Manuel E. Yepe 203
The Imperial Triumvirate of War
The Imperial Triumvirate of War
By Manuel E. Yepe
http://manuelyepe.wordpress.com/
Exclusive for the daily POR ESTO! of Merida, Mexico.
A CubaNews translation. Edited by Walter Lippmann.
In the midst of so many terrible things happening in the world, it’s easy to be depressed by the torrent of bad news generated by the Trump administration in foreign policy matters.
Resistance to the edicts of the U.S. Empire is growing daily. We see it in the reactions towards the trio of idiots who make up the Triumvirate of War: John Bolton, Mike Pompeo, and John Pence.
Trump’s government has abandoned diplomacy to such an extent that only their crude and naked aggressions are evident. And it has gotten to the point that even the most accomplished diplomatic agents of Washington seem to have dispensed with subtleties as part of the tools of their profession.
Only the Russian Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrov, continues to speak in classical diplomatic language.
In his annual address to the diplomatic academy in Moscow, the Russian Foreign Minister hailed a new geopolitical era marked by multi-polarity. Lavrov explains that the emergence of new and rising centers of power to maintain stability in the world requires the search for a balance of interests and commitments.
He said that there has been a change in the center of global economic power from the West to the East and a markedly globalizing liberal order started losing its attraction and is no longer seen as a suitable model for all.
“Sadly, our western partners, led by The United States, do not want to agree on common approaches to resolve problems,” Lavrov said, accusing Washington and its allies of trying to “preserve their secular dominion of world affairs despite objective tendencies towards the formation of a poly-centric world order.”
He argued that these efforts were contrary to the fact that now, economically and financially, the United States can no longer solve the economy problems and other world affairs single-handedly.
“To fictitiously maintain its dominance and previous positions, Washington resorts to blackmail and economic coercion, making use of the media,” says Lavrov.
There is much to be drawn from this statement, which was published in Newsweek and many other media without much editorial comment.
Lavrov said he understands the conflict in its entirety and its depth in the psyche of US and European leadership, considering the feeling of ownership that does not abandon them.
This is what explains the intensification of aggression on the part of the Trump administration on the world stage.
Meanwhile, fear grows in the western halls of power.
Countries like Iran, Lebanon and Russia can do simple things like getting together to sign some kind of contract on oil exploration, or railroad financing, and the United States will freeze it out of the global financial system.
That is why the ultimate goal of this resistance is not a decisive and satisfying victory for all, but to survive long enough so that the opponent finally has no choice but that of stopping and going home.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo travels the world like a mobster. He lies about all matters and demands allegiance, but goes away empty-handed. Blackmail only works with the weakest and most isolated, like Ecuador, where what was at stake was “only” the life of Julian Assange. Ecuador is about to discover how expensive the generosity of the United States and the IMF are.
Such was the essence of Pompeo’s statement on the destabilization of Venezuela by China. It’s also why Maduro refused US and IMF aid, and why he had to pay for this with the destabilization of his country, through sanctions, threats and blackouts….
No wonder the ambassador of China in Chile exclaimed: “Mr. Pompeo has lost his mind.”
For Trump’s foreign policy team, the moment of truth is approaching. Will they start a war with Iran at the instigation of the newly re-elected Benjamin Netanyahu?
Empires don’t like to be disrespected; less still to be ignored. Therefore, there seems to be no possibility that Trump’s plan may work. The axis of resistance, despite all the small moves, is to win the war of attrition. The U.S. maximum pressure policy has a finite lifespan, because –like all things in economics– it has a temporary function.
And every small movement, every action big or small, whether in response to sanctions or behind-the-scenes pressure, changes the state of the conflict. And it is not in the nature of the people behind Trump’s policies to admit failure. They will continue to push until there’s a catastrophic outcome.
April 24, 2019.
This article may be reproduced by quoting the newspaper POR ESTO as the source.
Behind the US-China Tension
Reasons for Tension Between Washington and China
By Manuel E. Yepe
http://manuelyepe.wordpress.com/
Exclusive for the daily POR ESTO! of Merida, Mexico.
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann.
Philippe Waechter, Chief Economist with French Company Ostrum Asset Management, published on May 17 last year an interesting analysis of the current tensions between China and the United States.
The French expert explains that Donald Trump’s tweets of May 5 increased tension between Washington and Beijing and re-launched new discussions on the terms of a trade agreement between the two powers.
Chinese retaliation against US imports in response to the new U.S. tariffs calls into question the lengthy period of calm begun after the G20 meeting on December 1st last year.
