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shirlleycoyle · 4 years ago

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Everyone Loves Attack on Titan. So Why Does Everyone Hate Attack on Titan?

When the anime Attack on Titan premiered, it was an instant smash hit and quickly became one of the most visible and popular anime series in the world. As time has gone on, though, the anime, manga, and its fandoms have run into issues with the messages in the text itself, which some say is fascist and antisemtitic.

Attack on Titan holds the same cultural space for younger anime fans that a show like Game of Thrones or even a book series like Harry Potter does for people a generation older than them. Its first volume of the manga is still topping the charts on Bookscan 10 years after its release.

"It's hard to overstate how important Attack on Titan is," Geoff Thew, who makes videos about anime on the YouTube channel Mother's Basement, told Motherboard. "It's not just this really good 24 episode action thing. Now it's this full fantasy epic that is coming to its culmination. It's probably the last anime that every anime fan either watched, or had a very strong reason not to watch."

The manga reached its final volume this month, and as fans are saying goodbye to the series, they're also revisiting some uncomfortable, and unresolved conversations about what the story is all about.

When Attack on Titan's anime adaptation came out in the summer of 2012, it was at the beginning of a shift in culture for anime. Prior to that moment, anime wasn't very accessible other than to people well versed in internet piracy, or had enough of a disposable income to buy expensive DVDs if the series they were interested in ended up being licensed in America at all. But by 2012, the world of streaming video had caught up with the world of anime in the west. Crunchyroll, which had begun to air series simultaneously with their schedule in Japan starting in 2008, had already had a hit on its hands that year with Sword Art Online, and Attack on Titan would go even further than that. Attack on Titan would catapult anime into the mainstream in a way few other series have been able to outside of Japan, at least not since Dragon Ball Z and Pokémon would air on cable television in the decades prior.

The premise of Attack on Titan is so enticing that I was completely unsurprised that the show was a smash hit when it premiered. The show takes place in a world where the last of humanity is living in a walled city, surrounded by giant human shaped creatures called Titans who live outside the walls. Titans love to eat humans—not even for sustenance, just for fun—so the people inside the walls live in fear of those walls being breached. In the first episode, they are.

It's one of the best opening episodes of an anime, ever. I remember watching it, and then inviting multiple groups of people over to try to get them to watch it with me too.

Image source: Funimation

The discomfort with the story of Attack on Titan began in earnest when the manga revealed where the Titans come from. When the lead character Eren Yaeger first left home to join the military and fight Titans, his father gave him a key to his basement, saying that he should return to investigate it when it's safe. In the basement there are books that reveal that the outside world isn't uninhabited at all, and that the Eldians, the race to which Eren and his father belong, are being kept in ghettos in a fascist society where they wear armbands to identify themselves amongst their oppressors, the Marleyans.

Although the Eldians are portrayed as being subjugated in the present day, in the past they are presented as oppressors themselves, and for some Eldians, the long term goal of all the Titan nonsense is to create a new world order.

"It should be uncontroversial to say that to a certain degree, Attack on Titan is about fascism because, I mean, they have coded Jewish ghetto," Thew said. "I think, given the resurgence of fascism globally in the real world, you can expect to see elements of that seeping into popular culture."

To some fans, it all feels a little too close to the broad arc of most antisemitic conspiracy theories, which say that the Jews rule the world through an ancient conspiracy. In some variations of the theory, Jewish people already secretly run the world government, just like the Eldian Tybur family does in Marley, where they live as honorary Marleyans and secretly control the other noble families. This aspect of the series has made other parts of Attack on Titan stand out, especially the character of Dot Pixis. According to the artist and writer of the series, Hajime Isamaya, Pixis, a military general in Attack on Titan, was inspired by real world World War II general Akiyama Yoshifuru, who is considered a hero in Japan, but also has committed war crimes against China and Korea.

These themes have been pointed out before, with some even saying that the work itself is fascist and antisemetic. While Attack on Titan boasts a huge audience, it also has a noted and vocal right wing fanbase as well; the New Republic even called it “the Alt-Right’s Favorite Manga.”

Image source: Funimation

Trying to understand the line between the allegory that the manga’s creator Hajime Isayama is playing with and his own personal beliefs is where anime fans have gotten themselves tangled up. If you search "Attack on Titan antisemitism" on Google, the first three results are articles discussing the show's fascist themes. Also on the first page of results is the rant of a frustrated fan on Reddit, complaining about people on Twitter shitting on their favorite show.

The question, then, as the series wraps up, is figuring out how to engage with it, and figuring out whether a show can deal with fascistic themes in the way it does without being fascistic and antisemitic itself. The manga’s creator Hajime Isayama, for his part, told the New Republic that he didn’t want to weigh in on the controversy, stating that “Being a writer, I believe it is impolite to instruct your readers the way of how to read your story.”

A big, recurring controversy in the fandom is figuring out how to discuss or even deal with these issues at all.

As a show, Attack on Titan has taken a position of reverence among anime fans. Even if you don't currently watch the show, or read the manga on which it is based, you've at least seen the iconography from the show, especially its military insignia, in the wild. For a lot of people this was their first anime, and their first introduction to a genre of fiction they love. It's the position that makes it uniquely difficult to criticize. In the case of Attack on Titan, not being able to discuss the issues in its fiction has led to a long simmering, never resolved conflict within the fandom itself.

At first glance, it would be easy just to dismiss Attack on Titan as being unambiguously pro-fascist. The anime plays into the militarism at the heart of the story; the show's first theme, a certified banger and classic meme, opens on the lyric "Are you prey? No, we are the hunters," sung in German.

"It’s important to note that the use of fascistic, war, or even Nazi imagery is not necessarily an endorsement of these ideas or regimes, as strange as it may sound," Joe Yang, who makes videos about anime at the YouTube channel Pause and Select, told Motherboard.

Both Yang and Brian Ruh, author of Stray Dog of Anime: The Films of Mamoru Oshii, suggested that multiple anime and manga series at least seemingly try to separate fascist iconography from the acts the horrifying regime committed. Whether they succeed—and whether this is even possible—is another question altogether. Yang noted that one of Isayama’s biggest influences is a visual novel called MuvLuv and its anime adaptation Schwarzesmarken, whose storyline includes an alternate universe German state that uses fascist imagery in its uniforms and also features a fictional version of the Stasi as characters.

"If you look up Schwarzesmarken and Muv-Luv Alternative, you can find images that are heavily reminiscent of the imagery you’d see in Attack on Titan," Yang said.

Image source: Funimation

Ruh cited the forward to one of Japanese critic Eiji Otsuka's books, Debating Otaku in Contemporary Japan. Otsuka writes, "Why do [anime fans] feel that the war machines of Nazi Germany are 'beautiful'? In Japan, as compared to the West, there is a tendency to detatch criticism of Nazism and the Holocaust from the cultural items that they brought about."

"In this way, when something like Attack on Titan makes historical references it may not be with the intent to evoke a full comparison," Ruh said. "Whether it's wise or responsible for a popular artist with a global reach to play with history in such a manner is another matter entirely."

It should not be controversial to suggest that Attack on Titan includes fascist and antisemitic themes. What the fanbase and critics must grapple with is how to talk about them and whether the show is actively causing damage.

Thew told Motherboard that he hadn't totally caught up on Attack on Titan because he was kind of dreading unpacking its controversial politics, especially on his channel. Part of it is because talking about Attack on Titan and its relationship to fascism is so complicated. Another part of it is because the fandom has, by this point, dug in its heels.

"It's because this conversation keeps happening, but it's also not," Thew said. "There's some really good criticism of Attack on Titan, and I think it's important to criticize it, but a lot of people come at it strong and condemn it. That does as much to kill the conversation as people being like, 'shut the up about politics,' because it reinforces the argument that people are just trying to cancel this good show that you like for flimsy reasons."

Image source: Funimation

For a long time, anime fans had no way of knowing what their favorite writers and artists even looked like, let alone what they thought about the world. Because anime was, until recently, a niche culture, and one that has occasionally been unfairly maligned for being pornographic and violent, anime fans in general have avoided talking about the politics of their favorite shows.

"Some Anglophone and American anime fans say that politics in anime is too foreign to comprehend, I think that's a minority position. A lot more people these days seem to have some accurate knowledge about sociocultural politics in Japan, but in my experience they're equally likely to combine a dollop of knowledge about current circumstances in Japan with their own preconceptions about Japan and Japanese society," Andrea Horbinski, an independent scholar with a doctorate in new media studies and history, told Motherboard. "Ironically, while it's never been easier to access cultural and political discussions directly from Japan thanks to the internet, relying on their own preconceptions and only taking on board information that supports them definitely does keep anime fans in this position from appreciating the range of views in anime generally."

This doesn't just affect how fans view shows like Attack on Titan, but also how some anime fans might view shows that deal with feminist themes or LGBT content. According to Horbinski, some right wing fans of anime insist that certain kinds of political themes must be imported from western culture.

"[These fans] insist that feminism and trans people don't exist in Japan and that any anime depicting either is 'woke garbage' or similar. These fans are extremely angry at attempts to discuss the depiction of female characters in anime as something that could often use improvement, or the inclusion of trans characters period." Horbinski said. "They may cite 'evidence' to support their views that is wholly out of context, or they may just insist that their views about Japan are correct because they're correct. Attempts by Japanese feminists and LGBTQ activists to provide corrective information online do not go down well, particularly on Twitter."

Image source: Funimation

Given the global reach of shows like Attack on Titan, framing anime as something that is not, or should not, be influenced by culture outside of Japan doesn't make much sense.

"Anime does come from Japan, but it’s been a global medium for a very long time," Yang said. "The problem with understanding anime as a distinctly Japanese media with Japanese politics is that it makes very specific claims about Japaneseness, that it is only Japanese, that it is only the Japanese who can understand this, and that this somehow absolves the text of its messages."

Shutting down conversation about the inspirations for Attack on Titan, its themes, and how fascist imagery is used, and whether it enhances the story to use it in the way that Isamaya does, means that gaining deeper meaning from the text just stops being possible.

Given its popularity, Attack on Titan clearly resonates with the people who live here beyond just fans of anime who are deeply enmeshed in its culture. The attitudes that some fans of the show have about Japanese culture and its politics have been predominant in the fandom so far, but Attack on Titan is so much bigger than just an anime. It's a sign that anime's space in broader mainstream culture is changing. Maybe it's time for anime fans to put away old ideas about how to read and interpret this text, ideas about Japan just being too foreign to understand. Clearly, hundreds of thousands of Americans have watched Attack on Titan and seen something that they relate to.

"I think it does hold anime fans back, because aside from veering pretty close to Orientalism, it also arms them with excuses on why they don’t need to seriously grapple with the messages that certain texts can convey," Yang said. "If someone presumes a text is sexist simply because 'that’s how Japan is, you wouldn’t get it' not only does it ignore some of the subcultural connotations or history imbued in these signs, but it also speaks volumes about that utterer’s beliefs about an Othered, 'far off' Japan."

Everyone Loves Attack on Titan. So Why Does Everyone Hate Attack on Titan? syndicated from https://triviaqaweb.wordpress.com/feed/

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hostingnewsfeed · 6 years ago

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This Study of 195 Billion-Dollar Companies Found 6 Counterintuitive Truths About Building a Unicorn

New Post has been published on http://edsocme.com/this-study-of-195-billion-dollar-companies-found-6-counterintuitive-truths-about-building-a-unicorn/

This Study of 195 Billion-Dollar Companies Found 6 Counterintuitive Truths About Building a Unicorn

Ali Tamaseb, a founder turned venture capitalist at Data Collective VC, recently spent 300 hours gathering data on billion-dollar startups. He generated 100 charts exploring their history and outlined dozens of valuable insights–all in a quest to learn what billion-dollar startups look like at inception.

Tamaseb gathered data on 65 key factors from all 195 unicorn startups based in the U.S. His work included all startups since 2005 that have publicly reached a valuation of more than $1 billion. The least surprising finding is that almost 60 percent of billion-dollar startups were created by serial entrepreneurs. In fact, he found that 70 percent of billion-dollar founders were “superfounders,” or founders with at least one previous exit of more than $50 million. This aligns with both traditional thinking and my experience.

I can also attest to some of the other trends from this study based on my investment history, but several of Tamaseb’s findings are contrary to my experience and to widely accepted investor wisdom. These counterintuitive findings are the most valuable in my mind:

1. Industry knowledge isn’t required.

Contrary to what I’ve always believed, Tamaseb found that most founders of billion-dollar startups don’t have direct experience in the industry or domain they are trying to disrupt (except in healthcare and pharmaceuticals, where 80 percent of founding CEOs had direct experience in the target market.)

2. Technical CEOs aren’t necessarily more successful.

Tamaseb’s data addresses a widely debated topic: do technical founding CEOs do better than non-technical founding CEOs when it comes to creating a billion-dollar startup? His data showed a 50-50 split.

I had always believed that a technical startup (biotech, SaaS, mobile apps, etc.) should be led by someone who could build the product, but this research showed that non-technical founders can also succeed. So I went back into our portfolio at Ryerson Futures and found that some of our most successful startups to date had technical CEOs, but many more had business-minded or domain experts in the CEO role. So perhaps I need to revisit this bias, and perhaps you should too.

3. You don’t need to be capitally efficient.

In the world of startups, capital efficiency refers to how much money a startup needs to spend in order to be able to sustain itself on internally generated funds. A startup that is capital efficient spends a little to make a lot.

While VCs often focus on investing in capital efficient companies, less than 45 percent of the billion-dollar companies in Tamaseb’s pool were capital efficient. The rest required a high level of investment to scale–indicating that a company doesn’t need to be self-sufficient to be worth $1 billion.

4. It’s (usually) not OK to be a copycat.

Tamaseb found that more than 60 percent of billion-dollar startups had a very high level of product differentiation compared to what was already in the market. He also found that the worst competition case comes from copying what another startup is doing, especially when that other startup is well funded.

While that makes sense, it is not consistent with some billion-dollar startups, such as Rocket Internet, that were created in China, India, Germany and elsewhere over the last decade and were clones of startups like eBay, Amazon, Tinder, and Facebook.

5. You don’t have to be first to market.

Only 30 percent of the billion-dollar startups in the study were first to market, and just under 40 percent entered markets with five or more competitors.

Contrary to widely held beliefs, the best markets for billion-dollar startups already have a number of large incumbents, and often the startup uses the inefficiencies of these incumbents as a point of disruption.

