AFGHANISTAN, AMERICAN EMPIRE, ANALYSIS, BRITAIN, EGYPT, FOREIGN POLICY, HISTORY, INTELLIGENCE, INTERNATIONAL, IRAN, IRAQ, MEDIA, MIDDLE EAST, MILITARISM, SYRIA, TERRORISM, UNITED NATIONS 9/11: Why Americans Were Never Told Why They Were Attacked September 11, 2021

When Western media discusses terrorism against the West, such as 9/11, the motive is almost always left out, even when the terrorists state they are avenging longstanding Western violence in the Muslim world, reports Joe Lauria.

After a Russian commercial airliner was downed over Egypt’s Sinai last October [2015], Western media reported that the Islamic State bombing was retaliation against Russian airstrikes in Syria. The killing of 224 people, mostly Russian tourists on holiday, was matter-of-factly treated as an act of war by a fanatical group without an air force resorting to terrorism as a way to strike back.

Yet, Western militaries have killed infinitely more innocent civilians in the Middle East than Russia has. Then why won’t Western officials and media cite retaliation for that Western violence as a cause of terrorist attacks on New York, Paris and Brussels?

Instead, there’s a fierce determination not to make the same kinds of linkages that the press made so easily when it was Russia on the receiving end of terror. [See Consortium News’s “Obama Ignores Russian Terror Victims.”]

For example, throughout four hours of Sky News’ coverage of the July 7, 2005 attacks in London, only the briefest mention was made about a possible motive for that horrific assault on three Underground trains and a bus, killing 52 people. But the attacks came just two years after Britain’s participation in the murderous invasion of Iraq.

Prime Minister Tony Blair, one of the Iraq War’s architects, condemned the loss of innocent life in London and linked the attacks to a G-8 summit he’d opened that morning. A TV host then read and belittled a 10-second claim of responsibility from a self-proclaimed Al Qaeda affiliate in Germany saying that the Iraq invasion was to blame. There was no more discussion about it.

To explain why these attacks happen is not to condone or justify terrorist outrages against innocent civilians. It is simply a responsibility of journalism, especially when the “why” is no mystery. It was fully explained by Mohammad Sidique Khan, one of the four London suicide bombers. Though speaking for only a tiny fraction of Muslims, he said in a videotaped recording before the attack:

“Your democratically-elected governments continuously perpetuate atrocities against my people all over the world. And your support of them makes you directly responsible, just as I am directly responsible for protecting and avenging my Muslim brothers and sisters. Until we feel security you will be our targets and until you stop the bombing, gassing, imprisonment and torture of my people we will not stop this fight. We are at war and I am a soldier. Now you too will taste the reality of this situation.”

The Islamic State published the following reason for carrying out last November’s [2015] Paris attacks:

“Let France and all nations following its path know that they will continue to be at the top of the target list for the Islamic State and that the scent of death will not leave their nostrils as long as they partake part in the crusader campaign … and boast about their war against Islam in France, and their strikes against Muslims in the lands of the Caliphate with their jets.”

Claiming It’s a State of Mind

Sept. 12, 2001: President George W. Bush, center, with Vice President Dick Cheney and National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice looking over a brief together in the White House. (U.S. National Archives)
Ignoring such clear statements of intent, we are instead served bromides by the likes of State Department spokesman Mark Toner about the Brussels bombings, saying it is impossible “to get into the minds of those who carry out these attacks.”

Mind reading isn’t required, however. The Islamic State explicitly told us in a press statement why it did the Brussels attacks: “We promise black days for all crusader nations allied in their war against the Islamic State, in response to their aggressions against it.”

Yet, still struggling to explain why it happened, Toner said, “I think it reflects more of an effort to inflict on who they see as Western or Westerners … fear that they can carry out these kinds of attacks and to attempt to lash out.”

Toner ascribed the motive to a state of mind: “I don’t know if this is about establishing a caliphate beyond the territorial gains that they’ve tried to make in Iraq and Syria, but it’s another aspect of Daesh’s kind of warped ideology that they’re carrying out these attacks on Europe and elsewhere if they can. … Whether it’s the hopes or the dreams or the aspirations of a certain people never justifies violence.”

After 9/11, President George W. Bush infamously said the U.S. was attacked because “they hate our freedoms.” It’s a perfect example of a Western view that ascribes motives to Easterners without allowing them to speak for themselves or taking them seriously when they do.

Explaining his motive behind 9/11, Osama bin Laden, in his Letter to America, expressed anger about U.S. troops stationed on Saudi soil. Bin Laden asked: “Why are we fighting and opposing you? The answer is very simple: Because you attacked us and continue to attack us.” (Today the U.S. has dozens of bases in seven countries in the region.)

During a Republican presidential debate in 2008 Rudy Giuliani, who was New York mayor on 9/11, became incensed and demanded Ron Paul withdraw his remark that the U.S. was attacked because of U.S. violent interventions in Muslim countries.

“Have you ever read about the reasons they attacked us?” Paul said. “They attacked us because we have been over there. We’ve been bombing Iraq for ten years. I’m suggesting we listen to the people who attacked us and the reason they did it.”

“That’s an extraordinary statement,” responded Giuliani. “As someone who lived through the attack of Sept. 11, that we invited the attack, because we were attacking Iraq. I don’t think I’ve ever heard that before. And I’ve heard some pretty absurd explanations for Sept. 11.”

The audience had never heard it either, as they heartily cheered Giuliani.

“And I would ask the Congressman to withdraw that comment and tell us that he didn’t really mean that,” Giuliani said.

“I believe very sincerely when the CIA teach and speak about blowback,” Paul responded. “If we think that we can do what we want around the world and not incite hatred, then we have a problem. They don’t come here to attack us because we are rich and we are free. They attack us because we are over there.”

So why won’t Western officials and corporate media take the jihadists’ statements of intent at face value? Why won’t they really tell us why we are attacked?

It seems to be an effort to cover up a long and ever more intense history of Western military and political intervention in the Middle East and the violent reactions it provokes, reactions that put innocent Western lives at risk. Indirect Western culpability in these terrorist acts is routinely suppressed, let alone evidence of direct Western involvement with terrorism.

Some government officials and journalists might delude themselves into believing that Western intervention in the Middle East is an attempt to protect civilians and spread democracy to the region, instead of bringing chaos and death to further the West’s strategic and economic aims. Other officials must know better.

1920-1950: A Century of Intervention Begins

A few might know the mostly hidden history of duplicitous and often reckless Western actions in the Middle East. It is hidden only to most Westerners, however. So it is worth looking in considerable detail at this appalling record of interference in the lives of millions of Muslims and peoples of other faiths to appreciate the full weight it exerts on the region. It can help explain anti-Western anger that spurs a few radicals to commit atrocities in the West.

French diplomat Francois George-Picot, who along with British colonial officer Mark Sykes drew lines across a Middle East map of the Ottoman Empire after World War I, carving out states with boundaries that are nearly the same as they are today.
French diplomat Francois George-Picot and British colonial officer Mark Sykes drew lines across a Middle East map of the Ottoman Empire after World War I, carving out states with boundaries that are nearly the same today.

The history is an unbroken string of interventions from the end of the First World War until today. It began after the war when Britain and France double-crossed the Arabs on promised independence for aiding them in victory over the Ottoman Empire. The secret 1916 Sykes-Picot accord divided the region between the European powers behind the Arabs’ backs. London and Paris created artificial nations from Ottoman provinces to be controlled by their installed kings and rulers with direct intervention when necessary.

What has followed for 100 years has been continuous efforts by Britain and France, superseded by the United States after the Second World War, to manage Western dominance over a rebellious region.

