Category: American Empire/Foreign Policy

How the New Captain Marvel Illustrates Both Toxic Feminism and Original Sin

Michael McCaffrey has an interesting op-ed on the RT Question More

The next generation’s Captain Marvel

website entitled, “Toxic femininity: ‘Badass’ US women demand right to torture and kill for Empire… just like men.”

McCaffrey provides a good analysis of where and how mainstream feminism has gone wrong through its blind endorsement of America’s cultural/economic status quo.

I have copied an excerpt below and encourage you to read the entire piece.

First, however, I want to add what I believe is a more fundamental problem that has always dogged the heels of secular feminism — the Biblical doctrine of original sin.

Yes, woman are and always have been as sinful as men.

That means that women are as prone to selfishness, violence and destruction as men continually show themselves to be.  They may pursue their goals by different means, at times.  But the corrupted ends remain the same.

The oft repeated refrain, “If only women were in control of the world, THEN we would see the end of war, famine, and all manner of evil!” has always been a patronizing Utopian dream, as ignorant as it is blind.

Didn’t these feminist champions pay attention to the presidencies of Golda Meir in Israel, or Indira Gandhi in India?  How about Hillary Clinton’s gleeful laughter over the brutal murder of Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi at the hands of an angry mob?

Have they willfully ignored the current debacle of president Aung San Suu

Aung San Suu Kyi, Nobel Prize winner turned patron of Rohingya genocide in Myanmar

Kyi in Myanmar (formerly known as Burma) as she blesses her military’s Rohingya genocide?

Below is the excerpt of McCaffrey:

“Thanks to a new wave of feminism and its call for equality, it isn’t just toxic men who can kill, torture and surveil in the name of US militarism and empire, women can now do it too!
“This past weekend was the third annual Women’s March, which is a protest originally triggered by Donald Trump’s defeat of Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential election that encourages women across America to rise up against misogyny and patriarchy.

“As sincere as these women are in their outrage, in their quest for power they are inadvertently reinforcing the immoral and unethical system that they claim to detest. This is most glaringly apparent when this new feminism boldly embraces the worst traits of the patriarchy in the form of militarism and empire.

“The rise of #MeToo, Time’s Up and the anti-Trump Women’s Movement, has brought forth a new wave of politically and culturally active neo-feminists. This modern women’s movement and its adherents demand that “boys not be boys”, and in fact claim that the statement “boys will be boys” is in and of itself an act of patriarchal privilege and male aggression. The irony is that these neo-feminists don’t want boys to be boys, but they do want girls to be like boys…

“…Other toxically-masculine women in government are also being hailed as great signs of women’s empowerment.

“Gina Haspel is the first female director of the CIA and women now also hold the three top directorates in that agency. Ms. Haspel proved herself more than capable of being just as deplorable as any man when she was an active participant in the Bush-era torture program. No doubt the pussy-hat wearing brigade would cheer her “competitiveness, dominance and aggression” when torturing prisoners… most especially the traditionally masculine ones.”

Tell Your Elected Officials You Want Peace in Venezuela

The Alliance for Global Justice is leading a world-wide campaign for Peace in Venezuela today, Feb. 7, 2019, in coordination with an international conference occurring in Montevideo, Uruguay.

Their letter begins:

“Today in Montevideo, Uruguay, nations from throughout the world, hosted by Uruguay and Mexico, are meeting “to establish the basis for a new dialogue mechanism that includes all the forces in Venezuela, in order to help restore peace in that country.” Shamefully absent is the Trump administration and its ordained “interim president” Juan Guaido. Instead, the Trump administration is threatening to invade Venezuela and Guaido is calling on the military to betray their oath to the Constitution. The number of voices in Congress raised against Trump’s illegal regime change policies is insignificant.”  (emphasis mine)

This link will take you to the webpage that allows you to contact your elected officials to let them know that you oppose the US backed regime change in Venezuela.

Please write your Senators and Representatives today.

The same link also reproduces an excellent article by Michael Weisbrot at The Intercept entitled,  “Trump Sanctions, Regime Change Strategy in Venezuela Can Only Cause More Violence and Suffering.”

Below is an excerpt highlighting the degree to which American imperialism serves the purposes of class warfare around the world.

