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The US Officially Regards It As A Sanctionable Offense To Teach Foreigners How To Protest

BY ANDREW KORYBKO | JUNE 7, 2023

The US Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control just sanctioned several Russians who allegedly taught Moldovans how to protest. According to their press release from earlier this week, “These actors provoked, trained, and oversaw groups in democratic countries that conduct anti-government protests, rallies, marches, and demonstrations.” These punitive measures represent the US’ latest repudiation of the same so-called “rules” that it claims to support across the world.

Organizations such as the US-funded “National Endowment for Democracy” and George Soros’ infamous “Open Society Foundations” regularly teach countless foreigners across the world about the late Gene Sharp’s protest-related works such as his 198 methods of non-violent action. These operations are aimed at cultivating anti-government cadre that can then be employed to pressure countries that refuse to comply with the US’ demands of them.

All national models of democracy incorporate a degree of public opinion when formulating policy, which is why training some of their people as professional protesters is such an effective means of influence for their foreign patron who funds these lessons. The subsequent organization of large-scale demonstrations and predictably resultant scuffles with police generate headlines at home and abroad, which in turn piles pressure on the targeted government to do the external state’s bidding.

This cost-effective method of advancing its interests abroad explains why America has done so for decades, especially when remembering that its return on investment is sometimes historically significant such as when US-sponsored protests overthrew the Ukrainian government in 2014. Back then, peaceful demonstrations morphed into violent riots on command after President Yanukovich refused to relent during the first phase of this US-backed Color Revolution, thus leading to February’s coup.

The Ukrainian Civil War that followed was exploited by the US to contain Russia, which set the basis for its special operation after Washington refused to seriously consider Moscow’s proposals for peacefully resolving their security dilemma that emerged in the aftermath of this regime change. Most recently, the case can be made that the US was also behind the planned coup that was just foiled in Kyrgyzstan, which could have opened up a second front against Russia amidst Kiev’s NATO–backed counteroffensive.

It deserves to be said that Russia suspects the US of intending to open another front in Moldova by ordering Chisinau and/or Kiev to attack its peacekeepers in Transnistria. This is the military-strategic context within which Washington just sanctioned several of its citizens for teaching that country’s people how to protest. Unlike the regime change that the US orchestrated in Ukraine, the demonstrations that Russia is accused of organizing in Moldova are meant to avert conflict, not catalyze it.

Another difference is that most Moldovans are aware of the US’ proxy war plans and vehemently oppose them, while few Ukrainians could have countenanced what was to come less than a decade later as a direct result of the anti-government protests that America helped manage back in the day. Had they known the destruction that awaited their country after it was exploited as a Hybrid War proxy against Moscow, then it’s unlikely that “EuroMaidan” would have succeeded.

Considering this, Russia is basically being accused of training Moldovan protesters who want to prevent their country’s involvement in a regional conflict. These activists are concerned that invading Transnistria could backfire, which is a credible fear for them to have since the Russian peacekeepers that their government is plotting to attack will fire back out of self-defense. Not only that, but Chisinau could become the new Kiev if Moscow launches drone and missile strikes against military targets in that city.

The abovementioned sequence of events is easily predictable and not the product of so-called “Russian propaganda”, which is why Moldovans are already protesting on their own without Moscow having to train any of them. In fact, no controvertible proof has ever been publicly presented in support of the claim that Russia is replicating the US’ modus operandi in that country, thus meaning that the entire basis upon which some of its citizens were just sanctioned could possibly be false.

It might even be that the US wants to delegitimize genuinely grassroots anti-war protests in Moldova by concocting another “Russiagate” conspiracy theory for this purpose. That wouldn’t be surprising either since it makes perfect sense for American policymakers to establish the pretext for justifying Chisinau’s potentially violent dispersal of its peacefully demonstrating people in order to ensure that they don’t get in the way of Washington’s proxy war plans.

Whatever the truth may be, it’s hypocritical for the US to sanction Russians for doing the exact same thing that Americans and Europeans have done abroad for decades. Teaching foreigners how to protest isn’t anything new, but it’s now apparently a criminal offense if their government is pro-Western. These double standards are similar in spirit to those applied against Georgia after it sought to promulgate a US-inspired foreign agents law last spring.

America has no problem training other countries’ people to protest and mandating that those of its own citizens who receive foreign funding register with the authorities since these policies serve its interests, but the moment that others do the same in advance of their own interests, it ruthlessly opposes them. This undeniable observation exposes the US’ latest anti-Russian sanctions as a charade intended to prevent peacefully protesting Moldovans from stopping their country’s march towards war.

June 8, 2023 Posted by | Progressive Hypocrite | , , , , | Leave a comment

Russia tells US government to publish truth about JFK assassination

RT | June 7, 2023

If the US wishes to be considered an authority on democracy and human rights, it ought to come clean about the killings of President John F. Kennedy and his brother, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Wednesday.

During her regular daily briefing, Zakharova was asked about the statement by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who said Washington intends to champion human rights and fundamental freedoms in China and worldwide.

“Washington itself has long fallen short of the standards of democracy that it publicly declares everywhere,” Zakharova replied, adding that the US promotes “pathetic, hypocritical rhetoric” abroad to hide its neo-colonial ambitions and geopolitical interests.

“The history of American politics contains many unsightly facts that are deliberately hushed up by the US authorities,” Zakharova noted. As an example, she cited the Kennedy family – and the recent anniversary of the June 1968 assassination of Senator Robert F. Kennedy in Los Angeles, during the presidential primaries in which he was a favorite.

The RFK assassination came two months after the fatal shooting of civil rights leader Martin Luther King – and almost five years after the November 1963 assassination of John F. Kennedy, the 35th US president, Zakharova told reporters.

“I suggest to Mr. Blinken to muster up the courage and publish all the materials regarding the political assassinations of the US presidents, in particular John F. Kennedy, and tell his people – his people, first of all – the truth about what happened in Dallas” she said.

“Only when they close the case on these political killings, can they try to correct other countries,” the Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman argued. “While such egregious crimes remain unresolved, and the killers not found and convicted, if I were American leaders I would not open my mouth about other countries, and certainly stop lecturing everyone else how to live.”

Solve the Kennedy assassination – both of them, actually – and then maybe you will be regarded as an authority. Or maybe not.

RFK’s son and JFK’s nephew Robert Francis Kennedy Junior launched his primary challenge to President Joe Biden in April. In an interview last month, he said there was “overwhelming evidence that the CIA was involved” in his uncle’s murder, and “very convincing but circumstantial” evidence the spy agency was also linked to his father’s assassination.

The official findings of the US government, known as the Warren Commission Report, said that US Marine veteran Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone and shot the president while his motorcade was passing through Dallas on November 22, 1963. Before he could stand trial, Oswald was shot dead by nightclub owner Jack Ruby at the Dallas Police Headquarters. The Warren Commission ruled that Ruby had acted alone, on impulse and out of grief.

