.

Now after three years screaming about “Russian collusion” it appears the Evil Empire is about to regain its lost ground, championing new wars and more interventionist expansionism with a much greater role for the US military in the world.

Let’s name names.

Pentagon

For the defense chief post, the Washington Post has portrayed the banal face of Michele Flournoy as the pick to ‘restore stability’ to the Pentagon, an entirely false assertion. Recall that Fluornoy promotes unilateral global US military intervention, and advocated the destruction of Libya in 2011. By the military-industrial revolving door, Flournoy enabled many Corporate weaponry contracts amounting to tens of millions. Likewise Fluornoy is on the Booz-Hamilton board, where the swamp cannot get any deeper. As if this wretched example of an agent-provocateur for war and destruction were not bad enough, Biden is reportedly considering Lockheed-Martin banal kingpin Jeh Johnson for the DoD position, too.

Lockheed director Johnson was employed by Rob Reiner and Atlantic editor arch-Neocon David Frum to run the Committee to Investigate Russia which mysteriously blew up as soon as the Mueller Report was released. Jeh Johnson has continued to warn of “Russian interference” in the US presidential election until now. Biden’s anointing as president-elect has ended that. As Homeland Security head, Johnson authorized cages for holding immigrant children. He also supported the assassination of General Suleimani, and has voiced support for US wars in Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan.

State

From Libya to Syria, Yemen, Ukraine and beyond, the banality of evil is perhaps best personified by Susan Rice – apparently Biden’s premiere pick for Secretary. Rice was an abject failure at the United Nations, but all seems forgiven, probably at the behest of Biden’s donors. After her failure at the UN, Obama kicked Rice upstairs to be his National Security Advisor, a position that does not require Senate approval.

An obvious war hawk in the mold of the Democrat’s donor class, a Rice appointment could reinforce the liberal mantra that women can be just as good at interventionism as men, and ensure full re-establishment of the Neoliberal agenda in Washington. John Kerry has been flagged as a potential for State (again) too, but at age 77 and subsequent to the failure of the JCPOA Kerry is an unlikely pick.

Another potential pick among the banal Daughters of Darkness is Victoria Kagan-Nuland, architect of the 2014 debacle in Ukraine (among other things). Outed at State in an embarrassing act of what she called impressive statecraft and other embarrassing incidents, Nuland seems an unlikely choice. But Kagan-Nuland is as banal as banal can be, and Biden may somehow wish to reinforce his solidarity with the JTF and his donor class, on Israel.

National Security Advisor

Banality is certainly the mark of the beast here, in the form of Tony Blinken. Well in with Michele Flournoy (above) Blinken typifies the type of banality the Deep State engages in to promote its evil, with Blinken as successful as any other Deep State actor. A major hawk on Russia and war hawk in general, Blinken is an apologist for Israel. Blinken is a war hawk on Afghanistan and Syria too, and Blinken was directly involved in CIA operation Timber Sycamore. Oh, the banality.

Another model of banality is Leon CIA Panetta who so far claims that cruising the Monterey peninsula is more fun that being in Washington. But we know that’s false and Panetta would be a logical pick. Besides being a hawk on everything, and laughing about the fact he has no idea how many wars Obama’s America was fighting – because he lost count – Panetta is simply another sycophant for evil like Hannah Arendt portrayed in her study of Adolf Eichmann.

CIA

Banal of the banal is of course Mike Morell. This incredibly vacuous excuse for a human being has been hate-mongering for years. Beside his blatant pandering support for another banal and brutal warmonger – Hillary Clinton – Mike Morell is one Neoliberal who still maintains that Saddam Hussein actively aided and abetted al Qaeda with regard to the 911 attacks. But Morell simply and ultimately represents the banality of evil, just as Arendt depicted Adolf Eichmann, but in Morell’s case succinctly summarized here by Ray McGovern.

United Nations

Outing the banality of the banal would be incomplete without mentioning Jen Psaki. Although a potential pick for White House Communications Director, why not promote an accomplished liar to a venue where accomplished lying really matters?

Conclusion

There is no indication that the United States as an entrenched warfare state will ever change its course until forced to. Mr Trump was incapable of enforcing that change. Sidelined by Russiagate psychosis, as a Beltway Neophyte and his own worst enemy at times, that sank Trump’s agenda.* The actions of Mr Trump now – to end the wars in Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and Yemen — should have been undertaken in earnest and without compromise years ago. Point being that Mr Trump’s new appointments to the Pentagon – and let’s hope CIA – will hopefully blunt the efficacy of Biden’s bad actors going forward.

Regardless, characters the same or similar to the ones listed above will definitely infest Washington’s infernal Beltway cesspool once again via Joe Biden … make no mistake. …And they will be meaner and nastier than ever before! Guaranteed.

*Beside his appointment of dreadful characters like John Bolton, Mike Pompeo and Elliott Abrams, apparently at the behest of his own donor class!

Follow Steve Brown on twitter @newsypaperz

Copyright © 2020 by RonPaul Institute.

November 18, 2020 Posted by | Militarism, Russophobia, Wars for Israel | , , , | Leave a comment

US’ successful ICBM intercept test brings us closer to a nuclear war and proves Moscow’s concerns were well grounded

By Scott Ritter | RT | November 17, 2020

The US has long dismissed Russian concerns over the deployment of the Aegis Ashore missile defense system on European soil. This week’s test of the SM-3 Block IIA interceptor against an ICBM has proven Russian concerns correct.

