Foreign Relations

Cuba Is Ready For An Eventual Diplomatic Rupture With Washington

December 17, 2019 Staff, Cubadebate, translation, Resumen Latinoamericano, North America bureau Educate! Cuba, Foreign Relations

The Cuban government is ready for an eventual rupture of diplomatic relations with Washington, but “we don’t want it,” Carlos Fernández de Cossío, Director General for the United States of the Foreign Ministry, told AFP. After months of tensions between the two countries, “we must be aware that this could get even worse,” because “the people who are in charge of U.S. policy toward the Western Hemisphere today are people with very extreme and aggressive behaviors and postulations toward our country,” he warns.

Can We Democratize Foreign Policy?

December 9, 2019 Daniel Bessner, Dissentmagazine.org Educate! Diplomacy, Foreign Relations

Since 1946, when the Army Air Forces decided to give $10 million to the Douglas Aircraft Company to found what would become the RAND Corporation, national security think tanks have exerted a profound influence on the U.S. role in the world. Though less well-known than defense contractors like Boeing and Lockheed Martin, think tanks are as important when it comes to determining the direction of U.S. foreign policy. It was think-tank analysts, for instance, who developed the nuclear strategies that guided U.S. foreign policy during the Cold War...

NATO Is As Good As Dead

December 3, 2019 By Scott Ritter, Truthdig.com Educate! Foreign Relations, Inter-Imperialist Rivalry, NATO, US Imperialism

When the North Atlantic Treaty Organization was founded some 70 years ago, its first secretary-general, Lord Ismay, famously noted that the purpose of the treaty alliance was “to keep the Russians out, the Americans in, and the Germans down.” NATO’s mission was to secure peace in Europe, promote cooperation among its members and guard their freedom by countering the threat posed by the Soviet Union at the time. This latter point was critical—by signing onto NATO, the United States agreed to accept the leadership of a burgeoning resistance to ostensible Soviet aggression...

Why Are U.S. Citizens Banned From Traveling To Cuba?

June 8, 2019 Alexander Guerra, CubavsBloqueo.cu Educate! Cuba, Foreign Relations, US Imperialism

In the alleged “land of the free,” US citizens will now be almost completely banned from traveling to Cuba —an island only 90 miles away from the coast of Florida and one of the safest places to live and visit in the world. The foreign policy of the Trump Administration has been taken over by anti Cuba extremists and in particular National Security Advisor John Bolton who has now fulfilled an old ambition of opposing any improvement between Havana and Washington while restricting the stream of people between the two countries.

The Shadow Of Torture Behind Trump’s Britain Visit

July 16, 2018 Staff, Aclu.org Educate! Donald Trump, Foreign Relations, United Kingdom (UK)

As President Trump visits the United Kingdom, the focus has been on strained trans-Atlantic relations, his intervention in domestic politics, and massive public protests. A different, diplomatically-couched protest has received less attention but sends a consequential signal about the so-called “special relationship” between the two countries: U.K. parliamentarians are concerned that under Trump, America could return to a policy of torture — and they are warning British intelligence agencies to guard against it. Parliament’s Intelligence and Security Committee released a pair of reports at the end of June providing extensive detail about U.K. complicity in torture, rendition, and other abuses of detainees by the U.S. military and the CIA during the George W. Bush administration. The reports by the committee, which oversees the U.K.’s intelligence agencies, also focus on policy changes needed to avoid a repeat of such abuses.

“Officials” Attempt To Sabotage Further North Korea Talks

July 2, 2018 Moon Of Alabama, Moonofalabama.org Educate! CIA, Diplomacy, Foreign Relations, North Korea, Trump Administration

The result of the Trump-Kim summit in Singapore was a "freeze for freeze" deal. North Korea stopped its nuclear and missile testing while the U.S. stopped the large maneuvers it regularity held with South Korea's army. Both sides agreed to further talks. North Korea made some aspirational statements about denuclearization which have the same time frame as similar aspirational statements made by the U.S. in Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT). There is no time frame to reach a certain state. There is no commitment towards declaring nuclear sites nor is there a commitment to stop the production of nuclear stuff. Trump declaration that there is "no longer a nuclear threat from North Korea" is correct in the sense that there is certainly no North Korean intent to launch a nuclear attack.

Agreement Reached Between North Korea And United States, Meaning?

June 12, 2018 Emanuel Pastreich, Koreatimes.co.kr Educate! Foreign Relations, Korea

Perhaps you watched the forced smiles on the faces of President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo as they exchanged words with Kim Yong-chol, vice-chairman of the Central Committee of the Workers' Party of Korea, on the grounds of the White House. Or perhaps you observed how Trump first told the press that he had read the personal letter delivered to him from Kim Jong-un, and then stated a few hours later that he had not even looked at the letter. If you felt sick to your stomach, it is not because of the omelet that you eat for lunch. There is something so grotesque going on in Washington D.C. today that it rivals the institutional decay under Louis XVI or Nicholas II. Maybe you had solace in the suggestions that Trump might win a Nobel Peace Prize, or you read the editorials suggesting direct parallel between his daring actions and Ronald Reagan reaching out to Mikhail Gorbachev.

Statement Of Unity On The Upcoming U.S.-North Korea Summit

June 8, 2018 Staff, Zoominkorea.org Create! Foreign Relations, North Korea

Since the historic April 27 summit between the leaders of North and South Korea at Panmunjom, longstanding tensions and war threats on the Korean peninsula have given way to the promise of peace and reconciliation. Soon, another historic summit, between the United States and North Korea, will take place in Singapore. The two parties, which not too long ago were on the brink of war, will finally sit down to discuss a peaceful settlement to the Korean War. All eyes of the world will be on this momentous event, which could determine not only the fate of the Korean peninsula and Northeast Asia but also the prospect of global peace.

