The Story of the UK General Election Is Not Brexit, it’s the Coming Breakup of Britain

John WIGHT

To grasp the real meaning of the 12 December UK general election result is to understand the history of a state born in mercantilism and sustained by centuries of empire and colonialism.

Allow me to explain.

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, to give the UK its Sunday name, is the epitome of an artificial state. It was and remains the product of the grafting together of divergent cultures, histories and national identities. At inception, this grafting together was undertaken not in the interests of its peoples but in the interests of national elites eager to take advantage of the commercial opportunities of a unified polity with added manpower and resources in an age of empire.

The venality, greed and corruption of the Scottish ruling and political class in the late 17th- early 18th century delivered the Scottish people into the arms of the union with England without their support, establishing thereby the Kingdom of Great Britain. This was reflected in the social unrest and riots that ensued in Scottish towns and cities both during the negotiations that brought into being the 1707 Act of Union, and upon its passage.

For the ruling elites of both Scotland and England the union of both parliaments into one had demonstrable commercial and strategic benefits. The former had been left bankrupt after Scotland’s failed attempt at establishing its own overseas colony in Darien (modern day Panama in Central America) in the late 17th century. In order to forestall national immiseration the need to gain access to England’s overseas colonies was thereafter considered essential.

Meanwhile the English were eager to prevent the possibility of Scotland being used as a staging ground for an invasion from the north by the French in the context of the War of the Spanish Succession that raged between 1701 and 1714.

Wales, the third nation that makes up the UK, had already been merged with England in 1536. Ireland on the other hand was a subjugated English (latterly British) colony, and was officially brought into the orbit of what would then be known as the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland in 1801.

In 1922, after a prolonged national liberation struggle in Ireland, the 26 counties that make up today’s Republic of Ireland achieved dominion status before winning full independence in 1948, while the remaining six counties that make up the the rest of the island of Ireland were partitioned to become what is now Northern Ireland: hence the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland of today.

This necessary historical detour out of the way, here is where things start to bear relevance to Brexit.

An unintended consequence of the Industrial Revolution, one that allowed Britain to go on and establish an empire whch at its height covered a quarter of the globe, was the forging of a united working class whose unity was able to transcend national, cultural and regional differences. This working class unity mirrored the unity of the UK’s ruling elites around the various semi-feudal institutions that underpin the British state — namely the monarchy, House of Lords, and a network of private schools that have reared and churned out succeeding generations of the country’s ruling class.

British working class unity, meanwhile, was the product of the country’s heavy industries — coal mining, steel, shipbuilding, etc. — and was expressed in common economic interests and struggles against a common enemy, the bosses and owners of those industries, in the context of the trade union movement. It also began to manifest politically with the formation of the Labour Party at the start of the 20th century.

In tandem, forged over time, was a British national identity that was nourished by the countless wars the state’s ruling elite unleashed and waged over the centuries of an empire that existed not to spread civilisation and modernity to the ‘dark peoples’ of the planet, as its proponents and apologists have always claimed, but as a juggernaut of exploitation, subjugation and oppression.

In those countless colonial wars working class men were used as cannon fodder in a dynamic that has continued to the present day.

Margaret Thatcher began the destruction of this material base of working class unity across the UK in the 1980s. Her free market revolution and its deindustrialisation of the nation’s economy turned Britain into what it is today — a service economy underpinned by financialised capital.

Today, now, in consequence, the country’s trade union movement, which once wielded considerable economic and political clout, is but a shadow of its former self . The Labour Party, meanwhile, struggled even under Corbyn’s leadership to make a full return to the party’s founding principles after Blair and his centrist crew in the 1990s and on into the first decade of the noughties had gutted them in favour of an embrace with the City of London and big business.

The remnants of this Blairite crew within Labour bear much responsibility for the party’s disastrous showing in the election, having acted as an anti-Corbyn fifth column, determined in alignment with the country’s Tory ruling media, political, and security establishment to prevent Corbyn entering Downing Street at all cost

In so doing, they have only succeeded in ensuring that the break-up of the UK is now well-nigh inevitable, what with the SNP receiving a thumping mandate in Scotland and nationalism in the North of Ireland now a majority political current over unionism. In poetic irony, it was only Corbyn’s socialist programme, offering economic and social transformation, massive investment in the deindustrialised Brexit regions of South Wales and the North and Midlands of England, as well as Scotland, that provided any hope of repairing the regional, national and cultural fault lines that correspond to the breakdown of the 2016 EU referendum vote.

The post-industrial North and Midlands of England, parts of the country virtually untouched by investment and left without hope after being decimated by Thatcher, voted overwhelmingly for Brexit in 2016 a veritable scream from the bowels of austerity Britain. Every one of Scotland’s 32 local authorities, meanwhile, voted to Remain.

Both did so again in the 2019 general election, with Corbyn’s message of social and economic justice failing to penetrate the fog of emotion, rooted not in class but national and cultural identity, surrounding the Brexit-Remain divide.

The result of the election, which Corbyn fought in the teeth of an unprecedented assault by the British ruling establishment, confirms that what was once the United Kingdom is now the dis-United Kingdom, with those previously mentioned national and regional differences informing its peoples’ identities and worldview over the identity of class to an extent previously unseen.

Karl Marx reminds us that: “To call upon people to give up their illusions about their condition, is to call upon them to give up a condition that requires illusions.”

The illusion that Brexit is actually relevant to the needs of those who’ve seen their lives devoured by the beast of neoliberalism and bludgeoned by austerity must soon give way to the unvarnished truth that the UK as we know it is past its sell-by date.

“A reactionary,” the great postwar Labour left icon Nye Bevan once said, “is a man walking backwards with his face to the future.” Surveying a political class presently engaged in ripping itself apart over Brexit, who could argue otherwise?

End.

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OUR AMERICA IN FACE OF ONSLAUGHT OF IMPERIALISM AND OLIGARCHIES

A statement issued by the Cuban Foreign Ministry on Tuesday rejects any responsibility for the popular mobilizations currently rocking several Latin American countries. 

Declaration of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs

The most recent events in the region confirm that the US government and the reactionary oligarchies bear the primary responsibility for the dangerous unrest and political and social instability that broke out in Latin America and the Caribbean.

