US Would Face No ‘Threats’ If It Kept its Troops & War Machines Inside Its Own Borders

By Finian Cunningham

So the United States is pulling out of a key arms-control agreement, complaining it is the only party in compliance, and therefore it wants to have the right to deploy short- and medium-range ballistic missiles.

John Bolton, the national-security adviser to President Trump, was in Moscow this week meeting Russian leader Vladimir Putin and other senior Kremlin officials. Bolton huffed that the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty was obsolete from the US point of view.

“There’s a new strategic reality out there,” said the American official. The INF, signed in 1987, is “a bilateral treaty in a multipolar ballistic missile world.”

He was referring to countries like China, Iran and North Korea, which the US claims have built up arsenals of ballistic missiles prohibited by the INF. Those countries are not in violation of the said treaty because the INF was an agreement signed only by the US and the Soviet Union, later becoming the Russian Federation.

The INF banned ground-launched ballistic and cruise missiles with a range of between 500km and 5,500km.

By quitting the treaty, the US would, in theory, be free to deploy medium-range nuclear and non-nuclear ballistic missiles on the territories of European NATO members. That is, return to the situation of the early 1980s before the INF was agreed by then-president Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev. The US would also be free to make similar deployments in its Pacific bases and allied countries, such as Japan and South Korea.

However, it is doubtful if Washington would be able to do this without causing major political problems with its allies. This week, European leaders strongly protested against the US plan to withdraw from the INF. Even the usually obliging Norwegian head of NATO, Jens Stoltenberg, said European countries would not welcome the return of American nuclear missiles on their soil.

Washington for several years now has been accusing Russia of violating the INF, for allegedly developing a ground-based cruise missile. Moscow has repeatedly denied the claim, pointing out that the US has not presented any evidence to support its accusation.

For its part, Moscow says the US is the party that is in violation of the treaty from its installation of Aegis Ashore missile systems in Romania and Poland.

What could be the real cause of American concern is Russia’s new Kalibr cruise missiles that are launched from navy ships. The missile was used with devastating success against militant groups in Syria, launched from the Caspian Sea, and covering a distance of over 1,000km. Sea-launched missiles are not banned by the INF.

In any case, the missiles pertinent to the INF, whether belonging to Russia, China or some other nation, are only a threat to US forces because American military power is increasingly deployed closer to those countries.

The US military has troops in an estimated 150 countries around the world. That’s a global military footprint covering nearly 80 percent of all nations on the planet. Given that inordinate spread of US military, it is easy to see why American officials perceive “threats.” It’s a bit like a thief marauding outside homes and then complaining that the homeowners are installing “threatening” burglar protection systems.

By contrast, Russian and Chinese military forces are predominantly confined to their respective national territories. Last month, when Russia conducted its Vostok-2018 war maneuvers in Siberia and the Far East, they were described as the largest-ever military mobilization by Moscow since the end of the Cold War. But let’s not forget, Russia’s war drills are always held within its territory.

This week, the US-led NATO alliance is conducting its biggest-ever war drills since the Cold War in the North Atlantic, Scandinavia and Baltic Sea. More than 30 nations are participating with a total of 50,000 troops and hundreds of aircraft and warships. The Trident Juncture mobilization will be held for the next four weeks and comes within 500km of Russian territory.

The anomalous imbalance should be glaringly obvious. Russia conducts its war drills within its own borders, which is its sovereign right; while American and allied forces are conducting simulated offensive actions on Russia’s doorstep.

The same double-think applies to the Trump administration’s complaint that Russia and others are in breach of the INF. If American forces were not encroaching on the territory of Russia and China, then they wouldn’t have cause for perceiving threats.

The distance between Beijing and San Francisco on the US west coast is nearly 10,000km. At its closest, the American state of Alaska is about 6,000km from Beijing. Those ranges are beyond the 5,500km upper limit of the INF. The point is that INF-type missiles from China or North Korea do not threaten US mainland territory. The only reason why US interests are “threatened” is because American forces are deployed in the vicinity of these countries, such as in the South China Sea, or in South Korea and Japan.

The next category of missile up is the Inter-Continental Ballistic Missiles (ICMBs). They are covered by the New START treaty. American officials, including John Bolton, are showing a tepid regard about renewing START when it expires in 2021. Many observers, including Americans, are concerned that with the scrapping of the INF by the US, then

the last remaining arms-control treaty will also be abandoned. That then could unleash a new global arms race and greatly increase the risk of a nuclear war.

Lamentably, the US is tearing up the INF, as it did previously with the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty in 2002, based on irrational arguments.

US military forces are only “threatened” because its forces are in everyone’s face in far-flung corners of the planet. Short- and medium-range “threats” would not be threats if America kept its troops and war machines within its own borders.

Donald Trump was elected partly on the promise to scale back US overseas militarism. It has turned out to be an empty and futile promise. That’s because American militarism is a vital, incorrigible function of its ambitions for domination of the planet. Ripping up arms-controls treaties is the corollary of such a monstrous military machine. Ironically, the treaties are trashed because the poor little American monster says it is being “threatened.”

 

US-Saudi Split Looming?

By Finian Cunningham

 

The macabre case of a missing Saudi journalist is prompting speculation within the US political establishment about a historic parting of ways between Washington and Saudi Arabia.

It’s not clear yet what actually happened Jamal Khashoggi, a 59-year-old prominent commentator who worked for the Washington Post, among other major news outlets. He has been missing for almost a week after he entered the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Turkey, on October 2.

Turkish police have launched a murder inquiry, on the suspicion that he was killed inside the consulate building. If confirmed, the case is a shocking violation of international law and norms of human decency.

Saudi authorities deny any wrongdoing. They say Khashoggi left the building on the same day he arrived. And Riyadh has invited Turkish authorities and media to inspect the premises.

Nevertheless, the Saudi authorities are implicated in responsibility for accounting for the whereabouts of the dissident journalist.

