Washington’s Chaoskeeping in Syria

Posted on May 18, 2017 by Reid Mukai

By Martin Berger

What is the US up to in Syria? – This question is not simply bugging the Arab world, as the whole international community has been trying to find an answer to this puzzle. This matter became especially relevant after the so-called “chemical attack” in the Syrian Governorate of Idlib that occurred on April 4 and the subsequent cruise missile strike against the Al-Shayrat air base that followed a few days later.

The initial false-flag attack, which immediately resulted in a stream of accusations against the Syrian army and the allied Russian troops, was abused by the so-called Syrian Observatory For Human Rights, which has repeatedly participated in spreading fake reports, along with unreasonable and unverified accusations against the Syrian authorities over the years. Then, in accordance with a clearly pre-planned scenario, the High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Federica Mogherini along with France and Britain joined the action thriller, quickly switching the blame mode on. There can be no doubt that a stream of accusations being voiced against Damascus prior to any sort of preliminary investigation, let alone a thorough one, was what the Washington coalition was aiming at.

Why bother trying to provide any sort of evidence, when previously Washington managed to bring down an unwanted regime by simply handing over a tube filled with unknown substances that was handed over to Colin Powell for him to shake it in the air in front of the UN Security Council. Sure, it was a cheap trick but it worked due to the fact that nobody expected Washington to fall so low, using a dubious pretext to invade and destroy Iraq.

Once Washington, London, and Paris went under a wave of public outrage for their baseless acusations against Damascus, French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault on April 26, acting in accordance with the instructions that Washington provided him with, rushed to present the world a “declassified report of the French secret services,” that were allegedly convinced that Damascus used sarin nerve agent to launch an attack against the town of Khan Shaykhun.

But one could remind Western powers and Jean-Marc Ayrault in particular that six days before the release of this so-called declassified report Australian doctors fell victims of sarin gas in Iraq. Should we hold Damascus responsible for that attack too? Or would we be better off admitting that ISIS militants have repeatedly used sarin and other nerve gas agents both Syria and Iraq, along with their own drones!

By the way, one would not be out of line by demanding how the blood thirsty ISIS radicals that are supposedly surrounded by the US coalition forces and cut off any outside forms of support are not simply continue using nerve agents from the warehouses that remain in their control, while Damascus has officially destroyed all of its chemical stockpiles which has been officially confirmed by the representatives of international community, but are building their own drones. Any drone production operation is something that can hardly be done in the field, especially under the nose of the vigilant French intelligence services, that chose to get engaged in a propaganda war against Damascus instead. As for their British counterparts, they are sending the so-called White Helmets in the contested areas of Syria without the slightest concern for the security of these propaganda heroes in territories occupied by ISIS.

In short, Washington’s actions and the steps taken by its loyal servants in Paris and London with a theatrical performance with “Assad’s chemical attack” and their unwillingness to conduct a thorough investigation of this incident bears a strong resemblance of the events of 2003 in Iraq, which resulted in in the complete destruction of the country and the emergence of ISIS that Washington is allegedly fighting today.

Therefore, it is hardly worth explaining once again what sort of dangerous developments on both the regional and international levels can be triggered by the repetition of the reckless scenario when Washington first makes a political decision, and then creates a political excuse to go along with it. This is how armed conflicts were started not only in Iraq in 2003, but Yugoslavia and Libya, with the so-called Western humanitarian intervention, and Afghanistan too.

Provocations like the one that occurred in Khan Sheikhoun, without a doubt, demand a professional investigation conducted under the supervision of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) by a team of international experts from various regions of the world. There can be no doubt that such an investigation must be open and transparent. The current attempts to block this approach only confirm the doubts about the sincerity of those who are trying to use the incident to push forward their own agenda, in a bid to bring down the UN Security Council Resolution 2254, going along with a time-tested regime change tactics instead.

As for the United States, it is still very difficult to say what plans Washington can try to pull out in Syria in a bid to bring Damascus down. However, Washington’s policies in the region conducted through the last two decades can be briefly described as #chaoskeeping.

Who Controls The Government?

Posted on May 17, 2017 by Reid Mukai

By Scott Lazarowitz

Source: Activist Post

It is quite ironic that the previous Drone-Bomber-in-Chief, Barack H. Obama, has been given the “profile in courage” award, which is being presented to him this week by the JFK Library Foundation. But how much courage did it take for Obama to order the bombings of several different countries, killing mostly innocent civilians, when those countries were of no threat to us?

How insulting to President John F. Kennedy, who promoted peace after recognizing that the post-World War II Cold War and national security state were destructive and unnecessary, and who wanted to “splinter the CIA in a thousand pieces and scatter it to the winds.”

In a June, 1963 speech promoting peace, nuclear disarmament, and diplomacy, Kennedy stated, “No government or social system is so evil that its people must be considered as lacking in virtue. As Americans, we find Communism profoundly repugnant as a negation of personal freedom and dignity. But we can still hail the Russian people for their many achievements — in science and space, in economic and industrial growth, in culture, in acts of courage.”

The hard-core Cold Warriors probably didn’t like that. Their existence as “security” bureaucrats and their little fiefdoms in Washington were dependent on the fear and paranoia of those “commies,” just as the modern day bureaucrats are dependent on post-9/11 fear-mongering.

And the corporatist cronies back then also probably didn’t like Kennedy’s assertion that “the expenditure of billions of dollars every year on weapons acquired for the purpose of making sure we never need them is essential to the keeping of peace. But surely the acquisition of such idle stockpiles — which can only destroy and never create — is not the only, much less the most efficient, means of assuring peace.”

The narcissistic arrogance could be seen in the military bureaucrats when they consciously and knowingly pursued continued aggressions in Vietnam despite their knowing by the mid-1960s that the war could not be won, as revealed by the Pentagon Papers. Those “leaders” contributed to the deaths of a million innocents and tens of thousands of American soldiers who died for no good reason but to serve the deranged egos of the military bureaucrats.

And Iraq in 1990-91, the decision by President George H.W. Bush to start a whole new war and bombing campaign against a country, Iraq, that didn’t attack us and was of no threat to us, was not just an act of incompetence, but a criminal act.

Bush approved of the U.S. military’s bombings of civilian water and sewage treatment centers and electric service facilities, followed by sanctions and no-fly zones that were continued by President Bill Clinton throughout the 1990s which led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocent civilian Iraqis. It was an intentional policy of sadism and psychopathic cruelty, that perhaps involved more sinister long-term goals than just to do with oil.

Who would purposely cause a whole population to be vulnerable to disease and death? Who would do that?

But now we have President Donald Trump, who campaigned with anti-war, anti-imperialism rhetoric, but is now the Happy Warmonger. And Trump’s civilian cabinet advisors include military general graduates from West Point or other top military academies but they aren’t exactly trained in the ideas of restraint, diplomacy, the rule of law, and the U.S. Constitution.

No, post-World War II military people are trained to suppress their consciences, their moral scruples, in order to rationalize their invasions of other territories and the deaths of innocents they cause.

And oh how happy the Trump-advising generals and the other higher-ups in the military must be that Donald Trump is so easily manipulable and spongy. Their psy-ops are working on him like a charm.

It used to be that psy-ops were used by the military and CIA on foreign agents, to manipulate the enemy’s emotions and their decisions. And then the military saw how useful such a technique had been on their own U.S. senators, as reported by the late Michael Hastings in Rolling Stone.

Which is apparently illegal, under U.S. law. Unless they view their own fellow Americans as the “enemy.” Hmm.

Foreign policy analyst Gareth Porter recently tweeted: “Military now seeking permanent US military presence in Iraq and Afghanistan. Time to say loud ‘No’ to permanent war.”

So it’s getting worse now.

Some theorists believe the zealous bureaucrats of the military need permanent war and occupation abroad in order to achieve such a takeover at home. (There may be other reasons, however.)

When the military controls the government, and then there is some kind of emergency or economic collapse, of course they will not think twice about imposing martial law, legal or not, constitutional or not. They will also not think twice about disarming law-abiding Americans.

In Revolutionary times, the early Americans were rightfully wary of militarism, because they knew that would lead to tyranny. But the immoral and incompetent bureaucrats of the modern U.S. government long ago abandoned any concern for the rule of law and the U.S. Constitution.

Scott Lazarowitz is a libertarian writer and commentator. please visit his blog.

Forbidden Questions? 24 Key Issues That Neither the Washington Elite Nor the Media Consider Worth Their Bother

Posted on May 15, 2017 by Reid Mukai

By Andrew J. Bacevich

Source: TomDispatch.com

Donald Trump’s election has elicited impassioned affirmations of a renewed commitment to unvarnished truth-telling from the prestige media. The common theme: you know you can’t trust him, but trust us to keep dogging him on your behalf. The New York Times has even unveiled a portentous new promotional slogan: “The truth is now more important than ever.” For its part, the Washington Post grimly warns that “democracy dies in darkness,” and is offering itself as a source of illumination now that the rotund figure of the 45th president has produced the political equivalent of a total eclipse of the sun. Meanwhile, National Public Radio fundraising campaigns are sounding an increasingly panicky note: give, listener, lest you be personally responsible for the demise of the Republic that we are bravely fighting to save from extinction.

If only it were so. How wonderful it would be if President Trump’s ascendancy had coincided with a revival of hard-hitting, deep-dive, no-holds-barred American journalism. Alas, that’s hardly the case. True, the big media outlets are demonstrating both energy and enterprise in exposing the ineptitude, inconsistency, and dubious ethical standards, as well as outright lies and fake news, that are already emerging as Trump era signatures. That said, pointing out that the president has (again) uttered a falsehood, claimed credit for a nonexistent achievement, or abandoned some position to which he had previously sworn fealty requires something less than the sleuthing talents of a Sherlock Holmes. As for beating up on poor Sean Spicer for his latest sequence of gaffes — well, that’s more akin to sadism than reporting.

Apart from a commendable determination to discomfit Trump and members of his inner circle (select military figures excepted, at least for now), journalism remains pretty much what it was prior to November 8th of last year: personalities built up only to be torn down; fads and novelties discovered, celebrated, then mocked; “extraordinary” stories of ordinary people granted 15 seconds of fame only to once again be consigned to oblivion — all served with a side dish of that day’s quota of suffering, devastation, and carnage. These remain journalism’s stock-in-trade. As practiced in the United States, with certain honorable (and hence unprofitable) exceptions, journalism remains superficial, voyeuristic, and governed by the attention span of a two year old.