Trump’s desire to impose new restrictions on China reflects his desire to repatriate jobs, especially in the manufacturing sector, and also to reduce US dependence on China.
In 2018, the U.S. external trade balance with China showed a more than $400 billion deficit.
The counterpart of this Chinese surplus with the United States reflected Chinese financing of the U.S. economy through the purchase of U.S. federal bonds. The logic was that the Chinese products in the U.S. market financed the U.S. economy to compensate for the lack of savings there.
The functioning of the Chinese-American trade was on the basis of complement, but this balance is now changing in nature because China’s weight in financing the US economy has been declining.
In March 2019, the weight of U.S. financial assets in the hands of China as part of the total U.S. foreign funding had fallen to the low level observed in June 2006.
The balance of the relationship between the two countries is changing and the United States no longer has the capacity to influence China as it did in the past. China now has more autonomy, says Waechter.
The White House is impatient over Chinese unwillingness to respond to its requests. By taxing Chinese imports, Washington wants to influence Beijing’s economy by creating strong social tension there that would force the hand of the Chinese authorities who do not wish to take this social risk.
The slow pace of Chinese activity indicators since the beginning of the year could validate Washington’s analysis and encourage it to further harden its commercial tone.
At the beginning of 2019, the weight of the United States in Chinese exports slowed significantly. China’s dependence on the United States is being reversed and, at the same time, the Chinese are re-launching the New Silk Road initiative, whose objective is, among others, to further diversify Chinese markets.
China is now expanding market opportunities and effectively limiting the influence of the U.S. on its internal economic situation.
The other major point of disagreement between Washington and Beijing concerns technology. “It seems to me that this is the main point of the differences between the two countries,” says Waechter.
The Chinese have updated technologically very quickly in the last twenty years. This has been the case both in technology transfers as in resources to facilitate it. And this has worked so well that the Chinese are now considerably ahead of the U.S. in 5G and Artificial Intelligence, among other significant developments.
In this question of technological supremacy, there is a radical change because the Chinese have the means to develop these technologies without American support.
This situation could have arisen with Japan a few years ago, but the Japanese always opted for remaining in the US fold, which is not the case in Beijing –says Waechter– because China has a very large internal market and this them to create conditions for autonomous technological dynamics.
The stakes are simple:
Whoever sets the standards for these new technologies will have a considerable comparative advantage. It will be easier to develop innovations using these technologies. That’s why this is where the negotiations get stuck.
The Chinese have devoted significant resources to achieving this technological advantage and will not fall naively under U.S. control.
This technological stagnation will not be resolved spontaneously, and the possibility of an agreement between the two countries seems unlikely.
“The dynamics of the world economy are changing. This is the first time in modern history that a situation occurs that makes it likely that the world economy moves to a new region due to criteria related to technological innovation.”
When the core of the world economy moved from the United Kingdom to the United States, there was a continuity that does not exist in the current situation. This will alter the dynamics of the world economy and will inevitably redistribute the cards among the regions of the world,” concludes Philippe Waechter.
May 22, 2019.
This article may be reproduced by quoting the newspaper POR ESTO as the source.
Insecure Nuclear Arms Control
Insecure Nuclear Arms Control
By Manuel E. Yepe
http://manuelyepe.wordpress.com/
Exclusive for the daily POR ESTO! of Merida, Mexico.
A CubaNews translation edited by Walter Lippmann.
Last month marked a decade since President Barack Obama declared, standing before a crowd in Prague, the United States’ commitment to seek peace and security in a world without nuclear weapons. However, today we are on the top of that world, but with more weapons, not less.
The future of the United States-Russia Arms Control agreement to reduce the threat of both superpowers instigating a nuclear war –a bilateral tradition that goes back to the governments of Nixon and Brezhnev– looks bleak.
Once that both countries officially abandon the treaty on Non-Proliferation of Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) next August, only the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) will remain in force as a formal agreement limiting the size and range of the nuclear arsenals between the two major nuclear-weapon states. And as if that weren’t enough, the New START expires in February 2021.
The Trump administration says it is considering extending the new START, but there are reasons for skepticism about this affirmation.
U.S. National Security Advisor John Bolton, who has set standards in the United States by abandoning the Iran’s Nuclear Treaty and the INF Treaty, is a very likely advocate of dismantling the New START as well.
In fact, Bolton has already loudly referred to the participation of the United States in that treaty by calling it “unilateral disarmament”. According to what has been published, Trump himself rejected Putin’s offer to extend the New START during the first official telephone conversation that they held.
