Tag: perpetual war

Latest Wonder Weapon Being Provided to Ukraine Unlikely to Turn the Tide in War

On January 6, Denmark announced that it would be transferring 19 American-made F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine in the second quarter of 2024. Last August, the Biden administration approved sending F-16s—which are made by Lockheed Martin—to Ukraine from Denmark and the Netherlands.

Kyiv had long sought to obtain the fighter jets, but Washington had previously resisted allowing the transfers for fear of being deemed a direct belligerent in the Ukraine war by Moscow.

Joe Biden nevertheless told Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at the G-7 Summit last spring that the U.S. would support training Ukrainian pilots to fly the aircraft.

Like anti-tank Javelin missiles and other “wonder weapons” Ukraine has previously received, it is unlikely that the F-16 jets will significantly change the course of military operations in Ukraine’s favor. However, these planes represent yet another provocation directed against Russia that will only fuel an escalation of a devastating conflict that has resulted in such a huge loss of life.

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Americans Are Paying a Massive Price To Maintain the Empire

Two press reports stood out to me this morning: the release of the names of two US Navy SEALs who drowned two weeks ago in the Arabian Sea and the Air Force’s production authorization for the B21 Raider bomber. Both stories symbolize an imperial inertia that defines American national security policies, an inertia that is damaging our democracy and jeopardizing futures.

The SEALs died taking part in a blockade mission against Yemen, a mission that dates back nearly a decade and is part of a two-decade-long history of US military action against Yemen (the US first launched a drone strike in Yemen in 2002). US policy towards Yemen is part of the larger, failed and counterproductive Global War on Terror, which itself is part of a larger, failed and counterproductive US Middle East policy. US Middle East policy, in its current form, goes back to the 1970s and is part of a larger, failed and counterproductive US militarized foreign policy. Can anyone go to the families of those two SEALs killed carrying out those policies and explain what their deaths were for without resorting to grotesque and false tropes of freedom and security, the same aspirational and patriotic fairy tales that have been used to justify 250-plus military operations by the US since 1991?

The other story relates to the authorization of production of the B21 Raider, which is set to replace the B1 and B2 bombers but not the 70-year-old B52s. That the youngest B52 was produced in 1962 and won’t be replaced, but the bombers built in modern times must be replaced, tells you a great deal about the strategy of the American weapons industry. This fleecing of the American taxpayers by the Military Industrial Complex (MIC) is nothing new. Both political parties have hollowed out the American economy to the benefit of weapons makers. If any citizen has the gall to ask their members of Congress why our living standards are so far below those of the world’s other wealthy nations, the answers come back as some variation of “we can’t afford those things.”

What’s new about the B21 is that the cost for years was classified, even to members of Congress. Budget figures, as well as contract details, production schedules and test results, are still being kept hidden. Reports say Northrup Grumman will produce 100 of the planes, and, with an estimated total program cost of more than $200 billion, keeping quiet about the price tag of $2 billion airplanes is a politically savvy move if not a democratic one.

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Japan’s Growing Militarism: The Drums of War in Support of the American Empire

It seems that Japan is making strategic decisions to join their US and NATO allies in preparation for a global war against their long-time adversaries, China, North Korea, and Russia. The latest deal Tokyo made with Washington for the purchase of 400 Tomahawk cruise missiles with the promise to increase its national defense spending is alarming, “Prime Minister Fumio Kishida’s government has pledged to double its annual defense spending to about 10 trillion yen (U.S. $68 billion) by 2027.”  

The Defense Minister of Japan, Minoru Kihara plans for the military’s rapid deployment of the newly acquired American-made missiles along with its own Type 12 surface-to-ship missiles due to its security concerns with China and North Korea.  The U.S. reportedly sold $2.35 billion worth of Tomahawk missiles last November when Kihara signed an agreement with the US ambassador to Japan, Rahm Emanuel, who was the former Chief of Staff under Barack Obama and a former Mayor of Chicago. Kihara said that “Japan and the United States agreed to expedite the deployment “in response to the increasingly severe security environment.” 

