Category: Geopolitics

Neoliberalism, Propaganda, War, Iran, Syria, China, Geopolitics, Russia, Empire, COVID-19, Libya, Afghanistan, North Korea, Iraq

Nations Under Attack (Part 4): Propaganda Narratives in Action

Part 1 of this series argues that elites aggressively seek to acquire and control resources and power—primarily for their own personal enrichment. Part 2 outlines how the Western elites enact this agenda against nations that are targeted for resource pillage and inclusion within the broader sphere of Western influence for ongoing power projection and exploitation. Part 3 deals with narrative as a tool of war. This part provides an overview of the common propaganda narratives used against key targets of the empire.

“So I came back to see him a few weeks later, and by that time we were bombing in Afghanistan. I said, “Are we still going to war with Iraq?” And he said, “Oh, it’s worse than that.” He reached over on his desk. He picked up a piece of paper. And he said, “I just got this down from upstairs” — meaning the Secretary of Defense’s office — “today.” And he said, “This is a memo that describes how we’re going to take out seven countries in five years, starting with Iraq, and then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and, finishing off, Iran.””

GEN. WESLEY CLARK interview with Amy Goodman of Democracy Now!

“The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organised habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country. …We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of. This is a logical result of the way in which our democratic society is organized. Vast numbers of human beings must cooperate in this manner if they are to live together as a smoothly functioning society. …In almost every act of our daily lives, whether in the sphere of politics or business, in our social conduct or our ethical thinking, we are dominated by the relatively small number of persons…who understand the mental processes and social patterns of the masses. It is they who pull the wires which control the public mind.”

― Edward Bernays, Propaganda

The following catalogue of the principal propaganda narratives employed by the USA and its allies against they key target nations of the last few decades, specifically China, Russia, Iran, Syria, Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan, North Korea, Cuba and Venezuela.

These propaganda narratives are presented without undue criticism or rebuttal. To be effective, most propaganda narratives require some element of truth within them to make their tale credible to the casual observer. In presenting these narratives, I have not taken much effort to analyse the truthfulness of the various claims and assertions from which they are composed. It is hoped that the reader will take some time to research and reflect on a range of different perspectives before reaching his or her own position as to the truth of the matters. In the end, my position is that all propaganda involves some sort of lie and in my view the propaganda narratives documented are inevitably damaging to the peaceful co-existence of the world’s community of nations and people.

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Geopolitics, Neoliberalism, Propaganda, Russia, Ukraine War, US Empire, War

Nations Under Attack (Part 3): Narrative as a Tool of War

Part 1 of this series argues that elites aggressively seek to acquire and control resources and power—primarily for their own personal enrichment. Part 2 outlines how the Western elites enact this agenda against nations that are targeted for resource pillage and inclusion within the broader sphere of Western influence for ongoing power projection and exploitation. This part deals with narrative as a tool of war.

Narrative is a key lens through which we form our view of the events and the world around us. Each event or account of the world comes as a form of story that is shaped by the storyteller and relayed to us for a purpose. Most of recognise this fact when we call out the Murdoch press or perhaps view with suspicion news sources like TASS, the Russian news agency or China’s CGTN. Critically, the importance of taking control of the narrative is also well known to governments and to the military and security agencies. Since Operation Mockingbird came to public attention, it is well known that the CIA has been shaping narratives in the USA and around the world for decades though its involvement in the US news and entertainment industries.

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COVID-19, Geopolitics

Notes on the COVID-19 Pandemic

PCR Tests

It is beyond question that the PCR research tool was never intended to be used as a diagnostic test. Indeed, Kary Mullis, the developer of the method is on record as explicitly warning that PCR should not be used in this fashion. PCR was developed as a method for amplifying small samples of DNA and RNA so that they can be detected, period. The issue Mullis pointed out with PCR being used for diagnosis is that the number of amplification cycles the researcher uses is purely arbitrary and after around 35 cycles the test is extremely prone to false positives. Mullis went on to assert that after 60 cycles 100% of tests for any section of DNA would likely prove positive given that so much genomic code is shared across all living organisms. In the case of the current situation, we understand that the number of cycles used varies between laboratories and across regions (i.e. this implies that it has not even been standardised). While the number of cycles used is commonly not advertised in the press, it is understood from a number of sources that between 35 and 45 cycles is commonplace. That means the PCR test results must be assumed to be inherently prone to significant error rates. A second issue with PCR is that the method does not actually test for the presence of a virus, but rather for sections of DNA (or in this case RNA) that have somehow been identified as being uniquely associated with the genome of a target organism.

