Welcome to European Tribune. It's gone a bit quiet around here these days, but it's still going.

NWO: Clash of the Hegemons

by Oui Thu Jun 30th, 2022 at 02:32:04 PM EST

GT Voice: G7 is in no position to dictate nations' oil trade with Russia

China's Xi says trade with Russia expected to hit new records in the coming months | CNBC |


Xi's Vision for a 'Just' Global Order: Is China Seeking to Replace American Hegemony?

The balance in the the distribution of wealth and economic power is dissipating towards the East. The new narrative is that Rising powers like China are seeking to reshape the prevailing international system that better serves its national values and interests and reflects its own worldview. Due to its growing material power, China under Xi is becoming more vocal about the discrimination in `discourse power' by a West biased international order. Thus, diversity in historical experiences, cultural identity, and political thinking lies at the heart of the system crisis that the `Liberal International Order' is currently confronting.

Today, the complexities of Sino-US strategic competition are being realized more than ever before as the challenges to American centrism continue to grow due to Beijing's proliferating regional and global footprints. This has raised larger questions about how the western democracies will operate in this new geopolitical era to preserve the existing `rule-based' democratic international order. The paper seeks to assess Xi's view of the world and his intentions for the prevailing US-led global order. The paper argues that Beijing has no intention of architecting a whole new framework altogether and seeks to shed light on the regime's approach toward the West-centric world order.

Is Communism banned in France or within the EU-27?

Impressed by freedom of Xinjiang youth, French writer keeps publishing to unmask anti-China propaganda

Shortly after, a huge report of 654 pages, titled Les opérations d'influences chinoises, un moment machiavelien (Chinese influence operations, a Machiavellian moment) was made by the Strategic Research Institute of the Military School (IRSEM), whose sole target was China. 

In addition to the many repetitions, errors, even lies, we find serious contradictions throughout the pages. And then, I was intrigued by the presence of an "associate researcher" in the IRSEM - a senior officer of the US army. Moreover, one of the writers of the IRSEM report had worked for NATO until 2019.

With my friends Jean-Pierre Page and Aymeric Monville, we then decided to write a book in response to this report and we titled it The ramblings of the Anti-China forces in France.

Impressed by freedom of Xinjiang youth, French writer keeps publishing to unmask anti-China propaganda

Shortly after, a huge report of 654 pages, titled Les opérations d'influences chinoises, un moment machiavelien (Chinese influence operations, a Machiavellian moment) was made by the Strategic Research Institute of the Military School (IRSEM), whose sole target was China. 

In addition to the many repetitions, errors, even lies, we find serious contradictions throughout the pages. And then, I was intrigued by the presence of an "associate researcher" in the IRSEM - a senior officer of the US army. Moreover, one of the writers of the IRSEM report had worked for NATO until 2019.

With my friends Jean-Pierre Page and Aymeric Monville, we then decided to write a book in response to this report and we titled it The ramblings of the Anti-China forces in France.

Revisionism of WWII history in support of Nazism and fascism

European Parliament's anti-communist resolution draws widespread criticism

A number of communist parties, as well as progressive sections in Europe, have condemned a controversial resolution passed by the European Parliament on September 19. The resolution was tabled by the center-right European People's Party group (EPP Group). While emphasizing the importance of "remembrance" for the future of Europe, the resolution goes so far as to equate communism with Nazism. It also calls for the erasure all memorials of "totalitarianism" across Europe, including memorials dedicated to the Red Army. 

Categorizing the Second World War as "the most devastating conflict in the history of Europe," it posits that war was "the immediate consequence of the German-Soviet non-aggression treaty of 23 August 1939, also known as the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact".

Progressive activists have alleged that such a resolution is only the continuation of the European Union (EU) leadership's vicious strategy of selectively targeting the anti-fascist legacy of the Communist party and the Soviet Union, while concealing the role played by Franco's Spain and Mussolini's Italy in supporting Nazi Germany.  The two countries are now among the leading EU member-states.

The Confederal Group of the European United Left / Nordic Green Left (GUE / NGL)  issued a statement in the European Parliament, condemning the use the 80th anniversary of the start of World War II as a pretext for historical revisionism, in order to score political points.

What is fairly clear, however, is that the US would have had to intervene in Europe at some point after Germany defeated France and stalemated Britain. The American policy in the European theatre is essentially the British policy writ large, and for essentially the same reasons. As Sir Humphrey Appleby puts it:

    Britain has had the same foreign policy objective for at least the last five hundred years: to create a disunited Europe. In that cause we have fought with the Dutch against the Spanish, with the Germans against the French, with the French and Italians against the Germans, and with the French against the Germans and Italians. Divide and rule, you see. Why should we change now, when it's worked so well?

