Syria: A Tale of Plunder and Resurrection - By Pepe Escobar

While the wholesale theft of Syria's natural resources continues under the watch of illegal US troops, the Russian project of resurrecting ISIS-destroyed Palmyra stands as a stark reminder that ruins can rise again - if Syria's friends help pave the way.

The war on Syria has vanished from the collective West ethos. Yet it’s far from finished. Multitudes across the Global Majority may feel the deepest empathy towards Syrians while acknowledging not much can be done while the Western Minority refuses to leave the stage.

In parallel, there are slim chances the New Development Bank (NDB) – the BRICS bank – will start showering Damascus with loans for Syria’s reconstruction. At least not yet, despite all the pledges by Russians and Chinese to help.

Under the lame excuse of “degrading the position for ISIS,” the US State Department de facto admits that the Empire’s illegal occupation of a third of Syria – the part rich in oil and minerals currently being stolen/smuggled – will persist, indefinitely.

Cue to virtually non-stop oil looting in northeastern Hasakah province, as in processions of dozens of oil tankers crossing to northern Iraq via the al-Waleed or al-Mahmoudiya border crossing, usually escorted by US-backed Kurdish separatist militias.

As if any reminding was needed, the Global Majority is fully aware ISIS is essentially an American black op, a spin-off of al-Qaeda in Iraq, born in camps at the Iraq-Kuwaiti border. The Syrian “Democratic” Forces (SDF) is hardly a democratic US proxy, predictably assembled as a “coalition” of ethnic militias, mostly run by Kurds but also incorporating a few Arab tribesmen, Turkmen, and Salafi-jihadi Chechens.

As if the non-stop looting of oil was not enough, the Pentagon keeps dispatching truckloads of ammo and logistical equipment to Hasakah.

Convoys run back and forth to illegal US military bases in the Hasakah countryside, with particular relevance to a base at the al-Jibsah oilfields near the town of al-Shaddadi.

Recently, 39 US military tankers crossed the – illegal – al-Mahmoudiya border towards Iraqi Kurdistan loaded with stolen Syrian oil.

Despite these crude facts, Russia remains excessively diplomatic on the issue. Mikhail Bogdanov, Putin’s special representative for the Middle East and Africa, recently told al-Arabiya, “Washington uses the pretext of combating terrorism to be present east of the Euphrates in economically important areas, where crude oil and strategic natural reserves are abundant.”

He highlighted US troops deployed at al-Tanf in southern Syria and American “support” for the SDF in northern Syria. Yet that’s not exactly a ground-breaking reveal that would light a fire under the Americans.

We steal your oil because we can 

According to Damascus, Syria’s energy sector as a whole was robbed by an astonishing $107 billion between 2011 and 2022 by a toxic mix of US occupation, “coalition” bombing, and theft or looting by terrorist and separatist gangs.

There are no less than a dozen US military bases in Syria – some bigger than the proverbial lily pads (less than 10 acres, valued at less than $10 million), all of them de facto illegal and certainly not recognized by Damascus. The fact that 90 percent of Syria’s oil and gas is concentrated east of the Euphrates in areas controlled by the US and its Kurdish proxies makes Empire’s job much easier.

The de facto occupation hits not only energy-rich areas but also some of Syria’s most fertile agricultural lands. The net result has been to turn Syria into a net importer of energy and food. Iranian tankers routinely face Israeli sabotage as they ship much-needed oil to Syria’s eastern Mediterranean coast.

Complaining does not register a whit with the Hegemon. Earlier this year, the Chinese foreign ministry urged the Empire of Plunder to give Syrians and the “international community” a full account of the oil theft.

This was in connection to a convoy of 53 tankers transporting stolen Syrian oil to US military bases in Iraqi Kurdistan in early 2023.

At the time, Damascus had already revealed that more than 80 percent of Syria’s daily oil production was stolen and smuggled by the Americans and its proxy “democratic” forces – only in the first half of 2022.

Syria’s permanent representative to the UN, Ambassador Bassam Sabbagh, has repeatedly denounced how the Empire of Plunder’s “theft of resources, oil, gas, and wheat” has plunged millions of Syrians into a state of insecurity, reducing a large part of its population to the status of displaced persons, refugees and victims of food insecurity.

The prospects for Syrian reconstruction are slim without expelling the western marauders. That will have to happen via detailed, concerted cooperation between Russian forces, the Syrian Arab Army, and the IRGC’s Quds Force units.

