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Examples of U.S. Foreign Policy Dysfunction

By Rick Sterling | Dissident Voice | October 27, 2015

If the U.S. is to ever change its foreign policy based on dominance and aggression to a foreign policy based on diplomacy and respect for international law, there needs to be a foundation of realistic assessments. Foreign policy decisions need to be based on reality not fantasy and propaganda.

Unfortunately, dysfunction, deception and propaganda extend across the spectrum from Congressional Republicans to Hillary Clinton to the White House to Bernie Sanders. The following are recent examples:

Benghazi Hearings in Congress ignore important issues to focus on superficial

Congress recently held hearings on what happened in Benghazi Libya leading up to the death of Ambassador Stevens. The hearings focussed on what former Secy of State Clinton knew, when she knew it and whether she should have ordered more security. Before that, millions were spent exploring the email home server issue.

Meanwhile the root cause of Stevens’ death and consequences of the US/NATO overthrow of the Gaddafi government have been ignored. The hearings were silent on the deaths of tens of thousands of Libyans, the eruption and expansion of terrorism within Libya and beyond and the massive numbers of refugees fleeing across the Meditarranean. Instead of evaluating the consequences of “regime change” in Libya, Congressional members focused on cheap political advantage.  Mainstream media said nothing about the shallowness of the hearings; they were happy to report on political maneuvering and whether or not Clinton would lose her temper or be able to get “above the fray”.

Points which would have been informative to explore include:

  • Were the claims of imminent ‘massacre’ in Benghazi exaggerated and largely false? These claims paved the way to the UN Security Council resolution and NATO imposed No Fly Zone. Was it a fake emergency?
  • Who authorized the transition from “protecting civilians” to a campaign of attack and Libyan government overthrow? UN Security Council members China and Russia both say there were deceived and that the US and NATO violated the UN Security Council resolution.

Politicians and much of the media have portrayed Gaddafi as “crazy” for many years. For readers interested in a reality check, see the short video of Gaddafi’s speech to the Arab League in 2008 as he points out the contradictions of acknowledging Israel on the 1967 boundary, as he warns the Arab League leaders of plots and coups, and as he says “we might be next” (for assassination).  For a concise contrast of Libya before and after the NATO backed invasion see this article aptly titled “From Africa’s wealthiest democracy under Gaddafi to Terrorist Haven after US Intervention”.

Clinton advocates No Fly Zone for Syria despite U.S. military opposition and Turkey turning against it.

U.S. military leadership has generally opposed the “no fly zone” idea.  They have made clear that a “no fly zone” begins with military attacks on anti-aircraft positions and is an act of war. They have underscored that imposing such a zone in Syria would be vastly more difficult than in Libya where there were no sophisticated anti-aircraft installations. Even then it took seven months of intense bombing to overthrow the Tripoli government. The risks in Syria would be huge with a significant chance of international war. The idea is reckless and irresponsible for the following reasons:

  • The areas are controlled by armed opposition groups, predominately Jabhat al Nusra (Al Qaeda). Very few civilians remain in the areas proposed for NFZ in Syria. Most have fled to areas under Syrian government control, especially around Latakia and Tartous. Other have gone to Turkey. The proposal is basically to make US and NATO the air force for Al Qaeda. Amazing.
  • If it was imposed, the No Fly Zone would more likely become an “intense conflict zone” rather than a “safe zone” as promoted by interventionists.  It would bring USA and NATO directly into the conflict which is what the proponents want.
  • There already exists a “safe zone”. It’s called the Turkish border.

Of crucial importance, the second Turkish Parliamentary elections are this coming Sunday November 1. Polls indicate the ruling “Justice and Develpment Party” (AKP) will probably lose majority control of the parliament. It’s possible they will lose power altogether. Either way, this will put a stop to the schemes for an all powerful Turkish President (Erdogan) and continuation of the war on Syria. All three non-AKP parties in Turkey oppose the current policies supporting war and terrorism in Syria.

Clinton’s NFZ proposal is opportunistic and out of step with reality in Syria and Turkey.

White House continues anti-Assad lies as they are further exposed in Turkey

The White House must know very well that Assad government forces did NOT carry out a chemical weapons attack on the outskirts of Damascus in August 2013. They must be acutely aware of this because they could not get the U.S. Intelligence to agree with the statement that Assad was behind the atrocity back in Fall 2013.  Instead of the usual “U.S. Intelligence assesses with high confidence …..” they had to substitute the “US Government assesses …..” Although rarely remarked or noted in mainstream media, this was a significant deviation.

Despite this, and the investigations of the most acclaimed US investigative journalists (Seymour Hersh, Robert Parry, Gareth Porter, Russel Baker) which all point to the Assad government NOT being responsible, just a couple weeks ago the White House spokesman asserted the Assad government “used chemical weapons against his own people”.

Meanwhile last week in Turkey two deputies of the social democratic party CHP held a press conference to expose the evidence of Turkish involvement in shipping sarin to Syria and the refusal of the Erdogan government to pursue the investigation or charge the culprits.

This evidence, including wire taps, supports the conclusions of Hersh and others, that the chemical weapons used in Damascus on August 21, 2013 were supplied by Turkey to armed “rebels”. This further exposes the fact free propaganda that “Assad used chemical weapons on his own people”. Politicians and mainstream media outlets such as PBS Frontline just keep repeating it.

Bernie Sanders joins the absurd propaganda campaign against Venezuela and former leader Hugo Chavez

As recently reported at Venezuelanalysis, Bernie Sanders referred to former Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez as a “dead communist dictator”.  It’s nonsense, just like the White House claim that Venezuela is a “threat to US national interests”. It’s sad that Sanders is following that path.  Chavez was a socialist not communist; he was a member and leader of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela.  Between 1998 and 2013 Chavez and the PUSV competed in elections seventeen times.  They won every time except once. Elections in Venezuela are vastly more free and fair than elections in the US. They have high turnout, they have very active and hard campaigning, there is a paper trail to verify the accuracy of the electronic voting, over 50% of the electronic votes are matched to the paper votes to confirm the accuracy of the vote counting.

