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US Empire

The US Expeditionary Kleptocracy

Of course, a desperate US military – and its Washington masters – had an expedient solution for the ethno-sectarian strife they’d catalyzed: consider it the Lebanon formula. So America’s orientalist ambassadors – most, staggeringly young Republican stalwarts with no knowledge of the Mideast – imported France’s imperial Levantine blueprint. Essentially, this meant sectarian quotas and preferences for political office: a Kurdish president, Sunni parliamentary speaker, and Shia prime minister. The French have actually added the term for this disastrous recipe – libanisation – to their dictionaries: "A process of state fragmentation, resulting from the clash between various communities of faiths." In Sectarian America, a people divided, distracted, and armed, battle for control of the nation’s streets, whilst their nominal leaders corruptly carve up contracts with the defense industry and in overseas fiefdoms. Washington’s duopoly elites ship their bombs to Saudi Arabia and their sons (well, not their sons) to Syria to secure arms deals and oil fields. And if, as a result, about a 100,000 Yemeni children, and a handful of American soldiers have to die, well – so be it.

US’ Anti-China Call To Arms Has Not Won Over All Of Europe

There has also been a notable shift in German views about China. On August 17, Der Tagesspiegel published a column titled, “The West has to prove that it offers the better life”, which emphasized the role positive competition plays in Sino-European relations. It pointed out that if Europe can take effective action against internal social divides, then the West does not have to fear China’s rise. On August 2, the directors of 10 Confucius Institutes in Germany issued a joint statement to decry the politicisation of these institutes. The statement notes that the institutes, which are similar to Germany’s Goethe-Institut, make important contributions to Sino-German academic, cultural and social exchanges. It should be clear that the China-Europe and China-Germany relationship are not just about single issues, but also affect the overall development outlook of all concerned. Therefore, one should not view these ties through a narrow lens, and certainly not add ideological shackles to them. The diverse breadth of ties requires all sides to rationally grow and maintain them. Recent German perspectives on China that are based on reason and logic would be a positive trend.

The CIA’s Addiction To The Afghanistan War

US involvement in Afghanistan is the archetypal quagmire. Hundreds of thousands killed or maimed, trillions of dollars wasted, a failed state – despite American pretensions of nation-building, and a militant insurgency stronger than ever. Washington’s declared strategic objectives in Afghanistan have never been coherent or convincing even among Pentagon top brass. The initial justification of “avenging terrorism of 9/11” sounds threadbare. The irony is that Washington first got involved in Afghanistan back in the late 1970s to inflict a “Vietnam scenario” on Soviet troops who were defending an allied government in Kabul. The Mujahideen fighters sponsored by the US and their Taliban outgrowth have gone on to make the country an even worse Vietnam scenario for Washington than it intended for Moscow. Afghanistan is known as the “Graveyard of Empires” where the British suffered a blow to their imperial prowess, like the Soviets and now the United States.

The Irresistible Rise Of The Civilization-State

A specter is haunting the liberal West: the rise of the “civilization-state”. As America’s political power wanes and its moral authority collapses, the rising challengers of Eurasia have adopted the model of the civilization-state to distinguish themselves from a paralyzed liberal order, which lurches from crisis to crisis without ever quite dying nor yet birthing a viable successor. Summarising the civilization-state model, the political theorist Adrian Pabst observes that “in China and Russia the ruling classes reject Western liberalism and the expansion of a global market society. They define their countries as distinctive civilizations with their own unique cultural values and political institutions.” From China to India, Russia to Turkey, the great and middling powers of Eurasia are drawing ideological succor from the pre-liberal empires from which they claim descent, remolding their non-democratic, statist political systems as a source of strength rather than weakness, and upturning the liberal-democratic triumphalism of the late 20th century. 