What makes the case all the more perplexing is that Jamal Khashoggi was once closely connected to the House of Saud royal court, having served as a media advisor to top Saudi rulers.

More recently, he had gone into self-imposed exile, writing articles for US media in which he voiced critical views – albeit mildly worded – of the Saudi rulers and policies.

Khashoggi went to the Saudi consulate in Istanbul last week to obtain routine documents he required for an intended marriage. He reportedly told his fiancée he feared being detained. It was her phone call that alerted Turkish authorities to his disappearance.

The disappearance of Saudi dissidents is nothing new. Thousands of political opponents and human rights activists end up in Saudi jails. Some of them like female activist Israa al Ghomgham are facing execution by decapitation.

But the Saudi rulers appear to have broken the limits this time in the case of Jamal Khashoggi. If the journalist was killed – and we still don’t know yet of his fate – then that would be politically explosive, because of his international profile and in particular his association with the Washington Post.

The newspaper published an editorial earlier this week demanding answers over the disappearance, and urged the Trump administration to “suspend military cooperation” with Saudi Arabia, if it is confirmed that Khashoggi was indeed murdered.

In another Post article, it was posited: “This could be the moment Saudi Arabia loses Washington.”

Other senior Washington pundits have denounced the alleged murder as a “monstrous outrage” which should compel the US government to fundamentally review its strategic alliance with the oil-rich kingdom.

The conjecture over Washington parting ways with Saudi Arabia seems to have a growing momentum among US analysts.

Last week, President Trump made highly derogatory comments about the Saudi royals in which he demanded they “pay for our military protection”. Trump fulminated the House of Saud “wouldn’t last two weeks without our military support”.

There has also been mounting concern in the US Congress about the Saudi military operation in Yemen. The US is implicated in war crimes because of its vital military support for Riyadh.

Then there is the backdrop of the 9/11 terror attacks on New York in 2001 in which Saudi rulers have long been suspected of having at least a tangential role from sponsoring the jihadists involved in that incident, which led to some 3,000 deaths among American civilians. That atrocity has served to sour US-Saudi relations among lawmakers, pundits and public.

So, is a decisive rupture in US-Saudi relations on the cards, prompted by the latest apparent murder of a Washington-connected Saudi journalist?

Despite the recent outcry, the chances of such a breakdown in bilateral US-Saudi relations are negligible. Simply put, the American ruling class needs the despotic House of Saud as much as the latter needs US patronage. It’s a strategic axis that is inviolable.

Trump may harrumph about the Saudis needing to pay for military protection, but US imperialist planners know all too well that American hegemonic ambitions in the oil-rich Middle East are totally dependent on Washington ensuring that the House of Saud remains propped up.

That’s partly because of the decades-old petrodollar system worked out between the US and Saudi Arabia in which the world’s top oil producer swore to always nominate the dollar as the currency for global energy trade. If the petrodollar system were to collapse, from say a political implosion of Saudi Arabia, then the American economy would also crash.

Washington, as Trump seems to misunderstand, is not giving military protection to Saudi Arabia as some kind of benevolent act of kindness. American military power shoring up the Saudi monarchs is a necessary linchpin for US geopolitical survival.

The American “protection racket” — for that’s what it is — also comes with the added incentive of gargantuan weapons sales to the Saudis. Just last year, Trump and the de facto ruler of Saudi Arabia, the 33-year-old Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, signed an arms deal worth over $100 billion. This racket is essential for US capitalism and its systematic dependence on a military-industrial complex to ever be abandoned.

Another crucial role played by the Saudis for US imperialism is that the kingdom has long bankrolled CIA black operations around the world, which is a neat way for highly criminal American activities of subversion and regime-change wars to avoid political oversight by Congress.

All in all, US global power is dependent on maintaining the despotism of Saudi rulers intact.

No purported strategic realignment is possible under existing conditions and imperatives of American corporate capitalism and its imperialist function in the Middle East or beyond.

The latest shocking incident of a Saudi journalist apparently being lured to his death in a Saudi consulate is an appalling wake-up call of lawlessness and barbarity.

The latest shocking incident of a Saudi journalist apparently being lured to his death in a Saudi consulate is an appalling wake-up call of lawlessness and barbarity.

American media are no doubt jolted by the brutalism and apparent flouting of international law. But calls for a substantial change in US-Saudi relations are delusional. Because such calls fail to understand the real, heinous nature of US power and how it operates in the world.

As in Yemen and towards individual dissidents, Saudi rulers are allowed to get away with murder because Washington relies on this very ruthlessness for its own imperialist objectives.

Trump Admin Follows Corporate Media Playbook for War With Iran

By John C. O’Day

 

Three years ago, as Americans debated the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) agreement with the Islamic Republic of Iran—popularly known as “the Iran deal”—I highlighted a troubling media trend on FAIR.org (8/20/15): “For nearly all commentators, regardless of their position, war is the only alternative to that position.”

In the months since US President Donald Trump tore up the JCPOA agreement, his administration has been trying to make good on corporate media’s collective prediction. Last week, John Bolton (BBC, 9/26/18), Trump’s national security advisor and chief warmonger, told Iran’s leaders and the world that there would be “hell to pay” if they dare to “cross us.”

That Bolton’s bellicose statements do not send shockwaves of pure horror across a debt-strapped and war-weary United States is thanks in large part to incessant priming for war, facilitated by corporate media across the entire political spectrum, with a particular focus on Iran.

Back in 2015, while current “resistance” stalwarts like the Washington Post (4/2/15) and Politico (8/11/15) warned us that war with Iran was the most likely alternative to the JCPOA, conservative standard-bearers such as Fox News (7/14/15) and the Washington Times (8/10/15) foretold that war with Iran was the agreement’s most likely outcome. Three years hence, this dynamic has not changed.

