by Peter Koenig for The Saker blog
Imagine just for a moment, the World would stand up in unison, sick and tired of the aggressive killer arrogance of the United States and her vassals – and their joint war-force called NATO – and this World, our World, what’s left of it when you deduct Washington and its Brussels allies, would at once block every shipment of everything destined for the ports of the United States of America; every sea port, airport and road port. Hermetically. Nothing would enter. Nothing, no food, no medicine, no electronics, no cars – no nothing. And nothing could leave. No exports, no petrol, no grains, no meat, no pharmaceuticals and foremost, no weapons. Nothing.
And now, take your mind a step further – and imagine the same – exactly the same, a total and full blockage of Israel – nothing would enter, no food, no fuel, no medication, no machinery and especially no weapons – and nothing would leave; a full and total blockage.
This would of course be totally illegal; illegal and unacceptable, by any international law, by the standards of the UN Charter, by the Human Rights Laws and Directives – by any ethical values of human morals. Wouldn’t it? – Yet, this is exactly what these countries are doing, have been doing for decades, sanctioning to strangle and murder entire populations into death or submission. The US with Cuba; Israel with Palestine. And the coercion and strangulation go on, unabated.
The longest embargo – illegal, inhuman and outright criminal – Washington imposed on Cuba – 60 years. Because Cuba has chosen socialism as her form of state and government. Cuba survived and will never give in to the tyrant of the north.
Now the US is expanding her palette of killing by impunity to dominate and subjugate nation after nation which they do not consider bending sufficiently to the dictate of their masters. Venezuela has been targeted for two decades, ever since former President Hugo Chavez was democratically elected in 1998; and Iran, ever since the US-imposed Shah was deposed in 1979 – exactly 40 years ago – by Iran’s Islamic Revolution. Both Venezuela and Iran are rich in natural resources, especially hydrocarbons but also in gold, rare earths and other precious metals and stones.
Contrary to what one would like to imagine, international world bodies, like the United Nations and her sister and associated organizations remain just about silent. When a high-level official utters some benign criticism of the US or Israel – it flairs up for a moment in the ‘news’, then it disappears again, as if it never happened. And indeed, nothing happens. They – the US and Israel – go on with their crimes in impunity.
The latest is an open declaration of economic warfare by Washington, a total embargo on Venezuela; the embargo is now being turned into a naval blockade. Similar steps are to be taken for Iran. That literally means that no merchandise – no matter how vital for survival, like food and medication, is allowed into Venezuela. Three days ago, the US seized, totally illegally, a cargo ship attempting to deliver food and medication to Venezuela – in the Panama Canal, territory which the US does not own or control anymore.
The ship was carrying soy cakes, from which Venezuela was to produce food. Never mind, that the cargoes are fully paid for by Venezuela. And this seems to be just the beginning. Vessels leaving Venezuela with petrol deliveries to client countries are also targeted for blockage, thus confiscating, or rather stealing, Venezuela’s main source of income on which she intends to survive and feed and provide health care for her people. This, in addition to the more than 130 billion dollars total Venezuelan assets confiscated – stolen – by the US worldwide .
And nobody says beep. Almost. Yes, there are some collective protests by countries in solidarity – like key members of the Sao Paulo Forum, as well as more than 60 members of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM – total 120 members) that have become especially active in recent years in defense of Venezuela within the United Nations. Protests and protest declarations also take place by ALBA members, a Latin American trade alliance (ALBA – Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America, 11 members [Venezuela, Cuba, Bolivia, Nicaragua, Dominica, Ecuador, Antigua and Barbuda, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Saint Lucia, Grenada and the Federation of Saint Kitts and Nevis]).
But most interesting are the hypocrites, those who write and scream that Venezuelans are starving to death, that the Maduro government neglects its people – yet these accusers-in-falsehood – let the US and her vassals strangle Venezuela and steal her foreign assets, including foreign reserves and gold, food and medical imports – they are saying zilch, nada, nothing. Just watching.
To top it all off, the Human Rights Commissioner, Madame Michelle Bachelet, Hypocrite-in-chief, who recently visited Venezuela, at the invitation of President Nicolas Maduro, on a Human Rights mission, and who delivered a devastating report about Venezuela’s HR, full of lies, half-truths and outright omissions, not mentioning with one word the US inspired coup attempts, the US-funded opposition and its bloody atrocities on the Chavista population, and the strangulating and starving by the US and US-dictated European sanctions – Madame Bachelet now came forward condemning the naval blockade. Great. But she did not stand up against the deadly embargo by the US and the European Union. – What credibility remains for the Human Rights Commission? – The world can see it – it’s all bought, coerced into submission, like so many other UN agencies by the Murderers Inc.
