Category Archives: Anti-Imperialism/Foreign Policy

DRESDEN WAS *NOT* DA BOMB 1

bombergate.jpg

“Those always classy Antifa Femen, here nakedly endorsing genocide.”
– Andy Nowicki

Today seems to be quite the day for anniversaries! Not only is this day, the 13th of February 2020, the half-century anniversary of Black Sabbath’s self-titled album—and, by extension, the whole heavy metal genre—it’s also the 75th anniversary of the bombing of Dresden, one of the least salutary acts in the Conflict Without Heroes otherwise known as World War II (or “the good war” by those with  a blind belief in the victors who wrote the history books). With the latter in mind, here’s a resharable repost of a searing ‘n’ savage 2016 piece by Affirmative Right co-editor and permazucked Facebook thoughtcriminal Andy Nowicki, castigating the celebrators of said civilian conflagration. Enjoy!

~MRDA~

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It’s Time to Bring the War Home Again Reply

by • Anti-Imperialism/Foreign Policy • Tags:

By Nicky Reid aka Comrade Hermit

Exile in Happy Valley

As the dust settles on Donald Trump’s latest high octane game of chicken with the Islamic Republic, an eerie calm seems to have risen like fog from Soleimani’s grave to take its place. But while the whole world exhales, war nerds like myself struggle like David Carradine to find the loop to loosen the belt around our throats. That’s because deep down in our wonky ill-nourished guts we know that this shit is far from over.

Unlike Trump’s usual foreign policy impulses, that seem to be governed more by techno-Tourette’s syndrome and penile insecurity than anything resembling a sane strategy, there is a very sick method to the madness when it comes to his dance with Iran, and that’s because the clumsy footed fuck is dutifully following the same choreography as George W. Bush. The choreography of slow consistent escalation that can only end in the most devastating war the world has seen since the fall of Germany’s Third Reich and the rise of Uncle Sam’s Fourth. Trump may be a pathologically unbalanced wild card on every issue from abortion to bathroom etiquette, but he still takes his marching orders from the same Zionist piggy bank as the neocons he won 2016 mocking.

Every step Trump has taken since entering the topographic maze of Pennsylvania Avenue has been tailor made to provoke Iran into the genre of open warfare they have masterfully avoided since their Reagan era bloodbath with Trump’s Middle Eastern counterpart Saddam Hussein. The violation of the Nuclear Deal. The escalation of the Shia genocide in Yemen. The recognition of colonial Jerusalem. The build up of troops to fight our own former proxies in neighboring Iraq. The Gulf of Tonkin games in the Strait of Hormuz. And now the calculated cold blooded murder of Iran’s greatest strategist, the man who designed the Islamic Republic’s cagey Fourth Generation foreign policy which has made a fantastic fool of the nation’s most fearsome foes.

Qassem Soleimani died on his way to peace talks with his Saudi adversaries that Trump himself encouraged. He was shot down in the most chickenshit cowardly ambush our government has thrown since J. Edna plied John Dillinger to the Biograph Theater with a whore in red. There is no going back from this one, kiddies. The dye is cast. The only question left worth asking now is what do we, the few proud anti-imperialists living in the belly of the beast, do about it? How do we prevent World War 3?

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US officials connected to Israel lobby pushed Trump to order Soleimani’s assassination Reply

by • Anti-Imperialism/Foreign Policy • Tags: , ,

Press TV. Listen here.

Senior US officials in President Donald Trump’s administration who are “heavily connected” to the Israel lobby and US arms industry pressured Trump to order the assassination of Iranian Lieutenant General Qassem Soleimani, says a political analyst in Virginia.

“The reason he did that seems to have been due to the influence of his immediate circle of advisers,” said Keith Preston, chief editor of AttacktheSystem.com.

“Vice President Mike Pence, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Secretary of Defense Mark Esper, these were the people who pushed the president towards carrying out the assassination,” Preston told Press TV on Wednesday.

“These are individuals that are heavily connected to the Israeli lobby in the United States; these are individuals that are heavily connected to the American military–industrial complex, which profits heavily from American sales of armaments to Israel and Saudi Arabia,” Preston added.

“More and more, the fingerprints of Israel, and to some degree Saudi Arabia, are on this particular action,” he added.

The US military carried out an airstrike on the direction of Trump at Baghdad’s international airport last Friday, assassinating Soleimani and the second-in-command of Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Units (PMU), Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, as well as eight other companions.

