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The Untouchable US-Saudi Relation Is a Core Element of US Imperialism
The Untouchable US-Saudi Relation Is a Core Element of US Imperialism
In the last few weeks, numerous articles and analyses have been produced relating to the murder of Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. However, the relationship between Saudi Arabia and the United States has not been questioned, and the reason for this has not yet been explained.
Nixon’s decision in 1971 to withdraw the United States from the gold standard greatly influenced the future direction of humanity. The US dollar rose in importance from the mid-1950s to become the world reserve currency as a result of the need for countries to use the dollar in trade. One of the most consumed commodities in the world is oil, and as is well known, the price is set by OPEC in US dollars, with this organization being strongly influenced by Saudi Arabia.
It is therefore towards Riyadh that we must look in order to understand the workings of the petrodollar. After the dollar was withdrawn from the gold standard, Washington made an arrangement with Riyadh to price oil solely in dollars. In return, the Saudis received protection and were granted a free hand in the region. This decision forced the rest of the world to hold a high amount of US dollars in their currency reserves, requiring the purchase of US treasuries. The relationship between the US dollar and oil breathed new life to this currency, placing it at the centre of the global financial and economic system. This privileged role enjoyed by the dollar allowed the United States to finance its economy through the simple process of printing its fiat currency, relying on its credibility and supported by the petrodollar that required other countries to store reserves of US treasuries in their basket of currencies.
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A Rules-Based Global Order or Rule-less US Global ‘Order’?
A Rules-Based Global Order or Rule-less US Global ‘Order’?
“It has taken the US military/security complex 31 years to get rid of President Reagan’s last nuclear disarmament achievement – the INF Treaty, that President Reagan and Soviet President Gorbachev achieved in 1987”, writes Reagan’s former Assistant Treasury Secretary:
“Behind the scenes, I had some role in this, and as I remember, what the treaty achieved was to make Europe safe from nuclear attack by Soviet short and intermediate range missiles [the SS20s], and to make the Soviet Union safe from US [Pershing missiles deployed in Europe]. By restricting nuclear weapons to ICBMs, which allowed some warning time, thus guaranteeing retaliation and non-use of nuclear weapons, the INF Treaty was regarded as reducing the risk of an American first-strike on Russia and a [Soviet] first-strike on Europe … Reagan, unlike the crazed neoconservatives, who he fired and prosecuted, saw no point in nuclear war that would destroy all life on earth. The INF Treaty was the beginning, in Reagan’s mind, of the elimination of nuclear weapons from military arsenals. The INF Treaty was chosen as the first start, because it did not substantially threaten the budget of the US military/security complex”.
The Trump Administration however now wants to unilaterally exit the INF. “Speaking to reporters in Nevada, Trump said: “Russia has violated the agreement. They’ve been violating it for many years and I don’t know why President Obama didn’t negotiate or pull out … We’re going to pull out … We’re not going to let them violate a nuclear agreement and do weapons, and we’re not allowed to”. Asked to clarify, the President said: “Unless Russia comes to us and China comes to us and they all come to us, and they say,
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Sanctions and the Hypocrisy of Washington and London
Sanctions and the Hypocrisy of Washington and London
On March 4 this year a British spy and former Russian citizen, Sergei Skripal, was poisoned in the town of Salisbury, England. He recovered, as did his daughter who had also been affected, and is now in deep security with a new face and name and an increase to his already generous British salary. The toxin involved was a nerve agent usually referred to as Novichok. The British government immediately blamed the Russian government for the incident and ten days after it took place the BBC reported that the British prime minister had expelled 23 Russian diplomats which she described as “actions to dismantle the Russian espionage network in the UK.”
It is notable that it took only ten days for the British government to decide to take action against Russia, in spite of there being no proof whatever that the Russian government was involved in the toxin-induced collapse of Skripal. And London didn’t only expel diplomats, it cancelled all high-level bilateral contacts with Russia and froze “Russian state assets where there is evidence that they may be used to threaten the life or property of UK nationals or residents.”
Then Washington joined in, expelling 60 diplomats, and Reuters reported that “US sanctions against Russia tied to a nerve agent attack in Britain” would add “to the array of economic penalties it has imposed on Moscow in recent years.”
The definition of “sanction” is generally accepted as being “an economic or military coercive measure adopted usually by several nations in concert for forcing a nation violating international law to desist or yield to adjudication” (Merriam Webster), or in the same vein, but with slightly different emphasis, “measures taken by a state to coerce another to conform to an international agreement or norms of conduct” (Oxford).
