Truman’s War Crimes at Hiroshima and Nagasaki

by Jacob G. Hornberger

August 5, 2020

https://www.fff.org/2020/08/05/trumans-war-crimes-at-hiroshima-and-nagasaki/

This month marks the 75h anniversary of the U.S. atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. While proponents of the bombings have long justified them on the basis that they shortened World War II, the fact is that they were war crimes. The only reason why President Truman and the pilots who dropped the bombs were not prosecuted as war criminals is that the United States ended up winning the war.

It has long been pointed out that Japan had expressed a willingness to surrender. The only condition was that the Japanese emperor not be abused or executed.

President Truman refused to agree to that condition. Like his predecessor Franklin Roosevelt, Truman demanded “unconditional surrender.”

That was why Japan continued fighting. Japanese officials naturally assumed that U.S. officials were going to do some very bad things to their emperor, including torture and execution. In the minds of Japanese officials, why else would the United States not be willing to agree to that one condition, especially given that it would have meant the end of the war?

The dark irony is that Truman ended up accepting the condition anyway, only after he pulverized the people in Hiroshima and Nagasaki with nuclear bombs.

In an excellent op-ed in the Los Angeles Times, today entitled “U.S. Leaders Knew We Didn’t Have to Drop Atomic Bombs on Japan to Win the War. We Did It Anyway” the authors point out:

Seven of the United States' eight five-star Army and Navy officers in 1945 agreed with the Navy’s vitriolic assessment. Generals Dwight Eisenhower, Douglas MacArthur, and Henry “Hap” Arnold and Admirals William Leahy, Chester Nimitz, Ernest King, and William Halsey are on record stating that the atomic bombs were either militarily unnecessary, morally reprehensible, or both.

Keep in mind that there is nothing in the principles of warfare that required Truman and Roosevelt to demand the unconditional surrender of Japan (or Germany). Wars can be — and often are — ended with terms of surrender. Both presidents were willing to sacrifice countless people on both sides of the conflict to attain their demand for unconditional surrender.

But Truman’s unconditional surrender demand is not why his action constituted a war crime. These bombings constituted war crimes because they targeted non-combatants, including children, women, and seniors with death as a way to bring about an unconditional surrender of the Japanese government.

It has long been considered a rule of warfare that armies fight armies in war. They don’t target non-combatants. The intentional killing of non-combatants is considered a war crime.

A good example of this principle involved the case of Lt. William Calley in the Vietnam War. Calley and his men shot and killed numerous non-combatants in a South Vietnamese village. The victims included women and children.

The U.S military prosecuted Calley as a war criminal — and rightly so. While the deaths of non-combatants oftentimes occur incidentally during wartime operations, it is a war crime to specifically target them for death.

Truman justified his action by arguing that the bombings shortened the war and, therefore, saved the lives of thousands of American soldiers and Japanese people if an invasion had become necessary. It is a justification that has been repeated ever since by proponents of the bombings.

There are two big problems with that justification, however.

First, an invasion would not have been necessary. All that Truman had to do was to accept Japan’s only condition for surrender, and that would have meant the end of the war, without the deaths that would have come with an invasion and that did come with the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

More important, the fact that the lives of American soldiers would have been saved is not a moral or legal justification for targeting non-combatants. If Calley had maintained at his trial that his actions were intended to shorten the Vietnam War, his defense would have been rejected. He would have still been convicted for war crimes.

Soldiers die in war. That is the nature of war. To kill women, children, and seniors in the hopes of saving the lives of soldiers by shortening the war is not only a war crime, but it is also an act of extreme cowardice. If an invasion of Japan would have become necessary to win the war, thereby resulting in the deaths of thousands of U.S. soldiers, then that’s just the way that war works.

It’s also worth pointing out that Japan never had any intention of invading and conquering the United States. The only reason that Japan bombed Pearl Harbor was in the hope of knocking out the U.S. Pacific fleet, not as a prelude to invading Hawaii or the continental United States but simply to prevent the U.S. from interfering with Japan’s efforts to secure oil in the Dutch East Indies.

And why was Japan so desperate for oil as to initiate war against the United States? Because President Franklin Roosevelt imposed a highly effective oil embargo on Japan as a way to maneuver the Japanese into attacking the United States.

FDR’s plan, of course, succeeded, which ended up costing the lives of hundreds of thousands of American soldiers and millions of Japanese citizens, including those at Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

An acid test for the US-Mexico-Canada trade agreement

BY EARL ANTHONY WAYNE, OPINION CONTRIBUTOR - 08/03/22

https://thehill.com/opinion/finance/3580290-an-acid-test-for-the-us-mexico-canada-trade-agreement/

The request by the United States, followed by Canada, for consultations regarding Mexican laws, policies, and practices related to its energy sector is a major test for the dispute settlement procedures of the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA). Though the U.S. and Canadian complaints are directed toward Mexico’s energy policies and treatment of private investors, the outcomes of the dispute will be crucial for the credibility of the agreement itself.

