Using the pandemic as a cover to ramp up imperialist aggression against Latin American countries. The Big Oil interests in Trump’s administration apparently wants Venezuela’s petroleum very badly.
Category Archives: Anti-Imperialism/Foreign Policy
Saudis Drop Air Masks Contaminated with COVID-19 Into Yemen 1
By Randi Nord
Geopolitics Alert
Sana’a (GPA) – The Saudi coalition continues weaponizing disease in Yemen — this time capitalizing on the novel coronavirus — in a disturbing and barbaric fashion. Saudi planes have air dropped suspicious face masks and other supplies potentially contaminated with COVID-19 into some of Yemen’s most vulnerable areas.
Speaking to Geopolitics Alert on Monday, Dr. Yosuf Al-Haidari, official spokesman of Yemen’s Ministry of Public Health, said Saudi planes dropped suspicious packages across Yemen’s impoverished Hodeidah province containing face masks and other supplies. Dr. Al-Haidari called the action “strange” and “unrealistic” due to Riyadh’s history of weaponizing disease and destroying Yemen’s healthcare sector through a five-year blockade.
It’s worth mentioning that Hodeidah province is still an active frontline in the war, facing hundreds of Saudi airstrikes and artillery bombardment every day.
Yemen’s Health Ministry urged residents not to touch the masks due to their potential for containing biological weaponry.
It wouldn’t be out of character for Riyadh to contaminate medical supplies with COVID-19 before distributing them to Yemen’s vulnerable populations. In 2017, Yemen suffered a cholera outbreak globally unprecedented in modern times. Over 2 million were infected as of October 2019 with thousands succumbing to the medieval illness.
Despite Calls for Global Ceasefire, Trump Threatens War With Iran Amid COVID-19 3
Medical martial law, a ruling class looting spree, and escalating threats against Iran. The System is on the prowl.
By Andrea Germanos
Common Dreams
As the coronavirus pandemic wreaks havoc on world economies, claims tens of thousands of lives, and cripples healthcare systems worldwide, President Donald Trump took to Twitter Wednesday to threaten to attack Iran and make the country “pay a very heavy price” for any “attack on U.S. troops and/or assets in Iraq.”
The threat comes on the heels of the Trump administration crippling Iran’s access to crucial medial supplies as it battles over 47,000 confirmed cases of COVID-19 by ramping up a sanctions regime on Iran that leading economists said was “feeding the coronavirus epidemic” and progressive organizations and Democrats said must be eased in light of the deadly disease.
“Unsatisfied with a global pandemic and an economic collapse, Trump wants to add a major war into the mix,” Stephen Miles, executive director of Win Without War, said on Twitter in response to Trump’s tweet.
Miles detailed “a series of escalations” the White House has taken with Iran since Trump took office, including his 2018 formal departure from the Iranian nuclear deal.
“It’s impossible to say with certainty right now what is happening on the ground that’s leading to this latest talk of war, but one thing is clear, we did not have to be here,” said Miles. “The President chose to put us on this path and he continues to own the consequences of his actions.”
Will Trump Use COVID-19 to Promote Peace? 1
By Pat Buchanan
The American Conservative
To fight the coronavirus at home, France is removing all military forces from Iraq.
When NATO scaled back its war games in Europe because of the pandemic, Russia reciprocated. Moscow announced it would cancel its war games along NATO’s border.
Nations seem to be recognizing and responding to the grim new geostrategic reality of March 2020: The pandemic is the real enemy of us all, and while we fight it, each in his own national corner, we are in this together.
Never allow a serious crisis to go to waste, said Barack Obama’s chief of staff Rahm Emanuel during the financial crisis.
Emanuel was echoed this month by House Majority Whip Rep. James Clyburn, who called the coronavirus crisis “a tremendous opportunity to restructure things to fit our vision.”
What Clyburn had in mind is what Democrats advanced as their alternative to the $2.2 trillion emergency bill. It was designed to force President Trump either to swallow it whole or to take responsibility for vetoing a critical transfusion of federal funds to keep the economy alive.
Fear and Loathing in Coronaville Volume 2: Panic On the Streets of Tehran Reply
By Nicky Reid aka Comrade Hermit
Exile in Happy Valley
There’s panic on the streets of Bellefonte, panic on the streets of Lancaster, I wonder to myself, could life ever be sane again? Barely two weeks into Pennsylvania’s largely mandatory shutdown and I’m already paraphrasing lyrics from vintage Smiths songs. I can’t deny to anyone, much less myself, that I’m not handling this shit particularly well. Quite frankly, I’m losing my proverbial shit. Flipping out on fucking trashcans and stalking the halls like Jack Torrance in lipstick, dragging an ax called ‘Nervous Breakdown’ behind me. I’d say I’m just a few loose screws away from chopping my family up into three neat stacks and hammering out “All business and no play make Nicky a dull girl” for volume three of this fucking thing. I’m an agoraphobic for shit’s sake. How the Christ did I do this for six years straight without committing a single homicide? I had sixty minutes with my shrink over the goddamn phone this week and she stopped my yammering no more than three times to ask me if I was suicidal. So, yeah, dearest motherfuckers, I’m not exactly doing well. At least I’m not alone.
