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The MoA Week In Review – OT 2021-072
Last week's posts at Moon of Alabama:
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Other issues:
Covid-19:
Afghanistan:
- In Panjshir, Few Signs of an Active Resistance, or Any Fight at All – New York Times
- In Rural Afghanistan, War Remnants Everywhere, but no Shooting or Checkpoints – New York Times
> In this now-sleepy valley, the main landmark is a hospital founded in 1989 by a German woman, Karla Schefter. Today, the hospital is supported by the Committee for Medical and Humanitarian Aid in Afghanistan, which relies on private donations.
Faridullah Rahimi, a doctor at the facility, said that in his 22 years there, this was the first time there were no patients with conflict-related injuries. <
False Narratives:
- 20 Years On, the War on Terror Grinds Along, With No End in Sight – New York Times
The failures in Iraq and Afghanistan obscure what experts say is the striking success of a multilateral effort that extends to as many as 85 countries.
Stephanie Savell @stephsavell – 16:57 UTC · Sep 17, 2021
While I am glad that the New York Times used my research to show that the “War on Terror grinds on” in 85 countries, the argument that drives this article is misleading and is not based on evidence. Here’s why. [THREAD] 1/
- To the Editor – Stephanie Savell / NYT
> U.S. counterterrorism operations, especially drone strikes, cause blowback. Worldwide, there are more Islamist militant groups, and more recruits to those groups, than there were before 9/11. Historical research shows that a military approach has hardly ever been effective in addressing terrorist violence.
It is alarming that this article gives the impression that the United States should engage in these counterterrorism operations in many countries, just as the U.S. is drawing down in Afghanistan. <
Use as open thread …
Many have requested I provide further excerpts and interpretation. Instead, what follows is a machine translation of the interview between Argumenty i Fakty and the Secretary of the Security Council of the Russian Federation Nikolai Patrushev. As in the original, questions are in bold text. I’ve made no attempt to provide contextual clarity, so beware as it’s possible for the machine to err. It’s here on the open thread to allow for discussion of Patrushev’s views.
Vitaly Tseplyaev, AiF.ru: — Nikolai Platonovich, most readers of the abbreviation BRICS, SCO, CSTO do not say much. Could you tell us what is the real contribution of these structures: they contribute to the maintenance of peace and stability?
Nikolai Patrushev:— The role of these organizations in the modern world is growing. This is an objective trend. For example, BRICS is more than 40% of the world’s population, 25% of world GDP, 22% of global trade. If we consider, for example, purchasing power parity, the BRICS have already surpassed the Group of Seven in terms of gross domestic product: 33% against 30%.
Within the framework of the SCO, BRICS and the CSTO, practical steps are being taken to strengthen global stability, regional security, trade and economic ties. On an ongoing basis, we cooperate on the fight against terrorism, transnational crime, drug production and distribution, illegal migration, piracy, and the use of information and communication technologies for criminal purposes. And in the context of the ongoing pandemic, we are paying attention to the joint fight against the spread of infections.
I will not list all the areas in which our countries are working together. It is important that these actions are aimed at the benefit of all people. Being friends against someone is not our principle.
At the summits, special attention is paid to the latest events in Afghanistan. Do you have a feeling that by withdrawing from this country, the Americans simply shifted the responsibility to Russia and its regional partners?
Indeed, the irresponsible withdrawal of American troops has led to the fact that the states of the region have to face increasing problems that the Westerners not only did not solve, but also aggravated. Under these conditions, the SCO and CSTO countries become the main guarantors of stability in Central Asia. In fact, Afghanistan has become a litmus test, once again confirming that for Washington in the world there are no friends, but only its own selfish interests. Having spent trillions of dollars on military operations, the U.S. and its allies everywhere left behind chaos and destruction. Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, now Ukraine, and even earlier Yugoslavia, dozens of Asian, African, Latin American states are all examples of the destructive American strategy of global domination.
Where Washington cannot achieve its goals through open military intervention, it aggressively interferes in the internal affairs of sovereign states. Washington is trying to isolate undesirable countries from the outside world, to cut off even from the supply of basic means of survival to them. Look at Venezuela or Cuba, for example, where the situation has escalated this summer. From Moscow to Havana almost immediately flew planes with food, medicines, medical equipment. From Washington, there were calls for Cubans to take to the streets and overthrow the legitimate government. This is American democracy.
But in each of its next bills, Washington cynically calls Russia, China, Iran and a number of other states “bad” countries, troublemakers, revanchists, malicious players.
Apparently, according to American lawmakers, only the United States can be a “good” country.
It is the United States that is the main instigator of the disorder in the world. Moreover, from each next geopolitical experiment of Washington, not only a single state and its people suffer, but also a chain reaction is launched, destabilizing entire regions, including the West itself.
