Friday 29th of March 2024

philosophies of convenience…

war...war...

"If we did the right things, we’d be all walking in sandals, like Jesus Christ in the desert…” — Pa Leonisky.

 

We hate deserts — and sandals are useless for the warriors.

 

So, In the West we have invented “philosophies of convenience”, which are ways to morally whitewash what is un-washable.

 

Unfortunately, because we’re “bad loser” in the game of conquest that we had invented from the days of colonialism, our present governments are preparing for war, our politicians talk about war, our media spread the idea that wars are winnable for honour, glory and unavoidable glorious rectitude. And "you should be grateful"...  We are deluded. DELUDED, WE ARE…

 

We need to talk understanding rather than threats. We also need to realise that the Geo-Politics of the world have not been created along “natural” lines of the people but instigated by crazy belligerent hubris...

 

We need to rethink our attitude…

 

FROM VOLTAIRE NETWORK:...

 

China: the "yellow peril", really?


by Thierry Meyssan


President Biden is replaying the "yellow peril": China would steal our patents, foster corruption and destroy the environment before imposing its totalitarian regime by force. Fortunately, the United States and NATO would protect democracies and peace. But then how to explain the alliance between Beijing and Moscow, which should feel the same fear? It would simply be the "alliance of dictatorships".
For anyone who lived through the Cold War, this narrative rings hollow.

 

The Chinese Silk Roads project is a global success. Despite all the criticism (corruption of local elites, indebtedness of partner countries, infringement of environmental rights), the countries participating in it are experiencing strong growth.

How can we not be surprised that Western development aid programmes have failed to achieve this since decolonisation?

And above all, how can we not be surprised that, after having praised the merits of international trade for decades, the West denounces this success?

Relations between the West and China in the 21st century are not a succession of qui-pro-quo’s, but of one-way misunderstandings. The US refuses to understand the Chinese way of thinking and keeps projecting its own shortcomings onto Beijing.

 

 

COMPETING WITH THE SILK ROADS

 

President Joe Biden, breaking with the policy of his predecessor Donald Trump, announced that the US would "compete" with China, provoking cries of outrage in Beijing. He convinced the G7 to join the battle to keep the "democracies ahead" of the "totalitarian" Chinese system. This is the "Build Back Better World" project. Obeying his injunction, the European Union is beginning to roll out its Global Gateway counter-project. Tomorrow, President Biden will chair a world summit on democracy with the participation of Taiwan (Chiang Kai-shek’s former dictatorship) to give ideological content to this confrontation.

In our imagination, the Cold War was between the atheistic USSR and the religious West, or between communism and capitalism. In reality, it was a question of preventing a bloc with a united culture from exerting economic influence in the bloc controlled by the Anglo-Saxons with an individualistic culture. This time, it will no longer be a question of claiming to defend the right to exercise religion and free enterprise, but of defending democracy. In the end, it is still a question of caricaturing a power capable of competing economically with the Anglo-Saxons, yesterday the USSR, today China.

 

 

THE "THUCYDIDES TRAP"

 

Anglo-Saxons define this political moment as the Thucydides trap, in reference to the ancient historian who wrote the history of the Peloponnesian Wars. In 2017, a famous American political scientist, Professor Graham Allison, explained that "What made the war inevitable was the growth of Athenian power and the resulting fear in Sparta". Similarly, China’s development is causing the ’American Empire’ to panic and prepare for war [1]. It does not matter that this reasoning ignores cultural differences and applies a Greek concept to China. Washington is convinced of this. It knows it is threatened by Beijing.

If Professor Alllison had not been one of Caspar Weinberger’s advisers at the Pentagon in the 1980s and if he had been more educated, he would have understood that the Chinese do not reason at all like the Americans. He would have listened to Beijing protesting against any competitive project and advocating "win-win" agreements. He would not have interpreted this formula in the Anglo-Saxon sense, i.e. ensuring the success of one without harming the other, but in the Chinese sense. In the past, when the Emperor took a decision, he could only enforce it in his provinces if he ensured that each province was satisfied. Since some of his decrees had no impact in a particular province, he had to create something to interest the province. The emperor’s power could only be maintained if he did not leave anyone out, including the smallest.

