‘Can you imagine our troops coming to France without invitation?’ Bashar Assad blasts French ‘occupation’ of Syria

Source

http://www.rt.com
28 Nov, 2019

FILE PHOTO © REUTERS/Benoit Tessier

There’s no major difference between supporting terrorism on Syrian soil and sending troops there without formal approval from its government, Bashar Assad said as he lambasted France’s role in Syria’s civil war.
Syria has “come a long way” toward defeating much of the terrorist insurgency on its soil, but pockets of resistance still remain as jihadists are receiving support from Turkey and Western countries, Bashar Assad told Paris Match magazine, singling out the US, the UK and “especially France.”

France has joined the US-led anti-Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS) coalition, providing air support and deploying special forces to Syria. But for Assad, the French intervention amounted to an “occupation,” as Paris – like its major NATO ally Washington – failed to secure Damascus’ authorization of the mission.

Do you frankly think that we can send Syrian forces to fight terrorism in France without being invited by the French government? International law governs the behavior of states in the world, not [their] intentions.

Now, when foreign forces came to Syria without being invited by the legitimate government, “it is [called] occupation,” the Syrian president insisted, adding, “there is not a big difference between supporting terrorism and deploying the military to occupy a country.”

Dubbed Operation Chammal, the French deployment was, officially, to carry out reconnaissance flights and aid Kurdish and Arab fighters in Syria. At peak times, France’s assets in the Middle East included a Charles de Gaulle carrier strike group, a fighter jet squadron as well as several marine units on the ground.

The interview came on the back of the Syrian army’s advances in the northern province of Idlib. The troops are now trying to fight their way toward the last militant-held towns along the strategic Damascus-Aleppo highway.

As the fighting continues, Assad said Syria can handle the war without any backing from the West. “We can manage our own business … But we want to come back to a world order that is no longer respected, because chaos reigns,” he concluded.

The Middle East and the Rest of the World Are United in Struggle

Source

theantimedia.com

Written by Middle East Eye

By Oscar Rickett

November 10, 2019

(MEE Op-Ed) — Across the Middle East, people are protesting. They are tired and angry. They want to see something change.

“All of them means all of them,” protesters chant in Lebanon, calling for the removal of the political and economic elite. Central Beirut, an area that had been taken over by luxury stores, has been reclaimed by the people.

In Algeria, the power brokers known as “le pouvoir” are being resisted, even after the removal of longtime autocrat Abdelaziz Bouteflika.

Sudan’s revolution, which began in the northern city of Atbara, a cradle of labour activism, also continues, as the end of Omar al-Bashir’s three-decade rule was not enough. Protesters want to see the dismantling of a violent and ruthless elite, now spearheaded by the militia leader and accused war criminal Hemeti.

Brink of Collapse

In Iraq, as oil production hits record levels, citizens are out on the streets risking their lives, with more than 100 killed and 6,000 wounded as the army cracked down on demonstrations in early October.

The money from the oil goes nowhere near them, of course: according to the UN, seven million Iraqis live below the poverty line, and one-fifth of Iraqi youth are unemployed, in a country whose majority is under the age of 24. Protesters in Iraq are described as being mostly young and unemployed, calling for jobs, electricity and water.

Elsewhere, young people who have grown up in the shadow of the financial crisis of 2007-8 have also come to the fore, often with the same demands: better public services, employment, housing, and some semblance of dignity and democracy.

The similarities between these protests are striking, despite national variations. The conditions driving protests in the Middle East are the same not just throughout the region, but across the world, where people are rising up against decades of neoliberalism, from Chile to Haiti to France.

Their demands are universal – employment, housing, democracy, freedom from poverty – and are driven by a political and economic system that has brought this world to the brink of political and environmental collapse.

This is important because of how the Middle East is so often viewed in the western media. It is a place apart, a benighted territory riven by sectarian conflict, barely comprehensible to outsiders without the help of well-paid analysts sitting in offices in Washington and London.

A game of divide-and-conquer can be played, in which the universal interests of the global majority can be twisted by the powerful few into a bewildering set of local grievances, relayed by analysts as if they were talking about a group of primates deep in the jungle or a school of fish in the outer reaches of the ocean.

Neoliberal Consensus

This kind of reasoning has often been deployed in the name of getting the peoples of the Middle East to accept the neoliberal consensus of the past four decades.

“You don’t understand,” they are told. “The market will set you free, these IMF-backed austerity measures are for your own good, the arrival of this large company paying subsistence wages is actually a great honour to your community. What do you mean, you don’t love the West? You love football, don’t you? You want to leave the ruined place you come from to arrive in the glittering towers of Europe and the US, surely?”

Migrants seeking a better life are often propelled to do so by neoliberalism, by the collaboration of international and local elites, which keeps them far from anything that could be called a good life.

The seductive facade of today’s capitalism – the flashing images of wealth, sex and fulfillment that fill the media – adds to this, providing the carrot, where the destruction of local economies is the stick. Yet, when migrants leave for Europe or North America, they encounter barbed-wire fences, hostile politicians and a climate of racism and exclusion.

This facade might finally be crumbling.

In Chile, a slogan has begun to define the protests: “Neoliberalism was born in Chile and will die in Chile.” Just as in Iraq, neoliberalism came to Chileans at the barrel of a gun, arriving with the CIA-backed coup that removed Salvador Allende from power in 1973. “The miracle of Chile” was the term used by Milton Friedman, the godfather of neoliberalism, to describe what dictator Augusto Pinochet did to his country’s economy.

Stark Choices Ahead

The Middle East, particularly Iraq, knows this kind of story all too well. The 2003 US invasion of Iraq came with the expressed blessing of a raft of multinational companies. Iraq and its oil were there to be taken, and its people would be collateral. People are always collateral.

These global protests have the same root causes. Thus far, sectarianism is being resisted, as the people hold to their common set of grievances. In the West, in Britain and the US, crucial elections are on the horizon.

The choices people face are stark as politics becomes more polarised. “Bourgeois society stands at the crossroads; either transition to socialism or regression into barbarism,” Polish Marxist Rosa Luxemburg wrote in 1916. The phrase “socialism or barbarism” has come back into use as a way to describe the choice we face, not just as citizens of one particular nation but as people across a world facing political and environmental collapse.

A great deal of time, money and effort will be spent fighting this, but as resistance grows across the Middle East, we should know that this is not just the region’s fight – it is the world’s fight.

France Rejects Edward Snowden’s Asylum Request, Fearing “Major Fallout” With US

So, France is telling the world that it is scared of the big bully USA. It’s a shame, as France once stood for Liberty, Fraternity, and some other nonsense that it doesn’t adhere to anymore.

Source

http://www.zerohedge.com

Fri, 09/20/2019

France’s foreign minister has indicated the country has dismissed former US National Security Agency contractor and leaker Edward Snowden’s asylum request because “it is not the time”. 

Snowden called on French President and former Rothschild banker Emmanuel Macron to grant him political asylum from the United States, after he’s been living in Russia since the 2013 bombshell leaks were released, having first fled from Hong Kong. 

“He asked for asylum in France, but also elsewhere, in 2013. At that time, France thought that it was not appropriate, I do not see anything that has changed Thursday, either from a political or a legal point of view,” French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian told French TV station CNews on Thursday.

Paris is skittish over the whole issue due to US pressure and what such a move would do to its close relationship with Washington. 

“An adviser to French President Emmanuel Macron hinted earlier this week that welcoming Snowden to France would lead to a major diplomatic fallout with the U.S.,” Politico Europe reported.

The whistleblower, who this week published his memoir, has escaped US prosecution as a guest of Putin’s Russia. He previously said he would “love to see” Macron allow him to live in France. Snowden made a first asylum appeal to France in 2013, which was rejected, and another last week.

“I am not asking for a parade. I’m not asking for a pardon,” he said in a recent interview. “What I’m asking for is a fair trial.” 

Speaking with France’s Inter radio on Monday as part of a press junket to promote his new memoir, the former NSA contractor said “Protecting whistleblowers is not a hostile act,” adding “Welcoming someone like me is not an attack on the United States.” 

“I would like to return to the United States. That is the ultimate goal. But if I’m gonna spend the rest of my life in prison, the one bottom line demand that we have to agree to is that at least I get a fair trial. And that is the one thing the government has refused to guarantee because they won’t provide access to what’s called a public interest defense,” Snowden told CBS This Morning. 

No doubt Snowden has to be dismayed over prospects of leaving Russia given Julian Assange’s treatment, who is currently held in reported solitary confinement, often cut off from his own defense lawyers and from regular mail, awaiting a US extradition trial in UK court.

French MPs call for boycott of address by environmentalist ‘apocalyptic guru’ Greta Thunberg

Source

http://www.rt.com

22 Jul, 2019

FILE PHOTO: Greta Thunberg speaking at a climate protest in Berlin © Reuters / Fabrizio Bensch

With 16-year old Swedish environmentalist Greta Thunberg set to address the French parliament, a group of MPs have vowed to boycott the doomsday speech by the person they called an “apocalyptic guru” and “prophetess in shorts.”

Invited to the session by an environmental caucus called Accellerons – formed to fight what its members call “the climate emergency” – Thunberg will speak before French lawmakers on Tuesday.

However, some MPs from the conservative Republicans and National Rally parties are unimpressed.

“We don’t need apocalyptic gurus to fight climate change intelligently, we need scientific progress and political courage,” Republican Guillaume Larrivé tweeted, calling on his colleagues to give the session a miss.

 Guillaume Larrivé

✔@GLarrive

J’appelle mes collègues députés à boycotter @GretaThunberg à l’Assemblée nationale. Pour lutter intelligemment contre le réchauffement climatique, nous n’avons pas besoin de gourous apocalyptiques, mais de progrès scientifique & de courage politique.https://twitter.com/LCP/status/1152590233000714247?s=20 …

LCP

✔@LCP

[ÉVÈNEMENT] La jeune militante pour le #climat @GretaThunberg sera à l’Assemblée nationale, le mardi 23 juillet.

Suivez son allocution sur les comptes Twitter et Facebook de LCP. #DirectAN Cc @amisdelaterre @PrFeuillage @EncoreTemps_ @Alternatiba_ @RACFrance @Reporterre

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Calling Thunberg the “winner of the Nobel fear prize,” Republican Julien Aubert announced that he wouldn’t show up to “applaud a prophetess in shorts.”

