Category Archives: Foreign Policy

Putin and Xi Standing Firm on the Right Side of History, by Finian Cunningham

Posted on March 23, 2023 | Leave a comment

Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin are putting together a hell of an alliance. From Finian Cunningham at strategic-culture.org:

The world is changing before our eyes. Western imperialist regimes are being exposed for the warmongers they are, and a new multipolar order of partnership and peace is emerging.

The historic summit this week between the Russian and Chinese leaders provoked paroxysms of angst in the Western media. President Vladimir Putin’s hosting of China’s Xi Jinping in Moscow was presented as the “world’s two most prominent autocrats” purportedly establishing a hostile “anti-West axis”.

The American and European media – slavishly echoing the talking points of their imperialist regimes – were in hyper-bogeyman mode. The meeting of Putin and Xi was distorted in every way to appear as something illegitimately threatening and sinister to the Western “rules-based global order” (euphemism for Western capitalist privileges and predation.)

Bogeyman mode also entails collective amnesia. The summit coincided with the 20th anniversary of the U.S. and British launching their war on Iraq – arguably the biggest crime of the 21st century so far. Yet this vile anniversary has hardly stirred any Western media condemnation or shame, never mind legal accountability.

The wanton cynicism towards the Putin-Xi meeting belies the deep anxiety among the U.S.-dominated clique of Western states that the much-vaunted “rules-based order” is collapsing. A collapse caused by its own inherent corruption and systematic abuse of power and international law over many decades.

Both Putin and Xi emphasized that the Russia-China alliance was not meant to threaten any third party.

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Posted in Eurasian Axis, Foreign Policy, Geopolitics, Governments

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Will the Circle Be Unbroken? By James Bovard

Posted on March 23, 2023 | Leave a comment

James Bovard’s money sentence: “The Iraq War codified American presidents’ prerogative to inflict no-fault carnage on the world.” From Bovard at theamericanconservative.com:

Last year, former President George W. Bush vehemently condemned the “decision of one man to launch a wholly unjustified and brutal invasion of Iraq.” Bush had blundered in a speech condemning Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. He realized his mistake, mentioned Putin, but then added, “But Iraq, too.” The audience at the George W. Bush Presidential Center in Dallas laughed. The humor was probably lost on the families of 4,000 American servicemen and the 200,000 Iraqi civilians who perished in the conflict. 

On the twentieth anniversary of the start of the Iraq War, it is time to hail the courage and wisdom of the founders and editors of The American Conservative. TAC took the moral high ground that the War Party scorned as if it were a Superfund hazardous waste site. TAC was vilified but never flinched.

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After the 9/11 attacks, many Americans became enraged at anyone who did not swear allegiance to George W. Bush’s antiterrorism crusade. People who denied the assertion that “they hate us for our freedoms” automatically became enemies of freedom. I was chagrined to see both conservatives and libertarians cast principles overboard to join the War Party against Iraq. I was heckled by libertarian audiences for condemning the war and the attendant torture programs. 

The mainstream media retrospectives on the Iraq War will ignore or downplay the brazen systemic deceit that paved the path to that catastrophe. From January 2003 onward, Bush constantly portrayed the United States as an innocent victim of Saddam Hussein’s imminent aggression. Bush repeatedly claimed that war was being “forced upon us”—a scam on par with Lyndon Johnson’s Gulf of Tonkin charade. After the invasion commenced, the pretexts for the war collapsed like houses of cards. Bush’s falsehoods on Iraq proved far more toxic than anything in Saddam’s arsenal. But the exposure of the official lies did not deter Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld from equating criticizing the Iraq War with appeasing Adolf Hitler. As I wrote for USA Today on August 14, 2003, “Whether Bush and his appointees will be held personally liable for their falsehoods is a grave test for American democracy.” 

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Why the Hell Is the US Occupying Syria? By Jon Reynolds

Posted on March 23, 2023 | 1 comment

In 2016 I wrote a satire about US policy in Syria, Prime Deceit. Seven years later it’s still satire–but even more cynical and black. From Jon Reynolds at antiwar.com:

Why has every US president from Obama to Trump to Biden launched airstrikes inside the country? Is the US mission in Syria actually about fighting terrorism, or does it go deeper?

