ERIC ZUESSE -- The Future for China

The Future for China

July 15, 2020 

by Eric Zuesse for the Saker Blog

On July 14th, the two conjoined gangster-regimes, U.S. & UK, simultaneously started, with deadly seriousness, their aggressive economic war against China.

Business Insider headlined “US Navy warship challenges China in South China Sea as US blasts Beijing’s ‘unlawful’ claims and ‘gangster tactics’” and reported that,

After the US Department of State declared Beijing’s maritime claims in the South China Sea and efforts to assert dominance to be unlawful, the US Navy destroyer USS Ralph Johnson further challenged China with a sail-by operation.

The Navy released a couple of photos on Tuesday of the destroyer sailing near the contested Spratly Islands, and a Navy spokesman confirmed that the ship conducted a freedom-of-navigation operation in the area.

The Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS Ralph Johnson (DDG 114) steams near the Spratly Islands in the South China Sea. Ralph Johnson is deployed conducting maritime security operations and theater security cooperation efforts for a free and open Indo-Pacific. U.S. Navy Photo by Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Anthony Collier

On the same day, Russia’s RT headlined “George Galloway: UK ban on Huawei is national self-harm. China’s riposte could devastate the ailing British economy”, and he reported that

George Galloway: PUSSYCAT media has failed to call out the UK government's ABYSMAL Covid-19 response. We should be angry

George Galloway: PUSSYCAT media has failed to call out the UK government's ABYSMAL Covid-19 response. We should be angry

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. Follow him on Twitter @georgegalloway

11 Apr, 2020 14:25 / Updated 18 hours ago

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London, April 1, 2020 ©  Reuters / Toby Melville

A state of shame now exists in Britain. Elderly people are being handed documents by their doctors – Hippocratically bound by their oath to “Do no Harm” - and told to sign them. Upon inspection, the documents declare that the patient does not wish to be resuscitated should they become unconscious from the virus. Euthanasia by stealth, and contrary to law, has washed up on our shores. And all under the deaf, dumb and blind monkeys of the Fourth Estate.

As the UK government’s inadequate response to the coronavirus pandemic gets record numbers of citizens killed, the media should be up in arms calling out every failure. Instead, the Q&A sessions look like a softball match.

The charge that the media is merely an echo chamber of the political establishment in Britain has long been made by leftists and other rebels outside the prevailing orthodoxy. At the end of a third week of lockdown, this charge is being made not just by millions of ordinary people of quite mainstream political opinions, but even by two giants of the media market itself.

Andre Vltchek -- In the UK – Do Subjects Deserve their Rulers?

23.12.2019 Author: Andre Vltchek

In the UK – Do Subjects Deserve their Rulers?

Column: Politics

Region: Europe

I constantly receive such letters; letters which repeat, again and again, year after year, basically the same thing: “If only we would have an opportunity to vote out our damn system!”

Such letters, emails and messages keep coming to me from the United States, but also from the United Kingdom. Particularly, after certain events, like when the Western empire overthrows some progressive government in Asia, Latin America or the Middle East.

I honestly wonder: “Don’t my readers actually periodically have that proverbial opportunity they are longing for? They can, can’t they, install socialism; to let it storm into Downing Street like an early spring?”

But they keep missing that opportunity, again and again. Or, are they really missing it? Actually, for so many years they have voted in the most extreme forms of capitalism and imperialism, so one has to wonder whether the British voters perhaps truly deserve their rulers?

***

The results of the British elections became so radical, so conservative, that even the most conformist British press, like The Economist, doesn’t appear to be able to stomach them, anymore.

Of course, I am being sarcastic, because precisely that the mainstream press is one of the main reasons, why the British electorates vote as they do.

But seriously, could anyone in his or her sane state of mind vote for BoJo?

Just put Boris Johnson and Jeremy Corbyn next to each other, and listen to each of them for ten minutes, and it would appear that anyone who would vote for the leader of the Conservative Party should be ripe for the mental asylum.

Eric Zuesse -- Over 100 Missiles against Syria: US, UK and France Committed an International War Crime Against Syria on 14 April 2018

Over 100 Missiles against Syria: US, UK and France Committed an International War Crime Against Syria on 14 April 2018

By Eric Zuesse

Global Research, November 06, 2019

Region: Middle East & North Africa

Theme: Media Disinformation, US NATO War Agenda

In-depth Report: SYRIA

It is now clear that on 14 April 2018, the three Governments of U.S., UK, and France, fired over a hundred missiles against Syria, on no more ‘justification’ than staged videos that had been done by those regimes’ own proxy boots-on-the-ground fighters in Syria, who are trying to overthrow Syria’s existing, non-sectarian Government and replace it by a Sharia-law regime that would be selected by agents of Saudi Arabia’s ruling family.

