CFR Says China Must Be Defeated, & TPP Is Essential to That

Eric Zuesse

Richard Haass: We have met the enemy, and it’s people like this, US supremacists at any cost. This guy and his ilk represent the cancer at the core of the American nation.

[dropcap]W[/dropcap]all Street’s Council on Foreign Relations has issued a major report, alleging that China must be defeated because it threatens to become a bigger power in the world than the U.S.

This report, which is titled “Revising U.S. Grand Strategy Toward China,” is introduced by Richard Haass, the CFR’s President, who affirms the report’s view that, “no relationship will matter more when it comes to defining the twenty-first century than the one between the United States and China.” He says that the report he is publishing argues that “strategic rivalry is highly likely if not inevitable between the existing major power of the day and the principal rising power.” Haass says that the authors “also argue that China has not evolved into the ‘responsible stakeholder’ that many in the United States hoped it would.” In other words: “cooperation” with China will probably need to become replaced by, as the report’s authors put it, “intense U.S.-China strategic competition.”

Haass gives this report his personal imprimatur by saying that it “deserves to become an important part of the debate about U.S. foreign policy and the pivotal U.S.-China relationship.” He acknowledges that some people won’t agree with the views it expresses.

The report itself then opens by saying: “Since its founding, the United States has consistently pursued a grand strategy focused on acquiring and maintaining preeminent power over various rivals, first on the North American continent, then in the Western hemisphere, and finally globally.” It praises “the American victory in the Cold War.” It then lavishes praise on America’s imperialistic dominance: “The Department of Defense during the George H.W. Bush administration presciently contended that its ‘strategy must now refocus on precluding the emergence of any potential future global competitor’—thereby consciously pursuing the strategy of primacy that the United States successfully employed to outlast the Soviet Union.”

The rest of the report is likewise concerned with the international dominance of America’s plutocracy or the people who control this country’s international corporations, rather than with the welfare of the public or as the U.S. Constitution described the objective of the American Government: “the general welfare.”

The Preamble, or sovereignty clause, in the Constitution, presented that goal in this broader context: “in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity.”

The Council on Foreign Relations, as a representative of Wall Street, is concerned only with the dominance of America’s plutocracy. Their new report, about “Revising U.S. Grand Strategy Toward China,” is like a declaration of war by America’s plutocracy, against China’s plutocracy. This report has no relationship to the U.S. Constitution, though it advises that the U.S. Government pursue this “Grand Strategy Toward China” irrespective of whether doing that would even be consistent with the U.S. Constitution’s Preamble.

With characteristic hypocrisy and self-righteous indignation, the CFR report imputes to China the very “hegemonic” crimes the US has been guilty of for more than 75 years and counting. ———Editors

The report repeats in many different contexts the basic theme, that China threatens “hegemonic” dominance in Asia. For example:

“China’s sustained economic success over the past thirty-odd years has enabled it to aggregate formidable power, making it the nation most capable of dominating the Asian continent and thus undermining the traditional U.S. geopolitical objective of ensuring that this arena remains free of hegemonic control.”

The report never allows the matter of America’s “hegemonic control” to be even raised. Thus, “hegemony” is presumed to be evil and to be something that the U.S. must block other nations from having, because there is a “traditional U.S. geopolitical objective of ensuring that this arena remains free of hegemonic control.” In other words: the U.S. isn’t being “hegemonic” by defeating aspiring hegemons. The report offers no term to refer to “hegemony” that’s being practiced by the U.S.

The report presents China as being supremacist, such as what (to quote again from the report) “historian Wang Gungwu has described as a ‘principle of superiority’ underwriting Beijing’s ‘long-hallowed tradition of treating foreign countries as all alike but unequal and inferior to China.’ Consistent with this principle, Henry Kissinger, describing the traditional sinocentric system, has correctly noted that China ‘considered itself, in a sense, the sole sovereign government of the world.’” America’s own ‘Manifest Destiny’ or right to regional (if not global) supremacy is not discussed, because supremacism is attributed only to the aristocracies in other countries, not to the plutocracy in this country.

Rather than the “general welfare,” this document emphasizes “U.S. Vital National Interests,” which are the interests of America’s plutocrats, the owners of America’s large international corporations.

This report urges:

“The United States should invest in defense capabilities and capacity specifically to defeat China’s emerging anti-access capabilities and permit successful U.S. power projection even against concerted opposition from Beijing. … Congress should remove sequestration caps and substantially increase the U.S. defense budget.”

In other words: the Government should spiral upward the U.S. debt even more vertically (which is good for Wall Street), and, in order to enable the increased ‘defense’ expenditures, only ‘defense’ expenditures should be freed from spending-caps. Forget the public, serve the owners of ‘defense’ firms and of the large international corporations who rely on the U.S. military to protect their property abroad.

The report says that China would have no reason to object to such policies: “There is no reason why a China that did not seek to overturn the balance of power in Asia should object to the policy prescriptions contained in this report.” Only a “hegemonic” China (such as the report incessantly alleges to exist, while the U.S. itself is not ‘hegemonic’) would object; and, therefore, the U.S. should ignore China’s objections, because they would be, by definition ‘hegemonic.’ Or, in other words: God is on our side, not on theirs.

“Washington simply cannot have it both ways—to accommodate Chinese concerns regarding U.S. power projection into Asia through ‘strategic reassurance’ and at the same time to promote and defend U.S. vital national interests in this vast region.”

The authors make clear that U.S. President Obama is not sufficiently hostile toward China: “All signs suggest that President Obama and his senior colleagues have a profoundly different and much more benign diagnosis of China’s strategic objectives in Asia than do we.”

Furthermore, the report ends by portraying Obama as weak on the anti-China front: “Many of these omissions in U.S. policy would seem to stem from an administration worried that such actions would offend Beijing and therefore damage the possibility of enduring strategic cooperation between the two nations, thus the dominating emphasis on cooperation. That self-defeating preoccupation by the United States based on a long-term goal of U.S.-China strategic partnership that cannot be accomplished in the foreseeable future should end.”

The report’s “Recommendations for U.S. Grand Strategy Toward China” urges Congress to “Deliver on the Trans-Pacific Partnership, … as a geoeconomic answer to growing Chinese economic power and geopolitical coercion in Asia,” but it fails to mention that the Obama Administration has already embodied the authors’ viewpoint and objectives in the TPP, which Obama created, and which cuts China out; it could hardly be a better exemplar of their agenda. The authors, in fact, state the exact opposite: that Obama’s objective in his TPP has instead been merely “as a shot in the arm of a dying Doha Round at the World Trade Organization (WTO).” They even ignore that Obama had cut China out of his proposed TPP.

Furthermore, here is what President Obama himself told graduating West Point cadets on 28 May 2014:

“Russia’s aggression [sic] toward former Soviet states unnerves capitals in Europe, while China’s economic rise and military reach worries its neighbors. From Brazil to India, rising middle classes compete with us, and governments seek a greater say in global forums.” He was saying that these future military leaders will be using guns and bombs to enforce America’s economic dominance. This is the same thing that the CFR report is saying.

His speech also asserted: “I believe in American exceptionalism with every fiber of my being. … The United States is and remains the one indispensable nation. That has been true for the century passed and it will be true for the century to come.” (That even resembles: “Henry Kissinger, describing the traditional sinocentric system, has correctly noted that China ‘considered itself, in a sense, the sole sovereign government of the world.’” Obama is, in a sense, saying that America is the “sole sovereign government in the world.”)

He made clear that China is “dispensable,” and that the U.S. must stay on top.

[dropcap]H[/dropcap]owever, there is a difference between Obama and the CFR on one important thing: Obama sees Russia as the chief country which the U.S. must dominate militarily, and China as the chief country to dominate economically. But in that regard, he is actually old-line Republican, just like his 2012 opponent Mitt Romney is. The only difference from Romney on that is: Obama wasn’t so foolish as to acknowledge publicly a belief that he shared with Romney but already knew was an unpopular position to take in the general election.

Furthermore, whereas the CFR report ignores the public’s welfare, Obama does give lip-service to that as being a matter of concern (just as he gave lip-service to opposing Romney’s assertion that Russia is “our number one geopolitical foe”). After all, he is a ‘Democrat,’ and the authors of the CFR report write instead as if they were presenting a Republican Party campaign document. No ‘Democrat’ can be far-enough to the political right to satisfy Republican operatives. The pretense that they care about the public is therefore far less, because the Republican Party is far more open about its support of, by, and for, the super-rich. Mitt Romney wasn’t the only Republican who had contempt for the lower 47%. But even he tried to deny that he had meant it. In that sense, the CFR’s report is a Republican document, one which, quite simply, doesn’t offer the public the lip-service that Obama does (and which he politically must, in order to retain support even within his own party).

