In 1945, Abdulaziz Al Saud, Saudi Arabia’s first king, signed an “oil-for-security” agreement with former US President Franklin D. Roosevelt, marking the transfer of leadership of the Western project in the Middle East from Britain to the US. Thus, the mission of protecting the Gulf kingdoms, emirates, and sheikhdoms was shifted from British to American control. At that time, the usurping Israeli entity was under construction. It arose under British and then American protection, similar to prior kingdoms, emirates, and sheikhdoms but with a different system and tasks. Even at the peak of Arab opposition to Israel’s occupation of Palestine, Abdul Aziz seemed apathetic about it, implying that he effectively sold Palestine at the time.
US Ancient Dominance over the Gulf
Since its inception, the relationship between the West – led by Britain and then the US – and the Gulf and Israel has been a structural one. It was so even before the fall of the Ottoman Sultanate, which the Gulf played a crucial role, where Abdul Aziz fought the Ottomans until he ousted them from the Arabian Peninsula.
In fact, the US tracks almost every succession change in the Gulf states, whether from one ruler to another or from one generation to the next. However, this is the missing element in the issue of Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman Al-Saud inheriting the Saudi throne. Therefore, any defense agreement discussed between Saudi Arabia and the US primarily prioritizes protecting Bin Salman from his internal opponents before external ones by adopting his reign and settling any power dispute with American assurance and blessing. Following in the footsteps of Britain, the US favors one group over another within a single family or tribe, ensuring the fulfillment of its schemes and dominance over the reign. Hence, when concerns developed about the probability of any change, it was because the US sought to cut the cost of this protection, or possibly withdraw it entirely in recent years, rather than because the Gulf regimes no longer required it.
East Asia Replaces the Gulf
Strategic analysts in the West, who have early knowledge of what is being planned, have spoken extensively about how the Middle East is no longer a top priority for Washington. This analysis negates the justification for the presence of American forces there, at least in their current massive numbers, and justifies better utilization of these capabilities in East Asia, where China represents an imminent threat due to its economic growth and global expansion, reaching the Middle East, specifically the Gulf, which is now one of the world’s fastest-growing regions.
In a clearer sense, the Chinese threat has shifted to the Middle East, where the US must tackle it. Thus, there is no longer any necessity for American military forces to be transferred to East Asia. Furthermore, the Ukraine war, which is draining and exhausting the West, necessitates staying in areas from which Russia has traditionally been besieged, namely the Middle East, prompting some Russian officials to accuse the US of planning to return to Afghanistan after only two years of fleeing it.
This is the framework in which the US-Saudi-Israeli agreement is usually crafted; the rest is details. Whenever Riyadh, with its new regime, is confident in American security, it no longer matters to Bin Salman whether or not Israel makes so-called “concessions” with the Palestinians. That is, according to the crown prince, Saudi Arabia and even the Saudi regime come first and foremost.
A Defense Treaty to Protect Bin Salman
Also, regardless of the details of the security or military treaty being discussed between the US and Saudi Arabia and regardless of its form, there is one fundamental element that will not be officially included in any treaty. This element is deemed a prior American acknowledgment of Bin Salman’s “legitimacy” to legally succeed his father when the time comes, whether in life or after death, although the Americans were to reject, not embrace.
Hence, it makes no difference whether the treaty is created in the South Korean, Japanese, or Bahraini styles, with some added features, because these are the models that the US accepts and they are the ones that allow Washington to avoid defending another country when it desires, facilitating its passage by the Congress.
As a result, no treaty proposal would bind Washington to the same obligations as NATO member states, especially in light of Article 5 of the NATO Charter, which considers assaulting one of its members to be attacking all of its countries. Even if the Saudi Kingdom could become a primary non-Atlantic ally of the US, such as `Israel`, it is doubtful that it could gain the latter’s advantages. This is because the standards of this classification are Israeli, not Atlantic, and the Israeli occupation forces don’t adhere to what Atlantic forces adhere to when it comes to attacks. However, the actual American commitment to Israel’s security is stronger than Washington’s commitment to any other country, whether inside or outside the Atlantic.
Consequently, Saudi normalization with `Israel`, which could be announced at any time, will merge all the US agents in the region, a scenario that has been impossible for the last seven decades due to Arab popular hostility to Israel. Given the Arab world’s state of division and turmoil, the normalization step has now become achievable.
Saudi Popular Stance on Normalization
Evidently, this is what the US is planning. On the other hand, according to those in the region who disagree, what will happen between Saudi Arabia and Israel is the fall of another key Arab regime into the pit of normalization in exchange for the illusion of “American security.”
Just like the Arab people, whose regimes normalized ties with `Israel`, the Saudi people also had their say. They tried to express their rejection of normalization and refusal to give up the rights of the Palestinian people, who clearly will not receive anything under the expected agreements.
Israelis witnessed this rejection as well. According to Ohad Hemo, Channel 12’s correspondent for Arab and Palestinian affairs, who prepared a report from Jeddah on “New Saudi Arabia,” the Saudis are not eager for normalization. This conclusion was based on interviews he conducted with several Saudis without them knowing that Hemo is Israeli.
Despite its danger, the new Saudi turn will not change much in the world or even within the region, neither in terms of readjusting the balance of power in favor of the US, nor in terms of reversing the Saudi relationship with Iran or the path of peace in Yemen, nor in trade relations with China or oil with Russia.
In a nutshell, it is a barter deal in which Bin Salman draws inspiration from his ancestor’s history by normalizing ties with `Israel` and selling Palestine again, believing that it’s the closest way to obtaining the American guarantee and even passing it through all the necessary channels within the US.
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During the Great Depression of 1933, President Franklin Roosevelt became the President. In his first 100 days in office, he rolled out a program called the New Deal. He embraced Keynesian economic policies and fought to expand the role of the government in the nation’s economy. He implemented a series of programs called the New Deal to stabilize the economy and give jobs to millions of Americans who had lost their jobs. New federal agencies were created including the Social Security Board, the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. He created the Tennessee Valley Authority that enabled the federal government to build dams and hydroelectric projects creating thousands of jobs. The Congress passed the Social Security Act which provided a safety Net for the elderly, the unemployed, and the disabled. A decent minimum wage was established. The Glass-Steagall Act was passed to protect people with their savings and deposits in the banks. He raised taxes on the rich to pay for all these programs.
During these difficult times, labor unions were a critical part of the New Deal. Both the National Industrial Recovery Act of 1933 and the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 included protections for unions and required corporations to negotiate with unions. Unions were decimated during the 1920s, but now they had started growing rapidly. Millions of workers joined the unions. Unions felt empowered to fight for better wages and hours with the government on their side. These were all democratic moves. Union membership was at its peak in the 1950s. It was at 35% in 1954. From then onwards, its decline started. By 2021, it had declined to just 10.3%. That means corporate power has drastically increased. Millions of workers in America have no power, no say. Today, big corporations have become so powerful in America that they control every aspect of our lives. They directly or indirectly control not only our politicians but also where we live, what we eat, what we buy, how much we earn, and what we read, see on TV, or listen to on radio and ultimately what we think.
During his term, President Clinton signed the Telecommunication Act of 1996 into law. The act dramatically reduced important Federal Communications Commission (FCC) regulations on cross ownership, and allowed giant corporations to gobble up thousands of media outlets across the country, increasing their monopoly on the flow of information in the United States and around the world. Thus, all of us across this country and around the world get the same news and the same narrative on the TV, radio and even main stream printed media networks. Using Noam Chomsky’s famous phrase, they ‘Manufacture the Consent’ across America and the world. “Never have so many been held incommunicado by so few”, said Eduardo Galeano, the Latin American journalist, in response to the act. In 1983, some 50 corporations owned 90 percent of the media. That number dwindled after this Communication Act just in few years and today, five mega corporations own and control 90 percent of the media in America. The same thing happened in the radio as well as in the printed media network. No wonder democracy’s decline in America has accelerated further ever since.
Today, what do we hear on the radio or watch on the TV news? Mainly Weather, murders, shooting, rapes etc. No issue of major importance for the citizens is discussed in these media. People are intentionally kept ignorant and ill informed. This is what these oligarchs want. They want –as per their thinking—’dumb millions’ to keep serving them. Because they know, if people are well informed about how corrupt our politicians are, they may unite, create a revolution and take away their power in this country. They also know that to keep Americans divided into democrats, republicans, independents, liberals, progressives, conservatives etc., they can never unite and threaten the powers of the oligarchs or threaten their tight grip on the economy and the government.
The greatest tragedy is that we Americans think that we are ‘free’. But, in reality, most of us are slaves of these giant corporations. America has descended from a democracy of 1950s to an oligarchy today.
For last fifty years and more, we Americans have been indoctrinated with the massive propaganda that America is ‘the greatest democracy’ in the world. This propaganda is carried out by the mainstream news-media which is controlled by a handful of mega-corporations which are in turn controlled by billionaire oligarchs…super rich individuals.
So, let’s find out how democratic America is. As we all know, genuine democracy means a majority rule. In a democracy, the government acts according to the will of the majority of its people. Hence, here are the numbers of what majority of Americans want:
Medicare for all: According to Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF) poll of April 3, 2020, this hot button issue gets majority support at 56%.
Tuition Free State and Public College: As per Hill-HarrisX poll of September, 2019, majority of Americans support free college and wiping out the student debt.
Paid Maternity Leave-American Enterprise Institute and Brookings Institutionsurvey found that a majority of 84% want this. This also includes government funding for childcare.
Minimum Wage: According to Pew Research Center survey conducted between April 29, 2019, and May 13, 2019, 67% of Americans want minimum wage to be raised from $7.25 per hour—federal and little higher in private jobs–to $15 per hour.
Higher Taxes for the Wealthy: Survey after survey, majority of Americans support higher taxes for the wealthy. The concept has gained more support since the passage of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 that has disproportionately benefited the richest Americans and the world’s biggest corporations. As per Reuters/Ipsos recent poll, two-thirds of Americans strongly agree that the very rich should pay higher taxes.
Wealth Tax: According to a recent Reuters/Ipsos poll, 64%–77% Democrats and 53% Republicans– strongly agree that the very rich should contribute an extra share of their total wealth each year to support public programs. A 2019 CNBCpoll, some 60% of millionaires said that they would support an Elizabeth Warren-style wealth tax of 2% on assets over $50 million and 3% on assets over $1 billion.
Election of the President/Electoral College: A Pew Research survey found that as of 2020, 81% of Democrats and 32% of Republicans—so a majority of Americans want the president elected by a majority of votes. They want the Electoral College removed by amending the constitution.
Hate Speech: A majority of 51% want fines or jail time for hate speech. Nearly 60% of millennials support this. Some 60% of respondents support a crackdown on TV stations and Newspapers that publish content that is biased, inflammatory or false.
Capitalism vs Socialism: Half of Democrats (Democrats are in majority in America) and two-thirds of Progressives see socialism favorably while 23% of independents and 7% of Republicans viewed socialism favorably.
Gun-Control: Majority of us Americans—60%– want stricter gun-control according to the Pew Research. As per com, as of March 27, 2023, there have been four mass shootings this year. Compared to that, there was only one mass shooting in 1982, one in 2000 and 12 in 2022. As per ABV News, more than 9800 people were killed by gun violence so far in 2023. America today has become the 21st century ‘Wild Wild West’.
Foreign Wars: America goes to war every few years as its history confirms. As James Carden writes in the Nation Magazine of January 9, 2018,–according to Walling Opinion Research undertaken in November of 2017–that majority of Americans—78% of Democrats, 64.5% of Republicans and 68.8% of independents– supported restraining military actions overseas.
In the 1950s and early 1960s, the top marginal tax rate was 91%. Today, the highest income earners pay a 39.6% marginal tax rate. The rich mega corporations pay the tax rate of 21%. But many giant corporations pay 0$ taxes using various loopholes. Like Ralph Nader once said, “Average worker at General Electric Co., pays more taxes than General Electric”! Warren Buffett once said that his secretary pays more taxes than himself! What kind of a democracy is that? That means, in America, the rich are getting richer while the poor or the middle class remain poor. The rich are amassing so much wealth in America today—at the expense of the poor–that, as pointed out by Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren not long ago, the top 0.1% of rich Americans have more wealth than bottom 90%. Is that democracy?
As per the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, 55 major corporations paid $0 in Federal Taxes on 2020 profits while netting $3.5 billion in aggregate tax rebates. For decades, the biggest and most profitable American corporations have found ways to avoid paying federal income taxes on their profits. Large US firms generally pay effective tax rates far below 21 percent. In June 2021, the nonprofit ProPublica pointed out that over a five-year period, the 25 richest Americans paid a combined $13.6 billion in federal income taxes though their profits were huge. This amounted to a true tax rate of only 3.4 percent! How do they do this? They use all the loopholes kept in place by our corrupt politicians. The wealthiest Americans may be avoiding $163 billion in income taxes every year according to a report from the U.S. Department of the Treasury. They hire top accountants and lawyers to achieve this. They spend millions–on accountants and lawyers–to save billions.
Thus, most of us Americans want above mentioned items but are we getting them? No. Because the American oligarchs, the billionaires, the superrich do not want them. And they control our politicians by their billions of dollars’ worth of political donations. As per Statista Research Department, in 2022, there were 12,098 lobbyists in the country bribing our elected politicians. They spent $4.09 billion on lobbying. Our politicians’—from the President down to the Senators and the Congressmen—political careers depend on these donations or these legal bribes. For our politicians, their careers are more important than their country.
In a nationally syndicated radio show the Thom Hartmann Program on July 30, 2015, the former President Jimmy Carter said that the United States is now an “oligarchy” in which “unlimited political bribery” has created “a complete subversion of our political system as a payoff to major contributors.” Both Democrats and Republicans, Carter said, “look upon this unlimited money as a great benefit to themselves.”
An April 16, 2014 study (report) by Princeton and Northwestern Universities concluded that “The U.S. government does not represent the interests of the majority of the country’s citizens but is instead ruled by the rich and the powerful.”
As you can see from above, majority of Americans want these items passed by the U.S. Congress, for a long time. But are our Congressmen and Senators following the majority opinion? No. They are not obeying the ‘majority will’ because their paymasters, which are the billionaires and mega-corporations–through their lobbyists—do not want these laws to pass. In other words, most laws are passed or not passed for the benefits of these paymasters. Our Congressmen and Senators do the bidding of their paymasters. They are not working for their constituents…the American people.
Thus, it is obvious that after 1950s, American democracy has surreptitiously and systematically been replaced by an oligarchy. Simply put, the U.S. Government today is of the rich, by the rich and for the rich.
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Chaitanya Davé is a Chemist and a Chemical Engineer and a businessman. He has authored three books: CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY: A Shocking Record of US Crimes since 1776-2007, COLLAPSE: Civilization on the Brink-2010, CAPITALISM’S MARCH OF DESTRUCTION: Replacing it with People and Nature-Friendly Economy-2020. Author of many articles on politics, history, and the environment. Founder/President of a non-profit charity foundation helping the poor villagers of India, Nepal, Haiti, USA-homeless and other poor countries. He can be contacted at cahumanity@gmail.com.
He is a regular contributor to Global Research.
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The original source of this article is Global Research
Al Mayadeen sheds the light on Cuba under US hegemony up until the Cuban revolution led by Fidel Castro.
By Al Mayadeen English
The second episode of Al Mayadeen‘s Enigma documentary series, aimed at shedding the light on the Cuban revolution and the impact it had on the world, highlighted the most prominent figures in the Cuban revolution and the circumstances that led to it altogether.
The episode that aired at 9 PM Al-Quds time talked about the time period that Cuba spent under US control and Washington’s exploitation of Cuba’s resources, as well as the foundation of the July 26 movement and revolutionary leader Fidel Castro’s emergence as a key figure in the revolution.
With the US Marines docking in Cuba in 1898, the Cubans’ war of liberation against the Spanish Empire ended. For centuries, the island was under the control of Spain, but now it was the United States that had the Caribbean nation under its control; the end of the War of Independence coincided with the rise of imperialism, throwing Cuba and the rest of the world into a new era.
In the aftermath of the war, on a farm located in the heart of Havana, the people warmly received with veneration Dominican Generalissimo Máximo Gómez, the man of the two wars. The general lived on this farm for the rest of his life.
This farm was also where Cuba established its demobilization offices for the liberation army, the men who left everything behind on the battlefield and handed over their weapons. In exchange, they received 75 pesos and went back to their civilian lives with nothing but their weariness, their torn-up military uniforms, and a semi-republic that was born with its hands tied.
On December 31, 1901, the Military Governor of Cuba, Leonard Wood, called for the holding of a general presidential election. Without any opposition, Tomás Estrada Palma was elected as Cuba’s first president while he still lived in the United States after he had been exiled by the Spanish colonialists.
The first president
Estrada Palma’s presidency wasn’t all smooth sailing, as two opposition factions grew under his rule: the moderates on one hand and the liberals on the other. The dispute between the two factions was heightened, and by 1906, the President demanded a military intervention by the United States.
On September 29 of that year, a US naval landing operation saw some 2,000 US Marines land in Cuba. Soon thereafter, Estrada Palma submitted his resignation before Congress and went to Matanzas by train, thus leaving Cuban history.
The US military intervention between 1898 and 1902 was the first, but it certainly wasn’t the last. Another one took place in 1906 when then-US President Theodore Roosevelt appointed Charles Magoon as occupation governor of Cuba, who was largely criticized for his tenure in the Caribbean nation.
Between 3,000 and 5,000 marines were going through the streets of Havana to guarantee the success of the US operation, though they would perform their duties in civilian clothing, never being seen donning their military attire.
The renowned red, white, and blue Cuban flag might have flown everywhere in the Island nation, but another red, white, and blue was exploiting Cuba’s resources, for Magoon was ravaging its natural resources for the benefit of the United States.
US exploitation of Cuba
Cuba became a cake that military generals and the political elite wanted a piece of for themselves, and all of that was going on under the watchful eyes of US diplomats that worked in Cuba.
The representative of the United States in Cuba was a strong man – not only because Washington treated Cuba as its trustee under the Platt Amendment, but also because the US was the largest importer of Cuban sugar, meaning that a hefty portion of the island nation’s economy was dependent on the United States.
In 1912, Cuban sugar replaced in the US markets the sugar that it had imported from Europe and the West Indies, among other nations. Moreover, American businessmen owned 34% out of the 160 sugar mills and plantations in Cuba in 1907.
As for the US military base in Guantanamo Bay, established under the pretext of guaranteeing Cuba’s independence, it was a thorn in the side of the people of Cuba, because it served as a reminder of the US hegemony over their country. At the beginning of the 1920s, Cuba, with all its deeper structures and institutions, was subject to the control of its northern neighbor. At the same time, corruption, bribery, and plundering of state coffers became customary, especially among the ranks of the political elite.
There was plenty of money to spend, as sugar prices rose due to World War One sending them soaring to 23 cents per pound, or $6.83 in today’s money, which was more than profitable for Cuba – or the US businessmen who owned much of the sugar businesses – at a time when the country was practically serving as a massive sugar plantation. By 1916, Cuba was the main source of sugar for the allies, but everything was about to change. Sugar prices plummeted, and the Cuban government was bankrupt.
It was getting harder and harder for the least fortunate, which prompted them to revolt against the ruling class. The demonstrations and protests gave rise to concerns in Washington, as it saw that the government in Havana was inept and incapable of confronting the crisis, which would influence the elections set for 1920. A new US ambassador was appointed, and Washington continued to interfere in the island’s internal affairs: Special Representative of the President, Enoch Crowder.
Coming aboard the USS Minnesota, Crowder arrived in Havana, and there he established his general barracks. From there, he served as more or less an advisor to the Cuban President, as he was puppeteering the President and giving him orders he had to follow. Alfredo Zayas y Alfonso, Cuba’s third President, was lenient, and rampant corruption ravaged his government.
In light of this status quo, young, forward-thinking personalities began to emerge, drawing inspiration from Jose Marti and the founding fathers who fought epics of liberation.
By the end of 1922, Cuban revolutionary youth Julio Antonio Mella founded the Federation of University Students (FEU) and co-founded the Communist Party of Cuba. He was the first student leader who became a prominent and prestigious national figure.
Mella was resented by the government, and he was arrested, but pressure from the Cuban people forced the president to release him. He later fled President Gerardo Machado’s repression in Cuba and lived in exile in Mexico. Machado sent his assassins after Mella, and the young revolutionary was assassinated at 25 years old after he was shot in the back on January 10, 1929.
Despite his numerous crimes, Machado, a dictator, was propped up regardless, with support from the United States, and in 1928, US President Calvin Coolidge went to Cuba on an official visit to attend the Summit of the Americas that was held in Cuba.
Although President Gerardo Machado had prepared the bright and new amphitheater for the University of Havana to receive the US President, the students protested against Coolidge’s visit, forcing him to stay out of the theater.
Popular resistance was one of Machado’s biggest enemies, as he instructed the police and the military to violently suppress any demonstration or protest by beating the protestors or using water cannons – or even live munition – against them. The island was bleeding, and after Mella’s assassination, poet and writer Rubén Martínez Villena led Cuba’s Communist Party.
It was Villena, despite having tuberculosis, who led the strike in 1933, and it was then that newspapers stopped publications, and restaurants, cafes, and pubs closed down for the first time in history. Everything was shuttered, and there were barely any people in the streets.
There was change, for the working class was unified, allowing them to discover a previously untapped strength that redirected the narrative in Cuba, which forced Machado to leave office and resort to exile.
Antonio Guiteras and La Joven Cuba
Antonio Guiteras was one of the key figures in the Cuban revolution, though he was not recognized by the Communist Party at the time despite being a true anti-imperialist nationalist socialist revolutionary.
The United States never recognized the government of Ramón Grau San Martín, otherwise known as the One Hundred Days Government, which lasted from September 4, 1933, until January 15, 1934, and it was set not to last for long since the beginning due to internal disputes between President Grau, Interior Minister Guiteras, and the Chief of the Armed Forces Fulgencio Batista, a violent and brutal man whose tenure saw the Cuban people wearing nothing but black in mourning of their loved ones throughout the 1940s and 1950s.
