Trump's Military Record

Huge Military Budgets, Covert Operations, Drones and Assassinations—but hey, at least he didn’t start another major war

by Jeremy Kuzmarov - CovertAction Magazine

 

December 30, 2020

 

By any objective measure, Donald Trump has been one of the worst presidents in American history. His administration exacerbated inequalities, fomented social divisions, encouraged nativist and white supremacist groups, gutted environmental protections, mishandled the Covid-19 crisis, and tarnished the office of the presidency in a way that no president ever has or probably ever will.

On foreign policy, Trump’s legacy is just as bad as in every other area.

Never Too Late for Impeachment: A Call to Remove Trump Immediately

Immediate Impeachment and Removal of President Donald Trump

by Ralph Nader & Bruce Fein 

 

December 27, 2020

RE: Immediate Impeachment and Removal of President Donald Trump

Dear Speaker Pelosi and Majority Leader McConnell:

As we warned last year, the narrow and anemic impeachment articles filed against President Donald Trump and his rapid acquittals have emboldened him to more appalling continuing lawbreaking and worsening violations of the public trust, both impeachable offenses according to Alexander Hamilton in Federalist 65.

 

As during the Watergate crisis, the Constitution summons both Republicans and Democrats to transcend partisanship to defend our constitutional Republic from Mr. Trump’s escalating aggressions. In this landmark instance, the nation is deeply indebted to Republican Senator Barry Goldwater, Senate Minority Leader Hugh Scott, and House Minority Leader John Rhodes for speaking unvarnished truths about impeachment to President Richard Nixon in the White House. Resignation soon followed.

 

Where Justice Goes to Sleep: ICC Fails Again on 1st World War Crimes

The International Criminal Court: Now Simply Indefensible

by Craig Murray

 

December 29, 2020

Support for the rule of international law, and for the institutions which uphold it, is one of the principles of this blog. I have therefore always been extremely keen to defend and support the International Criminal Court, despite widespread criticism that it is simply a tool for use against leaders in the developing world and other opponents of the neo-con world order. I maintained that the standard of justice and investigation in the cases it did consider was generally good, and the need was to widen its ambit.

Unfortunately, the decision of the ICC to close down its investigation into War Crimes committed by the British in Iraq is the last straw for me in continuing to harbour any hope that the ICC will ever be anything more than an instrument of victors’ justice. 

Gorilla Radio with Chris Cook, Dave Lindorff, Finian Cunningham December 31st, 2020

This Week on GR

by C. L. Cook - Gorilla-Radio.com

 

December 31, 2020

Welcome back to Gorilla Radio’s Home Edition, recorded on this date, December 31st, 2020.

 

It’s fitting now to focus on finishings as this over-long year two thousand and twenty slouches toward its unlamented finale. And what better emblemizes the demise of the Covid Year 2020 and what it represents than the parallel curtain call of the Donald J. Trump presidency; unwanted yet stubbornly clinging to both the body politic and global consciousness burr-like, or perhaps better sticking as a wad of chewed gum on the sole of our collective boot?
 

Dave Lindorff is an award-winning journalist, author, and founding member of the media collective, ThisCantBeHappening.net. Lindorff’s book titles include, ‘The Case for Impeachment: Legal Arguments for Removing President George W. Bush from Office’ and ‘This Can’t Be Happening! Resisting the Disintegration of American Democracy.’ 

 

Listen. Hear.

 

Lindorff's recent article, ‘A Red State Secession Movement from the US of A is a Great Idea!‘ encourages Republicans intent on the continuation of a Trump, or Trump-like presidency, to “Go For It!”

Dave Lindorff in the first half.

And; it’s been almost two months since the unelected government of Abiy Ahmed of Ethiopia mobilized full military attacks against the country’s northernmost province of Tigray. Press coverage of the humanitarian crisis in the making has been scant in the West, while contextual analysis is almost entirely absent. 

Abiy convinced the African Union his “Operations to Restore Law and Order” would quickly end and stabilize the country, but two months on his promises stand in stark contrast to “facts on the ground”; facts that include the indiscriminate aerial bombardment and artillery shelling of cities, civilian massacres by the soldiery, and a massive and growing refugee crisis.

