By Herman Tiu Laurel
The World has just witnessed and trembled before the terrible prospect of global war triggered by the U.S. assassination of the Iranian military official and hero of many wars defending the people of Iran, Gen. Qassem Sulaimani the vanquisher of ISIS.
Along with Gen. Soleimani in the same murder spree of the American drone strike was the Iraqi government militia leader Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis who helped the fight against and defeat of the ISIS.
Evolving Motive but โAbsolutely Unlawfulโ
The motive for the criminal assassination is being described by even the American and Western media as โthe evolving U.S. justification for killing Iranโs top generalโ, Trump and his officials unable to pinpoint the exact threat Soleimani and al-Muhandis posed.
UN Rapporteur on extra-judicial killings Agnรฉs Callamard chimed in diplomatically saying targeted killings โviolate international human rights law…โ Twenty-five other people were killed alongside Soleimani which the UN Rapporteur said was โabsolutelyโ unlawful.
The E.U. as well has insulated itself from the U.S. murder and even Israeli PM Netanyahu is recorded saying to his cabinet โThe killing of Soleimani is a U.S. event, not an Israeli event, and we should stay out of it.”
So what exactly was the reason, the evolving motiveโ for the assassination? No one, apparently even Trump himself, has been able to say for sure. Most speculate it was Trumpโs election and impeachment desperation move, other say Pompeoโs โraptureโ.
Praying for WWIII – Rapture
On June 28, 2015 at Summit Church in Wichita, Kansas, Pompeo delivered a speech at a โGod and Country Rallyโ on good and evil, apocalyptically declared, โโWe will continue to fight these battles… It is a never-ending struggle โฆ until the Rapture. Be part of it. Be in the fight.โ
Sarah Posnerโs piece โThe Evangelicals Who Pray for War With Iranโ reports that Pompeo and Pence (vice president) were the top officials pushing Trump to kill Suleimani, following the evangelicalsโ belief WWIII would bring about Rapture, the Armageddon and Jesusโ return.
Is the world in the grips of madmen who are aching to bring on the global nuclear war? Various consciences of history have paraphrased that immortal phrase, โWhom the gods would destroy they firsts make mad … with power.โ That clearly described the American power wielders today.
The Unipolar โNew American Centuryโ
The 1991 fall of the USSR ushered in the Uni-Polar World on the World stage, and U.S. neocons went to work on a global domination plan called โProject for a New American Centuryโ (PNAC) turning triumph into arrogance, hubris and now Nero-esque global pyromania.
In 2001 the PNAC went into action with โthe new Pearl Harborโ justifying a global war, demolishing the World Trade Center, collect insurance and blame Osama bin Laden, Taliban/Al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein who ironically hated Al Qaeda (but truth never matters) and declaring war over nonexistent WMDs.
With total control of the global media platforms the U.S. power wielders could foist any virtual reality show on the unsuspecting World and be believed. Contrarian media sprung up only in 2005 with Russia Today and CCTV came to prominence early 2010s.
Permanent War Era
Fast forwarding to January 11, 2020 after an Iranian retaliatory missile attack on two Iraqi basis housing U.S. troops and assets Trump relents and relative peace returns to the World, but with the sporadic fits of insanity in U.S. geopolitical actions one can never tell when the next fit will come.
Many are blaming the latest global crisis on Trump alone, but the narrative of the Uni-Polar era really points to all American presidents after 1991, intoxicated with unlimited power pursuing war as a matter of U.S. national policy.
President George Herbert Walker Bush waged Iraq War I, President Bill Clinton bombed Yugoslavia, George Bush Jr. started what Gen. Wesley Clark called โwar on 7 countries in 5 yearsโ and Obama bombed Afghanistan, Pakistan, Libya, Yemen, Somalia, Iraq and Syria.
Pivot to Asia
Obama in 2011 expanded war horizon announcing the Pivot to Asia, moving 60% of American military forces to face China which with astounding speed erected formidable defenses apparently halted the pivot expressed by U.S. Asst.-Secretary Susan Thornton in 2017.
โOn the issue of pivot, rebalance, et cetera, that was a word that was used to describe the Asia policy in the last (Obama) administration… you can probably expect that this administration will have its own formulation…โ Thornton said.
