Why Washington Provides Neither Peace Nor Prosperity

Daniel McAdams: Why Washington Provides Neither Peace Nor Prosperity

The Daily Bell

From the Bionic Mosquito

Today’s DB interview is with Daniel McAdams, from the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity.  The interview offers a valuable reminder that war is the issue for all individuals concerned with libertarian, liberal, and free-market (e.g. Austrian) ideas.

I offer only a couple of quotes from the interview:

I view [the Institute’s] number one priority to be fighting war propaganda. Calling out the lies of the neocons and a lapdog mainstream media that walks lock-step with the US regime, regardless of which party is in power.

I am not aware of many organizations that do this regularly and continuously, as a matter of principle (of course, LRC and the Mises Institute come to mind).  Speaking out against war is an end unto itself, the single-most important work that can be done by those concerned with liberty and freedom.

[The Institute] hope[s] to expand our outreach this coming year to include small seminars, conferences, and eventually a foreign policy summer school modeled on the Mises Institute’s summer program in Austrian economics.

I applaud this effort; in addition to the summer program in Austrian economics at the Mises Institute, it seems to me that there is a need for two other such programs – the one mentioned by McAdams regarding foreign policy and another on revisionist history regarding war.  I guess these latter two may be combined, as understanding the lies of wars past offers a good foundation for developing sound foreign policy today.

Read the interview; support all voices against aggressive war.

From the Daily Bell

Daily Bell: Hello. Thanks for taking time to speak to us.

Daniel McAdams: Thank you. I have been a Daily Bell reader for years and what a thrill to be interviewed by the publication!

Daily Bell: Thank you. That’s a very kind compliment. You are executive director of the Ron Paul Institute. Give us a sense of the scope and priorities of the Institute? How is it doing? Is outreach going well?

Daniel McAdams: We came up with the concept around the time Dr. Paul called us all in to his congressional office in the midst of his last presidential run to inform us that he was retiring from Congress. It was a dramatic moment for all of us on his Washington staff, as we had worked together for more than a decade through some of the most difficult times. There was definitely the feeling of us being contra mundi on the Hill.

The idea of the Institute was to continue Dr. Paul’s outreach and education in the areas of foreign policy and civil liberties, with a special focus on how a peaceful foreign policy leads to real prosperity. “Peace, commerce, and honest friendship,” as it was said. Similarly, we felt it was important to shine the light on the nexus between the financial interests of the global elites and the promotion of war and destruction. Thus we criticize the Federal Reserve as the chief banker of the war machine.

We knew we could not compete financially with the big Beltway think tanks, whose budgets overflow with the profits of the military-industrial complex. But it is also true that it only takes a few motivated people to really make a difference. So we set out to make the case for uncompromising non-interventionism. Unlike the Beltway thinkers, we never wanted to serve up tedious policy prescriptions to PhD.’s or “global chessboard” geopolitical bloviators. We put together a top-notch “beyond Left/Right” board of advisors, drawn largely from the group of guest speakers at Dr. Paul’s famous Thursday policy lunches held in his congressional office.

The Institute’s intended audience is the millions worldwide who have had their eyes opened to non-interventionism and the importance of protecting civil liberties by Dr. Paul’s 40 years in public life, and particularly those who saw the light through his last two presidential campaigns. Of course we also want to reach the many who are on the verge of having their eyes opened! Our audience is the informed and interested average reader – preferably one with a sense of humor and appreciation for a bit of sarcasm here and there.

The current centerpiece of the Institute’s outreach efforts is our increasingly influential website, on which we feature Dr. Paul’s regular weekly column, the original writings of myself and my colleague Adam Dick, and a highly-curated collection of the best writing available drawing heavily from the work of our board members and associates. Our aim is to create a highly readable product that is thought-provoking, slightly edgy, and oftentimes cheeky especially when poking fun at the neocons. We have passed 110,000 Facebook followers and I am fascinated by the lively and well-informed debate among our readers when we post our articles there. Our original work is regularly republished by hundreds of news websites around the world. I appear regularly on television and radio programs worldwide, and I speak at various conferences and events.

We are the publisher of Ron Paul’s new book, which is in its final stage of preparation for release this spring. This is to be his first book dealing with foreign policy and war since 2007 and his first book since he retired from Congress in 2013. It is a great book and people are going to be very surprised by it!

We also will launch a couple of programs as we begin our third year in operation. First planned is a unique kind of fellowship program for young communicators. We would like to help train the next generation of critical thinkers in writing about foreign policy and civil liberties for our kind of audience.

Daily Bell: Give us some background on your relationship with Ron Paul. How did you first come to know him? What is it in particular that has led you to work with him some 14 years now?

Daniel McAdams: I first came to hear the name “Ron Paul” as I was sitting in my apartment in Budapest, Hungary at the end of the 1990s while the US was gearing up for war on Serbia. I had discovered Antiwar.com and Justin Raimondo’s writing through a then-popular conservative discussion website and I noticed Antiwar.com kept posting remarkably insightful columns on the Balkans by a US Congressman called Ron Paul. At the time I was making regular trips to the Balkans, writing about the impending disaster of US intervention there. I was amazed that someone back in the US really “got it” and from then on I always hoped to at least let him know how much I appreciated his work.

I had not given a great deal of thought to the concept of non-interventionism and in fact I had a fellowship at the time to do a book on how the US needed to start supporting the “good guys” overseas instead of the “reformed” commies that Clinton had been backing. It was through reading Dr. Paul and the other greats like Lew Rockwell and his group that I came to understand that the only logical solution to the problem of the post-Cold War era was to embrace non-interventionism as the guiding principle of US foreign policy. Nothing else made sense. So…I kind of wasted a year writing book! But of course it was not a waste at all, as I discovered the practicality of the non-interventionist perspective. It was not really theoretical to me. I came to realize that not only was it impossible for the US, thousands of miles away, to accurately pick the “good guys” to support overseas, it was immoral for them to attempt to do so.

Daily Bell: You recently moved your family and the Institute to Texas so you could office closer to Dr. Paul?

Daniel McAdams: Well, because we were never going to be a think tank in the Washington, D.C. sense of the word, it made very little sense to waste our time and very limited resources trying to influence those whose vested interests were in maintaining the US empire. It made much sense to decamp to where we could work more closely with Dr. Paul, operate more cheaply, and better connect with our intended audience.

Daily Bell: Give us a sense of the priorities of the Institute. With all the issues that need addressing these days, what’s most important, from the Institute’s perspective?

Daniel McAdams: There are numerous organizations that call themselves “antiwar” and many of them legitimately so. But opposing war once it has started is akin to buckling your seat belt after an auto accident. It’s too late! I view our number one priority to be fighting war propaganda. Calling out the lies of the neocons and a lapdog mainstream media that walks lock-step with the US regime, regardless of which party is in power. That is also where you are in the bulls-eye of the war-promoters. And it’s always the same. When Dr. Paul strongly opposed the war on Iraq – and especially the propaganda that lied us into that war – he was called an apologist for Saddam. These days when we point out that the US government has yet to show any evidence of the massive Russian invasion of Ukraine they claim took place over the past year, we are called “Putin’s mouthpiece.” You will notice that the war-promoters always seek to personalize their propaganda. It is always about Saddam and Gaddafi and Assad and Putin. They rely on creating a single demon upon which we are supposed to focus our daily two minutes of hate. Worst of all, so far it works.

Daily Bell: How did you become involved in the freedom movement generally? What made you go to work with Ron Paul initially?

Daniel McAdams: I am slightly wary of what are called “movements.” Too often they can devolve into restricting doctrines and even cultish tendencies. I prefer to focus on the principles and the issues. There are plenty of young people these days who are interested in Dr. Paul’s ideas. That is absolutely terrific and encouraging. But in my opinion, many of them need to read more and concentrate less on being “activists.” That is why we formed the Institute: to help ground the energy and activism in real knowledge of the issues. Nothing wins a debate better than a deep understanding of the current facts and also the antecedents.

My work with Dr. Paul began almost by accident. When I returned from Europe at the end of 1999, I was finally able to deliver to one of Dr. Paul’s staffers my message of thanks for all the excellent articles Dr. Paul had written about US policy in the Balkans. I was moping around Washington without work after being dismissed from a very unsuited think-tank job (long story) when out of a blue came a call from that very same Ron Paul staffer asking whether by chance I was looking for work! He had been planning to leave the office and he wanted to find a suitable possible replacement before he announced his intentions to Dr. Paul. It was a life-changing moment, to say the least.

Daily Bell: Give us some background into your own education and work before joining Dr. Paul.

Daniel McAdams: Well, ha ha, I was an English major at UC Berkeley in 1988. I had no idea what to do with that! It was a time of economic recession and so I did the absolutely logical thing in such circumstances: I went to graduate school! The only useful thing that came out of that for me was an internship in the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research, which taught me how to condense three weeks of reading classified and unclassified material into three sentences in the Secretary of State’s Morning Intelligence Summary. Brevity and clarity.

Daily Bell: You worked in eastern Europe. Tell us about that.

Daniel McAdams: While working on my masters in international relations in 1992 I had an offer to go to Budapest and help the local Gallup office set up a think tank to study the sociological aspects of the regime change in Hungary and eastern Europe. I was doing my thesis on the system change in Hungary so I thought it would be a good idea to break from academia and really get a feel for what was happening on the ground.

So along with my eager wife we left San Francisco for Budapest, where we remained for seven years. Faced with the realization that the Gallup job was more or less a farce and that I did not yet want to go home, I luckily landed a position as editorial page editor of the Budapest Sun, which was then owned by the current military writer for USA Today, Jim Michaels. Jim was a great friend and mentor and he helped me bridge the gap between my former academic writing and the real world of writing for real people.

Eventually I was invited to work with a group of Oxford intellectuals in the British Helsinki Human Rights Group, where I began traveling chiefly to the Balkans to monitor elections and political unrest. I was there for what I consider one of the prototype US-led regime change operations, in Albania in 1996. In my somewhat naïve state I was astonished that the US government was overthrowing a genuinely anti-communist and free-market leader, Sali Berisha, in favor of the barely reformed and still very thuggish former communist party. Surely there must be some mistake, I was convinced. Soon I realized that the US supported the “reformed” communists in east Europe not because they were secretly pro-commie, but rather because they sought above all control over these places. The communists were highly skilled in subverting their own national interests to the desires of a strong foreign power – and in getting rich in the process. Nationalists like Berisha, and Vladimir Meciar in Slovakia at the time, were simply not reliable for the US. Once I asked Berisha why he thought the US turned on him. He demurred slightly, but mentioned that he refused a US demand to use Albanian territory as a secret listening station for the unraveling situation in what was once Yugoslavia. He did not want to get involved in the affairs of other countries in the region. To the US, that was simply unacceptable.

As Albania fell apart with US assistance, I became aware that the US funded “NGOs” like the International Republican Institute were not at all as advertised back home. When the leader of the anti-communist opposition was murdered in broad daylight by a communist hit team, the IRI country representative told me in his office that he was glad the guy was murdered because he was too radically anti-communist. I realized then that the National Endowment for Democracy and the various cut-out groups it funds like IRI were actually enemies rather than champions of freedom and liberty.

Ironically, we were constantly attacked by the other Helsinki groups because we were the only one not funded by governments! According to them, only a government-funded human rights group could legitimately monitor the human rights actions of the governments that fund them! The “official” election monitoring organizations like the OSCE usually wrote their election report before the election had even taken place. They demanded openness from the governments they monitored but they would not even allow a legitimately credentialed monitoring organization like the British Helsinki Group to attend their briefings because we wrote critical things about their conclusions. This corruption contributed strongly to my transformation into a non-interventionist.

Daily Bell: You seem to have an affinity for supporting the progress of places like Ukraine. Do you have a familial connection – or is it a kind of professional preoccupation?

Daniel McAdams: I did have an academic interest in the region when I was in grad school, but working in Congress later required me to quickly get up to speed on wherever there was a trouble spot. So through the years I have focused on Iraq, Syria, Africa, and elsewhere. In Ukraine now there is the important matter of the possibility of a major world conflict breaking out. That does tend to focus the mind!

Daily Bell: What’s going on in Ukraine concerning the present crisis? Can you give us some background?

Daniel McAdams: The US has been meddling in Ukraine’s internal affairs since at least the early 2000s and the Orange Revolution, which was covertly and overtly funded and supported by the US government. As with all the enterprises of the neocons and interventionists it quickly came a cropper, with the population voting back in the fellow that the US had helped depose as soon as they next had the opportunity to do so. That fellow, Yanukovych, was finally dispensed with in the US-backed coup last February. The promised stability, democracy, and prosperity has, as in other US interventionist projects, come up somewhat short. The Libyans were supposed to have experienced nirvana once US and French planes bombed the country back to the stone age. Ditto the Syrians after US Ambassador Robert Ford set the regime change mechanism in motion. And the glorious Arab Spring? Ask the Yemenis and Tunisians how it’s all working out.

Daily Bell: Why is the West so determined to destabilize Ukraine, in your view?

Daniel McAdams: Destabilization is the effect more than the intent, I think. But as with most foreign policy actions there is a confluence of influences. Certainly the US oligarchs cannot wait to get their hands on Ukraine’s potential natural resource riches. We all know about vice president Biden’s son’s eager leap into the fray. And there is nothing like snapping up millions of acres of enormously productive farmland in a country whose economy has been obliterated. Of course the military-industrial complex has its own interests, as both NATO expansion and conflicts produce new customers whose purchases can be safely guaranteed by the US taxpayer. And the neocons who dominate both political parties are endlessly pursuing the Wolfowitz doctrine that no potential rival to US hegemony can be allowed to emerge. The plan is to encircle Russia and ultimately overthrow what they view as a non-cooperative regime. It is like little Albania writ large – demand total obedience. They are intoxicated by what they believe are their prior successful regime changes, and encouraged to pick off ever-larger targets. But of course their work is all coming apart. Even Serbia has seen recent protests against the government’s obsequiousness toward the US and EU.

Daily Bell: Is this an ongoing program? Could it end up in a military confrontation directly with Russia?

Daniel McAdams: The danger is great. Led by neocons like Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland, Anthony Blinken, Susan Rice and so on, with the participation of foreign assets like NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, the US is determined to push Russia beyond its already-stated red-line. A quick review of recent NATO military exercises right on the Russian border lends evidence to the view that they are actually hoping to provoke a conflict. And the propagandized population, where the mainstream media is compliant beyond Pravda proportions, is convinced that Putin is a madman who must be stopped.

Daily Bell: What’s your opinion of Putin?

Daniel McAdams: He is a foreign politician. I am not a Russian citizen. And I am not crazy about any politician. To the extent he is a brake on the designs of the neocons for world domination, which I believe will lead to economic ruin and tyranny for my country, I suppose I welcome those perhaps unintended consequences. The same with the late Hugo Chavez, whose socialist policies I obviously did not endorse. But when he challenged US intervention in his country and the region – even standing up to a US-sponsored coup against him – he was even if inadvertently helping those of us who advocate peace and commerce rather than embargoes and war. We cannot afford a world empire and the pursuit of empire abroad historically goes hand-in-hand with lurching tyranny at home. A look at the state post-9/11 civil liberties in the US shows in what direction we are heading.

Daily Bell: Is Ukraine going to divide into two separate entities?

Daniel McAdams: That is not for us to decide. In principle, secession is a commendable pursuit. Our country was founded on secession. The Founders decided that they no longer wanted to be governed by the British crown so they seceded. If a group of people 6,000 miles away decide they want to be governed by a different group of people than they had been previously, it is hard to see why that is of any concern to the United States. But this hubristic idea that we are the one indispensable nation leads Americans to endlessly ask themselves and each other, “what are we going to do about…?” Plus the breaking up of large entities into smaller entities often leads to more freedom through more accountability. The ancient Catholic principle of subsidiarity was supposed to be at the core of the European experiment, but they seem to have abandoned that concept rather quickly.

Daily Bell: What about other countries in the area? Are things getting better or worse?

Daniel McAdams: There is a growing unrest particularly among central European countries who have relied on trade with Russia or on import of Russian gas. In Hungary particularly the US and EU are looking to isolate and likely eventually undermine the government of Viktor Orban. Orban had the gall to strike a deal with the Russians to upgrade a nuclear power plant without permission from Brussels and he stuck it to the international banksters. Likewise, the Czech Republic’s Zemen is thought to be unreliable due to his insufficient enthusiasm toward sanctions on Russia. Europe is Germany and Germany seems to be having a nervous breakdown, smacked around by an abusive spouse in Washington but unsure where to go for shelter.

Daily Bell: Russia is constantly accused of lying about its troops and about the “war.” Is it?

Daniel McAdams: I am certainly prepared to believe claims of a massive Russian invasion of Ukraine – they say more than 15,000 with the normal accompanying equipment. But because we have all lived through 2002 and the “mobile chemical labs” and “mushroom cloud” lies, it seems a safe course to hold out for some proof. How hard can it be in the age of the high-definition satellite to produce conclusive evidence of such a massive Russian invasion? It is very interesting to, on one hand hear the harrowing claim of Victoria Nuland in the Senate that the Crimeans are living through a “reign of terror” under Russian rule, while at the same time reading in such mainstream journals as Forbes that a June Gallup poll found that some 83 percent of Crimeans of all ethnicities thought the referendum to secede from Ukraine was legitimate. Asked whether life would be better for them after joining Russia, more than 73 percent said it would. And when a German poll asked whether the population agreed with the Russian “annexation” of Crimea 82 percent said “yes.” We are supposed to believe this is a “reign of terror”? Or that perhaps Gallup or the Germans are in the pay of Putin?

Ultimately it is of little concern to the United States if Russia is taking an interest in the spreading chaos next door. Do the neocons want us to believe the US would not take an interest if the Chinese overthrew the Mexican government and were holding massive military exercises in Tijuana?

Daily Bell: What are the plans for the Institute in the near future? Is foreign policy going to become a larger concern?

Daniel McAdams: We hope to expand our outreach this coming year to include small seminars, conferences, and eventually a foreign policy summer school modeled on the Mises Institute’s summer program in Austrian economics. But I believe our focus will remain to a large degree on producing the kinds of analysis and perspective you will find nowhere else. The neoconservatives have attacked us relentlessly, which I take as a badge of pride. The Washington Free Beacon, founded by Bill Kristol, has a regular panic attack about the Ron Paul Institute’s activities. This year we have been linked on the Drudge Report two or three times, which has greatly expanded our reach. I plan to keep growing our readership.

Daily Bell: How about yourself? Other plans? Additional personal or professional outreach?

Daniel McAdams: Lately I have been involved with helping Dr. Paul set up his Ron Paul Liberty Report. He is no longer associated with the Voices of Liberty and is working on launching his own regular Internet television program closer in line with his perspectives and drawing from our rich circle of brilliant friends and associates worldwide.

Daily Bell: How can people get involved with the Institute?

Daniel McAdams: I very much hope people will visit our website regularly at RonPaulInstitute.org. From there you can locate us on Facebook and Twitter. Dr. Paul is known for his frugality and if anyone is so kind as to provide us with financial support I can assure them it will be spent very carefully. We are a project of Dr. Paul’s FREE Foundation, a 501(c)3 organization, so donations are tax deductible.

Daily Bell: Any other points you’d like to make?

Daniel McAdams: Thank you so much for including me in your excellent interview series and best wishes.

Daily Bell: Thanks for your time.

Reprinted with permission from The Daily Bell.

Copyright © 2015 The Daily Bell

President Obama Condemned by Regional Nations over Venezuela

President Obama Condemned by Regional Nations over Venezuela

Joachim de Villiers, Noriko Watanabe and Lee Jay Walker

Ex: http://moderntokyotimes.com

President Obama was on the wrong side of history when America plugged to support the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and in other nations in North Africa and the Middle East. Similarly, he is on the wrong side of history when it comes to his judgment on Venezuela. Therefore, regional nations have openly rebuked Obama after he declared that Venezuela was a national security threat.

If Obama is so concerned about human rights then he should focus on allies like Saudi Arabia that bans all non-Muslim faiths and persecutes the Shia. Likewise, he should ostracize Turkey where journalists face prison and so forth. On top of this, the Obama government didn’t hesitate to spy on allies and enemies alike in relation to the spying and espionage scandal.

Indeed, irrespective if nations support or oppose the current leader of Venezuela, it is clear that the situation is an internal issue. Also, the history of America meddling throughout South America is one of supporting right-wing death squads, powerful crony elites and political despots. Therefore, Obama’s open meddling into the internal affairs of Venezuela is a reminder that America still deems it fine to destabilize in South America.

Ernesto Samper, the secretary-general of the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR), rebuked Obama. He stated that the UNASUR bloc opposes “any attempt at internal or external interference that attempts to disrupt the democratic process in Venezuela.”

The President of Ecuador, Rafael Correa, lambasted the Obama government. He stressed this strongly by stating: “An executive order by Obama declaring Venezuela a national security threat and declaring a national emergency to face this threat … It must be a bad joke, which reminds us of the darkest hours of our America, when we received invasions and dictatorships imposed by imperialism…”

Correa also focused on the Obama administration being completely out of touch because he stressed: “Will they understand that Latin America has changed?”

Obama’s declaration that Venezuela is a national security threat seems like a sinister ghost from the past. Also, with peace talks continuing in Cuba between the government of Colombia and FARC then Obama’s timing is also an enormous misjudgment. Similarly, recent positive signs between America and Cuba will be hindered by Obama’s policy towards the current government of Venezuela.

President Evo Morales of Bolivia was also scathing about the Obama administration. Indeed, Morales rightly pointed out that Obama’s executive order is a threat to “all of Latin America and the Caribbean.”

Morales continued by stating: “We condemn, we repudiate, in the 21st Century we won’t accept this kind of intervention by the United States …. All of our solidarity and our support goes to President Maduro, and the revolutionary Bolivarian government and people of Venezuela.”

Other regional nations condemned America therefore it is difficult to see how Obama deems this policy to be fruitful. On the contrary, the open meddling into the internal affairs of Venezuela will only fuel more anti-Americanism throughout the region. Therefore, the Cold War logic of Obama towards Venezuela resembles the sinister forces of old and this reality means that Obama is on the wrong side of history.