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Western Media Make One Death a Tragedy, Millions a Statistic
Western Media Make One Death a Tragedy, Millions a Statistic
The Western media coverage devoted to the murdered Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi proves the cynical adage that one person’s death is a tragedy, while millions of deaths are a mere statistic.
During the past four weeks since Khashoggi went missing at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, the case has been constantly in the news cycle. Contrast that with the sparse coverage in Western news media of the horrific Saudi war in Yemen during the past four years.
The United Nations has again recently warned that 16 million in Yemen were facing death from starvation as a result of the war waged on that country by Saudi Arabia and its Gulf Arab partners, with the crucial military support of the US, Britain and France. That imminent death toll hardly registered a response from Western media or governments.
Last week, some 21 Yemeni workers at a vegetable packing plant near the Red Sea port of Hodeida were killed after US-backed Saudi warplanes launched air strikes. Again, hardly any condemnation was registered by Western governments and media pundits.
Admittedly, some politicians in the US and Europe are lately expressing disdain over the Saudi-led war and the possible culpability of Western governments in crimes against humanity.
Nevertheless, in proportion to the public concern devoted to the killing of Jamal Khashoggi there is a staggering indifference in relation to Yemen. How is possible that the fate of one man can provoke so much emotion and angst, while millions of children in Yemen appear to be shrugged off as “collateral damage”.
Partly, the circumstances of Khashoggi’s murder by a Saudi death squad are more easily visualized.
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Military Escalation in Europe Is Like Runaway Train: It’s Time to Slow It Down
Military Escalation in Europe Is Like Runaway Train: It’s Time to Slow It Down
Much has been said about the Trident Juncture 2018 NATO exercise being held in the immediate vicinity of Russia’s borders. This is the largest training event since the Cold War, but it’s only part of a broader picture, in which military war preparations targeting Russia are in full swing. Exercises are being coordinated, along with infrastructure facilities that are being built, expanded, and modernized. For instance, last week the construction of an aircraft maintenance hangar at Estonia’s Amari Air Base, the first military project fully funded by the European Deterrence Initiative (EDI), was completed. The event was celebrated by US and Estonian air force officials with a ribbon-cutting ceremony. More than $38 million in EDI funds are being invested in that base. Beyond the training, a joint maintenance facility will also support the NATO aircraft that are conducting air policing in Eastern Europe. The Air Force Times cited US Air Forces Europe Commander Gen. Tod Wolters, who promised that even more funding was coming down the pipe for other projects. “Looking into fiscal year 2019, we are proposing a [European Defense Initiative] budget that demonstrates the US commitment to NATO,” he noted. According to him, “Our total [US European Command] request includes a significant funding increase from $4.7 billion to $6.5 billion.”
The NATO infrastructure modernization plans include upgrades to the Kecskemet Air Base in Hungary so that it can accommodate US F-15 fighters, A-10 attack planes, and C-5 transport aircraft, in addition to building a munitions storage facility at Malacky Air Base, Slovakia and a taxiway at Rygge, Norway. These steps are part of a larger effort to prepare for offensive operations against Russia.
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America’s Nuclear Death Wish – Europe Must Rebel
America’s Nuclear Death Wish – Europe Must Rebel
The Trump administration’s declared scrapping of a crucial arms control treaty is putting the world on notice of a nuclear war, sooner or later.
Any such war is not winnable. It is mutually assured destruction. Yet the arrogant American rulers – some of them at least – seem to be deluded in thinking they can win such a war.
What makes the American position even more execrable is that it is being pushed by people who have never fought a war. Indeed, by people like President Donald Trump and his hawkish national security advisor John Bolton who both dodged military service to their country during the Vietnam War. How’s that for macabre mockery? The world is being pushed to war by a bunch of effete cowards who are clueless about war.
Trump announced last this week that the US was finally pulling out of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, a move confirmed by Bolton on a follow-up trip to Moscow. That treaty was signed in 1987 by former President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev. It was a landmark achievement of cooperation and trust between the nuclear superpowers. Both sides removed short and medium-range nuclear missiles from Europe.
With Trump intending to rip up the INF Treaty, as his predecessor GW Bush had done with the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty in 2002, Europe is now facing the disastrous prospect of American missiles being reinstalled across its territory as they were in the 1980s. However, a big distinction between then and now is that after years of expansion by NATO, European territory is at an even sharper interface with Russia’s heartland.
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Seeing the Big Picture: Russia-China Economic Cooperation, the SCO and Global Climate Change
Seeing the Big Picture: Russia-China Economic Cooperation, the SCO and Global Climate Change
This year’s Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok was as usual the subject of dismissive coverage – if any in the mainstream US and UK media. Viewed through the feverish and unregulated speculative bubbles that have defined what passes for 21st century global finance in New York and London, the slow but steady and enormous moves towards industrial and resource consolidation and cooperation between Beijing and Moscow are occurring at too slow a rate to grab Western imaginations shaped by Attention Deficit Disorders.
