USA Trilogy (II) (Review): The USA as a global governor
I) The atrocities in American historyII) The American imperialism
III) The detentions & abductions worldwide and the international spy system of the USA
IV) The petrodollars and the disconnection of the US dollar from the value of gold
V) The recent military interventions of the USA in the Middle East & Ukraine
''You're
either with us or against us!'' (the US President George W. Bush after the 9/11
attacks)
Summary
Exploiting oil and natural gas in the Middle East and their pipelines
are behind the ''War on Terror.'' Terrorism is an excuse for the global domination
of the USA imposing the ''Pax Americana,'' i.e., the American ''peace.''
Preamble
The scope of this review is not to teach history. That would be
impossible, as today ''everyone knows everything,'' at least through a short
''Google search''! In this review, I aim to briefly gather and
describe the interventions of the US since its independence and to make it clear that American imperialism was widespread and
ruthless. It has not started with the Vietnam War but has existed since the
creation of this nation!
Most believe that the military interventions of the US originate in the Vietnam War. However, they began much earlier with the Cuban War of Independence, the Spanish-American War (1898), and the Philippine-American War (1899)! The interventions of the US worldwide throughout history were numerous to refer to in detail! Therefore, only the most critical recent interventions are briefly described here! The older interventions are described in my text The history of American Imperialism
Regarding the crimes against humanity that the US committed, you should
keep in mind that only a few events are mentioned in short for some specific
countries. That means the US's crimes were much more widespread during its
global interventions, while many were covert!
Oil and natural gas reserves and pipelines remain the leading causes of
wars. Unless the US tends to use greener and more renewable forms of energy,
conflicts are expected to continue! In the past years, the US was able to
violate human rights, such as the abduction of suspects everywhere on the
planet and interrogation with torture, being accountable to nobody! These
practices are analyzed in this text. Many crimes of the US government are
committed with the excuse of terrorism. In recent years, the USA has retained
bases in Syria, ostensibly fighting the jihadists. Neither has it sought any UN
resolution for this nor has the Syrian government asked it to do
so.
Regarding the crimes against humanity, the USA, from the very
beginning, started to interfere globally, causing wars, instigating uprisings,
and intervening whenever and wherever it wished. It is responsible for
overthrowing regimes and establishing governments friendly to them, with Latin America of the second half of the last century being the most striking
example.
The American people are the ones who need to be blamed as they elect
their President. However, their electoral college system is not so
representative and democratic as it excludes the President's direct vote from
the American population, while it is based on electors. It is also the
responsibility of everyone who does not protest against American imperialism or
nourish the American economy by buying American products. Many of our tech
devices are purchased from American companies. Even entertainment is
Americanized. For instance, most people enjoy watching American movies of
low quality instead of international independent productions that do not aim
only to profit. Netflix and HBO dominate streaming services.
The USA is the hub of capitalism, meaning that the only value is money.
That utilitarianism is often transformed into cynicism. The USA has conquered
the planet militarily and financially. It has also dominated its culture of
meager quality. But the US's despotism will soon end, as Russia and China are
both military-powerful to overthrow the USA with their supersonic
intercontinental ballistic missiles.
An issue of concern is the aggression of the USA against China and
Russia. The USA has placed missiles targeting Russia near its borders with
European members of NATO. When in 1962 Russia tried to do the same in Cuba, the
USA threatened with nuclear war! The USA has undermined European relations with
Russia as it wishes to sell its oil shale gas (a costly energy method) and LNG
to Europe. Russia offers cheap natural gas, and its reserves are vast,
especially concerning its new share in Iran's Caspian gas field. Unbelievably,
the USA's obsession with Russia and China is so pronounced that it has
prevented Europe from cooperating with China for the 5G technology! It has also
threatened Chinese interests by using neighboring countries, including Japan
and Taiwan.
With Syria's consent, Russia has replaced the American troops in Syria.
The USA fought terrorism but, in reality, wanted to ensure the passage of
natural gas and oil pipelines of its interests. China has already ousted the US
from its financial leadership, especially in technology, as today, many of our
domestic appliances and gadgets are Chinese. That is why the USA has lately
started a trade war with China and Europe.
As with all imperials, America was created with bloodshed. From the
annihilation of the native Indians until the Spanish–American War (1898)
and the war in Iraq and Afghanistan, the aggression of the US has been
prevalent in recent history. However, it has still not reached the crimes of
the British empire. Ironically, the US has always kept an ancestry and
solidarity with Britain. Nevertheless, the first settlers in America were from
various countries, so they forgot that the American revolution was against
Britain that burned even the capitol!
Notwithstanding, there is a nemesis, as Britain is soon expected to
collapse financially after Brexit. As occurs with the USA, it is already
isolated from Europe. A similar dooming future is expected for the USA, with
the government debt high, with China being the main creditor! Perhaps, as some
say, the USA will not print money this time as it will increase inflation.
All empires' fate was doomed in human history as they were replaced by
a new empire that continued bloodshed. US imperialism used more converted
methods, such as inciting upheavals and military interventions with the excuse
of terrorism. But history has shown that often the system may promote and then
fight terrorism. With the justification of terrorism, military interventions
have the population's approval. For the same reason, human rights are violated
as everyone is a potential suspect.
The pursuit of terrorism in the past has excused abductions from
intelligence worldwide. But our rights are violated every second when, for
instance, using our smartphone's cookies, the system knows our preferences and
the GPS knows our every move. Another more subtle way is economic dominance, as
currently with Germany, which has conquered Europe financially. Even in this
case, the USA let Germany develop into a ''fourth Reich.''
To put everything together, we should oppose American imperialism and
any imperialism, for instance, the forthcoming Russian and Chinese. By not
doing this, we entitle imperialists to continue exploiting the planet. By not
opposing their interventions, we come to agree with them. President George W.
Bush, after the 9/11 attacks, said, ''You're either with us or against
us!''
I)
The atrocities in American history
I am not sure if the US students in APUSH (Advanced Placement United
States History) are taught these things mentioned here! I think that history
class in the US is conducted in a highly biased way. There are shocking things
in US history, such as that the USA's creation was based on the massacre of the
native Indians. Notably, a great massacre called the Bear River massacre
occurred in 1863 when the US troops killed at least 250 Shoshone Indians,
including at least ninety women, children, and infants! Another atrocity was the
Wounded Knee massacre on December 29, 1890, at the Pine Ridge Indian
Reservation in southwestern South Dakota. Then the US Army killed as many as three hundred Oglala Lakota Indians, including many women and children! For a catalog of
the massacres of the native Indians, you may visit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Massacres_of_Native_Americans
Another shocking fact was that 250,000 - 420,000 boys under 17 were
involved in the American Civil War for the Union and the Confederacy! It is
estimated that 100,000 Union soldiers were under 15 years old! Another interesting fact was the battle of
Bull Run, also known as the 'picnic battle,' as onlookers did bring food and
even picnic baskets to watch the fight! As Jim Burgess writes for the Civil War
Trust, it was anything but a leisurely day out for either spectators or
combatants!
A significant atrocity case was the Haymarket Massacre on May 4, 1886,
at a labor demonstration at Haymarket Square in Chicago. It started as a
nonviolent demonstration supporting workers striking for an eight-hour workday
after police murdered one and wounded several workers. An unknown person cast a
dynamite bomb at the police as they acted to scatter the assemblage. The bomb
blast and following gunfire resulted in the seven police officers'
assassination and at least four civilians, while scores were wounded. This
event has been associated with Labor Day/International Working Day, celebrated on 1 May (May Day). The date originated at the 1885 convention
of the American Federation of Labor, which passed a resolution calling for the
adoption of the eight-hour day effective May 1, 1886, a few days before the
Haymarket affair.
The anti-striker militia committed the Ludlow Massacre during the
Colorado Coalfield War. On April 20, 1914, soldiers from the Colorado National
Guard and private guards employed by Colorado Fuel and Iron Company (CF&I)
attacked a tent colony of nearly 1,200 striking coal miners and their families
in Ludlow, Colorado. About twenty-one people, including miners' wives and children,
were killed. The assassins followed nine days of violence between miners and
the Colorado National Guard. John D. Rockefeller, Jr., a part-owner of
CF&I, was widely blamed for orchestrating the massacre. Ironically, books
refer to John Davison Rockefeller as a philanthropist. It should be mentioned
that Rockefeller and the Rothchild family are two essential financial Trusts in
modern history.
The Ludlow massacre was followed by the 1913–1914 Colorado Coalfield
War, which started in September 1913 in CF&I's southern Colorado coal mines
with a general United Mine Workers of America strike against poor labor
conditions. The strike was organized by miners working for the Rocky Mountain
Fuel Company and Victor-American Fuel Company. In revenge for the Ludlow
massacre, armed miners attacked anti-union establishments, destroying property.
On April 20, 1914, tensions escalated at the Ludlow Colony, a tent city
occupied by about 1,200 striking coal miners and their families. Their
encounter with the Colorado National Guard, deployed under President Woodrow
Wilson's orders, ended in a massacre. From the beginning of the strikes until
the intervention of the federal army, about 69 to 199 people were killed. The
strikers' losses were at least nineteen people. Historian Thomas G. Andrews has
called it the "deadliest strike in the United States history."
The Tulsa race massacre occurred on May 31 and June 1, 1921, when mobs
of White residents, some of them deputized and armed by city officials,
attacked Black residents and destroyed homes and businesses of the Greenwood
District in Tulsa, Oklahoma, US. The event is among "the single worst
incidents of racial violence in American history." The attacks burned and
destroyed more than thirty-five square blocks of the neighborhood of the wealthiest
black community in the United States, known as "Black Wall Street."
More than eight hundred people were admitted to hospitals. A 2001 state commission
examination of events confirmed thirty-nine dead, twenty-six black people.
On May 30, 1937, the Memorial Day massacre occurred, another atrocity
in American history. It was committed by the Chicago Police Department that
mercilessly killed ten unarmed demonstrators in Chicago during the Little Steel
strike in 1937. It was a labor strike by the Congress of Industrial
Organizations (CIO) and its branch, the Steel Workers Organizing Committee
(SWOC), involving thirty mills with 80,000 workers. Along with the ten
assassinated protesters, thirty-seven innocent people sustained severe injuries from the
police. You may watch the appalling footage on https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5LVrfcJG8Fk
and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x1H62KeDWZI
and the British Pathe footage of the
1937 steel strike on https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zkII5PUgeN4
and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r5SP_rqGVrI
The footages show the massacre and also
a man that was allowed by the police to bleed to death!
Brutalities have always accompanied US military interventions over the
planet. The most specific incident was the two atomic bombs that the US Air Force detonated over Nagasaki and Hiroshima, Japanese cities, killing 200,000
civilians. Scores of civilians died later from leukemia and cancer! During WWII, the USA used napalm bombs during
the airstrike on Tokyo on March 9, 1945, which cost the lives of 100,000
civilians. It also used them on February 13, 1945, at Dresden's airstrike,
killing 25,000 civilians. It should be noted that Tokyo and Dresden were not
strategic but civilian targets!
The Americans are educated about their contribution to winning the
Second World War, and myriads of films show their braveness but not the losses.
But the real story was that it was the allies, specifically Great Britain,
whose role was essential. Additionally, the significance of the gallant Russian
military is rarely mentioned. The Russians first entered the seized Berlin, and
Europe would still be German without the Russian victories at the Eastern
front! It currently is, but financially, not military!
The Russian victories are downgraded. For instance, many believe the
Americans were the first who went to space. But the real story is that the
Russians went first to space, while later, the US launched the human-crewed
rocket mission to the moon. However, some facts have debated this first
mission, such as the blowing flag on a planet without an atmosphere! The US
reached the moon with a rocket that Wernher von Braun invented. Von Brown was a
former Nazi recruited by the US to create a rocket for the space mission and
create military missiles (in Nazi Germany, he invented the V2 rockets launched
against Britain). How moral was the US to use a former Nazi in its military and
space program? I leave it to your discretion to judge!