Today, whenever Washington talks about "competition" with Beijing, China replies that there is no question of it, that it does not accept any rivalry or war, but aims at harmony between all through win-win relations.

 

 

CHINESE ’TRICKERY’

 

One might think that Westerners were panicking about China’s sudden economic development. The agreement between Deng Xiaoping and the US multinationals has benefited the lowest wages and led to a vast relocation of Western factories to China. The middle classes are disappearing in the West while they have grown in China, and now in most of Asia. The European Commission, which twenty years ago welcomed this phenomenon, began in 2009 to criticise the organisation of the Chinese economy. In fact, these criticisms existed before, but what changed in 2009 was that they became the competence of Brussels under the Lisbon Treaty. Depending on the case, they relate to patent theft, non-compliance with environmental standards or Chinese economic nationalism.

The acquisition of Western know-how is perfectly acceptable to Beijing. Patents are a relatively new practice in the world. They were invented two centuries ago in Europe. Until then, it was considered that no one was the owner of an invention; that it should benefit everyone. The Chinese still consider this. They have no intention of stealing from anyone, so they sign commercial agreements with technology transfer. Then they keep them and develop them.

 

In previous years, Westerners relocated their polluting industries to China. Now they are offended that China has lower environmental standards than they do, but have no intention of bringing polluting industries back home. The cultural misunderstanding reached a peak at the recent COP26 in Glasgow. The West demands decarbonisation of the global economy, while the Chinese want to fight pollution. Beijing therefore signed a joint declaration [2] with Washington to show that it did not want to offend the US. The declaration assures that the two countries are on the same line without clarifying anything and without making any concrete commitments. No Chinese diplomat has ever said no to anyone, and the word does not exist in their language. From a Chinese point of view, this joint declaration is a diplomatic "No", from a US point of view, it is proof that the whole world believes in the anthropic cause of global warming.

As for the accusations of economic nationalism, the Chinese have never hidden the fact: they are nationalists and have still not digested the colonialism to which they were subjected. While they have converted to capitalism in international trade, they remain nationalistic in their production.

There was never any deception, or even a desire to deceive, on the part of the Chinese; simply the complacency of the US and its partners in believing that everyone else thinks like them, in disregarding Beijing’s discreet warnings to them.

 

 

CHINESE ’IMPERIALISM’

 

The most important misconception concerns China’s military development. In less than a decade, Beijing began mass-producing highly sophisticated weapons. The people’s army, which in the past was primarily a workforce for the community, is now an elite corps. Military service is compulsory for all, but only the best of the best can hope to do it and enjoy the benefits it confers. A few years ago, from a military point of view, China was only as good as its numbers; today, it has the largest navy in the world and is capable of deafening and blinding NATO’s armies by pulverising its satellites.

But what can it use this debauchery of men and weapons for? China has invested astronomical sums in building silk roads abroad. It must ensure the security of its personnel and investments in distant countries. Moreover, as in ancient times and the Middle Ages, it will have to ensure security on these routes at all times. Its military bases abroad are intended only for these two purposes and not to compete with the United States or to invade the world. For example, its base in Djibouti has allowed it to secure its maritime supplies against Somali pirates. In passing, it is worth noting that Beijing and Moscow quickly succeeded in doing this, while Nato, which had taken on the same mission, failed completely [3].

Beijing does not want to relive its deprivation by the unequal treaties that led to its occupation and plunder by eight foreign powers (Austria-Hungary, Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States). It is therefore perfectly legitimate for it to arm itself to match what these powers have become. This does not mean that it intends to act like them, but that it intends to protect itself from them.

 

 

Thierry Meyssan

 

Translation 

Roger Lagassé

 

 

Read more:

https://www.voltairenet.org/article214981.html

 

 

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enabling war...

America Must Stop Enabling The Saudi War In Yemen

 

The Senate can begin ending the crisis by passing legislation to cancel an American arms sale to Saudi Arabia.

 

BY Rand Paul

 

Saudi Arabia’s air and naval blockade of Yemen is an abomination. For years now, ships that would otherwise carry food, fuel, and medicine to the country have been turned away by the Saudi-led coalition, depriving the Yemeni people of the necessities to sustain civilization. Saudi Arabia’s intervention in the Yemeni civil war is a chilling example of the cruelty of warfare by starvation. According to the United Nations, five million people are one step away from succumbing to famine and disease, and ten million more are right behind them.

