This Is How the U.S. Does ‘Dialogue’

https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2022/01/13/this-is-how-us-does-dialogue/

This Is How the U.S. Does ‘Dialogue’ 這就是美國如何進行“對話” by Pepe Escobar January 13, 2022

This Is How the U.S. Does ‘Dialogue’

Washington will not consider Russian proposals on no expansion of NATO, and has no intention of even discussing the idea. So much for “dialogue”.

It was the first high-level Russia-NATO meeting since 2019 – coming immediately after the non sequitur of the U.S.-Russia “security guarantee” non-dialogue dialogue earlier in the week in Geneva.

So what happened in Brussels? Essentially yet another non-dialogue dialogue – complete with a Kafkaesque NATO preface: we’re prepared for dialogue, but the Kremlin’s proposals are unacceptable.

This was a double down on the American envoy to NATO, Julianne Smith, preemptively blaming Russia for the actions that “accelerated this disaster”.

By now every sentient being across Eurasia and its European peninsula should be familiar with Russia’s top two, rational demands: no further NATO expansion, and no missile systems stationed near its borders.

Now let’s switch to the spin machine. NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg’s platitudes were predictably faithful to his spectacular mediocrity. On the already pre-empted dialogue, he said it was “important to start a dialogue”.

Russia, he said, “urged NATO to refuse to admit Ukraine; the alliance responded by refusing to compromise on enlargement”. Yet NATO “welcomed bilateral consultations” on security guarantees.

NATO also proposed a series of broad security consultations, and “Russia has not yet agreed, but has not ruled out them either.”

No wonder: the Russians had already noted, even before it happened, that this is noting but stalling tactics.

The Global South will be relieved to know that Stoltenberg defended

NATO’s military blitzkriegs in both Kosovo and Libya: after all “they fell under UN mandates”. So they were benign. Not a word on NATO’s stellar performance in Afghanistan.

And then, the much-awaited clincher: NATO worries about Russian troops “on the border with Ukraine” – actually from 130 km to 180 km away, inside European Russian territory. And the alliance considers “untrue” that expansion is “an aggressive act”. Why? Because “it spreads democracy”.

Bomb me to democracy, baby

So here’s the NATO gospel in a flash. Now compare it with the sobering words of Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Grushko.

Grushko carefully enounced how “NATO is determined to contain Russia. The United States and its allies are trying to achieve superiority in all areas and in all possible theaters of military operations.” That was a veiled reference to Full Spectrum Dominance, which since 2002 remains the American gospel.

Grushko also referred to “Cold War-era containment tactics”, and that

“all cooperation [with Russia] has been halted” – by NATO. Still,

“Russia honestly and directly pointed out to NATO that a further slide of the situation could lead to dire consequences for European security.”

The conclusion was stark: “The Russian Federation and NATO do not have a unifying positive agenda at all.”

Virtually all Russophobic factions of the bipartisan War Inc. machine in Washington cannot possibly accept that there should be no forces stationed on European states that were not members of NATO in 1997; and that current NATO members should attempt no military intervention in Ukraine as well as in other Eastern European, Transcaucasian, and Central Asian states.

On Monday in Geneva, Deputy Foreign Minister Ryabkov had already stressed, once again, that Russia’s red line is unmovable: “For us, it’s absolutely mandatory to make sure that Ukraine never, never, ever becomes a member of NATO.”

Diplomatic sources confirmed that in Geneva, Ryabkov and his team had for all practical purposes to act like teachers in kindergarten, making sure there would be “no misunderstandings”.

Now compare it with the U.S. State Department’s Ned Price, speaking after those grueling eight hours shared between Ryabkov and Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman: Washington will not consider Russian proposals on no expansion of NATO, and has no intention of even discussing the idea.

So much for “dialogue”.

Ryabkov confirmed there was no progress. Referring to his didacticism, he had to stress, “We are calling on the U.S. to demonstrate a maximum of responsibility at this moment. Risks related to a possible increase of confrontation shouldn’t be underestimated.”

To say, in Ryabkov’s words, that “significant” Russian effort has been made to persuade the Americans that “playing with fire” is not in their interests is the euphemism of the young century.

Let me sanction you to oblivion

A quick recap is crucial to understand how things could have derailed so fast.

NATO’s not exactly secret strategy, from the beginning, has been to pressure Moscow to directly negotiate with Kiev on Donbass, even though Russia is not mentioned in the Minsk Agreements.

While Moscow was being forced to become part of the Ukraine/Donbass confrontation, it barely broke a sweat smashing a coup cum color revolution in Belarus. Afterwards, the Russians assembled in no time an impressive strike force – with corresponding military infrastructure – in European Russia territory to respond in lightning quick fashion in case there was a Ukrainian blitzkrieg in Donbass.