Timing is always key when launching a startup. Too early and the market won’t buy; too late, and all the early adopters will already be using another startup’s products. The majority of billion-dollar startups went after markets that were already large and growing.

6. You don’t need to be part of an accelerator to be successful.

Accelerators are all the rage worldwide. As of 2018, there are more than 1,500 programs to accelerate startups. Despite the marketing produced by accelerators like Techstars and Y Combinator, the majority of billion-dollar startups in the U.S. did not participate in a formal accelerator program. I find this surprising, since unicorns like Airbnb, Dropbox, Quora, Stripe, and Twilio all came from accelerators. So why are so few unicorns on this list coming from accelerators?

I think the answer comes from the fact that 70 percent of billion-dollar founders are superfounders. Perhaps founders with a previous exit don’t need the network, knowledge and mentorship that accelerators offer. Maybe that means not being a superfounder is just one more reason to apply to accelerators–to learn from others. That is certainly what I focus on.

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smartwebhostingblog · 6 years ago

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This Study of 195 Billion-Dollar Companies Found 6 Counterintuitive Truths About Building a Unicorn

New Post has been published on http://edsocme.com/this-study-of-195-billion-dollar-companies-found-6-counterintuitive-truths-about-building-a-unicorn/

This Study of 195 Billion-Dollar Companies Found 6 Counterintuitive Truths About Building a Unicorn

1. Industry knowledge isn’t required.

2. Technical CEOs aren’t necessarily more successful.

3. You don’t need to be capitally efficient.

4. It’s (usually) not OK to be a copycat.

5. You don’t have to be first to market.

Only 30 percent of the billion-dollar startups in the study were first to market, and just under 40 percent entered markets with five or more competitors.

6. You don’t need to be part of an accelerator to be successful.

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awesomecolorfulcollectorwombat · 6 years ago

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This Study of 195 Billion-Dollar Companies Found 6 Counterintuitive Truths About Building a Unicorn

New Post has been published on http://edsocme.com/this-study-of-195-billion-dollar-companies-found-6-counterintuitive-truths-about-building-a-unicorn/

This Study of 195 Billion-Dollar Companies Found 6 Counterintuitive Truths About Building a Unicorn

1. Industry knowledge isn’t required.

2. Technical CEOs aren’t necessarily more successful.

3. You don’t need to be capitally efficient.

4. It’s (usually) not OK to be a copycat.

5. You don’t have to be first to market.

Only 30 percent of the billion-dollar startups in the study were first to market, and just under 40 percent entered markets with five or more competitors.

6. You don’t need to be part of an accelerator to be successful.

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lazilysillyprince · 6 years ago

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This Study of 195 Billion-Dollar Companies Found 6 Counterintuitive Truths About Building a Unicorn

New Post has been published on http://khalednaser.com/this-study-of-195-billion-dollar-companies-found-6-counterintuitive-truths-about-building-a-unicorn/

This Study of 195 Billion-Dollar Companies Found 6 Counterintuitive Truths About Building a Unicorn

1. Industry knowledge isn’t required.

2. Technical CEOs aren’t necessarily more successful.

3. You don’t need to be capitally efficient.

4. It’s (usually) not OK to be a copycat.

5. You don’t have to be first to market.

Only 30 percent of the billion-dollar startups in the study were first to market, and just under 40 percent entered markets with five or more competitors.

6. You don’t need to be part of an accelerator to be successful.

0 notes

ruminativerabbi · 8 years ago

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Irredentism and the Middle East

With this letter, I would like to return to the topic of the two-state solution I broached a few weeks ago but still have more to say about.

To begin by stating the obvious, there is surely no axiom relating to the Middle East more often repeated and more fervently believed—if not quite by all than surely by most—than the one that supposes that peace in the Middle East will only come when some version of the United Nations’ original Partition Plan of 1947 is somehow put into place, yielding the desired—if long overdue—dismemberment of Mandatory Palestine into two states, one Jewish and one Arab. This truth is so often repeated, and in so many different quarters and by so many people from such different political camps and orientations, that it has acquired the feel of a basic truth, of being the kind of foundational idea that one can damn someone, and not faintly, merely by suggesting that he or she is only paying lip service to its reasonability but doesn’t really believe in it or think of it as the sole workable solution to what would otherwise be an insoluble problem. Actually to reject it as unworkable foolishness is, in at least most non-extremist quarter, unthinkable.

I’ve spoken about the two-state solution in public many times and always positively. But now that I force myself to revisit the basic concept and to consider the parts before coming to judgment regarding the whole, I find myself surprised by how many of the ideas that constitute those parts strike me as naïve, even utopian, when considered on their own.

There is, at any rate, something surreal about the whole discussion—the endless, ongoing, passionate discussion—regarding the two-state solution, and specifically because there actually are two states, one Jewish and one Arab, on the territory of Turkish Palestine. But, of course, even that assertion is complicated and depends, at least in part, on how one views the long-forgotten Transjordan Memorandum of 1922, the British proposal ratified by the League of Nations in September of that year that allowed for the dismemberment of Ottoman Palestine into two regions, both to be administered by the British: the part west of the Jordan to be called Palestine and the part to the east of the river to be called Transjordan. This would just be so much boring administrative history, except for the detail, made explicit in the memorandum, that the point of the proposal was specifically to prevent Jews from settling in Transjordan. Nor is this a point to gloss over lightly, because it was as a direct result of that dusty memorandum that the Partition Plan of 1947—the United Nations proposal that is the bedrock upon which the two-state solution rests—only ever applied to the lands west of the Jordan, the part that was called Mandatory Palestine. And so, because the land on the east side of the river was excluded not because of historical or geographical reasons but merely because the British perceived doing so to be in their own best interests and got the League of Nations to go along with the idea, today’s proponents of the two-state solution remain mostly unaware of the undeniable fact that there actually are two states, one Arab and one Jewish, on the territory that the world took from the Turks after the First World War and gave to the British to administer. That, however, is not what I want to write about today.

Nor do I want to focus on the obtuse unwillingness of so many who speak vocally about the two-state solution as the sole path forward to peace to take a long, hard look at Gaza…and then explain why Israel should not insist on ironclad guarantees that the citizens of some future state of Palestine will not follow the Gazans’ lead and give their nation over to radical terrorists whose whole raison d’être is the annihilation of the Jewish state. (For European nations like Ireland and Sweden that face no existential threats from without and whose right to live in peace on their own soil is contested by none to look past Gaza and pretend not to see the problem borders on the grotesque. But I’ll return to that set of ideas in a future letter.)

Instead, what I would like to bring to the discussion today are two ten-dollar words that denote related but distinct concepts, and which hardly ever appear in discussions of Middle Eastern politics: irredentism and revanchism. The former, irredentism, denotes any popular movement rooted in the desire to reclaim “lost” territory that the proponents of the movement consider rightfully theirs. (The word derives from the Italian word irridento, which means “unredeemed” and was coined in the 1870s by activists who wished to “redeem” the Italian-speaking parts of Austria and France by making them part of Italy.) The latter, revanchism, denotes any political movement rooted in the desire to reverse territorial losses incurred through war or through some other political process, and to restore them to their original political status. (The word derives from the French word revanche, which means “revenge” and was coined by French nationalists who wanted to reclaim Alsace-Lorraine from Germany after losing those two eastern provinces in the aftermath of the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-1871.) The Palestinian cause has elements of both, of course: the “redemption” of Arab land that somehow ended up as part of Israel and “revenge” both for the defeat in 1948-1949 that established Israel as an independent country and left the West Bank in the hands of Jordan and Gaza under Egyptian control, and also for the Arab defeat in the Six Day War that left the West Bank, the Golan, the Sinai, and Gaza under Israeli control.

Viewing the struggle for an independent Palestinian state through the lenses of irredentism and revanchism is an interesting experience, because it allows us to view the whole situation through a much wider lens than usual. The irredentist and/or revanchist claims of nations are, it turns out, countless. But the world takes little note of most of them: the principle that law most reasonably derives from facts on the ground—in the Latin of international law: ex factis jus oritur—is broadly brought to bear to dismiss most irredentist claims as nationalistic fantasies that cannot be expected to trump the actual boundaries of existent nations. No one, for example, is prepared to take South Tyrol from Italy and hand it over to Austria merely because there are Austrians who haven’t made peace with its loss following World War II. Nor is the world going to dismember the United Kingdom and hand North Ireland over to Ireland merely because a large majority of Irish citizens think of it as an integral part of their island-nation, which it surely is geographically, and because its citizens are almost exclusively ethnically Irish. Nor did the world seek to head off the first Gulf War merely by handing over Kuwait to the Iraqis who claimed it as their own territory merely because the boundary between the two nations was yet another British line arbitrary drawn, this time literally, in the sand…much less because Saddam Hussein threatened war if they didn’t. European nations alone with irredentist claims on other countries’ territory include, aside from Austria and Ireland, Portugal, Spain, Hungary, Romania, Croatia, Servia, Bosnia, Albania, Bulgaria, Germany, Lithuania, Poland, Belarus, Ukraine, Norway, Russia. Asian nations with irredentist claims on other countries include India, Japan, China, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Cambodia, and the Philippines. The list goes on. (For a full list, click here.) Indeed, as I reviewed these claims and was amazed not only at how many they are, but at how many different nations they involve, it struck me that the assumption so many of us seem to have that the mere fact of the Israeli victory in the Six-Day War implies some sort of obligation on Israel’s part to hand over land it has administered for half a century seems weak and not at all in conformity with the way the world views other similar disputes regarding territories lost in war or as a result of political adventurism abroad.

There is a counterpart to the principle of ex factis jus oritur mentioned above: it is ex injuria jus non oritur, which means that, for all law must and should rest on a foundation of reality, “unjust acts cannot create law.” That suggests a certain unsavory underside to the argument that Israel has some sort of unilateral obligation to create a Palestinian state on the West Bank when put forward by nations who themselves couldn’t be less interested in creating “two-state solutions” in response to irredentist claims on their own territorial integrity. (Just for fun, try suggesting to an Australian that Australia solve its aboriginal problem with a two-state solution…or to a New Zealander that New Zealand solve its Maori problem by divvying up the landmass so that the descendants of the nation’s colonial invaders and those of the natives they found in place can thrive in separate political entities.) Indeed, the supposition that Israel’s existence itself is a kind of unjust act perpetrated by the world on the Palestinians, an argument that has neither historical validity nor philosophical merit, would justify the assumption that Israel must cede land it won in a war foisted upon it by its enemies. But that argument—that Israel is itself an unjustifiable aberration the existence of which cannot be used as the basis to create law at all—is not only offensive, but suggestive of a deeply anti-Semitic worldview.

I am not arguing that the Palestinians should be made to pay forever for their huge error of judgment in 1947 when the world offered them an independent state and they specifically chose not to take it because taking it would have meant living in peace with the Jewish state next door. But the assumption that the facts on the ground cannot and should not create the law that governs the parties to the dispute can only be sustained by arguing the illegitimacy of the Jewish state…and that is a position that principled people possessed of an unbiased sense of history may never embrace.

A two-state solution may in the end be a good thing for all parties to the dispute. I actually think that that probably is the case. But to argue that it must be, that it is immoral and unreasonable for the Arab side to bear the consequences of their own defeat in war both in 1948 and in 1967—that is simply a principle of law that none of the nations of the world seems to apply to itself. And that point—and also that Israel has every right never to agree to any sort of agreement that could conceivably lead to the establishment of Gaza East on the West Bank—those are the points that seems regularly lost on most, including those who speak the most fervently in favor of the two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

#irredentism #revanchism #Middle East

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interkomitet · 4 years ago

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75th Anniversary of the Great Victory: Shared Responsibility to History and our Future – Article by President Vladimir Putin

75 years have passed since the end of the Great Patriotic War. Several generations have grown up over the years. The political map of the planet has changed. The Soviet Union that claimed an epic, crushing victory over Nazism and saved the entire world is gone. Besides, the events of that war have long become a distant memory, even for its participants. So why does Russia celebrate the 9th of May as the biggest holiday? Why does life almost come to a halt on June 22? And why does one feel a lump rise in their throat?

They usually say that the war has left a deep imprint on every family’s history. Behind these words, there are fates of millions of people, their sufferings and the pain of loss. Behind these words, there is also the pride, the truth and the memory.

For my parents, the war meant the terrible ordeals of the Siege of Leningrad where my two-year old brother Vitya died. It was the place where my mother miraculously managed to survive. My father, despite being exempt from active duty, volunteered to defend his hometown. He made the same decision as millions of Soviet citizens. He fought at the Nevsky Pyatachok bridgehead and was severely wounded. And the more years pass, the more I feel the need to talk to my parents and learn more about the war period of their lives. But I no longer have the opportunity to do so. This is the reason why I treasure in my heart the conversations I had with my father and mother on this subject, as well as the little emotion they showed.

People of my age and I believe it is important that our children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren understand the torment and hardships their ancestors had to endure. They need to understand how their ancestors managed to persevere and win. Where did their sheer, unbending willpower that amazed and fascinated the whole world come from? Sure, they were defending their homes, children, loved ones and families. However, what they shared was the love for their homeland, their Motherland. That deep-seated, intimate feeling is fully reflected in the very essence of our nation and became one of the decisive factors in its heroic, sacrificial fight against the Nazis.

People often wonder: What would today’s generation do? How will it act when faced with a crisis situation? I see young doctors, nurses, sometimes fresh graduates that go to the ”red zone“ to save lives. I see our servicemen fighting international terrorism in the North Caucasus, fighting to the bitter end in Syria. They are so young. Many servicemen who were part of the legendary, immortal 6th Paratroop Company were 19–20 years old. But all of them proved that they deserved to inherit the feat of the warriors of our Motherland that defended it during the Great Patriotic War.

This is why I am confident that one of the characteristic features of the peoples of Russia is to fulfil their duty without feeling sorry for themselves when the circumstances so demand. Such values as selflessness, patriotism, love for their home, their family and Fatherland remain fundamental and integral to the Russian society to this day. These values are, to a large extent, the backbone of our country’s sovereignty.

Nowadays, we have new traditions created by the people, such as the Immortal Regiment. This is the memory march that symbolises our gratitude, as well as the living connection and the blood ties between generations. Millions of people come out to the streets carrying the photographs of their relatives who defended their Fatherland and defeated the Nazis. This means that their lives, the ordeals and sacrifices they endured, as well as the Victory that they passed to us will never be forgotten.

