Why Does Nato Still Exist?

By Eric Zuesse

The answer is not pretty.
NATO

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NATO was formed in 1949 because of the threat from the communist bloc, especially the Soviet Union. All of that is ended now. Why, then, has NATO not also ended? The true answer is ugly. Here it is.

All Americans owe a debt of deep gratitude to George Washington, our first leader, who said, in his 1796 Farewell Address as our first President:

We violate that now in so many ways, all to our harm (though to the great benefit of our aristocracy, who own and control our international corporations). “Granting exclusive favors or preferences” is what our existing international-trade treaties, such as NAFTA, are all about (other than about increasing the profits of U.S. corporations by lowering the wages of U.S. workers by shipping those jobs to lower-wage countries or “hollowing out” the U.S. class-structure into an aristocracy versus impoverished workers who are then further insulted by being forced to pay the taxes to support their own food stamps since the taxes on the aristocrats are going down not up, and the aristocracy thus gets the best of both worlds: lower taxes, and higher profits).

Even worse, President Obama now is trying to extend such trade-favoritism to countries surrounding Russia and China, in a hostile move against them that renews the Cold War against communism — as if Russia and China were still communist.

And, worst of all, he is even trying to goad Russia into possibly a hot war by bringing its next-door neighbor, Ukraine, into NATO so as to provide the first-strike, surprise-attack, nuclear capability, of annihilating Moscow within only ten minutes of missile-launch — too little time for Russia to be able to launch its own weapons in retaliation. That’s what our coup in Kiev on February 22nd was actually all about — installing a Ukrainian regime that seeks (and that will be eagerly granted) NATO membership.

So: why does NATO still exist? If it did not exist, then the biggest market for American “defense” contractors would not exist: NATO. It’s not really about defense at all.

George Washington thus was wrong about one thing: When he said that European nations were endangering the United States, he was not even imagining a situation in which the threat would be reversed, and when it would instead become the U.S. itself endangering not only Europe, but the entire world. This has now gotten way beyond even George Washington’s worst nightmare.

People around the world now consider the United States to be the biggest threat to world peace. They are right.

The U.S. regime can say “Look at the threat from Al Qaeda in Iraq,” but before we invaded there in 2003, Al Qaeda was not in Iraq: the dictator there, Saddam Hussein, wouldn’t permit them there. We (our aristocracy, that is) brought Al Qaeda into Iraq.

The American people are being lied to, and should go on strike against the lying regime and its aristocracy’s “news” media, that have successfully fooled the overwhelming majority of the public inside the country — though not outside. It’s just as bad under Barack Obama as it was under George W. Bush, both of whom represent the nation’s aristocracy, not its public. The situation has reached a drastic stage.

NATO must be abolished.

George Washington was right about that.

And the need is now urgent.

And the U.S. must immediately cease and desist and reverse its program of surrounding Russia with nuclear weapons for a first-strike or“nuclear primacy” capability. It is an outrage and a scandal beyond imagining — and it is not imaginary.

It is policy — not words, but actions.

George Washington would be rolling over in his grave to know about it.

This country has fundamentally changed — and not for the better.

The time is late, but not yet too late.

This is not crying “Wolf!” in a crowded theater. It is crying “Fire!” when there still is time to prevent it from becoming a general conflagration.

The public have been deceived, and must become undeceived immediately. The links hereto are thus provided for documentation. The matter is serious; so, serious skepticism is warranted, not only of the claims here, but of the aristocratic regime itself, and of its “news” media. Their lying that got us into Iraq was just the start; the next stage would be far worse. It must be prevented. It must be blocked.

This news report is being sent, without copyright or any charge for distribution to the public, to virtually all English-language news-media. If you see it only in ones that are not “mainstream,” it’s because all of the mainstream ones are controlled by the aristocracy that is benefiting from the current state of affairs. Any news-medium that is not publishing this is controlled by them, and should be boycotted by the public.

The lying must stop. Now.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

They’re Not Even Close: The Democratic vs. Republican Economic Records, 1910-2010, and of CHRIST’S VENTRILOQUISTS: The Event that Created Christianity.

Americans Are Dangerously Politically Ignorant — The Numbers Are Shocking

AlterNet [1] / By CJ Werleman [2]

Brat: A cocoon of formal education concealing appalling ignorance.

June 17, 2014 |

The health of a democracy is dependent on an educated citizenry. Political illiteracy is the manure for the flourishing of political appeals based on sheer ignorance.

