Trump's Straight Talk Angers US Establishment

[Riaz Haq]

President Donald Trump has made a habit of telling truths that drive the United States establishment crazy. For example, he told Russian officials in a White House meeting in 2017 that he was not concerned about Russian interference in 2016 US elections because the United States did the same in other countries' elections, according to media reports. In a 2017 Super Bowl Sunday interview with Trump, Fox News anchor Bill O'Reilly authoritatively declared Russian President Vladimir “Putin’s a killer.” Trump replied with the question: “What, you think our country’s so innocent?”

Trump did something similar in 2018 after his Singapore Summit meeting with North Korean leader Kim JongUn. When Fox News' Brett Baier raised the question in an interview about "Kim's oppression of his own people", Trump said: “Yeah, but so have a lot of other people have done some really bad things.” Trump's straight talk continues to inflame passions in the US establishment.

American Narrative:

Both O'Reilly and Baier were essentially repeating the standard American narrative that wants the world to believe that "we (Americans) are the good guys and those opposing America are the bad guys".

Trump, an unconventional American leader, displayed rare candor in his responses.  The American  media and "research scholars", managed by the "Deep State", sharply criticized Trump and continued to parrot the standard American narrative asserting that "we're the good guys" while vilifying Vladimir Putin, Kim JongUn and other leaders and countries designated as "enemies".

Young and Barbaric:

Trump appears ready to drop all pretenses of US being "the good guys" standing for "freedom, democracy and human rights".  He is not alone in his assertion that "our country (United States) is not so innocent".  George Friedman, the founder of  Stratfor which describes itself as "American geopolitical intelligence platform", is the ultimate "Deep State" insider in America.  Friedman acknowledges that "America, like Europe in sixteenth century, is still barbaric, a description, not a moral judgment. Its culture is unformed. Its will is powerful. Its emotions drive it in different and contradictory directions."

Friedman argues that "perhaps more than for any other country, the US grand strategy is about war, and the interaction between war and economic life. The United States is historically a warlike country. The nation has been directly or indirectly at war for most of of its existence...the war of 1812, the Mexican-American War, the Civil War, the Spanish-American War, World Wars I and II, the Korean War, Vietnam War and Desert Storm. And the US has been constantly at war in Afghanistan and Iraq since the beginning of this century."

More recently, the United States' interventions in the Middle East have destabilized and devastated Libya and Syria and created a major humanitarian crisis. Tens of thousands have died and millions rendered homeless and trying to flee hunger and violence.

Narrative Promotion:

 

So how does America create and promote its "good guys" narrative in the world and demonize others? How do American image builders gloss over its past characterized by the genocide of the indigenous people, the enslavement of Africans and a history of assassinations, invasions, atrocities, proxy wars, and coups in the developing world? How do their actions escape the "terrorism" label that is liberally applied to others, particularly Muslims?  What modern image-making and promotional tools and techniques has Uncle Sam borrowed from the world of brand creation, promotion and management?

The first thing in creating a narrative is the basic story supported by effective language and vocabulary. It is fleshed out by writers, poets, musicians and artists.  The basic American narrative  goes like this:  America stands for freedom, democracy and human rights. It is a force for all that is good in the world. Those who oppose America are the "bad guys".

The narrative is then widely disseminated, promoted and incessantly repeated by Washington think tanks, book authors, major newspaper reporters and editors,  mainstream journalists, television channels and popular entertainment platforms.

Talking points are developed and shared to defend against any criticisms. Inconvenient truths are obfuscated.  Those who accept the talking points are rewarded and those who persist in criticisms are isolated and punished. Rewards come in the form of funding and access. Punishments are handed out by orchestrating attacks by peers and by denying funds and access.

Controlling the Narrative:

The United States government funds think tanks, hires consultants and directly and indirectly influences mass media and popular entertainment platforms to control and promote its "good guys" narrative and to vilify those seen as competitors.

