Made in the US Hong Kong Protests?

Made in the US Hong Kong Protests?

by Stephen Lendman (stephenlendman.org - Home - Stephen Lendman)

Time and again, things making headline news in the West aren't as they seem. 

Protests ongoing for weeks in Hong Kong are much more than about opposition to its extradition to Beijing authority legislation - the measure proposed by pro-Beijing lawmakers, governing with majority control.

China state media called demonstrations and related violence a "conspiracy with the West."

China's Global Times (GT) said the city's "future won't be held hostage by (the) opposition and its Western supporters," adding:

"(I)nternational forces have increasingly collaborated with the opposition in Hong Kong."

Two opposition groups visited the US in March and May. They met with House Speaker Pelosi and Pompeo, clearly discussing anti-Beijing strategy. 

"Washington has been particularly active in meddling in Hong Kong affairs...to pressure China," said GT. The US is collaborating with opposition elements, its longstanding practice in sovereign independent countries it doesn't control, a flagrant international law violation.

Days earlier, provocateurs in Hong Kong smashed windows and committed other forms of violence.

After crashing the parliament's front gate, they stormed the building, sprayed graffiti, and clashed with police violently.

What's going on has CIA and National Endowment for Democracy (mandated to eliminate it wherever it exists) fingerprints all over it, Beijing clearly furious about US involvement in what's going on - a hostile action against its sovereignty.

RT reported that anti-government provocateurs "tore down portraits of the city's leader, Carrie Lam, as well as Chinese President Xi Jinping. (They) also scrawled political slogans across everything in sight, walls and floors included."

What's going on requires orchestration and leadership. The US has a long disturbing history of meddling in the internal affairs of other countries, allies and adversaries alike worldwide.

Trump expressed support for what's going on, saying "they're looking for democracy (sic) and I think most people want democracy (sic). That's what it's all about (sic). It's all about democracy (sic)." 

"There's nothing better (sic)...(U)nfortunately, some governments don't want democracy" - notably the US, other Western nations and Israel, the notion banned by hardline extremist regimes running these countries.

GT said "(w)hen protestors stormed the Hong Kong Legislature, it was an open and symbolic attack aimed at expressing contempt for the rule of law while trampling on the fundamental interests of society."

No nations condone violence and other destructive behavior, especially when directed and/or supported from abroad, the case in Hong Kong.

Beijing clearly won't allow peaceful city residents to be terrorized by foreign-supported thugs committing violence.

In the US, Britain, France, elsewhere in the West, and notably in Israel against Palestinian protesters, police and other security forces often attack them violently without just cause.

Plenty of violence erupts during US-staged color revolutions and old-fashioned coup attempts, Venezuela experiencing it under Obama and Trump, along with numerous other countries earlier, Iran a prime target for 40 years, Cuba since its 1959 revolution.

Hong Kong is Western-influenced from nearly 150 years of UK control, the city returned to China in 1997 under a "One Country, Two Systems Condition" that's clearly untenable longterm.

Establishment media reporting on what's going on is reminiscent of the false Western narrative about June 1989 events in Beijing's Tiananmen Square.

Violent protesters were responsible for what happened, not soldiers. The fictitious narrative persists in the West, demonizing China the way all sovereign nations the US doesn't control are vilified.

The CIA was involved in 30-year ago Tiananmen Square events to destabilize China, the same thing going on now in Hong Kong.

China and other sovereign independent nations have no partner or ally in Washington, its ruling authorities seeking to transform these nations into US client states.

US-orchestrated violence in Hong Kong may or may not spread elsewhere in the country. 

Either way, what's going on won't make it easier to resolve major Sino/US structural differences.

VISIT MY NEW WEB SITE: stephenlendman.org (Home - Stephen Lendman). Contact at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.

My newest book as editor and contributor is titled "Flashpoint in Ukraine: How the US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III."

http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html

Photo: By Hf9631 - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://ift.tt/2JmVGra

Let's block ads! (Why?)