So let me introduce you to House Majority Speaker Eric Cantor’s Republican Party vanquisher David Brat (R-VI). First thing you need to know about this far right-wing political upstart is he’s a university professor, which means it’s highly probable he’s not an idiot. He also identifies with the Tea Party strain of conservatism, which, paradoxically, means it’s likely he is, indeed, an idiot. And by idiot, I mean wholly ignorant of U.S. history and constitutionality.

In fact, in his victory speech delivered last week to his supporters, Brat demonstrated that he sits among the majority of Americans when it comes to political and cultural illiteracy.

“I wish to restore America to its Judeo-Christian roots,” declared Brat. “God acted through people on my behalf.”

Ignoring the self-delusion of the latter part of the above text, Brat now joins no less than 200 million Americans, according to a number of polls, who believe the U.S. Constitution and our laws are based on Judeo-Christian values. On any given Sunday you will hear Christian-right politicians claim absurdly that U.S. laws are based on the Bible. Spoiler alert: they’re dead wrong. The Constitution’s secular provisions came into being thanks to the Founding Fathers, who shared a deep suspicion of both organized religion and the supernatural. The Constitution was framed with a conscious omission of any mention of God and a prohibition of all religious tests for public office. Moreover, the First Amendment’s declaration that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion” embodied the founders’ view that religion has no place in the political domain.

That not a single major media outlet bothered to correct Brat’s ignorance represents America’s continual decline in American civic and cultural literacy.

“Every shortcoming of American governance is related in some fashion to the knowledge deficit of the public – if only because there is no widespread indignation at policies shaped by elected officials who suffer from the same intellectual blind spots as their constituents,” observed Susan Jacoby, author of The Age of American Unreason.

The nation’s collective ignorance as it pertains to cultural and civic literacy paves the way for extremist politicians to convince the public of the validity of extreme positions.

So how bad is America’s political literacy?

A 2007 National Constitutional Center poll found that two-thirds of Americans couldn’t name all three branches of the U.S. federal government, nor a single Supreme Court justice. Another poll found that 91 percent couldn’t name the current Chief Justice, which is staggering considering the number of high profile, politically polarizing cases deliberated upon by the nation’s highest court in recent years – including the rulings on the Affordable Care Act, same-sex marriage and campaign finance laws.

It gets worse. When respondents were asked whether they could recall any of the rights guaranteed by the First Amendment, a majority could name only free speech. More than a third were unable to list any First Amendment rights. The National Constitution Center also found that 42 percent of Americans think the Constitution explicitly states that “the first language of the United States is English;” and 25 percent believe Christianity was established in the Constitution as the official government religion.

Only 40 percent of adults know that there are 100 Senators in the U.S. Congress, while a great majority of Americans have no idea of when or by whom the Constitution was written. A 2010 Pew Research Center survey [3] of American’s knowledge of public affairs and politics revealed that political literacy has been in rapid and continual descent since high water mark of the 1950s. While one may be forgiven for not understanding all the quirky procedural rules of the U.S. Senate, one should be suitably embarrassed if one cannot at least correctly identify the number of votes needed to end a filibuster, but on that – more than two-thirds of Americans do not know the answer is 60.

This rising tide of ignorance threatens the very foundation of American democracy. Bertolt Brecht, the 20th century German playwright and poet, wrote, “The worst illiterate is the political illiterate, he doesn’t hear, doesn’t speak, nor participates in the political events. He doesn’t know the cost of life, the price of the bean, of the fish, of the flour, of the rent, of the shoes and of the medicine, all depends on political decisions. The political illiterate is so stupid that he is proud and swells his chest saying that he hates politics. The imbecile doesn’t know that, from his political ignorance is born the prostitute, the abandoned child, and the worst thieves of all, the bad politician, corrupted and flunky of the national and multinational companies.”

Brecht nails it! Political illiteracy is what propels middle class workers to protest the expansion of collective bargaining laws, like what happened recently in Tennessee when Volkswagen allowed its workers to vote for union membership by holding placards sponsored by Americans For Prosperity. If there was a better example of Orwellian genius than Americans For Prosperity, I haven’t seen it. I mean, who doesn’t want prosperity? But less than 10 percent of Americans know that Americans For Prosperity is a political action committee wholly and solely funded and founded by David and Charles Koch. Its sole purpose is to ensure the continued prosperity of David and Charles Koch, which ultimately comes at the expense of the same middle class workers holding Americans For Prosperity placards.