Perhaps on account of the CFR report’s condemning Obama for not being sufficiently right-wing — even though he is actually a conservative Republican on all but social issues (where China policy isn’t particularly relevant) — the report has received no mention in the mainstream press, ever since it was originally issued, back in March of this year. For whatever reason, America’s ‘news’ media ignored the report, notwithstanding its importance as an expression of old-style imperialistic thinking that comes from what many consider to be the prime foreign-affairs mouthpiece of America’s plutocracy — the CFR. The report’s first coverage was on 2 May 2015 at the World Socialist Web Site, which briefly paraphrased it but didn’t even link to it. Then, two days later, Stephen Lendman wrote about the CFR report. He briefly paraphrased it and passionately condemned it. He did link to the report. But he didn’t note the WSWS article, which had first informed the public of the CFR report’s existence — an existence which, until the WSWS article, all of America’s ‘press’ had simply ignored.

The present article is the first one to quote the CFR report, instead of merely to paraphrase and attack it. The quotations that were selected are ones presenting the report’s main points, so that readers here can see these points stated as they were written, rather than merely as I have interpreted them. My interpretation is in addition to, rather than a substitute for, what the report itself says.

They’re Not Even Close: The Democratic vs. Republican Economic Records, 1910-2010, and of CHRIST’S VENTRILOQUISTS: The Event that Created Christianity, and of Feudalism, Fascism, Libertarianism and Economics. [/box]

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Declassified: CIA Worked With China To Attack Russia

The covert CIA-China cooperation was part of the successive administrations’ program to destroy the Soviet Union and then Russia

Deng Xiaoping was the father of the “capitalist road” to China’s modernization. His dismissal of Maoist principles, the result of a pitched internal struggle at the core of China’s Communist Party, ran parallel with a rapprochement with the US which automatically froze China’s relations with the USSR. Now Washington’s over-reach and brazen militarism is bringing the two former Communist giants closer again.

[dropcap]O[/dropcap]n Thursday, the U.S. Defense Secretary Ashton Carter admitted that Russian hackers had infiltrated into the Pentagon’s computer network earlier this year. It was the latest high-profile hack of the U.S. government networks by Russian hackers. Over the past few months, Washington has also accused China of hacking the U.S. satellite network, weather systems, and the U.S. Postal Service network.

The book sheds light on some of the CIA’s darkest secrets

But, not too long ago, the CIA was actively working with Chinese intelligence agencies to target Russia. According to a recently published book The Hundred Year Marathon by former Pentagon official Michael Pillsbury, the covert CIA-China cooperation was part of Washington’s program to destroy the Soviet Union and then Russia.

The book was published after being cleared by the CIA, FBI and Pentagon, reports Bill Gertz of The Washington Times. The clandestine cooperation started in 1970s when China realized that the Soviet Union’s Marxist-Leninist economic model was doomed. Beijing started moving closer to the U.S. for economic benefits as it continued to create an overhauled communist economic system with Chinese characteristics.

Michael Pillsbury was the in-charge of covert operations. The CIA and Chinese agencies worked together on an electronic spying program code-named Chestnut that targeted the Soviet Union and then Russia. The U.S. intelligence agency also conducted covert operations to ship Chinese arms to Afghan rebels battling Soviet forces.

China sold weapons to CIA to give them to rebels

In a revelation that could embarrass China, the book mentions that the U.S. and Chinese agencies carried out an operation to arm 50,000 anti-Vietnam rebels in Cambodia starting 1982. The initial budget for this operation was $2 million a year, which was later increased to $12 million per year. “The Chinese not only sold the weapons to us to give to the rebels, but also advised us on how to conduct these covert operations,” Pillsbury said.

Pillsbury told Inside the Ring that he was “delighted” that many of the things that would have been considered classified a few years ago were approved for publishing. Ronald Reagan also provided China advanced technology under a secret directive to strengthen China. The U.S. discontinued military assistance after the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre, but continued to provide other assistance.

SOURCE: http://osnetdaily.com/2015/04/declassified-cia-worked-with-china-to-attack-russia/

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The Saker interviews Paul Craig Roberts

On Russia, the Deep State, Role and Power of the Elites, and the Global Economy

PREFATORY NOTE
[dropcap]I [/dropcap]had wanted to interview Paul Craig Roberts for a long time already. For many years I have been following his writings and interviews and every time I read what he had to say I was hoping that one day I would have the privilege to interview him about the nature of the US deep state and the Empire. Recently, I emailed him and asked for such an interview, and he very kindly agreed. I am very grateful for this opportunity.

—The Saker

The Saker: It has become rather obvious to many, if not most, people that the USA is not a democracy or a republic, but rather a plutocracy run by a small elite which some call “the 1%”. Others speak of the “deep state”. So my first question to you is the following. Could you please take the time to assess the influence and power of each of the following entities, one by one. In particular, can you specify for each of the following whether it has a decision-making “top” position, or a decision-implementing “middle” position in the real structure of power (listed in no specific order)

Federal Reserve
Big Banking
Bilderberg
Council on Foreign Relations
CIA
Goldman Sachs and top banks
“Top 100 families” (Rothschild, Rockefeller, Dutch Royal Family, British Royal Family, etc.)
Israel Lobby
Freemasons and their lodges
Big Business: Big Oil, Military Industrial Complex, etc.
Other people or organizations not listed above?

Who, which group, what entity would you consider is really at the apex of power in the current US polity?

Paul Craig Roberts: The US is ruled by private interest groups and by the neoconservative ideology that History has chosen the US as the “exceptional and indispensable” country with the right and responsibility to impose its will on the world.

In my opinion the most powerful of the private interest groups are:

•The Military/security Complex
•The 4 or 5 mega-sized “banks too big to fail” and Wall Street
•The Israel Lobby
•Agribusiness
•The Extractive industries (oil, mining, timber).

The interests of these interest groups coincide with those of the neoconservatives. The neoconservative ideology supports American financial and military-political imperialism or hegemony.

There is no independent American print or TV media. In the last years of the Clinton regime, 90% of the print and TV media was concentrated in 6 mega-companies. During the Bush regime, National Public Radio lost its independence. So the media functions as a Ministry of Propaganda.

Both political parties, Republicans and Democrats, are dependent on the same private interest groups for campaign funds, so both parties dance to the same masters. Jobs offshoring destroyed the manufacturing and industrial unions and deprived the Democrats of Labor Union political contributions. In those days, Democrats represented the working people and Republicans represented business.
.
The Federal Reserve is there for the banks, mainly the large ones.
.
[dropcap]T[/dropcap]he Federal Reserve was created as lender of last resort to prevent banks from failing because of runs on the bank or withdrawal of deposits. The New York Fed, which conducts the financial interventions, has a board that consists of the executives of the big banks. The last three Federal Reserve chairmen have been Jews, and the current vice chairman is the former head of the Israeli central bank. Jews are prominent in the financial sector, for example, Goldman Sachs. In recent years, the US Treasury Secretaries and heads of the financial regulatory agencies have mainly been the bank executives responsible for the fraud and excessive debt leverage that set off the last financial crisis.

“The neoconservative ideology supports American financial and military-political imperialism or hegemony…”

In the 21st century, the Federal Reserve and Treasury have served only the interests of the large banks. This has been at the expense of the economy and the population. For example, retired people have had no interest income for eight years in order that the financial institutions can borrow at zero costs and make money.

No matter how rich some families are, they cannot compete with powerful interest groups such as the military/security complex or Wall Street and the banks. Long established wealth can look after its interests, and some, such as the Rockefellers, have activist foundations that most likely work hand in hand with the National Endowment for Democracy to fund and encourage various pro-American non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in countries that the US wants to influence or overthrow, such as occurred in Ukraine.

[dropcap]T[/dropcap]he NGOs are essentially US Fifth Columns which operate under such names as “human rights,” “democracy,” etc. A Chinese professor told me that the Rockefeller Foundation had created an American University in China and is used to organize various anti-regime Chinese. At one time, and perhaps still, there were hundreds of US and German financed NGOs in Russia, possibly as many as 1,000.

I don’t know if the Bilderbergs do the same. Possibly they are just very rich people and have their proteges in governments who try to protect their interests. I have never seen any signs of Bilderbergs or Masons or Rothchilds affecting congressional or executive branch decisions.

On the other hand, the Council for Foreign Relations is influential. The council consists of former government policy officials and academics involved in foreign policy and international relations. The council’s publication, Foreign Affairs, is the premier foreign policy forum. Some journalists are also members. When I was proposed for membership in the 1980s, I was blackballed.

