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Ending NATO, a Monstrous Institution

By Karel van Wolferen • Unz Review • June 5, 2017

Their anxiety about the future of NATO, recently on full display again when the American president was in Europe, could not be bettered as a measure of the incapacity of Europe’s top politicians to guide their continent and represent its populations. Through its provocations of Moscow, NATO systematically helps increase the risk of a military confrontation. By thus sabotaging its declared purpose of preserving collective security for the countries on either side of the Atlantic, it erases its fundamental reason for being and right to exist.

Grasping these facts ought be enough to fuel moves aimed at quickly doing away with NATO. But it is terrible for more and easily overlooked reasons.

NATO’s survival prevents the political entity that is the European Union from becoming a significant global presence for reasons other than its economic weight. If you cannot have a defence policy of your own you also deprive yourself of a foreign policy. Without a substantive foreign policy, Europe does not show anything that anyone might consider ‘a face’ to the world. Without such a face to the outside, the inside cannot come to terms about what it stands for, and substitutes meaningless platitudes for answers to the question as to why it should exist in the first place.

NATO is an example of an institution that has gotten completely out of hand through European complacency, intellectual laziness, and business opportunism. As a security alliance it requires a threat. When the one that was believed to exist during the Cold War disappeared, a new one had to be found. Forged for defence against what was once believed to be an existential threat, it only began actually deploying its military might after that threat had disappeared, for its illegal war against Serbia. Once it had jumped that hurdle, it was encouraged to continue jumping toward imagined global threats. Its history since the demise of its original adversary has been deplorable, as its European member states were made party to war crimes resulting from actions at Washington’s behest for objectives that have made a dead letter of international law. It has turned some European governments into liars when they told their populations that sending troops to Afghanistan was for the purpose of assorted humanitarian purposes like reconstructing that country, rather than fighting a war against Taleban forces intent on reclaiming their country from American occupation.

Afghanistan did not, as was predicted at the time, turn into a graveyard for NATO, next to that of the British Empire, the Soviet Union and – farther back – Alexander the Great. Having survived Afghanistan, NATO continued to play a significant role in the destruction of Gaddafi’s Libya, and in the destruction of parts of Syria through covertly organising, financing, and arming ISIS forces for the purpose of overthrowing the Assad government. And it continues to serve as a cover for the war making elements in Britain and France. America’s coup in the Ukraine in 2014, which resulted in a crisis in relations with Russia, gave NATO a new lease on life as it helped create an entirely uncalled for and hysterical fear of Russia in Poland and the Baltic states.

NATO repudiates things that we are said to hold dear. It is an agent of corruption of thought and action in both the United States and Europe. Through propaganda that distorts the reality of the situation in the areas where it operates, and perennial deceit about its true objectives, NATO has substituted a now widely shared false picture of geopolitical events and developments for one that, even if haphazard, used to be pieced together by independent reporters for mainstream media whose own tradition and editors encouraged discovery of facts. This propaganda relies to a large extent on incessant repetition for its success. It can generally not be traced to NATO as a source of origin because it is being outsourced to a well-funded network of public relations professionals.

The Atlantic Council is NATO’s primary PR organization. It is connected with a web of think tanks and NGO’s spread throughout Europe, and very generous to journalists who must cope with a shrinking and insecure job environment. This entity is well-versed in Orwellian language tricks, and for obvious reasons must mischaracterise NATO itself as an alliance instead of a system of vassalage. Alliance presupposes shared purposes, and it cannot be Europe’s purpose to be controlled by the United States, unless we now accept that a treasonous European financial elite must determine the last word on Europe’s future.

An influential policy deliberation NGO known as the International Crisis Group (ICG), is one of the organizations linked with the Atlantic Council. It operates as a serious and studious outfit, carrying an impressive list of relatively well-known names of associates, and studies areas of the world harbouring conflicts or about-to-be conflicts that could undermine world peace and stability. Sometimes this group does offer information that is germane to a situation, but its purpose has in effect become one of making the mainstream media audience view the situation on the ground in Syria, or the ins and outs of North Korea, or the alleged dictatorship in Venezuela, and so on, through the eyeballs of the consensus creators in American foreign policy.

NATO repudiates political civilisation. It is disastrous for European intellectual life as it condemns European politicians and the thinking segment of the populations in its member states to be locked up in what may be described as political kindergarten, where reality is taught in terms of the Manichean division between bad guys and superheroes. While Europe’s scholars, columnists, TV programmers and sophisticated business commentators rarely pay attention to NATO as an organization, and are generally oblivious to its propaganda function, what it produces condemns them to pay lip service to the silliest geopolitical fantasies.

NATO is not only terrible for Europe, it is very bad for the United States and the world in general, for it has handed to America’s elites important tools aiding its delusional aim of fully dominating the planet. This is because NATO provides the most solid external support for sets of assumptions that allegedly lend a crucial moral dimension to America’s warmaking. NATO does not exist for the sake of indispensable European military prowess, which hardly has not been impressive. It exists as legal justification for Washington to keep nuclear weapons and military bases in Europe. It obviously also exists as support for America’s military-industrial complex.

