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The Empire Is Coming for Tulsi Gabbard

By Tom Luongo | Strategic Culture Foundation | August 2, 2019

The second debate among Democratic hopefuls was notable for two things. The lack of common decency of most of them and Tulsi Gabbard’s immense, career-ending attack on Kamala Harris’ (D-Deep State) record as an Attorney General in California.

Harris came out of the first debate the clear winner and Gabbard cut her down to size with one of the single best minutes of political television since Donald Trump told Hillary Clinton, “Because you’d be in jail.”

Gabbard’s takedown of Harris was so spot on and her closing statement about the irresponsible nature of the Trump Administration’s foreign policy was so powerful she had to be actively suppressed on Twitter.

And, within minutes of the debate ending the media and the political machines moved into overdrive to smear her as a Russian agent, an Assad apologist and a favorite of the alt-right.

Now, folks, let me tell you something. I write and talk about Gabbard a lot and those to the right of me are really skeptical of her being some kind of plant for Israel or the establishment. If she were truly one of those she wouldn’t have been polling at 1% going into that debate.

She would have been promoted as Harris’ strongest competition and served up for Harris to co-opt.

That is not what happened.

No, the fact that Gabbard is being smeared as viciously and baselessly as she is by all the right people on both the left and the right is all the proof you need that she is 1) the real deal and 2) they are scared of her.

When Lindsey Graham tweets about Tulsi Gabbard twice after a debate, when the Washington Post neocons like Josh Rogin are attacking her, you know she’s got their panties in a bunch.

You expect it from the Harris camp, obviously. But when it comes directly from people like Navid Jamali (double agent, navy intelligence, MSNBC contributor) you know the empire is beginning to get worried.

Gabbard is now getting the Ron Paul treatment. It will only intensify from here. They will come after her with everything they have.

In the past week she’s destroyed Kamala Harris on national TV, sued Google for electioneering and signed onto Thomas Massie’s (R-KY) bill to audit the Federal Reserve. What does she do next week, end the Drug War?

Tulsi Gabbard is admittedly a work in progress. But what I see in her is something that has the potential to be very special. She’s young enough to be both passionately brave and willing to go where the truth takes her.

And that truth has taken her where Democrats have feared to tread for more than forty years: the US Empire.

The entire time I was growing up the prevailing wisdom was Social Security was the third rail of US politics. That, like so many other pearls of wisdom, was nonsense.

The true third rail of US politics is empire. Any candidate that is publicly against the empire is the enemy of not only the state, it’s quislings in the media, the corporations who profit from it and the party machines of both the GOP and the DNC.

That is Gabbard’s crime. And it’s the only crime that matters.

When the Empire is on the line, left and right in the US close ranks and unite against the threat. The good news is that all they have is their pathetic Russia bashing and appeals to their authority on foreign policy.

Foreign policy, by the way, that most people in America, frankly, despise.

And the response to her performance at the second debate was as predictable as the sun rising in the east. It’s also easily countered. Gabbard will face an uphill battle from here and we’ll find out in the coming weeks just how deep into Trump Derangement Syndrome the average Democrat voter is.

If she doesn’t begin climbing in the polls then the Democrats are lost. They will have signed onto crazy Progressivism and more Empire in their lust to destroy Donald Trump. But they will lose because only a principled anti-imperialist like Gabbard can push Trump back to his days when he was the outsider in the GOP debates, railing against our stupid foreign policy.

No one else in the field would be remotely credible on this point. It’s the area where Trump is the weakest. He’s not weak on women’s rights, racism, gay rights or any of the rest of the idiotic identity politics of the rest of the Democratic field.

He’s weakest on the one issue that got him elected in the first place, foreign policy. Hillary was the candidate of Empire. Trump was not. It’s why we saw an international conspiracy formed to destroy him and his presidency. Now that same apparatus is mobilized against Tulsi Gabbard.

That’s good. As a solider she knows that when you’re taking flak you are over your target. Now let’s hope she’s capable of sustaining herself to push this election cycle away from the insanity the elite want to distract us with and make it about the only thing keeping the world from healing, ending the empire of chaos.

August 2, 2019 Posted by | Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Militarism | | Leave a comment

Another ‘Arab Revolt’? History never repeats.

By M. K. BHADRAKUMAR | Indian Punchline | August 2, 2019

The Arab sheikhs who instigated the US-Iran standoff have heard the African proverb, ‘When elephants fight, it is the grass that suffers’. But they chose to ignore it. The assumption in Riyadh and Abu Dhabi was that President Trump’s ‘maximum pressure’ strategy would frighten Tehran and life would be back to normal very soon with a weakened Iran bludgeoned into submission.

On the contrary, the gyre of the US-Iran standoff is only widening by the day. What was thought to be a localised affair is acquiring international dimensions. America’s Arab allies no longer have a say in the mutation of the US-Iran standoff.

The Saudi and Emirati role narrows down to bankrolling the Anglo-American project on Iran and to allow the western bases on their territories to be used as launching pads for belligerent acts aimed at provoking the leadership in Tehran into retaliatory moves. In sum, there is growing danger that they might get sucked into a conflict situation in a near future.

The Gulf states lack “strategic depth” vis-a-vis Iran and are sure to find themselves on the frontline of any military conflagration. Conceivably, neither Saudi Arabia nor the UAE bargained for such an eventuality.

