# entry

guid: yt:video:YJhddkxyddQ
title: Middle Nation Central Africa Briefing
author: ;Middle Nation
link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJhddkxyddQ
hash: G:<(`�ͷ�n/�
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{"enclosures":[{"url":"https://www.youtube.com/v/YJhddkxyddQ?version=3","title":"Middle Nation Central Africa Briefing","description":"Middle Nation hosts a dynamic Telegram network with regional sub-groups connecting Muslims from across the world. These groups serve as hubs for sharing news, engaging in discussions, and learning directly from people on the ground. By centering our analysis on localized perspectives, we ensure that our members receive firsthand insights into key developments worldwide. \nThrough these connections, we strengthen global unity among Muslims and provide a deeper understanding of regional affairs. Regular briefings keep our members informed and engaged with the latest updates. \n\nThe Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) remains trapped in a cycle of violence, foreign exploitation, and geopolitical manipulation. In this discussion, Nisa Bardien examines the forces driving instability in the region—terrorist groups like the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF), paramilitary factions like M23, and the role of global superpowers in fueling conflict for economic gain.  \n\nKey topics include:  \n🔹 The Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) and U.S. involvement in the war on terror  \n🔹 M23’s fight for Congo’s mineral wealth and Rwanda’s alleged support  \n🔹 U.S. sanctions on Rwanda and global complicity in resource theft  \n🔹 President Felix Tshisekedi’s demand for fair trade and an end to illicit mineral exports  \n\nWho truly profits from Congo’s suffering? Why does the world turn a blind eye to the real perpetrators? Watch as Nisa Bardien breaks down the power struggles shaping the DRC’s future.  \n\n#CongoCrisis #DRC #NisaBardien #Geopolitics #Africa #M23 #ADF #Terrorism #ResourceExploitation","type":"application/x-shockwave-flash","height":390,"width":640,"thumbnails":["https://i2.ytimg.com/vi/YJhddkxyddQ/hqdefault.jpg"]}]}


guid: https://thehill.com/?p=5170157
title: Taking shots at vaccines has deadly consequences
author: ;Glenn C. Altschuler; opinion contributor
link: https://thehill.com/opinion/healthcare/5170157-taking-shots-at-vaccines-has-deadly-consequences/
hash: �y��o��E�̫}�
tags: #Healthcare #Opinion
content:
The widespread dissemination of groundless conspiracy theories is undercutting confidence in the safety and efficacy of vaccinations and presenting a clear and present danger to the health of all Americans.

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guid: https://ici.radio-canada.ca/nouvelle/2144151/edmonton-meurtre-nouveau-proces-sobotiak
title: Un homme condamné pour un meurtre commis en 1987 sera rejugé
content: <p>Le ministère fédéral de la Justice parle d’une possible erreur judiciaire.</p>
link: https://ici.radio-canada.ca/nouvelle/2144151/edmonton-meurtre-nouveau-proces-sobotiak
hash: 3۽o�4)�NؘJR4a!
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guid: https://strategic-culture.su/?post_type=article&amp;p=883803
title: Maestà, il popolo ha fame. – Dategli la medaglia dei veterani!
author: ;A A
hash: �EG��=��p�i���n�
tags: #Italiano #European Union #Italy #Military Industrial Complex
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content:
<p><strong><em>Le parole di Maria Antonietta davanti alle proteste dei francesi sono facilmente rievocabili in questi giorni di magra e, questa volta, trovano l’amara consolazione in una delle iniziative più imbarazzanti della storia militare italiana.</em></strong></p>
<p><strong><span><span><em>Segue nostro</em> </span><a href="https://t.me/SCF_Italiano" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Telegram</a><a href="https://t.me/SCF_Italiano" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img loading="lazy" src="https://strategic-culture.su/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/tlg.jpg" alt="" width="25" height="25" data-sanitized-class="alignnone wp-image-875659"></a><a href="https://t.me/SCF_Italiano" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span>.</span></a></span></strong></p>
<p><strong>Il bilancio della Difesa ancora in crisi</strong></p>
<p>Premettendo che fintanto che verranno prodotte e commercializzate armi, nessuna guerra o conflitto potrà mai veramente finire, perché verrebbe meno il principio elementare del commercio, è purtuttavia vero che, in questo contesto storico ci dobbiamo confrontare con i sistemi militari e con il loro bilancio.</p>
<p>Il 14 febbraio, la presidente della Commissione Europea, Ursula von der Leyen, ha annunciato l’introduzione della clausola di salvaguardia per gli investimenti nella difesa. Questa misura consentirà agli Stati membri dell’UE di aumentare la spesa militare senza che essa venga conteggiata ai fini del rispetto dei parametri fiscali stabiliti dal Patto di stabilità e crescita. Si tratta di una decisione significativa, destinata a modificare il quadro finanziario europeo e a permettere un incremento delle capacità di difesa dei singoli paesi. L’obiettivo è rispondere alle nuove crisi internazionali e ai mutati equilibri geopolitici, garantendo agli Stati la possibilità di potenziare le proprie forze armate senza compromettere la tenuta dei conti pubblici.</p>
<p>L’annuncio è stato accolto positivamente dal governo italiano. La presidente del Consiglio, Giorgia Meloni, e il ministro della Difesa, Guido Crosetto, hanno sottolineato di aver sostenuto a lungo questa riforma e di considerarla un passo fondamentale verso la creazione di un sistema di difesa europeo più solido e coordinato. Tuttavia, non è scontato che l’Italia possa realmente beneficiare di questa novità per aumentare in modo significativo la spesa militare. Il nostro paese è infatti tra quelli che destinano meno risorse alla difesa, e le difficoltà economiche potrebbero rendere complesso un incremento degli investimenti nel settore.</p>
<p>L’elemento chiave della clausola di salvaguardia è l’esclusione delle spese militari dal calcolo del deficit e del debito pubblico nell’ambito del Patto di stabilità. Questo significa che gli Stati membri potranno incrementare i finanziamenti per la difesa senza rischiare di violare i vincoli fiscali imposti dall’UE. Tuttavia, queste spese continueranno comunque a incidere sui bilanci nazionali, influenzando la sostenibilità economica dei singoli paesi. Per l’Italia, già gravata da un elevato debito pubblico, questo potrebbe rappresentare un problema.</p>
<p>Un aspetto rilevante riguarda la possibilità di finanziare gli investimenti nella difesa attraverso l’emissione di debito comune, i cosiddetti “eurobond per la difesa”. Questa opzione è stata invocata da diverse figure politiche, tra cui l’ex commissario europeo Paolo Gentiloni, ma al momento non sembra trovare il sostegno necessario. I paesi del Nord Europa, con in testa la Germania, si oppongono fermamente a nuove emissioni di debito comune, temendo che possano trasformarsi in un onere finanziario sproporzionato per gli Stati con economie più solide.</p>
<p>Attualmente, la spesa militare media nei 27 paesi membri dell’UE si attesta tra l’1,9 e il 2% del PIL. Dal 2014, la NATO raccomanda agli Stati membri di destinare almeno il 2% del proprio PIL alla difesa, ma diversi paesi – tra cui l’Italia – non hanno ancora raggiunto questa soglia. Per il 2025, l’Italia prevede di destinare alla difesa solo l’1,57% del PIL, un valore inferiore alla media europea e ben lontano dagli obiettivi fissati dall’alleanza atlantica. Tra i paesi sotto il 2% figurano anche Spagna, Belgio, Croazia, Lussemburgo, Portogallo, Slovenia e Canada.</p>
<p>Negli ultimi anni, a seguito dell’invasione russa dell’Ucraina e del conseguente deterioramento della sicurezza globale, la spesa militare dell’UE è aumentata considerevolmente. Tra il 2021 e il 2024, il budget europeo per la difesa è passato da 200 a 320 miliardi di euro, con un incremento del 60%. Tuttavia, l’Italia ha registrato un aumento più contenuto, passando da 28 miliardi di euro nel 2021 a 34,4 miliardi nel 2024, con una crescita del 23%. Ciò evidenzia un impegno inferiore rispetto ad altri Stati europei nel rafforzare le proprie capacità militari.</p>
<p>L’arrivo di Donald Trump alla presidenza degli Stati Uniti ha intensificato la pressione sugli alleati NATO affinché aumentino la propria spesa per la difesa. Trump ha dichiarato chiaramente che gli Stati Uniti non intendono più farsi carico della maggior parte delle spese dell’alleanza atlantica. Attualmente, su un budget totale della NATO di 1.474 miliardi di dollari, gli Stati Uniti ne coprono 968. Trump ha indicato come soglia minima un investimento del 5% del PIL per la difesa da parte degli alleati, un obiettivo irrealistico per molti paesi europei. Più realisticamente, von der Leyen ha proposto di portare la spesa militare dell’UE oltre il 3% del PIL, il che comporterebbe un aumento di centinaia di miliardi di euro all’anno.</p>
<p>Per l’Italia, arrivare al 3% significherebbe incrementare il budget per la difesa di circa 35 miliardi di euro all’anno rispetto alle risorse stanziate per il 2025. Questa cifra appare difficilmente sostenibile, considerando che l’intera manovra finanziaria del governo per il 2025 ammonta a circa 30 miliardi di euro. Anche se l’incremento della spesa militare dovesse avvenire in modo graduale, resterebbe una sfida economica considerevole.</p>
<p>Le possibilità di reperire tali fondi sono limitate. Un aumento della tassazione o una drastica riduzione della spesa pubblica in altri settori sarebbero soluzioni politicamente difficili da attuare. È più probabile che il finanziamento avvenga almeno in parte attraverso il deficit, con il rischio di compromettere ulteriormente la stabilità del bilancio dello Stato e di suscitare preoccupazioni nei mercati finanziari. Un peggioramento della situazione economica potrebbe ridurre la fiducia degli investitori e scoraggiare capitali stranieri.</p>
<p>In questo contesto, la clausola di salvaguardia potrebbe paradossalmente penalizzare l’Italia rispetto ad altri paesi europei. Gli Stati con conti pubblici più solidi avranno maggiore margine di manovra per incrementare la spesa militare, mentre l’Italia, con un debito pubblico tra i più alti d’Europa – pari al 136% del PIL e oltre i 3.000 miliardi di euro – rischia di trovarsi in difficoltà. Tra i membri del G7, solo il Giappone ha un debito più elevato.</p>
<p>Se l’UE non troverà una soluzione condivisa per finanziare gli investimenti militari, l’Italia potrebbe trovarsi costretta a scegliere tra il rispetto dei vincoli di bilancio e il rafforzamento delle proprie capacità di difesa. Il dibattito sulle future strategie economiche e militari europee è quindi destinato a rimanere aperto, con implicazioni rilevanti per la sicurezza e la stabilità dell’intero continente.</p>
<p><strong>Una medaglia per tutti</strong></p>
<p>In questo affascinante contesto, il Ministro della Difesa italiana, Guido Crosetto, ha pensato di strizzare l’occhiolino agli Stati Uniti ed istituire la Medaglia del Veterano. Probabilmente non aveva migliori idee su come passare alla storia – invece di passare nel dimenticatoio – e con questa mossa ha conquistato la vetta dell’assurdità.</p>
<p>Nessuno ne sentiva la necessità, ma tant’è.</p>
<p>Il 24 febbraio 2025, il Ministro della Difesa Guido Crosetto ha firmato un decreto che introduce le qualifiche di “Veterano della Difesa” e “Veterano delle Missioni Internazionali”. Questo provvedimento riconosce ufficialmente lo status di veterano a coloro che hanno servito onorevolmente il Paese, sia in patria che all’estero, indipendentemente dalla presenza di menomazioni psico-fisiche legate a traumi.</p>
<p>Il decreto stabilisce inoltre l’11 novembre come giornata ufficiale per la celebrazione del “Veterano”. In questa data simbolica, già riconosciuta a livello internazionale per commemorare la fine della Prima Guerra Mondiale nel 1918, si onorerà il servizio e il sacrificio di chi ha dedicato la propria vita alla difesa della Nazione.</p>
<p>Per valorizzare ulteriormente il contributo dei militari, sono state istituite le Medaglie al merito di “Veterano della Difesa” e “Veterano delle Missioni Internazionali”. La progettazione di queste onorificenze avverrà attraverso un concorso di idee rivolto agli studenti delle scuole, con l’obiettivo di coinvolgere le nuove generazioni nella promozione della memoria e dei valori della Difesa.</p>
<p>La Medaglia al merito di “Veterano della Difesa” sarà destinata al personale che ha servito per almeno venticinque anni con onore e comportamento esemplare. La Medaglia al merito di “Veterano delle Missioni Internazionali” sarà riservata a coloro che, oltre a possedere i requisiti del “Veterano della Difesa”, hanno partecipato ad almeno una missione fuori dal territorio nazionale.</p>
<p>Questa iniziativa rappresenta un passo significativo nel riconoscimento del ruolo fondamentale dei veterani, estendendo l’onorificenza anche a coloro che, pur non avendo riportato traumi invalidanti, hanno servito con dedizione e onore. Come ha dichiarato il Ministro Crosetto: “È nostro dovere dare il giusto valore a questa figura che rappresenta una risorsa fondamentale per la nostra Nazione”.</p>
<p>Dunque, la soluzione rivoluzionaria è stata giocata nel momento migliore: l’Italia si prepara a mandare in guerra contro la Russia i propri ragazzi, che non hanno esattamente voglia di finire in un tritacarne, e così cerca di comprarsi il favore di qualche leva in più e di qualche ufficiale ancora non abbastanza vicino alla pensione. Peccato che i Veterani italiani – col massimo rispetto per la loro professionalità – non avranno i benefit di quelli americani, ad esempio. Anzi, non ci sarà proprio nessun beneficio, se non quello di un titolo in più da aggiungere al curriculum di fine carriera.</p>
<p>La Difesa avrebbe bisogno di altre riforme, che invoca da anni a gran voce, e il Ministro zittisce tutti con l’asso nella manica della nuova medaglia. Geniale.</p>
<p>A proposito, i costi della decorazione sono a carico dei beneficiari. Non è uno scherzo.</p>
<p></p>

link:
https://strategic-culture.su/news/2025/03/02/maesta-il-popolo-ha-fame-dategli-la-medaglia-dei-veterani/


guid: https://www.rt.com/news/613584-trump-impressed-vance-zelensky-handling/
title: Trump impressed by Vance’s handling of Zelensky – WSJ
author: ;RT
hash: Ȑ �A��M���n��
content:
<p><strong>The US VP defended the president during a spat with the Ukrainian leader in the Oval Office</strong></p>
            
                        
            <p>US President Donald Trump was impressed with how Vice President J.D. Vance handled himself during a tense Oval Office exchange with Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky, unnamed administration officials told the Wall Street Journal.</p>
<p>The politicians met on Friday in the White House Oval Office ahead of what was expected to be a celebratory signing of a minerals deal between Washington and Kiev.</p>
<p>The WSJ dubbed Vance a <em>“MAGA champion”</em> after the confrontation in a piece published on Saturday.</p>
<p>Vance sat mostly silent as Trump and Zelensky answered questions. But then a reporter asked the US president if he aligned with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin. Vance interjected to praise Trump’s diplomatic efforts and criticize past policy under President Joe Biden. The conversation escalated when Zelensky pushed back.</p>
<p>During the intense discussion, Vance highlighted Ukraine’s challenges in conscripting additional troops and said that Zelensky should be <em>“thanking”</em> Trump for efforts to resolve the conflict. Vance criticized his recent public appearances highlighting war devastation, accusing him of hosting <em>“propaganda tours,”</em> and labeled the Ukrainian leader <em>“disrespectful.”</em> The confrontation led to the day’s events being cut short.</p>

            
    <blockquote>
        <span><strong>Read more</strong></span>
        <figure>
            <img src="https://mf.b37mrtl.ru/files/2025.03/thumbnail/67c4026185f5402a9f2a1562.jpg" alt="FILE PHOTO: Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto speaks during a press-conference.">
            <figcaption><a href="https://www.rt.com/news/613568-trump-zelensky-ukraine-hungary/">Trump-Zelensky spat shows who wants peace and who doesn’t – Hungarian FM</a></figcaption>
        </figure>
    </blockquote>


    

<p>Trump has reportedly told White House staff that his former vice president <em>“would have never done that.”</em> Former Indiana Governor Mike Pence was vice president during Trump’s first term. Their political alliance ended acrimoniously over the January 2021 riots at the US Capitol, after Pence refused to comply with Trump’s demands to prevent Congress from certifying Joe Biden the winner of the 2020 US presidential election.</p>
<p>The White House later circulated statements of support from Republican lawmakers and administration officials. <em>“I was very proud of J.D. Vance, standing up for our country,”</em> US Senator Lindsey Graham said. While Senator Mike Lee called Vance the <em>“GOAT,”</em> an acronym for <em>“greatest of all time.”</em></p>
<p>The 40-year-old Vance is the third-youngest vice president in US history. His relationship with Trump has evolved significantly since the president’s first term. Once a vocal critic of Trump, Vance opposed his candidacy in 2016, calling him <em>“cultural heroin”</em> for conservatives and questioning his character. However, he later shifted his stance, securing Trump’s endorsement in his successful 2022 Senate bid, a move that cemented his place within Trump’s inner circle.</p>
<p>Last month, during his first foreign trip as vice president, Vance sent shockwaves with a speech criticizing European leaders at the Munich Security Conference, accusing them of censoring free speech and neglecting public concerns over migration.</p>

             
    <p>
        <a target="_blank" href="https://www.rt.com/news/613563-london-starmer-zelensky-loan/">
            <span>READ MORE: </span>UK’s Starmer consoles Zelensky after Trump fiasco
        </a>
    </p>


    

<p>Vance’s relationship with Trump remains strong, though the president has so far demurred on naming him his successor. Trump told Fox News in February that he considers Vance <em>“very capable”</em> but noted that <em>“there are a lot of very capable people.”</em> However, tech billionaire and Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) chief Elon Musk referred to Vance as <em>“our future President”</em> on Saturday.</p>

link:
https://www.rt.com/news/613584-trump-impressed-vance-zelensky-handling/?utm_source=rss&amp;utm_medium=rss&amp;utm_campaign=RSS

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guid: yt:video:5J5rx2SGQ9s
title: LaRouche in Dialogue with Russian Economists
author: ;Diane Sare
link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5J5rx2SGQ9s
hash: �uJ���i���|��
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guid: https://thehill.com/?p=5167592
title: Want to give Elon Musk a reality check? Confirm Jared Isaacman.
author: ;Mark R. Whittington; opinion contributor
link: https://thehill.com/opinion/technology/5167592-elon-musk-space-policy-challenges/
hash: w�x��%o��_ K�R
tags: #Opinion #Technology #Elon Musk #Jared Isaacman #NASA administrator #Sen. Ted Cruz
content:
Musk has expressed his desire to redirect NASA to a neck-or-nothing lunge toward Mars, leaving all other priorities such as going back to the moon on the back burner.

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guid: https://strategic-culture.su/?post_type=article&amp;p=883820
title: Cruzada encubierta: La guerra digital de 600 millones de dólares de Washington contra Irán
author: ;A A
hash: ��z���������K I�
tags: #Español #Iran #United States
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<p><strong><em>Durante más de una década, el fondo NERD del Departamento de Estado de EE.UU. ha canalizado de forma encubierta cientos de millones de dólares a iniciativas de cambio de régimen en Irán, disfrazando la guerra digital y la financiación de la oposición como “promoción de la democracia”, pero una repentina congelación de la financiación ha sumido estas operaciones en el caos.</em></strong></p>
<p><strong><em>By Kit KLARENBERG</em></strong></p>
<p><strong><span>Únete a nosotros en </span><a href="https://t.me/SCF_Spanish" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Telegram </a><a href="https://t.me/SCF_Spanish" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img src="https://strategic-culture.su/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/tlg.jpg" alt="" width="25" height="25"></a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/SCJournalOnline" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Twitter</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/SCJournalOnline" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img loading="lazy" src="https://strategic-culture.su/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/twitter.jpg" alt="" width="25" height="25"></a> <span>y </span><a href="https://vk.com/strategicculture/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">VK</a> <a href="https://vk.com/strategicculture/" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img loading="lazy" src="https://strategic-culture.su/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/wk.jpg" alt="" width="25" height="25"></a>.</strong></p>
<p><span><strong>Escríbenos: </strong></span><a href="mailto:info@strategic-culture.su"><strong>info@strategic-culture.su</strong></a></p>
<p>A principios de este mes, <em>The Cradle </em><a href="https://thecradle.co/articles/leaked-documents-expose-us-interference-projects-in-iran">expuso cómo</a> en 2023, el tenebroso fondo para la Democracia Regional en Oriente Próximo (NERD, por sus siglas en inglés) del Departamento de Estado estadounidense destinó 55 millones de dólares a avivar los disturbios en Irán durante las elecciones del año siguiente.</p>
<p>Esto formaba parte de una campaña más amplia de injerencia estadounidense diseñada para perturbar y desestabilizar a la República Islámica. Como se señaló en esa investigación, los detalles sobre el destino de ese dinero -y quién se beneficia- son estrictamente confidenciales por una cuestión de política. Sin embargo, hay indicios de dominio público que apuntan al menos a algunos receptores.</p>
<p><strong>Cambio de régimen con otro nombre</strong></p>
<p>Como <a href="https://sgp.fas.org/crs/mideast/R46344.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">recoge un informe</a> del Servicio de Investigación del Congreso de Estados Unidos, debido a las hostiles relaciones entre Estados Unidos e Irán, y a la fundada opinión de Teherán de que el NERD “<em>es un medio para financiar el cambio de régimen</em>”, sus programas se basan en <em>“formación en terceros países”,</em> así como en <em>“formación en línea y contenidos mediáticos”.</em></p>
<p>El informe confirma además que, a pesar de que NERD es el principal <em>‘canal de asistencia exterior’</em> de Washington para proyectos dirigidos a Irán, <em>‘las actividades, los beneficiarios de las subvenciones y [los] beneficiarios’</em> no se hacen públicos <em>‘debido a los riesgos de seguridad que plantea el gobierno iraní’.</em> Continúa:</p>
<blockquote><p><strong><em>El NERD se creó en 2009 como una ‘partida para la democracia en Irán’, pero no era (y sigue sin ser) técnicamente específica para Irán… Para 2024, la Administración Biden solicitó 65 millones de dólares para el NERD… para ‘fomentar una sociedad civil vibrante, aumentar el libre flujo de información y promover el ejercicio de los derechos humanos’, incluyendo al menos 16,75 millones de dólares para la libertad en Internet.</em></strong></p></blockquote>
<p>Lo que no se decía en el informe es que NERD representa un simple cambio de marca del Fondo para la Democracia en Irán, <a href="https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/after-crackdown-iran-democracy-fund">creado</a> por el ex presidente George W. Bush en 2006 con el objetivo explícito de derrocar a la República Islámica.</p>
<p>La iniciativa fue aparentemente clausurada por Barack Obama tres años después, provocando la <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052748704500604574481341183751038">amarga condena de</a> gran parte de los medios de comunicación occidentales, expertos neoconservadores y legisladores. Sin embargo, como <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8315120.stm">reconoció</a> la BBC en su momento, la medida fue <em>“bien recibida por los activistas iraníes pro derechos humanos y pro democracia”</em>:</p>
<blockquote><p><strong><em>Estos fondos estadounidenses van a parar a personas que tienen muy poco que ver con la verdadera lucha por la democracia en Irán y nuestros activistas de la sociedad civil nunca han recibido tales fondos”,</em></strong><strong> declaró a la cadena estatal británica un abogado de derechos humanos con sede en Teherán. “<em>El </em>fin de este programa no tendrá ninguna repercusión en nuestras actividades.</strong></p></blockquote>
<p><strong>Interferencias en Internet</strong></p>
<p>En realidad, el programa nunca finalizó, simplemente fue reformulado. Los funcionarios de la Casa Blanca mantuvieron la ficción de que el NERD se centraba en la democratización y no en el cambio de régimen, una afirmación socavada por una revelación <em>del New York Times</em> <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/12/world/12internet.html">de junio de 2011</a>.</p>
<p>Esa investigación reveló que la llamada iniciativa “<a href="https://2009-2017.state.gov/j/drl/rls/rm/2011/168475.htm">Libertad en Internet</a>” de la administración Obama tenía como objetivo</p>
<blockquote><p><strong><em>desplegar sistemas ‘en la sombra’ de Internet y telefonía móvil que los disidentes pudieran utilizar para comunicarse fuera del alcance de los gobiernos en países como Irán, Siria y Libia</em>.</strong></p></blockquote>
<p>En otras palabras, Washington pretendía crear una legión encubierta de operativos para el cambio de régimen en Teherán y proporcionarles la tecnología necesaria para coordinarse en secreto. Está claro, por la marcada referencia del informe del Congreso a la “libertad de Internet”, que estas maquinaciones continúan hoy en día.</p>
<p>Por otra parte, como señaló un <a href="https://mideastdc.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/POMED_FY21BudgetReport.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">informe de 2020</a> del Project on Middle East Democracy, <a href="https://mideastdc.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">con sede en Washington DC</a>, las organizaciones realmente comprometidas con la defensa de los derechos de los iraníes siguen manteniéndose alejadas de NERD. Un trabajador anónimo de una ONG describió su <em>‘estilo’</em> como <em>‘agresivo’</em>. Otro dio a entender que el NERD realiza un trabajo profundamente sucio:</p>
<blockquote>
<h3><strong><em>Decidimos no solicitar subvenciones del NERD porque no queremos que nos metan en [ninguna] locura.</em></strong></h3>
</blockquote>
<h4><strong>No iraníes</strong></h4>
<p>Ese mismo año, el <em>Financial Times </em>(FT) <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/740a385a-3924-11ea-a6d3-9a26f8c3cba4">informó de cómo</a> los esfuerzos del NERD se habían turboalimentado bajo la administración del presidente estadounidense Donald Trump, explícitamente para facilitar y alentar <em>“protestas contra Teherán”.</em></p>
<p>Esto incluía “<em>proporcionar aplicaciones, servidores y otras tecnologías para ayudar a las personas a comunicarse, visitar sitios web prohibidos, instalar software antirrastreo</em>” y más en la República Islámica, con el fin de ofrecer <em>“a los iraníes más opciones sobre cómo comunicarse entre sí y con el mundo exterior”.</em></p>
<p>Curiosamente, mientras retrata a Irán como una prisión digital, el FT admite que las principales redes sociales occidentales siguen siendo accesibles en el país, y los iraníes pueden ver fácilmente los medios de comunicación occidentales.</p>
<p>Como de costumbre, los beneficiarios de los fondos del NERD no fueron identificados, salvo <a href="https://www.kitklarenberg.com/p/beware-psiphon-cia-tool-fueling-global">Psiphon</a>, un proveedor de VPN asociado desde hace tiempo con figuras de la oposición <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2018/2/12/16995882/asl-19-ali-karimzadeh-bangi-alleged-assault">iraní en el exilio</a> y, para entonces, controlado por el Open Technology Fund (OTF). El FT calculaba que sólo tres millones de iraníes utilizaban Psiphon, menos del cuatro por ciento de la población.</p>
<p>OTF era un <a href="https://www.opentech.fund/">producto de</a> “Libertad de Internet” – uno de los miembros de su junta ha <a href="http://jilliancyork.com/2015/02/06/there-are-other-funding-options-than-the-usg/">admitido abiertamente</a> que <strong><em>la agenda del Fondo es el “cambio de régimen”.</em></strong></p>
<p>Avanzamos rápidamente hasta septiembre de 2024; mientras la administración del ex presidente estadounidense Joe Biden buscaba más fondos para el NERD -apenas unos meses después de que los 55 millones de dólares invertidos el año anterior no produjeran los deseados disturbios y agitación masiva en torno a las elecciones de ese año en Irán- <a href="https://www.reuters.com/technology/us-calls-big-tech-help-evade-online-censors-russia-iran-2024-09-05/">, se convocó</a> una reunión en la Casa Blanca con los principales gigantes tecnológicos, animándoles a ofrecer más <em>“ancho de banda digital”</em> para las aplicaciones y herramientas financiadas por el OTF.</p>
<p><strong>Como explicó la jefa del fondo, Laura Cunningham, una <em>“parte considerable”</em> del presupuesto de la OTF se dedicaba al coste de alojar todo el tráfico de red generado por su amplia gama de aplicaciones de desestabilización digital, que incluían </strong><a href="https://www.kitklarenberg.com/p/signal-facing-collapse-after-cia" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><strong>Signal</strong></a><strong> y </strong><a href="https://libguides.pratt.edu/internet-data-privacy/building-privacy-toolkit" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><strong>Tor</strong></a><strong>.</strong></p>
<p>Aunque la OTF pretendía dar soporte a <em>“usuarios adicionales”</em> de estos productos, carecía de recursos para hacer frente a la “<em>creciente demanda</em>”. Lo que salió de esta reunión, a la que asistieron representantes de Amazon, Cloudflare, Google y Microsoft, no está claro.</p>
<p>Sin embargo, si se concedió más <em>“ancho de banda digital”</em> a OTF, está claro que la <em>“pausa”</em> de la administración Trump en la financiación de la ayuda en el extranjero ha lanzado todos los esfuerzos de intromisión de NERD en Irán en total – y potencialmente permanente – desorden.</p>
<p>Un <a href="https://www.iranintl.com/en/202501271390">informe</a> publicado el 27 de enero en la revista<em> Iran International </em>, financiada por Arabia Saudí y contraria a la República Islámica, citaba a numerosos beneficiarios anónimos de la financiación estadounidense que se lamentaban de cómo los beneficiarios de las subvenciones, incluidos los medios de comunicación en lengua persa gestionados desde el extranjero y las organizaciones que documentan supuestos <em>‘abusos’</em> para que la República Islámica <em>‘rinda cuentas’,</em> habían sido cerrados abruptamente.</p>
<p>Un “<em>activista de derechos humanos</em>” anónimo declaró al medio que la congelación de la ayuda por parte de Washington</p>
<blockquote><p><strong><em>(impondrá) restricciones a los proyectos que aborden las violaciones de derechos humanos o investiguen la corrupción gubernamental y militar que han afectado a la economía y las condiciones sociales de Irán en favor de actividades terroristas extranjeras y el blanqueo de dinero.</em></strong></p></blockquote>
<p>Dijeron que “varias <em>instituciones estadounidenses no iraníes </em>[énfasis añadido] han estado utilizando estos fondos para investigar la corrupción y el blanqueo de dinero”. Ahora, sin embargo, “<em>estas organizaciones se verán obligadas a detener sus actividades</em>”.</p>
<h4><strong>Graves implicaciones</strong></h4>
<p>Los servicios de redes privadas virtuales (VPN) suministrados por Estados Unidos también figuraban entre los recursos malignos afectados por la <em>‘pausa’ de la ayuda</em>. Un ‘activista’ anónimo dijo <em>a Irán Internacional</em> que 20 millones de iraníes utilizaban esas herramientas “<em>para eludir las restricciones de Teherán a Internet</em>”.</p>
<p>El medio citaba además un <a href="https://www.peace-mark.org/en/articles/165-11-2/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">artículo publicado</a> por Human Rights Activists in Iran, una <a href="https://www.hra-iran.org/contact/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">ONG</a> financiada por Estados Unidos que <em>no </em>tiene su sede en la República Islámica, sino en Virginia, cerca de la sede de la CIA en Langley: <em>“En el Irán actual, Internet no tiene sentido sin las VPN”.</em></p>
<p>Ahmad Ahmadian, director de la empresa tecnológica californiana <a href="https://holisticresilience.us/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Holistic Resilience</a>, que “<em>aspira a promover la libertad y la privacidad en Internet mediante el desarrollo y la investigación para eludir la censura</em>”, se hizo eco de tan funestas advertencias.</p>
<p>Ahmadian, expatriado iraní <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/aahmadiyan/details/education/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">y ex alumno</a> de la Universidad de Teherán, advirtió de que las principales empresas tecnológicas estadounidenses “<em>podrían no estar dispuestas o no ser capaces de seguir prestando su apoyo a la provisión de herramientas contra la censura”</em> sin el apoyo del gobierno.</p>
<p>Estas observaciones ponen de relieve cómo estos recursos supuestamente populares carecen de respaldo o financiación de base, y <strong>dependen totalmente del patrocinio de Washington para funcionar:</strong></p>
<blockquote><p><strong><em>El liderazgo del Gobierno estadounidense ha sido crucial para instar a las grandes empresas tecnológicas a prestar servicios públicos.</em></strong><em> <strong>Sin el estímulo del gobierno estadounidense, estas empresas no tomarían la iniciativa por su cuenta.</strong></em></p></blockquote>
<p>Otros activistas anónimos advirtieron además a <em>Irán Internacional</em>, “<em>las consecuencias de la orden ejecutiva de Trump no se limitarán a las herramientas de elusión de la censura en Internet”.</em> Creen que si las actividades de NERD “<em>no reciben una exención en el próximo mes”</em> -a finales de febrero- “<em>colapsarán por completo o se verán profundamente restringidas”.</em></p>
<p>Uno de ellos declaró: <em>“puede que el impacto de esta congelación no se note inmediatamente, pero sus graves implicaciones se harán evidentes con el tiempo”.</em></p>
<p>Mientras tanto, “expertos en Internet” advertían de que “<em>incluso si la ayuda estadounidense se reanuda»</em> tras la pausa de 90 días, “<em>el daño es irreversible, ya que mucha gente… podría no volver a utilizar nunca del todo los servicios seguros respaldados por Estados Unidos”</em>.</p>
<p>Como señaló <em>The Cradle </em>el 11 de febrero, la retirada forzosa de Washington de su injerencia en Irán podría crear nuevas oportunidades para <a href="https://apnews.com/article/iran-trump-usaid-nuclear-deal-talks-986793e2e21e2b338546767bba5f2df0">un auténtico compromiso diplomático</a> entre los dos adversarios de larga data.</p>
<p><strong>Pero se vislumbra otra posibilidad: después de gastar 600 millones de dólares durante una década con escaso éxito, Estados Unidos podría estar simplemente preparándose para probar nuevas estrategias de cambio de régimen, potencialmente más malignas.</strong></p>
<p><em>Publicado</em><em> </em><em>originalmente</em><em> </em><em>por</em><em> </em><a href="https://thecradle.co/articles/covert-crusade-washingtons-600m-digital-war-on-iran" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><u><em>The Cradle</em></u></a><em>.</em><em><br>
</em><em>Traducción</em><em>: </em><a href="https://observatoriodetrabajad.com/2025/02/24/cruzada-encubierta-la-guerra-digital-de-600-millones-de-dolares-de-washington-contra-iran-kit-klarenberg/" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><u><em>Observatorio</em></u><u><em> de </em></u><u><em>trabajadores</em></u><u><em> </em></u><u><em>en</em></u><u><em> </em></u><u><em>lucha</em></u></a></p>

link:
https://strategic-culture.su/news/2025/03/02/cruzada-encubierta-la-guerra-digital-de-600-millones-de-dolares-de-washington-contra-iran/


guid: yt:video:Uy_MU8sEk6o
title: Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre holds a news conference in Ottawa – March 2, 2025
author: ;cpac
link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uy_MU8sEk6o
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guid: https://thehill.com/?p=5171462
title: Johnson: US ‘not abandoning Ukraine,’ but Zelensky’s priorities ‘in the wrong place’
author: ;Rachel Scully
link: https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/5171462-johnson-ukraine-zelensky-trump/
hash: � ����$�ІO�!�
tags: #Blog Briefing Room #News #Sunday Talk Shows
content:
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) said that the U.S. is not “abandoning Ukraine” but that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s priorities are not in the right place following a heated exchange between the Ukrainian leader and President Trump. When NBC’s “Meet The Press” host Kristen Welker asked if Trump is aligning the U.S. with Russia, Johnson said…

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guid: https://thehill.com/?p=5171486
title: Johnson dismisses concerns, says it’s ‘absurd’ that GOP supports Putin
author: ;Lauren Irwin
link: https://thehill.com/policy/international/5171486-johnson-dismisses-concerns-gop-putin/
hash: u���՗n]�� ��I�
tags: #All Contributors #International #News #ceasefire deal #Russia-Ukraine war
content:
Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) attempted to dismiss concerns after President Trump’s fiery meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, noting it would be “absurd” for Republicans to stand behind Russian President Vladimir Putin. Johnson joined NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday, where he discussed the failed deal and the meeting between Trump and Zelensky. “They’re not…

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guid: https://www.rt.com/russia/613586-zelensky-looks-unwell-kremlin/
title: Zelensky looks unwell – Kremlin
author: ;RT
hash: F�x�LU�)d��~�݋
content:
<p><strong>Spokesman Dmitry Peskov has commented on the Ukrainian leader’s health prior to his White House dispute with Trump and Vance</strong></p>
            
                        
            <p>Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky appears visibly unwell, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has said. He made the remarks this week, days before Zelensky’s heated confrontation with US President Donald Trump and Vice President J.D. Vance.</p>
<p><em>“He doesn't look very good visually, but you should ask him,”</em> Peskov said in an interview with Rossiya 1 TV journalist Pavel Zarubin published on Saturday, answering whether he thought Zelensky felt cornered.</p>
<p>Zelensky’s visit to the White House on Friday, intended to finalize a minerals agreement, devolved into a heated dispute. The discussion deteriorated when he insisted that Trump support Kiev rather than play a neutral arbiter in an attempt to mediate a deal with Moscow. In response, Trump and Vance accused Zelensky of <em>“gambling with World War III”</em> and a reluctance to make peace with Russia, labeling him disrespectful and ungrateful for the substantial military aid provided by Washington.</p>
<p>The visit concluded abruptly without signing the agreement, after Zelensky demanded security guarantees and greater involvement in the conflict from the Trump administration.</p>

            
    <blockquote>
        <span><strong>Read more</strong></span>
        <figure>
            <img src="https://mf.b37mrtl.ru/files/2025.03/thumbnail/67c2f2c485f5407fd31a584a.jpg" alt="Vladimir Zelensky.">
            <figcaption><a href="https://www.rt.com/news/613538-zelensky-humiliated-trump-vance/">A dose of reality for the West’s spoiled brat: What now for the humiliated Zelensky?</a></figcaption>
        </figure>
    </blockquote>


    

<p>During the meeting, Zelensky’s preference for informal attire also attracted media attention. When a journalist inquired if the Ukrainian president owned a formal suit, Zelensky said yes, adding that he would <em>“wear something more appropriate”</em> at the next meeting.</p>
<p>Following the incident, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova described Zelensky’s US trip as <em>“a diplomatic and political failure”</em> for Kiev. She asserted that with his <em>“outrageously boorish behavior”</em> at the White House, Zelensky confirmed himself <em>“an irresponsible instigator of a major war”</em> and <em>“a most dangerous threat to the international community.”</em></p>
<p>Zakharova reiterated Moscow’s stance that lasting peace can only be achieved <em>“when the root causes of the conflict are fully eliminated.”</em></p>
<p>The cancellation of the minerals deal and Zelensky’s premature departure from the White House have raised concerns about future US support for Ukraine. According to The Washington Post, the Trump administration may reconsider its military assistance to Kiev.</p>
<p>However, European leaders have expressed support. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas reaffirmed their solidarity with Ukraine, emphasizing the need for peace based on Ukrainian sovereignty. Conversely, Russian officials, including former President Dmitry Medvedev, mocked Zelensky, suggesting that Washington halt military aid.</p>

link:
https://www.rt.com/russia/613586-zelensky-looks-unwell-kremlin/?utm_source=rss&amp;utm_medium=rss&amp;utm_campaign=RSS

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guid: https://www.rt.com/news/613587-waltz-ukraine-needs-new-leader-zelensky/
title: Top US official suggests Zelensky may need to go
author: ;RT
hash: �؎��&�ud�S��
content:
<p><strong>National Security Advisor Mike Waltz says Washington wants to see a leader in Kiev who can “deal with the Russians and end this war”</strong></p>
            
                        
            <p>Washington is unsure whether Vladimir Zelensky is the right man to lead Ukraine at this juncture, the US National Security Advisor Mike Waltz has told CNN. The official argued that Friday’s tumultuous spat between the Ukrainian leader, President Donald Trump and Vice President J.D. Vance indicated that Zelensky may not be ready to talk peace.</p>
<p>When asked by Dana Bash on Sunday to share his view of Zelensky, Waltz said that <em>“it’s unclear whether President Zelensky, particularly after what we saw on Friday, is ready to transition Ukraine to an end to this war, and to negotiate and have to compromise.”</em> He noted that it is President Trump’s conviction that both Kiev and Moscow would have to make concessions in order to stop the bloodshed.</p>
<p>According to the national security advisor, during the US president’s meeting with Zelensky on Friday, <em>“it did not appear to us that [he] was ready to go to peace.”</em> </p>
<p>When pressed by a CNN presenter as to whether the White House wanted Zelensky to step down, Waltz clarified that <em>“we need a leader that can deal with us, eventually deal with the Russians, and end this war.”</em></p>
<p>The official added that <em>“if it becomes apparent that President Zelensky’s either personal motivations or political motivations are divergent from ending the fighting in his country, then I think we have a real issue on our hands.”</em></p>
<p>In an interview with Breitbart Radio on Saturday, Waltz compared Zelensky to an <em>“ex-girlfriend that wants to argue everything that you said nine years ago, rather than moving the relationship forward.”</em></p>
<p>Speaking with ABC news on Sunday, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that he had not <em>“had any contact with [Zelesnky] since Friday.”</em> The diplomat stressed that the Trump administration’s goal is to bring Ukraine and Russia to the negotiating table, with the US head of state being the <em>“only person on Earth who has any chance whatsoever”</em> of accomplishing this.</p>
<p><em>“Don’t do anything to disrupt that, and that’s what Zelensky did unfortunately – he found every opportunity to try to Ukraine-splain on every issue,”</em> Rubio stated, recounting Friday’s shouting match at the White House.</p>

link:
https://www.rt.com/news/613587-waltz-ukraine-needs-new-leader-zelensky/?utm_source=rss&amp;utm_medium=rss&amp;utm_campaign=RSS