No wonder an alarmed NATOstan had to do something about the notion of fighting Russia to the last impoverished Ukrainian. They may at least have understood that Ukraine would be completely destroyed.

The beauty is how Moscow turned things around with a new geopolitical jiu-jitsu move. Ukro-dementia encouraged by NATO – complete with empty promises of becoming a member – opened the way for Russia to demand no further NATO expansion, with the withdrawal of all military infrastructure from Eastern Europe to boot.

It was obvious that Ryabkov, in his talks with Sherman, would refuse any suggestion that Russia should dismantle the logistical infrastructure set up in its own European Russia territory. For all practical purposes, Ryabkov smashed Sherman to bits. What was left was meek threats of more sanctions.

Still, it will be a Sisyphean task to convince the Empire and its NATO satrapies not to stage some sort of military adventure in Ukraine. That’s the gist of what Ryabkov and Grushko said over and over again in Geneva and Brussels. They also had to stress the obvious: if further sanctions are imposed on Russia, there would be severe blowback especially in Europe.

But how is it humanly possible for seasoned pros like Ryabkov and Grushko to argue, rationally, with a bunch of amateur blind bats such as Blinken, Sullivan, Nuland and Sherman?

There has been some serious speculation on the timeframe ahead for Russia to in fact not even bother to listen to the American “baby babble” (copyright Maria Zakharova) anymore. Could be around 2027, or even 2025.

What’s happening next is that the five-year extension of the new START treaty expires in February 2026. Then there will be no ceiling

for nuclear strategic weapons. The Power of Siberia 2 gas pipeline to China will make Gazprom even less dependent on the European market. The combined Russia-China financial system will become nearly impervious to U.S. sanctions. The Russia-China strategic partnership will be sharing even more substantial military tech.

All of that is way more consequential than the dirty secret that is not a secret in the current “security guarantees” kabuki: the exceptionalist, “indispensable” nation is congenitally incapable of giving up on the forever expansion of NATO to, well, outer space.

At the same time, the Russians are very much aware of a quite prosaic truth; the U.S. will not fight for Ukraine.

So welcome to Instagrammed Irrationalism. What happens next? Most possibly a provocation, with the possibility, for instance, of a chemical black ops to be blamed on Russia, followed by – what else – more sanctions.

The package is ready. It comes in the form of a bill by Dem senators supported by the White House to bring “severe costs” to the Russian economy in case Moscow finally answers their prayers and “invades” Ukraine.

Sanctions would directly hit President Putin, Prime Minister Mishustin, Foreign Minister Lavrov, the Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces Gen Gerasimov, and “commanders of various branches of the Armed Forces, including the Air Force and Navy.”

Targeted banks and financial institutions include Sberbank, VTB, Gazprombank, Moscow Credit Bank, Alfa-Bank, Otkritie Bank, PSB, Sovcombank, Transcapitalbank, and the Russian Direct Investment Fund. They would all be cut off from SWIFT.

If this bill sounds like a declaration of war, that’s because it is. Call it the American version of “dialogue”.

The views of individual contributors do not necessarily represent those of the Strategic Culture Foundation.

Video: Political activist Sara Flounders slams U.S. response to COVID-19

Video: Political activist Sara Flounders slams U.S. response to COVID-19 政治活動家抨擊美國對新冠病毒的反應 By Li Jingjing Jan 14 2022

https://vimeo.com/665864115
https://www.facebook.com/100036400039778/posts/638674937355835/?d=n

“When I tested positive, I was in a rage, I really was,” Sara Flounders, a New Jersey-based writer and political activist said, explaining even she took three shots of vaccines and had been following all prevention measures, she was still infected with COVID-19 as cases are surging dramatically in the U.S. this winter.

The U.S. keeps shattering records of daily reported cases, with the number at 1.5 million cases on Wednesday.

Flounders had been criticizing the U.S. chaotic response to prevent the spread of the disease since the pandemic started. She wrote a number of articles as the co-editor of Workers World newspaper and co-authored the book “Capitalism on a Ventilator: The Impact of COVID-19 in China and the U.S.” A political activist, Flounders also criticizes U.S. foreign policies heavily and organized solidarities delegations to countries that were devastated by U.S. wars and sanctions, such as Iraq, Iran, Syria and Cuba.

Even though the virus is not as deadly after the booster shot, Flounders said she still experienced severe symptoms like body aches and vertigo for weeks. She believes the emergence of new variants that are already breaking vaccines is a dreadful result of the failed response to COVID-19.