To experience the full menu of US media’s single-mindedness about Iran, one need only buy a subscription to the New York Times. After Trump withdrew from the JCPOA, the Times’ editorial board (5/8/18) wrote that his move would “lay conditions for a possible wider war in the Middle East.” Susan Rice (New York Times, 5/8/18), President Barack Obama’s national security advisor, agreed: “We could face the choice of going to war or acquiescing to a nuclear-armed Iran,” she warned. Cartoonist Patrick Chappatte (New York Times, 5/10/18) was characteristically more direct, penning an image of Trump alongside Bolton, holding a fictitious new agreement featuring the singular, ultimate word: “WAR.”

On the other hand, calling Trump’s turn against JCPOA a “courageous decision,” Times columnist Bret Stephens (5/8/18) explained that the move was meant to force the Iranian government to make a choice: Either accede to US demands or “pursue their nuclear ambitions at the cost of economic ruin and possible war.” (Hardly courageous, when we all know there is no chance that Trump or Stephens would enlist should war materialize.)

Trump’s latest antics at the United Nations have spurred a wave of similar reaction across corporate media. Describing his threat to “totally destroy North Korea” at the UN General Assembly last year as “pointed and sharp,” Fox News anchor Eric Shawn (9/23/18) asked Bill Richardson, an Obama ally and President Bill Clinton’s ambassador to the UN, whether Trump would take the same approach toward Iran. “That aggressive policy we have with Iran is going to continue,” Richardson reassured the audience, “and I don’t think Iran is helping themselves.” In other words, if the United States starts a war with Iran, it’s totally Iran’s fault.

Politico (9/23/18), meanwhile, reported that Trump “is risking a potential war with Iran unless he engages the Islamist-led country using diplomacy.” In other words, if the United States starts a war with Iran, it’s totally Trump’s fault. Rice (New York Times, 9/26/18) reiterated her view that Trump’s rhetoric “presages the prospect of war in the Persian Gulf.” Whoever would be the responsible party is up for debate, but that war is in our future is apparently all but certain.

Politico’s article cited a statement signed by such esteemed US experts on war-making as Madeleine Albright, who presided over Clinton’s inhuman sanctions against Iraq in the ’90s, and Ryan Crocker, former ambassador for presidents George W. Bush and Obama to some of America’s favorite killing fields: Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Syria. James Clapper, Obama’s National Intelligence Director, who also signed the letter, played an important role in trumping up WMD evidence against Saddam Hussein before the United States invaded Iraq in 2003. When it comes to US aggression, they’re the experts.

Vanity Fair (9/26/18) interviewed John Glaser of the Cato Institute, who called Trump’s strategy “pathetic,” and also warned that it forebodes war. In an effort to “one-up Obama,” Glaser explained, Trump’s plan is “to apply extreme economic pressure and explicit threats of war in order to get Iran to capitulate.” Sound familiar? As Glaser implies, this was exactly Obama’s strategy, only then it wasn’t seen as “pathetic,” but rather reasonable, and the sole means for preventing the war that every US pundit and politician saw around the corner (The Hill, 8/9/15).

When everyone decides that war is the only other possibility, it starts to look like an inevitability. But even when they aren’t overtly stoking war fever against Iran, corporate media prime the militaristic pump in more subtle yet equally disturbing ways.

First among these is the near-complete erasure of Iranian voices from US airwaves (FAIR.org, 7/24/15). Rather than ask Iranians directly, national outlets like CNN (9/29/18) prefer to invite the prime minister of Israel, serial Iran alarmist and regional pariah Benjamin Netanyahu, to speak for them. During a jovial discussion this weekend over whether regime change and/or economic collapse is Iran’s most likely fate, Netanyahu explained to the audience that, either way, “The ones who will be happiest if that happens are the people of Iran.” No people of Iran were on hand to confirm or deny this assessment.

Bloomberg (9/30/18) similarly wanted to know, “What’s not to like about Trump’s Iran oil sanctions?” Julian Lee gleefully reported that “they are crippling exports from the Islamic Republic, at minimal cost to the US.” One might think the toll sanctions take on innocent Iranians would be something not to like, but Bloomberg merely worried that, notwithstanding the windfall for US refineries, “oil at $100 a barrel would be bad news for drivers everywhere—including those in the US.”

Another prized tactic is to whitewash Saudi Arabia, Iran’s chief geopolitical rival, whose genocidal destruction of Yemen is made possible by the United States, about which corporate media remain overwhelmingly silent (FAIR.org, 7/23/18). Iran’s involvement in Yemen, which both Trump and the New York Times (9/12/18) describe as “malign behavior,” is a principal justification for US support of Saudi Arabia, including the US-supplied bombs that recently ended the brief lives of over 40 Yemeni schoolchildren. Lockheed Martin’s stock is up 34 percent from Trump’s inauguration day.

Corporate media go beyond a simple coverup of Saudi crimes to evangelize their leadership as the liberal antidote to Iran’s “theocracy.” Who can forget Thomas Friedman’s revolting puff piece for the Saudi crown prince Mohammad bin Salman? Extensively quoting Salman (New York Times, 11/23/17), who refers to Iranian Ayatollah Ali Khamenei as “the new Hitler of the Middle East,” Friedman nevertheless remains pessimistic about whether “MBS and his team” can see their stand against Iran through, as “dysfunction and rivalries within the Sunni Arab world generally have prevented forming a unified front.” Oh well, every team needs cheerleaders, and Friedman isn’t just a fair-weather fan.

While Friedman (New York Times, 5/15/18) believes that Trump has drawn “some needed attention to Iran’s bad behavior,” for him pivotal questions remain unanswered, such as “who is going to take over in Tehran if the current Islamic regime collapses?” One immediate fix he proposed was to censure Iran’s metaphorical “occupation” of Syria, Iraq and Lebanon. Isn’t this ironic

coming from an unapologetic propagandist for Washington’s decades-long, non-metaphorical occupation of the two countries to the east and west of Iran (FAIR.org, 12/9/15)?

