Eric Zuesse
Oriental Review

■ I opposed the invasion of Iraq by Bush in 2003 — which destroyed that country — even before it was perpetrated. George Clooney, Peter Welch, the New York Times, and other liars or fools of liars, did not.

■ I opposed the bombing of Libya by Obama in 2011 — which destroyed that country — even before it was perpetrated. George Clooney, Peter Welch, the New York Times, annals of liars, did not.

■ I opposed the U.S. arming of Al Qaeda in Syria to overthrow Assad in 2012 by Obama — which destroyed that country — even before it was perpetrated. George Clooney, Peter Welch, the New York Times, and other liars or fools of liars, did not.

■ I opposed the U.S. coup that was perpetrated in 2014 by Obama, Clinton, and Biden, against Ukraine in order to place U.S. missiles there to blitz-nuke The Kremlin — which destroyed Ukraine — even before it was perpetrated. George Clooney, Peter Welch, the New York Times, and other liars or fools of liars, did not.

The Democratic Party is as flamingly neoconservative, pro-MIC, hawkish, and pro-U.S.-imperialism, as is the Republican Party; and, so, only a Second American Revolution that recognizes all Americans’ enemy as being right here at home — the super-rich who control all of the major ‘news’-media and the Government (both of its Parties) — and which Revolution removes them from the power they have to deceive the majority of the public and destroy nation after nation while the MIC-owners grow ever fatter feasting upon the blood and misery of others in other lands and upon the despair of the poor in our own, can be constructive in the present era when the U.S. behemoth is craving feverishly to control the entire world and to increase the annual aggression (‘defense’)-budget so high it will leave nothing left to spend for the public.

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Eric Zuesse
Oriental Review

U.S.-Saudi Petrodollar Pact Ends after 50 Years

“U.S.-Saudi Petrodollar Pact Ends after 50 Years”
T. 11 June 2024, analysis by Paul Hoffman:

The 50-year-old petrodollar agreement between the U.S. and Saudi Arabia was just allowed to expire. The term “petrodollar” refers to the U.S. dollar’s role as the currency used for crude oil transactions on the world market. This arrangement has its roots in the 1970s when the United States and Saudi Arabia struck a deal shortly after the U.S. went off the gold standard that would go on to have far-reaching consequences for the global economy. In the history of global finance, few agreements have wielded as many benefits as the petrodollar pact did for the U.S. economy.

A Boon to U.S. Bonds—The petrodollar agreement, formalized after the 1973 oil crisis, stipulated that Saudi Arabia would price its oil exports exclusively in U.S. dollars and invest its surplus oil revenues in U.S. Treasury bonds. In return, the U.S. provided military support and protection to the kingdom. This arrangement was a win-win situation for both; the U.S. gained a stable source of oil and a captive market for its debt, while Saudi Arabia secured its economic and overall security.

Status as the Reserve Currency—Oil being denominated in U.S. dollars alone has significance beyond the categories of oil and finance. By mandating that oil be sold in U.S. dollars (DXY), the agreement elevated the dollar’s status as the world’s reserve currency. This, in turn, has profoundly impacted the U.S. economy. The global demand for dollars to purchase oil has helped to keep the currency strong, making imports relatively cheap for American consumers. Additionally, the influx of foreign capital into U.S. Treasury bonds has supported low interest rates and a robust bond market.

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Eric Zuesse
The Duran

Only using intense deceit does the U.S. Government allege that it and its allies are ‘democratic’ and that the countries that they impose sanctions against and overthrow (or try to overthrow) in coups and invasions are not.

Irrespective of whether some of the countries that the U.S. Government targets for overthrow are or are not dictatorships, America itself certainly is, and it has the world’s highest percentage of its population living in prison — which might suffice alone to qualify America as being a police-state — and perhaps the worst one.

Some of America’s allies are among the world’s best-known dictatorships, such as Saudi Arabia and Bahrain, and such cases as those, alone, demonstrate without any doubt, that America’s many sanctions and coups and invasions have nothing to do with democracy versus dictatorship, but are pure PR in order to fool the gullible throughout the world to believe the U.S.

