The Peace Press — Saturday, December 25, 2021 edition

“American foreign policy today is in a reactionary death spiral. Never has a new “national security” policy paradigm been more desperately needed, yet there is not even a glimpse of salvation on the horizon — wherever you look you will find policies that speak to the past and offer little hope for a viable global future.

The paradigm that ensnares American diplomacy cemented some 75 years ago with World War II and the Cold War. Those cataclysmic events forged an enduring American national security state characterized by unlimited global intervention, cultivation of an ever-metastasizing “military-industrial complex,” and endless and often racialized enemy-othering followed by highly destructive yet ultimately losing wars replete with devastating blowback on the “homeland.”

Urgently needed is a new foreign policy paradigm of cooperative internationalism centered on combating climate change, population control, control of infectious disease, investment to deal effectively with poverty and global migration, dramatic demilitarization, and renunciation of arms as well as human trafficking. The United States should take the lead in resurrecting and strengthening the United Nations to better enable it to pursue the mission of promoting global security, anti-racism, and universal human rights.

Sound like idealistic liberal poppycock? Well, how do you like what the “realist” foreign policy paradigm has delivered — an endless series of forever wars, an utterly inept response to the existential threat of climate change, rampant destruction of animal and plant species, ongoing militarization of the planet amid poverty, epidemic disease, and little prospect of genuine national, much less international, security."

https://www.counterpunch.org/2021/12/23/americas-foreign-policy-death-spiral/
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“The pursuit of a genuine process of international disarmament can only prove beneficial for the development of peoples and nations,” the pope said in his World Peace Day message.”

“We ought to esteem and encourage all those young people who work for a more just world.”

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2021/12/21/end-deafening-noise-war-pope-says-nations-must-fund-education-over-weapons
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“The people of Afghanistan are facing what could be the worst modern famine in at least half a century, and US policies will be responsible for much of the humanitarian catastrophe if they are not changed immediately. Afghanistan became heavily dependent on international aid during the 20-year US war, and it is also heavily dependent on imports. Since the fall of Kabul to the Taliban, the country has largely been cut off from the funds that it needs to keep its economy functioning, and that is the result of actions taken by US, US allies, and US-led international institutions. The Biden administration’s decisions to halt aid, freeze government assets, and keep US sanctions in place have throttled the country’s economy and pushed it towards the abyss of famine.”

https://original.antiwar.com/Daniel_Larison/2021/12/21/afghanistan-and-our-murderous-sanctions-addiction/
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“The US is withholding the billions in Afghan reserves despite warnings that millions could starve.”

https://news.antiwar.com/2021/12/21/let-us-eat-protesters-in-kabul-call-on-us-to-release-frozen-afghan-funds/
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“Pressure is mounting for Biden to release $9 billion in Afghan reserves as millions in the country face starvation”

“The situation in Afghanistan is so dire that the UN has warned 1 million Afghan children could starve to death over the next year. Sanctions exemptions are clearly not enough to stave off the crisis, and the UN and aid groups are urging the US to release the frozen reserves.”

https://news.antiwar.com/2021/12/22/us-loosens-aid-restrictions-for-afghanistan-but-funds-remain-frozen/
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“As the United States withdrew militarily from Afghanistan in August, US TV news interest in the plight of the country’s citizens spiked, often focusing on “the horror awaiting women and girls” (CNN Situation Room, 8/16/21) to argue against withdrawal (FAIR.org, 8/23/21).

Four months later, as those same citizens have been plunged into a humanitarian crisis due in no small part to US sanctions, where is the outrage?”

https://fair.org/home/media-forget-afghan-plight-as-us-sanctions-drive-mass-famine-risk/
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“It is time to end America’s use of airstrikes that too often kill the innocent.”

“My uncle and my cousin were collateral damage in America’s drone wars. To this day, the U.S. still has not admitted to, much less apologized for, their deaths.”

https://www.defenseone.com/ideas/2021/12/my-children-live-fear-us-drones/359795/
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“A Times exposé revealing a ‘system of impunity’ at the Pentagon regarding civilian casualties should be a catalyst for change.”

https://responsiblestatecraft.org/2021/12/22/will-we-finally-accept-that-precision-airstrikes-dont-exist/
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“The notion that one can only support ​’defensive’ operations in a brutal war is absurd. The Saudi military does not have one hangar for ​’defensive’ aircrafts and a separate one for ​’offensive’ ones,” she concludes.”

https://mondoweiss.net/2021/12/despite-rhetoric-u-s-saudi-arms-deal-shows-that-little-has-changed/
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“The United States must make clear that this cruel and senseless blockade is causing devastating harm to millions of innocent Yemenis and is harmful to diplomacy and the peace process.”

