#Trump’s Baffling Plan to Pillage #Syria’s #Oil. Trump: “We may have to fight for the oil. It’s O.K.” #energy #MiddleEast #Arab https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/trumps-baffling-plan-...

resident Trump dropped a stunner during his rambling press conference, on Sunday, after announcing the death of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the Islamic State leader, in a U.S. raid. In a major policy flip-flop, the President said that he is not only keeping American forces in Syria to “secure” its oil fields, he is willing to go to war over them. “We may have to fight for the oil. It’s O.K.,” he said. “Maybe somebody else wants the oil, in which case they have a hell of a fight. But there’s massive amounts of oil.” The United States, he added, should be able to take some of Syria’s oil. “What I intend to do, perhaps, is make a deal with an ExxonMobil or one of our great companies to go in there and do it properly,” he said. The goal would be to “spread out the wealth.”

The President was wrong on so many counts. Seizing the oil, after twice ordering all U.S. troops out of Syria, violates a basic international treaty on war. It may amount to pillaging—even piracy, according to legal experts and former senior military commanders. “Bring in US oil companies to modernize the field. WHAT ARE WE BECOMING.... PIRATES?” General Barry McCaffrey (Ret.), who commanded a mechanized Army division in Iraq during the Gulf War, tweeted.

Trump’s new policy may also violate the military authorization from Congress which allowed the United States to enter Syria. It certainly violates Syrian sovereignty. “If ISIS is defeated we lack Congressional authority to stay,” McCaffrey tweeted. “The oil belongs to Syria.”

Trump’s suggestion that the U.S. could expropriate a portion of Syria’s oil “sounds like the international crime of pillage,” Ryan Goodman, a former special legal counsel at the Department of Defense who is now at the New York University School of Law, said. Any such move is prohibited by the Geneva Conventions and by the precedents set by the United Nations war-crimes tribunals that the U.S. helped establish in Yugoslavia, Rwanda, and Sierra Leone. “U.S. military commanders who engaged in pillaging Syria’s oil would risk criminal liability under the U.S. War Crimes Act,” Goodman said. The international rules of war, he added, were designed “to deter nations from engaging in predatory wars to seize other countries’ natural resources.”

Most of all, the new policy—which may keep some five hundred American troops in Syria—wasn’t well thought out, U.S. officials and Middle East experts told me. “It was seat-of-the-pants type shit,” a U.S. official said. Another told me, “To say the oil stuff isn’t thought through is an understatement. The N.S.C. is scrambling to build policy around the President’s tweets.” Joshua Landis, a Syria expert at the University of Oklahoma, described it as “cockamamie.”

What’s particularly baffling is that Syria now produces a piddling amount of oil—about as much as Utah. “Syrian oil was not significant at all to the world market. It was very small,” Daniel Yergin, an energy expert and vice-chairman of IHS Markit, told me. At its peak, Syria produced less than four hundred thousand barrels a day, which generated about a quarter of government revenues. But, as a result of the eight-year civil war and U.S. air strikes on oil installations seized by isis, production is down ninety per cent, to only about forty-thousand barrels per day, Yergin said. That’s a negligible amount on global markets—inadequate even for Syria’s domestic needs.

After isis seized a third of Syrian territory, in 2014, oil became the financial lifeblood for the isis caliphate. “Syrian oil took on global interest when it became a machine for generating revenue for isis,” Yergin said. As the caliphate collapsed, the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces took over running the fields. Oil revenues supported its military and civilian programs.

Donald #Trump is eyeing #Afghanistan's $1 trillion #mineral #wealth. Experts say getting hold of them is 'a pipe dream' https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/afghanistan-do...

Country's rich deposits of gold, silver, platinum, iron ore and copper could represent path to economic independence but experts call plan to tap into them 'a pipe dream'

US President Donald Trump is eyeing Afghanistan's mineral wealth to help pay for a 16-year war and reconstruction efforts that have already cost $117 billion. Investors who have studied the country, one of the world's most dangerous, say that is a pipe dream.

Ever since a United States Geological Survey study a decade ago identified deposits later estimated to have a potential value of as much as $1 trillion, both Afghan and foreign officials have trumpeted the reserves as a likely key to economic independence for Afghanistan.

As well as deposits of gold, silver and platinum, Afghanistan has significant quantities of iron ore, uranium, zinc, tantalum, bauxite, coal, natural gas and significant copper - a particular draw given the dearth of rich new copper mines globally.