Chinaโs Prophetic Vision
For the past decade I have closely followed Chinaโs efforts towards building the concepts and structures for a new world that avoids the pitfalls of the Uni-Polar; that is, a Multi-Polar world where major countries sit as peers around a table charting the course of the human race.
The relation of politics and economic is also clearly expressed, best in the Chinese saying often heard from Chinese officials โTo get rich, build a roadโ which has been incarnated in physical and financial terms in the Belt and Road Initiative and the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB).
These concepts started to congeal into real world project in the first decade of the 21st Century while the U.S. started waging its โ7 wars in 7 countriesโ. The BRICS with Brazil, Russia, India, South Africa was kicked off in 2009 and serves as a seminal model for the Multi-Polar world.
The Belt and Road for Prosperity and Peace
The Belt and Road Initiative was kicked off in 2013 growing to a land, maritime and digital linkage of 138 countries by 2019 with investments into several trillions in infrastructure, transport and energy.
To top off Chinaโs vision of a continuing and permanent world of prosperity and peace is Chinaโs opening of it 1.4-billion consumer economy to the World with the promises of priming the global economy with $ 40-trillions imports of goods and service in the next 15 years.
New political paradigms have been set forth by Chinaโs leadership, such as the New Model of Major Country relations eschewing โzero sumโ games based on purely national interest but on mutual interest, non-conflict and non-confrontation, dialogue and Win-Win results.
U.S. names China as โStrategic Competitorโ
For a while the U.S. accepted this proposition from China, until in 2017 the U.S. declared China as a โstrategic competitorโ and a year later began the โtrade warโ and threatened โdecouplingโ China from its economy and pressing its traditional allies to do the same โ without much success.
Several analysts and writers have asked this question, โWho is the real target in the attack on Iranโs hero Qassem Suleimaniโ. Ann Lee, adjunct professor at New York University and Pace University say China is the real target.
Likewise, Emanuel Scimia, an independent journalist and foreign affairs analyst writing on the SCMP, who says the US-Iran conflict would be bad news for Beijing as it undermines Beijingโs Belt and Road development in the Middle East.
Trumpโs Kill mode
But the most telling version is from Iraqi Prime Minister Adil Abdul-Mahdi that he had signed an agreement with China to finish infrastructure and electricity projects the U.S. had refused to complete without a pledge of getting 50% of all Iraqi oil revenues:
โTrump called me to ask me to reject this agreement. When I refused, he threatened to unleash huge demonstrations against me that would end my premiership… I received a new call from Trump threatening to kill both me and the Minister of Defense if we kept on talking about this โthird partyโ.โ
The target came to be Suleimani for what was likely the combination of purposes. The report of Adil Abdul-Mahdiโs dilemma with Trump was by Federico Pieraccini writing in the Strategic Culture Foundation, an independent freelance writer in international affairs, conflicts and strategies.
Multi-Polar World
The vision for a Multi-Polar world and a peaceful, prosperous Win-Win global economy for all, threatens to be aborted by exploding global conflicts the American psychos are sowing. China has massive investments in the Middle East since 2014 amounting to $124-billion and a $ 400-billion long term investment plan with Iran.
Chinaโs response to the heightened tension in the Iraq-Iran theater is to call for restraint on the part of all parties engage in the conflict. Itโs perspective is summed up in Li Chengwen, Chinaโs Ambassador to the China-Arab States Cooperation forum statement:
โThe root problems in the Middle East lie in development and the only solution is also development.โ Development builds prosperity and peace, but that clearly is not the obsession of the American psychos fixated on domination and more domination.
The Choice: Psychoโs of America or Prophets of Boom and Bloom
While China has called its vision for the World โCommunity of Shared Future for Mankindโ of all the peoples of the World cooperating and building prosperity, we can only hear Americaโs โAmerica Firstโ and I imagine a whispered โ… and Onlyโ. Ever since the U.S. declaration of China as a โstrategic competitorโ the real challenge to all the nations of the World is a choice to be made. Which vision of the Worldโs future do we choose? The vision of American psychos to a World permanently at war, or Chinaโs prophets of boom and bloom of our World Civilization.
(Next: Chinaโs Vision for Prosperity and Peace)
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