Category Archives: war

How the Russian David Can Finally Defeat the U.S.-NATO Goliath

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By Eric Zuesse

Source: The Duran

When the Soviet Union broke up, and ended its Warsaw Pact military alliance, and ended its communism — all of which happened in 1991 — there was a very clearly understood verbal agreement that the U.S. and its NATO military alliance against the Soviet Union made to the Soviet leaders, repeatedly promising that NATO would not expand toward Russia’s borders; or, as George Herbert Walker Bush’s U.S. Secretary of State, James Baker, famously put it at the time, that NATO would not expand even “one inch to the east.” In other words, America promised that if the Cold War would end on the Soviet side, then it would end also on the American side, and so its military alliance wouldn’t expand to become nearer to Russia’s command-center The Kremlin, which would constitute a threat to blitz-invade Russia from that more-nearby nation.

Mikhail Gorbachev, the last Soviet leader, didn’t demand the termination of America’s military alliance against the Soviet Union, as a condition for the Soviet Union to end its military alliance against America and its NATO, but demanded only that NATO no longer would be a military alliance against Russia — that NATO would not take any of the former Warsaw Pact countries, nor any of the former Soviet countries, the countries that adjoin or are near to Russia and that would then become a threat to become a staging-area to invade Russia.

That was the agreement: to end the Cold War on both sides, not merely on the Russian side. But, on 24 February 1990, G.H.W. Bush secretly started telling his allied European heads-of-state that he and they would not be keeping their part of the bargain, because “We prevailed, they didn’t.” In other words, he was saying that they would go for conquest against Russia itself, and that they all had actually been liars to the contrary — that their instructions now were to go for conquest against Russia.

However, the expansion toward Russia’s borders couldn’t take place immediately, because they needed to continue the pretense of friendliness at least for a while in order to infiltrate their billionaires into Russia’s economy in partnership with whomever in Russia would get privatized Russian businesses so as to make Russia so dependent upon American capital as to become peacefully an American colony. That’s what happened during the 1990s, the Yeltsin years. Then, in 1999, Bill Clinton finally sprung upon Russia the start of NATO’s expansion, by adding Czechoslovakia and Poland to NATO. By the time that Putin came into power in 2000, it was already clear that America was an imperialistic, hostile, nation, and a liar, never to be trusted on anything.

In 2007 — after George W. Bush brought, into NATO, Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia, and Slovenia — Putin said at the Munich Security Conference, on 10 February 2007, that NATO’s expansion “represents a serious provocation that reduces the level of mutual trust. And we have the right to ask: against whom is this expansion intended?” It was a remarkably weak statement on the matter, but even so was unacceptable to the imperialists. And, from that moment on, the U.S. Government and media started turning openly against him and for “regime-change in Russia.” Americans’ favorability ratings of Russia, which had been 58% in 2006, never again reached that high a level, and reached a new low of 24% in 2015 (after America’s coup grabbed Ukraine), and a new all-time low of 9% in 2023, while American’s favorability toward Ukraine as a new U.S. vassal nation reached an all-time high of 68% in 2023. The American masses were interpreting things in precisely the ways that America’s Government and billionaires, and their media, wanted them to.

If America wins its war against Russia in the battlefields of Ukraine, then the next step will be placing its missiles against The Kremlin onto Ukraine’s border 300 miles and five minutes of missile-flying distance away from their target, to blitz-behead Russia, and so to ‘win’ WW III.

At this stage, Russia has only two realistic options to achieve national security: either it will form a mutual-defense pact with China guaranteeing that any nation which invades either Russia or China will immediately find itself in a WW III against BOTH China and Russia; or else, it will relocate Russia’s capital city out of Moscow, which is now only seven minutes away from NATO, into Novosibirsk, which is nearly 2,000 miles and 40 minutes away from NATO and also away from Japan — truly a safe location for Russia’s capital city (which no western-Russian city can be). Russia is the only nation that is so vast it contains a city located nearly 2,000 miles away from any U.S.-or-allied military base or launching site. It needs to take advantage of this unique national-security asset which it contains.

Other countries have moved their capital cities, for far lesser reasons; so, Russia should do it now, in order to achieve national security (which is the biggest reason imaginable).  And, then, all of the trillions of dollars that America has been spending to conquer Russia will be immediately turned to dust. Once Russia has moved its capital to Novosibirsk, nothing that America does will be able to threaten Russia seriously again. It would radically transform international relations, because U.S.-and-allied aggression would finally have a natural limit. There would then be one country, at last, that the voracious U.S. empire won’t be able to grab. And this, of course, would also make Russia a magnet for all other countries that haven’t yet been successfully grabbed by the U.S. and now hosting any of its 900 foreign military bases. So: the number of U.S.-occupied countries might then finally begin to decline — which decline would add yet more to the entire world’s security, by removing the world’s biggest national-security threat. America’s foreign military bases threaten every nation, and don’t merely vassalize the given nation. Simply moving Russia’s capital to Novosibirsk would achieve all of this — for Russia, and for the world.

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Investigative historian Eric Zuesse’s new book, AMERICA’S EMPIRE OF EVIL: Hitler’s Posthumous Victory, and Why the Social Sciences Need to Change, is about how America took over the world after World War II in order to enslave it to U.S.-and-allied billionaires. Their cartels extract the world’s wealth by control of not only their ‘news’ media but the social ‘sciences’ — duping the public.

ECOWAS Fiery Talk Towards Niger Loses Its Edge After Biden Talks With Its President

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Biden’s little chat with Tinubu says a lot about the realities of what is going to happen and what can happen on the ground.

By Martin Jay

Source: Strategic Culture Foundation

Three interesting facets of news over Niger appear to be doing the rounds. Firstly, that a terrorist group in Nigeria has openly appealed to the Nigerian President – who also happens to be the ECOWAS leader – to avoid at all costs a military intervention in Niger; secondly, that Joe Biden took the initiative to meet the same gentleman Bola Ahmed Tinubu in the corridors of the United Nations, hinting that huge amounts of U.S. investment could be directed towards Nigeria if Tinubu played ball; and thirdly, that just recently, the stakes were raised in Niger when its junta announced that it had invited the armies of both Mali and Burkina Faso onto its soil to help defend themselves against an “intervention” which ECOWAS has threatened was on the cards only days earlier.