The USMCA governs the massive trade and investment relationship between the three countries, totaling more than $2.6 million in trade each minute. When the agreement turned two on July 1, U.S.-Mexico-Canada trade had surpassed pre-pandemic levels. It provided most of Mexico’s economic growth over the past two years.

Reviews of the agreement’s performance were positive, but it was clear that issues of disagreement would test the USMCA and impact how to measure its success going forward. Controversy over Mexico’s energy-related practices is now front and center.

The way in which these consultations and a potential dispute settlement panel proceed will send strong signals about how the three countries can manage sensitive problems. The Key will be how Mexico handles this process: whether through serious engagement to find solutions that reflect specific USMCA commitments, or otherwise.

The complaint lodged by the U.S. and Canada focuses on a top priority of Mexico’s President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, or AMLO, to strengthen the role of the state in the energy sector. He has been seeking ways to achieve that goal since taking office. However, a number of U.S. and Canadian companies allege they have faced discriminatory treatment that undermines their investments and violates the USMCA. Up to $30 billion in private sector investments, which include substantial renewable energy projects, potentially could be at risk.

The specifics raised in the U.S. and Canadian requests are important, but more broadly, how the USMCA complaint proceeds will send strong messages about Mexico’s investment environment and the government’s attitude toward international investors.

This case comes as many believe Mexico could be attracting massive amounts of new nearshoring investments because of the global supply chain problems. A recent Inter-American Development Bank study, for example, found that Mexico could be the biggest winner by far in nearshoring exports across Latin America. However, this is not reflected in investment figures, which show Asian countries doing relatively better. Worries about Mexico using regulatory and other means to pressure U.S. and Canadian companies will not help.

It is positive that the U.S. and Canada are using the agreed-upon USMCA provisions for a dispute resolution panel to try to resolve differences over whether Mexico is indeed violating its commitments.  

Difficult and politically sensitive cases such as this highlight why the USMCA improved dispute resolution processes compared to the agreement’s predecessor, the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). The state-to-state process is being used in other sensitive disagreements because it gives clear steps for sorting through the merits of a difficult disagreement.

Mexico and Canada, for example, have an active complaint against the U.S. over its interpretation of the USMCA’s rules of origin for vehicles; a decision is expected later this year. The U.S. has filed a second complaint against Canada over its domestically sensitive dairy practices, arguing that Canada did not follow the guidance in the first case. In addition, the United States is using the USMCA’s rapid response labor mechanism for labor rights cases in Mexico.

Under the agreement, the U.S. and Canada have a short period to seek resolution through consultations and then, if necessary, one or both countries can request that a disputed settlement panel be created to obtain a judgment by experts pre-selected by the three countries. This case focused on Mexico’s energy-related practices and treatment of private investors, if the experts determine that Mexico broke its commitments, it could face trade reprisals.

U.S. officials have raised concerns about the Mexican practices for months. To encourage cleaner energy approaches, they have suggested ways that would help Mexico develop green and climate-friendly solutions for its energy future, which might allow improved cooperation with private companies. These efforts have included conversations with Mexico’s president and private talks between Mexican authorities and U.S. companies.

Independent of the USMCA complaint, AMLO faces critics who claim his current energy approach is bad for Mexico. However, the U.S. and Canada are not questioning his basic reform measures, just certain steps that they allege violate specific chapters of the USMCA.

How Mexico responds is fundamental. The Economy Ministry says it looks forward to pursuing consultations to resolve the dispute, but AMLO has responded with nationalist rhetoric about not backing down on principles of sovereignty. At first, he appeared to mock the complaint; more recently, he suggested he will write to President Biden to clarify Mexico’s policies and stated that there will not be a “rupture” in the USMCA.

Negotiated solutions are possible, especially if Mexico is willing to adjust practices to meet the USMCA commitments to which it agreed. Broader audiences, including potential investors and Congress, will be watching the evolution of this dispute.  

Earl Anthony Wayne, a former U.S. ambassador to Mexico and Assistant Secretary of State for Economic and Business Affairs, is board co-chair of the Wilson Center’s Mexico Institute and a Distinguished Diplomat at American University’s School of International Service. Follow him on Twitter @EAnthonyWayne.