 

 

 

Modern Tokyo News is part of the Modern Tokyo Times group

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Porque Venezuela constituye una “inusual y extraordinaria amenaza al gobierno de los EEUU”

Porque Venezuela constituye una “inusual y extraordinaria amenaza al gobierno de los EEUU”

Ex: http://www.elespiadigital.com

Por Oglis Ramos*

Las acciones tomadas por Washington y ordenadas por su vocero principal y criminal internacional Barak Obama contra la República Bolivariana de Venezuela, son señales de temores del imperio ante la creciente influencia de la Unidad Bolivariana Latinoamericana, esta unidad  liderada por Chávez y continuada por Maduro ha sembrado  el terror en el seno mismo del imperialismo norteamericano; el cual ve a los líderes latinoamericanos como una amenaza a los intereses de las trasnacionales que son los verdaderos dueños del poder que ostenta La Casa Blanca; este terror  se hace viral cada día más en las mentes retorcidas de los políticos estadounidenses, los cuales ven afectados los intereses que han mantenidos a lo largo de la historia de dominación norteamericana en Latinoamérica y que hoy los pueblos que fueron oprimidos le dijeron no al garrote yanqui y que, por vías crueles era aplicado induciendo y generando caos, sabotajes, intervenciones armadas y golpes militares en los países que se revelaban ante las pretensiones de las oligarquías internas y las mafias económicas internacionales; ejemplo de esto Guatemala y Chile ambos fueron atacados con la misma satanización internacional y el mismo modelo de sabotaje para luego instaurar represiones que desembocaron en miles de muertos y desaparecidos.

El gobierno norteamericano retoma las acciones del pasado contra la insurgencia de los pueblos latinoamericanos, desatando la más cruel campaña internacional de guerra mediática en contra de gobiernos legítimos y democráticos, los cuales alzando la bandera de sus libertadores y engrosando las más fieles ideas de liberación hoy enfrentan al mismo imperialismo de antaño.

La Revolución Bolivariana catalogada por el inquilino de la Casa Blanca como una amenaza a la seguridad estadounidense es sin duda una gran falacia que hoy el “premio nobel de la guerra” quiere hacer ver a la opinión pública mundial. La Revolución Bolivariana ha manifestado ser  pacífica y respetuosa de los derechos humanos, en sus más de doce años, el proceso bolivariano ha sufrido los más bestiales ataques  que van desde atentados terroristas, golpe de estado, sabotaje económico, asesinatos a líderes populares y militares de la fuerzas armadas, y a pesar de todas estas acciones coordinadas y dirigidas por las agencias de inteligencias que operan en Latinoamérica al servicio de la “Agencia de  Criminales Internacionales” (CIA), ha mantenido su carácter de respeto e integridad por el valor humano. El escenario que se teje contra Venezuela es sin duda un plan para iniciar a desestabilizar toda la región y mantener así a raya cualquier intento de sublevarse ante los designios del poder económico imperial.

La pérdida de influencia del bloque económico imperial (BM, FMI, BID) en la gran mayoría de los países que integran el ALBA , CELAC y UNASUR  es la primera señal  y el primer golpe que recibe el imperialismo norteamericano, el cual cuenta con aliados muy cercanos a las fronteras venezolanas como los es Colombia, que a pesar de encontrarse integrando los organismos que nacieron de la rebeldía latinoamericana se camufla y juega frontalmente con políticas comerciales que se encuentran enmarcadas en el plan del Área de Libre Comercio para las Américas (ALCA) y dentro de su territorio pose inmensas bases militares que hace que el medio oriente sea solo un juego de niños; a esto le sumamos el creciente aumento de mercenarios en Perú el cual cedió su territorio no solo para amenazar a los países de la región, sino para demostrar el reacomodo militar y mercenario de la Casa Blanca en América Latina; tal y como lo ha venido haciendo en el continente europeo. Sin duda alguna estamos ante una escalada de amenazas a la paz suramericana que el gobierno de los EEUU quiere romper y sembrar en esta región lo que ha cosechado en el Medio Oriente.

Las acciones de Washington contra las naciones de América del Sur que se resisten a que su brazo sea torcido y quebrado van encaminada a imponer los designios tal y como lo hicieron en el pasado, solo que en este momento la integridad Suramericana se encuentra unificada bajo principios de hermandad inseparable, temor que siente el gobierno de Obama y sus amos trasnacionales al declarar una “emergencia nacional y una amenaza a la seguridad nacional de los Estados Unidos”; es por lo tanto la forma más clara de injerencia en contra de una República soberana.  El vilipendio al que está siendo expuesta la República Bolivariana de Venezuela y su gobierno al decir Barak Obama de que no hay garantías de derechos humanos al decir “la violación de derechos humanos y abusos en respuesta a protestas antigubernamentales, los arrestos arbitrarios y detención de protestantes antigubernamentales, constituye una inusual y extraordinaria amenaza a la seguridad nacional y política internacional de los Estados Unidos de América, y por ende declaro una emergencia nacional para tratar con esta amenaza” queda claro que al premio nobel de la guerra hace a un lado los miles de muertos que causo en Libia, los miles de muertos que causo y sigue causando en Siria, los muchos miles de otros países solo con el afán de mantener una supremacía mundial; así mismo hace un lado el reciente informe de la Agencia de Criminales Internacionales (CIA) y sus actuaciones alrededor del mundo y esto sin olvidar las manifestaciones y su forma brutal y represiva como actúan asesinando y encarcelando a ciudadanos agobiados por actuaciones de su gobierno y por las crisis que ha causado: empobrecimiento de millones de norteamericanos. Por lo tanto estas amenazas de Venezuela contra los Estados Unidos se dan por los resultados que ha dado la Revolución Bolivariana y su mensaje de unidad a los pueblos oprimidos por el imperialismo norteamericano, mensajes que le causan terror y pesadillas; que en tan poco tiempo se halla avanzado en los países que ayer estaban bajo el yugo norteamericano y que hoy han demostrado avanzar en:

1-      Lucha contra la pobreza y reducción de la misma en toda Latinoamérica

2-      El carácter anti imperialista y democrático de los jóvenes organismos emergentes los cuales han desplazados a los viejos y arcaicos organismos de intervención ilegal (OEA, ONU)

3-      La relación Rusia y china en el ámbito económico, tecnológico y militar lo cual causa preocupación y enojo a los EEUU además de quitarle una región geoestratégica.

4-      La derrota de los tratados de libre comercio, los cuales luego de ser enterrada el ALCA,  aun continua e nuestra América a través de países satélites entregados a los Estados Unidos con políticas claramente neoliberales  (Colombia, Perú, Chile)

5-      Independencia militar y tecnológica.

6-      Desarrollo de inmensas reservas de petróleo sin el control de las principales trasnacionales guerreristas petroleras estadounidenses.

Entonces quien si se convierte en una amenaza para la América del Sur es y será los Estados Unidos, ya que con su afán de expansión y dominación pretende por el uso de las amenazas y de la fuerza arrodillar la voluntad inquebrantable de miles de millones de seres humanos que creen en que otro mundo es posible.

*Analista Venezolano

Berlín se distancia de Washington sobre Ucrania

Berlín se distancia de Washington sobre Ucrania

Por Diana Rojas

Ex: http://www.elespiadigital.com

El gobierno alemán está mostrando su creciente indignación por lo que considera como “una peligrosa propaganda” norteamericana para sabotear el cese el fuego en Ucrania. Los alemanes y otros europeos están preocupados por los intentos de, entre otros, el comandante supremo aliado de la OTAN en Europa, Philip Breadlove,  y la secretaria adjunta del Departamento de Estado para Europa, Victoria Nuland, para exagerar la implicación rusa en el conflicto.

Responsables alemanes manifiestan, según el periódico norteamericano McClatchy, que los informes norteamericanos sobre la situación en Ucrania son totalmente inexactos o alegaciones sin confirmar. Cuando Breadlove afirmó que unos 40.000 soldados rusos se hallaban en la frontera preparando una invasión, fuentes de inteligencia europeas afirmaron que el número era de 20.000 y que no existía una intención de invadir.

Responsables europeos han rechazado también las afirmaciones de que unos 50 tanques rusos habían cruzado la frontera y señalaron que se trataba de un puñado de vehículos blindados y probablemente no militares en su origen.

Los informes alemanes señalan también una amplia diferencia en el número de rusos implicados en el conflicto del Donbass. Ellos estiman esta participación en unos 600, muy lejos de las cifras que ofrecen los comandantes norteamericanos de la OTAN y que rondan entre los 12.000 y los 20.000.

Sabotear esfuerzos de mediación alemanes

La revista alemana Der Spiegel se preguntó recientemente: “¿Quieren los norteamericanos sabotear los intentos de mediación europeos liderados por la canciller Merkel?” Esto en referencia al encuentro de Minsk entre Angela Merkel y el presidente francés, François Hollande, con el presidente ucraniano, Petro Porochenko, y su homólogo ruso, Vladimir Putin, para buscar un alto el fuego.

Esta disputa se produce en un momento en el que EEUU se dispone a enviar 75 millones de dólares en ayuda no letal a Ucrania, incluyendo 30 vehículos Humvee blindados y hasta 200 no blindados.

En las últimas semanas, la canciller alemana, Angela Merkel, parece frustrada con las propuestas que emanan del Congreso de EEUU y de partes de la Administración Obama para enviar armas a Ucrania, señalando que esto podría frustrar la oportunidad de hallar una solución diplomática y escalar la crisis.

Los responsables alemanes han advertido también que tras las visitas de políticos o militares estadounidenses a Kiev, los dirigentes ucranianos parecen más belicosos y optimistas sobre las perspectivas de que su Ejército pueda ganar el conflicto en el campo de batalla. “Nosotros tenemos luego que llevar a los ucranianos de vuelta a la mesa de negociaciones”, dijo un funcionario alemán.

Bob Lo, un experto sobre Rusia de la Chatham House de Londres, dijo que la disputa no es tanto sobre números sino sobre la forma en que el conflicto de Ucrania debe ser resuelto. Algunos responsables norteamericanos creen que sin una amenaza militar creíble las negociaciones de paz no tendrán éxito, mientras que los alemanes consideran que una amenaza de este tipo sólo serviría para escalar el conflicto.

Divergencia de intereses

Según el analista de la CIA Raymond McGovern se trata de la primera disputa seria entre Washington y Berlín desde la Segunda Guerra Mundial. Él señala que Alemania es capaz de enfrentarse políticamente a EEUU y tomar decisiones independientes por primera vez desde hace 70 años.

“Los alemanes han pasado de la adolescencia a la edad adulta y están dispuestos por primera vez en 70 años a hacer frente a EEUU y decirle: Nuestros intereses no coinciden con los vuestros. No queremos una guerra en Europa Central y tenemos la intención de evitarla”, indicó McGovern.

En realidad, esto demuestra la diferencia de intereses entre ambos países. La mitad del PIB alemán procede de las exportaciones y de ellas sólo el 40% va destinado ahora a la UE. Alemania busca y necesita los mercados de Asia, incluyendo países como Rusia, China e Irán, a los que ve como socios potenciales y no como rivales estratégicos, como hace EEUU.

Irritación norteamericana

Según Lo, numerosos funcionarios norteamericanos están insatisfechos de la política de Berlín y trabajan para hacer fracasar las iniciativas alemanes.

El ex director de la Agencia de Seguridad Nacional (NSA), Michael Hayden, declaró el 11 de marzo que la agencia nunca renunciará a espiar a los dirigentes alemanes sean cuales sean las consecuencias políticas. Hayden señala que la canciller alemana defiende ante todo los intereses alemanes y busca evitar una agravación de la situación en Ucrania, lo que Hayden parece lamentar.

Las revelaciones del ex agente de la CIA, Edward Snowden, sobre la actividad de los servicios secretos estadounidenses en Alemania provocaron un escándalo diplomático en el verano de 2013. La revista Der Spiegel señaló entonces que la NSA vigilaba 500 millones de conexiones telefónicas y de Internet en Alemania. En octubre de 2013, los medios anunciaron que Merkel estaba entre los espiados por los servicios de inteligencia estadounidenses. La canciller alemana ordenó entonces al servicio de inteligencia alemán BND y al Ministerio de Defensa reducir su cooperación con los estadounidenses.

Exdirector de la CIA: "Se ha producido la mayor ruptura entre Alemania y EE.UU. desde la II Guerra Mundial"

Exdirector de la CIA: "Se ha producido la mayor ruptura entre Alemania y EE.UU. desde la II Guerra Mundial"

 

Figuras como el exdirector de la CIA Michael Hayden no ocultan su malestar e intentan que Berlín rectifique su posición sobre el conflicto ucraniano porque los alemanes están actuando como adultos y no como siervos subordinados a la alianza de los 'cinco ojos' (EE.UU., Reino Unido, Canadá, Australia y Nueva Zelanda), sostiene el exoficial de la CIA Ray McGovern.

"La ruptura más significativa desde la Segunda Guerra Mundial entre Alemania y EE.UU. acaba de ocurrir", ha declarado el exoficial de la CIA Ray McGovern a RT. "Por primera vez en 70 años, los alemanes están saliendo de la adolescencia para entrar a la edad adulta; están dispuestos a hacer frente a EE.UU. y decirles 'mira, nuestros intereses no son los mismos que los vuestros, no queremos una guerra en Europa Central y vamos a evitarlo'", ha afirmado McGovern.

Asimismo, el exoficial ha revelado que el exdirector de la CIA está "muy instatisfecho estos días, especialmente con la actuación de la canciller alemana Angela Merkel porque ya no está actuando obedientemente al considerar en primer lugar los intereses de Alemania e impedir que empeore la situación en Ucrania".

"Hayden trata de decirle a Merkel y a todos los demás que están fuera de la alianza de los 'cinco ojos', que son ciudadanos secundarios y seguirán siéndolo mientras no obedezcan igual que lo hacen los otros cuatro (Reino Unido, Canadá, Australia y Nueva Zelanda)", ha advertido McGovern.

USA zahlten al-Qaida Millionen von Dollar

New York Times: USA zahlten al-Qaida Millionen von Dollar

Kurt Nimmo

Wie die New York Times (NYT) berichtete, hat die amerikanische Regierung al-Qaida »im Wesentlichen aufgrund fehlender Aufsicht und mangelnder Kontrolle der Finanzen« Millionen Dollar zukommen lassen. Laut verschiedener Medien wie Fox News und anderer Medienkonzerne ist dies kein Einzelfall, sondern fügt sich in eine ganze Reihe anderer Fälle von Korruption und Missmanagement der Regierung ein.

Das Geld, das mutmaßlich aus einem geheimen CIA-Fonds zur Bezahlung von Entführern stammt, wurde von al-Qaida zur Finanzierung ihrer Operationen und Waffenkäufe genutzt. Die USA und Bahrein behaupten weiterhin, kein Lösegeld an Terrorgruppen zu bezahlen.

Einzelheiten zu den Geldzahlungen tauchen angeblich in den Papieren Osama bin Ladens auf, der, zumindest nach der offiziellen Darstellung, 2010 in Pakistan von amerikanischen Spezialkräften getötet wurde. Laut zahlreichen anderen Quellen starb der frühere CIA-Aktivposten, der die arabisch-afghanischen Mudschaheddin im Krieg der CIA gegen die Sowjetunion in Afghanistan anführte, bereits Ende 2001 und nicht erst 2010, wie die Regierung und die Mainstream-Medien behaupten.

Weiterlesen:

http://info.kopp-verlag.de/hintergruende/geostrategie/kurt-nimmo/new-york-times-usa-zahlten-al-qaida-millionen-von-dollar.html

Russia Under Attack

Russia Under Attack

By Paul Craig Roberts

PaulCraigRoberts.org

While Washington works assiduously to undermine the Minsk agreement that German chancellor Merkel and French president Hollande achieved in order to halt the military conflict in Ukraine, Washington has sent Victoria Nuland to Armenia to organize a “color revolution” or coup there, has sent Richard Miles as ambassador to Kyrgyzstan to do the same there, and has sent Pamela Spratlen as ambassador to Uzbekistan to purchase that government’s allegiance away from Russia. The result would be to break up the Collective Security Treaty Organization and present Russia and China with destabilization where they can least afford it. For details go here.

Thus, Russia faces the renewal of conflict in Ukraine simultaneously with three more Ukraine-type situations along its Asian border.

And this is only the beginning of the pressure that Washington is mounting on Russia.

On March 18 the Secretary General of NATO denounced the peace settlement between Russia and Georgia that ended Georgia’s military assault on South Ossetia. The NATO Secretary General said that NATO rejects the settlement because it “hampers ongoing efforts by the international community to strengthen security and stability in the region.” Look closely at this statement. It defines the “international community” as Washington’s NATO puppet states, and it defines strengthening security and stability as removing buffers between Russia and Georgia so that Washington can position military bases in Georgia directly on Russia’s border.

In Poland and the Baltic states Washington and NATO lies about a pending Russian invasion are being used to justify provocative war games on Russia’s borders and to build up US forces in NATO military bases on Russia’s borders.

We have crazed US generals on national television calling for “killing Russians.”

The EU leadership has agreed to launch a propaganda war against Russia, broadcasting Washington’s lies inside Russia in an effort to undermine the Russian people’s support of their government.

All of this is being done in order to coerce Russia into handing over Crimea and its Black Sea naval base to Washington and accepting vassalage under Washington’s suzerainty.

If Saddam Hussein, Gaddafi, Assad, and the Taliban would not fold to Washington’s threats, why do the fools in Washington think Putin, who holds in his hands the largest nuclear arsenal in the world, will fold?

European governments, apparently, are incapable of any thought. Washington has set London and the capitals of every European country, as well as every American city, for destruction by Russian nuclear weapons. The stupid Europeans rush to destroy themselves in service to their Washington master.

Human intelligence has gone missing if after 14 years of US military aggression against eight countries the world does not understand that Washington is lost in arrogance and hubris and imagines itself the ruler of the universe who will tolerate no dissent from its will.

We know that the American, British, and European media are whores well paid to lie for their master. We know that the NATO commander and secretary general, if not the member countries, are lusting for war. We know that the American Dr. Strangeloves in the Pentagon and armaments industry cannot wait to test their ABMs and new weapons systems in which they always place excessive confidence. We know that the prime minister of Britain is a total cipher. But are the chancellor of Germany and the president of France ready for the destruction of their countries and of Europe? If the EU is of such value, why is the very existence of its populations put at risk in order to bow down and accept leadership from an insane Washington whose megalomania will destroy life on earth?

The Best of Paul Craig Roberts

Paul Craig Roberts, a former Assistant Secretary of the US Treasury and former associate editor of the Wall Street Journal, has been reporting shocking cases of prosecutorial abuse for two decades. A new edition of his book, The Tyranny of Good Intentions, co-authored with Lawrence Stratton, a documented account of how americans lost the protection of law, has been released by Random House. Visit his website.

Copyright © 2015 Paul Craig Roberts

Previous article by Paul Craig Roberts: The Empire Is Cracking Up

The New "Dugin Affair"

Cold War II: This Time, The Commies Are In Washington

The New "Dugin Affair"

By William Norman Grigg

Pro Libertate Blog

Ex: http://www.lewrockwell.com

The Regime in Washington is the only government asserting the supposed right to carry out summary executions anywhere on the face of the globe, so we shouldn’t be surprised to learn that it also claims the right to impose “sanctions” on foreign citizens who publicly criticize it. On March 11, the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) added Russian academic Alexander Dugin to its roster of “individuals and entities to be sanctioned over Russia’s interference in Ukraine.”

This decree means that any property belonging to Dugin that is within reach of the Soyuz (aka the country formerly known as the United States of America) is subject to forfeiture, and US citizens who do business with the professor will face criminal prosecution under the Trading with the Enemy Act.

What did Dugin – a so-called “mad professor” who will inevitably be portrayed on film by Russell Crowe — do that merits this designation? He holds no government position, nor is he the chieftain of a private criminal syndicate. Dugin, an outspoken Russian nationalist, has been depicted as a species of terrorist – the intellectual leader of a “revisionist” movement in Russia.

It is his use of the written and spoken word that provoked the outrage of the Trotskyites controlling Washington’s war-making apparatus. Dugin’s heretical rejection of Washington’s imperial rule-set made him “one of the most dangerous people on the planet,” according to noted geostrategic analyst Glenn Beck.

In other words, Dugin – a citizen of a country with which the United States is not formally at war – was targeted for economic punishment as a thought criminal. He should consider himself fortunate that he hasn’t yet been targeted for a drone strike.

According to the OFAC, sanctions against Dugin and a dozen other figures were necessary in order to “hold accountable those responsible for violations of Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.”

If that were the objective, Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland’s name would be at the top of the index of proscribed persons. A little more than a year ago, some might recall, Nuland was caught in the act of plotting to unseat Ukraine’s elected president and install a junta that would take dictation from Washington and the IMF.

Nuland has apologized to EU leaders about whom she made disparaging remarks during the intercepted phone call with US Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt – thereby acknowledging the authenticity of the recording. She has never apologized, to say nothing of being held accountable, for her role in violating “Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.”

It appears that those in charge of the Regime, like their Soviet forebears, employ “Aesopian language” in their public pronouncements about foreign policy, much as Soviet ruler Leonid Brezhnev did in the September 1968 address outlining the doctrine that bore his name.

“Without question, the peoples of the socialist countries and the Communist parties have and must have freedom to determine their country’s path of development,” explained Brezhnev in a sentence pregnant with the word “however.”

“Any decisions they make, however” – there it is! – “must not be harmful either to socialism in their own country or to the fundamental interests of other socialist countries…. Whoever forgets this in giving exclusive emphasis to the autonomy and independence of Communist parties is guilty of a one-sided approach, and of shirking their internationalist duties…. The sovereignty of individual socialist countries cannot be set against the interests of world socialism and the world revolutionary movement.”

On this principle, Brezhnev insisted, the August 1968 Soviet-led invasion of Czechoslovakia, in which hundreds were killed and a reformist government was destroyed, was not a violation of that country’s “socialist sovereignty,” but rather an enhancement thereof.

The ruling elite in Washington and the EU see developments in Ukraine in the same light. The coup that ousted the country’s elected president, Viktor Yanukovych, was a responsible exercise in “internationalism”; the plebiscite that led to Crimean secession, by way of contrast, was an offense against the “world revolutionary movement” that must be punished through mass bloodshed.

Brezhnevite language was recited by US Commissar for War Chuck Hagel during a surrealistic speech last October in which he claimed that the US and NATO “must deal with a revisionist Russia – with its modern and capable army – on NATO’s doorstep.”

Rear Admiral John Kirby was given the unpalatable task of defending Hagel’s statement when asked about it by AP reporter Matt Lee.

“Is it not logical to look at this and say – the reason why Russia’s army is at NATO’s doorstep is because NATO has expanded, rather than Russia expanding?” a composed and visibly disgusted Lee asked of Kirby, whose twitchiness and flop sweat summoned inevitable comparisons to Nathan Thurm, the pathologically dishonest lawyer played by Martin Short.

“I think that’s the way President Putin probably looks at it – it is certainly not the way we look at it,” oozed Kirby by way of a non-reply.

“You don’t think that NATO has expanded eastward towards Russia?” Lee wearily persisted.

