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Hideous acts — ISIS, Fallujah, Iraq, George W., (and Ukraine, Syria, Libya) — and U.S. candidates who support them

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By William Blum
Posted on Global Research, May 24, 2015

anti-US-bombing-syria-iraq-isil-isis

She was a redheaded rebel, the singer in the family, a trash-talking, tattooed 21-year-old wrapped up in a hip-hop dream of becoming Holland’s Eminem. Then Betsy found Allah. After her sudden conversion to Islam last summer, Betsy began dressing in full Muslim robes. By January, the once-agnostic Dutch woman, raised in a home where the only sign of religion was a dusty Bible on a shelf, began defending homegrown terrorists. … Denis Cuspert, a German hip-hop artist known as Deso Dogg who converted in 2010 and later joined The Islamic State [ISIS], delivers a rap-like chant portraying the path to jihad as a chance for empowerment, spiritual fulfillment, vengeance and adventure. … ‘The door to jihad is standing there waiting for you,’ says a Swedish convert to Islam in a video. ‘It is the fastest way to paradise.’ “

Tales told many times in recent years, all over Europe, at times in the United States. Parents and authorities are deeply distressed and perplexed. How can young people raised in the West – the freedom-obsessed, democratic, peace-loving, humanitarian, fun-filled West – join the Islamic State and support the public cutting off of the heads of breathing, living human beings? Each of us in our own way are lost souls searching for answers to the awful mysteries of life. But THIS? What life-quest does The Islamic State satisfy that our beloved West can’t satisfy? ISIS is unique in the world in making US foreign policy look good. The Defense Department and the State Department have special task forces studying the new enemy; the latter regularly puts out videos to counteract the many Islamic State videos.

I hope those researching the question look inwardly as well as at ISIS. How do young people raised in the West – the same West we know and love – coldly machine-gun to death more than a dozen Iraqis, men, women, children, reporters, absolutely in cold blood, in the video made famous by Chelsea Manning; but this of course is nothing compared to Fallujah with its two-headed babies, even three-headed, an eye in the middle of the forehead. The Islamic State has done nothing compared to what the United States did to the people of Fallujah. Can anyone name a horror in all of history more gruesome? Yes, there are some, but not many; and much of Fallujah was personally executed by nice, clean-cut, freedom-obsessed, democratic, peace-loving, humanitarian, fun-filled made-in America young men.

Here’s US Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez, in his memoir, April 6, 2004, the time of Fallujah, in video teleconference with President Bush, Secretary of State Colin Powell, and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. “We’ve got to smash somebody’s ass quickly,” said Powell. “There has to be a total victory somewhere. We must have a brute demonstration of power.” Then Bush spoke:

“At the end of this campaign al-Sadr must be gone. At a minimum, he will be arrested. It is essential he be wiped out. Kick ass! If somebody tries to stop the march to democracy, we will seek them out and kill them! We must be tougher than hell! This Vietnam stuff, this is not even close. It is a mind-set. We can’t send that message. It’s an excuse to prepare us for withdrawal. … There is a series of moments and this is one of them. Our will is being tested, but we are resolute. We have a better way. Stay strong! Stay the course! Kill them! Be confident! Prevail! We are going to wipe them out! We are not blinking!”

“Years from now when America looks out on a democratic Middle East, growing in freedom and prosperity, Americans will speak of the battles like Fallujah with the same awe and reverence that we now give to Guadalcanal and Iwo Jima” in World War II. – George W. Bush, 2006

Well, George, it’s either that or Fallujah was one of the key reasons for the rise of ISIS.

My point here is not that United States foreign policy is as barbaric and depraved as The Islamic State. It’s not. Most of the time. I simply hope to make it a bit easier to understand the enemy by seeing ourselves without the stars in our eyes. And I haven’t even mentioned what the United States has led the world in for over a century – torture.

The ever-fascinating and ever-revealing subject of ideology

Jeb Bush has gotten himself into trouble because, like all politicians running for office, he is unable to give simple honest answers to simple straightforward questions, for fear of offending one or another segment of the population. How refreshing it would be to have a politician say only what s/he actually believes, even if it’s as stupid as usual.

The brother of the previous president has been asked repeatedly: “Knowing what we know now, would you have authorized the invasion of Iraq?” At first his answer was “yes”, then at times “I don’t know”, even “no” at least once, or he’s refused to answer at all. Clearly he’s been guessing about which reply would win him points with the most people, or which would lose him the least.

This caused a minor uproar, even among conservatives. Right-wing radio host Laura Ingraham was moved to make a rare rational remark: “You can’t still think that going into Iraq, now, as a sane human being, was the right thing to. If you do, there has to be something wrong with you.”

Such discussions always leave out a critical point. Why did millions of Americans, and even more millions abroad, march against the war in the fall of 2002 and early 2003, before it began? What did they know that the Bush brothers and countless other politicians didn’t know? It was clear to the protesters that George W. Bush and Dick Cheney were habitual liars, that they couldn’t care less about the people of Iraq, that the defenseless people of that ancient civilization were going to be bombed to hell; most of the protesters knew something about the bombings of Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Panama, Yugoslavia, or Afghanistan; and they knew about napalm, cluster bombs, depleted uranium, etc. Those who marched knew that the impending war was something a moral person could not support; and that it was totally illegal, a textbook case of a “war of aggression”; one didn’t have to be an expert in international law to know this.

Didn’t the Brothers Bush, Hillary Clinton (who voted for the war in the Senate), et al know about any of these things? Of course they did. They just didn’t care enough; supporting the empire’s domination and expansion was a given, and remains so; no US politician gets very far – certainly not to the White House – questioning the right of American Exceptionalism to impose itself upon humanity (for humanity’s sake of course).

Consider the darlings du jour of the American Left, Senators Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders. They very seldom speak out critically about US foreign policy or even the military budget. The anti-war/anti-imperialist segment of the American left need to put proper pressure on the two senators.

Mr. Sanders should also be asked why he routinely refers to himself as a “democratic socialist”. Why not just “socialist”? It’s likely a legacy of the Cold War. I think that he and other political figures who use the term are, consciously or unconsciously, trying to disassociate themselves from communism, the Soviet Union, Marxism, etc., all those things that are not good for you. (The word “socialist” once connoted furtive men with European accents, sinister facial hair, and bombs.)