Case in point:  the forces now working to unseat Maduro are primarily white and well off.  Whereas, Maduro’s supporters are overwhelmingly brown,  Indian, poor and marginalized:

“Venezuela is polarized along political lines and has been ever since Hugo Chávez was elected president in 1998 and launched his Bolivarian Revolution. The opposition’s attempt to overthrow Chávez in a military coup in 2002, aided and abetted by officials in the George W. Bush administration, as well as the opposition leadership’s vacillating willingness to accept the results of democratic elections in subsequent years laid the groundwork for many years of distrust.

“Venezuela’s political polarization, however, also intersects with a great chasm that permeates most of Latin American society: a division by class and race. As in most of the Americas, the two are correlated. In the opposition protests that have occurred over the past decade, one could see these differences in the clothes worn by pro- versus anti-government protesters and in their skin tones. The opposition crowds and their leaders have been considerably whiter and from higher income groups than Venezuelans who supported the government. In the most recent protests, there has been an increase in anti-government actions in working-class and poor areas in Caracas, but the class and racial divide between Chavistas and opposition has not gone away.

“Another line of Venezuelan polarization is the belief in sovereignty and self-determination. The Chavistas have made independence from the U.S. a centerpiece of their agenda, and their government, when it had money, pursued policies in the hemisphere that sought more independence for the region as well. The opposition and enemies of the Chavista governments, by contrast, have worked closely with the U.S. government for the past two decades — as can be seen in the coordination of this latest attempted coup. Washington’s intervention aggravates the polarization along the lines of sovereignty, and opens the opposition to charges of alignment with a foreign power — and a power that has historically played a terrible role in the region. To appreciate the animosity that this would create, think of how much ill will has been generated in the U.S. by Russian intervention in the 2016 presidential election, and multiply that by a few orders of magnitude.”

Huge Pro-Maduro Rallies Today in Venezuela

Today the streets of Caracas and other Venezuelan cities were filled with huge crowds of pro-Maduro/anti-imperialist rallies.  A site that you will

Massive pro-Maduro/anti-imperialist rallies were held today throughout Venezuela

never see on corporate, mainstream news outlets in this country.

While American talking heads insist that Maduro is an unpopular dictator, the Venezuelan people say otherwise.

I don’t know how to copy video from Twitter, so I have supplied a few of the many links I have found today.  Take a look at the vast crowds of pro-government supporters here, here, here, here, here, and here.

Yes, president Maduro also has many opponents.  So does Donald Trump.  And….?

U.S. officials and their media puppets want the American public to believe that U.S. (military) intervention will rid Venezuela of an unpopular dictator, hated by a majority of his people.

If we all swallow that lie, then we are placated and will remain docile when we subjugate, undoubtedly with bloodshed, another nation for our own selfish, national interests.

In addition, would a real dictator allow anti-government rallies to be led by the upstart, US/CIA backed contender for his presidency?  I don’t think so.  A dictator would have arrested Guaido and his fellow opposition leaders long ago.

In any case, the one thing followers of Jesus Christ may never be is placated and docile in the face of evil, especially when that evil is being committed in our name by our country.

Citizens of God’s kingdom will stand up and say, “No!  This action is wicked and ungodly.  It is completely unacceptable.  We will not condone such evil with our silence.  We will speak and work to stop our government’s unwarranted, illegal use of force.”

Call your elected representatives and tell them, Hands Off Venezuela!

A Biblical Ode to America

A few days ago The Wall Street Journal published an expose revealing the Trump administration’s intention to remake Latin America in its own image, continuing to use the well-worn strategies of assassination, economic sanctions — which commonly lead to widespread starvation — and military intervention.

The headline and opening paragraph read, “U.S. Push to Oust Venezuela’s Maduro Marks First Shot in Plan to Reshape Latin America.”  

Recent assassination attempt against Maduro

“The Trump administration’s attempt to force out the president of Venezuela marked the opening of a new strategy to exert greater U.S. influence over Latin America, according to administration officials.”

Hence, I offer the following New Testament pesher (a contemporary interpretation) from John’s Apocalypse, chapter 18:

After this I saw another angel coming down from heaven. He had great authority, and the earth was illuminated by his splendor.  With a mighty voice he shouted:

The harvest of a US trained Salvadoran death squad

“‘Fallen! Fallen is America the Great!’
    She has become a dwelling for demons
and a haunt for every impure spirit,
    a haunt for every unclean bird,
    a haunt for every unclean and detestable animal.
For all the nations have drunk
    the maddening wine of her adulteries.
The kings of the earth committed adultery with her,
    and the merchants of the earth grew rich from her excessive luxuries.”

