Threats to World Peace and America’s Imperial Wars

Afghanistan has gained lead story status in the western corporate and government-sponsored media outlets again for the wrong reasons.

This Central Asia state has been at war since the late 1970s when the United States under the then President Jimmy Carter developed a counter-insurgency program to remove the socialist-oriented administration ruling from Kabul.

Of course today there is largely no mention in these same press agencies about the organization, training, funding and diplomatic cover provided by Washington through the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the Pentagon and State Department for al-Qaeda (the core) which facilitated the armed struggle waged against the Soviet-backed system in Afghanistan.

With the intervention of the Soviet army in December 1979, the stage was set for continuing interference by successive U.S. administrations from Carter to the present regime of President Donald Trump. Although Trump suggested during his campaign that he would lessen involvement by Washington in geo-political flashpoints ignited by both Republican and Democratic heads-of-state, he also said of the proliferation of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) that “I will bomb the shit out of them.”

Perhaps this is the sentiment among his supporters that he was appealing to when the decision was made to drop the Massive Ordinance Air Blast (MOAB) bomb on tunnels in Afghanistan on April 13. The attack was carried out in the Achin district of Nangahar near the border with Pakistan.

The bomb utilized is technically called the GBU-43 and reportedly weighed 21,000 pounds. It is a GPS-guided weapon and was dropped by the M-130 fighter aircraft.

Although a tactical nuclear weapon is far more powerful and damaging to targets than the MOAB, its usage is clearly a warning not only to the people of Afghanistan as well as those in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK). The DPRK has been developing and testing its own medium and long range missiles. The DPRK is now a nuclear power and this factor has served as a deterrent to bombings and invasions by the Pentagon and NATO.

Despite the size of the ordinance, Afghan Ministry of Defense spokesperson Dawlat Waziri said:

“No civilian has been hurt and only the base, which Daesh used to launch attacks in other parts of the province, was destroyed.”

However, a British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) report claimed that some 36 Islamic State fighters were killed in the bombing.

Nonetheless, the usual narrative for the imperialist states which engage in such blanket bombings of other countries in Asia, the Middle East and Africa is that they only target so-called “terrorists.” More often than not the actual victims of these raids turn out to be civilians who are the most vulnerable within war zones. The direct U.S. involvement in Afghanistan and Pakistan has resulted in the deaths and injuries of hundreds of thousands of people. Millions have been dislocated from both countries while the current administration of Trump has no intentions of withdrawing the 9,000 troops still remaining the region.

Imperialist interventions through the Pentagon and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) have done tremendous damage to the Central Asia region. The flood of refugees out of this area contributes to the overall crises of displacement and political turmoil extending across Asia to the Middle East and Africa. The countries that have been the most severely impacted are those where U.S. military forces laid waste over a period of decades.

The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) Defies U.S. Imperialism

April 15, 2017 represents the 105th anniversary of the birth of the founder of the DPRK, Kim Il Sung, a nationalist and communist leader who fought against both Japanese and U.S. imperialism for many years. The Korean Revolution grew out of the anti-colonial struggle against Japan and the consolidation of patriotic forces in defense of its independence and sovereignty.

After 1945, Kim Il Sung and other revolutionaries sought to unite the Peninsula under a system of socialist development. Nevertheless, the U.S. had other plans based on its desire to curb Soviet influence in Asia in the aftermath of World War II. The DPRK was founded in September 1948 prompting the antagonism of Washington.

The following year in October 1949, the Communist Party of China took control of the mainland of that Asian state. Moreover, in Vietnam, the forces aligned with Ho Chi Minh had established a revolutionary Democratic Republic in the North and sought to also unify the country under one government in September 1945.

Consequently, the Cold War outlook of the U.S. maneuvered the United Nations to back an invasion into Korea aimed at eradicating the revolutionary government of Kim Il Sung. By June 1950 the imperialists were staging a full scale assault on the country. Later the massive bombing of Korea compelled Mao Tse-tung and the Communist government to back the DPRK in the war against the U.S. The Chinese deployed over 500,000 People’s Volunteer Forces which assisted in beating back the U.S. from establishing full control of the North leading up to the border with China.