ALSO ON RT.COM‘F**k you Greta’ bumper stickers appear on German roads, taking aim at youth climate activist

Thunberg has been referred to in similar terms before. Rising to fame for organizing school strikes against climate change last year, Thunberg has since switched her rhetoric from demanding action to welcoming the apocalypse with religious fervor.

“We probably don’t even have a future anymore,” she told British lawmakers in April, in a likely preview of her upcoming address in France.

“I don’t want you to be hopeful. I want you to panic. I want you to feel the fear I feel every day,” she told the power-brokers at the World Economic Forum in Davos, several months earlier.

Against the dying of the earth, Thunberg offers only one solution: the immediate lowering of carbon emissions to net zero, a move that would see modern civilization – including car and plane travel, electricity, and affordable food for the masses – essentially wiped out.

ALSO ON RT.COMTeen climate change campaigner Greta Thunberg to take year off school for US trip

While European politicians have yet to put any of her radical proposals into policy, they have still applauded her speeches and lined up for photo opportunities with her.

“If I say that I do not want to prostrate myself before Greta Thunberg, the 16-year-old child invited to the Assembly in front of the national representation, am I (still?) Politically correct?” asked National Rally MP Sébastien Chenu.

Criticism came from the political center too. Echoing criticism of Thunberg’s messianic worldview, Lawmaker Benedicte Peyrol of President Emmanuel Macron’s En Marche! Party asked why France couldn’t “honor its own scientists who’ve been active for years in trying to save the planet,” albeit with less theatrical flair.

France passes law taxing tech giants despite US anger

Taxation can be seen as a form of sanction. As such, the USA is being an arrogant and hypocritical tyrant that applies sanctions willy nilly, as long as it fits its dinosaurian ideology. Look at how it reacts to a foreign country trying to manage its own affairs. Hypocrites. Yo, USA, shove your anger where the Sun doesn’t shine!

Source

http://www.rt.com

11 July, 2019

Google’s logo at the Google cultural hub in Paris © AFP / Joël Saget

The French parliament on Thursday passed a law taxing digital firms like Google and Facebook, which have been accused of exploiting global tax loopholes. The decision comes after Washington launched a probe into the tax.

The three-percent tax will be levied on sales generated in France by multinational firms. Any digital company with revenue of more than €750 million ($850 million) – of which at least €25 million is generated in France – would be subject to the levy.

Defending the new tax, French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said the country was “sovereign and decided its own tax rules.”

ALSO ON RT.COMUS threatens France over proposed ‘unfair’ tax on Silicon Valley tech giants

“I want to tell our American friends that this should be an incentive for them to accelerate even more our work to find an agreement on the international taxation of digital services,” he said.

The law, which has been already dubbed the GAFA (Google, Apple, Facebook and Amazon) tax, has angered Washington, which had raised concerns that the tax would “unfairly target American companies.”

US President Donald Trump on Wednesday ordered an investigation into the French tax to “investigate the effects of this legislation and determine whether it is discriminatory or unreasonable and burdens or restricts United States commerce.”

ALSO ON RT.COMAustria wants to impose tax on internet giants’ advertising revenues

The new tax will be based on sales generated in France, rather than on profits. It will be paid by all global multinationals – around 30 companies, mostly American – but also firms from China, Germany, Spain and Britain.

The tech giants argue that they are complying with national and international tax laws.

France: French President Macron Suffers Huge Blow With Defeat to Le Pen

Source

themindunleashed.com/ Republished with permission / Zero Hedge

Tyler Durden

May 26, 2019

In what may be the biggest shock from today’s European parliamentary elections, President Emmanuel Macron suffered a major blow with French voters set to hand a victory to Marine Le Pen’s National Rally, picking the vocal Eurosceptic and nationalist over the former Rothschild banker.Macron’s En Marche (Republic on The Move) will have just 22.5% of the vote compared with 24% for Le Pen, according to pollsters Ifop. With Macron and Le Pen neck and neck ahead of the elections, the outcome will be a humiliation for the liberal politician who said before the elections that everything less than 1st place would be a defeat.

Rounding out the The Greens were third with 13%, the conservative Republicans got 8%, while the implosion of the Socialists continues, coming in dead last with just 6.5% of the vote.

Macron’s default took place even as turnout was up around 10% points from 2014, however the increase was particularly marked in regions where Le Pen’s party has gained ground in the past years. In other words, as establishment apathy gets entrenched, the populist vote is increasingly demanding to be heard.

It gets worse: to the shock of globalists and statists everywhere, this is Le Pen’s second straight victory in the EU vote. In 2014 she beat the conservatives by 4 percentage points with Macron’s Socialist predecessor Francois Hollande trailing in third.

As Bloomberg notes, the result is a setback for the 41-year-old Macron who played a more prominent role in the campaign than any other European leader as he sought to mobilize voters.

The president is fighting for legitimacy as he tries to persuade the rest of the European Union to pursue tighter integration. Polls in Germany showed Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats came first, although with fewer seats than last time.

“For Macron this was a defining election and it’s him who made it like that,” said Bernard Sananes, president of Elabe polling institute. “Finishing second would mean a sense of isolation in Europe.”

Today’s vote followed months of relentless protests which have seen looting and vandalism in Paris. Macron responded with a raft of new spending plans and tax cuts to appease the Yellow Vest movement but the measures failed to convince voters.

Meanwhile, Eurosceptic, anti-establishment and hard-right parties were also expected to top polls in the UK, Italy, Poland, and Hungary. Nigel Farage’s Brexit party was in contention to be the biggest single national party in the parliament, potentially beating both Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union and Matteo Salvini’s rightwing League.

Germany’s left-right grand coalition faced a potentially significant electoral shock, with estimates indicating the Green party had made a historic breakthrough, taking 20.9 per cent of the vote. Philippe Lamberts, leader of the Green group, said: “To make a stable majority in this parliament the Greens are now indispensable.”

This pushed the center-left Social Democratic party into third place for the first time in nationwide elections, raising pressure on party leaders to rethink their federal alliance with the centre-right CDU and the CSU, its Bavarian sister party.

While the EPP remains the biggest group in the parliament, its diminished size may hamper Manfred Weber, its lead candidate, in making a claim to the presidency of the European Commission.

EPP parties were in first place in Germany, but Merkel’s CDU secured 28%, seven points down on its vote share in 2014. Finally, Austria’s Sebastian Kurz said he was “speechless” after a crushing victory, securing a third of all votes in spite of a corruption scandal that has brought down his coalition government with the far-right Freedom party.

---

 

New Zealand PM leads global Internet censorship campaign

Source

http://www.wsws.org

By Tom Peters
18 May 2019

The so-called “ Christchurch Call ” summit in Paris on Wednesday, led by New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and French President Emmanuel Macron, marked a significant escalation of the drive by governments throughout the world to censor the Internet.

Ardern and her Labour Party-led government, along with the Australian and French governments, are taking a leading role in exploiting the March 15 Christchurch terrorist attacks by Australian fascist Brenton Tarrant to justify sweeping attacks on freedom of expression. Tarrant live-streamed a video of the shootings, which killed 51 people, on Facebook.

The “summit” issued a statement signed by 17 governments, including the UK, France, Australia, India, Indonesia, Canada and Germany, along with Facebook, Twitter, Google and other tech giants. The statement agreed to “eliminate terrorist and violent extremist content” on social media platforms and other websites, and to steer people toward officially-sanctioned “positive” alternatives or “counter-narratives.” The US government did not sign, but a White House statement expressed agreement with the statement’s “overarching message.”

No one should be fooled by worthless assurances that these governments and corporate giants will protect “freedom of expression.” What constitutes “terrorist” or “extremist” material will be decided by the state agencies.

For the past two years, corporations such as Google and Facebook have collaborated with the US and other governments to severely restrict access to left-wing, socialist and anti-war websites, particularly to the WSWS. Their algorithms have been modified to reduce traffic to these sources, while promoting supposedly “authoritative” websites, i.e., the corporate media, in search results and news feeds. These measures, justified with lies about combating “fake news” and Russian and Chinese “interference,” are now being escalated under the guise of fighting “extremism.”

The New Zealand prime minister, having been glorified in the media internationally for showing “kindness” and “compassion” following the Christchurch shootings, has become one of the chief propagandists for censorship internationally.

An article by Ardern in the May 11 New York Times, with the misleading headline “How to Stop the Next Christchurch Massacre,” blamed the attack on social media and lax gun controls, while covering up its political roots. She made no mention of the fascist, anti-immigrant and white supremacist ideology that motivated the gunman, apart from a hypocritical sentence about the need to “tackle racism and discrimination.”

Far from opposing racism, Ardern’s Labour Party-led coalition government includes the racist and xenophobic New Zealand First Party, whose leader Winston Peters has made numerous anti-Muslim statements. Labour and Ardern herself have vowed to cut immigration. They have echoed NZ First’s nationalist demagogy and adopted many of its anti-immigrant policies. After the 2017 election, Ardern made Peters foreign minister and deputy prime minister, giving his right-wing nationalist party significant power in the government, despite the fact that it received just over 7 percent of the votes.

Ardern wrote that the Paris agreement “is not about undermining or limiting freedom of speech.” In her “Christchurch Call” speech, she again rejected concerns “that this action plan we are endorsing today is about curbing freedom of expression.”

Such assurances are belied by the actions of the Labour government since the Christchurch attacks. It has worked with the corporate media to suppress public discussion about the causes of the atrocity. Tarrant’s manifesto, which reveals the similarity of his anti-immigrant, nationalist views to those of NZ First, US President Donald Trump and other political parties in Australia and across Europe, has been banned. Anyone caught with the document could face a lengthy prison sentence.

Likewise, media organisations have agreed to self-censor their coverage of Tarrant’s upcoming trial, so as not to report on his fascistic statements, precisely in order to obscure the connection to the foul right-wing politics of all the establishment parties.

This unprecedented censorship is also aimed at preventing discussion about Tarrant’s sympathy for the military and police, and why the intelligence agencies and police failed to prevent the Christchurch attack, despite repeated warnings. A royal commission of inquiry, which began this week ostensibly to look into these questions, is so far being held in secret.