In a surprising break from corporate media convention, USA Today (9/26/18) published a column on US/Iran relations written by an actual Iranian. Reflecting on the CIA-orchestrated coup against Iran’s elected government in 1953, Azadeh Shahshahani, who was born four days after the 1979 revolution there, wrote:

I often wonder what would have happened if that coup had not worked, if [Prime Minister] Mosaddeq had been allowed to govern, if democracy had been allowed to flourish.

“It is time for the US government to stop intervening in Iran and let the Iranian people determine their own destiny,” she beseeched readers.

Shahshahani’s call is supported by some who have rejected corporate media’s war propaganda and have gone to extreme lengths to have their perspectives heard. Anti-war activist and Code Pink founder Medea Benjamin was recently forcibly removed after she upstaged Brian Hook, leader of Trump’s Iran Action Group, on live TV, calling his press conference “the most ridiculous thing I have ever seen” (Real News, 9/21/18). Benjamin implored the audience: “Let’s talk about Saudi Arabia. Is that who our allies are?”

“How dare you bring up the issue of Yemen,” admonished Benjamin as she was dragged from the room. “It’s the Saudi bombing that is killing most people in Yemen. So let’s get real. No more war! Peace with Iran!” Code Pink is currently petitioning the New York Times and Washington Post to stop propagandizing war.

Sadly, no matter whom you ask in corporate media, be they spokespeople for “Trump’s America” or “the resistance,” peace remains an elusive choice in the US political imagination. And while the public was focused last week on Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh’s perjurious testimony, the Senate finalized a $674 billion “defense” budget. Every single Democrat in the chamber voted in favor of the bill, explicitly naming Iran as persona non grata in the United States’ world-leading arms supply network, which has seen a 25 percent increase in exports since Obama took office in 2009.

The US government’s imperial ambitions are perhaps its only truly bipartisan project—what the New York Times euphemistically refers to as “globalism.” Nowhere was this on fuller display than at the funeral for Republican Sen. John McCain (FAIR.org, 9/11/18), where politicians of all stripes were tripping over themselves to produce the best accolades for a man who infamously sang “bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran” to the tune of a Beach Boys song.

McCain’s bloodlust was nothing new. Nearly a hundred years ago, after the West’s imperial competition culminated in the most destructive war the world had ever seen, the brilliant American sociologist and anti-colonial author WEB Du Bois wrote, “This is not Europe gone mad; this is not aberration nor insanity; this is Europe.”

Iranian leaders have repeatedly said they do not want war with the US (AP, 9/27/18), but US corporate media, despite frequently characterizing Trump as a “mad king” (FAIR.org, 6/13/18), continue to play an instrumental role in rationalizing a future war with Iran. Should such an intentional catastrophe come to pass, we can hardly say that this would be America gone mad; war is not aberration, it is always presented as the next sane choice. This is America.

 

How China could hurt the U.S. if it runs out of imports to tax

 

In his trade war with China, President Donald Trump wields one seeming advantage: The United States could ultimately slap tariffs on more than $500 billion in imported Chinese goods. Beijing has much less to tax: It imported just $130 billion in U.S. goods last year.

Yet that hardly means China would be powerless to fight back once it ran out of U.S. goods to penalize. It possesses a range of other weapons with which to inflict pain on the U.S. economy.

Indeed, China’s Commerce Ministry has warned of “comprehensive measures” it could take against the United States. It has given no details but possible tactics could include harassing automakers, retailers or other American companies that depend on China to drive revenue to selling U.S. government debt or disrupting diplomatic efforts over North Korea.

Some of those steps might harm China’s own interests. But Beijing might still be willing to deploy them, at least temporarily, if its trade war with Washington were to drag on.

On Friday, Washington imposed its first tariffs in response to complaints Beijing steals or pressuring companies to hand over technology. China swiftly announced retaliatory tariffs on a similar amount of U.S. goods.

A look at some of China’s options:

TARGET AMERICAN COMPANIES

China’s state-dominated and heavily regulated economy gives authorities an arsenal of tools to disrupt U.S. companies by withholding licenses or launching tax, anti-monopoly or other investigations.

Also open to retaliation are services such as engineering and logistics in which the United States runs a trade surplus.

“The U.S. focus is on goods, while China could very well look at services, as well as the operation of U.S. companies in China,” said Taimur Baig, chief economist for DBS Group.

In one prominent case, U.S. chipmaker Qualcomm Inc. has waited for months for word on whether Chinese regulators will accept its proposed $44 billion acquisition of NXP Semiconductors. All other major governments have approved the deal.

China’s entirely state-controlled media have encouraged consumer boycotts against Japanese, South Korean and other products during previous disputes with those governments.

Last year, Beijing destroyed Korean retailer Lotte’s business in China after the company sold land in South Korea to the Seoul government for an anti-missile system opposed by Chinese leaders.

Beijing closed most of Lotte’s 99 supermarkets and other outlets in China. Seoul and Beijing later mended relations, but Lotte gave up and sold its China operations.

FINANCIAL LEVERAGE

Nationalists point to China’s $1.2 trillion holdings of U.S. government debt as leverage. Beijing might suffer losses if it sold enough to influence U.S. debt financing costs — but such sales might become necessary.

China’s yuan has sagged against the dollar this year, which might require the central bank to intervene in currency markets.

To get the dollars it needs, the People’s Bank of China might “become a net seller of U.S. Treasurys,” said Carl B. Weinberg of High-Frequency Economics in a report.

“Punishing the U.S. Treasury market is one of the tactics China has available to retaliate against unilateral U.S. tariffs,” said Weinberg.

DIPLOMATIC PRESSURE

Beijing can appeal for support to U.S. allies that are miffed by Trump’s “America first” approach and the U.S. withdrawal from the Paris climate pact.

Trump’s unilateral actions have allowed China to position itself as a defender of free trade despite its status as the most-closed major economy. That could help Beijing win over governments that have criticized Trump for acting outside the World Trade Organization.

“China could strike a common ground with the EU, Canada, Japan and other economies impacted by the U.S. tariffs,” said Citigroup economists Li-Gang Liu, Xiaowen Jin and Xiangrong Yu in a report.

