Jason Hickel: Why a Liberated Palestine Threatens Global Capitalism

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Jason Hickel
Transnational Institute


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IGNITE: Festival of Radical Ideas


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Trump’s foreign policy team puts Israel first

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Max Blumenthal
THE GRAYZONE


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Nov 13, 2024 #TheGrayzone
The Grayzone's Max Blumenthal, Anya Parampil and Wyatt Reed assess Trump's initial round of Israel First foreign policy picks, and how top donors like Miriam Adelson dictated the selections through his transition team.



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  • In cynicism and power, the US propaganda machine easily surpasses Orwells Ministry of Truth.
  • Now the fight against anti-semitism is being weaponised as a new sanctimonious McCarthyism.
  • Unless opposed, neither justice nor our Constitutional right to Free Speech will survive this assault.


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A Tale of Two PSYOPS

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CJ Hopkins


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A Tale of Two PSYOPS

Billionaires' handshake: can anything good come out of that?


Once upon a time, on a planet called Earth, there was born a global-capitalist empire. It was the first global empire in the history of empires. It dominated the entire planet.

No one knew what to call the empire, because there had never been anything like it in history. It had no external adversaries, so it had nothing left to do but “clear and hold,” i.e., neutralize internal resistance and consolidate its domination of the planet.

So that is what it set about doing.

It did this first in the territories of its final ideological adversary, an empire called the Soviet Union, the ideology of which was known as “Communism.”

This was known as the “Post-Cold-War Era.”

It did this next in the Greater Middle East, where people were still trying to live their lives according to a religion known as “Islam.”

This was known as the “Global War on Terror.”

The Global War on Terror was originally intended to go on forever, and it would have, and it will, but it had to be temporarily suspended, and rebranded, because something unexpected happened.

One day, in the Summer of 2016 — theretofore officially “The Summer of Fear” — the global-capitalist empire noticed that a new form of resistance to its domination of the entire planet had risen up, not in the former Soviet Union, or the Greater Middle East, but throughout the West, right in the very heart of the empire.

And so the War on Terror was suspended, and the War on Populism began.

The War on Populism raged for four years, and culminated in the rollout of the New Normal, officially known as “the Covid pandemic.”

For over two years, i.e., from March 2020 to approximately December 2022, the global-capitalist empire morphed into a new form of totalitarianism, a global-capitalist form of totalitarianism, which was not like any other previous form of totalitarianism.

This period was the shock-and-awe phase of the rollout of the New Normal Reich.

The transition to the New Normal Reich was broadcast throughout the global empire. The message was unmistakeably clear. From now on, there would be a “New Normal.” It would be like a permanent state of war, a permanent state of civil war. And so, from now on everyone would need to pledge their allegiance to the New Normal Reich, and follow orders, or be labelled an “extremist,” a “science denier,” a “conspiracy theorist,” or some other type of seditious deviant.

The vast majority of the citizens of the West understood the message, followed orders, and pledged allegiance to the New Normal Reich. But a sizeable minority did not. The global-capitalist empire needed to neutralize this sizeable minority.

The majority of this sizeable minority was comprised of conservative, libertarian, and other basically right-leaning people. It contained a few old-school left-leaning people, but they were a minority within a minority, and so they weren’t really a factor when it came to neutralizing the larger minority, which the empire promptly set about doing.

The Free-Speech Twitter PSYOP

In October 2022, Elon Musk, the multi-billionaire military contractor, electric car salesman, and transhumanism enthusiast, and a coterie of serious global-capitalist entities and individuals purchased the social media platform known as Twitter, Inc. for 44 billion US dollars.

Musk walked into Twitter’s San Francisco headquarters grinning like a chimpanzee and carrying a bathroom sink, and the Free-Speech Twitter PSYOP began.

During the War on Populism and the shock-and-awe phase of the rollout of the New Normal Reich, Twitter, Inc., and every other social-media platform and mass-media outlet in the Western world, had been functioning as the empire’s Ministry of Truth, disseminating official New Normal propaganda, censoring dissent, and unpersoning anyone challenging the empire’s official narratives. And thus, it provided the perfect stage for the PSYOP the empire was about to conduct.

Musk reinstated a number of prominent, primarily conservative Twitter accounts that had been deplatformed for “posting misinformation” about Hunter Biden’s laptop and the “Covid vaccines,” and for posting “incitement” and “glorification of violence,” and bigotry and other such offensive content, among them, the account of Donald Trump, and tens of thousands of Trump supporters.

