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Trump and Washington’s Warmongers Sow Death and Destruction
Trump and Washington’s Warmongers Sow Death and Destruction
The squalid charade in the US Senate over the nomination of a Supreme Court judge and the comic opera performance by President Donald Trump at the UN General Assembly are deeply embarrassing for many Americans — but far from all Americans, because substantial numbers support the flawed Court nominee and strongly endorse Trump’s arrogant and malevolent insults to so many nations. They relish confronting and menacing those who dare to disagree with them.
Trump’s threats against Venezuela were in line with similar intimidating remarks he made about North Korea at last year’s UN Assembly, but it’s unlikely we’ll see a similar reversal this time round. He also threatened Venezuela last year, and he’s maintained the offensive, in all meanings of the word. In 2017 he declared that President Nicolas Maduro’s government was strangling the country through “faithfully implemented” socialism and vowed to help the Venezuelan people “regain their freedom, recover their country and restore their democracy”. In New York on September 25 he said it would be easy for the Venezuelan military to launch a coup d’état and impose regime change, which was a direct threat to the country’s sovereignty. His encouragement of revolution followed his announcement to the Assembly that “I honour the right of every nation in this room to pursue its own customs, beliefs and traditions. The United States will not tell you how to live or work or worship. We only ask that you honour our sovereignty in return.”
But Trump is telling — ordering — many countries how to live and work, and has no respect whatever for customs or beliefs that do not fit with his confused and distorted view of how the nations of the world should conduct their affairs. He contradicted his statement about all nations having the right to do as they wish by calling on the UN to “resist socialism and the misery it brings to everyone.”
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US Switching to Ukraine as Location to Start World War III Against Russia
US Switching to Ukraine as Location to Start World War III Against Russia
The United States Government is now treating Ukraine as if it were a NATO member, and on September 27th donated to Ukraine two warships for use against Russia. This is the latest indication that the US is switching to Ukraine as the locale to start World War III, and from which the nuclear war is to be sparked against Russia, which borders Ukraine.
Here is why Syria is no longer the US alliance’s preferred choice as a place to start WW III:
On September 4th, US President Donald Trump publicly threatened Syria, Iran and Russia that if they exterminated the jihadists in Syria’s only remaining jihadist-controlled province, Idlib, then the US might launch a full-scale invasion against Syria, Iran and Russia in Syria. Either the US or Russia would then quickly escalate to nuclear war so as not to lose in Syria — that would be the conventional-war start to World War III.
The leaders of Russia, Iran, Turkey, and Syria (Putin, Rouhani, Erdogan, and Assad), agreed in two meetings, one on September 7th and the other on September 17th, to (as I had recommended on September 10th) transfer control of Syria’s only remaining jihadist-controlled province, Idlib, to NATO-member Turkey. This action effectively prevents the US alliance from going to war against Russia if Russia’s alliance (which includes Syria) obliterates all the jihadist groups in the Al-Qaeda-led Syrian province Idlib. For the US to war against Russia there would also be war against fellow-NATO-member Turkey — out of the question.
The US has been using Al Qaeda in Syria to train and lead the jihadist groups which have been trying to overthrow Syria’s Government and to replace it with a government that has been selected by the Saud family who own Saudi Arabia.
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Washington’s Sanctions Machine
Washington’s Sanctions Machine
Perhaps it is Donald Trump’s business background that leads him to believe that if you inflict enough economic pain on someone they will ultimately surrender and agree to do whatever you want. Though that approach might well work in New York real estate, it is not a certain path to success in international relations since countries are not as vulnerable to pressure as are individual investors or developers.
Washington’s latest foray into the world of sanctions, directed against China, is astonishing even when considering the low bar that has been set by previous presidents going back to Bill Clinton. Beijing has already been pushing back over US sanctions imposed last week on its government-run Equipment Development Department of the Chinese Central Military Commission and its director Li Shangfu for “engaging in significant transactions” with a Russian weapons manufacturer that is on a list of US sanctioned companies. The transactions included purchases of Russian Su-35 combat aircraft as well as equipment related to the advanced S-400 surface-to-air missile system. The sanctions include a ban on the director entering the United States and blocks all of his property or bank accounts within the US as well as freezing all local assets of the Equipment Development Department.
More important, the sanctions also forbid conducting any transactions that go through the US financial system. It is the most powerful weapon Washington has at its disposal, but it is being challenged as numerous countries are working to find ways around it. Currently however, as most international transactions are conducted in dollars and pass through American banks that means that it will be impossible for the Chinese government to make weapons purchases from many foreign sources. If foreign banks attempt to collaborate with China to evade the restrictions, they too will be sanctioned.
