Tag Archives: Antony Blinken

UKRAINE CRISIS: US ‘Toolboxes’ Are Empty, by Scott Ritter

Posted on January 22, 2022 | Leave a comment

The Biden administration doesn’t have a clue as to what it would do if Russia invaded Ukraine. From Scott Ritter at consortiumnews.com:

The toolbox is empty. Russia knows this. Biden knows this. Blinken knows this. CNN knows this. The only ones who aren’t aware of this are the American people, says Scott Ritter.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, in a hastily scheduled, 90-minute summit in Geneva yesterday, after which both sides lauded the meeting as worthwhile because it kept the door open for a diplomatic resolution to the ongoing crisis in Ukraine. What “keeping the door open” entails, however, represents two completely different realities.

For Blinken, the important thing appears to be process, continuing a dialogue which, by its very essence, creates the impression of progress, with progress being measured in increments of time, as opposed to results.

A results-oriented outcome was not in the books for Blinken and his entourage; the U.S. was supposed to submit a written response to Russia’s demands for security guarantees as spelled out in a pair of draft treaties presented to the U.S. and NATO in December. Instead, Blinken told Lavrov the written submission would be provided next week.

In the meantime, Blinken primed the pump of expected outcomes by highlighting the possibility of future negotiations that addressed Russian concerns (on a reciprocal basis) regarding intermediate-range missiles and NATO military exercises.

But under no circumstances, Blinken said, would the U.S. be responding to Russian demands against NATO expanding to Ukraine and Georgia, and for the redeployment of NATO forces inside the territory of NATO as it existed in 1997.

Blinken also spent a considerable amount of time harping on the danger of a imminent military invasion of Ukraine by Russian forces said to be massing along the Ukraine-Russian border. He pointed out that any military incursion by Russia, not matter what size, that violated the territorial integrity of Ukraine, would be viewed as a continuation of the Russian “aggression” of 2014 and, as such, trigger “massive consequences” which would be damaging to Russia.

Continue reading→

Leave a comment

Posted in Foreign Policy, Geopolitics, Governments, History, Politics, Uncategorized, War

Tagged , , , ,

Does Biden Administration Want War With Russia? By Doug Bandow

Posted on November 15, 2021 | 1 comment

Like virtually everything the Biden administration does, its policy towards Russia is marked by contradiction, hypocrisy, and assertions of power it can’t or won’t back up. From Doug Bandow at antiwar.com:

Biden administration diplomats are wandering Europe warning about a potential invasion of Ukraine. It makes one wonder if the Biden crowd – it is unclear who, if anyone, is in charge of the administration these days – is hoping for a fight over Ukraine. Perhaps “a splendid little war,” as the Spanish-American War was called, would provide a patriotic bump in public approval.

Washington cites an apparently ominous Russian military buildup near Ukraine. This sounds like a repeat of Russian maneuvers in the Spring, which caused enormous wailing and gnashing of teeth within the Beltway but came to nothing. However, based on information the administration refuses to share with the American people – apparently reports indicating deployments of elite units at night – US officials are worried about potential unspecified military action. Ukraine first dismissed the claim but flip-flopped a few days ago without explanation. Presumably the administration shared with Kyiv whatever it continues to withhold from its own public.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken opined that the US didn’t “have clarity over Moscow’s intentions,” even as his subordinates were inflaming the war scare. He added: “Our concern is that Russia may make the serious mistake of attempting to rehash what it undertook in 2014, when it amassed forces along the border, crossed into sovereign Ukrainian territory and did so claiming falsely that it was provoked.” Alas, this mysterious assessment communicates little. Then Moscow seized Crimea, historically Russian and location of Sevastopol naval base, and supported ethnic-Russian separatists in the Donbass region. What would it mean to “rehash” these events?

Continue reading→

1 Comment

Posted in Foreign Policy, Geopolitics, Governments, Horseshit, Politics, Propaganda

Tagged , , , ,

Bumbling Menace Blinken Says Taiwan Should Join the UN, by Andrew Anglin

Posted on October 28, 2021 | Leave a comment

The Biden administration’s primary foreign policy strategies are bluff, threats, and humiliation. The rest of the world is quite tired of it. From Andrew Anglin at unz.com:

Like every individual in the Biden Administration, the bumbling menace Antony Blinken stumbles from weird event to ensuing weird event.