It would be delightful to hear Sanders openly declare that he is simply a “socialist”. Socialism can be democratic; indeed, a lot more so than capitalism, particularly concerning the distribution of wealth and all the ramifications of that. Presented here are some relevant thoughts on these issues, from myself and others:

It’s only the socialists who maintain as a bedrock principle: People before Profit, which can serve as a very concise definition of socialism, an ideology anathema to the Right and libertarians, who fervently believe, against all evidence, in the rationality of a free market. I personally favor the idea of a centralized, planned economy. (Oh my God, a damn Commie!) Modern society is much too complex and technical to leave its operation in the hands of libertarians, communitarians, or anarchists seeking to return to a “community” or “village” level.

“Washington has always regarded democratic socialism as a greater challenge than totalitarian Communism, which was easy to vilify and made for a handy enemy. In the 1960s and ’70s, the favored tactic for dealing with the inconvenient popularity of economic nationalism and democratic socialism was to try to equate them with Stalinism, deliberately blurring the clear differences between the world views.” – Naomi Klein

“If it is true, as often said, that most socialist regimes turn out to be dictatorships, that is largely because a dictatorship is much harder to overthrow or subvert than a democracy.” – Jean Bricmont, Belgian author of “Humanitarian Imperialism” (2006)

Without a proclaimed socialist vision, radical change becomes too many different things for too many different individuals and groups.

“Call it democracy, or call it democratic socialism, but there must be a better distribution of wealth within this country for all of God’s children.” – Martin Luther King

The United States is so fearful of the word “socialism” that it changed the “social sciences” to the “behavioral sciences”.

If for no other reason than to save the environment, the world needs to abandon the capitalist system. Every day, in every spot on earth, in a multitude of ways, corporations are faced with a choice: to optimize profits or to do what’s best for the planet.

The great majority of people in any society work for a salary. They don’t need to be motivated by the profit motive. It’s not in anyone’s genes. Virtually everybody, if given the choice, would prefer to work at jobs where the main motivations are to help others, improve the quality of life of society, and provide themselves with meaningful and satisfying work. It’s not natural to be primarily motivated by trying to win or steal “customers” from other people, no holds barred, survival of the fittest or the least honest.

And what about this thing called “democracy”, or “majority rule”? Many millions marched against the invasion of Iraq before it began. I don’t know of a single soul who marched in favor of it, although I’m sure there must have been someone somewhere. That lucky soul was the one they listened to.

Finally, the question being asked of Jeb Bush and others is not the best one. They’re asked: “Knowing what we know now, would you have authorized the invasion of Iraq?” A more important question would be: “Knowing what we knew then, would you have authorized the invasion of Iraq?” And the answer should be “no”, because we knew that Saddam Hussein had destroyed his weapons of mass destruction. This is very well documented, from diverse sources, international and Iraqi, including Saddam himself and his chief lieutenants.

The American Mainstream Media – A Classic Tale Of Propaganda

“When an American warplane accidentally struck the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade in 1999 during the Kosovo campaign …”

These words appeared in the Washington Post on April 24, 2015 as part of a story about US drone warfare and how an American drone attack in Pakistan in January had accidentally killed two Western aid workers. The Post felt no need to document the Belgrade incident, or explain it any further. Almost anyone who follows international news halfway seriously knows about this famous “accident” of May 7, 1999. The only problem is that the story is pure propaganda.

Three people inside the Chinese embassy were killed and Washington apologized profusely to Beijing, blaming outdated maps among other problems. However, two well-documented and very convincing reports in The Observer of London in October and November of that year, based on NATO and US military and intelligence sources, revealed that the embassy had been purposely targeted after NATO discovered that it was being used to transmit Yugoslav army communications. The Chinese were doing this after NATO planes had successfully silenced the Yugoslav government’s own transmitters.  The story of how the US mainstream media covered up the real story behind the embassy bombing is absolutely embarrassing.

Over and above the military need, there may have been a political purpose served. China, then as now, was clearly the principal barrier to US hegemony in Asia, if not elsewhere. The bombing of the embassy was perhaps Washington’s charming way of telling Beijing that this is only a small sample of what can happen to you if you have any ideas of resisting or competing with the American juggernaut. Since an American bombing campaign over Belgrade was already being carried out, Washington was able to have a much better than usual “plausible denial” for the embassy bombing. The opportunity may have been irresistible to American leaders. The chance might never come again.

All of US/NATO’s other bombing “mistakes” in Yugoslavia were typically followed by their spokesman telling the world: “We regret the loss of life.” These same words were used by the IRA in Northern Ireland on a number of occasions over the years following one of their bombings which appeared to have struck the wrong target. But their actions were invariably called “terrorist”.

Undoubtedly, the US media will be writing of the “accidental” American bombing of the Chinese embassy as long as the empire exists and China does not become a member of NATO.

P.S On May 20 the Office of the Director of National Intelligence released a list of 39 English-language books recovered during the raid that reportedly killed Osama bin Laden. Noam Chomsky and I are the only two authors on the list with two books.

As some of you may remember, in January, 2006 bin Laden, in an audiotape, recommended that Americans read my book Rogue State. This resulted in the US media discovering my existence for a week. You can read the full story in my book America’s Deadliest Export: Democracy (pp. 281-84).

Notes:

  1. Washington Post, May 7, 2015
  2. Ricardo Sanchez, Wiser in Battle: A Soldier’s Story (2008), pages 349-350
  3. Associated Press, November 11, 2006
  4. William Blum, America’s Deadliest Export: Democracy, pp. 61-2
  5. The Observer (London), October 17, 1999 (“Nato bombed Chinese deliberately”), and November 28, 1999 (“Truth behind America’s raid on Belgrade”)
  6. Extra! Update (magazine of Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting [FAIR], New York), December 1999; appeared first as solitary article October 22, 1999 (“U.S. Media Overlook Expose on Chinese Embassy Bombing”)

    http://www.globalresearch.ca/their-precious-young-minds-and-our-precious-young-minds/545142

    http://williamblum.org/aer/read/139

If U.S. military spending returned to 2001 level

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By David Swanson
Posted on War is a Crime

The House of Representatives has headed out of town to memorialize wars without managing to achieve agreement with the Senate on reauthorizing some of the most abusive “temporary” measures of the PATRIOT Act. Three cheers for Congressional vacations!

What if not just our civil liberties but our budget got a little bit of 2001 back?

In 2001, U.S. military spending was $397 billion, from which it soared to a peak of $720 billion in 2010, and is now at $610 billion in 2015. These figures from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (in constant 2011 dollars) exclude debt payments, veterans costs, and civil defense, which raise the figure to over $1 trillion a year now, not counting state and local spending on the military.