Finian Cunningham is a long-time and prolific journalist who worked as an editor and writer for major U.K. media outlets The Mirror, Irish Times, and Independent. The two-time Serena Shim Award for Uncompromising Integrity in Journalism recipient’s articles on international affairs appear at numerous online outlets, including at Sputnik, where I found his new article, ‘BBC Glosses Ethiopia Horror’.

Finian Cunningham and loosing a CIA Frankenstein on Ethiopia in the second half.

And; CFUV Radio broadcaster and host of Plant Powered Radio, Janine Bandcroft is off this week. So first, Dave Lindorff and leave takings at long last of Donald Trump and the end of the beginning of the Covid-19 Pandemic.

 

Chris Cook hosts Gorilla Radio, airing live every Thursday between 11-Noon Pacific Time. In Victoria at 101.9FM, and on the internet at: https://cfuv.ca. He also serves as a contributing editor to the web news site, http://www.pacificfreepress.com. Check out the GR blog at: http://gorillaradioblog.blogspot.ca/

Hiding the Extra-Judicial Killing of Michael Reinoehl

Washington state judge blocks release of public records in the police killing of Michael Reinoehl

by Kevin Reed - WSWS

 

December 30, 2020 

A Washington state Superior Court judge issued a temporary restraining order on December 16 blocking the release of use-of-force records and body camera footage related to the September 3 execution of Michael Reinoehl by a task force headed by US marshals.

The ruling by Thurston County Court Judge Carol Murphy granted a motion from the Thurston County Sheriff’s Office to stop the planned release to reporter CJ Ciaramella of the records in the brutal shooting death of Reinoehl. The judge agreed with the sheriff’s office that the public disclosure of the records would “undermine the integrity of Thurston County’s criminal investigation and irreparably damage vital governmental functions.”

Peanuts for Americans, Billions More to Israel

The US Money Tree: The Untold Story of American Aid to Israel

by Ramzy Baroud - The Palestine Chronicle

 

December 30, 2020

On December 21, the United States Congress passed the COVID-19 Relief Package, as part of a larger $2.3 trillion bill meant to cover spending for the rest of the fiscal year. As usual, US representatives allocated a massive sum of money for Israel.

 

While unemployment, thus poverty, in the US is skyrocketing as a result of repeated lockdowns, the US found it essential to provide Israel with $3.3 billion in ‘security assistance’ and $500 million for US-Israel missile defense cooperation.

 

Applying Gloss to the Ethiopian Slaughter: BBC Touches Up Tyrant's Public Image

BBC Glosses Ethiopia Horror

by Finian Cunningham - Sputnik

 

December 28, 2020

A feel-good headline on the BBC this week reads: “How a pariah and Nobel laureate became friends”. It was referring to the leaders of Eritrea and Ethiopia, as if their “friendship” was some kind of benign development to be lauded. 

 

The feature article opens with: “In a sign of the changing political fortunes of a man who was once a pariah, Eritrea’s President Isaias Afwerki has proven to be a staunch ally of Ethiopia's Nobel Peace Prize winner and Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, giving his troops much-needed support to fight the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) in Tigray.” 

 

Bring It On! A New American Republic

Go for it Republicans! A Red State Secession Movement from the US of A is a Great Idea!

by Dave Lindorff - This Can't Be Happening

December 16, 2020

‘And here’s to the state of Mississippi
Where underneath their border the devil draws no line
If you drag their muddy rivers nameless bodies you will find
The calendar is lying when it reads the present time.
Oh, here’s to the land
you tore out the heart of
Mississippi find yourself
another country to be part of.’ — Phil Ochs 

 

Map of post- secession USA and the new right-wing RSA 

(map produced by Dave Lindorff) 

 

Texas Republican Party Chair Allen West has joined blow-hard right-wing radio whackjob Rush Limbaugh in suggesting that Republican-governed states (like Texas, Wyoming, Nebraska, Utah, Montana, Alabama, Mississippi and others) should “band together” and secede from the Union. 

United States of Apocalypse Readying for New Year of Mayhem Campaigns

US War Machine Masquerading as a Country

by Finian Cunningham - Sputnik

December 21, 20

 

The late and not-so-great Republican Senator John McCain once provocatively described Russia as “a giant gas station masquerading as a country”. Mitt Romney, the former presidential candidate and fellow Republican Senator, was quoted in US media over the weekend channeling McCain’s contemptuous description of Russia.

