Interesting Articles: 2024 mid March
Mind the Gap
Published: 2024-02-08
Joe Biden's Parting Gift to America Will be Christian Fascism, Chris Hedges, ScheerPost, 2024-03-17
Hedges compresses observations from more than two decades, expressed in his books including "American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America", "Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle" and "America: The Farewell Tour". Spectacle has fallen from the facade. Left bare is the Democratic party's adoption "instead [of] two self-defeating tactics: lies and fear".
Failed ICJ Case Against Russia Backfires, Paves Way for Genocide Charges Against Ukraine, Kit Klarenberg, ScheerPost, 2024-03-17
Klarenberg examines the details of two ICJ's rulings on cases brought by Ukraine against Russia. For the 2017 case of Russia allegedly running a campaign of terrorism in Donbas, the ICJ summarily rejected most charges. However, the hearings allowed Russia to submit to the court evidence that the plaintiff was guilty of the charges laid. Two days later, on February 2nd, 2024, the ICJ issued "a preliminary judgment in a case where Kiev accused Moscow of exploiting false claims of an ongoing genocide of Russians and Russian speakers in Donbas to justify its invasion". Klarenberg argues that the evidence submitted by the defense (Russia) in these cases to the ICJ could form an effective basis for a potentially successful charge of genocide against Ukraine in the Donbas, thus turning the tables.
One should be very careful attempting to bend a court to a narrative driven, political objective, especially one as senior and serious as the UN's International Court of Justice.
Who Could Have Predicted the U.S. War in Somalia Would Fail? The Pentagon., Nick Turse, The Intercept, 2024-03-07
Nick Turse has obtained access to a FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) requested report commissioned by the DoD (US Department of Defence) into why, its "anti-terrorist" campaign against al Shebaab in Somalia was failing. The 2007 (!) report essentially concludes that, while "if all you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail" the required collection of mechanisms to address the problem which al Shebaab represented went well beyond those of the military. Predictably, the DoD continued to not only fail, but make the problem worse, all the while spending tax-dollars.
Elizabeth Shackelford, a former State Department Foreign Service officer who served in Somalia, responded to being shown the 2007 report with:
Damn, this almost could have been written yesterday.
Turse places the DoD's Horn of Africa adventure against the decades long background of what seems like inept military failure. This has actually been a successful process funding of US arms manufacturers at the expense of US political influence, which in turn has undermined it’s imperial project.
Daring to “Look a Sacred Cow in the Teeth” (with publisher over-title 'William Astore, Cutting the Pentagon Down to Size'), William J. Astore, Tom Dispatch, 2024-03-17
Astore, Lt. Col. USAF retired, not only understands the US military, but also his nation's recent history. From the Congressional record he quotes three senators responding to the sound warnings of the "scholarly junior senator from South Dakota" George McGovern, a decorated WWII B-24 bomber pilot of 35 missions over enemy territory.
Following reminding us of the obvious, that "real national security can neither be measured nor safeguarded solely by military power", he explores the folly in which the US has found itself, through the decades. As for recent events, in response to "consistent presidential and Congressional clamoring now for more military aid to Israel during a genocide in Gaza", he demonstrates that not only does he understand his topic and history but knows well how to wield a pen, with:
So far, U.S. government actions are more consistent with letting starving children in Gaza eat lead instead of bread.
The American Empire in (Ultimate?) Crisis: The Decline and Fall of It All, Alfred McCoy, ScheerPost, 2024-03-12
Prof. McCoy is of the Mackinderian school of land vs. sea based imperial analysis, as is this author. His Ph.D thesis was on the US drug trade in SE Asia during the American war in Vietnam.
I advise consideration when reading the above, excellent essay. One suspects that McCoy has been conditioned to adopt a now somewhat jaded framing in his observant recounting of historical events.
Nonetheless, the analysis is keen. His selection of events is revealing. The themes of empire which he follows are germane to his exploration of the decline which he titled and documents.
Ray McGovern: CIA and German Propaganda, Napolitano interviews McGovern, Judging Freedom, 2024-03-19
Ray McGovern bemoans the loss of use of the "National Intelligence Estimate" and their replacements by annual "National Security Assessments". He aptly labels these as 'budgetary intelligence', extending the concept of 'fitting the intelligence to the policy'.
The lead US intelligence agencies participate in political narrative creation, and trade in innuendo and political blackmail to further those political pursuits. This is yet another example of a military agency refusing political oversight, not by sidelining it, but usurping it.
If there are fundamental signs of a failing empire, this must surely be among them. A secretive elite ignores the health of its society, which created and sustained its wealth, to squander it for their own short sighted and short term advantage. Their myopia has morphed into an empire-staggering blindness.
America REACTS to "Rich Men North Of Richmond" by Oliver Anthony, Matt Orfalea, 2023-08-16
Noting Orfalea's video editing skill, the video speaks for itself both in song and response.
War Is A Racket, Major General Smedley Butler, Archive[.org], 1935
Its all big club, and you aint in it.
The link is to the text of the speech/pamphlet by the US’ most decorated Marine. If you’d like to know more about this man whose portrait should hang in the oval office …
FLASHBACK: Meet Smedley Butler (2010), James Corbett, The Corbett Report, 2022-10--30 (an update to the 2010, Episode 123 of The Corbett Report)
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Sources
In situ.
Culture
Amy Winehouse - Rehab, her channel, uploaded 2009-12-23
Copyleft: CC0