Afghanistan, some reports say, even has the potential to become “the Saudi Arabia of lithium”, thanks to deposits of the raw material used in phone and electric car batteries.

But a lack of basic logistics - paved roads and rail links needed to export copper concentrate or iron ore - pervasive corruption, a messy bureaucracy and a growing insurgency that has left much of the country beyond the writ of the Kabul government have stifled attempts to a build a legitimate mining sector.

Much of the basic data dates back to the Soviet occupation in the 1980s. And the cost of having foreign geologists and engineers visit remote sites to carry out new surveys is prohibitive when nothing is yet being produced to pay for it.

Destiny of CPEC depends on regional peace, while potential Afghan civil war serves US interests
By Aasma Wadud
Published: Jul 09, 2021 03:12 PM

https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202107/1228255.shtml


War is not an event. It is an economy. Countries like the US have reaped fortunes from it, leaving both destruction and devastation behind. With US troops leaving Afghanistan, the future of the country remains uncertain. It symbolizes that Afghanistan will be abandoned and left alone to an inevitable defeat at the hands of the Taliban. Critics are forecasting a civil war, but there is another perspective that many fail to recognize: The US failed to link its evacuation of troops to sustainable peace, but was it circumstantial or intentional?

With China emerging as an economic superpower, the war economy is now obsolete. China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) has given the world generally and the region precisely a new dimension where growth, development, stability, and peace are inevitable for every nation. Afghanistan has been burning like fuel for decades with the past's war economy. Sometimes directly and sometimes through proxies, the past's superpowers have manipulated its geopolitical location, culture, political and social dynamics. Sadly, in the past, war was a commodity that was bought and sold conveniently; Afghan war complemented the needs of those nations with power. With the situation still unfolding, is Afghanistan on the verge of another civil war, or will things change for the better this time?

The last G7 meeting in June 2021 aimed to develop strategies to counter China's BRI, which signifies its importance. The US has invested in India to counter China's influence in the region. But to America's surprise, India has failed to deliver what it was expected to achieve. Because of this, the US needed to find another more spontaneous and swift solution to the loss of its hegemony. With rapid US troop evacuation, Afghan civil war seems to be the apparent outcome, especially for war-dependent economies like the US and its allies. A civil war can serve the US multiple purposes, including some form of instability in the region to counter the BRI. It could sabotage the CPEC and maximize pressure on Pakistan's economy, which is essential to potentially winning the country's most-needed cooperation. Moreover, it could offer the US' struggling economy new support. In the past, time and again, Afghanistan has fallen prey to war economy ventures, but times have changed. With US troops leaving Afghanistan, Indian investment in the country is going to fall off. It has limited alternatives to defending its strategic interests in Afghanistan. Additionally, it fears a new wave of terrorism, and is concerned about the Taliban's growing presence. Finally, as the region stabilizes, Kashmir will see more prominence and limelight.

With the BRI and CPEC, peace has become the hottest commodity in the region. In many ways, the world's future economic growth depends on peace in Afghanistan. It is a fact that Afghanistan's internal dynamics remain the same, where domestic warlords are still significant. The Taliban has evolved from the roadside fighting group to a more flexible and accepting political entity. They are more diverse, with Afghan, Tajik and Uzbek representation. Furthermore, geopolitical transformation will have an impact on the whole situation. In the past, stakeholders were manipulated for war; but this time, "peace" will be the product offered and bought.

The destiny of the BRI and CPEC depend on peace in Afghanistan. China is known for positively contributing to other countries' economies, development, and growth. China will go the extra mile to ensure peace in the region, and will look to ensure a new chapter of growth and prosperity is achieved in Afghanistan.

Lyrics by Prince

Land of the free, home of the brave
Oops, I mean
Land of the free, home of the slave
Get down on your knees, hit me