As Elon had promised, “the bird was freed”! Elon acolytes and grateful garden-variety Trumpians and other right-leaning persons poured onto Twitter to thank their savior for reversing the company’s target demographic, thus saving America from “Cultural Marxism,” and “Communism,” and the “Woke Mind Virus.”

The PSYOP continued with a textbook limited hangout known as the “Twitter Files.” Musk let a few carefully selected journalists run a few searches at Twitter HQ, which exposed how the former staff of Twitter had been collaborating with elements of the Biden administration (i.e., not the global-capitalist empire) to censor and deplatform people — mostly those in the new “red” target demographic — and was part of some strictly-USA-operated “Censorship Industrial Complex,” which was absolutely not a global operation, and had nothing to do with any global-capitalist empire, or a “New Normal Reich,” because all the censorship and “shadowbanning” — which was all in the past now that Elon was in charge — was the work of a cabal of deep-state libtard bureaucrats, who were all a bunch of “Commies.”

These revelations in the “Twitter Files” prompted Republicans in the US Congress to hold a series of subcommittee hearings into the possibly unconstitutional behavior of the Biden administration and its libtard proxies (i.e., not the global-capitalist empire), which had forced Twitter, Inc., and the other totally helpless Internet corporations to “shadowban” and censor Americans (i.e., not everyone else all throughout the empire that these corporations were also censoring in a clearly coordinated fashion).

And then, right on cue, once the story had been framed within a US-centric “red/blue” narrative, Musk shut the “Twitter Files” limited hangout down, i.e., before it could do any damage to the global-capitalist empire itself.

For the next two years, Elon and his cronies inundated their new target-demographic with “Free-Speech-Twitter” propaganda, sentimental Elon Musk-hagiography, and a never-ending series of PR-stunts. Twitter was officially rebranded as “X.” Musk went to war with Brazil’s Darth Vader, and Thierry Breton, and assorted other “Commies.” Twitter users were besieged with memes of Elon dressed up as Captain Free-Speech America. Et cetera.

And so the Musk Cult was born.

Meanwhile, X is continuing to censor and “visibility-filter” content at the behest of governments throughout the empire, as well as in furtherance of its own objectives.

If you think that fact has had a negative impact on the Free-Speech Twitter PSYOP, on the contrary, the Musk Cult has only grown broader and stronger. Like any other cult, it is impervious to facts. All that matters is loyalty to the cult, and the leader of the cult, and the cult’s official narrative. You can direct Musk cultists to the Twitter Safety pages where “visibility filtering” is explained, and cite countless examples of Musk’s hypocrisy, and it will have absolutely no effect whatsoever. Like every other successful cult leader, Elon is beyond reproach, incapable of sin, a god made flesh.

But deifying Elon was not the primary objective of the Free-Speech Twitter PSYOP.

The primary objective of the Free-Speech Twitter PSYOP was to harness, corral, and establish control over the majority of the sizeable minority of people who refused to follow orders and pledge allegiance to the New Normal Reich when it was rolled out during the “Covid pandemic.” These people needed to be herded into a manipulable mass and redirected away from the global-capitalist empire and into a harmless cul-de-sac where they could scream and shout at the empire’s designated scapegoats to their heart’s content. The Musk Cult was just a means of herding and leading them into this cul-de-sac.

“Free-Speech Twitter” is this cul-de-sac, and is a microcosm of a larger cul-de-sac.

Which brings us to the second PSYOP.

The America Made Great Again PSYOP

One of the most effective ways to neutralize an opponent is to let them win. This is especially true when you’re dealing with an opponent you can never entirely defeat.

What you do is, you lure your opponent into a battle you can afford to lose, because you need to actually lose the battle, and let your opponent actually win, i.e., not just trick them into thinking they have won, because … well, your opponent isn’t stupid.

This battle that you lure your opponent into and let them win will be a battle over a territory within a territory, but which your opponent believes is “the territory.” You can afford to lose control of this territory within a territory because you control the territory it exists within, and because your opponent doesn’t know that.

The trick is getting your opponent to believe that, by winning this battle, they have won “the war,” and that they now control “the territory,” and have destroyed you, or have otherwise removed you from power, when, actually, all that your opponent has destroyed or removed from power is a corporeal decoy, a material incarnation of an invisible, immaterial adversary, an adversary they do not know exists, or which they refuse to acknowledge the existence of … assuming, of course, that is what you are.