How the US is weaponizing coronavirus chaos to push regime change Reply
Of course. The coronavirus has provided cover for a power grab by the state, a looting spree by the ruling class, and escalated attacks on rebellious provinces the empire.
Max Blumenthal, Aaron Maté, Anya Parampil, and Ben Norton discuss how the US empire and billionaire oligarchs are weaponizing the Covid-19 pandemic to push regime-change schemes, suffocating sanctions, and disaster capitalist reforms — advancing aggressive geopolitical interests and making huge profits while people are dying.
Indigenous tribes in India battle to save their home from Adani Reply
By Brian Gassey
The Guardian
Australian photographer Brian Cassey visits Hasdeo Arand, one of the largest contiguous stretches of dense forest in central India. The area is rich in biodiversity, containing many threatened species including elephants, leopards and sloth bears. A rash of newly approved mines could further destroy swathes of the Hasdeo Arand forest – and with it the wildlife local villagers depend on for survival.
The Great Purge: The Deformation of the Conservative Movement Reply
I have a chapter in this book where I argued that the postwar conservative movement was nothing other than a front for the military-industrial complex and right-wing of the US ruling class (the Sunbelt industries that were in conflict with the “northeastern establishment”). The other authors were all veterans of the conservative movement who realized that William F. Buckley functioned as a gatekeeper whose purpose was to ensure that the actual US right-wing did not interfere with corporate and CIA objectives, leading to the eventual alliance between the Buckleyites and neoconservatives (right-wing social democrats/Trotskyists). The thrust of my argument is that the anti-“big government” rhetoric of what the paleocons called “Conservativism, Inc.” was never anything more than a ruse whose purpose was to recruit the old bourgeoisie, the petite bourgeoisie, and what Sam Francis calls the “post-bourgeois proletariat” as useful idiots for the Empire. An earlier draft of my contribution is available here. Another article where I make essentially the same argument is available here. As I concluded the latter article:
“Indeed, given the phenomenal success of the ‘conservatives’ in expanding military spending and military interventionism, and their phenomenal failure everything else, one might be tempted to argue that the former was the only issue that ever really mattered all along, and that the grassroots economic, fiscal, social, cultural, religious and patriotic conservatives who comprised the activist base and key voting blocks were, to use an ironic Leninist term, nothing more than “useful idiots.”
A central crucible in the evolution of the American Right has been “the purge”-that is, the expulsion, often in an explicit fashion, of views or individuals deemed outside the bounds of “respectability.” Victims include the John Birch Society, Peter Brimelow, John Derbyshire, Sam Francis, Revilo P. Oliver, Murray Rothbard, foreign-policy makers deemed “isolationists,” immigration reformers, and many others. This essay collection is an attempt to better understand conservative ideology (often euphemized as “timeless principles”) and how it functioned within its historic context and responded to power, shifting conceptions of authority, and societal changes. Through the purges, we can glimpse what conservatism is not, those aspects of itself it has attempted to deny, mask, leave behind, and forget, and the ways in which memories can be reconstructed around new orthodoxies. Contributors include Peter Brimelow, Lee Congdon, John Derbyshire, Samuel T. Francis, Paul Gottfried, James Kalb, Keith Preston, William Regnery, and Richard Spencer.
Motivations of World Leaders – Psychology Behind Politics Reply
My two favorite commentators from the “far-left” are Caleb Maupin and Randi Nord (of Geopolitics Alert). This is some great commentary.
Sanctions Are Genocide 1
The worst tragedy of all is unfolding in Iran right now where an utterly insensitive and a criminally complicit world watches hapless Iranians fight the Covid 19 crisis with both hands tied behind their backs.
For that’s the situation they are in, given the US-led sanctions that are crippling their medical emergency services.
Who is behind Joe Biden? Divisions in the ruling class 1
Some interesting analysis from a Marxist-Leninist perspective which argues that the primary division within the US ruling class is between the 19th-century model entrepreneurial bourgeoisie and the 20th-century managerial bourgeoisie. This is fairly in line with the “managerial revolution” thesis of James Burnham/Samuel Francis and even the critique of global finance offered by Antony Sutton to some degree.
