United States – Empire and domestic

Let’s make America great again! Or as the prime minister of France said: Let’s make France great again. Or, as President Donald Trump conceded, let every nation in the world announce that they are going to be great again. But what makes for greatness? Over that there is a big dispute. Strategists say that power has to be measured carefully because “the balance of power is the motor of world politics, playing a role as central as the role of energy in physics and money in economics”, as writes Professor Michael Beckley of Tufts University, in his analysis The Power of Nations. Measuring what really matters. “Power is like love, it is easier to define than measure. Just as one cannot say, ‘I love you 3.6 times more than her,’ scholars cannot calculate the balance of power precisely, because power is largely unobservable and context-dependent”. So what can scholars do? ...

By us-russia.org April 18, 2019 The Sunday, February 24 edition of Russian state television’s flagship program News of the Week with Dmitry Kiselyov provided a detailed description of the “mirror like” response that Russia will take to any US installations of land based cruise missiles directed against Moscow following termination of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Force (INF) Treaty. Originally published at us-russia.org The scenario focused on the new hypersonic Zircon missile system which can be launched from existing Russian submarines carrying the “normal” Tomahawk-like cruise missiles called Kalibr and which were used successfully in the recent operations against ISIL in Syria. We were told that the Russians are prepared to station such submarines holding 40 Zircons each just outside the territorial waters of the US economic zone, at perhaps 250 miles from the American East and West coasts. That would give them a 5 minute flight time to precision attack all...

By Esfandyar Batmanghelidj and Nicholas Mulder April 16, 2019 Financial wars damage and disfigure economies as much as military ones. Countries ravaged by sanctions need reconstruction, too. The sanctions just keep on coming. The reactions were swift when the Trump administration designated Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a foreign terrorist organization, in a move heralded by the White House as “the first time that the United States has ever named a part of another government as a FTO.” In Tehran, leaders from across Iran’s political spectrum condemned the designation, with nearly all members of parliament showing solidarity by attending the next day’s session in combat fatigues. In Washington, experts saw the designation as a risky political provocation that would do little to add meaningful pressure to Iran—a country already targeted by dozens of executive orders and pieces of legislation such as the 2010 Comprehensive Iran Sanctions, Accountability, and Divestment...

M. K. Gandhi on democracy The jaws of power “The jaws of power are always open to devour, and her arm is always stretched out, if possible, to destroy the freedom of thinking, speaking, and writing.” John Adams, (1735-1826) According to the Nuremberg Principles, the citizens of a country have aresponsibility for the crimes that their governments commit. But to preventthese crimes, the people need to have some knowledge of what is going on. Indeed, democracy cannot function at all without this knowledge, What are we to think when governments make every effort to keep their actions secret from their own citizens? We can only conclude that although they may call themselves democracies, such governments are in fact oligarchies or dictatorships. At the end of World War I, it was realized that secret treaties had been responsible for its outbreak, and an effort was made to ensure that diplomacy would...

April 4, 2019 By Medea Benjamin Trump’s economic strangulation is having devastating people on the Iranian people. On a recent delegation to Iran, we experienced first-hand the legendary Iranian hospitality. Iranians are particularly thrilled to meet Americans, but as we discovered, our government’s policies are hurting the very people who want to be our friends. As our 28-person delegation traveled through the country wearing messages on our jackets proclaiming “Peace with Iran” in English and Farsi, we were surrounded by people – from schoolchildren to storekeepers – who wanted to practice their English and talk to us. Their eyes lit up when they heard we were from America. We were constantly posing for photos and exchanging Instagram accounts. We were offered endless cups of sweet tea and showered with more gifts than we could fit in our suitcases. Originally published on March 11, 2019 by Common Dreams.org A frequent refrain...

The International Criminal Court (ICC) which prosecutes crimes against humanity is under attack again by the Trump Administration for pursuing Americans. Bill Clinton and Barack Obama supported it. George W. Bush tried to close it down but then decided to cooperate with it. Donald Trump is against it and encouraged John Bolton, his National Security Advisor, to publically savage it earlier this month. To be published in May is a first-rate book on the CIA, its paramilitary armies, operators and assassins. The book is still under wraps so I can’t break the embargo by telling you its title and author. All I can say is that it’s meat for the ICC. The CIA crosses the moral lines all the time: Surprise your target, torture or kill your enemy, vanish without a trace. Then deny it. That was and is its intent – as described in riveting, well-researched detail. The whole book...

