All posts tagged: china

The Rohingya Psyops: Waging Covert War on Myanmar

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by Gearóid Ó Colmáin, February 6, 2017 The United Nations has accused the Government of Myanmar of committing ‘genocide’ against the Rohingya Muslim minority in the country’s troubled Rakhine State. In recent weeks the crisis in Myanmar has escalated, with human rights groups and NGOs publishing copious denunciations of the alleged human rights abuses and mass murder committed by the Myanmar Armed Forces, (Tatmadaw). The Myanmar government claims that they are fighting a war on terrorism against forces which seek to destabilise the state, Islamist forces in particular. They also claim that the so-called ethnic minority commonly referred to as ‘Rohingya’ are really illegal East Bengali immigrants. Despite thousands of serious allegations of rape, pillage and mass murder committed by these Bengali immigrants in Myanmar, human rights groups and the ‘international community’ have blamed all the violence on the Burmese authorities. Who are the Rohingya and why have they now become the focus of international attention? Why has the position of the Burmese authorities been ignored or dismissed? What geopolitical objectives could be behind an …

Is Sri Lanka being used by big powers to make the Indian Ocean another South China Sea?

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by Lasanda Kurukulasuriya, September 17, 2017, via Defend Democracy Press The Indian Ocean Conference (IOC) organised by the India Foundation and held at the Sri Lankan Prime Minister’s official residence ‘Temple Trees’ from Aug. 31 to Sept.1, was billed as a gathering of Indian Ocean Region countries and ‘other concerned nations’ with a view to advancing ‘Peace, Progress and Prosperity” in the Indian Ocean. While this is no doubt a laudable goal, the absence of perspectives from regional players like China and Pakistan points to somewhat more partisan objectives than those advertised. The delegate described as ‘Principal, Ambassadors’ LLC Group, China’ was actually an American citizen, and while there was ambiguity as to the interests she represented it would be safe to surmise that she did not represent the People’s Republic of China. However, the US, also an external power, was represented by its Acting Assistant Secretary of State for Central and South Asia, Alice Wells. A post on the Conference’s Facebook page points to objectives not revealed elsewhere. It describes the gathering as being …

Terror Incognita: ‘Demistifying’ the Fog of War

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by Sean Stinson, August 28, 2017 “The Muslim terrorist apparatus was created by US intelligence as a political weapon” – National security adviser to the Carter administration, Zbigniew Brzezinski “The truth is, there is no Islamic army or terrorist group called Al-Qaeda, and any informed intelligence officer knows this. But, there is a propaganda campaign to make the public believe in the presence of an intensified entity representing the ‘devil’ only in order to drive TV watchers to accept a unified international leadership for a war against terrorism. The country behind this propaganda is the United States.” – Former British Foreign Secretary, Robin Cook “The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.” – H.L. Mencken Corporate propaganda is flying so thick and fast lately it’s dizzying just keeping up with it. For regular readers of the New York Times, the Washington Post and the Guardian, Vladimir Putin is the new Fuhrer of American …

Pepe Escobar: And the winners in the post-Daesh era are… (updated)

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Syrians walk past Aleppo’s citadel as life returns to normal after the expulsion of Jihadi terrorist groups by the Syrian army and its allies Russia and Iran. Photo from the #believe_in_aleppo hashtag in Twitter. An excerpt from Pepe Escobar’s latest article in Asia Times: […] Mesopotamia and the Levant, in the post-Daesh era, are indeed unrecognizable compared to the state of play in the early 2010s. The facts on the ground in the Syrian war theater are stark. While the Beltway was blinded by regime change, Moscow swooped in and with a small expeditionary force turned the Middle East game upside down. While Russian jets fully coordinated with an array of forces on the ground, Russian diplomacy ended up closing down all manner of war fronts and imposing ceasefires or de-escalation zones. A New Syrian Army (NSA?), instead of those walking dead FSA, is now fully battle-tested, in both conventional and guerrilla warfare, and with morale extremely high to the point that Hezbollah now needs to deploy only a few of its officers to coordinate …

