#u.s. imperialism

[thejakeformerlyknownasprince]

I've seen a lot of folks talk about how in-universe things would be different in a modern AU, but I'm curious if you have any thoughts about how Animorphs and its world building would be if it were being written now in a (post?-) war on terror world rather than a post-Vietnam War world.

So this'd be speculation, but. But a lot has changed since 1996. We'd probably get YA Animorphs if published today (sigh), and we'd definitely get 6 or 12 oversized tomes rather than 54 slim paperbacks. On the plus side, we'd get canon queer rep, especially Tobias and Marco, and we'd get updated animal facts.

And then there's the War on Terror. Controversial opinion: I think it wouldn't change that much about Animorphs, because it's obvious in hindsight that Applegate saw the foreverwar coming.

Like, look at Marco's speech in MM2 about how the U.S. is "always on the lookout for new enemies... Enemies 'R Us, EnemyMart, J.C. Enemy. Don't worry, we'll find one." Or his point in #46 about how "global warfare is a thing of the past. That’s what people think, anyway" and the inherent danger in war becoming this glorious abstraction to too many Americans. Look at Visser's point about how humans "tear down a living man but revere a dead one" and use tragic deaths to forward the political agenda, whatever that might be. Look at Jake's job in #54, developed because "terrorism had grown... religious extremists... antigovernment paranoids... latter-day racists."

And then look at the andalites. "Police force of the galaxy" (#8), "Meddlers of the galaxy" (HBC), who often do more harm than good to the planets they try to save. They try to use their tech and military advantages responsibly... but not so responsibly that they're willing to give up even an iota of power to save lives. We first meet the andalites as the absolute good guys, and then over the course of the series that foundation crumbles (#8), and crumbles (#18), and crumbles (#19), and crumbles (#38), until Jake and Eva are "making deals with taxxons and yeerks to gain a victory fast enough to keep the andalites from deciding... to blast the entire planet out of existence and take out the bulk of the yeerk race along with the human race" (#53). Sound like any countries you know?

Anyway, Animorphs shows the Afghanistan War wasn't caused by the Sept. 11 murders any more than World War I was caused by Franz Ferdinand's murder. Applegate was writing in a U.S. itching for any moral-looking excuse to go to war, and clearly she knew it.

[gothhabiba]

As noted in post-colonial and gender studies, there has long been a pattern of homogenizing and victimizing discourses, particularly in international agencies and NGO’s, that highlight the need of Western nations to intervene on behalf of “third-world women” and “save” them (Spivak 1988; Wood 2001). Robinson-Pant [notes] that it is common for women’s literacy programs, in particular, to become the gateway for other development interventions such as family planning or child nutrition. Collins and Blot note that literacy projects are not power neutral and argue that,

the interconnectedness of literacy, power and identity formation are unavoidable in thinking about relationships between colonizers and colonized. Colonized discourses often emphasize the “inherent” goodness of bringing education, enlightenment and civilization to formerly savage peoples – literacy becomes a legitimizing narrative for other colonial projects (2003:21)

Such positions were evident in U.S. government discourses about literacy and development during the time the Passerelle program was being developed [in Morocco]. This can be seen for example, in a speech made in 2006 by Dr. Paula Dobriansky, the former U.S. Under Secretary for Democracy and Global Affairs, in which she advocated for better education for adult women in developing contexts. In her speech, Dobriansky argued that women and girls should be viewed as “untapped resources” and “vital sources of human capital” for future economic and social growth (Dobriansky 2006).

Thus, in addition to gender, of central importance to understanding the power structures and ideologies underpinning USAID’s Passerelle methodology[] is a consideration of how discourses about literacy often link it up to notions of social and economic development. Collins and Blot (2003) identify these discourses as forming the “Literacy Thesis” [...]. They explain that,

the central claims of the [literacy] thesis are that writing is a technology that transforms human thinking, relations to language, and representations of tradition, a technology that also enables a coordination of social action in unprecedented precision and scale, thus enabling the development of unique social and institutional complexity (Collins and Blot 2003:17)

Numerous critiques of the literacy thesis [...] have since questioned whether literacy can in fact be viewed as a universal, unitary skill that is determinate of social realities or if it is rather embedded in and shaped by the particular, historically contingent cultural contexts in which multiple literacies can occur. [...] Despite [...] challenges to the literacy thesis, its pervasiveness in academic literature, development agendas and the pedagogy of local literacy programs in Morocco is striking.