We have a responsibility to our past and our future to do our utmost to prevent those horrible tragedies from happening ever again. Hence, I was compelled to come out with an article about World War II and the Great Patriotic War. I have discussed this idea on several occasions with world leaders, and they have showed their support. At the summit of CIS leaders held at the end of last year, we all agreed on one thing: it is essential to pass on to future generations the memory of the fact that the Nazis were defeated first and foremost by the entire Soviet people and that representatives of all republics of the Soviet Union fought side by side together in that heroic battle, both on the frontlines and in the rear. During that summit, I also talked with my counterparts about the challenging pre-war period.

That conversation caused a stir in Europe and the world. It means that it is indeed high time that we revisited the lessons of the past. At the same time, there were many emotional outbursts, poorly disguised insecurities and loud accusations that followed. Acting out of habit, certain politicians rushed to claim that Russia was trying to rewrite history. However, they failed to rebut a single fact or refute a single argument. It is indeed difficult, if not impossible, to argue with the original documents that, by the way, can be found not only in Russian, but also in foreign archives.

Thus, there is a need to further examine the reasons that caused the world war and reflect on its complicated events, tragedies and victories, as well as its lessons, both for our country and the entire world. And like I said, it is crucial to rely exclusively on archive documents and contemporary evidence while avoiding any ideological or politicised speculations.

I would like to once again recall the obvious fact. The root causes of World War II mainly stem from the decisions made after World War I. The Treaty of Versailles became a symbol of grave injustice for Germany. It basically implied that the country was to be robbed, being forced to pay enormous reparations to the Western allies that drained its economy. French Marshal Ferdinand Foch who served as the Supreme Allied Commander gave a prophetic description of that Treaty: “This is not peace. It is an armistice for twenty years.”

It was the national humiliation that became a fertile ground for radical and revenge-seeking sentiments in Germany. The Nazis skilfully played on people’s emotions and built their propaganda promising to deliver Germany from the “legacy of Versailles” and restore the country to its former power while essentially pushing German people into war. Paradoxically, the Western states, particularly the United Kingdom and the United States, directly or indirectly contributed to this. Their financial and industrial enterprises actively invested in German factories and plants manufacturing military products. Besides, many people in the aristocracy and political establishment supported radical, far-right and nationalist movements that were on the rise both in Germany and in Europe.

“Versailles world order” caused numerous implicit controversies and apparent conflicts. They revolved around the borders of new European states randomly set by the victors in World War I. That boundary delimitation was almost immediately followed by territorial disputes and mutual claims that turned into “time bombs”.

One of the major outcomes of World War I was the establishment of the League of Nations. There were high expectations for that international organisation to ensure lasting peace and collective security. It was a progressive idea that, if followed through consistently, could actually prevent the horrors of a global war from happening again.

However, the League of Nations dominated by the victorious powers of France and the United Kingdom proved ineffective and just got swamped by pointless discussions. The League of Nations and the European continent in general turned a deaf ear to the repeated calls of the Soviet Union to establish an equitable collective security system, and sign an Eastern European pact and a Pacific pact to prevent aggression. These proposals were disregarded.

The League of Nations also failed to prevent conflicts in various parts of the world, such as the attack of Italy on Ethiopia, a civil war in Spain, the Japanese aggression against China and the Anschluss of Austria. Furthermore, in case of the Munich Betrayal that, in addition to Hitler and Mussolini, involved British and French leaders, Czechoslovakia was taken apart with the full approval of the League of Nations. I would like to point out in this regard that, unlike many other European leaders of that time, Stalin did not disgrace himself by meeting with Hitler who was known among the Western nations as quite a reputable politician and was a welcome guest in the European capitals.

Poland was also engaged in the partition of Czechoslovakia along with Germany. They decided together in advance who would get what Czechoslovak territories. On September 20, 1938, Polish Ambassador to Germany Józef Lipski reported to Minister of Foreign Affairs of Poland Józef Beck on the following assurances made by Hitler: “…in case of a conflict between Poland and Czechoslovakia over our interests in Teschen, the Reich would stand by Poland.” The Nazi leader even prompted and advised that Poland started to act “only after the Germans occupy the Sudetes.”

Poland was aware that without Hitler’s support, its annexationist plans were doomed to fail. I would like to quote in this regard a record of the conversation between German Ambassador to Warsaw Hans-Adolf von Moltke and Józef Beck that took place on October 1, 1938, and was focused on the Polish-Czech relations and the position of the Soviet Union in this matter. It says: “Mr Beck expressed real gratitude for the loyal treatment accorded to Polish interests at the Munich conference, as well as the sincerity of relations during the Czech conflict. The Government and the public [of Poland] fully appreciated the attitude of the Fuehrer and Chancellor.”

The partition of Czechoslovakia was brutal and cynical. Munich destroyed even the formal, fragile guarantees that remained on the continent. It showed that mutual agreements were worthless. It was the Munich Betrayal that served as the “trigger” and made the great war in Europe inevitable.

Today, European politicians, and Polish leaders in particular, wish to sweep the Munich Betrayal under the carpet. Why? The fact that their countries once broke their commitments and supported the Munich Betrayal, with some of them even participating in divvying up the take, is not the only reason. Another is that it is kind of embarrassing to recall that during those dramatic days of 1938, the Soviet Union was the only one to stand up for Czechoslovakia.

The Soviet Union, in accordance with its international obligations, including agreements with France and Czechoslovakia, tried to prevent the tragedy from happening. Meanwhile, Poland, in pursuit of its interests, was doing its utmost to hamper the establishment of a collective security system in Europe. Polish Minister of Foreign Affairs Józef Beck wrote about it directly in his letter of September 19, 1938 to the aforementioned Ambassador Józef Lipski before his meeting with Hitler: “…in the past year, the Polish government rejected four times the proposal to join the international interfering in defence of Czechoslovakia.”

Britain, as well as France, which was at the time the main ally of the Czechs and Slovaks, chose to withdraw their guarantees and abandon this Eastern European country to its fate. In so doing, they sought to direct the attention of the Nazis eastward so that Germany and the Soviet Union would inevitably clash and bleed each other white.

That was the essence of the western policy of ‘appeasement,’ which was pursued not only towards the Third Reich but also towards other participants of the so-called Anti-Comintern Pact – the fascist Italy and militarist Japan. In the Far East, this policy culminated in the conclusion of the Anglo-Japanese agreement in the summer of 1939, which gave Tokyo a free hand in China. The leading European powers were unwilling to recognise the mortal danger posed by Germany and its allies to the whole world. They were hoping that they themselves would be left untouched by the war.

The Munich Betrayal showed to the Soviet Union that the Western countries would deal with security issues without taking its interests into account. In fact, they could even create an anti-Soviet front, if needed.

Nevertheless, the Soviet Union did its utmost to use every chance to create an Anti-Hitler coalition. Despite – I will say it again – the double‑dealing on the part of the Western countries. For instance, the intelligence services reported to the Soviet leadership detailed information on the behind-the-scenes contacts between Britain and Germany in the summer of 1939. The important thing is that those contacts were quite active and practically coincided with the tripartite negotiations between France, Great Britain and the USSR, which were, on the contrary, deliberately protracted by the Western partners. In this connection, I will cite a document from the British archives. It contains instructions to the British military mission that came to Moscow in August 1939. It directly states that the delegation was to proceed with negotiations very slowly, and that the Government of the United Kingdom was not ready to assume any obligations spelled out in detail and limiting their freedom of action under any circumstances. I will also note that, unlike the British and French delegations, the Soviet delegation was headed by top commanders of the Red Army, who had the necessary authority to “sign a military convention on the organisation of military defence of England, France and the USSR against aggression in Europe.”

Poland played its role in the failure of those negotiations as it did not want to have any obligations to the Soviet side. Even under pressure from their Western allies, the Polish leadership rejected the idea of joint action with the Red Army to fight against the Wehrmacht. It was only when they learned of the arrival of J. Ribbentrop to Moscow that J. Beck reluctantly and not directly, but through French diplomats, notified the Soviet side: “… in the event of joint action against the German aggression, cooperation between Poland and the Soviet Union, subject to technical conditions which have to be agreed, is not out of the question.” At the same time, he explained to his colleagues: “… I agreed to this wording only for the sake of the tactics, and our core position in relation to the Soviet Union is final and remains unchanged.”

In these circumstances, the Soviet Union signed the Non-Aggression Pact with Germany. It was practically the last among the European countries to do so. Besides, it was done in the face of a real threat of war on two fronts – with Germany in the west and with Japan in the east, where intense fighting on the Khalkhin Gol River was already underway.

Stalin and his entourage, indeed, deserve many legitimate accusations. We remember the crimes committed by the regime against its own people and the horror of mass repressions. In other words, there are many things the Soviet leaders can be reproached for, but poor understanding of the nature of external threats is not one of them. They saw how attempts were made to leave the Soviet Union alone to deal with Germany and its allies. Bearing in mind this real threat, they sought to buy precious time needed to strengthen the country’s defences.

Nowadays, we hear lots of speculations and accusations against modern Russia in connection with the Non-Aggression Pact signed back then. Yes, Russia is the legal successor state to the USSR, and the Soviet period – with all its triumphs and tragedies – is an inalienable part of our thousand-year-long history. However, let me also remind you that the Soviet Union gave a legal and moral assessment of the so-called Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact. The Supreme Soviet in its resolution of December 24, 1989 officially denounced the secret protocols as “an act of personal power” which in no way reﬂected “the will of the Soviet people who bear no responsibility for this collusion.”

Yet other states prefer to forget the agreements carrying signatures of the Nazis and Western politicians, not to mention giving legal or political assessments of such cooperation, including the silent acquiescence – or even direct abetment – of some European politicians in the barbarous plans of the Nazis. It will suffice to remember the cynical phrase said by Polish Ambassador to Germany J. Lipski during his conversation with Hitler on September 20, 1938: “…for solving the Jewish problem, we [the Poles] will build in his honour … a splendid monument in Warsaw.”

Besides, we do not know if there were any secret “protocols” or annexes to agreements of a number of countries with the Nazis. The only thing that is left to do is to take their word for it. In particular, materials pertaining to the secret Anglo-German talks still have not been declassified. Therefore, we urge all states to step up the process of making their archives public and publishing previously unknown documents of the war and pre-war periods – the way Russia has been doing it in recent years. In this context, we are ready for broad cooperation and joint research projects engaging historians.

But let us go back to the events immediately preceding the Second World War. It was naïve to believe that Hitler, once done with Czechoslovakia, would not make new territorial claims. This time the claims involved its recent accomplice in the partition of Czechoslovakia – Poland. Here, the legacy of Versailles, particularly the fate of the so-called Danzig Corridor, was yet again used as the pretext. The blame for the tragedy that Poland then suffered lies entirely with the Polish leadership, which had impeded the formation of a military alliance between Britain, France and the Soviet Union and relied on the help from its Western partners, throwing its own people under the steamroller of Hitler’s machine of destruction.

The German offensive was mounted in full accordance with the blitzkrieg doctrine. Despite the fierce, heroic resistance of the Polish army, on September 8, 1939 – only a week after the war broke out – the German troops were on the approaches to Warsaw. By September 17, the military and political leaders of Poland had fled to Romania, betraying its people, who continued to fight against the invaders.

Poland’s hope for help from its Western allies was vain. After the war against Germany was declared, the French troops advanced only a few tens of kilometres deep into the German territory. All of it looked like a mere demonstration of vigorous action. Moreover, the Anglo-French Supreme War Council, holding its first meeting on September 12, 1939 in the French city of Abbeville, decided to call off the offensive altogether in view of the rapid developments in Poland. That was when the infamous Phony War started. What Britain and France did was a blatant betrayal of their obligations to Poland.

Later, during the Nuremberg Trials, German generals explained their quick success in the East. Former Chief of the Operations Staff of the German Armed Forces High Command General Alfred Jodl admitted: “… we did not suffer defeat as early as 1939 only because about 110 French and British divisions stationed in the west against 23 German divisions during our war with Poland remained absolutely idle.”

I asked for retrieval from the archives of the whole body of materials pertaining to the contacts between the USSR and Germany in the dramatic days of August and September 1939. According to the documents, paragraph 2 of the Secret Protocol to the German-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact of August 23, 1939 stated that, in the event of territorial-political reorganisation of the districts making up the Polish state, the border between the spheres of interest of the two countries would run “approximately along the Narew, Vistula and San rivers.” In other words, the Soviet sphere of influence included not only the territories that were mostly home to Ukrainian and Belorussian population but also the historically Polish lands in the Vistula and Bug interfluve. This fact is known to very few these days.

Similarly, very few know that, immediately after the attack on Poland, in the early days of September 1939, Berlin strongly and repeatedly called on Moscow to join the military action. However, the Soviet leadership ignored those calls and planned to avoid engaging in the dramatic developments as long as possible.

It was only when it became absolutely clear that Great Britain and France were not going to help their ally and the Wehrmacht could swiftly occupy entire Poland and thus appear on the approaches to Minsk that the Soviet Union decided to send in, on the morning of September 17, Red Army units into the so-called Eastern Borderlines (Kresy), which nowadays form part of the territories of Belorussia, Ukraine and Lithuania.

Obviously, there was no alternative. Otherwise, the USSR would face seriously increased risks because – I will say this again – the old Soviet-Polish border ran only within a few tens of kilometres from Minsk. The country would have to enter the inevitable war with the Nazis from very disadvantageous strategic positions, while millions of people of different nationalities, including the Jews living near Brest and Grodno, Przemyśl, Lvov and Wilno, would be left to die at the hands of the Nazis and their local accomplices – anti-Semites and radical nationalists.

The fact that the Soviet Union sought to avoid engaging in the growing conflict for as long as possible and was unwilling to fight side by side with Germany was the reason why the real contact between the Soviet and the German troops occurred much farther east than the borders agreed in the secret protocol. It was not on the Vistula River but closer to the so-called Curzon Line, which back in 1919 was recommended by the Triple Entente as the eastern border of Poland.

As is known, the subjunctive mood can hardly be used when we speak of the past events. I will only say that, in September 1939, the Soviet leadership had an opportunity to move the western borders of the USSR even farther west, all the way to Warsaw, but decided against it.

The Germans suggested formalising the new status quo. On September 28, 1939 J. Ribbentrop and V. Molotov signed in Moscow the Boundary and Friendship Treaty between Germany and the Soviet Union, as well as the secret protocol on changing the state border, according to which the border was recognised at the demarcation line where the two armies de-facto stood.