After the American fiasco in Afghanistan, the conditions are forming for a new migration crisis, even more severe than in 2015. Then, from the countries of the Middle East and North Africa defeated by the Americans and Europeans, so many refugees poured through the Mediterranean Sea that no one can count it until now.
I believe that the United States and its allies should be held accountable for the destruction of the economies of sovereign states, the aggravation of inter-ethnic and political problems, and the intensification of terrorist, extremist and other threats. This includes providing compensation that far exceeds the multi-trillion dollar sums they spent on undermining stability around the world.
The Afghan crisis has become an occasion for the G7 to recognize the role of Russia and China in solving global and regional problems. Do you think that the “Big Seven” can again become “Eight”, and even “Nine”?
The countries of the “Big Seven” with their proposal to involve China and Russia in solving security issues in Central Asia confirmed the fact that this association is only a discussion club. Moreover, discussions there are conducted under the strict control of Washington.
The format you mentioned has lost its relevance today. Russia participates only in those international structures and clubs where real problems are solved and the principle of equality prevails, where alien standards and rules of behavior are not imposed on anyone.
Not so long ago, President Biden, speaking in connection with the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan, said that the era of the military restructuring of sovereign states is ending.
Let me remind you that almost every American president has been making such statements for the past hundred years. Perhaps you know the expression “a war that will end all wars”? So, this formulation belongs to Woodrow Wilson [Emphasis original], he used it when he urged his fellow citizens to support their decision to enter the First World War. And after that, the Americans started more wars than any other country. Another loud revelation of the White House is just words spoken rather out of despair. The authorities of the United States and Western states in general are aware that their ability to influence the global situation and maintain their hegemony is decreasing every year. Internal problems in the West are rapidly accumulating and are already close to critical mass. This was especially evident in the United States last year in the example of the storming of the Capitol and internally inspired racial protests, which escalated into real street fights.
For these reasons, it is becoming increasingly difficult for Americans and their allies to dictate their will to the world today. But this does not mean that they will abandon such an imperial strategy. Rather, on the contrary, their actions will become more aggressive and unpredictable in order to divert the attention of their societies from internal turmoil at the expense of external adventures. This is how all the crumbling empires operated, from ancient Rome to Britain.
But modern England never tires of demonstrating its own exclusivity and imperial ambitions, including sharply criticizing Russia and demanding that it change its line on the world stage.
After leaving the European Union, London with a vengeance began to implement the project “Global Britain”. However, before taking on the revival of former imperial greatness, the British would do well to deal with the problems at home. A significant number of residents of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland still do not consider themselves British. The English for centuries drove the Scots into the mountains, the Welsh were used as cheap labor, the Irish were taken out to work in the colonies as slaves. These peoples have faced no less neglect for centuries than the Africans and Asians conquered by England.
London’s anti-Russian policy also has a long history. Since the end of the XIX century, England tried to incite Japan against Russia, provoking the war of 1904-1905, as a result of which our country was forced to make significant territorial concessions. They tried to repeat this with Nazi Germany, preparing the Munich agreement.
Today, the British want to build their empire under the new sign of “global Britain” with the old methods. This is an occasion to think both of England itself and of the countries and peoples who once experienced British colonial oppression.
You mentioned Japan. Should she also take into account the lessons of history?
Sure. In August 1945, the Soviet Union, having defeated the Kwantung Army at lightning fast, regained everything that the Japanese militarists tried to take away from our country. Now, some politicians in Tokyo are trying to stir up the past and present some old accounts to Russia, continue to blindly follow American instructions and willingly get involved in anti-China and anti-Russian schemes like the Indo-Pacific formats.
Do you mean the QUAD association, which includes the United States, India, Australia and Japan?
We are actually talking about a new military-political bloc with a pronounced pro-American character. In fact, quad is the prototype of the Asian analogue of NATO. Washington will try to draw other countries into this organization, mainly for anti-Kita and anti-Russian policies.
Just the other day, another military bloc took shape in the region – the American-British-Australian AUKUS, which pursues the same goals. It is characteristic that when it was created, the Americans also squeezed out their French partners, intercepting a profitable deal for the construction of nuclear submarines for Canberra. Apparently, Atlantic solidarity also has a price. I think in Paris now many people remember the story of the Mistrals.
For the sake of implementing another adventure of the White House in order to strengthen control over such a promising region as the Asia-Pacific region today, the entire security architecture in Asia is being jeopardised, and prerequisites are being created for undermining the authority of ASEAN and other regional associations.