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guid: https://www.rt.com/news/613582-zelensky-trump-vance-ukraine/
title: Kiev politicians salute Zelensky’s White House blunder
author: ;RT
hash: �����8�ݺ,d�F�3:
content:
<p><strong>Ukrainian reactions run contrary to those of US officials as Secretary of State Rubio has described Zelensky’s trip as a “fiasco”</strong></p>
            
                        
            <p>Politicians in Kiev have rallied behind Vladimir Zelensky after his public spat with Donald Trump, praising the Ukrainian leader’s <em>“bravery and strength”</em> in standing up to the US president.</p>
<p>Zelensky’s visit to the White House on Friday was abruptly cut short after his meeting with the US president and vice president devolved into a heated argument in front of the media. Trump and J.D. Vance accused their guest of <em>“gambling with World War III”</em> due to his reluctance to negotiate peace with Russia, and of being disrespectful and ungrateful for the substantial military aid provided to Kiev by Washington.</p>
<p>During the shouting match, Zelensky again ruled out the possibility of talks with Moscow, demanded security guarantees from the US, refused to acknowledge that Kiev’s forces are experiencing manpower shortages and implied that Vance could not have known anything about Ukraine’s problems due to not having been to the country.</p>
<p>US Secretary of State Marco Rubio described Zelensky’s trip to Washington as a <em>“fiasco,”</em> while Russia’s Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said that <em>“with his outrageously boorish behavior”</em> the Ukrainian leader confirmed that he is <em>“a most dangerous threat to the international community.”</em></p>

            
    <blockquote>
        <span><strong>Read more</strong></span>
        <figure>
            <img src="https://mf.b37mrtl.ru/files/2025.03/thumbnail/67c33e932030277750708a8a.jpg" alt="Vladimir Zelensky and US President Donald Trump.">
            <figcaption><a href="https://www.rt.com/news/613550-nbc-zelensky-petulant-child-trump-spat/">White House sees Zelensky as ‘petulant child’ – NBC source</a></figcaption>
        </figure>
    </blockquote>


    

<p>Officials in Kiev, however, saw the Oval Office meeting in a completely different light. Zelensky’s Chief of Staff Andrey Yermak posted on X on Friday that the Ukrainian leader <em>“is fighting for our country, for everyone who stands for a just and lasting peace.”</em> Yermak insisted that he would support his boss <em>“in every situation.”</em></p>
<p>On the same day, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrey Sibiga complimented Zelensky for having <em>“the bravery and strength to stand up for what is right”</em> during the exchange in the Oval Office.</p>
<p>The Ukrainian leader’s top aide Mikhail Podoliak wrote on X on Saturday that Zelensky’s stance is <em>“impeccable, well-argued and absolutely correct.”</em> Podoliak also stressed that <em>“emotions are emotions, but the facts are quite concrete… Just like reputations.”</em></p>
<p>Zelensky <em>“is a rock, and few leaders in the world can match his fortitude. And he really wants to put an end to this war, not a comma, which might seem like a good option to some,”</em> David Arakhamia, who heads the ruling Servant of the People party in the Ukrainian parliament, said as cited by Deutsche Welle.</p>

             
    <p>
        <a target="_blank" href="https://www.rt.com/news/613580-nato-chief-urges-zelensky-to-mend-ties-with-trump/">
            <span>READ MORE: </span>NATO chief urges Zelensky to make peace with Trump
        </a>
    </p>


    

<p>Ukraine’s top general, Aleksandr Syrsky, also supported Zelensky after his argument with Trump, writing on Telegram that <em>“the Armed Forces are with Ukraine, with the people, with the Supreme Commander-in-Chief. Our strength is in unity.”</em></p>
<p>In its article on Saturday, Time magazine cited an unnamed colonel of the Ukrainian military, who said <em>“well done”</em> of Zelensky’s attempts to resist Trump. <em>“You have to respect that… But now we are f****ed,”</em> he added.</p>

link:
https://www.rt.com/news/613582-zelensky-trump-vance-ukraine/?utm_source=rss&amp;utm_medium=rss&amp;utm_campaign=RSS

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guid: yt:video:kC59MoBppo4
title: Murder of McKinley &amp; Creation of Federal Reserve
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guid: https://schillerinstitute.com/?p=107317
title: A Philosophical Discussion for Peace
author: ;tobi
link: https://schillerinstitute.com/blog/2025/03/02/a-philosophical-discussion-for-peace/
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<p><em>Report on IPC #91</em></p>



<p>March 1, 2025 (EIRNS)—The <a href="https://www.youtube.com/live/KAd3kMCPu9s?si=FOLQhU3JryvbPpjp" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">91st weekly meeting of the International Peace Coalition</a> (IPC) on Friday, Feb. 28 turned into a profound philosophical discussion on the true meaning of politics and diplomacy which must be established in order to prevent the descent into global war, and on the current extremely dynamic transformation taking place in the wake of U.S. President Donald Trump’s election and his forceful intervention to stop the surrogate war on Russia in Ukraine.</p>



<p>Helga Zepp-LaRouche, the founder of the Schiller Institute and convener of the IPC, opened the forum by pointing to the tectonic shift taking place, with the collapse of the collective West. The unipolar world, ruled by the West since the end of the Soviet Union, is disintegrating, and “is never to be fixed again.”</p>



<p>The war in Ukraine is lost, but the Europeans refuse to stop, preparing for a war they cannot win, and cannot afford. In a state of denial about reality, they sent French President Emmanuel Macron, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas, and Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskyy, to Washington to coerce Trump to continue the war, but totally failed. It is an “arrogance of power,” Zepp-LaRouche said, which is expressed by the 2007 Lisbon Treaty. That treaty was used by the EU leadership to effectively create a European constitution, including a provision to wage collective war, without the consent of the European people—after 2005 referendums in the Netherlands and France on the creation of such a constitution were soundly defeated.</p>



<p>Zepp-LaRouche emphasized the importance of Russian President <a href="http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/76338" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Vladimir Putin’s Feb. 27 declaration</a> that the talks with the Trump administration are going well, and that the intention is to create global security for all countries—very much like the intention of the IPC and the Schiller Institute to create a new architecture for security and development for all nations. She warned that the situation in the Middle East is still treacherous, and that we must not finish our fight for peace until all the threats are resolved.</p>



<p><strong>Peace Is Bad for the Military-Industrial Complex</strong></p>



<p>Ray McGovern, a co-founder of the Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS), posed the question: Will the Europeans be able to stop Trump’s peace effort? He warned that the media is a major weapon against peace, and “peace is bad for business.” He reported that former presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich and his wife had authored an <a href="https://eir.news/2025/03/news/kuciniches-praise-trumps-challenge-to-military-industrial-complex/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">article</a> showing that with the breakout of peace talks in the U.S., the stock values of the military-industrial companies had begun a sharp decline, whereas in Europe, where the leaders are militarizing their countries, the military-industrial stocks are booming. He ridiculed the continuing anti-Russia hysteria, asking if Rachmaninov and Tchaikovsky were merely pumping gas at a Russian “gas station.” Trump is not only saying “no more war in Ukraine,” he is also saying “no more NATO.” Europe can no longer depend on the U.S., he said. Nonetheless, the danger in the Middle East is still great, and we should recall what his friend, the late peace-activist Daniel Berrigan said: “The difference between doing something and doing nothing is everything.”</p>



<p>Dr. Jérôme Ravenet, a professor of philosophy in France, the author of a thesis on Chinese President Xi Jinping, and a Chinese scholar, pointed first to former British Prime Minister Tony Blair’s repulsive speech in Chicago in 1999 openly promoting Anglo-American imperial intervention in third countries, which became the basis and justification for the many regime-change wars by the U.K. and the U.S. in the following years. Sanctions and military interventions only escalate conflicts, not solve them, Ravenet said. Are they insane, he asked, or are they convinced that military intervention is necessary to counter a perceived evil?</p>



<p>The West has now worn out its power, with color revolutions and hubris. He then discussed the great philosophic minds of Western civilization, drawing from each a sense of justice. He pointed to Dutch philosopher Baruch Spinoza, who distinguished between power and inclusivity, showing that power proves to be impotent (as the failure of sanctions demonstrates, as well as the fact that regime-change wars only create chaos), whereas the Chinese policy of the Belt and Road Initiative shows the benefit of inclusivity. He said that the West has demonized China, denying that the concept of socialist democracy can even exist. Contrary to the Wolfowitz Doctrine of Western superiority and hegemony, the great philosophers pointed to common sense, and a multipolar world; that contradictions do not mean declaring others to be enemies—pointing to Nicholas of Cusa’s concept of the “coincidence of opposites.” China’s idea of a “win-win” policy, and Charles de Gaulle’s notion of a “third way” between communism and capitalism, are better approaches.</p>



<p>Zepp-LaRouche praised Dr. Ravenet’s “enlightened” presentation, and agreed fully that the Chinese concept of “socialist democracy” was a better approach. After all, she noted, “democracy is dead in Europe,” as evidenced by the Romanian cancellation of the election because the winner was against the war in Ukraine, then arresting him to prevent him from running again. Europe is tied to the “Deep State” in the U.S. She brought up the notion of synarchy—the idea that the oligarchy and the banking interests must have power over the will of the masses, pointing to former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s denunciation of the “deplorables” as an example.</p>



<p>Ray McGovern thanked Dr. Ravenet, saying that he felt like he was “back in grad school, taking notes.” He said that we must also consider the role of racism in the thinking of the oligarchy. He noted that he studied the Classics, and learned Greek, learning that there were two words for power—one meaning hegemony, the other relational, in which the interests of the other were important. He added that Jesus used the term for relational.</p>



<p>Dr. Ravenet added that in regard to anti-China racism, it was French Philosopher Montesquieu who introduced the notion of “Oriental despotism,” although he knew nothing about China. His concern was to oppose Gottfried Leibniz, who was working with the Jesuits who were in China. He concurred with McGovern that Jesus rejected the concept of power as hegemonism.</p>



<p>Mubarak Awad, a Palestinian-American who heads Non-Violence International, provided a video discussion with the Schiller Institute’s Gerald Belsky, in which he strongly endorsed the LaRouche Oasis Plan. He said Palestinians are “less interested in one state or two states, but that people cannot live without water.” He denounced the politicization of water, pointing to Israel’s cutting off the water supply as part of their war on Gaza. He said that Palestinians do not trust the West, since its leaders repeatedly say “peace” and “two-state solution,” but not a single U.S. President has enforced that policy, all saying that “it is up to Israel.” Other countries must be brought into the planning, such as Türkiye, India and African countries; not just Europeans, who had colonized the region.</p>



<p><strong>A Shared Community of Mankind</strong></p>



<p>In response to a question about what type of leadership was needed in Europe, Zepp-LaRouche said, “Not those who reject the common good.” She pointed to China’s notion of the “shared community of mankind.” Leaders must “inspire,” she said, which requires a love of poetry and of music. Such leaders existed in the past, such as Charles de Gaulle, the Prussian reformers who followed Friedrich Schiller and the Humboldts, the leaders of the 1955 Bandung Conference, Confucius, and Joan of Arc. “We need discussions of these ideas,” rather than the common use of “slogans and text messages.”</p>



<p>Dr. Ravenet expressed his delight that the Schiller Institute exists to discuss these issues. He said that he had taught the Chinese language for years, but that in France, there was an effort to marginalize the teaching of Chinese and other languages. Zepp-LaRouche responded that knowing other languages and cultures is crucial if we are to create a world worthy of all nations and all peoples.</p>



<p>Jacques Cheminade, the head of the French Solidarité et Progrès party, said that leaders must be willing to break from the “set rules of discourse” to seek the truth.</p>



<p>A question was raised as to whether Trump had the fortitude to counter the Deep State. IPC co-moderator Dennis Speed responded that the new U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi demanded that certain files be released, only to find that thousands of pages had been withheld. She has now demanded that they all be released immediately, and to reveal who had withheld them. Tulsi Gabbard, now the Director of National Intelligence, has countered the British demand that Apple create a “backdoor” on all their phones so that British intelligence can spy on everyone. These are the cases which will determine if the Deep State can win or not. </p>



<p><em>eir</em></p>


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President Trump’s public debacle with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky halted hopes for a signed minerals agreement while dividing the world — and Washington — over their support for them both. Mike Pompeo, a former secretary of state under Trump, will likely discuss the history of U.S. involvement in previous negotiations as an ally of Ukraine during his appearance on…

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title: Implementing the President's "Department of Government Efficiency" Cost Efficiency Initiative
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guid: https://consortiumnews.com/?p=124591
title: Max Blumenthal: Why Did the Feds Question Me?
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<div data-lg-action="show" data-sm-action="show" data-sm-width="768" data-ga="share_icons" data-ga-action="share" data-ga-link="https://consortiumnews.com/2025/02/26/max-blumenthal-why-did-the-feds-question-me/" data-sanitized-class="wp-socializer wpsr-share-icons">
<div data-sanitized-class="wpsr-si-inner">
<div data-sanitized-class="wpsr-counter wpsrc-sz-32px"><small data-sanitized-class="stext">Shares</small></div>
<div data-sanitized-class="socializer sr-popup sr-count-1 sr-count-1 sr-32px sr-circle sr-opacity sr-pad"><span data-sanitized-class="sr-facebook"></span> <span data-sanitized-class="sr-x"></span> <span data-sanitized-class="sr-bluesky"></span> <span data-sanitized-class="sr-telegram"></span> <span data-sanitized-class="sr-pinterest"><a data-pin-custom="true" data-id="pinterest" rel="nofollow" href="https://www.pinterest.com/pin/create/button/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fconsortiumnews.com%2F2025%2F02%2F26%2Fmax-blumenthal-why-did-the-feds-question-me%2F&amp;media=https://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/30519289304_2a22db5496_k.jpg&amp;description=A%20federal%20agent%20was%20waiting%20for%20the%20author%20soon%20after%20he%20got%20off%20an%20international%20flight.%20He%20was%20the" target="_blank" title="Submit this to Pinterest"><span data-wpsrs-cached="true" data-sanitized-class="ctext">1</span></a></span> <span data-sanitized-class="sr-print"></span> <span data-sanitized-class="sr-pdf"></span> <span data-sanitized-class="sr-email"></span> <span data-sanitized-class="sr-share-menu"></span></div>
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</div>
<p><span><strong>A federal agent was waiting for the author soon after he got off an international flight. He was then treated to a brief but disturbing question-and-answer session.</strong></span><span data-sanitized-id="more-124591"></span></p>
<div data-sanitized-id="attachment_124596" data-sanitized-class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img fetchpriority="high" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-124596" src="https://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/30519289304_2a22db5496_k.jpg" alt width="2048" height="1365" data-sanitized-class="size-full wp-image-124596"><p data-sanitized-id="caption-attachment-124596" data-sanitized-class="wp-caption-text"><span>U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers screen international passengers arriving at the Dulles International Airport in Dulles, Va., 2016. <span>(U.S. Customs and Border Protection/Flickr/Glenn Fawcett/U.S. government)</span></span></p>
</div>
<p><span><strong>By</strong> <a href="https://consortiumnews.com/2018/08/27/the-other-side-of-john-mccain/"><strong><span>Max Blumenthal</span></strong></a></span><br><span><a href="https://substack.com/@thegrayzone"><em>The Grayzone</em></a></span></p>
<p><span><span><strong><img decoding="async" src="https://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Screen-Shot-2019-11-18-at-6.57.04-PM-e1575580108841-100x100.png" alt width="100" height="100" data-sanitized-class="alignleft size-thumbnail wp-image-41629">A</strong></span>s I approached the customs line at Dulles </span> <span>International Airport early on the morning of Feb. 24, a man called out to me, “Mr. Blumenthal?” He identified himself as an officer with Customs and Border Protection, and led me into a cavernous secondary screening room, where he treated me to a strange and disconcerting questioning session.</span></p>
<p><span>I had just returned from a leisurely trip to Nicaragua with my family during which I participated in no political activities. But the agent’s line of questioning suggested federal authorities had little interest in my visit to Nicaragua, a country that happens to be controlled by a socialist-oriented government on Washington’s hit list.</span></p>
<p><span>As my family and I followed the agent down a long hallway, he turned to me and said, “I caught your latest appearance on Judge Napolito [sic].” He was referring to Andrew Napolitano, a former Fox News host and federal judge who hosts a daily livestream featuring former military and intelligence officials as well as journalists like me who dissent from official national security narratives. Nearly all of my appearances on Napolitano’s program, “<a href="https://substack.com/redirect/f1b0d776-ec46-4373-9959-6c7cd9567c13?j=eyJ1IjoiMzU3Y3IifQ.Toa4LeZuu_cxzWaQRSsuTRXF8Vme1861Xc0C42X6eCg" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://substack.com/redirect/f1b0d776-ec46-4373-9959-6c7cd9567c13?j%3DeyJ1IjoiMzU3Y3IifQ.Toa4LeZuu_cxzWaQRSsuTRXF8Vme1861Xc0C42X6eCg&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1740666145466000&amp;usg=AOvVaw2wZYJdB9amekgdH5Xq11Jf">Judging Freedom,</a>” have focused on Israel’s blood-soaked wars in Gaza, Lebanon and beyond throughout the past 16 months.</span></p>
<p><span>When I asked the agent how he liked my interview with the judge, he shrugged and declined to volunteer an opinion. Was he simply trying to warm me up for our own question-and-answer session, or darkly signaling to me that Big Brother was watching? “This is just a friendly exchange,” he insisted as we entered the cavernous secondary screening room. “You’re not a target or anything.”</span></p>
<p><span>Standing across from me at a metal desk, the agent asked me to fill out a questionnaire with my personal info and details of my trip. As soon as I completed the form, he flipped it over and displayed a hand-written list of a handful of names. “Do you know any of these people?” he asked.</span></p>
<p><span>Two of those listed were Anglo names: Nicole Smith and Susan Benjamin. The other three were extremely common Muslims names. Because the agent would not allow me to photograph the list, I was only able to commit one to memory: Muhammad Khan. I could not recall any people I knew with those names. And the only Nicole Smith I could think of was the late model who <a href="https://substack.com/redirect/87c591d1-c4a6-4719-baec-f342f66d6c5b?j=eyJ1IjoiMzU3Y3IifQ.Toa4LeZuu_cxzWaQRSsuTRXF8Vme1861Xc0C42X6eCg" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://substack.com/redirect/87c591d1-c4a6-4719-baec-f342f66d6c5b?j%3DeyJ1IjoiMzU3Y3IifQ.Toa4LeZuu_cxzWaQRSsuTRXF8Vme1861Xc0C42X6eCg&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1740666145467000&amp;usg=AOvVaw0j1_VOVv4swHU0tp6iSY4t">died under strange circumstances</a> at age 39. I therefore told the agent the names were unfamiliar to me.</span></p>
<p><span>To be sure, I would not have assisted the officer even if I had a personal connection with one of the names on the list. I’ve learned from activists and journalists who’ve experienced similar probing that federal agents often deploy inane or disingenuous questions to get their subject talking, then attempt to manipulate or entrap them so they can implicate them in a crime.</span></p>
<p><span>[Related: <em><a href="https://consortiumnews.com/2020/08/28/john-kiriakou-know-your-rights-dont-talk-to-cops-at-the-airport/">JOHN KIRIAKOU: Know Your Rights. Don’t Talk to Cops at the Airport</a></em>]</span></p>
<p><span>In fact, the <a href="https://substack.com/redirect/fa194394-a0e4-400b-b350-cd80853160b3?j=eyJ1IjoiMzU3Y3IifQ.Toa4LeZuu_cxzWaQRSsuTRXF8Vme1861Xc0C42X6eCg" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://substack.com/redirect/fa194394-a0e4-400b-b350-cd80853160b3?j%3DeyJ1IjoiMzU3Y3IifQ.Toa4LeZuu_cxzWaQRSsuTRXF8Vme1861Xc0C42X6eCg&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1740666145467000&amp;usg=AOvVaw2hiwvx3VuhDB4006b_EUjO">U.S. Supreme Court has ruled</a> that police are allowed to lie to elicit confessions from suspects. If government agents want to subject American citizens like me to extended questioning, they must follow constitutional procedures and allow us to have a lawyer present.</span></p>
<p><span><strong>Free to Go</strong></span></p>
<p><span>After spending several minutes inside a small office, the agent returned to inform us we were free to go. As we exited the screening room and headed toward the baggage claim area, an airport worker from West Africa pulled up to me on a ride-on floor scrubber, shook my hand and asked for a selfie. Like the federal agent, he was apparently aware of my journalistic output, but viewed it in a much more favorable light.</span></p>
<p><span>While waiting for our luggage, my wife, Anya Parampil, had a disturbing realization. She had been googling the names on the list the officer presented to me and discovered that Susan Benjamin was the birth name of our friend, Medea Benjamin, cofounder of Code Pink and one of the most widely recognized antiwar activists on the planet.</span></p>
<div data-sanitized-id="attachment_124598" data-sanitized-class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-124598" src="https://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Medea_Benjamin_3-scaled.jpg" alt width="2560" height="1920" data-sanitized-class="size-full wp-image-124598"><p data-sanitized-id="caption-attachment-124598" data-sanitized-class="wp-caption-text"><span>Benjamin in November 2007. <span>(Medea Benjamin/Wikimedia Commons/ <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.en">CC BY-SA 3.0)</a></span><span><br></span></span></p>
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<p><span>The following day, I informed Medea about my encounter at Dulles and asked if she had experienced anything similar. She told me there was a period when she was harassed by federal authorities each time she traveled out of the country. The F.B.I. once dispatched an officer to meet her at an airport upon her return from a foreign trip, and called her on several occasions in an unsuccessful attempt to solicit a “meeting.” She said the harassment stopped after she filed a series of complaints, but my experience has led her to believe it will begin again.</span></p>
<p><span>While I was allowed to return to my country after a fairly brief question-and-answer session with a polite federal officer, the interaction felt like an act of political harassment, and seemed to signal an escalation against journalists and activists who’ve expressed antiwar, anti-Zionist views.</span></p>
<p><span>I can only speculate on what the Feds’ ultimate objective was, however, I know of several antiwar activists who have had F.B.I. agents <a href="https://substack.com/redirect/776dd09f-dd09-45ac-b79d-208781d3b4be?j=eyJ1IjoiMzU3Y3IifQ.Toa4LeZuu_cxzWaQRSsuTRXF8Vme1861Xc0C42X6eCg" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://substack.com/redirect/776dd09f-dd09-45ac-b79d-208781d3b4be?j%3DeyJ1IjoiMzU3Y3IifQ.Toa4LeZuu_cxzWaQRSsuTRXF8Vme1861Xc0C42X6eCg&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1740666145467000&amp;usg=AOvVaw3m8YCPAaHrKtjLr5sanldc">appear at their doors</a> over the past several months asking questions about Iran and individuals with Muslim or Arab names. Just down the road from Dulles, the <a href="https://substack.com/redirect/cd40eb2b-118d-414e-974d-be5fca2d529a?j=eyJ1IjoiMzU3Y3IifQ.Toa4LeZuu_cxzWaQRSsuTRXF8Vme1861Xc0C42X6eCg" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://substack.com/redirect/cd40eb2b-118d-414e-974d-be5fca2d529a?j%3DeyJ1IjoiMzU3Y3IifQ.Toa4LeZuu_cxzWaQRSsuTRXF8Vme1861Xc0C42X6eCg&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1740666145467000&amp;usg=AOvVaw3u7Yw9AR5jR-NV-mvTBMgb">F.B.I. raided the home</a> of a Palestinian American family whose daughter is a Palestine solidarity activist at George Mason University.</span></p>
<p><span>Within the broader realm of Five Eyes, in European vassal states without the same free speech protections Americans enjoy, journalists like <a href="https://substack.com/redirect/69fb5afd-833d-4d7f-b03e-b812103d4192?j=eyJ1IjoiMzU3Y3IifQ.Toa4LeZuu_cxzWaQRSsuTRXF8Vme1861Xc0C42X6eCg" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://substack.com/redirect/69fb5afd-833d-4d7f-b03e-b812103d4192?j%3DeyJ1IjoiMzU3Y3IifQ.Toa4LeZuu_cxzWaQRSsuTRXF8Vme1861Xc0C42X6eCg&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1740666145467000&amp;usg=AOvVaw3kxS7MiL3JZhS9n6hQwjXH">Ali Abunimah</a>, <a href="https://substack.com/redirect/83b92dd3-9a26-473f-b512-9fdd425c937e?j=eyJ1IjoiMzU3Y3IifQ.Toa4LeZuu_cxzWaQRSsuTRXF8Vme1861Xc0C42X6eCg" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://substack.com/redirect/83b92dd3-9a26-473f-b512-9fdd425c937e?j%3DeyJ1IjoiMzU3Y3IifQ.Toa4LeZuu_cxzWaQRSsuTRXF8Vme1861Xc0C42X6eCg&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1740666145467000&amp;usg=AOvVaw3c5bS4msOxA_vfGMirk34d">Asa Winstanley</a> and <a href="https://substack.com/redirect/4719c235-2183-4992-98ab-b6576536f28e?j=eyJ1IjoiMzU3Y3IifQ.Toa4LeZuu_cxzWaQRSsuTRXF8Vme1861Xc0C42X6eCg" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://substack.com/redirect/4719c235-2183-4992-98ab-b6576536f28e?j%3DeyJ1IjoiMzU3Y3IifQ.Toa4LeZuu_cxzWaQRSsuTRXF8Vme1861Xc0C42X6eCg&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1740666145467000&amp;usg=AOvVaw0YKg9Ifz8PCjFhHTIBNXKq">Richard Medhurst</a> have been subjected to police raids, imprisonment and even criminal prosecution for the opinions they’ve expressed on Israel-Palestine.</span></p>
<p><span>My colleague at <em>The Grayzone</em>, <a href="https://substack.com/redirect/43f3f668-abdc-418d-87a6-e2d4e8286eb1?j=eyJ1IjoiMzU3Y3IifQ.Toa4LeZuu_cxzWaQRSsuTRXF8Vme1861Xc0C42X6eCg" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://substack.com/redirect/43f3f668-abdc-418d-87a6-e2d4e8286eb1?j%3DeyJ1IjoiMzU3Y3IifQ.Toa4LeZuu_cxzWaQRSsuTRXF8Vme1861Xc0C42X6eCg&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1740666145467000&amp;usg=AOvVaw3LxYxdZkUbXJC9ajFaumy6">Kit Klarenberg</a>, was detained by British counter-terror cops and grilled for hours about his journalism on London’s machinations in Ukraine and beyond.</span></p>
<p><span>Another one of our contributors, <a href="https://substack.com/redirect/23798ef7-dad9-4206-a0d9-70470cb4964b?j=eyJ1IjoiMzU3Y3IifQ.Toa4LeZuu_cxzWaQRSsuTRXF8Vme1861Xc0C42X6eCg" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://substack.com/redirect/23798ef7-dad9-4206-a0d9-70470cb4964b?j%3DeyJ1IjoiMzU3Y3IifQ.Toa4LeZuu_cxzWaQRSsuTRXF8Vme1861Xc0C42X6eCg&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1740666145467000&amp;usg=AOvVaw2xhnFFAowaoRmG2oJyjxiy">Jeremy Loffredo</a>, spent several days in an Israeli prison and was ordered to self-deport after authorities falsely accused him of “assisting an enemy during wartime” for his journalism inside the country’s occupied frontiers.</span></p>
<p><span>In Canada, activist Yves Engler was just released from <a href="https://substack.com/redirect/e52ef37b-bde7-4bc6-9633-25df57ab3023?j=eyJ1IjoiMzU3Y3IifQ.Toa4LeZuu_cxzWaQRSsuTRXF8Vme1861Xc0C42X6eCg" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://substack.com/redirect/e52ef37b-bde7-4bc6-9633-25df57ab3023?j%3DeyJ1IjoiMzU3Y3IifQ.Toa4LeZuu_cxzWaQRSsuTRXF8Vme1861Xc0C42X6eCg&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1740666145467000&amp;usg=AOvVaw2nANv6Rs8P8jXLrkeRUh5-">five days in jail</a> after a fanatical Zionist activist, Dahlia Kurtz, accused him of “hate speech” for branding her a “fascist.” Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu travels freely from <a href="https://substack.com/redirect/6586f738-ae07-434a-a50c-5182987215fd?j=eyJ1IjoiMzU3Y3IifQ.Toa4LeZuu_cxzWaQRSsuTRXF8Vme1861Xc0C42X6eCg" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://substack.com/redirect/6586f738-ae07-434a-a50c-5182987215fd?j%3DeyJ1IjoiMzU3Y3IifQ.Toa4LeZuu_cxzWaQRSsuTRXF8Vme1861Xc0C42X6eCg&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1740666145467000&amp;usg=AOvVaw05vqGGw064vD2-gfUafYXv">Berlin</a> to <a href="https://substack.com/redirect/6af58b66-1cc2-4c61-b25b-4c5daf8a6742?j=eyJ1IjoiMzU3Y3IifQ.Toa4LeZuu_cxzWaQRSsuTRXF8Vme1861Xc0C42X6eCg" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://substack.com/redirect/6af58b66-1cc2-4c61-b25b-4c5daf8a6742?j%3DeyJ1IjoiMzU3Y3IifQ.Toa4LeZuu_cxzWaQRSsuTRXF8Vme1861Xc0C42X6eCg&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1740666145467000&amp;usg=AOvVaw33GZ8P8gpbamwRtzGcin7J">Washington, D.C.,</a> despite an International Criminal Court (ICC) warrant for his arrest for authorizing ghastly war crimes in the besieged Gaza Strip.</span></p>
<p><span>My experience at Dulles International Airport paled in comparison to what a growing number of journalists and activists have endured in NATO states under Zionist management. Nonetheless, it is important to document encounters like these, and to prepare for future interactions that might not be as “friendly.”</span></p>
<p><span><strong>The editor-in-chief of <em>The Grayzone</em>, Max Blumenthal is an award-winning journalist and the author of several books, including best-selling <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Republican-Gomorrah-Inside-Movement-Shattered/dp/1568584172"><em>Republican Gomorrah</em></a>, <em><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Goliath-Life-Loathing-Greater-Israel/dp/1568586345">Goliath</a></em>, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/51-Day-War-Ruin-Resistance/dp/156858511X"><em>The Fifty One Day War</em></a> and <em><a href="https://www.versobooks.com/books/2868-the-management-of-savagery">The Management of Savagery</a></em>. He has produced print articles for an array of publications, many video reports, and several documentaries, including <a href="https://killinggaza.com/"><em>Killing Gaza</em></a>. Blumenthal founded <em>The Grayzone</em> in 2015 to shine a journalistic light on America’s state of perpetual war and its dangerous domestic repercussions.</strong></span></p>
<p><span><em>This article is from <a href="https://substack.com/@thegrayzone"><em>The Grayzone</em></a></em></span></p>
<p><span><em>The views expressed are solely those of the author and may or may not reflect those of </em><strong>Consortium News.</strong></span></p>

tags:
#Civil Rights #Commentary #Free Speech #Nicaragua #Press Freedom #Surveillance #Trump Administration #U.S. #U.S. Supreme Courrt #Ali Abunimah #Anya Parampil #Asa Winstanley #Code Pink #Dahlia Kurtz #F.B.I. #Five Eyes #Jeremy Loffredo #Judge Andrew Napolitano #Kit Klarenberg #Max Blumenthal #Medea Benjamin #Richard Medhurst #U.S. Customs and Border Protection #U.S. Department of Homeland Security #Yves Engler