As a result, all those editors, reporters, columnists, and talking heads who characterize their labors as “now more important than ever” ill-serve the public they profess to inform and enlighten. Rather than clearing the air, they befog it further. If anything, the media’s current obsession with Donald Trump — his every utterance or tweet treated as “breaking news!” — just provides one additional excuse for highlighting trivia, while slighting issues that deserve far more attention than they currently receive.

To illustrate the point, let me cite some examples of national security issues that presently receive short shrift or are ignored altogether by those parts of the Fourth Estate said to help set the nation’s political agenda. To put it another way: Hey, Big Media, here are two dozen matters to which you’re not giving faintly adequate thought and attention.

1. Accomplishing the “mission”: Since the immediate aftermath of World War II, the United States has been committed to defending key allies in Europe and East Asia. Not long thereafter, U.S. security guarantees were extended to the Middle East as well. Under what circumstances can Americans expect nations in these regions to assume responsibility for managing their own affairs? To put it another way, when (if ever) might U.S. forces actually come home? And if it is incumbent upon the United States to police vast swaths of the planet in perpetuity, how should momentous changes in the international order — the rise of China, for example, or accelerating climate change — affect the U.S. approach to doing so?

2. American military supremacy: The United States military is undoubtedly the world’s finest. It’s also far and away the most generously funded, with policymakers offering U.S. troops no shortage of opportunities to practice their craft. So why doesn’t this great military ever win anything? Or put another way, why in recent decades have those forces been unable to accomplish Washington’s stated wartime objectives? Why has the now 15-year-old war on terror failed to result in even a single real success anywhere in the Greater Middle East? Could it be that we’ve taken the wrong approach? What should we be doing differently?

3. America’s empire of bases: The U.S. military today garrisons the planet in a fashion without historical precedent. Successive administrations, regardless of party, justify and perpetuate this policy by insisting that positioning U.S. forces in distant lands fosters peace, stability, and security. In the present century, however, perpetuating this practice has visibly had the opposite effect. In the eyes of many of those called upon to “host” American bases, the permanent presence of such forces smacks of occupation. They resist. Why should U.S. policymakers expect otherwise?

4. Supporting the troops: In present-day America, expressing reverence for those who serve in uniform is something akin to a religious obligation. Everyone professes to cherish America’s “warriors.” Yet such bountiful, if superficial, expressions of regard camouflage a growing gap between those who serve and those who applaud from the sidelines. Our present-day military system, based on the misnamed All-Volunteer Force, is neither democratic nor effective. Why has discussion and debate about its deficiencies not found a place among the nation’s political priorities?

5. Prerogatives of the commander-in-chief: Are there any military actions that the president of the United States may not order on his own authority? If so, what are they? Bit by bit, decade by decade, Congress has abdicated its assigned role in authorizing war. Today, it merely rubberstamps what presidents decide to do (or simply stays mum). Who does this deference to an imperial presidency benefit? Have U.S. policies thereby become more prudent, enlightened, and successful?

6. Assassin-in-chief: A policy of assassination, secretly implemented under the aegis of the CIA during the early Cold War, yielded few substantive successes. When the secrets were revealed, however, the U.S. government suffered considerable embarrassment, so much so that presidents foreswore politically motivated murder. After 9/11, however, Washington returned to the assassination business in a big way and on a global scale, using drones. Today, the only secret is the sequence of names on the current presidential hit list, euphemistically known as the White House “disposition matrix.” But does assassination actually advance U.S. interests (or does it merely recruit replacements for the terrorists it liquidates)? How can we measure its costs, whether direct or indirect? What dangers and vulnerabilities does this practice invite?

7. The war formerly known as the “Global War on Terrorism”: What precisely is Washington’s present strategy for defeating violent jihadism? What sequence of planned actions or steps is expected to yield success? If no such strategy exists, why is that the case? How is it that the absence of strategy — not to mention an agreed upon definition of “success” — doesn’t even qualify for discussion here?

8. The campaign formerly known as Operation Enduring Freedom: The conflict commonly referred to as the Afghanistan War is now the longest in U.S. history — having lasted longer than the Civil War, World War I, and World War II combined. What is the Pentagon’s plan for concluding that conflict? When might Americans expect it to end? On what terms?

9. The Gulf: Americans once believed that their prosperity and way of life depended on having assured access to Persian Gulf oil. Today, that is no longer the case. The United States is once more an oil exporter. Available and accessible reserves of oil and natural gas in North America are far greater than was once believed. Yet the assumption that the Persian Gulf still qualifies as crucial to American national security persists in Washington. Why?

10. Hyping terrorism: Each year terrorist attacks kill far fewer Americans than do auto accidents, drug overdoses, or even lightning strikes. Yet in the allocation of government resources, preventing terrorist attacks takes precedence over preventing all three of the others combined. Why is that?

11. Deaths that matter and deaths that don’t: Why do terrorist attacks that kill a handful of Europeans command infinitely more American attention than do terrorist attacks that kill far larger numbers of Arabs? A terrorist attack that kills citizens of France or Belgium elicits from the United States heartfelt expressions of sympathy and solidarity. A terrorist attack that kills Egyptians or Iraqis elicits shrugs. Why the difference? To what extent does race provide the answer to that question?

12. Israeli nukes: What purpose is served by indulging the pretense that Israel does not have nuclear weapons?

13. Peace in the Holy Land: What purpose is served by indulging illusions that a “two-state solution” offers a plausible resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict? As remorselessly as white settlers once encroached upon territory inhabited by Native American tribes, Israeli settlers expand their presence in the occupied territories year by year. As they do, the likelihood of creating a viable Palestinian state becomes ever more improbable. To pretend otherwise is the equivalent of thinking that one day President Trump might prefer the rusticity of Camp David to the glitz of Mar-a-Lago.

14. Merchandizing death: When it comes to arms sales, there is no need to Make America Great Again. The U.S. ranks number one by a comfortable margin, with long-time allies Saudi Arabia and Israel leading recipients of those arms. Each year, the Saudis (per capita gross domestic product $20,000) purchase hundreds of millions of dollars of U.S. weapons. Israel (per capita gross domestic product $38,000) gets several billion dollars worth of such weaponry annually courtesy of the American taxpayer. If the Saudis pay for U.S. arms, why shouldn’t the Israelis? They can certainly afford to do so.

15. Our friends the Saudis (I): Fifteen of the 19 hijackers on September 11, 2001, were Saudis. What does that fact signify?

16. Our friends the Saudis (II): If indeed Saudi Arabia and Iran are competing to determine which nation will enjoy the upper hand in the Persian Gulf, why should the United States favor Saudi Arabia? In what sense do Saudi values align more closely with American values than do Iranian ones?

17. Our friends the Pakistanis: Pakistan behaves like a rogue state. It is a nuclear weapons proliferator. It supports the Taliban. For years, it provided sanctuary to Osama bin Laden. Yet U.S. policymakers treat Pakistan as if it were an ally. Why? In what ways do U.S. and Pakistani interests or values coincide? If there are none, why not say so?

18. Free-loading Europeans: Why can’t Europe, “whole and free,” its population and economy considerably larger than Russia’s, defend itself? It’s altogether commendable that U.S. policymakers should express support for Polish independence and root for the Baltic republics. But how does it make sense for the United States to care more about the wellbeing of people living in Eastern Europe than do people living in Western Europe?

19. The mother of all “special relationships”: The United States and the United Kingdom have a “special relationship” dating from the days of Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill. Apart from keeping the Public Broadcasting Service supplied with costume dramas and stories featuring eccentric detectives, what is the rationale for that partnership today? Why should U.S. relations with Great Britain, a fading power, be any more “special” than its relations with a rising power like India? Why should the bonds connecting Americans and Britons be any more intimate than those connecting Americans and Mexicans? Why does a republic now approaching the 241st anniversary of its independence still need a “mother country”?

20. The old nuclear disarmament razzmatazz: American presidents routinely cite their hope for the worldwide elimination of nuclear weapons. Yet the U.S. maintains nuclear strike forces on full alert, has embarked on a costly and comprehensive trillion-dollar modernization of its nuclear arsenal, and even refuses to adopt a no-first-use posture when it comes to nuclear war. The truth is that the United States will consider surrendering its nukes only after every other nation on the planet has done so first. How does American nuclear hypocrisy affect the prospects for global nuclear disarmament or even simply for the non-proliferation of such weaponry?

21. Double standards (I): American policymakers take it for granted that their country’s sphere of influence is global, which, in turn, provides the rationale for the deployment of U.S. military forces to scores of countries. Yet when it comes to nations like China, Russia, or Iran, Washington takes the position that spheres of influence are obsolete and a concept that should no longer be applicable to the practice of statecraft. So Chinese, Russian, and Iranian forces should remain where they belong — in China, Russia, and Iran. To stray beyond that constitutes a provocation, as well as a threat to global peace and order. Why should these other nations play by American rules? Why shouldn’t similar rules apply to the United States?

22. Double standards (II): Washington claims that it supports and upholds international law. Yet when international law gets in the way of what American policymakers want to do, they disregard it. They start wars, violate the sovereignty of other nations, and authorize agents of the United States to kidnap, imprison, torture, and kill. They do these things with impunity, only forced to reverse their actions on the rare occasions when U.S. courts find them illegal. Why should other powers treat international norms as sacrosanct since the United States does so only when convenient?

23. Double standards (III): The United States condemns the indiscriminate killing of civilians in wartime. Yet over the last three-quarters of a century, it killed civilians regularly and often on a massive scale. By what logic, since the 1940s, has the killing of Germans, Japanese, Koreans, Vietnamese, Laotians, Cambodians, Afghans, and others by U.S. air power been any less reprehensible than the Syrian government’s use of “barrel bombs” to kill Syrians today? On what basis should Americans accept Pentagon claims that, when civilians are killed these days by U.S. forces, the acts are invariably accidental, whereas Syrian forces kill civilians intentionally and out of malice? Why exclude incompetence or the fog of war as explanations? And why, for instance, does the United States regularly gloss over or ignore altogether the noncombatants that Saudi forces (with U.S. assistance) are routinely killing in Yemen?

