Anthony Blinken is uncomfortable at the podium as he delivers a lengthy speech at NATO while the Ukraine war continues and the West’s response continues to not only confuse the Ukrainian leader but also most people who are struggling to understand how the war has got to where it is today, with the latest massacres shocking the world.

What Blinken didn’t make a mention of was what happened on the same day in 1994, which was the start of the Rwandan genocide – a colossal failure of both the UN and NATO. Blinken spoke about the UN’s decision to suspend Russia from the U.S. Human Rights Council.

The Rwandan Genocide is important to remember as the similarities of the West’s activities in Ukraine today can be compared, in that giants in the UN and NATO like the U.S. remain as pusillanimous as ever towards actually fighting a real war for the rights and principles that they supposedly stand for.

In Rwanda, the CIA-backed English-speaking Tutsis entered the north of the country with a disinformation campaign which installed terror in the hearts of peasant Hutus who took to slaughtering hundreds of thousands of Tutsis with a common farmyard tool. There really isn’t an example of how information or disinformation can play such a decisive role in a war going one way or the other than Rwanda, which the West is entirely responsible for.

When the real killing started in great numbers, the Americans were nowhere to be seen. Clinton, after the PR disaster of Somalia just a few months earlier, pulled back from getting involved in Rwanda and the UN and NATO followed. The UN did have troops in Rwanda but the role of their soldiers is both polemic and ineffective.

On the evening of 6 April 1994, the aircraft carrying Rwandan president Juvénal Habyarimana and Burundian president Cyprien Ntaryamira, both Hutu, was shot down with surface-to-air missiles as their plane prepared to land in Kigali, Rwanda – sparking the Rwandan genocide.

The parallel with Ukraine is chilling. It’s often forgotten how Malaysian Airlines MH17 was shot down in 2014, which in many ways was a similar catalyst to the fighting in Ukraine reaching a point, where Russia decided to enter the country and take control on February 24^th of this year.

The West blames Russia for the attack on the civilian airliner although the evidence is not entirely conclusive. The Rwandans themselves (the Tutsi-led government) concluded in 2010 that the missile which shot down the Rwandan president’s plane was almost certainly from the hardcore element of the Hutu army which believed the President had sold them out and brokered a peace, allowing Tutsis to return to Rwanda and make claims on land.

But on the 7^th of April 2022, Anthony Blinken made no historical references as he announced even more sanctions against Russia in a war which America hopes will be dragged out for months, in the belief that this will have an impact on Putin, impacting his ability to remain firm when the negotiations start. It wasn’t only the anniversary of the Rwandan genocide which Blinken decide not to mention (probably not wanting to remind the press pack gathered there of both Bill Clinton’s huge erroneous foreign policy play which led to 800,000 dead), but he also chose not to mention Europe’s failure to stop buying Russian oil and gas, which in many ways means that these countries are actually funding Putin’s operation in Ukraine.

If EU countries can’t actually stop buying Russian oil, then the farce of this war will continue for month and perhaps even years to come. Equally, if America’s role is to continue funding Ukrainian soldiers without genuinely wanting to negotiate peace (as the truth is that Blinken and his colleagues believe that a long war is a winning strategy for them), then all talks of peace and negotiating for it are folly. America got the war that it wanted in Ukraine, which is bite-sized and doesn’t involve the threat to American lives which they have been preparing for since 2014 when their own guy overthrew Russia’s chosen leader. We really shouldn’t be surprised by anything other than Blinken’s ability, rather than Biden’s to “fuck things up”.

The Washington Post has a new article out bemoaning the fact that Russian military commanders are declining calls from the Pentagon to discuss their operations in Ukraine (I dunno guys, might have something to do with the fact that the US is sharing extensive military intelligence on exactly those operations directly with the Ukrainian government). Tucked all the way down in the eighteenth paragraph of the article, we find a much more interesting revelation: that Washington’s top diplomat has made no attempt to contact his counterpart in Moscow since the war began on the 24th of February.

“Secretary of State Antony Blinken has not attempted any conversations with his counterpart, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, since the start of the conflict, according to U.S. officials,” The Washington Post reports.

So the US government is continuing its policy of refusing to attempt any high-level diplomatic resolutions to this war despite its public hand-wringing about the horrific violence that’s being inflicted upon the people of Ukraine. This revelation fits nicely with a recent report by Bloomberg’s Niall Ferguson that sources in the US and UK governments have told him the real goal of western powers in this conflict is not to negotiate peace or end the war quickly, but to prolong it in order “bleed Putin” and achieve regime change in Moscow.

The amazing part of this column is that U.S. officials are saying out loud that they want the war to last in order to “bleed Putin”. They don’t care a fig about Ukraine. It stands completely alone (and Zelenskiy knows it, btw). https://t.co/NBOKvmT63K

— Leonid Bershidskiy (@Bershidsky) March 22, 2022

Building on an earlier report from The New York Times that the Biden administration “seeks to help Ukraine lock Russia in a quagmire,” Ferguson writes that he has reached the conclusion that “the U.S. intends to keep this war going,” and says he has other sources to corroborate this:

“The only end game now,” a senior administration official was heard to say at a private event earlier this month, “is the end of Putin regime. Until then, all the time Putin stays, [Russia] will be a pariah state that will never be welcomed back into the community of nations. China has made a huge error in thinking Putin will get away with it. Seeing Russia get cut off will not look like a good vector and they’ll have to re-evaluate the Sino-Russia axis. All this is to say that democracy and the West may well look back on this as a pivotal strengthening moment.”

I gather that senior British figures are talking in similar terms. There is a belief that “the U.K.’s №1 option is for the conflict to be extended and thereby bleed Putin.” Again and again, I hear such language. It helps explain, among other things, the lack of any diplomatic effort by the U.S. to secure a cease-fire. It also explains the readiness of President Joe Biden to call Putin a war criminal.

Earlier this month when The Intercept’s Ryan Grim was able to get a word in edgewise at a White House press briefing amid the throngs of mass media reporters demanding to know why Biden still hasn’t started World War 3, Press Secretary Jen Psaki gave a very revealing answer.

“So, aside from the request for weapons, President Zelensky has also requested that the US be more involved in negotiations toward a peaceful resolution to the war. What is the U.S. doing to push those negotiations forward?” asked Grim.

“Well, one of the steps we’ve taken — a significant one — is to be the largest provider of military and humanitarian and economic assistance in the world, to put them in a greater position of strength as they go into these negotiations,” Psaki answered, completely dodging the question of whether the US was actually doing anything to help negotiate peace.

