Foreign Policy

Media Can’t Even Tell The Truth About Foreign Policy History

August 16, 2019 Staff, Yvesengler.com Educate! Foreign Policy, History, Media, Propaganda

Media coverage of Canadian foreign policy is uniquely one-sided and biased. It’s so bad that few readers, listeners or viewers will have ever seen or heard an honest analysis of this country’s past, let alone current role around the world. A recent Maclean’s story titled “The long history of ‘go back to where you came from’ in Canada” illustrates how uniquely bad foreign policy coverage is. The story demonstrates that it is permissible to detail the history of racist immigration policy, but can one imagine Maclean’s publishing a story headlined “the long history of Canada advancing Empire”?

Soleimani’s Support Boosts Zarif, Isolates Iran’s Hard-Liners

March 8, 2019 Sina Toossi, Al-monitor.com Educate! Foreign Policy, Iran, US Imperialism

News of Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif's abrupt resignation late on Feb. 25 spurred celebration and joy among Iran's powerful hard-liners. "The disgraceful JCPOA [Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action] has reached a dead end. Zarif is like a gambler who gambled his entire existence on trusting [former US Secretary of State] John Kerry and lost," proclaimed hard-line former member of parliament Hamid Rasaee. Conservative politician Mahmoud Nabavian declared, "The man behind the damaging agreements of Sa’adabad, Paris, Geneva, Lausanne, the JCPOA and FATF [Financial Action Task Force] has resigned. Thank God."

William Blum, Renowned U.S. Foreign Policy Critic, Dead At 85

December 11, 2018 Chris Agee and Louis Wolf, Informationclearinghouse.info Educate! Foreign Policy, Journalism, Revisionism

December 10, 2018 "Information Clearing House" - William Blum died in Virginia on December 9, 2018. He was surrounded by friends and family after falling in his Washington D.C. apartment and sustaining serious wounds 65 days ago. He was 85 years old. Bill was born March 6, 1933 at Beth Moses Hospital in Brooklyn, N.Y. and became an American author, historian, and critic of United States foreign policy. He worked in a computer-related position at the United States Department of State in the mid-1960s. Initially an anti-communist with dreams of becoming a foreign service officer, he became disillusioned by the Vietnam War.

Two Thirds Of “Progressive” Democratic Congressional Candidates Completely Silent on Foreign Policy

September 14, 2018 Bruce A. Dixon, Blackagendareport.com Educate! Electoral Politics, Foreign Policy, Revisionism

To achieve a Democratic majority in the US House of Representatives Democrats must overcome the result of two decades of relentless Republican gerrymandering in state legislatures. Traditionally the maps from which congressional representatives were elected were only drawn once a decade based on census results, but beginning in the 1990s Republicans asserted and won the right to re-draw legislative maps pretty much whenever they feel the need. Their technique is to concentrate Democratic voters into a relatively small number of districts where Democrats reliably win by enormous margins, while spreading out the Republican vote to a greater number of districts in which Republicans reliably win with much smaller margins.

Beyond Bolton: The Path To A Progressive Foreign Policy

September 13, 2018 Nicolas J. S. Davies and Medea Benjamin, Consortiumnews.com Strategize! Foreign Policy, Inter-Imperialist Rivalry, US Imperialism

The last article, by Voice of America, reported that General Austin Miller is taking command of 14,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan as they soldier on in the “graveyard of empires” after 17 years of war. In the heady days after the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan in 1989 and the end of the Cold War, who would have predicted that America would soon be mired in its own quagmire in Afghanistan or that the fall of the Berlin Wall would usher in an era of U.S. wars that would sow violence and chaos across so much of the world? And yet, it was precisely in those heady days at the end of the Cold War that what Mikhail Gorbachev has called Western“triumphalism“ was born.

The Iranian Perspective: US Foreign Policy In Crisis

June 22, 2018 Mohammad Javad Zarif, Irna.ir Educate! Foreign Policy, Iran, US Imperialism

The administration has also put in jeopardy other multilateral arrangements such as NAFTA, the global trade system, and parts of the United Nations system, thus inflicting considerable damage to multilateralism, and the prospects for resolving disputes through diplomacy. The announcement on 8 May 2018 of United States’ withdrawal from the JCPOA and the unilateral and unlawful re-imposition of nuclear sanctions -- a decision opposed by majority of the American people -- was the culmination of a series of violations of the terms of the accord by this administration, in spite of the fact that the International Atomic Energy Agency, as the sole competent international authority had repeatedly verified Iran’s compliance with its commitments under the accord.