Government’s lies to the effect that these aggressions against so many countries (such as Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Guatemala, Chile, Iran, Libya, Indonesia and so many others) are decent or even nobly intentioned, when the fact is that America is simply the world’s worst police-state, and is lying in order to deceive the global public to believe that it’s instead the global champion of democracy and of freedom. All of America’s foreign policies are justified wholly or partly on the basis of lies — intent to deceive fools. Is it not, by now, clear that the time is long-since past when anyone should continue to accept that intensely deceitful regime’s lies and its constant aggressions?

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Eric Zuesse
Modern Diplomacy

To understand this matter, some fundamental background must first be briefly presented; and it is this (the remainder of this paragraph):

Ukraine’s Government has consistently promised that it will retake Crimea, which had been part of Russia during 1783-1954 when the Soviet leader Khrushchev then transferred it to Ukraine, and which subsequently broke away from Ukraine in 2014 to rejoin Russia. Russia has re-established its sovereignty there after a 2014 referendum in Crimea showed over 90% support by voters for Russia to do so.

That’s the background. –– On June 1st, when the White House announced that it would be sending to Ukraine weapons that might be used for invading Russia, Jonathan Finer, deputy White House national security adviser, said Washington had asked Ukraine for assurances the missiles would not strike inside Russia. On June 3rd, Ukraine’s Government rejected that request. At the time when Biden made that announcement on June 1st, Reuters noted that,

“Biden announced the plan to give Ukraine precision HIMARS rocket systems after receiving assurances from Kyiv that it would not use them to hit targets inside Russian territory.”

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Elena Bondarenko

Eric Zuesse: The following letter, written months ago but unfortunately unpublishable in the Ukrainian dictatorship that was imposed in February, was finally posted publicly at the Russian fortruss website on Sunday, December 14th, by Elena Bondarenko, a member of former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych’s Party.

My friends, here is my declaration. I ask that you share it to the extent possible. If you can translate it into other languages, please do!

I, Elena Bondarenko, People’s Deputy from the Party of Regions, finding myself in opposition to the current power in Ukraine, wish to declare that this administration has resorted to direct threats of physical elimination of the opposition in Ukraine; has resorted to suspending the right of freedom of speech, in parliament and out, and is implicated in complicity in crimes not just against politicians, but even against their children. The everyday life of an opposition deputy is this: constant threats, unofficial ban from the airwaves, targeted persecution. Everyone who calls for peace is immediately branded as an enemy of the people, just as in 1930’s Germany, or in McCarthyite US.

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Eric Zuesse
Washington's Blog

They think its a plot by Washington directed at Russia intended to cause rifts between Russia and Ukraine and Russia and Europe. Introduction by Russia Insider: This article, with its extensive quotations from an interview by the well-known Russian economist Sergei Glazyev, is a rare example of a fair-minded western explanation of the Russian view of the Ukrainian crisis. Glazyev's views on this are very widespread among the Russian elite, and it is fair to say, are a very accurate reflection of what Russian elites believe. The article grasps that for the Russians the key fact of the Ukrainian crisis is not Ukraine’s association agreement with the EU or Crimea’s unification with Russia or the uprising in the Donbas. It is the violent and unconstitutional overthrow with western support of the democratically elected government of Ukraine led by Viktor Yanukovych. For the Russians what has followed since: Crimea’s secession and its reunion with Russia and the civil war in the east, are the natural outcome of that event. The extracts in the article from Glazyev’s interview shows how many Russians see the Ukrainian crisis as ultimately directed at themselves – as an attempt by the US to draw them into war and to obstruct the development of their economy and society by creating divisions between Russia and Ukraine and between Russia and Europe. This article originally appeared in Washington's Blog.