Skull & Bones is a Yale University secret fraternity. A number of universities have such secret fraternities. For example, the University of Virginia has one, and the University of Georgia. These fraternities do not have secret governmental plots or ruling powers. Their influence would be limited to the personal influence of the members, who tend to be sons of elite families. In my opinion, these fraternities exist to convey elite status to members. They have no operational functions.

The Saker: What about individuals? Who are, in your opinion, the most powerful people in the USA today? Who takes the final, top level, strategic decision?

Paul Craig Roberts: There really are no people powerful in themselves. Powerful people are ones that powerful interest groups are behind. Ever since Secretary of Defense William Perry privatized so much of the military in 1991, the military/security complex has been extremely powerful, and its power is further amplified by its ability to finance political campaigns and by the fact that it is a source of employment in many states. Essentially Pentagon expenditures are controlled by defense contractors.

The Saker: I have always believed that in international terms, organizations such as NATO, the EU or all the others are only a front, and that the real alliance which controls the planet are the ECHELON countries: US, UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand aka “AUSCANNZUKUS” (they are also referred to as the “Anglosphere” or the “Five Eyes”) with the US and the UK the senior partners while Canada, Australia and New Zealand are the junior partners here. Is this model correct?

Paul Craig Roberts: NATO was a US creation allegedly to protect Europe from a Soviet invasion. Its purpose expired in 1991. Today NATO provides cover for US aggression and provides mercenary forces for the American Empire. Britain, Canada, Australia, are simply US vassal states just as are Germany, France, Italy, Japan and the rest. There are no partners; just vassals. It is Washington’s empire, no one else’s.

The US favors the EU, because it is easier to control than the individual countries.

The Saker: It is often said that Israel controls the USA. Chomsky, and others, say that it is the USA which controls Israel. How would you characterize the relationship between Israel and the USA – does the dog wag the tail or does the tail wag the dog? Would you say that the Israel Lobby is in total control of the USA or are there still other forces capable of saying “no” to the Israel Lobby and impose their own agenda?

Paul Craig Roberts: I have never seen any evidence that the US controls Israel. All the evidence is that Israel controls the US, but only its MidEast policy. In recent years, Israel or the Israel Lobby, has been able to control or block academic appointments in the US and tenure for professors considered to be critics of Israel. Israel has successfully reached into both Catholic and State universities to block tenure and appointments. Israel can also block some presidential appointments and has vast influence over the print and TV media. The Israel Lobby also has plenty of money for political campaign funds and never fails to unseat US Representatives and Senators considered critical of Israel. The Israel lobby was able to reach into the black congressional district of Cynthia McKinney, a black woman, and defeat her reelection. As Admiral Tom Moorer, Chief of Naval Operations and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said: “No American President can stand up to Israel.” Adm. Moorer could not even get an official investigation of Israel’s deadly attack on the USS Liberty in 1967.

Anyone who criticizes Israeli policies even in a helpful way is labeled an “anti-Semite.”

In American politics, media, and universities, this is a death-dealing blow. You might as well get hit with a hellfire missile.

The Saker: Which of the 12 entities of power which I listed above have, in your opinion, played a key role in the planning and execution of the 9/11 “false flag” operation? After all, it is hard to imagine that this was planned and prepared between the inauguration of GW Bush and September 11th – it must have been prepared during the years of the Clinton Administration. Is it not true the the Oklahoma City bombing was a rehearsal for 9/11?

Paul Craig Roberts: In my opinion 9/11 was the product of the neoconservatives, many of whom are Jewish allied with Israel, Dick Cheney, and Israel. Its purpose was to provide “the new Pearl Harbor” that the neoconservatives said was necessary to launch their wars of conquest in the Middle East. I don’t know how far back it was planned, but Silverstein (owner of the twin towers—Eds.) was obviously part of it and he had not had the WTC for very long before 9/11.

As for the bombing of the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, US Air Force General Partin, the Air Force’s munitions expert, prepared an expert report proving beyond all doubt that the building blew up from the inside out and that the truck bomb was cover.⁽¹⁾ Congress and the media ignored his report. The patsy, McVeigh, was already set up, and that was the only story allowed.

The Saker: Do you think that the people who run the USA today realize that they are on a collision course with Russia which could lead to thermonuclear war? If yes, why would they take such a risk? Do they really believe that at the last moment Russian will “blink” and back down, or do they actually believe that they can win a nuclear war? Are they not afraid that in a nuclear conflagration with Russia they will lose everything they have, including their power and even their lives?

Paul Craig Roberts: I am as puzzled as much as you. I think Washington is lost in hubris and arrogance and is more or less insane. Also, there is a belief that the US can win a nuclear war with Russia. There was an article in Foreign Affairs around 2005 or 2006 in which this conclusion was reached. The belief in the winnability of nuclear war has been boosted by faith in ABM defenses. The argument is that the US can hit Russia so hard in a preemptive first strike that Russia would not retaliate in fear of a second blow.

The Saker: How do you assess the current health of the Empire? For many years we have seen clear signs of decline, but there is still no visible collapse. Do you believe that such a collapse is inevitable and, if not, how could it be prevented? Will we see the day when the US Dollar suddenly become worthless or will another mechanism precipitate the collapse of this Empire?

Paul Craig Roberts: The US economy is hollowed out. There has been no real median family income growth for decades. Alan Greenspan as Fed Chairman used an expansion of consumer credit to take the place of the missing growth in consumer income, but the population is now too indebted to take on more. So there is nothing to drive the economy. So many manufacturing and tradable professional service jobs such as software engineering have been moved offshore that the middle class has shrunk. University graduates cannot get jobs that support an independent existence. So they can’t form households, buy houses, appliances and home furnishings. The government produces low inflation measures by not measuring inflation and low unemployment rates by not measuring unemployment. The financial markets are rigged, and gold is driven down despite rising demand by selling uncovered shorts in the futures market. It is a house of cards that has stood longer than I thought possible. Apparently, the house of cards can stand until the rest of the world ceases to hold the US dollar as reserves.

Possibly the empire has put too much stress on Europe by involving Europe in a conflict with Russia. If Germany, for example, were to pull out of NATO, the empire would collapse, or if Russia can find the wits to finance Greece, Italy, and Spain in exchange for them leaving the Euro and EU, the empire would suffer a fatal blow.

Alternatively, Russia might tell Europe that Russia has no alternative but to target European capitals with nuclear weapons now that Europe has joined the US in conducting war against Russia.

The Saker: Russia and China have done something unique in history and they have gone beyond the traditional model of forming an alliance: they have agreed to become interdependent – one could say that they have agreed to a symbiotic relationship. Do you believe that those in charge of the Empire have understood the tectonic change which has just happened or have they simply gone into deep denial because reality scares them too much?

Paul Craig Roberts: Stephen Cohen says that there is simply no foreign policy discussion. There is no debate. I think the empire thinks that it can destabilize Russia and China and that is one reason Washington has color revolutions working in Armenia, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan. As Washington is determined to prevent the rise of other powers and is lost in hubris and arrogance, Washington probably believes that it will succeed. After all, History chose Washington.

“Russians think that there is some kind of misunderstanding about Russian intentions…”

The Saker: In your opinion, do presidential elections still matter and, if yes, what is your best hope for 2016? I am personally very afraid of Hillary Clinton whom I see as an exceptionally dangerous and outright evil person, but with the current Neocon influence inside the Republicans, can we really hope for a non-Neocon candidate to win the GOP nomination?

Paul Craig Roberts: The only way a presidential election could matter would be if the elected president had behind him a strong movement. Without a movement, the president has no independent power and no one to appoint who will do his bidding. Presidents are captives. Reagan had something of a movement, just enough that we were able to cure stagflation despite Wall Street’s opposition and we were able to end the cold war despite the opposition of the CIA and the military/security complex. Plus Reagan was very old and came from a long time ago. He assumed the office of the president was powerful and acted that way.

The Saker: What about the armed forces? Can you imagine a Chairman of the JCS saying “no, Mr President, that is crazy, we will not do this” or do you expect the generals to obey any order, including one starting a nuclear war against Russia? Do you have any hope that the US military could step in and stop the “crazies” currently in power in the White House and Congress?

Paul Craig Roberts: The US military is a creature of the armaments industries. The whole purpose of making general is to be qualified to be a consultant to the “defense” industry, or to become an executive or on the board of a “defense” contractor. The military serves as the source of retirement careers where the generals make the big money. The US military is totally corrupt. Read Andrew Cockburn’s book, Kill Chain.

The Saker: If the USA is really deliberately going down the path towards war with Russia – what should Russia do? Should Russia back down and accept to be subjugated as a preferable option to a thermonuclear war, or should Russia resist and thereby accept the possibility of a thermonuclear war? Do you believe that a very deliberate and strong show of strength on the part of Russia could deter a US attack?

