TPP: Good or Bad Deal? By Erick San Juan

TPP: Good or Bad Deal? By Erick San Juan

After nearly six years of negotiations, trade ministers recently announced they had reached agreement on the text of the Trans-Pacific Partnership. This does not mean the TPP is a done deal. The next hurdle for this perceive rigged corporate power grab is to convince the participating governments, including Congress, to ratify it.

Both chambers of Congress must ratify the TPP by a majority vote using a process called “fast track.” The Trade Justice Movement fought a multi-year campaign to prevent Congress from giving the president fast-track trade authority. "We delayed it for much longer than the corporate traders wanted, forcing the TPP into the election year. Since the TPP is believed to be a 'Toxic Political Poison,' an election year is not when they wanted to consider it. The corporate traders were required to compromise and to pass fast track. One key compromise was making the text of the agreement public for 60 days before Congress considers it. This is a tremendous opportunity to educate and mobilize people."

Just after the TPP negotiators reached an agreement, Ralph Nader was asked if the TPP could be stopped. He said, “It will be stopped on its demerits.” He further noted its wide impact, saying, “Its scope is everything,” and described it as a “global corporate coup … the most brazen corporate power grab in American history.” The TPP, he added, is “a major peril to our national authority” that is “ceding our sovereignty, ceding our self-reliance, ceding everything we can do within the boundaries of the United States.”

The TPP is a bad deal. Just like every other similar agreement, it is going to outsource jobs, lower wages globally, increase the wealth divide, increase the U.S. trade deficit, undermine democracy, weaken the federal court system, degrade the environment and undermine sovereignty at every level of government. The more people who learn about this deal, the worse it will look, and if we resist it, the likelihood of passage in Congress will shrink.

And, similar to the TPP, the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership is having troubles in Europe. Europeans see TTIP either not advancing or going in the wrong direction because of the heavy handedness of the U.S. The French negotiator said: “France is considering all options including an outright termination of negotiations.”

More than 3 million people across Europe signed a petition calling on the European Commission to scrap the agreement and hundreds of thousands marched in Berlin last Oct. 10 opposing the TTIP. People realize that rather than opening up new markets, since the U.S. and EU countries already trade a great deal, it will privatize public services for corporate profits. (By Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers, Global Research, October 24, 2015)

As the TPP getting closer to its ratification, opposition to the said agreement is also growing stronger. There are reports that the US Congress will delay the ratification until late 2016.

“In the US, opposition continues to mount, suggesting that the TPP faces a difficult time getting through Congress.

US Democratic front-runner, Hillary Clinton, came out against the TPP, arguing that it is too favourable to powerful pharmaceutical companies and believing that it didn’t “meet the high bar I have set”. While Clinton’s opposition could be viewed as mere politicking in the lead up to an election year, opposition is mounting across the board.

The powerful US pharmaceutical lobby is reportedly livid that the TPP did not secure better monopoly protections, whereas big tobacco lobby and its representatives in Congress are furious that the industry has been carved-out of the investor-state dispute settlement provision, thus limiting its ability to take legal action against member states that regulate against the tobacco industry.” (By Leith van Onselen, http://www.macrobusiness.com.au/2015/10/us-to-delay-tpp-ratification-until-late-2016/)

The much talked about US pivot to Asia wherein the TPP is the centerpiece seemed to have lost its way by dealing with the Middle East crisis.

As what Fareed Zakaria opinion writer at the Washington Post online) wrote “The Obama administration’s foreign policy energies are fully engaged in the Middle East — negotiating the Iran deal, sending Special Operations forces into Iraq, supporting Saudi airstrikes in Yemen, working with the Syrian rebels. Whatever happened to the pivot to Asia?

Remember, the basic argument behind the pivot was that the United States was overinvested in the Middle East, a crisis-prone region of dwindling importance to the U.S. national interest. Asia, on the other hand, is the future. Of the four largest economies, three are in Asia, if measured by purchasing-power parity. As Singapore’s late leader Lee Kuan Yew often said, “America will remain the world’s dominant power in the 21st century only if it is the dominant Pacific power.”

