Wednesday, August 28, 2019

U.S. cyber attack on Iran may set off a new type of arms race

The U.S. cyber attack on Iran with the help of hackers is without precedent in that never before have actions of this type been so blatant and so obviously carried out by Washington. The attack will have repercussions, particularly because of what the hackers themselves may go on to do. In addition, the attack is likely to set off a cyber-style arms race involving many countries. In short, nothing good can come of this.   

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2019/08/us-hack-attack-hobbles-irans-ability-to-target-oil-tankers-nyt-says/?fbclid=IwAR2LQWgXE5Id8P_wwOMyUCNsIKsbGHbXbrEAlginywJ0slBjLsN439dRPbA 

Saturday, August 24, 2019

The Unforeseen Consequences of Arms Escalation

To what extent did the U.S.-Israeli cyberattack on Iran’s nuclear centrifuges in 2010 – which destroyed the nation’s infrastructure and then extended to other countries – contribute to the ransomware attacks which have wreaked havoc on municipalities throughout the U.S.? 

To what extent did the CIA’s biological warfare experiments contribute to the origination of AID’s?

And to what extent could the resumption of the arm’s race as a result of Trump’s withdrawal from the INF arms treaty – and his resumption of missile testing – contribute to the spread of nuclear arms technology and the possibility that it falls into the hands of terrorists?

These are issues that the mass media should – and have failed to – raise in order to bring about a national debate over these life-and death issues.



 


Thursday, August 15, 2019

Trump: Sanctions against Israel are Illegitimate; not so in the case of Venezuela

JUST ONE MORE EXAMPLE OF THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION’S DOUBLE STANDARDS

Trump supports Israel’s decision to deny visas for U.S. congresswomen Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar on grounds they support the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement (bds) against that nation. Yet at the same time the Trump administration attacks Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro’s decision to pull out of negotiations with representatives of Juan Guaidó in Barbados because he supports Washington’s sanctions against Venezuela. Nothing is surprising anymore. 

https://www.theroot.com/trump-got-his-wish-israel-bans-democratic-reps-ilhan-1837272887

Tuesday, August 13, 2019

TRUMP APPOINTEE’S SACRILEGIOUS, IF NOT BLASPHEMOUS, STATEMENT ON EMMA LAZARUS' "THE NEW COLOSSUS"

Ken Cuccinelli, the hardliner acting director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, jokes about adding words to Emma Lazarus’ renowned poem inscribed on a bronze tablet of the Statue of Liberty. He says: “Give me your tired and your poor – who can stand on their own two feet and who will not become a public charge.” This is a mockery of what is nothing less than a major and sacred component of our cultural heritage

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/trump-immigration-official-offers-rewrite-for-statue-of-liberty-poem/ar-AAFKdOP?ocid=spartandhp&fbclid=IwAR32A-BbW3N0sKeWJHDTvQpJDVNyBZsAnRjuKhKIxJ0gysY7FMsyDnSMZdg

Saturday, August 10, 2019

Washington-imposed sanctions amount to nothing short of an embargo on Venezuela

The important feature of the sanctions the Trump administration just imposed on Venezuela is not that they freeze Venezuelan government assets in the U.S. or prohibit transactions with the Venezuelan government – Trump’s executive orders did that in the past. The key feature is the ambiguity of the sanctions. Any private company anyplace in the world will be reluctant to trade with a private Venezuelan company because if it turns out that the Venezuelan company has dealings with the Maduro government, then the foreign company can be placed on a blacklist of the U.S. Department of Commerce or Treasury and possibly have their assets frozen. Furthermore, it has been proven even by anti-Chavista analysts that U.S. banks lack the capacity to determine whether Venezuelan companies have ties with the Venezuelan government. Since most international commerce and other transactions take place in dollars, U.S. banks act as go-betweens; thus U.S. banks, rather than the U.S. government, end up vetoing a large number of commercial transactions with Venezuela. In short, Washington's sanctions amount to nothing short of an embargo on Venezuela.
The actions of top members of the Trump administration such as Secretary of Treasury Steven Mnuchin and Secretary of State Pompeo foster this ambiguity. They have publicly announced probes into the shadow companies that Maduro allegedly controls and in doings to scare companies throughout the world from dealing with Venezuela in any shape or form. 
I made these points in an interview today on China Global CGTN.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JSE5h81MIGg

Tuesday, August 6, 2019

Trump is practicing "international banditry" on Venezuela

Trump’s new decree confiscates all Venezuelan state assets in the United States. What’s worse, it threatens Russia and China with freezing their assets in U.S. territory if those countries continue transactions with the Venezuelan government. Russia is calling the measure “international banditry.” Indeed, WHAT HAPPENED TO THE PRINCIPLE OF THE SACRED RIGHTS OF PROPERTY? Trump is inadvertently undermining one of the fundamental principles of bourgeois democracy.
(photo taken from Mint Press News)

Sunday, August 4, 2019

THERE IS ONE BASIC, OVERRIDING JUSTIFICATION OF U.S. INTERVENTIONISM THROUGHOUT THE WORLD. DOES IT HOLD UP TO THE FACTS?