If we are not careful, they are soon going to rule the globe. Thanks god, for Russia and China – which are also subjects of US-EU sanctioning and targeted for take-over. But they are a tiny little bit too big and too strong for this sort of games by the decaying US empire and her obedient rats on the sinking ship.
Similarly, the European Union – despots as they have been for hundreds of years as colonialists in Africa, Asia and Latin America – and continue in a modern colonial role through economic control of much of Africa – this very EU, has been sanctioning Venezuela for years on the orders of Washington, naturally, who else? – Now they condemn the naval blockade, but continue their routine sanctions regime.
According to a study carried out by the Washington DC based Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR), under guidance of Mark Weisbrot, CEPR co-director and Jeffrey Sachs, economics professor, Director, Center for Sustainable Development, Columbia University, New York, US and EU sanctions have cost some 40,000 Venezuelan lives. This mainly since August 2017, when Washington escalated its unilateral coercive measures against Venezuela and her state oil company, PDVSA, cutting them off international financial markets.
Yes, the world would have plenty of reasons to stand up and dish out similar naval and air blockades against the US and Israel. Just as a teaser to begin with, and if that doesn’t send a strong enough wake-up message, perhaps such embargoes should be considered on a longer-term indefinite scale. It’s illegal. But we are living in a world where international laws don’t count – where laws are made, as we go, by the self-declared hegemon, the US of A, and her symbiotic Middle East ally, Israel. – So, why not nudging the legal, moral and ethical order back into balance?
Peter Koenig is an economist and geopolitical analyst. He is also a water resources and environmental specialist. He worked for over 30 years with the World Bank and the World Health Organization around the world in the fields of environment and water. He lectures at universities in the US, Europe and South America. He writes regularly for Global Research; ICH; RT; Sputnik; PressTV; The 21st Century; TeleSUR; The Saker Blog, the New Eastern Outlook (NEO); and other internet sites. He is the author of Implosion – An Economic Thriller about War, Environmental Destruction and Corporate Greed – fiction based on facts and on 30 years of World Bank experience around the globe. He is also a co-author of The World Order and Revolution! – Essays from the Resistance. Peter Koenig is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization.
Might makes right in a materialist, godless world. Survival of the fittest. Right?
Talk of good, bad, right, wrong, virtue and vice by those with a materialist world view is appropriation of what does not belong to them. The nations reflecting Western Civilization now, at least the members of their elites and large swathes of their populations, have no basis for complaint. Might does make right in such a world. But it is sickening to hear all the hypocritical moral posturing and preaching that comes out of their mouths to wrap the nakedness of their actions in borrowed moral dress.
We should start by systematically calling embargoes and sanctions S I E G E S.
That more accurately describes what is going on.
In ancient times, slaves were often given the “choice” between death and servitude! The companion word for Siege tactics should be ENSLAVEMENT. What is being said to the civilian population is “Submit or die”, where submission entails overthrowing their current government.
Words such as compliance, humanitarian, sanctions, etcetc., all serve to cloud the issues, like military use of terms like “neutralize” the enemy. We should steadfastly refuse to buy into such verbal framing traps.
An additional note: an embargo on the US is not comparable to most other nations, owing to the size and diversity of the American economy and resource base. Israel on the other hand …
China and Russia. The hatred of China, surely based on the prime ‘Western Moral Value’, race hatred and civilizational arrogance, is now fulminating in a manner unprecedented in my experience. It is becoming a truly genocidal frenzy.
I see no fulminating anyone_anywhere, mulga, except yourself.
A blockade is an act of war.
The actions of the United States to “blockade” other countries are acts of “aggressive war” and constitute war crimes under the standards set forth by the Allies at Nuremberg.
So, anonymous, how is that for “fulminating.”
Blockade, except where the U.S. Gvt (blockheads) are concerned, all is fair in love and war.
When did Congress declare war and upon whom?
Congress is a dysfunctional institution created by idiots, run by idiots, for idiots.
There are none so blind, Anonytrot, than those who will not see.
are they trying to make Russia feel her ‘responsibility as a white natio’ and detach herself from China and the Asians?
Ab-so-lutely! Who better as a New Yeltsin than a racist like Navalny?