But Biden’s little chat with Tinubu says a lot about the realities of what is going to happen and what can happen on the ground as clearly his administration does not want another proxy war between East and West on its hands before the re-election run up next year. The question of whether the U.S. would support ECOWAS militarily has been answered by Biden’s bribe to the Nigerian president. It’s not going to happen.

Tinubu, who is certainly the man at the centre of events, gives the impression in interviews that he is under great pressure from ECOWAS members to intervene, but he is the one cooling tempers and looking for a diplomatic solution. And yet, his comments to the press seem to have been written by the U.S. state department such is the proximity of his office and the U.S. administration – debunking the myth of how much ECOWAS is influenced by France (given that the majority of the countries are former French colonies). The Nigerian president’s role as ECOWAS chief is under the spotlight.

What does he really want? Are his objectives focussed more on Nigeria rather than the bloc?

Joe Biden’s offer of a fresh injection of investment from U.S. firms hasn’t seemed to hit the mark. It seems that Tinubu is after even faster and even easier cash.

Tinubu said that African democracies are “currently under assault by anti-democratic forces within and outside the continent”, which is really state department jargon for “the Russians are coming”.

He then called on the “American-backed development finance and multilateral institutions, which were designed to support war-torn Europe after World War II, to adopt a swift and comprehensive reform to meet the developmental requirements of young democracies in Africa”.

The translation isn’t too cryptic. Can the U.S. intervene and, also, while they’re at it, pump our central bank full of never-never-pay soft loans from IMF and World bank? Cheers!

Neither Biden nor Tinubu though seem to be bothered about the possibility of a fourth francophone African country falling into the hands of Mother Russia. Mali and Burkina Faso, who both can be assumed to be vassals of Russia have shown great solidarity with Niger which has lost no time kicking the French out and becoming a major pain in the arse for western elites who are confused about the events and want to oversimplify the nuances. “We lost Niger to the Russians” may be the well worn cliché although the facts on the ground and more complicated. There certainly seems in Niger to be an endearment towards the new junta’s government but Russia’s role so far is unclear.

About the only thing that Putin and Biden agree on is they don’t want a war in Niger.

It’s easy to forget though that Niger was a key player in ECOWAS and that many of its members placed great importance on Niger’s front line assault on Islamic groups in the region – which, if given more freedoms, could cause havoc right across West Africa but in particular in neighbouring Nigeria.

For the moment though, the so-called pressure from ECOWAS is unlikely to manifest itself beyond chest beating. ECOWAS members may have the hunger for intervention but they don’t have the guts for a war, which neither the U.S. or Russia will bankroll, so sobriety is likely to take over the narrative in the coming days. The war in Ukraine, the abysmal foreign policy blunders of Biden, the deluded arrogance of Macron and the emergence of BRICS have all contributed to the current crisis in Africa as the old relationship with the West is put to the test, with disastrous consequences. The only thing left of Obama’s “soft power” idea he conjured up in 2015 after his humiliation in Syria is a suitcase full of cash for a corrupt West African leader to share with his cabal. Pretty pathetic.

Summer of the Hawks

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Secretary of State Antony Blinken speaks during the Mandela Washington Fellowship Summit for Young African Leaders in Washington, DC, August 2, 2023. (Official State Department photo by Chuck Kennedy)

By Seymour Hersh

Source: Rise Up Times

It’s been weeks since we looked into the adventures of the Biden administration’s foreign policy cluster, led by Tony Blinken, Jake Sullivan, and Victoria Nuland. How has the trio of war hawks spent the summer?

Sullivan, the national security adviser, recently brought an American delegation to the second international peace summit earlier this month at Jeddah in Saudi Arabia. The summit was led by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, known as MBS, who in June announced a merger between his state-backed golf tour and the PGA. Four years earlier MBS was accused of ordering the assassination and dismemberment of the journalist Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, for perceived disloyalty to the state.

As unlikely as it sounds, there was such a peace summit and its stars did include MBS, Sullivan, and President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine. What was missing was a representative of Russia, which was not invited to the summit. It included just a handful of heads of state from the fewer than fifty nations that sent delegates. The conference lasted two days, and attracted what could only be described as little international attention.

Reuters reported that Zelensky’s goal was to get international support for “the principles” that that he will consider as a basis for the settlement of the war, including “the withdrawal of all Russian troops and the return of all Ukrainian territory.” Russia’s formal response to the non-event came not from President Vladimir Putin but from Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergei Ryabkov. He called the summit “a reflection of the West’s attempt to continue futile, doomed efforts” to mobilize the Global South behind Zelensky.

India and China both sent delegations to the session, perhaps drawn to Saudi Arabia for its immense oil reserves. One Indian academic observer dismissed the event as achieving little more than “good advertising for MBS’s convening power within the Global South; the kingdom’s positioning in the same; and perhaps more narrowly, aiding American efforts to build consensus by making sure China attends the meeting with . . . Jake Sullivan in the same room.”

Meanwhile, far away on the battlefield in Ukraine, Russia continued to thwart Zelensky’s ongoing counteroffensive. I asked an American intelligence official why it was Sullivan who emerged from the Biden administration’s foreign policy circle to preside over the inconsequential conference in Saudi Arabia.

“Jeddah was Sullivan’s baby,” the official said. “He planned it to be Biden’s equivalent of [President Woodrow] Wilson’s Versailles. The grand alliance of the free world meeting in a victory celebration after the humiliating defeat of the hated foe to determine the shape of nations for the next generation. Fame and Glory. Promotion and re-election. The jewel in the crown was to be Zelensky’s achievement of Putin’s unconditional surrender after the lightning spring offensive. They were even planning a Nuremberg type trial at the world court, with Jake as our representative. Just one more fuck-up, but who is counting? Forty nations showed up, all but six looking for free food after the Odessa shutdown”—a reference to Putin’s curtailing of Ukrainian wheat shipments in response to Zelensky’s renewed attacks on the bridge linking Crimea to the Russian mainland.

Enough about Sullivan. Let us now turn to Victoria Nuland, an architect of the 2014 overthrow of the pro-Russian government in Ukraine, one of the American moves that led us to where we are, though it was Putin who initiated the horrid current war. The ultra-hawkish Nuland was promoted early this summer by Biden, over the heated objections of many in the State Department, to be the acting deputy secretary of state. She has not been formally nominated as the deputy for fear that her nomination would lead to a hellish fight in the Senate.