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Eric Zuesse
RINF Alternative News

Introduction by Paul Craig Roberts: If America has a free press, why don’t you know about the Obama regime’s atrocities in Ukraine? It might not be possible for most Americans ever to understand the criminal nature of the Obama regime and the presstitute media that protects the criminal regime by keeping the American people disinformed and in the dark. For those of you who can stomach the truth, this report on what Washington and its stooge criminal government in Kiev are doing to the Russian populations of eastern and southern Ukraine starkly demonstrates that Washington is the seat of evil.

America’s ‘news’ media do not let the victims of Ukraine’s civil war — the people who are dying and being driven out from the southeastern regions of that country by the new Ukrainian Government — speak, and tell their story. Scenes will therefore be posted below from an admittedly overlong amateur video from southeastern Ukraine, in which they have been allowed to tell their story. This is being done here since U.S. ‘news’ media apparently don’t consider it something that you would want to know, and since you should be allowed to judge for yourself whether it is or not, and to judge why it’s not being reported on the ‘news’ sources that our ‘democracy’ offers to ‘inform’ America’s public about public affairs. It is also being done because these still photos from the documentary summarize this over-long documentary’s important narrative. You are welcomed to click onto the link above to see the entire 82-minute documentary.

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Eric Zuesse
Washington's Blog

View here our bombing-victims. Impeach and prosecute Obama for his international war crimes!

On Wednesday, July 2nd, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko resumed unlimited war against the residents of southeastern Ukraine, whom he calls “terrorists” for their wanting not to be killed by his troops. European leaders (especially Merkel of Germany, Hollande of France, and Putin of Russia) urged him not to resume his bombing campaign against the southeast, but the U.S. (specifically President Obama) supports the bombings, and that’s enough for Poroshenko; so, he did it. As the U.S. State Department said, “he has a right to defend his country.” Reuters reports that Poroshenko gave as his reason for the resumption, “to rid Ukraine of ‘parasites’.” Adolf Hitler had given the same reason for ethnically cleansing his country.

Here are videos and photos of the Obama Administration’s sponsored ethnic cleansing to reduce the population in the areas of Ukraine that had voted overwhelmingly “the wrong way” in Ukraine’s final nationwide election, in 2010: the areas of Ukraine that overwhelmingly chose as Ukraine’s President the man whom Obama’s coup overthrew in February 2014. After this ethnic cleansing, maybe Ukraine can have another nationwide election, which will produce the type of outcome that the U.S. Government likes.

But on 25 May 2014, we held in Ukraine an election where people voted only in the pro-American portion of Ukraine, and only leaders who were acceptable to the U.S. White House were allowed onto the ballot.

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Eric Zuesse
Washington's Blog

The Western news media have not been showing the footage of this action by the U.S. Administration, but U.S. news media also covered up the Administration’s constant lies about “Saddam’s WMD” (which the U.N. had quietly verified were completely destroyed in 1998), and so Americans supported invading Iraq on the basis of outright lies, and we did so: the U.S. is no longer an authentic democracy, which requires an honest press.

America is now doing something that might be even more shocking than that — outright modeled upon the Hitler-movement. The present news report is being distributed to all U.S. news media, so that we’ll all get to see which U.S. media suppress this information, and which ones break the U.S. silence about it — the first-ever blatant ethnic-cleansing program carried out in any foreign country by U.S. Government agents or under U.S. control.

Here are photos of what we (our nation’s appointed agents in Ukraine) have been doing since 18 February 2014, and which is being backed up by U.S. tax-dollars under the fake rubric of “national security.” These still-photos are all taken from live videos many of which the present reporter has previously provided the links to, and all of which have been checked thoroughly and verified to be authentic by this reporter, and none of these photos has been found to be doctored.

The only organization that checks for doctored “evidence” regarding the situation in Ukraine is Stopfake.org, a website that was recently established by an independent group of journalism students in order to defeat propaganda that is being created and spread by both sides (almost entirely by “our” side) in the Ukrainian civil war; these students are doing this so that honest news reporting can be separated out from that which is based upon, and spreading to the public, lies.

They are performing a terrific service in this matter, and all honest journalists owe them a debt of gratitude.

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