World War One & Today

The First World War, Cecile Rhodes and Conspiracy Facts

By David William Pear

“History is always written by the winners. When two cultures clash, the loser is obliterated, and the winner writes the history books— books which glorify their own cause and disparage the conquered foe. As Napoleon once said, ‘What is history, but a fable agreed upon? ‘”— Professor Robert Langdon

The Decline of an Empire

Why did World War One happen? The conventional fable agreed upon begins on June 28, 1914 with the assassination of Austria’s Archduke Ferdinand in Sarajevo. The aftermath of the assassination spiraled out of control. It was like an unstoppable train speeding down the tracks. Suddenly all of the Western powers were at war. When the armistice was signed on November 11, 1918 forty million people lay dead. Exactly five years to the day after the assassination of the Archduke, the Treaty of Versailles was signed. Germany alone accepted all the guilt for the war. The end.

Well, it was not “The End”. The outcome of The First World War led to World War Two. The outcome of WW2 led to the Cold War. “Winning” the Cold War created the mujahideen; rebranded as Al Qaeda it led to the Global War On Terror, and never-ending wars.

In the 21^st century the U.S. and its allies squandered their blood and treasure on never-ending criminal wars. Millions of people the U.S. slaughtered in West Asia are dismissed as “collateral damage”. Meanwhile, China has been using its resources for development, and lifting millions of people out of poverty.

The U.S. Empire has been in a long decline for decades. More Americans are falling into poverty, and the U.S. has been steadily falling in the United Nations Index of Human Development. It currently ranks number 28^th among developed countries. The index is a measure of infant mortality, healthcare, life expectancy, education, and per capita income. The U.S. infrastructure, such as road, rail and airports, public utilities, and the internet are behind other developed countries, too.

China’s economy is expected to surpass the U.S. in 2028. Russia has also revitalized its economy in the last 20 years. Every advance that China and Russia make is propagandized by the U.S. as “aggression”.

Instead of competing peacefully with China and Russia, the U.S. has engaged in a New Cold War. Each passing year the world grows closer to a Hot War. The Doomsday Clock of nuclear annihilations was at 14 minutes to midnight at the end of the Cold War. It is now at 100 seconds to Armageddon. That is the closest it has ever been. There is no effort in the U.S. to turn back the clock.

August 2014 was the centennial of The First World War. The year was a grim reminder, which momentarily gave people pause, and a slew of articles resulted. For instance, Graham Allison wrote an article that appeared in The Atlantic: Just How Likely Is Another World War? . Allison assessed the similarities and differences between 1914 and 2014. His conclusion was:

”For the ‘complacent’ who live in what Gore Vidal labeled the ‘United States of Amnesia’, the similarities should serve as a vivid reminder that many of the reasons currently given for discounting threats of war did not prevent World War I.” 

Then Allison optimistically concluded that another world war is, “unlikely if statesmen in both the U.S. and China reflect on what happened a century ago.” Does anybody see “wise statesmen” reflecting, or see much concern in the United States of Amnesia?

There is no viable anti-war liberal class in the U.S. demanding dialogue, diplomacy and compromise among nations. The U.S. has exited treaties, which were designed to prevent catastrophic wars. The U.S. has criminally abandoned international law and the United Nations Charter. Instead the U.S. has come up with its own “rules-based international order”. International law is based on treaties among nations. The “rules” are diktats made in Washington and Brussels, imposed on the rest of the world by U.S. militarism.

In the unipolar world after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the U.S. did as it pleased. It ruled the air, land and seas. With the rise of China and Russia the U.S. does not compete peacefully, nor does it show any desire to. Diplomacy, negotiation and compromise are dirty words to U,S. warmongers, of which there are many.

American Exceptionalism and American Innocence (a book review)

By David William Pear

Roberto Sirvent and Danny Haiphong have explored the albatross of myths, legends, lies and damn lies around America’s neck in their book American Exceptionalism and American Innocence: A People’s History of Fake News—From the Revolutionary War to the “War on Terror.” They look into America’s closet of historical secrets and expose them. They knock down the stuff that is just made up. The authors explain why the US habitually denies its own bad behavior, and projects it onto others.

Over the centuries the US has developed an illusion of grandeur. It imagines itself as indispensable and exceptional, unlike any nation that has ever existed. Exceptionalism means not having to say you are sorry or pay for your mistakes. Being exceptional means you are the law. You are the policeman, the judge, the jury and the executioner.

To enforce its exceptionalism the US has built a mighty military. The price for its grandiose military has been the neglect of the American people. The US is addicted to militarism and violence. From its founding the US was a violent country. It used violence to acquire and occupy the land, and to gain independence from Great Britain. The US maintained that God was on its side, and it was innocence of any wrongdoing. The US just made it up that it was Manifest Destiny that it should become an empire. Americans saw themselves as being on a civilizing mission for God.

The Myth of Manifest Destiny

Movies glorifying and romanticizing the westward expansion of the US were an early theme of motion pictures. One of the first silent movies was a Western produced in 1903: “The Great Train Robbery”. Right from the beginning motion pictures created false narratives and myths.

Manifest Destiny was an expression of white supremacy. A 1915 silent move spectacle was The Birth of a Nation, which falsely recasts the Civil War and the Reconstruction Era. It portrays the South as a victim, depicts blacks as depraved, and the Ku Klux Klan as a heroic white protector of America’s virginity. After featuring the movie in the White House, President Woodrow Wilson said:

“It is like writing history with lightning. And my only regret is that it is all so terribly true.”

Hollywood perpetuates America’s spirit of exceptionalism, often in cahoots with the power elites of the ruling class. Up until the late 1960’s Western movies were a regular theme, which was later adapted to television too. Movies, radio and television were revolutionary forms of entertainment, information, advertising, and propaganda in the 20th century.

 

US Wages War on Freedom of the Press

By David William Pear

November 21, 2019

#FreeMarziehHashemi

 

The FBI abduction of Marzieh Hashemi is another milestone in the US turn to fascism. Marzieh Hashemi is a well-recognized and highly respected journalist and TV anchorwoman for Press TV, which is affiliated with the Islamic Republic of Iran. She was abducted on January 15^th as she was boarding a flight to Denver from St. Louis.