A crime against humanity was the nuclear testing at Bikini Atoll
program, a series of 23 atomic weapons detonated by the US between 1946 and
1958 at seven test sites on the reef itself, on the sea, in the air, and
underwater. Six days after the Castle Bravo test, the government set up a
secret project to study the weapon's medical effects on the Marshall Islands'
residents! The US was afterward accused of using the residents as medical
research subjects without obtaining their consent to study nuclear exposure's
effects! The US Government had promised the Bikini Atoll’s inhabitants to
return home after the nuclear tests. Most residents were moved to the
Rongerik Atoll and later to Kili Island. Both locations proved unsuitable for
sustaining life!
Also shocking is that the U.S. authorities exposed even American
service members to mustard gas, a chemical warfare agent used in WW1!
Specifically, 4,000 men were exposed to this toxic substance. For further
information, you may read the article of the U.S. National Public Radio (NPR)
at https://www.npr.org/2015/06/23/416408655/the-vas-broken-promise-to-thousands-of-vets-exposed-to-mustard-gas?t=1605696223785
During the Vietnam War, the US used napalm bombs that killed myriads.
The American forces committed atrocities in this war. It should be mentioned
that the US sprayed the Vietnam jungles with the toxic herbicide ‘orange
agent,’ causing the deforestation of large areas. At the same time, it also
affected veterans’ offspring, as it was teratogenic! Importantly, in 2002 it was revealed that
President Nixon planned to use an atomic bomb to win the Vietnam war! Regarding
that matter, you may visit https://www.nytimes.com/2002/03/01/world/nixon-proposed-using-a-bomb-in-vietnam-war.html
and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3CFToqaMT04
A crime against humanity was also committed on May 4, 1970, when four
unarmed college students were killed by members of the Ohio National Guard at
the Kent State University in Kent, Ohio, during a mass protest against the
bombing of Cambodia by the US military forces!
Recent atrocities include the 1991 Gulf War (attack in Iraq) with
25,000 to 50,000 Iraqi losses; the 2003 invasion of Iraq with 7,600 to 30,000
Iraqi losses; and the 2001–2019 Afghanistan war with 76,400 rebels and 16,179
civilian losses. These figures are dreadful! A significant crime against
humanity is the mistreatment of inmates at the isolated Guantanamo prison after
2001. The US army rules the prison.
The US Army has recruited soldiers of questionable psychological
stability, as shooting events by psychopath soldiers or veterans have shown. It
is not a coincidence that military recruitment officers commonly scout rookies,
even at ghettoes! However, since 72 percent of the American soldiers are white, the
scouts do not do a good job searching in urban places for recruits willing to
lose their lives for the nation!
In the Gulf War of 1991, the US military was exposed to depleted
uranium (used for better penetration of the shells against targets such as
tanks) that caused the Gulf War Syndrome (although it has less
radioactivity than natural uranium). Depleted uranium in bombshells was also
used in the US airstrike against civilian areas in Serbia in 1998. The
population was exposed to radioactivity, and cancer rates were alleged to
increase after the bombing.
A horrible atrocity was the Amiriyah shelter bombing on 13 February
1991. An air-raid shelter in the Amiriyah neighborhood of Baghdad, Iraq, was
destroyed by the US Air Force with two laser-guided ‘smart bombs.’ More than four hundred people were killed, including women and children! Another ''collateral
damage'' occurred in 1983, during the U.S. military intervention in Grenada.
Among the sixty-seven civilians who died, eighteen were killed when the U.S. Air Force
''accidentally'' (although they always have maps) bombed a mental hospital!
Appalling pictures were revealed to the public in 2004 by CBS. These
photos were shot at Abu Ghraib, an American-run prison outside Baghdad, and
showed inmates tortured by male and female US soldiers! You may watch them on
the CBS site at https://www.cbsnews.com/pictures/abuse-photos-ii/
A video of another atrocity during Iraq's occupation shows an American
Apache military helicopter shooting unarmed civilians, among them a journalist
(the pilot and the co-pilot behaved as if they were playing a videogame). You
may watch the shocking video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4eLocrnmVy0
and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zYTxuW2vmzk
The US military's professionalism is also questionable. A video in
Afghanistan released some years ago showed US soldiers urinating on the Taliban
fighters' dead bodies they had just killed. That shows no respect even for the
basic principles of ''decency'' in war! You may watch this shocking image at
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fDub_zV68hI and https://www.thejournal.ie/us-denounces-video-showing-marines-urinating-on-taliban-dead-326841-Jan2012/
In Afghanistan, during the U.S. occupation, there were cases of murdering
innocent civilians without any reason, such as the notorious group of American
soldiers called the ''kill team.'' You
may find further information at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maywand_District_murders
and https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/the-kill-team-how-u-s-soldiers-in-afghanistan-murdered-innocent-civilians-169793/
and https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/01/10/kill-j10.html
You may also watch the 2019 movie ''The
kill Team.'
Finally, during the last years, an atrocious event has been the unexpected, isolated deaths of children of illegal migrants detained at refugee
camps. Some of these deaths perhaps were related to negligence of health
issues. Even more despicable was that, until recently, kids of illegal migrants
were held separated from their parents!
II) The American Imperialism
You may read my text The history of American imperialism
Does the US fight terrorism? The USA's objective for its military campaigns
It is doubtful that the US fights terrorism. Since the 19th century, the
US has interfered numerous times, destabilizing many countries by backing
anti-regime forces attempting to overthrow governments not friendly to the US.
For instance, the US destabilized Latin America in the second half of the last
century. The same was true for the 'Arab Spring' that was not 'spontaneous,' as
the mob was stirred by social media, lawyer teams, etc.
Their interference in the Middle East always has control of oil and
natural gas reserves as a motive. For example, the US intervened in the war in
Iraq and Afghanistan and these countries' occupation. It should be noted that
the latter also has opium 'reserves.' The US also aimed to control the oil and
natural gas pipeline passage, the strategic (for international trade) regions
of the Gulf of Aden (the civil war there is not a coincidence), and the Strait
of Hormuz. The US also overturned Gaddafi and Mubarak, the dictators of Libya
and Egypt, respectively. The reason was Libya's oil and gas reserves and the
control of the strategic Suez Canal in Egypt. They were both of vital
importance.
On November 2, 2019, shortly after the US troops withdrew from Syria, the Russian Secretary of State accused the US of backing the Islamic State leader they assassinated when he was no longer useful! It is said that all the jihadist rebels in Syria were mercenaries from Europe and other places. Some say that Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar supported the Islamic State in Syria. Some also add Kuwait. However it is not easy to find solid evidence for this theory. Regarding this issue, you may read the articles https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/hillary-clinton-wikileaks-email-isis-saudi-arabia-qatar-us-allies-funding-barack-obama-knew-all-a7362071.html and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finances_of_ISIL#Donations_from_Persian_Gulf_states and https://www.thedailybeast.com/americas-allies-are-funding-isis and https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-29004253
I will not be surprised if, in the future, it is revealed that the US
assisted the Islamic State as well. In the past, Russia accused Turkey of oil
smuggling with Syrian jihadists. At the same time, during Turkey's attack
against Kurdish targets on the Turkish-Syrian border in the autumn of 2019,
Turkey deployed jihadist mercenaries! Turkey also sent Syrian
jihadist mercenaries to fight in Libya's civil war the same year! It is said that the above
countries nourished the jihadists to destabilize Syria after the refusal of the
Syrian president to allow the passage of pipelines from Qatar to Europe.
Lately, the interest is focused on Libya, which was already destabilized by the
‘Arab Spring’ resulting in Gaddafi's assassination by the jihadist rebels. In
the civil war that followed, the jihadist insurgents, most mercenaries paid by
Turkey, defeated the opponent tribes and created a provisional government under
the West's sphere of influence!
The US launched airstrikes against Syria and invaded the country
without any UN resolutions, something they had done many times in the past. As
always, they acted in the name of the 'War on Terror' that began after 9/11.
Notwithstanding, this campaign against terror is only for the US's benefit,
while it has caused many problems, such as the recent chaotic migration surge
towards Europe. The US violated international law when in January 2020, it
assassinated the military leader of Iran in Bagdad, Iraq, with the excuse that
he was a terrorist, at least according to the US. But it is a matter of
discussion who is the real terrorist!
The USA backed the Islamic forces on several occasions, such as during
the Arab Spring. For instance, it supported the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and
the jihadists in Libya. The latter executed the US ambassador, who was left
there like a sheep being led to the slaughter.
Importantly, it was revealed that the ISIS jihadists in Syria possessed American and Saudi arms. Their excuse was that they seized them from the Syrian rebels to whom they were granted. Ironically, the US-built military bases and launched air raids in Syria against terrorists whenever wished, without any United Nations (UN) Security Council resolution and not invited by the Syrian government.
Eventually, who rules the US?
The USA is ruled by lobbies such as the arms and oil industries and
various political lobbies, including the Israeli and financial Trusts. These
lobbies control the foreign office agenda regarding military attacks at regions
of special interests (oil, natural gas reserves, and pipelines) and tariffs on
goods and metals (for instance, on China and Europe). The US presidents have
invariably been puppets of political and economic lobbies. When they were not, the
system got rid of them, such as in the case of JFK.
Regarding politicians, the former Secretary of State and geopolitical
consultant Henry Kissinger can be blamed for being responsible for the US's
disastrous imperialistic policy after the second half of the 20th century. Ever
since, the US has destabilized many countries globally, such as in Latin
America. US imperialism ruined the naive stereotype of considering the US as a
democratic nation that respects the sovereignty of other countries. Kissinger
later participated numerous times in the Bilderberg (secret) meetings with
geopolitical and economic subjects held annually in various places.
The role of Israel
The Israeli lobby in the US has always been dominant and had a considerable influence. At the same time, it seems to be behind all US interventions in the
Middle East during the last decades. For instance, some connect the civil war
in Syria with Israel's need to eliminate the fanatic Islamic militant group ‘Hezbollah’
supported by the Syrian government and Iran. This Islamic group was the excuse
for Israel’s attack in Lebanon in 2006 after two Israeli soldiers' abduction.
Atrocities followed Israel's attack. But, as always, it was not held
accountable by international law. Specifically, Israel launched airstrikes
against Palestine, killing 3,476 people (some were burned alive with white
phosphorus shells). Other examples of atrocities were in 2000 when a father
with his child was killed on camera (although Israel claimed that they were
caught in the crossfire) or in 2018 when Israeli snipers in Gaza killed twenty-seven unarmed Palestinian civilians (including children) and during this were
laughing and cheering as if they were hunters aiming at rabbits. Isn't this a
crime against humanity?
The ‘War on Terror’ (WoT)
The ‘War on Terror’ (WoT) was officially declared by US President
George W. Bush in 2001, after the 9/11 terror attack in New York, and continues
until today. This war began with the US attack and later the occupation of
Afghanistan and continues with the Middle East's destabilization! In the US,
all military attacks are justified to the public as the fight against ‘terrorism.’
It is alleged that they were organized many years before by specialists in
strategic plans, think tanks, and American institutes and universities,
including Stanford.
The war against ‘terrorism’ is manipulated by international
financial Trusts that act behind the US government. The purpose is simple: to
make money! The attack and occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan had a sheer
motive: to exploit Iraq's oil and control the oil pipelines and the energy
resources of the area. Additionally, in Afghanistan, perhaps they could exploit
the vast opium reserves!