1. Think Tanks:  Woodrow Wilson Center, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, US Institute of Peace (USIP), Rand Corporation and a several others are partially or fully funded by the US government. These are supplemented by dozens of other think tanks funded by major US corporations which have a stake in promoting a positive global image of the United States. These organizations organize conferences, publish books and "research papers" and offer scholarships to promote the American "good guys" narrative globally.  They have both resident and non-resident "scholars", including some from developing countries like Pakistan. Some of the Pakistani "scholars" working for Washington think tanks also work for major media houses in Pakistan. These "scholars" are widely quoted by the media on issues relating to US-Pakistan relations.

2. News Media:  Veteran American journalist Carl Bernstein, famous for his reporting on Watergate along with Bob Woodward, investigated CIA's use of the American media and wrote a piece describing "How Americas Most Powerful News Media Worked Hand in Glove with the Central Intelligence Agency and Why the Church Committee Covered It Up". Here's what he said:

"Among the executives who lent their cooperation to the Agency were William Paley of the Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS), Henry Luce of Time Inc., Arthur Hays Sulzberger of the New York Times, Barry Bingham Sr. of the Louisville Courier‑Journal, and James Copley of the Copley News Service. Other organizations which cooperated with the CIA include the American Broadcasting Company (ABC), the National Broadcasting Company (NBC), the Associated Press (AP),  United Press International (UPI), Reuters, Hearst Newspapers, Scripps‑Howard, Newsweek magazine, the Mutual Broadcasting System, the Miami Herald and the old Saturday Evening Post and New York Herald‑Tribune".

3. Popular Entertainment:  It has been suggested that Hollywood has been working with the United States government for a long time.  Some have said that Hollywood is "the unofficial ministry of propaganda for the Pentagon".  Information obtained under FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) confirms that thousands of Hollywood films have received backing from the CIA and the US Department of Defense and other US agencies to promote America's "good guy" narrative. These include 24, Army Wives, Flight 93, Homeland,  Ice Road Truckers, NCIS,  Transformers, Iron Man, Terminator, etc.

Documents obtained recently under FOIA show that the relationship between the US national security establishment and American entertainment businesses is much deeper and more political than ever acknowledged.

4. Books and Literature:  Starting with the Cold War, the American CIA has infiltrated and influenced books and literature to promote the American official "good guys" narrative. "Finks: How the CIA Tricked the World's Best Writers" by Joel Whitney reveals how great writers such as Baldwin, Márquez, and Hemingway were recruited as soldiers in Cold War.

Editors of top literary magazines were used as a vehicle for this infiltration.  The first time the CIA's connections to the Paris Review and two dozen other magazines came to light was in 1966. The CIA used multiple guises to financially support young, promising writers as part of a cultural propaganda strategy with literary outposts around the world.

Summary:

The United States government has developed and aggressively controls and promotes America's standard narrative that claims "we are the good guys and those opposing us are the bad guys".  This narrative glosses over the history of native American genocide, enslavement of Africans and the CIA sponsored assassinations, coups and proxy wars in the developing world. In a couple of recent interviews, US President Donald Trump has acknowledged the problems with the American narrative. Nevertheless, the American narrative is promoted using a multi-pronged strategy that includes the use of think tanks, popular entertainment, books and literature and the mainstream media.

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[Riaz Haq]

Watch Professor Jeffrey Sachs describe the US as “the most violent country in the world” and then get shockingly shut down at the Athens Democracy Forum.


https://johnmenadue.com/extraordinary-intervention-by-jeffrey-sachs...

Sach’s argues that what matters is a country’s unique governance culture: classifying countries in political systems (“liberal democracy or not”) is oversimplifying.

He doesn’t hold back when describing the US governance culture: “A semi-democratic white-dominated hierarchical racist society that aims to preserve privilege by the elites [and founded as] a slave-owning genocidal country”. Ouch!

That’s why he argues that “the biggest mistake of president Biden was to say ‘the greatest struggle of the world is between democracies and autocracies’.”

He adds: “The real struggle of the world is to live together and overcome our common crises” under thunderous applause.


He says “the solution in [this world] is to speak with each other more […] Our political elites in the US do not speak with Chinese political elites except to point fingers or to yell at them. […] If we would seat down to speak with each other, we’d actually get somewhere.”

Last but not least, he destroys the myth that “democracies” are more peaceful: “the most violent country in the world in the 19th century was the most democratic, Britain. The most violent country in the world since 1950 is the US”.