Marzieh was whisked to an unknown location in the vicinity of Washington, DC. The Washington DC area was probably chosen, as Northern Virginia is the site of what is referred to as the “CIA court”, in which so-called national security cases are heard, because the government can be assured of government-friendly juries. In such cases, juries side with the government 99.9% of the time.

Marzieh is being held incommunicado, as this is being written, and she has not been heard from publicly. Nor does her family and friends know her exact location of imprisonment. It took nearly a week before the US government even acknowledged Marzieh’s arrest.

All the US government finally said was that Marzieh is being held as a “material witness” to an unspecified crime. Though not charged with any crime, Marzieh is being treated worse than a criminal. Her human, civil and religious rights have been violated. Reportedly all she has been able to eat is crackers, because the government is not respecting her religious dietary requirements.

Yemen is Another US Dirty War

 

by David W. Pear

On October 31^st the US Secretary of Defense James N. Mattis and the US Secretary of State Michael R. Pompeo called for a cease fire and a negotiated settlement to the war against Yemen. This was more than an obvious publicity stunt.  Was it a cruel Halloween prank?

It is the US that is leading from behind the Saudi and other Gulf Cooperative Council countries’ war against Yemen. The GCC front countries for the US are the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), United Arab Emirates (UAE), Bahrain, Kuwait, and Qatar. The KSA and Qatar are embroiled in a feud. Oman has opted out of the war for now. Non-GCC countries Egypt, Morocco, Jordan, Sudan, Djibouti, Eritrea and Somalia are also contributing to the massacre of the people of Yemen.

The US has recruited the usual suspects of non-state actors, Blackwater mercenaries (rebranded Academi), Daesh, and al Qaeda to terrorize Yeminis on the ground, while Saudi pilots pound them with 2000-pound bombs. The Saudi coalition pilots purposely target school buses, villages, markets and hospitals with precision guided bombs.

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Making sense of the devil: The US has so many resources in all areas of politico-military influence (including hybrid power, i.e., various forms of propaganda), that it can easily confuse the innocent bystander. Enjoying a master architecture of hypocrisy, the US can often try to have it both ways. For example, this video of a Saudi atrocity is being documented and distributed by the VOA, a US government agency! The Devil selling crosses, as they say.

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The United Nations [its mission and inpartiality weakened and hollowed out by decades of attacks and manipulation by the United States and its accomplices] is now just a US lapdog that gives the US and Saudi coalition a fig leaf of legality for the genocide in Yemen. The UN has authorized a one-sided arms embargo against Yemen, which the US and Saudis have turned into a total blockade of food, water, and humanitarian supplies. The blockade is keeping vital supplies from the Yemeni civilians, which are desperately needed by them to sustain life.

The UN continues the façade that the “internationally recognized legitimate government” of Yemen is Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi. His term as an interim president in Yemen expired in 2014. He illegally extended his term for one year, and then he was driven out of office by the Yemeni people. The people had had enough of Hadi’s corruption, catering to the International Monetary Fund, austerity and the privatization of state enterprises at fire sale prices.

The US-Led Genocide and Destruction of Yemen

[Photo: WhatsuPic, “Expanded War, Hunger, Disease, Death in Yemen. No Big Deal to US”.]

By David William Pear

October 12, 2018

 

“Only God can save our children”, say Yemeni fathers and mothers as they can do nothing but watch their children die, try to comfort them in their final agonizing hours, and pray for God to spare them from death. The fathers and mothers watch and pray, as one by another their children die from cholera, dehydration and starvation.

Where is God? He cannot get through the total US blockade of Yemen to save the children. A cholera epidemic is a man-made disaster. Since 2015 the cholera epidemic has been spread by biological warfare against Yemen. US bombs dropped by Saudi pilots destroyed Yemen’s public water and sewage systems. The parts, chemicals and fuel to operate Yemen’s water purification and sewage plants are blockaded. Potable water, cholera vaccine, and even individual water purification tablets cannot get in. The resulting cholera epidemic was predictable.

The sewage from non-working treatment plants overflows into streams that run onto agricultural land, thus contaminating vegetables before they go to market. Sewage flows into the cities, residential areas and the refugee camps. Flies swarm over the sewage and spread cholera everywhere. The International Committee of the Red Cross, the Red Crescent, and Doctors Without Borders; hospitals, clinics and disaster relief organizations, and human rights workers have been deliberately bombed.

The US dominated United Nations adds a fig leaf of legality to the blockade, and a one-sided weapons embargo against Yemen. To ask why there is no UN arms embargo against Saudi Arabia is, of course, a rhetorical question.

The UN wrings its hands about a humanitarian crisis, and the worst cholera epidemic in human history. The UN does nothing to stop the US-led Saudi genocide and destruction of Yemen, and it puts out knowingly phony underreported numbers of the civilian deaths.

The former US ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley threw a temper tantrum when the UN dared to even voice mild criticism against the US, when it moved its embassy to Jerusalem. She spoke of the UN “disrespecting” the US, and she threatened financial retaliation against the UN and countries that voted contrary to US wishes. The UN is not an honest broker, because it is dominated and fears the US displeasure.

President Donald Trump cut funding to humanitarian UN agencies, did not try to stop Israel from gunning down thousands of unarmed Palestinians, withdrew the US from the UN Human Rights Council, and thumbed his nose at the UN International Court of Justice. Trump’s national security adviser John Bolton said that the US plans on withdrawing from more treaties that are the foundation of international law.

In other words, Bolton is confirming that the US is a rouge state; it makes a mockery of the United Nations. From the beginning of the Bush-era War on Terror, the US showed contempt for the Geneva Conventions. Obama too violated customary international law with impunity. Obama assassinated US citizens, droned Afghan wedding parties and funerals, and destroyed Libya. He invaded Syria in an illegal war of aggression. Obama was really good at killing. He allegedly said so himself.