This is wild pic.twitter.com/CNZZ1wVzcz

— Ryan Grim (@ryangrim) March 16, 2022

As we’ve discussed previously, the US government has a well-documented history of working to draw Moscow into costly military quagmires with the goal of preoccupying its military forces and draining its coffers. Former US officials are on record publicly boasting about having done so in both Afghanistan and Syria. This is an agenda geared toward sapping the Russian government, manufacturing international consent for unprecedented acts of economic warfare designed (though perhaps ineptly) to crush the Russian economy, to foment discord and rebellion, and ultimately to effect regime change in Moscow.

The US empire doesn’t care about Ukrainian lives, and it’s insulting that its operatives continually pretend to. The empire will happily feed every man, woman and child in the entire nation into the mouth of this war if it means unseating a disobedient leader from a nuclear-armed seat of power which has become unacceptably cozy with Beijing and intolerably comfortable with intervening against US imperial agendas. And all the Ukrainian-flag-waving propagandized westerners with their #StandWithUkraine Instagram activism and blue and yellow profile pics will cheer for it every step of the way.

I hope this brutal proxy war ends and peace comes to Ukraine very quickly. But from what we’re seeing today there appears to be an immense globe-spanning power structure holding its foot against the door of the only exit from this horror.

caityjohnstone.medium.com

By Philip GIRALDI

The drama currently unfolding in which the Biden Administration is doing everything it can to provoke a war with Russia over Ukraine is possibly the most frightening foreign policy misadventure since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis and the 1967 Lyndon Johnson attempt to sink the USS Liberty and blame it on Egypt, either of which could have gone nuclear. I can well recall the Robert Heinlein sci-fi book The Puppet Masters, later made into a movie, which described how alien-slugs, arriving by way of a flying saucer landing in Iowa, invaded the earth and parasitically attached themselves to the central nervous systems of humans and became able to completely control their minds. What the humans know, they know. What the slugs want, no matter what, the human will do. And the tale gets really scary in geopolitical terms when some Secret Service Agents are “occupied” by the invaders and they are thereby poised to capture the President of the United States. I would point out that the movie came out when Bill Clinton was president, which should have provoked some concerns about whether it was fact or fiction.

Well, does anyone currently wonder why I think of The Puppet Masters when an incoherent Joe Biden in particular makes a speech? And also consider the befuddled look of Secretary of State Tony Blinken or the bewildered expressions of Vice President Kamala Harris or Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley, all of which might also suggest that the slugs now completely control the Administration. The Biden and Blinken possibly slug-controlled automatons are now stating their conviction, based on no evidence whatsoever, that Russia is about to invade Ukraine and they are threatening sanctions like Putin “has never seen before.” There will no doubt be more slug-derived pronouncements to reinforce that warning in the next few days after the latest round of talks breaks down. Evacuation of US Embassy staff families in Kiev is already underway, deliberately escalating rather than attempting to defuse the crisis which could lead to nuclear war, destroying the human race and replacing it with the alien slugs.

Consider for a moment the inconsistencies and sheer contradictions in US foreign policy, which might support the credibility of the alien slug theory. The State Department’s management of foreign relations is supposed to serve the interests of the American people, but has not actually done so for decades. Can anyone explain why Washington’s foreign policy during the decade 2010 to 2020 constantly hammered at Russia, which, if anything, should have been the one country with which the US would seek to have a respectful relationship. Where is the logic in condemnation of Russia’s non-violent annexation of the Crimea, which was carried out based on a long-term historic relationship and a popular referendum, while also enabling “allies” like Israel’s illegal occupation and annexation of both Palestinian and Syrian land which has relied on force majeure to drive hundreds of thousands of local inhabitants from their homes. And then there are the Saudis using American made weapons to terrorize and kill the people of Yemen. Slug Biden is now considering aiding the murderous Saudi onslaught by declaring Yemen’s Houthis to be terrorists, legitimizing their slaughter.

Even if one rejects the alien slug theory, at a minimum, there has been a great deal of hypocrisy in terms of how Washington deals with the rest of the world and that has been increasingly the case under both Donald Trump and Joe Biden. Targeting and killing civilian populations and permanently driving them from their homes are, by the way, unambiguously war crimes and the United States is signatory to the Geneva Conventions that define the Israeli and Saudi actions as such. Israel, which claims a form of perpetual victimhood thanks to the so-called holocaust narrative, is the only nuclear power in the Middle East, though its arsenal is regarded as so secret that US government officials are not allowed to mention it, possibly another indication of alien slug control. It uses that advantage to carry out undeclared open and covert warfare against its neighbors, most notably targeting Syria and Lebanon as presumed proxies for its number one designated enemy Iran. Saudi Arabia for its part does not seem to care at all regarding the devastation it is delivering on the largely defenseless Yemenis.

Israel goes far beyond the actions of any other belligerent nation in the world, and the US is the only nation that even comes close, as recent reports regarding a particularly reckless bombing in Syria suggest. Israel, often with American complicity, engages in covert sabotage and assassination operations inside Iran, which have been sometimes reported, though hardly condemned, in the mainstream Western media. Less well covered are the more-or-less routine bombing attacks conducted against Syria, frequently also violating Lebanese airspace when the Israeli jets stand off in the Mediterranean Sea to fire their missiles at the Syrian targets. It should be noted that attacking a nation with which one is not at war and which poses no direct threat is also a war crime, in this case a war crime that the Israeli and Saudi governments repeat on a regular basis without any objection coming from Washington, which itself has attacked Syria on at least four occasions while also illegally stationing troops inside the country to “protect” its oilfields.

A recent devastating attack by Israel on Syrian targets consisted of a missile strike launched by Israeli air force planes against the Mediterranean port of Latakia on December 28^th. Israel’s attack on Latakia has to a certain extent shifted the focus of the war on Syria being conducted by Israel and the United States and their Gulf allies including the UAE and Saudi Arabia. In the past, the port was protected by its proximity to the major Russian base at Tartus in Syria and the actual presence of some Russian personnel assisting in Latakia ship cargo unloading operations, which threatens to bring Moscow more directly into the conflict. And as Washington is Israel’s enabler that will no doubt lead to US involvement in the UN and other fora if any attempts are made to limit or even condemn the Israeli actions. The situation is nasty and threatens to explode if Israel stages a false flag attack intended to lead to demands for direct military action by the US, a concern that some outside the Biden Administration have expressed.

