Dissent Is Being Criminalized Right Under Our Noses

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Mike Siegel

“Federal prosecutors could charge terrorism if actions might ‘affect’ or ‘influence’ a government policy.”

If you painted “Black Lives Matter” on a wall to advocate against police violence, that could be prosecuted as terrorism.

Many of us are deeply concerned about the recent wave of mass shootings and hate crimes that have taken place across the United States. As the Department of Justice reported , in 2018 alone there were 25 race-based terrorist attacks on U.S. soil, each committed by an alleged white supremacist. Immediate action is needed to address this crisis and tragedies like the Aug. 3 shooting in El Paso, Texas.

McCaul—Texas politico, Homeland Security, Republican, "terrorist expert"—you connect the dots. A land that specialises in producing dangerous jingo reactionaries.

So I read with interest a recent press release  of Rep. Michael McCaul. (1)—the Republican incumbent in the Texas 10th Congressional District and my opponent in the 2018 election—in which he announced a new bill  to respond to domestic terrorism.

My hopes for reasonable legislation were quickly dashed, however, and replaced by deep concern.

The proposed bill would create a broad definition of “domestic terrorism” to include any attempt to “affect” or “influence” government policy or actions. And it would include property damage—even attempted property damage—as a terrorist act subject to a 25-year prison sentence.

In other words, if you opposed the Dakota Access pipeline at Standing Rock and wanted the government to revoke the pipeline permit, you might be considered a terrorist.

If you painted “Black Lives Matter” on a wall to advocate against police violence, that could be terrorism, too.

And if you threw a rock at a bank window to take a stand against the 1% —even if you missed—you could spend half your life in a federal prison.

So far as I can tell, McCaul and his co-sponsors are taking advantage of a moment of profound insecurity to advance a bill that will criminalize dissent.

A Close Reading

The full bill is less than four pages, and would accomplish three main things: 1) define the “intent” necessary to commit a crime of domestic terrorism; 2) identify five sets of qualifying offenses; and 3) punish unsuccessful “attempts” and “conspiracies” to commit these offenses.

The definition of “intent” shows the bill’s sweeping impact, far beyond responding to recent mass shootings.

In regard to five criminal offenses, an act is “domestic terrorism” if is performed “with the intent to intimidate or coerce a civilian population or influence, affect, or retaliate against the policy or conduct of a government.”

As a civil rights lawyer, I’m trained to look for vague language, because that is often the gravest threat to constitutional rights. Here, federal prosecutors could charge terrorism if actions might “affect” or “influence” a government policy. This is an extremely broad definition of terroristic intent.

Five crimes are included in the bill’s broad definition of domestic terrorism: murder, kidnapping, aggravated assault, simple assault and property damage. With respect to the crimes against people, these are already punishable under existing state and federal law, although the bill would impose longer sentences, such as 30 years for assault. Property damage would result in a 25-year sentence, far beyond the bounds of any state vandalism law.

The final key aspect of the bill has to do with how it treats unsuccessful attempts and conspiracies: “Attempts or conspiracies to commit an offense … shall be punished in the same manner as a completed act of such offense.” In other words, don’t even find yourself in the same room as someone contemplating political property damage—or you can be deemed a terrorist, too.

Context: Standing Rock and “Antifa”

The bill includes the word “conveyance” in its definition of property damage, which is a signal that the Standing Rock protests were likely a consideration.

On the same day as McCaul’s press release, The Intercept reported  that American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers is lobbying to enact legislation that will enhance criminal penalties for any pipeline damage. With the support of the American Legislative Exchange Council, it has enacted laws in nine states. Oklahoma, for example, created a crime punishable by up to 10 years in jail for damage to a pipeline—again, far beyond existing federal penalties.

The McCaul bill mirrors this approach, and creates major federal crimes for property damage connected to a political cause.

For all of the crimes in question, from murder to vandalism, existing penal codes give prosecutors ample room to bring cases. Nothing is stopping federal authorities from charging mass shooters with hate crimes or crimes of violence and seeking sentences up to and including life in prison and the death penalty.

But there is currently no law that would empower federal prosecutors to charge protesters with major federal crimes for property damage caused during a protest.

“Bree Newsome Bass, who scaled a flagpole in Charleston, S.C., to remove a Confederate flag would be considered a terrorist.”