Purposely causing a cholera epidemic is biological warfare. Yemen is not an unprecedented case of US use of biological-chemical warfare. During the 1950’s Korean War the US was accused convincingly of biological warfare. In the Vietnam-American War the US sprayed millions of gallons of Agent Orange, which poisoned the soil, rivers and people. Agent Orange, 50 years later is still “causing miscarriages, skin diseases, cancers, birth defects, and congenital malformations”.

The US contaminated Bosnia, Afghanistan, and the Middle East with so-called depleted uranium. Depleted uranium can cause cancer, birth defects, and as yet other unknown health effects. The US knows it. It has put out a health warning to US Iraq war veterans.

In 1995, Madeleine Albright was interview by Lesley Stahl on the TV show “60 Minutes”. That interview should live in infamy in a hall of shame for eternity. Stahl asked Albright if the death of over 500,000 Iraqi children caused by US sanctions was “worth it”. Albright’s answer was, “I think this is a very hard choice, but the price–we think the price is worth it.” (Whoever the “we” is, Albright did not elaborate.) It is now known that “we” purposely used biological warfare to kill those 500,000 Iraqi children.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RM0uvgHKZe8

How many more children did Albright, the Bill Clinton administration and “we” continue to kill because “we” thought it was “worth it”? Hundreds of thousands, according to a study of the partially declassified Defense Intelligence Agency document “IRAQ WATER TREATMMENT VULNERABILITIES” [emphasis in original]. The partially declassified document was discovered in 1998 on an official website of the Military Health System. In 2001 the Association of Genocide Scholars released the study referred to above: The Role of “Iraq Water Treatment Vulnerabilities” in Halting One Genocide and Preventing Others.

During the 1991 First Gulf War the US purposely targeted all of the water purification plants and sanitation works in Iraq, which is itself a war crime. The “Iraq Water Treatment Vulnerabilities” document produced by the US Department of Defense and implemented in1991, was continued under President Bill Clinton. Even after Albright’s admission on “60 Minutes” that the US sanctions regime had killed 500,000 Iraqi children, “we” continued the draconian embargo of water purification equipment.

The Department of Defense and Madeleine Albright’s “we” knew that without potable water that the rate of waterborne diseases, such as cholera, would sicken and kill hundreds of thousands of Iraqis. Depriving an entire population of the essentials of life is genocide, and it is a violation of the Geneva Conventions. Degrading of the water supply to knowingly cause epidemics, such as cholera, is biological warfare.

Economic sanctions and trade embargos are barbaric siege warfare against civilian populations. There is no way to pretty them up as surgically targeting a regime or being humanitarian. Now think about the millions of people of Cuba, Iran, Venezuela, Syria, Burma and, Côte d’Ivoire that are suffering under a US embargo today.

The “Iraq Water Treatment Vulnerabilities” document reveals the diabolical intention of a sanctions regime, even when authorized by the UN. It is for these and other reasons that The International Committee of the Red Cross has often raised concerns , including concerns about UN authorized sanctions regimes. Not even the UN has the authority to violate the Geneva Conventions, and the UN oversteps its authority when it does so.

The US has also overstepped the UN’s authorization by imposing a total blockade of Yemen. Just as predictably as in Iraq, children are dying in Yemen from cholera. Tens of thousands of civilians have died from starvation, disease and the lack of medicine. Twenty million human beings are starving to death in a famine caused by the US, and its proxy, the so-called Saudi coalition.

For three years, starting with the Obama administration the US has been passing Saudi Arabia the bombs, ammunition, fuel, and most importantly it is the US military at the command and control center of the war on Yemen. Other war-profiteering countries, such as the UK, EU countries, and Canada have their hands dripping with the blood and cholera infected feces of Yemeni children, too.

 

[Photo: Nora Al-Alwaki, an American citizen killed by Navy SEALs when they raided her Yemeni village on January 29, 2017.]

US Special Forces, Seal Team 6, and the CIA carry out night raids and assignations, such as the one that killed 8 year old Nora, pictured above. She was an American citizen who lived with her grandparents in a Yemeni village.

 

Brett Kavanaugh is a Liar

Brett Kavanaugh is a Liar, a Perjurer and Belongs in Jail Instead of on the Supreme Court

By David William Pear

October 4, 2018

 

Brett Kavanaugh is a pathological liar and in any position of power he is a danger to society. I do not say this lightly, nor am I referring to Kavanaugh’s aberrant behavior that Dr. Christine Baisley Ford and others testified about: the attempted rape, sexual battery, drunkenness, blackouts and aggressions. All of that is important too.

What I am reporting on is the hundreds of times that Kavanaugh lied to Congress, while under oath, about his years in the early 2000’s as President Bush’s White House Staff Secretary. Among other things, one of his responsibilities was to assist Bush nominees for federal judges through the Senate confirmation process. During those confirmations processes, Kavanaugh received thousands of confidential emails, memorandums and talking points stolen from Democratic Senators’ computer servers by Republican Senate staff member Manuel Miranda.

At the time, Manuel Miranda was a staff member for the Republican majority leader, Republican Senator Bill Frist of Tennessee. The stolen confidential emails, memorandum and talking points (the documents) related to Democratic Senators’ strategies for Senate Judiciary Committee hearings on Bush nominations to the federal courts. Those stolen documents have now been made public, and there is no question that Miranda stole them and passed them on to Kavanaugh.

Yet from 2004 to 2006, when Kavanaugh was asked hundreds of time while under oath if he had received the stolen documents he consistently lied and committed perjury. This all occurred during his own contentious three year Senate confirmation hearings as a Bush nominee to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. He did not lie just a few times. He lied hundreds of times, and he lied about it again just a few days ago while being question for Senate confirmation to the US Supreme Court.

Here is the video record of Senator Patrick Leahy pressing Kavanaugh on the Bush-era stolen confidential documents: [Upload YouTube Video Here]

Many of the stolen documents came from Democratic Senator Patrick Leahy’s office. Lisa Graves at the time was the chief counsel for nominations for the ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Below is what Lisa Graves has written for Slate (emphasis added):

“I wrote some of the stolen memos that Brett Kavanaugh lied to the Senate about. He should be impeached, not elevated…..Newly released emails show that while he was working to move through President George W. Bush’s judicial nominees in the early 2000s, Kavanaugh received confidential memos, letters, and talking points of Democratic staffers stolen by GOP Senate aide Manuel Miranda….Kavanaugh should be removed because he was repeatedly asked under oath as part of his 2004 and 2006 confirmation hearings for his position on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit about whether he had received such information from Miranda, and each time he falsely denied it.”

