The Family of Nations Needs to Stand Up to the US

by BARRY BARNETT

How long are the leaders of the world’s nations – and the millions of people killed and maimed by American invasions – going to put up with the bullying, the economic terrorism, and the humiliation by the US – an empire, by definition, in all but name?

“Our” country will not admit to calling itself the American Empire – which is exactly what it is – because of the negative connotations of empires of the past and their many depredations – the British, Japanese, Russian, Napoleonic, Spanish, “Holy Roman,” Mongol, Roman, Persian, Babylonian, Assyrian…

But the “world’s only superpower” has committed, and is presently committing, just as many horrors as these classic empires of history.

As the United States steps up its malign influence supporting opposition parties in Venezuela, Nicaragua, and Iran; continues its economic and military aid to oppressive regimes in Israel, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Honduras; gives accolades to autocratic countries like Uzbekistan, Turkey and the Philippines; pivots on all sides now for full-spectrum dominance, long-term, over Russia and China, with military bases ringing those nations and NATO ever encroaching; and breaks its word in planning sumits and breaking international treaties again and again – the rest of the world sighs in exasperation and continues to be bullied.

Will the European demi-powers bow to America’s wanton demand to “immediately cease” trade with Iran while continuing business as usual with the western hemisphere’s economic powerhouse, even though Germany, France and the UK are the dominant financial countries on that continent?  Will their leaders continue to kiss the diminutive hands of Tsar Trump the Terrible?

Will China, Russia, S. Korea and other nations keep accommodating the US as it lets N. Korea do all the work, while hardly dropping its belligerent attitude?  One minister from the upper, severed half of Hanguk personally expressed his “repugnance” for US National Security Adviser John “the Bomb” Bolton (if the translation from Korean isn’t even more insulting that that word).

With Trump, Bolton, and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, newly transferred from the CIA (Coup Instigating Agency), backed up by such reactionary billionaires as Sheldon Adelson, Paul Singer, Bernard Marcus, and Robert and Rebekah Mercer (with Steve Bannon lurking in the shadows somewhere) at the apex of their influence and interference, the rest of the world, especially Iran at the moment, better watch out.

As award-winning investigative reported Allan Nairn attested to Amy Goodman on Democracy Now!, “The idea that Trump would be less militant was insane from the start.  And he’s proving that blood is the tool. Trump has increased the deployment of US troops, of CIA covert operatives. He has taken away the minimal restraints on bombing and kidnapping…torture, US killing of civilians in bombing runs, US raids on civilian homes on the thinnest of pretense.  Under Obama, the US was killing thousands of civilians, through drone attacks, etc., but there were some limits on who[m] you could target and when. Trump has essentially stripped them away. People…were essentially sold a bill of goods on the idea that Trump would be somehow less warlike…less aggressive, more, some claimed, isolationist.”

If the nations of the world – I propose – led by Russia, China, Germany, the UK, and France, along with major countries this president and his administration have given preference or commendation to, as Turkey, the Philippines, India, Japan, and Canada, and even Norway (expressed as the antithesis of “shithole”), Italy and the Vatican, and Australia, would stand together against American domination, and really stand opposed and undivided to “our” country’s continued and accelerating abominations, I think that would be powerful.  Maybe they would be joined by S. Korea, Pakistan, Spain, Portugal, Iceland, Greece, Qatar, Vietnam and others, along with figures like the 14th Dalai Lama Tenzin Gyatso, who says, “My religion is kindness.”

Despite claiming to be a “Christian” country, and supporting the government and military of Israel as if by the will of its Jewish citizens, America’s religion is not kindness.

Maybe We the People Can Do Something, Too

The underlying intention of “Mahatma” (“Great Soul”) Gandhi’s movement, based on an underlying activenon-violence, satyagraha (“truth force”), was to move those who commit injustice and atrocities to feel remorse and shame, and therefore relent.  The power of a popular, non-violent uprising and resistance, especially in large numbers, shows the powers that be that our complacent, busy citizens have finally decided to get up off their butts and join in protest – which has become relatively unpopular in 21st century America – rather than put up with the status quo.  And that the people are not going to accept anything less than change.

This demonstrates to our “leaders” and to the world that the people have lost trust in and have superseded the electoral, legislative, executive and judicial processes and have decided to act.  A non-violent demonstration of this kind moves the feelings and emotions of peoples all over the planet, especially in this day of instant communication. It strikes fear in the hearts of the real ruling families and “deep state” actors in power behind the observable powers – if it is large, organized and truly popular.  Even if they do not feel shame or regret, at least they do take notice.

Unfortunately, a war against Iran may be in the cards.  The mere abstention from joining the hostilities by every member of the EU – and I can’t imagine any European nation going along with this one – as well as every state except Israel and Saudi Arabia (strange bedfellows), will make a literally non-violent statement.  This will hardly be a “coalition” war this time, so the tendency to fear a US attack on the Islamic Republic may be a bit overblown – but we’ll see.