As was anticipated by the First Secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba, Army General Raúl Castro Ruz, on January 1, 2019: Those who entertained the illusion of the restoration of imperialist domination in our region should understand that Latin America and the Caribbean have changed and so has the world (…) The region resembles a large prairie in times of drought.  A single spark could cause an uncontrollable fire that would damage the national interests of all.”

President Donald Trump proclaims the validity of the Monroe Doctrine and resorts to McCarthyism to maintain the imperialist domination over the natural resources of the region; prevent the exercise of the national sovereignty and the aspirations of regional  integration and cooperation; attempt to re-establish his unipolar and hemispheric  hegemony; eliminate progressive, revolutionary and alternative models to wild capitalism; revert political and social achievements and impose neo-liberal models, with full disregard for International Law, the rules of the game of representative democracy, the environment or the wellbeing of peoples.

This Monday, December 2, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo threateningly accused Cuba and Venezuela of benefiting from and helping to stir up unrest in the countries of the region.  He distorts and manipulates reality and conceals the main reason for the instability in the region, which is the US permanent interference in Latin America and the Caribbean.

The legitimate protests and peoples’ massive demonstrations  that are going on in the continent, particularly in the Plurinational State of Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador and Brazil are caused by poverty and the increasingly unequal distribution of wealth; the certainty that neo-liberal formulas are worsening the exclusive and unsustainable situation of  social vulnerability; the absence or precarious situation of health care, education and social security services; the abuses against human dignity; unemployment and restriction of labor rights; privatization; the increasing cost and cancellation of public services and the increased public insecurity.

They reveal the crisis of political systems, the lack of true democracy, the discredit of traditional conservative parties, the protest against the typical historical corruption of military dictatorships and right-wing governments, the scarce popular support to official authorities, the lack of confidence in institutions and the system of justice.

They also protest against the brutal police repression, the militarization of it using as a pretext the protection of critical infrastructures; the exemption of repressors from criminal liability; the use of military and anti-riot weapons that cause deaths, serious injuries, including hundreds of youths suffering from irreversible eye injuries caused by shotgun pellets; the criminalization of demonstrations; violations, beatings and violence against detainees , among them minors; and even the assassination of social leaders, demobilized guerrillas and journalists.

The United States advocates and supports repression against demonstrators under the pretext of safeguarding the alleged “democratic order”. The complicit silence of several governments, institutions and personalities, that turn out to be very active and critical against the left, is a shame. The complicity of the big corporate media is shameful.

Peoples are very rightly wondering: Where is democracy and the rule of law? What are the institutions that are supposedly devoted to the protection of human rights doing? Where is the justice system whose independence is so much trumpeted?

Let’s review some facts.  In March, 2015, President Barack Obama signed an unheard-of Executive Order declaring the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela as an “unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security, the economy and foreign policy” of that big power. In November, 2015, the costly electoral defeat of the left-wing in Argentina occurred.

The neo-liberal offensive had its momentum in August, 2016, with the judicial and parliamentary coup in Brazil against President Dilma Rousseff; the criminalization and incarceration of the leaders of the Workers’ Party and later on of ex President Luis Inacio Lula Da Silva himself; the prompt participation of the Department of Justice of the United States, by virtue of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, to install a dependent government, ready to revert important social achievements through neo-liberal adjustments, introduce a nefarious change in the development model, allow the destruction of national businesses and a predatory privatization and  sell  the resources and infrastructure of the country to American transnationals at a cheap price .

By the end of 2017 there was a protest against the electoral results in Honduras that was terribly repressed.

In January, 2018, the United States aborted the signing of an agreement between the government of Venezuela and the Washington-controlled opposition. One month later, the Secretary of State proclaimed the validity of the Monroe Doctrine and called for a military coup against the Bolivarian and Chavista Revolution.

In March, 2018, the Brazilian councilwoman Marielle Franco was atrociously murdered.  This action aroused a wave of anger in her country and the whole world.  The obscure involvement of the powers that be in this event has not been disclosed.  In April, Lula is sent to prison through spurious judicial maneuvers.  There is abundant evidence of the US interference in the Brazilian elections through specialized companies using technologies such as “big data” and polymetry to manipulate, on a case by case basis, the will of voters, such as the ones used by the ultra-reactionary Steve Bannon and others designed by Israel.

During this period, legal proceedings were initiated against ex presidents Cristina Fernández de Kirchner and Rafael Correa. In April, 2018, there was an attempt to destabilize Nicaragua through foreign interference and the implementation of unilateral coercive measures.

On August 4, 2018, an attempt against the life of President Nicolas Maduro Moros was perpetrated.  In January, 2019, the self-proclamation of the barely-known and corrupt Juan Guaidó, organized in Washington, took place.  In March, 2019, president Trump ratified the Executive Order considering Venezuela a threat.  On April 30 there was an attempted military coup in Caracas, which happened to be a resounding failure, and the United States, in revenge, escalated its non-conventional war against that South American nation that has been putting up a tenacious and heroic resistance based on the civic and military union of its people.

During this whole period, the US government has been applying savage anti-immigrant policies and has adopted an aggressive behavior, full of hatred, to fuel fear and division among voters.  It is attempting to build a xenophobic wall in the border with Mexico and is threatening this country and the entire Central America with the imposition of terrible tariffs and sanctions if they do not stop those who flee from poverty and insecurity.  It has also increased deportations.  It cruelly separates thousands of children from their parents; it has arrested 69 000 minors and is trying to expel the children of immigrant parents who were born and raised in the US territory.

The ultra right-wing government of Brazil, headed by Jair Bolsonaro, showing a shameful subordination to the United States, has resorted to lies and a xenophobic, racist, misogynist and homophobic discourse, combined with delirious  projections about social and political phenomena, such as climate change, indigenous populations, the Amazon fires and emigration, which have aroused the rejection of numerous leaders and organizations. Under his government, the social policies that led Brazil to dramatically reduce the levels of poverty and social exclusion under the Workers’ Party governments are being dismantled.

Since May, 2019, tens of thousands of demonstrators have taken to the streets to protest against budget cuts in education, the reforms to the pension system, the discriminatory policies and gender violence.