Ruby died in prison in 1967. Later that year, the CIA issued a directive on how to discredit “conspiracy theorists” who doubted the official findings of the Warren Commission.

June 7, 2023 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Deception, Progressive Hypocrite | , , | 1 Comment

‘Give War a Chance’ – A ‘War That Even Pacifists Can Get Behind’

By Alastair Crooke | Strategic Culture Foundation | June 5, 2023

More than a year into Russia’s Special Operation, the initial burst of European excitement at western push-back on Russia has dissipated. The mood instead has turned to “existential dread, a nagging suspicion that [western] civilisation may destroy itself”, Professor Helen Thompson writes.

For an instant, a euphoria had coalesced around the putative projection of the EU as a world power; as a key actor, about to compete on a world scale. Initially, events seemed to play to Europe’s conviction of its market powers: Europe was going to bring down a major power – Russia – by financial coup d’état alone. The EU felt ‘six feet tall’.

It seemed at the time a galvanising moment: “The war re-forged a long-dormant Manichaean framing of existential conflict between Russia and the West, assuming ontological, apocalyptic dimensions. In the spiritual fires of the war, the myth of the ‘West’ was rebaptised”, Arta Moeini suggests.

After the initial disappointment at the lack of a ‘quick kill’, the hope persisted – that if only the sanctions were given more time, and made more all-embracing, then Russia surely would ultimately collapse. That hope has turned to dust. And the reality of what Europe has done to itself has begun to dawn – hence Professor Thomson’s dire warning:

“Those who assume that the political world can be reconstructed by the efforts of human Will, have never before had to bet so heavily on technology over [fossil] energy – as the driver of our material advancement”.

For the Euro-Atlanticists however, what Ukraine seemed to offer – finally – was validation for their yearning to centralise power in the EU, sufficiently, to merit a place at the ‘top table’ with the U.S., as partners in playing the Great Game.

Ukraine, for better or worse, underlined Europe’s profound military dependence on Washington – and on NATO.

More particularly, the Ukraine conflict seemed to open the prospect for consolidating the strange metamorphosis of NATO from military alliance to an enlightened, Progressive, peace alliance! As Timothy Garton Ash effused in the Guardian in 2002, “NATO has become a European peace movement” where one could watch “John Lennon meet George Bush”.

The Ukraine war is portrayed, in this vein, as the “war­ that even former pacifists can get behind. All its proponents seemed to be singing is “Give War a Chance””.

Lily Lynch, a Belgrade-based writer, argues that,

“… especially in the past 12 months, telegenic female leaders such as the Finnish Prime Minister, Sanna Marin, German Foreign Minister, Annalena Baerbock, and Estonian Prime Minister, Kaja Kallas, have increasingly served as the spokespersons of enlightened militarism in Europe … ”

“No political party in Europe better exemplifies the shift from militant pacifism to ardent pro-war Atlanticism than the German Greens. Most of the original Greens had been radicals during the student protests of 1968 … But as the founding members entered middle age, fissures began to appear in the party – that would one day tear it apart”.

“Kosovo then changed everything: The 78-day NATO bombing of what remained of Yugoslavia in 1999, ostensibly to halt war crimes committed by Serbian security forces in Kosovo, would forever transform the German Greens. NATO for the Greens became an active military compact concerned with spreading and defending values such as human rights, democracy, peace, and freedom – well beyond the borders of its member states”.

A few years later, in 2002, an EU functionary (Robert Cooper) could envisage Europe as a new ‘liberal imperialism’. The ‘new’ was that Europe eschewed hard military power, in favour of weaponising both a controlled ‘narrative’ and controlled participation in its market. He advocated for ‘a new age of empire’, in which Western powers no longer would have to follow international law in their dealings with ‘old fashioned’ states; they could use military force independently of the United Nations; and could impose protectorates to replace regimes which ‘misgovern’.

The German Greens’ Foreign Minister, Annalena Baerbock, has continued with this metamorphosis, scolding countries with traditions of military neutrality, and imploring them to join NATO. She has invoked Archbishop Desmond Tutu’s line: “If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor”. And the European Left has been utterly captivated. Major parties have abandoned military neutrality and opposition to war – and now champion NATO. It is a stunning reversal.

All this may have been music to the ears of the Euro-élites anxious for the EU to rise to Great Power status, but this soft-power European Leviathan was wholly underpinned by the unstated (but essential) assumption that NATO ‘had Europe’s back’. This naturally implied that the EU had to tie itself ever closer to NATO – and therefore to the U.S. which controls NATO.

But the flip-side to this Atlanticist aspiration – as President Emmanuel Macron noted – is its inexorable logic that Europeans simply end by becoming American vassals. Macron was trying rather, to rally Europe towards the coming ‘age of empires’, hoping to position Europe as a ‘third pole’ in a concert of empires.

The Atlanticists were duly enraged by Macron’s remarks (which nonetheless drew support of other EU states). It could even seem (to furious Atlanticists) that Macron actually was channelling General de Gaulle who had called NATO a “false pretence” designed to “disguise America’s chokehold over Europe”.

There are however, two related schisms that flowed out from this ‘re-imagined’ NATO: Firstly, it exposed the reality of internal European rivalries and divergent interests, precisely because the NATO lead in the Ukraine conflict sets the interests of the Central East European hawks wanting ‘more America, and more war on Russia’ up and against that of the original EU western axis which wants wanting strategic autonomy (i.e. less ‘America’, and a quick end to the conflict).

Secondly, it would be predominantly the western economies that would have to bankroll the costs and divert their manufacturing capacity towards military logistic chains. The economic price, non-military de-industrialisation and high inflation, potentially, could be enough to break Europe – economically.

The prospect of a pan-European cohesive identity might be both ontologically appealing – and be seen to be an ‘appropriate accessory’ to an aspiring ‘world actor’ – yet such identity becomes caricature when mosaic Europe is transformed into an abstract de-territorialised identity that reduces people to their most abstract.

Paradoxically, the Ukraine war – far from consolidating the EU ‘identity’, as first imagined – has fractured it under the stresses of the concerted effort to weaken and collapse Russia.

Secondly, as Arta Moeini, the director of the Institute for Peace and Diplomacy, has observed:

“The American push for NATO expansion since 1991 has enlarged the alliance by adding a host of faultline states from Central and Eastern Europe. The strategy, which began with the Clinton administration but was fully championed by the George W. Bush administration, was to create a decidedly pro-American pillar on the continent, centred on Warsaw – which would force an eastward shift in the alliance’s centre of gravity away from the traditional Franco-German axis”.

“By using NATO enlargement to weaken the old power centres in Europe that might have occasionally stood up to [Washington] such as in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq, Washington ensured a more compliant Europe in the short-term. The upshot, however, was the formation of a 31-member behemoth with deep asymmetries of power and low compatibility of interests” – that is much weaker and more vulnerable – than it believes itself to be”.