While this bill is rolled out, President Trump is ranting daily against “antifa” (i.e., anti-fascists). Recent news footage showed clashes in Portland, Ore ., between white supremacist groups and anti-fascist demonstrators. Were those confrontations tantamount to domestic terrorism? The McCaul bill would give federal prosecutors near blanket authority to charge either group with terrorist charges. And Trump has already made clear which group he would focus on.

There are countless examples of protest activity that McCaul would open to terrorism charges. As for Bree Newsome Bass,  who scaled a flagpole in Charleston, S.C., to remove a Confederate flag? She’d be considered a terrorist. Students at Duke University who toppled a Confederate monument ? Also terrorists.

Under this definition, the Boston Tea Party itself was a terrorist act: “Property damage, with the intent to influence a government policy.”

This is not the way we reduce mass shootings in America. This is not a tool to confront white supremacist attacks. Rather, this is an open invitation to trample the Constitution and give free reign to a dictatorial regime.


(1) QUITE A PIECE OF WORK—ANOTHER GIFT FROM TEXAS
Michael Thomas McCaul Sr. (born January 14, 1962) is an American attorney and politician serving as the U.S. Representative for Texas’s 10th congressional district, since 2005. During 113th, 114th, and 115th Congresses, he served as Chairman of the House Committee on Homeland Security. Congressman McCaul is a member of the Republican Party. The district stretches from Austin to Houston. As of 2018 he is the fifth-wealthiest member of Congress.[2]

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Mike Siegel is a former public school teacher and civil rights lawyer. He was the 2018 Democratic nominee in the Texas 10th Congressional District. He is running again in 2020.

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License

ALL CAPTIONS AND PULL QUOTES BY THE EDITORS NOT THE AUTHORS
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Trump Administration Threatens Families Of Venezuelan Military



horiz-long grey

HELP ENLIGHTEN YOUR FELLOWS. BE SURE TO PASS THIS ON. SURVIVAL DEPENDS ON IT.

Bolton is a filthy gangster. And a revolting hypocrite. Excellent qualifications to serve the empire, That has been amply demonstrated by none other than him, since, protected by the muscle of the American state, he acts, like all poltroons, with complete impudence, as does his boss and other figures in the administration.

“Today, President Trump presented Venezuela’s military officers with a choice – work for a democratic future for all Venezuelans or see the financial circle close for their families and loved ones,” tweeted US National Security Advisor John Bolton today following a Miami speech by the president.

If you know anything about John Bolton, you just know he typed “noose” first instead of “circle”.

This would be the same John Bolton, for the record, who once threatened to murder an international official’s children for obstructing his attempts to manufacture support for the Iraq invasion which killed a million human beings and plunged the region into terrorism and chaos. A man named José Bustani was the director-general of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons in early 2002, during which time The Intercept reports he came under fire for having too much success in diplomacy with the Iraqi government, which undermined the case for an invasion. So Bolton attempted to scare him off.

From The Intercept:

“Cheney wants you out,” Bustani recalled Bolton saying, referring to the then-vice president of the United States. “We can’t accept your management style.”

Bolton continued, according to Bustani’s recollections: “You have 24 hours to leave the organization, and if you don’t comply with this decision by Washington, we have ways to retaliate against you.”

There was a pause.
“We know where your kids live. You have two sons in New York.”

And now we see this same psychopath threatening to starve and impoverish the families of a sovereign nation’s military with economic warfare if they don’t facilitate a coup by the most violent government on earth in the most oil-rich nation on the planet. All in the name of spreading Freedom and Democracy™, of course.

 

[dropcap]B[/dropcap]olton, who was in attendance at the president’s speech, gave a more direct and honest summary of what was happening than the one Trump’s speechwriters fed him:

“We seek a peaceful transition of power, but all options are open,” Trump said of the US-led Venezuela coup agenda. “We want to restore Venezuelan democracy, and we believe that the Venezuelan military and its leadership have a vital role to play in this process. If you choose this path, you have an opportunity to help forge a safe and prosperous future for all of the people of Venezuela. Or you can choose the second path: continuing to support Maduro. If you choose this path, you will find no safe harbor, no easy exit, and no way out. You will lose everything.”

This would be the same President Trump, for the record, who just hours earlier tweeted about “an illegal coup attempt on the President of the United States,” regarding statements made by former Acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe that there had been discussions among top officials at the Justice Department and the FBI about possibly using the 25th Amendment to remove Trump from office. This same man who is outraged about an attempt to oust him early on in his administration using laws and bureaucracy has no qualms about ousting the government of a sovereign nation using starvation sanctions, CIA ops, an aggressive campaign to delegitimize Maduro, and now outright threats to the nation’s military personnel.