24. Moral obligations: When confronted with some egregious violation of human rights, members of the chattering classes frequently express an urge for the United States to “do something.” Holocaust analogies sprout like dandelions. Newspaper columnists recycle copy first used when Cambodians were slaughtering other Cambodians en masse or whenever Hutus and Tutsis went at it. Proponents of action — typically advocating military intervention — argue that the United States has a moral obligation to aid those victimized by injustice or cruelty anywhere on Earth. But what determines the pecking order of such moral obligations? Which comes first, a responsibility to redress the crimes of others or a responsibility to redress crimes committed by Americans? Who has a greater claim to U.S. assistance, Syrians suffering today under the boot of Bashar al-Assad or Iraqis, their country shattered by the U.S. invasion of 2003? Where do the Vietnamese fit into the queue? How about the Filipinos, brutally denied independence and forcibly incorporated into an American empire as the nineteenth century ended? Or African-Americans, whose ancestors were imported as slaves? Or, for that matter, dispossessed and disinherited Native Americans? Is there a statute of limitations that applies to moral obligations? And if not, shouldn’t those who have waited longest for justice or reparations receive priority attention?

Let me suggest that any one of these two dozen issues — none seriously covered, discussed, or debated in the American media or in the political mainstream — bears more directly on the wellbeing of the United States and our prospects for avoiding global conflict than anything Donald Trump may have said or done during his first 100 days as president. Collectively, they define the core of the national security challenges that presently confront this country, even as they languish on the periphery of American politics.

How much damage Donald Trump’s presidency wreaks before it ends remains to be seen. Yet he himself is a transient phenomenon. To allow his pratfalls and shenanigans to divert attention from matters sure to persist when he finally departs the stage is to make a grievous error. It may well be that, as the Times insists, the truth is now more important than ever. If so, finding the truth requires looking in the right places and asking the right questions.

Andrew J. Bacevich, a TomDispatch regular, is the author of America’s War for the Greater Middle East: A Military History, now out in paperback. His next book will be an interpretive history of the United States from the end of the Cold War to the election of Donald Trump.

Jiddu Krishnamurti, the Inner Revolution, and Why We Don’t Really Love Our Children

Posted on May 11, 2017 by Reid Mukai

(Editor’s note: on this anniversary of the birthday of Jiddu Krishnamurti [born May 11, 1895] please read and share this excellent overview of some of the key principles of his philosophy.)

By Matt Karamazov

Source: High Existence

“The mind must be utterly silent. Not asking, not hoping for experience. It must be completely still. Only then is there a possibility of that light which will dispel our darkness.”

— Jiddu Krishnamurti

IS FUNDAMENTAL CHANGE POSSIBLE?

In a collection of talks given throughout the 1950’s and gathered together in the book, The Revolution From Within, Jiddu Krishnamurti stressed the urgency of staging a revolution in our thinking.

Our habitual ways of thinking have led us to where we are now, he says, and nothing less than radical, fundamental change has any hope of remaking our thoughts, attitudes, and ultimately the societies in which we live. Anything less than fundamental change is a mere modification of what has come before, and key aspects of what has come before has in turn failed a large proportion of our population.

The paradox that Krishnamurti relentlessly demands us to consider, however, is that nothing we can DO can bring about this change. We can only observe the operations of our own mind, and ask questions about everything that we think we know.

Consider the question, “Is fundamental change possible?”, the jumping-off point leading to the multitudinous questions that Krishnamurti is asking us to examine deeply.

It’s where we have to begin if we want to observe the functioning of our own minds on a level that will have real significance with respect to the outside world, and how we live our lives.

So let’s go into this question, friends, with an open mind, a mind that is open to revelation.

If we go into it with the idea that we already know the answer, then we won’t turn up anything worthwhile. This is a question with real consequences for the way we organize our societies, parent our children, and direct our lives.

We must pursue the idea of fundamental change in the same way that Jiddu Krishnamurti relentlessly posed questions to his listeners.

You’ll notice, if you read the transcripts of some of his greatest talks, that Krishnamurti asks multiple questions for every single ‘answer’ that he gives. He might answer one, only to pose three others that each attempt to get at the original question in a more nuanced way.

Krishnamurti does this because life’s biggest questions have no final answers.

Given the asymptotic nature of perfect Truth, we can only approach it by negation; by discarding what isn’t true or helpful, in an effort to move past our conditioned thinking and to achieve radical, fundamental change.

But is such a change indeed possible?

This is something that must be gone into, and not just accepted because someone has said it. It has no meaning if you just merely accept it. Arguments from authority, that common logical fallacy, have no essential relationship to perfect Truth.

Truth needs no defenders or justification.

Rather, you must ceaselessly question what you think you know, and approach life’s biggest questions from the viewpoint of someone who knows nothing. And it really is clear that we do know nothing, in an absolute sense, as we will discuss later in more depth.

If I were to ask you who you are, where you came from, where you’ll ultimately end up, and where you are right now, you would have no satisfactory answers to any of these questions. There would always be a deeper level of Truth that you could never penetrate with your limited, conscious mind.

So let’s start from the beginning…

WHAT IS FUNDAMENTAL CHANGE?

What exactly is it that we can point to as evidence that a revolution in the mind has taken place that is not simply a modification of what was there before?

It’s clear that anything that can be incrementally added is not fundamental change. It’s a modification, and it’s improvement, but it is not the fundamental change that we are seeking.

This “adding to” the mind, such as one can achieve by reading books or watching documentaries or listening to talks is simply an incremental increase of knowledge. No matter how compelling or insightful, this newfound knowledge will always be an addition to what was there before.

While learning is important, and proper education is never a waste of time, it’s merely representative of change on the surface, and change on the surface can never lead to radical, fundamental change. What we’re really after is meaningful change.

What kind of change IS meaningful? Is only fundamental change meaningful? How do we get closer to understanding what it might look like?

Let’s first take a look at a few examples of surface change, or simple modifications, in order to get an idea of what radical change is NOT. Thereby, we can approach the idea of fundamental change via negation.

For example:

If you are unhappy, and you are trying to BECOME happy, then you have instantaneously DEFINED YOURSELF as an unhappy person struggling to overcome his or her unhappiness.

You can become MORE happy, sure, but you will always be an unhappy person, always in the process of becoming slightly more happy, adding to your happiness, instead of experiencing the radical, fundamental change that brings with it a revolution in the mind.

Happiness will always be somewhere ‘over there’ and you will always be struggling to arrive there.

That can never be said to be true happiness and fulfillment, and it is certainly not what we mean by fundamental change.

In the same way, trying to become virtuous, we never acquire virtue, but rather expand our Self in the ‘guise’ of virtue.

Simply, a man who cultivates virtue ceases to be completely virtuous, because there is a part of him that is not, a part of him that is increasing his virtue. Likewise, a man who practices humility is no longer completely humble.

And further:

When violent, the mind has an ideal of non-violence which is ‘over there’ in the distance. It will take time to achieve that state, and in the meantime, the mind can continue to be violent.

This, too, is not the radical, fundamental change which we are seeking to illuminate.

So now that we know what fundamental change is not, do we know any more about what it is?

Is it not instantaneous, unconditional freedom in the here and now? Is it not timeless, in that we don’t have to wait for it to appear?

Are there any preconditions that have to be met?

I think that we can conclude, provisionally, that we have the freedom to drop our resentments and sadness at any time we so choose.

Easy for me to type, extremely difficult for you to do. I get that.

But from our current position, we can see that it is our mind, this thing that we call the self, that is preventing fundamental change from occurring. As we get further into our discussion, we’ll have a better handle on whether or not we can discard the restraints of the self, and realize radical, fundamental change.

THE NECESSITY OF FUNDAMENTAL CHANGE

Assuming that we can become radically different than we are today, we must ask ourselves:

Is this a pursuit that’s worthwhile?

Is it necessary?

Do we need to change at all?

I think it would be obvious to many people that we DO need to see fundamental change in our societies and our patterns of social interaction.

A world in which billions of people currently live on less than $2.00/day is crying out for change.

And to be clear, that figure is, shockingly, adjusted for purchasing power. It’s not what $2.00 would buy you in a developing country, although that would be bad enough; rather, billions of people are living on what you could buy for $2.00 a day in a country like Canada or the US.

Aside: There is commendable, although insufficient, progress being made by extremely committed individuals and organizations all over the world. In fact, the World Bank recently predicted that global extreme poverty will soon fall to under 10%. To make matters more complicated, there is an ongoing debate concerning what exactly constitutes “extreme poverty.”

To say that fundamental change isn’t necessary in a world like ours is akin to being in a sinking ship and saying: “I’m sure glad the hole isn’t in OUR end!”

However, we can state rather confidently that trying to change society, while leaving the individuals who constitute that society unchanged, is a dangerous error.

Simply put, we cannot afford to be “ordinary” any longer; the challenge of the world is too great.

We are the world; we are not on the sidelines. What we are, of that we make the world, and everywhere we face real problems that demand our urgent attention.

Thus, we return to the question at hand: Is fundamental change necessary?

I think it’s clear that it is necessary, if by fundamental change within our societies we mean implementing societal structures that would do better in meeting the needs of all our world’s inhabitants.

Obviously, this is a vastly more complex problem than it even may seem at first. It has many moving parts, but we can only begin where we are. A total revolution of the mind has to start from within. Society is comprised of individuals, and radical societal change starts at the level of the individual.

Yet, most of us are so eager to reform others and so little concerned with the transformation of ourselves.

Can we not see that this whole attitude is very confused?

We often look up to those who can help us or who can do something for us, and look down on those who cannot. So we are always looking up or looking down. Cannot the mind be free from this state of contempt and false respect?

Is it even possible to look through the lens of our own confusion and get a clear picture of the idea of radical, fundamental change?

It is to this question that we now turn.

WE ARE ALL CONFUSED

“There is a path to the known, but not to the unknowable. Thus every system of finding truth breaks down.”

— Jiddu Krishnamurti

Before going further in our discussion, I think it’s helpful to take a look at our own confusion when confronted with the problem and necessity of fundamental change.

We’ve asserted that it’s both possible and necessary, but what are the impediments to action? Why are we not all enlightened already? If it’s supposed to be instantaneous, why is it so difficult for us?

The answer has to lie somewhere within our own confusion.

It’s very difficult to admit to yourself that you are confused, but clearly, we are all confused.

And, truth be told, those who say they aren’t confused, are the most confused of all.

In order to be free from confusion, we would have to know that which it is impossible to know. We’d need to know where the universe in its totality is headed, we’d need to know our precise place within it, who we are fundamentally, and what we need to do with our lives.

Philosophers are good at coming up with “-isms” that seek to explain the world and its direction. We can look for answers in logical positivism, consequentialism, possibilianism, dialectical materialism, populism, liberalism, empiricism, and every other kind of ‘-ism’ that we can conceive of, but we are still going to remain confused. Every book and every teacher is only going to add to this confusion that prevents us from knowing what life is all about.

It may be that we do not know what living is about at all, and that is why death seems to be such a terrible thing. Obviously, everyone is confused about death, and many more things besides.