Lisa Graves has also personally appeared for a video interview about Kavanaugh’s lying. Here is what she had to say to Marc Steiner of The Real News Network: [Insert YouTube Video “Kavanaugh Probably Lied Under Oath, But is Still Heading Towards Confirmation”]

Kavanaugh has made these same lies, obfuscations and tried to change the subject hundreds of times, all while under oath, and to the FBI and other federal agents. He told these lies in 2004, 2006 and again during his confirmation process to the Supreme Court in 2018. Lying to Congress and the FBI are serious crimes. They are punishable by large fines and up to 5 years in prison.

Perjury is also an impeachable offense. Not only should Kavanaugh not be confirmed to a lifetime possession on the Supreme Court, but he should be impeached and removed from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.

He should have to forfeit his pension, and be disbarred from the practice of law for the rest of his life.

The problem is that the Republicans have a slim majority in the Senate (51 to 49). Election Day is just a few weeks away on November 6th. Twenty-six of the thirty-five Senators up for re-election are Democrats. That puts a lot of pressure on Senators up for re-election. Democrats would benefit from a delay. So would some Republicans in close races. Senator Jeff Flake (R-AZ) wants a delay. In a tie vote Vice President Pence would cast the tiebreaking vote, so one more Republican is needed to call for a delay. Two Republicans are being closely watched: Senator Susan Collins (R-ME) and Lisa Murkowski (R-AK). If either one or both Collins and Murkowski request a delay, along with Flake, then a vote will not likely happen on Friday. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is pushing hard for that Friday vote.

Senators up for re-election are going to be paying special attention to their constituents’ telephone calls, emails and letters. You can get your Senator’s contact information on the US Senate web page:

https://www.senate.gov/senators/contact

Senator Bernie Sanders wrote a letter on Saturday, September 29th to the Judiciary Committee Chairman Senator Chuck Grassley demanding that a number of “inconsistencies” in Kavanaugh’s record and testimony be investigated fully. Here is the full text of the letter. What follows are some of the issues that Sanders raised for a thorough investigation, [emphasis added]:

“In his previous testimony before Congress, Judge Kavanaugh was asked more than 100 times if he knew about files stolen by Republican staffers from Judiciary Committee Democrats. He said he knew nothing. Emails released as part of these hearings show that these files were regularly shared with Kavanaugh while he was on the White House staff. One of the emails had the subject line “spying.” Was Judge Kavanaugh being truthful with the committee?

• In 2006 Judge Kavanaugh told Congress he did not know anything about the NSA warrantless wiretapping program prior to it being reported by the New York Times. This year an email revealed that while at the White House he might have been involved in some conversations about this program. Was Judge Kavanaugh being truthful with the committee?
• In 2004 Judge Kavanaugh testified the nomination of William Pryor to the 11th Circuit “was not one that I worked on personally.” Documents now contradict that statement. Newly released documents also call into question whether Judge Kavanaugh was truthful that the nomination of Charles Pickering “was not one of the judicial nominees that I was primarily handling.” Was Judge Kavanaugh being truthful with the committee?
• In 2006 Judge Kavanaugh testified, “I was not involved and am not involved in the questions about the rules governing detention of combatants.” New evidence released as part of these confirmation hearing contradicts that assertion. Was Judge Kavanaugh being truthful with the committee?

Additionally, several statements made by Judge Kavanaugh under oath regarding his treatment of women and his use of alcohol appear not to be true.” Amazingly even after the Kavanaugh perjury has made the mainstream media, is being reported extensively by ‘alternative media’ such a Politico, Slate, The Real News Network, Vox and others, there is still a tremendous amount of political pressure to “wrapping up” the FBI investigation as early as Friday.

Dr. Christine Baisley Ford gave convincing testimony of Kavanaugh’s attempted rape of her, and there are substantiating allegations from other women. Kavanaugh’s drunkenness, his bad barroom and frat house behavior, and his most recent bizarre mental and emotional meltdowns during his Senate testimony all call for a thorough investigation.

What little we do know about Kavanaugh raises so many questions that they can only be answered by an extensive investigation that should take months. There are thousands of pages of his prior testimony and other documents that need careful scrutiny. Witnesses need vetting and some should be asked to take a polygraph test. Kavanaugh for one should take a polygraph test.

The surface of Kavanaugh’s criminal behavior has just been scratched. There is a lot more that should come out, and it is just below the surface. Let’s keep digging.

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[This article was first published by The Greanville Post. It is the original work of David William Pear. There is no copyright, and it is available free to any publication in the world that wants to publish it in any language. Editing is permitted for spelling errors, grammatical errors, to fit the space of the publication or any other purpose except to change the intended meaning of the article. You may change the title. You may use the suggested graphics, your own or none. Please share and distribute widely. Thank you. My contact email is dwpear521@gmail.com].

Andre Vltchek’s “Revolutionary Optimism, Western Nihilism”

(A Book Review)

By David William Pear, August 6, 2018

 

A Book Review and Commentary on Andre Vltchek’s new book: “Revolutionary Optimism, Western Nihilism”, by David William Pear

How can I write a review of Andre Vltchek’s new book Revolutionary Optimism, Western Nihilism? I am damned if I do, and damned if I don’t. Andre himself says that:

“There is nothing to add to the writing of maverick revolutionary philosophers. Hands off their work! Let them speak! Editions without prefaces and introductions, please; no footnotes! The greatest works of philosophy were written with heart, blood and passion! No interpretation is needed. If allowed to read them, even a child can understand.”.