This failure to grasp the scale of what is going on is like Aesop’s Fable of the Tortoise and the Hare. Western leaders, strategists and financiers think in 24 hour news cycles and soundbites. Presidents Vladimir Putin of Russia and Xi Jinping of China are thinking in terms of decades and generations.
Western leaders and commentators believe Russian-Chinese economic cooperation has already failed and can never succeed be because it is moving slowly. They fail to grasp that it is moving consistently and steadily in the same direction.
What Russia and China are doing, as perceptive contributors to the Strategic Culture Foundation such as Federico Pieraccini have pointed out is to integrate the strategic security dimension of the highly successful and now well-established Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) with the economic investment dimension of China’s Road and Belt Initiative.
A comparison could be with the much touted success of the combined Marshall Plan and NATO Alliance initiatives produced by the United States in the late 1940s to integrate all of Western Europe under US leadership and control.
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Two Stories from the Propaganda War
Two Stories from the Propaganda War
Two recent stories about Russians have demonstrated how the news is selected and manipulated in the United States. The first is about Maria Butina, who apparently sought to overthrow American democracy, such as it is, by obtaining a life membership in the National Rifle Association. Maria, a graduate student at American University, is now in detention in a federal prison, having been charged with collusion and failure to register as an agent of the Russian Federation. She has been in prison since July, for most of the time in solitary confinement, and has not been granted bail because, as a Russian citizen, she is considered to be a “flight risk.”
Maria, who has pleaded not guilty to all charges, is now seeking donations to help pay for her legal defense as the Russian government renews demands that she be released from jail or be tried on whatever charges the Justice Department can come up with, but her release is unlikely as she is really a political prisoner.
The media has been silent about Maria Butina because the case against her is falling apart. In early September prosecutors admitted that they had misunderstood text messages used to support claims that she had offered to trade sex for access to information. Demands that she consequently be released from prison were, however, rejected. Her lawyer observed that “The impact of this inflammatory allegation, which painted Ms. Butina as some type of Kremlin-trained seductress, or spy-novel honeypot character, trading sex for access and power, cannot be overstated.”
In an attempt to make the Butina embarrassment disappear from the news, the Justice Department has proposed an unprecedented gag order to prevent her attorney from appearing in the media in a way that could prejudice a jury should her case eventually come to trial.
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Listening In to Killings – and Everything Else
Listening In to Killings – and Everything Else
It was intriguing that the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on October 2 was apparently recorded in some fashion. The BBC reported that “A Turkish security source has confirmed to BBC Arabic the existence of an audio and a video recording. What is not clear is if anyone other than Turkish officials has seen or heard them. One source is cited by the Washington Post saying men can be heard beating Mr Khashoggi; it adds that the recordings show he was killed and dismembered.”
It seemed pretty much an open-and-shut case. There was evidence that the despotic regime of Saudi monarchy, as always regarding themselves as being above decency, law and civilisation in general, had been so annoyed with a Saudi journalist that they killed him. It was an amateur operation, and Mossad (for example) would have done a better and more discreet job (although their assassination of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in Dubai was a bit botched), but it achieved the Saudis’ objective and sent the message round the world that any of their nationals daring to speak out against the Trump-supported boy dictator in Riyadh, the ruthless Mohammed bin Salman, would pay the ultimate price.
But then the story about a recording of the torture and killing of Jamal Khashoggi underwent modification. Perhaps there wasn’t a Turkish audio and video recording, after all. CNBC broadcast that “The Turkish newspaper Sabah reported that Khashoggi recorded audio of the alleged killing using an app on his Apple Watch and was able to upload the recording to his iPhone and iCloud account,” but the conclusion was that “It would have been nearly impossible for Khashoggi to record audio and upload it to his iPhone or the internet, and it raises questions as to how Turkish officials obtained the audio and video evidence of the alleged killing.”
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US Withdrawal from INF Treaty: Implications for Asia Pacific
US Withdrawal from INF Treaty: Implications for Asia Pacific
One of the motives behind the US withdrawal from the INF Treaty is its desire to acquire first-strike capability against Russia from Europe, while keeping intact its strategic nuclear arsenal. Another motivation is the need to keep China, America’s fiercest geopolitical challenger, in its crosshairs by forcing it to alter its foreign, defense, and trade policies in order to tip the balance in Washington’s favor. The capability to knock out key infrastructure sites with precision intermediate-range strikes deep inside China, not just in the coastal provinces, is one way to make Beijing more tractable on key issues and force a rollback of its global influence. In April, Adm. Harry Harris, the commander of US Pacific Command, told the Senate Armed Services Committee that the US should renegotiate the INF Treaty to better compete with China. The admiral knew what he was talking about.