It was Nuland who was sent last week to see what could be salvaged after a coup led to the overthrow of a pro-Western government in Niger, one of a group of former French colonies in West Africa that have remained in the French sphere of influence. President Mohamed Bazoum, who was democratically elected, was tossed out of office by a junta led by the head of his presidential guard, General Abdourahmane Tchiani. The general suspended the constitution and jailed potential political opponents. Five other military officers were named to his cabinet. All of this generated enormous public support on the streets in Niamey, Niger’s capital—enough support to discourage outside Western intervention.

There were grim reports in the Western press that initially viewed the upheaval in East-West terms: some of the supporters of the coup were carrying Russian flags as they marched in the streets. The New York Times saw the coup as a blow to the main US ally in the region, Nigerian President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, who controls vast oil and gas reserves. Tinubu threatened the new government in Niger with military action unless they returned power to Bazoum. He set a deadline that passed without any outside intervention.

The revolution in Niger was not seen by those living in the region in east-west terms but as a long needed rejection of long-standing French economic and political control. It is a scenario that may be repeated again and again throughout the French-dominated Sahel nations in sub-Saharan Africa.

There are distinctions that do not bode well for the new government in Niger. The nation is blessed, or perhaps cursed, by having a significant amount of the remaining natural uranium deposits in the world. As the world warms up, a return to nuclear generated power is seen as inevitable, with obvious implications for the value of the stuff underground in Niger. The raw uranium ore, when separated, filtered and processed is known worldwide as yellowcake.

The corruption so often “talked about in Niger is not about petty bribes by government officials, but about an entire structure—developed during French colonial rule—that prevents Niger from establishing sovereignty over its raw materials and over its development,” according to a recent analysis published by Baltimore’s Real News Network. Three out of four laptops in France are powered by nuclear energy, much of which is derived from uranium mines in Niger effectively controlled by its former colonial overlord.

Niger is also the home of three American drone bases targeting Islamic radicals throughout the region. There  are also undeclared Special Forces outposts in the region, whose soldiers receive double pay while on their risky combat assignments. The American official told me that “the 1,500 US troops now in Niger are exactly the number of American troops who were in South Vietnam at the time John F. Kennedy took over the presidency in 1961.”

Into this scene came Victoria Nuland, who must have drawn the short straw inside the Biden Administration. She was sent to negotiate with the new regime and to arrange a meeting with the ousted President Bazoum, whose life remains under constant threat from the governing junta. The New York Times reported that she got nowhere after talks she described as “extremely frank and at times quite difficult.” The intelligence official put her remarks to the Times in American military lingo: “Victoria set out to save the Niger uranium owners from the barbaric Russians and got a huge single-finger salute.”

Quieter in recent weeks than Sullivan and Nuland has been Secretary of State Tony Blinken. Where was he? I asked that question of the official, who said that Blinken “has figured out that the United States”—that is, our ally Ukraine—“will not win the war” against Russia. “The word was getting to him through the Agency [CIA] that the Ukrainian offense was not going to work. It was a show by Zelensky and there were some in the administration who believed his bullshit.

“Blinken wanted to broker a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine as Kissinger did in Paris to end the Vietnam war.” Instead, the official said, “it was going to be a big lose and Blinken found himself way over his skis. But he does not want to go down as the court jester.”

It was at this moment of doubt, the official said, that Bill Burns, the CIA director, “made his move to join the sinking ship.” He was referring to Burns’s speech earlier this summer at the annual Ditchley conference near London. He appeared to put aside his earlier doubts about expanding NATO to the east and affirmed his support at least five times for Biden’s program.

“Burns does not lack self-confidence and ambition,” the intelligence official said, especially when Blinken, the ardent war hawk, was suddenly having doubts. Burns served in a prior administration as deputy secretary of state and running the CIA was hardly a just reward.

Burns would not replace a disillusioned Blinken, but only get a token promotion: an appointment to Biden’s cabinet. The cabinet meets no more than once a month and, as recorded by C-SPAN, the meetings tend to be tightly scripted affairs and to begin with the president reading from a prepared text.

Tony Blinken, who publicly vowed just a few months ago that there would be no immediate ceasefire in Ukraine, is still in office and, if asked, would certainly dispute any notion of discontent with Zelensky or the administration’s murderous and failing war policy in Ukraine.

So the White House’s wishful approach to the war, when it comes to realistic talk to the American people, will continue apace. But the end is nearing, even if the assessments supplied by Biden to the public are out of a comic strip.

This piece is from Seymour Hersh’s Substack, you may subscribe to it here.

When He Was Vice-President, Joe Biden Acted Like Ukraine Was His ‘Own Backyard’: Fired Ukraine Prosecutor

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“Biden was personally engaged in corruption in Ukraine”

By Arjun Singh

Source: Global Research.ca

The former Ukrainian prosecutor who was fired at the insistence of then-Vice President Joe Biden in 2016 after investigating Burisma, claimed that Biden treated Ukraine like his “own backyard,” according to comments made during an interview with Fox News’ Brian Kilmeade on Saturday.

Viktor Shokin was fired by Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko in 2016 after Biden — who was in charge of Ukrainian policy during the Obama administration — gave him an ultimatum, saying that Ukraine would not receive $1 billion dollars in aid until Shokin was dismissed. In an interview with Brian Kilmeade on “One Nation” on Saturday, Shokin claimed that Biden treated Ukraine as if it were his “own backyard.”

“I developed a very firm understanding of the fact that the vice president was only acting in his own interest. He, generally speaking, handled Ukraine like it was his own backyard,” Shokin told Kilmeade. “The office of Poroshenko, the president, was humiliated, but the entire country was humiliated,” Shokin added, describing Biden’s ultimatum that he be dismissed, which Biden publicly boasted about at a Council on Foreign Relations event on Jan. 23, 2018.

“I’m going to be leaving here in six hours. If the prosecutor is not fired, you’re not getting the money. Well, son of a bitch, he got fired and they put in place someone who was solid,” Biden said at the event.

At the time of Shokin’s firing, his office was investigating Burisma, a Ukrainian energy company that had hired Biden’s son, Hunter, to join its board. FBI documents released by Congress in July suggested that Hunter was hired to enable Burisma to utilize his father’s political influence and avoid threats to the company.

Shokin also suggested that Biden was personally engaged in corruption in Ukraine, citing his firing as one instance. “They were being bribed. The fact that Joe Biden gave away $1 billion in U.S. money in exchange for my dismissal, my firing, isn’t that alone a case of corruption?” he said.