Kiev ensayó con fármacos peligrosos, insiste Moscú; hay datos de que Hugo Chávez fue envenenado, dice

Sputnik

 https://www.jornada.com.mx/2022/08/05/mundo/026n2mun

Periódico La Jornada
Viernes 5 de agosto de 2022, p. 26

Moscú. Expertos de Rusia hallaron en Ucrania evidencias de que durante años se han realizado ensayos de fármacos con posibles efectos secundarios peligrosos en humanos, informó ayer el Ministerio ruso de Defensa. Añadió que, según las autoridades de Venezuela, el ex presidente del país Hugo Chávez (1999-2013) fue envenenado con una sustancia capaz de causar cáncer.

Ígor Kirílov, jefe de las Tropas de Defensa Radiológica, Química y Biológica de las Fuerzas Armadas rusas, indicó que “en el laboratorio del centro médico Pharmbiotest (...) hallaron documentos que confirman que en Ucrania se efectuaron ensayos durante varios años para la Big Pharma, como se denomina a las grandes compañías farmacéuticas (...) Se probaba en la población local medicamentos no registrados con posibles secuelas peligrosas”.

El centro médico está en Ru-bizhne, al oeste de Lugansk, de donde fueron expulsadas las tropas ucranias. Tras la conquista de esa ciudad, expertos de la Federación Rusa encontraron evidencias de que farmacéuticas estadunidenses y europeas visitaban con frecuencia ese lugar. No mostró las presuntas pruebas.

Para evitar los riesgos de imagen y problemas judiciales en el caso de que los estudios de los nuevos medicamentos fracasaran, las farmacéuticas estadunidenses y europeas hacían sus ensayos clínicos con los ciudadanos ucranios. El pago a los voluntarios era mínimo y las muertes se podían ocultar con facilidad. Kirílov añadió su reporte del hallazgo de grandes cantidades de opioides y otras sustancias sicotrópicas en las posiciones arrebatadas a las tropas del país invadido en Donietsk y Lugansk.

Refirió que el cáncer que mató a Chávez pudo ser provocado mediante envenenamiento. Según los datos de Venezuela, este tipo de sustancia para enfermar a Chávez fue manipulada por Claudia Díaz, que formaba parte del círculo presidencial, dijo Kirílov.

Díaz fue enfermera de Chávez, y se encuentra presa en una cárcel de Florida, donde será juzgada por cargos de corrupción.

US Interests and Pretenses in the Changing Middle East

Remarks to a Panel of the Middle East Policy Council

by Chas W. Freeman, Jr. Posted on August 04, 2022

https://original.antiwar.com/Chas_Freeman/2022/08/03/us-interests-and-pretenses-in-a-changing-middle-east/

In June 1974, cornered by Watergate, Richard Nixon set off on a quick tour of the Middle East. This is something presidents seem to do when they’re in trouble back home. In no foreign region is U.S. statecraft so inseparable from domestic politics. But the unpalatable realities of the Middle East have made it the unchallenged center of diplomatic hypocrisy and double standards. It is where the values-based foreign policies that our domestic politics demands go to die.

Pledging allegiance to Israel – regardless of its gross violations of Palestinian rights and neighboring states’ sovereignty – pries manna from heaven in the form of campaign donations from American Zionists and their fellow travelers. Similarly, given the American addiction to cheap energy, a quixotic desire for Saudi intervention to lower the price of gas at the pump springs eternal.

Domestic political calculations, not the strategic pursuit of national interests, have just led President Biden to affirm his fidelity to Zionism with a trip to Israel, the only country in the world where Donald Trump is more popular than he is. From Israel, the president traveled to Saudi Arabia, hat and emergency gas can in hand, to dine on symbolic crow as a guest of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, whom – too much domestic American applause – he had loudly denounced and pledged to make a “pariah.”

But no one should be surprised that he didn’t condemn the Saudi government for the murder of my friend, Jamal Khashoggi. Neither he nor any other president has ever held the Israeli government accountable for murdering Americans like Shireen Abu Akleh, Rachel Corrie, or the crew of the U.S.S. Liberty. Get real! Why should President Biden be more concerned about a dead citizen of Saudi Arabia than about dead Americans?

In Jeddah, the president bumped fists with MbS and made Israel’s case for a normalized relationship with its Arab neighbors despite its continuing cruelty to the Palestinian Arabs it oppresses. It doesn’t get more demeaning than this. When interests and pretenses collide, interests prevail. When foreign and domestic interests are in conflict, domestic interests come first. Nothing unusual about that. Let’s hear it for AIPAC and cheap gas!