An embrace of infantile emotionalism has supplanted political literacy. Henry Giroux, author of Zombie Politics and Culture in the Age of Casino Capitalism, writes:

It [infantile emotionalism] is perfectly suited for emptying the language of public life of all substantive content, reduced in the end to a playground for hawking commodities, promoting celebrity culture and enacting the spectacle of right-wing fantasies fueled by the fear that the public sphere as an exclusive club for white male Christians is in danger of collapsing. For some critics, those who carry guns to rallies or claim Obama is a Muslim and not a bona fide citizen of the United States are simply representative of an extremist fringe, that gets far more publicity from the mainstream media than they deserve. Of course this is understandable, given that the media’s desire for balance and objective news is not just disingenuous but relinquishes any sense of ethical responsibility by failing to make a distinction between an informed argument and an unsubstantiated opinion.

There are a great number of reasons for the decline in American political literacy. One that cannot be overlooked is the absence of national standards, which is why American children know so much less about their history than European children know about the history of their native lands. Another is the collapse of journalistic standards.

Giroux writes: “The United States is a country that is increasingly defined by a civic deficit, a chronic and deadly form of civic illiteracy that points to the failure of both its educational system and the growing ability of anti-democratic forces to use the educational force of the culture to promote the new illiteracy. As this widespread illiteracy has come to dominate American culture, we have moved from a culture of questioning to a culture of shouting and in doing so have restaged politics and power in both unproductive and anti-democratic ways,”

In other words, when Republicans say there is no such thing as gravity, and Democrats reply that gravity is real, CNN and the like say, “Look, Democrats and Republicans are fighting again,” which not only exacerbates the nation’s anti-intellectualism and anti-rationalism, but also increases the likelihood of extremist views and falsehoods taking hold in the national electorate.

Source URL: http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/americans-are-dangerously-politically-ignorant-numbers-are-shockin

US in Iraq: Geopolitical Arsonists Seek to Burn Region

TONY CARTALUCCI, Land Destroyer

ISIS: Made in USA

The Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) is a creation of the United States and its Persian Gulf allies, namely Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and recently added to the list, Kuwait. The Daily Beast in an article titled, “America’s Allies Are Funding ISIS,” states:

The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), now threatening Baghdad, was funded for years by wealthy donors in Kuwait, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia, three U.S. allies that have dual agendas in the war on terror.

Despite the candor of the opening sentence, the article would unravel into a myriad of lies laid to obfuscate America’s role in the creation of ISIS. The article would claim:

The extremist group that is threatening the existence of the Iraqi state was built and grown for years with the help of elite donors from American supposed allies in the Persian Gulf region. There, the threat of Iran, Assad, and the Sunni-Shiite sectarian war trumps the U.S. goal of stability and moderation in the region.

However, the US goal in the region was never “stability” and surely not “moderation.” As early as 2007, sources within the Pentagon and across the US intelligence community revealed a conspiracy to drown the Middle East in sectarian war, and to do so by arming and funding extremist groups including the Muslim Brotherhood and Al Qaeda itself. Published in 2007 – a full 4 years before the 2011 “Arab Spring” would begin – Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Seymour Hersh’s New Yorker article titled, “”The Redirection: Is the Administration’s new policy benefiting our enemies in the war on terrorism?” stated specifically (emphasis added):

To undermine Iran, which is predominantly Shiite, the Bush Administration has decided, in effect, to reconfigure its priorities in the Middle East. In Lebanon, the Administration has coöperated with Saudi Arabia’s government, which is Sunni, in clandestine operations that are intended to weaken Hezbollah, the Shiite organization that is backed by Iran. The U.S. has also taken part in clandestine operations aimed at Iran and its ally Syria. A by-product of these activities has been the bolstering of Sunni extremist groups that espouse a militant vision of Islam and are hostile to America and sympathetic to Al Qaeda.

The 9 page, extensive report has since been vindicated many times over with revelations of US, NATO, and Persian Gulf complicity in raising armies of extremists within Libya and along Syria’s borders. ISIS itself, which is claimed to occupy a region stretching from northeastern Syria and across northern and western Iraq, has operated all along Turkey’s border with Syria, “coincidentally” where the US CIA has conducted years of “monitoring” and arming of “moderate” groups.