An Axis victory over France and draw with Britain, with a weakened Russia, would have threatened to actually create Petain's "German Europe." Which would have forced US intervention the same way the Russian curb-stomping of Germany forced US intervention in 1944.

- Jake

The Historian Whitewashing Ukraine's Past | Foreign Affairs |

Volodymyr Viatrovych is erasing the country's racist and bloody history -- stripping pogroms and ethnic cleansing from the official archives.

Poland Spinning the Shoah - Anti-semitism

Translation:
The European continent is no longer at peace. It has not been since February 24, 2022 and the choice of war made by Russia. In Madrid, meeting as allies, we took note of this.

Hunger Games

The West can either reduce the size of pig farms ... or of Chinese people??

Cartoon Liz Truss Leading Charge On China Now

South Korea and Japan invited by NATO

Biden beating Trump on MAGA .. securing supply lines, Taiwan is key.

Biden's 'Multilateralism' Amounts To AmericaFirst!!

#NATO's new "strategic concept" disregards facts, smears China's foreign policy, makes irresponsible remarks on China's normal military development and natl defense policy, incites confrontation & is filled with Cold War mentality and ideological bias: FM spokesperson Zhao Lijian

NATO and EU expansion into Indo-Pacific region

What do you think about "color revolution" happened in Kazakhstan and Belarus recently? 

Sultanov:US President Joe Biden said immediately after taking office that global challenges in the new era - varying from the COVID-19 pandemic and climate crisis to nuclear proliferation - can be overcome by countering the claimed "growing ambitions" of China to rival the US and the determination of Russia to damage and disrupt democracy.

So, in our view, the US and the collective West will seek to thwart Beijing's good relationship with Moscow. The White House is trying to create a separation barrier between Russia and China in Central Asia. The White House will also try to block China from entering EU markets and disrupt the conjunction of the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) with the Silk Road Economic Belt (SREB), a significant part of which passes through the territory of Kazakhstan.

Four US Presidents and Lives Lost 2001-2021

Display:

United States exits arms control treaties ...

The US suspension of and withdrawal from the INF-Treaty is an irresponsible move that opens the path for a new-nuclear arms race and highlights the importance of real multilateral, binding solutions like the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. With Russia and the US putting the entire world at risk, it is urgent for all responsible states to stand up and join the Nuclear Ban Treaty.

The U.S. Exit From the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty Has Fueled a New Arms Race | Carnegie - Dec. 13, 2021 |

Related reading ...

The EU's Arms Control Challenge: Bridging the Nuclear Divide | ISS EU |

'Sapere aude'

by Oui (Oui) on Mon Jul 4th, 2022 at 07:21:54 PM EST
by Cat on Wed Jul 6th, 2022 at 09:17:29 PM EST


'Sapere aude'
by Oui (Oui) on Fri Jul 8th, 2022 at 06:22:53 PM EST
How Japan's Emperor (Subtly) Criticized Shinzo Abe

Emperor Akihito expressed "deep remorse" for the war at a memorial service and "a deep and renewed sense of sorrow," he did not openly attack the somewhat ambiguous August 14 (2015) statement of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe  on the same subject - the latter's remarks were filled with rhetorical twists and did not offer a new apology to Japan's wartime victims.

It was the first time that the emperor uttered the phrase "deep remorse" at the Nippon Budokan hall in Tokyo during the annual so-called "National Memorial Service for the War Dead."

...
The subtle gesture of releasing the surrender speech of his father as well as pictures of the rundown bunker in which Hirohito finally admitted utter and complete military defeat can be seen as a clear indication of what Akihito thinks about Japan's devastating wartime experience, as well as Shinzo Abe's historical revisionism.

As my colleague Yuki Tatsumi already pointed out (See: "Why You Should Listen to What Japan's Emperor Says on August 15"),  the emperor has identified "four dates that should not be forgotten" by the Japanese people from the watershed year 1945: June 23 (the Battle of Okinawa), August 6 (the atomic bombing of Hiroshima), August 9 (the atomic bombing of Nagasaki), and August 15 (the end of the war).

"It is most important for us to take this opportunity to study and learn from the history of this war, starting with the Manchurian Incident of 1931, as we consider the future direction of our country," Emperor Akihito already said during his 2015 New Year's address. The Manchurian Incident was a pretext for the Japanese invasion of northeastern China in 1931.

In 1936, Nobusuke Kishi, Shinzo Abe's grandfather, was sent to Manchuria to push for the industrialization of Japan's de-facto colony with the help of Chinese forced labor. After the war he was arrested as an alleged Class-A war criminal and accused of playing an instrumental part in setting up Manchuria's (back then known as Manchuko) wartime economy which was "designed to enable Japan to carry on an aggressive war." Kishi, however, was never indicted and became Japan's head of government in the 1950s. During his premiership, Kishi pushed for constitutional revision and rearmament but failed. Shinzo Abe appears to have taken up the family's baton in both instances and it is his sense of family honor that perhaps has Emperor Akihito worried the most.



