Mexican president says his request to Trump to pardon Julian Assange was ignored


Jan 4, 2022 

Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said he had sought a pardon for Julian Assange from former U.S. President Donald Trump before he left office last year and repeated his offer of asylum for the Wikileaks founder on Monday.

Julian Assange on the balcony of the Ecuadorian embassy in London in 2017.

Last month, the Australian-born Assange moved closer to facing criminal charges in the United States for one of the biggest leaks of classified information after Washington won an appeal over his extradition in an English court.

U.S. authorities accuse Assange of 18 counts relating to WikiLeaks’ release of confidential U.S. military records and diplomatic cables which they said had put lives in danger.

Lopez Obrador reiterated the asylum offer he had made for Assange a year ago, and said that before Trump was replaced as U.S. president by Joe Biden last January, he had written him a letter recommending that Assange be pardoned.

Mexico did not receive a reply to the letter, Lopez Obrador told a regular government news conference. In an early December interview, Trump said he “very seriously” considered pardoning Assange but ultimately decided against it.

“It would be a sign of solidarity, of fraternity to allow him asylum in the country that Assange decides to live in, including Mexico,” Lopez Obrador said.

If granted asylum in Mexico, Assange would not be able to interfere in the affairs of other countries, and would not represent any sort of threat, Lopez Obrador added.

More hurdles remain before Assange could be sent to the United States after an odyssey which has taken him from teenage hacker in Melbourne to years holed up in the Ecuadorean embassy in London and then incarcerated in a maximum-security prison.

Supporters of the 50-year-old Assange cast him as an anti-establishment hero who has been persecuted by the United States for exposing U.S. wrongdoing and double-dealing across the world from Afghanistan and Iraq to Washington.

Julian Assange passes one thousand days in Belmarsh Prison, dubbed “Britain’s Guantanamo Bay”

Oscar Grenfell
WSWS.ORG

4/01/2022

Wednesday marks the grim milestone of a thousand days of Julian Assange’s continuous incarceration in Britain’s maximum-security Belmarsh Prison. In that time, the WikiLeaks publisher and journalist has only left the foreboding prison walls, located on a windswept plain on the bleak outskirts of London, to be brought before British courts that have trampled on his democratic and legal rights.

For 50 weeks, or 350 days, Assange was held on the basis of trumped-up bail offences, dating back to 2012. The charges were completely illegitimate, given that Assange’s application for political asylum had been approved and upheld by the United Nations after they were laid. Since the bail sentence elapsed, the WikiLeaks publisher has been held on remand, convicted of no crime.

His ongoing and indefinite detention serves only to facilitate a US extradition request, aimed at prosecuting Assange for exposing American war crimes, with the charges carrying a maximum-sentence of 175-years imprisonment.

Julian Assange in Belmarsh Prison in 2019

The extradition request is the pseudo-legal figleaf for a US government plot to destroy Assange and WikiLeaks. This has included illegal spying on his communications with lawyers, and, as was revealed late last year, plots to kidnap or assassinate the journalist while he was a political refugee in Ecuador’s London embassy. The US case has been condemned by innumerable civil liberties and human rights organisations as a frontal assault on press freedom and a transparent political prosecution.

Despite all this, the extradition request was allowed by a complicit British High Court last November. Assange faces the prospect of continued indefinite detention in Belmarsh or being put on a plane to be handed over to the US government agencies that plotted his murder. The dire predicament underscores the urgency of building an international movement of the working class to demand Assange’s immediate freedom and the denial of extradition.

Belmarsh was established in 1991, to hold “category A” prisoners accused of violent crimes, including murder, rape and terror offences. The facility was first dubbed Britain’s Guantanamo Bay in the early 2000s, because it was used to detain inmates without charge, indefinitely and in almost total isolation, on the basis of extraordinary anti-terror laws passed after 9/11.

Since then, official and independent reports have documented high levels of violence at the prison, including on the part of staff, and frequent denials of prisoners’ basic rights.

The most recent report based on “unannounced visits” to Belmarsh by the Chief Inspector of Prisons last July and August found a deterioration in conditions on a number of fronts.

Its introduction stated: “The prison had not paid sufficient attention to the growing levels of self-harm and there was not enough oversight or care taken of prisoners at risk of suicide. Urgent action needed to be taken in this area to make sure that these prisoners were kept safe.”

The comment is particularly significant, given Assange’s documented history of medical issues, including suicidal depression, stemming from his decade-long persecution. At least four prisoners had taken their own lives since the previous “unannounced visits” in 2018.

“The 52% of prisoners who were not working were spending 23 hours a day locked in their cells while the education block, gym and library had sat empty and unused for more than a year,” the report stated, in reference to the situation facing the majority of prisoners, including Assange.

In 2018, the Chief Inspector deemed that prisoner safety was “reasonably good,” despite independent reports to the contrary. Even that official judgement has been downgraded in the 2021 report, with “outcomes for prisoners” deemed “not sufficiently good.”

A quarter of prisoners said they felt unsafe. The Inspector found: “The use of force had increased since our last inspection. Staff did not routinely activate body-worn video cameras during incidents. Due to the lack of video footage to support staff statements, we could not be assured that the use of force was necessary in all cases.”

The report goes on to document other abysmal conditions, including rusted shower blocks and cells and a lack of cleaning products provided to most inmates.

The conditions were graphically documented by Assange’s fiance Stella Moris in a Twitter post on new year’s eve. It included a minute and a half of audio recorded inside Assange’s cell, with a continuous cacophony of agitated shouting and barking dogs, presumably those of the prison guards. Moris captioned the post: “What does New Year's Eve sound like from Julian #Assange's cell in Belmarsh prison? Just like it sounded on Christmas Day and every day since he was imprisoned on 11 April 2019.”

Assange’s imprisonment has continued unabated, even as United Nations official Nils Melzer found in June 2019 that it constituted a new form of the protracted, state inflicted psychological torture to which he had been subjected over the past decade. For more than two years hundreds of doctors have repeatedly demanded that Assange be released to a university teaching hospital or freed, warning that otherwise he may die in prison. Moris has confirmed that Assange suffered a minor stroke last October. And Belmarsh authorities have repeatedly found Assange to be at risk of self-harm or suicide.

In January 2020, a British Magistrates Court blocked Assange’s extradition on narrow medical grounds, finding that it would be oppressive because his health issues, together with the draconian conditions in American prisons, would likely claim his life. It nevertheless denied a bail application, leaving Assange in the appalling conditions of Belmarsh.

At hearings on a US appeal to that verdict, the High Court similarly accepted the medical evidence provided by Assange’s defence.

The High Court, however, not only sanctioned Assange’s ongoing detention, but upheld the US appeal, allowing extradition, on the basis of fraudulent and self-contradicting “assurances” from the American authorities that the conditions of Assange’s imprisonment would not be so bad as claimed by the defence.

Late last month, Assange’s lawyers filed an application to appeal that ruling.

In a public statement, Moris explained: “On December 10th, the High Court upheld the Magistrates’ Court’s assessment, based on the evidence before her, that there was a real risk that, should Julian Assange be extradited to the United States, he would be subjected to near total isolation, including under the regimes of SAMs (Special Administrative Measures) and/or ADX, (administrative maximum prison) and that such isolation would cause his mental condition to deteriorate to such a degree that there was a high risk of suicide. These findings led the lower court to block the extradition under s. 91 of the Extradition Act, which bans “oppressive” extraditions.