The new Soviet government revealed the Sykes-Picot terms in November 1917 in Izvestia. When the war was over, the Arabs revolted against British and French duplicity. London and Paris then ruthlessly crushed the uprisings for independence.

France defeated a proclaimed Syrian government in a single day, July 24, 1920, at the Battle of Maysalun. Five years later there was a second Syrian revolt, replete with assassinations and sabotage, which took two years to suppress. If you walk through the souk in Old Damascus and look up at the corrugated iron roof you see tiny specks of daylight peeking through. Those are bullet holes from French war planes that massacred civilians below.

Britain put down a series of independence revolts in Iraq between 1920 and 1922, first with 100,000 British and Indian troops and then mostly with the first use of air power in counterinsurgency. Thousands of Arabs were killed. Britain also helped its installed King Abdullah put down rebellions in Jordan in 1921 and 1923.

London then faced an Arab revolt in Palestine lasting from 1936 to 1939, which it brutally crushed, killing about 4,000 Arabs. The next decade, Israeli terrorists drove the British out of Palestine in 1947, one of the rare instances when terrorists attained their political goals.

Germany and Italy, late to the Empire game, were next to invade North Africa and the Middle East at the start of the Second World War. They were driven out by British imperial forces (largely Indian) with U.S. help. Britain invaded and defeated nominally independent Iraq, which had sided with the Axis. With the Soviet Union, Britain also invaded and occupied Iran.

After the war, the U.S. assumed regional dominance under the guise of fending off Soviet regional influence. Just three years after Syrian independence from France, the two-year old Central Intelligence Agency engineered a Syrian coup in 1949 against a democratic, secular government. Why? Because it had balked at approving a Saudi pipeline plan that the U.S. favored. Washington installed Husni al-Za’im, a military dictator, who approved the plan.

1950s: Syria Then and Now

Before the major invasion and air wars in Iraq and Libya of the past 15 years, the 1950s was the era of America’s most frequent, and mostly covert, involvement in the Middle East. The first coup of the Central Intelligence Agency was in Syria in March 1949. The Eisenhower administration then wanted to contain both Soviet influence and Arab nationalism, which revived the quest for an independent Arab nation. After a series of coups and counter-coups, Syria returned to democracy in 1955, leaning towards the Soviets.

A 1957 Eisenhower administration coup attempt in Syria, in which Jordan and Iraq were to invade the country after manufacturing a pretext, went horribly wrong, provoking a crisis that spun out of Washington’s control and brought the U.S. and Soviets to the brink of war.

Turkey put 50,000 troops on the Syrian border, threatening to invade. Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev threatened Turkey with an implied nuclear attack and the U.S. got Ankara to back off. This sounds eerily familiar to what happened last month when Turkey again threatened to invade Syria and the U.S. put on the brakes. The main difference is that Saudi Arabia in 1957 was opposed to the invasion of Syria, while it was ready to join it last month. [See Consortiumnews.com’s “Risking Nuclear War for Al Qaeda?“]

In the 1950s, the U.S. also began its association with Islamic religious extremism to counter Soviet influence and contain secular Arab nationalism. “We should do everything possible to stress the ‘holy war’ aspect,” President Eisenhower told his Secretary of State John Foster Dulles. After the Cold War, religious extremists, some still tied to the West, became themselves the excuse for U.S. intervention.

Despite U.S. regional ascendance in the 1950s, Britain and France weren’t through. In 1953, an MI6-CIA coup in Iran replaced a democracy with a restored monarchy when Mohammed Mossadegh, the elected prime minister, was overthrown after seeking to nationalize British-controlled Iranian oil. Britain had discovered oil in Iran in 1908, spurring deeper interest in the region.

Three years later Britain and France combined with Israel to attack Egypt in 1956 when President Gamal Abdel Nasser, who had taken over from the ousted British-backed King Farouk, moved to nationalize the Suez Canal. The U.S. stopped that operation, too, denying Britain emergency oil supplies and access to the International Monetary Fund if the Brits didn’t back down.

Suez represented the final shift in external power in the Middle East from the U.K. to the U.S. But Washington couldn’t (or wouldn’t) stop Britain from trying and failing to assassinate Nasser, who had sparked the Arab nationalist movement.

In 1958, the U.S. landed 14,000 Marines in Lebanon to prop up President Camille Chamoun after a civil conflict broke out against Chamoun’s intention to change the constitution and run for reelection. The rebellion was minimally supported by the United Arab Republic, the 1958-61 union between Egypt and Syria. It was the first U.S. invasion of an Arab country, excluding the U.S.’s World War II intervention in North Africa.

1960 to 2003: Interventions Post Colonial

The 1954-1962 Algerian rebellion against French colonialism, which Paris brutally tried to suppress, included Algerian acts of terrorism. Exhibiting the same cluelessness displayed by State Department spokesman Toner, the French attitude towards the uprising was expressed by an exasperated French officer in film The Battle of Algiers when he exclaimed, “What do you people want?”

From the 1960s to the 1980s, U.S. intervention in the region was mostly restricted to military support for Israel in the 1967 and 1973 Arab-Israeli wars. From an Arab perspective that represented a major U.S. commitment to protect Israeli colonialism.

The Soviet Union also intervened directly in the 1967-70 War of Attrition between Egypt and Israel when Nasser went to Moscow to say he’d resign and have a pro-Western leader take over if the Russians didn’t come to his aid. In backing Nasser, the Soviets lost 58 men.

The Soviets were also involved in the region to varying degrees and times throughout the Cold War, giving aid to Palestinians, Nasser’s Egypt, Syria, Saddam’s Iraq and Muammar Gaddafi’s Libya — all countries and leaders charting an independent course from the West.

During the 1970 Black September conflict between Jordan and Palestinian guerrillas, the U.S. had Marines poised to embark in Haifa and ready to secure Amman airport when Jordan repelled a Syrian invasion in support of the Palestinians.

In the 1980s the U.S. backed Saddam Hussein in his brutal, eight-year war with Iran, supplying him with arms, intelligence and chemical weapons, which he did not hesitate to use against Iranians and Kurds. President Ronald Reagan also bombed Libya in 1986 after accusing it without conclusive evidence of a Berlin bombing ten days earlier that killed a U.S. soldier.

The U.S. returned more directly to the region with a vengeance in the 1991 Gulf War, burying alive surrendering Iraqi troops with bulldozers; shooting thousands of soldiers in the back as they retreated on the Highway of Death, and calling for uprisings in the Shia south and Kurdish north and then leaving them to Saddam’s revenge.

Iraq never recovered fully from the devastation, being crushed for 12 years under U.N. and U.S. sanctions that then U.N. Ambassador Madeleine Albright admitted contribute to the deaths of half a million Iraqi children. But she said it was “worth it.”

Iraq’s sanctions only ended after the 2003 full-scale U.S. and British invasion of the sovereign Arab nation, an assault justified by bogus claims about Iraq hiding stockpiles of WMD that could be shared with Al Qaeda. The invasion killed hundreds of thousands of people and left Iraq devastated. The invasion also unleashed a civil war and gave rise to the terrorist group, the Islamic State in Iraq, which later merged with terrorists in Syria to become ISIS.

Throughout this century of intervention, Britain, France and the U.S. managed the region through strong alliances with dictators or monarchs who had no regard for democratic rights. But when those autocrats became expendable, such as Saddam Hussein had, they are disposed of.

The Biggest Invasion Yet

While most Americans may be unaware of this long history of accumulated humiliation of Muslims, Christians and other religious minorities in the region — and the resulting hatred of the West — they can’t ignore the Iraq invasion, the largest by the West in the region, excluding World War II. Nor is the public unaware of the 2011 intervention in Libya, and the chaos that has resulted. And yet no link is made between these disasters and terror attacks on the West.