Here is the key: “the EU is much weaker than it believes itself to be”. The outset of the conflict was defined by a cast of mind entranced by the notion of Europe as a ‘mover and shaker’ in world affairs, and mesmerised by Europe’s post-war prosperity.

EU leaders convinced themselves that this prosperity had bequeathed it the clout and the economic depth to contemplate war – and to weather its reversals – with panglossian sanguinity. It has produced rather, the converse: It has put its project in jeopardy.

In John Raply and Peter Heather’s The Imperial Life Cycle, the authors explain the cycle:

“Empires grow rich and powerful and attain supremacy through the economic exploitation of their colonial periphery. But in the process, they inadvertently spur the economic development of that same periphery, until it can roll back and ultimately displace its overlord”.

Europe’s prosperity in this post-war era, thus was not so much one of its own making, but drew benefit from the tail-end of accumulations hewn from an earlier cycle – now reversed.

“The fastest-growing economies in the world are now all in the old periphery; the worst-performing economies are disproportionately in the West. These are the economic trends that have created our present landscape of superpower conflict — most saliently between America and China”.

America may think of itself as exempt from the European colonial mould, yet fundamentally, its model is

“an updated cultural-political glue that we might call “neoliberalism, NATO and denim”, which follows in the timeless imperial mould: The great wave of decolonisation that followed WW2 was meant to end that. But the Bretton Woods system, which created a trading regime that favoured industrial over primary producers and enshrined the dollar as the global reserve currency – ensured that the net flow of financial resources continued to move from developing countries to developed ones. Even when the economies of the newly-independent states grew, those of the G7 economies and their partners grew more”.

A once-mighty empire is now challenged and feels embattled. Taken aback by the refusal of so many developing countries to join with isolating Russia, the West is now waking up to the reality of the emerging, polycentric and fluid global order. These trends are set to continue. The danger is that economically weakened and in crisis, western countries attempt to re-appropriate western triumphalism, yet lack the economic strength and depth, so to do:

“In the Roman Empire, peripheral states developed the political and military capacity to end Roman domination by force… The Roman Empire might have survived – had it not weakened itself with wars of choice – on its ascendant Persian rival”.

The final ‘transgressive’ thought goes to Tom Luongo: “Allowing the West to keep thinking they can win – is the ultimate form of grinding out a superior opponent”.

June 5, 2023 Posted by | Economics, Militarism, Progressive Hypocrite, Timeless or most popular | , , , , | 1 Comment

MEPs demand Hungarian opposition take over EU presidency and not Orban

By Ahmed Adel | June 5, 2023

The non-binding resolution for Hungary not to preside over the European Council is another attack on Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban by the European Parliament. Five of the seven parliamentary groups of the European Parliament support the proposal for Hungary not to take over the presidency of the European Council in the second half of next year, as the country supposedly systematically violates the principles and values ​​of the EU.

According to the text of the resolution, the EU legislature “questions how Hungary will be able to credibly fulfil this task in 2024, in view of its non-compliance with EU law.” The nonbinding statement calls on member states to “find a proper solution as soon as possible.” It also warns that “Parliament could take appropriate measures if such a solution is not found.”

Dutch MEP Sophie In’t Veld said in the debate that the presidency of the EU Council is an opportunity for the presiding country to put its political priorities first, and therefore the stage should not be left to Orban, and rather “a podium to those who have been silenced in Hungary” should be given instead.

Effectively, Veld is demanding that the opposition represents Hungary, and thus she is interfering in the internal processes of the country.

“It’s about time we start to play hardball,” added the Dutch MEP, who belongs to the liberal Renew Europe group. She explained that the proposal includes ways to “reduce cooperation to the bare minimum” during the Hungarian presidency.

The European Parliament cannot influence the order of the presidency of the European Council because that is the exclusive competence of the member states. All member states preside over the Council for six months in a predetermined order. This was last done in 2016 when the order of the presidency until 2030 was determined.

This provocation by Brussels towards Hungary will not harm Orban’s government in the slightest. In fact, it will only confirm the correctness of his policy among his voters. Although the resolution is motivated by Hungary’s position on Ukraine because Orban is not aligned with Brussels, he is also targeted because of value issues.

The resolution raises “serious threats” against LGBT+ rights in relation to a new amendment to the Whistleblower Protection Act that MEPs say will “legitimise open discrimination.” Targeting Hungary for its values is contradictory given that Eastern Europe generally resists the Istanbul Declaration, a human rights treaty of the European Council opposing violence against women and domestic violence but which many say is now hijacked by the homosexual lobby. However, many of these countries, such as Poland, are tolerated because they are involved in the war effort against Russia.

Because Hungary does not comply with the war propaganda and war efforts against Russia, in addition to not aligning with the liberal value criteria, thereby setting a bad example for member states, a vicious attack is being orchestrated at the EU parliamentary level. This move is overly audacious and will only further destroy the already shaken foundations of the EU, which Orban does not mind at all.

By talking about “silenced” voices, the EU Parliament is making a direct call for interference in Hungary’s internal affairs, and this only confirms what Orban and other Hungarian officials are saying.

With the resolution, Brussels irritated the Hungarians and the political forces of other countries, which could be potential targets of similar resolutions in the future. This primarily applies to Eastern European countries with strong conservative forces, where ideological struggle and cultural wars exist.

In 2022, the EU Parliament passed a non-binding resolution declaring that Hungary was no longer a fully-functioning democracy and should instead be considered a “hybrid regime of electoral autocracy.” At the same time, the European Commission is withholding nearly €28 billion in EU funds from Hungary over unresolved rule-of-law concerns like those raised by MEPs.

Although the aforementioned actions are provocative, they do not compare to the attempts to stop Orban’s Hungary from taking over the European Council presidency, even though such a move has no basis anywhere in European history. It also raises the question of whether the European Parliament could interfere with a process that is decided exclusively by member states.

In this way, Hungary is virtually a solitary voice in the EU. Although other Eastern European countries might share Hungary’s conservative values, they differ in positions regarding Ukraine and Russia. This is why Orban will continually be targeted, even with unprecedented attempts to stop Hungary from taking over the presidency of the European Council next year.

Ahmed Adel is a Cairo-based geopolitics and political economy researcher.

June 5, 2023 Posted by | Progressive Hypocrite | , | Leave a comment

YouTube reverses ban on questioning 2020 US election

RT | June 2, 2023

Video platform YouTube has reversed its controversial ban on questioning the validity of the 2020 and other US election results, acknowledging in a Friday blog post that the policy could silence legitimate political speech.

Effective immediately, the platform said, “content that advances false claims that widespread fraud, errors, or glitches occurred in the 2020 and other past US presidential elections” will no longer be removed.

