Monday, July 6, 2020
Sunday, July 5, 2020
PALESTINIANS ARE FIGHTING TO DISMANTLE APARTHEID
By Salem Barahmeh, +972 Magazine.
July 1, 2020
https://popularresistance.org/palestinians-are-fighting-to-dismantle-apartheid/
NOTE: Reuters reports that there is still not a consensus within the Israeli government to move forward with their plans for annexation. United Nations and European Union leaders have pushed back against further annexation while US government officials are supposedly in Jerusalem pushing for it. – MF
Not Just Annexation.
If you ask Palestinians in the Jordan Valley how they feel about annexation, many will say that they were already annexed long ago.
The view from my grandparents’ house in Jericho, the city where I grew up, looks on to the mountain ridges of the Jordan Valley that thunder down into the Dead Sea. Over the horizon of those mountains, from a Mediterranean Sea that lies beyond my reach as a resident of the occupied West Bank, would come the most beautiful sunsets. I always wondered if my ancestors, who lived on the same land, enjoyed this view as much as I did.
My family, the Barahmehs, are one of the indigenous clans of Jericho, their roots in the Jordan Valley going back centuries. Yet from an early age, I — like my father and grandfather — realized that the valley no longer belonged to “us.”
Shortly after our occupation in 1967, Israel began building settlements like Mitzpe Yericho, Yitav, and Kalia around Jericho and throughout the Jordan Valley, where they have grown and remained to this day. These colonial and expansionist policies did not begin with the Likud or other right-wing parties, but with the Labor Party. Such land theft and annexation have always been a central part of Israel’s institutional identity, cutting across generations of Palestinians.
Looking at a map of the West Bank today, Jericho appears as an isolated, Palestinian island surrounded on all sides by an encroaching ocean of Israeli-controlled land and Jewish settlements. While I have had the privilege of traveling the world, there are places just a few kilometers away from my home that I have never visited because Israel does not allow me to. As Palestinians holding green ID cards, Israel segregates us through a tiered identification system which determines where we can or cannot go. To visit Jerusalem, the city where I was born, I would need an Israeli military-issued permit.
I was never more confronted by this reality than when, at age 19, I tried to visit Kalia Beach on the northern shore of the Dead Sea in the occupied West Bank. Although it is a 15-minute drive away from Jericho, these beaches are owned and run by Israelis. They are “supposed” to be open to us Palestinians, but immediately upon arrival, I was racially profiled and denied entry. To them, I was an unwanted “guest” on the very shores my ancestors frequented for centuries.
If you ask Palestinians in the Jordan Valley how they feel about annexation, many will tell you that they thought we had already been annexed long ago. This is why we cannot help but ridicule the world’s growing, alarmist, and existential outcry as we approach July 1 — the date the Israeli government has pledged to begin advancing “de jure” annexation.
This outrage is not about us Palestinians. If it was, the world would have listened to us years ago. Rather, it is about those who are keeping alive a grand illusion that allows them to sleep at night instead of addressing the systematic oppression Palestinians face. That grand illusion is the failed Oslo paradigm that never reflected the horrific reality Israel was shaping on the ground, together with the bankrupt “peace process” that was designed to satisfy the world’s imagination and remove its imperative to act. For those protecting that illusion, the façade of the two-state solution is far more important than the suffering of millions.
I do not know what will happen on July 1, or what exactly Israel plans to formally annex. But I do know that the continuum of Israeli policy, which seeks to fulfill the vision of Greater Israel, will proceed incrementally. For decades Israel has taken our land and water, restricted our movement, destroyed our economy, displaced our communities, and ended our lives, all while treating us as lesser human beings — simply because we are Palestinian. And after all this, the world still thinks we have not yet crossed the Rubicon.