His book, Manufacturing Crisis: The Untold Story of the Iran Nuclear Scare, is a classic and must-read for those who want to know in depth the history and the games played over decades by the U.S. and Israel against Iran. It is also relevant as a background to the negotiated JCPOA, or “nuclear deal” with Iran in 2015 (that the U.S. later withdrew from). This video is one part in a small series at The Real News Network – a network that will enlighten any student, researcher and concerned citizen. That will enable you to assess how the mainstream media – also in this case – have fed you all kinds of politically biased information and a uniform anti-Iranian perspective. It has been framing the issue in such a way that they have served well the elites who, as it seems, seek to harm Iran in a series of ways....

By Thore Vestby March 27, 2019 To gather national strength, just create an enemy. In Europe, the Americans are doing this daily on many levels, from small businesses to countries and the continent itself. It is apparent from the media coverage last year that China has been designated “the great danger”. The United States is devoting huge resources to discrediting China in Europe. It is mobilising its political and diplomatic corps to get the world, especially Western nations, to believe that if Chinese economic progress continues, the world might collapse. The strategy seems to be to spread insecurity, suspicion and falsehoods, and to threaten misery if countries fail to follow the US. Originally published by The South China Morning Star on March 26, 2019 Washington has threatened retaliation if the EU limits US involvement in pan-continental military projects. It has warned Turkey not to purchase S-400 rockets from Russia. It...

Not so Germany, China and Russia Like the above diagram, it looks dark. For the US. Perhaps that’s the reason you have not seen it on the front pages of the Western mainstream press? Not only does this remarkable Gallup survey – made in the US – tell that Germany’s leadership, i.e. Chancellor Merkel, is the most highly approved by others in terms of leadership. Congratulations to the Chancellor, so well deserved! It also tells that the approval rates turn steadily upward for the two countries which the U.S. – bizarre as it is since they would both make great partners – constantly perceives as enemies: China and Russia. You can find a lot of very interesting and precise poll results for the period 2007-2018 pertaining to all the world’s regions in the report, “American First?” Rating World Leaders: 2019. Above you see the summary ratings for the world, based...

Russian Air Force Su-25 jets fly past the Russian flag on the Kremlin complex during a rehearsal for the Victory Day military parade in Moscow, Friday, May 4, 2018. (AP Photo / Pavel Golovkin) US Cold Warriors escalate toward actual war with Russia. By Stephen F. Cohen March 26, 2019 The John Batchelor Show, March 20, 2019 Heedless of the consequences, or perhaps welcoming them, America’s Cold Warriors and their media platforms have recently escalated their rhetoric against Russia, especially in March. Anyone who has lived through or studied the preceding 40-year Cold War will recognize the ominous echoes of its most dangerous periods, when actual war was on the horizon or a policy option. Originally published by The Nation on March 20, 2019 here Here are only a few random but representative examples: § In a March 8 Washington Post opinion article, two American professors, neither with any apparent...

President Donald Trump has been exonerated of collusion with Russia. As I wrote a while back I expected this conclusion from the investigation carried out by Robert Mueller. The big clue lay in Trump’s anti-Russian posture. Trump has continued the expansion of NATO which Russia, more than understandably, sees as a provocative, unfriendly and dangerous move. Then there is the unwillingness to step forward to negotiate an end to the Ukrainian situation. The US, under the presidency of Barack Obama, refused to countenance President Vladimir Putin’s suggestion that UN peace-keeping troops be deployed in southern and eastern Ukraine, and Trump has continued that policy. Then there’s the seeming refusal to extend the treaty (New START ) that dramatically lowers the number of intercontinental nuclear missiles on each side. Trump has also thrown money at the Defence Department while cutting social budgets, vowing to beef up America’s nuclear forces. Recently he...

Ab At The Transnational, we believe in diversity. And in the likelihood that world events are complex and can be seen from more than one – usually US/Western – perspective. You may have wondered why the, now retired, UN representative for Venezuela, the brilliant lawyer, humanist and poet, Alfred De Zayas, has not been used extensively as an authority of both Venezuela and international law? Well hardly because, like me, you had not heard of him, had you? That’s why we should be grateful to Abby Martin and The Empire Files for having given us this conversation. It debunks – in a fact-based and comprehensive, law-respecting manner – most of what you’ve been told and all of what, as of writing, 54 countries have done in support of the regime policies of the US rather than in support of Venezuela as a sovereign state. And of the UN and its...