An armistice agreement between the U.S. and the DPRK has been in effect since July 1953. This means that the two states are technically still at war. The provocations of Washington have been continuous for decades. During the so-called Korean War the U.S. had threatened to use an atomic bomb against the DPRK and the People’s Republic of China.

Kim Jong Un, the present leader of the DPRK and the grandson of Kim Il Sung and son of Kim Jong Il, has vowed to retaliate in the event of a preemptive strike by the Pentagon. The government has held a series of nuclear missile tests which have illustrated their capacity to inflict damage on U.S. warships, military bases from the Peninsula to Japan.

At present the U.S. is placing the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) anti-missile weapons system in South Korea which serves as a base of imperialist operations in Asia. Both the DPRK and China oppose THAAD. However, the Trump administration is determined to keep this program intact as a way of threatening Pyongyang and Beijing.

The DPRK government under the Worker’s Party (WPK) led by Marshall Kim Jong Un is maintaining its defiance. In an article published by the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) on April 11, it said:

“Service personnel of the Army, Navy, Air and Anti-Aircraft Force of the Korean People’s Army held a ceremony at the plaza of the Kumsusan Palace of the Sun on April 10 to pay high tribute to Generalissimos Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il and vow to remain loyal to Supreme Commander Kim Jong Un on the occasion of the Day of the Sun.”

This same report goes on to note that:

“Present there were KPA Vice Marshal Hwang Pyong So, member of the Presidium of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Workers’ Party of Korea, vice-chairman of the State Affairs Commission of the DPRK and director of the General Political Bureau of the KPA, KPA Vice Marshal Ri Myong Su, chief of the General Staff of the KPA, Army General Pak Yong Sik, minister of the People’s Armed Forces, and other commanding officers of the KPA.”

Syria War Escalates Under Trump White House

On April 6 news reports revealed that the Pentagon had fired nearly 60 long-range cruise missiles from a U.S. Navy Destroyer into the Sharyat airbase in Syria. This blatant act of aggression was said to be in response to the deaths of people from a putative chemical weapons attack a few days earlier in the village of Khan Sheikhou.

The Syrian government of President Bashar al-Assad denied any involvement in the attacks and said in an interview with the Agence France Press (AFP) on April 13 that this story was a “fabrication.” Russian Federation foreign ministry officials have called for an independent investigation into the incident where people died from sarin gas. President Assad has also welcomed such an investigation.

U.S. administration spokespersons have provided no concrete evidence that the Syrian Arab Army was at all involved in the attack. The damage to the airfield by the tomahawk missiles was wholly unwarranted and could have easily sparked a wider war involving Russia and the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Conclusion

All of these wars from Afghanistan and Iraq to the Korean Peninsula and Syria were based upon falsehoods and motivated by the desire for geo-political hegemony and the control of strategic resources.

If it is common knowledge that the U.S. manufactures untruths to justify war from the beginning of the post-World War II period through the conclusion of the 20th century and well into the final years of the second decade of the 21st century, it is not beyond reason that the current saber rattling with Afghanistan rebels, the DPRK government and the Syrian state is based upon the same imperialistic aims and objectives.

In addition to the tensions in Central Asia, the Middle East and the Korean Peninsula, Trump has deployed more U.S. troops to the Horn of Africa nation of Somalia just weeks after he pledged to intensify bombing operations in this oil-rich embattled country. The government of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela in South America is also waging a defensive war against destabilization efforts funded and coordinated by Washington. A massive U.S.-supported campaign to force the resignation of the African National Congress (ANC) government of President Jacob Zuma in the Republic of South Africa has compounded economic uncertainty in the continent’s most industrialized state. Similar to what has been taking place for years in neighboring Zimbabwe the imperialists have never been in support of genuine independence and unity in Africa.