In autumn 1939, the Soviet Union, pursuing its strategic military and defensive goals, started the process of incorporation of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia. Their accession to the USSR was implemented on a contractual basis, with the consent of the elected authorities. This was in line with international and state law of that time. Besides, in October 1939, the city of Wilno and the surrounding area, which had previously been part of Poland, were returned to Lithuania. The Baltic republics within the USSR preserved their government bodies, language, and had representation in the higher government entities of the Soviet Union.

During all these months there was an ongoing invisible diplomatic and politico-military struggle and intelligence work. Moscow understood that it was facing a fierce and cruel enemy, and that a covert war against Nazism was already going on. And there was no reason to take official statements and formal protocol notes of that time as a proof of ‘friendship’ between the USSR and Germany. The Soviet Union had active trade and technical contacts not only with Germany, but with other countries as well. Whereas Hitler tried again and again to draw the Soviet Union into Germany’s confrontation with the UK. But the Soviet government stood firm.

The last attempt to persuade the USSR to act together was made by Hitler during Molotov’s visit to Berlin in November 1940. But Molotov accurately followed Stalin’s instructions and limited himself to a general discussion of the German idea of the Soviet Union joining the Tripartite Pact signed by Germany, Italy and Japan in September 1940 and directed against the UK and the USA. No wonder that already on November 17 Molotov gave the following instructions to Soviet plenipotentiary representative in London Ivan Maisky: “For your information…No agreement was signed or was intended to be signed in Berlin. We just exchanged our views in Berlin…and that was all…Apparently, the Germans and the Japanese seem anxious to push us towards the Gulf and India. We declined the discussion of this matter as we consider such advice on the part of Germany to be inappropriate.” And on November 25, the Soviet leadership called it a day altogether by officially putting forward to Berlin the conditions that were unacceptable to the Nazis, including the withdrawal of German troops from Finland, mutual assistance treaty between Bulgaria and the USSR, and a number of others. Thus it deliberately excluded any possibility of joining the Pact. Such position definitely shaped the Fuehrer’s intention to unleash a war against the USSR. And already in December, putting aside the warnings of his strategists about the disastrous danger of having a two-front war, Hitler approved Operation Barbarossa. He did this with the knowledge that the Soviet Union was the major force that opposed him in Europe and that the upcoming battle in the East would decide the outcome of the world war. And he had no doubts as to the swiftness and success of the Moscow campaign.

And here I would like to highlight the following: Western countries, as a matter of fact, agreed at that time with the Soviet actions and recognised the Soviet Union’s intention to ensure its national security. Indeed, back on October 1, 1939 Winston Churchill, the First Lord of the Admiralty back then, in his speech on the radio said, “Russia has pursued a cold policy of self-interest… But that the Russian Armies should stand on this line [meaning the new Western border] was clearly necessary for the safety of Russia against the Nazi menace.” On October 4, 1939, speaking in the House of Lords, Britain’s Foreign Secretary Lord Halifax said, “…it should be recalled that the Soviet government’s actions were to move the border essentially to the line recommended at the Versailles Conference by Lord Curzon… I only cite historical facts and believe they are indisputable.” Prominent British politician and statesman David Lloyd George emphasised, “The Russian Armies occupied the territories that are not Polish and that were forcibly seized by Poland after World War I … It would be an act of criminal insanity to put the Russian advancement on a par with the German one.“

In informal communications with Soviet plenipotentiary representative Ivan Maisky, British high-ranking politicians and diplomats spoke even more openly. On October 17, 1939, Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs R. A. Butler confided to him that the British government circles believed there could be no question of returning Western Ukraine and Belorussia to Poland. According to him, if it had been possible to create an ethnographic Poland of a modest size with a guarantee not only of the USSR and Germany, but also of Britain and France, the British government would have considered itself quite satisfied. On October 27, 1939, Neville Chamberlain’s senior advisor Horace Wilson said that Poland had to be restored as an independent state on its ethnographic basis, but without Western Ukraine and Belorussia.

It is worth noting that in the course of these conversations the possibilities for improving British-Soviet relations were also explored. These contacts to a large extent laid the foundation for future alliance and Anti-Hitler coalition. Winston Churchill stood out among responsible and far-sighted politicians and, despite his infamous dislike for the USSR, had been in favour of cooperating with the Soviets even before. Back in May 1939, he said in the House of Commons, “We shall be in mortal danger if we fail to create a Grand Alliance against aggression. The worst folly… would be to… drive away any natural cooperation with Soviet Russia…” And after the start of hostilities in Europe, at his meeting with Ivan Maisky on October 6, 1939 he confided that there were no serious contradictions between the UK and the USSR and, therefore, there was no reason for strained or unsatisfactory relations. He also mentioned that the British government was eager to develop trade relations and willing to discuss any other measures that might improve the relationships.

World War II did not happen overnight, nor did it start unexpectedly or all of a sudden. And German aggression against Poland was not out of nowhere. It was the result of a number of tendencies and factors in the world politics of that time. All pre-war events fell into place to form one fatal chain. But, undoubtedly, the main factors that predetermined the greatest tragedy in the history of mankind were state egoism, cowardice, appeasement of the aggressor who was gaining strength, and unwillingness of political elites to search for compromise.

Therefore, it is unfair to claim that the two-day visit to Moscow of Nazi Foreign Minister J. Ribbentrop was the main reason for the start of World War II. All the leading countries are to a certain extent responsible for its outbreak. Each of them made fatal mistakes, arrogantly believing that they could outsmart others, secure unilateral advantages for themselves or stay away from the impending global catastrophe. And this short-sightedness, the refusal to create a collective security system cost millions of lives and tremendous losses.

Saying this, I by no means intend to take on the role of a judge, to accuse or acquit anyone, let alone initiate a new round of international information confrontation in the historical field that could set countries and peoples at loggerheads. I believe that it is academics with a wide representation of respected scholars from different countries of the world who should search for a balanced assessment of what happened. We all need the truth and objectivity. On my part, I have always encouraged my colleagues to build a calm, open and trust-based dialogue, to look at the common past in a self-critical and unbiased manner. Such an approach will make it possible not to repeat the mistakes committed back then and to ensure peaceful and successful development for years to come.

However, many of our partners are not yet ready for joint work. On the contrary, pursuing their goals, they increase the number and the scope of information attacks against our country, trying to make us provide excuses and feel guilty. They adopt thoroughly hypocritical and politically motivated declarations. Thus, for example, the resolution on the Importance of European Remembrance for the Future of Europe approved by the European Parliament on September 19, 2019 directly accused the USSR – along with the Nazi Germany – of unleashing the Second World War. Needless to say, there is no mention of Munich in it whatsoever.

I believe that such ‘paperwork’ – for I cannot call this resolution a document – which is clearly intended to provoke a scandal, is fraught with real and dangerous threats. Indeed, it was adopted by a highly respectable institution. And what did it show? Regrettably, it revealed a deliberate policy aimed at destroying the post-war world order whose creation was a matter of honour and responsibility for the countries a number of representatives of which voted today in favour of this deceitful resolution. Thus, they challenged the conclusions of the Nuremberg Tribunal and the efforts of the international community to create after the victorious 1945 universal international institutions. Let me remind you in this regard that the process of European integration itself leading to the establishment of relevant structures, including the European Parliament, became possible only due to the lessons learnt form the past and its accurate legal and political assessment. And those who deliberately put this consensus into question undermine the foundations of the entire post-war Europe.

Apart from posing a threat to the fundamental principles of the world order, this also raises certain moral and ethical issues. Desecrating and insulting the memory is mean. Meanness can be deliberate, hypocritical and pretty much intentional as in the situation when declarations commemorating the 75th anniversary of the end of World War II mention all participants in the Anti-Hitler coalition except for the Soviet Union. Meanness can be cowardly as in the situation when monuments erected in honour of those who fought against Nazism are demolished and these shameful acts are justified by the false slogans of the fight against an unwelcome ideology and alleged occupation. Meanness can also be bloody as in the situation when those who come out against neo-Nazis and Bandera’s successors are killed and burned. Once again, meanness can have different manifestations, but this does not make it less disgusting.

Neglecting the lessons of history inevitably leads to a harsh payback. We will firmly uphold the truth based on documented historical facts. We will continue to be honest and impartial about the events of World War II. This includes a large-scale project to establish Russia’s largest collection of archival records, film and photo materials about the history of World War II and the pre‑war period.

Such work is already underway. Many new, recently discovered or declassified materials were also used in the preparation of this article. In this connection, I can state with all responsibility that there are no archive documents that would confirm the assumption that the USSR intended to start a preventive war against Germany. The Soviet military leadership indeed followed a doctrine according to which, in the event of aggression, the Red Army would promptly confront the enemy, go on the offensive and wage war on enemy territory. However, such strategic plans did not imply any intention to attack Germany first.

Of course, military planning documents, letters of instruction of Soviet and German headquarters are now available to historians. Finally, we know the true course of events. From the perspective of this knowledge, many argue about the actions, mistakes and misjudgement of the country’s military and political leadership. In this regard, I will say one thing: along with a huge flow of misinformation of various kinds, Soviet leaders also received true information about the upcoming Nazi aggression. And in the pre-war months, they took steps to improve the combat readiness of the country, including the secret recruitment of a part of those liable for military duty for military training and the redeployment of units and reserves from internal military districts to western borders.

The war did not come as a surprise, people were expecting it, preparing for it. But the Nazi attack was truly unprecedented in terms of its destructive power. On June 22, 1941, the Soviet Union faced the strongest, most mobilised and skilled army in the world with the industrial, economic and military potential of almost all Europe working for it. Not only the Wehrmacht, but also Germany’s satellites, military contingents of many other states of the European continent, took part in this deadly invasion.

The most serious military defeats in 1941 brought the country to the brink of catastrophe. Combat power and control had to be restored by extreme means, nation-wide mobilisation and intensification of all efforts of the state and the people. In summer 1941, millions of citizens, hundreds of factories and industries began to be evacuated under enemy fire to the east of the country. The manufacture of weapons and munition, that had started to be supplied to the front already in the first military winter, was launched behind the lines in the shortest possible time, and by 1943, the rates of military production of Germany and its allies were exceeded. Within eighteen months, the Soviet people did something that seemed impossible. Both on the front lines and the home front. It is still hard to realise, understand and imagine what incredible efforts, courage, dedication these greatest achievements were worth.

The tremendous power of Soviet society, united by the desire to protect their native land, rose against the powerful, armed to the teeth, cold-blooded Nazi invading machine. It stood up to take revenge on the enemy, who had broken, trampled peaceful life, people’s plans and hopes.

Of course, fear, confusion and desperation were taking over some people during this terrible and bloody war. There were betrayal and desertion. The harsh splits caused by the revolution and the Civil War, nihilism, mockery of national history, traditions and faith that the Bolsheviks tried to impose, especially in the first years after coming to power – all of this had its impact. But the general attitude of the of Soviet citizens and our compatriots who found themselves abroad was different – to save and protect the Motherland. It was a real and irrepressible impulse. People were looking for support in true patriotic values.

The Nazi ‘strategists’ were convinced that a huge multinational state could easily be brought to heel. They thought that the sudden outbreak of the war, its mercilessness and unbearable hardships would inevitably exacerbate inter-ethnic relations. And that the country could be split into pieces. Hitler clearly stated: “Our policy towards the peoples living in the vastness of Russia should be to promote any form of disagreement and split.”

But from the very first days, it was clear that the Nazi plan had failed. The Brest Fortress was protected to the last drop of blood by its defenders representing more than 30 ethnicities. Throughout the war – both in large-scale decisive battles and in the protection of every foothold, every metre of native land – we see examples of such unity.

The Volga region and the Urals, Siberia and the Far East, the republics of Central Asia and Transcaucasia became home to millions of evacuees. Their residents shared everything they had and provided all the support they could. Friendship of peoples and mutual help became a real indestructible fortress for the enemy.

The Soviet Union and the Red Army, no matter what anyone is trying to prove today, made the main and crucial contribution to the defeat of Nazism. These were heroes who fought to the end surrounded by the enemy at Bialystok and Mogilev, Uman and Kiev, Vyazma and Kharkov. They launched attacks near Moscow and Stalingrad, Sevastopol and Odessa, Kursk and Smolensk. They liberated Warsaw, Belgrade, Vienna and Prague. They stormed Koenigsberg and Berlin.

We contend for genuine, unvarnished or whitewashed truth about war. This national, human truth, which is hard, bitter and merciless, has been handed down to us by writers and poets who walked through fire and hell of front trials. For my generation, as well as for many others, their honest and deep stories, novels, piercing trench prose and poems have left their mark on the soul forever. Honouring veterans who did everything they could for the Victory and remembering those who died on the battlefield has become our moral duty.

And today, the simple and great in their essence lines of Alexander Tvardovsky’s poem “I was killed near Rzhev …” dedicated to the participants of the bloody and brutal battle of the Great Patriotic War in the centre of the Soviet-German front line are astonishing. In the battles for Rzhev and the Rzhev Salient alone from October 1941 to March 1943, the Red Army lost 1,342,888 people, including wounded and missing in action. For the first time, I call out these terrible, tragic and far from complete figures collected from archive sources. I do it to honour the memory of the feat of known and nameless heroes, who for various reasons were undeservingly, and unfairly little talked about or not mentioned at all in the post-war years.

Let me cite another document. This is a report of February 1945 on reparation from Germany by the Allied Commission on Reparations headed by Ivan Maisky. The Commission’s task was to define a formula according to which defeated Germany would have to pay for the damages sustained by the victor powers. The Commission concluded that “the number of soldier-days spent by Germany on the Soviet front is at least 10 times higher than on all other allied fronts. The Soviet front also had to handle four-fifths of German tanks and about two-thirds of German aircraft.” On the whole, the USSR accounted for about 75 percent of all military efforts undertaken by the Anti-Hitler Coalition. During the war period, the Red Army “ground up” 626 divisions of the Axis states, of which 508 were German.

On April 28, 1942, Franklin D. Roosevelt said in his address to the American nation: “These Russian forces have destroyed and are destroying more armed power of our enemies – troops, planes, tanks, and guns – than all the other United Nations put together.” Winston Churchill in his message to Joseph Stalin of September 27, 1944, wrote that “it is the Russian army that tore the guts out of the German military machine…”

Such an assessment has resonated throughout the world. Because these words are the great truth, which no one doubted then. Almost 27 million Soviet citizens lost their lives on the fronts, in German prisons, starved to death and were bombed, died in ghettos and furnaces of the Nazi death camps. The USSR lost one in seven of its citizens, the UK lost one in 127, and the USA lost one in 320. Unfortunately, this figure of the Soviet Union’s hardest and grievous losses is not exhaustive. The painstaking work should be continued to restore the names and fates of all who have perished – Red Army soldiers, partisans, underground fighters, prisoners of war and concentration camps, and civilians killed by the death squads. It is our duty. And special role here belongs to members of the search movement, military‑patriotic and volunteer associations, projects like the electronic database ”Pamyat Naroda“ (Memory of the People), which contains archival documents. And, surely, close international cooperation is needed in such a common humanitarian task.