The world should not be surprised by what happens on July 1. It should instead be outraged that we have been forced to live under a system that affords freedom and rights based on ethnicity. Under this system, we Palestinians are either unfree, unequal, or both depending on if we are citizens of Israel, residents of Jerusalem, occupied subjects in the West Bank and Gaza, or refugees awaiting return. It is a system where being Palestinian can sometimes mean the difference between life and death. A system that blatantly enshrines supremacy and domination of one group of people over and another.
The Palestinian struggle today is not just about fighting annexation, which we must continue to do. It is about dismantling the entire system of apartheid. The world must recognize this reality for what it is, and impose political and economic pressure on Israel to dismantle that system. If the world is more interested in maintaining the current reality because it feeds a convenient façade, then the world itself is complicit.
Instead of maintaining this grand illusion, what we need now are systematic solutions that build a new social contract between the river and the sea, where everyone can be free with equal rights. This is not about who you are or where you from, or whether you are Palestinian or Jewish — it is about the values you stand for. We cannot let another generation of Palestinians grow up under apartheid.
SERVING THE BOTTOMLESS KOOL-AID: ‘BLAME RUSSIA’ RIDES AGAIN!
By Dany Sjursen, Antiwar.com.
July 1, 2020
https://popularresistance.org/serving-the-bottomless-kool-aid-blame-russia-rides-again/
When a nation touts its own exceptionalism, that’s called patriotism. Absolute Americanism so red-blooded that it’s become mandatory for all political aspirants (think Obama’s “belief” with “his every fiber”) to prostrate themselves at exceptionalism’s altar. Funny, when an individual believes himself exceptional – that’s diagnosable. Sociopaths afflicted with messiah complexes proclaim their exceptionalism. No one much mentions that twist. Well, only a mentally ill nation – and its symptomatic political-media spokesmen – would dare digest and obtusely deliver the latest headline prognosis: “Russia Secretly Offered Afghan Militants Bounties to Kill U.S. Troops, Intelligence Says.” (We’ll come back to the absurd doozy packed behind that comma)
Ah ha! And here you thought America capable of making a mess – and miring in the morass – of Afghanistan all by itself. Blasphemy. Two decades of military stalemate teetering towards outright defeat; a highly corrupt and perceptibly illegitimate imposed “partner” Kabul-cabal that still lacks sufficient GDP to pay its own soldier-cops; an indelible adversary that won’t quit; plus 2,219 dead American troops and who knows how many – well, at least 147,000 – vanquished Afghans? Yep, apparently Putin was behind all – or, forgive me, much – of it. Forget Arendt-ian “banality” – that’s the beauty of “evil,” especially the utility gift of eternal Russian evil: exceptional America is thereby never culpable, need never self-assess, nor reform its systems. Because, because…Russia. It seems there’s no limit to the almighty power of that nuclear petrostate with its Italy-sized economy.
Pick a self-imposed American problem: systemic injustice (and consequent mass protests); an archaic, undemocratic electoral system; the worst candidate (Hillary) in recent memory; and now Afghanistan – and the duopoly’s political and media elites have a ready responsibility-evasion tool: Russia (or China on the COVID flip-side). Context? Nuance? Critical analysis of intel “sources?” No need. Self-awareness? Not their jam. These professional Washingtonians would have you believe that behind every disastrous decision – running a Clinton against a professional troll; whistling into the graveyard of empires – is an omnipotent (and invariably shirtless) Putin riding a Russian bear. Pretty convenient, huh?
Surely, this reflex (or is it a tic?) belongs in the “you can’t make this shit up” pile. Yet loads of people still buy it! That’s enough to make many of us who didn’t buy what the Russiagaters were selling from Jump Street question our own sanity. Forgive the haughty petulance, but it’s hard as hell to be right in a room full of wrong people – particularly, when the pathologically mistaken are all loaded with Ivy League diplomas, celeb-level notoriety, and the seven-figure salaries that come with it. Publicly questioning the Russia-reflex in mainstream circles has the distinct imagined feel of passing on the Kool-Aid at a Jim Jones soiree. Suddenly one feels Katie Holmes’ pain. But the cultish myopic blame-game is older than Scientology itself. And Russia is the favorite mastermind monster under Washington’s bed.