The ‘clash of the civilizations’ (and
religions) theory of Samuel Huntington
The USA’s foreign policy is based on the ‘clash of the civilizations’
(and religions) theory of the political scientist Samuel Huntington. This
theory is based on the ‘war on terror (WoT),’ the war against ‘terrorism’ that
President George W. Bush began in 2001, after 9/11. For further information on
this theory, you may visit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clash_of_Civilizations
American imperialism during the last
decades
Over the last decades, the US has sought to control oil reserves by
manipulating the global oil price. That need led in 1991 to the Gulf War
against Iraq, an oil-producing country, and its occupation in 2003 with the
excuse of nuclear weapons of mass destruction (WMD) that were never found! It
also led to the attack in Afghanistan in 2001 (this country has additional
''reserves'' of opium) with the excuse of ''War on terror'' after the 9/11
terror attack in New York (that some believe was a set up by the US).
The civil war in Ukraine started after its willingness to change its
sphere of influence, become a member of NATO, and establish relationships with
the European Union. Of course, this decision was followed by destabilization by
the West, which led to a civil war. Eventually, in 2014, during Ukraine's civil
war, Russia, unwilling to lose its exit to the Black Sea, annexed Crimea.
Similar events occurred earlier in Georgia when it tried to be a member of NATO
and occupy Ossetia with the aid of the West. However, Russia invaded Georgia
and annexed South Ossetia, unwilling to lose its territory.
The annexation of Crimea led the US to impose suction, including an
embargo from the European Union (EU) countries, although they were highly
dependent on Russian natural gas. The US also forced the Saudis to increase oil
production, intending to harm the Russian economy. However, the only thing they
achieved was to reduce Saudi's oil reserves.
The so-called ‘Arab Spring’ in 2010 was another event the US and its allies manipulated. It used controlled non-governmental organizations, groups, and social media that caused the population's uprising and stirred
fanatic groups. Some say that the West supported these jihadist rebel groups
militarily and financially. The ‘Arab Spring’ uprising in North Africa, the
Arabic Peninsula, and Turkey led Libya, Egypt, and Tunisia to chaos while the
civil war in Libya continued. The only one who won from the uprising was the
US, an expert in destabilizing nations. For example, during the second half of
the 20th century, the US destabilized Latin America with coups and US-backed
insurgents.
The necessity to control the passage of oil and natural gas pipelines
was the cause of the Syrian civil war in 2011. However, the interference of
Russia in 2017 that aided Syria as its ally complicated things. The civil war
in Syria started when the Syrian dictator refused to allow the passage of
Qatar's pipelines to Europe, which fulfilled Western interests. The civil war
broke out as jihadists, most of them mercenaries who came to fight from various
countries, tried to impose Islamic law in Syria.
Eventually, Russia ruined the US's plans to exploit the Middle East exclusively.
It intervened in the civil war as Syria's ally and finally defeated the
jihadist guerillas that used the local population as a shield. Turkey was
accused of oil trade with Islamist terrorists. Additionally, it was accused,
along with Qatar and Saudi Arabia (some also add Kuwait), of supporting the
jihadists financially and providing them arms! However, these accusations are
difficult to prove.
As in the Iraq invasion, the US used the Kurds of the region to fight
the rebels in Syria, infuriating Turkey (as the Kurds wanted an independent
territory that would comprise part of Turkey) that allied with Russia!
Recently, there has been tension between the US and Iran, a country with vast
oil reserves. However, there is a conflict of interest with the European Union
that seems to disobey the US's prompt to isolate Iran!
Everything is related to the control of oil and natural gas resources.
Qatar has abundant reserves of natural gas. The US's recent decision to
transfer its embassy to Jerusalem, recognizing it de facto and de jure as
Israel's capital, fueled tension with all the Arabic nations. However the Arabic
countries are not at peace as they are divided into Shia and Sunni Muslims,
whose relationship is often hostile. Moreover, tension remains between
Azerbaijan and Armenia, where Nagorno Karabakh is still a contentious region
(such as the Syrian Gollan height occupied by Israel), and between the US and
Qatar, although they were previously allies.
All the above shows that all contemporary conflicts are caused by the
US's need to retain and expand its spheres of influence and control the energy
resources of the Middle East. Unbelievably, the Trump administration was
accused of ties with Russia that used hackers to help them come to power! But
the US president impeded the FBI's probe into this matter and changed several
heads of the FBI and the Justice Department, meaning that perhaps he has
something to hide! Eventually, there was a cover-up!
The US interventions and the necessity
to control strategic regions
The Arab Spring was not as spontaneous as many believe, but behind this
is the West, especially the US, which aimed to bring the Arab countries into its
sphere of influence. In the case of Libya, one of the deeper reasons for the
Arab Spring is that Libya holds the largest proven oil reserves in Africa and
is an essential contributor to the global supply of light, sweet crude.
In Egypt's case, one of the deeper reasons for the Arab Spring is that
Egypt is the largest non-OPEC producer of oil and the second-largest dry
natural gas producer in Africa. Additionally, controlling the strategic for
global trade Suez Canal was vital. The Suez Canal's control was the reason for
the Arab–Israeli wars of 1967 and 1973. Yemen is also a region of conflict.
During the last few years, Saudi Arabia, with its troops, has been accused
of atrocities with the excuse of war on terror. But the real reason for the
civil war is that Yemen has the port of Aden, which is also strategic for
international trade. A significant strategic region is the Strait of Hormuz, an
Iranian island in the Persian Gulf. The Strait of Hormuz is located between the
Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman. It provides the only sea passage from the
Persian Gulf to the open ocean and is one of the world’s most strategically
important choke points.
Oil and natural gas reserves and pipelines are still the leading causes
of wars. The US withdrew from the Paris accord to protect the planet. Unless
the US energy policy does not tend to greener and more renewable forms of
energy, conflicts are expected to continue! It should be mentioned that along
with planet agreements, the US recently withdrew from human rights agreements
and surveillance of the United Nations Amnesty International, meaning that it
can violate human rights everywhere, being accountable to nobody! An example
analyzed below is the abduction of suspects around the planet, their detention,
and their interrogation with torture!
d) The American presence throughout the
world
The ubiquitous American military bases,
patrolling naval ships & subs!
The US is an imperialistic nation that intervenes whenever and wherever
it wishes. Today, the US has military bases equipped with long-range ballistic
missiles and nuclear warheads. Moreover, many NATO bases store atomic weapons
(missiles), such as in Germany, Belgium, Netherlands, Italy, and Turkey. It is
alleged that the most significant US base is in Kosovo, in the Balkans. The US
has bases with troops in most countries worldwide. Also, American aircraft
carriers and nuclear submarines patrol the planet's seas. For the list of the
US military bases throughout the world, you may visit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_military_bases
The US as an international arms dealer!
The US and Russia are the most prominent international arms dealers.
The US sells weapons and military equipment in most countries globally. In some
cases, it is said that arms trade deals are done with the help of secret
services. The US has sold and still sells arms even to traditional enemies! For
instance, during the Iran-Iraq conflict in the 1980s,’ it is said that the US
sold ammunition and weapons to both countries!
Importantly, in 1991, after the Gulf War and the US's airstrikes
against Iraq, the US sold to the dictator of Iraq, Saddam Hussein (whom some
accuse as a former secret agent of the US) arms and military helicopters to
suppress an uprising of anti-regime rebels. It is also said that Saddam's
forces used American weapons and military equipment that the US troops left in
1991 when they decided to cancel the invasion of Iraq for an unexplained
reason!
It is also alleged that the US sells fighter jets (and perhaps warships
and tanks) that, in the case of war, can be blocked by the American army
whenever they wish by using specialized software that renders them useless! Of
course, this cannot be ascertained from reliable sources, but when I asked
about this, a friend at the gym who serves in the armed forces replied that
this is old news! If this is true, I find it stupid for countries to buy
American (or Russian) warplanes and arms that the seller can easily deactivate
simply with software aid!
NATO: the willing allies of the US! Are
they still?
The US launched a global trade war during the Trump administration,
deteriorating its allies' relationship. The US is military represented by NATO,
a coalition of willing countries allied with America and participating in
conflicts aiding the US military. However, lately, NATO is crumbling, as
countries such as Germany and France are neither keen to agree with the US's
destabilization policy of the Middle East nor are happy with the friendliness of
the US toward Turkey that aids the US in this destabilization.
III) The detentions & abductions worldwide and the international
spy system of the USA
Note: This part is a review of various sources
a) Extraordinary retention (irregular
rendition), abduction, interrogation/ torture, and imprisonment of suspects for
‘terrorism’ worldwide
Extraordinary rendition (US
government-sponsored abductions worldwide)
Extraordinary rendition, also called irregular rendition, is the
government-funded abduction and extrajudicial transfer of a person from one
country to another. The first rendition case was an airline hijacker abducted
in Italy and brought to the USA for trial in the US. US President Ronald Reagan
approved it. Reagan signed a secret directive in 1986 that allowed the CIA to
kidnap, anywhere overseas, foreigners wanted for terrorism. Later, US President
Bill Clinton authorized extraordinary renditions in countries known to practice
torture. That is called ''torture by proxy'' and is the cooperation by one
government in the abuse of prisoners.
President George W. Bush (the junior) renditioned hundreds of illegal
fighters, often not even charged with any crime, for torture by proxy. They
were transferred to US-controlled sites for torture called ‘enhanced
interrogation.’ Extraordinary rendition continued, with reduced frequency, by
the administration of US President Obama. Notwithstanding, instead of
subjecting them to torture, most abducted were interrogated and taken to the US
for trial.
European countries allied to the US cooperated with the US intelligence
services in abducting terrorist suspects and flying them to countries where
they may have been tortured. According to the European Council, several
countries had allowed the agency to seize its residents. Others have offered
extensive logistical support, while many have allowed these abductions. There
is convincing evidence that Poland and Romania permit US intelligence to operate
secret prisons on their territory. The UK was accused of providing British
airports for this purpose and giving information used during the torture of one
prisoner.
The worldwide abductions by the
Mossad
Mossad (the national intelligence agency of Israel) has also been
practicing abductions worldwide. Initially, it began as the abduction of Nazi
criminals of war. In 1960, Mossad found that the Nazi leader Adolf Eichmann, who
escaped after the war, lived in Argentina. A team of five Mossad agents led by
Shimon Ben Aharon traveled to Argentina. Through surveillance, he verified that
he was living there under the name of Ricardo Klement. On May 11, 1960, he was
abducted and consequently transferred to Israel, where he was tried and
executed. Following this, Mossad moved to further abductions.
In 1986, Mossad used an undercover agent to find the nuclear
whistleblower Mordechai Vanunu from the UK to Italy. In a mission, he was
abducted and transferred to Israel, where he was tried and found guilty of
treason because of his role in exposing Israel’s nuclear program.
In the late 1990s, Mossad traced two Iranian agents in Johannesburg,
South Africa, to obtain advanced weapons systems from the Denel state. A Mossad
agent was used with the aid of a local Jewish contact. Pretending South African
intelligence, they abducted the Iranians and transferred them to a warehouse.
There they beat and intimidated them before making them leave the
country.
The atrocities in the notorious
Guantanamo Bay Detention Camp
The Guantanamo Bay Detention Camp, also known as Guantanamo, is a USA
military prison located within Guantanamo Bay Naval base in Cuba. At its
establishment in January 2002, the USA Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld,
declared that the prison camp was established to detain extraordinarily
dangerous persons, interrogate them, and prosecute them for war crimes. About
780 people were captured in the ‘War on Terror,’ 220 were from Afghanistan,
while others were later seized from Iraq, the Horn of Africa, and South Asia. The US government's Joint Task Force Guantanamo (JTF-GTMO) operates the facility.
The Department of Justice recommended President George W. Bush (the
junior) keep the Guantanamo Bay detention camp outside U.S. legal authority.
Then, on 11 January 2002, military guards took the first twenty detainees to
Guantanamo. From the period 2002 to 2015, 779 men were brought to Guantanamo.
Nearly 200 were released by 2004 before reviewing any Combatant Status Review
Tribunal (CSRTs) whether they were legitimately held as enemy warriors.
