{"id":83395,"date":"2016-11-28T12:00:12","date_gmt":"2016-11-28T12:00:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=83395"},"modified":"2016-11-25T17:48:15","modified_gmt":"2016-11-25T17:48:15","slug":"a-collection-of-thoughts-about-american-foreign-policy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2016\/11\/a-collection-of-thoughts-about-american-foreign-policy\/","title":{"rendered":"A Collection of Thoughts about American Foreign Policy"},"content":{"rendered":"

6 Nov 2016 – <\/em>Louis XVI needed a revolution, Napoleon needed two historic military defeats, the Spanish Empire in the New World needed multiple revolutions, the Russian Czar needed a communist revolution, the Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman Empires needed World War I, Nazi Germany needed World War II, Imperial Japan needed two atomic bombs, the Portuguese Empire in Africa needed a military coup at home, the Soviet Empire needed Mikhail Gorbachev \u2026 What will the American Empire need?<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t believe anyone will consciously launch World War III. The situation now is more like the eve of World War I, when great powers were armed and ready to go when an incident set things off. Ever since Gorbachev naively ended the Cold War, the hugely over-armed United States has been actively surrounding Russia with weapons systems, aggressive military exercises, NATO expansion. At the same time, in recent years the demonization of Vladimir Putin has reached war propaganda levels. Russians have every reason to believe that the United States is preparing for war against them, and are certain to take defensive measures. This mixture of excessive military preparations and propaganda against an \u201cevil enemy\u201d make it very easy for some trivial incident to blow it all up.\u201d \u2013 Diana Johnstone, author of \u201cQueen of Chaos: The Misadventures of Hillary Clinton\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

In September 2013 President Obama stood before the United Nations General Assembly and declared, \u201cI believe America is exceptional.\u201d The following year at the UN, the president classified Russia as one of the three threats to the world along with the Islamic State and the ebola<\/em> virus. On March 9, 2015 President Barack Obama declared Venezuela \u201can unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States\u201d.<\/p>\n

Vladimir Putin, speaking at the UN in 2015, addressing the United States re its foreign policy: \u201cDo you realize what you have done?\u201d<\/p>\n

Since the end of World War 2, the United States has:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Attempted to overthrow<\/a> more than 50 foreign governments, most of which were democratically-elected.<\/li>\n
  2. Dropped bombs<\/a> on the people of more than 30 countries.<\/li>\n
  3. Attempted to assassinate<\/a> more than 50 foreign leaders.<\/li>\n
  4. Attempted to suppress<\/a> a populist or nationalist movement in 20 countries.<\/li>\n
  5. Grossly interfered in democratic elections in at least 30 countries.*<\/li>\n
  6. Plus \u2026 although not easily quantified \u2026 has been more involved in the practice of torture than any other country in the world \u2026 for over a century \u2026 not just performing the actual torture, but teaching it, providing the manuals, and furnishing the equipment.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    *See chapter 18 of William Blum, \u201cRogue State: A Guide to the World\u2019s Only Superpower\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

    On October 28, 2016 Russia was voted off the UN Human Rights Council. At the same time Saudi Arabia won a second term, uncontested. Does anyone know George Orwell\u2019s email address?<\/p>\n

    A million refugee from Washington\u2019s warfare are currently over-running Europe. They\u2019re running from Afghanistan and Iraq; from Libya and Somalia; from Syria and Pakistan.<\/p>\n

    Germany is taking in many Syrian refugees because of its World War Two guilt. What will the United States do in the future because of its guilt? But Americans are not raised to feel such guilt.<\/p>\n

    \u201cThe Plan is for the United States to rule the world. The overt theme is unilateralism, but it is ultimately a story of domination. It calls for the United States to maintain its overwhelming superiority and prevent new rivals from rising up to challenge it on the world stage. It calls for dominion over friends and enemies alike. It says not that the United States must be more powerful, or most powerful, but that it must be absolutely powerful.\u201d Vice-President Dick Cheney \u2013 West Point lecture, June 2002<\/em><\/p>\n

    Two flew over the cuckoo\u2019s nest: \u201cWe are, as a matter of empirical fact and undeniable history, the greatest force for good the world has ever known. \u2026 security and freedom for millions of people around the globe have depended on America\u2019s military , economic, political, and diplomatic might.\u201d \u2013 Dick Cheney and Liz Cheney, \u201cWhy the world needs a powerful America\u201d (2015)<\/em><\/p>\n

    State Department spokesperson Mark Toner: \u201cAssad must go even if Syria goes with him.\u201d<\/p>\n

    Many of the moves the Obama administration has made in terms of its Cuba policy are in lockstep with Bill Clinton\u2019s, as expressed in the recommendations of a 1999 task force report from the Council on Foreign Relations. The report asserted that \u201cno change in policy should have the primary effect of consolidating, or appearing to legitimize, the political status quo on the island.\u201d<\/p>\n

