Culture of the National Security State - Deepa Kumar on RAI (Last part)

This last part of the interview with Deepa Kumar is all about how US controls its own public through fear mongering of Soviets, Chinese, Koreans, Talibans, & "terrorist" Muslims.

During the Cold War, Americans were indoctrinated to fear & obey the authorities due to the supposed attacks from Soviets, & their outpost in North America, Cuba. After all, imagine the whole continental America is being afraid of a tiny island nation of Cuba. Ridiculous.

That fear mongering also helped the military-industrial complex to stockpile nuclear weapons by the thousands & thousands. Millions of taxpayers money was poured into making those nuclear weapons & several other kinds of weapons, & instead of being used to create industries & building infrastructure, or helping the poor citizens.

Then, as the "wall came down," the fear mongering shifted towards Muslims & Islam. 9/11 became a pivotal moment to start a drive for global dominance, in the guise of War on Terror, & make & sell billions of weapons around the world. Billions more are being spent on refurbishment of nuclear weapons. Surveillance at home & abroad has become common, so much so, that American citizens are being suspicious of each other. That kind of state where everyone is afraid of everyone else ... I thought that happened in tyrannical states of Syria & Zimbabwe where anything said against the government can get you in prison. But, no, that is the sad state of affairs, or security, in none other than the developed world, & the bastion of democracy & freedom, the United States of America.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LFxtnN6olyM

PAUL JAY, SENIOR EDITOR, TRNN: So what is the cultural politics of the national security state?

DEEPA KUMAR, ASSOC. PROF. MEDIA STUDIES AND MIDEAST STUDIES, RUTGERS UNIV.: ... So ... I'm looking at the Cold War period, the post-Second World War period, and the emergence and the birth of the national security state after the National Security Act of 1947, which creates the CIA, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and then the NSA in '52, and so on. And there is a wholesale militarization of American society. Every aspect of American life, social, intellectual, political, and so on, it gets militarized in this way.

And the question is: how does that become acceptable? And culture is very important in terms of understanding how that happens. And so you have these security rituals, right, the Civil [Defense] department drills, the kind of "duck and cover". ...
...

KUMAR: But the whole point of a security ritual is to cultivate fear and obedience. So you give your consent to Cold War policies, to hot wars, to the complete militarization of society. And so I want to look at those sorts of drills, the various shows, the propaganda work overseas as well as domestically, but build it up to the present, because after 9/11 you see a strengthening of the national security state. And if we had "duck and cover" back then, we have see something, say something, which is the idea that you've got to be suspicious of anyone and anything, and you see and you text. That's the new ritual. And it again cultivates a sort of obedience to the national security state and all the draconian things that are being done--surveillance, drone strikes, all the rest of it--which otherwise would be unacceptable if it weren't for these various cultural practices that make it so.
...

JAY: The origins of the national security state, I mean, it begins in World War II, except they don't demobilize. They go from World War II right into a kind of World War III, the Cold War with the Soviet Union. But it's somewhat a little different than what's happening now, in the sense that it seems to me that the leaders of the time and--Truman and such, they really did see the Soviet Union as an existential threat, partly because it isn't too long before the Soviet Union has nuclear weapons.

Now all of a sudden, America thought it was going to be the thing after World War II. There would be no one else on the planet to rival. And all of a sudden you have a rival. But not only you have a rival; you have what at least is perceived as a socialist rival. You have the beginnings of an enormous population not within the capitalist world. Not too many years later you have China. Now you have, what, almost half the population of the world not within the capitalist world. And this--I don't think--I mean, we've talked to people like Ray McGovern, who was briefing the White House during this period, and he was doing [it] to Reagan and others, and then before Reagan, and they were telling them, listen, the Soviet Union is not going to attack the United States, it's not that kind of a threat.

KUMAR: And mutually assured destruction, right?

JAY: Well, partly that, and partly there'd just be no reason for it. Well, how could the Soviet Union gain anything by attacking the United States?

But the underlying reason for this state is they're terrified of the spread of socialism around the world.

KUMAR: Absolutely. And therefore the Cold War is not only a sort of war that involves the setting up of bases and spheres of influence and all the rest of it, so as to prevent larger parts of the world from the domino theory, right, which is that the Soviet Union was going to collect larger and larger portions of the world and so on. So it was about that. But it's also about ideology. It's about presenting American capitalism and the free enterprise as being the same as free speech, as being the same as individual liberty and human rights and all the rest of it. Right? So it was in that sense both a war in terms of a militaristic war, an international policy, as well as a bolstering of a certain notion of what kind of society--a capitalist society--would actually realize the dreams and aspirations of individuals.

JAY: And so you create this massive machine, which is really about global dominance. And certainly for many years, until ... Soviet Union starts to implode and China starts to transition to capitalism. That kind of threat clearly isn't there anymore.

KUMAR: But then the terrorist threat comes along. And, actually, the terrorist threat, interestingly enough, the word terrorism never used to be used in the U.S. up until the late 1970s. One study of presidential speeches all the way up to the middle of the 1970s finds that the term was rarely used. It's not to say that things that are today called terrorist, such as hijackings of airplanes or kidnappings or what have you didn't happen, but the people who carried out these acts were called air pirates, sky pirates, bandits, rebels, and so on.