National Lawyers Guild and Task Force on the Americas (and others) have sent many delegations to Venezuela. They have observed conditions including the voting process. National Lawyers Guild’s statement on the 2013 election concluded the Venezuelan elections were “well organized, fair and transparent”.  They added: “The U.S. would do well to incorporate some of the security checks and practices that are routine in Venezuela to improve both the level of participation and the credibility of our elections,” said NLG attorney Robin Alexander.

So why in the world is Bernie Sanders promoting false propaganda that Chavez was a “communist dictator”?

Task Force on the Americas, based in the SF Bay Area, has written a letter to the Sanders campaign asking him to review and correct his inaccurate statement.

Conclusion

There is profound need for dramatic changes in U.S. foreign policy. Given that over 55% of the discretionary budget of the U.S. goes to the military, it’s likely that positive changes in domestic policy will depend on changes in foreign policy. The starting point has to be realistic assessments of conditions in other countries, sincere examinations of the consequences of past actions and a genuine commitment to abiding by international law.  As we can see from the above examples, there is a long way to go.

Rick Sterling is a retired engineer and co-founder of Syria Solidarity Movement. He can be emailed at: rsterling1@gmail.com.

October 28, 2015 Posted by | Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Militarism, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

Hypersonic deterrence: how to maintain strategic balance

By Vladimir KOZIN | Oriental Review | October 27, 2015

It is unlikely that nuclear weapons, which the US created in the mid-twentieth century and used only once – to bomb Japanese cities – will ever be activated in a global conflict. We can assume that the leaders of the official Western nuclear powers (the UK, US, and France) as well as the other states that actually possess such weapons (India, Israel, North Korea, and Pakistan) will continue to base the conceptual foundation of their military strategy on this incontestable truism: “a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought.” Russia’s current military and political leaders agree with this self-evident observation. In his Oct. 22 speech in Sochi before the Valdai Club, an international discussion group, President Vladimir Putin echoed these sentiments: “The development of nuclear weapons has made it clear that there can be no winners in a global conflict.”

Unlike nuclear weapons, which are “tools of extreme impact,” Long-Range Hypersonic High-Precision Weapons (or Advanced Hypersonic Weapons – AHW in US terminology) are ready for use in any scenario, including as part of counter-terror operations. AHW do not cause unnecessary civilian casualties and do not inflict significant material damage to civil transportation systems, power plants, or other infrastructure beyond the small affected area.

Russia has been developing its own promising prototypes of AHW in the numbers deemed necessary to bolster its own security, in response to both America’s functional rollout of Prompt Global Strike, an ambitious program to deploy a global, layered missile-defense system, as well as the Pentagon’s modernization of its strategic and tactical nuclear weapons.

There have already been calls for an international moratorium on R&D and testing of AHW. Despite the fact that this idea appears somewhat utopian, it is quite feasible that at some future date quantitative limits could be introduced on types of AHW and the regions where they could be positioned, but only if the following six key preconditions are met:

1) Any future AHW agreement must be grounded in the principle of equality and equivalent security for all signatory states and must ensure the creation of a system of multilateral, strategic-deterrence treaties.

2) Signatories to such an agreement must agree to respect the mutual commitment not to use AHW against each other under any circumstances.

3) Before such a treaty goes into effect, all nuclear powers must agree to respect the reciprocal obligation to either refrain from inflicting a nuclear first strike against each other or not to use such weapons at all, and also to renounce the use of weapons of any kind against manned or unmanned spacecraft, and these promises would be formalized through legally binding, international covenants.

4) All states possessing nuclear weapons, whether officially or factually, must commit themselves to move toward the use of defensive strategies and unconditional nuclear deterrence that threatens no one.

5) States deploying missile-defense systems and tactical nuclear weapons within the borders of other states, must dismantle the installations of this type currently being designed or constructed, before reaching an agreement on limiting AHW, and America must also pull all of its tactical nuclear weapons out of Europe and the Asia Pacific region, deploying them only within the borders of the continental US.

6) This agreement must be formalized through a legally binding international treaty that is both versatile and inclusive – in the sense that it includes provisions allowing any other state to join it – and its validity should be of indefinite duration.

Unfortunately, any type of Agreement on Quantitative and Territorial Constraints on the Deployment of AHW would hardly be reached shortly, given the context of America’s updated National Security Strategy (February 2015), which six times refers to Russia an “aggressor,” as well as the identification of Russia and China (here, here, and here) as her first and second, respectively, biggest potential adversaries in the American playbook for the use of strategic nuclear weapons. The Pentagon still adheres to a doctrine that calls for inflicting initial “preemptive and preventative” nuclear strikes against an enemy, and it keeps a longer list of potential targets for an initial nuclear strike than any other state. Another important point to consider is the multifold increase in NATO’s military activity near Russia’s borders during last two years.

In other words, without a radical change by Washington and its NATO allies in their negative and even hostile stance toward Russia and China, the idea that any sort of mutually acceptable agreement could be reached to limit or control AHWs is simply unrealistic and should be put off until a “better time.”

Vladimir Kozin is Head of Advisers’ Group at the Russian Institute for Strategic Studies, Member of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences and Professor of the Academy of Military Sciences of the Russian Federation.

October 28, 2015 Posted by | Militarism, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

Tokyo orders work to start on Okinawa US base, despite governor’s opposition

RT | October 28, 2015

Japan’s Defense Ministry says it will restart work on a land reclamation project, which is vital for a proposed US military base on the site. This is likely to infuriate the local Okinawa prefectural government, who are deeply against the move.