It is possible to discern amidst the welter of interpretations given to the “partial” pullout of the UAE forces from Yemen, Abu Dhabi’s calculation that safeguarding homeland security comes first, way above any imperial agenda. That sobering thought may also have prompted the UAE to make some overtures most recently toward Tehran.

The UAE has taken a nuanced stance that no country could be held responsible for the attacks on oil tankers in the Gulf in June. Foreign Minister Abdullah bin Zayed Al-Nahyan said “clear and convincing evidence” is needed regarding the attacks that targeted four vessels off the UAE coast, including two Saudi oil tankers. In essence he distanced the UAE from the US National Security Adviser John Bolton’s finding that the attacks on oil tankers were the work of “naval mines almost certainly from Iran”.

Significantly, Al-Nahyan made the remark at a joint press conference with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov during a visit to Moscow in late June, which from all indications focused on the efforts to bring the war in Yemen to an end and on a possible Russian initiative to moderate UAE’s tensions with Iran. (Interestingly, within the week after Al-Nahyan’s visit in late June, Moscow also hosted the Secretary-General of the Organisation of Islamic Conference and the UN special envoy on Yemen.)

It is entirely conceivable that Russia is doing what it can behind the scenes to lower the tensions between Iran and the UAE and in the Persian Gulf region as a whole. Moscow has lately rebooted its proposal for a collective security system for the Persian Gulf. In fact, on July 29, the Russian concept of collective security in the Persian Gulf has been distributed as an official document approved by the UN.

The Russian document envisages an initiative group to prepare an international conference on security and cooperation in the Persian Gulf, which would later lead to establishing an organisation on security and cooperation in this region. China has welcomed the Russian initiative and offered to contribute to its success — “We would also like to boost cooperation, coordination and communication with all the corresponding parties.”

Clearly, the Russian proposal flies in the face of the Anglo-American project to create a western naval armada led by the US to take control of the 19000 nautical miles in and around the Strait of Hormuz that will put the West effectively as the moderator of the world oil market — with all the implications that go with it for international politics — and literally reduce the oil-rich Persian Gulf countries to de facto pumping stations. For that reason, the Russian initiative will not fly. Simply put, the US and Britain will resent Russia butting in.

However, there are other straws in the wind. The Iran-UAE joint meeting to address littoral security cooperation in Tehran on July 30 is a tell-tale sign that the Persian Gulf states may have begun to realise that the endemic insecurities of the region ultimately require a regional solution. Iran has welcomed the Emirati overture and sees in it a “slight shift” in policy.

The big question is how far the UAE can get away with an independent foreign policy toward Iran. The West traditionally dictates the bottom line and that cannot change fundamentally unless the Arab regimes in the region give way to representative rule.

This is where the real tragedy lies. The big powers — be it the US or Russia — are largely guided by their own mercantilist interests and are stakeholders in the autocratic regimes in the region, which they find easily amenable to manipulation. A century ago, when an Arab Revolt appeared in the region, Britain had engineered it to roll back the Ottoman Empire. Today, there is no such possibility. The dismal ending of the Arab Spring in Egypt was to the advantage and utter delight of both the US and Russia. 

Having said that, the situation is not altogether bleak. The western powers and Russia fiercely competing to secure lucrative arms sales running into tens of billions of dollars annually. This can be turned into opportunity.

The Russia-Saudi axis calibrating the world oil market shows the potential to incrementally shift the locus of Middle East politics.

Similarly, China’s appearance on the scene opens seamless possibilities for the Gulf states. The recent visit by the UAE Crown Prince to China underscores the Arab ingenuity to test the frontiers of strategic autonomy even in such difficult conditions. The fact of the matter is that the UAE has openly defied American pressure and is positioning itself as a hub of China’s Belt and Road Initiative and, furthermore, has become the first country in the Persian Gulf to introduce the 5G technology from China. (See my blog Belt and Road takes a leap forward to the Gulf.)

August 2, 2019 Posted by | Militarism | , , , , | Leave a comment

Tulsi Gabbard Savages Trump Over Pushing US ‘Closer to Brink of Nuclear Catastrophe’ at Dem Debate

Sputnik – August 1, 2019

2020 presidential hopeful Tulsi Gabbard has skyrocketed to No. 1 in Google Trends after blasting the current US administration’s “warmongering” foreign policy during the second Democratic presidential debate on Wednesday.

Democratic House Representative for Hawaii Tulsi Gabbard has blasted the Trump administration for pushing the United States closer to the “brink of nuclear catastrophe” since relations with a number of nuclear armed countries have dramatically escalated in the past few months.

“Donald Trump and warmongering politicians in Washington have failed us. They continue to escalate tensions with other nuclear armed countries like Russia and China, and North Korea, starting a new Cold War, pushing us closer and closer to the brink of nuclear catastrophe. Now as we stand here tonight, there are thousands of nuclear missiles pointed at us… As president, I will end this insanity”, she added.

Following her speech, Gabbard took the number one spot in Google Trends, becoming the most searched Democratic candidate on the platform.

‘Trump Betrayed US on Afghanistan Pullout’

Speaking at the second Democratic presidential debate on Wednesday, she also accused the US president of betraying the American people by failing to deliver on his promise to quickly withdraw troops from Afghanistan.

Gabbard pledged to pull out all American forces from Afghanistan if elected president next year and end the 18-year war in the country:

“The leadership I will bring to do the right thing to bring our troops home within the first year in office. We have to do the right thing and end the wasteful regime change wars and bring our troops home. Every single month we are spending $4 billion on a continuing war in Afghanistan, $4 billion dollars every single month, rather than ending that war, bringing our troops home and using those precious resources into serving the needs of the people here in this country.”