But there's a process through the 1970s--and Israel plays a part in this--in terms of defining who the terrorist is. And in the 1980s, in fact, you see this novel theory come into being, which is that terrorists are in league with the Soviet Union, the Soviet Union sponsors an international network of terrorists, and therefore the West should not only fight against the Soviet Union, but it should also be ready to take on the terrorist threat. And, of course, after the collapse of the Soviet Union--.

JAY: The baton gets picked up by Iran, supposedly.

KUMAR: Right. Exactly.

But after the collapse of the Soviet Union, it's not immediately the terrorist threat. You have this idea of rogue states, failed states, and a whole bunch of enemies, and so forth. But 9/11 becomes the pivotal moment around which the war on terror can be launched, which in many ways is analogous to the Cold War. You have this enemy. Of course, it's not the same kind of enemy. Terrorists don't have nuclear weapons and all the rest of it. But nevertheless, it's the kind of ideology that's needed to justify war, intervention, and global domination.

JAY: And 13 years or so after--of war on terror, we get something more robust than al-Qaeda ever was, apparently, the Islamic State. What do you make of the media depiction of Islamic State, how this is being dealt with?

KUMAR: I mean, if you look at the very fact that there is a group like Islamic State and that it poses a threat to the United States, you can say one thing, that the world war on terror has failed, right, because if it was working, these groups would be dissolving and so on. And so they're not. But we have been so primed over the course of the 1980s, the 1990s, and so forth with Hollywood films which consistently show terrorists as brown people, as Middle Eastern people--. And there's a whole slew of films from Cannon--this is a company that two Israelis create in which they consistently--they put out dozens of films in which Palestinians fighting for national liberation are seen as the bad guys and so on. And so that's the steady diet on which a whole generation of Americans have grown up, automatically seeing brown people and Middle Easterners and so on as being terrorists. And so by the time we come to 9/11, we're so primed to think of these people as just being these horrible individuals that we need to go off and make war on them.

And it's not just culture. It's even in the news media sphere, right? Remember after the Oklahoma City bombing, when Timothy McVeigh, a homegrown terrorist we later discovered is responsible for it--. The immediate response, however? Middle Eastern. Right? And this was back in the 1990s, when the Oklahoma City bombing takes place. Before it was discovered who the perpetrators are, all of the talking heads, these so-called terrorism experts, are saying this is Middle Eastern, it has Middle Eastern marks all over it, and so forth. So that's sort of been the evolution, which then gets ratcheted up post-9/11.

JAY: One of the things Homeland's been critiqued about and shows like Homeland, and 24, for that matter, is that it justifies mass surveillance of mosques and Muslims in America. But isn't that kind of understandable? I don't mean the shows. But, I mean--and, frankly, that is where--if there's a terrorist threat right now, there's some from right-wing organizations. And in theory we hear about the arrests. And there is surveillance of them as well. And as far as I know, the FBI has people looking into some of the far-right militias and such. ... Now, I know it's a tiny sliver of mosques, it's a very small, marginal number of mosques, and what we're given the context for is mass surveillance of everybody in every mosque, but there's not like there's no basis for it.

KUMAR: Well, the way this can be done in a way that is fair and that is constitutionally valid is if there is sufficient grounds to suspect somebody, then institute some form of surveillance, right? And, actually, it's in response to the sort of complete, indiscriminate surveillance that we saw in the 1960s against all kinds of people, from Martin Luther King to Jane Fonda and so on, that some restrictions were actually placed around who you can surveil and so forth, and there had to be some basis for suspicion. That has been completely done away with in the post-9/11 context. And now, if you're Muslim, you're automatically suspicious. And if you see the theories of radicalization that the FBI, the NYPD, and so on operate around, they have, like, a four-stage or five-stage process where just being a Muslim puts you on the first stage; and then you happen to be religious, you start growing--you know, if you're a man and you start to grow facial hair and wear religious clothing and so on, you're automatically on a fast track towards jihadism. And that is ridiculous. You know, that's such a violation of people's religious freedom rights.

And the end result of that is that you've seen a massive infiltration. For instance, in New York, the NYPD Demographics Unit has people all over, not just in New York City, but in the entire Tri-state area, infiltrating college groups, infiltrating mosques, bookstores, and so on, and keeping detailed records of what people do, how they live their lives, which is such a violation of your privacy, not to mention that it creates such a chilling effect on free speech and all the rest of it. I have students who say, I'm so scared in terms of who to trust who not to trust, because I know that there are agents in our midst. That's not the way in which a free society should treat its citizens.

JAY: Well, ... I understand the logic of doing this, I understand systemic surveillance, I understand infiltrating mosques and all the rest, because if you're going to be a marauder abroad, you're going to have to have a police state at home.

KUMAR: Yes.

JAY: So if you won't question your role in the world, if you just leave that off the table, then, yeah, you're left with these kinds of policy options, because people legitimately want to come and get you. But you've got to kind of add that to it, because--.