“NATO has expanded,” Kirby grudgingly admitted, before trying to deflect the conversation toward Russia’s supposed transgressions.

“It wasn’t NATO that was ordering tons of tactical battalions and army to the Ukraine border,” Kirby declared.

“I am pretty sure that Ukraine is not a member of NATO – unless that’s changed,” Lee pointed out, while trying, without success, to get Kirby to admit the obvious  fact that “You are moving closer to Russia and you’re blaming the Russians for being close to NATO.”

Kirby began his exercise in baroque double-speak saying that Russia’s “intentions and motives” displayed an effort to call back “the glory days of the Soviet Union.” He ended by accusing Russia of aggression by moving troops within its own borders in response to US-abetted violence within a neighboring country.

There is nothing novel about Soviet-grade semantic engineering of this kind by a Pentagon spokesliar. In a November 2005 press conference, Donald Rumsfeld, who at the time was Chief Commissar for Aggression and Occupation — or, as the position is more commonly known, Secretary of Defense – described what he called an “epiphany” regarding the resistance to the Regime’s humanitarian errand in Iraq.

“This is a group of people who don’t merit the word `insurgency,’ I think,”Comrade Rumsfeld pontificated. “I think that you can have a legitimate insurgency in a country that has popular support and has a cohesiveness and has a legitimate gripe. This people don’t have a legitimate gripe.”

This, too, was a familiar theme in Brezhnev-era official cant: Once the forces of “progress” have taken control of a country, all resistance is “counter-revolutionary,” because nobody could have a legitimate grievance.

How, then, were the Iraqi guerillas to be described, since the term “insurgents” was forbidden? Shortly before leaving for a scandal-abbreviated term as head of the World Bank, Rumsfeld’s deputy Paul Wolfowitz employed the orthodox Marxist expression “forces of reaction” to describe those ungrateful Iraqis who had taken up arms against the radiant forces of democratic liberation.

Language of this kind has a familiar odor to Russian nationalists like Dugin, who displays no nostalgia for the Soviet Union into which he was born in 1962.

“We distinguish between two different things: the American people and the American political elite,” Dugin explained a year ago in a “Letter to the American People on Ukraine.” “We sincerely love the first and we profoundly hate the second.”

“The American people [have their] own traditions, habits, values, ideals, options and beliefs that are their own,” he continues. “These grant to everybody the right to be different, to choose freely, to be what one wants to be and can be or become. It is a wonderful feature. It gives strength and pride, self-esteem and assurance. We Russians admire that.”

Unfortunately, Dugin continues, the American political elite have their own version of the Brezhnev Doctrine under which respect for “diversity” is limited by the “international obligations” imposed by the Empire.

“The American political elite, above all on an international level, act quite contrary to [American] values,” Dugin asserts. “They insist on conformity and regard the American way of life as something universal and obligatory.”

Most Americans, Dugin correctly surmises, “sincerely think that the Russian nation was born with Communism, with the Soviet Union. But that is a total misconception. We are much older than that. The Soviet period was just a short epoch in our long history. We existed before the Soviet Union and we are existing after the Soviet Union.”

Ukraine, from Dugin’s perspective, is defined by a “multiplicity of identities,” the most important of which, to him, is Kiev’s role in the “genesis” of the Russian people. Eastern and western Ukraine, he contends, is historically and culturally part of “Greater Russia.” Contemporary Kiev and the western section of the country are more congenial to the West.

Apart from the ideological demands (and crony capitalist interests) of Washington and the EU, there is no reason why Ukraine cannot peacefully devolve into two or more political entities. The alternative is continuing, and escalating, the US-abetted civil war that increasingly appears to be a preliminary round in what could become a direct military conflict between Washington and Moscow.

“We have no thoughts of, or desire to, hurt America,” Dugin insists. “You want to be free. You and all others deserve it. But what the hell are you doing in the capital of ancient Russia, Victoria Nuland? Why do you intervene in our domestic affairs?… Any honest American calmly studying the case will arrive at the conclusion: `Let them decide for themselves. We are not similar to these strange and wild Russians, but let them go their own way. And we are going to go our own way.’”

Merely to suggest such a non-interventionist posture, Brezhnev’s disciples in Washington would object, is to “shirk our internationalist duties.”

“The American political elite has another agenda,” Dugin correctly observes. It is “to provoke wars, to mix in regional conflicts, to incite the hatred of different ethnic groups. The American political elite sacrifices the American people to causes that are far from you, vague, uncertain, and finally very, very bad…. They lie about us. And they lie about you. They give you a distorted image of yourself. The American political elite has stolen, perverted and counterfeited the American identity. And they make us hate you and they make you hate us.”

Dugin offers an alternative approach:

“Let us hate the American political elite together. Let us fight them for our identities – you for the American, us for the Russian, but the enemy in both cases is the same, the global oligarchy who rules the world using you and smashing us. Let us revolt. Let us resist. Together. Russians and Americans. We are the people. We are not their puppets.”

Sober and responsible people might find elements of Dugin’s worldview – and some of his past associations — troubling or even repellent while finding his prognosis of current affairs to be sound and compelling.

One need not endorse what Dugin would like to build in his own country in order to appreciate the truths he tells about the people who are orchestrating a war that could destroy both our country and his. And the means used to criminalize Dugin for giving voice to impermissible thoughts is irrefutable proof that Washington, not Moscow, is home to the true heirs of Lenin’s totalitarian vision.

The Best of William Norman Grigg

William Norman Grigg [send him mail] publishes the Pro Libertate blog and hosts the Pro Libertate radio program

Copyright © 2015 William Norman Grigg

Previous article by William Norman Grigg: Criminal Violence as Political Theater

Wesley Clark: «L’EI a été fondé grâce au financement de nos alliés les plus proches»

Le général Wesley Clark: «L’EI a été fondé grâce au financement de nos alliés les plus proches»

Auteur : Daniel McAdams

Ex: http://zejournal.mobi

De nombreuses personnes connaissent le général Wesley Clark comme l’homme qui a quasiment déclenché la troisième Guerre mondiale, lorsqu’il a donné l’ordre aux Britanniques de tirer sur les forces de maintien de la paix russes qui avaient atterri à Pristina, la capitale du Kosovo, avant l’arrivée des Américains. On rapporte que le commandant britannique de la KFOR, le général Sir Mike Jackson, aurait répondu: «Je ne commencerai pas la troisième Guerre mondiale pour vous».

Toutefois, une des caractéristiques les plus intéressantes du général Clark est sa tendance à laisser échapper, de temps à autre, des propos surprenants.

Comment pourrait-on oublier l’entretien qu’il a accordé à Amy Goodman en 2007 et dans lequel il a dévoilé qu’un des officiers généraux du Pentagone lui avait montré, peu après les attentats du 11 septembre 2001, une note de service de Donald Rumsfeld, le secrétaire à la Défense de l’époque, qui exposait les grandes lignes des projets mondiaux militaires des Etats-Unis. Selon Clark, le général avait déclaré:

«Nous allons détruire sept pays en cinq ans, en commençant par l’Irak, ensuite la Syrie, le Liban, la Libye, la Somalie, le Soudan et, pour terminer l’Iran.» J’ai demandé: «Est-ce que c’est secret?» Il a répondu: «Oui.» Moi, j’ai dit: «Alors ne me le montrez pas.» Quand je l’ai revu, il y a environ un an, j’ai demandé: «Vous vous souvenez?» Et il a répliqué: «Monsieur, je ne vous avait pas montré cette note de service-là! Je ne vous l’avait pas montrée!» [Général Wesley Clark lors d’un entretien accordé à Amy Goodman de Democracy Now, 2/3/15]

Maintenant, Clark est de retour avec d’autres propos étonnants.

Loin d’être une organisation qui aurait surgit de manière spontanée en tant que la cause de tous les maux, au moins selon le général Wesley Clark, l’EI a été créé et financé par nos «alliés les plus proches». Le général a affirmé: l’EI s’est développé grâce aux financements de la part de nos amis et alliés… afin de lutter à mort contre le Hezbollah.

Il n’a pas expliqué de quels amis et alliés il parlait, il a néanmoins indiqué que la situation s’est transformée en un «monstre de Frankenstein». [Général Wesley Clark lors d’un entretien avec CNN Newsroom, 17/2/15]

En effet, notre initié, le général Wesley Clark, nous fait savoir que nos alliés les plus proches au Moyen-Orient ont contribué à la création de l’EI – l’organisation pour la lutte contre laquelle nous dépensons des milliards de dollars.

On sait que Israël, l’Arabie saoudite et d’autres Etats du Golfe sont depuis longtemps obsédés par la lutte contre le Hezbollah et Assad. De la même manière, ces deux Etats s’appliquent pour que les Etats-Unis continuent à lutter dans la région pour leur compte. Et si c’était eux qu’il avait en tête?

Au lieu de continuer à renforcer sa présence militaire dans la région afin de lutter contre l’EI, il est probablement grand temps que les Etats-Unis parlent sérieusement avec leurs «alliés» au Moyen-Orient.

- Source : Daniel McAdams

A Green Light for the American Empire

 

 

A Green Light for the American Empire

By Ron Paul

Ron Paul Institute

Ex: http://www.lewrockwell.com

The American Empire has been long in the making. A green light was given in 1990 to finalize that goal. Dramatic events occurred that year that allowed the promoters of the American Empire to cheer. It also ushered in the current 25-year war to solidify the power necessary to manage a world empire. Most people in the world now recognize this fact and assume that the empire is here to stay for a long time. That remains to be seen.

Empires come and go. Some pop up quickly and disappear in the same manner. Others take many years to develop and sometimes many years to totally disintegrate. The old empires, like the Greek, Roman, Spanish and many others took many years to build and many years to disappear. The Soviet Empire was one that came rather quickly and dissipated swiftly after a relatively short period of time. The communist ideology took many decades to foment the agitation necessary for the people to tolerate that system.

Since 1990 the United States has had to fight many battles to convince the world that it was the only military and economic force to contend with. Most people are now convinced and are easily intimidated by our domination worldwide with the use of military force and economic sanctions on which we generously rely. Though on the short term this seems to many, and especially for the neoconservatives, that our power cannot be challenged. What is so often forgotten is that while most countries will yield to our threats and intimidation, along the way many enemies were created.

The seeds of the American Empire were sown early in our history. Natural resources, river transportation, and geographic location all lent itself to the development of an empire. An attitude of “Manifest Destiny” was something most Americans had no trouble accepting. Although in our early history there were those who believed in a powerful central government, with central banking and foreign intervention, these views were nothing like they are today as a consequence of many years of formalizing the power and determination necessary for us to be the policeman of the world and justify violence as a means for spreading a particular message. Many now endorse the idea that using force to spread American exceptionalism is moral and a force for good. Unfortunately history has shown that even using humanitarian rhetoric as a justification for telling others what to do has never worked.

Our move toward empire steadily accelerated throughout the 20th century. World War I and World War II were deadly for millions of people in many countries, but in comparison the United States was essentially unscathed. Our economic power and military superiority steadily grew. Coming out of World War II we were able to dictate the terms of the new monetary system at Bretton Woods as well as the makeup of all the international organizations like NATO, the United Nations, and many others. The only thing that stood in America’s way between 1945 and 1990 was the Cold War with the Soviet Union. Significant events of 1990 sealed the fate of the Soviet Empire, with United States enjoying a green light that would usher in unchallenged American superiority throughout the world.

Various names have been given to this war in which we find ourselves and is which considered necessary to maintain the empire. Professor Michael Rozeff calls it the “Great War II” implying that the Great War I began in 1914 and ended in 1990. Others have referred to this ongoing war as “The Long War.” I hope that someday we can refer to this war as the “The Last War” in that by the time this war ends the American Empire will end as well. Then the greatness of the experiment in individual liberty in our early history can be resumed and the force of arms can be replaced by persuasion and setting an example of how a free society should operate.

There are several reasons why 1990 is a significant year in the transition of modern day empires. It was a year that signaled the end of the USSR Empire and the same year the American Empire builders felt vindicated in their efforts to assume the role of the world’s sole superpower.

On February 7, 1990 the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union met and ceded its monopoly political power over its empire. This was followed in a short period of time with the breakup of the Soviet system with 15 of the 17 republics declaring their independence from Moscow. This was not a total surprise considering the fact that the Soviets, in defeat, were forced to leave Afghanistan in February 1989. Also later that year, on November 9, 1989, the Berlin wall fell. Obviously the handwriting was on the wall for the total disintegration of the Soviet system. The fact that the Communist Party’s leaders had to concede that they no longer could wield the ominous power that the Communist Party exerted for 73 years was a seminal event. None of this could have been possible without significant policy changes instituted by Mikhail Gorbachev after his assuming power as president in 1985, which included Glasnost and Perestroika—policies that permitted more political openness as well as significant economic reforms. These significant events led up to the Soviet collapse much more so than the conventional argument that it was due to Ronald Reagan’s military buildup that forced the Soviets into a de facto “surrender” to the West.

The other significant event of 1990, and not just a coincidence, was the “green light” message exchanged between April Glaspie and Saddam Hussein on July 25, 1990. Though the details of this encounter have been debated, there is no doubt that the conclusion of it was that Saddam Hussein was convinced that the United States would not object to him using force to deal with a dispute Iraq had with Kuwait. After all, the US had just spent eight years aligning itself with him in his invasion and war with the Iranians. It seemed to him quite logical. What he didn’t realize was the significance of the changes in the world powers that were ongoing at that particular time. The Soviets were on their way out and the American Empire was soon to assert its role as the lone super power. The US was anxious to demonstrate its new role.

When one reads the communications between Washington and Iraq, it was not difficult to believe that a green light had been given to Saddam Hussein to march into Kuwait without US interference. Without this invasion, getting the American people to support a war with Iraq would have been very difficult. Before the war propaganda by the US government and the American media began, few Americans supported President Bush’s plans to go to war against an ally that we assisted in its eight-year war against Iran. After several months of propaganda, attitudes changed and President Bush was able to get support from the US Congress, although he argued that that was unnecessary since he had obtained a UN resolution granting him the authority to use his military force to confront Saddam Hussein. The need for Constitutional authority was not discussed.

US ambassador April Glaspie was rather explicit in her comments to Saddam Hussein: “we have no opinion on Arab – Arab conflicts, like your border disagreement with Kuwait.” The US State Department had already told Saddam Hussein that Washington had “no special defense or security commitments to Kuwait.” It’s not difficult interpreting conversations like this as being a green light for the invasion that Hussein was considering. Hussein had a list of grievances regarding the United States, but Glaspie never threatened or hinted about how Washington would react if Hussein took Kuwait. Regardless, whether it was reckless or poor diplomacy, the war commenced. Some have argued that it was deliberate in order to justify the beginning of the United States efforts in rebuilding the Middle East – a high priority for the neoconservatives. Actually whether the invasion by Saddam Hussein into Kuwait was encouraged or permitted by deliberate intentions or by miscalculations, the outcome and the subsequent disaster in Iraq for the next 25 years was a result of continued bad judgment in our dealing with Iraq. That required enforcing our goals with military intervention. The obvious failure of this policy requires no debate.

On August 1, 1990, one week after this exchange between ambassador Glaspie and Saddam Hussein, the invasion of Kuwait by Iraq occurred. Immediately following this attack our State Department made it clear that this invasion would not stand and President Bush would lead a coalition in removing Iraqi forces from Kuwait. On January 17, 1991, that military operation began. The forced evacuation of Iraqi troops from Kuwait was swift and violent, but the war for Iraq had just begun and continues to this day. It also ushered in the climactic struggle for America’s efforts to become the official and unchallenged policeman of the world and to secure the American Empire.

President Bush was not bashful in setting the stage for this clearly defined responsibility to assume this role since the Soviet Empire was on the wane. A very significant foreign policy speech by Bush came on September 11, 1990 entitled, “Toward a New World Order.” This was a clear definition of internationalism with United States in charge in the tradition of Woodrow Wilson and Franklin D Roosevelt. In this speech there was a pretense that there would be Russian and United States cooperation in making the world safe for democracy—something that our government now seems totally uninterested in. Following the speech, the New York Times reported that the American left was concerned about this new world order as being nothing more than rationalization for imperial ambitions in the middle 1980s. Obviously the geopolitics of the world had dramatically changed. The green light was given for the American hegemony.

This arrogant assumption of power to run the world militarily and to punish or reward various countries economically would continue and accelerate, further complicating the financial condition of the United States government. Though it was easy for the United States to push Hussein back into Iraq, subsequent policy was destined to create havoc that has continued up to the present day. The sanctions and the continuous bombing of Iraq were devastating to the infrastructure of that country. As a consequence it’s been estimated that over 500,000 Iraqis died in the next decade, many of them being children. Yet there are still many Americans who continue to be mystified as to why “they – Arabs and Muslims – hate us.” By the end of 1991, on Christmas Day, the final blow to the Soviet system occurred. On that date Gorbachev resigned and the Soviet flag was lowered for the last time, thus officially ending the Soviet Empire. Many had hoped that there would be “a peace dividend” for us since the Cold War was officially ended. There’s no reason that could not have occurred but it would have required us to reject the notion that it was our moral obligation and legal responsibility to deal with every crisis throughout the world. Nevertheless we embarked on that mission and though it continues, it is destined to end badly for our country. The ending of the Soviet Empire was a miraculous event with not one shot being fired. It was a failed system based on a deeply flawed idea and it was destined to fail. Once again this makes the point that the use of military force to mold the world is a deeply flawed policy. We must remember that ideas cannot be stopped by armies and recognize that good ideas must replace bad ones rather than resorting to constant wars.

It should surprise no one that a policy endorsing the use of force to tell others how to live will only lead to more killing and greater economic suffering for those who engage in this effort, whether voluntarily or involuntarily. Twenty five years have passed since this green light was given for the current war and there’s no sign that it will soon end. So far it has only emboldened American political leaders to robustly pursue foreign interventionism with little thought to the tremendous price that is continuously paid.

During the 1990s there was no precise war recognized. However our military presence around the world especially in the Middle East and to some degree in Africa was quite evident. Even though President George HW Bush did not march into Baghdad, war against the Iraqi people continued. In an effort to try to get the people to rebel against Saddam Hussein, overwhelming sanctions and continuous bombing were designed to get the Iraqi people to rebel and depose Hussein. That did not work. Instead it worked to continue to build hatred toward America for our involvement in the entire region.

Our secretive influence in Afghanistan during the Soviet occupation had its unintended consequences. One was that we were fighting on the side of bin Laden and we all know how that turned out. Also, in an effort to defeat communism, the CIA helped to promote radical Islam in Saudi Arabia. Some argue that this was helpful in defeating the Soviets in Afghanistan. This most likely is not true since communism was doomed to fail anyway, and the cost to us by encouraging radical Islam has come back to haunt us.

It has been estimated that our policies directed at Iraq during the 1990s caused the death of thousands of Iraqis, many of these coming from the destruction of their infrastructure and creating a public health nightmare. When Madeleine Albright was asked about this on national TV she did not deny it and said that that was a price that had to be paid. And then they wonder why there is so much resentment coming from these countries directed toward United States. Then George Bush Junior invaded Iraq, his justification all based on lies, and another 500,000 Iraqis died. The total deaths have been estimated to represent four percent of the Iraqi population. The green light that was turned on for the Persian Gulf War in 1990 stayed lit and even today the proponents of these totally failed wars claim that the only problem is we didn’t send enough troops and we didn’t stay long enough. And now it’s argued that it’s time to send ground troops back in. This is the message that we get from the neoconservatives determined that only armed might can bring peace to the world and that the cost to us financially is not a problem. The proponents never seem to be concerned about the loss of civil liberties, which has continued ever since the declaration of the Global War on Terrorism. And a good case can be made that our national security not only has not been helped, but has been diminished with these years of folly.

And the true believers in empire never pause. After all the chaos that the US government precipitated in Iraq, conditions continue to deteriorate and now there is strong talk about putting troops on the ground once again. More than 10,000 troops still remain in Afghanistan and conditions there are precarious. Yemen is a mess as is also Libya, Pakistan, Somalia, Syria, and Ukraine — all countries in which we have illegally and irresponsibly engaged ourselves.

Today the debate in Congress is whether or not to give the President additional authority to use military force. He asked to be able to use military force anyplace anytime around the world without further congressional approval. This is hardly what the Founders intended for how we dealt with going to war with other nations. Some have argued, for Constitutional reasons, that we should declare war against ISIS. That will prove to be difficult since exactly who they are and where they are located and how many there are is unknown. We do know it is estimated that there are around 30,000 members. And yet in the surrounding countries, where the fighting is going on and we are directly involved, millions of Muslims have chosen not to stand up to the ruthless behavior of the ISIS members.

Since declaring war against ISIS makes no more sense than declaring war against “terrorism,” which is a tactic, it won’t work. Even at the height of the Cold War, in a time of great danger to the entire world, nobody suggested we declare war against “communism.” Islamist extremism is based on strong beliefs, and as evil as these beliefs may be, they must be understood, confronted, and replaced with ideas that all civilized people in the world endorse. But what we must do immediately is to stop providing the incentive for the radicals to recruit new members and prevent American weapons from ending up in the hands of the enemy as a consequence of our failed policies. The incentives of the military-industrial complex along with the philosophy of neoconservatism that pushes us to be in more than 150 countries, must be exposed and refuted. Occupation by a foreign country precipitates hatred and can never be made acceptable by flowery words about their need for American-style “democracy.” People who are occupied are always aware of the selfish motivation of the occupiers.

The announcement by President George HW Bush on September 11, 1990 about the new world order was well received. Prior to that time it was only the “conspiracy theorists” who constantly talked about and speculated about the New World Order. Neoconservative ideas had been around for a long time. They were endorsed by many presidents and in particular Woodrow Wilson with his goal of spreading American goodness and making the ”world safe for democracy” – none of which can be achieved by promoting war. In the 1990s the modern day neoconservatives, led by William Kristol and Robert Kagan, enjoyed their growing influence on America’s foreign policy. Specifically, in 1997 they established the Project for the New American Century (PNAC) for the specific purpose of promoting an aggressive foreign policy of interventionism designed to promote the American Empire. This policy of intervention was to be presented with “moral clarity.” “Clarity” it was, but “moral” is another question. Their goal was to provide a vision and resolve, “to shape a new century favorable to American principles and interest.”