-----------------

Welcome to America
Where you can fail at your job, get fired, rehired
And get a seven hundred billion dollar tip
Come on in, sit right down
And fill up your pockets, yeah
Mass media, information overload
Welcome to America
(The following message is brought to you by Viacom)
Distracted by the features of the iPhone
(Got an application for each of situation)
In other words, taken by a pretty face
Somebody's watching you (I see you, I see you)
Welcome to America
Hook up later at the iPad
And we can meet at my place (welcome to America)
Welcome (welcome to America)
To America
Where everything and nothing that Google says is hip
(The sales tax for the following items)
(Will be raised immediately, cigarettes)
We will not raise your taxes
Read our lips
Welcome to America (America)
Welcome to the big show (to America)
Everybody's looking for something
When there ain't no place to go (welcome to America)
Except inside America (America)
That's the only place I know (to America)
Transformation happens deep within, yes or no?
Yes
Welcome to America
One of our greatest exports was a thing called jazz
You think today's music will last?
(Dismantle all monopolies)
(Dismantle all monopolies)
Welcome to America
Welcome
Hope and change, everything takes forever
And truth is a new minority (truth)
Oh, welcome to America
Welcome to America
Today we'd like to discuss America's plan to fix the educational system
The pledge of allegiance will now read as follows
I pledge allegiance to the earth of the United States of the Universe
Welcome to America
There is no arguing with the book (when am I gonna learn something new?)
There is no arguing with the book (who's gonna teach it to me, you?)
There is no arguing with the book (what's that outside my windowsill)
There is no (could it be?) Arguing (our free will?)
You say yes, I say no, yet love flows
America can provide many opportunities
For the young female who wishes to work (for the state)
For her own advancement up from the underclass to become one
Welcome to America
Go to school to become a celebrity
(F-A-M-O-U-S) but don't be late
And everybody and they mama got a sex tape
Welcome to America
We snatch bass players, not purses
Keep playing, it gets worse
Land of the free, home of the brave
Oops, I mean
Land of the free, home of the slave
Get down on your knees, hit me
Welcome to America
Welcome to the big show
Everybody's looking for something
When there ain't no place to go (that's it y'all)
Except inside America
That's the only place I know (Chinese)
Transformation happens deep within, yes or no? (Or get down on your knees)
Source: LyricFind

George W. Bush's Freudian Slip on #Ukraine: "Brutal Invasion of #Iraq". Ex #US president condemned #Putin's "brutal, unjustified invasion of Iraq" and then blamed the slip on age. #Russia https://youtu.be/bZKWn3RcPZU

Excerpts of McNamara, Craig. Because Our Fathers Lied (pp. 195-196). Little, Brown and Company. Kindle Edition.

We sat in the front row. My kids were on either side of me. As crazy as it seems, I was prepared to climb up on the stage and tackle anyone who came near him. I wasn’t in the same condition that I’d been in as the MVP of my high school football team, but I’d been farming for the past quarter century. I felt I was strong enough. When Dad came out onstage, the auditorium fell silent. The possibility of confrontation—the awkwardness and the silent threat—was in the air like electricity before a thunderstorm. The moderator showed selected clips from The Fog of War. The clips focused on my father’s “Eleven Lessons,” first enumerated in his memoir, In Retrospect, and later used by Errol Morris as a through line for the film. The lessons are: Empathize with your enemy. Rationality alone will not save us. There’s something beyond one’s self. Maximize efficiency. Proportionality should be a guideline in war. Get the data. Belief and seeing are both often wrong. Be prepared to reexamine your reasoning. In order to do good, you may have to engage in evil. Never say never. You can’t change human nature. During the conversation that followed, Mark Danner pushed my father on these lessons, attempting to draw out a comparison with Iraq. At one point, Danner asked specifically whether the lessons from the Vietnam War should be applied to America’s impending adventure in 2003. My father steadfastly refused to comment. He gave various reasons—among them that it could pose a risk to American soldiers in the field. He also said that ex-cabinet members shouldn’t comment on the jobs current cabinet members are doing. He would repeat these nonanswers to the Iraq question in numerous other interviews. For those of us who despised Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld and felt the invasion of Iraq was a mistake, it was frustrating that Robert McNamara wouldn’t comment directly. It brought back painful memories of his silence after 1968. There had been such hope and such disappointment. “We human beings killed a hundred and sixty million other human beings in the twentieth century,” he said. He was almost shouting, jabbing his finger at Mark Danner. “Is that what we want in this century?” In classic fashion, Dad answered his own question. “I don’t think so!” At one point, Danner asked Dad how he dealt with reporters during difficult press conferences as secretary of defense. Dad said, “Don’t answer the question they asked. Answer the question you wish they’d asked.” Does this mean tell a lie? Growing up in his house, with his rules, I considered him to be an honest person. I’m sure I can remember him saying “Don’t tell lies” when I was a little kid. I’m sure that I passed on to my own children the same lesson. How could someone as intelligent as Dad fail to see the contradiction? Maybe his hypocrisy has to do with Lesson Number Three. That’s the one that matters most to me. I think it’s the one he most failed to live up to.

