US Missile Machinations Undoes Non-Proliferation Efforts

September 18, 2017 New Eastern Outlook  

When it comes to nuclear weapons upon the international stage, the general consensus is certainly not "the more the merrier." Attempts to limit the number and variety of nuclear weapons and to take measures to avoid the use of those that do exist have been ongoing since the first nuclear weapons were developed at the end of World War 2.

Today, however, one of the several nuclear-armed nations of the world and its behavior has jeopardized the hard-fought progress made toward this goal.

America Reneged After the Cold War 

One of several treaties singed during the later stages of the Cold War included the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty (ABMT). It limited anti-ballistic missile systems to two per country. The reasoning was to hinder anti-missile technology development and leave nuclear-armed nations open to retaliatory attacks should they initiate a nuclear first strike.

The treaty helped further enhance the concept of "mutually assured destruction" (MAD).  After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, member states upheld the treaty with the United States until 2001 when the United States unilaterally withdrew from it.

The White House in an official statement regarding America's withdrawal from the treaty, would state:

...the United States and Russia face new threats to their security. Principal among these threats are weapons of mass destruction and their delivery means wielded by terrorists and rogue states. A number of such states are acquiring increasingly longer-range ballistic missiles as instruments of blackmail and coercion against the United States and its friends and allies. The United States must defend its homeland, its forces and its friends and allies against these threats. We must develop and deploy the means to deter and protect against them, including through limited missile defense of our territory.

However, the United States would spend the next decade and a half, not developing anti-missile systems aimed at stopping non-existent weapons of mass destruction launched from "rogue states," it instead spent that time encircling Russia with anti-missile systems, including those placed in Eastern Europe.

In essence, the United States has begun to fulfill the sum of all fears during the Cold War, that a nuclear armed nation would attempt to monopolize missile defense technology and use it as a means to develop a nuclear first strike capability without fear of retaliation.

Opponents of America's decision to withdraw from the ABMT noted that the move also undermined Washington's own alleged nuclear non-proliferation efforts.

US Seeks to Monopolize Cyberwarfare

September 16, 2017 New Eastern Outlook  

The use of information to enhance martial power goes back to the beginning of human civilization itself, where propaganda and psychological warfare went hand-in-hand with slings, arrows, swords and shields.

The most recent iteration of this takes the form of social media and cyberwarfare where tools are being developed and deployed to influence populations at home and abroad, to manipulate political processes of foreign states and even tap into and exploit global economic forces.

In the beginning of the 21st century, the United States held an uncontested monopoly over the tools of cyberwarfare. Today, this is changing quickly, presenting an increasingly balanced cyberscape where nations are able to defend themselves on near parity with America's ability to attack them.

To reassert America's control over information and the technology used to broker it, Jared Cohen, current Google employee and former US State Department staff, has proposed a US-created and dominated "international" framework regarding cyberconflict.



His op-ed in the New York Times titled, "How to Prevent a Cyberwar," begins by admitting the very pretext the US is using to expand its control over cyberwarfare is baseless, noting that "specifics of Russia's interference in the 2016 America election remain unclear." 

Myanmar Crisis: US Seeks to Fight US-Saudi Sponsored Terrorism

September 8, 2017 New Eastern Outlook   

With the recent attack on police in Myanmar by terrorists described by Reuters as "Muslim insurgents," and ongoing terrorism plaguing the Philippines where forces are engaged with militants from the so-called "Islamic State," it would appear that terrorism has spread into Southeast Asia with no signs of waning. 

However, the sudden uptick in violence comes at a time when America's so-called "pivot to Asia" has ground to a complete halt, providing the United States with an all-too-convenient pretext to reengage and establish itself across the region in a much more insidious manner. 

US Sought Military Presence in Southeast Asia for Decades but Lacked a Pretext, Until Now 

The United States has openly conspired to establish and expand a permanent military presence in Southeast Asia as a means to confront, encircle, and contain China for decades.

As early as the Vietnam War, with the so-called "Pentagon Papers" released in 1969, it was revealed that the conflict was simply one part of a greater strategy aimed at containing and controlling China.