In early March, Syria’s foreign ministry condemned a surprise visit by Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley to an army base in northeast Syria, with Syrian media dubbing it “illegal” and a “flagrant violation of the sovereignty and integrity” of Syrian territory, adding that the US ought to “immediately” cease support for “separatist armed groups”. The article, published by VOA, also casually notes that the US has “about 900” troops deployed in “several bases and posts across northeastern Syria” allegedly as part of the fight against ISIS.

Nearly a decade since US forces officially entered Syria and ISIS is still America’s reason for staying? How is this possible after numerous assurances from US officials – including a US president – that ISIS has been defeated? Why has every American president from Obama to Trump to Biden launched airstrikes inside the country? Is the US mission in Syria actually about fighting terrorism, or does it go deeper? And most puzzling, why the hell is the US occupying Syria?

Breaking numerous promises to the contrary, President Obama announced in late 2015 that the US would be deploying troops into Syria to “fight ISIS”. The number started with 50, which soon became 250. In October 2017, a US general said there are 4,000 troops in Syria, and two months later, the Pentagon put the number at 2,000. As of this article’s publication, the consensus seems to be 900 US troops, although there’s reason to suspect the number may actually be higher or lower. Regardless, US forces have occupied parts of Syria now for almost a decade. But why?

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Posted in Foreign Policy, Geopolitics, Governments, History, Morality, War

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20 Years After the Invasion of Iraq, Will the Media’s Complicity Be Flushed Down the Memory Hole? By Jeremy Erp

Posted on March 20, 2023 | 1 comment

They’ll be asking the same question twenty years after Ukraine, if that war ever ends. From Jeremy Erp at antiwar.com:

“All wars are fought twice, the first time on the battlefield, the second time in memory.“
— Viet Thanh Nguyen

As mainstream U.S. media outlets pause to remember the US invasion of Iraq, it’s clear that there’s a lot they hope we’ll forget – first and foremost, the media’s own active complicity in whipping up public support for the war.

But the more you dig into mainstream news coverage from that period, as our documentary team did last week when we put together this five-minute montage from our 2007 film War Made Easy, the harder it is to forget how flagrantly news networks across the broadcast and cable landscape uncritically spread the Bush administration’s propaganda and actively excluded dissenting voices.

The numbers don’t lie. A 2003 report by the media watchdog Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting (FAIR) found that in the two weeks leading up to the invasion, ABC World News, NBC Nightly News, CBS Evening News, and the PBS Newshour featured a total of 267 American experts, analysts, and commentators on camera to supposedly help make sense of the march to war. Of these 267 guests, an astounding 75% were current or former government or military officials, and a grand total of one expressed any skepticism.

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Posted in Foreign Policy, Geopolitics, Government, History, Media, War

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George Soros Exposed as Major Force Behind Trump’s Prosecution and Imminent Arrest, by Kyle Becker

Posted on March 19, 2023 | Leave a comment

George Soros DAs, including the clown who’s going to arrest Trump, ought to spend their time going after real criminals and investigating real crimes. You know, like the kind the Biden family commits. From Kyle Becker at trendingpoliticsnews.com:

President Donald Trump reacted to the news of his imminent arrest in New York by pointing out that the Manhattan District Attorney’s office’s “leader is funded by George Soros.”

Manhattan D.A. Alvin Bragg, whom Donald Trump is referring to in his post, was elected in November 2021 with indirect backing from left-wing billionaire George Soros, who gave $1 million to the Color of Change PAC, which spent it to elect Bragg.

The Color of Change PAC is a radical activist group that describes itself as “the nation’s largest online racial justice organization.”

Fox News reported that Soros has “funneled $40 million dollars into district attorney campaigns nationwide,” including Bragg’s.

Former New York Police Commissioner Bill Bratton spoke out against the “$1 million donation that Hungarian-born philanthropist Soros gave to the Color of Change political action committee, which supported Bragg,” the New York Post reported.