-------------
I once asked Errol what it was like to spend so much time with my father. He responded that he felt my father was thoughtful and self-doubting: a decent and magnificent man, a person he deeply respected and learned a lot from. He liked him. However, he also told me that he felt conflicted about the decisions my father made as secretary of defense. He said that he considered Dad a war criminal. I wondered, How could you feel even the most remote affection for a war criminal? In maybe the same conversation, I expressed to Errol my dismay over the run-up to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and I told him that I considered men like Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney, and Paul Wolfowitz to be evil. I felt hatred for these men—the last of whom had a career very similar to my father’s, because it also included a tenure at the World Bank.

McNamara, Craig. Because Our Fathers Lied (pp. 197-198). Little, Brown and Company. Kindle Edition.

Ben Norton @BenjaminNorton The US military launched at least 251 foreign interventions from 1991 to 2022. This is according to a report from the US government's own Congressional Research Service. I went through the data and created a map showing just how vast the meddling is: https://multipolarista.com/2022/09/13/us-251-military-interventions... https://twitter.com/BenjaminNorton/status/1569800676678696960?s=20&...

Pentagon Orders Review of Its Overseas Social Media Campaigns
The move comes after Twitter and Facebook shut down misleading accounts that they determined were sending messages to promote U.S. foreign policy.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/19/us/politics/pentagon-social-medi...

WASHINGTON — White House officials told the military that they were concerned about its efforts to spread pro-American messaging on social media, prompting the Pentagon to order a review of secretive operations to influence populations overseas, U.S. officials said.

The review follows a decision by Twitter and Facebook over the summer to shut down misleading accounts that they determined were sending messages about U.S. foreign policy interests abroad.

The Pentagon audit and White House concerns were first reported by The Washington Post.

Disinformation researchers said the campaigns largely fell into two camps. Most of the campaigns spread pro-American messages, including memes and slogans that praised the United States. Those programs were similar to how Beijing often spreads disinformation by seeding positive messages about life in China.

One campaign targeting Iran, however, spread divisive messages about life there. The accounts involved pushed out views that both supported and opposed the Iranian government. That disinformation effort resembled the methods used by Russia to influence the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

For years U.S. military commands have promoted pro-American news and messages for audiences overseas, sometimes earning the scrutiny of Congress. But the decision by the social media companies to shut down some accounts associated with the military suggested that the activity had gone further.

Twitter and Meta, the parent company of Facebook, removed accounts that they said violated their terms of service by taking part in “coordinated inauthentic behavior.”

A report in August by Stanford University’s Internet Observatory and the social media analytics firm Graphika said those accounts were pushing pro-American messages in the Middle East and Central Asia. The two groups attributed some of the accounts taken down by Facebook and Twitter to the Trans-Regional Web Initiative, a more than 10-year-old Pentagon initiative that sends out information in support of the United States in areas where the U.S. military operates.

The postings varied widely in sophistication. Some of the more polished work was aimed at Twitter and Telegram users in Iran and pushed a wide variety of views. While most of the messages were critical of the Iranian government, researchers said others were supportive of it, the kind of activity that could potentially be designed to inflame debate and sow divisions in the country.

No Cold War
@NoColdWar
Former US President Jimmy Carter turns 98 today. His thoughts on US-China relations may surprise you:

"Since we normalized relations with China in 1979, the US has been in constant war. China has not been in combat with anyone."

"[The US] is the most warlike country on earth."

https://twitter.com/NoColdWar/status/1576317498693414912?s=20&t...

Jeffrey Sachs, a professor of sustainable development at Columbia University, said he’s “pretty convinced” the virus came out of a “U.S. lab biotechnology,” although he added that “we don’t know for sure.”

https://www.politico.eu/article/josep-borrell-jeffrey-sachs-adviser...

The latest effort by Sachs — a long-time advocate of dismantling American hegemony and embracing the rise of China — to put blame on U.S. labs has been circulated on Chinese social media, including by the Chinese embassy to France this week.


Sachs is engaged by the European Commission as a special adviser to foreign policy chief Josep Borrell to focus on “cooperation policy.”

Chinese diplomats have repeatedly accused the U.S. of developing biotechnology that transformed into the coronavirus, a claim rejected by the EU as disinformation. The World Health Organization chief last year complained that China was not transparent enough, saying there was a "premature push" to rule out the theory that the virus might have escaped from a Chinese government lab in Wuhan.

A spokesman for the EU’s foreign policy arm sought to draw distance from Sachs.

“Jeffrey Sachs is an external unpaid adviser of the HRVP [Borrell] … The external advisers are external, independent personalities. They are not EU officials. They therefore do not speak for the HRVP, nor for the Commission. Their views are their own,” the spokesman said, stressing that Sachs’ commitment was only for 20 working hours per year.