Citing “today’s changed landscape,” the Alphabet subsidiary explained that “in the current environment, we find that while removing this content does curb some misinformation, it could also have the unintended effect curtailing political speech without meaningfully reducing the risk of violence or other real-world harm.”

YouTube explained its policies were aimed at two goals – “protecting our community, and providing a home for open discussion and debate” – and that those goals were not always aligned, admitting open debate was “core to a functioning democratic society.”

While the scrapped policy supposedly covered all past US elections, YouTube had appeared to focus its censorship on content questioning the 2020 results, ignoring or even promoting content that suggested the 2016 outcome was the result of Russian interference, especially if it came from establishment media outlets.

The platform acknowledged removing “tens of thousands” of videos due to the now-repealed ban on electoral fraud discussion. However, the blog post did not indicate if any of those videos would be restored or re-evaluated. While YouTube offers users whose content has been removed a chance to appeal the decision, critics claim the process is only for show and rarely if ever results in content being reinstated.

The platform also reminded users that the rest of its “election misinformation” policies still applied, meaning users could not post content designed to mislead voters about when, where, or how to vote or anything that might either discourage someone from voting or encourage someone to interfere with elections.

Freedom of speech has become a critical issue in the 2024 elections, with both Republican frontrunner Donald Trump and leading Republican challenger Ron DeSantis, as well as Democratic contender Robert F. Kennedy Jr., promising to take on Big Tech’s far-reaching censorship powers.

June 2, 2023 Posted by | Progressive Hypocrite | | Leave a comment

North Korea rejects US criticism of failed satellite launch

RT | June 1, 2023

The US is in no position to condemn North Korea for trying to launch a satellite, having sent thousands into orbit itself, the influential sister of leader Kim Jong-un said on Thursday. Pyongyang will soon launch its first-ever reconnaissance spacecraft, Kim Yo-jong promised.

On Wednesday, North Korea confirmed that its rocket carrying military satellite Malligyong-1 crashed into the Yellow Sea due to a malfunction of the second-stage engine.

The development was criticized by Washington and its allies in South Korea and Japan. US National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby said the attempted launch by Pyongyang was a reason for “major concern,” even if it failed. “Kim Jong-un and his scientists and engineers, they work and they improve and they adapt. And they continue to develop military capabilities that are a threat not only on the peninsula but to the region,” he explained.

Kirby’s colleague Adam Hodge suggested that “the door has not closed on diplomacy but Pyongyang must immediately cease its provocative actions and instead choose engagement.”

In her statement, cited by the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), Kim Yo-jong argued that “if the DPRK’s (Democratic People’s Republic of Korea) satellite launch should be particularly censured, the US and all other countries, which have already launched thousands of satellites, should be denounced. This is nothing, but sophism of self-contradiction.”

“The far-fetched logic that only the DPRK should not be allowed to do so… though other countries are doing so, is clearly a gangster-like and wrong one of seriously violating the DPRK’s right to use space and illegally oppressing it,” she said.

A UN Security Council resolution forbids Pyongyang from using ballistic missile technology for any purposes, including space launches.

Kim’s sister, who is a senior figure in North Korea’s ruling Workers’ Party, insisted that “it is certain that the DPRK’s military reconnaissance satellite will be correctly put in space orbit in the near future and start its mission.”

As for the US calls for negotiations, she said the authorities in Pyongyang “do not feel the necessity of dialogue with the US.” North Korea will continue its “counteraction in a more offensive attitude so that they should not but realize that they will have nothing to benefit from the extension of the hostile policy toward the DPRK,” Kim Yo-jong added.

June 1, 2023 Posted by | Progressive Hypocrite | , | Leave a comment

Iran, IAEA put to bed allegations of ‘near weapons-grade’ uranium

The Cradle | May 30, 2023

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has closed a case that alleged Tehran enriched uranium particles to 83.7 percent purity. This claim has fueled accusations by the US and Israel that Tehran is “days away” from building a nuclear bomb.

According to the Islamic Republic’s Mehr News Agency, citing informed sources, the IAEA recently held technical negotiations with the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) to resolve two outstanding cases.

One of these was the discovery by IAEA inspectors of uranium particles enriched to 83.7 percent in Iran’s underground Fordow nuclear site last year.

To build a nuclear weapon, uranium needs to be enriched to 90 percent purity. Iran maintains that its centrifuges are configured to enrich uranium to a 60 percent purity level.

Despite the IAEA report specifying they only found particles of the enriched uranium — and that it was unknown whether their presence was “an unintended accumulation” in the centrifuges — western media and officials latched on to the news to fuel decades-long paranoia over Iran’s alleged desire to build a nuclear bomb.

The second resolved case involved the Abadeh nuclear site. Information has yet to be made available regarding the UN nuclear watchdog’s concerns over this site.

The Abadeh site made headlines in 2019 when Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu claimed it had been used to “develop nuclear weapons” before being destroyed once “Iran realized that we uncovered the site.”

The IAEA is due to issue quarterly reports on Iran this week, ahead of a regular meeting of its 35-nation Board of Governors next week.

Earlier this month, Tehran allowed the IAEA to reinstall cameras across certain nuclear facilities, hoping to resolve a disagreement with an organization it has accused of being “hijacked and exploited” by Israel.

In February, the head of the AEOI, Mohammad Eslami, revealed that over a quarter of the 2,000 inspections carried out worldwide by the IAEA in the past three years were conducted in Iran.

“There are 21 nuclear facilities in Iran, while there are 730 facilities in the world, meaning that a quarter of the IAEA’s inspection rounds around the world are dedicated to Iran,” Eslami said in a press statement on 1 February.

While Iran made up one-quarter of all IAEA inspections in the past three years, inspectors have never been allowed to visit Israel’s nuclear facilities.

Israel’s nuclear capabilities have never been revealed; however, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) estimates that the country has around 80 nuclear warheads.

May 30, 2023 Posted by | Progressive Hypocrite | , | Leave a comment

Washington’s obsession with crushing Russia has dismantled its Middle East agenda

By Robert Inlakesh | RT | May 29, 2023

Once the undisputed hegemonic power in the Middle East, thought to be indispensable for the security and success of a range of regional leaderships, the US has been fading into the background to the benefit of its adversaries.

As armed conflict erupted between NATO-backed Ukraine and Russia in February of 2022, the Joe Biden administration in Washington decided to throw its weight behind Kiev and focus on a project to bog down Moscow, while unleashing wave after wave of sanctions. Despite spending at least $75 billion dollars on assistance to Ukraine and making Russia the most sanctioned nation on earth, the US has failed to bring Moscow to its knees. In fact, one could say that it is the US that has been cut down to size in the global arena, especially in the Middle East, an area it once considered its own backyard.

