Thousands march in Germany against warmongers at Munich Security Conference 2020

People’s Dispatch | February 17, 2020

Over 5,000 people marched in Munich on Saturday against the security conference. (902.gr)

On February 15, thousands marched in Munich, Germany, protesting against the Munich-Security Conference 2020 hosted in the city from February 14 to 16 Sunday. More than 5,000 people joined the protest called by anti-war, anti-NATO organizations against the meeting of the war hawks of the European Union (EU) and NATO. North Atlantic Treaty Organization or NATO is an intergovernmental military alliance between North American and European countries and is often criticized for its imperialistic and warmongering manuverous. Activists from the German Communist Party (DKP), Socialist German Workers Youth (SDAJ), Communist Party of Greece (KKE) and Turkish Communist Party (TKP)  have also joined the protest.

Donald Trump’s Iran Problem

by Robin Wright

The New Yorker | January 20, 2020

Illustration by João Fazen

On September 19, 1983, during Lebanon’s long civil war, the Reagan Administration ordered Marine peacekeepers in Beirut to open fire on Muslim militias in the mountains overlooking the city. The marines had been deployed for more than a year, after the Israeli invasion of Lebanon, to help hold together one of the world’s most fractured states. Colonel Tim Geraghty, their commander, warned that an attack would cost the United States its neutrality and its mission; nevertheless, U.S. ships fired more than three hundred rounds of seventy-pound shells. Geraghty later wrote, “As the sun set at the end of a tumultuous day, I remarked to members of my staff that my gut instinct tells me the Corps is going to pay in blood for this decision.”

Wall Street weapons company CEOs cash in on Iran war danger

by Sarah Anderson

People’s World  | January 09, 2020

Thomas J. Cassidy, former president and CEO of General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, Inc. stands in front of the prototype unmanned Predator B drone on Thursday, Sep. 6, 2001, in El Mirage, Calif. Cassidy, who’s now retired, founded General Atomics, the company which made the MQ-9 Reaper drone that assassinated Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani. | Doug Benc / AP

The prospect of war with Iran is terrifying.

Experts predict as many as a million people could die if the current tensions were to lead to a full-blown war. Millions more would become refugees across the Middle East, while working families across the U.S. would bear the brunt of our casualties.

But there is one set of people who stand to benefit from the escalation of the conflict: CEOs of major U.S. military contractors.

The Real Lesson of Afghanistan Is That Regime Change Does Not Work

by Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J. S. Davies

The trove of U.S. “Lessons Learned” documents on Afghanistan published by the Washington Post portrays, in excruciating detail, the anatomy of a failed policy, scandalously hidden from the public for 18 years. The “Lessons Learned” papers, however, are based on the premise that the U.S. and its allies will keep intervening militarily in other countries, and that they must therefore learn the lessons of Afghanistan to avoid making the same mistakes in future military occupations.

This premise misses the obvious lesson that Washington insiders refuse to learn: the underlying fault is not in how the U.S. tries and fails to reconstruct societies destroyed by its “regime changes,” but in the fundamental illegitimacy of regime change itself. As former Nuremberg prosecutor Ben Ferencz told NPR just eight days after 9/11, “It is never a legitimate response to punish people who are not responsible for the wrong done. If you simply retaliate en masse by bombing Afghanistan, let us say, or the Taliban, you will kill many people who don’t approve of what has happened.”

As the Amazon burns, wars loom, and climate change accelerates, the media continues its grand betrayal

Collated and annotated by Patrice Greanville

The Greanville Post | August 29, 2019

SNAPSHOPTS FROM THE MOST IMPORTANT BATTLE OF COMMUNICATIONS IN HISTORY. ONE THAT ORDINARY PEOPLE CANNOT AFFORD TO LOSE. EITHER WE WIN, OR WE DIE. AND EVERYTHING ELSE LIVING DIES ALONG WITH US.

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BETRAYERS: The BBC
“Something Drastic Has To Happen” Roger Hallam | BBC HardTalk | Extinction Rebellion

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Here’s the BBC, world icon of establishment mass communications, represented byStephen Sackur, an overpaid stuffed shirt of a presstitute that reminds us of our Charlie Rose, imperturbably trying to punch holes and denigrate what XE’s Roger Hallam is trying to say. As a YT commenter eloquently says, “The media is not our friend.” While Hallam is quite clear that our way of life—read, ruthless capitalism and faux democracy—have to go if we are to stand a chance at turning things around, the BBC host tries his devious best to poo poo the idea of rapid changes, let alone changes that would involve a deep disruption “of the economy” and the West’s pioneered consumerist way of life (capitalism).—PG

Against fascism and war: The Communist Party USA’s third decade

by Norman Markowitz

People’s World | August 19, 2019

A CP-sponsored rally in support of Abraham Lincoln Brigade volunteers fighting for democracy against fascism in Spain. | People’s World Archive

As the Communist Party USA’s second decade ended, World War II, the greatest war in human history, began. In all major capitalist countries, the mass media blamed the war on the Soviet Union’s signing of a non–aggression pact with Nazi Germany and condemned Communist Parties’ support for the Soviet Union. Was there truth to the allegation that Communists—both in the Soviet Union and around the world—had helped Hitler start the war?

The first question to ask should be: What were Communists in the U.S. and throughout the world supporting and working for in the 1930s?

The Bolivarian Revolution and the Warmongering ‘Pacifists:’ Yet More War and ‘Peace’

by Arnold August

Council on Hemispheric Affairs | May 22, 2019

“Oh, I am against military intervention!” goes a “pacifist” narrative heard in the North that serves as pretext for a statement on Venezuela. This prelude consoles the soul, clears the liberal conscience and strives to maintain the desired – but increasingly elusive – “progressive” academic, journalistic and political credentials.

However, the “pacifism” dealt with here has nothing to do with Norway’s recent gesture to seek a peaceful solution. The government of President Nicolás Maduro is of course fully involved in this latest attempt at negotiations. In fact, the Venezuelan government has been proposing this throughout the crisis.

Cuba denounces war on our people

by Mauricio Escuela

Granma | May 22, 2019

The sabotage of the steamship La Coubre was one of the cruelest attacks suffered by the Cuban people. Photo: Granma Archives

When we Cubans see our entire country suffer the sustained aggression of another – without as much as a declaration of war – many of us are reminded of fascist practices during World War II, when the most elementary human principles were violated, and expansionist, imperial ambitions were placed above all else.Those of us from younger generations did not experience transcendental battles like Playa Girón, the Missile Crisis, or the Escambray. To us, they are echoes in time, that some, from afar, would like to distort, to deny us valuable lessons. This war against Cuba, in which all kinds of tactics have been tried, touched us more closely when we were children and saw fellow citizens cry with rage and indignation, on television, as they recounted outrages committed by the empire.

Washington revives Syria chemical weapons propaganda as pretext for war

by Bill Van Auken

Washington is once again threatening a military attack against Syria over the alleged use of chemical weapons by the government of President Bashar al-Assad.

If executed, this attack would be the third in as many years by the Trump administration, which rained missiles down upon the war-ravaged country in April 2017 and April 2018 using unsubstantiated allegations of chemical weapons use as a pretext.

Children in conflict zones and imperialism

by Farooque Chowdhury

Countercurrents | May 21, 2019

Children in conflict zones are one of the most affected “parties” in today’s world. They, especially children from the poor-households pay the most.

A recently released report – Stop the War on Children (2019) – by the Save the Children, UK highlights many facts related to the children in conflict zones. It’s a commendable effort in defense of children.