Tag: perpetual war

U.S. Government Helps Pro-Ukraine Media Spread Propaganda And Silence American Critics

Ukraine’s American-backed fight against Russia is being waged not only in the blood-soaked trenches of the Donbas region but also on what military planners call the cognitive battlefield — to win hearts and minds.

A sprawling constellation of media outlets organized with substantial funding and direction from the U.S. government has not just worked to counter Russian propaganda but has supported strong censorship laws and shutdowns of dissident outlets, disseminated disinformation of its own, and sought to silence critics of the war, including many American citizens.

Economist Jeffrey Sachs, commentator Tucker Carlson, journalist Glenn Greenwald, and University of Chicago Professor John Mearsheimer are among the critics on both the left and the right who have been cast as part of a “network of Russian propaganda.”

But the figures targeted by the Ukrainian watchdog groups are hardly Kremlin agents. They simply have forcefully criticized dominant narratives about the war.

Sachs is a highly respected international development expert who has angered Ukrainian officials over his repeated calls for a diplomatic solution to the current military conflict. Last November, he gave a speech at the United Nations calling for a negotiated peace.

Mearsheimer has written extensively on international relations and is a skeptic of NATO expansion. He predicted that Western efforts to militarize Ukraine would lead to a Russian invasion.

Greenwald is a Pulitzer Prize-winning independent journalist who has criticized not just war coverage but media dynamics that suppress voices that run counter to U.S. narratives.

“What they mean when they demand censorship of ‘pro-Russia propaganda’ is anything that questions the US/EU role in the Ukraine war or who dissents from their narratives,” Greenwald has observed.

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How to Deter a War with China Over Taiwan

Europe is suffering its largest land conflict since the Second World War in Ukraine. This fight could turn out to be a mere overture if war breaks out in the Taiwan Strait. Tensions are high: Congress recently approved $8.1 billion for Taipei and elsewhere in the Pacific, while the president has repeatedly said that he would defend Taiwan. That would put the United States into a conflict potentially like no other, with nuclear weapons at 10 paces.

Yet those most determined to escalate America’s involvement in the Russo–Ukrainian war insist that there is nothing to worry about. If only the U.S. holds firm in Ukraine, the Chinese will run for cover over Taiwan. Yet the claim that Beijing would fear Washington when the latter refuses to intervene on Kiev’s behalf, allowing Moscow’s aggression to advance, seems illogical at best. Indeed, Johns Hopkins’s Hal Brands warned that this stance may “have convinced Beijing that the United States just won’t fight a conventional war against a nuclear-armed rival.” Hence China’s ongoing nuclear build-up.

Worse, American policy seems more likely to encourage than discourage such a conflict. Rather than reassure the People’s Republic of China that its red lines won’t be crossed, the administration is stationing American forces in Taiwan, emphasizing that nation’s value in constraining China, and saying little as congressional leaders flaunt ties with Taipei. Leading Republicans, including a former secretary of state and national security adviser, advocate recognizing Taiwan as the Republic of China. It is almost as if Washington’s policy elite wants war with the PRC.

They shouldn’t. 

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Iran, US mutual delusions pave a path to war

For the umpteenth time, the U.S. and Iran have come close to an open war neither side wants.

The Israelis strike a building within the Iranian embassy compound in Damascus, killing senior officers of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. The Iranians, with unintended irony, protest this violation of diplomatic premises, and almost start a war with Israel by launching hundreds of drones and missiles that the U.S., given ample warning, helps to inter­cept. The Israelis launch a counterstrike to demonstrate its ability to evade Iran’s defenses. That appears to end the exchange until the next round.

Sooner or later, if the U.S. and the Islamic Republic are going to avoid such a lose-lose conflict, the two sides will need to stop shouting and start talking. Forty-five years of exchanging empty slogans, accusa­tions, threats, and denunci­a­tions have accomplished little beyond furthering a few political careers and feed­ing a sense of self-righteousness. For suc­cessive U.S. adminis­trations, Iran remains a problem that will not go away.

To para­phrase Trotsky, “You may have no business with Iran; but Iran has business with you.” For Iran, the U.S. remains an obsession. The more Iran’s hated rulers denounce it, the more attractive it becomes — as both a role model and a destination — to a savvy popula­tion suffering from inflation, unemployment, and the stern, miso­gynistic dictates of an aging and ossified ruling elite.

The Islamic Republic, despite the wishes of many Iranians and their friends, is probably not going away soon. In the first months after the fall of the monarchy, the most-asked question in Tehran was, “When are THEY leaving?” (Inhaa key mirand?). Forty-five years later THEY are still in charge and show no signs of packing their bags.

Why should we talk to the Islamic Republic, when it has the appalling history that it does? Why should we talk when its overriding policy principle is, in the words of one Iranian official, “opposition to you”? We need to talk because talking (and listening) to an adversary means serving our national interests by communicating. Talking never means either approval of or affection for the Islamic Republic.