On Tuesday, the US Missile Defense Agency (MDA) announced it conducted a test of an Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense (BMD) System-equipped Arleigh Burke-class destroyer, the USS John Finn, against what was termed a “threat-representative Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) target” using a Standard Missile-3 (SM-3) Block IIA interceptor. The test object was launched from Kwajalein Atoll, in the Republic of the Marshall Islands, toward an area of the Pacific Ocean northeast of Hawaii. According to the MDA, the SM-3 Block IIA missile successfully intercepted its target.

The successful test is but the latest in a series intended to prepare the SM-3 Block IIA missile and its associated systems–the Aegis Baseline-9 Weapons System and Command and Control Battle Management Communications (C2BMC) network–for operational duty as America’s frontline missile defense capability.

Previously, the Aegis weapons system had been advertised by the US as being limited against short- and intermediate-range missile threats. This reasoning was cited by both US and NATO officials as a counter to long-standing Russian concerns that the Aegis Ashore missile defense systems installed in Romania and Poland represented a threat to Russian strategic missile capabilities. The shooting down of an ICBM-like target by the Aegis BMD System has shown that Russia’s concerns were, in fact, well grounded.

The Aegis system tested off the coast of Hawaii is identical to those recently made operational in Romania and under construction in Poland, having been specifically designed to use the Aegis Baseline 9 Weapons System, and are interoperable with the US C2BMC European network. As such, there is no reason the European Aegis Ashore sites cannot be used to intercept ICBMs. Indeed, while the Romanian Aegis Ashore is currently equipped with the less-capable SM-3 Block IB interceptor, the Polish Aegis Ashore site will use the SM-3 Block IIA interceptor, providing an ICBM-killing capability for the European continent.

Russia has long held that the deployment of anti-ballistic missile systems in Europe represented a major alteration of the strategic balance of power, insofar as it empowered a potential US/NATO nuclear first strike scenario, in which US nuclear-armed missiles would be launched against Russian strategic nuclear forces in an effort to preemptively destroy them. Europe would then avoid the certainty of mutually assured destruction by hiding behind the US missile defense shield, which in theory would be capable of shooting down the handful of Russian missiles that might survive such an attack.

In response to the initial deployment of Aegis Ashore in Europe, Russia forward-deployed short-range nuclear missiles into Kaliningrad as a deterrent.

The SM-3 Block IIA interceptor represents a great threat to Russia. When deployed from aboard Baseline-9 equipped Arleigh Burke-class destroyers integrated into the C2BMC network, the SM-3 Block IIA interceptor becomes the anchor of a potentially global missile defense shield capable of nullifying the ICBM strike potential of all would-be adversaries–including Russia.

The US Navy currently bases four Arleigh Burke-class destroyers at its Naval Base in Rota, Spain, and has plans to increase this number to six in the near future. These destroyers have begun patrolling the Barents Sea, above the Arctic Circle, putting them in a position to shoot down Russian ICBMs trying to reach the US by overflying the Arctic.

The threat posed to Russia by the SM-3 Block IIA is real. Russia has long linked further progress in arms control to the need for the US to agree to limitations on its ballistic missile defense capabilities to prevent the very situation that is unfolding today.

By putting the SM-3 Black IIA interceptor to the test as an anti-ICBM weapon, the US has made the New START treaty irrelevant overnight, testing the willingness of Russia to agree to an extension. Even if Russia does allow the New START treaty to be extended, there is little doubt that it will insist on meaningful and verifiable limits to US ballistic missile defense capabilities, including the SM-3 Block IIA interceptor, before Russia could sign on to a new follow-on strategic arms reduction treaty.

More critically is what the new SM-3 Block IIA does to the current Russian nuclear posture, which is already being re-evaluated in light of the decision by the US to deploy low-yield nuclear warheads onboard US missile-carrying submarines.

The combination of low-yield nuclear weapons on board US submarines lurking off Russia’s coast with US destroyers equipped to shoot down Russian ICBMs is the stuff of any Russian nuclear planner’s worst nightmare. Russia will most likely be compelled to reexamine its alert posture to account for the increased possibility that the US may seek to launch a preemptive decapitation attack using low-yield nuclear weapons.

This means that Russia will be compelled to react quickly to any detection event suggestive of such a strike, reducing the time for leaders to consider the possibility of error before giving the order to launch. In short, while the US may claim that the SM-3 Block IIA is a defensive weapon that creates stability in regional and global security, the exact opposite is the case–the SM-3 Block IIA increases the chance for inadvertent nuclear war between the US and Russia. This is never a good outcome.

Scott Ritter is a former US Marine Corps intelligence officer and author of ‘SCORPION KING: America’s Suicidal Embrace of Nuclear Weapons from FDR to Trump.’ He served in the Soviet Union as an inspector implementing the INF Treaty, in General Schwarzkopf’s staff during the Gulf War, and from 1991-1998 as a UN weapons inspector. Follow him on Twitter @RealScottRitter

November 17, 2020 Posted by | Militarism | , | Leave a comment

Acting US Def Sec Miller Formally Announces Plans to Cut Troops in Afghanistan, Iraq to 2,500 Each

By Daria Bedenko – Sputnik – 17.11.2020

Earlier on Monday, CNN reported, citing two US officials, that Pentagon anticipated President Donald Trump to issue an order this week regarding troop withdrawal from Iraq and Afghanistan by 15 January.