KUMAR: No doubt, because actually the current surveillance practices that we have today come out of the U.S. occupation of the Philippines. And Alfred McCoy has a book called Policing America's Empire, in which he talks about this constabulary unit that's formed in--American unit that is formed in Manila which uses things like, recruits a bunch of informants, which uses things like spread disinformation about the leaders in the Philippines who are fighting back against American occupation, and so on. And those things come back home and inform the kind of surveillance practices that we have right here. So there's always absolutely--empire is not just something that happens elsewhere; it happens right here.

And I think the key thing that the American state is afraid of is that if people who live in this country, who have relatives who live in Egypt or in Iran or what have you, they will tell a very different story of what the U.S. has done in those countries and therefore have the potential to disrupt the propaganda narrative and feed into an antiwar movement. And they don't want that, and therefore keep them scared, monitor them, police them as a way to stop this kind of information from getting out.

‘West creates refugees by destroying Islamic nations’ – Chechen leader

In some of my blog posts last year [2015], I also wrote in detail how Western countries try to create chaos in so-called developing / third-world countries, & especially so-called Islamic countries, to destroy their economies while getting cheap educated labour for themselves.

So, I wholeheartedly agree with Ramzan Kadyrov's statement about the West ruining Muslim countries, destroying their economies, provoking conflicts, & making thousands of refugees. But, I also want to add my disclaimer here that Ramzan Kadyrov is the "installed" leader of Chechen Republic by Putin & hence, he is saying what Putin thinks of the West. Regardless, Mr. Kadyrov is still correct.

To make Ramzan's point (& my point) hit home, let's take the example of current conflict going on in Yemen. American military brain is helping Saudis kill thousands of Yemenis & making thousands others refugees. British & Canadians are also supplying Saudis with weapons, arms & ammunitions, which will, & are being used, against Yemenis & to quell any internal unrest, like peaceful protests for human rights.

Then, these same countries will make a big noise for Saudi government to work towards instituting human rights in its country. Muslims, all over the world, are of course, completely brainwashed by "white idiots". Nobody is going to blame why UK, Canada, & US supplied Saudis with the same weapons that they are using to kill their fellow Muslim brethren but put the blame squarely on the shoulders of Saudi government. I am not excusing Saudi government for its actions, but you cannot ask for harsh punishment for the drug dealer to facilitate drugs for youths & then turn around & blame youths for using drugs, & absolve the drug dealer for all its heinous actions.

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https://www.rt.com/politics/314350-chechen-leader-blames-west-for/

The head of Russia’s Chechen Republic claims the current asylum seeker crisis in European countries originated in the aggressive policies of the USA & the EU. He also called upon all Muslim nations to jointly fight the root of the problem.

“If today no one rises against the inhumane policies of the Western countries, tomorrow the disaster may come to any Muslim country. I call upon you to urgently discuss this problem, to develop a unified position and to save the lives of thousands of people,” Ramzan Kadyrov wrote on his Instagram account (Kadyrov uses Instagram as a social network for public statements).

“Tens of thousands of Muslims are dying. Women, old people, children and young people as well. Under such conditions the leaders of Islamic countries has no right to remain silent, to stand aside and remain simple observers,” he added.

Kadyrov also explained in his post that in his opinion the West must be blamed for tragedies that are currently taking place in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Palestine, Libya, Yemen, Algeria & other Muslim nations.

Europe & the USA are not simply refusing to act, they instigate the tragedies of millions of people by destroying the economy of Islamic countries & starting wars in Muslim regions of the world, he added.

“The problem cannot be solved by fighting its consequences, by silencing the reasons that caused it. But this is what Europe and the United States are currently doing. The USA and Europe have ruined these countries, destroyed their economies, provoked lingering internal conflicts and forced the desperate people into becoming refugees,” the Chechen leader wrote.

In February this year [2015], Kadyrov openly accused the US & other Western nations of “spawning” Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) in order to incite hatred towards Muslims all over the world.

Kadyrov also suggested the West was backing IS in order to distract public attention from numerous problems in the Middle East, in the hope of destroying Islamic nations from inside.

Prior to this, Kadyrov had told reporters that he possessed information that the IS leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, had been recruited to work for the US personally by General David Petraeus, the former director of the CIA & former commander of coalition forces in Iraq & Afghanistan. At that time, Kadyrov claimed IS “was acting on orders from the West and Europe.”

When it comes to war in space, US has the edge

This article gives us a little taste of how the world's major powers, financially & militarily, are in a race to spend trillions upon trillions to conquer their global rivals in space & show to the world how they "won" the race. Ironically, those trillions are coming from people taxes; the same taxes people of a country pay, voluntarily or involuntarily, to receive basic necessities to fulfill their basic human needs.

Trillions of those taxes are being spent on something which most of the world's population will never use. All these space military hardware is not helping anyone improve billions of lives right here on Earth.

We humans want to take a giant leap towards Moon settlement & Mars colonization, but we forget very easily that billions of humans are living a miserable & wretched life right in our backyard, right here on this very planet.

Our fellow humans are dying of thirst because water is becoming a shortage, but trillions are not being spent to come up with cheap technologies to solve this impending crisis.

Our fellow humans are dying of hunger or suffering from eating unhealthy foods because feeding everyone in the world a healthy diet would require billions in funding, but billions are not being spent on research to improve agriculture & food accessibility for billions of poor.