But its moral support ought to be considered its most significant contribution. Without NATO, the conceptual structure of a ‘West’ with shared principles and aims would collapse. NATO was once the organisation believed to ensure the continued viability of the Western part what used to be known as the ‘free world’. Such connotations linger, and lend themselves to political exploitation. The ‘free world’ has since the demise of the Soviet Union not been much invoked. But ‘the West’ is still going strong, along with the notion of Western values and shared principles, with ‘the good’ in the form of benevolent motives automatically assumed to be on its side. This gives the powers that be in Washington a terrific claim in the realm of widely imagined moral aspects of geopolitical reality. They have inherited the mantle of the leader of the ‘free world’ and ‘the West’, and since there has not been a peep of dissension about this from the other side of the Atlantic, the claim appears true and legitimate in the eyes of the world and the parties concerned.

In the meantime the earlier American claim to speak and act on behalf of the free world was broadened and seemingly depoliticised by a substitute claim of speaking and acting on behalf of the ‘international community’. There is of course no such thing, but that doesn’t bother editors who keep invoking it when some countries or the bad guys running them do things that are not to Washington’s liking. Doing away with NATO would pull the rug from under the ‘international community’. Such a development would then reveal the United States, with its current political system and priorities in international affairs, as a criminal power and the major threat to peace in the world.

I can hear an objection that without this resonance of moral claims the activities serving the ‘full spectrum dominance’ aim would have been carried out anyway. If you think so, and if you can stand reading again what the neocons were producing between 9/11 and the invasion of Iraqi in 2003, subtract all references to moral clarity and the necessity for the United States to serve as moral beacon for the world from that literature, and you will see that preciously little argument remains for American war-making that ensued.

The spinelessness of the average European politician has added up to huge encouragement of the United States in its post-Cold War military adventurism. With forceful reminders from Europe about what those much vaunted supposedly shared political principles actually stood for, American rhetoric could not have been the same. Strong European condemnation of the shredding of the UN Charter, and the jettisoning of the principles adopted at the Nuremberg trials, would have made it much more difficult for George W Bush, Dick Cheney, and the neocons to go where blind fanaticism and hubris, with imagined economic advantage, took them. Perhaps more importantly, it might have given a relatively weak American protest movement the necessary added energy to rise to the level of effectiveness once attained by the anti-Vietnam activists as they imprinted themselves on the political culture of the 60s and 70s. European dissent might not have halted but could have slowed the transformation of much of the mainstream media into neocon propaganda assets.

As it is, NATO exists today in a realm of discourse in which revered post-World War II liberal conditions and practices are still believed to exist. It is an apolitical and ahistorical realm determined by hubris and misplaced self-confidence, in which powers that have utterly altered these practices and negated its positive aspects are not acknowledged. It is a realm in which America’s pathological condition of requiring an enemy as a source of everlasting profit is not acknowledged. It is a realm in which America’s fatuous designs for complete control over the world is not acknowledged. It is a realm of foreign policy illusions.

NATO is supposed to guard putative Western values that in punditry observations have something to do with what the Enlightenment has bestowed on Western culture. But it deludes staunch NATO supporters, who cannot bring themselves to contemplate the possibility that what they have long trusted to be an agent of protection, has in fact become a major force that destroys those very qualities and principles.

There is a further more tangible political/legal reason why NATO is monstrous. It is steered by nonelected powers in Washington, but is not answerable to identifiable entities within the American military system. It is not answerable to any of the governing institutions of the European Union. Its centre in Brussels exists effectively outside the law. Its relations with ‘intelligence agencies’ and their secret operations remain opaque. Who is doing what and where are all questions to which no clear, legally actionable, information is made available.

NATO has thereby become a tool of intimidation lacking any compatibility with democratic political organisation. An autocrat aspiring to unfettered rule with which to operate anywhere in the world would find in NATO the ideal institutional arrangements. All this should be of our utmost concern. Because all this means that NATO is now one of the world’s most horrible organizations that at the same time has become so politically elusive, apparently, that there is no European agent with enough of a grip on it to make it disappear.

June 4, 2017 Posted by | Illegal Occupation, Militarism, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , | Leave a comment

US deploying B-52 bombers to Europe for NATO exercise

Press TV – June 2, 2017

The US Air Force is deploying nuclear-capable B-52 bombers and 800 airmen to Britain that will take part in NATO exercises in June in Eastern Europe near Russia’s border.

The long-range strategic Boeing B-52 Stratofortress will take part in a series of joint exercises that primarily take place in the Baltic Sea, the Arctic and along Russia’s border with several NATO member states.

“Training with allies and joint partners improves coordination between allies and enables the US Air Force to build enduring relationships necessary to confront a broad range of global challenges,” the Air Force said in a press release.

In April, the US Air Force said it is deploying F-35 jets to Estonia, the service’s newest and most expensive fighter jets.

Western countries have moved to step up their military presence in Eastern Europe to deter what they call the Russian “aggression.”

Moscow is wary of NATO’s military build-up near its borders. In response, Russia has beefed up its southwestern military capacity, deploying nuclear-capable missiles to its Baltic enclave of Kaliningrad bordering Poland and Lithuania.

The B-52 deployment comes following a NATO summit on May 25 in Brussels where US President Donald Trump accused members of the alliance of not contributing enough to the NATO budget and owing “massive amounts of money” to the US.

Trump was harshly critical of NATO as a presidential candidate, describing the 28-member Western military alliance as “obsolete.”

June 2, 2017 Posted by | Militarism | , , | Leave a comment

Trump-Saudi orb-gazing summit not helping Sunni alliance

By Sharmine Narwani | RT | June 1, 2017

The glowing orb stunt should have been a sign that all was not what it seems. Theatrics, in the world of politics, usually suggest an illusion needs to be spun for audiences somewhere.