More sweeping and permanent censorship mechanisms are being planned. A foundation established by former Labour Prime Minister Helen Clark has recommended a new regulatory body specifically to police social media. It would have the power to take websites like Facebook completely offline, as happened in Sri Lanka following the terrorist attacks in April. The Helen Clark Foundation’s report, “Anti-Social Media: Reducing the spread of harmful content on social networks,” also calls for restrictions on the ability to live-stream videos.

Already, the Australian government has seized on the Christchurch attacks to rush legislation through parliament that will impose severe fines and prison sentences on social media executives who fail to remove material that the government deems “abhorrent” and “violent.” This could include videos, photos and articles that expose police brutality, war crimes and fascistic assaults on immigrants.

Such laws have nothing to do with fighting racism, terrorism or “fake news.” They will be used against the working class and its ability to organise against war and social inequality. It is no accident that the “Christchurch Call” was hosted by Macron. His right-wing government and the French media have slandered the anti-austerity “yellow vest” protests, involving hundreds of thousands of workers, as violent and anti-Semitic, in order to justify brutal police crackdowns and the arrest of protesters.

New Zealand’s ruling class has also been shaken by protests and strikes over the past year, including by teachers and healthcare workers. The corporatist trade union bureaucracy has expressed hostility and nervousness over workers organising independently and sharing information on social media.

The contempt for freedom of speech shared by all the governments that signed the “Christchurch Call” is most starkly revealed in their support for the persecution of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and whistleblower Chelsea Manning. They face lengthy imprisonment or even the death penalty for exposing US-led war crimes and other government-corporate abuses. The New Zealand parliament last year refused to even discuss a petition presented by Assange’s supporters calling for Ardern to offer him asylum.

As the crisis of capitalism deepens, with escalating social inequality, trade war and US threats of war against Iran, Venezuela, North Korea, China and Russia, the ruling elites are returning to the methods of the 1930s and 1940s. Governments are whipping up racism and xenophobia to divide workers, while desperately seeking to censor information, in order to prevent the emergence of a mass anti-war and anti-capitalist movement.

The author also recommends:

Australian fascist group tried to recruit Christchurch terrorist

[8 May 2019]

The Christchurch terror attack and the promotion of fascism by the ruling elite

[8 May 2019]

$1 billion in Notre Dame donations: Philanthropy or rich patrons seeking praise?

The world does not want the elite’s money or charity, pay your taxes at the rate of 90% like when the world had a semblance of “normal” economic equality in the fifties. 

RT.com

24 Apr, 2019

© Reuters/Gonzalo Fuentes

With wealthy donors giving a billion dollars to restore Notre Dame following the devastating fire, some have been left asking why the money only comes after tragedy strikes. RT guests debate the Notre Dame patrons’ priorities.

“Two years ago you couldn’t get a crumb out of [the billionaires]”, argues journalist and social commentator Sonia Poulton. When Notre Dame was dilapidated and crumbling in a less-newsworthy way, these same rich donors were nowhere to be found, she noted. Poulton believs the billionaires are “show-ponying” trying to outbid one another, but only because there are laurels to be won. Meanwhile, these same figures still won’t lift a finger to help handle worsening economic issues in France including a steep rise in homelessness.

View this post on Instagram

'Notre-Dame needs a roof, we need a roof too!’ Dozens of homeless people protested outside the gutted Notre Dame in response to donors pledging almost £1 billion to rebuild the famous cathedral and its destroyed roof. They chanted slogans and held placards saying “Notre Dame burning = €1 billion in 24 hours. Homeless = €0,” directed at Bernard Arnault, the chief executive of luxury group LVMH who last week pledged £173 million.

A post shared by RT (@rt) on Apr 23, 2019 at 8:29am PDT

ALSO ON RT.COM‘Buying stairway to heaven?’ Pamela Anderson slams the rich for self-serving Notre Dame donations

Former Republican US state senator John Loudon, on the other hand, says that critics have no right to tell others what to do with their money, regardless of how they think it should be spent. Arguing that France faces large numbers of vandalized churches every year, he believes it’s “a beautiful thing” that people are willing to spend their own money to help rebuild and restore.

What we should be worried about is Christian churches targeted around the world.

Should the Catholic Church and French government be picking up the tab for Notre Dame disaster, or are things better left in private hands? Watch the full debate on RT.

 

Escobar: Now Comes The Notre Dame Of Billionaires

Source link

http://www.zerohedge.com

Authored by Pepe Escobar via The Saker blog,

Thu, 04/18/2019

 

The Bamiyan Buddhas were destroyed by an intolerant sect pretending to follow Islam. Buddhism all across Asia grieved. The West hardly paid attention.

The remaining ruins of Babylon, and the attached museum, were occupied, plundered and vandalized by a US Marine base during Shock and Awe in 2003. The West paid no attention.

Vast tracts of Palmyra – a legendary Silk Road oasis – were destroyed by another intolerant sect pretending to follow Islam with their backs covered by layers of Western “intelligence”. The West paid no attention.

Scores of Catholic and Orthodox churches in Syria were burnt to the ground by the same intolerant sect pretending to follow Islam with their backs sponsored and weaponized, among others, by the US, Britain, and France. The West paid no attention whatsoever.

Notre-Dame, which in many ways can be construed as the Matrix of the West, is partially consumed by a theoretically blind fire.

Especially the roof; hundreds of oak beams, some dating back to the 13th century. Metaphorically, this could be interpreted as the burning of the roof over the West’s collective heads.

Bad karma? Finally?

*  *  *

Now back to the nitty-gritty.

Notre-Dame belongs to the French state, which had been paying little to no attention to a gothic jewel that traversed eight centuries.

Fragments of arcades, chimeras, reliefs, gargoyles were always falling to the ground and kept in an improvised deposit in the back of the cathedral.

Only last year Notre-Dame got a check for 2 million euros to restore the spire – which burned to the ground yesterday.

To restore the whole cathedral would have cost 150 million euros, according to the top world expert on Notre-Dame, who happens to be an American, Andrew Tallon.

Recently, the custodians of the cathedral and the French state were actually at war.

The French state was making at least 4 million euros a year, charging tourists to enter the Twin (Bell) Towers but putting back only 2 million euros for the maintenance of Notre-Dame.

The rector of Notre-Dame refused to charge for a ticket to enter the cathedral – as it happens, for example, at the Duomo in Milan.

Notre-Dame basically survives on donations – which pay the salaries of only 70 employees who need not only to supervise the masses of tourists but also to organize eight masses a day.

The French state’s proposal to minimize the ordeal; organize a beneficent lottery. That is; privatize what is a state commitment and obligation.

So yes: Sarkozy and Macron, their whole administrations, are directly and indirectly responsible for the fire.

Now comes the Notre-Dame of Billionaires.

Pinault (Gucci, St. Laurent) pledged 100 million euros from his personal fortune for the restoration. Arnault (Louis Vuitton Moet Hennessy) doubled down, pledging 200 million euros.

So why not privatize this damn fine piece of real estate – disaster capitalism-style? Welcome to Notre-Dame luxury condo, hotel, and attached mall.

Globalism’s Last Disgrace: The Army vs. the Yellow Vests

“There is nothing more cowardly than a supposedly liberal, tolerant democracy sending in the military to shut down and order violence against is own people for taking to the streets. It is simply the order of tin-pot dictator with delusions of adequacy.”

Source link

http://www.strategic-culture.org

TOM LUONGO 

27.03.2019 

There are few people in this world more odious than French President Emmanuel Macron after his behavior this week. I’m sure there are child molesters who are worse. But as a man who is pivotal in the future of hundreds of millions of people, his decision to order the French military to quell the Yellow Vests protests with live ammunition is simply vile.

Macron outed himself as the very symbol of what animates the globalist elite he represents.

Disdain.

The disdain he holds for the people he leads is palpable. It’s as palpable for his disdain for the British who voted for Brexit. To him the EU is all, the EU is inevitable and when faced with the choice of serving France or serving the EU, he chooses the EU every time.

That is what led him to this disastrous decision to deploy the French military to the streets for the first time since 1948 with orders to shoot protestors.

And that disdain is so complete that he doesn’t realize what happens if even one of those men goes too far and takes the President at his word. Thankfully, that did not happen.

But if it did, he would have lost complete control of his country, if he hasn’t already.

The estimates for Act XIX of the Gilets Jaunes this weekend were over 125,000 across France. That many people taking to the streets risking getting shot is not something you dismiss with a wave of your hand.

It is something as a leader you need to take very seriously.

Because the real fear for Macron is not a violent demonstration that ends with protestors shot and killed. No, the real fear is the protests that are peaceful.

Because what happens, Mr. Macron, if the soldiers you deployed to suppress attendance to these demonstrations see first-hand just how much the violence reported has been overblown?

Or worse, the lack of it confirms their suspicions that the violence was committed by agent provocateurs who now didn’t show up because it’s no longer worth the €25/hour they are being paid to sow discontent?

They’ll see exactly what Macron doesn’t want them to see: angry, dispirited, desperate people with legitimate grievances expressing those feelings the only way they know how.

If Macron wasn’t courting civil war before this weekend, he is now.

Because an uprising against a corrupt and unresponsive government by some people is one thing. It starts with the most angry but it can spread over time only if the government doesn’t hear them.

Macron’s reactions have only made things worse at every turn.

So, while the people started this fight for the future of France it will be the military that ends it. And woe to Macron and the French political elite if the military on the ground sides with the people they were sent to shoot.

There is nothing more cowardly than a supposedly liberal, tolerant democracy sending in the military to shut down and order violence against is own people for taking to the streets. It is simply the order of tin-pot dictator with delusions of adequacy.

Prudent leadership stems from having weapons and knowing when and how to use them. The images coming from France have been horrific and no better than those captured during Mariano Rajoy’s crackdown on Catalonia during its independence referendum in 2017.

That response cost him his job. So too will it be for Macron now that he has crossed that line.

Macron is under the orders of his paymasters in The Davos Crowd to get control over France. He will not be removed from office as long as he acts in accordance with their wishes. By now they would have replaced him with someone more acceptable to defuse the situation.