Given the 2004 Free Trade agreement between the U.S. and Morocco, the emphasis on relationships between literacy and economic forces by U.S. officials, such as [...] Dobriansky, is not unexpected. Prendergast (2003) for example, has argued that since literacy is usually acquired in relation to institutions, it is necessary to consider what other functions these institutions serve. A significant portion of American financial and pedagogical support for adult literacy education in Morocco is funneled through the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), as illustrated by the Passerelle program. Among USAID’s “strategic objectives and goals” in 2006, was the goal of “Democracy and Economic Freedom in the Muslim World,” a plan, which “[confronts] the intersection of traditional and transnational challenges… [combining]… diplomatic skills and development assistance to act boldly to foster a more democratic and prosperous world integrated into the global economy.” Thus, any literacy promotion by USAID in Morocco should be considered in light of its broader mission statements and how increased literacy in Morocco is being imagined to align advantageously with them. USAID’s role and interest in promoting literacy in Morocco, can also viewed as a form of literacy sponsorship (Brandt 2001). Brandt explains that sponsors of literacy should be understood as “any agents, local or distant, concrete or abstract, who enable, support, teach, and model, as well as recruit, regulate, suppress, or withhold, literacy – and gain advantage by it in some way” (19). [...] Furthermore, Brant notes that, “in whatever form, sponsors deliver the ideological freight that must be borne for access to what they have” (20). In addition to transmitting ideological freight, perhaps indirectly, regarding language varieties and scripts, USAID also explicitly imposes ideological frameworks regarding notions of gender roles and human rights through the inclusion of Moudawana [Moroccan Family Legal Code] content in the Passerelle classroom.

— Jennifer Lee Hall, Debating Darija: Language Ideology and the Written Representation of Moroccan Arabic in Morocco (PhD dissertation), 2015, pp. 76-9.

[milkboydotnet]

Marcos Jr. sells out PH sovereignty for US war preparations vs China

NDF-International | National Democratic Front of the Philippines

April 10, 2024

Marcos Jr.’s trip to the United States for a trilateral summit with US President Joe Biden and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida is an utter and complete sell-out of Philippine sovereignty to US war designs in Asia. The so-called “trilateral summit” is set to discuss “maritime security cooperation” between the three countries.

Marcos Jr. is willingly offering the Philippine archipelago to serve as a ‘theater of war’ by allowing the US to position its military arsenal on land, sea, and air. The Philippines is a crucial piece in the “US Island Chain strategy” to contain China. The Philippines’ strategic location allows the US to constrict regional waterways and position readily deployable military air power in close proximity to China. In order to achieve its objectives, the US is escalating war preparations in the region by encouraging Japan and other imperialist allies to join the geopolitical chess game.

In the said trilateral meeting, Marcos Jr. seeks to further increase US military footprint in Philippine soil while talks are underway with Japan for a reciprocal access agreement that will allow Japanese military presence in the country. In fact, preparations are already ongoing for the biggest Balikatan Exercises in history which is expected to draw at least 16,000 troops to participate. The Balikatan war games this year aims to test the so-called ‘Comprehensive Archipelagic Defense Concept (CDAC)’ patterned after US imperialist war plans in the region. These actions form part of the US strategy to provoke China into “firing the first shot” demonstrating the US government’s bloodthirst.