A week after US President Donald Trump’s eyesore of a visit to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, the pressing question now is “why?” What was the purpose of convening leaders and representatives of 55 Arab and Muslim nations to greet a US head of state amidst so much pomp, ceremony and an excruciating amount of flashing cameras?

The Riyadh summit had several goals, most of which specifically served Saudi and American political interests.

The American leader’s potential gains were clear: he would score points at this impressive international showing of Muslim leaders who would help counter his anti-Muslim reputation at home. Trump would also be well-compensated in the form of the largest US arms deal in history, a booty he could claim would boost his home economy. The negotiations would take place in the Middle East, at the heart of his fight against “radical Islamic terrorism.” Trump would also leave with a blank check for Palestinian-Israel “peace,” bestowed by a Saudi king who has no authority to negotiate anything on behalf of Palestinians. And finally, the US president would piggyback the legitimacy of 55 Arab and Muslim states to craft a Middle East policy that targeted Iran, its allies and the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) – even though no consensus whatsoever was reached at the summit.

In their eyes, the Saudis scored even bigger. The cash-and-credibility-hemorrhaging Saudis are losing ground in their list of international fights – in Syria, Yemen, Iraq and against Iran. Here was an opportunity to convene leaders and representatives from 55 Arab and Muslim nations (only 33 heads of state showed up) to underscore Saudi Arabia’s position as the custodian of Sunni Islam. For the power-mad Saudis, nothing would showcase their primacy better than the presence of a US president on his first official foreign trip. They forgot, however, that legitimacy is derived from one’s own populations, not from a Western head of state sword-dancing next to one’s king. After the summit, Riyadh would go on to unilaterally craft a declaration, unseen and unapproved by the VIP guests, that claimed to outline the gathering’s foreign policy priorities.

But most importantly, this summit would allow the Saudis – who are terrified at the potential repercussions coming their way from decades of funding global terrorism – to very publicly take cover under the Trump presidency. And the US president, who knows very well that the Saudis are the epicenter of global terror, offered up America’s protection and complicity to secure his doggy bag of treasures.

This generous give-and-take between the Saudis and Americans took place on the day of the summit, amidst much back-slapping. Then, a few days later, the fallout began.

First, Saudi vs. Qatar

This past week, a flurry of media headlines alerted us to the first fissure between summit participants. News reports began emerging that Qatari leader Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani had deviated from the Saudi talking points by supporting engagement with Iran and defending resistance groups Hezbollah and Hamas.

Saudi Arabia and the UAE retaliated swiftly to this slight by blocking Qatari media outlets, recalling their ambassadors and launching a war of words against Doha.
Why the swift and punishing response toward a fellow member of the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC)?

Qatar has long struggled to get out from under the shadow of its much larger Persian Gulf neighbor Saudi Arabia and has spent the past dozen years building up media networks, like Al Jazeera, and investing in major Western corporate, think tank, educational and sports brands to project power well beyond its regional stature. The tiny sheikhdom’s biggest coup, however, was to secure the establishment of the US military’s largest regional base on its territory, which allowed Doha to continue provoking its Saudi competitor with little risk of consequence.

Then in 2011, the Qataris put their full weight behind “Arab Spring” efforts to overthrow a slew of Arab governments. Most of the Qatari-backed incoming regimes and opposition activists, however, were Islamists, mainly of the MB variety, which is reviled by Saudi Arabia and the UAE.

The Saudis were initially caught off-guard by the swift events sweeping the region, but quickly rallied to mount a region-wide counterrevolution to reverse the political gains of the Qatari- and Turkish-backed MB groups. Saudi operatives funneled manpower, money, and weapons to reestablish Riyadh’s influence. They revived their famed jihadi networks to flood Syria and other places with extremist militants that could tip the balance of power back in its direction.

It wasn’t just Qatar and the MB in Saudi sights – the regional uprisings, particularly in Syria, Yemen and Bahrain, threatened to shift the region in a direction that benefited Iran, Saudi Arabia’s biggest regional adversary.

In Riyadh ten days ago, the Saudis thought they had struck gold. After eight years of dealing with a somewhat unsympathetic Obama administration, here was Trump acquiescing to their every whim. The Saudi declaration issued at the end of the summit – as well as speeches delivered during the event – struck out at Iran, the Muslim Brotherhood, Hezbollah and Hamas, and promised American cooperation in isolating them. The Saudis were on a high, but they were also mostly alone.

A broad divergence of interests

Aside from the Saudi-Qatari spat, there are countless other differences among summit participants that will scuttle Riyadh’s ambitions.

The anti-MB UAE has stood firmly by Riyadh’s side in condemning Doha but diverges – even within its own borders – on assuming an aggressive position against Iran. Call it Dubai-versus-Abu Dhabi if you will. Dubai, with its large Iranian expat population and significant trade with the Islamic Republic, is less worried about its Persian neighbor. As a 2009 Wikileaks cable from the US embassy in Abu Dhabi puts it: “While MbZ (Crown Prince of the Emirate of Abu Dhabi Mohammad bin Zayed) is a hardliner on Iran, there are accommodationists within his own system, especially in Dubai, where the ruler, Mohammed bin Rashid Al-Maktoum (Prime Minister of the UAE) takes a position that is much closer to Qatar’s.”

Other GCC states are even more loathe to confront Iran. Oman has repeatedly ignored Saudi demands to toughen its stance against Iran and remains a key Iranian diplomatic partner in the region. The two states participated in joint naval exercises in the Gulf of Oman as recently as April, and it was Muscat that hosted the initial secret US-Iran meetings which kick-started the 2015 Iranian nuclear deal.