There is only one problem with that. There is no one else.

Macron’s approval rating is abysmal. He’s polling behind Marine Le Pen’s National Rally who will send more members to the European Parliament than his En Marche will in May.

He was already the bait and switch candidate in 2017’s election. The globalist-in-reformer’s clothing. And now that he’s the focal point of the Gilets Jaunes’ anger nothing short of a violent put-down of their rebellion will save Macron at this point.

Because they know this and they know that he hates them.

But a violent put-down is only winning the battle to lose the war.

With the EU locked in mortal combat with Brexiteers and Italy pushing the envelope in the European Council, there’s no room to maneuver here.

So, this continues until it can’t. At which point Macron’s legitimacy will evaporate and political change will occur. But the globalists behind Macron and in French political circles will put that off for as long as possible.

That’s why the lack of violence at ACT XIX’s marches this weekend was so important. Macron’s bluff was called. And that means we’re nearing the end of his story. And it couldn’t happen to a more deserving weasel.

Merkel, you’re on deck.

French Colonel Slams US Tactics Against ISIS-Daesh in Syria, Accuses Washington of “Prolonging the Conflict

Punishment for speaking the truth?

A senior French officer faces punishment after publicly condemning the US-led coalition’s military tactics against Daesh in the east of Syria, accusing Washington of prolonging the conflict and disregarding a growing civilian death toll, the army said on Saturday.

Source: French Colonel Slams US Tactics Against ISIS-Daesh in Syria, Accuses Washington of “Prolonging the Conflict” – Global ResearchGlobal Research – Centre for Research on Globalization

http://www.globalresearch.ca

By Middle East Monitor

Global Research, March 18, 2019

Faces punishment for saying US focus on limiting risks to own troops drove up price for civilians, allowed ISIS to survive longer, prolonged the war

A senior French officer faces punishment after publicly condemning the US-led coalition’s military tactics against Daesh in the east of Syria, accusing Washington of prolonging the conflict and disregarding a growing civilian death toll, the army said on Saturday.

Colonel Francois-Regis Legrier – who has been in charge of directing French artillery supporting Kurdish-led groups in Syria since October – said the coalition’s focus had been on limiting its own risks and this had greatly increased the death toll among civilians, as well as raised the level of destruction.

“Yes, the Battle of Hajin [near Syria’s eastern border with Iraq] was won, at least on the ground but by refusing ground engagement, we unnecessarily prolonged the conflict and thus contributed to increasing the number of casualties in the population,” Legrier wrote in an article in the National Defence Review.

France is one of the main allies in the US-led coalition fighting Daesh in Syria and Iraq, with its warplanes used to strike militant targets, its heavy-artillery backing Kurdish-led fighters and its special forces leading the ground assault.

“We have massively destroyed the infrastructure and given the population a disgusting image of what may be a Western-style liberation leaving behind the seeds of an imminent resurgence of a new adversary,” he said, in rare public criticism by a serving officer.

“We have in no way won the war because we lack a realistic and lasting policy and an adequate strategy,” Legrier said. “How many Hajins will it take to understand that we are on the wrong track?”

Legrier’s article has embarrassed French authorities just days before the coalition is expected to announce the defeat of the terror group; the article was removed from the review’s website on Saturday.

“A punishment is being considered,” French army spokesman Patrick Steiger confirmed to reporters.

Hajin was the last major towns held by Daesh militants and was the target of the final phase of “Operation Roundup” that started September, with heavy battles also centring on the Al-Shafah area near the Iraqi border. Six months on, a rapidly-diminishing few hundred militants have been battling on the eastern banks of the Euphrates River, hemmed in by US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) on the Syrian side of the Iraqi border and by Iranian-backed Shia militias on the other.

Yet the battle has proved difficult with Daesh militants fiercely resisting SDF attempts to capture their final stronghold, despite hundreds of Kurdish fighters – including heavy military equipment – sent as reinforcements over the course of the fighting.

Although the SDF were also supported by fighter jets from the international coalition, strategically positioned minefields placed by Daesh reportedly significantly slowed the ground assault, causing the operation to be temporarily halted in November.

The coalition could have got rid of just 2,000 militant fighters – who lacked air support or modern technological equipment – much more quickly and effectively by sending in just 1,000 troops, Legrier argued.

“This refusal raises a question: why have an army that we don’t dare use?” he said.

Human rights groups have repeatedly criticised the US-led bombing campaign, which has resulted in the deaths of scores of civilians over the past six months; to date, some 700 civilians – over 250 of whom were children – have been killed, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. Thousands of civilians have fled the area, with the Al-Houl refugee camp in north-eastern Syria currently hosting over 39,000 people, mainly women and children.

In October, some 54 people – including 12 children – were killed in a single strike on a mosque in the town of Al-Susah, near the Iraqi border. The US alleged that the mosque was being used as a base by Daesh operatives; some 22 militants were also killed in the blast. Despite being hit during the weekly Friday congregational prayer, a popular time for civilians, the military claimed it targeted the mosque when only fighters were present.

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Finian CUNNINGHAM: Germany Pulls Rank on Macron and American Energy Blackmail

The hypocrisy of Washington and elitist politicians like Emmanuel Macron has become too much to stomach.

Source: Germany Pulls Rank on Macron and American Energy Blackmail

Finian CUNNINGHAM

13.02.2019

Germany Pulls Rank on Macron and American Energy Blackmail

It was billed politely as a Franco-German “compromise” when the EU balked at adopting a Gas Directive which would have undermined the Nord Stream 2 project with Russia.

Nevertheless, diplomatic rhetoric aside, Berlin’s blocking last week of a bid by French President Emmanuel Macron to impose tougher regulations on the Nord Stream 2 gas project was without doubt a firm rebuff to Paris.

Macron wanted to give the EU administration in Brussels greater control over the new pipeline running from Russia to Germany. But in the end the so-called “compromise” was a rejection of Macron’s proposal, reaffirming Germany in the lead role of implementing the Nord Stream 2 route, along with Russia.

The $11-billion, 1,200 kilometer pipeline is due to become operational at the end of this year. Stretching from Russian mainland under the Baltic Sea, it will double the natural gas supply from Russia to Germany. The Berlin government and German industry view the project as a vital boost to the country’s ever-robust economy. Gas supplies will also be distributed from Germany to other European states. Consumers stand to gain from lower prices for heating homes and businesses.

Thus Macron’s belated bizarre meddling was rebuffed by Berlin. A rebuff was given too to the stepped-up pressure from Washington for the Nord Stream 2 project to be cancelled. Last week, US ambassador to Germany Richard Grenell and two other American envoys wrote an op-ed for Deutsche Welle in which they accused Russia of trying to use “energy blackmail” over Europe’s geopolitics.

Why France’s Macron, at the last minute, attempted to undermine the project by placing stiffer regulations is a curious question. Those extra regulations if they had been imposed would have potentially made the Russian gas supply more expensive. As it turns out, the project will now go-ahead without onerous restrictions.

In short, Macron and the spoiling tactics of Washington, along with EU states hostile to Russia, Poland and the Baltic countries, have been put in their place by Germany and its assertion of national interests of securing economical and abundant gas supply from Russia. Other EU member states that backed Berlin over Nord Stream 2 were Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Greece and the Netherlands.

Washington’s claims that Nord Stream 2 would give Russia leverage of Europe’s security have been echoed by Poland and the Baltic states. Poland, and non-EU Ukraine, stand to lose out billions of dollars-worth of transit fees. Such a move, however, is the prerogative of Germany and Russia to find a more economical mode of supply. Besides, what right has Ukraine to make demands on a bilateral matter that is none of its business? Kiev’s previous bad faith over not paying gas bills to Russia disbars it from reasonable opinion.

Another factor is the inherent Russophobia of Polish and Baltic politicians who view everything concerning Russia through a prism of paranoia.

For the Americans, it is obviously a blatant case of seeking to sell their own much more expensive natural gas to Europe’s giant energy market – in place of Russia’s product. Based on objective market figures, Russia is the most competitive supplier to Europe. The Americans are therefore trying to snatch a strategic business through foul means of propaganda and political pressure. Ironically, the US German ambassador Richard Grenell and the other American envoys wrote in their recent oped: “Europe must retain control of its energy security.”

Last month, Grenell threatened German and European firms involved in the construction of Nord Stream 2 that they could face punitive American sanctions in the future. Evidently, it is the US side that is using “blackmail” to coerce others into submission, not Russia.

Back to Macron. What was he up to in his belated spoiling tactics over Nord Stream 2 and in particular the attempted problems being leveled for Germany if the extra regulations had been imposed?

It seems implausible that Macron was suddenly finding a concern for Poland and the Baltic states in their paranoia over alleged Russian invasion.

Was Macron trying to garner favors from the Trump administration? His initial obsequious rapport with Trump has since faded from the early days of Macron’s presidency in 2017. By doing Washington’s bidding to undermine the Nord Stream 2 project was Macron trying to ingratiate himself again?

The contradictions regarding Macron are replete. He is supposed to be a champion of “ecological causes”. A major factor in Germany’s desire for the Nord Stream 2 project is that the increased gas supply will reduce the European powerhouse’s dependence on dirty fuels of coal, oil and nuclear power. By throwing up regulatory barriers, Macron is making it harder for Germany and Europe to move to cleaner sources of energy that the Russian natural gas represents.

Also, if Macron had succeeded in imposing tougher regulations on the Nord Stream 2 project it would have inevitably increased the costs to consumers for gas bills. This is at a time when his government is being assailed by nationwide Yellow Vest protests over soaring living costs, in particular fuel-price hikes.

A possible factor in Macron’s sabotage bid in Germany’s Nord Stream 2 plans was his chagrin over Berlin’s rejection of his much-vaunted reform agenda for the Eurozone bloc within the EU. Despite Macron’s very public amity with Chancellor Angela Merkel, Berlin has continually knocked back the French leader’s ambitions for reform.

It’s hard to discern what are the real objectives of Macron’s reforms. But they seem to constitute a “banker’s charter”. Many eminent German economists have lambasted his plans, which they say will give more taxpayer-funded bailouts to insolvent banks. They say Macron is trying to move the EU further away from the social-market economy than the bloc already has moved.

