Puerto Rico, Hawaii and the Unravelling of US Empire Puerto Ricans had an important victory in July with the resignation of Gov. Ricardo Rosselló after more than one million people protested to demand his removal.

Puerto Rico, Hawaii and the Unravelling of US Empire

Puerto Ricans had an important victory in July with the resignation of Gov. Ricardo Rosselló after more than one million people protested to demand his removal. This was a powerful display of people power, but changing the head of state does not confront the real issues for Puerto Rico: ending colonialism and ensuring self-determination.  Hawaii, which was an independent nation that became a state in 1959 after the U.S. stole it, is facing protests against a telescope on its tallest mountain, a sacred area. While the telescope is the focus of the protests, the real issues are much deeper and point to a growing demand for independence. This is not being reported in U.S. media or noted by U.S. political leaders. The demands for independence of Hawaii and Puerto Rico are part of the unraveling of U.S. Empire.   More

The Fight Over Mauna Kea Is About More Than a Telescope

The battle between astronomers and indigenous Hawaiians over Mauna Kea began decades ago. Even before the TMT was a full-fledged project, Hawaiians objected to the desecration of their sacred space, on which 13 observatories already operate…  Hawaiians want no new telescopes on Mauna Kea, and they have a moral right to make that claim. According to Pisciotta, it is about “our right to religious freedom.” There have been attempts to cast the opposition to the TMT as “anti-science,” or as a battle between religious irrationality and rational inquiry into our natural world. But activists in the movement rarely, if ever, express opposition to scientific research. The TMT represents the latest assault on the rights of indigenous Hawaiians, whose rights have been marginalized in favor of corporate, colonial and military interests for far too long.   More

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NEW WARS / OLD WARS – What Could Possibly Go Wrong

Conflict or Compromise: U.S. and Iran on a Knife’s Edge

The simmering confrontation between the United States and Iran is delicately poised on a knife’s edge between an emerging bargain and steadily mounting potential for direct armed conflict…  Since President Donald J. Trump withdrew the United States from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or nuclear agreement, the confrontation between the United States and Iran has gradually escalated. Washington has waged an aggressive campaign of “maximum pressure,” mainly in the form of sanctions and financial warfare, against Iran. Tehran, finding itself increasingly boxed in by an ever-constricting economic vice, has responded with a carefully calibrated program of “maximum resistance,” especially in the form of low-intensity and sometimes deniable attacks on commercial and military assets in the Gulf region. While it is widely assumed that the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has coordinated or conducted these attacks, it has been careful not to cross any redline that would necessitate a military response.   More

Economic Sanctions Will Kill Tens of Thousands of Innocent Iranians

The illegal economic sanctions that the Trump administration has imposed on Iran are ruining its economy by increasing the inflation rate—from nine percent before the sanctions to 35-40 percent today—as well as unemployment, and forcing countless numbers of small businesses to close. Whereas Iran’s economy grew by 12.5 percent in 2016, it has shrunk by six percent in the first six months of 2019… The worst aspect of the sanctions is their human toll, caused by severe shortage of critical medicines and medical equipment for millions of Iranians. Fear that common citizens will be unable to obtain the medicines they need is everywhere in Iran, and for good reason. Every year, there are 112,000 new cases of cancer in Iran, one of the fastest growth rates of cancer in the world. The most painful aspect is the situation faced bychildren with cancer whose chances of growing up have been dramatically reduced.  More

Sanctioning Iranian Foreign Minister Zarif Undermines U.S. Diplomatic Credibility

In the latest tit-for-tat in the battle between the United States and Iran, this week the Treasury Department, at the behest of the State Department, imposed sanctions on the Iranian foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif. This follows Donald Trump’s June 24 Executive Order 13768, which imposed sanctions on Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ali Husseini Khamenei. Sanctioning Khamenei is of no consequence, since he obviously is not planning a trip to the United States or any other form of intercourse with it. Not so with Zarif. In the first place, it is most unusual to place the chief negotiator for an unfriendly (or even enemy) nation on the “unwelcome” list…  If Trump does want to open negotiations with Iran, as he repeatedly says, this act weakens even further those within the Iranian political struggle who would like to see some way out of the current crisis with the West, as opposed to hardliners who seem indifferent to the risks that they are running.  More

Most Dem Presidential Candidates Are Attacking Trump’s Korea Policy—From the Right

Led by former vice president Joe Biden, the leading Democratic candidates for president in 2020 have focused on President Trump’s friendly (though presently shaky) relationship with North Korea’s Kim Jong-un as a prime example of a foreign policy that’s gone off the establishment tracks and left traditional US allies in the dust. With their next televised debate set for next week, Biden and most of his competitors hope to convince voters—especially those who voted Republican in 2016—that Trump’s personalized style of US power projection presents an existential danger not only to the United States but also to its friends around the world.   More