GCC member-state Kuwait also remains relatively neutral on Iranian matters. Up to 40 percent of Kuwaitis are Shiites, and the country has avoided much of the sectarian strife that afflicts Saudi Arabia and now Bahrain. It is to Kuwait that Qatar’s emir has now turned to negotiate peace with the Saudis and UAE in the aftermath of last week’s fallout. The Qataris, who have dealt opportunistically and not ideologically in their regional relations, share the world’s largest gas reserve with Iran, a further incentive to maintain a neutral stance on Tehran.

In fact, most of the Sunni states that attended the Riyadh summit are flat-out furious about the violent sectarianism and extremism that has emerged in the past few years. And many of them blame the Saudis for it.

Last August, an unprecedented conference of 200 leading Sunni clerics from around the world was held in Grozny to determine “who is a Sunni.”Excluded from the gathering were representatives of both the Wahhabi sect (Saudi Arabia and Qatar’s official religion) and the Muslim Brotherhood. The Islamic world is looking to tackle the deviance and sectarianism that has borne groups like ISIS and Al-Qaeda – not indulge it, as would be the case if they embraced the Saudi ‘vision’ in Riyadh.

But in an effort to bulldoze through a “Sunni consensus” under the umbrella of “Saudi-American power,” the Saudis ignored every gorilla in that summit room. Not only do many of the meeting’s participants blame the Saudis for unleashing the jihadi genie, but most of them also wouldn’t for a minute look to Saudi ‘leadership’ if it weren’t for Saudi cash. Case in point, Sunni regional giants Turkey and Egypt. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan didn’t even show up to Riyadh, citing other engagements. Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi did attend – he was one of three invited to press his palms upon the ‘glowing orb’ to inaugurate the Saudi counterterrorism-something-or-other.

But more than anything, Sisi was invited to Riyadh as an important set extra – to visually demonstrate that the great Arab state of Egypt was passing the mantle of leadership to Saudi Arabia’s King Salman.

Where the Saudis viewed former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak as a stalwart ally, they see Sisi as nothing of the sort. Sisi may agree with Riyadh on the evils of the Muslim Brotherhood, but he has absolutely no tolerance for Saudi Arabia’s support of terrorist groups throughout the region and has been a right royal pain on the issue of Syria.

Egypt may hanker after the Saudi billions – which it has received in spades for its anti-MB efforts – but Egyptians have little affection for the Saudis and have sparred publicly and privately in recent years and months. Whereas Riyadh could once count on Egyptian troops to support its military incursions, today Cairo has rejected participation in the Saudi-led war against Yemen – alongside another staunch Saudi ally, Pakistan.

The Saudis recently hired Pakistan’s former army chief General Raheel Sharif to head up their 39-nation “Muslim NATO” construct to fight terrorism, but now rumors are rife that he will resign amidst a national uproar over his decision. Pakistanis, like other straight-thinking Muslims, are uncomfortable about the prospect of a military alliance that appears to have been conceived primarily to fight Iran – and Shiites.

Dead On Arrival

On the surface, the purpose of the Riyadh summit was to amass a coalition of like-minded Arab and Muslim partner-states, under a Saudi-American banner, to wage war against terror. In fact, this is a Saudi and American-led initiative created not to tackle terror, but to ‘reframe’ it to encompass political adversaries.

Look out for pundits and politicians spinning these new narratives that Iran, Hezbollah, and the Muslim Brotherhood are equally as dangerous as ISIS and Al-Qaeda – never mind that the former have been around for decades without triggering the global security meltdown spawned by the latter.

In Riyadh, the Americans and Saudis made a great show of jointly announcing two additions to their “terrorism” list – one was a senior Hezbollah official, the other a senior member of ISIS.

This is not the war against terror that the heads of states gathered in Riyadh anticipated. This is a sectarian war, conceived by a sectarian state that has funded, armed and organized the very global terrorism it purports to fight. And every single US administration since the events of 9/11 has acknowledged this direct Saudi role in terror.

In Riyadh, the show went on anyway. But there’s not a person in that room who didn’t understand the game. Forget the ‘Sunni consensus’ after Riyadh. Of the 55 nations represented at the summit, the Saudis will be lucky to retain five.

Sharmine Narwani is a commentator and analyst of Middle East geopolitics. She is a former senior associate at St. Antony’s College, Oxford University and has a master’s degree in International Relations from Columbia University. Sharmine has written commentary for a wide array of publications, including Al Akhbar English, the New York Times, the Guardian, Asia Times Online, Salon.com, USA Today, the Huffington Post, Al Jazeera English, BRICS Post and others. You can follow her on Twitter at @snarwani

June 1, 2017 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Militarism | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Manufactured Hysteria Over Russia Requires 24/7 Upkeep

A Black Agenda Radio commentary by executive editor Glen Ford | May 31, 2017

Even at the height of the Cold War and the depths of McCarthyism, the U.S. corporate media was never even remotely as consumed with Russia as they are, today. The obsession with the Kremlin is a manufactured hysteria, a result of the panic that engulfed the U.S. ruling class — and its media — during last year’s election. What scared them witless, was the reaction of so-called “middle Americans” — white conservatives that call themselves Christian and “patriotic” – to Donald Trump’s statements on lessening tensions with Moscow and getting the U.S. out of the regime change business. Trump’s supporters didn’t bat an eye. It soon became clear that Trump’s base was nowhere near as gung-ho for endless war and confrontation as the rulers, and most of the rest of us, had assumed. And, that was very bad news for the War Party, which had gathered together in Hillary Clinton’s big tent. Because, if Donald Trump’s “middle Americans” – or “deplorables,” as Hillary called them — could not be counted on to applaud every war that their rulers chose to launch, then where was the reliable constituency for war? If not Trump’s people — who?