Early on Wednesday, Iran responded to the assassination, striking the American airbase of Ain al-Assad in Anbar province in western Iraq and another in Erbil, the capital of Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdistan region.

The Trump administration claims it carried out the assassination to avert an “imminent attack,” which is being faced with growing suspicion and skepticism in the US.

Dozens of countries attending a UN Security Council meeting on Thursday condemned the Trump administration for killing Soleimani, the Middle East’s most prominent anti-terror commander.

A USA Today/Ipsos poll released Thursday found that Americans, by 55%-24%, said they believe the killing of General Soleimani has made the United States less safe, rejecting a fundamental argument the Trump administration has made that the assassination made the US safer.

The poll also found that a majority of those surveyed, by 52%-34%,  called Trump’s behavior with Iran “reckless.”

Similarly, a Reuters/Ipsos polling released on Tuesday found that 53 percent of adults in the US disapprove of Trump’s handling of Iran, which is an increase of about 9 percentage points from a similar poll that ran in the middle of December.

The US House of Representatives passed a resolution on Thursday to stop Trump from further military action against Iran, rebuking the president days after he ordered the killing of Soleimani and escalated tensions in the region.

If passed by the House and Senate, the measure does not need Trump’s signature to go into effect.

Soleimani assassination was an act of war, says analyst Reply

by • Anti-Imperialism/Foreign Policy • Tags: , ,

Balkans Post

“An act of assassination carried out against a high-ranking official of another state is an act of war,” said Keith Preston, chief editor of AttacktheSystem.com, in an interview with the Balkans Post.

Here’s the full transcript of the interview:

Balkans Post: The United States assassinated Iran’s top commander, Qassem Soleimani, in Iraq’s Baghdad on January 3. How do you interpret the assassination and what are its implications for the region?

Keith Preston: The assassination of General Soleimani is a very serious matter that has had the effect of significantly escalating the tensions between the United States and Iran. An act of assassination carried out against a high-ranking official of another state is an act of war. The question that remains involves the matter of what the United States was trying to achieve from a strategic perspective by carrying out the assassination. It would appear that the United States is trying to escalate conflict within Iraq, and between Iraq and Iran. The United States does not want a unified Iraq that is friendly toward Iran. Nor does the United States want an Iraq where the Shi’a have significant amounts of influence. Instead, the United States prefers a Sunni-dominated Iraq as was the case during the era of Saddam Hussein. The popular mobilization units that were attacked by the United States were engaged in counterinsurgency operations against ISIS and other Takfiri groups. The United States would prefer that Iraq return to its former state of civil war rather than have a Shi’a-led Iraq that is friendly to Iran, and included within the resistance axis.

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Lawrence Wilkerson on Trump's Iran aggression: same neocon lies, new target Reply

by • Anti-Imperialism/Foreign Policy • Tags: ,

A great interview with Colin Powell’s former chief of staff.

Pushback with Aaron Maté As millions of Iranians mourn the US murder of Qassem Soleimani, ex-Bush administration official Col. Lawrence Wilkerson discuses the parallels between Bush’s war on Iraq and Trump’s campaign against Iran; the history of US shunning diplomacy with Tehran; and how an addiction to war drives US foreign policy. Guest: Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, former chief of staff to Colin Powell. Currently a distinguished professor at the College of William and Mary. Support Pushback at Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/aaronmate Pushback on Twitter: https://twitter.com/pushbackshow Aaron Maté on Twitter: https://twitter.com/aaronjmate

Sympathy For Soleimani Reply

by • Anti-Imperialism/Foreign Policy • Tags: , ,

By Nicky Reid aka Comrade Hermit

Exile in Happy Valley

A preemptive strike, that’s what white people call terrorism, and that’s apparently what transpired this Thursday on the tarmac of the Baghdad International Airport. A preemptive drone strike, ordered by our president, murdered General Qassem Soleimani, Iran’s most important military figure, alongside six others including the commander of Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Unit, a legally recognized part of Iraq’s military. This was not an attack on a military operation. These men were meeting to attend a funeral for victims of another American terrorist attack earlier in the week. This was an act of extreme cowardice. This was a war crime. But most importantly, this was indeed a calculated act of war against two sovereign nations, a week in the making.

