The Peace Press — Wednesday, October 27, 2021 edition

Once you understand that the U.S. is the primary aggressor nation in the world today bent on maintaining its global hegemony with nations like China and Russia merely playing defense, then you will much better understand the nature of U.S. actions in the world. The American Empire threatens not only other nations but also what’s left of our democracy at home. Our military neither defends the nation nor what is left of our freedom, rather it ensures corporations to safely plunder the planet unimpeded.

“U.S. fears are mostly bunk. Take for example the boilerplate articles about Chinese “incursions” into Taiwan’s air space. Chinese aircraft are not flying over Taiwan. They are flying within Taiwan’s self-declared Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ). Look at a map of that zone, and others declared by Japan and China. Taiwan’s zone, the one Beijing is flying in, actually is large enough to cover thousands of miles of the Chinese mainland itself; PLA planes are in violation when sitting on their own runways.”
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“The war fever splash in U.S. media comes with curious timing. The U.S. is provoking a new Cold War to ensure an enemy to struggle against, guarantee robust defense spending for decades, and to make sure there is no repeat of the “peace dividend” that followed the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Expensive arms development needs a target. The Soviet Union served well in that role until around 1989, when in the midst of declaring themselves the world’s last superpower, Americans also demanded less spending on the military. Instead, a new enemy was quickly found in the Middle East, first in Saddam Hussein and then, after 9/11, in basically most Arabs. Then the terrorist boogeyman was shushed off stage this summer as America retreated from Afghanistan.”

https://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/taiwan-is-not-about-china/
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“Rahm Emanuel and Nicholas Burns had an opportunity to rein in Congress’s thirst for conflict with Beijing, but they took the bait instead.”

https://responsiblestatecraft.org/2021/10/22/biden-nominees-hype-china-threat-on-capitol-hill/
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Every American citizen who cares about peace has a moral and patriotic obligation to undermine, subvert and sabotage any American war effort against China. Do what you can to hurt the American war effort which robs you of money and security while enriching the already filthy rich war-profiteering cockroaches.

“Are China and the United States doomed to engage in a Cold War-like rivalry? There is a growing belief in the U.S. that a second Cold War is inevitable whether we want one or not, but it is not yet too late to choose a different path for Washington that steers clear of a contest for supremacy in East Asia that we do not need to have.

It is the embrace of this imagined “inevitability” that is fueling the rivalry and leading both countries towards an avoidable conflict.”

https://responsiblestatecraft.org/2021/10/22/cold-war-inevitability-be-careful-for-you-wish-for/
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Major Kudos to Xi Jinping of China — — — — — will the U.S.follow suit and do the same?

Recent statement by former Chinese ambassador for disarmament suggests Beijing should rethink ‘no first use’ policy to counter US military presence in region

Position paper marks 50th anniversary of Beijing being awarded UN seat representing China over Taipei

https://archive.vn/cUaoV
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“Last week, President Biden set out a new position on Taiwan, reversing years of US ambiguity by saying he absolutely would go to war with China over the island. Since then, officials have been looking to dial that back.

The talk has been that Biden’s statement was a “gaffe,” and officials are now trying to revise that by insisting US policy has not changed, in spite of Biden’s comments being a very direct change from the status quo.”

https://news.antiwar.com/2021/10/24/officials-looks-to-dial-back-bidens-taiwan-comments/
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“Calling for a “reckoning” and “retaliation” against a nuclear-armed superpower is foolish and provocative — especially when we threw the first stone.”

https://www.commondreams.org/views/2021/10/22/foolish-retaliation-against-china-opposite-what-world-needs-right-now
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“Joe Biden’s administration seems determined to surpass its predecessors in taking actions that are certain to antagonize Russia. In just the past two weeks, the United States and its NATO allies have gone out of their way to provoke Moscow on four separate occasions. Such irresponsible behavior exacerbates already dangerous tensions with a nuclear-armed great power.”

https://original.antiwar.com/Ted_Galen_Carpenter/2021/10/25/antagonizing-russia-a-biden-administration-specialty/
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“While in Europe this month, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin made clear that Ukraine and Georgia may still join NATO.

Ukraine and Georgia have much in common with other NATO members — including a rivalry with their neighbor, Russia.

But offering them membership is a dangerous and counterproductive policy that doesn’t serve US national interests.”

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/nato-s-flirtation-with-adding-2-more-members-runs-the-risk-of-starting-a-war-the-us-can-t-afford-to-fight/ar-AAPU9fe
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“Former Secretary of State Colin Powell helped destroy Iraq, but the press never stopped loving him.’

“Former Secretary of State Colin Powell is dead at the age of 84. His enduring legacy will always be his role in pushing the Iraq War. 42 days before the invasion, Powell held up a vial to symbolize anthrax in front of the U.N. and lied.”

https://mondoweiss.net/2021/10/the-man-who-sold-the-war/
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“Lacking the backbone to stand up to Dick Cheney when it counted, Powell betrayed the world and participated in the deaths of hundreds of thousands.”

https://covertactionmagazine.com/2021/10/22/an-imperial-saint-deification-of-colin-powell-reflects-sad-state-of-mainstream-media/
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“Hailed by the media as a patriot who put country first, Colin Powell put unthinking obedience to superiors above moral integrity. The world has suffered for it.”

https://www.jacobinmag.com/2021/10/colin-powell-obedience-bush-iraq-war-obituary
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“The political cost of leaving Afghanistan has largely been paid — and the geopolitical consequences have been positive.”