Under pressure from the new US ambassador to Havana, Jefferson Caffery, President Grau was forced to step down from office.
With the collapse of the One Hundred Days Government, it became clear that regardless of who was in power, the real leader of Cuba was Fulgencio Batista as commander of the armed forces.
Batista’s bloody rule over Cuba lasted because the dictator ruled with an iron fist, as he dispersed demonstrators using live bullets, suspended constitutional guarantees, and took no steps to hold legislative elections as corruption ravaged the Caribbean island.
Guiteras chose the path of rebellion and founded La Joven Cuba for that, but Batista’s forces persecuted him, so he chose to leave the country. While he was trying to escape the suppression, he was martyred, fighting until the last breath on May 8, 1953, on the banks of the Canímar River in the province of Matanzas.
The rise of Fidel Castro
The 1940s began with the winds of a new constitution. With the birth of the new constitution, a new president was elected, General Fulgencio Batista.
Even after the United States entered World War II, the Cuban government demonstrated its subordination by declaring war on Japan, and then on Germany and Italy. In the following years, two governments were formed, the first headed by Grau and the second by Carlos Prío Socarrás.
Both leaders exacerbated corruption and expanded the killers’ hold on the country, with students, unionists, and proletariat leaders getting killed left and right, the likes of Niceto Pérez and Jesús Menéndez.
The Cuban region of Birán was an investment hub for US businessmen, and there were stark differences between the wealthy American companies and the poor population of the region. Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz watched his people suffer as a result of injustice in the life of the Cuban countryside, and this had, of course, an impact on his awareness and understanding of the meaning of justice.
However, as he declared many years later, Castro became a revolutionary when he was at the University of Havana after he became a law student in 1945 in the only university that was in Cuba at the time, making for a grand hub for leftist students who played a part in the revolutionary struggle.
Warry of the possibility that the Independence Party would win the 1952 elections, General Fulgencio Batista staged a military coup, through which he overthrew the constitutional government and abolished the 1940 constitution. The United States wasted no time recognizing the government that came as a result of the coup, consolidating its influence on the island.
Castro was among the first to condemn the military coup before an emergency court, accusing the putschists of violating the constitution.
January 1953 was the year that split the country’s history in two – it was the month when Cuba celebrated the 100th birthday of José Martí.
The poet was commemorated and honored with a march of torches that kicked off from the amphitheater of the University of Havana on January 27, 1953. The new generation was expressing its position. Fidel Castro and Abel Santamaría Cuadrado, serving as commander and second commander, respectively, were secretly preparing the resistance against the existing regime.
Later on in the year, the dawn of July 26 would radically change the history of Cuba, with Fidel Castro and his comrades going into the Moncada Barracks. There were 106 revolutionaries, six of whom were killed in action, while 55 others were brutally executed after the element of surprise failed them during their armed attack on the second-largest military fortress in Cuba. Those who managed to stay alive fled to the Sierra Maestra mountain range. This operation would go on to immortalize them and eventually lead to the toppling of the Batista regime. The 26th of July Movement would go on to change Cuba forever, making Batista the last US asset to hold public office in Cuba.
Castro and the Treaty of Mexico
The revolutionaries formed a resistance movement in Mexico against Batista’s rule, taking decisive steps to unify their ranks. That is when the leader of the 26th of July Movement, Fidel Castro, and José Antonio Echeverría, the President of the Federation of University Students, signed what they called “the Treaty of Mexico”.
There was not a single arena in which the Cuban people resisted the US-backed dictatorship, as resistance spread throughout the entire island, with the Cuban people taking to the streets to bravely resist their oppressors. Many men risked everything to support the revolution, planting IEDs, raising funds for the revolutionary army, and raising awareness about the resistance movement through brochures and other forms of media. That is when the red and black flag of the 26th of July Movement started being seen all over Cuba.
Batista’s assassins, at the direction of their paranoid leader, killed key revolutionary figure Frank País in the streets of Santiago de Cuba. Not fearing the repercussions, the citizens of Santiago de Cuba held a funeral for the revolutionary who was born and raised in the city, marching against the regime and in support of the cause. Despite all the bloodshed and oppression, the United States did not once stop backing the government.
There were many ways that Washington supported the ruthless dictator, including advisory meetings with CIA agents and high-ranking officials, as well as senior US officials, not to mention indirect arms sales to the Batista regime using a lengthy trail. Washington would sell arms to Nicaraguan dictator Anastasio Somoza Debayle and Dominican dictator Rafael Leónidas Trujillo Molina, who would, in turn, sell them to Batista.
In the summer of 1958, Batista waged a bloody offensive on Sierra Maestra using an army of 10,000 men with the aim of crushing the revolutionary army.
However, this bid failed, and about half a century into its struggle for freedom, Cuba managed to get rid of Batista. The ruthless dictator escaped from the country on December 31, 1958, and on the first day of 1959, the leader of the first Cuban revolution entered Santiago de Cuba as the nation’s leader.
US President Joe Biden could go down in history for allowing his failed policies to trigger a world war, experts say.
US President Joe Biden, January 19, 2022 (Getty Images)
US President Joe Biden’s policies toward Russia, China, and Iran, among other countries, have the US on the verge of disaster as he begins the second half of his first term, experts told Sputnik.
Biden reached the midpoint of his presidency earlier today, a period in which the White House has claimed economic successes while critics have slammed him for record-high inflation, the border crisis, and a foreign policy that has escalated tensions with both Russia and China.
“I think he’s done better than some of us expected, but he’s still sleepwalking into disaster,” political commentator and US constitutional historian Dan Lazare told Sputnik.
Like all US presidents, Biden was the victim of forces beyond his control, Lazare cautioned. He said that Biden entered the White House promising to be a big-spending FDR [Franklin Delano Roosevelt] and thus succeeded in pushing through his $1.9-trillion American Rescue Plan less than two months after taking office. However, it backfired due to mounting inflationary pressures, which it undoubtedly helped aggravate.
Lazare acknowledged that the “rapid and humiliating Taliban conquest of Afghanistan” in July 2021, during Biden’s first year in office, was a disaster that nearly everyone in Washington contributed to over the previous 40 years.
“Instead of fiddling while Rome burned, he flipped burgers while Kabul collapsed. The result was the worst foreign-policy setback since Vietnam from an imperial point of view,” he said.
The Inflation Reduction Act, which was passed in November 2022, put new strains on the Atlantic Alliance, according to Lazare. “[The act] has left Europeans unnerved due to its outrageously protectionist industrial policies,” he added.
Dangers of Ukraine
The Biden administration announced on Thursday another $2.5 billion in military aid to Ukraine, bringing the total to around $27.5 billion since Biden took office. According to Lazare, the United States is on the verge of a world war.
He stressed that Biden looks pretty good “shepherding one military aid package after another through Congress,” warning that the longer the conflict goes on the more apparent it becomes that NATO’s “aggressively expansionist policies are leading to another 1914.”
Lazare predicted that Biden’s failure to pursue any serious means of resolving the conflict would exacerbate it, adding that “just as the Entente more or less maneuvered Austro-Hungary into going to war against crazy little Serbia, the Atlantic Alliance maneuvered Russia into going to war against Ukraine by engaging in actions that were increasingly provocative and confrontational,” he said.
Biden risks going down in history alongside disastrous UK leader Herbert Henry Asquith, who led his country into a disastrous world war with Germany in 1914, according to Lazare.
“I think history will, thus, end up looking at Biden the same way it looks at Asquith, the UK prime minister who thought he could get away with playing with fire in the Balkans. Once again, short-sighted imperial ambitions are plunging the world into catastrophe,” he said.
Lazare believed that despite all this, the US media had covered Biden sympathetically so far in contrast to their unrelenting attacks on his predecessor. He added that Joe Biden may be a “B- president so far, but I’m sure his report card will be bristling with F’s before too long.”
Feckless mediocrity
Retired Ambassador Chas Freeman, who served as the Democratic Clinton administration’s assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs, noted that the Foreign Policy had assembled 20 analysts who had nothing but praise for Biden’s diplomatic performance.
Freeman told Sputnik thatno oriental potentate employing praise singers could ask for more, but the Biden administration didn’t produce a ‘foreign policy for the middle class’, only one for what he described as feckless mediocrity.”
“Biden and his team have catalyzed and subsequently escalated a dangerous proxy war between the United States, Western Europe, and Russia in Ukraine [and] escalated tensions with China amidst rising concern about the possibility of a war over the status of Taiwan,” Freeman said.
He also abandoned diplomatic efforts to limit Iran’s nuclear weapons development, which has brought Russia, China, and Iran together, according to Freeman.
Furthermore, Biden has increased protectionism and rejected the World Trade Organization’s “rules-based order,” causing friction with US allies in both Europe and Asia, he claims.
According to Freeman, Biden’s erratic policies had also resulted in a visible reduction in US influence in the Middle East, including a rift with Saudi Arabia and a failure to counter the replacement of apartheid in “Israel” with renewed ethnic cleansing.
Judging by its name, NATO, the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation was only ever about the USA and the UK, an agreement between Americans and the half-American Churchill. After all, what relevance does the ‘North Atlantic’ have to Baltic Germany or Mediterranean Italy, let alone to Aegean Greece and Black Sea Turkey? Even Spain and Portugal look towards the Caribbean and the South Atlantic, not to the North Atlantic. NATO is clearly an organisation that descended directly from the Atlantic Charter, made up by Roosevelt and Churchill in a bay off Newfoundland in 1941 (not even in the Atlantic), and then imposed on all the others.
The End of NATO
So, whatever was the North Atlantic doing in the foothills of the Himalayas, in Afghanistan? Apart from the fact that that was its greatest defeat (so far), just what was it doing there? And what is the North Atlantic, or at least parts of it, doing in the South China Sea? Surely there is a clue in the name – China? It belongs to China. Whatever are the US Navy and others doing there?
Surely, even the geographically-challenged Liz Truss, who wanted the whole world to be ruled by NATO, must have been thinking that it was time to rename NATO? Perhaps the Nazi American Tyranny Organisation? Like that you could keep the same initials. As the Saker has pointed out, the first NATO Secretary-General, the Indian-born colonial, General Hastings (1) Ismay, bluntly admitted that the purpose of NATO was ‘to keep the Soviet Union out, the Americans in, and the Germans down’ (2).
And as the Saker has explained: ‘Keep the Germans down’ means crush all Europeans who might be rivals to the Anglosphere’s control of Western Europe, and now control all of Europe, apart from the free Russian Lands. ‘Keep the Americans in’ means crush all European liberation movements, De Gaulle’s or any others. ‘Keep the Soviet Union out’ means destroy Russia, so that it does not liberate Europe from the tyranny of the Anglosphere. The latter is symbolised by the US and British flags that have been omnipresent, even on fashion items, T-shirts and jeans, ever since the 1960s. That is why true Europeans refuse to wear such items.
In reality, it is obvious that NATO should have been packed away on 1 July 1991, the day the Warsaw Pact was packed away. If it had been packed away in 1991, the NATO rout would have been avoided thirty years later in Afghanistan. Indeed, the fact that it was not packed away then is a tragedy which has cost millions of lives, especially all over the tragic Middle East, and today all over the tragic Ukraine.
Interestingly, the answer to the aggression and bullying of NATO (the American elite always bullies), the Warsaw Pact was named after the Capital of Poland. Ironically – and there is nothing so ironic as history – today it is in the Warsaws of the ‘New Europe’, far from the North Atlantic, that you will find the most fanatical latecomer-devotees of NATO. What is the significance of NATO?
The American Republic of Poland
The name ‘Poland’ is cognate with the English word ‘plain’, so ‘Poland’ literally means ‘fields’. In other words, there is no geographical barrier between the German Lands and the Russian Lands, which begin with today’s Belarus and the Ukraine. In other words, there is no geographical barrier between Berlin and Moscow. There is only a purely artificial political barrier. The two peoples, Poles and Russians, are genetic brothers and sisters. Theirs, like the confrontation between the genetic brothers, the Croats and Serbs, is a purely manmade one.
It is part of the Poles’ gigantic inferiority complex (imagine living among a lot of fields between Germany and Russia) to imagine that Russia is interested in conquering Poland. Russia is really not interested in Poland. So, I hear you say, why did Imperial Russia participate in the three late 18th century Prussian and Austrian partitions of Poland? Why did Molotov and Ribbentrop partition it? Why did Stalin occupy it?
The answer is always the same. When you have been invaded by Western Europe as often as Russia has, you need to create a buffer-zone to protect yourself. As geography does not change, the Tsars and the Bolsheviks were forced by the same Western aggression and jealousy into doing the same thing – protecting themselves and that meant Eastern or all of Poland. In this, Tsar Nicholas II was a lot more successful than the Bolsheviks. Thus, in World War I, the Germans and Austrians never got into Russia at all, getting stuck mainly in eastern Poland and Lithuania and causing fewer than 670,000 Russian victims in two and a half years of war. It was a different story in World War II, with the Germans reaching the Volga and forty times more victims, 27 million of them.
This is an explanation, not a justification. Some of my best friends are Polish: though they belong to the small minority of Poles who know all the above and know that Poland today is merely an American vassal. I think they probably also know that if ever a Pole were to win the Nobel Peace Prize, it would be for one who had led Poland into making peace with Russia, rather than making war. That would be a Pole who pulled the plug on the Americans, chased them out of Poland and declared independence. And he would do the same with the US-run EU, the United States of Europe. Now that is the sort of Polish patriotism (utterly different from Polish nationalism), of which I approve, as it is concerned with asserting Polish national identity, not destroying it.
Sadly, there are those in today’s Polish political elite and military who dream of wiping Russia off the map, like medieval Catholic crusaders. They are just as delusional as those crusaders were. The Poles do not realise that the Americans (and the British) will drop them (and the Ukrainians) like hot bricks, when it comes to crunch. Just as they did in 1945, even though the British claimed that they had gone to war in 1939 only for the sake of defending Poland. That too had been a lie. When will the Poles ever learn who their real friends are? As the Saker has said: ‘The US/NATO do not have the manpower or firepower needed to take on Russia in a conventional combined arms war. Any use of nuclear weapons will result in immediate retaliation’. Today at least 1 in 33 people in Poland are Ukrainian ‘refugees’. A lot of Poles are fed up with that invasion. It is putting a great strain on the country.
The Future
At this very moment NATO is being demilitarised in the Ukraine. Ironically, the Ukraine is officially a Non-NATO country and one that contains some of the most Polish-hating people in the world. The Ukrainians who live on the Polish border (Galicians) even invented a new religion so that they would not be Catholics like the Poles (or Orthodox like the Russians). It is called ‘Greek Catholicism’. A weirder and more artificial mixture than that you will not find. As the Russians say: ‘Neither fish, nor meat’. So what happens when NATO collapses? Let us go back into the history of the last century, so much of which involved Poland, from Nazi-devastated Warsaw to Soviet-liberated Auschwitz, from Wroclaw (Breslau) to Gdansk (Danzig).
By the start of 1917, World War I had lasted for two and a half years and Russia was only a few months away from total victory and liberating Vienna, Berlin and Istanbul. However, the British-organised February Revolution (the then British ambassador, Sir George Buchanan, was the Victoria Nuland of a century later) put paid to it. And the utterly incompetent but Anglophile aristocrats the British had chosen to run Russia opened the floodgates to the October Revolution. Without British meddling, there would have been no Poland which between 1919 and 1920 occupied most of Belarus and Western Ukraine and stayed there until 1939. And if Russian troops had entered Vienna, Berlin and Istanbul, there would have been no Austrian corporal who in 1939 created the second part of World War I. And so no US invasion of Western Europe in 1944. And so no Soviet troops entering Vienna and Berlin in 1945 with violence. And so no war for the liberation of the Ukraine today.
The Austrian intrigues which helped lead to World War I played into the hands of the French and the British and destroyed the Saint Petersburg-Berlin axis. This was tragic because Berlin is the real centre of Western and Central Europe and everything else falls into place behind it, including Paris. (All Germans have to do to ensure their de facto leadership is to flatter the vanity of the French elite and tell them how important they are, that is enough). For harmony between Berlin and Saint Petersburg means harmony all over Western, Central and the northern part of Eastern Europe. Leaving aside Western Europe, there are also whole parts of Eastern and Central Europe which Russia is not interested in, because those Eastern and Central European cultures are alien to the Russian mentality and closer to German history and culture. These include, obviously, ex-Protestant Eastern Germany, as well as ex-Catholic Poland (including a slither of what is for the moment the far western Ukraine), Slovakia, Austria, Hungary, Slovenia, Croatia and northern Bosnia-Herzegovina, as well as atheist Czechia.
Once you remove those countries from the equation, you come to those parts of Eastern Europe which Russia is interested in and feels closer to. These are: Belarus, the (Russian) Ukraine, the Baltics, Moldova, Romania, Bulgaria, Serbia, southern Bosnia-Herzegovina, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Albania, Greece, Cyprus. You will be able to see why they belong to the Russian cultural world if you have a look at Samuel Huntingdon’s map of ‘The Eastern Boundary of Western Civilization’ (sic) (3). As the ethnocentric Professor says: ‘Europe ends where Western Christianity ends’. Here Russia will not need to build a wall, put up barbed wire and cement tank traps. It has friends on the other side of the border.
This was Stalin’s mistake – to create a Russian buffer zone which included countries whose majority culture was alien to the Russian, as listed above, instead of only those countries towards the south and east, as listed above. As an atheist Stalin had no more time or understanding for religious and cultural distinctions than modern Americans. A pity. South-eastern Europe, the above list of countries, will once more enter into the Russian sphere of influence, but those to the north and west belong elsewhere, the German and so Western European sphere.
Conclusion: After NATO
As NATO continues its collapse, which began in Kabul in August 2021, it will be clear that the US cannot hold on to Europe, just as it cannot hold on to Asia. The NATO wars will soon be over. NATO is being demilitarised and denazified now. In fact, it is being abolished now. Once the Berlin-Moscow axis has been re-established, the rest of Europe will follow, not into a Russian sphere of influence, but into an area which will want to form good relations with Russia, even the ex-American Republics of Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and American Britain. This is because behind Moscow, lies Beijing and indeed the whole of Eurasia. And all of Europe needs both Beijing and Moscow, Beijing for manufactured goods, Moscow for energy. Europe is to return to its roots, turning its back on transatlantic irrelevance and meddling. That is soon to be its past. As the good Colonel said: ‘To hell with Washington’.
24 November 2022
Notes:
1. Naturally, Ismay was named after the greatest defeat in the history of the English people, Hastings. That is, after the greatest victory in the history of the Norman/British Establishment. And naturally, in 1947, General Ismay was given the Norman title of Baron for his service to the same Norman Establishment.
Among all of the events shaping post-civil war US economic development, one of the most prominent was the establishment of Standard Oil by John D. Rockefeller in 1870. Working with other US industrialists, along with domestic and international financial and banking interests, including the Rothschild’s London banking cartel, Standard oil decedents have dominated the fossil fuel industry and shaped US economic and social development and foreign policy to the present day.
Introduction
The current world security architecture arose following WWII, which established the US as the dominant global power. Since that time, US global supremacy has rested on unrivaled military and economic power, control of world’s energy reserves (primarily in the Middle East), and maintaining the dollar as the world’s reserve currency [1]. There has been much current discussion about promoting ‘green’ policies, including sustainable development and increasing the use of renewable energy sources, clearly articulated during the UN Conference on Environment and Development (aka ‘Rio Conference’; ‘Earth Summit’), held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (Jun 3-14, 1992) [2], and Greta Thunberg’s speech to the UN on Sept 23, 2019 [3], where she accused world leaders of failing younger generations by not taking more aggressive actions to stop climate change. Despite this push for Green policies, fossil fuels (coal, oil and natural gas) are still the dominant source of energy, currently supply over 80% of the world’s energy [4]. In addition, the dollar (aka ‘petrodollar’) is the primary reserve currency held by foreign central banks [5] and main currency used for commercial energy transactions [6] [7].
In 1863 John D. Rockefeller joined Maurice B. Clark and Samuel Andrews in an oil-refining business in Cleveland, Ohio, which was subsequently expanded and incorporated as Standard Oil of Ohio in 1870. Rockefeller was a shrewd and aggressive industrialist, acquiring additional refining capacity by “buying up and squeezing out of rivals by every device at hand—legal or illegal’ and as a result, Standard Oil would soon control over 90% of American oil refining capacity. Facing increasing resistance from the business community and the Ohio legislature, Rockefeller incorporated the Standard Oil Trust in New Jersey in 1982. This Trust consisted of seven subsidiaries- Standard Oil of Kentucky, Standard Oil of California, Standard Oil of New York, Standard Oil of New Jersey, Standard Oil of Indiana, The Standard Oil Co (Ohio) and The Ohio Oil Company. In Standard Oil Co. of New Jersey v. United States (1911), the US Supreme Court found the Standard Oil Trust guilty of engaging in anti-competitive practices, a violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act, breaking the company up into 34 separate entities, some of which the Rockefellers held major stakes [8] [9]. Ironically, decades after the Standard Oil Trust was ‘broken up’, these separate firms would subsequently merge into Chevron [10], ExxonMobil [11], British Petroleum (BP) [12] and Marathon [13], which are currently among the top 10 global energy companies [14]. The Rockefellers reach was vast- David Rockefeller, grandson of John D. Rockefeller, was Chairman of the Council on Foreign Relations (1970-1985) and Chairman and CEO of Chase Manhattan Bank (1969–1981) [15] [16].
The geographic location of the US, circa 8000 km (5000 miles) from major war theaters in Europe and 9700 km (6000 miles) in Japan shielded the US from the massive devastation that took place in Europe and Asia during WWII. As a result, many large US corporations were able to profit handsomely by supplying the War Department with fuel, aircraft, ships, motor vehicles, armaments and ammunition to equip American soldiers and allied forces. Some of these firms were working both sides of the conflict, supplying Nazi Germany with financial backing and war material; some of these firms include Alcoa, Brown Brothers Harriman, Coca-Cola, Dupont, Kodak, Chase Bank, Dow Chemical, Ford, IBM, General Electric, General Motors, Woolworth, Random House and Standard Oil [17]. Prescott Bush, father of George HW Bush (41st President) and grandfather of George W. Bush’s (43st President), was a partner of A. Harriman & Co Investment bank and later served as Senator from Connecticut (1952-1963). Prescott Bush was directly involved with companies that profited from their commercial involvement with Nazi Germany [18] [19]. It should be pointed out the WWII is the most expensive war in American history, costing taxpayers more than $4 trillion, adjusted for inflation [20].
