Humanitarian Imperialism and Sudan

https://www.democracynow.org/2024/9/13/sudan

The war in Sudan is tragic and like all Africa stories in the West, it gets little attention or traction. To most people the wars in Africa are just repeating loops of video showing fighters in pick-up trucks with AK-47's and suffering women and children in refugee camps. The politics are beyond most people's ability to understand - and they're not going to take the time to look into them. And while Western leaders speak out, levelling condemnations and offering aid - nothing much seems to change.

Syriza and the Pseudo-Left in Greece

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/9/25/kasselakis-a-political-unknown-and-ex-banker-wins-race-to-lead-greek-left

The fact that new Syriza leader Stefanos Kasselakis is a sodomite does not make him Left-wing – any more than was his predecessor Alex Tsipras. Tsipras who ran on Leftist platform and formed a coalition to that end, was revealed as a tool of the bankers and the EU Establishment.

Another Navalny Travesty

https://www.politico.eu/article/alexei-navalny-sakharov-prize-freedom-thought-eu-russia/

The campaign to promote Alexei Navalny continues. He is but a component of the expansive Western campaign against the regime of Vladimir Putin in Moscow. You literally cannot interact with Western news media anymore without some kind of daily (and at times hourly) attack on Russia even if it's just a quick thirty second 'dig' – It must be remembered that in most American news venues a proper 'Two-Minute Hate' would exceed the attention span of their audience.

The Sublime Porte versus L'Elysee

https://www.euractiv.com/section/global-europe/news/turkey-bolsters-influence-across-north-africas-maghreb/

While the Istanbul-based Porte is no longer active, the Erdogan administration in Ankara certainly has a vision of Neo-Ottomanism - the Neo-Porte is you will. On the back burner for a season, it's back with a vengeance as Turkey attempts to triangulate its alliances, play its opposition off against one another and re-assert its unique geographical and cultural role. This is best seen in its geo-strategic and economic policies within the Middle East, the Caucasus region, Europe (particularly Germany and the Balkans) and the larger Mediterranean region.

Laos, OBOR and Media Bias

https://journal-neo.org/2020/01/06/laos-wests-war-on-asian-development/

There's little doubt that Beijing has shifted gears and utilising projects like OBOR, it seeks to undermine Western (and particularly American) power in Eurasia. It's imperialism to be sure but in many ways it's a mimicking of the Western model of control through debt, trade and economic influence. The soft-cultural influence is sure to follow and eventually will entail a military presence, the forts and outposts established to protect its interests. It's a well known and established pattern.

Trump's Economy and its Evangelical Apologists

https://www.truthdig.com/articles/the-untold-story-of-trumps-booming-economy/

There are different ways to read such articles. On the one hand one could read it with a sense of outrage and great umbrage at the crimes of the wealthy.

Others will read it and get angry and defend the status quo. Employing a multitude of Right-wing and Neoliberal arguments they will quash all complaints and morally denounce those who would dare to question economic and market orthodoxy.

But there's another way to read it. First, I reject the assumption of middle class norms. I don't judge the right or wrong of it for workers by the standards of the middle class. I realise the average worker expects vacation days, sick days, a pension and all the rest. I don't and I don't have any of those things... and I don't really care.

So do I disagree with the author of the piece?

Authoritarianism and Exploitation: News when it comes to China, ignored in the West

https://www.euractiv.com/section/cybersecurity/news/huawei-admit-chinese-law-obliges-companies-to-work-with-government/

The Chinese government and the ruling CCP are deplorable. There's no need to mince words. They are enemies of Christ and Beijing represents a bestial power vying for its place on the world stage.

The Threat of China According to The Guardian

https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/dec/07/china-plan-for-global-media-dominance-propaganda-xi-jinping

The rise of Xi Jinping continues to re-shape China and it's becoming clear the New Silk Road or One Belt One Road (OBOR) initiative is about more than commerce or economic security.

Historically China (when powerful) has remained more or less within its geopolitical sphere. A dominating regional Hegemon, many have argued that its contemporary resurgence represents little more than an attempt to revert to the historical pattern. The lords of Beijing wish for China to recapture its historical place and position in the global order. Its aspirations are regional and restricted.

And yet some wonder if under Xi the vision has shifted and China is moving more in the direction of a global empire akin to the old European empires but with a special reliance upon the model of the United States.

Divergent Missionary Legacies in The Middle Kingdom

http://www.asianews.it/news-en/Growing-Chinese-nationalism:-celebrating-Christmas-is-'a-burning-shame'-45828.html

The sad thing is that the Chinese government has a point. All too often Western missionary work has functioned as a form of cultural imperialism if not rank and overt tool of imperialism.

