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China and Russia Prioritize Korean Peninsula Denuclearization, Peace and Stability
Stephen Lendman
During Friday’s Security Council session on North Korea, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi expressed views far different from his US counterpart.
He stressed peace and stability through outreach, diplomacy and dialogue toward the goal of a denuclearized Korean peninsula.
Tillerson threatened war if Pyongyang fails to obey US diktats, upping the stakes for conflict over efforts to avoid it.
“We must stay committed to the goal of denuclearization,” said Wang. “It’s the basic precondition for long-term peace and stability on the peninsula, and what we must accomplish to safeguard the international nuclear non-proliferation regime.”
Fake News About Russia Sending Weapons to Taliban
Stephen Lendman
It would be fitting justice if the report was true.
Taliban roots go back to CIA-recruited, armed and supported Mujahideen fighters against Afghanistan’s Soviet occupiers in the 1980s.
Ronald Reagan called them “the moral equivalent of our founding fathers.” Today, they’re one of America’s mortal enemies.
Yesterday’s Mujahideen are now Taliban fighters, combating illegal US war and occupation of their country.
America’s longest war continues endlessly. According to the neocon/CIA-connected Washington Post, instead of ending what can’t be won, hundreds of US marines were deployed to Afghanistan’s Helmand province.
Shift in Trump Policy on North Korea
Stephen Lendman
Following heavy-handed threats, saber-rattling, and Wednesday’s administration meeting with all Senate members, a joint statementrk by Defense Secretary Mattis, Director of National Intelligence Coates and Secretary of State Tillerson announced a shift in US policy toward North Korea.
On the one hand, it called Pyongyang’s “pursuit of nuclear weapons…an urgent national security and top foreign policy priority.”
On the other, it said Trump “aims to pressure North Korea into dismantling its nuclear, ballistic missile, and proliferation programs by tightening economic sanctions and pursuing diplomatic measures with our Allies and regional partners.”
Instead of a military option, the Trump administration now seeks dialogue and diplomacy to achieve “peaceful denuclearization of the Korean peninsula.”
At the same time, it may designate the DPRK as a state sponsor of terrorism, maintaining hostility towards its government over responsible outreach.
Russia Condemns Israeli Aggression and Al-Qaeda-Linked White Helmets
Stephen Lendman
Commenting on Israel’s overnight aggression near the Damascus international airport, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said:
“Moscow condemns acts of aggression against Syria and regards them as impermissible and running counter to international law.”
“We are urging all to respect the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Syria, a UN member-state.”
It’ll take much more than “urging” to halt Israeli aggression, supported and encouraged by Washington, NATO, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and other regional rogue states.
Following Netanyahu’s March visit to Moscow, Sergey Lavrov said he agreed on military cooperation with Russia, explaining:
“We will judge by deeds and not by statements in order to figure out if our Israeli counterparts abide by these agreement.”
Israeli Aggression on Syria
Stephen Lendman
Israel partners with US regime change plans - wanting Assad ousted, pro-Western puppet governance replacing Syrian sovereign independence.
A life-and-death struggle continues. Russia’s position remains firm. It’s committed to combat and defeat the scourge of terrorism.
On Wednesday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Putin “believes that the future of Syria and the Syrian leader may be (not be) decided in Ankara…Washington, Paris, Berlin nor Moscow. Syria’s self-determination is a matter (for) the Syrian people” alone, free from foreign interference.
Last Sunday, an Israeli attack (either by air or artillery) on the Syrian al-Fawwar military camp near Quneitra killed three soldiers, wounding others. It followed last Friday’s attack in the same area.
Mad-Dog Mattis Going Rabid
Eric Zuesse
On Monday, April 25th, the AP headlined, "US general in Afghanistan suggests Russia arming the Taliban” and reported that U.S. Pentagon chief James “Mad Dog” Mattis was accusing Russia of violating the sovereignty of unnamed nation(s) and was supplying weapons to the Taliban in Afghanistan — the very same group that the U.S. back in 1979 had begun arming in Pakistan so that the Taliban would invade Afghanistan and lure Soviet forces into Afghanistan, so as to make the Soviets “bleed” there, as the U.S. itself had bled in its Vietnam War. The U.S. National Security Advisor at that time went to Pakistan and rallied the Taliban there by saying “Your cause is right, and God is on your side!”
Mattis was also quoted in this news-report as saying, “We're going to have to confront Russia where what they're doing is contrary to international law or denying the sovereignty of other countries.”
