Category: President Biden

Caitlin Johnstone on American Imperialism and Media Propaganda

Regular readers of this blog know that the Australian journalist Caitlin

Caitlin Johnstone

Johnstone is one of my favorite bloggers.

Even though I cannot share in her atheistic, philosophical humanism, I deeply appreciate her analytical insights into the manipulative corruption at the heart of the American establishment.

Her most recent post is entitled, “Consent That’s Manufactured by Propaganda is Not Informed Consent.” She explains how the Biden administration’s hypocritical foreign policy is, in fact, the long-standing, American, bi-partisan status quo.

I have excerpted her article below, or you can read the entire piece by clicking on the title above:

A new Twitter post by Secretary of State Tony Blinken reads as follows:

“We will never hesitate to use force when American lives and vital interests are

US Secretary of State, Tony Blinken

at stake, but we will do so only when the objectives are clear and achievable, consistent with our values and laws, and with the American people’s informed consent – together with diplomacy.”

Like pretty much everything ever said by Blinken, and indeed by every US secretary of state, this is an absolute lie.

Firstly, US military force is never used to protect “American lives” in modern times, unless you count the lives of US troops and mercenaries in foreign lands they have no business occupying in the first place. The US military is never used to defend American lives against an invading enemy force; that simply does not happen in our current world order. It is only ever used to protect the agenda of unipolar planetary domination, which would be the “vital interests” which Blinken obliquely refers to above.

Secondly, Blinken’s claim that the Biden administration will never use military force without “the American people’s informed consent” has already been blatantly invalidated by Biden’s airstrikes on Syria last month. The American people never gave their consent to those airstrikes, informed or uninformed. A nation the US invaded (Syria) was bombed because troops are being attacked in a second nation the US invaded (Iraq) on the completely unproven claim that a third country against whom the US is currently waging economic warfare (Iran) supported those attacks. At no time were the people asked for their consent to this, and at no time was any attempt made to ensure that they were informed of the situation before it happened.

 

Thirdly, US military force is never, ever conducted with the American people’s informed consent. Literally never. Consent is always manufactured for US wars by lies and mass media propaganda, one hundred percent of the time, without exception. The bigger the military operation, the more egregious the deceit used to manufacture consent for it. Even in relatively “peaceful” times when the US is merely raining dozens of bombs and missiles per day on foreign soil, Americans are subject to a nonstop deluge of distorted and outright false narratives about their military and the nations it targets for destruction.

Consent that has been artificially manufactured by propaganda is not informed consent, any more than sex with someone who’s been dosed with rohypnol is consensual sex. US imperialism does not rely on informed consent, it relies on disinformed consent; consent for it is manufactured by disinformation. Informed consent plays no role whatsoever in the use of US military force, nor indeed in any other major aspect of the behavior of the US or its allies.

Every aspect of the US-centralized power alliance is propped up by a relentless deluge of mass-scale psyops. Imperialism, capitalism, electoral politics; consent for all its key pillars is constantly being manufactured by the plutocratic news media, by television, by movies. All of the most influential generators of modern mainstream thought and culture are heavily influenced by a plutocratic class which has a vested interest in keeping power out of the hands of the people.

Biden Continues Trump Policy of Holding Migrant Children in Detention Centers

What is the difference between the Republican and the Democratic parties?

A Republican bares his fangs while growling just before he bites you.

A Democrat bares his fangs while smiling just before he bites you.

Thus, the meme below offers a good summary of president Biden’s foreign policy in the early days of his presidency:

The same can be said about Biden’s domestic policies, unfortunately.  Tatiana Cozzarelli has a timely article at the Left Voice describing the “new”

Journalist Tatiana Cozzarelli

detention centers Biden is filling with unaccompanied minors at the border.

The article is entitled “Detention Centers for Migrant Children Aren’t Summer Camp, They Are Concentration Camps.”

Below is an excerpt, or click on the title above to see the entire article:

The Biden administration and the capitalist media are describing the detention camps for migrant children like summer camp. It’s indicative of exactly what the Democratic Party is: brutality and repression dressed up with butterflies and rainbows.

On Monday Joe Biden opened a new children’s concentration camp for unaccompanied migrants. It will hold up to 700 kids, from ages 13 to 17. This was

Beds for 700 children, ages 13 to 17, at the recently reopened detention facility. Photograph: Handout/Reuters

a camp that was closed under the Trump administration, who was widely criticized for keeping migrant kids in cages— for keeping migrant kids essentially in concentration camps instead of reuniting them with family members in the US. This camp is being re-opened by the Biden administration.

This is absolutely horrific. The children who enter this camp are not allowed to leave. In other words, these are children kept in prison, kept apart from family members waiting for them in the United States. It is exactly what we protested against during the Trump administration. 

