The first casualty of war

The first casualty of war is truth. It's stating the obvious that reportage can serve an ideological agenda as much by what it does not say as by what it does; by the way reports are headlined; through the ordering of the facts, and by the choice of words.

It's not accidental that RNZ CEO, Paul Thompson, described the text changes that have caused him embarrassment by showing up the laxity of RNZ's editorial controls, as "pro-Kremlin garbage." 

His choice of words is semiotically interesting. "Pro-Kremlin" can be seen as a nod to Cold War rhetoric, and he uses the US-English term"garbage", not the more common NZ English term, rubbish.

The leaders of the old empires and their battalions of besuited minions used to draw arbitrary lines on maps to delineate imperial borders – lines that cut across ancient commonalities of culture, history and religion. This happened across Europe and Asia, including the region that is now the nation state of Ukraine.

Via settler and extractive colonialism, the Euro-imperialists subjugated indigenous peoples across the globe – either dispossessing and ruling them as a militarily and economically powerful minority, such as happened in large parts of Africa, or swamping them numerically as well – as was done across the entirety of the American continent, the Caribbean, and in Australia and NZ. 

US neo-colonialism relies on ideological and financial hegemony, and the seeding of other countries with hundreds of military bases, a process in which NATO plays a crucial role. Since the 1990s US foreign policy has been aimed at forced regime changes. 

Far from the post WW2 era being a time of peace, there have been constant military conflicts, almost all of which, directly or indirectly, have been fomented by, and feed the vast US military-industrial complex. 

In line with the blitzkrieg tactics developed by the Nazis, the US typically wages its wars by targeting civilians, covering the horrors of this state-sponsored terrorism under the euphemism of “collateral damage”. 

When the target’s a tiny Caribbean island, the US manages alone but mostly it does its global “policing” under the legitimating cover of the UN and/or NATO, increasingly from the air, and these days via drone.

Even when its armed services drop thousands of tonnes of incendiaries and toxic, DNA damaging defoliants, or rape, torture, and gun down hundreds of defenceless women and children, as they did in Vietnam, the US propaganda machine writes it out of history, justifies it, or sanitises it.

The blood-sucking planet-killers – those who stand to profit economically and/or politically from war – generate vast amounts of propaganda to foment and to justify it, and these days, to allow only a heavily censored view of it.

Some of the propaganda is so shallow and crude, it could and should be easily exposed and debunked but if it is, it’s always so long after the event or so mired in the digital swamp of disinformation and misinformation that too few people register it, and fewer still care.  

The tactics of feeding censored, ideologically skewed intel to “embedded” (ie politically vetted and approved)  journalists, allowing others to view the action via heavily censored live video feeds, sit in the wider landscape of a heavily shackled profession which, for the most part, has been turned from journalism into churnalism – cranking out schlock to a dumbed-down, distracted audience.

Ideological obfuscation is made easy.

The tsunami of lies that poured out of the US and its accomplices to legitimate the invasion of Iraq included the now infamously untrue claim of Iraqi atrocities against Kuwaiti babies. The claim was made by a Kuwaiti teenager whose anonymity, it was alleged, had to be protected for fear of reprisals.  

She turned out to be the 15 year-old daughter of the Kuwaiti ambassador to the USA, and she was not even in Kuwait at the time she claims to have witnessed the atrocities. 

The media’s acceptance of the story was aided immensely by Amnesty International which not only confirmed the story but exaggerated the numbers of babies left to die. It helped cement the image of the USA’s former ally, Saddam Hussein, as a Hitler-like monster, and the invasion as being as morally righteous as the fight against Nazism.

None of the leading media outlet, including the much vaunted neutral news agencies, did a background check on her or even thought to question why a country with a population of fewer than 1.5 million people, would have in excess of 300 incubators.  

Instead, they all dutifully parroted the warmongers’ lies – just as they had done fifteen years earlier in relation to the Gulf of Tonkin incident that was used to legitimate the US engaging in its ugliest and most brutal war on civilians since the one in which it set out to bomb North Korea “back into the Stone Age”. 

Russia was wrong, morally and tactically, to invade Ukraine but the failure to contextualise all that led up to the invasion and to put it into the wider picture of the death throes of old empire and the emergence of the new empire is also wrong.

It is not excusing Russian warmongering to point up the USA's calculated expansionism via NATO that provoked this conflict.