“For years, these false claims have been debunked, and no matter how much air time Fox gives them, they will remain false,” said White House spokesperson Iam Sams in a statement to the Daily Caller News Foundation. “Fox is giving a platform for these lies to a former Ukrainian prosecutor general whose office his own deputy called a hotbed of corruption, drawing demands for reform not only from then-Vice President Biden but also from U.S. diplomats, international partners, and Republican Senators like Ron Johnson.”

Neocons and Other Malignancies in the American Body Politic

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They will never give up until we’re all dead

By Philip Giraldi

Source: The Unz Review

It is interesting to observe how, over the past twenty-five years, the United States has become not only a participant in wars in various places on the planet but has also evolved into being the prime initiator of most of the armed conflict. Going back to the Balkans in the nineteen-nineties and moving forward in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Lebanon and Somalia there is almost always an American leading role where there is bombing and killing. And where there is no actual war, there are threats and sanctions intended to make other nations come to heel, be they in Latin America like Venezuela, or Iran in the Middle East, or North Korea in Asia. And then there is the completely senseless act of turning major competitors like Russia and China, as we are now seeing, into enemies, with a proxy war raging in Ukraine, threats over Taiwan, and the world moving one step closer to a nuclear disaster.

It seems to me that the transition from an America bumbling its way into war and the current situation where wars are pursued as a matter of course coincides with a certain political development in the United States, which is the rise of neoconservatives as the foreign and national security policy makers in both major parties. This has developed together with the evolution of the view that the United States can do no wrong by definition, indeed, that it has a unique and God-given right to establish and police the globe through something that it invented, exploits and has dubbed the “rules based international order.”

Who would have thought that a bunch of Jewish student-activists, mostly leftists, originally conspiring in a corner of the cafeteria in the City College of New York would create a cult type following that now aspires to rule the world? The neocons became politically most active in the 1960s and eventually some of them attached themselves to the Republican Party under Ronald Reagan, declaring their evolution had come about because they were “liberals mugged by reality.” The neoconservative label was first used to describe their political philosophy in 1973. Since that time, they have diversified and succeeded in selling their view to a bipartisan audience that the US should embrace an aggressive interventionist foreign policy and must be the world hegemon. To be sure their desire for overwhelming military power has been strongly shaped by their tribal cohesion which has fed a compulsion to have Washington serve as the eternal protector of Israel, but the hegemonistic approach has inevitably led to expanding conflict all over the world and a willingness to challenge, confront and defeat other existing great powers. Hence the support for a needless and pointless war in Ukraine to “weaken Russia” and a growing conflict with China over Taiwan to do the same in Asia. To make sure that the Republicans do not waver on that mission, leading neocon Bill Kristol has recently raised $2 million to do some heavy lobbying to make sure that they stay on track to confront the Kremlin in Europe.

One of the leading neocon families is the Kagans, who have successfully penetrated and come to dominate the establishment foreign policy centers in both the Republican and Democratic Parties. Victoria Nuland nee Nudelman, the wife of Robert Kagan, is entrenched at the State Department where she is now the Deputy Secretary, the number two position. Up until recently, she was one of the top three officials at State, all of whom were and are Jewish Zionists. Indeed, under Joe Biden Zionist Jews dominate the national security structure, to include the top level of the State Department, the head of Homeland Security, the Attorney General, the National Security Adviser, the Director of National Intelligence, the President’s Chief of Staff, and the Deputy Director of the Central Intelligence Agency. Nuland’s hawkish appeal is apparently bipartisan as she has served in senior positions under Bill Clinton, Dick Cheney, George W. Bush, Barack Obama and now Joe Biden. As adviser to Cheney, she was a leading advocate of war with Iraq, working with other Jewish neocons Doug Feith and Paul Wolfowitz at Defense and also Scooter Libby in the Vice President’s office. As there was no actual threat to the US from Saddam Hussein she and her colleagues invented one, the WMD that they sold to the media and to idiots like Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. Nuland is also considered to be close to Hillary Clinton and the recently deceased ghastly former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright. All of her government assignments have included either invading or severely sanctioning some country considered by her and her colleagues to be unfriendly. She particularly hates the Russians and anyone who is hostile to Israel.

Apparently, Nuland’s record of being seriously wrong in the policies she promoted has only served to improve her resume in Washington’s hawkish foreign policy establishment and when Biden came into the presidency she found herself appointed to the number three position at the State Department as the Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs. Her return to power with the Democrats might also be due in part to the activism of her husband Robert, currently a senior fellow at the Brookings Institute, who was one of the first neocons to get on the NeverTrump band wagon back in 2016 when he endorsed Hillary Clinton for president and spoke at a Washington fundraiser for her, complaining about the “isolationist” tendency in the Republican Party exemplified by Trump. Robert famously has never seen a war he disapproved of and, while urging Europe to do more defense spending, commented that “When it comes to use of military force “Americans are from Mars, and Europeans are from Venus.” Robert’s brother Frederick, a Senior Fellow at the neocon American Enterprise Institute, and Frederick’s wife Kimberly, who heads the bizarrely named Institute for the Study of War, are also regarded as neocon royalty.

Nuland is particularly well known for her being the driving force behind the regime change in Ukraine in 2014 that replaced the fairly-elected but friendly-to-Russia President Viktor Yanukovych with a selected candidate more accommodating to the US and Western Europe. Ukraine, the most corrupt country in Europe, has been unstable ever since and the current war, also initiated by interference from the US and UK, has brought about the deaths and wounding of an estimated half million Ukrainians and Russians.

Nuland was recently in Africa, stirring up developments in Niger, which has experienced a recent military coup that removed a president who was corrupt but also a friend of the US and France, both of which have troops stationed in the country. As I write this, a number of African nations (ECOWAS) friendly to US and French interests in the region are gathering together their own military force to reverse the coup, but there is little enthusiasm for the project. We will see how that turns out, but predictably Nuland is advertising a possible intervention as a “restoration of democracy.”

And there is more over the horizon with neocons like Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Nuland in charge of US foreign policy and supported by most of congress and a Jewish dominated media and entertainment industry. Joe Biden is too weak and too much under the thumb of the Israel Lobby to pursue any policies that would be beneficial to the American people in general, so the course will be set by the current crop of zealots, just as Donald Trump was guided by his Christian Zionist advisers.