    A successful American regime change operation in Syria would cut across definite interests of the Russian state. These include the likely use of Syria as a new pipeline route to bring gas from Qatar to the European market, thereby undercutting Gazprom, Russia\u2019s largest corporation and biggest exporter. Assad\u2019s refusal to consider such a route played no small role in Qatar\u2019s pouring billions of dollars in arms and funds into the Syrian civil war on behalf of anti-Assad forces.<\/p>\n

    \u201cWar with Russia will be nuclear. Washington has prepared for it. Washington has abandoned the ABM treaty, created what it thinks is an ABM shield, and changed its war doctrine to permit US nuclear first strike. All of this is obviously directed at Russia, and the Russian government knows it. How long will Russia sit there waiting for Washington\u2019s first strike?\u201d \u2013 Paul Craig Roberts, 2014<\/em><\/p>\n

    Iran signed the nuclear accords with the United States earlier this year by agreeing to stop what it never was doing. Any Iranian nuclear ambition, real or imagined, is of course a result of American hostility towards Iran, and not the other way around.<\/p>\n

    If the European Union were an independent and rational government it would absolutely forbid any member country from stockpiling American nuclear weapons or hosting a US anti-ballistic missile site or any other military base anywhere close to Russia\u2019s borders.<\/p>\n

    Full Spectrum Dominance, a term the Pentagon loves to use to refer to total control of the planet: land, sea, air, space, outer space and cyberspace. Can you imagine any other country speaking this way?<\/p>\n

    Henry Kissinger at the Paris Peace Talks, September 1970. \u201cI refuse to believe that a little fourth rate power like North Vietnam does not have a breaking point.\u201d<\/p>\n

    In 2010, WikiLeaks released a cable sent to US embassies by then- Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. She wrote this: \u201cSaudi Arabia remains a critical financial support for Al Qaeda, the Taliban, al Nusra and other terrorist groups \u2026 worldwide.\u201d Surely this resulted in at least Washington\u2019s much-favored weapon: sanctions of various kinds. It did not.<\/p>\n

    US General Barry McCaffrey, April 2015: \u201cBecause so far NATO\u2019s reaction to Putin\u2019s aggression has been to send a handful of forces to the Baltics to demonstrate \u2018resolve,\u2019 which has only convinced Putin that the alliance is either unable or unwilling to fight. So we had better change his calculus pretty soon, and contest Putin\u2019s stated doctrine that he is willing to intervene militarily in other countries to \u2018protect\u2019 Russia-speaking people. For God\u2019s sake, the last time we heard that was just before Hitler invaded the Sudetenland.\u201d<\/p>\n

    No, my dear general, we heard that repeatedly in 1983 when the United States invaded the tiny nation of Grenada to protect and rescue hundreds of Americans who supposedly were in danger from the new leftist government. It was all a fraud, no more than an excuse to overthrow a government that that didn\u2019t believe that the American Empire was God\u2019s gift to humanity.<\/p>\n

    Since 1980, the United States has intervened in the affairs of fourteen Muslim countries, at worst invading or bombing them. They are (in chronological order) Iran, Libya, Lebanon, Kuwait, Iraq, Somalia, Bosnia, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, Sudan, Kosovo, Yemen, Pakistan, and now Syria.<\/p>\n

    How our never-ending mideast horror began: Radio Address of George W. Bush, September 28, 2002: \u201cThe Iraqi regime possesses biological and chemical weapons, is rebuilding the facilities to make more and, according to the British government, could launch a biological or chemical attack in as little as 45 minutes after the order is given. The regime has long-standing and continuing ties to terrorist groups, and there are al Qaeda terrorists inside Iraq. This regime is seeking a nuclear bomb, and with fissile material could build one within a year.\u201d Yet \u2026 just six weeks before 9\/11, Condoleezza Rice told CNN: \u201cLet\u2019s remember that his [Saddam\u2019s] country is divided, in effect. He does not control the northern part of his country. We are able to keep his arms from him. His military forces have not been rebuilt.\u201d<\/p>\n

    The fact is that there is more participation by the Cuban population in the running of their country than there is by the American population in the running of theirs. One important reason is the absence of the numerous private corporations which, in the United States, exert great influence over all aspects of life.<\/p>\n

    \u201cThe U.S. is frantically surrounding China with military weapons, advanced aircraft, naval fleets and a multitude of military bases from Japan, South Korea and the Philippines through several nearby smaller Pacific islands to its new and enlarged base in Australia \u2026 The U.S. naval fleet, aircraft carriers and nuclear submarines patrol China\u2019s nearby waters. Warplanes, surveillance planes, drones and spying satellites cover the skies, creating a symbolic darkness at noon.\u201d (Jack A. Smith, \u201cHegemony Games: USA vs. PRC\u201d, CounterPunch)<\/p>\n