If it’s obvious why President Biden needed Israel and Saudi Arabia at this moment, it’s less clear why they needed him. America has lost its grip on West Asia, which is now not its or any other great power’s fiefdom. Diminished leverage in the region makes Washington a less compelling partner than it once was. The United States no longer attempts to achieve peace for the Palestinians. Is cozying up to Iran’s enemies, refusing to deal with Iran itself, and continuing to trash the JCPOA a strategy, or just a posture dictated by domestic politics? It’s far from clear that shared fear of Iranian power and weaponry can sustain American influence in the region, as the so-called “peace process” and shared dread of godless Soviet communism once did.

Regardless of doubts about Washington’s reliability as a protector, Israel, the Arab participants in the eruption of Realpolitik known as the “Abraham Accords,” and Saudi Arabia all recognize that they have no real alternative to a US security umbrella. No other great power is able to assume or, indeed, has any desire to take up American defense burdens in the region. But what’s in it for Americans to soldier on?

There are, in fact, serious matters at stake for the United States in West Asia beyond the sole reason the president gave – to exclude Chinese and Russian influence there. Many factors dictate a sound American relationship with Saudi Arabia and other Gulf Arab countries. Among these:

• The United States itself may no longer need Saudi oil, but everyone else does. Saudi Arabia supplies one-sixth of the world’s exported oil. Other Gulf Arab states close to Riyadh supply another eighth. The Kingdom leads OPEC, which exports almost fifty percent of world petroleum. OPEC plus Russia supplies just a bit under three-fifths. It’s the balance of supply and demand in the global market, not political pandering to angry American consumers, that determines energy prices, supports or undermines global prosperity, and helps determine rates of inflation. If you’re concerned about energy prices, you better be on speaking terms with Riyadh. Moscow too.
• Washington has set aside reliance on diplomatic persuasion in favor of coercive policies based on dollar sovereignty. The United States now imposes sanctions on any and all countries that defy its policies. This practice and the lawless confiscation of a growing number of countries’ dollar reserves have put America at odds with much of the world. The dollar ceased to be convertible to gold in 1971. Since then, its centrality to global trade settlement and finance has been sustained by a Saudi commitment (which OPEC grudgingly follows) to price energy in dollars. Should the Saudis decide to accept other currencies for their oil, markets for other commodities would do the same. This would collapse the dollar, end the “exorbitant privilege” it affords the United States, and terminate US global primacy. This is not a small matter.
• You need permission to transit Saudi airspace to get from Asia to Europe or vice versa. So, US global strategic mobility is hostage to the Kingdom’s goodwill. The geopolitical cost of an unfriendly and uncooperative relationship with Riyadh would be immense.
• The most extreme Islamist movements bracket the United States and Saudi Arabia as enemies. Intelligence from the Kingdom remains essential to effective US defense against terrorist attacks.
• Saudi custody of the holy cities of Mecca and Medina gives it worldwide soft power. Saudi Islam has shown that it has the potential to be either a font of Muslim extremism and anti-Americanism or its most effective antidote. After supporting religious intolerance for decades, Saudi Arabia now actively combats Islamist causes. This cannot be taken for granted.
• Saudi Arabia is the largest single foreign purchaser of American and British defense equipment and services. Many production lines in the US and U.K. would shut down if the Kingdom bought elsewhere. Lots of jobs would be lost.

The US relationship with Saudi Arabia is, of course, not the only challenge to US strategic interests in the region. Consider these other issues:

• Current US policies toward Iran invite it to emulate North Korea, which responded to “maximum pressure” by developing a nuclear deterrent to attack by the United States, thus creating a previously nonexistent threat to the American homeland.
• The forty-year-old Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), in which Saudi Arabia is primus inter pares, is on the mend, but just as feckless as ever.
• US forces have illegally invaded Syria and are engaged there in dangerous maneuvers against Russian, Turkish, Iranian, Lebanese, and Syrian forces. These confrontations risk wider wars – and not just in the region.
• The post-Saddam order the assembled battalions of the Blob unilaterally imposed on Iraq earlier this century is unstable and crumbling. Iraq’s future alignments are in doubt. The Biden administration does not appear to have an answer to this.
• Egypt, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and the UAE, among others, are attempting to dilute their strategic overdependence on the United States. They do not share Washington’s global obsessions, are alarmed by its erratic politics, resent its efforts to coerce them into placing dubious US interests above their own and will not downgrade relations with China and Russia to please America.
• Israel continues to terrorize and dispossess its captive Arab populations and violate the sovereignty of neighboring states. The Zionist state is increasingly dismissive of US advice to restrain its violent behavior. It appears to believe that it has a blank check from America. Maybe it does. Others in the region want the US to make them safe from Israel, not Israel safe from them.