But, this week, the Senate can start the process of ending this crisis by passing my legislation to cancel an American arms sale to Saudi Arabia that aids and abets the subjugation of the Yemeni people.

 

The children of Yemen who survive Saudi Arabia’s barbaric blockade will inevitably tell their sons and daughters of the horrors of their youth. And those sons and daughters will tell their sons and daughters. Through oral tradition, a thousand generations of Yemenis will know of the crown prince’s ruthlessness. And they will also know that it was the Americans that sold him the weapons to wage his murderous campaign.

The reports from Yemen describe a nightmare. The Washington Post reported of a three-year-old boy who could not walk or speak; the Post described his face as “skeletal” and arms and legs as “thin as twigs.” He weighed ten pounds, and his father said that he sometimes goes two days without eating because Saudi import restrictions have made food prohibitively expensive, as if mere sustenance was a luxury. The New York Times told the story of a mother who, after three days of failing to find a ride, carried her 8-month-old son while walking two hours to reach medics to treat acute malnutrition. Even after a week of treatment with enriched formula, the boy still lay motionless on his hospital bed.

Tens of thousands of children have already died from disease, malnutrition, or starvation. International aid agencies, who also have to fight the Saudi blockade to provide humanitarian assistance, put it succinctly: “the people of Yemen are not starving. They are being starved.”

The Saudi siege of Yemen is made possible because of American weaponry. The arsenal provided by the United States includes billions of dollars’ worth of military aircraft and thousands of air-to-ground munitions. Only weeks ago, the Biden administration approved a new $650 million sale of 280 advanced medium range air-to-air missiles and 596 missile launchers to the Saudis. As painful as it is to admit, the United States is an accessory to Saudi savagery.

President Biden says the latest sale is merely to help defend Saudi territorial integrity, but the commander-in-chief’s words do not match Saudi actions. According to William Hartung, the director of the Arms and Security Program at the Center for International Policy, “the air blockade is enforced by a threat to shoot down any aircraft, military or civilian, that enters Yemeni air space with the goal of landing at Sana’a airport. The provision of air-to-air missiles gives further credibility to this threat, dissuading any government or aid group from bringing in crucial medicines or flying patients in and out of Yemen.” In other words, no weapon is exclusively defensive and continued American arm sales means continued death and starvation in Yemen.

I am leading a bipartisan effort to end America’s complicity in Saudi Arabia’s war on the Yemeni people. This week, I will force a vote on a bipartisan disapproval resolution that proposes to cancel the arms sale. To overcome an almost certain veto, this effort will require the support of two thirds of both chambers of Congress. If members of Congress believe in humanitarianism, if they believe America is a force for good that serves as a model for other nations to emulate, if they believe that the crushing of the Yemeni people must be stopped, then they must vote for the resolution of disapproval.

We have a chance to tell the crown prince that American arms sales will end until he gives up his starvation campaign. We can end the Saudi blockade and bring relief to the long-suffering Yemeni people. Should we fail to seize this opportunity, history will never let us forget that America, the last best hope for humanity, failed to protect defenseless civilians from the cruelty of a criminal regime.

 

Read more: https://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/america-must-stop-enabling-the-saudi-war-in-yemen/

 

 

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idiots in washington...

Back in June, immediately after the Putin-Biden summit, the willingness of the United States to "clear up the rubble" in bilateral relations was highly questionable. US President Joe Biden even gave the Russian authorities six months or a year to "release people from prisons" and restore order in the field of cybersecurity. Biden's ultimatum-like requirements sounded ridiculous as Russia could also make a lot of reciprocal claims against the US authorities, but this is not the path that leads to mutual understanding and good relations.

Not too long ago, it transpired that Russia was allegedly preparing a military invasion of Ukraine in early 2022. News agencies of the world reported Russia's military buildup on the border with Ukraine. Moscow denied such assumptions, but the West continued trumpeting about another portion of sanctions against Russia while promising military assistance to Ukraine. US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken and his deputy Victoria Nuland announced that "aggressive" Russia would face with high-impact economic measures and more sanctions that it had never seen before.