Military spending is now 54% of U.S. federal discretionary spending according to the National Priorities Project. Everything else — and the entire debate in which liberals want more spending and conservatives want less! — is contained within the other 46% of the budget.

U.S. military spending, according to SIPRI, is 35% of the world total. U.S. and Europe make 56% of the world. The U.S. and its allies around the globe (it has troops in 175 countries, and most countries are armed in great part by U.S. companies) make up the bulk of world spending.

Iran spends 0.65% of world military spending (as of 2012, the last year available). China’s military spending has been rising for years and has soared since 2008 and the U.S. pivot to Asia, from $107 billion in 2008 to now $216 billion. But that’s still just 12% of world spending.

Per capita the U.S. now spends $1,891 current U.S. dollars for each person in the United States, as compared with $242 per capita worldwide, or $165 per capita in the world outside the U.S., or $155 per capita in China.

The dramatically increased U.S. military spending has not made the U.S. or the world safer. Early on in the “war on terror” the U.S. government ceased reporting on terrorism, as it increased. The Global Terrorism Index records a steady increase in terrorist attacks from 2001 to the present. A Gallup poll in 65 nations at the end of 2013 found the United States overwhelmingly viewed as the greatest threat to peace in the world. Iraq has been turned into hell, with Libya, Afghanistan, Yemen, Pakistan, and Somalia close behind. Newly embittered terrorist groups have arisen in direct response to U.S. terrorism and the devastation it’s left behind. And arms races have been sparked that benefit only the arms dealers.

But the spending has had other consequences. The U.S. has risen into the top five nations in the world for disparity of wealth. The 10th wealthiest country on earth per capita doesn’t look wealthy when you drive through it. And you do have to drive, with 0 miles of high-speed rail built; but local U.S. police have weapons of war now. And you have to be careful when you drive. The American Society of Civil Engineers gives U.S. infrastructure a D+. Areas of cities like Detroit have become wasteland. Residential areas lack water or are poisoned by environmental pollution — most often from military operations. The U.S. now ranks 35th in freedom to choose what to do with your life, 36th in life expectancy, 47th in preventing infant mortality, 57th in employment, and trails in education by various measures.

If U.S. military spending were merely returned to 2001 levels, the savings of $213 billion per year could meet the following needs:

  • End hunger and starvation worldwide — $30 billion per year.
  • Provide clean drinking water worldwide — $11 billion per year.
  • Provide free college in the United States — $70 billion per year (according to Senate legislation).
  • Double U.S. foreign aid — $23 billion per year.
  • Build and maintain a high-speed rail system in the U.S. — $30 billion per year.
  • Invest in solar and renewable energy as never before — $20 billion per year.
  • Fund peace initiatives as never before — $10 billion per year.

That would leave $19 billion left over per year with which to pay down debt.

You may say I’m a dreamer, but this is life and death. War kills more by how the money isn’t spent than by how it is spent.

http://warisacrime.org/content/if-us-military-spending-returned-2001-level

New York: Ramstein vigil at German Consulate on Tuesday, May 26

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Posted on War is a Crime

NEW YORK – A vigil imploring the German government to order the immediate closure of the United States drone satellite relay station at Ramstein Air Base will be held at 11:30 am, Tuesday, May 26, 2015 at the German Consulate, 871 U.N. Plaza.

The Ramstein relay station, according to an April 17, 2015 article in The Intercept, is essential to U.S. drone attacks because it “enables drone operators in the American Southwest to communicate with their remote aircraft in Yemen, Somalia, Afghanistan and other targeted countries.”

The vigil will mark the opening of a court case in Cologne, Germany on May 27, 2015 on behalf of Faisal bin Ali Jaber, an environmental engineer from Yemen who lost his brother-in-law and a nephew to a U.S. drone attack in 2012.  His suit seeks to force the German government act to close the Ramstein relay station under a provision of German law that allows people to seek redress if they have suffered harm from activities generated on German soil, in this case drone execution without due process.

“This is an extremely important case not only because it has the potential for stopping U.S. drone attacks but because it may expose much about the U.S. drone program that has been kept secret from the American public and the world,” said Nick Mottern, Director of KnowDrones.com

The vigil will include music by the Raging Grannies singing group and display of a large model of the MQ-9 Reaper, the world’s most numerous and deadly drone.  The event is being organized by: KnowDrones.com, the Granny Peace Brigade and World Can’t Wait.

http://warisacrime.org/content/ramstein-vigil-german-consulate-871-un-plaza-nyc

Ray McGovern: College of William & Mary honors a war criminal

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By Ray McGovern
Posted on War is a Crime, May 18, 2015

Exclusive: Condoleezza Rice has crossed the threshold into esteemed celebrity – a welcomed speaker at this year’s College of William and Mary commencement – despite her record as the liar who sold the illegal war in Iraq and choreographed the torture techniques for use at CIA “black sites.”

By Ray McGovern

Nothing better illustrates the extent to which the United States has turned its back on the rule of law than when the likes of Condoleezza Rice are asked to address graduates and receive doctoral degrees honoris causa at university commencements. Ms. Rice – in my view a war criminal – was accorded those honors Saturday by the College of William and Mary, the second-oldest college in the U.S.

Unlike Rice’s other university appearances in recent years, there was not the slightest sign of unhappiness, let alone protest. Most of the graduating seniors were not yet ten years old in 2003 when Rice played a key role helping President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney launch a war of aggression against Iraq. So, the graduates’ ignorance may perhaps be understandable, but it does not speak well for their grasp of recent history.

It is far less excusable for the patrician leadership of William and Mary to have bestowed this honor on Rice. Did the news not penetrate their ivory tower that last year Ms. Rice was prevented from being accorded similar honors by irate students at Rutgers University, who were sickened at the thought that their commencement would be sullied by Rice’s presence?

One of the leaders of the “No Rice” campaign at Rutgers last year (a senior at the time), Carmelo Cintrón Vivas, told Amy Goodman of Democracy Now! that the “students felt that war criminals shouldn’t be honored. … Someone who has such a tainted record as a public servant in this country should not … get an honorary law degree for trying to circumvent the law. … That’s not fair to any student graduating or not graduating at Rutgers University.”

He found “ludicrous” the familiar argument that Rice’s academic achievements outweigh her political positions: “If we look into a lot of international criminals and just bad people in history, a lot of them had great academic careers or great medical careers. … Your career is one thing, and the way you act as a person, as a human being, is another one. And that’s why we make this an issue about human rights.”