The Iraq War veteran cited the example of the 2003 conflict, which broke out after the George W. Bush administration falsely claimed that Baghdad produced weapons of mass destruction.

“We were all lied to. This is the betrayal. The problem is that this current president continues to betray us”, she added.

Gabbard’s comments follow an interview by US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo with Economic Club of Washington President David Rubenstein in which he emphasised that President Trump had ordered to “end the endless wars, draw down, reduce” the number of US troops stationed in Afghanistan before the 2020 elections.

Pompeo as well noted that he was hoping for a positive outcome of US negotiations with the Taliban, an Islamic insurgent movement, the Afghan government and opposition groups inside the country that will result in a peace agreement to put an end to the 18-year war.

President Trump has long expressed a desire to pull out American troops from Afghanistan, saying that the future reductions in US forces would be tied to progress in peace talks. In June POTUS indicated that the US was “doing fine” there and will soon see its soldiers halved to 8,000.

“As you know in Afghanistan, when I got there, it was 16,000 people. It’s now 9,000 people. And some good things are happening there frankly. No, I’d like to get out of the Middle East, we should have never been in the Middle East. We should have never been there, and I’d like to get out”, he told Time magazine.

Back in February, The New York Times reported that a Defence Department proposal for the peace talks with the Taliban stipulated that all American troops – an estimated 14,000 – be withdrawn in the next three to five years along with the rest of the international forces in the country.

The United States invaded Afghanistan in 2001 in response to the 9/11 terrorist attacks on American soil and overthrew the Taliban, which seized power in the Central Asian country in 1996. At the time, Washington said that Kabul had become a safe haven for al-Qaeda while the Taliban was in power.

Most US troops were withdrawn from Afghanistan by the end of 2014, but a relatively small contingent has continued to support the Afghan Armed Forces in combating terrorism.

August 1, 2019 Posted by | Illegal Occupation, Militarism | , | Leave a comment

Is India Preparing To Unleash “Weapons Of Mass Migration” In Kashmir?

By Andrew Korybko | Eurasia Future | 2019-07-30

A Military Deployment For Political Ends

The indigenous population of Indian-occupied Kashmir is becoming seriously concerned that New Delhi is preparing to rescind Article 35A ahead of the country’s upcoming independence day celebrations next month following the planned deployment of 20,000 more paramilitary forces to the region. The aforementioned provision bars non-residents from purchasing property there, which was thought at the time to be a clever tactic for quelling pro-independence unrest following India’s occupation of the formerly independent country. Popular international political commentator and former Indian diplomat Melkulangara Bhadrakumar, however, revealed in a recent op-ed curiously published just a few days before the phased deployment began that “the Modi government plans to integrate J&K by divesting or eroding some of its so-called ‘special status’”, hinting that there might be some credence to the locals’ concerns given that such a well-connected individual as Mr. Bhadrakumar himself thought it fitting to publicly make his “reasonable guess” at such a coincidental time.

No Comparison To China

Should this scenario come to pass, then it could dangerously lead to the disruptive large-scale influx of foreigners along the lines of Ivy League scholar Kelly M. Greenhill’s “Weapons of Mass Migration” model whereby demographic changes in a targeted area are triggered and/or manipulated by certain actors for strategic ends. The Indian government no doubt considers occupied Kashmir to be what it terms as an “integral part of the country” despite its internationally disputed status and previous UNSC Resolutions being passed in the past demanding that the locals be allowed to hold a plebiscite on their political status, which is why it would frame events as a “purely internal matter” and might even provocatively attempt to draw comparisons to the situations in China’s Tibet and Xinjiang Autonomous Regions in order to deflect criticism (though doing so might also counterproductively provoke its own separate criticism from other quarters). Such a comparison would be very deceptive, however, since both Chinese regions are universally recognized components of the People’s Republic whereas Kashmir isn’t regarded the same way vis-a-vis India.

The Khalistan Factor

This means that the large-scale movement of Han and other Chinese from elsewhere in the People’s Republic to Tibet and Xinjiang is by legal definition a purely internal matter, whereas the large-scale movement of Indians to Kashmir is a purely international one because of the region’s UN-recognized status as a disputed territory. India’s motivations in curtailing some of Kashmir’s “autonomy” at this specific moment might also stem from the increasingly popular Khalistan movement in neighboring Punjab, which has revived interest in the revolutionary 1973 Anandpur Sahib Resolution‘s decentralization principles and could eventually form the core of an alternative national vision to the ruling Hindutva one. It could partially be because of those fast-moving developments that the Indian government is panicking and wants to gradually remove as much of the occupied Kashmiris’ “autonomy” as possible in order to preempt the scenario of the other minority-majority regions under its control demanding similar rights as well after becoming reacquainted with the aforementioned manifesto and realizing that there’s no reason why they can’t have their own special status too.

A Dangerous Mistake

As the Modi government has been prone to do over the past half-decade, this speculated policy would represent yet another massive mistake if it’s ever implemented. Not only has the planned military deployment already generated intense talk about occupied Kashmir’s “autonomy” — thus negating the possible purpose of keeping such discourse out of the national discussion following the revival of the Khalistan movement — but it could also lead to more forceful resistance from the locals who fear an impending demographic invasion of ‘Weapons of Mass Migration”. Modi clearly wants to deliver on his party’s recent election promise to eliminate Articles 370 and 35A granting “autonomy” to Kashmir and the right to residents to be the sole purchasers of property in the occupied region respectively, but the blind devotion to electioneering rhetoric could prove to be extremely dangerous in this context because of the high likelihood that it’ll backfire by drawing intense international condemnation and possibly even provoking uncontrollable violence.