Antiwar and social justice movements in the imperialist countries must oppose Pentagon and NATO interventions in these geo-strategic areas irrespective of the rationales provided by the Trump administration and its allies. In order for genuine peace to be achieved internationally it requires the dismantling of the war machines emanating from Washington, London, Paris and Brussels.

Originally published on 2017-04-17

Author: Abayomi Azikiwe

Source: Global Research

Origins of images: Facebook, Twitter, Wikimedia, Wikipedia, Flickr, Google, Imageinjection & Pinterest.

Read our Disclaimer/Legal Statement!

Donate to Support Us

We would like to ask you to consider a small donation to help our team keep working. We accept no advertising and rely only on you, our readers, to keep us digging the truth on history, global politics and international relations.

READ MORE!

European Unification Divides Europeans: How Forcing People Together Tears Them Apart

Unification of Europe has brought about radical new divisions within Europe. The most significant split is between the people and their political leaders.The June 23 British majority vote to leave the European Union has made strikingly evident the division between the new ruling class that flourishes in the globalized world without borders and all the others who are on the receiving end of policies that destroy jobs, cut social benefits, lower wages and reject as obsolete national customs, not least the custom of democratic choice, all to make the world safe for international investment capital.Actually, the lines are not quite ...

The Demonization of Islam

Much is being written regarding the Charlie Hebdo issue in Paris, France. I do not condone any killing but at the same time I do not support issues that violate human rights, religious freedom or freedom of speech and thoughts. Using cartoons to condemn Divine thoughts and beliefs is utterly wrong because they fall under hate crimes and not under freedom of speech as we are lied about. The perpetrators of hate continue to be protected. Islam is under attack and its adherents, the Muslims, are being targeted through provocation. In a recent article Charlie Hebdo and Tsarnaev’s trial: Cui ...

Trump, Brexit and the Collapse of the Liberal Order

One of the most confounding aspects of Donald Trump’s election as 45th President of the United States is that in the space of a year – indeed less than a year – a man with zero political experience has destroyed two of America’s most entrenched political dynasties: Bush and Clinton. Just pause on this for a moment, and place it in the context of someone who when he first appeared on the political stage as a candidate for the Republican nomination was met with ridicule and scorn. Consequently, a mainstream media and liberal commentators for whom politics is an exclusive club, ...

America Celebrates Memorial Day

Wednesday, May 30th, was Memorial Day in the United States. The commemoration began in 1868 shortly after the American Civil War, when townsmen in several communities came together to decorate the graves of the fallen on the last Monday in May. The practice began in the northern states but soon spread to the south and the annual remembrance ceremony soon took on the name Decoration Day. As wars proliferated in the twentieth century the commemoration eventually lost its association with the Civil War and was increasingly referred to nationally as Memorial Day, eventually becoming a federal holiday. The American Civil war ...

Hitllary Clinton Plans to Destroy Russia

Leaked emails are filling in the picture of a Bill-and-Hillary-Clinton plan to destroy Russia – a plan which had originated with US President George Herbert Walker Bush in 1990, and which has been followed through both by his son George W Bush, and by both of the Clintons, but which has only recently started to become documented by leaked publications of personal communications amongst the key operatives who were the insiders running this operation behind the scenes, and who include Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, George W Bush, Victoria Nuland, Jeffrey Feltman, Saudi Prince Bandar bin Sultan al-Saud, Saudi Crown Prince ...

The US: The Century of Lost Wars

Introduction Despite having the biggest military budget in the world, five times larger than the next six countries, the largest number of military bases – over 180 – in the world and the most expensive military industrial complex, the US has failed to win a single war in the 21st century. In this paper we will enumerate the wars and proceed to analyze why, despite the powerful material basis for wars, it has led to failures. The Lost Wars The US has been engaged in multiple wars and coups since the beginning of the 21st century. These include Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Somalia, Palestine, Venezuela and ...