Our fellow humans are living without a roof over their heads & homelessness is only increasing. But billions are not being spent on building affordable housing to provide a decent living space to our own fellow human beings.

Similarly, there are thousands more issues where trillions can be spent easily to improve human & animal lives; fatal diseases, climate change, animal welfare, sustainable energy etc. & make our little planet a living utopia for all. But, instead of improving lives for billions on this little planet of ours, trillions are being spent, of people's own money, on advancing technologies to destroy more lives & wreck more havoc on this little planet.

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http://www.reuters.com/article/idUS224889314220150810

Quietly & without most people noticing, the world’s leading space powers — the US, China & Russia — have been deploying new & more sophisticated weaponry in space.

Earth’s orbit is looking more & more like the planet’s surface — heavily armed & primed for war. A growing number of “inspection” satellites lurk in orbit, possibly awaiting commands to sneak up on & disable or destroy other satellites. Down on the surface, more & more warships & ground installations pack powerful rockets that, with accurate guidance, could reach into orbit to destroy enemy spacecraft.

A war in orbit could wreck the delicate satellite constellations that the world relies on for navigation, communication, scientific research & military surveillance. Widespread orbital destruction could send humanity through a technological time warp. “You go back to World War Two,” Air Force General John Hyten, in charge of US Space Command, told 60 Minutes. “You go back to the Industrial Age.”

It’s hard to say exactly how many weapons are in orbit. That’s because many spacecraft are “dual use.” They have peaceful functions & potential military applications. With the proverbial flip of a switch, an inspection satellite, ostensibly configured for orbital repair work, could become a robotic assassin capable of taking out other satellites with lasers, explosives or mechanical claws. Until the moment it attacks, however, the assassin spacecraft might appear to be harmless. And its dual use gives its operators political cover. The US possesses more space weaponry than any other country, yet denies that any of its satellites warrant the term.

When 60 Minutes asked the Air Force secretary whether the United States has weapons in space, Secretary Deborah Lee James answered simply: “No, we do not.”

Still, it’s possible to count at least some of the systems that could disable or destroy other satellites. Some of the surface-based weaponry is far less ambiguous & so easier to tally. Even taking into account the difficulty of accurately counting space weaponry, one thing is clear: The US is, by far, the world’s most heavily armed space power.

But not for a lack of trying on the part of other countries.

New Cold War in space

Earth’s orbit wasn’t always such a dangerous place. The Soviet Union destroyed a satellite for the last time in an experiment in 1982. The US tested its last Cold War anti-satellite missile, launched by a vertically flying F-15 fighter, in 1985.

For the next 3 decades, both countries refrained from deploying weapons in space. The “unofficial moratorium,” as Laura Grego, a space expert with the Union of Concerned Scientists, described it, put the brakes on the militarization of space.

Then in 2002, President George W. Bush withdrew the US from a treaty with Russia prohibiting the development of antiballistic-missile weapons. The move cleared the way for Bush to deploy interceptor missiles that administration officials claimed would protect the US from nuclear attack by “rogue” states such as North Korea. But withdrawing from the treaty also undermined the consensus on the strictly peaceful use of space.

5 years later, in January 2007, China struck one of its own old satellites with a ground-launched rocket as part of a test of a rudimentary anti-satellite system. This scattered thousands of potentially dangerous pieces of debris across low orbit. Beijing’s anti-satellite test accelerated the militarization of space. The US, in particular, seized the opportunity to greatly expand its orbital arsenal.

US companies & government agencies have at least 500 satellites — roughly as many as the rest of the world combined. At least 100 of them are primarily military in nature. Most are for communication or surveillance. In other words, they’re oriented downward, toward Earth.

But a few patrol space itself. The US military’s Advanced Technology Risk Reduction spacecraft, launched into an 800-mile-high orbit in 2009, is basically a sensitive infrared camera that can detect the heat plumes from rocket launches &, presumably, maneuvering spacecraft. It then can beam detailed tracking data to human operators on the ground.

The risk-reduction satellite works in conjunction with other spacecraft & Earth-based sensors to keep track of Earth’s approximately 1,000 active satellites. The telescope-like Space-Based Space Surveillance satellite, launched in 2010, “has a clear and unobstructed view,” according to an Air Force fact sheet, “of resident space objects orbiting Earth from its 390-mile-altitude orbit.”

“Resident space object” is military speak for satellites.

A network of around 30 ground radars & telescopes complements the orbital sensors. Together, these systems make “380,000 to 420,000 observations each day,” Space Command explains on its Website.

Observing & tracking other countries’ satellites is a passive & essentially peaceful affair. But the US military also possesses at least 6 spacecraft that can maneuver close to enemy satellites & inspect or even damage them.

In 2010, the Air Force launched its first X-37B space plane. A quarter-size, robotic version of the old Space Shuttle, the X-37B boosts into low orbit — around 250 miles high — atop a rocket but lands back on Earth like an airplane.

The two X-37Bs take turns spending a year or more in orbit. Officially, the Air Force describes the maneuverable mini-shuttles as being part of “an experimental test program to demonstrate technologies for a reliable, reusable, unmanned space test platform.” But they could also attack other spacecraft.