July 30, 2019 Posted by | Illegal Occupation, Militarism | , | Leave a comment

Weaponizing Space Is the New Bad Idea Coming From Washington D.C.

By Federico Pieraccini | Strategic Culture Foundation | July 29, 2019

When considering the possibility of great-power conflict in the near future, it is difficult to bypass space as one of the main areas of strategic focus for the major powers. The United States, Russia and China all have cutting-edge programs for the militarization of space, though with a big difference.

Donald Trump’s announcement of a “Space Force” is by no means a new idea. During the Reagan presidency, a similar idea was proposed in the form of the famous “Star Wars“ program, formally known as the Strategic Defense Initiative. It aimed to do away with the concept of mutually assured destruction (MAD) by positioning anti-ballistic-missile (ABM) interceptors in low-Earth orbit in order for them to be able to easily intercept ballistic missiles during their entry into orbit and before their re-entry phase. The costs and technology at the time proved prohibitive for the program, but military planners retained the dream of negating the concept of MAD in Washington’s favor, especially with the dawning of the unipolar era following the collapse of the Soviet Union.

The decisions taken in the years since, such as the US withdrawal from the ABM Treaty in 2002 during Bush’s presidency and from the INF Treaty during Trump’s, follows Reagan in trying to invalidate MAD, a balance of terror that has served to maintain a strategic stability.

This hope of doing away with MAD so that the unthinkable may become thinkable has guided the missile developments of Russia and China, which through the development of hypersonic missiles aim to nullify the US’s ABM systems and thereby make the thought of an unreciprocated nuclear first strike MAD again. With Russia’s recent successes in testing hypersoning technologies, and the fast-tracking of other new strategic weapons announced by Putin less than 12 months ago, strategic stability seems to have been restored through Russia’s strengthened deterrence posture.

The weaponization of space is a less known and talked about aspect of Washington’s mad attempts to make mutually assured destruction no longer mutual and therefore thinkable. During the peak of the unipolar moment, the idea of the Pentagon and the lobbyists of the military-industrial complex was to develop the so-called Prompt Global Strike system, which envisioned being able to deliver an air strike with conventional weapons anywhere in the world in the space of an hour. The dream (or delusion) of the US was to have the unique ability to determine the course of events around the globe within an hour. Such experimental craft as the Orbital Test Vehicle seem to confirm that serious efforts have been underway to realize this objective.

Neither China nor Russia has been sitting idly by waiting to be struck undefended. Russia’s development of its S-500 system has been quite timely. The S-500 system is often considered an upgrade to the better-known S-400 system, but these are in reality different systems with different aims and objectives. The main task of the S-500 is to engage long-distance targets in low-Earth orbit. We are therefore talking about the ability to take out military or any future ABM satellites as those originally conceived with Reagan’s “Star Wars” program.

Unlike Washington, Moscow and Beijing do not appear to be developing space-based weaponry; they are certainly not going to increase their military budgets to create a space force. On the contrary, both countries have been working for more than a decade on a proposed Prevention of an Arms Race in Outer Space (PAROS) treaty that seeks to ban the weaponization of space. The aims are summarized as follows:

“Under the draft treaty submitted to the [Conference on Disarmament] by Russia in 2008, State Parties would have to refrain from carrying out such weapons and threatening to use objects in outer space. State Parties would also agree to practice agreed confidence-building measures.

A PAROS treaty would complement and reaffirm the importance of the 1967 Outer Space Treaty, which aims to preserve space for peaceful uses by prohibiting the use of space weapons, and technology related to ‘missile defense’. The treaty would prevent any nation from gaining a military advantage in outer space.”

The intentions of the draft treaty clearly go against Washington’s plans. It is therefore not surprising that Washington has no intention of acceding to PAROS, and it is probably only a matter of time before Washington withdraws from the 1967 Outer Space Treaty.

Trump is looking at things from a practical point of view. He wants to give a major boost to the military-industrial complex, which is salivating at the prospect of being showered with tens or even hundreds of billions of US taxpayer dollars in a quest to weaponize space. But the policy makers in Washington and in think-tanks look at the weaponization of space from a different perspective. They look at it from the point of view of Washington as a superpower that must seek to prolong its unipolar moment through the use of force, even from space. While it is delusional nonsense, it has nevertheless been the prevailing outlook in Washington for at least the last 25 years.

The reason why China and Russia have proposed and continue to discuss the PAROS lies in their political and military philosophies that contrast with that of the US. As an imperial power bent on global domination, the US is always looking for ways to subjugate and dominate what it considers to be its underlings, while Russia and China act to hold back and counterbalance US aggression, in the process serving to enhance global stability.

The proposal for the non-militarization of space is the latest example of what unites and guides the Eurasian strategy of China and Russia without having any illusions about Washington’s intentions. The development of the SR-72 system seems to confirm that Washington wants to also bridge the gap with its Eurasian competitors in the field of hypersonic technology in addition to wishing to weaponize space.

Realistically, however, global powers in a multipolar context will seek to defend their territorial and economic sovereignty with every means at their disposal. Likewise, those seeking global hegemony will try to exploit any existing domain to gain an advantage over their rivals.