It was not a surprise that admittedly the number one goal for the New World order was to significantly increase military spending and to be prepared to challenge any regime hostile to America’s interests. They argued that America had to accept its unique role as the sole superpower for extending international order as long as it served America’s interests. Although neoconservatives are thought to have greater influence within the Republican Party, their views have been implemented by the leadership of both Republicans and Democrats. First on PNAC’s agenda was to continue the policy designed to undermine Saddam Hussein with the goal of eventually invading Iraq – once they had an event that would galvanize public support for it. Many individuals signed letters as well as the statement of principles and most were identified as Republicans. Interestingly enough, the fourth person on the list of signatories for the statement of principles was Jeb Bush, just as he was planning his second run for governor of Florida. The neoconservatives have been firmly placed in a position of influence in directing America’s foreign policy. Though we hear some debate between the two political parties over when and whom to strike, our position of world policeman is accepted by both. Though the rhetoric is different between the two parties, power always remains in the hands of those who believe in promoting the empire.

The American Empire has arrived, but there’s no indication that smooth sailing is ahead. Many questions remain. Will the American people continue to support it? Will the American taxpayer be able to afford it? Will those on the receiving end of our authority tolerate it? All empires eventually end. It’s only a matter of time. Since all empires exist at the expense of personal liberty the sooner the American Empire ends the better it will be for those who still strive to keep America a bastion for personal liberty. That is possible, but it won’t be achieved gracefully.

Though the people have a say in the matter, they have to contend with the political and financial power that controls the government and media propaganda. The powerful special interests, who depend on privileges that come from the government, will do whatever is necessary to intimidate the people into believing that it’s in their best interest to prop up a system that rewards the wealthy at the expense of the middle class. The nature of fiat money and the privileges provided to the special interests by the Federal Reserve makes it a difficult struggle, but it’s something that can be won. Unfortunately there will be economic chaos, more attacks on our civil liberties, and many unfortunate consequences coming from our unwise and dangerous foreign policy of interventionism.

Since all empires serve the interests of a privileged class, the people who suffer will constantly challenge their existence. The more powerful the empire, the greater is the need for the government to hold it together by propaganda and lies. Truth is the greatest enemy of an abusive empire. Since those in charge are determined to maintain their power, truth is seen as being treasonous. Whistleblowers and truth tellers are seen as unpatriotic and disloyal. This is why as our empire has grown there have been more attacks on those who challenge the conventional wisdom of the propagandists. We have seen it with the current administration in that the president has used the Espionage Act to curtail freedom of the press more than any other recent president. Fortunately we live in an age where information is much more available than when it was controlled by a combination of our government and the three major networks. Nevertheless it’s an uphill struggle to convince the people that it is in their best interests to give up on the concept of empire, foreign interventionism, allowing the special interests to dictate foreign policy, and paying the bills with the inflation of the money supply provided by the Federal Reserve. The laws of economics, in time, will bring such a system to an end but it would be nice if it would be ended sooner through logic and persuasion.

If it’s conceded that there was a dramatic change with the green light given by April Glaspie and President Bush in 1990, along with the collapse, almost simultaneously, of the Soviet system, the only question remains is when and who will turn on the red light to end this 25 year war. Sometime it’s easier to establish an empire than it is to maintain and pay for it. That is what our current political leaders are in the business of currently doing and it’s not going well. It appears that a comparatively small but ruthless non-government entity, ISIS, is playing havoc with our political leaders as well as nearly all the countries in the Middle East. Because there is no clear understanding of what radical Islam is all about  —since it is not much about Islam itself — our policies in the Middle East and elsewhere will continue to drain our resources and incite millions more to join those who are resisting our occupations and sanctions. The day will come when we will be forced to give up our role as world policeman and resort to using a little common sense and come home.

This will only occur when the American people realize that our presence around the world and the maintenance of our empire has nothing to do with defending our Constitution, preserving our liberties, or fulfilling some imaginary obligation on our part to use force to spread American exceptionalism. A thorough look at our economic conditions, our pending bankruptcy, our veterans hospitals, and how we’re viewed in the world by most other nations, will compel Americans to see things differently and insist that we bring our troops home – the sooner the better.

Vocal proponents of the American Empire talk about a moral imperative that requires us to sacrifice ourselves as we try to solve the problems of the world. If there was even a hint this effort was accomplishing something beneficial, it might be more difficult to argue against. But the evidence is crystal-clear that all our efforts only make things worse, both for those we go to teach about democracy and liberty and for the well-being of all Americans who are obligated to pay for this misplaced humanitarian experiment. We must admit that this 25-year war has failed. Nevertheless it’s difficult to argue against it when it requires that that we not endorse expanding our military operations to confront the ISIS killers. Arguments against pursuing a war to stop the violence, however, should appeal to common sense. Recognizing that our policies in the Middle East have significantly contributed to the popular support for radical Islam is crucial to dealing with ISIS. More sacrifices by the American people in this effort won’t work and should be avoided. If one understands what motivates radical Islam to strike out as it does, the solution would become more evident. Voluntary efforts by individuals to participate in the struggle should not be prohibited. If the solution is not more violence on our part, a consideration must be given to looking at the merits of a noninterventionist foreign policy which does not resort to the killing of hundreds of thousands of individuals who never participated in any aggression against United States — as our policies have done since the green light for empire was given.

How is this likely to end? The empire will not be ended legislatively or by the sudden embrace of common sense in directing our foreign policy. The course of interventionism overseas and assuming the role of world policeman will remain for the foreseeable future. Still the question remains, how long will that be since we can be certain that the end of the empire will come. Our military might and economic strength is now totally dependent on the confidence that the worldwide financial markets give to the value of the US dollar. In spite of all the reasons that the dollar will eventually be challenged as the world reserve currency, the competition, at present, by other currencies to replace it, is nil. Confidence can be related to objective facts such as how a country runs its fiscal affairs and monetary policy. Economic wealth and military strength also contribute artificial confidence to a currency. Perceptions and subjective reasons are much more difficult to define and anticipate. The day will come when the confidence in the dollar will be greatly diminished worldwide. Under those conditions the tremendous benefits that we in the United States have enjoyed as the issuer of the reserve currency will be reversed. It will become difficult if not impossible for us to afford huge budget deficits as well as very large current account deficits. National debt and foreign debt will serve as a limitation on how long the empire can last. Loss of confidence can come suddenly and overwhelmingly. Under those conditions we will no longer be able to afford our presence overseas nor will we be able to continue to export our inflation and debt to other nations. Then it will require that we pay for our extravagance, and market forces will require that we rein in our support for foreign, corporate, and domestic welfare spending. Hopefully this will not come for a long time, giving us a chance to educate more people as to its serious nature and give them insight into its precise cause. Nevertheless we live in a period of time when we should all consider exactly what is the best road to take to protect ourselves, not only our personal wealth but also to prepare to implement a system based on sound money, limited government, and personal liberty. This is a goal we can achieve. And when we do, America will enjoy greater freedom, more prosperity and a better chance for peace.

The Best of Ron Paul

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Le dogmatisme démocratique: l’erreur fatale des Occidentaux

SYRIE : L’AVEU AMÉRICAIN

Le dogmatisme démocratique: l’erreur fatale des Occidentaux

Jean Bonnevey
Ex: http://metamag.fr

 

Le djihadisme qui veut nous détruire, nous l’avons créé, les Américains l'ont financé. Nous avons partout voulu tuer le mauvais cochon. On commence à peine à le comprendre et encore pas tout le monde. L'extraordinaire revirement américain sur le régime Assad est tout de même un sacré aveu.

Assad résiste et son régime avec lui. On pensait qu’il allait être emporté en quelques mois par un printemps démocratique syrien  puis par une rébellion armée de gentils sunnites voulaient en finir avec la dictature de la minorité chiite des Alaouites. Son armée, dirigée par les cadres de la minorité religieuse au pouvoir, a tenu bon. Petit à petit la rébellion a changé de visage et a été confisquée par les djihadistes sunnites.

C’était tout de même prévisible, l’ennemi syrien de Damas, combattu par les Américains, était en fait le même que celui imposé par les Américains à Bagdad. Le pouvoir chiite irakien a donc réussi à déclencher une révolte sunnite armée devenue une insurrection islamiste.

Notre incohérence est telle que le succès des djihadistes irakiens, destructeurs des cultures passées et génocidaires de chrétiens a été rendue possible par l’apport décisif de l'infrastructure de l'armée baasiste, c’est à dire nationaliste et laïque de Saddam Hussein. La cohérence est du côté de la Russie et de l'Iran, surtout de l'Iran qui, en Irak comme en Syrie, appuyé sur le terrain par le hezbollah libanais, soutient l’arc chiite qui résiste au djihadisme sunnite.

La réalité géopolitique s’impose petit à petit à l'utopie idéologique. C’est  ce qui inquiète tant les monarchies du golfe qui financent, contre les chiites, les égorgeurs sectaires de l’EI. Car c’est l' Iran, allié d'Assad, qui a la clé de la victoire sur le terrain, au sol, et certainement pas nos bombardements de bonne conscience. Les américains, principaux responsables sauf en Libye de ce chaos devenu une guerre mondiale religieuse ou en tout cas une guerre menée au monde par une secte se référant à une religion, commencent peut-être à comprendre.

Les Etats-Unis devront négocier avec le président syrien Bachar el-Assad pour mettre fin au conflit qui vient d'entrer dans sa cinquième année, a reconnu le secrétaire d'Etat américain John Kerry. « Au final, il faudra négocier. Nous avons toujours été pour les négociations dans le cadre du processus (de paix) de Genève I », a déclaré Kerry dans une interview diffusée sur la chaîne CBS .Washington travaille pour « relancer » les efforts visant à trouver une solution politique au conflit, a dit le chef de la diplomatie américaine. Les Etats-Unis avaient participé à l'organisation de pourparlers entre l'opposition syrienne et des émissaires de Damas à Genève au début de l'année dernière. Ce processus de Genève prévoit une transition politique négociée. Mais les deux cycles de négociations n'avaient produit aucun résultat et la guerre s'est poursuivie.

Depuis le début du conflit en mars 2011, plus de 215.000 personnes ont été tuées et la moitié de la population déplacée. Les Etats-Unis, a poursuivi le secrétaire d'Etat, « continuent certes à pilonner le groupe Etat islamique, qui s'est emparé de larges pans de territoire en Irak et en Syrie, mais leur objectif reste de mettre fin au conflit en Syrie. Les Etats-Unis ne veulent pas d'un effondrement du gouvernement et des institutions en Syrie qui laisserait le champ libre aux extrémistes islamistes, dont le groupe Etat islamique (EI) ».

« Aucun d'entre nous, Russie, Etats-Unis, coalition [contre l'EI], Etats de la région, ne veut un effondrement du gouvernement et des institutions politiques à Damas », a déclaré  John Brennan, directeur de la CIA, à New York devant le centre de réflexion Council on Foreign Relations. Des « éléments extrémistes », dont l'EI et d'anciens militants d'Al-Qaïda, sont « en phase ascendante » dans certaines régions de Syrie, a soutenu M. Brennan. Interrogé sur une potentielle coopération entre Washington et Téhéran en Irak, M. Brennan a suggéré que les deux pays collaboraient indirectement contre un ennemi commun, l'EI. « Il y a un alignement de certains intérêts entre nous et l'Iran » en ce qui concerne la lutte contre l'EI en Irak, a-t-il affirmé.

On commence a comprendre qui est l’ennemi principal. Enfin… On… pas encore vraiment les Anglais et encore moins les Français qui continuent à sauter sur place en scandant, d’exécutions d’otages en attentats? de destructions en épurations, « démocratie – démocratie – démocratie » 

Stratfor: VS wil ten koste van alles alliantie Duitsland-Rusland voorkomen

Stratfor: VS wil ten koste van alles alliantie Duitsland-Rusland voorkomen

 

Ex: http://xandernieuws.punt.nl

‘Amerika zet volken tegen elkaar op om te voorkomen dat ze zich tegen VS keren’

VS zet in op het ten val brengen van Rusland en de EU en het steunen van Turkije en Japan als nieuwe machten

George Friedman, hoofd van de Amerikaanse private inlichtingendienst Stratfor, heeft in een toespraak gezegd dat het belangrijkste strategische doel van de Verenigde Staten het voorkomen van een alliantie tussen Duitsland en Rusland is. Dat pact zou namelijk als enige de wereldwijde hegemonie van Amerika kunnen uitdagen. Friedman erkende dat de VS over de hele wereld een ‘verdeel en heers’ tactiek toepast door volken en landen tegen elkaar op te zetten, zodat ze zich niet tegen Amerika (kunnen) keren.

‘Amerika moet oceanen en ruimte blijven controleren’

‘De VS heeft een fundamenteel belang: ze controleert alle oceanen van de wereld,’ aldus Friedman in een toespraak voor de in 1922 opgerichte Chicago Council on Global Affairs. ‘Geen enkele andere macht heeft dat ooit gedaan. Daarom vallen wij bij volken binnen, maar kunnen zij niet bij ons binnenvallen. Dat is een prachtige zaak.’

‘Het behouden van de controle over de oceanen en de ruimte is het fundament van onze macht. De beste manier een vijandelijke vloot te overwinnen is te voorkomen dat zo’n vloot wordt opgebouwd.’

Verdeel-en-heers

‘De politiek die ik zou aanbevelen is die Ronald Reagan in Irak en Iran heeft toegepast. Hij financierde beide partijen, zodat ze tegen elkaar gingen vechten en niet tegen ons. Het was cynisch, zeker niet moreel verdedigbaar, maar het functioneerde.’

‘Dat is het punt: de VS kan Eurazië niet bezetten. Op het moment dat we één laars op Europese bodem zetten, zijn wij op grond van de demografische verschillen getalsmatig totaal in de minderheid. Wij kunnen een leger verslaan, maar niet Irak bezetten... Wij zijn wel in staat om meerdere met elkaar overhoop liggende machten te ondersteunen, zodat ze zich op zichzelf concentreren...’

Die ‘ondersteuning’ bestaat volgens Friedman uit militaire, economische en financiële hulp en het sturen van –natuurlijk dik betaalde- ‘adviseurs’ van bijvoorbeeld zijn eigen private inlichtingendienst.

‘Uit balans brengen van landen zeer eenvoudig’

Dat Amerikaanse regeringen dachten tegelijkertijd ‘democratie’ naar landen zoals Afghanistan en Irak te brengen, is een misrekening geweest, aldus de Stratfor topman. Het uit balans brengen van landen bleek echter buitengewoon eenvoudig. Friedman noemde het niet, maar hij zal ongetwijfeld de vele burgerdoden door onder andere drone aanvallen en de totale chaos bedoelen die in diverse landen ontstond na Amerikaans ingrijpen.

Amerikaans imperium wordt nog groter

Grote voorbeeld is wat hem betreft het Romeinse Rijk, dat eveneens een verdeel-en-heers tactiek toepaste. De Nazi’s hebben in zijn ogen bewezen dat een directe bezetting niet werkt, maar alleen indirecte controle over landen en volken mogelijk is.

Het Amerikaanse imperium is wat Friedman betreft nog lang niet uitgegroeid. Er komt zelfs nog een ‘derde hoofdstuk’ aan. Wat dat inhoudt vertelde hij niet, maar daarbij gaat het ongetwijfeld om het realiseren van de ‘Nieuwe Wereld Orde’ zoals die op 11 september 1991 door president George Bush werd aangekondigd. (1)

Alliantie Duitsland-Rusland grootste bedreiging

Wat dit nog machtigere Amerikaanse imperium zou kunnen bedreigen is een alliantie tussen Duitsland en Rusland. Het voorkomen van die concurrerende wereldmacht is in Friedmans ogen de komende jaren het belangrijkste strategische doel van de Verenigde Staten. De door de CIA geleide staatsgreep in Oekraïne en de anti-Russische propaganda in de Westerse media staan geheel in het teken van het veroorzaken van zoveel mogelijk spanningen tussen Europa en Rusland.

Ten val brengen Rusland en EU

In zijn boek ‘De volgende 100 jaar’ (2009) schreef de chef van Stratfor dat de Verenigde Staten er voor zullen zorgen dat Turkije, Polen en Japan tussen 2020 en 2030 nieuwe regionale machten worden, en Oost Europa een pro-Amerikaans blok wordt. Al deze ontwikkelingen hebben als doel twee potentiële concurrenten, Rusland en de EU, ten val te brengen.

Xander

(1) KOPP
(2) Deutsche Wirtschafts Nachrichten

L'Amérique prépare une nouvelle guerre du Pacifique

par Jean-Paul Baquiast

Ex: http://www.europesolidaire.eu

Ceci paraîtra une plaisanterie, mais il n'en est rien. Dans cette guerre, l'ennemi ne sera plus le Japon, mais la Chine. Pour s'en convaincre, il suffit de lire un document que Washington vient de rendre public, intitulé " A Cooperative Strategy for 21st Century Seapower: Forward, Engaged, Ready ” dit aussi CS21R (référence ci-dessous)

 

Ce document, préparé par l'US Navy, les corps de Marine et les Gardes côtes, actualise l'ancienne stratégie maritime définie en 2007. Il marque un changement profond d'orientation, traduisant ce que Barack Obama a nommé le « pivot vers l'Asie ». Il insiste sur l'importance croissante au plan stratégique de ce qu'il nomme l' «  Indo-Asia-Pacific region ». Cette importance, aux plans économique, militaire et géographique impose aux Etats-Unis de pouvoir s'appuyer sur des forces navales capables de protéger les intérêts américains.

 

Le CS21R insiste sur le fait qu'il est impératif pour les Etats-Unis de maintenir « une prédominance navale globale » afin d'empêcher les adversaires de l'Amérique de faire usage contre elle des théâtres océaniques mondiaux. La possibilité de mener dans les eaux internationales des opérations loin des côtes américaines constitue un élément essentiel de cette prédominance.

Le principal (et seul) de ces adversaires, bien que non nommé, est la Chine. Le Pentagone a prévu dans le même temps des plans de guerre contre la Chine connus sous le nom de “AirSea Battle”. Ils reposent sur la capacité de monter contre la Chine une opération massive, aérienne et à base de missiles, très en profondeur sur le territoire chinois lui-même. Il s'agira de détruire les infrastructures militaires et économiques chinoises, ce qui sera suivi d'un blocus économique. Au prétexte d'assurer la liberté de navigation dans les grandes voies maritimes, le Pentagone se met en état de bloquer les routes utilisées par la Chine dans l'océan Indien lui permettant d'importer des produits pétroliers et des matières premières en provenance de l'Afrique et du Moyen-Orient.

A cette fin, le CS21R prévoit de « rebalancer » 60% des forces navales et aériennes des Etats-Unis vers la zone Indo-Pacifique. L'US Navy entretiendra au Japon un groupe de porte-avions d'attaque et des forces d'intervention rapide aéro-navales adéquates (Carrier Strike Group, Carrier Airwing and Amphibious Ready Group). Elle ajoutera de nouveaux sous-marins d'attaque et navires de combat littoral à ceux existants déjà à Guam et Singapour.

 

 

Renvoyons au document pour plus de détail concernant l'énorme force déjà en place et les renforts à lui apporter d'ici les 5 prochaines années. Apparemment les crédits ne vont pas manquer, non plus que l'accord de tous les pays qui seront nécessairement impliqués, avec ou sans leur consentement éclairé, dans ces opérations de guerre. Comment la Chine va-t-elle prendre tout ceci?  La question apparemment n'est pas posée. Certains diront que tout document stratégique prévoit la possibilité de mener des guerres contre d'autres puissances, même si de telles guerres ne sont jamais engagées. Mais en ce cas, la seule et unique puissance visée est la Chine, et tout semble indiquer que le document est destiné à préparer contre elle des interventions militaires qui n'auront rien de théorique. .

Dans le même temps, chacun a pu noter les cris d'alarme poussés par les spécialistes américains de la défense à l'annonce faite par la Chine selon laquelle celle-ci se préparait à construire un 2e porte-avions, destiné à compléter le vieux bâtiment déjà en service, reconditionné à partir d'un PA datant de l'ex URSS et fourni par la Russie.

Sources

* http://www.navy.mil/maritime/MaritimeStrategy.pdf

Voir aussi Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Cooperative_Strategy_for_21st_Century_Seapower

* Sur le nouveau porte avions chinois, lire

http://www.spacewar.com/reports/China_building_second_aircraft_carrier_PLA_colonel_999.html

Only Moscow Can Stop It

Washington’s War on Russia

by MIKE WHITNEY

Ex: http://www.counterpunch.org

“In order to survive and preserve its leading role on the international stage, the US desperately needs to plunge Eurasia into chaos, (and) to cut economic ties between Europe and Asia-Pacific Region … Russia is the only (country) within this potential zone of instability that is capable of resistance. It is the only state that is ready to confront the Americans. Undermining Russia’s political will for resistance… is a vitally important task for America.”

-Nikolai Starikov, Western Financial System Is Driving It to War, Russia Insider

“Our first objective is to prevent the re-emergence of a new rival, either on the territory of the former Soviet Union or elsewhere, that poses a threat on the order of that posed formerly by the Soviet Union. This is a dominant consideration underlying the new regional defense strategy and requires that we endeavor to prevent any hostile power from dominating a region whose resources would, under consolidated control, be sufficient to generate global power.”

-The Wolfowitz Doctrine, the original version of the Defense Planning Guidance, authored by Under Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, leaked to the New York Times on March 7, 1992

The United States does not want a war with Russia, it simply feels that it has no choice. If the State Department hadn’t initiated a coup in Ukraine to topple the elected president, Viktor Yanukovych, then the US could not have inserted itself between Russia and the EU, thus, disrupting vital trade routes which were strengthening nations on both continents. The economic integration of Asia and Europe–including plans for high-speed rail from China (“The New Silk Road”) to the EU–poses a clear and present danger for the US whose share of global GDP continues to shrink and whose significance in the world economy continues to decline. For the United States to ignore this new rival (EU-Russia) would be the equivalent of throwing in the towel and accepting a future in which the US would face a gradual but persistent erosion of its power and influence in world affairs. No one in Washington is prepared to let that happen, which is why the US launched its proxy-war in Ukraine.

The US wants to separate the continents, “prevent the emergence of a new rival”, install a tollbooth between Europe and Asia, and establish itself as the guarantor of regional security. To that end, the US is rebuilding the Iron Curtain along a thousand mile stretch from the Baltic Sea to the Black Sea. Tanks, armored vehicles and artillery are being sent to the region to reinforce a buffer zone around Europe in order to isolate Russia and to create a staging ground for future US aggression. Reports of heavy equipment and weapons deployment appear in the media on nearly a daily basis although the news is typically omitted in the US press. A quick review of some of the recent headlines will help readers to grasp the scale of the conflict that is cropping up below the radar:

“US, Bulgaria to hold Balkans military drills”, “NATO Begins Exercises In Black Sea”, “Army to send even more troops, tanks to Europe”, “Poland requests greater US military presence”, “U.S. Army sending armored convoy 1,100 miles through Europe”, “Over 120 US tanks, armored vehicles arrive in Latvia”, “US, Poland to Conduct Missile Exercise in March – Pentagon”

Get the picture? There’s a war going on, a war between the United States and Russia.