 

Journalists and politicians in the West speak of the imminent military conflict as something beyond doubt. Joe Biden did not stand aside either and promised to make it "very, very hard" for Russian President Vladimir Putin to take military action against Ukraine. He assured journalists that he had known about Russia's actions for a long time, and therefore intended to hold a long discussion with Putin. It is difficult not to agree with official representative of Russia's Ministry of Foreign Affairs Maria Zakharova, who said that Washington was conducting a special operation to aggravate the situation around Ukraine to shift responsibility for the crisis on Russia. In general, this is common tactics that Washington resorts to, but "the scale of impudence and lies" is impressive.

Assessing the above-mentioned threats from the West, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that they would boomerang on their instigators. According to Lavrov, Western colleagues have completely lost the culture of dialogue, diplomatic negotiations, consensus efforts and the ability to creatively seek a balance of interests. Indeed, after British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss rode a NATO tank near the Russian border in Estonia, Lavrov's "diagnosis" looks too prosaic.

It is not enough for the West to drag the countries of the former socialist camp and the Baltic states into the ranks of the North Atlantic Alliance — they want Ukraine and Georgia there too.

Putin frequently resorts to NATO's eastward expansion despite all the verbal promises that the West had given. Russia's legitimate security concerns are still being ignored. Therefore, Putin proposed negotiations with the United States and its allies to work out specific agreements that would contain legally binding guarantees to prevent NATO's expansion eastward.

Sergei Lavrov expanded on Putin's points at a recent meeting of the OSCE Council of Foreign Ministers. The transformation of Russia's neighboring countries into a springboard for confrontation with Moscow, the deployment of NATO forces in the immediate vicinity of strategically important areas is strongly unacceptable. Moscow defines the creation of such threats as the red lines that should not be crossed.

Unfortunately, the West is ready to take a chance on peace in Europe for the sake of its geopolitical ambitions, and it appears at times that Western officials do not realise the danger of slipping into a large-scale war the consequences of which would be unpredictable for the world.

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg stated that Moscow could not veto Ukraine's admission to the alliance. Russia has no rights to build its spheres of influence and attempt to control its neighbors, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said at a news conference following a meeting of NATO foreign ministers. One shall assume that it is only the West that has the right to build its spheres of influence.

Sober voices amid this anti-Russian hysteria can still be heard at times. For example, Samuel Charap, a senior political scientist at the RAND Corporation, called on the Biden administration to recognize that America's leverage was limited. The United States, in all likelihood, will not be able to coerce Putin to unilateral concessions. Washington's carrot and stick policy is repetitive and uneventful: there is always pressure against Moscow, and all kinds of support for Ukraine.

Samuel Charap believes that the United States could push Kiev to hold a general amnesty or promote constitutional amendments on the special status of Donetsk and Luhansk regions in the Parliament? This could defuse the current crisis and prevent a potential catastrophe. Biden will have to push Ukraine to implement the Minsk agreements, to a compromise, the American expert believes.

According to Hamilton College Professor Alan Cafruny, the rise in tensions between the United States and Russia over the past few months is largely a consequence of the Geneva summit.

There are forces in the US foreign policy establishment that put tremendous pressure on the Biden administration to prevent any rapprochement with Moscow.

For the time being, the United State "cooperates" with Russia by increasing the supplies of lethal weapons to Ukraine, holding naval maneuvers in the Black Sea and flying NATO military aircraft near Russia's airspace.

A vicious circle ensues: Washington's actions provoke a new round of Russian military mobilization, which inspires Biden's bellicose critics at home even more. There is a danger that the escalation will push Kiev to committing a fatal mistake, as it happened to Georgia in 2008. Cafruny considers Putin's initiatives to be justified, since his requirement for the non-expansion of NATO could become a starting point for negotiations.

Successful test launches of the Zircon hypersonic missile appear to be a good argument in negotiations with Washington. Putin made it clear that the appearance of attack complexes in Ukraine would not go unanswered. The hawks in the White House need to be arrogant fools not to understand such clear messages from the Kremlin.

 


Читайте больше на https://english.pravda.ru/world/149821-usa_russia/

 

 

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the pentagon racket...

