China Plus Podcast of July 31, 2020 "China-US Relations at Turning Point? "

 

http://chinaplus.cri.cn/podcast/detail/1/232452

VINCE EMANUELE, ANTI-WAR VETS, AND THE 99%

    Harry Targ, The Rag Blog | November 6, 2011

 “I grew up in Chicago and Northwest Indiana. Working-class family, father was a Union Ironworker… mother was a stay at home Mom.” Vince Emanuele joined the Marines after graduating from high school. “I came out of boot camp a hard chargin’ Devil Dog.”

He served in the Marines from 2003 until 2005 stationed in California, Kuwait, and Iraq. His eight month deployment in Iraq involved him in street patrols, looking for snipers and land mines, “along with shooting at innocent civilians, destroying their property and beating up prisoners.”

While in Iraq the fascination with war that he had acquired as a kid playing video games dissipated. His father sent him reading material — Noam Chomsky, Gore Vidal, Hunter Thompson, The Nation — and he and friends began to reflect on what they were doing in Iraq. He came to the view that the war was “illegal, immoral, unjustified, and unneeded.” He was not spreading “democracy” or “peace” and the U.S. war effort was not winning the “hearts and minds” of the Iraqi people.

After returning to the U.S., Emanuele joined Iraq Veterans Against the War, has been organizing vets in Indiana and Illinois, created a weekly radio show called “Veterans Unplugged” which is available online, and has become a prominent activist for social, economic, and political justice in the heartland of America while finishing an undergraduate political science degree.

Emanuele recently spoke on a panel organized by the Lafayette Area Peace Coalition. He elaborated on the current plight of veterans, particularly veterans who served in the two longest wars in U.S. history, Afghanistan and Iraq.

While acknowledging that the current military force has chosen to enlist in regular army or reserve units, the 21st century enticement to serve is really an “economic draft.” With declining incomes, wages, job opportunities, and rising educational costs, more and more men and women, he said, have seen military service as the only escape from lives of economic marginalization.

He spoke of the culture of militarization to which every new recruit is exposed: a process of dehumanization; the spread of racism, particularly targeting stereotypes of Muslims; sexism; and homophobia. In reality the military experience of young people, Emanuele said, involves placing raw, uneducated, teenagers in a war zone, with weapons and a license to kill. The victims of the actions of these raw recruits, schooled in video games and super-patriotism, were the millions of Iraqi and Afghan citizens who most fervently wanted the young foreigners off their land.

Emanuele presented some figures on the impacts of military service on returning veterans. (According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics in 2010 there were 20.2 million men and 1.8 million women who had served in the military). In 2011, Emanuele reported:

§  Rates of unemployment of returning veterans from Afghanistan and Iraq are higher than in the non-veteran population, both men and women;

§  African-American vets experience double the unemployment rate of white vets;

§  80,000 returning veterans are currently homeless (56 % of homeless vets are African American or Latinos);

§  20% to 50% of 21st century returning veterans suffer some form of Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome (an estimated 350,000 to 1 million vets);

§  1,000 returning vets attempt suicide each month.

Emanuele, connected the plight of returning veterans to the military-industrial complex and imperial wars. As a member of Iraq Veterans Against the War, he highlighted the long tradition of soldiers resisting participation in unjust wars:

§  In 1781 the Pennsylvania militia mutinied against war profiteers and for food;

§  Between the 1870s and the 1890s, National Guard soldiers often refused to fire on striking workers;

§  In 1919 unknown numbers of U.S. soldiers refused orders to go fight against the Bolsheviks who had come to power in Russia;

§  Thousands of World War I veterans, known as the Bonus Army, assembled in Washington D.C. in 1932 to demand back pay due them from their active duty experience;

. From 1964-75 a massive GI anti-Vietnam war resistance movement emerged with over 300 GI antiwar newspapers produced, 10 % of all Vietnam era soldiers going AWOL or deserting, and a broad array of other forms of antiwar resistance and opposition to military recruiting.

 

Emanuele stressed the commonality of experience and vision that is shared by most veterans with the Occupy Movement. He suggested that peace and justice activists must understand that returning veterans are a vital part of the 99% movement committed to radically restructure American society.

He argued that the 99%, including vets, must see the vital connections between the global capitalist system, the military-industrial complex, and the pain and suffering that have generated war and economic insecurity in the 21st century.