Work is planned to start on Thursday and will create storage space needed to start the landfill work. The Okinawa Defense Bureau will also continue a seabed drilling survey off the coast of Henoko, where an alternative US base could be built.

“An administrative decision to start the landfill work has already been made,” said Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga on Wednesday, as cited by the Japan Times.

The Okinawa government says it refuses to accept the notice and has asked the bureau to consult with them before starting the landfill work. Tokyo says these talks have already finished.

On October 13, Okinawa Governor Takeshi Onaga revoked permission granted for the construction of a new US military base to host the US Marine Corps, following their relocation from the Futenma Air Station from the heavily populated city of Ginowan.

“I will continue to do everything in my power to fulfill my campaign pledge of not allowing the construction of a new base at Henoko,” Onaga said, according to the Asahi Shimbun.

However Onaga appears to have been outflanked. Land Minister Keiichi Ishii suspended the landfill approval cancelation on Tuesday, while Tokyo said it would now be giving itself permission to carry out the work and sideline the governor.

The Land Ministry asked Onaga to withdraw his cancelation of the landfill approval by November 6, the Japan Times reports.

“This is like an ultimatum from the government,” Onaga told a news conference on Tuesday. “It’s not just unfair but also insulting to many people in the prefecture. It’s absolutely unacceptable.”

The previous Okinawa governor, Hirokazu Nakaima, gave the green light for the relocation of the base in 2013. However, after Onaga won the elections in 2014, he promised to oppose the plan – to the delight of the majority of locals.

There has been tension for years between the local population and US servicemen. This dates back to a notorious crime committed in 1995 when three US marines kidnapped and raped a 12-year-old schoolgirl.

There have also been less-publicized sex crime cases involving underage victims reported in 2001 and 2005, the fatal running over of a female high school student by a drunken US marine in 1998, and other incidents.

Okinawa, home to about one percent of Japan’s population, hosts nearly half of the 47,000 US troops based in Japan.

October 28, 2015 Posted by | Illegal Occupation, Militarism | , , , | Leave a comment

Trident trap: Replacement of UK’s nuclear subs ‘to cost £167 billion, exceeding all expectations’

RT | October 25, 2015

The overall cost of replacing and maintaining Britain’s nuclear submarine fleet will reach 167 billion pounds ($256 billion), far exceeding initial expectations, Cameron’s Conservative party lawmakers told Reuters.

The final decision on replacing the UK’s four aging nuclear subs is due to be made in 2016, with Prime Minister David Cameron being a strong backer of continuing the country’s at-sea nuclear deterrent.

The British government had said earlier that the purchase of new Vanguard-class vessels, which are capable of carrying Trident missiles, would require around 15-20 billion pounds, without specifying estimated maintenance costs.

However, Minister of State for Defense Procurement Philip Dunne said on Friday that the price tag for the state-of-the-art submarines will come in at around 25 billion pounds.

The new figures were revealed in Dunne’s written parliamentary response to fellow Conservative party lawmaker Crispin Blunt’s request.

According to the response, the in-service costs would amount to about 6 percent of the annual defense budget, which now stands at around 34 billion pounds, over the vessels’ lifetime.

Blunt used the data provided by the Defense Ministry to calculate the total cost of the project, which he said will be “167 billion pounds.”

“My office’s calculation based on an in-service date of 2028 and a missile extension until 2060,” the MP told Reuters.

“The successor Trident program is going to consume more than double the proportion of the defense budget of its predecessor… The price required, both from the UK taxpayer and our conventional forces, is now too high to be rational or sensible,” Blunt stressed.

The lawmaker’s figure was based on the presumption that the UK will spend 2 percent of its annual GDP on defense, as Cameron has promised, and a forecast that the country’s GDP will grow 2.48 percent on average every year between 2020 and 2060.

Reuters said that they had repeated the calculations using the same numbers and conditions and also come to the same result – 167 billion pounds.

The Defense Ministry defended the rise in cost, saying that there was no alternative to the Trident-based nuclear deterrent in terms of both price and capability.

“At around 6 percent of the annual defense budget, the in-service costs of the UK’s national deterrent … are affordable and represent an investment in a capability which plays an important role in ensuring the UK’s national security,” the ministry stressed.

However, there is strong opposition to prolonging the Trident program in Britain, with critics suggesting that the money would better spent on families facing austerity.

The main Labour Party remains split on the issue, as its new leader, Jeremy Corbyn, doesn’t share the majority’s support for replacing the nuclear subs.

In late-September, Corbyn said he was “opposed to using nuclear weapons” and wouldn’t use the Trident system even if it was at his disposal.

The leader of the Scottish Nationalist Party (SNP), Nicola Sturgeon, has said that the renewal of Trident “is unjustified. It is unaffordable. It is immoral.”

READ MORE: ‘Get rid of Trident or back Tory WMD’: SNP calls on Scottish Labour ‘to be straight with people’

“Be in no doubt. The SNP will stand against Trident – today, tomorrow and always,” Sturgeon promised at the party’s conference earlier this month.

Last year, a poll by the Guardian newspaper revealed that 79 percent of British voters believe that UK shouldn’t renew its Trident program.

October 25, 2015 Posted by | Economics, Militarism | | Leave a comment

Veto Corleone Already in White House

By David Swanson | War Is A Crime | October 23, 2015

President Barack Obama has vetoed a military authorization bill. Why would he do such a thing?

Was it because dumping $612 billion into a criminal enterprise just finally struck him as too grotesque?

Nope.