No one would question how unacceptable to the US, Russian bases in Cuba were and would be now, or if Russia had a nuclear powered aircraft carriers patrolling the waters around the USA, but our media expect us to swallow the line that Russia has no right to be threatened by hundreds of US bases all around its border, including bases with nuclear missiles or its possession of seven of the world's eight nuclear powered aircraft carriers, and most of the world's NP submarines. 

For the record - a far from exhaustive timeline of US & NATO “global policing”.

1945: end of WW2.

1945-73: Vietnam. Persistent US interventions before & after the defeat of the French by the Viet Minh; with no formal declaration of war, built up to conventional warfare & extensive aerial bombing with incendiary & chemical ordinance.

1947: Treaty of Dunkirk between France & UK.

1948: Treaty expands to Treaty of Brussels & includes Benelux countries – the Western Union.

1948: Communists take control in Czechoslovkia.

1949: Victory of communist forces in China.

1949-1960s: On-going US attempts to overthrow Chinese government.

1949: The  anti-Soviet North Atlantic Treaty signed, signalling revival of European militarism. 12 original members: USA, Canada, UK, Belgium, Denmark, France, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway & Portugal.

1949-63: US interventions in Albania.

1950s:  On-going US meddling in the GDR.

1950: NATO formed to operationalise the North Atlantic Treaty.

1950-53: Korean War. US carpet bombing is aimed at complete obliteration of the North’s infrastructure. Massive civilian casualties.

1952: NATO’s first maritime exercises & first expansion when Greece & Turkey join.

1953  Korean cease fire leaves country divided; larger pro-US, strongly anti-communist & repressive regime in the South; isolationist communist regime in North.

1953: Toppling of democratically elected govt in Iran by by US/UK; installation of Shah whose 25 years of brutality & repression of the left & the intelligentsia sets the scene for an Islamist revolution.

1954: US intervention in Guatemala; resulting in regime change.

Mid 1950s: US meddling in Costa Rica.

1953-64: US interventions in British Guiana resulting in regime change.

1955-70: US interventions in Cambodia, resulting in regime changes.

1955: West Germany joins NATO.  

1955: In response, the USSR & seven countries in Eastern Europe form the Warsaw Pact.

1956: Soviets intervene in Hungary.

1956: US intervenes in Syria.

1957: US intervenes in Egypt.

1957-58: US intervenes in Indonesia.

1958- 60: US interventions result in regime change in Laos.

1959 to present day: US economic embargo, & undermining & support for attempted coups in Cuba.

1960: US meddling in Congo resulting in regime change.

1960-63: US meddling in Ecuador -> regime change.

1962-64: US meddling Brazil – regime change.

1963: US meddling in the Dominican Republic –> regime change.

1964: US meddling in Bolivia -> regime change.

1964: Formation of the G77; the Non-Aligned movement.

1964-73 Vietnam: US  engaged in full scale but undeclared war largely reliant on air strikes including use of napalm, & chemical defoliants aimed at terrorising & demoralising civilians.

1965:  US confrontations with France over NATO resulted in De Gaulle booting out US troops.

1965: US backed regime change in Indonesia; up to 1 million communists murdered. 

1966:  US backed regime change in Ghana.

1967: US backed regime change in Greece. 

1968: Soviets intervened in Czechoslovakia.

1970-71: US meddling in Costa Rica.

1971:  US meddling in Bolivia -> regime change.

1973: US meddling in Australia -> regime change.

1970s and 80s: US meddling in Angola.

1974-76: US meddling  in Portugal -> regime change.

1975: US meddling in Zaire.

1976-80: US meddling in Jamaica -> regime change.

1979: Islamist revolution in Iran makes country USA’s main Middle East enemy.

1979-81: US meddling in Seychelles.

1981-90: US meddling in Nicaragua -> regime change.

1980s: US meddling in Libya & Afghanistan. 

1981-82: US meddling in Chad -> regime change.

1982-84: US meddling in Sth Yemen & Suriname.

1982: Spain becomes the 16th member of NATO.

1983: US invasion of Grenada -> regime change.

1987: US meddling in Fiji -> regime change.

1989: US meddling in Panama -> regime change.

1989: US meddling across Soviet block -> anticommunist revolution in Czechoslovakia; fall of Berlin Wall.