And he gets shockingly shut down by the host.

Here is the full video from the Athens Democracy Forum. (Use the toggle on the red line to skip to Jeffrey Sachs, who starts at 15 minutes).

[Riaz Haq]

The Xinjiang Genocide Allegations Are Unjustified
US President Joe Biden's administration has doubled down on the claim that China is mounting a genocide against the Uighur people in the Xinjiang region. But it has offered no proof, and unless it can, the State Department should withdraw the charge and support a UN-based investigation of the situation in Xinjiang.

Jeffrey D. Sachs

https://www.jeffsachs.org/newspaper-articles/apfjc5yg352d554k2ar2ww...


NEW YORK/LONDON – The US government needlessly escalated its rhetoric against China by claiming that a genocide is being mounted against the Uighur people in the Xinjiang region. Such a grave charge matters, as genocide is rightly considered “the crime of crimes.” Many pundits are now calling for a boycott of the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing, dubbing them the “Genocide Olympics.”

The genocide charge was made on the final day of Donald Trump’s administration by then-Secretary of State Michael Pompeo, who made no secret of his belief in lying as a tool of US foreign policy. Now President Joe Biden’s administration has doubled down on Pompeo’s flimsy claim, even though the State Department’s own top lawyers reportedly share our skepticism regarding the charge.

This year’s State Department Country Reports on Human Rights Practices(HRP) follows Pompeo in accusing China of genocide in Xinjiang. Because the HRP never uses the term other than once in the report’s preface and again in the executive summary of the China chapter, readers are left to guess about the evidence. Much of the report deals with issues like freedom of expression, refugee protection, and free elections, which have scant bearing on the genocide charge.

There are credible charges of human rights abuses against Uighurs, but those do not per se constitute genocide. And we must understand the context of the Chinese crackdown in Xinjiang, which had essentially the same motivation as America’s foray into the Middle East and Central Asia after the September 2001 attacks: to stop the terrorism of militant Islamic groups.

As the Hong Kong-based businessman and writer Weijian Shan has recounted, China experienced repeated terrorist attacks in Xinjiang during the same years that America’s flawed response to 9/11 led to repeated US violations of international law and massive bloodshed. Indeed, until late 2020, the US classified the Uighur East Turkestan Islamic Movement as a terrorist group, battled Uighur fighters in Afghanistan, and held many as prisoners. In July 2020, the United Nations noted the presence of thousands of Uighur fighters in Afghanistan and Syria.

The charge of genocide should never be made lightly. Inappropriate use of the term may escalate geopolitical and military tensions and devalue the historical memory of genocides such as the Holocaust, thereby hindering the ability to prevent future genocides. It behooves the US government to make any charge of genocide responsibly, which it has failed to do here.

Genocide is defined under international law by the UN Genocide Convention (1948). Subsequent judicial decisions have clarified its meaning. Most countries, including the United States, have incorporated the Convention’s definition into their domestic legislation without any significant alteration. In the past few decades, the leading UN courts have confirmed that the definition requires proof to a very high standard of the intentional physical destruction of a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group.

[Riaz Haq]

#Fifa President Gianni Infantino:"I am European. For what we have been doing for 3,000 years around the world, we should be apologizing for the next 3,000 years before giving moral lessons" #soccer #football #Colonialism #slavery #Qatar #alcoholban https://www.npr.org/2022/11/19/1137962269/fifa-president-gianni-inf...

DOHA, Qatar — FIFA president Gianni Infantino used his opening press conference before the start of the monthlong World Cup to deliver a blistering tirade at the West for continued criticism of host country Qatar and its human rights record.

For an hour, Infantino lectured the international press assembled at the Qatar National Convention Centre and then took questions for 45 minutes. In lengthy, and at times angry remarks, Infantino blasted the criticism of Qatar and FIFA.

"I am European. For what we have been doing for 3,000 years around the world, we should be apologizing for the next 3,000 years before giving moral lessons," he said.

He furthered the defense by saying, "Today I feel Qatari. Today I feel Arab. Today I feel African. Today I feel gay. Today I feel disabled. Today I feel a migrant worker."