It’s a truism that failure provides more lessons than success. West Asia is a region in which abundant policy failures offer a cornucopia of insights into warfare and diplomacy. Few of these would come as a surprise to classical Arab, British, Chinese, Dutch, French, German, Greek, Indian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Mongol, Persian, Portuguese, Roman, Russian, Spanish, or Turkish students of statecraft. But the United States no longer teaches geography or foreign history in its schools, has ever fewer foreign correspondents, glorifies war, and seems to view diplomacy as nothing more than foreplay before a military assault. Our habit of plotting foreign policies as vectors of ill-informed popular perceptions and passions belies reality. By reality, I mean what is out there whether Americans perceive it and believe in it or not. Not bothering to figure out how foreigners see things enables Washington to avoid having to ponder how they might react to its decisions. Americans now feel free to indulge solipsistic fantasies that justify foreign policies so out of line with trends and events abroad that they gain more blowback than traction.

We are now in the post-post-World War II, post-post Bretton Woods, and post-post-Cold War periods. Let’s call this “the new world disorder.” Neither the world nor the United States is what it was in the formative years of our leaders and their key subordinates’ experience. They and we need to come to grips with radically altered realities. Acting as if nothing much has changed is the equivalent of playing chess blindfolded with your ears blocked. It’s a sure path to geopolitical checkmate or worse.

The Biden trip to Israel and Saudi Arabia is proof that passionate attachments and moral outrage directed at foreigners may be freebies on the campaign trail but can be a serious challenge and embarrassment to anyone who actually gets elected, takes office, and has to govern. Venomous denunciations of foreign leaders now have consequences. A bit of rhetorical restraint is in order.

About twenty years ago, I was present when a well-meaning visitor asked then Crown Prince Abdullah bin `Abdulaziz Al-Sa`ud to provide Israelis with useful private advice on how to make peace with others in the region. `Abdullah replied, “tell them, if they want to be loved, they should do something lovable.” That was good advice for Israel then. And it’s good advice for the United States and others now.

Ambassador Chas W. Freeman, Jr. chairs Projects International, Inc. He is a retired US defense official, diplomat, and interpreter, the recipient of numerous high honors and awards, a popular public speaker, and the author of five books. He was a former US Assistant Secretary of Defense, ambassador to Saudi Arabia (during operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm), acting Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, and Chargé d’affaires at both Bangkok and Beijing. He began his diplomatic career in India but specialized in Chinese affairs. (He was the principal American interpreter during President Nixon’s visit to Beijing in 1972.) Reprinted with permission from his blog.

Choque de trenes

López Obrador grita muy fuerte desde Palacio Nacional y se achica en la Casa Blanca. Es quizás el presidente más sumiso ante EU que se recuerde.

Raymundo Riva Palacio

agosto 03, 2022

https://www.elfinanciero.com.mx/opinion/raymundo-riva-palacio/2022/08/03/choque-de-trenes/

El presidente Andrés Manuel López Obrador le envió ayer –según anunció– una carta al presidente Joe Biden donde reafirma la soberanía energética mexicana, en defensa de su interpretación del tratado comercial con Estados Unidos y Canadá, el TMEC, y como respuesta a las denuncias de haber violado compromisos adquiridos. Pero al mismo tiempo, en una bravuconada innecesaria, dijo, como si el horizonte fuera el retiro de México del acuerdo norteamericano, “¿qué haría Estados Unidos sin la fuerza de trabajo de los mexicanos?, ¿qué haría su industria sin las autopartes que se producen en México?”.

Para tener la lengua larga –de las mañaneras– se requiere tener la cola corta –fortaleza política y económica–, pues de otra forma sucederá lo que vivió con el presidente Donald Trump, cuando ante la amenaza de imponer aranceles en 2019 por la migración descontrolada, obligó a López Obrador a ser un muro contra los centroamericanos, y “se dobló”, como caracteriza Jared Kushner, yerno de Trump, en sus memorias de la Casa Blanca, libro que comenzará a venderse a finales de mes.

No ha habido ningún presidente mexicano que incorpore en su discurso cotidiano la soberanía y el nacionalismo, que utilice sistemáticamente enemigos externos para ocultar su falta de pericia y capacidades limitadas para comprender temas complejos, y con su profundo desdén sobre temas que no sean electorales, lo que lo ha llevado a ser ante la Casa Blanca, quizás, el Presidente más sumiso que se recuerde.