What Macron, an ex-Rothschild banker, appears to be striving for is a replication of his pro-rich, anti-worker policies that he is imposing on France, and for these policies to be extended across the Eurozone. Berlin is not buying it, realizing such policies will further erode the social fabric. This could be the main reason why Macron tried to use the Nord Stream 2 project as leverage over Berlin.

In the end, Macron and Washington – albeit working for different objectives – were defeated in their attempts to sabotage the emerging energy trade between Germany, Europe and Russia. Nord Stream 2, as with Russia’s Turk Stream to the south of Europe, seems inevitable by sheer force of natural partnership.

On this note, the Hungarian government’s comments this week were apt. Budapest accused some European leaders and the US of “huge hypocrisy” in decrying association with Russia over energy trade. Macron has previously attended an economics forum in St Petersburg, and yet lately has sought to “blackmail” and disrupt Germany over its trade plans with Russia.

As for the Americans, their arrant hypocrisy is beyond words. As well as trying to dictate to Europe about “market principles” and “energy security”, it was reported this week that Washington is similarly demanding Iraq to end its import of natural gas from neighboring Iran.

Iraq is crippled by electricity and power shortages because of the criminal war that the US waged on that country from 2003-2011 which destroyed much of the country’s infrastructure. Iraq critically needs Iranian gas supplies to keep the lights and fans running. Yet, here we have the US now dictating to Iraq to end its lifeline import of Iranian fuel in order to comply with the Trump administration’s sanctions against Tehran. Iraq is furious at the latest bullying interference by Washington in its sovereign affairs.

The hypocrisy of Washington and elitist politicians like Emmanuel Macron has become too much to stomach. Maybe Germany and others are finally realizing who the charlatans are.

The 10 Biggest News Stories Right Now You Need to Know

Source: The 10 Biggest News Stories Right Now You Need to Know – Global ResearchGlobal Research – Centre for Research on Globalization

http://www.globalresearch.ca

By True Publica

February 05, 2019

These are the ten biggest news stories going on right now that you need to know that will, in some way, affect Britain. When Brexit arrives and the consequences start to unravel, whatever they may be, the world continues to move – one threat being that Britain becomes so self-involved it gets left behind. So keep up with these brief updates as TruePublica will now start to publish more of them from now on.

Cold war 2.0

Russia pulls out of Nuclear treaty in ‘Symmetrical’ response to U.S. move. President Putin of Russia, in a decision that was widely expected, suspended his country’s observance of a key nuclear arms control pact on Saturday in response to a similar move by the United States a day before.

Mr Putin also said that Russia would build weapons previously banned under the treaty and would no longer initiate talks with the United States on any matters related to nuclear arms control. Cold war 2.0 has clearly kicked-off. The last one was not just quite frightening, it threatened the existence of humanity.

Trade wars fall guy

While global markets would hail a U.S.-China trade deal, fears are growing that the European Union could be the fall guy in any breakthrough, which would allow Donald Trump to turn his attention to German cars or French luxury wines.

Alicia García-Herrero, Chief Economist at Natixis for Asia Pacific, and a researcher at the Bruegel think-tank, is among those who have warned that a deal “could cost Europe dearly” if China substitutes a large part of its European imports for U.S. goods in a bid to appease the Trump administration.

Brexit – Britain revives cold war emergency plans

British lawmakers instructed Prime Minister Theresa May to reopen a Brexit treaty with the European Union to replace a controversial Irish border arrangement – and promptly received a flat rejection from Brussels.

With two months left until Britain is due by law to leave the EU, investors and allies have urged the government to clinch a deal to allow an orderly exit from the club it joined in 1973. So far, it has failed.

The authorities have now revived Cold War emergency plans to relocate the royal family should there be riots in London if Britain. Thousands of MI5 are now located in Northern Ireland, the Army and army reservists are on standby and police forces all over the country have cancelled all leave from April.

EU subversion of democracy in Italy

Did the subversion of Italian democracy by the European Union play a role in Italy’s fall into recession? Italy’s pre-existing debts were already so large that the EU got an agreement from the previous Italian government that deficit spending would be restricted to 0.8% of GDP.

The U.S.-EU Free Trade Deal: Foundation for a New Global Economic Order

The new government prepared to implement the policies it had promised in its election campaign: a reduction in taxes and an increase in certain types of welfare spending, including a basic income experiment. They proposed a fiscal plan that would increase the spending deficit to 2.4% of GDP.

The EU said no. Crash.

EU-Japan trade agreement enters into force

The Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) between the EU and Japan entered into force on 1 February 2019. Businesses and consumers across Europe and in Japan can now take advantage of the largest open trade zone in the world.

EU Trade Commissioner Cecilia Malmström said:

“This agreement has it all: it scraps tariffs and contributes to the global rulebook, whilst at the same time demonstrating to the world that we both remain convinced by the benefits of open trade.

Except, of course, Britain. It opted out of the EU and so the trade deal excluded it from day one.

‘Divide and conquer’: China puts the pressure on US allies

As tensions between China and the US mount over trade and the extradition of a senior Huawei executive, Beijing has reserved its most colourful language for America’s allies.

Analysts say China is trying to isolate the US by going after its allies. Two Canadians remain in detention in China over unspecified allegations of endangering national security and a third was sentenced to death for drug smuggling after a sudden retrial — cases widely believed to be retaliation for Ottawa’s arrest of Meng at the request of the US.

French ‘yellow vests’ in Paris face Police with banned ‘flashball’ guns

Several thousand “gilets jaunes” protesters have marched through Paris and other French cities on Saturday on the 12th weekend of action against the government.

Protesters carried French flags and held signs attacking the French president as being out of touch or calling for referendums tabled by citizens.

Protesters injured in previous weeks of violence were put at the front of the protests, some of whom wore eyepatches with a target sign on them. The government warned that police would not hesitate to use ‘flashballs’ in the event of violence by demonstrators after it was authorised by France’s highest administrative court. Flashball riot control guns are banned in much of Europe.

UK’s Info commissioner launches data protection audit after democracy bought off

The information commissioner has launched an audit into Leave.EU and the insurance company owned by the campaign’s key financial backer, Arron Banks, after fining the organisations a total of £120,000 for data protection violations during the EU referendum campaign.

Leave.EU was fined £15,000 for using Eldon Insurance customers’ details unlawfully to send almost 300,000 political marketing messages, and a further £45,000 for its part in sending an Eldon marketing campaign to political subscribers. Eldon was fined £60,000 for the latter violation.

The Geo-political struggle for Venezuela

The usual mainstream media suspects have their printing presses and news presenters set to max propaganda mode over Venezuela.

The CIA is working hard to stoke violence, and the genuine poor will soon start to die, both in those egged on to riot and in the security services. But do not get taken in by the complete nonsense that this is a popular, democratic revolution. It is not. It is yet another barefaced CIA regime change coup.

Big Banks in big trouble (again)

Eight banks are being targeted in a European Union probe that alleges traders colluded to acquire and trade euro government bonds, a month after the EU regulators implicated lenders in a separate bond-trading case.

The EU’s antitrust chief, Margrethe Vestager, is moving her attention to possible collusion between banks in the estimated $9.4-trillion market for European government debt. She’s already extracted huge fines from Google and a massive back-tax bill from Apple Inc. before she ends her five-year term later this year. While the EU’s powerful antitrust arm often lags far behind financial authorities in the U.S. and the U.K. in punishing collusion between traders, its fines can be hefty.

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Featured image is from TruePublica

The original source of this article is TruePublica

Copyright © True Publica, TruePublica, 2019

Re-Colonization: France, Turkey and England Return to their Colonial Ambitions

To the world: Stop electing eejits from the aristocratic classes, as we have plenty of our own functional eejits in the working classes!

France, Turkey, and England have seeking to rekindle their former glory through a return to colonization, argues analyst Thierry Meyssan.

Source: Re-Colonization: France, Turkey and England Return to their Colonial Ambitions

http://www.mintpressnews.com

By Thierry Meyssan

January 18th, 2019

Look, Macron is a military!

It is difficult to anticipate what form this future colonization will take. Long ago, it was made possible by the huge differences in the level of education. But today?

For a decade we have been revealing the incongruity of the French desire to re-establish its authority over its old colonies. This was the logic behind the nomination by President Nicolas Sarkozy of Bernard Kouchner as Minister for Foreign Affairs. Kouchner replaced the French Revolutionary idea of  “The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen” with the Anglo-Saxon notion of human rights. Later, his friend President François Hollande declared, during a press conference on the fringes of the UN General Assembly, that it was time to re-establish a mandate over Syria. The great grand-nephew of ambassador François George-Picot (of the Sykes-Picot agreement), ex-President Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, spoke of this even more clearly. This should help us better to understand the desire of President Emmanuel Macron to continue the war against Syria, without the United States.

There has always been a “colonial party” in France which crosses all political parties and acts as a lobby in the service of the wealthy class. Just as in every period when it becomes difficult for unscrupulous capitalists to crush the national work-force, the myth of colonial conquest resurfaces. If the Yellow Vests revolt, let us continue with the exploitation of men by other men » on the backs of the Syrians.

Long ago, this form of domination hid, according to the words of Jules Ferry – under whose auspices François Hollande consecrated his son mandate – behind the duty of bestowing civilization. Today, it aims at protecting the people whose elected leaders are qualified as dictators. France is not the only ancient colonial power to act in this way. Turkey quickly followed on.

The Ottoman Empire

Three months after the attempted assassination and aborted coup d’état of July 2016, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan gave his inaugural speech from the university which bears his name (RTEÜ). He delivered a list of the ambitions of the Turkish Republic since its creation and those of his new regime. Making an explicit reference to the National Oath (Misak-ı Millî) [4], which was adopted by the Ottoman Parliament on 12 February 1920, he justified his irredentism.

This Oath, which was the foundation of the passage of the Ottoman Empire to the Turkish Republic, lays claim to the territory in the North-East of Greece (Western Thrace and the Dodecanese), all of Cyprus, the North of Syria (including Idlib, Aleppo and Al-Hasakah), and the North of Iraq (including Mosul).

Currently, the Empire in re-formation already occupies the North of Cyprus (the pseudo-Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus), the North-West of Syria, and a small part of Iraq. For all these areas, where the Turkish language and currency apply, prefects ( wali ») have been nominated, and their offices are situated in the White Palace of Ankara.