Paul Craig Roberts: I have often wondered about this. I can’t say that I know. I think Putin is humane enough to surrender rather than to be part of the destruction of the world, but Putin has to answer to others inside Russia and I doubt the nationalists would stand for surrender.

In my opinion, I think Putin should focus on Europe and make Europe aware that Russia expects an American attack and will have no choice except to wipe out Europe in response. Putin should encourage Europe to break off from NATO in order to prevent World War 3.

Putin should also make sure China understands that China represents the same perceived threat to the US as Russia and that the two countries need to stand together. Perhaps if Russia and China were to maintain their forces on a nuclear alert, not the top one, but an elevated one that conveyed recognition of the American threat and conveyed this threat to the world, the US could be isolated.

Perhaps if the Indian press, the Japanese Press, the French and German press, the UK press, the Chinese and Russian press began reporting that Russia and China wonder if they will receive a pre-emptive nuclear attack from Washington the result would be to prevent the attack.

As far as I can tell from my many media interviews with the Russian media, there is no Russian awareness of the Wolfowitz Doctrine. Russians think that there is some kind of misunderstanding about Russian intentions. The Russian media does not understand that Russia is unacceptable, because Russia is not a US vassal. Russians believe all the Western bullshit about “freedom and democracy” and believe that they are short on both but making progress. In other words, Russians have no idea that they are targeted for destruction.

The Saker: What are, in your opinion, the roots of the hatred of so many members of the US elites for Russia? Is that just a leftover from the Cold War, or is there another reason for the almost universal russophobia amongst US elites? Even during the Cold War, it was unclear whether the US was anti-Communist or anti-Russian? Is there something in the Russian culture, nation or civilization which triggers that hostility and, if yes, what is it?

Paul Craig Roberts: The hostility toward Russia goes back to the Wolfowttz Doctrine:⁽²⁾

“Our first objective is to prevent the re-emergence of a new rival, either on the territory of the former Soviet Union or elsewhere, that poses a threat on the order of that posed formerly by the Soviet Union. This is a dominant consideration underlying the new regional defense strategy and requires that we endeavor to prevent any hostile power from dominating a region whose resources would, under consolidated control, be sufficient to generate global power.”

While the US was focused on its MidEast wars, Putin restored Russia and blocked Washington’s planned invasion of Syria and bombing of Iran. The “first objective” of the neocon doctrine was breached. Russia had to be brought into line. That is the origin of Washington’s attack on Russia. The dependent and captive US and European media simply repeats “the Russian Threat” to the public, which is insouciant and otherwise uninformed.

The offense of Russian culture is also there–Christian morals, respect for law and humanity, diplomacy in place of coercion, traditional social mores–but these are in the background. Russia is hated because Russia (and China) is a check on Washington’s unilateral uni-power. This check is what will lead to war.

If the Russians and Chinese do not prepare for, do not expect, a pre-emptive nuclear attack from Washington, they will be destroyed.

ABOUT PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS
[box] Paul Craig Roberts (born April 3, 1939) is an American economist and a columnist for Creators Syndicate. He served as an Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan Administration and was noted as a co-founder of Reaganomics.^[1] He is a former editor and columnist for the Wall Street Journal, Business Week, and Scripps Howard News Service. He has testified before congressional committees on 30 occasions on issues of economic policy. During the 21st century, Roberts has frequently published in Counterpunch, writing extensively about the effects of the Bush (and later Obama) administrations related to the War on Terror, which he says have destroyed the US Constitution‘s protections of Americans’ civil liberties, such as habeas corpus and due process. He has taken positions different from former Republican allies, opposing the War on Drugs and the War on Terror, and criticizing Israel’s policies and actions against the Palestinians.^[2][/box]

^NOTES

(1)

WHO REALLY BROUGHT DOWN THE MURRAH BUILDING?

The Opinions of General Partin and Other Bomb Experts

“My knowledge comes from practical handling of explosives,” added Gronning. “And my belief is that 4800 lb. of ANFO wouldn’t have scuffed the paint on the building.”

[dropcap]B[/dropcap]rigadier General Benton K. Partin, U. S. Air Force, retired, has 25 years experience in explosives and ballistic weapons design and testing. General Partin also served as the Commander of the Air Force Armament Technology Laboratory.

Partin has this to say:

“When I first saw the picture of the truck bomb’s asymmetrical damage to the Federal building in Oklahoma, my immediate reaction was that the pattern of damage would have been technically impossible without supplementary demolition charges at some of the reinforced concrete bases inside the building, a standard demolition technique.

“For a simplistic blast truck bomb, of the size and composition reported, to be able to reach out on the order of 60 feet and collapse a reinforced column base the size of column A7 is beyond credulity.”

General Partin further explained that; “The total incompatibility with a single truck bomb lies in the fact that either some columns collapsed that should not have collapsed or some of the columns are still standing that should of collapsed and did not.”

“Reinforced concrete targets in large buildings are hard targets to blast. I know of no way possible to reproduce the apparent building damage through simply a truck bomb effort.”

“It is easy to determine whether a column was failed by contact demolition charges or by blast loading (such as a truck bomb),” Partin wrote in his letter to Congress. “It is also easy to cover up crucial evidence as was apparently done in Waco. I understand that the building is to be demolished by May 23rd or 24th. Why the rush to destroy the evidence?”

He concludes; “This is a massive cover-up of immense proportions.”

The statement below is made by an Israeli terrorist expert who used his experience with bombings in the Middle East. In making his deductions he used film footage of the bombing just hours afterwards:

“It is clear that they used certain methods which were used in the Middle East. I mean using a car bomb, putting it in front of the building, and maybe planting inside the building itself . My feeling is that it was not just an explosion outside, which is clear it was outside as well, but also inside the building. So it is more than one man. It’s a network.”

Sam Gronning, a professional blaster for more than thirty years, says:

“I have been a blaster for over thirty years and there is no doubt in my mind that ANFO could not have been by itself the medium for that powerful an explosion…. even enhanced at that distance, I doubt that an external explosion could of created that extensive damage at the reported weight of the bomb.”

“My knowledge comes from practical handling of explosives,” added Gronning. “And my belief is that 4800 lb. of ANFO wouldn’t have scuffed the paint on the building.”

“No truck bomb of ANFO out in the open is going to cause that kind of damage we had there… In thirty years of blasting, using everything from 100 percent nitrogel to ANFO, I’ve not seen anything to support that story… I have set off 16000 pounds of ANFO and was standing upright just
1,000 feet away from the blast.”

Gronning went on to say that even a bomb that big wouldn’t have caused the damage seen at the Murrah building.

Dr. Roger Raubach, who has a Ph. D. in physical chemistry and is now the technical director of a chemical company has this to say;

“I don’t care if they pulled up a semi-trailer with twenty tons of ammonium nitrate; it wouldn’t do the damage we saw there.”

David Hoffman, author of “The Oklahoma City Bombing and the Politics of Terror” (Published by Feral House) wrote the following (taken from a chapter in that book):

Yet Rick Sherrow, who wrote an article for Soldier of Fortune magazine entitled “Bomb Blasts & Baloney,” contends that the General’s assessment of the bombing is somehow inaccurate. Sherrow claims that the pressure wave that would have struck the building from the [rapidly deteriorating] blast of the ANFO bomb (375 p. s. i. according to Partin’s figures) would be more than enough to destroy reinforced concrete columns, which Sherrow claimed in his article disintegrate at 30 p. s. i. (pounds per square inch).

Sam Gronning doesn’t concur. “That’s bullshit!!” exclaimed Gronning. “Thirty p. s. i. wouldn’t take out a rubber tire!”

Citizens monitoring police radios heard the following conversation on the morning of the 19th: First voice: “Boy, you’re not gonna’ believe this!” Second voice: “Believe what?” First voice: “I can’t believe it; this is a military bomb!”

When J. D. Cash, a journalist writing for the McCurtain County Gazette,, tried to interview members of the Bomb Squad, Fire Department and Police, he was generally told by potential interviewees, “I saw a lot that day, I wish I hadn’t. I have a wife, a job, a family, I’ve been threatened, we’ve been told not to talk about the devices.”

The most amount of force produced by even a perfectly made ANFO bomb weighing 4800 pounds, is 1,457 p. s. i. by the time it hit the glass of the Federal building. It’s a law of physics that the destructive capabilities of a bomb fall off dramatically only a few feet from the blast.

