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US Empire Of Bases Is Spreader Of US COVID-19 Disaster

August 4, 2020 Andrea Mazzarino, Tom Dispatch. , , ,
American military personnel are getting sick in significant numbers in the midst of the ongoing pandemic. As The New York Times reported in a piece buried in the back pages of its July 21st edition, “The infection rate in the services has tripled over the past six weeks as the United States military has emerged as a potential source of transmission both domestically and abroad.” Indeed, the military is sick and I think of it as both a personal and an imperial disaster. As the wife of a naval officer, I bear witness to the unexpected ways that disasters of all sorts play out among military families and lately I’ve been bracing for the Covid-19 version of just such a disaster.

The Heart Of The Matter In The South China Sea

August 2, 2020 Pepe Escobar, The Alt World. , , ,
When the USS Ronald Reagan and USS Nimitz carrier strike groups recently engaged in “operations” in the South China Sea, it failed to escape cynics that the US Pacific Fleet was doing its best to turn the infantile Thucydides trap theory into a self-fulfilling prophecy. The pro forma official spin, via Rear Admiral Jim Kirk, commander of the Nimitz, is that the ops were conducted to “reinforce our commitment to a free and open Indo-Pacific, a rules-based international order, and to our allies and partners.” Nobody pays attention to these clichés, because the real message was delivered by a CIA operative posing as diplomat, Secretary of State Mike “We Lie, We Cheat, We Steal” Pompeo. 

South China Sea Provocations And Meeting China Halfway

July 26, 2020 Dr. Joseph Gerson, IPS News. , , ,
In the words of (ret.) Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, Secretary of Defense Colin Powell’s Chief of Staff, the Trump Administration has been dangerously “poking China in the eye.” After sending aircraft carriers and destroyers to the precincts of the Taiwan Strait, last week the Pentagon dispatched two aircraft carrier strike groups – including escort cruisers and destroyers, 120 warplanes and 12,000 troops — to South China Sea waters claimed by China. China responded by deploying fighter jets to its near-by base on Woody Island and reminding the world of its anti-aircraft carrier missile capabilities.

UFO Hype Is Probably Just The US Military Lying Again

July 26, 2020 Caitlin Johnstone. , , ,
“No Longer in Shadows, Pentagon’s U.F.O. Unit Will Make Some Findings Public” reads a New York Times headline that is understandably attracting a great deal of attention today. True to form, the Times had to hastily issue an embarrassing correction to the article after initially reporting that former Senate majority leader Harry Reid “believed that crashes of vehicles from other worlds had occurred and that retrieved materials had been studied secretly for decades”, when in fact Reid merely believes “crashes of objects of unknown origin may have occurred”.

Philly Marches For ‘Justicia Para Vanessa!’

July 22, 2020 Joe Piette, Workers.org. , , ,
Over 100 people, predominantly Mexican-American and young, marched in Philadelphia on July 12 to demand justice for Pfc. Vanessa Guillén. The protest was organized by JUNTOS and Lazos America Unida. Participants carried “Justicia para Vanessa” signs and large photos of the young soldier who was stationed at Fort Hood, Texas. She disappeared after telling friends and family she was being sexually harassed and threatened within the military system. Speakers demanded justice from the higher-ups commanding the Army. Guillén disappeared in April, evidently killed at that time, but her body was not found on the Fort Hood installation until June 30. The remains of another soldier, Pvt. Gregory Wedel-Morales, were also found there in late June. Both the Guillén and Wedel-Morales families charge Army and local officials with not searching for their missing loved ones with urgency and empathy.

How A Working-Class Soldier Turned Against “Forever Wars”

July 22, 2020 Steve Early and Suzanne Gordon, Popular Resistance. , , ,
When it comes to debate about US military policy, the 2020 presidential election campaign is so far looking very similar to that of 2016. Joe Biden has pledged to ensure that “we have the strongest military in the world,” promising to “make the investments necessary to equip our troops for the challenges of the next century, not the last one.” In the White House, President Trump is repeating the kind of anti-interventionist head feints that won him votes four years ago against a hawkish Hillary Clinton. In his recent graduation address at West Point, Trump re-cycled applause lines from 2016 about “ending an era of endless wars” as well as America’s role as “policeman of the world.” In reality, since Trump took office, there’s been no reduction in the US military presence abroad, which last year required a Pentagon budget of nearly $740 billion.

Why Our Analyses On Powell And Iraq Matter Today

July 20, 2020 Consortium News. , , ,
We are still living with the consequences of the Iraq War brought on, in part, by the testimony of Colin Powell before the UN. Iraq is still an unstable country. Extremist groups such as the Islamic State arose because of Iraq’s instability. The invasion of Iraq is now universally seen in the U.S. as the nations’ worst foreign policy blunder perhaps in history. To prevent another such crime of aggression, this needs to be repeatedly stated. As Ray McGovern pointed out in his piece, the politicization of intelligence in the lead-up to the Iraq invasion manifested itself again in the Russiagate affair, when DNI James Clapper refused to conduct an NIE on the allegations of Russian interference in the U.S. election.  An obvious piece of opposition research (both sides engage in it) was taken as the basis of an FBI investigation into a presidential campaign, which was then amplified ad infinitum by a corrupted news media, that learned nothing from its admitted errors and distortions in the Iraq story. 