Notice how most of the headlines emphasize US involvement, not NATO. In other words, the provocations against Russia originate from Washington not Europe. This is an important point. The EU has supported US-led economic sanctions, but it’s not nearly as supportive of the military build up along the perimeter. That’s Washington’s idea and the cost is borne by the US alone. Naturally, moving tanks, armored vehicles and artillery around the world is an expensive project, but the US is more than willing to make the sacrifice if it helps to achieve its objectives.

And what are Washington’s objectives?

Interestingly, even political analysts on the far right seem to agree about that point. For example, check out this quote from STRATFOR CEO George Friedman who summed it up in a recent presentation he delivered at The Chicago Council on Foreign Affairs. He said:

“The primordial interest of the United States, over which for centuries we have fought wars–the First, the Second and Cold Wars–has been the relationship between Germany and Russia, because united there, they’re the only force that could threaten us. And to make sure that that doesn’t happen.” … George Friedman at The Chicago Council on Foreign Affairs, Time 1:40 to 1:57)

Bingo. Ukraine has nothing to do with sovereignty, democracy or (alleged) Russian aggression. That’s all propaganda. It’s about power. It’s about imperial expansion. It’s about spheres of influence. It’s about staving off irreversible economic decline. It’s all part of the smash-mouth, scorched earth, take-no-prisoners geopolitical world in which we live, not the fake Disneyworld created by the western media. The US State Department and CIA toppled the elected-government in Ukraine and ordered the new junta regime to launch a desperate war of annihilation against its own people in the East, because, well, because they felt they had no other option. Had Putin’s ambitious plan to create a free trade zone between Lisbon to Vladivostok gone forward, then where would that leave the United States? Out in the cold, that’s where. The US would become an isolated island of dwindling significance whose massive account deficits and ballooning national debt would pave the way for years of brutal restructuring, declining standards of living, runaway inflation and burgeoning social unrest. Does anyone really believe that Washington would let that to happen when it has a “brand-spanking” trillion dollar war machine at its disposal?

Heck, no. Besides, Washington believes it has a historic right to rule the world, which is what one would expect when the sense of entitlement and hubris reach their terminal phase. Now check out this clip from an article by economist Jack Rasmus at CounterPunch:

“Behind the sanctions is the USA objective of driving Russia out of the European economy. Europe was becoming too integrated and dependent on Russia. Not only its gas and raw materials, but trade relations and money capital flows were deepening on many fronts between Russia and Europe in general prior to the Ukraine crisis that has provided the cover for the introduction of the sanctions. Russia’s growing economic integration with Europe threatened the long term economic interests of US capitalists. Strategically, the US precipitated coup in the Ukraine can be viewed, therefore as a means by which to provoke Russian military intervention, i.e. a necessary event in order to deepen and expand economic sanctions that would ultimately sever the growing economic ties between Europe and Russia long term. That severance in turn would not only ensure US economic interests remain dominant in Europe, but would also open up new opportunities for profit making for US interests in Europe and Ukraine as well…

When the rules of the competition game between capitalists break down altogether, the result is war—i.e. the ultimate form of inter-capitalist competition.” (The Global Currency Wars, Jack Rasmus, CounterPunch)

See? Analysts on the right and left agree. Ukraine has nothing to do with sovereignty, democracy or Russian aggression. It’s plain-old cutthroat geopolitics, where the last man left standing, wins.

The United States cannot allow Russia reap the benefits of its own vast resources. Oh, no. It has to be chastised, it has to be bullied, it has to be sanctioned, isolated, threatened and intimidated. That’s how the system really works. The free market stuff is just horsecrap for the sheeple.

Russia is going to have to deal with chaotic, fratricidal wars on its borders and color-coded regime change turbulence in its capital. It will have to withstand reprisals from its trading partners, attacks on its currency and plots to eviscerate its (oil) revenues. The US will do everything in its power to poison the well, to demonize Putin, to turn Brussels against Moscow, and to sabotage the Russian economy.

Divide and conquer, that’s the ticket. Keep them at each others throats at all times. Sunni vs Shia, one ethnic Ukrainian vs the other, Russians vs Europeans. That’s Washington’s plan, and it’s a plan that never fails.

US powerbrokers are convinced that America’s economic slide can only be arrested by staking a claim in Central Asia, dismembering Russia, encircling China, and quashing all plans for an economically-integrated EU-Asia. Washington is determined to prevail in this existential conflict, to assert its hegemonic control over the two continents, and to preserve its position as the world’s only superpower.

Only Russia can stop the United States and we believe it will.

MIKE WHITNEY lives in Washington state. He is a contributor to Hopeless: Barack Obama and the Politics of Illusion (AK Press). Hopeless is also available in a Kindle edition. He can be reached at [e-mail].

Les sanctions unilatérales portent-elles atteinte aux droits de l’homme?

Le Conseil des droits de l’homme de l’ONU a demandé une étude auprès du Comité consultatif

par Thomas Kaiser

Ex: http://www.horizons-et-debats.ch

Le Comité consultatif du Conseil des droits de l’homme de l’ONU, également appelé «Advisory Board», s’est réuni à Genève entre le 23 et le 27 février. Ce comité consultatif est composé de 18 experts indépendants, élus par le Conseil en respectant la répartition géographique des 47 Etats membres. Le 3 mars, on y a discuté le rapport du groupe de travail ayant examiné la question des mesures coercitives unilatérales et les atteintes aux droits de l’homme. On aborde là une question importante préoccupant depuis longtemps le Conseil des droits de l’homme et les spécialistes du droit international: à quel point des sanctions unilatérales portent-elles atteinte aux droits de l’homme?

Le grand public y est déjà habitué. Lorsqu’un Etat mène une politique déplaisant aux puissants de ce monde, on crée les raisons pour pouvoir imposer – comme allant de soi – des sanctions contre cet Etat. Même au sein de l’UE, on a soumis, en l’an 2000, l’Etat souverain d’Autriche à un régime de sanctions en prétextant des soi-disant déficits démocratiques. Il s’agit souvent de sanctions économiques aux effets catastrophiques. En jetant un regard sur le passé, on constate que ce sont surtout les Etats-Unis et leurs alliés qui imposent des mesures coercitives ou des sanctions unilatérales. Ainsi, Cuba est jusqu’à nos jours victime de mesures coercitives occidentales ayant créé d’énormes dommages économiques. Le Venezuela souffre également de sanctions américaines car il ne se soumet toujours pas au diktat néolibéral des Etats-Unis. D’autres Etats sont aussi victimes de cette politique de force occidentale. Le dernier exemple de mesures coercitives unilatérales sont les sanctions économiques et politiques imposées à la Russie par les Etats-Unis et l’UE, en raison de son prétendu soutien militaire des séparatistes en Ukraine orientale. Aucune preuve concrète n’a été fournie, mais les sanctions ont été appliquées. On contraint les pays membres d’y participer bien que plusieurs des Etats membres, dont la Grèce et l’Autriche, se soient opposés à la prolongation des sanctions.

A la lecture du rapport remis par le groupe de travail demandé par le Comité consultatif, il apparaît clairement que ces sanctions unilatérales arbitraires sont très problématiques du point de vue des droits humains. Ce groupe a analysé la situation dans divers Etats soumis à un régime de sanctions: Cuba, Zimbabwe, Iran et la bande de Gaza. Les effets de ces sanctions sont catastrophiques et représentent clairement une atteinte aux droits de l’homme. Selon le rapport, les conséquences négatives dans les pays sanctionnés se font surtout remarquer au sein de la société civile, parce que ce sont «les plus faibles membres de la société, tels que les femmes, les enfants, les personnes âgées et handicapées et les pauvres» qui sont le plus touchés par les sanctions. Le groupe de travail recommande notamment de nommer un rapporteur spécial pour analyser et documenter les atteintes aux droits de l’homme suite à des mesures coercitives unilatérales.

En lisant ce rapport soigneusement, on peut s’imaginer les conséquences graves engendrées dans les pays concernés et leurs populations.

Cuba

Là, ce sont surtout les femmes et les enfants qui souffrent des sanctions. Le rapport révèle que «l’embargo a abouti à la malnutrition, notamment des enfants et des femmes, à un approvisionnement déficient en eau potable et à un manque de soins médicaux.» En outre, l’embargo «a limité l’accès de l’Etat à des produits chimiques et des pièces de rechange nécessaires à la fourniture d’eau potable» ce qui mène assurément à l’augmentation du taux de maladies et de décès. Etant donné que cet embargo dure depuis plus de 50 ans et n’a toujours pas été levé par le président Obama, on ne peut que deviner les souffrances endurées par le pays.

Zimbabwe

En 2002, l’UE a imposé des sanctions contre le gouvernement du pays. La raison de ces sanctions se trouve dans la réforme agraire effectuée sous la présidence de Robert Mugabe. Selon le rapport, les 13 millions d’habitants de ce pays souffrent des sanctions: «Les taux de pauvreté et de chômage sont très élevés, les infrastructures sont dans un état pitoyable. Des maladies telles que le SIDA, le typhus, le paludisme ont mené à une espérance de vie d’entre 53 et 55 ans […]. Selon une enquête de L’UNICEF, approximativement 35% des enfants en-dessous de 5 ans sont sous-développés, 2% ne grandissent pas normalement et 10% ont un poids insuffisant.» Le mauvais état au sein du pays mène, outre le taux de mortalité élevé, à une forte migration avec de gros risques.

Iran

Selon le rapport, la situation économique du pays et de la population est catastrophique. «Les sanctions ont mené à l’effondrement de l’industrie, à une inflation galopante et à un chômage massif.» Le système de santé publique est aussi gravement atteint en Iran. «Bien que les Etats-Unis et l’UE font valoir que les sanctions ne concernent pas les biens humanitaires, ils ont en réalité gravement entravé la disponibilité et la distribution de matériel médical et de médicaments […], chaque année, 85?000 Iraniens reçoivent le diagnostic d’un cancer. Le nombre d’établissements pouvant traiter ces malades par chimiothérapie ou par radiothérapie est largement insuffisant. Alors que les sanctions financières contre la République islamique d’Iran, ne concernent en principe pas le secteur des médicaments ou des instruments médicaux, elles empêchent en réalité les importateurs iraniens de financer l’importation de ces médicaments ou instruments.» Aucune banque occidentale n’a le droit de faire des affaires avec l’Iran. A travers l’impossibilité de payer les médicaments, produits uniquement en Occident mais nécessaires aux malades, les sanctions concernent donc indirectement aussi le secteur de la santé publique et la population.

Bande de Gaza

Selon le rapport, «le gouvernement israélien traite la bande de Gaza comme un territoire étranger et expose sa population à un grave blocus financier et économique. En juillet et août 2014, lors des combats de 52 jours, les bombes israéliennes ont détruit ou gravement endommagés plus de 53.000 bâtiments. Le blocus permanent viole les droits sociaux, économiques et culturels des habitants souffrant des mesures coercitives unilatérales. La malnutrition, notamment des enfants, n’arrête pas d’augmenter. Des dizaines de milliers de familles vivent dans les ruines de leurs maisons ou dans des containers sans chauffage, mis à disposition par l’administration locale. En décembre 2014, l’Office de secours et de travaux des Nations Unies pour les réfugiés de Palestine dans le Proche-Orient (UNRWA), a rapporté qu’un certain nombre d’enfants âgés de moins de 10 ans étaient morts de froid.» On apprend aussi que divers rapports de l’ONU et d’ONG mettent en garde contre la mauvaise qualité de l’eau potable, menaçant la santé d’un grand nombre de personnes.

Après la présentation du rapport du groupe de travail, les membres du Comité consultatif ont discuté entre eux. Puis le président du Comité a donné la parole aux ambassadeurs présents.
Le représentant diplomatique de Cuba a profité de l’occasion pour attirer l’attention sur le tort qu’exercent les sanctions américaines depuis 50 ans contre son pays. Il a fustigé ces sanctions en tant que violation des droits de l’homme. L’imposition de sanctions constitue un acte arbitraire représentant une ingérence dans les affaires intérieures d’un Etat étranger. Il a précisé qu’il ne voyait pas de changement dans l’attitude des Etats-Unis et a accusé celle-ci d’être une grave violation des droits de l’homme et à la Charte de l’ONU.

Le représentant diplomatique du Venezuela a renchéri en précisant que toute sanction est une ingérence inadmissible dans les affaires intérieures d’un Etat souverain. Le but de cette sanction est de provoquer un «changement de régime». L’ONU, c’est-à-dire le Conseil de sécurité, est la seule entité pouvant prendre des mesures contre un Etat; cela ne peut être en aucun cas un Etat puissant imposant son diktat de l’exercice du doit du plus fort à un certain pays refusant de s’y plier. A son avis, cela constitue clairement une violation des principes de la Charte de l’ONU.

Au cours de la 28e session du Conseil des droits de l’homme, du 2 au 27 mars, ce rapport, demandé en septembre 2013, sera présenté et voté. S’il est accepté, il n’y aura plus d’obstacle à la mise en place d’un rapporteur spécial et à l’établissement de normes internationales dans ce domaine.     •

Source: A/HRC/28/74 Research-based progress report oft the Human Rights Council Advisory Committee containing recommendations on mechanisms to assess the negative impact of unilateral coercive measures on the enjoyment of human rights and to promote accountability

Venezuelan Sanctions, U.S. Dominance and the Power Elite

Venezuelan Sanctions, U.S. Dominance and the Power Elite

By Michael S. Rozeff

Ex: http://www.lewrockwell.com

What are the real foreign policy objectives of the U.S. government? They are hidden under its rhetoric and propaganda. They are submerged and kept submerged by the media and even by academics and historians who study these matters. These objectives are certainly not well-understood by the broad public or accepted as the actual objectives. Outside commentators who do seek to articulate what these objectives are quite often disagree or emphasize different factors. Lacking insider knowledge of the real motives behind foreign policy actions, most outside commentators have to make do with educated guesses.

Consider an Executive Order issued by Obama on March 9, 2015 that sanctions seven Venezuelans. Nothing in it that explains the sanctions has any credibility. It is totally a fog of propaganda and diversion from the actual goals that are never mentioned. The first sentence in the Fact Sheet is simply ridiculous and a total fabrication that no sensible person can possibly believe:

“President Obama today issued a new Executive Order (E.O.) declaring a national emergency with respect to the unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States posed by the situation in Venezuela.”

One must understand that this language is contained in an official document issued by the White House. Nothing good can come out of a system that routinely pushes out fake ideas, falsehoods and fabrications like this. The results are cynical disregard for law, government secrecy, lack of government accountability, isolation of officials from voters, hubris among officials, hidden contempt for the public, distrust, and the encouragement for officials to employ power. Lies of this order and magnitude are poisonous.

The order goes on to list its moral goals of punishing various accused persons for their bad behavior:

“This new authority is aimed at persons involved in or responsible for the erosion of human rights guarantees, persecution of political opponents, curtailment of press freedoms, use of violence and human rights violations and abuses in response to antigovernment protests, and arbitrary arrest and detention of antigovernment protestors, as well as the significant public corruption by senior government officials in Venezuela.”

Nothing could sound more reasonable, and yet nothing is less credible than this declaration. Why? Because in countless other cases the U.S. not only turns a blind eye to the same sorts of goings-on but actually fully supports them. The U.S. is currently supporting Ukraine (the Kiev junta) while its security services and certain armed forces have been torturing prisoners that they have captured. The U.S. itself engaged in torture and has not yet punished those who were responsible for it. The U.S. has employed means of warfare that produced systematic human rights violations orders of magnitude worse than anything in Venezuela. The U.S. has supported death squads in Central America. The U.S. government does little to influence despicable behavior of local police and courts within this country. The U.S. has consistently supported Saudi Arabia and nearby states that both employ practices of the same kind condemned in this order and have supported ISIS terrorists. The Obama administration has been very tough on journalists and whistleblowers, thereby chilling press freedoms.

There has been marked instability in Venezuela and repression. Much worse repression is going on in Ukraine by its government, one that the U.S. supports and is assisting in its military efforts.

One can only reach the conclusion that the justifications in the executive order are phony.

This leaves us speculation as to what the real motives are. At the root of it is that the U.S. government is alarmed by the independence being exhibited by Venezuela and several other Latin American governments. Imperialism is a fundamental factor, and this requires a dominant U.S. position. There are political maneuvers in Venezuela and neighboring lands that tie directly to economic matters. For example, China has a presence in Venezuela that competes with American interests. Venezuela is a large oil producer. Venezuela is forming a Bank of the South in conjunction with Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay, Bolivia and Ecuador. These political-economic moves remind one of the moves that were being made by Gaddafi and Libya prior to their destruction by U.S. and NATO forces.

Sanctions on Venezuelan officials are a warning. They are a slap on the wrist to warn the government of potential harsher measures. Human rights violations are a smokescreen. The real target is the government and the real objective is control of economic policies by the U.S. The U.S. does not want to see South American countries making links to such countries as China and Russia.

The U.S. policy in Ukraine and Middle East is the very same. It seeks to break down Russian influence on its periphery, including Ukraine. Condemnations of Putin and Russian aggression are propaganda smokescreens. In the Middle East, the U.S. wants to contain Iran. In the Far East, the U.S. wants to contain China. The U.S. seeks dominance in Central Asia too, as in Afghanistan.

In every major region of the world, the single factor that most clearly explains U.S. foreign policy is a quest for unquestioned and unchallenged U.S. hegemony. The groups or interests that lie behind this quest are a matter of some debate. In a general way, we can call them imperial interests; but that doesn’t identify them clearly. There are those who see a cabal of Bilderbergers and Trilateral Commission types. Others see international bankers. A few see Jews or Zionists or Rothschilds. The military-industrial complex is a clear possibility.

There is a kind of elite club of power-seekers and power-users. The membership changes over time but the guiding ideas and philosophy do not change. The strategic goal remains the same, but the steps to achieve it change. The members, for lack of a more accurate term, are not fully united. They have divisions. They communicate and write position papers. They jockey for power and influence. They protect the system and the club, from which the political operatives who manage U.S. foreign policy are drawn. The club has had longevity. It has a fairly common and standard way of communicating its aims to make them sound pleasing and moral, as in this executive order. It coalesces around enemies of the day. Occasional members provide revealing insights into the true motives and objectives. In fact, this is quite often the case. But the vast majority of press communications deliver the club (or party) line, drowning out the truth of the motivations of its members.

Those outside the club can join it and become “one of the guys” by adopting the party line. Pundits and professors can do this voluntarily, being rewarded by positions, amenities, access to the powerful and those in the know, tips that can be turned to profit, favors and the gratifications of power. So can businessmen or members of the military. Fresh college recruits can join the club at the lower rungs and advance if they have the kinds of skills that this system finds useful. The elite needs bright people and attracts them; power, privilege, advancement and the reinforcements of higher-ups attract them. It takes no particular religion, class, sex or political party affiliation to enter this elite. It might help actually to believe the elite’s own propaganda and worldview, i.e., to believe in American exceptionalism, but this is not essential. Hypocrites are welcome into the club too, as long as they tow the mark.

In my opinion, there is no single group that has been running this elite and orchestrated its many moves over the decades. The people at the center of the club who most influence policies change. The power elite is fluid. The motives of the individuals involved vary. Their backgrounds vary. There is no conscious behind-the-scenes secret plan that’s being carried out by a select group of individuals. The situation is different than that. Rather, there is a coalescing of various people and interests around a common view. This coming together occurs through the central presence of a powerful state. Without that the members of the power elite would have a much, much more difficult time finding each other, allying with one another and becoming a force. The coming together uses the state as the connecting point, and it uses the state as the instrument to wield power. The formulation of positions or policies that serve as the means to the overall end is complex.

The basic objective of U.S. global dominance or hegemony prevails over well over a hundred years because it is an objective that coalesces the group and simultaneously affords the individual members the best opportunities to achieve their individual objectives and satisfy their motives, which vary. The state and the global dominance of the state are a kind of shield and sword that protect and project the power of the power elite.

Other empires and competing powers may work in roughly the same way. We need only assume that underlying them all is the will to dominance. States arise because of this will to dominance, and the process is aided to some extent by the fear that foreigners will dominate unless the state is powerful. The state provides a focal point, or point of attraction for expressing this will.

The U.S. version has been especially successful because it has had a foundation in a productive economy that existed for reasons independent of the power elite’s policies. There has also been something of an ideological foundation. An economic foundation may not be essential, however. There are many cases where people coalesce around religious beliefs or ideological beliefs, producing a state and an elite in that way.

The Best of Michael S. Rozeff

Michael S. Rozeff [send him mail] is a retired Professor of Finance living in East Amherst, New York. He is the author of the free e-book Essays on American Empire: Liberty vs. Domination and the free e-book The U.S. Constitution and Money: Corruption and Decline.

Previous article by Michael S. Rozeff: What Russian Aggression in Ukraine?

États-Unis : Sanctions contre Douguine, le théoricien du nouvel impérialisme russe

États-Unis : Sanctions contre Douguine, le théoricien du nouvel impérialisme russe

Ex: http://fortune.fdesouche.com

Alexandre Douguine, penseur atypique, défend depuis longtemps le dépeçage de l’Ukraine au nom de sa vision d’une Russie « eurasiatique », influençant le Kremlin et une partie des radicaux européens.

Les États-Unis viennent de publier une nouvelle liste de 14 personnes à sanctionner pour leur rôle dans la crise ukrainienne. Au milieu des militaires, des personnages politiques favorables à l’ancien régime ou aux nouvelles républiques autoproclamées de l’Est du pays, figure un intellectuel russe, Alexandre Douguine.

Ce personnage atypique prône, depuis des années, le retour d’une grande Russie «eurasiatique», avec l’oreille attentive du Kremlin comme l’histoire récente l’a montré.

Si Douguine est très peu connu en Occident, il est en Russie un personnage public, notamment grâce à ses succès en librairie. Intellectuel, théoricien géopolitique, il prend part à la vie politique russe.

Né en 1962 au sein d’une famille de militaire, il est aujourd’hui facilement reconnaissable avec sa barbe biblique qui lui donne un petit air de Raspoutine. Politiquement, il a débuté chez les monarchistes, avant de passer chez les communistes puis de devenir l’idéologue du Parti national-bolchévique.

Autre figure de ce mouvement, l’écrivain Limonov dira de lui qu’il est le «Cyrille et Méthode du fascisme». Il est en effet devenu «le seul doctrinaire d’ampleur de la droite radicale russe», selon la spécialiste Marlène Laruelle*.

Eurasie et anti-américanisme

Douguine est aujourd’hui considéré comme le chantre du «néo-eurasisme», cette théorie géopolitique qui veut redonner à la Russie sa splendeur, sa puissance et sa sphère d’influence des époques soviétique et tsariste. Et même au-delà, puisqu’il préconise l’intégration de la Mandchourie, du Tibet ou de la Mongolie à cet espace.