In other words: the fighters whom the U.S., UK, and France, had been arming and training, had themselves created this pretext of a faked ‘gas attack’ having been perpetrated against civilians, as an excuse in order for those three national regimes (which Governments are those jihadists’ own foreign supporters and backers — the real  international “Deep State” imposing the empire of which they themselves are already a part as the empire’s proxy boots-on-the-ground army) to, additionally and now directly, invade Syria, by means of over a hundred missiles against Syria, on that date: 14 April 2018.

09.11.2018 Author: Grete Mautner

Great Britain is a Serial Political Murderer

Column: Politics

Region: Europe

 

An interception of encrypted transmissions of the General Intelligence Presidency of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) by the British General Intelligence Directorate (GCHQ) is said to reveal that the order to assassinate Jamal Khashoggi, a Saudi journalist working for a number of Western media sources, came from the Saudi royal family. This claim was made by The Daily Express with a reference to its unnamed sources.

This publication has essentially revealed that British intelligence services, namely MI6, was well aware of the preparations made by the Saudi special services to silence a major nuisance for Saudi authorities, namely Jamal Hashoggi, forever. The absence of any visible or reported steps made by London to prevent this despicable crime serves as a direct indication that there was at least some form of involvement by British intelligence agencies in the assassination of the Saudi journalist.

Craig Murray -- British Democracy is Dysfunctional

British Democracy is Dysfunctional 

19 Apr, 2018  in Uncategorized by craig | View Comments

A significant proportion of Labour MPs are actively seeking to cause their own party to do badly in forthcoming local elections, with the aim of damaging the leader of that party. To that end they have attacked Jeremy Corbyn relentlessly in a six week crescendo, in parliament and in the entirely neo-liberal owned corporate media, over the Skripal case, over Syria, and over crazy allegations of anti-semitism, again and again and again.

I recall reporting on an Uzbek Presidential election where the “opposition” candidate advised voters to vote for President Karimov. When you have senior Labour MPs including John Woodcock, Jess Phillips, John Mann, Luciana Berger, Mike Gapes, Wes Streeting and Ruth Smeeth carrying on a barrage of attacks on their own leader during a campaign, and openly supporting Government positions, British democracy has become completely dysfunctional. No amount of posing with leaflets in their constituencies will disguise what they are doing, and every Labour activist and trade unionist knows it.

British democracy cannot become functional again until Labour voters have a chance to vote for candidates of their party who are not supporters of the neo-liberal establishment. This can only happen by the removal as Labour candidates of a very large number of Labour MPs.

That it is “undemocratic” for party members to select their candidates freely at each election, and it is “democratic” for MP’s to have the guaranteed candidacy for forty years irrespective of their behaviour, is a nonsensical argument, but one to which the neo-liberal media fiercely clings as axiomatic. Meanwhile in the SNP, all MPs have to put themselves forward to party members equally with other candidates for selection at every election. This seems perfectly normal. Indeed every serious democratic system elects people for a fixed term. Labour members do not elect their constituency chairman for life, so why should they elect their parliamentary candidate for life? Why do we keep having general elections rather than voters elect the MP for life?

Election of parliamentary candidates for life is in fact a perfectly ludicrous proposition, but as it is currently vital to attempts to retain undisputed neo-liberal hegemony, anybody who dissents from the idea that candidacy is for life is reviled in the corporate and state media as anti-democratic, whereas the truth is of course the precise opposite.

Crisis for Britain’s democracy: Theresa May bypasses UK Parliament on a question of war and peace in Syria

Theresa May willing to break convention by taking Britain to war against Syria and possibly Russia without consulting Parliament

by 

ALEXANDER MERCOURIS

April 13, 2018, 16:17Twitter

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Nothing illustrates better the total collapse not just of constitutional safeguards but of any semblance of critical thinking in the British news media than the fact that British Prime Minister Theresa May’s extraordinary decision to ignore the opinions of the British Parliament on a question of war or peace in Syria is receiving barely any criticism in the media.

On the contrary shrill voices in the media are egging her on to go to war without consulting Parliament.