“However, the High Court overturned the lower court’s decision to block the extradition, based solely on the fact that after the US lost the extradition case on January 4th 2021, the US State Department sent a letter to the UK Foreign Office containing conditional assurances in relation to Julian Assange’s placement under SAMs and ADX. The assurances letter explicitly states in points one and four that ‘the United States retains the power’ to ‘impose SAMs’ on Mr. Assange and to ‘designate Mr. Assange to ADX’ should he say or do anything since January 4, 2021 that would cause the US government to determine, in its subjective assessment, that Julian Assange should be placed under SAMs conditions and/or in ADX Florence. These conditional assurances alone were considered sufficient by the High Court to overturn the lower court’s decision.”

Not only were the assurances conditional, they were also issued by the government that has been exposed to have spied on Assange and plotted his extrajudicial kidnapping or murder. By rights, this evidence alone should have resulted in the extradition application being summarily dismissed.

Assange’s persecution, however, is supported by the British authorities, and other US allies, including the Australian government, because it is the spearhead of a broader campaign to suppress widespread anti-war sentiment and to create a precedent for political frame-ups and persecution.

Moris and other prominent Assange supporters have pointed to this broader context in recent days. They have noted the contrast between the knighthood of former British Labour Prime Minister Tony Blair, whose government participated in the invasion of Iraq, claiming at least a million lives, and the imprisonment of Assange, who exposed so many of the crimes of that illegal war.

Assange’s ongoing detention and the High Court ruling again demonstrate that his freedom can only be won through a political struggle against the entire capitalist establishment. Such a fight must be based in the working class, which is entering into struggle against the very governments spearheading Assange’s persecution.

What Julian Assange Told Us about Central America

 December 18, 2021

While under house arrest in England in 2011, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange granted an exclusive interview to El Faro’s founding director Carlos Dada and expressed hope that the leaked cables would help set a higher bar for global journalism. The organization then offloaded hundreds of thousands of U.S. government documents to local outlets around the world, including El Faro.

By El Faro

HAVANA TIMES – A decade ago, the controversial WikiLeaks offered an unprecedented window into the workings of the U.S. government in Central America. Now the possible extradition and trial of founder Julian Assange may set a dangerous precedent for the criminalization of commonplace news-gathering activities, press advocates say, and contradict moves by Biden to punish those seeking to harm journalists around the world.

“A Wounded Titan”

Over a decade after WikiLeaks shook the world by releasing hundreds of thousands of secret U.S. military documents and diplomatic cables, the U.K. is on the brink of extraditing the nonprofit’s embattled and enigmatic Australian founder, Julian Assange, into the hands of the U.S. justice system.

The Justice Dept., which in 2020 called the hacks “one of the largest compromises of classified information in the history of the United States,” is pressing charges including conspiracy to hack U.S. government servers and the publication of national defense information received from third parties and whistleblowers including then-U.S. soldier Chelsea Manning.

Assange has staved off extradition for over two years in a U.K. prison since the Ecuadorian Embassy in London revoked his asylum protections. As world leaders convened at Biden’s Summit for Democracy on Dec. 10, a London judge ruled to extradite Assange, dismissing his attorneys’s argument that his removal to the U.S. and conditions of confinement would push him to suicide. Barring a successful last-minute legal challenge to the extradition, and if convicted under the 1917 Espionage Act, he faces up to 175 years in prison.

“The insistent requests to extradite Assange are a negative message to the sources that have filtered confidential information” essential to the work of investigative journalists around the world, argues Jennifer Ávila, co-founder and director of independent Honduran outlet Contracorriente. “It’s a message of fear to sources.”

“The attitude of the United States is that of a wounded titan,” says El Faro director Carlos Dada of the Biden administration’s push for extradition. “It’s that of an emperor that feels humiliated and thus reacts in a damaging way.”

The leaks exposed to the world the internal communications of U.S. embassies, messages containing at times withering assessments of the politics of host countries and delicate private talks with host governments. The leaks, often cited as a catalyst of the Arab Spring, also revealed evidence of U.S. war crimes during the occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq.

“We’re changing what people accept as truth,” Assange told El Faro in 2011. Assange called the leaked diplomatic cables “a resource that everyone in the world can refer to, a sort of scaffold to make decisions on, to look at how international relations work, and to look at how the influence of big business on government works.”

While under house arrest in England in 2011, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange granted an exclusive interview to El Faro’s founding director Carlos Dada.

WikiLeaks released thousands of U.S. cables to Central American newsrooms documenting the nation’s footprint and outlook on the isthmus. El Faro revealed, for example, left-wing former Salvadoran president Mauricio Funes’ 2009 pledge to send Salvadoran troops to Afghanistan — the troops deployed in 2013 — and the U.S. ambassador in Honduras’ fleeting efforts to prevent the 2009 military coup.

“These cables revealed the discussions held about the coup d’état and the role that the U.S. played in this historic event that unleashed an institutional crisis, one that still engulfs us today,” says Ávila.

Nicaragua’s Confidencial revealed, among dozens of other stories, failed U.S. bargaining with the newly-formed Ortega administration in 2008 for the destruction of USSR-made surface-to-air missiles.

“The cables made us see the two different faces of the United States in our countries,” says Dada of WikiLeaks’ impact in Central America. “Obviously, behind its foreign policy were its own interests,” he argues. “They consistently measured their counterparts in our countries based on how much they kept in line with those interests.”

“On the other hand,” he adds, “this will sound paradoxical, but they revealed to us a United States that was genuinely interested in human rights.”

The leaks were just the beginning of WikiLeaks’ skirmishes with the U.S. government. In the run-up to the 2016 U.S. elections, WikiLeaks filtered the communications of presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. A year later, the organization exposed a score of CIA hacking tools, leading Trump Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, the agency’s former director, to brand WikiLeaks a “non-state hostile foreign intelligence service.” In 2017, senior CIA and Trump administration officials allegedly floated options to kidnap or assassinate Assange.

A grand jury indicted Assange in 2019 in absentia for allegedly conspiring with Chelsea Manning to break into a Dept. of Defense computer. Last year U.S. prosecutors broadened the accusations to charge Assange, acting as a publisher, with espionage, “an assertive, unprecedented legal crackdown on the traditional rights and protections for publishers,” commented MSNBC’s chief legal correspondent.

“The new Trump DOJ indictment treats activities most top newspapers engage in — gathering and publishing classified material — as criminal plotting,” he added.

The New York Times editorial board concurred at the time. “The Trump administration has chosen to go well beyond the question of hacking to directly challenge the boundaries of the First Amendment,” it wrote in response to the second indictment, arguing that the Assange case “could have a chilling effect on American journalism as it has been practiced for generations.”

The top editors at The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, USA Today, The Guardian, and Le Monde urged the Trump administration to drop the affair, though of the papers only The Guardian has weighed in on the London court’s decision in favor of extradition.

“The U.S. has this week proclaimed itself the beacon of democracy in an increasingly authoritarian world,” wrote the British paper on the day of the ruling. President Biden has regularly argued in favor of a free press and condemned the stances of the Trump administration, and has even specifically created new sanctions to punish governments hostile to journalists, including the murderers of Jamaal Khashoggi. In Central America, the Biden White House has frequently condemned attacks against the press by regional governments.

“If Mr. Biden is serious about protecting the ability of the media to hold governments accountable,” The Guardian continued, “he should begin by dropping the charges brought against Mr. Assange.”

Press freedom advocates argue that the extradition and prosecution of a non-citizen under the 1917 U.S. Espionage Act could set a dangerous precedent. “Every regime now can point to us and say, ‘We want to extradite these journalists.’” said ACLU attorney Ben Wizner.

El Faro has also weighed in. “If Assange is extradited and convicted in the United States for making these documents public, we journalists and newsrooms are all exposed,” wrote the editorial board in 2019 following his arrest.