Was it because he grew ashamed of holding the record for highest average annual military spending since World War II, not even counting Homeland Security Department or military spending by the State Department, the Energy Department, the Veterans Administration, interest on debt, etc.?

Nope. That would be crazy in a world where pretense is everything and the media has got everyone believing that military spending has gone down.

Was it because the disastrous war on Afghanistan gets more funding?

Nope.

The disastrous war on Iraq and Syria?

Nope.

The monstrous drone wars murdering 1 vaguely identified person for every 9 innocents slaughtered?

You kidding?

Oh, I’ve got it. Was it because building newer, bigger, and smaller more “usable” nuclear weapons is just too insane?

Um, nope. Nice guess, though.

Well what was it?

One reason that the President provided in his veto statement was that the bill doesn’t allow him to “close” Guantanamo by moving it — remember that prison still full of people whom he, the President, chooses to keep there despite their having been cleared for release?

Another reason: Obama wants more money in the standard budget and less in his slush fund for the War on the Middle East, which he renamed Overseas Contingency Operations. Obama’s language suggests that he wants the base budget increased by more than he wants the slush fund reduced by. The slush fund got a piddley little $38 billion in the vetoed bill. Yet the standard budget is deemed so deficient by Obama that, according to him, it “threatens the readiness and capabilities of our military and fails to provide the support our men and women in uniform deserve.” For real? Can you name a man or woman in uniform who would receive a dime if you jumped the funding of the most expensive military in the history of the known universe by another $100 billion? The President also complains that the bill he’s vetoed did not allow him to “slow growth in compensation.”

Another reason: Obama is worried that if you leave limits in place on military spending in the “Defense” Department, that will mean too little military spending in other departments as well: “The decision reflected in this bill to circumvent rather than reverse sequestration further harms our national security by locking in unacceptable funding cuts for crucial national security activities carried out by non-defense agencies.”

Hope and Change, people! Here’s a full list of the areas in which Senator Bernie Sanders has expressed disagreement with President Obama’s preferences on military spending:

 

 

 

 

 

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October 25, 2015 Posted by | Militarism, Progressive Hypocrite | , , , | Leave a comment

Portugal’s President Won’t Allow Leftists to Form a Government

teleSUR – October 23, 2015

Portuguese President Anibal Cavaco Silva said he will not allow a coalition of leftist parties to form a government despite the fact that they won an outright majority in parliamentary elections held earlier this month.

The president said Thursday that he gave conservative Prime Minister Pedro Passos Coelho the mandate to form a minority government that will fall in line with the policy of austerity imposed by the European Union and the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

“In 40 years of democracy, no government in Portugal has ever depended on the support of anti-European forces, that is to say forces that campaigned to abrogate the Lisbon Treaty, the Fiscal Compact, the Growth and Stability Pact, as well as to dismantle monetary union and take Portugal out of the euro, in addition to wanting the dissolution of NATO,” said President Cavaco Silva.

He argued that it was too risky to let the Left Bloc or the Communists come close to power, saying the country’s right wing would protect austerity measures the left had threatened to overturn.

The decision outraged Left Bloc leader Antonio Costa, who called the president’s action a “grave mistake” that threatened the country’s stability. “It is unacceptable to usurp the exclusive powers of parliament,” he said. “The Socialists will not take lessons from professor Cavaco Silva on the defense of our democracy.”

Parties in the Left Bloc ran an anti-austerity campaign than won them more than 50 percent of the vote in the Oct. 4 elections. Coelho’s coalition won only 38 percent of the vote, not enough to form a single-party government. That prompted the leftist parties to form a coalition, allowing it to gain an outright majority that would, in theory, permit it to form a government.

Cavaco Silva said it was now up to lawmakers in parliament to decide on the new government’s program, which must be presented in 10 days. If it is rejected in parliament, the government will collapse. The three-party leftist coalition vowed to reject the program as they, after all, control the legislative body, holding 122 seats out of 230.

“I give this government a week or a week and a half,” said Left Bloc lawmaker Filipe Soares. “The president will have to take the responsibility for the instability that will be created by this decision.”

Critics portrayed the president’s move as an assault on democracy.

“Democracy must take second place to the higher imperative of euro rules and membership,” wrote Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, International Business Editor of The Daily Telegraph, a British newspaper.

Portugal returned to democracy in 1974 after nearly 50 years of authoritarianism.

October 24, 2015 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Economics, Militarism | , , , , | Leave a comment

Brookings Wants to Strengthen the Syrian Rebels by Bombing Hezbollah

By Steven MacMillan – New Eastern Outlook – 24.10.2015

Western think tanks have been working relentlessly to try and counter Russia’s geopolitical masterstroke in Syria, which has clearly taken most strategists in the West by complete surprise. Reading through the analysis by these think tanks on Russia’s role in Syria, one is starkly reminded of how immoral Western foreign policy actually is, when you remember that these organisations are freaking out because Russia is bombing terrorists! Obviously, the reason why they are so distraught is because Russia is bombing the West’s terrorists, which they have been using as proxy armies to try and force regime change in Damascus (a strategy that has completely failed).

Potential countermeasures are the subject of a recent article for the Brookings Institution written by Pavel K. Baev, a nonresident senior fellow in the Center on the United States and Europe at Brookings, titled: Russia’s Syrian entanglement: Can the West sit back and watch? Baev suggests that “the decision to withdraw the batteries of Patriot surface-to-air missiles [from Turkey] must be cancelled”,before arguing that the US and its allies could bomb “Hezbollah bands around Damascus”:

“Finally, the United States and its allies could deliver a series of airstrikes on the Hezbollah bands around Damascus. That would be less confrontational vis-à-vis Russia than hitting Assad’s forces. Hezbollah has already suffered losses in the Syrian war and is not particularly motivated to stand with Assad to the bitter end, away from [its] own home-ground in Lebanon. (Israel would appreciate such punishment, too.)”