If you want to understand just how what remains of our republic is in a bus being driven over the cliff by a group that has no regard for most of the citizens of the country that they reside in, one only has to read some of what passes for neocon analysis of what must be done to make America “safe.” Not surprisingly, it also involves Israel and a war on behalf of the Jewish state.

One astonishingly audacious article that appeared on August 13th in The Hill entitled “If Israel strikes Iran over its nuclear program, the US must have its back,” gives Israel the option of starting a war for any or no reason with the United States compelled to join in in support. It was written Michael Makovsky, a well-known Jewish neocon, and Chuck Wald. Makovsky is President and CEO of the Jewish Institute for National Security of America (JINSA) while Wald is a former general who also is affiliated with that group as a “distinguished fellow,” which means he is getting paid generously to serve as a mouthpiece providing credibility for the group. For those unfamiliar with The Hill, it is an inside the beltway defense contractor funded online magazine that pretends to be serious but which is actually an integral part of the status quo Zionist and war-on-demand network. That the Jewish Institute for National Security is “of America” is, of course, a characteristically clever euphemism.

The article begins with “The Biden administration should learn from its unpreparedness for the Russia-Ukraine war and begin to prepare for a major Israel-Iran conflict. The administration needs to set aside its differences with the Israeli government, overcome its aversion to conflict with Iran, and begin to work closely with Jerusalem to prepare for the growing likelihood that Israel will feel it has no choice but to initiate a military campaign against Iran’s nuclear program. In ‘No Daylight,’ a new report from the Jewish Institute for National Security of America (JINSA)…retired senior military officers and national security experts explain that whatever differences the US might now have with Israel over Iran policy, our two countries’ interests will be aligned after an Israeli strike. Consequently, in preparing its response, the U.S. guiding principle should be ‘no daylight with Israel,’ to ensure Israeli military success, mitigate Iranian retaliation and limit the scope of the conflict — vital interests for both countries.”

That war with Iran is a “vital interest” for the United States is, of course, not really explained as the point is to let Israel to decide on the issue of war and peace for the United States. The article then trots out the old “credibility” argument, i.e. that if we don’t go to war no one will ever trust our security guarantees: “A US betrayal of its close Israeli ally, at a time of great peril for the Jewish state, would be ‘one of the greatest catastrophes ever,’ an Arab leader told us privately recently. Because Israel is widely perceived as a close American ally, the US stance as Israel risks thousands of casualties in defense of its very existence, will resound broadly. Strong American support will reassure allies from Warsaw to Abu Dhabi and Taipei; American equivocation will shred Washington’s credibility and embolden adversaries from Tehran to Moscow and Beijing.”

One would love to know who the anonymous Arab leader so concerned about Israel is and, of course, the Jewish state is not in fact an American ally apart from in the fertile imaginations of congressmen, the media and the White House. And Israel will, of course, need more weapons and money from the US taxpayer to include “expediting delivery to Israel of KC-46A tankers, precision-guided munitions, F-15 and F-35 aircraft, and air and missile defenses…. Washington should accelerate building integrated regional air, missile and maritime defenses against persistent Iranian threats.” And America must be prepared to expand the war: “Privately, Iranian and Hezbollah leadership should be warned that heavy retaliation against Israel…will prompt severe Israeli and/or American responses that could threaten their very grasp on power. Upon commencement of an Israeli strike, the United States should promptly resupply Israel with Iron Dome interceptors, precision-guided munitions, ammunition and spare parts, and deploy Patriot air defenses to Israel…”

So the United States must be prepared to turn over its national security to Israel in exchange for what gain for Americans? In part it would apparently involve “finding a permanent solution to Iran’s illegal nuclear weapons program” which is based on a lie even if Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been repeating for over 20 years that Iran is only six months away from a weapon. Both the CIA and Mossad have confirmed that Iran has no such program while Israel does have a secret illegal nuclear arsenal built using enriched uranium and nuclear triggers stolen from the US. The article concludes with another reference to the non-existing program, claiming “the most effective way to address Iran’s nuclear program already has been articulated by President Biden and communicated by America’s ambassador in Jerusalem: ‘Israel can and should do whatever they need to deal with it, and we’ve got their back.’”

Supporting Israeli war crimes is not the way to go. As Chris Hedges puts it correctly, there is no compelling American interest in damaging itself by supporting Israel blindly, quite the contrary: “The long nightmare of oppression of Palestinians is not a tangential issue. It is a black and white issue of a settler-colonial state imposing a military occupation, horrific violence and apartheid, backed by billions of US dollars, on the indigenous population of Palestine. It is the all powerful against the all powerless. Israel uses its modern weaponry against a captive population that has no army, no navy, no air force, no mechanized military units, no command and control and no heavy artillery, while pretending intermittent acts of wholesale slaughter are wars.”

And, of course, while Israel engages in slaughter and torture it always portrays itself as the victim only engaged in fighting against “terrorists.” I have a better idea for where we should go with all of this. President Joe Biden should be impeached for ignoring war powers legislation and indicating that he is willing to sacrifice US interests and kill American soldiers, few or plausibly none of whom will actually be Jewish since it is not an occupation that attracts them, to please and support a manifestly evil foreign government. And Donald Trump should also be punished for having done much the same type of pandering to a foreign country while in office. Meanwhile, haul Makovsky and Wald together with their buddies at the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) down to the Justice Department and put them in jail for violation of the Foreign Agents Registration Act of 1938 (FARA) in that they are willfully acting as agents of a foreign government and are operating corruptly to serve the interests of that government. The criminals at AIPAC are already using their associated PACs to oust targeted members of Congress up for re-election in 2024 who have in any way been critical of Israel or pro-Palestinian. And while you’re at it Mr. Attorney General Merrick Garland nee Garfinkel, please have Mr. Blinken and Ms. Nuland pop by for a chat just for starters and see how far you can make the laws apply to those in power. There is some confusion evident here as Israel is not part of the United States, no matter how politically dominant and wealthy its lobby might be. Time to put an end to this nonsense and call it out for what it is – it is treason.

The Only ‘National Defense’ Needed in this Country, Is Defense Against the Real Enemy: The Ruling Class and the U.S. Government

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By Gary D. Barnett

Source: GaryDBarnett.com

“I believe that all government is evil, and that trying to improve it is largely a waste of time.”