Although Bush alleged that most men had been arrested fighting in
Afghanistan, a 2006 review of DOD data for the remaining 517 men in 2005
concluded that over 80 percent of the prisoners were captured not by Americans
on the battlefield but by Pakistan and Afghans, often exchanging money! In
Guantanamo, the Geneva Convention that requires fair trials for prisoners has
been violated. Red Cross inspectors and released detainees have claimed acts of
torture, including beatings, sleep deprivation, and locking in confined and
cold cells (I am not sure if they used white cells as in Turkey).
As a military prison, the wardens of Guantanamo Bay were accused by
human rights organizations of torture, intimidation, and humiliation of
inmates. The detainees were abducted and kept there without legal rights, such
as immediate access to an attorney, a fair trial, and the right to appeal. It
is a disgrace to humanity that this prison existed without sanctions from the
international community and human rights organizations.
b) The global surveillance spy system of communications
Overview
All means of communication are prone to espionage by intelligence
services. It should be noted that some years ago, the production of cellphones
that could overcome this ‘surveillance’ was eventually revoked, obviously after
the ‘interference’ of the US. The only way to skip this spying is by speaking
person-to-person, although intelligence can record even this! So, I think the safest next step is to exchange written messages!
The use of smartphones by everyone means that intelligence can know our every move and our precise location (using GPS). The internet is unsafe, as hackers and intelligence services can easily collect our personal data, including social media profiles and chats. This data theoretically can be used for blackmail. The Facebook data breach and misuse in 2018 showed that even social media are not safe, regardless of whether someone’s profile is genuine! You may read my article The Real Story of Facebook's Data Misuse
The global surveillance spy system on
the internet and cell phones: the disclosures of Edward Snowden
News reports in December 2005 claimed that the National Security Agency
(NSA) had been intercepting Americans’ phone calls and internet communications.
Along with these reports, a ‘USA Today article in May 2006 and the
announcements of several Congress members revealed that the NSA is also
receiving large-scale copies of Americans' telephones and other communications
records. Secret government documents published by the media in 2013 verify the
NSA obtains complete copies of everything carried along with major domestic
fiber optic cable networks. Copying includes both domestic and international
Internet activities.
In June 2013, 'The Guardian'' and ''The Washington Post'' published
articles revealing that the US government is mass collecting phone metadata of
all US customers. The government of the USA, without any legal justification,
seems to be collecting and analyzing the content of communications of
foreigners talking to persons inside the USA.
In the USA, in 2012, it is said that lawyers of the Justice Department
wrote two secret memos authorizing the spy agency to seek internet cables for
data linked to computer intrusions originating abroad. This included traffic
that runs to suspicious Internet addresses or contains malware. This espionage
was done without a warrant and on American soil. The Justice Department allowed
the agency to watch only addresses and ‘cyber signatures’ associated with
computer intrusions related to foreign states. But the NSA sought permission to
find ''hackers'' even when it could not establish links to foreign
jurisdictions.
There seems to be a secret legal justification for more extensive
government surveillance. The NSA got approval in 2012 to use its warrantless
surveillance plan to target Internet addresses, malware, and other
''cyber-signatures'' associated with foreign states. It has also pushed the
government to lift limits on that power. Simultaneously, the FBI obtained court
approval to target worldwide internet addresses for its cyber-security
examinations. These moves were not unveiled to the public but were exposed in
‘the New York Times’ and ‘ProPublica’ by the former intelligence contractor
Edward J. Snowden.
Edward Snowden was a former contractor for the CIA. In 2013, he left
the USA after leaking details of American intelligence's widespread internet and phone surveillance in the media. Snowden was eventually granted
temporary asylum in Russia while he faced espionage charges over his
activities.
In January 2014, the newspaper ''The Guardian'' and the TV ''Channel
Four'' news in the UK reported that the USA had gathered and stored almost 200
million text messages (SMS) daily across the globe. A National Security Agency
(NSA) surveillance program is said to have extracted and stored data from phone
text messages to gather area information, contacts, and financial data.
According to the report, the program investigates phone text messages
to extract information, including contacts from missed call alerts, the
position from roaming and travel alerts, financial information from bank alerts
and payments, and names from electronic cards. Moreover, it seems that the NSA
gained data on those who were not targeted or under suspicion.
The notorious ‘ECHELON’ surveillance
system
ECHELON (also known as AUSCANNZUKUS & ‘Five Eyes’) is a global
electronic intelligence-gathering operation within the UK-USA Agreement,
principally for industrial espionage. ECHELON was created in the early 1960s!
Formerly, ECHELON was a code name for signals intelligence (SIGINT) collection
and analysis network. The US operates it with five allies (UK-USA
Security Agreement) beyond the USA, including the UK, Canada, Australia, and
New Zealand. We can notice here an Anglo-Saxon alliance and NATO members.
ECHELON is the only software system that manages the download and distribution
of commercial satellite trunk communications intercepts.
Officially, ECHELON was established in 1971. Its objective was to
monitor the military and diplomatic communications of the Soviet Union (USSR)
and the Eastern European Bloc that was under the control of communist Russia
during the Cold War. By the end of the 20th century, ECHELON became a global
system for the interception of private and commercial communications. One of
the earliest reports unveiling ECHELON was the article of Duncan Campbell,
‘Somebody's listening,’ published in the ‘New Statesman,’ a British political
magazine.
A committee of the European Parliament investigated the program in 2000
and 2001. In the final report, published in 2001, the European Parliament
stated that the term ‘ECHELON’ is used in many settings. The evidence indicates
that it was the name for a signals intelligence gathering system. The report
concluded that ECHELON was able to intercept and content inspection of phone
calls, faxes (in the past), e-mails, and other data traffic worldwide through the
interception of communication bearers, including satellite transmission, public
switched telephone networks (in the past they carried most of the internet
traffic) and later cellphone technology.
The visiting American professor at Berkeley University in California)
James Bamford referred in detail to the subject. According to Bamford, the
ECHELON system is a controlling software for collecting and distributing
private telecommunications traffic via communication satellites.
Ground stations undertook the collection.
c) The intelligence
The National Security Agency (NSA)
The National Security Agency (NSA) is an intelligence organization of
the US government. NSA originated as a unit to decode coded communications in
World War II. Officially, it was formed as the NSA by President Harry S. Truman
in 1952. Ever since, it has become one of the most significant intelligence
organizations in the USA.
NSA is responsible for global surveillance, collection, and processing
of information and data for foreign intelligence and counter-intelligence
purposes, known as signals intelligence (SIGINT). The NSA is authorized to
accomplish its mission effectively and covertly, including bugging electronic
systems and subversive software. NSA is also commissioned to protect the USA’s
government communications and information systems against penetration and
network warfare.
NSA keeps a physical presence in many countries where special
collection services (SCS) exist. SCS collection tactics allegedly incorporate
close surveillance, burglary, wiretapping, breaking, and entering. Unlike the
DIA & CIA (described below), which aim at foreign human espionage, the NSA
does not manage human-source intelligence collection but is committed to
assisting and coordinating SIGINT elements at other government organizations.
As part of these streamlining duties, the agency has a co-located organization
called the Central Security Service (CSS), created to aid cooperation between the NSA and other US military cryptanalysis elements.
In 2013, the extent of the NSA’s secret surveillance programs was
unveiled by Edward J. Snowden, a former contractor for the CIA. After leaking
to the media details of widespread internet and phone surveillance by American
intelligence, Snowden left the USA. He was granted temporary asylum
in Russia, where he still lives while facing espionage charges over his
activities. According to the leaked documents, the NSA intercepts
communications worldwide and tracks mobile phone activity. The NSA can also
survey the domestic Internet traffic of foreign nations via ‘boomerang
routing.’
The CIA
The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) is the US government's civilian
foreign intelligence service. It is tasked with collecting, processing, and
analyzing national security data worldwide, principally using human
intelligence (HUMINT). CIA is one of the leading members of the USA
Intelligence Community (IC). CIA reports to the Director of National
Intelligence. It is focused on providing intelligence for the
president. The difference with the FBI (Federal Bureau of Investigation), a
domestic security service, is that the CIA has no law enforcement role and is
directed at overseas intelligence collection, whereas it has a limited
local collection.
CIA is the only agency legally authorized to carry out and oversee
covert action on behalf of the president (I don't know how legal this is when
practiced covertly and in other countries). CIA is the national manager for
coordination and de-confliction of HUMINT actions across the intelligence
community. For instance, it can exert foreign political influence through its
tactical divisions, such as the Special Activities Division.
CIA has taken on offensive roles, including covert political
operations. One of its most significant divisions, the Information Operations
Center (IOC), has shifted focus from counterterrorism to offensive
cyber-operations. Several CIA activities comprise nonconsensual human
experiments, extraordinary rendition, enhanced interrogation, torture, targeted
assassinations, and the funding and training of insurgents. During the second half
of the 20th century, a well-known example was when the US destabilized Latin
America with coups and US-backed insurgents with the CIA's aid.
The Defense Intelligence Agency
(DIA)
The Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) is an external intelligence
service specializing in defense and military intelligence in the USA. It was
founded in 1961 under President John F. Kennedy (JFK). DIA has been at the
vanguard of US intelligence throughout the Cold War. Since the September 11
(9/11) attack, it has rapidly expanded.
DIA is a Department of Defense (DoD)e and the USA Intelligence
Community (IC) segment. DIA notifies national civilian and defense policymakers
about foreign states' military purposes, capacities, and non-state
participants. Moreover, it assures intelligence assistance, integration, and
coordination across uniformed military service. These intelligence components
remain structurally separate from DIA.
DIA aims to incorporate the collection and analysis of defense-related
foreign political, economic, industrial, geographic, and health intelligence.
DIA typically provides information for the president. It is unprecedented that
two-thirds of its 17,000 employees are civilians, and the agency’s structure
resembles that of its non-military counterpart.
DIA’s intelligence operations extend to hundreds of locations and U.S.
embassies in approximately 140 countries. The DIA primarily collects and
analyzes human-source intelligence (HUMINT) and has its secret service. The
agency, contrary to common belief, seems to have no law enforcement
authority. It also uses the information to spot illegal activities such as drug
dealing and notify other countries. But the question is, what does it earn from
exposing information unrelated to the US territory to other countries, and is
the intelligence implicated or not in illegal activities of any kind?
IV) The petrodollars and the disconnection of the US dollar from the
value of gold
Note: This part is a review of various sources.
During the First World War, the British entered a treaty that made the
lands of the House of Saud (later Saudi Arabia) a British protectorate. After
World War I, the UK and France sought to control the new states and their
resources in the Middle East. The state of Saudi Arabia was placed under the
authority of Ibn Saud, the tribal leader of the ''House of Saud.'' In 1938,
American geologists discovered oil in Saudi Arabia in partnership with Saudi
officials.
Saud gave ample authority over the oil fields to the US-controlled
''Aramco'' (Arabian American Oil Company). After World War II, forty-four countries
came together in 1944 at the Bretton Woods conference and allowed the US's plan
to make the dollar the world’s reserve currency, backed by gold. Simply put,
every dollar was directly converted to gold at a fixed rate. This decision
massively increased the global need for dollars and spurred confidence in the
US economy. However, the US economy had a limitation by the number of dollars
it could print by the amount of physical gold it held, as the demand for
dollars was increasing!
In the 1960s, the US had a dollar debt heap that exceeded its physical
gold reserves in backing it! Thus, confidence in the USA’s economy weakened.
Then US President Richard Nixon and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger produced a plan to support the dollar with ‘black gold.’
Under the ''Bretton Woods system'' established after World War II, the
value of gold was fixed at $35 per ounce. Thus, the US dollar's value was tied
to gold's value. Gold stocks decreased as banks and international investors
began to convert dollars to gold. The rise in government expenditure in the
1960s led to doubts about the US's ability to maintain this convertibility.