China And The Decline Of US Power

Constant attacks by some US elites on China will, according to some observers, diminish and disappear once the US presidential election is over in November 2020. This is unlikely to happen. China appears to have moved ahead of the US. Maritime surveillance and lunar geography would be two such sub-fields. Chinese advances in electronics and telecommunications have also been breathtaking. It is because China is at the forefront of cutting edge technology that there is so much anxiety in the US and the West today about China’s ascendancy. More than its production of goods and services, it is China’s massive global infrastructure transformation through its Belt Road Initiative (BRI) that is destined to have a lasting impact upon humankind. An endeavor that spans 138 countries, the BRI connects Asia with Africa and Europe through land and maritime routes.  It not only seeks to build highways and ports but also attempts to initiate agrarian projects and accelerate industrial ventures which will raise incomes and increase the productivity of many poor countries.

The Ongoing US Dominance Of The Dominican Republic

This is an island with two nations that have suffered from foreign intervention and repeated imperialist invasions, and, in our case, a country that has been absolutley captured by the Pentagon after our most recent attempt to change ourselves into a sovereign nation in 1965 (following Cuba’s path in our own manner) precisely due to the popular-democratic revolution of 1965 which was blocked by the landing of 42,000 invading US Marines. Since then we’ve been unable to break these powerful chains. Every time there are attempts in our country at changes out of the control of the US, the shackles are tightened. The empire doesn’t hesitate to impose its orders, often gift-wrapped and adorned with pretty phrases.  When they wear out one formula, they construct the replacement and fix it in place. This has occurred and it is occurring now. To give continuity to this imperial task, the Super-CIA arrived, sometimes also in the role of US Ambassador.

Indicators For Measuring Injustice And Societal Decay

Economic indicators – data points, trends, and micro-categories – are the widgets of the big information industry. By contrast, indicators for our society’s democratic health are not similarly compiled, aggregated, and reported. Its up and down trends are presented piecemeal and lack quantitative precision. We can get the process started and lay the basis for qualitative and quantitative refinement. Years ago, when we started “re-defining progress” and questioning the very superficial GDP and its empirical limitations, professional economists took notice. Unfortunately, with few exceptions, economists cling to the yardsticks that benefit and suit the plutocrats and CEOs of large corporations. Here are my offerings in the expectation that readers will add their own measures:

The Real Reason For ‘Grave Concern’ Over The Hong Kong Security Law

Before and since China passed the national-security law (NSL) for Hong Kong, many in the West have expressed concern if not outrage, accusing Beijing of taking away the Special Administrative Region’s freedom and reneging on the “one country, two systems” architecture. The US was particularly incensed, rescinding Hong Kong’s special trade status and imposing sanctions on Chinese and Hong Kong officials suspected of being complicit in making the NSL a reality. Western media were quick to let the world know 600,000 Hongkongers had expressed opposition to the NSL, but there was hardly a word about the more than 2.9 million and 1.7 million people who signed petitions, respectively, supporting the law and demanding that the US stop meddling in the city’s internal affairs.

The East-Bound Wind Causes A Storm In The West

A few months after the publication of his remarkable book, Adam Smith in Beijing, I had an illuminating conversation with Giovanni Arrighi about the significance of China in world history. The late sociologist was interested in knowing more about the subject of my scholarship–modern Iran and the Iranian revolution. When he saw my puzzled face, he told me that he believes that all this apprehension in the west about Iran, is actually rooted in apprehension about China. Arrighi thought that if there were any “mainstream” of world history, it ought to be located in the story of China, the only civilization that has shaped the world as a hegemon over many millennia with the exception of the last 250 years.

Modi’s ‘New’ India: Notch Or Knot On China’s Belt (And Road Initiative)

File it in the rapidly-brimming "biggest-stories-of-2020-you-haven’t-heard-about" folder. Amidst the madness merger of pandemic and protests – both of which Trump’s minions have blamed on China – there’s been scant attention paid to a brewing conflict between two of the world’s nine nuclear-armed powers (accounting for some 430 warheads between them). One is a rather flighty proxy – India – that Washington has long pursued with the oft-hopeless passion of a smitten suitor. The other, an "enemy" of "freedom," America, and apple pie everywhere: a Chinese dragon to whom new cold war enthusiasts – no doubt with visions of (defense contract) dollar signs dancing in their heads – have ascribed near preternatural ability and ambition.