The Real Reason Washington is Worried about North Korea

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North Korean leader Kim Jong-un arrives for the opening ceremony of a newly built residential complex in Pyongyang on April 13 [2017]. Photo: Reuters   By Stephen Gowans in What’s Left A number of countries have recently tested ballistic or cruise missiles and a handful, not least Russia and China, possess nuclear-tipped ICBMs capable of striking the United States. And yet the missiles and nuclear weapons program of only one of these countries, North Korea, arouses consternation in Washington. What makes tiny North Korea, within its miniscule defense budget, and rudimentary nuclear arsenal and missile capability, a threat so menacing that “worry has spread in Washington and the United Nations”? [1] “The truth,” it has been said, “is often buried on the front page of The New York Times.” [2] This is no less true of the real reason Washington frets about North Korea’s missile tests. In a July 4, 2017 article titled “What can Trump do about North Korea? His options are few and risky,” reporter David E. Sanger, a member of the Council …

Multipolar World Arrives: Russia, China Face Down US Bully

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Russia’s President Vladimir Putin (L) shakes hands with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping during the 2016 Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum held in Lima, Peru. Photo Kim Kyung-Hoon/Reuters   Finian Cunningham writes in Strategic Culture Foundation: The United States’ hegemonic dominance in the world is heading to the exits. The decline in US unipolar power has been underway for several years, in line with the emergence of a multipolar world. This week, Russia and China showed important resolve to face down American bully tactics over North Korea. The confrontation suggests a turning point in the transition from American world dominance to a multipolar one. US President Donald Trump reiterated the possibility of military attack on North Korea while in Poland this week. This was also while Washington was hectoring China and Russia to join in a tougher response to North Korea over its ballistic missile launch days before – the former two nations themselves having recently been sanctioned anew by the US. Talk about American audacity and double think. However, the crass arrogance shown …

Sauron Rules in Washington

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by Paul Craig Roberts “The problem is that the world has listened to Americans for far too bloody long.” Dr. Julian Osborne, from the 2000 film version of Nevil Shute’s 1957 book, On the Beach A reader asked why neoconservatives push toward nuclear war when there can be no winners. If all die, what is the point? The answer is that the neoconservatives believe that the US can win at minimum and perhaps zero damage. Their insane plan is as follows: Washington will ring Russia and China with anti-ballistic missile bases in order to provide a shield against a retaliatory strike from Russia and China. Moreover, these US anti-ABM bases also can deploy nuclear attack missiles unknown to Russia and China, thus reducing the warning time to five minutes, leaving Washington’s victims little or no time in which to make a decision. The neoconservatives think that Washington’s first strike will so badly damage the Russian and Chinese retaliatory capabilities that both governments will surrender rather than launch a response. The Russian and Chinese leaderships would …

The Rogue State that is the United States of America

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from New Antarctica As one more US aircraft carrier steams off to confront the North Koreans and threaten nuclear war once again , it is timely to recall that 60 years ago the United States and its allies (including a very compliant New Zealand) began a genocidal bombing of every town and city in the north of Korea. Millions of Koreans died. Since that war ended, the largest and nuclear superpower in the world has refused to sign a peace treaty with North Korea, has stationed thousands of troops and weapons along its South Korean border and has regularly threatened to nuke North Korea, applied annual large scale attack manoeuvres along the border with North Korea, as well as implementing sanctions that in several years since the war, caused mass starvation in the north. Small wonder that the North Korean regime might be considered paranoid and unstable! Ironically, the United States has absolutely no interest in the Korean peninsula and its peoples; its sole rationale for maintaining the ongoing conflict with North Korea is to …

