Scott Ritter on The Return of Cold War Thinking
Ritter gives one of his most articulate interviews ever on current US imperial moves around the globe. He does an outstanding review of post WW2 US foreign policy.
He calls it an Alice in Wonderland situation.
'The America that I knew when I as a child no longer exists'.
Trump’s tariff threats over Greenland just rattled global markets.
The dollar slid, stocks fell, and the Swiss franc surged to near-2015 highs.
Investors are now questioning whether the US is still the world’s ultimate safe haven. With rising debt, weakening fundamentals, and growing geopolitical risk, a structural shift away from dollar dominance may be underway.
Is the “Sell America” trade back—and is currency multi-polarity accelerating faster than expected?
John Pilger vividly reveals the brutality and murderous political ambitions of the Pol Pot/Khmer Rouge totalitarian regime which bought genocide and despair to the people of Cambodia. Up to 2 million people from 1975 to 1979, nearly 25% of Cambodia's population were killed.
Meanwhile neighboring countries, including Australia, shamefully ignored the immense human suffering and unspeakable crimes that bloodied this once beautiful country.
Portland Press Herald
A Cumberland County (Portland, Maine) corrections officer has been detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Sheriff Kevin Joyce confirmed at a Thursday afternoon news conference where he criticized the agency’s tactics.
The corrections officer was stopped Wednesday night in Portland, according to Joyce and an eyewitness.
The sheriff said he talked with an ICE supervisor shortly after the man was detained, but all the supervisor told him was that the officer, who has not been publicly named, was living in the country illegally.
Joyce said the officer’s background check came up “squeaky clean” when he was hired in February 2024, and that his paperwork showed he was allowed to work in the country until April 2029.
“Will you walk into my parlour?” said a spider to a fly;
“‘Tis the prettiest little parlour that ever you did spy.
The way into my parlour is up a winding stair,
And I have many pretty things to shew when you are there.”
“Oh no, no!” said the little fly, “to ask me is in vain,
For who goes up your winding stair can ne’er come down again.”
— Mary Howitt (1828)
Watching the new circus around the Trump Board of Peace with its price tag of a cool one Billion Bucks for permanent membership, let’s figure it out. First from Dmitry Peskov a day or two ago: He said that Putin received his invitation, but Russia will ask for clarification. Around 60 countries received invitations.
So, Mr Lavrov played the fly, in this old children’s rhyme and noted in his recent news conference: Russia received Trump’s ‘Charter of the Board of Peace’ — Russian FM Lavrov
It states that the Board will not only deal with Gaza, but with tasks AROUND THE WORLD. From other countries and press, Gaza was hardly mentioned in the Charter. One of our commentators said that the Board of Peace is in reality the Board of Fleece and this Board of Peace is beginning to be known as The Board of Scam.
So what is the objective of this Board of Peace? There may be more than one, and it certainly is not a simple binary calculus. Ask yourself what Trump and his administration want to accomplish.
The Great Political Capture
1. They want to grow the empire with the US firmly seated on the Global Kingly Chair.
2. They want their concept, their idea of peace, i.e., peace through strength, to prevail. We lost peace and democracy and inherited peace through strength. It is the same, only rebranded in the form of a Department of War, to amplify the fear factor.
3. They want to kill, break and take, to their own heart’s content and the rest of the world must pay for it. (But of course, the Pax Judaica must be alive and well in this scheme).
4. They want their dollar back as reserve currency, which is their only power.
The Board of Peace is designed to meet US objectives just as they stand.
The structure of empirical vassalage has changed. This phenomenon is the central axis of American colonialism: to maintain control without the need for formal colonies, except when they do perceive a need. The United States does not seek to govern directly but to ensure near-total economic subordination under the facade of political independence. The result is a modern vassalage system, in which the allies are but interchangeable pieces on an imperial chessboard. Those who trust and expect a certain loyalty from their ‘Daddy’, the US, invariably end up dead or regime changed. A long list can be made right through Africa and Latin America of these dead loyalists. The maxim 'Being an enemy of America is dangerous, but being a friend is fatal' should be listed as an essential guideline for any nation that aspires to maintain its sovereignty. Because behind the alliance’s rhetoric, cooperation, and collective security hides a repetitive pattern: America uses its allies as geopolitical instruments, strengthens them while they are useful, and abandons them — or even destroys them — when they no longer serve or become a hindrance.
The ‘Our Hemisphere’ references are temporary. It is only a starting point. Europe remains in vassalage and their current resistance is that of a 2-year old in the throes of the terrible twos. It is only a threat and as Mr. Putin said, they will wiggle like puppies and then gather around their master. I wonder what China actually thinks if one after the other European country that pretends to threaten the empire with a pivot to China?. We may have more information today, but two days ago, it was cold:
RIA Novosti: U.S. President Donald Trump announced the establishment of the Gaza Board of Peace and invited world leaders to join the body. What’s China’s stance on the initiative? Has China been invited to join the Board of Peace? (Similar questions from Bloomberg, AFP, and PTI)
Guo Jiakun: China has received the United States’ invitation. (Icecold silence in the room).
The Power Vacuum
The post World War system is collapsing driven by the west as well as the process of multi-polarity. It is a debate on where the greatest influence appears, but this is not the focus of this short writing. The UN has shown itself to be completely ineffective and as usual, this in-effectivity is their fault, not the fault of the US and Europe who made it ineffective by design. Israel operates with impunity, revealing deep flaws in the post-1940s system.