Striking Hezbollah may not have the desired effect Baev seems to envisage however, as this belligerent action is as likely to galvanize the group and ensure it will fight “to the bitter end” with the Syrian army, than encourage it to scale back its involvement in Syria. Airstrikes on Hezbollah could also potentially provoke a response against the perpetrators of the violence, further escalating a conflict that already involves a plethora of regional and international powers. Furthermore, many people would consider an attack on Hezbollah to be essentially an attack on Iran, as the Lebanese based group is funded by Tehran and closely aligned with the country.

Brookings recommendations once again highlight the fact that large sections of the US establishment have absolutely no focus on defeating ISIS in the region, as Brookings is advocating bombing a major group that has been fighting ISIS for years now. Rather, many within the US are still focused on toppling the regime in Damascus (which is never going to happen) in addition to weakening the forces that are battling ISIS. If the West was serious about defeating ISIS, they would support and cooperate with the forces that are truly fighting against this new so-called caliphate.

TTIP is an Geoeconomic Tool against Russia

 Western strategists are terrified of Europe moving closer to the East, and an EU-Russian (especially a German-Russian) alliance arising. Merging Russia and the EU in the future is an objective of some US strategists, but Washington only desires this if both Russia and the EU are completely subservient to US dictates. Today however, Russia is a sovereign, independent nation which is not controlled by the US, and some within the EU are increasingly tiring of being vassals of Washington. This means closer relations between Russia and the EU is a geopolitical disaster for the US at the present moment, as Washington’s power will be severely diminished if this tectonic shift occurs.

By understanding this reality, it is now obvious how essential the trade deal between the US and the EU – the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) – is to US geostrategy. As well as being a corporate fascist deal that empowers multi-national corporations at the expense of citizens, TTIP is a geoeconomic weapon against Russia to cement the transatlantic alliance between the US and the EU.

Ensuring TTIP passes was a recommendation of another Western organisation that has been working on potential counter strategies to Russia, namely the Washington-based Atlantic Council (AC). In a testimony before the US Senate Armed Services Committee in Washington on October 8, 2015, Gen James L. Jones, Jr., the Chairman of the Atlantic Council’s Brent Scowcroft Center on International Security and a former National Security Advisor, Jones emphasises the importance of TTIP “successfully concluding” for the West:

“Energy security is instrumental for transatlantic growth, prosperity, and security. The same can be said of successfully concluding TTIP. Europe and the US have the largest trading partnership in the world. Strengthening it serves our mutual interests and reaffirms the centrality of the transatlantic alliance in the 21st century. TTIP also affords the U.S. a unique opportunity to author the rulebook and roadmap for 21st century advanced economies.”

Jones other recommendations include working to diversify the EU’s energy supply to “undermine Putin’s use of energy as a political weapon”, continuing to impose sanctions on Moscow, in addition to admitting Montenegro into NATO next year and working to pull Macedonia into the military alliance. The retired General also asserts that the US should provide the government in Kiev with “anti-tank missiles, intelligence support, training and counter-electronic warfare capabilities”.

Russia of course is well aware of the importance of TTIP to Washington’s long-term agenda. In Vladimir Putin’s speech at the United Nations at the end of September, Putin appeared to confront some of the US-led trade deals which we have seen being negotiated in recent years, most probably referring to TTIP and the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) (from 18.45 into the speech):

“I would like to point out another sign of a growing economic selfishness. Some countries have chosen to create closed and exclusion economic associations, with the establishment being negotiated behind the scenes in secret from those countries own citizens, the general public [and] the business community. Other states whose interests may be effected are not informed of anything either. It seems we are about to be faced with an accomplished fact that the rules of the game have been changed in favour of a narrow group of the privileged, with the WTO having no say. This could imbalance the trade system completely and disintegrate the global economic space. These issues affect the interests of all states and influence the future of the world economy as a whole.”

For a multitude of reasons, defeating TTIP would be a colossal achievement for the world. Many European’s are diametrically opposed to this deal, with hundreds of thousands protesting TTIP in Germany a recent illustration of this sentiment. Stop TTIP!

October 24, 2015 Posted by | Economics, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Militarism, Wars for Israel | , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

The Navy’s Sitting Ducks

By Tobin Harshaw | BloombergView | October 22, 2015

With Iran testing ballistic missiles, the Russian military bombing in Syria, war grinding on in Yemen and Islamic State as deadly as ever, it may seem like a very dangerous time for the U.S. to find itself without an aircraft carrier near the Persian Gulf. Actually, it’s very unlikely to be a problem, and it’s a good occasion to reconsider the Navy’s plans to build a new fleet of superexpensive “supercarriers.” […]

A Navy war game in 2002 that simulated a swarm attack by speedboats of the type Iran has in the Gulf had devastating results: 16 major warships would be destroyed, including one aircraft carrier. Anti-ship weaponry has only grown more potent since then.

These massive ships were never intended to take on jihadists and other asymmetric threats. But it’s no longer clear that they would be useful in a war against a major power such as Russia or a middling one such as Iran. The Pentagon has spent billions outfitting aircraft carriers with air defenses that are unproven, and the relatively short range of their planes –- an F/A-18 Hornet has to turn around at roughly 500 miles — leaves them vulnerable to land-based missiles that can travel twice that far. … Full article

October 23, 2015 Posted by | Economics, Militarism, Timeless or most popular, Video | , , | Leave a comment

Rebuffing Peace Chances in Syria

By Jonathan Marshall | Consortium News | October 23, 2015

Seeking to disrupt the lethal cycle of foreign intervention and military escalation in Syria, a group of 55 House Democrats recently sent a letter to President Barack Obama, calling for a change in U.S. policy.

