by Oui
Sat Jan 4th, 2020 at 10:16:10 AM EST
Europe and nations across the globe should express their disgust with the acts of banditry and bullying of the President . There should be no room for acts of fascism humanity had hoped to have left behind the genocides of the 20th century that tore up society. The lone action of the world's most powerful nation in terms of the economy and military, should be a shining example, not the acts crossing International Law and the Geneva Conventions. Friends of America or no friends of human kind by keeping silent or going through the motions of criticism without sanctioning barbaric acts.
Ever since the attacks of 9/11, the U.S. and allied nations have torn up existing laws in order to get the "bad guys". By doing so, terrorism across the globe has flourished and increased a tenfold with over a million deaths of innocent civilians: fathers, mothers and children. This got to stop NOW before the community of nations are dragged into an all consuming nuclear stand-off or a Third World War.
Planet Earth is in jeopardy, destruction will be complete once the Middle East explodes into a war of aggression. Members of U.S. Congress are a representation of the American people and are in many ways more hawkish on foreign policy than the President himself ... a perpetuum motion of destruction lies ahead of us. Democracy as was intended by the Founding Fathers has floundered for decades ... the Trump campaign won over the Electoral College but the popular vote was for the candidate of the Democrats Hillary Clinton by over three million votes.
More below the fold ...
Frontpaged - Frank Schnittger
The American domestic agenda is what the presidential election is about, so is the election of Senators and the House of Representatives. Foreign policy plays an insignificant role in the debate inside America ... the knowledge of International law, diplomacy and other cultures of the other 95% of the global population is just as minute. The man in the White House is disadvantaged to play the role of leader of the "Free World". It is better that other nations read the ominous signs of internal rot that is here to stay for at least another decade. From most polling across the Western World, the conservative agenda is bound by age and so are the political establishment that lacks renewal from young people.
The whole era of a struggle against terror and outside threats to the heart of America, has placed the US military of the Pentagon and the dozens of Intelligence agencies in the forefront to establish foreign policy. Too often through acts of barbarism that has been deemed acceptable by a growing number of countries. The voice of the United Nations has been set aside. The good intentions from the ashes of destruction after WWII have been totally forgotten.
In Europe, the founding of a European Economic Community the EEC of six nations has been transformed into a capitalist oriented oligarch with a goal of expansion. Too often the new goal "to establish democracy" has been uttered. Meanwhile corruption was rampant and spread quicker than the addition of "failed" states of Eastern Europe, the former Soviet satellite states. This introduced internal warfare which replaced the intent of cooperation to establish a peaceful Europe.
The basis of a moral leading organization, the Four Freedoms, has been cast aside a long time ago.
After the fall of Communism in 1989, another strong impulse and emotion of a free people across all of Europe gripped the citizens of those new nations. Unfortunately, the European Union has not met that challenge and failed in its mission. After the 9/11 attacks, the Western world became consumed with hatred of the Muslim world. Not just the 19 Sunni terrorists who were held responsible and the leadership of Al Qaeda in Tora Bora, but all of the Islamic world got the predicate of "terrorists". Islamophobia took hold all over Europe and in America. This has been exploited by politicians who are in it for personal gain and getting a hold of "power". This is the situation in Europe as it is in Washington DC.
That shining light on the hill has long been extinguished. The White House has become part of the dark might that has influence across the globe. The days of Truman, Eisenhower and Kennedy have become part of ancient history. Unfortunately, the role of vengeance for deeds many decades ago still play a prominent role in US Foreign Policy s we have seen in the past week versus the Islamic Republic of Iran with 70 million citizens.
A somber analysis from someone who has been an optimist all my life of 75 years. Unfortunately, reality has not often proved me wrong in my lifetime. Weekly I do volunteer work for youth in the age between 11 and 17 years old, this has kept me optimistic ... and I still am for the new generations. There is more convincing evidence the older generation will have destroyed the planet before these boys and girls have a chance to develop their talents and become mature adults to participate in society to contribute in the challenges the world imposes on them.
A unipolar power centered in Washington DC may become a catalyst for the destruction of our planet.
There are some levelheaded analysts who are able to define human values, International Law and how nations should deal with one another in times of peace and war. America has been on a downward sliding scale during the last decades and expedited by the 9/11 attacks and its aftermath.
Suleimani killing the latest in a long, grim line of US assassination efforts
Iran's foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, denounced the assassination as an "act of international terrorism".
Vipin Narang, a political scientist at MIT, said the killing "wasn't deterrence, it was decapitation".
