Simon Jenkins: In Taiwan, as in Ukraine, the west is flirting with disaster

By Dilip -
NB: The flag of 'freedom and democracy' is wearing a bit thin on Western shoulders. The list of criminal interventions on other countries + nuclear tests in the Pacific + war crimes is very long indeed. Vietnam (1963-75); Iran (1953); Bikini atoll and Marina islands; Chile (1973), Argentina (support of military dictators); wars in Iraq; long standing support for the apartheid regime in South Africa; support for Yahya Khans military genocide in Bangladesh (East Pakistan, 1970-71); the assassination of Mujibur Rehman - these a re just a few of the prominent examples. And their permanent alliance with the brutal Saudi Arabian regime shows that democracy is not exactly on top of their diplomatic agenda.

As to the CIA involvement in the global heroin trade, the less said the better. Maybe the freedom to die of heroin addiction is included in the western list of liberties

Meanwhile the totalitarian disdain for justice, human rights and truth has been exemplified by the Soviet (and post Soviet) regime; and the People's Republic of China as well. Apologists for these regimes should wake up and stop their stupid propaganda. Many may not recall the Chinese invasion of the DRV ('North Vietnam') in 1979, an attempt at military terrorism inspired by the DRV's overthrow of the brutal Pol Pot regime in Cambodia. The PRC treats Tibet like a colony, and has recently been found to be terrorizing the Uighur population.

Going back in time, the Soviet invasion of Hungary in 1956; and of Czechoslovakia in 1968 to overthrow communist regimes that were getting too democratic for their taste; the Soviet inspired martial law in Poland in 1981 to stop a workers movement for an independent trade union; and the Tien An Men massacre in Beijing in 1989, are just a few examples of their terrorist nature. As to the mass murder unleashed by the communist regimes under Stalin and Mao, words fail us. There is to much to say, and much historical research for anyone interested.

Readers can study all this if they wish, I have posted about these matters often and will attach a few links. Here all I will say is this: these regimes are involved in war crimes and human rights violations on both a global and a continental scale.  All these crimes are dressed up in doctrines which are pure propaganda - it's is  the public willingness to tolerate lies and nonsense that is dangerous. The democratic minded public the world over should discard their stupid fascination with nationalism, which Einstein rightly called 'the measles of mankind'; and begin thinking and campaigning for global peace, disarmament and urgent action against global warming. War will poison the environment at an ever increasing pace. Stop this madness and stop telling lies about the beauty of communism, capitalism etc. Its all bullshit. DS

Simon Jenkins: In Taiwan, as in Ukraine, the west is flirting with disaster

Arguments in the foothills of war are always the same. Those for war shout loudest and beat their chests, eager for tanks to rumble and jets to roar. Those against are dismissed as wimps, appeasers and defeatists. When the trumpets sound and the drums beat, reason runs for cover.

The visit to Taiwan of the US congressional speaker, Nancy Pelosi, has been so blatantly provocative it seems little more than a midterm election stunt. She declares it “essential that America and her allies make clear that we never give in to autocrats”. China’s gross overreaction is a classic example of precipitate escalation. Yet when Joe Biden asserted that the US would defend Taiwan militarily, the president’s office instantly backtracked, reasserting a policy of “strategic ambiguity”. It remains the case that no one quite believes the US will go to war over Taiwan – so far.

A similar ambiguity infuses the west’s attitude towards Russia over Ukraine. The US and Britain reiterate that Russia “must fail and be seen to fail”. But can Russia really be relied on to tolerate ever greater destruction of its armaments without escalation? The west seems set on holding Ukraine to a drawn game, hoping to postpone some horrific penalty shootout. All Russia can do is perpetrate ever more atrocities to keep its team in play. Suppose it escalates something else?

These are the same uncertainties that overwhelmed European diplomacy in 1914. Rulers dithered while generals strutted and rattled sabres. Flags flew and newspapers filled with tallies of weaponry. Negotiations slithered into ultimatums. As the frontline pleaded for help, woe betide anyone who preached compromise. During the two east-west nuclear crises of the cold war, in 1962 over Cuba and 1983 over a false missile alarm, disaster was averted by informal lines of communication between Washington and Moscow. They worked. Those lines reportedly do not exist today. The eastern bloc is led by two autocrats, internally secure but paranoid about their borders...

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/aug/03/taiwan-nancy-pelosi-visit-ukraine-us








Chris Hedges - Israel's big lie: This isn't self defense, it's a war crime, aided and abetted by the U.S.


Guantanamo Bay- Obama's shame: The forgotten prisoners of America's own Gulag
Vanessa Thorpe: MI 6, the coup in Iran that changed the Middle East, and the cover-up


Donald Trump's gift to America: Realizing we've never been a liberal democracy. By PAUL ROSENBERG


Mauritius formally challenges Britain’s ownership of Chagos Islands


The Break-Up of Britain / The US today resembles the Soviet Union just before it fell 


Book review: The Politics of Heroin - CIA Complicity in the Global Drug Trade


Uki Goñi - A grandmother's 36-year hunt for the child stolen by the Argentinian junta


Zack Stanton: Violent Christian Extremism in the USA


DANIEL LEWIS - Daniel J. Berrigan, Defiant Priest Who Preached Pacifism, Dies at 94 // Catonsville 9 Statement written by Dan Berrigan, S.J.


Steve Bannon Documentary, 'The Brink', Will Leave You Cold


US ‘dark money’ groups spend million+s overseas in support of campaigns to limit or ban rights for women and LGBTQ people


Indigenous Americans demand a reckoning with brutal colonial history


JAMES SPRINGER: Remembering the Fall of Saigon, 45 years on


George Monbiot - Asymmetric force: Pegasus spyware is the latest tool autocrats are using to stay in power


Chauncey DeVega: Trump is mentally ill but our real sickness runs much deeper


Tom Engelhardt: Biden's indirect admission highlights the steady decline of American empire


Lucian Truscott: Trump wants to end the forever wars - except the one about oil and money

 

Tom Dispatch - William Astore, From Deterrence to Doomsday? // C. Wright Mills on The Structure of Power in American Society (1958) // The Week the World Almost Ended


Diego Garcia: the Chagos Islands 40 years on remain a black mark on Britain


Britain 'attempts to censor' US report on torture sites


Nuclear Testing in the Marshall Islands: A Chronology of Events


The Nuclear History of Bikini Atoll (PHOTOS)


Britain destroyed records of colonial crimes


Bikini Atoll nuclear test: 60 years later and islands still unliveable



Hedges: The Age of Self-Delusion


How With This Rage. BY CHRIS HEDGES (2005)


CHRIS HEDGES - The execution of Julian Assange: He exposed the crimes of empire; and that can't be tolerated


William Astore: The U.S. Military’s Lost Wars // Chris Hedges: The American Empire Will Collapse Within a Decade, Two at Most


Chris Hedges: The Collective Suicide Machine


Jesus sermon from the Rev. Chris Hedges


'He killed a party and a country': a Chinese insider hits out at Xi Jinping


The Crises of Party Culture: by Yang Guang


Book review: The State as Faction: Mao’s Cultural Revolution

 

Book reviews - ‘Tombstone: The Great Chinese Famine, 1958-1962,’ by Yang Jisheng


The Return of the Show Trial: China’s Televised “Confessions”. By Magnus Fiskesjö


Ravi Bhoothalingam: Coronavirus and the Mandate of Heaven




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