Читать далее ...

USAID Anti-Russia Propaganda

USAID Anti-Russia Propaganda

by Stephen Lendman (stephenlendman.org - Home - Stephen Lendman)

Both right wings of the US war party consider nonbelligerent Russia an existential threat - a nation seeking world peace and cooperative relations with other nations, threatening none.

The US and its imperial partners threaten all sovereign independent nations, waging endless wars along with other hostile actions to weaken, isolate, and transform them into vassal states.

The CIA, National Endowment for Democracy (NED), International Republican Institute (IRI), National Democratic Institute, USAID, right-wing US think tanks, the CIA/AFL and other large labor unions, along with similar organizations and initiatives are all about advancing Washington's anti-democratic agenda at the expense of world peace, equity and justice for all. 

A newly released USAID document is titled "COUNTERING MALIGN KREMLIN INFLUENCE (CMKI) DEVELOPMENT FRAMEWORK," the latest US anti-Russia broadside. 

On Friday, USAID head Mark Green presented the Trump regime strategy for "countering malign Kremlin influence" that doesn't exist - "by building the economic and democratic resilience (sic) of targeted countries (sic)," adding:

"The United States has long believed that a strong, prosperous, and free Europe (sic) is vitally important to American strategic interests." 

"The Russian Government and its proxies (sic) aim to weaken US influence in the world and divide us from our allies and partners (sic)."

The above Orwellian remarks turned reality on its head about the most dedicated major nation to world peace and multi-world polarity.

The US is hell-bent for eliminating what it claims to support globally, including the sovereign rights of all nations, their energy and economic independence, as well as democratic rule, media independence, and rule of law observance.

USAID falsely claimed Washington supports all of the above for all nations. Its aim for dominion over planet earth, its resources and population belies these high-minded notions US policymakers abhor.

Russia's Foreign Ministry responded to the USAID's policy document, calling it "malicious anti-Russian propaganda," adding:

The US agency "is not at all aimed at creating an atmosphere of cooperation on the world stage, but serves as an instrument of ideological struggle and propaganda."

Policymakers in Washington want all other nations "subordinate(ed) to US interests." Bipartisan US hardliners want normalization of US/Russia relations prevented.

They want puppet regimes beholden to US interests installed everywhere. The USAID document is the latest in a long line of anti-Russia US efforts - showing partnership between both nations is unattainable.

It's foolhardy to believe otherwise. Russia and China are the only nations able to challenge US sought global dominance.

Post-Soviet Union Cold War 2.0 Russophobia is far more menacing to world peace than its earlier version.

Relentless US bipartisan media-supported Russia bashing risks unthinkable confrontation between the world's dominant nuclear powers - a doomsday scenario if occurs by accident or design.

Moscow is accused of all sorts of things it had nothing to do with. Endlessly repeated propaganda gets most people to believe it, despite no credible evidence backing claims, none even presented.

The Russian Federation never attacked or threatened another nation - what the US and its imperial partners do repeatedly, waging permanent wars of aggression and other hostile actions on humanity at home and abroad, what imperialism is all about.

The evil empire is headquartered in Washington - with branch offices in most nations on every continent, colonial control beyond whatever existed earlier.

Fantasy democracies and tyrannical regimes define US allies - pressured, bullied, bribed, and/or threatened to serve its interests.

Russia and China use carrots, not sticks, to gain allies, a longterm winning strategy unless US-unleashed nuclear immolation consumes us all - or ecocide does the same thing longer-term because friends of the earth lack power to save it.

Militant US/UK hostility toward Russia threatens everyone, most people unaware of what risks possible nuclear war because media fail to warn of the clear and present danger. 

VISIT MY NEW WEB SITE: stephenlendman.org (Home - Stephen Lendman). Contact at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.

My newest book as editor and contributor is titled "Flashpoint in Ukraine: How the US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III."

http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html

Let's block ads! (Why?)

Читать далее ...