En Europe, les Pays-Baltes et les Balkans doivent selon être réintégrés. Quant à l’Ukraine, elle devait être dépecée: bien avant les évènements de l’an dernier, il réclamait la division du pays selon les sphères d’influence de Moscou et de Kiev.

Le développement de cette puissance russe «eurasiatique», va de pair avec un très fort anti-américanisme, et un anti-atlantisme, qui semble ne pas avoir échappé à Washington.

Une influence sur Poutine?

Alexandre Douguine a ses entrées auprès du pouvoir. Il est depuis longtemps conseiller à la Douma, le Parlement russe. Il possède également une certaine influence auprès de l’Académie militaire russe. On ne sait pas, en revanche, s’il voit souvent le président Vladimir Poutine. Il y a eu entre eux des hauts et des bas. Quand on le questionne sur le sujet, Douguine reste évasif.

Le retour de Poutine semble être une période favorable. «À l’évidence, l’influence de Douguine est considérable […] Dans ses derniers discours, le président [Poutine] adopte ses thématiques et même sa phraséologie. C’est effrayant», témoignait l’an dernier un conseiller du Kremlin.

Au-delà du Kremlin, ses thèses ont depuis longtemps franchi les frontières russes pour être adoptées par une partie de l’extrême droite européenne, qui le considère comme l’un de ses prinicpaux penseurs. En France, de nombreux nationalistes russophiles s’y réfèrent et Douguine, que l’on a pu voir à Paris lors d’une Manif pour tous, dit «bien connaître» Jean-Marie Le Pen.

«Nous ne voyons absolument pas le lien entre tout ce qui s’est passé dans les sud-est de l’Ukraine et ces sanctions», a réagi, à l’annonce des sanctions, le vice-ministre des Affaires étrangères russes, Sergueï Ryabkov. La décision américaine montre que les États-Unis ne sous-estiment pas le rôle de Douguine dans les derniers développements de la politique extérieure russe

Notes:

* Marlène Laruelle. La Quête d’une identité impériale. Le néo-eurasisme dans la Russie contemporaine. Editions PETRA. 2007.

Le Figaro

War Porn

Tomgram: Peter Van Buren, Watching the Same Movie About American War for 75 Years

 

Ex: http://www.tomdispatch.com

[Note for TomDispatch Readers: Just a small reminder that, in return for a donation of $100 or more to this site, you can choose between signed, personalized copies of two top-notch cultural histories of American war in our time: Christian Appy’s superb new book, American Reckoning: The Vietnam War and Our National Identity, and my own The End of Victory Culture. Just check out our donation page for details and for other book possibilities as well, including my new book Shadow Government: Surveillance, Secret Wars, and a Global Security State in a Single Superpower World. And remember that your donations really do keep this site rolling along! Tom]

Yes, they’ve become “the greatest generation” (a phrase that’s always reminded me of an ad line for a soft drink), but they didn’t feel that way at the time. As Susan Faludi pointed out in her classic book Stiffed and as I experienced as a boy, the men who came home from World War II were often remarkably silent about their wartime experiences -- at least with their children. My father, who had been the operations officer for the 1st Air Commando Group in Burma, had a couple of pat stories he would fall back on, if pressed, but normally only spoke of the war when angry. I can, for instance, remember him blowing up and forbidding my mother and me from using a nearby grocery store because, he claimed, its owners had been “war profiteers.” On rare occasions, he might pull out of the closet an old duffel bag filled with war souvenirs, including a Nazi armband (undoubtedly traded with someone who had been on the European front) and several glorious orange or white silk maps of Burma, assumedly meant to take up no space in a commando’s kitbag. These were thrilling moments of my childhood, though again my dad had little to say about what we looked at.

Otherwise, his war was a kind of black hole in family life.  But for boys like me, that mattered less than you might expect for a simple reason: we already knew what our fathers had experienced at war. We had seen it at the movies, often with those fathers sitting silently beside us.  We had seen John Wayne die on Iwo Jima and war hero Audie Murphy (playing himself) gun down the Germans.  We had been with Doolittle’s Raiders over Tokyo for more than 30 seconds, had won back Burma, landed on Omaha beach, and fought island by island across the Pacific toward Japan. And of course, as our “victory culture” assured us we would, we had won.

It’s hard to emphasize just how formative those war movies were for so many of us, especially if you add in the cheap, all-green sets of World War II toy soldiers with which we reenacted movie versions of our fathers’ war on our floors and, of course, the sticks, and later toy guns, with which we so gloriously shot down “Japs” and “Nazis” in any park or backyard.  A whole generation of young Americans would go off to Vietnam stoked on John Wayne & Co. -- on a version of war, that is, that our fathers never told us hadn’t happened.

Ron Kovic, who came back from Vietnam in a wheelchair and wrote the memoir Born on the Fourth of July, recalled the experience vividly: "I think a lot of us went to Vietnam with movie images of John Wayne in our minds. On a reconnaissance patrol, I remember once imagining that I was John Wayne."

Today, former diplomat and whistleblower Peter Van Buren explores the way American war movies, from World War II to today, have produced a remarkably uniform vision of how American war works, one that, in its modern form, is undoubtedly once again lending a helping hand to our latest conflicts. In May 2011, Van Buren arrived at TomDispatch, just back from a 12-month State Department assignment in Iraq embedded with the U.S. military. In his first piece for this site, he reported on the heroic balderdash that embedded reporters -- think, for instance, of Brian Williams -- delivered to the American people about the U.S. military.  It was, he wrote then, a kind of “war pornography.” (“Let me tell you that nobody laughed harder at the turgid prose reporters used to describe their lives than the soldiers themselves.”) So think of today’s piece, almost four years later, as a reprise on that theme with an embedded Hollywood stepping in to take the place of all the Brian Williamses of our world. Tom

War Porn 
Hollywood and War from World War II to American Sniper 
By Peter Van Buren

In the age of the all-volunteer military and an endless stream of war zone losses and ties, it can be hard to keep Homeland enthusiasm up for perpetual war. After all, you don't get a 9/11 every year to refresh those images of the barbarians at the airport departure gates. In the meantime, Americans are clearly finding it difficult to remain emotionally roiled up about our confusing wars in Syria and Iraq, the sputtering one in Afghanistan, and various raids, drone attacks, and minor conflicts elsewhere.

Fortunately, we have just the ticket, one that has been punched again and again for close to a century: Hollywood war movies (to which the Pentagon is always eager to lend a helping hand).American Sniper, which started out with the celebratory tagline “the most lethal sniper in U.S. history” and now has the tagline “the most successful war movie of all time,” is just the latest in a long line of films that have kept Americans on their war game. Think of them as war porn, meant to leave us perpetually hyped up. Now, grab some popcorn and settle back to enjoy the show.

There’s Only One War Movie

Wandering around YouTube recently, I stumbled across some good old government-issue propaganda.  It was a video clearly meant to stir American emotions and prepare us for a long struggle against a determined, brutal, and barbaric enemy whose way of life is a challenge to the most basic American values. Here's some of what I learned: our enemy is engaged in a crusade against the West; wants to establish a world government and make all of us bow down before it; fights fanatically, beheads prisoners, and is willing to sacrifice the lives of its followers in inhuman suicide attacks.  Though its weapons are modern, its thinking and beliefs are 2,000 years out of date and inscrutable to us.

Of course, you knew there was a trick coming, right? This little U.S. government-produced film wasn’t about the militants of the Islamic State. Made by the U.S. Navy in 1943, its subject was “Our Enemy the Japanese.” Substitute “radical Islam” for “emperor worship,” though, and it still makes a certain propagandistic sense. While the basics may be largely the same (us versus them, good versus evil), modern times do demand something slicker than the video equivalent of an old newsreel. The age of the Internet, with its short attention spans and heightened expectations of cheap thrills, calls for a higher class of war porn, but as with that 1943 film, it remains remarkable how familiar what’s being produced remains.

Like propaganda films and sexual pornography, Hollywood movies about America at war have changed remarkably little over the years. Here's the basic formula, from John Wayne in the World War II-era Sands of Iwo Jima to today's American Sniper:

*American soldiers are good, the enemy bad. Nearly every war movie is going to have a scene in which Americans label the enemy as “savages,” “barbarians,” or “bloodthirsty fanatics,” typically following a “sneak attack” or a suicide bombing. Our country’s goal is to liberate; the enemy's, to conquer. Such a framework prepares us to accept things that wouldn’t otherwise pass muster. Racism naturally gets a bye; as they once were “Japs” (not Japanese), they are now “hajjis” and “ragheads” (not Muslims or Iraqis). It’s beyond question that the ends justify just about any means we might use, from the nuclear obliteration of two cities of almost no military significance to the grimmest sort of torture. In this way, the war film long ago became a moral free-fire zone for its American characters.

*American soldiers believe in God and Country, in “something bigger than themselves,” in something “worth dying for,” but without ever becoming blindly attached to it. The enemy, on the other hand, is blindly devoted to a religion, political faith, or dictator, and it goes without saying (though it’s said) that his God -- whether an emperor, Communism, or Allah -- is evil. As one critic put it back in 2007 with just a tad of hyperbole, “In every movie Hollywood makes, every time an Arab utters the word Allah… something blows up.”

*War films spend no significant time on why those savages might be so intent on going after us. The purpose of American killing, however, is nearly always clearly defined. It's to “save American lives,” those over there and those who won’t die because we don't have to fight them over here. Saving such lives explains American war: in Kathryn Bigelow’s The Hurt Locker, for example, the main character defuses roadside bombs to make Iraq safer for other American soldiers. In the recent World War II-themed Fury, Brad Pitt similarly mows down ranks of Germans to save his comrades. Even torture is justified, as in Zero Dark Thirty, in the cause of saving our lives from their nightmarish schemes. In American Sniper, shooter Chris Kyle focuses on the many American lives he’s saved by shooting Iraqis; his PTSD is, in fact, caused by his having “failed” to have saved even more. Hey, when an American kills in war, he's the one who suffers the most, not that mutilated kid or his grieving mother -- I got nightmares, man! I still see their faces!

*Our soldiers are human beings with emotionally engaging backstories, sweet gals waiting at home, and promising lives ahead of them that might be cut tragically short by an enemy from the gates of hell. The bad guys lack such backstories. They are anonymous fanatics with neither a past worth mentioning nor a future worth imagining. This is usually pretty blunt stuff. Kyle’s nemesis in American Sniper, for instance, wears all black. Thanks to that, you know he’s an insta-villain without the need for further information. And speaking of lack of a backstory, he improbably appears in the film both in the Sunni city of Fallujah and in Sadr City, a Shia neighborhood in Baghdad, apparently so super-bad that his desire to kill Americans overcomes even Iraq's mad sectarianism.

*It is fashionable for our soldiers, having a kind of depth the enemy lacks, to express some regrets, a dollop of introspection, before (or after) they kill. In American Sniper, while back in the U.S. on leave, the protagonist expresses doubts about what he calls his “work.” (No such thoughts are in the book on which the film is based.) Of course, he then goes back to Iraq for three more tours and over two more hours of screen time to amass his 160 “confirmed kills.”

*Another staple of such films is the training montage. Can a young recruit make it? Often he is the Fat Kid who trims down to his killing weight, or the Skinny Kid who muscles up, or the Quiet Kid who emerges bloodthirsty. (This has been a trope of sexual porn films, too: the geeky looking guy, mocked by beautiful women, who turns out to be a superstar in bed.) The link, up front or implied, between sexuality, manhood, and war is a staple of the form. As part of the curious PTSD recovery plan he develops, for example, Kyle volunteers to teach a paraplegic vet in a wheelchair to snipe. After his first decent shot rings home, the man shouts, “I feel like I got my balls back!”

*Our soldiers, anguished souls that they are, have no responsibility for what they do once they’ve been thrown into our wars.  No baby-killers need apply in support of America's post-Vietnam, guilt-free mantra, “Hate the war, love the warrior.” In the film First Blood, for example, John Rambo is a Vietnam veteran who returns home a broken man. He finds his war buddy dead from Agent Orange-induced cancer and is persecuted by the very Americans whose freedom he believed he had fought for. Because he was screwed over in The 'Nam, the film gives him a free pass for his homicidal acts, including a two-hour murderous rampage through a Washington State town. The audience is meant to see Rambo as a noble, sympathetic character. He returns for more personal redemption in later films to rescue American prisoners of war left behind in Southeast Asia.

*For war films, ambiguity is a dirty word. Americans always win, even when they lose in an era in which, out in the world, the losses are piling up. And a win is a win, even when its essence is one-sided bullying as in Heartbreak Ridge, the only movie to come out of the ludicrous invasion of Grenada. And a loss is still a win in Black Hawk Down, set amid the disaster of Somalia, which ends with scenes of tired warriors who did the right thing. Argo -- consider it honorary war porn --reduces the debacle of years of U.S. meddling in Iran to a high-fiving hostage rescue. All it takes these days to turn a loss into a win is to zoom in tight enough to ignore defeat. In American Sniper, the disastrous occupation of Iraq is shoved offstage so that more Iraqis can die in Kyle’s sniper scope. In Lone Survivor, a small American “victory” is somehow dredged out of hopeless Afghanistan because an Afghan man takes a break from being droned to save the life of a SEAL.

In sum: gritty, brave, selfless men, stoic women waiting at home, noble wounded warriors, just causes, and the necessity of saving American lives. Against such a lineup, the savage enemy is a crew of sitting ducks who deserve to die. Everything else is just music, narration, and special effects. War pornos, like their oversexed cousins, are all the same movie.

A Fantasy That Can Change Reality

But it's just a movie, right? Your favorite shoot-em-up makes no claims to being a documentary. We all know one American can't gun down 50 bad guys and walk away unscathed, in the same way he can't bed 50 partners without getting an STD. It's just entertainment. So what?

So what do you, or the typical 18-year-old considering military service, actually know about war on entering that movie theater? Don’t underestimate the degree to which such films can help create broad perceptions of what war’s all about and what kind of people fight it. Those lurid on-screen images, updated and reused so repetitively for so many decades, do help create a self-reinforcing, common understanding of what happens “over there,” particularly since what we are shown mirrors what most of us want to believe anyway.

No form of porn is about reality, of course, but that doesn’t mean it can’t create realities all its own. War films have the ability to bring home emotionally a glorious fantasy of America at war, no matter how grim or gritty any of these films may look. War porn can make a young man willing to die before he’s 20. Take my word for it: as a diplomat in Iraq I met young people in uniform suffering from the effects of all this. Such films also make it easier for politicians to sweet talk the public into supporting conflict after conflict, even as sons and daughters continue to return home damaged or dead and despite the country’s near-complete record of geopolitical failures since September 2001. Funny thing: American Sniper was nominated for an Academy Award for best picture as Washington went back to war in Iraq in what you'd have thought would be an unpopular struggle.

Learning From the Exceptions

You can see a lot of war porn and stop with just your toes in the water, thinking you've gone swimming. But eventually you should go into the deep water of the “exceptions,” because only there can you confront the real monsters.

There are indeed exceptions to war porn, but don’t fool yourself, size matters. How many people have seen American Sniper, The Hurt Locker, or Zero Dark Thirty? By comparison, how many saw the anti-war Iraq War film Battle for Haditha, a lightly fictionalized, deeply unsettling drama about an American massacre of innocent men, women, and children in retaliation for a roadside bomb blast?

Timing matters, too, when it comes to the few mainstream exceptions. John Wayne’s The Green Berets, a pro-Vietnam War film, came out in 1968 as that conflict was nearing its bloody peak and resistance at home was growing. (The Green Berets gets a porn bonus star, as the grizzled Wayne persuades a lefty journalist to alter his negative views on the war.) Platoon, with its message of waste and absurdity, had to wait until 1986, more than a decade after the war ended.

In propaganda terms, think of this as controlling the narrative. One version of events dominates all others and creates a reality others can only scramble to refute. The exceptions do, however, reveal much about what we don’t normally see of the true nature of American war. They are uncomfortable for any of us to watch, as well as for military recruiters, parents sending a child off to war, and politicians trolling for public support for the next crusade.

War is not a two-hour-and-12-minute hard-on. War is what happens when the rules break down and, as fear displaces reason, nothing too terrible is a surprise. The real secret of war for those who experience it isn't the visceral knowledge that people can be filthy and horrible, but that you, too, can be filthy and horrible. You don't see much of that on the big screen.

The Long Con

Of course, there are elements of “nothing new” here. The Romans undoubtedly had their version of war porn that involved mocking the Gauls as sub-humans. Yet in twenty-first-century America, where wars are undeclared and Washington dependent on volunteers for its new foreign legion, the need to keep the public engaged and filled with fear over our enemies is perhaps more acute than ever.

So here’s a question: if the core propaganda messages the U.S. government promoted during World War II are nearly identical to those pushed out today about the Islamic State, and if Hollywood’s war films, themselves a particularly high-class form of propaganda, have promoted the same false images of Americans in conflict from 1941 to the present day, what does that tell us? Is it that our varied enemies across nearly three-quarters of a century of conflict are always unbelievably alike, or is it that when America needs a villain, it always goes to the same script?

Peter Van Buren blew the whistle on State Department waste and mismanagement during the Iraqi reconstruction in his first book,We Meant Well: How I Helped Lose the Battle for the Hearts and Minds of the Iraqi People. A Tom Dispatch regular, he writes about current events at his blog, We Meant Well. His latest book isGhosts of Tom Joad: A Story of the #99Percent.

Follow TomDispatch on Twitter and join us on Facebook. Check out the newest Dispatch Book, Rebecca Solnit's Men Explain Things to Me, and Tom Engelhardt's latest book, Shadow Government: Surveillance, Secret Wars, and a Global Security State in a Single-Superpower World.

Copyright 2015 Peter Van Buren

The ISIS-US Empire – Their Unholy Alliance Fully Exposed

The ISIS-US Empire – Their Unholy Alliance Fully Exposed

By Joachim Hagopian
GlobalResearch.ca

Ex: http://www.lewrockwell.com

Let’s be perfectly clear. The United States is not actually at war with ISIS. As Global Research director, economist and author Michel Chossudovsky plainly points out recently, Obama is simply waging “a fake war” against the Islamic State forces, putting on another propaganda show for mainstream media to keep his flock of American sheeple asleep in echo-chambered darkness. With a mere cursory review of recent historical events, one can readily realize that virtually everything Big Government tells us is happening in the world, you can bet is a boldface lie.

For over three and a half decades the US has been funding mostly Saudi stooges to do its dirty bidding in proxy wars around the world, beginning in Afghanistan in the 1980’s to fight the Soviets with the mujahedeen-turned al Qaeda that later would mutate into ISIS. Reagan and Bush senior gave Osama bin Laden his first terrorist gig. Our mercenary “Islamic extremists” for-hire were then on the CIA payroll employed in the Balkans during the 1990’s to kill fellow Moslem Serbs in Kosovo and Bosnia. For a long time now Washington’s been relying on the royal Saudi family as its chief headhunters supplying the United States with as needed terrorists on demand in order to wage its geopolitics chessboard game of global hegemony, otherwise known by the central banking cabal as global “Theft-R-Us.”

The Bush crime family were in bed with the bin Ladens long before 9/11 when that very morning George H W Bush on behalf of his Carlyle Group was wining and dining together with Osama’s brother at the posh DC Ritz Carlton while 19 box cutting Saudi stooges were acting as the neocon’s hired guns allegedly committing the greatest atrocity ever perpetrated on US soil in the history of this nation. And in the 9/11 immediate aftermath while only birds were flying the not-so-friendly skies above America, there was but one exception and that was the Air Force escort given the bin Ladens flying safely back home to their “Terrorists-R-Us” mecca called Saudi Arabia. On 9/11 the Zionist Israeli Mossad, Saudi intelligence and the Bush-Cheney neocons were busily pulling the trigger murdering near 3000 Americans in cold blood as the most deadly, most heinous crime in US history. If you’re awake enough to recognize this ugly truth as cold hard fact, then it’s certainly not a stretch to see the truth behind this latest US created hoax called ISIS.

Renowned investigative journalist and author Seymour Hersh astutely saw the writing on the wall way back in 2006 (emphasis added):

 To undermine Iran, which is predominantly Shiite, the Bush Administration has decided, in effect, to reconfigure its priorities in the Middle East. In Lebanon, the Administration has cooperated with Saudi Arabia’s government, which is Sunni, in clandestine operations that are intended to weaken Hezbollah, the Shiite organization that is backed by Iran. The U.S. has also taken part in clandestine operations aimed at Iran and its ally Syria. A by-product of these activities has been the bolstering of Sunni extremist groups that espouse a militant vision of Islam and are hostile to America and sympathetic to Al Qaeda.

The US Empire along with its international partner-in-crime Israel has allowed and encouraged Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates to be the primary financiers of al Qaeda turned ISIS. Even Vice President Joe Biden last year said the same. If Empire wanted to truly destroy the entire Islamic extremist movement in the Middle East it could have applied its global superpower pressure on its allied Gulf State nations to stop funding the ISIS jihadists. But that has never happened for the simple reason that Israel, those same Arab allies and the United States want a convenient “bad guy” enemy in the Middle East and North Africa, hiding the fact that al Qaeda-ISIS for decades has been its mercenary ally on the ground in more recent years in the Golan Heights, Libya, Iraq and Syria.

As recently as a month ago it was reported that an Islamic State operative claimed that funding for ISIS had been funneled through the US. Of course another “staunch” US-NATO ally Turkey has historically allowed its territory to be a safe staging ground as well as a training area for ISIS. It additionally allows jihadist leaders to move freely in and out of Syria through Turkey. Along with Israel and all of US Empire’s Moslem nation states as our strategic friends in the Middle East, together they have been arming, financing and training al Qaeda/ISIS to do its double bidding, fighting enemies like Gaddafi in Libya and Assad in Syria while also posing as global terrorist boogie men threatening the security of the entire world. Again, Washington cannot continue to double speak its lies from both sides of its mouth and then expect to continue having it both ways and expect the world to still be buying it.

A breaking story that’s creating an even larger crack in the wall of the US false narrative is the revelation that Iraqi counterterrorism forces just arrested four US-Israeli military advisors assisting (i.e., aiding and abetting) the ISIS enemy, three of whom hold duel citizenships from both Israel and America. This latest piece of evidence arrives on the heels of a Sputnik article from a couple weeks ago quoting American historian Webster Tarpley saying that “the United States created the Islamic State and uses jihadists as its secret army to destabilize the Middle East.” The historian also supported claims that the ISIS has in large part been financed by the Saudi royal family. Interviewed on Press TV the critic of US foreign policy asked why NATO ally Turkey bordering both Iraq and Syria where the Islamic State jihadists continue to terrorize, why can’t Turkey simply use its larger, vastly superior army to go in and defeat the much smaller ISIS, especially if the US and NATO were serious about destroying their alleged enemy. Again, if ISIS is the enemy, why did the US recently launch an air strike on Assad’s forces that were in process of defeating ISIS? The reason is all too obvious, the bombing was meant to afflict damage to stop Assad’s forces from beating back ISIS that the US is clearly protecting.