Russia is still supposed to be interested in extending the treaty beyond 2021, and President Vladimir Putin has already extended an open invitation for talks with a view to an extension.
The Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Sergey Lavrov, expressed a similar interest at this year’s Munich security conference.
Putin manifests his disinterest in bilateral agreements and prefers a multilateral framework based, as he explained in 2012, on the fact that the US and Russia could end up “disarming endlessly while other nuclear powers accumulate weapons.”
But without these agreements, Moscow and Washington could be heading towards a new arms race: a possibility that the Russians and Americans seem to have grasped. (According to a recent survey conducted by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs and the Levada Analytical Center, seven out of ten Russians (72%%) and 70% of Americans fear that their countries will move toward a new arms race.
But there is still room for hope. Most Russians (87%) and Americans (74%) are in favor of reaching an agreement to limit nuclear weapons.
In 1982, three-quarters of Americans favored freezing nuclear weapons production (75%), according to a joint survey by NBC News and Associated Press. Most of the U.S. public also disagreed with Reagan’s assertion that the freeze movement was being manipulated by foreign interests to weaken the country (48%). Reagan soon changed course.
The Nuclear Freeze campaign –which included a million-person US protest calling for an end to the arms race– is considered to have forced Reagan’s hand to begin negotiations with Gorbachev in 1985.
By 1982, three-quarters of Americans were in favor of freezing the production of nuclear weapons, according to a joint survey by NBC News and Associated Press.
Most Americans also disagreed with Reagan’s assertion that the freezing movement was being manipulated by foreign interests to weaken the country (48 %). Reagan soon changed course.
By 1982, the United States had lived 35 years of Cold War. Americans had practiced protection exercises since primary school and most remembered the missile crisis in Cuba and the constant threat of nuclear war.
This partly explains why, despite the support we see among the American people to a new arms control agreement and the sensation that a new arms race looms above our heads, only 54% of Americans opposed the U.S. decision to withdraw from the INF Treaty.
Today, the INF’s decision has been turned into a partisan issue, with 73% of the Republicans supporting Trump’s decision to withdraw and 74% of Democrats who oppose him. The challenge for defenders of arms control today is to break with the partisanship that surrounds the decisions on arms control.
According to Lily Wojtowicz, associate researcher at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs which studies Russian and American public opinion: although 78% of Americans describe Russia as a rival and not as a partner, they all support the search for new restrictions on the nuclear arsenals of the United States and Russia (90 % of Republicans, 89% of Democrats, and 84% of Independents).
May 20, 2019.
This article may be reproduced by quoting the newspaper POR ESTO as the source.
The Bolsonaro Phenomenon May Be Brief
The Bolsonaro Phenomenon May Be Brief
By Manuel E. Yepe
http://manuelyepe.wordpress.com/
Exclusive for the daily POR ESTO! of Merida, Mexico.
A CubaNews translation edited by Walter Lippmann.
“Right now, there’s a good chance that the presidency of Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil, be very brief. The word impeachment is already part of the current language in the media and social networks in the South American giant.”
At least that’s what Andrés Ferrari Haines, a professor at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS), Brazil, wrote in an article published, on May 21, by the Argentinean newspaper “Página 12”.
Eduardo Bolsonaro, the president’s son, warned in Buenos Aires that an electoral victory of Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner’s would represent the risk of turning Argentina into another Venezuela.
Curiously, says the newspaper, his father is achieving in Brazil what mercenary Juan Guaidó could not achieve in Venezuela: to have protests everywhere promoting the rule of law and opposition to the President.
An historic march took place on Wednesday, May 15, in which nearly two million people took to the streets in 200 Brazilian cities to protest against the budget cuts in education. It was a turning point in the rejection of President Jair Bolsonaro, his children and several personalities close to him.
Those who, during his electoral campaign, thought that his violent and bellicose style was part of an electoral strategy to attack his opponents are realizing that this is a trait of his personality.
It seems that his capacity for dialogue is zero, and he can only express himself aggressively –even if this might not be his intention.
One could think that Bolsonaro, together with his sons, tried to strengthen his image in a direct relationship with his electoral base, discrediting sectors that were part of the coalition government, such as the military, which occupy several positions in allied political parties.
Even more serious, in the field of the economy, has been the appointment of his “super minister” Paulo Guedes, an extreme neoliberal choice, submissive to U.S. capital, especially to those that seek the extreme exploitation of natural resources and the control of state financial institutions and companies such as Petrobras.