guid: https://consortiumnews.com/?p=124502
title: Patrick Lawrence: Trump Takes on the Deep State?
author: ;Elizabeth Vos
link: https://consortiumnews.com/2025/02/26/patrick-lawrence-trump-takes-on-the-deep-state/
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<p dir="ltr"><span><strong>The U.S. president’s unfolding offensive against the institutions and agencies comprising the Deep State — the permanent state or the invisible government, as it is also commonly known — continues.</strong></span></p>
<div data-sanitized-id="attachment_124558" data-sanitized-class="wp-caption alignnone"><img fetchpriority="high" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-124558" src="https://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/President_Trump_at_the_G20_48144047611.jpeg" alt width="1200" height="800" data-sanitized-class="wp-image-124558 size-full"><p data-sanitized-id="caption-attachment-124558" data-sanitized-class="wp-caption-text"><span>Russian President Vladimir Putin and U.S. President Donald Trump during the G20 Summit in June 2019. <span>(Official White House Photo by Shealah Craighead, Public domain)</span></span></p>
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<p dir="ltr"><span><span data-sanitized-id="more-124502"></span></span></p>
<p dir="ltr"><span><strong>By <span><a href="https://consortiumnews.com/tag/patrick-lawrence/">Patrick Lawrence</a> </span></strong></span><br><span><a href="https://scheerpost.com/2025/02/23/patrick-lawrence-what-odds-as-trump-takes-on-the-deep-state/"><em>ScheerPost</em></a></span></p>
<p dir="ltr"><span><span><span><strong><img decoding="async" src="https://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Screen-Shot-2022-06-13-at-2.23.01-PM-100x100.png" alt width="100" height="100" data-sanitized-class="alignleft size-thumbnail wp-image-80450"></strong><span><span><strong>P</strong></span>resident Donald T</span></span>rump’s telephone conversation with the Russian president, which he disclosed at noon Wednesday, Feb. 12, lasted 90 minutes. Trump was quick to note that the exchange marked the start of negotiations to bring the Biden regime’s proxy war in Ukraine, three years running as of Feb. 24, to an end. But there was much more to the conversation, as Trump and the Kremlin described it. Here is how Trump cast the call on his Truth Social platform:</span></span></p>
<blockquote>
<p><span>“I just had a lengthy and highly productive phone call with President Vladimir Putin of Russia. We discussed Ukraine, the Middle East, Energy, Artificial Intelligence, the power of the Dollar, and various other subjects. We both reflected on the Great History of our Nations, and the fact that we fought so successfully together in World War II, remembering that Russia lost tens of millions of people, and we, likewise, lost so many! We each talked about the strengths of our respective Nations, and the great benefit that we will someday have in working together. But first, as we both agreed, we want to stop the millions of deaths taking place in the War with Russia/Ukraine. President Putin even used my very strong Campaign motto of, ‘COMMON SENSE….’ “</span></p>
</blockquote>
<p><span>Since the telephone call, of course, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and other Trump officials have met in Riyadh with Russian counterparts, effectively serving as sherpas in advance of a Trump–Putin summit at some point this spring, if all goes to plan.</span></p>
<p><span>I read this as a preliminary but important consolidation of Trump’s demarche: The more progress, the better the president is protected from Deep State subversions.     </span></p>
<p><span><span>Trump’s swiftly advancing demarche in relations with Russia, we ought to note, requires that we cast his campaign against the Deep State in a broader context. Sunday’s elections in Germany are the most immediate case in point.</span></span></p>
<p><span><span>As long and widely expected, <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/german-election-results-and-voter-demographics-explained-in-charts/a-71724186">the Christian Democratic Union</a> under the leadership of Friedrich Merz, a committed Europeanist, will form the next government. </span></span></p>
<p><span>But Merz will not form it alone. The CDU and the Christian Social Union, its conservative cousin with its strongest base in Bavaria, commanded <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/german-election-results-and-voter-demographics-explained-in-charts/a-71724186">a combined 29 percent</a> of the vote. To understand this result, we have to put it against the <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/german-election-results-and-voter-demographics-explained-in-charts/a-71724186">21 percent  for Alternative für Deutschland</a>, the party of conservative populists that stands against precisely the neoliberal ideology Trump and his people are attacking at home. </span></p>
<p><span>The CDU, like the Social Democrats (who lost big Sunday) and other mainstream parties, has vowed never to invite AfD — now Germany’s No. 2 party — into a coalition government. This means the CDU will either have to relent on this commitment — unlikely at the moment — or German politics are about to drift, messily enough, further in the post-democratic direction.</span></p>
<p><span>Either way, the political representatives of Germany’s version of the Deep State will remain under siege. “We have won it,” Merz declared in Berlin Sunday evening. Not quite, I would say. Not really. Not at all, actually. </span></p>
<div data-sanitized-id="attachment_124573" data-sanitized-class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-124573" src="https://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/EPP_Congress_Bucharest_-_Day_1_53580910504-scaled.jpg" alt width="2416" height="2560" data-sanitized-class="size-full wp-image-124573"><p data-sanitized-id="caption-attachment-124573" data-sanitized-class="wp-caption-text"><span>Merz, center, with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, left, and Manfred Weber, president of the European People’s Party, at the party’s Congress in Bucharest in 2024. <span>(European People’s Party, Wikimedia Commons, <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-sanitized-class="mw-mmv-license">CC BY 2.0)</a></span></span></p>
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<p><span>We have to consider Trump’s war on the Deep State, I mean to say, as something of a global phenomenon, or at least a phenomenon evident throughout the Western post-democracies. Among AfD’s core positions, those that win the party votes, are its opposition to excessive immigration and to the wasteful war in Ukraine, and the need to repair ties with the Russian Federation.</span></p>
<p><span>In these aspects, AfD’s political combat bears a close resemblance to Trump’s.</span></p>
<p><span><span>Restoring ties with Russia and negotiating a settlement of the Ukraine war would be big-enough blows to the Deep State’s interests. Russophobia is a Deep State perennial, and Ukraine has been the centerpiece these past years of the</span> <a href="https://en.prolewiki.org/wiki/MICIMATT"><span>MICIMATT</span></a><span>’s unceasing campaign to subvert the Russian Federation. But the other items on Trump’s list of topics discussed with Putin are not to be dismissed as knick-knacks. </span></span></p>
<p><span>Taken together, they indicate Trump’s intention to end the Biden regime’s project to reduce Russia to pariah status by way of total isolation in the community of nations. “The great history of our nations,” “the great benefit that we will someday have in working together:”</span></p>
<p><span>This is a comprehensive restoration project, the neo-détente Trump favored during his first term with a lot of additional bulk to it. </span></p>
<p><span><span>Implicit in Trump’s rhetoric is an assumption of equality Deep Staters such as Hillary Clinton have purposely dismissed. (Remember Barack Obama’s condescending description of Russia as a minor</span> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/mar/25/barack-obama-russia-regional-power-ukraine-weakness"><span>regional power</span></a><span>?)</span></span></p>
<p><span><span>In the bargain — I especially appreciate this — Trump acknowledged Russia’s role in the Allies’ 1945 victory over the Reich, which U.S. propagandists have disgracefully sought to erase from history at least since John Kerry’s years as Obama’s secretary of state. </span></span></p>
<p><span><strong>Europanic  </strong></span></p>
<p><span>The implications here are huge. The Europeans are in a state of shock — Europanic, we may as well start calling it — having sold their souls, their economies, and the well-being of their citizens to the Biden regime’s sanctions program and its cynical use of Ukraine as a battering ram at Russia’s borders. What now for them? Volodymyr Zelensky is more or less out of the conversation now — and at last. </span></p>
<p><span><span>Trump, indeed, just dismissed</span> <a href="https://scheerpost.com/2025/02/20/trump-calls-zelensky-a-dictator-who-has-done-a-terrible-job/"><span>the autocrat of Kiev as “a dictator</span></a><span>.” He, Zelensky, appeared at the Munich Security Conference earlier this month as the helpless, hapless taker-of-orders he has always been but pretended not to be. There is much talk now of Trump’s new, improved plans for Russia decisively altering the post–1945 “order,” and I insist on the quotation marks in this reference. </span></span></p>
<p><span>Trump’s proposal for a new détente with Russia was childishly belittled in mainstream media during his first term, this on both sides of the Atlantic — kissed off as a matter of his affection for a dictator and nothing more.</span></p>
<p><span>There were no significant policy concerns to be considered, no view of a world beyond the binaries the Deep State has cultivated since the 1945 victories. We see the same this time. </span></p>
<p><span><em>The New York Times</em> coverage, typical of the rest, has been led by Maggie Haberman and Anton Troianovski, the former covering the White House and the latter the Kremlin, and there is no getting a sound report out of either of them.</span></p>
<p><span>Read the stuff. It is all about Trump playing to his ego and Putin playing Trump with great dollops of flattery. No mention of the new security structure between Russia and the West, which is at bottom the very large and essential question.</span></p>
<p><span><em><span>Plus ça change</span></em><span>, it seems to me so far. </span></span></p>
<p><span><span>It is far too early to draw conclusions, but I simply do not see the Deep State taking this supinely. I have, indeed, been suspicious of Keith Kellogg, the retired general serving as Trump’s special envoy for Ukraine and Russia, ever since he began, immediately after he was appointed, to bark threats of more sanctions and military action against Russia if Moscow did not accept a settlement favorable to Kiev and its sponsors.</span></span></p>
<p><span><span>In this Kellogg strikes me as just the kind of figure the Deep State imposed on Trump last time around — John Bolton, H.R. McMaster,</span> <em><span>et al</span></em> <span>—  who were in place to subvert every good idea Trump had.  </span></span></p>
<p><span>I wonder if Kellogg is not a sign of the subterfuge to come. He was not, I note with approval, on the list of officials Trump dispatched to Riyadh this past week. </span></p>
<p><span>And so to more of the watching and waiting.</span></p>
<p><strong><span>Gabbard’s Surprises  </span></strong></p>
<p><span>Tulsi Gabbard said some surprisingly gutsy things during her hotly contentious confirmation hearings before the Senate Intelligence Committee earlier this month.</span></p>
<p><span>And in view of those surprising things, it was a surprise again to read that she has won approval of her appointment as Trump’s director of national intelligence. Hmmm. What further surprises are in store as she takes up her post?</span></p>
<p><span>In mid–January, when Gabbard abruptly announced that she would support the continuation of Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, I was among many who were stunned — full of surprises, Ms. Gabbard — by her capitulation on this important question.</span></p>
<p><span>Section 702, added to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act in 2008, authorizes the National Security Agency to surveille Americans without first obtaining court-issued warrants.</span></p>
<p><span><a href="https://consortiumnews.com/2025/01/15/patrick-lawrence-the-predictable-capitulation-of-tulsi-gabbard/"><span>I described Gabbard at the time</span></a> <span>as “a figure who has done some good things but who, as is now evident, has no sound political principles, no intellectual discipline, anything that is not negotiable.”</span></span></p>
<p><span><span>I am short of retreating from this judgment. But as I watched segments of</span> <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3NuF96Cr-1c"><span>her hearings on C–SPAN</span></a><span>, it occurred to me that this conclusion may prove premature, too harsh, or both.  </span></span></p>
<div data-sanitized-id="attachment_124546" data-sanitized-class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-124546" src="https://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Attorney_General_Pam_Bondi_swears_in_Tulsi_Gabbard_as_Director_of_National_Intelligence_2025-1000x667.jpg" alt width="860" height="574" data-sanitized-class="wp-image-124546 size-large"><p data-sanitized-id="caption-attachment-124546" data-sanitized-class="wp-caption-text"><span>Attorney General Pam Bondi swearing in Gabbard as director of national intelligence on  Feb. 12. <span>(Office of the Director of National Intelligence, Public domain)</span></span></p>
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<p><span>Gabbard gave as good as she got — or better, indeed — as her interlocutors drilled in with the righteous pomposity common when a candidate not in perfect conformity with Washington’s orthodoxies sits opposite them. </span></p>
<p><span>Michael Bennet, a Democrat from Colorado, fairly obsessed on whether Gabbard condemned Edward Snowden as a traitor. The exchange turned into one of those infra-dig “Yes or no, yes or no, yes or no?” scenes until Gabbard, who as a congresswoman sponsored a House resolution calling for all charges against Snowden to be dropped, at last responded handily, “The fact is, he also — even as he broke the law — released information that exposed egregious, illegal and unconstitutional programs.” </span></p>
<p><span>That seems to have finished off the ultra-clean cut senator from the Rockies. </span></p>
<p><span><span>It was that way on several occasions during Gabbard’s grilling. Here she is on her controversial talks with Bashar al–Assad while serving in Congress at the height of the C.I.A.’s covert op against the Assad regime in Damascus. The transgression in this case was — oh, my goodness — talking to an adversary.</span></span></p>
<p><span><span>I urge readers to consider Gabbard’s riposte thoughtfully. It goes to that 21st century imperative I note from time to time: To see from the perspectives of others is a</span> <em><span>sine qua non</span></em> <span>in international relations now.</span></span></p>
<p><span>Gabbard on this theme:</span></p>
<blockquote>
<p><span>“I asked him tough questions about his own regime’s actions, the use of chemical weapons, and the brutal tactics that were being used against his own people…. I believe that leaders — whether you be in Congress or the president of the United States — can benefit greatly by going and engaging boots on the ground, learning and listening and meeting directly with people, whether they be adversaries or friends.”</span></p>
</blockquote>
<p><span>The exchange that truly captivated me, though, concerned Gabbard’s previous statements that the United States in the course of the covert operation to depose Assad, had supported Al–Qaeda, the Islamic State, al–Nusra and other savage jihadists of their kind.</span></p>
<p><span>“What was your motive,” Senator Mark Kelly, the Arizona Democrat, wanted to know, especially since Gabbard’s assertions matched — Gasp! — what the Russians and Iranians were also saying at the U.N. and elsewhere. (Curious, or maybe not at all, that it was the Democrats who wielded the sharpest hatchets here.) </span></p>
<p><span>Gabbard in reply: </span></p>
<blockquote>
<p><span>“Senator, as someone who enlisted in the military, specifically because of Al–Qaeda’s terrorist attack on 9–11, and committing myself and my life to doing what I could do to defeat these terrorists, it was shocking and a betrayal to me and every person who was killed on 9–11, their families and my brothers and sisters in uniform.</span></p>
<p><span>When, as a member of Congress, I learned about President Obama’s dual programs that he had begun, really, to overthrow the regime of Syria and being willing to, through the C.I.A.’s Timber Sycamore program, that now has been made public, of working with and arming and equipping al–Qaeda in an effort to overthrow that regime, starting yet another regime-change war in the Middle East.</span></p>
<p><span>DoD train-and-equip program, again, begun under President Obama, is widely known, looked at and studied, that ultimately resulted in over half a billion dollars being used to train who they called ‘moderate rebels’ but were actually fighters working with and aligned with Al–Qaeda’s affiliate on the ground in Syria, all to move forward with their regime change and not acknowledging what was obvious at the time and what has unfortunately borne true, which was that a regime-change war in Syria, much like the regime-change wars in Iraq, the toppling of Gaddafi [in Libya, 2011] and [Hosni] Mubarak [in Egypt, 2011], while these were all dictators, would likely result in the rise of Islamist extremists like Al–Qaeda taking power.”</span></p>
</blockquote>
<p><span><span>Immanent critique, masterfully practiced. It was something not much short of brilliant to shove this much truth back down the throats of senators who presumed all the Deep State’s lies could be deployed to discredit the candidate.</span></span></p>
<p><span><span>There is more to Gabbard’s exchange with Kelly, and it is so exceptional I link that segment of the hearings</span> <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1AIoxClwbms"><span>here</span></a><span>. </span></span></p>
<p><strong><span>Bureaucratic Commotion</span></strong></p>
<p><span>There seems no arguing at this point that Trump decided, during his time in the wilderness of Mar-a–Lago, that, on his return to office, he would pursue a well-aimed, carefully calculated course of action against the Deep State in as many of its manifestations as he could take on.</span></p>
<p><span>Kash Patel, a former federal prosecutor, was confirmed this week as director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and so is the latest of Trump’s nominees preparing to open another line of attack. </span></p>
<p><span>Patel’s appointment has two things in common with Gabbard’s. The F.B.I., like the  intelligence apparatus, was at the very center of the Deep State plots that more or less neutered Trump’s first term by way of extravagant disinformation campaigns, breaches of law and various other forms of corruption.</span></p>
<p><span>And as Patel made generously plain in the weeks before his Senate confirmation hearings, he, like Gabbard, intends to break with his agency’s entrenched norms. Patel, indeed, has just begun a purge that, if it proceeds as he intends, is certain to go well beyond anything Gabbard may manage. </span></p>
<p><span><span>There is the</span> <em><span>volte-face</span></em> <span>in relations with Russia, which Trump and his national security people appear to be consolidating at a remarkable pace since the Feb. 12 telephone call with Putin.</span></span></p>
<p><span><span>And there is Trump’s proposal to convene a summit with Putin and Xi Jinping, a sort of 21st century Yalta, at which he would negotiate with the Russian and Chinese presidents to cut their military budgets by 50 percent.</span></span></p>
<p><span>Trump’s first mention of this latter idea was a passing reference, a couple of sentences, during a press conference that covered sundry other matters.</span></p>
<p><span>I took this to be another of his many improvisations — impromptu proposals that seem to come spontaneously into his head in the course of one or another kind of public exchange. I assumed it would go about as far as asserting sovereignty over Greenland. </span></p>
<p><span><span>Then came</span> <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2025/02/19/trump-pentagon-budget-cuts/"><span><em>The Washington Post</em> report</span></a> <span>that Pete Hegseth has ordered the Pentagon to find budget reductions of 8 percent per year for the next five years. Since then</span> <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2025/02/19/trump-pentagon-cuts-8-troops-budget/36544e60-ef27-11ef-bd80-8f2ac5c75a8a_story.html"><span>The Associated Press has reported</span></a> <span>that Trump’s defense secretary wants to see $50 billion in cuts — not quite 6 percent of the Pentagon’s declared budget — during the current fiscal year, which ends Sept. 30.</span></span></p>
<p><span><span>[Hegseth’s cuts are <a href="https://scheerpost.com/2025/02/21/pentagon-says-hegseths-order-will-redirect-spending-not-make-actual-cuts/">expected to be redirected</a> to what Trump considers other priorities.]</span></span></p>
<div data-sanitized-id="attachment_124577" data-sanitized-class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-124577" src="https://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/HegsethFeb20.jpg" alt width="2048" height="1365" data-sanitized-class="size-full wp-image-124577"><p data-sanitized-id="caption-attachment-124577" data-sanitized-class="wp-caption-text"><span>Hegseth in his office at the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., on Feb. 20. <span>(DoD, Alexander Kubitza, Public Domain)</span></span></p>
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<p><span>Taking all this bureaucratic commotion at face value, only Deep State denizens could possibly object as a new defense secretary takes a run at the military-industrial monster, or as a new D.N.I. commits to giving the White House “clean” intelligence — clean as in accurate daily briefs untainted as they pass through the soiled mitts of Deep State ideologues.</span></p>
<p><span>And if there is one agency that befouled itself more than any other during the Russiagate years, and again during the operations to keep Trump out of politics and protect Joe Biden from impeachment for his everywhere-you-look corruptions, it is the F.B.I., from Christopher Wray, its disgraced-in-public director, on down to a lot of special agents. </span></p>
<p><span>O.K., three cheers, a lot of people are saying. I would say two, and leave this number open to reduction.</span></p>
<p><span><span>Consider carefully the Hegseth memorandum that went out to top generals and civilian Pentagon officials. There are many categories of expenditure exempted from budget reductions, including but by no means limited to the nuclear modernization project, attack drones, submarines, and — will these Strangeloves never stop? — an “Iron Dome for America.” Hegseth’s</span> <a href="https://scheerpost.com/2025/02/21/pentagon-says-hegseths-order-will-redirect-spending-not-make-actual-cuts/"><span>declared intent</span></a> <span>is merely a “realignment” such as we have seen numerous times before.  </span></span></p>
<p><span>Two points. One, there are those commentators who now cast Trump as some kind of “revolutionary.” These people should take a long walk and reconsider their thoughts: Pete Hegseth and his boss are not in the business of dismantling the imperium — that last, best hope of which the late Chalmers Johnson wrote. Two, the military-industrial complex has more arms than one of those exotic Buddhist bronzes you see in museums. </span></p>
<p><span>All 435 congressional districts, every legislator on Capitol Hill, the spooks, the Pentagon itself, the weapons contractors, who knows how many lobbyists: They all have an interest in keeping the MIC ticking over just as it is.</span></p>
<p><span>Is Hegseth powerful enough to overcome the vigorous resistance that will come from these powerful quarters? What — our question right now — is his bureaucratic constituency such that he will get this done?  </span></p>
<p><span>It was interesting, as that Colorado senator was heckling Tulsi Gabbard about her view of Edward Snowden, to see the social media posts Snowden sent from Russia. Just say it, he said (I paraphrase) in addressing Gabbard. Just tell them yes, I’m a traitor. It will get you confirmed. </span></p>
<p><span>This makes perfect sense if you review the confirmation hearings of, say Antony Blinken, as he stood as Biden’s nominee to serve as secretary of state. These hearings are somewhere between rituals and political showmanship.</span></p>
<p><span>I watched the Blinken proceedings back then on C–SPAN. Such a load of horse droppings I have rarely heard: None of the commitments he made to the assembled senators — diplomacy first, military action last; constant consultation with Congress, etc. — was ever fulfilled and never was he called on any of it.</span></p>
<p><span>Gabbard, as earlier recounted, stood her ground and protected her integrity on the Snowden question. But — a big “but” here — her capitulation on Section 702, which she had previously sought to repeal during her years in Congress, remains a critical betrayal of principle, vastly more serious than the Snowden business for the D.N.I.</span></p>
<p><span>As to Patel, he presents a determined figure as he speaks publicly about the need to shovel a lot of manure out of the horse barn Wray and others have made of the F.B.I. Prior to his nomination, Patel declared rather flatly his intention to shut down the F.B.I.’s building in Washington and turn it into “a museum of the deep state.”</span></p>
<p><span>It does not get much more pointed. And last week he announced plans to disperse a thousand special agents from the D.C. headquarters to field offices across the country. </span></p>
<p><span>Patel is a lawyer: He is sure to remain within the bounds of the law as he goes at this. But it is an open question altogether whether he will clean out the agency or the agency will, so to say, clean him out.</span></p>
<p><span>In my read, the deeper Patel goes into the F.B.I.’s dark corners, the more likely he is to encounter resistance comparably fierce to what Hegseth is surely going to find the deeper he drills into the Pentagon budget.  </span></p>
<p><span>The Trump-as-revolutionary routine is, as we used to say, very high school. Way too overblown. In the matter of the deep state, we have to take the president and his people one question at a time for now.</span></p>
<p><span>My cheers go to Russia, and an end to the war in Ukraine. These advances are the most consequential to date and, it seems to me, have the best chance of withstanding the counterattacks we are simply wise to expect.</span></p>
<p dir="ltr"><span><strong>Patrick Lawrence, a correspondent abroad for many years, chiefly for the <em>International Herald Tribune</em>, is a columnist, essayist, lecturer and author, most recently of <em><a href="https://www.claritypress.com/product/journalists-and-their-shadows/">Journalists and Their Shadows</a></em>, available <a href="https://www.claritypress.com/product/journalists-and-their-shadows/">from Clarity Press</a> or <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Journalists-Their-Shadows-Patrick-Lawrence/dp/1949762785/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3T1QBTXKY71OW&amp;keywords=journalists+and+their+shadows&amp;qid=1699895151&amp;s=books&amp;sprefix=journalists+and+thier+shadows%2Cstripbooks%2C79&amp;sr=1-1">via Amazon</a>.  Other books include <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Time-No-Longer-Americans-American/dp/0300176562"><em>Time No Longer: Americans After the American Century</em></a>. His Twitter account, @thefloutist, has been permanently censored. </strong></span></p>
<p dir="ltr"><span><em>TO MY READERS. Independent publications and those who write for them reach a moment that is difficult and full of promise all at once. On one hand, we assume ever greater responsibilities in the face of mainstream media’s mounting derelictions. On the other, we have found no sustaining revenue model and so must turn directly to our readers for support. I am committed to independent journalism for the duration: I see no other future for American media. But the path grows steeper, and as it does I need your help. This grows urgent now. In  recognition of the commitment to independent journalism, please subscribe to The Floutist, or via my <a href="http://www.patreon.com/thefloutist">Patreon account</a>.</em></span></p>
<p dir="ltr"><span><em>This article is from <a href="https://scheerpost.com/2025/02/23/patrick-lawrence-what-odds-as-trump-takes-on-the-deep-state/">ScheerPost.</a> </em></span></p>
<p><span><em>The views expressed are solely those of the author and may or may not reflect those of </em><strong>Consortium News</strong><em>.</em></span></p>

tags:
#Commentary #Germany #Pentagon #Russia #Russiagate #Trump Administration #U.S. #U.S. Justice Dept. #U.S. State Department #Ukraine #Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) #Bashar al-Assad #Christian Democratic Union (CDU) #Christian Social Union #Deep State #Donald Trump #Edward Snowden #Friedrich Merz #General Keith Kellogg #Kash Patel #Patrick Lawrence #President Volodymyr Zelensky #Tulsi Gabbard #Vladimir Putin


guid: https://consortiumnews.com/?p=124607
title: Starmer’s Plan for UK Growth Is the Ukraine War
author: ;corinna barnard
link: https://consortiumnews.com/2025/02/27/starmers-plan-for-uk-growth-is-the-ukraine-war/
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<p><span><strong>Mark Curtis on the Labour government’s increase in military spending and its extraordinary new agreement with Ukraine.</strong> <span data-sanitized-id="more-124607"></span></span></p>
<div data-sanitized-id="attachment_124629" data-sanitized-class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img fetchpriority="high" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-124629" src="https://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/54183794997_d9af508e74_b.jpg" alt width="1077" height="720" data-sanitized-class=" wp-image-124629"><p data-sanitized-id="caption-attachment-124629" data-sanitized-class="wp-caption-text"><span>U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer giving his Plan for Change Speech in May 2024. <span>(Kirsty O’Connor / No 10 Downing Street / Flickr, <span><a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.0/">CC BY-NC-ND 2.0</a>)</span></span></span></p>
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<p><span><a href="https://consortiumnews.com/tag/mark-curtis/"><span><strong>Mark Curtis</strong></span><span><br></span></a><a href="https://www.declassifieduk.org/keir-starmers-plan-for-uk-growth-the-ukraine-war/"><span><em>Declassified UK</em></span></a></span></p>
<ul><li aria-level="1"><strong><span>U.K. military spending and aid to Ukraine are effectively providing a public subsidy to British arms firms.</span></strong></li>
</ul><ul><li aria-level="1"><strong><span>One major Defence Ministry contractor is currently being investigated by the Serious Fraud Office for suspected bribery and corruption. </span></strong></li>
</ul><p><span><span><strong><img decoding="async" src="https://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/mark-200x200-1-100x100.png" alt width="100" height="100" data-sanitized-class="alignleft size-thumbnail wp-image-71852">W</strong></span>ars can be useful to governments, and the horrendous conflict in Ukraine is so proving. </span></p>
<p><span><span>In his</span> <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/news/prime-minister-sets-out-biggest-sustained-increase-in-defence-spending-since-the-cold-war-protecting-british-people-in-new-era-for-national-security"><span>announcement</span></a> <span>of increases in U.K. military spending, Prime Minister Keir Starmer strongly referenced Ukraine and the threat from Russia and said the new “investment” will “create a secure and stable environment in which businesses can thrive, supporting the Government’s number one mission to deliver economic growth.”</span></span></p>
<p><span>He added: “The increased spending will sustain our globally competitive industry, supporting highly skilled jobs and apprenticeships across the whole of the U.K.”</span></p>
<p><span>Starmer sees the increase in funds to the military as part of Labour’s Plan for Change, its overarching economic growth strategy for Britain.</span></p>
<p><span><span>A few weeks ago, Foreign Secretary David Lammy echoed his prime minister in</span> <a href="https://www.adsgroup.org.uk/knowledge/ads-commemorates-100-year-ukraine-uk-partnership/"><span>comments</span></a> <span>to an audience of arms firms about the extraordinary 100-year partnership between the U.K. and Ukraine. He said the new accord, which was signed in January, is “a platform for the U.K. defence industry” to extend military equipment to Ukraine.</span></span></p>
<p><span>Lammy added: “The U.K.’s defence industry is key to our growth and security by creating jobs, driving forward innovation and collaborating internationally.”</span></p>
<p><span>Britain’s supply of billions worth of military equipment to Ukraine is openly seen by the government as both boosting the fortunes of U.K. arms firms and promoting Labour’s whole economic growth strategy.</span></p>
<p><span>Giant U.K. arms firms like BAE Systems, Babcock and Thales U.K. will all likely benefit from increased military spending. They are already benefiting from new procurement contracts from the Ministry of Defence (MoD) as the U.K. gifts its current stocks of military equipment to Ukraine. </span></p>
<p><span>Much of U.K. military aid to Ukraine — which amounts to £4.5 billion this year — is really a subsidy to these arms firms.</span></p>
<p><span><strong>Militarisation</strong></span></p>
<div data-sanitized-id="attachment_124634" data-sanitized-class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-124634" src="https://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/54309162278_a873b5894e_k.jpg" alt width="2047" height="1365" data-sanitized-class="size-full wp-image-124634"><p data-sanitized-id="caption-attachment-124634" data-sanitized-class="wp-caption-text"><span> Lammy viewing an air defence truck and kit used by mobile support teams on Feb. 5, 2025, during his trip to Kiev. <span>(Ben Dance / Flickr/ FCDO/</span></span><span><a href="http://cc%20by%202.0/">CC BY 2.0)</a></span></p>
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<p><span><span>The government has made no secret of the fact that it</span> <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/news/national-security-is-the-foundation-for-growth-defence-secretary-launches-new-strategy-to-boost-uk-jobs-and-growth"><span>wants</span></a> <span>to “make the defence sector an engine for U.K. growth.” </span></span></p>
<p><span><span>Defence Minister Luke Pollard</span> <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/news/international-trade-mission-to-ukraine-deepens-industry-ties-and-boosts-growth"><span>says</span></a> <span>that supplying Ukraine with weapons helps with “bolstering our own defence industrial base — creating jobs and driving investment.” </span></span></p>
<p><span><span>“By deepening our ties with Ukraine’s defence industry, we are expanding [our] own industrial capacity,”</span> <a href="https://des.mod.uk/uk-trade-mission-visits-kyiv-to-deepen-industry-ties/"><span>observes</span></a> <span>Major General Anna-Lee Reilly, who coordinates the MoD’s military support to Ukraine. She adds that U.K.-Ukraine military collaboration is about “opening up opportunities for the U.K. defence industry.”</span></span></p>
<p><span>The government can be given full marks for transparency. Its new Defence Industrial Strategy, announced last December, openly seeks to increase U.K. arms exports and arms industry jobs “in every nation and region of the U.K.” whilst prioritising British arms firms for government investment. </span></p>
<p><span><span>Ukraine is central to this thinking. The government’s policy paper on the new strategy</span> <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/defence-industrial-strategy-statement-of-intent/defence-industrial-strategy-statement-of-intent"><span>states</span></a><span>:</span></span></p>
<blockquote>
<p><span><span>“Ukraine remains front of mind as this Government develops our new approach to its Defence Industrial Strategy: at this critical moment in the war, we must step up our efforts to supply military support and stand with Ukraine for as long as it takes.”</span></span></p>
</blockquote>
<p><span><span>Ukraine already uses 17 different</span> <a href="https://kyivindependent.com/uk-ukraine-defense-industry/"><span>types</span></a> <span>of weapons and equipment made by BAE Systems, the U.K.’s largest arms company, such as Challenger tanks, armoured vehicles and ammunition. </span></span></p>
<p><span><span>Not only the war but the peace, when it eventually comes, will also be profitable. This year, Ukraine</span> <a href="https://kyivindependent.com/uk-to-finance-production-of-air-defense-long-range-weapons-in-ukraine-umerov-says/"><span>plans</span></a> <span>to spend a record $35 billion on arms production, with the U.K. financing the production of equipment such as air defence systems and long-range weapons in Ukraine.</span></span></p>
<p><span><strong>Military Aid</strong></span></p>
<div data-sanitized-id="attachment_124616" data-sanitized-class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-124616" src="https://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Challenger_2_main_battle_tank-scaled.jpg" alt width="2560" height="1559" data-sanitized-class="size-full wp-image-124616"><p data-sanitized-id="caption-attachment-124616" data-sanitized-class="wp-caption-text"><span>Muzzle-view of the Challenger 2 main battle tank. (<span>Ross Fernie /Defence Imagery, Wikimedia Commons,</span></span> <a href="http://nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/1/" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-sanitized-class="mw-mmv-license">OGL v1.0)</a></p>
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<p><span><span>The U.K. has already provided nearly £8 billion in military support to Ukraine since Russia’s invasion in 2022, with around</span> <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/uk-support-to-ukraine-factsheet/uk-support-to-ukraine-factsheet"><span>400</span></a> <span>different capabilities sent to the country. This</span> <a href="https://www.nao.org.uk/reports/investigation-into-military-support-for-ukraine/"><span>includes</span></a> <span>thousands of missiles and drones, over 10m rounds of ammunition, 14 tanks, as well as artillery guns, combat vehicles and naval vessels.  </span></span></p>
<p><span><span>The £3 billion a year the government has pledged in military aid to Ukraine is</span> <a href="https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-9914/"><span>additional</span></a> <span>to the MoD’s main budget and comes from the Treasury Reserve. </span></span></p>
<p><span>Equipment from the U.K. is either donated from existing U.K. defence stocks, purchased from British arms firms or else purchased from the surplus stocks of foreign governments. </span></p>
<p><span>This acquisition is either funded directly or coordinated through mechanisms such as the International Fund for Ukraine, of which the U.K. is also the administrator.</span></p>
<p><span><span>In addition, the U.K. is providing a £2.26 billion</span> <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/news/45-billion-military-boost-to-ukraine-front-line-to-support-uk-growth-and-jobs"><span>loan</span></a> <span>to Ukraine to enable it to “invest in key equipment, including British equipment,” the government says.</span></span></p>
<p><span><span>It’s no surprise that Ukraine has become a new, major</span> <a href="https://caat.org.uk/data/exports-uk/overview?region=Ukraine&amp;date_from=2010"><span>market</span></a> <span>for British arms exports. In the 10 years up to Russia’s invasion in 2022, U.K. firms sold only around £35 million of military equipment. In the three years since the invasion, 2022-24, exports skyrocketed to £1.1 billion. </span></span></p>
<p><span><strong>Replenishing Stocks</strong></span></p>
<div data-sanitized-id="attachment_124619" data-sanitized-class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-124619" src="https://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/53866832076_d55757b85c_b.jpg" alt width="1024" height="683" data-sanitized-class="size-full wp-image-124619"><p data-sanitized-id="caption-attachment-124619" data-sanitized-class="wp-caption-text"><span>Zelensky, left, and Starmer, right, watching Ukraine Defence Minister Rustem Umerov and U.K. Defence Secretary John Healey sign the Defence Export Support Treaty in London in July 2024  </span><span>(10 Downing Street/Flickr/ Lauren Hurley/<a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.0/">CC BY-NC-ND 2.0</a>)</span></p>
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<p><span>One way the procurement system for Ukraine benefits arms companies is when the MoD replenishes British military stocks after gifting the same equipment to Ukraine. </span></p>
<p><span><span>In fact, the National Audit Office (NAO)</span> <a href="https://www.nao.org.uk/reports/investigation-into-military-support-for-ukraine/"><span>estimates</span></a> <span>that the MoD will spend £2.7 billion on replacing equipment donated to Ukraine from U.K. stockpiles in the first two years of the war alone. The NAO further says that the MoD spent £2.4 billion on procuring equipment for Ukraine in 715 contracts, over the same period.</span></span></p>
<p><span>So desperate has the MoD been to get equipment to Ukraine rapidly that it has often given awards to arms firms through “non-competitive procurements with reduced oversight requirements,” the NAO says. </span></p>
<p><span>The U.K. has gifted hundreds of “lightweight multirole missiles” (LMMs) to Ukraine, which can be used against drones, helicopters or naval vessels. To replenish the U.K.’s own stocks, various contracts have been awarded to arms firm, Thales UK, which assembles the missiles at its factory in Belfast. </span></p>
<p><span><span>In July 2024, when the MoD</span> <a href="https://des.mod.uk/lmm-thales-british-army-royal-navy/"><span>announced</span></a> <span>an order for LMMs worth £176 million, Defence Procurement Minister Maria Eagle said “this contract is … a great example of how defence investment can support economic growth and sustain jobs in the U.K. for years to come.”</span></span></p>
<p><span><span>Last September Defence Secretary John Healey announced a further award benefitting Thales — a contract worth £162 million to supply Ukraine with 650 LMMs. The MoD</span> <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/news/uk-to-provide-162-million-package-of-air-defence-missiles-for-ukraine-as-defence-secretary-meets-international-partners"><span>said</span></a> <span>categorically: “This contract with Thales in the U.K. will further prime the world leading British defence industry to increase production rates, enabling future production to be ramped up.”  </span></span></p>
<p><span>Thales has also received new orders from the MoD to supply Starstreak high velocity missiles and anti-tank weapons after that equipment has been gifted to Ukraine.</span></p>
<div data-sanitized-id="attachment_124621" data-sanitized-class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-124621" src="https://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Royal_Marines_Starstreak_LRG_South_2021-scaled.jpg" alt width="2560" height="1707" data-sanitized-class="size-full wp-image-124621"><p data-sanitized-id="caption-attachment-124621" data-sanitized-class="wp-caption-text"><span>A Royal Marine, on right, carrying the Starstreak MANPAD Anti Air Missile during training at the U.S. Marine training center in Twentynine Palms, California, 2021. <span>(Ministry of Defence/Flickr/Wikimedia Commons/</span></span><a href="http://nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/1/" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-sanitized-class="mw-mmv-license">OGL v1.0)</a></p>
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<p><span><span><span>These contracts are especially noteworthy in that Thales is currentl</span>y being</span> <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c62l19ez56lo"><span>investigated</span></a> <span>by the Serious Fraud Office for suspected bribery and corruption. The probe is reportedly over suspicions of corruption linked to arms sales abroad. Thales</span> <a href="https://www.thalesgroup.com/en/group/investors/press_release/press-release"><span>denies</span></a> <span>the allegations.</span></span></p>
<p><span>After the MoD gifts military equipment to Ukraine, it often awards repair and maintenance contracts to U.K. firms for the same weapons. </span></p>
<p><span><span>Earlier this month arms firm Babcock — another prominent MoD contractor —was</span> <a href="https://www.morningstar.com/news/dow-jones/202502128778/bae-systems-babcock-international-win-contracts-under-latest-ukraine-aid-package"><span>awarded</span></a> <span>a multi-million pound contract to train Ukrainian personnel to maintain and repair military equipment including Challenger 2 tanks donated by Britain.</span></span></p>
<p><span>The supply of drones is another benefit to U.K. industry, highlighted by Britain being the largest provider of military drones to Ukraine. </span></p>
<p><span><span>When Rishi Sunak’s Conservative government announced a £200 million package of military support to Ukraine in February 2024 it</span> <a href="https://des.mod.uk/des-key-player-in-delivery-of-new-4-5-billion-uk-strategy-to-accelerate-uncrewed-systems/"><span>stated</span></a> <span>that “the majority of this £200 million will be spent on U.K. domestic drone and component manufacturing and software development. </span></span></p>
<p><span><span>When Labour took office, the U.K. committed to supplying over</span> <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/news/uk-to-stand-with-ukraine-for-as-long-as-it-takes-pm-to-tell-nato"><span>£300 million</span></a> <span>of advanced drones to Ukraine. In July 2024 the MoD</span> <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/news/new-defence-secretary-pledges-to-step-up-support-for-ukraine-on-visit-to-odesa"><span>said</span></a> <span>that the international drone coalition — which is co-led by the U.K. and Latvia — “has rapidly deployed thousands of drones to support Ukraine whilst also boosting the U.K. defence industry.”</span></span></p>
<p><span><strong>New Offices in Ukraine</strong></span></p>
<p><span>The generous funding of arms corporations by the government, and ultimately the British public, is enabling them to set up new offices and ventures in Ukraine to deepen military collaboration in the future. </span></p>
<p><span><span>“It was British defence companies that were the first to open their offices here after the start of the great war,” Alexander Kamyshin, Ukraine’s minister of strategic industries, has</span> <a href="https://www.defensenews.com/global/europe/2024/04/11/britain-cements-foothold-in-ukraine-for-weapons-upkeep-production/"><span>said</span></a><span>. </span></span></p>
<p><span><span>BAE opened a site in Ukraine in August 2023 to produce L119 field guns, and to build “a strong and sustainable technological defense-industrial complex,” the corporation’s chief, Charles Woodburn,</span> <a href="https://kyivindependent.com/bae-systems-to-produce-l119-howitzers-in-ukraine/"><span>announced</span></a> <span>while meeting President Volodymyr Zelensky. </span></span></p>
<div data-sanitized-id="attachment_124623" data-sanitized-class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-124623" src="https://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Screenshot-2025-02-26-at-6.11.22-PM.png" alt width="1980" height="1304" data-sanitized-class="size-full wp-image-124623"><p data-sanitized-id="caption-attachment-124623" data-sanitized-class="wp-caption-text"><span>Zelensky meeting with BAE Systems CEO Charles Woodburn in 2023 in Kiev after the U.K. company decided to open an office in Ukraine. <span>(The Presidential Office of Ukraine, <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/deed.en">CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)</a></span></span></p>
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<p><span><span>A few months later, the U.K.’s MoD</span> <a href="https://www.baesystems.com/en/article/bae-systems-awarded-contract-to-maintain-and-repair-light-guns-in-ukraine"><span>announced</span></a> <span>a contract for BAE to maintain and repair the L119 guns the U.K. military had gifted to Ukraine.</span></span></p>
<p><span><span>BAE is also</span> <a href="https://english.nv.ua/nation/bae-systems-to-open-new-artillery-factory-in-the-uk-to-boost-support-for-ukraine-50467034.html"><span>opening</span></a> <span>a new artillery factory in the U.K. to produce howitzers for Ukraine, with production expected to begin this year. This effectively reverses the company’s earlier decision to scale down artillery production in the U.K. </span></span></p>
<p><span><span>In addition, BAE was given a £190 million</span> <a href="https://des.mod.uk/des-places-new-order-to-increase-155mm-shells-stockpile-for-british-army/"><span>contract</span></a> <span>in 2023 to produce 155mm artillery shells for the British army after the U.K. had gifted millions of rounds of ammunition to Ukraine. </span></span></p>
<p><span>This “will significantly increase BAE Systems’ production capacity, delivering an eight-fold increase and secure increased sovereign capacity for ammunition for years to come,” an MoD official said.</span></p>
<p><span><span>Similarly, Babcock</span> <a href="https://www.babcockinternational.com/news/babcock-in-ukraine/"><span>established</span></a> <span>an office in Ukraine in October 2023 and announced in May 2024 it was</span> <a href="https://www.babcockinternational.com/news/babcock-bolsters-support-to-ukraine/"><span>setting up</span></a> <span>an in-country engineering facility to repair and overhaul Ukraine’s military vehicles. The company is also training Ukraine’s air force pilots.</span></span></p>
<p><span><strong>100 Years of Arms Exports</strong></span></p>
<p><span><span>The 100-year partnership agreement between London and Kyiv has in its Article 1 a</span> <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/news/one-hundred-year-partnership-agreement-between-the-united-kingdom-of-great-britain-and-northern-ireland-and-ukraine"><span>focus</span></a> <span>on strengthening “military and defence industrial capabilities, including force development and collaboration between their defence industrial bases.” </span></span></p>
<p><span><span>Its declaration</span> <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/uk-ukraine-100-year-partnership-declaration/uk-ukraine-100-year-partnership-declaration"><span>calls for</span></a> <span>“developing advanced weapons and ammunition manufacturing capabilities,” deepening “cooperation on long-range strike capabilities, integrated air and missile defence and complex weapons stockpiles.” There is also mention of “joint arms exports to foreign markets.”</span></span></p>
<p><span><span>Zelensky personally met senior U.K. military figures and representatives of BAE, Thales U.K., Babcock and other British arms firms on a visit to London in July 2024. The U.K. has conducted no less than</span> <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/news/international-trade-mission-to-ukraine-deepens-industry-ties-and-boosts-growth"><span>five</span></a> <span>military trade missions to Kyiv since 2023.</span></span></p>
<p><span><span>The</span> <a href="https://des.mod.uk/first-uk-trade-mission-to-kyiv-boosts-defence-cooperation/"><span>first</span></a> <span>of those missions, in December 2023, resulted in new agreements with Babcock, BAE and Thales. Mark Goldsack, the U.K.’s director of defence and security exports said: “With agreements already signed with our defence industry, the work will help boost resilience for both our industrial bases for years to come.”</span></span></p>
<p><span>Goldsack is not joking. The U.K. has created a new market for its military industry and is apparently seeking to exploit it for the next hundred years. </span></p>
<p dir="ltr"><span><strong>Mark Curtis is the director of <em>Declassified UK</em>, and the author of five books and many articles on U.K. foreign policy.</strong></span></p>
<p><span><em>This article is from</em> <a href="https://www.declassifieduk.org/">Declassified UK</a>.</span></p>
<p><span><em>Views expressed in this article and may or may not reflect those of </em><strong>Consortium News.</strong></span></p>

tags:
#Militarism #Military Industry #Ukraine #United Kingdon #Babcock #BAE Systems #Foreign Secretary David Lammy #Mark Curtis #Thales UK #U.K. Labour Party #U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer


guid: https://consortiumnews.com/?p=124636
title: UK Media Beating War Drums
author: ;corinna barnard
link: https://consortiumnews.com/2025/02/27/uk-media-beating-war-drums/
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<p><span><strong>Des Freedman asks: “When did you last see someone interviewed on the BBC who opposed spending more money on the military?”</strong></span><span data-sanitized-id="more-124636"></span></p>
<div data-sanitized-id="attachment_124637" data-sanitized-class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img fetchpriority="high" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-124637" src="https://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/New_Broadcasting_House_14561681425-scaled.jpg" alt width="2560" height="1707" data-sanitized-class="size-full wp-image-124637"><p data-sanitized-id="caption-attachment-124637" data-sanitized-class="wp-caption-text"><span>New Broadcasting House in London, 2021. <span>(Alexander Svensson, Wikimedia Commons, <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-sanitized-class="mw-mmv-license">CC BY 2.0)</a></span></span></p>
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<p><span><strong><a href="https://consortiumnews.com/tag/mark-curtis/">By</a> <span><a href="https://consortiumnews.com/tag/des-freedman/">Des Freedman</a></span><br></strong><a href="https://www.declassifieduk.org/the-mainstream-media-are-beating-the-drums-of-war/"><em>Declassified UK</em></a></span></p>
<div data-sanitized-class="et_pb_module et_pb_post_content et_pb_post_content_0_tb_body">
<p><span><span><strong><img decoding="async" src="https://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/AUTHORS-9-146x146.png-copy-100x100.jpg" alt width="100" height="100" data-sanitized-class="alignleft size-thumbnail wp-image-106218">T</strong></span>he airwaves are currently dominated by gung-ho politicians, military “specialists” and defence correspondents talking up the need to increase U.K. weapons spending. This is necessary, they <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c04nw1pg3k2o">argue</a>, to meet the “threat” to NATO countries of a newly emboldened Russian President Vladimir Putin.</span></p>
<p><span>This must be a different Vladimir Putin to the one emboldened by former Prime Minister Tony Blair who, in 2000, sought desperately to bring the newly elected Russian leader into the fold. This involved a series of <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2001/oct/04/september11.usa8">meetings</a> and an <a href="https://www.declassifieduk.org/when-tony-blair-backed-putins-brutal-war/">agreement</a> to sell equipment with potential military use at a time when Putin was engaged in a brutal war in Chechnya.</span></p>
<p><span>Now, however, Prime Minister Keir Starmer is <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c4gxgxl3grgo">offering</a> to put British troops “on the ground” in Ukraine as part of what he calls a peacekeeping force after fighting has stopped and is under pressure to speed up his promise to increase defence spending from 2.3 percent to 2.5 percent of GDP. </span></p>
<p><span>This comes after U.S. President <a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14392913/Defence-Secretary-John-Healey-UK-military-spending-rise-2-5-GDP-Trump-abandon-European-allies.html">Donald Trump’s attack</a> on European states for not paying their way in defending the West even though European defence spending increased by 11.7 percent in 2024, the 10th consecutive year of real-terms growth <a href="https://www.iiss.org/online-analysis/military-balance/2025/02/global-defence-spending-soars-to-new-high/">according</a> to the International Institute for Strategic Studies. Trump has further <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cy0pz3er37jo">demanded</a> that countries should spend not 2.5 percent, but 5. percent of GDP on defence.</span></p>
<p><span>News stories are <a href="https://news.sky.com/story/sir-keir-starmer-must-quickly-raise-defence-spending-or-face-swingeing-military-cuts-this-year-13311210">littered</a> with references to the “hollowed-out state of the U.K. armed forces” and the fact that the U.K. military is too “<a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/czep44jn9jyo">run down</a>” to commit any troops to Ukraine. Concerns about the “peacekeeping” plan in Ukraine are focused not on the likely cost in terms of money, risk to life and further geopolitical instability but simply that it is not possible given the “<a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/defence-army-raf-john-healey-b2635098.html">depleted</a>” state of the army.</span></p>
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<p data-sanitized-class="related-post-body"><span><strong>Opportunity Cost</strong></span></p>
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<div data-sanitized-id="attachment_124622" data-sanitized-class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-124622" src="https://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/54170484275_53942ba4a5_k.jpg" alt width="2048" height="1366" data-sanitized-class="size-full wp-image-124622"><p data-sanitized-id="caption-attachment-124622" data-sanitized-class="wp-caption-text"><span>U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer and Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy meeting in Budapest, November 2024. <span>(President of Ukraine, Flickr, Public domain)</span></span></p>
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<p><span>Increasing defence spending to 2.5 percent of GDP would <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2025/feb/16/trumps-return-means-uk-must-swiftly-find-a-way-to-increase-defence-spending">cost</a> approximately £7 billion a year — money that the British government has insisted it does not have and which would, therefore, be taken out of other budgets including education and welfare. Or the government would have to increase tax to inflate the defence budget.</span></p>
<p><span>Not surprisingly, a recent <a href="https://www.politicshome.com/news/article/british-public-oppose-tax-hikes-increase-defence-spending-poll-shows">opinion poll</a> made it clear that the U.K. public does not support such a move. According to YouGov, more than 55 percent would oppose tax hikes to pay for defence with only 30 percent backing the idea. </span></p>
<p><span>So who exactly is Sky News referring to when it <a href="https://news.sky.com/story/increasing-defence-spending-will-mean-government-breaking-promises-elsewhere-13311445">reports</a> that “even 2.5% [of GDP] won’t silence the critics” and that “it might not even be enough”? The arms industry clamouring for increased investment or ordinary people continuing to face cuts in public services?</span></p>
<p><span>In fact, according to research carried out by <em>Declassified UK</em>, opposition to or concerns about increases in military spending rarely feature in defence-related stories.</span></p>
<p><span>In the 11 news stories located in BBC News’ “<a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/topics/c5r3262qm56t">U.K. defence spending</a>” category since July 2024 when the Labour government was elected, not a single voice opposed to increased defence spending has featured in its coverage.</span></p>
<p><span>Instead, stories have been dominated by a combination of government and opposition voices, military figures, think tanks and defence industry interests.</span></p>
<ul data-sanitized-class="wp-block-list"><li><span>Government ministers and spokespeople: 13</span></li>
<li><span>Military figures: 7</span></li>
<li><span>Conservative Party: 5</span></li>
<li><span>Military specialists in think tanks: 4</span></li>
<li><span>Defence industries: 3</span></li>
<li><span>Reform: 1</span></li>
<li><span>Green Party: 1 [note: co-leader Adrian Ramsay’s quote was in relation to supporting Ukraine and not in relation to defence spending itself]</span></li>
<li><span>MoD source: 1</span></li>
<li><span>Serious Fraud Office: 1</span></li>
</ul><p><span>Former Prime Minister John Major — quoted once — features more than any current elected MP, trade unionist, academic or NGO source who might be allowed to represent the substantial body of opinion opposed to a hike in military spending. </span></p>
<p data-sanitized-id="h-fixing-the-narrative" data-sanitized-class="wp-block-heading"><span><strong>Fixing the Narrative</strong></span></p>
<div data-sanitized-id="attachment_124650" data-sanitized-class="wp-caption aligncenter"><a href="https://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Ministry_of_Defence_MoD_Main_Building_London_MOD_45152986-scaled-1.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-124650" src="https://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Ministry_of_Defence_MoD_Main_Building_London_MOD_45152986-scaled-1-1000x640.jpg" alt width="860" height="550" data-sanitized-class="wp-image-124650 size-large"></a>
<p data-sanitized-id="caption-attachment-124650" data-sanitized-class="wp-caption-text"><span>U.K. Ministry of Defence main building in Whitehall, London. <span>(Harland Quarrington/MOD, OGL v1.0, Wikimedia Commons)</span></span></p>
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<p><span>This removal of critical voices from mainstream journalism on defence issues is linked to the astronomical rise in stories on the topic in the last five years. </span></p>
<p><span>Using the Nexis database to search for coverage of increased defence spending (interestingly, there are significantly more stories on “defence spending” than on “military spending”), we found a 2700 percent rise in stories across the U.K. media from Feb. 17, 2020, to Feb. 17, 2025:</span></p>
<ul data-sanitized-class="wp-block-list"><li><span>2020-2021: 110</span></li>
<li><span>2021-2022: 97</span></li>
<li><span>2022-2023: 1435</span></li>
<li><span>2023-2024: 529</span></li>
<li><span>2024-2025: 3122</span></li>
</ul><p><span>Clearly, there was a spike in related stories after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine but the largest absolute increase in stories has been in the last 12 months when the media have stepped up their drumbeat. </span></p>
<p><span>There has been a similar jump in stories across the British media focusing on the call to devote 3 percent of GDP to defence. While there were only 24 stories in 2020-2021, this increased to 908 in the last 12 months: a massive 3700 percent hike.</span></p>
<p><span>Intriguingly, stories devoted to “defence stocks” have soared as well. Just 17 stories focused on this topic in 2020-2021 while there were 466 stories in 2024-2025, a 2640 percent increase (including a doubling in the last year alone). </span></p>
<p><span>This reflects a turnaround in fortunes for the arms trade. A <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/business/live/2025/feb/17/uk-business-confidence-tumbles-china-xi-meeting-company-leaders-stock-markets-trade-business-live-news">story</a> in <em>The</em> <em>Guardian</em> — headlined “European defence stock values surge” – reported that BAE Systems’ share price was up by 7.7 percent following the <a href="https://apnews.com/article/eu-europe-ukraine-nato-security-summit-trump-060c8661c59f8f75b96711d3889ce559">crisis meeting</a> of European leaders on Feb. 17 to discuss Ukraine in reaction to the planned negotiations between Putin and Trump. As usual, no critical voices were featured in the article.</span></p>
<div data-sanitized-id="attachment_124638" data-sanitized-class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-124638" src="https://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/54333981911_365c3d099a_b.jpg" alt width="1024" height="683" data-sanitized-class="size-full wp-image-124638"><p data-sanitized-id="caption-attachment-124638" data-sanitized-class="wp-caption-text"><span>U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer, third from right, during Feb. 17 talks among European leaders on Ukraine at a meeting hosted by French President Emmanuel Macron in Paris. <span>(Simon Dawson / No 10 Downing Street)</span></span></p>
</div>
<p data-sanitized-class="related-post"> <span><strong>Stoking War</strong></span></p>
<p><span>The British media’s amplification of government and military voices is <a href="https://www.declassifieduk.org/ten-journalists-in-a-wine-cellar-with-the-defence-secretary/">hardly new</a> but their uncritical support for more spending on defence at a time of such global insecurity is symptomatic of a more general acquiescence to power when it comes to military matters.</span></p>
<p><span>When <em>The</em> <em>Sun</em> <a href="https://x.com/TheSun/status/1758126515030479092">tweeted</a> a story in February 2024 with the caption “British troops train in Norwegian snow – as they prepare for war in the Arctic,” the Ministry of Defence responded not by lowering the temperature and pointing out that Britain was not formally preparing to engage in military conflict with a nuclear power in its continent but by retweeting the story. </span></p>
<p><span>Now, when British troops are engaged in several military exercises including NATO’s <a href="https://www.army.mod.uk/news-and-events/immersive-stories/exercise-steadfast-dart-2025/">Exercise Steadfast Dart 25</a> in Romania and Bulgaria and <a href="https://www.europeafrica.army.mil/ArticleViewPressRelease/Article/4060837/press-release-justified-accord-2025-enhances-multinational-crisis-response-read/">Justified Accord</a> in Kenya, Djibouti and Tanzania — let alone the <a href="https://www.declassifieduk.org/the-uk-militarys-secret-visits-to-israel/">visits to Israel</a> of senior British army officers or the multiple RAF <a href="https://www.declassifieduk.org/is-the-uk-spying-on-hamas-for-israel/">surveillance flights</a> from its base in Cyprus to Gaza, as revealed by <em>Declassified UK</em> — the British media are reluctant to say a word, perhaps in case it jeopardises their preferred narrative that the army is “depleted,” starved of funds and barely able to function.</span></p>
<p><span>Mainstream media are far more comfortable in reproducing Ministry of Defence press releases and the calls by military figures for more funding than to feature even a semblance of balanced debate on such crucial issues. Instead, as we have previously <a href="https://www.declassifieduk.org/defence-correspondents-the-journalistic-wing-of-the-military/">argued</a>, most mainstream reporting “is virtually 100 percent in line with the government’s own priorities.”</span></p>
<p><span>Now, in an even more volatile atmosphere, with Trump making <a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/trumps-mission-recolonise-palestine-revives-failed-19th-century-american-efforts">inflammatory calls</a> to occupy territory from Greenland to Gaza and with European leaders determined to re-arm even at the expense of further undermining public services, the media’s stoking of war is all the more dangerous.</span></p>
</div>
<div data-sanitized-class="entry-content">
<p dir="ltr"><span><strong>Des Freedman is a professor of media and communications at Goldsmiths, University of London and a founding member of the Media Reform Coalition.</strong></span></p>
<p dir="ltr"><span><em>This article is from <a href="https://www.declassifieduk.org/">Declassified UK.</a></em></span></p>
<p><span><em>Views expressed in this article may or may not reflect those of</em> <strong>Consortium News.</strong></span></p>
</div>

tags:
#Commentary #Media #Militarism #Russia #Ukraine #United Kingdon #BBC #Des Freedman #President Donald Trump #President Vladimir Putin #Prime Minister Tony Blair #Sky News #The Sun


guid: https://consortiumnews.com/?p=124653
title: Jeffrey Sachs: The Geopolitics of Peace
author: ;corinna barnard
link: https://consortiumnews.com/2025/02/27/jeffrey-sachs-the-geopolitics-of-peace/
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<p><span><strong>The author explains manipulative U.S. post-war foreign policy to European MPs, explodes myths about Ukraine and urges an independent European foreign policy.</strong><span data-sanitized-id="more-124653"></span></span></p>
<p><iframe title="The Geopolitics of Peace - Jeffrey Sachs in the European Parliament" width="860" height="484" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/VjcMoDFU1xg?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen" sandbox="allow-scripts allow-same-origin">[embedded content]</iframe></p>
<p><span><em>This is an edited transcript of Professor Jeffrey Sachs’ speech in the European Parliament at an event titled “The Geopolitics of Peace,” hosted by former U.N. Assistant Secretary General and current BSW MEP Michael von der Schulenburg, on Feb. 19, 2025. The transcript has been edited for clarity and annotated. </em></span></p>
<p><span><strong>By</strong> <span><a href="https://consortiumnews.com/tag/jeffrey-sachs/"><strong>Jeffrey D. Sachs</strong></a></span></span></p>
<p><span><strong>Introduction</strong></span></p>
<p><span><strong><img decoding="async" src="https://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/screen_shot_2016-10-31_at_5.04.53_pm-100x100.png" alt width="100" height="100" data-sanitized-class="alignleft size-thumbnail wp-image-81208"><span>T</span></strong>hanks to all of you for the chance to be together and to think together. This is indeed a complicated and fast-changing time and a very dangerous one. So, we really need clarity of thought. I’m especially interested in our conversation, so I’ll try to be as succinct and clear as I can be.</span></p>
<p><span>I’ve watched the events very close-up in Eastern Europe, the former Soviet Union, Russia and Ukraine, very closely for the last 36 years. I was an adviser to the Polish government in 1989, to President Gorbachev’s economic team in 1990 and 1991, to President Yeltsin’s economic team in 1991 to 1993 and to President Kuchma’s economic team in Ukraine in 1993 to 1994.</span></p>
<p><span>I helped introduce the Estonian currency. I helped several countries in former Yugoslavia, especially Slovenia. After the Maidan, I was asked by the new government [in Ukraine] to come to Kyiv, and I was taken around the Maidan, and I learned a lot of things firsthand.</span></p>
<p><span>I’ve been in touch with Russian leaders for more than 30 years. I also know the American political leadership close-up. Our previous secretary of treasury, Janet Yellen, was my wonderful macroeconomics teacher 52 years ago. We have been friends for a half century.</span></p>
<p><span>I know these people. I say this because what I want to explain in my point of view is not second-hand. It’s not ideology. It’s what I’ve seen with my own eyes and experienced during this period. I want to share with you my understanding of the events that have befallen Europe in many contexts and I’ll include not only the Ukraine crisis, but also Serbia 1999, the wars in the Middle East, including Iraq, Syria, the wars in Africa, including Sudan, Somalia, Libya. These are to a very significant extent the result of deeply misguided U.S. policies. What I will say may well surprise you, but I speak from experience and knowledge of these events.</span></p>
<p><span><strong>U.S. Foreign Policy</strong></span></p>
<p><span>These are wars that the United States has led and caused. And this has been true for more than 30 years now. The United States came to the view, especially during 1990-91, and then with the end of the Soviet Union, that the U.S. now runs the world, and that the U.S. does not have to heed anybody’s views, red-lines, concerns, security viewpoints, international obligations, or any U.N. framework. I’m sorry to put it so plainly, but I do want you to understand.</span></p>
<p><span>I tried very hard in 1991 to get *financial help for Gorbachev</span> <span>who I think was the greatest statesman of our modern time. (*This became part of a project led by Professor Graham Allison at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government with Gorbachev economic advisor Grigory Yavlinsky and published in the book <em>Window of Opportunity: The Grand Bargain for Democracy in the Soviet Union,</em> Pantheon Books, 1991.)</span></p>
<p><span>I recently read the archived memo of the National Security Council discussion of my proposal on June 3, 1991, reading for the first time how the White House completely dismissed it, and essentially laughed off the table my plea for the U.S. to help the Soviet Union with financial stabilization and with financial aid to make its reforms. The memo documents* that the U.S. government decided to do the very minimum to prevent disaster, but just the minimum.</span></p>
<p><span>(*Richard Darman, at the OMB, put it this way.</span></p>
<blockquote>
<p><span>“In defining the U.S. interest, we need to be somewhat Machiavellian. What is the minimum amount necessary to mollify a regime with which we wish to work on other ma]ers? In other words, what is the bare minimum to keep things moving? I don’t believe we need to worry about the U.S.S.R.’s decomposition. If this is our internal understanding, then we can go ahead publicly.” Later, Darman adds, “I want to <em><strong>seem</strong></em> serious while not fooling ourselves. We have enough ingredients already for a good PR package.” Emphasis in original.)</span></p>
</blockquote>
<p><span><span>They decided that it’s not the U.S. job to help. Quite the contrary.</span></span> <span><span>(See my paper “<a href="http://h%5Dps//www.jeffsachs.org/newspaper-ar%5Ecles/bfsmbpe4plx7cc6lgxhf37lx249r22?rq=how%20the%20neocons">How the Neocons Chose Hegemony Over Peace in the Early 1990s.</a>”)</span></span></p>
<p><span>When the Soviet Union ended in 1991, the view became even more exaggerated. And I can name chapter and verse, but the view was we [the U.S.] run the show. [Dick] Cheney, [Paul] Wolfowitz, and many other names that you will have come to know literally believed this is now a U.S. world, and we will do as we want. We will clean up from the former Soviet Union. We will take out any remaining Soviet-era allies. Countries like Iraq, Syria, and so forth will go.</span></p>
<p><span>And we’ve been experiencing this foreign policy for now essentially 33 years. Europe has paid a heavy price for this because Europe has not had any foreign policy during this period that I can figure out. No voice, no unity, no clarity, no European interests, only American loyalty.</span></p>
<p><span>There were moments where there were disagreements and, I think, very wonderful disagreements. The last time of significance was 2003 in the lead-up to the Iraq war when France and Germany said we don’t support the United States going around the U.N. Security Council for this war. That war was directly concocted by Netanyahu and his colleagues in the U.S. Pentagon. (See Dennis Fritz’s book, <em><a href="http://h%5Dps//orbooks.com/catalog/deadly-betrayal/">Deadly Betrayal: The Truth about why the United States Invaded Iraq</a></em>, OR Books, 2024.) </span></p>
<p><span>I’m not saying that it was a link or mutuality. I’m saying it was a war carried out for Israel. It was a war that Paul Wolfowitz and Douglas Feith coordinated with [Israeli leader] Benjamin Netanyahu.</span></p>
<p><span>And that was the last time that Europe had a voice. I spoke with European leaders then, and they were very clear, and it was quite wonderful to hear their opposition an unacceptable war. Europe lost its voice entirely after that, but especially in 2008. What happened after 1991, and to bring us to 2008, is that the United States decided that unipolarity meant that NATO would enlarge somewhere from Brussels to Vladivostok, step by step.</span></p>
<p><span><strong>NATO Expansion</strong></span></p>
<p><span>There would be no end to eastward enlargement of NATO. This would be the U.S. unipolar world. If you play the game of Risk as a child like I did, this is the U.S. idea: to have the piece on every part of the board. Any place without a U.S. military base is an enemy, basically. Neutrality is a dirty word in the U.S. political lexicon.</span></p>
<p><span>Neutrality is perhaps the dirtiest word according to the U.S. mindset. If you’re an enemy, we know you’re an enemy. If you are neutral, you are a subversive, because you’re really against us, but just not telling us. You’re only pretending to be neutral. So, this was indeed the mindset, and the decision was taken formally in 1994 when President Clinton signed off on NATO enlargement to the east.</span></p>
<p><span>You will recall that on Feb. 7, 1990, Hans-Dietrich Genscher and James Baker III spoke with Gorbachev. Genscher gave a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ogM0EjYbPRk">press conference afterwards</a> where he explained that NATO will not move eastward.</span></p>
<div data-sanitized-id="attachment_124658" data-sanitized-class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img fetchpriority="high" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-124658" src="https://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Screenshot-2025-02-27-at-11.59.58-AM.png" alt width="1550" height="1074" data-sanitized-class="size-full wp-image-124658"><p data-sanitized-id="caption-attachment-124658" data-sanitized-class="wp-caption-text"><span> Genscher in the German Democratic Republic, GDR, in 1990. <span>(Bundesarchiv, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0 de)</span></span></p>
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<p><span>Germany and the U.S. would not take advantage of the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact. Understand, please, that this commitment was made in a juridical and diplomatic context, not a casual context. These commitments were core to the negotiations to end World War II that made way for German reunification.</span></p>
<p><span>An understanding was reached that NATO will not move one inch eastward. (This was an agreement, albeit verbal, as Gorbachev emphasized to the U.S. and Germany the importance of the U.S.-German pledge not to expand NATO eastward.) And it was explicit, and it is in countless documents. And just look up National Security Archive of George Washington University, and you can get dozens of documents.</span> <span>It’s a website called “What Gorbachev Heard About NATO.” Take a look, please, because everything you’re told by the U.S. about this promise is a lie, but the archives are perfectly clear. (Many of the key documents are <a href="https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/russia-programs/2017-12-12/nato-expansion-what-gorbachev-heard-western-leaders-early">here</a>  <wbr>and <a href="https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/russia-programs/2018-03-16/nato-expansion-what-yeltsin-heard">here.)</a></wbr></span></p>
<p><span>So, the decision was taken by Clinton in 1994 to expand NATO all the way to Ukraine. This is a long-term U.S. project. This is not due to one administration or another. This is a U.S. government project that started more than 30 years ago. In 1997, Zbigniew Brzezinski wrote <em>The Grand Chessboard</em>, describing the NATO enlargement eastward.</span></p>
<p><span>That book is not just the musings of Mr. Brzezinski. That is his presentation to the public of decisions <em>already made </em>by the United States government, which is how a book like this works. The book describes the eastward enlargement of Europe and of NATO as simultaneous and conjoined events. And there’s a good chapter in that book that asks, what will Russia do as Europe and NATO expand eastward?</span></p>
<p><span>I knew Zbig Brzezinski personally. He was very nice to me. I was advising Poland, and he was a big help. He was also a smart man, and yet he got everything wrong in 1997.</span></p>
<div data-sanitized-id="attachment_124662" data-sanitized-class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-124662" src="https://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Obama_with_former_National_Security_Advisers_2010-scaled.jpg" alt width="2560" height="1707" data-sanitized-class="size-full wp-image-124662"><p data-sanitized-id="caption-attachment-124662" data-sanitized-class="wp-caption-text"><span>U.S. President Barack Obama meeting with former national security advisers, including Brzezinski, to his right, at. the White House on March 24, 2010. <span>(White House / Pete Souza, Public domain)</span></span></p>
</div>
<p><span>In 1997, he wrote in detail why Russia could do nothing but accede to the eastward expansion of NATO and Europe.</span></p>
<p><span>(Here is Brzezinski on page 118 of <em>Grand Chessboard</em>:</span></p>
<blockquote>
<p><span>“Russia’s only real geo-strategic option — the option that could give Russia a realistic international role and also maximize the opportunity of transforming and socially modernizing itself — is Europe. And not just any Europe, but the transatlantic Europe of the enlarging EU and NATO. Such a Europe is taking shape, as we have seen in chapter 3, and it is also likely to remain linked closely to America. That is the Europe to which Russia will have to relate, if it is to avoid dangerous geopolitical isolation.”)</span></p>
</blockquote>
<p><span>In fact, he says the eastward expansion of Europe and not just Europe, but NATO. This was a U.S. plan, a project. And Brzezinski explains how Russia will never align with China. Unthinkable. Russia will never align with Iran.</span></p>
<p><span>According to Brzezinski, Russia has no vocation other than the European vocation. So, as Europe moves east, there’s nothing Russia can do about it. So, says yet another American strategist. Is it any question why we’re in war all the time? Because one thing about America is we always “know” what our counterparts are going to do, and we always get it wrong! And one reason we always get it wrong is that in the non-cooperative game theory that the American strategists play, you don’t actually talk to the other side. You just know what the other side’s strategy is. That’s wonderful. It saves so much time. You simply don’t need any diplomacy.</span></p>
<p><span><strong>The Black Sea Strategy</strong></span></p>
<p><span>So, this project began in earnest in 1994, and we have had a continuity of government policy for 30 years until maybe yesterday, perhaps. (I am referring to the Trump-Putin phone call of Feb. 12, 2025 and the statements that followed in quick succession.)</span></p>
<p><span>A 30-year project. Ukraine and Georgia were the keys to the project. Why? Because America learned everything it knows from the British.</span></p>
<p><span>We are the wannabe British Empire. And what the British Empire understood in 1853, with Mr. Palmerston, excuse me, Lord Palmerston [together with Napoleon III], is that you surround Russia in the Black Sea, and you deny Russia access to the Eastern Mediterranean.</span></p>
<p><span>What you’re watching is an American project to do the same in the 21st century. The U.S, idea was that there would be Ukraine, Romania, Bulgaria, Turkey and Georgia all in NATO, that would deprive Russia of any international status by blocking the Black Sea and essentially by neutralizing Russia as little more than a local power. Brzezinski is clear about this geography.</span></p>
<p><span>After Palmerston and before Brzezinski, there was of course Halford Mackinder in 1904: “Who rules East Europe commands the Heartland; Who rules the Heartland commands the World- Island; Who rules the World-Island commands the world.” (In 1919, Mackinder wrote  the book <em>Democratic Ideals and Reality</em>, building upon his earlier work <em>The Geographical Pivot of History</em> from 1904.)</span></p>
<p><span>I’ve known the presidents and/or their teams. Nothing changed much from Clinton to Bush Jr. to Obama to Trump to Biden. Maybe they got worse step by step.</span></p>
<p><span>Biden was the worst in my view. Maybe this is also because he was not <em>compos mentis </em>for the last couple of years. I say that seriously, not as a snarky remark. The American political system is a system of image. It’s a system of media manipulation every day. It is a PR system.</span></p>
<p><span>You could have a president that basically doesn’t function and have that person in power for two years and run for reelection. The one thing is he had to stand on a stage for 90 minutes by himself, and that was the end of it. Had it not been that glitch, he would have gone on to have his candidacy, whether he was sleeping after 4 PM in the afternoon or not. So, this is the reality. Everybody goes along with it. It’s impolite to say what I’m saying because we don’t speak the truth about almost anything in this world right now.</span></p>
<p><span>So, this project went on since the 1990s. Bombing Belgrade 78 straight days in 1999 was part of this project. Splitting apart that country when borders are “sacrosanct,” aren’t they? Except for Kosovo, that is. Borders are sacrosanct except when America changes them. Breaking apart Sudan was another related U.S. project. Consider the South Sudan rebellion. Did that just happen because South Sudanese rebelled? Or shall I give you the C.I.A. playbook?</span></p>
<p><span>Let us please understand as grown-ups what this is about. Military campaigns are costly. They require equipment, training, base camps, intelligence, finance. That support comes from big powers. It doesn’t come from local insurrections. South Sudan did not defeat Sudan in a tribal battle. Breaking Sudan was a U.S. project. I would go often to Nairobi and come across U.S. military or Senators or others with a “deep interest” in Sudan’s internal politics. That war was part of the game of U.S. unipolarity.</span></p>
<p><span><strong>U.S. Foreign Policy &amp; NATO Expansion</strong></span></p>
<div data-sanitized-id="attachment_124665" data-sanitized-class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-124665" src="https://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Screenshot-2025-02-27-at-11.17.49-AM.png" alt width="2102" height="1544" data-sanitized-class="size-full wp-image-124665"><p data-sanitized-id="caption-attachment-124665" data-sanitized-class="wp-caption-text"><span>Sachs addressing the European Parliament on Feb. 19. <span>(YouTube video, Michael von der Schulenburg)</span></span></p>
</div>
<p><span>And so, NATO enlargement, as you know, started in 1999 with Hungary, Poland, and the Czech Republic. Russia was extremely unhappy about it, but these were countries still far from Russia’s border. Russia protested, but, of course, to no avail. Then George Bush Jr. came into office. When 9/11 occurred, President Putin pledged all support to the U.S. And then the U.S. decided around September 20, 2001, that it would launch seven wars in five years!</span></p>
<p><span>You can listen to General Wesley Clark on video speak about that. (See Clark, in 2011, on <em><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fAnNJW9_KYA">Democracy Now</a>!</em>, where he was told by Pentagon official “we’re going to attack and destroy the governments in seven countries in five years — we’re going to start with Iraq, and then we’re going to move to Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Iran.”</span></p>
<p><span>Clark was NATO’s supreme commander in 1999. He went to the Pentagon around September 20, 2001. He was handed a piece of paper explaining the prospect of seven U.S. wars of choice. These were, in fact, Netanyahu’s wars.</span></p>
<p><span>The U.S. government’s plan was partly to clean up [remove] old Soviet allies and partly to take out supporters of Hamas and Hezbollah. Netanyahu’s idea was and is that there will be one state, thank you, in all pre-1948 Palestine. Yes, only one state. It will be Israel. Israel will control all the territory from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea.</span></p>
<p><span>And if anyone objects, we will overthrow them. Well, not Israel, exactly, but more specifically our friend, the United States. That’s been U.S. policy until this morning. We don’t know whether it will change. Now the only wrinkle is that maybe the U.S. will “own Gaza” [according to President Trump] instead of Israel owning Gaza.</span></p>
<p><span>Netanyahu’s idea has been around at least for 25 years. It goes back to a document called “Clean Break” that Netanyahu and his American political team put together in 1996 to end the idea of the two-state solution. You can also find that document online.</span></p>
<p><span><span>(In 1996, Netanyahu and his American advisors issued the document “Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm” with the Institute for Advanced Strategic and Political Studies. This new <a href="https://www.dougfeith.com/docs/Clean_Break.pdf">“clean break” strategy</a> called upon Israel to reject the framework of “land for peace.” This effectively advocated that Israel would not withdraw from the Palestinian occupied lands of 1967 in exchange for regional peace. Instead, Israel would continue with its policy of occupation until securing “peace for peace,” by reshaping the Middle East to its liking. Redrawing the map of the region consisted of toppling governments that were opposed to Israel’s dominance.)</span></span><span> </span></p>
<p><span>So, these are long-term U.S. projects. It’s wrong to ask, “Is it Clinton? Is it Bush? Is it Obama?” That’s the boring way to look at American politics, as a day-to-day or year-to-year game. Yet that’s not what American politics is.</span></p>
<p><span>After 1999, the next round of NATO enlargement came in 2004 with seven more countries: the three Baltic states, Romania, Bulgaria, Slovenia, and Slovakia. At this point, Russia was pretty upset. This second-wave of NATO enlargement was a complete violation of the post-war order agreed at the time of German reunification. Essentially, it was a fundamental trick, or defection, of the U.S. from a cooperative arrangement with Russia.</span></p>
<p><span>As everybody recalls, because we just had the Munich Security Conference last week, <a href="http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/transcripts/24034">President Putin went to the MSC</a> in 2007 to say, “Stop, enough is enough.” Of course, the U.S. did not listen.</span></p>
<div data-sanitized-id="attachment_113763" data-sanitized-class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-113763" src="https://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Putin_in_Munchen.jpg" alt width="1920" height="1080" data-sanitized-class="size-full wp-image-113763"><p data-sanitized-id="caption-attachment-113763" data-sanitized-class="wp-caption-text"><span>addressing the Munich Security Conference in 2007. <span>(Kremlin.ru, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 4.0)</span></span></p>
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<p><span>In 2008, the United States jammed down Europe’s throat it’s long-standing project to enlarge NATO to Ukraine and to Georgia. This is a long-term project. I listened to Mr. Saakashvili in New York City in the Spring of 2008, when he spoke at the Council on Foreign Relations.</span></p>
<p><span>He told us that Georgia is in the heart of Europe and as such would join NATO. I walked out and called my wife, and said, “This man’s crazy; he’s going to blow up his country.”</span></p>
<p><span>A month later, a war broke out between Russia and Georgia, in which Georgia was defeated. The most recent events in Tbilisi are again not helpful for Georgia, with your MEPs going there to prod protests. That doesn’t save Georgia; that gets Georgia destroyed, completely destroyed.</span></p>
<p><span>In 2008, as everybody knows, our former C.I.A. Director William Burns, who at the time was the U.S. ambassador to Russia, sent a long <a href="https://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/08MOSCOW265_a.html">diplomatic cable</a> back to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, which was famously entitled “Nyet means Nyet.”</span> <span><span>Burns’ message was that NATO enlargement was opposed by the entire Russian political class, not just President Putin.</span></span></p>
<p><span>We know about the cable only from Julian Assange. Believe me, not one word is told to the American people about anything of this by our government or our leading newspapers these days. So, we have Julian Assange to thank for the memo, which we can read in detail.</span></p>
<p><span>As you know, Viktor Yanukovych was elected as president of Ukraine in 2010 on the platform of Ukraine’s neutrality. Russia had no territorial interests or designs in Ukraine at all. I know. I was there off-and-on during these years. What Russia was negotiating during 2010 was a 25-year lease to 2042 for Sevastopol naval base. That’s it. There were no Russian demands for Crimea, or for the Donbas. Nothing like that at all. The idea that Putin is reconstructing the Russian empire is childish propaganda. Excuse me.</span></p>
<p><span>If anyone knows the day-to-day and year-to-year history, this is childish stuff. Yet childish stuff seems to work better than adult stuff. So, there were no territorial demands at all before the 2014 coup [in Ukraine]. Yet the United States decided that Yanukovych must be overthrown because he favored neutrality and opposed NATO enlargement. It’s called a regime change operation.</span></p>
<p><span>There have been around one hundred regime-change operations by the U.S. since 1947, many in your countries [speaking to the MEPs] and many all over the world.  </span></p>
<p><span>(Political scientist Lindsey O’Rourke documented 64 U.S. covert regime-change operations between 1947 and 1989, and concluded that “Regime change operations, especially those conducted covertly, have oft en led to prolonged instability, civil wars, and humanitarian crises in the affected regions.” See O’Rourke’s 2018 book, Covert Regime Change: America’s Secret Cold War. After 1989, there is ample evidence of the C.I.A. involved in Syria, Libya, Ukraine, Venezuela, and many other countries.)</span></p>
<p><span>That’s what the C.I.A. does for a living. Please know it. It’s a very unusual kind of foreign policy. In the American government, if you don’t like the other side, you don’t negotiate with them, you try to overthrow them, preferably, covertly. If it doesn’t work covertly, you do it overtly. You always say it’s not our fault. They’re the aggressor. They’re the other side.</span></p>
<p><span>They’re “Hitler.” That comes up every two or three years. Whether it’s Saddam Hussein, whether it’s [deposed Syrian President Bashar] al-Assad, whether it’s Putin, that’s very convenient. That’s the only foreign policy explanation the American people are ever given. Well, we’re facing Munich 1938. We can’t talk to the other side. They’re evil and implacable foes. That’s the only model of foreign policy we ever hear from our government and mass media. The mass media repeats it entirely because it’s completely suborned by the U.S. government.</span></p>
<p><span><strong>The Maidan Revolution &amp; Aftermath</strong></span></p>
<div data-sanitized-id="attachment_74590" data-sanitized-class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-74590" src="https://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/15291903858_5fc3557526_k.jpg" alt width="2048" height="1399" data-sanitized-class="size-full wp-image-74590"><p data-sanitized-id="caption-attachment-74590" data-sanitized-class="wp-caption-text"><span>Oct. 8, 2014:  U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt and U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland at a Ukrainian State Border Guard Service Base in Kiev. <span>(U.S. Embassy Kyiv, Flickr)</span></span></p>
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<p><span>Now in 2014, the U.S. worked actively to overthrow Yanukovych. Everybody knows the <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-26079957">phone call intercepted</a> by my Columbia University colleague, Victoria Nuland, and the U.S. ambassador, Geoffrey Pyatt. You don’t get better evidence. The Russians intercepted her call, and they put it on the Internet. </span></p>
<p><span>It’s fascinating. By doing that, they all got promoted in the Biden administration. That’s the job. When the Maidan occurred, I was called soon after. “Professor Sachs, the new Ukrainian prime minister would like to see you to talk about the economic crisis.” So, I flew to Kyiv, and I was walked around the Maidan. And I was told how the U.S. paid the money for all the people around the Maidan, the “spontaneous” Revolution of Dignity.</span></p>
<p><span>Ladies and gentlemen, please, how did all those Ukrainian media outlets suddenly appear at the time of the Maidan? Where did all this organization come from? Where did all these buses come from? Where did all those people come from? Are you kidding? This is an organized effort. And it’s not a secret, except perhaps to citizens of Europe and the United States. Everyone else understands it quite clearly.</span></p>
<p><span>Then after the coup came the Minsk agreements, especially Minsk II, which, incidentally, was modeled on South Tyrolean autonomy for the ethnic Germans in Italy. The Belgians too can relate to Minsk II very well, as it called for autonomy and language rights of the Russian speakers of Eastern Ukraine. Minsk II was supported unanimously by the U.N. Security Council. (The Minsk II agreement <a href="https://press.un.org/en/2015/sc11785.doc.htm">was endorsed</a> by the United Nations Security Council through Resolution 2202, which was adopted unanimously on Feb. 17, 2015.) </span></p>
<p><span>Yet the United States and Ukraine decided it would not be enforced. Germany and France, the guarantors of the Normandy process, also let it be ignored. This dismissal of Minsk II was another direct American unipolar action with Europe as usual playing a completely useless subsidiary role though it was guarantor of the agreement.</span></p>
<div data-sanitized-id="attachment_75628" data-sanitized-class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-75628" src="https://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/Normandy_format_2019-10-09_03.jpg" alt width="1880" height="1160" data-sanitized-class="size-full wp-image-75628"><p data-sanitized-id="caption-attachment-75628" data-sanitized-class="wp-caption-text"><span>Negotiating the Minsk agreement in the Normandy Format in Paris on Dec. 9, 2019, <span>(Kremlin.ru, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 4.0)</span></span></p>
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<p><span>Trump won the 2016 election and then expanded arms shipments to Ukraine. There were many thousands of deaths in the shelling by Ukraine in the Donbas. There was no implementation of the Minsk II agreement.</span></p>
<p><span>Then Biden came into office in 2021. I hoped for better but was profoundly disappointed once again. I used to be a member of the Democratic Party. I now am a member of no party because both are the same anyway. The Democrats became complete warmongers over time, and there was not one voice in the party calling for peace. Just as with most of your parliamentarians, the same way.</span></p>
<p><span>At the end of 2021, Putin put on the table a last effort to reach a modus operandi with the U.S., in two security agreement drafts, one with Europe and one with the United States. He put the Russia-U.S. draft agreement on the table on Dec. 15, 2021.</span></p>
<p><span>Following that, I had an hour-long call with [National Security Advisor] Jake Sullivan in the White House, begging, “Jake, avoid the war. You can avoid the war. All the U.S. has to do is say, ‘NATO will not enlarge to Ukraine.’” And he said to me, “Oh, NATO’s not going to enlarge to Ukraine. Don’t worry about it.”</span></p>
<p><span>I said, “Jake, say it publicly.”</span></p>
<p><span>“No. No. No. We can’t say it publicly.”</span></p>
<p><span>I said, “Jake, you’re going to have a war over something that isn’t even going to happen?”</span></p>
<p><span>He said, “Don’t worry, Jeff. There will be no war.”</span></p>
<p><span>These are not very bright people. I’m telling you, if I can give you my honest view, they’re not very bright people. They talk to themselves. They don’t talk to anybody else. They play game theory. In noncooperative game theory, you don’t talk to the other side. You just make your strategy. This is the essence of non-cooperative game theory. It’s not negotiation theory. It’s not peacemaking theory. It is unilateral, noncooperative theory, if you know formal game theory.</span></p>
<p><span>That’s what they play. That kind of game theory started [in application] at the RAND Corporation. That’s what they still play. In 2019, there’s <a href="https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RR3063.html">a paper</a> by RAND, “Extending Russia: Competing from Advantageous Ground.”</span></p>
<p><span>Incredibly, the paper, in the public domain, asks how the U.S. should annoy, antagonize, and weaken Russia. That’s literally the strategy. We’re trying to provoke Russia, trying to make Russia break apart, perhaps have regime change, maybe unrest, maybe an economic crisis.</span></p>
<p><span>That’s what you in Europe call your ally. So, there I was with my frustrating phone call with Sullivan, standing out in the freezing cold. I happened to be trying to have a ski day.</span></p>
<p><span>“Oh, there’ll be no war, Jeff.”</span></p>
<p><span>We know what happened next: the Biden administration refused to negotiate over NATO enlargement. The stupidest idea of NATO is the so-called open-door policy, based on Article 10 of the NATO Treaty (1949). NATO reserves the right to go where it wants, as long as the host government agrees, without any neighbor – such as Russia — having any say whatsoever.</span></p>
<p><span>Well, I tell the Mexicans and the Canadians, “Don’t try it.” You know, Trump may want to take over Canada. So, the Canadian government could say to China, “Why don’t you build a military base in Ontario?” I wouldn’t advise it. The U.S. would not say, “Well, it’s an open door. That’s Canada’s and China’s business, not ours.” The U.S. would invade Canada.</span></p>
<p><span>Yet grownups, including in Europe, in this Parliament, in NATO, in the European Commission, repeat the absurd mantra that Russia has no say in NATO enlargement. This is nonsense stuff. This is not even baby geopolitics. This is just not thinking at all. So, the Ukraine War escalated in February 2022 when the Biden Administration refused any serious negotiations.</span></p>
<p><span><strong>The Ukraine War &amp; Nuclear Arms Control</strong></span></p>
<p><span>What was Putin’s intention in the war? I can tell you what his intention was. It was to force Zelensky to negotiate neutrality. This happened within days of the start of the invasion. You should understand this basic point, not the propaganda that’s written about the invasion claiming that Russia’s aim was to conquer Ukraine with a few tens of thousands of troops.</span></p>
<p><span>Come on, ladies and gentlemen. Please understand something basic. The idea of Russia’s invasion was to keep NATO out of Ukraine. And what is NATO, really? It is the U.S. military, with its missiles, its C.I.A. deployments, and all the rest. Russia’s goal was to keep the U.S. away from its border.</span></p>
<p><span>Why is Russia so interested in this? Consider if China or Russia decided to have a military base on the Rio Grande or in the Canadian border, not only would the United States freak out; we’d have war within about ten minutes. When the Soviet Union tried this in Cuba in 1962, the world nearly ended in nuclear Armageddon.</span></p>
<p><span>All of this is gravely amplified because the United States unilaterally abandoned the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty in 2002 and ended the relative stability nuclear arms control framework by doing so.</span></p>
<p><span>This is extremely important to understand. The nuclear arms control framework is based, in large part, on trying to deter a first [decapitation] strike. The ABM Treaty was a critical component of that stability.</span></p>
<p><span>The U.S. unilaterally walked out of the ABM Treaty in 2002. This blew a Russian gasket. So, everything I’ve been describing about NATO enlargement has occurred in the context of the U.S. destruction of the nuclear framework. Starting in 2010, the U.S. began to put in Aegis anti-ballistic missile systems in Poland and then later in Romania. Russia doesn’t like that.</span></p>
<div data-sanitized-id="attachment_89615" data-sanitized-class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-89615" src="https://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/190809-N-AW818-122C-scaled.jpg" alt width="1097" height="732" data-sanitized-class=" wp-image-89615"><p data-sanitized-id="caption-attachment-89615" data-sanitized-class="wp-caption-text"><span>Sept. 1, 2019: U.S. Navy base in Deveselu, Romania, home to NATO’s Aegis Ashore Ballistic Missile Defense System site. <span>(U.S. Navy, Amy Forsythe, Public domain)</span></span></p>
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<p><span>One of the issues on the table in December and January, December 2021, January 2022, was whether the United States claimed the right to put missile systems in Ukraine. According to former C.I.A. analyst Ray McGovern, Blinken told Lavrov in January 2022 that the United States reserves the right to put missile systems in Ukraine.</span></p>
<p><span>That, my dear friends, is your putative ally. And now the U.S. wants to put intermediate missile systems in Germany. Remember that the United States walked out of the INF treaty in 2019. There is no nuclear arms framework right now. Essentially, none. (The United States formally withdrew from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty on Aug. 2, 2019, following a six-month suspension period that began on Feb. 2, 2019.)</span></p>
<p><span>When Zelensky said a few days after Russia’s invasion that Ukraine was ready for neutrality, a peace agreement was in reach. I know the details of this because I talked to key negotiators and mediators in detail and have learned much from public pronouncements of others. Shortly after the start of negotiations in March 2022, a document was exchanged between the parties that President Putin had approved, and that Lavrov had presented. This was being managed by the Turkish mediators. I flew to Ankara in the spring of 2022 to hear first-hand and in detail what happened in the mediation. The bottom-line is this: Ukraine walked away, unilaterally, from a near agreement.</span></p>
<p><span><strong>End of the Ukraine War</strong></span></p>
<div data-sanitized-id="attachment_81724" data-sanitized-class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-81724" src="https://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/51995088156_18a4e646c6_k.jpg" alt width="2048" height="1365" data-sanitized-class="size-full wp-image-81724"><p data-sanitized-id="caption-attachment-81724" data-sanitized-class="wp-caption-text"><span>U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky walking around the center of Kiev on April 9, 2022. <span>(President of Ukraine, Public domain)</span></span></p>
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<p><span>Why did Ukraine walk away from the negotiations? Because the United States told them to and because the U.K. added icing to the cake by having BoJo [Boris Johnson, the former U.K. prime minister] go to Kyiv in early April to Ukraine to make the same point.</span></p>
<p><span>[U.K Prime Minister] Keir Starmer turns out to be even worse, even more of a warmonger. It’s unimaginable, but it is true. Boris Johnson explained, and you can find it on the web, that what’s at stake here is nothing less than Western hegemony! Not Ukraine but Western hegemony.</span></p>
<p><span>Michael von der Schulenberg and I met at the Vatican with a group of experts in Spring 2022, and we wrote a document explaining that nothing good can come out of continued war.  (The meeting at the Vatican was the <a href="https://www.pass.va/content/dam/casinapioiv/pass/pdf-booklet/2024_booklet_fraternal_economy.pdf">Fraternal Economy Session</a> on Jubilee 2025: “Hope in the Signs of the Times.”) </span></p>
<p><span>Our group argued strenuously, but to no avail, that Ukraine should negotiate immediately, because delays will mean massive deaths, risk of nuclear escalation, and possibly an outright loss of the war.</span></p>
<p><span>I wouldn’t want to change one word from what we wrote then. Nothing was wrong in that document. Since the U.S. talked Ukraine out of the negotiations, perhaps one million Ukrainians have died or been severely wounded.</span></p>
<p><span>And American senators who are as nasty and cynical as imaginable say this is a wonderful expenditure of U.S. money because no Americans are dying. It’s the pure proxy war. One of our senators nearby New York State, Connecticut’s Richard Blumenthal, said this out loud. Mitt Romney said this out loud. It’s the best money America can spend. No Americans are dying. It’s unreal.</span></p>
<p><span>Now, just to bring us up to yesterday, the U.S. Ukraine Project has failed. The core idea of the project all along was that Russia would fold its hand. The core idea all along was Russia can’t resist, just as Zbigniew Brzezinski argued in 1997. The Americans thought the U.S. surely has the upper hand.</span></p>
<p><span>The U.S. will win because we’re going to bluff them. The Russians are not really going to fight. The Russians are really going to mobilize. We’ll deploy the economic “nuclear option” of cutting Russia out of SWIFT. That will destroy the economy. Our sanctions will bring Russia to their knees. The HIMARS will do them in. The ATACMS, the F-16s, will do them in. Honestly, I’ve listened to this kind of talk for more than 50 years. Our national security leaders have spoken nonsense for decades.</span></p>
<p><span>I begged the Ukrainians: stay neutral. Don’t listen to the Americans. I repeated to them the famous adage of Henry Kissinger, that to be an enemy of the United States is dangerous, but to be a friend is fatal. Let me repeat that for Europe: To be an enemy of the United States is dangerous, but to be a friend is fatal.</span></p>
<p><span><strong>The Trump Administration</strong></span></p>
<div data-sanitized-id="attachment_123300" data-sanitized-class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-123300" src="https://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Trump_Day_1_Executive_Order_Signing.jpg" alt width="1066" height="713" data-sanitized-class=" wp-image-123300"><p data-sanitized-id="caption-attachment-123300" data-sanitized-class="wp-caption-text"><span>Trump signing executive orders at Capital One Arena on Jan. 20. <span>(@VP, Wikimedia Commons, Public domain)</span></span></p>
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<p><span>Let me end with a few words about President Donald Trump. Trump does not want Biden’s losing hand. This is why Trump and President Putin are likely to agree to end the war. Even if Europe continues with its warmongering, it won’t matter. The war is ending. So, please, get it out of your system. Please tell your colleagues. “It’s over.” It’s over because Trump doesn’t want to hold on to a loser. The one that will be saved by the negotiations taking place right now is Ukraine. The second is Europe.</span></p>
<p><span>Your stock market is rising in recent days because of the “horrible news” of negotiations and potential peace. I know this prospect of a negotiated peace has been met with sheer horror in these chambers, but this is the best news that you could get. I’ve tried to reach out to some of the European leaders. I’ve said, don’t go to Kyiv, go to Moscow. Negotiate with your counterparts. You’re the European Union. You’re 450 million people and a $20 trillion economy. Act like it.</span></p>
<p><span>The European Union should be the main trading partner of Russia. Europe and Russia have complementary economies. The fit for mutually beneficial trade is very strong. By the way, if anyone would like to discuss how the U.S. blew up Nord Stream, I’d be happy to talk about that too.</span></p>
<p><span>The Trump administration is imperialist at heart. Trump obviously believes that the great powers dominate the world. The U.S. will be ruthless and cynical, and yes, also vis-à-vis Europe. Don’t go begging to Washington. That won’t help. It would probably spur the ruthlessness. Instead, have a true European foreign policy.</span></p>
<p><span>So, I’m not saying that we’re at the new age of peace, but we are in a very different kind of politics right now, a return to great power politics. Europe needs its own foreign policy, and not just a foreign policy of Russophobia. Europe needs a foreign policy that is realistic, understands Russia’s situation, understands Europe’s situation, understands what America is and what it stands for, and that tries to avoid Europe being invaded by the United States. It’s certainly not impossible that Trump’s America will land troops in Greenland. I’m not joking, and I don’t think Trump is joking. Europe needs a foreign policy, a real one. Europe needs something different from, “Yes, we’ll bargain with Mr. Trump and meet him halfway.” Do you know what that will be like? Give me a call afterwards.</span></p>
<p><span>Please have a European foreign policy. You’re going to be living with Russia for a long time, so please negotiate with Russia. There are real security issues on the table both for Europe and Russia, but the bombast and the Russophobia is not serving your security at all. It’s not serving Ukraine’s security at all. This American adventure that you signed on to and for which you are now the lead cheerleader has contributed to around 1 million Ukrainian casualties.</span></p>
<p><span><strong>On the Middle East &amp; China</strong></span></p>
<div data-sanitized-id="attachment_102711" data-sanitized-class="wp-caption aligncenter"><a href="https://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/25892433001_8095dc5b1e_k.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-102711" src="https://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/25892433001_8095dc5b1e_k-1000x667.jpg" alt width="860" height="574" data-sanitized-class="size-large wp-image-102711"></a>
<p data-sanitized-id="caption-attachment-102711" data-sanitized-class="wp-caption-text"><span>Donald Trump speaking at AIPAC, Washington, D.C., March 21, 2015. <span>(Lorie Shaull, Flickr, CC BY 2.0)</span></span></p>
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<p><span>On the Middle East, incidentally, the U.S. completely handed over foreign policy to Netanyahu 30 years ago. The Israel lobby dominates American politics. Please, have no doubt about it. I could explain for hours how it works. It’s very dangerous. I’m hoping that Trump will not destroy his administration, and far worse, the Palestinian people, because of Netanyahu, whom I regard as a war criminal who has been properly <a href="https://www.icc-cpi.int/news/statement-icc-prosecutor-karim-aa-khan-kc-applications-arrest-warrants-situation-state">indicted by the ICC.</a></span></p>
<p><span>The only way for Europe to have peace on your borders with the Middle East is the two-state solution. There is only one obstacle to it, and that is the veto of the United States in the U.N. Security Council, at the behest of the Israel Lobby. So, if you want the EU to have some influence, tell the United States to drop the veto. In this the European Union would be together with around 160 other countries in the world. The only ones that oppose a Palestinian state are basically the United States, Israel, Micronesia, Nauru, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Argentina, and Paraguay. (The United Nations can end the Middle East conflict by welcoming Palestine as a member, see my article on that <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2025/1/10/the-un-can-end-the-middle-east-conflict-by-welcoming-palestine-as-a-member">here. )</a></span></p>
<p><span>The Middle East is a place where the European Union could have a big geopolitical influence. Yet, Europe has gone silent about the JCPOA and Iran and around half of Europe has gone silent over Israel’s war crimes and blockage of the two-state solution.</span></p>
<p><span>Netanyahu’s greatest dream in life is the war between the United States and Iran. And he’s not given up. It’s not impossible that a U.S.-Iran War will also come. Yet Europe could stop it — if Europe has its own foreign policy. I’m hoping that Trump will end Netanyahu’s grip on American politics. Even if not, the EU can work with the rest of the world to bring peace to the Middle East.</span></p>
<p><span>Finally, let me just say with respect to China, China is not an enemy. China is merely a great success story. That’s why it is viewed by the United States as an enemy, because China has a bigger economy than the United States (measured in international prices). The U.S. resists reality. Europe should not do so. Let me repeat, China is no enemy and no threat. It is a natural partner with Europe in trade and in saving the global environment.</span></p>
<p><span>That’s all. Many thanks.</span></p>
<div data-sanitized-id="attachment_124715" data-sanitized-class="wp-caption aligncenter"><a href="https://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Screen-Shot-2025-02-28-at-12.32.19.png"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-124715" src="https://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Screen-Shot-2025-02-28-at-12.32.19-1000x625.png" alt width="860" height="538" data-sanitized-class="size-large wp-image-124715"></a>
<p data-sanitized-id="caption-attachment-124715" data-sanitized-class="wp-caption-text"><span>European MPs at Jeffery Sach’s presentation. <span>(Screenshot/</span></span><br><span>Michael von der Schulenburg YouTube page.)</span></p>
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<p><em><span><strong>Question and Answer Section</strong></span></em></p>
<p><span><strong>Audience Member:</strong> Should Europe increase its military spending?</span></p>
<p><span><strong>Jeffrey Sachs:</strong></span> <span>I would not be against an approach of Europe spending 2 to 3 percent of GDP for a unified European security structure and invested in Europe and in European technology, and not having the United States dictate the use of European technology.</span></p>
<p><span>The Netherlands produces the only machines of advanced semiconductors using extreme ultraviolet lithography. That company, of course, is ASML. Yet America determines every policy of ASML. If I were you, I wouldn’t hand over all security and technology to the United States.</span></p>
<p><span>I would suggest having your own security framework so you can have your own foreign policy framework as well. Europe stands for lots of things that the United States does not stand for.</span></p>
<p><span>Europe stands for climate action. Our president is completely bonkers on this. And Europe stands for decency, for social democracy, as an ethos.</span></p>
<p><span>Europe stands for multilateralism. Europe stands for the U.N. Charter. The U.S. stands for none of those things. Our Secretary of State Marco Rubio recently canceled his trip to South Africa because equality and sustainability were on the agenda. That is a vivid, if grim, reflection of Anglo-Saxon libertarianism. Egalitarianism is not a word of the American lexicon. Nor is Sustainability.</span></p>
<p><span>You may know that of the 193 U.N. member states, 191 have presented SDG (Sustainable Development Goal) plans to the U.N. in the High-Level Political Forum (HLPF). Just three countries have not done so: Haiti, Myanmar and the United States of America. Biden’s Treasury was not even permitted to use the phrase Sustainable Development Goals. I mention all of this because you need your own foreign policy.</span></p>
<p><span>I issue two reports each year. One is the <em>World Happiness Report</em>. In the 2024 report, eight of the top 10 countries are European. Europe has the highest quality of life in the whole world.</span> <span>The U.S. ranked 23rd.</span></p>
<p><span>The other annual report is the <em>Sustainable Development Report</em>. In the 2024 report, 19 of the top 20 countries in sustainable development are in Europe. The U.S. ranked 46th. You need your own foreign policy to protect that quality of life! I was and remain a great fan of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) and continue to believe that OSCE is the proper framework for European security. It could really work.</span></p>
<p><span><strong>Audience Member:</strong> How should Europe engage diplomatically with Russia?</span></p>
<p><span><strong>Jeffrey Sachs:</strong></span> <span>I think that there are tremendously important issues for Europe to negotiate directly with Russia. And so, I would urge, President Costa and the leadership of Europe to open direct discussions with President Putin because European security is on the table.</span></p>
<p><span>I know the Russian leaders, many of them, quite well. They are good negotiators, and you should negotiate with them, and you should negotiate well with them.</span></p>
<p><span>I would ask the Russian counterparts some questions. I would ask them, what are the security guarantees that can work so that this war ends permanently? What are the security guarantees for the Baltic states? Part of the process of negotiation is to ask the other side about your concerns.</span></p>
<p><span>I know Foreign Minister Lavrov for 30 years. I regard him as a brilliant foreign minister. Talk with him. Negotiate with him. Get his ideas. Put your ideas on the table.</span></p>
<p><span>The most important thing is to stop the yelling, stop the warmongering, and discuss with the Russian counterparts. And don’t beg to be at the table with the United States. You don’t need to be in the room with the United States. You’re Europe. You should be in the room with Europe and Russia. Don’t hand over your foreign policy to anybody, not to the United States, not to Ukraine, not to Israel. Keep a European foreign policy. This is the basic idea.</span></p>
<p><span><strong>Audience Member:</strong> Countries including Poland, Hungary, and Czech Republic wanted to join NATO. So does Ukraine. Why shouldn’t they be allowed to do so?</span></p>
<p><span><strong>Jeffrey Sachs:</strong></span> <span>NATO is not a choice of Hungary, Poland, Czech Republic, or Ukraine. NATO is a U.S.-led military alliance. The question facing Europe back in 1991 and today is how to ensure peace. If I were making decisions back in 1991, I would have ended NATO altogether when the Warsaw Pact was dissolved, and certainly when the Soviet Union itself ended. When countries requested NATO membership, I would have explained to them what our defense secretary William Perry, leading statesman George Kennan, last U.S. ambassador to the Soviet Union, Jack Matlock, all said in the 1990s. They all said, in effect, “We understand your feelings, but enlarging NATO is not a good idea because it could easily provoke a new Cold War with Russia.” There’s a very good new book by Jonathan Haslam, published by Harvard University Press, called <em>Hubris</em>. It offers a detailed historical documentation of NATO enlargement. It explains how the U.S. was too arrogant to discuss, negotiate, and honor the redlines of Russia, even after promising that NATO would not enlarge.</span></p>
<p><span><strong>Audience Member:</strong> What are the long-term consequences of this lost war?</span></p>
<p><span><strong>Jeffrey Sachs:</strong></span> <span>We’re in the biggest technological advance in human history. It’s truly amazing what can be done right now. You know, I marvel at the fact that somebody who knows little chemistry won the Nobel Peace Prize for chemistry because he’s superb at AI and deep neural networks, indeed a genius, Demis Hassabis. He and his team at DeepMind figured out how to use AI to crack the problem of protein folding, a problem that had occupied generations of biochemists.</span></p>
<p><span>So, if we put our minds, our resources and our energies towards it, we can transform the world energy system for climate safety. We can protect biodiversity. We can ensure every child gets a quality education. We can do so many wonderful things right now. What do we need for success? In my view, most importantly, we need peace.</span></p>
<p><span>And my basic point is there are no deep reasons for conflict anywhere because every conflict I study is just a mistake. We are not struggling for Lebensraum. That idea, which essentially came from Malthus and later became a Nazi idea, was always wrong, a fundamental intellectual mistake. We have had race wars, national wars of survival, out of the fear that we don’t have enough for everybody on this planet, so that we are in a struggle for survival.</span></p>
<p><span>As an economist, I can tell you, we have plenty on the planet for everybody’s sustainable development. Plenty. We’re not in a conflict with China. We’re not in a conflict with Russia. If we calm down, if we ask about the long term, the long term is very good, that is, if we don’t blow ourselves up beforehand. So, this is my point. The prospects are very positive if we construct the peace.</span></p>
<p><span><strong>Audience Member:</strong> Do you think the way out of this conflict is a Finlandization of Ukraine?</span></p>
<p><span><strong>Jeffrey Sachs:</strong></span> <span>Excellent question. Let me just report one aspect about Finlandization. Finlandization landed Finland No. 1 in the World Happiness Report year after year. Finland is rich, successful, happy, and secure. That’s pre-NATO Finland I’m discussing.</span></p>
<p><span>So “Finlandization” was a wonderful thing for Finland. When Sweden and Finland and Austria were neutral, bravo. Smart. When Ukraine was neutral, smart. If you have two superpowers, keep them apart a little bit. If the United States had any sense at all, it would have left these countries as the neutral space in between the U.S. military and Russia, but the U.S. has far too little sense. </span></p>
<p dir="ltr"><span><strong>Jeffrey D. Sachs is a university professor and director of the Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia University, where he directed The Earth Institute from 2002 until 2016. He is also president of the U.N. Sustainable Development Solutions Network and a commissioner of the U.N. Broadband Commission for Development.</strong></span></p>
<p><span><em>Views expressed in this speech may or may not reflect those of</em> <strong>Consortium News.</strong></span></p>