H.L. Mencken

Throughout our history, and today, little, if any defense of this country or its people, has been necessary or warranted. The true enemy of the people of America is, and has always been, its own government. The real enemies are most all the politicians, regardless of party, the courts, the CIA, the NSA, the FBI, the IRS, the entire military industrial complex, and in general, the federal and state police forces. In other words, all the ruling class and it pawns in government, its enforcers, and all their institutions and bureaucracies, are the real threat to this populace and its natural freedoms. The ludicrous notion of national defense, and that government forces actually “defend the country,” is an outright lie; propagandized by the State and its mouthpieces in media, simply as a way to gain great power in order to own and control society.

Many will take offence to these statements, mostly due to the fact that since birth, they have been inundated and indoctrinated by false ‘authority’ figures, to believe that they cannot survive and prosper without restrictive laws and rule, and worthless government schooling, all kept in check by severe coercive State prosecution. They are taught (schooled) to abandon their individuality in favor of the so-called ‘greater good’ of a collective society, to depend on and trust others in power to protect and sustain them and their families throughout their lives. This breeds only ignorance and passivity in the face of State terror. Independence, a supposed hallmark of this nation-state and its residents, is literally vilified, and even prohibited in many instances, causing personal sovereignty to be discarded in the name of unified slavery.

We live in a country that has warred aggressively against fictitious enemies, meaning without cause or necessity, more than any other country on earth. It is stated, and supported, that the United States has been at war for at least 93% of its entire existence. I firmly believe this number to be much higher, and with proper consideration, it is likely closer to 100%. If one is to determine the actual damage done, the actual harm due to direct war, proxy war, what is insanely considered ‘collateral damage,’ what is the horrid long term cost to human life in the aftermath of this terror, the total number of causalities, including the dead, would be tens if not hundreds of millions of innocent people. But what is sold to the wrongly named ‘public, is that this country is and has been the savior of ‘democracy,’ a completely evil and failed ideology, which is a gross lie beyond the imagination of any sane and thinking human being.

Yes, the truth hurts, but without acceptance of truth, what is left is a deceitful lie; a manufactured myth so atrocious as to have caused an entire nation’s abhorrent and hostile policies to be supported by the masses to such an extent, as to have caused the most broad-based, aggressive, and egregious destruction of humanity in history. This should be the epitaph upon the death of this empire.

At this time in our lives, aggressive war by this government and all who support its heinous deeds, has graduated from its main objective of slaughtering innocent men, women, and children, in addition to the other devastation, in other countries most everywhere on earth, to include the entirety of this country’s population as well. The major war currently is against all of us who live and work in the U.S. by those who continue to claim to be our protectors. This contradiction is absurd, but is still little understood by the average American, as can be evidenced by the terroristic treatment inflicted, and with little if any resistance, on this society these past few years.

At a time when this country and the world are steeped in madness and hate, more and more atrocities continue to take place, with almost zero empathy evident by the political class. The last evil ‘ruler,’ just one among all, ‘chosen’ by the ‘people,’ was Biden, and this was his response to the State’s complicit murder of those in Lahaina just recently, after a very suspicious and devastating fire had destroyed an entire town and its residents. He had the audacity to offer these poor people who lost everything, including many family members, a one-time $700 payment per household. This was in the midst of giving over $200 million more to Ukraine’s political criminals recently, with plans to give many more billions; this after more than $113 billion has already been paid to enrich the newly rich politicians in Ukraine. (Apparently, blackmail garners payment more than actual need of Americans) This alone should be enough for everyone in this country to grasp how little this government cares about its own, and how worthless all in the governing system have become. To depend on, or trust this scum to defend you from harm, is asinine beyond explanation.

Who will defend you from harm? Who will defend you from foreign invasion, although that has never once happened in this country’s history, not even including the pre-planned setup called the Pearl Harbor attack? Who will defend you from hyper-inflation and the resulting extreme prices for goods? Who will defend you from mass censorship and constant surveillance? Who will defend you from food shortages, energy shutdowns, and extensive restrictions on all transactions and travel? Who will defend your children from the consuming perversion being forced on them at every opportunity with this government’s blessing? Who will defend you from aggression and tyranny? Who will defend you from yourself?

It will never be the evil State that defends you, nor will it be its ‘national defense systems,’ its enforcers in the military and police, the politicians, the banking cartels, the large corporate monsters, or any government at any level. There is only one legitimate defense, and that is self-defense. Only you, each of you, has the ability and desire to defend himself. No other and no State entity can or will ever be your savior.  Until that is accepted, expect total serfdom to become your voluntarily accepted way of life.

Much more tyranny is coming. Lockdowns, fake ‘viruses,’ bioweapons, threats and totalitarian measures based on bogus ‘climate change, central bank digital currency, social credit restrictions, more inflation, destruction of money, health mandates, curfews, travel shutdowns, food shortages, transhuman promotion, among many other atrocities, including perpetual war.

National defense is an outright lie, and can never protect you, it can only harm you. There is but one enemy, and that enemy is the State! There is but one defense against this demon called government, and that is when individuals, or individuals working together en masse, abolish all rule. The responsibility for you is you, and any dependence on government whatsoever can only lead to despair, hopelessness, disaster, and enslavement. Defend yourself from this evil State, and break the chains that bind you.

“Every government is run by liars. Nothing they say should be believed.”

~ I.F. Stone

Reference links:

America’s perpetual wars of aggression

What the media won’t tell you about the Maui fires

The Bizzarro Effect of Universal Insanity

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By Gary D. Barnett

Source: GaryDBarnett.com

“We do not have to visit a madhouse to find disordered minds; our planet is the mental institution of the universe.”

~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

How many times in our lives has it been said or thought that things could not get worse, weirder, more absurd, more dangerous, more immoral, more brutal, more controlling, more restrictive, more perverted, more murderous, or more insane? Can those thoughts even be considered in this day and age of complete and total lunacy? What has happened to mankind, and can it all be blamed on brainwashing and indoctrination by the ruling class over the rest of society? I firmly believe that the causes for the inconceivable problems we see today, go much deeper than just blame on invited masters, and begin at the core of the psyche of humanity. If this is so, the struggle for man’s attempts to regain his sanity, morality, and freedom, are fully dependent on a large swath of society changing dramatically from one of total dependence and expectation of rule, to one of individual worth, and a mandatory acceptance of personal responsibility so overwhelming, as to lead to the total destruction of the State.