Mueller Finally Starts To Target Trump’s Israel Ties

June 8, 2018 By John R. Schindler, Observer.com Educate! Foreign Relations, Israel, Trump Administration

Our media has followed the Justice Department’s investigation of President Donald Trump’s ties to Russia closely for more than a year, with each revelation getting granular analysis amid endless television coverage. No news here is too small to avoid hours of talking-head pontification. Yet, it appears that a significant aspect of the inquiry, one that calls the conventional narrative of the case into question, has been missing from public view—until now. A genuine bombshell dropped yesterday, seemingly out of nowhere. It came in an interview with Simona Mangiante, the wife of George Papadopoulos, the Trump campaign foreign policy advisor who pled guilty last October to lying to the FBI about his contacts with Russian agents—especially Joseph Mifsud...

Worst Possible Pick For U.S. Ambassador To South Korea

April 26, 2018 David Swanson, Davidswanson.org Educate! Foreign Relations, South Korea, United States

In Joseph Hickman’s book Murder at Camp Delta, he describes a hideous death camp in which guards were trained to view the prisoners as sub-human and much greater care was taken to protect the well-being of iguanas than homo sapiens. Chaos was the norm, and physical abuse of the prisoners was standard. Col. Mike Bumgarner made it a top priority that everyone stand in formation when he entered his office in the morning to the sounds of Beethoven’s Fifth or “Bad Boys.” Hickman relates that certain vans were permitted to drive in and out of the camp uninspected, making a mockery of elaborate attempts at security. He didn’t know the reasoning behind this until he happened to discover a secret camp not included on any maps, a place he called Camp No but the CIA called Penny Lane.

Who’s Afraid Of Talking With Kim Jong Un?

March 12, 2018 Jonathan Marshall, Consortiumnews.com Educate! Foreign Relations, North Korea, Trump Administration

Americans should welcome President Trump’s apparent willingness to speak with North Korea’s Kim Jong Un, but instead naysayers are warning of dire consequences, Jonathan Marshall explains. Three months ago, I quoted approvingly Donald Trump’s campaign pledge to supporters in Atlanta that he would “absolutely” speak to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un even if there were only a “10 percent or a 20 percent chance that I can talk him out of those damn nukes.” “What the hell is wrong with speaking?” the candidate said. “We should be eating a hamburger on a conference table.” This week, the ever-mercurial President Trump agreed to take Kim up on a surprise offer to meet face-to-face in two months to search for peace. The meeting will be the first ever held between the leaders of the United States and North Korea, two countries that remain technically at war.

The Two Koreas Talk: On The Path To Peace

March 8, 2018 Staff, Zoominkorea.org Educate! Diplomacy, Foreign Relations, North Korea, Peace, South Korea

Following a two-day meeting with North Korean officials in Pyongyang, South Korean President Moon Jae-in’s special envoy returned to Seoul on March 6. The special envoy had dinner with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un on March 5 and a follow-up meeting the next day with North Korea’s high-level officials including Kim Yong-chol, the vice chairman of the Korean Workers Party (KWP) Central Committee. Upon their return to Seoul, the South Korean delegation gave an announcement to the press that summarized the result of the meeting. According to this announcement, the North and South made a major breakthrough in the inter-Korean talks by agreeing to hold a summit as soon as late April of this year. The following is a translation of the full press announcement by the South Korean special envoy to Pyongyang on the results of their meeting

15 Cases: Constructive vs Destructive U.S. Foreign Policies

February 13, 2018 Johan Galtung, Transcend.org Educate! Foreign Relations, US Foreign Policy

The right column is sadly familiar; add more recent cases. The left column also carries an element of sadness but nothing really radical; more like common sense that could easily be translated into political practice. And yet it does not happen, to the detriment of the parties concerned: the USA and its relations to the world. USA wants to be feared but reaps hatred with right column politics. Does it want to be loved? A theory is something tested along its edges (Quine); what you deduce from the theory–and to me the key “edge”–is its action-consequences.

North and South Korea Discuss Olympic Cooperation

January 13, 2018 Staff, Zoominkorea.org Educate! Diplomacy, Foreign Relations, North Korea, Olympics, South Korea

On January 9, high-level officials from North and South Korea met to discuss the North’s participation in the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea in February. The inter-Korean meeting was held in the village of Panmunjom at the border of the divided Korean Peninsula. On January 1, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un expressed hope for reconciliation with South Korea in his New Year address. The next day, South Korean President Moon Jae-in proposed high-level talks with North Korea ahead of the Olympics. Ri Son-gwon of North Korea and Cho Myong-gyon of South Korea — the lead representatives of their respective states’ reunification committees — led the talks. The two sides came to an agreement about North Korea’s delegation to the Pyeongchang Olympics.

Putin Challenger Almost Entirely A Creature Of The US State Department

December 28, 2017 By Andre Damon, wsws.org Educate! Elections, Foreign Relations, Inter-Imperialist Rivalry, Russia

Over the past year, the Democratic Party and leading American media outlets have been monomaniacally focused on unsubstantiated allegations that the 2016 US elections were undermined by Russian interference. It is worth considering these claims as one assesses the response to the decision of Russian officials to block Alexei Navalny from participating in the upcoming presidential election. The move has been met with self-righteous denunciations in the American and international press. Newspapers have run articles lauding Navalny as an “anti-corruption crusader” and the “democratic” face of “popular opposition” to Russian President Vladimir Putin. The Washington Post published an editorial condemning the move to bar Navalny.

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