In his strategy, Guedes placed all his chips in favor of the approval of a brutal reform aimed at preventing an “inevitable” economic catastrophe. Here he is meeting great resistance in and out of parliament.
It is a strategy of submission to private activity that launched Minister of Education Weintraub who, summoned by Congress, in the midst of a student protest, made it clear that the objective was not to cut the educational budget, but to extinguish the public education system.
In line with his President, the minister ignored the students and affirmed that “the graduates of the Brazilian public universities don’t know anything.”
Reality, however, has demonstrated the opposite: public schools are at the top of the list in the national ranking –with only two or three private ones– in the front rank. Even more so: the public ones are among the first in comparisons with those in emerging countries, and some have reputable placements at the international level. Thus, it is clear that there is no basis whatsoever for the government project aimed at dismantling public education to the benefit of private education that the minister so much praises.
For his part, Foreign Minister Ernesto Araújo aligned Brazil’s foreign policy to the United States in a moralistic crusade that identifies “globalization” with a process driven by “cultural Marxism” and climate risks with a “communist conspiracy”, even at the expense of losing important foreign markets.
Meanwhile, the economy comes to a standstill, the stock market falls and the dollar soars.
In addition, it has become known that consulting firm A.T. Kearney removed Brazil –for the first time—from the top 25 destinations for the United States investors. During the government of Dilma Rousseff, Brazil was in the third place.
Bolsonaro was losing so much support in the last week that even his “guru,” astrologer Olavo de Carvalho, predicted that he will abandon politics in Brazil.
The Brasil LIbre [Free Brazil] Movement, a great player in the fall of Rousseff and in the anti-PT wave, also announced its breaking up Bolsonaro.
The students are calling for a mobilization on May 30 and, in addition, they have joined the General Strike, on June 14, against Bolsonaro’s reforms.
The main print media, O Globo de Rio and Folha do Estado de Sao Paulo, in their editorials are very critical of the political maneuvers of the President and his attacks on democracy.
Investigations of corruption and illicit association against one of his sons, Flavio, are growing every day, and affect nearly one hundred people who were hired or moved fortunes in connection with his office, including the President’s wife herself.
May 24, 2019.
This article may be reproduced by quoting the newspaper POR ESTO as the source.
Activists Evicted from Venezuelan Embassy
Activists Evicted from Venezuelan Embassy in Washington
By Manuel E. Yepe
http://manuelyepe.wordpress.com/
The diplomatic headquarters was occupied by social movements to prevent the entry of staff appointed by Congressman Juan Guaidó, who proclaimed himself as “president in charge.”
U.S. federal agents on Monday ordered the eviction of the Venezuelan embassy in Washington, which had been closed to the public and taken by U.S. activists to prevent the entry of personnel appointed by the opposition deputy Juan Guaidó, whom the White House recognizes as “president in charge” of the Caribbean country.
Since his self-proclamation, Guaidó has tried to bring into the diplomatic headquarters, a man whom Guaidó arbitrarily designated as ‘representative’ to that country, Carlos Vecchio, and Guaido’s ‘ambassador’ to the Organization of American States (OAS), Gustavo Tarre Briceño.
In a document that bears no letterhead or signature, alleged U.S. authorities urged activists to “vacate the embassy” because it should only be “used for diplomatic purposes,” while warning that otherwise, the occupants would be violating federal and local law. However, the text recognizes Vecchio and Tarre as ‘legitimate representatives’ of Caracas, even though their appointments are illegal under the Venezuelan Constitution.
The operation comes after pressure from supporters of the opposition congressman, who led the attempted coup d’état in Caracas on April 30, and after several days of protests and incidents outside the building with demonstrators in favor of President Nicolas Maduro, who tried to defend the embassy. During those events, the police arrested three people.
The social movements leading the vigil at the embassy, grouped into Collectives for Peace, made up of Popular Resistance and Code Pink, were invited by the government of Nicolás Maduro, after the Venezuelan Foreign Ministry denounced that Guaidó personnel had taken two buildings: the Venezuelan consulate in New York on April 13; and the Venezuelan office of the Military Attaché in Georgetown on March 19.
The leader of the Code Pink movement, Medea Benjamin, lamented through her Twitter account the eviction from the building. She said the movements were trying “to prevent the Venezuelan embassy from being handed over to an unelected coup leader. However, she warned that “the struggle continues.”
On April 24, it was the third month since the Venezuelan president ordered all his diplomatic personnel accredited in the U.S. to return to Caracas, following the rupture of relations between the two countries.