López Obrador grita muy fuerte desde Palacio Nacional y se achica en la Casa Blanca. Pudo haber sido diferente, de haber sido menos superficial en su toma de decisión, pero no lo fue. El acuerdo comercial fue firmado el 10 de diciembre de 2018, con las modificaciones solicitadas por los demócratas en materia laboral. Previamente, como presidente electo, pidió incorporar en el capítulo 8 un párrafo sobre la soberanía y la propiedad mexicana de todos los hidrocarburos en su territorio.

La incorporación de ese párrafo se dio tras un fuerte diferendo en la mesa de negociación con Jesús Seade, representante del presidente electo López Obrador a invitación del gobierno de Enrique Peña Nieto. El capítulo 8 establecía que México no podía modificar el sector energético para hacerlo más restrictivo que en otros acuerdos comerciales. Por instrucciones de López Obrador, Seade envió una carta al negociador en jefe de la Casa Blanca, Robert Lighthizer, quien estalló en las sesiones a puertas cerradas. “Are you fucking me?” (“¿Me quieres joder?”), le gritó Lighthizer a Seade. “A fucking letter is a letter, regardless how is written” (“una puta carta es una carta, sin importar cómo está escrita”). López Obrador planteaba reabrir toda la negociación, lo que, dijo Lighthizer, no era ni serio ni posible. Seade se quedó callado.

Más adelante, Seade dijo que el presidente electo quería incorporar en ese capítulo el reconocimiento de la soberanía mexicana de sus recursos naturales, a lo que nadie le vio problema, y Lighthizer aceptó de inmediato. El problema hoy es la interpretación del párrafo. López Obrador lo lee como si el capítulo 8 fuera algo aislado del tratado, y no con obligaciones transversales, como es su arquitectura. El Presidente lo sabía desde un principio, por lo que al final de la negociación –antes de las enmiendas–, en una conferencia de prensa en la embajada mexicana en Washington, Seade afirmó que la reforma energética no se revertiría. Nunca fue desmentido por el Presidente.

La carta a Biden, de acuerdo como lo esbozó López Obrador, desmonta sus compromisos de 2018 y reinterpreta el capítulo 8, anticipando un conflicto. El secretario de Relaciones Exteriores, Marcelo Ebrard, dice que existe una interpretación equivocada de quienes piensan que este diferendo comercial llevará a un pleito, pero esa pelea, sin embargo, no viene; ya está. En un editorial ayer del diario más influyente en la capital estadounidense, The Washington Post, se enumera cómo, pese a haber entrado en vigor el acuerdo el 1 de julio de 2020, López Obrador ha continuado presionando por un mayor control estatal sobre el sector energético. “El gobierno de Biden no tiene opción salvo hacerlo retroceder”, agregó. Es decir, echarle toda la caballería.

López Obrador está dispuesto a todo, como se adelantó en este espacio el lunes pasado, hasta que lo convenzan de lo contrario o, como ante Trump y Biden en materia de migración, recule. Por el momento, el Presidente está envalentonado, como sugiere la sorna con la que despectivamente habla de una economía de Estados Unidos sin mexicanos. Debería ser menos alegre con sus cálculos.

La fuerza laboral civil extranjera en ese país –que incluye refugiados, migrantes legales, estudiantes, trabajadores temporales e indocumentados– contempla 17.4 por ciento del total. Los hispanos, no sólo los mexicanos, comprenden casi la mitad de esa fuerza de trabajo. O sea, la estimación de López Obrador no produciría el impacto que cree.

Dejar de exportar autopartes sí afectaría la economía de Estados Unidos, pero tendría un efecto devastador en México. Casi un millón de personas trabajan en la industria automotriz, muchas de las cuales quedarían desempleadas de la noche a la mañana. Un informe del banco suizo UBS, dado a conocer esta semana, señala que si las consultas no llegan a un arreglo, que estima probable por “el componente ideológico” de López Obrador en la discusión, el mecanismo de resolución de disputas podría causarle a México aranceles en sectores más allá del energético, pero, peor aún, con el mayor costo potencial en la pérdida de oportunidades de inversión.

Eso realmente no le importa al Presidente. El Washington Post lo entiende bien. “López Obrador está disfrutando de su inyección de azúcar nacionalista, burlándose de Estados Unidos”, señaló en su editorial. “Esto fue especialmente inapropiado –y ominoso– en el contexto de otros recientes exabruptos, donde llamó ‘traidores’ a sus críticos internos. Al decir López Obrador ‘nos vemos en tribunales’, Estados Unidos debe defender sus propios intereses y, en sentido real, también los mejores intereses del pueblo mexicano”.

El choque de trenes avanza.

Is Taiwan’s Independence Worth War?

by Patrick J. Buchanan Posted on August 02, 2022

https://original.antiwar.com/buchanan/2022/08/01/is-taiwans-independence-worth-war/

When a man knows he is about to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully, said Dr. Samuel Johnson.