To wit, should a crippling Depression drives tens of thousands of desperate World War I veterans (and their families) into the streets to beg an advance on promised bonuses, well, then, surely – according to a president and his generals – the marchers must be “Bolsheviks.” Three decades later, when a mass movement of black Americans had the temerity to call in their own 350-year unpaid promise of civil rights, they too became “communists” – witting (or unwitting) agents of Soviet machinations. Fast forward five decades further, and when a combat veteran, serving military officer congresswoman dare run for president on an antiwar platform, Tulsi too – according to Queen Hillary of the Moscow martyrs – is “totally” a “Russian asset.” Talk about a timeless script!
Which brings us to intractable Afghanistan, which – according to the ready Scooby-Doo narrative – wouldn’t be so intractable after all, if it wasn’t for that meddling Moscow. We all know the Maysles trope: “Tyranny is the deliberate removal of nuance.” True enough – but the same can be said for collective American mental illness. Subtract historical context, relevant comparison, and the (to put it lightly) tattered record of US intelligence “reporting,” and anything is permissible: like uncritically making supposed Russian “bounties” the story in America’s tortured Afghan adventure.
Let us begin with the backstory. Only an exceptionalism-disease-ravaged nation’s “paper of record” could “break” the original Russian-bounty story without solitary reference to the minor matter that the US military shouldn’t be in far-flung Afghanistan in the first place – and certainly ought not to have stayed on for a nation-building pivot after decimating Al Qaeda and toppling the Taliban 17 years ago. Or, for that matter, bother with the pesky past: wherein American “intelligence” definitely did arm, train, and pay (“bounty” anyone?) the Taliban’s Islamist forebears to kill Russian troops – to the tune of 15,000 battle deaths from 1979-89. Neither did the New York Times trouble itself with geographical realities – I.e. relative proximity of Russia’s borders with Afghanistan. Nor comment on the inconvenient (if not necessarily prohibitive) actuality that Moscow is no historic friend to – and has its own ongoing challenge from – Central Asia and Caucasus Islamists.
Furthermore, it’s hardly mere “what-aboutism” to note the wider irony – and rank hypocrisy – of Washington howling about ostensible Russian “bounties” on American trooper heads. After all, this comes from a US Government that literally just placed public bounties on Venezuela’s president, elected legislators, a former intelligence chief, and retired general – then acted shocked…just shocked, when some of its own American ex-special forces mercenaries tried to collect on the multimillion-dollar reward. Per sage-like Secretary Pompeo: “There was no US government direct involvement in this operation.” So, if the Russia-Taliban link is genuine – and that’s a big “if” – was Moscow’s operational “involvement” really all that much more “direct?”
Look, nobody – even we “Russian assets” and “Putin apologists” – in their right mind wants to see more Afghan-outbound flag-draped coffins. Nor is there much of a caucus favoring foreign actors paying for American soldier scalps. And sure, we don’t really know whether Moscow’s GRU actually did the now mainstream media-swallowed deed. Point is, there’s plenty cause for sensible skepticism. Surely just a short list of now-infamous touchstone terms – “WMD,” “Libya,” “collusion,” “[Pentagon or Afghanistan] Papers,” “EITs,” etc. – should be enough justification for caution. The same “intelligence says,” that’s quoted in the New York Times headline, has done a whole lot of says-ing on every one of those super-spook fiascoes.
That the entire spectrum of mainstream media has uncritically built front-page stories on anonymous “sources” from these very same – and not uninvested – US/Western agencies, is proof positive of how deep the malignancy has spread. But let us assume that every bit of this story is true: the press coverage has still been abysmal. America’s corporate media – and reviving-door politico-military talking heads – act like history begins anew each morning as the sun rises over Imperial Washington. This new world spares no time for context, past national sins, relevant contrast, or real reflection on US strategy (or lack thereof). As such, America the exceptionalist-sociopath carries on its insane life absent any real capacity for empathy or self-awareness.