 

 

Biden Continues US Imperialism in the Middle East

A few days ago I wrote here about the hypocrisy of US (and Israeli) military exploits in the Middle East. It was titled “A Tale of Two Missile Attacks.”

Today we learned that president Biden approved several new attacks in Syria. The ABC news headline reads, “US carries out airstrike against Iranian-backed militia in Syria.”

As I was preparing another post on this unfolding situation, I discovered Caitlin Johnstone’s article covering the same ground, in fine form. Her piece is titled “US Bombs Syria and Ridiculously Claims Self Defense.”

I remain ashamed to be an American today.

I have excerpted her article below, or you can read the entire piece by clicking on the title above:

On orders of President Biden, the United States has launched an airstrike on a facility in Syria. As of this writing the exact number of killed and injured is unknown, with early reports claiming “a handful” of people were killed.

Rather than doing anything remotely resembling journalism, the western mass media have opted instead to uncritically repeat what they’ve been told about the airstrike by US officials, which is the same as just publishing Pentagon press releases. . . 

So we are being told that the United States launched an airstrike on Syria, a nation it invaded and is illegally occupying, because of attacks on “US locations” in Iraq, another nation the US invaded and is illegally occupying. This attack is justified on the basis that the Iraqi fighters were “Iranian-linked”, a claim that is both entirely without evidence and irrelevant to the justification of deadly military force (emphasis mine). And this is somehow being framed in mainstream news publications as a defensive operation.

This is Defense Department stenography. The US military is an invading force in both Syria and Iraq; it is impossible for its actions in either of those countries to be defensive. It is always necessarily the aggressor. It’s the people trying to eject them who are acting defensively. The deaths of US troops and contractors in those countries can only be blamed on the powerful people who sent them there.

The US is just taking it as a given that it has de facto jurisdiction over the nations of Syria, Iraq, and Iran, and that any attempt to interfere in its authority in the region is an unprovoked attack which must be defended against. This is completely backwards and illegitimate. Only through the most perversely warped American supremacist reality tunnels can it look valid to dictate the affairs of sovereign nations on the other side of the planet and respond with violence if anyone in those nations tries to eject them.

 

It’s illegitimate for the US to be in the Middle East at all. It’s illegitimate for the US to claim to be acting defensively in nations it invaded. It’s illegitimate for the US to act like Iranian-backed fighters aren’t allowed to be in Syria, where they are fighting alongside the Syrian government against ISIS and other extremist militias with the permission of Damascus. It is illegitimate for the US to claim the fighters attacking US personnel in Iraq are controlled by Iran when Iraqis have every reason to want the US out of their country themselves.

Even the official narrative reveals itself as illegitimate from within its own worldview. CNN reports that the site of the airstrike “was not specifically tied to the rocket attacks” in Iraq, and a Reuters/AP report says “Biden administration officials condemned the February 15 rocket attack near the city of Irbil in Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdish-run region, but as recently as this week officials indicated they had not determined for certain who carried it out.”

This is all so very typical of the American supremacist worldview that is being aggressively shoved down our throats by all western mainstream news media. The US can bomb who it likes, whenever it likes, and when it does it is only ever doing so in self defense, because the entire planet is the property of Washington, DC. It can seize control of entire clusters of nations, and if any of those nations resist in any way they are invading America’s sovereignty. . . 

. . . This sort of nonsense is why it’s so important to prioritize opposition to western imperialism. World warmongering and domination is the front upon which all the most egregious evils inflicted by the powerful take place, and it plays such a crucial role in upholding the power structures we are up against. Without endless war, the oligarchic empire which is the cause of so much of our suffering cannot function, and must give way to something else. If you’re looking to throw sand in the gears of the machine, anti-imperialism is your most efficacious path toward that end, and should therefore be your priority.

A Tale of Two Missile Attacks

This past Monday evening, the Iraqi city of Erbil was hit by a rocket attack that

A rocket explodes in the streets of Erbil, Iraq

killed one US contractor and injured eight others, as well as one US service member.

Naturally, US spokespersons are up in arms threatening retaliation “at a time of our own choosing,” to quote the president. This has been a leading news story in the American press (see here, here, here, etc.)

The issue right now is that US officials have yet to identify the perpetrators.

Of course, their ignorance does not stop those same officials from pointing fingers at Iran (read the articles highlighted above). Naturally, no one in the American press has the courage to push back or ask questions like:

If you have evidence of Iran’s guilt show it to us. You have yet to produce anything.

It seems far too convenient for you to accuse Iran while you are also pressuring them to accept your unreasonable terms for reentering the JCPOA nuclear treaty.

Of course, Iran might be responsible. Or it might not. If it is responsible, the fact that president Trump assassinated Iran’s Commander of Iranian military

Iranians mourn Qassim Suleimani

forces, Qassim Suleimani, certainly gives them good reason to strike back at the US.