If there is any benefit to be realized from the collision between China and the U.S. over Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s proposed trip to Taiwan, it is this: America needs to reflect long and hard upon what it is we will fight China to defend in the Taiwan Strait and the South China Sea.

China, after all, is a nuclear-weapons nation with a manufacturing base larger than our own, an economy equal to our own, a population four times ours, and fleets of warships larger in number than the US Navy.

An air-naval-and-missile war in the Western Pacific and East Asia would be no cakewalk.

A massive barrage of anti-ship and hypersonic missiles launched by China could cripple and conceivably sink the US carrier Ronald Reagan now in the South China Sea. The Reagan carries a crew of thousands of sailors almost as numerous as the US casualty lists from both Pearl Harbor and 9/11, the worst attacks in and on the US outside of such Civil War battles as Gettysburg and Antietam.

What in East Asia or the Western Pacific would justify such losses?

What would justify such risks?

Since President Richard Nixon’s trip to China, and President Jimmy Carter’s abrogation of the mutual defense treaty with the Republic of China on Taiwan in 1979, the US is not obligated to come to the defense of Taiwan against China, which claims that island the size of Maryland as "part of China."

Our military posture has been one of "strategic ambiguity." We will not commit to going to war to defend Taiwan, nor will we take the war option off the table if Taiwan is attacked.

But if the US went to war to defend Taiwan, what would it mean?

We would be risking our own security and possible survival to prevent from being imposed on the island of Taiwan the same regime lately imposed on Hong Kong without any US military resistance.

If Hong Kong, a city of 7 million, can be transferred to the custody and control of Beijing without resistance from the US, why should it be worth a major US war with China to prevent that same fate and future from befalling 23 million Taiwanese?

The retort comes instantly.

Allow China to take Taiwan without US resistance, and our treaties to fight for the sovereignty, independence, and territorial integrity of Japan, South Korea, the Philippines, Australia, and New Zealand become suspect.

Belief in the US commitment to fighting for the nations of East Asia and the Western Pacific would dissipate. The entire architecture of the Asian defense against Communist China could disintegrate and collapse.

If we allowed Taiwan to be taken by China without intervening, it is argued, the value of US commitments to fight to defend scores of allies in Europe and Asia would visibly depreciate. US credibility would suffer a blow as substantial as the loss of South Vietnam in 1975.

The fall of Saigon was followed by the loss of Laos and Cambodia to communism, the overthrow of the shah, the Iranian hostage crisis, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, the strategic transfer of Ethiopia, Angola, Mozambique, Nicaragua, and Grenada to the Soviet bloc, and the rise of Euro-communism on the Old Continent.

Pelosi’s prospective visit to Taiwan, and the bellicose reaction of Beijing, should raise other relevant questions.

If this should lead to a U.S.-China war, what would we be fighting for? And what would victory look like?

Restoration of the status quo ante? Permanent independence for Taiwan, which would require a new and permanent war guarantee by the US and a new U.S.-Taiwan defense pact?

Would a permanent commitment fight to defend Taiwan from China be acceptable to an American people weary of commitments and wars?

Again, why would we risk our own peace and security for Taiwan’s freedom and independence, when we would not risk our own peace and security for the freedom or independence of Hong Kong?

And after our victory in the Taiwan Strait, how would we secure indefinitely the independence of that nation of 23 million from a defeated power of 1.4 billion, bitter and bristling at its loss?

Consider: China, in this 21st century, has grown massively, both militarily and economically, and in both real and relative terms, at the expense of the United States.

Nor are the growth trends for China, with four times as many people as there are Americans, favorable to the USA.

What guarantees are there that 2025 or 2030 will not bring a more favorable balance of power for China in what is, after all, their continent, not ours?

Unlike in the Cold War, time is not necessarily on the side of the United States and its allies when all three of the nuclear powers in East Asia – China, Russia, and North Korea – are hostile to the USA.

Patrick J. Buchanan is the author of Churchill, Hitler, and “The Unnecessary War”: How Britain Lost Its Empire and the West Lost the World. To find out more about Patrick Buchanan and read features by other Creators writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Web page at www.creators.com.

Russia and Ukraine: The Three Scariest Statements

by Ted Snider Posted on July 31, 2022

https://original.antiwar.com/Ted_Snider/2022/07/31/russia-and-ukraine-the-three-scariest-statements/

Russia continues its war on Ukraine. The US and its allies continue flooding weapons into Ukraine. The war goes on, and Ukrainians continue to suffer and die.