There has been no shortage of US interventions over the past half century that have attempted - and in some cases succeeded - in removing foreign adversaries through highly dubious legal or ethical means. The country has admitted to making no fewer than eight assassination attempts on Castro, though the real figure was probably much higher.
William Blum, the author of Killing Hope: US Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II, points to a litany of American sins from invasions, bombings, overthrowing of governments, assassinations to torture and death squads. "It's not a pretty picture," is his blunt conclusion.
The CIA was deemed to have run so amok in the 1960s and 70s that in 1975 the Church committee investigated a numerous attempted assassinations on foreign leaders including Patrice Lumumba, Rafael Trujillo of the Dominican Republic, Vietnam's Ngo Dinh Diem, and of course Castro. In the fallout, President Ford banned US involvement in foreign political assassinations.
Brussels sets straight historical wrong over Patrice Lumumba killing
DR Congo today – Hero Patrice Lumumba remembered | EcoNews |
The ban didn't last long. Since 1976 the US has continued to be engaged in, or accused of, efforts to eradicate foreign leaders.
Ronald Reagan launched bombing raids in 1986 targeting Libya's Muammar Gaddafi. As recently as two years ago North Korea alleged that the CIA tried to assassinate its leader Kim Jong-un.
But most of the interventions in the modern era have been covert and conducted beneath the radar. Where they have been proclaimed publicly, they have tended to target non-state actors operating in militias or militant groups like Islamic State.
[...]
Despite such reticence, Mary Ellen O'Connell, a professor of international law at the University of Notre Dame, draws a direct line between earlier US administrations and the convention-shredding unpredictability of Trump. She said the advent of the unmanned drone in 2000 put the US on a slippery slope towards the current crisis.
The first deployment of a drone as an assassination tool was ordered by Bill Clinton in an effort to get Bin Laden. The first successful "targeted killing", as it is now called, came soon after, carried out by the Bush administration in Yemen.
Obama inherited Bush's widespread use of drone killings and increased their frequency tenfold, while seeking to give them a veneer of legal respectability with the secret internal "targeted killing memos". Those documents argued that drone assassinations were justified under international law as self-defense against future terrorist attacks - a rationale that has been widely disputed as a misreading of the UN charter.
Mike Pence pushes 9/11 conspiracy theories to justify Soleimani killing
In defense of his administration's decision to assassinate Qassem Soleimani, Mike Pence has been promoting conspiracy theories that link September 11 terrorists to Iran.
In a series of tweets, the US vice-president called Soleimani "an evil man who was responsible for killing thousands of Americans". Among other things, Pence insisted that the general "assisted in the clandestine travel to Afghanistan of 10 of the 12 terrorists who carried out the September 11 terrorist attacks in the United States", misstating the number of 9/11 hijackers - there were 19 - and insinuating Soleimani's involvement despite a lack of evidence.
Foreign policy experts were quick to point out on social media that Pence's assertions were unsubstantiated.
Pompeo: We Offer Iran Freedom | Tikun Olam |
Pompeo offered Iran freedom from the barrel of a gun. And mighty persuasive it was too.
He gave an interview earlier today in which he recounted a fever-dream version of the aftermath of the Soleimani assassination, which bore no resemblance to any reality we know:
Pompeo: I saw last night there was dancing in the streets in parts of Iraq. We have every expectation that people, not only in Iraq, but in Iran will view the American action last night as giving them freedom. Freedom to have the opportunity for success and prosperity for their nations. And while the political leadership may not want that the people in these nations will demand it.
Interviewer: We'll see.
These Pakistanis don't appear to be dancing in the streets. (Abdul Majeed/AFP via Getty)
The only dancing in the streets of Iraq was done by the Sunni minority, which ruled the country while Saddam's Baath Party held power. And lost it once we overthrew him and dissolved the Baath infrastructure. If there is a last bastion of ISIS remaining on Iraqi territory, they'd indeed be celebrating, since Soleimani was their fiercest enemy (and supposedly ours as well).
○ Netanyahu, Pompeo See Opportunity for Regime Change in Iran Unrest
○ Soleimani Assassination: Sowing the Wind, Reaping the Whirlwind
Even in new year's messages, Russia though FM Sergey Lavrov expressed hope for a diplomatic settlement of numerous conflicts in the Middle East. The Trump cowboy diplomacy has crossed all red lines of Human Rights and International Law.
From my diaries many moons ago ...
Obama cruise missiles attacks in Yemen targeted American citizen Anwar al-Awlaki and his son Abdulrahman