Danny Sjursen: Fourth Of July Musings

Once again, this Fourth of July, Americans will celebrate — to the unwitting militarist racist tune that is the “Star Spangled Banner” — more than just the nation’s Independence Day. Though most folks will, if at a reasonable social distance, focus more on the backyard beer and brats, U.S. jingoism and exceptionalism will invariably be on the menu. That last sentiment, particularly amidst the COVID- and mass protest-exposing era of forever war at home and abroad, deserves a closer and critical look. For exceptionalism is truly a national disease that ravages American bodies and democratic institutions alike. This malignancy must be named and shamed in pursuit of precisely the “participatory patriotism” the holiday purports to celebrate. As the (late) man said, “Always look to the language;” so let us begin there:

Suicidal Empire

Let us talk about the suicidal aspect. Ever since the US government turned its economy to the control of a "federal reserve" (which is not federal or government but private bankers), it had forfeited the control of its economy to what Eisenhauer warned about: "a military-industrial complex" [now we can add technological]. Between signing the federal reserve law and the support of the Balfour declaration and entry into WWI, the USA's future was set in motion of militarization, special interest lobbies, and a future of cycles of recessions that could only lead to economic collapse. With the military expenses spiraling out of control ( the Caesar law is actually embedded in the National "defense" authorization act), the US deficits mushrooms. The national public (government) debt is now $26 trillion and when you add private and corporate debts we have over $80 trillion total debts (much of it owed to foreign countries and individuals).

Stealing A Nation

One of John Pilger’s most remarkable documentaries, bringing a little-known story to a wide audience, is Stealing a Nation, about how British governments ruthlessly expelled the population of the Chagos Islands, a crown colony in the Indian Ocean, in the late 1960s and early 70s to make way for an American military base on Diego Garcia, the largest island. The truth about the brutal removal of 1,500 islanders and the official conspiracy to deny the presence of an indigenous population did not emerge for another 20 years. Secret official files were unearthed at the Public Record Office, in London, by lawyers acting for the former inhabitants of the coral archipelago, who wished to return to their homeland. Historian Mark Curtis described the enforced depopulation in Web of Deceit, his 2003 book about Britain’s post-war foreign policy.

‘Black Lives Matter’ Is International

Corte Madera, California - The police murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis on May 25th was the spark that ignited the tinder of accrued injustice throughout the US and globally. This injustice has deep antecedents in the US and indeed in much of what is now called the Global South. There is a shared history of colonial conquest of the Indigenous and the abominable institution of the enslavement of African peoples. What happened has its roots in systemic oppression that has resonated internationally. Just as the police suffocated George Floyd, US unilateral coercive measures against Venezuela, Cuba, Nicaragua, Iran, Zimbabwe, and nearly one third of humanity are designed to asphyxiate those nations which aspire to pursue an independent course.

COVID-19: A Polygraph For These Times

Like a lie detector, COVID-19 has made obvious at least two phenomena that have been taking place already over the past few years: the decline of the U.S. empire and the failure of capitalism. For a number of years now, the U.S. has been losing this super-power status, its economy has lost range, and the dollar has hit the skids.  Its international reserves do not cover even 2% of the exorbitant external debt and it is not sufficient for even 2 months of imports (hence the desperation to re-open the economy in the midst of the pandemic.)  for decades, the U.S. has imported more than it has exported,  and its commercial dependence on China is ever increasing.  The U.S. does not have the gold to back up its currency, and, to cap it off, has run out of petroleum reserves quite a while ago. COVID-19 has not only pointed out the economic weakness of the U.S.,  shown in the rude and arrogant attitude of the government in the midst of the pandemic, it has also served as a catalyst of world reorganization that has been years in the making.

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Keep independent media alive. 

Due to the attacks on our fiscal sponsor, we were unable to raise funds online for nearly two years.  As the bills pile up, your help is needed now to cover the monthly costs of operating Popular Resistance.

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