The Biden administration’s lofty rhetoric is meant to distinguish the new administration from the previous Trump White House and its “America First” mantra. President Biden and his aides are trying to project a seeming return to multilateralism as opposed to Trump’s in-your-face nationalism. And so we hear a lot about the U.S. vowing to uphold the rules-based order. The difference is merely rhetorical. The consistent reality is that the United States and its Western allies are seeking to pursue a unilateral approach to international relations. The Biden administration is just a little more adept compared with Team Trump at public relations and media spin to cover this reality of American hegemonic ambitions. Lest we forget, hegemonic ambitions are anathema to a democratic world order based on equality among nations and universal respect for international law.
US EXCEPTIONALISM
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U.S. And Its Allies Try to Split the World in Two
33 minutes readERIC ZUESSE—Similar to the Ukraine, the Biden administration’s rhetoric and conduct is serving to fuel an ever-more provocative stance by the Taiwanese leaders. This week, a senior official warned that the island’s forces would shoot down Chinese aircraft that approach the territory. This is nothing but a flagrant challenge to China’s territorial integrity and sovereignty. As in the case of the Ukraine and Russia, it is Washington’s words and actions that are inflaming the tensions between Taiwan and China. Yet the Americans accuse others of “aggression” and claim to be providing “defense”.
The only entity that could possibly stop all this would be the U.S.-created European Union. Either they will turn against their creator, and join with Russia and China against U.S. and UK (which would put an end to the Rhodesist team’s insanity), or there will be World War III (though probably not in the near-term future), in which the U.S. regime will blitz-nuclear attack Russia, though that would destroy the planet.
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Richard D. Wolff: Crisis – It’s How Capitalism Works
7 minutes readRICHARD WOLFF—Capitalism is fragile. It is not a secure and solid system. And capitalists know this. They just don’t let their media or politicians acknowledge it.” The lack of stability of the capitalist system and its recurring crises are both inevitable and hard-wired in its core dynamic and social relations, argues Prof. Wolff in this comprehensive and at times semi-satirical chat.
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Turning The Clock Back To 2001 – CIA, Others Prepare A New Resistance Against The Taliban
17 minutes readMoA—After 9/11 the CIA and U.S. special forces met with Massoud’s allies, gave them lots of money to hire more fighters and supported their march on Kabul with massive airstrikes. Two month later the Taliban gave up, went home or retreated to Pakistan. The U.S. installed the various warlords and criminals who had fought under Massoud as the new government.
That was a mistake. It had been the utter criminal behavior of those warlords that had led to public support for the rise of the Taliban in the first place. To install the warlords who looted the country as government guaranteed that the Taliban would come back.
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Israel Punishes Media For Reporting Its Escalation In Palestine
23 minutes readMoA—Yesterday and overnight anti-Arab violence and Palestinian protests within Israel continued as new unrest unfolded in the West Bank where the occupation army killed at least 10 Palestinians.
Protesters in Jordan arrived at the border to the West Bank and tried to break through the border fence. Jordanian riot police held them back.
At the Lebanese border to Israel protesters crossed over from Lebanon into a disputed area when Israeli forces fired at them. One Lebanese man was killed and another wounded. Such deaths usually trigger the eye-for-an-eye rule that governs the relation between Hizbullah and the Israeli army. Hizbullah could have used the incident to escalate but didn’t.
Also yesterday Hizbullah’s Deputy Secretary General Naim Qassem visited Hamas and Islamic Jihad leadership in Lebanon. This is highly significant as Hamas (being Muslim Brotherhood, an organization historically controlled by Western intel agencies—Ed) had been on the wrong side of the war in Syria.