The Peace Press — Wednesday, October 6, 2021 edition
“A sprawling military network across 4 million square miles and 560 million people in the Middle East undermines goals of security and stability.”
“Given recent events in their country, it’s hard to imagine Afghans even taking notice of the general’s professed feelings or, for that matter, his fate. As for the American people, most of us have moved on. Afghanistan is already so yesterday.
And that, let me suggest, is a problem. Given our notoriously short national attention span, Americans are overlooking a “horrible mistake” of far greater consequence. I refer to the very existence of CENTCOM.”
https://www.thenation.com/article/world/american-empires-unwinding/
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The filthy, American Empire — — — — the most expansive Empire but not a force for good that the world has ever known.
“President Joe Biden did what his three predecessors could or would not: halt a seemingly endless war. It took two decades, but American troops no longer are fighting in Afghanistan.
An important aspect of the US withdrawal was closing Washington’s bases, which once spread across the country. Uncle Sam left Bagram Air Base, America’s biggest facility in Afghanistan, on his way home.
However, some 750 American military facilities remain open in 80 nations and territories around the world. No other country in human history has had such a dominant presence. Great Britain was the leading colonial power, but its army was small. London had to supplement its own troops with foreign mercenaries, as in the American Revolution. In wars with great powers Britain provided its allies with financial subsidies rather than soldiers.
Previous empires, such as Rome, Persia, and China, were powerful in their own realms but had little reach beyond. The latter never reached outside Asia. Persia was twice halted by the Greek city states. As great as Rome became, its writ never went much beyond the Mediterranean, with Central Europe, North Africa, and the Mideast its boundaries. The New World remained beyond the knowledge let alone control of all three.”
https://original.antiwar.com/doug-bandow/2021/10/03/750-bases-in-80-countries-is-too-many-for-any-nation-time-for-the-us-to-bring-its-troops-home/
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The Department of Imperialist Offense (the Pentagon)
“To call the Pentagon’s massive and escalating budget a “defense” budget is nothing less than internalized corruption of language that undermines our capacities to think clearly and talk straight.”
https://www.commondreams.org/views/2021/10/05/stop-calling-military-budget-defense-budget
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“Having to choose between the forever-war establishment in Washington or throwing Presidents Trump and Biden under the bus for ending the Afghan war as both had vowed do if elected; the mainstream media sided with the Pentagon and its financers in their 20-year Afghan Wagnerian opera. The key takeaway: It is okay for the MSM to take sides in disagreements between the political parties on domestic issues (like the highly debated 10-year $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill now under consideration); but the primacy of the $1.3 trillion per year that Congress spends on Washington’s omnipotent “national security state” and its grip on our foreign and military policy cannot be challenged. To wit: Despite the Pentagon’s embarrassing and messy withdrawal from its 20-year, multi-trillion-dollar Afghan debacle (including murdering Afghan children in an errant drone strike and getting 13 U.S. service members killed on the way out), Congress subsequently gave the Pentagon a $35 billion raise in its base budget (from $705 billion in 2021 to $740 billion in 2022) — which was $25 billion more than had been requested!”
https://original.antiwar.com/Ronald_Enzweiler/2021/10/03/how-the-msm-covered-for-the-generals-on-their-afghan-war-testimony/
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“The War on Terror’s promoters and apologists are determined to blame Biden for finally bringing one bloody chapter to an end.”
https://www.thenation.com/article/world/afghanistan-defeat-lessons/
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“Some Western media outlets falsely portray China’s flights through Taiwan’s ADIZ as an airspace violation”
“The uptick in China’s military activity has a direct correlation with the uptick of US military activity. In September alone, 62 US warplanes were recorded flying over the South China Sea, according to the Beijing-based South China Sea Probing Initiative (SCSPI).”
https://news.antiwar.com/2021/10/04/us-hypes-chinas-military-flights-in-taiwans-adiz/
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“Expectations that Joe Biden’s administration would pursue a more conciliatory policy toward the People’s Republic of China (PRC) than its predecessor did have not been borne out. The surprising continuity with the Trump administration’s approach is most evident regarding policy toward Taiwan. Indeed, Biden has broken new ground with respect to U.S. support for the island’s de facto independence. In doing so, he is intensifying Beijing’s ire and exacerbating already dangerous bilateral tensions.
