In recent decades, the US
Constitution’s clause that requires a congressional declaration of war before
invading any country, has been ignored. Furthermore, ever since 2012 and the
passage by Congress of the Magnitsky Act sanctions against Russia,
economic sanctions by the US Government have been imposed against any company
that fails to comply with a US-imposed economic sanction; a company can even
be fined over a billion dollars for
violating a US economic sanction. And, so, sanctions are now the way that the
US Congress actually does authorize a war — the new way, no longer
the way that’s described in the US Constitution. However, in the
economic-sanctions phase of a war — this initial phase — the war is being
imposed directly against any company that violates a US-ordered economic sanction,
against Russia, Iran, or whatever target-country the US Congress has, by means of such
sanctions, actually authorized
a war by the US to exist — a ‘state of war’ to exist.
For the US Congress, the passage of economic sanctions
against a country thus effectively serves now as an authorization for the US
President to order the US military to invade that country, if and when the
President decides to do so. No further congressional authorization is necessary (except under
the US Constitution). This initial phase of a war penalizes only those other
nations’ violating companies directly — not the target-country. Though the US
Government punishes the violating corporation, the actual
target is the targeted (sanctioned) country. Sanctions are being used
to strangle that target.
The fined companies are mere ‘collateral damage’, in this phase of America’s
new warfare. In
this phase, which is now the standard first phase of the US Government’s
going-to-war, the US Government is coercing corporations to join America’s
economic war, against the given targeted country — in this case, it’s a war
against Russia; Russia is the country that the US Government wants to strangle,
in this particular instance.
On Tuesday, 11
December, the US House of Representatives voted unanimously (no member objected),
by voice vote —
unrecorded so that nobody can subsequently be blamed for anything — that
President Donald Trump should impose
penalties, which could amount to billions of dollars, against any EU-based
corporation that participates with Russia in Russia’s Nord Stream II Pipeline
to supply gas to Europe. This “Resolution,” H.Res.1035, is titled
“Expressing opposition to the completion of Nord Stream II, and for other
purposes,” and it closes by asserting that the US House of Representatives
“supports the imposition of sanctions with respect to Nord Stream II under
section 232 of the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act.”
With no member objecting, the US House thereby warns corporations to cease
doing business with Russia, because the US Government is determined that any
such business will be terminated and will maybe also be fined. The US
Government imposes its will as if it were the dictator to the entire world, and
without even needing to use its military, but just economic coercion.
The US Senate
doesn’t yet have a similar bill, but the unanimous passage of this one in the
House constitutes a strong warning to Europe’s corporations, that unless they
obey the US sanctions, huge financial penalties will be imposed upon them.
There are not many issues on which the US Congress is even nearly 100% united
in agreement, but during this phase, the introductory phase, of America’s war
against Russia, the war against Russia is certainly among those few instances —
entirely bipartisan.
According to
RT, on December 12th, headlining “US lawmakers want to put a cork in
Russia's gas pipeline to Europe”: "On Monday, Austria's OMV energy group CEO Rayner
Zele stated that the company is set to continue financing the pipeline next
year. OMV has already invested some 531 million euros ($607 million) into the
project, Zele told Ria Novosti. In early December, German Foreign Minister
Heiko Maas also said that Berlin’s abandoning the project would not make sense
as Russia will still go on with it. Germany earlier rebuked Trump’s criticism
of the project after the US leader accused Berlin of being a ‘captive’ of
Moscow citing Germany’s alleged dependency on natural gas from Russia.”
If the US Government fails to strangulate the economies in
the countries such as Russia and Iran against which it has imposed sanctions,
then the next step, of course, would be some type of armed invasion of the
given targeted country. Before the US invaded Iraq in 2003, America’s economic
sanctions killed from 100,000 to 500,000
Iraqi children, but then the US invaded and destroyed the country vastly more
than just that.
Economic
sanctions are an attempt to coerce a targeted country’s — in effect —
surrender, but without needing to use a military invasion as the coercive
means. Any sanctioned country is therefore in America’s bomb-sights, and will
be conquered in one way or another, unless the US Government backs down, at
some point.
According
to the most extensive study that was
ever done of US military bases worldwide, there are over a thousand
such bases, and this is a huge multiple of all non-US military bases put
together. That study was published in 1995. Many new US military bases have
been built and manned since 1995, such as several dozen in just one country,
Syria, where the sovereign Government has never invited them in and many times
has ordered them to leave, but they refuse to leave. Currently, the US Government spends more than half of
all monies that are being spent worldwide on the military.
Regarding the Nord Stream II Pipeline, the
beneficiaries if that Pipeline is never completed and placed into service, will
be American LNG (Liquefied Natural Gas) producers, and also America’s allies
such as Saudi Arabia and Israel. World War III could actually start as a result
of the US Government’s serving America’s (and its allies’) fossil-fuels
producers above all other concerns regarding not only global warming, but even
world peace itself. Those are the interests that are, in effect, at war against
the entire world. This is not a statement of opinion: it is established and
well-demonstrated fact. It is the overwhelmingly documented reality.