Russophobia among the American political class has become hysterical over the past week since prominent media outlets reported on an alleged massive cyber-attack attributed to Russian agents.

 

Gorilla Radio with Chris Cook, Finian Cunningham, Selam Gebremeskel, Selam Randall December 24th, 2020

This Week on GR

by C. L .Cook - Gorilla-Radio.com

 

December 24, 2020

Welcome back to Gorilla Radio’s home edition, recorded on this date, December 15th, 2020.

 

Last month, the federal government of Ethiopia attacked the newly elected provincial government in the country’s northern Tigray region. 

 

Acting prime minister, Abiy Ahmed said the reason for the military action was in response to a raid on a federal army base within Tigray by the regional government as part of its plan to secede. 

 

But there’s much more going on behind the scenes than what’s reported by Abiy; and much more behind his rise to power too.

Finian Cunningham is a long-time and prolific journalist who worked as an editor and writer for major U.K. media outlets The Mirror, Irish Times, and Independent. 

 

 

 

 Listen. Hear.

 

The two-time Serena Shim Award for Uncompromising Integrity in Journalism recipient’s articles on international affairs appear at numerous online outlets, including RT, where I found his article, ‘Nobel-winning Ethiopian PM has overseen country’s descent into barbarity and madness‘ written as the conflict was beginning in early November. 

 

Finian Cunningham in the first half.

And; though the desperate situation for Ethiopia’s Tigrayan population worsens, their story has largely disappeared from Western media reports. The Abiy government has tried to stem the flow of refugees into neighbouring Sudan, even as it renews its promise to settle militarily differences outside observors say could make the country “the Libya of East Africa”.

Selamawit Gebremeskel and Selam Randall are Ethiopian emigres. Both are long-time Canadian citizens who now call Victoria home.

Selam Gebremeskel and Selam Randall anxiously watching developments in Ethiopia from afar in the second half.

But first, Finian Cunningham and Abiy Ahmed ushering chaos in Ethiopia.

Chris Cook hosts Gorilla Radio, airing live every Thursday between 11-Noon Pacific Time. In Victoria at 101.9FM, and on the internet at: https://cfuv.ca. He also serves as a contributing editor to the web news site, http://www.pacificfreepress.com. Check out the GR blog at: http://gorillaradioblog.blogspot.ca/

Crickets and Echo Chambers: America's CIA-Sized Headache

A CIA Officer Has a Headache. Media Blame Russia

by Alan MacLeod - FAIR

 

December 16, 2020
 

A 9,000-word story for GQ (10/20/20) about the mystery ailment of a CIA officer in Moscow has become the unlikely subject of a weeks-long media storm.

Marc Polymeropoulos told the magazine’s correspondent Julia Ioffe that in December 2017, while staying at a Moscow hotel (or “enemy territory,” as she described it), he was suddenly struck with strong feelings of head pain, nausea and dizziness.

Losing It: 2020 As End of History

2020: The Year We Lost the Plot

by Rob Slane - The Blogmire

 

December 14, 2020

This piece is the first in a series of five articles I will be publishing over the next couple of weeks looking at various aspects of our new Covidian State in 2020. These pieces are also due to be published on The Conservative Woman website from 27-31 December.

 

“Our Government, along with Governments around the world will shortly announce the quarantining of whole populations for a seasonal respiratory virus which leaves 99.8-99.9% of those who get it in the land of the living. 

 

“What is more, they will also announce a shutdown of the entire economy for months and then, when the epidemic has actually gone, will mandate that you cover the lower half of your face with a bit of cloth. They will do this by frightening people into compliance with a barrage of propaganda, slogans, data entirely taken out of context, and the threat of massive fines.”

John Pilger from Going Underground

John Pilger on The New Cold War With China, American Exceptionalism, Biden’s Victory, Coronavirus

by Afshin Rattansi - Going Underground (RT)

December 19, 2020

On this season finale episode of Going Underground, we speak to legendary journalist and filmmaker John Pilger. He discusses the devastating impact of Coronavirus in the U.K., rising poverty and militarism, the Western logic for the new Cold War with China, the victory of Joe Biden over Donald Trump and why not much will change with Trump leaving the Presidency, the Yemen War, the survival of Venezuela despite crippling international sanctions, mainstream journalism vs real journalism and much more! 