The secular strongmen of Iraq, Libya and Syria were targeted because they dared to be independent of Western hegemony — not because of their awful human rights records. The proof is that Saudi Arabia’s and Israel’s human rights records also are appalling, but the U.S. still staunchly stands by these “allies.”

During the so-called Arab Spring, when Bahrainis demanded democracy in that island kingdom, the U.S. mostly looked the other way as they were crushed by a combined force of the nation’s monarchy and Saudi troops. Washington also clung to Egyptian strongman Hosni Mubarak until the bitter end.

However, under the pretext of protecting the Libyan population, the U.S. and NATO implemented a bloody “regime change” in Libya leading to anarchy, another failed state and the creation of one more ISIS enclave. For the past five years, the West and its Gulf allies have fueled the civil war in Syria, contributing to another humanitarian disaster.

The West’s motive for all this meddling is often pinned on oil. But obedience is a strong factor. Hans Morgenthau wrote in Politics Among Nations (1968), that the urge of empires to expand “will not be satisfied so long as there remains anywhere a possible object of domination – a politically organized group of men which by its very independence challenges the conqueror’s lust for power.”

Tariq Ali, in his 2003 book Bush in Babylon, writes about Gnaeus Julius Agricola, the Roman general responsible for much of the conquest of Britain in the First Century: “On one of his visits to the outer reaches of [Britain], Agricola looked in the direction of Ireland and asked a colleague why it remained unoccupied. Because, came the reply, it consisted of uncultivable bog lands and was inhabited by very primitive tribes. What could it possibly have to offer the great Empire? The unfortunate man was sternly admonished. Economic gain isn’t all. Far more important is the example provided by an unoccupied country. It may be backward, but it is still free.”

Cloaking Motives

Little of this long history of Western manipulation, deceit and brutality in the Middle East is known to Americans because U.S. media almost never invokes it to explain Arab and Iranian attitudes towards the West.

Muslims remember this history, however. I know Arabs who are still infuriated by the Sykes-Picot backstabbing, let alone the most recent depredations. Indeed fanatics like the Islamic State are still ticked off about the Crusades, a much earlier round of Western intervention. In some ways it’s surprising, and welcomed, that only the tiniest fraction of Muslims has turned to terrorism.

Nevertheless, Islamophobes like Donald Trump want to keep all Muslims out of the U.S. until he figures out “what the hell is going on.” He says Muslims have a “deep hatred” of Americans. But he won’t figure it out because he’s ignoring the main cause of that hatred – the past century of intervention, topped by the most recent Western atrocities in Iraq and Libya.

Stripping out the political and historical motives renders terrorists as nothing more than madmen fueled by irrational hate of a benevolent West that says it only wants to help them. They hate us simply because we are Western, according to people like Toner, and not because we’ve done anything to them.

Israel and its Western enablers likewise bury the history of Israel’s ethnic cleansing and piecemeal conquest of Palestine so they can dismiss Palestinians who turn to terrorism as motivated only by hatred of Jews for being Jews.

I’ve asked several Israelis why Palestinians tend to hate them. The more educated the Israeli the more likely the answer was because of the history of how Israel was established and how it continues to rule. The less educated my respondent, the more likely I heard that they hate us simply because we are Jews.

There’s no excuse for terrorism. But there is a practical way to curb it: end the current interventions and occupations and plan no more.

The Psychology of Terror

Of course, anger at the West’s history of exploiting Muslim lands isn’t the only motivation for terrorism. There are emotional and group pressures that push some over the line to strap on bombs and blow up innocent people around them. Thankfully, it takes a very unusual type of individual to react to this ugly history with ugly acts of terror.

Money also plays a part. We’ve seen waves of defections as ISIS has recently cut fighters’ pay in half. Anger at Western-installed and propped-up local rulers who oppress their people on behalf of the West is another motive. Extremist preachers, especially Saudi Wahhabis, also share the blame as they inspire terrorism, usually against Shia.

President Obama and King Salman Arabia stand at attention during the U.S. national anthem as the First Lady stands in the background with other officials on Jan. 27, 2015, at the start of Obama’s State Visit to Saudi Arabia. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza). (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)

Wading into the psychology of why someone turns to terrorism is an unenviable task. The official Western view is that Islamist extremists merely hate modernity and secularism. That might be their motive in wanting to backwardly transform their own societies by removing Western influence. But it’s not what they say when they claim responsibility for striking inside the West.

To ignore their words and dismiss their violent reaction to the long and ongoing history of Western intervention may shield Americans and Europeans from their partial responsibility for these atrocities. But it also provides cover for the continuing interventions, which in turn will surely produce more terrorism.

Rather than looking at the problem objectively – and self-critically – the West ludicrously cloaks its own violence as an effort to spread democracy (which never seems to materialize) or protect civilians (who are endangered instead). To admit any connection between the sordid historical record and anti-Western terrorism would be to admit culpability and the price that the West is paying for its dominance.

Worse still, letting terrorists be perceived as simply madmen without a cause allows the terrorist response to become justification for further military action. This is precisely what the Bush administration did after 9/11, falsely seeking to connect the attacks to the Iraqi government.

By contrast, connecting terrorism to Western intervention could spark a serious self-examination of the West’s behavior in the region leading to a possible retreat and even an end of this external dominance. But that is clearly something policymakers in Washington, London and Paris – and their subservient media – aren’t prepared to do.

This article was first published in Consortium News on April 9, 2016.

[For more on this topic, see Consortiumnews.com’s “Why Many Muslims Hate the West” and “Muslim Memories of Western Imperialism.”]

Joe Lauria is editor-in-chief of Consortium News and a former UN correspondent for The Wall Street Journal, Boston Globe, and numerous other newspapers. He was an investigative reporter for the Sunday Times of London and began his professional work as a stringer for The New York Times. He can be reached at joelauria@consortiumnews.com and followed on Twitter @unjoe

Professor Ling-chi Wang of UC Berkeley on 9-11-2020: I often wonder how many more blows can the body of the U.S. take before the bubble burst or before Humpty Dumpty has its final fall. Being the 19th anniversary of the Sept. 11 shock today, I am led to think about what has been happening in the U.S. since then. Here is what I think.

Up until Sept. 11, the mainland U.S. – the heart and the symbol of U.S. global financial power – has never experienced direct external and physical assault. On that day, the World Trade Center – the belly of the beast – was blown up and wiped off the surface of the earth by a small handful of people. How could such a catastrophe happen to the most powerful nation on earth, we collectively wondered in shock? As powerful as we were then, the sole power in the world, we were reminded of how vulnerable we were, how much we were hated by some people in the Middle East, and how urgently we needed to rethink and change our approach to that part of the world, including and especially our policy toward Israel at the belly of the region. Instead of heeding the warning and reformulating our worldview and policies toward the Middle East, we doubled down and initiated two perpetual wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and reinforced the same failed policy in Israel to this date. We also became totally obsessed with homeland security. After trillions of dollars spent and thousands of American lives sacrificed needlessly at the expense of much-needed domestic development. we are still at war and we remain convinced that might is right and we will prevail.

Then came the second blow: the spectacular collapse of the U.S. financial capitalism we built in Wall Street for the world in 2008, an unprecedented event resulting in untold sufferings of not just the people of the U.S. but the peoples and countries around the world. China was about the only country that was left standing and to whom we begged for help. Fortunately, China was willing and able to lead the global recovery with massive infrastructure investment but at great cost to the people of China.