Uncoordinated response

“There’s no public health system in the United States today,” Flounders said. She complained that the government of the U.S. failed at dealing with the pandemic, pointing out different counties, cities and states are following different rules which led to a chaotic response.

The lack of any measures of coordination and at the same time, an insistence that the solutions be in the hands of private corporations in areas where they could make a profit.”

Another fact Flounders pointed out is that even though the daily reported cases are at a record high in the U.S now, it’s still underreporting as many who did rapid test at home like her were not included in the official numbers.

“I first did take a rapid test at home, tested positive, knew I was sick, I know, family knows, but there’s no government collection of that data.”

Video: Chinese Ambassador to US handouts Years of the Tiger gifts during the Hockey Game at Capital One Arena

Video: Chinese Ambassador to US handouts Years of the Tiger gifts during the Hockey Game at Capital One Arena in Washington DC on Jan 10 2022 中國駐美國大使於 2022 年 1 月 10 日在華盛頓特區首都一號體育館的曲棍球比賽中分發虎年禮物 Why not doing the same in San Francisco and Honolulu Hawaii? 為什麼不能在加州三藩市和夏威夷做同一樣的推廣, 為本地華人增光呢?
https://vimeo.com/665826434
https://www.facebook.com/100036400039778/posts/638596154030380/?d=n

How to Satisfy the American Empire: Smear the Left, Demonize China

https://chroniclesofhaiphong.substack.com/

How to Satisfy the American Empire: Smear the Left, Demonize China 如何滿足美帝國：抹黑左派，妖魔化中國 by Danny Haiphong January 13 2022

https://chroniclesofhaiphong.substack.com/

A recent report in The Nation magazine accomplishes both by inducing readers with a steady dose of Cold War leftism and condemnation of those critical of the Empire’s narrative

International movement against new cold war is growing – CGTN
Many on the so-called “left” view China and the U.S. as equally oppressive and imperialist in character. This is a historic trend dating back to the Cold War which divided the Western left into a variety of camps. One of these camps was the “Neither Washington nor Moscow” consortium of social democrats and liberals who saw the Soviet Union as an imperialist force unworthy of defense from U.S. aggression. Such a position fit neatly into Washington’s larger imperialist designs and provided cover for the ideological onslaught of anti-communism.

A recent report in The Nation demonstrates how the slogan “Neither Washington nor Moscow” has been replaced with “Neither Washington nor Beijing.” The author, David Klion, concludes that leftists are currently divided into two camps on the question of China: those “apologists” who prioritize peace and critics of China who prioritize “human rights.” Klion closes with a citation from Lausan, a collective that supposedly supports a “decolonial” framework on Hong Kong yet has routinely characterized any leftist opposition to the Western narrative on China as “fascist” or “tankie.”

Klion’s pro-Empire bias is in keeping with his affiliations and body of work. Klion is the newsletter editor for Jewish Currents, a so-called left magazine which has published multiple screeds in support of U.S. intervention in Syria. The publication has compared the war in Syria to the Holocaust (with Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad playing the role of Hitler) and demanded that the Obama administration set up a no-fly zone to bomb the Syrian government out of power. In 2018, Klion penned an article in The Nation arguing that progressives should embrace normalization as a mechanism for internal interference in Russia’s affairs on the basis of “human rights” concerns. Klion has since deleted several tweets expressing his loyalty to the debunked Russiagate conspiracy theory.

Klion’s article on China misses the mark from the title onward. He begins by asking “what should the left should do about China?” only to pivot to Lausan’s amateurish rant about “tankies” and disagreements with the DSA about how to address U.S. tensions with China. The article argues that one can legitimately criticize the Chinese government (“do something about China) and curtail war too. Klion attempts to build credibility for this argument through quotes from the Soros and Koch-funded Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, Bernie Sanders’ foreign policy advisor Matt Duss, and the academic-driven Justice is Global movement. Justice is Global has produced an entire report instructing activists on how to oppose anti-Asian racism while engaging in “legitimate” criticisms of China. The report (surprise, surprise) was written in consultation with prominent members of Lausan.

Klion then engages in a lengthy smear campaign of the Qiao Collective, a group of Chinese diaspora activists who publish educational material that counters New Cold War propaganda against China. Again, Lausan is quoted at length to give the impression that the Qiao Collective is sowing discord on the Left. Only criticisms and condemnations of the Qiao Collective are given attention in the piece while the breadth of the group’s work is reduced to a singular position on Hong Kong protests taken from the organization’s website.