“If you look at every city in America that has violent crime increases and disorder increases…what is the one common denominator?” Bratton said. “District attorneys, almost all of whom are funded phenomenally by George Soros.”

The New York Post reported that “Soros also donated $1 million to Alvin Bragg’s successful DA campaign in Manhattan, funneling the cash through the Color of Change political action committee.”

The Gothamist reported: “Color of Change PAC, a group that since 2016 has successfully backed reform-minded prosecutors across the country from Philadelphia to Michigan to Atlanta, announced they’d be pitching in $1 million dollars through their political action committee to put towards mailers, canvassing, and phone-banking on Bragg’s behalf.”

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ChatGPT knows U.S. War Criminals, by Good Citizen

Posted on March 18, 2023 | 2 comments

The U.S. celebrates an arrest warrant for Vladimir Putin from a court whose jurisdiction it won’t recognize. From Good Citizen at thegoodcitizen.substack.com:

Developments in the Investigation Launched at the ICC in The Hague - The Israel Democracy Institute

As the Empire of Lies celebrates the International Criminal Court issuing an arrest warrant for Vladimir Putin, let’s revisit who the ICC really works for.

Watch war criminal John Bolton threaten to arrest ICC judges and go after their finances if they or any organization or company assist the ICC in taking any action against American war criminals:

I asked ChatGPT about the war crimes of American leaders and the following is what it returned…

Henry Kissinger

Henry Kissinger, a former U.S. Secretary of State, has been accused of being involved in several war crimes during his time in office. Here are some of the main allegations against him:

  1. The bombing of Cambodia: Kissinger played a key role in the secret bombing campaign in Cambodia during the Vietnam War, which led to the deaths of thousands of civilians. The bombing was carried out without the knowledge or approval of Congress or the American public.

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Posted in Crime, Foreign Policy, Geopolitics, Government, History, War

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Troubling Questions Over U.S. Drone Crash Near Crimea… An Inevitable Collision Made in Washington, by The Strategic Culture Editorial Board

Posted on March 18, 2023 | 1 comment

The U.S. claims the imperial right to be wherever it wants to be. From The Strategic Culture Editorial Board at strategic-culture.org:

A $32 million drone buried unceremoniously at sea says a lot about a failing empire.

A U.S. spy drone operating 8,000 kilometers from Washington on Russia’s borders, helping a Nazi regime at war against Russia, crashes into the Black Sea – and yet, insanely, Moscow is arraigned for taking defensive action?

One has to be amazed by the total dissonance among American politicians and media over the incident this week when an unmanned U.S. military aircraft crashed into the Black Sea near Russian territory. The righteous indignation speaks of ineffable double-think and hypocrisy.

Russia was condemned for “reckless” and “unlawful” conduct after two of its fighter jets intercepted an MQ-9 Reaper unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV). The Reaper is deployed both as a surveillance aircraft and as an attack weapon capable of firing missiles. This drone was detected approaching airspace that Moscow has designated off-limits in connection with its special military operation in Ukraine.

The Pentagon claimed that one of the Russian Su-27 jets collided with the drone causing damage to one of its propellers. The U.S. Air Force says its operators brought down the Reaper which crashed in international waters. Why was a $32 million UAV so readily ditched?

For its part, Russia claims that its fighter jets buzzed the American drone causing it to make sharp maneuvers whereupon the UAV lost aeronautical control and crashed into the sea. Moscow has put the blame on the United States for creating a provocation and called on the U.S. to halt hostile flights near its borders. An effort to recover the drone debris is underway by Russia. Sensitive flight data may show what kind of mission the UAV was really undertaking. Was it gathering offensive targeting coordinates, as many such American UAVs have been doing over the past year to enable the Kiev regime?