By the time the blast front made contact with the column nearest to the bomb, the pressure would have decreased to 375 p. s. i., far below the 5,600 p. s. i. compressive yield strength of concrete. Even using General Partin’s very conservative figure of 3,500 p. s. i. for the compressive yield strength of concrete, you would still require nine times the potential damage pressure from the bomb at that distance. Furthermore, the government would have us believe that the same bomb was able to blast through an additional seven major concrete columns. If we are to believe the absolute absurdity of the governments “science”, then we should also endorse the practices of voodoo and witchcraft, for they both have the same amount of credibility.

Simply stated, it is a physical, chemical and thermodynamic impossibility for a 4800 pound ANFO bomb, at a distance of approximately 20 feet away, to of inflicted the kind of damage the government said it did.

As reported widely on CNN & news stations across the nation on the day of the bombing, up to four primed bombs were found inside the building by bomb detecting dogs. The BATF (Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms) later said they were dummy bombs, but why would bomb sniffing dogs find, or be needed to locate dummy bombs which are clearly marked as such; furthermore, why would munitions technicians spend so much time diffusing “dummy” bombs? KFOR-TV said that another bomb had been located strapped to a column next to the day-care center.

Around the noon hour, Channel 4 had as their guest Dr. Randall Heather, a terrorist expert. Dr. Heather stated: “We got lucky today, if you can consider anything about this tragedy lucky. We have both of the bombs that were defused at the site and they are being taken apart. We will be able to find out how they were made, and possibly who made them. These bombs are very sophisticated high explosives with maybe a little fertilizer damped around them.”

The Oklahoma City bombing has earned the nickname “Mannlicher-Carcano Bomb,” after the cheap Italian-made rifle with a defective scope that was allegedly used to kill President Kennedy. Attorney Jim Garrison joked that the governments nuclear physics laboratory could explain how a single bullet could travel through President Kennedy & Governor Connally five times while making several U-turns, then turns up in pristine condition (an event that no firearms expert in the world has ever been able to duplicate) on a hospital gurney.

In the Oklahoma bombing case it seems the government is attempting to perform a similar feat of light and magic. The fact is that a non-directional, low velocity 4800 pound ANFO bomb, parked 20-30 feet from a modern steel-reinforced super-structure could never have caused the pattern or degree of damage that they say it did.

⁽²⁾PC ROBERTS SEEMS TO BE TEMPORIZING WITH RECENT PUBLIC MEMORY when he states that US animosity toward Russia should be traced back only to the Wolfowitz Doctrine.

“”Paul Craig Roberts: The hostility toward Russia goes back to the Wolfowttz Doctrine…”

Actually it goes back way longer than that, to the Bolshevik Revolution, 1917, which the US, along with Germany, France, Britain, Japan and others tried to overthrow from the moment it was born. At the time, when the Soviet state was young, still under Lenin, the Soviet Union was a nation on its way to becoming a great power but not yet there by any means. While the young revolutionary presented no real threat to the established powers at the time, the West hated and feared it because of its potential demonstration example—the success of socialism, which could have ignited the [imagination of the] working classes in their respective countries and colonies.

So, it’s always been a class question. Even today when Russia is formally a capitalist nation, the US plutocracy and its vassal states cannot trust the Russians because Russia still contains many political currents that lean socialist and communitarian, and the situation remains in flux. The Communist party is the second most popular party in Russia today, and its fortunes keep climbing. The Russian army still parades holding the hammer and sickle emblems high. Russia has a far more “alive” [and diversified] political culture than the US where practically everything is dead and passive, and there are no visible currents offering alternative visions or options. In Russia there are, from monarchy to anarchy to communism. Some of the whore counselors of the West know this, and consequently fear it. —P. Greanville, with Branford Perry.

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The New Chinese Dream

PEPE ESCOBAR

Westward Ho On China’s Eurasia BRIC Road

“…it is imperative that no Eurasian challenger (to the U.S.)

emerges capable of dominating Eurasia

and thus also of challenging America”

Zbigniew Brzezinski, The Grand Chessboard, 1997

[dropcap]W[/dropcap]hat’s in a name, rather an ideogram? Everything. A single Chinese character – jie (for “between”) – graphically illustrates the key foreign policy initiative of the new Chinese dream.

In the upper part of the four-stroke character – which, symbolically, should be read as the roof of a house – the stroke on the left means the Silk Road Economic Belt, and the stroke on the right means the 21st century Maritime Silk Road. In the lower part, the stroke on the left means the China-Pakistan corridor, via Xinjiang province, and the stroke on the right, the China-Myanmar-Bangladesh-India corridor via Yunnan province.

Chinese culture feasts on myriad formulas, mottoes – and symbols. If many a Chinese scholar worries about how the Middle Kingdom’s new intimation of soft power may be lost in translation, the character jie – pregnant with connectivity – is already the starting point to make 1.3 billion Chinese, plus the overseas Chinese diaspora, visualize the top twin axis – continental and naval – of the New Silk Road vision unveiled by President Xi Jinping, a concept also known as “One Road, One Belt”.

In practical terms, it also helps that the New Silk Road will be boosted by a special, multi-billion-dollar Silk Road Fund and the new Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), which, not by accident, has attracted the attention of European investors.

The New Silk Road, actually roads, symbolizes China’s pivot to an old heartland: Eurasia. That implies a powerful China even more enriched by its environs, without losing its essence as a civilization-state. Call it a post-modern remix of the Tang, Sung and early Ming dynasties – as Beijing deftly and recen escobarchaos tly stressed via a superb exhibition in the National Museum of China consisting of rare early Silk Road pieces assembled from a range of regional museums.

In the past, China had a unifying infrastructure enterprise like the Great Wall. In the future it will have a major project of unifying Eurasia via high-speed rail. When one considers the breadth of this vision, depictions of Xi striving to be an equal of Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping sound so pedestrian.

Of course China’s new drive may be interpreted as the stirrings of a new tributary system, ordered and centered in Beijing. At the same time, many in the U.S. are uncomfortable that the New Silk Road may be a geopolitical, “peaceful development”, “win-win” answer to the Obama administration’s Pentagon-driven pivoting to Asia.

Beijing has been quick to dismiss any notions of hegemony. It maintains this is no Marshall Plan. It’s undeniable that the Marshall Plan “covered only Western nations and excluded all countries and regions the West thought were ideologically close to the Soviet Union”. China, on the other hand, is focused on integrating “emerging economies” into a vast, pan-Eurasian trade/commerce network.

Achtung! Seidenstrasse! (Attention! Silk Road!)

It’s no wonder top nations in the beleaguered EU have gravitated to the AIIB – which will play a key role in the New Silk Road(s). A German geographer – Ferdinand von Richthofen – invented the Seidenstrasse (Silk Road) concept. Marco Polo forever linked Italy with the Silk Road. The EU is already China’s number one trade partner. And, once again symbolically, this happens to be the 40th year of China-EU relations. Watch the distinct possibility of an emerging Sino-European Fund that finances infrastructure and even green energy projects across an integrated Eurasia.

[dropcap]I[/dropcap]t’s as if the Angel of History – that striking image in a Paul Klee painting eulogized by philosopher Walter Benjamin – is now trying to tell us that a 21st century China-EU Seidenstrasse synergy is all but inevitable. And that, crucially, would have to include Russia, which is a vital part of the New Silk Road through an upcoming, Russia-China financed $280 billion high-speed rail upgrade of the Trans-Siberian railway. This is where the New Silk Road project and President Putin’s initial idea of a huge trade emporium from Lisbon to Vladivostok actually merge.

In parallel, the 21st century Maritime Silk Road will deepen the already frantic trade interaction between China and Southeast Asia by sea. Fujian province – which faces Taiwan – will play a key role. Xi, crucially, spent many years of his life in Fujian. And Hong Kong, not by accident, also wants to be part of the action.

All these developments are driven by China being finally ready to become a massive net exporter of capital and the top source of credit for the Global South. In a few months, Beijing will launch the China International Payment System (CIPS), bound to turbo-charge the yuan as a key global currency for all types of trade. There’s the AIIB. And if that was not enough, there’s still the New Development Bank, launched by the BRICs to compete with the World Bank, and run from Shanghai.

It can be argued that the success of the entire Silk Road hinges on how Beijing will handle restive, Uyghur-populated Xinjiang – which should be seen as one of key nodes of Eurasia. This is a subplot – fraught with insecurity, to say the least – that should be followed in detail for the rest of the decade. What’s certain is that most of Asia will feel the tremendous pull of China’s Eurasian drive.

Obama in China: Does he really believe he’s outmaneuvering them?

And Eurasia – contrary to perennial Brzezinski wishful thinking – will likely take the form of a geopolitical challenge: A de facto China-Russia strategic partnership that manifests itself in various facets of the New Silk Road that also bolsters the strength of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO).