You might scoff at such a pronouncement as this, but at this stage of tyranny, indifference, and complete loss of integrity by the masses, nothing short of an absolute and unconditional reshaping of society will suffice in order to eliminate the threat of the extinction of humanity as we know it. We are teetering on the precipice of annihilation, and false hopes or prayers will never be enough to restore this so-called ‘civilization.’ Apathy is our enemy, and can only lead to an enslaved society at the hands of technocratic rulers.

Many might expect the State to implode given the pace of this takeover plot and reshaping of nation states, but what would take the place of the current systems should the weakest fall? Could that be the planned outcome, as with many failed State systems, a global restructuring by the strongest and most brutal countries, just as is the WEF plan indicates, would have a clear advantage in its new world order creation attempt? A transformation is necessary, but that transformation needs to be geared toward a Stateless structure created by individuals, instead of any new political governing scheme.

Real intelligence and critical thinking on this earth are missing in action, and what is disguised as intelligence is rarely ever anything other than State agenda-driven propaganda and lies. This is why what passes for ‘news’ is so unbelievably inaccurate, entirely incorrect, and child-like in nature. That is all that is necessary these days to fool the bulk of society. In other words, thinking is no longer required, as the masses have been conditioned and brainwashed to accept almost any claptrap being spewed by the rulers, fake ‘scientists,’ medical profession, politicians, government, and certainly the media circus made up of State sanctioning whores.

Any who still have the ability to think rationally and intelligently, go through each day in wonder at the wild, insane, and obscene things being reported to the mainstream population; that largest segment of society totally blinded by ignorance, apathy, and in many cases, stupidity. These attitudes make for easy fodder to feed the hopeless, gullible,  and compliant sheep, and are in turn, allowing this heinous State to continue its march toward a globalized world run by the very few.

The completely bogus idea of human-caused ‘global warming’ and fake ‘climate change,’ is now taking shape as the primary reasoning for control over everything and everybody  on earth by the technocrats. This ‘climate’ agenda will now be pursued until the end of life as we know it. It is not at the margin any longer, nor is it anymore hidden. Idiotic headlines concerning so-called weather terror, are expanding by the moment. Sensationalism can now be used universally, as one after another fake disaster looms according to these fraudulent so-called ‘scientists’ and imposters called ‘experts.’

Everything is on the table as extreme warmongers like to claim, but since this war is against all of us, this term takes on a new meaning. Completely asinine headlines continue, as now new and improved fear porn coming from the talking heads of the idiotic and imbecilic mainstream media abound, going so far as to label their fake paranoid ‘global warming’ nonsense as “global boiling.’

But there is so much more happening, as a myriad of false threats is ever upon us, or so the talking heads will claim. New plagues, diseases, ‘viruses,’ killer ticks, (if existent, they were likely to have been purposely created by the military) war threats, and especially ‘climate change’ absurdity. Climate and weather have become totally weaponized, and will be used to control life at most every level now and in the future.

Never forget the non-existent ‘covid pandemic’ lie. It will be revamped, whether as something the same or similar, or some new and approved killer on the loose; so scary as to drive everyone inside, supposedly away from the maddening crowd. Beware the ‘virus’ and emergency hype, as it will never end so long as the masses comply with rule, and obey as slaves.

Perusing just a few ‘news’ feeds will inundate the mind with nonsense, but most see these claims as real or possible; all without any legitimate accompanying evidence. The insane Trump saga leads the way of course, as this stupidity is followed by both sides of the political scam, which helps to keep most of the country at each other’s throats. But there is so much more. The banking sector is bankrupt, and personal and business accounts of many are being closed. Pensions and retirement funds are also being threatened. Cyber attacks are affecting large swaths of this country, and air travel is becoming impossible to deal with at times. The trans scam is continuing and will likely escalate after government schools open up this fall. More UFO reporting is being pursued every week, stores are closing nationwide, inflation is rampant, and the Ukraine false-flag war continues.

Incandescent lightbulbs have been banned, gas stoves and water heaters are targeted as well. There are more bank failures, more trucking company failures, savings are depleted, setting the stage for the digitization of America. CBDC trial and implementation will continue, and widespread default fears are increasing. Interest rates are still rising, as the U.S. credit rating has been downgraded.

The destruction of our world is upon us, as the crumbling of all that is natural and sane is being allowed to take place right before our eyes. All the things mentioned here are not a complete list by any stretch of the imagination, as so many things are going awry in broad daylight, all with little notice by the sheeplike masses. Dependency and indifference are our mortal enemies, We are living in a madhouse; a world at great odds with all sanity, and one that has become indifferent and morally bankrupt. This is not the way forward, but the way to hell on earth.

Finding the individual inside, taking solace in self, and abandoning the State is a better way.

“In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule.”

~ Friedrich Nietzsche

France never stopped looting Africa, now the tables are turning

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As developments in West Africa demonstrate, the francophone countries are no longer willing to accept French neo-colonialism. With the fear factor finally removed, Africa’s quest for genuine independence is steadily coming to fruition.

By Brad Pearce

Source: TheCradle.co

The 26 July coup in the West African nation of Niger, which threatens to undermine French and US military presence in the region, has shed light on the historical exploitation and continued practices of Francafrique – the term used to describe the persistent exploitation by the former French Empire in Africa.

France heavily relies on nuclear energy, with 68 percent of its power coming from nuclear plants. It obtains 19 percent of the uranium required to run these plants from Niger. Despite this significant contribution toward France’s energy needs, only 14.3 percent of Nigeriens have access to a power grid, and even that is often unreliable. This stark contrast highlights the disparities and ongoing exploitation by rapine foreign powers throughout the African continent. 

The Legacy of Francafrique

Francafrique has been known for its exploitative systems designed to profit from African resources, using pressure, capital, and frequently outright force to maintain control over its former empire. As a result, many African states, including Niger, continue to face poverty and underdevelopment.

Burkina Faso’s young, charismatic leader Ibrahim Traore recently spoke at the Russia-Africa summit in St. Petersburg and decried the fact that Africa is resource-rich, but its people are poor, and criticized African leaders seeking hand-outs from the west, as they perpetuate dependency and poverty. He also described what is being imposed on Africa as a form of slavery, stating:

“As far as what concerns Burkina Faso today, for more than eight years we’ve been confronted with the most barbaric, the most violent form of imperialist neo-colonialism. Slavery continues to impose itself on us. Our predecessors taught us one thing: a slave who cannot assume his own revolt does not deserve to be pitied. We do not feel sorry for ourselves, we do not ask anyone to feel sorry for us.”