Remembering the NATO Led War on Yugoslavia: Kosovo “Freedom Fighters” Financed by Organized Crime

Twelve years ago, March 24th, 1999, marks the commencement of NATO’s aerial bombardment of Yugoslavia. The bombings which lasted for almost three months, were followed by the military invasion (under a bogus UN mandate) and illegal occupation of the province of Kosovo.In the course of the last week, the so-called international community, backed by the UN Security Council has called for the bombing of Libya, a sovereign country, allegedly to protect the lives of civilians under the logo of “Responsibility to Protect”.The covert operations, the military strategies applied in Libya not to mention the process of media disinformation bears a canny ...

Here’s your ‘Putin Did It!’ Survival Guide…

As the Duran reported, it was only a matter of time before the ‘Putin Did It’ (see The Duran Lexicon for more) line crept back into the news in light of a re-opened FBI investigation, following the discovery more incriminating Hillary Clinton emails. Sure enough, Howard Dean, the man who ended his own presidential campaign by acting like a crazed hooligan on stage, has said that now the FBI and Putin are on the same side.This comes days after Putin reassured the world that he really doesn’t want, need or care to meddle in the US election. Of course the usual suspects in the western ...

Russian Oligarchs are a Problem, But Let’s Not Forget American Ones

Oligarchs the world over have long been destabilizing economies and shaping governing bodies for their own benefit. For instance, if we turn to the supposed ‘birth of democracy’ in Ancient Athens, elites (called ‘citizens’) of the polis ruled over the mass populace (the common people of the hoi polloi). Plato had instilled in many Greeks at the time (and this is an idea seen in practice from fascist lies of white supremacy to false justifications for criminal wars) a faith in the supremacy of ruling class that the elites could justify lying to the hoi polloi,masking the truth the public ...

The Bush Administration’s Foreign Policy in Kosovo

Destroyed Serbian Orthodox church in Kosovo by local Muslim Albanians after 1999In 2000, when George W. Bush was elected president in a controversial and hotly disputed election, all the experts and pundits predicted that there would be a philosophical sea change in US foreign policy in the Balkans, and in Kosovo in particular. In my 2000 analysis of the election of Bush and US foreign policy in Kosovo, however, I concluded that the George W. Bush Administration represented the same old same old and business as usual. In my viewpoint, absolutely nothing would change in the US foreign policy stance ...

NATO’s War of Aggression Against Yugoslavia in 1999

Eighteen years ago in the early hours of March 24, 1999, NATO began the bombing the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. “The operation was code-named “Allied Force ” – a cold, uninspired and perfectly descriptive moniker” according to Nebosja Malic. This article was first written in May 1999 at the height of the bombing of Yugoslavia. The causes and consequences of this war have been the object of a vast media disinformation campaign, which has sought to camouflage NATO and US war crimes. It is important to note that a large segment of the “Progressive Left” in Western Europe and North America were part of this disinformation campaign, presenting ...

President Trump Welcomes Egyptian Dictator – The “Butcher of Cairo”

President Donald Trump Monday, April 3, 2017, welcomed the Egyptian military dictator, General Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, who assumed the title of Field Marshal after arresting and deposing the democratically elected President Mohamed Mursi in July 2013. After the meeting Trump told the press: “We agree on so many things. I just want to let everybody know, in case there was any doubt, that we are very much behind President el-Sisi. He’s done a fantastic job in a very difficult situation.” By “a fantastic job” Trump was apparently referring to the massacre of hundreds of innocent Egyptians in the aftermath of US-endorsed coup ...

General Ratko Mladić and the Pandora’s Box of the Bosnian War (1992-1995)

General Ratko Mladic’s arrest and his extradition to the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia satisfied the prerequisites for Serbia’s membership in the European Union. As expected, the western media have tagged the defendant as the “Butcher of Bosnia” and piled on as many charges against him as possible, thereby masking NATO’s role in Yugoslavia. But there can be no reconciliation without truth, which, as Slobodan Despot observes, is far more complex than the Manichean account given. Ratko Mladić did not serve his country well by hiding from justice for all these years, but his late capture may allow a ...