The United States has, in fact, invaded Syria — routinely violating the sovereignty of that country. It’s aggression, in order to overthrow Syria’s President, Bashar al-Assad, who is allied with Russia. The U.S. also has been protecting any jihadist group in Syria that cooperates with Al Qaeda to overthrow Assad. (The U.S. never abandoned the Cold War, but Russia did; and, ever since Russia did, in 1991, the U.S. government has secretly had a plan in place to bring every country that was allied with or part of the Soviet Union, except for Russia itself, into NATO or otherwise under control by the American aristocracy, and finally to take over Russia itself.) The U.S. has even preferred to help ISIS defeat Assad, over helping Assad defeat ISIS. Syria consequently requested Russia to assist in defending the survival of its internationally-recognized-as-legal government, so as to prevent its downfall and replacement by the jihadist forces that the U.S. and its Saudi, Qatari and Turkish allies have been trying to replace by imposing a fundamentalist-Sunni, Al Qaeda approved, regime. Whereas the presence of Russia’s military in Syria was requested by the legal government and is therefore legal, America’s is not — the U.S. is instead officially an “invader” there — and yet Mattis is saying that the U.S. will impose international law against Russia, for vague allegations by Mattis of Russia's “denying the sovereignty of other countries” — which the U.S. routinely does, and which it did excruciatingly in Iraq in 2003, Libya in 2011, and Syria since 2011, just to mention a few of the nations that the U.S. has recently destroyed. The U.S. government has long been in the regime-change business, especially to replace any ally of Russia, by an enemy of Russia.
Much Rides on Outcome of French Election
Stephen Lendmanl,
Establishment favorite Emmanuel Macron is heavily favored to win. He supports continuity, dirty business as usual.
French aristocracy love him. Its power elites back him against Le Pen, wanting national sovereignty regained from Brussels control, including over its monetary and fiscal policies.
According to Center for Comprehensive European and International Studies director Timofey Bordachev, Macron, if elected, “will adhere to the Euro-Atlantic course…pursued by the current political mainstream.”
He’s close to Berlin, Brussels and Washington. Deplorable French policies will continue unchanged if he’s France’s next president - including its complicity with US aggression.
Trump Reneges on Abandoning NAFTA
Stephen Lendman
On Wednesday, the White House said Trump will renegotiate what he once called “one of the worst deals ever.”
Twenty years after its 1994 enactment, Global Trade Watch director Lori Wallach said she “remember(ed) crying” on the day NAFTA took effect - January 1, 1994.“Not only did promises made by NAFTA’s proponents not materialize, but many results are exactly the opposite,” she explained.
Around a million US jobs were lost. A “staggering $181 billion US trade deficit with…Mexico and Canada” was incurred.
Over a million small Mexican farmers were displaced. Immigration to America doubled. Undocumented millions came north, desperate for work lost at home.
POLL: Americans Support Military-Industrial Complex Above All Else
Eric Zuesse
A new Morning Consult/POLITICO survey, published on 26 April, indicates that most American voters support the military-industrial complex more than they support any other recipient of U.S. federal government spending. The military-industrial complex includes almost all federal contractors, the top ten of which, in the ranking of the “Top 100 Contractors of the U.S. federal government”, are all military suppliers: 1: Lockheed Martin. 2: Boeing. 3: General Dynamics. 4: Raytheon. 5: Northrop Grumman. 6: McKesson. 7: United Technologies. 8: L-3. 9: Bechtel. 10: BAE. Those ten firms would be the likeliest main beneficiaries from today’s America’s extremely pro-military-industrial-complex public, which is clearly revealed in this poll.
2,032 American voters were asked in the poll a list of objectives that might be so important as to justify “the government must shut down.” Only one single objective was close to being supported by an absolute majority of the respondents, so that the government’s going to shut-down would, in those respondents’ view, be justified for Congress to do in order to achieve that given objective, which was stated as: “Increase funding for defense and homeland security.” 47% of respondents (just shy of an absolute majority, which is 50+%) chose that goal as being so drastically important; 39% chose instead the answer, “NOT important enough to prompt a shutdown.” 14% chose “Don’t Know / No Opinion.” In other words: 47% were in support of any member of Congress who refused to vote to fund the government unless the proposed legislation to keep the government going would “Increase funding for defense and homeland security” (increase funding that’s going mainly to those ten firms). Increased spending on the military-industrial complex (which is incontestably the most corrupt portion of the U.S. federal government) is so extremely important to 47% of America’s voters, according to this poll. Those 47% are like a huge cheering section for those ten corporate stocks: they’re willing to shut down the federal govenment if the taxpayer-money going to those ten firms isn’t increased.
Preemptive US Strike on North Korea Imminent?
Stephen Lendman
On Thursday, NBC News said the Trump administration “is prepared to launch a preemptive strike with conventional weapons against North Korea should officials become convinced (it’s) about to follow through with (another) nuclear weapons test, (according to) multiple senior US intelligence officials…”
Pyongyang’s sixth nuclear weapons test could come Saturday - commemorating Kim Il-sung’s 105th birthday, the nation’s founder. The USS Vinson aircraft carrier strike group is positioned off North Korea’s coast, able to launch cruise missile and aerial attacks.
Guam-based US heavy bombers could be used, NBC News said, adding a “US strike could include missiles and bombs, cyber and special operations on the ground.”
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