Japan’s militarism is growing significantly, “Japan is accelerating its deployment of long-range cruise missiles capable of hitting targets in China or North Korea, while Japanese troops increasingly work side by side with the U.S. and other friendly nations and take on more offensive roles.”  Emanuel said that“under a new defense strategy adopted in December 2022, Japan has joined the United States, Australia, South Korea and many other regional partners “in an aligned vision of how to promote peace and prosperity in the Indo-Pacific and meet the challenges head on” and that “the U.S. approach to its partnership with Japan is “one of ensuring deterrence” and making sure there is no change in the region by military force.” 

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Russia Says Ukraine Shot Down Plane Carrying Ukrainian POWs

Russia said on Wednesday that Ukrainian forces shot down a Russian military transport plane over Russia’s Belgorod Oblast, killing all 74 people onboard, including 65 Ukrainian prisoners of war.

The Russian Defense Ministry said in a statement that its forces registered two anti-aircraft missiles fired from Ukraine’s Kharkiv Oblast, which borders Belgorod, that hit the IL-76 aircraft. The ministry claimed the POWs were being transported as part of a planned prisoner swap with Ukraine.

Ukraine has not officially confirmed or denied responsibility for the downing of the plane, but sources told Ukrainska Pravda that Ukrainian forces were responsible. The Ukrainian military also hinted it was behind the incident.

In response to the news, the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine said in a statement that it would “continue to destroy means of delivery and control the airspace to eliminate the terrorist threat, including on the Belgorod-Kharkiv front.”

Ukraine’s military intelligence acknowledged in a statement that a prisoner swap was scheduled to take place on Wednesday but said it had no information about who was onboard the downed Russian plane.

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U.S. Asks China to Ask Iran to Ask Houthis to Stop Attacking Red Sea Shipping

The Financial Times reported on Wednesday that the Biden administration has asked top Chinese officials to pressure Iran to make its Houthi proxy terrorists in Yemen halt their attacks on Red Sea shipping.

According to the Times’s sources, these pleas from top Biden officials — all the way up to White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan and Secretary of State Antony Blinken — have fallen on deaf ears in Beijing.

The Biden team has reportedly been asking China for help for “the past three months” but saw “little evidence China had put any pressure on Iran to restrain the Houthis.”

The best Beijing could do was a bland statement asking all parties to guarantee the safety of Red Sea shipping. The Houthis responded by assuring China and Russia that ships flying their flags would not be attacked. Terrorist attacks on the vessels of other nations continued unabated.

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No direct threat from Russia – NATO

NATO sees no threat from Russia toward any of its members, the US-led bloc’s Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg told reporters on Tuesday during a press conference in Brussels. His comments come as several countries, including Germany and the Baltic states, have raised concerns of a potential future Russian attack.

Answering questions from journalists following the signing of major new investments in artillery ammunition productions, Stoltenberg stated that, “We don’t see any direct or imminent threat against any NATO ally.”

At the same time, he stressed that the bloc nevertheless “closely monitors what Russia does” and has increased its “vigilance and presence in the eastern part of the alliance,” in order to prevent any attacks on allied nations.

Meanwhile, German news outlets have reported in recent weeks that Berlin was preparing for a scenario in which Russia launches an “open attack” on NATO as early as the summer of 2025 after securing a major victory in Ukraine.

German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius also warned on Monday that his country should be ready to respond to a possible Russian attack even though there is no real threat as of now.

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US Supreme Court Defends Free Speech on Palestine

Free-speech defenders welcomed the U.S. Supreme Court’s refusal to take up a lawsuit that outlandishly claimed a civil society group provided “material support” for terrorism by advocating for Palestinian human rights.

The Supreme Court’s punting of Jewish National Fund v. U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights (USCPR)— which comes over three months into Israel’s war on the Gaza Strip — marks the third consecutive time a federal court has dismissed the case, which USCPR said casts “collective activism and expression of solidarity as unlawful.”

In the case’s first dismissal in March 2021, a federal judge said that the plaintiffs’ argument was “to say the least, not persuasive.”  

USCPR Executive Director Ahmad Abuznaid hailed Monday’s move by the nation’s highest court, reiterating the group stands for “justice for all and an end to funding genocide.”

“There’s no lawsuit in the world that can stop us from pushing our demands for human rights,” he said. “We will remain focused on opposing Israel’s genocide of the Palestinian people and pursuing justice and freedom for the Palestinian people.”