The whole totality of the mind is confused, and there simply isn’t a higher part of the mind which isn’t.

So how are we supposed to make sense out of all this confusion?

Is it possible to bring clarity to our naturally disordered minds?

Is there a method we can follow, or a path we can take towards clarity?

Krishnamurti explains that whenever one is confused, one must stop all activity, psychologically. Otherwise, anything new is just translated according to our own confusion.

If I’m confused, then I may read, or look, or ask, but my search, my asking, is the outcome of my confusion, and therefore it can only lead to further confusion.

We know this, but is there anything we can do about it?

The problem is not the real issue; rather, it is the mind which approaches the problem.

So, again we return to the necessity of radical, fundamental change.

We can’t keep incrementally increasing our store of knowledge and, at some distant point, realize fundamental change. So we have to drop down to the level of the mind, and see if we can’t somehow bypass the problem of incremental change altogether.

So, you see how our desire for the resolution of our confusion can never lead to fundamental change.

All solutions are based on desire, and the problem exists BECAUSE of desire.

Basically, thought is not the way out. All of our thought is conditioned, and a confused mind cannot resolve its own confusion.

You have chosen your political leaders, your religious leaders, out of your confusion.

You have chosen your career, your friends, your daily activities out of your confusion.

The books you’ve read, the experiences you’ve had, the lessons you’ve learned, have all been assimilated according to the confusion that already exists in your mind.

Collectively, we’ve established our social order based on our confusion. Our efforts to help the poor are based on our confusion. Our educational institutions are based on our confusion.

We don’t even know what we don’t know.

But…

When you realize that you don’t know, then you are beginning to find out.

THE FUTILITY OF SEEKING

“If we take this journey together, and simply observe as we go along the extraordinary width and depth and beauty of life, then out of this observation may come a love…which is a state of being free of all demand…and we may perhaps be awakened to something far more significant than the boredom and frustration, the emptiness and despair of our daily lives.”

— Jiddu Krishnamurti

How do we escape our confusion?

How can we even tell when we’re not confused any more?

Is there an end to our confusion while we are still alive?

Krishnamurti’s prescription is as follows:

“Observe the activities of the mind without trying to change them or put a stop to them, because the moment you seek an end, you are back in the ‘me, not-me’ duality.

It’s the mind that is unaware of its own activities that sets up as the authority someone or something external to which we go for help, and we therefore become slaves.”

He is saying that we can bring about a transformation in ourselves only when we understand the process of our own thinking.

What is important is to understand the whole field of thought, and see if the mind can go beyond all that.

He asks, “Is thought somehow different than the mind?”

This in turn leads us to the question of, “What is the ‘self’, the center of the ‘me’ from which all activity seems to spring?”

The self for most people is a center of desires, manifesting itself through various forms of continuity.

We ceaselessly desire to perpetuate ourselves, to satisfy our cravings, and to set ourselves up as an object of specialness in a world of meaning.

None of these desires are permanent except in the memory of what we have been and would like to be, although we try to make them permanent through clinging to various ideas, perceptions, and relationships.

For those who want more, more, more, life is an everlasting struggle.

Life is one thing, and what we want is another. We get what we want, only to discover that it’s not ultimately what we wanted at all. We wanted some other thing, tantalizingly just a little further up the road.

Can we live in this world without any effort to be or become something, without trying to achieve, to reject, to acquire?

I mean, of course, without trying to become something other than your authentic self?

Can the mind cease to think in terms of continuing, of the “me”?

The concern to become something more, to become something others want you to be, is the constant preoccupation of the mind and the primary cause of its superficiality.

That much is clear. Which leads Krishnamurti to say:

“It is my mind that creates the problem, my mind being the result of time, of memory, the seat of the ‘me’, which is everlastingly craving for the ‘more’, for immortality, for continuity, for permanency here and in the hereafter. It is this uncertainty within ourselves that leads to the outward manifestations of personal ambition, the desire to be somebody, the aggressive attitude towards life.”

What we are, of that we make the world. So in order to avoid superficiality and meaninglessness, there must be ceaseless questioning.

Any conscious effort on my part to become something other than what I am, or other than what I consciously want to become, only produces still further suffering, sorrow, and pain.

A man like Jiddu Krishnamurti would never tell his listeners that education was a waste of time. However, we must never believe that our education is over, or that we have somehow reached the end of our confusion.

Everything around us tells us what to think, books and teachers included, and we must continually renew our freedom from traditional and historical thinking in every moment.

Linear thinking and the all-too-human propensity to settle for easy answers has failed the bottom 40%. It even plagues those in the so-called ‘developed’ nations who are today stricken by existential anxiety.

At bottom, acquisitiveness and greed have destroyed our potential for gratitude.

Nationalism and eschatological certitude have crippled our capacity for understanding and reconciliation.

A radical, fundamental revolution from within can restore the unrestrained lust for life that gives us our reason for being. We can revive our capacity to greedily enjoy our friends, instead of our possessions.

But so long as there is the idea of the “me” or the “I”, then there must necessarily be loneliness.

And you can’t seek the immeasurable because you don’t know what it is; hence the futility of seeking.

But, can we give up seeking? Just like that?

Can we overcome our self-directed focus and do what is just and fair? Can we live with uprightness in a world often bereft of such character?

Or, even more basically, can we love our children?

JIDDU KRISHNAMURTI SAYS WE DON’T REALLY LOVE OUR CHILDREN

“If we did love our children, we would stop all wars tomorrow, obviously. We would not condition our children. They would not be English children or American children, they would just be children.”

— Jiddu Krishnamurti

If you have been following what has been discussed so far, you will see that fundamental change is absolutely critical to the dissolution of the threats to our continued existence.

Violence and suffering on a global scale can be reduced to the individual. It is the mind of the individual that approaches the problem that needs to change, and the world is made up of individuals.

Society is based on violence and comparisons, and as long as it is so, there will always be struggle within that society, not to mention all the struggles, pains, and difficulties that naturally accompany human existence. That is what Krishnamurti is driving at here.

Everything that we do is based on striving, ambition, success, achievement; but none of it is the abandonment of the self.

Granting that everyone is doing the best that they can, the best that they know how to do, how can it be otherwise that our toxic thoughts and undisciplined habits are being passed down to our children?

Our own confusion, with which we are now hopefully becoming intimately aware, cascades downward to future generations.

Parents want their children to conform to meet the demands of their insane societies, but is that education?

Since our society is not yet what it should be, why encourage our children to stay within its destructive pattern?

We are currently dependent on this pattern, but can we live without this dependence?

The insistence on one’s nationality, on race, on religious belief or any other idea, obviously separates. All of it represents the activities of the self, and its insistence on continuity and self-perpetuation. That much is clear.

We submit to authority because all of us have this inward demand to be safe, to feel secure. We have enough to think about with respect to our survival and to the “success” of our children, that we can easily settle into the acceptance of easy answers handed down to us from above. Whether that means from the state or from some religious authority.

This safety, so it seems to many, must be defended at all costs, because we have so much invested in it.

So much of our identities and our feelings of assurance of our continued survival rest on the perceived strengths of our existing institutions.

It’s here that Krishnamurti steps in with the bold and incendiary claim that we don’t really love our children.

You don’t really love your children, he says, so you sacrifice them to protect your property, to defend your State, or the church, or some other organization which demands of you certain things.

Organized religions don’t really insist that you step out of greed, envy, ruthless ambition, and cruelty. They are far more concerned with what you believe, with rituals and the rest of the confusion.

In contrast, righteousness of behavior is not something to be gained, to be arrived at, but must be understood from moment to moment in the actuality of daily living.

It requires a fundamental change in our approach to life, and constant awareness of how our actions impact others.

Krishnamurti’s own phrasing is as such:

“The man who is ceaselessly questioning, who has no authority, who does not follow any tradition, any book or teacher, becomes a light unto himself.”

Perhaps it’s radical, fundamental change that’s required to shake us out of our collective stupor and restore to us our humanity.

THE REVOLUTION

“Sirs, life is something extraordinary, if you observe it. Life is not merely this stupid little quarreling among ourselves, this dividing up of mankind into nations, races, classes; it is not just the contradiction and misery of our daily existence. Life is wide, limitless, it is that state of love which is beauty; life is sorrow and this tremendous sense of joy. But our joys and sorrows are so small, and from that shallowness of mind we ask questions and find answers.”

— Jiddu Krishnamurti

If there can be any conclusion at all, it’s that freedom is not at the end; it is at the very beginning, the now.

The end is at the beginning, which lies outside of time.

Radical, fundamental change does not come at the end. Rather, it’s our starting point. If we’re not happy now, then we never will be. If we don’t remake our societies now, then we never will.

Fundamental change doesn’t occur across time, but rather it is available to us at every moment.

Revolutions of the mind occur instantaneously, at the very moment when we cease our anguished searching.

And that is what our lives often are, correct?

We say: “I am ‘this’, and I would like to be ‘that,’” but the struggle to be something different is still within the pattern of our desire.

All suffering comes from desire, and so any incremental change that we pursue throughout our lives is not only going to be fraught with confusion, but will carry with it all the attendant suffering and anguish which it necessarily implies.

So where can we find relief for this condition of the mind?

Where can we go for some form of final answer to our continued searching and relentless questioning?

In the end, we must realize that life’s biggest questions have no definite answers. Indeed, the right question has no answer.

We must also conclude that a mind that seeks peace will never find it, and thought is not the way out.

When you see that fundamental change is instantaneous, and is a function of observing the workings of your own mind, you can break free of your past at any moment, and start to unravel your own conditioning.

It’s simple: The mind can never free itself through some system or method. Anything that your mind DOES can never bring about this kind of radical, fundamental change that we are discussing.

Anything that can be KNOWN is not what we’re looking for.

All that can be left to us is to observe the functioning of our own minds.

When we realize this, we also realize the truth of Krishnamurti’s words when he says:

“To have that inward fullness of life, which includes death, the mind must free itself from the known. The known must cease for the unknown to be.”

When you don’t know what it is that you’re looking for, and you don’t know what it’ll look like when you find it, all that remains to you is to examine the operations of your own mind.

Naturally, this leads to the falling away of every answer that has been and could be given concerning happiness and fulfillment, and concerning how we should govern our societies.

Since we see that the ideas of happiness and fulfillment are constantly changing, we must ask ourselves if there really is such a thing.

We’ve been discussing the necessity and possibility of fundamental change for some time now, and if you have been following the logical progression of our discussion, you can see that observing the function and operation of your own mind without judgement is the only way out of our collective confusion.

