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USA causing tensions and uncertainty with its expanding militarism in the Pacific, targeting China

Wshington should stop playing dangerous games https://www.chinadaily.com.cn/a/202207/04/WS62c225a5a310fd2b29e6a123.html By Martin Sieff | CHINA DAILY , 6 Jul 22

US President Joe Biden has taken a vague approach on an understanding with Beijing over the Taiwan question negotiated in 1972 by then president Richard Nixon that has ensured peace and mutual prosperity in the Pacific for half a century.

The US-led West continues to push NATO’s eastward expansion and build NATO-like military alliances in the Asia-Pacific region such as AUKUS, the much-touted Australia-United Kingdom－United States strategic alliance. Now the Western powers with some other countries are holding RIMPAC 2022, or Rim of the Pacific, military exercises, the largest in the program’s history, which will further increase uncertainties in the Asia-Pacific.

The alleged reason the West cites for trying to brainwash the prosperous and, left to themselves, peaceful and well-meaning populations of those and other countries is that China, Russia and some other countries present some hideous threat to the rest of the world like Hitler’s Nazi Germany and therefore must be resisted.

Yet the Joe Biden administration, oblivious to the ageless teachings, remains consistent in holding on to the extraordinary irony and blasphemy that its own political values and ideology－which it so manifestly fails to live up to in its own domestic policies and society－must nevertheless be imposed as the inevitable and unavoidable destiny on the rest of the world. Such ridiculous hubris, or arrogance according to the classical Greek view of life, must inevitably generate an annihilating nemesis: total destruction.

How else can one explain the determination of the US administration, pulling its Pacific allies in tow, to provoke a full-scale confrontation, threatening no holds barred confrontation with China over the Taiwan question?

US President Joe Biden has taken a vague approach on an understanding with Beijing over the Taiwan question negotiated in 1972 by then president Richard Nixon that has ensured peace and mutual prosperity in the Pacific for half a century. Biden is also continuing to arm Ukraine to the teeth so Kyiv can keep fighting a bloody conflict it cannot possibly win against Moscow.

What possible sanity can lie behind provoking a war and openly threatening the world’s two other leading strategic and nuclear-armed powers with destabilization and destruction at the same time?

Now, the next step on this march of folly to an extended war has also been taken. Following the recently concluded G7 summit which was apparently targeted at both Russia and China, the Biden administration has dragooned its Pacific allies of New Zealand, Australia and (maybe a reluctant) Japan into the latest RIMPAC exercises specifically aimed at targeting Beijing and bullying it into accepting Washington’s diktat over Taiwan.

Neither Biden nor any of his national security team of Secretary of State Antony Blinken, National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and Under Secretary of State for Policy Victoria Nuland shows the slightest realization that all their policies are certain to bring about the very Armageddon they claim to be determined to deter.

In fact, in his first face-to-face meeting with Austin on the sidelines of the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore on June 10, Chinese State Councilor and Defense Minister Wei Fenghe made clear that any move, encouraged or manipulated by the US, to get Taiwan to declare independence would be immediately taken by Beijing as a casus belli.

This would be an insane risk for the US administration to take even if it was to secure peace with the rest of the world, and at no risk of a full-scale war with Russia, another catastrophe which Biden has been assiduously courting.


Far from deterring China, the announcement of the latest RIMPAC exercises, as well as the provocative, hostile and contemptuous language in which that statement was made, can only lock the US even further into its suicidal leap of the Gadarene swine off the edge of a gigantic cliff from which there can be no return or recovery.

Only about 25 people are reported to have survived trying to commit suicide by jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco since it was completed in 1937 out of the 1,700 who have tried. Every one of those survivors has testified that they realized they had made a terrible mistake as soon as they jumped the 67 meters into San Francisco Bay.


Will Biden, Blinken, Sullivan and Nuland experience a similar far-too-late moment of clarity when the catastrophe they have worked so ceaselessly to provoke finally explodes on their country and its allies? By that point, it will not matter: the damned cannot escape their inevitable destruction. One can only weep for the hundreds of millions they will take with them.

The author is a senior fellow at the American University in Moscow.

July 7, 2022 Posted by | politics international, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

US imposes new Iran sanctions amid efforts to revive nuclear deal

US measures targeting Iranian petroleum and petrochemical sales come ahead of Joe Biden’s visit to the region next week.

By Al Jazeera Staff. 6 Jul 2022

The sanctions come days after American and Iranian diplomats held a round of indirect talks in Qatar to try to restore the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the multilateral agreement that saw Iran scale back its nuclear programme in exchange for the lifting of sanctions against its economy.

“While the United States is committed to achieving an agreement with Iran that seeks a mutual return to compliance with the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, we will continue to use all our authorities to enforce sanctions on the sale of Iranian petroleum and petrochemicals,” Under-secretary of the

Treasury for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence Brian Nelson, said in a statement.

…………………………….. President Joe Biden and his top aides say they are committed to reviving the deal through mutual compliance, but they have continued to enforce Trump’s sanctions and added dozens of their own.

……………………

Tehran has blamed Washington’s refusal to revoke sanctions for the inability to reach a deal so far.

“Agreement is possible only based on mutual understanding & interests,” Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian wrote on Twitter on Tuesday after a phone call with European Union’s foreign policy chief Josep Borrell.

“We remain ready to negotiate a strong & durable agreement. US must decide if it wants a deal or insists on sticking to its unilateral demands.”  https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/7/6/us-imposes-new-iran-sanctions-amid-efforts-to-revive-nuclear-deal

July 7, 2022 Posted by | Iran, politics international | Leave a comment

Macron says he doesn’t want to ‘annihilate’ Russia

While the French president has backed anti-Russia sanctions, he has refrained from the extreme rhetoric of his US and UK counterparts/

French President Emmanuel Macron condemned “Anglo Saxon” leaders for openly wishing annihilation upon Russia in clips from a recent documentary. Macron has already been criticized by some of Ukraine’s most fervent supporters for staying in contact with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

While he has condemned Russia’s military operation in Ukraine and supported EU sanctions on Moscow, the French president has spoken to Putin by phone on several occasions since February. These calls have apparently not brought Ukraine any closer to peace, but have earned Macron scorn from Kiev’s supporters, including Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki, who castigated his French counterpart for talking to a man he compared to “Hitler.”

However, in a documentary recently broadcast on French television, Macron gave some insight into his approach to diplomacy.

Filmed on a train back from Kiev last month, Macron explained that talking to Putin is necessary to prevent the conflict in Ukraine from becoming a wider war. Describing “Anglo Saxon” leaders as pushing the message that “we must annihilate Russia, weaken it permanently,” Macron said that his goal is instead to “help Ukraine to win,” and “not to fight against Russia, let alone annihilate it.” 

Whatever the practical similarities between Macron’s approach and that of his US and UK counterparts, all of whom have provided Kiev with weapons and ammunition, there exists a clear difference in rhetoric between France and the “Anglo Saxon” world.

