United States – Empire and domestic

    By Farhang Jahanpour September 20, 2018   On 20 March 2018, the former French President Nicolas Sarkozy was taken into police custody in Paris to be questioned over allegations that he received millions of Euros in illegal funding from Qadhafi for his presidential campaign. Investigators were examining claims that Qadhafi’s regime secretly gave Sarkozy €50 million overall for the 2007 campaign. Such a sum would be more than double the legal campaign funding limit and also violates French rules against foreign financing of elections. (See: “Former French President Nicolas Sarkozy in police custody over investigation into Gaddafi funding”, The Independent, 20 March 2018. Sarkozy entertained Qadhafi lavishly at the Elyse Palace, even allowing him to pitch his tent in the grounds of the palace. Yet, later on, Sarkozy was the cheerleader for the attack on Libya, which resulted in the brutal murder of Qadhafi and the destruction of...

    By Farhang Jahanpour September 18, 2018   1. Some omitted facts and perspectives Prior to the Iraq war, the only thing that one heard on most Western channels about that country was Saddam Hussein and his alleged chemical and nuclear weapons. Saddam Hussein became synonymous with Iraq. Nothing was said of Iraq’s long history as a cradle of civilisation or its people who, like people all over the world, simply wished to live in peace and pursue a normal life. The same was done to Afghanistan, Libya and Syria, when the Taliban, Mu’ammar Qadhafi and Bashar al-Assad were continuously demonised – while it was omitted and forgotten that the West had befriended, and in some cases supported, and sponsored those rulers in the past. Initially, Saddam Hussein was supported by the CIA to fight against Abd al-Karim Qasim who had toppled the Hashemite monarchy and had formed an...

    By Farhang Jahanpour September 18, 2018   1. The Carter Doctrine, Brzezinski and the Stinger missiles

 After the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan on Christmas Day 1979, President Jimmy Carter issued his Carter Declaration, stating that the Persian Gulf was part of America’s vital interest and America would defend it by all means possible. A policy proclaimed by President Jimmy Carter in his State of the Union Address on 23 January 1980 stressed that the United States would use military force, if necessary, to defend its “national interests” in the Persian Gulf. The statement that came to be known as the “Carter Doctrine” concluded: “Let our position be absolutely clear: An attempt by any outside force to gain control of the Persian Gulf region will be regarded as an assault on the vital interests of the United States of America, and such an assault will be repelled by any...

In examining the future, we must look to the past. As we watch the media today, we are spoon fed more and more propaganda and fear of the unknown, that we should be afraid of the unknown and have full faith that our government is keeping us safe from the unknown. But by looking at media today, those of us who are old enough will be reminded of the era of Cold War news articles, the hysteria of how the Russians would invade and how we should duck and cover under tables in our kitchens for the ensuing nuclear war. Under this mass hysteria, all Western governments were convinced that we should join Western allies to fight the unknown evil that lies to the east. Later through my travels in Russia during the height of the Cold War with a peace delegation, we were shocked by the poverty of the...

From L to R – Jared Kushner, senior adviser to Trump; David Friedman, US Ambassador to Israel; Ron Dermer, Israeli Ambassador to US; Jason Dov Greenblatt, Trump special aide • You didn’t have to be a ‘never Trump’ loyalist to have qualms about proposing to bring peace to Palestinians and Jews by creating conditions that would produce “The Deal of the Century.” And let’s be fair, if the game of nations is now played according to the rules of Madison Avenue, the phrase was a winner despite being a loser if evaluated from a problem-solving perspective. Even in the present degraded political atmosphere, to bet on an advertising slogan as a substitute for healing ideas may be a good formula for ensuring a large audience for a reality TV episode, but it is a cruel evasion when it comes to addressing the daily ordeal of the Palestinian people consigned to...

Photo: Hassan Rouhani of Iran, Vladimir Putin of Russia, and Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey   September 12, 2018 By Seyed Hossein Mousavian* As the military phase of the Syrian conflict reaches its final stages, the leaders of Russia, Iran, and Turkey met in Tehran on September 9 and reiterated in a joint statement that a political solution to the Syrian conflict requires inclusive, free, and fair elections with the participation of all eligible Syrians under appropriate UN supervision. They further reaffirmed their determination to cooperate to eliminate the Islamic State, the Nusra Front, al-Qaeda, and associated groups in Syria. When the civil war in Syria began in 2011, the U.S.-led bloc and its regional allies, including Saudi Arabia, devoted their resources to removing Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. However, as the result of Iranian-Russian cooperation to buttress the Assad’s government, they failed to achieve their goals. The addition to this...

