US Empire/West Decline

Craig Murray June 17, 2022 I was in Turkey to try to further peace talks, as an experienced diplomat with good contacts there, and as a peace activist. I was not there as a journalist and much of what I discussed was with the understanding of confidence. It will be probably be some years before I judge it reasonable and fair to reveal all that I know. But I can give some outline. Originally published on Craig Murray’s homepage on June 7, 2022 Turkey continues to be the centre of diplomatic activity on resolving the Ukraine war. It is therefore particularly revealing, and a sign of Western priorities, that I did not come across a single western journalist there trying to follow and cover the diplomatic process. There are hundreds of Western journalists in Ukraine, effectively embedded with the Ukrainian authorities, producing war porn. There appear to be none seriously...

Jomo Kwame Sundaram and Anis Chowdhury June 17, 2022 Food crises, economic stagnation and price increases are worsening unevenly, almost everywhere, following the Ukraine war. Sanctions against Russia have especially hurt those relying on wheat and fertilizer imports. Unilateral sanctions illegal Unilateral sanctions – not approved by the UN Security Council – are illegal under international law. Besides contravening the UN Charter, unilateral sanctions inflict much human loss. Countless civilians – many far from target countries – are at risk, depriving them of much, even life itself. Sanctions, embargos and blockades – ‘sold’ as non-violent alternatives to waging war by military means – economically isolate and punish targeted countries, supposedly to force them to acquiesce. But most sanctions hurt the innocent majority, much more than the ruling elites. Originally published at Human Wrongs Watch on June 7, 2022 Like laying siege on enemy settlements, sanctions are ‘weapons of mass starvation’. They “are...

Quwatli declaring Syria’s independence from France, 17 April 1946 (Licensed under the public domain) Shane Quinn June 2, 2022 The United States, with occasional interruptions, has been interfering in the important Middle East nation of Syria for over 70 years, and today there are hundreds of American soldiers still present on Syrian soil. These realities are not well known. Originally published at Globalresearch US intrusion in Syrian affairs can be traced to the late 1940s, as outlined in 2016 by the American author Robert F. Kennedy Jr. The CIA, at the behest of Harry Truman’s government in Washington, started to destabilise Syria shortly after the country’s official independence in April 1946. Kennedy Jr. wrote, “The CIA began its active meddling in Syria in 1949 – barely a year after the agency’s creation. Syrian patriots had declared war on the Nazis, expelled their Vichy French colonial rulers, and crafted a fragile secularist democracy...

A shorter version was printed as my column in China Daily on the same day here. Empires go up and then they go down. None lasts forever. Imperial falls can be very dangerous. The Soviet Union dissolved thirty years ago. The US Empire is next in turn. In contrast to the Soviet case, the United States has no charismatic leader like Mikhail Gorbachev who with a sense of reality – that the system was out of function – held a vision of a better, disarmed Europe and world, and who conducted reforms – perestroika, glasnost, demokratyia – in a tempo that astounded the world and was bound to also produce mistakes. Most importantly, we should be grateful to this day that Gorbachev never even contemplated using nukes when he recognised that the game was over. There are many macro-historical theories with indicators of when empires decline, decay and then tumble...

Cyrus Janssen June 3, 2022 As the editor of The Transnational, I appreciate that many prefer a short video to a longer analytical text. Here is a China expert with an incredible following on Youtube – close to 236 000 subscribers! – giving you a comparative study that would be long if it were a text. There is also some very interesting information towards the end about trade organisations – most of it will be something you’ve never heard of in Western mainstream media. Enjoy!

Jan Oberg May 31, 2022 This is a deeply moving documentary produced by CGTN, China Global Television Network. You may of course avoid seeing it in the belief that China media are full of propaganda, deception and outright lies – and that Western mainstream media is all you need because they tell you the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. What it illustrates is the societally deep-rooted, systematic and ongoing character of US militarism since the Vietnam war fifty years ago – and how you were lied to constantly. In all fairness, it also shows how the best among the American people are honest and tells you the truth about their own country’s barbarity. The West in general and the US/NATO countries, in particular, seem to suffer from a complex systemic disease composed of: 1) obsession with the military, weapons and warfare – or militarism that infects...