To the victor go the spoils
The US emerged from WWII as the world’s foremost military and economic power, the dollar was anointed the status of world reserve currency at the Bretton Woods Conference (1944) and established as the primary currency used for energy transactions following the meeting between US President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Saudi King Abdul Aziz Ibn Saud, aboard the USS Quincy, in the Suez Canal on Valentine’s Day, 1945 [21].
Post-WWII US economic development saw the continued rise of the American economy which translated into robust corporate profits and better living standards for many working people. In 1956, President Eisenhower signed the Federal-Aid Highway Act (aka National Interstate and Defense Highways Act of 1956) described as the ‘Greatest Public Works Project in History’, allocating $25 billion (circa $274 billion in inflation- adjusted dollars) from taxpayers to develop a 41,000-mile system of interstate highways that Eisenhower promised would eliminate unsafe roads, inefficient routes and all of the other things that got in the way of “speedy, safe transcontinental travel.” [22] [23]. The Highway act would enrich the ‘pro-highway coalition of energy companies, automobile manufactures, truckers, bus operators, tiremakers, insurance companies, auto clubs, etc. It directly led to increased use of private automobiles for transportation and the systematic dismantling of energy- efficient public transportation, creation of suburbs, shopping centers, ‘strip malls’, and proliferation of McDonald’s and other ‘fast-food’ outlets, which have led to the current health crisis in the US- increased obesity, type II diabetes and related health problems [24] [25]. In addition, some of these highways were literally built through urban neighborhoods and frequently minority communities [26] [27], such as the Cypress Freeway in Oakland, CA, I95 in Chester, PA and the Cross Bronx Expressway in NYC [28] [29].
As a result, the functioning of the American economy and society has become very dependent on fossil fuel consumption (for more detail see [30]).
1. Energy consumption & generation– the US has 4.25% of world’s population (339 million people) but consumes ~17% of the world’s energy and has the highest per capita energy consumption and is the largest total energy consumer. In 2021, approximately 60% of US electricity was generated from fossil fuels- coal, natural gas and oil [31].
2. Suburban development– as described above, passage of the Highway act of 1956 [22], accelerated the development of low-density housing suburbs, which were only accessible by automobiles using fossil fuel.
3. Transportation– The average American relies on energy-inefficient automobiles and jet airplanes for transportation. Most US cities lack a comprehensive, energy-efficient public transportation system. Indeed, the US does not have 1 mile of high-speed rail lines. By contrast, China has 40,000 km (24,855 mi), Spain has 3,100 km (1,926 mi) and Japan has 2,830 km (1758 mi) of high-speed rail.
4. American agriculture is very energy-intensive, requiring 15 calories of energy to produce 1 calorie of food. The average food commodity transits 1500 miles from production to consumption point- e.g., California-grown produce, shipped to the US east coast, usually via diesel fueled trucks.
5. Information technology– US society is heavily reliant on information flow. This system encompasses local computers, the internet and fiber optic cables serving as data pipelines, computer server farms and “cloud” storage facilities, all of which consume lots of electricity.
6. Military– The Pentagon is the largest single consumer of fossil fuel and polluter in the world. To give this some perspective, on average, the US military consumes 12,600,000 gallons (48,000,000 L) of fuel per day. One F-16 fighter jet consumes over 20K gallons of Kerosene per hour (333 gal/min) [32].
American capitalism is dependent on fossil fuel consumption to function and serves as the lubricant for American power projection around the world. The Middle East and North Africa (MENA) have approximately 57% and 41% of proven oil and natural gas reserves, respectively (see Table 1 and [33]). Thus, it is not surprising that the US ruling elite have a major interest in this region and the energy reserves therein [34]. US attempts to control oil in the MENA region has been carried out in several ways. This has involved setting up client regimes in countries with vast energy deposits, such as the Gulf monarchies in the Persian Gulf (Figure 1), attacking and/or invading countries who attempt to follow an independent energy policy, such as Iraq and Libya or issuing frequent verbal threats, seizing assets and imposing economic sanctions on countries that the US has been unable to achieve regime change or are capable of defending themselves, such as the Islamic Republic of Iran [35] and Venezuela.
As part of this effort, the US has set up military bases in multiple ME countries including Bahrain, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), Turkey (Türkiye), UAE and Syria (See Figure 1 and Table 2) [36]. Due to its geographic location, Israel is crucial to US foreign policy goals. The ‘state’ of Israel/Zionist project was the creation of British imperialism (Balfour Declaration, 1918) [37], was driven, at least in part, by the desire of the British ruling elite to establish a reliable (read non-Muslim) proxy force that would assist the UK in controlling the region and its abundant hydrocarbon reserves [38]. The US emerged from WWII as the world’s leading military and economic power and assumed the role of Israel’s benefactor, providing $152 billion since 1949; $3.8 billion in 2020 [39] [40]. While Israel does not host a formal US base, she is a de facto appendage of the Pentagon, is fully integrated into NATO and serves as a reliable and well-armed US proxy in the region [41] [42], ranking 18th in global military power [43]. Israel conducts regular attacks on Syria [44] and estimated to have a stockpile of circa 90 nuclear weapons (likely a low estimate).
This effort has become all the more urgent as: the Russia-China-Iran axis has attained economic and military parity with the West, Iran is now a member of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) [45], has applied for membership to the BRICS [46] and recently announced that it has developed a hypersonic missile, that is ‘capable of penetrating all defense systems’ [47]. One would infer that Iran received technical help developing this weapon system. As Iran’s ties with Russia and China continue solidifying, they are becoming increasingly ambivalent about rejoining the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA; aka Iran nuclear deal) [46], which was negotiated during the Obama Administration [48]. Trump unilaterally exited the JCPOA in 2018, stating ‘We cannot prevent an Iranian bomb under the decaying and rotten structure of the current agreement’ [49].
We hear a lot about ‘Green’ energy, the ‘Green new deal’, reducing our ‘carbon footprint’ and ‘sustainable development’, policies which are being promoted by a wide range of extremely committed environmental and conservation groups such as the Sierra Club, National Resources Defense Council (NRDC) and Clean Air Council in the US and many international organizations and prominent politicians. ‘Green’ polices have been promoted by US Vice President Kamala Harris, encouraging Americans to purchase [expensive] electric cars and endorsed by the paper of record (NYT) and other corporate media outlets. Any policy that reduces the production of ‘greenhouse’ gasses, such as CO2, is certainly a noble and worthwhile objective, that should be supported. Unfortunately, most of these groups, at least in the US, where I live, are missing the proverbial ‘elephant in the room’. This includes:
1. The entire structure of American society has been built around fossil fuel consumption. This includes the use of automobiles and jet airplanes for transportation. The profits of very powerful corporate interests, including energy corporations, automobile manufactures and their suppliers, banks and insurance companies and law firms to name a few, are highly dependent on fossil fuel consumption and ‘greenhouse’ gas production. They are not about to give this up without a big fight, including going to war.
2. The military is a key pillar of a [declining] American empire, with the Pentagon serving as the ‘enforcer’ of US global power, but is also the largest of consumer of fossil fuels and largest polluter in the world [32]. The Pentagon is supported by all factions of the ruling elite, readily apparent from the near-unanimous bipartisan support for every military appropriation in Congress (appropriation for 2023 is $773 billion). Not surprisingly, most environmental groups, which are dependent on funding from corporate-backed foundations, such as the Ford Foundation, Home Depot Foundation, etc. [50] are not going to ‘bite the hand’ that feeds them. Likewise, US corporate media is controlled by 6 large corporations whose class interests reflect those of the petrochemical companies and other large corporations [51] [52] [53]. Any reporter who steps out of line- i.e., criticizes the functioning of the US empire, including fossil fuel consumption, is immediately reprimanded and/or fired. 1) Reporter Emily Wilder was fired from AP because she had posted pro-Palestinian material on social media [54]. 2) In 1996, investigative reporter Gary Webb published a series of articles entitled ‘Dark Alliance’ in the San Jose Mercury News, linking the crack cocaine trade in Los Angeles with the Nicaraguan Contra rebels and the CIA. Not surprisingly, Webb’s story was met with outrage by MSM outlets such as the LA Times and Washington Post. Webb committed suicide in 2004 [55].
Concluding remarks
The survival of the American Empire is highly dependent on fossil fuel consumption and control of global energy reserves. This dependency has created irresolvable problems and led to a chaotic and at times, contradictory foreign policy. While there has been a lot of ‘whining’ about energy prices in the US and EU, the oil industry is reaping record profits. In 1980, President Jimmy Carter levied a “windfall” profits tax on the American oil industry in response to increasing gas prices and corporate profits [56]. While these taxes have had mixed results, no doubt a result of aggressive industry lobbying, there has been little discussion of taxing high corporate profits at the present time. Indeed, petrochemical industry profits were barely addressed in the recent US ‘midterm’ elections, as many candidates receive campaign contributions from energy companies. Fossil fuels still dominate US foreign policy. This can be seen from the enduring presence of military bases throughout the ME and maintaining generous financial support for Israel and the ruling families of Gulf Monarchies [57]. At the same time, these ruling families have watched the US/UK/NATO ferment coups in Iran (1953) [58] [59] and steal resources, invade and/or destroy Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria and Yemen; impose crippling economic sanctions and/or confiscate the assets of countries deemed a threat to US global power such as Iran, Venezuela and Russia and sabotage energy infrastructure (see below). Not surprisingly, KSA and other Gulf Monarchies have been reaching out to Russia and China; multiple reports indicate that KSA is ‘eager’ to join the BRICS Bloc [60]. No doubt, this was a motivation for President Biden’s trip to KSA in July of this year, meeting with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) at Al-Salam Palace in the Red Sea port of Jeddah. On Nov 18, the State Department recommended that MBS be granted ‘legal immunity’ for the brutal assassination of Washington Post columnist, Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Turkey on Oct 2, 2018 [62] [63]. It should be noted that while campaigning for President, then candidate Joe Biden stated: he would “cancel the blank check” the Trump administration had given Saudi Arabia during its war in Yemen and during a speech at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) that “America’s priorities in the Middle East should be set in Washington, not Riyadh” and advocated making Saudi Arabia an international “pariah” for butchering Jamal Khashoggi [61]. Rhetoric notwithstanding, Biden’s polices towards the MENA region are largely a continuation of those of Trump and the ruling elite they represent. Biden has not rejoined the JCPOA and has continued Trump’s bellicose position towards the Islamic Republic of Iran. The US continues supporting Israel, the US Embassy in Israel remains in Jerusalem (Al-Quds in Arabic), which is not Israeli land and thus, a blatant violation of International law [64], US troops remain in Iraq and Syria while the Pentagon continues assisting KSA in their genocidal war on Yemen [65]. Trump continues his financial dealings with KSA, recently signing a $1.6 billion deal with a Saudi real estate developer [66]. It will be interesting to see how the US reacts when KSA joins BRICS [67].
On Sept 26, 2022, Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 pipelines, carrying natural gas from Russia to Germany, under the Baltic Sea were blown up [68] [69]. Shortly after the explosions, erstwhile British Prime Minister Liz Truss allegedly sent a message to US Sec of State Anthony Blinken stating ‘it’s done’ [70]. While the actual perpetrators of this attack have not been identified, it is likely that the US at a very minimum was aware of this action, as pointed out by Professor Jeffrey Sachs (Columbia University) during a Bloomberg interview [71]. The end result is that Germany and other countries in the EU will no longer have access to cheap and plentiful Russian energy, but will now be forced to purchase much more expensive liquified natural gas from the US or other countries. It should also be noted that nearly 8 decades following the conclusion of WWII, the Pentagon maintains circa 900 foreign military bases worldwide [72] [73]. Europe is still occupied by circa 100K troops [74], 35K in Germany alone [75]. Thus, Germany is not really a US ‘ally’ but rather a subordinate. This begs the question; will Germany and other countries in the EU continue serving as de facto US vassals or begin following a more independent foreign policy? One could argue their very survival as functional states depends on this.
9. John D. Rockefeller and the Oil Industry- John D. Rockefeller changed the oil industry forever with his company Standard Oil. but that was by no means the only interesting thing about him. By Burton W. Folsom Foundation for Economic Education Sat Oct 1, 1988; https://fee.org/articles/john-d-rockefeller-and-the-oil-industry/
18. How Bush’s grandfather helped Hitler’s rise to power- Rumors of a link between the US first family and the Nazi war machine have circulated for decades. Now the Guardian can reveal how repercussions of events that culminated in action under the Trading with the Enemy Act are still being felt by today’s president By Ben Aris and Duncan Campbell The Guardian Sat Sep 25, 2004; https://www.theguardian.com/world/2004/sep/25/usa.secondworldwar
35. Missiles of Iran- Iran possesses the largest and most diverse missile arsenal in the Middle East, with thousands of ballistic and cruise missiles, some capable of striking as far as Israel and southeast Europe. CSIS Aug 10, 2021; https://missilethreat.csis.org/country/iran/
48. The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) at a Glance. Kelsey Davenport, Director of Nonproliferation Policy, Arms Control Association Mar, 2022;
52. These 6 corporations control 90% of the media outlets in America- The illusion of choice and objectivity. By Nickie Louise Tech Startups Sept 18, 2020;
61. Biden’s visit to Saudi Arabia is the right thing to do, even if it feels wrong
The U.S. president has rightly come to the conclusion that a strategy of isolating the crown prince isn’t feasible. By Daniel R. DePetris NBC News July 15, 2022;
68. Who Attacked Nord Stream 2? Maybe it was Russia, though that doesn’t make much sense. There are better candidates. By Doug Bandow Cato Institute Oct 14,
69. A journey to the site of the Nord Stream explosions- Prosecutors in Sweden say explosions on a gas pipeline between Russia and Europe were the result of sabotage. The explosions in the Baltic Sea targeted pipelines carrying natural gas from Russia to Europe. Russia denies any involvement. Before the announcement, Katya Adler travelled to the site, and was separately told by Nato chief Jens Stoltenberg that the west could go to war if Russia attacked infrastructure providing critical energy supplies. By Katya Adler BBC News Nov 18, 2022; https://www.bbc.com/news/world-63636181
70. ‘It’s done’: Putin fumes after Liz Truss ‘message’ to Blinken over Nord Stream attack ‘revealed’ Hindustan Times Nov 4, 2022; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GxzBqghRs5k
The US is desperate to sustain its hegemony and supremacy. It is taking extreme measures and can go to any extent to keep its hegemony and supremacy. Its Petrodollars policy has been playing a significant role, but, facing challenges recently and the US is getting nervous and crazy.
The petrodollar is any U.S. dollar paid to oil-exporting countries in exchange for oil. The dollar is the preeminent global currency. As a result, most international transactions, including oil, are priced in dollars. Oil-exporting nations receive dollars for their exports, not their own currency.
In addition, most oil-exporting nations own their oil industries. That makes their national income depends on the dollar’s value. If it falls, so does their government’s revenue. As a result, most of these oil exporters also peg their currencies to the dollar. That way, if the dollar’s value falls, so does the price of all their domestic goods and services. That helps these countries avoid wide swings in inflation or deflation.
The petrodollar system is tied to the history of the gold standard. After World War II, the United States held most of the world’s supply of gold. It agreed to redeem any U.S. dollar for its value in gold if the other countries pegged their currencies to the dollar. Other countries signed this deal at the 1944 Bretton Woods conference. It established the U.S. dollar as the world’s reserve currency.
On February 14, 1945, President Franklin D. Roosevelt initiated the alliance with Saudi Arabia.1 He met with Saudi King Abd al-Aziz. The United States built an airfield at Dhahran in return for military and business training. This alliance was so critical that it survived subsequent years of differences of opinion over the Arab-Israeli conflict.
The 1945 agreement between the United States and Saudi Arabia cemented the relationship between the dollar and oil. The petrodollar was born. In 1971, U.S. stagflation prompted runs on the dollar. Many countries asked to redeem their U.S. dollars for gold. To protect the remaining U.S. gold reserves, President Richard Nixon removed the dollar from the gold standard. As a result, the value of the dollar plummeted. That helped the U.S. economy as its export values also decreased, making them more competitive. A falling dollar hurt oil-exporting countries because contracts were priced in U.S. dollars. Their oil revenue dropped along with the dollar. The cost of imports, denominated in other currencies, increased.
In 1973, Nixon asked Congress for military aid to Israel in the Yom Kippur War. The newly-formed Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries halted oil exports to the United States and other Israeli allies. The OPEC oil embargo quadrupled the price of oil in six months. Prices remained high even after the embargo ended. In 1979, the United States and Saudi Arabia negotiated the United States-Saudi Arabian Joint Commission on Economic Cooperation. They agreed to use U.S. dollars for oil contracts. The U.S. dollars would be recycled back to America through contracts with U.S. companies. These companies improve Saudi infrastructure through technology transfer.
The United States uses the power of petrodollars to enforce its foreign policy. But many countries don’t fight back. They are afraid it would mean the collapse of the petrodollar system.
However, there was strong thinking against the Petrodollar concept and few Arab leaders declared to trade oil; in local currencies or any other currency, de-linking from dollars. The leading role was played by President Sadden Hussain, Col. Qaddafi of Libya, and the Syrian President. The US has punished them and changed the regimes in such countries.
China called for a replacement of the U.S. dollar as a global currency. Although, it is one of the largest foreign holders of the dollar. China influences the U.S. dollar by pegging its currency, the yuan, to it. China has signed a currency swap agreement with more than twenty countries and already trading with them in Yuan or local currencies. China is importing oil and gas from a few Arab nations in Yuan.
Russia has demanded to settle Gas bills in Rubles and a few European countries are already agreed to pay in Rubles. EU has also no objections if any member state pays in Rubles instead of Dollars. Russia is trading with few other nations in Rubles or local currencies instead of Dollars.
Russia has slashed the value of the dollar and the euro by 30% in a jiffy by linking the Russian Ruble to the value of gold and declaring to supply oil only against the Russian Ruble. Russia’s move means that now the entire world, especially Western Europe and Japan will buy the Russian Ruble by selling dollars in huge quantities, as the Russian Ruble has become the world’s most stable currency overnight after being linked to gold.
America, which does not mass-produce anything other than weapons and ammunition, is caught in a terrible economic crisis. In the event of a shrinking dollar, the US cannot cover its 306 billion budget deficit. This will cause severe unemployment and adversely affect the social safety net. This is the economic atom bomb that Joe Biden was aware of when he was talking about the removal of Putin in Poland.
Putin orders European countries to make payments of Gas and Oil in terms of Rubble and open the account in Russian banks. It will weaken the American sanctions on Russia. Although Russia has not retaliated against the American sanctions so aggressively, introduced its policies to counter the sanctions successfully.
The rapid decline of the US has made its leadership nervous and crazy. They are taking all possible measures to sustain their hegemony and supremacy. Even, though the Ukraine war is only a phenomenon, the objective is to maintain status-co. unfortunately, the US is not interested in global peace, stability, or saving human lives. The only priority is to maintain its hegemony and supremacy. To achieve this goal, the US can sacrifice Ukraine, Europe, or any heavy price. The US policy in the Ukraine war is to add fuel to fire, there is no will to stop the war, ceasefire, or save human lives. They are providing weapons, and arming civilians to lead toward a prolonged civil war, to bleed Russian and keep many countries over-engaged and let the US maintain its monopoly and the upper hand.
Russia was reluctant to attack Ukraine and has been observing restrains for quite along. Showing its genuine security concerns and alarming the US with serious consequences, but, the US kept its policy to encircle Russia.
The haphazard joining of NATO by Finland and the defense agreement with the UK is also equally a genuine threat to Russia. Russia and Finland share a long common border. Joining NATO, means, the deployment of NATO forces along the Russian border, which is a direct threat. Joining NATO by other Scandinavian nations is also a serious and matter of deep concern for Russia.
It seems the US has only one priority which is to sustain its position in the geopolitics, it ignores the genuine concerns of other nations. We are scared of the future of geopolitics and afraid the days to come may be harsh for humankind.
In history, many nations rose to the status of superpowers and ruled the world for a certain period of time, then, meltdown and passed the status of superpower to other rising nations. Like Roman Empire, Ottoman Empire, Greek Empire, British, and French empires, etc. But, The US is not willing to accept the natural cycle of superpowers and can go to any extent to keep its status of superpower forever, which is not rational nor natural, it might cause irrecoverable loss to humankind. Unfortunate!
Author: Prof. Engr. Zamir Ahmed Awan, Sinologist (ex-Diplomat), Editor, Analyst, Non-Resident Fellow of CCG (Center for China and Globalization). (E-mail: awanzamir@yahoo.com).
We will begin with a short and painless history lesson. Just before the US entered World War II, General George C. Marshall, Chief of Staff for the US Army, was tasked with getting America ready for war.
To do so, he removed 30,000 incompetent officers, most of them West Point Graduates, from their positions with the Army and Reserve/National Guard Commands. Eventually, he ended up putting an obscure Lt. Colonel named Dwight Eisenhower in charge of all European operations.
From the 1972 hit song by the Scottish music group Steelers Wheels:
“Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right…Stuck in the Middle Again”
Roosevelt found the Army not just unfit but a threat to democracy with an officer corps largely aligned with Adolf Hitler.
Vietnam
Vietnam was worse but the problem was sloth and cowardice. Here the Pentagon set up luxury resorts as military bases for brass and visiting “dignitaries” while those fighting the war starved and died in numbers unseen since the darkest days of World War II.
In the North/I Corps we had 3MAF Headquarters, the “Puzzle Palace,” with top rated chefs and high-end brothels while in the South we had MACV Forward, the infamous Westmoreland Compound, originally set up by MSUG’s Wesley Fischel, architects of the corrupt Diem regime.
This author enjoyed a firsthand view of Vietnam as a Marine infantryman serving in units commanded by privates and lance corporals while commanders were never seen.