Consequently, the value of the dollar started to dwindle. With the threat of a
currency crisis and the impending danger that the USA would no longer redeem
dollars for gold, gold convertibility was finally terminated in 1971 by
President Nixon, resulting in the ''Nixon shock.''
Consequently, the US dollar (USD) value was no longer anchored to gold,
and it was up to the Federal Reserve to maintain its value! Nevertheless, the
Federal Reserve continued to increase the money supply (apparently by printing
money), resulting in stagflation in the 1970s. i.e., persistently high
inflation, high unemployment, and stagnant demand in a country’s economy. There
was also a rapidly diminishing value of the US dollar. That was due to the
current economic view when inflation and real economic growth were linked (the
''Phillips curve''), so inflation was considered relatively benign. Between
1965 and 1981, the US dollar lost two-thirds of its value!
The gold price increased fast beyond the official $42,22 per troy
ounce, and inflation rose. The oil-producing countries wanted better
compensation for their oil. However, the dollar was no longer backed by a
guarantee to deliver physical gold! Thus, the oil price started to rise,
pushing consumer prices higher in the US and Europe. The US wanted to remove
the discipline of physical gold from the monetary system. In contrast, Europe
intended to bring gold back into the financial policy at a higher free-market
price. But the European countries were hesitant to do so because of the
artificially suppressed price of gold of just $42,22 per troy ounce.
In 1973, the US government dealt with the Saudis, by which all Saudi
oil had to be paid for in dollars. The new ''oil-for-dollars scheme'' is also
known as the ''petrodollar.'' It was considered better than the dollar-for-gold
system because it reinforced constant international demand for dollars. The US
could buy all its oil from the Saudis for printing some paper! Moreover, the
Gulf States agreed to invest their excess profits from oil sales in the US
economy.
Countries that have moved or have attempted to walk away from using the
petrodollar include Russia, Iran, Syria, Libya, Venezuela, and North Korea. These
are all US enemies that try to manipulate the oil price. In November 2000, the
dictator of Iraq, Saddam Hussein, declared that Iraq would soon accept Iraqi
oil in Euros. It is also said that he intended to sell oil to China. By June
2003, Iraq’s oil was sold in dollars. This event preceded the 9/11 attacks in
the USA and the invasion of the US in Iraq.
The value of a country’s economy and currency is determined by its
Global Domestic Product (GDP) or the value of the material it produces and can
sell. However, since the advent of the petrodollar, the US economy's value has
been based mainly on how much money it can print!
In 2014, the West supported a coup in Ukraine that ousted the
pro-Russian government. The motive of the US was to evict Russia’s Black Sea
fleet from Crimea. In 2015, the US prompted Saudi Arabia to increase its oil
output to suppress global market prices, decreasing Russian oil revenues. This
increase in oil output jeopardized the oil reserves of the Saudis. Moreover,
the US forced the EU to move into an embargo against Russia. However, Russia
annexed Crimea to have access to the Black Sea.
V) The recent military interventions of the USA in the Middle East
& Ukraine
Note: This part is a review of various sources.
a) The ‘Arab Spring’ revolution (2010)
The events
The Arab Spring was a revolutionary uprising of demonstrations,
protests, riots, and civil wars in the Arab world. It started on 18 December
2010 in Tunisia with the Tunisian uprising and spread throughout the countries
of the Arab League. By February 2012, rulers had been forced from power in
Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya. Major protests occurred in Algeria, Iraq, Iran,
Jordan, Kuwait, Morocco, and Sudan. Civil upheavals also erupted in Yemen,
Bahrain, and Syria.
The protests shared some civil resistance methods involving strikes,
demonstrations, marches, rallies, and the effective use of social media to
communicate and raise awareness of governmental oppression and internet
censorship. Many Arab Spring demonstrations were suppressed with violence from
authorities and pro-government militias.
Libya (2010 - present)
Since1969, the leader of Libya, Muammar Gaddafi, had boosted
economic privatization, rapprochement with Western nations, and Pan-Africanism.
Amid the 2010 Arab Spring, upheaval against extensive corruption broke out in
eastern Libya.
The Arab Spring was not as spontaneous as many believe, but behind this
is the West, especially the US, which aimed to bring the Arab countries into its
sphere of influence. In the case of Libya, one of the deeper reasons for the
Arab Spring is that Libya holds the largest proven oil reserves in Africa and
is an essential contributor to the global supply of light, sweet crude.
The so-called ‘Arab Spring’ in 2010 was manipulated by the US and its
allies, with the aid of non-governmental organizations and groups, and using
social media to cause the uprising of the local population, especially fanatic
groups. Some say that Western funds and arms supported the jihadist insurgents
militarily. The ‘Arab Spring’ uprising in North Africa and the Arabic Peninsula
led Libya, Egypt, and Tunisia to chaos.
The situation in Libya escalated into a tribal war, in which NATO
intervened militarily on the side of the anti-Gaddafi National Transitional
Council (NTC). Gaddafi's government was overthrown after bloody battles between the insurgents and the government forces. In October 2011, Gaddafi retreated
to Sirte, where NTC militants seized and executed him. France led NATO's
operations.
Unbelievably, in the civil war that followed, the West supported the jihadist rebels in Libya with the aid of Turley, NATO's ally! According to the German newspaper Die Welt, Turkey paid the jihadist mercenaries who fought in Libya nearly $2,000 monthly! Eventually, the jihadist insurgents, mostly mercenaries paid by Turkey (and perhaps by Qatar, as some say), defeated the opponent tribes and created a provisional government under the Western sphere of influence!
It is not a coincidence that Libya and Egypt have rich natural
resources such as oil and natural gas. Egypt also has the Suez Canal's
strategic area, a passage for international trade. With its troops in Yemen,
Saudi Arabia moved to atrocities with the excuse of war on terror. Yemen has
Aden's port, which is strategic for international trade.
Egypt (2011)
Hosni Mubarak served as the head of the Egyptian Air Force from
1972 to 1975 and progressed to air chief marshal's rank in 1973. He became
president of Egypt after the murder of Anwar Sadat. Mubarak's presidency lasted
approximately thirty years. The Arab Spring revolution expanded to Egypt on 25
January 2011. The Egyptians protested against the increasing police brutality,
the lack of freedom, corruption, and the financial crisis throughout the last
few years of Mubarak's administration.
The revolution started with calls for protests from online youth
groups through social media! However, some speak about Western interference
that stirred the people. Millions of demonstrators demanded Mubarak resign.
During violent encounters between security forces and protesters, at least 846
people were killed, and over 6,000 were wounded. Protests grew in all major
cities across the nation.
On 11 February 2011, Mubarak resigned as president and transferred
power to the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces. On 13 April 2011, a
prosecutor required Mubarak and his sons to be detained for corruption and
abuse of power. On 3 August 2011, he stood trial on neglect charges for failing
to prevent peaceful protesters' assassination during the uprising. On 2 June
2012, an Egyptian court sentenced Mubarak to life imprisonment.
After his sentence, he was announced to have suffered a series of
health crises. On 13 January 2013, the high court of appeals requested a
retrial. After this, he was restrained in a military hospital while a Cairo
court released his sons on 12 October 2015. Finally, on 2 March 2017, Mubarak
was acquitted by Egypt's top appeals court and was released on 24 March 2017.
The deeper reasons for the uprising were not as spontaneous as many
believe, but behind this is the West, especially the US, which aimed to bring
the Arab countries into its sphere of influence. However, in the case of Egypt,
the West supported the Muslim Brotherhood organization! Mohamed Morsi, a Muslim
Brotherhood Islamist organization member, served as the President of Egypt
from 30 June 2012 to 3 July 2013. Then, General Abdel Fattah el-Sisi was
removed from the administration in the coup.
In the case of Egypt, one of the deeper reasons for the Arab Spring is
that Egypt is the largest non-OPEC producer of oil and the second-largest dry
natural gas producer in Africa. Additionally, controlling the strategic for
global trade Suez Canal was vital. The Suez Canal's control was the reason for
the Arab–Israeli wars of 1967 and 1973. Initially, the West resumed its
influence on the Suez Canal; however, lately, Russia has the strategic canal
under its sphere of influence.
In August 2014, the Egyptian government began a new side-channel
construction to expand and widen the Ballah Bypass to increase the canal's
transit time. The enlargement was intended to double the capacity of the Suez
Cana. The "New Suez Canal" was initiated on 6 August 2015. This side
channel is positioned at the northern side of the east extension of the Suez
Canal.
Russian economic influence came with a 2014 meeting between Presidents
Vladimir Putin and Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, in Sochi and the creation of the
Russian Industrial Zone (RIZ) in the Suez Canal. The two sides agreed that the
RIZ could include Russian companies, plants, and sea transport companies.
Yemen (2011 - present)
Yemen is a developing country and the most poverty-stricken country in
the Middle East. Under the administration of President Ali Abdullah Saleh,
corruption was a significant issue. The uprising initially started against the
meager financial conditions and against the government's plans to modify the
constitution of Yemen so that Saleh's son could inherit the presidency. In
2011, the Arab Spring revolution expanded to Yemen with mass protests.
Since the Arab Spring of 2011, Yemen has been in a political crisis.
Saleh's presidency was deposed, and Vice President Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi became
the President on 21 February 2012. The transitional process was followed by
fights between the Huthis (an Islamic religious-political-armed movement),
al-Islah (a Yemeni Islamist party), and the al-Qaeda rebels.
Saudi
Arabia's military intervention was
intended to restore Hadi's government. In September 2014, after a coup, the
Houthis took control of the country with the help of the deposed President
Saleh. Saleh was assassinated by a sniper resulting in a new civil war. The war
blocked food imports, leading to a famine that affected 17 million people and
the world's worst cholera outbreak, causing the death of over 2,226 people.
Nearly 85,000 children died from famine, and 2,556 people died from the
cholera outbreak. The death toll increased further in the following years to
100,000 people, including more than 12,000 civilians. Along with its willing
allies, Saudi Arabia committed crimes against humanity in Yemen, including
bombardments of civil regions. However, the incursions of the Saudis did not
stop. The US provided intelligence, military advice, and logistics support to
the Saudi coalition. At the same time, the West did not react until the release
of children dying from starvation, which shocked global public opinion.
With its troops, Saudi Arabia moved to atrocities with the excuse of a
''war on terror.'' But the real reason is the occupation of the Aden port,
which is strategic for international trade. It should be mentioned that Saudi
Arabia, which intervened militarily in Yemen, has always been a faithful ally
of the US. The Saudi-led coalition, including the United Arab Emirates (UAE),
had coordination support from the US, France, and the UK. At the same time, France
is an essential arms supplier to Saudi Arabia.
The real story of the ‘Arab Spring’
(Overview)
It seems that behind the so-called ‘Arab Spring’ in 2010 was the West,
especially the US, which destabilized the Arab nations. The objective was the
uprising of the population and fanatic groups, supported militarily and
financially. Non-governmental organizations and groups (most of them belong to
specific financial Trusts), social media, and teams of lawyers were used to
achieve their means. The USA backed the Islamic forces on several occasions,
such as during the Arab Spring. For instance, it supported the Muslim
Brotherhood in Egypt and the jihadists in Libya.
The West aimed to overthrow the uncooperative dictators and replace
them with puppet regimes! Another crucial reason for their interference was to
exploit the region's natural resources. The uprising began in Tunisia,
continued in Egypt, Libya, and Syria, and also involved Bahrain and Iran to some
extent. It led Libya, Egypt, and Tunisia into chaos. In Bahrain, the army
executed several demonstrators on the street, while in Turkey, the police killed a teenager. As mentioned, behind the uprising was the West, which
needed to change the region's status quo and establish governments friendly to the
US. The US, guided by the influential Israeli lobby, played a significant role
in destabilizing the area. Israel needed to eliminate its traditional enemies
(in this case, Egypt and Syria with Hezbollah).