The Brazilian government has interfered in the internal affairs of neighboring countries, such as Venezuela, Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay and has adopted hostile positions against Cuba in violation of International Law.  As was published by the Brazilian media in April, 2019, the foreign ministry of that country instructed 15 of its embassies to coordinate with US embassies with the purpose of encouraging recipient governments to condemn Cuba at international fora.

For the first time since 1992, Brazil, only joined by the United States and Israel, voted this year against the UN General Assembly Resolution calling for an end to the economic, commercial and financial blockade -that the US has further tightened against Cuba-, and the cessation of the extraterritorial implementation of U laws against third States.

In the same vein, the government of Colombia abstained in the vote of the resolution it had supported since 1992 which calls for the ceasing of the genocidal blockade imposed by the United States against Cuba –at a moment when it is being tightened- and its extraterritorial character. In order to justify such reprehensible decision, the authorities of that country has resorted to the politically motivated and ungrateful manipulation of the altruistic, dedicated, discreet and unquestionable contribution of Cuba to peace in Colombia, for which our country’s behavior has received universal recognition. It is well known that this decision generated a broad and critical debate in that nation but, despite all odds, we will continue to accompany that nation in its efforts to achieve peace.

The US slander attributing Cuba alleged responsibilities in the organization of popular demonstrations against neo-liberalism in South America is a barely credible excuse to justify and tighten the blockade and the hostile policy against our people. It is likewise useless to conceal the failure of the capitalist system, protect teetering and repressive governments, conceal parliamentary, judicial and police coups; and stir up the ghost of socialism to terrify peoples.  By doing this it also intends to justify repression and the criminalization of social protests.

Cuba’s only responsibility is the one that emanates  from the example set by its heroic people in the defense of their sovereignty, in their resistance against the most brutal and systematic aggressions, in the invariable practice of solidarity and cooperation with all sister nations of Latin America and the Caribbean.

Imperialism is hurting because Cuba has proved that another world is certainly possible and that it is indeed possible to build an alternative model to neo-liberalism, based on solidarity, cooperation, dignity, a fair distribution of wealth, equitable access to professional upgrading, citizens’ safety and protection and the absolute freedom of human beings.

The Cuban Revolution has also been a proof that a people that is closely united, that has become the owner of their country and institutions, living in a permanent and profound democracy, can successfully resist and develop in the face of  the longest-lasting  aggression and blockade in history.

The coup d’état in Bolivia, orchestrated by the United States, using  the local oligarchy and the OAS as an instrument, is an evidence of the aggressive character of the imperialist onslaught.  Cuba once again condemns the coup d’état and the brutal repression that has been unleashed in that country and expresses its solidarity with comrade Evo Morales Ayma and the Bolivian people.

While the US government continues its non-conventional war to attempt to overthrow the legitimate government of President Nicolás Maduro Moros and invokes the Inter-American Treaty of Reciprocal Assistance (TIAR), Cuba ratifies its unshakable determination to maintain its cooperation with the government and the people of Venezuela.

We reiterate our solidarity with the Sandinista government and people of Nicaragua, led by President Daniel Ortega, who is facing the US attempts of destabilization and unilateral coercive measures.

The legitimate government of the Commonwealth o Dominica and its Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit deserve international solidarity and can, as from now, count on the solidarity of the Cuban people at a moment when that island nation is a victim of foreign interference that is already causing violence and is attempting to thwart the electoral process.

In this complex scenario, the government headed by Andrés Manuel López Obrador in Mexico is coping with neo-liberalism and defending the principles of non-interference and respect for the national sovereignty, while the election of Alberto Fernández and Cristina Fernández as President and Vice-president of Argentina evidence the unequivocal rejection of that nation against neo-liberal formulas that impoverished and indebted that nation and seriously harmed its people. Lula’s release from prison is a victory of all peoples and Cuba, once again, calls for a global mobilization to demand his complete freedom and the reinstatement of his innocence and his political rights.

The corruption that characterizes the behavior of the current US administration can be hidden no more.  Its impact on the peoples of Latin America and the Caribbean has taken a toll on human lives and has caused hardships, instability and economic damages.

In view of the tragic juncture that the region and the world are going through, Cuba reaffirms the principles of sovereignty, non-interference in the internal affairs of other States and the right of every people to freely choose and create a political system of their own, in a climate of peace, stability and justice, without threats or aggressions or unilateral coercive measures;  and encourages compliance with the principles enshrined in  the Proclamation of Latin America and the Caribbean as a Zone of Peace.

Cuba will continue to work towards the integration of Our America, which includes all efforts so that the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC), which will be very soon presided over by Mexico, would continue to promote the common interests of our nations by strengthening unity amidst diversity.

In the face of the implacable onslaught of the most reactionary forces in the hemisphere, Cuba will oppose the unshakable resistance of its people and its determination to defend the unity of the nation, its social achievements, its sovereignty and independence and socialism whatever the cost.  We do it with the unswerving optimism and confidence in victory that we inherited from the Commander in Chief of the Cuban Revolution, Fidel Castro Ruz, under the leadership of the First Secretary of our Party, Army General Raúl Castro and the guidance of President Miguel Díaz-Canel.

Havana, December 3, 2019.

Trump and NY Times Admit US Imperialist War in Syria

Finian CUNNINGHAM

From extraordinary candid admissions made separately by US President Donald Trump and the New York Times, there can be no illusion about what American forces are really deployed in Syria for. It’s an illegal occupation against the Syrian government and in particular to deprive the Arab country of its oil resources.

Subsequently this week it is being reported that the Pentagon is to deploy Abrams tanks and other heavy equipment to the oil fields near Deir Ez-Zor. The troops involved for such a new deployment would far outnumber the 1,000 or so soldiers that President Trump had said were “coming home”.

The oil fields of Syria are located mainly in the eastern provinces bordering with Iraq. Those areas (about a third of the country) are the last-remaining territory still outside of the control of the government in Damascus. The Syrian state will need to recover its oil fields in order to fund the reconstruction of the nation after nearly eight years of war.

In a tweet last weekend, Trump stated: “USA soldiers are not in combat or ceasefire zones. We have secured the Oil [sic]. Bringing soldiers home!”