Acting Defence Secretary Christopher Miller announced on Tuesday that President Trump will cut the number of American troops in Iraq and Afghanistan to 2,500 each by 15 January 2021.

“By 15 January, 2021, our forces, their size in Afghanistan will be 2,500 troops. Our force size in Iraq will also be 2,500 by that same day,” Miller told reporters during a Defence Department briefing.

The decision falls in line with Trump’s intention to finish “endless wars”, as Miller said the moves were announced to “bring the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq to a successful and responsible conclusion and to bring our brave service members home”.

“This is consistent with our established plans and strategic objectives, supported by the American people, and does not equate to a change in US policy or objectives”, Miller outlined.

Reaction to Troop Reduction Announcement

Shortly after the decision was announced, White House national security adviser Robert O’Brien said Trump hopes to bring all US troops from Iraq and Afghanistan home “safely and in their entirety” by May.

Republican Senate Majority Leader, Mitch McConnel, reacted to the announcement moments later, warning against any major changes in the US foreign or defence policy, including the troops drawdowns, in the coming months.

“It is extremely important here in the next couple of months not to have any earthshaking changes in regard to defense or for policy”, McConnell said.

Reports about the order to reduce troops in Afghanistan and Iraq emerged earlier on Monday, saying that a “warning order” to start planning the troops reduction was already released by Pentagon, despite warnings by then-Defence Secretary Esper against rapid withdrawal of the US forces from the countries.

Esper was replaced with Director of the National Counterterrorism Center Christopher Miller by Trump earlier this month.

Trump vs ‘Endless Wars’

It has been one of the key Trump’s pledges in his campaign to put an end to American “endless wars” in foreign countries, as he vowed to reduce the number of the US military forces in Iraq and Afghanistan.

In October, Trump tweeted that all US troops should be home by Christmas, with US National Security Adviser Robert O’Brien later saying that thousands of American servicemen were “on path” to, on the contrary, remain there.

In Iraq, there are estimated 3,000 US troops, and roughly 4,500 American military forces are stationed in Afghanistan.

After Washington reached a deal with the Taliban* in February, Trump began to withdraw troops from the country, with further withdrawal coinciding with September peace talks between the Taliban and the Afghan government in Qatar.

November 17, 2020 Posted by | Militarism | , , , , | Leave a comment

Warmongers Almost Killed Millions in 1962

Tales of the American Empire | November 12, 2020

The brief history taught to Americans about the 1962 Cuban missile crisis is that evil Soviets conspired with evil Castro to secretly place nuclear armed ballistic missiles in Cuba to threaten the United States. The United States military uncovered this plot, so President John Kennedy ordered a naval blockade of Cuba. The commies backed down and removed the missiles. This is true but leaves out key facts: 1) The United States had installed 45 nuclear armed Jupiter ballistic missiles in Italy and Turkey in 1961. 2) The Americans were unaware that nuclear armed missiles were ready to launch from Cuba during this crisis, and that Castro had ordered these missiles launched should the United States attack. 3) The captain of a Soviet submarine concluded war had begun and ordered the launch of a nuclear torpedo. 4) Millions of Americans were almost killed.

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“The Fog of War”; a clip about this crisis; 2003; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CtUfB…

“Thanks to a Soviet Navy Captain – We Survived 1962”; Ray McGovern; Antiwar.com; Oct 29, 2019; https://original.antiwar.com/mcgovern…

“Initial analysis of new sub-launched nuclear cruise missile coming shortly”; Aaron Mehta; Defense News; June 1, 2020; https://www.defensenews.com/smr/nucle…

Related Tale: The NATO Conquest of Eastern Europe; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r2lam…

November 16, 2020 Posted by | Militarism, Timeless or most popular, Video | | Leave a comment

Obama’s Failed Mideast Policies Likely to Make a Comeback if Biden Wins Presidency

By Ekaterina Blinova – Sputnik – 16.11.2020

If Joe Biden finds his way to the White House the world is likely to witness the continuation of Barack Obama’s interventionist policy in the Middle East and North Africa, suggests Mideast expert and political analyst Ghassan Kadi.

As the US mainstream media calls former Vice President Joe Biden the projected winner of the 2020 presidential race, the Democratic nominee’s foreign policy team has come into the spotlight.

The American press has named former Bill Clinton and Barack Obama administration officials Antony Blinken, Jake Sullivan, Colin Kahl, Michele Flournoy, and Susan Rice, among those who could be tapped to shape the potential administration’s foreign strategy in the coming four years in case Biden wins.

Biden’s Foreign Policy Team: ‘a Horror Show’

“Globally speaking, a Biden administration will push for easing the tension with China and the EU NATO states, up-scaling the rhetoric against North Korea and imposing more sanctions on Russia, Iran, and Syria for any reason they can conjure up”, says Ghassan Kadi, a Middle East expert and political analyst of Syrian descent.

Biden’s foreign policy team has brought together over 2,000 people, including 20 working groups, to determine his foreign policy agenda and “turn back” some of President Donald Trump’s foreign policies. Supporters of Bernie Sanders, however, have expressed concerns over Biden’s inner circle mostly consisting of Clinton and Obama administration veterans who previously endorsed US military interventions in the Middle East, North Africa, and Central Asia.