1990:  False assurances from US and European leaders that NATO would NOT expand closer to the Russia borders.

1990: US meddling in Bulgaria -> regime change.

1990-91: US leads 39 nation coalition against Iraq in the Gulf War.

1991: The Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact are dissolved.

1990s: Manic looting of state owned finances and industry by US led financiers etc caused extreme social unrest, poverty and hardship in Russia.

1991: US meddling in Albania -> regime change.

1993: US meddling in Somalia. 

1994: Finland & Sweden join NATO’s Partnership for Peace programme.

1995:  Finland & Sweden join the European Union, ceasing to be neutral, but remaining militarily nonaligned.

1996: US meddling in Russia, backed pro-west & corrupt Yelstin; probably rigged the elections.

1999-2000: US meddling in Yugoslavia -> regime change, dissolution of Yugoslavia.

1999: Three former Warsaw Pact nations — the Czech Republic, Hungary & Poland — join NATO in same month that US/Nato bomb Russian ally, Serbia.

2000: US meddling in Ecuador -> RC.

2000: Ousting of Russian ally Milosevicz in Serbia.

2001: US leaves ABM Treaty unilaterally. 

2001:  9/11 attacks are used as an excuse to launch the Global War On Terror & NATO expansion, & Article 5 in the NATO treaty, which stipulates that an attack on any NATO member is an attack on all, is triggered for the first time.

2001: US meddling in Afghanistan -> RC.

2002: The NATO-Russia Council is formed to help NATO members & Russia to work together on security issues.

2002: US meddling in Venezuela -> RC.

2002 - current:  US covert and overt ops in Yemen including 400 missile strikes under guise of WoT & support of ally Saudi Arabia.

2003: US leads coalition & invades Iraq -> RC.

2003: US backed “Rose” revolution in Georgia.

2003: NATO takes command of the International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan (ISAF).

2004: US meddling in Haiti -> RC.

2004: The biggest NATO expansion to date as Bulgaria, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania become members:. The latter three are former Soviet republics & place NATO troops right on Russia’s borders

2004: US backed Ukrainian “Orange” Revolution.

2005: US backed Kyrgyzstan “Tulip” revolution.

2006: Belarus revolution.

2007-ongoing: US meddling in, & drone attacks on Somalia.

2008: NATO countries welcome Ukraine and Georgia’s aspirations to join the alliance, angering Russia. 

2008: Russia wins a short war with Georgia over breakaway regions of South Ossetia & Abkhazia, which Moscow recognises as independent states.

2009: US meddling in Honduras -> regime change.

2009: Croatia and Albania become NATO members.

2009: US backed colour revolution in Moldova.

2010: 2nd US backed colour revolution in Kyrgyzstan after PM closed a US air base.

2011: NATO enforces a no-fly zone over Libya. Sweden takes part with fighter jets on reconnaissance missions destroying the lie of its military non-alignment.

2011: US meddling in Syria.

2014: US backed Maidan revolution in Ukraine  -> pro-west RC.

2014: NATO suspends most cooperation with Russia after its annexation of Crimea.

2015: NATO ends the ISAF mission in Afghanistan but remains in Afghanistan to train local security forces.

2016-17: US launched 165 drone strikes in Yemen.

2017: Montenegro joins NATO.

2017: US special forces launch attack in Yemen.

2020: North Macedonia becomes NATO’s 30th member.

2021: NATO & US stage rapid pull out from Afghanistan leaving country in grip of Taliban.

2021: US suspends overt support for Saudi Arabia in Yemen but continues to sell arms to pro-US regimes in the region; SA continues to blockade humanitarian aid. 

2022: Russia invades Ukraine.

2022: Sweden and Finland explore the possibility of NATO membership after Russia’s invasion.

Low hanging fruit

I recently listened to a poet on Tik Tok skewering the UK's equivalents of Clinton's "deplorables" – the "gammons" with their narrow obsessions about celebrities and "woke"– aka politically correct – politics.

He was very clever, and correct in many ways but I couldn't help but wonder, why choose such an easy, low hanging target?

Why not aim at the nexus of entrenched power and all those who serve and protect it?

The creators and beneficiaries of the globe's ever widening economic rifts – those who force vast numbers of people onto narrow and perilous life paths, a fall from which is seldom recoverable. 