Three important quotes from these papers reveal this strategy. It states first that: 

“...the February decision to bomb North Vietnam and the July approval of Phase I deployments make sense only if they are in support of a long-run United States policy to contain China.”

It also claims:

“China—like Germany in 1917, like Germany in the West and Japan in the East in the late 30′s, and like the USSR in 1947—looms as a major power threatening to undercut our importance and effectiveness in the world and, more remotely but more menacingly, to organize all of Asia against us.” 

Finally, it outlines the immense regional theater the US was engaged in against China at the time by stating: 

“there are three fronts to a long-run effort to contain China (realizing that the USSR “contains” China on the north and northwest): (a) the Japan-Korea front; (b) the India-Pakistan front; and (c) the Southeast Asia front.” 

While the US would ultimately lose the Vietnam War and any chance of using the Vietnamese as a proxy force against Beijing, the long war against Beijing would continue elsewhere. 

More recently, an American policy think tank, the Project for a New American Century (PNAC) in a 2000 paper titled "Rebuilding America's Defenses" (PDF) would unabashedly declare its intentions to establish a wider, permanent military presence in Southeast Asia.

The report would state explicitly that: 

...it is time to increase the presence of American forces in Southeast Asia.

It would elaborate in detail, stating:

In Southeast Asia, American forces are too sparse to adequately address rising security requirements. Since its withdrawal from the Philippines in 1992, the United States has not had a significant permanent military presence in Southeast Asia. Nor can U.S. forces in Northeast Asia easily operate in or rapidly deploy to Southeast Asia – and certainly not without placing their commitments in Korea at risk. Except for routine patrols by naval and Marine forces, the security of this strategically significant and increasingly tumultuous region has suffered from American neglect. 

Noting the difficultly of placing US troops where they are not wanted, the PNAC paper notes: 

This will be a difficult task requiring sensitivity to diverse national sentiments, but it is made all the more compelling by the emergence of new democratic governments in the region. By guaranteeing the security of our current allies and newly democratic nations in East Asia, the United States can help ensure that the rise of China is a peaceful one. Indeed, in time, American and allied power in the region may provide a spur to the process of democratization inside China itself.

It should be noted that the paper's reference to "the emergence of new democratic governments in the region" is a reference to client states created by the United States on behalf of its own interests and in no way constituted actual "democratic governments" which would otherwise infer they represented the interests of the very people possessing the "national sentiments" that opposed US military presence in the region in the first place.

Cambodia's US-Backed Opposition Leader Charged With Treason

September 5, 2017 New Eastern Outlook

US and European media decried in unison the arrest of Kem Sokha, leader of the Cambodian opposition party, Cambodia National Rescue. Sokha is charged with treason amid an alleged plot to overthrow the current Cambodian government with foreign assistance.

Image: Kem Sokha (third from foreground on left) meets with then US Secretary of State John Kerry. As the US has done elsewhere, it is carefully cultivating Sokha's political party, assisting it into power to then serve US, not Cambodian interests. 

The Guardian in its article, "Cambodia's strongman PM digs in with arrest of opposition leader," would report:

The Cambodian opposition leader, Kem Sokha, has been arrested accused of treason, according to the government, in the latest of a flurry of legal cases lodged against critics and rivals of the strongman prime minister, Hun Sen. 

The surprise arrest raises the stakes as Hun Sen’s political opponents, NGOs and the critical press are smothered by court cases and threats ahead of a crunch general election in 2018.

The Guardian would also note:

On Saturday night a pro-government website – Fresh News – alleged that Kem Sokha had discussed overthrowing Hun Sen with support from the United States.

The Guardian would conclude by stating:

Last week the US expressed “deep concern” over the state of Cambodia’s democracy after the government there ordered out an American NGO and pursued a crackdown on independent media. 

Among the media in the firing line is the well-respected Cambodia Daily, which often criticises the government. 

It faces closure on Monday if it fails to pay a US$6.3m tax bill, a threat it says is a political move to muzzle its critical reporting.

The Guardian fails to mention that the Cambodia Daily is owned by an American and that the "American NGO" ordered out of Cambodia was the National Democratic Institute (NDI), an organisation notorious for its role in subverting and overthrowing the governments of sovereign nations.