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Posted in Foreign Policy, Geopolitics, Governments, Propaganda, War

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To Hell with Ukraine, by Fred Reed

Posted on March 18, 2023 | 1 comment

Gee, the $100-plus billion we sent to Ukraine might have been better spent in the good old USA. You know, America First. From Fred Reed at fredoneverthing.org:

Great. Just ever-lovin’pea-pickin’ great. In LA some sixty thousand people–who really knows?–sleep on the sidewalks, in tents, cardboard boxes, sleeping bags, or not much of anything. Others live in their cars. The same in San Fran, Seattle, St. Louis. There being no bathrooms, they defecate as the urge hits, and where. What choice do they have? Some are junkies, others crazy, many just with no jobs or jobs that don’t pay enough for a room. 

 Meanwhile Biden sends billions to Ukraine, lots of billions, our billions, while America crumbles within. A corrupt, senescent, second-rate lawyer mysteriously empowered to bankrupt his own country to benefit a corrupt, dirtball country of no importance to America. 

 How is this possible? Why do Americans tolerate it? 

 Because they have no choice. Americans have no influence over their government except in things that do not matter to that government. 

 Recently my stepdaughter Natalia, Mexican, went to Austin to visit friends. She returned and pronounced America a truly odd country. All the houses were the same, so how could you find your way home at night? And there were lots of people, she said, living under bridges and on the sidewalks. This she thought strange. She had never seen such a thing in Mexico. In twenty years, neither have I. 

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Posted in Foreign Policy, Government, Politics, Propaganda, War

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Ukraine – Media Start To Acknowledge Reality, by Moon of Alabama

Posted on March 15, 2023 | 2 comments

The mainstream is trying to acknowledge without actually having to admit that Ukraine is losing the war it was doomed to lose from the start. From Moon of Alabama at moonofalabama.org:

Finally some truth about the real state of the Ukrainian military is sneaking into main stream media. It is as bad, still not fully disclosed, as we have described it again and again.

As the Washington Post provides:

Ukraine short of skilled troops and munitions as losses, pessimism grow

I’ll leave out the propaganda bits and go for the factual beef. The quotes are long but needed to grasp the depth of horrible situation.

The opening paragraph:

The quality of Ukraine’s military force, once considered a substantial advantage over Russia, has been degraded by a year of casualties that have taken many of the most experienced fighters off the battlefield, leading some Ukrainian officials to question Kyiv’s readiness to mount a much-anticipated spring offensive.

That spring offensive is as likely to happen as the announced relief campaign to unblock Bakhmut. The later is bogged down.

The spring campaign will be made up of green recruits which will use a wild mix of weapons they are not familiar with. Unless there are some ‘western’ surprises I see no way how it can overwhelm the well prepared Russian defense lines.

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The Gathering Storm, by Douglas Macgregor

Posted on March 15, 2023 | 1 comment

Douglas Macgregor has committed two unforgivable sins among U.S. analysts of the Ukraine war. He knows what he’s talking about, and he’s been consistently right. From Macgregor at theamericanconservative.com:

America’s self-inflicted trouble in Ukraine aggravates our dangerous trouble at home.

The crisis of American national power has begun. America’s economy is tipping over, and Western financial markets are quietly panicking. Imperiled by rising interest rates, mortgage-backed securities and U.S. Treasuries are losing their value. The market’s proverbial “vibes”—feelings, emotions, beliefs, and psychological penchants—suggest a dark turn is underway inside the American economy.

American national power is measured as much by American military capability as by economic potential and performance. The growing realization that American and European military-industrial capacity cannot keep up with Ukrainian demands for ammunition and equipment is an ominous signal to send during a proxy war that Washington insists its Ukrainian surrogate is winning.

Russian economy-of-force operations in southern Ukraine appear to have successfully ground down attacking Ukrainian forces with the minimal expenditure of Russian lives and resources. While Russia’s implementation of attrition warfare worked brilliantly, Russia mobilized its reserves of men and equipment to field a force that is several magnitudes larger and significantly more lethal than it was a year ago.

Russia’s massive arsenal of artillery systems including rockets, missiles, and drones linked to overhead surveillance platforms converted Ukrainian soldiers fighting to retain the northern edge of the Donbas into pop-up targets. How many Ukrainian soldiers have died is unknown, but one recent estimate wagers between 150,000-200,000 Ukrainians have been killed in action since the war began, while another estimates about 250,000.

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