How to explain the contrast between the apathy prevailing at William and Mary and the awareness and activism at Rutgers? Perhaps one clue is the marked difference between the costs of attending. Tuition and fees are significantly higher at William and Mary, located in Williamsburg, Virginia. Another clue might be seen in the remarkable “tradition” of asking predominantly conservative Republican speakers to do the honors, and to get the honors, at commencement.

In contrast to the scene at William and Mary, this year’s commencement at Rutgers awarded an honorary doctorate in humane letters to Frances Fox Piven, a highly respected scholar and advocate for poor working people. Piven’s recent books include The War at Home: The Domestic Costs of Bush’s Militarism. Piven also won the Shirley Chisholm Award for “leadership toward social and economic justice.”

Looking at the assembled graduates at William and Mary, I could not help but mourn the fact that they were being sent off into life by Rice instead of Piven. I would expect Piven to address the pressing challenges facing the “99 percent” – and the injustices behind the growing unrest in Baltimore, St. Louis and other troubled cities. Rice did not mention any of that on Saturday. It was all about her – a reflection, perhaps, of the fact that, although black in Birmingham, Alabama, she nonetheless grew up relatively privileged.

Worse Still: War Crimes

Rather than some profile in courage or a person of steadfast principles, Condoleezza Rice represents malleability in the face of criminality and evil. She is a profile in cowardice and expediency, the opposite sort of lesson in how to live one’s life than Piven or many other worthy commencement speakers would be expected to present.

When President George W. Bush told Ms. Rice to scarf up any and all “evidence,” no matter how sketchy or deceptive, to prove that Iraq had “weapons of mass destruction” (WMD), she led the fraudulent campaign to present the “intelligence” needed to deceive Congress into supporting a war that fits the post-World War II Nuremberg Tribunal’s definition of a “war of aggression as the supreme international crime, differing from other war crimes only in that it contains the accumulated evil of the whole.”

Rice played her role as drum majorette for war with exceptional enthusiasm – conjuring up the danger of “mushroom clouds” from Iraq’s (nonexistent) nukes; “yellowcake” uranium from darkest Africa (based on crudely forged documents); and aluminum tubes (that turned out to be standard Iraqi artillery tubes) but she said were for refining uranium.

Rice led the parade, with Dick Cheney’s indispensable help, promoting the various manufactured “evidence” against Iraq. The fraudulent nature of those spurious claims was laid bare in a July, 23, 2002 British document, The Downing Street Memorandum, published by The London Times on May 1, 2005. Established as authentic, the memo exposed the unconscionable attempt to “fix” the intelligence to justify a U.S./U.K. attack for “regime change” in Iraq.

For the rest of the article:
http://warisacrime.org/content/tis-season-fete-war-criminals

Comments: McGovern states later in the article: 

“The William and Mary experience on Saturday is hardly the first time a university has succumbed to the “prestige virus” and given some powerful celebrity high honors at a commencement despite the person’s deplorable actions. There are, sad to say, numerous examples, including an earlier one involving Ms. Rice.

 …’Thus compromised,’ warned [Daniel] Berrigan, ‘the Christian tradition of nonviolence, as well as the secular boast of disinterested pursuit of truth — these are reduced to bombast, hauled out for formal occasions, believed by no one, practiced by no one.’”

It is not just Catholic colleges that have invited Rice. In 2011, she was invited to speak at Westmont College, a Protestant Christian college in California, at the annual President’s Breakfast and later to students.
http://blogs.westmont.edu/magazine/2011/04/26/an-extraordinary-ordinary-woman/
An Extraordinary, Ordinary Woman

Westmont followed this by hosting Robert Gates in 2012, Colin Powell in March 2013, and stunningly, Henry Kissinger in a special event on October 2013. The Kissinger event took place one month after the release of declassified documents detailing Kissinger’s role in the US-backed Pinochet coup in Chile, which overthrew Salvador Allende.
http://www.twnside.org.sg/title2/resurgence/2013/276-277/world3.htm

Clearly, this brand of Christianity and these institutions have difficulty with the values of peace, justice, truth, love, wisdom, or that over-used word though under-used value, righteousness.

 

Ray McGovern works with Tell the Word, a publishing arm of the ecumenical Church of the Saviour in inner-city Washington. He served as an Army Infantry/Intelligence officer and then a CIA analyst for 30 years, and is now on the Steering Group of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS).

This article appeared first on Consortiumnews.com

 

Is the US planning a “Gulf of Tonkin” incident in the South China Sea?

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This is one example of US verbrecherische. [1]

By Peter Symonds
From the World Socialist Web Site
Posted on Global Research, May 18, 2015

Following weeks of scaremongering by American officials over China’s activities in the South China Sea, US Secretary of State John Kerry used his visit to Beijing last weekend to issue an ultimatum to Chinese leaders to halt land reclamation on islets and shoals. His Chinese counterpart Wang Yi bluntly refused, insisting that China would safeguard its sovereignty and territorial integrity “as firm as a rock.”

Washington is not going to take no for an answer. In what is already an explosive situation, the question has to be asked: Is the US preparing a “Gulf of Tonkin” incident as the pretext for direct military action against Chinese facilities and armed forces in the South China Sea? Such reckless brinkmanship would risk war between two nuclear armed powers.

The historic parallels are chilling. In 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson needed a justification for decisions that had already been made to dramatically escalate US military involvement in a civil war in Vietnam and to begin bombing targets in North Vietnam. Pentagon planners had concluded that Washington’s widely reviled puppet regime in Saigon was incapable of defeating the North Vietnamese-backed National Liberation Front on its own.

Preparations for massively expanding US involvement were drawn up well in advance. In the summer of 1964, the US worked with the South Vietnamese to stage a series of provocations—probes by US-supplied patrol boats to expose North Vietnamese radar systems. On August 2, the USS Maddox was monitoring one of these raids in the Gulf of Tonkin, part of the South China Sea, eight miles offshore and well within the North Vietnam’s 12-mile territorial waters, that provoked an exchange of fire with small North Vietnamese boats.

Two days later the USS Maddox, accompanied by the destroyer C. Turner Joy, reported coming under fire. There was, in fact, no attack. The entirely manufactured incident, surrounded by a barrage of media sensationalism and official lies, was exploited to paint North Vietnam as the aggressor. The belligerent response of the United States was presented as justified, defensive actions to maintain “international peace and security in Southeast Asia.”

The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution was passed by the US Congress on August 7, 1964, with just two votes against. It provided the quasi-legal cover for a criminal, open-ended war in Vietnam that claimed millions of lives, devastated the country’s economy and left a legacy of destruction that remains to this day.