While US President Joe Biden has accused Russia of committing “genocide” in Ukraine, Macron has cautioned the West against bandying around such loaded terms. Likewise, he has dismissed requests from Kiev that he declare Russia a “sponsor of terrorism.” 

And while US Secretary of State Lloyd Austin has described the conflict in Ukraine as an opportunity to leave Russia “weakened” and Biden has let slip that he wishes for regime change in Moscow, Macron has stated that the West “must not humiliate Russia,” in order to make a peace deal possible some day.

In Britain, Prime Minister Boris Johnson has compared Putin to a “crocodile” and repeatedly dismissed the idea of peace talks with Moscow. Meanwhile, the newly-appointed chief of Britain’s armed forces has declared that the UK’s military must prepare for the possibility of “defeating Russia in battle.”……………. https://www.rt.com/news/558308-macron-russia-anglo-saxon/

July 7, 2022 Posted by | France, politics international | Leave a comment

If you want to be accepted as ”Western” – best to be white.

The Washington Post reported on the 15th of June that President Biden is to visit Saudi Arabia in July for talks with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. He explained that the Kingdom had been ‘a strategic partner of the United States for nearly eight decades’. No talk there of sanctions and condemnation. It illustrates how empty is the present Western rhetoric about a global struggle between democracy and autocracy. 

The West is white,  https://johnmenadue.com/the-west-is-white/ By Henry Reynolds, Jul 1, 2022

When the Soviet Union disintegrated in 1991 Gorbachev’s vision of a ‘common European homeland from the Atlantic to the Urals’ did not prevail. Rather than retract ,NATO expanded. Russia was too weak to halt the process but was useful as a potential adversary. Suggestions that it could actually join the alliance were peremptorily dismissed. NATO was far too useful for the Americans as the means to perpetuate their dominance of Western Europe. And without the Soviet Union the members of the alliance could be called on to join the global campaign against terror and go to war in Libya, Iraq and Afghanistan, places in many cases they knew little about.

The catastrophic war in Ukraine should not have come as a surprise. Tension between NATO and Russia had been intensifying for some time. From as far back as the era of Clinton and Yeltsin experienced observers had warned about the likely consequences of perpetuating the divisions of the cold war. But American policy makers are no doubt pleased with the solidarity of their client states with the added bonus of Sweden and Finland surprisingly seeking membership of the alliance. And having recruited a host of willing adjutants for Imperial ventures in the Middle East the next task is to turn NATO into a global player with the mission to both contain and confront China. There doesn’t appear to be any reluctance to join this new crusade. In early June the President of little Lithuania Ingrida Simonyte announced that she was willing to join the rest of the alliance ‘as it stares down China and Russia.’

But anti-Russian solidarity in Europe has not been matched in the rest of the world nor is there any enthusiasm to sign up to the coming confrontation with China. There are many reasons for this. As with the classic cold war there are bound to be many states which will determine to remain non-aligned. And the power and prestige of the West is greatly diminished. America can no longer present itself as an exemplar of a well ordered democracy. There is just too much that is going wrong. Domestic opinion is deeply fractured. Democracy itself is in trouble in the land of the free.

Wider forces are also at work. At the very moment when the west is fanning cold war embers there is a recrudescence of anti-colonialism in Europe’s erstwhile colonies with a focus on the legacy of slavery, the expropriation and destruction of indigenous societies and the accompanying intellectual heritage of racial superiority. In the rest of the world the West’s sense of entitlement is seen as just the latest iteration of habits of thought and behaviour which derive from the era when white men bestrode the world as self-selected lords of human kind.1

The West’s hypocrisy is also under fire. The shock and outrage about Russia’s onslaught on Ukraine renews the memory of the disastrous wars unleashed on Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria and the accompanying war crimes which have never been called to account. But the contemporaneous war in Yemen receives little attention and less condemnation even though those pillars of NATO the United States, Britain and France have all assisted Saudi Arabia. And the results speak for themselves. A U.N survey at the end of 2021 concluded that the war had resulted in 377,000 deaths including 10,200 children who had been killed or wounded. Famine conditions face 160,000 and 19 million people will go hungry. As recently as January this year a Saudi airstrike killed91 civilians and wounded another 226. Not that anyone in the west bothered to notice it.

The Washington Post reported on the 15th of June that President Biden is to visit Saudi Arabia in July for talks with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. He explained that the Kingdom had been ‘a strategic partner of the United States for nearly eight decades’. No talk there of sanctions and condemnation. It illustrates how empty is the present Western rhetoric about a global struggle between democracy and autocracy. 

 The world would be forgiven for assuming that the West is only outraged by war when the victims are white. This was certainly the conclusion of the Malaysian Health Minister Khairy Jamaluddin when he addressed the recent Davos Conference. He lamented that “ the colour of your skin argument” still seemed relevant .’Now that violence and state terror effects someone like you—that is a white westerner suddenly, there is this moral outrage from Washington to Davos.’

The West’s hypocrisy about refugees and immigration has also been highlighted by the Ukraine war. The exemplary reception of the waves of over two million refugees fleeing from the war is so different from Poland’s hostility to Middle Eastern refugees still stuck in no man’s land between Poland and Belarus. They have been forgotten by the western media. 

Many are still there. The Polish army patrols the border and work proceeds on a 186 kilometre border fence. Latvia and Lithuania have adopted similar defensive policies. Poland can scarcely claim to have no responsibility in the matter. Their forces spent years in both Iraq and Afghanistan helping to produce the chaos from which people are trying to escape. But the electorate is adamant. In a recent survey 70% of respondents didn’t want non-white people living in their country.

Poland is not alone when it comes to migration from outside fortress Europe. After the migration crisis of 2015 European opinion has swung decisively against non-European migration. Right wing parties have ridden the wave into the centre of political life. Multiculturalism has been decisively rejected even in the erstwhile liberal Nordic countries. And in the background is the growing popularity of what has become known as the racial replacement theory. It is most influential in the United States. Surveys now show that a third of Americans and many more Republicans believe that there is a conspiracy to replace white or ‘heritage’ Americans with coloured foreigners.

The link between domestic developments such as these and the growing hostility to China scarcely needs emphasising. It is a result of replacement theory projected on a global scale. And that is of great concern to the rest of the world. A chorus of many voices insists that they want to work on both sides of the growing divide and don’t want to choose. Can this surprise us? In the C20th the whole world was drawn into two disastrous world wars. This was the legacy of Europe , North America and Japan. Why would anyone wish to see a C21st replay?

July 4, 2022 Posted by | 2 WORLD, politics international | Leave a comment

Amid Iran nuclear impasse, China calls out US for AUKUS ‘double standards’

AUKUS pact’s negative impact on political, diplomatic settlement of Iran nuclear issue cannot be undone, says Chinese envoy

 AA  Riyaz ul Khaliq   |01.07.2022   ISTANBUL 

Calling for an “early and positive outcome” in ongoing talks on the Iran nuclear deal, China has urged the US to “abandon double standards” on non-proliferation of nuclear weapons.

