ANTIWAR

CAITLIN JOHNSTONE—In a recent interview with US Department of Defense newspaper Stars and Stripes, Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden said it’s important to keep troops in the Middle East to fight terrorism, and that it’s likely that America’s bloated military budget will not only remain at its current size but may actually increase under his presidency due to the need to focus on “near peer” threats like China and Russia. This is not a deviation in messaging from Biden and his crack team of beltway string-pullers, but a continuation of already established patterns.

DAVE LINDORFF—Instead of sharing the bomb with the USSR, which, remember, was America’s ally in World War II, and then working for its being banned, the US began producing dozens and eventually hundreds of Nagasaki-sized atom bombs, moving quickly from hand-made devices to mass produced ones. The US also quickly started pursuing the development of a vastly more powerful bomb — the thermonuclear Hydrogen bomb — a weapon that theoretically has no limits to how great its destructive power could be.

RUSSELL BENTLEY—The photographs of the fuselage of MH17’s cockpit are all you really need to see. The perfectly round  30 mm holes can be seen in photos on Google Images. Or listen to what Canadian citizen and OSCE monitor Michael Bociurkiw said, just a few days after the event. Russian military radar detected at least one SU-25 in close proximity to MH17 just before the crash, consistent with eyewitness accounts from people on the ground at the time, including DNP Prime Minister Alexander Zaharshenko (6:14) Interestingly, the Wikipedia and other information sources about SU-25 flight capabilities were edited and changed before July 17th, to reduce the flight ceiling from 10,000 meters to 7,000 meters. The SU-25 CAN fly at 10,000 meters, (10:50) the height that MH17 was at when it was attacked.

ANDRE VLTCHEK—In some countries, which are seen as close allies of the West, like Indonesia and India, even speaking about independence can lead people to imprisonment, torture, rape, disappearance, and death. In Indian-administered Kashmir and Indonesian “administered” West Papua, hundreds of thousands have already vanished. In such places, just waving a flag of independence, can abruptly end human life. But in the Western lexicon, both Indonesia and India are defined as “democracies”, and their political systems are hardly ever attacked or criticized. No sanctions are imposed due to “human rights violations”.

LEONID SAVIN—Stories about bad guys tend to be the most effective. In general, the idea of the villain is used in the methodology of the political frame – the technique is always used in US elections, but it is also widely used in foreign policy. A test tube filled with washing powder can be waved around and Saddam Hussein can be accused of having chemical weapons. That was a story that did its job perfectly. Accusing Iran of preparing to develop nuclear weapons proved to be more complicated. Now, the volleys of an information war against China can be heard. While America’s top officials and bureaucrats do their thing, the country’s corporate media outlets are developing other avenues.