Emanuele ended his talk with reference to the frank admission of General Smedley Butler who oversaw the effort to crush the army of Augusto Sandino in Nicaragua in the early 1930s. Butler admitted that he, as a Marine General, had served as an instrumentality of Wall Street, putting down popular rebellions in the service of profit.

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Vince Emanuele  

Face Book

November 10, 2020

Today is the 245th birthday of the United States Marine Corps. As a former marine, I'm extremely uncomfortable with the glorification of militarism and war. At this point, I'm not sure what to say because I've said it all before. The wars continue. Veterans kill themselves in record numbers. Iraqis, Afghans, Syrians, Libyans, Somalis, Pakistanis, Palestinians, and countless others across the globe continue to endure the brutal, horrific, and murderous legacy of U.S. militarism.

In typical contradictory fashion, it's also worth noting that my time in the USMC was both the best and worst thing that's ever happened to me. For years, I was resentful. These days, however, I'm grateful, not only for navigating my time in the military with as much dignity as possible but for coming home and doing something positive with my life and for the friends and family who made that possible.

So many of our brothers and sisters are no longer with us. Some died overseas, some took their lives after returning home. For the people on the opposite end of Uncle Sam's whip, life is difficult beyond imagination. Those of us who served have a responsibility to speak the truth about U.S. foreign policy.

The future of the species and planet depends on our ability to develop alternatives to war and meta-violence. It's our only hope. It won't be easy, nor is success guaranteed, yet persist we must.

As Oliver Stone once wrote, "Those of us who did make it have an obligation to build again, to teach to others what we know, and to try with what's left of our lives to find a goodness and a meaning to this life."

 Semper Fi.

 End the wars.

PFC Vincent Emanuele, 1st Battalion, 7th Marines, Alpha Company, 3rd Platoon, 1st Squad, 3rd Fire Team

Emanuele writes for several outlets including Telesur and Counterpunch. He currently works for PARCMedia. PARCMedia is a news and media project founded by two USMC veterans, Sergio Kochergin & Vince Emanuele. They give a working-class take on issues surrounding politics, ecology, community organizing, war, culture, and philosophy.

“Become a Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/PARCMEDIA
Follow Us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/Vince_Emanuele
Follow Us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/1713FranklinSt/
Follow Us on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/parcmedia/?”...  

THE ELECTION AND POST-ELECTION SEASONS: NOT MUCH NEW SINCE 2014

 WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 5, 2014

WHAT TO MAKE OF ELECTORAL POLITICS 2014?

Harry Targ

I am looking at exit poll data and, as in prior election seasons, more Democratic votes came from the young, women, African Americans, Latinos, voters with post-graduate degrees and educational levels at or below high school, and low income citizens. This national polling data comports with results from many individual Congressional and state races. These groups of voters (or comparable groups of non-voters) will stay the same or increase as a percentage of  potential voters in 2016 and beyond.

This data speaks to the necessary expansion of electoral and “street heat” strategies that prioritize several issues. Progressives need to continue to combat racism and sexism in all its forms. This translates into reversing voter suppression laws and other tactics to stifle voting, renewing the Voting Rights Act, pursuing equal pay for equal work legislation, opening the doors for citizenship to all migrants to the United States.

In addition, support for an expanded economic populist agenda is central to any progressive historical change. Candidates for public office should be pressured to support living wage legislation at the national and state levels, expand on worker rights to form unions, a green jobs agenda, revising the Affordable Care Act into a single payer system, and federal legislation (paralleling the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights) guaranteeing every worker the right to a job. This program of social and economic justice should be basic to every candidacy at the federal and state levels in 2016. To advocate for such programs, movements inside and outside the electoral arena should spend the next two years engaging in education, agitation and organization.

In addition to struggles over concrete policies, progressives should engage more vigorously in ideological struggle. In general, this means addressing racism as a central undercurrent in American political culture: research and education that documents the centrality of the racialization of the 2014 election would inform discussion in the weeks ahead.