The president was referring to the dubious deal he hatched with Turkey last week which resulted in the US abandoning its Kurdish allies and unleashing a deadly offensive by Turk forces against northeast Syria. After incurring much criticism from both Republicans and Democrats, as well as military experts and media pundits for his withdrawal of US troops, Trump is understandably trying to put a positive spin on his move.

Hence he is bragging about having defeated the Islamic State (IS or ISIS) jihadi terror network “100 per cent” and “bringing soldiers home”. The latter is an apparent fulfillment of Trump’s 2016 election promise to “end endless wars” and return American troops home from foreign interventions.

So, what’s that cryptic reference by Trump about “securing the Oil about?” Notice too how he used capital O when writing “Oil”, indicating something strategic about his reference to Syria’s resource. Evidently, the purported defeat of terrorism and bringing troops home is not the full story. The oil oozes out between the lines.

A NY Times’ report on Monday sheds more light on that aspect. Admittedly, the Times is hardly a reliable source, given its embedded links to US intelligence agencies and its trenchant anti-Trump agenda warping almost everything it publishes. Nevertheless, given that Trump and the NY Times appear to be consistent here on the issue suggests that there is indeed substance to the admission.

The Times quotes an anonymous senior Trump administration official and Pentagon sources who say that the president is giving the go-ahead for a small contingency of American special forces, perhaps numbering 200, which are to remain in eastern Syria. That nails the lie that Trump is pulling all US troops out of Syria. He is not “bringing soldiers home”, as he keeps whooping about.

Mark Esper, the US Defense Secretary, also confirmed to reporters on route to Afghanistan last weekend that American forces will transfer to Iraq from Syria and remain near the Syrian border. Esper said the US military would be “defending Iraq” and deployed to prevent a potential resurgence of ISIS. At any rate, that’s the hackneyed official rationale.

However, on the matter of US special forces remaining in Syria, the NY Times reports: “President Trump is leaning in favor of a new Pentagon plan to keep a small contingent of American troops in eastern Syria, perhaps numbering about 200, to combat the Islamic State and block the advance of Syrian government and Russian forces into the region’s coveted oil fields, a senior administration official said on Sunday.”

That is an astounding admission. Forget about “fighting terrorists”, the real objective of US military deployment in Syria is to control the country’s oil resources which are predominantly located in the eastern provinces, where the US had been working in partnership with Syrian Kurdish militia for the past five years. That partnership was supposedly in the name of “defeating ISIS”.

Trump’s cavalier jettisoning of the Kurds in acquiescence to Turkey’s demand for a military attack on the Syrian Kurds, which Ankara regards as terrorists, is a clear demonstration that Washington’s agenda with the Kurds was never really about fighting ISIS, but rather it was about using them as proxies to balkanize Syria’s territory, in particular the oil-rich eastern region.

Trump’s self-congratulations about “ending endless wars” is all disingenuous platitude to drum up his re-election chances in 2020.

This president has been talking about withdrawing US troops from Syria for the past year, yet there are an estimated 1,000 still remaining there, as well as warplanes. The Pentagon has built bases and air fields in eastern and southern Syria near the border with Iraq. The troops moving out of Syria are taking up positions in neighboring Iraq from where they will conduct counterinsurgency operations, no doubt intended to maraud into Syria when desired.

Trump has agreed to keep 150 troops at the US base at Al Tanf in southern Syria, where the camp is a training ground for thousands of jihadist militants known as Maghawir al-Thawra. The Maghawir al-Thawra are not fighting ISIS, as the Pentagon claims. They are more accurately just another proxy for US interests, involved in a nefarious division of labor along with ISIS and the Kurds.

The militants out of Al Tanf can be expected to link up with the 200 US special forces and perhaps some remnant Kurdish mercenaries assigned to “block the advance of Syrian government and Russian forces into the region’s coveted oil fields,” as the NT Times reports.

This is no doubt what Trump meant when he alluded to “securing the Oil” in Syria. In that way, President Trump and the NY Times are admitting that the real purpose of American military being in Syria is for imperial conquest.

A cruel twist is that Syria needs to harness its oil in order to reconstruct from a war launched covertly on that nation by the US and its NATO partners back in 2011. Now, with sickening vindictiveness, the US seems intent on preventing Syria utilizing its own vital oil resources for recovery, by planning an illegal American military occupation of eastern Syria indefinitely.

Many astute observers of the eight-year in Syria always knew that Washington’s agenda was regime change and that its anti-terror claims were a fraudulent pretext. Now we have the US president and America’s leading newspaper owning up to the criminal occupation of Syrian territory and a land grab for oil.

Finian CUNNINGHAM

Former editor and writer for major news media organizations. He has written extensively on international affairs, with articles published in several languages

The Sickness of American Foreign Policy

Eric ZUESSE

The Military-Industrial Complex runs US foreign policies. What passes for international ‘news’ reporting in the United States media was supremely represented by the instance of those ’news’ media stenographically reporting the Government’s lies about ’Saddam’s WMD’, even after it was unarguably clear that those were just blatant lies from the President and his Administration. America’s media were merely passive megaphones for the regime’s lies. Instead of disproving the regime’s lies — as they could have done if they were journalistic, instead of propagandistic, media — they merely reported the lying government’s assertions. It was like 1984 “Big Brother”; and it still is, as today’s 2019 USA. In between 2003 and now, the regime invaded Libya and Syria and Yemen, on the basis of lies that in some respects were even more blatant. The same groups of billionaires control the US ‘news’ media today as controlled the media in 2003; and they continue, in their ‘news’-media, the same stenographic ‘reporting’ — propaganda by their Government, regarding which nations are the latest targets, for the masses to hate and fear, as being our nation’s ‘enemies’. These are the lands suitable for US weapons and bombs to destroy. These ‘news’-media simply ‘justify’ what are, in fact, international war-crimes: US-and-allied invasions, of nations that never had invaded the US