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EU, UK, Russia and China Join Together to Dodge US Sanctions on Iran
EU, UK, Russia and China Join Together to Dodge US Sanctions on Iran
The UN General Assembly (UNGA) in New York is a place where world leaders are able to hold important meetings behind closed doors. Russia, China, the UK, Germany, France, and the EU seized that opportunity on Sept. 24 to achieve a real milestone.
The EU, Russia, China, and Iran will create a special purpose vehicle (SPV), a “financially independent sovereign channel,” to bypass US sanctions against Tehran and breathe life into the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), which is in jeopardy. “Mindful of the urgency and the need for tangible results, the participants welcomed practical proposals to maintain and develop payment channels, notably the initiative to establish a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) to facilitate payments related to Iran’s exports, including oil,” they announced in a joint statement. The countries are still working out the technical details. If their plan succeeds, this will deliver a blow to the dollar and a boost to the euro.
The move is being made in order to save the 2015 Iran nuclear deal. According to Federica Mogherini, High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, the SPV will facilitate payments for Iran’s exports, such as oil, and imports so that companies can do business with Tehran as usual. The vehicle will be available not just to EU firms but to others as well. A round of US sanctions aimed at ending Iranian oil exports is to take effect on November 5. Iran is the world’s seventh-largest oil producer. Its oil sector accounts for 70% of the country’s exports. Tehran has warned the EU that it should find new ways of trading with Iran prior to that date, in order to preserve the JCPOA.
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‘It’s the Economy, Stupid’: What Really Drives US Sanctions Against Russia
‘It’s the Economy, Stupid’: What Really Drives US Sanctions Against Russia
The US Department of Commerce has imposed restrictions on 12 Russian corporations that are “acting contrary to the national security or foreign policy interests of the US.” The notice has been published in the Federal Register. US corporations are banned from exporting dual-use goods to the sanctioned companies.
A closer look at the list makes one wonder. The companies under fire have no relation to defense production and have no ties at all with the Russian Ministry of Defense. None of them have signed any contracts with the military. AeroComposite, part of Russia’s state-run United Aircraft Corporation, produces wings for the civilian MC-21 airliner, Aviadvigatel produces engines for military aviation, it has neither technology nor experience to get involved in defense projects, Divetechnoservice is a civilian diving equipment producer, Nilco Group deals in grain, oil products, steel, wood, port services, paper, electronic parts and cement.
It’s not the military the US aims at this time. The real target is Russian civil aviation, which is on the rise. It’s enough to remember that as soon as Aeroflot Company announced its plans to acquire 100 Superjet SSJ-100 airliners instead of American Boeings, the US Treasury said it was considering the possibility of introducing sanctions against the Russian company Sukhoi, allegedly because its combat planes may have been used in Syrian chemical attacks.
A closer look at the blacklist shows the US has sanctioned those who are involved in the production of civilian airliner Irkut MC-21. Aviadvigatel is to supply PD-14 and PD-35 engines, which cannot power combat planes. AeroComposite, a producer of composites, is responsible for the development and creation of the composite wing for the aircraft. The MC-21 will be the world’s first airliner with a capacity of more than 130 passengers to have composite-based wings. The estimated share of composites in the overall design is 40%. So far, the company has produced composite parts only for MC-21 and no other aircraft.
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The ‘Pivots’ to the Coming Era Can Already Be Discerned
The ‘Pivots’ to the Coming Era Can Already Be Discerned
In his autobiography, Carl Jung tells of “a moment of unusual clarity”, during which he had a strange dialogue with something inside him: In what myth does man live nowadays, his inner-self enquired? “In the Christian myth: Do you live in it?” (Jung asked of himself. And to be honest with himself, the answer that he gave was ‘no’): “For me, it is not what I live by.” Then do we no longer have any myth, asked his inner-self? “No”, Jung replied, “evidently not”. Then what is it, by which you live, his inner-self demanded? “At this point the dialogue with myself, became uncomfortable. I stopped thinking. I had reached a dead end”, Jung concluded.
Many today, feel similarly. They feel the void. The post-war era – perhaps it is the European Enlightenment phenomenon, itself – that has run its course, people believe. Some regret it; many more are disturbed by it – and wonder what is next.