What is particularly disturbing is the fact that while Israel and the Saudis continue to do their best to engage the United States in their own quarrels in the Middle East, President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Tony Blinken do nothing but look the other way so as not to annoy the Israeli leaders and their powerful domestic lobby in the US. At the same time, they unnecessarily provoke a nuclear armed and capable Russia and an emerging superpower China, both of which are regularly demonized both in the media and by leading politicians from both parties. The actions taken together are so irrational as to suggest that Robert Heinlein knew what he was writing about.

And then there is what might be described as the “hidden hand.” It should be observed that many of those US politicians and government officials most keen on baiting Russia are strong and vocal supporters of Israel. Many are neocons, who have penetrated the foreign and national security teams of both political parties and are dominant in the media while also having close ties to the Israeli government. Most of them are Jewish, to include all four of the top officials in the Department of State, while prominent politicians in both political parties, to include the president, have self-described as Zionists. For various reasons, many in the Jewish diaspora have a visceral hatred of Russia, so Israel in an odd way is part of the war party machinations to provoke an armed conflict over Ukraine.

That America is Israel’s poodle and both Russia and China are considered fair game to score political points is really the crux of the matter and it makes Americans complicit in Israeli crimes as Washington provides both arms and money as well as political cover to Jerusalem. It also reduces major US national interests involving Moscow and Beijing to sideshows and in so doing turns American national security on its head, supporting the unspeakable to make political points and ignoring what is important. One might even suggest that never before in history has a great nation so enthusiastically pursued policies that could easily lead to its own destruction. It is not in our interest, or even our survival, to continue along this path and it is past time that the politicians and bureaucrats begin to recognize that fact. Or maybe I should instead be addressing my advice to that alien-slug mothership hidden somewhere in a corn field in Iowa.

unz.com

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, in a hastily scheduled, 90-minute summit in Geneva yesterday, after which both sides lauded the meeting as worthwhile because it kept the door open for a diplomatic resolution to the ongoing crisis in Ukraine. What “keeping the door open” entails, however, represents two completely different realities.

For Blinken, the important thing appears to be process, continuing a dialogue which, by its very essence, creates the impression of progress, with progress being measured in increments of time, as opposed to results.

A results-oriented outcome was not in the books for Blinken and his entourage; the U.S. was supposed to submit a written response to Russia’s demands for security guarantees as spelled out in a pair of draft treaties presented to the U.S. and NATO in December. Instead, Blinken told Lavrov the written submission would be provided next week.

In the meantime, Blinken primed the pump of expected outcomes by highlighting the possibility of future negotiations that addressed Russian concerns (on a reciprocal basis) regarding intermediate-range missiles and NATO military exercises.

But under no circumstances, Blinken said, would the U.S. be responding to Russian demands against NATO expanding to Ukraine and Georgia, and for the redeployment of NATO forces inside the territory of NATO as it existed in 1997.

Blinken also spent a considerable amount of time harping on the danger of a imminent military invasion of Ukraine by Russian forces said to be massing along the Ukraine-Russian border. He pointed out that any military incursion by Russia, not matter what size, that violated the territorial integrity of Ukraine, would be viewed as a continuation of the Russian “aggression” of 2014 and, as such, trigger “massive consequences” which would be damaging to Russia.

Blinken’s restatement of a position he has pontificated on incessantly for more than a month now was not done for the benefit of Lavrov and the Russian government, but rather for an American and European audience which had been left scratching their collective heads over comments made the day before by President Joe Biden which suggested that the U.S. had a range of options it would consider depending on the size of a Russian incursion.

“My guess is he [Russian President Vladimir Putin] will move in, he has to do something,” Biden said during a press briefing on Wednesday. While presenting a Russian invasion as inevitable, Biden went on to note that Putin “will be held accountable” and has “never have seen sanctions like the ones I promised will be imposed” if Russia were, in fact, to move against Ukraine. Biden spoke of deploying additional U.S. military forces to eastern Europe, as well as unspecified economic sanctions.

Biden then, however, hedged his remarks, noting that the scope and scale of any U.S. response would depend on what Russia did. “It’s one thing,” Biden said, “if it’s a minor incursion and we end up having to fight about what to do and not do.”

Almost immediately the Washington establishment went into overdrive to correct what everyone said was a “misstatement” by Biden, with Biden himself making a new statement the next day, declaring that he had been “absolutely clear with President Putin. He has no misunderstanding, any, any assembled Russian units move across the Ukrainian border, that is an invasion,” and that there should be “no doubt at all that if Putin makes this choice, Russia will pay a heavy price.”

And just in case the President was not clear enough, Blinken reiterated that point following his Friday meeting with Lavrov.

Immutable

The U.S. narrative about Russia and Ukraine was immutable; Russia was hell bent on invading, and there would be massive consequences if Russia acted out on its intent. This was no idle threat, Blinken said, but rather represented the unified position of the United States and its allies and partners.

Or was it? In a telling admission, CNN’s White House correspondent, John Harwood, stated that the “minor incursions” statement by Biden was harmless, because (Harwood said) Putin already knew through sources that this was, in fact, the U.S. position. As for Europe and Ukraine, their collective confusion and outrage was merely an act, a posture they had to take for public consumption, since the optics of Biden’s statement “sounds bad.”

In short, the lack of an agreed-upon strategy on how to deal with a Russian incursion/invasion of Ukraine was an open secret for everyone except the U.S. and European publics, who being fed a line of horse manure to assuage domestic political concerns over being seen as surrendering to Russian demands.

Biden and his administration are old hands at lying to the American public when it comes to matters of national security. One only need look to Biden’s July 23, 2021, phone call with Afghan President Ashraf Ghani for a clear precedent into this inability to speak openly and honestly about reality on the ground. “I need not tell you,” Biden told Ghani, “the perception around the world and in parts of Afghanistan, I believe, is that things are not going well in terms of the fight against the Taliban. And there is a need,” Biden added, “whether it is true or not, there is a need to project a different picture.”

This, in a nutshell, is the essence of the posture taken by the Biden administration on Ukraine. Blinken has indicated that the U.S. has a toolbox filled with options that will deliver “massive consequences” to Russia should Russia invade Ukraine. These “tools” include military options, such as the reinforcement of NATO’s eastern flank with additional U.S. troops, and economic options, such as shutting down the NordStream 2 pipeline and cutting Russia off from the SWIFT banking system. All these options, Blinken notes, have the undivided support of U.S. European allies and partners.