At which point, you have neutralized your opponent.

For example, say you’re a global empire, a supranational global-capitalist empire, and say your opponent is a populist insurgency, a potentially revolutionary mass, that you need to distract from contemplating your supranational, invisible, immaterial nature, and from the fact that the governments of nation-states are essentially administrative components of this invisible immaterial empire that you are, and thus it doesn’t really matter to you which political party administers these nation-states or who the leaders of these parties are, because they can’t really do much damage to you, because all they control are the material territories within the immaterial territory you control, which predetermines the context and the scope of their actions, and the parameters of their imaginations, and … OK, you probably see where this is going.

Or, I don’t know, maybe you don’t. So let me try to simplify it.

There is no “America” to make great again. “America” is a simulation. It is a map of a territory that does not exist. It is a dream within a dream in a film that no one can see because everyone is watching. It is a brand name for an imaginary product.

OK, that didn’t make it any simpler, did it? Let me try this one more time.

We are living in a global-capitalist empire. One big global-capitalist empire. We have been for the last thirty-something years. All of us. Americans. Canadians. The British. The French. Australians. Germans. Russians. Israelis. Palestinians. Iranians. All of us.

The global-capitalist empire is not a cabal of powerful individuals. It is a system. And that system is evolving. Metamorphosing. Transmogrifying. Evolving into a new form of totalitarianism. A global-capitalist form of totalitarianism.

It is the system, and not its servants, that is driving … driving this systemic evolution. It makes no difference whether Elon Musk, or Donald Trump, or Macron, or Starmer, or Netanyahu, or Gates, or Bezos, or Soros, or any other political “leader” or powerful figure knows what they are doing. They serve the system, as the system requires, each according to their specific role and scope of action within the system.

Elon Musk did not “save free speech” or “rescue Twitter” from a “Woke Mind Virus.” He purchased a corporation and rebranded its product for new market demographic. In so doing, he corralled and neutralized most of the conservative populist resistance to the evolution of the global-capitalist system … which is what the system needed to happen. It makes no difference whether Elon Musk understood his role. He played it perfectly. He is continuing to play it perfectly.

The Musk Cult is growing. Its apostles are preaching the Gospel of Elon throughout the empire, paving the road to The Privatization of Everything! Verily, it is the dawn of a golden age of “Freedom” ruled by global corporations and beneficent oligarchs!

However, before that golden age can begin, America must be made great again! And so the Free-Speech Twitter PSYOP has to be repeated on the macro-level. The same conservative populist resistance to the evolution of the global-capitalist system that Musk corralled and neutralized needs to be corralled and neutralized everywhere … not just in America, everywhere, all throughout the West and the rest of the empire.

Once it is corralled, and neutralized, and whipped up into a frenzy over “Wokeness,” “Cultural Marxism,” and “Communism,” it can be unleashed on the remnants of the dying age of nation-states, national sovereignty, constitutions, and so on, which will prompt the Global Powers That Be to take extreme measures to “defend democracy,” which will prompt the Other Global Powers That Be to take more extreme measures to “Rescue the Republic,” which will prompt the Global Powers That Be to take even more extreme extreme measures to “defend democracy from fascism” and … OK, this time, I do think you see where this is going.

Or, I don’t know, maybe you don’t. But I don’t think I can make it any simpler. And I don’t see any way to stop it or fix it. It isn’t an error to be corrected. It is the organic evolution of a system … a supranational system evolving into a new totalitarian form.

So, there you have it, a tale of two PSYOPS. I’m sorry that it isn’t as comforting as a story about how Donald Trump and Elon Musk and their global-capitalist investors, and their subsidiaries, agents, and assigns, are going to “make America great again.”

If it’s any consolation, one thing is certain … whatever happens, it won’t be boring.

 


CJ Hopkins is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
 


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  • Now the fight against anti-semitism is being weaponised as a new sanctimonious McCarthyism.
  • Unless opposed, neither justice nor our Constitutional right to Free Speech will survive this assault.


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West Asia reacts to Trump’s dalliance with Zionism

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M.K. Bhadrakumar
INDIAN PUNCHLINE


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West Asia reacts to Trump’s dalliance with Zionism

MBS with China's Pres. Xi. (The Cradle)


The election victory of Donald Trump in the November 5 election is being perceived in the West Asian region with growing anxiety as presaging the US aligning one hundred percent with the Zionist project for Greater Israel. 