Referring to the AUKUS pact between the US, UK and Australia, China’s UN envoy Zhang Jun told a Security Council session: “(It) is the first time since the NPT (Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons) was concluded that a nuclear weapon state has openly transferred nuclear weapon materials to a non-nuclear weapon state.”

Under the AUKUS deal signed last year, Australia will build nuclear-powered submarines with the US and UK.

“Regardless of how the three countries may choose to name their nuclear submarine cooperation, the very essence of their nuclear proliferation behavior cannot be concealed,” Zhang said during a UNSC session on the Iran nuclear deal on Thursday.

“Its negative impact on the political and diplomatic settlement of the Iranian nuclear issue cannot be undone, the risk it poses to regional peace and stability is a reality that cannot be changed.”…………….

Welcoming the indirect talks between Washington and Tehran held in Qatar’s capital Doha this week, Zhang said: “The future of the Iranian nuclear issue is critical to the international nuclear non-proliferation regime, regional stability, and international peace and security.”

The meeting in Doha, however, concluded without any concrete progress.

Zhang said adhering to “the overarching goal of a political solution” will keep the “resumed Iranian nuclear talks on the right track with a view to an early and positive outcome.”

The Chinese ambassador also called for “eliminating interference in the negotiation process.”……………….. https://www.aa.com.tr/en/asia-pacific/amid-iran-nuclear-impasse-china-calls-out-us-for-aukus-double-standards/2628064

July 4, 2022 Posted by | China, politics international | Leave a comment

The Accidental Trumpification of NATO

 https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2022/07/nato-europe-america-trump-strategy/661459/

In a narrow but important sense, the world has become more amenable to the former president. And yet.

By Tom McTague, 3 July 22,  If Donald Trump returns to power in 2025, he will find a world starkly different from the one he tried to construct while president. All hopes of normalizing relations with Russia have been obliterated in the slaughter of Ukraine. China is more powerful than ever. Iran is closer to acquiring nuclear weapons. And Kim Jong Un is still behaving like Kim Jong Un.

But, in a narrow yet important sense, the world has become more Trumpian since he left office. The NATO that met in Madrid this past week to agree on a new strategy to defend the West has started to resemble the kind of organization Trump and his wing of the Republican Party said they always wanted.

NATO’s European members are paying more for their own defense, the alliance is more Eastern European in its outlook and positioning, and, for the first time, it is explicitly focused on America’s great-power rivalry with China. Trump is not primarily responsible for these changes—for that he can thank Vladimir Putin—but they nevertheless signal an important moment for the West, as Europe moves to more closely align itself with American domestic political concerns. Europe’s shift is part of a bid to protect the status quo that has existed since NATO’s founding, but which is now threatened both by Russia’s aggression and by the U.S.’s growing focus on its great-power rival in the 21st century: China.

As well as NATO becoming more American in outlook, the grand strategies of countries that Trump so obviously distrusted—Germany and France in particular—have never been more irrelevant. Germany has been forced to abandon its long-held reticence to increase defense spending as well as its planned Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline with Russia. France, which has long sought a greater role for the European Union rather than NATO, today faces a continent that wants more NATO, not less, which, as France well understands, means support for U.S. primacy.

A similar reprioritization is taking place in the G7, another international organization Trump seemed to loathe, and that also met this past week, transformed by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine into a body that more obviously serves the American interest.

Notably, President Joe Biden has consciously rejected President Barack Obama’s prioritization of the wider G20 group of advanced economies, which included developing democracies such as India and Indonesia, but also Russia and China. In one of Obama’s first forays onto the world stage, he said that the G20 would from then on be the more important international format, better representing the 21st century than the kind of world where “there’s just Roosevelt and Churchill sitting in a room with a brandy.” His vice president has decided to reverse course and return the G7 to its former role, an organization that looks much more like a group of wealthy Western powers deciding how to get their way.

If Trump regains power, then, he should have far less to complain about than he did during his time in office, when Europe was clearly failing to share the burden of its own defense with the U.S., while striking independent trade and energy deals with both China and Russia. Then, it was legitimate for Trump to ask whether Europe was taking the U.S. for a ride. That grievance looks a lot less real today, even as Europe doubles down in its dependence on the U.S.

Together with bipartisan support in Congress for America’s military backing of Ukraine and its economic sanctions on Russia, many have taken solace in the notion that NATO—and support for it—is growing stronger than ever. And yet with Trump, there is always an “and yet.”

The first is that there remains an obvious, growing, and valid American grievance with Europe that Trump will almost certainly pick up should he return to the White House. Led by France, Europe is erecting barriers to protect its defense industry: New rules mean that the moment a European defense firm accepts a single euro from the EU, partnering with non-EU companies becomes almost impossible because of strict restrictions on intellectual property, a kind of poison pill.

This kind of protectionism was already being noticed by Trump toward the end of his first term, according to one senior NATO official I spoke with, but it has moved on several steps since. The idea behind these regulations is to build up Europe’s own military industrial capacity so that it can defend itself better—a form of burden sharing. And in some senses this would be good for the West collectively. However, such a move only emphasizes the bigger problem: Why should the U.S. pay for Europe’s defense if Europe is building obstacles to American defense firms? If the West is worth defending collectively, then how can it continue raising walls between its members? As one European government official told me: “Putting barriers around the West is fine. Putting them within the West is not.”

July 4, 2022 Posted by | politics international, USA | Leave a comment

North Korea warns of nuclear war risk as Japan, US and South Korea increase military ties

The Nation 3 Jul 22, Tensions on the Korean peninsula have been heightened by a series of North Korean missile tests.  North Korea condemned US, Japanese and South Korean military co-operation on Sunday, claiming that Washington was increasing the risk of nuclear war in East Asia.

The three countries are discussing joint military exercises in the region after North Korean ballistic missile tests, several of which were test-fired towards Japan.

On March 24, North Korea said it had fired a long range intercontinental ballistic missile towards an ocean target more than 1,000 kilometres away, a test that Japanese authorities said landed within the country’s territorial waters, north of the Hokkaido……………..

“The prevailing situation more urgently calls for building up the country’s defence to actively cope with the rapid aggravation of the security environment of the Korean Peninsula and the rest of the world,” the North Korean Foreign Ministry said.

The statement took issue with a trilateral meeting by US, South Korean and Japanese leaders at a Nato summit last week, during which they underscored the need to strengthen their co-operation to deal with the North Korean nuclear threat.

“The chief executives of the US, Japan and South Korea put their heads together for confrontation with [North Korea] and discussed the dangerous joint military countermeasures against it including the launch of tripartite joint military exercises,” the North said.

North Korea views US-led military exercises in the region, particularly ones with rival South Korea, as an invasion rehearsal, though Washington and Seoul have repeatedly said they have no intentions of attacking the North…………….

Earlier last month, the defence chiefs of the US, South Korea and Japan agreed to resume their combined missile warning and tracking exercises as part of their efforts to deal with North Korea’s escalating weapons tests.

North Korean accused the US of exaggerating rumours about North Korean threats “to provide an excuse for attaining military supremacy over the Asia-Pacific region including the Korean Peninsula”…………..