Finally, Tarpley reaffirmed what many others have been saying that chicken hawk Senator John McCain is actual buddies with ISIS kingpin Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. Of course photos abound of his frequent “secret” meetings with ISIS leadership illegally conducted inside Syria. This confirmed fact provides yet one more obvious link between the high powered criminal operative posing as US senator and the so called enemy of the “free world” ISIS.

Recall that iconic photo from June last year of American supplied trucks traveling unimpeded in the ISIS convoy kicking up dust in the Iraqi desert fresh from the Syrian battlefields heading south towards Baghdad. It was no accident that they were equipped with an enormous fleet of brand new Toyota trucks and armed with rockets, artillery and Stinger missiles all furnished by US Empire. Nor was it an accident that the Iraqi Army simply did an about face and ran, with orders undoubtedly coming from somewhere high above in the American Empire. The Islamic State forces were allowed to seize possession of 2500 armored troop carriers, over 1000 Humvees and several dozen US battlefield tanks all paid for by US tax dollars. This entire spectacle was permitted as ISIS without any resistance then took control of Mosul the second largest city in Iraq including a half billion dollars robbing a bank. Throughout this process, it was definitely no accident that the United States allowed the Islamic State forces to invade Iraq as with advanced US airpower it could have within a couple hours easily carpet bombed and totally eliminated ISIS since the Islamic State possessed no anti-aircraft weapons. And even now with the hi-tech wizardry of satellites, lasers, nanotechnology and advanced cyber-warfare, the US and allied intelligence has the means of accurately locating and with far superior firepower totally eradicating ISIS if the will to do so actually existed. But the fact is there is no desire to kill the phantom enemy when in fact it’s the friend of the traitors in charge of the US government who drive the Empire’s global war policy.

Washington’s objective last year was to purposely unleash on already ravaged Iraq the latest US-made, al Qaeda morphed into the Islamic monster-on-steroids to further destabilize the Middle East, seek a regime change to replace the weak, corrupt, Sunni persecuting Maliki government in Baghdad and ‘balkanize” Iraq into three separate, powerless, divisive sections in similar vein of how the West tore apart and dissected Yugoslavia into thirteen ineffectual pieces. The globalist pattern of bank cabal loans drowning nations into quicksand debt and transnationals and US Empire posts predatorily moving in as permanent fixtures always replace what was previously a far better off sovereign nation wherever King Midas-in-reverse targets to spreads its Empire disease of failed-state cancer. After Yugoslavia came Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, Yemen and Ukraine. It goes on and on all over the globe. The all too familiar divide and conquer strategy never fails as the US Empire/NWO agenda. But the biggest reason ISIS was permitted to enter and begin wreaking havoc in Iraq last June was for the Empire to re-establish its permanent military bases in the country that Maliki had refused Washington after its December 2011 pullout.

With 2300 current US troops (and rising up to 3000 per Obama’s authorization) once again deployed back on the ground in Iraq acting as so called advisors, Iraq is now the centerpiece of US military presence in the Middle East region. Before a doubting House Armed Services Committee last Tuesday, CENTCOM Commander General Lloyd Austin defended Obama’s policyinsisting that ISIS can be defeated without use of heavy ground forces, feebly claiming that they’re on the run because his commander-in-chief’s air strike campaign is actually working. How many times before have we heard generals’ glowing reports to Congress turn out to be lies?

As far as PR goes, it appears the lies and propaganda are once again working. With help from the steady stream of another beheading-of-the week posted like clockwork on Youtube for all the world to shockingly see, not unlike when traffic slows down to look for bloodied car victims mangled on the highway. Apparently this thinly veiled strategy is proving successful again on the worked over, dumbed down, short attention-spanned American population. According to a poll released just a few days ago, 62% of Americans want more GI boots on the ground in Iraq to fight the latest made-by-America enemy for Iraq War III. Incredibly only 39% believe that more troops on the ground would risk another long, protracted war. Again, short attention spans are doomed to keep repeating history as in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan.

This polling propaganda disinformation ploy fits perfectly with prior statements made a few months ago by America’s top commander General Martin Dempsey that the US military presence in both Iraq and Syria must be a long term commitment as the necessary American sacrifice required to effectively take out ISIS. With US leaders laying the PR groundwork for more Empire occupations worldwide, of course it’s no accident that it conveniently fits in with the Empire’s agenda to wage its war of terror on a forever basis. Efforts by Washington to “prep” Americans for these “inevitable,” open-ended wars around the globe are designed to condition them into passive acceptance of lower intensity, “out-of-sight, out-of-mind” conflicts specifically to minimize and silence citizens from ever actively opposing yet more human slaughter caused by more US state sponsored terrorism in the form of unending imperialistic wars.

Every one of these “current events” have been carefully planned, coordinated, timed and staged for mass public consumption, none more so than those beheadings of US and British journalists, aid workers and Middle Eastern Christians along with the desecration of ancient Iraqi history with dozens of destroyed museums, churches and shrines. Obama and the Empire want us all to be thoroughly horrified and disgusted so we fear and hate the latest designated Islamic enemy. Hating your enemy to the point of viewing them as the lowest of the lowest, sub-human animal is an old psyops brainwashing trick successfully employed in every single war from the dawn of violent man. It effectively dehumanizes the enemy while desensitizing the killing soldier. For over a year now we’ve seen this same MSM game being relentlessly waged to falsely demonize Putin. The sinister, warped minds of the divide and conquer strategists from the ruling class elite don’t mind the resultant hating of Moslems around the world either. That’s all by diabolical design too.

If only six organizations control the entire planet’s mass media outlet that feeds the masses their daily lies like their daily bread, another winning bet would be that in a heartbeat they could also effectively shut down the internet pipeline that showcases ISIS horror show theatrics on the global stage. But by design, they are willingly, cunningly disseminated for worldwide mass consumption.

In fact the only consistent group that’s even been able to militarily hold their own and actually challenge ISIS, the Kurds, are watching UK ship heavy arms to the same losing team the Iraqi army that ran away from defending Mosul. The last time the West gave them weapons and supplies, they handed them right over to ISIS.

In a recent Guardian article, a Kurdish captain said that the Kurds offered to even buy the second hand weapons from the British used in Afghanistan. But because the West is afraid the heavy arms might empower Kurdish nationalism into demanding their own sovereign nation for the first time in history, the US wants to ensure that Iraq stays as one nation after implanting its latest Baghdad puppet regime. The fiercely independent Kurds are feared if they were granted autonomy that they might refuse to allow their homeland to be raped and plundered by the US unlike the corrupt current Iraqi government. The Kurdish fighters could sorely use the bigger guns as they plan to launch an offensive in April or May to take back Mosul from ISIS. But when permitting an ancient ethnic group its proper due by granting political autonomy risks interfering with the Empire’s rabid exploitation of another oil-rich nation, all bets are off in doing the right thing.

The mounting evidence is stacking up daily to unequivocally prove beyond any question of a doubt that ISIS is in fact a US mercenary ally and not the treasonous feds’ enemy at all. From mid-August 2014 to mid-January 2015 using the most sophisticated fighter jets known to man, the US Air Force and its 19 coalition allies have flown more than 16,000 air strikes over Iraq and Syria ostensibly to “root out” ISIS once and for all. Yet all this Empire aggression has nothing to show for its wasted phony efforts as far as inflicting any real damage on the so called ISIS enemy. Labeled a “soft counterterrorism operation,” a prominent Council on Foreign Relations member recently characterized Obama’s scheme as too weak and ineffectual, and like a true CFR chicken hawk, he strongly advocates more bombs, more advisers and special operations forces deployed on the ground.

But the records show that all those air strikes are purposely not hitting ISIS forces because they are not the actual target. Many air strike missions from both the US Air Force as well as Israeli jets have been designed to destroy extensive infrastructure inside Syria that hurts the Syrian people, causing many innocent civilian casualties, while not harming ISIS at all. This in turn ensures more ISIS recruits for America’s forever war on terror. Repeatedly oil refineries, pipelines and grain storage silos have also been prime targets damaged and destroyed by the West. Because in 2013 Obama’s false flag claim that Assad’s army was responsible for the chemical weapons attack was thwarted by strong worldwide opposition and Putin’s success brokering the deal that had Assad turning over his chemical weapons, a mere year later ISIS conveniently provided Obama’s deceitful excuse to move forward with his air offensive on Syria after all.

Finally, on numerous occasions the US was caught red-handed flying arms and supply drops to the Islamic jihadists on the ground. According to Iraqi intelligence sources, US planes have engaged regularly in air drops of food and weapons to ISIS. These sighting began to be observed after one load was “accidentally” dropped last October into so called enemy hands supposedly meant to go to the Kurdish fighters. Realizing the US has betrayed them, as of late Iraqi security forces have been shooting down US and British aircraft engaged in providing supplies and arms to their ISIS enemy. This is perhaps the most incriminating evidence yet in exposing the truth that ISIS is being supported, supplied and protected by the US Empire more than even the Iraqi government forces the US claims to be assisting in this phony war against the militant Islamic jihadists.

Clearly the unfolding daily events and developments in both Iraq and Syria overwhelmingly indict the United States as even more of “the bad guy” than the supposed ISIS terrorists. Recently the US was caught financing ISIS and has all along supported Arab allies that knowingly fund Islamic extremism. During the six months since Obama vowed to go after them and “root them out,” countless times the US and allies have maintained the so called enemy’s supply line with regularly scheduled air drops. Meanwhile, in both Syria and Iraq after a half year of alleged bombing, ISIS forces are reported to be stronger than ever. The air strikes have not been hitting jihadist targets because the American and coalition forces’ actual targets in Syria have been vital infrastructure and civilians that are clearly attacks on Assad. All of this irrefutable evidence piling up is backfiring on the American Empire. The world is now learning just how devious, diabolical and desperate the warmongering, pro-Zionist powerbrokers who are the war criminals controlling the US rogue government really are. Their evil lies are unraveling their demonic agenda as the truth cannot be stopped.

Reprinted with permission from GlobalResearch.ca.

Le Vénézuela «extraordinaire menace pour les Etats-Unis»

par Jean-Paul Baquiast

Ex: http://www.europesolidaire.eu

En préambule d'un décret imposant un régime de sanctions (interdiction d'accès au territoire, gel des avoirs bancaires) à 7 responsables vénézueliens impliqués dans la répression violente de manifestations ayant eu lieu récemment et dirigées contre le président Maduro, Barack Obama a publié une déclaration estimant que le Venezuela était responsable «d'une inhabituelle et extraordinaire menace pour la sécurité nationale et la politique extérieure des États-Unis».

 

Le Vénézuela est ainsi assimilé à la Syrie, l'Iran ou la Birmanie, sans mentionner la Russie. Barack Obama a ajouté qu'il déclarait « l'urgence nationale pour faire face à cette menace.»

Le président Nicolas Maduro a vivement réagi à la décision américaine. «Le président Barack Obama [...] a décidé de se charger personnellement de renverser mon gouvernement et d'intervenir au Venezuela pour en prendre le contrôle», a-t-il affirmé, au cours d'un discours télévisé de deux heures. En réponse, il a décidé de nommer ministre de l'Intérieur le chef des services de renseignements sanctionné par les Américains. Le plus haut responsable diplomatique à Washington a également été rappelé.

Nous avions indiqué ici, dans un article du 11 février, que tout laissait penser qu'un coup d'Etat contre le président Maduro, successeur de Hugo Chavez et aussi détesté à Washington aujourd'hui que ne l'était ce dernier de son vivant, était sans doute en préparation.

Effectivement, peu après, le 13 février, le maire de Caracas, et figure de l'opposition Antonio Ledezma avait été arrêté par les services de renseignement, soupçonné d'avoir encouragé un coup d'Etat dans le pays. Nous ne pouvons évidemment nous prononcer sur ce point. Néanmoins il est connu de tous que les Etats-Unis, directement ou par personnes interposées, ont l'habitude de faire tomber les régimes qui s'opposent à eux en provoquant de tels pronunciamientos.

Il est clair que la nouvelle déclaration de Barack Obama contre le Vénézuéla, ressemblant beaucoup à une déclaration de guerre, ne pourra qu'être interprétée à Caracas et dans les autres capitales, ainsi qu'au sein du BRICS, comme préparant une intervention militaire. Ainsi pourrait disparaître un gouvernement dont le grand tort est d'être non aligné sur Washington et allié de la Russie, sans compter le fait que le Vénézuela dispose d'importantes réserves de pétrole sur lesquelles les grandes compagnies pétrolières américaines aimeraient bien mettre la main.

L'affaire ne sera pas cependant aussi facile qu'Obama semblait le penser. On apprend ce jour 12 mars que la Russie va se joindre aux manœuvres militaires défensives planifiées pour cette fin de semaine (14 et 15 mars) dans tout le Venezuela. Le ministre de la Défense, Serguéi Shoigu, a accepté l'invitation de son collègue vénézuélien, Vladimir Padrino Lopez. La Russie participera aux exercices militaires des forces de défense antiaérienne et aux manœuvres de tir de lance-roquettes multiple russe BM-30 Smerch. À ceci s'ajoutera l'escale de navires russes dans les ports du Venezuela.

L'Amérique ne pourra évidemment pas comparer cela à la crise des missiles de 1962 l'ayant opposée à Cuba et indirectement à l'URSS. Mais nous pouvons être certain que l'accusation sera lancée. Il serait pertinent alors de rappeler à Obama sa propre participation militaire, directement ou via l'Otan, en Ukraine et dans la majorité des pays frontaliers à la Russie, à des manoeuvres militaires plus qu'agressives.

Jean Paul Baquiast

Chessboard

Le premier propriétaire esclavagiste américain était noir

Le premier propriétaire esclavagiste américain était noir

Ex: http://www.contre-info.com

« Avant 1655 il n’y avait aucun esclave légal dans les colonies américaines britanniques qui deviendront les Etats-Unis, seulement un contrat bilatéral appelé « indenture » pour des serviteurs qui proposaient leur service en échange d’une aide matérielle. Concrètement des noirs acceptaient de partir dans ces colonies britanniques et de travailler pendant un certain nombre d’années pour rembourser leur voyage et leur entretien. Avec cette pratique tous les maîtres étaient tenus de libérer leurs serviteurs après un certain temps. La durée limite de ces contrats était de sept ans. À leur départ on leur accordait 50 acres de terre (environ 20 hectares). Cela était valable pour n’importe quel Africain acheté à des marchands d’esclaves. Eux aussi avaient droit à leurs 50 acres à l’expiration de leur contrat.

Anthony Johnson était un africain venu de l’actuel Angola. Il avait été amené aux Etats Unis pour travailler dans une ferme de tabac en 1619. En 1622, il  a failli mourir quand des Indiens Powhatan attaquèrent sa ferme. 52 des 57 personnes présentes périrent dans l’attaque.  Et c’est aussi pendant son passage dans cette ferme qu’il épousa une servante noire.

Quand Anthony fut libéré, il fut aussi légalement reconnu comme “Noir libre” et fit fructifier son lopin de terre avec beaucoup de succès grâce à son dur labeur et son intelligence. En 1651, il possédait 250 acres et cinq serviteurs africains en « indenture ».

Puis, en 1654, Johnson aurait dû libérer John Casor, un de ses serviteurs. Au lieu de cela, Anthony  dit à Casor qu’il prolongeait son temps. Casor s’enfuit et devint l’employé d’un fermier blanc, Robert Parker.

Anthony Johnson poursuivi aussitôt en justice Robert Parker devant  le tribunal de Northampton et en 1655 la cour jugea qu’Anthony Johnson pourrait retenir John Casor indéfiniment. La cour autorisa ainsi les noirs libres à posséder des êtres de leur propre race comme  biens meubles, c’est-à-dire comme esclaves. Voilà comment John Casor est devenu le premier esclave à vie et Anthony Johnson le premier propriétaire américain d’esclave.

Les blancs eux par contre ne pouvaient toujours pas  légalement avoir un serviteur noir comme esclave. Mais en 1670 l’assemblée coloniale passa une loi donnant le droit à des blancs libres (ndlr : des blancs pouvaient aussi être en « indenture ») ainsi qu’aux noirs et aux indiens de posséder des noirs comme esclaves.

En 1699 le nombre d’africains libres suscita de telles craintes de voir une insurrection raciale que l’état de Virginie  ordonna le rapatriement des noirs libérés en Afrique. Beaucoup de noirs se vendirent alors à des maîtres blancs pour ne pas retourner sur le continent Africain. Mais des milliers d’autres furent rapatriés dans des pays comme la Sierra Leone et le Libéria qui de fait devinrent des colonies d’anciens esclaves africains américains longtemps financées par les divers gouvernements d’Amérique.

Monrovia, la capitale du Libéria a été ainsi nommée en honneur du Président US James Monroe et Freetown, la capitale du Sierra Leone, en honneur à la liberté accordée par l’Amérique.

Néanmoins les propriétaires noirs d’esclaves noirs continuèrent à prospérer aux États-Unis.

En 1830 il y avait 3775 familles noires vivant au Sud ayant des esclaves noirs.
Et avant la guerre de sécession en 1860 il y avait environ 3,000 esclaves appartenant aux ménages noirs dans la seule ville la Nouvelle-Orléans.

Des faits qui nous donnent à méditer la vision d’Orwell : « Qui contrôle le passé contrôle le présent. Qui contrôle le présent contrôle le passé. » »

Source : Henri Guillaumet ici

Beware of Neocon Intellectuals!

Kristol, Wolfowitz and Cheney

Rationalizing Lunacy

Beware of Neocon Intellectuals!

By Andrew J. Bacevich
TomDispatch.com

Ex: http://www.lewrockwell.com

Policy intellectuals — eggheads presuming to instruct the mere mortals who actually run for office — are a blight on the republic. Like some invasive species, they infest present-day Washington, where their presence strangles common sense and has brought to the verge of extinction the simple ability to perceive reality. A benign appearance — well-dressed types testifying before Congress, pontificating in print and on TV, or even filling key positions in the executive branch — belies a malign impact. They are like Asian carp let loose in the Great Lakes.

It all began innocently enough.  Back in 1933, with the country in the throes of the Great Depression, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt first imported a handful of eager academics to join the ranks of his New Deal.  An unprecedented economic crisis required some fresh thinking, FDR believed. Whether the contributions of this “Brains Trust” made a positive impact or served to retard economic recovery (or ended up being a wash) remains a subject for debate even today.   At the very least, however, the arrival of Adolph Berle, Raymond Moley, Rexford Tugwell, and others elevated Washington’s bourbon-and-cigars social scene. As bona fide members of the intelligentsia, they possessed a sort of cachet.

Then came World War II, followed in short order by the onset of the Cold War. These events brought to Washington a second wave of deep thinkers, their agenda now focused on “national security.”  This eminently elastic concept — more properly, “national insecurity” — encompassed just about anything related to preparing for, fighting, or surviving wars, including economics, technology, weapons design, decision-making, the structure of the armed forces, and other matters said to be of vital importance to the nation’s survival.  National insecurity became, and remains today, the policy world’s equivalent of the gift that just keeps on giving.

People who specialized in thinking about national insecurity came to be known as “defense intellectuals.”  Pioneers in this endeavor back in the 1950s were as likely to collect their paychecks from think tanks like the prototypical RAND Corporation as from more traditional academic institutions.  Their ranks included creepy figures like Herman Kahn, who took pride in “thinking about the unthinkable,” and Albert Wohlstetter, who tutored Washington in the complexities of maintaining “the delicate balance of terror.”

In this wonky world, the coin of the realm has been and remains “policy relevance.”  This means devising products that convey a sense of novelty, while serving chiefly to perpetuate the ongoing enterprise. The ultimate example of a policy-relevant insight is Dr. Strangelove’s discovery of a “mineshaft gap” — successor to the “bomber gap” and the “missile gap” that, in the 1950s, had found America allegedly lagging behind the Soviets in weaponry and desperately needing to catch up.  Now, with a thermonuclear exchange about to destroy the planet, the United States is once more falling behind, Strangelove claims, this time in digging underground shelters enabling some small proportion of the population to survive.In a single, brilliant stroke, Strangelove posits a new raison d’être for the entire national insecurity apparatus, thereby ensuring that the game will continue more or less forever.  A sequel to Stanley Kubrick’s movie would have shown General “Buck” Turgidson and the other brass huddled in the War Room, developing plans to close the mineshaft gap as if nothing untoward had occurred.

The Rise of the National Insecurity State

Yet only in the 1960s, right around the time that Dr. Strangelove first appeared in movie theaters, did policy intellectuals really come into their own.  The press now referred to them as “action intellectuals,” suggesting energy and impatience.  Action intellectuals were thinkers, but also doers, members of a “large and growing body of men who choose to leave their quiet and secure niches on the university campus and involve themselves instead in the perplexing problems that face the nation,” as LIFE Magazineput it in 1967. Among the most perplexing of those problems was what to do about Vietnam, just the sort of challenge an action intellectual could sink his teeth into.

Over the previous century-and-a-half, the United States had gone to war for many reasons, including greed, fear, panic, righteous anger, and legitimate self-defense.  On various occasions, each of these, alone or in combination, had prompted Americans to fight.  Vietnam marked the first time that the United States went to war, at least in considerable part, in response to a bunch of really dumb ideas floated by ostensibly smart people occupying positions of influence.  More surprising still, action intellectuals persisted in waging that war well past the point where it had become self-evident, even to members of Congress, that the cause was a misbegotten one doomed to end in failure.

In his fine new book American Reckoning: The Vietnam War and Our National Identity, Christian Appy, a historian who teaches at the University of Massachusetts, reminds us of just how dumb those ideas were.

As Exhibit A, Professor Appy presents McGeorge Bundy, national security adviser first for President John F. Kennedy and then for Lyndon Johnson.  Bundy was a product of Groton and Yale, who famously became the youngest-ever dean of Harvard’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences, having gained tenure there without even bothering to get a graduate degree.

For Exhibit B, there is Walt Whitman Rostow, Bundy’s successor as national security adviser.  Rostow was another Yalie, earning his undergraduate degree there along with a PhD.  While taking a break of sorts, he spent two years at Oxford as a Rhodes scholar.  As a professor of economic history at MIT, Rostow captured JFK’s attention with his modestly subtitled 1960 bookThe Stages of Economic Growth:  A Non-Communist Manifesto, which offered a grand theory of development with ostensibly universal applicability.  Kennedy brought Rostow to Washington to test his theories of “modernization” in places like Southeast Asia.