In fact, the US admits it has armed, funded, and equipped “moderates” to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars. In a March 2013 Telegraph article titled, “US and Europe in ‘major airlift of arms to Syrian rebels through Zagreb’,” it was reported that a single program included 3,000 tons of weapons sent in 75 planeloads paid for by Saudi Arabia at the bidding of the United States. The New York Times in its article, “Arms Airlift to Syria Rebels Expands, With C.I.A. Aid,” admits that the CIA assisted Arab governments and Turkey with military aid to terrorists fighting in Syria constituting hundreds of airlifts landing in both Jordan and Turkey.

The vast scale of US, NATO, and Arab aid to terrorists fighting in Syria leaves no doubt that the conspiracy described by Hersh in 2007 was carried out in earnest, and that the reason Al Qaeda groups such as Al Nusra and ISIS displaced so-called “moderates,” was because such “moderates” never existed in any significant manner to begin with. While articles like the Daily Beast’s “America’s Allies Are Funding ISIS” now try to portray a divide between US and Persian Gulf foreign policy, from Hersh’s 2007 article and all throughout the past 3 years in Libya and Syria, the goal of raising an army in the name of Al Qaeda has been clearly shared and demonstrably pursued by both the US and its regional partners.

The plan, from the beginning, was to raise an extremist expeditionary force to trigger a regional sectarian bloodbath – a bloodbath now raging across multiple borders and set to expand further if decisive action is not taken.

iraq-IraqiArmyHighway

Despite an open conspiracy to drown the region in sectarian strife, the US now poses as a stakeholder in Iraq’s stability. Having armed, funded, and assisted ISIS into existence and into northern Iraq itself, the idea of America “intervening” to stop ISIS is comparable to an arsonist extinguishing his fire with more gasoline. Reviled across the region, any government – be it in Baghdad, Tehran, or Damascus – that allies itself with the US will be immediately tainted in the minds of forces forming along both sides of this artificially created but growing sectarian divide. Iran’s mere consideration of joint-operations with the US can strategically hobble any meaningful attempts on the ground to stop ISIS from establishing itself in Iraq and using Iraqi territory to launch attacks against both Tehran and Damascus.Any Iranian assistance to Iraq should be given only under the condition that the US not intervene in any manner. Iran’s main concern should be portraying the true foreign-funded nature of ISIS, while uniting genuine Sunni and Shia’a groups together to purge what is a foreign invasion of Iraqi territory. Iran must also begin allaying fears among Iraq’s Sunni population that Tehran may try to use the current crisis to gain further influence over Baghdad.While the US downplays the sectarian aspects of ISIS’ invasion of Iraq before global audiences, its propaganda machine across the Middle East, assisted by Doha and Riyadh, is stoking sectarian tensions. The ISIS has committed itself to a campaign of over-the-top sectarian vitriol and atrocities solely designed to trigger a wider Sunni-Shia’a conflict. That the US created ISIS and it is now in Iraq attempting to stoke a greater bloodbath with its already abhorrent invasion, is precisely why Tehran and Baghdad should take a cue from Damascus, and disassociate itself from the West, dealing with ISIS themselves.

Tony Cartalucci, is a Bangkok-based geopolitical researcher and writer, especially for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

US Wars: Defining Victory

STEVEN JONAS MD, MPH, Senior Editor
The Vietnam War was a US victory. The peaceful establishment of socialism was prevented. The country was devastated…as an example for those who might dream of defying the malignant empire.

viet-Saigon-USembassyTop-hubert-van-es

Were wars since Vietnam won or lost by the US? The answer to those questions may not appear to be the obvious ones. If the unspoken government objectives of the various wars are taken into account, indeed they aren’t. Let us start with Vietnam.

The standard interpretation of the US War on Vietnam is that the US lost it. The classic picture is of that last helicopter taking off from the roof of the soon-to-be former US Embassy in Saigon. But if one considers the original US objectives of the intervention-to-become-war in Southeast Asia, it was actually a win.

The French-Vietnamese War ended in 1954. The Geneva Conference of that year produced a treaty signed by the French and the Vietnamese and guaranteed by Great Britain and the Soviet Union. It brought hostilities to an end, temporarily divided the country in two, and provided for national elections to be held in 1956 — elections that everyone knew would be won by Ho Chi Minh and his people. Pointedly, the US refused to sign or recognize the treaty.