However, the Vienna Convention establishes the obligation of States to safeguard the facilities and assets of countries that are used for diplomatic purposes even if relations are broken off.
Manuel E. Yepe
May 15, 2019
The original source for this article is Rebelión
Copyright © Manuel E. Yepe, Rebelión, 2019
Trump’s Options
The Options Trump Puts on the Table
By Manuel E. Yepe
http://manuelyepe.wordpress.com/
Exclusive for the daily POR ESTO! of Merida, Mexico.
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann.
Is President Trump about to invade Venezuela? His advisors continue to say — in increasingly forceful terms that — “all options are on the table”, and that military intervention to restore Venezuela’s constitution” may be necessary.”
For his part, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in a news program last Sunday commented that President Trump could launch a military attack against Venezuela without Congressional approval because “he has all the authority conferred upon him by Article II of the Constitution and certainly any action that we take in Venezuela will be legal”. The man who just boasted of his lies, tricks and thefts, is providing new evidence that back up his confession.
The truth is that the US president does not have the constitutional authority to start a war with Venezuela or any other country that hasn’t attacked or credibly threatened the United States, without the approval of Congress. It’s as simple as that,” says Ron Paul, a former Republican congressman for the State of Texas and presidential candidate in 1988 for the now defunct Libertarian Party.
It is ironic that Pompeo and the rest of the neoconservatives of the Trump Administration, who don’t care about the Constitution of their own country, are willing to attack Venezuela “in order to restore its constitution.”
It is striking and hypocritical that while Washington was paralyzed for two years by the disproved claims that the Russians had meddled with the elections to elect Trump, Washington doesn’t even hesitate to support the actual revocation of elections in another country!
But without the authority of Congress, any U.S. military action against Venezuela would be illegal and probably an impeachable crime. Of course, Democrats who talk about impeaching Trump would never dream of getting rid of him for illegally starting a war because U.S. Democrats and Republicans alike love the illegal U.S. wars, says Ron Paul.
Unfortunately, Washington is so addicted to war that President Trump would probably have little difficulty in obtaining congressional authorization to invade Venezuela if he bothered to ask.
Likewise, as with the disastrous U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, the corporate media are nothing more than uninterrupted war propaganda.
According to Ron Paul, some Presidential hopefuls described as progressives , like Rachel Maddow, a radio personality, TV presenter, and progressive American commentator, are attacking the Trump administration, not because of its reckless tendency for the use of weapons in Venezuela, but because it is not aggressive enough.
The real lesson is that even a “constitutional” war against Venezuela would be an unjust action. It would be a war of aggression that Americans should be upset about and ashamed of.
But the mainstream media are spreading the same old lies in favor of war, while independent media are being attacked by many social media campaigns that have partnered with U.S. government agencies to decide what news is fake or illegal and which one is true.
The most recent motive for indignation shown by the dominant media has been over one of the most sensible things that President Trump has done lately: last week he spent one hour on the phone with Russian President Vladimir Putin to discuss, among other things, the dangerous situation in Venezuela.
While President Trump’s neo-con advisors are deliberately trying to put him in a position where war is the only option, we can only hope that President Putin may have been able to explain to him that Venezuela’s problems must be solved by the Venezuelans themselves.
Certainly, the United States, perhaps together with the Russians, could help facilitate discussions between the Venezuelan government and the opposition as an alternative to the neo-conservative path towards war, which would surely end like all other wars in a total disaster.
U.S. mainstream media are furious because Trump dared to talk to Putin when Russia and the United States were increasingly at logger-heads over the situation in Venezuela.
Democrats and neo-cons are pressing for a direct confrontation in which Russia may become involved. Republicans agree with both on this.
Would they really prefer a thermo-nuclear war over Venezuela? asks veteran doctor and ultra-libertarian American politician Ronald Ernest “Ron” Paul.
May 8, 2019.
This article may be reproduced by citing the newspaper POR ESTO as the source.
How Billionaires Define Socialism
How Billionaires Define Socialism
By Manuel E. Yepe
http://manuelyepe.wordpress.com/
Exclusive for the daily POR ESTO! of Merida, Mexico.
A CubaNews translation. Edited by Walter Lippmann.
It wasn’t surprising to hear multi-billionaires Bill Gates, Charlie Munger and Warren Buffett, interviewed on CNBC-TV on Thursday, May 9, defending capitalism. But it was indeed surprising that Gates made a positive comment about socialism, or at least about what is defined in the United States as socialism.