North Korea claimed the recent Nato summit proves an alleged US plan to contain Russia and China by achieving the “militarisation of Europe” and forming a Nato-like alliance in Asia. It said “the reckless military moves of the US and its vassal forces” could lead to dangerous consequences like a nuclear war simultaneously taking place in both Europe and Asia-Pacific……….. https://www.thenationalnews.com/world/2022/07/03/north-korea-warns-of-nuclear-war-risk-as-japan-us-and-south-korea-increase-military-ties/

July 4, 2022 Posted by | North Korea, politics international | Leave a comment

As West blames Moscow for ‘food crisis’, ships sail from Mariupol with Moscow’s help while Ukraine holds vessels in its ports

 https://web.archive.org/web/20220701161549/https://www.rt.com/russia/558011-foreign-ships-leave-mariupol/ Eva Bartlett, 3 July 22,

Western media and state officials keep blaming Russia for the ‘food crisis,’ but Moscow is trying to reopen Ukrainian and Donbass ports

Eva Bartlett is a Canadian independent journalist. She has spent years on the ground covering conflict zones in the Middle East, especially in Syria and Palestine (where she lived for nearly four years). 

Without much notice in the West, on June 21, the first foreign ship departed from the Port of Mariupol since Ukrainian and foreign mercenary forces were fully forced out of the Donbass city a month prior. Escorted by Russian naval boats, the vessel’s departure set the precedent for a resumption of normal port activity to and from Mariupol.

Russia’s Defense Ministry on May 20 announced the liberation of the Azovstal plant from Ukraine’s Nazi Azov Battalion, and some days later stated that sappers had demined an area of one and a half million square meters around the city’s port.

In early June, the ministry declared the facility ready for use anew. “The de-mining of Mariupol’s port has been completed. It is functioning normally, and has received its first cargo ships,” Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu said at the time. 

Russia promised to give ships safe passage, and on June 21, the Turkish ship Azov Concord left with a Russian escort. At Mariupol port that day, prior to setting off, the captain of the ship, Ivan Babenkov, spoke to the media, telling us that the vessel, without cargo, was heading to Novorossiysk for loading, and then on to its destination.

Rear Admiral Viktor Kochemazov, commander of the Russian naval base in Novorossiysk on the Black Sea’s northeastern coast, down the Kerch Strait from Mariupol, explained that while the corridor has been operational since May 25, the nearly one-month delay in departing was because “ships were significantly damaged during the conduct of hostilities.” Notably, he also said that some ships were deliberately damaged by Ukrainian forces in order to prevent them from leaving. 

From aboard a Russian anti-sabotage forces boat, media watched the Azov Concord leave port. Further on, the ship would be met by warships of the Novorossiysk base and escorted to the Kerch Strait where FSB border control ships would continue to escort the ship.

A Bulgarian ship, the Tsarevna, was readying to depart the port next, “also following the same humanitarian corridor to its destination in accordance with plans for the use of the court by the owner,” Rear Admiral Kochemazov said.

Western press ignoring developments

Predictably, just as the Western media continues to ignore Ukraine’s war crimes against the Donbass republics, including not only the bombing of houses, hospitals, and busy markets –  plus the killing and maiming of civilians – so too do they omit coverage of anything positive emanating from areas where Ukrainian forces have been ousted and stability restored.

Instead, Western media continues to spin the story that it’s Russia that’s blocking ports and preventing grain exports, and blame Moscow for “aggravating the global food crisis” – when in reality, it is Ukraine that has mined ports and burned grain storages.   

In fact, according to Russia’s Ministry of Defense, “70 foreign vessels from 16 countries remain blocked in six Ukrainian ports (Kherson, Nikolaev, Chernomorsk, Ochakov, Odessa and Yuzhniy). The threat of shelling and high mine danger posed by official Kiev prevent vessels from entering the high seas unhindered.”

While Russia maintains it has opened two maritime humanitarian corridors in the Black and Azov Seas, Kiev is apparently not engaging with representatives of states and ship-owning companies about the departure of docked foreign ships.

Meanwhile, in the same vein, media outlets like the New York Times (writing as always from afar) claim that Mariupol is “suffering deeply” under Russian rule (citing the runaway former mayor, nowhere near the city for months, who is the source of previous war propaganda) even describing the Azov Neo-Nazis as “the city’s last military resistance.”

Yet, what I’ve seen in multiple trips to Mariupol in the past couple of weeks is rubble being removed so that the rebuilding process can begin, newly established street markets, public transportation running, and calm in the streets.

July 4, 2022 Posted by | politics international, Ukraine | Leave a comment

NATO has completed its post-Cold War transformation from Europe’s guard dog into America’s attack dog

 The guard dog had, it seems, been re-trained as an attack dog.

https://www.rt.com/russia/558168-nato-defensive-alliance-global-cop/ Scott Ritter 1 July 22, From an ostensible defensive alliance, NATO has grown into an aggressor designed to promote ‘rules’ dictated by the US,

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization, or NATO, has just wrapped up its annual summit in Madrid, Spain. The one-time trans-Atlantic defensive alliance has, over the past three decades, transformed itself from the guardian of Western Europe into global cop, seeking to project militarily a so-called values- and rules-based posture.

NATO’s first Secretary General, Lord Ismay, famously noted that the mission of the bloc was “to keep the Russians out, the Germans down, and the Americans in.” In short, NATO served as a wall against the physical expansion of the Soviet Union from the perch it had established in eastern Europe at the end of the Second World War. Likewise, the creation of NATO prevented a treaty from being concluded between Germany and the Soviet Union that would enable the reunification of Germany. And lastly, the existence of NATO mandated that the US retain a significant full-time military presence in Europe, helping break America’s traditional tendency toward isolationism.

At the Madrid Summit, NATO radically redefined its mission to reflect a new mantra which could be encapsulated as “keep the Russians down, the Americans in, and the Chinese out.” It is an aggressive–even hostile–posture, premised on sustaining Western (i.e., American) supremacy.

This mission is to be accomplished through the defense and promulgation of a so-called “rules-based international order” which exists only in the minds of its creators, which in this case is the United States and its allies in Europe. It also represents a radical break from past practice which sought to keep NATO defined by the four corners of its trans-Atlantic birthright by seeking to expand its security umbrella into the Pacific.

The guard dog had, it seems, been re-trained as an attack dog.

When an organization undergoes such a radical transformation in terms of its core mission and purpose, logic dictates that there exists a reason (or reasons) sufficient to justify the consequences attached to the action. There appear to be three such reasons. First and foremost is the fact that Russia refuses to accept NATO demands that it exist as a junior “partner” whose sovereignty must be subordinated to the collective will of post-Cold War Europe. Russia’s President, Vladimir Putin, has made it clear that Russia considers itself to be a great power, and fully expects to be treated as such–especially when it comes to issues pertaining to the so-called “near abroad”–those former Soviet republics, such as Ukraine and Georgia, whose continued ties with Moscow are existential in nature.