Trump has also been tweeting furiously about the “lies” McCabe told about him, who wrote the following in his new book about a 2017 Oval Office meeting:

“Then the president talked about Venezuela. That’s the country we should be going to war with, he said. They have all that oil and they’re right on our back door. He continued on, rambling and spitballing about whatever came to mind.”

I am sure that McCabe is as much of a deceitful sleaze as every other FBI boss, but that part at least sounds truthful.

 

For the rest of Trump’s speech he very tediously introduced all his loyal sycophants backing his Venezuela agendas, he bloviated repeatedly about the horrible horrifying terror of socialism, he kept referring to Venezuela’s elected leader as “Dictator Maduro” and some rando that fewer than one in five Venezuelans had even heard of until last month as “President Guaidó”, he tossed out nonsensical red herrings about Venezuela being controlled by Cuba, and he repeated his administration’s braindead talking point about the Venezuelan government refusing to let in US “humanitarian aid”, which the Red Cross, the UN, and even war-happy NPR recognize as a transparent ploy to foment regime change.

These are the people you’re meant to believe are the “good guys” coming to the rescue, America. The guys who threaten to kill the families of officials if they aren’t given their way. The guys who threaten to starve the families of military officials who don’t turn on their government and kill anyone who tries to stop them. The guys who pick mass murder facilitator Elliott Abrams to spearhead Venezuela’s transition to Freedom and Democracy™. The guys who helped murder a million Iraqis and plunge us into a new era of military expansionism and Orwellian surveillance. Those guys.

Sometimes it’s hard to say what’s more frustrating: the fact that these deadly imperialist regime change power grabs keep happening, or the fact that people keep buying the same tired old stories that are used to sell them.

____________________

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About the Author
 
Caitlin Johnstone is a brave journalist, political junkie, relentless feminist, champion of the 99 percent. And a powerful counter-propaganda tactician. 

 Creative Commons License  This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

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Parting shot—a word from the editors
The Best Definition of Donald Trump We Have Found

In his zeal to prove to his antagonists in the War Party that he is as bloodthirsty as their champion, Hillary Clinton, and more manly than Barack Obama, Trump seems to have gone “play-crazy” -- acting like an unpredictable maniac in order to terrorize the Russians into forcing some kind of dramatic concessions from their Syrian allies, or risk Armageddon.However, the “play-crazy” gambit can only work when the leader is, in real life, a disciplined and intelligent actor, who knows precisely what actual boundaries must not be crossed. That ain’t Donald Trump -- a pitifully shallow and ill-disciplined man, emotionally handicapped by obscene privilege and cognitively crippled by white American chauvinism. By pushing Trump into a corner and demanding that he display his most bellicose self, or be ceaselessly mocked as a “puppet” and minion of Russia, a lesser power, the War Party and its media and clandestine services have created a perfect storm of mayhem that may consume us all.— Glen Ford, Editor in Chief, Black Agenda Report 

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Yet another murder that wasn’t: The Perepilichny case and the anti-Russia campaign

HELP ENLIGHTEN YOUR FELLOWS. BE SURE TO PASS THIS ON. SURVIVAL DEPENDS ON IT.

By Clara Weiss, wsws.org

The past few days have seen the unravelling of one of the many alleged “murders” that Russian President Vladimir Putin has been accused of by the media and the intelligence agencies: after an investigation into the November 2012 death of the multi-millionaire Alexander Perepilichny, the coroner found that he “more likely than not” died of natural causes.

This conclusion comes after years in which the media have treated his death as a “killing” and “murder,” ascribed to the Kremlin and even Putin himself, without any kind of factual substantiation.

CNN, like the rest of the American media, was happy to disseminate this hoax, all part of their russophobic stance. Their sensationalist headline read: "Was Russian tycoon assassinated with rare poison?" Well, no. Putin didn't do it. But the damage is done.

As recently as August 8, 2018, the New York Times cited his death as one of several for whom Putin was probably responsible, falsely writing that “the police were left scratching their heads over the body… It was not until 2015 that a botanist was able to identify the presumptive cause of Perepilichny’s death: His stomach held traces of gelsemium, a rare, poisonous plant grown in the Himalayas and known to have been used in Chinese assassinations.”