“[I]t is time to devote ourselves to a negotiated peace, and work with allies, including surrounding Arab states that have a vested interest in the security and stability of the region,” they wrote. “Convening international negotiations to end the Syria conflict would be in the best interests of U.S. and global security, and is also, more importantly, a moral imperative.”

No one — except neoconservative die-hards who view diplomacy as the last refuge of wimps — can argue with their sentiment. But previous failed attempts to promote peace negotiations suggest that Syrian rebels want to talk only about the terms of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s surrender — or they won’t talk at all. Unless their foreign backers start turning the screws on these clients, the key players may simply refuse to sit down at the peace table.

The first Geneva conference on Syria was initiated by the United Nations peace envoy Kofi Annan in April 2012. Although the great-power participants agreed on the usual niceties — a transitional government, participation of all groups in a meaningful national dialogue, free elections, etc. — the process foundered quickly when Secretary of State Hillary Clinton insisted that Assad could not participate in the transition government. In August 2011, President Obama had rashly demanded that Assad step down as a precondition for political change in Syria.

Who’s to Blame?

Former Finnish President Martti Ahtisaari later blamed the United States, Britain and France for derailing a huge opportunity for peace. Norwegian General Robert Mood, who led a military observer mission into Syria that spring to monitor an abortive cease-fire, said after the breakdown of Geneva I, “it would have been possible to lead Syria through a transition supported by a united Security Council with Assad as part of the transition. . . . The insistence on the removal of President Assad as a start of the process led them into a corner where the strategic picture gave them no way out whatsoever.”

Contrary to the caricature presented in many Western media, the Russians did not then or later insist that Assad remain in power.

Rather, as President Vladimir Putin emphasized in late 2012, Russia’s “position is not for the retention of Assad and his regime in power at any cost but that the people in the beginning would come to an agreement on how they would live in the future, how their safety and participation in ruling the state would be provided for, and then start changing the current state of affairs in accordance with these agreements, and not vice versa.”

Or as two former members of the State Department’s policy planning staff put it, “For Russia, the Geneva process is about achieving a political settlement in Syria, not about great powers negotiating the end of the Assad regime. . . . Russia’s primary objective in Syria is not to provide support for Assad but rather to avoid another Western-backed effort at coercive regime change, and all of Russia’s actions are consistent with that objective. . . .

“Better US-Russian cooperation on Syria depends on demonstrating to Moscow that Assad and his cronies — rather than the opposition, US policy, or other states in the region — are the main obstacle to a settlement and to stability in Syria, as the US has long argued. That requires pushing ahead with a good-faith effort at a political settlement.”

Another Setback

Chances for peace were set back in spring 2013, however, when the political leader of the non-Islamist opposition, Moaz al-Khatib, resigned after failing to get support for a mediated end to the conflict. His interim successor, a Syrian-American named Ghassan Hitto, reportedly enjoyed strong backing from the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood and “distanced himself from Al-Khatib’s willingness to negotiate with elements of the Assad regime in a bid to bring an end to the civil war.” Secretary of State John Kerry, who had replaced Secretary Clinton, was reported to be “sanguine at the news of the resignation.”

In May 2013, Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov agreed to give peace another chance and try to bring the government and opposition to the negotiating table. This time, significantly, Kerry did not demand that Assad step down as a precondition for talks. Then came the huge diversionary controversy over Syrian chemical weapons, with the White House claiming that the Assad regime had crossed the “red line.” Instead of peace, a vast escalation of the war loomed, until Russia helped broker Syria’s agreement to destroy all of its chemical weapons stocks.

Peace efforts suffered another setback that fall when Syrian opposition forces and their backers in Saudi Arabia and Gulf States balked after the UN envoy to Syria, Lakhdar Bahimi, said that Iran should be part of any settlement talks.

The Beirut Daily Star reported that “Many of Syria’s main rebel brigades … rejected any negotiations not based on Assad’s removal and said they would charge anyone who attended them with treason.” A coalition of 19 Syrian Islamist groups called attempts to restart the Geneva talks “just another part of the conspiracy to throw our revolution off track and to abort it.”

In November 2013, under pressure from Washington and London, the main Syrian exile opposition group voted to attend a new round of peace talks — but only if Assad and others with “blood on their hands” were guaranteed to have “no role” in a transition government or Syria’s future — a non-starter.

The pro-Western National Coalition finally yielded and reluctantly agreed in January 2014 to join a new round of talks, but the more powerful Islamist rebel alliance continued to reject them. The negotiations quickly foundered, with Western powers blaming Damascus for refusing to get serious about a transition government, and Syria’s government insisting that it was committed to “stopping the bloodshed.”

The Ukraine Putsch

Soon, the Western-supported putsch against the Russian-backed government of the Ukraine caused a dramatic setback in U.S.-Russian relations, putting all progress in Syria on hold. Seeking to appease neoconservative critics who demanded even tougher interventions in both theaters, President Obama requested huge new sums of money to arm and train Syria’s rebels — and to beef up the U.S. military presence in Central and Eastern Europe.

In January 2015, Kerry finally began warming again to multilateral negotiations, with Russia’s participation. CIA Director John Brennan made the startling announcement that “None of us, Russia, the United States, coalition, and regional states, wants to see a collapse of the government and political institutions in Damascus.”

The French, longtime hardliners against Assad, also came around. Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius told a radio station, “The political solution will of course include some elements of the regime because we don’t want to see the pillars of the state fall apart. We would end up with a situation like Iraq.”

These were huge changes in the stance of Western interventionist powers, aligning them closely to Russia’s longstanding position based on the original Geneva principles. But of course these changes came too late. Aside from some modest-sized regions held by Kurdish forces (and thus opposed by Turkey), the Syrian opposition today is dominated by Islamic State and by the al-Qaeda-affiliated Nusra Front.