China and Russia seek to weaponize distance and speed to make any possible US attack on them impracticable, both in terms of the logistics required and the revivified cost-benefit calculus of MAD. The US, on the other hand, is trying to weaponize all conceivable domains of conflict by all means possible, hoping to be able to find a chink in its opponents’ armor.

Beijing and Moscow seem to have studied extensively how to respond. All the various defensive systems produced in recent years, from hypersonic anti-ship missiles to multi-layered defense systems like the S-400, S-500 and A-135/A-235, seem to meet the challenge.

Beijing fears US naval strength, and while seeking to achieve parity and surpass the US in the future, it aims above all to prevent the use of aircraft carriers as launching platforms through the employment of defensive area-denial weapons. In this sense, speed (Mach 10) and extending the range of Chinese anti-ship missiles (DF-21) are fundamental to the success of this strategy. Similarly, Moscow intends to seal Eurasia’s skies, and the S-500 seems to be the final flourish, able to protect up to 800 kilometers above sea level.

The weaponization of space is the latest issue that the US is exploiting for various political purposes. Be that as it may, this creates an adversarial environment that compels the US’s peer competitors to develop weapons capable of countering US belligerency. Instead of sitting down and defining the parameters of major-power interaction so as to reduce the likelihood of war, we are witnessing an intentional US policy of pursuing an arms race in every possible domain of warfare.

July 29, 2019 Posted by | Militarism | | Leave a comment

Militarizing academia? UK university receives £400k from UK military for ‘cultural advice’ – report

RT | July 26, 2019

The British MoD has reportedly paid a UK university at least £400,000 ($500,000) for “cultural advice” on how to operate in former colonies, leading to accusations of the “militarization of academia.”

The freedom of information (FOI) requests obtained by student group, Decolonizing Our Minds, revealed that hundreds of thousands of pounds was paid by the British military to the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in London since the end of 2016, according to the Morning Star.

The money has been dished out by the MoD’s Defense Cultural Specialist Unit (DCSU), a body set up in 2010 after the failed wars of Afghanistan and Iraq. It’s gone towards academic staff teaching the history and culture of former colonies in Asia, Africa and the Middle East to military personnel, according to the paper.

The revelations have prompted an angry response from a spokesperson for SOAS Students’ Union, who branded the university’s engagement with the military as “outrageous.”

“We would like to join the Decolonizing Our Minds collective in condemning SOAS for supporting the militarization of academia. It is outrageous that… the school is still engaging in such projects…”

In February, a SOAS anthropologist gave military staff an overview of the “war in the Sahel” region – an area covering a number of countries across the African continent.

On Monday, the now-former defense secretary Penny Mordaunt announced that 250 British troops were being deployed to Mali as peacekeepers “in recognition of the increasing instability in the Sahel region.”

A spokesperson for SOAS rejected allegations that they were “militarizing higher education or perpetuating a colonial approach between the UK and other nations.”

July 26, 2019 Posted by | Militarism, Progressive Hypocrite | | Leave a comment

Trump Downplays North Korea’s Recent Missile Launches: ‘We’ve Been Doing Very Well’

Sputnik – July 26, 2019

US President Donald Trump in an interview with Fox News has downplayed the recent missile launches by North Korea, saying Washington and Pyongyang have been “doing very well”.

The US president was asked if he would “devastate” Iran and North Korea if they “force him to”, in the wake of recently reported missile launches by the two countries.

“In the case of North Korea, I am actually getting along very well with [Kim]. But we’ll see what happens. The sanctions are on. The hostages are back. We’re getting the remains back. They haven’t done nuclear testing. They really haven’t tested missiles other than, you know, smaller ones, which is something that lots test. But I think with North Korea, we’ve been doing very well”, Trump stated.

On Thursday, North Korea fired two projectiles from an area close to the eastern coastal city of Wonsan. The South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff subsequently said that the launches were two short-range missiles that flew around 267 miles at an altitude of 31 miles before falling into the Sea of Japan. On Friday, North Korean state-run media reported that the launches were tests of a new tactical guided weapon, observed by chief Kim Jong-un.

According to them, Pyongyang carried out the launches on Thursday as a warning to South Korea against boosting its military.

The incident took place less than a month after a meeting between Kim and Trump at the Demilitarised Zone (DMZ) between the two Koreas. During the meeting, the two heads of state agreed to energize their deadlocked denuclearisation talks by engaging in working-level contacts.

July 26, 2019 Posted by | Militarism | , | Leave a comment

North Korea tests ‘super-powerful’ missile in response to Seoul stockpiling US arms & holding drills

RT | July 26, 2019

Pyongyang says it has no other choice but to continue developing and testing new types of deterrence weapons as long as ‘warmongers’ in the South keep buying modern arms and holding joint military drills with the US.

The test launch of the “new-type tactical guided weapon” on Thursday morning was personally supervised by the country’s leader Kim Jong-un, KCNA reported, noting that the weapons test was carried out “as part of the power demonstration” to warn “South Korean military warmongers” against introducing “ultramodern offensive weapons” and holding joint military exercises with American forces.

“We cannot but develop nonstop super-powerful weapon systems to remove the potential and direct threats to the security of our country that exist in the south.”

Accusing Seoul of “double-dealing,” North Korea lashed out at its neighbor for talking peace while stockpiling American weapons. Besides opting to purchase Terminal High Altitude Area Defense systems (THAAD), Seoul has recently received two more F-35A Lightning II fifth-generation stealth fighters from the US. And despite North Korea’s relative rapprochement with both the US and the South, the allies plan to hold their annual military drills in August.