Oh, and I almost forgot, wonder if “All the news that’s fit to print” will think it fitting to explain how exactly killing US troops and potentially spiking Trump’s Afghan peace/withdrawal program helps Moscow’s “master plan” to get The Donald reelected? Call me crazy, but something does seem awry – one of these narratives doesn’t fit…maybe both.
PRO-ISRAEL RACIST GROUP ADL MOVES TO CO-OPT BLACK LIVES MATTER
By Ali Abunimah, Electronic Intifada.
July 1, 2020
https://popularresistance.org/pro-israel-racist-group-adl-moves-to-co-opt-black-lives-matter/
For those who yearn for an end to systemic racism, these are exhilarating times as Black activists and organizations lead a global uprising against symbols and structures of white supremacy.
But if you are a racist group masquerading as a civil rights organization, these days are fraught with the danger that you’ll get found out.
It’s a balancing act that has for years bedeviled the Anti-Defamation League, a major Israel lobby group in the United States.
Its counterparts in the UK are facing the same challenge.
The crisis is particularly acute right now as the ADL tries to portray itself as an ally of Black Lives Matter while also shielding Israel from criticism over its plans to annex Palestinian land in the occupied West Bank, further entrenching the system of apartheid.
A leaked memo obtained last week by Jewish Currents writer Josh Leifer highlights the dilemma of ADL leaders.
The memo sets out how the lobby group can, in Leifer’s words: “find a way to defend Israel from criticism without alienating other civil rights organizations, elected officials of color and Black Lives Matter activists and supporters.”
The gist of the strategy is to allow some soft criticism of Israel while fending off more precise and accurate descriptions of Israel’s violations of Palestinian rights as “apartheid” and “separate but equal” – the latter a term long used to whitewash violently enforced, legalized racial segregation and subjugation in the United States.
The authors of the memo fear that a clash with progressive forces over annexation could put ADL on the “wrong side” of the Black Lives Matter movement and “challenge relationships between ADL and many civil rights organizations and coalitions.”
It is ironic that the ADL fears Israel being associated with apartheid.
While the Israeli-armed South African apartheid regime was still destroying Black lives in that country in the 1980s and 1990s, the ADL ran a massive spy ring in the United States.
As well as infiltrating Palestine solidarity groups, the ADL spy passed on confidential files about anti-apartheid activists to South Africa’s brutal intelligence agency.
The latest ADL leak confirms concerns that were revealed in a private report obtained by The Electronic Intifada in 2017.
That report – jointly written by the ADL and the Reut Institute, an Israeli think tank – lamented that Palestinian rights campaigners have been “able to frame the Palestinian struggle against Israel as part of the struggle of other disempowered minorities, such as African Americans, Latinos and the LGBTQ community.”
The report recommended that Zionist groups try to disrupt this dynamic by “Partnering with other minority communities based on shared values and common interests such as on criminal justice reform, immigration rights or in fighting against racism and hate crimes.”
Today the ADL sees Black Lives Matter as a chance to burnish its “civil rights” street cred while advancing its anti-Palestinian agenda.
Call For Tighter Censorship
The ADL is one of several lobby groups – which like the the Israeli government – have long seen Black Lives Matter as a major strategic threat.
Its effort to co-opt the Black Lives Matter movement – in order to manage and diffuse criticisms of Israel’s harsh racist regime against Palestinians – is currently on full display.
The group is a partner in the Stop Hate for Profit campaign which is pressuring major corporations to pull advertising from Facebook during the month of July to protest the social media giant’s supposed failure to crack down on hate speech.
Already, major names such as Unilever and Starbucks have agreed to comply.