The X-37Bs “could be used to rendezvous and inspect satellites, either friendly or adversarial, and potentially grab and de-orbit satellites,” the Secure World Foundation, a space advocacy group, pointed out. The group stressed that the feasibility of the X-37Bs as weapons is low because the mini-shuttles are limited to low orbits & because the US operates at least 4 other maneuverable satellites that are probably far better at stalking & tearing up enemy spacecraft.

These include 2 Microsatellite Technology Experiment satellites that the military boosted into low orbit in 2006. The MiTEx satellites are small, weighing just 500 pounds each. This makes them harder for enemy sensors to detect — giving them the advantage of surprise in wartime.

The two Geosynchronous Space Situational Awareness Program satellites are much bigger & higher up. From their stationary positions 22,000 miles above Earth, these spacecraft — in orbit since July 2014 — monitor other satellites & can, according to the Air Force, “maneuver near a resident space object of interest, enabling characterization for anomaly resolution and enhanced surveillance.”

Maneuverable space planes & satellites are one way of attacking enemy spacecraft. But there’s an older, less subtle method — blasting them out of space with a rocket.

In late 2006, an US spy satellite malfunctioned shortly after reaching low orbit. In early February 2008, the Pentagon announced it would shoot down the dead spacecraft. Officially, Washington insisted that the anti-satellite operation was a safety measure, to prevent the defunct craft’s toxic fuel from harming someone when the satellite’s orbit decayed & it tumbled to Earth.

But it appeared to more than one observer that China’s 2007 anti-satellite test motivated Washington’s own satellite shoot-down. A new Cold War was underway, this time in space.

On Feb. 20, 2008, the Navy cruiser Lake Erie, equipped with a high-tech Aegis radar, launched a specially modified SM-3 antiballistic-missile interceptor. The rocket struck the malfunctioning satellite at an estimated speed of 22,000 miles an hour, destroying it.

Today, the US has dozens of Aegis-equipped warships carrying hundreds of SM-3 missiles, more than enough to quickly wipe out the approximately 50 satellites apiece that Russia & China keep in low orbit.

“Aegis ships could be positioned optimally,” Grego of the Union of Concerned Scientists wrote in a 2011 paper, “ to stage a ‘sweep’ attack on a set of satellites nearly at once.”

As an anti-satellite backup, the US Army & the Missile Defense Agency also operate 2 types of ground-launched missile interceptors that have the power to reach low orbit — & the accuracy to strike spacecraft.

Against this huge arsenal, Russia & China possess few counterweights. China’s 2007 anti-satellite test, & a similar trial in early 2013, proved that Beijing can hit a low satellite with a rocket. In 2010, the Chinese space agency launched a cluster of small space vehicles, including 2 named SJ-6F & SJ-12, that slammed into each other in orbit, seemingly on purpose. In July 2013, China deployed a small inspection spacecraft, designated SY-7, in low orbit.

Like the US fleet of maneuverable inspection spacecraft, the tiny SY-7 with its remote-controlled claw could be orbital repair or inspection vehicle — or it could be a weapon.

“One could dream up,” Brian Weeden, a technical & space adviser at the Secure World Foundation, told the War Is Boring Website in 2013, “a whole bunch of dastardly things that could be done with a robotic arm in close proximity.”

But China lacks the space- & ground-based sensors to accurately steer these weapons toward their targets. Compared to the US space-awareness system, with its scores of radars & telescopes, China possesses a relatively paltry system — one consequence of Beijing’s diplomatic isolation.

Where the US can count on allies to host parts of a global sensor network, China has few formal allies & can only deploy space-awareness systems inside its own borders, on ships at sea or in space. The Chinese military can watch the skies over East Asia, but is mostly blind elsewhere.

By contrast, Russia inherited an impressive space-awareness network from the Soviet Union. Russia’s allies in Europe — in particular, the former Soviet & Eastern Bloc states — extend the network’s field of view. As a result, Moscow possesses “a relatively complete catalog of space objects,” the Secure World Foundation concluded.

But Russia is still far behind the US & China as far as space weaponry is concerned. There was a 31-year gap between the Soviet Union’s last anti-satellite test & Russia’s first post-Soviet orbital-weapon experiment. On Christmas Day in 2013, Russia quietly launched a small, maneuverable inspection spacecraft into low orbit, hiding the tiny spacecraft among a cluster of communications satellites.

2 more space inspectors followed, one in May 2014 & another in March 2015. Moscow hasn’t said much about them, but amateur satellite spotters have tracked the vehicles performing the kinds of maneuvers consistent with orbital attack craft. “You can probably equip them with lasers,” Anatoly Zak, the author of Russia in Space: Past Explained, Future Explored, said of the Russian craft. “Maybe put some explosives on them.”

They join a growing number of space weapons guided by expanding networks of Earth-based & orbital sensors on a new, distant battlefront of a so far bloodless neo-Cold War.

