Peter R. Quiñones wrote the following brief reflection recently, and it mirrors my own sentiments as well. As an idealistic youth I voluntarily joined the peacetime US Navy just after Vietnam in 1976, in the hopes that America had learned her lesson about fighting wars abroad that had nothing to do with keeping America “safe”.
The greatest message you can communicate to anyone you encounter on Memorial Day is that it is a holiday that should not exist. The excuses for the men and women who have died in “service to this country” are numerous, but only in the rarest of circumstances does it have to do with protecting American lives or liberty on this piece of soil.
I’m only going to address the 20th Century here so we should start with World War 1. Was the United States homeland in danger of being invaded by anyone? Of course not. Hans-Hermann Hoppe’s great book, “Democracy: The God That Failed,” conveys to me that WW1 was fought to destroy any remaining trace of historic monarchies in Europe, and to institute democracy instead. Even the countries that kept their royalty saw them become only symbols in a parliamentary system rather than a one family rule.
What about World War 2? PEARL HARBOR!!! HITLER DECLARED WAR ON US!!! WW2 is the war that is consistently sold as the “good war.” Fortunately, many good historians have shot multiple holes in the assumed fact that the US had to enter WW2 on either front. I interviewed one here.
What about Korea? Vietnam? Iraq War 1, 2, 3 and 3.5? Afghanistan? Somalia? Libya? Syria? I could go on and on (unfortunately). The bottom line for all these is this; the “honorable” and “patriotic” reasons given for American men and women dying on battlefields across the world are strained when you begin to look at them more closely. The hundreds of thousands who sacrificed their lives believing they were fighting for American freedom were mistaken. Overwhelmingly they were duped. But it’s not their fault. With the draft in effect for most of the 20th century (ended in 1973 when the US pulled out of the Vietnam War), many had no choice but to fight. Many others were convinced to enlist by war propaganda.
On Memorial Day I weep for the fallen. Not because of their sacrifice, but because they were sacrificed.
Routinely, the American government has squandered the innocence of our youth to do exactly what Robert E. Lee warned about:
In my previous post I covered a lot of ground towards truths that could (I rarely say “should” as I believe you don’t typically “should” on you real friends 🙂 ) open their eyes to the true character of their evil government. The so-called American Exceptionalism is pure myth. Just ask other people around the world who have experience our “help”.
There is, however, even in these days much to be hopeful for. We can continue to plant the seeds of truth with those who will listen about the lies that seem to bombard us each and every day in our world. This unwrapping of truth could very well lead this nation, or preferably, parts of this nation, to reflect on core truths that might bring about a new season of liberty and freedom in the regions that hold these truths to their hearts.
Maybe this American Government holiday can be used to help people question the very nature of their government, their politicians and the evil cabal that backs an evil agenda in this land all for power and money.
Those of us that treasure the principles of liberty and freedom for all will have some very difficult choices in the days, weeks and months ahead. Knee-jerk reactions will have to be avoided as critical thinkers think through the consequences of possible decisions, not just the initial consequences, but the second and third tier consequences as well (something all political types are ignorant about). Unintended consequences of good intentions are still a problem. The end does NOT justify the means.
An article published today by Tom Luongo of Gold, Goats and Guns website challenges the conservitives of today to avoid the trap that the elites have laid out that was highlighted by this Brandon Smith (Alt-Market) quote:
To be clear, what I believe is happening is that conservatives are being prodded and provoked, not to separate and organize but to centralize. I think they want us to support actions like martial law which would be considered totalitarian. Conservatives, the only stalwart defenders of civil liberties, using military suppression and abandoning the Bill of Rights to maintain political power? That is a dream come true for the globalists in the long term. And despite people’s faith in Trump, there are far too many banking elites and globalists within his cabinet to ensure that such power will not be abused or used against us later.
Tom rightly responds:
Nothing would give Klaus Schwab and The Davos Crowd [moneyed global elites] more pleasure than turning us into them — willing to use indiscriminate violence to push otherwise humble and decent people into crazed killers and repudiate their inherent meekness, their inherent desire to pursue their bliss, allowing everyone else that same courtesy.