There are real reasons for concern about this campaign: In effect it demands that Facebook act as a censor and arbiter of truth, a role no one should want an unaccountable private company to play.
It’s especially concerning given that Facebook has already appointed a former Israeli government official with responsibility for censorship to its new oversight board.
While few may have qualms about seeing white supremacists and Nazis having their public platforms taken away, the reality is that Palestinians have been among the main targets of online censorship, particularly by Facebook.
Israel lobby groups, including the ADL, have been promoting a misleading and politically motivated definition of anti-Semitism which conflates criticism of Israel’s policies and its racist state ideology Zionism, on the one hand, with anti-Jewish bigotry, on the other.
They have pushed governments, institutions and social media companies to adopt this bogus definition in order to muzzle advocates for Palestinian human rights.
The Stop Hate for Profit campaign explicitly demands that Facebook “find and remove public and private groups focused on white supremacy, militia, anti-Semitism, violent conspiracies, Holocaust denialism, vaccine misinformation and climate denialism.”
However much one may loath such viewpoints, that is a fairly sweeping demand for censorship and regulation of opinion that is unlikely to stop there.
Yet, notably, there is no demand that anti-Muslim groups be removed, despite rampant Islamophobia on the platform. That kind of hate is apparently just fine!
The Stop Hate for Profit campaign also provides an opportunity for big corporations to gain positive publicity while doing very little to address structural racism. No doubt such corporations will be happy to start advertising again on a Facebook sanitized of any dissenting views.
Boycott For Me, But Not For Thee
There is also the rank hypocrisy of the ADL, which is calling for a boycott of Facebook, while attacking and smearing BDS – the peaceful campaign for boycott, divestment and sanctions to end Israel’s racist abuses and crimes against Palestinians.
The Anti-Defamation League has even supported anti-BDS legislation, knowing full well that such laws are unconstitutional because they violate free speech.
Undoubtedly, the ADL values its own constitutional right to call for a boycott of Facebook even as it seeks to trample the free speech rights of others, including whose who believe that Palestinians should not have their rights denied in their own homeland just because they are not Jewish.
But in backing the Stop Hate for Profit campaign, ADL is joining forces with Black mainstream liberal civil rights organizations such as Color of Change and the venerable NAACP – and thus using these relationships to gain entirely undeserved credibility as an anti-racist ally.
Black Activists In UK Call For Israel Sanctions
The problem faced by the ADL and the Israel lobby more broadly was highlighted over the weekend when Black Lives Matter UK, an anti-racist coalition, tweeted its support for the Palestinian struggle:
“As Israel moves forward with the annexation of the West Bank, and mainstream British politics is gagged of the right to critique Zionism, and Israel’s settler-colonial pursuits, we loudly and clearly stand beside our Palestinian comrades,” the group tweeted.
The tweet got tens of thousands of likes and retweets.
Black Lives Matter UK followed that with a series of tweets debunking Israel lobby claims that criticism of Israel is anti-Semitic.
One tweet declared that as annexation looms, “we stand with Palestinian civil society in calling for targeted sanctions in line with international law against Israel’s colonial, apartheid regime.”
The tweets were particularly significant as British politics remain in the grip of a witch hunt against critics of Israel, especially within the main opposition Labour Party.
Unsurprisingly, the tweets drew immediate hostility from the Jewish Labour Movement, a lobby group within the Labour Party that has acted as proxy for the Israeli embassy.
Mike Katz, chair of the Jewish Labour Movement, said he was “sad” to see the tweets from Black Lives Matter UK.
He also claimed that members of his organization “reject annexation and settlements.”
That can be seen as another effort to steer criticism of Israel into an acceptable “soft” form focused only on a limited number of Israeli actions, while trying to put criticism of Zionism off limits.
The Board of Deputies, a British Jewish communal organization and leading pro-Israel group, predictably accused Black Lives Matter UK of engaging in an “anti-Semitic trope.”