The system adjusters who are so focused on the retention or expansion of their delegated power and privilege, they either don't see the looming abyss, or believe they'll be spared by the grace of god, or their talents and hard work, or simply because they're worth it.  

The system manipulators who curate the appearance of democracy, and those who control a mass media that feeds a constant stream of toxic froth and propaganda aimed at distracting people from the very existence of the abyss. 

All those whose cynical and self-serving designs, in the context of rapidly accelerating time scales of interconnected social and natural disasters, make any sort of meaningful position to the power nexus slide from difficult to virtually impossible. 

Why is it just the soft, low hanging, about-to-fall fruit and the windfalls that this poet chooses to macerate?

 

 

 

Striking a pose

 “You can be sincere and still be stupid.” 

― Fyodor Dostoevsky

 

 

Back in the day, Thatcher's bully boys in the right-wing British media coined the phrases loony Left and PC madness. They used them to label and to demonise left-wing local authorities, feminist, and anti-racist organisations, and the trade union movement that was fighting to protect jobs and services. 

 

The motivation was to weaken opposition in advance of the ravaging effects of the disinvestment and privatisation being ushered in by neo-liberal, global corporate capitalism.

 

The first thing the Thatcher government did was to remove the controls on the export of capital. That signalled the start of a massive flow of investment to places in the world where corporations could extract more profit by paying less for labour, and have the bonus of being able to pollute and spoil to their heart's content. 

 

They did not invest to improve the lives of workers in those regions. Like the first wave of transnational corporate investment and its associated governmental aid, neo-liberal corporate investment was purely in the pursuit of profit. 

 

The first wave of investment had been aimed at developing infrastructure to facilitate the extraction of natural resources; the second was aimed at the exploitation of “human resources”. (1)  

 

Neo-liberalism has been in the driving seat for almost half a century. During that time there has been an explosion in digital technology and a dramatic rise in the living standards, choices, and expectations of the buffer class. 

 

The price for that is a massive increase in energy consumption, the development and use of tens of thousands of toxic chemicals, the dumping of billions of tonnes of toxic waste, along with galloping species’ extinctions and accelerating climate change. The threat posed by AI is yet to be fully grasped.

 

Arguably neo-liberalism’s greatest harm is also its greatest ideological success – the virtual destruction of the belief in the possibility of foundational economic change. 

 

In this on-going process, its media game has become more subtle. 

 

The second-wave feminist idea that structural change needs to be accompanied by attitudinal change, has been transmogrified into the idea that attitudinal change alone is sufficient to bring about such structural change as is necessary.  

 

For neo-liberalism’s well-padded buffer class, whose members are the most heavily invested in identity politics, what constitutes necessary structural change is radically different from that demanded by the traditional left operating in the interests of the working class.

 

Underlying much of identity politics (rhetorical flourishes on Twitter bios notwithstanding) is the acceptance that a radical change of the economic base is either not necessary, or is unachievable.  All that needs to be, or all that can be achieved, are some accommodations for those who are disadvantaged and belong to one or more of the categories on the current list of approved oppressed-minorities.

 

This locates the adherents of identity politics as the progressive wing of neo-liberalism, or the neo-liberal Left. It does not make them left-wing in the original meaning of the term. 

 

What worsens the situation is that for some of the neo-liberal left,  all that is needed to bring about attitudinal change is attitudinising. As a result, posturing on social media often becomes the measuring stick of what is progressive.

 

That attitudinising has been deemed by the Right to be left wing and the older, discredited right-wing slurs of PC madness and the loony left have been replaced by woke, the radical left, or hard left.

 

The neo-liberal left falls into the trap set for them by not questioning why it is that demands which question arguably one of the most universal and foundational of human understandings – that there are two sexes  – are not just accepted, but are actively promoted by neo-liberal governments and the giant corporations whose interests those governments serve. 

 

Their narrow focus effectively privileges demands for extensions of, or even entirely new, formal rights within a politico-economic system that is either perpetuating or deepening gross inequalities and injustices in other spheres. 

 

Those on both sides of the Identity Question who fail to look beyond the labelling and the rhetoric, are helping to fuel the most recent iteration of capitalism’s campaign to keep divided the constituent parts of a global movement which could bring about foundational change.   

 

 

(1)   Human resources is a phrase that speaks to the dehumanisation of the process ­­– ­­ living human beings reduced to a factor in an economic equation aimed at increasing the obscene wealth of a ruling elite.