By then, both Iran and Pakistan will be SCO members. The close relations between what was ancient Persia and China span two millennia – and now they are viewed by Beijing as a matter of national security. Pakistan is an essential node of the Maritime Silk Road, especially when one considers the Indian Ocean port of Gwadar, which in a few years may double as a key transit point of the IP or Iran-Pakistan gas pipeline. It may also be the starting point of yet another major Chinese Pipelineistan gambit parallel to the Karakorum highway, delivering gas to Xinjiang.

Beijing values both Iran and Pakistan – the intersection of Southwest Asia and South Asia – as fundamentally strategic nodes of the New Silk Road. This allows China to project trade/commerce power not only in the Indian Ocean but the Persian Gulf.

Got vision, will travel

Washington’s alarm at these developments betrays the glaring absence of an enticing made -in-the-USA vision to woo pan-Eurasian public opinion – apart from a hazy military pivoting posture mixed with relentless NATO expansion, and the TTIP “free trade” corporate racket, also known across Asia as “NATO on trade”.

The counter punch to the above could be already coming via the BRICs; the SCO; the non-stop strengthtening of the China-Russia strategic partnership. There’s also the expansion of the Eurasian Union (Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Russia – with Kyrgyzstan soon acceding, followed by Tajikistan). In the Middle East, Syria is seriously studying the possibility, and a trade agreement with Egypt has already been clinched. In Southeast Asia, a pact with Vietnam will be a done deal by the end of 2015.

Russia and China’s “secret” agenda in helping to clinch an Iran-P5+1 nuclear deal paves the way for Tehran to be admitted to the SCO as a full member. Expect, as early as 2016, an SCO alignment that unites at least 60% of Eurasia, with a population of 3.5 billion people and a wealth of oil and gas that more than matches the Gulf Cooperation Council states.

So the real story is not how China will collapse, as peddled by David Shambaugh, the so-called second top China expert in the U.S. (who’s the first? Henry Kissinger?) This is a line that’s been soundly debunked by many sources. The real story, which a revived Asia Times will be covering in detail in upcoming years, is how the myriad aspects of the New Silk Road will be configuring a new Eurasian dream. Have vision, will travel. Bon voyage.

[box] Pepe Escobar is the author of Globalistan: How the Globalized World is Dissolving into Liquid War (Nimble Books, 2007), Red Zone Blues: a snapshot of Baghdad during the surge and Obama does Globalistan (Nimble Books, 2009). His latest book is Empire of Chaos. He may be reached at pepeasia@yahoo.com.

This piece first appeared in Asia Times. [/box]

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Global Warming: Obama’s Failures Compared to China’s Real Action

And OpEd by Steven Argue

People’s Republic of China Engaged in Largest Push for Renewable Energy the World Has Ever Seen.

[dropcap]O[/dropcap]n Monday, June 2nd, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) finally announced proposed limits on carbon emissions from power plants. This is only a draft proposal that will be open to discussion for one year and then potentially be adopted in June 2015, one year before Obama leaves office.⁽¹⁾

Obama promised when he was running for office in 2008 that he would direct the EPA to regulate carbon emissions under the Clean Air Act. An important 2007 court ruling found this kind of EPA regulation to be legal under the Clean Air Act, a ruling that means that no further congressional approval was necessary for Obama to take action. This author has repeatedly exposed the fact that Obama has not done what he promised and that he cannot blame Congress for his inaction. And it should be emphasized that Obama still has not taken action.

The use of this 2005 base line rather than current emissions appears to be just an attempt to make the proposed regulations appear far larger than they really are.

The proposal outlined by EPA administrator Gina McCarthy, if adopted, is projected to cut carbon pollution from the United State’s 600 coal heated power plants by 30% of 2005 levels by 2030. This may sound significant, but due to fracking and increased use of natural gas, U.S. carbon emissions in the generation of electricity already dropped by 15% between 2005 and 2012. This is according to Vicki Arroyo, executive director of the Georgetown Climate Center. In addition, since these emission standards would be applied on a state by state basis, a number of states, including New York, Georgia, Washington, and Virginia have already met the proposed 30% reduction standard. Those states would not need to take any action to be in compliance if the proposal is adopted. The use of this 2005 base line rather than current emissions appears to be just an attempt to make the proposed regulations appear far larger than they really are. What is actually being proposed then for potential action is a 15% reduction nationally in one sector of the economy that produces only 40% of U.S. carbon emissions, a sector where emissions are already on the decline.

Obama: A criminal demagog that reflects the putrid state of US politics.

Obama: A criminal demagog reflecting the putrid state of US politics. To claim the Republicans are worse leads us nowhere. (DonkeyHotey, via flickr)

This raising of smoke and mirrors by the Obama Administration comes at a time in world history when far bigger and more meaningful action is needed to help save today’s young and fairly young people along with future generations from far more devastating climate change and ocean acidification. As a result of global warming, agricultural production will be adversely impacted due to rising oceans and increased droughts, flooding, desertification, and more intense storms. Ocean acidification as a result of increased carbon from the atmosphere entering the oceans will impact ecological interactions and almost certainly dramatically decrease fish stocks and eliminate the coral reefs by the end of this century. In terms of the world’s flora and fauna, we are at the beginning of a major mass extinction event. On the question of food, food production will need to double by 2050 to keep up with the growing population demands, but global warming and ocean acidification combined with other factors like declining fossil water supplies and the destruction of fish resources through over-fishing are likely to cause food supplies to instead decrease. Increased fossil fuel demand combined with decreasing fossil fuel supplies and the failure to adequately convert to renewable energy sources may well contribute to mass starvation as well.

Emergency action is needed on carbon emissions, but Obama’s plan is not a move to action, but more talk about potentially taking action. Critical time continues to be lost as the Earth heats up and the oceans acidify. As critical time is lost, if the proposal is even adopted, it could be overturned by any president who follows Obama within a little over a year of being adopted. To say this appears to be far too little too late is an understatement. Had Obama been serious about climate change he would have taken action as soon as he took power. (He would have exercised leadership instead of pseudo leadership.—Eds)

In addition to Obama’s failure to take basic steps in directing the EPA to regulate carbon emissions, Obama has also under-regulated offshore oil drilling while also helping to cover-up BP’s criminal manslaughter and massive environmental destruction in the Gulf of Mexico with BP’s Deep Horizon Spill. Obama also allowed the massive spraying of highly toxic oil dispersants that were as deadly to human health and the environment as the oil being spilled. These dispersants have served only to hide the massive and ongoing environmental tragedy from sight as dying and declining seafood stocks are marketed for human consumption despite being thoroughly contaminated.

In addition to serving BP, Obama has also, despite strong protest resistance, so far refused to even take steps to stop the tar sands XL oil pipeline. The processing of tar sands oil into gasoline adds far more carbon dioxide to the atmosphere than the processing of other crude oil types. It takes the equivalent of burning one barrel of oil to process four barrels of tar sands crude oil. If Obama agrees to the XL Pipeline, it will wipe away any progress he may potentially make on carbon emissions anywhere else.

Taken As an Opportunity To Attack China

[dropcap]D[/dropcap]espite Obama’s lack of actual progress on climate change, the corporate media has already begun using this latest move by the EPA to maybe take action in a year as an opportunity to attack the People’s Republic of China. Bloomberg.com, for instance, has run an article titled, “Obama’s Step Forward on Carbon Undone by China’s Steps Back”.

This pro-Obama and anti-China propaganda is absolutely absurd. Besides the fact that Obama still hasn’t done anything, the People’s Republic of China has nowhere near the U.S. output of carbon dioxide. Their historic carbon output is far lower than that of the United States and their current yearly per-capita output is only one quarter that of the United States. If the U.S. were to reduce carbon output to Chinese levels, the world would be in much better shape. In addition, the Chinese socialist planned economy is carrying out the largest push for renewable energy the world has ever seen. The state owned banking system is putting massive investments into these non-polluting renewable energy sources. In fact, Chinese production of wind energy has been rapidly expanding, bringing extremely significant decreases in Chinese carbon output.

Contrary to the Western propaganda line, China’s state owned banking system is putting massive investments into non-polluting renewable energy sources.

China has long been an excuse for the U.S. capitalists to ruin the planet in their insane drive for profit, this despite their anti-China claims not being based in reality. Those attacks on China were a major component of Obama’s sabotage of the international negotiations on carbon emissions in Copenhagen in 2009. Obama, while he was betraying campaign promises and taking no action on global warming in the United States, sabotaged the Copenhagen negotiations on climate change. He did this largely using the developing economies of China and India as his excuse. The extent to how far the U.S. went to sabotage that conference was revealed by whistle blower, Edward Snowden. Snowden, now a political refugee in Russia where he escaped from Obama’s political repression, released information on how the U.S. had spied on the international negotiators at that conference. As a result, the U.S. was aware in advance of Denmark’s contingency plans to try to save the conference. The Obama administration used this information to torpedo any agreement ever coming from the conference.