The growing tension in some of the flashpoints where a regional conflict might be waiting to be triggered by a miscalculated event are just too overwhelming for a leader who will be facing an election soon. President Obama will have to play his cards well in order to have a legacy that will go down in history as something to be proud of. If not.....

End Game in Syria by Erick San Juan

End Game in Syria by Erick San Juan


In an article written by Tony Cartalucci, US End Game in Syria is Just the Beginning for A Wider Regional War?, he writes, “To call it a civil war is a gross mischaracterization. The entire conflict was engineered and fueled from beyond Syria’s borders. And while there are significant number of Syrians collaborating with this criminal conspiracy, the principal agents driving the conflict are foreigners. They include special interests in the United States, across the Atlantic in Europe, and regional players including Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Israel. Syria is far from an isolated conflict. America’s interest in dividing and destroying Syria is part of a much larger agenda serving its aspirations both in the region and globally. The division and destruction of Syria as a functioning, sovereign nation-state is admittedly meant to set the stage for the conquest of Iran next."

"US End Game in Syria is just the beginning for wider regional war. Reuters recently published an op-ed titled, Syria’s one hope may be as dim as Bosnia’s once was, which argues that the only way the US can cooperate with Russia regarding Syria is if all players agree to a weakened, fragmented Syria.

If this scheme sounds familiar, that is because this op-ed was authored by Michael O’Hanlon, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution – a corporate-financier funded think-tank that has in part helped engineer the chaos now consuming the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). O’Hanlon previously published a paper titled, “Deconstructing Syria: A New Strategy for America’s most Hopeless War,” in which he also calls for the division and destruction of Syria.

In it, O’Hanlon calls for the establishment of “safe zones,” the invasion and occupation of Syrian territory by US, European, and Persian Gulf special forces, the relaxing of criteria used to openly fund what would essentially be terrorists operating in Syria, and openly making the ousting of the Syrian government, a priority on par with the alleged US fight against the so-called “Islamic State” (ISIS/ISIL).” (Posted at Global Research, October 17, 2015)

Sounds familiar? World leaders didn’t learn from history at all, repeating the same mistakes. In our case, if our own leaders will not be cautious enough, the design for the country’s balkanization is still on. It was delayed alright but the goal of some evil-minded globalists to balkanize this country is very much on the table. As I have written a few decades ago that the program (balkanization) is on but can be delayed, will materialize if we are not careful in choosing our next leaders.

The regional war we might get into by being ‘loyal’ or our leaders blackmailed by the Big Brother and be used as a cannon fodder against China is something that we have to rethink. The crisis in the Middle East will definitely affect our own peaceful existence because our corrupt leaders allowed and pressured to support US troops in its pivot to Asia to have its virtual military bases here.

There are lessons to be learned in contemporary history that we should be aware of and not be misguided by greedy collaborators. There is so much going on in the Middle East. In Syria  for example, that we should be vigilant enough so as not to be dragged Into another war.

“Putin, with a clear message to Washington and NATO governments on the subject of national sovereignty, something anathema to many who embrace the Nirvana supposed to come from globalization, homogenization of all to one level."

"What is the meaning of state sovereignty, the term which has been mentioned by our colleagues here?” Putin rhetorically asked. “It basically means freedom, every person and every state being free to choose their future. By the way, this brings us to the issue of the so-called legitimacy of state authorities. You shouldn’t play with words and manipulate them. In international law, international affairs, every term has to be clearly defined, transparent and interpreted the same way by one and all.”

