Category: EUROPEAN UNION - The Greanville Post

DAVID PEAR IN PALESTINE-SLOW MOTION FASCISM AND GENOCIDE IS HUMANITY’S SHAME. CHINA RISING RADIO SINOLAND 180414

Dateline: April 13, 2018

Picture above: Today’s guest is David Pear on the left and China Rising Radio Sinoland host Jeff J. Brown is on the right.

Downloadable SoundCloud podcast (also at the bottom of this page), as well as being syndicated on iTunes and Stitcher Radio (links below).

In the first book of my China Trilogy (http://chinarising.puntopress.com/2017/05/19/the-china-trilogy/), called 44 Days Backpacking in China- The Middle Kingdom in the 21st Century, with the United States, Europe and the Fate of the World in Its Looking Glass (https://ganxy.com/i/88276/), I wrote that even for China, the fate of Jerusalem, the capital of Palestine and so much more, is the axis upon which all world geopolitics turn. After hosting David Pear on the show today, my convictions are considerably reinforced. Not much has changed in the last 5,000 years, with the gates of this ancient city changing “owners” 44 times (a coincidence to my book’s title). One day, the history books will be talking about the 45^th turn of the global mandala.

In today’s show, David and I share our stories about being in Palestine, myself back in the 1980s and David three times in the last few years. You will not believe what you hear. It is shocking and sobering, yet essential listening to truly understanding how humanity works and colossally fails all notions of decency and justice.

In the interview, I strongly recommended that everyone watch Al-Jazeera’s magnificent five-part documentary about the history of Palestine, called Al-Nakba, which means disaster in Arabic. It’s like having been blind all one’s life and then suddenly being given the power to see light. Watching Al-Nakba caused a transformation in me. It is that good, so I hope you will do that same.

Here is my posting about Al-Nakba, with all the links:

http://chinarising.puntopress.com/2018/01/16/the-real-truth-about-palestine-and-israel-china-rising-radio-sinoland-181116/

David and I did an earlier interview focused on Korea. News and surprises are happening so rapidly now on the Peninsula, that it’s enough to make your head swim. David’s global experiences are something we can all benefit from,

http://chinarising.puntopress.com/2018/01/28/david-pear-talks-with-jeff-j-brown-on-the-hair-trigger-tinderbox-in-korea-china-rising-radio-sinoland-180128/

Note: When finished reading, listening to and/or watching this column and podcast, sharing is caring about humanity’s future and getting the non-mainstream truth out to a wider audience. Please tell your family, friends and colleagues about China Rising Radio Sinoland (www.chinarising.puntopress.com – https://twitter.com/44_Days – https://www.facebook.com/44DaysPublishing – http://apps.monk.ee/tyrion), post and follow it on all your social media. Sign up for the email alerts on this blog page, so you don’t miss a beat. China is your key to understanding how the world works and where you are headed into the 21^st century. So, read “The China Trilogy”. You will be so glad you did! (http://chinarising.puntopress.com/2017/05/19/the-china-trilogy/)

ABOUT JEFF BROWN

Punto Press released China Rising - Capitalist Roads, Socialist Destinations (2016); and for Badak Merah, Jeff authored China Is Communist, Dammit! – Dawn of the Red Dynasty (2017).

The Greanville Post, where he keeps a column, Dispatch from Beijing. He also writes a column for The Saker, called the Moscow-Beijing Express. Jeff interviews and podcasts on his own program, China Rising Radio Sinoland, which is also available on SoundCloud, YouTube, Stitcher Radio and iTunes.
In China, he has been a speaker at TEDx, the Bookworm and Capital M Literary Festivals, the Hutong, as well as being featured in an 18-part series of interviews on Radio Beijing AM774, with former BBC journalist, Bruce Connolly. He has guest lectured at the Beijing Academy of Social Sciences and various international schools and universities. Jeff grew up in the heartland of the United States, Oklahoma, much of it on a family farm, and graduated from Oklahoma State University. He went to Brazil while in graduate school at Purdue University, to seek his fortune, which whetted his appetite for traveling the globe. This helped inspire him to be a Peace Corps Volunteer in Tunisia in 1980 and he lived and worked in Africa, the Middle East, China and Europe for the next 21 years. All the while, he mastered Portuguese, Arabic, French and Mandarin, while traveling to over 85 countries. He then returned to America for nine years, whereupon he moved back to China in 2010. He lives in China with his wife. Jeff is a dual national French-American, being a member of the Communist Party of France (PCF) and the International Workers of the World (IWW).