Contradicting Sachs’ latest speculation about the coronavirus’ origin, the EU spokesman said that “a laboratory accident has been categorized as extremely unlikely” according to a WHO study.

Sachs told POLITICO the virus "quite likely emerged from a U.S.-backed laboratory research program ... A natural spillover is also possible, of course. Both hypotheses are viable at this stage."

Watch Professor Jeffrey Sachs describe the US as “the most violent country in the world” and then get shockingly shut down at the Athens Democracy Forum.


https://johnmenadue.com/extraordinary-intervention-by-jeffrey-sachs...

Sach’s argues that what matters is a country’s unique governance culture: classifying countries in political systems (“liberal democracy or not”) is oversimplifying.

He doesn’t hold back when describing the US governance culture: “A semi-democratic white-dominated hierarchical racist society that aims to preserve privilege by the elites [and founded as] a slave-owning genocidal country”. Ouch!

That’s why he argues that “the biggest mistake of president Biden was to say ‘the greatest struggle of the world is between democracies and autocracies’.”

He adds: “The real struggle of the world is to live together and overcome our common crises” under thunderous applause.


He says “the solution in [this world] is to speak with each other more […] Our political elites in the US do not speak with Chinese political elites except to point fingers or to yell at them. […] If we would seat down to speak with each other, we’d actually get somewhere.”

Last but not least, he destroys the myth that “democracies” are more peaceful: “the most violent country in the world in the 19th century was the most democratic, Britain. The most violent country in the world since 1950 is the US”.


And he gets shockingly shut down by the host.

Here is the full video from the Athens Democracy Forum. (Use the toggle on the red line to skip to Jeffrey Sachs, who starts at 15 minutes).

The Xinjiang Genocide Allegations Are Unjustified
US President Joe Biden's administration has doubled down on the claim that China is mounting a genocide against the Uighur people in the Xinjiang region. But it has offered no proof, and unless it can, the State Department should withdraw the charge and support a UN-based investigation of the situation in Xinjiang.

Jeffrey D. Sachs

https://www.jeffsachs.org/newspaper-articles/apfjc5yg352d554k2ar2ww...


NEW YORK/LONDON – The US government needlessly escalated its rhetoric against China by claiming that a genocide is being mounted against the Uighur people in the Xinjiang region. Such a grave charge matters, as genocide is rightly considered “the crime of crimes.” Many pundits are now calling for a boycott of the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing, dubbing them the “Genocide Olympics.”

The genocide charge was made on the final day of Donald Trump’s administration by then-Secretary of State Michael Pompeo, who made no secret of his belief in lying as a tool of US foreign policy. Now President Joe Biden’s administration has doubled down on Pompeo’s flimsy claim, even though the State Department’s own top lawyers reportedly share our skepticism regarding the charge.

This year’s State Department Country Reports on Human Rights Practices(HRP) follows Pompeo in accusing China of genocide in Xinjiang. Because the HRP never uses the term other than once in the report’s preface and again in the executive summary of the China chapter, readers are left to guess about the evidence. Much of the report deals with issues like freedom of expression, refugee protection, and free elections, which have scant bearing on the genocide charge.

There are credible charges of human rights abuses against Uighurs, but those do not per se constitute genocide. And we must understand the context of the Chinese crackdown in Xinjiang, which had essentially the same motivation as America’s foray into the Middle East and Central Asia after the September 2001 attacks: to stop the terrorism of militant Islamic groups.

As the Hong Kong-based businessman and writer Weijian Shan has recounted, China experienced repeated terrorist attacks in Xinjiang during the same years that America’s flawed response to 9/11 led to repeated US violations of international law and massive bloodshed. Indeed, until late 2020, the US classified the Uighur East Turkestan Islamic Movement as a terrorist group, battled Uighur fighters in Afghanistan, and held many as prisoners. In July 2020, the United Nations noted the presence of thousands of Uighur fighters in Afghanistan and Syria.

The charge of genocide should never be made lightly. Inappropriate use of the term may escalate geopolitical and military tensions and devalue the historical memory of genocides such as the Holocaust, thereby hindering the ability to prevent future genocides. It behooves the US government to make any charge of genocide responsibly, which it has failed to do here.

Genocide is defined under international law by the UN Genocide Convention (1948). Subsequent judicial decisions have clarified its meaning. Most countries, including the United States, have incorporated the Convention’s definition into their domestic legislation without any significant alteration. In the past few decades, the leading UN courts have confirmed that the definition requires proof to a very high standard of the intentional physical destruction of a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group.