China has developed the DF-26 “aircraft carrier-killer” ballistic missile that has now rendered the old US strategy ineffective. Zachary Keck of the National Interest believes the DF-26 intermediate-range ballistic missile could stop the US Navy in its tracks without firing a shot. That threat has to be countered and one way to do it is by knocking it out with land-based, highly accurate missiles. Such systems are cheaper than aircraft carriers and can do the job without exposing thousands of servicemen to the missile threat if used for a first strike. China has been testing a new nuclear-capable, air-launched ballistic missile constructed on the basis of the DF-21 that will help that country improve its warfighting capabilities. Beijing also boasts land-based mobile missile systems (LBMMS) with DF-10 cruise missiles that have a maximum range of 1,500 to 2,000 km. China has to defend itself, and fielding these systems is the only way that it can counteract America’s huge sea, space, and air advantages.
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American War Declaration
American War Declaration
Wess Mitchell, Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs in the US State Department, gave a remarkable presentation to the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee on 21 August 2018. Titled “US Strategy Towards the Russian Federation” it ostensibly lays out the US reaction to Russia’s continuing aggression, hostility, interference and so forth. It is written in the tone of a sadder but wiser householder who, formerly expecting better from his neighbour, now realises that there will be no better: the neighbour, alas, is not capable of decent behaviour. While remaining ever hopeful that reason will prevail, the peaceful neighbour must gird himself for an unpleasant struggle – Washington must respond to Moscow’s disruption. How sad.
But in all of these areas, it is up to Russia, not America, to take the next step. Our policy remains unchanged: steady cost-imposition until Russia changes course.
But, in an interesting slip of the tongue, he gave away the real policy. I say “slip of the tongue” because the State Department version of his speech leaves out the two sentences that tell you that most of Mitchell’s testimony is sleight of hand to distract the audience.
The starting point of the National Security Strategy is the recognition that America has entered a period of big-power competition, and that past US policies have neither sufficiently grasped the scope of this emerging trend nor adequately equipped our nation to succeed in it. Contrary to the hopeful assumptions of previous administrations, Russia and China are serious competitors that are building up the material and ideological wherewithal to contest US primacy and leadership in the 21st Century.
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War Plans on Iran Mean Trump and Saudis Coordinating Cover-up of Khashoggi Killing
War Plans on Iran Mean Trump and Saudis Coordinating Cover-up of Khashoggi Killing
Finally, nearly three weeks after what most of the world suspected to be a foul murder, the Saudi regime has officially admitted that Jamal Khashoggi was killed in its consulate in Istanbul, Turkey. No sooner had the Saudis issued their latest lie to cover up previous lies, US President Trump was lending White House prestige to the travesty.
Trump said the belated Saudi version of what happened was “credible”. He also welcomed as “good first steps” the Saudi arrest of 18 individuals and sacking of several top officials.
The Saudi “explanation” of Khashoggi’s death stretches credulity to snapping point. They are saying he was killed after a fist-fight broke out in the consulate. The Saudis are also claiming the de facto ruler of the kingdom, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MbS), did not know anything about the murder, its planning or aftermath. Recall that MbS asserted in an interview with Bloomberg on October 5 that Khashoggi had walked out of the consulate the same day he arrived.
Now the Crown Prince has been appointed by his father, aging King Salman, to head up a committee to oversee an overhaul of the royal court’s intelligence organization. The former deputy head of intelligence, Ahmed al-Assiri, is one of those senior aides who has been sacked and set to take the rap.
In other words, the heir to the throne, MbS, is being absolved of any responsibility in the scandal. The sacked aides and arrested men, who are believed to include the 15-member team that went to Istanbul to intercept Khashoggi, are being made the scapegoats.
It is customary Saudi treachery at work. There is simply no way that a 15-member team that included top bodyguards of the Crown Prince could have carried out the Khashoggi abduction and killing without the monarch’s knowledge and sanction.
US intelligence intercepts have claimed to show that MbS was indeed involved in the planning of Khashoggi’s doom. It is simply preposterous that the 15-member hit squad went “rogue” and carried out a murder on their own initiative.
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The Earthquake in International Alliances
The Earthquake in International Alliances
America’s international alliances are transforming in fundamental ways. The likelihood of World War III is increasing, and has been increasing ever since 2012 when the US first slapped Russia with the Magnitsky Act sanctions. In fact, one matter driving these changing alliances now toward unprecedented realignments is that some nations’ leaders want to do whatever they can to prevent WW III.