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A DISPATCH FROM WASHINGTON'S BLOG
SyrianGirl Video - What really happened - Chemical Attack —the hoax—that lead to missile Strikes on Syria
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April 10, 2018
Please share this video far and wide before Youtube censors or deletes. SyrianGirl has already had her videos deleted by Youtube in the past.

Trump’s Bombing of Syria Would Make Him a War Criminal

Posted on April 11, 2018 by WashingtonsBlog

Trump’s bombing of Syria would be an impeachable offense.

Indeed, it would be the ultimate war crime …

The Nuremberg Tribunal which convicted and sentenced Nazis leaders to death conceived of wars of aggression – i.e. wars not launched in self-defense – defined the following as “crimes against peace”, or war crimes:

(i) Planning, preparation, initiation or waging of a war of aggression or a war in violation of international treaties, agreements or assurances;

(ii) Participation in a common plan or conspiracy for the accomplishment of any of the acts mentioned under (i)

The Tribunal considered wars of aggression to be the ultimate war crime, which encompassed all other crimes:

To initiate a war of aggression, therefore, is not only an international crime; it is the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole.

Judgment of October 1, 1946, International Military Tribunal Judgment and Sentence, 22 IMTTRIALS, supra note 7, at 498, reprinted in 41 AM. J. INT’LL. 172, 186 (1947).

Given that Syria in no way threatens the security of the United States (the Syrian government has been fighting ISIS and Al Qaeda), a U.S. war against Syria would be a crime of aggression and – under the standards by which Nazi leaders were convicted by the Nuremberg Tribunal – the American leaders who lie us into that war are guilty of war crimes.

This is not different from the Iraq War, which was launched upon false pretenses.

Benjamin Ferencz, a former chief prosecutor for the Nuremberg Trials, declared:

A prima facie case can be made that the United States is guilty of the supreme crime against humanity — that being an illegal war of aggression against a sovereign nation.

See this, this, and this.

The Chief Prosecutor for the International Criminal Court – Luis Moreno-Ocampo – told the Sunday Telegraph in 2007:

That he would be willing to launch an inquiry and could envisage a scenario in which the Prime Minister and American President George W Bush could one day face charges at The Hague. Luis Moreno-Ocampo urged Arab countries, particularly Iraq, to sign up to the court to enable allegations against the West to be pursued.

As a Japan Times Op/Ed noted in 2009:

In January 2003, a group of American law professors warned President George W. Bush that he and senior officials of his government could be prosecuted for war crimes if their military tactics violated international humanitarian law.

Eminent legal scholars such as former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clarke and Dean of the Massachusetts School of Law and a professor of law Lawrence Velvel have since stated that high-level Bush administration officials did commit war crimes in relation to the Iraq war.

Trump may soon join Bush as a war criminal. (Obama also fully qualifies, as do most US presidents).

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License

ALL CAPTIONS AND PULL QUOTES BY THE EDITORS NOT THE AUTHORS

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Things to ponder

While our media prostitutes, many Hollywood celebs, and politicians and opinion shapers make so much noise about the still to be demonstrated damage done by the Russkies to our nonexistent democracy, this is what the sanctimonious US government has done overseas just since the close of World War 2. And this is what we know about. Many other misdeeds are yet to be revealed or documented.