"Biggest Arms Exporters" by Rainer Hachfeld

"Biggest Arms Exporters" - Rainer Hachfeld, Neues Deutschland, Berlin, Germany

Civilian death toll from explosive weapons soars

What to comment on this news article than to say that the human blood has become very cheap now. Killing another human being has become extremely easy with the proliferation of small arms to large weapons. Be it armed gangs or law enforcement agencies or military, access to a weapon is easy, & the mentality of "shoot first, think later" has spread everywhere. 

Killing indiscriminately another human being carries no adverse consequences. Legal & illegal sales of arms & weapons is a huge lucrative business for both smuggling groups & such developed nations as US, Canada, Russia, China, Germany, France, UK, Sweden etc.

So, when one of the most profitable industries around the world is in making weapons, then how can we not expect a constant increase in civilian deaths. It would be a bit foolish & naïve to expect a decline in human deaths with the developed countries actively subsidizing their weapons industries & actively hawking their military wares on the international stage. And then everyone wants to innocently proclaim that they are only working for peace around the world.
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http://www.theguardian.com/science/2015/jun/22/civilian-death-toll-explosive-weapons-soars-syria-gaza

The global civilian death toll from explosive weapons has increased dramatically in recent years, driven in part by the greater use of aerial bombs on populated areas, often by governments including Syria & Israel, according to a report.

Although the international community has taken concerted action to curb the use of chemical weapons, the report by advocacy group Action on Armed Violence (AOAV) confirms that conventional explosives, can be just as devastating & indiscriminate when used against towns & cities.

AOAV’s report, Explosive States, which examines data for 2014, found that when explosive weapons were used in urban areas, 92% of the casualties were civilians, compared with 34% in rural areas. In 2014, there were 32,662 civilian casualties from weapons including aerial bombs, mortars & car bombs, an increase of 5% on 2013, & 52% higher than 2011, when AOAV started collecting data.

“This is the third consecutive year that we have seen an increase in civilian deaths & injuries from explosive weapons,” Iain Overton, the director of investigations at AOAV, said. “With civilians bearing the brunt of explosive weapon harm in Gaza, Ukraine, Nigeria, Iraq, Syria & Afghanistan, the question has to be: how many more will have to die before states agree to end the use of explosive weapons in populated areas?”

More than half the civilian casualties in 2014 were caused by improvised explosive devices (IEDs) such as car bombs & suicide vests. The prevalence of such weapons in Iraq has helped make it the most dangerous place in the world for civilians, in terms of explosive weapons, with more than 10,000 casualties for the second year running. Syria was second with 6,245 recorded civilian casualties (though AOAV acknowledges that it is likely to be gross underestimate due to reporting difficulties).

Deaths by IED increased dramatically in Nigeria over the course of 2014, as Boko Haram targeted markets, bus stops & places of worship. Almost all the 2,407 casualties in the country were caused by car bombs, suicide bomb attacks or other IEDs.

The most striking and lethal development in 2014 was the increased use of aerial bombs by governments on densely populated areas. The number of civilian casualties from such weapons almost trebled from the previous year. The overwhelming majority of the casualties by aerial bombardment were caused by Syria (46% of the total) & Israel (35%).

In Syria, government forces made dramatically increased use of barrel bombs – containers filled with fuel, explosives & chunks of jagged metal typically pushed out of helicopters by hand, killing people & destroying buildings over a wide areas. In 2013, barrel bombs accounted for 20% of aerial attacks. In 2014, that proportion had doubled. The bulk of barrel bomb attacks (85%) were on urban areas.

Israeli air attacks accounted for more than half the civilian casualties in Gaza in 2014. According to UN figures, there were 2,131 deaths from Israel’s Operation Protective Edge in July & August, 69% of which were civilian. But Israel also used high explosive ground-launched & naval shells during that campaign against built-up targets. As a result, Israel outdid even Syria as the state responsible for the most civilian casualties from explosive weapons in 2014, according to the AOAV report.

“Our data shows that states were far more willing to carry out aerial bombings in populated areas, bucking a recent trend. It’s a deeply worrying development,” Overton said. “It’s almost no surprise to see Israel was the state force behind the most civilian casualties from explosive weapons. The weapons used in Gaza last year included thousands of unguided artillery shells, as well as massive aircraft bombs, which, even if guided to a target, can still impact a wide area. AOAV’s research suggests, that for artillery at least, Israel had relaxed the rules, making it easier for troops to use these weapons in or near populated areas. You simply can’t do that on such a large scale without increasing risk of death, injury & damage to civilians & civilian areas.”

"China as Banker" by Paresh Nath

"China as Banker" - Paresh Nath, India

Japanese nationalism: Decoy for American imperialism?

wow ... another great piece from Andre Vltchek. Left me speechless. All I can say that Japan is digging a hole for itself by isolating itself from its Asian neighbours.

As always, with these kinds of articles, I ask one question: Is this democracy? Would you consider Japan a democratic country when you come to know that a sizable majority of Japanese are against militarization of Japan & want nothing to do with America?

I specially loved the quotation from a Japanese philosopher, Tenshin Okakura, that “the average Westerner, in his sleek complacency, will see in the tea-ceremony but another instance of the thousand-and-one oddities which constitute the quaintness & childishness of the East to him. He was wont to regard Japan as barbarous while she indulged in the gentle arts of peace: he calls her civilized since she began to commit wholesale slaughter on Manchurian battlefields.”