Bachelet is Khazarian. She’s there as controlled opposition. She is part of the 13 Khazarian/Masonic families that rule a fictional division that they insist to call: “Chile”. And they are totally subservient to the Khazarian Rockenfelders, even with the governor Piraña being a partner of David Rockenfelder (before he went to hell).
Thank you Peter for your summation of the most debauched, wicked Empire in history. The Roman Empire had nothing on this lot. There is no such thing as international law anymore. There is only the ‘international rules based order’ – the rules made up by the international Mafioso parasites who target any country that dosn’t open itself up for plunder.
Most organisations have now been co opted and made powerless against the continuous crimes of the Anglo Zionist Empire. Where is the UN indeed? Isn’t it meant to uphold ‘international law’? Why is it so ineffectual? Why do so many look the other way: see nothing, hear nothing, know nothing.
Where is the outcry around the World regards the constant threats against Iran, Venezuela, and indeed Cuba and Nicaragua also; against the beating of war drums? Why such shameful silence?
Who is next in the crosshairs? No doubt someone small and relatively weak. Perhaps Nicaragua?
When truth and morality are abandoned, the gates of hell are opened. The Empire of Destruction is stalking mankind. Restoring sanity is our only slim hope.
that above there is the simple reality of current human existence. the gates of destruction..hell as we are wont to refer to it..are truly wide open
Jeeez! Huxley and Orwell seem quaint and limited relative to whats going on and its potential. those two would have to write different extreme books in effort to capture the state, nature and truly catastrophic potential of this empire
what in the hell are they going to do with and to humanity?
I speak like that because the rest of us appear to be transfixed in the light of the evil..like animals in the glare of onrushing headlights. we cant move in the glare of the evil, stunned, being crushed under the weight of the endless onrushing all-wheel trailer
All round me, people I know, no one talks about any of this. In fact, if most read Peter Koenig’s article, they would probably think he was a crackpot conspiracy theorist.
Most I know read the ‘liberal’ Press, like The Guardian or The Age here in Australia, or watch ABC or SBS. Depressing as hell that they swallow the propaganda spewed out by the presstitutes, even ‘liberal’ presstitutes. Huxley and Orwell got it right, tho I think even they would be surprised at how far things have gone.
And even sadder, a lot of people just don’t want to know. Just bury their heads in the sand and go shopping, buy a new car, go on overseas holidays.
Saw a comment elsewhere about the psychopaths of humanity that allows this evil to continue, and basically not care about what is happening in the World. As long as they have their creature comforts.
Many eventually get to the point, or realize that, there is nothing they can do, and even if they could, its on such a small scale as to be miniscule to the over all bad picture. And they are extremely correct in their views, the system is corrupt beyond the bone, so many today are just happy to be getting by, and the ones who are not getting by, and never see themselves as able to get by, either give up and bum out on the street, or secretly save up enough resources to get revenge on the system that promised one thing as a child, and delivered another as an adult. Life is nothing but an unwinnable eugenics experiment, all the political parading around, has been, and will continue to be, an illusion to keep the masses occupied and subdued.
Even I, the only one defending a woman God, can see this clear as the day is bright, so those who dont defend, or are unable to defend, or are unwilling to defend, or admit this truth, actually become someone else’s problem rather than anyone’s overall solution. Be happy to have the so called creature comforts, convenience becomes an unsustainable expense, but only after a great many sleepy years.
Appreciate your reply Alabama, thanks. As someone whose been involved in Central American and East Timor solidarity groups, taken part in various protests including anti war, anti austerity, and pro Wikileaks pro Assange rallies, been involved in two Trotskyist groups years and years ago, and…. the system is still in place. Many others have taken part in a variety of protests all over the planet, and its hardly made a dent on the overall picture, so you’re right, however it’s difficult to accept when one has a conscience.
We all know, Gezzah, that omnicidal neoliberal capitalism can never and will never be ‘reformed’ to make it ‘sustainable’ in any way. Capitalism exists to destroy EVERYTHING in its neoplastic drive to create ‘wealth’ by the destruction of Life on Earth. ‘Creative destruction’ as Schumpeter called it. We create money for the rich elite by destroying everything else. By the time the serfs wake up to who and what it is killing them and all the natural world, it will be far too late-in fact it already is.
restoration of human sanity?
the only sane period of human existence I can imagine based on the history I know, that I read from others, historians having done no original research myself..is the ancient period in African when we saw nature as the source of all there is, gleaned our ethics and morality from living the way we discovered we could in nature and concluded as we could on what we knew
nature as god is sane, right and sensible. how else can we actually succeed at living. it appears so simple. yet we made fake gods in beds of false doctrine and insinuated then between nature and humanity and here we are…totally insane as a result, in belief of the nonsense we created that was for the people to believe in, to salve their pain in the process of their complete exploitation.