THE ARGUMENT: Those who defend U.S. interventionism say the following: Sure the U.S. plays hard ball and we have done some not-so-nice things since the end of WWII. But look, we have a democracy (with all its shortcomings), we hold elections, we have a multi-party system and there is freedom of expression. The same is true with our closest allies, those of Western Europe (and Israel). That’s not the case with China, Cuba, and the old USSR; and Russia is hardly democratic. The bottom line is that geopolitics is all about democracy versus undemocratic rule.
WHAT ARE THE FACTS: There are three fallacies to this argument.
One: If you look at the full span of the last 75 years, and look at what the U.S. has done, not what it says, there is one overriding conclusion. The U.S. has been a force in favor of undemocratic rule and usually the rule of a small oligarchic elite, which represents the antithesis of democracy. Look at the most important U.S. allies outside of Europe: Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, Bahrain, now Brazil, etc. These are undemocratic countries that we not only have close ties with but we have close military relations with including the immense transfer of arms (the latest being Trump’s lining Brazil up for NATO membership). And look at the aftermath of U.S. backed coups against democratic governments; it almost invariably consists of protracted dictatorial rule: Iran (1953), Guatemala (1954), Brazil (1964), Indonesia (1965), Chile (1973), and the list goes on and on. In short, U.S. support for Pinochet and his ilk has not been an aberration but rather a consistent policy. That policy over a period of 75 years may have had exceptions, but very few.
Two: Look at the record of our leftist adversaries with regard to the governments they have supported. If you add up the pluses and minuses, our adversaries come out ahead. Compare the Afghanistan government that Soviet troops were deployed to aid in 1979 as opposed to the future terrorists which the Reagan administration called “freedom fighters” and included Bin Laden. That government represented a degree of social and political liberalization for Afghanistan in comparison to the nation’s past, including with regard to the status of women. Or take the role of Cuban troops in taking on the Apartheid regime of South Africa. For the rest of his life, Nelson Mandela thanked Fidel Castro for his role in bringing down the racist South African government which was anything but democratic. While Washington’s leftist adversary governments such as Cuba and the USSR were supporting movements of national liberation in Angola and elsewhere that fought against colonial rule (the antithesis of democracy), the U.S. was supporting the Apartheid government of South Africa. More recently, take Russian and Chinese backing of the elected governments of Hugo Chávez and Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela, as opposed to the relentless hostility and destabilization efforts of Washington. Regardless of their motivations, Washington’s adversaries have had better scorecards with regard to support for non-oligarchic and often democratic governments than that of Washington. The one fallback argument of Washington’s Cold War apologists is the case of Soviet-supported Communist governments of Eastern Europe. To be dealt with in the following point.
Three: U.S. hostility to leftist governments has undermined the impetus in each case in favor of an opening-up process, with greater participation and democratic channels (regardless of the accepted definition of democracy, be it “liberal democracy” or “participatory democracy”). The state of siege which the U.S. has created impedes the possibility of any kind of democratic opening (again, regardless of your definition of democracy). War is inherently antithetical to democracy, as history has shown time and again. In the case of Venezuela, Chávez’s vision, and his concrete efforts to promote bottom-up participation in the form of communal councils, communes and within his governing party have been sabotaged by the undemocratic actions of the U.S.- supported opposition (military coup, street violence, etc.) as well as economic reprisals imposed by Washington. In another example, at the same time that Washington viewed with certain favor the glasnost strategy of Gorbachov, Reagan was ratcheting up military spending to force the Soviets to increase military spending, knowing full well that this would represent a strain on its economy. The resultant drain contributed to the failure of liberalization efforts. To this day many pro-Washington analysts credit Reagan’s strategy for helping bring down Soviet communist rule. Finally, there is a relationship between U.S. military bases on the USSR border (in Turkey for example) during the Cold War and ironclad rule in Eastern Europe, which the Soviets considered to be a buffer. Consider the Soviet reaction to the opening-up process in Hungry in 1956 and Czechoslovakia in 1968. Other factors certainly enter into play in explaining Gorbachov’s failures and the nature of Communist rule in Eastern Europe, but the importance of the U.S. military threat (along with political schemes in favor of regime change that violated national sovereignty) cannot be underestimated.
In short, the U.S. – foreign adversary divide is hardly based on democratic versus undemocratic paradigms. The “making the world safe for democracy” argument is implicit or explicit in the discourse in favor of U.S. foreign policy. For that reason, the concrete history of U.S. actions abroad - as opposed to the empty rhetoric - has to be brought into the discussion in order to refute the pro-interventionism justification in all its variations.

Thursday, August 1, 2019

TRUMP COMPLEMENTS BRAZIL'S BOLSONARO

Trump calls Jair Bolsonaro “a great gentleman," and adds they call him “the 'Trump of Brazil.' I like that. That's a compliment." At the same time, Trump designates Brazil a "non-Nato ally," which puts the country in line to become a NATO member. And meanwhile, the U.S. president calls Venezuela's Nicolás Maduro a "dictator." Give me a break.