The efforts of all countries and peoples who fought against a common enemy resulted in victory. The British army protected its homeland from invasion, fought the Nazis and their satellites in the Mediterranean and North Africa. American and British troops liberated Italy and opened the Second Front. The US dealt powerful and crushing strikes against the aggressor in the Pacific Ocean. We remember the tremendous sacrifices made by the Chinese people and their great role in defeating Japanese militarists. Let us not forget the fighters of Fighting France, who did not fall for the shameful capitulation and continued to fight against the Nazis.

We will also always be grateful for the assistance rendered by the Allies in providing the Red Army with munition, raw materials, food and equipment. And that help was significant – about 7 percent of the total military production of the Soviet Union.

The core of the Anti-Hitler Coalition began to take shape immediately after the attack on the Soviet Union where the United States and Britain unconditionally supported it in the fight against Hitler’s Germany. At the Tehran Conference in 1943, Stalin, Roosevelt and Churchill formed an alliance of great powers, agreed to elaborate coalition diplomacy and a joint strategy in the fight against a common deadly threat. The leaders of the Big Three had a clear understanding that the unification of industrial, resource and military capabilities of the USSR, the United States and the UK will give unchallenged supremacy over the enemy.

The Soviet Union fully fulfilled its obligations to its allies and always offered a helping hand. Thus, the Red Army supported the landing of the Anglo-American troops in Normandy by carrying out a large-scale Operation Bagration in Belorussia. In January 1945, having broken through to the Oder River, our soldiers put an end to the last powerful offensive of the Wehrmacht on the Western Front in the Ardennes. Three months after the victory over Germany, the USSR, in full accordance with the Yalta agreements, declared war on Japan and defeated the million-strong Kwantung Army.

Back in July 1941, the Soviet leadership declared that “the purpose of the war against fascist oppressors was not only the elimination of the threat looming over our country, but also help for all the peoples of Europe suffering under the yoke of German fascism.” By mid-1944, the enemy was expelled from virtually all of the Soviet territory. However, the enemy had to be finished off in its lair. And so the Red Army started its liberation mission in Europe. It saved entire nations from destruction and enslavement, and from the horror of the Holocaust. They were saved at the cost of hundreds of thousands of lives of Soviet soldiers.

It is also important not to forget about the enormous material assistance that the USSR provided to the liberated countries in eliminating the threat of hunger and in rebuilding their economies and infrastructure. That was being done at the time when ashes stretched for thousands of miles all the way from Brest to Moscow and the Volga. For instance, in May 1945, the Austrian government asked the USSR to provide assistance with food, as it “had no idea how to feed its population in the next seven weeks before the new harvest.” State Chancellor of the Provisional Government of the Austrian Republic Karl Renner described the consent of the Soviet leadership to send food as a saving act that the Austrians would never forget.

The Allies jointly established the International Military Tribunal to punish Nazi political and war criminals. Its decisions contained a clear legal qualification of crimes against humanity, such as genocide, ethnic and religious cleansing, anti-Semitism and xenophobia. Directly and unambiguously, the Nuremberg Tribunal also condemned the accomplices of the Nazis, collaborators of various kinds.

This shameful phenomenon manifested itself in all European countries. Such figures as Pétain, Quisling, Vlasov, Bandera, their henchmen and followers – though they were disguised as fighters for national independence or freedom from communism – are traitors and butchers. In terms of inhumanity, they often exceeded their masters. In their desire to serve, as part of special punitive groups they willingly executed the most inhuman orders. They were responsible for such bloody events as the shootings of Babi Yar, the Volhynia massacre, burnt Khatyn, acts of destruction of Jews in Lithuania and Latvia.

Today as well, our position remains unchanged – there can be no excuse for the criminal acts of Nazi collaborators, there is no period of limitations for them. It is therefore bewildering that in certain countries those who are smirched with cooperation with the Nazis are suddenly equated with World War II veterans. I believe that it is unacceptable to equate liberators with occupants. And I can only regard the glorification of Nazi collaborators as a betrayal of the memory of our fathers and grandfathers. A betrayal of the ideals that united peoples in the fight against Nazism.

At that time, the leaders of the USSR, the United States, and the UK faced, without exaggeration, a historic task. Stalin, Roosevelt and Churchill represented the countries with different ideologies, state aspirations, interests, cultures, but they demonstrated great political will, rose above the contradictions and preferences and put the true interests of peace at the forefront. As a result, they were able to come to an agreement and achieve a solution from which all of humanity has benefited.

The victor powers left us a system that has become the quintessence of the intellectual and political quest of several centuries. A series of conferences – Tehran, Yalta, San Francisco and Potsdam – laid the foundation of a world that for 75 years had no global war, despite the sharpest contradictions.

Historical revisionism, the manifestations of which we now observe in the West, primarily with regard to the subject of the Second World War and its outcome, is dangerous because it grossly and cynically distorts the understanding of the principles of peaceful development, laid down at the Yalta and San Francisco conferences in 1945. The major historic achievement of Yalta and other decisions of that time is the agreement to create a mechanism that would allow the leading powers to remain within the framework of diplomacy in resolving their differences.

The twentieth century brought large-scale and comprehensive global conflicts, and in 1945, nuclear weapons capable of physically destroying the Earth also entered the scene. In other words, the settlement of disputes by force has become prohibitively dangerous. And the victors in the Second World War understood that. They understood and were aware of their own responsibility towards humanity.

The cautionary tale of the League of Nations was taken into account in 1945. The structure of the UN Security Council was developed in a way to make peace guarantees as concrete and effective as possible. That is how the institution of the permanent members of the Security Council and the right of the veto as their privilege and responsibility came into being.

What is the power of veto in the UN Security Council? To put it bluntly, it is the only reasonable alternative to a direct confrontation between major countries. It is a statement by one of the five powers that a decision is unacceptable to it and is contrary to its interests and its ideas about the right approach. And other countries, even if they do not agree, take this position as a given, abandoning any attempts to realise their unilateral efforts. It means that in one way or another it is necessary to seek compromises.

A new global confrontation started almost immediately after the end of the Second World War and was at times very fierce. And the fact that the Cold War did not grow into the Third World War has become a clear testimony of the effectiveness of the agreements concluded by the Big Three. The rules of conduct agreed upon during the creation of the United Nations made it possible to further minimise risks and keep confrontation under control.

Of course, we can see that the UN system currently experiences certain tension in its work and is not as effective as it could be. But the UN still performs its primary function. The principles of the UN Security Council are a unique mechanism for preventing a major war or a global conflict.

The calls that have been made quite often in recent years to abolish the power of veto, to deny special opportunities to permanent members of the Security Council are actually irresponsible. After all, if that happens, the United Nations would in essence become the League of Nations – a meeting for empty talk without any leverage on the world processes. How it ended is well known. That is why the victor powers approached the formation of the new system of the world order with utmost seriousness seeking to avoid repetition of mistakes made by their predecessors.

The creation of the modern system of international relations is one of the major outcomes of World War II. Even the most insurmountable contradictions – geopolitical, ideological, economic – do not prevent us from finding forms of peaceful coexistence and interaction, if there is the desire and will to do so. Today the world is going through quite a turbulent time. Everything is changing, from the global balance of power and influence to the social, economic and technological foundations of societies, nations and even continents. In the past epochs, shifts of such magnitude have almost never happened without major military conflicts. Without a power struggle to build a new global hierarchy. Thanks to the wisdom and farsightedness of the political figures of the Allied Powers, it was possible to create a system that has restrained from extreme manifestations of such objective competition, historically inherent in the world development.

It is a duty of ours – all those who take political responsibility and primarily representatives of the victor powers in the Second World War – to guarantee that this system is maintained and improved. Today, as in 1945, it is important to demonstrate political will and discuss the future together. Our colleagues – Mr Xi Jinping, Mr Macron, Mr Trump and Mr Johnson – supported the Russian initiative to hold a meeting of the leaders of the five nuclear-weapon states, permanent members of the Security Council. We thank them for this and hope that such face-to-face meeting could take place as soon as possible.

What is our vision of the agenda for the upcoming summit? First of all, in our opinion, it would be useful to discuss steps to develop collective principles in world affairs. To speak frankly about the issues of preserving peace, strengthening global and regional security, strategic arms control, about joint efforts in countering terrorism, extremism and other major challenges and threats.

A special item on the agenda of the meeting is the situation in the global economy. And above all, overcoming the economic crisis caused by the coronavirus pandemic. Our countries are taking unprecedented measures to protect the health and lives of people and to support citizens who have found themselves in difficult living situations. Our ability to work together and in concert, as real partners, will show how severe the impact of the pandemic will be, and how quickly the global economy will emerge from the recession. Moreover, it is unacceptable to turn the economy into an instrument of pressure and confrontation. Popular issues include environmental protection and combating climate change, as well as ensuring the security of the global information space.

The agenda proposed by Russia for the upcoming summit of the Five is extremely important and relevant both for our countries and for the entire world. And we have specific ideas and initiatives on all the items.

There can be no doubt that the summit of Russia, China, France, the United States, and the UK will play an important role in finding common answers to modern challenges and threats, and will demonstrate a common commitment to the spirit of alliance, to those high humanist ideals and values for which our fathers and grandfathers fought shoulder to shoulder.

Drawing on a shared historical memory, we can trust each other and must do so. That will serve as a solid basis for successful negotiations and concerted action for the sake of enhancing the stability and security on the planet, for the sake of prosperity and well-being of all states. Without exaggeration, it is our common duty and responsibility towards the entire world, towards the present and future generations.

http://interkomitet.com/news-of-the-day/75th-anniversary-of-the-great-victory-shared-responsibility-to-history-and-our-future-article-by-president-vladimir-putin/

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cinephiled-com · 7 years ago

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New Post has been published on Cinephiled

New Post has been published on http://www.cinephiled.com/interview-director-raoul-peck-james-baldwin-karl-marx-parkland-students/

Interview: Director Raoul Peck on James Baldwin, Karl Marx, and the Parkland Students

In the mid-1800s, after the Industrial Revolution has created an age of new prosperity and new problems, a 26-year-old writer, researcher, and radical named Karl Marx (August Diehl) embarks, with his wife Jenny (Vicky Krieps), on the road to exile. In Paris in 1844, they meet young Friedrich Engels (Stefan Konarske), the well-to-do son of a factory owner whose studies and research has exposed the poor wages and worse conditions of the new English working class who operate looms, printing presses, and other engines of industry that enrich their owners while punishing laborers. The smooth and sophisticated but equally radical Engels brings his research and resources to provide Marx with the missing pieces to the puzzle of his new vision of the world. Together, while battling censorship and police raids, riots and political upheavals, the two men will preside over the birth of the labor movement turning unorganized idealists and dreamers into a united force with a common goal. The ideas they put forward will grow into the most complete philosophical and political transformation of the world since the Renaissance – started, against all expectations, by two brilliant, insolent, and sharp-witted young men whose ideas were embraced by revolutionaries even as they were later corrupted by dictators.

As director Raoul Peck himself puts it, “Before they’d even reached the age of 30, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels had undoubtedly started to change the world – for better or worse…” I was so enthralled by Haitian director Raoul Peck’s powerful Oscar-nominated documentary about James Baldwin last year called I Am Not Your Negro that I was thrilled to speak to him about his new film, The Young Karl Marx, very different in scope and style, and yet similar in other ways. I asked him what it was like to be working on those two films at the same time and if he thought that his immersion into the world of James Baldwin informed his interpretation of the events in Karl Marx’s life.

Raoul Peck: Oh yes, absolutely! Baldwin often used Marxist analysis in his own writings, even his notion that whiteness was just a metaphor for power. The relationship between capitalism and racism made me feel like I was working on the same subject during the making of both films — I felt right at home with both.

And yet this film has such a different structure. Did you ever consider using documentary elements to tell Karl Marx’s story?

No, not really. Initially there were people who wanted me to use a kind of mixed form but I realized early on that I wanted to go totally narrative in this film while still staying very true to the actual events. That was very important to me for both films, actually — I wanted to push aside any interpretations and not go through anybody to tell their stories, I went straight to the source. Just as I only use Baldwin’s own words in I Am Not Your Negro and did not permit any talking heads, that’s what I tried to do in this film in the sense that the entire script was built from the actual correspondence between Marx, Engels, Jenny Marx, and Mary Burns.

Their story is so compelling. I was impressed at how the dialogue never seemed like people giving “speeches” as often can happen in films about important thinkers like this.

I really tried to avoid all of the indulgences of the biopic genre. I didn’t create a love story that didn’t happen or invent any characters to help drive the dramatic structure. Every character you see in this film is a real person using their real name. I know some people have said that this is a very “conventional” film after I Am Not Your Negro but I don’t think it’s a conventional approach at all.

It’s remarkable how accessible the film seems, even to those of us who come to it knowing only the broadest strokes about these people.

It took a long time for me and Pascal Bonitzer to write the script because this film is about the evolution of ideas and that is difficult to do in cinema. That was our biggest challenge. Hollywood has unfortunately accustomed us to expect suspense and a narrative structure only through action but in this film the suspense comes from the next idea, the next discussion. We wanted to captivate through language, through opinions and questions. To give the sense that you are following history in the making.

Do you find that audiences in different parts of the world have very different reactions to the film?

The interesting thing for both this and the Baldwin film is that people around the world tend to take these themes and make them their own. I Am Not Your Negro was sold in more than 70 countries and wherever I went, whether it was Sweden or Italy or Brazil, the people there had the same type of problems. Baldwin’s words and Marx’s words apply anywhere, it’s not a matter of what nation you are in, they’re about ideas that are important for any community, especially when you are in these capitalistic societies which is now all over the planet. My hope is that people around the world will feel empowered by these words and want to learn more.

And the focus on young Karl Marx lets us look underneath all the heavy baggage of what the concept of Marx has become. I doubt that the Karl Marx in this film would even recognize how his name has been used around the world.

