Since the Treaty of Maastricht,
all the members of the European Union (including the neutral countries) have
placed their defences under the suzerainty of NATO, which is directed
exclusively by the United States. This is why, when the Pentagon delegates the
economic headquarters of the countries it wishes to destroy to the US
Department of the Treasury (USDT), all members of the European Union and NATO
are obliged to apply US sanctions.
After having lost his
majority in the House of Representatives during the mid-term elections,
President Trump has found new allies in exchange for his discharge by
prosecutor Mueller of the accusation of high treason [1]. He now supports the objectives of his generals.
US imperialism is back [2].
In
less than six months, the foundations of international relations have been «
rebooted ». The war that Hillary Clinton promised to start has been declared,
but not only by military force.
This transformation of the
rules of the game, without equivalent since the end of the Second World War,
immediately forced all actors to rethink their strategy, and therefore all the
plans for alliance upon which they were based. Those who turn up late will pay
for it.
Economic war has been declared
Wars
will always be mortal and cruel, but for Donald Trump, who was a businessman
before becoming President of the United States, it is best that they cost as
little as possible. It is thus preferable to kill with economic means rather
than by the use of arms. Given that the United States no longer share trade
agreements with most of the countries they attack, the real « economic » cost
of these wars (in the genuine sense of the term), is in effect supported by
third-party countries rather than by the Pentagon.
Thus the United States have
just decided to lay economic siege to Venezuela [3], Cuba [4] and Nicaragua [5]. In order to mask real killing wars, these
actions are presented by the media apparatus as « sanctions », without giving
us any idea of what law Washington is basing them on.
They are
deployed with explicit reference to the « Monroe Doctrine » of 1823, according
to which no foreign power shall intervene on the American continent, while in
exchange, the United States will refrain from intervening in Western Europe.
Only China, which felt targeted, pointed out that the Americas are not the
private property of the United States. However, everyone is aware that this
doctrine has evolved rapidly to justify Yankee imperialism in the South of the
continent (the « Roosevelt Corollary »).
Today,
US sanctions concern at least twenty countries – Belarus, Myanmar, Burundi,
North Korea, Cuba, the Russian Federation, Iraq, Lebanon, Libya, Nicaragua, the
Syrian Arab Republic, the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, the Central African
Republic (CAR), the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Islamic Republic of
Iran, Serbia, Somalia, Sudan, South Sudan, Ukraine, Yemen and Zimbabwe. That
gives us a very precise map of the conflicts led by the Pentagon, assisted by
the US Department of the Treasury (USDT).
These targets are never in
Western Europe (as specified by the « Monroe Doctrine »), but exclusively in
the Middle East, Eastern Europe, the Caribbean Basin and Africa. All these
regions were listed as early as 1991 by President George Bush senior in his National Security Strategy as being flagged to
join the « New World Order » [6]. Considering that that they had been unable
or unwilling to do so, they were sanctioned in 2001 by Secretary of Defense
Donald Rumsfeld and his advisor for the transformation of the armed forces,
Admiral Arthur Cebrowski, and doomed to chaos [7].
The
expression « economic war » was waved about for decades to indicate heightened
competition. This is no longer true today – we are now talking about a real
killing war.
The reactions of the targets
and those not appropriated by the Allies
The
Syrians, who have just won an eight-year military war against NATO’s jihadist
mercenaries, are destabilised by this economic war, which imposes strict
rationing of electricity, gas and oil, and provokes the closing of factories
which had only just been reopened. At best, they can be relieved that the
Empire did not inflict these two forms of war at the same time.
The Venezuelans are now discovering
with horror what economic war actually means, and are realising that with the
tinhorn Juan Guiado as much as with President Nicolas Maduro, they are going to
have to fight to maintain their state (in other words a ’Leviathan’ capable of
protecting them [8]).