Infantino said he has difficulties understanding the criticism and called it hypocrisy. "We have to invest in helping these people, in education and to give them a better future and more hope. We should all educate ourselves, many things are not perfect, but reform and change takes time."

Since FIFA chose Qatar to stage this tournament in 2010, soccer's governing body and the host country have endured withering criticism. It's the first time a Middle Eastern country has hosted a World Cup. A report released this month from the London-based rights group Equidem said the migrant laborers who built the World Cup stadiums worked long hours and under harsh conditions. The report said they were subjected to discrimination, wage theft and other abuses.

Infantino's news conference comes a day after FIFA and Qatar announced that the sale of beer would be banned at the eight stadiums. FIFA said the decision would ensure "the stadiums and surrounding areas provide an enjoyable, respectful and pleasant experience for all fans."

The sale of alcohol is strictly controlled in Qatar, which follows a conservative form of Islam known as Wahhabism. Public consumption of alcohol is only allowed in certain hotels and restaurants.

Infantino said he has been assured by the government in Qatar that LGBTQ fans are welcome in the country. Same-sex relations are illegal and punishable by jail time.

The 64-game tournament kicks off Sunday with host Qatar taking on Ecuador. More than a million fans will travel to the country. Infantino said it would be the best World Cup ever.

[Riaz Haq]

Columbia Economics Professor Jeffrey Sachs: “You Can Be Democratic at Home and Ruthlessly Imperial Abroad.” - YouTube

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mPvDrcwmmOU

Sachs said, "The most violent country in the world in the 19th century was the most democratic, or perhaps the 2nd most democratic, was Britain. You can be democratic at home and ruthlessly imperial abroad. The most violent country since 1950 has been the the United States. It's been by far involved in more wars...". That's where he was interrupted by the moderator who said, "Stop. I'm your moderator and it's enough".

[Riaz Haq]

Jeffrey Sachs: “Dangerous” U.S. Policy & “West’s False Narrative” Stoking Tensions with Russia, China

https://www.democracynow.org/2022/8/30/wests_false_narrative_china_...


We discuss Western hegemony and U.S. policy in Russia, Ukraine and China with Columbia University economist Jeffrey Sachs, whose new article is headlined “The West’s False Narrative About Russia and China.” Sachs says the bipartisan U.S. approach to foreign policy is “unaccountably dangerous and wrongheaded,” and warns the U.S. is creating “a recipe for yet another war” in East Asia.

https://www.jeffsachs.org/newspaper-articles/h29g9k7l7fymxp39yhzwxc...

AMY GOODMAN: What is the story that people in the West and around the world should understand about what’s happening right now with these conflicts, with Russia, with Russia and Ukraine, and with China?

JEFFREY SACHS: The main point, Amy, is that we are not using diplomacy; we are using weaponry. This sale now announced to Taiwan that you’ve been discussing this morning is just another case in point. This does not make Taiwan safer. This does not make the world safer. It certainly doesn’t make the United States safer.

This goes back a long way. I think it’s useful to start 30 years ago. The Soviet Union ended, and some American leaders got it into their head that there was now what they called the unipolar world, that the U.S. was the sole superpower, and we could run the show. The results have been disastrous. We have had now three decades of militarization of American foreign policy. A new database that Tufts is maintaining has just shown that there have been more than 100 military interventions by the United States since 1991. It’s really unbelievable.

And I have seen, in my own experience over the last 30 years working extensively in Russia, in Central Europe, in China and in other parts of the world, how the U.S. approach is a military-first, and often a military-only, approach. We arm who we want. We call for NATO enlargement, no matter what other countries say may be harmful to their security interests. We brush aside anyone else’s security interests. And when they complain, we ship more armaments to our allies in that region. We go to war when we want, where we want, whether it was Afghanistan or Iraq or the covert war against Assad in Syria, which is even today not properly understood by the American people, or the war in Libya. And we say, “We’re peace-loving. What’s wrong with Russia and China? They are so warlike. They’re out to undermine the world.” And we end up in terrible confrontations.