There’s always the Big Lie that the hate-target is only ‘the tyrant’, and not the nation. But it’s the targeted nation that gets strangulated by America and its allies imposing ‘sanctions’ that are really economic blockades (such as against Venezuela and Iran today, but formerly against Iraq before we invaded and destroyed it); and, then, if that doesn’t bring down the targeted Government, a coup is attempted; and, then (if no coup results), paying and arming ‘rebels’ (such as Al Qaeda in Syria) to overthrow the targeted nation’s Government; and, then, missiles and bombers are used, in order to destroy the infrastructure. It’s no better now than it was then, in 2003 in Iraq, and later in Libya, Syria, and so much else. There has been no change, except in the identities of the nations for Americans to hate and fear, and overthrow. And especially under Trump, refugees are being banned to immigrate from the countries the US regime has destroyed. He’s “making America great again,” like his predecessor Obama had insisted that “The United States is and remains the one indispensable nation.” Every other nation — including Libya and Syria and Yemen — is consequently “dispensable,” in that view. America’s voters tolerate, or even respect and re-elect, such vile leaders as this. How, then, should the citizens of other countries feel about America? And yet, the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize winner Obama as President is overwhelmingly respected around the world, notwithstanding his having destroyed, or participated in destroying, Libya and Syria and Yemen, whereas as soon as the obviously uncouth Trump came into office and ever since then, Trump has been widely despised throughout the world — as all three US Presidents during this Century thus far, reasonably ought to be. The public responds more to surfaces than to reality. Thus, though the reality of Obama was overall as horrendous as the reality of Trump, the reputations of those two Presidents could hardly be more different from one another. The deeper reality of the United States is Big Brother, which was born in the United States when FDR died in 1945, and it has grown larger ever since then — and especially since 2001. America’s voters are kept ignorant of the ongoing and bipartisan ugliness of its Government’s bipartisan imperialistic (or “neoconservative”) foreign policy. After all, the motivation behind it is to ‘protect human rights’ and ‘spread democracy’ in other countries (if you can believe the liars). How ‘nice’ is that (while the bombs are dropping and the target-country is being economically strangled)? And so, the US, as policeman to the world, has become an insult to the UN that FDR had been so proud to design and establish.

The US regime’s hatreds are bipartisan because all of this hate comes actually from America’s billionaires (the masters of America’s top brands) who control America’s international corporations and who are America’s political mega-donors; and these billionaires are of two types, Republican and Democratic; and both types of American billionaires are neoconservatives — champions of US imperialism — because extending the American empire is very profitable for America’s international corporations. That’s what it’s really all about.

Here’s one example:

On 25 July 2017, the US House of Representatives voted 419 to 3 to expand America’s economic blockades against “the Governments of Iran, the Russian Federation, and North Korea”, via “Sanctions”, which are a device that has become the US regime’s typical first step toward an ultimate military invasion. They always produce suffering amongst the targeted nation’s population, and far less so against the targeted nation’s leaders. Yet sanctions and coups and invasions are done because of the US Government’s ‘humanitarian’ concern for the attacked nation’s people, and in order to install ‘democracy’ there. How can a militaristic regime function if it’s not constantly lying, like that? It can’t. That’s why it continually lies.

Iran, Russia and North Korea are the enemies authorized in this virtual declaration of war against all three nations.

This bill, which passed the House by 419 to 3, became voted 98 to 2 in the US Senate, and was then signed into law by US President Donald Trump, on 2 August 2017. It was a triple farce (and “farce” here is a euphemism for fraud). Here’s just a bit of the evidence for that:

THE CASE AGAINST IRAN

The US regime constantly refers to Iran as “the foremost state sponsor of terrorism”, which it never has been even close to being, and which phrase describes the US regime itself far more than it does Iran. But did Iran ever invade America? Of course not! However, Americans actually did become enemies of Iran when our Government overthrew Iran’s progressive and democratically elected Government, in July and August of 1953, and the US regime at that time had the full cooperation of the UK regime, and of Iran’s own mullahs, in that coup d’etat, which installed the US regime’s chosen brutal dictator, the Shah, to rule there. But did Iran ever even threaten America? No, not even threaten. The US regime constantly threatens Iran, and Iran’s Government would need to be idiots to take lightly these threats by the US regime — the same regime that had installed the brutal Shah in 1953. Yet the US regime has the nerve to continue, and even to intensify, these threats, and even to blame Iran’s suffering economy on Iran’s own Government (which America’s billionaires want to replace), instead of on America’s Government (those billionaires’ own government) and on this regime’s allies, and on the strangulating economic sanctions which this US team leads, and imposes, against Iran.

The case against Russia

The US regime overthrows governments routinely, and doesn’t just propagandize in those targeted countries so as to influence their elections; but when the Obama regime’s frame-up against Russia as having supposedly acted in collusion with Donald Trump’s campaign in 2016, as having constituted a merely possible excuse for the failure of Obama’s chosen successor to win the US Presidency, even the Special Prosecutor’s efforts to find evidence that might be able to convict Trump on such a charge after he leaves office, drew only blanks. There was no such evidence, of any such collusion, the Special Counsel Robert Mueller reluctantly admitted.

Actually, there does exist statistically overwhelming evidence to the exact contrary — that, as the definitive scientific analysis of the evidence reluctantly reported:

What is most striking about the data in this table is that Donald Trump actually slightly under-performed the model’s predictions in all three states. He did about one point worse than predicted in Michigan, about two points worse than predicted in Pennsylvania, and between two and three points worse than predicted in Wisconsin. There is no evidence here that Russian interference, to the extent that it occurred, did anything to help Trump in these three states.

In other words: the single predictive model that has a flawless record of predicting Presidential winners, and which was the only model that predicted Trump to beat Hillary in 2016, showed Trump winning the three toss-up states by slightly higher margins than he actually did win them. If there was any influence upon the electoral outcome that came from a factor (such as from Russian influence) that was not being considered in this model, then that factor ended up benefiting Hillary, not Trump. That’s the exact opposite of the Obama-engineered hypothesis, which falsely alleges that ‘Trump is Putin’s stooge’.