The
strategies of the targeted states are themselves plunged into confusion. For example,
since they are no longer able to import medicines for its hospitals, Venezuela
has signed an agreement with Syria, which was, before the war of 2011, a very
important producer and exporter in this sector. Factories which had been
destroyed by Turkey and the jihadists were rebuilt in Aleppo. But although they
had just been reopened, they now had to close again, since they had no
available supply of electricity.
The
multiplication of theatres of war – and therefore of the pretended « sanctions
» – began to cause serious problems for the allies of the United State,
including the European Union. The EU did not appreciate the threats of seizure
aimed at companies which had invested in Cuba, and, remembering the actions
engaged to forbid them access to the Iranian market, reacted by threatening in
their turn to seize the Arbitration Committee of the World Trade Organization
(WTO). And yet, as we shall see, this revolt by the European Union is doomed to
failure, since it was anticipated 25 years ago by Washington.
The European Union – trapped
Anticipating the current
reaction of the European Union, worried about not being able to trade with
whomever it saw fit, the administration of Bush senior elaborated the «
Wolfowitz Doctrine », which was concerned with making sure that the Western and
Central Europeans would never have an independent defence system, but only a
system which was autonomous [9]. This is why Washington castrated the
European Union at its birth by imposing a clause to be inserted in the Treaty
of Maastricht – the suzerainty of NATO. I am writing here about the European
Union, not the Common Market.
We
should remember the total support offered by the European Union to all of the
Pentagon’s adventures, in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Kosovo, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya,
Syria, and Yemen. In all these cases, without exception, the EU marched along
in step with its suzerain, NATO.
This
vassal condition is in fact the only reason that the Western European Union
(WEU) was dissolved, and it is also why President Trump gave up the idea of
dissolving the Atlantic Alliance’s permanent military organisation – without
NATO, the European Union would gain its independence, since it is only to NATO
– and not the United States – that these treaties refer.
Of course, the treaties
stipulate that all this must be implemented in conformity with the United
Nations Charter.
But, for example, on March
2019, the United States questioned the resolutions it had approved concerning
the sovereignty of Golan. Without warning, they changed their minds, provoking the
de facto collapse of International Law [10].
Another example – the United
States this week took position in Libya for General Khalifa Haftar, with whom
President Trump shared a telephone call to assure his support against the
government created by the UNO [11], and we are now seeing members of the
European Union, one by one, following his lead.
But, for example, on March
2019, the United States questioned the resolutions it had approved concerning
the sovereignty of Golan. Without warning, they changed their minds, provoking the
de facto collapse of International Law [10]. Another example – the United
States this week took position in Libya for General Khalifa Haftar, with whom
President Trump shared a telephone call to assure his support against the
government created by the UNO [11], and we are now seeing members of the
European Union, one by one, following his lead.
Because
of the consecutive treaties, it would be impossible for the EU to free itself
from NATO, (which means the United States), and declare itself a power in its
own right. Protests against the pseudo-sanctions which were yesterday decided
against Iran and today against Cuba are doomed to failure in advance.
Contrary
to a commonly-held belief, NATO is not governed by the North Atlantic Council,
in other words the states which are members of the Atlantic Alliance. When, in
2011, the Council, which had approved an action intended to protect the Libyan
population against the alleged crimes of Mouamar Kadhafi, declared itself in
opposition to a « régime change », NATO attacked without consultation.
The
members of the European Union, which formed a single bloc with the United
States during the Cold War, discovered with stupefaction that they do not have
anything like the same culture as their trans-Atlantic ally. During this
parenthesis, they had forgotten both their own European culture and the «
exceptionalism » of the USA, and believed wrongly that they were all in
agreement with one another.
Whether
they like it or not, they are today co-responsible for Washington’s wars,
including for example the famine in Yemen, consecutive to the military
operations by the Saudi Coalition and to US sanctions. They now have to choose
either to assume these crimes and participate in them, or to leave the European
treaties.