In August 2020, over 275 delegates to the Democratic National Convention, most of whom had previously pledged allegiance to Senator Sanders, wrote an open letter which called Biden’s foreign policy entourage “a horror show” of aides with long records of backing “disastrous” US military invasions.

“We ask you not to rely on foreign policy advice from those who may have a conflict of interest as a result of their relationships and lobbying on behalf of merchants selling weapons and surveillance technology”, the letter read as quoted by the Huffington Post.

Biden Aide Kahl: Advocate of US Military Deployment in Syria

If Biden wins the presidency, the US will not withdraw from Syria, Iraq, or Afghanistan anytime soon, believes Kadi. He does not rule out an increase in the US military contingent in Syria under a potential Biden administration, adding that the former VP is unlikely to engage in a dialogue with Damascus.

“The simple answer is no, not because they shouldn’t, but because they will be too arrogant to realise that there is no way out of the stalemate without negotiations”, the Middle East expert believes. “If anything, any new adviser or team of advisers will push to demonstrate that Trump’s policy in Syria was wrong, they will likely be advocating sending more troops into Syria.”

For instance, Colin Kahl, an informal adviser to the Biden campaign, is known for his “progressive engagement” strategy which envisaged the long-term deployment of a “right-sized” US military contingent to Mideast countries in the aftermath of the Arab uprising to oversee “democratic reforms” there.

Kahl, who served as deputy assistant secretary of defence for the Middle East from 2009 to the end of 2011, was largely regarded as the architect of the Pentagon’s response to the Arab Spring – a series of armed rebellions that spread across the Arab world in the early 2010s and later hijacked by terrorist groups, such as the Muslim Brotherhood*, al-Qaeda*, and later Daesh in some Arab states.

Responding to the GOP criticism of Obama’s strategy in the Middle East and North Africa, Kahl insisted in 2012 that the radical jihadist uprising would eventually be replaced by an alliance between “moderate Islamists” and secular Arab parties, something that has never occurred, nearly a decade after the initial events.

Obama’s critics argued that his administration’s foreign policy was marred by grave mistakes, including the drastic increase in the US military presence in Afghanistan which only exacerbated the ongoing war, the invasion of Libya which turned a once flourishing country into a failed state, and the support of so-called “moderate” Islamists in Syria which translated into a nine-year war.

Since Donald Trump assumed the presidency Kahl has repeatedly subjected the president’s Mideast policy to criticism. He lashed out at Trump for the latter’s decision to immediately withdraw from Syria after the defeat of Daesh terrorists: according to Kahl, Washington’s goals in the Arab Republic were not limited to thwarting the terror threat.

At the beginning of Trump’s term, the US had 3 cards to play to influence the Syria endgame:
—Aid to the opposition
—Conditional reconstruction assistance
—Troops & allies controlling 1/3 of the country & key oil/gas resources

Trump has now given them all away for…nothing.

— Colin Kahl (@ColinKahl) December 19, 2018

​In contrast, the former national security adviser hailed Biden’s plan to preserve limited military contingents in the Middle East and Afghanistan.

However, according to Kadi, the situation on the ground in the Middle East and beyond has changed dramatically over the past few years. Besides this, Syria is no longer a crumbling state like it was five years ago.

“If [Kahl] really wants to have ‘progressive engagement’ with the Syrian people, he should then support the idea of withdrawing from Syria unconditionally because America simply has no business in Syria or legitimacy for its presence”, he stresses.

Let’s Not Jump the Gun, Withdrawal May Still be on Trump’s Table

Touching upon Trump’s failure to pull out from the Arab Republic, the analyst refers to some Pentagon officials deliberately misleading President Trump about the actual size of the US military contingent on the ground and covertly disrupting his strategy.

Jim Jeffrey, outgoing US special representative for Syria and special presidential envoy for the Western coalition against Daesh (ISIS), told Defense One on 12 November how they tricked the president while maintaining the US military presence in the region.

That does not mean, however, that that’s how the story ends, says Kadi adding that the 2020 US election is not over yet.

“Let us not jump the gun”, the Mideast expert says. “The official results of the US presidential elections are still to be known. Furthermore, it has been touted that in preparation for an outcome that declares Trump a loser, he is possibly pulling the carpet from underneath Biden’s feet and planning to withdraw American troops from a number of overseas posts including Syria”.

Last Monday, Trump sacked Secretary of Defence Mark Esper, replacing him with National Counterterrorism Centre Director Christopher Miller. Top White House counterterrorism official Kash Patel, who was reportedly dispatched to Damascus earlier this year at Trump’s behest, was appointed as chief of staff to the acting head of the DoD.

Miller, who is known as an advocate of ending America’s overseas wars, recently wrote a letter to all Pentagon employees: “We met the challenge; we gave it our all. Now, it’s time to come home“, the acting US defence secretary stated, falling short, however, of providing any specific schedule.

November 16, 2020 Posted by | Militarism | , , | Leave a comment

Who’s World Order??

By Matthew Ehret for the Saker Blog | November 16, 2020

In his Foreign Policy article of April 2020, Biden states that he will reverse Trump’s embarrassing foreign policy record by standing up to both China, Russia and other totalitarian nations which represent the three-fold plague of “authoritarianism, nationalism and illiberalism” and “once more have America lead the world”.