Public opening session between Lavrov and Blinken on Friday. (Ruptly screenshot.)

The toolbox is everywhere, it seems—Biden has referred to it, as has White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki. Blinken has alluded to it on numerous occasions.

There’s only one problem—the toolbox, it turns out, is empty.

While the Pentagon is reportedly working on a series of military options to reinforce the existing U.S. military presence in eastern Europe, the actual implementation of these options would neither be timely nor even possible. One option is to move forces already in Europe; the U.S. Army maintains one heavy armored brigade in Europe on a rotational basis and has a light armored vehicle brigade and an artillery brigade stationed in Germany. Along with some helicopter and logistics support, that’s it.

Flooding these units into Poland would be for display purposes only—they represent an unsustainable combat force that would be destroyed within hours, if not days, in any large-scale ground combat against a Russian threat.

The U.S. can deploy a second heavy armored brigade to Poland which would fall in on prepositioned equipment already warehoused on Polish soil. This brigade would suffer a similar fate if matched up against the Russian army. The U.S. can also deploy an airborne brigade. They, too, would die.

There are no other options available to deploy additional U.S. heavy forces to Europe on a scale and in a timeframe that would be meaningful. The problem isn’t just the deployment of forces from their bases in the U.S. (something that would takes months to prepare for), but the sustainability of these forces once they arrived on the ground in Europe. Food, ammunition, water, fuel—the logistics of war is complicated, and not resolved overnight.

In short, there is no viable military option, and Biden knows this.

Empty Sanctions Too

The U.S. has no sanctions plan that can survive initial contact with the enemy, which in this case is the collective weakness of the post-pandemic economies of both Europe and the U.S.; the over-reliance of Europe on Russian-sourced energy, and the vulnerability of democratically elected leaders to the whim of a consumer-based constituency. Russia can survive the impact of any sanctions regime the U.S. is able to scrape together—even those targeting the Russian banking system—far longer than Europe can survive without access to Russian energy.

This is a reality that Europe lives with, and while U.S. policy makers might think hard-hitting sanctions look good on paper, the reality is that whatever passes for U.S.-European unity today would collapse in rapid order when the Russian pipelines were shut down. The pain would not just be limited to Europe, either—the U.S. economy would suffer as well, with sky-high fuel prices and a stock market collapse that would put the U.S. into an economic recession, if not outright depression.

The political cost that would be incurred by Biden and, by extension, the Democrats, would be fatal to any hope that might remain for holding onto either house of Congress in 2022, or the White House in 2024. It would be one thing if Biden and his national security team were honest and forthright about the real consequences of declaring the equivalent of economic war on Russia. It is another thing altogether to speak only of the pain sanctions would cause Russia, with little thought, if any, to the real consequences that will be paid on the home front.

Americans should never forget that Russia has been laboring under severe U.S. sanctions since 2014, with zero effect. Russia knows what could be coming and has prepared. The American people wallow in their ignorance, believing at face value what they are told by the Biden administration, and echoed by a compliant mainstream media.

Propaganda About ‘Propaganda’

One of the great ironies of the current crisis is that, on the eve of the Blinken-Lavrov meeting in Geneva, the U.S. State Department published a report on Russian propaganda, decrying the role played by state-funded outlets such as RT and Sputnik in shaping public opinion in the United States and the West (in the interest of full disclosure, RT is one of the outlets that I write for.)

The fact that the State Department would publish such a report on the eve of a meeting which is all about propagating the big lie—that the U.S. has a plan for deterring “irresponsible Russian aggression”—while ignoring the hard truth: this is a crisis derived solely from the irresponsible policies of the U.S. and NATO over the past 30 years.

While a compliant mainstream American media unthinkingly repeated every warning and threat issued by Biden and Blinken to Russia over the course of the past few days, the Russian position has been largely ignored. Here’s a reminder of where Russia stands on its demands for security guarantees: “We are talking about the withdrawal of foreign forces, equipment, and weapons, as well as taking other steps to return to the set-up we had in 1997 in non-NATO countries,” the Russian Foreign Ministry declared in a bulletin published after the Lavrov-Blinken meeting. “This includes Bulgaria and Romania.”

Blinken has already said the U.S. will reject this.

The toolbox is empty. Russia knows this. Biden knows this. Blinken knows this. CNN knows this. The only ones who aren’t aware of this are the American people.

The consequences of a U.S. rejection of Russia’s demands will more than likely be war.

If you think the American people are ready to bear the burden of a war with Russia, think again.

consortiumnews.com

American Secretary of State Antony Blinken is shuttling across Europe this week vowing that Washington “desperately wants peace not war” with Russia. This touchy-feely sentiment comes amid reports of additional American and British weapons supplies heading to the NATO-backed Kiev regime.

Ukraine has already been massively weaponized by the United States since the CIA-backed coup d’état in Kiev in 2014 brought to power a Neo-Nazi regime obsessed with antagonizing Russia. The Biden administration has boosted inventories for anti-tank missiles and other lethal weaponry with plans for further increases. Now it emerges that additional supplies are on the way from both the U.S. and Britain. Britain is to send anti-tank weapons to Ukraine along with “military advisors”.

Moscow this week condemned the increased flow of weapons to Ukraine, saying it is recklessly stoking already fraught tensions. The new supply of anti-armor missiles from the U.S. and Britain – reported only days after high-level talks on regional security between Russian and NATO officials were conducted last week – would seem to be one more proof that the Western powers are secretly pushing for war with Russia despite rhetoric appealing for a diplomatic solution.

The frenzy for warmongering seems to have taken over any reasoned dialogue or obligation to diplomacy and international law. Washington and its European allies are whipping up the hysteria of alleged Russian invasion plans for Ukraine. Blinken flew to Kiev on Wednesday claiming that Russia was ready to invade Ukraine “imminently”. The American foreign minister then flew to Berlin to meet with German, British and French counterparts to discuss ratcheting up further economic pain on Russia over its alleged “aggression”. The German government announced this week it was prepared to halt the Nord Stream 2 gas project “if Russia invaded Ukraine”.

The New York Times reported claims that Russia was closing down its embassy staff in Kiev and speculated that the move was a portent of Moscow’s anticipation of war. Russia dismissed the report as groundless and said its consular staff was working as normal in Ukraine. The Ukrainian foreign ministry also appeared to corroborate Russia’s claims.