According to USCPR: 

“At issue were USCPR’s fiscal sponsorship of the Boycott National Committee and expressions of support for the rights and demands of Palestinians participating in the Great Return March [2108-19], when Palestinians protested to demand respect for their right to return to the villages from which Israeli settlers expelled them in 1948.”

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Biden’s ‘Sustained Campaign’ in Yemen Is Illegal and Pointless

The U.S. and Britain continue to wage war on Yemen while pretending that they aren’t at war:

The U.S. and U.K. launched strikes against eight Houthi targets Monday, the two countries said, in a continuing bid to stop the Yemeni rebel group’s attacks on ships transiting the Red Sea.

The strikes marked the second major assault by a joint force of the two countries and the eighth time overall that the U.S. has targeted the group, which is armed, funded and supported by Iran.

The latest round of attacks is part of the Biden administration’s plan for a “sustained campaign” that Congress has never debated or authorized. The U.S. has dubbed the campaign Operation Poseidon Archer, and the administration has no idea when it will be concluded. According to the Post, U.S. officials say that they “don’t expect that the operation will stretch on for years like previous U.S. wars in Iraq, Afghanistan or Syria,” but that is not much of a consolation when the administration can’t even admit that it is fighting a war.

Knowing how our government tends to prolong and alter its military missions once they start, it isn’t hard to imagine the current campaign morphing into something else over time. The troops that are now in Syria were sent there to fight ISIS, but now they stay there to oppose Iranian influence and serve as targets for local militias. U.S. forces have been fighting in Somalia for more than a decade and a half, and there is no sign that they are leaving anytime soon. Once U.S. forces are involved in hostilities in a country, there is considerable resistance to extricating them. Even if the new war in Yemen turns out to be the limited one that the administration claims that it is, that won’t change the fact that it is illegal and unauthorized. If support for the Saudi coalition war on Yemen merited a war powers challenge (and it absolutely did), direct military action in Yemen definitely requires that Congress step up and put a stop to the president’s illegal war.

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Is A Huge War Coming? US & Israel Bomb Yemen, Iraq, Syria, Gaza & Lebanon While Threatening War With Iran

The brutal war that Israel is waging on Gaza is increasingly becoming a regional conflict.

Since October, the United States and Israel have bombed not only Gaza, but also Lebanon, Iraq, Syria, and Yemen.

Now, the U.S. government is even threatening Iran with war. President Joe Biden sent the Iranian government a private message while the U.S. military was bombing Yemen on January 13. He said threateningly, “We’re confident, we’re well prepared”.

While this is happening, South Africa has introduced a case in the International Court of Justice, the top United Nations judicial authority, which accuses Israel of committing genocide against the Palestinian people.

South Africa’s case has garnered support from dozens of countries across the Global South.

This case has frightened Israel and its sponsors in Washington. They are apparently seeking to expand the conflict into a regional war, to try to win more sympathy and to turn attention away from what South Africa and many countries have referred to as a genocide in Gaza.

In fact, top UN experts have been warning precisely this for months: that the Palestinian people face “the risk of genocide in Gaza”, and that there has been a “failure of the international system to mobilise to prevent genocide”.

The Financial Times reported in December that, in just two months of Israeli bombing, Gaza had become one of the most heavily bombed areas in human history.

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Senior NATO Official Says There Will Be A Hot War With Russia

A high ranking NATO official has stated that people in Europe should prepare for a full on war with Russia sometime in the next two decades.

Admiral Rob Bauer, chairman of Nato’s Military Committee, told reporters following a meeting of Nato defence chiefs in Brussels that governments need to start putting preparations in place, and that civilians will need to be mobilised on a large scale.

“We have to realise it’s not a given that we are in peace. And that’s why we [Nato forces] are preparing for a conflict with Russia,”Baur declared.

He continued, “But the discussion is much wider. It is also the industrial base and also the people that have to understand they play a role.”

“It starts there,” Bauer continued, adding “The realisation that not everything is planable and not everything is going to be hunky dory in the next 20 years.”

The Telegraph reports that Baur also heaped praise on Sweden for telling its people to brace for war.

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