tags:
#Africa #Analysis #Biden Administration #China #Commentary #Czech Republic #Europe #Germany #Hungary #Iran #Iraq #NATO #Poland #Romania #Russia #Slovenia #Sudan #Bulgaria #Dennis Fritz #Douglas Feith #Grigory Yavlinsky #Hans-Dietrich Genscher #Harvard Kennedy School of Government #Jeffrey Sachs #Julian Assange #NATO's Open Door Policy #neoconservatives #Paul Wolfowitz #President Viktor Yanukovych #Serbia #Slovakia #South Sudan #unipolarity #Zbigniew Brzezinski


guid: https://consortiumnews.com/?p=124671
title: Caitlin Johnstone: An Empire Being Honest
author: ;corinna barnard
link: https://consortiumnews.com/2025/02/27/caitlin-johnstone-an-empire-being-honest/
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<p><span><strong>Trump has shared a shockingly awful AI-generated music video envisioning Gaza as an ostentatious resort town where everyone parties as Trump and Netanyahu sip drinks by the pool.</strong></span><span data-sanitized-id="more-124671"></span></p>
<div data-sanitized-id="attachment_124679" data-sanitized-class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img fetchpriority="high" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-124679" src="https://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Gaza_war_2023_-_2025_IMG_8182.png" alt width="1141" height="643" data-sanitized-class=" wp-image-124679"><p data-sanitized-id="caption-attachment-124679" data-sanitized-class="wp-caption-text"><span>Gaza in ruins after the Israeli airstrikes campaign, Feb. 10. <span>(Jaber Jehad Badwan, Wikimedia Commons,</span></span> <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-sanitized-class="mw-mmv-license">CC BY-SA 4.0)</a></p>
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<p dir="ltr"><span><a href="https://consortiumnews.com/tag/caitlin-johnstone/"><strong>By <span>Caitlin Johnstone</span></strong><br></a><em><a href="https://caitlinjohnstone.com.au/2025/02/27/the-empire-at-its-most-honest/">CaitlinJohnstone.com.au</a></em></span></p>
<p><span><em><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CrQfNB7g-cc">Listen to Tim Foley reading this article</a></em><a href="https://caitlinjohnstone.com.au/2025/02/05/trump-goes-all-in-on-stealing-gaza-for-his-zionist-owners/"><em>.</em></a></span></p>
<p><span><span><strong><img decoding="async" src="https://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/1UDnSUoroqCxShe6CBUDKiw-100x100.jpg" alt width="100" height="100" data-sanitized-class="alignleft size-thumbnail wp-image-48865">P</strong></span>resident Donald Trump has <a href="https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/114068387897265338">shared</a> a shockingly awful <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e_uTs0ukLik">AI-generated music video</a> envisioning a future Gaza that has been turned into an ostentatious resort town where everyone parties amid showers of cash while Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sip drinks by the pool.</span></p>
<p><span>The video is intended to reflect <a href="https://news.antiwar.com/2025/02/10/trump-says-no-right-of-return-for-palestinians-in-gaza-under-his-plan/">Trump’s plans</a> for a Gaza Strip that has been permanently ethnically cleansed of Palestinians.</span></p>
<p><span>If you haven’t watched it yet you definitely should, because words can’t do justice to just how terrible it is.</span></p>
<p><iframe title="Trump shares AI video of vision for Gaza, featuring giant gold statue and him lounging w/ Netanyahu" width="860" height="484" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/e_uTs0ukLik?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen" sandbox="allow-scripts allow-same-origin">[embedded content]</iframe></p>
<p><span>This video is simultaneously the most American thing that has ever happened and the most Israeli thing that has ever happened. Fake. Gaudy. Sociopathic. Genocidal. Emblematic of all the ugliest values that both dystopian civilizations have come to embody.</span></p>
<p><span>They used the most artless art medium in existence to digitally dance on the graves of mountains of dead civilians.</span></p>
<p><span>The most powerful government on earth celebrated the idea of Trump and Netanyahu presiding over orgiastic parties for the obscenely wealthy on a land that has been purged of its indigenous inhabitants following a year and a half of brutal slaughter. </span></p>
<p><span>Twerking to shitty AI-generated techno music surrounded by golden Trump statues and hundred dollar bills, because you are so happy that you finally found a Final Solution to the Palestinian Problem.</span></p>
<p><span>It doesn’t get any more American than this, and it doesn’t get any more Israeli. This soulless, artless, conscienceless expression of egotistic masturbation lubricated with the blood of dead children is the empire at its most honest.</span></p>
<p><span>This is the very best this globe-dominating power structure has to offer our world.</span></p>
<p><span>This entire civilization is diseased. Not just the United States and Israel but every nation on earth that is subject to the metastases of their cancerous influence.</span></p>
<p><span>They’re making us all dumber, sicker, nastier, crueler. Less creative. Less artful. Less caring. Less insightful. They are poisoning our minds and turning our hearts into shit.</span></p>
<p><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="https://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/screenshot-2025-02-27-at-12.35.37.png" alt width="986" height="1596" data-sanitized-class="aligncenter wp-image-124674"></p>
<p><span>I’ve always said that the only thing I like about Trump is that he <a href="https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/donald-trump-is-the-empire-unmasked">puts an honest face on the empire</a>. In terms of actual policy and actions he’s not much different from any other Republican president, but he has this compulsive inclination to constantly yank off the plastic smiley face mask of the empire and reveal the snarling blood-spattered face beneath.</span></p>
<p><span>This is a perfect example of what I’m talking about.</span></p>
<p><span>That one video, all by itself, tells you more about what the U.S. empire really is than every movie its PR agents in Hollywood have ever produced. This is the real America. This is the real Israel. This is the real empire.</span></p>
<p><strong><span>Caitlin Johnstone’s work is <a href="https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2021/05/24/my-experiments-with-hacking-capitalism/">entirely reader-supported</a>, so if you enjoyed this piece please consider sharing it around, following her on <a href="https://www.facebook.com/CaitlinAJohnstone/">Facebook</a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/caitoz">Twitter</a>, <a href="https://soundcloud.com/going_rogue">Soundcloud</a>, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/c/CaitlinJohnstone/videos">YouTube</a>, or throwing some money into her tip jar on <a href="https://ko-fi.com/caitlinjohnstone">Ko-fi</a>, <a href="https://www.patreon.com/user?u=4445783">Patreon</a> or <a href="https://paypal.me/caitlinjohnstone">Paypal</a>. If you want to read more you can <a href="https://caityjohnstone.medium.com/books-by-caitlin-johnstone-a5a5e6f71772">buy her books</a>. The best way to make sure you see the stuff she publishes is to subscribe to the mailing list at <a href="http://caitlinjohnstone.com/">her website</a> or <a href="https://caitlinjohnstone.substack.com/">on Substack</a>, which will get you an email notification for everything she publishes.  For more info on who she is, where she stands and what she’s trying to do with her platform, <a href="https://medium.com/@caityjohnstone/11-things-you-should-know-about-me-and-where-im-coming-from-a6b9ddf9806e">click here</a>. All works are co-authored with her American husband Tim Foley.</span></strong></p>
<p><em><span>This article is from <a href="https://caitlinjohnstone.com.au/">CaitlinJohnstone.com.au</a> and re-published with permission.</span></em></p>
<p><em><span>The views expressed are solely those of the author and may or may not reflect those of</span></em> <strong><span>Consortium News.</span></strong></p>

tags:
#American Empire #Civil Rights #Commentary #Gaza #Human Rights #Israel #Palestine #Social Media #Trump Administration #U.S. #Caitlin Johnstone #President Donald Trump #Trump Gaza


guid: https://consortiumnews.com/?p=124686
title: Vijay Prashad: China’s Advanced Technics &amp; the West
author: ;Elizabeth Vos
link: https://consortiumnews.com/2025/02/28/vijay-prashad-chinas-advanced-technics-the-west/
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<p><span><strong>Will the U.S.’s geopolitical chess moves from Greenland to Ukraine to Russia  be enough to eclipse China’s rapid advancement in critical technologies?</strong></span></p>
<div data-sanitized-id="attachment_124722" data-sanitized-class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img fetchpriority="high" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-124722" src="https://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Cao-Fei-China-My-future-is-not-a-dream-05-2006_2.jpeg" alt width="891" height="711" data-sanitized-class="wp-image-124722 size-full"><p data-sanitized-id="caption-attachment-124722" data-sanitized-class="wp-caption-text"><span>Cao Fei, China, <em>My Future Is Not a Dream 05</em>, 2006. <span>(Via Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research)</span></span></p>
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<p><span><span data-sanitized-id="more-124686"></span></span></p>
<p><span><strong>By<span> <a href="https://consortiumnews.com/tag/vijay-prashad/">Vijay Prashad</a></span><br></strong><a href="https://thetricontinental.org/newsletterissue/china-us-technology/"><em>Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research</em></a></span></p>
<p><span><span><strong><img decoding="async" src="https://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/Screen-Shot-2021-04-01-at-11.44.54-AM-100x100.png" alt width="100" height="100" data-sanitized-class="alignleft size-thumbnail wp-image-61280">I</strong></span>n his first month back in the White House, U.S. President Donald Trump indicated his interest in annexing Greenland and brokering a peace deal for Ukraine that would include access to Ukrainian minerals and metals.</span></p>
<p><span>It is important to note that Greenland has already been a point of contention around its vast holdings of rare earth minerals with such remarkable names as dysprosium, neodymium, scandium, and yttrium (there are seventeen rare earth minerals that are central to any advanced technology). </span></p>
<p><span><span>Given that Greenland is part of Denmark, it is therefore beholden to European Union rules. In 2011, the EU</span> <a href="https://single-market-economy.ec.europa.eu/sectors/raw-materials/areas-specific-interest/critical-raw-materials_en"><span>published</span></a> <span>a list of critical raw materials, which included these rare earth minerals. Then, in 2023, the EU</span> <a href="https://single-market-economy.ec.europa.eu/sectors/raw-materials/areas-specific-interest/critical-raw-materials/critical-raw-materials-act_en"><span>passed</span></a> <span>the Critical Raw Materials Act, which urged domestic production of these critical minerals and metals and their import into the continent. </span></span></p>
<p><span><span>Ukraine, meanwhile, has an enormous trove of rare earth metals (from apatite to zirconium) as well as reserves of lithium and titanium. Trump</span> <a href="https://kyivindependent.com/trump-seeking-ukrainian-rare-earths-in-exchange-for-aid/"><span>demanded</span></a> <span>at least $500 billion of these reserves from Ukraine as payment for the U.S.’s support in the war. “I want to have security of rare earth,” Trump</span> <a href="https://apnews.com/article/trump-ukraine-europe-rare-earth-russia-war-9af06a9f17dbaa49a05dcba3a3363977"><span>told</span></a> <span>reporters in early February, sounding like a character from</span> <em><span>The</span></em> <em><span>Lord of the Rings</span></em><span>.</span></span></p>
<p><span><span>Currently, both the United States and Europe import almost all of these crucial rare earth metals from China. In late December 2024, in retaliation for the U.S. tightening sanctions and tariffs on China’s technology sector, the Chinese government</span> <a href="https://www.chinadaily.com.cn/a/202412/03/WS674ecf12a310f1265a1d0d6a.html"><span>banned</span></a> <span>the export of antimony, gallium, and germanium as well as superhard materials (matter with a hardness greater than 40 gigapascals or GPa) to the United States. </span></span></p>
<p><span><span>Under former President Joe Biden, the U.S. had tried to derail China’s developments in artificial intelligence and chip-making equipment by</span> <a href="https://www.bis.gov/press-release/commerce-strengthens-export-controls-restrict-chinas-capability-produce-advanced"><span>restricting</span></a> <span>the export of high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips to China. China’s ability to squeeze the supply chain has created a crisis in the West, which is precisely why Trump made his remarks about Greenland and Ukraine’s rare earth cache.</span></span></p>
<div data-sanitized-id="attachment_124723" data-sanitized-class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-124723" src="https://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Liu-Xiaodong-China-Diary-of-an-Empty-City-no.-2-2015_2-1000x836.jpeg" alt width="860" height="719" data-sanitized-class="wp-image-124723 size-large"><p data-sanitized-id="caption-attachment-124723" data-sanitized-class="wp-caption-text"><span>Liu Xiaodong, China, Diary of an Empty City No. 2, 2015. <span>(Via Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research)</span></span></p>
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<p><span>It makes total sense from the U.S. national security position to seek a ceasefire in Ukraine. The U.S. gains nothing from this war, which has become a matter of prestige for Europe’s elites. If Trump can restart relations with Russia, he could use that to leverage rights over minerals and metals in Ukraine as well as to demand control over Greenland’s resources (rather than outright annexation).</span></p>
<p><span>But more than anything, if the United States is able to revive relations with Russia, it will seek to weaken the country’s alliance with China. </span></p>
<p><span><span>This is the “</span><a href="https://nocoldwar.org/news/donald-trumps-reverse-kissinger-strategy"><span>Reverse Kissinger” strategy</span></a><span>: under U.S. President Richard Nixon, National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger pursued an approach in the late 1960s to befriend China in order to isolate the Soviet Union, while Trump’s Reverse Kissinger approach seeks to isolate China by rupturing its links to Russia. </span></span></p>
<p><span><span>On Feb. 4, 2022, China and Russia</span> <a href="http://en.kremlin.ru/supplement/5770"><span>signed</span></a> <span>a “no limits” friendship agreement; twenty days later, Russian troops invaded Ukraine, and despite</span> <a href="https://www.mfa.gov.cn/mfa_eng/wjbzhd/202202/t20220226_10645855.html"><span>misgivings</span></a> <span>about this development, China supported the Russians throughout the war. It is, therefore, unlikely that Russia will accede to a Reverse Kissinger strategy, although there are sections of the Russian elite that are eager for a rapprochement with the West.</span></span></p>
<p><span>The United States loses nothing if it enforces a ceasefire in Ukraine. Russia is not a major threat to U.S. control over the world economy. It is merely a commodity exporter, namely of oil, natural gas, and other minerals and metals. The U.S. knows that Russia will not attack it with its nuclear arsenal because that would be suicidal, and the U.S. knows that Russia merely would like a security guarantee that its cities not be threatened by intermediate nuclear weapons held in neighbouring states.</span></p>
<p><span><span>China, however, is seen by the United States as a serious existential threat. In the weeks since Trump began to announce his tariffs and potential annexations, a small Chinese company unveiled an open-source machine learning platform called</span> <a href="https://www.deepseek.com/"><span>DeepSeek</span></a> <span>that significantly outperforms U.S.-based ChatGPT in a number of respects, including technical and mathematical tasks. [<a href="https://consortiumnews.com/2025/02/01/what-deepseek-says-about-nulands-role-in-ukraine-war/"><em>What DeepSeek Says About Nuland’s Role in Ukraine War</em></a>]</span></span></p>
<p><span><span>Concurrently, during the impending ban of the social media platform TikTok, U.S. users</span> <a href="https://www.voguebusiness.com/story/technology/what-to-know-about-red-the-chinese-app-rising-as-a-tiktok-alternative"><span>abandoned</span></a> <span>it not for a Western replacement but for China’s</span> <a href="https://www.xiaohongshu.com/explore"><span>Xiaohongshu</span></a> <span>(or Red Note).</span></span></p>
<p><span><span>Finally, China’s nuclear fusion device Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak (EAST),</span> <em><span>Physics World</span></em> <a href="https://physicsworld.com/a/chinas-experimental-advanced-superconducting-tokamak-smashes-fusion-confinement-record/"><span>wrote</span></a><span>, “produced a steady-state high-confinement plasma for 1,066 seconds, breaking EAST’s previous 2023 record of 403 seconds.”</span></span></p>
<p><span><span>This last development is an advance for the potential of a fusion power plant, a promise of almost limitless clean energy without significant radioactive waste.</span></span></p>
<div data-sanitized-id="attachment_124717" data-sanitized-class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-124717" src="https://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Yu-Hong-China-A-Man-Playing-the-Hula-Hoop-1992_2-756x1000.jpeg" alt width="981" height="1298" data-sanitized-class="wp-image-124717"><p data-sanitized-id="caption-attachment-124717" data-sanitized-class="wp-caption-text"><span>Yu Hong, China, A Man Playing the Hula Hoop, 1992. <span>(Via Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research)</span></span></p>
</div>
<p><span>These advances are not accidental but a consequence of long-term planning by the Chinese government, led by the Communist Party. Since the 1978 reform era, China has been cautious about allowing foreign capital and industry into the country without benefit for the Chinese economy.</span></p>
<p><span>That benefit came in the way of technology and science transfer in exchange for market access, a deal that the companies of the Global North — eager for a high-quality workforce and low wages — accepted. </span></p>
<p><span>The Chinese government funded its higher education systems, provided incentives to private innovation, and used the surplus from exports to build infrastructure. The planned advances enabled China’s industrial sector to improve its productive forces and not rely merely on labour-intensive production or production using old technologies.</span></p>
<p><span><span>By the time President Xi Jinping</span> <a href="http://www.news.cn/politics/leaders/2023-09/08/c_1129853312.htm"><span>used</span></a> <span>the term “new quality productive forces” during a visit to Heilongjiang Province in September 2023, this idea had manifested itself in the new factories across China (namely “dark,” or fully automated, factories).</span></span></p>
<p><span><span>The following March 2024, at the Two Sessions meeting, the phrase “new quality productive forces” entered the</span> <a href="https://www.gov.cn/yaowen/liebiao/202403/content_6936260.htm"><span>government work report</span></a><span>. The Third Plenum in July 2024</span> <a href="https://www.gov.cn/zhengce/202407/content_6963770.htm"><span>deepened</span></a> <span>the concept by focusing on the promotion of “revolutionary technological breakthroughs, innovative allocation of productive forces, and in-depth industrial transformation and upgrading of industries.”</span></span></p>
<div data-sanitized-id="attachment_124718" data-sanitized-class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-124718" src="https://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Fang-Lijun-China-Series-2-No.10-1992-1993-1000x602.jpeg" alt width="860" height="518" data-sanitized-class="wp-image-124718 size-large"><p data-sanitized-id="caption-attachment-124718" data-sanitized-class="wp-caption-text"><span>Fang Lijun, China, Series 2 No. 10, 1992–1993. <span>(Via Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research)</span></span></p>
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<p><span><span>The</span> <a href="https://aspi.org.au/"><span>Australian Strategic Policy Institute</span></a><span>, established by the Australian government in 2001 and partly funded by the Australian military, has developed a Critical Technology Tracker that keeps close records of sixty-four critical technologies. Their latest</span> <a href="https://www.aspi.org.au/report/aspis-two-decade-critical-technology-tracker"><span>report</span></a> <span>in August 2024 provides a twenty-one-year assessment of which countries lead in the development of critical technologies.</span></span></p>
<p><span><span>Between 2003 and 2007, the United States led in sixty of sixty-four technologies, while China led in only three of them. Between 2019 and 2023, however, the U.S. led in only seven of the sixty-four technologies, whereas China led in fifty-seven of the sixty-four. </span></span></p>
<p><span>China leads in such diverse areas as advanced integrated circuit design and fabrication (semiconductor chipmaking), gravitational sensors, high-performance computing, quantum sensors, and space launch technology.</span></p>
<p><span>The United States leads in atomic clocks, genetic engineering, nuclear medicine and radiotherapy, quantum computing, small satellites, and vaccines and medical countermeasures. The report notes that “China’s enormous investments and decades of strategic planning are now paying off.” </span></p>
<p><span><span>The commitment to innovation has spread across Chinese society. In the Lingang New Area in Shanghai, the local government has</span> <a href="https://www.lingang.gov.cn/html/website/lg/index/government/file/1793707220537470978.html"><span>articulated</span></a> <span>policies for an industrial area with high-level computing power to accelerate industrial innovation through the new quality productive forces that have been established.</span></span></p>
<p><span><span>Meanwhile, the Trump administration has</span> <a href="https://www.npr.org/2025/02/10/nx-s1-5292161/trump-administration-makes-deep-cuts-to-science-funding"><span>announced</span></a> <span>deep cuts to science funding in the United States. A Chatham House</span> <a href="https://www.chathamhouse.org/2025/01/world-should-take-prospect-chinese-tech-dominance-seriously-and-start-preparing-now"><span>essay</span></a> <span>appeared at the end of January with the urgent title “The World Should Take the Prospect of Chinese Tech Dominance Seriously, and Start Preparing Now.” Interesting that the headline did not directly focus on the United States but on “the world” because the writer worried that “in the most extreme scenario, China could eclipse the U.S. rapidly.”</span></span></p>
<div data-sanitized-id="attachment_124720" data-sanitized-class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-124720" src="https://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Liu-Wei-China-Revolutionary-Family-1992.jpeg" alt width="962" height="960" data-sanitized-class="wp-image-124720 size-full"><p data-sanitized-id="caption-attachment-124720" data-sanitized-class="wp-caption-text"><span>Liu Wei, China, Revolutionary Family, 1992. <span>(Via Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research)</span></span></p>
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<p><span>In 1891, the late Qing poet and diplomat Huang Zunxian (1848–1905) took the elevator to the viewing gallery of the Eiffel Tower (opened only two years earlier). Huang wrote a poem, <em>On Climbing the Eiffel Tower</em>, about the extraordinary views he enjoyed from there, looking down at the “million acres of the world’s most fertile lands.”</span></p>
<p><span>Though the technology that enabled him to enjoy this view impressed him, he was less captivated by what was on the ground:</span></p>
<p><span><em><span>“All of Europe is an ancient battlefield;</span></em><em><span><br></span></em><em><span>Its people love war and don’t compromise lightly.</span></em><em><span><br></span></em><em><span>Today six great emperors divide the continent,</span></em><em><span><br></span></em><em><span>Each boasting that he’s the strongest leader of the world.</span></em><em><span><br></span></em><em><span>These fellows resemble the proverbial kings in a snail shell.</span></em><em><span><br></span></em><em><span>Who wasted their time chalking up victories and defeats.”</span></em></span></p>
<p><span>Today, not much has changed but the vocabulary of the battlefield: tariffs, unilateral coercive measures, intermediate nuclear missiles, and the iron dome.</span></p>
<p><span>During the pandemic, the watchword in U.S. allies like India was “collaboration, not confrontation.” It would be so much better if the United States decided to collaborate with China for the well-being of the planet rather than trying to force the country to reverse its development.</span></p>
<p><span><strong>Vijay Prashad is an Indian historian, editor and journalist. He is a writing fellow and chief correspondent at Globetrotter. He is an editor of</strong><a href="https://mayday.leftword.com/"><strong> LeftWord Books</strong></a><strong> and the director of</strong> <a href="https://thetricontinental.org/"><strong>Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research</strong></a><strong>. He is a senior non-resident fellow at</strong> <a href="https://tinyurl.com/y2hdjcpo"><strong>Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies</strong></a><strong>, Renmin University of China. He has written more than 20 books, including </strong><em><a href="https://smile.amazon.com/Darker-Nations-Peoples-History-Third/dp/1595583424/?tag=alternorg08-20"><strong>The Darker Nations</strong></a><strong> and</strong><a href="https://smile.amazon.com/Poorer-Nations-Possible-History-Global/dp/1781681589/?tag=alternorg08-20"><strong> The Poorer Nations</strong></a></em><strong>.  His latest books are </strong><em><a href="https://www.haymarketbooks.org/books/1869-struggle-makes-us-human"><strong>Struggle Makes Us Human: Learning from Movements for Socialism</strong></a></em><strong> and, with Noam Chomsky, </strong><em><a href="https://thenewpress.com/books/withdrawal"><strong>The Withdrawal: Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan and the Fragility of U.S. Power</strong></a></em><strong>.</strong></span></p>
<p><span><em>This article is from </em><em><a href="https://thetricontinental.org/newsletterissue/china-us-technology/">Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research</a>.</em></span></p>
<p><span><em>Views expressed in this article may or may not reflect those of </em><strong>Consortium News.</strong></span></p>

tags:
#Advanced Technologies #American Empire #China #Europe #Science #Uncategorized #Minerals #rare earth minerals #Technology #Vijay Prashad


