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Berlin, Paris and London assumed Tehran could not afford to leave the JCPOA even if it was not receiving any of the promised economic rewards. Now the EU3 are facing the hour of truth, writes Pepe Escobar.

The Trump administration unilaterally cheated on the 2015 multinational, UN-endorsed JCPOA, or Iran nuclear deal. It has imposed an illegal, worldwide financial and energy blockade on all forms of trade with Iran — from oil and gas to exports of iron, steel, aluminum and copper. For all practical purposes, and in any geopolitical scenario, this is a declaration of war.

Successive U.S. governments have ripped international law to shreds; ditching the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action is only the latest instance. It doesn’t matter that Tehran has fulfilled all its commitments to the deal — according to UN inspectors. Once the leadership in Tehran concluded that the U.S. sanctions tsunami is fiercer than ever, it decided to begin partially withdrawing from the deal.

President Hassan Rouhani was adamant: Iran has not left the JCPOA — yet. Tehran’s measures are legal under the framework of articles 26 and 36 of the JCPOA — and European officials were informed in advance. But it’s clear the EU3 (Germany, France, Britain), who have always insisted on their vocal support for the JCPOA, must work seriously to alleviate the U.S.-provoked economic disaster to Iran if Tehran has any incentive to continue to abide by the agreement.

Protests in front of former U.S. embassy in Tehran after U.S. decision to withdraw from JCPOA, May 8, 2018. (Hossein Mersadi via Wikimedia Commons)

Russia and China — the pillars of Eurasia integration, to which Iran adheres — support Tehran’s position. This was discussed extensively in Moscow by Sergey Lavrov and Iran’s Javad Zarif, perhaps the world’s top two foreign ministers.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

America, You Are Fired!

May 12, 2019

America, You Are Fired!

Some ironies are just too precious to pass by. The 2016 US presidential elections gave us Donald Trump, a reality TV star whose famous tag line from his show “The Apprentice” was “You are fired!” Focus on this tag line; it is all that is important to this story. Some Trump Derangement Disorder sufferers might disagree. This is because they are laboring under certain misapprehensions: that the US is a democracy; or that it matters who is president. It isn’t and it doesn’t. By this point, the choice of president matters as much as the choice of conductor for the band that plays aboard a ship as it vanishes beneath the waves.

I have made these points continuously since before Trump got into office. Whether or not you think that Trump was actually elected, he did get in somehow, and there are reasons to believe that this had something to do with his wonderfully refreshing “You are fired!” tag line. It’s a fair guess that what motivated people to vote for him was their ardent wish that somebody would come along and fire all of the miscreants that infest Washington, DC and surrounding areas. Alas, that he couldn’t do. Figurehead leaders are never granted the authority to dismantle the political establishments that install them. But that is not to say that it can’t be done at all.

What happened instead was that the political establishment spent two years thrashing about in search of a reason to say “You are fired!” to Trump but has been unable to find one, and so Trump remains in office, although to say that he “remains in power” would be to invite sardonic laughter from anyone who knows what real political power smells like.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Next Stop On The War Train – Iran, Venezuela Or North Korea?

April 25, 2019

Next Stop On The War Train – Iran, Venezuela Or North Korea?

If you learn one rule about how governments function today, it should be that political leaders are usually puppets and the real decision makers are almost never out in the open. The questions is, how does one know for certain that this is the case with a specific leader? His rhetoric might be compelling, he probably knows every buzzword to spark your interest, and he might even throw you some legislative scraps from the political table every once in a while to make you think that he’s going to follow through on his campaign promises, but does he actually believe in the principles he originally championed?

The litmus test for any US president is to examine the type of people he invites into his house. Who does he surround himself with? The cabinet is the president’s constant companion and decision making team. The cabinet is looking over his shoulder and influencing everything he does. If you want to find who is pulling the strings of a president, this is a good place to start.