Biden went further promising to undo the harm Trump has done to NATO by re-enforcing the military body, extending its influence to the Pacific (which sounds a lot like the Esper/Pompeo doctrine for the Pacific), and even demanded that NATO go harder on Russia stating that “the Kremlin fears a strong NATO, the most effective political military alliance in modern history.”

Considering Biden’s nearly 45 year political record supporting every military intervention in American history, opposing de-segregation, eulogizing pro-KKK Senator Strom Thurmond, passing bills that incarcerated petty drug dealers for life on behalf of the cheap labor prison industrial complex and supported the rampant growth of both Wall Street, Big Pharma and the Big Tech run surveillance state, we should think twice before celebrating this man’s possible entry into the halls of the highest office in the USA.

Biden’s call for renewing the NATO alliance in opposition to Russia and China, his support for reversing Trump’s calls for military reduction in the Middle East and his support for extending NATO in the Pacific mixed with his lifelong track record, forces us to ask if Glen Greenwald was right when he quit the Intercept on November 1 saying:

“If Biden wins, that’s going to be the power structure: A democratic party fully united with neocons, Bush/Cheney operatives, CIA/FBI/NSA Wall Street and Silicon Valley: presenting itself as the only protection against fascism. And much of the left will continue marching behind it.”

As it turns out, Greenwald’s warning was absolutely on point, as the entire intelligence apparatus, Big Tech and mainstream media complex which worked desperately to oust President Trump for 4 years and is currently running a vast voting fraud operation as this is written has given its full backing to the narrative of “an inevitable Biden presidency”.

In a Nov. 11 article from Antiwar.com entitled Biden’s Pentagon Transition Team Members Funded by the Arms Industry, journalist Dave DeCamp demonstrates that of the 23 members of Biden’s Pentagon Transition Team, over one third are directly tied to NATO and the Military Industrial Complex.

As facts continue to emerge of the corrupt deep state structure which totally dominates the geriatric hologram known as Joe Biden, it has become obvious that even the few positive remarks Biden made in support of renewing the START treaty with Russia carry little weight.

Ignoring the very real danger of a new civil war due to the fact that either result will be denied its legitimacy by half of the nation, the question must be asked: If Trump is replaced by a Biden Presidency on January 20th, then what will be the effects both on world stability and US-Russia-China relations?

It is good that Biden supports START’s renewal, but an increasing majority of nations are opting for a multipolar alliance premised on the defense of national sovereignty, the right to use protectionism, and the construction of large scale megaprojects such as the New Silk Road, Polar Silk Road, advanced space exploration and North South Transportation Corridor.

The very protectionist measures which allowed the USA (and every nation of the world for that matter) to build up their industrial base and economic sovereignty are attacked directly by Biden who demands the “taking down of trade barriers and resisting dangerous global slide toward protectionism” (which he goes so far as to assert without evidence “caused the great depression” and “lead to World War II”).

Attacking Trump for being soft on China’s imperial Belt and Road Initiative which Biden states is only an “outsourcer of pollution to other countries by financing billions of dollars worth of dirty fossil fuel energy projects”, Biden then asks: “who writes the rules that govern trade?” and answers: “the United States, not China, should be leading that effort.”

Beyond carbon reduction plans, and information technology investments (AI, 5G, Quantum Computing), there is very little in Biden’s “development outlook” that brings the USA into harmony with this multipolar consensus. His program to support cutting America’s carbon emissions to net zero by 2050 as outlined by the Green New Deal and Great Reset crowd at Davos might appear on the surface to be pro-infrastructure, professing to “create 10 million good new jobs”, but the reality on further inspection is very different.

The sorts of large scale BRI-oriented development projects now transforming more than half of the world which is increasingly operating under a completely different non-US dominated banking paradigm, are based on capital intensive heavy industry, the use of fossil fuels and also nuclear power.

Without these energy sources, then the New Silk Road and its’ sister projects could never work (much like Modi’s anti-BRI OSOWOG doppelganger has proven a total failure both scientifically and economically).

The sort of “green energy revolution” which the Davos technocrats running Biden want to impose onto the world might create short term jobs, but once the solar panels and windmills are built, the quality of energy available to nations stupid enough to walk into this cage will forever suffocate their capacity to sustain their populations and growth potential. In short, it is a green mirage obscuring a very ugly design.

In opposition to this depopulation agenda, Trump’s tendency support for space exploration, reviving protectionism to rebuild America’s lost manufacturing and his supporting large scale infrastructure programs in resolving conflict abroad (including his support for building rail in the Arctic, rail in Serbia and Kosovo, nuclear power in South Africa and Poland etc) is certainly synergistic with the multipolar system led by Russia and China and undeniably brings the USA into harmony with its own better traditions.

Additionally, Trump’s defunding of color revolutionary “civil society” groups in Hong Kong and Belarus won him many enemies from both sides of the pro-Soros isle while supporting the concept of national sovereignty which were major steps towards stability and trust-building with nations of the world who demand their sovereignty be respected as outlined in the UN Charter itself.

Compare this with Biden’s statement that we must “stand with Russian civil society which has bravely stood up time and again against President Vladimir Putin’s kleptocratic authoritarian system” and Biden’s call to host “a global summit for democracy” featuring “civil society organizations from around the world that stand on the frontlines of democracy” including “the private sector, technology companies and social media giants.”