Show Me Something New In Trump’s Foreign Policy

January 5, 2018 Charles Pierson, Counterpunch.org Educate! Foreign Policy, Trump Administration, US Imperialism

“Trump, the Insurgent, Breaks with 70 Years of American Foreign Policy,” the New York Times declared on December 28. The article, by Mark Landler, describes foreign leaders such as German Chancellor Angela Merkel dismayed at an erratic and uninformed (Landler does not use the word “stupid”) President who not only does not know what he is talking about, but whose public statements and tweets frequently contradict and undercut members of his own administration. Our long-time allies no longer find the US “reliable,” Landler writes, and, in some cases, have begun charting courses independent of Washington. This is all well and good—or bad, rather—and if Landler had stopped there we would have few grounds for objections.

Chronic Deceit By The US Undermines Foreign Policy

November 30, 2017 Ted Galen Carpenter, theamericanconservative.com Educate! Foreign Policy, Inter-Imperialist Rivalry, US Imperialism

By Ted Galen Carpenter for The American Conservative - For any country, the foundation of successful diplomacy is a reputation for credibility and reliability. Governments are wary of concluding agreements with a negotiating partner that violates existing commitments and has a record of duplicity. Recent U.S. administrations have ignored that principle, and their actions have backfired majorly, damaging American foreign policy in the process. The consequences of previous deceit are most evident in the ongoing effort to achieve a diplomatic solution to the North Korean nuclear crisis. During his recent trip to East Asia, President Trump urged Kim Jong-un’s regime to “come to the negotiating table” and “do the right thing”—relinquish the country’s nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programs. Presumably, that concession would lead to a lifting (or at least an easing) of international economic sanctions and a more normal relationship between Pyongyang and the international community. Unfortunately, North Korean leaders have abundant reasons to be wary of such U.S. enticements. Trump’s transparent attempt to renege on Washington’s commitment to the deal with Iran known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA)—which the United States and other major powers signed in 2015 to curb Tehran’s nuclear program—certainly does not increase Pyongyang’s incentive to sign a similar agreement.

Wrongful Rhetoric And Trump’s Strategy On Iran

October 16, 2017 Kathy Kelly, www.vcnv.org Educate! Donald Trump, Foreign Policy, Iran, US Imperialism

By Kathy Kelly for VCNV - Mordechai Vanunu was imprisoned in Israel for eighteen years because he blew the whistle on Israel’s secret nuclear weapons program. He felt he had “an obligation to tell the people of Israel what was going on behind their backs” at a supposed nuclear research facility which was actually producing plutonium for nuclear weapons. His punishment for breaking the silence about Israel’s capacity to manufacture nuclear weapons included eleven years of solitary confinement. Yesterday, reading about President Donald Trump’s new strategy on Iran, Vanunu’s long isolation and sacrificial commitment to truth-telling came to mind. Donald Trump promised to “deny the Iranian regime all paths to a nuclear weapon.” But it is Israel, which possesses an estimated 80 nuclear warheads, with fissile material for up to 200, which poses the major nuclear threat in the region. And Israel is allied to the nation with the world’s largest nuclear arsenal: the United States. Israel doesn’t acknowledge its nuclear arsenal publicly, nor does Israel allow weapons inspectors into its nuclear weapons facilities. Along with India and Pakistan, Israel refuses to sign the nuclear non-proliferation treaty. And it has used conventional weapons in numerous destabilizing wars which include aerial bombing of Gaza, Lebanon and the West Bank. Vanunu, designated by Daniel Ellsberg as the “the pre-eminent hero of the nuclear era,” helped many people envision nations in the region making progress toward a nuclear weapons-free Middle East.

Pentagon Study Declares American Empire Is ‘Collapsing’

July 19, 2017 Nafeez Ahmed, www.medium.com Educate! Foreign Policy, Military, Pentagon, US Imperialism, Wars and Militarism

By Nafeez Ahmed for Medium - An extraordinary new Pentagon study has concluded that the U.S.-backed international order established after World War 2 is “fraying” and may even be “collapsing”, leading the United States to lose its position of “primacy” in world affairs. The solution proposed to protect U.S. power in this new “post-primacy” environment is, however, more of the same: more surveillance, more propaganda (“strategic manipulation of perceptions”) and more military expansionism. The document concludes that the world has entered a fundamentally new phase of transformation in which U.S. power is in decline, international order is unravelling, and the authority of governments everywhere is crumbling. Having lost its past status of “pre-eminence”, the U.S. now inhabits a dangerous, unpredictable “post-primacy” world, whose defining feature is “resistance to authority”. Danger comes not just from great power rivals like Russia and China, both portrayed as rapidly growing threats to American interests, but also from the increasing risk of “Arab Spring”-style events. These will erupt not just in the Middle East, but all over the world, potentially undermining trust in incumbent governments for the foreseeable future.