The uprising led to a civil war in Libya, while in Tunisia, the
dictator fled the country, stealing the gold. In Egypt, after bloody protests,
the dictator Hosni Mubarak was eventually removed from power. The
demonstrations were not bloodless as the regimes moved to atrocities as they
were reluctant to change. In the case of Libya, the US did not interfere
directly. Still, as a NATO member and a willing ally, France led the coalition
forces that assisted the rebels in overthrowing and assassinating the dictator
Muammar Gaddafi.
Importantly, Libya, and to a less extent Egypt, have rich natural
resources of oil and natural gas, while in Egypt, the Suez Canal is of
strategic importance to international trade. It was not US President Obama but
the Secretary of State Hillary Clinton who was keener to destabilize the area.
It should be noted that Bill Clinton, former US president, and Hillary's
husband have the ''Clinton Foundation'' that influences global issues.
According to Nicholas Kitchen, throughout the Arab revolutions, the Obama
administration in the US had warranted that the new regimes in the region would
have to continue to work with them and provided that the US is not diverted
from its major strategic reorientation towards the Asia-Pacific.
Henry
Kissinger said that ''the US
should be prepared to deal with democratically elected Islamist governments.
But it is also free to pursue a standard principle of traditional foreign
policy to condition its stance on aligning its interests with the government's
actions in question. During the Arab upheavals, the US conduct has avoided placing America as an obstacle to the revolutionary transformations.''
b) The civil war in Syria
Historical background: the events of
1948
Syria became an independent republic in 1946, but the coup d’état in
March 1949, led by Army Chief of Staff Husni al-Za’im, ended the first period
of civilian rule. Za'im met at least six times with CIA operatives in the
months before the coup to address his plan to seize control. Once in power,
Za'im made several crucial decisions that benefited the US. He signed the
Trans-Arabian Pipeline (TAPLINE), an American project transporting Saudi
Arabian oil to Mediterranean ports. However, the construction of TAPLINE was
delayed due to Syria's reservations. Za'im also improved relations with Israel
and Turkey, both American allies in the region. He formally ended the 1948
Arab-Israeli War and repudiated Syrian claims to Hatay Province, a source of
disagreement between Syria and Turkey. Nonetheless, Za'im's regime was
short-lived, and eventually, he was deposed by a coup just 4.5 months after
gaining power.
The intervention in the civil war in
Syria in 2011
The Syrian Civil War was an armed conflict in Syria that began in 2011
amid Arab Spring protests. It started with nationwide protests against Syrian
President Bashar al-Assad’s government. The conflict gradually became an
armed insurrection after months of military assaults. The armed opposition consisted of various
groups, primarily the Free Syrian Army (the antiregime forces) and the Islamic
Front (a merger of Syrian rebel groups). In 2013, the terrorist group Hezbollah
entered the war, supporting the Syrian Army.
In the east, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS or
IS or ISIL), a jihadist militant group originating from Iraq, moved to military
incursions in Syria and Iraq, eventually conflicting with the other rebels! By
July 2014, ISIS controlled a third of Syria’s territory and most of the oil and
gas production. Until now, the death toll had risen to nearly 585,000 people.
International organizations have accused the Syrian government, ISIS, and other
opposition forces of severe human rights violations, including killings and the
use of chemical weapons.
In Syria, the actual conflict was between the West and Russia. There was cooperation between Syria and Russia, with the latter
assisting Syria in fighting the advance of ISIS jihadists. In 2015 the US Secretary of State John Kerry accused Russia of military ''build-up'' in Syria. In October 2015, Syria's dictator Bashar al-Assad called for Russia to intervene in the
Syrian civil war by launching air raids against targets of jihadist terrorists.
However, the West accused them of killing civilians. However, the real story
was that the jihadists used civilians as a shield. Before the Russian
interference, the US and its NATO allies (including France and Turkey) launched
airstrikes in Syria whenever and wherever they wished with the excuse of the fight
against terror. They did this without any United Nations (UN) resolution. It
should be mentioned that Syria was a French colony in the past.
Media reports claimed that US President Obama authorized the resupply
of Syrian Kurds and the Syrian opposition. The US supported the Syrian
opposition because Russia had joined the conflict with the Syrian government’s
side. Since 2011, the Free Syrian
Army (FSA), the antiregime forces, received active support from Turkey,
allowing the jihadists (fanatic Islamists) rebels to operate from the Hatay
province near the Syrian border. The FSA often launched attacks into Syria's
northern cities using the Turkish side of the border as a supply route!
In 2015, opposition military operations rooms based in Jordan and Turkey
increased their cooperation with Saudi Arabia and Qatar. They were reported to
agree upon the requirement to join opposition factions against the Syrian
government. On 24 November 2015, Turkish F16 warplanes shot down a Russian
fighter jet that violated Turkish airspace, according to the Turkish side.
However, the Russian side claimed their warplane was inside the Syrian territory when it was shot down. A few days
later, a Russian air raid targeted the Syrian town of Ariha, controlled by the
rebel coalition Army of Conquest, causing multiple casualties. Two days later,
Russian President Vladimir Putin said there was no doubt that oil trucks from
the terrorist-controlled territory in Syria passed across the border into
Turkey! The Russian President accused the Turkish President Recep
Tayyip Erdogan of personally and his son being involved in the oil trade with
the jihadists of ISIS!
A severe ramification of the Syrian civil war, the war on terror in
Afghanistan, and the terror attacks in Iraq was the massive immigration surge
toward Europe. Amongst them, there was a consideration that some were jihadist
terrorists. In December 2015, about 2-3 million Syrian and Afghan refugees in
Turkey were about to immigrate to Europe, and it is said that similar numbers
remain until now. This uncontrolled immigration was encouraged by financial
Trusts, the media (that called ''refugees'' everyone, even the economic
migrants), and the wealthy central and northern European countries, especially
Germany. It had the chance to hire cheap labor and technicians for the German
industries, but it did not give a damn that many refugees drowned in the sea
trying to reach the European coast! After all, the European indigenous
population is aging, so the immigrants came to fill the gap.
Russia continued to launch airstrikes against the jihadist rebels of
ISIS, and currently, Syria is almost free of jihadist groups. Turkey eventually
allied with Russia as Turkish President Erdogan was frustrated because the US
used the Kurds to fight the jihadists and perhaps promised them a free Kurdish
country that would include part of Turkey and Iran. After this, the US launched
an economic war against Turkey. International credit rating agencies rated the
Turkish economy negatively, and additionally, the US imposed tariffs on Turkish
steel and aluminum.
However, in 2019 there was reconciliation between Turkey and the US, as
the US does not wish to lose them from NATO allies. The reason is that Turkey
is the second largest standing military force, after the US, in NATO, with nearly
640,000 soldiers. Notably, the US did not strongly object when Turkey bought
the S-400 antiaircraft missiles from Russia, which were incompatible with
NATO's weapons. Thus, the US rendered NATO’s targets vulnerable! Meantime,
Turkey turned to Germany, its traditional ally, to ask for investments. Germany
has always been a willing ally of Turkey.
In October 2019, the US troops withdrew from Syria after years of civil
war while Russia replaced them! Namely, in Syria, the US passed the relay baton
to Russia! This event was preceded by a
military incursion of Turkey against Kurdish cities near the Syrian-Turkish
borders. Eventually, Russia decided to have Turkey and Syria under their
control, a Kurdish-free zone in Syria near the Syrian-Turkish borders (the
Syrians did not wish the autonomy of these regions by the Kurds). The Turkish
intervention was because it feared destabilization near its border by
the Kurds. Ironically, Turkey asked both the US and Russia's permission for its military
campaign against the Kurds! There are already myriads of Kurds living in Turkey.
In the Syrian civil war, the US, as in Iraq, once again used the Kurds
on its side to fight the mujahedin. However, the US betrayed the Kurds as it
never allowed them to create their autonomous nation, Kurdistan (although de
facto, they have formed part of this in Iraq). Contrary, it permitted Turkey to
attack Kurdish targets on the Turkish-Syrian border in the autumn of 2019. In
these incursions that lasted a few weeks, Turkey deployed jihadist mercenaries!
Turkey fought the jihadists of ISIS with airstrikes and troops but
simultaneously bombarded Kurdish targets, even though the Kurds also fought the
jihadists!
In the Syrian conflict, the US used the fear of terrorism as an excuse
for intervening in the Middle East. Notwithstanding, the real reason for
occupying Iraq and Afghanistan and intervening in Syria was controlling the
energy resources, including the oil and natural gas reserves and the route of
pipelines of the region. Perhaps an additional objective was to control opium
trafficking in Afghanistan, as this country has abundant opium ‘reserves.’
Of course, as always, Israel was behind the USA's interventions in the
Middle East and the Islamic nations that led to the chaos of the conflict with
the supposedly spontaneous ‘Arab spring.’ Israel has always had an influential
lobby in the US and is behind all US interventions in the Middle East,
including the civil war in Syria. Its aim has always been to eliminate all its
neighbor enemies, including Hezbollah, the fanatic Islamic military
group based in Lebanon and supported by Syria and Iran.
WikiLeaks revealed that the US planned to destabilize Syria
and overthrow the Syrian government in 2006.
According to WikiLeaks, these plans were given to the US directly from
the Israeli government, encouraged civil strife, and used sectarianism to
divide Syria through Sunni and Shiite religious sects. WikiLeaks said the plan involved other countries such as Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Qatar.
The objective was to organize government opponents, including the
various sects, to jihadist groups that would fight against the Syrian
government and weaken Iran and the Hezbollah group (in Lebanon). According to
WikiLeaks editor Julian Assange, Israel endeavored to use this crisis to expand
its ownership of the Golan Heights for additional oil exploration. It should be
said that Israel invaded and occupied this part of Syria in 1967. A large oil
deposit was recently discovered there.
According to the NATO former Secretary, General Wesley Clark, a
memo from the Office of the US Secretary of Defense just a few weeks after 9/11
revealed plans to "attack and destroy the governments in 7 countries in
five years", starting with Iraq and moving on to "Syria, Lebanon,
Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and Iran." In a subsequent interview, Clark argues
that this strategy is essentially about controlling the region's vast oil and
natural gas resources.
On November 2, 2019, shortly after the US troops withdrew from Syria,
the Russian Secretary of State accused the US of backing the Islamic State
leader. When he was no longer useful, they assassinated him! It is said that
all the jihadist rebels in Syria were mercenaries from Europe and other places.
Some say that Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar supported the Islamic State in
Syria. Some also add Kuwait. It is noted
that the above countries nourished the jihadists to destabilize Syria after the
refusal of the Syrian President to allow the passage of pipelines from Qatar to
Europe. But it isn't easy to find substantial evidence for this theory.
Regarding this issue, you may read the articles https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/hillary-clinton-wikileaks-email-isis-saudi-arabia-qatar-us-allies-funding-barack-obama-knew-all-a7362071.html
and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finances_of_ISIL#Donations_from_Persian_Gulf_states
and https://www.thedailybeast.com/americas-allies-are-funding-isis
and https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-29004253
Importantly, it was revealed that the ISIS jihadists in Syria possessed
American and Saudi arms. Their excuse was that they seized them from the Syrian
rebels to whom these we granted. Ironically, the US-built military bases and
launched air raids in Syria against terrorists whenever wished, without any
United Nations (UN) Security Council resolution and not invited by the Syrian
government. I will not be surprised if, in the future, it is revealed that the
US assisted the Islamic State as well. As mentioned above, Russia accused
Turkey of oil smuggling with Syrian jihadists.
c) The 9/11 event and the intervention
in Afghanistan
The events of 1979; the 9/11 event, the declaration of the ‘War on Terror (WoT) by the USA; the attack in Afghanistan (2001), and the occupation
of the country by the US, and finally, their departure in 2021
Historical background
In April 1978, the communist People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan
(PDPA) took power in Afghanistan during the Saur Revolution. Soon, opponents of
the communist government launched a revolution in eastern Afghanistan that
quickly expanded into a civil war conducted by guerrilla mujahideen (fanatic Islamists)
against government forces. Pakistan's government provided these rebels with
covert training centers, while the Soviet Union sent thousands of military
advisers to support the PDPA government. Some say that in mid-1979, the US
started a covert program to finance the mujahideen! Their objective was to
cause a Soviet military intervention. However, others argue that the State
Department worked hard to prevent the Soviets from invading and never undertook
a program to encourage it.