These are the same “Big tech, and media giants” that have given their full backing to the imposition of Biden into the Presidency which have also been used to overthrow nationally elected governments in color revolutionary regime change operations for decades. These are the same networks that have suppressed all evidence of systemic vote fraud in the American elections of 2020 and are stoking the fires of a potential new civil war and regime change inside the republic itself.

Whatever the case may be, the coming weeks and months will feature fierce battles that will shape the outcome of world history.

November 16, 2020 Posted by | Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity, Militarism | , , | Leave a comment

India and US signed a game-changer defence deal, amid the rise of what could be a new bipolarity

By Uriel Araujo | November 16, 2020

After the third annual “2+2” high-level US-Indian talks in Delhi on October 27, a very important defence pact was signed: the Basic Exchange and Cooperation Agreement (BECA). With so much focus on the American election, little attention has been given to this crucial deal. Last Tuesday, the Australian navy joined Indian, American, and Japanese warships for the annual Malabarar exercises. This is yet another sign of the growing convergence between the four QUAD countries (Quadrilateral Security Dialogue). Both events must be seen in light of Indian and US intentions to “counter” China.

The BECA was signed nearly a week before the US elections – and it certainly was a kind of diplomatic victory for Trump’s administration. Regarding a future administration, we should not expect any major change. Joe Biden, who has declared victory in the US election (Trump is contesting the outcome), is on the record stating in 2006 that his “dream” is for the US and India to be the “two closest nations in the world”. According to a policy paper released by the Biden campaign during the election, India is a “high priority” and, among other things, the US should support Indian aspirations to become a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council.

After the two previous 2+2 talks in 2018 and 2019, the US and India signed the Logistics Exchange Memorandum of Agreement (LEMOA) and the Communications Compatibility and Security Agreement (COMCASA). The former gave mutual access to each other’s military facilities for the purpose of refueling, while the latter provides New Delhi with classified information from the US Navy. The latest BECA, in its turn, takes such cooperation to a whole new level. This was made possible and even fast-tracked partly because both Trump’s Indo-Pacific Strategy and the COVID-19 outbreak have brought India and the US closer.

The deal will give New Delhi access to American geospatial data and intelligence – for its missiles and drones. It will also enhance Indian automate hardware systems and weapons and will improve New Delhi’s navigation capabilities and its military targeting. On the other hand, some have voiced concerns with Indian sovereignty.

The agreement, after all, also gives the US a high degree of control over Indian operations. According to security analyst Bharat Karnad, a former member of India’s National Security Council and an emeritus professor at the Centre for Policy Research in Delhi, it could even open the possibility of Washington tampering with data and misdirecting Indian missiles. The full texts (and even official summaries) of the agreements the US has with some of its allies, such as the Philippines, remain classified and it fuels suspicions and reservations among part of Indian strategic analysts. According to a 2018 paper by Abhijnan Rej, a Fellow with Observer Research Foundation’s Strategic Studies Programme, some Indian officers fear that becoming part of any military communication network with the US would make India vulnerable to Pakistan tapping – because Pakistan, India’s main rival, is a member of the US Central Command (CENTCOM) Partner Network. The US claims such networks do not necessarily interface with each other but such claim is met with some skepticism.

If some sectors in India are concerned about being part of a military network together with Pakistan, the US  worries about Indian-Russian relations and cooperation. From the American point of view, the fact that Russia remains India’s top supplier of weapons – and has been so since Cold War era – is in itself a concern. Moreover, Moscow is eager to sell New Delhi its S-400 Triumf anti-aircraft weapons system by 2021. Washington fears that the presence of any Russian defense system into an Indian military network (where US hardware and data is also present) would expose some features of American platforms to Moscow.

That is probably why the US has even threatened India with sanctions over its decision to purchase such system from Russia – top diplomat Alice Wells, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs, claimed in May that could be possible. From Washington’s perspective, however, there is plenty to be concerned: one should also remember that the Kudankulam nuclear power plant (KKNPP) counts heavily on future nuclear cooperation with Moscow.

The BECA agreement holds tremendous geopolitical importance for the future of the region, especially when we consider the tensions between India and China – as well as Chinese-Japanese tensions, Indian-Japanese relations and concerns over QUAD becoming a kind of a “new  Asian NATO” in the Indo-Pacific region. Washington and New Delhi certainly have an area of common interest regarding Beijing’s growing power. The US, in turn, have been engaged in a trade war with China and in what many describe as a new cold war.

For India, such a game-changing deal brings also a kind of dilemma. In Indian political landscape, the anti-American left – which has always opposed the Indian-US strategic partnership – has been largely irrelevant for a while. The hegemonic Hindu right has traditionally rejected Western and American cultural influence while reaffirming Indian national culture and values. BECA will demand a closer political relationship with the US. Will such relationships be informed by narratives of common values like democracy and the rule of law?

As for the future, India could further strengthen its ties with the US (potentially damaging its relationship with Russia by doing so). It would confirm the fears of many about the QUAD becoming a “new NATO” and it would dramatically increase tensions regionally and globally – this scenario would represent the further rise of a supposed “new bipolarity” in global politics instead of multipolarity.

Or will India continue pursue its own traditional “middle path” way, engaging with both the US and Russia. In this case, together with allies such as Indonesia, and as part of the on-going “conceptual war” – over what the Indo-Pacific Region (IPR) must be – India could try and push its own view of the IPR.