Sino/Russian Solidarity with Iran

Sino/Russian Solidarity with Iran

by Stephen Lendman (stephenlendman.org - Home - Stephen Lendman)

The world community should, but hasn't, followed Sino/Russian support for Iran's sovereign rights, a few exceptions aside.

EU nations partner with Washington's hegemonic agenda. Second deputy chairman of Iran's National Security and Foreign Policy Parliament Commission Mohammad Javad Jamali slammed Brussels, saying:

Britain, France, Germany, and other EU nations lack commitment to the JCPOA, "not from their inability but from their lack of determination. They share the same viewpoint (as) the United States on Iran in terms of strategic issues" - while pretending to support the JCPOA they effectively abandoned by their policy choices. 

Jamali believes EU countries want to withdraw from the nuclear deal, then wrongfully blame Iran for their action, how things may turn out ahead  - showing Europe's support for the deal all along was pure illusion.

China and Russia adhere to JCPOA provisions. They oppose foreign interference in Iran's internal affairs by the Trump regime, an international law breach. More on this below.

Things heading for possible war will be catastrophic for the Islamic Republic and region if launched, why it's crucial for European and other world community nations to oppose joining a US coalition for war on a nation at peace with its neighbors, threatening no one.

Most congressional members and US public sentiment oppose war on Iran. A Harvard CAPS/Harris poll found 78% of Americans believe no US military action in response to Iran's (legal) downing of a Pentagon drone (illegally) in its airspace was the right policy choice.

Most Americans oppose war on Iran preemptively. A majority also disapprove of Trump regime relations with the country. 

Only 5% of respondents want the White House to declare war on Iran - an illegal act if not authorized by Security Council members.

Under the UN Charter, it's only permissible in response to being attacked, or if aggression is clearly imminent, never preemptively for any reason with no allowed exceptions, how all US wars were launched in the post-WW II era - against nations posing no threat to the US or anyone else.

US-stoked tensions with Iran are more intense than any time since its 1979 revolution because of the Trump regime's rage to return the country to US client state status, along with gaining control over its world's 4th largest proved oil reserves, a prize Washington covets.

Last week, Trump regime envoy for regime change in Iran Brian Hook said the US will sanction any countries and enterprises buying Iranian oil, adding "(t)here are right now no oil waivers in place."

Calling Iranian oil sales "illicit" defies international law while ignoring illegal US sanctions on the country, why no nations and enterprises should respect them.

China's Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang slammed unlawful Trump regime "maximum pressure" on Iran, calling it "the root cause of the current fraught tensions."

Beijing continues to buy Iranian oil it greatly values, refusing to go along with illegal US sanctions. Russia's Foreign Ministry commented as follows about unacceptable Trump regime pressure on Iran, saying:

"Moscow has watched with concern as the US has ratcheted up tensions around Iran for over a year," adding: 

"Leveling baseless charges and withdrawing from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, Washington has steadily piled on massive sanction pressure and taken actions, including actions of a military nature, intended to provoke Iran, while demanding unwarranted concessions of it, up to and including the de facto abandonment of its absolutely legitimate interests in international affairs, despite the fact that Iran's nuclear activities are exclusively peaceful and fully supervised by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)."

US actions show it's "intent on burning bridges" with Iran, one of many "example(s) of the continued US propensity to dictate its will to sovereign states." 

"Imagining itself to be the master of the fate of the world, it adopts increasingly aggressive policies and is quick to 'punish' those who refuse to submit to (its) dictates."

"Russia stands in full solidarity with the friendly people of Iran and its government." 

The Trump regime "should consider where such a reckless course of action might lead. Not only (is it) destabiliz(ing) the Middle East, it threatens to undermine the entire system of international security."

The above remarks are usually candid about Washington's imperial agenda. Its rage to rule the world could end up destroying it.

It's already threatened with ecocide because of reckless industrial policies, endorsed in the West and elsewhere.

If the Trump regime attacks Iran preemptively, the Islamic Republic will hit back hard.