Despite Obama being portrayed as concerned about global warming in the corporate media, he has in reality done much to increase carbon emissions. Obama’s only real action in the opposite direction so far has been a 2012 agreement with major car manufacturers that will require cars sold in the United States to get an average of 54.5 miles per gallon of gasoline by 2025. In reality, this is less than 49 miles per gallon when one includes air conditioning credits, and even less when actual driving conditions are accounted for. The U.S. finally reached an average of 24.6 miles per gallon in 2013 while the Chinese average was 35.8, the European Union’s was 43.3, and the Japanese was 42.6. While Obama has done much to increase carbon emissions, this, his only real significant action in the other direction so far, is an example of far too little too late.

Both Ruling Parties Bought and Paid For

An underlying problem with both the Democrat and Republican parties is the fact that these parties are bought and paid for by the American ruling capitalist class. To win in the farce of American “democracy”, candidates must have the support of America’s major capitalists who own America’s corporate media, banks, and major industries. Among those industries are of course oil and gas.

In the 2008 election cycle Obama’s campaign got a whopping $884,000 from the oil and gas industry. This despite Obama’s campaign ads where Obama claimed, “I don’t take money from oil companies or Washington lobbyists, and I won’t let them block change anymore.”

Technically it is true that Obama didn’t take money directly from oil companies. Yet, the underlying reality was that this statement was deliberate deception. By law, direct corporate contributions were not allowed for any candidate, so Obama’s claim that he was different was an outright lie. In addition, Obama like all of the other mainstream corporate candidates, got contributions from corporations that bypassed this law through funneling major contributions from the oil and gas companies through employees of the industry.

While the oil and gas industries do give the climate change deniers of the Republican Party more money than the Democrats, the Democratic Party does get sizable contributions from these industries. The Republican Party gets roughly 75% of the contributions of the oil and gas industry while the Democrats continue to receive 25%. This is because the Democrat Party’s program, while admitting to the reality of climate change, is one of generally still siding with the big polluters against the future of humanity and the planet. For the oil and gas industries, giving the Democrats some support makes big sense. For them it is good to offer the American public two meaningless political alternatives, one party of climate change deniers and another party that admits to the reality of climate change but generally works against real action on the issue. In the most immediate sense, this money buys influence with both parties. In addition, in their cold profit driven calculations, it is surely far better to back a party that falsely claims to be on the side of doing something about global warming than to allow a vacuum to develop where a meaningful grassroots political alternative may more easily emerge.

[dropcap]A[/dropcap]s a political alternative, the Revolutionary Tendency which I represent, like any genuine party of the left, stands in total opposition to both the Democrat and Republican parties. We are part of the struggle in demanding immediate change on climate change, including EPA regulation of carbon emissions, more subsidies to public transportation, and no XL tar sands pipeline. We support and build these types of movements, but as we see it, meaningful change on climate change in the United States is unlikely to happen until capitalism itself is overthrown.

We argue this for two reasons. The first is the corrupting influence of capitalist money in bourgeois elections is preventing any meaningful democratic control of the United States from below. The second is the fact that private ownership of the economy for private profit prevents the centralized socialist planning that could easily move production in directions away from fossil fuels towards higher energy efficiency, renewable energy, electric automobiles, and free public transportation. This planned socialist economy will also easily provide everyone with a job, free health care, housing, and a free education. In addition, the establishment of a planned socialist economy in the United States will immediately eliminate the corrupting influence of the capitalist class because we will expropriate all of the holdings of the capitalists and put industry and the banks under public control. They will no longer have the wealth they use to corrupt.

People’s Republic of China Offers Alternate Model

The Republican Party is a thoroughly anti-science and anti-Earth capitalist party. The Democrat Party is also bought off by big oil, but their tactics are trickier.

While the United States fails to act and sabotages international agreements on global warming, the People’s Republic of China has embarked on the greatest push for renewable energy the world has ever seen. The Chinese state run economy including banks and energy companies are making this project possible. Unlike the United States, the Chinese government is able to carry out this project largely because their government is not owned by big oil, coal, and gas capitalists. In the United States those capitalists are so powerful that their money controls the Democrat and Republican parties and is extremely influential in the corporate media. With their money and power, the American capitalist class has actually been able to deceive much of the American public into thinking there is scientific debate on the impending disaster of global warming. The Republican Party is a thoroughly anti-science and anti-Earth capitalist party. The Democrat Party is also bought off by big oil, but their tactics are trickier. They don’t pretend the science is inaccurate, they just fail to act in any meaningful way, assuring big profits for their big oil contributors and paving the road of humanity’s impending doom through global warming.

Unlike the corruption of the United States, China had a thorough socialist revolution that smashed the capitalist state in 1949 and soon after overthrew the capitalist system. Through that revolution a U.S. backed dictator was thrown out of power, land was redistributed, life expectancy was doubled during Mao’s rule, land was redistributed, literacy was brought to about 100%, massive gains were made for women’s rights, and the abolition of slavery, theocracy, and feudalism in China’s most backward regions like Tibet. While many western new age spiritualists, Green Party liberals, and CIA financial benefactors to the Dalai Lama have yearned for the Dalai Lama’s return to power, the former slaves of Tibet most assuredly have not felt the same way. This was a reason for the total failure of the CIA and Dalai Lama’s attempted contra war in the 1960s.

READ BELOW ABOUT CHINA’S MAGLEV WIND TURBINE TECHNOLOGY. CLICK ON THE BAR.

[learn_more caption=”Next generation wind turbines are here”]

[dropcap]R[/dropcap]enewable energy produced from the wind has garnered much attention and support in recent years but is often criticized for its low output and lack of reliability. But now a super power wind turbine has come along that may be just what the renewable energy industry needs. The MagLev wind turbine, which was first unveiled at the Wind Power Asia exhibition in Beijing, is expected to take wind power technology to the next level with magnetic levitation.

Magnetic levitation is an extremely efficient system for wind energy. Here’s how it works: the vertically oriented blades of the wind turbine are suspended in the air above the base of the machine, replacing the need for ball bearings. The turbine uses “full-permanent” magnets, not electromagnets — therefore, it does not require electricty to run. The full-permanent magnet system employs neodymium (“rare earth”) magnets and there is no energy loss through friction. This also helps reduce maintenance costs and increases the lifespan of the generator.

Maglev wind turbines have several advantages over conventional wind turbines. For instance, they’re able to use winds with starting speeds as low as 1.5 meters per second (m/s). Also, they could operate in winds exceeding 40 m/s. Currently, the largest conventional wind turbines in the world produce only five megawatts of power. However, one large maglev wind turbine could generate one gigawatt of clean power, enough to supply energy to 750,000 homes. It would also increase generation capacity by 20% over conventional wind turbines and decrease operational costs by 50%. If that isn’t enough, the maglev wind turbines will be operational for about 500 years![/learn_more]

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It is through this sweeping socialist revolution across China that China’s economy continues to expand despite the world crisis of capitalism. The state run sectors of the economy are able to produce based on need without regard to profit, creating jobs and things that are needed, like for instance carrying out massive projects to build housing, create advanced public transportation systems, and develop energy sources that do not emit greenhouse gas.

Obama’s Strategy Against China

It is to destroy the remaining gains of the Chinese Revolution that the Obama administration has continued a combined U.S, imperialist policy of aggressive encirclement, containment, and economic engagement.

While U.S. policy towards China includes elements of economic engagement, the fact that the U.S. imperialists seek to isolate the People’s Republic of China is being made extremely clear by recent moves of the Obama administration. One is the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership, an economic agreement between the U.S. and a number of countries in the Asian region including Japan and Australia, but excluding the People’s Republic of China. Over 20 similar regional “free-trade” pacts have already been negotiated by the imperialists to exclude China.

Likewise, U.S. imperialism targets a key Chinese ally, Russia, as part of its larger goal to isolate China. This was a component of aggressive U.S. moves in Ukraine, including backing a fascist coup which has overthrown the elected government and is carrying out a murderous and chauvinistic war against the country’s Russian speaking population. This is a component of the Obama administration’s attempts to isolate and eventually destroy Russia through regime change and dismemberment under Brzezinski’s plan to break Russia up into three countries. U.S. intervention in Ukraine is part of a strategy meant to force a government on Ukraine that will carry out IMF dictates of austerity, open western areas of Ukraine to imperialist controlled fracking, and end important trade agreements with Russia. It is also meant as an excuse for massive military expenditures as Russia is vilified and the pockets of the capitalists of the military industrial complex are lined as they fill new orders for military hardware. On June 2nd Obama announced a one billion dollar increase in military expenditures for Europe. These misappropriations of the Earth’s resources for the war machine further add to global warming and misspend wealth that, in a sane socialist society, could be used for human and environmental needs.