Uriel Araujo is a researcher with a focus on international and ethnic conflicts.

November 16, 2020 Posted by | Militarism | , | Leave a comment

Susan Rice has blood on her hands: Journalist

By Don DeBar | Press TV | November 15, 2020

Susan Rice is another one of the recycled Clinton people, and in fact the Democratic Party had her going back even before that.

Her mother has been around. She helped design Pell Grants. She had been with Brookings since ‘92 which is about when Susan graduated into the Clinton administration (in 1993) and went directly to the National Security Council.

She was with Bill Clinton for his administration. Obama had her – first at the UN, and then as his National Security Adviser (I think). She’s about as inside as it gets. She has blood on her hands in Africa, Rwanda.

The people’s understanding of the Rwandan genocide in the United States is exactly upside down. There was a genocide there, but it was the side that the US-backed, not surprisingly, and that was Susan Rice’s project. She was a member of the National Security Council to do international affairs and that was one big act of the Clinton administration – that move to pivot to Africa, around Rwanda.

It was also the enabling of their so-called humanitarian interventions, and in any way that’s her child.

At the United Nations, she helped bring us the destruction of Libya, enabled the situation in Syria to the extent that she could, and tried to sell authority for the US to bomb the hell out of Syria as well.

It’s going to be more war, really.

Let me remind people when Trump took office in January of 2017 the foreign policy that Susan Rice and Barack Obama and the Clintons, and John Kerry had set in motion had us where we were having war games at Russia and China’s borders from the Baltics to the Korean peninsula, on a constant basis, with a number of international incidents – including NATO members shooting down Russian pilots over Syria – any of which could have escalated, and really turning on a dime into a global thermonuclear war.

Trump for all the things he has done does not leave us – if he’s leaving – in that situation. But what they’re doing is installing the very people who created that condition to start from day one to bring us right back to the brink with Russia and China.

I think it’s very scary that Susan Rice is being considered for this. I don’t think it’s a surprise at all. Anyone who knows who Joe Biden is not surprised.

Don DeBar is an American journalist and political commentator based in New York.

November 15, 2020 Posted by | Militarism, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

‘Bidenism’ domestically: no free press, no lawyer, one-party state?

By Ramin Mazaheri | Press TV | November 15, 2020

For months the United States’ corporate-dominated media has terrified everyone with promises of right-wing militias taking to the streets, but here’s the thing: the pressures currently being put on 70 million Trump supporters is exponentially raising the possibility of that actually occurring, not reducing it.

It is ghastly illuminating to see just how quickly – and with such disregard for modern human rights – both the elite and the highly partisan citizens of the United States are attacking those who refuse to fall at the feet of Joe Biden, and even before all the votes are counted in a very narrow and highly-disputed election.

It is not an exaggeration, as I will list them below, but the tactics being used to push Biden into office are akin to wartime, yet the US is most emphatically not at war – all this derangement is over merely trying to vote as equals. I am not reporting from 1917 USSR, or 1949 China, or 1959 Cuba, or 1979 Iran – there are no foreign armed forces meddling in a revolution/civil war.

“Bidenism” is most emphatically not a revolutionary force. It is openly and proudly the exact opposite: a return to the “normalcy” embodied in the 2015 status quo. Nor is the US at civil war, but it seems some never-trumpets are actually hell-bent on starting one rather than do what every nation does: rely on a calm judicial review when there is a contested and very narrow vote. There is simply no other way out for the US than to follow normal democratic procedures, even if their electoral process is routinely called the worst among the Western core democracies by Harvard think-tanks.

(The US goes one step too far, as usual – other nations at least wait until the votes are actually mostly counted until a candidate declares victory, unlike Donald Trump and Joe Biden.)

If this does turn out to be the “Biden presidential(-elect) era” the world can easily grasp what a terrible, very Trumpian start it is. Americans, I think, cannot.

It’s just very unclear what Americans in 2020 truly believe in anymore?

We know that many American elite don’t truly believe in free press or free speech:

Part 1 of this article, “CNN’s Jake Tapper: The foreman/overseer keeping all journalists in line” discussed how one of the nation’s top news anchors threatened lesser-privileged journalists with blacklisting if they don’t side with Biden immediately. His intimidation went uncommented upon/tacitly condoned by his top colleagues, when his pathetic careerism amid social instability should cost him at least some of his privileges.

Censorship is one way to prevent dissenting journalism, but informal censorship is another: The US doesn’t need formal government censors when their own journalists enforce such obvious suppression informally.

The goal of censorship is conformity. The US media which is corporate dominated – from the (fake) left New York Times to right-wing Fox News – is producing coverage which seemingly exclusively conforms to the false idea that it’s good journalism to exclude the massive number of Americans who feel the vote was not “fair and free”.

Since this troubled election began that number includes a stunning 70% of Republicans, per recent polls, but also independents and leftists. Since the election I interviewed both the Party for Socialism & Liberation and the Socialist Alternative Party (you have never heard of them because of the duopoly which strangles American elections) and both of them said the same thing: this is a terribly antiquated system in America, but in any democracy you count all the votes and litigate any contentious problems.

We know that many Americans don’t believe in the right to an attorney:

The anti-Trump and totally mainstream PAC/think tank The Republican Project has been lauded from the (fake) left to the far-right Washington Post for successfully harassing Trump’s Pennsylvania election lawyers into abandoning their client. The tactics used were not rhetorical and moral but mere intimidation, harassment and doxxing (releasing private information about people into public).