The Biden administration has refrained from openly commenting on the Assange case since taking office. In February, a coalition of two-dozen U.S.-based press freedom, civil liberties, and human rights organizations signed a joint letter to the Dept. of Justice calling on Biden to back down from extraditing and prosecuting Assange and arguing that the indictment “poses a grave threat to press freedom both in the United States and abroad.”

“Much of the conduct described in the indictment is conduct that journalists engage in routinely,” wrote the coalition. “The Biden administration’s Dept. of Justice now has an opportunity and an obligation to end this dangerous charade.”

Ancient Egyptian fetus preserved due to unusual decomposition process

Image Credit : M. Ożarek-Szilka / Affidea


A fetus previously identified in a mummified Egyptian woman has remained preserved for more than 2,000 years due to an unusual decomposition process.

In April 2021, the Warsaw Mummy Project published an article that revealed the first known case of a pregnant Ancient Egyptian mummy.

The mummy, which is housed in the National Museum in Warsaw was previously thought to be the remains of the priest Hor-Djehuti, until it was discovered in 2016 to be an embalmed woman.

A closer examination using tomographic imaging revealed that the woman was between 20-30 years old when she died and was in her 26th to 30th week of her pregnancy.

In a new study published in the “Journal of Archaeological Science”, Ożarek-Szilke, co-director of the Warsaw Mummy Project explained that the deceased was covered with natron to dry the body.

Natron is a naturally occurring mixture of sodium carbonate decahydrate (Na2CO3·10H2O, a kind of soda ash) and around 17% sodium bicarbonate (also called baking soda, NaHCO3) along with small quantities of sodium chloride and sodium sulfate.

During this process, the fetus was still in the uterus and essentially began too “pickle” in an acidic environment. Formic acid and other compounds (formed after death in the uterus because of various chemical processes related to decomposition) changed the Ph inside the woman’s body.

The change from alkaline to an acidic environment caused the leaching of minerals from the fetal bones, which began to dry out and mineralise. According to the researchers, the process of Egyptian mummification from a chemical point of view is the process of mineralisation of tissues that can survive for a millennia.

Ożarek-Szilke said: “These two processes explain to us why you hardly see the bones of the fetus in CT scans. You can see, for example, hands or a foot, but these are not bones, but dried tissues. The skull, which develops the fastest and is the most mineralised has been partially preserved.” Find out more

Ancient toilet reveals Jerusalem elite suffered from infectious diseases and worms

Image Credit : Israel Antiques Authority
ARCHAEOLOGY

Researchers studying an ancient toilet in Jerusalem from the 7th century BC have revealed how society elite suffered from infectious diseases and worms.

The study, now published in the International Journal of Palaeopathology was conducted by the Israel Antiquities Authority and Tel Aviv University, who exposed the remains of 2,700-year-old intestinal worm eggs below the stone toilet in a cesspit.

The eggs belong to the four different types of intestinal parasites: roundworm, tapeworm, whipworm, and pinworm.

Dr Dafna Langgut of Tel Aviv University and the Steinhardt Museum of Natural History said: “These are durable eggs, and under the special conditions provided by the cesspit they survived for nearly 2,700 years. Intestinal worms are parasites that cause symptoms like abdominal pain, nausea, diarrhoea, and itching. Some of them are especially dangerous for children and can lead to malnutrition, developmental delays, nervous system damage, and, in extreme cases, even death.”

Dr. Langgut believes that intestinal disease at the time might have been due to poor sanitary conditions that caused faecal contamination of food and drinking water. Other possible sources of infection were the use of human faeces to fertilise field crops and the consumption of improperly cooked beef or pork.

In the absence of medicine, recovery from intestinal worms was difficult to impossible, and those infected could suffer from the parasites for the rest of their lives. Langgut points out that these parasites still exist today, but the modern Western world has developed effective diagnostic means and medications to prevent an epidemic.

Ya’akov Billig of the Israel Antiquities Authority explained that the toilet was excavated in a 7th century estate from the First Temple Period. The structure is decorated with stone capitals (in the Proto-Aeolian style), adjacent to a garden with the remains of fruit and ornamental trees.

General Motors loses US car crown for first time in 90 years, as Toyota overtakes

With 2.3m units sold in the US in 2021, Toyota narrowly outpaced GM’s 2.2m

Toyota has overtaken General Motors as the number one car seller in the US.

TUE, 04 JAN, 2022 -

For the first time since 1931, General Motors is not the top-selling carmaker in the US.

The Detroit-based company has lost its crown to Japanese rival Toyota, which boosted sales 10% last year despite a 28% decline in the fourth quarter.


With 2.3m units sold in the US in 2021, Toyota narrowly outpaced GM’s 2.2m.

The Japanese carmaker said outselling GM may not be sustainable. “That is not our goal,” said Jack Hollis, a senior vice president in charge of US sales for Toyota.

Challenges of 2021

The change at the top reflects the volatility of a year many carmakers will be happy to leave behind. From snarled shipping lines to semiconductor shortages, the challenges of 2021 left manufacturers struggling to keep up with demand.

While industry-wide sales, in the US, appeared to rise modestly from 2020, supply constraints shattered any hope of a quick recovery from the early pandemic slump.

Carmakers likely sold a seasonally adjusted annual rate of about 12.5m new vehicles in December, down 23% from a year earlier.

The extent of the issues became more clear on Tuesday as most major carmakers reported US sales for the fourth quarter and full year.

For the full year, US vehicle sales likely came to 14.9m vehicles, a 2.5% jump from the coronavirus-stricken days of 2020.

UK
Pardons scheme extended to all gay sex convictions imposed under repealed laws, governments announce


A PARDONS scheme for historical gay sex convictions imposed under repealed laws will be extended to “right the wrongs of the past,” the Tory government announced today.

The move will see the government’s “disregards and pardons scheme” expanded from a narrow set of just nine former offences which “largely focused on buggery and gross indecency between men,” the Home Office said.

If someone had been convicted of a crime under now scrapped legislation, they can apply to have it disregarded — wiped from their criminal record and not be required to be disclosed.

But an amendment to the widely criticised Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill will broaden the criteria to include any repealed or abolished civilian or military offence that was imposed on someone purely for, or due to, consensual same-sex sexual activity.

All those whose cautions and convictions are disregarded under the scheme will also receive an automatic pardon, and anyone who has died before the changes came into place — or up to 12 months afterwards — will be posthumously pardoned.

Home Secretary Priti Patel said the move “will go some way to righting the wrongs of the past and to reassuring members of the LGBT community that Britain is one of the safest places in the world to call home.”

She also thanked cross-bench peer Lord Cashman and his Tory colleague, Lord Lexden, for their five-year campaign to widen the scheme.

In a joint statement with the University of York’s Professor Paul Johnson, who also backed the initiative, the peers said: “We are delighted that our long campaign will at last bring many gay people, both living and deceased, the restitution they deserve.”

The Specter of World War III – Handiwork of Washington’s Busy-Bodies and Hegemonists

by David Stockman Posted onJanuary 05, 2022

One of the worst aspects of the internet enabled 24/7 news cycle is the giant memory hole embedded within it. That is to say, if the latest information content is “breaking news”, no matter how incidental, trivial, misleading or flat-out untruthful, it makes the cut.

But more often than not, that’s all she wrote. Context and history get minimized at best and downright obliterated most of the time. That’s clearly the case with the ongoing saga of the alleged Russian threat to America’s security and especially the manifestation of that threat in the Ukrainian theater of confrontation.