In fact, the Surrey police at the time did not believe that his death was suspicious in any way, and concluded that he died of a heart attack. Perepilichny, a Russian nouveau riche who was involved in numerous money-laundering schemes in Russia before leaving the country in 2009 for the UK, died on November 10, 2012, after he had collapsed while jogging. Struggling with obesity (he peaked at around 238 lbs), Perepilichny reportedly worked out a lot shortly before his death and had lost some 40 lbs. Symptoms he exhibited on the day before he died also suggested that he had suffered food poisoning.

The first to raise any kind of suspicion was Bill Browder, the CEO of the Hermitage hedge fund, who contacted the police suggesting that Perepilichny was murdered because he had been a “whistleblower.” Browder told the inquest, “We believe there is a strong possibility that Alexander Perepilichny was murdered.”

Yet examinations into the initial finding of an “unknown compound” in Perepilichny’s body by experts at the Royal Botanical Gardens in Kew had already proved “beyond reasonable doubt” that there had been no plant toxin. According to Kew botanist Dr. Geoff Kite, it is not uncommon to find an “unknown compound” in a body, and that the one deemed suspicious was one of 300 found in Perepilichny. In other words, there was absolutely nothing to suggest that Perepilichny had been poisoned.

Other reports alleged that Perepilichny felt “threatened,” yet his wife said that he never even felt the need to hire a bodyguard.

In 2017, The Atlantic ran a story headlined, “Who killed Alexander Perepilichny?” The story contained not a shred of evidence justifying the title. The only basis for the assumption that Perepilichny had been killed was testimony by a friend who claimed that Perepilichny did not partake of “vices that could stop the heart of a healthy man.” The Atlantic also offered a list of alleged killings by poison by the KGB, several of which are unproven to this day.

In 2017, Buzzfeed reported breathlessly in an “investigation” that, “The British government is suppressing explosive intelligence that Alexander Perepilichny, a financier who exposed a vast financial crime by Russian government officials, was likely assassinated on the direct orders of Vladimir Putin.” That same year, a US intelligence report asserted with “high confidence” that he had been assassinated on the orders of Russian officials. Chris Phillips, the former head of Britain’s National Counter Terrorism Security Office, said: “It’s so obvious that it’s an assassination. There’s no way it wasn’t a hit.”

Literally all of the contents of these “reports” have turned out to be false.

Two post-mortem examinations of the body failed to find a definite cause of death. However, one doctor concluded that there was no evidence of third-party involvement and found an anomaly in Perepilichny’s heart which “could explain his sudden death.” Another one told the BBC that Perepilichny’s food poisoning in Paris had triggered a cardiac arrhythmia which could in turn have caused a fatal heart attack while he was jogging.

Much about the case remains murky. As in the case of Skripal, there have been reports of possible ties between Perepilichny and British intelligence. The coroner who reviewed MI5 and MI6 files said that their reports on his alleged involvement would remain secret.

However, if there is one thing that is certain, it is that the “killing” of Perepilichny was “fake news.” It is the latest in a series of similar media hoaxes, including the alleged murder of the Russian journalist Arkady Babchenko, who staged his own death in Kiev last year, and the alleged poisoning of the Skripals.

[dropcap]T[/dropcap]he Perepilichny case is symptomatic of the torrent of “fake news” that has dominated the anti-Russia campaign: concocted by the US state apparatus and intelligence, its media lackeys and oligarchs who have been deprived of money and opportunities to enrich themselves by the Putin-regime and the oligarchs around it, this campaign is built on nothing but lies, half-truths and fabrications, aimed at creating the climate of confusion and reaction necessary for settling issues over foreign policy within the ruling elites in the US themselves, preparing a violent removal of Putin, and escalating military aggression against Russia.

One of the main figures driving the investigation into Perepilichny’s death, Bill Browder, has for years played a central role in the anti-Russia campaign. Browder was among the Western financiers who exploited the restoration of capitalism in Poland and Russia to massively enrich themselves. His hedge fund, Hermitage, was the fastest growing hedge fund in the world in the early 2000s, and Russia’s largest foreign investor, with some $4.5 billion in funds in 2004. At that time, Browder took home well over $100 million dollars a year.

Throughout the early 2000s, Browder was an outspoken supporter of President Putin, endorsing the latter’s jailing of the oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky (a former adversary of Browder’s) with the words, “We want an authoritarian—one who is exercising authority over mafia and oligarchs.”

It was not until disputes arose over Browder’s involvement in Gazprom and the Kremlin started cracking down on his own companies, that Browder changed his mind about Putin. In 2005, he was expelled from Russia. In 2007, he hired the Moscow lawyer Sergei Magnitsky, who had worked for Hermitage for about a decade, to help him get back his remaining assets in Russia and develop a new business.

