EMPIRES

MANUEL GARCIA JR—The essential lesson of responding to the approach of a destructive inevitability beyond your society’s power is to engage in compassionate cooperation to make your society as good as it can be for as long as you and it can be made to last, and to find your life’s fulfillment in doing so.

BILL VAN AUKEN—One can well imagine the response to similar scenes were they taking place in Russia, China, Syria, Iran, North Korea or Venezuela. Nikki Haley would be using her seat on the UN Security Council to issue blistering denunciations of “atrocities,” threats of military force and hypocritical invocations of “human rights.” The killings would dominate the front pages of every newspaper and lead the broadcast news.

JAMES PETRAS—The Western propaganda campaign has failed to turn Russian voters against Putin. In the March 19, 2018 Presidential election voter participation increased to 67% ..Vladimir Putin secured a record 77% majority. President Putin is politically stronger than ever.
Russia’s display of advanced nuclear and other advanced weaponry has had a major deterrent effect especially among US military leaders, making it clear that Russia is not vulnerable to attack. The UK has attempted to unify and gain importance with the EU and the US via the launch of its anti-Russia toxic conspiracy. Prime Minister May has failed. Brexit will force the UK to break with the EU.

ALEX MERCOURIS—With Pompeo and Bolton Donald Trump has what looks like the foreign policy team that he wants.
It is indeed an “America First’ team, committed to preserving and extending the paramount position of the US, and indifferent to the methods used to achieve it. It is fair to say however that this is not the conception of ‘America First’ which many people expected when Donald Trump was elected. Most people then assumed that ‘America First’ meant retrenchment: the US abandoning in its neo-imperial adventures so that it could refocus on its own needs. Instead we look more likely to get a repeat of the administration of George W. Bush on steroids.  

ED CURTIN—Now Rex Tillerson is out as Secretary of State and the head of the CIA, the far more war minded Mike Pompeo slides naturally into the role. Musical chairs for the power elite. As Trump has said of Pompeo, “We are on the same wavelength.” Riding that same wavelength is Nikki Haley, a trio whose alliance bodes very poorly for Middle Eastern peace or for any rapprochement with Russia.  The game turns deadlier as the Presidential Apprentice learns the rules and the empire prepares to shed more innocent blood in an unholy alliance with Israel, Saudi Arabia, and other “team players.”