Chinese leaders have tried, so far without success, to recruit European and other governments as allies.

More broadly, Chinese commentators have suggested Beijing also could disrupt diplomatic work over North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs or other initiatives. But political analysts say that would risk setting back work Chinese leaders see as a priority.

Trump Administration Sues California Over Immigration Laws

 

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration escalated what had been a war of words over California’s immigration agenda, filing a lawsuit late Tuesday that amounted to a pre-emptive strike against the liberal state’s so-called sanctuary laws.

The Justice Department sued California; Gov. Jerry Brown; and the state’s attorney general, Xavier Becerra, over three state laws passed in recent months, saying they made it impossible for federal immigration officials to do their jobs and deport criminals who were born outside the United States. The Justice Department called the laws unconstitutional and asked a judge to block them.

The lawsuit was the department’s boldest attack yet against California, one of the strongest opponents of the Trump administration’s efforts to curb immigration. It also served as a warning to Democratic lawmakers and elected officials nationwide who have enacted sanctuary policies that provide protections for undocumented immigrants.

 

“The Department of Justice and the Trump administration are going to fight these unjust, unfair and unconstitutional policies that have been imposed on you,” Attorney General Jeff Sessions planned to say on Wednesday at a law enforcement event in Sacramento, according to prepared remarks. “I believe that we are going to win.”

The battle pits President Trump and Mr. Sessions, immigration hard-liners, against Mr. Brown and Mr. Becerra, who have emerged as outspoken adversaries who have helped energize opposition to Mr. Trump and vowed to preserve the progressive values that they believe California embodies.
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The lawsuit claims that the statutes “reflect a deliberate effort by California to obstruct the United States’ enforcement of federal immigration law.” It also says the laws regulate private entities that want to cooperate with the federal authorities and “impede consultation and communication between federal and state law enforcement officials.”

Mr. Brown called the lawsuit a “political stunt.”

“At a time of unprecedented political turmoil, Jeff Sessions has come to California to further divide and polarize America,” Mr. Brown said in a statement. “Jeff, these political stunts may be the norm in Washington, but they don’t work here. SAD!!!”

California began battling the Trump administration even before Mr. Trump took office, standing in opposition on a number of issues, including marijuana, environmental regulations and taxes. But immigration has proved to be the most contentious fight, with local officials assuring undocumented immigrants that they would do all they could to protect them.

Last year, California enacted the sanctuary laws, which restrict when and how local law enforcement can cooperate with federal immigration enforcement officers.

Both Mr. Sessions and Mr. Trump have threatened to pull federal grant money from cities and states that have sanctuary laws to protect undocumented immigrants. They argue that the policies flout federal laws and help criminals evade deportation.

And the Justice Department asked 23 jurisdictions across the country this year to provide documentation that they had not kept information from federal immigration authorities, or receive a subpoena for the information. It is also exploring possible criminal charges for local politicians who enact sanctuary policies.

The lawsuit filed on Tuesday evening in Federal District Court in Sacramento is the first against a local or state government over its immigration policies filed by the Justice Department under Mr. Sessions. Department officials said that they would not rule out the possibility of other lawsuits against local governments whose policies interfere with the federal government’s authority on immigration. Colorado, Illinois, New Mexico, Oregon and Vermont have state sanctuary laws, as do cities and counties in more than a dozen states, according to the Center for Immigration Studies.

One, the California Values Act, strictly limits state and local agencies from sharing information with federal officers about criminals or suspects unless they have been convicted of serious crimes. The law, which took effect Jan. 1, was the centerpiece of the State Legislature’s effort to thwart the Trump administration’s immigration policies.

Soon after the law was enacted, Thomas D. Homan, the acting director of United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said that the state should expect to see “a lot more deportation officers” and that elected officials who support the policy should be arrested.

“We’ve got to start charging some of these politicians with crimes,” he said. “These politicians can’t make these decisions and be held unaccountable for people dying. I mean, we need to hold these politicians accountable for their actions.”

Mr. Homan and three other immigration and border protection officials filed declarations with the suit claiming that California’s laws had already negatively affected their work.

“The administration is just angry that a state has stood up to them — one that embraces diversity and inclusivity and is the sixth-largest economy in the world thanks to the hard-working immigrants who want to become American citizens,” said Kevin de León, the leader of the California State Senate who wrote one of the sanctuary city laws named in the suit.

State lawmakers also passed the Immigrant Worker Protection Act, which prohibits local business from allowing immigration to gain access to employee records without a court order or subpoena. Mr. Becerra warned that anyone who violated the new law would face a fine of up to $10,000.

In the state budget bill, California lawmakers prohibited new contracts for immigration detention in the state and gave the state attorney general the power to monitor all state immigration detention centers.

The state and several local governments including the cities of San Francisco and Sacramento have also set up legal defense funds to help defend immigrants during deportation proceedings.

“I’m worried about the ‘Dreamers,’ hard-working immigrant families and law-abiding people who are just trying to make their way like the rest of us,” Mayor Darrell Steinberg of Sacramento said this year when asked about the state’s sanctuary legislation. “Civil disobedience is a respectful way to show your love for country.”

Tensions between local and federal officials reached yet another height last week, when Mayor Libby Schaaf of Oakland publicly warned of coming large-scale immigration arrest operations. Mr. Homan compared the mayor to a “gang lookout yelling, “Police!” and said she gave people living in the United States illegally a chance to flee. He said her warning meant that the federal immigration authorities arrested about 200 people rather than the 1,000 they had anticipated rounding up.

Although Mr. Homan and other federal officials have warned about targeting California as it steps up immigration enforcement efforts, the number of people arrested has not drastically increased so far. In December, the most recent month for which data is available, 1,715 unauthorized immigrants in California were arrested by ICE, compared with 1,379 in December 2016.

This is not the first time that the Justice Department has sued a state. During the Obama administration, the department filed a civil rights lawsuit against Georgia for segregating students with disabilities from classrooms and sued North Carolina over a bill to restrict bathroom use for transgender citizens. Mr. Sessions withdrew that lawsuit.