A true story, from 1970. This author was being released from active duty as a corporal in the Marine Corps, stationed at that time at LZ Rockcrusher at Dai La Pass outside Da Nang. I was called into Da Nang to meet with General Nickerson, then III MAF Commander and an officer selection board.
I was offered an immediate commission if I chose to remain in the Corps and a slot, at a later date, at Annapolis. I was told the Marine Corps was getting rid of the “dead wood,” and I was asked to stay on.
My response, you mean “combat vets?” General Nickerson’s response: “That’s exactly what we mean.” My attempt at irony either zoomed past him or he did not care.
I was a combat vet, but I must have been the “right kind” of combat vet, tall, blond, white and educated and, seemingly “compliant.” They might have been wrong about that. Today’s “Dancing boy village” at Kabul with its million-dollar condominiums puts both to shame and we do not want to discuss the Green Zone in Baghdad.
Today
Our point is this, the military gravitates toward proving the Peter Principle and is, in fact, the best possible example of the worst principles of management. From Wikipedia:
“The Peter Principle is a concept in management developed by Laurence J. Peter, which observes that people in a hierarchy tend to rise to their “level of incompetence”: employees are promoted based on their success in previous jobs until they reach a level at which they are no longer competent.”
The military now takes it to a whole new level with promotion based on servile gullibility and adherence to a blend of approved conspiracy theories, where Dispensationalism and Dominionism, both stressing the Pentagon’s role in bringing about nuclear Armageddon or the newest versions under Trump, Qanon, COVID denialism and a blend of Fascism and Hucksterism.
The Viper Academies and the January 6 Coup Attempt
This week, the director of the Air Force Academy, Lt. General Richard Clarke, director of the US Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs decided to comply with presidential orders to investigate right wing extremism and white supremacism, which has virtually drowned the American military, by blaming “both sides.”
Several of the leaders of the January 6, 2021 coup attempt were Air Force Academy graduates with high security clearances. Secretary of Defense Austin ordered all military commands, and especially the Air Force Academy, to investigate extremism in the ranks.
It is supposed to be a highest priority that as few paranoid schizophrenics as possible enter the highest levels of America’s nuclear command structure. If you feel this statement reflects sarcasm, it is obvious that you have been asleep for the last couple of decades or more.
Asleep or Complicit?
This is the same military that has overseen the export of hundreds of tons of processed heroin from its bases in Afghanistan, that watched ISIS steal millions of tons of oil from Iraq and Syria and is now directly involved in that process itself, at presidential order.
At one point in 2015, ISIS (banned in Russia) had 12,000 oil trucks lined up 4 abreast headed into Turkey, a convoy visible from the surface of the moon with the naked eye. Yet, America’s drones, satellites and surveillance aircraft saw nothing, not until Russian Aerospace Forces decided to intervene.
These are facts that prove that every American military commander was and is fully complicit in protecting the operational activities of named terror groups.
We can make the exact same statement about the world heroin trade as well. At one point, the US Air Force asserted that the Taliban (banned in Russia) was flying heroin out of Afghanistan secretly from American bases.
As American humorist Jim W. Dean so often says, “You just can’t make this stuff up.”
Bin Laden Again
There are issues that should never be forgotten or allowed to be pushed aside. One is Osama bin Laden, longtime CIA asset chosen as “patsy” for the fake War on Terror and the other 9/11, one of the world’s greatest false flag events.
Note that Trump appointee, Clarke, was the architect of the Bin Laden raid. This “made” Clarke as an American hero and moved him into a position where he could, potentially, be very useful to extremist elements.
In 2009, this author traveled to Pakistan and met with Imran Khan, currently Pakistan’s Prime Minister, then ISI Chief General Pasha and discussed bin Laden’s death. The group also included former Head of the Army General Aslem Beg, former ISI Head and VT Editor General Hamid Gul and Chairman of Pakistan’s JCOS, Admiral Sirohey, also a member of VT’s Advisory Board.
This author also reviewed classified files on bin Laden and interviewed one of the men who buried bin Laden in Afghanistan. According to records, including reports from Fox News and other sources, bin Laden died in December 2001. From Fox News:
“Usama bin Laden has died a peaceful death due to an untreated lung complication, the Pakistan Observer reported, citing a Taliban leader who allegedly attended the funeral of the Al Qaeda leader.
‘The Coalition troops are engaged in a mad search operation, but they would never be able to fulfill their cherished goal of getting Usama alive or dead,’ the source said.
Bin Laden, according to the source, was suffering from a serious lung complication and succumbed to the disease in mid-December, in the vicinity of the Tora Bora mountains. The source claimed that bin Laden was laid to rest honorably in his last abode and his grave was made as per his Wahabi belief.”
It gets much worse. In a further interview with White House intelligence coordinator Lee Wanta, I was told that bin Laden had been in the US on 9/11 receiving medical care at the Bethesda Naval Medical Center under the name Colonel Timothy Osman.
Wanta described his meetings in the US with bin Laden/Osman, which included Oliver North and other Bush officials, and of an earlier meeting with bin Laden in Peshawar, Pakistan, which included top CIA officials.
Wanta reported that Oxford educated bin Laden spoke better English than he did.
Yet, for years, SITE Intelligence, an Israeli run organization, provided videos of strange looking versions of bin Laden, followed by years of audio tapes as the world had apparently lost the ability to record or upload video in the interim, or we would supposedly be brought to believe.
Americans are still in Afghanistan hunting for the “dozens of vast underground fortresses” Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld spoke of when he ordered the hunt for long dead bin Laden, part of an American war that cost the lives of millions of innocents.
Every minute of it was fake and the Pentagon at it up like a dog at vomit.
Minot Barksdale and an Earlier Coup Attempt
The issue at the Air Force Academy began many years ago. This author was contacted by cadets (158) there back in 2008 who complained of religious persecution and a curriculum that promoted treason and extremism.
The root of the command meltdown within the US military is generally traced to the US Army Psychological Warfare Command at the Presidio, a base in San Francisco that is today a city park. At the time a strange Satanic child abuse scandal within the military had attempted to implicate commanders there including Colonel Michael Aquino, founder of the Temple of Set, a Satanic cult powerful within the Pentagon and the service academies.
Aquino was cleared but an investigation led to broad allegations of abuse through 15 major military commands including and especially the US Air Force Academy and the US Air Force nuclear command at Minot Air Force Base. From New Eastern Outlook (2014):
“During the Bush (43) administration, something far more serious happened. America’s nuclear command structure was compromised at every level, culminating in the theft of nuclear weapons from Minot Air Force Base in 2007, an undisclosed number of thermonuclear weapons loaded onto a B 52 which later landed — or more appropriately, was forced to land at Barksdale Air Force Base some hours later.
Immediately thereafter, Secretary of Defence Robert Gates ordered the Department of Defense to remove all oversight of nuclear weapons from the United States Air Force, placing an Army general in overall command of what had previously been Air Force weapons inventories.
Soon thereafter, 84 personnel in America’s largest nuclear command were removed, 12 permanently due to accidents and suicide. Since that time, over 200 members of that command have been forced out, and America’s entire nuclear command has been put under direct oversight.
Greater Israel
The real problem is twofold and involves a breakdown of command authority and discipline, as well as treason. Not long after Bush (43) took office, his backers in the extremist Christian evangelical community approached Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.
They wanted to assure that all military command personnel would follow the tenets of the obscure religious sect Rumsfeld, Cheney, Bush and Ashcroft belonged to.
This sect seeks to bring about a nuclear apocalypse tied to the expansion of “Greater Israel” in order to bring about what they call the “rapture” and “end times.” Their religious beliefs are a mix of “Ufology,” belief in alien influence, satanic worship and that a select group will be called to rule the world at the side of an alien master race, while those “left behind” will die in misery.
Their religion is a mix of misinterpreted biblical prophecy, science fiction and the occult. In fact, many of those at the highest levels of US government retain no actual Christian beliefs at all, not by any conventional standard.”
Given Enough Rope…
Blindly cheerleading for the military is called “patriotism” but, often as not it is treason in its purest form. There is now and there has been in the past, time and time again, no bigger threat against freedom than the military and America’s military is among the worst.
There are no simple truths, but we will distill it down as much as possible. The Pentagon is a feeding ground for extremists, bottom-feeders and “mama’s boys” in uniform. It is all haircuts and fancy uniforms, of saluting, strutting and conspiracy.
The Pentagon lives on conspiracy and treason that is held in check only by a few decent and honorable leaders.
The problem, initially, was the revolving door that placed potentially traitorous military leaders, after retirement, at Fox News as commentators or moved them into White House advisory positions.
Some gravitated to think tanks like the infamous Atlantic Council or Heritage Foundation and almost all have, predictably, embraced Fascism in his many forms.
Conclusion
The current political climate in the US is extremely dangerous. The Supreme Court, stacked with extremists, is openly tossing the constitution aside as recently cited by Justice Sotomayor.
Extremists in Arizona have seized the ballots from the recent presidential election and are doctoring them, in an attempt to justify a military takeover of the government. Their stated goal is to set up a “whites only” ruling party that will oversee elections where only the “righteous” will be allowed to vote.
A recent investigation of the military’s role in the January 6 coup attempt by General Honore’ found widespread complicity between military commands in and around Washington DC and coup plotters.
Simply put, were the US to be evaluating another nation, a nuclear power, judging whether its nuclear arsenal was at risk or its command structure capable of overruling elected officials and unleashing a nuclear war, based on the “situation on the ground” in the US today, America would be considered a “highest threat.”
Gordon Duff is a Marine combat veteran of the Vietnam War that has worked on veterans and POW issues for decades and consulted with governments challenged by security issues. He’s a senior editor and chairman of the board of Veterans Today, especially for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.
Senior Editor , VTGordon Duff is a Marine combat veteran of the Vietnam War. He is a disabled veteran and has worked on veterans and POW issues for decades. Gordon is an accredited diplomat and is generally accepted as one of the top global intelligence specialists. He manages the world’s largest private intelligence organization and regularly consults with governments challenged by security issues.
Duff has traveled extensively, is published around the world and is a regular guest on TV and radio in more than “several” countries. He is also a trained chef, wine enthusiast, avid motorcyclist and gunsmith specializing in historical weapons and restoration. Business experience and interests are in energy and defense technology.
On December 17, 2020 A new US Maritime strategy was unveiled putting into practice the regressive concepts first outlined in the early National Defense Strategy 2020 doctrine which target China and Russia as the primary enemies of the USA and demanding that the USA be capable to “defeat our adversaries while we accelerate development of a modernized integrated all-domain naval force of the future”.
The Pentagon’s Advantages at Sea: Prevailing with Integrated All-Domain Naval Power continued by saying “China’s and Russia’s revisionist approaches in the maritime environment threaten US interests, undermine alliances and partnerships and degrade the free and open international order… moreover, China’s and Russia’s aggressive naval growth and modernization are eroding US institutional advantages.”
The document continued to describe that “we must operate more assertively to prevail in day-to-day competition as we uphold the rules-based order and deter our competitors from pursuing armed aggression… ready, forward-deployed naval forces will adopt a more assertive posture in day to day operations”
For anyone who has been paying attention to the vast growth of the Pentagon’s Full Spectrum containment policy around China’s perimeter begun with Obama’s Asia Pivot, it may appear as though these words are not new, but just a continuation of American unipolar agenda, Pacific war games, and psychological projection onto perceived enemies, that have been underway for years. While this is certainly true, it must be noted that they are occurring at a time that NATO 2030 has enshrined an anti-China military posture into the Trans Atlantic security doctrine which had formerly channeled most of its hate purely onto Russia.
The fact is those unipolar zombies programmed to think in no other terms but global post-nation state dominance are deathly afraid of the Russia-China bond of survival which has created a uniquely viable foundation for an alternative economic/security architecture for the world. This model is based on a system of finance that defines money not in speculative but rather long-term development of the real economic foundations of life. It also features a strong emphasis on win-win cooperation as opposed to Hobbesian zero-sum logic dominant among western powers, and it also finds itself driven by OPEN system economic practices shaped by unbounded scientific and technological progress that once upon a time guided America’s better traditions.
With the obvious threat of nuclear war breaking out between a collapsing unipolar order in the west and an emergent Multipolar alliance, it is important to review what possible latent policy traditions may yet be revived within America’s history which certain forces have worked very hard to scrub out of the historical record and memory. This study will take us to the incredible fights that arose over America’s identity at the turn of the 20th century during the period of President William McKinley and the treasonous anglophile President of vice, Theodore Roosevelt.
Munroe Doctrine or Empire?
As Martin Sieff eloquently laid out in his recent article, President McKinley himself was an peacemaker, anti-imperialist of a higher order than most people realize. McKinley was also a strong supporter of two complementary policies: 1) Internally, he was a defender of Lincoln’s “American system” of protectionism, internal improvements and black suffrage and 2) Externally, he was a defender of the Munroe Doctrine that defined America’s anti-imperial foreign policy since 1823.
“After fifty years the United States has, without a single exception, respected the independence of other nations, while asserting and maintaining her own.
That the United States does not go abroad in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own.
That by involving itself in the internal affairs of other nations, the United States would destroy its own reason of existence; the fundamental maxims of her policy would become, then, no different than the empire America’s revolution defeated. It would be, then, no longer the ruler of itself, but the dictator of the world.”
America’s march is the march of mind, not of conquest.
Colonial establishments are engines of wrong, and that in the progress of social improvement it will be the duty of the human family to abolish them”.
It was an aging John Quincy Adams whom a young Abraham Lincoln collaborated with in ending the imperial Mexican-American war under Wall Street stooge James Polk in 1846. When Adams died in 1848, Lincoln picked up the torch he left behind as the London-directed “proto deep state” of the 19th century worked to dissolve the republic from within. The foreign policy conception laid out by Adams ensured that America’s only concern was “staying out of foreign imperial entanglements” as Washington had earlier warned and keeping foreign imperial interests out of the Americas. The idea of projecting power onto the weak or subduing other cultures was anathema to this genuinely American principle.
A major battle which has been intentionally obscured from history books took place in the wake of Lincoln’s murder and the re-ascension of the City of London-backed slave power during the decades after the Union victory of 1865. On the one hand America’s role in the emerging global family of nations was being shaped by followers of Lincoln who wished to usher in an age of win-win cooperation. Such an anti-Darwinian system which Adams called “a community of principle” asserted that each nation had the right to sovereign banking controls over private finance, productive credit emissions tied to internal improvements with a focus on continental (rail/road) development, industrial progress and full spectrum economies. Adherents of this program included Russia’s Sergei Witte and Alexander II, Germany’s Otto von Bismarck, France’s Sadi Carnot, and leading figures within Japan’s Meiji Restoration.https://www.youtube.com/embed/gYeVDjFKpOU?feature=oembed
On the other hand, “eastern establishment families” of the USA more loyal to the gods of money, hereditary institutions and the vast international empire of Britain saw America’s destiny tied to an imperial global partnership with the Mother country. These two opposing paradigms within America have defined two opposing views of “progress”, “value”, “self-interest” and “law” which have continued to shape the world over 150 years later.
William Gilpin vs Alfred Mahan: Two Paradigms Clash
A champion of the former traditionally American outlook who rose to the international scene was William Gilpin (1813-1894). Gilpin hailed from a patriotic family of nation builders whose patriarch Thomas Gilpin was a close ally of Benjamin Franklin and leading member of Franklin’s Philosophical Society. William Gilpin was famous for his advocacy of America’s trans continental railway whose construction he proselytized as early as 1845 (it was finally begun by Lincoln during the Civil War and completed in 1869 as I outlined in my previous paper How to Save a Dying Republic).
In his thousands of speeches and writings, Gilpin made it known that he understood America’s destiny to be inextricably tied to the ancient civilization of China- not to impose opium as the British and their American lackies were want to do, but to learn from and even emulate!
In 1852, Gilpin stated:
“Salvation must come to America from China, and this consists in the introduction of the “Chinese constitution” viz. the “patriarchal democracy of the Celestial Empire”. The political life of the United States is through European influences, in a state of complete demoralization, and the Chinese Constitution alone contains elements of regeneration. For this reason, a railroad to the Pacific is of such vast importance, since by its means the Chinese trade will be conducted straight across the North American continent. This trade must bring in its train Chinese civilization. All that is usually alleged against China is mere calumny spread purposefully, just like those calumnies which are circulated in Europe about the United States”.
With Lincoln’s 1861 presidential victory, Gilpin became Lincoln’s bodyguard and ensured the president survived his first assassination attempt en route to Washington from Illinois. During the Civil War, Gilpin was made Colorado’s first Governor where he successfully stopped the southern power from opening up a western front during the war of secession (applying Lincoln’s greenback system to finance his army on a state level) and winning the “Battle of Glorieta Pass”, thus saving the union.
After the war Gilpin became a leading advocate of the internationalization of the “American system of political economy” which Lincoln applied vigorously during his short-lived presidency. Citing the success of Lincoln’s system, Gilpin said: “No amount of argument will make America adopt old world theories… To rely upon herself, to develop her own resources, to manufacture everything that can possibly be manufactured within her territory- this is and has been the policy of the USA from the time of Alexander Hamilton to that of Henry Clay and thence to our own days”.
Throughout his speeches Gilpin emphasizes the role of a U.S.-Russia alliance: “It is a simple and plain proposition that Russia and the United States, each having broad, uninhabited areas and limitless undeveloped resources, would by the expenditure of 2 or 3 hundred millions apiece for a highway of the nations threw their now waste places, add a hundredfold to their wealth and power and influence”
And seeing in China’s potential the means to re-enliven the world- including the decadent and corrupt culture of Europe: “In Asia a civilization resting on a basis of remote antiquity has had, indeed, a long pause, but a certain civilization- although hitherto hermetically sealed up has continued to exist. The ancient Asiatic colossus, in a certain sense, needed only to be awakened to new life and European culture finds a basis there on which it can build future reforms.”
In opposition to the outdated British controls of “chock points” on the seas which kept the world under the clutches of the might of London, Gilpin advocated loudly for a system of internal improvements, rail development, and growth of the innate goodness of all cultures and people through scientific and technological progress. Once a global system of mutual development of rail were established, Gilpin stated “in the shipment of many kinds of raw and manufactured goods, it will largely supersede the ocean traffic of Great Britain, in whose hands is now carrying the trade of the world.”
Gilpin’s vision was most clearly laid out in his 1890 magnum opus “The Cosmopolitan Railway” which featured designs for development corridors across all continents united by a “community of principle”.
Echoing the win-win philosophy of Xi Jinping’s New Silk Road today, Gilpin stated:
“The cosmopolitan railway will make the whole world one community. It will reduce the separate nations to families of our great nation… From extended intercommunication will arise a wider intercourse of human ideas and as the result, logical and philosophical reciprocities, which will become the germs for innumerable new developments; for in the track of intercommunication, enterprise and invention invariably follow and whatever facilitates one stimulates every other agency of progress.”
Mahan Derails America’s Anti-Imperial Identity
Alfred Thayer Mahan (1840-1914) represented an opposing paradigm which true American statesmen like Lincoln, Secretary of State James Blaine, William Seward, President Grant, William Garfield, and McKinley detested. Sadly, with McKinley’s murder (run by an anarchist ring with ties to British Intelligence) and the rise of Teddy Roosevelt in 1901, it was not Gilpin’s but rather Mahan’s worldview which became the dominant foreign policy doctrine for the next 120 years (despite a few brief respites under FDR and JFK).
Mahan is commonly credited for being a co-founder of modern geopolitics and an inspiration for Halford Mackinder. Having graduated from West Point’s naval academy in 1859, Mahan soon became renowned as a total failure in actual combat having crashed warships repeatedly into moving and stationary objects during the Civil War. Since reality was not his forte, Mahan focused his post-war career on Ivory tower theorizing gushing over maps of the world and fawning over Britain’s power as a force of world history.
His “Influence of Sea Power Upon History 1660-1783 published in the same year that Gilpin published his Cosmopolitan Railway (1890) was a total break from the spirit of win-win cooperation that defined America’s foreign policy. According to the Diplomat, this book soon “became the bible for many navies around the world” with the Kaiser of Germany (now released from the influence of the great rail-loving statesman Otto von Bismarck whom he fired in 1890) demanding all of his offers read. Later Teddy Roosevelt ordered copies for every member of Congress. In Mahan’s book, the geopolitician continuously asserts his belief that it is America’s destiny to succeed the British Empire.
Taking the British imperial definition of “commerce” which uses free trade as a cover for the military dominance of weak nations (open borders and turning off protectionism simply makes a people easier to rob), Mahan attempts to argue that America need not continue to adhere to “outdated” habits like the Munroe doctrine since the new order of world empires demands America stay relevant in a world of sea power and empire. Mahan writes: “The advance of Russia in Asia, in the division of Africa, in the colonial ambitions of France and in the British idea of Imperial Federation, now fast assuming concrete shape in practical combined action in South Africa” demands that the USA act accordingly.
Attempting to refute the “outdated habits” of rail development which consume so many foolish statesmen around the globe, Mahan states: “a railway competes in vain with a river… because more facile and copious, water traffic is for equal distances much cheaper and because cheaper, more useful”. Like those attacking today’s Belt and Road Initiative, the power of railways is that their returns are not measurable by simple monetary terms, but are rather QUALITATIVE. The long-term construction of rail systems not only unite divided people, increase manufacturing and industrial corridors but also induce closer powers of association and interchange between agriculture and urban producers. These processes uplift national productive powers building full spectrum economies and also a culture’s capacity for creative thought.
The attempt made to justify sea traffic merely because “larger amounts of goods can be shipped” is purely quantitative and monetaristic sophistry devoid of any science of real value.
While Gilpin celebrates the successful awakening of China and other great nations of the world, in the Problem of Asia (1901) Mahan says: “It is scarcely desirable that so vast a proportion of mankind as the Chinese constitute should be animated by but one spirit”. Should China “burst her barriers eastward, it would be impossible to exaggerate the momentous issues dependant upon a firm hold of the Hawaiian islands by a great civilized maritime power.”