Russia has repeatedly rejected allegations of an invasion plan. It says that troop movements within its borders are its internal business that requires no explanation. Even the New York Times which has been pushing the invasion narrative admitted this week that American intelligence claims of Russian troop build-up on the border with Ukraine have not materialized.

Moscow says that the military build-up is actually by the Ukrainian armed forces supported by U.S., British, Canadian and other NATO military advisors. Russia maintains that the allegations of a Russian invasion are a cover for the NATO-backed Kiev regime to launch an offensive against the ethnic Russian population of Southeast Ukraine, who have been fighting a civil war with Kiev forces since 2014 when the CIA fomented a coup d’état.

Blinken is due to meet with Russia’s top diplomat Sergei Lavrov in Geneva on Friday. The Kremlin has said that it expects a legal, written response from the United States regarding the security proposals that Moscow presented last week to American and NATO officials. Those proposals included a commitment from the U.S. and NATO to desist from further eastward expansion and for withdrawal of existing offensive weaponry from Eastern Europe.

American and European NATO allies have already verbally dismissed Russia’s security proposals as “non-starters”. They stated that Russia does not have a veto on NATO deployments. This is a high-handed and provocative rebuff to Russia’s concerns over the threatening encroachment of offensive military forces on its borders.

The United States and its partners seem to be deliberately kicking Russia’s existential concerns into the long grass. Not reciprocating promptly to the security guarantees that Moscow explicitly delineated last week shows that the U.S.-led NATO bloc is menacingly playing for time to wear down Russia’s resolve.

Antony Blinken has made lame excuses for not responding to Russia’s strategic security proposals by saying that the United States needs to first consult with other NATO allies and partners. Washington is making out that it is constrained by an obligation to seek consensus and consultation. Moscow is being told that it will have to put its security concerns on hold while the U.S. confers with its European counterparts. Who knows when that nebulous process will end?

Curiously, there was no such need for “consultation” by Washington when it decided to dramatically pull out of Afghanistan last year. After 20 years of grinding, futile war, the Biden administration did not bother to inform other NATO members about the sudden military withdrawal. Indeed, European appeals for a slower withdrawal were pointedly ignored by Washington which had decided unilaterally to close down operations in Afghanistan.

The notion that the United States indulges consensus and consultation among NATO members is an absurd delusion. Washington, as the presumed hegemonic power, decides alone when and when not to go to war, and its NATO subordinates fall into line like the good little flunkeys that they are.

The militarization in Ukraine is being led by the United States, along with its trusty British bulldog. The conclusion is that Washington has decided to ramp up the push for war against Russia using Ukraine as a proxy – and using a twisted narrative about Russian aggression and invasion. The rebuffing of a historic security detente with Moscow is being disguised by the facade of Washington appearing to be chivalrous and courteous to purportedly find a consensus with allies.

By Philip GIRALDI

Sometimes it seems that when it comes to international relations Russian president Vladimir Putin might be the only head of state who is capable of any rational proposals. His recent negotiating positions conveyed initially by Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Rybakov to step back from the brink of war between his country and the United States over Ukraine are largely eminently sensible and would defuse the possibility that Eastern Europe might become a future Sarajevo incident that would ignite a nuclear war. Per Putin, “We need long-term legally binding guarantees even if we know they cannot be trusted, as the US frequently withdraws from treaties that become uninteresting to them. But…something [more is needed], not just verbal assurances.”

Putin and President Biden discussed the Russian proposals and other issues in a phone conversation on December 30^th, in which Biden called for diplomacy, and both he and Putin reportedly took steps to defuse the possible confrontation. In the phone call the two presidents agreed to initiate bilateral negotiations described as “strategic stability dialogue” relating to “mutual security guarantees” which have now begun on Sunday, January 9^th, in Geneva. That will be followed by an exploratory meeting of the NATO-Russia Council on Wednesday and another meeting with the Organization for Security and Cooperation on Thursday.

Pat Buchanan, who is somewhat skeptical about Russian overreach, has summed up the Putin position, which he refers to as an ultimatum, as “Get off our front porch. Get out of our front yard. And stay out of our backyard.” Putin has demanded that NATO cease expansion into Eastern Europe, which threatens only Russia, while also scaling back planned missile emplacements in those former Warsaw Pact states that are already members of the alliance. He also has called on the US to reduce harassing incursions by warships and strategic bombers along the Russian border and to cease efforts to insert military bases in the five ‘Stans along the Russian federation’s southern border. In other words, Russia believes that it should not have hostile military forces gathering along its borders, that it should have some kind of legally guaranteed and internationally endorsed strategic security zone such as the United States enjoys behind two oceans with friendly governments to north and south.

Buchanan concludes that there is much room for negotiating a serious agreement that will satisfy both sides, observing that the US now has through NATO untenable security arrangements with 28 European countries. He notes how “The day cannot be far off when the US is going to have to review and discard Cold War commitments that date to the 1940s and 1950s, and require us to fight a nuclear power such as Russia for countries that have nothing to do with our vital interests or our national security.”

Secretary of State Tony Blinken has been openly skeptical about the Russian proposals, arguing that Moscow is a threat to Europe, though the extent that the Biden administration will play hard ball over the details is difficult to assess. Blinken and NATO have already declared that they will continue their expansion into Eastern Europe and the White House is reportedly preparing harsh new sanctions against Russia if the talks are not successful. To be sure, Administration pushback may be a debating technique to moderate or even eliminate some of the demands, or there may actually be hard liners from the Center for New American Security who have the administration’s ear who want to confront Russia. Either way, both Blinken and Biden have warned the Russians “not to make a serious mistake over Ukraine,” also stating that there would be “massive” economic consequences if there were any attack by Russian troops. After a meeting with Germany’s new Foreign Minister, Blinken asserted last week that there would be no progress with in diplomatic approaches to the problem as long as there is a Russian “gun pointed at Ukraine’s head.” In reality, of course, Moscow is 5,000 miles away from Washington and the truly dangerous pointed gun has been in the hands of NATO and the US right on Russia’s doorstep.