The Guardian and other American and European media platforms have collectively failed to dive into Kem Sokha's background. Had they, charges of treason would seem less far fetched and contrived as they have been presented to the public.

Kem Sokha, Made in America 

Thailand's Ousted PM Flees Abroad: The Rest of the Story

September 3, 2017 New Eastern Outlook 

Shortly before ousted Thai prime minister Yingluck Shinawatra was to face a court ruling for her failed populist rice subsidy scheme, she reportedly fled the country, joining her likewise fugitive brother Thaksin Shinawatra in hiding abroad. Thaksin Shinawatra was himself ousted from power in 2006 for similar charges of corruption and abuse of power.

Image: Ousted prime minister Yingluck Shinawatra (right) is seen shaking hands with US Senator John McCain (centre) flanked by US Senator Joe Lieberman (left). The two US politicians are permanent fixtures in America's regime change industrial complex and often travel abroad to lend US client regimes support in person. 

While the US and European media attempt to frame the Shinawatras as victims of powerful, democracy-adverse institutions in Thailand, sensible analysis must consider the fact that Thailand does not exist in a geopolitical or socioeconomic vacuum.

Much larger forces are at play beyond Thailand's borders, and the role the Shinawatras play on behalf of some of these forces helps reveal the truth behind their ousting from power, their fleeing abroad and all of the support they continue to enjoy across the US and European media.

The Charges

Yingluck Shinawatra took office in 2011. Despite being depicted by the US and European media as a "landslide victory," her brother's political party, Pheu Thai, won elections with only 35% of all eligible voters' support, failing to garner even a popular majority among those who participated at the polls.

The party campaigned openly portraying Thaksin Shinawatra, a convicted criminal and fugitive residing abroad, as remotely running the party with his sister serving merely as a proxy. The campaign slogan even boasted, "Thaksin Thinks, Pheu Thai Does," openly flaunting the legal and political impunity the billionaire still enjoyed in Thailand.

One of the key pillars of Pheu Thai's populist election campaign was a rice buying scheme that would offer above-market prices per ton of rice to farmers.

The scheme quickly collapsed after implementation, with funds exhausted and warehouses overflowing with unsold rice. Thailand's international competitors quickly took advantage of rising prices and diminishing rice quality, absorbing many of Thailand's longstanding trading partners and further compounding what was beginning to become a national crisis.

Image: Government warehouses overflowed with unsold rice amid Yingluck Shinawatra's ill-conceived populist subsidy scheme. Up to one million rice farmers had their rice taken and were left unpaid for over half a year. The farmers would only receive compensation after the military coup in 2014 that ousted Shinawatra from power.  

By 2013 and 2014 when protesters began taking to the streets against the Shinawatra government for a variety of reasons, nearly 1 million farmers found themselves unpaid for months. Like farmers elsewhere around the world, many Thai farmers live either at the edge of or deeply in debt, a fact that drove dozens of farmers to suicide as they languished amid the collapsing populist scheme.

Defending Against the Next Generation of Bioweapons

August 30, 2017 New Eastern Outlook  

Chemical and biological weapons conjure in the mind terror and have been repeatedly cited as a pretext for both acts of military aggression and even entire wars. Scenes of soldiers and civilians choking on toxic chemicals or covered in boils after exposure have been the stuff of nightmares both geopolitically and in fiction.

While current chemical and biological weapons are far more limited than movies and politically-motivated narratives suggest, emerging biotechnology is making possible a new generation of biological weapons that may actually live up to the terror current weapons inspire.

A US policy think tank as early as 2000 in a publication titled, "Rebuilding America's Defense" (PDF), a virtual blueprint of the plans and means the US sought to utilize toward achieving global hegemony, would make particular note of bioweapons and the use of genotype-specific weapons, stating:

Although it may take several decades for the process of transformation to unfold, in time, the art of warfare on air, land, and sea will be vastly different than it is today, and “combat” likely will take place in new dimensions: in space, “cyber-space,” and perhaps the world of microbes... 

...advanced forms of biological warfare that can “target” specific genotypes may transform biological warfare from the realm of terror to a politically useful tool.