Talking to the Islamic Republic is not going to bring down that government, persuade the ruling clerics to step aside, or persuade them to stop repressing its women, musicians, journalists, lawyers, students and academics. Talking is not going to end the ruling clerics’ bizarre obsessions with con­trolling every trivial detail of Iranians’ private lives. What talking does is allow each side to present its point of view and to correct the dangerous “mythperceptions” that have prevented the U.S. and Iran from breaking out of a 45-year downward spiral of futility.

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Israeli Warplanes Strike Damascus As Iran Tensions Still On Edge

Israeli aircraft have reportedly attacked a location on the outskirts of the Syrian capital of Damascus late Thursday (local), a security source told Reuters.

Widely circulating images have emerged on social media showing plumes of smoke rising high over buildings which were struck. Syrian state media subsequently said that eight army soldiers were injured in the attack. 

The fresh Israeli aggression could be another targeted assassination operation against Iranian generals or IRGC officers, and certainly would also be intended to signal Israel remains undeterred by Iran’s April 13th attack, which was in retaliation for the prior Israeli attack on Iran’s embassy in Damascus.

According to unverified social media reports: 

The Israeli attack against Syria targeted the building of the Syrian State Security branch in the “Najha” area in the Damascus countryside.

There has been some speculation that this is an Israeli response to the launch of rockets from the Syrian side towards the Golan Heights earlier in the day and week.

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‘Psywar’: U.S. Army Releases Disturbing Psychological Operations Recruitment Video

An unsettling video from the U.S. Army’s Psychological Operations (PSYOP) division portrays faceless heads and displays and entones cryptic messages in order to recruit more soldiers for intellectual warfare.

“Ghosts in the Machine 2” was quietly released in the early morning hours of Thursday on the branch’s 4th PSYOP Group YouTube channel, exactly two years after the drop of the similarly perplexing original “Ghosts in the Machine” recruitment video. 

The video starts with a quote from Nobel prize-winning author John Steinbeck on a pitch-black screen: “I am a little man and this is a little town, but there must be a spark in little men that can burst into flame.”

An audio recording of some of the late President John F. Kennedy’s June 1963 remarks in West Berlin then plays in the background as the on-screen text states that the biggest “weapon” in the hands of an oppressor is “the mind of the oppressed.”

Dark, haunting imagery including masks, ghosts, and burning, faceless mannequins flashes across the scene as recognizable historic speeches and flashing text continue:

“Behind every idea… a belief… PSYWAR”

“Behind every choice… invisible hands”

“Behind every emotion… fire”

The video ends with intense music, war footage, and the question: “Do you believe in the power of words and ideas?”

“WE BELIEVE” is then displayed in large font before the link to the Army’s Special Operations recruiting page.

According to the branch’s PSYOP career page, soldiers are trained to “strategically influence and deceive” in order to “help sway opinions and actions of foreign governments, groups, and individuals.”

“It’s a recruiting video,” the Army major who created the video told the Associated Press ahead of the release. “Someone who watches it and thinks, wow, that was effective, how was it constructed — that’s the kind of creative mindset we’re looking for.”

The major, who asked to not be named, is a member of the 8th Psychological Operations Group based at Fort Liberty, North Carolina.

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Back Door War: SecDef Admits US Troops In Gaza May See Combat

In a fascinating exchange US Rep. Matt Gaetz probed US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin about the role of the estimated 1,000 US troops involved in building a floating pier to deliver aid to Gaza. Austin insisted that they were not “boots on the ground” although he admitted they would be armed and would respond to incoming fire. Injecting US troops into a warzone requires a Congressional vote, Gaetz warned Austin.

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Campus Protests: The Kids May Not Be Alright, But They Are (Mostly) Right

I’m too young to remember the campus convulsions of the 1960s, but older friends who were there tell me that the growing campus protest movement against US support for Israel’s war in Palestine bears a striking resemblance to those days.

I happen to support that movement’s goals, at least to the extent of wanting to see the US government butt out of other people’s arguments.

I’m told by some “pro-Israel” friends that the student protesters are all “anti-semites” and “supporters of Hamas,” and that if I support them I must also hate a particular ethnic group and support terrorism as a tactic.

But I don’t hate any ethnic groups, nor do I support Hamas any more than I support the Israeli Defense Forces.

I don’t doubt that SOME of the student protesters fall into the “hater” category, simply because the protests are a convenient bandwagon for “haters” to ride on. The next large political event I attend that doesn’t have a least a few weirdos hanging around, trying to grab a little unearned credibility by association, will be the first.

I just want a government that claims it works for me to stop handing out weapons and cash to other governments. Especially, though not only, to crybully regimes that constantly play the victim while also occupying territory outside their borders for decades on end, imposing apartheid regimes on the inhabitants of those occupied territories, murdering anyone who resists (along with many who don’t), etc.

To the extent that the kids on campus are seeking the same thing, they’re doing God’s work and have my full support.

