The US-China relations are at a low ebb today. Key issues dividing the world’s two leading economic powers include widespread computer hacking, economic tensions, concerns over human rights, pressures on foreign nonprofits in China, and the increasing Chinese assertions of sovereignty in South China Sea shipping lanes vital to global commerce. The Obama administration’s foreign policy rebalance, or «pivot», to Asia has been widely interpreted in China as an attempt to contain its rise. US efforts to bolster ties and military alliances with regional states such as Japan, South Korea and the Philippines have created a new narrative in Beijing – that the United States has encouraged China’s neighbors to push their territorial claims more aggressively. These are fundamental and
Category: Head Stories
The way things are supposed to work on this planet is like this: in the United States, the power structures (public and private) decide what they want the rest of the world to do. They communicate their wishes through official and unofficial channels, expecting automatic cooperation. If cooperation is not immediately forthcoming, they apply political, financial and economic pressure. If that still doesn’t produce the intended effect, they attempt regime change through a color revolution or a military coup, or organize and finance an insurgency leading to terrorist attacks and civil war in the recalcitrant nation.
The South China Sea is and will continue to be the ultimate geopolitical flashpoint of the young 21st century – way ahead of the Middle East or Russia’s western borderlands. No less than the future of Asia – as well as the East-West balance of power – is at stake. To understand the Big Picture, we need to go back to 1890 when Alfred Mahan, then president of the US Naval College, wrote the seminal The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783. Mahan’s central thesis is that the US should go global in search of new markets, and protect these new trade routes through a network of naval bases.
Part I Armageddon Approaches The Western pubic doesn’t know it, but Washington and its European vassals are convincing Russia that they are preparing to attack. Eric Zuesse reports on a German newspaper leak of a Bundeswehr decision to declare Russia to be an enemy nation of Germany. This is the interpretation that some Russian politicians themselves have put on the NATO military bases that Washington is establishing on Russia’s borders. Washington might intend the military buildup as pressure on President Putin to reduce Russian opposition to Washington’s unilateralism. However, it reminds some outspoken Russians such as Vladimir Zhirinovsky of Hitler’s troops on Russia’s border in 1941.
Astounding increases in the danger of nuclear weapons have paralleled provocative foreign policy decisions that needlessly incite tensions between Washington and Moscow. “Today, the danger of some sort of a nuclear catastrophe is greater than it was during the Cold War,” warns William Perry, “and most people are blissfully unaware of this danger.” A former U.S. defense secretary from 1994 to 1997, Perry has been an inside player in the business of nuclear weapons for over 60 years. And his book, My Journey at the Nuclear Brink, is a sober read. It’s also a powerful counterpoint to NATO’s current European strategy, which envisions nuclear weapons as a deterrent to war: The purpose of nukes “is to prevent major war, not to wage wars,” argues the Alliance’s magazine, NATO Review.
Appeal to All Free-Thinking Nonaligned Nations: Boycott the Olympics in Solidarity with Russian Athletes The Unites States, once more, under false pretenses is attempting – and possibly succeeding – in punishing, or in Washington’s jargon, ‘sanctioning’ Russia for allegedly having systematized doping during the 2014 Sochi Olympics. They know no scruples, these masters of lies and manipulations in Washington. Fortunately, they are becoming more and more careless and flagrant in what they are doing – so that increasingly people will become aware of the criminal nature of the Washington government and its European vassals which support whatever atrocities the US is inflicting – or attempting to inflict – on the world.
The Coup in Turkey Has Thrown a Wrench in Uncle Sam’s “Pivot” Plan A failed coup in Turkey has changed the geopolitical landscape overnight realigning Ankara with Moscow while shattering Washington’s plan to redraw the map of the Middle East. Whether Turkish strongman Recep Tayyip Erdogan staged the coup or not is of little importance in the bigger scheme of things. The fact is, the incident has consolidated his power domestically while derailing Washington’s plan to control critical resources and pipeline corridors from Qatar to Europe. The Obama administration’s disregard for the national security interests of its allies, has pushed the Turkish president into Moscow’s camp, removing the crucial land bridge between Europe and Asia that Washington needs to maintain its global hegemony into the new century.
A coalition airstrike reported on Tuesday that killed at least 85 civilians—one more than died in the Nice attack in France last week—wasn’t featured at all on the front pages of two of the top US national newspapers, the New York Times and LA Times, and only merited brief blurbs on the front pages of the Wall Street Journal and Washington Post, with the actual stories buried on pages A-16 and A-15, respectively. According to the London Telegraph (7/19/16), the airstrike killed “more than 85 civilians” after the “coalition mistook them for Islamic State fighters.” Eight families were represented among the dead, with victims “as young as three.” The Intercept (7/19/16) reported the death toll could end up being well over 100.
Another false flag in Würzburg, Bavaria, Germany. A young man attacks four passengers in a train and later a passerby in the street. The scenes repeat themselves now in rapid cadence. Paris, Brussels, Nice, Bangladesh … Same patterns, same motives – and same group of terrorists claiming credit. The lies and propaganda are becoming more flagrant, and, We, the People, just swallow it. No questions asked. For how long? Until it is too late – when we are all militarized and can’t make a move without being watched – or killed for disobedience? How much longer!
Behind The CIA Desperate Turkey Coup Attempt On the evening of July 15, a group of Turkish army officers announced that they had staged a military coup d’etat and had assumed control of the country. They claimed that Erdogan was in a desperate flight for his life and that they were now in the process of restoring order. The only problem for those army officers and their sponsors far away in Langley, Virginia and Saylorsburg, Pennsylvania – where Turkish political operator, Fetullah Gülen, hides in exile under CIA protection–is that they did not succeed. Behind the coup attempt is a far more dramatic story of the huge geopolitical shift that the often unpredictable political survivor, President (still) Recep Erdogan, was in the midst of making when Gülen’s loyalists made their desperate, now apparently failed coup attempt.