I can also assume that you WANT to love your children, that you WANT to overcome the destructive patterns of society, and that you WANT to affirm the meaningfulness of daily life.

So what’s stopping you?

What’s holding you back from experiencing this revolution of the mind?

In the final analysis, there is nothing to do, and nothing to attain.

“When you realize there is nothing lacking, the whole world belongs to you”

— Lao Tzu

There is no set of rules or precepts that you are required to follow, nothing that you are being asked to believe.

Rather, fundamental change is ready and waiting.

What are YOUR answers to these questions that we have been discussing? How will they impact you on the concrete level of your daily existence? Will you change?

If you don’t change now, then you never will.

All the best,

Matt Karamazov

Imperialism and the Logic Of Mass Destruction

Posted on May 8, 2017 by Reid Mukai

By Carl Boggs

Source: CounterPunch

As throughout much of its war-obsessed history, the United States is currently engaged in military conflict – or threatening such action – across a broad contested terrain. In the cases of Iraq, Afghanistan, and Syria, Washington has resorted to its familiar global modus operandi: sending off barrages of missiles and bombs, much of it hitting civilian populations and resources needed for their survival. Death tolls mount, the largest numbers lately in the protracted battle for Mosul. Heavier casualties are being visited upon non-combatants in Yemen, thanks to U.S.-backed Saudi aerial savagery.

We have been told by the media that President Trump has apparently relaxed the rules of warfare, thus allowing civilians to be more easily victimized the midst of armed conflict. Innocent noncombatants are being made increasingly vulnerable to ravages of the largest and most aggressive war machine in history. That, however, would be a serious misreading of the situation: Trump, like Obama, the Bushes, and Clinton before him, is simply operating within an historical pattern of imperial war making for which rules of engagement matter little, if at all. There is no deviation from the norm.

In fact Pentagon elites insist nothing has changed in their methods of warfare – and they are right. While the U.S. accuses, threatens, and attacks others for their (real or imputed) transgressions, its own apparatus of mass destruction continues with few legal or moral constraints. In particular, Washington long ago turned aerial terrorism into a normalized mode of technowar that reduces civilians to dispensable objects.

In recent weeks U.S. aerial bombardments in Syria alone have reportedly killed several hundred people, mainly civilians. Daily raids in Iraq, mostly targeting ISIS in Mosul, have accounted for more than 3000 civilian deaths, according to AirWars sources. To believe this is a departure from the past – or that civilian casualties are simply an inevitable by-product of combat – is to ignore the American history of savage warfare, which since World War II has meant bringing horrendous death and destruction from the skies.

There is actually nothing “indiscriminate” about this savagery: all too often it has been planned, deliberate, systematic – and discriminate. Moreover, the U.S. has far surpassed any other nation in the production, deployment, and use of WMD, its military doctrines now as in the past embracing the virtues of weaponry designed to bring mass destruction. Consider that WMD comes in four distinct types: nuclear, biological, chemical, conventional (mainly saturation bombing). We could add to this list economic sanctions of the sort the U.S. (through the United Nations) imposed on Iraq during the 1990s that killed hundreds of thousands of civilians. As the U.S. resorted to sanctions continuously in the postwar era – targeting Iran, Cuba, Yugoslavia, North Korea, and Russia as well as Iraq – the civilian death toll (well past a million) has far exceeded that from nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons combined.

Yet it is conventional warfare that has brought the greatest destruction, for both combatants and civilians – and it remains the most imposing threat today. The WMD threat arrives in the form of strategic (alternatively saturation, area, carpet, or scorched-earth) bombing, introduced by the British and Americans during World War II and refined across the decades. Worth noting is that the U.S. is the only nation to have manufactured, stored, deployed, and used all five types of WMD.

In densely-populated centers like Mosul and Raqqa – and where hundreds of drone strikes are carried out – efforts to distinguish between combatants and civilians are virtually impossible; large numbers of civilian dead and wounded tolls are inevitable. That has never deterred U.S. military decision-makers at the Pentagon or in the field, whatever “rules” are set forth in the Universal Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) or international statutes. From World War II to Korea, Indochina, Iraq, Yugoslavia, and beyond, this carnage is alternately blamed on mistakes, inescapable “collateral damage”, intelligence failures, enemy use of “human shields” – all while boasting of the latest “precision weaponry”. Unfortunately, the U.S. military rarely conducts genuine investigations into the devastation it produces, and for good reason: it does want to come face-to-face with its flagrant war crimes.

Since late 2014 U.S. (or Coalition) planes have carried out more than 20,000 strikes in Iraq and Syria, resulting in an estimated 70,000 “militant” deaths – a number that surely includes civilian losses that will never be known and based on a calculus that is routinely understated. According to AirWars, at least 3325 civilians were killed from a total of 566 air strikes in the region, but that is only where evidence is clearly available. Meanwhile, recent non-combatant deaths in Mosul alone have reached more than 2500, as reported by AirWars. Important civilian objects – residences, public buildings, markets, etc. – have been repeatedly hit with high-explosive weaponry. The bombing raids have only intensified.

What is taking place in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Syria replicates a familiar disregard for long-established international law, as even the corporate media unwittingly acknowledges by attributing a “loosening of rules” to the out-of-control Trump. California Representative Ted Lieu recently sent a letter to Defense Secretary James Mattis seeking clarification of American global behavior: “The substantial increases in civilian deaths caused by U.S. military force in Syria and Iraq brings into question whether the Trump administration is violating the Laws of War.” Trump is indeed violating such laws – specifically the 1949 Geneva Protocol prohibiting wanton attacks on civilians – but, as noted, he is simply following deeply-entrenched American practices.

For more than a century American imperialism has been fueled by a combustible mixture of national exceptionalism, militarism, racism, and pursuit of global supremacy. Civilian inhabitants and their necessary supports have never stood in the way of these powerful forces, even where it has meant resort to WMD. Demonized Asian populations have been mercilessly targeted, with impunity – and unbelievably savage consequences. Looking at the apparent willingness of the Trump administration to consider nuclear warfare on the Korean peninsula, with its unthinkable horrors, we can readily see that little has changed over the decades.

As Washington looks to reassert economic, political, and military leverage in the Asia-Pacific region – the so-called “Asian Pivot” to contain China – escalating U.S. threats should be taken seriously. Whether conventional or nuclear, the Pentagon is poised to strike first against North Korea. For several months, indeed years, the U.S. has done everything short of all-out war to intimidate and subvert the Kim Jung Un regime: large-scale military exercises, economic sanctions, cyberattacks, new troop deployments, constant threats of attack. There is much talk in Washington and the media of “preemptive war”, including efforts to “decapitate” the regime. A supposedly impenetrable missile-defense system (THAAD) is being installed across South Korea.

Koreans already know far more than they would prefer about the horrors of mass destruction emanating from the U.S. What can only be called a war of annihilation, carried out by the U.S. to secure battlefield victory over endless stalemate, in the face of strong Chinese and North Korean forces, left a death toll on the peninsula with estimates reaching as high as five million, nearly 80 percent civilian. Political, legal, and moral constraints were routinely tossed aside, as American military culture eagerly took up the World War II code that mass killing of civilians was legitimate – actually vital – to the kind of war of attrition the U.S. had waged against the Japanese.

When the U.S. Army was forced into a perilous retreat in fall 1950, General Douglas MacArthur ordered his air force to destroy “every means of communication, every installation, factory, city, town, and village” in Korea. Food sources and water facilities were systematically targeted and obliterated. Nonstop raids, employing napalm and other incendiary devices, left the main centers of human life (including the capital Pyongyang) in smoking ruins. Stephen Endicott and Edward Hagerman, in their eye-opening book The United States and Biological Warfare, write: “As it had been in World War II, strategic bombing was extended to the mass destruction of civilian populations, and as in World War II the reservations that the U.S. had about saturation bombing of Europeans in that earlier war were not extended to Asians.”

In December of 1950 the Joint Chiefs of Staff endorsed President Truman’s readiness to use atomic bombs in Korea to avoid further stalemate or defeat. This “option” was retained throughout the war, finally to be jettisoned by President Eisenhower in 1953. White House and Pentagon officials also favored employing both chemical and biological weapons in a theater where mass destruction was already far advanced.

In fact the U.S. did launch a phase of biological warfare in Korea, a criminal project the warfare state has tried to keep secret. Evidence uncovered by the Koreans and Chinese revealed a U.S. military campaign to disseminate a wide variety of deadly biological agents, hoping to create epidemics, panic, and social breakdown in the north. In late 1950 large outbreaks of plague, cholera, smallpox, and encephalitis were reported in Pyongyang and several provinces, according to Endicott and Hagerman. This was part of a scorched-earth policy U.S. troops employed as they retreated southward throughout 1950 and 1951.

Endicott and Hagerman add: “The U.S. had substantial stocks of biological weapons on hand. Moral qualms about using biological or atomic weapons had been brushed aside by top leaders and biological warfare might dodge the political bullet of adverse public and world opinion if it were kept secret enough to make plausible denial of its use.” Moreover, Washington had not signed the 1925 Geneva Protocol banning such weaponry. Later investigations and reports found the U.S. guilty as charged, a finding naturally dismissed by Americans as “Communist propaganda”.

The Pentagon’s biological program was kept intact until early 1953. Meanwhile, the U.S. Air Force was busy destroying every Korean target in sight, including agricultural fields and hydroelectric dams, dropping an endless supply of fragmentation bombs, napalm, and high-explosive devices. In August 1952 Pyongyang was leveled by a series of saturation-bombing raids. Still unable to break the military stalemate, the USAF transferred a large stock of atomic weapons to Okinawa as it prepared for a new phase of warfare that, fortunately, was never set in motion.

Embracing the great benefits of WMD, the U.S. military was able to revitalize its strategy of total war, understood by many at the summits of power as God’s work. General Matthew Ridgway, Eighth Army commander, could say in 1951: “The real issues are whether the power of Western civilization, as God has permitted it to flower in our own beloved lands, shall defy and defeat Communism . . . [and] whether we are able to survive with God’s hand to guide and lead us, or to perish in the dead existence of a Godless world.” Before Korea, the God of a privileged imperial nation had similarly blessed the American takeover of the Philippines at a cost of several hundred thousand lives – and before that the massacre of Indian tribes (by Andrew Jackson’s troops) at Horseshoe Bend and (by Colonel John Chivington’s marauders) at Sand Creek, among many other atrocities.