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Despite Media Cheerleading, $61 Billion Won’t Beat Russia

The United States continues to be the world’s banker for war. Last week, the U.S. invested $95 billion more in war. $61 billion of that is headed to Ukraine. While Congress waved Ukrainian flags, the American mainstream media abandoned its responsibility as investigative journalists and dutifully and enthusiastically acted as cheerleaders, celebrated the continuation of war and led the call for more.

What the mainstream media did not do is tell the American public that, while $61 billion is a lot of money, it is not enough to change the inevitable long-term outcome of the war. The current package of lethal aid will change the situation. It will prolong the war, and it will prolong Ukraine’s suffering. But it will not alter Ukraine’s inevitable defeat.

Few, if any, of the large American mainstream media bothered to investigate the aid package or report that, after money is allocated to keeping the Ukrainian government solvent, funding current military operations in the region and replenishing the U.S. stockpile of weapons, only about $14 billion is left for actually procuring new weapons for Ukraine.

Instead, mainstream media headlines proclaim a fresh beginning and celebrate the potential for the new package of lethal aid to push Ukraine to victory over Russia and prevent Russia from marching through Ukraine into Europe. But neither is true.

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Bill To Prolong Death and Destruction

I am speaking about a $95-billion foreign military aid package that included $61 billion for Ukraine. Speaker Mike Johnson’s turnaround from opponent to supporter of the war in Ukraine raised many eyebrows. His meeting with Trump in advance of this announcement added intrigue and speculations about the reasons for this sudden change of heart.

Most likely both men decided that it would help Trump and the GOP to win votes in November, and how many more Ukrainians would die in the process was of no particular concern to them.  Instead, Johnson used the same Lindsey Graham and Co’s language that financing this war was the best investment ever made since no Americans were dying, and the only new element was that the Speaker added a personal touch by adding his son into the equation.  “To put it bluntly, I would rather send bullets to Ukraine than American boys,” Johnson told reporters last week. “My son is going to begin in the Naval Academy this fall. This is a live-fire exercise for me as it is for so many American families. This is not a game; this is not a joke.”

Well, nowadays it is useless to ask whether such statements correspond to moral, ethical, or any other values that US and EU politicians (there are exceptions, of course, but, so far, their numbers are not enough to change the course) claim to adhere to but Ukrainian President Zelensky surpasses their cynicism by thanking Congress saying “The vital US aid bill passed today by the House will keep the war from expanding, save thousands and thousands of lives.” He is talking, of course, about saving American, not Ukrainian lives.

Such statements and actions from Washington or Brussels, and from Zelensky confirm what was known anyway. The West found a foreign leader ready to serve its interests of weakening Russia by sacrificing the Ukrainian people and their country in exchange for money and glory.  In the Western media, he is now George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and Winston Churchill together in one face.   I doubt all of them or their heirs would be thrilled by being compared to someone who converted his own country into a foreign mercenary legion.

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Biden Considering Bringing Some Refugees From Gaza To The US

The Biden administration appears to have gotten its Soros marching orders to pour gasoline into the fire, with CBS reporting that the White House is considering bringing “certain Palestinians” to the U.S. as refugees, a move that would offer a permanent safe haven to some of those fleeing war-torn Gaza, and would also drastically escalate what has already been the 2024 equivalent of the 2020 BLM summer of violence, only this time with spoiled, rich Marxist kids pretending they live in the 1960s and their actions can stop the war in Vietnam Middle East.

According to the report, in recent weeks senior officials across several federal U.S. agencies have discussed the practicality of different options to resettle Palestinians from Gaza who have immediate family members who are American citizens or permanent residents.

One of those proposals involves using the decades-old United States Refugee Admissions Program to welcome Palestinians with U.S. ties who have managed to escape Gaza and enter neighboring Egypt, according to the inter-agency planning documents.

Top U.S. officials have also discussed getting additional Palestinians out of Gaza and processing them as refugees if they have American relatives, the documents show. The plans would require coordination with Egypt, which has so far refused to welcome large numbers of people from Gaza.

Those who pass a series of eligibility, medical and security screenings would qualify to fly to the U.S. with refugee status, which offers beneficiaries permanent residency, resettlement benefits like housing assistance and a path to American citizenship.

While the eligible population is expected to be relatively small, the plans being discussed by U.S. officials could offer a lifeline to some Palestinians fleeing the Israel-Hamas war, which local public health authorities say has claimed the lives of more than 34,000 people and displaced hundreds of thousands of civilians in Gaza.

Needless to say, this comes from the same admin which a few days ago decided against a ban of menthol cigarettes over fears it would alienate the black vote, and today targeted the pot-smoking voters with a report the DEA was preparing to reclassify marijuana to a less dangerous drug category. The same admin which in the past 2 years has welcomed over 20 million illegals with the hope that they will illegally vote for Biden and the Democrats, and thus enshrine the current kleptofascist regime in perpetuity. So it is hardly a surprise that Biden, desperate to avoid losing the vote of the ultra-left progressive wing of the Democrat party which just happens to sympathize with Hamas, will pander to this group whose votes may end up deciding the November election.

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