In a call with reporters on Tuesday night, Mr. Becerra said that he was confident California would prevail in court and that state and federal laws were not in conflict.

“In California, our state laws work in concert with federal law,” he said. “Our teams work together to go after drug dealers and go after gang violence. What we won’t do is change from being focused on public safety. We’re in the business of public safety, not deportation.”

Mr. Becerra said that he was not surprised by the news of the lawsuit and that the state had already won legal battles against the Trump administration. “We’ve seen this B-rated movie before,” he said. “We’re not doing their bidding on immigration enforcement and deportation.”

US May Sanction Turkey Following Purchase of Russian S-400 Systems – Reports

 

WASHINGTON (Sputnik) – Turkey’s upcoming purchase of S-400 air defense missiles systems from Russia could trigger US secondary sanctions against Ankara, a new report on Washington’s relations with Ankara from the Turkish Heritage Organization said.

“There are concerns that it [deal] could trigger US sanctions in 2018 under the “Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act” (CAATSA) which was signed into law in August 2017,” the report said on Monday.

In December, Russia and Turkey signed a loan agreement on the supply of Russia’s S-400 air defense missile systems to Turkey.

Plans by Moscow and Ankara to push ahead with the proposed Turkish Stream pipeline will increase Turkey’s dependence on Russia for its energy and will also run the risk of provoking US retaliatory sanctions, the report added.

“In 2017, over 50 percent of Turkey’s natural gas imports came from Russia… Despite Turkey’s desire to wean itself off Russian energy, progress on the Turk-Stream national pipeline will do the opposite in 2018 and could even trigger US sanctions, the report said.

Continued US support for the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) operating east of the Euphrates River in Syria with US support indicates that Washington and Ankara will experience continued tensions on the issue this year, the report added.

Why China Wants Syria in its New Belt and Road

 

China has been actively expanding its influence to the Middle East, and engaging war-torn Syria as part of its signature Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) has been a case in point.

On November 24, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi met with Political and Media Advisor to the Syrian President Bouthaina Shaaban in Beijing. During the meeting, Wang offered to support Syria’s reconstruction.

In early November, Syrian government forces and their pro-government allies announced that they won another victory over Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) militants and were in full control of Deir el-Zour, the largest city in eastern Syria. The Syrian government led by President Bashar al-Assad appears to be winning the war against ISIS for now.

According to Chinese foreign ministry, during his meeting with Bouthaina Shaaban, Wang proposed three focal points — counter-terrorism, dialogue and reconstruction –for solving the Syrian issue as “the situation in Syria is turning into a new stage.” He emphasized that anti-terrorism as the foundation, dialogue as the way out and reconstruction as the guarantee.

Regarding “dialogue,” Wang claimed that it is the “only way out” for solving the Syrian issue. “In this process, we must safeguard the sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity of Syria and maintain the core status of the Syrian people in the political settlement process,” Wang said.

Wang also expressed willingness to help with Syria’s reconstruction. He said that “only by advancing reconstruction steadily can we give the Syrian people hope and provide guarantee for the long-term peace and stability in Syria. ”

“The international community should attach importance to and actively support the reconstruction of Syria,” Wang added. “China will also make its own efforts to this end.”

Yet, this stance seems to be at odds with that of many Western and Arab countries.

In September, Canada, Denmark, Egypt, European Union, France, Germany, Italy, Jordan, Netherlands, Norway, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Sweden, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom, and the United States issued a joint statement, stressing that “Recovery and reconstruction support for Syria hinges on a credible political process leading to a genuine political transition that can be supported by a majority of the Syrian people.”

Thus, China, together with Russia and Iran, has become the major potential helper with reconstruction for current Syrian government.

At the regular press briefing on November 29, Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Geng Shuang explained China’s motive for actively engaging Syria and other Middle East countries recently. He said:

Too many people in the Middle East are suffering at the brutal hands of terrorists…We support countries in the region in exploring a development path suited to their national conditions and are ready to share governance experience and jointly build the Belt and Road and promote peace and stability through common development.

On November 21, China just delivered 1,000 tons of rice to Syria as part of its food aid plan under the BRI. According to China’s state media, China has already signed three agreements with the Syrian government to provide humanitarian aid to Syria worth over $40 million in the first half of 2017.

In September, while attending the United Nations General Assembly in New York, Wang also directly asked Syrian Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Walid Muallem to join China’s BRI, since “Syria is an important node in the ancient Silk Road and that the ‘Belt and Road’ construction can serve as an important opportunity for bilateral cooperation in future. ”

In response, Syria has shown enthusiasm to attract Chinese cash, too. For instance, early in July, the China-Arab Exchange Association and the Syrian Embassy in Beijing held a special event, inviting 1,000 representatives of Chinese companies to invest on Syria’s reconstruction. During the event, Syrian Ambassador in Beijing Imad Mustafa said that Chinese companies are expected to play a big role in the future reconstruction phase and the Syrian government will give top priority to Chinese companies in investment and reconstruction opportunities.

Modern Day Slavery In Africa

https://www.youtube.com/redirect?event=video_description&v=NohyRAjP1rg&q=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.zerohedge.com%2Fnews%2F2017-11-23%2Flibyan-slave-markets-create-diplomatic-storm-africa-un-security-council-meet&redir_token=YPRqD2l1oHkzNRkrpNDZPuWp1r98MTUxMTgzMjM2MUAxNTExNzQ1OTYx

 

African American Social Experiment Gone Wrong! Part 2

 

 

African American Social Experiment Gone Wrong! Part 2

China’s Rise, America’s Fall

 

Will the rise of China mean the fall of America? In a word, yes. Although decline might be more accurate.

Why do I think this? Because China is about to launch the PetroYuan and when it does the demand for dollars and for dollar denominated debt will shrink. When it does, I question whether the world will be so sanguine about the level of debt that America carries. If that happens then the value of the dollar is in question.