The truth is, owing to the endless “breaking news” syndrome, the Ukraine matter is a national security molehill that’s been transformed into a mountain. The culprit was Washington’s phalanx of think-tanks, NGOs, the military-industrial-congressional complex, and, most especially, the neocon lumpen-intelligentsia that has insinuated itself into every nook and cranny of the national security apparatus from the Congressional committees of jurisdiction to the permanent bureaucracy at Foggy Bottom, Langley Virginia and countless nodes of hegemonic power in between.

In the first place, why in the world would any thinking person assume that Russia is a military threat to the US and/or the whole of NATO when it’s an absolute economic midget comparatively speaking?

Back in 1991 when the old Soviet Union collapsed, the corpus which remained called the Russian Federation had a GDP of $518 billion or just 8.3% of the US. And it’s not as if Russia has been on a post-communist growth-tear ever since. By 2020, Russia’s GDP of $1.48 trillion (purple line) had actually slipped further to just 6.9% of the $21.5 trillion GDP (yellow line) posted by the US.

USA GDP (Left Axis) Versus Russia GDP (Right Axis), 1991-2020

Of course, on top of that yawning gap in terms of economic wherewithal to mount a military threat in this age of high tech, capital intensive warfare (as opposed to military might based upon conscripted human canon fodder), there is an additional $18.5 trillion of European/NATO GDP. So NATO as a whole has $40 trillion of GDP or 27X the paltry economic output of Russia.

Nor are we talking mere economic theory here. At the end of the cold war, the military spending of the old USSR was estimated at $300 billion compared to US defense expenditures of about $675 billion (both in 2019$). But that 2.3:1 ratio is what killed the old Soviet Union because it depended upon a forced draft military call on the wheezing economic output of the state-controlled Soviet economy, thereby precluding the hopes of its enslaved citizens for a living standard even a fraction of what was self-evidently prevalent in the West.

When the Soviet Union shuffled off the pages of history in August 1991, however, as shown by the green line in the chart below, military spending by the successor Russian Federation collapsed to barely $30 billion by the mid-1990s. That represented a breathtaking 90% reduction from the level absorbed by the Soviet War Machine in its dying days. It was the greatest peaceful disappearance of a major military power in the history of the world.

That should have been the clarion call for peace and demobilization of the US and NATO war machines, as well, since at the time the only other candidate to succeed the USSR was so-called Red China. But its new leader, Deng Xiaoping, had made an immense discovery that had evaded the Great Helmsman during the course of his entire bloody rule: Namely, that power flows better from a government printing press than the barrel of a gun as per Chairman Mao’s formula for totalitarian rule.

Accordingly, China became focused on invading America’s 4,000 Walmarts with cheap goods from its mushrooming export factories, not military conquest of California or anything else outside its own historical sphere of influence.

Alas, the giant American Warfare State was not about to demobilize, even if the post-Cold War strategic reality begged for it. After a brief decline of US military spending in the mid-1990s to about $475 billion (2019$), the military/industrial/surveillance complex was soon off to the races again, with real defense spending soaring way above Cold War peak levels after the turn of the century.

That is to say, from the mid-1990s low point real US military spending has rebounded by about +$300 billion per year, while Russian spending at the current $65 billion level is up by only +$35 billion. If there has been a rearmament race, therefore, Washington has been leading it and is winning by a country mile.

So here’s the thing. What kind of crackpot thinking holds that Cool Hand Vlad is oblivious to this reality, and is therefore bound and determined to poke the USA/NATO military colossus in the eye out of some revanchist obsession with recovering the lost Soviet empire?

That is, where is the logic or evidence for the notion that Russia is an aggressive, expansionist threat to NATO Europe, to say nothing of the continental United States?

You can accuse Vladimir Putin of many transgressions including robbing his own countrymen blind and making a mockery of what passes for democracy in post-communist Russia. For all we know, he might even be the “killer” of his own citizens that Sleepy Joe accused him of being.

But what he is not is rash, stupid, delusional or suicidal. There is not a snowball’s chance in the hot place that he would even dream of a preemptive nuclear challenge to America’s 2,400 deployed nukes at land (Minutemen missiles), sea (Trident subs)and air (B-1 stealth bombers).

At the same time, mounting the conventional capacity to invade and occupy any significant part of Europe, let alone the American homeland, would crush Russia’s ragged commodity-based economy long before the tanks could roll through the Brandenburg Gates or the dozens of carrier battle groups needed to threaten the American homeland could be procured, built and put to sea in the Atlantic and Pacific.

In a word, America’s security vis-à-vis Russia rests on a rock solid foundation of a triad nuclear deterrent, which was bought and paid for decades ago; the great ocean moats on either coast of North America, which have kept enemies at bay since the beginning of the Republic; and the pitifully small and technologically-wanting Russian economy that is incapable of mounting a credible military challenge.

In fact, when it comes to overall NATO defense spending – 95% of which is for conventional forces – the story is even more lopsided. Here is the current array of defense spending by NATO member, which is estimated to total $1.2 trillion in 2021 or 18X more than Russia’s military outlays.

Moreover, that staggering figure represents a $240 billion or 25% increase from total NATO outlays as recently as 2014, the year during which tension with Russia turned hot owing to the Washington sponsored and funded coup against the democratically elected government of Ukraine. That is, just in the last seven years NATO military outlays have increased by 2.7X the total amounts of Russian military spending ($65 billion).

Indeed, when you look at the chart below, you might well forgive Putin for being a tad paranoid about the intentions of Washington and Brussels. The United Kingdom’s military spending of $73 billion alone exceeds that of Russia, while the combined $125 billion defense spending of Germany and France is nearly double the Russian military budget.

And, of course, from there the contributions of the lesser NATO powers march on in lockstep – starting with $30 billion by Italy and $27 billion by Canada. Yet the latter surely is among the great anomalies of ours times. That is, who is Canada’s defense budget directed against – perchance an invasion by Russia? The United States!

Indeed, Canada’s swollen defense budget and like and similar outlays of $15 billion by Spain, $14 billion by Netherlands, $8 billion by Norway and $6 billion by Denmark, to take some random examples, get to the rotten core of the matter.

To wit, these are not “defense” budgets stood up against a plausible external enemy. Instead, they are the auxiliary mercenary forces commissioned by Washington to create a fig leaf of international sanction for its self-appointed task as policeman of the world. The fact that virtually every one of these countries sent fighting forces, albeit frequently just token operations, to Afghanistan tells you all you need to know.

For crying out loud, what statesman in Canada, Norway or Germany actually believed that the Taliban was a threat to their homeland security or that who controlled the godforsaken expanse of the Hindu Kush mattered a whit to the future of the planet?

No, it was about satisfying Washington’s requisition of “allied” troops for its latest self-conferred global policing mission. That is, NATO is not at all about legitimate defense against plausible military threats to the 29 homelands comprising the mutual “defense” pact.

To the contrary, it’s a $1.2 trillion do-gooders society that marches to the tunes called by Washington hegemonists, interventionists, busy-bodies and career national security apparatchiks who thrive and prosper on attempting to rule the affairs of the fairer part of the planet.

So doing, they have created an absurdity that is even more preposterous and dangerous than those which led to the dues ex machina type mobilizations of the Great War and the carnage in the trenches of northern France which it fostered. That is to say, what kind of mutual benefit for the United States, and the major powers of Europe for that matter, is there in a needless military alliance that triggers Article 5 obligations for the likes of the following military ciphers:

Estimated Defense Spending:

• Croatia: $2 billion;
• Lithuania: $1 billion;
• Bulgaria: $1 billion;
• Latvia: $0.9 billion;
• Estonia: $0.8 billion;
• Slovenia: $0.8 billion;
• Albania: $0.2 billion;
• North Macedonia: $0.2 billion;
• Montenegro: $0.1 billion.