Parting shot—a word from the editors
The Best Definition of Donald Trump We Have Found

In his zeal to prove to his antagonists in the War Party that he is as bloodthirsty as their champion, Hillary Clinton, and more manly than Barack Obama, Trump seems to have gone “play-crazy” — acting like an unpredictable maniac in order to terrorize the Russians into forcing some kind of dramatic concessions from their Syrian allies, or risk Armageddon.However, the “play-crazy” gambit can only work when the leader is, in real life, a disciplined and intelligent actor, who knows precisely what actual boundaries must not be crossed. That ain’t Donald Trump — a pitifully shallow and ill-disciplined man, emotionally handicapped by obscene privilege and cognitively crippled by white American chauvinism. By pushing Trump into a corner and demanding that he display his most bellicose self, or be ceaselessly mocked as a “puppet” and minion of Russia, a lesser power, the War Party and its media and clandestine services have created a perfect storm of mayhem that may consume us all.— Glen Ford, Editor in Chief, Black Agenda Report

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:: Analysis

Introduction: For the greater part of a decade the US, the UK and the EU have been carrying out a campaign to undermine and overthrow the Russian government and in particular to oust President Putin. Fundamental issues are at stake including the real possibility of a nuclear war.

Of late British Prime Minister Theresa May has been the most visible cog in a reckless and gigantic machine of Western disinformation leading the world to a probable nuclear war. Why don't ordinary citizens rise against such sociopathic madness?

The most recent western propaganda campaign and one of the most virulent is the charge launched by the UK regime of Prime Minister Theresa May. The Brits have claimed that Russian secret agents conspired to poison a former Russian double-agent and his daughter in England , threatening the sovereignty and safety of the British people. No evidence has ever been presented. Instead the UK expelled Russian diplomats and demands harsher sanctions, to increase tensions. The UK and its US and EU patrons are moving toward a break in relations and a military build-up.

A number of fundamental questions arise regarding the origins and growing intensity of this anti-Russian animus.

Why do the Western regimes now feel Russia is a greater threat than in the past? Do they believe Russia is more vulnerable to Western threats or attacks? Why do the Western military leaders seek to undermine Russia’s defenses? Do the US economic elites believe it is possible to provoke an economic crisis and the demise of President Putin’s government? What is the strategic goal of Western policymakers? Why has the UK regime taken the lead in the anti-Russian crusade via the fake toxin accusations at this time?

This paper is directed at providing key elements to address these questions.

The Historical Context for Western Aggression

Several fundamental historical factors dating back to the 1990’s account for the current surge in Western hostility to Russia.

First and foremost, during the 1990’s the US degraded Russia, reducing it to a vassal state, and imposing itself as a unipolar state.

Secondly, Western elites pillaged the Russian economy, seizing and laundering hundreds of billions of dollars. Wall Street and City of London banks and overseas tax havens were the main beneficiaries

Thirdly, the US seized and took control of the Russian electoral process, and secured the fraudulent “election” of Yeltsin.

Fourthly, the West degraded Russia’s military and scientific institutions and advanced their armed forces to Russia’s borders.

Fifthly, the West insured that Russia was unable to support its allies and independent governments throughout Europe, Asia, Africa and Latin America. Russia was unable to aid its allies in the Ukraine, Cuba, North Korea, Libya etc.

With the collapse of the Yeltsin regime and the election of President Putin, Russia regained its sovereignty, its economy recovered, its armed forces and scientific institutes were rebuilt and strengthened. Poverty was sharply reduced and Western backed gangster capitalists were constrained, jailed or fled mostly to the UK and the US.

Russia’s historic recovery under President Putin and its gradual international influence shattered the US pretense to rule over a unipolar world. Russia’s recovery and control of its economic resources lessened US dominance, especially of its oil and gas fields.

As Russia consolidated its sovereignty and advanced economically, socially, politically and militarily, the West increased its hostility in an effort to roll-back Russia to the Dark Ages of the 1990’s.