To be sure, fighting Russia is popular in some circles, largely a result of incessant negative media coverage about Putin and his government. Opinion polls suggest that half of all Americans favor sending troops to defend the Ukrainians. The Republicans, notably Senators Ted Cruz, Tom Cotton and Marco Rubio, appear to be particularly enthusiastic regarding going to war over Ukraine as well as with China over Taiwan and openly advocate both admitting Ukraine into NATO as well as sending troops and weapons as well as providing intelligence to assist Kiev. They argue that it is necessary to defend American democracy and also to maintain the US’s “credibility,” the last refuge of a scoundrel nation, as Daniel Larison observes, since Washington frequently “goes back on its word.” And then there are the crazies like Ohio Congressman Mike Turner who says that US troops must be sent to Ukraine to defend American democracy. Or Republican Senator from Mississippi Roger Wicker who favors a possible unilateral nuclear first-strike to “rain destruction on Russian military capability,” leading to a global conflict that wouldn’t be so bad as it would only kill 10 to 20 million Americans.

Russia has a right to be worried as something is brewing in Kazakhstan right now that just might be a replay of the US-supported NGO-instigated successful overthrow of the Ukrainian government in 2014. The Collective Security Treaty Organization members Russia, Belarus, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Armenia, have sent soldiers responding to the Kazakh government’s request for help. Unfortunately, US foreign policy is not only about Russia. The Taiwan issue continues to fester with a similar resonance to the Ukraine crisis. China, a rising power, increasingly wants to assert itself in its neighborhood while the US is trying to alternatively confront and contain it while also propping up relationships that evolved after the Korean War and during the Cold War. The status quo is unsustainable, but US moves to “protect” Taiwan are themselves destabilizing as they make the Chinese suspicious of American intentions and will likely lead to unnecessary armed conflict.

And let’s not ignore America’s continued devastation by sanctions and bombs of civilian populations in Venezuela, Syria, Iran, Afghanistan and Yemen to punish the governments of those countries. And, of course there, is always Israel, good old loyal ally and greatly loved by all politicians and the media, Israel, the Jewish state. Biden continues to waffle on reentry into the Iran nuclear non-proliferation agreement, which is good for the US, under pressure from Israel and its domestic “Amen chorus.” Just last month, speaking at a Zionist Organization of America Gala, former CIA Director and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo intoned that “There is no more important task of the Secretary of State than standing for Israel and there is no more important ally to the United States than Israel.” Add to that Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi’s unforgettable bleat about her love for Israel, “I have said to people when they ask me if this Capitol crumbled to the ground, the one thing that would remain is our commitment to our aid… and I don’t even call it aid…our cooperation with Israel. That’s fundamental to who we are.”

You might ask how any American leader could so blatantly state that US interests are subordinate to those of a foreign country, but there we are. And it is tragic that our president is willing to sacrifice American military lives in support of interests that are completely fraudulent. The truth is that we have a government that in bipartisan fashion does everything ass backwards while the American people struggle to pay the bills and watch their quality of life and even their security go downhill. Again citing Vladimir Putin’s wisdom on the subject, one might observe that as early as 2007 at the Munich Security Conference, the Russian president said that the “lawless behavior” of the United States in insisting on global dominance and leadership did not respect the vital interests of other nations and undermined both the desire for and the mechanisms established to encourage peaceful relations. He got that right. That is the crux of the matter. There is neither credibility nor humanity to American foreign policy, and everyone knows that the United States and allies like Israel are basically rogue nations that obey no rules and respect no one else’s rights. This has been somewhat true since the Second World War but it has become routine practice in nearly all of America’s international relations since 9/11 and the real losers are the American people, who have to shoulder the burden of an increasingly feckless and hopelessly corrupt political class.

unz.com

By Patrick LAWRENCE

“We modern civilizations have learned to recognize that we are mortal like the others. We had heard tell of whole worlds vanished, of empires foundered … sunk to the inexplorable depths of the centuries with their gods and laws, their academies and their pure and applied sciences, their grammars, dictionaries, classics … their critics and the critics of their critics…. We could not count them. But these wrecks, after all, were of no concern of ours.”

That is Paul Valéry, the modernist poet, essayist and Academician, writing in April 1919. The Great War was but a few months over. Europe understood, if subliminally at that moment, that the world order of which it had been the center had shattered like glass. Or — better put — that Europe had shattered it.

“Everything came to Europe, and from Europe everything has come. Or almost everything,” Valéry wrote. “Now, the present situation permits of this capital question: Will Europe retain its leadership in all activities? Will Europe become what she is in reality: that is, a little cape of the Asiatic continent?” [Emphasis the author’s.]

Valéry was less interested in Europe’s wrecked landscapes and its blown-to-bits economy than he was in what had happened to European minds and spirits — how people thought and felt. Europe’s best brains had just wasted themselves “finding a way to remove barbed wire, baffle the submarines, or paralyze the flight of aeroplanes.”

Then, the war over, Europe no longer knew how to think. Europeans could not speak among themselves of their abruptly arrived new circumstances. People retreated into the classics of European culture and took to repeating the old verities as to the Continent’s ancient greatness. Valéry called the essay I quote “The Intellectual Crisis.” Its topic was “the disorder of our mental Europe.”

Paul Valéry photographed by Henri Manuel, 1920s. (Wikimedia Commons)

It is sobering, to put the point mildly, to sit in America in 2021 and read the reflections of a writer sitting in Paris 102 years ago. The world America made in the post–1945 years has ended just as the Great War ended the world Valéry, born in 1871, knew as his own.

And Americans suffer the same disabilities as the Europeans of 1919: They cannot think. They cannot speak plainly among themselves.

They are, in a phrase, manufacturing their own decline as they flinch from the world as it is in this, our post–American century.

‘Required to Kill’

Only a materially advanced civilization could have wreaked all the atrocities and destruction of World War I, Valéry observed: “A great deal of science was doubtless required to kill so many men… but moral qualities were equally required. Knowledge and Duty: Must we suspect you also?” [Emphasis again the author’s.]

We must, say yes, to reply to Valéry a century late.

America, the most materially advanced nation in human history, has made the same error Valéry described ever since it nominated itself, in the mid–19^th century, as the very incarnation of Progress with a capital P. It has by a long tradition mistaken material progress for authentic human progress.

As to the latter, America has made little as measured by the lives Americans now live. And now, as the world it sought to make in its image goes its own way, America finds itself a desperate empire with no moral qualities to speak of as measured by its conduct. Caught up in a great game of pretend, it now has its very own “intellectual crisis.”

Three cases, of the countless number available to us, merit our consideration for their proximity. In each, we must note not merely what America did or did not do; taking a page from Valéry, we must also think about the deeper consequences for all Americans of their nation’s doing or not doing.