And, now, the Trump regime is trying to establish a convictable case against Trump’s predecessor, Obama, for having tried to frame Trump (and Russia) for Hillary’s loss in 2016. (There’s considerable evidence that Obama did try to frame Trump, and Russia’s Government, for that loss. And the US Government — even under Trump — has been trying to keep this information secret, unless and until House Democrats become serious about ‘impeaching Trump’. If they won’t try to impeach him, then he won’t try to convict Obama for treason.) (What? Democrats want Mike Pence to become President? Not really: it’s all just a show, for stupid voters in their own Party — and they obviously think that there are plenty of those. Rooting for Pence to become President is apparently very popular amongst Democratic Party voters. Perhaps many Republican Party billionaires are even hoping that those Democratic idiots will get what they want. Is this democracy in action, or just a threatened counter-coup to punish the Democratic Party’s prior coup-attempt against the Republican President?)

The case against North Korea

So, Iran didn’t ever invade America, nor did Russia. What about North Korea, then? Did North Korea ever invade America? No, neither did that alleged ‘enemy’ of America. But America did invade North Korea during the Korean War. Have you ever seen the 764-page “REPORT OF THE INTERNATIONAL SCIENTIFIC COMMISSION FOR THE INVESTIGATION OF THE FACTS CONCERNING BACTERIAL WARFARE IN KOREA AND CHINA”? It documents America’s biological warfare program against North Korea in 1952. You probably haven’t even heard about it, because the US regime managed to keep it hidden from the public until just this year, and because America’s ‘news’-media continue to blacklist its existence so as to continue the ‘justification’ for the US regime’s still-ongoing efforts to conquer North Korea. But look at it here, as soon as its 764 pages have finished loading into your computer. Now that the US regime is increasing its threats against both North Korea and China, the Governments in those countries recently released this document to the public, and thereby are challenging the US propaganda-media to allow the publics in the US and its vassal nations to see it — to see real history about this matter, not just propaganda (such as the US is the world’s champion of).

This massive historical document opens:

On the 22nd. Feb. 1952, Mr. Bak Hun-Yung, Foreign Minister of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, and on the 8th. March, Mr. Chou En-Lai, Foreign Minister of the People’s Republic of China, protested officially against the use of bacteriological warfare by the USA. On the 25th. Feb., Dr. Kuo Mo-Jo, President of the Chinese People’s Committee for World Peace, addressed an appeal to the World Peace Council.

At the meeting of the Executive Committee of the World Peace Council held at Oslo on the 29th. March, Dr. Kuo Mo-Jo, with the assistance of the Chinese delegates who accompanied him, and in the presence of the Korean representative, Mr. Li Ki-len, placed the members of the Committee, and other national delegates, in possession of much information concerning the phenomena in question. Dr. Kuo declared that the governments of China and (North) Korea did not consider the International Red Cross Committee sufficiently free from political influence to be capable of instituting an unbiassed enquiry in the field. This objection was later extended to the World Health Organisation, as a specialised agency of the United Nations. However, the two governments were entirely desirous of inviting an international group of impartial and independent scientists to proceed to China and to investigate personally the facts on which the allegations were based. They might or might not be connected with organisations working for peace, but they would naturally be persons known for their devotion to humanitarian causes. The group would have the mission of verifying or invalidating the allegations. After thorough discussion, the Executive Committee adopted unanimously a resolution calling for the formation of such an International Scientific Commission.

Ultimately, as Jeffrey S. Kay recently explained in his superb article at Global Research introducing this document to US-and-allied publics:

Written largely by the most prestigious British scientist of his day, this report was effectively suppressed upon its release in 1952. Published now in text-searchable format, it includes hundreds of pages of evidence about the use of US biological weapons during the Korean War, available for the first time to the general public.

Back in the early 1950s, the US conducted a furious bombing campaign during the Korean War, dropping hundreds of thousands of tons of ordnance, much of it napalm, on North Korea. The bombardment, worse than any country had received up to that point, excepting the effects on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, wiped out nearly every city in North Korea, contributing to well over a million civilian deaths. Because of the relentless bombing, the people were reduced to living in tunnels. Even the normally bellicose Gen. MacArthur claimed to find the devastation wreaked by the US to be sickening.[1]

The massive document itself authenticates numerous reports of the US flying planes over North Korea and dropping containers of fleas, clams, and other creatures, that were tested and verified as being contaminated with plague and cholera. For example, on pages 24-26 are described several such incidents. Typical was one in which “the Commission had no option but to conclude that the American air force was employing in Korea methods very similar to, if not exactly identical with, those employed to spread plague by the Japanese during the second world war.” Furthermore, one expert “gave evidence to the effect that he had urged the Kuomintang government to make known to the world the facts concerning Japanese bacterial warfare, but without success, partly, he thought, as the result of American dissuasion.” In other words: the US regime not only protected and hired ‘former’ Nazis to use against USSR, but it did the same with Japan to use against China and North Korea. This 1952 operation against North Korea was perpetrated by the regime under US President Harry S. Truman — the former Vice President who had been forced onto FDR’s final ticket by that Party’s top donors in order to get a war started against the Soviet Union and thereby keep their enormous government contracts continuing after WW II. Right after FDR died, Truman got fooled by Churchill and Eisenhower into starting the Cold War against the Soviet Union; and this 1952 international war-crime against China and North Korea was part of that.

Conclusion

Okay, then: When will US President Trump, and the 419 members of the US House, and the 98 members of the US Senate, eat crow and come clean about what they actually represent? (It’s certainly not democracy.)

Congress is very partisanly split over domestic issues, because Republican and Democratic billionaires are split about them, but America’s billionaires are united in their support for US imperialism; and, so, the members of Congress, and Presidential candidates, are, too. When do you see near 100% support in Congress for a domestic policy? Never even close to that. But for American aggressions, it’s virtual unanimity. The billionaires are solidly for aggression; and, so, their Government is, too. Virtually all politicians who are elected to national office are psychopaths. Otherwise, they’ll get nothing from the billionaires, and therefore won’t win public office.

Americans are supposed to trust such a government. Well, of course, the billionaires can trust it, because they bought it. And that’s the sickness, and slickness, of American foreign policy. It’s just a global scam, which destroys millions of people, and creates misery for hundreds of millions, all in the name of ‘defending America’, and of ‘protecting human rights’ and ‘defending democracy’, around the world.