Afghanistan – ‘Small’ Western Propaganda Lies, Huge Impact

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by Andre Vltchek Ask anyone on the streets of Kabul about the revolutions that have in recent years transformed huge parts of Latin America, and the chances are you’ll encounter a blank stare.  Perhaps mentioning Cuba could evoke at least some recognition, but definitely not Venezuela, Ecuador or Bolivia.  I know because I tried on several occasions, and I failed. Ask in the marvelous historic city of Herat, with its huge minarets and Italian military contingent, about Western imperialism, or about NATO and its murderous campaigns all over the world, and chances are that your question won’t even be understood. “Chances are that those Afghan people who can speak English or other Western languages, are now actually working for the Westerners; either for their military, or for their ‘defense’ contractors… or for the embassies, the United Nations, or perhaps some NGO”, explained an Asian reporter who is based in Afghanistan for more than two decades. “These people are not going to rock the boat, dwelling on crimes committed by the West, here and all over …

This week the issue is not Trump. It is ourselves.

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by John Pilger On the day President Trump is inaugurated, thousands of writers in the United States will express their indignation. “In order for us to heal and move forward…”, say Writers Resist, “we wish to bypass direct political discourse, in favour of an inspired focus on the future, and how we, as writers, can be a unifying force for the protection of democracy.” And: “We urge local organizers and speakers to avoid using the names of politicians or adopting ‘anti’ language as the focus for their Writers Resist event. It’s important to ensure that nonprofit organizations, which are prohibited from political campaigning, will feel confident participating in and sponsoring these events.” Thus, real protest is to be avoided, for it is not tax exempt. Compare such drivel with the declarations of the Congress of American Writers, held at Carnegie Hall, New York, in 1935, and again two years later. They were electric events, with writers discussing how they could confront ominous events in Abyssinia, China and Spain. Telegrams from Thomas Mann, C Day Lewis, …

President Duterte of the Philippines for Dummies

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When Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez ascended to power in 1999, almost no one in the West, in Asia and even in most of the Latin American countries knew much about his new militant revolutionary anti-imperialism. From the mass media outlets like CNN and the BBC, to local televisions and newspapers (influenced or directly sponsored by Western sources), the ‘information’ that was flowing was clearly biased, extremely critical, and even derogatory.

History repeats itself.

Red-Baiting, Putin-Scaremongering Democrats Are Now Suddenly Worried About Offending China

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by Caitlin Johnstone, via Newslogue It’s weird to see Democrats suddenly freaking out about diplomacy when they’ve spent the last five months screaming that we need to attack the Russians at every turn. The Democrats, who have spent the latter half of this year loudly blaming Russian President Vladimir Putin for everything from the DNC leaks to Hillary Clinton’s defeat to Arrested Development’s mediocre fourth season, have all of a sudden transformed from a mob of screaming, frenzied Joseph McCarthys into a bunch of tender-hearted grandmotherly diplomats now that Donald Trump has broken with executive tradition and accepted a phone call from Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen. Why is such a phone call so outrageous, you may ask? Why, because that might offend the Chinese, and we can’t just go around offending the leaders of large, powerful Asiatic nations now, can we? The very idea! Type the word “Taiwan” into Google and then click News and you’ll see what I mean; article after article, editorial after editorial about “China’s wrath” and what a colossal “gaffe” and “blunder” …

Will Vietnam embrace China after Trump elected?

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by Andre Vltchek Common wisdom says that after Donald Trump got elected in the United States, Vietnam should be in panic. True, there could be some ‘objective’ reasons for alarm, if one is truly obsessed with the ‘free’ trade agreements. The Trans-Pacific Partnership may soon go to the dogs and at least one sizeable part of the Vietnamese leadership was counting on it, hoping that it would boost the economy, particularly its garment and agricultural sectors. However, Vietnam is and always was tough, and on top of it, there are many signs indicating that the public and many government and Party heads are actually demanding a more ‘hardline’ Communist path, not just more business activities. Earlier this year, the Secretary General of the Communist Party of Vietnam, Nguyen Phu Trong, was re-elected, while Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung was pushed from power. The Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) reported: “Mr Dung was the party’s strongest voice in denouncing Beijing and was credited with Vietnam’s smooth accession to a US-led Trans-Pacific Partnership.” In brief: he was one …