A poster shows the French and British empires and bearing the inscription: “We will win because we are the stronger” in Paris on June 11, 1939. Photo | AP

 

The British Empire

As for the United Kingdom, it has been hesitating for two years about its future after the Brexit.

A little after the arrival of Donald Trump at the White House, Prime Minister Theresa May went to the United States. Speaking to the representatives of the Republican Party, she proposed re-establishing the Anglo-Saxon leadership of the rest of the world. But President Trump has been elected to liquidate these imperial dreams, not to share them.

Disappointed, Theresa May then traveled to China in order to propose that President Xi Jinping share control of international exchanges. The City, she said, was ready to ensure the convertibility of Western currencies into Yuan. But President Xi had not been elected to do business with an heiress of the power which had dismantled his country and imposed on the Chinese their opium war.

Theresa May tried a third version with the Commonwealth. Some of the ex-colonies of the Crown, like India, are today enjoying powerful growth and could become precious commercial partners. Symbolically, the heir to the throne, Crown Prince Charles, was raised to the Presidency of this association. Mrs. May announced that we are on our way to a global Britain.

In an interview with the Sunday Telegraph on 30 December 2018, the British Minister for Defence, Gavin Williamson, published his analysis of the situation. Since the fiasco of the Suez Canal in 1956, the United Kingdom has implemented a policy of decolonization and has withdrawn its troops from the rest of the world. Today, it conserves permanent military bases only in Gibraltar, Cyprus, Diego Garcia and the Falklands, to give these islands their imperial title. For the last 63 years, London has been oriented towards the European Union, invented by Winston Churchill, but to which, initially, he never imagined that England would belong. The Brexit tears this policy to shreds. From now on, the United Kingdom is back as a global power.

London is planning to open two permanent military bases. The first will probably be in Asia (Singapore or Brunei), and the second in Latin America – most likely in Guyana, in order to participate in the new stage of the Rumsfeld-Cebrowski strategy of the destruction of those regions of the world which are not connected to globalization. After the African Great Lakes, the Greater Middle East, it’s time for the Caribbean Basin. The war will probably start with an invasion of Venezuela by Colombia (pro-US), Brazil (pro-Israel) and Guyana (pro-British).

Taking no notice of the smooth speechifying of the French, the English built an empire with the collaboration of multinational companies in the service of which it placed its army. They divided the world into two parts, which may be summed up as follows – the sovereign was the King of England (and therefore submitted to political tradition over here ) and the Emperor of India (in other words subjected to the private East India Company and unlimited autocrat over there).

Decolonization was a corollary of the Cold War. It was forced on the states of Western Europe by the duopoly of the USA and the USSR. This held during the time of the unipolar world but now meets no obstacles since the US withdrawal from the Greater Middle East.

It is difficult to anticipate what form this future colonization will take. Long ago, it was made possible by the huge differences in the level of education. But today?

 

Thierry Meyssan is a political consultant, President-founder of the Réseau Voltaire (Voltaire Network). His latest work in French is Sous nos Yeux. Du 11-Septembre à Donald Trump (Right Before our Eyes. From 9/11 to Donald Trump).

Source | Voltaire

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect MintPress News editorial policy.

Italian deputy PM calls on EU to sanction France for its ‘continued colonization’ of Africa

The Italian deputy prime minister has blamed France for the European migrant crisis, accusing it of impoverishing African nations with “colonialist” policies. He promised to take the issue to the EU and other international bodies.

Source: Italian deputy PM calls on EU to sanction France for its ‘continued colonization’ of Africa — RT World News

RT World News

21 Jan, 2019

Migrants, intercepted off the coast in the Mediterranean Sea, wait to disembark from a rescue boat at the port of Malaga, southern Spain, January 6, 2019. © REUTERS/Jon Nazca

The Italian deputy prime minister has blamed France for the European migrant crisis, accusing it of impoverishing African nations with “colonialist” policies. He promised to take the issue to the EU and other international bodies.

Luigi Di Maio, leader of the anti-establishment Five Star Movement and Italy’s Deputy PM, launched a scathing attack on France, which he argued is to blame for the inherent causes of the ongoing migrant crisis at EU borders.

Di Maio was speaking at a rally on Sunday, when he touched on recent mass migrant drownings in the Mediterranean. It is believed that up to 170 migrants who left Libya and Morocco on ramshackle dinghies may have drowned in the sea last week. Three migrants were saved by the Italian Navy on Friday off the cost of Lampedusa. The survivors said they were a part of a group of 120 people that sailed from Libya on Thursday. Their boat started to sink after they were at sea for about 10 hours. The victims, according to migrant organizations, include a two-month-old child and at least 10 women. Separately, another boat carrying 53 migrants capsized in the western Mediterranean, according to sole survivor of the incident.

The tragedies have reignited the debate on the hardline migration policy championed by Italy’s right-wing government.

“We would be hypocrites if we just continued to talk about the effects without looking for the causes. If today we have people coming from Africa it’s because some European countries like France never stopped colonizing Africa in their heads,” Di Maio told the crowd.

The politician, who also serves as the minister of economic development, referred to the CFA franc, a currency which is used in 14 former French colonies in West and Central Africa. The currency is guaranteed by the French Treasury and has a fixed rate of exchange with the euro. While it is credited for providing African countries with financial stability, it has often been criticized as a relic of colonial times by proponents of Africa’s full independence from France. They argue that the CFA franc, created in 1945, impedes their economic development as they have no say in French or European monetary policy.

 

“There are dozens of African states in which France prints its own currency, the franc of the colonies, and with that, it finances the French public debt,” Di Maio said, adding that France should be subjected to sanctions by the EU, and potentially the UN, for “impoverishing those states and triggering those people.”

“The place of Africans is in Africa and not at the bottom of the sea,” he stated.
Di Maio further argued that France would fall far back in the international economic rankings if not for its leverage over its former colonies.

“If France did not have the African colonies, which it is impoverishing, it would be the 15th international economic power and instead it is among the first for what it is doing in Africa,” he said. France is currently the world’s seventh-largest economy, according to World Bank data for 2017, and the third-biggest economy in Europe after Germany and the UK.

Di Maio said that his party would submit a proposal to parliament to punish France in the coming weeks.

In a swipe at French President Emmanuel Macron, Di Maio said that he should stop lecturing Italy on morals while his government continue to exploit African nations.
Last summer, Macron chastized the Italian government for its refusal to pick up migrants stranded at sea, with his spokesman calling the policy “sickening” and “unacceptable.” 

Italy brushed off the criticism, accusing the French government of hypocrisy.
Relations between the French and Italian governments were already strained, with Di Maio – along with anti-immigrant Italian Interior Minister Matteo Salvini – voicing their support for Yellow Vest protests that have plagued Macron’s government since November.

Fall of Empires: London, Washington and Paris on brink of collapse

George Galloway was a member of the British Parliament for nearly 30 years. He presents TV and radio shows (including on RT). He is a film-maker, writer and a renowned orator.

Source link

RT.com

9 Jan, 2019

© Global Look Press / Christoph Meyer/Dpa; © Reuters/Kevin Lamarque; © Reuters/Christian Hartmann

Despite the thrashing around of the NATO disinformation apparat, the imperial heartland has entered 2019 in a state of complete chaos.

Washington, London, and Paris – the three capitals of the Empire – are today effectively ungoverned, shutdown, tottering on the brink of collapse or under siege by their own people.

Their self-chosen Nemeses – Moscow and Beijing – meanwhile toast the New Year in a state of considerable optimism and self-confidence. These are the facts, this is the news.

We should start at the top of the Empire. The United States government has closed down amid stasis and a barrage of inter-governmental howitzers.

The defense secretary, ‘Mad Dog’ Mattis, has resigned as have other uniformed subalterns angry at the president’s re-found determination to withdraw from costly and losing foreign wars. The actual “mad dog” – John Bolton – openly defies President Trump over Syria, Mueller closes in, and the new Democratic majority in the House gears up to “impeach the mother***er.”

Nobody knows if President Trump will be around for much longer, and the merest glance at the views of his putative successor – Vice President Mike Pence – recalls the famous picture of President Nixon with his vice president, Spiro Agnew, standing behind him. The satirical speech bubble had Nixon pointing over his shoulder and saying “nobody is going to shoot me with this guy next in line.”

In London, British Prime Minister Theresa May is a dead woman walking; Britain’s exit from the European Union is still a matter of total uncertainty, yet a mere 80 days away. Violence outside the Parliament has begun to erupt, no faction can command a majority, an election cannot be held because its most likely result would be the election of veteran anti-imperialist Jeremy Corbyn whom the ‘deep state’ would sooner see under arrest (alongside this writer, according to the coup-apparatus Integrity Initiative).

A no-deal Brexit will see the south of England grind to a halt given the lack of preparation for it, as trucks headed to and from the continent turn Kent, the ‘Garden of England’, into a car-park.

A Brexit in name only – otherwise known as Theresa May’s deal – cannot pass in the House of Commons next week given Labour’s opposition together with at least 50 of the government’s own MPs and the 10 members of the coalition partners, the DUP.

A third option, a new referendum, runs the risk of the same scenario being played out (but almost entirely unreported here) on the streets of Paris and other French cities. Defying the result of the first referendum, cheating 17.4 million people of that which they voted for, risks social peace in England. Millions of Brexit voters are among those in Britain with nothing left to lose.

In France, the Elysee has become Macron’s Bastille and it is not at all inconceivable that it will be stormed.

Last weekend his own spokesman had to be smuggled out of a back-door after a truck hijacked by protestors smashed through the door of his government building. The very conditions Macron strove so very hard to bring about in Damascus and that France DID help bring about in Kiev are now rocking the very foundations of the French Republic.

No amount of turning the ‘Nelson’s Eye’ (when famously England’s Admiral Lord Nelson at the Battle of Trafalgar was told that the French Navy were advancing on him, he put his telescope to the black patch covering his missing eye and said “I see no ships” – will alter the fact that for eight weeks and counting, hundreds of thousands of French people of all political stripes have been – increasingly violently – on the streets of cities throughout the country demanding that their president resign. And that Macron showering Euros down the Champs Elysees in concessions – in absolute defiance of the EU’s fiscal rules – has merely encouraged ‘les autres’ to keep on demonstrating.