In September 1979, Khalqist President Nur Muhammad Taraki was killed in
a coup within the PDPA orchestrated by fellow Khalq member Hafizullah Amin, who
assumed the presidency. Soviet Special Forces later assassinated Amin in
December 1979. Parcham's Babrak Karmal led a Soviet-organized government.
Soviet troops were deployed to stabilize Afghanistan. After the invasion, US
president Jimmy Carter announced the Carter Doctrine: the US would not allow
outside forces to control the Persian Gulf. For this purpose, he began arming
Afghan insurgents.
The 9/11 attacks
The September 11 attacks (also known as September 11, September 11th,
or 9/11) were a series of four coordinated terrorist suicide attacks by the
Islamic terrorist group al-Qaeda in the USA on the morning of Tuesday,
September 11, 2001. Four passenger airliners departed from airports on the USA
Coast bound for California and were hijacked by nineteen al-Qaeda terrorists. Two
planes crashed into the North and South towers of the World Trade Center
complex in New York City (NYC). Within an hour and 42 minutes, both 110-story
towers collapsed.
A third plane crashed into the Pentagon (the USA Department of Defense)
in Arlington County. A fourth plane crashed into a field near Shanksville,
Pennsylvania (but some say it was shot down by US fighter jets). In total, the
attacks killed nearly 3,000 people.
The suspicion of the attack quickly fell on al-Qaeda. The USA
responded to the attacks by launching the War on Terror and invading
Afghanistan to fight the Taliban, harboring al-Qaeda. Although al-Qaeda’s
leader, Osama bin Laden, initially denied any involvement, in 2004, he claimed
responsibility for the attacks. Importantly, in 1998, the Afghan terrorist
leader Osama bin Laden was allegedly bombing US embassies in Africa. The
US needed to establish ''forward-based forces'' in the Middle East.
After the 9/11 attack, US President George W. Bush officially declared
the ‘War on Terror (WoT).’ This war began with the invasion and later
the occupation of Afghanistan. It should be noted that all American military
interventions presented in public as the fight against ‘terrorism’ were
organized many years before by specialized in strategic plans American
institutes and universities, such as Stanford.
In 2001 the US invaded Afghanistan. Close allies, including the UK,
initially supported it, but later, in 2003, NATO joined it with the
International Security Assistance Force (ISAF). The aims were to destroy the
terrorist group al-Qaeda and remove the Islamic fundamentalist Taliban from
power. In 2001, U.S. President George W. Bush demanded that the Taliban hand
over Osama bin Laden and expel al-Qaeda. In simple words, the Taliban gave them
the excuse to invade Afghanistan! The Taliban refused, and thus, on October 7,
2001, the USA launched ‘Operation Enduring Freedom.’
The US and its allies drove the Taliban from power and built military
bases near major cities nationwide. However, the Taliban insurgents attacked
the US forces with guerilla raids, ambushes, suicide attacks against urban
targets, and turncoat assassinations. In 2004, the Pakistan army began to clash
with local tribes hosting al-Qaeda and Taliban militants (Pakistan harbored the
Islamist terrorists). The US army launched drone attacks in Pakistan to
assassinate the insurgent leaders.
On 2 May 2011, US Navy Seals killed Osama bin Laden in Abbottabad,
Pakistan. As of 2015, tens of thousands of people have been killed in the war.
Perhaps Bin Laden was killed instead of standing trial. In that case, he might
reveal essential things such as working in the past for US interests (referring
to Afghanistan's Russian occupation). It seems that Saddam Hussein in Iraq was
executed for the same reason, as in 1968, the US helped his party Ba’ath come
to power (this is analyzed below).
The attack and occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan had a simple
incentive: to exploit Iraq's oil and control the oil pipelines and the energy
resources of the area (in Afghanistan, perhaps they had the chance to exploit
opium as well). As mentioned above, the USA’s foreign policy is based on the
‘clash of the civilizations’ and the religious theory of the political
scientist Samuel Huntington.
Regarding the 9/11 attacks, how the hijackers who learned to pilot
small private planes could effectively drive commercial jets and direct 3 of
them precisely towards the twin towers in NYC and the Pentagon, I leave it to
your discretion to judge! Some even claim that the twin towers, after the
crash, collapsed in a way as if they had explosives!
The intervention in Afghanistan was not a victory, as the fatalities of
American soldiers were substantial. The losses of the US and its allies were
3,562 people (most of them soldiers), while the Afghan security forces losses
were more than 65,600 people! The Taliban's death toll reached more than 72,000
people. Eventually, in 2020, US President Donald Trump decided to gradually
withdraw the US troops from Afghanistan and cease this insane war. Afghanistan
has no oil or gas as Iraq to excuse its occupation (but it still has opium).
Did the US government set up the 9/11
attacks?
Conspiracy
theories claim that the 9/11 attack was set up by the Bush administration to excuse the ‘war on terror’ with the invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq that followed the attacks. We
should keep in mind that the US needs to have American citizens' consent before
any military action. For instance, the Pearl Harbor attack by Japan gave the US
the excuse to participate in World War II. Before this, polls (Gallup) showed
that the American population was unwilling to intervene in WWII.
Similar events followed the 9/11 attack. Images from the collapsing
twin towers were shown online on national TV. They shocked the American nation
that became keen to consent to a war on terror against the ‘evil,’ as US
President George W. Bush addressed. The conspiracy theories are numerous (some
claim that 9/11 reminds the 911 emergency number). The most critical assumption
is that it would be almost impossible for the Saudi hijackers trained on small
private planes (similar to Cessna) to fly alone two Boeing jumbo jets, aiming
them precisely at the twin towers that, after the crash collapsed in a way as
if they had explosives!
The withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021
In August 2021, the world was shocked when the US troops fled
Afghanistan, leaving the local population in the hands of the Taliban, as many
naively thought it invaded the country to bring peace and democracy! Their
withdrawal was so chaotic that numerous desperate Afghan civilians gathered in Kabul's
airport, waiting for the Americans to show mercy and allow them to enter
the military planes and leave the country. But only a few, mainly diplomats and
translators, were allowed.
Some hung onto the side of a C-17A aircraft just below the wing and
died falling to the ground as the plane took off. Many died from suicide bombs
or were trampled to death by the crowd. The evacuation was so disorganized that
it occurred in less than a week. The troops hurriedly packed their things and
left. But the US army omitted to take valuable military equipment, including
vehicles, that eventually was looted by the Taliban!
The American troops left the same way as in Vietnam. It is also a
matter of concern they invaded Afghanistan, a country with no natural
resources other than opium and rare minerals. But I guess they
did not occupy it for these! Terrorism has always been manipulated. In
Afghanistan, after the US withdrawal, there were skirmishes between the
Taliban, the ''good'' ''terrorists'' that the West tolerates as the government
of the ''emirate'', and the ISIS-K, the local ''bad'' terrorists! The question
is, who is the real terrorist?
d) The intervention in Iraq
Historical background
The 1968 coup that brought the Ba’ath
party to power
In February 1960, the USA planned a coup against the government of Iraq
headed by Prime Minister Abd al-Karim Qasim, who, two years earlier, had
deposed the Western-allied Iraqi monarchy. Qasim ruled the country as a
dictator. The US was concerned about the growing influence of the Iraqi
Communist Party government officials under his administration and his threats
to invade Kuwait. The CIA planned a mission to send Qasim a poisoned
handkerchief. Eventually, Qasim was killed on 8 February 1963 by a firing squad
of the Ba’ath party in collaboration with Iraqi nationalists and the
Arab Socialist Union members. The event was known as the ‘Ramadan
Revolution.’
The US promptly took under its sphere of influence the successor
regime. The Ba'ath Party was afterward purged from the government in the
November 1963 Iraqi coup d’état when the Ba'athist Prime Minister Ahmed Hassan
al-Bakr attempted to seize control from the US-backed President Abdul Salam
Arif. The US intelligence assisted Ba’ath’s preparations for the Iraqi coup
that brought the Ba'ath Party to power in 1968. It is said that the US had
funded the Ba'ath Party, of which Saddam Hussein was a young member when it was
in opposition! Saddam Hussein was a leading member of the revolutionary
Arab Socialistic Ba’ath Party and played a significant role in the 1968 coup
that brought the party to power in Iraq.
Those who opposed the coup were killed after the coup by squads from
the Ba'ath party. Saddam Hussein, who returned to Iraq from exile in Cairo to
join Ba’ath, was personally involved in the torture of leftists in the separate
detention centers for the fellaheen (peasants) and the muthaqafeen (educated
class).
The Iran-Iraq conflict (1980-1988)
During the Iran-Iraq conflict (1980-1988), the US indirectly provided
covert assistance to Saddam Hussein and the Iraqis for their war with Iran!
President Reagan’s administration permitted the offer of funds and weapons to
Iraq. The USA's support for Iraq during the war against post-revolutionary Iran
included economic aid, the sale of dual-use technology, non-US-origin weaponry,
military intelligence, military training, and direct involvement in warfare
against Iran.
When the US covertly sold arms to Iran!
The Contras were a guerrilla force in Nicaragua that opposed the
left-wing Sandinista government 1979–1990 and supported the US. It was
officially disbanded in 1990 after the Sandinistas' electoral defeat. The USA
financed, trained, and armed the Contras. The Boland Amendments (1982 – 1984)
made using US funds to support the Contras illegal under US law.
Nonetheless, President Ronald Reagan's administration armed and funded the
Contras by secretly selling arms to Iran in exchange for their cash to supply
weapons to the Contras of Nicaragua!
The Gulf War (1991)
The Gulf War (2 August 1990 – 28 February 1991; also known as the First Iraq War) was codenamed ‘Operation Desert Shield’ and involved operations
leading to the accumulation of troops and defense of Saudi Arabia. Its combat
phase was codenamed ''Operation Desert Storm.'' It was a war against
Iraq of coalition forces from thirty-four nations led by the USA in response to Iraq's
invasion and annexation of Kuwait. The US reacted to Kuwait’s occupation by the
Iraqi army on 2 August 1990 with immediate economic sanctions against Iraq
following a resolution of the United Nations (UN) Security Council that
condemned this attack.
US President
George H. W. Bush (the senior) urged other
countries to join the coalition forces. In that order, most of the Coalition's
military forces were from the US, with Saudi Arabia, the UK, and Egypt leading
contributors. Saudi Arabia paid a notable amount to cover the cost of the
attack! The initial conflict aimed to oust the Iraqi troops from Kuwait. It
began with an air and a naval raid on 17 January 1991, which continued for five
weeks, followed by a territory assault on 24 February 1991.
The Coalition forces drove the Iraqi military from Kuwait and
advanced into Iraqi territory. Combat was confined to Iraq, Kuwait, and areas
on Saudi Arabia's border. The Coalition halted its advance and declared a
cease-fire 100 hours after the campaign started. However, it is still unclear
why the US did not occupy Iraq but postponed this for a decade. Some conspiracy
theories also mention that the invasion of Iraq in Kuwait never occurred.
During the Gulf War, an upheaval took place in Iraq by
anti-regime rebels. However, the US forces neither supplied the insurgents with
weapons nor used the captured Iraqi equipment against Saddam Hussein!
Surprisingly, it is said that the US sold arms (some speak about military
helicopters) to Saddam to fight the rebels!