Mahan’s adherence to social Darwinism is present throughout his works as he defines the political differences of the 3 primary branches of humanity (Teutonic, Slavic and Asiatic) as purely rooted in the intrinsic inferiority or superiority of their race saying: “There are well recognized racial divergencies which find concrete expression in differences equally marked of political institution, of social progress and of individual development. These differences are… deep seated in the racial constitution and partly the result of the environment”. Mahan goes onto restate his belief that unlike the superior Teutonics “the Oriental, whether national or individual does not change” and “the East does not progress”.
Calling China a carcass to be devoured by an American eagle, Mahan writes: “If life departs, a carcass can be utilized only by dissection or for food; the gathering to it of the eagles is a natural law, of which it is bootless to complain… the onward movement of the world has to be accepted as a fact.”
Championing an Anglo American alliance needed to subdue and “civilize” China as part of the post-Boxer Rebellion, Mahan says “of all the nations we shall meet in the East, Great Britain is the one with which we have by far the most in common in the nature of our interests there and in our standards of law and justice”.
In case there was any doubt in the minds of Mahan’s readers as to the MEANS which America should assert its dominance onto China, Mahan makes clear his belief that progress is caused by 1) force and 2) war: “That such a process should be underlain by force… on the part of outside influences, force of opposition among the latter themselves [speaking of the colonial European monarchies racing to carve up China in 1901 -ed] may be regrettable, but it is only a repetition of all history… Every step forward in the march that has opened in China to trade has been gained by pressure; the most important have been the result of actual war.”
A Last Anti-Imperial Push
The chaos induced by the anti-foreigner Boxer Rebellion of 1899 which spread quickly across China resulted a heated battle between imperial and anti-imperial forces in both Russia and the USA. Where Transport Minister Sergei Witte who spearheaded the development of the Trans Siberian rail line (1890-1905) tried to avoid military entanglement, McKinley was busy doing the same.
The boxers soon attacked the Manchurian rail connecting Russia to China by land and Witte succumbed to pressure to finally send in troops. The reformers of China who attempted to modernize with American and Russian assistance under Emperor Kuang Hsu and Li Hung Chang fell from power as total anarchy reigned. The outcome of the Boxer chaos involved the imperial powers of France, Germany and England demanding immense financial reparations, ownership of Chinese territory and mass executions of the Boxers.
While McKinley is often blamed for America’s imperial turn, the reality is just the opposite.
The Spanish-American war begun in 1898 was actually launched unilaterally by Anglophilic racist Theodore Roosevelt who used the 4 hour window he had while Undersecretary of the Navy (while the actual Secretary was out of Washington) to send orders to Captain Dewey of the Pacific fleet to engage in a fight with the Spanish over their Philippine territories. McKinley had resisted the war hawks until that point but found himself finally bending to the momentum. In China, McKinley, like Witte worked desperately to reject taking territory resulting in great fears from the British oligarchy that a U.S.-Russia alliance led by McKinley and Witte was immanent.
The assassination of McKinley on September 18, 1901 catapulted Mahan-loving Vice President Teddy Roosevelt into high office, who enmeshed America into a new epoch of Anglo-American imperialism abroad, a growth of eugenics and segregation at home and the creation of an independent police state agency called the FBI.
As Sieff writes: “Roosevelt devoted his next eight years in the presidency and the rest of his life to integrating the United States and the British Empire into a seamless web of racial imperialist oppression that dominated Latin America, sub-Saharan Africa and Asia and that destroyed the cultural history and heritage of the Native North American nations.”
In Russia, the 1902 Anglo-Japan Treaty led to the disastrous Japan-Russo war of 1905 which devastated the Russian navy, ended the political career of Sergei Witte and threw Russia into chaos leading to the fall of the Romanovs (Czar Nicholas II was the last statesman occupying high office that this author is aware of to have actively promoted the Bering Strait Tunnel rail connection in 1906. It wasn’t until FDR’s Vice President Henry Wallace met with Foreign Minister Molotov in 1942 that the idea resurfaced once more).
In his Two Peoples One Friendship, Wallace described his discussions with Foreign Minister Molotov in 1942 saying:
“Of all nations, Russia has the most powerful combination of a rapidly increasing population, great natural resources and immediate expansion in technological skills. Siberia and China will furnish the greatest frontier of tomorrow… When Molotov [Russia’s Foreign Minister] was in Washington in the spring of 1942 I spoke to him about the combined highway and airway which I hope someday will link Chicago and Moscow via Canada, Alaska and Siberia. Molotov, after observing that no one nation could do this job by itself, said that he and I would live to see the day of its accomplishment. It would mean much to the peace of the future if there could be some tangible link of this sort between the pioneer spirit of our own West and the frontier spirit of the Russian East.”
While the “open door” rape of the China was attempted by the Anglo-Americans, a fortunate rear guard maneuver orchestrated by another follower of Abraham Lincoln named Sun Yat-sen resulted in a surprise overthrow of the Manchu dynasty in 1911 and the institution of the Republic of China with Sun Yat-sen as the acting President. While Sun Yat-sen sided with Gilpin and Lincoln in opposition to the Mahanists on the issue of rail and industrial development (illustrated in his extraordinary 1920 International Development of China program which called for 160 000 km of rail, water diversion projects, ports and 1.5 million km of paved roads- illustrated below), the intrigues that sank the world into World War I made any hopes of this early development of China impossible in Sun Yat-sen’s lifetime.
Expressing his own deep understanding of these top down tactics of world history (and the recognition that the same British imperial forces that orchestrated the US Civil War were planning to do the same to China), Sun Yat-sen wrote in 1912:
“We understand too well that there are certain men of power—not to include for the present, certain nations—who would view with a greater or lesser satisfaction an internal rupture in the new Republic [of China]. They would welcome, as a move toward the accomplishment of their own ends and designs, a civil war between the provinces of the North and the South; just as, 50 years ago, there was applause in secret (in certain quarters) over the terrible civil strife in the United States.
Americans of today who were alive in those dark days of the great republic will remember the feelings in the hearts of the people—the bitter and painful thoughts that arose from the knowledge that foreigners were hoping and praying for the destruction of the American Union.
Had the war been successful from the South’s standpoint, and had two separate republics been established, is it not likely that perhaps half a dozen or more weak nations would have eventually been established? I believe that such would have been the result; and I further believe that with the one great nation divided politically and commercially, outsiders would have stepped in sooner or later and made of America their own. I do not believe that I am stating this too forcibly. If so, I have not read history nor studied men and nations intelligently.
And I feel that we have such enemies abroad as the American republic had; and that at certain capitals the most welcome announcement that would be made would be that of a rebellion in China against the constituted authorities.
This is a hard statement to make; but I believe in speaking the truth so that all the world may know and recognize it.”
Today’s Belt and Road Initiative, and strategic friendship established between Russia and China has re-awoken the forgotten vision of William Gilpin for a world of cooperating sovereign nation states. Does the USA have the moral ability to avoid disintegration by accepting a Russia-U.S.-China alliance needed to revive McKinley’s American System or will we slip into a new Great Reset and World War?
If America and the western order is to somehow find its moral fitness to survive and if a world war is to be avoided in the coming near-term future, then certain fundamental banking reforms will be needed. Among the most important of these reforms will be a breaking up of banking activities into two categories under a renewal of the Glass-Steagall bank reform which was repealed by Bill Clinton in 1999. These two categories would include: 1) speculative trash and illegitimate usury which must be “deleted” under a debt jubilee and 2) legitimate savings and other useful commercial banking activities tied to “real” values without which society couldn’t sustain itself.
Many readers might immediately scoff at my words, and assert that such a reform were impossible at this late stage of rot and corruption in western society but I would retort with the question: If this were so impossible, then how was it done already at a similar time of crisis only 87 years ago under similar circumstances of economic breakdown, fascism and world war? How have other national resistance movements blocked this sort of misanthropic agenda from succeeding in the past?
In this case, I speak of course of the forgotten Pecora Commission and an often-forgotten war on Wall Street which changed the course of human history.
What was the Pecora Commission?
Many are aware of the economic meltdown of October 24, 1929 that ushered in four years of depression onto America (and much of the western world). However not many people are aware of the intense fight that was launched by patriots in both parties against the Wall Street/deep state parasite of that age which prevented both a fascist coup against the newly elected Franklin Roosevelt while also crippling Wall Street’s command of American life. In spite of whitewashing revisionist history books that contaminated the past 70 years, America’s recovery from the depression never occurred without a life or death struggle and this struggle was made possible, in large measure by the courageous work of an Italian lawyer from New York. This man’s name was Ferdinand Pecora.
By 1932, when Senators Peter Norbeck (R-SD) and George Norris (R-NB) spearheaded the establishment of the U.S. Committee on Banking and Currency, the American economy was on life support and the people were so desperate that a fascist dictatorship in America would have been welcomed with open arms if only bread could be put on the table. Unemployment had reached 25%, while over 40% of banks had gone bankrupt and 25% of the population had lost their savings. Thousands of tent cities called ‘Hoovervilles’ were spread across the USA and over 50% of America’s industrial capacity had shut down. Thousands of farms had been foreclosed and the engines of American industry had grinded to a screeching halt.
Across the ocean, the fascist regimes of Germany, Italy and Spain were growing more powerful by the day fed by injections of hundreds of millions of dollars of capital by London and Wall Street bankers. Notable among these pro-fascist financiers was none other than Bush family patriarch Prescott, who provided millions in loans to Hitler’s bankrupt Nazi party in 1932 (and continued doing business with the party through 1942- having only stopped after being found guilty for “trading with the enemy”).
The Committee on Banking and Currency was a relatively impotent body when it began in 1932, but when Senator Norbeck called in Ferdinand Pecora to lead it in April 1932, everything began to change. A first generation Italian-American, Pecora was forced to quit high school after his father was injured in order to support his family. Years later, the young man found work as a clerk in a law firm, and managed to work his way through law school, passing the bar in 1911. His unimpeachable reputation earned him the animosity of powerful NY financiers who ensured that his successes in prosecuting brokers never resulted in attaining Attorney General, where he made a name for himself shutting down over 100 illegal brokerage houses that speculated on fraudulent securities during the depression.
Within days of accepting the Washington job as Chief Council of Norbeck’s committee (for the meager salary of $250/month), Pecora was granted broad subpoena powers to audit banks and drag the most powerful men in America to testify in the committee’s hearings.
In his first two weeks, Pecora made headlines by auditing the books of major Wall Street banks and pulled in pro-fascist National City President Charles Mitchell (then preparing to advise Benito Mussolini) to testify. Within days, Mitchell’s team of expensive defense attorneys could do nothing but watch in despair as the powerful financier admitted to short selling his own bank’s stocks during the depression, scamming depositors with purchases of Cuban junk debt and avoiding taxes for years. Mitchell was forced to resign in shame followed days later by NY Stock Exchange Chair Dick Whitney- who left the court in handcuffs.
This crackdown on Wall Street’s abuses were highly publicized and put the spotlight on the criminal schemes used to gamble with savings and commercial bank deposits on securities and futures markets which led to the orchestrated collapse of the bubble economy in 1929 (ironically much of the bubble built up during the “easy-money days” of the “roaring 20s” was centered in the housing market). Pecora’s crackdown also set the tone for the incoming Roosevelt administration.
Unlike the previous 1911 Pujo Commission, which also exposed Wall Street’s abuses of power, the Pecora Commission was supported by a President who actually cared about the Constitution and amplified Pecora’s powers even further. When FDR was told that supporting Pecora’s exposures of financial crimes would hurt the economy, the President famously responded with “they should have thought of that when they did the things that are being exposed now.” FDR followed up that warning by encouraging the attorney to take on John Pierpont Morgan Jr.
Rather than controlling an American institution as many believed 70 years ago and today, J.P. Morgan Jr. was actually running an operation that had earlier been created in the mid-19th century as part of a British infiltration of America. As historian John Hoefle pointed out in a 2009 EIR study:
“The House of Morgan was, in truth, a British operation from its inception. It began life as George Peabody & Co., a bank founded in London in 1851 by American George Peabody. A few years later, another American, Junius S. Morgan, joined the firm, and upon Peabody’s death the firm became J.S. Morgan & Co. Junius Morgan brought in his son, J. Pierpont Morgan, to head the New York office of J.S. Morgan, and the New York office became J.P. Morgan & Co. From its original role in helping the British gain control of American railroads, the Morgan bank became a leading force in the oligarchy’s war against the American System, using the deep pockets of its imperial masters to become a powerhouse in not only finance but steel, automobiles, railroads, electricity generation, and other industries.”
By 1933, the House of Morgan grew into a multi-headed hydra controlling utilities, holding companies, banks and countless other subsidiaries.
Senator George Norris showcasing a chart of Wall Street power
When J.P. Morgan jr. was called to testify, the banker carried a midget on his lap in mockery of the “circus of the commission”. As the questions began however, the arrogant banker was caught off guard by Pecora’s proof of Morgan’s secret “preferred clients lists” of politicians whom the banker owned and who received stock offerings at discount rates. Named among the thousands of traitors on this list, Pecora revealed former president Calvin Coolidge, Coolidge’s Treasury Secretary Andrew Mellon (a Schacht-Hitler supporter from the start), financier Bernard Baruch, Supreme Court Justice Owen Roberts and Democratic Party controller John Jacob Raskob. Raskob was not only a major speculator but was also the leader of the American Liberty League which tried repeatedly to overthrow FDR between 1933-1939 and worked to ally America with axis powers from 1939-1941.
Morgan’s god-like ego was brought down to the level of mortals when the flustered banker was only able to answer “I can’t remember” repeatedly when asked if he had paid taxes over the past 5 years. As it turned out, by the end of the trial, it was revealed that NONE of the subsidiaries of the House of Morgan paid any taxes during the entire period of the depression, and were caught gambling with depositors assets from commercial accounts. These revelations didn’t sit well with a population dying of starvation across the streets of America.
Similar displays of corruption were made of the heads of Kohn Loeb, Chase Bank, Brown Brothers Harriman and others.
Faced with these revelations, The Nation magazine famously reported “If you steel $25, you’re a thief. If you steal $250 000, you’re an embezzler. If you steal $2.5 million, you’re a financier.”
Pecora’s ally Sen. Burton Wheeler said “the best way to restore confidence in our banks is to take these crooked presidents out of the banks and treat them the same as we treated Al Capone.”
FDR Drains the Swamp
With the light cast firmly upon the dark shadows where vile creatures like J.P. Morgan and other financial gremlins reside, the population was finally able to start making sense of what injustices befell them during the years of post-1929 despair. While not every banker went to prison as Wheeler or Pecora would have liked, examples were made of dozens who did and many more whose careers were shamefully ended. Most importantly however, this exposure gave Franklin Roosevelt the support needed to drain the swamp and impose sweeping reforms upon the banks.
In the first hundred days, FDR was able to:
1) Impose Glass-Steagall banking separation (forcing Wall Street banks to break up their functions and preventing speculators from gambling with productive assets)
2) Create the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) that protected citizens’ savings from future crises
3) Create the Securities Exchange Commission to provide oversight to Wall Street’s activities and on whose body Pecora was appointed commissioner in 1934.
4) Unleash broad credit through the Reconstruction Finance Corporation (RFC) which acted as a national bank bypassing the private Federal Reserve, channeling $33 billion to the real economy by 1945 (more than all private commercial banks combined)
5) Impose protective tariffs on agriculture, metals and industrial goods to stop dumping of cheap products in America and rebuild America’s physical economy
6) Create vast public works, like the Tennessee Valley Authority, Grand Coulee dams, Hoover dams, St Laurence development and countless other projects, hospitals, schools, bridges, roads and rail under the New Deal that acted in many ways then as China’s Belt and Road Initiative has in our modern age. Unfortunately, Roosevelt died before this new form of political economy could be internationalized abroad in the post-war years as an anti-colonial program.
Ferdinand Pecora’s Commission shaped the dynamics of America so intensely by its simple power of speaking the truth, that efforts to run a fascist coup against FDR using a general named Smedley Butler also came undone before it could succeed. Butler played along with Wall Street’s plans for some months before deciding to publicly blow the whistle in congress. Butler exposed the intension to use him as a “puppet dictator” leading thousands of American legionnaires in a storming of the White House displacing FDR.
It is often forgotten today, but in the early days of the 1920s-1930s, the Legion was modeled on Mussolini’s fascist squadristi and even its leader Alvin Owsley made explicit in 1921 saying:
“If need be the American Legion is ready to protect the institutions of this country and its ideals, in the same way as the Fascists have treated the destructive forces threatening Italy. Don’t forget that the Fascists are for today’s Italy what the American Legion is for the United States.”
Butler’s startling revelations amplified FDR’s popular support and inoculated much of the population from the fake news pouring out of Wall Street propaganda agencies spread across the media.
“Under the surface of the governmental regulation of the securities market, the same forces that produced the riotous speculative excesses of the ‘wild bull market’ of 1929 still give evidence of their existence and influence. Though repressed for the present, it cannot be doubted that, given a suitable opportunity, they would spring back to their pernicious activity.”
Pecora went onto deliver one more warning which current generations should take seriously “Had there been full disclosure of what has been done in furtherance of these schemes, they could not long have survived the fierce light of publicity and criticism. Legal chicanery and pitch darkness were the bankers’ stoutest allies.”
Today’s oncoming economic meltdown can only be prevented if the lessons of 1933 are taken seriously and patriots who actually care about their nations and people stop legitimizing the casino economy of fictitious capital, derivatives, debt slavery and anti-humanism that has become so commonplace across the governing strata of the technocratic and banking elite today trying to control the world. This elite, just like the financiers of the 1920s, doesn’t care ultimately for money as an end but sees it merely as a means for imposing fascist forms of governance onto the world population. In the same way that FDR’s Wall Street/London enemies sought a world government under Nazi enforcers then, today’s heirs to that anti-human legacy are driven by a religious-like commitment to “manage” a new collapse of world civilization under a Green New Deal and World Government.
So why accept that dystopic future when a brighter one is offered us by the Multipolar alliance today led by Russia and China?
While the world’s attention is absorbed by tectonic shifts unfolding across America as “a perfect storm of civil war, and military coup threatens to undo both the elections and the very foundations of the republic itself, something very ominous has appeared “off of the radar” of most onlookers. This something is a financial collapse of the trans-Atlantic banks that threatens to unleash chaos upon the world. It is this collapse that underlies the desperate efforts being made by the neo-con drive for total war with Russia, China and other members of the growing Mutlipolar Alliance today.
In recent articles, I have mentioned that the Bank of England-led “solution” to this oncoming financial blowout of the $1.5 quadrillion derivatives bubble is being pushed under the cover of a “Great Global Reset” which is an ugly and desperate effort to use COVID-19 as a cover for the imposition of a new post-covid world order operating system. Since the new “rules” of this new system are very similar to the 1923 Bank of England “solution” to Germany’s economic chaos which eventually required a fascist governance mechanism to impose it onto the masses, I wish to take a deeper look at the causes and effects of Weimar Germany’s completely un-necessary collapse into hyperinflation and chaos during the period of 1919-1923.
In this essay, I will go further to examine how those same architects of hyperfinflation came close to establishing a global bankers’ dictatorship in 1933 and how that early attempt at a New World Order was fortunately derailed through a bold fight which has been written out of popular history books.
We will investigate in depth how a major war broke out within America led by anti-imperial patriots in opposition to the forces of Wall Street and London’s Deep State and we will examine how this clash of paradigms came to a head in 1943-1945.
This historical study is not being conducted for entertainment, nor should this be seen as a purely academic exercise, but is being created for the simple fact that the world is coming to a total systemic meltdown and unless certain suppressed facts of 20th century history are brought to light, then those forces who have destroyed our collective memory of what we once were will remain in the drivers seat as society is carried into a new age of fascism and world war.
Versailles and the Destruction of Germany
Britain had been the leading hand behind the orchestration of WWI and the destruction of the potential German-Russian-American-Ottoman alliance that had begun to take form by the late 19th century as foolish Kaiser Wilhelm discovered (though sadly too late) when he said: “the world will be engulfed in the most terrible of wars, the ultimate aim of which is the ruin of Germany. England, France and Russia have conspired for our annihilation… that is the naked truth of the situation which was slowly but surely created by Edward VII”.
Just as the British oligarchy managed the war, so too did they organize the reparations conference in France which, among other things, imposed impossible debt repayments upon a defeated Germany and created the League of Nations which was meant to become the instrument for a “post-nation state world order”. Lloyd George led the British delegation alongside his assistant Philip Kerr (Lord Lothian), Leo Amery, Lord Robert Cecil and Lord John Maynard Keynes who have a long term agenda to bring about a global dictatorship. All of these figures were members of the newly emerging Round Table Movement, that had taken full control of Britain by ousting Asquith in 1916, and which is at the heart of today’s “deep state”.
After the 1918 Armistice dismantled Germany’s army and navy, the once powerful nation was now forced to pay the impossible sum of 132 billion gold marks to the victors and had to give up territories representing 10% of its population (Alsace-Loraine, Ruhr, and North Silesia) which made up 15% of its arable land, 12% of its livestock, 74% of its iron ore, 63% of its zinc production, and 26% of its coal. Germany also had to give up 8000 locomotives, 225 000 railcars and all of its colonies. It was a field day of modern pillage.
Germany was left with very few options. Taxes were increased and imports were cut entirely while exports were increased. This policy (reminiscent of the IMF austerity techniques in use today) failed entirely as both fell 60%. Germany gave up half of its gold supply and still barely a dent was made in the debt payments. By June 1920 the decision was made to begin a new strategy: increase the printing press. Rather than the “miracle cure” which desperate monetarists foolishly believed it would be, this solution resulted in an asymptotic devaluation of the currency into hyperinflation. From June 1920 to October 1923 the money supply in circulation skyrocketed from 68.1 gold marks to 496.6 quintillion gold marks. In June 1922, 300 marks exchanged $1 US and in November 1923, it took 42 trillion marks to get $1 US! Images are still available of Germans pushing wheelbarrows of cash down the street, just to buy a stick of butter and bread (1Kg of Bread sold for $428 billion marks in 1923).
