Foreign Policy

Iraq Escalation: Troops Headed Back To Fallujah

August 16, 2014 Jason Ditz, www.mintpressnews.com Educate! Foreign Policy, Iraq, ISIS, US, Wars and Militarism

Having ditched the Yazidi rescue pretext for the new US war in Iraq, after discovering there weren’t really many Yazidis to rescue in the first place, the US has reportedly set its sights on the Anbar Province, site of some of the bloodiest US battles during the previous occupation. In an interview with Reuters, Anbar Governor Ahmed Khalaf al-Dulaimi confirmed meetings with US diplomats and senior military officials, and secured a promise of not only air strikes against ISIS holdings in the province, but a military presence on the ground. “No date was decided but it will be very soon and there will be a presence for the Americans in the western area,” Dulaimi confirmed. ISIS controls materially all of the Anbar Province at this point. Anbar was the first major territorial gain for ISIS in Iraq, way back in January when they seized Fallujah and Ramadi, the main cities in the province. Since then, they’ve expanded, and were believed to have recently taken the Haditha Dam, one of the last sites outside their control in the province.

Top 9 Reasons To Stop Bombing Iraq

August 14, 2014 David Swanson, www.warisacrime.org Educate! Foreign Policy, Iraq, Wars and Militarism

1. It's not a rescue mission. The U.S. personnel could be evacuated without the 500-pound bombs. The persecuted minorities could be supplied, moved, or their enemy dissuaded, or all three, without the 500-pound bombs or the hundreds of "advisors" (trained and armed to kill, and never instructed in how to give advice -- Have you ever tried taking urgent advice from 430 people?). The boy who cried rescue mission should not be allowed to get away with it after the documented deception in Libya where a fictional threat to civilians was used to launch an all-out aggressive attack that has left that nation in ruins. Not to mention the false claims about Syrian chemical weapons and the false claim that missiles were the only option left for Syria -- the latter claims being exposed when the former weren't believed, the missiles didn't launch, and less violent but perfectly obvious alternative courses of action were recognized. If the U.S. government were driven by a desire to rescue the innocent, why would it be arming Israel, Egypt, Jordan, Bahrain? The U.S. government destroyed the nation of Iraq between 2003 and 2011, with results including the near elimination of various minority groups. If preventing genocide were a dominant U.S. interest, it could have halted its participation in and aggravation of that war at any time, a war in which 97% of the dead were on one side, just as in Gaza this month -- the distinction between war and genocide being one of perspective, not proportions. Or, of course, the U.S. could have left well alone. Ever since President Carter declared that the U.S. would kill for Iraqi oil, each of his successors has believed that course of action justified, and each has made matters significantly worse.

Air Strikes In Iraq Largely About Oil

August 14, 2014 John B. Judis, www.newrepublic.com Educate! Foreign Policy, Iraq, Oil, Wars and Militarism

Last night, President Barack Obama announced that he was authorizing American airtstrikes in Iraq. He described his intervention as a “humanitarian effort to help save thousands of Iraqi civilians who are trapped on a mountain” and as an effort “to protect our American personnel.” One word that he didn’t mention is “oil,” but it lies near the center of American motives for intervention. The United States is conducting airdrops to aid the Yazidis who have fled the advance of Islamic State militants, but it is conducting airstrikes around Erbil, which is to the east. There are American consular personnel in Erbil, but they could be evacuated if necessary. What Obama left unsaid was that Erbil, a city of 1.5 million, is the capital of the Kurdish regional government and the administrative center of its oil industry, which accounts for about a quarter of Iraq’s oil. The Kurds claim that if they were to become an independent state, they would have the ninth-largest oil reserves in the world. And oil wells are near Erbil.

Obama Unleashes US Imperialism To Loot Africa

August 7, 2014 John Feffer, www.fpif.org Educate! Africa, Foreign Policy, Imperialism, US

President Obama is definitely “into” Africa. As much as possible in a world riven by multiple crises, the president has made the continent a focus of his policymaking. Turning his own Kenyan heritage into a personal bridge to the region, he has visited Africa three times as president – in 2009, 2011, and 2013. He has touted his administration’s multi-billion initiatives such as Power Africa to bring electricity to millions of homes, a fellowship program for young African leaders, and the continuation of efforts to fight HIV-AIDS and other infectious diseases. At a time when criticism is mounting about the way the president is handling the rest of the world, Africa is shaping up to be Obama’s major play for a legacy. This week, to better position this effort, Obama welcomed delegations from 51 African countries to Washington for an unprecedented summit. As part of its press blitz, the White House released a fact sheet that detailed all the State Department’s high-profile programs including support for democracy in Nigeria, an expansion of civil society activity in Liberia, and an open government initiative in Sierra Leone. Many of these initiatives are indeed admirable, and I can imagine State Department staffers grumbling that the media focus on Ebola and Boko Haram has left no space for these more upbeat stories.