Also, a centerpiece of American political history, paralleling and sometimes overlapping with racism, is the politics of fear. The sources of fear in the past have included racial and ethnic others, foreigners, and communists. This election season fear was generated by half-truths about terrorists particularly from the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), an invasion of Central American children, and a mysterious contagious disease traveling from Africa to the United States. The politics of fear must be challenged, not accommodated, introducing a politics of reason. That is progressives should demand that candidates address real issues rationally, demonstrate arguments using data, and to the contrary avoid simplistic sound bites. The people who need to be motivated should be treated with respect, including assuming that they understand their self-interest and can be convinced by compelling arguments.

Finally, campaigns opposing big money in politics need to continue. This includes the only short-term challenge to big money that has any chance of electoral success; that is organizing masses of people. In addition to increasing the struggles to build multi-issue mass campaigns, progressives can avail themselves of a multitude of media projects: alternative radio and television, free distribution newspapers, blogs, websites, and face book networks, as well as organizing study circles on college campuses, in senior centers, community centers, and public libraries.

I feel this morning the way I felt the day after Ronald Reagan was elected president. While the Reagan presidency institutionalized a neoliberal economic agenda that has shaped the national and global economy ever since, we also witnessed in the subsequent years the largest rally in United States history against nuclear weapons, a vibrant Central America solidarity movement,  an anti-NAFTA campaign that almost defeated the passage of the treaty in Congress,  various huge mobilizations against wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the election of the first African-American president in United States history. Joe Hill was correct when he urged his comrades “don’t mourn, organize.”

THE AGE OF IMPERIALISM: SHORT-TERM AND LONG-TERM RESPONSES

Harry Targ

In 1969, the Monthly Review Press published Harry Magdoff’s impactful book, The Age of Imperialism. It diagnosed the connections between the capitalist system and the global foreign policy of the United States. Earlier, diplomatic historian William Appleman Williams published narratives of the United States role in the world from the end of the Civil War until the early 1960s in The Tragedy of American History and The Contours of American History. 

What we learned from these ground-breaking books was that capitalism, economic expansion, colonialism and neo-colonialism, wars, racism, and the ideology of American exceptionalism were inextricably linked. Imperialism was a phase in history that involved particular economic processes, political institutions, militarism, and a political culture that celebrates war and violence.

Even though history is complicated and the features of  imperialism have changed over time, in part due to  global resistance, one can see a continuity of foreign policies of imperial states, particularly in the case of the United States. Three enduring United States policies remain preeminent as we approach the 2020 election:

First, military spending, particularly in new technologies, continues unabated. A 2019 Council on Foreign Relations report raises the danger of the United States “falling behind” in military technology, the same metaphor that was used by defense analysts in the past. These included the NSC-68 document distributed just before the Korean War began that advocated unlimited spending on the military. Similar warnings appeared in Gaither and Rockefeller Reports composed in the late 1950s to challenge President Eisenhower’s worry about a military/industrial complex. And in the 1960s, to further military superiority and to fight the Vietnam War, Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara employed techniques of scientific management to make the Pentagon more efficient. And President Reagan’s huge increase of armaments in the 1980s was justified by an inaccurate claim that a “window of vulnerability” had developed as the United States was “falling behind” the former Soviet Union. The Trump Administration and members of both parties have recently endorsed a $740 billion defense budget. Trump is launching a “space force” and is spurring research and development of drone technology, biometrics, and other cyber security weapons.

 

Second, the United States continues to engage in policies recently referred to as “hybrid wars.” The concept of hybrid wars suggests that while traditional warfare between nations has declined, warfare within countries has increased. Internal wars, the hybrid wars theorists suggest, are encouraged and supported by covert interventions, employing private armies, spies, and other operatives financed by outside nations like the United States. Also, the hybrid wars concept refers to the use of economic warfare, embargoes, and blockades, to bring down adversarial states and movements. The blockades of Cuba, Venezuela, and Iran are examples. In short, the hybrid war concept suggests that wars are being carried out by other, less visible, means.

Third, much of the discourse on the US role in the world replicates the bipolar, super-power narrative of the Cold War. Only now the enemy is China. And imperialism needs an enemy or enemies to mobilize the citizenry to support militarism and war.

These are problems peace and justice movements will have to address beyond the 2020 election, irrespective of which candidate wins the presidency. In short, the outcome of the 2020 election will not determine whether “the age of imperialism” continues or not.