Julian Assange

Protester during Don’t Extradite Assange march, central London, Feb. 22, 2020. (Steve Eason, Flickr, CC BY-NC 2.0)

It is perfectly clear to anyone who looks squarely at this case that Assange faces up to 175 years in prison for revealing American and allied war crimes in Afghanistan and Iraq in the post–2001 period. As Chris Hedges wrote last week, “If Assange is extradited and found guilty of publishing classified material, it will set a legal precedent that will effectively end national security reporting, allowing the government to use the Espionage Act to charge any reporter who possesses classified documents, and any whistleblower who leaks classified information.”

What is at issue in London is plain. The headline on the Hedges piece says it better than I can: “The Most Vital Battle for Press Freedom in Our Time.”

Assange’s treatment in Belmarsh prison for the past two and a half years has been properly termed torture. I would also call it a human-rights atrocity. This, too, is plain.

And what are most Americans thinking and saying about Julian Assange’s fate? What is the press, whose principles and professional practice are at stake, saying and doing? Most Americans know little to nothing of the Assange case. Apart from independent media, the press cannot write of it due to its diseased relationship to power.

This inflicts damage of a kind not adequately considered. It is the harm done by ignorance and silence — a self-inflicted harm. A society that cannot address a crisis in its press such as America has faced for some years now is doomed to proceed without a free press. It is paralyzed to act in its own interest.

Colin Powell

Colin Powell while serving as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, 1991. (National Archives) 

Then there is the Colin Powell case. One knew as soon as Powell’s death was announced that Americans were in for days upon days of praise for a patriot, a hero, a brave warrior, a great statesman, a great American, and all the rest. I kept my radio resolutely turned to a classical station until I figured the coast was clear.

Of Powell’s famous lie at the U.N. as to the presence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq — the most consequential lie so far told in this century — the corporate press said as little as it could get away with, and what it said was whitewash. Of his torching of Vietnamese villages, his post–My Lai cover-ups, his roles in the Iran–Contra scandal and the flagrantly illegal invasion of Panama in 1989, and other such pockmarks on Powell’s record — of these nothing.

Do Americans think there is no price to pay for this kind of self-deception? The price exacted is evident out our windows: It is our continued defense of empire and the consequences at home as measured by our increasing deprivations, our political collapse, and our social decay. Powell was a centurion in the imperial army. To glorify him is to preclude all action against America’s imperial aggressions — to sustain it, this is to say, on its ruinous path.

Antony Blinken

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken during foreign travel in May. (State Department, Ron Przysucha)

There is the Antony Blinken case. Tiresome as it is, have you taken the trouble to follow his Twitter messages?

If you want to understand his record as secretary of state you must, because all he seems to do is Tweet utterly ridiculous bromides as to America’s respect for human rights, the right of others to self-determination, and press freedom along with his deep concern for starving Syrian children — children whose malnutrition is the direct result of sanctions Blinken maintains against the Syrian Arab Republic. There is always, of course, Blinken’s idolatry in the matter of “the international rules-based order.”

Blinken is not the worst secretary of state in my lifetime — that distinction goes to John Foster Dulles. But he is the most ineffectual, and possible the stupidest. His function is to portray, to put across, carefully, a nonexistent America.

Again, it is the consequences of America’s chief diplomat advancing this Disneyesque version of what America stands for and does that must concern us. No one in corporate media calls Blinken on all his silliness: They pretend the world according to Blinken is just as he says it is. There are consequences there, too. The unlawful, often atrocious conduct abroad continues in the name of people who do not even know it is occurring.

What Comes Into View

These three cases appear at first to have nothing in common. If we consider them together — and one could add very many others — what do we see?

I see a nation that is detached from reality (which is a basic definition of psychosis) such that its people are confined to a series of simulations:

This is what it would be like to live in a country that respects others; this is what it would be like if our government abided by the rule of law; this is what it would be like to have a free, unfettered press; this is what it would be like if America upheld either rules or order — to say nothing of both. We are merely pretending in all such cases.

In the years after Valéry published “The Intellectual Crisis,” Europe drifted almost dreamlike into fascism, genocide and another war. He seems to suggest, without quite saying so, that Europeans had rendered themselves powerless to act as they drew back from what they had made of themselves. The piece was later retranslated as “The Crisis of the Mind.”

America’s crises today are numerous. It seems it is America’s crisis of the mind that causes the crises to multiply and worsen and stand without solutions. These are available to us in every single case whenever we are ready to… to make up our minds to speak of our crises and then to address them seriously, with determination and without dreams.

consortiumnews.com

United States Secretary of State Antony Blinken is visiting the Middle East and Europe this week in an effort to repair the damage to Washington’s standing with its allies following the disastrous retreat from Afghanistan.

The top U.S. diplomat first goes to Qatar, the Persian Gulf state which has served as a forward – and now backward – operating base for the Pentagon during its military occupation of Afghanistan. Blinken then travels to the giant U.S. airbase at Ramstein, Germany, which was also a vital logistics hub for prosecuting America’s “longest war” – a war that ended in spectacular failure last month. There he will meet German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas ahead of a virtual conference with other European officials on the challenges posed by postwar Afghanistan.

Blinken’s itinerary will overlap with that of the U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin who is also visiting Qatar and the other Gulf states, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Bahrain.

Washington’s whirlwind outreach is evidently an effort to shore up confidence among U.S. allies in American defense commitments. The dramatic and hasty pullout from Afghanistan by the Biden administration has left allies wondering if their American patron can be trusted when the chips are down.

The sense of disappointment has perhaps been most keenly felt in Europe. A conference last week in Slovenia of European defense ministers expressed the anger and dismay of the “fiasco” caused by the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan. European allies were not even consulted by the Biden administration about the evacuation plan that concluded on August 31. European partners were left scrambling to get their remaining diplomats and troops out of Kabul because of Washington’s unilateral decision-making. Appeals to President Biden for a delay in the evacuation were pointedly ignored.

Attending the conference in Slovenia last week was the European Union’s foreign policy chief Josep Borrell. There were bitter recrimininations among the EU members towards the United States for being left in the lurch and appearing to be impotent.

Borrell said: “Afghanistan has shown that the deficiency in our strategic autonomy [from the United States] comes with a price.”

Put in plainer language, Borrell was admitting that the EU’s subservience to the U.S. makes it look foolish and helpless.