Once you identify the major players in the cabinet, it’s important to discern what they want. What goals are they trying to squeeze out of a first or second term in the White House? What is the geopolitical or social trend they are creating through their influence? This should not be hard to read…

The problem with our current president, Donald Trump, is not that he is very different from previous presidents, but that he is very similar to them in many ways. While conservatives that voted for Trump did so most of all in the hopes that he would follow through on his promise to “drain the swamp”, he has instead been actively filling the swamp with ever more slimy and parasitic creatures.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Empire Versus Democracy and Freedom. Will The Espionage Act Displace the US Constitution?

April 19, 2019

5Empire Versus Democracy and Freedom. Will The Espionage Act Displace the US Constitution?

The public interest, and democratic political economies, both domestic and internationally, are poison to Empire. But this must be hidden from view, hence war propaganda/fake news is protected by legislation, while Constitutionally-protected, evidence-based real journalism, a dying phenomenon, continues to be attacked.

The First Amendment of the US Constitution, adopted on December 15, 1791,

“prevents the government from making laws which respect an establishment of religion, prohibit the free exercise of religion, or abridge the freedom of speech, the freedom of the press, the right to peaceably assemble, or the right to petition the government for redress of grievances.” [1]

However, the Constitution is under constant assault by US oligarch[2] ruling classes.

Freedom of the press has been negated by ruling class monopoly ownership and pervasive propaganda. Criminal propaganda is protected while “freedoms of speech” are under constant assault.

The fakery of the news stories is protected by (unconstitutional) laws embedded in the National Defense Authorization Act which blur the lines between reality and spectacle. In an earlier article I wrote,

According to an amendment to the 2013 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), the House Bill H.R 5736 (now law), the federal government of the United States can now legally propagandize the domestic public.
Arguably, this makes staged theatrical presentations, featuring crisis-actors, and purporting to be ‘reality’, legal.
And, as if that isn’t enough, Don North writes in “US/NATO Embrace Psy-ops and Info-War” that,
“As reflected in a recent NATO conference in Latvia and in the Pentagon’s new ‘Law of War’ manual, the U.S. government has come to view the control and manipulation of information as a ‘soft power’ weapon, merging psychological operations, propaganda and public affairs under the catch phrase ‘strategic communications.’ “[3]

The Espionage Act[4] also contradicts the US Constitution, but it is being invoked with regard to the indictment against Julian Assange.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The US’ War Against Iran & Venezuela’s “Deep States” Is Going Public

April 16, 2019

The US’ War Against Iran & Venezuela’s “Deep States” Is Going Public

The US’ desire to dismantle the network of Iranian influence in Latin America and specifically in Venezuela speaks to its commitment to counter the regional sway of its rivals’ “deep states”, though it’s hitherto unprecedented for any country to make such a crusade public since the end of the Old Cold War, let alone clothe it in “anti-terrorist” and “anti-criminal” rhetoric.

US Secretary of State Pompeo recently reiterated his rhetoric that Iran is a “global threat”, this time basing it on his claims that the country’s network of influence in Latin America is supporting “transnational crime” and “terrorism”. This comes shortly after Washington designated the IRGC as a “terrorist” organization and approximately half a year since the Justice Department began investigating Iranian ally Hezbollah’s alleged links to drug cartels as a follow-up to the scandalous Obama-era “Operation Cassandra“. Taken together, it’s clear that the US desires to dismantle Iran and Venezuela’s supposedly interconnected influence networks in Latin America as the next step in fortifying “Fortress America“, and while “deep state” wars such as this one have been going on for decades, it’s hitherto unprecedented for any country to make such a crusade public since the end of the Old Cold War when the US used to make similar claims about the USSR and its communist proxies.