The Blind and Dangerous Hypocrisy of Sacralism

https://www.christianpost.com/news/arrogantly-invoking-god-foreign-policy-debates-blasphemous-christian-historian-walter-russell-mead-228370/

As a Christian, this article made me quite angry but I am thankful that Walter Russell Mead and Mary Habeck are clear in what they advocate. Though couched in deceitful terms and reliant upon a perversion of Christian doctrine, their transparent idealism accommodates an attempt to expose their error and indeed the evil they advocate. And it is just that. Their form and framing of it and their ideals that govern them are especially pernicious in that their agenda is promoted in the name of Christ.

Humanitarian Politics and Myanmar

Beware the so-called humanitarians arguing for war.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/dec/10/why-nato-must-defend-womens-rights

Humanitarian politics has become a basis for war in the post Cold War era. This was a growing theme during the 1990's as the US intervened in places like Somalia and NATO began to rapidly expand in Europe. Even the disastrous genocide in Rwanda was spun as a call to arms for future interventions.

NATO on the Korean Peninsula

http://www.dw.com/en/nato-chief-calls-on-un-to-uphold-north-korea-sanctions/a-41193631

http://www.korea.net/NewsFocus/policies/view?articleId=150871

This story is something of a stunner and it has received almost no coverage in the West, certainly not in the American mainstream news.

NATO secretary-general Jens Stoltenberg has been touring Japan and South Korea and even visited the contentious DMZ. What is the head of NATO doing in Northeast Asia on the Pacific Rim? The timing is also noteworthy as he's passing through just days before Donald Trump's visit to the region.

Catalonia, Kosovo and Crimea: Separatism, Hypocrisy and the Tenuous Status of the Nation State

https://www.b92.net/eng/news/politics.php?yyyy=2017&mm=10&dd=02&nav_id=102456

Aleksandar Vučić is of course absolutely right. There is a double standard and we also see it at work with regard to Crimea. It is simply unthinkable to the Western Establishment that the people of Crimea would voluntarily and democratically seek to ratify the Russian annexation. Of course the history of Crimea has been all but ignored by Western media. I'm referring to its Imperial history, its Soviet history and even the attitudes and political maneuvers taking place in the 1990s.

The Plight of Christians in Laos

http://www.christiantoday.com/article/laos.christians.exiled.and.beaten.for.their.faith/103309.htm

This is a heartbreaking story but one that we need to hear and follow. There is perhaps another story here... a growing nationalist/Sacralist tendency within Theravada Buddhism. We've already seen it in Sri Lanka but it's definitely on the rise in places like Burma, Thailand and indeed Laos.

Violence in Context

http://www.jadaliyya.com/pages/index/26270/violence_theirs-and-ours

Prashad is always interesting. I was first introduced to him on Democracy Now! I find his writings scattered here and there and he's always worth a read.

While certainly not a Christian, he is nevertheless insightful. This piece exposes the dual logic and ethics at work in how violence is perceived in the West.

The Costs and Dangers of Militarism

There is an ongoing debate in ruling class circles over the question of conscription. In recent years the Neo-Conservative wing led by figures like Donald Rumsfeld wanted a light and flexible volunteer force highly reliant on technology and sophisticated weaponry.

Sadly (for them) this was also combined with a commitment to unilateralist thinking leading to an over-taxing of US military resources. By the end of the Bush administration the US military was almost broken.

Brzezinski's Pivot or Recalibration?

http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/08/25/the-broken-chessboard-brzezinski-gives-up-on-empire/

This is a very interesting article and some will find it surprising. Brzezinski is villainised by many. He's considered part of the Globalist Cabal, a Rockefeller protégé turned puppetmaster, a collaborator, counterpart and friendly rival of Henry Kissinger. He has navigated many circles within politics, business and academia.

His 1997 book The Grand Chessboard became famous in the alternative media and conspiracy circles. This was the book that laid out the plans for the American Empire and predicated it on a Pearl Harbor-type event. 

The Green Party Exposed

As I mentioned in a previous post, Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren have exposed themselves as frauds, willing to compromise and capitulate in order to retain political standing and relevance. For either of these figures to endorse Hillary Clinton is beyond comprehension and unconscionable.  The rhetoric is sickening, exposing their fraudulent and hypocritical campaigning. They either don't believe in their anti-corporate and anti-Wall Street rhetoric to begin with or in the end it is revealed as little more than a populist tool to garner a disaffected portion of the electorate. These people could apparently just as happily take up another issue if it would get them the popularity they so evidently crave.

Albright's Hypocrisy on Display

http://time.com/4272021/karadzic-conviction/

She is a vile creature and I don't feel like she even deserves common courtesy.

ISIS and the Strategy of Tension

Because it is almost undisputed that Qatar and Turkey are supporting ISIS and in Turkey's case purchasing black market oil from them, it is believed by many that ISIS is a fiction, a Western intelligence asset. It's all simply theatre. The struggle is not real.

This is frustrating because this is once again a case of the conspiracists being on to something and yet taking it too far, to the point of discrediting the whole notion.