His latest strange and confounding behavior is asserting the claim that the false country of Taiwan should join the UN.

What the Biden Administration is doing is the equivalent of poking China with a stick.

RT:

After the US secretary of state claimed Taipei’s accession to the UN would be pragmatic, Beijing hit back, reiterating that Taiwan should not be granted permission to join the body because the island was part of China.

Speaking on Wednesday, Ma Xiaoguang, spokesman for the Taiwan Affairs Office in Beijing told reporters the UN was an international governmental organization made up of sovereign states – and Taiwan wasn’t one.

“Taiwan is a part of China,” Ma stated, adding, “Taiwan has no right to join the United Nations.”

The spokesman’s comments came after US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement on Tuesday marking 50 years since the UN General Assembly voted to replace Taipei’s seat with Beijing’s that he regretted Taiwan’s absence.

Blinken said the reason the island’s participation in the UN would be welcomed was not political but pragmatic. “As the international community faces an unprecedented number of complex and global issues, it is critical for all stakeholders to help address these problems. This includes the 24 million people who live in Taiwan.”

The statement is not political or pragmatic – it’s a provocation.

This is what the plan is, apparently: the Biden plan to “contain China” is a bullying harassment campaign.

Continue reading→

Leave a comment

Posted in Foreign Policy, Geopolitics, Governments, History, Horseshit, Military, Politics, Propaganda, War

Tagged ,

Blinken on Damage-Limitation Tour After Afghanistan Fiasco, by Finian Cunningham

Posted on September 8, 2021 | Leave a comment

The Biden administration is sending a schmuck to convince our allies that the Biden administration isn’t full of schmucks. From Finian Cunningham at strategic-culture.org:

Washington’s whirlwind outreach is evidently an effort to shore up confidence among U.S. allies in American defense commitments.

United States Secretary of State Antony Blinken is visiting the Middle East and Europe this week in an effort to repair the damage to Washington’s standing with its allies following the disastrous retreat from Afghanistan.

The top U.S. diplomat first goes to Qatar, the Persian Gulf state which has served as a forward – and now backward – operating base for the Pentagon during its military occupation of Afghanistan. Blinken then travels to the giant U.S. airbase at Ramstein, Germany, which was also a vital logistics hub for prosecuting America’s “longest war” – a war that ended in spectacular failure last month. There he will meet German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas ahead of a virtual conference with other European officials on the challenges posed by postwar Afghanistan.

Blinken’s itinerary will overlap with that of the U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin who is also visiting Qatar and the other Gulf states, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Bahrain.

Washington’s whirlwind outreach is evidently an effort to shore up confidence among U.S. allies in American defense commitments. The dramatic and hasty pullout from Afghanistan by the Biden administration has left allies wondering if their American patron can be trusted when the chips are down.

Continue reading→

Leave a comment

Posted in Foreign Policy, Geopolitics, Governments, History, Military, Politics, Propaganda, War

Tagged , ,

World Blinken Props Up Biden in European Charade for New Cold War, by Finian Cunningham

Posted on June 9, 2021 | Leave a comment

You didn’t think they were going to let Joe Biden go to Europe and meet all those European heads of state and then Vladimir Putin without a minder, did you? From Finian Cunningham at strategic-culture.org:

Blinken is staying close to his boss during the whirlwind tour, because Biden is liable to spin out of control and reap an embarrassing collapse.

It’s a big ask for a frail 78-year-old U.S. president to rally the world around a series of myths and falsehoods. Biden flies to Europe this week to galvanize allies under strong American leadership of supposed shared “democratic values” in a “historic confrontation” with the “autocracies” of China and Russia.

President Joe Biden’s worldview is so disconnected from reality that it is going to prove difficult mentally for him to consistently and coherently make the case over a series of summits in the next week.

That’s why he has his more youthful Secretary of State Antony Blinken (59) tagging along when Biden meets G7 leaders in England on June 11-13, followed by a NATO summit on June 14 in Brussels as well as top-level discussions with European Union leaders. After all that, Blinken is “to participate” in the face-to-face meeting between Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin on June 16 in Geneva, according to the U.S. State Department.