North Korea resumed its short range missile testing activity earlier this year after the Hanoi Summit between President Donald Trump and Chairman Kim Jong-un in Vietnam failed to produce any clear roadmap to peace. The latest tests were conducted despite the impromptu meeting Trump had with Kim at the Korean Demilitarized Zone last month, where they agreed to revive stalled denuclearization talks.

Pyongyang’s leadership has long maintained that the US should provide some credible guarantees, relieve its sanctions and stop military drills with the South for any viable peace to take hold on the Peninsula. Washington in its turn insists on full denuclearization before any concessions are made.

July 26, 2019 Posted by | Militarism | , | Leave a comment

Russia declares Atlantic Council think tank an ‘undesirable’ organization – what exactly is it?

RT | July 25, 2019

The controversial pro-NATO Atlantic Council think tank has been added to a list of “undesirable” organizations and forbidden from operating within Russia.

Russia’s Prosecutor General said on Thursday that it had decided to recognize the activities of the Atlantic Council (AC) as those of a “foreign non-governmental organization” and as “undesirable” within the country.

“It has been established that the activities of this organization pose a threat to the fundamentals of the constitutional system and the security of the Russian Federation,” a statement said.

The Russian law forbids “undesirable organizations” from opening offices and disseminating its materials in the country. Being part of such a group may result in an administrative fine of up to 100,000 (around $1,600) rubles or criminal liability with a prison term of between two to six years. The AC is the 17th organization to be slapped with that label.

Founded in 1961, the Atlantic Council is a rabidly anti-Russia think tank based in Washington DC and is handsomely funded by a bevy of US and UK arms manufacturers, including Lockheed Martin, Raytheon and Boeing. It has been described by other analysts as the“propaganda arm” of the NATO military alliance. Consistent with its military funding, AC experts – or “fellows” as they call themselves – advocate for the engagement of the US military as frequently as possible in conflicts around the world.

US ambassador to Russia Jon Huntsman used to be the chairman of the organization until 2018. The founder of Baring Vostok private equity fund, Michael Calvey, who is now on trial for large scale fraud in Russia, was one of its board members and the largest private investor, according to the annual report.

While the Russian prosecutor general’s statement describes the AC as an “NGO,” that seems to be not quite an accurate description, given that the organization also receives funding from the US State Department and the British Foreign Office.

The AC regularly hosts forums attended by political, business and academic figures who compete with each other to see who can suggest the most hostile Western course of action toward Russia.

Speaking at an Atlantic Council event in February, US chief of naval operations Adm. John Richardson called for more American aggression toward Russia and China, saying that when it comes to defending key waterways around the world, the US should become more “muscular,” should “strike first” and force Russia to “respond to our first move.”

Last year, Facebook teamed up with an Atlantic Council offshoot known as the ‘Digital Forensic Lab’ in an effort to combat “fake news” on the social media platform. Shortly after, Facebook went on a censorship spree, suspending pages belonging to left-leaning Venezuelan media outlets which were daring to question historically disastrous US foreign policy in Latin America.

Despite its clear bias and US and UK government funding, AC employees are regularly cited as objective ‘expert’ sources in mainstream media reports.

July 25, 2019 Posted by | Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Militarism | , | Leave a comment

The Failure of Impeachment Regime Change

By Jacob G. Hornberger | FFF | July 25, 2019

With what most everyone is calling a stunningly disjointed and extremely disappointing presentation before Congress by Special Counsel and former FBI Director Robert Mueller, it is becoming increasingly clear that the effort to achieve regime change through impeachment is going to fail. Democrats are going to have to rely on the traditional electoral means to remove President Trump from office in 2020.

This is the way it should be. Achieving regime change through impeachment would have converted the United States into a standard banana republic.

Ever since Trump became the GOP nominee for president, Democrats, the national-security establishment, and the liberal elements of the mainstream press did everything they could to ensure that his Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton, was elected president.

Once Trump became president, however, his opponents refused to accept the electoral outcome and began trying to remove him from office through impeachment. That’s where the anti-Russia brouhaha came into play.

During the campaign, it was increasingly clear that Trump and Clinton were on opposite sides of the Russia controversy. Trump desired to establish friendly relations with Russia, which was exactly what Russia wanted.

But that’s not what the national-security establishment wanted. Ever since the sudden and unexpected end of the Cold War, the Pentagon, CIA, and NSA — the three principal components of the national-security state — did everything they could to make Russia, once again, an official enemy of the United States. Clinton was squarely on the side of the national-security establishment.

That’s why the Pentagon, CIA, and NSA kept the Cold War dinosaur NATO in existence instead of dismantling it. It’s also why they had NATO begin absorbing former members of the Warsaw Pact, enabling U.S. forces and missiles to be stationed ever closer to the Russian border, violating assurances that U.S. officials had given Russia not to expand toward Russia. That’s what the effort to absorb Ukraine into NATO was all about, knowing full well that Russia would respond by protecting its longtime military base in Crimea.

Everything was oriented toward making certain that the United States and Russia would never be on friendly terms. Everything was instead oriented toward making Russia, once again, another Cold War official enemy of the United States.

Why is that the goal of the national-security establishment? Because it needs a justification for its own existence and its own ever-growing power and influence. That justification comes in the form of official enemies, ones that can keep Americans fearful. In that way, the Pentagon, CIA, and NSA can say, “Keep flooding us with U.S. taxpayer money because we are the ones who are keeping you safe from America’s official enemies. Keep giving us totalitarian-like powers over you so that we can keep you safe.”