Far more is at stake today. For decades, the US showed little interest in the festering territorial disputes in the South China Sea between China and its South East Asian neighbours. In 2010, however, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, as part of the Obama administration’s “pivot to Asia” against China, declared that the US had “a national interest” in ensuring “freedom of navigation” in the strategic waters.

Over the past year, Washington has abandoned its pretence of neutrality in the maritime disputes. It has aggressively challenged the legitimacy of China’s claims and thus its administration of various shoals and reefs. Ignoring similar activities by other claimants, such as the Philippines and Vietnam, the US has portrayed land reclamation in the South China Sea as an aggressive threat to US national interests. In late March, Admiral Harry Harris, commander of the US Pacific Fleet, denounced China’s actions as the construction of “a great wall of sand.”

From words, the US is turning to actions. As part of the “pivot” to Asia, the Pentagon is already engaged in a massive military build-up and strengthening of alliances and strategic partnerships throughout Asia directed against China. One of the latest warships, the USS Fort Worth, has just completed a week-long “freedom of navigation” patrol in the South China Sea designed to test and challenge China’s presence.

While the USS Fort Worth remained outside China’s claimed territorial waters, US Defence Secretary Ashton Carter has called on the Pentagon to draw up plans for US warships and warplanes to enter the 12-mile limit and directly challenge Chinese sovereignty. Undoubtedly behind the scenes, far more detailed war plans have been drawn up.

Significantly in the midst of a US Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing last week entitled “Safeguarding American Interests in the East and South China Seas,” Assistant Defence Secretary David Shear blurted out that the US was preparing to base B1 bombers in northern Australia as part its military “rebalance” against China. Although later denied, nuclear-capable B-52 bombers are already rotating through Australia air bases.

Layers of the US foreign policy establishment are already braying for more concerted US action in the South China Sea to teach China a lesson. In the course of last week’s Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing, Chairman Bob Corker repeatedly expressed the review that the Obama administration was not doing enough.

In an article published in the National Interest entitled “Time to Stand Up To China in the South China Sea,” analyst Michael Mazza from the right-wing American Enterprise Institute praised the Pentagon’s plans for more “freedom of navigation” exercises, then added: “It is important that the president make the decision to act, and soon. The longer he waits, the more entrenched Chinese positions will become, both figuratively and literally.”

This logic is unquestioningly being applied more broadly. What is driving the provocative actions of US imperialism in Asia and around the world is the determination to use its still formidable military force to stem its historic decline. From Washington’s standpoint, the longer it waits, the greater the difficulty and dangers in subordinating Beijing to its interests. Thus the willingness to provoke a confrontation in the South China Sea as a test of strength, regardless of its potentially calamitous consequences.

But in confronting China, Washington faces widespread anti-war opposition at home and around the world, born of two decades of continuous wars including the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. No one should be surprised by a new “Gulf of Tonkin incident” suddenly emerging in order to try to stampede public opinion behind US aggressive military operations against China.

http://www.globalresearch.ca/is-the-us-planning-a-gulf-of-tonkin-incident-in-the-south-china-sea/5450245

[1] http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2015/05/john-helmer-how-angela-merkel-has-been-abandoned-by-john-kerry-victoria-nuland-and-vladimir-putin.html

Angela Merkel’s affront to Russia and the gulf in German-Russian relations

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By John Helmer
Posted on Naked Capitalism, May 19, 2015

How Angela Merkel Has Been Abandoned By John Kerry, Victoria Nuland, And Vladimir Putin

Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor, would do almost anything to get and keep power. That, in the opinion of powerful German bankers, includes making herself look ready for war with Russia in order to make her political rival, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, the coalition Foreign Minister and opposition leader in Berlin, look too weak to be electable when the German poll must be called by 2017. So, sources close to the Chancellery say, Merkel insulted President Vladimir Putin and all Russians to their faces last week. This week Victoria Nuland, the junior State Department official who told the chancellor to get fucked a year ago, was in Moscow, replacing Merkel with a settlement of the Ukraine conflict the Kremlin prefers.

“We are ready for this,” Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said last Thursday after meeting Secretary of State John Kerry. Referring to Nuland, Lavrov added: “we were not those who had suspended relations. Those, who had done it, should reconsider their stance….But, as usual, the devil is in the details.” Lavrov meant not one, but two devils, who have sabotaged every move towards a settlement of the Ukraine conflict since the start of 2014 – Nuland and Merkel.

Merkel’s Kaput! moment came on May 10, when she went to Moscow to lay a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. Deutsche Welle, the state German press agency, called it Merkel’s “compromise after she stayed away from a Russian military parade the day before.”

At the following press conference with Putin, Merkel said: “We have sought more and more cooperation in recent years. The criminal and illegal annexation of Crimea and the military hostilities in eastern Ukraine has led to a serious setback for this cooperation.” German sources say the word Merkel said, “verbrecherische” has rarely been used by her before; it carries the connotation in colloquial German of gangsterism — and of Nazism. “Merkel doesn’t seem to care what she says any longer,” a high-level German source says. “She exhibits more and more emotion these days, more irritation, and less care for what she says, and where. Putin understood exactly what she meant, and on the occasion she said it. He acted with unusual generosity not to react.”

The Kremlin transcript omitted Merkel’s remarks altogether. The Moscow newspapers ignored Merkel’s word and emphasized the positive Putin ones. “Our country fought not against Germany,” Putin replied to Merkel, “but against Nazi Germany. We never fought Germany, which itself became the Nazi regime’s first victim. We always had many friends and supporters there.”

US state radio followed with an attempt to endorse Merkel’s “verbrecherische”, and castigate the Kremlin for ignoring it. “An official interpreter at a Kremlin press conference has omitted a top Western leader’s stinging criticism of Russia’s annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea region”, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reported on May 12.

Reporter Carl Schreck claimed he “is unclear whether the interpreter made a conscious call to soft-pedal Merkel’s rebuke, or simply missed the word…One person who certainly would have understood the German word for ‘criminal’ used by Merkel – ‘verbrecherisch’ — is Putin himself. The Russian leader, who was stationed in Dresden with the Soviet KGB in the 1980s, is a fluent German speaker and in the past has spoken with Merkel in her native language. Whether he heard the word might depend on what ear Putin was listening with. He sported an earpiece on his left ear, presumably to listen to the Russian-language interpreter. His right ear — the one closest to Merkel — was free of electronic accoutrements.”