By itself, Damascus can’t pull it off. The Iranians constantly attack the Americans, via their militias, but results are marginal. To force the Empire out, there’s no other way apart from making the human cost of stealing Syrian oil unbearable. That’s the only message the US understands.

Then there’s the Sultan in Ankara. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is going all out to imprint the notion that relations with Moscow are always developing, and that he hopes to have his counterpart Vladimir Putin visit Turkiye in August. That’s not likely.

When it comes to Syria, Erdogan is mum. The Russian Air Force, meanwhile, keeps up the pressure on Ankara, bombing its proxy Salafi-jihadist terror gangs in Idlib, but not as heavily as it did between 2015 and 2020.

Palmyra reborn 

Countering so much doom and gloom, something nearly magical happened on July 23. Six years after the liberation of Palmyra – the legendary Silk Road oasis – and overcoming all sorts of bureaucratic hassles, the restoration of this pearl in the desert has finally started.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova found a way to celebrate the moment in a fitting comparison with Ukraine:

“To fight with monuments and fallen Soviet fighters, the Ukrofascists are the best. It is useless to appeal to the conscience or historical memory of the current Kiev regime – there are none. After the goals of the special military operation are achieved, all destroyed monuments in Ukraine will be restored. In Russia, there are specialists in post-war restoration. An example of their selfless work and professionalism is the restoration of Palmyra in Syria.”

Russian specialists unearthed and reset the ancient source of Efka, which used to irrigate the gardens of Palmyra since the Bronze Age.

They also managed to find the Roman aqueduct that once fed Palmyra with potable water, 12 km away from the city. The Romans had dug a tunnel of nearly human size, then covered it in stone, and the ensemble was buried. It was found nearly intact.

In the 20th century, when the French built the Meridien Hotel in Palmyra, they blocked the aqueduct, so there was no water flowing by. Russian archeologists quickly set to work, and the aqueduct was cleaned. The problem is the French ruined this source of potable water: The aqueduct is totally dried up.

Plans for Palmyra include the restoration of the legendary theater before the end of 2023. The restoration of the arch, blown up with dynamite by ISIS, will take two years. The 1st century AD temple of Bel and other historical infrastructure will be restored. Archeologists are already looking for financial sources.

Somebody should place a call to the NDB in Shanghai.

Of course, the restoration of Syria as a whole is an enormous challenge. It could start by making it easy for Syrian companies and abolishing domestic taxes.

Russia and China can help by setting up a structure to buy Syrian products, with uniform quality control, and sell them in their markets, alleviating the bureaucratic burden on the shoulders of the average Syrian worker and trader. Russians could also exchange Syrian products for wheat and agricultural machinery.

Solutions are possible. Restoration is at hand. Global Majority solidarity, in Syria, should be able to soundly defeat the Empire of Chaos, Plunder and Lies.

The views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of The Cradle.

Pepe Escobar is an independent geopolitical analyst and author. His latest book is Raging Twenties. He’s been politically canceled from Facebook and Twitter. Follow him on Telegram.

Copyright © The Cradle

https://www.lewrockwell.com/2023/08/no_author/syria-a-tale-of-plunder-and-resurrection/

 

Niger Tests Clown World - Vox Popoli

 One of the inevitable consequences of the sanctions war on Russia was the realization by third parties that economic globalization is a trap that provides more external control than internal opportunity. This is why the Sino-Russian turn to Africa, Asia, and South America is significant, as it threatens to exclude the self-styled “global majority” from the greater part of the world’s population. That’s why the USA put so much pressure on African leaders to not attend the second St. Petersburg summit.

Last week’s Russia-Africa summit in St. Petersburg was a landmark event in Moscow’s foreign policy concept and practice. Not so much because it brought scores of African leaders and senior officials to the country. The first summit, four years ago in Sochi, featured even more African heads of state. Also, it is not solely because its agenda expanded beyond economics and included a humanitarian dimension: this is important, but this isn’t all.

Essentially, the meeting, with the bureaucratic preparation and the wide public coverage it has received within Russia, testifies to a sea change in Moscow’s worldview and international positioning toward the world’s rising non-Western majority, as laid down in the recently adopted Foreign Policy Concept.

St. Petersburg was founded by Peter the Great in the early 18th century as a ‘window to Europe,’ and last week, it served the same purpose for Africa.

