John Bolton 3-27-2018

27, March 2018                                 John Bolton

General H.R. McMaster is resigning as national security adviser to be replaced by the ultra-hawkish, bomb-throwing, John Bolton. This spells doom for US foreign policy. Bolton has openly backed war against Iran and North Korea, and was a prominent supporter of the “shock and awe” U.S. invasion of Iraq, to this day – which was the worst foreign policy decision in decades squandering trillions of dollars and sending thousands of Americans and millions of Iraqis’ to their early graves. He has openly backed bombing Iran and North Korea which might spell the early demise of the planet. He and his unstable future boss are a clear and present danger.  For decades, Bolton has been a vehement critic of the United Nations and the International Criminal Court. Trita Parsi of the National Iranian American Council criticized the selection of Bolton stating, “Bolton now represents the greatest threat to the United States. This is a dangerous time for our country and a slap in the face even to Trump’s supporters who thought the US would break from waging disastrous foreign wars and military occupations. ”Zeke Johnson of Amnesty International said, “this is a reckless decision. Bolton’s influence over national security policy could result in even more civilian deaths and potentially unlawful killings given his disdain for international law and international institutions.” This war hawk, like his boss, escaped the Vietnam draft claiming he was a consciences objector. What incredible hypocrites!

Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia 3-25-2018

25, March 2018              Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia

Saudi Crown Prince, Mohammed bin Salman (MBS), arrived in Washington last week eager to purchase the latest in American weapons wizardry.

Predictably, Trump seemed totally unconcerned with Saudi’s appalling human rights violations and was only interested in Saudi’s enormous wealth which will be used to purchase weapons of war. The two leaders finalized a $12.5 billion weapons deal. This comes on the heels of a massive $110 billion arms deal. During the meeting, Trump held up grotesque posters of recent Saudi weapon purchases making us the leading merchant of death in the world. Forgotten is the inconvenient truth that 15 of the 19 hijackers on 911 were Saudis. Trade always seems to triumph concerns for human life. The Senate moved in lockstep with Trump and failed to block the arms sales. In a race to the bottom, the UK also approved £283m of arms sales to the Saudis. This makes the US and the UK complicit in war crimes. Outside the White House, peace activists denounced bin Salman as a violent and dangerous war criminal.


 The U.S.-backed, Saudi-led airstrikes and naval blockade have devastated Yemen’s health, water and sanitation systems, sparking a massive cholera outbreak and pushing millions of Yemenis to the brink of starvation. So confident was Salman’s hold over the money-obsessed Trump family that he boasted he has Kushner, “in his pocket.” 

Iraq invasion 3-22-2018

22, March 2018                            Iraq invasion

The fifteenth anniversary of the disastrous invasion of Iraq has just passed. None of the architects of the war have been held responsible. 

The invasion was launched on the false pretense that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein was hiding weapons of mass destruction. The attack came despite worldwide protests and without the approval from the United Nations Security Council. The ongoing war has devastated Iraq and destabilized the region. The dismissal of the Baathist party was a monumental blunder and a pivotal moment. The disaffected soldiers united to form ISIS which has menaced the region.

While President G.W. Bush enjoys his painting and his co-conspirator, Tony Blair circles the globe amassing huge amounts of money as a “consultant,” Iraq and the surrounding region has descending into appalling sectarian violence and a magnet for terrorists.

Other supporters of the war enjoy lucrative contracts with major US networks.

Saddam Hussein’s removal was replaced by a thoroughly corrupt governing council which went on to loot the country. 

War crimes, widespread torture, human rights abuses, massacres have been committed at Haditha, Mahmudiyah and Balad. John Bolton who was one the main architects of the war is being courted by the Trump administration as national security advisor.

The defense establishment and their contractors made a huge killing from the killing and mayhem. Such is the legacy of President G.W. Bush and Vice-President Dick Cheney.

Putin’s dark spell 3-21-2018

21, March 2018                     Putin’s dark spell

Finally, former C.I.A chief, John Brennan, voiced what many Americans have long suspected, that the Russians “may have something on Trump personally” giving credence to the MI6 salacious dossier. There can be no other explanation why Trump would be so reluctant to criticize Putin for interfering in the 2016 election.

Ignoring the advice of the NSA, Trump went out of his way to congratulate Putin on his election victory which most regards as an absolute sham. Trump made no mention of the diplomatic furor which erupted between the United Kingdom and Russia after a former double agent, Sergei Skripal and his daughter were poisoned with a Russian-made nerve agent. Furthermore, Trump expressed his intention of meeting his close friend, Putin despite grave misgivings from the US intelligence agencies. Former KGB agent, Putin has had a long history studying and exploiting his adversaries’ many weaknesses. It seems Trump is perhaps the most famous of all his victims.   

Incensed over the firing of deputy F.B.I. director, Andrew McCabe, Brennan tweeted, “When the full extent of your (Trump) venality, moral turpitude, and political corruption becomes known, you will take your rightful place as a disgraced demagogue in the dustbin of history.”  Let us hope special counsel, Mueller can uncover Trump’s tangled business interests and perhaps his fatal attraction to Russian women before America falls further under Putin’s dark spell. 