On October 17th, America’s Military Times bannered “Why today’s troops fear a new war is coming soon” and reported, “About 46 percent of troops who responded to the anonymous survey of currently serving Military Times readers said they believe the US will be drawn into a new war within the next year. That’s a jarring increase from only about 5 percent who said the same thing in a similar poll conducted in September 2017.” Their special fear is of war against Russia and/or China: “About 71 percent of troops said Russia was a significant threat, up 18 points from last year’s survey. And 69 percent of troops said China poses a significant threat, up 24 points from last year.” The US spends around half of the entire world’s military budget; and, after 9/11, has invaded Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, and Yemen, and perpetrated a bloody coup turning Ukraine into a rabidly anti-Russian government on Russia’s very doorstep and even an applicant for NATO membership though, in 2009, before Obama’s coup overthrew Ukraine’s democratically elected Government, even US media reported that “barely 25 percent of Ukrainians favor joining NATO.” After 1991 when Russia’s anti-American Warsaw Pact military alliance ended, America’s anti-Russian NATO military alliance expanded right up to Russia’s very borders. Nonetheless, these troops aren’t afraid that the US is posing a threat to Russia and maybe to China, but that Russia and China are both posing threats against America; they trust their Government; it’s what they’re taught to believe. But the reality is very different. And it involves all of the “great power” relationships — not only US, Russia, and China.
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Trump: the Resurgent Cold War President
Trump: the Resurgent Cold War President
Some of the world’s hottest points of conflict during the Cold War are, once again, in the headlines because of Donald Trump’s erratic and bombastic saber-rattling antics. Even a military pact between North and South Korea, one worked out between South Korean President Moon Jae-in and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un at their third summit in Pyongyang in September is being actively opposed by Trump’s pompous Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo. In remarks in the South Korean parliament, Foreign Minister Kang Kyung said that Pompeo wanted Seoul to go slow on its talks with North Korea. It is known that Trump wants another summit with North Korea’s Kim. Little resulted from the first Trump-Kim meeting in Singapore, which was largely a much-ballyhooed photo op, but was heralded by some myopic Trump supporters as an epic event rivaling President Richard Nixon’s trip to China.
Trump is likely opposed to the inter-Korean agreement, which would see a moratorium on military drills, removal of land mines and guard posts within the Demilitarized Zone and establish a no-fly zone around it, and other major steps, because he was not part of the talks between the two Korean leaders that brought about the deal. No world leader who is interested in any sort of peace deal would want the bellicose and mentally-imbalanced Trump, a self-described “deal maker,” involved. Trump’s ego and his ignorance of world history and international relations serves as an impediment to any meaningful multilateral talks, whether they are between the two Koreas or further south between China and Taiwan.
Cross-Strait relations between China and Taiwan have grown tense since the Trump administration announced that it was increasing military relations with Taiwan.
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Opportunities Abound After Khashoggi-Gate
Opportunities Abound After Khashoggi-Gate
Every crisis is also an opportunity. Don’t worry I’m not about to go all Rahm Emmanuel, Mr. Realpolitik, on you today. The disappearance/death/dismemberment of Jamal Khashoggi is both a crisis and an opportunity for the worst people in the world.
And all of them are seizing the day, as it were.
Frankly, most of it makes me sick to my stomach. Because where were these virtue-signaling champions of human rights like Jamie Dimon of J.P. Morgan or Lindsay Graham (R – AIPAC) for the past three years as Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MbS) prosecuted a starvation campaign in Yemen with U.S. complicity?
Does Lindsay not know that MbS is funding the U.S. occupation in eastern Syria he’s so in love with?
Now all of a sudden, every war-monger in Washington and Wall St. wants to cut ties with him because killing a political opponent is “beyond the pale?” Even Christine LaGarde of the IMF will be a no-show at MbS’s big “Davos in the Desert” conference.
This is a political hit job.
If this faux outrage wasn’t so transparent it would be pathetic. On second thought, it is pathetic.
The truth is MbS is a monster. But, he’s our monster, unfortunately. We’ve known this since the moment he entered the scene.
Since getting Trump’s stamp of approval in early 2017 MbS has used that to go too far a number of times which the U.S. has had to clean up behind him. His blockade of Qatar didn’t have Washington’s approval.
I’m sure killing Khashoggi in the Saudi Turkish consulate didn’t either.
His consolidation of power was swift and brutal.
It’s only just now dawning on American media companies that the Saudis are a bunch of brutal thugs that make the Lannisters look like Quakers?
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