#Fifa President Gianni Infantino:"I am European. For what we have been doing for 3,000 years around the world, we should be apologizing for the next 3,000 years before giving moral lessons" #soccer #football #Colonialism #slavery #Qatar #alcoholban https://www.npr.org/2022/11/19/1137962269/fifa-president-gianni-inf...

DOHA, Qatar — FIFA president Gianni Infantino used his opening press conference before the start of the monthlong World Cup to deliver a blistering tirade at the West for continued criticism of host country Qatar and its human rights record.

For an hour, Infantino lectured the international press assembled at the Qatar National Convention Centre and then took questions for 45 minutes. In lengthy, and at times angry remarks, Infantino blasted the criticism of Qatar and FIFA.

"I am European. For what we have been doing for 3,000 years around the world, we should be apologizing for the next 3,000 years before giving moral lessons," he said.

He furthered the defense by saying, "Today I feel Qatari. Today I feel Arab. Today I feel African. Today I feel gay. Today I feel disabled. Today I feel a migrant worker."

Infantino said he has difficulties understanding the criticism and called it hypocrisy. "We have to invest in helping these people, in education and to give them a better future and more hope. We should all educate ourselves, many things are not perfect, but reform and change takes time."

Since FIFA chose Qatar to stage this tournament in 2010, soccer's governing body and the host country have endured withering criticism. It's the first time a Middle Eastern country has hosted a World Cup. A report released this month from the London-based rights group Equidem said the migrant laborers who built the World Cup stadiums worked long hours and under harsh conditions. The report said they were subjected to discrimination, wage theft and other abuses.

Infantino's news conference comes a day after FIFA and Qatar announced that the sale of beer would be banned at the eight stadiums. FIFA said the decision would ensure "the stadiums and surrounding areas provide an enjoyable, respectful and pleasant experience for all fans."

The sale of alcohol is strictly controlled in Qatar, which follows a conservative form of Islam known as Wahhabism. Public consumption of alcohol is only allowed in certain hotels and restaurants.

Infantino said he has been assured by the government in Qatar that LGBTQ fans are welcome in the country. Same-sex relations are illegal and punishable by jail time.

The 64-game tournament kicks off Sunday with host Qatar taking on Ecuador. More than a million fans will travel to the country. Infantino said it would be the best World Cup ever.

Columbia Economics Professor Jeffrey Sachs: “You Can Be Democratic at Home and Ruthlessly Imperial Abroad.” - YouTube

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mPvDrcwmmOU

Sachs said, "The most violent country in the world in the 19th century was the most democratic, or perhaps the 2nd most democratic, was Britain. You can be democratic at home and ruthlessly imperial abroad. The most violent country since 1950 has been the the United States. It's been by far involved in more wars...". That's where he was interrupted by the moderator who said, "Stop. I'm your moderator and it's enough".

Jeffrey Sachs: “Dangerous” U.S. Policy & “West’s False Narrative” Stoking Tensions with Russia, China

https://www.democracynow.org/2022/8/30/wests_false_narrative_china_...


We discuss Western hegemony and U.S. policy in Russia, Ukraine and China with Columbia University economist Jeffrey Sachs, whose new article is headlined “The West’s False Narrative About Russia and China.” Sachs says the bipartisan U.S. approach to foreign policy is “unaccountably dangerous and wrongheaded,” and warns the U.S. is creating “a recipe for yet another war” in East Asia.

https://www.jeffsachs.org/newspaper-articles/h29g9k7l7fymxp39yhzwxc...

AMY GOODMAN: What is the story that people in the West and around the world should understand about what’s happening right now with these conflicts, with Russia, with Russia and Ukraine, and with China?

JEFFREY SACHS: The main point, Amy, is that we are not using diplomacy; we are using weaponry. This sale now announced to Taiwan that you’ve been discussing this morning is just another case in point. This does not make Taiwan safer. This does not make the world safer. It certainly doesn’t make the United States safer.

This goes back a long way. I think it’s useful to start 30 years ago. The Soviet Union ended, and some American leaders got it into their head that there was now what they called the unipolar world, that the U.S. was the sole superpower, and we could run the show. The results have been disastrous. We have had now three decades of militarization of American foreign policy. A new database that Tufts is maintaining has just shown that there have been more than 100 military interventions by the United States since 1991. It’s really unbelievable.