The latter detail in the busy itinerary – Biden’s first overseas trip since taking office in January – is the most salient. It is unprecedented that the U.S. foreign secretary should “participate” in what was previously billed as a one-on-one meeting between the American and Russian leaders. There is no indication so far from Russian media reports that Sergei Lavrov – Blinken’s counterpart – is to take part in the Geneva summit.

Continue reading→

Leave a comment

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

Tagged , , ,

Pictures of a Ukrainian Dream, by Pepe Escobar

Posted on May 14, 2021 | Leave a comment

Did Antony Blinken tell Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelensky that the US’s public support of Ukraine was so much window dressing unless Zelensky essentially allows his country to be raped by the US government and corporations? From Pepe Escobar at thesaker.is:

Picture yourself about to meet a girl with kaleidoscope eyes… No. Sorry. Actually picture merry lines of code in the R programming language – wallowing in a happy valley of game theory models which would not preclude Goth or New Romantic Walkyrie dancin’ to the 12-inch version of Bauhaus’s Bela Lugosi is Dead.

Imagine this reverie coming about because of a “pin!” in your inbox. After all you have just been presented with an astonishing piece of intel. You scramble to the exit, actually the entrance of the Magic Theater, where you ask, Keats-style, Was it a dream? Do I wake or sleep?

So what was the dream about? Oh, something so prosaic, so down to the nitty gritty geopolitics: what really happened during the visit of US Secretary of State Tony Blinken to Ukraine.

The great Andrei Martyanov has remarked that Blinken “told Kiev behind the scenes to ‘dial it down’, amidst the fluffy tropes about US concern for Ukraine’s ‘sovereignty’ and ‘security’”.

Well, looks like there was way more than fluffy tropes.

Leaked info on the closed-door meeting between Blinken and Comedian-in-Charge Zelensky is no less than incandescent. Blinken seemed to have read a no holds barred riot act.

Here are the guidelines. All Ukrainian state corporations must be controlled by the proverbial “foreign interests”. So board majorities must be either foreign or 5th columnists. The entire anti-corruption vertical drive must also be foreign-controlled. Same for the judicial system.

Andriy Kobolyev – an American asset – must be reinstated as head of Naftogaz. Zelensky moved mountains to get rid of Kobolyev.

Blinken demanded a massive push against every Ukrainian oligarch, so that huge chunks of Ukrainian economy are transferred to – who else – foreigners. Same for land privatization.

Somewhat hilariously, Blinken warned that Russian troops might invade Ukraine. In this case, Zelensky can count only on huge political assistance, not military. So Zelensky in fact was ordered to stop asking to join NATO and cease provoking Russia, as President Putin, who already drew red lines, could make a “drastic decision”.

Continue reading→

Leave a comment

Posted in Foreign Policy, Geopolitics, Governments

Tagged , , ,

Antony Blinken Continues to Lecture the World on Values His Administration Aggressively Violates, by Glen Greenwald

Posted on May 9, 2021 | Leave a comment

Freedom. As a general matter, the Biden administration clearly opposes it. It specifically abhors press freedom, especially the kind that exposes things they don’t want exposed, as Julian Assange did with the Obama administration. However, when talking to foreign nations, Biden’s lightweight Secretary of State has no problem extolling press freedom. From Glen Greenwald at greenwald.substack.com:

How can you feign anger over others’ attacks on a free press when you imprison Assange as punishment for his vital revelations about U.S. officials?
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken speaks on the importance of independence journalism, May 6, 2021 (Radio Free Europe); Julian Assange arrives at Westminster Magistrates’ Court in London in his attempt to resist extradition by the Biden administration (Photo by Victoria Jones/PA Images via Getty Images)

Continuing his world tour doling out righteous lectures to the world, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Thursday proclaimed — in a sermon you have to hear to believe — that few things are more sacred in a democracy than “independent journalism.” Speaking to Radio Free Europe, Blinken paid homage to “World Press Freedom Day”; claimed that “the United States stands strongly with independent journalism”; explained that “the foundation of any democratic system” entails “holding leaders accountable” and “informing citizens”; and warned that “countries that deny freedom of the press are countries that don’t have a lot of confidence in themselves or in their systems.”