Eurocentrism, of course, is still deeply embedded in the Russian elite’s thinking and aspirations. Nevertheless, the failure of Russia’s long travails of Western integration in the wake of the demise of the Soviet Union has now exploded into the proxy war against the United States and NATO in Ukraine. This has produced a historic shift in Moscow’s policies, comparable to the time of Peter the Great in its significance, though in a wholly different direction. For the foreseeable future, the universe of Russia’s foreign policy will remain divided in two large parts: the house of foes including Europe, North America, and the rest of the Anglosphere, and the house of friends elsewhere. The dividing line between the two is a country’s position in relation to the sanctions regime against Russia.

Africa, in this regard, is largely on the right side of that divide. 49 nations out of the continent’s 54 were represented in St. Petersburg. True, only 17 of them participated at the top level. No longer a curious and skeptical observer, as during the Sochi summit four years ago, the West this time made a determined effort, advising, cajoling or threatening African leaders against going to Russia and dealing directly with President Putin.

Russia has proven that it is possible for a nation to stand up to the US military, which from Afghanistan to Iraq and Libya, had hitherto crushed every rebellion against the Clown World order. Which, one suspects, is why Niger, Mali, and Burkina Faso have banded together to protect the new Nigerois regime from Clown World’s regional proxies.

In a move considered a tactical way to protect the recent regime change in Niger, Mali’s military Junta said Monday that they stand to support the coup leaders in Niamey. Mali said that they stand together with Burkina Faso to defend Niger and further warned that any foreign military intervention in Niamey will be considered a declaration of war on both nations with Niger.

“I warn that any military intervention against Niger will be considered as a declaration of war against Burkina Faso and Mali,” announce Col. Abdoulaye Maiga, State Minister for Territorial Administration and Decentralisation, Mali junta.

The announcement was in response to the outcome of a summit by regional bloc ECOWAS that gave a 7-day deadline to Niger’s coup leaders to free detained president Mohamed Barzoum and restore civilian rule or face consequences, with military force an option being considered.

The irony of the appeals to democracy by the USA and the UK, both of which are led by equally unelected heads of state, is unlikely to escape the Russians, the Chinese, and everyone else observing the matter. If the new Nigerois government finds enough support to maintain power, this will be the second significant step toward the complete collapse of the Clown World order.

And since Wagner doesn’t appear to be occupied at the moment, I expect they’ll be willing to accept gold and uranium in lieu of cash.

DISCUSS ON SG

https://voxday.net/2023/08/01/niger-tests-clown-world/ 

Dmitry Trenin: Russia is making its biggest geopolitical shift for 300 years. Here’s how it’s playing out. — RT Africa

The choice of St. Petersburg to host last weeks Russia-Africa summit was no accident. It was a symbolic move.

Dmitry Trenin is a research professor at the Higher School of Economics and a lead research fellow at the Institute of World Economy and International Relations. He is also a member of the Russian International Affairs Council.    

Russian President Vladimir Putin is seen on a phone screen as he attends a joint statement with President of Comoros Azali Assoumani of the 2nd Russia-Africa Summit at the ExpoForum Congress and Exhibition Center in St. Petersburg, Russia. ©  Sputnik/Pavel Bednyakov

Last week’s Russia-Africa summit in St. Petersburg was a landmark event in Moscow’s foreign policy concept and practice. Not so much because it brought scores of African leaders and senior officials to the country. The first summit, four years ago in Sochi, featured even more African heads of state. Also, it is not solely because its agenda expanded beyond economics and included a humanitarian dimension: this is important, but this isn’t all.

Essentially, the meeting, with the bureaucratic preparation and the wide public coverage it has received within Russia, testifies to a sea change in Moscow’s worldview and international positioning toward the world’s rising non-Western majority, as laid down in the recently adopted Foreign Policy Concept.

St. Petersburg was founded by Peter the Great in the early 18th century as a 'window to Europe,' and last week, it served the same purpose for Africa.

Eurocentrism, of course, is still deeply embedded in the Russian elite’s thinking and aspirations. Nevertheless, the failure of Russia’s long travails of Western integration in the wake of the demise of the Soviet Union has now exploded into the proxy war against the United States and NATO in Ukraine. This has produced a historic shift in Moscow’s policies, comparable to the time of Peter the Great in its significance, though in a wholly different direction. For the foreseeable future, the universe of Russia’s foreign policy will remain divided in two large parts: the house of foes including Europe, North America, and the rest of the Anglosphere, and the house of friends elsewhere. The dividing line between the two is a country's position in relation to the sanctions regime against Russia.