An Inquiry Into The 9/11 Commission’s 10th Anniversary Report

August 1, 2014 Mike Lofgren, www.truth-out.org Educate! Foreign Policy, Iraq, Terrorism, Wars and Militarism

One of the many things I learned in government is that the investigative commissions which inquire into a scandal, disaster or atrocity are usually intended to bury the real causes of the incident and trumpet other circumstantial or irrelevant details as if they are shocking or novel. In other words, commissions are cover-ups pretending to be exposés. This is not always the case, but as the stakes rise, it becomes the accepted practice. One of the masters of this technique has been former House Foreign Affairs Committee chairman Lee H. Hamilton (D-Indiana). He cut his teeth as chairman of the House Select Committee to Investigate Covert Arms Transactions with Iran, where he was careful to stop short of implicating President Ronald Reagan of impeachable criminal culpability, and, more importantly, provided the same service to the future President George H.W. Bush. A few smaller fries took the fall, and Reagan, the man whom Republicans retrospectively credit for making the sun shine and the rain fall, was chastised for not being in control of his own immediate subordinates. Bush, of course, was out of the loop. In 1992, Hamilton chaired the House October Surprise Task Force, and failed once again to find Bush culpable of criminal misdeeds - in this case, the allegation being that Bush was involved in secret and illegal negotiations with Iran to deny the American hostages' release until after the 1980 elections. Twenty years later, however, Hamilton confessed to investigative journalist Robert Parry that he now has second thoughts about the October surprise. As they used to say in vaudeville, now he tells us.

Afghanistan To Cost More Than Marshall Plan, Watchdog Says

August 1, 2014 Josh Smith, www.stripes.com Educate! Afghanistan, Foreign Policy, History, Wars and Militarism

By the time its combat troops depart at the end of 2014, the United States will have appropriated more money trying to fix Afghanistan than it did on the Marshall Plan that helped Europe recover economically after World War II, according to an analysis by a government watchdog. The comparison in the latest quarterly report of the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction draws attention to the mixed results of U.S. investments in Afghanistan — $104 billion appropriated since 2002 — versus the success of the Marshall Plan, which is credited with helping to spur the economic revival of Western Europe. The Marshall Plan cost about $13.3 billion at the time, but dollars during the 1950s could purchase much more than today’s dollars. Adjusting for inflation and stated in today’s dollars, the Marshall Plan investment would be equal to $103.4 billion, SIGAR concluded. Using the same adjustments, the SIGAR report, calculated that the actual investment in Afghanistan equals more than $109 billion.

US Practicing For Military Conflicts With China, WW II Like Invasion?

August 1, 2014 Conn Hallinan, www.original.antiwar.com Educate! China, Foreign Policy, Japan, US, Wars and Militarism

The past six months have seen an incredible ratcheting up of tensions in the East and South China Seas, where the world’s three largest economies – China, the United States, and Japan – are caught up in an increasingly tangled web of territorial disputes, competing alliances, and historical grievances. In February, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry assured Japan that the Americans would defend Japan in case of a military confrontation between Tokyo and Beijing. That same month, U.S. Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Jonathan Greenert said the Philippines could count on American support if there were a clash with China in the South China Sea. In early May, the Japanese Self-Defense Forces practiced “retaking” islands of the Amami Group near Okinawa in a not-so-subtle challenge to China over the ownership of the Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea. That same week, U.S. and Philippine forces held joint war games, while President Barack Obama promised “ironclad” support against “aggressive” neighbors interested in “changing the status quo” in Asia. Since then, the competing claims have only escalated. In mid-May, China challenged Japanese ownership of Okinawa, stating it did “not belong to Japan,” challenging Tokyo and indirectly calling into question the presence of huge U.S. bases on the island.

Does The U.S. Hold The World Record Of Killings Of Innocent Civilians?