Principles people! Politics is NEVER a good answer. Fight the good fight using the Golden Rule even if it looks tough and shortcuts look appealing.
Part of the problem is that a vast majority of over 70M people who voted for Trump still believe in the Mythology of America. America as mythology has always stood as the ‘shining house on the hill’ for this enlightened idea that the wishes of the individual pursuing his bliss creates the community and culture which lifts the world out of a less attractive reality. This is why the US destroyed Iraq and Libya, which were each enjoying their own version of success to bring about US democracy, which left them in fractured states decades later, producing many dead innocent men, women and children, reducing Christian influence in these regions and causing many to be refugees, leaving their ancestral homelands of centuries.
That America has been dead since before the myth was birthed. In reality, the 1776 revolution brought HIGHER taxes and more central tyranny to this land than the Brits had even dreamed of. The 1865 reaction to a peaceful secession forever removed the sovereign states as a barrier to full blown federal tyranny, which is the prime reason we are seeing what we have now.
So we have all been taught a myth .. and now we have to critically think about our real options now that the myth has been shown to be a lie.
Tom laments:
What if the mythology of America today has these two wars backwards? What if all the conservatives mourning the Constitution today thanks to a feckless Supreme Court and treasonous Congress have it all wrong? What if the America they mourn the death of today died in 1865 not 2020?
Would that America still be worth finally fighting a bloody civil war for? Because that’s what The Davos Crowd is daring Donald Trump to do.
What if the better response is to do what the South tried to do and failed.
Simply walk away and say, “No more.”
Because fighting the bloody war of all against all, becoming raving fascists rising up to stop the rapacious (and economically backwards) communists in the process is always the wrong option.
Secession is always an option. Opting out of the hyper-collectivizing impulses of in-group/out-group bias is always the right choice. They want us to throw the first punch, to lash out, fire first out of fear, c.f. Fort Sumter, to justify their brutality afterwards.
We cannot crusade against war without crusading implicitly against the State. And we cannot expect, or take measures to ensure, that this war is a war to end war, unless at the same time we take measures to end the State in its traditional form. The State is not the nation, and the State can be modified and even abolished in its present form, without harming the nation. – Randolph Bourne 1918
You might not have been taught this in your history class, but the United States has had its nose in Middle East affairs for over 70 years now. Specifically, there are a few dates that this relationship has in its timeline:
1957 – The Ba’ath Party is a small, underground Arab nationalist group that supports the creation of a pan-Arab state and at age 20, Saddam Hussein joins the party.
1959 – Saddam is selected by the Ba’ath Party to be part of seven-man hit squad to assassinate Iraqi leader Gen. Abdel Karim Kassem. The plot fails. Saddam flees to Cairo and becomes caught up in Egypt’s own revolution under the charismatic Gamel Abdel Nasser, whose pan-Arabism Saddam finds appealing. Saddam also becomes a leader of the Ba’ath Party’s student cell in Cairo and reportedly regularly visits the U.S. embassy to meet with CIA agents interested in sparking Gen. Kassem’s overthrow.
1963 – Kassem is assassinated by members of the Ba’ath Party and the CIA helps the Ba’athists by providing lists of suspected communists for the party’s hit squads, who kill an estimated 800 people. Saddam returns home to Iraq and rejoins the party as an interrogator, torturer and killer. Nine months later, the army overthrows the Ba’ath Party and Saddam is jailed.
1968 -The Ba’ath Party seizes power in Iraq, this time under Ahmad Hassan Al Bakr, Saddam’s cousin. Bakr entrusts his 31-year-old relative Saddam with the most important job of all: running the state security apparatus to extinguish dissent both inside and outside the party. Within a year and a half, Saddam emerges as Bakr’s right hand man. CIA connections are intact.
1970s – As Saddam’s power and influence grows, it is clear that he has designs on the presidency himself, but he also knows that Bakr has powerful support from the army. Saddam begins to plot against the military establishment and to systematically remove Bakr’s closest colleagues.