Gates pointed out that the current increase in pro-socialist rhetoric in the United States does not really refer to socialism according to any conventional definition of the word. The “socialist” policies that we hear from politicians like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) and Bernie Sanders are, to a greater extent, about capitalist policies with a strong social security contribution. And that is good!
“Socialism used to mean that a State controlled the means of production”, and, according to Gates, “many people here who promote socialism do not define it in that classical way.”
Gates also says that most people who favor socialism in the United States do not speak of true socialism. And they’re right!
“The majority does not argue against capitalism… only believes that there should be changes in taxes, more progressive tax rates, and the reinstatement of estate tax. What they actually want is capitalism with a better level of taxation,” says Gates.
According to him, most left-wing Americans do not advocate the ownership of the means of production to be passed on to the workers, that all industries be nationalized, and that private property be abolished, which are the real principles of socialist ideology.
The majority of left-wing people support politicians who promise capitalism with a solid social security foundation. But there is no indication that what they are proposing is truly socialism.
The federal employment guarantee of AOC, for example, would consist of a reference standard for employment that would include a minimum wage of $15 linked to inflation, full medical care, and paid leave for sickness and children.
This proposal would drastically improve the quality of employment in the United States by giving training and experience to the workers and at the same time providing much needed public services to communities in areas such as, education, health, park maintenance, childcare, and environment conservation.
But that’s not socialism in the classic sense of the word. It is capitalism with a strong social safety net. The majority of rich countries in Europe already have what AOC proposes. That doesn’t make them socialists. In any case, it makes them social democrats.
The United States does not have a Social Democratic party, thus, anything to the left of the Democratic Party is called socialism, because Americans do not have a vocabulary that would allow them to speak of these things with greater subtlety than that of a left against a binary right.
Why people like Bernie Sanders and AOC are labeled as socialists, and even sometimes they call themselves by that term?
Because Fox News spent Obama’s years calling all the Democratic Party’s policies so. As a result, there are two generations (Millennials and Generation Z) who simply use the term socialist without worrying too much about what it exactly means.
For the younger generations, socialism only means making sure that everyone can go to the doctor when they need it, or have a roof over their heads, or have money to buy food, regardless of that person’s circumstances.
And these generations believe that all of these can be achieved within the existing system, without overthrowing the ruling class and the setting of a new political system led by the working class.
As Gates points out, there are some real socialists in the world. And there are even real socialists in governments all over the world. But most American socialists are simply leftists who disregard party labels and talk about policies. Bill Gates knows this and Donald Trump knows it too.
It’s not that Bill Gates is progressive. Guys like Gates know clearly that the guillotines are coming, and if the United States continues along the path of austerity and tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires, anything can happen.
According to available information, Gates is worth more than $101 billion dollars, which should literally be considered a crime in a civilized society in which 13 million children do not have enough to eat. But, for now, we will have to accept that at least there are some multi-billionaires who recognize the need for real changes in global society.
May 10, 2019.
This article may be reproduced by quoting the newspaper POR ESTO as the source.
The Empire Has to Adjust its Policies
The Empire Has to Adjust its Policies
By Manuel E. Yepe
http://manuelyepe.wordpress.com/
Exclusive for the daily POR ESTO! of Merida, Mexico.
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann.
Quoted by Strategic Culture, Zhang Jiadong, researcher and professor at the Center for American Studies at the Chinese University of Fudan, considers that the United States is learning to cope with its new status through a policy change.
After Donald Trump became President, the internal and foreign policy of he United States has experienced a dramatic turn.
Firstly, Washington has begun to look more closely at its internal affairs promoting the motto “America First” countering its previous policy and its own hegemonic agenda with an emphasis on sovereignty, reciprocity and nationalism.
Secondly, its openness and inclusion are gradually changing towards closedness and narrowness. (Regarding its treaties with China, U.S. behavior has become narrower regarding immigration and the treatment of Chinese expatriates).
Thirdly, Washington has gone from being a promoter of its version of justice in the abstract, to the defense of its interests.
There are those who believe that the United States has always been this way and what has marked the difference is the frankness of its new president. Others think that this is a gradual adjustment and Washington will return to the level of openness and inclusion it has always had.
When World War II ended, the United States was an integral leader. Its GDP represented more than 50 % of the world total, and its manufacturing production was between 60 and 70 % of this.
Militarily, it was stronger than all the other countries put together.
As the scientific and academic elites fled to the United States to seek asylum during the war, the country became –and remains being so– the scientific and academic center of the world.
From a financial point of view, the world’s main financial resources were in the in the hands of the United States.