Forcing Russia’s Hand

Continuing military gains by those extreme Islamist forces prompted Putin’s decision to send additional military aid to Damascus and begin for the first time bombing targets in Syria. As usual, domestic U.S. politics forced a reframing of the Syrian issue back into Cold War-era stereotypes as a contest between the United States and Russia. And the French have once again reverted to their intransigent position that “there can be no transition without [Assad’s] departure,” in the words of President Francois Hollande.

Most important, some 75 military factions operating under the umbrella of the Free Syrian Army this month reached an unprecedented political consensus: They rejected plans for a peaceful transition of power put forth by UN Special Envoy Staffan de Mistura. Their political stance confirms that the FSA has become an ally, if not a wholly owned tool, of the Nusra Front.

Pursuing peace remains a worthy — indeed, the only sensible — goal of U.S. foreign policy in Syria. No one should be surprised, however, if Washington’s embrace of that goal comes too late. By pursuing regime change so long and so adamantly, the United States, Western Europe and various Arab powers fostered the rise of the radical Islamist opposition, which has absolutely no interest in peace. Foreign leaders can meet all they want in Geneva, Moscow, or wherever, but facts on the ground will determine the political future of Syria.

If there is to be any hope of an outcome short of a bloodthirsty Islamist victory, it will require a total commitment by foreign powers to halt their supply of money and arms to opposition forces that, for now at least, reject participation in the peace process.

October 23, 2015 Posted by | Militarism | , , , | Leave a comment

North Korean Peace Agreement Proposal

By Konstantin Asmolov | New Eastern Outlook | October 22, 2015

On October 2, 2015, speaking during the course of a general policy discussion at the 70th session of the General Assembly of the United Nations, Lee Su Yong, North Korean Foreign Minister, stated that “the government of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea is willing to engage in constructive dialogue for the prevention of wars and conflicts in the Korean peninsula as soon as the United States agrees to replace the Korean Armistice Agreement with a full-fledged peace treaty and stops pointing fingers at “someone’s” “provocations” in the mass media.” “This is the best option available to us and the best solution that we can propose at this UN forum,” he added.

This issue was raised again on October 7 when an official representative of the North Korean Foreign Ministry stated that the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (via official channels) had again proposed the signing of a peace treaty to the US and expected it to be conscientiously considered and endorsed by the American party.

It was noted that more than 60 years had passed since the signing of the cessation of hostilities agreement, but peace has still not been achieved in the Korean peninsula. The US and the Republic of Korea continuously conduct military exercises of various scales contributing to the escalation of the risk of casual incidents and unpredictable events.

In the author’s opinion, this problem is indeed serious, and this issue was actually discussed a few years ago: absence of a hotline between the North and South, bilateral demonization, insufficient competence combined with the peculiarities of bureaucracy can easily lead to an aggravation of the situation resulting from a misunderstanding or the desire to blame one’s opponent for one’s own problems, as happened just recently.

In North Korea’s opinion, the only radical measure that can prevent future incidents would be the termination of the Korean Armistice Agreement and the signing of a peace treaty as well as the creation of a robust system of peace guarantees in the Korean peninsula: if the American party will be brave enough to change its policy, the security situation in the Korean peninsula would significantly improve.

The dialog proposed by North Koreans would address two important aspects. Number one—the necessity to formalize the results of the Korean War. Number two—diplomatic relations between the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea and the US, which have never been established.

The 1953 Korean Armistice Agreement is perceived as an agreement signed by all the parties to the conflict. But in reality, the situation was much more complicated. The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea and the (Chinese) People’s Volunteer Army signed it as representatives of the North because officially the People’s Republic of China did not participate in this war. The US was also fighting there as a representative of the UN and the Agreement is, in fact, signed by the UN Force Commanders. As for South Korea, the regime of Syngman Rhee, which at that time was far more villainous in comparison with that in the North, had intentions to fight till final victory, hindering the negotiations and refusing to sign the final document. Thus, although North Korea recently pulled out of the Korean Armistice Agreement, the South never even signed it.

Besides, technically speaking, this Agreement ceased to be effective back in 1957-58. There was a clause prohibiting the deployment of new types of armaments in the peninsula in the Agreement. So, when the US deployed nuclear weapons in the peninsula, the agreement formally ceased to be effective since all its clauses had equal legal force.

In addition, since both Koreas are members of the UN, this circumstance further complicates the situation because it is not quite clear how the peace treaty based on the results of the Korean War should be articulated and what countries must participate in it. Pyongyang traditionally regards the US as a full-fledged war participant and believes that the signing of a peace treaty would promote closer diplomatic relations between the two countries.

The matter is that an absence of diplomatic relations between the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea and the US is more of an exception than a rule. The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea is by no means in complete international isolation. As of June 2012, North Korea had established diplomatic relations with 165 states that are currently standing members of the UN. Only about 20 countries, including the USA, Japan and Ukraine do not have diplomatic relations with it. Actually, at the beginning of the 1990s, the United States and Japan were supposed to recognize the North pursuant to the “cross-recognition” doctrine in accordance with which Russia and China had opened diplomatic relations with South Korea. But it was not concluded.

Diplomatic recognition of the two countries was set out as one of the clauses of the 1994 agreement–the Agreed Framework. This was one of the terms under which the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea later froze its nuclear program. However, due to a number of reasons the American side executed neither this nor other, more important, obligations set out in the Agreed Framework.

Today the embassy of Sweden represents interests of the US in Pyongyang. This causes many inconveniences compelling the parties to resolve the situation, especially in light of the improving relations between the US and Cuba, a country, which had been demonized by the US as much as North Korea.

