Pompeo's rants amount to a new Cold War but with China

 (July 26) After almost daily rants against China, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is now indicating that the goal of US hostility is to change China as the US begins what is in effect a new Cold War against the country.

Back to the red scare era

Pompeo likened the situation as akin to the earlier Cold War with the Soviet Union. He said that other nations in the world had an obligation to defend freedom and warned that at “our children’s children may be at the mercy of the Communist party.” He also claimed that the US had changed Soviet behavior.

Pompeo's language harks back to the language of red scares. Like the Soviet reds China wants to dominate the world and is a threat to all "freedom loving" nations. The aim may be in part to cause Americans and others to fear Chinese domination in the future.

Pompeo said: “Changing the CCP’s behavior cannot be the mission of the Chinese people alone. Free nations have to work to defend freedom. If we bend the knee now, our children’s children may be at the mercy of the Communist party." Pompeo said he had faith that the US could get China to change its behavior. This rhetoric is completely bizarre but it shows what US officials believe can still be effective in manufacturing consent for US policy in the future. If the US is so intent on defending freedom why is it a close ally of authoritarian states such as Saudi Arabia and why do they recognize their own chosen coup leader Juan Guaido as the interim leader of Venezuela rather than the elected president Nicolas Maduro?

US domination may be doomed

The US is the dominant nation both economically and militarily throughout the globe. The US tries to function as world policeman backed by its economic and financial power The US uses sanctions to try and control the behavior of nations such as Venezuela that resist its policy aims.

China's huge economic growth is beginning to challenge the US dominance although even allies such as the European Union are becoming frustrated by the US use of international systems such as the SWIFT financial system as a weapon to further its own ends. Christopher Bovis, professor of international business law at the University of Hull in the UK, notes "The European Commission has been developing a system, a parallel system to SWIFT which will allow Iran to interface with European financial systems, European clearing systems, using the nominations supported and created by the European Investment Bank based on the euro."

US policy is not to engage with China

The US and China could develop a win-win trade relationship with each other but US policy seems now to see China as an evil competitor. Pompeo said that the US can "never go back to engagement" declaring it a Marxist Leninist regime that was following a bankrupt totalitarian ideology. However, China's economy has been booming and in time may come to equal US production. Meanwhile, the US appears to be not facing up to its own social and economic problems but instead is using fear of China to divert attention from problems withing the US itself. Instead of pursuing productive trade and other relations with China a win-win situation the US has chosen a path which will hurt the economies of both countries and heighten tensions a lose-lose strategy.

Previously published in the Digital Journal

The Cold War warms up again?

It seems that Russia and China are co-operating again now that both are capitalist! The US is bound to provoke Russia with its Missile Defence Shield and its attempts to gain bases in Central Asia as well as giving a boost to different coloured revolutions in the Ukraine and Georgia!


Russia, China, Iran Warn U.S. at Summit Published 08/16/2007 - 2:56 p.m. EDT




(AP) By LEILA SARALAYEVA
Associated Press Writer

The leaders of Russia, China and Iran said Thursday that Central Asia should be left alone to manage its stability and security _ an apparent warning to the United States to avoid interfering in the strategic, resource-rich region.

The veiled warning came at a meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and on the eve of major war games between Russia and China.

The SCO was created 11 years ago to address religious extremism and border security in Central Asia, but in recent years, with countries such as Iran signing on as observers, it has grown into a bloc aimed at defying U.S. interests in the region.




"Stability and security in Central Asia are best ensured primarily through efforts taken by the nations of the region on the basis of the existing regional associations," the leaders said in a statement at the end of the organization's summit in the Kyrgyz capital, Bishkek.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, attending the summit for the second consecutive year, criticized U.S. plans to put parts of a missile defense system in Eastern Europe as a threat to the entire region.

"These intentions go beyond just one country. They are of concern for much of the continent, Asia and SCO members," he said.

Washington has said the system would help protect against potential Iranian missiles.

Russian President Vladimir Putin didn't mention the United States in his speech, but he said that "any attempts to solve global and regional problems unilaterally are hopeless."

He also called for "strengthening a multi-polar international system that would ensure equal security and opportunities for all countries" _ comments echoing Russia's frequent complaints that the United States dominates world affairs.