Did Obama-Biden express appreciation for China’s helping hand? Not at all. Instead, the collapse did not lead to a national soul-searching. We allowed the house we built to continue to deteriorate and dilapidate, as the rich got richer and the poor got poorer. “Too big to fail” was the slogan in response. Abroad, China’s helping hand was treated as a threat to the global domination of the U.S. and a threat as well to our national security. Pivot to Asia and containment of China by economic, military, and political means became the foundation of our policies toward China in the second term of the Obama administration. These policies have now been carried out fully by the Trump administration in what most scholars ave dubbed a “New Cold War” with China.

Not only did we fail to rethink the unfair design and foundation of the house we built for ourselves and for the compliant world, we rushed to reinforce and double down in massive divestment in health, education, and welfare, deferred maintenance of our infrastructure, and, above all, in income transfer to enrich the top 1% and impoverish the 99%, paving the way for the rise of the “left-behind” of Donald Trump, a demagogue and an destructive emperor without clothes in 2016, who is bent on protecting and enriching himself, dismantling institutions at home and abroad, placing himself above the law, and offering to take America back to the good, old days when the U.S. ruled the Western world during the Cold War.

As if these two major blows that have hit us weren’t enough, we were visited this year, 2020, by yet another major blow: the deadly coronavirus pandemic from coast to coast, affecting every American, rich and poor, white and colored. The public health crisis was followed by a nationwide shutdown of businesses, factories, offices, transportation, schools, and government, resulting in unprecedented massive unemployment and overnight, steepest economic recession in history. Only the stock market, the playground for the wealthy and corporate America, was rationally exuberant. The pandemic nakedly exposed not just how ill-prepared and incompetent the richest and technologically most advance country was in dealing with the most serious public health crisis in our history has ever faced but also how racial minorities and the poor have been disproportionally devastated the infectious disease, unemployment, and business bankruptcy, and how race and class inequity and injustice have been deeply entrenched in our social, economic, political, and cultural systems since the founding of the nation. Americans collectively spontaneously stood up in protests. “Make America great again” was quickly overwhelmed by “Black lives matter” in the streets in virtually all cities and towns across the nation, as people of all ages, colors, and national origin marched and demanded equality and justice for weeks.

Not even such spontaneous mass uprising across the nation aroused the conscience of our political class and push them into action. Instead, White House lost no time in denouncing the protests with provocative racist attacks and in deploying the national guards and the military force to suppress the peaceful marchers with with violence on the one hand. In the mean time, the U.S. Congress went home in the midst of a national crisis without offering any solution to fight the worsening public crisis and economic recession on the other hand. Politics and government are effectively paralyzed, incapable of offering hope and relief to a severely wounded and possibly dying nation, so to speak,

In less than two months, the most consequential presidential and Congressional elections will take place and decide the future fate of the nation. This time, the American brand of pay-to-play democracy will be severely tested and watched worldwide. Will the U.S. survive another severe blow? Billions are being spent by both parties in the election or, shall I say, auction. Both parties are prepared to spent hundreds of millions to challenge the outcomes of the elections. Already, Trump has threatened to ignore the outcome of the election if he loses. Democrats are preparing to challenge whatever action Trump will take. If the outcome of the election cannot be decided quickly, Trump has already threatened to declare himself the victor on election night and refuse to vacate the White House.

Whatever the outcome of the election in November, it looks like the nation is heading for another deadly blow and potentially, chaos or anarchy.

Let me end this email with the same question I raised at the beginning of this email: How many more blows can the U.S. take since September 11, 2001 before it becomes a fallen Humpty Dumpty? If the results turn out to be a free-for-all political, legal or violent brawl, will the U.S. end in civil disorder, declaration of martial laws by Trump, and its constitution tattered? Will it spell the end of American brand of pay-to-play democracy as we know it?

(Follow translation use Google Translate)

加州大學伯克利分校的王靈芝教授於2020年9月11日：我經常想知道在泡沫破裂之前或在矮胖子最後跌落之前，美國的身體還能承受多少打擊。 今天是9月11日震驚事件的19週年紀念日，我被帶去思考自那時以來美國發生的一切。 這就是我的想法。

直到9月11日，美國大陸-美國心臟和全球金融實力的象徵-從未經歷過直接的外部和人身攻擊。那天，一小撮人炸毀了世界貿易中心-獸的腹部。我們集體震驚地想知道，地球上最強大的國家怎麼會發生這樣的災難？當時我們擁有強大的力量，是世界上的唯一力量，這讓我們想起了我們多麼脆弱，中東某些人對我們的憎恨有多少，以及我們迫切需要重新考慮和改變這一部分的方法世界，包括尤其是我們在該地區腹部對以色列的政策。我們沒有聽從警告，沒有重新制定我們對中東的世界觀和政策，而是加倍努力，在阿富汗和伊拉克發動了兩次永久性戰爭，並在以色列迄今加強了同樣失敗的政策。我們也完全迷戀國土安全。在花費了數万億美元之後，不必要地犧牲了成千上萬的美國人的生命，卻以急需的國內發展為代價。我們仍處於戰爭之中，我們仍然堅信可能是正確的，我們將獲勝。

然後是第二個打擊：2008年我們在華爾街為世界建立的美國金融資本主義的驚人崩潰，這是一次前所未有的事件，不僅給美國人民而且給全世界人民和國家帶來了無盡的痛苦。 中國是唯一一個保持不變的國家，我們向其求助。 幸運的是，中國願意並有能力通過大規模的基礎設施投資來領導全球復甦，但對中國人民而言卻付出了巨大的代價。

奧巴馬·拜登是否對中國的援助表示讚賞？ 一點也不。 相反，崩潰並沒有導致全國范圍內的靈魂反省。 隨著富人變得更富裕而窮人變得更窮，我們讓我們建造的房屋繼續惡化和殘舊不堪。 回應的口號是“太大而不能失敗”。 在國外，中國的援助之手被視為對美國全球統治的威脅，也是對我們國家安全的威脅。 在奧巴馬政府第二任期內，以亞洲為中心，通過經濟，軍事和政治手段遏制中國成為我們對華政策的基礎。 特朗普政府現在已充分執行了這些政策，大多數學者將其稱為與中國的“新冷戰”。

我們不僅沒有重新考慮我們為自己和為順應世界建造的房屋的不公平設計和基礎，還急於加強和擴大對健康，教育和福利的撤資，推遲對基礎設施的維護，以及 最重要的是，在收入轉移中，使前1％的富人富裕，並使99％的貧困化，為唐納德·特朗普的“左撇子”崛起鋪平了道路。 保護和充實自己，拆除國內外機構，超越法律，並提出將美國帶回冷戰期間美國統治西方世界的美好舊時光。

好像還沒有擊中這兩個重大打擊，就在2020年，又一次重大打擊訪問了我們：致命的冠狀病毒大流行在各地蔓延，影響到每個美國人，不論貧富，白人和有色人種。在公共衛生危機之後，全國范圍內的企業，工廠，辦公室，交通，學校和政府停擺，造成了前所未有的大規模失業和一夜之間，最嚴重的經濟衰退。只有股票市場，即富裕的美國公司的遊樂場，才是合理繁榮的市場。這種流行病赤裸裸地暴露了最富裕和技術最先進的國家在應對我們歷史上最嚴重的公共衛生危機時的準備不足和無能，還暴露了少數民族和窮人如何嚴重地破壞了傳染病自建國以來，失業，企業破產以及種族和階級的不平等與不公正現像在我們的社會，經濟，政治和文化體系中已根深蒂固。美國人集體自發地抗議。在美國幾乎所有城市和城鎮的街道上，“讓美國變得更加偉大”很快就被“黑人生活至關重要”所淹沒，因為各個年齡段，膚色和國籍的人們都在遊行，並要求平等和正義長達數週之久。