We live in a moment of the waning of two major projects: the decline of revealed religion, and – simultaneously – of the discrediting of the experience of secular Utopia. We live in a world littered with the debris of utopian projects which – though they were framed in secular terms, that denied the truth of religion – were in fact, vehicles for religious myth.
The Jacobin revolutionaries launched the Terror as a violent retribution for élite repression — inspired by Rousseau’s Enlightenment humanism; the Trotskyite Bolsheviks murdered millions in the name of reforming humanity through Scientific Empiricism; the Nazis did similar, in the name of pursuing ‘Scientific (Darwinian) Racism’.
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The Demise of Arms Control Draws Near: No Light at the End of the Tunnel
The Demise of Arms Control Draws Near: No Light at the End of the Tunnel
There have been ups and downs in the relationship between Russia (the Soviet Union) and the US, but both nations have become accustomed to the fact that their arsenals of offensive nuclear weapons are under the control of an agreement to prevent an arms race in this area. Some type of treaty has been in place since the Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty was concluded in 1963. Since 1972, when the first Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT I) agreement was signed, there have always been negotiated constraints on nuclear arsenals. But today, there are ominous signs that the system that has worked so well to push the superpowers back from the brink of the nuclear abyss is being unraveled.
Andrea Thompson, Under Secretary for Arms Control and International Security, speaking before a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on Sept. 18, claimed that Russia’s new strategic weapons that were announced by President Vladimir Putin last March were an obstacle to Washington’s agreement to extend the New START treaty. She also asserted that the issue has not been discussed through the formal New START process. She did not explain why not. The official said the final decision had not been made as yet and, “All options are on the table.” The same applies to the other remaining treaties that Washington is accusing Moscow of violating.
The options under consideration are: withdrawing from the New START; renegotiating the provisions related to the verification process; or signing another treaty instead, such as the 2002 Moscow Treaty or the Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty (SORT). The undersecretary said that the US administration wanted Russia’s recently unveiled strategic nuclear weapons to be included in the count.
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Bannon Declares ‘War Rooms’ to Win European Elections – and That’s Not Meddling?
Bannon Declares ‘War Rooms’ to Win European Elections – and That’s Not Meddling?
One trait of imperial decadence is untrammeled hubris. Given the increasingly arrant arrogance on display by United States’ officials, public figures and news media we can safely conclude that this empire is accelerating into decadence.
A recent spectacular example comes with separate visits to Europe by US defense secretary James Mattis and Steve Bannon, the former aide to President Trump.
Bannon was addressing a rightwing forum in Italy at the weekend in which he declared that he would be devoting “80 per cent” of his time to help anti-European Union parties win seats in the next European parliamentary elections due in May 2019.
Bannon said he was setting up a coordinating committee, called “The Movement”, in Brussels, from where his political project would direct “war rooms” across Europe to ensure that anti-EU and anti-immigrant parties would succeed in gaining up to a third of the total seats in the 27-nation member bloc’s parliamentary elections. In short, a declaration of political warfare. Unapologetic. Brazen. Arrogant.
The American ideologue and former Goldman Sachs banker, who is accused of inciting racism and neofascism in the US, has openly backed nationalist politicians in Europe, from the UK’s Nigel Farage to France’s Marine Le Pen, Hungary’s Victor Orban and Italy’s Matteo Salvini.
Bannon is threatening to explicitly unravel the European Union which he views with contempt for what he calls is its “cultural Marxism”.
Meanwhile, earlier last week, Pentagon chief James Mattis was in Macedonia where he gave his full-throated support for a Yes vote in the country’s referendum. The plebiscite to take place this weekend will decide if the small Balkan country can become a member of the NATO military alliance and the European Union. It is a crucial vote for the country.
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Tensions Grow as China, Russia and Iran Lead the Way Towards a New Multipolar World Order
Tensions Grow as China, Russia and Iran Lead the Way Towards a New Multipolar World Order
Military and economic tensions are increasing due to the ramped up warlike stance of the US establishment. The impossibility of halting the shifting world order in favour of prolonging the unipolar moment has left the US deep state reaching for any available weapon at hand, taking no heed of the dangers and consequences of such a reckless foreign policy.
With the province of Idlib ever closer to being liberated from terrorists by the Syrian Arab Army (SAA), the tensions between the US and Syria (and Syria’s allies) are rising. Every significant military campaign by the SAA seems to be accompanied by the usual alarms and false reports emanating from the Western media and governments warning of an imminent (staged) use of chemical weapons by the SAA. Tensions are rising as several American voices, including that of the President, have expressed the desire to strike Syria over any alleged use of chemical weapons, without even waiting for any independent verification. Threats by the US, the UK and France to bomb Russian troops in Syria are voiced everyday on Western media. The insanity is reaching disturbing levels.