BUT, there are still reasons for peace forces to participate in the upcoming election and to oppose the reelection of Donald Trump. Along with the differences in the presidential candidates and those running for federal, state, and local offices--on domestic issues and on the ability of progressives to apply pressure on key decision-makers--there have been differences between foreign policy elites over the years that bear remembering.

One sector of the foreign policy elite, the neo-conservatives, have historically prioritized the use of military force to a greater degree than diplomacy to achieve imperial goals. From the original Committee for the Present Danger in 1950 to its rebirth in the 1970s, to the formation of the Project for a New American Century (PNAC) in the 1990s, these key political elites have advocated the use of military force as a primary tool to achieve US hegemonic goals in the world. Further, they have de-emphasized in their advocacy of policy the traditional tools of diplomacy to achieve national goals, tools such as cooperating with alliance partners, and utilizing international institutions such as the United Nations, regional international organizations, or specialized organizations such as the World Health Organization. Finally, and perhaps most critically, President George W. Bush articulated what was always just below the surface in terms of neo-conservative military thinking, the doctrine of preemption. This doctrine, as President Bush articulated it in 2002, indicated that the United States reserves the right to unilaterally and militarily act against enemies when they are expected to aggress against US interests, even before perceived enemies engage in aggressive acts.  In other words, military force might be used to stop an action perceived as a threat to national security before it occurs. This is a doctrine that reverses the old ideas of maintaining a military force to deter aggression from abroad or to contain adversaries.

Another sector, of the foreign policy elites, the pragmatists, take different positions on these matters which could have consequences bearing on the probability of war or peace. First, the pragmatists prioritize using diplomacy to achieve US goals. The use of force or related tools of violence are regarded as second to using diplomatic interaction to maintain US interests. Therefore, the pragmatists say, the United States should pursue common policies with allies, participate in international organizations, and even, from time to time, negotiate with adversaries. Also, the historic role of diplomacy, they say, has been to deliberate and negotiate with those nations with which disagreements exist, in addition to maintaining consensus with friends. Finally, military preparedness, while critical to national security, should be used to deter threats to US security, not to launch preemptive strikes. Again, both foreign policy factions seek to maximize the continuation and enhancement of US imperialism. But their tactical approaches vary. And it is this variation that provides an opening for peace forces to begin to reverse “the age of imperialism.”

Looking at the 2020 Democratic Platform (while recognizing the limited value of party platforms), it can be seen that several points raised fit what has been characterized as “the pragmatist” position. Along with the conventional appeals to American Exceptionalism in the document the Democratic Party Platform declares “Diplomacy should be our tool of first resort” and it calls for:

--Rejoining and “reforming” international institutions

--Ending “forever wars” in Afghanistan and Yemen

--Maintaining military capabilities “for less.” “We spend 13 times more on the military than we do on diplomacy”

--Rejoining and funding the work of the World Health Organization, particularly as it promotes world health in general and fighting the pandemic specifically

--Returning to the Paris Accords, working with others to reverse climate change

--Extending non-proliferation of nuclear weapons  including the START treaty

--Reversing Trump administration policies toward Cuba and Venezuela

--Resuming participation in the nuclear agreement with Iran

--Respecting the rights of Israelis and Palestinians in the Middle East

Again, we know that platforms represent words, not promises, And we know that platforms represent compromise language designed to bring competing factions in political parties together. And we know also  that the “better nature” of these promises bely the long history of imperialism described by writers such as Magdoff and Williams. But they constitute a set of potential promises that peace forces can mobilize around if the Democratic Party wins the November, 2020 elections. No such programmatic promises have been articulated by the Trump Administration and, in fact, for most of the last four years Trump foreign policy more closely fits the neo-conservative approach to international relations.

So peace forces must come together to defeat Trump in November and mobilize to demand that the new administration act in ways to honor their promises. At the same time, the peace movement must build on opposition to continued military spending and militarism, so-called hybrid war strategies, and vehemently oppose the establishment of a new Cold War. These broader goals will inevitably lead to a reconceptualization of the historic United States role in the world which would reintroduce the theory and practice of imperialism to public discourse (much as Bernie Sanders re-popularized discussions of socialism). And, finally, developing an anti-imperial agenda could/should be conceptualized as central to the fight for social and economic justice in the United States as well as the rest of the world.