The US intelligence and Iraqi opponents tried twice to overthrow Saddam
by a coup d'état during the 1990s, but their attempts were unsuccessful.
According to former US intelligence officials, the US indirectly supported a
bomb and sabotage campaign between 1992 and 1995 in Iraq conducted by the Iraqi
National Accord insurgents.
The 2003 Iraq War
The Iraq War was an armed conflict in 2003 that ended with the invasion
of American troops and coalition forces in Iraq. The invasion regime dethroned
Saddam Hussein from power. However, the battle continued for many years as an
insurgency developed to oppose the occupying forces and the post-invasion Iraqi
government.
The events
Following an ultimatum for Hussein to stop producing weapons of mass
destruction and leave the country, the invasion began on 20 March 2003. The US,
joined by the UK and several coalition allies, launched a ''shock and awe"
bombing campaign. The coalition forces quickly defeated Iraqi forces. The
invasion led to the collapse of the Ba’athist government. Eventually, Saddam
was captured and then hanged secretly by Iraqi authorities.
After the invasion, no substantial evidence was found to verify the
initial claims about weapons of mass destruction that were the official excuse
for the war! The single real reason for the attack against Iraq was the
exploitation of its oil reserves! It is estimated that 151,000 Iraqis died in
the conflict and occupation, while the numerous terror attacks led the country
into chaos.
The war was not a success, as the death toll of American soldiers was
considerable. During the Gulf War, the US coalition forces lost only 292
soldiers, while the Iraqi losses were 25,000 to 50,000 people! During the 2003
invasion of Iraq, the US coalition forces' losses were 2,142 soldiers, while
the Iraqi losses were 7,600 to 30,000 people! The total US losses from 2003 to
2011 were 4,497 people (mostly soldiers).
The US does not care for its soldiers' death toll (as in the Vietnam
War and the Pearl Harbor attack) but pays more attention to the consent of
public opinion via polls. Consequently, it began withdrawing its troops in
2007–2008 and formally withdrew all combat troops from Iraq by December 2011.
The fight against the Islamic State
(ISIS)
The US launched several operations against jihadist insurgents. In
2014, the Islamic State of Iraq (ISIS or IS) launched a military offensive in
Northern Iraq. It declared a worldwide Islamic caliphate, evoking another
military response from the USA and its allies. The country was in the chaos of
a prolonged civil war between terrorist groups and government forces that
lasted until 2018 when the country's most substantial part was set free by the
Iraqi and the US forces.
Historical background & analysis of
the deeper causes of the Invasion of Iraq in Kuwait and the Gulf War in 1991
In 1988, Iraq’s Oil Minister, Issam al-Chalabi, accentuated a further
decrease in the crude oil production quota of OPEK (Organization of the
Petroleum Exploiting Countries). Chalabi claimed that higher oil prices would
help Iraq increase its revenues and pay back its US $60 billion debt.
Nevertheless, Kuwait was less concerned about the cost of crude oil, and in
1989 requested OPEC to increase its total oil production roof by 50 percent to
1.35 million BPD. Kuwait’s oil
production was substantially above its mandatory OPEC quota, preventing further
increases in crude oil prices.
No agreement among OPEC members undermined Iraq’s efforts to pay its
debts and recover its destroyed economy after the Iran-Iraq war. According to former Iraqi Foreign Minister
Tariq Aziz, ''every US$1 drop in the price of a barrel of oil caused a US$1
billion drop in Iraq’s annual revenues, triggering an acute financial crisis in
Iraq.'' Between 1985 and 1989, Iraq lost
US$14 billion a year due to Kuwait's oil price policy. Iraq considered Kuwait's
unwillingness to decrease its oil production as an act of hostility against it.
The increasingly tense relations between Iraq and Kuwait worsened when
Iraq alleged that Kuwait was slant-drilling into Iraq's Rumaila field across
the international borders. The dispute over this area started in 1960 when an
Arab League declaration marked Iraq–Kuwait border 2 miles north of the
southernmost point of the Rumaila field. During the Iran–Iraq War, Iraqi oil
drilling operations in Rumaila decreased while Kuwait’s activities
increased.
On 25 July 1990, a few days before the Iraqi invasion, Kuwait and the
United Arab Emirates agreed to limit daily oil output to 1.5 million barrels,
probably settling differences over oil policy between Kuwait and Iraq. On 2
August 1990, Iraq launched an invasion of Kuwait.
The USA's military attack against Iraq and eventually its occupation in
2003 had a single motive: exploiting its oils. By June 2003, Iraq’s oil was
sold in dollars. Some say that in November 2000, Saddam Hussein would accept
payment for Iraqi oils in euros, while others say that Saddam was about to sell
oil to China. These intentions preceded the 9/11 attacks in the USA and the
invasion of Iraq.
e) The interventions in Iran (2009 -
present)
In 2009, US President Obama accused Iran of planning a nuclear
program. Although Iran denied the existence of this program, the UN Security
Council imposed sanctions against Iran with an embargo, including arms selling.
These sanctions continued with the Donald Trump administration. In 2019, the US
''discouraged'' its allies from purchasing oil from Iran. This movement
negatively impacted Europe, a good client of cheap Iranian oil. In January
2020, the US launched an air raid to assassinate the Iranian major general Qasem
Soleimani. The assassination occurred at the Bagdad International Airport and was conducted with unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs).
The assassination of Soleimani was a movement that violated
international law and military practice. The US neither declared war on Iran
nor requested a UN resolution to launch the air raid, especially from a
neighboring country! But even if they were in a war, generals are not murdered.
They are kept signing a treaty or stand trial but are not killed deliberately
at the combat scene! In other words, the event was a brutal assassination of a
significant general that the US called a ''terrorist,'' meaning that it is the
US who decides each time who is and who is not a ''terrorist.'' The question,
however, is who the real terrorist is.
The Israeli lobby in the US has always been behind any decision of the
US presidents against Iran, as it is a traditional enemy of Israel. Israel has
accused Iran and Lebanon of harboring Hezbollah, an Islamist political party
and military group that originated in Lebanon, and since 1992 Hassan Nasrallah has led it.
Iranian oil is the reason for the interventions of the US in Iran. But
another critical issue that needs to be stressed is that the US has always
wished to control the Strait of Hormuz, an Iranian island in the Persian Gulf. The Strait of Hormuz is located between the
Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman. It provides the only sea passage from the
Persian Gulf to the open ocean and is one of the world's most strategically
vital choke points.
f) The civil war in Ukraine (2014)
Historical background
In 2004, Viktor Yanukovych, then Prime Minister of Ukraine, was
declared the winner of the presidential elections, which were rigged according
to the Supreme Court of Ukraine. The results caused a public outcry supporting
the opposition candidate, Viktor Yushchenko, who challenged the result.
The peaceful ‘Orange Revolution ended,’ bringing Viktor Yushchenko and Yulia
Tymoshenko to power while casting Viktor Yanukovych in opposition. Western
and national sources funded activists of the Orange Revolution. According
to the newspaper ''The Guardian,'' the foreign donors included the US State
Department and the George Soros ''Open Society Foundations''! It should be
mentioned that Soros is one of the supporters of massive immigration to Europe
with the excuse of the aging European population.
Russian authorities urged state-dependent voters to vote for Viktor
Yanukovych, who returned to power in 2006 as Prime Minister until snap
elections in 2007 made Yulia Tymoshenko Prime Minister again. Hostility with
Russia briefly stopped all gas supplies to Ukraine in 2006 and again in 2009,
leading to gas shortages in other European countries. It should be stated that
Russia accused Ukraine of stealing gas from the Russian pipelines. Finally,
Viktor Yanukovych was elected president in 2010.
The protests began in November 2013 after the president, Viktor
Yanukovych, started to deviate from establishing closer relationships with the
European Union (EU) and instead developed closer ties with Russia. Violence
escalated after 16 January 2014. Anti-government demonstrators occupied
buildings in Kyiv's center, including the Justice Ministry building, and riots
left 98 dead, with about fifteen thousand injured and one hundred considered missing.
Many protesters were shot dead by snipers, probably pro-Russian paramilitary
forces.
On 25 May 2014, Petro Poroshenko, running on a pro-European
Union platform, won over fifty percent of the vote. Poroshenko set 2020 as a
European Union (EU) membership application target. He also continued the military
operations by the Ukrainian state forces to end the armed insurgency.
Russian President Vladimir Putin began preparations to annex
Crimea on 23 February 2014. Using the Russian naval base at Sevastopol as
cover, Putin directed Russian forces and took control of Crimea, vital for the
Russian navy's access to the Black Sea. On 18 March 2014, Russia and Crimea
signed a treaty annexing the Republic of Crimea and Sevastopol in the Russian
Federation.
In several cities in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, armed
local militia seized government buildings, police, and police stations. It was
revealed later that the insurgency was led by Russian intelligence and various
pro-Russian militants from Russia. More than 6,000 people were killed in the
military campaign. In February 2015, after a summit hosted in Belarus,
Poroshenko negotiated a ceasefire with the separatist troops. In 2019, US
President Donald Trump was impeached for withholding military aid to pressure
the new Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky to start a corruption
investigation into his Democratic opponent and son!
The real story of the civil war in
Ukraine
Overview
The West was behind Ukraine's destabilization in 2014 as the agenda of
this country of the former Eastern bloc was to join NATO and the European Union
(EU). However, Russia wished to have Ukraine under its influence as it was
strategically positioned to pass the natural gas pipelines toward Europe. The
USA did not want these to be controlled by Russia. Additionally, Ukraine has high
supplies of grain.
In 2014, the USA supported a coup in Ukraine that ousted the
pro-Russian government. The motive of the U.S. administration was to evict
Russia's Black Sea fleet from Crimea. However, Russia invaded Crimea and moved
to its annexation as its way out to the Black Sea was vital.
Undoubtedly, the cause of the civil war in Ukraine was controlling the
oil and gas pipelines of the region. The USA's objective was to undermine the
Russian (and, to a lesser extent, the Chinese and Iranian) economic expansion
towards Europe and promote the pipelines that belong to its sphere of
influence. It considered the European dependence on Russian gas as a
significant threat. Ukraine also has strategic high supplies of grain, one of
the most important worldwide.
The USA did not want natural gas pipes to be controlled by Russia. The
Russian South Stream pipelines intended to go directly to Germany through
Ukraine. However, the civil war in Ukraine made Russia revoke its plans for these
pipelines. Consequently, Russia moved to the "Nord Stream Pipelines"
alternative that bypassed Ukraine and, from the North, delivered Russian gas
directly to Europe, especially Germany.
In 2015, the USA prompted Saudi Arabia to increase its oil output to
suppress global market prices, decreasing Russian oil revenues. This increase
in oil output jeopardized the oil reserves of the Saudis. Moreover, the U.S.
convinced the E.U. to embargo Russia. It should be mentioned that in 2009
Russia accused Ukraine of stealing natural gas from its pipes passing through
the Ukrainian land.
The Ukrainian conflict was a rivalry between the West and Russia. In
the Ukrainian civil war, the friendly to the US regime was supported
diplomatically and financially by the USA and Europe. NATO is broadening its
presence in Ukraine and is making this new military relationship more formal.
It should be noted that the USA offered its military assistance to Ukraine
against Russia while it gave financial aid for the same purpose. Currently,
Ukraine wishes to become a member of NATO. At the same time, it is still not a
European Union member.
Epilogue
Oil and natural gas reserves and pipelines remain the leading causes of
wars. Unless the US tends to use greener and more renewable forms of energy,
conflicts are expected to continue! We should oppose American imperialism and
any imperialism, for instance, the forthcoming Russian and Chinese. By not
opposing their interventions, we agree with them and entitle them to continue
exploiting the planet. President George W. Bush, after the 9/11 attacks, said,
''You're either with us or against us!''
Thanks for reading!
(Retrieved: January 23, 2020):
https://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2010/aug/10/afghanistan-civilian-casualties-statistics
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