“While Washington’s foreign policy elite was up in arms against Biden’s withdrawal, a closer accounting of the political and strategic fallout reveals an opening for Biden to make good on his promise to disentangle the United States from the Forever Wars and begin a broader US withdrawal from the Middle East, starting with Iraq and Syria. The political cost of withdrawing from the Middle East has largely already been paid, and the geopolitical consequences have been strongly positive.”
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“Much of the foreign policy establishment is shocked that Biden proved that the military-industrial complex and its allies in the policy world — the so-called Blob — can be defeated. It requires steely political will, but Biden has demonstrated that if the American public is behind you, you will not only win but flourish.

With the myth of the invincibility of the military-industrial complex shattered, there is no reason for Biden to stop. The US military’s continued presence in Syria is illegal and serves no vital US interest. After the defeat of ISIS, the Trump administration justified the presence of troops by claiming they were needed to counter Iranian influence. But countering Iranian influence — real or imagined — in Syria is not a vital US interest and Congress never approved such a mission. Today, the 900 troops stationed in Syria lock the country into its civil war and impede reconstruction efforts. Rather than making America safer, the presence of US troops in Syria risks dragging the United States into yet another unnecessary war in the Middle East that will make Americans less safe.

The same is true for Iraq."

https://www.thenation.com/article/world/afghanistan-withdrawal-military/
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“After 20 years of the United States military destroying entire countries under the guise of fighting terrorism, there is finally a partial reckoning with US warmongering around the world. It cannot be said that Americans are particularly anti-war now, but at the very least, Biden’s decision to pull US troops from Afghanistan was widely popular across the political spectrum. Yet, many news outlets instead chose to emphasize the minority position on Afghanistan by prioritizing commentary from interventionists and weapons lobbyists over anti-war scholars and activists, and by falsely representing the US occupation of Afghanistan as a positive. This sudden emphasis on the supposedly positive role of US occupation in Afghanistan is a particularly dangerous line for journalists to push considering how little effort the US media placed on covering the conflict prior to withdrawal. One study found that in 2020, three major news outlets gave the conflict a combined coverage of less than five minutes.

In contrast to publications that take such a careless or outright supportive stance on the irreparable harm of US foreign policy are WikiLeaks and its founder, Julian Assange. Following his view that “if wars can be started with lies, they can be stopped by truth,” Assange has published some of the most vital information on US foreign policy of the 21st century with perfect accuracy. “

https://consortiumnews.com/2021/10/25/assange-a-threat-to-war-itself/
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“U.S. prosecutors have five times misled two British courts on key points about Julian Assange’s health as it attempts to overturn a ruling against extraditing him to the United States, report Cathy Vogan and Joe Lauria.”

https://consortiumnews.com/2021/10/25/5-ways-the-us-has-misled-uk-courts-on-assanges-health/
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“It would seem that covert plans for the state-sanctioned murder on British soil of an award-winning journalist should attract sustained, wall-to-wall media coverage.

The news, however, has been met by Western establishment media with ghoulish indifference — a damning indictment of an industry that feverishly condemns attacks on press freedom in Official Enemy states.”

https://fair.org/home/deathly-silence-journalists-who-mocked-assange-have-nothing-to-say-about-cia-plans-to-kill-him/
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“The Yahoo! News revelations will put even more mental stress on the WikiLeaks publisher, writes Marjorie Cohn.”

https://consortiumnews.com/2021/10/26/the-us-appeal-and-cia-plans-to-assassinate-assange/
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“Twenty of the 22 unique featured guests from the United States had ties to the military/industrial complex. These MIC associates accounted for 28 of US guests’ 34 appearances. They included 13 appearances by elected officials who are recipients of military industry PAC money, 12 appearances by current or former government officials who serve or have served as consultants or advisors to the military industry, and eight appearances by former members of the military. (Some guests had multiple ties.)”

https://fair.org/home/afghanistan-withdrawal-sundays-with-the-military-industrial-complex/
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The idiocy of the American warfare state: Investigation upon investigation about ending a war not a morsel of accountability when it comes to starting a war and waging a useless war for nothing as in Afghanistan. Tons of accountability for ending wars, no accountability for starting unjust wars or waging them perpetually — — — — — that is utterly ridiculous. Shame on the Establishment!!!!

https://archive.vn/GKC9G
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“President Joe Biden is not to blame for the disaster, however. The three previous administrations sought to make Afghanistan’s government and military in America’s image, rather than as representatives of the Afghan people. Moreover, argued Baktash Ahadi, a former interpreter for U.S. forces, Washington “mistook the Afghan countryside for a mere theater of war, rather than as a place where people actually lived,” while relying upon the worst, most venal forces for support. For many Afghans, the Taliban seemed the lesser evil.”

https://original.antiwar.com/doug-bandow/2021/10/24/washington-should-learn-lessons-from-the-afghanistan-debacle/
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“There’s little evidence for an unknown weapon being behind “Havana syndrome.””

https://outline.com/KufLFV
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“The Venezuelan people deserve better than another administration sabotaging a dialogue and imposing more deadly sanctions.”

https://www.commondreams.org/views/2021/10/23/biden-administration-undermining-venezuela-dialogue
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“”Sanctions,” Iran’s new president, Ebrahim Raisi, told the UN General Assembly, “are the US’s new way of war with the nations of the world.” At least nineteen countries are currently besieged by the economic warfare of US sanctions.