In 2013 in connection with an earlier proposal to attack Syria (which was rejected by the British Parliament) the British government confirmed that a convention had been established that Parliament would always be consulted before any decision was made to commit the British armed forces to military action in a situation where there was no pressing emergency and where Britain itself was not under attack.

Two ex-British ambassadors question claims that Assad ordered chemical attack as threat of war grows

Published time: 11 Apr, 2018 13:06

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FILE PHOTO. © Delil Souleiman / AFP

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Ex-British ambassadors questioned claims that Assad is behind a chemical attack that killed dozens of Syrians. Peter Ford and Craig Murray expressed doubt, urging the UK government not to rush into a war without proof.

Former British ambassador to Syria Peter Ford, speaking during a heated interview on BBC Radio Scotland, believes that the reported chemical attack in Douma may not have been committed by Assad, contrary to claims by US President Donald Trump, among others.

Chemical warfare inspectors from the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons are set to make a trip to Douma to inspect the scene of the alleged chemical attack – but Ford doesn't think that Syrian leader Bashar Assad will be concerned about the analysis.

"I don't think Assad is in the least worried that the inspectors will find out his guilt – he is probably not guilty on this occasion," he said. "We have to engage our brains as well as our emotions here, not be stampeded by those videos which are described as being unverified, but which by dint of being repeated over and over again come to acquire a spurious credibility," Ford added. "We have to ask ourselves what are the sources in this stampede to war?"

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BREAKING: 

• White House: Trump Holds Russia and Syria Responsible for Douma Chemical Attack
• UK Submarines Sent Within Missile Range of Syria for Strikes - Report

UK Submarines Sent Within Missile Range of Syria for Strikes - Report

© AP Photo/ Neil Munns

NEWS

23:16 11.04.2018(updated 23:31 11.04.2018)Get short URL

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According to the UK's Daily Telegraph newspaper, British submarines have been ordered to move within missile range of Syria, as strikes against the Assad regime are expected as early as Thursday night.

The publication reported that the order was issued by UK Prime Minister Theresa May and that she has called on her ministers to meet for an emergency cabinet meeting Wednesday to discuss how Britain will respond to last weekend's chemical attack on Douma.

The report follows US President Donald Trump's warning to Russia and Syria to "get ready" for a missile strike. Trump noted that the strike would involve bombs that will be "nice and new."

MORE DETAILS TO COME.

UK Submarines Sent Within Missile Range of Syria for Strikes - Report

NEWS

23:16 11.04.2018(updated 23:18 11.04.2018)Get short URL

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According to the UK's Daily Telegraph newspaper, British submarines have been ordered to move within missile range of Syria, as strikes against the Assad regime are expected as early as Thursday night.

MORE DETAILS TO COME.

PETER KORZUN | 19.03.2018 | WORLD / AMERICAS, EUROPE

Statement of Four: West Wages Multi-Front, Multi-Domain Campaign Against Russia

Contain Russia in all spheres, squeeze it out everywhere you can, and ramp up pressure to make it kneel. It’s not a big thing to find a pretext to justify the orchestrated campaign launched by the West to put the relations with Moscow on confrontational footing. It stubbornly keeps on reviving the Cold War. This is a holistic policy with some actions hitting media headlines to focus world public attention on, while some moves are camouflaged and kept out of spotlight.

With so many doubts expressed about Moscow’s complicity in the Salisbury spy poisoning, the leaders of the UK, the US, Germany and France – the big four – made an unprecedented joint statement putting the blame on Russia. They did not find it necessary to wait for investigation results to say Moscow had violated the international law and threatened their security. The statement says Russia did not cooperate with Britain. It does not mention the fact that Moscow was ready to meet London halfway but received no requests in line with the provisions of the Chemical Weapons Convention. The only thing Russia can be blamed for is its policy of refusing to communicate in the language of ultimatums.

Everything has suddenly become clear. Russia’s guilt is evident despite the fact that nothing new has been revealed since French President Macron’s spokesman warned the UK on March 14 against “fantasy politics”. The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapon had not investigated the case but the verdict was handed down. UK PM Theresa May was quiet happy about the statement as it showed that the allies “are standing alongside us”.

On March 15, the US introduced new sanctions against Russia to punish it for alleged election meddling and cyberattacks. The announcement came together with the statement of the Big Four. As usual, the move is the result of allegations and claims not based on solid proof and established facts. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer believes it’s still “not enough”. He demands that President Trump introduce more sanctions and publicly denounce Russian President Putin. It’s just the first step, chimed in Senator Mark Warner of the Senate Intelligence Committee. He wondered why it had taken so long.