At the moment no matter what level of debt America carries, other countries need dollars. Dollars to pay for oil, since oil is traded in dollars. Dollars for their financial system so their banks can settle contracts for goods and services traded in dollars.

But over the last few years China has been systematically putting in place everything it needs to launch the Yuan as not only a rival to the dollar in trading and settling oil contracts but as a rival to the dollar as the world’s reserve currency. At the moment the only rival to the dollar is the Euro. I think it fair to say the relationship between the two currencies and their issuing powers, has been… ‘delicate’. The news that Sadam Hussein was going to start trading his oil in Euros came just a few months before America and its lap dog GB, decided Sadam was a threat to world peace and went to war with him. Something similar happened to Colonel Qaddafi.

Under Qaddafi Libya’s currency was backed by the country’s large holdings of gold and silver. This had allowed Qaddafi to finance, for example, the entire construction of the Great Man Made River without going to Western banks for a single loan. Libya was debt free and owned its own resources and infrastructure. Obviously a very unsatisfactory state of affairs for any third world country to get ideas so far above their station. Worse, he had a very public plan which he had laid before the Pan African Congress, to create a pan African currency backed by gold and silver to be launched by 2023. It was not too long before Hilary Clinton arrived in a freshly bombed Libya and crowed to CBS, “We came, we saw, he died.” Charming woman. I was only surprised she didn’t say “Mission accomplished.”

Libya and Iraq were small enough, that their pretensions to threaten the hegemony of the dollar and have the jumped up arrogance to think they could trade their own resources in their own currency or a currency of their choice, could be dealt with by shock, awe and death. I think China might not be so easily dealt with.

China’s plans for the replacement of the dollar and the positioning of their own currency are very like Libya’s. China too has had the idea to back its new settlement and perhaps one day its reserve currency, with gold. And China is not alone. Russia has been a part of the BRIC group with an interest in the plan. Russia, like China has been a very large buyer of gold.

 

As reported just a few weeks ago by the Irish Independent,

…the Bank of Russia has more than doubled the pace of gold purchases, bringing the share of bullion in its international reserves to the highest of Mr Putin’s 17 years in power, according to World Gold Council data.

In the second quarter alone, it accounted for 38pc of all gold purchased by central banks.

The article goes on to explain how purchasing gold has meant that Russia has not had to buy foreign currencies. For foreign currencies think Dollars.

The gold rush is allowing the Bank of Russia to continue growing its reserves while abstaining from purchases of foreign currency for more than two years.

China and Russia have very large holdings of gold between them. China actually produces 12% of the world’s gold and keeps much if not most of what it produces. The new Petro Yuan will be backed by Gold, Something the IMF decades ago, said no paper currency should have. A clear break with the Bretton Woods Dollar-world agreement.

Who will use this new currency? Over the past few years a network of bilateral agreements has been created around China and Russia. Back in 2012, in an article called A new Reserve currency to challenge the dollar – What’s really going on in The Straits of Hormuz, I pointed out that not only had China and Russia agreed to bypass the dollar and trade direct in their own currencies but that,

the India Times reported that India was talking to Iran about moving out of dollar settlements so as to be able to buy Iranian oil despite a US embargo. India said it was discussing settling in Gold. Remember, India has just signed a settlement agreement with China to use the Yuan.

Remember also, Russia recently eclipsed Saudi as the number one supplier of China’s oil. And if I remember correctly Angola was number two. Promoting perhaps the recent state visit this year of Saudi’s King Salman to see Mr Putin. As The Guardian put it,

 

Saudi king’s visit to Russia heralds shift in global power structure

King Salman agrees new areas of cooperation with Vladimir Putin on first official trip by Saudi monarch to Moscow

In addition Japan and China have agreed to trade in Yuan, by-passing the dollar, as has Iran. They are now trading their oil in Yuan or euros, but not the dollar. Ever wondered why Iran is ‘the axis of evil? It’s because they don’t use the dollar.

Then came the news in 2015 that Qatar had opened the first and so far only financial centre in the Middle East, for trading and clearing oil, gas and anything else, in Yuan. China’s ICBC is the central banking concern in the hub, allowing any Middle Eastern country to trade oil and gas and settle in Yuan. In the previous few years China’s trade with Qatar had tripled. And now, guess what? Qatar has been declared by the US to be a sponsor of terrorism and US allies in the gulf , led by Saudi, have begun to blockade Qatar’s trade. Hmm. Any pattern emerging?

The problem for the US is how much debt is too much for any country or business? Clearly it is not any magic figure or particular debt to GDP ratio. America and China carry huge debts and no one has balked…yet. How much debt you can carry is a function of debt to the estimated future productive capacity of the country in question. That creates the demand for its currency and the demand for the currency creates a market and demand for debt denominated in that currency.

At the moment the US can carry a huge debt load because everyone needs dollars to trade oil. And China can carry a huge debt because everyone needs yuan to buy the goods whose production was off-shored to China by our globalist leadership.

But what happens to demand for Dollars and dollar debt when, not if, oil starts to be traded less and less in dollars? I suggest the world’s appetite will diminish quite quickly. As it does so, the world will start to see US debt in a different light. While the opposite will happen to China. And this is what interests me and makes me think China has a plan.

At the moment China also has a very large debt load. I have argued that the Central Chinese authorities have not got the control they would like to have over the growth of that debt. Of course I have no inside information. But the on again/ off again attempts of the Chinese central authorities to deflate its housing-debt bubble and its quite out-of-control shadow banking lending suggests, to me at least, that the central authorities have not and can not control the level of debt being accumulated by provincial governments, their off-book, arm’s length financial vehicles, regional banks, property developers and the vast, largely unregulated trade in wealth management vehicles.