The rhetorical cherry on top of that cake came when he posed this question: “What is to be afraid of in informing the people and holding leaders accountable?” The Secretary of State then issued this vow: “Everywhere journalism and freedom of the press is challenged, we will stand with journalists and with that freedom.” Since I know that I would be extremely skeptical if someone told me that those words had just come out Blinken’s mouth, I present you here with the unedited one-minute-fifty-two-second video clip of him saying exactly this:

Continue reading→

Leave a comment

Posted in Civil Liberties, Government, History, Media, Morality, Politics, Propaganda

Tagged , , ,

Secretary of State Blinken Throws Down the Gauntlet to China and Russia… Again, by Rick Rozoff

Posted on April 12, 2021 | Leave a comment

Big-talking Blinken reopens his yap and once again tells the Chinese and Russians what’s what. They probably haven’t stopped laughing. From Rick Rozoff at antiwar.com:

America began a new week with Secretary of State Antony Blinken appearing on NBC’s Meet the Press with Chuck Todd. One might forgive a traveler from another land or time forming the impression that almost all U.S. television news, cable and network alike, consisted of different channels of Voice of the White House. (Or the Pentagon Broadcasting Service.) Being the foreign policy chief of the Biden-Harris administration, Blinken was treated with the utmost deference except when he appeared to be slipping away from saber-rattling and toward some facsimile of diplomacy, as will be seen below. In return Blinken endearingly addressed Todd as Chuck. The direct address with the personal touch didn’t prevent Todd from goading Blinken on to new heights of obloquy and hostility toward Russia and China, though. Asking the tough questions is how the likes of Todd would phrase it, no doubt.

Perhaps the first third of the program focused on Covid-19 and what Blinken matter of factly referred to COVAX, though it’s doubtful many viewers had heard the term before. Even in that context he didn’t let slip the opportunity to deliver himself of this chastisement:

“I think China knows that in the early stages of Covid, it didn’t do what it needed to do, which was to, in real time, give access to international experts, in real time to share information, in real time to provide real transparency. And one result of that failure is that the vaccine – the virus, excuse me, got out of hand faster and with, I think, much more egregious results than it might otherwise.”

Continue reading→

Leave a comment

Posted in Foreign Policy, Geopolitics, Governments, History, Horseshit, Media, Politics, Propaganda

Tagged , , ,

The American Exceptionalism Of Secretary Of State Antony Blinken, from Kevin Gosztola

Posted on January 31, 2021 | Leave a comment

Biden’s secretary of state combines all the most flagrant impulses of neocon interventionism and neoliberal interventionism. From Kevin Gosztola at shadowproof.com:

“American leadership still matters. The reality is the world simply does not organize itself,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken proclaimed at his confirmation hearing. “When we are not engaged, when we are not leading, then one of two things is likely to happen. Either some other country tries to take our place but not in a way that is likely to advance our interests and values, or maybe, just as bad, no one does and then you have chaos.”

Much like President Joe Biden, Blinken is a neoliberal Democrat who believes in the doctrine of “Manifest Destiny.” He thinks if the United States does not impose its will and shape the world then there will be no law and order. He cannot fathom how countries could survive on their own. At least, that is how he argues for greater American intervention in global regions.

Blinken was confirmed as secretary of state in a vote on January 26. Not a single Democrat in the Senate voted against Blinken.

He is a longtime ally of Biden, and during Biden’s first term as vice president, he was his national security adviser.

During President Barack Obama’s second term, Blinken was deputy secretary of state. He was also a part of President Bill Clinton’s National Security Council from 1994 to 2001.

Making Venezuela’s ‘Regime Enablers’ Finally Feel The Pain Of Sanctions

Blinken’s predecessor Mike Pompeo, a right-wing Christian reconstructionist, was involved in President Donald Trump administration’s failed regime change operation against Nicolas Maduro’s government in Venezuela. Yet, despite its failure, Blinken told Republican Senator Marco Rubio he thought the Biden administration should keep recognizing Juan Guaido as the one and only true “leader.”

Continue reading→

Leave a comment

Posted in Foreign Policy, Geopolitics, Government, Imperialism, Politics, Propaganda

Tagged