Putin added, “We are all different, and we should respect that. Nations shouldn’t be forced to all conform to the same development model that somebody has declared the only appropriate one. We should all remember the lessons of the past. For example, we remember our Soviet past, when the Soviet Union exported social experiments, pushing for changes in other countries for ideological reasons, and this often led to tragic consequences and caused degradation instead of progress. “

"Those few words succinctly point to what is fundamentally wrong in the international order today. Nations, above all the one proclaiming herself Sole Superpower, Infallible Hegemon, the USA, have arrogantly moved after the collapse of the main adversary, the Soviet Union in 1990, to create what can only be called a global totalitarian empire, what G.H.W. Bush in his September 11, 1991 address to Congress called a New World Order. I believe with conviction that borders do matter, that respect for different cultures, different historical experiences is essential in a world of peace. That is as much true with nations as with individual human beings. We seem to have forgotten that simple notion amid all the wars of the past decades. Vladimir Putin reminds us.” (Putin is Defeating More than ISIS in Syria by F. William Engdahl, October 16, 2015 @Information Clearing House)

Thanks to the American patriots in exposing the hidden agenda of the globalists. We have forgotten our sovereignty just to kowtow to a perceived master. Unless we act as one sovereign nation and assert our rights to say no and insist to get what is due us, we will remain a slave in the this age of sophistication through modern technology and be ruled just like in the Middle Ages.

Seachange in World Affairs by Erick San Juan

Seachange in World Affairs by Erick San Juan

According to Dr. Paul Craig Roberts on the recent geopolitical crisis in the Middle East, particularly in Syria – “The world is beginning to realize that a seachange in world affairs occurred on September 28 when President Putin of Russia stated in his United Nations speech that Russia can no longer tolerate Washington’s vicious, stupid, and failed policies that have unleashed chaos, which is engulfing the Middle East and now Europe.

Two days later, Russia took over the military situation in Syria and began the destruction of the Islamic State forces.

Perhaps among Obama’s advisors, there are a few who are not drowning in hubris and can understand this seachange. Sputnik news reported that some high-level security advisors to Obama have advised him to withdraw US military forces from Syria and give up his plan to overthrow Assad. They advised Obama to cooperate with Russia in order to stop the refugee flow that is overwhelming Washington’s vassals in Europe. The influx of unwanted peoples are making Europeans aware of the high cost of enabling US foreign policy. Advisors have told Obama that the idiocy of the neoconservatives’ policies threaten Washington’s empire in Europe.

Several commentators, such as Mike Whitney and Stephen Lendman, have correctly concluded, that there is nothing that Washington can do about Russian actions against the Islamic State. The neoconservatives’ plan for a UN no-fly zone over Syria in order to push out the Russians is just a pipedream. No such thing as resolution will come out of the UN. Indeed, the Russians have already established a de facto no-fly zone. (Posted at Global Research, October 11, 2015)

The neocons in Obama’s loop still very much around (very active in the war on terror, Bush Jr. era) influencing decisions that is causing havoc in the Middle East and has affected the global balance, had taken the backseat in the Syrian crisis, for now.

The man-made crisis (by design) is not yet over and the move by Russian President Vladimir Putin in Syria against the Islamic State terror group is only the beginning.

The mere fact that this is a repeat of history, of alliances before a world war, there is still a lot of possibilities waiting to be ignited, like a tinderbox. And now China is coming into the picture.

“China's entry means two major powers are stepping in to do what the U.S. was unwilling to do against IS.

It's a lesson in how fast the tables can turn when America displays weakness — losing wars in both Iraq and Afghanistan, and proving to be ineffective against IS despite fighting it for a year and three months now.

Our commander-in-chief even admits that he has no strategy against the monstrous caliphate that his very own policies of weakness brought into being.

What is apparently happening now was inconceivable before Obama sent America spiraling into decline: our two Cold War adversaries uniting militarily in an effort that will ultimately give them dominance, at our expense, in the most strategically important part of the world, the oil-rich and politically fragile Middle East.

You can't carry out your objectives there over the course of years with the most advanced military in the world? Fine. Watch us do it, Moscow and Beijing are telling us with their actions. And in months, or perhaps only weeks.