They knew that if the plan in it were allowed to proceed, the chances were very good that Vietnam would peacefully progress to socialism and could be an economic success. If that happened, the same thing might well peacefully occur in other Southeast Asian countries, were democracy to be given a chance. Even as certain US analysts attempt in hindsight to disavow it, the “domino theory” about the spread of “socialism with a national face,” distinguished from and not necessarily allied with the Soviet Union, and certainly not with the traditional enemy, China, communist or not, was quite correct.

viet-fallofSaigon

And so, in the view of the US leadership of the time, the Dulles Brothers, John Foster at State and Allen at the CIA, everything had to be done that could be done to prevent the democratic process from introducing socialism to a country and then possibly succeeding in a peaceful setting. Once started, the process just continued on its own momentum, especially since any opponent of the war was labelled a “commie sympathizer” or worse by its supporters.

If looked at in this light, the Vietnam War was a US victory. The peaceful establishment of socialism was prevented. Its spread by example and peaceful means to neighbouring countries was prevented. Vietnam today has a sort of market socialist economy, becoming more “market” and less “socialist” by the year. But the country was ravaged by almost 20 years of war and two to three million of the best and the brightest of its people were killed. It is hardly the economic or social engine of the development of democratically-installed socialism that it might have become had it been left alone. In terms of the original American goals for the intervention, this was a win, a palpable win.

Next, let’s consider the various interventions in the former Yugoslavia. Certainly lives were saved and a good deal of stability was eventually established, in Bosnia and Kosovo. But they do not fall under the usual rubric of “victory.” In terms of the promotion of US imperialism around the world, however, “victory” was achieved. The US showed, for example, that it could bomb the capital of another sovereign nation for 70 or so days straight, without UN sanction, and no one with any authority could say boo to a goose. In terms of international law, it was sort of like the Japanese invasion of Manchuria, the Italian invasions of Libya and Ethiopia, and the German-Austrian Anschluss. In terms of Kosovo, the US showed that a piece of a sovereign country, in this case Serbia, could be split off from it and made into an independent country, again without UN sanction. (Ukraine/Crimea, anyone?) And the US has a quite large permanent military base in Kosovo—Camp Bondsteel. Spoils of war?

And then we come to Iraq. It is now teetering on the brink of even more disaster than it has been subject to since the US invasion, and political figures like “Negative Ace” McCain are now shouting that the US should have stayed there, and it’s “all Obama’s fault.” As I said in a recent Tweet, “Blaming Obama for Iraq tragedy is like blaming the sweepers for the elephant droppings needing clean up after the circus parade has passed.” (Yes, and the “elephants” were purposely chosen.) This is so even though George Bush could not negotiate a Status of Forces Agreement with his hand-picked Prime Minister, al-Maliki, to exempt US troops and civilian contractors from local law in the case of violations of it, and that Obama has just lost it by the pull-out. (That’s an excellent, in-depth column by Dexter Filkins, by the way.) If Iraq falls into civil war or is split up into three parts (which Joe Biden and I must say myself both suggested shortly after the beginning of hostilities), many voices will indeed be shouting “loss.” But once again, in terms of the original objectives, it was not.

First of all, one of its original major justifications, other than the non-existent WMD, was that the War on Iraq was a part of the “War on Terror” (which is still going on). One should note (and I must note that I have done so on a number of occasions) that, according to one retired Army General, to call a military action a “War on Terror” is akin to calling another action a “War on Flanking Manoeuvres.” “Terror,” however you want to define it, is a tactic used by an enemy. It is not itself an enemy. But it was very much in the interests of those forces [inside America] which forced the US into war to cement the “terror/fear” environment in the minds of the US people. And they certainly have achieved that goal, within the GOP/TP “base,” at least.

Second of all, sometime after the Iraq invasion began, it started to become clear that the primary objective was not at the beginning what many of us on the Left thought it was: “oil and bases” – and it was to a degree. However, there was a goal that was probably more compelling to the neocons, although not mutually exclusive.

On the surface, the CheneyBush War Policy was becoming curiouser and curiouser. “Things are getting better in Iraq,” they said, when they were clearly getting worse. “We must fight on to ‘victory’ ” they said, without ever defining what they mean by “victory.” And “we must fight on to ‘victory'” when virtually every other military and political authority on the matter said that no matter how you would define it, “victory” was impossible. But that would be “victory” in military terms.