Eric ZUESSE

American writer and investigative historian

Two Opposite Ways of Interpreting Wars and International Relations

Eric ZUESSE

In the US-and-allied nations, the standard way of interpreting wars and international relations is archetypally exemplified by the internationally respected award-winning American war-journalist Marie Colvin, of the London Sunday Times. Her career was stellar, if not absolutely unmatched: she won the “Journalist of the Year” award from the Foreign Press Association, plus five other international journalism prizes, for herself and her publisher. This “consummate war reporter” had started out from a military family, and then Yale, and then UPI, and then interviewed Muammar Gaddafi in 1985 and subsequently, and was clearly on her way up to the top of her profession. But the first really big event in her career was the event that caused her to live the rest of her life with a black eyepatch over her blinded left eye.

It all started in that same year of 1985, but not in Libya. She was also covering in that year the separatist war by the Tamil Tigers, to break off, from Sri Lanka (Ceylon), the far-northern and far-eastern sections of that country, so as to create an independent nation, which would be controlled by Tamils, and no longer be merely a region within the nation of Sri Lanka. Sri Lanka is not Tamil-majority, but is instead overwhelmingly Sinhalese population. Marie Colvin was embedded there, along with the anti-Government fighting forces, Tamil separatists, anti-Sinhalese fighters who were at war against Sri Lanka’s Government. This was a Tamil-versus-Sinhal war, and she was reporting it, from the standpoint of the separatist-Tamil rebels.

Her much-celebrated career ended 27 year later, with her own death, on 22 February 2012, in Homs Syria, while she was embedded with anti-Government forces there, who were trying to overthrow Syria’s Government, instead of to overthrow Sri Lanka’s or Libya’s Government.

In all three of those instances — from the very start, to the very the end, of her illustrious career — she was embedded along with, and her articles were in support of, anti-Government forces that the UK-US aristocracy supported, in order to break up countries that this aristocracy were hoping to ‘free’, so as to take control over them, away from the existing independent Governments there. This was her constantly recurring pattern, from her start, to her widely lionized end, as being a promoter of US-UK international empire: journalism that embraces and unquestioningly accepts and endorses imperialism, while never indicating to its audience that it has any connection whatsoever to imperialism.

In between her Sri Lankan start and her Syrian end, she prominently reported several times from Libya, likewise from the standpoint of opponents of that independent nation’s Government. Libya had previously been a vassal state of Turkey (Ottoman Empire), then of Italy (Italian Empire), then was an ‘independent’ nation within the UK-US Empire. And, then, finally — as a result of Libya’s Revolution, which was led by Gaddafi in 1969 — Libya actually did win its independence. Gaddafi became killed in 2011, from forces that had been unleashed by the US-UK Empire and France. That successful assassination happened on 20 October 2011, and America’s Secretary of State promptly and publicly exulted about it, by bragging “We came, we saw, he died — ha ha ha!.”(The Democratic National Committee and its duped voters rewarded her with their Presidential nomination five years later in 2016 because she was ‘the most experienced candidate’, having had lots of such disastrous ‘experiences’, which the duped voters were misled to think to have been an asset, instead of a liability.) Thus, ‘democracy’ was finally being brought to Libyans, by that country’s former foreign imperial masters, plus their agents, Al Qaeda and other local proxy-forces against Gaddafi.

What all of Colvin’s reporting exemplified was ‘journalism’ by a ‘reporter’ who is embedded along with the fighting forces that were being propagandized for by her own nation’s aristocracy — and, though she was American, she was in the employ of American vassals, UK aristocrats. This US-UK aristocracy wanted those countries to become either broken up, or else taken over by themselves entirely; and she was a ‘journalistic’ agent for that, though she was unaware of the fact, and was actually proud of her work, because of her obliviousness to the broader and deeper reality around her.

Here are some crucial details of her career-highlights, in this regard:

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The Tamil Tigers constituted the fighting force of Sri Lanka’s 18% minority of the Sri Lankan population who were 74%-majority Sinhals. Ceylon’s (Sri Lanka’s) Sinhal population had been ruled by the British Empire through that 18% minority of Tamils as UK’s local agents, until Sri Lanka (Ceylon) was finally released from British bondage, and won independence in 1946, when the British Empire was breaking up.

A key Sri Lankan law that passed in 1956, the Sinhala Only Act, made Sinhalese language replace the British-imposed English language as Sri Lanka’s official language. Though the Tamil language had never been Sri Lanka’s official language, many Tamils, who had been accustomed to ruling the land for their British masters, were infuriated that the ‘inferior’ Sinhal people now ruled the land. One of those Sinhals was their own leading aristocrat, S.W.R.D. Bandaranaike, the progressive who became elected Prime Minister in 1956 and won passage of the Sinhala Only Act and of other laws to actually end British control, but he was assassinated in 1959 by a Buddhist monk because Bandaranaike had just then signed an agreement with the leader of the main Tamil party to bring some degree of local autonomy to the Tamil minority, who were concentrated in the far north and far east. Bandaranaike’s wife, Sirimavo Bandaranaike, was then elected as Prime Minister in 1960, and she not only tried to increase political participation by Buddhists, but she firmly established democratic socialism (or progressivism) as the Government’s policy. But then, the Marxist (dictatorial socialist) Lanka Sama Samaja Party eroded popular support for her government, which became resoundingly defeated in the general election of 1965. Sirimovo became re-elected back into power in 1970. However, her Government’s support of Buddhism and of the Sinhalese language alienated the country’s large Tamil minority, 80% of whom are Hindu (the others: 13% Muslim, 2% Christian, 2% Sikh, and only .8% Buddhist). By contrast, 93% of Sinhals are Buddhist. According to the US Library of Congress in 1988, “93 percent of the Sinhala speakers were Buddhists, and 99.5 percent of the Buddhists in Sri Lanka spoke Sinhala.” (By contrast, the entirety of Sri Lanka is 70% Buddhist, 13% Hindu, 10% Muslim, and 7% Christian — very different from the Tamils.) So: Sri Lanka’s political split was along religious lines — mainly Tamil Hindus versus Sinhal Buddhists — in addition to being along tribal lines; and the Tamils represented, in both respects, supporters of the Hindu caste-system, and of the former British aristocracy, which are America’s vassals, against the Sri Lankan public.

In 1976, the militant separatist Tamil Tigers were born, basically as a reaction against the 1946 freeing of that country from its former colonial British masters.