'Sapere aude'
by Oui (Oui) on Mon Jul 11th, 2022 at 09:11:19 PM EST
Nobusuke Kishi [Abe's grandfather] did became PM in Japan around late 50s to 60s. Even though he's a outright war criminal, the NATO need a strong allies in East Asia, so Kishi a very anti communist politicians was put to power, he ratified the Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security between the United States and Japan  with US, expanding Japan rights to defence itself and strengthen the JSDF. This again sparkled mass protest by the Japan leftist, communist and general public as they fear Japan may go to war again.


'Sapere aude'
by Oui (Oui) on Mon Jul 11th, 2022 at 09:12:28 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Conceptual Twist of Japanese Nuclear Policy: Its Ambivalence and Coherence Under the US Umbrella

From 1954 to 1972, when the US administration of Okinawa was returned to the Japanese authorities, US military forces installed 18 types of nuclear weapon systems in Okinawa, such as the 280 mm gun, the depth bomb, nuclear missiles like Mace and Falcon, and nuclear rockets like Honest John. The number of nuclear weapons totaled around 1300 at its peak in 1967. The US also introduced nuclear arsenals into South Korea, Taiwan, the Philippines, and Guam, in addition to Okinawa. The number of the US nuclear weapons deployed to the Asia Pacific region totaled more than 3200 at peak, which means Okinawa took the lion's share of the arsenals introduced (Norris, Arkin, and Burr, 2018).

Memorandum of a Conversation, Visit Japan PM Kishi Nobusuke to White House, Washington, June 19, 1957

'Sapere aude'

by Oui (Oui) on Mon Jul 11th, 2022 at 09:13:19 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Japan: The Anti-Treaty Narrative and the Fall of Kishi Nobusuke

Japanese Prime Minister Kishi Nobusuke became the primary target of the anti-treaty movement in 1960. Not one to take things lying down, the harder Nobusuke pushed, the worse his image and the political situation became. The more he ignored dissent, the more he further enhanced the opposition's argument that he was a man of Japan's ugly fascist past, and not a man of its democratic future.

The Kishi Effect: A Political Genealogy of Japan-ROK Relations

'Sapere aude'

by Oui (Oui) on Mon Jul 11th, 2022 at 09:14:09 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Abe Visit to Controversial Tokyo's Yasukuni Shrine Draws Rare U.S. Criticism | WSJ - Dec. 26, 2013 |

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's surprise visit to a shrine linked to Japan's militarist past threatens to damage ties with the U.S. and jeopardize a pillar of the White House's diplomatic and military pivot to Asia.

The outing to Tokyo's Yasukuni Shrine triggered strong criticism from Beijing and Seoul, but also a rare admonition from Washington, which has pushed the Asian neighbors to mend ties strained by territorial disputes and differences over wartime history.

"The United States is disappointed that Japan's leadership has taken an action that will exacerbate tensions with Japan's neighbors," said the U.S. Embassy in Tokyo on its website, in an unusual direct criticism of Japan's leader by its main ally.



'Sapere aude'
by Oui (Oui) on Mon Jul 11th, 2022 at 09:15:04 PM EST
[ Parent ]


'Sapere aude'
by Oui (Oui) on Wed Jul 13th, 2022 at 04:32:41 AM EST
Less than trustworthy ...

"This primitive informational dump clearly demonstrates low intellectual abilities of the propagandists at the American intelligence service," Russia's foreign ministry said in a statement cited by the RIA news agency.

Of the 20 Americans killed in combat in 2019, the Times said, it was not clear which deaths were under suspicion. In period 2015-18 civilian deaths and casualties increased of which 40% were children.

Diplomacy for Dummies: Adding Sanctions

Taliban reject claims Russia aided fighters in attacks on US troops | Dawn News |

The Taliban rejected a newspaper report claiming their fighters had received rewards from Moscow's spies to kill US troops in Afghanistan.

The New York Times reported on Friday that bounties offered by a notorious arm of Russia's military intelligence service gave incentives to Taliban fighters to target US forces, just as US President Donald Trump tries to withdraw troops and end America's longest war.

A decade long of warmongering, lies and Russophobic attacks making Russia the number one enemy state. Stupid foreign policy.

'Sapere aude'

by Oui (Oui) on Sat Jul 16th, 2022 at 09:34:22 AM EST
Sir Winston Churchill rightly found his Waterloo in London politics.

So concerned was the Prime Minister Winston Churchill, that in the spring of 1945 he ordered his Chiefs of Staff to prepare a plan to attack the Soviet Empire.