Trump is appalling, but does he not even deserve a lawyer?

Do people who associate with Trump, such as his lawyers, deserve such treatment? How far does this go – that’s the question those engaged in a witch-hunt are too fanatical to ask themselves.

Trump’s legal grievance is obviously supported by too large a democratic minority to ignore without causing lasting damage to the integrity of the American system.

By denying the right to an attorney these rabid anti-Trumpers do not technically betray the letter of their 1776 Revolution, that anti-imperialist event, but they certainly do seem to betray the spirit. It seems to violate the spirit if not the letter of the 6th amendment (ratified in 1791), which guarantees a lawyer in all criminal prosecutions, as well as the Due Process and Equal Protection clauses of the 14th amendment (ratified in 1868).

Congratulations to rabid anti-Trumpers for being so very progressive that they have made it to just past the slavery era?

1868 is a good place mark for the mentality of US Democrats, who remain obsessed with race and totally untouched by any of the anti-imperialist and class-based analyses which began to prevail worldwide since 1917.

We know that some American lawmakers don’t believe in open elections:

Earlier this month I reported on the blacklist of Iranian media by the Bernie Sanders-affiliated Democratic Socialists of America, so we shouldn’t have expected much from this fake-leftist faction openly committed to working within the Democratic Party.

But many Americans were shocked that DSA’s most powerful member, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, actually doubled down when a tweet of hers suggested that lists should be compiled of pro-Trumpers who have committed no crime other than supporting not her party.

When top elected officials vaguely threaten citizens with “the idea of being responsible for their behavior over last four years” and their behaviour is just working for a democratically-elected candidate, what else is this but massively undemocratic intimidation? That would make free elections in the future impossible.

AOC is seemingly advocating for a one-party state, without knowing it, perhaps, but incompetence is no excuse. It’s certainly another sign of the widespread hysteria of rabid anti-Trumpers.

Directly after AOC’s call sprang up the “Trump Accountability Project”, headed by former Democratic National Committee press secretary Hari Sevugan, which is seemingly looking to blacklist all those that worked for the (possibly) outgoing administration. Would Mr. Sevugan approve of a “Biden Accountability Project” in 2024 for Biden’s staff? Or is that a superfluous question because Democrats are preordained to rule in an unbroken, 1,000-year dynasty?

Why would anybody of merit want to go into public service anymore if they are just going to get blacklisted for doing so?

All the above: This is all wartime-era stuff.

And Chicago, where I am currently based, has been boarded up like it was wartime since the election. (And in August/September. And in May/June.)

It’s as if America can’t help but inexorably draw itself to conflict, because this is all totally self-imposed. This is not the 1960s – there is no peace movement here anymore.

America is acting like what it is: half-full of rabid imperialists

Of course, “neo-imperialism” means colonising your own nation for an international 1%, as the European Union – that supremely US-guided project; that project which is more American than even America – proves.

Of course America is in a state of xenophobia (hostility or fear towards different cultures or strangers) and witch-hunting: this is exactly what the Democratic Party has normalised via their failed Russophobia campaign since 2016.

Did they think they could just turn that off?

Many current Biden supporters failed to stand up against this phony campaign designed to deflect from the Democrats 2016 election failures (2020 saw an even bigger “Blue Wave” failure, but isn’t this anti-Trump supporter hysteria deflecting attention from that for now?), and the most vociferous of them are now aiming their pitchforks at the people who dared to vote differently. The problem is that there are so very many of such persons.

We should add that for four years on US social media this hate mongering has to be multiplied by millions, maybe even billions of time-wasting, venomous posts and spiteful “likes” about veritable political nonsense. It’s practically a justification for state-sponsored censorship, because what kind of society can be healthy towards their neighbors, much less foreigners, when there have these been daily witch-hunts in the phony online world?!

So these lists can go on and on, but our tolerance of such intimidation should not.

(And, yes, before Russophobia there was Islamophobia, and before that it was socialism-phobia, Blackphobia, Indianphobia, etc.)

What’s going on in America is that the most Trump-hating Democrats are acting exactly like what they are: not fascists, as is so often alleged of the other side in Western discourse, but imperialists, which is so rarely discussed in Western discourse.

Like Jake Tapper, they are not just careerists who aspire to outdo everyone in extremism in order to rule from atop the pyramid, they also want to believe they also have the moral high ground despite that. It is arrogance combined with a lust for power and a hysterical, unreasoning rage which comes from we know not where?

Half of the US is so hysterical about being doubted that they can’t recognise themselves in the mirror, but many of those they have colonised, blockaded, sanctioned, brutalised and impoverished sure can.

It’s absolutely appalling and the solution is not simply, “Say that Biden is the president.”

Any nation which has a culture willing to go to such lengths to get others to accept their view – rather than relying on reasoned, secure reflection and some sort of litigation or vetting process – is deeply messed up.

But, as the US proved with their murderous meddling in Iran’s 2009 election: many in the US don’t just not care about anyone’s else’s rules, judges or systems of conflict resolution – the 2020 election proves that many Americans don’t even care about their own.

They are the law-giver and the life-taker and the president-maker, because they say so. Better side with “they”, or else.

November 15, 2020 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Militarism, Progressive Hypocrite, Russophobia | , , | Leave a comment

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