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2021/12/22/aoc-leads-demand-biden-work-ending-saudi-blockade-crucial-yemen-airport
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“Seven U.S. foreign policy hawks, with decades of disaster behind them, are urging the Biden administration to threaten a military attack on Iran.”

https://mondoweiss.net/2021/12/u-s-foreign-policy-hawks-with-decades-of-disaster-behind-them-call-for-a-threat-to-attack-iran/
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“This rhetoric acknowledges a basic truth: with the JCPOA on the brink of collapse, nothing substantive now stands between Iran and a nuclear weapon, should its leaders decide to go down that road. While this would constitute a colossal failure for the United States — one that should be placed mostly at Donald Trump’s feet — there is little the Biden administration could do to stop Iran from going nuclear.

Threats of a military strike aren’t going to coerce Iran, as they might have done in the past. The only practical course to deter Iran is through diplomatic engagement, both at the regional level and through the Vienna discussions including the P5+1.”

https://responsiblestatecraft.org/2021/12/22/sanctions-relief-could-revive-the-iran-nuclear-deal/
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“Pressured by ever encroaching NATO expansion toward its borders and increased lethal arms sales to, and flirtations with, Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin sent the US a proposal on mutual security guarantees and an urgent request for immediate negotiations.

The security proposal has many clauses, but two of the leading proposals are that:

“The United States of America shall take measures to prevent further eastward expansion of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and deny accession to the Alliance to the former USSR republics”

The United States accepts the “obligation not to establish military bases in former Soviet states that are not NATO members, not to use their infrastructure to carry out any military activity, and not to develop bilateral military cooperation with them.”

Several western analysts have characterized Putin’s demands as “bold.” But they are only bold in the sense that Iran is being bold by requesting that the US promise to keep their promise when they sign an agreement. Putin is only being so bold as to hold up assurances that the US has already made long ago. America seems to have a problem keeping its promises.”

https://original.antiwar.com/Ted_Snider/2021/12/22/nato-russia-and-the-other-broken-promise/
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U.S. propaganda emanates from nearly every English-speaking news channel, newspaper, magazine and periodical in the West including PBS.

“The PBS NewsHour invited on just about the worst person in the U.S. government to help Americans understand the crisis in Ukraine, writes Mike Madden.”

https://consortiumnews.com/2021/12/24/how-not-to-explain-the-ukraine-crisis/
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“The Ukrainian vote against the U.N. resolution against Nazism was motivated by sympathy for the ideology of historic, genocidal active Nazis. It is as simple as that, writes Craig Murray.”

https://consortiumnews.com/2021/12/23/us-ukraine-refuse-to-condemn-nazism-at-un/
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“Thousands of Ukraine’s neo-Nazis surrounded parliament in Kiev demanding the government honor Ukrainian paramilitary forces who fought for Adolf Hitler, another embarrassing reminder of the extremism unleashed by the U.S.-backed coup, Robert Parry wrote on Oct. 15, 2014.”

https://consortiumnews.com/2021/12/23/robert-parry-ukraines-neo-nazis-demand-respect/
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“Russia says Europe must think about the real prospect of turning their continent into a field of military confrontation like that which existed at the height of the Cold War, writes Scott Ritter.”

https://consortiumnews.com/2021/12/23/2022-year-of-major-power-conflict-over-ukraine/
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“Putin told his annual press conference today that the U.S. had “tricked” Russia over NATO expansion and that it had to end, reports Len Bracken.”

https://consortiumnews.com/2021/12/23/putin-says-peace-in-ukraine-is-up-to-us/
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“We need to constantly remind ourselves about the US media. During the Cold War, there was the saying that the difference between the New York Times and the Soviet Pravda was that Pravda readers knew they were being lied to. Unfortunately, current coverage by the US media about the movement of Russian troops demonstrates the applicability of that saying today.”

https://original.antiwar.com/Ron_Forthofer/2021/12/23/failure-of-us-media-on-ukraine/
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“Going even further, the Times added that Russia had already “massed troops on the border with Ukraine,” a lie that has been perpetuated in the mainstream media all across the United States.

Where do we even begin to pick this story apart? I’m not a Russia expert. But if I learned anything at the C.I.A., it was critical thinking and the necessity for basing my conclusions on facts.”

https://consortiumnews.com/2021/12/24/john-kiriakou-those-nasty-russians/
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“Indigenous residents are fighting to save their island’s heritage, while the military refuses to release key information about what it is razing.”