Africa, in this regard, is largely on the right side of that divide. 49 nations out of the continent’s 54 were represented in St. Petersburg. True, only 17 of them participated at the top level. No longer a curious and skeptical observer, as during the Sochi summit four years ago, the West this time made a determined effort, advising, cajoling or threatening African leaders against going to Russia and dealing directly with President Putin. As a matter of fact, Western pressure scored some points (the number of top leaders in St. Petersburg was about half of what it was in Sochi), but failed to undercut the event. What was lost in the status of representation was compensated in intensity of interaction. The amount of time Vladimir Putin personally invested in the event – that actually lasted three days rather than two – was impressive and noteable. 

Read more

 Ivan Timofeev: Here’s what Russia can offer Africa

The need to counter Western accusations of Russia’s responsibility for the spike in food prices following Moscow’s withdrawal from the Black Sea grain deal (while conveniently ignoring the fact that promises to Moscow to end the Western blockage of Russia’s agricultural exports were never kept) made the Kremlin go beyond the usual verbal rebuttal. At the summit, Putin not only promised to deliver grain free of charge to five of Africa’s poorest nations, but announced plans to expand commercial shipping and to build logistics by sea and air linking Russia to Africa, create a hub in Africa for Russian trade, and expand Russia’s share of African food imports. As for dealing with Western propaganda, Moscow envisages a major expansion of the Russian media presence on the continent. The idea is that Russians and Africans need to have the means of learning about each other directly, rather than through non-neutral intermediaries in London, Paris, or New York.  

Russia certainly has its work cut out for it. Having abandoned the Soviet Union’s rich legacy in Africa in the early 1990s, Moscow faces strong competition there. Compared to China’s Africa trade ($280 billion), or America’s ($60 billion), Russia’s is a puny $18 billion. However, Moscow can do much better. The summit in St. Petersburg focussed on a number of areas, from food security to healthcare and pharma to nuclear energy and security assistance. Of particular importance is education and IT. Since the early 1960s, Moscow’s Lumumba University has been a flagship for training African professionals in Russia. After the break-up of the Soviet Union, the school lost much of its luster. But this is now changing and the number of stipends for Africans to study in Russia is being tripled, and many Russian universities are encouraged to seek cooperation partners in Africa.

Recently, Russia has made enormous progress in terms of making the Internet available across its vast territory and turning Moscow into one of the of the world’s most advanced metropolitan areas in terms of public Wi-Fi access. This experience is certainly something to share.

Read more

 Pavel Kalmychek: Why Russia and Africa is a natural partnership

Russia’s revived interest in Africa is strategic rather than tactical. It goes way beyond the important but mundane issues of economic, security and technological cooperation. It also reaches beyond the war in Ukraine – which inevitably also came under discussion in St. Petersburg, - allowing Putin to explain his rationale for acting the way he has and lay out his views on the modalities of peace. In more strategic terms, Russian policymakers increasingly see Africa – along with Asia and Latin America – as part of the rising wave that will help replace the current Western-dominated world order with a more diversified construct built around a number of civilizations.

Some Russians claim that they have a continent of friends in Africa. This is largely true as far as popular sentiments are concerned. Indeed, Russia – in contrast to Western countries – is unblemished by colonial and neo-colonial exploitation of the continent. In the 20th century, it actually provided military assistance to a number of national liberation movements, and economically supported many of Africa’s newly-independent states through infrastructure projects. It trained thousands of doctors, engineers, and teachers, yet the political reality is more complex than that. The US and the former colonial powers France, Britain and others – not to forget Germany – see the continent as essentially their market and resource base, and will seek to protect their economic dominance and political influence. They will make Russia’s progress in Africa as difficult as possible. 

Faced with that opposition, Moscow should avoid falling for the temptation of competing with outside powers for spheres of influence. It needs to be guided by its national interest, which lies in expanding all-around cooperation with African partners, as well as by its aspiration to a new, more equitable, non-Western-dominated world order. The second Russia-Africa summit, for all the complexities and complications it has encountered on the road to St. Petersburg, was a success. However, what is more important is the paradigm shift in Russian thinking and actions towards Africa, which is turning formerly “exotic” states into normal and valuable partners.

 https://www.rt.com/africa/580584-russias-biggest-geopolitical-shift/

Is the US the Next USSR? John Michael Chambers Drops Intel - By Alexandra Bruce

 

I had a whole news show planned for Friday night but then, American Media Periscope founder, John Michael Chambers showed up and we had a conversation, instead.