In 2004, the Guardian in an article titled, "Could you make a genetically targeted weapon?," would warn:

The prospect that rogue scientists could develop bioweapons designed to target certain ethnic groups based on their genetic differences was raised this week in a report by the British Medical Association (BMA).

The report, Biotechnology, Weapons and Humanity II, warns that construction of genetic weapons "is now approaching reality". Such "genetic bombs" could contain anthrax or bubonic plague tailored to activate only when genes indicated the infected person was from a particular group.

The topic of genotype-specific bioweapons has held interest across the West for  decades.  The Apartheid regime in South Africa attempted to produce biological weapons to induce infertility among the nation's black population.

PBS Frontline's article, "What Happened in South Africa?" would recount:

In 1998 South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission held hearings investigating activities of the apartheid-era government. Toward the end of the hearings, the Commission looked into the apartheid regime's Chemical and Biological Warfare (CBW) program and allegations that it developed a sterility vaccine to use on black South Africans, employed toxic and chemical poison weapons for political asssassination, and in the late 1970s provided anthrax and cholera to Rhodesian troops for use against guerrilla rebels in their war to overthrow Rhodesia's white minority rule.

While South Africa's entire CBW program was abhorrent, what is particularly frightening is the use of South Africa's national vaccination program as a vector for infecting black women with viruses meant to sterilize them. Now that vaccination programs are being pushed globally, there lies the danger that such weapons could be used against entire regions of the planet.

PBS would elaborate further on the CBW program, stating that the South African government:

Developed lethal chemical and biological weapons that targeted ANC [African National Congress] political leaders and their supporters as well as populations living in the black townships. These weapons included an infertility toxin to secretly sterilize the black population; skin-absorbing poisons that could be applied to the clothing of targets; and poison concealed in products such as chocolates and cigarettes.   

PNAC's dream of genotype specific bioweapons then, is not some far-off science fiction future, it is something that has been pursued in earnest for decades and apparently by interests aligned to the West, not enemies of it.

Cambodia Exposes, Expels US Network

August 27, 2017 New Eastern Outlook  

The government of Cambodia has exposed and expelled a US network attempting to interfere in the nation's political processes. The US National Democratic Institute (NDI) was reportedly ordered to end its activities in the country and remove all of its foreign staff.

Image: US Knows best. NDI "teaches" Cambodians how to run their nation.

Reuters in an article titled, "Cambodia orders U.S.-funded group to halt operations, remove staff," would claim:

In a statement, the foreign ministry accused the National Democratic Institute (NDI) of operating in Cambodia without registering, and said its foreign staff had seven days to leave. 

Authorities were "geared up to take the same measures" against other foreign NGOs which fail to comply with the law, the ministry added.

 The article also noted that:

Prime Minister Hun Sen, who has ruled Cambodia for more than three decades, on Tuesday ordered the English-language The Cambodia Daily newspaper to pay taxes accrued over the past decade or face closure. The paper was founded by an American. 

He also lashed out at the United States and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and accused them of funding groups attempting to overthrow his government.

The American-owned Cambodia Daily newspaper in its own article titled, "NDI Ordered to Halt Operations, Foreign Staff Face Expulsion," would note that:

The announcement comes less than a week after documents leaked on Facebook and circulated on government-affiliated media appeared to show political cooperation between NDI and the opposition party, amid increased tension in recent weeks between the government and U.S.-backed NGOs and media outlets. 

NDI could not immediately be reached for comment. 

Radio Free Asia and Voice of America have also both been accused of not fulfilling tax and registration obligations. The Cambodia Daily, whose publisher is a U.S. citizen, was hit with a $6.3 million unaudited tax bill and threatened with imminent closure if it is not paid by September 4.

Reuters would cite NDI's own website in an attempt to inform readers about what its role is in Cambodia claiming, "the NDI works with political parties, governments and civic groups to "establish and strengthen democratic institutions.""

Image: Besides being called "The Cambodia Daily," everything about the newspaper is American including its owner.

Yet, even a cursory investigation of NDI and the media and political organisation in its orbit and the very nature of even its proposed role in Cambodia's political process indicates impropriety and subversion Reuters is intentionally failing to convey to readers.