But the Board insisted that this would “not stop us from standing alongside Black people in their quest for justice.”
But, in fact, supporting Israel and Zionism is totally incompatible with any quest for justice. All the slick spin and PR campaigns cannot hide this simple truth: You can’t be an anti-racist racist.
TWITTER TARGETS ACCOUNTS OF OUTLETS COVERING UNREST IN BOLIVIA
By Alan Macleod, Mintpress News.
July 1, 2020
https://popularresistance.org/twitter-targets-accounts-of-outlets-covering-unrest-in-bolivia/
MintPress News, Along With A Number Of Independent Bolivian News Outlets And Journalists Covering The Unrest There, Were All Targeted For Suspension At The Same Time.
Social media giant Twitter took the step of suspending the official account of MintPress News on Saturday. Without warning, the nine-year-old account with 64,000 followers was abruptly labeled as “fake” or “spam” and restricted. This move is becoming a frequent occurrence for alternative media, especially those that openly challenge U.S. power globally.
Immediately preceding the ban, MintPress had been sharing stories about Israeli government crimes against Palestinians, the Saudi-led onslaught in Yemen (both funded and supported by Washington), and about activists challenging chemical giant Monsanto’s latest plans. However, MintPess correspondent Ollie Vargas, stationed in Bolivia and covering the coup and other events there, had another theory on the suspension. Vargas noted that his account, along with union leader Leonardo Loza and independent Bolivian outlets Kawsachun Coca and Kawsachun News were all suspended at the same time. “There was a coordinated takedown of numerous users & outlets based in Chapare, Bolivia. Thousands of fake accounts appeared after the coup. We believe they’re being mobilized to mass report those who criticize the regime,” he said. Since the November coup, Bolivia has been the sight of intense political struggle, with MintPress one of the only Western outlets, large or small, extensively covering the situation (and from a perspective that directly challenges the official US government line). Vargas added that all those accounts suspended appeared in his Twitter bio.
In December, MintPress reported how the strongly conservative Bolivian elite is treating social media as a key battleground in pushing the coup forward, with over 5,000 accounts created on the day of the insurrection tweeting using pro-coup hashtags. With the new administration still lacking both legitimacy and public support, it appears the next step is to simply silence dissenting voices online like they have been silenced inside the country. Kawsachun Coca and Kawsachun News, located in the Chapare region, still not under government control, are among the only remaining outlets critical of the Añez administration.
As Twitter has developed into a worldwide medium of communication, it has also grown an increasingly close relationship with Western state power. In September, a senior Twitter executive was unmasked as an active duty officer in a British Army brigade whose specialty was online and psychological warfare. It was almost entirely ignored by corporate media; the one and only journalist at a major publication covering the story was pushed out of his job weeks later. Earlier this month, Twitter announced it worked with a hawkish U.S.- and Australian-government sponsored think tank to purge nearly 200,000 Chinese, Russian and Iranian accounts from its platform. It has also worked hard to remove Venezuelan users critical of U.S. regime change, including large numbers of government members. Meanwhile, despite detailed academic work exposing them, Venezuelan opposition bot networks remain free to promote intervention.
Facebook has also been working hand-in-hand with the Atlantic Council, a NATO think tank, to determine what users and posts are legitimate and what is fake news, effectively giving control over what its 2.4 billion users see in their news feeds to the military organization. Reddit, another huge social media platform, recently appointed a former deputy director at the council to be its head of policy.
Earlier this year, Facebook announced that it was banning all positive appraisals of Qassem Soleimani, the Iranian general and statesman assassinated by the Trump administration. This, it explained, was because Trump had labeled the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) a terrorist organization. “We operate under U.S. sanctions laws, including those related to the U.S. government’s designation of the IRGC and its leadership,” it said in a statement. This is particularly worrying, as Soleimani was the country’s most popular public figure, with over 80 percent of Iranians holding a positive view of him, according to a University of Maryland poll. Therefore, because of the whims of the Trump administration, Facebook began suppressing a majority view shared by Iranians with other Iranians in Farsi across all its platforms, including Instagram. Thus, the line between the state, the military industrial complex, and big media platforms whose job should be to hold them to account has blurred beyond distinction. The incident also once again highlights that big tech monopolies are not public resources, but increasingly tightly controlled American enterprises working in conjunction with Washington.