If Russia intervenes to aid Iran as it did to combat US-supported terrorists in Syria, things could spin out of control, turning regional war into a global conflict.

If nuclear weapons are used for the first time in earnest, enough detonations could hasten humanity's demise far faster than environmental degradation.

Either way we're all doomed if reckless policies aren't checked and halted. No evidence suggests things may turn out this way - just the opposite. 

US hegemonic rage and lack of world community ecosanity are humanity's greatest threats.

VISIT MY NEW WEB SITE: stephenlendman.org (Home - Stephen Lendman). Contact at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.

My newest book as editor and contributor is titled "Flashpoint in Ukraine: How the US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III."

http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html

Photo: By Unknown - https://ift.tt/2wQZPOU, CC BY 4.0, https://ift.tt/2JuP3TZ

Let's block ads! (Why?)

Читать далее ...

Militarism Defines Trump’s 4th of July Spectacle

Militarism Defines Trump’s 4th of July Spectacle
 
by Stephen Lendman (stephenlendman.org - Home - Stephen Lendman)
 
Trump intends turning this year’s Independence Day commemoration into a show of US military might — reflecting a nation permanently at war against invented enemies. More on the July 4 DC display below.
 
Annual US Independence Day commemorations reflect hypocrisy, not democracy, a notion the nation’s founders abhorred, things no different today.
 
Discussing “Untold Truths About the American Revolution,” the late Howard Zinn asked the following:
 
Was waging war then really worth it, taking perhaps 25,000 – 50,000 American lives, the “equivalent today to two and a half million (at the lower estimate) to get England off our backs?”
 
Canada ended British rule without war. So did Western Massachusetts farmers, “driv(ing their forces) out without firing a single shot,” adding: 
 
“They had assembled by the thousands and thousands around courthouses and colonial offices and they had just taken over (and) said goodbye to the British officials” nonviolently.
 
America’s revolution was much different, but who “gained what?” Most Americans were poor like today. 
 
“(T)he Founding Fathers were rather rich” with much different interests than ordinary people. “Do you think the Indians cared about independence” or Blacks held involuntarily as slaves?
 
“Slavery was there before (and) there after. Not only that, we wrote slavery into the Constitution. We legitimized it,” Zinn explained, adding:
 
“What about class divisions?” America was and remains a racist society. “We try to pretend in this country that we’re all one happy family. We’re not.”
 
The revolution wasn’t a “a simple affair of all of us against all of them,” any more than ongoing US wars in multiple theaters today.
 
They’re waged for wealth, power and privilege. They’re unrelated to exporting democracy to yearning masses.
 
“We’ve got to rethink this question of war,” said Zinn. There’s never a justifiable reason to battle another nation except in self-defense if attacked — clearly not the reason for all US post-WW II conflicts, aggression against nations threatening no one, a never-ending cycle of violence, slaughter and destruction.
 
On July 4, 1776, America’s Independence Day, white male property owners alone could vote. 
 
Blacks were commodities, not people, women considered childbearing, homemaking appendages of their husbands, no constitutional rights afforded them.
 
Women’s suffrage wasn’t achieved until the 1920 19th Amendment became law after nearly a century of struggle for the right — 144 years after the nation’s birth.
 
Exploitation of Black Americans continues in new forms from earlier — from chattel to wage slavery, Jim Crow to its modern-day version, freedom to mass incarceration.
 
Zinn called enslavement of Blacks “the most cruel form in history: the frenzy for limitless profit that comes from capitalistic agriculture; the reduction of the slave to less than human status by the use of racial hatred, with that relentless clarity based on color, where white was master, black was slave.”
 
Native Americans perhaps have least to celebrate on the nation’s birthday, victims of America’s genocide, at most around 3% of their original numbers surviving.
 
