Imperial Clay Feet
Trump’s Russia Statement
So far we can conclude that Trump’s statement(s) strike many analysts as confusing, raising suspicions that it has not been well thought out, and that it raises more questions than it answers. It seems that Trump is enabling Europe to do what it already could do; it seems that only Europe would be buying the weapons, it seems that the current flow of weapons to Ukraine from the US through Poland will stop. But none of this is certain.
The US is NATO’s major contributor so it would seem bizarre that it’s largest contributor would not be contributing to the purchases, and while requiring the other members buy from the US, all for the supposed benefit of a country, Ukraine, that is not a member of NATO, and that most analysts doubt will ever be a member.
Perhaps these developments simply confirm what many have said would be a division of labor in the West with the US primarily focusing on the China threat, while Europe just focuses on Russia. Strategically this doesn’t make sense because the only peer nuclear competitor to the US is Russia. For the Washington Post David Ignatius has written a story to the effect that earlier this July it was Trump’s intention to allow the transfer of US nuclear-capable Tomahawk air to surface cruise missiles to Ukraine so that NATO - on behalf of Ukraine - would be able to inflict significant damage on Moscow - on a grander scale than anything previously attempted. Such plans have apparently stalled. The use of tomahawks would be seen as escalatory by Russia, which would have presumed that any nuclear threat would come in the form of a tomahawk. Most if not all would be shot down. But the chance that one or more would get through and the uncertainty as to whether any given tomahawk is nuclear would require Russia to take preemptive measures against points of launch, points of storage and points of supply, wherever they might be.
Defending Israel’s Right to Commit Genocide and Britain’s Right to Help It
So that self-proclaimed bastion of freedom of thought, the United Kingdom, is apparently so terrified of people who find the genocide of Palestinians objectionable that it wants to ban a non-violent protest movement Palestine Action. This account by a distinguished and exceedingly intelligent supporter of free thought, Craig Murray, demonstrates that the UK state is happy to spend an unseemly amount of money (judicial and police, mainly) even just to hear a case to assess whether the movement can be proscribed in advance of the main court case to determine whether the organization has trespassed any law. In this account, you will see the extraordinarily bloated, overreaching, oppressive and authoritarian package of UK laws, under the deceptive camouflage of “anti-terrorism” measures, that exist to oppose the official enemies of the UK, in this instance people who think murdering tens of thousands of defenseless, entrapped and starving people is wrong. See:
Swanson: Foreign Military Bases And Resistance To Them Are Spreading
A new report by World BEYOND War finds that military bases used by foreign militaries are growing in number, as are public protests and advocacy against those bases. Of 1,247 foreign military bases in the world, 877 of them, by latest count, are U.S. bases outside of the United States. Eighteen other nations, combined, have 370 bases outside their borders.
To read the full report from World Beyond War, see Military Bases
Pressenza: US imperialism is hitting a BRICS wall!
A plutocracy of stateless billionaires, representing one-tenth of one percent (0.01) of the world’s population, controlled large corporations, major media and, in the United States where it is mostly concentrated, it controlled also the election campaigns for Presidents, Governors, Senators, and Representatives, whether Democrats or Republicans.
Read more at: Saul and Seymour