The rulers — from the spy chiefs in Washington to the Lords of Capital on Wall Street — were terror-struck at the sudden realization that the national constituency for war was way short of a majority, and that the middle Americans they depended on to hate whoever they were instructed to hate might have other concerns than Russians and overthrowing Arab governments. The lack of war fever in middle America signaled an existential crisis for the ruling class, whose dreams of world conquest require never-ending war.

The rulers now had to relearn a lesson: that war fever must be fed, throughout the 24-7 news cycle. The demonization must be constant, lies without let-up, so that the sheer weight of the propaganda masquerading as news convinces the public that the targeted nations and leaders are worthy of their hate. This is a retail, volume business, based on accumulation of impressions. After Trump eked out an Electoral College victory, the cascade of lies about Syria and Russia became a Niagara, so loud and incessant that some Democratic operatives lost their minds amid all the crazy noise. Black Los Angeles Congresswoman Maxine Waters, who in the mid-Nineties dared to accuse the CIA of being behind the crack cocaine epidemic, now accepts as the gospel truth every word the so-called “intelligence community” utters sliming Trump and the Russians. The Democrats are now the War Party, based on the polls, harboring about twice as much hatred for Russia as Republicans do. So-called liberal Democrats and phony “progressives” have allowed themselves to be convinced that the jihadist Islamic head cutters that the CIA and the U.S. military trains in Syria are not the same as the jihadist Islamic head cutters that the U.S. claims to have been at war with since at least 9/11.

But, the rulers still have a fundamental problem, because the Democratic base is not reliable as a long term war constituency. That had always been the assumed role of white middle America. But, as it turns out, there is no natural war constituency majority in the U.S. Therefore, the War Party will just have to keep screaming and lying, louder and louder, to keep the fever going.

May 31, 2017 Posted by | Deception, Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Militarism | , , | Leave a comment

Obama vs. Trump

By Margaret Kimberley | Black Agenda Report | May 31, 2017

Barack Obama presided over the sale of more than $100 billion in weaponry to Saudi Arabia during his presidency. These deals were transacted before, during and after the Saudis’ devastating attacks on Yemen. It is important to state these simple facts because there is now a concerted effort among the rulers to make us believe that these recent events never took place.

Donald Trump’s visit to Saudi Arabia and announcement of yet another arms sale is the immediate cause of consternation. The continuity in foreign policy decision making from one president to another is a longstanding American tradition. But acknowledgement is problematic now that Trump is the one acting as his predecessors did.

The Saudi bombing and blockade of Yemen has resulted in starvation and a cholera epidemic. The corporate media and their talking heads ignored the crime as long as Barack Obama was in the White House. Now the same forces who hid the carnage beginning in 2015 behave as if the new president bears responsibility when Obama gave the green light.

A New York Times editorial is an example of the official propaganda scheme. Entitled “Will President Trump Help Save Yemen,” the editorial excoriated Trump for doing nothing more than what Obama had done. There was no mention of the former president’s support, in fact the Times gave the impression that he somehow opposed a policy he had carried out.

The New York Times is not alone in trying to make observant people disbelieve their lying eyes. Obama UN ambassador Samantha Power is also part of the amnesiac brigade. In a twitter post she responded to Trump administration boasting about the arms sale. “For a country whose attacks on civilians in Yemen — and inability to learn from mistakes — have been devastating to human life.” Fortunately, social media is a two way street and her obvious attempt at changing history was called into question by angry readers.

So concerned are the elites and their friends around the world that they won’t let Obama go. Defending the prerogatives of the ruling classes is a permanent position after all. That is why Obama was invited months ago to give a speech in Berlin with Angela Merkel by his side. The obvious goal of the photo opportunity was to help Merkel’s election campaign. Now an Obama visit may also undermine any foreign policy changes Trump may contemplate. Trump’s message of America first throws the imperial project into jeopardy and causes panic among current and former leaders.

The corporate media and foreign governments don’t care about the damage Trump is doing domestically. The ICE raids, emboldened racism, voter suppression and cuts to government programs don’t concern them. But Trump’s victory already killed the TPP trade deal. His white America first philosophy leaves less room for NATO machinations and imperial imperatives.

Trump literally shoved the president of Montenegro aside at the NATO summit. The juvenile alpha male move was ironic for several reasons. Tiny Montenegro has been pushed into NATO against the wishes of many of its people. But NATO is determined to expand because Russia is the last country capable of saying no to America’s whims and its determination to run the whole world.

Trump’s understanding of European foreign policy consists of worrying about how much America contributes towards NATO funding vis a vis other nations. He is a businessman after all and sees no reason to pay more than the next guy. This nationalistic impulse creates huge problems for the elites, who had no intention of giving up on their grand schemes of control backed by American muscle.

Trump’s non-commitment to NATO’s Article 5 may have done the world a huge favor. Article 5 makes every member nation responsible for the defense of the others. NATO assists in every act of aggression that the United States cooks up and that is one of the reasons the elites want Trump gone. The American/NATO effort to tear Yugoslavia apart included the bombing of Montenegro. Trump’s wrong headed impulse reveals some important truths about the state of the world.