For centuries, they were “hacked apart with axes and swords, burned alive and trampled under horses, hunted as game and fed to dogs, shot, beaten, stabbed, scalped for bounty, hanged on meathooks and thrown over the sides of ships at sea, worked to death as slave laborers, intentionally starved and frozen to death during a multitude of forced marches and internments, and, in an unknown number of instances, deliberately infected with epidemic diseases,” Ward Churchill explained, adding:
 
“The American holocaust was and remains unparalleled, in terms of its scope, ferocity and continuance over time,” thereafter suppressed by denial and silence.
 
From the nation’s founding to today, “We the People of the United States,” the constitution’s opening phrase, meant America’s privileged class, not its ordinary people, things no different today.
 
Yesteryear’s free-wheeling/self-serving politicians reflect how today’s political class operates for much greater stakes globally than when America was founded.
 
In his memoir titled “Born on the Fourth of July,” Vietnam combat veteran, anti-war activist Ron Kovic explained how war left his “beautiful body destroyed, defiled and savaged.”
 
The experience left him “physically and emotionally haunted” — wounded, paralyzed, and wheelchair-bound.
 
He’s been arrested a dozen or more times for publicly opposing US wars of aggression, describing his Vietnam experience as “condemning (young men sent to fight) to their (physical or emotional) death.”
 
In his book, he said the following:
 
“I wanted people to understand. I wanted to share with them as nakedly and openly and intimately as possible what I had gone through, what I had endured.” 
 
“I wanted them to know what it really meant to be in a war, to be shot and wounded, to be fighting for my life on the intensive care ward, not the myth we had grown up believing.” 
 
“I wanted people to know about the hospitals and the enema room, about why I had become opposed to the war, why I had grown more and more committed to peace and nonviolence.” 
 
“I had been beaten by the police and arrested twelve times for protesting the war, and I had spent many nights in jail in my wheelchair.” 
 
“I had been called a Communist and a traitor, simply for trying to tell the truth about what had happened in that war, but I refused to be intimidated.”
 
Master of oral history, Chicagoan Studs Terkel (1912 - 2008) explained there was nothing good about WW II, mischaracterized as the good war.
 
In his book titled “The Good War: An Oral History of World War II,” he said it was good that America “was the only country among the combatants that was neither invaded nor bombed. Ours were the only cities not blasted to rubble,” adding:
 
The bad was it “warped our view of how we look at things today (seeing them) in terms of war,” and the notion that they’re good or why else fight them. 
 
This “twisted memory….encourages (people) to be willing, almost eager, to use military force” instead of going all-out to avoid it.
 
There’s nothing good about mass slaughter, communities turned to rubble, and human misery affecting countless millions. 
 
In the nuclear age, wars are “lunatic” acts, these weapons likely to be used one day when other means aren’t considered enough to triumph over another nation.
 
Trump’s 4th of July commemoration will feature militarism over a celebration of world peace.
 
His so-called Salute to America on Washington’s National Mall will feature a display of the nation’s military might, including flyovers of F-35 stealth warplanes, attack helicopters, and Navy Blue Angel stunt pilots, along with M1A1 Abrams tanks and other hardware on Washington’s street.
 
Pentagon commanders will stand next to Trump for the display of military might. He’ll be the first sitting US president to deliver a televised address to the nation on the commemoration of its founding.
 
One estimate suggests the spectacle will cost tens of millions of taxpayer dollars. Preparations have been ongoing for months.
 
Trump is the latest in a long line of US warrior presidents. What’s planned for the 4th of July in Washington intends to show it, along with a display of the nation’s might.
 
In modern times, many Americans celebrate the 4th with family, friends, at outings, picnics, barbecues, a day at the ballpark, or other activities far removed from militarism and warmaking.
 
Trump wants the nation to commemorate the holiday through the prism of the real national pastime — waging endless wars, smashing one country after another, letting the world community know who’s boss.
 
Violence defines America’s culture, glorifying wars in the name of peace its ruling authorities abhor.
 
Long ago, Albert Einstein and philosopher Bertrand Russell warned: “Shall we put an end to the human race, or shall mankind renounce war.”
 
The notion is rejected by US ruling authorities, risking eventual war to end all future ones because of mass annihilation if the madness continues.
 