1979 – Saddam stages a palace coup and President Bakr resigns for health reasons. Among Saddam’s first actions after assuming the presidency is purging the Ba’ath Party of any potential enemies.Several weeks into his presidency, Saddam calls a meeting of the Ba’ath Party leadership and insists it be videotaped. He announces there are traitors in their midst and reads out their names. One by one, the individuals are led out, never to be seen again. Tapes of the meeting are sent throughout the country, allowing Saddam to send a message to the Iraqi elite.
22SEP1980 – With U.S. encouragement, Hussein invaded Iran and during this costly eight-year war, the CIA built up Hussein’s forces with sophisticated arms, intelligence, training and financial backing. This cemented Hussein’s power at home, allowing him to crush the many internal rebellions that erupted from time to time, sometimes with poison gas. In one of the largest ground assaults since World War II, Saddam sends 200,000 troops across the Iranian border, initiating what would become a bloody eight-year conflict.
1981 – When Ronald Reagan becomes president, he endorses a policy aiming for a stalemate in the war so that neither side emerges from the war with any additional power. But in 1982, fearing Iraq might lose the war, the U.S. begins to help. Over the next six years, a string of CIA agents go to Baghdad. Hand-carrying the latest satellite intelligence about the Iranian front line, they pass the information to their Iraqi counterparts. The U.S. gives Iraq enough help to avoid defeat, but not enough to secure victory.
1986 -The Iran-Contra scheme is conceived by Reagan administration officials. Iran had been running out of military supplies in its war with Iraq and Reagan is advised that the U.S. could strike a deal in which secret arms sales to Iran could lead to the release of U.S. hostages held by pro-Iranian terrorists in Lebanon. Public exposure of the plan — which also involved illegally diverting the proceeds from the arms sales to the U.S.-backed Contras in Nicaragua — leads to the end of the U.S. policy. However, when Saddam learns of America’s actions, he vows never to trust the U.S. again.
1987 – U.S. supplied chemical weapons are used when Iraqi forces unleash a devastating gas attack in the town of Halabja, killing an estimated 5,000 Kurds.
1988 – Iraq-Iran War Ceasefire
02AUG1990 – (Sec. of State) James Baker has directed our official spokesmen to Iraq to emphasize that we should express no opinion on this issue and that the issue is not associated with America. Apparently, Saddam Hussein took those words as a green light to invade Kuwait.
17JAN1991 – Gulf War I – one of the most egregious acts that the U.S. military committed against the Iraqis was to intentionally destroy civilian water and sewage treatment centers and electrical facilities.
1994 – Clinton sanctions on Iraq most effective when massive water and sewage issues plague a country, diseases such as cholera, measles, and typhoid had led to hundreds of thousands of civilian deaths, and a skyrocketing infant mortality rate, with many more deaths by 2000.
30JAN2002 – US President Bush labels Iraq as part of the “Axis of Evil”
20MAR2003 – Based on a lie, that Iraq had WMDs, the US and their coalition partners invade Iraq. Why did we invade and occupy Iraq? We were told Iraq was strong and dangerous. We were told that sanctions were not working, and Saddam Hussein was not in compliance with the UN disarmament regime. We were told that Iraq was working on a viable chemical, biological and nuclear program, had many of these weapons already, and was also working with terrorists who targeted and would target the United States. It was suggested repeatedly in Presidential and Vice Presidential speeches, in statements by the Secretary of Defense and other administration mouthpieces that Saddam Hussein had something to do with the 9-11 attacks on the United States. While the Pentagon, CIA and State Department knew Iraq had no relationship with al Qaeda. Instead, we understood that they were competitors and adversaries on both governing and religious issues. Two things angered Osama bin Laden — US forces in Saudi Arabia, and a godless Ba-ath dictatorship in Iraq. We also knew that Iraq had nothing to do with 9-11!