On the other hand, Marcos Jr.’s actions prove his outright subservience to US imperialist war preparations and his readiness to drag the Filipino people in the middle of a brewing inter-imperialist conflict. Marcos Jr. must be held accountable for his reprehensible sell-out of Philippine sovereignty and his blatant disregard for the lives of the Filipino masses. More importantly, the Biden administration must be denounced for its continued exportation of wars of aggression from Ukraine to Palestine and now using the Philippines as a pawn in its attempt to stifle China’s growing influence.

[nando161mando]

This is also how easily US imperialist propaganda gets manufactured on Reddit

[abolitioncommunism]

But what is happening in Gaza is not only Israel’s war: it is a US war, and it is most particularly Biden’s war. Israel simply could not afford to carry out this prolonged and resource-intensive assault on the Palestinian people without US money and weaponry. Polling shows that a majority of Americans want a permanent ceasefire; Biden’s support for Israel even appears to be damaging his chances in the upcoming presidential race. And yet he’s refusing to listen to his voters, and has repeatedly bypassed Congress, in order to keep supplying Israel with the resources on which it relies. Conspiracy theorists may like to imagine that Israel exercises some outsize influence on the US, but the reality is quite the opposite. It is the US that exerts enormous power over Israel – and previous American presidents have been prepared to use that power. In the 1980s, in response to illegal Israeli attacks on Iraq and Lebanon, Ronald Reagan not only criticised the attacks in public, but also restricted US aid and military assistance to Israel in response, helping to force the withdrawal of troops. In the early 1990s, George H.W. Bush likewise used US aid to Israel as a bargaining chip in international negotiations. If Biden is refusing to leverage these same resources in order to make Israel comply with US policy, the only reasonable conclusion is that this war is already US policy.

[courtana]

Today is the anniversary of the U.S.'s military invasion of Panamá, which occurred on December 20, 1989.

Julio Yao writes in the article "Legacies of the U.S. Invasion of Panama":

On December 20, 1989, former president George H.W. Bush ordered the invasion of Panama. The U.S. 82nd Airborne division pummeled Panama City from the air, as U.S. soldiers from the 193rd Brigade clashed in the streets with troops from the Panamanian Defense Forces (PDF) and the Dignity Battalions, a militia of workers and campesinos. Thousands of civilians were caught in the crossfire as the heavily populated El Chorrillo neighborhood was set ablaze. By the time General Manuel Noriega surrendered on January 3, 1990, 23 U.S. soldiers and 314 PDF troops had been officially killed in the fighting. Civilian casualties were estimated in the thousands. According to an independent investigation by former U.S. attorney general Ramsey Clark, as many as 7,000 people may have been killed. Mass graves were uncovered after U.S. troops had withdrawn, and over 15,000 civilians were displaced.

Despite the civilian body count, no Panamanian government since has authorized a commission to investigate the killings that took place during the foreign military aggression. No administration has attempted to demand reparations from the United States, nor filed a lawsuit against the United States before the International Court of Justice at the Hague.

Over twenty two years later, the U.S. “Christmas invasion” of Panama is being lost to memory, yet its legacy lives on in profound ways that continue to shape both domestic and foreign policy in Panama.

[...]

Panama’s tendency to submit to U.S. policy has resulted in a foreign policy devoid of independence. For example, Panama is one of the few countries in the world that has not established diplomatic relations with the People’s Republic of China, though it maintains relations with Taiwan in accordance with “checkbook diplomacy.” The U.S. government has prohibited Panama’s gestures toward diplomatic relations with Beijing.

Guided by this protectorate concept and right-wing policy, Martinelli’s administration [(2009-2014) had] offered its unconditional support to Israel and withdrawn all backing for Palestine. It [had] distanced Panama from the Central American process of regional integration, withdrawn from the Central American Parliament (PARLACEN), and increased ties with France and Italy’s conservative former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi, who was blackmailed by Italian arms company Finmeccanica into brokering a corrupt bilateral security agreement with Panama in which Panama was overcharged for military hardware, including helicopters, radar, and mapping systems. It signed a free trade agreement with the United States and Canada, and [had] given natural resources to foreign corporations, especially mining companies, including Vancouver-based Bellhaven Copper and Gold, Ontario’s Aur Resources, Toronto’s Inmet Mining, and New York’s Dominium Minerals Corporation. All of these actions [were] fully aligned with the foreign policy and national security interests of the United States.