VISIT MY NEW WEB SITE: stephenlendman.org (Home - Stephen Lendman). Contact at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.
 
My newest book as editor and contributor is titled "Flashpoint in Ukraine: How the US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III."
 
https://ift.tt/1iNPjMF
 
     ResponderResponder a todosEncaminhar
     
 
 
 
 
 
 
Photo: By Department of Defense - https://ift.tt/2KYzy9T, Public Domain, https://ift.tt/2RPFd2A

Let's block ads! (Why?)

Читать далее ...

Russia: New Super-Weapon Exceeding the Best in the West

Russia Adding a New Super-Weapon to its Arsenal Exceeding the Best in the West

by Stephen Lendman (stephenlendman.org - Home - Stephen Lendman)

Russian super-weapons technologically outmatch the Pentagon's best, developed at a small fraction of the cost, using its resources efficiently.

Despite pouring countless trillions of dollars down a black hole of waste, fraud and abuse, the US is declining politically, economically, financially, and militarily - Russia, China, and other nations rising.

Russian military superiority is enough to give US hawks pause about attacking the country. Its formidable arsenal includes:

• a 200-ton Sarmat ICBM able to successfully breach ABM defenses

• a low-flying stealth nuclear-powered cruise missile with a far greater range than US ones

• a nuclear-powered, high-speed, unmanned submersible vehicle - able to operate undetected at great ocean depths, armed with conventional or nuclear missiles

• a new hypersonic missile with greater than Mach-5 speed (Mach-1 the speed of sound), carrying nuclear or conventional warheads, able to penetrate ABM defenses

• new hypersonic, high-precision missiles able to "hit targets at inter-continental distance and can adjust their altitude and course as they travel," Vladimir Putin explained.

Russia's military also has cutting-edge laser weapons technology. Pentagon commanders know its superior super-weapons rule out a US military option against the nation.

Its ability to optimize resources for developing sophisticated weapons technology made Russia the world's dominant super-power - a new defensive super-weapon coming to its arsenal

According to Russian defense industry giant Rostec's CEO Sergey Chemezov, the country's highly classified S-500 air defense system missiles are going into production sooner than expected.

The long-range, anti-stealth or other aircraft, anti-ballistic/cruise missile air defense system is a new design, not an S-400 upgrade - able to intercept targets accurately at high and low altitudes, including on the ground.

Its technology is superior to the S-400 system, reportedly able to hit up to 10 ballistic or other  targets at the same time, accurately at distances up to 600 km away at altitudes up to 40 km.

It can down them at hypersonic speed of about Mach 20, reportedly also able to strike low-orbital satellites. S-500s are intended to shield Moscow and other strategic areas.

According to some reports, the S-500 system is able to detect hostile ballistic warheads as far as 1,300 km away. It can intercept and down ballistic missiles before atmospheric re-entry.

Chemezov said "(w)e are already starting to produce the S-500. This is a (highly) advanced system, so I would not like to talk about it now, as it hasn't been adopted by our military yet."

It's designed to replace Russia's A-135 missile system and be used along with S-400s. Its specific capabilities remain classified and haven't been officially released.

The system reportedly is mobile, to be carried on specially designed vehicles with superior cross-country mobility.

An S-1000 system reportedly is being designed to have greater capabilities. By optimizing its resources efficiently, Russia is able to maintain super-weapon superiority over US-dominated NATO.

VISIT MY NEW WEB SITE: stephenlendman.org (Home - Stephen Lendman). Contact at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.

My newest book as editor and contributor is titled "Flashpoint in Ukraine: How the US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III."

http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html

Photo: Por David James Paquin (attributed)Este ficheiro foi inicialmente carregado por Solipsist em Wikipédia em inglês - https://ift.tt/2RVyvYV de en.wikipedia para a wiki Commons por Saperaud., Domínio público, https://ift.tt/2L0oWY0

Let's block ads! (Why?)

Читать далее ...