2007 – Iraq is a country that once had 26 million inhabitants, but two million have fled, two million more are internally homeless, and nearly a million have lost their lives since we invaded in 2003. The 80% who have homes remain huddled and fearful, often behind large walls that separate them from family and friend, in the name of ethnic purification, something that the U.S. military is actively pursuing because it tends to make for better statistics. Everyone in Iraq has been touched, and not in a good way, by our invasion and subsequent occupation.
2008 – Iraqi power vacuum and Syrian regime change appears on CIA vision statements prompting the birth of ISIS
2011 – ISIS grows during Arab Spring as CIA vision statements also talk about regime change in Libya
2014 – US and other coalition troops re-enter Iraq to ‘battle’ ISIS in Iraq
2020 – The US kills the Iranian general who was most effective against ISIS forces
Symptoms of codependency:
In its most basic terms, codependency occurs at one of the extremes of relationship dynamics – when two partners draw more from each other than from their own inner strength.
This is not a stable condition.
Codependency deepens as partner feedback tends to grow in importance and self-confidence steadily diminishes as a result.
The relationship becomes highly reactive and fraught, with mounting tensions. Invariably, one partner hits a limit and seeks a new source of sustenance.
This leaves the other feeling scorned, steeped in denial and blame, and ultimately with a vindictive urge to lash out in response.
Iraq, I ask you, are you there yet?
In Eric Margolis’ latest column he reminds us of what Osama bin Laden saw:
Before he was murdered, Osama bin Laden called this monster Baghdad embassy and its twin in Kabul, `crusader fortresses.’ That is indeed their role, and to serve as the nerve center for all Mideast operations by the US. Iraq enjoys some of the world’s largest oil reserves. Where the profit from Iraq’s mammoth oil exports go remains a closely guarded secret.
He goes on to talk about Iraq’s ‘rich’ history and experience going back 100 years even with the British when they were the imperialists of the day:
Imperial Britain ruled Iraq … using the RAF to smash all opposition to the British-installed puppet ruler in Baghdad. In the 1920’s Churchill even authorized the RAF to use poison gas against rebellious Iraqi Kurds (as well as Afghan Pashtun tribes).
True to form, the US abuses Iraq in a similar way:
Washington has imposed an air exclusivity zone there. Real control of flat, largely barren Iraq comes from the air. US war planes based there and in Qatar can blast anything that moves in Mesopotamia.
It is for the following reason that the US will not be quick to exit Iraq:
Iraq has become the central military base and inexhaustible oil reservoir for the US that was envisaged by the Bush administration and its neocons. That is a major step in the total US domination of the Mideast and its energy resources.
Iraq, have you hit your limit yet? To what degree will you go to remove the US from what should be your sovereign nation with the consent of the governed?
I am fully aware that the term “collateral damage” as used by the US Empire refers to the “unfortunate” death of innocent civilians as a result of “pre-war” sanctions. The most popular clip on the Internet is Secretary of State Madeline Albright being interviewed about the 500,000 children that died as a result of sanctions on Iraq between Gulf War I and II:
The reason I ‘air-quote’ the term pre-war is that in all reality, sanctions themselves are an act of war, even though it is on the economic variety. While there are no guns used, there is force used to ensure that the economic activity sanctioned actually does not take place, and that is indeed backed by guns. It is both coercion and violence-based. The state dictates that peaceful trade can not take place and its edicts will be followed, as the consequences to any business is well known. No business can go rogue in the sanction war.
Truth be told, we in the US on the domestic front are again close to having personal conversation scrutinized for words of support towards these sanctioned countries filled with people who desire peaceful trade with American citizens. If one supports Palestinian people, one is assumed to be anti-Semitic, if one supports Russian people, one is assumed to be a Russian-bot.
There was a time when war’s harm toward civilians caught in the crossfire was recognized and attempts were made toward international rules that safeguarded citizens as much as possible from the political conflicts that broke out across the world. By the 1700s in fact, this was the norm, which is why there was such disgust when British dragoon leader Banastre Tarleton would kill both the wounded enemy as well as civilians that appeared to “aid the enemy”.
By the time seven states decided to leave the American union in 1861, this norm had not yet changed. Most of the civilized world’s battles took place on the outskirts of cities.
