ASIA AFFAIRS

JEFF J. BROWN—Interviewing Ed Curtin on the anniversary of Martin Luther King’s 1967 “he signed his own death warrant” speech, Beyond Vietnam: a Time to Break the Silence, and his cold blooded assassination at the hands of the US government exactly 365 days later, was a meaningful, memorable time. After hanging up, I felt better about my global point of view and the future of humanity, against all the odds. He told me that in two months, he is being pushed out of his 20-year professorship at Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts. This school and its students will be greatly diminished by his involuntary departure.

BEN McGRATH—Japan will purchase 147 F-35 fighter jets, including 42 of the F-35Bs for the aircraft carriers. Other jets will be stationed on islands in the East China Sea, around the uninhabited Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands, that are claimed by both Tokyo and Beijing.

Japan intends to equip these jets with long-range cruise missiles, capable of hitting targets at a distance of 900 kilometers. These Joint Air to Surface Standoff Missiles (JASSM), would, in the words of their developer US-based Lockheed Martin, give Japan the ability to “destroy hostile air defenses and high value, well defended, fixed and relocatable targets while keeping aircraft safely out of range from hostile air defense systems.” Japan will also pursue the development of hypersonic guided missiles that evade radar systems.

DAVID W PEAR—Carter and Brzezinski were overjoyed that the U.S. would then have the sweet revenge of giving Russia a bloody Vietnam experience. Carter and Brzezinski gave Afghanistan a Vietnam experience too, in which millions of people were destroyed. Once events in Afghanistan were set into motion, then Carter and Brzezinski added gasoline to the inflamed Islamic fanatics with billions of dollars in U.S. military support funneled through Pakistan. Thousands of mercenaries from Arab countries poured into Afghanistan to join the fight and get paid too. They were called “Afghan-Arabs”. The Brzezinski-Carter scheme would be continued under President Reagan and led to the destruction of Afghanistan, the re-subjugation of Afghan women, and millions of Afghan civilian victims of war.

RAMIN MAZAHERI—But let’s not forget how standard these faulty foundations are in Western academia: read their studies of Mao, Stalin, Khomeini, Khamenei, the Castros or any anti-imperialist  and – from the base of their pyramid to their “doyens” – these heroes to billions are consistently reduced to being non-humans.

PEPE ESCOBAR—Historically, China and Persia were, for centuries, wealthy, settled agricultural civilizations having to deal with occasional swarms of desert warriors – yet most of the time in touch with each other because of the Silk Road. The Sino-Persian entente cordiale is embedded in solid history.