For crying out loud. These countries are all within the shadows of the Russian border – the American equivalent of the Caribbean and central America – and now only dare to poke the Russian bear owing to the protective shield of NATO’s Article 5 mutual defense obligations.

By contrast, what the hell is in it for the national self-interest and security of the United States? Does anyone in their right mind think that Russia actually intends to invade and occupy these neighboring countries at the staggering costs which would surely cause the demise of its own rickety economy?

Likewise, would annexing what would be surely the hostile remnants of the old Warsaw Pact make Russia a more formidable military threat to western Europe and North America than it isn’t now?

To the contrary, the likely result would be to make Russia a slight variation of Nixon’s famous pout: A pitiful, helpless midget.

At the end of the day, the entire Russian threat narrative is based on a structural absurdity: Namely, that given the vast disproportion of economic girth and military might between NATO and the Russian Federation that Moscow’s steely-eyed ruler (there are no committees, coalitions or alliances in Putin’s Russia to complicate strategy) is hell bent on committing national suicide in behalf of reviving the old Soviet Empire – which itself is a canard invented in the Washington beltway, not a strategy that Putin has ever advocated or taken steps to realize.

We have treated elsewhere in greater detail on the Ukrainian matters per see, but suffice it here to say that the whole bloated, misbegotten enterprise of NATO expansion since 1991 could very well be read in Moscow as an existential threat.

In the first place, it is beyond dispute that President George Bush the Elder and Secretary of State James Baker promised Moscow that in return for the unification of Germany and its membership in NATO, that the latter would not be extended “a single inch to the east”.

After embracing 14 former Warsaw Pact members, you could say that a world historic double-cross has occurred and for what reason?

Just consider the opening chapters in the 1990s. In her ridiculously self-serving memoir “Madame Secretary,” former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations and secretary of state Madeleine Albright made abundantly clear that Clinton administration officials decided already in 1993 to endorse the wishes of Central and East European countries to join NATO. So doing, they ash-canned the Bush-Baker promises hardly before the ink was dry.

As Ted Galen Carpenter recently noted,

The Alliance proceeded to add Poland, the Czech Republic, and Hungary in 1998. Albright admitted that Russian President Boris Yeltsin and his associates were extremely unhappy with that development. The Russian reaction was understandable, since the expansion violated informal promises that President George H. W. Bush’s administration had given Moscow when Mikhail Gorbachev had agreed not only to accept a unified Germany but a united Germany in NATO. The implicit quid pro quo was that NATO would not move beyond the eastern border of a united Germany.

1995 air war against Bosnian Serbs seeking to secede from the newly minted country of Bosnia-Herzegovina and the imposition of the Dayton Peace Accords greatly annoyed Yeltsin’s government and the Russian people. The Balkans had been a region of considerable religious and strategic interest to Moscow for generations, and it was humiliating for Russians to watch impotently as a U.S.-led alliance dictated outcomes there. The Western powers conducted an even greater provocation four years later when they intervened on behalf of a secessionist insurgency in Serbia’s restless Kosovo province. Detaching that province from Serbia and placing it under U.N. control not only set an unhealthy international precedent, but the move also displayed utter contempt for Russia’s interests and preferences in the Balkans.

The Clinton administration’s decisions to expand NATO and meddle in Bosnia and Kosovo were crucial steps toward creating a new cold war with Russia. Former US Ambassador to the Soviet Union Jack F. Matlock Jr. cites the negative impact that NATO expansion and the U.S.-led military interventions in the Balkans had on Russian attitudes toward the United States and the West: “The effect on Russians’ trust in the United States was devastating. In 1991, polls indicated that about 80 percent of Russian citizens had a favorable view of the United States; in 1999, nearly the same percentage had an unfavorable view.”

In a word, in response to the Cold War’s end Washington busybodies and hegemonists like Albright, Secretary of State Christopher Warren and State Department apparatchiks like Richard Holbrooke (author of the Dayton Accords) took upon themselves to re-make what amounted to the strategic equivalent of Mexico and central America for Russia.

After all, what possible homeland security interest was served by bombing the Bosnian Serbs or by turning Kosovo over to the brutes who sponsored the insurrection against their equally brutal rulers in Belgrade?

Needless to say, the answer is less than none. It didn’t matter a whit what happened in the latter day remnants of the Balkans to America’s security, but the rash interventions of Washington’s self-important busybodies surely paved the way toward the pointless confrontation with Russia that now threatens the very peace of the world.

David Stockman was a two-term Congressman from Michigan. He was also the Director of the Office of Management and Budget under President Ronald Reagan. After leaving the White House, Stockman had a 20-year career on Wall Street. He’s the author of three books, The Triumph of Politics: Why the Reagan Revolution Failed, The Great Deformation: The Corruption of Capitalism in America and TRUMPED! A Nation on the Brink of Ruin… And How to Bring It Back. He also is founder of David Stockman’s Contra Corner and David Stockman’s Bubble Finance Trader.

Pacific Gas and Electric lines started massive Dixie Fire in Northern California, Cal Fire says
Damon Arthur
Redding Record Searchlight

Massive California burn scar evaluated from air

REDDING, Calif. — California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection officials have concluded that last summer's Dixie Fire was started by electrical lines owned by Pacific Gas and Electric Company.

The fire, which started July 13, went on to become the second-largest single fire in state history, burning 963,309 acres. The fire started in the Feather River Canyon southeast of Chico, California, near where the 2018 Camp Fire ignited.

The fire leveled the historic Gold-Rush era town of Greenville in Plumas County and threatened numerous other mountain communities. It destroyed 1,329 structures in five North State counties, including Shasta and Tehama.

Firefighters announced 100% containment of the massive blaze on Oct. 25.

The fire is just the latest in a string of blazes that Cal Fire has blamed on the utility. Cal Fire said PG&E equipment was at fault for starting the Camp Fire in Butte County, which killed 85 people and destroyed most of the Butte County town of Paradise.

PG&E has also been charged with manslaughter in the deaths of four Shasta County residents who died during the 2020 Zogg Fire.

Cal Fire said the Dixie Fire was started when a tree came in contact with a PG&E distribution line. The Zogg Fire also started when a tree contacted an electrical line along Zogg Mine Road in Western Shasta County.

IN THE SAME PLACES?:California wildfires are growing bigger each year


While Cal Fire released its findings about the Dixie Fire on Tuesday, PG&E filed paperwork with the California Public Utilities Commission last summer stating that its equipment may have ignited the blaze.

The Dixie Fire forced the evacuation of thousands of residents in Plumas, Butte, Lassen, Tehama and Shasta counties. Firefighters fought the blaze for more than three months before finally declaring it contained in October.

Also that month, federal and state officials estimated they had spent some $630 million fighting the fire.

An investigative report on the Dixie Fire was sent to the Butte County District Attorney’s Office, Cal Fire said. The fire agency referred all further questions regarding its findings to the district attorney's office.

CAL FIRE EXPLAINS: Why Dixie Fire is not the 'largest single wildfire' in California history

CPS cancels classes Wednesday after 73% of teachers reject in-person learning

Chicago Teachers Union members voted Tuesday night to work remotely only starting Wednesday. CPS called the action illegal and a strike.

By Sarah Karp
Tuesday, Jan. 4, 2022
Chicago Public Schools CEO Pedro Martinez on Tuesday said he was trying to reach a "reasonable agreement" with the union on COVID-19 mitigation measures.

 Manuel Martinez / WBEZ

Chicago Public Schools cancelled classes Wednesday for its more than 300,000 students after the members of the Chicago Teachers Union voted Tuesday night to defy orders to teach in-person.

The union wants teachers to be able to work remotely, but the school district is calling this a “strike” and Mayor Lori Lightfoot called the union’s actions “illegal.”