The Atlantic reported that Alexander Perepilichny was involved in an alleged massive fraud involving Hermitage’s remaining assets in Russia, involving some $230 million. Working together with Vladlen Stepanov, an individual with alleged ties to a Russian crime syndicate, Perepilichny reportedly channeled the money out of Russia to the British Virgin Islands. In 2009, Magnitsky died in a Russian prison, a death that Browder blamed on the Putin regime. government. According to the magazine, after Magnitsky’s death Perepilichny told Browder about his own involvement in the fraud and other details of it.

As in all cases involving warfare over money within the Russian mafia-oligarchy, the Hermitage case is extremely murky. While Browder claims Magnitsky was killed by Putin for having uncovered a major fraud involving the Kremlin, Browder himself has been accused of being linked to this fraud and Putin has accused him of having been involved in the murder of at least three people.

Bill Browder: the world is on the edge of a cataclysm in large measure because of dirty shenanigans by crooks like this.

Browder used Magnitsky’s death to lobby for aggressive legislation in the US Congress, the so-called Magnitsky Act, which was passed in 2012 and has since formed the basis for the sanctioning of various officials and oligarchs close to Putin.

Browder maintains the closest ties to US intelligence and sections of the state apparatus and the media. In 2016, a leaked cable by a high-ranking US State Department official said, “I am beginning to feel we are all just part of the Browder P.R. machine.” Over the past two years, Browder has been intimately involved in the “Russiagate” campaign by the Democratic Party and intelligence apparatus against Trump. There has been hardly any major “news story,” i.e., fake news item, about Putin and the “Russia gate” hoax which did not prominently feature a quote by Browder.

Browder was close to the late John McCain, a central figure in the US elite advocating for an aggressive stance toward Russia, and works together with Vladimir Kara-Murza, a leader of the Russian liberal opposition, who recently openly acknowledged at an event at Columbia University that preparations for a “color revolution” type movement in Russia were under way to remove the Putin regime administration.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
The author works for wsws.org, a Marxian publication.

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ALL CAPTIONS AND PULL QUOTES BY THE EDITORS NOT THE AUTHORS

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Revolutionary wisdom

Words from an Irish patriot—

 

When Worse is the Enemy of Bad

HELP ENLIGHTEN YOUR FELLOWS. BE SURE TO PASS THIS ON. SURVIVAL DEPENDS ON IT.

by PAUL EDWARDS | •Reposted•

Originally posted on July 26, 2018

[dropcap]T[/dropcap]here comes a time in the decline of an empire when–in its hubris, its arrogance–it decouples from reason and blindly blunders toward its fate in a ludicrous ugly trance of stupidity.  To paraphrase Walter Cronkite–we are there.

Trump makes his one positive, even useful, gesture as President, and the decayed corpse of the Democratic Party bursts its cerements with a stinking roar of horror.

The claim that all that is wrong with America is due to the malignant machinations of Putin is the most blatantly false, potentially disastrous bucket of bullshit ever inflicted by the matrix on this ignorant, credulous, propagandized people.

The MSM–the PR arm of the War Machine Complex that owns us–has so infected the national mind with the sleazy fiction concocted by the Democrat’s Geezer Politburo–the DNC slugs, Schumer, Pelosi and their geriatric myrmidons–that Trumpophobe Automatons rage at Putin and howl for a war, the horror of which they can’t begin to imagine.

[dropcap]B[/dropcap]ecause hostility, provocation and resultant war is exactly what is comprehended in this national insanity.  Blaming their election loss on Russia, after decades impoverishing working people for the obscene enrichment of the War Machine and its megacorporate monsters, would just be ridiculous if it weren’t so foolishly, desperately dangerous.

As vile, as odious as he is, Democrat honchos know they can’ t beat Trump by shell-gaming Americans for their Wall Street donors any more–hey, it worked fine for ages–so they slime him as a traitor in bed with that monster we’ve been made to fear most: Putin and the Evil Empire Redux.

More incredibly, they’ve persuaded so-called progressives, who, historically, fiercely defended the Bill of Rights and valiantly battled the house organs of the National Security State, that those goats nests of dishonesty and disease are pure, unsullied repositories of Constitutional rectitude.

After decades of proven baldfaced crime, deceit and the  dirtiest pool at home and abroad, the CIA, FBI, NSA, the Justice Department and the whole foetid nomenklatura of  sociopathic rats, are portrayed as white knights of virtue dispensing verity as holy writ.  And “progressives” buy it.