Moscow has also bristled at Washington's plans to deploy the anti-missile system in Poland and the Czech Republic, saying the system would threaten Russian security.

Putin and Hu Jintao of China were set to attend Friday's military exercises in the Chelyabinsk region in Russia's Ural Mountains. Some 6,000 Russian and Chinese troops, dozens of aircraft and hundreds of armored vehicles and other heavy weapons will participate _ the first such joint drills on Russia's territory.

China hosted the first-ever joint maneuvers in August 2005, which included a mock assault on the beaches of northern China and featured Russia's long-range bombers.

Moscow and Beijing have developed what they dubbed a "strategic partnership" after the Soviet collapse, cemented by their perceptions that the United States dominates global affairs.

In 2005, the SCO called for a timetable to be set for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from two member countries, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan. Uzbekistan evicted American forces later that year, but Kyrgyzstan still hosts a U.S. base, which supports operations in nearby Afghanistan.

Russia also maintains a military base in Kyrgyzstan.

The SCO, whose members are some of the world's biggest energy producers and consumers, also discussed ways to enhance energy cooperation. Washington has supported plans for new pipelines that would carry the region's oil and gas to the West and bypass Russia, while Moscow has pushed strongly to control the export flows.

A further sign of the group's intention to influence energy markets was the participation in the Bishkek summit of Turkmen President Gurbanguli Berdymukhamedov, whose country is the second-largest producer of natural gas in the former Soviet Union after Russia. Turkmenistan is not an SCO member; the president was attending as a guest.

__

Associated Press writer Bagila Bukharbayeva in Moscow contributed to this report

CIA documents show how it broke the law.

Actually the activities of the CIA back then seem mild, especially since there was a cold war, compared to post 9/11. However, the material will no doubt provide interesting material for researchers. I wonder if there are any collectible stamps on the letters!


CIA documents show how it broke law
POSTED: 12:56 p.m. EDT, June 22, 2007
Story Highlights• CIA documents details activities 30 years ago
• Almost 700 pages of material to be declassified
• Activities included assassination plans, illegal wiretaps

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Little-known documents now being made public detail illegal and scandalous activities by the CIA more than 30 years ago: wiretapping of journalists, kidnappings, warrantless searches and more.

The documents provide a glimpse of nearly 700 pages of materials that the agency plans to declassify next week. A six-page summary memo that was declassified in 2000 and released by The National Security Archive at George Washington University on Thursday outlines 18 activities by the CIA that "presented legal questions" and were discussed with President Ford in 1975.

Among them:


The "two-year physical confinement" in the mid-1960s of a Soviet defector.


Assassination plots of foreign leaders, including Fidel Castro.


CIA wiretapping in 1963 of two columnists, Robert Allen and Paul Scott, following a newspaper column in which national security information was disclosed. The wiretapping revealed calls from 12 senators and six representatives but did not indicate the source of the leak.


The "personal surveillances" in 1972 of muckraking columnist Jack Anderson and staff members, including Les Whitten and Brit Hume. The surveillance involved watching the targets but no wiretapping. The memo said it followed a series of "tilt toward Pakistan" stories by Anderson.


The personal surveillance of Washington Post reporter Mike Getler over three months beginning in late 1971. No specific stories are mentioned in the memo.


CIA screening programs, beginning in the early 1950s and lasting until 1973, in which mail coming into the United States was reviewed and "in some cases opened" from the Soviet Union and China.

Much of the decades-old activities have been known for years. But Tom Blanton, head of the National Security Archive, said the 1975 summary memo prepared by Justice Department lawyers had never been publicly released. It sheds light on meetings in the top echelon of government that were little known by the public, he said.

CIA Director Michael Hayden on Thursday called the documents being released next week unflattering, but he added that "it is CIA's history."

"The documents provide a glimpse of a very different time and a very different agency," Hayden told a conference of historians.

Blanton pointed to more recent concerns, such as post-September 11 programs that included government wiretapping without warrants. "The resonance with today's controversies is just uncanny," he said.

The long-secret documents being released next week were compiled at the direction of then-CIA Director James Schlesinger in 1973. In the wake of the Watergate scandal, he directed senior CIA officials to report immediately on any current or past agency matters that might fall outside the authority of the agency.