As the months pass, blow after blow has been inflicted on US power in the Middle East. In direct opposition to Washington’s agenda, the Syrian Arab Republic was readmitted to the Arab League following a 12-year hiatus, paving the way to end the crisis in Syria, which the US seeks to prolong. China has also entered Middle East politics in a dramatic way, brokering an Iranian-Saudi rapprochement back in March, and this then spurred a wider normalization wave. Although the US attempted to play off the Saudi Arabia-Iran agreement as an acceptable and welcomed move, this has now clearly worked to collapse Washington’s long-term effort towards regional supremacy, which was based on feeding a proxy conflict between the two powers.

The failure of US sanctions

Western leaders publicly predicted that Russia’s economy would collapse under sanctions, a result which clearly has not materialized, with the IMF predicting the Russian economy will grow. Similarly, the US “maximum pressure” sanctions that were first introduced against Iran under the Trump administration, were expected to severely hinder the Islamic Republic’s ability to continue its developments in the defense field, but have failed to achieve those goals.

Russia is now exporting more oil than it did in 2021, as its relations with China, the primary global competitor to the US, have advanced. Gulf States have also repeatedly let the US down and refrained from yielding to pressure to cut oil production. There is also the example of Algeria, which has become Italy’s largest gas supplier and raked in over $50 billion dollars in oil and gas revenues during 2022 alone, even as it retains close relations with Moscow. And when it comes to the West’s ban on Russian gold bullion, the UAE, Türkiye and China have reportedly stepped in to fill the gap.

However, perhaps the worst blowback against Russia sanctions has been the nullification of previous limits to Moscow-Tehran economic relations. The two nations are already the most sanctioned on earth, so they need not worry about the potential consequences from their trade, which has encouraged further cooperation between them. Recently, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi signed a deal to finance an Iranian railway line as part of a North-South Transport Corridor.

Failed propaganda

The Biden administration has employed hardline propaganda tactics in order to demonize Russia and lionize Ukraine. Although for some Western audiences the arguments set forth may have proven effective, in the global community and especially the Middle East, such rhetoric is tiresome and clearly hypocritical.

After having illegally invaded Iraq, inflicting around a million deaths, over a concoction of factually-challenged conspiracy theories about weapons of mass destruction, it comes off as laughable that the US is now claiming to oppose illegal invasions. Former Bush administration officials, such as Condolezza Rice, have even appeared on national television shows in the US to condemn illegal invasions of foreign countries. Even former US President George W. Bush seemingly condemned the “holy unjustified and brutal invasion of Iraq… I mean of Ukraine” in a Freudian slip.

The US has positioned itself now as being opposed to the illegal occupation of foreign territory, in addition to claiming it stands in principle against annexation. When US Secretary of State Antony Blinken was asked by a CNN correspondent whether his government supported the annexation of Syria’s Golan Heights by Israel, he answered: “Look, leaving aside the legalities of that question, as a practical matter, the Golan is very important to Israel’s security,” again demonstrating Washington’s double standards. Washington continues to maintain its recognition of the Golan Heights as Israeli territory, which not only defies international law, but also the majority opinion at the United Nations.

The faltering image of the US

From the perspective of Middle Eastern nations, the US is overcommitted to the conflict in Ukraine, even as they have refrained from taking a clear side and instead remained neutral for the most part. Neither the people nor the governments of these countries buy the platitudes espoused by US officials when it comes to Ukraine. The stark difference between the way Palestinians and Ukrainians are portrayed for the exact same actions are enough to make eyes roll.

Now that China is presenting opportunities for countless Middle East nations, especially in the economic sphere, the US has a real competitor. However, the US continues to operate as if the world has not undergone a dramatic shift and refuses to rein in its allies. Ukraine in some respects is getting the special treatment that Israel has enjoyed for years: unlimited aid with few or no questions asked. In the case of Israel, as its government proceeds with introducing controversial legal reforms, takes steps to change the status quo at the al-Aqsa Mosque and pursues hardline far-right policies against the Palestinian people, all coming at a cost to Washington itself, the Biden administration refuses to put it in its place. What Israel is currently doing is embarrassing its own Arab allies that recently normalized ties, even threatening to put a wedge in relations with the likes of neighboring Jordan.

It is this refusal to recalibrate that is not only costing the US its influence, but also evaporating the prize of bringing Israel and Saudi Arabia together, which has clearly been a foreign policy achievement goal dear to the Biden administration. Now that Riyadh and Tehran have restored relations, the excuse of combating Iran’s regional influence is gone for negotiating a Saudi-Israeli rapprochement. The refusal to punish Israel for its constant provocations also makes it more difficult for Saudi Arabia to normalize with an unrestrained Israeli government that continues to insult the Muslim world and invites popular Arab support for the Palestinian cause. If there is no change to the arrogant and out of touch approach of the US, which rules with an iron fist and a “my way or the highway” approach, it will be the US itself that is going to be taking a hike from the Middle East.

Robert Inlakesh is a political analyst, journalist and documentary filmmaker currently based in London, UK. He has reported from and lived in the Palestinian territories and currently works with Quds News. Director of ‘Steal of the Century: Trump’s Palestine-Israel Catastrophe’.

May 29, 2023 Posted by | Illegal Occupation, Progressive Hypocrite | , , , , , | 4 Comments

The Mainstream Media Is Preparing Iran To Be The Scapegoat If Kiev’s Counteroffensive Fails

BY ANDREW KORYBKO | MAY 26, 2023

The West has claimed for a while now that Iran is secretly arming Russia despite both countries’ denials, with CNN reviving these accusations in their latest report about how “Iran has a direct route to send Russia weapons – and Western powers can do little to stop the shipments”. They’re furious that the West can’t obstruct this corridor, which could improve Russia’s position in the “race of logistics”/“war of attrition” that the NATO chief declared them to be in a few months back, if it even exists that is.

It makes sense that NATO and Russia would look to third parties for military-industrial support amidst their neck-and-neck race in Ukraine, with the first reportedly relying on Pakistan and South Korea while the second reportedly relies on Iran and North Korea. While there’s nothing new about these four claims apart from the South Korean component, the Mainstream Media’s (MSM) latest reminder of the Russian-Iranian dimension comes at a pivotal moment in the NATO-Russian proxy war.

Russia’s victory in the Battle of Artyomovsk preceded Kiev’s impending NATO-backed counteroffensive, the first of which was symbolic while the second will likely be the West’s “last hurrah” before agreeing to ceasefire and peace talks by year’s end or early next year like many now predict will happen. Unnamed Biden Administration officials told Politico in late April how much they fear the public’s reaction if the counteroffensive doesn’t meet their expectations, however, hence the need for a scapegoat.

Therein lies the implied purpose of the MSM’s latest information warfare campaign fearmongering about Russia and Iran’s reported trans-Caspian arms trade. If Moscow manages to thwart the upcoming counteroffensive, including the potential scenarios of Ukraine invading Belarus and/or Russia’s pre-2014 territory, then NATO will likely blame it on the alleged support that the Kremlin received from Iran instead of acknowledging that their single opponent has military parity with their 31-member bloc.