Then I heard another voice from heaven say:

“‘Come out of her, my people,’
    so that you will not share in her sins,
    so that you will not receive any of her plagues;
for America’s sins are piled up to heaven,
    and God has remembered the crimes of the United States.
Give back to her as she has given;
    pay her back double for what she has done.

    Pour her a double portion from her own cup.
Give her as much torment and grief
    as the glory and luxury she gave herself.
In her heart she boasts,
    ‘I sit enthroned as queen; I am the sole Super Power.
I am not a widow;
    I will never mourn.’
Therefore in one day her plagues will overtake her:
    death, mourning and famine.
She will be consumed by fire,
    for mighty is the Lord God who judges her…

..Then a mighty angel picked up a boulder the size of a large millstone and threw it into the sea, and said:

“With such violence
    the great nation of America will be thrown down,
    never to be found again.
The music of harpists and musicians, pipers and trumpeters,
    will never be heard in you again.
No worker of any trade
    will ever be found in you again.
The sound of a millstone
    will never be heard in you again.
The light of a lamp
    will never shine in you again.
The voice of bridegroom and bride
    will never be heard in you again.
Your merchants were the world’s important people.
    By your magic spell all the nations were led astray.
       In America was found the blood of prophets and of God’s holy people —  who stood to warn you but were few and far between — of ALL who have been slaughtered on the earth by your drones, your assassinations, atomic bombs, cruise missiles, special forces, cluster bombs, stealth fighters, torture programs, death squads, economic sanctions and regime changes.”

Mitch McConnell Wants to Guarantee America’s Perpetual State of War

The war in Afghanistan is the longest military action in American history, with no end in sight.

Not long ago president Trump announced his intent to withdraw U.S. forces from Syria, sparking immediate criticism from both Republicans and

US troops in Afghanistan

Democrats.

More recently Trump has discussed a U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, as well.

Against this background, it is downright chilling to learn that Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell (together with the bipartisan support of senators Graham, Blunt, Burr, Romney, Ernst, Inhofe, Rubio, Sasse, Fischer,  Grassley, Johnson, Shelby, Tillis, Cornyn, Sullivan, Wicker, Lankford, Young, and Boozman) has inserted amendment (#65) into the recently approved Senate bill 1.

McConnell’s amendment, in effect, makes it nearly impossible for any president, now or in the future, to withdraw U.S. troops from Afghanistan, Syria, Iraq and just about anywhere else in the Middle East.

Among other things, the bill:

“calls upon the Administration to certify that conditions have been met for the enduring defeat of al Qaeda and ISIS before initiating any significant withdrawal of United States forces from Syria or Afghanistan.” (emphasis mine)

In other words, we will never leave these places.

Exactly what is required for such conditions to be met?  How does one “certify” that al Qaeda and ISIS have met their “enduring defeat”?

How can anyone ever guarantee the final, permanent defeat of a revolutionary movement fueled by religious commitments?

The answer is simple.  You can’t.  As all those Senators well know.

Mitch and his war-mongering cronies have passed a bill that opens a permanent line of protest for the Joint Chiefs, generals, admirals, arms manufacturers, intelligence agencies and every politician with a weapons company in their district to effectively object any time a future president tries to withdraw our troops from the quagmire of America’s wars around the world.

But cheer up.  U.S. weapons companies and civilian death rates, known as collateral damage, around the world will thrive.

Col. Lawrence Wilkerson: America Now Exists for a “State of Perpetual War”

Regular readers of this blog will know that I believer Col. Lawrence Wilkerson is a guy worth listening to when it comes to U.S. foreign policy.

He has demonstrated an unusually strong moral compass in renouncing his

Retired Col. Lawrence Wilkerson

past role working in the George W. Bush administration and serving as a consistent critic of the burgeoning American Empire.

Listen to his thoughts in a recent RT America interview regarding American policy today.  His sad verdict is that the U.S. raison d’etre of American empire is preserving “a state of perpetual war.”

Wilkerson’s remarks begin at the 1:50 mark.

John Bolton Comes Clean: We Want Venezuela’s Oil

National Security Adviser John Bolton came clean during a Fox Business interview, admitting that the first objective of the US coup attempt in Venezuela is getting control of that country’s oil industry.

All the talk about freedom and democracy is simply the standard, rhetorical window-dressing that US officials always pull out of the closet when justifying America’s latest illegal, imperial, typically bloody action.