A separate memo, also dated 1975 and made public by the National Security Archive, discusses the briefing given to Ford detailing abuses by the spy agency. Then-CIA director William Colby tells the president that the CIA "has done some things it shouldn't have."

Among the activities discussed was the mail program in New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco. Of the airmail received from the Soviet Union, he said, "we have four (letters) to Jane Fonda."

Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

The Cold War Starts Again?

Sometimes I think that the BBC is FOX news the other side of the pond. It is hardly surprising that Putin has begun to react to US and NATO aggressive policy that has surrounded Russia by bases in former satellite countries and also allowed them to join NATO. Imagine if Russia had bases with missiles etc. in Canada, Mexico, Cuba, and St. Pierre and Miquelon! It is OK for NATO to put missiles near Russian borders but not OK for Russia to provide Iran air defences against an attack by the US or US plus allies.


Putin's speech: Back to cold war?
By Rob Watson
BBC defence and security correspondent, Munich



Mr Putin said the US "has overstepped its borders"
The Munich security conference was born in the 1960s - the height of the Cold War. Forty years on, there been talk of a new chill.

Given the tone and content of Russian President Vladimir Putin's address to the gathered defence ministers, parliamentarians and pundits, it is not, perhaps, hard to see why.

Warming quickly to his task after only the briefest of greetings, President Putin accused the US of establishing, or trying to establish, a "uni-polar" world.

"What is a uni-polar world? No matter how we beautify this term, it means one single centre of power, one single centre of force and one single master," he said.

'Formula for disaster'

President Putin continued in a similar vein for some time.

In today's multi-polar world, there is no place for needless confrontation

US Senator John McCain

"The United States has overstepped its borders in all spheres - economic, political and humanitarian, and has imposed itself on other states," he said.

It was a formula that, he said, had led to disaster: "Local and regional wars did not get fewer, the number of people who died did not get less but increased. We see no kind of restraint - a hyper-inflated use of force."

The US has gone "from one conflict to another without achieving a fully-fledged solution to any of them", Mr Putin said.

With the new US Defence Secretary Robert Gates and several US congressmen sitting in the audience, he called for the reconsideration of the whole existing architecture of global security.

'Disappointing' speech

But he did not win over his audience.

Several delegates did not like his rather brusque brushing off of questions about Russia's own commitment to democracy and his defence of Moscow's decision to sell an air-defence system to Iran.

Nato Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer described President Putin's speech as "disappointing and not helpful". And there was similar reaction from the president of Estonia and others.

But it was left to US Republican senator and presidential hopeful John McCain to lead the retort.

Today's world, he said sternly, was not uni-polar, adding that it was an autocratic Russia that needed to change its behaviour.

"Moscow must understand that it cannot enjoy a genuine partnership with the West so long as its actions at home and abroad conflict so fundamentally with the core values of Euro-Atlantic democracies," he said.

"In today's multi-polar world, there is no place for needless confrontation, and I would hope that Russian leaders understand this truth," Senator McCain said.

Spotlight on Moscow

Afterwards in the corridors there were dark mutterings by some about a new Cold War.

Others were less gloomy, dismissing President Putin's performance as one of Russia's periodic bouts of letting off steam at its diminished world status.

But it has made an impression.

For the last few years, as one observer suggested, it was the former US Defence Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, who was the man everybody loved to hate at this conference.

President Putin's performance has single-handedly switched the spotlight from the US to Russia.

Mikhail Gorbachev on World Events, US policy

Gorbachev seems overly optimistic although overall the article is quite interesting and perceptive. There seems to be a trend toward more negative reporting about Russia as compared to a while ago when Bush and Putin were buddies and Bush looked into Putin's soul and saw that it was good!