He is speaking about the works of other great revolutionary writers, not himself. I think Andre is a great revolutionary writer, too. But, who am I to speak for Andre? Read his great works for yourself, and you will understand them without my introduction. You will find that Andre has the guts to put himself out there, let it all hang out, and expose his vulnerabilities as well as his wisdom…

But I am damned if I don’t write a book review for Andre’s book, because I told him I would give it a try. I don’t want to let him down. This is the best I can do. So, you can stop reading right here if you wish, and just buy Andre’s book and let him speak to you for himself.

Our struggling revolutionary artists whom still speak and write the truth need all the support we can give them. That goes for the alternative media site you are reading this on. We are in a war, an information and propaganda war. Truth tellers are an endangered species. The Empire is trying to shut them up and shut them down.

IRAN: US Regime Change Project is Immoral and Illegal

A symbol of America’s contempt for international law.

[Photo from the sleuthjournal.com]

By David William Pear

“We’re going to take out seven countries in five years, starting with Iraq, and then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and, finishing off, Iran.”
-US General Wesley Clark, former Supreme Commander of NATO

 

Contemptuous of international law, the US makes no secret of its plots to overthrow the leaders of internationally recognized governments that reject the neoliberal New World Order. Iran is at the top of the US enemies list. The US has been at it since the 1979 Iran Revolution, when the Iranian people overthrew the US’s “our boy”, the Shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. The Shah had become the US’s “our boy” as CIA agent Kermit Roosevelt referred to him in 1953, when President Dwight D. Eisenhower overthrew the popular democratically elected Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh. Overthrowing governments is illegal according to US law and international law. It is also immoral if one believes in democracy, self-determination, and the sovereignty of nations, respect for human life, and the rule of law.

The Weaponization of Human Rights

The crushing economic sanctions now unilaterally imposed by the US on Iran are causing massive suffering and the deaths of thousands of Iranian civilians. The US response is glee that the sanctions are “working”. This is nothing short of barbaric siege warfare to starve the Iranians out. Under international law the Iran sanctions may be illegal, since they are not authorized by the United Nations. The collective punishment of economic warfare is immoral, economic terrorism and a weapon of mass destruction. Secondary sanctions that impose sanctions on non-US and non-Iranian financial institutions that transact business with Iran amounts to blackmail, especially since it is the US that violated the Iran Nuclear Deal, and not Iran.

Weaponizing human rights is a most cynical tool of US imperialism, especially since the US has a very poor record on human rights at home. While holding itself out in biblical terms as a “city on a hill” (Matthew 5:14-16), the US is not a model of John Winthrop’s Christian Charity, as politicians such as Ronald Reagan have opined. The US is the only developed country that does not consider healthcare a universal human right, and it has been steadily cutting FDR’s New Deal social benefits, while the rich get richer from tax cuts. In 2008 the US bailed out the banks, while millions of homeowners lost their homes. Over 20% of US children live in poverty. Basic human services that are the responsibility of government have been turned into cash machines by privatizing.

George H. W. Bush’s New World Order neoliberals and neocons despise any country that closes its doors to US corporate exploitation, and instead uses its own natural resources for the benefit of its own people. The US uses “human rights” to attack countries such as Venezuela, Libya, and Iran that consider economic freedom from need a human right.

One of the main reasons that Iran’s moderate President Hassan Rouhani negotiated the Iran Nuclear Deal was so that the lifting of UN Security Council economic sanctions would give Iran the much needed ability to increase social spending for the Iranian people. Instead, the imposition of even harsher US unilateral sanctions by the Trump neocon stacked administration has dashed Rouhani’s hopes, and makes the economic situation direr for the Iranian people. The nefarious purpose of sanctions is to make the Iranian people suffer so that they will become disgruntled and rebellious.

The Foundation for the Defense of Democracy (FDD) is a right wing neocon funded and infested think thank that has been particular rapacious in attacking Iran. FDD executive director Mark Dubowitz has been previously hailed as “the architect of many of the Iran sanctions”, as reported by The Nation magazine, How the Anti-Iran Lobby Machine Dominates Capitol Hill.

As Robert Fantina has written in Counterpunch, the Foundation for the Defense of Democracy is intensively lobbying for the US to sanction Iran’s “The Execution of Imam Khomeini’s Order” (EIKO). One of EIKO’s subsidiaries is the Barakat Foundation, which is a charitable foundation that is concerned with social programs for the people. The Ayatollah Khomeini has described it by saying,

“I’m concerned about solving problems of the deprived classes of the society. For instance, solve problems of 1000 villages completely. How good would it be if 1000 points of the country are solved or 1000 schools are built in the country.”… The Execution of Imam Khomeini’s Order.

Targeting human rights organization to “promote human rights” is a cruel oxymoron. It is weaponizing human rights at its worst, and attacks the most vulnerable people in a society.

Liberals often consider economic sanctions an acceptable, even humane, alternative to force. Nothing could be further from the truth, and progressive people everywhere need to recognize it. Economic sanctions are violence. The Geneva Conventions recognize that siege warfare and collective punishment against civilians are war crimes. How could something that is illegal in wartime be legal in peacetime? The International Committee of the Red Cross has often raised concerns about economic sanctions, including UN authorized economic sanctions.

North Korea Can Never Trust the U.S.A.

By David William Pear

 

The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (i.e. North Korea) cannot trust the United States of America. The US does not keep its promises, honor its treaties and obey international laws. This is not opinion; it is the history of the US, beginning with the many broken promises and treaties with the Native Americans.

The US has broken promises and treaties in every corner of the globe. The US ignores the UN Charter, which is a treaty. It flouts international law, which is based on treaties. The US habitually starts asymmetrical wars, which is aggression and the worst of all war crimes. It destroys nations, leaving millions of people dead, dying, and in misery.

Libya was once a prosperous nation. Muammar Gaddafi was an eccentric dictator, but he had a love for Libya and its people. Under Gaddafi the people enjoyed a high standard of living, economic freedom, and gender equality. Education and medical care were free. Having a home and food was considered a human right. Libya’s oil wealth benefited the people.