The US launched numerous coups and military intervention and fraudulent elections to surround and isolate Russia . The Ukraine, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Yemen and Russian allies in Central Asia were targeted. NATO military bases proliferated.

Russia’s economy was targeted : sanctions were directed at its imports and exports. President Putin was subject to a virulent Western media propaganda campaign (which naturally has not abated). US NGO’s funded opposition parties and politicians.

The US-EU rollback campaign failed.

The encirclement campaign failed.

The Ukraine fragmented - Russia allies took control of the East; Crimeans voted for unification with Russia. Syria joined with Russia to defeat armed US vassals. Russia turned to China’s multi-lateral trade, transport and financial networks.

As the entire US unipolar fantasy dissolved it provoked deep resentment, animosity and a systematic counter-attack. The US’s costly and failed war on terror became a dress rehearsal for the economic and ideological war against the Kremlin ...Russia’s historical recovery and defeat of Western rollback intensified the ideological and economic war.

The UK poison plot was concocted to heighten economic tensions and prepare the western public for heightened military confrontations.

Russia is not a threat to the West: it is recovering its sovereignty in order to further a multi-polar world. President Putin is not an “aggressor” but he refuses to allow Russia to return to vassalage.

President Putin is immensely popular in Russia and hated by the US precisely because he is the opposition of Yeltsin - he has created a flourishing economy; he resists sanctions and defends Russia’s borders and allies.

Conclusion

In a summary response to the opening questions.

1) The Western regimes recognize that Russia is a threat to their global dominance; they know that Russia is no threat to invade the EU, North America or their vassals.

2) Western regimes believe they can topple Russia via economic warfare including sanctions. In fact Russia has become more self-reliant and has diversified its trading partners, especially China, and even includes Saudi Arabia and other Western allies.

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.

President Trump will not replace the EU as a substitute trading partner. While the EU and Washington may back the UK crusade against Russia they will pursue their own trade agenda; which do not include the UK.

In a word, the UK, the EU and the US are ganging-up on Russia, for diverse historic and contemporary reasons. The UK exploitation of the anti-Russian conspiracy is a temporary ploy to join the gang but will not change its inevitable global decline and the break-up of the UK.

Russia will remain a global power. It will continue under the leadership of President Putin .The Western powers will divide and bugger their neighbors - and decide it is their better judgment to accept and work within a multi-polar world.

03.20.2018

James Petras is a world-renowned public intellectual. He is a retired Bartle Professor of Sociology at Binghamton University in Binghamton, New York and adjunct professor at Saint Mary's University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada who has published extensively on Latin American and Middle Eastern political issues.

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HELP ENLIGHTEN YOUR FELLOWS. BE SURE TO PASS THIS ON. SURVIVAL DEPENDS ON IT.

by AIDAN O'BRIEN

Europe is pregnant with something but what is it? War or peace? East or West? North or South? A still birth or a renaissance? The beginning or the end? Something has got to give. The past must let go.

The recent Italian elections are the latest birth pangs – the latest sign of something new. And the present European institutions aren’t part of it. Indeed the nation states that make up Europe today are slipping into the past while something else is moving forward.

The continent itself is fluid. In the fundamental social sense Africa and Asia have never been as close. And America has never been as far away. Europe in the classic sense is disappearing. And that’s not bad. The place at present feels like a bastard. It feels good.

In country after country the late 20th Century political blocks are turning into sand. And each economy is held together by dubious financial instruments and sinister anti-labor laws. Austerity and debt de-legitimize Euro capitalism. And promise Euro chaos. Bring it on.

If truth be told the “pro-European” liberals are the most ignorant of Europe. They’re the ones championing American leadership and playing Russian roulette with Russia nonstop. They’re the fanatical extremists that are endangering the life of Europeans today. Their market solutions and military solutions have taken Europe into an irrational swamp. A swamp in which the “far-right” makes more sense than the “extreme-center”.