guid: https://consortiumnews.com/?p=124683
title: The Chris Hedges Report: The World After Gaza
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link: https://consortiumnews.com/2025/02/28/the-chris-hedges-report-the-world-after-gaza/
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<p title="Permalink to: The World After Gaza (w/ Pankaj Mishra) | The Chris Hedges Report" data-sanitized-class="title"><strong><span>Essayist and novelist Pankaj Mishra discusses <span>the lesser-known genocidal escapades of Western governments and</span> his latest book,</span> <em>The World After Gaza.</em></strong><span data-sanitized-id="more-124683"></span></p>
<p><iframe title="The World After Gaza (w/ Pankaj Mishra) | The Chris Hedges Report" width="860" height="484" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/4ITuiVEH62A?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen" sandbox="allow-scripts allow-same-origin">[embedded content]</iframe></p>
<p><span><strong>By <span><a href="https://consortiumnews.com/tag/chris-hedges/">Chris Hedges</a></span></strong></span><br><span><a href="https://scheerpost.com/2025/02/26/the-world-after-gaza-w-pankaj-mishra-the-chris-hedges-report/"><em>ScheerPost</em></a></span></p>
<p><span><em>This interview is also available on <a href="https://chrishedges.podbean.com/">podcast platforms</a> and <a href="https://rumble.com/v6pp3bo-the-world-after-gaza-w-pankaj-mishra-the-chris-hedges-report.html">Rumble</a>.</em></span></p>
<p data-sanitized-class="has-drop-cap"><span><span><strong><img decoding="async" src="https://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/Screen-Shot-2021-12-13-at-4.37.48-PM-100x100.png" alt width="100" height="100" data-sanitized-class="alignleft size-thumbnail wp-image-72365"></strong><strong>T</strong></span>he Holocaust is the quintessential example of human evil for people in the West. In the rest of the world, especially in the Global South, the atrocity of the Holocaust — genocide — has had a closer proximity both in time and place. Colonialism in Africa, destructive wars in Asia and most recently, genocide in the Middle East, have shaped the lives of billions of people.</span></p>
<p><span>On this episode of The Chris Hedges Report, essayist and novelist Pankaj Mishra joins host Chris Hedges to discuss his latest book,</span> <em><span>The World After Gaza</span><span>.</span></em></p>
<p><span>Mishra argues that the shifting power dynamics in the world means the Global South’s narrative on atrocity can no longer be ignored and the genocide in Gaza is the current crux of the issue.</span></p>
<p><span>“Large parts of the world have a cultural memory, historical memory of the atrocities that were inflicted on those parts of the world by Western powers. And that has actually gone to the making of their collective identity. And that is how they see themselves in the world,” Mishra tells Hedges.</span></p>
<p><span>Mishra explains that in the case of Israel, Zionist leaders weaponize this narrative by tying the safety and existence of the state of Israel to the defense against the evils of the Holocaust. In other words, the Zionist state exploits the suffering of millions for the benefit of the powerful.</span></p>
<p><span>“The words of politicians like Netanyahu, the rhetoric of people like Joe Biden insisting that no Jewish person in the world is safe if Israel is not safe, consistently connecting the fate of millions of Jews living outside of Israel to the fate of the state of Israel, I cannot think of anything more antisemitic. And yet these people keep doing it, endangering Jewish populations elsewhere,” Mishra says.</span></p>
<p><strong><em><span>Host:</span></em> <span>Chris Hedges</span></strong></p>
<p data-sanitized-class="wp-block-heading"><strong><em><span>Producer:</span></em> <span>Max Jones</span></strong></p>
<p data-sanitized-class="wp-block-heading"><strong><em><span>Intro:</span></em> <span>Diego Ramos</span></strong></p>
<p data-sanitized-class="wp-block-heading"><em><span><strong>Crew:</strong></span></em> <strong><span>Diego Ramos, Sofia Menemenlis and Thomas Hedges</span></strong></p>
<p data-sanitized-class="wp-block-heading"><strong><em><span>Transcript:</span></em> <span>Diego Ramos</span></strong></p>
<p data-sanitized-class="wp-block-heading"><span><strong><span>Transcript</span></strong></span></p>
<p><span><strong>Chris Hedges</strong></span> <span>Pankaj Mishra in his latest book, <em>The World After Gaza</em>, argues that the postwar global order was shaped in response to the Nazi Holocaust. In the West the Shoah was the benchmark for atrocity, the paradigmatic genocide. Its memory serves to justify Israel’s settler colonial, apartheid state, as well as sanctify Jewish victimhood. But there were, he notes, other Holocausts, the German slaughter of the Herero and Namaqua, the Armenian genocide, the Bengal famine of 1943 — then British Prime Minister Winston Churchill airily dismissed the deaths of three million Hindus in the famine by calling them “a beastly people with a beastly religion” — along with the dropping of nuclear bombs on the civilian targets of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.</span></p>
<div data-sanitized-id="attachment_123547" data-sanitized-class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img fetchpriority="high" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-123547" src="https://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Dead_or_dying_children_on_a_Calcutta_street_the_Statesman_22_August_1943-scaled.jpg" alt width="2560" height="1567" data-sanitized-class="size-full wp-image-123547"><p data-sanitized-id="caption-attachment-123547" data-sanitized-class="wp-caption-text"><span>Dead and dying children on a Calcutta street in August 1943. <span>(Published in</span> <em>The Statesman</em>, Calcutta, India, on Aug. 22, 1943, <span>W.R. Aykroyd, London: Chatto &amp; Windus, Wikimedia Commons, Public domain)</span></span></p>
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<p><span>Genocide and mass extermination are not the exclusive domain of fascist Germany. The millions of victims of racist imperial projects in countries such as Mexico, China, India, the Congo, Kenya and Vietnam are deaf to the fatuous claims by Jews that their victimhood is unique. So are Black, Brown and Native Americans.</span></p>
<p><span>They also suffered holocausts, but these holocausts remain minimized or unacknowledged by their western perpetrators. Adolf Hitler, as Aimé Césaire writes in <em>Discourse on Colonialism</em>, appeared exceptionally cruel only because he presided over “the humiliation of the white man.” But the Nazis, he writes, had simply applied “colonialist procedures which until then had been reserved exclusively for the Arabs of Algeria, the coolies of India, and the blacks of Africa.”</span></p>
<p><span>Outside of the West, Mishra argues, there is a very different paradigm. The dominant story for much of the globe is that of decolonization and the crimes of the colonizers. This divergence of experience and viewpoint explain, Mishra writes, why there has been such disparate reactions to the genocide in Gaza, why to those in the Global South there was an instant understanding of the plight of the Palestinians, why they see the clear color lines between the Israeli occupiers and the Palestinians, why they grasp how, in the West, the world is starkly divided into worthy and unworthy victims.</span></p>
<p><span>Joining me to discuss <em>The World After Gaza</em> is Pankaj Mishra, author of <em>Age of Anger: A History of the Present</em> and other works of fiction and nonfiction. He writes regularly for <em>The New Yorker, The New York Review of Books, The Guardian and the London Review of Books</em>, among other publications.</span></p>
<p><span>You open the book by talking very early on about what watching this live-streamed genocide has done. You call it a psychic ordeal, which it is, of course, especially for those of us such as myself who worked in Gaza, an involuntary witness to an act of political evil. But it sends as you write a message, a clear unequivocal message, to the rest of the world. What is it?</span></p>
<p><span><strong>Pankaj Mishra:</strong></span> <span>I think it’s a message that we are perhaps moving into an era where international law, basic morality, ordinary decency are not going to be found much, especially not in the conduct of our politicians and journalists. And that is, I think, you know, something much, much more disturbing than what many people knew back in the 1930s, because back then there were a lot of countries actively pushing back, resisting the onslaught of fascism. And precisely those very same countries today are, you could say, at the forefront of authoritarianism. Something worse than authoritarianism, actually.</span></p>
<p><span><strong>Chris Hedges:</strong></span> <span>Why is it worse?</span></p>
<p><span><strong>Pankaj Mishra:</strong></span> <span>Well, I think, you know, this is in the past we’ve had authoritarianism such as that we’ve seen in China and elsewhere that has not made claims on other people’s territory, especially territories thousands of miles away. Yes, in the last couple of weeks, we have seen some extraordinary series of statements and claims by the new U.S. president, which can only portend an era of more bloodshed, more chaos. I mean there’s no getting around this fact that is staring us in the face right now.</span></p>
<p><span><strong>Chris Hedges: </strong></span><span>I want to talk about the way in particularly the Western world has responded. Not just the leadership, which of course has made any kind of descent to the genocide on college campuses and other places a criminal act and hounded professors and students who have stood up, but also the press.</span></p>
<p><span>You note about <em>The New York Times</em> editors instructing their staff in an internal memo to avoid the terms refugee camps, occupied territory, and ethnic cleansing. How much does this portend the kind of moral bankruptcy within Western culture?</span></p>
<p><span><strong>Pankaj Mishra:</strong></span> <span>I would say, look, I don’t know about Western culture. I can speak very specifically about certain very prestigious, at least formally prestigious, legacy periodicals who have manifested a degree of not only moral but a sort of intellectual bankruptcy in confronting Israel’s actions in Gaza and elsewhere, of course, in Syria and Lebanon.</span></p>
<p><span>The omissions, the suppressions, the evasions, the sheer accumulation of mendacity, of falsehoods — I just can’t think of a more terrible indictment of the mainstream press, such as we have seen over the last few months. And I really sort of fear that these periodicals are not going to be able to recover from this. This is a lasting damage to their credibility, to their legitimacy.</span> <span>And I say this as a concerned writer, as a contributor to some of these periodicals. How do you recover from something like this?</span></p>
<p><span>There is no easy way back to some kind of intellectual and moral integrity. They also seem completely helpless at this point. Clueless, I think is the word. Before Trump, before this onslaught of the far right, they actually had really no responses to this. Every time Trump says something, he says, let’s ethnically cleanse Gaza, they come up with an article saying, but there is a problem in this plan that is the presence of Hamas in Gaza. So I think we are looking at a steady normalization of the most violent and extreme kind of rhetoric. This is what the mainstream press has to offer at this moment.</span></p>
<div data-sanitized-id="attachment_124699" data-sanitized-class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-124699" src="https://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Screenshot-2025-02-27-at-4.54.27-PM.png" alt width="1116" height="805" data-sanitized-class=" wp-image-124699"><p data-sanitized-id="caption-attachment-124699" data-sanitized-class="wp-caption-text"><span>Pankaj Mishra. <span>(The Chris Hedges Report/YouTube)</span></span></p>
</div>
<p><span><strong>Chris Hedges: </strong></span><span>You spend a lot of time in your book talking about the Holocaust and quote a lot of great writers about the Holocaust like Primo Levi. You write that remembering past atrocities is no guarantee against repeating them in the present, which of course raises the whole issue of the plethora of Holocaust studies which exist on every university in this country, well funded. Germany itself of course holds up the Holocaust as a kind of penance within German society and yet we watch it once again. What’s failed? What didn’t work?</span></p>
<p><span><strong>Pankaj Mishra: </strong></span><span>Well, I think if you’re going to teach the Holocaust as a very specific lesson, whose main message is the protection of the state of Israel, no matter what the state of Israel does, then of course you’ll end up in this situation where Germany, which actually makes the strongest claim as a regular commemorator of Nazi crimes against Jews and combined with very solid support for the state of Israel. But of course, it’s completely unthinking, completely uncritical.</span></p>
<p><span>So we’ve reached a point where the German arms have fueled Israel’s attack on Gaza, Israel’s destruction of Gaza. And yet there is no recognition that you’ve got to stop at some point. You do owe, you do of course owe a great, you do have a great responsibility to the state of Israel, but that does not mean giving them a license to commit endless massacres. And you know, I think you could say the same about Holocaust education in many other places, that it’s very particular lesson seems to be do whatever you can to protect the state of Israel, no matter how wildly and violently the state of Israel behaves.</span></p>
<p><span><strong>Chris Hedges: </strong></span><span>Well, there was a quid pro quo at the end of World War II. Germany immediately sent it, almost immediately after the founding of the state of Israel in 1948, began to supply it with weapons and of course, billions of dollars in reparations. And the quid pro quo was that they turned the other way and didn’t look at the dispossession of Palestinians of their land and Israel gave Germany a kind of legitimacy, I think you argue.</span></p>
<p><span><strong>Pankaj Mishra: </strong></span><span>I do argue that and I think the evidence now is clear. People have started to look into this more closely. A couple of books out that I refer to. And I think the cynical, the utterly cynical nature of these transactions is now much, much plainer than it was.</span></p>
<p><span>I think we realize that large numbers of people have been deceived into thinking that this was some kind of a moral debt that the Germans owed and that’s what they were discharging all this time. It’s now clear that actually there were some really insidious elements to this relationship and especially I think the exchange of heavy weaponry, exchange of arms and often sort of naked bribery and sort of blackmail. It’s quite really shocking some of the details of this relationship.</span></p>
<p><span><strong>Chris Hedges: </strong></span><span>Well, even during the [SS officer Adolf] Eichmann trial, they go so far as to protect a major Nazi figure within the hierarchy of the German government, not to name him.</span></p>
<p><span><strong>Pankaj Mishra: </strong></span><span>Absolutely. I mean there are many many such sordid sort of details locked away actually you know in archives which are still inaccessible to researchers and to writers. I’m sure more of this stuff is going to come out at some point.</span></p>
<p><span><strong>Chris Hedges: </strong></span><span>Let’s talk about the Holocaust that beset the Global South. I mentioned the famine, Kenya, because I think that is one of the crucial points of your book, that those historical experiences and that lasting trauma, which is minimized, whitewashed.</span></p>
<p><span>I just read <em>Imperial Reckoning</em>, the book on the British crushing of the Mau Mau [decolonial rebellion in Kenya]. And what was, it’s a great book, but what was so disturbing about it was the silence that not just the Moi, the Kenyans, the West, the Brits, managed to envelop the wholesale slaughter of Kikuyu and others within Kenya. But that’s just typical of what we have done to erase the experience of many, many peoples. Can you talk about that, all those late Victorian Holocausts that we’ve kind of written out of history?</span></p>
<div data-sanitized-id="attachment_106896" data-sanitized-class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-106896" src="https://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Lieutenant_General_Sir_George_Erskine_Commander-in-Chief_East_Africa_centre_observing_operations_against_the_Mau_Mau.jpg" alt width="800" height="786" data-sanitized-class="size-full wp-image-106896"><p data-sanitized-id="caption-attachment-106896" data-sanitized-class="wp-caption-text"><span>Lieutenant General Sir George Erskine, commander-in-chief, East Africa Command, in Kenya observing operations against the Mau Mau, May 1953. <span>(MOD, Imperial War Museums, Wikimedia Commons, Public domain)</span></span></p>
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<p><span><strong>Pankaj Mishra: </strong></span><span>Well, you know, Chris, I think there is an accusation which is often grounded, leveled against many people in Asian countries and African countries that they are indulging in Holocaust denial.</span></p>
<p><span>And often there are people in Asia and Africa who are either really ignorant about this monstrous act of violence, which is the Holocaust, and often there are people who are very, you know, extremely under informed if they do know something about it. And I think what is much less remarked upon is the extraordinary level of a version of Holocaust denial in Western countries. You know, the fact that this long past of imperialism, of slavery, of enormous violence inflicted on many different parts of the world, many different populations across the world.</span></p>
<p><span>If you today try to bring this up or try to talk about it, you’d be denounced as a member of some woke conspiracy and dismissed or stigmatized or denounced. But this is something that’s been going on for an extremely long time.</span></p>
<p><span>And I think among the other consequences, this has had an effect of seriously crippling any attempt at understanding the world as it exists today. You know, the fact that large parts of the world have a cultural memory, historical memory of the atrocities that were inflicted on those parts of the world by Western powers. And that has actually gone to the making of their collective identity. And that is how they see themselves in the world. That’s how they position themselves in the world.</span></p>
<p><span>And of course, that narrative that they believe in is now much more antagonistic, much more in a way assertive especially when it comes into contact with these Western self-flattering narratives about how the West beat down two major totalitarian regimes, how it liberated the Jews of Auschwitz just very recently.</span></p>
<p><span><strong>Chris Hedges:</strong></span> <span>Which I just want to interrupt, as you point out in the book isn’t true historically. The Soviets liberated almost all the death camps.</span></p>
<p><span><strong>Pankaj Mishra: </strong></span><span>Of course, you know, there are ways in which you can, you know, spin all this, spin D-Day as far more important than all the contributions of the of the Red Army, the way in which history is taught in large parts of Western Europe and the United States, you know, the fact that you still had as late as the early 2000s, the BBC broadcasting a documentary about the British Empire that made British seem like a globally benevolent force.</span></p>
<p><span>It’s not at all surprising that there would be today amplifying propaganda about what is happening in Gaza today. You know, these have been propagandist outfits for some time, sort of indoctrinating, brainwashing large populations. And so I think this is a really serious problem that has to be addressed. Some of these narratives, some of these antagonistic narratives have to be reconciled.</span></p>
<p><span>It’s really leading to just more conflict and more animosity because a lot of this long history of violence is simply not acknowledged. Nobody is really seriously asking for reparations. I mean, there are a very small number of people who are doing that. But a simple acknowledgement that there is this very long history of suffering that we’ve all participated in, both as victims and perpetrators.</span></p>
<p><span><strong>Chris Hedges: </strong></span><span>I want to talk about Jewish identity. You quote [Israeli journalist] Boaz Evron, that Israel, for many Jews in the West, had become necessary because the loss of any other focal point to their Jewish identity, indeed so great was their, this is you writing, was their existential lack that they did not wish Israel to become free of its mounting dependence on Jewish American support. I thought that was a really important point. Can you explain?</span></p>
<p><span><strong>Pankaj Mishra: </strong></span><span>You know, Chris, I think this is something that could be applied to a lot of diasporic populations, especially in the United States. People who moved there from elsewhere with sort of ancestral memories, some idea of their ancestral heritage.</span></p>
<p><span>And I think at some point, while living in the United States, living in what is essentially a materialistic society with not much of a tradition, with not much of a heritage, unlike most of the parts of the world, and they seek to capture some kind of meaning, some kind of identity for themselves by affiliating themselves to the sort of ancestral heritage that they have. And I think in many cases, most famously, I can see this in case of Hindu nationalism, for instance.</span></p>
<p><span>There are any number of people, secular, highly educated, people with no faith in God, no sort of religious faith whatsoever. And yet, can become extremely vulnerable to the idea of Hindu nationalism. So likewise, I think there has been a large population of Jewish Americans who, despite their secular education, have felt almost a kind of existential imperative to attach themselves to the state of Israel.</span></p>
<p><span>These are people who are not necessarily descendants of the survivors of the Holocaust, but yet there is a very strong connection and I think it has to do with the peculiar situation of a society that doesn’t really offer you too many ways in which to define yourself meaningfully as a member of a larger spiritual and emotional community.</span></p>
<p><span><strong>Chris Hedges: </strong></span><span>Well, you cite that rootlessness in your book <em>Age of Anger</em> as being a kind of key factor in the political distortions, whether it’s in India or here or anywhere else.</span></p>
<p><span><strong>Pankaj Mishra: </strong></span><span>I think that’s right, Chris. I mean, I think it’s really important to stress that the Israeli case is not an exception. It’s actually an amplification in a very distorted form of a lot of pathologies that we also see in the case of other populations, whether it’s the Sikh secessionists or the sympathy for Sikh nationalism. It’s just that the Israeli case is far more politically consequential and it distorts, I think, the foreign policy of the United States distorts domestic policy of the United States to a much greater extent than say the Irish support for Irish nationalism or the Hindu support for Hindu nationalism.</span></p>
<p><span><strong>Chris Hedges: </strong></span><span>It’s a small point in the book, but I think an important one. But you write about the endemic racism within the philosophical traditions of the West. [Georg Wilhelm Friedrich] Hegel had sneered at Jews as much as he did at Asians and Africans while elaborating his philosophy of universal development. But this was common. [John] Locke, everyone, was really grounded in a kind of white supremacy. And we kind of wash that stuff out when we read them in university. But I think it’s an important point.</span></p>
<p><span><strong>Pankaj Mishra: </strong></span><span>It’s an important point. I mean, I think the fact that there is this construction, which is the sort of Western tradition that has come in hugely useful for ideological projects of the kind we saw during the Cold War, you know, representing, creating the unity of the so-called free world in which these disparate philosophical figures can be enlisted and sort of seen as speaking of a certain kind of freedom.</span></p>
<p><span>Of course, we know that freedom was really only available to a tiny minority back in the 19th century or back in the 18th century. And yet, these philosophers, whether it’s Locke or even John Stuart Mill, they’re all sort of enlisted into this grand parade of Western civilization. And these are all constructions. These are all ways of inventing tradition. And that’s something we should be more aware of rather than taking all this at face value. Just as the Indians have their own kind of invented traditions, just as the Russians have their own, and the Chinese have their own, the West has its own invented traditions, where, you know, a lot of aspects, especially the ones you describe, have been actively suppressed.</span></p>
<p><span><strong>Chris Hedges: </strong></span><span>It’s a footnote, but a fascinating one. And it gets into your discussion of the Holocaust itself. I think it’s Primo Levi you quote about how the real tragedy of the Holocaust, aside from the loss of life, was that it unleashed evil.</span></p>
<div data-sanitized-id="attachment_104753" data-sanitized-class="wp-caption alignright"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-104753" src="https://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/Primo_Levi-e1704224417888.jpg" alt width="400" height="611" data-sanitized-class=" wp-image-104753"><p data-sanitized-id="caption-attachment-104753" data-sanitized-class="wp-caption-text"><span>Primo Levi in the 1950s. <span>(Mondadori Publishers, Wikimedia Commons, Public domain)</span></span></p>
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<p><span>But at one point, this is, you’re quoting [writer and journalist] Gitta Sereny’s book about one of the survivors that when the transports came in, “As of tomorrow, the transports will be rolling again. And do you know what we felt? We said to ourselves, hurrah, at last we can fill our bellies again.”</span></p>
<p><span>I have a friend who was in Auschwitz at the age of 14, and I asked her that question, how she felt when she saw the transports come in, and she said we were happy because we knew we could eat.</span></p>
<p><span>I want to talk, Primo Levi, I mean, many of the writers on the Holocaust are several that you quote, committed suicide, Levi among them. But I think they grappled with the fundamental truths of the Holocaust about the human condition, which you write about in your book. Can you kind of explain what their position was and what those truths were?</span></p>
<p><span><strong>Pankaj Mishra: </strong></span><span>Thanks Chris. I think Primo Levi was one of those people who was not content with a straightforward tale or narrative of victimhood. He could have easily laid claim to that particular narrative. He was in Auschwitz. He was there for several months. He managed to survive it, just barely. Made his escape, went back to Italy and he could have spend the rest of his life just in the way someone like Elie Wiesel did.</span></p>
<p><span><strong>Chris Hedges: </strong></span><span>What do you call him, the Jesus of the Holocaust or something was that?</span></p>
<p><span><strong>Pankaj Mishra: </strong></span><span>That’s actually Alfred Kazin calling him that. He could have also become the Italian Jesus of the Holocaust and just kept talking endlessly about that experience and how that experience commits him to the defense, eternal defense of the state of Israel. He did not do that and it’s interesting to ask why. Because as he grew older, and I think it’s interesting towards the end of his life, the books he’s writing, the essays he’s writing, are concerned with the question of complicity. They’re concerned with the question of collaboration. They’re concerned with asking broader questions about our own complicity in systems of violence and dispossession.</span></p>
<p><span>And really also questioning in many ways the whole sort of narrative that has become popular in the West of survivors. He realizes, especially in his encounters with Elie Wiesel, that this narrative has become incredibly influential and it’s leading to bad political outcomes. And we think we need much more complex thinking on this, much more complex reflection on this. And that’s where he talks in his last published book, <em>The Drowned and the Saved</em>, about, I think there’s a chapter in there called “the gray zone.” And he talks about the figure of the collaborator and how in many ways, and this is a very surprising conclusion…</span></p>
<p><span><strong>Chris Hedges: </strong></span><span>He’s talking about the head of the Lódz Ghetto in particular, [Chaim] Rumkowski.</span></p>
<p><span><strong>Pankaj Mishra: </strong></span><span>That’s right. Yeah, exactly. And he concludes that that collaborator actually exists in all of us. And that we are also too concerned with, really, with our survival, too concerned to protect ourselves, and in many cases, too concerned with social advancement, some kind of social status. So we don’t actually take the risks that we are supposed to take. We become fearful. We sort of retreat into a kind of herd morality. We go along with what other people are doing and this is not just Primo Levi.</span></p>
<p><span>This is also the conclusions reached by other people who have examined in some detail the behavior of Nazis or German soldiers during the Second World War. How much they were motivated, not so much by ideology, not so much by anti-Semitism, but by very simple things like career advancement by the possibility of material improvements in their lives. And I think it’s really, I feel like it’s really important to keep that in focus when we talk about these things. If you look at this new documentary, <em>The Bibi Files</em>, I’m sure you’ve seen it.</span></p>
<p><span><strong>Chris Hedges: </strong></span><span>I haven’t yet.</span></p>
<p><span><strong>Pankaj Mishra: </strong></span><span>It becomes very clear, I strongly recommend it, it becomes very clear that Netanyahu is only sort of secondarily motivated by his ideological commitments, I think what has taken precedence in this case is the accumulation of personal power and personal wealth. And that is what has been driving him all this time. That is what has basically shaped many of his policies, whether his decision to declare unlimited war on his neighbours. Whether it’s his policy of criminal indifference to the fate of the hostages in Gaza. All he wants, really, to hold on to his power and to stay out of prison, most importantly.</span> <span>And he also wants that supply, that flow of expensive pink champagne and cigars coming in from his rich friends in America.</span></p>
<p><span>So he’s a really sort of interesting case, not so much of ideological fanaticism. I mean he and Trump are more alike in many ways than we realize. And they’re not bound together by any shared belief in Zionism. They’re bound together purely by self-interest.</span></p>
<p><span><strong>Chris Hedges:</strong></span> <span>There’s a wonderful book, I don’t know if you know it, <em>Prisoners of Fear,</em> by Ella Lingens-Reiner. I had to photocopy mine because it’s long out of print. Victor Gollancz published it in 1948.</span></p>
<p><span>She was an Austrian doctor. She helped Jews flee Austria and she was sent to Auschwitz and she worked with [SS officer and physician Josef] Mengele. Raul Hilberg calls it one of the four best books on the Holocaust.</span></p>
<div data-sanitized-id="attachment_124693" data-sanitized-class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-124693" src="https://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Richard_Baer_Josef_Mengele_Rudolf_Hoess_Auschwitz._Album_Hocker-scaled.jpg" alt width="2560" height="1739" data-sanitized-class="size-full wp-image-124693"><p data-sanitized-id="caption-attachment-124693" data-sanitized-class="wp-caption-text"><span>Nazi officials, from left, in Auschwitz in 1944: Richard Baer, Josef Mengele and Rudolf Höss. <span>(Wikimedia Commons, Public domain)</span></span></p>
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<p><span>But what she does, unlike a lot of memoirs of the Holocaust, is she writes about Mengele and the Nazis she works with. And she says precisely what you just said, that people like Mengele have no ideology at all. It was all about careerism and personal advancement and climbing within the system. Have you read the novel <em>The Kindly Ones?</em> What did you think of it? I thought that it was flawed in some ways, but that certainly was the main theme of that book, was careerism.</span></p>
<p><span><strong>Pankaj Mishra: </strong></span><span>Absolutely, I mean I think that’s one reason you’ll remember why people like Hannah Arendt and you know after her, Zygmunt Bauman were very concerned to not present the Holocaust as evidence of, purely evidence of, you know murderous anti-Semitism. Of course it was there but it couldn’t be reduced to something like you know murderous prejudice. There was a lot more things happening there. And that is what they were interested in finding out. Like, how do we become collaborators in systems of violence? Which is a question we should also be asking ourselves at this point, after just having witnessed a live-streamed genocide.</span></p>
<p><span>The varying degrees to which we’re also complicit in it. And that’s something, you know, it’s too easy to blame Trump or to blame Biden. Of course they are to be held guilty, or Netanyahu for that matter, but I think there are many other things at play here. And again, it’s not just racism, it’s not just anti-Arab racism or contempt for Palestinian lives. There are many other things going on here.</span></p>
<p><span><strong>Chris Hedges: </strong></span><span>One of the most important, which Hannah Arendt cites, is the modern bureaucratic state. [Israeli-American historian] Omer Bartov has written two books on this. And you also talk about that in your book, that none of this would have been possible without the creation of the modern bureaucratic state that essentially fragments roles in acts of radical evil to absolve you of any kind of real complicity because your part is just — I think the film Shoah kind of captured that by [Claude] Lanzmann.</span></p>
<div data-sanitized-id="attachment_124706" data-sanitized-class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-124706" src="https://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Hannah_Arendt_1933.jpg" alt width="1246" height="1541" data-sanitized-class="size-full wp-image-124706"><p data-sanitized-id="caption-attachment-124706" data-sanitized-class="wp-caption-text"><span>Arendt in 1933. <span>(Elisabeth Young-Bruehl, Yale University Press, Wikimedia Commons, Public domain)</span></span></p>
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<p><span><strong>Pankaj Mishra: </strong></span><span>That’s very true. That’s very true. I mean, the other thing, going back to your earlier point, Hannah Arendt is also someone who traces the construction of that kind of modern bureaucracy for mass killing back to the 19th century, back to imperialist practices. And so this is one way of kind of linking what I see as increasingly antagonistic narratives that this violence suffered by the Jewish population of Europe is something that was in a way prefigured in acts of monstrous violence committed against Asians and Africans in the 19th century.</span></p>
<p><span><strong>Chris Hedges: </strong></span><span>Well, she calls it the innate genocidal potential of the modern bureaucratic state, which makes [Franz] Kafka one of our prophets, of course. So you write and we just mentioned Bauman. Bauman warned repeatedly after the 1980s that such tactics by unscrupulous politicians like [Menachem] Begin and Netanyahu were securing I’m quoting quote “A post-mortem triumph for Hitler who dreamed of creating conflict between Jews and the whole world and preventing Jews from ever having peaceful coexistence with others.” And then you also go on to quote Jean Améry but talk about that, which is what Netanyahu fosters what Netanyahu wants.</span></p>
<div data-sanitized-id="attachment_42731" data-sanitized-class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-42731" src="https://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/768px-Kafka.jpg" alt width="1100" height="1467" data-sanitized-class=" wp-image-42731"><p data-sanitized-id="caption-attachment-42731" data-sanitized-class="wp-caption-text"><span> Kafka, circa 1923. <span>(Wikipedia Common, Public domain)</span></span></p>
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<p><span><strong>Pankaj Mishra:</strong></span> <span>And that’s why I think we really can’t see him as a representative of Zionism, or even actually existing Zionism, because I think in every sense he is working against the interests of not only the Israeli population, but the sort of larger Jewish population in the world by insisting that they’re also part of this, that they are also people who he is protecting by his actions. So sort of implicating them all when there are people living in different parts of the world in perfect amity, who have very little connection with Israel, sometimes no feeling whatsoever for the state of Israel.</span></p>
<p><span>And yet, the words of politicians like Netanyahu, the rhetoric of people like Joe Biden insisting that no Jewish person in the world is safe if Israel is not safe, consistently connecting the fate of millions of Jews living outside of Israel to the fate of the state of Israel, I cannot think of anything more antisemitic.</span></p>
<p><span>And yet these people keep doing it, endangering Jewish populations elsewhere. And how very little protest there is against this kind of thing among Jewish organizations. You see this in Britain, you see this in America. There is the other impulse, which is to stand in solidarity with the state of Israel, no matter what the state of Israel does. And I think in that sense, people like Netanyahu and before him [Menachem] Begin, they really are just incredibly bad, incredibly bad for not just the Jewish population around the world, also just the state of, just for sort of social harmony and social solidarity everywhere else.</span></p>
<p><span><strong>Chris Hedges: </strong></span><span>Well, they come, they’re heirs of [Ze’ev] Jabotinsky who you write about. I think [David] Ben-Gurion called Jabotinsky the Jewish Hitler. I think Mussolini praised Jabotinsky. This was a kind of basically and then Meir Kahane, who I covered, in Kach Party, updated it, but it was training militias and you know was really a fascistic model and you quote in the book the letter that was signed by Hannah Arendt and Albert Einstein and others denouncing the Herut Party, was the party that Netanyahu’s father came out of. I mean, there is a fascistic tradition within Zionism, which seems to be ascendant.</span></p>
<p><span><strong>Pankaj Mishra: </strong></span><span>Absolutely. I think again, I have to draw a parallel here and say that these fascistic traditions were present in almost all nationalistic movements that emerged in the late 19th century…</span></p>
<p><span><strong>Chris Hedges: </strong></span><span>Well, including Modi. I mean, Modi’s roots come directly out of fascism.</span></p>
<p><span><strong>Pankaj Mishra: </strong></span><span>Absolutely, absolutely out of fascism. And there was a sort of, you know, a companion figure for Jabotinsky, which was the Hindu nationalist ideologue [Vinayak Damodar] Savarkar. And they had roughly similar, you know, strikingly similar trajectories. It’s a question very much worth pondering. At what stage do they start becoming dominant within these nationalist traditions or whether there was something within these nationalist traditions that was always hospitable, too hospitable to this kind of fascism?</span></p>
<div data-sanitized-id="attachment_124700" data-sanitized-class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-124700" src="https://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Screenshot-2025-02-27-at-5.04.16-PM.png" alt width="1131" height="698" data-sanitized-class=" wp-image-124700"><p data-sanitized-id="caption-attachment-124700" data-sanitized-class="wp-caption-text"><span>Pankaj Mishra and Chris Hedges. <span>(The Chris Hedges Report/YouTube)</span></span></p>
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<p><span><strong>Chris Hedges: </strong></span><span>Well, liberal Zionism, you know, the hypocrisy of liberal Zionism has just got — I mean people forget that the massacres and population transfers, ‘67 and ‘48, were done under the directives of quote unquote liberal Zionists.</span></p>
<p><span>So the rhetoric was different. I knew many of these people, [former mayor of Jerusalem] Teddy Kollek, [Former Deputy Prime Minister of Israel] Abba Eban and others, [inaudible], Abba Eban spoke English better than we do, Oxford grad and all. But what it was was a kind of veneer, was a kind of salesmanship, but I think the point that you just made is very important, that this was always inherent within the Zionist project at its core, and which Ben-Gurion and others privately in their diaries were quite public about, or quite, not public, I mean, quite open about.</span></p>
<p><span><strong>Pankaj Mishra: </strong></span><span>Absolutely, you could argue Chris, I mean I think there is something about the formation of the nation state which requires a degree of violence that can really not be accommodated by a liberal worldview. So there always has to be surreptitiously, at least, a fascistic element at work there. And that might come out in actions, in specific actions and in private diaries, in private accounts, but it’s always covered up by the rhetoric of liberal Zionism. And in the case of India, the rhetoric of secular nationalism.</span></p>
<p><span><strong>Chris Hedges: </strong></span><span>Or in Western democracy liberalism.</span></p>
<p><span><strong>Pankaj Mishra: </strong></span><span>Or liberalism, indeed.</span></p>
<p><span><strong>Chris Hedges: </strong></span><span>You have a chapter “Germany: From Antisemitism to Philosemitism,” and I want you to talk about those differences. At the beginning of the chapter you quote Saul Friedländer in his book, <em>The Years of Extermination</em>: “Not one social group, not one religious community, not one scholarly institution or professional association in Germany and throughout Europe declared its solidarity for the Jews.” It reminds me of the theologian James Cone writing about lynching and he says the same thing about all the white institutions including the white church. But talk about that difference between antisemitism and philosemitism.</span></p>
<p><span><strong>Pankaj Mishra: </strong></span><span>Well, I mean, I think if you look at it closely, you realize that all the stereotypes that are present in an antisemitic posture are also present in a philosemitic posture.</span></p>
<p><span><strong>Chris Hedges: </strong></span><span>Define philosemitism for people who may not know the term. How would you describe it?</span></p>
<p><span><strong>Pankaj Mishra: </strong></span><span>Well, I think it’s as its critics would describe it, and I quote some many of them, [German-American historian] Peter Gay, [inaudible], the German writer, it’s an ostentatious form of adoration of Jewish people for no other reason than that they are Jewish.</span></p>
<p><span><strong>Chris Hedges: </strong></span><span>I just want to interrupt you. You know who does this is Proust, Marcel Proust. And Hannah Arendt said if you want to understand antisemitism in pre-war France, read Proust. It’s the exoticism. It’s all of that. Anyway, just as an aside.</span></p>
<p><span><strong>Pankaj Mishra: </strong></span><span>Yeah, I think the German case is different. I think there are no particular characteristics to this. I think what they’re doing is kind of projecting and often they end up projecting as I describe in my book a certain kind of taboo German nationalism onto the state of Israel. There are quotations which I found really shocking when I came across them, people saying after ‘67 in the German press, we thought the Jews were essentially extremely unmanly, sort of unmilitant people. It turns out they are a great heroic people and the way they’re describing the campaigns and victories of the 1967 war invoking Nazi German generals, [Erwin] Rommel, or using German, sort of notorious German expressions from that period.</span></p>
<p><span>It’s very clear there is sort of a kind of identification with this newly emergent militant state in the Middle East. Philosemitism is taking all kinds of different forms. At the same time, the German chancellor is saying we need to have proper relations with Israel. We need to get Israel on its side because the power of the Jews in the United States, especially, should not be underestimated. So you see all the antisemitic stereotypes are present in these versions of German philosemitism.</span></p>
<p><span>So it’s a sort of fascinating phenomenon. Of course, now it’s taken to an absurd extreme whereby the Germans, or non-Jewish Germans, now claim the right to describe events in Israel and to depict and to denounce people who criticize Israel as antisemites, no matter if those critics are Jewish. In fact, if they are Jewish, they’ll be denounced even more vehemently by Germans whose ancestors, by the way, often happen to be well-placed Nazis or turn out to be. So, I mean, really, the world has been turned upside down. The people with prominent Nazis in their families are accusing Jewish critics of the state of Israel of being anti-Semitic, arresting them. The police, there’s so many videos out there of police sort of manhandling elderly survivors of the Holocaust. It’s just truly, truly extraordinary.</span></p>
<p><span><strong>Chris Hedges: </strong></span><span>What you call philosemitism, you say it’s parasitic on old antisemitic stereotypes. And you quote figures like Thomas Friedman and that kind of excitement at the military prowess of Jews and how it is replacing one stereotype with another, which I think is what you’re getting at with this philosemitism.</span></p>
<p><span><strong>Pankaj Mishra: </strong></span><span>Well, you know, I think this is an interesting thing. I wish there was more time to explore this in the book. But I think for a lot of colonized peoples too, not just the Jewish population of Europe, people who are exposed to relentless prejudice, like you’re weak, you’re unmanly, you’re cowardly.</span></p>
<p><span>I think for many of these sort of, you know, victims of prejudice, what actually happened was they ended up internalizing many of these ideas. And in their later conduct as, you know, nationalists, they were very concerned to be seen as essentially incredibly hyper-masculine, strong, unfeeling, uncaring. So precisely the sort of, you know, stereotypes that were the cliches and the prejudices that were leveled at them sort of internalized in. And I think this explains a lot of pathological elements. It, again, not just Israeli nationalism, but also, I would say, in Indian nationalism, this idea that we are now going to show you that we actually don’t, we are not embodiments of those old ideas, while at the same time being completely imprisoned within those stereotypes and prejudices.</span></p>
<p><span><strong>Chris Hedges: </strong></span><span>And to what extent does that philosemitism and you write about the endless commemoration of the Shoah, claiming undying support of Israel, does it allow them to escape responsibility for the atrocities that Western powers and Germans inflicted on Asians and Africans, whether under German colonialism, British colonialism, or American colonialism in the Philippines or anywhere else?</span></p>
<p><span><strong>Pankaj Mishra: </strong></span><span>Well, that’s what gives the game away; the indifference, the relative indifference for the suffering of Asians and Africans during campaigns, during military campaigns, or during just straightforward sort of campaigns of colonialism in Asia and Africa, that if you were really sort of making claim to a moral stance on these issues, you’d be far more accommodating of this other narrative, which is like Germans also committed incredible atrocities on peoples in Asia and Africa.</span></p>
<p><span>And that should also be part of the German national narrative, which is based on the idea of repentance. But no, all those other narratives are sidelined. It’s the sort of German treatment of European Jews that remains dominant in the German national narrative. And again, with all that we know about the cynical relationship between the state of Germany and the state of Israel, that leads you to really question whether there was ever a genuine attempt at reckoning with German crimes, whether against Jews or Asians and Africans.</span></p>
<p><span><strong>Chris Hedges: </strong></span><span>Well, I think it’s in your book. Most of the people who collaborated or ran the machinery that made the genocide or the Holocaust possible were never prosecuted.</span></p>
<p><span>It was 6,000 people that ran Auschwitz and that weren’t even … administered Auschwitz. I think that was kind of about the total number of all people. And we’re talking about the people who ran the trains and made the cyclone, the gas and everything else. They all got off. And of course, then the CIA recruited Nazi intelligence officials as fast as they could into Western intelligence services.</span></p>
<p><span><strong>Pankaj Mishra: </strong></span><span>And German scientists.</span></p>
<p><span><strong>Chris Hedges: </strong></span><span>And German scientists. We’re running out of time, but I just want to ask, you make this point, which is a good one, about the United States into the main center of production for the Shoah’s history. Why? What’s that about? I mean, you’re talking about the Holocaust Museum in Washington but what is that? And the ties between that and the efforts to limit government intervention. I mean that was a really interesting point.</span></p>
<p><span><strong>Pankaj Mishra: </strong></span><span>I think it’s part of a larger sort of consolidation on the right, I think, starting in the 1980s. Those dates are not sort of insignificant. The construction of the memory of the Holocaust, greater support for the state of Israel, the surge, the upsurge of right-wing ideas in American society.</span></p>
<p><span>And then, of course, we know that AIPAC is not an organization purely simply devoted to the protection of Israel, a lot of corporate power, a lot of corporate interests that are completely indifferent to the state of Israel, completely indifferent to Zionism, are also deeply invested in AIPAC because that is one guarantee against working class consolidation. Or at least they see it as a guarantee against that. They see it as a bulwark against any kind of organized left in the United States.</span></p>
<p><span>So I think there are many things going into the very deliberate construction of Holocaust memory and the institutionalization of the Holocaust in American memory. And this is, you know, I could only explore a little bit of this subject in the chapters that I have in this book, but there’s a lot more to be said about this.</span></p>
<p><span><strong>Chris Hedges: </strong></span><span>Let’s close by talking about where we’re headed. You talk in the book about how we’re creating divisions that are so extreme, largely between the Global North and the Global South that we can no longer communicate. I know from your book, <em>Age of Anger</em>, you talked about the political ramifications, which of course we are now seeing both in the United States and have seen for some time in countries like India, Hungary and others, France, Germany, the rise of the far right. What does this all portend?</span></p>
<p><span><strong>Pankaj Mishra: </strong></span><span>Well, I think, you know, it’s hard to predict and one shouldn’t really say much about the future. But certainly, you know, to put it mildly, the current signs are not encouraging. I mean, I would say to just confine ourselves to the subject of Gaza. I think Donald Trump in just the last two or three days, what he’s done is clarified, helpfully, I think, the situation in Gaza. He is being attacked, of course, by the sort of legacy periodicals and by mainstream politicians in Europe and elsewhere for offering fantastical ideas.</span></p>
<p><span>But I think what he’s also done, while posing fantastical ideas, he’s also alerted us to the reality of Gaza, which is, it is actually a demolition site. There’s hardly any scope there for people to return and to rebuild their homes. So he is pointing to a genuine problem and he’s being extremely realistic about it. It’s people who say, like the U.K. prime minister saying, Palestinians should be allowed to go back to their home.</span></p>
<p><span>These are people indulging in fantasy because we know there are no homes for most of these people. Trump at least is acknowledging that Israel has leveled most of Gaza, destroyed, really, the infrastructure that you need there of every kind, and that something needs to happen. And just talking in the vaguest of terms about Palestinians going back to their homes, reawakening the two-state solution is not going to do it.</span></p>
<p><span>I think in retrospect, a little bit of reality here might seem almost like a breakthrough. I’m certainly not investing any faith whatsoever. I think he’s a very cynical man and all he wants to do is pursue his interest there. But for those of us who’ve been fighting for just a tiny little bit of illumination, who were denied even the acknowledgement that what Israel has done in Gaza is an abomination, that they’ve made it impossible for people to live there. At least we can now see that this is now a widely shared fact and that we don’t actually have to argue for it. So I don’t know what happens next, but I think that is something at least we can now work with, no matter what madness the future brings.</span></p>
<p><span><strong>Chris Hedges: </strong></span><span>Great, thank you, Pankaj. I want to thank Diego [Ramos], Sofia [Menemenlis], Thomas [Hedges] and Max [Jones], who produced the show. You can find me on ChrisHedges.Substack.com.</span></p>
<p><span><strong>Chris Hedges is a Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist who was a foreign correspondent for 15 years for <em>The New York Times,</em> where he served as the Middle East bureau chief and Balkan bureau chief for the paper. He previously worked overseas for <em>The Dallas Morning News, The Christian Science Monitor</em> and NPR.  He is the host of show “The Chris Hedges Report.”</strong></span></p>
<p><span><em><span>This article is from</span> <a href="https://scheerpost.com/2024/10/25/chris-hedges-israels-war-on-journalism/"><span>Scheerpost</span></a><span>. </span></em></span></p>
<p><span><em><span>NOTE TO READERS: There is now no way left for me to continue to write a weekly column for ScheerPost and produce my weekly television show without your help. </span><a href="https://scheerpost.com/2022/03/17/the-chris-hedges-report/"><span>The walls are closing in, with startling rapidity, on independent journalism</span></a><span>, with the elites, including the Democratic Party elites, clamoring for more and more censorship. Please, if you can, sign up at </span><a href="http://chrishedges.substack.com/"><span>chrishedges.substack.com</span></a><span> so I can continue to post my Monday column on ScheerPost and produce my weekly television show, “The Chris Hedges Report.”</span></em></span></p>
<p><span><em><span>This interview is from</span> <a href="https://scheerpost.com/"><span>Scheerpost,</span></a> <span>for which Chris Hedges writes </span><a href="https://scheerpost.com/category/chris-hedges/"><span>a regular column</span></a><span>. </span><a href="https://scheerpost.com/support-subscribe-contact/"><span>Click here to sign up</span></a><span> for email alerts.</span></em></span></p>
<p><span><em><span>Views expressed in this interview may or may not reflect those of </span></em><strong>Consortium News.</strong></span></p>