“Tonight, CTU leadership is compelling its membership to make a decision that will harm hundreds of thousands of Chicago families who rely upon CPS for their daily needs, for their education, for their nutrition, for their safety,” Lightfoot said Tuesday night. “That’s real harm.”

Union leaders said not allowing for virtual teaching amounts to a “lockout.” In a statement, they said the vote to return to remote learning was made with a “heavy heart … The educators of this city want to be in their classrooms with their students. We believe that our city’s classrooms are where our students should be. Regrettably, the Mayor and her CPS leadership have put the safety and vibrancy of our students and their educators in jeopardy.”

Some 73% of the union’s more than 25,000 members Tuesday night voted to revert to remote learning. Under the measure, teachers and staff would stay remote until Jan. 18 or until the city no longer meets metrics for all schools to move to remote learning laid out in an agreement in place last school year — whichever comes first. That metric called for remote learning if, among other things, the positivity rate was above 15%. Currently, it is 23%.

The school buildings will remain open on Wednesday for essential services, such as meals. There will be no classes but CPS said staff will serve students who come.

It’s unclear what will happen after the one-day cancellation of classes. CPS CEO Pedro Martinez said the district will communicate with parents about future plans on Wednesday.

The mayor and school district could lock teachers and students out of virtual classrooms, dock pay and file a grievance with the state. But that would likely prolong the fight and keep students out of classes for longer, which both sides say they don’t want. The mayor referenced “Groundhog Day” several times Tuesday night in a nod to a repeat of the late nights spent last year battling over remote learning and an agreement to return to in-person classes.

If the two sides reach a safety agreement before Jan. 18, the union’s elected representatives could vote to bring teachers back sooner.

Lightfoot on Tuesday night also issued a warning, saying the city wouldn’t stand “idly by and accept a unilateral decision [for] a work stoppage,” with a promise to share more as Wednesday unfolded. She urged teachers to come to school on Wednesday. Martinez said teachers who don’t come to work won’t be paid

The showdown puts Chicago Public Schools at the center of a roiling national debate over whether it is wise to continue in-person learning during record high COVID-19 cases. Many teachers don’t believe it is safe, especially when vaccinated people are contracting the virus and an increasing number of children are being hospitalized.

But Lightfoot, Martinez and Chicago’s public health commissioner Dr. Allison Arwady insist that schools are safe. Arwady said Tuesday that most studies show COVID spread in school is typically less than in the community.

She also said that for most children, even those unvaccinated, COVID-19 is no more severe than the flu and that hospitalization rates for children are still relatively low and comparable to what’s seen during the flu season. “And we do not close schools for the flu,” she said.

Everyone, including the Chicago Teachers Union, would like to see more children vaccinated in Chicago.

Lightfoot also stressed that remote learning was difficult for a lot of students, causing high absenteeism and an increase in failure rates. She also said it was a disaster for working families.

“If we pause, what do we say to those parents who can’t afford to hire somebody to come in and watch their kids,” Lightfoot said. “What do we say to those students who are already struggling? Why on Earth, when we don’t need to pause, would we pause and risk falling back into the same old track?”

But Martinez also said he is working to resolve issues with the teachers union.

Chicago Public Schools sent a proposal to the teachers union on Tuesday morning. It included setting a metric that would shut down in-person learning at individual schools due to a COVID outbreak. The CTU has been pushing for such a metric. But as of Tuesday evening, the two proposals were far apart.

The union had proposed moving to remote learning if 20% of staff are in isolation or quarantine. CPS is proposing that a school move to remote learning if 40% or more of a school’s classroom teachers are absent for two consecutive days because of the teachers’ documented COVID-19 cases. When it comes to students, an elementary school would go virtual if 50% of classrooms have more than 50% of students instructed to isolate or quarantine.

Martinez also is promising better quality masks for teachers, increased contact tracing and to allow schools to use a health screener before students enter if they want.

CTU officials said the CPS proposal was the first written offer they’ve received in months. Lightfoot disputed that Tuesday night, saying CPS has offered up multiple proposals in recent months. There is disagreement about whether the school district needs to even negotiate with the union. The spring COVID-19 safety agreement ran through the end of August.

The union is trying to make the case that because there is no new safety agreement, the previous one should hold. But school district officials say this is a vastly different situation: There is no longer an emergency order from the state and vaccines are available.

Meanwhile, some parents had already decided to keep their children at home.

Parent Jennifer Torres of West Ridge on the Far Northwest Side said she didn’t feel it was safe to send her children to school.

“We’re all worried about our kids’ social and emotional health and wish that they were in school,” she said. “They do so much better in person.”

Jennifer Jones said she isn’t happy about the standoff between the union and the school district. She is frustrated they aren’t working together to address unsafe conditions at schools.

“When will the two sides be able to come together and be proponents for the students and the families?” she said.

Reporter Anna Savchenko contributed reporting to this story. Follow her @WBEZeducation and @annasavchenkoo.

Sarah Karp covers education for WBEZ. Follow her on Twitter @WBEZeducation and @sskedreporter

Longest nurses strike in Massachusetts history ends with concessions contract

Ben Oliver
WSWS.ORG

The historic strike by the hundreds of nurses of St. Vincent Hospital in Worcester, Massachusetts came to an end Monday night after nurses voted to ratify a five-year contract with hospital owner Tenet Healthcare.

After 301 days on strike, the longest in the history of the Massachusetts healthcare industry, during which the workers received no strike pay from the Massachusetts Nurses Association, and facing threats of being permanently replaced by management, nurses voted 487 to 9 in favor of the agreement.

On Monday evening, standing in front of the Teamsters Local 170 headquarters, Massachusetts Nurses Association officials delivered news of the ratification to a small crowd of nurses and the media, flanked by members of the Massachusetts Democratic party, Representative Jim McGovern and Worcester mayor Joseph Petty. The union officials paid lip service to the determination of rank-and-file nurses, who rejected multiple sell-out proposals from Tenet over the ten-month period, and praised the deal as a significant gain.

Nurses on the picket line at St. Vincent Hospital in Worcester, Massachusetts (Credit: MNA Facebook)

In fact, it is nothing of the sort. Nurses will receive a measly 2 percent wage increase in each of the five years of the agreement, far below the current inflation rate of 6.8 percent. The deal also entrenches the hated tiered wage structure.

As for staffing ratios, by far the most important demand for nurses, the deal falls short of the four-to-one nurse-to-patient ratios even targeted by the MNA itself at the start of the strike. Instead, the deal contains a ‘mix’ of 4- and 5-to-1 patients-to-nurse on the majority of units, including 4-to-1 ratios for nurses on cardiac telemetry floors but 5-to-1 for behavioral health nurses. The agreement also contains vague language committing management to curb flexing in nurses’ schedules.

The deal also creates another joint labor-management committee to address workplace violence, and commits management to increase the police presence in the facility.

The strike was the culmination of years of brewing opposition to continuous overwork, even before the pandemic began. Early in the pandemic, when so many hospital staff were furloughed after more profitable elective procedures were canceled, nurses were forced into administrative and menial tasks in addition to their regular work.

Much was made by the union of the fact that the deal allows striking nurses to return to their previous positions, something which Tenet had rejected in the penultimate round of negotiations in August, after it had begun hiring hundreds of replacement nurses. In other words, the MNA’s criteria for a “victory” is a contract which does not allow management to fire striking nurses en masse. However, the deal also allows management to keep on the permanent replacements it had spent $40 million on during the strike.