With the currency’s loss of value, industrial output fell by 50%, unemployment rose to over 30% and food intake collapsed by over half of pre-war levels. German director Fritz Lang’s 1922 film Dr. Mabuse (The Gambler) exposed the insanity of German population’s collapse into speculative insanity as those who had the means began betting against the German mark in order to protect themselves thus only helping to collapse the mark from within. This is very reminiscent of those Americans today short selling the US dollar rather than fighting for a systemic solution.
There was resistance.
The dark effects of Versailles were not unknown and Germany’s Nazi-stained destiny was anything but pre-determined. It is a provable fact often left out of history books that patriotic forces from Russia, America and Germany attempted courageously to change the tragic trajectory of hyperinflation and fascism which WOULD HAVE prevented the rise of Hitler and WWII had their efforts not been sabotaged.
From America itself, a new Presidential team under the leadership of William Harding quickly reversed the pro-League of Nations agenda of the rabidly anglophile President Woodrow Wilson. A leading US industrialist named Washington Baker Vanderclip who had led in the world’s largest trade agreement in history with Russia to the tune of $3 billion in 1920 had called Wilson “an autocrat at the inspiration of the British government.” Unlike Wilson, President Harding both supported the US-Russia trade deal and undermined the League of Nations by re-enforcing America’s sovereignty, declaring bi-lateral treaties with Russia, Hungary and Austria outside of the league’s control in 1921. The newly-formed British Roundtable Movement in America (set up as the Council on Foreign Relations) were not pleased.
Just as Harding was maneuvering to recognize the Soviet Union and establish an entente with Lenin, the great president ate some “bad oysters” and died on August 2, 1923. While no autopsy was ever conducted, his death brought a decade of Anglophile Wall Street control into America and ended all opposition to World Government from the Presidency. This period resulted in the speculation-driven bubble of the roaring 20s whose crash on black Friday in 1929 nearly unleashed a fascist hell in America.
The Russia-Germany Rapallo Treaty is De-Railed
After months of organizing, leading representatives of Russia and Germany agreed to an alternative solution to the Versailles Treaty which would have given new life to Germany’s patriots and established a powerful Russia-German friendship in Europe that would have upset other nefarious agendas.
Under the leadership of German Industrialist and Foreign Minster Walter Rathenau, and his counterpart Russian Foreign Minister Georgi Chicherin, the treaty was signed in Rapallo, Italy on April 16, 1922 premised upon the forgiveness of all war debts and a renouncement of all territorial claims from either side. The treaty said Russia and Germany would “co-operate in a spirit of mutual goodwill in meeting the economic needs of both countries.”
When Rathenau was assassinated by a terrorist cell called the Organization Consul on June 24, 1922 the success of the Rapallo Treaty lost its steam and the nation fell into a deeper wave of chaos and money printing. The Organization Consul had taken the lead in the murder of over 354 German political figures between 1919-1923, and when they were banned in 1922, the group merely changed its name and morphed into other German paramilitary groups (such as the Freikorps) becoming the military arm of the new National Socialist Party.
1923: City of London’s Solution is imposed
When the hyperinflationary blowout of Germany resulted in total un-governability of the state, a solution took the form of the Wall Street authored “Dawes Plan” which necessitated the use of a London-trained golem by the name of Hjalmar Schacht. First introduced as Currency Commissioner in November 1923 and soon President of the Reichsbank, Schacht’s first act was to visit Bank of England’s governor Montagu Norman in London who provided Schacht a blueprint for proceeding with Germany’s restructuring. Schacht returned to “solve” the crisis with the very same poison that caused it.
First announcing a new currency called the “rentenmark” set on a fixed value exchanging 1 trillion reichsmarks for 1 new rentenmark, Germans were robbed yet again. This new currency would operate under “new rules” never before seen in Germany’s history: Mass privatizations resulted in Anglo-American conglomerates purchasing state enterprises. IG Farben, Thyssen, Union Banking, Brown Brothers Harriman, Standard Oil, JP Morgan and Union Banking took control Germany’s finances, mining and industrial interests under the supervision of John Foster Dulles, Montagu Norman, Averill Harriman and other deep state actors. This was famously exposed in the 1961 film Judgement at Nuremburg by Stanley Kramer.
Schacht next cut credit to industries, raised taxes and imposed mass austerity on “useless spending”. 390 000 civil servants were fired, unions and collective bargaining was destroyed and wages were slashed by 15%.
As one can imagine, this destruction of life after the hell of Versailles was intolerable and civil unrest began to boil over in ways that even the powerful London-Wall Street bankers (and their mercenaries) couldn’t control. An enforcer was needed unhindered by the republic’s democratic institutions to force Schacht’s economics onto the people. An up-and-coming rabble rousing failed painter who had made waves in a Beerhall Putsch on November 8, 1923 was perfect.
One Last Attempt to Save Germany
Though Hitler grew in power over the coming decade of Schachtian economics, one last republican effort was made to prevent Germany from plunging into a fascist hell in the form of the November 1932 election victory of General Kurt von Schleicher as Chancellor of Germany. Schleicher had been a co-architect of Rapallo alongside Rathenau a decade earlier and was a strong proponent of the Friedrich List Society’s program of public works and internal improvements promoted by industrialist Wilhelm Lautenbach. The Nazi party’s public support collapsed and it found itself bankrupt. Hitler had fallen into depression and was even contemplating suicide when “a legal coup” was unleashed by the Anglo-American elite resulting in Wall Street funds pouring into Nazi coffers.
By January 30, 1933 Hitler gained Chancellorship where he quickly took dictatorial powers under the “state of emergency” caused by the burning of the Reichstag in March 1933. By 1934 the Night of the Long Knives saw General Schleicher and hundreds of other German patriots assassinated and it was only a few years until the City of London-Wall Street Frankenstein monster stormed across the world.
How the 1929 Crash was Manufactured
While everyone knows that the 1929 market crash unleashed four years of hell in America which quickly spread across Europe under the great depression, not many people have realized that this was not inevitable, but rather a controlled blowout.
The bubbles of the 1920s were unleashed with the early death of President William Harding in 1923 and grew under the careful guidance of JP Morgan’s President Coolidge and financier Andrew Mellon (Treasury Secretary) who de-regulated the banks, imposed austerity onto the country, and cooked up a scheme for Broker loans allowing speculators to borrow 90% on their stock. Wall Street was deregulated, investments into the real economy were halted during the 1920s and insanity became the norm. In 1925 broker loans totalled $1.5 billion and grew to $2.6 billion in 1926 and hit $5.7 billion by the end of 1927. By 1928, the stock market was overvalued fourfold!
When the bubble was sufficiently inflated, a moment was decided upon to coordinate a mass “calling in” of the broker loans. Predictably, no one could pay them resulting in a collapse of the markets. Those “in the know” cleaned up with JP Morgan’s “preferred clients”, and other financial behemoths selling before the crash and then buying up the physical assets of America for pennies on the dollar. One notable person who made his fortune in this manner was Prescott Bush of Brown Brothers Harriman, who went onto bailout a bankrupt Nazi party in 1932. These financiers had a tight allegiance with the City of London and coordinated their operations through the private central banking system of America’s Federal Reserve and Bank of International Settlements.
The Living Hell that was the Great Depression
Throughout the Great depression, the population was pushed to its limits making America highly susceptible to fascism as unemployment skyrocketed to 25%, industrial capacity collapsed by 70%, and agricultural prices collapsed far below the cost of production accelerating foreclosures and suicide. Life savings were lost as 4000 banks failed.
This despair was replicated across Europe and Canada with eugenics-loving fascists gaining popularity across the board. England saw the rise of Sir Oswald Mosley’s British Union of Fascists in 1932, English Canada had its own fascist solution with the Rhodes Scholar “Fabian Society” League of Social Reconstruction (which later took over the Liberal Party) calling for the “scientific management of society”. Time magazine had featured Il Duce over 6 times by 1932 and people were being told by that corporate fascism was the economic solution to all of America’s economic woes.
In the midst of the crisis, the City of London removed itself from the gold standard in 1931 which was a crippling blow to the USA, as it resulted in a flight of gold from America causing a deeper contraction of the money supply and thus inability to respond to the depression. British goods simultaneously swamped the USA crushing what little production was left.
It was in this atmosphere that one of the least understood battles unfolded in 1933.
1932: A Bankers’ Dictatorship is Attempted
In Germany, a surprise victory of Gen. Kurt Schleicher caused the defeat of the London-directed Nazi party in December 1932 threatening to break Germany free of Central Bank tyranny. A few weeks before Schleicher’s victory, Franklin Roosevelt won the presidency in America threatening to regulate the private banks and assert national sovereignty over finance.
Seeing their plans for global fascism slipping away, the City of London announced that a new global system controlled by Central Banks had to be created post haste. Their objective was to use the economic crisis as an excuse to remove from nation states any power over monetary policy, while enhancing the power of Independent Central Banks as enforcers of “balanced global budgets”. elaborate
In December 1932, an economic conference “to stabilize the world economy” was organized by the League of Nations under the guidance of the Bank of International Settlements (BIS) and Bank of England. The BIS was set up as “the Central Bank of Central Banks” in 1930 in order to facilitate WWI debt repayments and was a vital instrument for funding Nazi Germany- long after WWII began. The London Economic Conference brought together 64 nations of the world under a controlled environment chaired by the British Prime Minister and opened by the King himself.
“The conference considers it to be essential, in order to provide an international gold standard with the necessary mechanism for satisfactory working, that independent Central Banks, with requisite powers and freedom to carry out an appropriate currency and credit policy, should be created in such developed countries as have not at present an adequate central banking institution” and that “the conference wish to reaffirm the great utility of close and continuous cooperation between Central Banks. The Bank of International Settlements should play an increasingly important part not only by improving contact, but also as an instrument for common action.”
Echoing the Bank of England’s modern fixation with “mathematical equilibrium”, the resolutions stated that the new global gold standard controlled by central banks was needed “to maintain a fundamental equilibrium in the balance of payments” of countries. The idea was to deprive nation states of their power to generate and direct credit for their own development.
FDR Torpedoes the London Conference
Chancellor Schleicher’s resistance to a bankers’ dictatorship was resolved by a “soft coup” ousting the patriotic leader in favor of Adolph Hitler (under the control of a Bank of England toy named Hjalmar Schacht) in January 1933 with Schleicher assassinated the following year. In America, an assassination attempt on Roosevelt was thwarted on February 15, 1933 when a woman knocked the gun out of the hand of an anarchist-freemason in Miami resulting in the death of Chicago’s Mayor Cermak.
Without FDR’s dead body, the London conference met an insurmountable barrier, as FDR refused to permit any American cooperation. Roosevelt recognized the necessity for a new international system, but he also knew that it had to be organized by sovereign nation states subservient to the general welfare of the people and not central banks dedicated to the welfare of the oligarchy. Before any international changes could occur, nation states castrated from the effects of the depression had to first recover economically in order to stay above the power of the financiers.
By May 1933, the London Conference crumbled when FDR complained that the conference’s inability to address the real issues of the crisis is “a catastrophe amounting to a world tragedy” and that fixation with short term stability were “old fetishes of so-called international bankers”. FDR continued “The United States seeks the kind of dollar which a generation hence will have the same purchasing and debt paying power as the dollar value we hope to attain in the near future. That objective means more to the good of other nations than a fixed ratio for a month or two. Exchange rate fixing is not the true answer.”
The British drafted an official statement saying “the American statement on stabilization rendered it entirely useless to continue the conference.”
FDR’s War on Wall Street
The new president laid down the gauntlet in his inaugural speech on March 4th saying: “The money-changers have fled from their high seats in the temple of our civilization. We may now restore that temple to the ancient truths. The measure of the restoration lies in the extent to which we apply social values more noble than mere monetary profit”.
FDR declared a war on Wall Street on several levels, beginning with his support of the Pecorra Commission which sent thousands of bankers to prison, and exposed the criminal activities of the top tier of Wall Street’s power structure who manipulated the depression, buying political offices and pushing fascism. Ferdinand Pecorra who ran the commission called out the deep state when he said “this small group of highly placed financiers, controlling the very springs of economic activity, holds more real power than any similar group in the United States.”
Pecorra’s highly publicized success empowered FDR to impose sweeping regulation in the form of 1) Glass-Steagall bank separation, 2) bankruptcy re-organization and 3) the creation of the Security Exchange Commission to oversee Wall Street. Most importantly, FDR disempowered the London-controlled Federal Reserve by installing his own man as Chair (Industrialist Mariner Eccles) who forced it to obey national commands for the first time since 1913, while creating an “alternative” lending mechanism outside of Fed control called the Reconstruction Finance Corporation (RFC) which became the number one lender to infrastructure in America throughout the 1930s.
One of the most controversial policies for which FDR is demonized today was his abolishment of the gold standard. The gold standard itself constricted the money supply to a strict exchange of gold per paper dollar, thus preventing the construction of internal improvements needed to revive industrial capacity and put the millions of unemployed back to work for which no financial resources existed. It’s manipulation by international financiers made it a weapon of destruction rather than creation at this time. Since commodity prices had fallen lower than the costs of production, it was vital to increase the price of goods under a form of “controlled inflation” so that factories and farms could become solvent and unfortunately the gold standard held that back. FDR imposed protective tariffs to favor agro-industrial recovery on all fronts ending years of rapacious free trade.
FDR stated his political-economic philosophy in 1934: “the old fallacious notion of the bankers on the one side and the government on the other side, as being more or less equal and independent units, has passed away. Government by the necessity of things must be the leader, must be the judge, of the conflicting interests of all groups in the community, including bankers.”
The Real New Deal
Once liberated from the shackles of the central banks, FDR and his allies were able to start a genuine recovery by restoring confidence in banking. Within 31 days of his bank holiday, 75% of banks were operational and the FDIC was created to insure deposits. Four million people were given immediate work, and hundreds of libraries, schools and hospitals were built and staffed- All funded through the RFC. FDR’s first fireside chat was vital in rebuilding confidence in the government and banks, serving even today as a strong lesson in banking which central bankers don’t want you to learn about.
From 1933-1939, 45 000 infrastructure projects were built. The many “local” projects were governed, like China’s Belt and Road Initiative today, under a “grand design” which FDR termed the “Four Quarters” featuring zones of megaprojects such as the Tennessee Valley Authority area in the south east, the Columbia River Treaty zone on the northwest, the St Laurence Seaway zone on the North east, and Hoover Dam/Colorado zone on the Southwest. These projects were transformative in ways money could never measure as the Tennessee area’s literacy rose from 20% in 1932 to 80% in 1950, and racist backwater holes of the south became the bedrock for America’s aerospace industry due to the abundant and cheap hydropower. As I had already reported on the Saker, FDR was not a Keynesian (although it cannot be argued that hives of Rhodes Scholars and Fabians penetrating his administration certainly were).
Wall Street Sabotages the New Deal
Those who criticize the New Deal today ignore the fact that its failures have more to do with Wall Street sabotage than anything intrinsic to the program. For example, JP Morgan tool Lewis Douglass (U.S. Budget Director) forced the closure of the Civil Works Administration in 1934 resulting in the firing of all 4 million workers.
Wall Street did everything it could to choke the economy at every turn. In 1931, NY banks loans to the real economy amounted to $38.1 billion which dropped to only $20.3 billion by 1935. Where NY banks had 29% of their funds in US bonds and securities in 1929, this had risen to 58% which cut off the government from being able to issue productive credit to the real economy.
When, in 1937, FDR’s Treasury Secretary persuaded him to cancel public works to see if the economy “could stand on its own two feet”, Wall Street pulled credit out of the economy collapsing the Industrial production index from 110 to 85 erasing seven years’ worth of gain, while steel fell from 80% capacity back to depression levels of 19%. Two million jobs were lost and the Dow Jones lost 39% of its value. This was no different from kicking the crutches out from a patient in rehabilitation and it was not lost on anyone that those doing the kicking were openly supporting Fascism in Europe. Bush patriarch Prescott Bush, then representing Brown Brothers Harriman was found guilty for trading with the enemy in 1942!
Coup Attempt in America Thwarted
The bankers didn’t limit themselves to financial sabotage during this time, but also attempted a fascist military coup which was exposed by Maj. Gen. Smedley Butler in his congressional testimony of November 20, 1934. Butler had testified that the plan was begun in the Summer of 1933 and organized by Wall Street financiers who tried to use him as a puppet dictator leading 500 000 American Legion members to storm the White House. As Butler spoke, those same financiers had just set up an anti-New Deal organization called the American Liberty League which fought to keep America out of the war in defense of an Anglo-Nazi fascist global government which they wished to partner with.
The American Liberty league only changed tune when it became evident that Hitler had become a disobedient Frankenstein monster who wasn’t content in a subservient position to Britain’s idea of a New World Order. In response to the Liberty League’s agenda, FDR said “some speak of a New World Order, but it is not new and it is not order”.
FDR’s Anti-Colonial Post-War Vision
One of the greatest living testimonies to FDR’s anti-colonial vision is contained in a little known 1946 book authored by his son Elliot Roosevelt who, as his father’s confidante and aide, was privy to some of the most sensitive meetings his father participated in throughout the war. Seeing the collapse of the post-war vision upon FDR’s April 12, 1945 death and the emergence of a pro-Churchill presidency under Harry Truman, who lost no time in dropping nuclear bombs on a defeated Japan, ushering in a Soviet witch hunt at home and launching a Cold War abroad, Elliot authored ‘As He Saw It’ (1946) in order to create a living testimony to the potential that was lost upon his father’s passing.
As Elliot said of his motive to write his book:
“The decision to write this book was taken more recently and impelled by urgent events. Winston Churchill’s speech at Fulton, Missouri, had a hand in this decision,… the growing stockpile of American atom bombs is a compelling factor; all the signs of growing disunity among the leading nations of the world, all the broken promises, all the renascent power politics of greedy and desperate imperialism were my spurs in this undertaking… And I have seen the promises violated, and the conditions summarily and cynically disregarded, and the structure of peace disavowed… I am writing this, then, to you who agree with me that… the path he charted has been most grievously—and deliberately—forsaken.”
The Four Freedoms
Even before America had entered the war, the principles of international harmony which FDR enunciated in his January 6, 1941 Four Freedoms speech to the U.S. Congress served as the guiding light through every battle for the next 4.5 years. In this speech FDR said:
“In future days, which we seek to secure, we look forward to a world founded upon four essential human freedoms.
“The first is the freedom of speech and expression–everywhere in the world.
“The second is the freedom of every person to worship God in his own way–everywhere in the world.
“The third is the freedom from want–which, translated into world terms, means economic understandings which will secure to every nation a healthy peacetime life for its inhabitants–everywhere in the world.
“The fourth is freedom from fear–which, translated into world terms, means a worldwide reduction of armaments to such a point and in such a thorough fashion that no nation will be in a position to commit an act of physical aggression against any neighbor–anywhere in the world.
“That is no vision of a distant millennium. It is a definite basis for a kind of world attainable in our time and generation. That kind of world is the very antithesis of the so-called new order of tyranny which dictators seek to create with the crash of a bomb.
“To that new order, we oppose the greater conception–the moral order. A good society is able to face schemes of world domination and foreign revolutions alike without fear.
“Since the beginning of American history, we have been engaged in change–in a perpetual peaceful revolution–a revolution which goes on steadily, quietly, adjusting itself to changing conditions–without the concentration camp or the quicklime in the ditch. The world order which we seek is the cooperation of free countries, working together in a friendly, civilized society.
“This nation has placed its destiny in the hands and heads and hearts of millions of free men and women; and its faith in freedom under the guidance of God. Freedom means the supremacy of human rights everywhere. Our support goes to those who struggle to gain those rights or to keep them. Our strength is our unity of purpose.”
Upon hearing these Freedoms outlined, American painter Norman Rockwell was inspired to paint four masterpieces that were displayed across America and conveyed the beauty of FDR’s spirit to all citizens.
FDR’s patriotic Vice President (and the man who SHOULD have been president in 1948) Henry Wallace outlined FDR’s vision in a passionate video address to the people in 1942 which should also be watched by all world citizens today:
Churchill vs FDR: The Clash of Two Paradigms
Elliot’s account of the 1941-1945 clash of paradigms between his father and Churchill are invaluable both for their ability to shed light into the true noble constitutional character of America personified in the person of Roosevelt but also in demonstrating the beautiful potential of a world that SHOULD HAVE BEEN had certain unnatural events not intervened to derail the evolution of our species into an age of win-win cooperation, creative reason and harmony.
In As He Saw It, Elliot documents a conversation he had with his father at the beginning of America’s entry into WWII, who made his anti-colonial intentions clear as day saying:
“I’m talking about another war, Elliott. I’m talking about what will happen to our world, if after this war we allow millions of people to slide back into the same semi-slavery!
“Don’t think for a moment, Elliott, that Americans would be dying in the Pacific tonight, if it hadn’t been for the shortsighted greed of the French and the British and the Dutch. Shall we allow them to do it all, all over again? Your son will be about the right age, fifteen or twenty years from now.
“One sentence, Elliott. Then I’m going to kick you out of here. I’m tired. This is the sentence: When we’ve won the war, I will work with all my might and main to see to it that the United States is not wheedled into the position of accepting any plan that will further France’s imperialistic ambitions, or that will aid or abet the British Empire in its imperial ambitions.”
This clash came to a head during a major confrontation between FDR and Churchill during the January 24, 1943 Casablanca Conference in Morocco. At this event, Elliot documents how his father first confronted Churchill’s belief in the maintenance of the British Empire’s preferential trade agreements upon which it’s looting system was founded:
“Of course,” he [FDR] remarked, with a sly sort of assurance, “of course, after the war, one of the preconditions of any lasting peace will have to be the greatest possible freedom of trade.”
He paused. The P.M.’s head was lowered; he was watching Father steadily, from under one eyebrow.
“No artificial barriers,” Father pursued. “As few favored economic agreements as possible. Opportunities for expansion. Markets open for healthy competition.” His eye wandered innocently around the room.
Churchill shifted in his armchair. “The British Empire trade agreements” he began heavily, “are—”
Father broke in. “Yes. Those Empire trade agreements are a case in point. It’s because of them that the people of India and Africa, of all the colonial Near East and Far East, are still as backward as they are.”