 

FOLLOW Going Underground https://www.youtube.com/user/GoingUnd... Going Underground on Twitter http://twitter.com/Underground_RT Afshin Rattansi on Twitter http://twitter.com/AfshinRattansi PODCAST https://soundcloud.com/rttv/sets/goin...

Erasing the Reasons: How the Times (and the rest of Western media) Skews Venezuela

NYT Erases US Economic War Against Venezuela

by Bryce Greene - FAIR

 

December 19, 2020

 

The New York Times (5/12/20) describes “a difficult time for Venezuela, as the country grapples with deep economic challenges and a breakdown of its health care system”—without mentioning that US policy is designed to deepen those challenges and exacerbate that breakdown.

Last week, Venezuela held elections for the national assembly, the country’s main legislative body. Though turnout was at a historic low, President Nicolás Maduro’s United Socialist Party won a resounding victory. 

 

Gorilla Radio with Chris Cook, John Helmer, Andy Worthington, Janine Bandcroft December 17th, 2020

This Week on GR

by C. L. Cook - Gorilla-Radio.com

 

December 17, 2020

Welcome back to Gorilla Radio’s home edition, recorded on this date, December 9th, 2020.

While elections-manipulating mastermind, Vladimir Putin has fallen off the front pages in America, across the pond in Jolly Old, ‘Evil Russia’ still serves as nemesis and fictional bete noire for scriptwriters and semi-autobiographical memoirists alike. A case in point is former GCHQ honcho, Sir David Omand’s hot New Cold War release, ‘How Spies Think, Ten Lessons in Intelligence’. To hear Sir David tell it, the West is at war with disinformation artists who would have us believe: 

“…Ukraine was responsible for downing Malaysian airliner MH17 and there are fascist roots to the government in Kiev; COVID-19 was actually covert bio-warfare by the US against China; and, NATO isn’t an instrument of peace, but is planning aggression against Russia…” Imagine!

Listen. Hear.

Well, if I’m to apply the time-tested axiom, “Never believe anything in politics until it has been officially denied…” David Omand’s non mea culpa may teach us more than his Ten Lesson’s intended.

John Helmer is a journalist, author, broadcaster, former political advisor to government, and principal behind the news website, Dances with Bears. Among Helmer’s many books titles are, ‘The Man Who Knows Too Much About Russia’, the two-plus year chronicle of the Skripal case, ‘Skripal in Prison’, and his latest, ‘The Lie That Shot Down MH17’. His recent article, ‘THE ENRICHMENT OF BRITISH INTELLIGENCE OFFICERS – HOW THEY THINK THEY ALWAYS GET IT RIGHT ABOUT THE RUSSIANS, NEVER DO, BUT GROW RICH TRYING’ is a revelation of the disquieting future currently being prepared by the folks of the Intelligence Community.

John Helmer in the first half.

And; if the measure of a society is how its weakest are treated then do we deserve more than the precipitous societal decline witnessed these last decades?

As millions careen into extreme poverty and the Bastille is full to bursting, while the very few accumulate vast wealth undreamed of by either the Captains of the Gilded Age or courtiers of Versailles, the real impoverishment of our civilization is a terminal dearth of popular conscience and abandonment of the moral compass. Nowhere is that better evinced than in Guantanamo Bay, the 21st Century’s Devil’s Island.

Andy Worthington is an English journalist, activist, author, photo-historian, filmmaker, musician, song-writer and principle of The Four Fathers band. He is too, co-founder of the ongoing Close Guantánamo campaign, and successfully completed, We Stand With Shaker campaign. Worthington’s book titles include: ‘The Guantánamo Files: The Stories of the 774 Detainees in America’s Illegal Prison’, ‘Stonehenge: Celebration and Subversion’, and ‘The Battle of the Beanfield’. His articles appear at his website, AndyWorthington.co.uk, where he is preparing 2021’s version of the annual Close Guantanamo effort.

Andy Worthington and a framework for a new president to finally Close Guantanamo in the second half.

And; CFUV Radio broadcaster and host of Plant Powered Radio, Janine Bandcroft will be here at the bottom of the hour to bring us up to speed with some of what’s good going on in and around our town, and virtually too, in the coming week. But first, John Helmer in search of British intelligence on Russia.