Politics, Language and Power

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by Frank Contemporary politics consists of the usual timeless formula of Machiavelli – rule by force and fraud – but with the current emphasis being on fraud Defenceless villages are bombarded from the air, their inhabitants driven out into the countryside, their cattle machine gunned, their huts set on fire with incendiary bullets: this is called pacification.” Politics and the English Language, 1946 There is a high probability that Russia will intervene in the Baltics to test NATO’s Article 5…” Anders Fogh Rasmussen, ex-head of NATO, now military and security adviser to Ukrainian Oligarch ruler Poroshenko, February 2015 It would be true to say that the language of politics and power is patently neither objective, nor particularly interested in the pursuit of truth. Quite the contrary in fact. If we take the above examples, the first is simply an attempt to mask what is an international war crime into a reasonable policy of intervention. All rather reminiscent of the language which evolved during the Indo-china wars, e.g. ‘we destroyed the village in order to save …

Why are these oligarchs so concerned about African “corruption”?

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Anton Du Plessis, of the ISS in South Africa, writes that “we” should no longer tolerate corruption in Africa undermining human rights.

Of course, when he says “we”, he doesn’t mean us. You and I – We don’t “tolerate” African corruption, for it is not in our power to do anything about such things. You know who does tolerate African corruption? Billionaires, oligarchs and corporate monopolies.

Brzezinski and the US national interest – a comment from Rome

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by Giulietto Chiesa, Defend Democracy In summary: separate Russia from China and set them against each other, persuading whichever of the two will agree to become a privileged partner of the US.  Easy to say but hard to achieve.  And yet it must be achieved.  Otherwise the alternative for the US will be clear and unavoidable: losing its dominant role in the world, or encountering “mutually assured destruction”.  It means engaging in a strategic battle (nuclear and otherwise) with one of the two antagonists, or both. Aged but untamed, Zbigniew Brzezinski tackles the “catastrophic” situation of the US in an article that – like others in his career – is meant to create a lasting impression and perhaps go down in history.  It is published in ” The American Interest”. The text takes the form of a proposal to Mrs. Hillary Clinton as the next American president.  And it is, as usual, a brilliant exhibition of raw truth, accompanied by total impudence toward the rest of the world.  Zbigniew Brzezinski the Pole remains convinced that …

“Our imperial adventurism”

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by Charles W. (Chas) Freeman, Jr., via LobeLog I’m here to talk about the end of the American empire. But before I do I want to note that one of our most charming characteristics as Americans is our amnesia. I mean, we are so good at forgetting what we’ve done and where we did it that we can hide our own Easter eggs. [….] Americans like to forget we ever had an empire or to claim that, if we did, we never really wanted one. But the momentum of Manifest Destiny made us an imperial power. It carried us well beyond the shores of the continent we seized from its original aboriginal and Mexican owners. The Monroe Doctrine proclaimed an American sphere of influence in the Western Hemisphere. But the American empire was never limited to that sphere. In 1854, the United States deployed U.S. Marines to China and Japan, where they imposed our first treaty ports. Somewhat like Guantánamo, these were places in foreign countries where our law, not theirs, prevailed, whether they liked …

Washington Military Planners Have Gone Mad

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by F. William Engdal via New Eastern Outlook To read the Western mainstream media, we would be led to believe that the big, bad Russian Bear, with Vladimir Putin atop, shaking a fistful of nuclear warheads, is confronting the West in the most threatening manner imaginable. We should believe Russia is provoking at every turn, frothing at the mouth and threatening to invade the Baltic countries and perhaps all Western Europe. We would feel quite justified, as the propaganda spin of Washington claims, to protect America’s European allies from surprise Russian nuclear attack by surrounding Russia with anti-Ballistic Missile Defense (BMD) systems. So we as citizens in the Western NATO countries have little reaction at all when we read some days ago that the Obama White House announced it had activated the first phase of its anti-ballistic missile defense system (BMD), known as AEGIS, in an air base in Deveselu, Romania. Poland will be next to become activated with Washington’s Aegis. The Aegis Ashore system has been officially put into operation and can already launch …