Although Trump has kept out vociferous neocons from his government positions, the same cannot be said for pro-Zionist figures. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu claims he has spoken three times with Trump alreadysince the election and they “see eye-to-eye regarding the Iranian threat and all of its components.”

The “components” implies that Netanyahu hopes to get a blank cheque from Trump to accelerate the ethnic cleansing in Gaza, for annexation of West Bank, violent reprisals against Palestinians and, most important, to carry the war right into Iranian territory.  

Three events in as many days this week show the first signs of a backlash building up. On Monday, Iran’s foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei gave Tehran’s first official reaction to Trump’s election victory. Baqaei took a nuanced line saying, “What matters to us in this region is the United States’ actual behaviour and policies regarding Iran and the broader West Asia.” 

Notably, Baqaei expressed “cautious optimism that the new [Trump] administration might adopt a more peace-oriented approach, reduce regional hostilities, and uphold its commitments.” (Tehran Times) Baqaei also refuted the recent allegation by Washington that Iran was involved in plots to assassinate Trump. He called the Biden Administration’s allegation as “nothing more than an attempt to sabotage relations” between Tehran and Washington by “laying traps to complicate the path for the next administration.”



Baqaei also held out an assurance to the incoming US administration that Tehran firmly adheres to a nuclear programme for peaceful purposes. He announced that Rafael Grossi, head of International Atomic Energy (IAEA) was due to arrive in Tehran  on Wednesday night. 

Taken together, Baqaei’s remarks suggest that Iran hopes there’s still daylight possible between Trump and Netanyahu. The clincher here would have been the remark that Trump slipped into his victory speech with great deliberation on November 6 that “I’m not going to start a war. I’m going to stop wars.” 

Trump was on record during his election campaign that “I don’t want to do damage to Iran but they cannot have nuclear weapons.” Tehran’s consultations with Grossi responds to Trump’s concern. This is smart thinking. Iran’s non-provocative stance would mean there is no alibi for attacking Iran.

That said, however, the “known unknown” still remains — namely, Iran’s retaliation to the Israeli attack on October 26. On November 2, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in a video released by Iranian state media, promised “a crushing response” to Israeli attack. Conceivably, the period till January 20 when Trump is sworn in, is going to be critical. 

Meanwhile, this week witnessed that Iran and Saudi Arabia have given verve to their detente, which is now manifesting as Riyadh’s solidarity and open support for Iran in its growing confrontation with Israel.

Amidst the growing tensions in the region, the chief of staff of Saudi Arabia’s armed forces, Fayyad al-Ruwaili, visited Tehran on November 10 and met with his Iranian counterpart General Mohammad Bagheri. Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian spoke on the phone with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman on the phone in the context of a summit of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) – Arab League in Riyadh on November 11-12. Iran has extended an invitation to MbS to visit Tehran! 

Two hugely significant highlights of the Riyadh summit have been, first, the Saudi prince’s inaugural address where he warned Israel against hitting Iran. This marked a historic turn by Riyadh toward Tehran-Israeli conflict, and away from US-supported normalisation with Jerusalem.

MbS told the summit that the international community should oblige Israel “to respect the sovereignty of the sisterly Islamic Republic of Iran and not to violate its lands.” 

Again, Saudi Arabia accused Israel for the first time of committing “genocide” in Gaza. MbS told the leaders who gathered in Riyadh, that the kingdom renewed “its condemnation and categorical rejection of the genocide committed by Israel against the brotherly Palestinian people…”

Trump has been put on notice that he’s meeting a radically different geopolitical landscape in West Asia compared to his first term as president. The Trump transition team is keeping its cards close, offering NatSec Daily a boilerplate statement that Trump will take “necessary action” to “lead our country” and “restore peace through strength.” But warning bells are ringing. 

The key pillars of Trump’s “maximum pressure” strategy against Tehran — isolating Iran and ramping up economic pressure while  maintaining a credible threat of military force as deterrent — have become wobbly.

On the other hand, the massive Iranian ballistic missile attack on Israel on October 1 and the colossal failure of the Israeli air strike on Iran twenty-six days later convey a loud message all across West Asia that Israel is no longer the dominant military power it used to be — and there is a new sheriff in town. Trump will have to navigate the fallout of both sides of this issue with diminished US diplomatic and geopolitical capital at his disposal. 