That's always been the way for the West. You are a disease to the world as long as you are doing something good for your own people & which might be going against the wishes of the West, but you are civilized & appreciated profusely, if you are slaughtering thousands, as per the wishes of the West. Current case in point is full American support for Saudi Arabian war against Yemen. Past examples include American & British support of Saddam Hussein when he waged war against Iran, or the full support of Uganda's Idi Amin.

And there are many, many more examples of the West's full support of terrorists & despots around the world as long as the actions of those terrorists & despots support the vision of the West. As soon as those "terrorists" stop being subservient to the West, they are removed from power & replaced with another thug.
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http://www.rt.com/op-edge/261693-japan-us-dangerous-right-wing/

Japan is ready to change its post-war pacifist constitution; it is rapidly arming itself to the teeth, building battleships & purchasing fighter jets. Recruitment posters are everywhere. Meanwhile, Japan is standing - obediently & loyally - by its occupier & closest ally, the United States.

In light of the situation, one has to wonder what is really ‘nationalist’ about Abe? His loyalties appear to lie towards the West, particularly the US. Definitely not towards his own country & the Asian continent.

All that the US desires, Japan supports. Washington is dreaming about a ‘Pacific Century’, in which it would play a decisive role; it is relentlessly promoting its ‘Pivot to Asia’ doctrine, which envisions Japan firmly by its side, militarily & demagogically; it is pushing for 12-nations Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), & Japan claps.

Kuril Islands dilemma

In Wakkanai - the northernmost city in Japan from which the Russian island of Sakhalin can be seen - military radars & surveillance systems are humming & coastguard ships are standing by in the historic harbor, ready for action.
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From the window of my hotel I can see Sakhalin, if weather allows. During the summer, two mighty sea vessels are shuttling Japanese tourists between Wakkanai & the Russian town of Korsakov, situated on Sakhalin Island. Russian fishing boats regularly visit Hokkaido Island, where there are cultural exchanges & even some trade.

In the Pechika restaurant, delicious Russian food is served, beer flows & Russian songs are sung (a popular tune is ‘A million red roses’). Across from the parking lot, the Fukakō-ichiba complex proudly displays old black-and-white photos from the days when Sakhalin, & in fact all of the Kuril Islands, belonged to Japan.

The islands constitute an issue that has never been resolved. Japanese propaganda is constantly repeating the claim that the Soviet Union grabbed the Kurils at the end of WWII. For decades Japan has been demanding their return.

But even in Wakkanai, not everyone is convinced that Russia should be compromising on the issue. A captain of a small Japanese fishing vessel explains:

“We have an extreme-right-wing prime minister here in Japan. He is very close to the US, a country that is antagonizing, & in fact most likely wants to destroy, both Russia & China. If the Kuril Islands & Sakhalin go back to Japan, they would be immediately converted into another Okinawa; full of US Air Force & naval bases, very near the Russian mainland.”

Some 3,000km away, the former ancient kingdom of Okinawa is living a continuous nightmare of occupation & consequent militarization. From here, thousands of US & Japanese aircraft regularly provoke China & North Korea. At the same time, local residents are outraged at the occupation as massive demonstrations shake the islands; people are demanding an end to the US military presence & want the US bases dismantled. But Abe’s government wants more US hardware, more runways & more war games.

I worked in Okinawa on 2 occasions. The last time was in 2013/14 when I was involved with a documentary film about the American bases, ‘Battle of Okinawa’, for South American network TeleSUR.

Douglas Lummis, an ex-US Air Force pilot who is now a writer & professor, explained the situation to me in the city of Nahu:

“Okinawa hosts about 75% of the American troops & American facilities in Japan. It's out of sight & out of mind of most of the Japanese people on the mainland. Okinawa is a thousand miles away from Tokyo, from the capital. If you talk to Okinawans they're angry & disappointed that for over 60 years now they’ve been asked to essentially shoulder the American-Japanese military alliance. The military alliance with America is also accompanied by what critics would say a subservient attitude towards Washington in general. Japan rarely balks against what Washington wishes on foreign policy.”

The bases are now expanding even to pristine parts of Okinawa, like Haneko Bay.

Okinawan scholar Masaki Tomochi has expressed alarm by what he perceives to be the imperialist tendencies of both the US & Japan. He is well aware of the suffering of local people:

“We think that US imperialism uses Japanese colonialism against us. The Japanese government made a security treaty with the US, & then the United States used Japan to force us, Okinawans, to accept the US military bases,” he explained.

There is no doubt that the bases are there to antagonize, to provoke China & North Korea, as well as Russia. Many believe that the WWIII could easily begin from Okinawa.

Geoffrey Gunn, a leading Australian historian & Professor emeritus at Nagasaki University, is concerned about Japan’s increasingly aggressive role in the region:

“All changed when the Abe government nationalized the Senkaku/Diaoyu [Islands]. The status quo changed because now Japan declares that there is actually no dispute over these so-called disputed islands. Therefore the Tokyo government has angered China. China is indignant with this change of the status quo.”