Gaddafi was attacked and vilified by the US for decades. After the attacks on the US of September 11, 2001 Gaddafi cooperated with the US in the War on Terror. That is not to say that the War on Terror was a good thing, but Gaddafi was being US friendly. In further efforts to establish friendly relations with the US, Gaddafi denuclearized in 2003. President George W. Bush praised Libya for denuclearizing and suggested Libya as a model for North Korea. In 2011 President Obama wantonly destroyed Libya and conspired in Gaddafi’s assassination. Obama’s Secretary of State gloated afterwards “we came, we saw, he died…ha,ha,ha”.

Even if North Korea completely and forever denuclearizes Kim Jong-un can never be assured that one day the US won’t try to do the same thing to North Korea that it did to Libya. North Korea can never put its trust in the US, because the US has proved itself untrustworthy over and over again.

Iraq did not have a nuclear weapons program since the early 1990’s. After the First Gulf War in 1991, Saddam Hussein cooperated with the United Nations and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors right up until the US invasion in 2003. The weapons inspectors advised against the invasion and recommended that the inspections be continued. President George W. Bush invaded anyway based on known lies that Saddam Hussein had a nuclear weapons program. After the invasion and destruction of Iraq, 1625 weapons inspectors spent the next 2 years searching Iraq and found no weapons of mass destruction.

The US continues to accuse Iran of having a nuclear weapons program even though the IAEA certifies that it doesn’t, and all 16 US intelligence agencies have said that Iran has not had an active nuclear weapons program since 2003. Facts do not matter to the US. It creates its own reality. Based on its own unreality, the US can invent any reason it wants to impose sanctions and invade asymmetrical countries.

Iraq denuclearized, Libya denuclearized and Iran denuclearized. The US invaded Iraq based on the unreality of the existence of nuclear weapons. Libya was invaded based on the invented unreality that the invasion was for human rights. The US has imposed sanctions on Venezuela because it does not consider it “democratic enough”. The US has imposed sanction against Russia because of its alleged invasion of Ukraine, after a US instigated putsch.

On U.S. Imperialism, Capitalism and Fascism

By David William Pear

If you want to know the untold history of the U.S.A., then a good place to start is with the history of US imperialism in Asia from the mid-19^th century until today. Not only will that reveal the history of the criminality of US foreign policy, but it will also reveal the true nature of U.S. capitalism, imperialism, fascism and U.S. wars of aggression: past, present and future.

For centuries the U.S. has preached that it believes in democracy, freedom and self-determination, but its actions towards other countries speak louder than words. Internationally the U.S. is a predator and a bully. It subjugates small countries, corrupts them by backing right-wing dictators, and enables death squads to commit mass murder of all suspected dissidents. During the First Cold War leftists, anti-colonialists, nationalists and intellectuals were called “communists” and imprisoned, tortured and executed. Now they are called “terrorists”.

The foreign policy interests of the U.S. are to promote the neocolonial interests of U.S. corporations, and to project the financial and military power of the U.S. internationally. If the U.S. cannot bully a head of state into collaborating then it backs a military coup d’etat, stirs up internal violence with divide and conquer strategies, and covertly uses mercenaries to start civil wars. If all else fails it will find a pretext or a false flag to invade and overthrow an unfriendly government.

Because of past disasters in Korea, Vietnam, and Iraq the U.S. is hesitant to commit large numbers of U.S. boots on the ground. Instead it prefers the safety of “boots in the sky” with its domination of air power to bomb helpless countries into submission. If it cannot get a country to submit then it destroys it mercilessly as an example of the price that other countries will pay if they do not go along to get along with the U.S.A. The U.S. never gives up on its quest for control of worldwide capitalism. Any doubters of U.S. persistence need only to look to North Korea, Cuba and Iran.

U.S. foreign policy is the domain of the elites. The public busies itself with domestic issues, just trying to make a living and raise a family. Sometimes the elites of foreign policy let their masks slip to reveal their true nature. When Zbigniew Brzezinski said in 2009 that “today it is infinitely easier to kill a million people than to control a million people” he was not just intellectualizing, as if teaching a Harvard course on political science. Brzezinski was admitting to his personal responsibility for policies that have killed millions of people.

 

[Photo: Brzezinski with First Lady Rosalynn Carter and President Jimmy Carter.
(Image by CSIS: Center for Strategic & International Studies)   Permission   Details   DMCA]

 

It was Brzezinski that advised President Jimmy Carter to destabilize Afghanistan in the 1980’s. At the time Afghanistan’s communist government was modernizing the country, developing its economy, educating its people, and improving the standard of living for millions of Afghans. It was also advancing the rights and opportunities for women, which the U.S. is constantly touting as one of its cherished human rights concerns. It was Brzezinski’s destabilization project that set women’s rights back hundreds of years in Afghanistan. When human rights get in the way of U.S. foreign policy objectives, then human rights lose.

In 1979 Brzezinski advised Carter to secretly authorize the CIA to give financial and military aid to further inflame Islamic fanatic mujahideen that were violently opposed to modernization. When the Soviet Union intervened militarily in support of the threatened Afghan government it was not an invasion. It was the legal response of Russia to a neighboring country that was asking for military aid against foreign backed insurgents. Today we see a similar Russian military assistance program in Syria for similar reasons against very similar villains.

Carter feigned indignation and outrage towards Russia and he put the freeze back into the Cold War. He decried the “invasion as a deliberate effort by a powerful atheistic government to subjugate an independent Islamic people”, and Carter claimed it was a Russian plot to control Afghanistan’s oil. Carter declared a U.S. boycott of the 1980 Moscow-hosted Olympics to punish Russia, and by doing so he dashed the dreams of U.S. athletes that had been training for 4 years in preparation for the Olympic Games. A good time was had by all in Moscow without the U.S. participation. U.S. athletes were sacrificed as pawns in Brzezinski’s game of the Grand Chessboard. It is a blood soaked chessboard where the masters see flesh and blood people as objects to be toyed with.