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guid: https://consortiumnews.com/?p=124735
title: Craig Murray: Islamist Resistance &amp; Israel
author: ;corinna barnard
link: https://consortiumnews.com/2025/02/28/craig-murray-islamist-resistance-israel/
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<p><strong><span>Hezbollah’s ability to resist an expansionist, apartheid, Israeli, colonial project has worsened considerably in recent months.  But in Beirut,</span> <span>Nasrallah’s funeral enjoyed a show of mass popular support. </span></strong><br><span><span data-sanitized-id="more-124735"></span></span></p>
<div data-sanitized-id="attachment_124740" data-sanitized-class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img fetchpriority="high" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-124740" src="https://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Funeral_of_Hassan_Nasrallah_23_Feb_2025_78.jpg" alt width="1920" height="1280" data-sanitized-class="size-full wp-image-124740"><p data-sanitized-id="caption-attachment-124740" data-sanitized-class="wp-caption-text"><span>Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah’s funeral in Beirut on Feb. 23. <span>(Khamenei.ir, Wikimedia Commons,</span></span> <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-sanitized-class="mw-mmv-license">CC BY 4.0)</a></p>
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<p><span><strong>By</strong> <span><a href="https://consortiumnews.com/tag/craig-murray/"><strong>Craig Murray</strong></a><br><a href="https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2025/02/islamic-resistance-movements-and-israel/"><em>CraigMurray.org.uk</em></a><br></span></span></p>
<p><span><span><strong><img decoding="async" src="https://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/Screenshot-2024-12-24-at-1.11.05-PM-100x100.png" alt width="100" height="100" data-sanitized-class="alignleft size-thumbnail wp-image-121689">W</strong></span>e were searching for a site in the northern Bekaa Valley recently bombed by Israel. Hadi knew near which village it was located but, as we drove between large expanses of fertile, well-cultivated fields, it was plain his information was vague.</span></p>
<p><span>We pulled up at a garage to ask the way. Lebanon has not gone the way of Western economies in making consumers perform the very service for which they are paying, and in Lebanese service stations they still have attendants. A scruffily dressed old man sat on the front step of a dilapidated and very basic kiosk constructed of concrete blocks. He came over to the driver’s window.</span></p>
<p><span>First Hadi ordered fuel, and the old man filled the car, washed the windscreen and took payment. His hair was white and his beard short, but not from the obsessively neat trimming that is universal in Beirut. When he returned with change, Hadi asked him if he knew where to find the bomb site.</span></p>
<p><span>The old man replied with questions. I did not understand the Arabic, but from the body language there was a marked shift in the interaction between the two, from the man serving Hadi to the man interrogating Hadi. He lost his shuffle, notably straightened his back and stood taller.</span></p>
<p><span>They were talking through the driver’s window, and with a very definite movement the man moved forward and rested his forearm on the sill, intruding his head into the vehicle assertively. He looked at me with searching eyes, and looked at Niels sitting in the back seat with his camera equipment. His questioning of Hadi became terse.</span></p>
<p><span>I looked into his eyes. He had the distinct, piercing gaze that I used to note in the special forces officers I occasionally came across in my Foreign Office career. He then walked away from the car, took out his phone and made a call.</span></p>
<p><span>After a while he handed the phone to Hadi, who looked both serious and worried. Hadi listened, handed the phone back to the attendant, said goodbye and thank you, and reversed out of the garage. Hadi told us we were not permitted to go to the bomb site.</span></p>
<p><span>We had just encountered Hezbollah. The important thing to understand in this encounter is that it is not that the man was an undercover Hezbollah operative posing as a garage attendant. He was a garage attendant who was a Hezbollah operative.</span></p>
<p><span>Hezbollah is not an organisation comparable to the I.R.A., in which a relatively small number of members operated within the context of a community in which they enjoyed very large sympathy. Hezbollah operates in a community in which almost everybody is an activist and pretty well every adult is prepared to pick up a gun or an RPG and knows how to use it.</span></p>
<p><span>This is a key to understanding how Hezbollah became the only military force that has ever been able to defeat the IDF in pitched ground warfare.</span></p>
<p><span>In this respect, Hezbollah’s crucial advantage compared to Hamas is that it has had practical access to weapons deliveries to build its arsenal, whereas Hamas has been greatly constricted by Israel’s control of goods entering Gaza.</span></p>
<p><span><strong><span>“Hezbollah operates in a community in which almost everybody is an activist. Pretty well every adult is prepared to pick up a gun or an RPG and knows how to use it.”</span></strong></span></p>
<p><span>Ending the weapons supply to Hezbollah has been a key U.S./Israeli strategic objective this last year, and they have in large part achieved it. I shall return to that.</span></p>
<p><span><span>On a personal level, this encounter with the garage attendant was fairly typical of my interactions with Hezbollah in my four months in Lebanon. They had detained me in a</span> <a href="https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2024/11/two-weeks-in-beirut/"><span>rather frightening</span></a> <span>manner on first encounter, and in general treated me with understandable suspicion, given my British diplomatic background.</span></span></p>
<p><span>I saw literally thousands of buildings in Lebanon that Israel had destroyed. The most haunting part of the entire experience was the frequent event of finding the clothing and toys of small children among the rubble: I still have bad dreams about it.</span></p>
<p><span>However this was the second of the two occasions when we were able to identify that Israel had struck an actual Hezbollah military installation, rather than a civilian building. Both times Hezbollah prevented me from going to see. In terms of maintaining the security of the military site, this strikes me as shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted.</span></p>
<p><span>Having been denied access to that particular bomb site, we drove on into the village and met with some locals Hadi knew. In this small village there had been over 70 Israeli bombings, eight of them since the ceasefire.</span></p>
<p><span>They took me to one large house which had been completely destroyed, a pile of rubble spread over a large area. Twelve members of the same family had been killed in this house, seven of them children. The head of the family had left in late afternoon to go to the butcher’s to buy dinner, when his home and family was destroyed behind him.</span></p>
<p><span>The explosion was so enormous that the body of one of the children was found in the neighbouring orchard of olive trees, clean across the road, about 70 yards away. Many of the olive trees had been shredded and debris from the house was strewn across the field and beyond.</span></p>
<p><span>The next house was not greatly damaged, but there a father and his two daughters were killed by the shock wave as they sat on their terrace drinking coffee. </span></p>
<p><span><strong>About Hezbollah</strong><span> </span></span></p>
<div data-sanitized-id="attachment_124760" data-sanitized-class="wp-caption aligncenter"><a href="https://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/nasrallah-craig.jpg"><img decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-124760" src="https://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/nasrallah-craig-1000x714.jpg" alt width="860" height="614" data-sanitized-class="wp-image-124760 size-large"></a>
<p data-sanitized-id="caption-attachment-124760" data-sanitized-class="wp-caption-text"><span>Posters of Nasrallah in Baalbek, Lebanon, 2009. <span>(Will De Freitas, Flickr,CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)</span></span></p>
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<p><span>There are so many important points to make about Hezbollah, but let me start with these three.</span></p>
<p><span>The first is that support for Hezbollah among their own Shia communities in Lebanon is extremely strong. They are far more than a military organisation. They are Lebanon’s largest legitimate political party.</span></p>
<p><span>In 2022, Hezbollah received 19.9 percent of the vote, and their close ally the Amal Movement received another 10.5 percent. </span></p>
<p><span>The party with the second-highest vote behind Hezbollah, the neo-fascist Lebanese Forces, received 11.6 percent of the vote. </span></p>
<p><span>(The Lebanese Forces Party should not be confused with the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF), with which it has no connection. The Lebanese Armed Forces remain under effective U.S. control and fired not a shot against the Israeli invasion and occupation.</span></p>
<p><span>But like so much in Lebanon, the situation should not be simplified and the majority of the rank and file of the LAF are Shia Muslims sympathetic to Hezbollah, and a large majority of the rank and file of any denomination would be happy to fight the Israelis were they ever allowed to do so.) </span></p>
<p><span>Under Lebanon’s extraordinary constitution, Lebanese Forces with 11.6 percent received 19 seats in Parliament while Hezbollah with 19.9 percent received 15 seats. Of which again more later.</span></p>
<p><span>But when it comes to political legitimacy, it is worth noting that the combined Hezbollah/Amal vote percentage is equal to the Labour Party percentage at the last general election in the U.K. There is no argument that Hezbollah is not a legitimate democratic political force.</span></p>
<p><span>The second point is that it is absolutely wrong to see Lebanon in purely sectarian terms. Hezbollah has supporters and allies across all religions in Lebanon. In a country where politics is officially and constitutionally organised on religious lines —  by a “confessional” constitution — minor parties of all religions are aligned with Hezbollah, of which several had ministers until appointment of the new Cabinet last month (of which again, more later).</span></p>
<p><span>Perhaps a quarter of those at the funeral for Hezbollah’s slain leader, Hassan Nasrallah, were not Shia Muslims.</span></p>
<p><span>The third point is that Hezbollah is much more than a political party with a military wing. In a country in which central government has all but collapsed (Lebanon has no income tax), Hezbollah provides hospitals, schools, banking, pensions and welfare benefits.</span></p>
<p><span>When Niels and I witnessed refugee returns to evacuated areas following the “ceasefire,” a very substantial percentage of the population were waving Hezbollah flags or Lebanese flags, with some waving both. Hezbollah is an integral part of Lebanese society, entirely born within the country out of the resistance to Israel’s 1982 occupation, and is in no sense alien or anti-Lebanese.</span></p>
<div data-sanitized-id="attachment_124738" data-sanitized-class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-124738" src="https://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/IsraelForcesLebanon2982.jpg" alt width="1200" height="800" data-sanitized-class="size-full wp-image-124738"><p data-sanitized-id="caption-attachment-124738" data-sanitized-class="wp-caption-text"><span>Israeli troops in Lebanon in 1982. <span>(Michael Zarfati / IDF Spokesperson’s Unit / Wikimedia Commons / </span></span><a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.en">CC BY-SA 3.0)</a></p>
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<p><span>The elephant in the room is that in the U.K. and other Western states, this highly complex social and political movement is designated as a terrorist organisation in its entirety.</span></p>
<p><span>Ironically, the justification for this given in Westminster in 2019 was that Hezbollah was destabilising the Middle East and prolonging the conflict in Syria — where the very Western powers that proscribed Hezbollah have just assisted another proscribed terrorist group [HTS] into power.</span></p>
<p><span>[Western governments and their Gulf Arab allies also funded jihadist groups in Syria for a decade trying to overthrow the secular government.]</span></p>
<p><span>The truth is that terrorist proscription by the NATO powers of organisations in the Middle East is simply a tool for taking whatever decisions are expedient at that moment to promote the interests of apartheid Israel.</span></p>
<p><span>The “terrorist acts” of Hezbollah that led to proscription of the entire organisation in 2019 consisted of fighting ISIS, Al Qaeda and Al Nusra in Syria.</span></p>
<p><span>We all suffer from the temptation of assuming that others share our prejudices. I assume that like me, many in the West find it difficult to empathise with Hezbollah because of its Islamist philosophy and — I know this is petty — appearance.</span></p>
<p><span><strong><span>“In the U.K. and other Western states, this highly complex social and political movement is designated as a terrorist organisation in its entirety.”</span></strong></span></p>

<p><span>Hassan Nasrallah was the most important and steadfast leader of resistance to the mass murderous Zionist project of the last 40 years. He was also, by all accounts, a hugely charismatic figure to Arabic speakers.</span></p>
<p><span>But his very appearance made it easy for him to be represented to Western audiences as an alienating, even evil, character, due to the state-promoted Islamophobia in the Western world which has been universally projected in the media this last quarter century.</span></p>
<p><span>But here honesty is required. I myself do not like to see political leaders with a religious function and am simply against theocratic rule. I am entirely in favour of freedom of religion, but utterly opposed to religion ruling any state.</span></p>
<p><span>There is an element of smoke and mirrors here. In the glorious mosaic of Lebanon, Hezbollah exists jumbled with those of other sects and religions, and in practice rub along very well.</span></p>
<p><span>Nasrallah spoke like all committed Islamists of his desire to see a united Muslim rule over Muslim lands, with the state under firmly religious leadership and Sharia [religious] law. But in practice Hezbollah are highly tolerant. </span></p>
<p><span>In those large areas of Lebanon where they both have physical military control and dominate the elected local authority, Hezbollah does not ban the sale of alcohol by the Christian minority or enforce hair covering, even on Muslims.</span></p>
<p><span>This is an area where my prejudices were disabused. I did not expect to find this.</span></p>
<p><span>All this caused me some difficulty in Lebanon. I was frequently asked whether I supported Hezbollah. As I was spending much of my time in those areas attacked by Israel — which largely are the Hezbollah areas — in general the question came from Hezbollah supporters.</span></p>
<p><span><strong>Culture Gaps</strong></span></p>
<div data-sanitized-id="attachment_119339" data-sanitized-class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-119339" src="https://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/354127727_b81ba2910d_k-2.jpg" alt width="2048" height="1371" data-sanitized-class="size-full wp-image-119339"><p data-sanitized-id="caption-attachment-119339" data-sanitized-class="wp-caption-text"><span>Shell hole in the portrait of a dead Hezbollah fighter painted on a signboard along the road from Tyre to Bint Jbeil in southern Lebanon, 2007. <span>(Paul Keller, Flickr,</span></span> <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/deed.en">CC BY-NC 2.0)</a></p>
</div>
<p><span>I would always reply that I supported absolutely the right of occupied people to conduct armed resistance, and the duty to do everything possible to prevent genocide. Both are established principles of international law.</span></p>
<p><span>But I did not support Hezbollah per se, and would not vote for it were I Lebanese, because it is an openly Islamist organisation and I am opposed to theocratic rule and religious legal codes.</span></p>
<p><span>Being in Lebanon did however allow me to overcome some of the gulf of my cultural understanding. The practice of calling those killed by Israel “martyrs” and frequently referring to them as such in conversation, is alien to a Western ear where the word has largely outdated religious connotations.</span></p>
<p><span>When you live amongst a community where everybody has friends or relatives who have been killed in the decades-long aggression of Israel, the revering of the fallen as martyrs, and their omnipresence in everyday thought, starts to make much more sense.</span></p>
<p><span>Similarly to Western eyes the widespread display of large images of the “martyrs” is peculiar. These are along every roadside and atop every ruin. There are always posters at the site where the person was killed, and frequently dozens of other posters of that individual at sites of importance to them.</span></p>
<p><span>I overcame my incomprehension of this practice by thinking of it in reference to my own culture, that these were posters of people put up to mark where they fought and died to defend their wee bit hill and glen. In those terms it made sense to me.</span></p>
<p><span>I am extremely conscious that religious faith has played a very positive role in both Palestine and South Lebanon in enabling people to endure the unendurable and to maintain resistance against impossible odds. But it is not possible to ignore the fact that there remain substantial differences between my world view and an Islamist world view.</span></p>
<p><span>This has been brought into urgent focus by the attitude of many Sunni Muslims to the overthrow of former President Bashar al-Assad in Syria. In my world view, this has been a disaster for the Palestinians. It has seriously and perhaps permanently damaged the flow of arms and other resources to Hezbollah, the Palestinians’ most important ally. And it has enabled the Greater Israel project to expand substantially into Syria.</span></p>
<p><span>Try now to imagine that you are a Sunni Muslim scholar who believes that only by becoming Sunni Muslim can people obey God. You believe that the benefit to mankind of bringing Sunni Muslim rule to most of Syria outweighs the loss of part of Syria to Israel. You believe that Palestinian martyrs killed by Israel are going immediately to Heaven anyway, so in spiritual terms there is no real loss to the “martyrs.”</span></p>
<p><span>That really is the position of many of the leaders of the Saudi- and Gulf-sponsored Muslim religious community. Just like there are a great many shades of Christianity, there are a great many shades of Islam and there are many Muslims, including Sunni Muslims, who would not share that viewpoint. But to a religious Islamist it makes perfect sense. </span></p>
<p><span><span>I cannot find it again because it was deep in replies on a thread, but I had a very interesting exchange with a Muslim intellectual on Twitter on precisely this topic. He accused me of “Orientalism” for denigrating an Eastern spiritual viewpoint in favour of a Western secularist narrative, in seeing the installation of</span> <span>Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (</span><span>HTS) as a reverse for Palestine. He pointed out that Hamas, a fellow Sunni Islamist movement, had welcomed the triumph of HTS. </span></span></p>
<p><span><span>The exchange was welcome for its honesty and intellectual acuity. I said I did not believe Edward Said [author of the seminal book</span> <em><span>Orientalism</span></em><span>] would have welcomed the accompanying expansion of Israel into Syria or the cutting of supplies to Hezbollah. He called in a nephew of Said to bolster his view that my viewpoint is Orientalist.</span></span></p>
<p><span>I have thought about this deeply; I do not think my viewpoint can fairly be described as Orientalist. The truth is that all mainstream Western thought would have entirely concurred with the view that the expansion of rule by a particular religious sect was more important than associated temporal reverses that did not affect the faith of the people: but Western thought was exactly that 500 years ago. </span></p>
<p><span>I do not see my view as Orientalist. I see it as anti-medievalist.</span></p>
<p><span><span>The fall of the Assad regime was deeply desired by Western neoliberals and Zionists in order to replace it with a Western democratic model, and they are desperately pretending that is what they have got in</span> Abu Mohammad <span>al-Jolani, [the current president of Syria, also known as</span> Ahmed al-Sharaa]<span>. </span></span></p>
<p><span>As atrocities against Shia, Alawites and Christians in Syria mount, the one thing that cannot be disputed is that al-Jolani is steadfastly Zionist, as he allows Israel daily to occupy more of Syria and destroy more of its infrastructure, without a single shot fired in response.</span></p>
<p><span>There is no doubt that the position of the Resistance to an expansionist, apartheid, Israeli, colonial project worsened considerably since my arrival in Lebanon in October. While Israel could not progress a ground offensive, the almost total absence of any air defences for Lebanon meant it could murder and destroy with impunity from the air.</span></p>
<p><span><span>Israel embarked on a</span> <a href="https://youtu.be/uG_k_IIFR8o"><span>campaign of devastation</span></a> <span>of purely civilian areas by aerial bombardment. Of that I am an eye witness. I can say from personal inspection that the claims that the tens of thousands of homes destroyed had any military use are a massive lie.</span></span></p>
<p><span><span>With no defence against a relentless bombing campaign, and with most of their leadership eliminated, Hezbollah were obliged to accede to a</span> <a href="https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/?s=ceasefire"><span>suicidally unbalanced</span></a> <span>“ceasefire agreement.” It is plain on the actual face of the agreement that only one side will cease fire.</span></span></p>
<p><span><strong><span>“There is no doubt that the position of the Resistance to an expansionist apartheid Israeli colonial project worsened considerably since my arrival in Lebanon in October.”</span></strong></span></p>
<p><span>All Lebanese groups are to cease fire without qualification whereas Israel is only to cease “offensive” operations. Israel of course claims all its attacks as defensive. This is absolute nonsense, but despite over 500 violations of the ceasefire agreement, killing hundreds of people, Israel has not been held accountable because Hezbollah acceded to a ceasefire guaranteed by a “Mechanism” which is chaired by a United States general.</span></p>
<p><span><span>I think my discussion on this point with the U.N. spokesman in Lebanon was extremely important, especially where he explicitly states that the ceasefire agreement was drafted by the U.S.</span> <a href="https://youtu.be/tV9WeicKjeU?t=1367"><span>This link</span></a> <span>takes you to the key point in the interview.</span></span></p>
<p><span>The members of the “Mechanism” overseeing the ceasefire are the United States, France, Israel and the Lebanese government of General Joseph Aoun, a total U.S. puppet.</span></p>
<p><span>Furthermore while the ceasefire agreement provides for a zone south of the Litani River from which Hezbollah must remove its weapons, it also calls for Hezbollah disarmament throughout the whole of Lebanon, which the Israelis and Americans have used to justify numerous continuing Israeli strikes in the Bekaa Valley, the Syrian border and even Beirut.</span></p>
<p><span>Hezbollah are not a formal party to the agreement but it was sanctioned by them before signature. Personally I find it difficult to imagine that Nasrallah would ever have accepted such a position.</span></p>
<div data-sanitized-id="attachment_124751" data-sanitized-class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-124751" src="https://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Nikos_Christodoulides_meets_with_Joseph_Aoun.jpg" alt width="1920" height="1440" data-sanitized-class="wp-image-124751 size-full"><p data-sanitized-id="caption-attachment-124751" data-sanitized-class="wp-caption-text"><span> Aoun, on right, in January, with Cyprus’ President Nikos Christodoulides. <span>(Stavros Ioannides, Wikimedia Commons,</span></span> <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-sanitized-class="mw-mmv-license">CC BY-SA 4.0</a></p>
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<p><span>At the same time, Hezbollah’s domestic political position has been also greatly weakened. They were obliged to accept effectively the U.S. imposition of General Aoun as president, which they had been resisting for over two years. They also then found themselves accepting his nomination of the openly anti-Hezbollah Nawaf Salam as prime minister.</span></p>
<p><span>I referred earlier to Lebanon’s “confessional” constitutional arrangements, and said I would give more detail. The president must be a Christian, the prime minister a Sunni and the speaker of Parliament a Shiite.</span></p>
<p><span>But it does not stop there. The governing agreement specifies the division of ministerial positions too. Not only among Sunni, Shia and Christian, but to include several other groupings, of which the best known is Druze. There are others, particularly various specific sects of Christianity.</span></p>
<p><span>Hezbollah has operated through the Amal Movement in providing the Shiite ministers, but it is a key fact that it has always had important allies among Christian, anti-Israeli occupation factions who have filled important ministerial posts.</span></p>
<p><span><span>The loss of Hezbollah power within Lebanon is to be found within the detail of all these ministries. In claiming to appoint a “technocratic,” apolitical administration, Aoun and Prime Minister Nawaf Salam have</span> <a href="https://today.lorientlejour.com/article/1447823/salam-government-a-reflection-of-transformation-in-lebanons-political-landscape.html"><span>in fact excluded</span></a> <span>most of Hezbollah’s support. </span></span></p>
<p><span>It is in practice almost impossible to find a Shiite in Lebanon who is not pro-Hezbollah, but Aoun and Salam have certainly done their best. More pertinently, they have almost totally excluded Hezbollah and anti-Zionist sympathisers from the ministerial representation of Sunni and the assorted minority and smaller Christian groups, while simultaneously boosting the de facto influence of the fascist Lebanese Forces sympathisers.</span></p>
<p><span>Hezbollah has not been this politically weak in the Lebanese institutions for 20 years, which is why the show of mass popular support at Nasrallah’s funeral was so important to them. </span></p>
<p><span>However, given Lebanon’s electoral system with its deliberate Christian bias, piling up popular support is of little use to Hezbollah electorally. There are Christian MPs in Parliament elected with under 500 votes, while Hezbollah could put on another 100,000 votes without significantly increasing their representation.</span></p>
<p><span><span>Crucially the “ministerial statement” of the aims of the new government</span> <a href="https://today.lorientlejour.com/article/1448323/resistance-excluded-from-the-ministerial-statement-of-salams-cabinet.html"><span>excluded resistance</span></a> <span>to Israel as an objective — a key change — and specified the state’s monopoly on carrying arms, a reference to the full disarmament of Hezbollah.</span></span></p>
<p><span><strong>‘Greater Israel’ </strong></span></p>
<div data-sanitized-id="attachment_124741" data-sanitized-class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-124741" src="https://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Ahmad_al-Shara_greets_Hadja_Lahbib_in_Syria-scaled.jpg" alt width="2560" height="1706" data-sanitized-class="size-full wp-image-124741"><p data-sanitized-id="caption-attachment-124741" data-sanitized-class="wp-caption-text"><span>Syria’s President Ahmad al-Sharaa, formerly known by his fighting name al-Jolani, greeting European Commissioner Hadja Lahbib in Syria on Jan. 17. <span>(European Union, Wikimedia Commons,</span></span> <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-sanitized-class="mw-mmv-license">CC BY 4.0)</a></p>
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<p><span>Finally, of course, Hezbollah’s archenemies, HTS, are now in power in Damascus. Hezbollah fought off repeated Al Qaeda/Al Nusra/ISIS attempts to invade Lebanon and also intervened against these forces within Syria [at the invitation of the Assad government.] Al-Jolani [a.k.a. al-Sharaa] coming to power represents a major disruption to Hezbollah’s supply lines from Iran.</span></p>
<p><span>The U.S. and Israel are attempting to turn up this pressure by frequent aerial attacks on border crossings from Syria and on Hezbollah individuals within Lebanon. Recently they took the additional measure of banning pilgrimage flights to and from Iran, which greatly angered the Shia community and was aimed at cutting off a route for physical supplies of cash.</span></p>
<p><span>What is uncertain is what secret accommodations General Aoun may have reached with Hezbollah, over whether their physical disarmament throughout Lebanon under U.N. Security Council Resolution 1701 and the Ceasefire Agreement is a genuine process or a show. Politically, Aoun and Salam have strongly planted their banner for real disarmament of Hezbollah.</span></p>
<p><span>What appears beyond dispute is that the Israelis receive a continued flow of intelligence from Lebanese sources on Hezbollah personnel movements and sites, and the U.S.-sanctioned, intense, Israeli bombing campaign shows no sign of abating.</span></p>
<p><span>We can add to this sad fact that Israel was able to use the Ceasefire Agreement to occupy parts of Southern Lebanon which Hezbollah had successfully defended during the war, and that Israel has destroyed by demolition thousands of homes and other civilian buildings under cover of the ceasefire to add to those destroyed during the war.</span></p>
<p><span><span>Indeed Israel demolishes more buildings in Southern Lebanon every day still, and has now destroyed over 90,000 buildings in Lebanon in total.</span> <a href="https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2024/12/lebanon-and-syria-my-interview-for-lindipendente/"><span>As I predicted</span></a><span>, Israel is building five permanent military outposts in Southern Lebanon and has made plain it has no intention of leaving.</span></span></p>
<p><span>The U.S. puppet government in Beirut, like the U.S. puppet government in Damascus, plainly has no intention of any realistic action against de facto Israeli annexation of its land. While Hezbollah has signalled a reversion to past tactics of guerilla warfare, I have serious doubts about both its current capacity, both political and military.</span></p>
<p><span>Of the enduring heroism of the people of South Lebanon I have no doubt, and I also have no doubt that as Israel is maintaining an illegal occupation, their legal right of armed resistance is unimpeachable.</span></p>
<p><span>It is however foolish not to acknowledge that with Israel expanding into Lebanon and Syria, with U.S. puppet regimes in Beirut and Damascus, with genocide about to restart in Gaza and spreading into the West Bank, and with an apparently crazed level of open Zionist support from U.S. President Donald Trump that is in fact only more honest than the pro-genocide positions of the large majority of Western governments, the current position looks bleak indeed.</span></p>
<p><span><strong><span>“Of the enduring heroism of the people of South Lebanon I have no doubt, and I also have no doubt that as Israel is maintaining an illegal occupation, their legal right of armed resistance is unimpeachable.”</span></strong></span></p>
<p><span>The only grounds for hope is that I cannot imagine that the people of the region are going to tolerate Israeli collaborationist regimes in Damascus, Beirut and Ramallah much longer. Indeed with slight variations you might say the same of the entire Arab worlds.</span></p>
<p><span>I hope you will forgive this being a very personal post as I try to make sense of my experiences and assimilate much new knowledge into my view of the worlds.</span></p>
<p><span>I went to Lebanon knowing literally nobody in the country, and with an introduction to just one person who helped us through immigration, but whose assistance thereafter did not work out. I did so accompanied by Niels as cinematographer, despite my never really having worked in video before, and my not being very accomplished at it. On top of which we had no financial resources except for our crowdfunding, which was not going well.</span></p>
<p><span>I now realise just how deeply ignorant I was about Lebanon before arriving. </span></p>
<p><span><span>The truth is, I wanted to go to Gaza but could find no way to get in. I had applied to Israel for the required permission from the</span> <span>Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (</span><span>COGAT) to enter the West Bank, but had been refused. So Lebanon was the one place under Israeli aggression where I could actually hope to get in to document and report on Israeli atrocities.</span></span></p>
<p><span>This venture was also born out of a rather desperate feeling that I must try to do something. I had been involved in the genesis of the ICJ case against Israel for committing genocide and in international campaigning for Palestine, but felt so helpless watching murdered children in Gaza every day on social media, that I felt compelled to do more.</span></p>
<p><span>With war against the Israeli invaders raging in Lebanon, I admit I also had a compulsion to share at least some of the danger of those putting their lives at stake. In truth, I felt like something of a fraud to be writing about it from home if I was not prepared to experience it.</span></p>
<p><span>Well, at times Lebanon really was dangerous for us, but I am extremely proud of what Niels and I achieved. The six mini-documentaries reached millions of people and I think genuinely informed the Western public. </span></p>
<p><span>I think the interview with the U.N. was extremely revealing and important and wish I had been able to get a rather wider audience for it. On top of which we produced numerous shorter video pieces, written articles and interviews with alternative media outlets across the globe, as well as doing a lot of Arab mainstream media.</span></p>
<p><span>In the end we had to leave because it proved simply not possible to meet the substantial costs of the venture by individual subscriptions and donations, and I ran out of money. It was a bold experiment in being able to do the kind of real, on-the-ground journalism that legacy media has abandoned, but to continue would require more fundraising ability or organisational ability than I possess.</span></p>
<p><span>There is no doubt that we suffered — and still suffer — massive social media suppression, and this limitation of reach is what crippled fundraising efforts. Essentially we were asking the same people for donations again and again, which is both impractical and, I admit, I found personally difficult and undignified.</span></p>
<p><span>So I shall continue reporting from my base in Scotland, travelling the world as occasion demands. My knowledge has been hugely expanded by my time in Beirut. I will now largely revert to written rather than video format. The struggle for justice goes on, and my commitment to it remains.</span></p>
<p><span><strong>Craig Murray is an author, broadcaster and human rights activist. He was British ambassador to Uzbekistan from August 2002 to October 2004 and rector of the University of Dundee from 2007 to 2010. </strong></span></p>
<p><span><em><span>The author’s coverage is entirely dependent on reader support. Subscriptions to keep this blog going are <a href="https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/support-this-website/">gratefully received</a>. Because some people wish an alternative to PayPal, he has set up new methods of payment including a <a href="https://www.gofundme.com/f/independent-and-true-reporting-of-israels-attack-on-lebanon">GoFundMe appeal</a> and a <a href="http://patreon.com/CraigMurray">Patreon account</a>.</span> He has also started a <a href="https://craigmurrayorg.substack.com/">Substack account</a> <span>if you wish to subscribe that way. The content will be the same as you get on this blog. Substack has the advantage of overcoming social media suppression by emailing you directly every time he posts. You can, if you wish, subscribe free to Substack and use the email notifications as a trigger to come for this blog and read the articles for free. <span>The</span> author is determined to maintain free access for those who cannot afford a subscription.</span></em></span></p>
<p><span><em>This article is from</em> <a href="https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2024/11/lebanons-unbalanced-ceasefire-teeters-on-the-brink/"><em>CraigMurray.org.uk</em></a></span></p>
<p><span><em>The views expressed are solely those of the author and may or may not reflect those of</em> <strong>Consortium News</strong><strong><em>.</em></strong></span></p>

tags:
#Commentary #Iran #Israel #Lebanon #Middle East #Palestine #Syria #Trump Administration #U.S. #United Nations #Abu Mohammed al-Jolani #Ahmad al-Sharaa #armed resistance #Craig Murray #Hay’at Tahrir Sham (HTS) #Hezbollah #Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah #Zionism