Operation Unthinkable - Churchill's plans to invade the Soviet Union

In the 1990s in America the strategy got a face lift and became part of American think tanks to confront Russia. See amongst others, architects Paul Wolfowitz, Bill Kristol, Douglas Feith known as a group neo-Conservatives or neocons. The rightwing extreme fascist blue print from the era of Barry Goldwater.

The Blob emerged from World War II, worry incessantly about the "collapse of the American security order"

Some refer to the Blob as the Deep State or for the common man, the security state as foreseen by George Orwell in his book 1984, The Invasion of Privacy leading to a nuclear war.

    One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power. Now you begin to understand me."  

    "The further a society drifts from truth the more it will hate those who speak it." ― George Orwell

See latest reference to the Blob by Cat.

'Sapere aude'

by Oui (Oui) on Mon Jul 18th, 2022 at 05:45:04 AM EST
Build a Better Blob | CATO Institute - May 29, 2020 |

"The Blob is not the problem," they conclude. "It is the solution."  They are wrong. For the most part, the Blob clings to a narrow set of views about the United States' global role and paints a far too rosy picture of the last few decades of American foreign policy. Its outlook, albeit widespread, should not be confused with expertise--but the idea of the Blob has become so slippery as to enable such p conflation.

So Joe Biden found this Churchillian blue print in his Oval Office hidden compartment "when all new ideas fail ..." revert to the past and start a New Cold War.

Criticism of the establishment CFR.

Vanguard of the 'Deep State'? The Council on Foreign Relations Centennial & the Future of the New World Order

Trickery. To cover-up their operations, intelligence community introduces a conspiracy to obfuscate facts. Spill some truths with obvious false flag intent.

'Sapere aude'

by Oui (Oui) on Mon Jul 18th, 2022 at 05:59:37 AM EST
[ Parent ]
The Obama Fun Couple Samantha Power - Cass Sunstein

    On September 15, 2015, President Obama issued an Executive Order recommending that executive departments and agencies use "behavioral science insights to better serve the American people." The articles in this special section were already in press when the order was issued, and this serendipity further underscores the timeliness of this special section.


'Sapere aude'
by Oui (Oui) on Tue Jul 19th, 2022 at 01:45:06 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Early February 2022 newsletter, run-up to all out war ...

National Security Daily

From the SitRoom to the E-Ring, the inside scoop on defense, national security and foreign policy

Could the U.S. prevent a war by giving up on NATO expansion? ... incessantly about the collapse of the American security order in Europe.

'Sapere aude'

by Oui (Oui) on Mon Jul 18th, 2022 at 06:00:38 AM EST
[ Parent ]
The West Débuts a New Strategy to Confront a Historic "Inflection Point" | The New Yorker - July 1, 2022 |

NATO vowed to ramp up troop presence and war matériel to secure Europe against future Russian aggression and to aid Ukraine's campaign, for "as long as it takes".

From my diary ...

Madrid Summit: NATO Goes Global

'Sapere aude'

by Oui (Oui) on Mon Jul 18th, 2022 at 06:01:39 AM EST
[ Parent ]
More comments in line with Washington DC and the issue of Blob ...

German Green's minister: Energy plan of last coalition a 'disaster' | DW News |

German Food and Agriculture Minister Cem Ozdemir on Sunday said the energy policy of former Chancellor Angela Merkel's government was a "disaster."

Referring to the country's heavy reliance on oil and gas supplies from Russia which expanded under Merkel's leadership, he said the current administration had "inherited a catastrophic situation."

"I didn't think it was a good idea for us to get 60% of gas from a criminal named Vladimir Putin," Ozdemir said, in reference to the Russian president.

Speaking at a trade fair in the southern city of Munich, the Green Party politician called for a public debate about the mistakes made by the previous government, saying it was vital to "come to terms with what has happened in recent years."

Germany as a nation is not helped by the lunacy of such a man. Just look next to you Cher, they are already on the inside.

Under Trump, Germany was put under economic and trade sanctions ... naturally Chancellor Merkel looked after Germany's interest first. A wise lesson for Olaf Scholz and Annalena Baerbock, the leader of the Green Party. Doling through a labyrinth. No vision, no experience on the global stage.  

Realpolitik, the era of rapprochement under Willy Brandt has been frozen by a unipolar dominance of America. Making Russia a pariah or enemy state through media propaganda.

Related reading ...

-Post- Imperium

'Sapere aude'

by Oui (Oui) on Mon Jul 18th, 2022 at 07:51:44 AM EST


'Sapere aude'
by Oui (Oui) on Mon Jul 18th, 2022 at 07:52:55 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Interview with Zbigniew Brzezinski, President Jimmy Carter's National Security Adviser

Le Nouvel Observateur, Paris, 15-21 January 1998

Question: The former director of the CIA, Robert Gates, stated in his memoirs ["From the Shadows"], that American intelligence services began to aid the Mujahadeen in Afghanistan 6 months before the Soviet intervention. In this period you were the national security adviser to President Carter. You therefore played a role in this affair. Is that correct?