Starting in 1985, the Tamil Tigers “forcibly occupied more than 35,000 acres of Muslim residential, agricultural and cattle farming land. The government did nothing to help Muslims regain their properties based on title deeds, government permits or the paddy cultivation register. During the ethnic conflict in 1983, 1985, and 1990, more than 12,700 Muslim families were chased out by” the Tiger forces. Wikipedia’s article “Expulsion of Muslims from the Northern province by LTTE” calls the October 1990 portion of that sequence an “ethnic cleansing,” of Muslims, from the north Sri Lankan, Tiger-controlled, city of Chavakachcheri.

Colvin’s ‘news’-‘reports’ were strongly pro-Tamil, anti-Sinhal, but she seems to have known nothing about the country from which she was reporting (at war), and to have cared even less about it. (She even said [12:00-] “The history, and the ability to put into context anything in a war … It didn’t mean anything,” because “it never happens the way you think it’s going to.” She exhibited no interest whatsoever in understanding the background of a war. To her, for example, the war in Chechnya was simply bombings by Russia, “an indiscriminate bombing of Chechen villages,” and she had no curiosity as to why whatever was occurring was actually happening.) Instead, she was obsessed by, and focused only on, the immense suffering that civilians on the US-UK-backed side experienced. Of course, the owner of her newspaper, Rupert Murdoch, probably knew the historical background in this former British colony of Sri Lanka, but her employers never told her about that, and she apparently never asked them about it. They simply couldn’t find any other journalist who was stupid enough to do their bidding in their bosses’ former Empire and who was willing, indeed eager, to accept the pay that they offered to do it. This well-intentioned, but willingly ignorant, employee lost an eye — and was nearly killed — because of her being embedded there, with what were actually (though she never knew it) UK proxy-forces. She thought that she was helping ‘the good guys’ (Tamils) in a war against ‘the bad guys’ (the Government). She was the archetypal star-‘journalist’, having faith in ‘our’ side. She is beloved, by her ‘journalistic’ colleagues, as if she hadn’t been merely the empire’s most effective war-propagandist.

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In 2011, in Libya, she was accepted again into Gaddafi’s tent for an interview, even though she despised him as one of the ‘bad’ guys. (This doesn’t mean “bad” as Hillary Clinton was bad, but instead ‘bad’ as one of the Clinton-Biden-Obama regime’s many victims who all were ‘bad’, in her view. And, of course, the US-UK aristocracy are all ‘good’, in that view: the imperialists’ view.)

In 2012, in Syria, at the conflict in Homs, she was telecasting to CNN, and other TV networks, regarding how evil Bashar al-Assad was for bombing the enclaves there that, in fact, were cooperating with Al Qaeda (though Colvin didn’t report that they were such). It was on 22 February 2012, and Britain’s Telegraph  bannered “Marie Colvin: Britain summons Syria ambassador over killing.” This newspaper reported: “In her broadcasts on Tuesday night, Colvin had accused the Syrian Army of perpetrating the ‘complete and utter lie that they are only targeting terrorists.’ Describing what was happening as ‘absolutely sickening’, Colvin said: ‘The Syrian army is simply shelling a city of cold, starving civilians.’” When the US and UK had done more-widespread, entire-city, bombings in World War II, it was fine, in this view; but, now, when Syria’s Government were doing more-targeted versions of that, in order to prevent a takeover of Syria by the US, and a subsequent hand-over of Syria to the Sauds, it wasn’t okay. And, of course, the Western ‘press’-corps, of US-UK invasion-propagandists, place Colvin upon a pedestal, as having constituted the ‘ideal’ ‘ war journalist’.

That’s one way of interpreting wars and international relations — the way that Colvin memorialized.

An excellent docudrama movie about Marie Colvin’s reporting from Sri Lanka in 1985, and Libya in 2011, and Syria in 2012, is the November 2018 “A Private War”. It provides an honest portrayal of her. (Some incompetent critics downgraded the movie because of what actually were deficiencies — basically Colvin’s stupidity and shallowness — in the real person herself. Other incompetent critics, such as at the neoconservative Washington Post, praised it largely because they shared Colvin’s neoconservatism. It’s just an honest, and very skillfully done, biopic.) On the basis of its strictly cinematic values, I consider it a superb film.

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The opposite way — the anti-imperialist viewpoint — of reporting about war and international relations, has been embodied, to cite two prime authentic journalists — NOT propagandists (such as Colvin was) — by Vanessa Beeley, and also by Eva Bartlett. Both of these authentically great reporters have also covered the war in Syria. Here, from them, is this opposite way of interpreting war and international relations:

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“Western media lies about Syria exposed (Canadian journalist Eva Bartlett)”

VIDEO, 19 mins., Eva Bartlett, 10 December 2016, U.N.

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https://www.rt.com

“‘They know that we know they are liars, they keep lying’: West’s war propaganda on Ghouta crescendos”

Eva Bartlett, on 21 March 2018

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“Vanessa Beeley, Eva Bartlett & Patrick Henningsen Exposes the White Helmets”

VIDEO, 27 mins., 7 October 2016, rt.com

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21stcenturywire.com

“Syria’s White Helmets: War by Way of Deception – Part I”

Vanessa Beeley, 23 October 2015

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21stcenturywire.com

“Part II – Syria’s White Helmets: War By Way of Deception ~ ‘Moderate Executioners’”

Vanessa Beeley, 28 October 2015

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21stcenturywire.com

“WHO ARE SYRIA’S WHITE HELMETS (terrorist linked)?”

Vanessa Beeley, 21 June 2016

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21stcenturywire.com

“EXCLUSIVE: The REAL Syria Civil Defence Exposes Fake ‘White Helmets’ as Terrorist-Linked Imposters”

Vanessa Beeley, 23 September 2016

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mintpressnews.com

“Faux Humanitarian Irwin Cotler, the White Helmets, and the Whitewashing of an Appalling Agenda”

Vanessa Beeley, 1 August 2019

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Those journalists DON’T win awards from the Foreign Press Association, etc., and AREN’T hired by mainstream ‘news’ media, but they are vastly superior to the ones who do.

Eric ZUESSE

American writer and investigative historian