NATO, on the other hand, while calling Russia a “partner,” was never serious about extending a viable hand of friendship, instead undertaking a thirty-year program of expansion which violated verbal promises made to Soviet leaders, leaving Russia weakened and not to be taken seriously by the self-proclaimed “victors” of the Cold War. When Russia pushed back, a process marked by Putin’s iconic speech to the 2007 Munich Security Conference, NATO undertook a more aggressive stance, promising Georgia and Ukraine eventual membership in the Alliance and, in 2014, supporting a violent coup against a government in Ukraine that kicked-off a series of events which culminated in the ongoing military operation being conducted by Russia in Ukraine.

Speaking at this week’s NATO Summit, the Secretary General of the organization, Jen Stoltenberg, ended all pretense that the bloc was an innocent bystander in the events leading up to Russia’s military intervention in Ukraine, noting with pride that NATO had been preparing to fight Russia since 2014–that is, since the US-led coup. Indeed, NATO has, since 2015, been training the Ukrainian military to NATO standards.

Not to bolster the self-defense of Ukraine, but rather for the purpose of fighting ethnic Russians in the Donbass. NATO, it seems, was never interested in a peaceful resolution to the crisis, which flared up when Ukrainian nationalists began brutalizing the region’s Moscow-leaning majority.

Two NATO members, France and Germany, helped perpetuate a fraudulent peace process, the Minsk Accords, which former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko recently admitted was nothing more than a sham perpetrated for the purpose of buying time so that NATO could train and equip the Ukrainian military for the purpose of forcibly seizing control of both Donbass and Crimea.

All the 2007 Munich Summit really did was strip away any pretense that NATO was serious about peacefully coexisting with a powerful, sovereign Russian nation. A truly defensive alliance would have readily embraced such an outcome. NATO, it is now clear, is anything but.

NATO has been exposed as little more than a component of American global power projection, providing supplementary military and political backing for an American empire defined by the “rules-based international order” premised on sustained US military and economic supremacy. Keeping America on top, however, is proving to be a bridge too far, largely because the American empire itself is crumbling at its foundations, struggling economically to sustain the so-called “American Dream” and politically to keep alive the flawed promise of American democracy which underpins the very image the US seeks to promote abroad. The extent that the US can function with a modicum of credibility in the international arena today is determined purely by the level of “buy in” by the rest of the world to the golden idol that is the “rules-based international order.”

While the US has been able to strong-arm both NATO and its economic doppelganger, the G7, into actively promoting the “Rules based international order,” Russia and China have come together to create an alternative world view. 

That is international law, premised on the concepts enshrined in the United Nations Charter.

The G7 declared that the BRICS economic forum, comprised of nations who are more aligned with a “law-based” world order, and not a US-dominated “rules-based” one, represents the greatest threat to its relevance on the world stage. NATO, likewise, has declared that the Russian and Chinese challenge to the “rules-based international order” represents a major threat to NATO’s core values, prompting an expansion of NATO’s reach into the Pacific as a counter.

In short, NATO (together with the G7 group) is declaring war against the principles of international law that are encapsulated in the United Nations Charter. At its Madrid Summit, NATO has made it clear that it’s ready to shed blood to defend a legacy whose legitimacy exists only among the collective imaginations of its members. And not all of them, either. 

The goal of the rest of the world now needs to be to seek to minimize the damage done by this beast and find a way to dispose of it before it can do any more harm to the global community.

Scott Ritter is a former US Marine Corps intelligence officer and author of ‘Disarmament in the Time of Perestroika: Arms Control and the End of the Soviet Union.’ He served in the Soviet Union as an inspector implementing the INF Treaty, in General Schwarzkopf’s staff during the Gulf War, and from 1991-1998 as a UN weapons inspector. 

July 2, 2022 Posted by | 2 WORLD, politics international, weapons and war | 1 Comment

Mr Albanese goes to Madrid: Australia on the alliance path to Global Nato

Albanese’s trip to the leaders’ summit of a US-dominated alliance centred on the other side of the world will prepare the way for deeper Australian integration into a broadened Nato.

Above all, in one respect Mr Albanese’s rush to Madrid is not so different from his predecessor’s cajoling of Washington and London to help out a mate with the anachronistic PR nonsense of AUKUS and the gift horse of a ‘privileged’ offer to allow Australia to buy massively expensive American or conceivably British nuclear-powered submarines.


https://johnmenadue.com/mr-albanese-goes-to-madrid-australia-on-the-alliance-path-to-global-nato/ By Richard TanterJun 30, 2022, While most eyes rest on the remains of Scott Morrison’s failed attempt at a khaki election through last September’s announcement of a backward-looking AUKUS alliance, prime minister Anthony Albanese’s trip to Madrid for the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation summit points to a much more significant shift in Australia’s alliance with the United States – ‘a global alliance of democracies’, aka Global NATO.

 Scott Morrison’s AUKUS centring on agreement with the US and UK to provide Australia with submarine nuclear propulsion evoked derision about its back to the 1950s strategic vision and despair about what promises to be the worst and most consequential of Australia’s numerous recent politically-driven defence procurement choices.

The submarines debacle apart, AUKUS for the most part remains a matter of two or three lines of unpromising promises in media releases, largely dealing with matters already the subject of bilateral agreements or dimly-seen possible futures like quantum computing for defence purposes.

The most recent, if somewhat limp, nudge to keep the Albanese government on the nuclear submarine track came at the National Press Club when the Lowy Institute’s Michael Fullilove mocked an informed questioner concerned about the deal’s implications for the tattered nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. This widely-held worry – if first Australia, then serious nuclear weapon-wannabes Brazil and South Korea – was in fact unimportant Fullilove replied, since experts such as former Foreign Minister Gareth Evans have assured us are under control.

At the same time the US has just added its confidence booster to this process with a bill before Congress for an Australia-U.S. Submarine Officer Pipeline Act that would allow two RAN submariners a year to attend a seven-week nuclear reactor training, take the US Navy’s Submarine Officer Basic Course, and then deploy aboard a US nuclear-powered submarine.

This only leaves the imponderables of deciding the strategic rationale of the mission to which the submarines are to be solution, the actual technical requirements that would be entailed by that mission, the design of the submarine, the choice of country and lead contractors for the build, the development of a full-scale naval nuclear-engineering safety and maintenance regime, and a brief discussion of the lifetime costs likely to be more than a couple of multiples of the $100 billion estimate for the French submarines.

What could possibly go wrong?

And that’s before any discussion of opportunity costs – even for alternative contenders for defence spending, let alone meeting non-military requirements for a secure Australia – of the lifetime costs of a commitment to nuclear submarines that are likely to move towards the half trillion dollar mark.

But Albanese’s trip to the leaders’ summit of a US-dominated alliance centred on the other side of the world will prepare the way for deeper Australian integration into a broadened Nato.

For over a decade US and Nato officials and Australian defence advisors have been calling for ‘a global alliance of democracies’. The Australian prime minister, together with the leaders of Nato’s other ‘Asia-Pacific partners’ from Japan, New Zealand and South Korea, will participate in the launch of the first formal iteration of Global Nato with Nato’s Strategic Concept 2022.