Brzezinski: Yes. According to the official version of history, CIA aid to the Mujahadeen began during 1980, that is to say, after the Soviet army invaded Afghanistan, 24 Dec 1979. But the reality, secretly guarded until now, is completely otherwise. Indeed, it was July 3, 1979 that President Carter signed the first directive for secret aid [cached archive] to the opponents of the pro-Soviet regime in Kabul. And that very day, I wrote a note to the president in which I explained to him that in my opinion this aid was going to induce a Soviet military intervention.


Q: Despite this risk, you were an advocate of this covert action. But perhaps you yourself desired this Soviet entry into war and looked to provoke it?

B: It isn't quite that. We didn't push the Russians to intervene, but we knowingly increased the probability that they would.

The same scenario was implemented by the Pentagon and Joe Biden in the White House for Putin, Russia and the Ukraine. War thugs.

'Sapere aude'

by Oui (Oui) on Mon Jul 18th, 2022 at 03:39:10 PM EST
The Cuban Missile Crisis: How to Respond? - JFK Library

Kennedy Library - Fidel Castro's Letter

Dear Comrade Khrushchev:

Given the analysis of the situation and the reports which have reached us, [I] consider an attack to be almost imminent--within the next 24 to 72 hours. There are two possible variants: the first and most probable one is an air attack against certain objectives with the limited aim of destroying them; the second, and though less probable, still possible, is a full invasion. This would require a large force and is the most repugnant form of aggression, which might restrain them.

You can be sure that we will resist with determination, whatever the case. The Cuban people's morale is extremely high and the people will confront aggression heroically.

I would like to briefly express my own personal opinion.

If the second variant takes place and the imperialists invade Cuba with the aim of occupying it, the dangers of their aggressive policy are so great that after such an invasion the Soviet Union must never allow circumstances in which the imperialists could carry out a nuclear first strike against it.

I tell you this because I believe that the imperialists' aggressiveness makes them extremely dangerous, and that if they manage to carry out an invasion of Cuba--a brutal act in violation of universal and moral law--then that would be the moment to eliminate this danger forever, in an act of the most legitimate self-defense. However harsh and terrible the solution, there would be no other.

This opinion is shaped by observing the development of their aggressive policy. The imperialists, without regard for world opinion and against laws and principles, have blockaded the seas, violated our air-space, and are preparing to invade, while at the same time blocking any possibility of negotiation, even though they understand the gravity of the problem.

You have been, and are, a tireless defender of peace, and I understand that these moments, when the results of your superhuman efforts are so seriously threatened, must be bitter for you. We will maintain our hopes for saving the peace until the last moment, and we are ready to contribute to this in any way we can. But, at the same time, we are serene and ready to confront a situation which we see as very real and imminent.

I convey to you the infinite gratitude and recognition of the Cuban people to the Soviet people, who have been so generous and fraternal, along with our profound gratitude and admiration to you personally. We wish you success with the enormous task and great responsibilities which are in your hands.

Fraternally,

Fidel Castro

The CIA has made dozens of attempts to assassinate Fidel Castro, succeeding to murder [execute] his closest ally Che Guevara.

'Sapere aude'

by Oui (Oui) on Sun Jul 24th, 2022 at 10:09:58 AM EST
The CIA failed invasion to overthrow Castro  and end the Revolution of the People

Castro's courtship of the Soviet Union began shortly after the revolution with a visit to Havana by Soviet Vice Premier Anastas Mikoyan. As he took on the United States he knew he needed Soviet protection in order to survive. The Soviets played a cautious game, but could not pass up an opportunity to gain a toehold in the Western Hemisphere, ninety miles from the United States. At the end of Mikoyan's visit, the Soviets agreed to buy Cuban sugar in exchange for Soviet oil. The United States, already concerned with Castro's anti-American rhetoric, saw the agreement as a betrayal, and asked U.S. companies in Cuba not to refine the Soviet crude oil. Relations began spiraling down, until their final break in January 1961.

On the morning of April 18, 1961, readers of The New York Times awoke to a startling headline: "Anti-Castro Units Land in Cuba; Report Fighting at Beachhead; Rusk Says U.S. Won't Intervene. Premier Defiant. Says His Troops Battle Heroically to Repel Attacking Force." The author of the article, Tad Szulc, a confidant of President John F. Kennedy, wrote that anti-Castro forces had landed in a swampy area of Cuba in Las Villas Province, supported by American air cover. The article said the unidentified rebels were making substantial progress in their landings and that Premier Fidel Castro had narrowly escaped injury in an air raid during the initial fighting.