Jack F. Matlock, Jr. May 27, 2022 An avoidable crisis that was predictable, actually predicted, willfully precipitated, but easily resolved by the application of common sense, writes Jack Matlock, the last U.S. ambassador to the U.S.S.R. We are being told each day that war may be imminent in Ukraine. Russian troops, we are told, are massing at Ukraine’s borders and could attack at any time. American citizens are being advised to leave Ukraine and dependents of the American Embassy staff are being evacuated. Meanwhile, the Ukrainian president has advised against panic and made clear that he does not consider a Russian invasion imminent. Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, has denied that he has any intention of invading Ukraine. His demand is that the process of adding new members to NATO cease and that in particular, Russia has assurance that Ukraine and Georgia will never be members. President Joe Biden has...

Photo by Jiyeon Park on Unsplash Edward Curtin May 19, 2022 Isn’t it always? With the start of World War III by the United States “declaring” war against Russia by its actions in Ukraine, we have entered a time when the end of time has become very possible. I am speaking of nuclear annihilation. I look down at my great-uncle’s gold Elgin pocket watch from the 19th century. His name was John Patrick Whalen, an Irish immigrant to the US who fled England’s colonialist created famine in Ireland. It tells me it is 5:15 PM on April 21, 2022, a date, coincidentally, with a history.  Originally published at Off-Guardian No doubt John looked at his watch on this date in 1898 when the United States, after the USS Maine exploded from within in Havana harbour (a possible false flag attack), declared war on Spain in order to confiscate Spanish territories – Cuba, Puerto Rico,...

Ben Norton May 18, 2022 NATO sees Ukrainians as mere cannon fodder in its imperial proxy war on Russia The US-led NATO military alliance has made it clear that it is willing to fight to the last Ukrainian in order to bleed Russia and advance Western geopolitical interests. In a shockingly blunt admission, The Washington Post acknowledged that some NATO member states want “Ukrainians to keep fighting, and dying” in order to prevent Russia from making political gains. Originally published at Globalresearch In an April 5 report on peace talks between Ukraine and Russia, the major US newspaper disclosed that NATO is afraid that Kyiv may give in to some of Moscow’s demands. The Washington Post wrote explicitly: “For some in NATO, it’s better for the Ukrainians to keep fighting, and dying than to achieve a peace that comes too early or at too high a cost to Kyiv and the rest of Europe.” Anonymous...

Richard E. Rubenstein May 17, 2022 Following the Russian invasion of Ukraine on February 24, it was fair to call the ensuing conflict “Putin’s war.” True, the U.S. and Europe could probably have avoided the invasion by calling a halt to NATO expansion and negotiating seriously with the Russians about key security issues. True, U.S. arms had been pouring into Ukraine since the overthrow of the pro-Russian government there in 2014, and Ukraine was using them to kill pro-Russian separatists in the Donbass region. But Putin was still responsible for crossing the line into organized violence. It does matter who shoots first, and he shot first. Originally published at Transcend.org Even so, that is not the end of the discussion. Far from it. At first one could rightfully have called this Putin’s war, but it has now become Joe Biden’s war as well. Consider what has happened so far. The advance...

Diplomatic Security Service conducts a training at the National Cathedral in Washington in 2020. (U.S. State Department) Sam Husseini May 2, 2022 The late U.S. secretary of state’s association with Biden and the Clintons can be seen as a war-making, mutually absolving clique, writes Sam Husseini. It’s fitting that U.S. President Joe Biden and Bill and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton should eulogize Madeleine Albright at the mammoth Episcopalian institution calling itself the “National Cathedral.” After all, just last year, Albright eulogized fellow war maker, “trailblazer” and fellow Episcopalian Colin Powell there for his “honesty, dignity, loyalty and an unshakable commitment to his calling and word.”  Albright, Biden and the Clintons covered for each other’s criminal war making — and ultimately, they all enabled and covered for Republican criminality as well. All showed they were capable of murderous deceits.  Originally published at Consortiumnews.com It sparked some measure of attention during the 2020 election,...

May 3, 2022 Andrew J. Bacevich I recently participated in a commemoration of Martin Luther King’s address “Beyond Vietnam — A Time to Break Silence,” originally delivered on April 2, 1967, at New York City’s Riverside Church. King used the occasion to announce his opposition to the ongoing war in Vietnam. Although a long time coming in the eyes of some in the antiwar movement, his decision was one for which he was roundly criticized, even by supporters of the Civil Rights Movement. He was straying out of his prescribed lane, they charged, and needed to get back where he belonged. This year’s 55th anniversary event, also held in Riverside Church’s magnificent sanctuary, featured inspiring Christian music and a thoughtful discussion of King’s remarks. Most powerful of all, however, was a public reading of the address itself. “Beyond Vietnam” contains many famously moving passages. King, for example, cited “the cruel irony of watching Negro...