In 1981 on the editorial page of the New York Times, I wrote a column showing that the mass atrocities against the Indian population of Guatemala were carried out under the direct orders of the then president, Fernando Lucas Garcia. His former vice-president, Francisco Villagran Kramer, had given me information that was incontrovertible evidence of the murders. I also showed how close was the relationship, financially and militarily, between the Guatemalan government and President Ronald Reagan’s government. At the time Regan was considered to be the “Teflon President”. No scandal stuck to him. Certainly not the evidence of a column in the New York Times. The reaction in Washington was zero. A brief while later, Amnesty International published a long report documenting an act of genocide. After a number of changes of government in Guatemala, President Efrain Rios Montt came to power. Reagan’s assistant secretary of state for human rights,...

  Today marks the 17th anniversary of what could be called the most counter-productive, if not stupid, war in modern history: The Global War On Terror, GWOT. Today that war is much much more dangerous to the world and its future than the terrorists it allegedly aims to hunt down. And it has caused thousands of times more suffering, death and destruction than September 11 did. As yu’ll see below – the image above and below – the U.S. has been able to market itself as the innocent victim – which it isn’t. While countries and peoples who have been innocent victims and to a much larger extent do not have similar resources and control over the media narratives told worldwide. We’ve heard a lot about “9/11” and that is only right, it was a terrible crime. But why don’t you remember, equally well at least, “10/7” (US-led war on Afghanistan 2001)...

  By Gordon M. Hahn August 31, 2018 As the West has turned more and more to Soviet/Russian methods of the ‘big lie’ in order to advance democracy and its interests, the Russia-West propaganda war had produced a post-fact world in which disinformation comes to be believed by its purveyors. Both sides, forgetting the previous disinformation and lies from the most recent crisis of the day, reiterate their previous claims as part of the reason for believing the next series of disinformation and lies surrounding the current crisis of the day. This process of propaganda plague has filled the fake news on both sides of the Atlantic since Georgia through Syria, Ukraine, Syria, Skripal, Syria again. Russia has its RT and state television; the US has RFERL and state-tied mass media across the West. To be sure, the West has a problem with promoting a united message with messy changes...

  Following is the response of Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif to the US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s 12 demands from Iran. On May 21, Pompeo set 12 conditions for Iran to follow in order for the United States to agree to a new nuclear deal with Tehran.   By Mohammad Javad Zarif  Iran’s Foreign Minister Following the Trans-Pacific Partnership and the Paris Climate Accord, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) is the third multilateral agreement that the current United States administration has withdrawn from. The administration has also put in jeopardy other multilateral arrangements such as NAFTA, the global trade system, and parts of the United Nations system, thus inflicting considerable damage to multilateralism, and the prospects for resolving disputes through diplomacy. Originally published here on Iran Daily on June 20, 2018 The announcement on 8 May 2018 of United States’ withdrawal from the JCPOA and...

By David Swanson TFF Associate David Swanson delivers, in his usual crystal clear and well-documented manner, the arguments against higher U.S. military spending and illustrates how much better it would be for the U.S. itself and for the world to reduce the military expenditures and allocate even just a fraction of these incomprehensibly huge sums to constructive purposes. TFF is proud to inform you that David has been awarded the US Peace Memorial Foundation’s 2018 Peace Prize. Congratulations, David! So well deserved.

    From ancient Greece onward, the West has used the Eastern other as an enemy through which to identify itself.   Marco Carnelos August 22, 2018 US President Donald Trump’s administration seems to be intent on confronting the rest of the world. With a few exceptions, such as Russia (as far as Trump himself is concerned), Israel and Saudi Arabia, almost every other nation in the world has felt the rage and contempt of the current American president. Originally published on middleeasteye.net August 17, 2018 Bonds with traditional US allies have been questioned and the many principles, pillars, and rules of the liberal world order, itself conceived and shaped by the United States, are now disowned.   Little knowledge These developments can’t simply be attributed to Trump and Trump alone. The president’s thinking is shared by a significant section of the American people, who have little knowledge of the...