Of course, Russia isn’t the only official enemy. There is also China, which increasingly is being presented as a Cold War-like “hegemon” that is supposedly threatening U.S. “national security.”

And then there are the smaller official enemies, like Iran, North Korea, Cuba, Venezuela, Syria, the Taliban, the Muslims, the terrorists, ISIS, the drug dealers, and the illegal immigrants, all of which, we are told, are threats to “national security.”

As a candidate, Trump was threatening to upend this racket, at least with respect to Russia and perhaps also by threatening to bring an end to America’s forever wars and its policy of regime-change wars. That posed a grave threat to the national-security establishment, which had been grafted onto America’s federal governmental system after World War II to fight the Cold War against the Soviet Union, America’s World War II partner and ally whose principal member was Russia.

Trump’s friendly attitude toward Russia could not be permitted to stand, not as a presidential candidate and especially not as a U.S. president. That’s when the anti-Russia brouhaha was launched, which accused Trump of being an agent of the Russians, just as some people accused President Eisenhower of being a communist agent of the Soviet Union during the Cold War.

It was a ridiculous accusation from the get-go but its primary purpose was to enable Trump’s opponents to remove him from office long before the next election in 2020. It was designed to be regime change through impeachment.

Once Mueller’s investigative team, despite years of intense investigation, was unable to come up with convincing evidence of a Trump-Russia conspiracy, however, Trump’s detractors fell back on a secondary plan for regime change though impeachment — “obstruction of justice,” a federal crime that is so nebulous and subjective that it is the federal version of “disorderly conduct,” a “crime” that local officials use to target people they don’t like. The sham nature of this alternative theory for regime change was exposed through its supporters refusal to seek Trump’s impeachment for real crimes, such as killing people overseas through illegal undeclared wars and illegal assassinations. With Mueller’s dismal performance before Congress, this alternative attempt at regime change appears to be dead in the water as well.

While Trump’s enemies have been unsuccessful in removing him from office through impeachment, they have, unfortunately, been successful in having him become an opponent of Russia, China, and all of the other official enemies of the U.S national-security state. Not only has Trump continued the forever wars in Afghanistan and the Middle East, he has kept up hostile relations with Russia, initiated a destructive trade war with China, and ratcheted up the U.S. wars on Muslims, the terrorists, the illegal immigrants, the drug dealers, ISIS, and the Taliban. He has also ensured that ever-increasing taxpayer-funded largess continues flooding into the Pentagon, the CIA, and the NSA, no matter how much more debt this adds onto the backs of American taxpayers.

In other words, Trump, like George W. Bush and Barack Obama, has been absorbed into the national-security state blob. They have won. Trump has become one of them. That’s the real success of the unsuccessful effort to remove Trump from office through impeachment regime change.

July 25, 2019 Posted by | Corruption, Militarism | , , | Leave a comment

The US-NATO Military Alliance Continues Confrontation Along Russia’s Borders

By Brian Cloughley | Strategic Culture Foundation | July 23, 2019

The Pentagon and its sub-office in Brussels, HQ NATO, in its new billion dollar building, are intent on maintaining military pressure around the globe. The US itself is much more widely spread, having bases tentacled from continent to continent, with the Pentagon admitting to 514 but omitting mention of many countries, including Afghanistan, Syria and Somalia.

Independent researchers came up with the more realistic total of 883 bases, and examination of the current US defence budget shows that the Pentagon’s spending priorities are far from modest in regard to spreading its wings, hulls and boots-on-the-ground to maintain military domination by what Trump calls “the greatest and most powerful Nation on earth.” To this end its vast military spending programme includes:

  • increasing the strength of the Army, Navy, and Air Force by almost 26,000;
  • building another ten combat ships for $18.4 billion;
  • increasing production of the most expensive aircraft in world history, the F-35, costing over eleven billion; and
  • upgrading and expanding the triad of nuclear weapons deliverable from air, land and sea.

The US military budget for 2020 is officially $750 billion. According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, total US-NATO military expenditure in 2018 was “$963 billion, which represents 53 per cent of world spending.” In striking (no humour intended) contrast, Russia’s entire defence budget was $61.4 billion, its annual outlay having “decreased by 3.5 per cent,” which even the most brainwashed western war-drummer would have to agree does not reflect the policy of a nation preparing to invade anybody.

Yet the US-NATO alliance is increasing the number and scope of military manoeuvres along Russia’s borders, and announced that “in 2019, a total of 102 NATO exercises are planned; 39 of them are open to partner participation.” The exercises include 25 land, 27 air and 12 maritime-centred groups of manoeuvres.

“Partner participation” is a disguised way of saying that non-NATO countries around Russia’s borders have been encouraged to join in all the expensive military jamborees aimed at convincing their citizens they should follow “the greatest and most powerful Nation on earth” in its never-ending conquests.

HQ NATO announced that from 8-22 June military forces of 18 nations took part in the BALTOPS naval manoeuvres which involved “maritime, air and ground forces with about 50 ships and submarines and 40 aircraft” in and around the Baltic. The NATO spokesperson said, presumably with a straight face and no hint of the wry amusement felt by independent observers, that “BALTOPS is now in its 47th year and is not directed against anyone.” Sure. And the Easter Bunny just landed on Mars.