Oh, absolutely not, he wouldn’t recognize it at all. He even said by the end of his own life, “Please protect me from Marxism, I’m not a Marxist!” But, you know, that’s the fate of many great thinkers, all sorts of people take their philosophy and twist it. I mean, look at what happened in the Soviet Union and elsewhere. I would call that the biggest ideological kidnapping in the history of humankind. To take those ideas that you see in the film and turn them into these monstrous granite statues that came to represent the philosophy in places like the Soviet Union, China, and Cambodia — those young people had nothing to do with that.

Just like how people do things in the name of Jesus that have absolutely nothing to do with any of his actual teachings.

Precisely. They use the thoughts for their own power. For me, I wanted to use this film as a kind of “reset.” Let’s look at the origin of what Marx was about and take whatever we can in order to better understand the world we are in.

I was absolutely riveted by the women in the film. Jenny Marx, played so beautifully by Vicky Krieps (Phantom Thread), and Engels’ partner, Mary Burns, played with equal verve by Hannah Steele (Wolf Hall). Those women were both so brilliant and important to the work, I’m surprised they aren’t more well known today.

Yes, they are fascinating. Of course, over time, the movement lost many battles including many involving women’s rights. The four of them thought that the movement would happen first in countries like England and Germany, they did not think that Russia was the right place for the development of a revolution because it was so institutionally deadlocked. But these young people played a big role in developing what we know today as the working class, labor unions, and all of the movements that fought for a better world including the equality of women, civil rights, healthcare, paid vacations, and so on.

I loved how the characters constantly switch back and forth between English, German, and French, sometimes in the middle of a sentence. Was that difficult to do?

That’s how they were. If you look at their correspondence you can see in the middle of a letter written in German, one of them would suddenly switch to French and then go to English. These languages were important tools for them. Marx was a correspondent for a New York newspaper for many years, that’s how he made his living. Learning languages was nothing to them. I speak all three languages and I knew I needed actors who spoke all three as well. I did not want to use translations or dubbing, I wanted them to be totally at ease with the three languages. For me, it was also a symbol of the new Europe, and brought home the point that they were not talking about one country, they were taking about what capitalism had brought to the whole world.

Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels seemed like they had the perfect partnership. I saw one review of the film that made me laugh because they compared them to Lennon and McCartney.

It’s really like one of those very rare moments in history when two incredible minds meet and recognize each other. Engels was smart enough to recognize in Marx the genius that he was and totally put himself at his service — there was never any competition between those two great minds. You know, when Marx got his PhD at the age of 19, his professors said that if you want to meet Hegel, Diderot, Voltaire, and Rousseau in one person, you should meet that young man. He was a type of genius that only comes around once every 200 years or so. An incredible mind that has unfortunately been drowned out during the past 100 years of history. That’s why I wanted to revisit him.

As we all should, separate from the historical baggage of what people think Marxism is. His message could not be more relevant today.

I’ve been listening to those kids in Florida, the survivors of that horrible shooting at the Parkland high school. They totally get it when they say they understand the resistance of this country’s leadership to pass gun control laws while they’re receiving money from the NRA and the gun lobby. These kids know how entwined profits are in everything that happens in a capitalist society, I’m really impressed by them. They know that’s why Trump’s first response that week was to talk about arming teachers with even more guns, and creating more profit. Everything in our culture can be understood if you look at the attention to profit. That’s exactly what Marx and Engels were talking about.

youtube

The Young Karl Marx is currently in select theaters and will be opening in many more cities this Friday. It is also available on Digital and On Demand.

#August Diehl #Friedrich Engels #I Am Not Your Negro #James Baldwin #Karl Marx #Raoul Peck #Stefan Konarske #The Young Karl Marx #Vicky Krieps #Interviews #What's Hot

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rodney-johnson-blog · 7 years ago

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What If Rocket Man Provokes a War?

Kim Jong-Un, or “Rocket Man,” as our president prefers, always looks like he just ate a sour pickle – unless he’s inspecting a missile factory. Then he looks like an evil character in a B movie, gloating over his plot to rule the world.

I wish he’d move on to the monologue phase, where he talks so long that the hero of the film has time to slip out of his restraints, rescue the girl, defuse the bomb, and put the crazy little man on ice before the authorities arrive.

But what’s going on between North Korea and the U.S. – the former repeatedly testing missiles and nuclear bombs and the latter not standing for it – is no work of fiction.

There’s no hero, and our chances of getting out of the situation without some sort of armed conflict are getting smaller by the day. It didn’t have to be this way.

North Korea used to be a nice place. OK, that might be overstating it. But it used to be a lot better.

Until the early 1980s, they had food, basic services, and a standard of living exceeding that of their South Korean brethren. Ronald Reagan took all that away. He didn’t do it through negotiation or force. Instead, he leaned on their benefactor.

After World War II, the Americans and Russians each controlled part of the Korean peninsula. They bickered over setting up a government for the entire country, but eventually settled for two governments, much like in Germany.

The Russians installed Kim Jong-Un’s grandfather, Kim Il-Sung, as the supreme leader of the North, while the Americans established a kind-of, sort-of democracy in the South.

The North invaded in the South, but, backed by the Americans, the South fought back and conquered much of the North… until the Chinese got involved. The Middle Kingdom helped push the South back, creating a nice buffer between itself and the American-backed forces.

Over the next 35 years, the U.S. guided South Korea on its path to becoming a manufacturing powerhouse, while the North simply took aid funds from any country that hated the U.S., essentially China and Russia.

But Reagan’s gambit to bankrupt the Russians ruined that system of patronage. Eventually the U.S.S.R. (does anyone even remember that acronym?) broke into pieces, and the central government told countries like North Korea and Cuba that they were on their own.

Meanwhile, China decided that selling stuff to Americans was a lot more fun that berating them in propaganda films while their population subsisted on what they could farm by hand.

At that point, then-North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Il needed to find a new way to generate cash. He counterfeited American dollars, sold illicit drugs, and basically ran a black market bazaar.

But that only goes so far.

Eventually, he pursued nuclear power and missiles, and used his progress to blackmail aid from the West.

That sort of made sense. He needed funds and apparently couldn’t run a business the size of McDonald’s, much less a country. So he stole and robbed. It doesn’t win you a Nobel Peace Prize, but it’s a living.

Unfortunately for the world, his son didn’t get the memo…

The recent iteration of Kim Jong has created better rockets and nuclear weapons. So far, he’s demanded that U.S. forces leave the peninsula and stated that North Korea intends to be a player on the nuclear weapon stage. His few allies keep backing away. They love the idea of poking the sleeping American dog, but this goes too far.

The more Jong-Un postures and provokes, the more anxious everyone becomes.

Will he rain fire on Guam? Target a city in Japan? Aim for some place in Alaska? Can we allow him to try, or should we act preemptively?

Either way – if he launches something at a populated area or we choose to disarm him before he causes great harm – it looks like there will be an armed conflict.

I can only hope, if anything, it involves remote outposts with few people. This will truly be a war of provocation, with no reasonable objectives, started by a crazy man. The question is, “Who gets involved?”

The South Koreans don’t want a war with their relatives, but they’re the most likely target. The Japanese can’t abide by a North Korea that shoots missiles over their heads.

The Chinese don’t want North Korea to implode, leading to a refugee crisis that ends with South Koreans and Americans on their border.

The best outcome appears to be a reunified Korea, with the express agreement that U.S. troops remain at or south of the current border, the 38th parallel. That’s easy to say, and hard to do.

Germany showed how difficult reunification can be, even if ultimately successful. But the really hard part is getting to that point. First, we need Kim Jong-Un and his group to go gently into that good night.

I don’t think they will, which gets us back to an armed conflict.

No matter how great or small, such an event would immediately weigh on the financial markets.

With the major U.S. indices at record highs, it seems likely that investors of all sizes would take the opportunity to lock in profits and park their cash in something safe.

This would mean a mass exodus from equities, with everyone trying to squeeze through the door of the U.S. Treasury markets.

The size of the move – in both equities and bonds – would depend on the shape of the conflict. If things look like they will be contained to conventional weapons, perhaps the financial swings aren’t as great. Defensive stocks and energy move higher, but growth names take a hit. I still believe interest rates would fall.

If there’s any hint of nuclear weapons, the move would most likely be severe and immediate. Investors will sell stocks with abandon, building up cash positions and buying U.S. government bonds. The idea will be to hunker down and see what happens.

The Japanese and South Korean equity markets will free fall, and chances are their currencies would also implode. If those countries suffered severe physical damage, the rebuilding process would require rapidly expanding the money supply. The Bank of Japan has done this for almost two decades, but the new pace would be off the charts.

With Seoul, South Korea, less than 35 miles from the North Korean border, chances are that city would be devastated, taking much of the value of South Korea with it.

As an investor, it’s hard to position yourself for such a thing. Do you buy a bunch of put options on equities and buy bonds before everyone else drives up prices? That’s a great strategy, unless the war doesn’t happen, or is so fast that markets barely react.

The better approach is to create a plan, mapping out what you will do if such a thing occurs. Make it one that limits losses, or, better yet, gives you a chance to make money in response to market-moving scenarios like this.

If you work with a financial professional, ask him or her what they will do, to make sure you agree. If you handle your own finances, create some guidelines.

Perhaps you already have stop-losses in place, much like we use in many of our services at Dent Research. If so, revisit them to verify they reflect your current views. And know what you will do with a lot of cash (which can be an awesome friend) if you suddenly sell many positions at once.

Bonds sound good on the face of it, but if rates fall dramatically, with the U.S. Treasury 10-year bond moving from 2.2% down to, say, 1.5% or lower, do you really want to own bonds?

At that rate, they don’t pay very much, and if a conflict brought rates down, then the end of a conflict should drive them higher.

It would be painful to sell equities and pile into bonds, only to get whipsawed.

The upshot is that there is no easy way to play the scenarios created by a crazy man who seems to have little regard for human life. Despite the heated rhetoric back and forth, history tells us that a diplomatic solution will carry the day.

But prudence tells us to plan for the low probability, high impact event. So spend some time considering your alternatives before things get out of hand.

Rodney Follow me on Twitter @RJHSDent

Read more from Rodney Johnson, Harry Dent and the rest of the Dent Research team here at Economy & Markets!

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nidiviviaa-blog · 7 years ago