An imperialist ideology that embellished, even celebrated, warfare against civilians reached its first methodical expression during World War II. In the Pacific, this meant a war of annihilation against the Japanese, who at that time stood for the “Asian masses” or “hordes”. In such a war everything was permissible, starting with the deliberate and ruthless obliteration of entire cities, including those with little or no military significance. Saturation bombing launched by waves of the most technologically-developed warplanes raised barbarism to new levels. Admiral William Halsey, U.S. Pacific Fleet commander, vowing revenge for Pearl Harbor, promised that Japanese would henceforth be spoken only in hell while ordering his personnel to “kill Japs, kill Japs, kill more Japs.” (Worth noting: only military targets were hit at Pearl Harbor.) The remarkable American hatred of Japanese was destined to produce, in John Dower’s words (War without Mercy “a spellbinding spectacle of brutality and death.”

On March 9-10, 1945, U.S. planes dropped 1,665 tons of incendiary bombs on Tokyo, with the aim of destroying the city; at least 100,000 civilians were instantly killed. Aerial terrorism then turned to Osaka, Nagoya, Kobe, and more than 60 other cities, targeting mostly defenseless civilian areas with vengeful frenzy. A few cities remained – Hiroshima and Nagasaki among them – until they were obliterated by the new superweapon developed at the Manhattan Project, leaving another 150,000 dead amid unimaginable mass destruction.

There could be no justification for such criminality. A.J. Grayling, in his book All the Dead Cities, surveyed the history of strategic bombing and concluded that World War II pilots should have refused orders to carry out such raids. (None in fact did.) General Curtis LeMay, architect of the firebombing attacks on Japanese cities, later conceded: “If we had lost the war we would all have been prosecuted as war criminals.” Allied prosecutors at the Nuremberg and Tokyo tribunals moved to exclude that very possibility, so aerial mass murder was exempted from wartime culpability.

World War II set in motion an elevated trajectory of imperial atrocities that would continue throughout the postwar years. While nations were generally expected to follow international law and wartime rules of engagement, and the vast majority have chosen to do so, the U.S. simply took another path: contempt for the norms of universality. To this day Washington steadfastly refuses participation in the International Criminal Court (ICC), understandably fearing prosecution of its own government and military personnel for war crimes. The plain fact is that American elites can routinely launch wars against peace and target civilian populations without even the pretense of any legal rationale.

Less than a decade after the Korean War the U.S. commenced a new phase of barbarism in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia, dropping eight million tons of bombs compared to the two million tons dropped on all countries in World War II. This was equivalent to 640 Hiroshimas. Saturation bombing was perfected beyond its usage against Japan and Korea: B-52s systematically carpet-bombed large zones, followed by a torrent of anti-personnel weapons including cluster bombs, white-phosphorous, and a specially-upgraded napalm. By 1974, the U.S. military had dropped seven bombs for every person in Indochina. As for napalm, a staggering 373,000 tons was unleashed in Vietnam, compared to 32,000 tons in Korea.

In Vietnam, the Pentagon relied heavily on chemical warfare: roughly 6500 flights to spray Agent Orange and other toxic agents were carried out between 1962 and 1971, the intent being to destroy crops and foliage. Operation Ranch Hand contaminated more than 31,000 square kilometers, poisoning at least four million people and leaving hundreds of thousands afflicted with cancer, lung diseases, and birth defects. Such warfare could never distinguish combatants from civilians, nor did the U.S. military command make any real efforts to do so.

In more recent decades, civilian death tolls resulting from U.S. military operations in the Middle East and beyond have easily surpassed one million. Harsh economic sanctions imposed on Iraq, Yugoslavia, Iran, Syria, Cuba, and others could have reached that same figure. Aerial bombardments have devastated large, densely-populated areas of Iraq, Panama, Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Libra, and Syria. Weapons “upgraded” with depleted uranium (DU) have left a toxic legacy in Iraq and Serbia, overwhelmingly harming civilians.

Back to Korea: the Trump administration says it has “lost all patience” with North Korean leaders and their “reckless behavior”, and has (again) “opened the door” to military attack while seemingly holding out prospects of diplomacy that, however, depend on rigid stipulations. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said that for any talks to occur North Korea would first have to “exhibit good faith commitment” by jettisoning its nuclear program – a complete non-starter. Given such imperial arrogance, can mounting confrontation be avoided?

With all that is at stake – perhaps one million people killed within the first day or so of a new Korean War, vast urban centers decimated, a potential nuclear exchange – rational leadership might be expected to retreat from such a nightmarish scenario and consider a more peaceful modus vivendi. (For the U.S., a peaceful option is exactly what is “off the table”.) From the standpoint of Washington, “rational” pursuits are also imperial pursuits and imperial pursuits generally lead to military pursuits, as history demonstrates. Technowar managers are not especially sensitive to the prospects of massive civilian losses. Normal behavioral assumptions therefore do not apply to U.S. war calculations, whoever occupies the White House.

Carl Boggs is the author of The Hollywood War Machine, with Tom Pollard (second edition, forthcoming), and Drugs, Power, and Politics, both published by Paradigm.

4 Ways to Throw a Monkey Wrench into the War Machine

Posted on May 4, 2017 by Reid Mukai

By Gary ‘Z’ McGee

Source: Waking Times

“When a public is stressed and confused, a big lie told repeatedly and unchallenged can become accepted truth.” ~George Orwell

One of the biggest lies told is the false notion that in order to maintain peace, we must have war. Orwellian logic.

As ridiculous as it sounds, the majority of naïve statists believe this notion to be true. This is due, in no small part, to statist conditioning and state-driven propaganda that capitalizes on a blind, patriotic whimsy. And so the war machine continues to rage on, destroying lives, while fattening the pockets of the fat cats at Lockheed Martin and Boeing, not to mention all the other companies which directly and indirectly profit from war. It’s an all-too-common tragedy. But what can you expect when living within an oligarchic plutocracy disguised as a democratic republic? Rhetorical questions aside, there must be ways in which we can, as courageous individuals, throw a monkey wrench into the war machine and thus stop it in its violent tracks.

Here are four ways to do precisely that.

1. Teach Military Members to Disobey Immoral Orders

“The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently.” ~Friedrich Nietzsche

The military chain of command is an antiquated system of leadership that is, unfortunately still in use today. It’s the epitome of a human centipede. Everything just rolls downhill. Like lemmings hell-bent on going over whatever cliff the “higher ranking” lemmings tell them to, the military chain of command is a blatant case of “the blind leading the blind.” Leadership is nothing more than ad hoc authoritarianism disguising a greedy race to the next rank or pay raise. They are not trained to be true leaders who think for themselves; they are brainwashed to be obedient followers that follow orders without question. The entire system is set upon blind obedience.

One way to toss a wrench into the war machine is to teach its members how to courageously and strategically disobey orders, especially immoral ones. Teach them how to put their foot down, how to be a real leader who leads by example, which may, at times, seem like a “bad” example according to the corrupt chain of command, but a “good” example according to health, sustainability, morality, justice, liberty, and truth. Teach them how to be self-empowered human beings first and military members second. Teach them how all things are relative to the observer, especially regarding truth and power. Like Nietzsche said, “All things are subject to interpretation; whichever interpretation prevails at a given time is a function of power and not truth.”

2. Question the Statist Chain of Obedience

“Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided men.” ~Martin Luther King, Jr.

In today’s day and age, wars exist because of disagreeable nation states, when they could probably be resolved by reasonable men. The problem is most men are made unreasonable by being unwitting, prideful statists with nationalism and patriotism muddying their logic. As Nietzsche said, “In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, and epochs, it is the rule.”

In order not to get caught up in the insanity that ends up leading to war, we must, as individuals, question the state-driven chain of obedience being shoved down our throats by the system. The problem is too many people blindly obey, even at the expense of their own freedom and liberty. There’s too much apathy and indifference and not enough logic and reasoning. We’re a nation of misguided statists propagandized and brainwashed to no end. It’s time to upset the rotten-apple cart. It’s time to turn the tables on insanity. It’s time to put the horse of spiritual power (morality), back in front of the cart of scientific power (military). In short: It’s time to disobey.

3. Transform Statist Patriotism into Worldly Patriotism

“Every transformation demands as it’s pre-condition the ending of a world-the collapse of an old philosophy of life.” ~Carl Jung

Patriotism is a tricky thing. It pulls at our heartstrings. It tugs at our pride like puppet strings. And before we know it, we’re a blind patriot, knee-jerk reacting to the prideful boasts of other blind patriots. And suddenly we’re at war. But there is a way out of this unthinking emotional bias: redefine patriotism itself by becoming an interdependent worldly patriot instead of a codependent statist patriot. All it takes is a little imagination, a little logic and reasoning toward the way everything is connected. Then we rise above the statist condition, think outside the statist box, and embrace the world-as-self/self-as-world dynamic as our patriotic start.

Becoming a worldly patriot is perhaps the most effective way to toss a wrench into the war machine, because the war machine feeds upon the statist patriotic whimsy of the masses; but it chokes on a worldly patriotism, which understands – war anywhere, is a war against ourselves as an interdependent whole.

4. Become An Anti-War Warrior

“The most useful piece of learning for the uses of life is to unlearn what is untrue.” ~Antisthenes

An anti-war warrior has unlearned what is untrue, and has become an anti-war activist par excellence. Anti-war warriors are peaceful warriors who know when to go Tiananman Square on the war machine. They have made an art form out of civil disobedience, strategic and intelligent with their anti-war activism. When the war machine rears it’s ugly head, anti-war warriors know how to ninjaneer inside and outside the belly of the beast, using the pen just as mightily as the sword to strategically transform statist mindsets and dismantle the machine itself.

At the end of the day, the war machine is still a very real menace that cannot be ignored. We can no longer remain silent to the atrocities of the corrupt nation states that “govern” us. Their wicked war machines have been running rampant over our precious planet for far too long. It’s time we challenged it. It’s time we countered it with logic, reasoning, and thinking outside the statist box. We do this by disobeying all immoral orders passed down from both the chain of command and the chain of obedience. We do it by becoming worldly patriots and anti-war activists with the courage it takes to change the world.

“The greatest threat to our planet is the belief that someone else will save it.” -Unknown

The West Is Becoming Irrelevant, The World Is Laughing

Posted on April 27, 2017 by Reid Mukai

By Andre Vltchek

Source: TruePublica

I was recently told by an Asian friend of mine who is working in Paris: “Lately I stopped following almost all that is happening politically in the United States, in the UK and even here in France. It all feels suddenly so irrelevant, a waste of time.”

Statements like this would be unimaginable only one decade ago. In the past, what came from Washington and (to a smaller extent) from London was monitored with great attentiveness and fear, all over the world.