Schreck – the word in German means fright or scare — was a reporter for the Moscow Times for several years before moving to Prague for the US government. On his own website he doesn’t explain his German background, or whether his Washington state upbringing included the German language. Compared to Putin, Schreck is a soft touch for the oligarch Mikhail Prokhorov. For him Schreck’s most sensitive question has been: “What do you look for in a woman?”

Verbrecherische isn’t the first instance of Merkel’s loose lips sinking her own ship. Last November she picked more aggressive German for impromptu remarks than were set down in the chancellery’s script. But that was in Australia, and Putin had already left the country. Merkel isn’t the only politician to say things in Australia which don’t count in the rest of the world.

The irony of Merkel’s May 10 attack on Putin is that Kremlin sources believe Putin has been the last of the officials on the Security Council to give Merkel the benefit of their strategic doubt. Yevgeny Primakov, Putin’s most experienced strategic advisor, has been telling him privately for months there is no prospect of salvaging the German-Russian entente while Merkel is chancellor, and no hope for the German opposition to break her grip in the short run.

In public, on January 15, Primakov said: “External changes that would favor Russia should not be expected anytime soon. It is doubtful that the sanctions will be cancelled in the near future. Betting on some politicians and European businessmen who speak against the sanctions is not realistic.” Primakov omitted the adjective German out of politeness. He and the Russian intelligence services regard Merkel as Washington’s patsy.

Two days after Merkel’s trip to Moscow, on May 12, Kerry met with Putin and Lavrov in Sochi. The Kremlin communique was minimal, acknowledging that “special focus” had been given to the Ukraine conflict. “The Russian side gave its assessments of the reasons behind the Ukrainian crisis, stating the key points of Russia’s position. It was stressed during the meeting that Russia strives to implement the Minsk Agreements in full and will do its utmost to support this process.”

By “reasons behind”, Putin and Lavrov meant Nuland and the Washington war party. Ahead of the Sochi meeting, the State Department spokesman had tried to play up Kerry, and downplay Nuland. “You can’t deal with diplomatic issues if you don’t do diplomacy,” the spokesman declared on May 11. On May 13, the spokesman was asked if “United States is ready to put pressure on Ukraine to fully implement Minsk II agreements”, and ducked the question.

On the next day, by the time Nuland was in Kiev meeting Prime Minister Arseny Yatseniuk and President Petro Poroshenko, the spokesman claimed the “United States’ full and unbreakable support for Ukraine’s government, sovereignty, and territorial integrity. We continue to stand shoulder to shoulder with the people of Ukraine and reiterate our deep commitment to a single Ukrainian nation, including Crimea, and all the other regions of Ukraine.”

Whatever devil can be read in these details, US Government statements indicate something new — there are now only two pairs of shoulders, Merkel’s having been shouldered aside. If there’s to be a settlement of the Ukraine conflict, it will be trilateral, according to the US, one between the US, Russia, and Ukraine. From the Russian point of view, it’s plain this means a deal between Russia and the US, with Nuland to keep the Ukrainian government in line.

Nuland has insisted that she was right beside Kerry in his meetings in Sochi. The press photographs have excluded her. The Kremlin, Lavrov and Kerry have spoken as if Nuland wasn’t there.

In Sochi Kerry also went to the trouble of showing Merkel how to behave in front of a memorial to the Russian dead in the war against Germany.

According to Kerry, “the war memorial here in Sochi [is] where more than 4,000 of the millions of courageous then-Soviets who died in World War II are buried. And it’s a very beautiful memorial and I was very moved by the young children who were there taking part in the ceremony. And I think Sergey and I both came away from this ceremony with a very powerful reminder of the sacrifices that we shared to bring about a safer world, and of what our nations can accomplish when our peoples are working together towards the same goal.”

Kerry also gave the regime in Kiev a warning of what not to interpret from anything Nuland may be saying. “If… President Poroshenko is advocating an engagement in a forceful effort at this time,” Kerry said in Sochi, “we would strongly urge him to think twice not to engage in that kind of activity, that that would put Minsk in serious jeopardy. And we would be very, very concerned about what the consequences of that kind of action at this time may be.”

http://www.state.gov/secretary/remarks/2015/05/242214.htm

Now that Nuland has been excluded from the decision-making of the big boys, her job was to go to Kiev to tell the smaller boys what the new US line is. Yatseniuk’s version of their talks – minus the customary photo opportunity – was that “the key topics of the talks were questions of overcoming Russian aggression and the implementation of the Minsk agreements, the implementation of economic reforms and the fight against corruption, as well as the assistance from the United States in these processes. Yatsenyuk and Nuland discussed the status of implementation of the program of cooperation with the International Monetary Fund, as well as the preparation for a free trade zone between Ukraine and the European Union from January 1, 2016.”

Poroshenko stuck to pledging allegiance: “coordination of our actions with the U.S. is vitally important,” is the only quote the presidential website posted from the meeting. Photo opportunities were also curtailed.

Nuland’s version, according to the US Embassy transcript, was to emphasize just how “eager [we are] to deepen our involvement in helping the parties achieve full implementation—everything from complete ceasefire and pullback on the line of control, to the political pieces, to the border pieces.” By “political pieces” Nuland meant the constitutional changes for eastern Ukraine Putin insists on and Kerry mentioned, while Nuland bit her tongue.

Nuland has also ignored Yatseniuk’s requests for more money because Washington will neither declare it’s in favour of a Ukrainian default on its US-held sovereign bonds at the end of this month, nor provide any money to stop it.

Instead, the US Treasury rolled out its former Secretary, Lawrence Summers, to announce that the International Monetary Fund (IMF) “has done as much as can reasonably be asked”. Summers, on the receiving end of Ukrainian oligarch Victor Pinchuk’s treasury (right), is this week omitting to call for fresh European Union money or contributions from the Ukrainian oligarchs.

Summers says he is also opposed to an offer of new American taxpayer money. Instead, his US Treasury plan is that “Ukraine’s creditors — led by the investment firm Franklin Templeton, but also with the support of a number of major US fund managers, who are sufficiently embarrassed by their selfish and unconstructive position that they avoid public identification — are playing hardball and refusing any write-offs. Understandably, if there are a substantial group of such free riders, other debt holders including the Russians will not accept writedowns… The IMF and national authorities should call out the recalcitrant creditors on their irresponsible behaviour.”

In Kiev Nuland put Merkel in her place, relegating her and the French to a single mention in last place in the process to decide the outcome of the Ukraine settlement. The US, she said in Kiev, is “in lockstep with our European allies and partners”. Lockstep means chain-gang — Germany must follow where the US leads. The Merkel Kaput! has been followed by the Merkel kibosh!