However, let’s connect the dots to see what was really happening. 1. As is very well known, Bush/Cheney lied the U.S. into war. 2. There was no post-war planning, as is also well known. The U.S. State Department had a plan, and all 2,200 pages of it were just ignored. 3. The museums looting that could easily have been prevented could have part of a plan (well a different kind of plan) to develop permanent chaos. That would also explain the staffing of Paul Bremer’s pro-consulate by totally unqualified, very young, Republican political operatives: not accidental or careless, but purposeful. In essence it was thinking what might be stated like this: “Let’s do whatever we can to gum up the infrastructure even further than it is already gummed up by Saddam and our invasion.” 4. In late 2006, the report of The Iraq Study Group, headed by no less than the man who coordinated the effort to steal the 2000 election for Bush, James Baker, had provided a perfect cover for withdrawal to begin then. CheneyBush disposed of it before the ink was dry, and [the famous/infamous “Surge” was begun. 5. At various times, the major Muslim countries offered to provide cover for an American departure, especially if it were attached to a real settlement of the Palestine/Israel problem. They were not taken up on those offers.

In the 2008 Presidential campaign, John McCain at one time rattled on about “staying in Iraq for 50 years.” (Gosh. Some things never change, changing conditions to the contrary notwithstanding). Indeed, the US eventually left Iraq, not with any kind of “victory” but because it was pushed out, by the very puppet government that Bush/Cheney set up. But the Permanent War Society, or at least the Permanent Preparation for Permanent War Society, is very much in play. In terms of its original objectives, regardless of what happens in the Middle East now, the War on Iraq can only be said to have resulted in a victory – for those who originally planned and prosecuted it.

As for Afghanistan, that may be the one major war the US has fought since World War II that could not be said to be, in any sense of the term, a “victory.” But that one’s for another time.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Senior Contributing Editor Steven Jonas, MD, MPH is a Professor Emeritus of Preventive Medicine at Stony Brook University (NY) and author/co-author/editor/co-editor of over 30 books. In addition to being a contributor to The Greanville Post, he is a columnist for BuzzFlash@Truthout and the Editorial Director of and a Contributing Author to The Political Junkies for Progressive Democracy. Dr. Jonas’ latest book is The 15% Solution: How the Republican Religious Right Took Control of the U.S., 1981-2022: A futuristic Novel, Brewster, NY, Trepper & Katz Impact Books, Punto Press Publishing, 2013, and available on Amazon.

The Very Normal Face of North Korea—the “Inscrutable Kingdom”

North Korea –
FACES AND LANDSCAPES
Photo reportage by André Vltchek

Public housing in Pyongyang. How many American poor would be happy to live like that?

Prefatory note by the editor:

We are happy to be able to present the work of our new special correspondent Andre Vltchek, a man who has traveled the world seeking the stories, the facts, and the images that people everywhere need to form reliable opinions about reality. Especially in matters concerning war and peace, the former the greatest crime that leaders and politicians can commit, the latter the greatest good that humanity can aspire to. But it must be a peace grounded in justice. For only justice guarantees a lasting peace.

PLEASE CLICK ON ANY IMAGE TO DISPLAY IT TO MAXIMUM EFFECT

The image of North Korea (formally the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea) has been maliciously distorted by the West for generations, a deformation that began even before WW II had ended, founded in the relentless and all-consuming anticommunism that fuels policy and mass communications in all capitalist nations, and particularly in the United States. The of this propaganda war is that North Korea stands today as one of the worst understood and most demonized nations on earth, and like any other nation not submitting to the American empire’s commands, a pariah subject to devastating attacks at the whim and convenience of the cabals in Washington.

North Korea’s plight largely a product of foreign meddling

Yet understanding North Korea is not that difficult. All that is needed is a modicum of empathetic imagination, decencyl, and compassion leavened with a bit of solid historical knowledge, qualities unfortunately sorely lacking in US culture.

North Korea lost close to thirty percent of its population as a result of US-led bombings in the 1950s. US military sources confirm that 20 percent of North Korea’s (1950s) population was killed off over a three-year period of intensive bombings.

“After destroying North Korea’s 78 cities and thousands of her villages, and killing countless numbers of her civilians, [General] LeMay remarked, “[In just] over a period of three years or so we killed off – what – twenty percent of the population.” [See also “An Inconvenient Truth: The Genocidal Toll Inflicted on Koreans by The United States.“]

—P. Greanville

CONTINUE READING HERE (THIS LINK ALSO TAKES YOU TO THE SPECIAL FULL PHOTO PRESENTATION)