The previous Friday, rockets struck an American base in Iraq, killing a single American mercenary. This is a crime that remains unsolved, but the Trump Administration wasted zero time blaming it on Iran via their alleged proxies in the PMU. No evidence given, no evidence required. An American soldier of fortune died in Shia country, which is the greenlight Trump has been looking for to shithouse Iran since Sheldon Adelson payed him to do so in 2016. I suspect that Sheldon’s friends back in occupied Jerusalem may be the ones truly responsible for this convenient attack, but that’s just a hunch from a stalwart anti-Zionist with too much time on her hands. Take it with a grain of salt.

This attack set into motion a procession of tit for tat escalations that ended with the assassination of a man so revered by his people that a response is all but a forgone conclusion whether Iran wants it or not. Their hands are tied. Meanwhile, thousands of American troops prepare to re-flood the scarred battleground of America’s greatest imperial blunder, as the shitheads of American cable news take turns telling facetious horror stories about the extra-judicially murdered Soleimani. If you were dense enough to take these morons at their libel, you would be forced to come to the conclusion that the general was some kind of blood drinking Sith lord. But who was he really, to us and his people?

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The Anarchist Era Collective’s Statement on the Assassination of an Iranian State Terrorist Reply

by • Anti-Imperialism/Foreign Policy • Tags: ,

An interesting statement from an Iranian anarchist group that more or less takes a “pox on all their houses” perspective. Read here.

“Qasem Soleimani has long tormented the people and we congratulate the survivors of his crimes in the Middle East, particularly Syria, Iraq and Yemen. And while we are glad for the death of this war criminal, we declare our strong opposition to the possibility of a state war (between US state terrorism and Iranian state terrorism)

Hours ago, Qasem Soleimani, one of the top military officials of the Iranian government who was responsible for the Middle East, was killed on the direct order of Donald Trump in Baghdad

Qasem Soleimani was a genocidal man that has killed thousands of men, women, and children in the conflicts in Syria, Iraq and Yemen. He lead sieges for Assad and recruited Afghan refugees in Iran, many of them children, to die in the Syrian civil war. This state assassination was carried out by the United States in the obvious interest of Donald Trump’s election and what was done has not been and will not be in the interests of the people in the Middle East

Despite much commotion and controversy made by the Islamic regime over its security and intelligence capabilities, we see that in fact this regime is not capable of maintaining its most important transnational force and Qasem Soleimani was assassinated as soon as the US decided to remove him

On the one hand, the viciousness of the criminal Islamic regime became more apparent and on the other hand, it further showed the corrupt nature of US state terrorism, which does not care about the lives of their own nor those of the people in the Middle East—otherwise these Iranian state terrorists could have been easily hunted down over the years

We reiterate that the contemporary Middle East is shaped by wars, massacres, displacement, and famine because of religious fanatics and terrorists on the one hand and the interference of international capitalists and backers (Eastern and Western Imperialism) on the other

We hope all of these religious terrorists are killed as soon as possible and these murderous state governments will be destroyed so that the people of the Middle East live again in peace and prosperity.”

Iran, Russia, China Countering US Influence in Region: American Analyst Reply

by • Anti-Imperialism/Foreign Policy • Tags: , , ,

TEHRAN (Tasnim) – The joint naval drills of Iran, Russia and China in the Indian Ocean and the Gulf of Oman were aimed at countering US influence in the region, an American political analyst said.

Iran, Russia, China Countering US Influence in Region: American Analyst

“The three countries appear to have as their primary objectives the protection of the security of these routes, and countering the influence of the US in the region,” Keith Preston, the chief editor and director of attackthesystem.com, told Tasnim in an interview.

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Washington Prefers to Continue Its Occupation of Iraq: US Expert 1

by • Anti-Imperialism/Foreign Policy • Tags: , ,

TEHRAN (Tasnim) – An American Middle East expert described the recent US attacks on positions of Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Units as a “clear violation” of the Arab country’s sovereignty, adding that Washington prefers to continue its occupation of Iraq.

Washington Prefers to Continue Its Occupation of Iraq: US Expert

“This (the attack on PMU bases) was a clear violation of Iraq’s sovereignty. However, it isn’t surprising because I would never expect the United States to uphold any of its treaties or agreements with other countries. And Washington has no respect for the sovereignty of other countries because they’re currently maintaining illegal military bases in Syria,” Randi Nord told Tasnim.

She added, “Clearly, Washington is willing to put its own allies and even troops at risk to send a message and continue its occupation of Iraq.” 

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China, Iran, Russia to start military drills in Indian Ocean, Sea of Oman on Friday Reply

by • Anti-Imperialism/Foreign Policy • Tags: , ,

Watch here.