Today, in principle, the interest of the whole world is shifting from the countries of the West to the Asia-Pacific region, where half of the world’s population lives and a significant part of its economy is concentrated. Is this an objective process or the result of miscalculations of the Europeans?
Asia today is acquiring the same geopolitical and economic importance for the whole world as Europe once had. This is largely facilitated by the Europeans themselves, who allowed a significant part of the sovereignty of their states to Be delegated to Brussels within the framework of the so-called European project. And who rules the ball in the authorities of the European Union? Not representatives of European peoples, but bureaucrats serving the interests of transnational corporations.
Trying to declare its ambitions in international politics, the European Union only discredits itself. Last week’s report on EU relations with Russia confirms this. Continuing the anti-Russian policy, the European Parliament, even before the elections to the State Duma, declared its readiness for non-recognition of their results.
Today, more and more countries understand that nothing can be expected from the European Union except for mentoring lectures on human rights and the imposition of pseudo-liberal values.
At the same time, some European states have a good foreign policy reserve, including a huge, numbering more than one hundred years of experience in building diplomacy in all regions of the world. I am referring primarily to Germany, France and Italy. We hope that over time these powers will get rid of external influence, returning to their once characteristic pragmatic and independent policy.
Only will Washington allow the withdrawal of these countries from the associations under its control?
The United States is not interested in independent European states, so today they are trying to create local formats that are beneficial to them even within the framework of the European Union. For example, the “Three Seas Initiative”, consolidating the countries of Eastern Europe. It is presented as a constructive integration format, but in fact we are talking about a new anti-Russian association of states. In fact, this is a revival of the idea of a hundred years ago about the creation of the so-called “sanitary cordon” along the western border of our country.
Of the newly created similar associations in recent days, special attention of a number of countries has been focused on the so-called “Crimean Platform”.
The “Crimean Platform” was created by Washington for the appearance of concern for the interests of Ukraine. Its declared goals are doomed to failure. Plans to violate the territorial integrity of Russia will remain in the offices in which they appeared. To play along with the unrealistic territorial ambitions of Ukraine is unreasonable and dangerous. The Crimean Platform has become a gathering of representatives of countries supporting the official government in Kiev, which nurtures nationalists, panders to radicals and openly declares its readiness for large-scale military action against Russia.
Zelensky’s [Emphasis original] visit to Washington showed the real face of 100 people who are supposedly concerned for the well-being of Ukraine. The agreements reached will benefit only American business, which is once again allowed to profit from Ukrainian projects outside of competition. This is nothing but veiled colonialism. The population of Ukraine itself is actively presented with this anti-national policy as a movement towards the so-called progressive West. And there are many who believe in this propaganda.
Americans and Europeans claim to be protecting human rights…
What are human rights? Freedom, protection of life, health, equality before the law and the courts, dignity of the individual and much more. The West cares about human rights, but in fact violates them en masse. The same biological laboratories created by Washington around the world pose a threat to the health of tens of millions of people, thereby violating their rights. In the United States itself, dissent is persecuted, many people are deprived of the opportunity to receive normal medical care, representatives of not all races and nationalities can count on fair decisions of judges and the police.
A similar thing is happening in Europe. In the Baltics, for example, a real policy of apartheid is being pursued against the Russian-speaking population. People have been living stateless for years, that is, in fact, outside the legal field, and their use of the Russian language is considered an offense. In Ukraine, the authorities pass discriminatory laws on Russian language and on indigenous peoples, and the United States and Europe either do not want to notice or directly condone it.
Under the hypocritical slogans of the struggle for equality in the West, blatant discrimination of citizens adhering to traditional values is organized. What is the only systematic undermining of normal gender relations, when the father and mother are renamed parents number one and two, children want to be given the right to choose their own sex, and in some places it comes to the legalization of marriages with animals.
It is unlikely that countries with rich centuries-old traditions will want to have something in common with such values. The imposition of alien norms on society will further split the world on the principle of “one’s own – another’s”, will become an occasion for provoking hostility between states, will lead to polarization of society in those countries where they will try to artificially impose such stereotypes.
What agenda in this regard does Russia offer to the modern world?
Our country stands for the expansion of equal multilateral cooperation, the development of universal international institutions, joint work to reduce global tensions and strengthen international security.
If the West creates associations of states to solve short-term tasks, contain unwanted countries and suppress its own allies, then Russia and our partners in the SCO, BRICS, EAEU, CSTO and CIS do not have a shadow agenda. Our countries are united by a common contribution to ensuring national security and global stability, recognition of the primacy of international law and the coordinating role of the UN, rejection of interference in the internal affairs of independent states, readiness to uncompromisingly defend their national interests and treat the sovereignty of other countries with understanding.
Posted by: karlof1 | Sep 21 2021 23:06 utc | 249
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