What Brzezinski and Carter did was to set a trap that the Soviets fell into when they sent their military into Afghanistan. The trap had been laid before the Russian “invasion”, and not afterwards as Brzezinski would brag years later in a 1998 interview with Le Nouvel Observateur:

“Brzezinski: Yes. According to the official version of history, CIA aid to the Mujahiddin began during 1980, that is to say, after the Soviet army invaded Afghanistan on December 24, 1979. But the reality, closely guarded until now, is completely otherwise: Indeed, it was July 3, 1979 that President Carter signed the first directive for secret aid to the opponents of the pro-Soviet regime in Kabul. And that very day, I wrote a note to the president in which I explained to him that in my opinion this aid was going to induce a Soviet military intervention.”

Carter and Brzezinski were overjoyed that the U.S. would then have the sweet revenge of giving Russia a bloody Vietnam experience. Carter and Brzezinski gave Afghanistan a Vietnam experience too, in which millions of people were destroyed.

Once events in Afghanistan were set into motion, then Carter and Brzezinski added gasoline to the inflamed Islamic fanatics with billions of dollars in U.S. military support funneled through Pakistan. Thousands of mercenaries from Arab countries poured into Afghanistan to join the fight and get paid too. They were called “Afghan-Arabs”. The Brzezinski-Carter scheme would be continued under President Reagan and led to the destruction of Afghanistan, the re-subjugation of Afghan women, and millions of Afghan civilian victims of war. Afghanistan never recovered but from its ashes rose up the Taliban and al Qaeda. The mysteries surrounding the attacks on the U.S. of September 11^th 2001 are unresolved. Regardless of whodunit the attacks of 9/11 would be used as justification by President W. Bush to launch another invasion of Afghanistan.

Brzezinski’s egotism to show how smart he thought he was is the smoking gun of George Orwell’s famous quote:

“He who controls the past controls the future. He who controls the present controls the past.”

For decades the U.S. pretended that the false narrative of a Soviet invasion of Afghanistan was reality. The U.S. glorified the mujahideen as freedom fighters, when actually they were Islamic fanatics and mercenary proxies used by the U.S. and its coconspirators. The U.S. and the Saudis funded a heavily armed brand of Islamic terrorism that the U.S. though that it could control, ignore or kill off once it was no longer needed.

 

The Victims in Gaza and Douma

 

By David William Pear

In their book Manufacturing Consent Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky distinguished between two kinds of victims: the worthy victims and the unworthy victims. The “worthy victims” are the victims (real and alleged) of leaders on the U.S. enemies list, such as Bashar al-Assad. The “unworthy victims” are those of the U.S. and its client states, such as Israel and Saudi Arabia.

The U.S. led cabal calling itself the “international community” is outraged when there are worthy victims. For example the U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Nikki Haley holds up pictures of dead Syrian babies for the world to see. Worthy victims are granted human rights, and Assad deserves our outrage.

Unworthy victims for example are the 50,000 Yemeni children who have died of starvation because of Saudi Arabia’s total blockade of Yemen, including blockading food, water and medicine. Unworthy victims are blamed for being victims and ignored by the international community and the mainstream media. Unworthy victims have no human rights. Yemen is a humanitarian disaster that is ignored, because Saudi Arabia is a friend of the U.S.A.

There is no outrage from the U.S. when Saudi Arabia’s Mohammad bin Salman (MsB) is dropping U.S. manufactured bombs from U.S. manufactured airplanes and indiscriminately slaughtering Yemeni men, women and children. MsB is the new darling of the neocons, and Thomas Friedman writes words of praise as if it is really cool to be an absolute monarch in the 21^st century. The late Robert Parry described Friedman and the neocons as being “disconnected from reality”.

For weeks now, tens of thousands of Gazans have been legally protesting for their right to return to their homes in Palestine. There is no outrage when Netanyahu and his regime orders Israeli soldiers to massacre them. Hundreds of Palestinians were gunned down on Land Day and during demonstrations for the Right to Return. Netanyahu has the full support of the U.S. so there is no outrage and he will not pay for his crimes. Netanyahu has every reason to believe that the U.S. will protect him, as the U.S. has many times in the past. Nikki Haley is not going to hold up pictures of dead Palestinian children. Instead she will shield Netanyahu from criticism, and accuse his critics of being anti-Semitic. Netanyahu’s victims are unworthy victims.

The Palestinians that were massacred in Gaza were inside the Israeli enclosure that has been their prison for over a decade. They were on Palestinian land. They presented no danger to the Israeli soldiers that were on the Israeli side of the barricade. The soldiers had telescopic sights on their rifles and fired from a distance of over 100 yards away. Hundreds of Palestinians were shot with illegal fragmentation bullets that have been banned by the 1899 Hague Declaration. Netanyahu’s orders were illegal and the soldiers committed war crimes by following illegal orders. The Nuremberg Trials of Nazis after World War Two declared that “just following orders” is not a defense against war crimes.

Two million Palestinian refugees have been trapped in Gaza for over a decade. Gaza has been turned into an inhumane open-air concentration camp. The people in Gaza have been cut off from the outside world. They are living under a blockade and Israel controls everything and anything that goes in or out of the Gaza Strip. What goes in is barely enough food for Gazans to survive. Netanyahu jokes that he has put Gaza on a diet. The sick, wounded and dying are not allowed to get out of Gaza to go to a hospital for medical treatment without Israeli permission. Netanyahu rarely gives that permission. Netanyahu’s victims are unworthy victims and are blamed for being victims.

In 2006 Israel tightened the noose around Gaza’s neck by imposing a total blockade by air, land and sea of Palestinians living in Gaza. The supposed crime for which Israel imposed an illegal collective punishment on Gazans is that they democratically elected the wrong government, against Israel’s wishes. Instead of electing the Israeli controlled Palestinian National Liberation Movement, known as Fatah, Gazans elected the Islamic Resistance Movement, known as Hamas. Israel used to consider Fatah a terrorist organization, but now it does not because they are collaborators. Instead Israel, which secretly backed the formation of Hamas in a divide and conquer strategy, now considers Hamas a terrorist organization. Netanyahu falsely accuses that the demonstrators are Hamas terrorists.