Aggressive U.S. policy against Ukrainian sovereignty and accompanying U.S. economic sanctions against Russia have, instead of isolating Russia, driven Russia and China closer together. One component of this has been the recent $400 billion agreement between the two countries for Russia to sell its natural gas to China. Besides helping the economies of the two countries and helping them better stand up to U.S. imperialism, this agreement will bring important decreases in China’s use of coal to generate electricity and will bring with it dramatic decreases to China’s greenhouse gas emissions.

Besides efforts to cut China off economically, U.S. policy towards China also includes elements of economic engagement that allows dangerous capitalist penetrations into the Chinese economy. This imperialist strategy can be seen as serving a two-fold purpose. One is it allows American corporations to profit from value produced by Chinese labor as the Chinese Stalinist bureaucracy allows the Chinese working class to be prostituted out to the American capitalists under conditions of terrible exploitation. The second is that it allows dangerous capitalist inroads into the Chinese socialist economy that may help lay the foundations for capitalist counterrevolution.

The seemingly contradictory, yet complimentary, imperialist policies of economic engagement and economic strangulation towards China are combined with a third element. That third element is U.S. military encirclement combined with U.S. military provocations against the People’s Republic of China. In November of 2013 the United States flew two unannounced B-52 bombers through the Chinese Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ). This served U.S. purposes of testing China’s defense responses. It was also a deadly threat displaying the ability of the U.S. to attack China with B-52 bombers from Guam. Around the same time, coinciding with the flight of the two U.S. bombers, Japanese and South Korean fighter planes carried out the same type of provocations.

Considering America’s nonstop provocations, the Chinese military have their work cut out for them.

Those aggressive acts by the U.S. and its allies come as part of Obama’s “pivot towards Asia” policy that is directed against China and includes military pacts with countries surrounding China and the stationing of more military hardware and troops in the region including U.S. Marines, battleships, and aircraft carriers.

The Defense of China

The People’s Republic of China, for its part, has not neglected its duties to self-defense. Recent Chinese advances include jets with anti-ship missiles, advanced submarines, surveillance satellites, long-range radars, and land-based ballistic and cruise missiles. China has also developed solid fuel ICBM nuclear missiles less vulnerable to a U.S. first strike and capable of hitting the U.S. mainland.

True socialists support the right of the People’s Republic of China to defend itself from U.S. imperialism. Throughout Africa, Asia, and Latin America there are countries controlled by U.S. imperialism and devastated by the same problems that plagued China before the 1949 Revolution like high illiteracy, hunger, lack of clean drinking water, slavery, oppression of women, and murderous imperialist client regimes. For many who suffer under the boot of U.S. imperialism, such capabilities to defend their self-determination from U.S. imperialist attacks would truly be a dream-come-true.

Yet, for many in the imperialist centers, hatred for China flows in part from the lies of the Dalai Lama and people like German Nazi (turned CIA asset after the war) Heinrich Harrer who wrote “Seven Years in Tibet” which was turned into a Hollywood movie. The movie fails to portray anything truthful of life in Tibet under Dalai Lama rule. In the movie, Tibet was a loving paradise. In reality, in Tibet under Dalai Lama rule most people were slaves and lived in grinding poverty without education and health care. Punishments were also brutal. People were subject to all kinds of inhumane tortures, including amputations and the removal of eyes for offenses like slaves trying to escape, or being a communist. Likewise, for decades the so-called Dalai Lama was paid a huge salary by the CIA to spread his lies about what life was like under his rule in Tibet and to speak out in favor of U.S. imperialist wars like those waged in Korea and Vietnam that combined murdered a total of six million people. Much as war president Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize is an absurdity, the Dalai Lama gave support to those imperialist wars while pretending to be a man of peace.

Idiot celebrities like actor Richard here have lent a hand in the propaganda campaign to smear the image of China. (S.Rhodes, via flickr)

Idiot celebrities like actor Richard Gere (l) have lent a hand in the propaganda campaign to smear the image of China. (S.Rhodes, via flickr)

The People’s Republic of China today has the strongest remaining socialist economy and military of any deformed workers state based on collectivized property relations. It is an economy that continues to rapidly grow providing the Chinese people with necessities in a country that was once plagued by capitalist underdevelopment. While the benefits of the economic growth are uneven due to problems with market socialism and capitalist inroads, it is none the less the planned socialist economy that continues to lift the people up out of imperialist imposed underdevelopment. Yet, much of the left, under the influence of bourgeois public opinion and capitalist propaganda abandons the gains of the Chinese Revolution.

Among those who have abandoned the Chinese Revolution are the same fake “Trotskyist” groups, like the USec (Socialist Action in the US) and CWI (Socialist Alternative in the US), who cheered on the capitalist counter-revolutions of the 1980s and 1990s. These capitalist counterrevolutions were the ones that brought the mujahideen and Taliban to power in Afghanistan, destroyed the socialist economy of the USSR (causing a drop of life expectancy by 10 years in the first ten years of capitalism in the former USSR), and brought unemployment from zero to 50% in Poland (where it had once been zero) while outlawing abortion which had been free and legal.

Beware of these fake Trotskyists who, due to the winds of bourgeois public opinion yesterday were willing to abandon the women of Afghanistan to the CIA’s mujahideen cutthroats, and today join forces with U.S. imperialism for economic isolation and capitalist counterrevolution in the People’s Republic of China. The U.S. imperialists have no intention of lifting China up to a higher democratic ideal. Their campaigns against the People’s Republic of China are to reduce the country to the levels of servitude, poverty, illiteracy, and exploitation found before the 1949 revolution. Conditions much like those presently found elsewhere in the imperialist controlled underdeveloped world. Likewise, to force those conditions on the Chinese people the U.S. will need to attempt to impose and support the most undemocratic of governments, much as it does today in places like Ukraine, Saudi Arabia, Nigeria, and Indonesia.

∞

[dropcap]A[/dropcap]ll carbon emissions that are being put into the atmosphere now will not go away from our atmosphere and oceans any time soon. These emissions are only counteracted either through slow geologic processes of silica weathering or massive loads of organic material being quickly and deeply buried. These processes that remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere take hundreds of thousands of years. Carbon taxes are not sufficient, a socialist planned economy is needed to really save the planet, but as a reform that can play a role in slowing the damage and playing a role in saving the future of humanity, it is irresponsible to oppose carbon taxes, especially when done in a fair manner.

As it will take a socialist planned economy to adequately slow carbon emissions, so too will it take socialist food distribution to have any chance of keeping the world’s population fed. The dominating world model of capitalist production and distribution cannot adequately deal with questions of world hunger or curtail carbon emissions. Today, the world capitalist market is already incapable of keeping the world’s people fed, even when enough food is produced to feed everyone. Into the future it is certain that the present model of capitalist food distribution for profit will deepen food insecurity as combinations of global warming, population growth, depletion of fossil fuels, depletion of fossil water supplies, the use of crop land to produce biofuels, over-fishing, habitat destruction, and neo-Luddite opposition to bio-technology increasingly interfere with the ability of the market to provide food at the prices that much of the world can afford.

As we stare into the abyss of this looming crisis, the last thing the workers and peasants of the world need are parties on the far left giving left cover to pro-imperialist, pro-austerity, and anti-environmental capitalist parties like Canada’s NDP. Yet, just as fake “Trotskyists” have abandoned the defense of the gains of the remaining deformed workers states like China, these same parties, including the ISO, Socialist Action (USec), Socialist Organizer (ICR), Socialist Alternative (CWI), and the IMT actively support the NDP. This is a policy as misguided as the Communist Party USA’s support for the Democrats in the U.S. as the supposed “lesser of two evils”. Legitimate Leninist-Trotskyists do not build pro-capitalist, pro-imperialist, and anti-environmental parties like the NDP of Canada, the Democrat Party of the United States, the Labour Party of Britain, the Socialist Party of France, or the SPD of Germany. Instead, we work to build revolutionary socialist parties that fight for proletarian socialist revolutions that will abolish capitalism, end imperialism, establish workers democracy, and gear the economy to meet human and environmental needs rather than capitalist profit.

-Steven Argue of the Revolutionary Tendency

⁽¹⁾ Originally published on Tuesday Jun 3rd, 2014

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