During the Trump years, US diplomatic and military support for Taiwan expanded dramatically. For the first time since the United States officially recognized the PRC in 1979 and severed formal relations with Taipei, there were meetings between high-level US and Taiwanese security officials. In the waning days of the administration, the State Department waived virtually all remaining restrictions on diplomatic contacts.
The Trump administration concluded multiple arms sales to Taiwan, including some systems that had offensive as well as defensive capabilities. Washington increased its lobbying efforts to have international organizations grant membership to Taiwan and to help Taipei gain a larger international diplomatic presence generally. All of those measures had broad, bipartisan support in Congress.”
https://original.antiwar.com/Ted_Galen_Carpenter/2021/10/04/washington-keeps-poking-the-panda-regarding-taiwan/
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REPEAL THE AUMF FROM SEPTEMBER 2001:
The war on Afghanistan is not over until the bombings and airstrikes cease over that nation.
“Pentagon says “over the horizon” strikes in Afghanistan will be conducted under the AUMF passed two decades ago.”
https://www.defenseone.com/policy/2021/09/forever-war-over-its-2001-authorization-lives/185768/
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“The Yahoo! report provides important new details of facts reported a year ago, but contains several errors, including a fabricated story about Russian operatives exfiltrating Assange from the Ecuador embassy, writes Joe Lauria.”
https://consortiumnews.com/2021/10/02/what-the-yahoo-assange-report-got-wrong/
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“Contrition over Kabul strike must prompt further review of hundreds more events in which civilians were likely killed by US actions.”
https://airwars.org/news-and-investigations/five-more-afghan-strikes-the-us-should-apologise-for/
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“Those who may still think it was Russia that “interfered” with the 2016 election owe it to themselves to read the Sussmann indictment/charging document.
Spoiler: It was the very top officials of the Clinton campaign aided by a lawyer crooked as a hound’s hind leg that interfered in 2016. The tricks tried by Sussmann and associates might make even GOP “strategists” like Lee Atwater and Karl Rove blush.”
https://original.antiwar.com/mcgovern/2021/10/01/nyt-gives-russia-gate-cpr-wsj-pronounces-it-dead/
“A Yahoo News’ investigation reveals that, through much of 2017, the CIA weighed up whether to use wholly extrajudicial means to deal with the supposed threat posed by Julian Assange and his whistleblowers’ platform WikiLeaks. The agency plotted either to kidnap or assassinate him.
Shocking as the revelations are — exposing the entirely lawless approach of the main US intelligence agency — the Yahoo investigation nonetheless tends to obscure rather than shine a light on the bigger picture.
Assange has not been deprived of his freedom for more than a decade because of an unimplemented rogue operation by the CIA. Rather, he has been held in various forms of captivity — disappeared — through the collaborations of various national governments and their intelligence agencies, aided by legal systems and the media, that have systematically violated his rights and legal due process.
The reality of Assange’s years of persecution is far worse even than the picture of a thuggish, vengeful, power-mad CIA painted by Yahoo’s reporting.”
https://original.antiwar.com/cook/2021/10/01/cia-plan-to-poison-assange-wasnt-needed-the-us-found-a-lawful-way-to-disappear-him/
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This is a step in the right direction. Hopefully, both Koreas will continue moving in the direction of reconciliation. Hopefully, the U.S. will finally sign a peace treaty with Korea and end that forever war with Korea.
“South Korea says the two Koreas have restored a stalled communication channel after a hiatus in a small reconciliation step.”
https://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2021-10-03/2-koreas-restore-hotline-despite-norths-missile-tests
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“The cable news giant is an ‘official broadcaster’ of an upcoming UAE state-run, six-month ‘expo’ that is seemingly meant to burnish its global image.”
https://responsiblestatecraft.org/2021/09/30/why-is-cnn-doing-pr-for-a-middle-eastern-dictatorship/
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No matter what the event, including September 11, does not grant the United States the right to open Nazi-like torture facilities anywhere in the world. Close Guantanamo and CIA black sites too.