How the next president will dig us out of this hole is hard to fathom. A new post-Cold War Brezhnev Doctrine could come into effect, in which Moscow and Beijing warn that they will not let the U.S. reassert its influence in countries they've "liberated" in the Mideast.

If that turns out to be the case, America will be risking war with both Russia and China if it even tries to return to its pre-Obama influence in the region.” (Investor's Business Daily: http://news.investors.com, 10/9/2015)

Pundits believe that the entry of China means our country will be used as cannon fodder being an ally of the ‘mighty Uncle Sam’. An unfortunate scenario that we will be drag again into war whether we like it or not.

And such tension happening now, escalating into a possible global conflict and yet our supposed leaders are infected with the election fever, dragging the whole nation into the pits.

The China Syndrome and the Next World War

The China Syndrome and the Next World War
By Erick San Juan


President Barack Obama's Washington summit and White House state dinner with Chinese President Xi Jinping marked one of the administration's last big attempts to place U.S.-China relations on a good track. With China's secretive and troubled massive economy affecting others in ways we're still learning, growing American concern over cyber-espionage matched by Chinese concern about global surveillance, and China becoming still more aggressive in its extraordinary maritime claims, Obama has a lot to overcome.

Aside from a new agreement on climate change, some mutual make-nice rhetoric on spying, obvious agreement to oppose maritime piracy, and self-interested big business deals on China's part with Boeing and Cisco, there wasn't much to point to. Xi, in fact, was quite defiant on China's highly aggressive maritime claims.

Obama's China syndrome is that he seeks both to engage China and to contain China. Both are appropriate and arguably quite necessary goals for American statecraft. But they presuppose a state of creative tension between the established superpower and would-be superpower. The tension is real enough, especially coming from the Chinese. The question is whether it's matched by creativity. (By William Bradley, Obama's China Syndrome, 9/27/2015)

Now we understand the perennial problem of a disease infecting the Obama administration – the China syndrome. The tug-of-war between engaging and containing China has proven to be a paradox because it only creates more tension in the region. It could be a choice of only one but as diplomacy dictates, peaceful resolution has to be employed in order to avoid a bloody conflict.

In a recent article “Know World War II, Avoid World War III. US Provocation and Propaganda directed against China” by Tony Cartalucci he writes, “an Asian state aggressively expanding its military, bullying its neighbors, illegally fortifying islands, and bent on regional, then global domination – sound familiar? Are you thinking it’s China 2015? No, it is Japan 1937-1944.

So shockingly similar is American propaganda regarding Japan during World War II to the propaganda being leveled against Beijing today that it seems almost intentional. Or perhaps those on Wall Street and Washington think so little of the general public’s ability to discern fact from fiction, they see no reason to revise the script and are going ahead with a remake faithful to the original with only a few minor casting twists.

This US government production is titled “Why We Fight: A Series of Seven Information Films” with this particular part titled, “The Battle of China” released in 1944.

It describes Japan almost verbatim as how the US today describes China.

China is depicted as a righteous victim – but as the film elaborates – it is clear that any affinity shown toward the Chinese people is only due to the fact that the US held significant economic and geopolitical interests there. Admittedly, the US military was already occupying China after extorting through “gunboat diplomacy” concessions from China’s subjugated, servile government – not unlike US troops occupying Japan today, hosted by a capitulating government in Tokyo.

Japan in the film is depicted as a “blood crazed” race of barbarians, while the Chinese are depicted as noble resistors. Of course, this narrative shifted immediately as soon as US interests were ousted from China and US troops began occupying and shaping the destiny of conquered Japan after the war.”

Time and again, together with other observers like me, we have been warning of a repeat of history just like in the past World Wars, the scenarios are the same with ‘a little twist’ and the possibility of a next world war if humankind will not heed our warnings.