In the most recent example of US-NATO confrontation, according to US European Command, “the US Air Force deployed F-35 Lightning and F-15E Strike Eagles to Spangdahlem Air Base, Germany, as part of Operation Rapid Forge under the Department of Defense’s Dynamic Force Employment Concept. Rapid Forge will involve forward deployments to bases in the territory of NATO allies in order to enhance readiness… and are conducted in coordination with US allies and partners in Europe. Rapid Forge aircraft are forward deploying to the territory of NATO allies… The goal of the operation is to increase the readiness and responsiveness of US forces in Europe…”

Then on July 16 Stars and Stripes (a remarkably objective commentator, incidentally) reported that the Rapid Forge strike aircraft had been sent to Poland, Lithuania and Estonia “in a test of the service’s ability to quickly deploy air power overseas” These aircraft were specifically deployed to operate as closely as possible to Russian airspace.

The manoeuvres are part of ongoing refinement of the Pentagon’s new Dynamic Force Employment strategy “which is focused on using more unpredictable deployments to demonstrate military agility to possible adversaries.” This concept involves “a shift away from traditional six-month naval deployments to a flexible system that can involve shorter but more frequent stints at sea. And in March, the Army dispatched 1,500 soldiers from Fort Bliss, Texas, to Germany and onward to Poland in one of the service’s largest snap mobilizations to Europe in years.”

It was intriguing that the surge in US-NATO military deployment confrontation occurred at the same time it was revealed that the US has been storing nuclear weapons all over Europe for years. Most analysts knew this, although nothing had been admitted, but, as noted in the brilliant BBC TV satire Yes, Minister by the lead character: “First rule in politics: never believe anything until it’s officially denied.”

As the Washington Post reported, “A recently released — and subsequently deleted — document published by a NATO-affiliated body has sparked headlines in Europe with an apparent confirmation of a long-held open secret: some 150 US nuclear weapons are being stored in Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Turkey.” The moment a “NATO official” announced that “we do not comment on the details of NATO’s nuclear posture… this is not an official NATO document,” it was obvious that the deleted details given in the document must be accurate. And now many questions must be answered. For example : under whose guard are these weapons held? Are officials, politicians and military personnel of host countries permitted access to US nuclear storage facilities? What are the nuclear readiness states, and are the host nations informed of these? And it would be very interesting to know if US practice deployments involve nuclear bombs and missiles.

One of the most important aspects of the nuclear bases saga is the likely connection between these US weapons and this year’s US-NATO military manoeuvres. The ‘Rapid Forge’ deployments to Russia’s borders involve F-35A and F15E strike aircraft, and Lockheed Martin tells us that “once air dominance is established, the F-35 converts to beast mode, carrying up to 22,000 pounds of combined internal and external weapons.” Similarly, the F-15E is now capable of delivering B61-12 nuclear bombs.

As reported by the Belgian daily De Morgen (in English in the Brussels Times on 16 July), the document stated that “In the context of NATO, the United States [has deployed] around 150 nuclear weapons in Europe, in particular B61 free-bombs, which can be [delivered] by both US and Allied planes.” But we can be certain that the citizens of the countries concerned, or of any of the other NATO nations, will never be told on what terms the United States is storing nuclear weapons in their countries and what international developments might govern their use.

Presumably it is the President of the United States who will give approval for release of the nuclear bombs being stored in six of the US bases in Belgium, Germany, Italy (2), the Netherlands and Turkey — but is he going to seek agreement from the governments of these countries to use these weapons? It is far from certain that there would be concurrence on the part of Turkey, for example, whose relations with Trump Washington are extremely precarious.

What would happen if President Erdoğan objected to an obviously indicated US intention to convert the USAF’s F-35s to “beast mode”, loading B61 nuclear bombs at Incirlik airbase?

Nobody knows.

And nobody knows if all these US-NATO martial fandangos in the skies around Russia’s borders involve test deployment of strike aircraft in “beast mode”, as nuclear attack preparedness is so aptly described by Lockheed Martin, that prominent member of Washington’s Military-Industrial Complex.

Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland seem to be delighted that US-NATO is continuing to confront Russia by flying nuclear strike aircraft in their airspace. But have they really thought all this through?

July 23, 2019 Posted by | Militarism | , | Leave a comment

‘Nuclear war is not an option’: Pakistani PM says he’d give up nukes if India did so too

RT | July 23, 2019

In a stunning statement, Pakistan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan said that he would be willing to give up his nation’s nuclear weapons if its rival India vowed to do the same. He also urged New Delhi to come to the negotiating table.

When asked by Fox News’ Bret Baier if India offered to relinquish it nuclear arsenal, would Pakistan, Khan answered with an emphatic “yes.”

“Because nuclear war is not an option. And between Pakistan and India, the idea of nuclear war is actually self-destruction, because we have two and a half thousand-mile border,” Khan said.

The Pakistani PM added that the recent escalation in tensions between the two nuclear rivals, following sporadic outbreaks of violence in the aftermath of a major terrorist attack, was unnecessary.

Khan said he had asked US President Donald Trump to mediate between the two regional powers over the Kashmir issue, which Khan said was the only reason for which, over the past “70 years that we have not be able to act like civilized neighbors.”

Khan played down India’s fiery response to reports of potential talks mediated by the US, in which New Delhi insisted that negotiations could only take place bilaterally. He instead urged India’s government to come to the table.

“We’re talking about 1.3 billion people on this Earth. Imagine the dividends of peace if somehow that issue could be resolved.”

July 23, 2019 Posted by | Militarism | , | Leave a comment

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