The United States was considered the leader and liberator of the free world, despite the fact that it was the last important country to join the allied forces in the Second World War to defeat fascism.
Because of this, the U.S. was able to establish a huge hegemonic system. Although the Soviet Union had the capacity to challenge the United States in certain fields, such as the military, the U.S. emerged as the most powerful country in the world in terms of comprehensive national strength.
In the post-Cold War world, the political power of The United States reached its peak after winning the first Gulf War.
The United States almost completely dominated the world under the conditions of a uni-polar world order.
However, everything began to decline after the U.S. suffered serious economic and security setbacks.
The September 11, 2001 attacks showed that their security was not absolute. The 2007 mortgage financial crisis revealed its economic vulnerability, and the 2008 global financial crisis demonstrated that the United States needed outside support too.
Due to changes in the world order and its international stature, some U.S. policies that were effective in the past ceased to function. Trade used to be an activity by means of which Washington influenced the domestic and international policies of many countries.
Before China entered the WTO, the US used unilateral most-favored-nation treatment as a lever to influence some of the internal and external policies of China. It can no longer do so.
In the recent trade dispute between China and the U.S., some important steps taken by the U.S. have no longer been allowed by the WTO.
The influence of the United States on the trade of other countries has also shown signs of weakening.
Even in defense, its relative influence has been reduced, and more and more countries are increasingly developing their own sea and air defense capabilities.
During a long period after the Second World War, the United States had held the maritime hegemony. Now, the maritime forces of Asian countries such as China, Japan and India have been strengthened and more coastal States claim rights to their waters under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea.
Although the United States sea and air forces have not yet been expelled, their freedom to operate out of its territorial waters and airspace has decreased.
With its leadership eroded, the United States has begun to change the nature of its policies and is trying to compensate for its diminished influence through adjustment, harassment and intimidation.
To avoid direct strategic confrontation with Washington some countries make concessions. “But, in the long run, the relations of the US with other countries, including China, will return to the logic of international relations”, according to the prediction of Chinese researcher and professor Zhang Jiadong..
May 6, 2019.
This article may be reproduced by quoting POR ESTO as its source
Ridiculous Yankee Coup Machine
The Ridiculous Yankee Coup Machine
By Manuel E. Yepe
http://manuelyepe.wordpress.com/
Exclusive for the daily POR ESTO! of Merida, Mexico.
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann.
It was more than a failed coup attempt against the legitimate government of Venezuela. What happened in that South American country the previous weekend has been a ridiculous spectacle for the American fascist right-wing and, specifically, for some of the most grotesque figures of U.S. imperialism and several of its most discredited parasites.
It has been pitiful to observe the government of the country that has played the role of a single great global power since the end of the Cold War. It could have been a world leader on a path of reciprocal respect and harmony within differences, but it has fallen to the bottom of the scale of universal political values.
It is true that Washington has never shown much respect for truth and honesty at the most critical moments in the history of international relations. Still, it is surprising that political entities so demonstrably lacking in prestige were called upon to lead that nation’s diplomacy to such a backwater in the scale of universal political values.
It is hard to imagine that Donald Trump, who considers himself a “permanent winner” by virtue of his fortune and his business acumen, can win any task with corrupt political advisers of the ilk of Elliott Abrams, Mike Pompeo, Elliott Abrams, Marco Rubio, Rick Scott, Peter Navarro, Juan Guaidó. Let’s not forget the permanent fugitive from justice, Leopoldo López, who make up, among others, the squad that was assigned to him for this battle to swallow Venezuela by the always-losing Miami mafia.
None of the fallacies that the team of advisors manufactured for him could be sustained. This proves that those who devised them intended to drive Trump to [commit] political suicide.
The media, ready for the farce, began it by sending out a statement by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. It assured him that Guaidó had been “duly” elected, to adjust the narrative of U.S. interference in Venezuela to that new lying discourse on the coup. The authorities, and much of the U.S. media began to refer to the phony Juan Guaidó as the “duly elected president of Venezuela.
In reality, Guaido had not been duly elected as president, nor had he participated in any Venezuelan election for that highest office. He was barely elected to a seat in parliament in 2015, and from there promoted to a substantial position of power within parliament by virtue of U.S. support.
Then, in January, Trump’s advisers began to pressure Guaidó into trying to take over the country. The false legal pretext was that the constitution allowed the head of parliament to be named “interim president” if the elected did not show up to take office.