What does a raider of others do when there is a power vacuum? It goes out raiding. And this is what we see with Iran, with Venezuela, with Greenland, with all the other areas slated to be raided.
There is one solution and that is to stop the raids by instituting a law-based order with teeth.
The raiders do not want that.
The civilizational countries do want that.
Mr Lavrov in his recent speech uses the Peace Board as an example, when he says that even the raiders (the US) understand that they need a group of countries to work together. This is a clear example that a multi-polar world is needed, whether the Peace Board is legitimate or not and whether the US wants to make the new rules or not.
Europe and the vassalage disguised as an alliance
We can work to resist the raiders, or we can go to war.
It is clear that Russia and China do not prefer a war. Recently a speech by Nikolai Patrushev, Russian head of security said that we have about 10 years to change the risk of war.
The Board of Peace is a mechanism to enhance the political control of the US over the rest of the world. It is old recolonization sour wine marketed in new bottles. Nothing has changed and it is a new cloak only. It is a further destruction of any Palestinian identity in our world, a new identity genocide. It is an attempt to take over all legal norms. It is an attempt at naked control. It will be the last one. If you take a look at who signed, there are few surprises:
‘The war in Gaza is REALLY coming to an END. We have 59 countries that are involved’, says Trump. (**Bear in mind he overstates routinely. There is no war in Gaza and if it takes 59 countries to stop a genocide I don’t believe that the purpose here is anything else but a further raid on Palestine and a free pass for Netanyahu and a real estate development project for Kushner). Jared Kushner urges people not to 'escalate' on Gaza and stop criticizing 'Israel or Israelis', as well as Turkey and Qatar. But he does not urge that food and medical necessities enter the strip.
Jared Kushner just pitched his shiny ‘New Gaza’ vision at the Board of Peace meeting in Davos — futuristic skyscrapers and all. So that’s why they let tens of thousands get slaughtered? For prime real estate redevelopment? 'Look at this beautiful piece of property — what it could become for so many people', Trump said following the signing of the ‘Board of Peace’ charter at Davos.
We wait for the dust to settle to further analyze this Rules-Based-International-Order in its new Kingly Cloak made up of pixie dust, false representation copious lies, enrichment raids, banditry, piratical killings and unbridled greed. We’ve seen this story before. Do not be romanced by a new cloak. Nothing has changed. The world-system conceived by American elites does not forgive autonomy, but does not reward submission either because their real goal is not to have friends, but vassals. These vassals have no rights but have obligations and, when they fail, they are dismissed.
Update:
— Prof Gao, Soochow University
‘Probably the darkest moment in US history’
The US ‘talks about values as if their values are superior to other countries’. ‘Where are their values?’ The ‘rule of the jungle, to plunder other countries’?. ‘Their own selfish interests’?.
“History will look back at this time as the beginning of the end of Pax Americana”.
People traveled from far and wide to join this protest at RAF Fairford, home of the 501st Combat Support Wing of the US Air Force. We came together to oppose recent actions in Venezuela, Iran and Greenland.
RAF Fairford is a Royal Air Force (RAF) station in Gloucestershire, United Kingdom.
While being an RAF station, Fairford hosts US Air Force personnel.
Since 2019, the base has played host to a Lockheed U-2 Dragon Lady detachment from the 99th Expeditionary Reconnaissance Squadron. It is the USAF's only European airfield for heavy bombers and routinely supports Bomber Task Force operations.
Its most prominent use in recent years has been as an airfield for US Air Force B-52s during the 2003 Iraq War, Operation Allied Force in 1999, and the first Gulf War in 1991.
Recent open-source intelligence highlights increased activity involving 29 C-17 military transport aircraft and 12 refueling tankers of various types had flown into the Middle East region in recent days.
In a show of force, US B-52 bombers have conducted flyovers across the Middle East, signaling 'deterrence' to Iran amid rising nuclear tensions. Departing from Fairford, the bombers executed patrols over allied nations, showcasing interoperability with regional partners.
Meanwhile, Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi issued the most direct threat yet against the US, warning the Islamic Republic would be “firing back with everything we have if we come under renewed attack.”
In 2012 Mayor Kang from Gangjeong village on Jeju Island, South Korea invited the Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space to hold our annual meeting there.
We eagerly agreed and many of our members from around the world attended. Several of us got arrested for crawling under the razor wire to get on the rocky coastline that was being dynamited and prepared to be covered in cement for Navy base docks.
Before I left to go to Jeju my friend Vietnam vet Eric Herter handed me his camera, gave me a quick tutorial on it, and suggested I get as much film as possible. Once I got back I went thru all the film and picked the bits to put into the documentary.
Eric filmed me telling the Jeju story and then plugged the film bits in where they fit. He worked hard to make it all flow.
The whole film has been sitting in some obscure place on the Internet since then which was not very accessible, but our friend Will Griffin recently loaded it onto YouTube so we could more easily share it.
I think it came out good and its a very moving story for sure. I am proud of the Global Network's participation in this most heart rendering fight that continues every day.
People should know more about the determined resistance to the naval base on Jeju Island and throughout South Korea. The people there are on the front lines of any U.S. war aimed at China, North Korea and Russia.
Bruce