Evidently, the US isn’t shy about ushering in a new era of “deep state” wars whereby Great Powers such as itself (which is presently the leading one in the world) openly work to thwart the networks of influence established by its regional rivals’ on the grounds that the military-intelligence wings of their “deep states” are engaged in “criminal” and “terrorist” activities that threaten the world at large.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Anyone Buying This Venezuela Bullshit Is A Complete Fucking Moron

February 24, 2019

Anyone Buying This Venezuela Bullshit Is A Complete Fucking Moron

#VenezuelaAidLive is trending on Twitter in the USA as I write this, forced to the forefront of public consciousness and into everyone’s eyeballs by a concert staged by billionaire plutocrat Richard Branson. Branson’s Virgin Group controls hundreds of companies and brings in some $21 billion annually, with Branson himself valued at around five billion dollars.

The concert is pure narrative control operation, designed to advance the proven lie that the Venezuelan government is shutting out all humanitarian aid from its people, and the proven lie that it has blockaded a bridge to prevent the aid from getting through, both of which are also currently being promoted by American mainstream media despite being thoroughly disproven. In reality, the Venezuelan government has been taking in humanitarian aid from all around the world to help its people, just not from America’s regime change operation that is so blatant even NPR recognizes it, and the bridge Branson has been posing in front of for his “billionaire philanthropist” photo ops has never been open for travel.

View image on Twitter

✔

“We are on a bridge. Today we want to build a bridge of hope” — @RichardBranson. I’m so proud of my dad and everyone involved in #VenezuelaAidLive. You can live stream the concert all around the world, right now: https://venezuelaaidlive.com

They’re lying to us about Venezuela. Anyone with access to alternative media has access to the fact that they’re lying to us about Venezuela. We know this for a fact. We also know for a fact that Venezuela has the largest proven oil reserves on planet Earth, and that in spite of all these appeals to the humanitarian impulses of the US empire the Trump administration is openly interested in controlling that oil.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The Empire: Now or Never

February 21, 2019

The Empire: Now or Never

Many people I talk to seem to think American foreign policy has something to do with democracy, human rights, national security, or maybe terrorism or freedom, or niceness, or something. It is a curious belief, Washington being interested in all of them. Other people are simply puzzled, seeing no pattern in America’s international behavior. Really, the explanation is simple.

The reason of course is empire, the desire for which is an ancient and innate part of mankind’s cerebral package. Parthian, Roman, Aztec, Hapsburg, British. It never stops.

When the Soviet Empire collapsed, America appeared poised to establish the first truly world empire. The developed countries were American vassals in effect if not in name, many of them occupied by American troops: Among others, Europe, Canada, Japan, South Korea, Latin America, Saudi Arabia, and Australia. The US had by far the dominant economy and the biggest military, controlled the IMF, NATO, the dollar, SWIFT, and enjoyed technological superiority.. Russia was in chaos, China a distant smudge on the horizon.

Powerful groups in Washington, such as PNAC, began angling towed aggrandizement, but the real lunge came with the attack on Iraq. Current foreign policy openly focuses on dominating the planet. The astonishing thing is that some people don’t notice.

The world runs on oil. Controlling the supply conveys almost absolute power over those countries that do not have their own. (For example, the Japanese would soon be eating each other if their oil were cut off.) Saudi Arabia is an American protectorate,and, having seen what happened to Iraq, knows that it can be conquered in short order if it gets out of line. The U. S. Navy could easily block tanker traffic from Hormuz to any or all countries.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The Siege of Venezuela and the Travails of Empire

February 15, 2019

The Siege of Venezuela and the Travails of Empire

Illustration by Nathaniel St. Clair

Here’s the bullet-point version:

+ It’s imperialism.
+ It’s American imperialism, a bipartisan national project.
+ American imperialism is the global management of capitalist class power.
+ It’s a binary situation in which one side or the other will win via the use and threat of armed force.
+ It’s trouble for Venezuela and for imperialism.
+ There’s no such thing as Progressive Except Imperialism.

Here’s the long rant:

The United States government’s new offensive against Venezuela is an act of naked imperialism.

