Foreign Relations

Break Through The Propaganda: Oliver Stone Interviews Putin

June 20, 2017 Alexander Mercouris, www.theduran.com Educate! Foreign Relations, Propaganda, Russia, Vladimir Putin

By Alexander Mercouris for The Duran - I have now watched the first three episodes of the Putin Interviews, which is sufficient to give an overview of the series. In my opinion it is by far the best and most interesting series of programmes which have appeared on Western television about Vladimir Putin. I would say that claims that Oliver Stone fails to raise ‘difficult subjects’ with Putin are simply untrue. All the usual stories about Putin – his KGB past, his reputed homophobia, his ‘billions’, his ‘murders’, his ‘aggressions against Georgia and Ukraine’ etc – are all there. There is also one telling moment when Stone and Putin strongly disagree with each other. This is in relation to a recent Russian law that requires Russian internet providers to store data for longer than previously, and to hand it over to the Russian security services if requested following a court order. The US whistleblower Edward Snowden has denounced this law as a ‘big brother’ law. Stone clearly agrees with him and tells Putin as much. Putin predictably enough doesn’t agree. The key difference between Stone and other Western interviewers is that Stone doesn’t try to get the better of Putin by bullying and hectoring him.

Why The United States Should Negotiate In Good Faith With North Korea

May 8, 2017 Michael Haas, www.commondreams.org Educate! Foreign Relations, North Korea, United States, US Imperialism

By Michael Haas for Common Dreams - The United States is technically still at war with North Korea. No peace agreement has been signed despite repeated requests from Pyongyang for high-level negotiations. Former presidents Carter and Clinton and other high-level officials have gone to the North and achieved negotiation successes, but no sitting president had done so. Now Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, new to the job, has declared that decades of negotiations have not served to normalize relations, clearly unaware that American obstinacy and tit-to-tat overreactions are the main culprits. In the extraordinary Agreed Framework of 1994, the United States promised to provide light-water reactors by 2003 to supply electric power in exchange for North Korean abandonment of nuclear weapons development to be verified by the International Atomic Energy Agency. The United States pledged never to go to war with North Korea and to begin negotiations for economic and political normalization of relations. Annual military exercises between South Korea and the United States, long seen in Pyongyang as a preparation for an invasion, were cancelled in 1994 and 1995 to show good faith.

Who Is Behind The State Department’s Coup Plot In Venezuela?

May 2, 2017 Misión Verdad, www.telesurtv.net Educate! Foreign Relations, State Department, US Imperialism, Venezuela

By Misión Verdad of Tele Sur - The Council on Foreign Relations, or CFR, is a think tank founded in 1921 with money from the Rockefeller Foundation. It is aimed at creating a group of experts to shape U.S. foreign policy and its leadership positions, including the president and the State Department, which does not act for its own reasons but rather according to the interests of these lobbyists. Since it was created, the council, which is made up of 4,500 members, has placed a number of senior officials in positions to implement CFR strategy. These include Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, Madeleine Albright and Colin Powell, responsible for the war in Vietnam, Yugoslavia and Iraq respectively, and in the case of Powell, a major player in the April 2002 coup. Moreover, an honorary member and ex-vice president of the think tank was David Rockefeller, the former owner of Standard Oil Company who has great interests and influence in Venezuela. His penetration in the country's national political life reached such a point that he was one of the sponsors of the Punto Fijo pact that gave rise to the Fourth Republic.

“World Domestic Politics”

May 1, 2017 Johan Galtung, www.transcend.org Create! Foreign Relations, Geopolitics

By Johan Galtung for TRANSCEND Media Service - We can sense that all four, direct world elections and referenda, world dialogue of civilizations (not only West-Islam), world police and welfare world are waiting back stage to be enacted, and to act. But on stage are states and super-states; singing their swan songs? Let us try to dig more deeply into this. We have about 200 domestic state polities–193 are UN members–can anyone be a model? Or, do we have to think anew for the whole world population to feel at home, domus, for anything to become world domestic politics? The best candidates as possible models would have only LAs (local authorities) between the state and individual humans. There may be something else for administrative reasons, but the local level would count more. Norway was once such a country (“Formannskapsloven“, 1837), but the present conservative government, supported by the equally or more conservative, Labor Party, is busily building “regions”, like in France and Spain and other countries. The reason is rather obvious: regions can be steered from above by the state, LAs from below by the people. The justification is economistic, in terms of big scale advantages.