The war in Ukraine — just to finish the introductory view — could have been avoided and should have been avoided through diplomacy. What President Putin of Russia was saying for years was “Do not expand NATO into the Black Sea, not to Ukraine, much less to Georgia,” which if people look on the map, straight across to the eastern edge of the Black Sea. Russia said, “This will surround us. This will jeopardize our security. Let us have diplomacy.” The United States rejected all diplomacy. I tried to contact the White House at the end of 2021 — in fact, I did contact the White House and said there will be war unless the U.S. enters diplomatic talks with President Putin over this question of NATO enlargement. I was told the U.S. will never do that. That is off the table. And it was off the table. Now we have a war that’s extraordinarily dangerous.

And we are taking exactly the same tactics in East Asia that led to the war in Ukraine. We’re organizing alliances, building up weaponry, trash-talking China, having Speaker Pelosi fly to Taiwan, when the Chinese government said, “Please, lower the temperature, lower the tensions.” We say, “No, we do what we want,” and now send more arms. This is a recipe for yet another war. And to my mind, it’s terrifying.

[Riaz Haq]

U.S. Foreign Policy Veteran Says Real Danger Is Here in America - The New York Times


https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/01/us/politics/richard-haass-biden-...


Everywhere he has gone as president of the Council on Foreign Relations, Richard N. Haass has been asked the same question: What keeps him up at night? He has had no shortage of options over the years — Russia, China, Iran, North Korea, climate change, international terrorism, food insecurity, the global pandemic.

But as he steps down after two decades running America’s most storied private organization focused on international affairs, Mr. Haass has come to a disturbing conclusion. The most serious danger to the security of the world right now? The threat that costs him sleep? The United States itself.

“It’s us,” he said ruefully the other day.

That was never a thought this global strategist would have entertained until recently. But in his mind, the unraveling of the American political system means that for the first time in his life the internal threat has surpassed the external threat. Instead of being the most reliable anchor in a volatile world, Mr. Haass said, the United States has become the most profound source of instability and an uncertain exemplar of democracy.

[Riaz Haq]

“The West won the world not by the superiority of its ideas or values or religion […] but rather by its superiority in applying organized violence. Westerners often forget this fact; non-Westerners never do.” Samuel P. Huntington

-------------------

Ah, so you want India to become a superpower – like America?

by Roger Marshall

Read more at: https://www.deccanherald.com/opinion/ah-so-you-want-india-to-become...


In the agricultural sector, most US farms would be out of business but for cheap migrant labour from Central America, mainly Mexico -- the same Mexico whose lands were expropriated but whose people are still being shut out at the border.

———-

There are many Indians, politicians and ordinary citizens alike, who would like to see India become a superpower, much along the lines of the United States. Is this in keeping with the ethos of the Indian character? And to what end? To answer these questions, we need to understand what it is in the American character that enabled the US to grow from a 300,000 square-mile territory comprised of 13 original colonies bordering the Atlantic Ocean to a gigantic country covering some 3.5 million square-miles, extending out to the Pacific Ocean.

Read more at: https://www.deccanherald.com/opinion/ah-so-you-want-india-to-become...

Though the phrase ‘manifest destiny’ was coined in 1845 by Democrat John O’Sullivan, the ideology behind the phrase was operative even back in the 1620s, when the first European settlers, the Puritans from England fleeing religious persecution, set foot in North America. Manifest destiny refers to the divine right to “tame and cultivate” the new country by displacing the “uncivilised,” non-Christian peoples who did not take full advantage of the land God had granted them..

This ideology served to justify the violent displacement of native peoples and military takeover of their lands. When the US purchased the territory of Louisiana (over 800,000 square-miles) from France in 1803, it essentially bought Native American tribal land which France neither owned nor controlled, if only to prevent Spain, Britain and Russia from colonising the area. This area is what is now known as Middle America, populated almost entirely by the ancestors of white immigrants from northern Europe


That race has been a huge factor in America’s attainment of superpower status can be seen by examining legislation pertaining to immigration and trade over the last 200 years. While unrestricted immigration from Western Europe has always been allowed, it has been less so for Southern and Eastern Europeans but definitely not for Asians, unless they were slaves and indentured labourers. Even though it was cheap Chinese labour that built the American railroads in the 1870s, the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 drove most of the Chinese out of America. American labour unions believed that Chinese coolies were responsible for declining wages and lowered standards of living.