    Crimea had never voluntarily left Russia. The USSR\u2019s leader Nikita Khrushchev, a native of the region, had donated Crimea to Ukraine in 1954. Crimeans were always strongly opposed to that change and voted overwhelmingly to rejoin Russia after the US-induced Ukrainian coup in 2014. Russian President Vladimir Putin refers to the Ukrainian army as \u201cNATO\u2019s foreign legion\u201d, which does not pursue Ukraine\u2019s national interests. The United States, however, insists on labeling the Russian action in Crimea as an invasion.<\/p>\n

    Putin re Crimea\/Ukraine: \u201cOur western partners created the \u2018Kosovo precedent\u2019 with their own hands. In a situation absolutely the same as the one in Crimea they recognized Kosovo\u2019s secession from Serbia legitimate while arguing that no permission from a country\u2019s central authority for a unilateral declaration of independence is necessary\u2026 And the UN International Court of Justice agreed with those arguments. That\u2019s what they said; that\u2019s what they trumpeted all over the world and coerced everyone to accept \u2013 and now they are complaining about Crimea. Why is that?\u201d<\/p>\n

    Paul Craig Roberts: \u201cThe absurdity of it all! Even a moron knows that if Russia is going to put tanks and troops into Ukraine, Russia will put in enough to do the job. The war would be over in a few days if not in a few hours. As Putin himself said some months ago, if the Russian military enters Ukraine, the news will not be the fate of Donetsk or Mauriupol, but the fall of Kiev and Lviv.\u201d<\/p>\n

    In a major examination of US policy vis-\u00e0-vis China, published in March 2015, the authoritative Council on Foreign Relations bluntly declared that \u201cthere is no real prospect of building fundamental trust, \u2018peaceful coexistence,\u2019 \u2018mutual understanding,\u2019 a strategic partnership, or a \u2018new type of major country relations\u2019 between the United States and China.\u201d The United States, the report declares, must, therefore, develop \u201cthe political will\u201d and military capabilities \u201cto deal with China to protect vital U.S. interests.\u201d<\/p>\n

    \u201cJohn F. Kennedy changed the mission of the Latin American military from \u2018hemispheric defense\u2019 \u2013 an outdated relic of World War II \u2013 to \u2018internal security,\u2019 which means war against the domestic population.\u201d \u2013 Noam Chomsky<\/em><\/p>\n

    Cuban baseball players who are paid a million dollars to play for an American team are not \u201cdefectors\u201d, a word which has a clear political connotation.<\/p>\n

    Boris Yeltsin was acceptable to American and Europeans because he was seen as a weak, pliable figure that allowed Western capital free rein in the newly opened Russian territory following the collapse of the Soviet Union. Yeltsin\u2019s era was also a time of rampant corruption by Russian oligarchs who were closely associated with Western capital. That corrosive culture came to a halt with the election of Vladimir Putin twice as president between 2000-2008, and again in 2012.<\/p>\n

    Many ISIS leaders were former Iraqi military officers who were imprisoned by American troops. The fight isn\u2019t against ISIS, it\u2019s against Assad; at the next level it isn\u2019t against Assad, it\u2019s against Putin; then, at the next level, it isn\u2019t against Putin, it\u2019s against the country most likely to stand in the way of US world domination, Russia. And it\u2019s forever.<\/p>\n

    Connecting to the US-based Internet would mean channeling all of Cuba\u2019s communications directly to the NSA.<\/p>\n

    George W. Bush has been living a comparatively quiet life in Texas, with a focus on his paintings. \u201cI\u2019m trying to leave something behind\u201d, he said a couple of years ago. Yeah, right, George. We can stand up some of the paintings against the large piles of Iraqi dead bodies.<\/p>\n

    Seymour Hersh: \u201cAmerica would be much better off, if, 30 years ago, we had let Russia continue its war in Afghanistan \u2026 The mistake was made by the Carter administration which was trying to stop the Russians from their invasion of Afghanistan. We\u2019d be better off had we let the Russians beat the Taliban.\u201d (Deutsche Welle<\/em>, April 2, 2014 interview) We\u2019d be even better off if we hadn\u2019t overthrown the progressive, secular Afghan government, giving rise to the Taliban in the first place and inciting the Russians to intervene on their border lest the Soviet Islamic population was stirred up.<\/p>\n

    The former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright in an interview in 1998 summed up exactly what the US thinks of the UN: \u201cThe UN plays a very important role. But if we don\u2019t like it, we always have the option of following our own national security interests, which I assure you we will do if we don\u2019t like what\u2019s going on.\u201d She is now a foreign-policy advisor to Hillary Clinton.<\/p>\n