Chris Cook hosts Gorilla Radio, airing live every Thursday between 11-Noon Pacific Time. In Victoria at 101.9FM, and on the internet at: https://cfuv.ca. He also serves as a contributing editor to the web news site, http://www.pacificfreepress.com. Check out the GR blog at: http://gorillaradioblog.blogspot.ca/

UK MPs Request Video Meeting with Journalist/Political Prisoner, Julian Assange

 UK lawmakers request urgent meeting with Julian Assange

by Richard Burgon MP, et al

December 16, 2020

UN Rapporteur on Torture, Nils Melzer talked to Gorilla Radio about his fears for the health and survival of political prisoner, Julian Assange in 2019. Melzer has continually appealed to Britain for Assange's immediate release.

Listen. Hear.

 

 

War Times: All the Time War Times

It’s Almost Twenty Years Since 9/11 Can We Finally Stop Marching to Disaster?

by Rebecca Gordon - TomDispatch

 

December 17, 2020

It was the end of October 2001. Two friends, Max Elbaum and Bob Wing, had just dropped by. (Yes, children, believe it or not, people used to drop in on each other, maskless, once upon a time.) They had come to hang out with my partner Jan Adams and me. Among other things, Max wanted to get some instructions from fellow-runner Jan about taping his foot to ease the pain of plantar fasciitis. But it soon became clear that he and Bob had a bigger agenda for the evening. They were eager to recruit us for a new project. 

 

And so began War Times/Tiempo de Guerras, a free, bilingual, antiwar tabloid that, at its height, distributed 100,000 copies every six weeks to more than 700 antiwar organizations around the country. It was already clear to the four of us that night -- as it was to millions around the world -- that the terrorist attacks of September 11th would provide the pretext for a major new projection of U.S. military power globally, opening the way to a new era of “all-war-all-the-time.” War Times was a project of its moment (although the name would still be apt today, given that those wars have never ended). It would be superseded in a few years by the explosive growth of the Internet and the 24-hour news cycle. Still, it represented an early effort to fill the space where a peace movement would eventually develop. 

 

America's Global War Victims

2021’s Most Pressing Humanitarian Crises Are All Victims of US War, Regime Change

by Alan Macleod - MintPress News

 

December 16, 2020

A new report highlights 2021’s most pressing humanitarian crises and perhaps no surprise to many, victims of US wars and regime change efforts top the list. 

 

CC BY-NC-ND / ICRC / Karrar al-Moayyad

The International Rescue Committee’s (IRC) yearly report on the world’s most pressing humanitarian situations has just been published, with the three most disastrous cases — Yemen, Afghanistan, and Syria — all the product of decades of interventionist U.S. foreign policy. 

 

Covering the EcoHealth Alliance: Keeping Knowns Unknown in the Military-Pandemic-Security Complex

Peter Daszak’s EcoHealth Alliance Has Hidden Almost $40 Million In Pentagon Funding And Militarized Pandemic Science

by Sam Husseini - Independent Science News

 

December 16, 2020

“Pandemics are like terrorist attacks: We know roughly where they originate and what’s responsible for them, but we don’t know exactly when the next one will happen. They need to be handled the same way — by identifying all possible sources and dismantling those before the next pandemic strikes.”

This statement was written in the New York Times earlier this year by Peter Daszak. Daszak is the longtime president of the EcoHealth Alliance, a New York-based non-profit whose claimed focus is pandemic prevention. But the EcoHealth Alliance, it turns out, is at the very centre of the COVID-19 pandemic in many ways. 

 

Are We Prepared to Allow Julian Assange Die in Belmarsh? UN Rapporteur on Torture Demands Publisher's Release

UN rapporteur Nils Melzer demands Assange’s immediate release after ten years’ arbitrary detention

by Oscar Grenfell - WSWS

December 13, 2020

In a statement last week, United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture Nils Melzer demanded that British authorities immediately release Julian Assange, declaring that his ongoing incarceration in London’s Belmarsh Prison “clearly lacks any legal basis.”

Melzer issued his latest call on the tenth anniversary of Assange’s confinement to various forms of arbitrary detention. This has been enforced by the British state in response to the WikiLeaks publisher’s exposure of American war crimes.