Dictionary note: Kaput started in French, when it meant losing in cards, and passed into English via the German kaputt during World War 1. Kibosh, disposed of in English, is derived from the Irish caidhp bháis, meaning death cap — the hood put on someone before execution, or the black cap worn by English judges when pronouncing the death sentence.

 

John Helmer, the longest continuously serving foreign correspondent in Russia, and the only western journalist to direct his own bureau independent of single national or commercial ties. Helmer has also been a professor of political science, and an advisor to government heads in Greece, the United States, and Asia. He is the first and only member of a US presidential administration (Jimmy Carter) to establish himself in Russia. Originally published at Dances with Bears

John Helmer: How Angela Merkel Has Been Abandoned By John Kerry, Victoria Nuland, And Vladimir Putin

 

Turkish National Intelligence Organsation caught sending weapons to Syrian terrorists; government stops investigation and jails prosecutors

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Posted on Global Research, May 21, 2015
From Middle East Eye

Turkey Arrests Soldiers over Interception of Syria-bound Weapons to Terrorists

Dozens of military and security personnel have been arrested by Turkish authorities in ongoing investigation of Syrian weapons shipments

Turkish police have detained eight serving members of the army in the latest wave of arrests in a hugely controversial case over the interception last year of an alleged consignment of arms bound for Syria, reports said on Saturday.

Arrest warrants were issued for 10 soldiers, eight of whom had been detained by Friday night, the official Anatolia news agency reported.

They have been accused of membership of a terrorist group, impeding the work of the government and espionage, it said. They should now appear in court to decide whether to remand them in custody ahead of trial.

Authenticated documents circulated on the internet claimed that the trucks, which were seized last year in January 2014, were Turkish National Intelligence Organisation (MIT) vehicles delivering weapons to Syrian opposition groups fighting President Bashar al-Assad.

The documents reported that the trucks were transporting missiles, mortars and anti-aircraft ammunition. The Gendarmerie General Command, which authored the reports, alleged, “The trucks were carrying weapons and supplies to the al-Qaeda terror organisation.”

Turkey has vehemently denied aiding hardline rebels in Syria, such as the Islamic State group, although it wants to see Assad toppled.

MIT trucks ‘not anyone’s concern’

Earlier this month, Turkey arrested four prosecutors who had ordered the search of the trucks and they are now in prison ahead of trial.

Huseyin Celik, the deputy chairman of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s AKP ruling party, issued a statement that reprimanded the prosecutors for their investigation.

“This is a truck of the MIT. What is inside it doesn’t concern anyone,” Celik said. “Who are these prosecutors working for? Stopping MIT trucks means not knowing your limits. The prosecutors who make such mistakes will be held accountable.”

Another 19 soldiers were also placed under arrest pending trial in April, Anatolia said.

Meanwhile, 17 police were arrested as part of the investigation in February and another 11 police back in July 2014.

Anatolia said that a total of 47 people were being held in the investigation, not including the latest arrests.

The Turkish authorities have sought to link the affair to US-based preacher Fethullah Gulen who President Recep Tayyip Erdogan accuses of running a parallel state through supporters in the judiciary and police with the aim of usurping him.

Supporters of Gulen, who have been hit by a wave of arrests in the past months, reject the allegations.

The controversy erupted on 19 January 2014, when Turkish forces stopped trucks bound for Syria suspected to have been loaded with weapons. But they found MIT personnel on board.

Foreign rights groups have expressed concern in recent months over the broad judicial campaign against groups in Turkish society deemed to be Gulen supporters.

Weapons intercepted

The government imposed a full-blown media blackout, including on social networks, and the investigation is being carried out in the utmost secrecy.

This isn’t the first time that Turkish authorities have seized large caches of weapons they believe to be destined for Syrian militants.

In March 2013, more than 5,000 guns were discovered in a warehouse during a raid in a village near the Turkish border town of Akcakale.

A couple of weeks before this case, another truck loaded with weapons was intercepted in the southern province of Hatay, heading towards the Syrian border.

The Turkish government initially said the truck was carrying humanitarian aid for beleaguered Turkmens stuck in besieged cities in northern Syria as fighting escalated between radical opposition groups and Kurdish forces.

Turkey and Syria share a 900 kilometre border, and over 1.6 million Syrian refugees crossed over to the Turkish side.

http://www.middleeasteye.net/news/turkey-detains-soldiers-over-seizure-syria-bound-arms-case-470827495

http://www.globalresearch.ca/turkey-arrests-soldiers-over-interception-of-syria-bound-weapons-to-terrorists/5450969

Secretary of State John Kerry v. his subordinate Victoria Nuland, regarding Ukraine

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by Eric Zuesse
Posted on Washington’s Blog, May 21, 2015

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, on May 12th, responding to Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko’s assertions that Ukraine will retake Crimea and will conquer Donbass:

“I have not had a chance – I have not read the speech. I haven’t seen any context. I have simply heard about it in the course of today. But if indeed President Poroshenko is advocating an engagement in a forceful effort at this time, we would strongly urge him to think twice not to engage in that kind of activity, that that would put Minsk in serious jeopardy. And we would be very, very concerned about what the consequences of that kind of action at this time may be.”

U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for European & Eurasian Affairs, Victoria Nuland, as communicated by the U.S. State Department’s Press Office on May 15th, reiterating Poroshenko’s view:

“Assistant Secretary Nuland’s ongoing visit to Kyiv and her discussions with Prime Minister [Arseniy] Yatseniuk and President [Petro] Poroshenko reaffirm the United States’ full and unbreakable support for Ukraine’s government, sovereignty, and territorial integrity. We continue to stand shoulder to shoulder with the people of Ukraine and reiterate our deep commitment to a single Ukrainian nation, including Crimea, and all the other regions of Ukraine.”

Will John Kerry reprimand his subordinate for her contradicting what he, her boss, had said three days earlier? If not, then will President Barack Obama fire his Secretary of State John Kerry? If not, then will Victoria Nuland be fired? If not, then who is to trust anything that comes from the U.S. State Department, when the Secretary of State can be contradicted three days later by his subordinate, and both remain in their respective jobs?

Republicans are already preparing to weaken Kerry over this. The far-right news-site “Frontpage Mag” headlined on May 21st, “John Kerry’s Seven Hours of Weakness in Russia,” and condemned the “attempt by Kerry to re-set the ‘re-set’ button [on U.S. policy toward Russia] first pushed by his predecessor, Hillary Clinton.” The special subject of their ire: “The promise of ‘rolling back’ the mild sanctions regime the West imposed on Russia on account of Putin’s annexation of Crimea and support of separatist rebels was bandied about, if only Russia would behave in the future.” But winning changes in behavior is what international diplomacy is supposed to be all about — otherwise the State Department wouldn’t even be needed, and only the Pentagon would handle America’s foreign relations.