Imagine how the US would respond if Iran launched a drone strike and assassinated the the head of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, the leader of all US armed forces, on American soil. I don’t think I need to elaborate, except to point out that Iran has remained amazingly restrained.

On the other hand, the rocket may also have been launched by any one of a number of Iraqi militias.

The vast majority of the Iraqi people are Shia Muslims, as are the majority of Iranians. Most Iraqis have more reason to identify with Iranian opposition against the United States than they do to sympathize with America.

After all, the Iraqi government has repeatedly told US officials that they want American forces OUT of their country. Yet, the US continues to ignore these demands.

While there have been Iraqi protests against Iranian actions in Iraq, there have been far more popular protests against the American presence in Iraq. The people want the US out of their country just as much as the government does.

So, perhaps the recent rocket attack was the work of an Iraqi militia showing their displeasure with American forces remaining in their country?

This is an equally valid conjecture, perhaps even more so, yet American’s will

Iraqi crowds demand US withdrawal from their country

never hear about this possibility in US news coverage. No, Iran is the current US whipping boy. So, whether with evidence or without, Iran will continue to be demonized in the American press.

But that is only half of the story.

Another rocket attack occurred in Syria only a few days prior, but this attack received minimal coverage by the US press. More than that, US officials have not offered a word of condemnation because these missiles were launched from Israel.

Israeli sources report that nine pro-Syrian government personnel were killed. Syrian sources report that three Syrians and four Iranians were killed in the attack. And we must remember that whatever Iranian forces are fighting on the ground in Syria, they are in Syria at the government’s invitation to help Syria combat US aggression.

Actually, this was the third Israeli missile attack in ten days. How much US coverage did Israel’s offensive actions receive? Very little.

Attacking its neighbors is standard Israeli operating procedure.

Israel has bombed Syria for years, with impunity. Israel even boasts about its

Israeli rockets hit Syrian forces near Damascus

bombing sprees. In fact the Chief of Staff of the Israeli forces, Aviv Kochabi, proudly admits, “We have struck over 500 targets this year (2021!) , on all fronts, in addition to multiple clandestine missions.”

The US never objects to these attacks because Israel shares the US goals of overthrowing the Syrian government. And both nations have black-balled Syria and Iran as dangerous enemies.

So, let me get this straight.

Israel can attack whomever it wants whenever it wants, with US support (and media silence).

The United States can continue forcefully to occupy whatever nation it wants for as long as it wants, despite the fact that both the national government and the majority of the population repeatedly demand that the US withdraw its forces.

However, Iran and Syria remain the “bad guys” who deserve to be punished — primarily for refusing to accept US/Israeli unilateral demands.

Meanwhile, any attack, no matter how small and ineffectual, against US (or Israeli) forces is decried as a horrible crime deserving the harshest punishment.

This is the Tale of Two Missile Attacks. One by Israel. The other by who knows who.

It is the story of American (and Israeli) Empire. It is ugly and unjust. It is a wicked abuse of power that ought to be condemned by every follower of Jesus Christ around the world.

Yet, the majority of America’s evangelical Christians will faithfully cheer on the  bloodshed.

President Biden Continues Trump’s Unmerited Hostility Towards Iran

Caitlin Johnstone has written another good article explaining the ridiculous

Caitlin Johnstone

nature of president Biden’s current policy towards Iran.

The article is entitled, “Biden’s Iran Policy is Just Trump’s Iran Policy with a Rainbow Flag Emoji.”

Tragically, Biden is continuing to pursue standard, irrational bullying tactics that have long characterized US foreign policy.

And, of course, no one but no one in the mainstream media pushes back or dares to question the fundamental injustice, not to mention the militaristic dangers, now posed by this administration’s behavior.

I have excerpted a part of the article below, or you can read the entire piece by clicking on the title above:

In a new interview with CBS Evening News, President Biden confirmed that his administration will not be lifting sanctions imposed upon Iran in order to bring Tehran to the negotiating table for the restoration of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), commonly known as the Iran nuclear deal.

“Will the U.S. lift sanctions first in order to get Iran back to the negotiating table?” Biden was asked by CBS’s Norah O’Donnell.

“No,” the president replied.

“They have to stop enriching uranium first,” asked O’Donnell.

Biden nodded in response.

There are a few things that are ridiculous about this, the first being that the JCPOA does not require that Iran “stop enriching uranium” at all. As explained by Al-Monitor‘s Arash Karami, the deal only calls for Iran to “keep its level of uranium enrichment at up to 3.67 %”, a level it only began exceeding when the Trump administration backed out of the deal and imposed sanctions. The administration later clarified that Biden meant Iran would have to return to its JCPOA levels before negotiations could begin, but the fact that neither the United States president nor the high-profile reporter interviewing him appear to have been clear on this says a lot about the vapid nature of America’s political/media class.