Japan, land of contradictions

For many years, Japan was able to boast of the smallest disparities between rich & poor anywhere in the world, as well as developing an incredibly compassionate social model. No matter how right wing some its rulers may have been, in many ways, Japan could easily pass as a ‘socialist’ country.

But there is one essential problem: It is ‘socialist’ only for its own people.

For decades, Japanese corporations have been behaving like colonialist thugs all over East Asia. For instance, I was told repeatedly that Japanese car manufacturers had destroyed many cities, corrupting local governments, forcing them not to build comprehensive public transportation systems. Now numerous megalopolises like Jakarta or Surabaya, which are choking on car & scooter fumes, lack a single subway line or light rail system.

The reason for this is largely explained by Japan’s efforts at indoctrinating Asian peoples with a pro-Western worldview. For decades, Japanese universities had been offering ‘scholarships’ to students from poor Southeast Asian nations. They would indoctrinate these students with pro-Western dogmas, breaking the revolutionary spirit, while converting young people to behave as servants of the Empire; essentially doing to other Asians what was done to the Japanese.

After being defeated in WWII, Japan eventually became loyal to its Western masters. Many Asian leaders, including former Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, demanded that “Japan return to Asia.” It never did. It became rich during the Korean War, manufacturing goods & equipment for the Western military might. It continued doing the same during the Vietnam War. It is on the same course now.

David McNeill, Irish professor at the prestigious Sofia University in Tokyo, also works for the NHK, Japan’s national broadcaster. He is increasingly critical of the new, militarized & indoctrinated Japan:

They are rewriting text books; they skip through WWII, dedicating to it only 8 pages... Nationalism is rising. Naoki Hyakuta, a comedy writer, published a novel about Kamikaze fighters, entitled ‘Forever Zero’… The novel sold 5 million copies! You know that nothing sells 5 million copies in Japan!

“Abe read the book & loved it. He put him on board of directors of NHK! And the director of NHK is another right-wing thug. There is so much self-censorship in Japanese media, now. And the government is issuing ‘guidelines’, so called ‘Orange Book’, for instance: how to treat anything that is ‘contagious’... or anything related to history. There are instructions to writers & translators. For instance: ‘never use words like Nanking Massacre, except when you quote foreign experts’. Or ‘Yasukuni Shrine – never use word “controversial” in connection to it.’ We cannot write about ‘sexual slaves’ from WWII.”

I am also told that the Japanese public is given a one-sided interpretation of current affairs. When it comes to topics like Russia, Syria & China, Japanese people are made to consume Western propaganda exclusively.

“And they actually believe what the NHK says,” says David.

As we are implementing images from Hong Kong’s ‘Umbrella Revolution’ into my film with Noam Chomsky, my film editor, Hata Takeshi, smiles:

“In Japan, people will not understand that the West is behind those ‘color revolutions’ & recent events in Hong Kong. Here, there is total consensus that HK was a movement for freedom & democracy. It is because there are hardly any alternative sources of information available.”

Even in the places like Abu Dhabi & Beirut, television channels like RT are available in every major hotel. Not in Japan. In all big international chains, it is mainly a diet of local channels, plus CNN, BBC & Fox.

Discontent with politics as usual

It appears that dissatisfaction with Japan’s present political course is visible everywhere, and not only in some small, anti-establishment circles. Former vice-president of a major civil engineering company, Segi Sakashi, 79 years old, recently expressed his outrage to me:

With an extremely close relationship with the US, & an antagonist approach towards Russia, China & others, Prime Minister Abe appears to be highhandedly bringing the country into military conflict with its neighbors, namely Korea & China, while the population is completely ignorant of this & stuck with ever shrinking social services.

“What is absurd & ridiculous about all this is that there does not exist any need whatsoever to antagonize our neighbors. China is one of the main trading partners of Japan. So is Korea. We have been growing (or shrinking) economically, through mutual gains & losses. Honestly, Abe is playing a very stupid game thinking that because of the 1960 Security Treaty with the US, we should be behaving like this.”
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... Japan is working hard to support the West at the very moment when the West is pushing the world towards a possibly fatal confrontation with peaceful but mighty nations, like China & Russia.

For this, Japanese leaders are facing fury in many parts of Asia, but great support & admiration in the West. It is timely to recall the words of the great Japanese philosopher, Tenshin Okakura, who wrote more than 100 years ago in his work, ‘The Book of Tea’:

“The average Westerner, in his sleek complacency, will see in the tea-ceremony but another instance of the thousand-and-one oddities which constitute the quaintness & childishness of the East to him. He was wont to regard Japan as barbarous while she indulged in the gentle arts of peace: he calls her civilized since she began to commit wholesale slaughter on Manchurian battlefields.”

The Asian continent would be delighted if Japan would stick to its tea ceremonies, especially after sending Prime Minister Abe to his ideological adopted homeland across Pacific Ocean.


Andre Vltchek is a philosopher, novelist, filmmaker & investigative journalist. His latest books are: “Exposing Lies Of The Empire” & “Fighting Against Western Imperialism”. Discussion with Noam Chomsky: On Western Terrorism. "Point of No Return" is his critically acclaimed political novel. Andre is making films for teleSUR & Press TV. Vltchek presently resides & works in East Asia & the Middle East.