Globalisation is finished
International
commerce is beginning to decline. This is not a passing crisis, but a
deep-rooted phenomenon. The process of globalisation which defined the world
from the dissolution of the USSR to the mid-term elections of 2018 is now
ended. It is no longer possible to export freely all over the world.
Only
China still has this capacity, but the US State Department is currently
developing methods forbidding it access to the Latin-American market.
In these conditions, debates
on the respective advantages of free-exchange and protectionism are no longer
pertinent, because we are no longer at peace and we no longer have a choice.
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In
the same way, the construction of the European Union, which was imagined at a
time when the world was divided into two irreconcilable blocs, is today
completely inadapted. If they want to avoid being dragged by the United States
into conflicts which are not their own, its members will have to free
themselves from the European treaties and the integrated command of NATO.
Therefore it is completely
off-subject to look at the European elections as opposing progressives and
nationalists [12]. This is not the point at all. The
progressives affirm their desire to build a world governed by International
Law, which their godfather, the United States wants to eradicate, while certain
nationalists, like the Poland of Andrzej Duda, are preparing to serve the
United States against their partners in the European Union.
Only
certain British subjects have sensed the current storm. They have attempted to
leave the Union, but without managing to convince their parliamentary
representatives. It’s said that « to govern is to foresee », but most members
of the European Union have foreseen nothing.
—
[1] Report On The Investigation
Into Russian Interference In The 2016 Presidential Election, Special
Counsel Robert S. Mueller, III, March 2019.
[2] As soon as he took place in the White
House, Donald Trump transformed the National Security Council by taking away
the permanent seats of the CIA and the Pentagon. “Presidential
Memorandum : Organization of the National Security Council and the Homeland
Security Council”, by Donald Trump, Voltaire
Network, 28 January 2017. “Donald
Trump winds up “the” organization of US imperialism”, by Thierry
Meyssan, Translation Anoosha Boralessa, Voltaire Network, 31
January 2017.
[3] “US
Treasury Sanctions Central Bank of Venezuela and its Director”, Voltaire Network, 17 April 2019.
[4] Cuban Liberty and Democratic
Solidarity (Libertad) Act of 1996 of which the worst
dispositions will soon become applicable.
[5] “US
Treasury Targets Finances of Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega’s Regime”, Voltaire Network, 17 April 2019.
[6] National Security Strategy of the United States 1991,
George H. Bush, The White house, 1991.
[7] “The
strategy of controlled chaos”, by Manlio Dinucci, Translation Pete
Kimberley, Il Manifesto (Italy) , Voltaire Network, 18 April 2019.
[8] Reacting to the English civil war, the
philosopher Thomas Hobbes theorised, in his work Leviathan, the necessity of supporting a state, even if
it is authoritarian and abusive, rather that having no state and being plunged
into chaos.
[9] « US Strategy Plan Calls For Insuring No
Rivals Develop », Patrick E. Tyler, and « Excerpts from Pentagon’s Plan :
“Prevent the Re-Emergence of a New Rival” », New York Times,
March 8, 1992. « Keeping the US First, Pentagon Would preclude a Rival
Superpower », Barton Gellman, The Washington Post,
March 11, 1992.
[10] “The
UNO destroyed by US « exceptionalism »”, by Thierry Meyssan,
Translation Pete Kimberley, Voltaire Network, 2
April 2019.
[11] « Washington
et Moscou unis contre l’Onu en Libye », Réseau Voltaire, 20 avril 2019.
[12] “For
European renewal”, by Emmanuel Macron, Voltaire Network, 4 March 2019.
French
intellectual, founder and chairman of Voltaire Network and the Axis for Peace
Conference. His columns specializing in international relations feature in
daily newspapers and weekly magazines in Arabic, Spanish and Russian. His last
two books published in English : 9/11 the Big Lie and Pentagate.
The
articles on Voltaire Network may be freely reproduced provided the source is
cited, their integrity is respected and they are not used for commercial
purposes (license CC BY-NC-ND).