Iran, Russia and China have begun a four-day joint maritime exercise in the Indian Ocean and the Sea of Oman area.

The “Marine Security Belt,” as the event is codenamed, will last until Monday. On Wednesday, Brigadier General Abolfazl Shekarchi, the spokesman for Iranian Armed Forces, said the event was meant to promote the security of international trade in the strategic regions, adding that sharing experience in maritime rescue operations was also to be pursued in the maneuvers.

US call to Japan indicates ‘divergence of interests’ with regard to Iran Reply

by • Anti-Imperialism/Foreign Policy • Tags: ,

Press TV. Listen here.

US President Donald Trump’s phone call to Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to discuss a recent trip by the Iranian president to the East Asian country reveals an escalating “divergence of interests” between Tokyo and Washington in their relationship with Tehran, an American analyst in Virginia says.

“What’s happening here is that the interests of the United States and Japan are diverging quite a bit in terms of their actual foreign policy goals in relationship to Iran,” Keith Preston, chief editor of AttacktheSystem.com, said in a phone interview with Press TV on Sunday.

“Japan is a country that is closely aligned with the United States but also has a much different set of interests when it comes to Iran,” he added. “The primary interest that Japan has when it comes to Iran is that it simply imports petroleum produced in Iran. It would be in the interest of Japan to simply normalize relationship with Iran because it would be beneficial to the Japanese economy.”

Japan’s Kyodo news agency, citing a government source, said on Saturday that Trump had requested the phone call a day after Abe met Iranian President Hassan Rouhani in Tokyo, the first meeting in Japan between leaders of the two countries since 2000 and a major development that could affect a current political stand-off between Iran and the United States.

Trump phones Japan’s Abe to discuss meeting with Iran president: Report

Trump phones Japan’s Abe to discuss meeting with Iran president: ReportJapan’s Kyodo says Trump has talked over phone to PM Abe to discuss his meeting with Iran

“The interaction between President Trump and the prime minister of Japan indicates the ways in which the divergence of interests of the two countries are becoming more manifest and this will probably continue to escalate in the future,” Preston said.

“We will see Japan as well as other countries becoming increasingly critical and skeptical of the position that the United States has taken regarding Iran even if it’s not in their interest,” he added.

Japan heavily relies on energy imports from the Middle East. It used to be a major buyer of Iranian oil before the American sanctions were imposed on Tehran more than a year ago.

Japan’s Abe has sought to help de-escalate tensions between Iran and the US, especially since May this year when several incidents in the Persian Gulf and the Sea of Oman sparked worries about a major military conflict that could impact the safety of energy transport throughout the region.

The premier visited Iran in June in a historic visit that many saw as an attempt to broker a dialogue between Iran and the US.

Iran has dismissed calls for direct talks with the US, saying such negotiations would only be possible if Washington removes all of its illegal sanctions and returns to a landmark nuclear deal signed between the country and world powers in 2015.

US using China, Russia threat to justify its military–industrial complex: Analyst Reply

by • Anti-Imperialism/Foreign Policy • Tags: ,

PressTV. Listen here.

The United States is magnifying and overstating the growing threat posed from China and Russia to justify maintaining the country’s armed interventions and its military–industrial complex, an American analyst in Virginia says.

“We have to understand that the United States regards Russia and China as insurgent nations against US hegemony,” said Keith Preston, chief editor of AttacktheSystem.com.

The US “now sees Russia and China as much greater geopolitical rivals than it did perhaps some years ago,” Preston told Press TV.

“We also have to consider that the United States military–industrial complex is extremely powerful…and it’s clearly necessary for the expenditures that are provided to the military production to be justified somehow,” he added.

Pentagon chief says plans to shift US military focus to Russia, China

Pentagon chief says plans to shift US military focus to Russia, ChinaUS Secretary of Defense Mark Esper says he aims to shift the American military

President Donald Trump’s administration has shifted focus away from the Middle East and toward countering Russia and China, two countries seen increasingly as a threat by Washington.

US Secretary of Defense Mark Esper said on Friday that China and Russia were the Pentagon’s top two priorities, as they pose a challenge to the world order through their rising military power and various tools of influence.

“Both nations are rapidly modernizing their armed forces and expanding their capabilities into the space and cyber domains,” Esper said during an event at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York.

Esper also said that it is important to develop fifth-generation wireless technologies to counter China’s 5G developments.