This week, the EU (and NATO) government of Italy joined the side of the ‘Gilets-Jaunes’, with Italy’s Salvini personally denouncing the French president as being “against his own people.”

This Saturday, a mammoth demonstration will take place in London,leveling the same raft of anti-austerity demands on the British government as the Yellow Vests are making of Macron. The center cannot hold.

The old order is dying; the new one cannot be born. If we are not careful we will soon be alive in the time of monsters.

The Return of Louis XVI: Emmanuel Macron, Roi de L’Ancien Regime

It never occurred to Louis, just as it never occurred to Macron that supporting revolutionary wars thousands of miles away could ever come back to haunt them at home.

Source: The Return of Louis XVI: Emmanuel Macron, Roi de L’Ancien Regime

http://www.strategic-culture.org

Martin SIEFF

29.12.2018

It is easy to imagine ridiculous young President Emmanuel Macron of France as his fellow-free trading liberal King Louis XVI. Macron’s extraordinary pretensions to “dignity” and being a “king” far from elevating him have stripped him of all the bogus credibility that the corrupt, servile and stupid mainstream media of Europe and the United States tried to give him.

Far from raising the embattled Fifth Republic to new heights of achievement and success, it is already clear that Le Jeune Macron is destroying it. The contrast with the founder of the Republic, the great and truly regal Charles de Gaulle could not be greater.

The 1.96 meters tall De Gaulle towered over his nation in many ways. Twice he was his country’s literal savior: First as the leader of the Free French Resistance against the Nazis and as President of France from 1944 to 1946. And then returning to power in 1958, De Gaulle saved his nation from disintegration and civil war.

He ended the long ferocious conflict in Algeria, survived at least six assassination plots on his life and rebuilt his nation into the most powerful and prosperous state in Western Europe. He also defied the United States repeatedly, courageously criticized US conduct of the Vietnam War and built a lasting relationship of friendship and understanding with the Soviet Union.

Macron is physically not a small man, standing at 1.78 meters: He only acts and looks that way. Only a year into office, it is now irreversibly clear that young Macron is fated to make a mockery of every great achievement of De Gaulle, Le Vieux, including the Fifth Republic itself.

Ridiculous young Macron has inflicted ruinous new hardships on the long-suffering French people in the name of his global financial masters. He has loyally proved to be Washington’s poodle in petty-minded and destructive attempts to impose yet more economic sanctions on Russia.

Far from withdrawing France from needless ruinous wars in the Arab and Muslim worlds as Le Grand Charles did in Algeria, Macron continues to eagerly support and promote the disastrous Western interventions in Syria and Libya.

The true parallel to Macron is not De Gaulle, who restored the wealth, stability, dignity and pride of his nation but of the hapless, witless, very internationalist and liberal King Louis XVI, last monarch of L’Ancien Regime.

Like Macron Louis was an eager, arrogant and idiotic young technocrat. Like Macron, he was an internationalist revolutionary and a free trader. He supported the American colonies in their successful revolution against the British Empire.

It never occurred to Louis, just as it never occurred to Macron, or his predecessors Nicolas Sarkozy and Francois Hollande that supporting revolutionary wars thousands of miles away could ever come back to haunt them at home. But that is exactly what happened. The collapse of ordered societies in Syria and Libya unleashed of millions of immigrants into France and other European nations with dire social consequences.

Louis suffered “blowback” too. American revolutionary Benjamin Franklin set up underground societies in France that within a decade toppled the most powerful kingdom in Europe.

Far from being the reactionary he has been caricatured as for more than 200 years, King Louis was one of the leading fashionable liberals and technocrats of his time. He especially revered English free-market economist Adam Smith, whose book “The Wealth of Nations” was published in 1776 (the same year as the American Revolution). So only a decade later, Louis fatefully signed his own 1786 Eden Free Trade Treaty with neighboring Britain.

As I noted in my own 2012 economic history “That Should Still Be Us”, the treaty proved to be a catastrophe: Cheap industrialized goods from the more advanced British economy flooded into France while the British cannily retained barriers of their own against French agricultural and other exports.

The French economy collapsed. Millions of people were thrown out of work. They and their families starved. Within three years the Great Revolution had exploded and the monarchy was toppled.

Louis, like Macron today, was convinced his advanced economic theories were more important than petty human suffering. It took the French Revolution and the loss, first of his crown and then of his own head to teach him otherwise.

Like Louis, Macron has shown no understanding or sympathy for the sufferings of ordinary people crushed beneath his absurd, unnecessary policies. Like Louis, his mask of liberalism and civilized compassion vanished as soon as his own people dared to disagree with him. Like Louis his only answer now is repression. Like Louis, he does not have a clue.

The Yellow Vest protestors are not going away. The French people are heartedly sick and tired of the 50- percent real unemployment, wide open immigration borders, slashed welfare programs and breakdown of law and order that Macron and the European Union elite has foisted on them., The Latest French Revolution is not over: it is only beginning.

Macron has ignored the ominous lessons of history. Now he is doomed to repeat them.

 

Happy New Year, big tech! France starts taxing Google, Apple, Facebook, and Amazon

Tech giants will now pay more tax in France, after the country decided not to wait for the rest of the EU to introduce the measure. The so-called GAFA tax targeting major digital firms comes into force on January 1.

Source: Happy New Year, big tech! France starts taxing Google, Apple, Facebook, and Amazon — RT Business News

RT Business News

1 Jan, 2019

Fireworks at the Eiffel Tower, Paris © Reuters / Pascal Rossignol

Tech giants will now pay more tax in France, after the country decided not to wait for the rest of the EU to introduce the measure. The so-called GAFA tax targeting major digital firms comes into force on January 1.

The French government hopes to raise €500 million ($572 million) with levies specifically aimed at multinational tech firms, including Google, Apple, Facebook, and Amazon, Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said, announcing the move in December. He stressed that “the tax will be introduced whatever happens.”

Paris has been pushing for what it sees as fairer taxation of the big-tech firms in the European Union. Progress on the issue has stalled in Brussels, as the 28-member bloc is divided on imposing the levies on Silicon Valley giants. Any changes must receive unanimous approval by member states.

Critics say that the big-tech firms are making money from European countries’ economies, but use their complex structure to route some of their profits to low-tax member states.

The opposing block is led by Ireland, which has become a sort of Mecca for US tech companies, and hosts many of their headquarters. Estonia and Sweden are also among those who do not favor France’s bid, fearing that the taxes could trigger US retaliation.

The EU has been discussing plans for a three-percent tax on the revenues of large internet companies that make money from user data or digital advertising. However, the last round of talks on the matter in November resulted in no significant progress, apparently pushing France to move forward with it alone.

Separately, France and Germany reached a consensus on a three-percent levy on digital ads after Paris agreed to water down its initial proposals on a broader tax on data. The two EU powerhouses plan to introduce a new joint measure in 2021, unless the Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD) members have agreed on a global approach by then.

France might have its own domestic reasons – like the consequences of the massive Yellow Vest protest – to impose the GAFA tax, named after Google, Apple, Facebook, and Amazon. The recent nationwide demonstrations will cost the French economy a hefty sum and have already resulted in lowering the country’s economic growth forecast for 2018 and 2019, while its budget deficit for next year rose to 3.2 percent, breaching EU rules.

Also on rt.com Oops, France did it again! EU allows Paris near-traditional budget breach for 2019 At the same time, French President Emmanuel Macron is a known critic of the big techs. In April, he warned that Google and Facebook are becoming too big to be governed. In May, Macron demanded a gathering of global tech bosses to commit to the common good.

“There is no free lunch,” the French president said. “It is not possible just to have free-riding on one side, when you make a good business.”

Hopkins: “Nothing Scares The Identity Politics Left Like An Actual Working-Class Uprising”

Source: Hopkins: “Nothing Scares The Identity Politics Left Like An Actual Working-Class Uprising” | Zero Hedge

http://www.zerohedge.com

by Tyler Durden

Fri, 12/14/2018

Authored (satirically) by CJ Hopkins via The Unz Review,

The Indiscreet Charm of the Gilets Jaunes

So it appears the privatization of France isn’t going quite as smoothly as planned. As I assume you are aware, for over a month now, the gilets jaunes (or “yellow vests”), a multiplicitous, leaderless, extremely pissed off, confederation of working class persons, have been conducting a series of lively protests in cities and towns throughout the country to express their displeasure with Emmanuel Macron and his efforts to transform their society into an American-style neo-feudal dystopia. Highways have been blocked, toll booths commandeered, luxury automobiles set on fire, and shopping on the Champs-Élysées disrupted. What began as a suburban tax revolt has morphed into a bona fide working class uprising.

 

It took a while for “the Golden Boy of Europe” to fully appreciate what was happening. In the tradition of his predecessor, Louis XVI, Macron initially responded to the gilets jaunes by inviting a delegation of Le Monde reporters to laud his renovation of the Elysée Palace, making the occasional condescending comment, and otherwise completely ignoring them. That was back in late November. Last Saturday, he locked down central Paris, mobilized a literal army of riot cops, “preventatively arrested” hundreds of citizens, including suspected “extremist students,” and sent in the armored military vehicles.

The English-language corporate media, after doing their best not to cover these protests (and, instead, to keep the American and British publics focused on imaginary Russians), have been forced to now begin the delicate process of delegitimizing the gilets jaunes without infuriating the the entire population of France and inciting the British and American proletariats to go out and start setting cars on fire. They got off to a bit of an awkward start.

For example, this piece by Angelique Chrisafis, The Guardian‘s Paris Bureau Chief, and her Twitter feed from the protests last Saturday. Somehow (probably a cock-up at headquarters), The Guardian honchos allowed Chrisafis to do some actual propaganda-free reporting (and some interviews with actual protesters) before they caught themselves and replaced her with Kim Willsher, who resumed The Guardian‘s usual neoliberal establishment-friendly narrative, which, in this case, entailed dividing the protesters into “real” gilets jaunes and “fake” gilet jaunes, and referring to the latter fictional group as “thuggish, extremist political agitators.”