甚至全國范圍內這種自發的群眾起義都沒有引起我們政治階層的良心並促使他們採取行動。 相反，白宮毫不猶豫地一方面譴責了帶有挑釁性的種族主義襲擊的抗議活動，一方面部署了國民警衛隊和軍事力量以暴力鎮壓和平遊行者。 同時，美國國會在一場國家危機中回家，但另一方面卻未提供任何解決方案來應對日益惡化的公共危機和經濟衰退。 政治和政府實際上癱瘓了，無法為受重傷甚至垂死的國家提供希望和救濟，可以這麼說，

在不到兩個月的時間裡，最重要的總統和國會選舉將舉行，並決定國家的未來命運。 這次，美國的付費遊戲民主品牌將在全球受到嚴峻的考驗和關注。 美國會再次遭受沉重打擊嗎？ 雙方都在選舉或拍賣中花費了數十億美元。 雙方都準備花費數億來挑戰選舉結果。 特朗普已經威脅說，如果他輸了，將無視選舉結果。 民主黨人正準備挑戰特朗普將採取的任何行動。 如果不能很快決定選舉結果，特朗普已經揚言要在選舉之夜宣布自己是勝利者，並拒絕撤離白宮。

無論11月大選的結果如何，該國似乎都將面臨另一場致命的打擊，甚至可能造成混亂或無政府狀態。

讓我在電子郵件末尾提出與我在電子郵件開頭提出的相同問題：自2001年9月11日起，美國在淪落為矮胖矮胖子之前還可以再遭受幾次打擊？ 如果結果證明是一場對所有人的政治，法律或暴力鬥毆，美國會不會陷入內亂，特朗普宣布戒嚴令，其憲法破爛？ 如我們所知，這會否標誌著美國品牌的“玩轉民主”制度的終結？

US Government reintroduced the spirits of 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act, racially motivated to prosecute Professor Anming Hu. The Judge throw the case out as US Government manufacturers a criminal case out of nothing just like Subrina Meng of Huawei. This is how US promote the fake freedom democracy human rights and rules of laws. We lives in US don’t believe the lies. Our Government is controlled by the 1% elites and Fortune 500 companies catering primarily to the AngloSaxon, only these people truly enjoying the freedom democracy human rights and rules of laws, laughing to the bank everyday. Chinese and People of Color in US are 2nd class citizens. China’s rise gave the racist Americans especially US politicians a free pass to reign in terrors to promote Asian Hates in America using the fake excuses of homeland security. 美國政府重新引入1882年排華法案的精神，以種族動機起訴胡安明教授。 法官將案件駁回，因為美國政府像華為的孟晚舟一樣是無中生有地製造了刑事案件。 這就是美國如何宣傳虛假的自由民主人權和法律規則。 我們住在美國從來不相信這種謊言。 我們的美國政府被 1% 的精英和財富 500 強公司控制，主要服務西人，只有這些西人才真正享受自由民主人權和法治，而且賺大錢每天對著銀行笑。 在美國的華人和有色人種是二等公民。 中國的崛起給了種族主義的美國人，尤其是美國政客一個自由通行證免死金牌，他們可以利用國土安全的虛假藉口，在美國對華人煽動進行恐怖攻擊，在美國宣揚亞洲仇恨!

Video: Post-9/11 wars: a defeat of Western values, fake freedom democracy human rights and rules of laws 9/11 後戰爭：西方價值觀的失敗、它們虛假的自由民主人權和法律規則 After the 9/11 attacks, the US made the decision to invade Afghanistan and Iraq. The wars in the next two decades resulted in heavy casualties and ended in disastrous failure. As for US, it’s not just a military defeat but a defeat of Western values.
https://vimeo.com/602058223
https://youtu.be/nHyBNcK2Kxk
https://www.facebook.com/100036400039778/posts/564121758144487/?d=n

Video: China’s food culture 中國飲食文化
https://vimeo.com/601908304
https://youtu.be/D0IEn_HrSvM
https://www.facebook.com/100036400039778/posts/564011654822164/?d=n

Video: Interview young people in Taiwan if they will go to subversive war for English Tsai against China supported by US: the answer is no. 採訪台灣年輕人, 他們是否會為美國支持的蔡英文對華進行顛覆戰爭: 答案是不會!
https://vimeo.com/601895875
https://youtu.be/Z-rqKl9U0Nk
https://www.facebook.com/100036400039778/posts/564002371489759/?d=n

Xi-Biden 2nd call positive sign amid fraught ties; signals growing US anxiety to seek China’s help by GT staff reporters Sep 10 2021

Chinese President Xi Jinping on Friday told US President Joe Biden that the US’ policies toward China have caused serious difficulties in bilateral relations and called on Washington to shoulder responsibilities to direct the ties back on the right track, in the first phone conversation between the two leaders in seven months amid escalating tensions and a series of regional and global challenges, including the US’ hasty withdrawal from Afghanistan.

The phone call, which took place at the US’ request, highlighted Washington’s growing anxiety and need for China’s cooperation on key global issues including climate change, COVID-19 fight and Afghan issues, analysts said. While the discussions sent positive signals that both sides are aiming to maintain communication, the US should take more action in correcting previous wrong deeds and respecting China’s basic interests, and not expecting China to cooperate while keeping it as an adversary, analysts said.

In a statement released after the phone call by the Chinese side, it said the two leaders had candid, in-depth and extensive strategic communication and exchanges on China-US relations and relevant issues of mutual interest.

Xi stressed in the phone call that for some time, due to the US policy on China, the China-US relationship has run into serious difficulty. This serves neither the fundamental interests of the people of the two countries, nor the common interests of countries around the world.
“When China and the US cooperate, the two countries and the world will benefit; when China and the United States are in confrontation, the two countries and the world will suffer,” Xi said.

“Getting the relationship right is not an option, but something we must do and must do well,” Xi said.

Biden noted that the US-China relationship is the most consequential relationship in the world, and the future of the bulk of the world will depend on how the US and China get on with each other. The two countries have no interest in letting competition veer into conflict.

Biden reiterated during the conversation that the US has no intention of changing its one-China principle. It is prepared to have more candid exchanges and constructive discussions with China to identify key and priority areas where cooperation is possible, avoid miscommunication, miscalculation and unintended conflict, and get US-China relations back on track.

The second phone conversation between the two leaders was held upon the invitation from the US and “upon the invitation from the US” was the phrase we recently saw in releases on communications between high-level officials of the two countries, Su Xiaohui, deputy director of the Department for International and Strategic Studies of China Institute of International Studies, told the Global Times.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken held a phone call with Wang Yi on August 29 in which the pair discussed the topics of Afghan issues and US Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry communicated with Wang via video link last week – all were made at the invitation of the US.

The US’ willingness to communicate with China is very clear as the Biden administration is facing huge pressure domestically with crises on multiple fronts, Su noted.

Echoing Su, Li Haidong, a professor at the Institute of International Relations of the China Foreign Affairs University, said that US’ requesting more dialogue showed that the Biden administration is under great pressure – it wants to compete with China while wanting to avoid conflicts; it could not deal with some major global issues, including the Afghan issues and climate change without China but at the same time remains obsessed with weakening what they call the “strategic rival.”

These contradictions have put Biden in a bind and have given China the upper hands in steering bilateral ties, Li told the Global Times.

The complicated domestic political situation in the US has also given Biden great headache as he may face more difficulties in promoting cooperation with China than upholding competition and conflicts with China. Whether Biden is able to avoid the competition turning into clashes remains a big question, Li noted.