Monetary Imperialism

In theory, the global financial system is supposed to help every country gain. Mainstream teaching of international finance, trade and “foreign aid” (defined simply as any government credit) depicts an almost utopian system uplifting all countries, not stripping their assets and imposing austerity. The reality since World War I is that the United States has taken the lead in shaping the international financial system to promote gains for its own bankers, farm exporters, its oil and gas sector, and buyers of foreign resources – and most of all, to collect on debts owed to it.Each time this global system has ...

Kosovo Wants to Establish its Own Armed Forces

RT: Kosovo wants to establish an army and has received several Humvee armoured vehicles from the USA. Although there was official NATO restraint, how much is the establishment of a Kosovo Army a fixed development?Marcus Papadopoulos: Kosovo is, effectively, a NATO protectorate today – and has been ever since Belgrade lost control of this Serbian province in 1999. It follows, therefore, that the illegal entity which is the Republic of Kosovo will begin the process of creating its own armed forces so that, in time, Kosovo will gain entry into NATO.RT: The EU has rejected the introduction of Kosovo sanctions ...

French Documentary Exposes Ukraine’s Far-Right: “Ukraine – The Masks of the Revolution”

The activities of aggressive nationalist and neo-Nazi armed movements in present-day Ukraine are the focal point of Moreira’s documentary. Their existence is not denied by any of his leading critics in France — even as they try to find excuses to justify their actions. On Wednesday, 3 February, as I was about to start assembling this article on the very important documentary about the Maidan broadcast by the French independent television channel Canal + on Monday evening, 1 February, I was headed off by breaking news on Russia Insider, carrying links to the first half of the documentary in English voice-over ...

Libyan Chessboard

Several power centers were formed in Libya as a result of the fall of Muammar Gaddafi's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya and the destruction of the statehood. None of them has a national legitimacy. The pursuit of personal interests by some political leaders to the detriment of the general state is intertwined with territorial fragmentation. The historic regions - Tripolitania, Cyrenaica and Fezzan - have de facto separated from each other. The Libyan phenomenon of the city-state arose (Misrata, Al-Zintan, Sirte, etc.). The separatist tendencies of the tribes grew stronger.Along with it, the UN attempts to stabilize the situation in the country. ...

Conflicts among Churchgoers in Ukraine – Non-Peaceful Transfers to the OCU not Covered by Media and State

Interactive maps at several websites show that within three months there have been more than 500 voluntary transfers of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church – Moscow Patriarchate's (UOC-MP) parishes to the Orthodox Church of Ukraine recently created by Patriarch Bartholomew and president Poroshenko. The UOC-MP parishes total 12,000, so this is a significant value. However, according to the OHCHR Report on the human rights situation in Ukraine from 16 November 2018 to 15 February 2019, not all of these transfers were voluntary – in some cases they were undertaken by local authorities or far-right organizations, and those members of the UOC-MP ...

Neo-Nazi Network in German Army Exposed

The arrest of a German army officer suspected of plotting the assassination of leftist politicians and high-ranking state officials has exposed the operations of neo-Nazi forces at the highest levels of the German military (Bundeswehr). The information that has emerged thus far indicates that the suspected officer-terrorist was part of a broader network of fascists within the Bundeswehr, and that his activities were known to his superiors and covered up by them. Most astonishing is the official reaction to these alarming revelations. They have prompted an outpouring of anger in the German media and from the establishment parties directed not at the ...

Bombing Libya: The Origins of Europe’s Immigration Crisis

The world will long remember the present immigrant crisis in Europe, which has negatively affected countless people there, and almost all countries. History will certainly record it as a major tragedy. Could it have been averted? Or kept within much more reasonable humane bounds? After the United States and NATO began to bomb Libya in March 2011 – almost daily for more than six months! – to overthrow the government of Muammar Gaddafi (with the completely phoney excuse that Gaddafi was about to invade Benghazi, the Libyan center of his opponents, and so the United States and NATO were thus saving ...