What is true and known to all Venezuelan citizens is that President Maduro took office on January 10, after being elected in fair elections. The inauguration took place before the Supreme Court instead of the Assembly building where the opposition obtained a reduced majority, which was a pretext for those preparing the coup to later assert that this was not legal.
The recognition by the United States of the legitimacy of Guaidó’s seizure of power was a cynical move. To call him “duly elected president” an absolute lie.
“Knowing what I learned when the attempt to oust Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez in 2002 did not surprise me when the effort was renewed by the Trump administration. The more so when characters like Elliott Abrams, Marco Rubio and Rick Scott – not to mention John Bolton – began to appear on the White House payroll.
That’s what Larry Wilkerson, a retired U.S. Army colonel and former Chief of Staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell, has declared.
“But the bloodshed in Venezuela – military and civilian – and the dead and wounded U.S. soldiers and Marines won’t give this old soldier any comfort,” he said.
“I know the Venezuelan military, I’ve trained some of them. Most of them, if the U.S. military arrives in Venezuela, will enter the very formidable hills with jungle backdrops. They will harass, kill, take prisoners from time to time and, in general, they will endure forever or until the gringos leave. We could remember how the North Vietnamese and the Taliban did it; so will the Venezuelans.
May 3, 2019.
This article may be reproduced by quoting the newspaper POR ESTO as the source.
Empire of Evil
The Empire of Evil Seen From Within
By Manuel E. Yepe
http://manuelyepe.wordpress.com/
Exclusive for the daily POR ESTO! of Merida, Mexico.
A CubaNews translation. Edited by Walter Lippmann.
“It is depressing to observe how the United States of America has become the evil empire. Having served in the United States Army during the Vietnam War and in the Central Intelligence Agency for the second half of the Cold War, I had an insider’s viewpoint of how an essentially pragmatic national security policy was being transformed bit by bit into a bipartisan doctrine that featured as a sine qua non global dominance for Washington.
Unfortunately, when the Soviet Union collapsed the opportunity to end once and for all the bipolar nuclear confrontation that threatened global annihilation was squandered. Instead, President Bill Clinton chose instead to humiliate and use NATO to contain an already demoralized and effectively leaderless Russia.”
This is what American journalist Philip M. Giraldi writes in an article dated April 18, under the title “Rumors of War: Washington Is Looking for a Fight”.
American Exceptionalism became the battle cry for an increasingly clueless federal government as well as for a media-deluded public. When 9/11 arrived, the country was ready to lash out at the rest of the world. President George W. Bush growled that “There’s a new sheriff in town and you are either with us or against us.”
Afghanistan followed, then Iraq, and, in a spirit of bipartisanship, the Democrats came up with Libya and the first serious engagement in Syria.
In its current manifestation, one finds a United States that threatens Iran on a nearly weekly basis and tears up arms control agreements with Russia while also maintaining deployments of US forces in Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia and places like Mali.
Scattered across the globe are 800 American military bases while Washington’s principal enemies du jour Russia and China have, respectively, only one and none.
Venezuela is being threatened with invasion primarily because it is in the western hemisphere and therefore subject to Washington’s claimed pro-consular authority.
Vice President Mike Pence told the United Nations Security Council that the White House will remove Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro from power, preferably using diplomacy and sanctions, but “all options are on the table.”
Pence warned that Russia and other friends of Maduro need to leave now or face the consequences. Russia has accepted that war is coming. By some estimates, its army is better-equipped and combat-ready than is that of the United States, which spends nearly ten times as much on “defense.”
Never before in my lifetime has the United States been so belligerent, and that in spite of the fact that there is no single enemy or combination of enemies that actually threaten either the geographical United States or a vital interest of the US.
According to Giraldi, Iran is also upgrading its defensive capabilities, which are formidable. Now that Washington has withdrawn from the nuclear agreement with Iran, has placed a series of increasingly punitive sanctions on the country, and, most recently, has declared a part of the Iranian military to be a “foreign terrorist organization” and therefore subject to attack by US forces at any time, it is clear that war will be the next step.
In three weeks, the United States will seek to enforce a global ban on any purchases of Iranian oil. A number of countries, including US nominal ally Turkey, have said they will ignore the ban and it will be interesting to see what the US Navy intends to do to enforce it. Or what Iran will do to break the blockade.
But even given all of the horrific decisions being made in the White House, there is one organization that is far crazier and possibly even more dangerous. That is the United States Congress, which is, not surprisingly, a legislative body whose decisions are approved and is viewed positively by only 18 per cent of the American people.
April 19, 2019.
This article may be reproduced by citing the newspaper POR ESTO as the source.