Alert From Odessa, Ukraine

March 7, 2017 Bruce K. Gagnon, www.space4peace.blogspot.com Resist! Foreign Relations, Russia, Ukraine, US Foreign Policy

By Bruce K. Gagnon for Organizing Notes - March 6, 2017 — It’s been nearly three years since the brutal massacre of 46 mostly young progressives by a neo-Nazi-led mob in the Ukrainian city of Odessa. Government repression and right-wing attacks against Odessans demanding justice for that atrocity have been constant, but now have entered a new and much more dangerous stage. On Feb. 23, Alexander Kushnarev, the father of one of the young people murdered on May 2, 2014, was arrested by agents of the federal Security Service of Ukraine (SBU). Oleg Zhuchenko, chief prosecutor for the Odessan region, claims Kushnarev had been planning to kidnap and torture a member of the country’s Rada, or parliament. After Kushnarev was arrested, his home was searched and police claimed they found literature that “promotes national hatred between Ukrainians, Russians and Jews.”

The “White Helmets” Go To Hollywood

February 25, 2017 Rick Sterling, www.dissidentvoice.org Educate! Foreign Relations, Syria

By Rick Sterling for Dissident Voice - The Netflix movie The White Helmets may win an Oscar in the “short documentary” category at the Academy Awards on Sunday February 26. It will not be a surprise, despite the fact that the group is a fraud and the movie is a contrived infomercial. The White Helmets are a “feel good” story like a Disney hero movie: 90% myth and fabrication. Most of what is claimed about the Syrian rescue group is untrue. They are not primarily Syrian; the group was initiated by British military contractor James LeMesurier and has been heavily funded (about $100 million) by the USA, UK and other governments. They are not volunteers; they are paid. This is confirmed in the Al Jazeera video which shows some White Helmet “volunteers’ talking about going on strike if they don’t get paid soon.

Why I Got Arrested At David Friedman’s Confirmation Hearing

February 23, 2017 Lila Weintraub, www.truth-out.org Resist! Foreign Relations, Israel, Trump Administration

By Lila Weintraub for Truthout - On the morning of David Friedman's Senate hearing for the US ambassadorship to Israel, I stood with five Muslim and Jewish partners, faced the ranking members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and demanded the attention of an audience packed with white male decision-makers and press, along with elite members of the American Jewish community. In the 20 seconds I had before being escorted out and arrested, it seemed that for the first time in my life, my young, female, proudly Jewish voice would be heard by so-called American Jewish leaders. In loud and unambiguous terms, I explained to the room that Friedman's potential ambassadorship is devastating on two levels: for Palestinians and for the American Jewish community itself.

Chill In US-Turkish Relations May Signal Ankara’s Shift Toward Moscow

July 22, 2016 Staff, www.sputniknews.com Educate! Foreign Relations, Russia, Türkiye

By Staff of Sputnik - Due to its unique geostrategic position, Turkey has long been important to the US as a NATO ally and a "bridge" between the West and the Arab world. However, clouds are gathering on the horizon of US-Turkish relations after Friday's coup attempt. "US Secretary of State [John] Kerry has not been able to take a firm stance against the failed Gulenist coup attempt, drawing heavy criticism in Turkey.

Russians Ask “Why Do You Demonize Us When We Are So Much Like You?”

July 5, 2016 Ann Wright, www.worldbeyondwar.org Educate! Foreign Relations, Russia, United States

By Ann Wright for World Beyond War - I’ve just ended two weeks visiting cities in four regions of Russia. The one question that was asked over and over was, “Why does America hate us? Why do you demonize us?” Most would add a cavaet– “I like American people and I think YOU like us individually but why does the American government hate our government?” This article is a composite of the comments and questions that were asked to our 20 person delegation and to me as an individual.

NATO’s Dangerous Game: Bear-Baiting Russia

May 10, 2016 Conn Hallinan, www.fpif.org Educate! Foreign Relations, NATO, Russia

By Conn Hallinan for Foreign Policy In Focus - “Aggressive,” “revanchist,” “swaggering”: These are just some of the adjectives the mainstream press and leading U.S. and European political figures are routinely inserting before the words “Russia,” or “Vladimir Putin.” It is a vocabulary most Americans have not seen or heard since the height of the Cold War. The question is, why? Is Russia really a military threat to the United States and its neighbors?