These developments in Syria appear to be accompanied by the persistent attempts of Ukraine and the United States to sabotage the Minsk agreements, re-igniting the conflict in order to blame it on Russia. The assassination of Aleksandr Zakharchenko, charismatic leader of the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR), killed a few days ago in a terrorist attack, should be seen in this light.
More false accusations against Moscow, this time of having poisoned former Russian spy Sergei Skripal in the UK, follow on from allegations of Moscow interfering in the US presidential election. Added to this situation of rising tensions between great powers are the constant threats, together with economic and financial warfare, directed at Iran by Israel, Saudi Arabia and the United States.
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US Imposes Sanctions on China for Buying Russian Weapons: Waging War on All Fronts
US Imposes Sanctions on China for Buying Russian Weapons: Waging War on All Fronts
On Sept. 20 the US imposed punitive measures against China’s military under the 2017 Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA), in retaliation for its purchases of Russian military equipment. The move is meant to “punish” Moscow for what American officials call “malign activities.” The State Department slapped sanctions on China’s Equipment Development Department (EDD) for having purchased the S-400 air-defense system and Su-35 combat planes. This is the first time anyone has been sanctioned for doing business with Russia in violation of CAATSA.
The announcement came a few days after Chinese troops participated in Russia’s largest war games since 1981, which demonstrated that Russia and China are now working more closely with each other. The announcement of sanctions seriously angered Chinese authorities, who threatened to respond in kind. And they will.
Washington’s move changes little in regard to its relationship with Beijing, as it had already launched a war of tariffs against it. This is all at a time when the tensions in regard to the disputes in the South China Sea over islands and maritime claims are running high.
The sanctions war is pouring even more fuel on the fire. It raises the prospect of the US sanctioning its friends and allies who purchase Russian military equipment. The penalties imposed on Sept. 20 are a warning shot intended for other states on the list of clients, including India, Egypt, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Morocco, Algeria, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, and the Philippines, among other nations that are willing to sign contracts. India, the largest buyer of Russian-made weapons, and Turkey, a US NATO ally, have already been admonished against doing business with Russian arms exporters. Russian President Vladimir Putin is going to visit Saudi Arabia soon.
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Unipolar Moments Never Last More Than a Moment
Unipolar Moments Never Last More Than a Moment
American leaders, politicians, policymakers and pundits are fond of talking about the “Unipolar Moment” and “Hyper Power” position that they imagine the United States enjoys in the world.
Totally lacking from this fantasy are any inconvenient historical facts.
The US Unipolar Moment (insofar as it existed at all) lasted less than a decade from the break-up of the Soviet Union at the end of December 1991 to June 15, 2001. The US “moment” barely made it into the 21st Century.
On that epochal day of June 15, 2001, two major events happened. First, US President George W. Bush gave a speech in Warsaw pledging to integrate the three tiny Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania into NATO as a prime strategic goal of the United States.
That very same day, Russia and China created with four Central Asian nations the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO): The most populous and powerful international security organization in history.
This year, the SCO doubled in population by adding India and Pakistan at the same time – two major nuclear powers with a combined population of 1.5 billion people. That means the SCO now includes more than 3 billion people, around 40 percent of the human race.
From the moment the SCO was created – dedicated from its inception to preserve and protect a multipolar world from the domination of any one power, the US unipolar moment was dead and gone.
This reality was confirmed less than three months later when al-Qaeda’s terror attacks of September 11, 2001 killed almost 3,000 people. More Americans died that day than in the 1941 Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.
George W. Bush should have been impeached for his gross incompetence. Instead his popularity soared. Imagining the Unipolar Moment (or Era) to be still in full flood he invaded Afghanistan later that year and Iraq less than two years later. The United States is still endlessly stuck in those unending wars.
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US Nuclear Safety: A Critical Problem That Has Largely Been Kept Out of the Public Eye
US Nuclear Safety: A Critical Problem That Has Largely Been Kept Out of the Public Eye
The issue of nuclear safety has been a hot topic in the second half of 2018. It has just been discussed in detail at the 62nd International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) conference in Geneva, which was held Sept. 17-21. The international conference on “The Security of Radioactive Material: The Way Forward for Prevention and Detection,” which is scheduled for Vienna, Dec. 3-7, is going to be a landmark international event that will be a focus for the media spotlight.