I predicted last year that Venezuela would be the first new country hit by the Trump administration’s indispensable need to establish its American-exceptionalist, “Presidentialist,” bona fides. It is the Goldilocks target. Not too small:It is, in fact, a significant country with world’s largest oil reserves, and a proclaimed socialist government that’s been a thorn in the gringo boot on Latin America for almost twenty years. Not too big: It’s no military match for U.S. & Latin American proxy armed forces, and nobody will start WWIII to defend it. Just right: A decisive win, at little apparent cost. And just the kind of amuse-boucheneeded to get the U.S. population’s juices flowing for a more costly and difficult attack on the ultimate target—Iran. At least, that’s the way they think.

But I couldn’t anticipate the anger and frustration I would feel, seeing this crock of shit being shoved down the throats of the world, and being swallowed whole by the bipartisan political and media establishment, with nothing more than a few hard gulps from even most U.S. “progressives.”

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Oil, Agriculture and Imperialism: Averting the Fast-Track to Armageddon?

February 15, 2019

Oil, Agriculture and Imperialism: Averting the Fast-Track to Armageddon?

Image source

US National Security Advisor John Bolton has more or less admitted that the ongoing destabilisation of Venezuela is about grabbing its oil. He recently stated:

We’re looking at the oil assets… We’re in conversation with major American companies now… It will make a big difference to the United States economically if we could have American oil companies really invest in and produce the oil capabilities in Venezuela.”

The US’s hand-picked supposed leader-in-waiting, Juan Guaido, aims to facilitate the processand usher in a programme of ‘mass privatisation’ and ‘hyper-capitalism’ at the behest of his coup-instigating masters in Washington, thereby destroying the socialist revolution spearheaded by the late Hugo Chavez and returning to a capitalist oligarch-controlled economic system.

One might wonder who is Bolton, or anyone in the US, to dictate and engineer what the future of another sovereign state should be. But this is what the US has been doing across the globe for decades. Its bloody imperialism, destabilisations, coups, assassinations, invasions and military interventions have been extensively documented by William Blum.

Of course, although oil is key to the current analysis of events in Venezuela, there is also the geopolitical subtext of debt, loans and Russian investment and leverage within the country. At the same time, it must be understood that US-led capitalism is experiencing a crisis of over-production: when this occurs capital needs to expand into or create new markets and this entails making countries like Venezuela bow to US hegemony and open up its economy.

For US capitalism, however, oil is certainly king. Its prosperity is maintained by oil with the dollar serving as the world reserve currency. Demand for the greenback is guaranteed as most international trade (especially and significantly oil) is carried out using the dollar. And those who move off it are usually targeted by the US (Venezuela being a case in point).

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

What’s Emperor Trump Doing? He is Busy at Splitting the Empire in Two

February 11, 2019

What’s Emperor Trump Doing? He is Busy at Splitting the Empire in Two

Donald Trump seems to be doing what Roman Emperors like Diocletian, Constantine, and Theodosius did long ago: splitting the empire into two halves. Trump may not have consciously decided to do that, but an Empire can only be as large as it can afford to be, and the American Empire can’t afford anymore to dominate the whole world.

Flavius Theodosius Augustus “The Great” (347- 395 CE) was the last emperor to rule over the whole Roman Empire. His success was probably due in large part to his habit of plundering Pagan temples for the gold he needed to pay his troops. But Pagan temples were a limited resource and Theodosius himself seemed to understand that when, shortly before his death, he partitioned the Empire between his two sons, Arcadius and Honorius. Afterward, the empire would never be whole again.

The Roman Empire had been a strong centralized power during its heydays, but it never was very interested in creating an ethnical and linguistic unity among its subjects. The Roman authorities understood very well that it was less expensive to tolerate diversity than to force uniformity — a typical policy of most empires. So, the Empire remained split into two main linguistic halves: the Latin-speaking Pars Occidentis and the Greek-speaking Pars Orientis. Theoretically, Latin was the official language of the Empire but, in practice, it remained a bilingual entity and, during the 2nd and 3rd centuries, the Roman elite would rather speak Greek — considered more refined and classy.