I begin by talking about Dr Joseph Mercola, who was de-banked by Rockefeller-owned Chase Bank. Chase not only shut down Dr Mercola’s bank account but they also shut down the accounts of his employees AND their family members! The Rockefellers apparently want to transform the United States into North Korea.

Mercola had already been de-banked by another institution a few years ago and he was threatened to such a degree; that he would be sued and that his web domain that he’s operated since 1997 would be seized, that he was forced to remove 26 years of content from his website. He no longer leaves posts up there for longer than 48 hours, having now moved his blog to Substack. That he’s been de-banked again – in addition to his employees and their family members – is a signal to him that the Satanic Deep State is getting ready to launch a new attack that makes COVID look like a walk in the park.

John Michael Chambers is no stranger to de-banking and de-platforming; he was de-platformed by all of the social media companies and he was de-banked by PayPal, so I wanted to get his 40,000 foot view of this second de-banking of Dr Mercola.

We’ve also all been hearing lots of rumors about the imminent collapse of the US dollar and/or the imminent collapse of the entire Western banking system and how everybody in the so-called “Free World” will soon be effectively de-banked.

The Federal Reserve System has announced that their FedNow service has gone live. Greg Reese made a report about how the FedNow will be the transaction processing system for the Federal Reserve’s programmable Central Bank Digital Currency.

Since John is a financial guy, I wanted to get his views on these rumors and developments and where he thinks things are headed financially, politically, geopolitically, etc over the next 24 months.

John talks about how the Federal Government of the US is about to collapse, just as the Soviet Union did but that this doesn’t
mean that the US dollar ends – same way that the Russian Ruble didn’t end. Like the Ruble, the USD will get severely pummeled for a while but it will survive.

Reprinted with the author’s permission.

Copyright © Forbidden Knowledge TV

https://www.lewrockwell.com/2023/07/no_author/is-the-us-next-ussr/

The Final Phase - Vox Popoli

 Col Douglas Macgregor believes the Ukrainian Army is breaking down and that the war, at least in its current form, is in its final phase.

I think the Ukrainians have lost probably somewhere between 300,000 and 350,000 dead on the battlefield. How many wounded is anybody’s guess, at this stage all we know is that the hospitals are full, there’s no room left. The Ukrainian Army is having great difficulty evacuating wounded in many cases.

I think the Ukrainian Army itself is breaking down. Many units have simply melted away. Some have gone over to the Russians, not because they wanted to join the Russians, but they said, look, you know, we’ve got very little ammunition left, we’ve got lots of wounded. We’ve contacted our superiors, they say
they can’t evacuate us so we’re going to surrender. Yeah, I think we’ve almost reached the end game,
we’re certainly in the final phase of this war.

Assuming that Macgregor is reasonably correct, the question is whether the neoclowns double down and send in the Polish Army as well as whatever US forces it can muster, or whether they’ll take the best deal they can get from Putin before pivoting to take on China. The latter is looking more and more likely; the bat signal has observably gone out and the media has already begun the unwieldy process of making a 180-degree narrative shift:

When Edward Luttwak speaks, world leaders listen — and now they must consider heeding his advice on Ukraine. Luttwak has been advising world leaders, including U.S. presidents, since the 1980s…

Luttwak believes that despite all the talk in Washington and in other Western capitals about “unwavering support” for Ukraine, Western leaders, including President Joe Biden, seek a negotiated settlement with Russia. The much-anticipated Ukrainian offensive has stalled. Russia’s government survived a scare by the Wagner Group, and its troops are fighting better now than in the first year of the war. Historically, “when Russia goes to war they always mess up” at first, Luttwak says, but “as the war goes on Russians fight better,” and that is what is happening now. Top U.S. officials, like CIA Director William J. Burns, recognize this fact and have advised Biden accordingly, which is why Biden poured cold water on the Ukraine-in-NATO suggestion. Putin, Luttwak noted, has also publicly pulled back from the “nuclear threat” in a signal to Ukraine and the U.S. that a negotiated solution is possible.