Here is one more important thought. The “democratic press” painstakingly molds an image of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea as a country incapable of achieving agreements and unwilling to negotiate with anyone. All its proposals are inevitably renounced as demagogical and meaningless. However, analyses of both the inter-Korean and regional crises involving the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea show that in the majority of cases North Korea was the one to make settlement proposals. A recent example is the August 2015 crisis, which was settled by way of negotiations between the North and the South initiated by North Korea.

Konstantin Asmolov, Ph.D, Chief Research Fellow of the Center for Korean Studies, Institute of Far Eastern Studies, Russian Academy of Sciences.

October 22, 2015 Posted by | Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Militarism, Timeless or most popular | , | Leave a comment

Get the Hell Out of Afghanistan Already!

By Ron Jacobs | CounterPunch | October 21, 2015

The US war machine scored another win. Not in Syria, but in Afghanistan. After lying about a prolonged attack on the Medicin Sans Frontiers hospital in Kunduz, a recent decision from the White House to leave at least 10,000 troops in that country for an undetermined amount of time seems to make no sense. However, when one looks at the justification from various politicians and think tanks, the reasoning is proven to be the same as it has been for years. Let me quote a certain Rand policy analyst named S. Rebecca Zimmerman:

“There have been numerous security losses across Afghanistan, despite the 9,800 troop presence, but the government is also facing challenges of erosion of authority. It’s so focused on factions within, and pressure without that it cannot effectively govern and strongmen on the periphery are growing in influence. The presence of U.S. troops cannot halt these trends, but it can slow their progress.” (RAND website, October 16, 2015)

In other words, Washington can’t win but it can continue to keep those it opposes from winning. This is a cynical move almost on par with King David sending Uriah the Hittite into the front lines and certain death after David slept with Uriah’s wife. Arms will continue to flow into the ravaged nation that is Afghanistan, so will US troops and mercenaries; Afghan soldiers will die at an increased rate as will civilians. The captains of the war industry—from Lockheed Martin to General Dynamics and beyond—will reap billions of dollars in blood money while paid-off sycophant politicians promise them more. The relatively few citizens who are paying attention to the travesty will cry out alarms about the futility of the war and the costs their fellows ultimately bear in gold and conscience. And the war will drag on.

According to Statista.com, the total cost of the US war on Afghanistan is around $765 billion. The number of US military fatalities is (as of July 1, 2015) 2,370. Other occupying forces have lost 1,137 troops. The number of mercenaries and civilian contractors killed was 1,582 by December 2013 (US Dept. Of Labor). Afghan deaths are unknown, but it is estimated that more than 92,000 have died, of which at least 26,000 were civilians (Watson Institute, Brown University).

The war industry’s numbers, on the other hand show increases, not losses. If we look at the rankings of just three of the top defense contractors in the US, we discover that General Dynamics (which makes Stryker vehicles and many other implements of this particular war) went from being Number 180 in the Fortune 500 to Number 100 since the US first attacked Afghanistan; Northrop Grumman (which makes at least two of the helicopter gunships used in country) went from number 232 to Number 124 and Lockheed Martin (whose weapons systems are too numerous to list) went up only four rankings, from 69 to 64. These advances tell us almost all we need to know about who this war benefits.

Besides the fact that these profits are made from the taking of human life, there is also the reality that the money these companies profit from is money taken from that which US taxpayers pay into the Treasury for government services—money many US residents believe should go to helping people, not killing them. Of course, in the military itself there are also plenty of military officers who are making their careers on the continuation of this debacle.

So, when all is said and done; when losses are calculated and profits pocketed the question remains: why are US troops still in Afghanistan? Unfortunately, the answer is too simple. US troops, spies and mercenaries are still in Afghanistan because the American people allow them to be.

If one recalls the presidential campaigns of 2008 and 2012, Barack Obama promised to end the US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The former is now a low-intensity conflict affected by the goings-on in Syria and Libya before it. On the other hand, the war in Afghanistan continues to founder along. The original reason for the war (as contrived as it was) no longer exists. Osama Bin Laden is dead. So is Mullah Omar.

We are told the Taliban is taking back cities, but the greater truth seems to be that Afghans with different allegiances are fighting each other for land, religions, and plunder and opium profits. The everyday Afghan is just trying to maintain an existence for themselves and their family. There is no end to this war unless we demand that US troops, CIA operatives and their mercenary accomplices leave the country. It is quite obvious no politician is going to make that demand unless the American people force their hand.

With this in mind, what I find almost as depressing as the extension of the occupation is the lackluster response from US residents. While I expect the politicians to line up behind this idiotic move, the fact that most of the rest of us barely even note the news is symptomatic of how far along we actually are as a nation into George Orwell’s 1984 future where eternal war is peace.

October 21, 2015 Posted by | Militarism, Timeless or most popular | , , , , | Leave a comment

“Washington continues dubious strategy in Syria”

Press TV – October 20, 2015

The Iranian deputy foreign minister has criticized the US for employing double-standards in the fight against terrorism in Syria.

Hossein Amir Abdollahian said Washington has not taken any serious action against terrorist groups in Syria and continues its dubious strategy in the Arab country. Abdollahian was speaking with UN Deputy Special Envoy for Syria Ramzy Ezzeldin in Tehran. He also called into question the sincerity of the so-called US-led coalition in Syria. Ezzeldin called Iran a major player in solving the Syrian crisis. He praised Iran’s effective role in restoring ceasefire in several Syrian regions, including Zabadani as well as Fuaa and Kafaria. Ezzeldin said the UN is seeking to form political committees, comprised of Syrians from across the political arena, to help end the crisis.

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Guest: Mohammad Marandi Professor, University of Tehran

October 20, 2015 Posted by | Deception, Militarism, Video | , , | Leave a comment

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