France’s inability to justify its presence in Africa with a coherent narrative further complicates the situation. Paris cannot openly confess its greed, feign a “civilizing mission,” or admit to any responsibility due to its past crimes. This lack of purpose weakens French power on the continent, leading to violence and poverty in its wake.

West Africa’s drive for further independence has left Atlanticists concerned about the opening this leaves for Eurasian powers like Russia and China to increase their influence in Africa. The west’s reaction reflects a lack of respect for the sovereignty of African countries, viewing the continent merely as a theater to maintain global dominance.

Since the Ukraine war’s onset in early 2022, Atlanticists have expressed alarm over the unwillingness of Global South states to support the west’s anti-Russia policies, a trend further amplified by the shift to multipolarism everywhere. This weakening of western hegemony has opened a path for many nations to avidly explore their geopolitical options and diversify their economies.

A report from the Munich Security Conference held in February highlighted this very real schism with the west:

“Many countries in Africa, Asia, and Latin America have steadily lost faith in the legitimacy and fairness of an international system which has neither granted them an appropriate voice in global affairs, nor sufficiently addressed their core concerns. To many states, these failures are deeply tied to the west. They find that the western-led order has been characterized by post-colonial domination, double standards, and neglect for developing countries’ concerns.”

Fleeced by the CFA Franc

The aftermath of the Second World War marked a significant shift in global power dynamics, and the victorious powers sought to establish a new world order that would maintain peace and promote economic balance. 

In the context of African colonies, where colonial troops played a major role in the allied victory, the victorious powers, including France, aimed to retain economic control and benefit from their former colonies even as the world moved towards decolonization.

This included the establishment of new currency systems, with French leader Charles De Gaulle creating two currencies collectively known as the CFA Franc in 1945 for former colonies in the Western and Central zone.

As the push for political independence grew stronger in the late 1950s, France organized referendums in its African colonies to vote on accepting a constitution drafted by the French. 

Guinea, led by former trade unionist Sekou Toure, opposed accepting the French constitution and voted overwhelmingly against it. In a furious response, De Gaulle’s government withdrew all French administrators from Guinea and took action to sabotage the country’s infrastructure and resources. The harsh measures by Paris aimed to serve as an example of what would happen to any former French colony that resisted France’s agenda.

During the Cold War, the Communist states exploited such actions by presenting themselves as liberators and allies of African countries that sought independence from European influence. This stance has led to some Africans viewing countries like Russia as more equitable partners compared to France.

Over the years, France has demonstrated a pattern of intervening militarily – over 50 times since 1960 – in African countries to secure governments that remain compliant with French economic interests, particularly related to the continued use of the CFA Franc.

The system by which the CFA Franc operates has historically been one of a fixed exchange rate where the currency has unlimited convertibility but is permanently pegged to the French currency, previously the Franc and then the Euro. 

African currency under French control

This means that African countries cannot influence the value of their own currency, and the difference in value makes it so that France can buy African products artificially cheap while Africans are able to buy fewer goods with the money they exchange.

Worse yet, France had requirements to store, and thus profit from, the foreign reserves owned by its former colonies, though the requirement of holding 50 percent of their foreign exchange reserves in a French-ran bank was dropped for the western zone in 2019. 

Under this scheme, African states received a nominal amount of interest, but the bank benefited from lending that capital out at higher rates and attaining massive profits off of African resources and labor. This is despite the fact that many countries in Francophone Africa are major gold exporters and thus have a multitude of options for storing wealth to back a currency in alternative central banks.

While the CFA Franc system has provided some benefits in terms of stability and preventing Zimbabwean-style hyperinflation, it has also come under scrutiny for imposing requirements on African countries that are not placed on more powerful nations. The lack of control over their own currency has hindered economic growth and made these countries vulnerable to global economic shocks.

Northern African states such as Tunisia, Algeria, and Morocco chose to leave the CFA Franc upon gaining independence and have experienced relatively higher prosperity. Similarly, Botswana’s success with its own national currency demonstrates that proper management can lead to stable democracy and economic growth, even for less developed nations.

Exclusive rights and privileges

The CFA Franc system has been the geopolitical equivalent of one’s father insisting he manages their savings while leaving them out of his will. There are benefits to having a trade and currency zone, such as the current ECOWAS union that covers the Western part of the continent, but by design under the CFA Franc system, independence has been an illusion by which France has fleeced these countries. 

France has been dependent on Africa for its status as a world power for more than a century. Among other privileges it has carved out for itself in post-colonial treaties, France has had the exclusive right to sell military equipment to former colonies, and enjoys the first right to any natural resources discovered. Paris makes great use of these privileges: as just one example, 36.4 percent of France’s gas is sourced from the African continent.

Moreover, a vast network of French business interests, which include major multinational companies, dominate industries such as energy, communications, and transportation in many African countries. France’s government also supports French businesses in Africa in several ways, including through an enormous public company called COFACE which guarantees French exports into these underdeveloped markets. 

Towards independence and self-reliance

This economic dependence has contributed to the perpetuation of a system where African states remain weak, pliant, and reliant on resource exports, primarily benefiting French companies and interests. Additionally, African states are obligated to ally with France in any major conflict, further eroding their national sovereignty. 

The African continent suffers from many ailments, but perhaps the most persistent and nefarious are a lack of sovereignty and access to capital. Meanwhile, much of Europe’s prosperity has been derived from looting the Global South for centuries. 

The case of Brussels, built on the wealth derived from the brutal exploitation of the Congo under Belgian King Leopold II, is a stark reminder of the deep-rooted impact of colonialism. When the monarch’s crimes against humanity were discovered, he was ultimately forced to bequeath the majority of his fortune to the Belgian state upon his death. 

Not wanting to do so, he embarked on an enormous series of public works to spend his ill-gotten gains, creating modern Brussels. Now the EU and NATO meet there and audaciously give disingenuous lectures about universal human rights while surrounded by the profits of some of the most brutal cases of oppression in human history. 

While military governments often face challenges in achieving their stated goals, it is evident that western-backed “civil democracies” have also struggled to significantly improve the security and well-being of the African public. 

The path to solving Africa’s problems lies in transformative leaders who can shrug off the legacy and remaining shackles of colonialism and enable the continent to carve out a genuine, homegrown path to independence and self-reliance.