To be clear, it would be in Russia’s interests to receive some level of support from Iran in order to obtain an edge over NATO in their “race of logistics”, but whatever it might have already gotten or will soon get from there wouldn’t be game-changing since its partner must also ensure its own security interests. It’s unrealistic to expect the Islamic Republic to empty its stockpiles supplying Russia like most NATO members have already done in supplying Ukraine when regional security threats still remain a problem.

While its Chinese-brokered rapprochement with Saudi Arabia relieved Riyadh’s pressure upon it, Israel and the Taliban still pose their own problems to Iran that must be taken seriously. The MSM’s notion that Iran will irresponsibly leave itself defenseless just to arm Russia to the hilt out of New Cold War solidarity is nothing but a political fantasy. While the NATO countries remain under the US’ nuclear umbrella, Iran has nobody to depend on but itself, which is why it would never do what those states did.

The reason why the MSM is preconditioning its targeted Western audience to blame Iran in the event that Kiev’s NATO-backed counteroffensive fails to meet the public’s expectations is to preempt the uncontrollable proliferation of conspiracy theories that could weaken Western unity in that scenario. Former Russian chess champion-turned-pro-Kiev-troll Garry Kasparov already publicly speculated that Kremlin agents infiltrated the White House and sabotaged the counteroffensive before it even began.

The MSM’s prior propaganda was so effective in manipulating a critical mass of minds in society that some of these people will never accept that they were lied to and that Russia is much more resilient than they were told. Instead, they’ll resort to increasingly kooky QAnon-like conspiracy theories such as Kasparov’s wildly speculating their own version of the “stab-in-the-back” myth, which could lead to the most unstable of them becoming radicalized and thus posing a domestic terrorist threat with time.

Western propagandists realized that it’s much better to distract them with the theory that Iran might be responsible for Kiev’s NATO-backed counteroffensive failing to meet the public’s expectations than risk letting these toxic conspiracies uncontrollably circulate in the information ecosystem. As was earlier written, whatever aid Iran might have already sent to Russia or will send would be helpful though in no way game-changing, but it’s a convenient boogeyman and that’s why it would be blamed in that event.

The very fact that the MSM is preconditioning its targeted Western audience to think this speaks to how fearful the elite are that their “last hurrah” in the NATO-Russian proxy war will flounder. In order to avoid the proliferation of kooky conspiracy theories blaming their leaders for being Kremlin agents or whatever like Kasparov and other pro-Kiev trolls are beginning to imagine is the case, they’re preparing the narrative that Iran is to blame instead, which is equally ridiculous but more easily believable for most.

May 26, 2023 Posted by | Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Progressive Hypocrite | , | 2 Comments

Who Would Ukraine Supporters Support if the U.S. Invaded Cuba?

By Jacob G. Hornberger | FFF | May 23, 2023

American statists cannot understand why the Russian people continue to support their president Vladimir Putin and their government’s invasion of Ukraine. For American statists, the issue is very simple: Russia invaded Ukraine. Russia bad. Russians should oppose Russian president Vladimir Putin and the Russian regime. End of story.

Fair enough. But let’s engage in a hypothetical.

Let’s assume that Russia establishes military bases and installs nuclear weapons in Cuba. The U.S. government declares, “No way, bud! We are just not going to permit you to do that. Remove them or experience the wrath of our all-powerful military machine.”

Suppose Russia takes the same position as Ukraine and says, “We are not budging. We have the right to enter into an alliance with Cuba, just as Ukraine has the right to join NATO. Moreover, Russia has the same right to establish military bases and install nuclear missiles in Cuba that NATO has to establish military bases and install nuclear missiles in Ukraine.”

A far-fetched hypothetical?

Well, not exactly.

In January 2022, Putin stated that he was thinking of sending Russian troops to Cuba. The U.S. reaction was immediate. U.S. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan exclaimed, “If Russia were to move in that direction, we would deal with it decisively.”

What Sullivan meant by that statement was that the U.S. would issue an immediate demand that Russia cease and desist. If it refused to do so, a U.S. invasion of Cuba would follow.

In other words, the U.S. government was threatening to do to Cuba what Russia has done to Ukraine.

In fact, if we go back to the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, that is what happened then. The Soviets had installed nuclear missiles in Cuba. The U.S. government demanded that they be removed. If they refused to remove them, the U.S. government declared that it would do exactly what the Russian government has done to Ukraine. It would bomb and invade Cuba.

So, my hypothetical clearly falls within the realm of reasonable possibility.

Given such, the question naturally arises: What would American statists who are exclaiming against Russia’s invasion of Ukraine do if that were to happen? Would they oppose the U.S. invasion of Cuba and come to the support of Cuba and Russia?

I think not. I think they would immediately come to the support of the U.S. government and its invasion of Cuba, just as most Russians have come to the support of their government and its invasion of Ukraine.

May 23, 2023 Posted by | Progressive Hypocrite | , , , | Leave a comment

Hang All the Members of the Liars’ Club?

By Victor Davis Hanson | American Greatness | May 15, 2023

Federal prosecutors last week announced the indictment of U.S. Representative George Santos (R-N.Y.) on a host of charges, including misuse of federal campaign funds and wire fraud, almost all of them resulting from his pathological lies.

Certainly, Santos deserved the attention of prosecutors for lying on federal documents and affidavits that may have helped him win a congressional seat as well as personal lucre.

But if that’s the case, why haven’t federal prosecutors also gone after Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.)? She clearly lied her way into a Harvard Law School professorship and an erstwhile presidential candidacy by claiming, in part, quite falsely she was a Native American, supposedly Harvard’s first indigenous law professor.

Her Senate colleague, Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), flatly lied (he said “misspoke”) about being a Vietnam War veteran. He never confessed to “misspeaking” about his résumé until caught. Both senators, apparently like Santos, gained political traction in their various campaigns from such lies, but the two apparently never put them in writing, or at least not as blatantly as did Santos.

New Federal Standards?

Are federal and states prosecutors now setting a new moral and legal standard by criminalizing Santos’ lies? If true, congratulations—it is long overdue.

Now can we please extend the long arm of the law to reach far beyond a bit player like Santos?

Why not reboot with the really big liars? Their lies far more undermined the integrity of our key agencies and indeed our national security.

So let us start with John Brennan, the former CIA director. He lied on two separate occasions, in one case while under oath before the U.S. Senate. His untruths were not mere campaign finance fabrications. They involved falsely swearing that the CIA did not spy on the computers of Senate staffers (“Let me assure you the CIA was in no way spying on [the committee] or the Senate.”). He also lied that U.S. drone missions in prior years had not killed innocent bystanders (“There hasn’t been a single collateral death because of the exceptional proficiency, precision of the capabilities that we’ve been able to develop.”).

Brennan, only when caught, admitted to both lies. But he faced zero consequences and, in fact, was soon rewarded with an on-air analyst job at MSNBC.