Luttwak also contends that Ukraine’s leaders also know that a negotiated peace is the most realistic scenario for ending the war. U.S. leaders, according to Luttwak, want a Russia–Ukraine settlement precisely because of the more significant geopolitical threat of China in the western Pacific. This is in line with what former Pentagon official Elbridge Colby has suggested.

Edward Luttwak: The U.S. Must End the Russia–Ukraine War, THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR, 28 July 2023

More about this anon. I’ve been reading a collection of pre-2001 essays edited by Robert Kagan, and ironically enough, it appears that thanks in large part to his wife, the neoclowns have inadvertently managed to bring about the very thing they most feared, a strong geostrategic alliance between Russia and China.

DISCUSS ON SG

https://voxday.net/2023/07/30/the-final-phase/

The Atomic Bomb was Never Necessary - Vox Popoli

 Although apologists for the atomic bombing of Japan have long claimed that it “saved American lives”, their arguments have always been false and historically ignorant. But while the relevant information belying the justification for the bombings has long been available to historians and military history enthusiasts, it’s now becoming too widely known around the world to ignore.

I suspect the Oppenheimer movie marks the last hurrah of the historical A-bomb mythology.

The whole moral driving force of the project was a fantasy.

In the summer of 1945, British intelligence assembled a group of captured German scientists at a picturesque old house in Godmanchester, near Huntingdon. The house was bugged from basement to attic. The Germans were astonished at news of the bomb and plainly had never got within miles of making one. This has been public knowledge since 1992.

Even more devastating is modern historical research about Japan.

It is clear that Japan’s surrender was not forced by the bombing of Hiroshima or Nagasaki. Japan’s fanatical leadership cared little about civilian deaths (they had not blinked when a firebomb raid in March 1945 killed 100,000 in Tokyo itself). By the time the bomb was ready, there were few Japanese cities of any size left standing.

The scholar Tsuyoshi Hasegawa concluded from Japanese and Soviet records that Japan’s surrender was mainly caused by Stalin’s decision to enter the war. The military leadership feared he would invade Japan from the north and seize large parts of the country.

It has long suited Japan and the US to pretend that the two A-bombs ended the war. Japan can pose as a victim nation. The US, which is embarrassed about being the only country to use the bomb in war, can soothe consciences by saying the action saved tens of thousands of Allied troops from death. But the worrying truth is known to academics and diplomats. So the second great justification for the use of the bomb in 1945 melts away.

What Peter Hitchens happens to omit here is that Japan had been trying to surrender for eight months prior to the bombings, and had offered terms to Gen. Douglas MacArthur that were virtually identical to the terms ultimately accepted after the bombings. Also, it’s clear that Stalin and the Soviet military leadership knew all about the atomic bomb long before the first one was dropped, as evidenced by General Giorgy Zhukov’s memoirs.

After the end of one of the Conference meetings, Truman informed Stalin that the United States now possessed a bomb of exceptional power, without, however, naming it the atomic bomb.

As was later reported abroad, at that moment Churchill pinned his eyes on Stalin’s face, eager to observe his reaction. However, Stalin did not betray his feelings and pretended he saw nothing special in what Truman had said. Both Churchill and many other British and American commentators subsequently surmized that Stalin had probably failed to fathom the significance of the information received.

In actual fact, on returning to his quarters after this meeting Stalin in my presence told Molotov about his conversation with Truman. Molotov reacted immediately: “They are trying to bid up.”

Stalin laughed: “Let them. I’ll have to talk it over with Kurchatov today and get him to speed things up.”

I understood they were talking about the development of the atomic bomb.

It was clear already then that the US Government was going to use the atomic bomb for reaching its imperialist goals from a position of strength. This was corroborated on August 6 and 9. Without any military need whatsoever, the Americans dropped two atomic bombs on the peaceful and densely-populated Japanese cities of Nagasaki and Hiroshima.

– Marshal of Victory: The Autobiography of General Giorgy Zhukov, 1966

DISCUSS ON SG

https://voxday.net/2023/07/30/the-atomic-bomb-was-never-necessary/

Japan's Surrender - The Trohan Article - Vox Popoli

 Since some Americans still in denial over the USA’s historical war crimes are “skeptical” about the verifiable and undeniable facts of history, the article written by Walter Trohan in February 1945, and published on the front page of the Chicago Tribune on August 19, 1945, is provided here in its entirety.