“HAGÅTÑA, GUAM — Before the colonial era, Sabånan Fadang, on the United States island territory of Guam, was Indigenous burial grounds. Now, it’s mostly a field of flattened dirt and rock. The US military has bulldozed the site in preparation for construction of a Marine Corps base — part of a buildup of troops and facilities on Guam, a US military outpost in the Western Pacific."

https://www.thenation.com/article/activism/guam-military-indigenous/
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A step in the correct direction — — — — activists must now keep up the pressure on President Biden to continue minimizing military action as a first resort.

“As 2021 nears its end, Airwars reached out to US combatant commands to request strike data for conflicts. Coupled with the long-delayed release of crucial strike data from Afghanistan, Airwars can assess for the first time what the ‘war on terror’ looks like under Joe Biden.

The biggest take-home is that Biden has significantly decreased US military action across the globe.”

https://airwars.org/news-and-investigations/how-do-the-forever-wars-look-under-president-biden/
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“A new, heavily investigated report shows a Pentagon uninterested in correcting its deadly errors.”

“Throughout America’s War on Terror, whistleblowers have been warning that drone strikes have frequently killed people who were neither terrorists nor insurgents, just innocent civilians trying to survive in a war zone.

Over the weekend, in a detailed, heavily reported two-part story, The New York Times documented how Washington’s “precision drone strikes” have been anything but precise. Not only did they repeatedly kill innocents, including children, but more often than not the military failed to examine adequately why these mistakes were made, failed to correct its procedures, and failed to hold anybody accountable.”

https://reason.com/2021/12/20/will-americas-military-reckon-with-the-reckless-murders-perpetuated-by-its-drone-wars/
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“It cannot be denied that such policies are tied in with the acolytes of Samantha Power, and thus in turn with a sprawling defense establishment drunk on delusions of its own exceptionalism and fully aligned with the greater objectives of continued imperial expansion. What we are most likely going to see, if present trends continue, is the merging of the two consistent ideological projects of the present-day present Democratic Party: establishment culture war and the intertwined rehabilitation of neoconservatives.

Though such a project will have little popular appeal, it will provide a unifying force for the government, mainstream media, and nonprofit sectors to advocate for future regime change and military interventionist operations. R2P is about to return, hoping that the American public’s notoriously short attention span has long forgotten the disasters of intervention in Libya and Syria. “

https://covertactionmagazine.com/2021/12/21/samantha-power-and-the-cosmopolitan-crusaders/
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“The U.S. has become a “Phantom Empire,” a country that appears to be powerful because it has a robust military presence abroad but cannot use garrisoned forces to achieve geopolitical objectives.

More than 225,000 U.S. troops and DoD personnel are stationed abroad in more than 150 countries. The largest deployments are to wealthy U.S. allies (Japan, Germany, and South Korea) capable of defending themselves.

U.S. leaders often justify military commitments by arguing they preserve “influence.” But because American leaders are committed, in most cases, to maintaining troops abroad as a good in and of itself, the U.S. squanders most of its leverage to influence hosts. Threats to withdraw troops are not credible, making them irrelevant for most U.S. geopolitical goals.

The sources of U.S. power and influence are ultimately rooted in economic prosperity and soft power. A foreign policy that cultivates these sources of strength over maintaining military commitments would better achieve U.S. geopolitical goals.”

https://www.defensepriorities.org/explainers/phantom-empire-the-illusionary-nature-of-us-military-power
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“A new book finds that failure is baked in the cake yet the US insists on playing with fire again and again.”

https://responsiblestatecraft.org/2021/11/29/no-way-around-it-all-regime-change-policies-bound-to-crash-and-burn/
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“The imprisoned publisher must convince the High Court that his appeal to the Supreme Court is a point of law of general public importance.”

https://consortiumnews.com/2021/12/23/assange-applies-for-appeal-to-uk-supreme-court/
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“The Pentagon is the world’s greatest single consumer of oil and thus one of the largest single emitters of greenhouse gases and thus the single entity most responsible for climate chaos — massive hurricanes, forest fires, floods, rising seas, climate refugees, and more.

Aside from jet fuel leakages and them being one of the largest consumers of oil in the world, a great deal of nuclear weapons testing has led to islands in the Pacific and areas of Native American land to be desolate and abandoned. These actions have made some of these areas unlivable to this day.

The US military spends more than any other military. The international position that the US is usually seen as is one where they are considered the strongest and most powerful, commanding respect from allies and instilling fear in adversaries. As a result, they have also been excused from most of their mishaps and negligence by the international community and historically by our own EPA.”

https://www.counterpunch.org/2021/12/22/us-military-and-sustainability/