The last several days have offered little hope but lots of fear. They have also offered three of the scariest statements yet of the war. They are scary because each one threatens to escalate or prolong the war.

No Ceasefire

In a July 22 interview, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky rejected any ceasefire that allows Russia to hold on to Crimea and territories it has acquired since the start of the war. Since no Russian leader will return to Crimea, that formulation seems to kill any hope of a ceasefire in this war.

"Freezing the conflict with the Russian Federation means a pause that gives the Russian Federation a break for rest," Zelensky said. "They will not use this pause to change their geopolitics or to renounce their claims on the former Soviet republics." Zelensky said a ceasefire would allow Russia to swallow Crimea and the Donbas and "Then it will rest and in two or three years, it will seize two more regions and say again: Freeze the conflict. And it will keep going further and further. One hundred percent."

The loss of hope for a ceasefire risks prolonging the war. It could also risk escalating it. In Covert Regime Change: America’s Secret Cold War, Lindsey O’Rourke argues that "chronic divergence of policy preferences" leads countries to undertake coups.

When countries face solvable problems, they often use diplomacy or coercion. One-time problems may even lead to war. But if the problem is a chronic, intractable problem, since the problem appears unsolvable, the source of the problem needs to be removed. That can motivate countries to consider coups. It could also lead countries to expand their war goals.

The no ceasefire statement is scary because if the war can’t be stopped by a ceasefire, or if there can be no ceasefire without Russia giving up land it cannot agree to give up, then the risk of Russia attempting to end the war by accomplishing enhanced goals – be it coups or broader conquest – goes up.

Long Range Missiles

In June, the US announced the provision of High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS) to Ukraine. At the same time, the UK announced that it will send Ukraine M270 multiple-launch rocket systems. These rocket launch systems can fire rockets 50 miles and, so, are capable of striking inside Russia.

Since Russia’s goals include keeping Ukraine out of NATO and keeping Ukraine from becoming a base for NATO weapons so close to Russia’s borders, Russia warned that weapons that can reach Russia from farther away mean Russia would have to push the boundary of the territory that could host them further away. "The longer the range of weapons you supply," Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said, "the farther away the line from where [Ukraine] could threaten the Russian Federation will be pushed.”

The US and UK not only sent the weapons, leading Lavrov to declare that "the geographical tasks of the special operation of the Russian troops will change. . . . It’s far from being just the DPR and LPR [Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics], it’s also “Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions and a number of other territories,” they have promised to send more. The New York Times reports that on July 20, "American military officials said Wednesday that they planned to send four more of the M142 HIMARS multiple-rocket launch vehicles, as well as more of the guided rockets they fire and more guided artillery ammunition." Added to the sixteen HIMARS the US has already sent, that would make the total delivery to Ukraine twenty. The US has promised to send the new shipment of four HIMARS "as quickly as possible."

On July 27, Russian officials said that a key bridge that had to be closed after being damaged by Ukrainian fire was the target of "fire from U.S.-supplied high mobility artillery rocket systems (HIMARS)."

The statement promising to send Ukraine more long-range rocket systems is scary because it risks expanding the war by pushing Russia’s boundary goals further west into Ukraine.

Crimea a Legitimate Target

Though Ukraine has apparently provided assurances to the US that it will not use the long-range missiles to strike inside Russian territory, they have also apparently said that they could be used to strike inside Crimea.

The problem is that to the massive majority of Crimeans and Russians, Crimea is Russian territory. To Putin – or any Russian leader – using US-supplied long-range missiles to strike inside Crimea is using US-supplied long-range missiles to strike inside Russia. That, according to the former president and current Deputy Chairman of the Russian Security Council Dmitry Medvedev, would lead to the Ukrainian leadership being “faced with a doomsday, very quick and tough, immediately.”

The statement that Crimea is a legitimate target of US-supplied weapons is scary because it may cross Russia’s red line for US involvement in the war. Russia could expand its military targets and war aims if it feels that US involvement has become sufficiently intense to threaten the destruction of Russia or the loss of its acquired territories.

Attacks on Crimea with US-supplied long-range missiles could be seen by Russia as both. It could be seen as the loss of territory no Russian leader could lose. And, since Russia sees Crimea as Russia, the loss of Crimea could be seen as the destruction of the Russian state. The declaration that Crimea is a legitimate target, then, risks Russia escalating the war.

These three recent statements, the ruling out of a ceasefire, the provision of more long-range rocket systems, and the declaration that Crimea is a legitimate target, are three of the scariest statements yet because they all risk prolonging, extending, or expanding a war that needs to stop.

Ted Snider has a graduate degree in philosophy and writes about analyzing patterns in US foreign policy and history.