    \u201cA leader taking his (or her) nation to war is as dysfunctional in the family of humankind as an abusive parent is in an individual family.\u201d \u2013 Suzy Kane<\/em><\/p>\n

    \u201cIt would be some time before I fully realized that the United States sees little need for diplomacy. Power is enough. Only the weak rely on diplomacy \u2026 The Roman Empire had no need for diplomacy. Nor does the United States.\u201d \u2013 Boutros Boutros-Ghali<\/a>, Secretary-General of the United Nations from January 1992 to December 1996<\/em><\/p>\n

    \u201cInterventions are not against dictators but against those who try to distribute: not against Jim\u00e9nez in Venezuela but Ch\u00e1vez, not against Somoza in Nicaragua but the Sandinistas, not against Batista in Cuba but Castro, not against Pinochet in Chile but Allende, not against Guatemala dictators but Arbenz, not against the shah in Iran but Mossadegh, etc.\u201d \u2013 Johan Galtung<\/a>, Norwegian, principal founder of the discipline of peace and conflict studies<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

    \u201cNo mention was made that Iraq\u2019s Christians had been safe and sound under President Saddam Hussein \u2013 even privileged \u2013 until President George Bush invaded and destroyed Iraq. We can expect the same fate for Syria\u2019s Christians if the protection of the Assad regime is torn away by the US-engineered uprising. We will then shed crocodile tears for Syria\u2019s Christians.\u201d \u2013 Eric Margolis, 2014<\/em><\/p>\n

    \u201cJewish Power is the capacity to silence the debate on Jewish Power.\u201d \u2013 Gilad Atzmon<\/em><\/p>\n

    \u201cWe need a trial to judge all those who bear significant responsibility for the past century – the most murderous and ecologically destructive in human history. We could call it the war, air and fiscal crimes tribunal and we could put politicians and CEOs and major media owners in the dock with earphones like Eichmann and make them listen to the evidence of how they killed millions of people and almost murdered the planet and made most of us far more miserable than we needed to be. Of course, we wouldn\u2019t have time to go after them one by one. We\u2019d have to lump Wall Street investment bankers in one trial, the Council on Foreign Relations in another, and any remaining Harvard Business School or Yale Law graduates in a third. We don\u2019t need this for retribution, only for edification. So there would be no capital punishment, but rather banishment to an overseas Nike factory with a vow of perpetual silence.\u201d \u2013 Sam Smith<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

    \u201cI have come to think of the export of \u2018democracy\u2019 as the contemporary equivalent of what missionaries have always done in the interest of conquering and occupying the \u2018uncivilized\u2019 world on behalf of the powers that be. I have said that the \u2018church\u2019 invented the concept of conversion by any means, including torture and killing of course, as doing the victims a big favor, since it was in the interest of \u2018saving\u2019 their immortal souls. It is now called, \u2018democratization\u2019.\u201d \u2013 Rita Corriel<\/em><\/p>\n

    \u201cIt is more or less impossible to commemorate the war dead without glorifying them, and it is impossible to glorify them without glorifying their wars.\u201d \u2013 Paul Craig Roberts<\/em><\/p>\n

    ________________________________________<\/em><\/p>\n

    William Blum is an author, historian, and renowned critic of U.S. foreign policy. He is the author of Killing Hope: U.S. Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II<\/a><\/em> and Rogue State: A Guide to the World\u2019s Only Superpower<\/a>, among others. He left the State Department in 1967, abandoning his aspiration of becoming a Foreign Service Officer, because of his opposition to what the United States was doing in Vietnam. He then became one of the founders and editors of the <\/em>Washington Free Press<\/em>, the first \u201calternative\u201d newspaper in the capital. Mr. Blum has been a freelance journalist in the United States, Europe and South America. \u00a0His stay in Chile in 1972-3, writing about the Allende government\u2019s \u201csocialist experiment\u201d and its tragic overthrow in a CIA-designed coup, instilled in him a personal involvement and an even more heightened interest in what his government was doing in various parts of the world.<\/em><\/p>\n

    Any part of this report may be disseminated without permission, provided attribution is provided.<\/em><\/p>\n

    Go to Original \u2013 williamblum.org<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Louis XVI needed a revolution, Napoleon needed two historic military defeats, the Spanish Empire in the New World needed multiple revolutions, the Russian Czar needed a communist revolution, the Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman Empires needed World War I, Nazi Germany needed World War II, Imperial Japan needed two atomic bombs, the Portuguese Empire in Africa needed a military coup at home, the Soviet Empire needed Mikhail Gorbachev \u2026 What will the American Empire need?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-83395","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-anglo-america"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83395","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=83395"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83395\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=83395"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=83395"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=83395"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}