These are the vermin that gave us Vietnam, the Bay of Pigs, Chile, the Contras, Iraq’s WMD, and along the way managed to miss the falls of the Shah and Communism.

Truly an Orwellian clusterfuck, this.  War Party Dems misleading naive liberal souls sickened by Trump into embracing the dirty, vicious lunacy Hillary peddled to her fans, the bankers, brokers, and CEOs of the War Machine.

Trump is a fool who may yet blunder us into war; the Dems and the Deep State cabal would give us war by design.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Paul Edwards is a writer and film-maker in Montana. He can be reached at: hgmnude@bresnan.net  

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License

ALL CAPTIONS AND PULL QUOTES BY THE EDITORS NOT THE AUTHORS

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Words from an Irish patriot—

 



America’s Enemies, Who’s On the List? Prospects and Perspectives


HELP ENLIGHTEN YOUR FELLOWS. BE SURE TO PASS THIS ON. SURVIVAL DEPENDS ON IT.

Global Research, September 08, 2018
Crossposted with Global Research in November 2017.

Who else but the disgusting American ruling class would have so many nations in its evil crosshairs? Without its enormous media shield, this country's plutocracy and its internatonal accomplices would be despised everywhere, including at home.

AmericaFor almost 2 decades, the US pursued a list of ‘enemy countries’ to confront, attack, weaken and overthrow. This imperial quest to overthrow ‘enemy countries’ operated at various levels of intensity, depending on two considerations: the level of priority and the degree of vulnerability for a ‘regime change’ operation. The criteria for determining an ‘enemy country’ and its place on the list of priority targets in the US quest for greater global dominance, as well as its vulnerability to a ‘successfully’ regime change will be the focus of this essay. We will conclude by discussing the realistic perspectives of future imperial options.

Prioritizing US Adversaries

Imperial strategists consider military, economic and political criteria in identifying high priority adversaries.

The following are high on the US ‘enemy list’:

1) Russia, because of its military power, is a nuclear counterweight to US global domination.  It has a huge, well-equipped armed force with a European, Asian and Middle East presence.  Its global oil and gas resources shield it from US economic blackmail and its growing geo-political alliances limit US expansion.

2) China, because of its global economic power and the growing scope of its trade, investment and technological networks.  China’s growing defensive military capability, particularly with regard to protecting its interests in the South China Sea serve to counter US domination in Asia.

3) North Korea, because of its nuclear and ballistic missile capability, its fierce independent foreign policies and its strategic geo-political location, is seen as a threat to the US military bases in Asia and Washington’s regional allies and proxies.

4) Venezuela, because of its oil resources and socio-political policies, challenge the US centered neo-liberal model in Latin America.

5) Iran, because of its oil resources, political independence and geo-political alliances in the Middle East, challenge US, Israeli and Saudi Arabia domination of the region and present an independent alternative.

6) Syria, because of its strategic position in the Middle East, its secular nationalist ruling party and its alliances with Iran, Palestine, Iraq and Russia, is a counterweight to US-Israeli plans to balkanize the Middle East into warring ethno-tribal states.

US  Middle-level Adversaries :

1)  Cuba, because of its independent foreign policies and its alternative socio-economic system stands in contrast to the US-centered neo-liberal regimes in the Caribbean, Central and South America.

2) Lebanon, because of its strategic location on the Mediterranean and the coalition government’s power sharing arrangement with the political party, Hezbollah, which is increasingly influential in Lebanese civil society in part because of its militia’s proven capacity to protect Lebanese national sovereignty by expelling the invading Israeli army and helping to defeat the ISIS/al Queda mercenaries in neighboring Syria.

3) Yemen, because of its independent, nationalist Houthi-led movement opposed to the Saudi-imposed puppet government as well as its relations with Iran.

Low Level Adversaries

1) Bolivia, because of its independent foreign policy, support for the Chavista government in Venezuela and advocacy of a mixed economy;  mining wealth and  defense of indigenous people’s territorial claims.

2) Nicaragua, because of its independent foreign policy and criticism of US aggression toward Cuba and Venezuela.

US hostility to high priority adversaries is expressed through economic sanctions military encirclement, provocations and intense propaganda wars toward North Korea, Russia, Venezuela, Iran and Syria.

Because of China’s powerful global market linkages, the US has applied few sanctions.  Instead, the US relies on military encirclement, separatist provocations and intense hostile propaganda when dealing with China.