This was, after all, the ultimate goal of the 1989 U.S. invasion. At a meeting on December 10, 1985, four years before Bush ordered Operation Just Cause, then U.S. national security adviser John Poindexter met with Noriega with several U.S. demands: (1) Panama should allow the training of Nicaraguan Contras in the Canal Zone; (2) PDF troops should invade Nicaragua to justify U.S. aggression toward Nicaragua’s Sandinista government; (3) Panama should help dismantle the Contadora Group, a regional initiative to resolve the military conflicts that were destabilizing Central America; and (4) Panama should consent to continued U.S. military presence in Panama.

[...]

The move [of the invasion] destroyed Panamanian sovereignty and the PDF, dismantled security structures, reformed the political system, and returned power to the old oligarchy. This paved the way for new forms of foreign domination, and the Panamanian people continue to suffer its legacy.

More Resources to learn about Panamá's Invasion:

Julio Yao's "Legacies of the U.S. Invasion of Panama," NACLA (March 22, 2012).

John Lindsay-Poland, Emperors in the Jungle (Duke University Press, 2003).

The documentary The Panama Deception (2002) on YouTube

The documentary INVASIÓN (2014)

Stephen Kinzer's chapter "You're No Good," in his book Overthrow: America's Century of Regime Change from Hawaii to Iraq (Times Books, 2007)

___

Photo Credits & Description: Images taken on the morning of December 20, 1989, when various parts of the capital city were under US military control | Images from Panamá Vieja Escuela or (@PaViejaEscuela on Twitter).

[lefemmerougewriter]

Yeah, if the fucking orange man wins, then I'll be moving to Canada… I don't like Kamala, since she's basically a murderous 'liberal' imperialist and génocidaire, but the orange man is an outright fascist.

Carmen explains her views on the two major party candidates in the U.S., saying she really doesn't like either one. This is from my new fic, "Crofting a Way Forward?: Lara, Artifact Theft, and the Red Woman"

[the-bitch-in-the-tower]

This is fucking World War 2 all over again! These are the same fucking laws we passed in the 1930's and 40's to bar Jews from fleeing the Third Reich

[whatisonthemoon]

Excerpt

Over the last week, Israel has launched yet another round of bombings on Gaza. The attacks have destroyed civilian infrastructure and killed at least 31 Palestinians, many of them women and children. This terror is not the exception, but the rule of Israel’s history.

75 years ago, the apartheid state of Israel began its decades-long history of oppressing, occupying, and killing the Palestinian people. Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were forced to leave their homes at gunpoint, and to this day are fighting for the right to return. Israel has only taken more Palestinian land since the original expulsion in 1948.

The violence that the Israeli occupation forces use to enforce their colonial project has no limits. Israel deprives Palestinians of medicine, regularly murders Palestinian children and journalists, bombs Gaza while using it as an open-air prison for Palestinians, labels Palestinian NGOs as terrorist groups, attacks Palestinian mosques, and demolishes Palestinian homes, sometimes forcing Palestinians to destroy their homes themselves. These are all just a few examples of the constant horrors Israel inflicts on Palestinians.

Support for Palestine has long been suppressed in the United States. U.S. imperialism relies on Israel to maintain its interests in the Middle East. This is why Israel’s crimes are armed by the United States to the tune of $3.8 billion annually, while American critics of Israel often face retaliation from their workplaces and are smeared as antisemitic, despite antisemitism and anti-Zionism being completely different.

Full article: https://www.leftvoice.org/75-years-of-israel-waging-violence-on-palestine-maintaining-u-s-imperialism-and-exporting-repression-around-the-world/

[connorthemaoist]

Marco Valbuena | Chief Information Officer | Communist Party of the Philippines | April 17, 2024 

The patriotic and peace-loving Filipino people, together with the American people, must condemn and reject the US government’s plan to provide the Philippines with $500 million in annual military aid for the next five years, in order to dump and preposition US war matériel in the Philippines.