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For a discussion of a possible Twenty-First Century Peace Charter see below:

https://heartlandradical.blogspot.com/2015/06/a-twenty-first-century-peace-charter_29.html

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

United States Foreign Policy and the 2020 Elections: a webinar

https://www.globaljusticecenter.org/videos/united-states-foreign-policy-and-2020-elections-anti-imperialist-struggles-years-ahead

A power point accompanying the talk

US Foreign Policy in the Years Ahead1 (2).pptx

FROM THE MIDDLE EAST TO PURDUE UNIVERSITY: WAR AND UNIVERSITIES

Harry Targ

In a joint statement issued by the governments of Israel, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and the United States on August 13, the two Middle East countries agreed to normalize their relations. Thus, following Egypt and Jordan, the UAE is the third country in the region (in this case in the Persian Gulf) to establish relations with Israel. The agreement, known as the Abraham Accords, include establishing telephone communications, commercial flights, and most importantly military cooperation.

While Israel, in exchange, promised to suspend parts of planned expansion of West Bank settlements, the geopolitical significance of the Accord includes growing Arab opposition to the Palestinian people AND formal expansion of a coalition of armed regimes who are enemies of Iran. Middle East expert, Juan Cole reported that:

“The step was, however, politically and economically expedient for the signing parties. The Emirates is a union of seven Gulf sheikhdoms, though oil-rich Abu Dhabi is their de facto leader. The population is 9.6 million, but only about a million of those are citizens, with the rest being guest workers who can be rotated out of the country at will. The citizen population is like that of Rhode Island. The UAE gross domestic product, driven by oil in Abu Dhabi and by finance and tourism in Dubai, is $405 billion, slightly higher than Israel’s $387 billion.”

Cole listed impacts of the accords:

--It could increase candidate Donald Trump’s favorability with Florida voters, many of whom are Israeli supporters.

--It increases the coalition of anti-Iranian states in the region: including Israel, Saudi Arabia, and Bahrain. “The Saudi-UAE-Bahrain axis offers basing for US military forces as well as for electronic surveillance, and the addition of Israel increases all those capabilities.”

--It will increase the arguments of the pro-Israel lobby for greater military technology transfer to Israel.

And, of course, as Cole implied, the forces allayed against the Palestinian people and Iran will increase at the same time that US military expansion, bases and technology facilities, in the region rise. Since Russia and China give support to Iran and the Palestinians, the Abraham Accords could increase tensions. https://www.juancole.com/2020/08/winners-accord-palestinians.html

In addition to the Abraham Accords, the newly formed university in the UAE, Mohamed bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence in Abu Dhabi, signed an agreement to collaborate with Israel’s Weizmann Institute of Science. The cooperation will include student exchanges, research, and collaboration on artificial intelligence. 

https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/tamara-nassar/israels-war-industry-embraces-emirates-open-arms

Paralleling these developments, on October 6, Purdue Today reproduced an article from a Department of Homeland Security Journal, Homeland Security Today, announcing a Purdue/Homeland Security research project involving research on drones for use in Abu Dhabi, the UAE capitol. (The article has been since been removed from Purdue Today). It said that “a group of Purdue University researchers have been tasked to make sure drones and their systems could operate securely, safely and efficiently in the United Arab Emirates capital, Abu Dhabi.” The article named Purdue professors in Aeronautical and Astronautics, Computer Science, and Purdue’s “cybersecurity research and education center” as project participants. (“Purdue University and Abu Dhabi Work Together on Cybersecure Drone Swarms”  https://www.hstoday.us/?s=Purdue

Purdue University continues a long tradition in US higher education: collaborating with the Department of Defense for purposes of attracting financial gain. Clark Kerr, the president of the University of California system spoke in the 1960s of a “multiversity,” a significant element of which was serving the needs of corporations and the military. Scholars and activists over the years have pointed out that institutions of higher education were being compromised by serving US corporate and military institutions both in terms of their research agendas and the educational process.

The warnings of a military/industrial/academic complex cannot be more clear than a case in which university research on drones in collaboration with sectors of US institutions, in this case the Department of Homeland Security, is carried out for a government that is a protagonist in an increasingly dangerous wartime climate in the Middle East.

 

  

Interview with Vince Emanuele on Social Movements, the Left, and Culture

https://youtu.be/NsX4ks0m6e8