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Australia, China, CIA, Empire, Geopolitics, Neoconservatism, Neoliberalism, Politics, Propaganda, Russia, US Empire, War, Zionism

Australia and New Zealand — losing an empire, who will protect us now? Part 5. US decline and collapse

5. US decline and collapse — The end of empire

One of the great lessons of history is that all empires eventually collapse. Exceptional though many believe it to be, the US empire will be no different and there are many signs that having achieved a couple of decades of apparently unchallenged global domination following the fall of the USSR in 1991, the Anglo-US empire has hit its peak and the way forward lies in its decline. Although empires at their peak can look formidable and unassailable, their collapse can happen quite quickly and while there may be a final military denouement, this often happens in the context of a pre-existing collapse from within. In the end, it is the accumulation of a series of political, social, economic and military collapses combined with the inability of a delusional self-focused elite to face reality that leads to an overall collapse of empire.

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Australia, China, Empire, Geopolitics, Neoliberalism, New Zealand, Politics, Uyghur, Xinjiang

Australia and New Zealand — losing an empire, who will protect us now? Part 4. Australia: Managing a dilemma

4. Australia: Managing a dilemma

The economic, geographic and geopolitical considerations for Australia are quite different to New Zealand’s. Where New Zealand is a remote, moderately small island nation with a relatively small population, Australia is a wealthy if massive sparsely occupied country with its main population centres concentrated on the eastern and southern coasts, it is rich in resources and poised on the southern periphery of Asia. With a GDP of USD1,432.2 billion its economy is nearly five times that of New Zealand’s and its population of 25.1 million is more than five times as large.

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Australia, China, Geopolitics, Neoliberalism, New Zealand, Propaganda, US Empire, Uyghur, War, Xinjiang

Australia and New Zealand — losing an empire, who will protect us now? Part 3. New Zealand: Pragmatic trader

3. New Zealand: Pragmatic trader

With an Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) of some 4 million km2 (and continental shelf rights that cover another 1.7 million km2 beyond), much of New Zealand’s air and sea defence resources are dedicated to monitoring and securing the fisheries and resources in its surrounding seas and also to providing civil defence and other support to its Pacific island neighbours. Significantly, of New Zealand’s top five trading partners, China accounts for 24.9% of New Zealand’s total exports (USD9.6 billion) with Australia coming in behind at 14.8% (USD5.7 billion), the USA at 9.6% (USD3.7 billion), Japan at 6.3% (USD2.4 billion) and South Korea at 3.1% (USD1.2 billion).

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Australia, China, Empire, Geopolitics, Neoliberalism, New Zealand, Politics, US Empire, War

Australia and New Zealand — losing an empire, who will protect us now? Part 2. US saviour and defender

2. US saviour and defender — From one empire to another

After World War II, Britain was so depleted that these relatively young and militarily weak nations needed a new alliance that could protect them from possible invaders in the radically altered geopolitical landscape that came out of the war. The obvious candidate for this role was the USA which, in economic and geopolitical terms, was the only real winner of the two world wars. So, in 1951 Australia and New Zealand signed the Australia, New Zealand and United States Security Treaty (ANZUS Treaty) with the USA “to protect the security of the Pacific”.

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Australia, China, Geopolitics, Neoconservatism, Neoliberalism, New Zealand, Politics

Australia and New Zealand — losing an empire, who will protect us now? Part 1. Early Days

It is readily apparent that the balance of power and geopolitical landscape is undergoing a period of rapid change where the uni-polar empire headed by the USA and its elites is being challenged by a combination of a resurgent and reinvigorated Russia and the rising economic and industrial might of China. Caught in this dynamic, Australia and New Zealand need to find a way to individually and perhaps collectively navigate their way from the past certainty of being a part of an apparently unchallenged dominant Anglo-US empire to a new multi-polar world.

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CIA, Empire, Geopolitics, Neoliberalism, Propaganda, US Empire, War

Nations Under Attack (Part 2): The US War Machine

In Part 1 of this series I examined how global elites have shaped the world so as to advance their own personal wealth and power. They have done this through a variety of means, including economic trickery, political manoeuvring and through both hot and cold warfare. Since World War II, the Western elites mostly associated with the USA and Europe have acted through the power and reach of the USA and its apparatus of public and private organisations that collectively constitute the US War Machine. This article briefly describes the elements of the US War Machine and then covers the main components of the toolkit deployed against targeted nations. Part 3 deals with narrative as a tool of war.

The US War Machine has become one of the distinguishing features of that nation. Since World War II, both the state bodies and private industry have combined to form what is collectively terms a military industrial complex of huge magnitude so that in 2018 the US military budget rose to over $700 billion (including budgets for the various intelligence agencies totaling some $71.1 billion) and further allocations for interfering in other nations, which in 2014 was some $47.8 billion.  These numbers do not even include budget allocations for outside the Defense Department budget, such as for atomic weapons research and production, Veterans Affairs and military pensions, State Department financing of foreign arms sales and military-related development assistance, the Department of Homeland Security and counter-terrorism activities of the FBI. In total, the combined budget for the US War Machine in 2019 is certainly well over $1 trillion. At an economic level, the main goal is to channel money from the public purse into the hands of private suppliers of military equipment and services, while opening new opportunities to exploit resources, sell weapons and develop new markets in other countries—usually with assistance of corrupt local politicians and elites who are granted a slice of the pie in return for selling out their country.

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