Read more at: https://www.deccanherald.com/opinion/ah-so-you-want-india-to-become...

—————

Absent a moral or ethical compass, we suppose that any nation singularly focused on enriching itself can become a superpower. To quote John O’Sullivan, “Yes, more, more, more! . . . till our national destiny is fulfilled and. . the whole boundless continent is ours”.

Read more at: https://www.deccanherald.com/opinion/ah-so-you-want-india-to-become...

[Riaz Haq]

Amsterdam riots: what really happened | Media Watch

https://youtu.be/qQ0MJr6v0bI?si=VUv56E8pPGaIobBu

What really happened in Amsterdam’s soccer riots between supporters of Ajax Amsterdam and Maccabi Tel Aviv? We look at how the truth got lost in the rush to judgement.

————————-


The Mayor of Amsterdam has said she regrets using the word 'pogrom' to describe the attacks on Israeli football fans in the Dutch capital following the match between Maccabi Tel Aviv and AFC Ajax.

https://www.euronews.com/2024/11/19/amsterdam-mayor-says-she-regret...

She also condemned Israel for its swift portrayal of the incident as an attack on Israelis, despite prior behaviour by Maccabi supporters in which they chanted anti-Arab slogans and tore down Palestinian flags.

"We were completely caught off guard by Israel. At 3am, (Israeli) Prime Minister (Benjamin) Netanyahu was already giving a lecture about what happened in Amsterdam, while we were still gathering the facts," she said in Sunday's interview.

The football match violence has rocked the Dutch government, with country's finance secretary announcing her resignation on Friday following comments by Hard-right Dutch political leader Geert Wilders.

Wilders last Wednesday blamed Moroccans for the attacks on Israeli football fans, claiming that "we saw Muslims hunting Jews" and added it was fuelled by "Moroccans who want to destroy Jews." He said those convicted of involvement should be deported if they have dual nationality.

Announcing her resignation, Morocco-born Nora Achahbar of centrist New Social Contract party said that "the polarising manners have had such an impact on me that I could, or would, no longer fulfil my role as state secretary."

"Polarisation in society is dangerous because it undermines the bond between people. Because of that, we start seeing each other as opponent instead of fellow citizens," she said in a statement.

[Riaz Haq]

AIPAC Tracker
@TrackAIPAC
.
@BernieSanders
puts his Senate colleagues on blast: "Nobody is going to take anything you say with a grain of seriousness! You cannot condemn human rights [violations] around the world and then turn a blind eye to what the United States government is now funding in Israel. People will laugh in your face."

https://x.com/TrackAIPAC/status/1861288868932395380

[Riaz Haq]

Arnaud Bertrand
@RnaudBertrand
Quite a sign when Stephen Walt, one of the most renowned scholars of international relations in the world (and Harvard professor), writes an article in Foreign Policy arguing that "Noam Chomsky has been proved right":

https://foreignpolicy.com/2024/11/15/chomsky-foreign-policy-book-re...

Walt agrees with Chomsky that "the claim that U.S. foreign policy is guided by the lofty ideals of democracy, freedom, the rule of law, human rights" is "nonsense".

As he explains, all of US history proves the contrary, from the "genocidal campaign against the indigenous population" the country was founded upon, to the fact it intervened militarily "to thwart democratic processes in many countries, and waged or backed wars that killed millions of people in Indochina, Latin America, and the Middle East."

Walt also agrees with Chomsky that this is enabled by a massive brainwashing campaign on the US population: "government institutions work overtime to 'manufacture consent' by classifying information, prosecuting leakers, lying to the public, and refusing to be held accountable even when things go wrong or malfeasance is exposed. Their efforts are aided by a generally compliant media, which repeats government talking points uncritically and only rarely questions the official narrative."

Walt concludes: "If I were asked whether a student would learn more about U.S. foreign policy by reading [Chomsky's] book or by reading a collection of the essays that current and former U.S. officials occasionally write in journals such as Foreign Affairs or the Atlantic, Chomsky and Robinson would win hands down. I wouldn’t have written that last sentence when I began my career 40 years ago. I’ve been paying attention, however, and my thinking has evolved as the evidence has piled up."

https://x.com/RnaudBertrand/status/1863383555386273996