Meanwhile, Tehran is also deepening its cooperation with Russia, which adds a giant new Ukraine-sized complexity to Trump’s Iran policy. While in Eurasia, the US has allies, Trump is navigating in West Asia pretty much alone.

The US’ stark isolation comes home dramatically by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s announcement on Wednesday that Turkey, a NATO member country, has severed all ties with Israel. Erdogan disclosed this to journalists aboard his plane after visiting Saudi Arabia. A regional trend to ostracise Israel is visible now and it is destined to expand and deepen. 

The summit in Riyadh witnessed the African Union joining hands with the Arab League and OIC to sign a tripartite agreement on Tuesday to establish a mechanism to support the Palestinian cause, which will be coordinated through the three organisations’ secretariats as a game changer to strengthen their influence in international forums. Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan noted that the three organisations will now onward speak with one voice internationally. 

Even as the summit concluded in Riyadh, Crown Prince Salman had a call on Wednesday with Russian President Vladimir Putin. The Kremlin readout stated that the two leaders “reaffirmed their commitment to continue the consistent expansion” of Russian-Saudi ties and specifically “stressed the importance of continuing close coordination within OPEC Plus and stated the effectiveness and timeliness of the steps being taken in this format to ensure balance on the global energy market.”

On the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, the Kremlin readout noted with satisfaction that “the principled approaches of Russia and Saudi Arabia with regard to the Middle East settlement are essentially identical.”

MbS’ initiative to re-invigorate his conversation with Putin can only be seen against the backdrop of the profound misgivings in Riyadh regarding the Trump-Netanyahu bromance and the spectre of a possible regional war haunting the region stemming out of Israel drawing encouragement from the seamless US support expected through the coming 4-year period for the Zionist cause. 


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  • In cynicism and power, the US propaganda machine easily surpasses Orwells Ministry of Truth.
  • Now the fight against anti-semitism is being weaponised as a new sanctimonious McCarthyism.
  • Unless opposed, neither justice nor our Constitutional right to Free Speech will survive this assault.


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The Trump Administration: From “No War Hawks” to ALL War Hawks

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Brian Berletic
THE NEW ATLAS


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Regardless of what is said, or who is in office, US foreign policy continues on its course of single-minded pursuit of global American supremacy at any cost.


The Trump Administration: From “No War Hawks” to ALL War Hawks

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Nov 9, 2024

Update on the conflict in Ukraine for Sunday November 10, 2024…

  • The Western media is citing the recent US presidential election as a turning point for the Ukraine conflict, with Kiev facing abandonment and defeat despite both having already long-since materialized;
  • Various proposals are being discussed regarding the freezing or ending of the conflict, proposals that were being developed independently of US elections;
  • Meanwhile, Western reports indicate Russian military power continuing to grow while Ukrainian arms, ammunition, and trained manpower continue to dwindle as Ukraine’s loss of territory accelerates;
  • While many see President-elect Donald Trump as seeking to undo harmful US foreign policy enacted by the previous administration, in his previous term he himself helped advance the US proxy war with Russia by both arming Ukraine and withdrawing from arms control treaties allowing the US to station more dangerous long-range weapons in Europe pointed at Russia;
  • The incoming Trump administration, like those before it, view Ukraine, Israel, and “Taiwan” as US allies and are simply reprioritizing the flow of US resources to the latter two as Ukraine’s irreversible defeat unfolds;
  • US political candidates incapable of openly and clearly identifying US foreign policy as aggressive, illegal, unacceptable, and at the center of the many global conflicts it has created including in Ukraine, the Middle East, and the Asia-Pacific region, are simply selling American voters “hope” with no real intention of changing anything.