And that is why Obama will keep showing up for his friends. He is still working for the western oligarchs who want the system to keep running as it has done. No one should worry about Merkel’s lament that Europe can’t count on the United States. Trump’s boorish behavior is a lot less dangerous than the trans Atlantic alliance of war making.

Of course Obama acolytes are lying about his relationship with Saudi Arabia. American presidents always genuflect to their partner in crime. The Saudis have aided in the destruction of much of that region but those facts are inconvenient. Obama’s second act won’t work unless some very big lies are served up.

Margaret Kimberley can be reached via e-Mail at Margaret.Kimberley(at)BlackAgendaReport.com.

May 31, 2017 Posted by | Militarism, Progressive Hypocrite, Timeless or most popular | , , , , , | Leave a comment

South Korea military brass deliberately kept president in dark about THAAD: Probe

Press TV – May 31, 2017

A South Korean presidential probe into the “unauthorized” US deployment of additional missile launchers in South Korea has found that the Asian country’s own military authorities had deliberately withheld the information from the new president.

The office of the newly-elected President Moon Jae-in announced on Wednesday that documents submitted to the chief executive shortly after he was sworn into office earlier this month were intentionally censored to conceal information on the installment of four new rocket launchers of the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system.

Moon’s spokesman, Yoon Young-chan, said the country’s top military brass who briefed the president’s national security adviser last week deliberately excised references to any new launchers, or to the total number installed in the country.

“These parts… were included in the original briefing report written by a working-level official but later deleted by his supervisors,” Yoon added in a press briefing.

He said all military officials involved in generating the report admitted that these key parts had been removed from the text in the editing process.

Seoul agreed last year to install the US-built missile system to guard against potential threats from nuclear-armed North Korea.Two missile launchers were already deployed in South Korea’s southern county of Seongju, and the existence of four more had been widely suspected but never declared.

Yoon said Defense Minister Han Min-koo finally admitted to the presence of the new missile launchers when pressed by Moon in a telephone conversation on Tuesday.

Moon expressed “shock” on Tuesday after hearing about the existence of the additional launchers and directed his senior secretary for civil affair and the head of National Security Office “to find the truth behind the unauthorized entry of the four rocket launchers,” according to Yoon.

Han was appointed by former president Park Geun-hye, who was ousted for her alleged involvement in a massive corruption scandal.

The new launchers arrived in South Korea before Moon took office on May 10 and are currently stored at a US military base in the country, Moon’s office added, without further explanation.

No specific reason was offered as to why the information had been withheld from the South Korean president by the country’s military chiefs. The new president had previously expressed reservations about THAAD’s hasty deployment.

The conservative government of Park approved the installation of the US missile system despite strong objections nationally and internationally — mainly from Russia, China, and North Korea.

Moon, meanwhile, reportedly intends to put the deployment on hold, saying that it should be discussed and approved by lawmakers before being fully rolled out.

The US maintains nearly 29,000 military servicemen stationed in South Korea.

May 31, 2017 Posted by | Illegal Occupation, Militarism | , | Leave a comment

US Missile Defense Shield Still Proves Elusive Despite Pacific Intercept Test

Sputnik | 31.05.2017

On Tuesday, the US Air Force successfully intercepted an intercontinental ballistic missile target over the Pacific Ocean during a test of the Ground-based Midcourse Defense (GMD) system, the Missile Defense Agency (MDA) said in a press release. US officials, however, will continue to evaluate the GMD’s performance based upon telemetry and other data acquired during the test, the release added.

“We have been told repeatedly since the 1950s that a successful missile defense is just around the corner,” Professor of neuroscience and political commentator John Walsh told Sputnik. “And it was true each time, because each time Raytheon and others made a bundle from it.”

However, that was the only kind of “success” that was ever achieved, Walsh recalled.

“Since no ‘missile defense’ will ever be perfect, how many cities is a president willing to give up if he starts a nuclear war?” he asked.

Even a relatively small and marginally effective nuclear armed missile was too risky to attack in any attempt at any preemptive strike, Walsh observed.

“But even if our presidents sensibly restrain themselves, something that I doubt… there can be accidents and our hubris may yet wipe us out,” he cautioned.

University of Pittsburgh Professor of International Relations Michael Brenner told Sputnik that no ballistic missile defense system anywhere could guarantee certain defense against even a handful of intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) armed with nuclear or thermonuclear warheads.

“Ever since Ballistic Missile Defense (BMD) first was thought about seriously in the 1960s, it could not counter one cardinal truth. No one will ever launch nuclear weapons in the uncertain belief/hope that they have come up with a way to defend themselves 100 percent against retaliation,” Brenner claimed.

However, as a corollary, no one would cavalierly do something that could lead to nuclear exchanges, Brenner acknowledged.

The US armed forces announced that its interceptor rocket launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California struck the warhead which was fired from a US site in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.

The latest test comes at a time of increasing tension between the United States and North Korea, which US defense officials say is making rapid progress toward developing an intercontinental ballistic missile.

May 31, 2017 Posted by | Militarism, Timeless or most popular | | Leave a comment

Vladimir Putin BLASTS the US deep state

By Adam Garrie | The Duran | May 31, 2017

Russian President Vladimir Putin has given an interview with France’s Le Figaro in which he said that Russia had “no special expectations” about the election of US President Donald Trump.