The Art of the Phony Peace Deal Reply
By Nicky Reid aka Comrade Hermit
Exile in Happy Valley
Well, it only took a million years but peace has finally come to Afghanistan, sort of. Or at least so it appears. I’m not one of those hyperventilating liberal opportunists, bursting at the seems to piss on any peace parade led by a dayglo elephant. I have genuinely made an effort to put my best foot forward when Trump has made his occasional isolationist noises. Hell, I’m probably the only one to the left of Sebastian Gorka who cheered as he told the deep state to sit and spin from Helsinki with Putin at his side. But even in the wake of all the reactionary chaos of a flip-flopping Pat Buchanan wannabe, I’ve begun to notice another trend of vain opportunism which makes me feel less than easy about Orange-Man-Bad’s latest peace deal with the Taliban.
You Don’t Need Putin to Undermine American Democracy 1
By Nicky Reid aka Comrade Hermit
Exile in Happy Valley
With the 2020 election heating up, there is a stiff wind methodically weaving through this fierce desert of geriatric combat, something evil and relentless, sending haunted tumbleweeds rocking back and forth over fractured highways. No, I’m not talking about the winds of March, dearest motherfuckers. I’m talking about something far more sinister blowing our way. I’m talking about the return of the invisible Russian meddling menace. If you peer through the blinds, things may appear woefully normal at this glorified nursing home we call a primary, but we have it on the good authority of anonymous intelligence sources and retired sleazeballs like John Brennan and James Comey that it’s anything but, and our corporate media takes them at their word.
The Real Desert Storm: Pan-Arabism and the Fight Against Colonialism Reply
By Troy Southgate
Nowhere News
WHILST I first began writing articles in support of the Arab struggle against Zionist imperialism some thirty-five years ago, I have devoted rather less time to the history of Arab identity in general and hopefully the following essay will help to redress the balance somewhat.
Following the steady collapse of the Ottoman Empire between 1908 and 1922, the increasing presence of Western powers in the Middle East led to the emergence of Arab nationalism and calls for unity in the face of European interference. The idea that Arabs should form a political, cultural, spiritual and linguistic union stretching from the Atlantico-Mediterranean coastline of North Africa to the Eastern waters of the Arabian Sea, first began to take shape in the late-nineteenth century.
In accordance with the aspirations of each Arab nation concerned and the domestic policy-making of their respective governmental administrations, however, there have often been vast differences of opinion with regard to the precise form that such a vast geographical alliance should take. For some, Arab nationalism implies the construction of a single Arab nation based on the centralisation of political, social and economic power, rather like the old Soviet Union, but for others this notion involves a type of Pan-Arab unity that strives to retain and nurture the unique sovereignty of each member-state.
Who Is Smedley Butler? – Questions For Corbett Reply
Have you heard of Major General Smedley Butler? If not, you might want to ask yourself why that is. As one of the most highly decorated Marines in the history of the US Marine Corps and as a passionate and eloquent speaker about the racket that is war, Smedley Butler deserves to be a household name. Find out more in today’s edition of Questions For Corbett.
West Bank Footage: Banksy’s The Walled Off Hotel in Bethlehem Reply
Say no to getting dragged into Erdogan’s war with Russia Reply
Socialism Without Anti-Imperialism: A Different Flavor of Tyranny Reply
By Nicky Reid aka Comrade Hermit
Exile in Happy Valley
Well dearest motherfuckers, socialism is back and it only took about a century, or at least so it appears. Nearly half the country has polled as being down with Debs. In spite of the worst efforts of his party’s trenchant neoliberal leadership, Bernie Sanders, who splays his socialist ID loud and proud, is now the undeniable frontrunner in the 2020 Democratic Primaries and even his moderate competition are aping his modus operandi. For the first time in ever, formerly far left positions like single-payer and free tuition have become so mainstream that they’re downright boring. Even beyond America’s official “left-wing” party, the socialist renaissance is in full bloom. At over 50,000 members, the once flimsy Democratic Socialists of America is now the largest American socialist organization since the height of the Labor Movement. More young people self-identify as proud socialists than ever before. So why the fuck am I so bummed?
DRESDEN WAS *NOT* DA BOMB 1
– 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~
How to Spot a Wahhabist- Our Saudi Arabia Problem Reply
Kim Iversen has a great series of videos on this topic.
It’s Time to Bring the War Home Again Reply
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?
UN urges ‘foreign’ players to stop ‘meddling’ in Libya conflict Reply
The United Nations has urged all “foreign” players to stop “interfering” in the conflict in Libya, just a day before a peace summit in Germany aimed at establishing a permanent ceasefire between the two warring sides in the North African country.