In reaction to the Afghanistan debacle, there are now renewed calls for an independent European military force to carry out overseas missions separately from Washington. A European army has long been advocated by the EU’s big members Germany and France. However, certain inertia in the proposal stems from sensitivity to criticism of such a force being a throwback to European imperialism. Germany in particular with its Nazi past has to tread gingerly on the subject.

However, the scale of disgrace over defeat in Afghanistan for the U.S. and its NATO allies is so poignant that the debate on European “autonomy” is being propelled forward.

The problem for Europe is two-fold. The deployment of a proposed rapid reaction force for dealing with an overseas crisis is contradicted by Brussels’ bureaucracy and the principle of unanimity among the EU’s 27 member states. How can a force be a “rapid reaction” one when its deployment must require the inevitable comprehensive debate beforehand? That problem is being addressed by moves to form “coalitions of the willing” for deployment. So, for example, if Berlin and Paris deem a joint military expedition necessary to some conflict zone, then that would be sufficient for its authorization. That still is politically tricky because it can be criticized for the perceived hijacking of the EU bloc by a minority of, albeit powerful, members. That again smacks of the EU being forged into a Neo-imperialist vehicle.

A second problem is European military autonomy from Washington could undermine the NATO alliance. This was explicitly stated by the Norwegian civilian head of NATO, Jens Stoltenberg, following the proposals touted at the conference in Slovenia. Stoltenberg warned that moves for European military actions independent of Washington would not be viable. He said that NATO was the only way to defend Europe and that any shift from the transatlantic alliance would split Europe.

Of course, Stoltenberg would say that. His lucrative job depends on promoting NATO.

Nevertheless, there is an emerging division in Europe. There are those voices in Germany, France, Spain and Italy who would like to see more independence from Washington in decision-making. This position is bolstered by the Afghanistan travesty and the shame felt by European leaders with their pretensions of global importance.

On the other hand, the eastern members of the EU, Poland and the Baltic states, Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia, are more predisposed to NATO as the primary military force. This is because of their desire to keep Washington close owing to their irrational Russophobia.

In any case, what the fallout from Afghanistan shows is that the transatlantic alliance between the U.S. and Europe and its Middle Eastern allies is badly shaken due to Washington’s impetuousness to act in its own interests. The irony is that Joe Biden was supposed to restore relations between the United States and its allies which had been ruffled under Donald Trump and his boorish “America First” braggadocio.

Now Biden’s top aides are left with the task of calming allies who have been spooked by Washington’s new iteration of what has always been a constant, never-changing policy of America First. The really damaging thing though, which may have become irreparable, is that Biden’s trust-building among allies is now seen for what it is: a cynical pile of lies.

In Rome with US imperial partners, discussions included support for ISIS and likeminded jihadists.

Defying reality like many times before, Blinken, turned truth on is head with the following remarks, saying:

The Biden regime is “commit(ted) to enduring the enduring defeat of ISIS in Iraq and Syria (sic), including through support for ongoing stabilization efforts in areas liberated from ISIS (sic).”

No US “stabilization” efforts exist in Iraq, Syria, and elsewhere in the Middle East, Central Asia and North Africa.

The US and its imperial partners provide no “humanitarian aid” or other “assistance” to victims of US aggression.

Reality in these areas is polar opposite Blinken’s Big Lies and mass deception.

US-created ISIS, al-Qaeda, its al-Nusra offshoot and likeminded jihadist groups are used as proxy foot soldiers where the Pentagon and CIA want them deployed.

US-dominated NATO supplies them with heavy weapons, training and direction to serve its imperial aims by waging endless Pentagon-orchestrated wars on nations threatening no one.

Fostering terrorism worldwide, not countering it, is longstanding US policy.

Blinken thanked US imperial partners for supporting its war on humanity.

Separately, he unjustifiably justified US overnight Sunday terror-bombing of targets along the Syrian/Iraqi border — naked aggression falsely called defensive, adding:

“We took necessary, appropriate, deliberate action that is designed to limit the risk of escalation (sic), but also to send a clear and unambiguous deterrent message (sic).”

Iraqi PM Minister Mustafa al-Kadhemi “condemn(ed)” the latest US terror-bombing strikes, calling them “a blatant and unacceptable violation of Iraqi sovereignty and Iraqi national security.”

His remark followed an emergency security meeting to address overnight US aggression.

Iraq’s military spokesman Yehya Rasool denounced Pentagon airstrikes the Iraqi-Syrian border he called “a blatant and unacceptable violation of Iraqi sovereignty and national security in accordance with all international conventions.”

Iraq’s Foreign Ministry made similar remarks, stressing:

“We affirm our adherence to Iraq’s sovereignty and unity and to rely on everything that would enhance that, through sustained coordination and communication with various parties and through diplomatic initiatives and endeavors that ensure the non-repetition of such rejected and condemned hostilities.”

Iraqi Popular Mobilizations Units (PMUs) said four of their freedom fighters were killed, vowing “retaliat(ion).”

On Monday, senior Iraqi al-Nujaba Movement PMU official Ali al-Asadi said US overnight aggression “proves that the occupier does not care about stability of this country,” adding:

“We tell the occupier, you will pay for your despicable (action) and will suffer the consequences…”

The vast majority of Iraqis want illegal US occupation of their country ended.

On Monday, a PMU statement said the following:

“As a result of (US) airstrikes, four soldiers, who were carrying out the routine task of preventing the penetration of ISIS terrorists from Syria to Iraq (were) killed,” adding:

“They were not involved in any activity against foreign forces in Iraq.”

“There were no depots in the militia positions that were hit by (Pentagon) airstrikes.”

On Monday, Syria’s Foreign Ministry called US overnight Sunday aggression a flagrant breach of Syrian and Iraqi sovereignty, adding:

It further proves “what we have repeatedly said in Syria that the US military presence in our region is meant to serve (its imperial and) Israeli (interests, along with) separatist forces contrary to the interests of people” in targeted countries.

Chairman of Russia’s lower House State Duma Foreign Affairs Committee Leonid Slutsky called overnight US aggression “barbaric.”

Iran’s Foreign Ministry’s spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh condemned Biden region strikes on Iraqi and Syrian targets, calling them an attack on “security of the region,” adding:

The hostile US presence will be “one of the victims” of its endless regional wars.

Last year, Iraqi parliamentarians overwhelmingly passed legislation that terminates illegal US occupation of the country.

US forces remain in Iraq and Syria in defiance of the will of their people and international law.

stephenlendman.org