 

No matter how you feel about the Pentagon and the military-industrial complex, you can’t help but be impressed at how they are able to successfully plunder and loot American taxpayers, no matter how much needless death, suffering, and destruction they wreak on people around the world.

Think about it: They just exited Afghanistan after their 20-year failed war against the Taliban, a war that left thousands of American soldiers and countless Afghans dead and the entire country destroyed. On top of all that death and destruction was the total waste of hundreds of billions of dollars in U.S. taxpayer money. It’s also worth mentioning that for those entire 20 years, they intentionally lied to the American people regarding progress in their undeclared forever war.

And what has been the result? They get rewarded! Congress is on the verge of giving them more taxpayer money than ever before! That’s impressive, even if in a negative way!

In other words, they are no longer wasting money in Afghanistan in the form of bombs, bullets, gasoline, oil, medicare care for wounded soldiers, etc. That’s got to mean that a lot of money is now being saved.

 

So, does Congress reduce the military’s budget by the amount of money that is no longer being wasted in Afghanistan? Are you kidding? Like I say, believe it or not, they are actually upping the amount of U.S. taxpayer money that they are allocating to these people! They are giving them more taxpayer money than when they were in Afghanistan wasting all that taxpayer money!

That is power, sheer power! How can anyone not be impressed by it, even if In a negative way?

The fact is that the Pentagon, the CIA, and the NSA own Congress, lock, stock, and barrel. Not only is Congress filled with national-security state assets, even those members of Congress who maintain the appearance of some degree of independence do not dare to buck the national-security establishment. They know that if they were to buck them, they would soon be targeted with extinction in the next election.

There is another factor that is impressive in a negative way — the ability of the Pentagon and the CIA to engender official enemies to scare Congress into granting the national-security establishment whatever it wants.

Just look how they have succeeded in converting their old Cold War enemies, China and Russia, into new big official enemies of the United States. After milking the “war on terrorism” racket for as much as they could for the past 20 years, they’re now circling back to milk their old Cold War racket against their old Cold War communist enemies. 

What’s also fascinating is how they are able to engender these official enemies while convincing people that they are the innocent victims who are forced into defending America and the world from the barbarians at the gate.

Consider how they have done this with Russia. Their strategy has been absolutely brilliant, again in a negative way. 

First, they tell Russia that NATO will not expand eastward after Russia called it quits on the Cold War racket. It was a lie. Instead, NATO began gobbling up former members of the Warsaw Pact, moving NATO’s forces and U.S. missiles inexorably closer to Russia’s borders. 

When NATO threatened to absorb Ukraine, which would have given the Pentagon and the CIA control over Crimea and also enable the U.S. to station missiles right on Russia’s border, NATO officials and U.S. officials knew precisely that Russia would have to react.

When Russia did react in the predicable way, the U.S. response was brilliant, again in a negative way. Instead of NATO and the U.S. creating the crisis, it was Russia who was presented as the aggressor. NATO, Ukraine, and the U.S. were all seen as the victims of Russian aggression. The only thing that was missing was the threat of “godless communism,” which was the basis of their Cold War racket against Russia and the rest of the Soviet Union.

It’s been pretty much the same with China. While the U.S. government was mired down with its forever wars in the Middle East and Afghanistan, China was prospering and establishing friendly relations with countries all over the world. The U.S. Empire could not tolerate that. That’s when they launched their vicious trade war against China and began doing everything they could to destroy China’s economic prosperity. Among their favorite weapons was economic sanctions, a foreign-policy tool that targets the civilian population of a country as as way to achieve political ends.

Today, China is portrayed by the U.S. mainstream press as a grave threat to U.S. national security, just like it was during the Cold War racket. In one way, the situation with China is even better than with Russia. Given that China is still a communist regime, U.S. officials and their assets in the U.S. mainstream press can still use the “godless communism” angle that they did during the Cold War racket.

Since the Pentagon and the CIA are still killing people in the Middle East, the threat of anti-American terrorism continues to exist. Combine that with the scary notion that the Russians and Chinese Reds are coming to get us, and you have the perfect justification for the continuation and expansion of the U.S. national-security state and its deadly, destructive, and very expensive rackets.

 

Read more:

https://www.fff.org/2021/12/08/the-omnipotent-power-of-the-pentagon/

 

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