Another headline in the same edition of the newspaper reported that "Moscow Blames U.S. For Attack." The confusing nature of the two headlines made readers uncertain just what was taking place in Cuba, a communist-dominated nation a scant 90 miles off the coast of Florida. If the readers of the Times really knew what was going on, they would have been even more shocked. The attack at the Bay of Pigs that early April morning had been in the works for many months, its planning having begun in the last year of the Eisenhower administration. The overall goal of the attack, led by anti-Castro forces trained and equipped by the United States, had one common theme--the overthrow of the Castro regime and its replacement by forces loyal to the United States.

In secret deal with Kremlin, the Kennedy administration agreed to remove Jupiter ballistic missiles from NATO country Turkey.

'Sapere aude'

by Oui (Oui) on Sun Jul 24th, 2022 at 10:12:57 AM EST
[ Parent ]
The Turkish Missile Crisis: The Root of Anti-American Sentiment in Turkey

The Cuban Missile Crisis is one of the most studied moments of the Cold War. It is a story every eighth-grade American child is taught and is paraded about as a victory for the United States. In most retellings, the US is seen as a victim in an act of unprovoked aggression by the Soviets. After some show of US Naval force, this narrative ends with the Soviets running away with their missiles. What is often forgotten is the fact that the Soviets were not acting unprovoked. In 1961, after a failed Bay of Pigs invasion, the United States moved American Jupiter ballistic missiles into Italy and Turkey. This put American missiles within range of Moscow. In response, the Soviets sent nuclear warheads to Cuba. For the first time in the Cold War, both the US and the USSR had a real threat posed against their mainland.

[The SM-78 Jupiter development began in 1954 under the supervision of Dr. Wernher Von Braun, an alleged Nazi war criminal.]



'Sapere aude'
by Oui (Oui) on Sun Jul 24th, 2022 at 10:13:42 AM EST
[ Parent ]


'Sapere aude'
by Oui (Oui) on Wed Jul 27th, 2022 at 10:30:38 PM EST


'Sapere aude'
by Oui (Oui) on Wed Jul 27th, 2022 at 10:31:46 PM EST
[ Parent ]


'Sapere aude'
by Oui (Oui) on Wed Jul 27th, 2022 at 10:32:46 PM EST
[ Parent ]

In other words breakdown of basic diplomacy.

'Sapere aude'

by Oui (Oui) on Thu Jul 28th, 2022 at 03:09:04 AM EST
From a diary here @ET with slight alterations to adjust to present year 2022 ...

Re: "To Defeat the Beast" | Sept. 2006 |

Multi-Million Dollar Question: What is the best and practical and realistic way to defeat the beast?

Wrong question. America hardly noticed the Russian Federation after the crumbling of the Soviet Empire and Communism was defeated early in the nineties. Capitalist scavengers would dismantle the Soviet industry and especially the oil & gas assets of some value.as part of the spoils of victory on Commernism. And where fear still did exist, it had more to do with overnight billionaires flexing their political muscles than with any serious attempt to attack the West.

Mao Tse Tung or Lenin's Communism barely exists now beyond the minds of Baltic states, Poland and Western Ukraine. The background level threat in real terms in the West is no worse than it has been from other foreign states of the last fifty years or so. Ukraine isn't suffering from Russian terror so much as local tribalism of oligarchs vying for total control of Kyiv politics - which is something very different. US members of Congress should halt feeding the Beast at every occasion. After Jesse Helms, John McCaine, Joe Lieberman, we are now relying on a Ted Crux, Marco Rubio, and Lindsey Graham. Full fledged anti-communists and European anti-socialists included.

Only someone clinically delusional could seriously believe that the Kremlin with Putin are at all likely to start attacking NATO allies advancing to lay siege of Washington DC. Russia is not a national security threat, nor was Iraq, Libya and Syria. But still - the US seems obsessed with this ridiculous confrontational narrative in which the West, and especially effete old Europe, is in imminent danger of being over-run by the Red army from Moscow. An pre-emptive attack is the best defense.

I think this has less to do with real fear of the Russian or Chinese people, and more to do with the fact that the US is charging headlong into economic and cultural decadence and needs a misdirection and a scapegoat to persuade itself that it's still a mighty and colossal military superpower.

Hence these massively assymetrical wars against countries which really shouldn't stand a chance against the US - but against which it still manages to lose, as often as not.

There's some kind of deep masochistic need to be punished and hated twitching around in the soul of the US at the moment. Secretly, Clinton, Bush and the NeoCons may well realise they're bad, bad people. So they seem to be trying to get away with as much as they can before Mother comes along and spanks them.

(Or maybe not. But as explanations go, this makes as much sense as any other that I've seen.)

But anyway. The US has plenty of real challenges to deal with which don't require a fake Warrrr on scary Slavic people. If the leadership wasn't drifting along in a doomed and rudderless asteroid of political irrelevance, it would be tackling real issues - sustainable energy, sustainable and fair economic policy, sustainable health care - instead of fantasising about the threat from invading barbarism hordes.