And I have seen, in my own experience over the last 30 years working extensively in Russia, in Central Europe, in China and in other parts of the world, how the U.S. approach is a military-first, and often a military-only, approach. We arm who we want. We call for NATO enlargement, no matter what other countries say may be harmful to their security interests. We brush aside anyone else’s security interests. And when they complain, we ship more armaments to our allies in that region. We go to war when we want, where we want, whether it was Afghanistan or Iraq or the covert war against Assad in Syria, which is even today not properly understood by the American people, or the war in Libya. And we say, “We’re peace-loving. What’s wrong with Russia and China? They are so warlike. They’re out to undermine the world.” And we end up in terrible confrontations.

The war in Ukraine — just to finish the introductory view — could have been avoided and should have been avoided through diplomacy. What President Putin of Russia was saying for years was “Do not expand NATO into the Black Sea, not to Ukraine, much less to Georgia,” which if people look on the map, straight across to the eastern edge of the Black Sea. Russia said, “This will surround us. This will jeopardize our security. Let us have diplomacy.” The United States rejected all diplomacy. I tried to contact the White House at the end of 2021 — in fact, I did contact the White House and said there will be war unless the U.S. enters diplomatic talks with President Putin over this question of NATO enlargement. I was told the U.S. will never do that. That is off the table. And it was off the table. Now we have a war that’s extraordinarily dangerous.

And we are taking exactly the same tactics in East Asia that led to the war in Ukraine. We’re organizing alliances, building up weaponry, trash-talking China, having Speaker Pelosi fly to Taiwan, when the Chinese government said, “Please, lower the temperature, lower the tensions.” We say, “No, we do what we want,” and now send more arms. This is a recipe for yet another war. And to my mind, it’s terrifying.

U.S. Foreign Policy Veteran Says Real Danger Is Here in America - The New York Times


https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/01/us/politics/richard-haass-biden-...


Everywhere he has gone as president of the Council on Foreign Relations, Richard N. Haass has been asked the same question: What keeps him up at night? He has had no shortage of options over the years — Russia, China, Iran, North Korea, climate change, international terrorism, food insecurity, the global pandemic.

But as he steps down after two decades running America’s most storied private organization focused on international affairs, Mr. Haass has come to a disturbing conclusion. The most serious danger to the security of the world right now? The threat that costs him sleep? The United States itself.

“It’s us,” he said ruefully the other day.

That was never a thought this global strategist would have entertained until recently. But in his mind, the unraveling of the American political system means that for the first time in his life the internal threat has surpassed the external threat. Instead of being the most reliable anchor in a volatile world, Mr. Haass said, the United States has become the most profound source of instability and an uncertain exemplar of democracy.

“The West won the world not by the superiority of its ideas or values or religion […] but rather by its superiority in applying organized violence. Westerners often forget this fact; non-Westerners never do.” Samuel P. Huntington

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Ah, so you want India to become a superpower – like America?

by Roger Marshall

Read more at: https://www.deccanherald.com/opinion/ah-so-you-want-india-to-become...


In the agricultural sector, most US farms would be out of business but for cheap migrant labour from Central America, mainly Mexico -- the same Mexico whose lands were expropriated but whose people are still being shut out at the border.

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There are many Indians, politicians and ordinary citizens alike, who would like to see India become a superpower, much along the lines of the United States. Is this in keeping with the ethos of the Indian character? And to what end? To answer these questions, we need to understand what it is in the American character that enabled the US to grow from a 300,000 square-mile territory comprised of 13 original colonies bordering the Atlantic Ocean to a gigantic country covering some 3.5 million square-miles, extending out to the Pacific Ocean.

Read more at: https://www.deccanherald.com/opinion/ah-so-you-want-india-to-become...

Though the phrase ‘manifest destiny’ was coined in 1845 by Democrat John O’Sullivan, the ideology behind the phrase was operative even back in the 1620s, when the first European settlers, the Puritans from England fleeing religious persecution, set foot in North America. Manifest destiny refers to the divine right to “tame and cultivate” the new country by displacing the “uncivilised,” non-Christian peoples who did not take full advantage of the land God had granted them..

This ideology served to justify the violent displacement of native peoples and military takeover of their lands. When the US purchased the territory of Louisiana (over 800,000 square-miles) from France in 1803, it essentially bought Native American tribal land which France neither owned nor controlled, if only to prevent Spain, Britain and Russia from colonising the area. This area is what is now known as Middle America, populated almost entirely by the ancestors of white immigrants from northern Europe


That race has been a huge factor in America’s attainment of superpower status can be seen by examining legislation pertaining to immigration and trade over the last 200 years. While unrestricted immigration from Western Europe has always been allowed, it has been less so for Southern and Eastern Europeans but definitely not for Asians, unless they were slaves and indentured labourers. Even though it was cheap Chinese labour that built the American railroads in the 1870s, the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 drove most of the Chinese out of America. American labour unions believed that Chinese coolies were responsible for declining wages and lowered standards of living.