Former US Intelligence Officers Scathingly Critique Trump’s So-Called Foreign Policy

May 10, 2017 Dahr Jamail, www.truth-out.org Resist! Donald Trump, Foreign Policy, Intelligence

By Dahr Jamail for Truthout - While Donald Trump delighted in launching 59 cruise missiles toward Syria while eating chocolate cake at one of his resorts, Syrians, as they have for years of living under conditions of extreme violence, feared the worst. The devastatingly bloody conflict in Syria, which the US has already been involved in for years, has left nearly 500,000 dead and nearly 2 million injured. That means that more than 1 out of every 10 Syrians has been killed or wounded, and more than 85 percent of the country is living in poverty. According to the UN, more than 6 million Syrians are displaced within their own country, and nearly 5 million have fled the country altogether and are now refugees. As the Trump administration appears poised to become increasingly involved in Syria and the greater Middle East, what is life like under the bombs? "It is a day-to-day kind of life where nothing is guaranteed and everything is unexpected," Syrian architect Marwa Al-Sabouni, who lives in Homs, told Truthout, emphasizing that securing day-to-day amenities is a struggle. "There is little room for anything normal."

Contacts With Russian Embassy

March 7, 2017 Jack Matlock, www.jackmatlock.com Educate! Foreign Policy, Russia

By Jack Matlock - Our press seems to be in a feeding frenzy regarding contacts that President Trump’s supporters had with Russian Ambassador Sergei Kislyak and with other Russian diplomats. The assumption seems to be that there was something sinister about these contacts, just because they were with Russian diplomats. As one who spent a 35-year diplomatic career working to open up the Soviet Union and to make communication between our diplomats and ordinary citizens a normal practice, I find the attitude of much of our political establishment and of some of our once respected media outlets quite incomprehensible. What in the world is wrong with consulting a foreign embassy about ways to improve relations?

Israel Interferes In US Politics And It’s Never A Scandal

February 22, 2017 Philip Weiss, www.mondoweiss.net Educate! Foreign Policy, Israel

By Philip Weiss for Mondoweiss - I completely believe that Donald Trump was in bed with the Russians before the election and the campaign may well have intrigued with Vladimir Putin with respect to Wikileaks and that helped defeat Hillary Clinton. I believe that because that’s how the world works; because a lot of very smart people in the liberal establishment believe it; and because the New York Times and Washington Post are documenting some of it, with the fervor of Watergate. Maybe it will bring the liar in chief down some day and end this short national nightmare. I certainly hope so. But there are two large exceptions to the Russian conspiracy. The first is that it is good policy for the United States to be talking to Russia. If Clinton were president today, there might be dogfights over Damascus.

A Documentary You’ll Likely Never See

February 20, 2017 James DiEugenio, www.http://consortiumnews.com/ Educate! Europe, Foreign Policy, Propaganda, Ukraine

By James DiEugenio for Consortium News -It is not very often that a documentary film can set a new paradigm about a recent event, let alone, one that is still in progress. But the new film Ukraine on Fire has the potential to do so – assuming that many people get to see it. Usually, documentaries — even good ones — repackage familiar information in a different aesthetic form. If that form is skillfully done, then the information can move us in a different way than just reading about it. A good example of this would be Peter Davis’s powerful documentary about U.S. involvement in Vietnam, Hearts and Minds. By 1974, most Americans understood just how bad the Vietnam War was, but through the combination of sounds and images, which could only have been done through film, that documentary created a sensation, which removed the last obstacles to America leaving Indochina.

Organized Campaigns Hit At Trump’s Foreign Policy Plans

February 14, 2017 Moon Of Alabama, www.informationclearinghouse.info Educate! Donald Trump, Foreign Policy

By Moon Of Alabama for Information Clearing House - February 13, 2017 "Information Clearing House" - "Moon Of Alabama" - At the end of his administration Obama implemented a series of anti-Russian moves. The most obvious was the expulsion of 35 Russian diplomats over unfounded allegation of Russian interference in the U.S. elections. Other moves included thelaunching of an Ukrainian offense against the Russian supported resistance in the east Ukraine. These moves were designed to impede the incoming Trump administration in its announced plans towards more friendly relations with Russia. The incoming Trump administration countered Obama's sanction move. Its designated National Security Advisor Flynn phoned up the Russian ambassador in Washington.

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