Here is a clip from Democracy Now, including Bolton’s interview and a commentary from Alan Nairn, veteran investigative journalist.

Venezuelan Opposition Leader in Line to Become Another U.S. Puppet

Max Blumenthal and Dan Cohen have published an excellent piece of investigative journalism at the GrayZone entitled, “The Making of Juan Guaidó: How the US Regime Change Laboratory Created Venezuela’s Coup Leader.”

Remember that Juan Guaido is the young man selected by the Trump administration to be designed the real president of Venezuela, rather than the actually elected president, Nicolas Madura.

The article’s headline reads:

“Juan Guaidó is the product of a decade-long project overseen by Washington’s elite regime change trainers. While posing as a champion of democracy, he has spent years at the forefront of a violent campaign of destabilization.”

Blumenthal and Cohen have done their homework thoroughly, as always.  They detail the long history of U.S./CIA backed rebel training organizations in various parts of the world equipping people like Guaido — he an upper-crust graduate of such a program — to subvert governments that refuse to submit to U.S. foreign policy objectives.

An excerpt of the article is printed below.  I urge you to read the entire piece here.

“Guaidó is more popular outside Venezuela than inside, especially in the elite Ivy League and Washington circles,” Sequera remarked to The Grayzone, “He’s a known character there, is predictably right-wing, and is considered loyal to the program.”

While Guaidó is today sold as the face of democratic restoration, he spent his career in the most violent faction of Venezuela’s most radical opposition party, positioning himself at the forefront of one destabilization campaign after another. His party has been widely discredited inside Venezuela, and is held partly responsible for fragmenting a badly weakened opposition.

“‘These radical leaders have no more than 20 percent in opinion polls,” wrote Luis Vicente León, Venezuela’s leading pollster. According to León, Guaidó’s party remains isolated because the majority of the population “does not want war. ‘What they want is a solution.’”

But this is precisely why Guaidó was selected by Washington: He is not expected to lead Venezuela toward democracy, but to collapse a country that for the past two decades has been a bulwark of resistance to US hegemony. His unlikely rise signals the culmination of a two decades-long project to destroy a robust socialist experiment.”  (emphasis mine)

Trump Appoints Elliott “War Criminal” Abrams Special Envoy on Venezuela — Let the Blood Bath Begin

President Trump recently appointed Elliott Abrams as his Special Envoy to Venezuela.

Abrams is an old hand in the machinations and bloody, dark-arts of

Elliott Abrams with the “exiled” Venezuelan opposition leader David Smolansky

overthrowing South and Central American governments, installing brutal, right-wing dictatorships and training death squads in mass murder, otherwise known as genocide.

I fear this does not bode well for the Venezuelan people.

If you don’t know or can’t recall the history of Abram’s involvement in war crimes, Consortium News has reposted an older article by the eminent journalist Robert Parry documenting the massive bloodshed for which Abrams shares responsibility.   It is entitled “With the US Meddling Again in Latin America, a Look Back at How Washington Promoted Genocide in Guatemala.”

Below is a clip of Robert Parry sparring with Abrams on Charlie Rose about his responsibility for genocide:

Abram’s U.S. trained death squads killed some 80,000 people in El Salvador, 200 – 250,000 in Guatemala and untold thousands in Nicaragua, most of them innocent civilians.

Journalist Robert Lovato tells about his own first-hand experiences with the

Victims_Of_The_Mozote_Massacre_Morazán_El_Salvador_January_1982

U.S.-led Salvadoran coup and Abrams himself.  Find his autobiographical article, “Elliott Abrams: An Unequivocal Sign Trump Is Preparing a Baptism in Venezuelan Blood,” here.

Here is my question:

The U.S. Secretary of State recently returned from Egypt where he proudly wore his Christianity on his sleeve, assuring his listeners that American foreign policy was safely cradled in the ever-lovin’ hands of a born-again Christian whose decisions were directed by his daily Bible reading and prayer.

How in the blazes can those same Bible-clutching fingers embrace a butcher like Elliott Abrams?

Where are all the supposed Christian advisers the Religious Right boasts about, giving Trump their wisdom and righteous advice?

Are we to understand that Jesus approves of mass murder, as long as it’s America leading the way in slaughtering hundreds of thousands of innocent, unarmed Central American peasants?

I guess the righteous brother Pompeo says, Yes.