The US has been implementing an Indo-Pacific strategy, a combination of military and geoeconomic policies in the hopes of containing China’s military expansion in the Pacific and the Indian oceans.

(Happy Christmas) Forever War Is Over: If You Want It…. 3

by • Anti-Imperialism/Foreign Policy • Tags:

By Nicky Reid aka Comrade Hermit

Exile in Happy Valley

So this is Christmas, and what have we done? Another year over, and a new one just begun.

I’ve always loved this season but I’ve never been much for Christmas carols. The new ones are moronic garbage and the old churchy ones tend to depress the shit out of me. Too many ugly memories of being a differently gendered dirty secret in a harsh Catholic climate. Too many old wounds. Some still haven’t healed. Some probably never will.

Since I’m in the confessional kinda mood, I might as well admit that I’ve never been completely sold on the apparent sanctity of The Beatles either. They’re not a bad band, the hype just always felt a touch contrived to me. To be perfectly honest with you, they always struck me as a glorified boy band before they dropped acid, and even then they always sounded second fiddle to The Rolling Stones shambolic heroin blues.

But I’ve always loved John Lennon. I spent about 15 minutes as a teenage hippie between Goth and punk, and John and those fantastic Yippies are the only two relics that remain. I’ve also always loved Yoko. I felt that she brought the best out of John, artistically, politically and spiritually, not to mention being a brilliant provocateur in her own right. For this she was naturally rewarded with the brand of chauvinistic racism and sexism that often creeped just beneath the hippie veneer. And it was John and Yoko who created the one Christmas carol I truly cherish outside of the Nightmare Before Christmas soundtrack.

Happy Xmas (War Is Over) didn’t begin as a hit song. It began as part of an avante garde guerrilla marketing campaign to coincide with John and Yoko’s ’69 Bed-ins. Billboards across 12 major cities worldwide were decorated with the simple message “WAR IS OVER: If you want it- Happy Christmas from John and Yoko.” Two years later this message was set to the traditional English ballad “Skewball” and accompanied by the Harlem Community Choir. It was a deceptively radical message for mainstream radio, even in the peace and love era. In 1971 the war was far from over. There were still millions of bodies to be buried beneath blankets of napalm and Agent Orange. What John and Yoko were conjuring wasn’t a Utopian fantasy but a simple Christmas wish. Happy Christmas, in the name of god, cant this wicked war be over? It can. If you want it. And today, nearly half a century later, that wish seems more cruelly unfulfilled than ever.

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The Real Reasons Tulsi Gabbard Did Not Vote to Impeach Donald Trump 7

by • Anti-Imperialism/Foreign Policy, Culture Wars/Current Controversies, Left and Right • Tags: ,

BINGO!

Sputnik News

” She also introduced a resolution calling on the House to censure Trump on five issues she implied were far more substantial. Those include carrying out wars without congressional approval, illegally “occupying and pillaging” Syria, “recklessly enabling” Turkey to invade Northern Syria and ethnically cleanse Kurds (a U.S. ally), continuing to support Saudi Arabia’s “genocidal war” in Yemen and scrapping nuclear agreements with Iran and Russia, thereby strongly increasing the risk of nuclear proliferation.”

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Globalization is Dead. Long Live the New World Order! Reply

by • Anti-Imperialism/Foreign Policy

The BRICS are merely the Eastern division of the global ruling class and largely consist of backwater provinces in international capitalism. It’s regrettable that so many “tankie” and “far-right” types (who are among the best critics of the Atlanticist-Zionist-Wahhabi axis) buy into the idea that the Eastern provinces are some kind of “alternative.” It was the same way in the 19th century when Marx and Engels were actually praising liberal-capitalist imperialism as progress with European social democrats in the early 20th century assuming a similar stance, and Western leftists in the Cold War period praising god-emperor states as the supposed enlightened future of humanity.

"Liberal CIA" and New Left Foundations, Media, and Activist Groups Reply

by • Anti-Imperialism/Foreign Policy, Culture Wars/Current Controversies, Left and Right

The involvement of the CIA and other state security services in the US Left is a topic that is all-too-frequently ignored. This would certainly explain why so many “left-wing” and “anarchist” groups in the US take positions that amount to anarcho-Democratic Partyism, anarcho-MSNBCism, or anarcho-State Departmentism.

By Joel van der Reijen

NGO Study Center

Image result for congress of cultural freedom

An interesting collection of articles and links.

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