August 1, 2014 John McCurtry and Kourosh Ziabari, www.globalresearch.ca Educate! Foreign Policy, Police, Wars and Militarism

In the US’s so-called War on Terror, by far the greatest and most systematic terrorization of civilians is in fact perpetrated by the US state itself. Unarmed citizens are murdered across the world as ‘collateral damage’, ‘illegal enemy combatants’ or other license of impunity. The US state conceives itself as above international law along with ally Israel, but this reality is taboo to report and so too all the killing and terrorization of civilians. One can truly say that “the historical record demonstrates the US is provably guilty of continual lawless mass murder of civilians across the world”, but the truth is unthinkable within the ruling ideological regime. Consider for example, the US-led deadly civil wars and coup d’etats in Venezuela and Ukraine as well as Libya and Syria. They mass terrorize and destroy societies into defenseless dependency so that their resources, lands and markets are “free” for transnational corporate exploitation. Yet the meaning is un-decoded. Ignorance is built into the syntax of acceptable thought. Q: Many immigrants who seek refuge in United States from the four corners of the globe in search of a better and more prosperous life think of America as an absolutely free, democratic and open society with abundant opportunities for economic and social progress. However, you’ve argued, as many scholars did, that the United States is a police state. Would you please elaborate more on that? Do you believe that these immigrants and asylum-seekers are not told the whole truth about the United States or are somehow deceived?

First U.S. Flight Deports Kids Under Fast-Track

July 17, 2014 Gabriel Stargardter, www.reuters.com Educate! Deportation, Foreign Policy, Immigrant Rights, Immigration, War On Drugs

The United States deported a group of Honduran children as young as 1-1/2 years old on Monday in the first flight since President Barack Obama pledged to speed up the process of sending back illegal immigrant minors from Central America. Fleeing violence and poverty, record numbers of children from Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala have crossed into the United States over the past year, testing U.S. border facilities and sparking intense debate about how to solve the problem. Monday's charter flight from New Mexico to San Pedro Sula, the city with the highest murder rate in the world, returned 17 Honduran women, as well as 12 girls and nine boys, aged between 18 months and 15 years, the Honduran government said. Looking happy, the deported children exited the airport on an overcast and sweltering afternoon. One by one, they filed into a bus, playing with balloons they had been given. Nubia, a 6-year-old girl among the deportees, said she left Honduras a month ago for a journey that ended when she and her mother were caught on the Mexico-Texas border two weeks later. "Horrible, cold and tiring," was how Nubia remembered the trip that was meant to unite the pair with her three uncles already living in the United States. Instead, her mother Dalia paid $7,000 in vain to a coyote, or guide, to smuggle them both across the border.

The Anti-Empire Report #130

July 14, 2014 William Blum, www.williamblum.org Educate! Empire, Foreign Policy, Peace, Wars and Militarism

The question is not what pacifism has achieved throughout history, but what has war achieved? Remark made to a pacifist: “If only everyone else would live in the way you recommend, I would gladly live that way as well – but not until everyone else does.” The Pacifist’s reply: “Why then, sir, you would be the last man on earth to do good. I would rather be one of the first.” Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution, 1947, words long cherished by a large majority of the Japanese people: “Aspiring sincerely to an international peace based on justice and order, the Japanese people forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as means of settling international disputes. “In order to accomplish the aim of the preceding paragraph, land, sea, and air forces, as well as other war potential, will never be maintained. The right of belligerency of the state will not be recognized.”

Obama Supported Honduras Coup Root Cause Of Border Crisis

July 13, 2014 Ted Rall, , www.rall.com Educate! coup, Foreign Policy, Immigration

The sad truth is that this “crisis at the border” is yet another example of “blowback.” Confusing the issue for casual American news consumers is that the current border crisis doesn’t involve the usual Mexicans traveling north in search of work. Instead, we’re talking about people from Central American nations devastated by a century of American colonialism and imperialism, much of that intervention surprisingly recent. The fact that Honduras is the biggest source of the exodus jumped out at me. That’s because, in 2009, the United States government — under President Obama — tacitlysupported a military coup that overthrew the democratically elected president of Honduras. “Washington has a very close relationship with the Honduran military, which goes back decades,” The Guardian noted at the time. “During the 1980s, the US used bases in Honduras to train and arm the Contras, Nicaraguan paramilitaries who became known for their atrocities in their war against the Sandinista government in neighbouring Nicaragua.”