The split of the two sides of the Empire was not just linguistic, it was economic as well. The Pars Occidentis remained based on mineral wealth which, in turn, fueled the Empire’s military power.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The Empire’s Propagandists

January 29, 2019

The Empire’s Propagandists

Drawing by Nathaniel St. Clair

With most media attention in the US on the government shutdown and border wall stand-off spectacle, the Trump administration has been quietly ramping up US militarism around the world. And it has set its sights on Venezuela, once again, by supporting a coup. Whether or not one supports the policies of Maduro or any other leader is inconsequential in this regard because, despite the empty mythos, the American Empire has never been interested in defending democracy. After all, its list of allies include fascist strongholds, a murderous medieval kingdom, a ruthless apartheid regime and several compliant, neoliberal states.

The ruling class of the US imperium will simply not tolerate any government that opposes its financial and geopolitical dominance, attempts socialism, or transfers its nexus to another powerful state entity, like Russia or China for instance. If one chooses to do so it is instantly targeted for assault either by crippling economic sanctions or embargoes, which make governance nearly impossible and primarily harms the general population, or covert subversion, or by direct and indirect military intervention. And the corporate media, when it chooses to cover these issues, generally parrots State Department and Pentagon talking points and obfuscations about the intentions of the US government, the role of corporations and global capitalism, and the character of the governments the US happens to be opposing at the time. And all of this is done with virtually no historical analysis. But of course none of this is new.

Whether it was for Reagan in Grenada or Bush Sr. in Panama or Kuwait, or Clinton in the Balkans, the American mainstream media has dutifully peddled the lies of Washington. The media cycle was drenched in the lies of the Bush administration about “weapons of mass destruction” in Iraq.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Trump’s Biggest Lie?

January 17, 2019

ERIC ZUESSE | 16.01.2019 | SECURITY / WAR AND CONFLICT| WORLD / MIDDLE EAST

Trump’s Biggest Lie?

INTRODUCTION

(NOTE: Remarks from US President Donald Trump that will be considered as representing possibly his biggest lie will here be boldfaced, so that they will stand out from the context in which he stated them.)

Trump escalated Bush’s and Obama’s invasions and military occupations of the sovereign nations of Iraq, Afghanistan, and Syria. But on January 7^th, he promised, in one of his thousands of lying tweets, that, “Endless Wars, especially those which are fought out of judgement mistakes that were made many years ago, & those where we are getting little financial or military help from the rich countries that so greatly benefit from what we are doing, will eventually come to a glorious end!”

Then, on Sunday, January 13^th, he tweeted that if Turkey won’t do in Syria what he, the US President, wants it to do there, then the United States will be in the first official stage of war against Turkey, the economic-sanctions phase, which nowadays is the prelude to an invasion, as has been the case since 1990 regarding Iraq. On January 13^th, he tweeted, “Will devastate Turkey economically if they hit Kurds. Create 20 mile safe zone….” Minutes later, he tweeted: “…Likewise, do not want the Kurds to provoke Turkey. Russia, Iran and Syria have been the biggest beneficiaries of the long term US policy of destroying ISIS in Syria – natural enemies. We also benefit but it is now time to bring our troops back home. Stop the ENDLESS WARS!”

First, here, will be discussed his January 7th string of lies, in order to isolate which one of those was the biggest:

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The US Has Military Forces in Over 160 Countries, but the Pentagon Is Hiding the Exact Numbers

January 16, 2019

The US Has Military Forces in Over 160 Countries, but the Pentagon Is Hiding the Exact Numbers

The US has 95% of the world’s foreign military bases, with personnel in more than 160 countries. But the Pentagon is leaving hundreds of outposts out of its official reports.

Editor’s Note: Nick Turse reports in TomDispatch that the US Department of Defense is operating “hundreds of off-the-books bases absent from the official rolls.” The Pentagon lists in its official property portfolio 4,775 sites, including 514 overseas outposts in 45 foreign countries. But Turse points out that this excludes hundreds of known US military bases in numerous nations.

