IMPERIALISM

ALASTAIR CROOKE—There have been protests (mostly pointing up economic stress) across the region for some months: from Egypt to Iraq. But the Lebanese demonstrations have caught the global attention. And there is no doubting that the Lebanese protests represent a major phenomenon. We may ask whether they are essentially a local manifestation, reflecting only the well-attested Lebanese problems of corruption, widening disparities in wealth, nepotism and failing state structures, or do they signal something much deeper? Lebanon, historically, has been viewed as ‘the bell weather’ – pointing up the general health of this region.

ERIC ZUESSE—According to the standard accounts, the Cold War ended on both sides in 1991, when the Soviet Union dissolved, and its communism ended, and its Warsaw Pact (the military alliance that the U.S.S.R. had created in response to America’s having created the NATO military alliance against the Soviet Union) all ended. But, secretly, the Cold War continued on the U.S. side, and with the same (and now blatantly) imperialist goal of ultimately conquering Russia and China, so as to establish the first-ever all-encompassing global empire.

JIM MILES—Israel will continue to exist, most likely as an apartheid state. It is the major military power in the region with its not so secret nuclear arsenal and a highly militarized state apparatus. The two state solution is dead, and was never truly alive. A truly democratic state would provide equal rights in all areas for all inhabitants of the country, one factor that denies Israel the right to call itself a democracy just because it holds elections once in a while.

CANADA’S DISGRACEFUL ROLE—The treacherous liberal Justin Trudeau, whose ascent to power was hailed by many US liberals as an event to celebrate, is now leading the charge on the siege against the government of Venezuela. Canada’s abject (and criminal) vassalage is now undeniable

BILL VAN AUKEN—It is also noteworthy that the first two speakers in the UN General Assembly debate, which was preceded by a UN Climate Summit dominated by warnings of approaching global catastrophe, were Trump and Bolsonaro. Both are climate change deniers who are actively repressing research by the scientific agencies of their respective governments. Bolsonaro’s foreign minister has dismissed climate change as a hoax by “cultural Marxists” bent on undermining Western capitalism. In this area too, the UN is incapable of confronting the existential threats facing humanity.