Why Iraqis Hate The US Troops Who Occupy Their Country

July 20, 2020 Eric Zuesse, Strategic Culture. , ,
We invaded their land. We did it on the basis of Bush’s lies that Bush had conclusive evidence that Saddam was six months from a nuclear weapon and had been behind the 9/11 attacks. He blatantly misrepresented the evidence that he did have. And instead of Bush, or any of his successors, apologizing for this — the destruction of Iraq (on the basis of lies) — there has been continued military occupation of Iraq, and forcing of its Government to do what our lying Government demands, such as privatizing the oil and paying international oil companies to exploit and market it — their oil. The reason why “they feel they’ve been betrayed” by Trump’s bar against any Iraqi relocating to America is that many of these Iraqis had been hired by U.S. firms to do translating or other essential assistance to the invaders, and so they are themselves now hated by the locals, their own countrymen, and they think that the only safety for them and their families would be to move, along with their families, to America. They are therefore now terrified, at finding themselves stranded in Iraq, where they are very reasonably considered to be traitors.

Thousands Of Workers Strike Bath Iron Works

July 15, 2020 Joe Piette, Workers.org. , , ,
Over 4,300 production workers — represented by Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAMAW) Local S6 — walked off the job at the Bath Iron Works shipyard June 23 after unsuccessful contract negotiations. Workers had made concessions in their last contract, but are reluctant to agree to attacks on seniority rights, increased health care costs and subcontracting which threatens current workers’ jobs. Bath Iron Works is one of the U.S. Navy’s largest shipbuilders and a major employer in Maine, with a total of 6,800 workers. General Dynamics, the company that runs the BIW shipyard, raked in $3.34 billion in 2018, largely through contracts from the Navy. Now General Dynamics is trying to squeeze even more profits from the workers.

Family Of Murdered Army Specialist Accuses The Army Of A Cover-up

July 6, 2020 Ann Wright, Popular Resistance. , , ,
Violence against women in the military and at Fort Hood has been going on for a very long time. Twelve years ago, in 2008, I wrote an article “Is There an Army Cover-Up of Rape and Murder of Women Soldiers?” that detailed violence against women assigned to units from Fort Hood that were then located in Iraq.   Now, twelve years later, the Army’s handling of the investigation into SPC Guillen’s disappearance was an affront to Guillen’s family and to military women on Fort Hood.  For three months the perpetrator of the murder of SPC Guillen roamed free on Fort Hood, capable of murdering other young women and showing such impunity that according to SPC Guillen’s sister Mayra who had met him during one of her visits to Fort Hood, that “he laughed in my face.  I had a very uneasy feeling about him.”

To Keep Russiagate Alive ‘Officials’ Make New Claims Without Evidence

July 2, 2020 Moon of Alabama. , , ,
There were allegations about emails that someone exfiltrated from the DNC and provided to Wikileaks. Russia must have done it. The FBI and other intelligence services were all over it. In the end no evidence was provided to support the claims. There were allegations that Trump did not really win the elections. Russia must have done it. The various U.S. intelligence service, together with their British friends, provided all kinds of sinister leaks about the alleged case. In the end no evidence was provided to support the claims. A British double agent, Sergej Skirpal, was allegedly injured in a Russian attack on him. The intelligence services told all kind of contradicting nonsense about the case. In the end no evidence was provided to support the claims.

Empire Files: Afghanistan War Exposed

June 29, 2020 AbMartin, Empire Files. , , ,
The perpetual occupation of Afghanistan has become so normalized and mostly serves as background noise to Americans. It's even jokingly referred to as the "Forever War," accepted as just a constant reality. A soldier dies now and again. A couple of dozen civilians get killed in another bombing. It's never enough to stir the population to pressure Washington to stop it. The endless war drags on. Since 2001, almost one million US troops have been deployed to Afghanistan. Many repeatedly. Of those, 2,300 have died and the new revelation that nearly 4,000 mercenaries have also died fighting in Afghanistan, almost double the number of US troops, shows the American occupation is even bigger than were been led to believe.

A US Navy Destroyer Entered Venezuelan Waters

June 25, 2020 Alan Macleod, Mintpress News. , , ,
Heightening already increased tensions with the country, a Navy destroyer, the USS Nitze, entered Venezuelan waters yesterday, conducting what the military is calling a “freedom of navigation operation” in the Caribbean. The Nitze, according to Southern Command’s official twitter account, was “contesting an excessive maritime claim by Venezuela. The U.S. Navy ship lawfully navigated an area the illegitimate Maduro regime falsely claims control over.” In addition to the Nitze, an American military Boeing RC-135W reconnaissance aircraft was also spotted in the area. In an official statement, Admiral Craig Faller, head of Southern Command, said that the move was carried out in order to increase regional peace and stability.

How Our Bloated Military Strengthens The Police State

June 19, 2020 Shireen Adeimi and Sarah Lazare, In These Times. , , ,
Nationwide uprisings over the police killing of George Floyd have forced a long overdue discussion about the injustices of U.S. policing—an institution that has consistently harassed and terrorized and, in the words of organizer, writer and educator Mariame Kaba, remains a consistent “force of violence against Black people.” As demands to abolish the police are thrust into mainstream discourse, promising—if uncertain and mixed—political changes are being debated and implemented every day. We are seeing a rigorous interrogation of the systems that uphold and compound the brutality of policing: prisons, austerity, and racial housing segregation. The U.S. military, by far the most well-funded in the world, with roughly 800 bases scattered across the globe, must factor heavily into this conversation.

New NDAA Omits COVID19, Escalates Great Power Conflict

June 18, 2020 Brandon Valeriano, Lauren Sander and Eric Gomez, Defense One. , , ,
A summary report of the Senate Armed Services Committee’s proposed version of the 2021 National Defense Authorization Act reveals a disconcerting disconnect between the U.S. government’s approach to national security and the impact of COVID-19 on America’s economy and society. The novel coronavirus has killed more Americans than all but two of the country’s wars. It has undermined the prosperity of most of the rest of its population. It has laid bare the country’s racial inequalities and devastated the global economy. Relief efforts are incurring federal debt on a scale certain to reduce funding for other purposes. And yet the SASC’s 20-page report barely mentions the coronavirus.
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