Putin then described how a US President can often have his ideals totally crushed by what is known as the deep state upon entering the White House. Putin likened Trump’s inability to implement his desire to change US policy towards Russia with Barack Obama’s failure to shut down the still operational Guantanamo Bay prison camp in spite of campaigning on the pledge to shut it down.

Putin stated,

“When a person is elected, they may have some ideas. Then people with briefcases arrive, well dressed, wearing dark suits… These people start explaining how things are done. And instantly, everything changes”.

Putin told the French media outlet that the situation of a President being constrained by the existing deep state power structure is uniquely American stating,

“Can you imagine France or Russia acting this way? This would have been a disaster. But it is possible in the United States and continues to this day”.

Of course, France doesn’t need a domestic deep state to constrain its elected leaders, that’s what NATO and the EU is for, something Putin implied during his press conference with French President Emmanuel Macron.

President Putin did however express continued signs of optimism when it comes to Trump the man, as opposed to Trump the leader compromised by the US deep state. Putin said that he appreciated Trump’s “pragmatic and understandable approach” to NATO and also stated that, “… I am cautiously optimistic, and I think that we can and should be able to reach agreements on key issues”.

Putin then turned to the continued Russiagate fiasco saying

“As President Trump once said, and I think that he was totally right when he said it could have been someone sitting on their bed or somebody intentionally inserted a flash drive with the name of a Russian national, or something like that”.

Putin then turned to Trump’s opponents, echoing Trump’s words that the entire ‘Russian hacking’ allegations stem from the Democrats’ inability to admit that they ran a disastrous campaign,

“They are absolutely reluctant to admit this, and prefer deluding themselves and others into thinking it was not their fault, that their policy was correct, they did all the right things, but someone from the outside thwarted them. But it was not so. They just lost and they have to admit it”.

Putin said the simple fact is that Trump was “closer to the people and better understood what ordinary voters want”, something Putin ought to understand as he has won many more elections than Hillary Clinton ever has done.

Putin lamented the fact that the Russiagate domestic scandal in the US has created a harmful international relations environment but ended on a more circumspect note, saying,

“But it will pass, everything passes and this will pass as well”.

May 31, 2017 Posted by | Militarism, Timeless or most popular | , , , , | Leave a comment

Russia Destroys Nearly 99% of Chemical Weapon Stockpile Under CWC – Official

Sputnik – 30.05.2017

MOSCOW – Russia has destroyed nearly 99 percent of its chemical weapon stockpile over the past 20 years, the head of the Russian Ministry of Industry’s Department of Conventional Obligations Realization and Trade said on Tuesday.

“As of May 29, there are 588 tonnes of poisonous substances left at a facility in the Udmurtian Republic, which is 1.4 percent of the previous stockpiles,” the official told the Russian Federation Council’s Defense Committee, adding that 20 years ago the chemical weapons arsenal amounted to 40,000 tonnes.

According to Victor Ozerov, the chairman of the Federation Council’s Committee on Defense and Security, Russia complies in full with its international obligations in this sphere.

In 1997, Russia joined the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC), in accordance with which the destruction of its chemical weapons stockpiles should be completed by December 31, 2018.

May 30, 2017 Posted by | Environmentalism, Militarism | | Leave a comment

South Korea’s new leader orders probe into ‘unauthorized’ US deployment

Press TV – May 30, 2017

South Korea’s new President Moon Jae-in has ordered an investigation into the “unauthorized” deployment of four additional THAAD missile launchers by the United States to the country’s soil.

Presidential spokesman Yoon Young-chan said Moon was “shocked” to hear that the four additional launchers of the so-called Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) missile system were installed without being reported to the new government or to the public.

“President Moon was briefed on such facts by National Security Office (NSO) chief Chung Eui-yong and said it was very shocking,” the spokesman told a news briefing on Tuesday.

The system was initially deployed to South Korea in March with just two of its maximum load of six launchers with the declared aim of countering North Korean threats.

The South Korean official further said the president had “ordered his senior secretary for civil affairs and the NSO chief to find the truth behind the unauthorized entry of the four rocket launchers.”

The deployment of THAAD, which came amid tensions with North Korea, was met with strong opposition from people in South Korea, including the residents of Seongju County, where the missile system is installed.

The installation was agreed by the government of Moon’s predecessor Park ­Geun-hye, who was impeached and ousted over a corruption scandal.

During his election campaign prior to the May 9 election, Moon had urged a parliamentary review of the controversial deployment, which has angered Pyongyang.

Russia and China have also expressed deep concern over the controversial deployment of the American missile system on the Korean Peninsula.

Chinese officials argue that the US system would interfere with their radars and could pose a threat to Chinese security.

Moscow has also warned that the deployment would only fuel tensions in the region.

May 30, 2017 Posted by | Illegal Occupation, Militarism | , , , , | Leave a comment

Japan wants US parachute drills grounded amid Okinawa anger

RT | May 30, 2017

Japan is opposed to a two-day parachuting drill that the US plans to conduct near the Kadena Air Base in Okinawa. Local residents have protested such drills in the past, and this would be the third in two months.

Japanese Defense Minister Tomomi Inada said the US military failed to notify the Japanese authorities seven days ahead of the exercise, as they are supposed to. In fact, Japan learned of the Americans’ plans from a Notice to Airmen (NOTAM) filed with the aviation authorities, which is meant to keep civilian aircraft out of airspace where US military planes are flying during the exercise, NHK reported.

“We asked [the Americans] not to conduct the training and to delete the NOTAM. So far we have not received a response from the US site,” Inada told reporters on Tuesday after a cabinet meeting.