now we all believe, especially the greatest fakes of them all, the Khazars in energetic search for Armageddon
Putting an embargo on Cuba for all these decades didn’t happen because they now have a socialist government. This wicked empire has shown itself quite happy to set up and control any sort of real tyrannical government, as long as it submits to the empire. And for Cuba, that is the rub. The criminal elite can’t use the island for their morally depraved activities. They have every intention of placing an iron grip on every country, one way or another. They keep trying to meddle in the strong countries, Russia and China, covertly, to cause social chaos. That is not going to work in those countries. They will only be left with war. That won’t end well for most.
I’ve been warning the die-hard Trump supporters that their hero is amoral and they simply go into attack mode. In the end, many of them, cheering the Trump criminal regime to the end will indeed prove to be deplorables.
First, the Derp State in Looneylandia must secure defeat of its own working class because there is too much of a glimmer of resistance still even though Trump has been brought to heel. It has now substituted the canard of Russiagate with the canard of White Nationalism. This is a very, very risky internal policy requiring much more finesse and subtlety than their leadership possesses because it risks losing the force that supports them—the folks that fight their wars to protect “democracy” i.e. the right to peacefully assemble etc. at home.
Watch what the left hand does domestically while the right hand wreaks havoc abroad—the two are connected. This is why the upcoming demonstration of working class combat vets in Portland which is being smeared as “white nationalism” is so important. .. A co leader of Proud Boys is Enrique Tarrio, very brown skinned working class guy , along with Joe Biggs reminds me of the guys in Donbass like Givi and Motorola, Mozgovoi .etc. . Relax, commentators —not the same but similar in tone. And sadly we know what happened in the millstone of history to these folks. sigh.
There is a great disaffection among the American population and lately, grief, as we watch our leadership totally betray the social contract between people/leaders. And I post this here to stay that the situation is more complex and nuanced than you might think. What is coming up in Portland is very important on the 17th of this month. If the derp state were coherent it would back off, control Antifa and still the howling of the Press and intelligencia against the bogus threat of “white racism” but it won’t and it can’t because it thinks it can run the
US eventually the same way it thinks it will run the world. And the techie traitors of Silicon valley aren’t even waiting in the wings in their haste to offer assistance.
I think Biggs and Tarrio are walking unarmed into a trap. Bad move, derp state, bad move to mess with them because then the American people will truly, truly know on a most visceral level that they are on their own. By the way when several newspapers etc come out with the same 11 talking points on the same day, that illustrates that someone very organized is orchestrating this assault on the people of the United States.
Venezuela/Portland are connected. Remember these folks are deviant ex Trotskyists and I do not throw that term around as a careless insult but as a narrative category ( a mind set if you will) that I know well. It goes like this: destroy the working class as an instrument of history and substitute drug gangs, covert operation squads etc. religious fanatics; instead of revolutionary terror, use death squad operations and best of all, demoralize a population into self censorship, into doubting itself and into feeling self hatred. Destroy responsibility and solidarity.
The Russian police in arresting the Navalny folks and making them pay their debts and do their obligatory military service and punish them for bringing their children to a potentially dangerous situation cuts across that downward demoralizing personal spiral that the forces of social disintegration use to their benefit.
Washington is just another puppet of the jewish banksters and israel. Whatever coalition is formed, its not about merika. Its about the rothschild’s dollar! With the dollar about to go under, we are now seeing panic in the koshernostra. Duffus donnie (the guy who was going to drain the swamp – LOL) is up to his eyeballs in all the insanity. Remember the Zionist motto – out of chaos comes order – as the Zionists take over.
This is why the nations of the world including the nations on the security council should be ashamed of themselves for letting Israel do what it is doing ! Not only that, they openly trade with it also and have “friendly” relations with it.
Peter koenig is an acute analist of world scene and does not use half words to describe his views.
However i figure he s a poor ‘chief of staff’ analyst of military and in consequence political options a great nation or a superpower can choose in a given situation.
That s to say, he tends to poor assesment of the actions that cannot be taken because the cost will be too high. For instance, the rp
present plight of the Iranian and persian gulf chessboard.
Everybody does need to stop pretending that these criminal behaviors are somehow ok. They are not. The magical ‘you can’t touch me nanananana’ bubble which encapsules the creatures in DC needs to finish evaporating. The sooner, the better.