From an article written by one who has seen war with his own eyes since Vietnam, Tom’s Dispatch writes about this time period:
In fact, the classic American instance of war-as-spectator-sport occurred in 1861 in the initial major land battle of the Civil War, Bull Run (or, for those reading this below the Mason-Dixon line, the first battle of Manassas). “On the hill beside me there was a crowd of civilians on horseback, and in all sorts of vehicles, with a few of the fairer, if not gentler sex,” wrote William Howard Russell who covered the battle for the London Times. “The spectators were all excited, and a lady with an opera glass who was near me was quite beside herself when an unusually heavy discharge roused the current of her blood — ‘That is splendid, Oh my! Is not that first rate? I guess we will be in Richmond tomorrow.’”
Yes, a picnic lunch adjacent to a large battle. You now know how everyone assumed that civilians would not be targeted. People in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as Syria, Pakistan, Yemen and Libya pretty much know the opposite is true with the US Empire in the 21st century.
Reflecting back once more:
That woman would be sorely disappointed. U.S. forces not only failed to defeat their Confederate foes and press on toward the capital of the secessionist South but fled, pell-mell, in ignominious retreat toward Washington. It was a rout of the first order. Still, not one of the many spectators on the scene, including Congressman Alfred Ely of New York, taken prisoner by the 8th South Carolina Infantry, was killed.
By in large, the southern armies were driven by principles. The leadership time and again desired to spare the civilian population of the havoc of war. When Robert E. Lee’s army invaded the northern states of Maryland and Pennsylvania, his men were under strict orders NOT to help themselves to the resources of these civilians but rely on their own supplies. This was even apparent at the end of the war in 1865 when a hungry, tired and destitute southern army under Robert E. Lee retreated from Richmond and came across a rare cow in the countryside. Robert E. Lee directed his hungry men to return that cow to its rightful owner.
We do however know that there were civilian deaths during this internal conflict where one section of the country desired to depart in peace. Tom’s Dispatch explains:
Judith Carter Henry was as old as the imperiled republic at the time of the battle. Born in 1776, the widow of a U.S. Navy officer, she was an invalid, confined to her bed, living with her daughter, Ellen, and a leased, enslaved woman named Lucy Griffith when Confederate snipers stormed her hilltop home and took up positions on the second floor.
“We ascended the hill near the Henry house, which was at that time filled with sharpshooters. I had scarcely gotten to the battery before I saw some of my horses fall and some of my men wounded by sharpshooters,” Captain James Ricketts, commander of Battery 1, First U.S. Artillery, wrote in his official report. “I turned my guns on that house and literally riddled it. It has been said that there was a woman killed there by our guns.” Indeed, a 10-pound shell crashed through Judith Henry’s bedroom and tore off her foot. She died later that day, the first civilian death of America’s Civil War.
We know she was not the last to die. Many would die as Union army cut swaths through the south in Georgia, South Carolina and North Carolina. Civilian’s fields, silver and homes would not be spared, nor were their personal bodies as many women were raped by the marauding troops from the north. As in many countries in the Middle East today, these atrocities would not soon be forgotten.
Tom’s Dispatch (Nick Turse) continues:
No one knows how many civilians died in the war between the states. No one thought to count. Maybe 50,000, including those who died from war-related disease, starvation, crossfire, riots, and other mishaps. By comparison, around 620,000 to 750,000 American soldiers died in the conflict — close to 1,000 of them at that initial battle at Bull Run.
So by 1865 these ratios were starting to change. Civilian deaths are hard to estimate, but you can be assured that military deaths these days are minimal when compared to those of innocent civilians.
In Vietnam, we saw this on black and white TV before the government decided to control more of what the masses would view:
A century later, U.S. troops had traded their blue coats for olive fatigues and the wartime death tolls were inverted. More than 58,000 Americans lost their lives in Vietnam. Estimates of the Vietnamese civilian toll, on the other hand, hover around two million. Of course, we’ll never know the actual number, just as we’ll never know how many died in air strikes as reporters watched from the rooftop bar of Saigon’s Caravelle Hotel ..
