THE WEST

PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS—Most of the world sees this as “US gangsterism.”  But no one does anything about it.John Wight asks:  “Does anybody really think that Donald Trump, Mike Pompeo, John Bolton, Elliott Abrams care one bit about the welfare of the Venezuelan people? These are thugs in tailored suits whose views are far closer to Al Capone than to Thomas Jefferson.”  https://www.rt.com/news/452274-venezuela-us-intervention-gangsterism/President Maduro’s failure to arrest Juan Guaido, the puppet chosen by Washington to be the Empire’s front man in Venezuela, might spell the end of Venezuelan democracy.  The Venezuelan military will wonder why they are at risk when all Maduro has to do is to arrest Guaido, try the traitor, and execute him.

ANDRE VLTCHEK—The ‘hidden’ and extremely uncomfortable truth is: most of Southeast Asia is actually absolutely unfit for tourism. It is deeply, and terribly injured, even, a broken part of the world which has never been allowed to leave its brutal, feudal system behind. Its people are barely surviving in the straightjacket of extreme capitalism. All sorts of imported rubbish, from brainless pop music to the lowest grade of Hollywood films, junk food, mass media and ‘fashion’ as well as ‘me-me-me habits’ have been put to work in order to irreversibly ruin their traditional cultures. Generally, people here are unhappy; often thoroughly confused. Societies from Thailand to Indonesia and the Philippines are becoming increasingly violent.

Jordan, for its part, [as a longtime satellite of the West in the region] has also acknowledged that it allowed the UN to arrange for the entry and passage of 800 Syrian “civil defense workers,” according to Reuters, citing Mohammad al-Kayed, spokesman for the Kingdom’s Foreign Ministry. The Jordanian authorities later revisited the numbers, saying that only 422 White Helmets members have actually made it into the country.

BRIAN CLOUGHLEY—Thank you US-NATO, and especially thank you, President Obama and Messrs. Rasmussen, Stavridis and Daalder, and all the brave pilots who had a wonderful blitzing shindig, and all the brave button-pressers on US and UK Navy ships whose Tomahawk missiles blasted the cities.  The country you wrecked will take decades to recover from your use of what you called “limited force,” and the amount of human suffering you caused is incalculable.

ADAM GARRIE—Russia’s ability to build new partnerships is objectively an impressive diplomatic feat. Crucially though, it must be remembered that during this same period, Russia has remained close to traditional Cold War allies while mending fences with partnerships that were lost in the midst of or just after the Cold War. Russia is a country that is a partner with both Vietnam and China, Egypt and Turkey, Syria, Israel and Palestine, Iran and Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and to a more limited degree than in the Cold War, with India, The Philippines and Cambodia, Mozambique and South Africa and many others.