Churchill’s neck reddened and he crouched forward. “Mr. President, England does not propose for a moment to lose its favored position among the British Dominions. The trade that has made England great shall continue, and under conditions prescribed by England’s ministers.”
“You see,” said Father slowly, “it is along in here somewhere that there is likely to be some disagreement between you, Winston, and me.
“I am firmly of the belief that if we are to arrive at a stable peace it must involve the development of backward countries. Backward peoples. How can this be done? It can’t be done, obviously, by eighteenth-century methods. Now—”
“Who’s talking eighteenth-century methods?”
“Whichever of your ministers recommends a policy which takes wealth in raw materials out of a colonial country, but which returns nothing to the people of that country in consideration. Twentieth-century methods involve bringing industry to these colonies. Twentieth-century methods include increasing the wealth of a people by increasing their standard of living, by educating them, by bringing them sanitation—by making sure that they get a return for the raw wealth of their community.”
Around the room, all of us were leaning forward attentively. Hopkins was grinning. Commander Thompson, Churchill’s aide, was looking glum and alarmed. The P.M. himself was beginning to look apoplectic.
“You mentioned India,” he growled.
“Yes. I can’t believe that we can fight a war against fascist slavery, and at the same time not work to free people all over the world from a backward colonial policy.”
“What about the Philippines?”
“I’m glad you mentioned them. They get their independence, you know, in 1946. And they’ve gotten modern sanitation, modern education; their rate of illiteracy has gone steadily down…”
“There can be no tampering with the Empire’s economic agreements.”
“They’re artificial…”
“They’re the foundation of our greatness.”
“The peace,” said Father firmly, “cannot include any continued despotism. The structure of the peace demands and will get equality of peoples. Equality of peoples involves the utmost freedom of competitive trade. Will anyone suggest that Germany’s attempt to dominate trade in central Europe was not a major contributing factor to war?”
It was an argument that could have no resolution between these two men…
The following day, Elliot describes how the conversation continued between the two men with Churchill stating:
“Mr. President,” he cried, “I believe you are trying to do away with the British Empire. Every idea you entertain about the structure of the postwar world demonstrates it. But in spite of that”—and his forefinger waved—”in spite of that, we know that you constitute our only hope. And”—his voice sank dramatically—”you know that we know it. You know that we know that without America, the Empire won’t stand.”
Churchill admitted, in that moment, that he knew the peace could only be won according to precepts which the United States of America would lay down. And in saying what he did, he was acknowledging that British colonial policy would be a dead duck, and British attempts to dominate world trade would be a dead duck, and British ambitions to play off the U.S.S.R. against the U.S.A. would be a dead duck. Or would have been, if Father had lived.”
This story was delivered in full during an August 15 lecture by the author:
FDR’s Post-War Vision Destroyed
While FDR’s struggle did change the course of history, his early death during the first months of his fourth term resulted in a fascist perversion of his post-war vision.
Rather than see the IMF, World Bank or UN used as instruments for the internationalization of the New Deal principles to promote long term, low interest loans for the industrial development of former colonies, FDR’s allies were ousted from power over his dead body, and they were recaptured by the same forces who attempted to steer the world towards a Central Banking Dictatorship in 1933.
The American Liberty League spawned into various “patriotic” anti-communist organizations which took power with the FBI and McCarthyism under the fog of the Cold War. This is the structure that Eisenhower warned about when he called out “the Military Industrial Complex” in 1960 and which John Kennedy did battle with during his 900 days as president.
This is the structure which is out to destroy President Donald Trump and undo the November elections under a military coup and Civil War out of fear that a new FDR impulse is beginning to be revived in America which may align with the 21st Century international New Deal emerging from China’s Belt and Road Initiative and Eurasian alliance. French Finance Minister Bruno LeMaire and Marc Carney have stated their fear that if the Green New Deal isn’t imposed by the west, then the New Silk Road and yuan will become the basis for the new world system.
The Bank of England-authored Green New Deal being pushed under the fog of COVID-19’s Great Green Global Reset which promise to impose draconian constraints on humanity’s carrying capacity in defense of saving nature from humanity have nothing to do with Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal and they have less to do with the Bretton Woods conference of 1944. These are merely central bankers’ wet dreams for depopulation and fascism “with a democratic face” which their 1923 and 1933 efforts failed to achieve and can only be imposed if people remain blind to their own recent history.
It has recently come to light that the primary source of the Steele Dossier and Mueller Investigation is none other than Igor Danchenko- a veteran Brookings Institute employee from Ukraine who not only hadn’t been to Russia for decades but who admitted to the FBI in January 2017 that the entire Steele dossier was a fraud.
For those who do not know, the Brookings Institute is a powerful DNC think tank founded by Bill Clinton’s former Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott who stepped down as president in 2017. Brookings has become known for its revolving door between officials in the Obama White House/DNC and the private sector. In recent weeks, it has come to light that Talbott reached out to Steele in August 2016 to share his own data accumulated by Danchenko and conspired with Steele on advancing the dossier in the wake of Trump’s November 2016 election. Other Brookings Institute agents deployed by Talbott include former NSC Russia Expert Trump impeachment witness Fiona Hill who co-authored a paper with Danchenko and also Talbott’s brother-in-law Cody Shearer who circulated a parallel dossier containing many of the falsified evidence printed in Steele’s script.
Sadly many analysts have read these new revelations badly and have concluded that MI6’s Christopher Steele was actually duped by fake American intelligence coming from opportunistic American operatives seeking to undermine a republican president for purely political considerations. Nothing however can be further from the truth.
Straussian vs Rhodesian Flavors of the Same Poison
Talbott himself may be American by blood, but thoroughly British in spirit. Both he and Clinton were Rhodes Scholars at Oxford in the 1970s and were joined by dozens of other Rhodes Scholars who flooded into the White House in 1992.
While appearing on the surface to oppose the brute force approach of the neoconservative Straussians, the Rhodes Scholar nests have distinguished themselves over the past century by promoting a world order that saw a more technocratic/Malthusian system of controls with the USA playing a subservient position in the Great Game. The Straussian neocons on the other hand aimed at a post-nation state world order with America acting as the lead and monetarism serving as a ruling religion. The differences between these two outlooks differs only superficially, as both plans involve a global bankers dictatorship controlled by the City of London and both demanded divided world of war, poverty and resource monopolies by an elite that have no allegiance to the USA or any sovereign nation state per se.
This outlook was expressed by Talbott in a most visceral manner in 1992 when he said:
“All countries are basically social arrangements….No matter how permanent or even sacred they may seem at any one time, in fact they are all artificial and temporary….Perhaps national sovereignty wasn’t such a great idea after all….But it has taken the events in our own wondrous and terrible century to clinch the case for world government.”
The exposure of the British hand behind the scenes affords us a unique glimpse into the real historical forces undermining America’s true constitutional tradition throughout the 20th century, as Mueller/the Five Eyes/Rhodes Scholars are not new phenomena but actually follow a modus operandi set down for already more than a century. One of the biggest obstacles to seeing this modus operandi run by the British Empire is located in the belief in a mythology which has become embedded in the global psyche for over half a century and which we should do our best to free ourselves of.
Debunking the Myth of the “American Empire”
While there has been a long-standing narrative promoted for over 70 years that the British Empire disappeared after World War II having been replaced by the “American Empire”, it is the furthest thing from the truth. America, as constitutionally represented by its greatest presidents (who can unfortunately be identified by their early deaths while serving in office), were never colonialist and were always in favor of reining in British Institutions at home while fighting British colonial thinking abroad.
Franklin Roosevelt’s thirteen year-long battle with the Deep State, which he referred to as the “economic royalists who should have left America in 1776″, was defined in clear terms by his patriotic Vice-President Henry Wallace who warned of the emergence of a new Anglo-American fascism in 1944 when he said:
“Fascism in the postwar inevitably will push steadily for Anglo-Saxon imperialism and eventually for war with Russia. Already American fascists are talking and writing about this conflict and using it as an excuse for their internal hatreds and intolerances toward certain races, creeds and classes.”
The fact is that already in 1944, a policy of Anglo-Saxon imperialism had been promoted subversively by British-run think tanks known as the Round Table Movement and Fabian Society, and the seeds had already been laid for the anti-Russian cold war by those British-run American fascists. It is not a coincidence that this fascist Cold War policy was announced in a March 5, 1946 speech in Fulton, Missouri by none other than Round Table-follower Winston Churchill.
The Empire Strikes
When the Round Table Movement was created with funds from the Rhodes Trust in 1902, a new plan was laid out to create a new technocratic elite to manage the re-emergence of the new British Empire and crush the emergence of American-inspired nationalism globally. This organization would be staffed by generations of Rhodes Scholars who would receive their indoctrination in Oxford before being sent back to advance a “post-nation state” agenda in their respective countries.
As this agenda largely followed the mandate set out by Cecil Rhodes in his Seventh Will who said “Why should we not form a secret society with but one object: the furtherance of the British Empire and the bringing of the whole uncivilized world under British rule, for the recovery of the United States, and for the making of the Anglo-Saxon race but one Empire?”
With the help of an anglophile, racist president in America, leading figures organizing these think tanks first advanced a program to create a “League of Nations” as the solution to the “nationalist problem” which humanity was told “caused” World War One. Nationalist forces in America rejected the idea that the constitution should be rendered obsolete and the plan for global governance failed. However that did not stop the Round Table Movement from trying again. Leading Round Table controller Lord Lothian (British Ambassador to the USA) complained of the “American problem” in 1918.
There is a fundamentally different concept in regard to this question between Great Britain and the United States as to the necessity of civilized control over politically backward peoples…. The inhabitants of Africa and parts of Asia have proved unable to govern themselves…. Yet America not only has no conception of this aspect of the problem but has been led to believe that the assumption of this kind of responsibility is iniquitous imperialism.
They take an attitude towards the problem of world government exactly analogous to the one they [earlier] took toward the problem of the world war. If they are slow in learning we shall be condemned to a period of strained relations between the various parts of the English-speaking world. [We must] get into the heads of Canadians and Americans that a share in the burden of world government is just as great and glorious a responsibility as participation in the war”.
A Chinese leader of the American-inspired republican revolution of 1911 named Sun Yat-sen warned of the likes of Lord Lothian and the League of Nations in 1924 when he said:
“The nations which are employing imperialism to conquer others and which are trying to maintain their own favored positions as sovereign lords of the whole world are advocating cosmopolitanism [aka: global governance/globalization -ed] and want the world to join them… Nationalism is that precious possession by which humanity maintains its existence. If nationalism decays, then when cosmopolitanism flourishes we will be unable to survive and will be eliminated”.
New Name. Same Beast
By 1919, the Round Table Movement changed its name to the Royal Institute for International Affairs (aka: Chatham House) with the “Round Table” name relegated to its geopolitical periodical. In Canada and Australia, branches were created in 1928 under the rubrics of “Canadian and Australian Institutes for International Affairs” (CIIA, AIIA). However in America, where knowledge of the British Empire’s subversive role was more widely known, the name “American Institute for International Affairs” was still too delicate. Instead the name “Council on Foreign Relations” was chosen and was chartered in 1921.
Rhodes Scholar William Yandall Elliot surrounded by a few of his leading disciples: Sir Kissinger, Zbigniew Brzezinski Samuel Huntington and Pierre Trudeau
Staffed with Rhodes Scholars and Fabians, the CFR (and its International Chatham House counterparts) dubbed themselves “independent think tanks” which interfaced with Rhodes Scholars and Fabians in academia, government and the private sector alike with the mission of advancing a foreign policy agenda that was in alignment with the British Empire’s dream of an Anglo-American “special relationship”. One such Rhodes Scholar was William Yandall Elliot, who played a major role mentoring Henry Kissinger and a generation of geo-politicians from Harvard, not the least of whom include Zbigniew Brzezinski, Pierre Elliot Trudeau and Samuel (Clash of Civilizations) Huntington.
The Round Table in Canada and the Coup Against FDR
In Canada, five leading Rhodes Scholars were busy creating the League of Social Reconstruction as a self-described “Fabian Society of Canada” in 1931 which was meant to be a fascist/technocratic answer to the chaos of “greedy nationalism” that supposedly caused the economic collapse of Black Friday in 1929. During the same time in America, a different path to fascism was taken by these networks during the early 1930s. This plan involved installing a General named Smedley Butler into power as a puppet dictator steered by the Anglo-American establishment. Luckily for America and the world, General Butler blew the whistle on the coupagainst Franklin Roosevelt at the last minute.
“I appeared before the Congressional Committee, the highest representation of the American people under subpoena to tell what I knew about activities which I believe might lead to an attempt to set up a fascist dictatorship… the upshot of the whole thing was that I was to pose to lead an organization of 500 000 men which would be able to take over the functions of government”
Kissinger’s British Takeover of America
Though it took a few assassinations throughout the post war years, Kissinger’s takeover of the State Department ushered in a new era of British occupation of American foreign policy, whereby the republic increasingly became the “Dumb Giant” acting as “American Brawn for the British brains” using Churchill’s words. While a nihilistic generation of youth were tuning in on LSD, and an old guard of patriots surrounding Wallace and Kennedy had fallen to the “red scare” witch hunt, geopolitical theory was fed like a sweet poison down the throat of a sleeping nation, replacing a policy of peace and “win-win cooperation” advanced by true nationalist patriots as FDR, Wallace and the Kennedys, with an imperial clone masquerading as a republic.
Kissinger did nothing less than reveal his total allegiance to the British Empire on May 10, 1981 during a Chatham House conference in Britain when he described his relationship with the British Foreign office in the following terms:
“The British were so matter-of-factly helpful that they became a participant in internal American deliberations, to a degree probably never practiced between sovereign nations… In my White House incarnation then, I kept the British Foreign Office better informed and more closely engaged than I did the American State Department… It was symptomatic”.
During this period, Kissinger worked closely with CIA director George Bush Senior, who was later rewarded for his role in advancing the British-planned first war on Kuwait with a knighthood. This war set the stage for the second wave of Middle East wars beginning with the Anglo-Saudi orchestrated operation known as 9/11 and the ushering in of the new “post-nation state order” by Kissinger and Blair.
At the 1991 Bilderberg Conference in France, Kissinger (who would soon be knighted for his work on behalf of the British Empire) stated:
“Today, America would be outraged if U.N. troops entered Los Angeles to restore order. Tomorrow they will be grateful! This is especially true if they were told that there were an outside threat from beyond, whether real or promulgated, that threatened our very existence. It is then that all peoples of the world will plead to deliver them from this evil. The one thing every man fears is the unknown. When presented with this scenario, individual rights will be willingly relinquished for the guarantee of their well-being granted to them by the World Government.”
The Dystopic New World Order Threatened by a New Deal of the 21stCentury
It is this dystopic geopolitical order which has been challenged by the Russia-China alliance which arose in earnest with Xi Jinping’s 2013 announcement of the Belt and Road Initiative as the Grand design for large scale infrastructure projects internationally and in September 2015 with Vladimir Putin’s intervention into Syria which defeated the Hobbesian regime change paradigm which poisoned the west. In 2016, the election of nationalist American President Donald Trump opened the door for the first time in over 50 years to a true national coalition of sovereign nations to eliminate the cancer of colonial thinking forever from the earth.
It is this same British-run deep state which owns Robert Mueller, Strobe Talbott, who along with the Integrity Initiative, Five Eyes and other Deep State operatives are dedicated to overthrowing President Trump from office and undoing the great potential for a Multipolar Alliance of Sovereign Nation States. This sabotage has taken the form of a Great Global Reset and Green New Deal.
On July 14th, the two conjoined gangster-regimes, U.S. & UK, simultaneously started, with deadly seriousness, their aggressive economic war against China.
The Navy released a couple of photos on Tuesday of the destroyer sailing near the contested Spratly Islands, and a Navy spokesman confirmed that the ship conducted a freedom-of-navigation operation in the area.
The Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS Ralph Johnson (DDG 114) steams near the Spratly Islands in the South China Sea. Ralph Johnson is deployed conducting maritime security operations and theater security cooperation efforts for a free and open Indo-Pacific. U.S. Navy Photo by Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Anthony Collier
Having alienated the remaining 27 members of the European Union and set Anglo-Russian relations back a century, Boris Johnson has just declared an economic war on China. … The proximate reason – that allowing Huawei into Britain’s 5G roll-out is a “security risk” – is patently false. If that were true for 5G, it would be true of 3 and 4G. If it were true then the company would have to be banished now, not in 2027 (by when, incidentally, 5G will be so last year).
There is not a shred, not a scintilla, not a jot or tittle, of evidence that Huawei has ever done anything wrong during its highly successful penetration of the British market, from which Britain has economically benefited mightily.
And if Chinese investment in 5G is not wanted – indeed, is being ejected – what of China’s powerful stake in Britain’s energy sector? What happens if China pulls the plugs on its nuclear power stations? Do all our lights go out? Has anyone thought this Chinese Kick-Away through? … BoJo’s decision to throw the Huawei 5G deal on the scrapheap shows UK poodle still obeys its US master
In this triple whammy of sanctions, gunboats and settlement, the brassy note of Jingoism plays ‘Rule Britannia’, but no one seems to have noticed that China is a vastly richer and more powerful adversary than it was when we extorted Hong Kong from them in punishment for their attempt to halt the flood of British opium into China which caused the addiction of 90 million Chinese people.
The economic sanctions imposed on China in the Huawei affair will be returned several-fold by Beijing.
Galloway might be correct, that China will be able to survive UK’s attempts to stifle China’s rise as a global economic competitor to the UK-U.S. empire, but if the U.S. is allowed to block China’s shipments through the South China Sea, then the war against China has already been won. It’s much more serious.
China has internationally been losing each one of the major rounds in its territorial disputes regarding its territorial claims in the South China Sea. It’s as if the U.S. were losing territorial claims in the Caribbean, except that the South China Sea is far more geostrategically important to China than the Caribbean is to the United States. So, China’s losses here are geostrategic ones. Those are disputes versus the Philippines, Vietnam and Malaysia, and the U.S. regime has played a decisive role in each case on the basis of its bilateral treaties, such as the 1951 U.S.-Philippines Mutual Defense Treaty, which enables the Philippines to call upon U.S. military backing in case the Philippines needs muscle in order to assert a territorial claim against another country, such as, say, China, which is the giant in their neighborhood.
Elliott Roosevelt, FDR’s son who accompanied his father during crucial international meetings, felt that Truman was a traitor to his father’s anti-imperialistic legacy. FDR, according to his son, Elliott, also wasn’t too fond of Churchill, who agreed with Truman because Churchill had always been a champion of British imperialism and he needed U.S. acceptance of that.
“Roosevelt and Churchill Discuss Colonial Questions, August 10, 1941, excerpt from Elliott Roosevelt, As He Saw It (New York: Duell, Sloan and Pearce, 1946).”
Father [FDR] started it.
“Of course,” he remarked, with a sly sort of assurance, “of course, after the war, one of the preconditions of any lasting peace will have to be the greatest possible freedom of trade.”
He paused. The P.M.’s [Churchill’s] head was lowered; he was watching Father steadily, from under one eyebrow.
“No artificial barriers,” Father pursued. “As few favored economic agreements as possible. Opportunities for expansion. Markets open for healthy competition.” His eye wandered innocently around the room.
Churchill shifted in his armchair. “The British Empire trade agreements,” he began heavily, “are — ”
Father broke in. “Yes. Those Empire trade agreements are a case in point. It’s because of them that the people of India and Africa, of all the colonial Near East and Far East, are still as backward as they are.”
Churchill’s neck reddened and he crouched forward. “Mr. President, England does not propose for a moment to lose its favored position among the British Do-minions. The trade that has made England great shall continue, and under conditions prescribed by England’s ministers.”
“You see,” said Father slowly, “it is along in here somewhere that there is likely to be some disagreement between you, Winston, and me.
“I am firmly of the belief that if we are to arrive at a stable peace it must involve the development of backward countries. Backward peoples. How can this be done? It can’t be done, obviously, by eighteenth-century methods. Now — ”
“Who’s talking eighteenth-century methods?”
“Whichever of your ministers recommends a policy which takes wealth in raw materials out of a colonial country, but which returns nothing to the people of that country in consideration. Twentieth-century methods involve bringing industry to these colonies. Twentieth-century methods include increasing the wealth of a people by increasing their standard of living, by educating them, by bringing them sanitation — by making sure that they get a return for the raw wealth of their community.”
Around the room, all of us were leaning forward attentively. [Harry] Hopkins [a major FDR adviser] was grinning. Commander [C. R.] Thompson, Churchill’s aide, was looking glum and alarmed. The P.M. himself was beginning to look apoplectic.
“You mentioned India,” he growled.
“Yes. I can’t believe that we can fight a war against fascist slavery, and at the same time not work to free people all over the world from a backward colonial policy”
“What about the Philippines?”
“I’m glad you mentioned them. They get their independence, you know, in 1946. And they’ve gotten modern sanitation, modern education; their rate of illiteracy has gone steadily down
“There can be no tampering with the Empire’s economic agreements.”
“They’re artificial …”
“They’re the foundation of our greatness.”
“The peace,” said Father firmly, “cannot include any continued despotism. The structure of the peace demands and will get equality of peoples. Equality of peoples involves the utmost freedom of competitive trade. …”
It was after two in the morning when finally the British party said their good nights. I helped Father into his cabin, and sat down to smoke a last cigarette with him.
Father grunted. “A real old Tory, isn’t he? A real old Tory, of the old school.”
“I thought for a minute he was [you were] going to bust, Pop.”
“Oh,” he smiled, “I’ll be able to work with him. Don’t worry about that. We’ll get along famously.”
“So long as you keep off the subject of India.”
“Mmm, I don’t know. I think we’ll even talk some more about India, before we’re through. And Burma. And Java. And Indo-China. And Indonesia. And all the African colonies. And Egypt and Palestine. We’ll talk about ’em all.”