More importantly, this is confirmation from the horse’s mouth that Biden is in effect continuing Trump’s Iran policy. Trump began strangling Iran with crushing sanctions in an effort to force it to obey US dictates, and Biden is continuing that exact same strangulation while continuing to demand compliance with its dictates. The demands might be a little different, but the effect is identical since Tehran would never bow to either of them.

The Iranian government has repeatedly made it abundantly clear that it will not be rejoining the JCPOA until the United States comes back into compliance, since it was the US who first abandoned it. It claims, correctly, that it was in full compliance with the agreement when the Trump administration unilaterally backed out in May 2018. The argument that it is therefore Washington’s responsibility to come back into compliance first is indisputable. Why would it re-enter a deal with a government that is clearly acting in bad faith and could just back out and impose civilian-killing sanctions on the nation again?

“Biden is Already Breaking His Promises.” So What Else is New?

Patrick Lawrence has been a journalist, foreign correspondent, author, and lecturer for over 30 years. He recently published a piece at Consortium News entitled, “Biden is Already Breaking Promises.”

He gives special attention to the Senate confirmation hearing for Biden’s nominee as Secretary of State, Antony Blinken.

Naturally, it is not the least bit surprising to see the Biden presidency kick -off another business-as-usual Democratic administration. After all, every presidential candidate lies. Remember how Trump promised that Mexico would pay for his border wall?

But Mr. Lawrence reminds us that despite the corporate media’s (excepting Fox) decision to applaud Biden as America’s post-Trump savior (though, we ought not forget how much money president Trump brought to these

Antony Blinken with President Biden

outlets with their wall-to-wall coverage of his every faux pas — and there were many) he is essentially an old-style, moderate Republican at heart, who will continue to shovel coal into the gaping furnaces of neo-liberal economics, corporate control over US politics, and American imperialism around the world.

Welcome to the new Democratic administration.

Here is an excerpt:

It was inevitable that President Joe Biden would betray numerous of his campaign promises — and those that mattered most to wide-eyed voters who put him in office. The speed at which he and his people have revealed their treachery is nonetheless stunning.

No, there will be no comprehensive stimulus plan until at least the spring, if then. No, relief checks are not “going out the door immediately,” and no, they will not be for the $2,000 to which Biden committed his administration. As to Biden’s health care reforms, one can hardly believe one’s eyes and ears.

As Andrew Perez and Julia Rock reported in Jacobin last week, Biden’s plans are literally lifted from a letter health-insurance lobbyists recently sent Capitol Hill legislators. The promised public option is out the window. Health care “secure for all?” These people do have bridges they intend to sell you.

All this within a few days of Biden’s ascendancy.  It’s not much different on the foreign policy side, so let’s draw the old lesson. You can have democracy at home or empire abroad, but you can’t have both. We will continue to suffer the latter under Joseph R. Biden, Jr.

Those drawn into thinking the Biden regime would conduct America’s affairs abroad decently and humanely and in principled fashion will now discover they have been savagely sucker-punched. Those who understood from the outset that Biden’s people would go nowhere near the essential, determining questions of exceptionalism, universalism, and our consequent dedication to empire will be repelled but not surprised as the policy framework is revealed.

In this case, the moment of truth came even before Biden’s inauguration. His saccharine inauguration speech last Wednesday, with its Hallmark-card calls for unity, was quite secondary to the confirmation hearings the Senate Foreign Relations Committee held the previous day. . . 

. . . Among Blinken’s many rather sad-to-witness “Yes sirs,” two standout: his finely chiseled endorsement of Pompeo’s reckless assassination a year ago of Qassem  Soleimani, Iran’s revered military commander (“Taking him out was the right thing to do”), and his approval of the Trump administration’s decision to send lethal arms to the manically corrupt regime in Kiev (“Senator, I support providing that lethal defensive assistance to Ukraine,” when the Obama administration, from which he comes, did not.)

Late last year, Blinken appeared on “Intelligence Matters,” the podcast run by Michael Morrell, the coup-mongering former deputy director at the Central Intelligence Agency and now — of course — a regular commentator on the televisions news networks. In their exchange, the two took up the question of our “forever wars” and Biden’s well-advertised commitment to ending them. Here is a snippet from Blinken’s remarks:

“As for ending the forever wars, large-scale deployment of large, standing U.S. forces in conflict zones with no clear strategy should and will end under his [Biden’s] watch. But we also need to distinguish between, for example, these endless wars with large-scale, open-ended deployment of U.S. forces with [sic], for example, discreet, small-scale sustainable operations, maybe led by special forces to support local actors. In ending the endless wars we have to be careful not to paint with too broad a brushstroke.”

This is what we are in for these coming years, the hyper-rational irrationality of the middling technocrat. There will be adjustments at the margin, reconsiderations of method. There will be no consideration whatsoever of America’s hegemonic objectives—of the imperial project.