If Victoria Nuland stays in her job, then John Kerry will be neutered even if he’s not fired.

The only person with the power to fire Nuland is actually U.S. President Barack Obama. Perhaps the request for him to do that is already on his desk. If it’s not, then Kerry’s job is in jeopardy, because his diplomatic efforts can be obliterated by a subordinate and that subordinate will suffer no penalty for doing this. Nobody then would respect anything that the U.S. Secretary of State says, because it would necessarily represent the President’s policies. If the Secretary of State isn’t backed up by the President, then the Secretary of State has no real power at all.

———-

Investigative historian Eric Zuesse is the author, most recently, of  They’re Not Even Close: The Democratic vs. Republican Economic Records, 1910-2010, and of  CHRIST’S VENTRILOQUISTS: The Event that Created Christianity, and of  Feudalism, Fascism, Libertarianism and Economics

http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2015/05/secretary-of-state-john-kerry-v-his-subordinate-victoria-nuland-regarding-ukraine.html

 

State Dept. briefing May 15 via Nuland contradicts Kerry

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From the US State Department
http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/dpb/2015/05/242432.htm

Daily Press Briefing – May 15, 2015 – US Department of State

TRANSCRIPT:

excerpt

…Second item, Ukraine. As the Secretary said at the NATO ministerial meeting in Antalya, Turkey, earlier this week, this is a critical moment for action by Russia and the separatists to live up to the Minsk agreements. Ukraine’s leaders continue to implement their Minsk commitments, just as they have answered the call of the Ukrainian people on the Maidan by delivering the largest reforms since Ukraine’s independence in less than a year, and they aren’t stopping. Assistant Secretary Nuland’s ongoing visit to Kyiv and her discussions with Prime Minister Yatsenyuk and President Poroshenko reaffirm the United States’ full and unbreakable support for Ukraine’s government, sovereignty, and territorial integrity. We continue to stand shoulder to shoulder with the people of Ukraine and reiterate our deep commitment to a single Ukrainian nation, including Crimea, and all the other regions of Ukraine.

…

QUESTION: In your opening statement you mentioned what you called a critical moment. Considering that there are ongoing concerns about Russia’s engagement in Ukraine, has there been any movement in the U.S. position to consider selling defensive lethal weapons to Ukraine? And if not, is there a point in which the U.S. would consider such sales?

MR RATHKE: Well, our focus from the outset of the crisis has been on supporting Ukraine and on pursuing a diplomatic solution that respects Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. We constantly assess our policies on Ukraine to ensure that they are calibrated to achieve our objectives. I’m not going to go into the details of internal policy discussions, but we continue to assess how best to asses Ukraine. I don’t have an announcement to make now, but we continue to assess that.

QUESTION: So are you saying the door is possibly open or —

MR RATHKE: I’d just say we continue to assess that, that we are constantly looking at our policies on Ukraine. But I don’t have an announcement to make.

MR RATHKE: I’m sorry. Any other questions on Ukraine?

I would – if I could take the opportunity, I would also just want to go back to what I said at the top, and just to review what has happened this week with regard to Ukraine. Secretary Kerry was in Sochi at the start of the week, where the Secretary was clear with Russia – President Putin, Foreign Minister Lavrov – about Ukraine and about the consequences for failing to uphold the Minsk commitments. Right after that discussion, he called President Poroshenko to update him and to reaffirm our support for Ukraine. He went from there immediately to the meeting of NATO foreign ministers in Antalya, where he briefed them and also underscored the United States’ commitment when he met with Foreign Minister Klimkin in Antalya. Assistant Secretary Nuland is in Kyiv right now, and the message of all of these engagements is that we stand for the implementation of Minsk. We stand in support of the Ukrainian Government, President Poroshenko, Prime Minister Yatsenyuk, and the Ukrainian people. And I wanted just to make sure that I took that opportunity.

…

[on the topic of Okinawa’s opposition to continued US military presence there]

QUESTION: Okay. Today is the 43rd anniversary of the Okinawa’s reversion to Japan and sovereignty from the United States occupies, but still Okinawa have been hosting the large – the U.S. military facility since the World War II. And Okinawa governor Onaga and is strongly opposite to constructing the new U.S. military base in Henako. And also this Sunday, major rally against the base construction will be held in Okinawa, and they expected even to draw up at least 30,000 participants. So how do you think about that Okinawa situation?

MR RATHKE: Well, this is an issue on which we’re working with the Japanese Government. We are committed to the – to moving to the replacement facility. We’re working with the Japanese Government to that end. The Japanese Government as well is committed to it. They can speak to those details for themselves. So I don’t have an update to offer except to say that our commitment to Japan remains. It was underscored yet again during Prime Minister Abe’s visit and during the 2+2 meeting that happened during that same week. And so our commitment and our policy remains the same.

US State Dept. chief Kerry strongly warns Poroshenko about attempting to retake Donbass and Crimea: “Think twice”

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By Eric Zuesse
Posted on Global Research, May 19, 2015

On Tuesday, May 12th, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry was asked at a press conference in Sochi Russia, to respond to Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko’s recent statements promising renewed war against Donbass, which were made first on April 30th, “The war will end when Ukraine regains Donbass and Crimea,” and which were repeated on May 11th, by his saying, “I have no doubt, we will free the [Donetsk] Airport, because it is our land.” In other words, Poroshenko had repeatedly made clear that he plans a third invasion of Donbass, and, ultimately, also to invade and retake Crimea. (The Western press, however, had not reported any of these threats that were being made by Poroshenko.)

Kerry responded:

“ I have not had a chance – I have not read the speech. I haven’t seen any context. I have simply heard about it in the course of today [which would be shocking if true]. But if indeed President Poroshenko is advocating an engagement in a forceful effort at this time, we would strongly urge him to think twice not to engage in that kind of activity, that that would put Minsk in serious jeopardy. And we would be very, very concerned about what the consequences of that kind of action at this time may be.”

For the rest of the article:

http://www.globalresearch.ca/obama-gave-up-on-ukraine-towards-a-plan-b-for-ukraine/5450396
Obama Gave Up on Ukraine? Towards a Plan B for Ukraine?

Link to press conference:
http://www.state.gov/secretary/remarks/2015/05/242214.htm