However, the differences between China and the US when it comes to viewing bilateral ties was revealed in the public releases from each side–China insists that the bilateral cooperation has no alternative and must be achieved for the benefit of both sides, the US pays attention to “conflicts” and is seeking to maintain controllable competition with China, Li noted.

More action needed

Friday’s phone call was the second between leaders of the two countries since Biden took office. Xi took the first call from Biden on the eve of Chinese Lunar New Year.

While analysts reached by the Global Times agreed that Friday’s phone call is a positive signal for the bilateral ties which has been at a low point due to US’ provocative action toward China, they also urged the US to take more actions to promote relations.

The talk between top leaders of China and the US is timely and positive as the US has realized the need to listen to and face to China’s role and expectations. After Biden took the office in January, he has adopted Trump’s tactics of suppressing China, undermining China’s red line and straining China-US ties, Zhu Feng, director of Institute of International Studies of Nanjing University, told the Global Times.

During several rounds of “battle,” including the meeting in Anchorage in March and Deputy secretary of state Wendy Sherman’s visit to Tianjin, China has made its stance clear that if the US did not respect the “two lists” and “three bottom lines,” it should not expect China to cooperate while suppressing it, Zhu said.

When meeting with Sherman in Tianjin, Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Xie Feng presented her with “List of US Wrongdoings that Must Stop” and the “List of Key Individual Cases that China Has Concerns With.”

Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi also drew three bottom lines on China-US relations when meeting with Sherman, including not to challenge, slander or even attempt to subvert the path and system of socialism with Chinese characteristics, not attempt to obstruct or interrupt China’s development process, and not infringe upon China’s state sovereignty or damage China’s territorial integrity.

The Friday’s phone call revealed that the two sides reached three points of consensus – both recognized the significance of communication and dialogue, expected the bilateral ties to be maneuvered back on the right track and both agreed to more cooperation, Liu Chang, assistant research fellow with the Department for American Studies at China Institute of International Studies, told the Global Times.

According to a release from China, the two leaders agreed to maintain frequent contact by multiple means and instruct officials at the working level to intensify the work, conduct extensive dialogue and create conditions for the further development of China-US relations.

“We hope that China and the US may have discussions over some concrete issues in the third and fourth quarter of the year, for example on trade talks – to correct willful policies made by former president Donald Trump. This would be a great encouragement to not only US companies but its customers,” Lü Xiang, a research fellow at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in Beijing, told the Global Times.

The two militaries may also engage in dialogue given that US missile destroyers’ have been monitored illegally entering waters in the South China Sea, a provocative act, Lü noted, saying that more communications are needed to avoid future clashes.

US Guided-missile destroyer USS Benfold trespassed in waters near the Meiji Reef in the South China Sea Wednesday without permission from China. The Chinese side mobilized aircraft and ships to warn off and expel the ship from the waters.

Although the phone call set a basic tone for the long-term China-US relations, analysts said that they do not expect that a single phone call will solve the structural and complex contradictions facing China-US relations.

The statement of the White House did not mention anything said by the Chinese side, saying Biden made clear that the discussion was part of the “US’ ongoing effort to responsibly manage the competition between the United States and the PRC,” and Biden underscored the US’ “enduring interest in peace, stability, and prosperity in the Indo-Pacific” and the world.

White House’s statement showed that US’ China policy was still focusing on competition, confrontation and cooperation, and by specifically mentioning the Indo-Pacific region, Biden is also trying to pacify his allies, especially those in Europe that were angered by US’ chaotic pullout from Afghanistan, and pave a way for his follow-up diplomatic moves in the upcoming “quad” summit this month, Liu said.

On the same day when the top leaders of China and the US had their phone conversation, Chinese Ambassador Qin Gang posted a picture on his Twitter account of himself talking with Henry Kissinger, the former US secretary of state who made a secret trip to China on July 9, 1971 and sparked a new era for the China-US ties.

The Chinese ambassador tweeted that “Had a great time with Dr. Kissinger and benefited a lot from his vision, wisdom and insights.”

Zhu said that while the China-US ties are strained, more positive voices should be brought to the fore by US scholars and former officers who have real strategic insights. Kissinger is one of them and his judgment is valuable. Ambassador Qin’s meeting with Kissinger may also reflect his hope for more positive forces in promoting bilateral relations under the current circumstance.

习近平同美国总统拜登通电话

新华社 09-09 19:59新华社官方帐号

新华社北京9月10日电国家主席习近平9月10日上午应约同美国总统拜登通电话，就中美关系和双方关心的有关问题进行了坦诚、深入、广泛的战略性沟通和交流。
习近平首先就飓风“艾达”造成美国多地人员伤亡和财产损失向拜登和美国人民表示慰问。拜登对此表示感谢。

习近平指出，一段时间以来，美国采取的对华政策致使中美关系遭遇严重困难，这不符合两国人民根本利益和世界各国共同利益。中美分别是最大的发展中国家和最大的发达国家，中美能否处理好彼此关系，攸关世界前途命运，是两国必须回答好的世纪之问。中美合作，两国和世界都会受益；中美对抗，两国和世界都会遭殃。中美关系不是一道是否搞好的选择题，而是一道如何搞好的必答题。

习近平强调，中国古诗曰：“山重水复疑无路，柳暗花明又一村。”中美自1971年双边关系“破冰”以来，携手合作，给各国带来实实在在的好处。当前，国际社会面临许多共同难题，中美应该展现大格局、肩负大担当，坚持向前看、往前走，拿出战略胆识和政治魄力，推动中美关系尽快回到稳定发展的正确轨道，更好造福两国人民和世界各国人民。

习近平阐述了中方在气候变化等问题上的立场，强调中方坚持生态优先、走绿色低碳的发展道路，一直积极主动承担同自身国情相符的国际责任。在尊重彼此核心关切、妥善管控分歧的基础上，两国有关部门可以继续接触对话，推进在气候变化、疫情防控、经济复苏以及重大国际和地区问题上的协调和合作，同时挖掘更多合作潜力，为两国关系增添更多积极因素。

拜登表示，世界正在经历快速变化，美中关系是世界上最重要的双边关系，美中如何互动相处很大程度上将影响世界的未来。两国没有理由由于竞争而陷入冲突。

美方从无意改变一个中国政策。美方愿同中方开展更多坦诚交流和建设性对话，确定双方可以开展合作的重点和优先领域，避免误解误判和意外冲突，推动美中关系重回正轨。美方期待同中方就气候变化等重要问题加强沟通合作，形成更多共识。

双方一致认为，中美元首就中美关系和重大国际问题深入沟通对引领中美关系正确发展非常重要，同意继续通过多种方式保持经常性联系，将责成双方工作层加紧工作、广泛对话，为中美关系向前发展创造条件。（完）

A US federal judge has acquitted former University of Tennessee (UT) professor Hu Anming of fraud charges in the first case to go to trial under the controversial “China Initiative” started by the Trump administration as part of witch hunt attempted to demonize Chinese working in American universities. 根據特朗普政府發起的有爭議的“中國倡議”獵巫行動試圖妖魔化在美國大學工作的中國人. 美國聯邦法官宣布前田納西大學 (UT) 教授的欺詐指控無罪.