Immigration is a scapegoat. But it is first and foremost the solution – the solution to low birth rates and labor shortages. Never mind the fact that diversity means dynamism. And the fact that “globalization” (the human kind) is now the norm. The white man like God is dead.

20th Century Europe however clings onto the 21st Century like a desperate man grasping at a life belt. Imperialism (the white man) and the Cold War (white hysteria) don’t want to drown in time. Neither does the United States of Europe (the EU). The 21st Century however can’t carry their weight. If the 21st Century doesn’t kick them away it’ll drown too. If the 21st Century wants to be born it must reject them. And it is doing so.

The immigrants and the elections are doing so. Because they’re the midwife to the new European child – whatever it is. Make no doubt about it though: the immigrants are civilizing Europe. And the elections are undermining Europe.

The bulk of the European 20th Century was shaped by the Communists, the Fascists and the Christian Democrats. They’re all gone now and in the vacuum there’s nothing but farce. But there’s the outline of something different.

The Europeans are pushing against liberalism and its neoliberal progeny. Never mind the fact that the new or alternative political parties they vote for are failing to live up to their critical manifestos. The point is that probably 50% or more of the Europeans have had enough of liberal capitalism. And this means that they have had enough of the EU. How this plays out though is anyone’s guess.

A glance at Europe’s political jigsaw right now reveals unstable contradictions. Hung parliaments, Grand Coalitions, secessionists and deadlock predominate. New or once ostracized political parties are shaping the narratives. And the strongest one is Euroscepticism.

Alternative for Germany, Podemos (Spain), Syriza (Greece), Law and Justice Party (Poland), Freedom Party of Austria, Fidesz Party (Hungary), Five Star Movement (Italy) and National Front (France) all have subverted smug liberal Europe.

And when you add to this mix old time anti-imperialists like Sinn Féin (Ireland) and new time imperialists like La Republique En Marche (France) the concept of Europe is being pulled all over the place. Brexit, Catalonia, Lega Nord (Italy) and the financial ultras in the Netherlands and Finland complete the picture of political chaos. Unity – if there ever was any – is a thing of the past.

The Polish President Andrzej Duda summed it up best recently when he said that the EU is like an occupying force in Poland. It's not crazy to say that that’s exactly how most ordinary Europeans experience the EU today. And they want out. They want something new.

For wanting to halt liberal capitalism the “anti-European” Europeans are being described as idiotic populists or as the idiotic far-right. But this criticism doesn’t hold since it comes from a liberal European Empire that’s based on foreign wars and foreign slaughter. It comes from in other words a liberalism that is inherently racist. One that plays all the time upon popular fears (the war on terror, for example). It's a liberalism that has proven itself at home and abroad (austerity and war) to be not only idiotic but criminal in every way.

The far-left though remains the most rational. However in a swamp the sinking feeling clouds reason. Many Europeans do bemoan the immigrants while the banks pick their pockets. But many if not most do sense the theft taking place and have an appetite for a left-wing confrontation with the bosses.

Indeed this cloudy division between unhappy Europeans manifests itself roughly in a rift between the East / West on the one hand and the North / South on the other. In the East and North the tendency is right wing (they bitch about the immigrants) while in the West and South it's left wing (they bitch about the banks). There’s overlap but the currents are visible.

For the left the only way out of this swamp – the only way out of the womb – is the foothold that is immigration. Much like in America immigrants now form the very basis of society in Europe. They’re the basic working class upon which the whole of Europe now rests.

We’re not just talking about the Syrian refugees in the headlines but those economic “refugees” away from of the headlines: the Filipinos, the Chinese, the Indians, the Brazilians, the Nigerians and the Moroccans. You can add every other nationality there is to this list. Because Europe today is as much a melting pot as America is. And despite what Europe’s white supremacists might think: there’s no getting rid of Europe’s new skin color.