With a professional Executive, the post-communist security services would have stayed on strength capable of dealing with any invading barbarian hordes. Yet Clinton and Western allies cut on defense spending. It took the 9/11 attacks to bring America back to its senses of adding strength to their military might and 5-Eyes intelligence services. Right to privacy is doomed.

If the barbarians would succeed in the 21st century, it wasn't because of some astonishing new fundamentalist asymmetrical warfare. It was because Trump, Biden completely fucked up in foreign policy fighting losing wars.

The US might want to deal with that reality before it starts trying to eliminate Russian support from the rest of the planet. Who knows - it might even accidentally end up reestablishing a multilateral world tackling the real problems of Planet Earth with energy and economic transition to a sustainable Green Economy where cooperation is more valuable than driving the West into another senseless war of choice.



'Sapere aude'
by Oui (Oui) on Mon Aug 1st, 2022 at 09:04:56 AM EST

One year ahead of the January 6th insurrection to destroy democracy.

A Final Warning Against Fascism | Jan. 10th, 2020 |

EU needs to take a stand against a bully, otherwise Freedom will be compromised. There is no middle ground to adhere to International Law and the Geneva and The Hague conventions. Fascist policy has reared its ugly head in America ever since the 9/11 attacks.

Germany urges EU unity at Middle East crisis meeting | DW |

Western powers with NATO and US leadership have made an ugly mess of the MENAT region. End the sale of weaponry to wealthy authoritarian states in the Gulf region. One reaps what one sows ... blowback.

Foreign ministers from the European Union's 28 member-states gathered in Brussels for a rare emergency meeting following recent days of turmoil in the Middle East and Libya.

The talks came a week after the US killed top Iranian general Qassem Soleimani in an airstrike in Iraq, prompting a retaliatory response from Iran and sparking concerns about an all-out conflict.

German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said "the immediate danger of war" had been "averted for the time being," and called for a united European strategy to stop any further escalation.

h/t Cat

Iraq uprising against status quo democracy ...

Iraq State of Affairs: Sectarian Violence

Geneva talks to rid Iran of the Trump era imposed sanctions.



'Sapere aude'
by Oui (Oui) on Sat Aug 6th, 2022 at 08:38:59 PM EST
A book review by The Guardian in 2004.

The Unconquerable World: Power, Nonviolence and the Will of the PeopleBy Jonathan Schell

In contrast, the situation was far messier in central Europe, and even messier and more difficult in Africa and the Middle East. But the cost for others was to be enormous: these ethnically homogeneous countries exported their sense of unproblematic racial superiority overseas in global conquest and plunder. Between 1870 and 1900, European nations seized control of some 10 million square miles of territory on which 150 million people lived.

The new war system reached its terrifying apogee in the first and second world wars when, for the last time, total war was fought to the bitter end. In the very death throes of the second world war, there was born the weapon that would profoundly change the nature of warfare. "The [nuclear] bomb revealed that total war was not an everlasting but a historical phenomenon," Schell writes. The invention of atomic weapons rendered the old global war system unworkable. The bitter end would in future mean nothing less than the destruction of humanity.

...
It is the rise of a very different United States, of course, that lies at the root of these fears and forebodings. Schell is excellent at laying bare the emergence of the new America and describing the character of its new imperial policy: the insistence, following 9/11, on describing the fight against terrorism as "war", thereby enabling the full deployment of the supreme military machine of our time; the assault on proliferation with the invocation of the axis of evil, combined with the endorsement of pre-emptive action, giving the United States the right to intervene anywhere at any time; the rejection of multilateral treaties; and the hubristic assumption that the American economic and political system is the only valid one. We have entered a profoundly dangerous era with potentially catastrophic consequences.

Great insight and analysis by Jonathan Schell, yet the world has changed due to a turn towards fascism in the last two decades. Turning points the NATO Bucharest Summit in 2008 promising further expansion into Georgia and Ukraine, the CIA led coup d'état of the so-called Maidan Revolt of Februari 2014, the Revolution and years of turbulence from the Arab Uprisings [color revolts] from 2011 through 2019. The failure to tackle the fossil fuel lobby, increasing global warming and climate change which led to the post-pandemic turmoil on the food and energy market. Letting the Ukraine War happen has sealed the fate of mankind for the next ten years.

The era of multilateralism and globalization led to decades of peace supported by the creation and expansion of the European Union. The latter is beyond its expiration date and is mortally wounded by outside forces.

'Sapere aude'

by Oui (Oui) on Sun Aug 7th, 2022 at 09:21:53 AM EST
From TomDispatch:  In July 2014, almost four months after the death of Jonathan Schell, I posted the following excerpt from his 2004 book The Unconquerable World (which I edited) as a memorial to an old friend I had long admired.