Since the 1960s, this trend has only accelerated and has not only produced more of what our own CIA calls “blowback” (I mean, when you blow up funeral processions with drones, you will multiply the number of freedom-fighters, errr I mean “terrorists” in a region) but it also has cause economic and political refugees seeking a better life in other regions of the world. For both the military-industrial complex and politicians, this is actually a win-win for them. How sick is that?
Tom’s Dispatch article winds down by saying:
In this century, it’s a story that has occurred repeatedly, each time with its own individual horrors, as the American war on terror spread from Afghanistan to Iraq and then on to other countries; as Russia fought in Georgia, Ukraine, and elsewhere; as bloodlettings have bloomed from the Democratic Republic of Congo to South Sudan, from Myanmar to Kashmir. War watchers like me and like those reporters atop the Caravelle decades ago are, of course, the lucky ones. We can sit on the rooftops of hotels and listen to the low rumble of homes being chewed up by artillery. We can make targeted runs into no-go zones to glimpse the destruction. We can visit schools transformed into shelters. We can speak to real estate agents who have morphed into war victims. Some of us, like Hedrick Smith, Michael Herr, or me, will then write about it — often from a safe distance and with the knowledge that, unlike Salah Isaid and most other civilian victims of such wars, we can always find an even safer place.
A safer place. I am sure this is what those imprisoned in Gaza feel, or those in Libya near Tripoli these days, or in various areas of Iraq and Afghanistan and even in areas of Syria.
This will probably all “come home to roost” as our foreign policy of intervention and disruption plus regime change causes people to uproot and move. There is always “baggage” involved when violence displaces families.
This all will not end well, nor will this country be exempt from the fallout.
Russian Military Police – Observation Post in Syria
The process of spinning down a conflict is a lot harder than spinning it up. It seems that after years of destabilizing various areas of the world, the US has no patience for the spin-down process.
Notice how Russia patiently waited for Syria’s request for assistance, and once expectations were matched (as peers would do), the process would evolve in a strategy that maximizes stability throughout the spin-down process. This is basic project management.
Russia was aware that Syria was battling terrorism in their country starting in 2011 and was supporting Syria behind the scenes (while the US/Israel/Saudi Arabia/UK was supporting ISIS behind the scenes) for FOUR years until Assad requested direct Russian military assistance in 2015. Here we are three years later and without carpet bombing or napalm, Syria with Russia’s and Iran’s assistance have throttled back the terror impact inside Syria methodically. This is a five year plan that differs from the US approach in that Russia does not intend to stay past its welcome. This is what friends do, we don’t perpetually parent our friends for 20, 40 or 60 years or more!
The US was heavily involved in spinning up the North Korean conflict in 1950 through 1953 when a cease-fire was agreed on. The US has done nothing but exploit the situation with the North Koreans over the past 65 years. Through this process, South Korea has totally depended on the US military like welfare recipients depend on Uncle Sam, they might be grateful but they will never respect the entity/empire. All it takes is for the gravy train to end and the relationship goes south in a hurry. Does the same hold true in Japan, Germany, and Taiwan? You bet it does. It seems that the US Empire needs a strong military at all costs, because a bully doesn’t have any friends if he doesn’t have any fists! We have long ago overstayed our welcome as we are that enabler parent that will not let the kid grow up!
I was hopeful that President Trump, having accomplished a visit to North Korea in the spring of 2018 might have broken out of the dysfunctional funk that has plagued US negotiations and treaty performance (the American Indians know real well how that goes). Whether it is Trump’s inability at guiding his staff to build on his goodwill OR it is just part of the “art of negotiations”, Moon of Alabama gets to the core of the issue in this article:
Now Pompeo came to Pyongyang and asked for details about North Korea’s nuclear program and how it plans to abandon it. As far as we know he did not talk about point 1, the “establishment of new US-DPRK relations” which would include the opening of embassies and economic engagement. He did not talk about point 2, “a lasting and stable peace regime” i.e. a peace treaty. He did not talk about 3a, the “security guarantees to the DPRK”. The only item he talked about was 3b, the last item on the list.