A Military Solution to a Commercial Problem – It Probably Ain’t Gonna Work Much Longer by FRED REED SEPTEMBER 8, 2021

In pondering Washington’s new toy, a cold war against China, one sees a pattern. China’s approach to influence and prosperity is commercial and longsighted. This does not mean that the Chinese are warm and fuzzy, only intelligent. They advance their interests while turning a profit, which wars don’t. China invests heavily in the infrastructure, both physical and educational, that makes for current and future competitiveness. They are fast, agile, innovative, and imperfectly scrupulous. They seek trade agreements: The Comprehensive Agreement on Investment with Europe, The RCEP, Regional comprehensive Economic Partnership, the CPEC, China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, the huge Iran deal, the development with Russia of the NSR, the Northern Sea Route. They seem good at it, China now being the largest trading partner of something like 165 countries.

Washington’s approach is military, coercive, shortsighted, and commercially dimwitted. It forms military alliances: the Quad in the Indian Ocean, with Japan against China, puts missiles in South Korea, pushes Europe to buy more American weaponry, sends naval forces to the Indian Ocean, Taiwan Strait, South China Sea, Black Sea, and Persian Gulf to intimidate, without much success, China, Russia, and Iran. It wants to get the Ukraine and Georgia into NATO to threaten Russia. It makes as much sense as lug nuts on a birthday cake.

China’s major capital expenditures, as gleaned as best I can from pubs covering these: highways, dams, bridges, very-high-voltage power lines, airports, rail, new high-tech 360 mph rail, five-g implementation, reactors, and semiconductor catchup.

America’s major capital expenditures: the B-21, F-35, Virginia-class subs, , Ford-class aircraft carriers, SSN (x) attack submarine. Biden says he will build infrastructure but, if history is a guide, he will pander to the woke, fight systemic racism, promote LBGQXYZ, become mired in congressional infighting, and the whole thing will devolve into pork. Want to bet?

What are these weapons for? The B-21 is an intercontinental nuclear bomber. What does one do with intercontinental nuclear bombers? Engage in intercontinental nuclear war. Are we sure this is a good idea? There will be no such war unless America starts it. China isn’t going to since (a) its approach to power and influence is commercial, which is working well, and (b) America has so many, many nuclear weapons of all sorts that China would be obliterated. If the US launched a first strike, the bombers would get there hours after the war was over. What would be the point?

The point is to funnel vast amounts of money into a bloated, running-on-autopilot military business so large that it can’t be reduced or controlled. All of this send-money PR assumes that China thinks it needs a nuclear holocaust. Who can doubt it?

It is impossible even to leave the military budget as it is, much less reduce it.

Congress Moves to Increase Pentagon Budget, Defying Biden

Military industry is so pervasive, providing so many jobs in so many states with so many lobbyists, that the President and his party cannot control it

China-Africa trade hits record high of $139.1 billion from January to July: MOFCOM

America sends troops (Africom, Africa Command) and builds drone bases. China builds rail lines and buys up resources. Did we say something about a pattern?

What is a Ford-class carrier good for? The Fords are versatile ships, having a three-fold purpose: Funneling lots of money into military industry, killing defenseless peasants, and sticking the Pentagon’s tongue out at China. Killing peasants and soldiers in third-rate armies of bedraggled third-world countries is what the American military does. Think Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Somalia. Getting into big wars with real countries is no longer practical despite the opportunities for profits because big countries depend on each other too much commercially. Even killing peasants begins to lose cache, as witness the comic opera defeat in Afghanistan..

Congress Pushes for Weapons the Pentagon Doesn’t want

A list of examples from Ohio. When military industry wants to produce a new weapon, it makes sure that components are produced in as many states as possible. But some things should be obvious. A big-ticket carrier creates a huge number of jobs for years at Newport News as well as jobs all over America for parts. When the carrier is completed and sails off to kill its peasants, the town goes into depression and stockholders lose dividends. The Pentagon then discovers an urgent need for another carrier. Congress shares this sense of urgency. Surprise, surprise.

What do I mean in saying that America is “short-sighted”? Try this:

Oregon Governor Kate Brown quietly signed a bill last month that removed the requirement for graduating high school children in the state to be proficient in reading, writing, and math, in an effort to aid “students of color.”

Wowee, that must terrify them over in China’s engineering departments, where students are years ahead of American in mathematics. This sort of thing goes on across America.

Number of Chinese overseas military bases: 1 (Djibouti) American: Hundreds. Number of Chinese military conflicts: One, a minor border clash with India. American: You know the list as well as I do, with Iran perhaps being groomed for the next war. Which country spends more on the foregoing? What has America gained?

ORAN an Also Ran to Huawei Five-G
This is long and kind of techy but makes the point that China is leaving the US far behind in five-g. While many think of Five-G as being for use in smart phones, this is actually of negligible importance. Where it counts is in industry, robotics, smart cities, mining with nobody underground, on and on. The United States, unable to compete with Huawei, consigned itself to primitivism by excluding the Chinese. Then it failed in its attempt to prevent China from rolling out five-g within its own borders. So much for bringing manufacturing back to America.

China Overtakes US in AI Research
And whose fault is this?

China Passes US in Output of Influential Science Papers

Here is a point worth noting. The Chinese have the engineers, the numbers and the focus to do pretty much anything. They do not always have the machinery. AI takes more brains than machinery.

CATL goes all in on next-gen sodium-ion EV batteries

Not a game-changer, and other countries look at the same thing but, as so often, China is right up there with the other big boys.

“Last month, during high-level talks in Honolulu, the US Indo-Pacific Command and the Federated States of Micronesia (FSM) agreed to build a new base in the island nation.” To contain China.

Military, military, military, military. The assumption in the Five Sided Wind Box seems to be that China is about to come roaring into the Pacific like the Japanese Imperial Naby in full flood, to conquer it. China is more likely to buy it.

Associated Press: “The politically sensitive goods deficit with China rose to $27.8 billion in June, up 5.8% from the May level. So far this year, the goods deficit with China, the largest that the United States runs with any country, totals $158.5 billion, an increase of 19.2% compared to the same period in 2020.”

Some economists predict America’s first overall trade deficit of a trillion dollars.

China to run commercial port in Israel:
“China’s state-owned Shanghai International Port Group (SIPG) grabbed the Haifa port contract in 2015 which allows it to operate the commercial shipping facility for 25 years.”

Commercial, commercial, commercial, commercial.

Moscow Bothered by ‘Uncontrolled, Unrestricted Expansion’ of US Military Biolab Network Near Russia

And here in Mexico, where I live, people swear they see Chinese electric scooters and mini-electric which, they also swear, can be bought online from Alibaba and such. Meanwhile the narcos get assault rifles from the US.

How can America wake up from its post-9/11 nightmare? After 20 years of war and militarism that has only left the world a more dangerous place and accelerated America’s decline, we must choose the path of peace. By Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J. S. Davies – September 9, 2021

Looking back on it now, the 1990s were an age of innocence for America. The Cold War was over and our leaders promised us a “peace dividend.” There was no TSA to make us take off our shoes at airports (how many bombs have they found in those billions of shoes?). The government could not tap a U.S. phone or read private emails without a warrant from a judge. And the national debt was only $5 trillion – compared with over $28 trillion today.

We have been told that the criminal attacks of September 11, 2001 “changed everything.” But what really changed everything was the U.S. government’s disastrous response to them.

That response was not preordained or inevitable, but the result of decisions and choices made by politicians, bureaucrats and generals who fueled and exploited our fears, unleashed wars of reprehensible vengeance and built a secretive security state, all thinly disguised behind Orwellian myths of American greatness.

Most Americans believe in democracy and many regard the United States as a democratic country. But the U.S. response to 9/11 laid bare the extent to which American leaders are willing to manipulate the public into accepting illegal wars, torture, the Guantanamo gulag and sweeping civil rights abuses—activities that undermine the very meaning of democracy.