Priority Adversaries, Low Vulnerability and Unreal Expectations

With the exception of Venezuela, Washington’s ‘high priority targets’ have limited strategic vulnerabilities. Venezuela is the most vulnerable because of its high dependence on oil revenues with its major refineries located in the US, and its high levels of indebtedness, verging on default.   In addition, there are the domestic opposition groups, all acting as US clients and Caracas’ growing isolation within Latin America due to orchestrated hostility by important US clients, Argentina, Brazil, Colombia and Mexico.

Iran is far less vulnerable: It is a strong strategic regional military power linked to neighboring countries and similar religious-nationalist movements.  Despite its dependence on oil exports, Iran has developed alternative markets, like China, free from US blackmail and is relatively safe from US or EU initiated creditor attacks.

North Korea, despite the crippling economic sanctions imposed on its regime and civilian population, has ‘the bomb’ as a deterrent to a US military attack and has shown no reluctance to defend itself.  Unlike Venezuela, neither Iran nor North Korea face significant internal attacks from US-funded or armed domestic opposition.

Russia has full military capacity – nuclear weapons, ICBM and a huge, well-trained armed force – to deter any direct US military threat.  Moscow is politically vulnerable to US-backed propaganda, opposition political parties and Western-funded NGO’s.  Russian oligarch-billionaires, linked to London and Wall Street, exercise some pressure against independent economic initiatives.

To a limited degree, US sanctions exploited Russia’s earlier dependence on Western markets, but since the imposition of draconian sanctions by the Obama regime, Moscow has effectively counteredWashington’s offensive by diversifying its markets to Asia and strengthening domestic self-reliance in its agriculture, industry and high technology.

China has a world-class economy and is on course to become the world’s economic leader.  Feeble threats to ‘sanction’ China have merely exposed Washington’s weakness rather intimidating Beijing.  China has countered US military provocations and threats by expanding its economic market power, increasing its strategic military capacity and shedding dependence on the dollar.

Washington’s high priority targets are not vulnerable to frontal attack: They retain or are increasing their domestic cohesion and economic networks, while upgrading their military capacity to impose completely unacceptable costs on the US for any direct assault.

As a result, the US leaders are forced to rely on incremental, peripheral and proxy attacks with limited results against its high priority adversaries.

Washington will tighten sanctions on North Korea and Venezuela, with dubious prospects of success in the former and a possible pyrrhic victory in the case of Caracas. Iran and Russia can easily overcome proxy interventions.  US allies, like Saudi Arabia and Israel, can badger, propagandize and rail the Persians, but their fears that an out-and-out war against Iran, could quickly destroy Riyadh and Tel Aviv forces them to work in tandem to induce the corrupt US political establishment to push for war over the objections of a war-weary US military and population. Saudi and Israelis can bomb and starve the populations of Yemen and Gaza, which lack any capacity to reply in kind, but Teheran is another matter.

The politicians and propagandists in Washington can blather about Russia’s interference in the US’s corrupt electoral theater and scuttle moves to improve diplomatic ties, but they cannot counter Russia’s growing influence in the Middle East and its expanding trade with Asia, especially China.

In summary, at the global level, the US ‘priority’ targets are unattainable and invulnerable.  In the midst of the on-going inter-elite dogfight within the US, it may be too much to hope for the emergence of any rational policymakers in Washington who could rethink strategic priorities and calibrate policies of mutual accommodation to fit in with global realities.

Medium and Low Priorities, Vulnerabilities and Expectations

Washington can intervene and perhaps inflict severe damage on middle and low priority countries.  However, there are several drawbacks to a full-scale attack.

Yemen, Cuba, Lebanon, Bolivia and Syria are not nations capable of shaping global political and economic alignments.  The most the US can secure in these vulnerable countries are destructive regime changes with massive loss of life, infrastructure and millions of desperate refugees . . . but at great political cost, with prolonged instability and with severe economic losses.

Yemen

The US can push for a total Saudi Royal victory over the starving, cholera-stricken people of Yemen.  But who benefits?  Saudi Arabia is in the midst of a palace upheaval and has no ability to exercise hegemony, despite hundreds of billions of  dollars of US/NATO arms, trainers and bases.  Colonial occupations are costly and yield few, if any, economic benefits, especially from a poor, geographically isolated devastated nation like Yemen.

Cuba

Cuba has a powerful highly professional military backed by a million-member militia.  They are capable of prolonged resistance and can count on international support.  A US invasion of Cuba would require a prolonged occupation and heavy losses.  Decades of economic sanctions haven’t worked and their re-imposition by Trump have not affected the key tourist growth sectors.