History is not preordained: a new cold war can be avertedUS military arrogance has led to a global crisis. But there is still time to change course and build a democratic world order By Mikhail Gorbachev01/18/07 "The Guardian" -- -- A watershed in international relations has occurred in recent months. Indeed, the past year may well have seen the end of an entire era in world affairs - the post-cold war period of unilateralism and missed opportunities.When the cold war ended, avenues opened up for progress toward a better world. Major powers, particularly the United States, the Soviet Union and China, were working constructively together in the United Nations security council. International conflicts, including those in Angola, El Salvador, Nicaragua and Cambodia, were brought to an end. Nuclear and conventional arms control agreements were concluded, and democratic changes were under way in dozens of countries in Asia, Latin America and central and eastern Europe.The Charter of Paris for a New Europe, signed in 1990, marked the beginning of a process that was expected to lead to a new, peaceful and democratic world order. But the movement in that direction soon stalled. The break-up of the Soviet Union was followed by changes in the political elites of the United States and other countries. The Charter of Paris was forgotten. Instead of moving towards a new security architecture, it was decided to rely on the tools inherited from the cold war. The United States - and the west as a whole - succumbed to the "winner's complex".Europe was shaken by the tragedies in the Balkans. Waves of instability swept through the former Yugoslavia, the Middle East and Africa as the struggles for spheres of influence, resources and markets gathered momentum.Nato's promise to evolve into a primarily political organisation was not kept. Instead, it moved to increase its membership and expand its zone of operations. A new arms race is now under way. The problems of nuclear weapons and non-proliferation have taken on a new urgency, with the original members of the nuclear club bearing much of the blame for it.There is a real danger of a new division of the world; the possibility of a new cold war is being widely discussed. Without regard for the security council or for the opinion of other countries, including its partners and allies, the United States invaded Iraq with disastrous consequences. The arrogance of military power has led to a grave crisis - and to a decline of the United States' role and influence.Another consequence of unilateralist policies and attempts to claim exclusive leadership is that most international institutions have not been able to address effectively the new century's global challenges - the environmental crisis and the problem of poverty. The unprecedented scale of international terrorism and the proliferation of ethnic and religious conflicts are disturbing signs of troubles to come.Americans have also felt the effects of the administration's flawed foreign policies. In November the voters made their verdict known, delivering a defeat for the Republicans in the midterm elections. Yet that is a challenge to the entire US political establishment, for Democrats as well as Republicans. There is a need for a correction in the superpower's policies. Is the administration of George Bush capable of such a correction?Both in the United States and elsewhere, the prevailing view is often negative. The administration gives ample reason for this view, because it seems to prefer the inertia of the old course. It would appear that all the Bush administration wants is to persuade the world that it is still firmly in the saddle. The president's recent statements and the plans being discussed in his administration are cut from the old cloth.The Republican leadership clearly wants to leave to the next president a legacy that would tie him to its policies and make a change of course impossible. If so it is not just a tactical blunder but a recipe for an even greater disaster.And yet I think the possibility of change is still there. The administration and Congress still have the time to forge it. They should begin with the Middle East. Not only should America start pulling itself out of the Iraqi quagmire, but it also needs to return to a constructive policy in the region. It is essential that the Middle East peace process be resumed, along with a serious dialogue with Iraq's neighbours.If America's leaders have the foresight and the courage to look at the world as it really is, they would choose dialogue and cooperation rather than force. What is needed is not a worldwide web of military presence and intervention, but a restraint and a willingness to solve problems by political means.After all, the world has changed dramatically even when compared to the early 1990s. It has become even more interconnected and interdependent. New giants - China, India and Brazil - have entered the world arena, and their views can no longer be ignored. Europe is uniting, and its economic and political influence is bound to grow.Although the Islamic world is finding it difficult to adapt to new realities, its adjustment will continue and this great civilisation will insist on being treated with respect. Finally, the democratic transition of Russia (as well as the other former Soviet republics), for all its considerable problems, is bringing a new, strong player to the international scene.During the 1990s, which were a difficult time for my country, I said that Russia's troubles would pass, that it would rise to its feet and forge ahead. This is what is happening now.Russia's resurgence, its insistence on protecting its interests, and its ability to play a proper role in the world, are not to everyone's liking. Strangely enough, when Russia was mired in crisis, the west applauded it; today Russia is accused of rejecting democracy and of having imperial ambitions.Still, there are no real reasons to fear Russia. My country is facing many problems. Learning new ways and building democratic institutions is indeed hard work. But Russia will never go back. The most difficult part of the road is already behind us.I have always said that in this day and age we cannot afford to be pessimists. There are many reasons to be concerned and even alarmed. But history is not preordained. A new division of the world, a new confrontation, is not inevitable. A democratic world order is not mere rhetoric. It can be built.Mikhail Gorbachev is former president of the Soviet Union - presidentgorbachev@nytimes.com