Former Nuremberg prosecutor Ben Ferencz said in a speech in 2011 that “a democracy can only work if its people are being told the truth.” But America’s leaders exploited the public’s fears in the wake of 9/11 to justify wars that have killed and maimed millions of people who had nothing to do with those crimes. Ferencz compared this to the actions of the German leaders he prosecuted at Nuremberg, who also justified their invasions of other countries as “preemptive first strikes.”

“You cannot run a country as Hitler did, feeding them a pack of lies to frighten them that they’re being threatened, so it’s justified to kill people you don’t even know,” Ferencz continued. “It’s not logical, it’s not decent, it’s not moral, and it’s not helpful. When an unmanned bomber from a secret American airfield fires rockets into a little Pakistani or Afghan village and thereby kills or maims unknown numbers of innocent people, what is the effect of that? Every victim will hate America forever and will be willing to die killing as many Americans as possible. Where there is no court of justice, wild vengeance is the alternative.”

Even the commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal, talked about “insurgent math,” conjecturing that, for every innocent person killed, the U.S. created 10 new enemies. And thus the so-called Global War on Terror fueled a global explosion of terrorism and armed resistance that will not end unless and until the United States ends the state terrorism that provokes and fuels it.

By opportunistically exploiting 9/11 to attack countries that had nothing to do with it, like Iraq, Somalia, Libya, Syria and Yemen, the United States vastly expanded the destructive strategy it used in the 1980s to destabilize Afghanistan, which spawned the Taliban and Al Qaeda in the first place.

In Libya and Syria, only ten years after 9/11, U.S. leaders betrayed every American who lost a loved one on September 11th by recruiting and arming Al Qaeda-led militants to overthrow two of the most secular governments in the Middle East, plunging both countries into years of intractable violence and fueling radicalization throughout the region.

The U.S. response to 9/11 was corrupted by a toxic soup of revenge, imperialist ambitions, war profiteering, systematic brainwashing and sheer stupidity. The only Republican Senator who voted against the war on Iraq, Lincoln Chafee, later wrote, “Helping a rogue president start an unnecessary war should be a career-ending lapse of judgment.”

But it wasn’t. Very few of the 263 Republicans or the 110 Democrats who voted for the Iraq war in 2002 paid any political price for their complicity in international aggression, which the judges at Nuremberg explicitly called “the supreme international crime.” One of them now sits at the apex of power in the White House.

Trump and Biden’s withdrawal and implicit acceptance of the U.S. defeat in Afghanistan could serve as an important step toward ending the violence and chaos their predecessors unleashed after the September 11th attack. But the current debate over next year’s military budget makes it clear that our deluded leaders are still dodging the obvious lessons of 20 years of war.

Barbara Lee, the only Member of Congress with the wisdom and courage to vote against Congress’s war resolution in 2001, has introduced a bill to cut U.S. military spending by almost half: $350 billion per year. With the miserable failure in Afghanistan, a war that will end up costing every U.S. citizen $20,000, one would think that Rep. Lee’s proposal would be eliciting tremendous support. But the White House, the Pentagon and the Armed Services Committees in the House and Senate are instead falling over each other to shovel even more money into the bottomless pit of the military budget.

Politicians’ votes on questions of war, peace and military spending are the most reliable test of their commitment to progressive values and the well-being of their constituents. You cannot call yourself a progressive or a champion of working people if you vote to appropriate more money for weapons and war than for healthcare, education, green jobs and fighting poverty.

These 20 years of war have revealed to Americans and the world that modern weapons and formidable military forces can only accomplish two things: kill and maim people; and destroy homes, infrastructure and entire cities. American promises to rebuild bombed-out cities and “remake” countries it has destroyed have proven worthless, as Biden has acknowledged.

Both Iraq and Afghanistan are turning primarily to China for the help they need to start rebuilding and developing economically from the ruin and devastation left by America and its allies. America destroys, China builds. The contrast could not be more stark or self-evident. No amount of Western propaganda can hide what the whole world can see.

But the different paths chosen by U.S. and Chinese leaders are not predestined, and despite the intellectual and moral bankruptcy of the U.S. corporate media, the American public has always been wiser and more committed to cooperative diplomacy than America’s political and executive class. It has been well-documented that many of the endless crises in U.S. foreign policy could have been avoided if America’s leaders had just listened to the public.

The perennial handicap that has dogged America’s diplomacy since World War II is precisely our investment in weapons and military forces, including nuclear weapons that threaten our very existence. It is trite but true to say that, ”when the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.”

Other countries don’t have the option of deploying overwhelming military force to confront international problems, so they have had to be smarter and more nimble in their diplomacy, and more prudent and selective in their more limited uses of military force.

The rote declarations of U.S. leaders that “all options are on the table” are a euphemism for precisely the “threat or use of force” that the U.N. Charter explicitly prohibits, and they stymie the U.S. development of expertise in nonviolent forms of conflict resolution. The bumbling and bombast of America’s leaders in international arenas stand in sharp contrast to the skillful diplomacy and clear language we often hear from top Russian, Chinese and Iranian diplomats, even when they are speaking in English, their second or third language.

By contrast, U.S. leaders rely on threats, coups, sanctions and war to project power around the world. They promise Americans that these coercive methods will maintain American “leadership” or dominance indefinitely into the future, as if that is America’s rightful place in the world: sitting atop the globe like a cowboy on a bucking bronco.

A “New American Century” and “Pax Americana” are Orwellian versions of Hitler’s “Thousand-Year Reich,” but are no more realistic. No empire has lasted forever, and there is historical evidence that even the most successful empires have a lifespan of no more than 250 years, by which time their rulers have enjoyed so much wealth and power that decadence and decline inevitably set in. This describes the United States today.

America’s economic dominance is waning. Its once productive economy has been gutted and financialized, and most countries in the world now do more trade with China and/or the European Union than with the United States. Where America’s military once kicked open doors for American capital to “follow the flag” and open up new markets, today’s U.S. war machine is just a bull in the global china shop, wielding purely destructive power.

But we are not condemned to passively follow the suicidal path of militarism and hostility. Biden’s withdrawal from Afghanistan could be a downpayment on a transition to a more peaceful post-imperial economy—if the American public starts to actively demand peace, diplomacy and disarmament and find ways to make our voices heard.

—We must get serious about demanding cuts in the Pentagon budget. None of our other problems will be solved as long as we keep allowing our leaders to flush the majority of federal discretionary spending down the same military toilet as the $2.26 trillion they wasted on the war in Afghanistan. We must oppose politicians who refuse to cut the Pentagon budget, regardless of which party they belong to and where they stand on other issues. CODEPINK is part of a new coalition to “Cut the Pentagon for the people, planet, peace and a future” – please join us!

—We must not let ourselves or our family members be recruited into the U.S. war machine. Instead, we must challenge our leaders’ absurd claims that the imperial forces deployed across the world to threaten other countries are somehow, by some convoluted logic, defending America. As a translator paraphrased Voltaire, “Whoever can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.”

—We must expose the ugly, destructive reality behind our country’s myths of “defending U.S. vital interests,” “humanitarian intervention,” “the war on terror” and the latest absurdity, the ill-defined “rules-based order” whose rules only apply to others—never to the United States.

—And we must oppose the corrupt power of the arms industry, including U.S. weapons sales to the world’s most repressive regimes and an unwinnable arms race that risks a potentially world-ending conflict with China and Russia.

Our only hope for the future is to abandon the futile quest for hegemony and instead commit to peace, cooperative diplomacy, international law and disarmament. After 20 years of war and militarism that has only left the world a more dangerous place and accelerated America’s decline, we must choose the path of peace.

https://www.nationofchange.org/2021/09/09/how-can-america-wake-up-from-its-post-9-11-nightmare/