But all of a sudden, things have begun to change, rapidly. Despite the extremely violent nature of the Western-designed-and-manufactured global regime, which has been over-imposed on so many parts of the world for decades and centuries, increasing amounts of people in Asia, Latin America and Africa stopped worrying and went leisurely to the ‘barricades’, beginning to rebel against the perverseness of the ‘world order’.

Did it all really happen ‘all of a sudden’?

Or were there various catalysts at work, for already quite a substantial period of time?

It is a well-known fact that any deep-seated, chronic anxiety cannot disappear in just a short moment. People who are enslaved, humiliated, scared into obedience, people who are forced to feel uncertain and constantly frightened, cannot reverse their state of mind without some important external factor or set of factors.

It became obvious to me, as I have been working continuously on all continents and in almost all conflict zones of our Planet, that the renewed pride and courage which is now inspiring millions of oppressed human beings, actually came from the decisive and determined stand of just several brave and determined nations, big and small.

The myth about the omnipotence of the Empire has received a few significant blows.

The fable of invincibility has not completely disappeared yet, but at least it has got fractured and gravely injured.

The gate of the terrible prison began cracking. It has not collapsed, but the fractures were wide enough for at least some sunlight to enter the dark and dreadful cavities inhabited by billions of unfortunate and shattered beings.

Some victims stood up immediately; not many but at least some did. Others raised their heads in feeble hope, still lying down on the dirty ground, still chained, and still shaking. That weak light alone entering the dungeon was actually much brighter than what most people ever experienced in their entire life. It has been strong enough to provoke wonderful, brilliant sparks of hope

Except for some temporary setbacks (like in Brazil and Argentina), the anti-imperialist coalition is now steadier than ever; it is determined and constantly expanding.

And it is clearly winning!

It is truly a ‘rainbow coalition’ of countries, big and small, ‘red’ and ‘pink’, even ‘green’.

The only unifying factor is the shared determination not to be controlled by Western imperialism and neo-colonialism.

For decades, Cuba stood against the Empire, even after the Soviet block was broken to bits, even when all mutual agreements ceased to be honored by the criminal Yeltsin administration. The Cuban people never surrendered. It is because most of them always believed, from the bottom of their hearts, in socialism and internationalism. And also because they have been convinced that the Western Empire is a morally corrupt and illegitimate entity and therefore has to be resisted.

A small and relatively poor country – Cuba – demonstrated to the entire world that while the Empire is mighty, sadistic and brutal, it is not omnipotent, and it is possible to defy it. There is no reason why one should not dare, or one should not dream about a much better world, why one shouldn’t fight for true freedom, attempting to win.

Cuba inspired the world. Its daring Revolution took place just a few miles from the shores of the United States. Soon after, its teachers and doctors went to all parts of the earth, spreading optimism, solidarity and kindness. Its heroic revolutionaries went to fight against the most dreadful forms of colonialism, which were torturing people, is such places as Congo, Angola and Namibia.

After Obama’s attempts to water down the determination of the Cuban citizens, many enemies began to predict, cynically: “Now Cuba will compromise and sell its Revolution.”

It never did! I travelled to the Island last year, driving through the countryside, and speaking to people in Havana, Guantanamo and Santiago de Cuba. Almost no one was ready to compromise. A greatly educated nation, Cuba saw through the Empire’s tricks and deceptions.

Now almost nobody speaks about the “Cuban compromise”, anymore, simply because there isn’t any on the table.

China, one of the oldest and greatest civilizations on Earth, went through the terrible period of ‘humiliation’. Divided, occupied and plundered by the West, it has never forgotten nor forgiven.

Now the Chinese Communist state and its mixed economy are helping countries in virtually all parts of the world, from Oceania and Latin America, to the Middle East and especially Africa, to survive and to finally stand on their own feet. Despite all the vitriolic propaganda regurgitated by the West (those people in Europe or North America who know close to zero about Africa or China, habitually passing ‘confident’ and highly cynical ‘judgments’ about China’s involvement in the poor world; judgments based exclusively on the lies and fabrications produced by the Western media), China has been gaining great respect and trust in virtually all corners of the globe.

The Chinese people and their government are now standing firmly against Western imperialism. They will not allow any recurrence of the disgraceful and dreary past.

The West is provoking this mighty and optimistic nation, pushing it into a terrible confrontation. China doesn’t want any military conflict. It is the most peaceful, the most non-confrontational large nation on Earth. But it is becoming clear that if pushed against the wall, this time it will not compromise: it will fight.

In the last years I have spoken to many Chinese people, as I travelled to all corners of the country, and I’m convinced that by now the nation is ready to meet strength with strength.

Such determination gives hope to many other countries on our Planet. The message is clear: the West cannot do whatever it wants, anymore. If it tries, it will be stopped. By reason or by force!

Russia is ready again, too. It is standing next to China, enormous and indignant.

Go to Novosibirsk or Tomsk, to Khabarovsk, Vladivostok or Petropavlovsk in Kamchatka. Talk to Russian people and you will soon understand: almost nobody there believes or respects the West, anymore. Throughout history, Russia was attacked and ransacked from the West. Millions, tens of millions of its people were murdered, literally exterminated. And now, the nation is facing what some consider to be yet another imminent attack.

Like the Chinese people, Russians are unwilling to compromise, anymore. The old Russian forecast is once again alive, that very one professed by Alexander Nevsky:

Go tell all in foreign lands that Russia lives! Those who come to us in peace will be welcome as a guest. But those who come to us sword in hand will die by the sword! On that Russia stands and forever will we stand!

In Russia, as in China, and as in so many other nations that were devastated by the Western plunderers, nothing is forgotten and no one is forgotten. It only appeared for a while that the memory had fainted. It never does. You cannot burn down an entire land, ruin the cities, burn the fields, and still pose as one with the moral mandate. Or as we say in Chile: “Justice takes time, but it always comes!”

And the world is watching. It is suddenly clearly registering this determined and brave, epic stand of morally strong nations. Many of those who are watching are deeply impressed with what they are seeing. Perhaps not in London or in Paris, but go and ask those in Johannesburg or Beirut, or even in Calcutta, Cairo or Buenos Aires. Perhaps you suspect what answers you’d receive there!

Throughout modern history, not once has Iran invaded a foreign country. Yet its secular, progressive and democratic government (under the leadership of Mohammad Mosaddegh) was overthrown in 1953, in a CIA-backed coup. What followed was the monstrosity of the ‘pro-Western Shah’, and then a horrendous war, an invasion by Iraq, which was also fully backed by the West and which took hundreds of thousands of human lives. Since then, Iran has been suffering from targeted killings of its scientists (by the West and Israel), as well as terrorist attacks also backed from abroad.

Instead of falling on its knees and begging for mercy, Iran defied the West. On several occasions and when provoked, it sent its battleships to the neutral waters near the US coast, and it pledged to defend its land, in case it was to be attacked.

Iran also showed great solidarity towards Latin America, working closely with virtually all of the revolutionary governments there. It stood firmly by Venezuela in a time of great crises, building social housing in Caracas and supporting the Process by all other means.

In Latin America, no one will ever forget how former Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad came to Caracas to attend the funeral of Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez, his dear friend. During the memorial, the aged mother of Chavez suddenly approached Ahmadinejad, in tears. Breaking all religious protocol of a Shi’a country that he was representing, the Iranian President embraced her, and held her against his heart, until she calmed down.

This moment was expressing one simple and powerful reality: all of us, the internationalists and anti-imperialists, are fighting for the survival of humanity and this planet. There is more that unites us than what is tearing us apart. Once we win, and we will win, the world will be able to find a common language. The West wants to divide us, by spreading hostilities and distrust, all through ‘false news’ and fabrications. But we understand its game. We will not break our ranks, anymore.

The West is clearly losing. It knows it. It is in panic.

Its nihilism, its propaganda and indoctrination tactics will soon be defeated.

I wrote a lot about the DPRK and how it joined the list of the ‘most hated nations on Earth’. It is a well known fact that North Korea was, for years and decades, much richer and more democratic than South Korea (ROK). But it embarked on one tremendous humanist ‘project’, and together with Cuba, the Soviet Union and to some extent China, it liberated almost the entire African continent, at great cost and sacrifice. And not only that: it sent its top educators and doctors to all corners of the most devastated continent on Earth. Its pilots also flew Egyptian MIGs against Israel, during the 1967 war. These facts have been silenced by Western propaganda, but they clearly explain why the DPRK has been ostracized, pushed to the corner, hit by senseless embargos, and forced to react the way it has been reacting for at least the last two decades.

North Korea has never surrendered either, and it never will.

Neither has Venezuela, for many years the great sentinel and engine of the Bolivarian Revolution, as well as of Latin Internationalism and solidarity. Surviving coups, embargos, plots and propaganda campaigns, surviving attacks, even terror, of the foreign-backed ‘opposition’, Venezuela has been injured but it is alive. Just a few days ago I spoke to an Italian Parliamentary delegation, consisting of the“5-Star-Movement” MPs, which recently returned from Caracas. Their conclusion was simple: “The worst is over”.

The world knows it! Venezuela, DPRK, Cuba – they never fell. No matter how many knives penetrated their bodies, despite so much pain caused by the sanctions, coup attempts and direct acts of terrorism administered by the West and its monstrous Empire.

It is becoming clear and obvious: the West is helpless against determination, true courage and patriotic love. It is powerless when confronted with humanist ideologies, and with true loyalty!

And the world keeps watching, drawing its conclusions.

I wrote about Syria, comparing Aleppo to the 20th Century Stalingrad. This is where racism, terrorism, and the lowest forms of Western imperialism were decisively stopped. The price was terrible, but the message to the world extremely clear: The people who love their country with their entire hearts can fight and win against all odds, especially if by their side stand truly great and reliable friends and comrades!

One day the world will thank the Syrian people, profusely and properly. One day, everything will be understood. One day, perhaps soon.

This is one of the greatest moments in human history, perhaps the greatest.

It has arrived without big salvos announcing monumental revolutions.

Everything is happening fast, in an organized and determined manner.

The greatest minds of Russia, China, Latin America and the rest of the world, are feverishly, day and night, trying to determine what really brought our world, our civilization, to this ludicrous downfall.

The simplified and stripped-down answer is this: Western imperialism (military, economic and ‘intellectual’/ ’cultural’), colonialism and neo-colonialism, as well as that dreadful by-product of all the above combined – a set of unchecked and savage form of capitalism.

Simultaneously, new forms of government, of economy and social systems are being, once again, planned.