References:
https://www.nytimes.com/1992/03/08/wo...
America First Policy Initiative - Agenda:
https://agenda.americafirstpolicy.com/
US State Department - US Relations with Taiwan (archived - 2019):
https://web.archive.org/web/201906081...
NYT - The Group at the Center of Trump’s Planning for a Second Term Is One You Haven’t Heard of (America First Policy Institute, Oct. 24, 2024):
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/24/us...
Ukraine is Already Losing… AP - Russia blasts Ukraine with more aerial attacks as part of an intensified campaign (Nov. 8, 2024):
https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukr...
Defense One - Pace of war shortens EU-based training for Ukrainian troops (Nov. 6, 2024):
https://www.defenseone.com/threats/20...
NYT - Russia’s Swift March Forward in Ukraine’s East (Oct. 31, 2024):
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2...
Geopolitical Developments… Guardian - Trump’s return is terrible news for Ukraine. Europe should step into the breach – but will it? (Nov. 8, 2024):
https://www.theguardian.com/commentis...
RAND Corporation - Extending Russia: Competing from Advantageous Ground (2019):
https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_re...
CNN - Ukraine is forced to confront a brutal Trump reality that it hoped would never happen (Nov. 7, 2024):
https://edition.cnn.com/2024/11/07/eu...
Where to Find My Work: Website:
https://landdestroyer.blogspot.com/
Telegram:
https://t.me/brianlovethailand
Twitter:
  / brianjberletic  
Odysee (YouTube alternative):
https://odysee.com/@LandDestroyer:8
Rumble (YouTube alternative):
https://rumble.com/c/c-1459863


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The Trump Administration: From “No War Hawks” to ALL War Hawks

Brian Berletic, November 13 2024

In the weeks leading up to the 2024 US presidential election, Americans and many around the world invested hope that former-president and now President-elect Donald Trump would grind America’s wars abroad to a halt and instead invest in the United States itself.


The Trump Administration: From “No War Hawks” to ALL War Hawks


These hopes were based on rhetoric surrounding the Trump campaign. The candidate’s son, Donald Trump Jr., remarked publicly, “we need maximum pressure to keep all neocons and war hawks out of the Trump administration,” a reflection of candidate Trump’s rhetoric on the campaign trail. 

All of President-elect Trump’s considerations and appointments are enthusiastic neocons.

Unfortunately, just as was the case during President-elect Donald Trump’s previous term in office, this was an empty promise meant to secure the support of war-weary Americans and possibly even to throw nations abroad off balance, before filling his cabinet with the most vocal “neocons and war hawks” living and breathing in Washington D.C.

Continuity of Agenda… 

During President-elect Trump’s previous administration, he lined his cabinet with hardcore neocons and war hawks like John Bolton, Mike Pompeo, and Nikki Haley who all worked ceaselessly to continue all the wars President Trump inherited from the Obama administration and attempt to provoke additional wars US special interests have long-since sought including with China, Iran, and even Russia itself.

During the first Trump administration, the US initiated a trade war with China and other measures aimed at gutting China’s largest and most successful businesses including smartphone manufacturer Huawei, culminating in sales bans across the collective West, US-based Google cutting Huawei off from its Android operating system, and even the detainment of Huawei’s CFO Meng Wanzhou while traveling in Canada.

During the first Trump administration, the US also continued its military build-up across the Asia-Pacific as a means of encircling and containing China within its own borders, another policy inherited from the Obama administration.

In the Middle East, the Trump administration continued the illegal occupation of Syria which began under the Obama administration, continued carrying out strikes against the Syrian government and its allies, with President Trump bragging about pilfering Syrian oil. It was also during the first Trump administration that the US assassinated senior Iranian military leader General Qasem Soleimani while visiting Iraq on official business, an indisputable act of war against both Iran and Iraq. General Soleimani had until then been successfully fighting the self-proclaimed “Islamic State” across the region, including in Syria and Iraq.

And while President Trump was accused of being an agent of Russian interests, in reality his administration helped accelerate the US proxy war with Russia in Ukraine by beginning to armUkrainian forces, almost certainly the final red line crossed convincing Moscow to launch its Special Military Operation (SMO) in February 2022. It was also during the first Trump administration that the US withdrew from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, paving the way for the subsequent Biden administration to station intermediate-range missiles in Europe pointed at Russia.

As the first Trump administration egregiously violated campaign promises of ending US involvement abroad, many Trump supporters resorted to a number of excuses including President Trump’s “inexperience,” suggesting he may not have known who Pompeo, Bolton, or Haley actually were and that during a second administration his cabinet would act upon lessons learned.

Restocking the Swamp… 

Fast-forward to today, the incoming Trump administration had temporarily bolstered that hope – that these lessons were indeed learned – by announcing Bolton, Pompeo and Haley would play no role in the incoming administration.

This was short-lived, however, as it was subsequently announced that the next national security adviser would likely be Mike Waltz, the ideological twin of John Bolton. Elsie Stafanik was announced as US ambassador to the UN, the ideological twin of Nikki Haley. And both Marco Rubio and Richard Grenell are being considered as the possible incoming US Secretary of State, men whose views are indistinguishable from former Trump Secretary of State Mike Pompeo – or US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken under the Biden administration for that matter.