The Empire Economy Does Not Work

July 9, 2014 Paul Craig Roberts, Dave Kranzler, and John Williams, www.paulcraigroberts.org Educate! Debt, Finance, Finance and the Economy, Foreign Policy, Wall Street

The third and final estimate (until the annual GDP revisions) of first quarter 2014 real GDP growth released June 25 by the US Bureau of Economic Analysis was a 2.9% contraction in GDP growth, a 5.5 percentage point difference from the January forecast of 2.6% growth. Apparently, the first quarter contraction was dismissed by those speculating in equities as weather related, as stock averages rose with the bad news. Stock market participants might be in for a second quarter surprise. The result of many years of changes made to the official inflation measures is a substantially understated inflation rate. John Williams (www.shadowstats.com) provides inflation estimates based on previous official methodology when the Consumer Price Index still represented the cost of a constant standard of living. The 1.26% inflation measure used to deflate first quarter nominal GDP is unrealistic, as Americans who make purchases are aware. A reasonable correction to the understated deflator gives a much higher first quarter contraction. The two main causes of inflation’s understatement are the substitution principle introduced during the Clinton regime and the hedonic adjustments ongoing since the 1980s that redefine price rises as quality improvements. Correcting for excessive hedonic adjustments gives a first quarter real GDP contraction of 5%. Correcting for hedonic and substitution adjustments gives a first quarter real GDP contraction of 8.5%.

NYT Dishes More Ukraine Propaganda

July 8, 2014 Robert Parry, www.consortiumnews.com Educate! Foreign Policy, New York Times (NYT), Russia, Ukraine

As you read or watch the mainstream U.S. media’s accounts of the Ukrainian government’s military offensive against ethnic Russians in East Ukraine, it’s worth remembering that these MSM outlets have been feeding Americans a highly biased narrative of the crisis non-stop from the beginning. For instance, New York Times correspondent David M. Herszenhorn included in a largely celebratory account of the Ukrainian blitzkrieg that overwhelmed ethnic Russian positions in the town of Slovyansk on Saturday this summary of the conflict’s background: “The separatist rebellion is the latest, bloodiest chapter in a crisis that began in November after Viktor F. Yanukovych, then Ukraine’s president, rejected a trade accord he had promised to sign with the European Union in favor of closer ties with Russia. Protesters took to the streets of Kiev, eventually driving Mr. Yanukovych from office. Within a week, Russia invaded Crimea, then annexed the peninsula.” Herszenhorn, like nearly all his MSM colleagues, simply can’t find it within himself to display the journalistic integrity needed to present an evenhanded and unbiased explication of how this crisis unfolded. Instead, it’s all about blaming Ukraine’s elected President Yanukovych and Russian President Vladimir Putin for everything."

Be A Patriot: Stop Another US Military Intervention

July 5, 2014 Medea Benjamin, www.codepink.org Organize! Foreign Policy, Fourth of July, Iraq, Wars and Militarism

This July 4, the fireworks won’t just be in celebration of Independence Day. There will undoubtedly be fireworks in cities throughout the Middle East, as the region, engulfed in violence, further explodes. The US military and US taxdollars are already deeply entangled in Middle Easterners’ lives (and deaths), and President Obama is under pressure to get further involved in the wars in Iraq and Syria. But what advice would our nation’s founders give the 44th president this July 4? The Founding Fathers, who revolted against a foreign power, were vehemently opposed to getting involved in military adventures overseas. George Washington cautioned our new nation against the “mischiefs of foreign intrigue.” James Madison said the US should steer clear of unnecessary wars. Thomas Jefferson said, “If there be one principle more deeply written than any other in the mind of every American, it is that we should have nothing to do with conquest.” Secretary of State John Quincy Adams warned in 1821 that America should not go abroad in search of “monsters to destroy”—for such folly would destroy “her own spirit.”

Veterans Groups Oppose More War In Iraq

July 5, 2014 C.J. Lin, www.stripes.com Resist! Foreign Policy, Iraq, Veterans, Wars and Militarism

As President Barack Obama announced Thursday that military advisers would be sent to Iraq, some veterans of the Iraq War railed against more military intervention in the country, warning that it would add to the violence and destruction. More U.S. intervention will only prolong the current conflict and further destabilize the country, said Matt Southworth, an Army veteran who in 2004 deployed to Tal Afar and is a member of Veterans for Peace. “My experience taught me that any foreign military intervention, especially if led by the United States, will only harden the resolve of the radical groups and unite the less religiously motivated into one fight against what they view is an illegitimate Iraqi government with considerable U.S. support,” Southworth said. A former intelligence analyst, Southworth suggested five steps for the U.S. to quell the violence in Iraq: Reject another U.S. military intervention Stop unconditional military aid to Iraq Convene a conference to establish an arms embargo to Iraq and Syria Increase humanitarian efforts and funding to address the basic needs of Iraqis affected by war Publicly support a comprehensive political settlement among the key parties in the conflict

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