US LAWLESSNESS

CYNTHIA CHUNG—In other words, the CIA was stating that JIC-502’s frantic lunacy in demanding a military buildup and first strike capability against the Soviets was groundless. That there was no data to support such a claim, and thus such a response would be a reckless and dangerous one.

It became evident to those who wished to push through these permanent war policies that the CIA was going to need “stronger” leadership.

At least, this was the argument made by the Dulles-Jackson-Correa Report which called for a strong CIA Director in the wake of the Cold War. Though Walter Bedell Smith, who would become CIA Director from 1950-53, did much to reorganise the CIA away from the pre-emptive war mongering, it was ultimately Allen Dulles who would take the CIA throne.

CYNTHIA CHUNG—With the assassination of Ngo Dinh Diem, likely ordained by the CIA, on Nov. 2nd, 1963 and Kennedy just a few weeks later on Nov. 22nd, 1963, de facto President Johnson signed NSAM #273 on Nov. 26th, 1963 to begin the reversal of Kennedy’s policy under #263. And on March 17th, 1964, Johnson signed NSAM #288 that marked the full escalation of the Vietnam War and involved 2,709,918 Americans directly serving in Vietnam, with 9,087,000 serving with the U.S. Armed Forces during this period. The Vietnam War would continue for another 12 years after Kennedy’s death, lasting a total of 20 years for Americans, and 30 years if you count American covert action in Vietnam.

P. GREANVILLE—As longstanding supporters of The Grayzone, just about one  of the few consistently reliable antiwar/anti-imperialist outfits in what remains of the Western left, we are delighted to see their work making headway and headlines, especially among our common enemies. Contrary to all the noise, there is absolutely zero reason for the constant hysterical hostility, and even less for the talk of war, against Russia, China, Iran and other nations singled out by the empire for imaginary crimes fully manufactured by the West’s engines of disinformation. The world and especially Washington and Britain face no threat whatsoever from the currently designated  “rogue nations”, except the threats they themselves create.  Meanwhile, via a transparent regimen of suffocating mendacity, Washington, London and their imperialist accomplices seek to demonise their opponents by any means necessary. This is serious. We all know from painful experience with the Big Hegemon’s playbook that character assassination usually precedes actual execution.

MoA—The most interesting with the above statement is the list of U.S. allied countries which declined to support it, “Most core EU countries, especially France, Spain, Italy and Germany, are missing from it. As is the Five-Eyes member New Zealand. India, a U.S. ally in the anti-Chinese Quad initiative, also did not sign. This list of signatories of the Joint Statement is an astonishingly meager result for a U.S. ‘joint’ initiative. It is unprecedented. It is a sign that something has cracked and that the world will never be the same.” The first months of he Biden administration saw a rupture in the global system. First Russia admonished the EU for its hypocritical criticism of internal Russian issues. Biden followed up by calling Putin a ‘killer’. Then the Chinese foreign minister told the Biden administration to shut the fuck up about internal Chinese issues. Soon thereafter Russia’s and China’s foreign ministers met and agreed to deepen their alliance and to shun the U.S. dollar.

PEPE ESCOBAR—The imperialist West and its infernal hypocrisy are driving the world toward war, suggests Pepe Escobar. And to think that in a not so distant past there used to be some flashes of lucidity emanating from the US establishment.

Very few will remember that in 1993 James Baker, former Secretary of State under Daddy Bush, advanced the idea of expanding NATO to Russia, which at the time, under Yeltsin and a gang of Milton Friedmanesque free marketeers, was devastated, but ruled by “democracy”. Yet Bill Clinton was already in power, and the idea was duly discarded.

Six years later, no less than George Kennan – who invented the containment of the USSR in the first place – determined that the NATO annexation of former Soviet satellites was “the beginning of a new Cold War” and “a tragic mistake”.