More worryingly, it is the tech companies themselves who are pushing for this integration. “What Lockheed Martin was to the twentieth century,” wrote Google executives Eric Schmidt and Larry Cohen in their book, The New Digital Age, “technology and cyber-security companies [like Google] will be to the twenty-first.” The book was heartily endorsed by Atlantic Council director Henry Kissinger.
After an online outcry including journalists like Ben Norton directly appealing to administrators, the accounts were reinstated today. However, the weekend’s events are another point of reference in the trend of harassing and suppressing independent, alternative or foreign media that challenges the U.S. state power, an increasingly large part of which is linked to the big online media platforms we rely on for free exchange of ideas, opinions and discourse.
On the incident, MintPress founder Mnar Muhawesh said:
Twitter’s ban hammer and censorship army of flaggers is an attempt to re-tighten state and corporate control over the free flow of information. That’s why it’s no wonder independent media like MintPress News, Kawsachun, and watchdog journalists covering state crimes like Ollie Vargas have been targeted in what appears to be an organized effort to silence and censor dissent. Twitter’s message is very clear: our first amendment is not welcome, as long as it challenges establishment narratives.”
DOCTORS, NOT BOMBS, NEEDED FOR HUMANITY TO SAVE ITSELF
By Raúl Antonio Capote, Resumen English.
July 1, 2020
https://popularresistance.org/doctors-not-bombs-needed-for-humanity-to-save-itself/
At a time when the world is hit by one of the most dangerous pandemics in human history, the United States is arming itself for war. It allocates millions of resources to this sector, over and above basic services such as health, in the country with the most confirmed cases of COVID-19 on the planet.
“With nearly three million troops in service, 4,800 defense sites on every continent, and an annual budget of more than $700 billion, the U.S. military is considered the world’s leading fighting force,” according to CNN.
In the midst of the crisis generated by the new coronavirus, Washington is rapidly modernizing its armed forces, including its nuclear forces. This was stated by President Donald Trump, through different means, including social networks.
The powerful nation is also rushing to find hypersonic weapons. On May 20, 2020, the White House chief announced the intention to spend whatever it takes, “Our goal is simply to dominate the battlefields of the future.”
He emphasized that his administration has spent more than $2.5 trillion updating the Army during his administration, more than, according to him, any other American President.
“We have weapons that I pray to God we will never have to use,” he boasted.
World military expenditures in 2019 experienced the largest increase in the last ten years, according to a report by the International Institute for Peace Studies (Sipri), published on April 27. The historical record is held by the United States, which increased by 5.3% in 2019, to 732 billion dollars, 38% of the world total.
At a time when the planet is facing an economic recession, governments should reconsider military spending and attend to other priority sectors that show their weakness in the face of the pandemic.
If the United States had invested 10% of its military spending in strengthening its public health system, it would not have to face the painful situation in which it finds itself today. No one could have imagined that in the first country in economic power the emergency rooms and the intensive care units would collapse, that their doctors and paramedics would not be enough, and there would be a lack of equipment, beds and medicines.
The experience of the pandemic exposes the short comings of the White House with regard to its own people, the lack of resources for sectors such as health and education, while it maintains enormous military expenditures and attacks Cuban health cooperation programs it has with other peoples of the world.
“Doctors and not bombs,” said Fidel, because that is what humanity needs to be saved. The United States goes around the world blind to that philosophy; one eye open to war, the other eye dedicated to pursuing those who, like Cuba, are going down the same routes, to save.
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