The status of these scabs within the MNA under the new agreement is not immediately clear, but may be subject to intense factional squabbling. Press reports during the strike suggested that the public workers’ union AFSCME had initially considered incorporating them as part of the local Council 93, before ultimately deciding not to move forward. Richard Avola, named by MassLive.com as one of the scab nurses in contact with AFSCME, later organized a petition, with the help of the right-wing National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, to decertify the MNA. It has been filed with the National Labor Relations Board.

Understaffing has been a near-universal experience throughout the hospital system in the United States, which is once again being overwhelmed by a surge in COVID cases, as the Omicron variant continues to spread at an unprecedented rate. Nurses can expect workloads of five or more patients at a time, and to be frequently ‘flexed’ off by management, only for remaining nurses to see increased assignments with later patient admissions. Chronic understaffing undermines the effectiveness of all hospital workers, including technicians, secretaries and personal care assistants (PCAs), leading to worse patient outcomes, including avoidable deaths.

However, the strike remained isolated for its entire 10-month duration. The MNA did nothing to mobilize its statewide membership of 23,000, and kept several other bargaining units with expired contracts on the job during the strike. Earlier on in the strike, UFCW Local 1445 forced through an agreement to avert a strike by 600 other workers at the hospital, leaving nurses to fight on their own.

The strike took place amid a significant push for strike action by tens of thousands of nurses and other health care workers throughout the United States. More than 32,000 workers at Kaiser Permanente voted to authorize strike action in Southern California last November, and health care workers in Buffalo, New York struck at Mercy Hospital for more than a month. However, all of these struggles were separated from each other and betrayed by the unions—in the case of Kaiser, the strike was called off at the last minute.

In each case, the unions pushed through wage increases of three percent or less, well below inflation and even below the increase in wages for fast food workers last year as a result of the labor shortage. At the same time they did nothing to resolve the issue of staffing, outside of setting inadequate ratios, which management flaunts at will anyway, or adding even more layers of labor-management committees.

Health care workers at St. Vincent and elsewhere must draw the lessons from this experience. For their struggles to be successful, they cannot allow them to remain in the hands of the union bureaucracy. Instead, they must form new organizations, rank-and-file committees, to formulate their own demands, oppose the union's isolation of their fight and appeal to workers across the country and the world for the broadest possible support.

Lowering the Throne of America’s Delusion

The U.S. will not face reality about its foreign policy disasters but rather retreats to fantasy worlds that exist only in its own imagination, writes Michael Brenner.


The Triumph of Pompey. (Gabriel de Saint-Aubin, 1765, Metropolitan Museum of Art)

By Michael Brenner

January 5, 2022


When Pompey the Great made his triumphant return to Rome in 61 BCE from his stunning conquests in the East, a spectacular ceremony was planned. Pageantry on a grandiose scale was designed both to satisfy his outsized ego and to display superior status in his rivalry with Julius Caesar.

The centerpiece was to be a towering throne where a regally costumed Pompey would pass through a Victory arch installed for the occasion. A small problem arose, though, when a rehearsal showed that the throne was 4 feet taller than the height of the arch.

That is an apt metaphor for the uneasy position in which Uncle Sam finds himself these days. He proudly pronounces his enduring greatness from every lectern and altar in the land and pledges to hold his standing as global Number One forever and ever. Yet, America constantly bumps its head against an unaccommodating reality.

Instead of downsizing the monumental juggernaut or applying itself to a delicate raising of the arch, or lowering of the throne, the U.S. makes repeated attempts to fit through in a vain effort to bend the world to its mythology. Evocation of the concussion protocol is in order – but nobody wants to admit that sobering truth.

U.S. engagements in the world over the past 20 years reveal a grim record of failed ventures. Most have been caused by unrealistic goals, blinkered views of the field of action, overweening pride, an ignorance of foreign places and their history, and an unseemly readiness to take complacent comfort in fantasy worlds that exist only in its own imagination. In short, American foreign policy has been misguided – badly and consistently misguided.

The inevitable frustrations and failures owe equally to sheer incompetence. An endless string of errors – diplomatic, military and political – is as difficult for the nation to reconcile with its ‘can-do’ self-image as is the admission of the glaring discrepancy between the belief in the country’s providential mission and its increasingly evident ordinariness.

Vince Lombardi, the legendary American football coach, is often quoted as declaring: “Victory is not the most important thing; it’s the only thing.” That has been an implicit American motto from the beginning. However, in the global arena over the past generation, the U.S. has been setting records for failure and futility.

The Ever-Growing List of Debacles

1). The era began with the success of evicting al-Qaeda from Afghanistan and toppling their Taliban hosts. It’s been downhill ever since, at an accelerating pace – culminating with the crack-up at Kabul airport where the obtuseness and criminal irresponsibility of the Pentagon brass (abetted by the C.I.A.’s habitually faulty intelligence) produced a human and political disaster. The Taliban are back in power thanks to American misbegotten actions in seeking the liquidation of Taliban adherents who had fled their organization and retired to their homes in 2002, and our unbounded reliance on feuding clans of corrupt warlords.

Al-Qaeda evolved from a fanatical jihadist cadre numbering in the double figures to an international conglomerate with franchises in a dozen countries and a free-lance fan club operating in Western capitals. The alleged training camps and indoctrination centers had no more tangible existence than did Saddam Hussein’s WMD.

Attack on U.N. headquarters in Baghdad under U.S. occupation, 2003. (U.N. Photo/Timoty Sopp)

2). The Afghan fiasco pales compared to the multi-dimensional tragedy created by the Iraq invasion and occupation. The scorecard:
Hundreds of thousands dead, wounded, orphaned.
The fostering of sectarian blood-letting that institutionalizes the country’s political fragmentation.
The massive destruction of economic infrastructure.
The welding of ties between Shi’te majority governments in Iraq with Iran’s clerical regime (our avowed enemy – justified or not).
Torture and abuse in dedicated camps that permanently blemished America’s cultivated image as the champion of human rights.
The spawning of the Islamic state – conceived, organized and recruited in American prison camps – Gen. Stanley McChrystal’s Camp Bucca foremost.
The resulting mayhem in Iraq and Syria with deleterious effects across the region.
One effect: the flood of refugees into Europe that fueled the rise of far-right and neo-fascist movements across Europe – disrupting political life in friendly countries and undermining the EU.
In Syria, prioritizing the overthrow of Assad’s regime over the fight against the al-Qaeda affiliates who led the insurrection (a failure that is probably a success for Syria, for America and for the region).

3). Redoubling our unqualified support for Saudi Arabia under the leadership of the cocaine-addicted, megalomaniac Mohammed bin-Salman, otherwise known as the crown prince, thereby allying ourselves with the Sunni side in the historic contest between them and their Shi’a rivals. That led to the disgraceful policy (continuing to this day) of supporting and participating in the unwarranted assault on Yemen’s Houthis which has devastated the poorest country in the region, destroying lives in what amounts to massive ‘war crimes.’ Yet, a State Department official just last month declared Saudi Arabia “a force for progress” in the Middle East. The resulting shredding of what remains of the American pretense of being the custodian of human rights globally has made risible such events as Joe Biden’s League of Democracies summit.

4). Similar suffering and destruction inflicted on Somalia by American meddling and military intervention with no discernible U.S. interest at stake.Tearing up the Iran nuclear deal – and then setting onerous, unacceptable conditions for its resurrection. Steps counter-productive whether the U.S.’s goal is foreclosing any prospect of Iran acquiring a nuclear weapon or regime change (Washington’s preferred solution).


Strategic Blindness

An abysmal record unmatched since the infamous performance of the WW I generals on the Western front – equally honored with medals and laurels.

This long litany of failure and incompetence is overshadowed by the strategic blindness of treating Russia and China as implacable enemies. By doing so, Washington has not only obviated any alternative strategy for developing a stable, long-term relationship. It has also cemented a formidable power bloc that is now well able to contest the United States in whatever sphere it wants to cross swords with.