DoD also publicly acknowledges that it has personnel in more than 160 countries on all seven continents. And the annual cost of deploying these US military personnel abroad and operating these foreign bases approaches $150 billion per year, Turse reports.

The US has 95 percent of the world’s total number of foreign military bases. And scholar David Vine tells Turse “the secrecy is mostly to prevent domestic debate about the money, danger, and death involved, as well as to avoid diplomatic tensions and international inquiries.”

Bases, Bases, Everywhere… Except in the Pentagon’s Report

The U.S. military is finally withdrawing (or not) from its base at al-Tanf. You know, the place that the Syrian government long claimed was a training ground for Islamic State (ISIS) fighters; the land corridor just inside Syria, near both the Iraqi and Jordanian borders, that Russia has called a terrorist hotbed (while floating the idea of jointly administering it with the United States); the location of a camp where hundreds of U.S. Marines joined Special Operations forces last year…

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Embarrassing Speeches: Signs of a Dying Empire

January 14, 2019

Embarrassing Speeches: Signs of a Dying Empire

“What are you reading my lord?” — Polonius

“Words.” — Hamlet

Something has changed in U.S. politics. And it may finally signal something changing for the better. Since the announcement (but no real follow through) to end our military involvement in Syria what passes for our statesmen — John Bolton and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo — have been ignored, mocked or both.

Bolton attempted to box Trump in on not leaving Syria while Israel chest-thumped about how they will not yield an inch to Iran. Turkish President Erdogan publicly lambasted him with no response from President Trump.

Or anyone else for that matter.

When was the last time you heard of a major U.S. political figure go overseas and be refused a meeting with a foreign head of state, publicly upbraided and sent home like an irrelevant flunkie?

I can’t think of one.

Bolton came into the Middle East and made demands like he was the President which Bolton knew were clearly red lines for Erdogan — guaranteeing the safety of the Syrian Kurds.

And he did this from Jerusalem.

The insult couldn’t be plainer. The lack of Bolton’s self-awareness and understanding of the situation was embarrassing. And it left Erdogan the perfect opportunity to call out the Trump Administration’s policies as beholden to a foreign power, Israel.

Pompeo’s Pomp

Next up we have His Rotundity, Mike Pompeo. He goes into Cairo and gives a speech which again shows a stunning lack of specific knowledge of history. Pompeo spent most of the speech doing what he does best.

Misrepresenting history of U.S. involvement in the Middle East so ardently one really thought he should have done it in his private man place.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

War Criminals at Large

January 9, 2019

War Criminals at Large

It is a common misconception that democracies do not start wars of aggression or carry out terrorist attacks. The historical facts for the period from 1945 to today show a completely different reality: time and again, democratic states in Europe and North America have participated in wars of aggression and terrorist attacks in the past 70 years.

There are so many cases that I am not able to list all of them here. As examples, I have selected three events from different decades:

the illegal attack by the European democracies Britain and France on Egypt in 1956;
the terrorist attack by the democracy France on Rainbow Warrior, a ship operated by the environmental organization Greenpeace in 1985;
and the illegal attack by US President Donald Trump on Syria on April 7, 2017.

Because mass media, neither in the European nor the American democracies, openly address and criticize these crimes and because so far the responsible politicians have not been convicted by a court, a stubborn misconception persists in the populations of these aggressor states that democracies never start wars and also never use terror as a political instrument.

But the three examples mentioned show clearly:

Democracies, members of the NATO military alliance and with a veto power in the UN Security Council to protect themselves from condemnation, have repeatedly attacked other countries.

This is illegal. For the UN Charter of 1945, Article 2 (4), clearly states:

All Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force..[..]

The Charter only allows the use of force if an attacked state defends itself or if the United Nations Security Council has approved the military strike. In all other cases, the UN prohibits war. Terrorist attacks are always prohibited.

The attack on Egypt in 1956

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

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