As when they wage military war, the US is willing to accept the high civilian cost of sanctions. In their book Why Civil Resistance Works, Erica Chenoweth and Maria Stephan cite studies showing that sanctions “often harm the civilian population more than the targeted regimes.” Being interviewed about US sanctions on Iraq, Madeleine Albright, then US ambassador to the UN was asked, “We have heard that half a million children have died. I mean, that is more children than died in Hiroshima. And, you know, is the price worth it?” Albright infamously replied, “I think that is a very hard choice, but the price, we think, the price is worth it.” More recently, US sanctions on Venezuela have killed an estimated 40,000 people.”

https://original.antiwar.com/Ted_Snider/2021/10/24/sanctioning-yourself-in-the-foot/
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“The White House is touting an ‘over-the-horizon’ capability as the new face of US counterterrorism, but it’s actually just repackaged (bad) policy.”

https://responsiblestatecraft.org/2021/10/25/how-biden-is-trying-to-rebrand-the-drone-war/
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“The internet is the last remaining instrument for dissent and free discourse to thrive outside state and oligarchical control. This campaign aims to put an end to that.”

https://greenwald.substack.com/p/pierre-omidyars-financing-of-the
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Keeping with the authoritarian, repressive, oppressive, racist, pseudo-fascist Apartheid character of the current Israeli government, “the Israeli regime has designated six leading Palestinian civil society and human rights groups as “terror organizations.”

“Both the Palestinian public and the International Community rely heavily on all of these organizations for data and analysis about human rights abuses faced by Palestinians throughout the region.”

https://www.thenation.com/article/world/palestinian-human-rights-ngo/
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“Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, who work closely with many of these groups, said in a joint statement:“This appalling and unjust decision is an attack by the Israeli government on the international human rights movement.For decades, Israeli authorities have systematically sought to muzzle human rights monitoring and punish those who criticize its repressive rule over Palestinians. While staff members of our organizations have faced deportation and travel bans, Palestinian human rights defenders have always borne the brunt of the repression.”

https://imemc.org/article/amnesty-designation-of-palestinian-civil-society-groups-as-terrorists-a-brazen-attack-on-human-rights/
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“Well ahead of ‘normalization,’ Middle East elites were tapping into Tel Aviv’s influence in Washington, much to both’s advantage.”

https://responsiblestatecraft.org/2021/10/18/how-arab-autocrats-benefit-from-newfound-friendship-with-israel/
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“Assaults on schoolchildren in the village of Lubban ash-Sharqiya have increased following the building of a road leading to an illegal Jewish settlement”

https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/israel-attacks-palestinian-school-children-nablus
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“Every night, the Palestinian neighbourhood of Silwan turns into a warzone as youths confront Israeli occupation forces, Palestinian homes are raided and ransacked, young men and children arrested, shot at, and assaulted.

During the day homes are demolished and residents displaced as the Israeli-controlled Jerusalem Municipality pursues its policy of Judaisation of the occupied eastern part of the city to make way for Israeli settlers, a policy illegal under international law.”

https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2021/10/25/silwan-palestinian-neighborhood-turns-into-war-zone-at-night
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“There are more than two settler attacks on Palestinians a day this year on average. According to two Israeli human rights experts, the violent settlers are working with the cooperation of the army and the Israeli government.”

https://mondoweiss.net/2021/10/spike-in-israeli-settler-attacks-serves-bennett-government-policy-terrorize-palestinians-and-take-more-land/
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Boycott, divest and sanction the State of Israel until all persons between the river and the sea are treated equally under the same laws. Also remember who the real everyday victims are — — -those living under the jackboot of daily oppression by the State of Israel versus those who cry wolf and pretend to be victims while living comfortable lives inside Israel proper.

https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/israel-announces-construction-more-settlements-west-bank
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Criticizing more settlements on one hand while silencing those who engage in BDS on the other hand, as many European nations do, has more to do with posturing than with substance. It is for the very reason that settlements continue to be built, paid for by the Israeli government that collects taxes from every Israeli citizen that makes the continuing settlements project the responsibility of every Israeli citizen. Hence, BDS offers the best non-violent solution to pressure the Israeli government to change course.

“On Monday, the European Union issued a statement criticizing Israel’s latest major settlement plan, which will see 1,300 new units built in the occupied West Bank.”

https://news.antiwar.com/2021/10/25/eu-slams-israeli-plan-for-1300-new-settlements/