Really? Is this the best that Team Trump can offer? I have to give it to North Korea for their part in some truth-telling to the US bully empire:
As for the issue of announcing the declaration of the end of war at an early date, it is the first process of defusing tension and establishing a lasting peace regime on the Korean peninsula, and at the same time, it constitutes a first factor in creating trust between the DPRK and the U.S. This issue was also stipulated in Panmunjom Declaration as a historical task to terminate the war status on the Korean peninsula which continues for nearly 70 years. President Trump, too, was more enthusiastic about this issue at the DPRK-U.S. summit talks.
That is mature, that is the ability to be critical of the staff that was supposed to follow through on his boss’ success while still giving the boss credit for what he started to accomplish.
Valuable agreement was reached in such a short time at the Singapore summit talks first ever in the history of the DPRK-U.S. relations. This is attributable to the fact that President Trump himself said he would move towards resolving the DPRK-U.S. relations and the issue of denuclearization of the Korean peninsula in a new way.
If both sides at the working level reneged on the new way agreed at the summit and returned to the old way, the epoch-making Singapore summit would be meaningless … We still cherish our good faith in President Trump.
The U.S. should make a serious consideration of whether the toleration of the headwind against the wills of the two top leaders would meet the aspirations and expectations of the world people as well as the interests of its country.
Wow. Has the US ever responded this way? The Golden Rule as Ron Paul would say, would go a long ways in sustaining peaceful and respectable relationships with other countries. I think there is more money to be made in war however:
Beyond this July 2018 dialog, it seems that the US Media has joined in following in the footsteps that the Trump administration left off, further criticizing of the North Koreans. I honestly think they believe that they don’t have a chance in getting their war in Syria liked they wanted and since much of the US naval fleet is in the Western Pacific anyway, why not just rattle some cages on that side of the world for a while. Sick!
Moon of Alabama in this recent article shares how the US Media / US Government Propaganda Machine is selling its fake news:
A Washington Post editorial today laments that the Singapore negotiations have given North Korea too much. It urges Trump further into the blind alley he already finds himself in:
The administration’s best hope of rescuing the situation is to return to talking with North Korea about an equitable tradeoff. To start the process of denuclearization, U.S. officials say the Kim regime must provide a complete inventory of its assets — warheads, production facilities and other nuclear infrastructure — and agree to inspections to verify it. Previous negotiations have broken down because of Pyongyang’s refusal to take this step, so a full disclosure would provide the first clear signal that Mr. Kim was serious about denuclearization. That, along with a freeze in the production of missiles and fissile materials, could justify U.S. participation in the end-of-conflict declaration the two Koreas are seeking.
This is exactly what Trump and his water carrier Pompeo are doing. They demand that North Korea bows to whatever the U.S. wishes without assuring it of a significant quid pro quo. If the U.S. can not even stick to simple agreements, like the Singapore Statement, why should North Korea believe any verbal assurance of vague steps the U.S. might take after it disarms?
The only way out of this is for the U.S. to offer and sign a peace treaty that finally brings the Korea War to an official end. There is only one alternatives to that. A return U.S. strategic maneuvers, which Defense Secretary Mattis just now announced, followed up by North Korea with new nuclear and missile tests, possibly combined in a launch towards Guam.
This is a bi-polar dysfunctional American empire that is “high” on itself, the old “American Exceptionalism” disease. Our kids and grand-kids will not benefit from this type of behavior in future generations.
If we even think about some of the more US’s recent interventions (Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, the attempt in Syria and elsewhere to lesser degrees), one has to wonder how long can this go on? Is this dysfunctional empire going to be able to “spin-down” any country where it is better off for the process of being led to “democracy”?
Unlike Russia, it seems that the US planning is only one step deep, intervene in a big way, and then let the chips fall where they may, so that in the destabilized environment Uncle Sam’s services will be needed for generations. Job security.