“The European Court for Human Rights ruled in 2015 that it was “beyond a reasonable doubt” that Zubaydah had been held in Poland… Warsaw asked Washington for assistance. Their request went unanswered.”
https://www.commondreams.org/views/2021/10/03/when-will-us-acknowledge-its-secret-torture-site-poland
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“Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) pressed Secretary Austin on what exactly this meant. To Warren’s questioning on what another year in Afghanistan would have looked like, Austin answered simply: “If you stayed there at a posture of 2,500 certainly you’d be in a fight with the Taliban and you’d have to reinforce yourself.” That is, the safe, modest presence for security and support has always been a lie; any presence past the withdrawal deadline would have meant renewed war with the Taliban, revamped deployment of American service members, and further combat casualties in America’s longest and most fruitless war.
Senator Warren also drove home that fruitlessness, pointing out the fact that the Taliban takeover was well underway long before the withdrawal of American troops, and that neither the Afghan nor the American people had anything to show for two decades of nation building. What’s more, she effectively forced Austin to admit that the failure to execute the withdrawal safely was entirely the fault of military leaders, and not the civilian authorities.”
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/the-most-dangerous-man-in-america/
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“Three years after Saudi government agents murdered journalist and regime critic Jamal Khashoggi in their consulate in Istanbul on the orders of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the U.S. has yet to hold the Saudi leadership accountable for that crime and the many others that their forces and proxies have committed in Yemen.
We were reminded of this as Biden’s national security advisor, Jake Sullivan, traveled to Saudi Arabia on Monday and met with bin Salman at Neom. While Biden is not as enthusiastic about the Saudi relationship as his predecessor was, his promised “recalibration” of the relationship has been minor and the changes have been mostly cosmetic.”
https://responsiblestatecraft.org/2021/10/01/biden-administration-disappoints-on-khashoggi-anniversary/
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“Three years ago, on 2 October 2018, a team of Saudi officials murdered journalist Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. The purpose of the killing was to silence Khashoggi and to frighten critics of the Saudi regime by showing that it would pursue and punish them as though they were agents of a foreign power.
It was revealed this week that a year before the Khashoggi killing in 2017, the CIA had plotted to kidnap or assassinate Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, who had taken refuge five years earlier in the Ecuador embassy in London.”
https://www.counterpunch.org/2021/10/05/the-cia-plot-to-kidnap-or-kill-julian-assange-in-london-is-a-story-that-is-being-mistakenly-ignored/
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“Join Assange’s father, an Australian MP, a former national news presenter, two medical professionals and CN‘s legal analyst in a discussion about the upcoming appeal hearing.”
https://consortiumnews.com/2021/10/04/watch-julian-assange-whats-the-appeal/
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“In the failed corporate coverage of Steven Donziger and Julian Assange there is an imposition of darkness, ignorance inflicted on Americans with intent.”
https://consortiumnews.com/2021/10/05/patrick-lawrence-instead-of-a-free-press/
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“”Whistleblower” Frances Haugen is a vital media and political asset because she advances their quest for greater control over online political discourse.”
“Agitating for more online censorship has been a leading priority for the Democratic Party ever since they blamed social media platforms (along with WikiLeaks, Russia, Jill Stein, James Comey, The New York Times, and Bernie Bros) for the 2016 defeat of the rightful heir to the White House throne, Hillary Clinton. And this craving for censorship has been elevated into an even more urgent priority for their corporate media allies, due to the same belief that Facebook helped elect Trump but also because free speech on social media prevents them from maintaining a stranglehold on the flow of information by allowing ordinary, uncredentialed serfs to challenge, question and dispute their decrees or build a large audience that they cannot control. Destroying alternatives to their failing platforms is thus a means of self-preservation: realizing that they cannot convince audiences to trust their work or pay attention to it, they seek instead to create captive audiences by destroying or at least controlling any competitors to their pieties.”
https://greenwald.substack.com/p/democrats-and-media-do-not-want-to
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Is this the same way Nazi-brown-shirts would have “let off some steam” in Bavarian cities in the 1920’s and 1930's? When I hear stories of gangs of settlers attacking civilians, I think to myself how much more appropriate it would seem if each of them were wearing a swastika armband. Aren’t these roaming gangs of Israeli settlers more like the modern version of the Nazis?
“Israeli authorities have created what officials described as a “permissive atmosphere”, including allowing settlers to “let off steam””
“Israeli settler attacks on Palestinian villages and properties in the occupied West Bank have more than doubled in the first half of 2021, compared with the same statistics over the past two years, Haaretz reported on Sunday.”