By Sunday, the corporate media were insinuating that diabolical Russian Facebook bots had brainwashed the French into running amok, because who else could possibly be responsible? Certainly not the French people themselves! The French, as every American knows, are by nature a cowardly, cheese-eating people, who have never overthrown their rightful rulers, or publicly beheaded the aristocracy. No, the French were just sitting there, smoking like chimneys, and otherwise enjoying their debt-enslavement and the privatization of their social democracy, until they unsuspectingly logged onto Facebook and … BLAMMO, the Russian hackers got them!

Bloomberg is reporting that French authorities have opened a probe into Russian interference (in the middle of which report, for no apparent reason, a gigantic photo of Le Pen is featured, presumably just to give it that “Nazi” flavor). According to “analysis seen by The Times,” Russia-linked social media accounts have been “amplifying” the “chaos” and “violence” by tweeting photos of gilets jaunes who the French police have savagely beaten or gratuitiously shot with “less-than-lethal projectiles.” “Are nationalists infiltrating the yellow vests?” the BBC Newsnight producers are wondering. According to Buzzfeed’s Ryan Broderick, “a beast born almost entirely from Facebook” is slouching toward … well, I’m not quite sure, the UK or even, God help us, America! And then there’s Max Boot, who is convinced he is being personally persecuted by Russian agents like Katie Hopkins, James Woods, Glenn Greenwald, and other high-ranking members of a worldwide conspiracy Boot refers to as the “Illiberal International” (but which regular readers of my column will recognize as the “Putin-Nazis“).

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And, see, this is the problem the corporate media (and other staunch defenders of global neoliberalism) are facing with these gilets jaunes protests. They can’t get away with simply claiming that what is happening is not a working class uprising, so they have been forced to resort to these blatant absurdities. They know they need to delegitimize the gilets jaunes as soon as possible — the movement is already starting to spread — but the “Putin-Nazi” narrative they’ve been using on Trump, Corbyn, and other “populists” is just not working.

No one believes the Russians are behind this, not even the hacks who are paid to pretend they do. And the “fascism” hysteria is also bombing. Attempts to portray the gilets jaunes as Le Pen-sponsored fascists blew up in their faces. Obviously, the far-Right are part of these protests, as they would be in any broad working class uprising, but there are far too many socialists and anarchists (and just regular pissed-off working class people) involved for the media to paint them all as “Nazis.”

Which is not to say that the corporate media and prominent public intellectuals like Bernard-Henri Lévy will not continue to hammer away at the “fascism” hysteria, and demand that the “good” and “real” gilets jaunes suspend their protests against Macron until they have completely purged their movement of “fascists,” and “extremists,” and other dangerous elements, and have splintered it into a number of smaller, antagonistic ideological factions that can be more easily neutralized by the French authorities … because that’s what establishment intellectuals do.

We can expect to hear this line of reasoning, not just from establishment intellectuals like Lévy, but also from members of the Identity Politics Left, who are determined to prevent the working classes from rising up against global neoliberalism until they have cleansed their ranks of every last vestige of racism, sexism, homophobia, xenophobia, transphobia, and so on. These leftist gatekeepers have been struggling a bit to come up with a response to the gilets jaunes … a response that doesn’t make them sound like hypocrites. See, as leftists, they kind of need to express their support for a bona fide working class uprising. At the same time, they need to delegitimize it, because their primary adversaries are fascism, racism, sexism, homophobia, xenophobia, and assorted other isms and phobias, not the neoliberal ruling classes.

Nothing scares the Identity Politics Left quite like an actual working class uprising. Witnessing the furious unwashed masses operating out there on their own, with no decent human restraint whatsoever, Identity Politics Leftists feel a sudden overwhelming urge to analyze, categorize, organize, sanitize, and otherwise correct and control them.

They can’t accept the fact that the actual, living, breathing working classes are messy, multiplicitous, inconsistent, and irreducible to any one ideology. Some of them are racists. Some are fascists. Others are communists, socialists, and anarchists. Many have no idea what they are, and don’t particularly care for any of these labels. This is what the actual working classes are … a big, contradictory collection of people who, in spite of all their differences, share one thing in common, that they are being screwed over by the ruling classes. I don’t know about you, but I consider myself one of them.

Where we go from here is anyone’s guess. According to The Guardian, as I am sitting here writing this, the whole of Europe is holding its breath in anticipation of the gilets jaunes’ response to Macron’s most recent attempt to appease them, this time with an extra hundred Euros a month, some minor tax concessions, and a Christmas bonus.

Something tells me it’s not going to work, but even if it does, and the gilets jaunes uprising ends, this messy, Western “populist” insurgency against global neoliberalism has clearly entered a new phase. Count on the global capitalist ruling classes to intensify their ongoing War on Dissent and their demonization of anyone opposing them (or contradicting their official narrative) as an “extremist,” a “fascist,” a “Russian agent,” and so on. I’m certainly looking forward to that, personally.

Oh… yeah, and I almost forgot, if you were wondering what you could get me for Christmas, I did some checking, and there appears to be a wide selection of yellow safety vests online for just a couple Euros.

Finian Cunningham: US Will Defeat EU Army

The testy slap-down by US President Donald Trump to the idea of a European army was telling. Any notion of the Europeans stepping away from American “protection” would be anathema to Washington.

Source: US Will Defeat EU Army – Sputnik International

sputniknews.com

Finian Cunningham

Nov 13, 2018

© AP Photo / Evan Vucci

The testy slap-down by US President Donald Trump to the idea of a European army was telling. Any notion of the Europeans stepping away from American “protection” would be anathema to Washington.

That’s because American power is not about “protecting” Europe. That’s just the vainglorious, propaganda mythology. In reality, it’s all about Washington maintaining a lucrative protection racket in Europe, imperial control over supposed “allies”, and militarily targeting Russia as the main objective.

The idea for a European army was floated again last week by French President Emmanuel Macron. Macron has been particularly keen on the European Union forming its own military, independent from the US.

Speaking on a tour of World War I battlefields in northern France, Macron said: “We have to protect ourselves with respect to China, Russia and even the United States of America.”

In response, Trump immediately took Macron to task, saying his remarks were “insulting”. In a subsequent meeting in Paris for WWI commemorations, the French leader appeared to backtrack under pressure, trying to assure his American counterpart that a European army would be “complementary” to the US-led NATO alliance.

Still, the proposal of Europe going its own way from the US has not been abandoned. This week, French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire told German business publication Handelsblatt that Europe must “stand up to the Trump administration” and not be afraid to assert its own power as an “empire”.

“Everybody knows it takes guts to stand in the way of Donald Trump’s administration,” said Le Maire in an interview. “The people of Europe have had enough of the babble from Brussels. They want to see action.”

Echoing Macron’s comments last week, the senior French cabinet minister said that Europe must become a “peaceful empire” in order to stand up to China and the US.

Le Maire also challenged Germany to back the French plans for creating an independent force — “political, financial and military” — from Washington. “We have talked about it for a long time. Now it’s time for decisions.”

These are certainly pushy words from the French leadership. But the idea of Europe taking on a more assertive, independent international role from the US has also been growing among Germany’s political class in recent years. The residual shame over Nazi Germany’s horrors seems to be gradually fading as Berlin strives for more global influence.

There are several factors in why the EU seems to be becoming more estranged from its erstwhile transatlantic partnership with the US. Under the Trump administration, tensions have intensified over his barracking about NATO expenditures; his browbeating over perceived “unfair” European trading practices; the threat of sanctions on Iran hitting EU multi-billion euro investments with Tehran; and the walking away from the Paris Climate Accord.

In this quarrelsome context, the notion of Europe forming its own military security organization takes on even greater appeal. France’s Macron seems especially ambitious to rejuvenate European and French global standing. Having its own continental army augments that ambition.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has welcomed the proposal. Moscow views such a development as moving towards a more multipolar world and away from the unipolar would-be dominance of the US.

At a glance, one would think too that Washington might also endorse European defences being independently bolstered. After all, for years American politicians have been bitterly complaining that Europe is a “freeloader” on US military protection. Trump has taken the grievance to new heights, aggressively badgering European nations to stump up more spending on their military to “share the burden” more evenly with the US.

There is a conceited American myth that Washington is the “chivalrous protector” of Europe, as portrayed in countless Hollywood movies, such as Spielberg’s ‘Saving Private Ryan’.

Since 1945, tens of thousands of US troops stationed in bases all over Europe are said to be there out of noble duty to defend allies, so goes the myth.

Such a conceited narrative is then used by Trump to castigate Europeans to spend more on defences and “share the burden”.

However, notice how the American tune suddenly shifts if the Europeans actually begin to propose setting up their own defences. If the issue were all about “sharing” costs of defence more equitably, then logically Washington should welcome the move towards a European army.

But that is not the real issue. Washington would never accept Europe becoming independent in terms of military power, because military power through NATO is how the American ruling class exert their hegemonic control over Europe.

Recall that NATO was set up in 1949 in the aftermath of the Second World War with the expressed objective to, “Keep the Russians out, the Americans in and the Germans down”. Note that while the civilian post of secretary general of NATO can be held by Europeans, the military organization is invariably commanded by an American armed forces general.

NATO is America’s “protection racket” in Europe. It has grown to a  29-member bloc which has expanded over recent years all the way to Russia’s borders. This US-led military matrix sprawling over Europe gives Washington huge leverage over European policy and a vital projection of force at Moscow.

Moreover, European members of NATO are obliged to spend their military budgets largely on American weapons, including Patriot missiles and fighter jets. European nations are lined up to buy hundreds of the latest-generation and wildly overpriced American F-35 warplanes.

If Europe somehow created its own army to satisfy the vanity of politicians like Napoleonic Macron then Washington stands to lose tremendous strategic control over Europe and the latter’s relations with Russia. It also stands to lose trillions of dollars flowing to the Pentagon’s military-industrial complex that props up American capitalism.

Washington for all its rhetoric about “protecting allies” and “burden sharing” is not going to let that happen. European fanciful talk about setting up its own army would be viewed by US imperialism as an intolerable act of insolence. But the tensions over the issue do show one instructive thing: US relations with Europe are not the partnership. It’s all about domination.

The views and opinions expressed by the contributor do not necessarily reflect those of Sputnik.