Klion’s intellectual laziness continues on the question of “human rights” in China’s Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. He dismisses the content of Qiao Collective’s report on Xinjiang and has been accused of misrepresenting scholar and activist Vijay Prashad’s quote to the article. Prashad, who is currently the director of the Tricontinental Institute for Social Research and an organizer in the anti-war and anti-colonial movement, spoke out about the issue on Twitter.

He also provided the Chronicles of Haiphong with the following statement:

Any project of a people must have the right to advance its own understanding of their struggles. We have to ask the question: is it acceptable in China to advance the wellbeing of people and eliminate poverty? Furthermore, the article accepts that Chinese colonialism is a reality in Xinjiang. That’s a debatable premise in my opinion. I would like to see David speak out on these issues.

However, Klion does nothing of the sort. Instead, he counters the Qiao Collective and Vijay Prashad’s position on the Xinjiang issue by citing Rayhat Asan, a “human rights lawyer” and senior non-resident fellow for the Strategic Litigation Center at NATO’s think-tank, the Atlantic Council. The Atlantic Council receives funding from the largest Wall Street banks and corrupt governments, including Goldman Sachs and the United Arab Emirates.

Klion’s article concludes with a shallow analysis of the possible effectiveness of sanctions in addressing “human rights” in China and what the DSA’s internal debate on how to approach human rights claims against China without supporting a pro-interventionist position reveals about the Left. The question of what position the Left should take on China is reduced to how the U.S. should confront China. The dangers of the U.S.’s imperialist aggression and the questionable claims made about China are marginalized or ignored entirely. Klion’s position is clear: if the U.S. left does not lead the way in condemning China, Mike Pompeo and the far right will.

It makes sense, then, that Klion would give a public relations boost to so-called leftists who support the ideological propaganda of the New Cold War. The logic is simple. If you say anything positive about China, then you are a “tankie.” If you question the U.S. and Western narrative about Hong Kong, Xinjiang, or any other “human rights issue,” then you are also a “tankie.” Furthermore, if you oppose U.S. sanctions that threaten to harm the livelihoods of people in Xinjiang, for example, congratulations — you too are nothing but a “tankie.” Klion’s article refers to the word “tankie” six times.

Such immature political analysis has no place in a genuine, anti-imperialist movement or investigative journalism. The truth is that any concession to anti-China propaganda is a gift to the American Empire. These concessions come in a myriad of forms. They include the omission of U.S. aggression against China, the slander of those critical of humanitarian interventionism and claims of “genocide” in China made by dubious sources, and a total rejection of China’s political and social processes as “authoritarian.” Klion’s article subscribes to all of them.

The article avoids discussion of U.S. militarism in the Asia Pacific such as the occupation of Okinawa or the 400 U.S. military bases that surround China. The policy manifestations of the U.S. propaganda war on China receive no attention in Klion’s article, either. Bernie Sanders’ foreign policy advisor Matt Duss specifically advocates for Magnitsky sanctions to weaken the Chinese economy but ignores the fact sanctions on China already exist. The Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act possesses a clause that mandates the President of the United States place sanctions on Hong Kong should the city violate existing U.S. sanctions on Iran and the DPRK. Klion’s minimization of U.S. policy creates a false equivalency between the U.S. and China, a symptom of the pro-imperialist, Cold War attitudes that continue to plague much of what calls itself the “left” in the U.S. and West.

Real leftists oppose their own government’s warmongering policies, uphold international law, and pay proper attention to achievements of countries targeted by U.S. imperialism such as China’s elimination of extreme poverty. Real leftists investigate claims made by dubious sources backed by U.S. intelligence cutouts such as the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) rather than embrace them wholesale. Real leftists understand that the American Empire is the biggest obstacle in the way of human progress. They don’t ask, “what should the Left do about China?” Rather, they pose the question, “How can the Left develop solidarity with China and the Chinese people in the global struggle against imperialism and oppression of all kinds?”

On the date of publication, Klion tweeted that he was “the furthest thing from a China expert.” It showed. His article contains little to no substance on the facts and criticisms that undergird left divisions on China. It was clear from the beginning that the purpose of the piece was to manufacture consent for a “Neither Washington nor Beijing” position amongst the Left. Champions of this formulation are generally more concerned with winning leftists over to an anti-China position rather than to a pro-peace position.

Klion uses human rights as a cudgel to smear leftists and satisfy the powerful forces in charge of the American Empire. His article offers little more than an assortment of Cold War talking points that masquerade as “objective” investigation. A political agenda was pursued from the start, and Left challengers to the Empire’s narrative were demonized and dismissed. This is completely in line with the U.S.’s New Cold War against China and is reflective of the pro-Empire mentality that continues to render the Western Left an ineffective and counterproductive force in the global struggle for peace and socialism.