Finally, as Exhibit C, Appy briefly discusses Professor Samuel P. Huntington’s contributions to the Vietnam War.  Huntington also attended Yale, before earning his PhD at Harvard and then returning to teach there, becoming one of the most renowned political scientists of the post-World War II era.

What the three shared in common, apart from a suspect education acquired in New Haven, was an unwavering commitment to the reigning verities of the Cold War.  Foremost among those verities was this: that a monolith called Communism, controlled by a small group of fanatic ideologues hidden behind the walls of the Kremlin, posed an existential threat not simply to America and its allies, but to the very idea of freedom itself.  The claim came with this essential corollary: the only hope of avoiding such a cataclysmic outcome was for the United States to vigorously resist the Communist threat wherever it reared its ugly head.

Buy those twin propositions and you accept the imperative of the U.S. preventing the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, a.k.a. North Vietnam, from absorbing the Republic of Vietnam, a.k.a. South Vietnam, into a single unified country; in other words, that South Vietnam was a cause worth fighting and dying for.  Bundy, Rostow, and Huntington not only bought that argument hook, line, and sinker, but then exerted themselves mightily to persuade others in Washington to buy it as well.

Yet even as he was urging the “Americanization” of the Vietnam War in 1965, Bundy already entertained doubts about whether it was winnable.  But not to worry:  even if the effort ended in failure, he counseled President Johnson, “the policy will be worth it.”

How so?  “At a minimum,” Bundy wrote, “it will damp down the charge that we did not do all that we could have done, and this charge will be important in many countries, including our own.”  If the United States ultimately lost South Vietnam, at least Americans would have died trying to prevent that result — and through some perverted logic this, in the estimation of Harvard’s youngest-ever dean, was a redeeming prospect.  The essential point, Bundy believed, was to prevent others from seeing the United States as a “paper tiger.”  To avoid a fight, even a losing one, was to forfeit credibility.  “Not to have it thought that when we commit ourselves we really mean no major risk” — that was the problem to be avoided at all cost.

Rostow outdid even Bundy in hawkishness.  Apart from his relentless advocacy of coercive bombing to influence North Vietnamese policymakers, Rostow was a chief architect of something called the Strategic Hamlet Program.  The idea was to jumpstart the Rostovian process of modernization by forcibly relocating Vietnamese peasants from their ancestral villages into armed camps where the Saigon government would provide security, education, medical care, and agricultural assistance.  By winning hearts-and-minds in this manner, the defeat of the communist insurgency was sure to follow, with the people of South Vietnam vaulted into the “age of high mass consumption,” where Rostow believed all humankind was destined to end up.

That was the theory.  Reality differed somewhat.  Actual Strategic Hamlets were indistinguishable from concentration camps.  The government in Saigon proved too weak, too incompetent, and too corrupt to hold up its end of the bargain.  Rather than winning hearts-and-minds, the program induced alienation, even as it essentially destabilized peasant society.  One result: an increasingly rootless rural population flooded into South Vietnam’s cities where there was little work apart from servicing the needs of the ever-growing U.S. military population — hardly the sort of activity conducive to self-sustaining development.

Yet even when the Vietnam War ended in complete and utter defeat, Rostow still claimed vindication for his theory.  “We and the Southeast Asians,” he wrote, had used the war years “so well that there wasn’t the panic [when Saigon fell] that there would have been if we had failed to intervene.”  Indeed, regionally Rostow spied plenty of good news, all of it attributable to the American war.

”Since 1975 there has been a general expansion of trade by the other countries of that region with Japan and the West.  In Thailand we have seen the rise of a new class of entrepreneurs.  Malaysia and Singapore have become countries of diverse manufactured exports.  We can see the emergence of a much thicker layer of technocrats in Indonesia.”

So there you have it. If you want to know what 58,000 Americans (not to mention vastly larger numbers of Vietnamese) died for, it was to encourage entrepreneurship, exports, and the emergence of technocrats elsewhere in Southeast Asia.

Appy describes Professor Huntington as another action intellectual with an unfailing facility for seeing the upside of catastrophe.  In Huntington’s view, the internal displacement of South Vietnamese caused by the excessive use of American firepower, along with the failure of Rostow’s Strategic Hamlets, was actually good news.  It promised, he insisted, to give the Americans an edge over the insurgents.

The key to final victory, Huntington wrote, was “forced-draft urbanization and modernization which rapidly brings the country in question out of the phase in which a rural revolutionary movement can hope to generate sufficient strength to come to power.”  By emptying out the countryside, the U.S. could win the war in the cities.  “The urban slum, which seems so horrible to middle-class Americans, often becomes for the poor peasant a gateway to a new and better way of life.”  The language may be a tad antiseptic, but the point is clear enough: the challenges of city life in a state of utter immiseration would miraculously transform those same peasants into go-getters more interested in making a buck than in signing up for social revolution.

Revisited decades later, claims once made with a straight face by the likes of Bundy, Rostow, and Huntington — action intellectuals of the very first rank — seem beyond preposterous.  They insult our intelligence, leaving us to wonder how such judgments or the people who promoted them were ever taken seriously.

How was it that during Vietnam bad ideas exerted such a perverse influence?  Why were those ideas so impervious to challenge?  Why, in short, was it so difficult for Americans to recognize bullshit for what it was?

Creating a Twenty-First-Century Slow-Motion Vietnam

These questions are by no means of mere historical interest. They are no less relevant when applied to the handiwork of the twenty-first-century version of policy intellectuals, specializing in national insecurity, whose bullshit underpins policies hardly more coherent than those used to justify and prosecute the Vietnam War.

The present-day successors to Bundy, Rostow, and Huntington subscribe to their own reigning verities.  Chief among them is this: that a phenomenon called terrorism or Islamic radicalism, inspired by a small group of fanatic ideologues hidden away in various quarters of the Greater Middle East, poses an existential threat not simply to America and its allies, but — yes, it’s still with us — to the very idea of freedom itself.  That assertion comes with an essential corollary dusted off and imported from the Cold War: the only hope of avoiding this cataclysmic outcome is for the United States to vigorously resist the terrorist/Islamist threat wherever it rears its ugly head.

At least since September 11, 2001, and arguably for at least two decades prior to that date, U.S. policymakers have taken these propositions for granted.  They have done so at least in part because few of the policy intellectuals specializing in national insecurity have bothered to question them.

Indeed, those specialists insulate the state from having to address such questions.  Think of them as intellectuals devoted to averting genuine intellectual activity.  More or less like Herman Kahn and Albert Wohlstetter (or Dr. Strangelove), their function is to perpetuate the ongoing enterprise.

The fact that the enterprise itself has become utterly amorphous may actually facilitate such efforts.  Once widely known as the Global War on Terror, or GWOT, it has been transformed into the War with No Name.  A little bit like the famous Supreme Court opinion on pornography: we can’t define it, we just know it when we see it, with ISIS the latest manifestation to capture Washington’s attention.

All that we can say for sure about this nameless undertaking is that it continues with no end in sight.  It has become a sort of slow-motion Vietnam, stimulating remarkably little honest reflection regarding its course thus far or prospects for the future.  If there is an actual Brains Trust at work in Washington, it operates on autopilot.  Today, the second- and third-generation bastard offspring of RAND that clutter northwest Washington — the Center for this, the Institute for that — spin their wheels debating latter day equivalents of Strategic Hamlets, with nary a thought given to more fundamental concerns.

What prompts these observations is Ashton Carter’s return to the Pentagon as President Obama’s fourth secretary of defense.  Carter himself is an action intellectual in the Bundy, Rostow, Huntington mold, having made a career of rotating between positions at Harvard and in “the Building.”  He, too, is a Yalie and a Rhodes scholar, with a PhD. from Oxford.  “Ash” — in Washington, a first-name-only identifier (“Henry,” “Zbig,” “Hillary”) signifies that you have truly arrived — is the author of books and articles galore, including one op-ed co-written with former Secretary of Defense William Perry back in 2006 calling for preventive war against North Korea.  Military action “undoubtedly carries risk,” he bravely acknowledged at the time. “But the risk of continuing inaction in the face of North Korea’s race to threaten this country would be greater” — just the sort of logic periodically trotted out by the likes of Herman Kahn and Albert Wohlstetter.

As Carter has taken the Pentagon’s reins, he also has taken pains to convey the impression of being a big thinker.  As one Wall Street Journal headline enthused, “Ash Carter Seeks Fresh Eyes on Global Threats.”  That multiple global threats exist and that America’s defense secretary has a mandate to address each of them are, of course, givens.  His predecessor Chuck Hagel (no Yale degree) was a bit of a plodder.  By way of contrast, Carter has made clear his intention to shake things up.

So on his second day in office, for example, he dined with Kenneth Pollack, Michael O’Hanlon, and Robert Kagan, ranking national insecurity intellectuals and old Washington hands one and all.  Besides all being employees of the Brookings Institution, the three share the distinction of having supported the Iraq War back in 2003 and calling for redoubling efforts against ISIS today.  For assurances that the fundamental orientation of U.S. policy is sound — we just need to try harder — who better to consult than Pollack, O’Hanlon, and Kagan (any Kagan)?

Was Carter hoping to gain some fresh insight from his dinner companions?  Or was he letting Washington’s clubby network of fellows, senior fellows, and distinguished fellows know that, on his watch, the prevailing verities of national insecurity would remain sacrosanct?  You decide.

Soon thereafter, Carter’s first trip overseas provided another opportunity to signal his intentions.  In Kuwait, he convened a war council of senior military and civilian officials to take stock of the campaign against ISIS.  In a daring departure from standard practice, the new defense secretary prohibited PowerPoint briefings.  One participant described the ensuing event as “a five-hour-long college seminar” — candid and freewheeling.  “This is reversing the paradigm,” one awed senior Pentagon official remarked.  Carter was said to be challenging his subordinates to “look at this problem differently.”

Of course, Carter might have said, “Let’s look at a different problem.” That, however, was far too radical to contemplate — the equivalent of suggesting back in the 1960s that assumptions landing the United States in Vietnam should be reexamined.

In any event — and to no one’s surprise — the different look did not produce a different conclusion.  Instead of reversing the paradigm, Carter affirmed it: the existing U.S. approach to dealing with ISIS is sound, he announced.  It only needs a bit of tweaking — just the result to give the Pollacks, O’Hanlons, and Kagans something to write about as they keep up the chatter that substitutes for serious debate.

Do we really need that chatter? Does it enhance the quality of U.S. policy? If policy/defense/action intellectuals fell silent would America be less secure?

Let me propose an experiment. Put them on furlough. Not permanently — just until the last of the winter snow finally melts in New England. Send them back to Yale for reeducation. Let’s see if we are able to make do without them even for a month or two.

In the meantime, invite Iraq and Afghanistan War vets to consider how best to deal with ISIS.  Turn the op-ed pages of major newspapers over to high school social studies teachers. Book English majors from the Big Ten on the Sunday talk shows. Who knows what tidbits of wisdom might turn up?

Reprinted with permission from TomDispatch.com.

La crise des Etats-Unis est l’expression de son déclin

Une histoire intérieure des Etats-Unis actuels

par Klaus Hornung, professeur en sciences politiques, Allemagne

Ex: http://www.horizons-et-debats.ch

Quelle est la stabilité du «pouvoir dirigeant du monde» (Président George Bush en 1992), de la «nation indispensable à la paix, à la liberté et à la démocratie dans le monde» (Président Bill Clinton en 1997)? A l’époque, les Etats-Unis, après avoir emporté la victoire dans la guerre froide, pouvaient se croire à l’apogée de leur histoire. Deux décennies plus tard, suite à leurs interventions militaires en Irak et en Afghanistan ayant abouti à des désastres, ils se sont retrouvés dans une grave crise financière et économique et face à une montagne de dettes astronomique s’élevant à presque 15 billions de dollars.

Pour le journaliste américain George Packer, la crise est l’expression d’un déclin, de la dissolution de la solidarité au sein de la société en un individualisme extrême, et d’un fossé se creusant continuellement entre riches et pauvres. Son livre dépeint cette histoire intérieure des Etats-Unis actuels, et l’auteur en décrit les racines: les puissants dans le monde de la finance ont résilié leur pacte avec la société pour fêter une orgie de l’abondance et du cynisme. Il s’est développé un système de «politique de la porte tournante» entre Wall Street et Capitol Hill, l’oligarchie de la finance, le Congrès et la Chambre des représentants, système présentant tous les symptômes du déclin.

Packer passe outre la politique extérieure et militaire. Il entend décrire l’histoire intérieure du scenario des Etats-Unis à l’aide d’une longue série de biographies sociales des contemporains s’affairant dans la politique et l’économie ainsi que de personnes d’autres couches sociales. Nous rencontrons par exemple Jeff Connaughton, qui passe sa vie entre les secteurs de la finance et de la politique et accomplit une ascension remarquable en grimpant de l’équipe de la campagne électorale du vice-président actuel Joe Biden à la haute bureaucratie ministérielle de Washington, en acquérant au passage une fortune considérable tout en étant témoin des luttes de pouvoir impitoyables régnant au sein des élites et de leurs réseaux pour l’influence et les profits financiers.

Les agissements d’un grand nombre de banquiers, d’avocats et de contrôleurs financiers s’écartent souvent du droit et de la loi et sont marqués par la convoitise de bonifications à hauteur de plusieurs millions et de l’accès à des fonctions et des positions politiques profitables. C’est le panorama d’un style politique où les moins scrupuleux gagnent, c’est l’image de l’exercice du pouvoir d’une élite s’éloignant de façon abusive des normes classiques de la démocratie et de l’Etat de droit. Dans ce contexte, apparaissent également des individus connus de l’histoire contemporaine, par exemple le président Bill Clinton avec ses histoires sexuelles notoires et ses serments solennels lui permettant d’échapper à la justice.

On y trouve aussi l’histoire tragique de Colin Powell, enfant d’immigrés jamaïcains, ayant combattu longtemps au Vietnam en tant que soldat, et qui devint Chef d’état-major général et Secrétaire d’Etat. Puis, le président Bush junior abusa de lui en lui imposant de rédiger le discours bien connu devant le Conseil de sécurité de l’ONU pour présenter le mensonge concernant les prétendues armes de destruction massive de Saddam Hussein. C’était ce mensonge-là qui justifia l’intervention militaire des Etats-Unis en Irak et qui détruisit la bonne renommée de ce serviteur intègre de l’Etat.

Puis, l’auteur se déplace également dans la Silicon Valley, ce symbole de l’inépuisable force génératrice américaine. Là, son témoin biographique est un certain Peter Thiel, fils d’une famille chrétienne «réincarnée», un étudiant doué de l’Université de Stanford, un opposant au communisme et à l’homosexualité qui devra un jour lui-même faire son coming-out. Plus tard, il crée plusieurs hedgefunds, suite auxquels il devient le Titan d’un patrimoine de plusieurs milliards, passant ses journées en tant qu’influent gros sponsor dans sa villa de luxe au bord de la mer à Stanford.

C’étaient les années pendant lesquelles la Californie semblait devenir une espèce de paradis sur terre, grâce à la technologie de l’armement et la technologie spatiale, puis grâce à Internet et Facebook. Le déclin apparut lors de l’éclatement de la bulle d’Internet et de la crise de 2008 qui la suivit. Ainsi le libertarien Thiel reste songeur en reconnaissant les limites intellectuelles et politiques de l’adoration onirique des Américains autour du veau d’or et de ses conséquences.

Le livre de Packer est un mélange très personnel de documentation et de littérature. Il décrit de manière très engagée la récente histoire intérieure des Etats-Unis. Dans toutes ses pages, on retrouve la revendication de l’auteur de corriger le système politique actuel de son pays et d’accomplir un renouveau sociétal. Le panorama du déclin qu’il présente rappelle le livre du sociologue Christopher Lasch intitulé «La révolte des élites et la trahison de la démocratie» qui reconnaît, lui aussi, le noyau de la crise américaine, dans un «malaise démocratique».

C’est l’histoire de l’aliénation des élites privilégiées de leur société, de ceux qui contrôlent le flux international de l’argent et des informations, de ceux qui ont un style de vie multiculturel dans leur travail et dans leurs loisirs, menant une vie recluse et bien protégée dans leurs enclaves et qui se sont depuis longtemps soustraits à leurs devoirs civiques. Cet univers semble être une réalisation de la fameuse vision de Max Weber d’une société «de spécialistes sans esprit, de bon vivants sans cœur».    

George Packer: Die Abwicklung. Eine innere Ge­schichte des neuen Amerika. Frankfurt am Main 2014, ISBN 978-3-10-000157-3

L'Amérique Latine défend le Venezuela face au décret du président Obama

L'Amérique Latine défend le Venezuela face au décret du président Obama

Rapprochement de Caracas avec Athènes

Auteur : Thierry Deronne

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Traduction Jean-Marc del Percio

Ex: http://zejournal.mobi

Après la décision du président Barack Obama, le 9 mars 2015, de décréter « l’urgence nationale aux États-Unis » face à la « menace inhabituelle et extraordinaire pour la sécurité nationale et notre politique extérieure qu’est le Venezuela » (sic), le président de Bolivie Evo Morales a demandé une réunion d’urgence de l’UNASUR (organisme regroupant la totalité des nations sud-américaines) et de la CELAC (Communauté élargie des États Latino-américains et des Caraïbes) « pour nous déclarer en état d’urgence et défendre le Venezuela face à l’agression de Barack Obama. Nous allons défendre le Venezuela » Il a souligné l’importance de l’unité des peuples face à l’Empire qui tentent de « nous diviser, pour nous dominer politiquement et nous spolier sur le plan économique ».

Le président Correa, à travers son chancelier, a exprimé son « rejet le plus ferme de la décision illégale et extra-territoriale contre le Venezuela, qui représente une attaque inacceptable pour sa souveraineté ». Il a rappelé le signal négatif que constitue la signature de ce décret par Obama 48 heures après la visite de travail de l’UNASUR à Caracas. Cette délégation a enquêté sur la récente tentative de coup d’État contre le président Nicolas Maduro, élu en avril 2013, a rejeté l’ingérence extérieure, demandant aux secteurs violents de l’opposition de revenir à la voie électorale.

« Comment le Venezuela menace-t-il les Etats-Unis? A des milliers de kilomètres de distance, sans armes stratégiques et sans employer de ressources ni de fonctionnaires pour conspirer contre l’ordre constitutionnel étasunien ? Une telle déclaration faite dans une année d’élections législatives au Venezuela révèle la volonté d’ingérence de la politique extérieure étasunienne. » a déclaré pour sa part le gouvernement cubain.

Les mouvements sociaux latino-américains se sont mobilisés en défense de la démocratie vénézuélienne. Pour Joao Pedro Stédile, de la direction nationale du Mouvement des Sans Terre du Brésil : « Au Brésil il y a un peuple qui est avec vous, nous serons toujours solidaires et nous ne laisserons pas l’Empire envahir le Venezuela pour récupérer ses gisements de pétrole ». Le mouvement social bolivien a également manifesté sa solidarité. Rodolfo Machaca, dirigeant de la Confédération syndicale des travailleurs agricoles, a condamné l’ingérence des États-Unis dans les affaires intérieures vénézueliennes, et leur complicité avec les violences organisées par la droite. Selon Machaca : « La situation au Venezuela nous préoccupe, c’est pourquoi nous proclamons notre solidarité avec ce pays, mais aussi avec le président Maduro. Nous condamnons l’ingérence nord-américaine, et toutes les tentatives de coup d’État ou autres manœuvres visant à la déstabilisation du Venezuela. ».

Rafael Correa dénonce les manipulations médiatiques contre le Venezuela

Le 1er mars, depuis Montevideo, où il assistait à l’investiture du président uruguayen Tabaré Vasquez, le président Correa a déclaré : «Le Venezuela est confronté à une guerre économique et médiatique, et se retrouve dans la situation d’autres gouvernements progressistes d’Amérique latine, avant lui. Cette situation, on l’a déjà vécu en Amérique latine. Souvenons-nous de ce qui est arrivé à (Salvador) Allende : la même guerre économique, le même type d’ingérence, les mêmes attaques médiatiques. De grâce, tirons les leçons de l’Histoire ». Selon Correa, cette ingérence « ne débouchera pas forcément sur ce qui est arrivé à Allende. Il n’en demeure pas moins que nous sommes confrontés chaque jour aux tentatives de déstabilisation de gouvernements démocratiques et progressistes d’Amérique latine, par la guerre économique, et à la manipulation mondiale en matière d’information ».

Au sujet de l’arrestation du maire d’opposition de Caracas, Antonio Ledezma, accusé d’implication dans un complot visant à déstabiliser le gouvernement de Nicolas Maduro, le président Correa a déclaré qu’il était « réducteur de commenter cet événement sans connaître les détails de l’affaire, en outre la souveraineté et les institutions de chaque pays doivent être respectées ».

Le Venezuela et la Grèce renforcent leurs relations bilatérales

En visite officielle en Grèce le 6 mars, la ministre des Affaires étrangère Delcy Rodriguez a félicité le nouveau gouvernement du premier ministre Alexis Tsipras, au nom du Gouvernement Bolivarien et du peuple vénézuelien. Dès la victoire de Syriza, Maduro avait salué la décision des électeurs malgré « la campagne médiatique qui tentait de leur faire peur en présentant notamment Alexis Tsipras comme l’agent d’une dictature vénézuélienne »

La Chancelière vénézuélienne a été reçue par Alexis Tsipras qui a manifesté son intention d’accueillir prochainement en Grèce le président Nicolas Maduro, assurant de son soutien le Venezuela et son peuple et insistant sur l’affection qu’il lui porte.

Accompagnée de l’ambassadeur du Venezuela en Grèce – Farid Fernandez – Mme Rodriguez a eu aussi l’occasion de rencontrer son homologue grec Nikos Kotzias (photo). La réunion a porté sur la possibilité de renforcer les relations bilatérales entre les deux pays dans le domaine économique et commercial. Nikos Kotzias a reçu des informations sur la situation actuelle au Venezuela et a souligné l’importance de nouer des relations solides dans les domaines de la technologie, de l’économie, du commerce et du tourisme.

Un désir commun s’est exprimé : qu’Athènes devienne l’un des principaux partenaires de Caracas.

Cette visite officielle en Grèce répond à la volonté de Caracas de renforcer l’émergence d’un monde multipolaire, au sein duquel prévaudront le respect mutuel, la compréhension, la coopération, mais aussi le droit pour les peuples à l’autodétermination, à la liberté et à la souveraineté.

- Source : Thierry Deronne-Traduction Jean-Marc del Percio