However, the fear is real as we watch the Empire’s insane casus belli in action – unflinching, knee-jerk support for continuing Israeli warplane attacks on Iranian positions in Syria.

Maybe there is one way we can fight fire with fire.  I am not a student of war, but if a “peacekeeping force”of United Nations troops of a large size and comprised of international participants including members of many major nations – which is mandated never to fight in any conflict except to engage illegal armies attacking another sovereign state; and if this force had the complete support of the family of nations, being voted for overwhelmingly by the General Assembly – then maybe it could be effective.

I am against adding more guns to supposedly protect students by arming teachers or additional guards – like the guard at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, FL who basically cowered and hid while Nikolas Cruz shot up the classes.  However, if the UN trulykeeps to its mission, unlike some NGO members who withheld food for sex in Africa and Asia, and is well trained and equipped, even if they are counterattacked, say, by an even superior force of the US military, those emotions of horror, shame and remorse in non-violent observers on all continents will turn world opinion, I’ll wager, against anyone standing up to the official UN peacekeepers.  These “peacekeepers” are mandated by the UN Charter, Geneva Conventions, Rome Protocol, and international treaties – signed by the United States – to prevent unprovoked aggression against sovereign states. And Iran (Persia) has not invaded another country since 1856, when it attempted regaining the city of Herat from Afghanistan. I wish I could claim the same for the American Empire.

Also, typically, professional and experienced diplomatic negotiators – impartial mediators – will be at the front of the UN fighting force to try dissuading attacks – backed by the force of world opinion.

This is only if the UN representatives behave in a way that earns universal respect, of course.  Maybe I am being naive – grasping at straws. But the newly reminted neocons in DC seem to have broken the last straw – or the back of global stability.  I fear this is leading toward chaos from the triple threat of the US, Israel, and Saudi Arabia under the new, autocratic and inexperienced Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman.

And the Clown Prince Donald Trump is precipitous.  So abject and obvious are his prevarications and those by Binyamin Netanyahu, that they may actually serve to prevent World War III.  If the entire family of nations is so horrified by the unwarranted hostilities of those three; if public opinion, especially in the US, can escape the grip of Russophobia and all the other propaganda, such as the bogus claim that Iran is the biggest terrorist threat on Earth (until the next devil is named – remember Bush, Jr.’s axis of evil?) – then it may be US-Israel-Arabia against the rest of the world, an imbalance of power, and not a world war.

But it’s important to note what will happen if the US directly attacks Russia.  There is some chance of this – or perhaps as an escalation after US military involvement in Iran proper.  Russian Federation Pres. Vladimir Putin, in a little-noted, quiet public speech, adumbrated an outline of Russia’s classified new technologies, and the threat to the US military and mainland.  They are ready, and we should listen.

Russia, in response to America’s new cold war and announced “upgrade” of its nuclear arsenal, is taking the threat seriously.  The US has decidedly initiated a new arms race. And Russia is initiating the latest generation of super-weapons that will guarantee a prevention of the ghastly losses the Soviet Union suffered from the Nazi invasion.  And Russia must be getting tired of constant accusations of its “aggression,” not to mention interference in elections and poisoning double agents.

Russia is ready.  Just a hint of what they have:  the fastest ICBMs ever, hypersonic, that make all our ABM (anti-ballistic missile) systems ineffective; cruise missiles not only with nuclear warheads, but with nuclear engines, based on small reactors, that can go practically forever without refueling and make tiny course adjustments and evasive maneuvers quickly; and a new class of nuclear powered, deep-level submarines.  I didn’t quite understand the explanation, but apparently three of these off the coasts of North America can together create a complex of tsunamis, devastating the US with inland waves far higher and penetrating more deeply and destructively than even the ones that affected the entire Indian and Pacific areas in 2004 and 2011.

Putin emphasized that Russia’s new generation of nuclear warfare is “beyond what you think we have,” and that the US $1 trillion + upgrade of its nuclear weapons systems will be anticipated by Russia, and therefore Russia will be ahead of the US again when “we” think we are capable of defending ourselves from retaliation; but we will not be able to do so, he warned.

So now the powers that be and their crass media are amping up the hysteria and the multifarious, daily distractions, for chaos and more destabilization – a sure sign of the decline and imminent fall of a once mighty empire, trying to retain its hegemony.

But the US is asking for it.

It is important to consider international trade, too.  P

And, as previously stated, I exhort my fellow Americans to organize for strikes and more strikes leading up to general strike; and for every organization representing people’s rights, from civil rights legal groups to consumer protection agencies to what unions are left to the Poor People’s March, to announce a unified policy of non-payment of taxes to the government if any more nations are attacked – especially ones like Iran or N. Korea – that would cause perilous destabilization of the world.

But a cornered animal is dangerous.  And we do not know to what lengths this current configuration of government – including the unseen powers who may be pulling the strings – would be willing to go.  Therefore we the people and the family of nations must do all we can now to resist division based on any differences, and finally stand up to this dangerous, clawed and fanged animal, the United States.

 https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/05/18/the-family-of-nations-needs-to-stand-up-to-the-us
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