 

 

 

 

Sec. of State Mike Pompeo’s Policies “a product of ideology compounded by ignorance”

Consortium News has a recent article  by Lawrence Davidson,  emeritus professor of history, discussing the role that Mike Pompeo’s zealous evangelicalism plays in shaping his policy vision as the U.S. Secretary of State.

It’s scary, folks…very scary.

The frighteningly common notion that America’s problems can be solved by placing more “Christians” (that is, my kind of Christians; not your kind of

Pompeo talks to reporters on his recent flight to the MIddle East

Christians) in government repeatedly leads to incompetent leadership and horrific policies.

But that doesn’t stop true believers in the exceptionalism of “Christian America” from committing the same mistakes over and over again.

Secretary Pompeo is yet another example of everything that can go wrong with American evangelicalism.  His corrupted theology is affected nations around the world, exposing them to the dangers I explain, condemn and try to correct in my book, I Pledge Allegiance: A Believer’s Guide to Kingdom Citizenship in 21st Century America.

The article is entitled, “Mike Pompeo’s Deranged Foreign Policy.”  I have copied an excerpt below.  You can read the entire article here.

“U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo started out the new year—the date was Jan. 10—preaching “the truth” about U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East, and for reasons we will get to below, he chose to do so at the American University in Cairo. He implied that he was particularly capable of discerning the truth because he is “an evangelical Christian” who keeps a “Bible open on my desk to remind me of God and His Word, and The Truth.” This confession indicates that Pompeo is wearing ideological glasses through which he cannot possibly see the world, much less the Middle East, in an objective fashion. We can assume that the decidedly unthinking and amoral president he serves has no problem with this prophet in the State Department because Pompeo is one of the few cabinet ministers whom President Donald Trump has not fired. 

“So what are Pompeo’s versions of foreign policy truth? In terms of his Cairo pronouncements, they are twofold. First, as is to be expected of a man of his temperament (he declared: “I am a military man” who learned his “basic code of integrity” at West Point), he has identified the true enemy of the civilized world. And, again not unexpectedly given his Christian zealotry, the enemy is of Muslim origin. It is the “tenacious and vicious” cabal of “radical Islamism, a debauched strain of the faith that seeks to upend every other form of worship or governance.

“This initial “truth” is noteworthy for what it does not take into consideration, such as traditional U.S. alliances with brutal and corrupt military or monarchical dictatorships. Any move to reduce support for such regimes in the Middle East is, in Pompeo’s view, a “misjudgment” that must have “dire results.” As long as these dictatorships oppose what Pompeo opposes, their brutality and corrupt

nature can be judged acceptable. For example, Pompeo praised his host, the military dictator of Egypt, Abdel Fattah Saeed Hussein Khalil El-Sisi, who is an

Secretary Pompeo with Egypt’s military dictator Abdel Fattah Saeed Hussein Khalil El-Sisi

archetypical example of this murderous breed of ruler. He praised El-Sisi exactly because he has joined the U.S. in the suppression of “Islamists.” The Egyptian dictator, in Pompeo’s words, is ‘a man of courage.’

“Pompeo’s second “truth” is the self-evident fact of American exceptionalism. He told his listeners that “America is a force for good in the Middle East.” Pompeo does not articulate the reference, but his claim taps into the Christian image of the U.S. as “a shining city on the hill”—a God-blessed light unto the nations. This was one of Ronald Reagan’s favorite themes. 

“As proof of American’s alleged beneficence, Pompeo makes a series of dubious claims about the behavior of the United States government. Here are a few. Comments within brackets are those of this author: 

“For those who fret about the use of American power, remember this: (No.1) America has always been, and always will be, a liberating force.” [Since World War II we have been liberating dictators from their own rebelling people.] (No.2) “We assembled a coalition to liberate Kuwait from Saddam Hussein.” [The subsequent two Gulf Wars plus the U.S. imposed sanctions regime killed at least half-a-million Iraqis.] (No.3) “And when the mission is over, when the job is complete, America leaves.” [Unless the “liberated” countries’ government wants Washington to establish bases which, it seems, they almost always do. The U.S. now has some 800 military bases in 70 countries around the world.] (No. 4) The U.S. and its allies helped destroy most of ISIS, and in the process “saved thousands of lives.”[There is no official number for the civilians killed in the so-called war on terror, of which the campaign against ISIS is but a part. However, there is no doubt that, to date, it is at least in the high hundreds of thousands. ] (No.5) “Life is returning to normal for millions of Iraqis and Syrians.” [Unless you have a really perverse definition of “normal,” this is a total fantasy.]”