Two decades of high tempo deployment of Australian military under Nato auspices in the disastrous wars in Afghanistan and the Middle East have conditioned the Australian Defence Force to close operational coordination and interoperability with US-led Nato ground, air, and naval forces.

Defence planners have gradually integrated Nato into high-level Australian strategic planning, first as an ‘Asian partner’ Nato along with Japan, South Korea and New Zealand, and recently as an ‘Enhanced Strategic Partner’.

Nato’s centrality to the hyper-multinational International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan provided the first and possibly most important Australian escalator into Nato.

While replete with consequences as lethal for the people of Afghanistan as they were dysfunctional for all of the alliance militaries involved, ISAF, together with the parallel US-orchestrated Combined Maritime Forces in the western Indian Ocean from 2002, provided deep operational experience and ‘learnings’ for a Nato-centred US-led coalition on a scale approaching a multilateral ‘global’ presence.

Nato’s Strategic Concept 2022 is to be formalised at the Madrid Summit, representing a maturation of US post-Cold War planning for a major step towards an integrated global defence alliance after seventy years of US-dominated Nato in Europe and the limitations of bilateral hub-and-spokes alliances in Asia.

Most importantly, apart from integrating its Asian partners more closely, the new Strategic Concept is to prepare Nato ‘against all threats, from all directions’.

Full membership of Nato for any of these Asian partners will be a long way off, not least because the governing institutions of a now 30 member country nuclear alliance will need adjustment, even assuming there is no uncomfortable internal opposition as Turkey has mounted against the admission of Sweden.

For the present, Australia, Japan and Korea – and possibly New Zealand – will be drawn into Nato’s seemingly endless rounds of political, diplomatic, military and civil society consultations (though the last is in practice a most attenuated and selective grouping of actual national and international civil society).

US-led military interoperability drives will be coupled with injunctions for closer political and strategic planning coordination between Canberra and Brussels (aka Washington).

But there can be little doubt of the ultimate goal for Washington in the construction of ‘an alliance of democracies’ with global reach.

The follies of AUKUS distract attention from the scale of the quiet achievement of the United States in rescuing Nato from post-Cold War obsolescence, latterly assisted greatly by the Russian war against Ukraine.

Drawing the line from Kyiv to Taipei, ‘we know’, the Prime Minister said, ‘that there is an alliance that has been reached as well between Russia and China. There are implications for our region, given the strategic competition that is in our region, which is why this Nato summit comes at such a critical time’.

As Mr Albanese rightly put it Russia’s ‘brutal invasion is against the rule of law’, and carries implications for ‘all of those who cherish democracy, who cherish the rule of law, and who cherish the rights of nations to be sovereign’.

Yet Australia needs to tread carefully.

The warm glow of rhetorical solidarity with Ukraine facing World War 2-scale Russian attack tends to veil the fact that multiple US-auspiced Nato interventions in the Middle East, North Africa and Afghanistan have led, via great destruction, to evident defeat or specious ‘mission accomplished’.

Moreover the list of Nato members and partners does not provide an unsullied list of countries honoured for their respect for democracy, rule of law, or sovereignty.

Mr Albanese might like to chat about the rule of law with Victor Orbán from Hungary or Recep Tayyip Erdoğan from Turkey, or indeed with Boris Johnson – or mull over the battered state of American democracy with Joe Biden.

Perhaps a stopover by his RAAF plane in Diego Garcia might prompt some thoughts about British respect for the rule of law – in certain respects, such as the forced dispossession of the indigenous Chagos Islanders to make way for a giant US military base often used by Australia, more egregious than China’s violations of international law somewhat further east.

Above all, in one respect Mr Albanese’s rush to Madrid is not so different from his predecessor’s cajoling of Washington and London to help out a mate with the anachronistic PR nonsense of AUKUS and the gift horse of a ‘privileged’ offer to allow Australia to buy massively expensive American or conceivably British nuclear-powered submarines.

By all means, let us make common cause with governments we find congenial – when our interests do in fact genuinely align. Defence coordination and cooperation with democratic states in our principal areas of strategic interest is a must for Australia. The problem is that Europe is not such an area, and neither was the Middle East, Afghanistan, nor Nato’s latest fronts in North Africa and the Sahel.

Thinking about an alliance of democracies is not inherently foolish. The problem comes when the form of periodic elections is confused with the substance of democracy. It may seem carping to point to the Orbans and Erdoğans of Nato, but with Marine Le Pen possibly just one more election away from the Elysée, the authoritarian threat in Europe is palpably real.

Remarking on a British prime minister’s announced willingness to trash international agreements for political gain at the risk of re-starting a war in Northern Ireland may seem unoriginal, it is scarcely beside the point with talk of new alliances built on rule of law.

Most seriously of all, we should be talking about the risk of a precipitous decline, or even collapse, of democracy in the United States extremely seriously. Appalling as it is, the Supreme Court decision abolishing US women’s rights to control their bodies is but the latest blow to the unexamined claim for the United States to still be called a global model of democracy.

The view in Canberra seems to be that the US alliance has survived the threat of Trump, so it’s back to business as usual, and onward to ever closer union – with the path leading now through Brussels. Yet the dangers to Australia from unconsidered reliance on a country with both systemic dysfunction and deep anti-democratic impulses at its heart should not be ignored.

The common element between the swooning Australian interest in Global Nato and the Morrison fiasco with AUKUS and the manifold problems of its submarine element is that in both cases a considered assessment of whether Australian national interests align with those of the United States – in this case in the guise of Nato – is absent.

The new Australian foreign minister has started a commendable reset of Australian regional relations in an effort to recover, at least as a start, from the wreckage of a decade of coalition policy.

In a series of important statements on foreign policy in recent years Penny Wong eloquently has made the case for understanding that a proper consideration of our national interest cannot be separated from the long and sometimes difficult process of working out who we are.

Interests very largely flow from identity, especially when it comes to reading a map of threats and opportunities. Why then would the first foreign policy ventures of a new prime minister be tied to an alliance with the other side of the world – for Australia, the old world?

July 2, 2022 Posted by | AUSTRALIA, politics international | Leave a comment

Russia open to nuclear weapon talks

Blue Mountains Gazette, 1 July 22, Russian President Vladimir Putin says Moscow is open to a dialogue on strategic stability and nuclear non-proliferation.

Despite Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, both Moscow and Washington have stressed the importance of maintaining communication on the issue of nuclear arms.

The two countries are by far the world’s largest nuclear powers with an estimated 11,000 nuclear warheads between them.

“Russia is open to dialogue on ensuring strategic stability, preserving non-proliferation regimes for weapons of mass destruction and improving the situation in the field of arms control,” Putin said in remarks to a legal forum in his home city of St. Petersburg on Thursday.