Read more at: https://www.deccanherald.com/opinion/ah-so-you-want-india-to-become...

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Absent a moral or ethical compass, we suppose that any nation singularly focused on enriching itself can become a superpower. To quote John O’Sullivan, “Yes, more, more, more! . . . till our national destiny is fulfilled and. . the whole boundless continent is ours”.

Read more at: https://www.deccanherald.com/opinion/ah-so-you-want-india-to-become...

Amsterdam riots: what really happened | Media Watch

https://youtu.be/qQ0MJr6v0bI?si=VUv56E8pPGaIobBu

What really happened in Amsterdam’s soccer riots between supporters of Ajax Amsterdam and Maccabi Tel Aviv? We look at how the truth got lost in the rush to judgement.

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The Mayor of Amsterdam has said she regrets using the word 'pogrom' to describe the attacks on Israeli football fans in the Dutch capital following the match between Maccabi Tel Aviv and AFC Ajax.

https://www.euronews.com/2024/11/19/amsterdam-mayor-says-she-regret...

She also condemned Israel for its swift portrayal of the incident as an attack on Israelis, despite prior behaviour by Maccabi supporters in which they chanted anti-Arab slogans and tore down Palestinian flags.

"We were completely caught off guard by Israel. At 3am, (Israeli) Prime Minister (Benjamin) Netanyahu was already giving a lecture about what happened in Amsterdam, while we were still gathering the facts," she said in Sunday's interview.

The football match violence has rocked the Dutch government, with country's finance secretary announcing her resignation on Friday following comments by Hard-right Dutch political leader Geert Wilders.

Wilders last Wednesday blamed Moroccans for the attacks on Israeli football fans, claiming that "we saw Muslims hunting Jews" and added it was fuelled by "Moroccans who want to destroy Jews." He said those convicted of involvement should be deported if they have dual nationality.

Announcing her resignation, Morocco-born Nora Achahbar of centrist New Social Contract party said that "the polarising manners have had such an impact on me that I could, or would, no longer fulfil my role as state secretary."

"Polarisation in society is dangerous because it undermines the bond between people. Because of that, we start seeing each other as opponent instead of fellow citizens," she said in a statement.

AIPAC Tracker
@TrackAIPAC
.
@BernieSanders
puts his Senate colleagues on blast: "Nobody is going to take anything you say with a grain of seriousness! You cannot condemn human rights [violations] around the world and then turn a blind eye to what the United States government is now funding in Israel. People will laugh in your face."

https://x.com/TrackAIPAC/status/1861288868932395380

Arnaud Bertrand
@RnaudBertrand
Quite a sign when Stephen Walt, one of the most renowned scholars of international relations in the world (and Harvard professor), writes an article in Foreign Policy arguing that "Noam Chomsky has been proved right":

https://foreignpolicy.com/2024/11/15/chomsky-foreign-policy-book-re...

Walt agrees with Chomsky that "the claim that U.S. foreign policy is guided by the lofty ideals of democracy, freedom, the rule of law, human rights" is "nonsense".

As he explains, all of US history proves the contrary, from the "genocidal campaign against the indigenous population" the country was founded upon, to the fact it intervened militarily "to thwart democratic processes in many countries, and waged or backed wars that killed millions of people in Indochina, Latin America, and the Middle East."

Walt also agrees with Chomsky that this is enabled by a massive brainwashing campaign on the US population: "government institutions work overtime to 'manufacture consent' by classifying information, prosecuting leakers, lying to the public, and refusing to be held accountable even when things go wrong or malfeasance is exposed. Their efforts are aided by a generally compliant media, which repeats government talking points uncritically and only rarely questions the official narrative."

Walt concludes: "If I were asked whether a student would learn more about U.S. foreign policy by reading [Chomsky's] book or by reading a collection of the essays that current and former U.S. officials occasionally write in journals such as Foreign Affairs or the Atlantic, Chomsky and Robinson would win hands down. I wouldn’t have written that last sentence when I began my career 40 years ago. I’ve been paying attention, however, and my thinking has evolved as the evidence has piled up."

https://x.com/RnaudBertrand/status/1863383555386273996