As the new Europe emerges it will blend more and more with Africa and Asia. Quietly a cultural revolution is taking place. In Paris and London this has been obvious for some time. But now it's almost everywhere. Madrid, Berlin, Dublin, Malmo, Milan and a thousand other European cities echo what has already happened in the capitals of France and Britain.

20th Century Europe was a disaster made in Europe. If 21st Century Europe is not to be the same it must let humanity do its thing. Forget about a European Union or a United States of Europe. And let Europe unite with the world instead. It's happening whether Europe likes it or not. But the more Europe is conscious of it and positive about it the easier it will be to change the world for the better.

Europe is dissolving. It's adjusting to reality. And the reality is that it has always been just an extension of Asia and Africa. It's not an island. Or a unique unity. The workers of the world by migrating to Europe and doing their thing are proving this. The Europe being born is anything but Europe. And that’s something to celebrate.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Aidan O’Brien lives in Dublin, Ireland.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License

ALL CAPTIONS AND PULL QUOTES BY THE EDITORS NOT THE AUTHORS

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Things to ponder

Parting shot—a word from the editors
The Best Definition of Donald Trump We Have Found

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Europe is suffering the tortures of the damned as it struggles with split-personality psychosis.

Here in the center of Western Europe one can tune in Germany’s national public broadcasting networks any day of the week and hear scornful diatribes against Trump, outrage over his withdrawal from the Paris climate accords, shock and anger regarding his threats against our German automobile industry in his incipient trade war, calls for more EU independence and self-sufficiency.

Every Washington Post CIA-funded-Big-Breaking-News-Report about Mueller’s latest move to impeach and bring down the Orange Menace is always the top headline here: “The Washington Post reports that … “ … no mention of Jeff Bezos and his relationship to the CIA. If the Post says Trump is on shaky ground and cruisin’ for a bruisin’, Europe gets excited. They wanted Hillary here, badly.

Europeans knew Hillary. They trusted Hillary. They associated her with that good-looking, smooth-talking young President Barack Obama. Sure, he blew it with the NSA stuff, but nobody cares about that anymore, either here or in the USA. All forgotten. Obama talked a good game on Europe. Polite young man. Went to Harvard.

I want to tell you that there was some serious panicking and freaking out going on here in Europe the morning after election day 2016. Europeans don’t often run around shrieking their fears in public, a cool façade is the preferred mode here, but they did that day, and for many weeks afterward.

They had just spent more than a year sneering and raising their eyebrows and scoffing at the ludicrous orange-cartoon-figure-come-to life, both physically and in print. They had reassured each other and the public in endless columns and debates and editorials that he didn’t have a chance to (first) win the nomination and (then later) to become President. They were already doing a major freak over Brexit. Trump winning was just too much. The sky was falling.

And he has not disappointed them in putting into effect the catalogue of horrors they had anticipated. Pulled out of the Paris Climate Accords. Refused to pay even lip service to gun control (lip service goes a long way here in the EU, actual progress is less important). Continued to flaunt that ridiculous comb-over that looks as though it’s deliberately designed to show his contempt for fashion and good taste. Threatened to pull out of the nuclear treaty with Iran, which is very popular here – and practically the only way in which the EU has ever been willing to go against Israel, otherwise we are World Champion Israel-Ass-Kissers here. Trump ranted against Muslims and foreigners, defended white racists (here we mostly just pretend they don’t exist, although they carried out 1,000 attacks on Muslims last year in Germany alone), created new legal hurdles to immigration. Of course, the EU does all of that last bit with immigrants too, except for the ranting part. One does these things quietly, don’t you see, while simultaneously claiming to care about refugees and wanting to help them.

No-sirree, the new man in the White House is near the bottom on the European Hit Parade of Favorite Americans. What is the dang DEAL with these Americans, how could they elect such a monstrous ambulatory joke. Time to stand up and get independent and show the world that Europe will not sit still for just any old nonsense, most of us highly-progressive and politically conscious Euros agree about that.