Chinese debt already overflowed once back in the 90’s. Four companies were created to take the debt off the banks’ books and trade it away. Decades later these companies still exist and still have the bad debts from the 90’s hanging around. You will see headlines telling you how those companies have been doing well, making money. Suggesting their trade in bad chinese debt has been going well. The reality, if you dig a little deeper, is that those companies lobbied for and were given permission to engage in ‘proper’ banking activities. Which meant they began to make their own loans – to property developers. As the property bubble continued to inflate over the last decade and a half they have ridden it and that, not trading the old bad-debt, is why they have made a profit. But now those ‘bad’ banks, have themselves started to find some of their own loans going bad. In any hard-landing or financial paroxysm the ‘bad-banks’ will need to be rescued by a new bad banks. Bad banks for bad banks is not really a solution.

I think the Chinese authorities can see this. It doesn’t take a genius after all. What can they do? Well if you already have a huge debt problem and know many of them are going to go bad and will do so overnight in the event of another global banking crisis, and know you are not able to reign it all in, then a very tempting alternative would be to get the world to agree that you can carry more debt – a lot more. And what could help convince the world? Well if your currency could become far more sought after, that would be peachy.

And so I think the long standing Chinese goal of making the yuan

an important international currency which China, and Hong Kong in particular, have been working towards for years, has now taken on a far greater import and urgency. I think the Chinese central government’s best way of avoiding a politically disastrous domestic debt implosion is to get the Yuan to be used as a settlement currency for oil and not long after that to become a de facto rival to the dollar as the world’s reserve currency.

Recently I argued at length with a military analyst who disagreed that China would risk such a break with America. Too dangerous he felt. China, he pointed out has such huge holdings of American debt. He argued that the Chinese would prefer to work alongside the dollar. I feel that even if the Chinese would prefer to ‘work alongside’ the dollar, this will prove very difficult if not impossible. Once a flow of countries and trade moves away from the dollar there will be a momentum the Chinese will not be in control of. Cooperation between dollar and Yuan as clearing and reserve currency, especially for oil, will be like trying to dock two super-tankers in a high sea. In theory possible. In practice – not going to work.

As for Chinese holdings of US debt – I think the advantages of avoiding a domestic debt implosion and projecting the Yuan to world centre stage, will outweigh the losses. I also think, If I were the Chinese, I would imagine a scenario where the dollar does begin to look vulnerable. Its value begins to be questioned, nations holding dollars and dollar debt will feel America’s profligate indebtedness is a global danger. They will blame America. How wonderful then, for China to arrive and say to a worried world, on the edge of a huge crisis, “Fear not, we have thought ahead and can offer you the use of a new currency – one backed by GOLD not paper debts. We are here to save you. To offer a ride on a sound ship as an alternative to the rotten and leaking ship you have been riding on.” China will be able to position their rise not as an aggressive act, not as trying to destabilise the world, but as trying to save it, from the collapse of an internally divided, corrupt, aggressive and indebted America.

America’s decline will be both financial and political. Financial due to the recalibration of what the world thinks of America’s debt load, and therefore their confidence in and need for the dollar. Political, because America

has got used to being able to enforce its foreign policy through sanctions and embargoes. But once oil and other goods and the nations trading in them, no longer need the dollar for their trade, and do not have to use US clearing or custodial banks, then this power evaporates.

Try to imagine the shift in power when Wall Street’s banks are no longer guaranteed top position as the world’s custodial banks and Manhattan’s Southern District Court (Wall Street’s court) is no longer in a position to dictate to whole nations via decisions upon Wall Street Custodial banks, what debts those nations and their custodial banks must pay and to whom. The whole edifice of Bilateral Investment Treaties and the trade agreements they sit inside, depends for enforcement upon the US banks being the custodial banks and the Southern District court’s rulings being able to tell those banks what they must do. Take that power away, which will happen if the dollar is no longer pre-emininent, and America will no longer be able to enforce its foreign policy or world view via economic sanction.

I think the main US banks will be positioning themselves to try to bridge this decline by having a major presence in Hong Kong. They are all already there but will be working to be part of the new Yuan-world of trade and clearing.

Of course this is speculation. But it seems to me the underlying evidence of the previous decade makes it worth thinking about.

If I am in any way correct then I think other things follow.

I think the House of Saud knows it’s future is in question. I have written a lot about how I see Qatar rising to rival Saudi. Qatar not Saudi has the Yuan clearing house. Saudi is late to the party. Can Saudi risk being seen to move away from its

traditional ally, America? If it does, too quickly, and signs yuan trade deals it risks falling as soon as Americal turns its back. If it doesn’t move quickly enough it risks being completely eclipsed by Qatar, having to go to Qatar cap in hand to trade its oil with Russia and China.

I see the political changes within the House of Saud as signs of the internal struggles to decide which way to go. I personally think the House of Saud will fall.

I also think the position of Israel under its present leadership is also very fragile. Israel needs Saudi. While they may seem to be on opposite sides, in many ways they are on the same side. If the House of Saud falls or changes allegiances from America to Russia/China then Israel will become even more isolated than it is. And of course if America is eclipsed and does enter a period of decline, then Israel will go with it.

If any of the above is near the mark, will it mean the end of America? Of course not. American’s will still work and sleep and raise their children like everyone else. But the pre-eminence of the dollar and American finance will decline as the stock of dollar denominated bonds and debt agreements expires, and with it the power and wealth of many of America’s elite. How that decline will sit alongside America’s still overwhelming military power I don’t know.

Of course what I have suggested above is merely speculation but personally I think another debt crisis will happen, because never ending QE and Central Bank debt buying cannot go one for ever, and what China does in the next few months could very well destabilise the whole unstable system. Many people will suffer and lives will be blighted. But I wonder if, when we all look back from a decade or a generation after, if we won’t think it lucky the crisis did finally come and the system we have been slaving under since 2007 as well as those who have forced it upon us for their own enrichment, were called to account.

It is difficult to accept that such historic changes could occur. But history has not ended despite what some have claimed.

Rumours of History’s end have been, in my opinion, greatly exaggerated. History is very much alive and happening to us, now. We are, as the Chinese saying goes, living in interesting times.