Netanyahu has killed and wounded journalist reporting from Gaza. They are unworthy victims so there is no outcry from the mainstream media about killing journalists. The mainstream media repeatedly accuses Russia’s president Vladimir Putin of (allegedly) killing journalists, and there is an outcry because they are worthy victims. The U.S. has imposed economic sanctions on Russia. Israel gets billions of dollars in U.S. financial aid every year, regardless of what crimes Netanyahu commits. Putin’s supposed crimes are that Russia has given aid to the breakaway region of Ukraine after a U.S. sponsored fascist regime change in Kiev. Putin is accused of invading Crimea when the Crimeans voted in a referendum to rejoin their historical attachment to Russia. Putin is vilified for (allegedly) meddling in U.S. politics. Netanyahu gets standing ovations from the U.S. Congress.

Netanyahu has been illegally occupying the West Bank of Palestine, and he is building illegal Israeli settlements there. Netanyahu thumbs his nose at international law. The U.S. has vetoed 43 U.N. resolutions against Israel. Nikki Haley says that Putin is an obstructionist for vetoing a U.N. resolution condemning Assad for an alleged chemical weapons attack, without any evidence. The U.S. tried to block an investigation by the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) of the alleged chemical weapon attack site in Syria. The OPCW says it will investigate anyway.

President Trump’s order to attack Syria based on an alleged use of chemical weapons is a violation of international law. The U.S. is not the international policeman, judge and executioner. Article 2, section 4 of the U.N. Charter states:

“All Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the United Nations.”

The only legal uses of force according to the U.N. Charter are for self-defense and when force is authorized by the U.N. Security Council. Violations of the U.N. Charter are also a violation of the U.S. Constitution under Article VI which states:

“…all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land.”

The U.N. Charter is a treaty that was signed by the President of the United States and ratified by the U.S. Senate. Under the U.S. Constitution the U.N. Charter is the “supreme law of the land” in the U.S., as well as internationally.

U.S. Humiliates South Korea, Threatens North Korea

 

By David William Pear

Fearing that peace might break out with the two Koreas talking to each other, Washington instructed South Korean President Moon Jae-in to keep the message about anything but peace. It is not just Trump. A former top official for the Obama administration warned Moon that South Korea was not going to get anywhere with the North Koreans unless they have the “US behind them”. Humiliating, that is like saying that Moon’s “button” is not as big as Kim’s. The metaphor is exactly how the Washington elite see South Korea: as Washington’s obedient eunuch. The official went on to say, “If South Koreans are viewed as running off the leash, it will exacerbate tension within the alliance”. Running off the leash! Now more humiliation, is South Korea a US poodle? Instead President Moon Jae-in is showing that he has teeth, and that South Koreans want their country back from US humiliating domination.

During the talks it was agreed for North Korea to participate in the Winter Olympics in February. The two countries will even march together under a common flag, and future talks between the two are planned to reduce tension. Trump continues to bluster, while the two Koreas have “engaged in the most substantive direct talks in years”. Neocons such as John Bolton are outraged that North Korea has proven once again that it is willing to come to the negotiation table. Bolton says it is a dirty trick and that North Korea is “taking advantage of a weak South Korean government”, adding more insulting humiliation. To Washington, South Korea talking peace is weak, running off the leash and going it alone without its US master. The North using the peace option is seen as a provocation and propaganda that Washington will not tolerate. In retaliation the US sent more nukes to Guam, and put the state of Hawaii on a full alert that a “ballistic missile was inbound“. The nukes outbound to Guam are real; the ones inbound to Hawaii were fake, just like the ability of the billion dollar THAADS to shoot them down. Too conveniently the Hawaii false alarm comes just as the US and its vassals are readying for what the US plots to be a show of solidarity and unity on killer sanctions against North Korea. The US wants its chorus to perform the tragedy of telling North Korea to obey or watch 500,000 of their children die. As Madeleine Albright said about Iraq’s 500,000 dead children from US sanctions, “the price is worth it“. The US does not think the price of diplomacy is worth it though.

The US continues to block efforts at diplomacy, and express its contempt for South Korea’s elected President Moon Jae-in. He was elected on a peace platform by the South Korean people. Moon’s predecessor Park Geun-hye sang from the US hymnbook until she got caught with her hand in the cookie jar. In 2017 the South Korean people went to the street and demanded the granddaughter of former dictator Park Chung Hee be impeached, and now she is in prison. Peace is not anything that Washington’s plutocrats want to hear, although the South Korean people like the sound of it, and elected Moon their president by a wide margin. The self-interests in Washington preferred the corrupt warmonger Park. She carried the US’s tune with perfect pitch, even (allegedly) conspired to assassinate the North’s Kim Jong-Un. The message of the humiliation from US apparatchiks is that if Moon does not change his tune the US will try to undermine South Korea’s democracy with a regime change project might be in his future. The US habitually meddles in other’s elections, and wants to keep tensions high on the Korean peninsula, keep the South Koreans in line, make North Korea a boogeyman, frighten the American people, station 30,000 US troops in South Korea with wartime operational control, buy more multi-billion dollar THAADS from Lockheed Martin, and divide the Korean people. Even at the risks of a nuclear war, which the US proposes making easier.

The establishment nearly went to war with North Korea in 1994 until Bill Clinton negotiated peace. The neocons in Washington and the mainstream media keep saying that North Korea refused to come to the negotiating table. Clinton’s decision to use diplomacy instead of threats proved the warmongers wrong again. It was the US all along that refused to talk, preferring belligerence and threats just as it does now. Once Clinton showed a willingness to bargain, then a nuclear deal was struck. The deal was called the Agreed Framework. What North Korea wanted then for it to suspend its nuclear program was for the US to halt the massive military exercises on North Korea’s border, a non-aggression guarantee, compensation for abandoning its needed electric producing nuclear reactors, and relations with the US. Now the situation with North Korea is back to where it was in 1994. George W. Bush reversed the path of peace when he came into the White House. In 2001 he tore up the Agreed Framework, put North Korea on the Axis of Evil list in 2002, invaded Iraq in 2003, and hanged Saddam Hussein in 2006. Very predictably North Korea resumed its nuclear program for self-defense against a paranoid and unpredictable USA that sees enemies to attack under every bed.