A similar kind of discussion occurred between Roosevelt and Churchill at the Casablanca Conference in January 1943. The following is Elliott’s description of his father’s talk with him one evening during that meeting:
His thoughts turned to the problem of the colonies and the colonial markets, the problem which he felt was at the core of all chance for future peace. ‘The thing is,’ he remarked thoughtfully, replacing a smoked cigarette in his holder with a fresh one, ‘the colonial system means war. Exploit the resources of an India, a Burma, a Java; take all the wealth out of those countries, but never put anything back into them, things like education, decent standards of living, minimum health requirements — all you’re doing is storing up the kind of trouble that leads to war. All you’re doing is negating the value of any kind of organizational structure for peace before it begins.
‘The look that Churchill gets on his face when you mention India!
‘India should be made a commonwealth at once. After a certain number of years — five perhaps, or ten — she should be able to choose whether she wants to remain in the Empire or have complete independence.
‘As a commonwealth, she would be entitled to a modern form of government, an adequate health and educational standard. But how can she have these things, when Britain is taking all the wealth of her national resources away from her, every year? Every year the Indian people have one thing to look forward to, like death and taxes. Sure as shooting, they have a famine. The season of the famine, they call it.’
He paused for a moment, thinking.
‘I must tell Churchill what I found out about his British Gambia today,’ he said, with a note of determination.
‘At Bathurst?’ I prompted.
‘This morning,’ he said, and now there was real feeling in his voice, ‘at about eight-thirty, we drove through Bathurst to the airfield. The natives were just getting to work. In rags … glum-looking. … They told us the natives would look happier around noontime, when the sun should have burned off the dew and the chill. I was told the prevailing wages for these men was one and nine. One shilling, ninepence. Less than fifty cents.’
‘An hour?’ I asked, foolishly.
‘A {day!} Fifty cents a {day!} Besides which, they’re given a half-cup of rice.’ He shifted uneasily in his big bed. ‘Dirt, disease. Very high mortality rate. I asked. Life expectancy — you’d never guess what it was. Twenty-six years. Those people are treated worse than the livestock. Their cattle live longer!’
He was silent for a moment.
‘Churchill may have thought I wasn’t serious, last time. He’ll find out, this time.’ He looked at me thoughtfully for a moment. ‘How is it, where you are? How is it in Algeria?’ he asked.
I told him it was the same story. Rich country, rich resources, natives desperately poor, a few white colonials that lived very well, a few native princes that lived very well, otherwise poverty, disease, ignorance. He nodded.
And then he went on to tell of what he thought should be done: France to be restored as a world power, then to be entrusted with her former colonies, as a trustee. As trustee, she was to report each year on the progress of her stewardship, how the literacy rate was improving, how the death rate declining, how disease being stamped out, how. …
‘Wait a minute,’ I interrupted. ‘Who’s she going to report all this to?’
‘The organization of the United Nations, when it’s been set up,’ answered Father. It was the first time I’d ever heard of this plan. ‘How else?’ I asked Father. ‘The Big Four — ourselves, Britain, China, the Soviet Union — we’ll be responsible for the peace of the world after. …
‘… It’s already high time for us to be thinking of the future, building for it. … These great powers will have to assume the tasks of bringing education, raising the standards of living, improving the health conditions — of all the backward, depressed colonial areas of the world.
‘And when they’ve had a chance to reach maturity, they must have the opportunity extended them of independence. After the United Nations as a whole have decided that they are prepared for it.
‘If this isn’t done, we might as well agree that we’re in for another war.’
Elliott’s book as quoted in the 17 September 1946 Look Magazine:
“Father remarked,” says Elliott Roosevelt, “on how British and French financiers had dredged riches out of colonies. …” He continued later, “How do they belong to France? Why does Morocco, inhabited by Moroccans, belong to France? By what logic and custom and historical rule?”
——
Obviously, Winston Churchill’s dream came true when FDR died on 12 April 1945 and became replaced by Truman.
Among those statements by FDR, the one specifically regarding the Philippines has particular relevance today. The 1951 U.S.-Philippines Mutual Defense Treaty violated what FDR had said to Churchill, “I’m glad you mentioned them. They get their independence, you know, in 1946.” That U.S. commitment, “freedom,” to the Philippine nation, had already been made. He promised to Churchill that it would be fulfilled, and that therefore Churchill would not be able to say that America is an imperialist power as England is. It was a basic commitment from him. Furthermore, FDR said:
“No artificial barriers,” Father pursued. “As few favored economic agreements as possible. Opportunities for expansion. Markets open for healthy competition.” His eye wandered innocently around the room.
Churchill shifted in his armchair. “The British Empire trade agreements,” he began heavily, “are — ”
Father broke in. “Yes. Those Empire trade agreements are a case in point. It’s because of them that the people of India and Africa, of all the colonial Near East and Far East, are still as backward as they are.”
And: “‘The peace,’ said Father firmly, ‘cannot include any continued despotism. The structure of the peace demands and will get equality of peoples.’”
He linked bilateral, and also multilateral, trade treaties, to the creation of both World Wars. The United States, after his death, has used them in exactly the same way — building toward a WW III. Truman was the death of FDR’s plan. For example, Barack Obama’s proposed TTIP international-trade treaty for the Pacific was specifically designed against China, so as to isolate and diminish China in international trade — precisely the sorts of things that FDR had condemned in his statements to Churchill. Obama was an anti-FDR, pro-Truman, Democrat, who repeatedly emphasized, “The United States is and remains the one indispensable nation.” Every other nation is “dispensable.” Hitler had agreed with Obama’s view, except that in Hitler’s mind, Germany was the only indispensable nation.
In a sense, Hitler posthumously won WW II. His ideology, imperialistic fascism certainly did.
The Philippine President, Rodrigo Duterte, condemns U.S. imperialism and repels any dependency of his country upon the U.S. military. He explains “I have nothing against America. They’re perfectly alright. Trump is my friend. But my foreign policy has shifted from the pro-Western one. I am now working on alliance with China, and I hope to start a good working relationship with Russia. Why? Because the Western world, the EU, and everything – it’s all this double talk.”
CONSEQUENTLY:
The path forward for China will be increasingly for China to serve as a defender of the independence of the nations in its area (such as the Philippines), so that they won’t need to accept the U.S. regime’s offers of military assistance. Either this, or else China itself will cede control of its own neighborhood over to a distant enemy-nation, the ceaselessly grasping U.S. regime, and might as well just quit altogether, and become an American pawn itself.
Either all of the nations in that area will thrive together, or else the U.S.-UK alliance will succeed at crushing and swallowing-up them all.
This means that in the conflicts that China has with its nearby nations, China must grant those nations’ interests as being also China’s interests. China must accept its obligation to defend their interests in order to become enabled to assert its own. Only if this is done will those nearby nations ally with China against the U.S. Empire, not just militarily, but also in regard to commerce and trade. For China not to take on this obligation would be unacceptable, not only for China, but for the entire world. Regardless of what China wants, China has this obligation, now, to protect its region, against America’s billionaires, and their military, and their corporations.
However, the U.S. regime’s unmistakable threat now to block China’s freight-traffic through the South China Sea will succeed if China becomes the first side to attack and tries to down any U.S. forces there. Even if the U.S. strikes without warning and with no clear excuse, China will need to hold back for a while, before retaliating. The U.S. has arrayed an awesome striking force in that area. China will have to wait until the U.S. attacks it first, in any event, but now is the time for China to negotiate with its neighbors. Otherwise China will have almost the whole world against it, if China provides the bad optics of having been the first to strike.
During this time, therefore, China needs to be negotiating with each of the other regional players in order to persuade each one that only a unified facing-down against the U.S. in that region can even possibly salvage the independence of each one of them from now on. Russia may also need to be brought into the arrangement as a protector of China, just in case the U.S. turns out to be uncompromising in its intention to take over the entire world. Either Russia will soon enter this new World War that the UK-U.S. regimes are already waging, or else Russia will be forced to enter it only after Russia’s major allies will already have been swallowed-up by the U.S. The safer choice for Russia is consequently to enter the war sooner, as a guarantor for their side, their allies, the independent nations, than to enter it after those nations have already been defeated and swallowed-up.
George Floyd’s brutal killing was like a stone thrown into the pond, causing a non-stop ripple effect. For the first time in modern history, people across the United States and Europe sound their disgust and unease towards the racist policies carried out by the US administration and the systems across the Western part of the world.
It started with protests and riots, and so far has not come to an end. One interesting scene is how the streets began to fill up with people despite police violence and statues started to fall down; these are not any statues but are in fact statues of racism and white supremacy.
In the United States, more than a dozen statues have been toppled, including several Confederate figures. To begin with, a few statues of Christopher Columbus who is depicted as “THE hero” began to fall down. Rarely do educational texts or reports refer to Columbus’s true image.
Bartolemé de las Casas, who was said to have known Columbus in person, decried the brutality in his “A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies in 1552”. He described how Columbus and the conquistadors disfigured Native slaves and fed them alive to dogs.
A statue of Christopher Columbus was beheaded in Boston. A Columbus statue was also destroyed and dragged into a lake earlier in the week in Richmond, Virginia. After the figure was removed from its pedestal by protesters using several ropes in Richmond, a sign that reads, “Columbus represents genocide” was placed on the spray-painted foundation that once held the statue. In Camden, a New Jersey city near Philadelphia, protestors took down a statue of Christopher Columbus, joining others across the country.
A 10-foot bronze sculpture of Columbus was also toppled in Minnesota after a group of protests tied ropes around the neck of the statue and yanked it from its pedestal.
Theodor Roosevelt’s statue at NY museum of natural history was reported to be removed soon for its symbolism of the Native American man and the African man who stands beside him.
In Belgium’s Antwerp, thousands of protesters marching for Black Lives Matter filled the streets and demanded the removal of statues of King Léopold II, a brutal colonial ruler. The Belgian king statue who brutalized Congo was burned and ultimately removed.
It was the statue of King Léopold; infamous for genocide with his orchestration of mass violence against the people in the Congo, a large portion of which he considered his personal territory for cultivating and exporting rubber and ivory.
In Britain, a statue of the 17th-century slave trader Edward Colston was toppled by protesters and dumped into the very same waters of the Bristol Harbor that launched slave ships centuries ago.
Protesters have also made threats against statues of former Prime Minister Winston Churchill, the architect of colonial policies that lead to the mass starvation of some four million Indians, the torture of Kenyans, and was in favor of using poisoned gas against “uncivilized” tribes.
Shamelessly, the British government sealed Churchill’s statue inside a protective steel barrier ahead of the massive London race protest which Prime Minister Boris Johnson claimed has been “hijacked” by extremists. In this context, it is not surprising to hear the racist language of Johnson and his claims that the protests are hijacked.
At the University of Oxford, protesters have stepped up their longtime push to remove a statue of Rhodes, the Victorian imperialist who served as prime minister of the Cape Colony in southern Africa. He made a fortune from gold and diamonds on the backs of miners who labored in brutal conditions.
Also in London, the statue of 18th Century slave trader Robert Milligan has been pulled down from outside the Museum of London Docklands after campaigners vowed to protest every day until it was removed.
New Zealand’s fourth-largest city removed a bronze statue of the British naval officer Capt. John Hamilton after a Maori tribe asked for the statue to be taken down and one Maori elder threatened to tear it down himself. The city of Hamilton said it was clear the statue of the man accused of killing indigenous Maori people in the 1860s would be vandalized.
The statues and monuments that have long honored racist figures are being boxed up, beheaded and sprayed in paint. It is not only because black lives matter, it is because the racist and white supremacist discrimination cannot be tolerated any longer. The New York Times reported that in dozens more cities across the US, statues that still stand have been marked with graffiti, challenged anew with petitions and protests, or scheduled for removal.
Among these statues, a “living statue” named Donald Trump must also be removed in order to preserve human dignity and freedom and end racism. White supremacists and other hateful actors attack immigrants, communities of color, and religious minorities with impunity — all under the Trump administration’s watch.
Tragedies during the Trump time have taken place across the US, targeting African Americans, immigrants and minorities, and these were encouraged by the same force of white supremacy. White supremacists including president Trump and his loyalists deploy disruptive rhetoric and enact racist policies like the Muslim Ban, family separation, attempts silence voters of color. At the end of the day, policies of violence and hate produce acts of violence and hate. The people of America, Europe and the world are rising in face of imperialism and white supremacy, it is no longer a time when the US administration can manipulate the free people of the world.
Western Liberalism is not only bankrupt: It bankrupts. Nowhere is this clearer than in the hysterical panic with which Republicans and Democrats alike in the United States are printing limitless sums of theoretical money to pump demand into a structurally wildly distorted and dying economic system in utterly futile efforts to fend off a looming super-Depression and world economic crisis.
Yet as becomes more clear every day, far from maintaining the current global structure, created by U.S. bankers and diplomats and dictated to the rest of the world back in 1944, all these efforts are just accelerating the disintegration of the Old Order.
There is a supreme irony to this, for the most important creator of the Old World Economic and Financial Order – the one that is now disintegrating as we watch – was none other than the patron saint of liberalism – a man who has become a non-person in the United States in the past 40 year “Age of Reagan” (as I explain in my 2015 book “Cycles of Change“) – legendary 32nd President of the United States President Franklin Roosevelt.
It is fascinating to watch Democratic Party leaders today as they desperately try to conjure up the great appeal and success of the only man ever to win four U.S. presidential held up Roosevelt’s leadership through World War II as a model of leadership for today.
That should be entirely true, But neither current (and sinking fast) putative party nominee Joe Biden nor his always-collapses-at-the-crucial-moment Senator Bernie Sanders haven’t a clue what they are talking about.
Two factors were central to Franklin Roosevelt’s extraordinary success as a war leader – and Sanders and Biden are both pathetically blind to both of them:
The first was Roosevelt’s unhesitating and consistent support for his allies, especially the unprecedented flow of Lend Lease aid in food, trucks and other equipment to the Soviet Union which was carrying the main burden of the combat war against Nazi Germany almost single-handedly.
The second was the remarkable fiscal prudence and caution Roosevelt showed throughout his presidency, especially in his creation of the landmark Social Security program.
Roosevelt was vastly more cautious and even cynical in developing this program to give financial support for the first time in history to aging Americans.
Although the landmark congressional legislation was passed in 1935 and became law on August 14 of that year as part of the so-called “Second New Deal,” financial contributions out of the pay checks of all legally working Americans only started to be withdrawn in 1937. Even then, it was still another three years before the first U.S. citizen ever to receive a check from Social Security picked it up: That was 76-year-old Ida Fuller of Vermont on January 17, 1940. Her first check came to the generous sum of $41.30.
From 1935, when the legislation was passed to vast popular acclaim, it was another six years at the height of the Great Depression, when more Americans were starving and dying of poverty and related hardships than ever before or since in the nation’s history before a single individual actually got any benefit from it.
The actuarial calculations on which Roosevelt designed Social Security were even more cynical and ruthless.
Social Security was to be paid to retirees after the age of 65. But at the time, the median age of Americans was 61. Only a tiny privileged minority survived to the age of 65 or beyond.
Roosevelt practiced exceptional caution to keep the U.S. economy and currency stable during the New Deal and the Great Depression. Contrary to popular (Republican) myth, he was adamantly opposed to bankrupting the country either in his own time or in that of his grandchildren. “It is almost dishonest to build up an accumulated deficit for the Congress of the United States to meet in 1980,” he famously said. “We can’t do that. We can’t sell the United States short in 1980 any more than in 1935.”
Roosevelt’s exceptional caution contrasts with the wild spending both Republicans and Democrats from Bernie Sanders to Donald Trump have been practicing, driving their country into final bankruptcy during the current coronavirus crisis.
Comments financial analyst and former London merchant banker Martin Hutchinson in his May 4 “Bear’s Lair” column, “the CBO (Congressional Budget Office)’s estimate of budget deficits of 18% of GDP in 2020 and 10% of GDP in 2021 are truly frightening. …they bring the likely bankruptcy of the U.S. government much closer than seemed likely previously, probably to around 2030.”
Indeed, given the terrifying vulnerability of the U.S. financial system to the collapse of the $2 trillion junk bond market used to financial the collapsing fracking energy sector, projecting a meltdown U.S. financial crisis a balmy ten years ahead seems wildly optimistic.
In fact, the road from Franklin Roosevelt’s cautious callousness in designing Social Security so that it would not pay a penny to those who needed it for another five years (until, indeed, the Great Depression was already over!) to the “spend endlessly, spend now” crazed panic of both Republicans and Democrats is a very clear one:
It is the road of palliative Western liberalism, open borders and global Free Trade: It is a road that inevitably leads to ever huger debt burdens, ever-declining standards of living and inevitable ruin.
By contrast, the extremely fiscally cautious, highly conservative financial policies that Russian President Vladimir Putin continues to follow get no respect from the spendthrift, zero interest rate maniacs on Wall Street. Yet it is Russia that is currently in a far stronger position to ride out the global financial as well as pandemic crises than the United States.
In statecraft and economics as in architecture, the most important issue is not how high you build but how well you build and how deep you build – How good your foundations are.
The storm of pandemic is already heralding the storm of financial crisis. That crisis can indeed be solved, but only by abandoning the old shibboleths, the old false gods that, as Dostoyevsky predicted at the very beginning of our modern industrialized, interconnected Age, would inevitably bring us to our ruin, unless reined in and reversed in time.
A Cold War or global competition was NOT U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s vision for the post World War II world. He saw the Soviet Union and the United States, the Russian and American peoples as the two best and most reliable partners to maintain the peace of the world. 75 years have proven his prescient vision was right. Yet American leaders of the Fake Right and the Fake Left alike have now abandoned it for the policies of chaotic globalism and unending eternal war.
It is always forgotten that Franklin Roosevelt was a personal eyewitness to the catastrophic Versailles Peace Conference in 1919. FDR was no child. He was by then almost 40 years old and had been as Assistant Secretary of the Navy, the civilian chief operating official of the entire United States Navy for more than six years including through a world war.
Roosevelt recognized at the time very clearly that megalomaniac President Woodrow Wilson had completely destroyed the future peace and happiness of the entire world on the rocks of his blasphemous arrogance and sheer incompetence. Decades of observation and reflection combined to show how Wilson’s airy visions of a world remade on the principles of national self determination was only a recipe for endless bloodbaths and more chaos.
Wilson’s monumental mess up at Versailles also led the United States to withdraw from the world stage for more than 20 years.
Roosevelt had a very different vision of the world to come after 1945. Central to it was his understanding that the United States and the Soviet Union did not have to love each other or ignore their very different national interests but that they had to remain partners in the great task of maintaining world peace. But tragically, this vision did not survive the president’s death from a cerebral hemorrhage on April 12, 1945.
Roosevelt’s successor Harry Truman suddenly, immediately and without even giving a courtesy warning shut down all Lend Lease aid to the Soviet Union: it was the decision that truly started the Cold War.
Then Truman abandoned Roosevelt’s wise and visionary determination to force the old European powers of Britain, France and the Netherlands to immediately grant independence, or at least initiate a phased process towards that goal in most of their old colonies across Africa and Asia.
Instead, Truman threw U.S. financial and military support behind frantic British and French attempts to keep most of their empires. This decision led directly to two of the most terrible post-colonial wars waged by the French to hold on to Algeria and Indo-China – modern Vietnam, along with Cambodia and Laos.
Thirty more years of wars and oceans of innocent blood would flow before the inevitable outcomes that Franklin Roosevelt reached in 1945 came about anyway.
It has been an almost unanimous consensus among Western historians that Roosevelt was a naive and childish appeaser of Josef Stalin and international communism. Instead, FDR’s successor Truman has been elevated as a far greater figure and the great hero in supposedly saving the West from Soviet conquest.
However, two outstanding recent histories by Susan Butler (“Roosevelt and Stalin”) and Nigel Hamilton “War and Peace: FDR’s Final Odyssey”) document and present a far different picture.
For all their myriad differences, Roosevelt had succeeded in forging an effective partnership with Stalin to create as table, long-lasting new world system in which the two dominant superpowers could work together to maintain world peace.
Indeed, far from manipulating Roosevelt as so many neoconservative and neoliberal Western writers have mindlessly claimed for so many decades, Stalin was emotionally shocked and deeply depressed by FDR’s s passing, Being Stalin, his first reaction was to task the formidable Soviet espionage apparatus to investigate whether FDR had actually been assassinated by hardliners in his own government.
That was not the case. On the contrary, as Hamilton documents, FDR suffered a catastrophic health collapse following his return from the October 1943 Tehran conference with Stalin and Winston Churchill. It was almost certainly brought on by the rigors suffered by an already seriously ill man flying in unpressurized aircraft higher than 10,000 feet for extended periods of time.
Indeed, as Hamilton step by step shows, Roosevelt’s chief cardiologist Dr. Howard Bruenn performed prodigies to keep a dying man alive and as leader of the United States for another 18 months almost to the victorious conclusion of the war against Nazi Germany.
Franklin Roosevelt died at the age of 63 after years of remorselessly developing heart problems. His father James had died from the same fundamental causes. His cousin, President Theodore Roosevelt had died at the age of 61 after years of comparable health problems. The extraordinary fact of FDR’s final years was not that he died so soon but that he lived so long.
It was tragic that FDR did not live to celebrate the Victory Day over the Nazi evil he had done so much achieve. He missed it by only four weeks.
It was vastly more tragic that FDR died before he could take the crucial steps to institutionalize the crucial partnership of the U.S. and the USSR on a lasting basis and force the Europeans to allow their emerging colonies a clear, honest path to freedom.
If the leaders of today’s Democratic Party truly wished to revive the great achievements and heritage of their greatest leader, they would immediately end all the unnecessary wars they have cheered, demanded and plunged into around the world: And they would immediately restore the vital partnership with Russia that was the key to his war success.
Were FDR permitted to return today, he would be horrified, raging and contemptuous of those who claimed to be his successors needlessly demonizing a non-communist and non-aggressive Russia, free and open to a degree no-one in the West in his own day could have possibly imagined.
Most of all, he would have been disgusted beyond reason to see the United States committed so deeply to fighting needless, meaningless unending wars across the Middle East, Asia and Eastern Europe – wars with no conceivable goal and therefore with no possible end, eternal wars – exercises only in exhaustion and futility.
Franklin Roosevelt would not have celebrated Victory Day 75 years after his death with his customary loud and generous laughter. He could only have wept.
UPROOTED PALESTINIANS: SALAM ALQUDS ALAYKUM 