The military strategists of the countries that are refusing to kneel in front of the barbaric terror of the West, responsible for hundreds of millions of murders and billions of ruined lives, are planning how to defend their countries and the world.

Once again, the world is at work! It is building trenches, educating people, preparing them for the final showdown with the culture that has been tormenting our Planet for centuries.

It is the moment of great hope and renewed enthusiasm.

Of course, if seen from Western capitals, everything is bleak and depressing. There is no ‘hope’ at all.

I agree fully: there is no hope ‘for them’.

The logic, the ‘philosophy’ with which the Europeans and the North Americans have become accustomed to analyze the world, has arrived at a dead end.

Yes, it is ‘the end of philosophy’, or as they say, ‘the end of history’. I fully agree: it is the end of their philosophy and of their history.

That’s why, reading about their elections or statements produced by their politicians, is nothing less than a waste of time. The world realizes it, more and more.

Their ‘new tricks’ are actually very old. Their entire system is outdated. It should have been retired at least one hundred years ago. It survived only because of its savagery and cruelty. It will go soon, anyway.

These days, encountering people inhabiting the West is like encountering those zombies who were living in Nazi Germany during WWII. After the war was over, they were streetwalking for years, at least many of them, repeating the same refrains: “We didn’t know!” “We never realized”. The Nazi propaganda and the one, which has been used in the West and in the colonies (as Noam Chomsky and I defined in our book “On Western Terrorism”), are based on precisely the same roots, foundations and methods. Both are extremely effective, when it comes to the total brainwashing of the population.

To follow up the last chapter of the imperialist and turbo capitalist morass of the West is embarrassing and useless.

Both Europe and the United States are suffering from a series of devastating mental illnesses, as was defined by the great Swiss psychologist Carl Gustav Jung, right after WWII.

Getting too much involved in pathological behavior, constantly studying and analyzing it, could only break and deeply depress any healthy person’s mind.

There is nothing more to understand. Hundreds of millions of victims in all parts of the world are speaking for themselves.

The only rational issue here is this: how to stop this horror, as soon as possible? How to allow humanity to return to its natural development and evolution patterns?

I don’t believe in ‘punishments’ and ‘trials’ and other vehicles of intimidation and of spreading fear. I don’t care whether the West will ‘pay’ for all that it has done to the world. I only want it to be stopped, once and for all.

I work very hard for it to be stopped.

So are others.

And the world is watching, and all of a sudden enjoying what it sees.

Suddenly more and more people are daring to laugh at the global regime. Of course not in Paris, London or New York (here they are scared and obedient, even more than before). But outside, yes!

People on all continents want to see and hear about what ‘others do’, what ‘we do’, not what the Empire and its mental conditions are producing.

They are laughing and waiting impatiently for what a new day, a new year will bring. They are waiting for the true new beginning to arrive.

Andre Vltchek is a philosopher, novelist, filmmaker and investigative journalist. He has covered wars and conflicts in dozens of countries. Three of his latest books are revolutionary novel “Aurora” and two bestselling works of political non-fiction: “Exposing Lies Of The Empire” and “Fighting Against Western Imperialism”. View his other books here. Andre is making films for teleSUR and Al-Mayadeen. Watch Rwanda Gambit, his groundbreaking documentary about Rwanda and DRCongo. After having lived in Latin America, Africa and Oceania, Vltchek presently resides in East Asia and the Middle East, and continues to work around the world. He can be reached through his website and his Twitter

International Collaboration to End Violence

Posted on April 24, 2017 by Reid Mukai

By Robert J. Burrowes

While much of the world is engulfed in violence of one sort or another
(whether violence in the home or on the street, exploitation, ecological
destruction or war), a global network of individuals and organizations
is committed to ending this violence in all of its manifestations.

With individual signatories in 100 countries and organizational
endorsements in 35 countries, each of these individuals and
organizations works on one or more manifestations of violence in their
locality and some of the organizations and networks have considerable
national or even international reach.

However, as you might understand, there is a great deal to be done and
the Charter network continues to expand as more people and organizations
are motivated to join this shared effort.

Here is an outline of what some of these individual signatories of ‘The
People’s Charter to Create a Nonviolent World‘ are doing. You are
welcome to join them.

A native of Iran, Professor Manijeh Navidnia was born in Tehran where
she attended school and university. She married in 1982 and had her
first child in 1985. Her original research interests were in social
science and sociology but after collaborating with the Islamic Azad
University, she became interested in strategic studies and most of her
research work and publications since then have focused on security. Her
first book in 2009 was particularly focused on ‘societal security’ and
her political engagements are designed to enhance international
cooperation across cultures.

Mahad Wasuge is a key figure at the Heritage Institute for Policy
Studies in Somalia. The Institute has recently published a shocking
report on ‘Somalia’s Drought Induced Crises: Immediate Action and Change
of Strategy Needed‘ in response to the ongoing drought in Somalia which threatens millions of people. ‘The ongoing drought in Somalia – referred to in the Somali
language as Sima, which means the leveler, ubiquitous or pervasive – has
enveloped the entire country. If rain does not arrive by mid April, and
if a massive humanitarian campaign is not mounted swiftly, the drought
could morph into an insidious famine that could devastate the country’:
hundreds of thousands of vulnerable men, women and children could starve
to death. Sadly, while awareness of the ongoing suffering and the
potential famine has been high, ‘the response of the international
community and the mitigation strategy by Somalia has been wholly
inadequate.’ Despite UN agencies raising over US$300 million, the
majority of the population across the country is not receiving basic
necessities. ‘Many pastoral communities have also lost 80 percent of
their livestock, escalating their vulnerability to an alarming and
perilous level.’

Ruth Phillips is the central figure in the initiative to create ‘an
ecological, co-housing village here on a fully restored, 17th century
chateau estate in rural France. The property lies in the heart of 30
acres of parklands and forests in the midst of quiet, deep-green nature,
surrounded by hills and mountains, forests and lakes. It is set in the
eastern Dordogne, one of most unspoilt regions of France’. They have
permission to create a permaculture village around the chateau for
residential and/or holiday use, with 23 houses blended into the natural
and historic landscape. Plans include the chateau ‘hub’ offering
education, leisure and cultural activities for residents and visitors; a
small restaurant; a multi-functional workshop space; the swimming pool;
a sauna and communal space, as well as large individual garden plots and
access to acres of forest and fields on the property. The site aims to
be a showcase for permaculture and sustainable living. Too good to be
true? Check out the Ecochateau website and email Ruth if you want to go there to stay for a while and help make their vision a more complete reality.

Burmese scholar and activist, Dr Maung Zarni has been indefatigable in
his efforts to raise awareness of the Burmese government’s genocidal
assault on the Rohingya Muslim population in Burma. He has also not
shied away from drawing attention to democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi’s
complicity in this genocidal assault. While he has written many articles
on the subject, this two-minute video will give you a clearer sense of
Zarni, the compassionate scholar/activist: ‘Multiple Denials of
Myanmar’s Atrocity Crimes against Rohingyas prevent a peaceful
resolution’. For more, check out Zarni’s website.

In one of her public talks, Kathleen Macferran posed the question ‘Are we really safer when we put those who harm others behind bars and forget about them?‘ She explores
the idea of ‘turning our prisons into houses of healing and creating connections that lead to greater safety’ by having incarcerated men and women return to our communities as peacemakers.

Greg Kleven is a 68 year-old American living and teaching English in
Viet Nam. He was 18 years old when he went to Viet Nam as a soldier in
1967 ‘and thought that what I was doing was right. But after a few
months in country I realized that I had made a huge mistake. The war was
wrong and I should never have participated.’ After going home he had a
hard time adjusting back into society. ‘I couldn’t get the war out of my
mind.’ In 1988 he went back to Viet Nam as a tourist and realized he had
a chance ‘to make up for what I had done’. For the next two years he
helped organize ‘return trips for veterans who wanted to go back and see
Viet Nam as a country, not a war’. In 1990 he started teaching English
in Ho Chi Minh City and he has been doing it ever since. Greg shares the
passion to ‘some day put an end to all wars and violence in the world’.

Professor of Mathematical Analysis, Tarcisio Praciano-Pereira, reports
from Brazil that he is personally well but that living in Brazil is
‘very bad! I am 73 years old and I have suffered the dictatorship of
1964 when I was forced into exile. So I have a very clear picture of
what is going on here and this doesn’t make
me well because I know clearly the dangers we are facing. My life has
changed entirely, my intellectual production has dropped down because I
am all the time in the fight. I am seriously afraid! And I am not a
young boy anymore as I was in 1964.’ He advised the death of a judge of
the Supreme Court, who was overseeing a massive corruption investigation
into the state oil company, Petrobras, against the will of the ‘putsch
owners’ and conservative media outlet ‘Globo’. It is clear that the
possibility of crime in this death cannot be dismissed. Now they are
trying to replace the dead judge with the Justice Secretary ‘who is
nothing but a criminal. Please take a stand against this if you can.
Afraid is the right picture, friend! Yes, Fora Temer! Fora Temer, o
traira!’

Ending human violence requires courage, not to mention toughness and
determination, often in extraordinarily difficult circumstances.

For that reason, you might be sceptical about the prospects of achieving
it.

But if you wish to join the people above in working to create a world in
which peace, justice and ecological sustainability ultimately prevail
for all life on Earth, you can do so by signing the online pledge of
‘The People’s Charter to Create a Nonviolent World‘ and participating in
‘The Flame Tree Project to Save Life on Earth‘.

Can we do it? If we do not try, we will never know. And one day, fairly
soon now according to some climate scientists (and assuming we can avert
nuclear war in the meantime), homo sapiens sapiens will enter Earth’s
fossil record without even making a concerted effort to prevent it.

Biodata: Robert J. Burrowes has a lifetime commitment to understanding
and ending human violence. He has done extensive research since 1966 in
an effort to understand why human beings are violent and has been a
nonviolent activist since 1981. He is the author of ‘Why Violence?‘
His email address is flametree@riseup.net
and his website is at http://robertjburrowes.wordpress.com

—
Robert J. Burrowes
P.O. Box 68
Daylesford
Victoria 3460
Australia
Email: flametree@riseup.net

Websites:
Nonviolence Charter
Flame Tree Project to Save Life on Earth
‘Why Violence?’
Nonviolent Campaign Strategy
Nonviolent Defense/Liberation Strategy
Anita: Songs of Nonviolence
Robert Burrowes
Global Nonviolence Network

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After the Crash

Dispatches From a Long Recovery (Est. 10/2024)

Category Archives: war

The West Is Becoming Irrelevant, The World Is Laughing

International Collaboration to End Violence