A Provocative Question

[ish mailian]

Under Obama & Co. the US, a rogue state and super power is the
greatest threat to the world, to peace, to prosperity. to the planet.
How much that threat has increased with a president-elect trump is
difficult to measure, but his cabinet appointments thus far suggest
that the threat has increased. This topic is not discussed here in the
US. most citizens simply are not aware of the threat the US poses to
the world. In fact, most believe the US is a democratic nation that is
keeping world peace. Even at Democracy Now, where last night Cornell
West was interviewed and only managed to spit gross contradictions,
this topic is nearly taboo.

On Wed, Nov 30, 2016 at 4:30 PM, Thomas Eckhardt
<thomas.eckhardt at uni-bonn.de> wrote:
> Thank you for your thoughts and for the references to books and articles on
> the matters of poverty and class, identity politics etc.
>
> All of this is well worth thinking about, particularly with regard to the
> resurgence of right-wing nationalism in the US and Europe and the
> accompanying garbage of racism, sexism and homophobia.
>
> What has not been addressed in this discussion, and what has hardly been
> addressed during the campaign season, is the US/the West's foreign policy.
>
> It appears to me that, although probably everybody around these parts is
> familiar with the sorry history of US regime changes, miraculuosly regime
> change became alright for the majority of Democrats once Obama was elected.
>
> And it is true that Obama, to his credit, refrained from invading Syria
> after Assad allegedly crossed his "red line" by using poison gas against his
> own people.
>
> Which was -- not by the way, but importantly -- rather obviously a false
> flag attack (but a real mass murder):
>
> See Seymour Hersh's articles for the London Review of Books, see MIT
> professor Theodore Postol.
>
> I quote from Postol's summary:
>
> "Whatever the Reasons for the Egregious Errors in the Intelligence, the
> Source of These Errors Needs to Be Explained.
> If the Source of These Errors Is Not Identified, the Procedures that Led to
> this Intelligence Failure Will Go Uncorrected, and the Chances of a Future
> Policy Disaster Will Grow With Certainty."
>
> https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B6-GpDfsYECES3lOTUlneldpZ1Boenl1bGV5YkVnY29WdGNF/edit
>
> (This is quite apart from the never discussed, but obvious fact that Assad
> would have to be a very stupid man to wilfully cross a "red line" set by the
> President of the US after having watched from the best seat in the house
> what happened to Hussein and Ghaddafi. Which, whatever else you may think
> about him, he is not.)
>
> --
>
> "Faulty intelligence", now where have we heard this before? Iraq, certainly,
> but also Libya. Recently, the foreign affairs select committee of the House
> of Commons officially determined that the war on Libya was based upon lies,
> sorry, faulty intelligence:
>
> „In March 2011, the United Kingdom and France, with the support of the
> United States, led the international community to support an intervention in
> Libya to protect civilians from attacks by forces loyal to Muammar Gaddafi.
> This policy was not informed by accurate intelligence. In particular, the
> Government failed to identify that the threat to civilians was overstated
> and that the rebels included a significant Islamist element. By the summer
> of 2011, the limited intervention to protect civilians had drifted into an
> opportunist policy of regime change. That policy was not underpinned by a
> strategy to support and shape post-Gaddafi Libya. The result was political
> and economic collapse, inter-militia and inter-tribal warfare, humanitarian
> and migrant crises, widespread human rights violations, the spread of
> Gaddafi regime weapons across the region and the growth of ISIL in North
> Africa. Through his decision making in the National Security Council, former
> Prime Minister David Cameron was ultimately responsible for the failure to
> develop a coherent Libya strategy.“
>
> http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201617/cmselect/cmfaff/119/11903.htm#_idTextAnchor004
>
> (The whole report is well worth reading.)
>
> This bears repeating:
>
> "In particular, the Government failed to identify that the threat to
> civilians was overstated and that the rebels included a significant Islamist
> element."
>
> Demonise the geopolitical enemy, minimize the radicalism of the proxy armies
> you use to attack him. It works every time -- if you have a compliant media,
> that is.
>
> Please excuse the sarcasm: This strategy worked out very well for Libya, it
> worked out very well for Ukraine if you replace "Islamists" with
> "Banderites" (the German head of state recently remembered the victims of
> Babi Jar literally shoulder to shoulder with the well-known Ukrainian
> neo-Nazi Andriy Parubiy, speaker of the Ukrainian parliament, which is a
> complete and utter disgrace but went down largely unnoticed because nobody
> wants to talk about Parubiy, and for good reason), it worked out very well
> for Syria even though regime change does not seem to be in the cards any
> longer unless the West really wants to provoke WW III.
>
> The not so sarcastic result: Hundreds of thousands of deaths, failed states,
> freedom and democracy nowhere to be seen.
>
> If one ignores the crap we are being served about human rights, freedom,
> democracy etc.: This is what the US has done, alone or with partners, for
> geopolitical reasons at least since 1953, and what it continues to do, with
> currently once again ever more escalating risks.
>
> I should think all this is completely obvious. Obviously it either isn't or
> people agree with the policy but do not want to say so.
>
> Obama has at least called Libya his worst mistake. Clinton, on the other
> hand, counts the destruction of the country amongst her greatest
> accomplishments as Secretary of State. "We came, we saw, he died." Cue
> homicidal cackle.
>
> 'As secretary of state, Clinton was one of the strongest proponents of the
> U.S. intervention in the Libyan civil war against Gadhafi; according to the
> New York Times, the decision to commit military assets to ending the
> dictator’s 42-year-old regime was “arguably her moment of greatest influence
> as secretary of state.” While Obama has now pointed to that decision
> multiple times as one of his biggest regrets, he has also used the same
> logic to defend his reticence to intervene in Syria, where Clinton has urged
> a more militaristic approach, including a no-fly zone.'
>
> http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2016/04/obama-clinton-libya-mistake
>
> A unilateral no-fly zone in Syria would be against international law and
> probably evoke WW III. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said so (of
> course, he didn't refer to international law).
>
> This short Jeremiad is not, as you might think, directed only against US
> foreign policy under Obama, and certainly not only against Clinton. It is
> about a continuity in US foreign policy since the end of WW II that nobody
> seems to want to talk about as long as there is a Democratic President. And
> various other states, and their media, went along. In Libya: France and
> England. In Ukraine: Germany and the EU until Victoria Nuland made clear
> that it is the US that decides about the future Prime Minister of Ukraine --
> "Fuck the EU. Yats is the guy." (paraphrase). In Syria: the Europeans as
> well as those well-known staunch defenders of democracy, freedom and human
> rights who rule the KSA and Qatar.
>
> Two articles from Counterpunch that I find thought-provoking because they
> link recent domestic developments in the US with its foreign policy,
> although I certainly do not endorse each and every point made:
>
> http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/11/24/f-you-white-liberal-a-middle-eastern-american-glad-trump-won/
>
> http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/11/29/regime-change-abroad-fascism-at-home-how-us-interventions-paved-the-way-for-trump/
>
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