This huge amount of US foreign military financing forms part of its war-mongering and war preparations against China, which is raising military tensions in the West Philippine Sea and the Asian region.

The planned US military aid will completely transform the Philippine military into an auxiliary force of the US military, that will be trained and tasked to handle US-provided weapons, to achieve US military objectives in its campaign to encircle and provoke China.

The increase in US military aid will also exacerbate the human rights situation in the Philippines amid Marcos’ order to intensify counterinsurgency operations. It will provide the AFP with more lethal and brutal force to carry out its campaign of political repression against the Filipino people.

At the instigation of US military advisers, the AFP has been spending billions of pesos to buy jet fighters, helicopters, bombs, missiles and rockets that have rained terror among the people in the countryside.

With the planned $2.5 billion military funding, American public money will again be used to bankroll the military-industrial complex. After having made large amounts of profits from US involvement in the war in Ukraine and support for Israel’s genocidal war in Gaza, American arms manufacturers such as Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman and Boeing are drooling to pocket even more money from US war provocations in the Asia-Pacific.

[deadassdiaspore]

[milkboydotnet]

A collection of activists and researchers from Filipino and Filipino-American organizations released the findings of a peace mission that concluded last month. The Philippines hosts the United States military in nine joint military facilities across the country through the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA). The groups claim that the American forces are both violating the terms of their stay and operating without transparency to local communities and even to Philippine authorities.

After a three-week fact-finding mission, the Peace Mission International Delegation finds that “the heightening of US militarism and ramping up of EDCA sites is a threat to Philippine independence and sovereignty and the dignity and safety of Filipino communities,” said Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (BAYAN) USA. Meanwhile, Renato Reyes Jr, of BAYAN Philippines explained that the “increased deployment of American weapons and soldiers to the Philippines is meant to provoke a heightened military confrontation with China.”

Secret War

The mission went to two EDCA sites and to one province where American military operations had recently taken place.

In Basa Air Base of Pampanga province, even the Philippine military was barred from certain perimeters.

Lal-lo Airport in Cagayan province is one EDCA site and researchers found that even the provincial government was only made aware of its use by foreigners when it was announced in the news.

None of the locals know what kind of armaments are now stored at the site. Moreover, US personnel are tapping the wider community to store military items and supplies. The mission pointed out that it goes beyond the bounds of EDCA as it does not fall under any of the “Agreed Locations.”

Last month, the Balikatan (shoulder to shoulder) joint military exercises between the US and the Philippines concluded. The war games drew in over 16,000 soldiers and for the first time made armed excursions outside Philippine territories, around a hundred kilometers from Taiwan.

The town of Santa Ana in Cagayan, northeast of the Philippines is just 400 kilometers from Taiwan.

The mission alleges that the residents of Santa Ana, were kept in the dark about using their town as a site for military exercises throughout Balikatan.

The mission also documented US marines visiting local high schools in civic-military operations. Additionally “We documented reports of locals saying that the loud noise from US military jets scares them and their children. Not only did this directly disturb the fish supply that these people survive on, but it is aimed at normalizing foreign military occupation in their country,” said *Alex of the mission, using a pseudonym for security.

Not unlike in Cagayan, residents of Ilocos Norte province to the northwest of the country, only learned of Balikatan coming to their neighborhoods through news on Facebook. Live fire drills were carried out and some allege that explosions were heard just 30 kilometers from their homes.

The mission also criticized the five-day “no sail policy” enforced by the military, dealing a large blow to the livelihood of local fisherfolk.

Around 1,000 fishing families were affected by the fishing ban, with estimated losses at Php10,000 per family, a staggering amount that will take them months to recover from. Local government allotted aid worth Php1500 to just over a hundred families.

“The people of Ilocos deserve much more than to be treated as pawns in a US war game,” said *Glaiza of the group Gabriela.