This mosaic of misconceived strategy and rampantly amateurish maneuvers strongly suggests that America’s foreign policy elites are living in a delusional world – dissociated from reality. That raises three basic questions: 1). what are the causes?; 2). why the uniformity of attitudes towards foreign affairs by the political class?; and 3). why is there so little dissent from policies that have produced a steady stream of abject setbacks?

The Roots of Delusion

Crowd at an Obama campaign rally in Des Moines, Iowa in May, 2008. (Jill Heemstra/Flickr)

Americans are struggling to draw into focus their exalted image of themselves and reality. They are not doing a very good job of it. The gap is wide and growing. That is due in good measure to what has been happening beyond the country’s shores as well as at home, and over which it lacks the skills and the means to exercise decisive influence.

The U.S. response has been one of avoidance and reaffirmation of thought and deed. It seems to fear that staring at reality squarely, will find reality staring back at it in a discomforting way.

Fading prowess is one of the most difficult things for humans to cope with – whether it be an individual or a nation. By nature, we prize our strength and competence; we dread decline and its intimations of extinction. This is especially so in the United States where for many the individual and the collective persona are inseparable.

No other country tries so relentlessly to live its legend as does the U.S. Today, events are occurring that contradict the American narrative of a nation with a unique destiny. That creates cognitive dissonance.

America’s exalted sense of self is rooted in the belief of being pace-setters and world beaters in every domain. The state of affairs sketched above — marked by impulsive enterprises that underline America’s foredoomed, audacious ambition to gain global dominance — does not represent rational strategic judgment.

It is the national equivalent of ostentatious iron-pumping by bodybuilders worried about losing muscle tone.

Psychologically, reality is avoided with overweening self-confidence coupled to material strength, perpetuating the national myths of a destiny to remain the world’s No. 1 forever, shaping the world system according to American principles and interests.

“No other country tries so relentlessly to live its legend as does the U.S. Today, events are occurring that contradict the American narrative of a nation with a unique destiny.”

President Obama declaimed: “Let me tell you something. The United States of America is the most powerful nation on Earth. Period. It’s not even close. Period. It’s not even close. It’s not even close!”

Is this meant as a revelation? What is the message? To whom is it intended? Words that are neither a prelude to action nor inspire others to act – nor even impart information – are just puffs of wind. As such, they are yet another avoidance device – a flight from reality.

The tension associated with such a nation encountering objective reality does not force heightened self-awareness, nor a change in behavior, when there is no opposition. Today, there is no foreign policy debate whatsoever.

In addition, America’s vassals in Europe and elsewhere have a national interest in preserving the warped American view of the world (Israel and Poland, for instance) or have been so denatured over the decades that they are incapable of doing anything other than follow Washington obediently – despite staring at a potentially fatal abyss with China and Russia.

Reality testing, in these circumstances, leads to conformity in viewing the world through the shared delusional prism – rather than a potential corrective.

An Insecure Americanism

Americanism provides a Unified Field Theory of self-identity, collective enterprise, and the Republic’s enduring meaning. When one element is felt to be in jeopardy, the integrity of the whole edifice becomes vulnerable. In the past, American mythology energized the country in ways that helped it to thrive. Today, it is a dangerous hallucinogen that traps Americans in a time warp more and more distant from reality.

There is a muted reflection of this strained condition in the evident truth that Americans have become an insecure people. They grow increasingly anxious about who they are, what they are worth and what life will be like down the road.

This is an individual and collective phenomenon. They are related insofar as self-identity and self-esteem are bound up with the civic religion of Americanism. To a considerable degree, it’s been like this since the very beginning.

A country that was “born against history” had no past to define and shape the present. A country that was born against tradition had no rooted and common sense of meaning and value that cut deeply into the national psyche. A country that was born against inherited place and position left each individual at once free to acquire status and obliged to do so for insignia of rank were few.

That changed over the course of the 20th century. Within just a few decades, America became a great world power, a superpower, a champion of democracy and freedom and the defender of the West against Soviet-led communism. It was the “heroic” century which culminated in the triumph of victory in the Cold War.

After the collapse of Communism, the United States ruled the roost. In its own eyes, this unique hyper-power had seen history confirm its anointed role as both model and agent for the construction of a better world. American “exceptionalism” now meant emulation of America – pure and simple.

That confirmation should have strengthened the belief in the pageant of progress. It should have given a boost to self-esteem. It should have compensated for the creeping insecurities associated with socio-economic-cultural changes within the United States. That has not proven to be the case.

Strenuous displays of patriotism have a contrived cast to them. They suggest strained efforts to overcome doubt more than they do genuine pride and conviction. National self-confidence is not demonstrated by gigantic flags seen everywhere from used car lots to hot sheet motels, the ubiquitous lapel pin, the loud and gaudy demonstrations of chauvinism at sporting matches, the bombast of shock jockeys, or the belittling and condescending treatment of other peoples.

Rather, those are sure signs of weakness, doubt and insecurity. The compulsive militarization of foreign relations fits the pattern; the same psychology is at work. A society that sees reality through the screen of violent video games is juvenile and immature.

A Dissociated State of Mind

Stage-managed Bush victory speech dissociated from reality of disaster in Iraq. (Kipp Teague/Fliickr/cropped/2.0 Generic (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

America is close to a condition that approximates what the psychologists call “dissociation.” It is marked by an inability to see and to accept actualities as they are for deep seated emotional reasons.

It is defined as:


“Dissociation … is any of a wide array of experiences, ranging from a mild emotional detachment from the immediate surroundings, to a more severe disconnection from physical and emotional experiences. The major characteristic of all dissociative phenomena involves a detachment from reality, rather than a loss of reality as in psychosis. … Dissociation is commonly displayed on a continuum. In mild cases, dissociation can be regarded as a coping mechanism or defense mechanism in seeking to master, minimize or tolerate stress – including … conflict.”

Conflicts of purpose, conflict of aims, conflict of ideas, conflict between idealized reality and actual truth. Dissociative disorders are sometimes triggered by trauma (9/11?).

This psychological appraisal of the American body politic does not explain adequately, however, either the exaggerated response to a single (if singular) event confronting it with reality, or the intensity and acuteness of the delusional thinking in the absence of evidence from the real world. The objective truth is overwhelmed by the subjective virtual truths that shape their perception of reality.

What do these developments foretell for the United States’ relations with the rest of the world? The most obvious and important implication is that Americans will be ever more dependent on maintaining that sense of exceptionalism and superiority that is the foundation of their national personality.

A fragile psyche, weak in self-esteem and prowess, is sensitive to signs of its decline or ordinariness. Hence, the obsession with curbing China. Hence, the country will continue to exert itself energetically on the global stage rather than become progressively more selective in its engagements and choice of methods for fulfilling them.

Continuity is a lot easier than reorientation. It doesn’t demand fresh thinking and different skills. Quite frankly, today, the caliber of high and mid-level personnel would have to be upgraded. Less amateurism and careerism, more experience and sophisticated knowledge.

Equally, a U.S. president would have to seek out people with a different mindset. That is to say, a more nuanced view of the world, more acute awareness of other countries’ political culture and leadership, and a talent for dealing with other states on a basis other than the assumption of American superiority and prerogative.

Attempts to dictate the internal affairs of foreign countries would become the rare exception rather than the norm. Moreover, it is necessary to loosen the hold on the nation’s mind of dogmatic ideas as deeply rooted in the American experience as they are out of synch with today’s world.

All of this is a tall order. It appears to be beyond America.

Michael Brenner is a professor of international affairs at the University of Pittsburgh. mbren@pitt.edu