Then we come to James Clapper, the former director of the Office of National Intelligence. Like Santos, he lied. But unlike Santos, Clapper was under oath to Congress. And further unlike Santos, Clapper was not a small fish, but a whale in charge of coordinating the nation’s intelligence bureaus.

Clapper’s lies mattered a great deal, especially when he swore to Congress that the National Security Agency did not spy on Americans. (“No, sir. Not wittingly.”) When caught, Clapper confessed that he gave “the least untruthful answer.” (“I responded in what I thought was the most truthful, or least untruthful, manner by saying ‘no.’”). He faced zero consequences for his perjury. And like Brennan, he marketed his anti-Trump phobias into a comfortable cable news gig.

Note well that both Clapper and Brennan likely lied again when they signed the infamous Hunter Biden laptop letter, with a wink and nod suggesting it was a hallmark example of “Russian disinformation.”

Then we come to the former interim FBI Director Andrew McCabe. He is also currently working as a cable news commentator. McCabe admitted to lying—according to the inspector general, “done knowingly and intentionally”—four separate times to federal investigators, three times under oath. McCabe misled the country in matters that concerned a national election, more specifically lying that he had not leaked to the media to massage media narratives about the FBI’s investigation of the Clinton Foundation.

Then there is James Comey, another former FBI head, who confirmed McCabe had lied. He simply claimed on 245 occasions to House investigators and members that he either had no memory or had no knowledge, when asked under oath to explain some of the wrongdoing of the FBI during his directorship. Remember, Comey and the FBI signed off on the authenticity of Steele document material to obtain a FISA warrant, when they knew it was unreliable and Steele was not credible. Comey also likely leaked to the media a confidential memo officially memorializing a private conversation with the president of the United States.

Should we include yet another former FBI director? Robert Mueller swore under oath to Congress that he knew little about Fusion GPS (“I’m not familiar with that”) and more or less had ignored the Steele dossier. (“It’s not my purview.”) Mueller’s claims cannot be true because revelations about both were the very catalysts that prompted his own special counsel appointment.

Will the Santos prosecutors go after Anthony Fauci, the recently retired head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases?

Fauci seemingly lied under oath to the Senate when he preposterously claimed the money he channeled through a third party to the Wuhan virology lab did not entail support for gain-of-function virology research. (“The NIH has not ever and does not now fund gain-of-function research in the Wuhan Institute of Virology.”) Many virologists were aghast at Fauci’s claims, since they knew gain-of-function research conducted in China—the point being to skirt U.S. laws—was precisely what the U.S.-subsidized researchers in China were doing.

The Bidens

Prosecutors are currently looking at the various shenanigans of Hunter Biden, whose lies may even be a match for those of George Santos. Joe Biden’s son apparently lied on his firearms background check affidavit when applying for a handgun purchase—so far, with impunity.

When asked point blank on national television whether his lost laptop was his own—he had signed a receipt for it at the repair shop—Biden refused to give a yes or no answer.

Hunter Biden has apparently de facto lied for years when he purportedly did not report either his entire income or his real business expenses accurately, or that he was the father of a child he conceived with an ex-stripper in Arkansas.

If Hunter’s lies do not match the number of Santos’ prevarications, his were at least far more significant. His lie that the laptop was not his prompted current Secretary of State Antony Blinken, a former top Biden 2020 campaign aide, to call up Mike Morell, former interim CIA director. Morell’s mission was to round up as many intelligence authorities as he could to lie on the eve of a presidential election that the laptop had “all the hallmarks” of “Russian disinformation.” He found 51, including himself. Apparently, some active members of the CIA pitched in as well to lend the letter additional authenticity.

Note that Morell swears Blinken called him to solicit signers of the bogus letter, while Blinken claims he did not. So either the current secretary of state or the former interim director of the CIA is lying—or they both are. Again, among the first to sign the fraudulent intelligence letter were Brennan and Clapper. They apparently had earned a reputation as team players, given that both men had been willing to lie under oath to Congress. Misleading the nation again about the laptop to aid Joe Biden’s campaign was small potatoes.

Biden, on spec, promulgated the lie when he said in his second debate with Trump, “There are 50 former national intelligence folks who said that what he’s accusing me of is a Russian plant. Five former heads of the CIA, both parties, say what he’s saying is a bunch of garbage. Nobody believes it, except his good friend Rudy Giuliani.”

A subsequent poll suggested the Bidens’ concocted laptop lies may have influenced voters to side with Biden in the election. If true, that was a lie that should be of far more interest to current federal prosecutors than Santos’ crazy fairy tales.

The Lies of the “Big Guy”

So we come to the greatest prevaricator of all.

Joe Biden flat-out lied on numerous occasions, such as when he claimed that he never discussed the family shake-down business with Hunter Biden.

Joe Biden, in fact, turns up on the laptop as someone deeply connected to Hunter Biden’s quid pro quo companies (“10 [percent] for the Big Guy”). Tony Bobulinksi, a former business associate of Hunter’s, has sworn that Joe and his brother Jim Biden were deeply involved in their foreign leveraging efforts.

A photo shows Joe Biden with Hunter’s “business” associates. Will the current Santos prosecutors turn their attention to the Oval Office occupant’s financial records to determine whether his lavish private homes and lifestyle were viable under his reported stated income?

Biden lied to Americans dozens of times to get elected. The tragic death of his wife in a car accident was not due to the drunkenness and fault of a truck driver. That was a horrific smear designed to shift blame onto an innocent man and gain sympathy for himself.

He lied that his son, Beau, died while serving in Iraq.

Biden dropped out of the 1988 presidential race after he was caught lying about his college records and plagiarizing a speech from a British politician.

So we know that in the past, Joe Biden’s lies have left a mark on history in a fashion that Santos’ never will.

When Biden prefaces his whoppers with “No joke!” or “This is the God’s honest truth!” and especially when he swears, “My word as a Biden!” then it is a fair bet that he is lying.

When Biden entered office, he lied about the number of Americans previously vaccinated under the Trump Administration and preposterously claimed there had been no COVID vaccine available.

He lied that his loan forgiveness amnesty passed Congress by two votes. In fact, Biden simply declared amnesty by fiat and never submitted the request to Congress at all.

He repeatedly lies that billionaires pay only three percent of their income in taxes on average. He lies about minor details, from giving his Uncle Frank a purple heart to matters of national concern, such as the price of gas when he entered office. It was most certainly not $5 a gallon!

Biden constantly lies about his résumé. He was never a long-haul truck driver. Nor was he a star athlete almost headed for the Naval Academy on a sports scholarship if only Dallas Cowboys legend Roger Staubach had not beat him out. “I was appointed to the academy in 1965 by a senator who I was running against in 1972. I didn’t come to the academy because I wanted to be a football star. And you had a guy named Staubach and Bellino here. So I went to Delaware.”