Invitation for war

Balikatan is just one of over 500 planned exercises slated for this year alone. It comes alongside moves in Washington to significantly boost military aid to the Philippines to contain China and pursue its strategic interests in the Pacific region.

Last April, at the Philippines-United States Bilateral Strategic Dialogue in Washington, D.C., both countries held talks to expand the number of EDCA sites, investing US$128 million for infrastructure around these areas and stockpiling a greater volume of supplies.

This year, Marcos announced intentions to upgrade the country’s defense with a US$35 billion boost over the next 10 years.

His plans dovetail with a proposal in the US Senate dubbed the Philippine Enhanced Resilience Act, or PERA bill, which would allot US$2.5 billion over the next five years to Philippine military advancement.

Reyes criticized Marcos Jr’s inclination to plunge the Philippines into war at the behest of America. On June 12, Philippine Independence Day, Filipinos rallied at the US Embassy in Manila against using the country as a stooge in their agenda.

On the same day, Marcos delivered a speech with much bravado saying “We see it in the tenacity of our soldiers as they protect every inch of our territory, adamant as they are in the certainty that Filipinos do not, and shall never, succumb to oppression.”

However, after seeing how the American interests with the complicity of the Marcos regime is fuelling the escalation of the conflict with China, the mission asks “is the Philippines truly free? And what of the Filipino people who are sure to be caught in the crossfire if war were to break out?”

[amerikaz1]

The Central Intelligence Agency of the United States, aka the CIA, has tried several times to overthrow the Cuban government through various tactics.

In this video, TikTok user "saint." explains the latest CIA failure to undermine the Cuban government.

[whatisonthemoon]

'School Of The Americas' School For Training Assassins

Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/qtKHiqaQwN4

Related sites and notes below

Moonies offered to pay leaders of the Contras The Reinvention of the Latin American Right VOC, CAUSA & Moonie Anti-Communism in Central America in Bo Hi Pak’s Own Words On Albert Fujimori, Peru, and Puerto Rico: On Sterilization as a Tool of [Anti-Communist] Fascism and Neo-Colonialism John K. Singlaub, WACL Death Squad Leader, Dies at 100 CIA Used Sun Myung Moon and the Anti-Communist League as Proxy Forces to Liquidate Communists

The Magnificast podcast talks about the political Left and Christianity. Here’s their newest episode:

This week we’re back to talk through another of Tricontinental’s dossiers. This time we’re talking about fundamentalism and evangelicalism and how those theologies are connected to imperialism in Latin America. Read the dossier here: https://thetricontinental.org/dossier-59-religious-fundamentalism-and-imperialism-in-latin-america/

Bo Hi Pak - Did you join the Unification Church in February 1957 or February 1958?

In this text it is written that he received training at the U.S. Army Infantry School at Fort Benning, Georgia, future home of the School of the Americas, from 1956 to 1957. He also writes that soon after returning to Korea, in September 1957, he was invited into the staff of Maj. Gen. Willis S. Matthews, chief of the Korea Military Advisory Group. According to Pak, from September ‘57 to ‘59, he worked as the Special Assistant to Chief of U.S. Military Advisory Group in Seoul.   Though this mismatched timeline may seem like an innocent mistake, 1957-1958 was a huge year of development and growth for the Unification Church, and a pivotal time for Pak. If he had in fact joined the Unification Church in February 1957, a date he has often cited, including in court, he would have already been a member of the Unification Church by the time he was invited to work for KMAG. 

A glimpse into Bo Hi Pak’s military career

On Moon’s Political Network and their Deep Connections to Global Terrorism

[rivage-seulm]

Twenty-Five Reasons for Supporting Palestinians in Their Conflict with Jewish Zionism

As I listen to the debate surrounding the awful events unfolding in Israel Palestine, I can understand how many are fooled by the one-sided pro-Israel propaganda circulated in the mass media and by their refusal to understand the Palestinian viewpoint. The media’s welter of misinformation and knee-jerk support for U.S. policy in the Middle East coupled with their implicit appeals to sentiments of…