All of President-elect Trump’s considerations and appointments are enthusiastic neocons and war hawks who have spent their careers advocating war abroad, particularly against Russia, China, and Iran, but also Libya, Syria, Venezuela, and many other nations. Stafanik is listed as an “expert” at the US National Endowment for Democracy, a neocon directed organization involved in political interference worldwide, including in Ukraine in 2014, beginning what has now evolved into Washington’s failing proxy war with Russia.

While some may claim the incoming Trump administration’s neocon and war hawk picks represent a “bait and switch,” in reality the Trump administration’s inclusion of J.D. Vance as vice president pick was – up front –  an open declaration that war and warmongering would continue abroad, just not in Ukraine.

Newsweek in its article, “JD Vance Tells Tim Dillon US Needs Weapons To Fight China, Not Russia,” made it clear that “stability in the Indo-Pacific and supporting Taiwan should be a higher priority for the U.S. than military aid to Ukraine.”  

President-elect Trump’s close association with and appointment of neocons and war hawks involved in the very policies he ran on opposing represents a repeat of the first Trump administration’s seamless continuation of US foreign policy, regardless of appealing rhetoric suggesting otherwise.

Pausing Ukraine to Accelerate War Elsewhere… 

It may seem paradoxical, then, that the incoming Trump administration seems determined to end the conflict in Ukraine. Rather than any sort of political transition in the US, this represents more of a transition of priorities among America’s unelected special interests driving US foreign policy, regardless of who occupies the White House or controls the US Congress.

The US proxy war in Ukraine, a war the first Trump administration played an equal role in precipitating, by all accounts, has run its course. The goal of “extending Russia” at the expense of Ukraine has been achieved to the fullest extent possible. With US stockpiles exhausted and escalation requiring what is left of US military power being reserved for a larger and more dangerous war with either Iran and/or China, Washington’s choice is to either double-down on Ukraine or pivot toward Iran and/or China before the windows of opportunity for success amid these two potential conflicts closes for good.

The incoming Trump administration is lined with neocons and war hawks who have openly promoted the arming of the US-installed separatist regime on Taiwan in a bid to eventually carve Taiwan off from China permanently. This is despite the US State Department officially not supporting Taiwan independence and agreeing bilaterally with Beijing on a “one China” policy noting there is one China, Taiwan is part of China, and there is only one recognized government of China, the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in Beijing.

As part of preparing for this conflict, the US has expanded its military presence in the Asia-Pacific spanning the Obama, Trump, and Biden administrations, and will undoubtedly continue during the second Trump administration made up of the most vocal proponents of this policy.

This process also involves creating conflict between the Philippines and China, currently the Philippines’ largest trade partner and until recently an important infrastructure partner, to create a pretext for an expanding US military footprint upon the former US colony and Southeast Asian nation. This allows the US to further surround China and a possible conflict zone around its island province of Taiwan with nearby US forces.

While the political “right” in the United States depicted the Biden administration as “soft” on China, it was under the Biden administration that an intensive reorganization of US military forces took place specifically to prepare for war with China.

This included the reorganization of the US Marine Corps into a highly mobile anti-shipping missile force, and the US Air Force’s adoption of its Agile Combat Employment (ACE) strategy dispersing US air bases across the Asia-Pacific to make it more difficult for China to retaliate against US installations should war begin.

These transformed US military forces will now be fully in place as an openly hostile anti-China administration takes power, just as the Trump administration helped set the stage for the US proxy war against Russia in Ukraine commencing during the subsequent Biden administration.

What is abundantly clear is that US foreign policy is not determined by US elections. Elections merely determine the rhetoric used to sell what is otherwise a continuous agenda to the public, the faces presenting that rhetoric, and the excuses for why US foreign policy continuously fails to change despite elections.

For the rest of the globe facing four more years of US hostility worldwide, it must continue working on a multipolar international order that creates the conditions within which US aggression abroad is simply impossible. This can and is being achieved by using financial, economic, diplomatic, and military means to constrain US coercion – be it sanctions or military force, proxy or direct intervention – through financial and economic alternatives beyond the reach of US sanctions and powerful military deterrence. This leaves US special interests with only one option – to work constructively with a world it can no longer impose itself upon.

 

Brian Berletic is a Bangkok-based geopolitical researcher and writer, especially for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook

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