Therefore one might think the EU would be ready to go cold turkey from that highly addictive CIA-Neocon Brand Evil Russia Kool-Aid … right?

(extended silence)

Well, uh … on the other hand … I mean … now let’s not get TOO carried away with this independence business.

[dropcap]A[/dropcap]s a matter of fact, all of these American military bases here in Europe, specifically all of these NATO nuclear weapons here in our allegedly once-again-sovereign Germany (a sovereignty which is often called into question by smartasses peddling conspiracy theories, who assert Germany is still controlled by the USA), make some of us feel a whole lot safer from the wicked Lord Sauron aka/ Vlad the Impaler just a few hundred kilometers to the east.

While the government has agreed in principle to gradually increase German military expenditures to 2% of the gross domestic product – thereby almost doubling military spending – in the coming years, mostly under pressure from the USA, it doesn’t want to get nailed down too firmly to that unofficial commitment. There are other things it would rather use that money for. And as long as the USA maintains its military outposts and missile installations in Europe, EU countries feel as if there’s no big rush.

There is also the fact to consider that NATO already outspends Russia on military matters by 900 billion dollars per year to 60 billion dollars per year. But that imbalance rarely comes into the “aggressive Russia” debate, any more than does the fact that Russia (and China too for that matter) is encircled by US military bases. A real extremist who did not understand Russia’s evil nature might go so far as to say that NO ONE needs to increase military spending, and that if anyone is a threat, it is NATO, in particular its leading nation which has already laid to waste much of the Middle East and overthrown numerous governments around the world – often installing nasty and brutal authoritarian rulers as puppets to do its bidding.

But we Europeans never mention such nuances in our advocacy of a Weltanschauung (“way of looking at the world”) which has to be kept very black and white, good versus evil, if the empire is to function properly. And if we want to keep the USA in Europe, in charge of the nuclear arsenal and continuing to give EU nations the luxury of not having to put any of this to the test, then there must be some terrifying menace to justify having those troops and atomic weapons here. We are very nervous about Trump’s threats to force Europe to stand up on its own, but we fervently hope that in a few years he will disappear and our good old Democrats or more moderate Republicans – yes of course they still exist, they must -- will return to pamper us.

No, for us here in Europe it’s not the USA that is the problem, it’s Trump. As psychotic and bizarre as America is, with its mass shootings and its primitive death penalty, its shocking refusal to enact a reasonable national healthcare program, its police killings of unarmed blacks, its warmongering and overthrowing of foreign governments, its drone massacres of wedding parties, drone massacres and assassinations which we generously allow to be controlled from here on German soil -- we would have happily continued to overlook all of that if the USA had only elected another head of state who pretended to care about those things, or at least put a noble and urbane mask on them. Someone like Obama, like Hillary. The way we here in the EU pretend to have noble values while deporting helpless refugees into war zones, turning them back over to Libyan torturers and slave traders, etc., intoning solemn avowals of “European Democratic Values” all the while. Presidents like Obama, or like Hillary would have been, make it so very much easier to get away with our pretense of innocence. It’s embarrassing having Trump as an ally. It’s painful and frightening too.

It’s like being possessed by a demon.

About the Author

Gregory Barrett, originally from Tennessee, worked for 40 years as a professional pianist, singer, songwriter, and touring and recording musician in the USA and Europe, both in the spotlight and as an accompanist for major stars and others. His activist career includes stints in the 1980s with Amnesty International USA at the national level and the ACLU of Tennessee. Since 2012 he has worked primarily as a translator. He has lived in Germany for a total of 18 years and has a diverse, multicultural family. His commentary and essays are published in The Greanville Post, Counterpunch, the Anglo-Indian magazine Socialist Factor, and other publications.

DAVID PEAR IN PALESTINE-SLOW MOTION FASCISM AND GENOCIDE IS HUMANITY’S SHAME.

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Trump’s Bombing of Syria Would Make Him a War Criminal (Plus SyrianGirl Video – What really happened )-

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