The parachuting exercises, which are planned for Wednesday and Thursday, would be conducted off the coast of the city of Uruma. Similar drills were conducted off the Kadena Airbase on the night of May 10 and on April 24.

The previous two drills sparked protest among Okinawans, who have not seen such exercises since 2011. After the second training, Deputy Okinawa Governor Moritake Tomikawa filed a protest with Japan’s Defense Ministry, expressing outrage and saying that such exercises cannot become routine.

Defense Minister Inada called the US move “regrettable,” saying the US should observe a 1996 bilateral agreement under which parachuting exercises should be conducted on the remote island of Iejima, off Okinawa’s main island, with the Kadena base used only as an exception.

“The United States did not offer sufficient explanation on why the exercise conducted (Wednesday) amounted to an exceptional case,” Inada said at a regular news conference. “It is extremely deplorable that it took place at Kadena Air Base without Japan and the United States able to share the same perception in advance,” she stressed.

The Kadena Airbase is one of several US military installations on Okinawa, a southern Japanese island that hosts some 70 percent of the US troops in Japan and is home to some 20,000 US service members, contractors, and their families.

During a parachuting drill in 1965, a trailer airdropped into a local village inadvertently landed on a schoolgirl, killing her.

The protest over the latest planned drill comes a day after Okinawa police arrested a US airman assigned to the Kadena base following a drunk hit-and-run. Staff Sergeant Miguel Angel Garza allegedly hit a car on Monday and fled the scene. The female driver of the second vehicle sustained minor injuries, Japanese authorities said.

May 30, 2017 Posted by | Illegal Occupation, Militarism | , , | Leave a comment

Things that Saudis can’t buy off

By M K Bhadrakumar | Indian Punchline | May 29, 2017

There is something obscene about anyone who held high positions in the government – for example, an Ambassador or an Army Chief – taking up a post-retirement job as employee of a foreign government. Pakistan’s former army chief General Raheel Sharif should not have accepted the offer made by Saudi king Salman to appoint him as the head of a newly-formed Islamic Military Alliance.

It is common sense that the assignment would effectively make the Pakistani general a vassal of the House of Saud. What was the need for it? A Pakistani general is almost certainly a very wealthy man who really doesn’t need more money. And if Gen. Sharif had an insatiable itch to continue to fight terrorism till the end of his life, Pakistan itself provided ample opportunities.

Why Saudi Arabia? The only plausible answer is — avarice. The Saudis’ capacity to lure foreign elites is a legion. According to reports, Salman gave away to US President Donald Trump personal gifts alone worth $1.2 billion. One heavy sword made of pure gold and studded with diamond stones weighing 25 kilograms alone was worth $200 million. Then, there is this 125 meter long yacht, which is apparently the world’s tallest personal yacht, with 80 rooms with 20 royal suites.

Maybe, the yacht is useful for Trump’s escapades, but what will he do with a 25 kg sword? Obviously, Salman was bribing Trump. As quid pro quo, Salman probably expects Trump to close the file on the 9/11 attacks and drop the idea of seeking compensation for the victims’ families under the US legislation known as Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act.

Of course, Saudis do not have to give away such lavish gifts to the elites in Pakistan (or India.) A Mont Blanc ballpoint pen, Rolex wrist watch, an odd job for the nephew or son-in-law – that generally does the trick. To be sure, by Pakistani standards, Gen. Sharif must be getting a fat salary.

However, the amazing part is that the Pakistani government gave him an exceptional ‘No Objection Certificate’ to take up such an assignment. The Pakistani leadership would have known that the Saudis had a certain agenda in creating the Islamic Military Alliance. The Saudi intention is to rally Sunni Muslim countries and create a phalanx against Shi’ite Iran. No matter the gloss put on the IMA being an anti-terror enterprise, the alliance’s Iran orientation was crystal clear.

The Pakistani press reported that Iran’s ambassador in Islamabad Mehdi Honardoost called on army chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa in Rawalpindi twice during the month of April alone to convey Tehran’s disquiet over Sharif’s appointment. But the government remained impassive.

The birds are now coming to roost. One outcome of Trump’s visit to Riyadh last week is that the Islamic Military Alliance now stands pretty naked as a Sunni Muslim alliance to fight Iran. Not only that, the alliance will fight Iran in secret collaboration with Israel. The Saudi Deputy Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman has bragged in a media interview, “We will not wait for the war to be waged on Saudi soil. We will make sure that the war is waged in Iran and not in Saudi Arabia.”

Now, this is all spinning out of control. Imagine Gen. Sharif landing the IMA troops in Badar-e Bushehr and leading the charge of the light brigade to Shiraz and Esfahan and on to Tehran to overthrow the Iranian regime.  Therefore, it is not at all surprising that Gen. Sharif is reportedly developing cold feet and is contemplating to resign from his job and return to Pakistan.

Even if that is not the case, Pakistani leadership should order him to return home. It will be extremely damaging to Pakistan’s interests any which way one looks at it, if it gets entangled in the Saudi-Iranian tensions. As the African proverb says, ‘When elephants fight, it is the grass that gets hurt’.

The really bizarre part of it is that Trump’s rhetoric about Iran is all baloney. Trump is a bluff master. He will now walk away laughing with the sword and the yacht. Read a report in the New York Times – As Iran and U.S. Leaders Trade Barbs, Big Deals Proceed.

May 30, 2017 Posted by | Corruption, Militarism | , , , , | Leave a comment

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