Like what US Marine Corps General Smedley Butler in his book “War is a Racket” would specifically warn about a military build up aimed at Japan for the jealous preservation of American conquests in Asia Pacific. Speaking specifically about these conquests, General Butler would say:

What does the “open door” policy to China mean to us? Our trade with China is about $90,000,000 a year. Or the Philippine Islands? We have spent about $600,000,000 in the Philippines in thirty-five years and we (our bankers and industrialists and speculators) have private investments there of less than $200,000,000.

Then, to save that China trade of about $90,000,000, or to protect these private investments of less than $200,000,000 in the Philippines, we would be all stirred up to hate Japan and go to war — a war that might well cost us tens of billions of dollars, hundreds of thousands of lives of Americans, and many more hundreds of thousands of physically maimed and mentally unbalanced men.

Of course, for this loss, there would be a compensating profit — fortunes would be made. Millions and billions of dollars would be piled up. By a few. Munitions makers. Bankers. Ship builders. Manufacturers. Meat packers. Speculators. They would fare well.

Yes, they are getting ready for another war. Why shouldn’t they? It pays high dividends. (Ibid)

For whatever its worth, bilateral talks between leaders can help but accidents and miscalculations happen just like in the past. So again a warning - always remember the past so you will know the future by not repeating the mistakes in history.
 

China Dream: PLA's Version by Erick San Juan

China Dream: PLA's Version by Erick San Juan

Col. Liu Mingfu, 64, is the most prominent warrior-scholar from the People’s Liberation Army. His fame rests on ‘‘The China Dream,’’ a book published in 2010 that became a best seller.

It dissected American global dominance and advocated the need for China to overturn it, and  that will secure peace not just in the region but also worldwide. ‘‘Becoming the strongest nation in the world is China’s goal in the 21st century,’’ the colonel wrote.

Colonel Liu laid out his vision of the biggest geopolitical rivalry of this century. ‘‘There are flames around Asia, and every place could be a battlefield in the future. That’s all caused by the invisible hand of the United States. Without the black hand of the United States, Asia would be more peaceful and stable."

"Washington’s policy in Asia is a ‘crab’ policy. There’s a big bamboo cage, and the United States wants all the countries to bite each other like crabs inside the cage.’’ (Edward Wong, International New York Times Asia)

The China Dream that every Chinese wanted to achieve (but reality check, every dream) can turn into a nightmare, unfortunately. Even the mighty land of milk and honey is undergoing an economic crisis, including the whole world like domino.

Such situation, like in the past world wars, the world is again ripe for a another global war where several flashpoints are brewing with the possibility of a regional conflict first and then the real war.

The recently concluded meeting between US and China leaders did not solve anything because it was filled with rhetoric. And to heed the viewpoint of Col. Liu – “no matter how much China commits itself to a ‘peaceful rise,’ conflict is inherent in U.S.-China relations.’’
A very sad reality confronting this region because efforts being undertaken by smaller countries to find peaceful resolutions in the disputed areas are now in vain.

It all boils down to the leadership of every country involve as claimants in the South China Sea area. It is perceived that Uncle Sam is using the Philippines as cannon fodder that will create a proxy war in the offing.

The so-called alliances build-up and military modernization through ‘military grant’ (a.k.a. loan) has already established a community of war mongers and an arms race has begun.

That is why from the Chinese perspective, US allies have “been inciting our neighbors to provoke us.’’

Continued provocations and word wars might hasten the impending war to occur. Yet here we are, offering our military bases to Uncle Sam as their forward base via the Mutual Defense Treaty and the Visiting Forces Agreement, and the much controversial Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA) that according to some US officials, they are expecting the Supreme Court to come out with the resolution of EDCA’s constitutionality any time soon.

Despite the statement of several US military generals that they will protect us, history dictates that without the approval of the US congress, the commitments of US military officers are just sweet nothing.

While the region is boiling with tension, our local politicians are ‘hot’ in every aspect and can’t wait for the next election. Propaganda after propaganda, gimmickry and mud-slinging are the latest trending acts in the world of politics.

They seem to be oblivious of the current economic crisis that is a clear prescription for another world war.