guid: https://consortiumnews.com/?p=124764
title: Trump, Vance School Zelensky on Reality of His War
author: ;Consortiumnews.com
link: https://consortiumnews.com/2025/03/01/trump-vance-school-zelensky-on-reality-of-his-war/
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<p><span><strong>The embattled Ukraine president, believing his own propaganda, was dressed down before the cameras in the Oval Office Friday by a fed-up president and vice president of the United States, reports Joe Lauria.</strong><span data-sanitized-id="more-124764"></span></span></p>
<p><iframe title="Full Meeting between President Trump, VP Vance and Ukrainian President Zelenskyy in Oval Office" width="860" height="484" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/7pxbGjvcdyY?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen" sandbox="allow-scripts allow-same-origin">[embedded content]</iframe></p>
<p><span><span><strong>By</strong> <strong><span><a href="https://consortiumnews.com/tag/joe-lauria/">Joe Lauria</a></span><br></strong></span><span><em>Special to Consortium News</em></span></span></p>
<p><span><strong><a href="https://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/1New-Joe-Hed.png" data-sanitized-class="image-anchor"><img decoding="async" src="https://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/1New-Joe-Hed-100x100.png" alt width="100" height="100" data-sanitized-class="alignleft size-thumbnail wp-image-88773"></a></strong></span></p>
<p><span><span><strong>V</strong></span>olodymyr Zelensky has become accustomed to being feted in Western cities as the second-coming of Churchill, appearing before awards ceremonies, film festivals, the New York Stock Exchange and various national parliaments, (though the Academy Awards twice turned him down.)</span></p>
<p><span>All that came crashing down on him Friday in the 102-foot circumference, 816 sq. foot office at the epicenter of still the most powerful nation on earth, He was met by a buzzsaw of resistance from the president and vice president of the United States. Zelensky was dressed down, even about his dress, being told he was ungrateful, disrespectful, had lost to Russia and was risking “World War III.”</span></p>
<p><span>It’s still hard to register that a factual alternative to the West’s propaganda story on Ukraine has largely been accepted by President Donald Trump and Vice President J.D. Vance in a dramatic reversal from the office’s last occupant.</span></p>
<p><span>While there are members of Trump’s national security team, such as Secretary of State Marco Rubio and National Security Advisor Michael Waltz, who previously swallowed whole the fantasy of Russia’s “unprovoked” invasion of an “innocent” Ukraine, there were two officials who during Trump’s campaign likely filled him in on the facts. </span></p>
<p><span>One was Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who in numerous speeches when he ran his own campaign for president, displayed an intimate knowledge of the causes of the Ukraine war — NATO expansion, the 2014 U.S. backed coup in Kiev, the beginning of the war by Ukraine against coup resistors in Eastern Ukraine and the U.S. rejection of Russian diplomacy to avoid war.</span></p>
<p><span>The other was Tulsi Gabbard, who likewise made clear her profound understanding of the realities of the war. Kennedy is out of the sphere of foreign policy as health and human resources secretary, but Gabbard gives the presidential brief to Trump everyday at 11:15 am.</span></p>
<p><span>No doubt she prepped him for Zelensky’s now infamous Oval Office encounter on Friday. </span></p>
<p><span><strong>Zelenksy’s Humiliation</strong></span></p>
<p><span>Trump humiliated Zelensky from the moment he greeted him on arrival at the front door of the White House. Trump sarcastically remarked, “Oh, you’re all dressed up,” referring to Zelenksy, who wore a black T-shirt with Ukraine’s trident symbol in the guise of a military uniform.</span></p>
<p><span>The blogger known as Simplicius the Thinker weighed in on the significance of Zelensky’s humiliation over his attire after a reporter later asked him if he even owns a suit.</span></p>
<blockquote>
<p><span>“This exchange highlights precisely the main takeaway—which is that the artificially constructed <em>image</em> of Zelensky is no longer useful, and has been tossed away like a used rag. All the false bravado and olive drab khakis—it all served a purpose for the past three years, with Zelensky built up like some kind of John Rambo-Churchill; the ‘sacred’ attire would have never been questioned before, because it represented the <em>theater</em> of it all, the carefully stage-managed production. Now that the play has run its course, failing to turn a profit, the ‘act’ has grown old and we’re immediately allowed a view under the costume.”</span></p>
</blockquote>
<p><span>The meeting began calmly enough with Trump praising Ukraine’s “very brave fighters.” Trump said:</span></p>
<blockquote>
<p><span>“So I give tremendous credit to your generals and your soldiers and yourself in the sense that, it’s been very hard fighting, very tough fighting, great fighters. And, you have to be very proud of them. That’s terrible. But now we want to get it over with. It’s enough.”</span></p>
</blockquote>
<p><span>Trump said he had spoken to Russian President Vladimir Putin “and we’re going to try to bring this to a close. It’s something that you want and that he wants. We have to negotiate a deal.” Zelensky widened his eyes at “something that you want.”  </span></p>
<p><span>“We’ve started the confines of a deal and I think something can happen,” Trump said. “I will say, until we came along, the Biden administration didn’t speak to Russia whatsoever. They didn’t speak to anybody. They just allowed this to continue.”</span></p>
<p><span>Trump said: “It’s a somewhat of an exciting moment, but the really exciting moment is when … they stop the shooting or we end up with the deal, and I think we’re fairly close to getting that.” </span></p>
<p><span>Zelensky said he counted on Trump “to stop Putin.” He said “enough with the war” should have been said at the beginning because “he [Putin] is a killer and a terrorist.” Zelenksy, acting as if he was unaware of the radical change in U.S. policy under Trump, said, “I hope together we can stop him of course with no compromises of our territory with a killer.”</span></p>
<p><span>Zelenksy then made a plea for U.S. air defense systems, “the best in the world,” at which Trump scrunched his face. Zelensky made a pitch for U.S. participation with Britain and France on a peacekeeping force after a ceasefire, which Russia has rejected and which Trump said the U.S. would not take part in. </span></p>
<p><span>“Everyone is talking about security, but we have to make a deal first,” Trump said, adding that too many soldiers on both sides were still dying.</span></p>
<p><span>When Trump decried both sides’ deaths, Zelensky interjected, “They came to our territory.”</span></p>
<p><span>Asked before the Oval Office fireworks erupted whether he would continue sending military aid to Ukraine, Trump said, “We are going to send arms, sure. Hopefully I won’t have to send very much because hopefully we will have it finished quickly. We are not looking forward to sending a lot of arms.”</span></p>
<p><span>A reporter asked Zelensky whether he considers the U.S. to be on his side. “I think that the United States is on our side from the very beginning of the occupation and I think President Trump is on our side and I’m sure the United States will not stop support.” </span></p>
<p><span>By the end of the hour-long meeting, that certainty changed.  Zelensky said the important question was whether the U.S. and its allies can get Russia to withdraw from Ukraine.</span></p>
<p><span>Trump said no deal was possible without compromises. “He’s going to have to make compromises but hopefully not as big as some people think he will have to make. That’s all we can do. I’m here as a mediator between two parties that have been very hostile, to put it mildly. This has been a vicious war.”</span></p>
<p><span>“This could lead to a third world war,” Trump went on. “This was headed in the wrong direction. If we didn’t win this election … this could have very well ended up in a third world war.” [See:</span> <span><span><span><em><a href="https://consortiumnews.com/2024/11/17/on-way-out-reckless-biden-allows-deep-russia-strikes/">On Way Out, Reckless Biden Allows Deep Russia Strikes</a>]</em></span></span></span></p>
<p><span>Zelensky claimed Putin broke ceasefires 25 times since 2014, during the period of the Minsk accords designed to end the Ukrainian civil war. “He broke his signature,” Zelensky said.</span></p>
<p><span>“But he never broke to me,” Trump said.</span></p>
<p><span>Zelenksy contradicted Trump. “Since 2016 you’ve been the president.”</span></p>
<div data-sanitized-id="attachment_124771" data-sanitized-class="wp-caption aligncenter"><a href="https://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/2-TRUMP-AND-Z.png"><img fetchpriority="high" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-124771" src="https://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/2-TRUMP-AND-Z-1000x526.png" alt width="1117" height="587" data-sanitized-class=" wp-image-124771"></a>
<p data-sanitized-id="caption-attachment-124771" data-sanitized-class="wp-caption-text"><span>Zelensky and Trump square off in Oval Office. <span>(C-Span screenshot)</span></span></p>
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<p><span>What Zelensky failed to mention is that Angela Merkel, former French President Francois Hollande and Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko all admitted they never took the Minsk accords seriously and strung Russia along to buy time for NATO to arm and train Ukraine.</span></p>
<p><span>Trump said more than once that he didn’t want to talk about security guarantees until there was a peace settlement. “That’s two percent of the problem,” Trump said. The tension between the two men starting building as Zelensky again contradicted him saying there could be no ceasefire without a security guarantee.</span></p>
<p><span>“Putin’s soldiers are afraid of our soldiers when we are strong enough,” Zelensky said. “We will never accept just a ceasefire.” He then said the Europeans would need a U.S. backstop when they deploy to Ukraine to secure a ceasefire.</span></p>
<p><span>“Putin will never stop,” Zelensky went on. “He hates Ukrainians. He thinks we are not a nation. He wants to destroy us. Putin began this war. He has to pay.” Ukraine can use $300 billion in frozen Russia assets in Europe, he said.</span></p>
<p><span>“It’s wonderful to talk badly about someone else,” Trump said in relation to what Zelensky said about Putin. “But I’m in the middle. I’m on both sides. I want to see this end. If we can’t solve it, they are going to have to fight it out and who knows what’s going to happen.”</span></p>
<p><strong><span>A ‘Threat’ to Europe</span></strong></p>
<p><span>Zelensky then began pushing the patently bogus and dangerous idea that Ukraine is the line of defense for Europe and even the United States from Russian aggression.</span></p>
<p><span>The overarching U.S.-led aggression against Russia, which led to this conflict, is wiped away with this fairytale, leaving the insidious and ridiculous projection that Russia wants to conquer the world. Western leaders ridicule Russia for taking three years to seize only Donbass and yet say Russia will be at the gates of Paris by summer.</span></p>
<p><span>“Like the president said, you have big, nice ocean between us, but if we will not stay, Russia will go further to Baltics and to Poland,” Zelensky said. “It’s understandable to them because they have been the U.S.S.R. … and Putin wants to bring them back to his empire.” </span></p>
<p><span>“It’s a fact,” Zelensky lied, “and when he will go there, if we will not stay, you will fight. American soldiers. It doesn’t matter you have ocean or not, your soldiers will fight.”</span></p>
<p><span>It’s impossible to know whether Zelensky is stupid enough to believe such rubbish, or smart and cynical enough to utter what he knows are baseless falsehoods to dupe Western publics into continuing to support military aid to his country to keep fighting a lost cause.</span></p>
<p><span>Even if this were Putin’s grand design, and there is zero indication it is, he does not have the military capability to carry it out. He has sought to avoid the prospect of attacking a NATO nation — which the Baltics and Poland are — triggering an Article 5 response and possible world and nuclear war.   </span></p>
<p><span>Though Zelensky began this desperate, scaremongering lecture of the U.S. president in the Oval Office, Trump already <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3mv9-hBH8tQ">made clear</a> a couple of weeks ago that he does not buy the B.S. story of Putin threatening the entire Western world. </span></p>
<p><span>What people like Zelenksy who push this nonsense fail to mention is that there’s been no coup in the Baltics with the government then attacking Russian speaking enclaves in their countries, giving no reason for Russia to intervene. Zelensky and his backers completely remove the history preceding Russia’s intervention into Ukraine, portraying Putin simply as a bloodthirsty madman bent on world conquest — a veritable villain out of a James Bond movie.</span></p>
<p><span>Ignoring this, Trump then pressed on with the need for a peace deal. He spoke of many destroyed Ukrainian cities. Zelensky, rose the temperature between them by interrupting him.</span></p>
<p><span>“No, no, no Mr. President you have to come and to look. We have very good cities. Yes a lot of things have been destroyed but mostly cities alive. And people work. And children go to school. .. Ukrainian is fighting and it lives.”</span></p>
<p><span>Zelensky then indirectly accused Trump of being duped by Russian disinformation. “Maybe it is Putin who is sharing that he has destroyed us,” he said.</span></p>
<p><span>“He has lost 700,000 soldiers,” Zelensky lied.</span></p>
<p><span>The fiercely anti-Putin Pussy Riot, in partnership with the fiercely anti-Putin BBC Russia service, runs a <a href="https://200.zona.media/">project</a> to keep track of Russian war casualties and their <a href="https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20250225-kremlin-no-comment-on-report-95-000-russian-troops-killed-in-ukraine">figure</a> of Russia’s war dead stands at 95,000.</span></p>
<p><span>If Russia had lost 750,000 men as Zelensky claims, how has it conquered and held so much territory?</span></p>
<p><span>It is Zelensky who is running out of men, being forced by the Biden administration to lower the recruiting age to 18 to send even younger men to the front to die. </span></p>
<p><span>Asked about Putin, Trump said he’d known him a long time. “He had to suffer through the Russia hoax, you know, Russia, Russia, Russia. It was all Biden. It was nothing to do with him,” Trump said.</span></p>
<p><span>Later he added: “Putin respects me. Let me tell you, Putin went through a hell of a lot with me. He went through a phony witch hunt where they used him and Russia, Russia, Russia, Russia. He had to go through that. And we didn’t end up in a war. He was accused of all that stuff and he had nothing to do with it.”</span></p>
<p><span>Democrats have themselves to blame, in other words, for making them both the targets of their operation and perhaps driving them closer together.  That of course is not a bad thing if it leads to a resolution of the war and cooperation between the two largest nuclear weapons powers.</span></p>
<p><span>“All I’ve done my whole life is make deals and I’m in the middle of a real mess,” Trump said. “And it’s a dangerous one.”</span></p>
<p><span>Asked about being too aligned with Putin, Trump said, “I’m not aligned with Putin. I’m not aligned with anybody. I’m aligned with the United States of America and for the good of the world. I’m aligned with the world. And I want to get this thing over with.” </span></p>
<p><span>Pointing to Zelensky, he said: “Look at the hatred he’s got for Putin. It’s very tough for me to make a deal with that kind of hate. The other side isn’t exactly in love with him either.” </span></p>
<p><span><strong>Enter Vance</strong></span></p>
<div data-sanitized-id="attachment_124772" data-sanitized-class="wp-caption aligncenter"><a href="https://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/JD-ALONE.png"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-124772" src="https://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/JD-ALONE-1000x565.png" alt width="1003" height="567" data-sanitized-class=" wp-image-124772"></a>
<p data-sanitized-id="caption-attachment-124772" data-sanitized-class="wp-caption-text"><span>Vance in the Oval Office with Zelensky. <span>(C-Span screenshot)</span></span></p>
</div>
<p><span>The vice president then entered the fray. Like Trump, Vance  failed to give historical context to the conflict. It would be easy for them politically, because they could blame a Democrat, Barack Obama, for letting this “mess” happen.</span></p>
<p><span>The Obama administration was in power when the U.S. backed the 2014 coup that toppled the democratically elected Ukrainian president. It was the Obama administration that greenlighted the coup government starting the war that still rages today by attacking the Russian-speaking Donbass region, which defended its democratic rights by rejecting the coup. </span></p>
<p><span>It was the Obama, Trump and Biden administrations, as well as Germany and France, that did not press Ukraine to abide by the Minsk accords.  Kennedy and Gabbard know this history in great detail and no doubt have shared it with Trump and Vance. </span></p>
<p><span>For example, Gabbard said this on the day before Russia’s intervention into the war, <a href="https://x.com/TulsiGabbard/status/1496695830715142148?lang=en" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-testid="standard-link">Feb. 23, 2022</a>:</span></p>
<blockquote>
<p><span>“This war and suffering could have easily been avoided if Biden Admin/NATO had simply acknowledged Russia’s legitimate security concerns regarding Ukraine’s becoming a member of NATO, which would mean US/NATO forces right on Russia’s border.”</span></p>
</blockquote>
<p><span>Gabbard showed that she knows about the U.S.-backed coup in Ukraine, saying on <a href="https://www.tulsigabbard.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-testid="standard-link">her podcast, Oct. 18, 2022</a>:</span></p>
<blockquote>
<p><span>“This regime-change war that the United States and NATO are waging via their proxy in Ukraine didn’t begin when Putin invaded Ukraine. They had their eyes set on this objective long before that.”</span></p>
</blockquote>
<p><span>But Vance started the history with blaming Joe Biden, saying he was all talk and no action and had let Russia invade.  Trump on the other hand was “engaging in diplomacy. That’s what President Trump is doing.”</span></p>
<p><span>By not knowing the history Trump and Vance left the</span> <span>door open for Zelensky to peddle his fake version of the history’s conflict in fractured English:</span></p>
<blockquote>
<p><span>“Big parts of Ukraine, parts of East and Crimea. So he occupied it in 2014. So during a lot of years, I’m not speaking about just Biden, but …  President Obama, then President Trump, then President Biden, and now President Trump, and God bless, now President Trump will stop him. But during 2014, nobody stopped him. He just occupied and took, he killed people, you know on the contact line —“</span></p>
</blockquote>
<p><span>Here Trump interrupted, “2015.” </span></p>
<p><span>“2014,” said Zelensky.</span></p>
<p><span>“Oh, 2014,” said a befuddled Trump, as if this was the first time he was hearing about any of this. “I was not here.” he said.</span></p>
<p><span>“During 2014 to 2022 the situation was the same,” Zelensky continued. “People are been dying on the contact line [separating the breakaway Donbass regions with the rest of Ukraine.]</span></p>
<p><span>“Nobody stopped him,” he said, completely omitting that Ukraine had begun the war with military attacks against the breakaway regions in April 2014 in an attempt not “to stop him,” but to stop the ethnic Russians from seceding from Ukraine. Here Zelensky engages in the mythmaking of reducing a complex military conflict by two sides to the behavior of just one man. </span></p>
<p><span>Zelensky said he signed “the deal” in 2019 with Putin, Merkel and Macron, “ceasefire, ceasefire” and “all of them told me that he would never go … and after that he broken the ceasefire. He killed our people. We signed exchange of prisoners, but he didn’t do it.”</span></p>
<p><span>(But according to Zelensky’s former chief of staff, Andriy Bohdan, Zelensky is lying because Ukraine “screwed” Putin by <a href="https://gordonua.com/publications/uvolnjaja-menja-zelenskij-skazal-ty-kak-neljubimaja-zhenshchina-polnyj-tekst-intervju-bogdana-gordonu-1517453.html">not keeping its end</a> of the 2019 deal with Russia.)</span></p>
<p><span>“What kind of diplomacy, J.D. are you speaking about?” Zelensky asked. </span></p>
<p><span>“I’m talking about the kind of diplomacy that is going to end the destruction of your country,” Vance replied.</span></p>
<p><span>Vance then snapped, cutting off Zelensky:</span></p>
<blockquote>
<p><span>“Mr. President, Mr. president, with respect, I think it’s disrespectful for you to come to the Oval Office to try to litigate this in front of the American media. Right now, you guys are going around and forcing conscripts to the front lines because you have manpower problems. You should be thanking the president for trying to bring an end to this conflict.”</span></p>
</blockquote>
<p><span>“Have you ever been to Ukraine that you say, what problems we have?” Zelensky responded as if a vice president with access to classified U.S. information cannot learn about the military and political situation of a country without having visited it.</span></p>
<p><span>“Come once,” Zelensky said,</span></p>
<p><span>His voice rising, Vance said: </span></p>
<blockquote>
<p><span>“I know that what happens is you bring people, you bring them on a propaganda tour. Mr. President. Do you disagree that you’ve had problems like bringing people into your military? And do you think that it’s respectful to come to the Oval Office of the United States of America and attack the administration that is trying to prevent the destruction of your country?”</span></p>
</blockquote>
<p><span>Here the meeting starts going off the rails.</span></p>
<p><span>Zelensky: “During the war, everybody has problems, even you. But you have nice ocean and don’t feel now, but you will feel it in the future. God bless you.”</span></p>
<p><span>“You don’t know that,” Trump interjected. “You don’t know that. Don’t tell us what we’re going to feel. We are trying to solve a problem.”</span></p>
<p><span>“I’m not trying –” Zelensky began.</span></p>
<p><span>“You are in no position to dictate what we are going to feel,” snapped Trump. “We’re going to feel very good, very strong. You’re right now not in a very good position. You’ve allowed yourselves to be in a very bad position.”</span></p>
<p><span>Here Trump is rejecting Zelensky’s fear mongering and attempted blackmail that if the U.S. doesn’t accede to his demands Russia will attack the U.S. </span></p>
<p><span>This is the same kind of insanity we heard from the likes of Congressman Adam Schiff during Trump’s 2019 impeachment (for a phone call with Zelensky), when he said, “We have to fight the Russians over there [in Ukraine] so we don’t have to fight them over here [in America].” </span></p>
<p><span>Trump told Zelensky that “you don’t have the cards right now. With us you start having cards.”</span></p>
<p><span>“I’m not playing cards, I’m very serious Mr, President,” Zelensky said, not understanding the metaphor.</span></p>
<p><span>“You’re playing cards,” Trump insisted. “You’re gambling with the lives of millions of people. You’re gambling with World War Three.”</span></p>
<p><span>And of course Zelensky has been, acting, with the Biden administration, as if saving his country was worth risking a nuclear holocaust. </span></p>
<p><span>“What you are doing is disrespectful to the country, this country that backed you far more than a lot of people said they should have,” said Trump.</span></p>
<p><span>After Vance angrily said Zelensky had been ungrateful for the help the U.S. has given him, Zelensky said, “Please if you think that by speaking loudly you can…” </span></p>
<p><span>“He’s not speaking loudly,” Trump said, “Your country is in big trouble. No, no, no, you’ve done a lot of talking.”</span></p>
<p><span>“Your country is in big trouble,” Trump said.</span></p>
<p><span>“I know,”  Zelensky replied.</span></p>
<p><span>“You’re not winning this,” Trump said.</span></p>
<p><span>Zelensky’s mouth started opening to say, “I know,” but he stopped.</span></p>
<p><span>“You have a damned good chance of coming out okay because of us,” Trump said.</span></p>
<div data-sanitized-id="attachment_124773" data-sanitized-class="wp-caption aligncenter"><a href="https://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/JD-Z.png"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-124773" src="https://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/JD-Z-1000x490.png" alt width="1099" height="538" data-sanitized-class=" wp-image-124773"></a>
<p data-sanitized-id="caption-attachment-124773" data-sanitized-class="wp-caption-text"><span>Zelensky, Trump and Vance. <span>(C-Span screenshot)</span></span></p>
</div>
<p><span>When Zelensky tried to say Ukraine has been alone from the start of the war, Trump cut him off: “You haven’t been alone because this stupid president gave you $350 billion. We gave you military equipment. You and you men are brave, but they have to use our military money. If you didn’t have our military equipment this war would have been over in two weeks.”</span></p>
<p><span>“It’s gonna be very hard to do business like this,” Trump said.</span></p>
<p><span>After Vance said the argument that broke out should not have happened in front of the American media, Trump said: “I think it’s good for the American people to see what’s going on. I think it’s very important. That’s why I kept this going so long.”</span></p>
<p><span>He told Zelensky: “If you can get a ceasefire now I’d take it because then the bullets stop flying and your men stop getting killed.”</span></p>
<p><span>The public row ended with Trump saying it was “great television.” A lunch, signing ceremony on a minerals deal and a press conference was cancelled and Zelensky left the White House.</span></p>
<p><span><strong>Horrified Reactions</strong></span></p>
<p><span>The reactions of mainstream politicians and media was predictable.</span></p>
<p><span>Bernie Sanders. wrote on X: “Trump criticizes Zelenskyy, the leader of a democratic country who is courageously fighting Russian imperialism, while he aligns himself with Putin, the dictator who started the bloodiest European war in 80 years. Sorry, President Trump. We believe in democracy, not authoritarianism.”</span></p>
<p><span>Schiff wrote: “There was only one person acting presidential in the Oval Office today: Volodymyr Zelenskyy. He stood up to bullies in a Kremlin-style shakedown. What will it take to awaken the conscience of the country after such a shameful display?”</span></p>
<p><span>Former EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Josep Borrell wrote on X:  “Trump and Vance put on a shameful show. I am ashamed of this behavior. The United States deserves something better. The free world must support Ukraine. I was and remain with Zelensky.”</span></p>
<p><span>Johann David Wadepool, deputy leader of the newly elected CDU party in Germany, wrote: “How can you stab the president of an occupied country in the back like that? Free Europe will not betray Ukraine.”</span></p>
<p><span>A good deal of work by the media is trying to find out what is said in frank, closed door conversations between leaders.  Here it was all out in the open, incredible transparency that most journalists would die for, but instead we hear petty criticisms of Trump in the media for his frank behavior in front of the cameras.   </span></p>
<p><span><strong>What Will it Mean</strong></span></p>
<p><span>One can assume that the U.S. will cut Zelensky loose if he does not agree to America’s terms to end the war. It might just be a matter of time before arms shipments will end and Zelensky will be solely dependent on Europe. </span></p>
<p><span>That Zelensky and the Europeans do not yet accept that the war is lost and they should cut the best deal possible is something to behold.</span></p>
<p><span>It can only get worse for Ukraine from here going forward. Russia may aim to take even more territory, including Odessa, about which Trump said he did not want to talk.</span></p>
<p><span>Zelensky will look back on this Oval Office meeting as yet another blown opportunity, like walking away from the March 2022 Istanbul deal, to end the suffering of his people.</span></p>
<p><span>It is suffering brought about by the 2014 coup and Kiev’s launching of a war, which it called an “ant-terror” operation against Ukrainian citizens who simply wanted their vote to count, that has now lead to this.</span></p>
<p><span><strong>Joe Lauria is editor-in-chief of</strong> <em><strong>Consortium News</strong></em> <strong>and a former U.N. correspondent for</strong> <em><strong>T</strong></em><em><strong>he Wall Street Journal, Boston Globe</strong></em><strong>, and other newspapers, including <em>The Montreal Gazette,</em> the London <em>Daily Mail</em> and <em>The Star</em> of Johannesburg. He was an investigative reporter for the</strong> <em><strong>Sunday Times</strong></em> <strong>of London, a financial reporter for <em>Bloomberg News</em> and began his professional work as a 19-year old stringer for</strong> <em><strong>The New York Times.</strong></em> <strong>He is the author of two books, <em>A Political Odyssey</em>, with Sen. Mike Gravel, foreword by Daniel Ellsberg; and <em>How I Lost By Hillary Clinton</em>, foreword by Julian Assange.</strong></span></p>

tags:
#Analysis #Commentary #Russia #Ukraine #Adam Schiff #Bernie Sanders #Donald Trump #J.D. Vance #Joe Biden #Joe Lauria #Robert F. Kennedy Jr. #Tulsi Gabbard #Volodmyr Zelensky


guid: http://risingtidefoundation.net/?p=12271
title: John F. Kennedy, NAWAPA and China’s New Silk Road
author: ;Matthew Ehret
link: https://risingtidefoundation.net/2025/01/31/john-f-kennedy-nawapa-and-chinas-new-silk-road/
hash: ����Dj�D͐��p�
attributes: {"enclosures":[]}
content:
<div><img src="https://i0.wp.com/risingtidefoundation.net/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/jfk-nawapa-feature-2.jpg?resize=1200%2C1200&amp;ssl=1" data-sanitized-class="ff-og-image-inserted"></div><p>As we solemnly remember the life and mission of the martyred President Kennedy 57 years ago today, it is worth noting that his was a life devoted to the actualization of all inherent powers of his own citizens and citizens of all nations in our common struggle for freedom, security and cooperation. Between his alliance with African leaders like Kwame Nkrumah, to Asian and South American leaders struggling to end colonialism, break the Federal Reserve, rein in the CIA, end the wars in southeast Asia, to his efforts to give humanity a broad mission to explore the stars, there is very little that JFK did which was not integral to his total vision for a healthy new paradigm for our species.</p>
<p>In spite of these aspects of his vision, an often overlooked component of his fight for a better world involved his dedicated commitment to establish continental water management with a multi-generational view that carries more importance for our modern crisis-ridden age than most people realize.</p>
<p>In this presentation delivered to an expert panel hosted by the American University in Moscow, Matthew Ehret (founder of<a href="http://www.canadianpatriot.org/"> Canadian Patriot Review,</a> and <a href="http://www.risingtidefoundation.net/">Rising Tide Foundation</a>) introduces the only long term solution to the multifaceted water, drought, food crisis which has swept the west coast of the USA. In this short lecture, China’s “Move South Water North” megaproject is introduced as the largest water diversion project of history as part of the New Silk Road/Multipolar Alliance. The activation of this project forces western nations trapped within the myopic and collapsing unipolar order to re-evaluate those possibilities available to solving such problems as the droughts, aquifer depletion, desertification, agriculture crisis, infrastructure collapse, etc plaguing the future of the South west USA, North Mexico and beyond.</p>
<p>The long forgotten continental water management project called “NAWAPA (North American Water and Power Alliance) is introduced as is the forgotten water management vision of President John F Kennedy and his brother Robert. When these two patriots died, the natural evolution of the USA as a leading nation within a flourishing multipolar world of cooperating sovereign nation states was tragically derailed.</p>
<figure data-sanitized-class="wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio"><div data-sanitized-class="wp-block-embed__wrapper"><iframe loading="lazy" title="John F Kennedy, NAWAPA and China's News Silk Road" width="1000" height="563" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/TdAn5h2b-JM?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen" sandbox="allow-scripts allow-same-origin">[embedded content]</iframe></div>
</figure><p>For the entire event featuring 6 other presentations on different facets of the international water crisis stretching from the Middle East, Africa and Crimea, click on this link: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FT2ATRC4S1Q">https://youtu.be/FT2ATRC4S1Q</a></p>
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tags:
#History #canadian patriot #Geopolitics #jfk #matthew ehret #move south water north #nawapa #new silk road #rising tide foundation


guid: https://risingtidefoundation.net/?p=18836
title: Now Available! Volume 3 of Clash of the Two Americas: The Birth of a Eurasian Manifest Destiny
author: ;Matthew Ehret
hash: � ]�g͡+�n4Z+,
tags: #History #The American System #new silk road
attributes: {"enclosures":[]}
content:
[unable to retrieve full-text content]The Rising Tide Foundation is proud to announce that the third volume of the Clash of the Two Americas trilogy is now available for purchase in paperback and digital editions. Titled “The Birth of a Eurasian Manifest Destiny”, volume three ends in some ways how the trilogy began in 1776 as told in Volume 1…... <div data-sanitized-class="link-more"><a href="https://risingtidefoundation.net/2025/01/31/now-available-volume-3-of-clash-of-the-two-americas-the-birth-of-a-eurasian-manifest-destiny/">Read More</a></div>

link:
https://risingtidefoundation.net/2025/01/31/now-available-volume-3-of-clash-of-the-two-americas-the-birth-of-a-eurasian-manifest-destiny/


guid: http://risingtidefoundation.net/?p=5047
title: The Silk Road Roots of America and the American Roots of the New Silk Road
author: ;Matthew Ehret
hash: �T���w#w8�A��
attributes: {"enclosures":[]}
content:
<p>Upon reading this title, I can only imagine a reader asking: <em>How could a young nation that only existed since 1776 be responsible for an idea which has its roots in a program that dates back over two millenia?</em></p>
<p>Of course I am not implying that that America created the ancient Silk Road, but what I am implying is that <em>in principle</em> both the 2000 year old Silk Road which brought China into commercial/diplomatic and cultural contact with Asia, Persia, Europe, Russia and even Africa operated from the same universal principle which guided the founding of the United States of America. This principle was identified by Nicholas of Cusa as the <em>Concordance of Opposites</em> which America expressed not only in it’s constitutional roots but also in the physical economic growth that shaped its development for over 250 years. Never before had a nation been founded upon <strong><em>both</em></strong> the inalienable rights of the individual alongside the welfare of the whole. While this concept was known in western culture as “Natural Law”, it was known in the east as the Confucian idea of a “Mandate of Heaven”.</p>
<p>When viewed from this standpoint, it becomes evident that not only does America’s birth derive from the same principle which created the Silk Road, but that China’s 1911 revolutionary republican rebirth and the current Belt and Road Initiative which is transforming the face of the globe (aka “the New Silk Road”) find their roots firmly grounded, as the title of this report implies… in America’s constitutional tradition.</p>
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<figure data-sanitized-class="alignleft size-full"><img data-recalc-dims="1" loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1000" height="657" data-attachment-id="19530" data-permalink="https://risingtidefoundation.net/2025/01/31/the-silk-road-roots-of-america-and-the-american-roots-of-the-new-silk-road/gilpin-and-world-landbridge/" data-orig-file="https://i0.wp.com/risingtidefoundation.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Gilpin-and-world-landbridge.jpg?fit=1000%2C657&amp;ssl=1" data-orig-size="1000,657" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta='{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"1"}' data-image-title="Gilpin-and-world-landbridge" data-image-description data-image-caption data-medium-file="https://i0.wp.com/risingtidefoundation.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Gilpin-and-world-landbridge.jpg?fit=300%2C197&amp;ssl=1" data-large-file="https://i0.wp.com/risingtidefoundation.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Gilpin-and-world-landbridge.jpg?fit=1000%2C657&amp;ssl=1" src="https://i0.wp.com/risingtidefoundation.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Gilpin-and-world-landbridge.jpg?resize=1000%2C657&amp;ssl=1" alt data-sanitized-class="wp-image-19530"><figcaption data-sanitized-class="wp-element-caption">William Gilpin</figcaption></figure></div>
<p>Many of the earliest and strongest advocates of the construction of an American transcontinental railway believed whole-heartedly that China and America shared a common destiny to lift the world out of poverty. A leading figure behind the transcontinental railway, William Gilpin, was <a href="https://www.historycolorado.org/sites/default/files/media/document/2018/ColoradoMagazine_v37n4_October1960.pdf">recorded saying</a></p>
<p>in 1852:</p>
<blockquote data-sanitized-class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">
<p><em><strong>“Salvation must come to America from China, and this consists in the introduction of the “Chinese constitution” … The political life of the United States is through European influences, in a state of complete demoralization, and the Chinese Constitution alone contains elements of regeneration. For this reason, a railroad to the Pacific is of such vast importance, since by its means the Chinese trade will be conducted straight across the North American continent. This trade must bring in its train Chinese civilization. All that is usually alleged against China is mere calumny spread purposefully, just like those calumnies which are circulated in Europe about the United States”.</strong></em></p>
</blockquote>
<p>In this spirit, Gilpin organized an important rail convention in Missouri in 1849 to promote a transcontinental railway, which featured in its resolutions a call to unite Europe with China through the Americas and going so far as to christen the project the “Asiatic and European Railway”. The resolution read in part:</p>
<blockquote data-sanitized-class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">
<p><em><strong>“Let it be resolved that, whereas the Almighty has placed the territories of the American Union in the center between Asia and Europe and the Route of the Asiatic and European Railway” through the heart of our national domain, it is our duty to the human family to prosecute, vigorously, through its new channel, that supreme commerce between the oriental nations and the nations of the Atlantic, which history proves to have existed in all ages, and to be necessary to keep alive comity, science and civilisation among mankind”.</strong></em></p>
</blockquote>
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<figure data-sanitized-class="alignleft size-full is-resized"><img data-recalc-dims="1" loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="740" height="860" data-attachment-id="19529" data-permalink="https://risingtidefoundation.net/2025/01/31/the-silk-road-roots-of-america-and-the-american-roots-of-the-new-silk-road/asa_whitney/" data-orig-file="https://i0.wp.com/risingtidefoundation.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Asa_Whitney.jpg?fit=740%2C860&amp;ssl=1" data-orig-size="740,860" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta='{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}' data-image-title="Asa_Whitney" data-image-description data-image-caption data-medium-file="https://i0.wp.com/risingtidefoundation.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Asa_Whitney.jpg?fit=258%2C300&amp;ssl=1" data-large-file="https://i0.wp.com/risingtidefoundation.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Asa_Whitney.jpg?fit=740%2C860&amp;ssl=1" src="https://i0.wp.com/risingtidefoundation.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Asa_Whitney.jpg?resize=740%2C860&amp;ssl=1" alt data-sanitized-class="wp-image-19529"><figcaption data-sanitized-class="wp-element-caption">Asa Whitney</figcaption></figure></div>
<p>One of Gilpin’s most powerful co-thinkers during these years was a businessman named Asa Whitney, who arguably did more to get the momentum moving for the railway’s construction than anyone else. Having returned from a two year business venture in China in 1844, Whitney devoted all of his time and resources into popularizing the project, stating in an <a href="https://books.google.ca/books?id=TalVAAAAcAAJ&amp;pg=PA4&amp;lpg=PA4&amp;dq=During+a+residence+of+nearly+two+years+in+Asia+I+collected+all+the++asa+whitney&amp;source=bl&amp;ots=fgm3JioOSk&amp;sig=eSr41BG8O7g71uqpiNFH38ieQgU&amp;hl=en&amp;sa=X&amp;ved=2ahUKEwi-oZ3BioDeAhWwneAKHdlKDNgQ6AEwAXoECAgQAQ#v=onepage&amp;q=During%20a%20residence%20of%20nearly%20two%20years%20in%20Asia%20I%20collected%20all%20the%20%20asa%20whitney&amp;f=false">1849 report to Congress</a>:</p>
<blockquote data-sanitized-class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">
<p><em><strong>“During a residence of nearly two years in Asia I collected all the information within my reach … with a starving, destitute population of 250,000,000 on the one side of us [in Europe], and all Asia on the other side with 700,000,000 souls still more destitute [in China], seemed to demand the accomplishment of this great work, this great and important change for the benefit of the entire human family.”</strong></em></p>
</blockquote>
<p>In response to the warm welcome the Chinese were receiving from America during these years, and the hopeful economic alliance of both nations, an 1853 plaque now installed in the Washington monument was gifted to America from leading Chinese merchants, with the etched prose taken from Qing geographer Xu Jiyu’s 1849 work <em>A Short Account of the Oceans Around Us</em>: <em><strong>“Of all the famous Westerners of ancient and modern times, can Washington be placed in any position but first?”</strong></em></p>
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<figure data-sanitized-class="alignright size-full is-resized"><img data-recalc-dims="1" loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="716" height="519" data-attachment-id="19532" data-permalink="https://risingtidefoundation.net/2025/01/31/the-silk-road-roots-of-america-and-the-american-roots-of-the-new-silk-road/ansolm-and-george-seward/" data-orig-file="https://i0.wp.com/risingtidefoundation.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Ansolm-and-George-Seward.jpg?fit=716%2C519&amp;ssl=1" data-orig-size="716,519" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta='{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"1"}' data-image-title="Ansolm and George Seward" data-image-description data-image-caption data-medium-file="https://i0.wp.com/risingtidefoundation.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Ansolm-and-George-Seward.jpg?fit=300%2C217&amp;ssl=1" data-large-file="https://i0.wp.com/risingtidefoundation.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Ansolm-and-George-Seward.jpg?fit=716%2C519&amp;ssl=1" src="https://i0.wp.com/risingtidefoundation.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Ansolm-and-George-Seward.jpg?resize=716%2C519&amp;ssl=1" alt data-sanitized-class="wp-image-19532"></figure></div>
<p>America’s slide into civil war halted the momentum of the transcontinental railway by many years. By the 1860s, Gilpin, who had also served as Abraham Lincoln’s bodyguard, was appointed to become Colorado’s first territorial governor, working closely with Secretary of State William Seward to keep the West free of <a href="https://books.google.ca/books?id=4XDxMCrHGqwC&amp;pg=PA29&amp;lpg=PA29&amp;dq=william+gilpin+glorieta+pass&amp;source=bl&amp;ots=aIwYfQYRbU&amp;sig=WiabBnn56sNP-HrFEDWlPHffMO4&amp;hl=en&amp;sa=X&amp;ved=2ahUKEwiokIXF5sfeAhWDzFMKHTxgBjgQ6AEwD3oECAoQAQ#v=onepage&amp;q=william%20gilpin%20glorieta%20pass&amp;f=false">slavery’s expansion</a>. By 1868 Seward announced the Seward-Burlingham Treaty with China (Burlingham being the American Consul to Beijing and long time ally of Senator Charles Sumner), based on free immigration, reciprocal access to education for citizens living in the others’ country, and “favored nation status” for trade with China. From the moment he was appointed as Consul by Lincoln in 1861, Ansom Burlingham had worked vigorously to reverse the pro-Opium foreign policy that had dominated America’s relations with China.</p>
<p>Senator Sumner expressed his understanding of America’s connection with China and the Trans-continental railroad during his 1867 speech in defense of the Alaska Purchase:</p>
<p><strong><em>“To unite the East of Asia with the West of America is the aspiration of commerce now as when the English navigator (Meares) recorded his voyage. Of course, whatever helps this result is an advantage. The Pacific railroad is such an advantage; for, though running westward, it will be, when completed, a new highway to the East.” </em></strong></p>
<p>Sumner worked with both Seward and Burlingham it was due to their alliance that many young chinese students were brought to America after the Civil War, including a young revolutionary named Sun Yat-sen, who came to America in 1879 to train himself and his allies in political economy and American constitutional law.</p>
<figure data-sanitized-class="wp-block-image size-full"><img data-recalc-dims="1" loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="750" height="516" data-attachment-id="19536" data-permalink="https://risingtidefoundation.net/2025/01/31/the-silk-road-roots-of-america-and-the-american-roots-of-the-new-silk-road/ssi1631732/" data-orig-file="https://i0.wp.com/risingtidefoundation.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Alaska-Purchase-painting.jpg?fit=750%2C516&amp;ssl=1" data-orig-size="750,516" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta='{"aperture":"0","credit":"www.bridgemanimages.com","camera":"","caption":"SSI1631732; out of copyright","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"Copyright: www.bridgemanimages.com","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"SSI1631732","orientation":"1"}' data-image-title="SSI1631732" data-image-description data-image-caption="&lt;p&gt;SSI1631732; out of copyright&lt;/p&gt;" data-medium-file="https://i0.wp.com/risingtidefoundation.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Alaska-Purchase-painting.jpg?fit=300%2C206&amp;ssl=1" data-large-file="https://i0.wp.com/risingtidefoundation.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Alaska-Purchase-painting.jpg?fit=750%2C516&amp;ssl=1" src="https://i0.wp.com/risingtidefoundation.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Alaska-Purchase-painting.jpg?resize=750%2C516&amp;ssl=1" alt data-sanitized-class="wp-image-19536"><figcaption data-sanitized-class="wp-element-caption">Painting depicting final moments of Alaska Purchase with William Seward seated and Russian Ambassador Stoekl standing near the globe</figcaption></figure><p>With the ouster of Lincoln’s allies from power after the assassination of President Garfield in 1880, however, the stage was set for the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Exclusion_Act">Chinese Exclusion Act</a> of 1882, which overthrew Seward’s treaty and many of the efforts to create a new global system based upon US-China cooperation. In spite of that setback, their efforts continued.</p>
<p>After 1882, Gilpin continued to give hundreds of speeches, and published a widely-read book in 1890 titled <a href="https://archive.org/details/cosmopolitanrai02gilpgoog/page/n6"><em>The Cosmopolitan Railway</em></a>, in which he forecast the eventual spread of railways around the world which he believed would usher in a new era of win-win cooperation:</p>
<p><strong>“They will continue to expand their work to [the] Bering Straits, where all the continents are united. This will extend itself along … the oriental Russian coasts into China. To prolong this unbroken line of cosmopolitan railways along the latitudinal plateau of Asia, to Moscow and to London, will not have long delay. … The whole area and all the populations of the globe will be thus united and fused by land travel and railway.”</strong></p>
<p>Speaking of China, Gilpin stated: <strong>“The ancient Asiatic colossus, in a certain sense, needed only to be awakened to new life, and European Culture finds a basis there on which it can build future reforms.”</strong></p>
<p>Gilpin’s latter years were spent in Denver, Colorado, where he made the state a hub for railway construction and engineering expertise. Gilpin was directly responsible for helping Colorado rail magnate William Jackson Palmer build the Denver-Rio Grande Railway which made Denver a rail capital of the world. It was while in Denver, raising funds and studying railroads, that Sun Yat-sen learned of the success of the Chinese revolution in 1912. Thirty years later, Denver was chosen as the location to launch the sale of a stamp which featured Sun Yat-sen and Abraham Lincoln, former Presidents of their respective nations, with the caption “Of the People, By the People, For the People” upon which Sun Yat-sen modelled his <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Principles_of_the_People">Three Principles of the People</a> – “民族, 民權, 民生”, which roughly translates as “A nation of the People, government by the People, for the People’s welfare” – which also appears on the stamp.</p>
<div data-sanitized-class="wp-block-image">
<figure data-sanitized-class="alignleft size-full"><img data-recalc-dims="1" loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="705" height="644" data-attachment-id="19539" data-permalink="https://risingtidefoundation.net/2025/01/31/the-silk-road-roots-of-america-and-the-american-roots-of-the-new-silk-road/sun-yat-sen-map/" data-orig-file="https://i0.wp.com/risingtidefoundation.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Sun-Yat-Sen-Map.jpg?fit=705%2C644&amp;ssl=1" data-orig-size="705,644" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta='{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}' data-image-title="Sun Yat Sen Map" data-image-description data-image-caption data-medium-file="https://i0.wp.com/risingtidefoundation.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Sun-Yat-Sen-Map.jpg?fit=300%2C274&amp;ssl=1" data-large-file="https://i0.wp.com/risingtidefoundation.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Sun-Yat-Sen-Map.jpg?fit=705%2C644&amp;ssl=1" src="https://i0.wp.com/risingtidefoundation.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Sun-Yat-Sen-Map.jpg?resize=705%2C644&amp;ssl=1" alt data-sanitized-class="wp-image-19539"><figcaption data-sanitized-class="wp-element-caption">Image: Sun Yat Sen’s rail plans for China published in his 1919 International Development of China called for 10 000 km of rail, 100 000 km of roads, ports, mines and industrial sovereignty. All this was finally accomplished with the advent of Xi Jinping’s age of the Belt and Road</figcaption></figure></div>
<p>Sun Yat-sen’s designs for Chinese rail development were published in his 1919 report, <a href="https://ia902604.us.archive.org/33/items/internationaldev00suny/internationaldev00suny.pdf">International Development of China</a>, featuring tens of thousands of kilometers of rail, as well as dozens of ports and transportation corridors, opening China up by sea and rail with the international community. Buried for decades, it was <a href="https://larouchepub.com/eiw/public/2010/eirv37n04-20100129/eirv37n04-20100129_030-china_builds_sun_yat_sens_great.pdf">revived</a> only in recent years as a guiding force behind what has now become known as the Belt and Road Initiative.</p>
<p>Forecasting an interconnected Eurasian railway system and US-Asia alliance, Sun Yat-sen echoed the spirit of Gilpin, Seward and Whitney, famously stating in his 1917 treatise:</p>
<p><strong>“The world has been greatly benefited by the development of America as an industrial and a commercial Nation. So a developed China with her four hundred millions of population, will be another New World in the economic sense. The nations which will take part in this development will reap immense advantages. Furthermore, international cooperation of this kind cannot but help to strengthen the Brotherhood of Man.”</strong></p>
<p>With the Belt and Road Initiative creating transport infrastructure across the world, China has not only begun to accomplish the grand designs laid by its first president, but has also revived the global dream of Abraham Lincoln’s allies when they planned and constructed the American transcontinental railway.</p>
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tags:
#Dialogue of Cultures #abraham lincoln #china us relations #new silk road #rising tide foundation #sun yat sen #Universal History