The US Economic Invasion Of Cuba

March 22, 2016 Alexander Fangmann, www.wsws.org Educate! Cuba, Foreign Relations, United States

By Alexander Fangmann for WSWS - President Barack Obama traveled to Cuba on Sunday, leading an enormous US delegation that has been reported as comprising as many as 1,200 people, large enough to be described with some justification as an invading force of American politicians and corporate executives. With the trip, Obama becomes the first sitting president to visit the country since 1928, when Calvin Coolidge arrived on the USS Texas. While Obama flew into Havana aboard Air Force One and not a naval gunboat, the trip is no less a projection of US imperialism’s power over its impoverished island neighbor.

Cuba Honours Venezuelan Leader With Medal Ahead Of Obama Visit

March 22, 2016 Staff, www.uk.reuters.com Resist! Cuba, Foreign Relations, Venezuela

By Staff of Reuters - Cuba honoured Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro with its highest state honour on Friday in an act of defiance two days before U.S. President Barack Obama is due for a historic visit to Havana. Cuban President Raul Castro pinned the medal, known as the Order of Jose Marti, on Maduro in a show a solidarity between socialist allies that have stood together against the United States since Maduro's predecessor, the late Hugo Chavez, came to power in 1999.

AFRICOM: Protecting US Interests Disguised As ‘Military Partnerships’

February 27, 2016 Ebrahim Shabbir Deen, www.studies.aljazeera.net Educate! Africa, AFRICOM, Foreign Relations, US military

By Ebrahim Shabbir Deen for Aljazeera Center for Studies - The first part of the paper discusses the structure of the command, its developmental aspects and the resultant conflict between the US Departments of Defense and State. Part two delves beneath the surface and teases out what might be other, unstated reasons behind AFRICOM’s establishment, including the rise of China, the increasing importance of African oil and the US “war on terror.” Part three discusses the various activities that AFRICOM is involved in and has undertaken since its establishment, including the “state partnership program” which the command has used to penetrate into African military affairs...

Doctors Without Borders Staff Shot While Fleeing Kunduz Hospital

November 6, 2015 Alana Horowitz Satlin, Willa Frej, and Marina Fang, www.huffingtonpost.com Educate! Bombing, Foreign Relations, War crimes

By Alana Horowitz Satlin, Willa Frej, and Marina Fang for The Huffington Post - The medical humanitarian organization Doctors Without Borders released its internal report on Thursday about the October attack on its hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan, and again cast doubt on the U.S. government's insistence that the attack was not intentional. The report, which found that the U.S.-led attack killed at least 30 people, describes in brutal detail the severity of the attack, noting that "patients burned in their beds" and that "medical staff were decapitated and lost limbs." The organization found that people were also killed while trying to flee the scene. For example, the report noted that "a patient in a wheelchair attempting to escape from the inpatient department ... was killed by shrapnel from a blast."

Human Rights Watch’s Revolving Door

June 10, 2014 Belén Fernández, www.jacobinmag.com Educate! Foreign Relations, Human Rights, Revolving Door

Let’s pretend that we want to start an organization to defend the rights of people across the globe that has no affiliation to any government or corporate interest. Which of the following characters should we therefore exclude from intimate roles in our organization’s operation? (You may choose more than one answer.) An individual who presided over a NATO bombing, including various civilian targets. An individual who was formerly a special assistant to President Bill Clinton, a speechwriter for Secretaries of State Warren Christopher and Madeleine Albright and a member of the State Department’s policy planning staff who in 2009 declared that, under “limited circumstances, there is a legitimate place” for the illegal CIA rendition program that has seen an untold number of innocent people kidnapped and tortured. A former US Ambassador to Colombia, who later lobbied on behalf of Newmont Mining and J.P. Morgan — two US firms whose track records of environmental destruction would suggest that human wellbeing falls below elite profit on their list of priorities. A former CIA analyst. If you answered “all of the above,” you’re one step ahead of Human Rights Watch, which has played institutional host not only to persons matching descriptions A–D but to many others with similar backgrounds.

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