It is true that poor storage conditions and low nuclear-safety standards threaten the environment and increase the possibility of nuclear materials getting into the wrong hands.
Russia can be proud of its achievements in this area. The days of the 1990s when it needed outside help to tackle this problem are long gone. In 2013, Moscow ended the joint Russian-US Cooperative Threat Reduction program (the Nunn-Lugar program) because it is now able to manage these issues on its own. The cooperation over the secure storage of weapons-grade materials was suspended in 2014. The IAEA reports that today Russia boasts high nuclear-safety standards. Sophisticated protection equipment has been installed and all nuclear sites are jointly safeguarded by the military, ROSATOM’s security agency, and on-site security teams. The materials are properly safeguarded during transportation. A special program to upgrade the transportation infrastructure has been in place since 2010.
The report “The Use of Highly Enriched Uranium as Fuel in Russia,” issued by the International Panel on Fissile Materials (IPFM), a group based at Princeton University, admits that the country has made great progress to ensure the safety of uranium stockpiles and transportation.
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The Skripal Affair – Another False Flag in NATO Litany to Criminalize Russia
The Skripal Affair – Another False Flag in NATO Litany to Criminalize Russia
If we start from a premise which understands that Britain and its NATO allies are capable of mounting false flag events in Syria with chemical weapons, then it is entirely possible that British secret services carried out a similar propaganda stunt in England with regard to former Russian double agent Sergei Skripal.
We also need to bear in mind that British state intelligence agencies are plausibly running a covert assassination program targeting Russian exiles living in Britain – for the purpose of incriminating Moscow.
Over the past two decades, more than a dozen Russian dissidents have met untimely deaths while residing in England, including Alexander Litvinenko and Boris Berezovsky. Their deaths provide propaganda fodder for the British to accuse Moscow of carrying out “revenge killings”.
However, the suspicious circumstances surrounding each death could more conceivably point to the British liquidating the Russian exiles as propaganda assets.
In the case of Sergei Skripal, the disgraced former Russian military intelligence officer was convicted in Russia of being a spy working for Britain’s MI6. He was exiled to England more than a decade ago as part of an espionage swap deal.
When Skripal was apparently poisoned in his resident town of Salisbury in southwest England on March 4, along with his adult daughter, Yulia, the British authorities immediately pointed the finger of blame at Russian President Vladimir Putin for allegedly ordering an assassination. The Kremlin was accused of dispatching agents who supposedly poisoned the Skripals with a deadly nerve agent.
The publication last week by Scotland Yard police of CCTV images showing two Russian men, Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov, walking the streets of Salisbury on the weekend of the alleged attack was reported in the British media as “proof” of the supposed Kremlin assassination plot. The Skripal affair is conveniently portrayed as “one more” example of Putin’s “Kremlin killing machine”.
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US Energy Secretary Visits Moscow: Threats and Accusations Used as Foreign-Policy Tools
US Energy Secretary Visits Moscow: Threats and Accusations Used as Foreign-Policy Tools
US Secretary of Energy Rick Perry visited Moscow Sept. 11-13 to hold talks with Russia’s Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance Anton Siluanov and Energy Minister Alexander Novak. After discussing a wide range of problems, the parties agreed to restart the dormant US-Russia Energy Working Group to address issues of common interest and disagreements. It was emphasized that the two energy superpowers should maintain their points of contact in order to ensure the stability of the world’s energy markets. That’s good, but the visit also confirmed the fact that intimidation and accusations remain the main foreign policy tools all top US officials keep at the ready.
The secretary reiterated the administration’s opposition to the Nord Stream 2 undersea gas project. He confirmed during the press conference that Washington would impose sanctions against the Russian-German pipeline in order to minimize Europe’s dependence on Moscow.
Rick Perry expressed his “disappointment and concern” about “Russia’s continued attempts to infiltrate the American electric grid.” He did not specify precisely what his accusations were based on. The FBI and Department of Homeland Security issued a joint report in March, which said, “Since at least March 2016, Russian government cyber actors… targeted government entities and multiple US critical infrastructure sectors, including the energy, nuclear, commercial facilities, water, aviation, and critical manufacturing sectors.”
The report did not contain meaningful evidence. The conclusions were for the most part unsubstantiated. It offered the opinions of experts but was not convincing enough to be followed by a statement coming from the White House officially blaming Moscow. The paper used the term “infiltration,” not “attack.” Indeed, the accusations boiled down to allegations of evil intent, but not hostile acts, as nothing was destroyed and no one was killed.
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