Writing that book in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, he was focused on the cliff the U.S. seemed to be going over with its invasion of Afghanistan and its declaration of a Global War on Terror.  Schell suggested that it might prove a long-term equivalent of 1914, the year the First World War began. In reading that excerpt again recently, I noticed these lines that -- with the war in Ukraine in full swing and a growing confrontation between Washington (backed by NATO) and Russia (supported by China) -- seemed all too eerily of this moment: "It is of course impossible to predict how and where history might again go over the precipice... It could even be -- hard as it is to imagine now -- intentional or semi-intentional nuclear war between Russia and the United States in some future crisis that we cannot foresee but cannot rule out, either."

The Path to a New 1914?

How America Chose War After 9/11 -- by Jonathan Schell

Then came the attack of September 11th. Like the starting gun of a race that no one knew he was to run, this explosion set the pack of nations off in a single direction -- toward the trenches. Although the attack was unaccompanied by any claim of authorship or statement of political goals, the evidence almost immediately pointed to al-Qaeda, the radical Islamist, terrorist network, which, though stateless, was headquartered in Afghanistan and enjoyed the protection of its fundamentalist Islamic government. In a tape that was soon shown around the world, the group's leader, Osama bin Laden, was seen at dinner with his confederates in Afghanistan, rejoicing in the slaughter.

Historically, nations have responded to terrorist threats and attacks with a combination of police action and political negotiation, while military action has played only a minor role. Voices were raised in the United States calling for a global cooperative effort of this kind to combat al-Qaeda. President Bush opted instead for a policy that the United States alone among nations could have conceivably undertaken: global military action not only against al-Qaeda but against any regime in the world that supported international terrorism.

The president announced to Congress that he would "make no distinction between the terrorists who commit these acts and those who harbor them." By calling the campaign a "war," the administration summoned into action the immense, technically revolutionized, post-Cold War American military machine, which had lacked any clear enemy for over a decade. And by identifying the target as generic "terrorism," rather than as al-Qaeda or any other group or list of groups, the administration licensed military operations anywhere in the world.

In the ensuing months, the Bush administration continued to expand the aims and means of the war. The overthrow of governments -- "regime change" -- was established as a means for advancing the new policies. The president divided regimes into two categories -- those "with us" and those "against us." Vice President Cheney estimated that al-Qaeda was active in 60 countries. The first regime to be targeted was of course al-Qaeda's host, the government of Afghanistan, which was overthrown in a remarkably swift military operation conducted almost entirely from the air and without American casualties.

Next, the administration proclaimed an additional war goal -- preventing the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. In his State of the Union speech in January 2002, the president announced that "the United States of America will not permit the world's most dangerous regimes to threaten us with the world's most destructive weapons." He went on to name as an "axis of evil" Iraq, Iran, and North Korea -- three regimes seeking to build or already possessing weapons of mass destruction. To stop them, he stated, the Cold War policy of deterrence would not be enough -- "preemptive" military action would be required, and preemption, the administration soon specified, could include the use of nuclear weapons.

Beginning in the summer of 2002, the government intensified its preparations for a war to overthrow the regime of Saddam Hussein in Iraq, and in the fall, the president demanded and received a resolution from the Security Council of the United Nations requiring Iraq to accept the return of U.N. inspectors to search for weapons of mass destruction or facilities for building them. Lists of other candidates for "regime change" began to surface in the press.

Leaving Cooperative Action Behind

In this way, the war on terror grew to encompass the most important geopolitical issue facing the world: the disposition of nuclear weapons in the second nuclear age. The Clinton administration had already answered the question regarding American possession of nuclear weapons: even in the absence of the Soviet Union, the United States planned to hold on to its nuclear arsenal indefinitely.

In 2002, the Bush administration gave an answer to the question regarding nonproliferation, which throughout the nuclear age had been dealt with exclusively by diplomacy and negotiation, or, on occasion, economic sanctions. The new answer was force. Nuclear disarmament was to be achieved by war and threats of war, starting with Iraq.

One complementary element of the new policy, embraced long before September 11th, was the decision to build a national missile defense system to protect the United States against nuclear attack by "rogue nations." But the fundamental element was a policy of preemptive war, or "offensive deterrence."

This momentous shift in nuclear policy called, in addition, for programs to build new nuclear weapons and new delivery vehicles; confirmed new missions for nuclear weapons -- retaliation for chemical or biological attacks, attacking hardened bunkers unreachable by other weapons -- in the post-Cold War world; and listed seven countries (Russia, China, North Korea, Iraq, Iran, Libya, and Syria) for which contingency plans for nuclear attack should be considered.



'Sapere aude'
by Oui (Oui) on Sun Aug 7th, 2022 at 09:24:11 AM EST


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