Chicago Tribune, August 19,1945

JAPS ASKED PEACE IN JAN. ENVOYS ON WAY — TOKYO
Roosevelt Ignored M’Arthur Report On Nip Proposals

Release of all censorship restrictions in the United States makes it possible to report that the first Japanese peace bid was relayed to the White House seven months ago. Two days before the late President Roosevelt left the last week in January for the Yalta conference with Prime Minister Churchill and Marshal Stalin he received a Japanese offer identical with the terms subsequently concluded by his successor, Harry S. Truman.

MacArthur Relayed Message to F.D.

The Jap offer, based on five separate overtures, was relayed to the White House by Gen. MacArthur in a 40-page communication. The American commander, who had just returned triumphantly to Bataan, urged negotiations on the basis of the Jap overtures.

The offer, as relayed by MacArthur, contemplated abject surrender of everything but the person of the Emperor. The suggestion was advanced from the Japanese quarters making the offer that the Emperor become a puppet in the hands of American forces.

Two of the five Jap overtures were made through American channels and three through British channels. All came from responsible Japanese, acting for Emperor Hirohito.

General’s Communication Dismissed

President Roosevelt dismissed the general’s communication, which was studded with solemn references to the deity, after a casual reading with the remark, “MacArthur is our greatest general and our poorest politician.”

The MacArthur report was not even taken to Yalta. However, it was carefully preserved in the files of the high command and subsequently became the basis of the Truman-Attlee Potsdam declaration calling for surrender of Japan.

This Jap peace bid was known to the Chicago Tribune and the Washington Times-Herald shortly after the MacArthur communication reached here. It was not published under the paper’s established policy of complete co-operation with the voluntary censorship code.

Must Explain Delay

Now that peace has been concluded on the basis of the terms MacArthur reported, high administration officials prepared to meet expected congressional demands for explanation of the delay. It was considered certain that from various quarters of Congress charges would be hurled that the delay cost thousands of American lives and casualties, particularly in such costly offensives as Iwo Jima and Okinawa.

It was explained in high official circles that the bid relayed by MacArthur did not constitute an official offer in the same sense as the final offer which was presented through Japanese diplomatic channels at Bern and Stockholm last week for relay to the four major Allied powers.

No negotiations were begun on the basis of the bid, it was said, because it was feared that if any were undertaken the Jap war lords, who were presumed to be ignorant of the feelers, would visit swift punishment on those making the offer. It was held possible that the war lords might even assassinate the Emperor and announce the son of heaven had fled the earth in a fury of indignation over the peace bid.

Defeat Seen Inevitable

Officials said it was felt by Mr. Roosevelt that the Japs were not ripe for peace, except for a small group, who were powerless to cope with the war lords, and that peace could not come until the Japs had suffered more.

The Jap overtures were made on acknowledgment that defeat was inevitable and Japan had to choose the best way out of an unhappy dilemma — domination of Asia by Russia or by the United States. The unofficial Jap peace brokers said the latter would be preferable by far.

Jap proposals to Gen. MacArthur contemplated:

• Full surrender of all Jap forces on sea, in the air, at home, on island possessions and in occupied countries.
• Surrender of all arms and munitions.
• Occupation of the Jap homeland and island possessions by Allied troops under American direction.
• Jap relinquishment from Manchuria, Korea and Formosa as well as all territory seized during the war.
• Regulation of Jap industry to halt present and future production of implements of war.
• Turning over of any Japanese the United States might designate as war criminals.
• Immediate release of all prisoners of war and internees in Japan proper and areas under Japanese control.

After the fall of Germany, the policy of unconditional surrender drew critical fire. In the Senate Senator White (R.) of Maine Capehart (R.) of Indiana took the lead in demanding that precise terms be given Japan and in asking whether peace feelers had not been received from the Nipponese.

Terms Drafted in July

In July the Tribune reported that a set of terms were being drafted for President Truman to take to Potsdam. Capehart hailed the reported terms on the floor of the Senate as a great contribution to universal peace.

These terms, which were embodied in the Potsdam declaration, did not mention the disposition of the Emperor. Otherwise they were almost identical with the proposals contained in the MacArthur memorandum.

Just before the Japanese surrender the Russian foreign commissar disclosed that the Japs had made peace overtures through Moscow asking that the Soviets mediate the war. These overtures were made in the middle of June through the Russian foreign office and also through a personal letter from Hirohito to Stalin. Both overtures were reported to the United States and Britain.

DISCUSS ON SG

https://voxday.net/2023/07/30/japans-surrender-the-trohan-article/