President Trump’s ‘symbolic hostility’ does not cut any ice with the major US agro-business groups, which saw Cuba as a market. Over half of the so-called ‘overseas Cubans’ now oppose direct US intervention.

US-funded NGOs can provide some marginal propaganda points but they cannot reverse popular support for Cuba’s mixed ‘socialized’ economy, its excellent public education and health care and its independent foreign policy.

Lebanon

A joint US-Saudi economic blockade and Israeli bombs can destabilize Lebanon.  However, a full-scale prolonged Israeli invasion will cost Jewish lives and foment domestic unrest.  Hezbollah has missiles to counter Israeli bombs.  The Saudi economic blockade will radicalize Lebanese nationalists, especially among the Shia and the Christian populations.  The Washington’s ‘invasion’ of Libya, which did not lose a single US soldier, demonstrates that destructive invasions result in long-term, continent-wide chaos.

A US-Israeli-Saudi war would totally destroy Lebanon but it will destabilize the region and exacerbate conflicts in neighboring countries – Syria, Iran and possibly Iraq.  And Europe will be flooded with millions more desperate refugees.

Syria

The US-Saudi proxy war in Syria suffered serious defeats and the loss of political assets.  Russia gained influence, bases and allies.  Syria retained its sovereignty and forged a battle-hardened national armed force.  Washington can sanction Syria, grab some bases in a few phony ‘Kurdish enclaves’ but it will not advance beyond a stalemate and will be widely viewed as an occupying invader.

Syria is vulnerable and continues to be a middle-range target on the US enemy list but it offers few prospects of advancing US imperial power, beyond some limited ties with an unstable Kurd enclave, susceptible to internecine warfare, and risking major Turkish retaliation.

Bolivia and Nicaragua

Bolivia and Nicaragua are minor irritants on the US enemy list. US regional policymakers recognize that neither country exercises global or even regional power.  Moreover, both regimes rejected radical politics in practice and co-exist with powerful and influential local oligarchs and international MNC’s linked to the US.

Their foreign policy critiques, which are mostly for domestic consumption, are neutralized by the near total US influence in the OAS and the major neo-liberal regimes in Latin America.  It appears that the US will accommodate these marginalized rhetorical adversaries rather than risk provoking any revival of radical nationalist or socialist mass movements erupting in La Paz or Managua.

Conclusion

[dropcap]A[/dropcap] brief examination of Washington’s ‘list of enemies’ reveals that the limited chances of success even among vulnerable targets.  Clearly, in this evolving world power configuration, US money and markets will not alter the power equation.

US allies, like Saudi Arabia, spend enormous amounts of money attacking a devastated nation, but they destroy markets while losing wars.  Powerful adversaries, like China, Russia and Iran, are not vulnerable and offer the Pentagon few prospects of military conquest in the foreseeable future.

Sanctions, or economic wars have failed to subdue adversaries in North Korea, Russia, Cuba and Iran.  The ‘enemy list’  has cost the US prestige, money and markets – a very peculiar imperialist balance sheet.  Russia now exceeds the US in wheat production and exports.  Gone are the days when US agro-exports dominated world trade including trade with Moscow.

Enemy lists are easy to compose, but effective policies are difficult to implement against rivals with dynamic economies and powerful military preparedness.

The US would regain some of its credibility if it operated within the contexts of global realities and pursued a win-win agenda instead of remaining a consistent loser in a zero-sum game.

Rational leaders could negotiate reciprocal trade agreements with China, which would develop high tech, finance and agro-commercial ties with manufacturers and services.  Rational leaders could develop joint Middle East economic and peace agreements, recognizing the reality of a Russian-Iranian-Lebanese Hezbollah and Syrian alliance.

As it stands, Washington’s ‘enemy list’ continues to be composed and imposed by its own irrational leaders, pro-Israel maniacs and Russophobes in the Democratic Party – with no acknowledgement of current realities.

For Americans, the list of domestic enemies is long and well known, what we lack is a civilian political leadership to replace these serial mis-leaders.

The original source of this article is Global Research
Copyright © Prof. James Petras, Global Research , 2018

 

  James Petras is a world-renowned public intellectual. He is a retired Bartle Professor of Sociology at Binghamton University in Binghamton, New York and adjunct professor at Saint Mary's University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada who has published extensively on Latin American and Middle Eastern political issues.

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