My Lai Massacre 3-19-2018

 

19, March 2018                            My Lai Massacre

Fifty years ago, U.S. soldiers attacked the Vietnamese village of My Lai. They met no resistance but ended up slaughtering 500 Vietnamese women, children and old men in what became known as the My Lai massacre. The U.S. military attempted to cover-up what happened and would have succeeded but for the persistence of a young reporter, Seymour Hersh. The soldiers raped the women, mutilated their bodies and torched their houses One U.S. soldier said he was ordered to “kill anything that breathed.” During the court-martial proceedings, the soldiers stated they were under intense pressure from the Pentagon to report body counts which were the metric used to measure success.  More Vietnamese would have been killed had it not been for the courageous act of a combat pilot, Hugh Thompson, who witnessed what was happening and landed his helicopter facing the US soldiers. He ordered his two gunners to train their weapons on Lieutenant Calley and his combat troops to stop the slaughter or be shot.  Thompson removed the Vietnamese civilians and flew them to safety.

Only one soldier was convicted for the mass killings, Lieutenant William Calley. He served only three-and-a-half years under house arrest. 

The war continued for another seven years claiming the lives of a staggering 3.8 million Vietnamese 800,000 Cambodians and 1 million Laotians. John Kerry and other Vietnam Veterans Against the war discussed the atrocities unearthed in the Winter Soldier investigation, where over 150 veterans testified to war crimes committed in Southeast Asia.

Torture 3-13-2018

13 March 2018                                          Torture

Another Trump appointee bites the dust. Rexx Tillerson, the former Secretary of State, has been fired and replaced by Mike Pompeo, the current C.I.A. director.

Pompeo has been replaced by his deputy, Gina Haspel.

Haspel gained notoriety as a clandestine officer at the CIA in 2002 when she oversaw the torture of terror suspects and later took part in the destruction of the videotapes documenting the brutal interrogations at a secret black site prison in Thailand.

Over the past eight years C.I.A Leaders and their subordinates have defended the harsh interrogation methods, including waterboarding, which they have vowed to resurrect. Trump has repeatedly said he thinks torture works and Pompeo praised as “patriots” those who used such methods in the early days of the fight against Al Qaeda.

Haspel played a direct role in C.I.A’s ”extraordinary rendition program” under which prisoners were dispatched to foreign governments where they were tortured by agency personnel.

The praise for Haspel, despite her role in torturing detainees, reflects the agency’s ambivalent “laissez-faire” attitude towards those who participated in the interrogation program.

It is difficult to reconcile such terror methods will help in fighting the “war on terror”.

Cleary such methods have failed to force President Ashraf Ghani of Afghanistan to seek a peace agreement with the victorious Al Qaeda.  

In a perfect democracy where people are held accountable for their misdeeds, Haspel should be serving a long prison term.

Suffocating Guardianship Laws 3-12-2018

12, March 2018                Suffocating Guardianship Laws

While most of the world was celebrating Women’s Day and their increasing role in world affairs, there was one notable exception – women in predominately Muslim countries who still suffer enormous oppression and have always been relegated to subordinate roles. For example in Saudi Arabia, governed by Sharia Islamic Law, women must adhere to the dictates of their male guardians. According to the Quran (4.34) “Men are the protectors and maintainers of women because Allah has given them more strength . . .).  It is difficult to imagine a grown mature woman suffering the humiliations of asking her male toddler permission on life’s critical issues.

No, sadly, Muslim women are trapped in a male-dominated society by a fatwa issued by The General Presidency for Scholarly Research, in charge of strict interpretation of the Quran which renders husbands the arbiter of all matters concerning women living in their household forbidding them “to leave their house without his permission.”

Human Rights Watch (HRW) is highly critical of the suffocating restrictions imposed on Saudi women who become the virtual property of their guardians (fathers, husbands, brothers or even sons) who can block their ability to apply for marriage, apply for a passport, travel overseas or even access health care.

HRW showcased the tragic story of a young Saudi woman, Dina Ali Lasloom, who left Saudi Arabia against her family’s wishes and was kidnapped by her uncles as she changed planes at Manilla International Airport. She screamed for help as her “guardians” applied duct tape and whisked her back to Riyadh in a wheelchair never to be seen again.

                                                                            

The new czar of Saudi Arabia, Mohammed bin Salman, would do well to dismantle the archaic  Stone Age system of Guardianship and grant women complete equality in matters of divorce, inheritance rights, travel and health care. Finally, in a gesture of egalitarianism, he should make it optional for women to drape themselves in the suffocating burkas. I am sure Allah is not in the least interested in how women dress (this applies to all religions) only to encourage all people to develop pure minds and actions.

Saudi Arabia 3-8-2018

8, March 2018                                             Saudi Arabia

Desperate to enter the exclusive nuclear club and assert its declining role in the Middle East Saudi Arabia, the epicenter of world-wide terrorism, is planning to erect as many as 16 nuclear reactors.

There are growing signs that the Saudis want the option of building nuclear weapons to hedge against their archrival, Iran. They claim that the reactors would be strictly used for the peaceful purpose, only to generate energy for domestic purposes only. However, the reactors could easily be weaponized to generate nuclear bombs which would plunge the Middle East into further chaos. The Trump administration must insist the Saudis purchase enriched fuel at lower-cost than to produce it domestically.

 But contrary to his false claims to be a tough negotiator Trump is prone to vacillate and be influenced by flattery and his vast business interests which include Saudi Arabia which was excluded in his predominantly Muslim countries ban.

Furthermore, Trump is desperate to bolster his weak resume and is seeking a major distraction from the scandal infested White House and the Stormy Daniels fiasco. 

If he fails to cement a US contract with Westinghouse, the Saudis are likely to seek agreements with France, China, Russia or South Korea who don’t insist on nonproliferation safeguards.