He said the efforts would require “painstaking joint work” and would go towards preventing a repeat of “what is happening today in the Donbas”…………….. https://www.bluemountainsgazette.com.au/story/7802591/russia-open-to-nuclear-weapon-talks/?cs=5461

July 2, 2022 Posted by | politics international, Russia | Leave a comment

‘Effort and patience’ required to restore Iran nuclear agreement

UN News. Despite diplomatic engagements, restoring the so-called Iran nuclear agreement continues to be hindered by political and technical differences, the UN political and peacebuilding chief told the Security Council on Thursday.
 

In the landmark accord, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) – reached in 2015 between Iran, the United States, China, France, Russia, and the United Kingdom – Iran agreed to dismantle much of its nuclear programme and open its facilities to international inspections in exchange for sanctions relief.

In 2018, then-President Trump withdrew the US from the agreement and reinstated the sanctions.

“Achieving the landmark JCPOA took determined diplomacy. Restoring it will require additional effort and patience,” said UN political affairs chief, Rosemary DiCarlo.

Although the landmark Joint Commission to restore the Plan resumed in November 2021, she acknowledged that despite their determination to resolve the issues, the US and other participants are yet to return to “full and effective implementation of the Plan, and [Security Council] resolution 2231”.

Appealing to both

Together with the Secretary-General, she urged Iran and the US to “quickly mobilize” in “spirit and commitment” to resume cooperation under the JCPOA.

They welcomed the reinstatement by the US in February of waivers on nuclear non-proliferation projects and appealed to the country to lift its sanctions, as outlined in the Plan, and extend oil trade waivers.

Together they also called on on Iran to reverse the steps it has taken that are inconsistent with its nuclear-related commitments under the Plan.

Monitoring enrichment

While the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has been unable to verify the stockpile of enriched uranium in Iran, it estimates that there is currently more than 15 times the allowable amount under the JCPOA, including uranium enriched to 20 and 60 per cent, which Ms. DiCarlo called “extremely worrying”.

Moreover, on 8 and 20 June, IAEA reported that Iran had started to install additional advanced centrifuges at the Fuel Enrichment Plant at Natanz and began feeding uranium into advanced centrifuges at the Fuel Enrichment Plant at Fordow.

In his latest report, IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi, informed the Council that the UN agency’s ability to verify and confirm the peaceful nature of Iran’s nuclear activities are key to the JCPOA’s full and effective implementation.

Iran’s decision to remove site cameras and place them and the data they collected under Agency seals, “could have detrimental implications”…………………………………….. https://news.un.org/en/story/2022/06/1121762....

July 2, 2022 Posted by | Iran, politics international | Leave a comment

Pakistan Reaffirms Pledge To Nuclear Non-Proliferation Goals

 Eurasia Review  , By Sher Bano

1540 Support Unit of Office for Disarmament Affairs (UNODA) hosted a side event entitled “Regional Approaches to Supporting UNSCR 1540 (2004)” on 1st June, 2022.  UNSCR 1540 came in 2004 as a response to the threats of WMDs, non-proliferation and terrorism that emerged in 21st century. ……………………….

Pakistan conveyed its consistent view during the general debate that the international instruments and standards that are designed to address the threats to international security and peace posed by WMDs must be developed through multilateral and inclusive negotiations. Pakistan being a responsible nuclear state and member of the Security Council has being fulfilling its obligations under the resolution 1540 in order to strengthen the global framework for the non-proliferation of biological, nuclear and radiological weapons to the non-state actors. …………………….

Pakistan also seeks a non-discriminatory global regime on non-proliferation that is principle-based, inclusive and underpinned by the cardinal principle of equal and undiminished security for all states. Genuine progress on disarmament necessitates a conducive regional and global security environment as well as the resolution of long-standing disputes and conflicts. https://www.eurasiareview.com/01072022-pakistan-reaffirms-pledge-to-nuclear-non-proliferation-goals-oped/

Pakistan Reaffirms Pledge To Nuclear Non-Proliferation Goals – OpEd
Pakistan Reaffirms Pledge To Nuclear Non-Proliferation Goals – OpEd

July 2, 2022 Posted by | Pakistan, politics international | Leave a comment

Empire To Expand NATO In Response To War Caused By NATO Expansion

Caitlin Johnstone 29 June 22,

Turkey’s President Erdoğan has officially withdrawn Ankara’s objection to the addition of Finland and Sweden to NATO membership, with the three countries signing a trilateral memorandum at a NATO summit in Madrid.

The removal of Erdoğan’s objection was reportedly obtained via significant natsec concessions from the other two nations largely geared toward facilitating Turkey’s ongoing conflict with regional Kurdish factions, and it removes the final obstacle to Finland and Sweden beginning the process of becoming NATO members. Finland’s addition will more than double the size of NATO’s direct border with Russia, a major national security concern for Moscow.

“Sweden and Finland moved rapidly to apply to NATO in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, reversing decades of security policy and opening the door to the alliance’s ninth expansion since 1949,” Axios reports.

So the western empire will be expanding NATO again in response to a war that was predominantly caused by NATO expansion. Brilliant.

At the same NATO summit, President Biden announced plans to ramp up US military presence in Europe in response to the Ukraine war.

“Speaking with Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, Biden said the US will increase the number of US Navy Destroyers stationed at a naval base in Rota, Spain, from four to six,” Antiwar’s Dave DeCamp reports. “The president said that this was the first of multiple announcements the US and NATO will make at the summit on increasing their forces in Europe, steps being taken in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.”

This news comes out as a new CNN report tells us that the Biden administration does not believe Ukraine has any chance of winning this war, yet still won’t encourage any kind of negotiated settlement to end the bloodshed……………………

This would confirm what I and many others have been saying since Russia invaded: that this proxy war is being waged not with the intention of saving Ukrainian lives by delivering a swift defeat to Moscow but with the intention of creating a costly, gruelling military quagmire to weaken Russia on the world stage.

This is further confirmed by a new Politico report that British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has discouraged France’s President Macron from facilitating a negotiated peace settlement between Moscow and Kyiv, which would support an earlier Ukrainian media report that Johnson had discouraged President Zelensky from such a settlement during his visit to Kyiv in April.

These revelations emerge in the wake of western officials admitting that Ukraine is crawling with CIA personnel and special forces operatives from the US and other NATO countries.

“As usual it appears that the administration wants to have it both ways: assure the American people that it is being ‘restrained’ and that we are not ‘at war’ with the Russians, but doing everything but planting a U.S. soldier and a flag inside Ukraine,” writes Responsible Statecraft’s Kelley Beaucar Vlahos of this admission. “The Russians may not see the distinction and consider this news as further evidence that their war is more with Washington and NATO than with Ukraine.

The empire is guided by so little wisdom in its escalations against Russia that the US congress is now pushing expensive ship-launched nuclear cruise missiles on its naval forces even as the US Navy tells them it doesn’t want those weapons and has no use for them.

Like hey, just take the nukes anyway. What’s the worst that could happen?

We need to really start taking seriously the possibility that a nuclear weapon could detonate as a result of misunderstanding or malfunction amid the chaos and confusion of all these frenzied, foolish escalations and lead to an exchange which ends our entire world. This nearly happened on multiple occasions in the last cold war, and there’s no rational reason to believe we’ll get lucky again.