His house was never almost destroyed by a fire. He was never raised “politically” as a Puerto Rican. Biden never pinned the Silver Star on a Navy Afghanistan war hero for bringing back the body of a fellow soldier from a deep ravine. He was never arrested, either in South Africa or in Atlanta, for demonstrating on behalf of civil rights.

No foreign leader can believe Biden. He never traveled 17,000 miles with Chinese President Xi Jinping. He lied about his own Amtrak travel. He lied about his record on inflation and economic growth. He lied about upping Social Security payments. (It was a larger-than-usual automatic cost-of-living increase spurred by his inflationary policies.) He lied about the nature of the Trump tax cuts.

Biden keeps lying that the southern border is “secure” even as nearly 2 million people have crossed illegally on his watch and tens of thousands more are massed to enter the country as Title 42 restrictions are lifted.

He insists that five police officers died at the hands of protestors on January 6, 2021. In truth, the one person we know for certain who died violently that day was Ashli Babbitt, an unarmed protester who was shot and killed by a Capitol Police lieutenant with a checkered record, whose identity was suppressed for months while Babbitt’s past was sullied by the press.

Biden’s defenders hint that either he is cognitively compromised and thus not responsible—as if he has told the truth the last 40 years when he was hale!—or his lies are mere “exaggerations” unlike the “lies” of Trump—as if lying about the death of one’s spouse or son or school record or resume or major legislation or his presidency is a mere “exaggeration.”

As a general rule, since 2015, if any federal bureaucrat or elected official lied in service of opposing Donald Trump, he was exempted from consequences. If not, he was properly held responsible for his lying. So the more that the fake Steele dossier, the Russian collusion hoax, and the Russian disinformation laptop lie warped the 2016 and 2020 presidential elections, the more the promulgators of those falsehoods never faced any consequences for their untruths.

So, yes, let federal prosecutors go after the lying George Santos to set a precedent that the lying of government officials has consequences.

But in the great scheme of lying things, Santos is a prevaricating minnow who was snagged to great acclaim because the lying sharks swim and circle with impunity.

May 17, 2023 Posted by | Corruption, Deception, Progressive Hypocrite | , , | Leave a comment

Khrushchev Exposed the Hypocrisy of U.S. Interventionists

By Jacob G. Hornberger | FFF | May 16, 2023

For American interventionists living today, all that one needs to know is that Russia invaded Ukraine. End of story. Black and white. Russia bad. Ukraine good. Support Ukraine with U.S. taxpayer-funded cash and armaments. America good.

If we go back to the Cuban Missile Crisis, we find that things are not so simple, especially for American interventionists, even if they don’t realize it. 

The Soviets had installed nuclear missiles in Cuba that had the capability of hitting U.S. cities along the Eastern seaboard, including Washington, D.C., and New York City. The crisis lasted from October 16 through October 29, 1962.

President Kennedy demanded that the Soviets remove their nuclear missiles from Cuba and take them back to the Soviet Union. The Pentagon was exerting enormous pressure on Kennedy to immediately initiate a surprise bombing attack on the suspected missile sites, followed by a full-scale regime-change military invasion of the island. In other words, they were pressuring Kennedy to do to Cuba what Russia has done to Ukraine. In fact, the pressure they placed on Kennedy was so intense that Robert Kennedy, the president’s brother, secretly told Soviet Ambassador Anatoly Dobrynin “If the situation continues much longer, the President is not sure that the military will not overthrow him and seize power.”

On October 27 — two days before the crisis was resolved — Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev wrote a letter to Kennedy stating the following:

But how are we, the Soviet Union, our Government, to assess your actions, which are expressed in the fact that you have surrounded the Soviet Union with military bases; surrounded our allies with military bases; placed military bases literally around our country; and stationed your missile armaments there? This is no secret. Responsible American personages openly declare that it is so. Your missiles are located in Britain, are located in Italy, and are aimed against us. Your missiles are located in Turkey.

You are disturbed over Cuba. You say that this disturbs you because it is 90 miles by sea from the coast of the United States of America. But Turkey adjoins us; our sentries patrol back and forth and see each other. Do you consider, then, that you have the right to demand security for your own country and the removal of the weapons you call offensive, but do not accord the same right to us? You have placed destructive missile weapons, which you call offensive, in Turkey, literally next to us. How then can recognition of our equal military capacities be reconciled with such unequal relations between our great states? This is irreconcilable.

Do you see the problem? Khrushchev was pointing out the hypocrisy of the U.S. position, a position that American interventionists today simply cannot recognize, owing to their blind allegiance to the U.S. national-security establishment. 

The fact is that the Soviets had the legal authority to place their nuclear missiles in Cuba, just as Ukraine has the legal authority to join NATO. Cuba, like Ukraine, is a sovereign, independent country and, therefore, had the legal authority to permit the Soviets to install their missiles in Cuba, just as Ukraine has the legal authority to permit the U.S. and NATO to install their nuclear missiles in Ukraine.

But even though such legal authority exists, no one, including both Russians and Americans, likes to have nuclear missiles pointed at himself, especially from just a few miles away. This is the point that Kennedy was making when he stood fast during the Cuban Missile Crisis. With the full support of the Pentagon and the CIA, he was willing to risk all-out nuclear war to force the Soviets to remove those missiles, even though he knew that the Soviets had the legal authority to install them in Cuba. He, the Pentagon, and the CIA simply did not like the fact that those missiles were so close to the United States.

But that’s precisely how the Soviets felt as well, which is what Khrushchev was expressing in his letter to Kennedy. He was essentially saying, “Hey, you don’t like our missiles in Cuba because they are so close to your country. That’s exactly how we feel as well, not only about your missiles over here that are painted at us but also about all your military bases with which you have surrounded us. How come you can’t understand that?”

Well, Kennedy did come to understand that. That’s how he and Khrushchev were able to strike a deal, one that infuriated the U.S. national-security establishment as well as American interventionists.

The deal consisted of two major parts: First, Kennedy vowed that he would not permit the Pentagon and the CIA to again invade Cuba and, second, Kennedy agreed to withdraw U.S. nuclear missiles in Turkey that were pointed at Russia.

The Joint Chiefs of Staff were livid. They considered Kennedy’s resolution of the crisis to be the worst defeat in U.S history. They compared his actions during the crisis to Neville Chamberlain’s appeasement of Hitler at Munich.

For their part, American interventionists were also furious over Kennedy’s resolution of the crisis. As far as they were concerned, the Pentagon and the CIA had the “right” to install their nuclear missiles wherever they want and the Soviets did not have the “right” to do the same. It’s a position that American interventionists still hold today.

Can you see why American interventionists hated Kennedy so much and why the Pentagon and the CIA ultimately concluded that he constituted a grave threat to “national security”?

May 16, 2023 Posted by | Progressive Hypocrite, Timeless or most popular | , , | 1 Comment

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