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Expert: It has been a splendid little war, begun with the highest motives, carried on with magnificent intelligence and spirit, favored by that Fortune which loves the brave. — US Secretary of State John Hay, defining the Spanish-American War of 1898, in a letter to Theodore Roosevelt, July 27 of that year, the war ushering in America’s Imperial era and unequivocally heralding its hegemonic ambitions. …I’ve seen that we do not intend to free, but to subjugate [people]….[We’re there] to conquer, not to redeem. It should be our pleasure and duty to make people free, and let them deal with their own domestic questions their own way….I’m opposed to having the eagle put its talons on any other land. — Comments by Mark Twain, anti-imperialist, reflecting on the real objectives of America’s war with Spain. War is the continuation of politics by other means… — Carl von Clausewitz, Prussian general, military theorist Politics is the continuation of war by other means… — Michel Foucault, French philosopher, social theorist Synopsis For those Americans au fait with their country’s fondness for engineering coups, ousting democratically elected leaders, and interfering in the political affairs of other nations – to all intents the perennial bedrock principle of U.S. foreign policy — Iran is a well-documented exemplar. Given the supreme ironies inherent in the political imbroglio in the U.S. attending Russia’s alleged meddling in the 2016 presidential elections, along with America’s resolve to seek once again regime change in Russia’s ally Iran, it’s timely we revisit this slice of history. Doing so presents us an opportunity to view the so-called ‘Russia-gate’ furore, the Iran regime change ambitions, and the increasingly bloody war in Syria –- itself an ally of both Russia and Iran — within a broader, more nuanced historical context. From there we might derive a more informed perspective on the contemporary geopolitical zeitgeist and the hegemonic forces that have fashioned it. And attending that deeper perspective should be a sure sign of the existential dangers for civilization and humanity at large of allowing our leaders in the West to continue down this path unchallenged, one that is as well-worn as it’s fraught with peril. In Regime Change, We Trust For those folks with the requisite sense of irony and historical perspective, many will be rolling their eyes at the rampant hysteria over the as yet evidence-free accusations of interference by Russia in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Which is to say, one of the manifest realities attending this latest Beltway blockbuster soap opera is that of America’s own track record of interference in the affairs of other countries, comprising as it does so many forms. I say “realities” rather than ironies here as “irony” almost by definition is infused with a measure of nuance and subtlety, neither of which could it be said are in abundance in this utterly contrived, self-serving political fracas. (For a further measure of just how “contrived” and “self-serving” it is, see here, here, here, and here.) Insofar as Russia’s alleged meddling in U.S. politics goes and the animus that attends the hysteria, as Oliver Stone discovered during his recent appearance on the Late Show with Stephen Colbert – itself hot on the heels of his much publicised four hour meet ‘n greet with Russian president Vladimir Putin wherein it was earlier raised – he was at pains to impress upon his host that Israel had a much bigger case to answer than did Russia. Of course, Stone was on the money here. The unalloyed reality of the power and influence that Israel exerts within and across the morally and ethically desertified landscape that is the nation’s capital is a given, with the Middle East’s only ‘democratic’ settler-colonizer apartheid regime leaving few stones unturned – and exhibiting little discretion and subtlety but equal parts chutzpah and subterfuge — in how it wields then leverages that influence to its advantage and against the interests of its principal patron and benefactor. But that’s clearly a narrative that doesn’t bode well in the Beltway at the best of times, and more rational, clear-eyed folks know the reasons why. For one, the corporate media, for the most part doesn’t entertain such verities. Even if they were inclined, the omnipotent Israel Lobby would cut them off at the knees. And for his part, the ever-smarmy Colbert, presumably aware which side his bread is buttered on, was reluctant to take Stone’s bait, much it seemed to his interviewee’s frustration. Beyond just interfering in U.S. politics, along with the parent Empire la perfide Albion, one of America’s steadfast partners-in-crime in the regime renovation business are the ubiquitous and iniquitous Israelis, an observation underscored by Against our Better Judgment author Alison Weir on her blog If Americans Knew. Long targeted by Israel, for Weir, Iran especially provides an instructive example herein. With the Saudis as back-up, it is Israel — ably supported by its Praetorian Guard AIPAC and its ilk along with its shills in Congress – that’s been the hard-core driver of Washington’s seemingly irrational animus towards all things Iran. Along with underscoring Israel’s clout in Washington, Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu’s 2015 Congressional dog ‘n pony show fiercely opposing the Iran Nuclear agreement then being negotiated by the Obama administration provides some of the best evidence for this. And indeed, it’s another of Washington’s worst best-kept secrets that – the nuclear agreement aside — Iran remains a high priority on the ‘to do’ list for the Regime Renovators. (See also here, here, and here.) In addition to the relentless propaganda campaign pursued by Israel the aim of which is to paint Iran as the existential threat du jour, despite the fact that U.S. intelligence agencies and others in the know don’t support the allegations about its mythical nuclear weapons program, Weir had the following to say: Israel and the U.S. deployed a computer virus against Iran in what’s been called the world’s first digital weapon. Iranian nuclear physicists [were] assassinated by Israel, and the U.S. instituted a blockade against Iran that caused food insecurity and mass suffering among the country’s civilians. (Such a blockade can be seen as an act of war.) Democratic Congressman and Israel partisan Brad Sherman admitted the objective of the sanctions: “Critics of sanctions argue that these measures will hurt the Iranian people. Quite frankly, we need to do just that.” Most folks then who don’t dine out on the McDonald’s (‘would you like lies with that?’) media diet that is the corporate news are as well aware of Uncle Sam’s recidivistic predisposition towards meddling in the affairs of other nations, engineering coups and colour revolutions, and ousting democratically elected leaders as they are of the bespoke misinformation and disinformation – the ‘real’ fake news – that’s tailored to suit the official narrative that goes with it. Along with the ongoing Syrian War, the 2014 Ukraine coup is one of the most egregious, more recent examples of this, with again Stone’s confab avec Putin providing an alternative perspective on both counts. Yet even here the majority of Americans would attribute the Ukraine crisis to “Russian aggression” and the Syrian War largely to Bashar Assad‘s ‘despotism’; it’s simply what they are told by the MSM, and insofar as they’re concerned [they] have little reason to doubt this. Much the same goes for the Iran WMD narrative, despite the fact that we’ve heard that one before with Iraq around fifteen years ago. And all of this mayhem and chaos is premised on exporting freedom, democracy, justice, liberty, human rights, and the rule of law, all of the things that America is purportedly so accomplished in embracing on the home front, albeit more so in the breach than in the observance. What makes U.S. transgressions so much more brazen in this respect is the hypocritical, fraudulent and existentially dangerous nature of the umbrage and pique being directed towards countries like Iran, Syria and, especially Russia and China. And what makes the righteous animus being served up to the latter nations in particular so frightening and so portentous is that it’s wholly reminiscent of the hegemonic mindset directed towards Germany by the high-minded mandarins of the British Empire in the two decades leading up to the War to End all Wars. By 1914, even for that small cohort of folks who might’ve smelt the imperial rat, it was too late, of course, for them and for so many others. In this few other imperially motivated gambits have been more consequential or more far-reaching across time and space, a conclusion we can safely draw with all the benefit one hundred plus years of hindsight brings. As for today’s “cohort” of news consumers, it is much the same: Such awareness is embraced only by a small minority of people with most blissfully ignorant of their country’s inability or unwillingness to, well, mind its own bloody business. They are as equally oblivious to the economic, social, physical and political havoc, mayhem, and destruction it creates in the process, sometimes catastrophically so. Whilst the events of 9/11 might’ve otherwise provided a visceral reality check in this regard for most Americans of the blowback that frequently attends its own country’s meddling, very few would’ve been prepared or motivated to engage in any ‘cause and effect’ reflection therein, much less act in sync with that. Yet we might opine here that given the frenzied state of America’s own internal affairs – to say nothing of the hysterical incoherence and farcical irrationality of the public discourse that has seemingly become a permanent fixture of U.S. political and media forums, the Russia-gate affair being all the evidence ones needs to underscore this – there’d be numerous benefits to be gained from doing just that. Minding its own “bloody business” that is. And let there be no mistaking it, what an assuredly “bloody business” regime renovation is. For the ‘cognitive dissidents’ disbelieving or doubtful of the extent or measure of this geopolitical mischief, in a recent PressTV interview focusing on America’s history of interfering in Iran’s political affairs in particular, former NSA intelligence linguist Scott Rickard is one amongst many of his professional ilk who dispels such scepticism or uncertainty with unadorned veracity: [Americans] have been probably one of the most notorious nations behind the United Kingdom in manipulating not only elections but also overthrowing governments around the world for decades. As Rickard observes, to this day the U.S. continues nation-building in other states, sells weapons in massive scales, and pours bombs on other nations in order to ‘carry out its regime-change policy throughout the world.’ This, to say little of the proxy wars and false-flag events to which errant countries are subject (such as in Syria), psy-ops and the like (in Venezuela), and the economic sanctions frequently applied by Washington, of which both Russia and Iran to this day are also subjected to, and which themselves are often part of the arsenal used against countries not complying with Washington’s diktats. On the latter, it’s enough to recall how the sanctions imposed during the 90s against Iraq after the Gulf War under the Clinton administration played out. For confirmation of this, one only needs ask Madeleine Albright, Bill Clinton’s then Secretary of State, who in a ‘Kissingeresque’ display of imperial hubris as pitiless as it was asthma-inducing, averred [that], “[yes, we think] it was worth it”. To be sure then, Uncle Sam’s “track record’ in this respect is as well documented and [as] well known as it’s abhorred by most commentators in the alternative media space and their more enlightened readers. At the same time it’s one subject that doesn’t raise an eyebrow much less a mention from those in the mainstream media (MSM) universe, no matter how pertinent it might be to the narrative in hand. It’s another of what I’ve come to calling the ‘no-fly-zones’ of conventional political discourse and public debate. Given the degree of complicity of the corporate media in facilitating these coups, proxy wars, false-flag attacks, and colour revolutions, then camouflaging them as something entirely different from what they really represent is, whilst reprehensible and indefensible, understandable. Kermit’s ‘Sesame Street’ Coup Interestingly, Rickard’s remark was prompted by Secretary of State Rex Tillerson’s most recent statements about the U.S. seeking regime change in Teheran as all but a matter of public policy with marginally less fervor than they are accusing Moscow of meddling in their own democratic processes in last year’s election. Again, for those folks “in the know”, the very mention of the words “regime change” and “Iran” in the same breath will also summon pronto a profound sense of déjà vu. As with the little known 1975 Australian coup (the details of which to be unveiled in a future ‘episode’ of The Regime Renovators), it was Britain (MI6) and the U.S. (the CIA) in a tag team play that cut its teeth in a joint-venture partnership back in Iran in 1953. Now the much-cited Iran experience is worthy of deeper exploration, if only because this exercise in regime change later turned out to be doubly ironic in a ‘reap what you sow’ kinda way, but not necessarily as the received wisdom would have us believe. We’ll return to this point shortly, but for context and perspective, the 1953 Iran adventure again begs for another trip down memory lane, especially given all the chatter about the U.S returning to the ‘scene of the crime’. Placing to one side an early dress rehearsal in Syria in 1949, the 1953 Iran coup was the first post-War exercise in regime renovation upon the part of Anglo-American alliance — one which officially at least was only just admitted to by the CIA after decades of not so plausible denial – when they successfully conspired to relieve the democratically elected prime minister of Iran Mohammad Mosaddegh from the burdens of power. The CIA and MI6 jointly embarked on a plan to stage a coup that would ensure that the West maintained control over the country’s vast oil reserves (shades of things to come). This coup is widely believed to have provided the ‘business model’ and the bravado for future coups by the CIA during the Cold War, including in Guatemala in 1954, the Democratic Republic of the Congo in 1961, and the ill-fated attempted coup in Cuba at the Bay of Pigs (BOP) in 1961, where the renovators’ business model came spectacularly unstuck. In true CIA custom, in Iran not everything went according to plan. The man who would be Shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, by all accounts something of a reluctant usurper, succumbed to ‘stage fright’ at the eleventh hour and did an unexpected runner to Italy. But the CIA quickly recovered its composure and schlepped their ‘under-study’ back in time for the opening night curtain raiser of the new regime. For both the CIA and the Shah, who went on to rule his country with an iron, bloody fist avec unerring American support for almost twenty-five years, in true show business fashion, everything was ‘all right on the night’; the Shah’s show went on to enjoy an extended run with generally positive reviews. (That most of these “reviews” were written by the Iranian intelligence agency SAVAK, the Shah’s political and security muscle throughout his ‘regime’, is axiomatic, especially since writing was apparently one activity SAVAK agents both excelled at and enjoyed. Their torture manuals were as notorious for their meticulously detailed brutality as for their invention.) Interestingly, the CIA’s Iranian operation was directed by none other than Kermit (Kim) Roosevelt, the grandson of former Republican president Teddy Roosevelt (he of the “walk softly, carry a big stick” fame), and a not too distant cousin of former Democratic president Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR). At the time Roosevelt was the senior spook in The Company’s Middle-East station (he’d been recruited by no less a personality than Frank “The Mighty Wurlitzer” Wisner), and was their point man on the ground in overseeing the Iranian adventure, dubbed Operation Ajax. Despite his name, for Teddy’s ‘grand-sprog’ this was no Sesame Street romp. No sirree, Bob! This was serious spy shit. Notwithstanding the apparent success of the mission, the coup was to have profound, far-reaching, and plain scary, geopolitical, economic and national security consequences for the US and the West in general. For starters just ask Jimmy Carter for further confirmation of this, and for any still standing and in control of their metacognitive faculties, go from there president by president! (Although the execrable Albright sort of apologised to Iran in 2000 – possibly the closest thing to a mea culpa ever offered by the U.S. for their wayward imperial ways – it didn’t apparently count for much.) Yet one of the most enlightening revelations about Kermit’s coup was the following. In his must-read book a Century of War, Anglo-American Oil Politics and the New World Order, F William Engdahl recounted the less familiar story that the demise of the Shah (aka the ‘Peacock Potentate’) was engineered by the same forces that brought him into power in the first place. As we know this went on to produce sizable blowback for the U.S. with the 1979 Iranian Revolution. The much reviled Shah had for a variety of reasons outlived his usefulness, with the onset of the 1979 oil crisis presenting said forces both the ideal opportunity and pretext – albeit according to Engdahl, one largely manufactured in this case — to proceed to the next phase of their (ahem) Persian renovation project. From this then we might safely deduce the subsequent ‘79 Revolution, the storming of the U.S. embassy in Teheran, along with the kidnapping of the embassy personnel (a world changing event by any measure), was not what many have deemed an organic — nor an entirely predictable — development for those who’d decided the Shah has passed his use by date. Moreover, the reality (there’s that word again) of ‘client-dictators’ overstaying their ‘welcome’ will be one familiar to ‘buffs’ of Uncle Sam’s regime change history, with the removal of Saddam Hussein in Iraq in 2002, again on prefabricated pretexts and for not dissimilar reasons, providing a most consequential exemplar thereof. According to the author, in 1978 President Carter named diplomat George Ball to head a White House task force under the direction of Carter’s national security advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski, the proud, now recently departed, father of Islamic terrorism and patron saint of jihadists. In doing so, Carter effectively gave Brzezinski the nod on opening another Pandora’s Box in the Greater Middle East, and as the Law of Moral Causation (trade name: ‘karma’) would have it, [this] brought about the president’s own political demise. As Engdahl explains it: Ball recommended Washington drop support for the Shah and support the fundamentalist Islamic opposition of Ayatollah Khomeini…and the CIA led a coup against the man their covert actions had placed into power 25 years earlier. The coup against the Shah, like that against Mossadegh in 1953, was run by British and American intelligence, with the bombastic Brzezinski taking public ‘credit’ for getting rid of the ‘corrupt’ Shah, while the British characteristically remained safely in the background. When You’re on a Good Thing (Stick to the Knitting) Notwithstanding the blowback from the 1953 Iran coup and the later blowback from the removal of the Shah over a quarter century later, little has changed. The disastrous Bay of Pigs operation in 1961 and the subsequent, near catastrophic Cuban Missile Crisis the following year deriving from the failure of even that monumentally inept regime change manoeuvre evidently provided few lessons for the Renovators then or their political progeny since. At the same time it underscored in effect what had become the bedrock principle of American foreign policy and Great Power Projection. Which is to say, for its part the U.S. still engages in this tried and true, one-size-fits-all foreign policy gambit, bringing to mind that old adage ‘when you’re on a good thing, stick to it!’ Whilst the motivations for the Iranian coup were nominally economic (the government of the time was making noises about nationalizing the Iranian oil industry), there was also the strategic geopolitical considerations in the U.S. that Iran might come within the sphere of Soviet influence, thereby severely limiting the West’s hegemony in the region, an outcome one imagines would’ve delivered an unacceptable blow to America’s still incipient imperial id. There was also a certain amount of fear that Iranian communists might gain control of the political situation, or even that the Soviets might overtake the country, either the stuff of American and British nightmares or over-egged paranoia. Certainly the Americans were never too keen on the Soviets crashing their party anywhere, especially so in this region. Like the British before them, the U.S. has always been quite territorial about other people’s territory, especially when said “territory” involved oil, or any other strategic commodity or geopolitical consideration. Whether this fear was rational given the reality at the time and the available intelligence is a subject many still debate. As we’ve seen with this and so many others, the reasons for the coup were fueled less by the ostensibly lofty ideological concerns related to the Cold War (freedom versus tyranny anyone?) than they were to less lofty considerations such as greed, self-preservation and national pride and one or three other Deadly Imperial Sins. To be sure it seems reasonable to assume that the Soviets – cunning devils that they were – were ‘geeing’ the Iranians up to nationalize their oil industry in order to put the wind up the British and the Americans in turn. It’s clear now that the CIA and the British, along with their fellow travelers in the then (Harry) Truman administration in the years leading up to the coup, were leveraging the Cold War sentiment of the time in order to camouflage the real reasons for seeking regime change in Iran (shades of things.) At all events, then president Truman evidently saw the Iranian plot coming from the bottom of the ‘too-risky’ basket and didn’t drag the chain on rejecting it. Whatever his achievements, for his part the former failed Missouri haberdasher was always going to be known as the man who nodded the dropping of the Big Ones on Japan, and rarely demurred in claiming the bragging rights. Now whether he was right or wrong in doing this is a ‘what-if’ moment for another time, but insofar as the Iran “moment” went, for this reason he might’ve had a keen eye on how said ‘mo’ in history might be judged. Either way, by deep-sixing the CIA’s plans we might surmise that in doing so it inspired his oft-quoted dictum ‘the buck stops here’. Because it only delayed the renovators’ momentum though, his ‘call’ was to no avail; said “buck” remained in play only as long as he was POTUS. When Kermit (Kim) Roosevelt, became Republican president in 1953, all bets were off (or on, depending on your view) Ike was more simpatico than Truman to the Iran coup, and evidently got ‘jiggy’ with it without a lot of arm-twisting. This was especially after the plotters – principally Allen Dulles, the then CIA director, and his big brother Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, who was the Cabinet pitchman for the pro-coup team, played the ‘commie’ card with Ike. For his part the elder Dulles, who played a Richelieu-like role in U.S. affairs of the time, was once quoted as saying that “the USA doesn’t have friends, it has interests”, tantamount to a foreign policy positioning statement, and as we’ve seen one which these days – with the notable exception of Israel — still finds ample favour in and around the Beltway. In any event, Ike didn’t just take the commie bait hook, line and sinker, by all accounts he swam upstream to chow down on it. With Joe McCarthy and his ilk riding high in the polls and anti-communist fervour at fever pitch, such was the temper of the Cold War times. It wasn’t the first time the ‘commie’ card was played in this game, and it certainly would not be the last; like the one-size-fits-all terrorist threat that followed the Cold War’s end, it was used as cover for a multitude of foreign policy sins and proved a remarkably flexible rationale for the various misadventures of the CIA’s on-going, flagship regime renovation program. (Interestingly, like JFK was to do with Cuba eight years later, Ike inherited, and eventually agreed to, a CIA-inspired regime transition plot that was hatched during the previous administration, but for one reason or another never got off the ground, this being one of those spooky déjà vu moments in the overall narrative of The Company which is to say, when Ike came to power, the principal coup plot du jour was Iran. With JFK, it was Cuba. Needless to say, in a ‘same horse, different cowboy’ kinda way, it underscores how little changes from one administration to the next.) Why Do they Hate US So Much? (What’s there Not to Like?) As for the Iranian coup, it achieved the dubious distinction of being the first and best example of CIA intervention in the sovereign affairs of another country, an experiment that would be repeated over and over with wildly varying degrees of success (the measure of which depended as much on one’s definition of what “success” entailed in such matters as it did on one’s perspective on history and political inclinations). The coup not only ushered in almost three decades of despotic, oppressive rule by the Shah propped up by American arms, money and hand-holding. It belatedly ignited the fire of Islamic fundamentalism that itself provided the US with its next great foe after the Soviets eventually threw in the towel, leaving the Americans as the reigning superpower, much like Great Britain after Napolean’s 1815 defeat at Waterloo. That it also provided an answer to a question few people were asking themselves at the time, which was ‘why do they hate us so much?’, is axiomatic, and one which has since then become a recurring motif throughout the Grand American Narrative. There are some other considerations vis a vis the Iranian coup. One is that it was Kermit Roosevelt – scion of one of America’s most famous political dynasties – who was a driving force behind the planning and execution of Ajax. In the process he contributed to one of the U.S.’s biggest foreign policy misadventures, eventually leading to one of its most disastrous national security crises. It’s uncertain what ‘grandpa’ Teddy or ‘cuzzin’ Franklin would’ve thought of the coup, and herein we can only guess. But the knowledge one of their kin had his fingerprints all over it, especially one which ushered in such dire, enduring consequences for the empire, would’ve possibly had at least one spinning furiously in his eternally designated bolthole. Secondly, in using the ‘monstrous’ threat of communism as a pretext for the coup, the Americans ultimately created an even bigger monster (terrorism), although it was some time before the reality – if not the realisation – was to come home to roost for them and the rest of the world. (That this turned out to be a blessing in disguise is also a consideration we might address in future episode.) And for those who might wonder why the US became a pariah in Iran particularly, and in the Middle East generally, one might now begin to understand. To underscore this – the notoriously brutal, vicious, sadistic SAVAK – the Shah’s internal security, secret police and intelligence organization was both feared and hated in equal measure. That SAVAK was like a franchise of the CIA was only part of the story, and on a ‘good day’ it would’ve rivaled the Stasi in East Germany, no mean feat apparently. In fact the Stasi was to the KGB what SAVAK was to the CIA in that both attempted to out-do their respective maestros. As with so many other regimes, juntas and assorted dictatorships, it was CIA (and Mossad) agents who midwifed the establishment of SAVAK, and trained their first generation of agents, including in surveillance, torture and interrogation techniques, and other security and intelligence trade craft. By all accounts, the CIA guys were very good teachers, or the SAVAK folk eager learners. Or both. When they were eventually shut down, one of the most egregious examples of their sadistic savagery was to be found in their how-to manuals, handbooks and training videos highlighting techniques unique to torturing women. Readers can let their imaginations run wild here, but suffice it to say, the SAVAK spooks were indeed nasty, vile, brutal pieces of work. Iranians who survived the Shah’s wretched rule have long memories and it’s in large part because of the legacy of SAVAK. To this day, many of them understandably still have a huge hard-on for all things Uncle Sam (although surprisingly such animus to this day is more directed at the U.S. political establishment than at the American people, per se). In any event, by 1979, the Shah’s standing with the long-suffering Iranian people was a train wreck just around the corner, and the anti-American vibe was at its most virulent. At this point, the U.S. left the Shah with his (ahem) plucked Persian peacock pecker swinging in the Mediterranean sea breeze. With little fanfare then, the despised potentate had his gold-leafed throne unceremoniously ‘pulled out’ from under his bling-laden ass which he then barely managed to haul out of Teheran just before the militant ‘mullahs’ surrounded him and presented their soon-to-be former leader with considerably less options than he was used to receiving, nearly all of which would’ve involved, at best, him getting a fleeting glimpse of Allah just outside jannah on his way to eternal damnation. Following years then of rampant corruption, hubris, breathtaking extravagance, cronyism, human rights abuses, imperious contempt, political and religious oppression, kidnapping, torture, murder, culminating in increasingly deep-seated unpopularity, the Shah’s time had come, this being a pointer to the fate awaiting numerous other future CIA sponsored and US favoured tin-pot tyrants, deplorably demented despots, and cut-rate client-dictators, of whom there’s rarely been any shortage. For his part, at the height of the crisis, the hapless Carter – who’d unwisely signed off on the hated Shah receiving medical treatment in the U.S. after a number of countries refused to accommodate his pleas for sanctuary — had his effigy burned in Tehran streets for his troubles. By the time the smoke coming out of the filmed wreckage on the six o’clock news of one of the Navy Rescue Team choppers that had crashed in the Iranian desert killing eight crewman after an audacious attempt to free the hostages went tragically wrong had cleared, the former Georgian peanut farmer turned Leader of the Free World was a lame duck, shit-out-of-luck, commander-in-chief. A Bay of Pigs Moment then? Almost certainly! But much worse, if one is inclined to measure “worse” by the blowback. And the BOP blowback was in itself considerable. In announcing to the American public and the world at large the failure of the mission to free the hostages, Carter – according to the dictates of the unofficial Truman ‘doctrine’ vis a vis where the ‘buck’ stops – took responsibility for the disaster, and even used eerily similar wording to that of JFK when he publicly revealed the outcome of the BOP fiasco. From then on, The Gipper had Carter by the presidential short’n’curlies. In the view of many pundits at the time, the presidential election was ‘all over Rover’, well before a single vote was cast. And though the Shah’s “ass” was no more with his death in a US hospital in mid-1980, it was ‘all over Rover’ for anyone else still standing. The Embassy ‘squatters’ in Tehran effectively held hostage Carter’s attempt to seek a second term, an outcome facilitated by Ronald Reagan’s campaign team engaging in treasonous back channel finagling with the new Iranian leader Ayatollah Khomeini’s henchmen to withhold release of the hostages until after the November presidential election. The objective herein was to preclude an “October Surprise” (an early release of the hostages) that would’ve guaranteed Carter’s re-election. The rest, as they say, is history. Burning Down the House (How to Roast a Pig) With the Gipper’s inevitable victory then, it was one where not just America, but the rest of the world was never to be the same again. None of this is to suggest it ever is in these situations, of which there were few in this case anyway. The Iranian Revolution was more than a revolution then; it was a geopolitical tsunami that swamped a shit-load of people and nations in its wake. In so many respects, the waves are still rippling. And even at this point, one imagines the CIA struggled to understand that blowback of this kind was bad for business, and might continue to undermine its credibility, effectiveness, and morale if it persevered down this path. As history would have it, this idea never really caught on though. For their part, the Islamic Revolutionaries and their ilk may or may not have had their own version of jihadist karma; if they did they doubtless weren’t averse to providing karma some earthly assistance in order for it to work its magic. The Hostage Crisis was ample evidence of that. And they (or at least their heirs apparent such as ISIS, Al Nusra, et al) still are apparently. That is, keen to give karma a helping hand where and whenever possible. Depending very much, of course, on who their paymaster(s) is/are. Allah be willing, of course! In rounding things up herein, it is perhaps best to return to Bill Engdahl for some insight into the contemporary significance of the preceding narrative. In a recent interview wherein he addressed the developments taking place within and across the Greater Middle East, for him Donald Trump’s visit to Saudi Arabia and Israel wasn’t just about arms sales, shoring up their respective alliances, and reasserting America’s influence in the region. It was about, ‘setting events into motion in order to fundamentally alter the present balance of power in the entire Middle East to the greater advantage of the United States and US energy geopolitics.’ By any measure that’s a big call, and not just because it would seem that the U.S. has forfeited much of its prestige, influence, and power over the past decades of its political interventions, its wars of aggression (proxy, hybrid or direct), its bullying, imperious ways, and its unequivocal support of Israel, something that would be required in spades in order to achieve such lofty goals. For Engdahl, Washington has already bitten off more than it can chew, without considering the ructions taking place between the Saudis, Egypt, Bahrain, and the United Arab Emirates in their Mexican standoff with Qatar. This latter development clearly resulted from discussions during Trump’s visit and is one whose significance few observers should underestimate, at least without some understanding of the real backstory, an “understanding” which should include first and foremost the following question: Which country did Trump visit right after Saudi Arabia? The answer speaks volumes! And with Turkey lining up with Iran – the latter already a key ally of Syria, the former a key player in the efforts to relieve Syrian President al-Assad of the burdens of power for the past five years — on the side of Qatar, the standoff is creating some very strange geopolitical bedfellows. None of us should be fooled by the rhetoric to be sure, because at the heart of these Middle East machinations and manoeuvres is energy – both oil and, now more so, gas — as it always has been. It’s certainly not — nor has it ever been — about freedom, democracy, liberty or any any of the usual bromides (perish the thought), or America’s presumed and oft-cited “responsibility to protect”. When it comes to the geopolitical players involved in the Great Game du jour, Engdahl notes: No political power has been more responsible for launching the recent undeclared gas wars than the corrupt Washington cabal that makes policy on behalf of deep state interests….The Trump Administration policy in the Middle East – and there is a clear policy, rest assured – might be compared to that of the ancient Chinese fable about the farmer who burnt down his house in order to roast a pig. In order to control the emerging world energy market around “low-CO2″ natural gas, Washington has targeted not only the world’s largest gas reserve country, Russia. She is now targeting Iran and Qatar. Nor is the “Game” about combatting terrorism, per se, as terrorism has always served the interests of the major power players, an observation one will never hear uttered in mainstream media and political discourse. Of course, one of the official pretexts for the demands being placed on Doha by the Saudis and the other Gulf states is Qatar’s support for terrorism, accusations which emanating from either country are as fatuous and as hypocritical as it gets. On this point Engdahl had the following to say: We must keep in mind that all serious terrorist organizations are state-sponsored. All [of them]. Whether DAESH or Al Nusra or Mujahideen in Afghanistan or Maute Group in [the] Philippines. The relevant question is which states sponsor which terrorists[?] Today NATO is the one most complicit in sponsoring terrorism as a weapon of their geopolitical designs. And within NATO the United States is sponsor number one, often using Saudi money and until recently, ironically, Qatari funds. There should be no surprises here for students of Deep History, as these factors have been the driving forces of ‘full spectrum dominance’ geopolitics and geo-economics forever and a day, with the 1953 Iran narrative as we’ve seen providing hard-core evidence of this reality. It is also about the Regime Renovators pressing on regardless, which in this instance translates to isolating and then destroying Iran (a la Iraq, Libya, Yemen, Syria et al), Washington’s, Riyadh’s, and Tel Aviv’s common bête noir. Of course, these considerations are not mutually exclusive by any means. On the Saudi-Qatari standoff, he had the following to say: Washington wanted to punish Qatar for seeking natural gas sales with China priced not in US dollars but in Renminbi. That…alarmed Washington, as Qatar is the world’s largest LNG exporter and most to Asia. But it’s even much more complex than that. The shape-shifting allegiances, mercurial strategic loyalties, and ‘handshakes under the table’ make for unpredictable scenarios going forward to be sure. Herein Engdahl offers us a summation of situation and circumstance that’s as lucid as it is frightening. After noting that the ‘real story” behind the rise of so-called Islamic Terrorism is the increasingly desperate attempt of the Anglo-American Deep State to control the rise of Eurasia, especially of China in combination now with Russia, and increasingly with Iran and Central Asian republics as well as South Asian, he continues with the following: Without understanding this, none of the recent events in the Middle East make sense. Washington strategists today foolishly believe if they get choke point control of all Middle East oil and gas, they can, as Henry Kissinger stated back in the 1970’s “control the oil and thus, control entire nations,” especially China and Russia and also Germany and Europe. Their strategy has failed but Washington…refuse[s] to see the reasons for their repeated failed wars. The hidden reality of American global power is that the American “giant” today is a bankrupt superpower, much like Great Britain after their Great Depression of 1873 up to 1914. Britain triggered a world war in 1914 to desperately try to retain their global power. They failed, for reasons I discuss in my Century of War book. Today for much the same reasons – allowing the power of US financial conglomerates [to] supersede the interests of the national industrial economy – America’s debt, national, private, corporate, is out of control. Reagan and Cheney were dead wrong. Debt does matter’ All of this translates to one simple reality. And at some point in the not too distant future, Russia and China will – not might, not maybe — attempt to call a halt to all of Uncle Sam’s shenanigans. And it’s reasonable to assume they won’t be on their ‘Pat Malone’, with Iran and Syria to be sure seeking also to finally square the ledger with the “Great Satan” and its Middle East proxies Israel and Saudi Arabia. By then it’ll be on for young and old. Of that we can be sure. History has always been and remains our most reliable guide in this respect. Of this we can also be just as certain. Well might we say then that another “splendid little war” is in the offing. Be that as it may, it almost certainly will qualify as the War to End all Wars. http://clubof.info/

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