The only sane course of action here is de-escalation and detente, and all the major players in these escalations are pointed in the exact opposite direction.

This is so much more dangerous than most people are letting themselves consider. It’s being sustained by psychological compartmentalization, emotional avoidance, and a profound lack of wisdom.

As David S. D’Amato recently remarked, “If our species does find a way to survive into the distant future, our descendants will look at right now as the near miss; they’ll think, ‘Wow, that was close.’ How do we convince people in power to preserve that future?”  https://caitlinjohnstone.substack.com/p/empire-to-expand-nato-in-response

June 30, 2022 Posted by | 2 WORLD, politics international | 1 Comment

While Biden Gives Ukrainian Army “The Most Lethal Weapon,” War Profiteer BAE Systems Stock Soars

During the 2020 U.S. election campaign, BAE Systems donated $569,202 to Democratic Party candidates, and $452,594 to Republicans, according to opensecrets.org.

Joe Biden received $102,591 compared to $94,966 for Donald Trump.

This amounts to chump change for the company: Shares in BAE Systems have reached an all-time high since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, rising by 28 percent over ten weeks to give BAE a stock market value of £24 billion and putting it among the largest 25 companies in the Financial Times Stock Exchange.

CovertAction Magazine. By Jeremy Kuzmarov, June 27, 2022 

Sending Ukraine a $300 million shipment of powerful M-777 howitzers is a lobbying triumph for BAE Systems, one of the many war industry corporations fattening on the death and destruction of the Ukraine war

n June 15, the Biden administration announced that it was providing an additional $1 billion in military aid to Ukraine in a package that includes shipments of M-777 howitzers, ammunition and coastal defense systems.

While that announcement was being made, the Ukrainian army was shelling Donetsk, the capital of the Donetsk People’s Republic, with the U.S.-supplied howitzers along with French guns, according to The Donbass Insider, killing five civilians and wounding seven firefighters.

The attacks were being carried out from Ukrainian positions in Peski, a village not far from Donetsk airport.

According to a video produced by journalist Patrick Lancaster, a U.S. naval veteran who has reported on the war in eastern Ukraine over the last eight years, there were no military targets in the areas shelled by the Ukrainian army, only civilians.

Bringing Ukraine Closer to Victory?

Consistent with a society that used military technologies to subdue the native populations, most Americans subscribe to the belief that new superweapons can deliver salvation in wars.[1]

They ignore the dictum of German theorist Karl von Clausewitz that war is “politics by other means,” meaning that victory can only be achieved by aligning with the right side—which does not appear to be the case for Ukraine.

The New York Times characterized the M-777 howitzer—which made its debut in Afghanistan in 2005—as “the most lethal weapon the West has provided [to Ukraine] so far.”

Highly portable by land, air and sea, it can fire as far as 40 kilometers away or 25 miles—further than Russia’s primary artillery system—and is capable of striking within 10 meters of a target when coupled with the M982 Excalibur precision guided munition, which Canada has sent to Ukraine.[2]…………..

The American Legion reported that the United States had already sent 108 M-777 howitzers to Ukraine before the most recent aid package was signed by President Biden.

The Pentagon claimed that the howitzers had an immediate impact upon their arrival on May 8, enabling the Ukrainians to “go on the counter-offensive in the Donbas” and “take back some towns the Russians had taken in the past.”

Colonel Roman Kachur, commander of Ukraine’s 55th Artillery Brigade, told The New York Times that “this weapon [the howitzer] brings us closer to victory. With every modern weapon, every precise weapon, we get closer to victory.”

However, The New York Times reported on June 20 that Russian forces “appeared poised to tighten the noose around thousands of Ukrainian troops near two strategically important cities in the Donbas,” mounting an “assault on Ukrainian front lines.”[3]

So a Ukrainian victory appears far off.

The Russian Interior Ministry reported that it had destroyed U.S.-made howitzers through use of attack drones.

Former UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter wrote that Ukrainian dependence on Western artillery they were unfamiliar with resulted in a ten-fold disparity in firepower with Russia which was destroying Ukrainian defensive positions with minimal risk to its troops.

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg warned that the Ukraine War could “last for years,” meaning we are looking at another Vietnam.

Merchants of Death

The M-777 howitzer is made by the U.S. division of BAE Systems, the largest arms manufacturer in Europe, which has supplied Ukraine with 400,000 rounds of munitions, anti-tank guided missiles and armored vehicles equipped with anti-aircraft missiles.

Former CIA Director Gina Haspel, who observed waterboarding at a CIA black site, sits on the company’s Board of Directors.

In March, BAE Systems ironically bankrolled an arms fair in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, where sanctioned Russian weapons makers showed off some of the weapons they were using in Ukraine, including tanks, helicopters and drones.

During the 2020 U.S. election campaign, BAE Systems donated $569,202 to Democratic Party candidates, and $452,594 to Republicans, according to opensecrets.org.

Joe Biden received $102,591 compared to $94,966 for Donald Trump.

Additional recipients of BAE’s largesse included such anti-Russia hawks as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA—$7,373); Steny Hoyer (D-MD—$10,000), Chuck Schumer (D-NY—$5,605); Liz Cheney (R-WY—$3,259 and another $5,500 in 2022); Jamie Raskin (D-MD—$4,089); Adam Schiff (D-CA—$8,036); Mitch McConnell (R-KY—$9, 289), James Inhofe (R-OK-$13,300) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC-$11,383).[4]

So far this year, BAE Systems has spent $940,000 on lobbying Congress; in 2021, it spent $3.63 million.[5]

This amounts to chump change for the company: Shares in BAE Systems have reached an all-time high since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, rising by 28 percent over ten weeks to give BAE a stock market value of £24 billion and putting it among the largest 25 companies in the Financial Times Stock Exchange.

In a blatant conflict of interest, a number of Tories in England’s Upper House of Parliament—notably Lord Glendonbrook, Viscount Eccles and Lord Sassoon, and unaffiliated peers Lord Lupton and Lord Gadhia—each own shares of at least £50,000 in BAE Systems.[6]

Samuel Perlo-Freeman, research coordinator for the campaign against the arms trade, said that BAE Systems “like other major world arms companies, are seeing their share prices soar in response to the war on Ukraine, as European countries prepare to massively rearm, doubling down on the very militarism that has created so much death and suffering in Ukraine, Yemen and elsewhere.”[7]

In May, BAE Systems’ CEO, Dr. Charles Woodburn, told investors: “We see opportunities to further enhance the medium-term outlook as our customers address the elevated threat environment.”

Which really means that, by antagonizing the Russians, great profits can be made in the Ukraine War and any compromise or diplomatic solution that might end the war should be rejected.

References: …………………………………………..  https://covertactionmagazine.com/2022/06/27/while-biden-gives-ukrainian-army-the-most-lethal-weapon-war-profiteer-bae-systems-stock-soars/1

June 30, 2022 Posted by | business and costs, politics international, UK, USA, weapons and war | 2 Comments

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